The London-based American, who made the final four for best newcomer last year, has raised the hackles of a few, rather powerful, white females with his show, White Woman, which seeks to get at some buried truths amid the myths of inter-racial sex.
Alex O'Connell, the comedy critic of the Times, and chairman of the Perrier jury, was scathing about his show last year and was lukewarm at best about White Woman. Its flyer, she said, was "a dirty mac magnet - but it's ironic, innit?"
O'Connell was the lone dissenting voice on the panel. But it is the crushing snub to the 44 female stand-ups on the Edinburgh Fringe which will cause most consternation. Despite their record numbers, not one woman made either the main shortlist of five or the list of four best newcomers.
Their exclusion is all the more galling because Perrier awards supremo Nica Burns told the Guardian last week that "there better be a woman on the shortlist, it would be just so depressing if there wasn't".
Yesterday she said she was "gutted ... It's a blow. What can I say, our illustrious panel went to see them all, but in their judgment the women were not quite as good as the blokes. But I think the future looks good."
Burns said the emergence of a group of powerful women now commissioning comedy for television might help reverse its laddish reputation. "It's no secret that a lot of women are not comfortable in the stand-up arena, but I think they will bring their comedy into other areas."
Two women apparently came close - Lucy Porter and the Scottish stand-up Janey Godley - while the highly-rated Katherine Jakeways also narrowly missed out on a newcomer nod.
Jenny Eclair is still the only female stand-up to have won the prize, launch pad to TV riches for a string of comics including Sean Hughes and Steve Coogan.
In its 23-year history only two other women have been honoured, Emma Thompson, when she was with the Cambridge Footlights troupe, and Alice Lowe, one third of the Garth Marenghi trio who won the Perrier two years ago.
The big surprise of the shortlist is the inclusion of Howard Read and his digitally animated six-year-old alter ego, Little Howard, who is programmed with a battery of putdowns to counter hecklers.
Adam Hills, who has been nominated for the last two years, is inheritor of the Al Murray "nearly man" mantle, and will be hoping its third time lucky for him.
The bookies' early favourites, however, are the New Zealand folk parodyists, The Flight of the Conchords (Bret McKenzie and Jemaine Clement), who have developed a large late-night following at the Gilded Balloon Caves.
The second American on the shortlist, Dimitri Martin, is one of the most original voices at the festival in years. His show turns on his geekish love of palindromes and trying to work out his relationship problems using graphs and mathematical formulae.
The newcomer shortlist is headed by Alex Horne, while the new wave of toff comics is represented by Miles Jupp's show, Gentlemen Prefer Brogues. Michael McIntyre is a more straightforward stand-up and Gary Le Strange is a character comedian.
The winners will be announced on Saturday night.
