Aziz Ansari Recalls Joke Blunder at Jay-Z’s NYE Bash

If you're Jay-Z, you're always ready to bust a rhyme and own a crowd. If you're Aziz Ansari, the popular comedian, 'Parks & Recreation' actor and friend-of-Kanye, you should be ready to crack a joke when the opportunity knocks. That's what Jay-Z tried to summon during his much-discussed New Year's Eve party in Las Vegas, and Ansari recently revealed on 'Late Night with Jimmy Fallon' how poorly he fared when the spotlight turned in his direction.

"I had one of the most humiliating, embarrassing things in my life happen to me," Ansari recalled. "After [the big NYE concert with Jay and Chris Martin of Coldplay] there was this afterparty. At around 4:30 in the morning Jay-Z goes, 'Yo Aziz, come up here and tell everyone a joke!' And I'm like, 'Argh! No!' and he kept pushing this, and it's 4:30 in the morning on New Year's Eve. So I got up there and he passed me the mic and I'm like, 'Erm, OK, OK, yes ... This one time, this restaurant came to my house. Hahaha, that didn't happen. I'm sleepy."

Jay and his fellow intoxicated partygoers were having none of it. After the failure, everyone generally moved on from the moment until Ansari tried to return to the stage and grab the microphone for another shot at comedy glory. This time, Jay-Z blocked him.

"I felt like I'd let him down, so I was like, OK, let me think of something funny, and then I reached for the mic," Ansari continued, wallowing in his humiliation. "He went, 'No! You had your chance and you missed it.' I was like, 'Oh no!' But I get it, he's Jay-Z. He's the smoothest man of all time."