Katt Williams ups his game to Philips

Only a handful of stand-up comics have deemed themselves popular enough to book solo shows at Philips Arena in the past three years: Jeff Dunham, Kevin Hart and Decatur’s own Chris Tucker.

Veteran comedian Katt Williams joins this exclusive group with a Philips show this Saturday that is largely sold out. And he has one-upped those other comics by adding a second show on Sunday, placing tickets on sale a mere five days earlier.

“That puts him in rock star status,” said Marshall Chiles, owner of comedy club Laughing Skull Lounge in Midtown. “And he put the work into it. You don’t accidentally get to that level.”

In recent years, Williams has been a staple at Atlanta Civic Center, one-third the size of Philips, selling out two dates a year ago there.

Williams, 41, is not a mainstream household name and doesn’t anchor big Hollywood movies like Hart or Tucker has. Instead, he’s gradually built his audience with his distinctive high-pitched voice and a bracing, often warped, sense of humor. Over the past 25 years, he’s made regular appearances on various BET shows including as annual host of the Atlanta-based “BET Hip Hop Awards.” He also has multiple HBO specials under his belt and had small, notable roles in films such as 2002’s “Friday After Next” and 2013’s “Scary Movie 5,” shot in Atlanta.

And he has become tabloid fodder thanks to a flurry of arrests over the years with charges ranging from allegedly beating a man with a bottle to pulling a gun on a fellow comic. Last fall, he and his friend and troubled rap mogul Suge Knight were arrested after being accused of stealing a paparazzi’s camera.

“You can only get arrested six times before it ain’t fun no more,” Williams cracked during his 2012 HBO special “Kattpacalypse,” available on Netflix.

His shows are packed with a fervent, preacherlike physicality. Within minutes of Williams hitting the stage, sweat is pouring off his forehead in James Brown fashion, soaking his silk vests. In his 2014 HBO special “Priceless: Afterlife,” directed by Spike Lee, he tackled his own brushes with the law, Paula Deen, atheists, and gays in sports. He isn’t clean by any stretch of the imagination, liberally throwing out curse words and the N-word with equal ardor.

Roy Wood Jr., a stand-up comic and afternoon host on R&B station Kiss 104.1, admires how Williams can bounce back from so much adversity. “It’s great that he lives to tell these stories,” he wrote in a text. He also likes how Williams broaches complex subjects other comics shy away from, be it religion or police brutality: “If you listen closely to Katt, his comedy is a lot more than a guy in a perm yelling for 60 minutes.”

Special K, a comic who is part of the syndicated “Rickey Smiley Morning Show,” said Williams’ public persona is a man on the verge of being unhinged although fellow comics find him to be utterly likable. Fans “want to be around in the event of a meltdown!” he said. (Williams has been known to take down a heckler or two.)

He loves Williams’ energy and his attitude: “Katt Williams is who he is and he makes the public accept that. He doesn’t conform to accommodate the masses.”