Whether or not you agreed with his routines on race and gender politics, Patrice O’Neal was an incredibly funny and fearless standup

Patrice O’Neal presents a challenge to the liberal comedy fan. Many of his views on women were indefensible – and yet they were delivered by a comedian with extraordinary charisma who was extremely funny. This realisation was intensely exciting to me, that the first thing that matters in a comedian is “funny”.

“You don’t know funny. I know funny,” O’Neal proclaims in countless interviews on the subject of taste and offence. And he’s right. You don’t need to agree with a comedian. You don’t need to think they’re a good person. You should laugh. You should be surprised. You should think about something differently, from an angle you wouldn’t normally entertain or a perspective you’d usually reject. And O’Neal made you do that with more skill and passion than any other comedian.

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He was leagues beyond the shock tactics and contrived political incorrectness of lesser comics. He voiced difficult and honest opinions about race and gender politics with arresting eloquence and logic.

I found out about him after he died in November 2011. An American comedian and friend, Hari Kondabolu, had tweeted his respects shortly after O’Neal lost his life to diabetes, and I took the cue to find out more. The first clip of his I found was on sexual harassment, from his special, Elephant in the Room – most likely my favourite standup recording. The routine is absurd and hilarious, as he appeals desperately to women: “Why can’t I … harass you? Sometimes! Sometimes! I can never harass you?? Never?!”

Technically, he was masterful, a delicious balance of smart and silly, with the precise yet effortless timing of a jazz percussionist. His act-outs were beautifully performed, with a commitment steeped in confidence. Whether playing a flirtatious, honey-covered salmon, or attempting to spell “restaurant” to save his mother from a crazed gunman, the audience was completely engrossed.

In his improvisation, he demonstrated the importance of being playful and unapologetic on stage. For my money, the greatest track on his posthumously released album, Mr P, is a five-minute riff (a riff!) about a man in the audience named Tolu. O’Neal bounds off on a delightful tangent about his African American “goofy-ass aunts” who gave him the middle name of Lumumba (after the hero of Congolese independence), before making a spectacular observation about the patronising reverence with which white people treat such names.

I never got to see O’Neal live, but in all the footage I can gather, he is always “in the room”: he speaks intimately and honestly with his crowd, the same jokes never worded in quite the same way. He was fascinating, fearless and viscerally funny.

• Phil Wang performs Philth at the Pleasance Upstairs, Edinburgh, 5-30 August. Box office: 020-7609 1800.