Micah "Katt" Williams (born September 2, 1971) is an American stand-up comedian and actor. He played Money Mike in Friday After Next, had a stint on Wild 'n Out, portrayed Bobby Shaw in My Wife and Kids, provided the voice of A Pimp Named Slickback in The Boondocks and Seamus in Cats & Dogs: The Revenge of Kitty Galore, and portrayed Lord Have Mercy in Norbit. In 2008, he voiced himself in the video game Grand Theft Auto IV.
Early life
Williams was born Micah Williams on September 2, 1971, in Cincinnati, Ohio, and raised in Dayton, Ohio. He emancipated himself from his parents at the age of 13, moved to Florida and supported himself as a street vendor.
Career
Stand-up career
Williams started performing comedy in his Cincinnati neighborhood, Avondale.
He honed his comic delivery by performing his routine in clubs nationwide, from Oklahoma to Oakland. By 1999, he had become an established comic, appearing on stage at the likes of The Improv, The Comedy Club, The Ice House, and The Hollywood Park Casino. Most notably, he appeared on BET's Comic View as Katt "In the Hat" Williams.
He starred in his first comedy special in 2006 entitled Katt Williams: Live: Let a Playa Play. His first HBO stand-up special was 2006's The Pimp Chronicles, Pt. 1. In 2007 he was offered a movie/standup which he entitled American Hustle. The film had critical success and established Williams as a mainstream comedian. In 2008 he released his second HBO comedy special, entitled It's Pimpin' Pimpin''', which included more political standup. Keeping busy releasing comedy DVDs and touring, Williams had a comedy tour that was named the best of 2008 by Billboard. In 2012, after a four-year hiatus, he returned to stand-up in his third HBO comedy special, entitled Kattpacalypse.
On December 3, 2012, Williams announced the end of his stand-up comedy career, a day after a bizarre incident at a bar in Seattle, Washington, that landed him in jail. However, just three days later, he announced he was coming out of retirement.
During late 2013, Williams was on his "Growth Spurt" Tour.
On August 16, 2014, he returned with a new HBO special titled Katt Williams: Priceless: Afterlife, which was directed by Spike Lee.
On September 3, 2015, during an interview, Williams announced and described his upcoming tour entitled "Conspiracy Theory", stating,
The conspiracy conversation is a conversation that we are all familiar with. We know that there are conspiracies out there, but this is a conversation that encompasses a lot of things that aren't being discussed other places. That's the basis for all conspiracy theories: the fact that there is hidden information out there, and how our process changes about things that we thought we used to know. We all, at some point, if we're are at a certain age, we grew up thinking Pluto was a planet. This is probably going to go down as one of my finest works, just because it's a collection of forbidden topics that we can't seem to get answered. I am one of the rare urban public officials. Part of my guarantee in my ticket price is that I'm going to be talking about what we are talking about now, and discussing from now to the next time we see [me] again. This is the open discussion that we've had since 2003. This is what it is about.
In 2018, Williams released a new stand-up special on Netflix, shot in Jacksonville, Florida, titled Great America.
On May 17, 2022, Williams released a new stand-up special on Netflix, titled World War III.
Film and television career
In 2002, Williams made his acting debut on NYPD Blue. He gained notoriety on Wild 'n Out, in which he appeared for several seasons. He appeared in the official music video for Wild 'n Out colleague Nick Cannon's single "Gigolo" in 2003.
In 2007, Williams provided the voice of A Pimp Named Slickback in The Boondocks. He plays himself as an on-stage stand-up comedian in Grand Theft Auto IV performing several routines, including an abbreviated version of one of his routines from Katt Williams: American Hustle. He has appeared in several episodes of My Wife and Kids as character Bobby Shaw. He was the roastmaster of the Comedy Central Roast of Flavor Flav.
Williams has also played supporting characters in films, such as First Sunday and Norbit, but is more widely recognized for his character Money Mike in Friday After Next.
In 2018, he played the character Willy in the season 2 premiere of Atlanta, for which he won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Guest Actor in a Comedy Series.