Drunk Uncle + Method Man = Chozen, FXX’s new animated gay white rapper series

FXX had a full slate at this year’s New York Comicon, with a cast panel for the league, as well a premiere and Q+A for Chozen, their upcoming animated show about a gay white rapper. The show is centered on the gay white-rapper Chozen (Saturday Night Live’s Bobby Moynihan), who is newly-released from prison and looking to exact revenge on his ex- rap partner Phantasm (Method Man) who framed him. With Phantasm now at the top of the charts, Chozen attempts a comeback, recruiting his old rapper crew (Hannibal Buress and Michael Pena), as well as a drugged-out peeping tom (Danny McBride, also the show’s producer) as his posse.

Animated by the same studio responsible for Archer, Chozen has a similar look and feel, while pushing the boundaries far beyond what anyone on the ISIS staff is used to. While in prison, Chozen develops an affinity for the same sex, which then forms the basis for his aggressive gay sex songs which are interspersed throughout the show, in typically over-the-top hip hop video excess parodies. Based on the first episode, it’s difficult to gauge whether Chozen is an offensive characterization of a gay rapper, or an opportunity to shine a light on the pervasive homophobia in hip-hop. Based on the creators involved I tend to think it’s the latter, but we’ll have to keep watching to see. Here’s hoping there’s an audience willing to take a chance on a show this audacious and demented.

The panel itself was a lively one, with Bobby Moynihan admitting he only slept a few hours after the previous night’s SNL taping, and Method Man obliging a fan’s request to freestyle a few lines about the convention. The Q+A section had some of the strangest interactions I witnessed all weekend, with one person demanding to know how many pushups Moynihan could do (“Let’s say 4”, was the perplexed reply), and another admitting he wasn’t really a fan of either performer, and then breaking out into the worm, writhing along the panel’s floor. Just another Sunday afternoon at NYCC.

Chozen premiers this January on FXX.