A Saturday Night Live cast member who’s impersonated Kanye West, Cory Booker, and others, St. Louis native Chris Redd is also a rapper who wrote the hilarious song “Come Back, Barack” for that show. Redd parlays a quick wit and snappy story-telling instincts into dozen-laughs-a-minute sets. When he gets excited, Redd radiates Chris Rock-like energy and inflections, which you can hear on his 2019 album But Here We Are. On it, Redd doles out hilarious bits about crackheads, close talkers, the “cute shit” people do in the first year of a relationship, climbing mountains when you don’t want to, and Los Angeles. “I didn’t like L.A. at first when I moved here,” Redd says, “because all L.A. people look like they’re having multiple good days in a row. And I don’t like that confidence.” by Dave Segal