Concert review: Hannibal Buress regales Borgata with comedic material that includes Cosby

Comedian Hannibal Buress deserved to sell out the Music Box at Atlantic City's Borgata on Saturday - just on the merits of his sharply incisive talents. Anyone making topics such as toilet paper, racist babies, and sports heroes on steroids ("Thank you for ruining your long-term health for our short-term entertainment") funny should be celebrated. But face it: Buress owes much to Bill Cosby.

Before Oct. 16, Buress was a silly, observational stand-up known mostly for acting bits on 30 Rock and Comedy Central fare like Broad City. At September's end, I caught Buress opening for Aziz Ansari at the Wells Fargo Center with Seinfeld-ian parking shtick: Cranky stuff, but nothing innovative or memorable. On Oct. 16 however, he made memories during a sold-out set at the Trocadero by doing (not for the first time) this bit: "Bill Cosby has the . . . smuggest old black man persona that I hate. He gets on TV: 'Pull your pants up, black people, I was on TV in the '80s. I can talk down to you because I had a successful sitcom.' Yeah, but you rape women, Bill Cosby, so turn the crazy down a couple notches." Buress encouraged the crowd to Google Cosby and rape together and see the connection. He'd done that bit at other gigs, but that particular night, a blogger filmed the Troc show, it went viral, and Buress became known as the man who brought down The Cos.

Buress has since told audiences - including Saturday's Borgata crowd - that he's tired of the anti-Cosby label, that he's "no detective" or Coogi sweater hater. "I didn't like the headlines," said Buress. Nor did he dig "death threats" from "weightlifters and strippers" with whom he shares Facebook friends. Regarding the accusations flying at Cosby, he acknowledged there were no formal charges at the moment - "but if there are 30 people who said it," Buress reasoned, "at least four . . . aren't lying." He segued from all things Cos to the gleeful, "raw-dogging" emptiness of single life, but not before mentioning how the Cosby situation made dating weird. Buress said he would never know if he's being set up to get caught in a compromising position. He moved quickly from that topic to gut-busting jokes on Lance Armstrong and lazy rappers merely jumping onto the last few lines of their verse. "What if comedians did that?" he said, laughing at how easy his job would be.