Champaign ILL could be described as the hip-hop version of the classic Townes Van Zandt song “Pancho and Lefty.”
You know that one. It’s about how the swashbuckling gunslinger Pancho dies and Lefty, who seems to have gotten some of his identity and maybe his livelihood from hanging around in Pancho’s orbit, drifts off to “a cheap hotel” in Cleveland.
Champaign ILL, whose first ten episodes become available Wednesday on YouTube Premium, follows what happens when a rap star dies and two members of his posse must suddenly, with no warning, manufacture lives of their own.
Lou (Jay Pharoah, left), Ronnie (Adam Pally, top) and Alf (Sam Richardson, top) grew up together in Champaign, Ill., inseparable best pals.
Just as they’ve graduated from high school and are about to split for college – meaning Yale for Ronnie – Lou learns that one of his mixtapes has caught the attention of a record company executive. He’s been offered a recording contract and a tour.
The speed with which Ronnie and Alf ditch their high-minded college plans to go on the road and enjoy the decadence of a hip-hop star’s lifestyle as favored members of Lou’s posse probably says some things about their character.
Still, they aren’t bad or even particularly obnoxious people. In fact, Lou, Ronnie, and Alf remain best pals even as Lou shoots to a dazzling level of fame and fortune. They hang around on the private jet to Paris, they seem to get along with all the beautiful women who also populate Lou’s circle, and they share endless jokes about the nerdy Craig (Neil Casey), the road manager who can never quite get Lou or the others to exercise any sort of discipline.
We could have a full-on male buddy road comedy here except that one day, in the middle of an otherwise pleasant party in Paris, Lou falls off the balcony on his head.
Lou is now dead, and Ronnie and Alf calculate that they have approximately $1,150 between them.
Thinking they will continue working with Lou’s legacy, including some of his branded products, they spend it all on renting a high-end sports car to drive to Lou’s funeral.
Lou, however, being young and immortal, left no will or estate provisions. So all his money goes to his mother and on Craig’s umpteenth try, he finally says that in a way Ronnie and Alf understand.
Without Lou, to put it bluntly, there is no posse. So Alf and Ronnie are jobless as well as broke. A lifestyle that two days earlier included the finest hotels, five-star restaurants and general first-class accommodations all around the world has devolved overnight into moving back in with their parents in Champaign.
For two guys in their 30s, spoiled beyond the point of foolish by the lifestyle Lou provided, this is Category 5 culture shock.
It’s also, in case you hadn’t figured it out, the basis for this comedy.
Pally and Richardson play it well, with the caveat that some of their lines and actions feel like traditional over-the-top sitcom gags. They work together nicely as a team, and they both work well with Lou, who recurs in flashbacks.
Shot in a few weeks, Champaign ILL makes the most of its clearly limited budget. Wisely, it keeps its focus on Sam and Alf and how Lou’s death has tossed a grenade into their lives. This focus gives both survivors some dimension.
Toward that same end, Ronnie and Alf clearly do miss their pal, not just their meal ticket. Their genuine sadness gives Champaign ILL a dimension it wouldn’t have if it were just jokes about the whiplash of a downsized lifestyle.
“Pancho needs your prayers, it’s true,” wrote Townes Van Zandt. “But save a few for Lefty, too.”