Ambivalence in the stand-up acts of Nigeria’s Klint da Drunk and Mr Paul

Abstract

In a progressively permissive world, stand-up art is experiencing repressions and censure for its dependence on potentially politically incorrect jokes. Stand-up’s primary purpose is to instigate laughter, but its greatest ambivalence is that its mirth comes primarily from abuse/insult. Through performance analyses of the humor acts of Mr Paul and Klint da Drunk, this paper discusses their use of non-traditional stand-up forms, underscoring how these jokesters balance offence and abuse, and the complexities of being different. Specifically, Mr Paul builds his jokes around non-sequitur meandering narratives riddled with implausible claims, while Klint enacts the stock character of a drunk who depends heavily on heckling, direct insults, and disparaging jokes for the evocation of mirth. Though not using the more established joke-telling patterns, these two still elicit laughter, entertain audiences, and provide politically charged critiques of the harsh and unsavory socio-political conditions in Nigeria, albeit conveyed through the agency of humor.

Keywords:

• Stand-up comedy
• ambivalence
• ridicule
• Nigeria
• humor

Acknowledgements

I appreciate the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation for the postdoctoral fellowship during which this paper was written.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1 Unlaughter is “a display of not laughing when laughter might otherwise be expected, hoped for or demanded” (Billig 192).

2 Filani (“The Use of Mimicry”) is an interesting and extensive discourse of the use of mimicry by Nigerian stand-up comedians, ranging from verbal and linguistic appropriations to replications of ethnic-based behavioral attributes across the nation.

3 One of Nigeria’s foremost and pioneer stand-up comedians, who rose to stardom via his affinity with ex-president Olusegun Obasanjo (OBJ) [Nigeria’s president 1999-2007], which put him in good stead with many politicians.

4 The case was dismissed a year later by the same court (BBC News “Nigeria’s Buhari”).

5 “Agbada” is the Yoruba word for a kind of flowing dress worn by men, also known as “babban riga” in Hausa.

6 Diezani Allison-Madueke, a former Petroleum Minister during Goodluck Jonathan’s presidency, who is in self-imposed exile in the UK, has been serially accused of graft and embezzlement of national resources, especially after she allegedly returned several billions of dollars to government coffers to avoid prosecution.

7 This Nigerian ex-leader has been roundly satirized, especially for his facial features, which comedians consider not to be very comely, and then for his being thrifty and tight-fisted when it comes to spending money.

8 Soak-away, conveniently called “suck-away” is a type of covered drainage pit for household toilets. The idea of soaking away comes from one of the two chambers where sewage water is collected and expected to soak away into the surrounding earth because the walls are made of hollow bricks. The main chamber where solid waste is collected, is periodically sucked away/collected by sewage trucks. Hence, the term “suck-away” has conveniently replaced the actual “soak away” in everyday usage.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Izuu Nwankwọ

Izuu Nwankwọ is a postdoctoral research fellow at the Department of Anthropology and African Studies, Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz. His research interests straddle different genres of performance arts especially humour-inducing genres. He has written a number of scholarly articles published in reputable journals and has attended numerous conferences. His two recent books are Yabbing and Wording: The Artistry of Nigerian Stand-up Comedy (NISC Press, 2021), and an edited volume, Stand-up Comedy in Africa: Humour in Popular Languages and Media Nwankwọ (ibidem-Verlag, 2022).