So a South Sudanese comic put on a comedy fest in a land of 'suffering.' How'd it go?
Akau Jambo can find humor anywhere.
In a joke about getting picked up by the police at a protest in South Sudan, he quips, "I was saying all sorts of crazy things, like I don't care, you can arrest me. Then when they finally arrested me I was like, 'Oh, you guys are serious?'" he says. "You people don't joke!"
The 25-year-old South Sudanese comedian has spurred laughter across Africa, performing in clubs in Botswana, Kenya, Rwanda, South Africa, Tanzania and Uganda.
He also aims to bring levity to South Sudan despite lingering ethnic tensions and armed clashes that have persisted after the country's civil war, which officially ended in 2018.
And even though the comedy scene — especially the English-language comedy scene — is small in Juba, the capital of 440,000, he has big dreams.
Last weekend, he hosted the country's first-ever international comedy festival.
Comics flew in from across the continent to perform – hopefully the first of many to come, Jambo says. He spoke to NPR by phone from his car on Tuesday while running errands before taking two comedians from Uganda who had missed an earlier flight to the airport.
The interview has been edited for length and clarity.
How did you decide to start doing stand-up?
I started comedy in 2016, from Uganda, where I was in school [at the Makerere University]. While I was there, I used to watch a lot of comedy, I used to watch a lot of South African comedians. And one day I told my mentor [Ugandan comedy mentor Timothy Nyanzi, who hosts free writing workshops in Kampala] I want to be a touring comedian. And he told me 'You need to start writing like a touring comedian.' So my mind was just right there – how can I get out of this bubble? Because I was born in a refugee camp [in Kenya] as well. I was like, how can I get out of this bubble, this life that I grew up in. I need to tour, I need to move, I need to see other people's stories.
My first trip to South Africa in 2018, I was in Johannesburg doing a few comedy clubs, and I met a few comedians. I saw the comedy culture there – so many people coming to do comedy, and others to watch comedy. And I met this comedian who asked me where I was from, and I said I was from South Sudan – and he was like 'Dang, I never knew people were laughing in South Sudan.' And I felt like the world doesn't really know what we really do out here – people just think we're out here dropping bombs. They don't know what we really do, they don't know we have humor, that we have fun and all that. Read More...
