People Were Beginning To look At Comedians As Dropouts – AY Explains Why He Did Netflix Comedy Special

Nigerian comedian AY recently had his comedy special taped in Atlanta called “Spotting.

The Difference” premiere on Netflix, and it has been met with a lot of mixed reactions. Regardless of if people like it or hate it, what AY’s comedy special has done is really good for the comedy industry here in Nigeria and can hopefully open doors for more comedians to get their comedy specials on streaming platforms.

During a new interview with Channels Television, AY spoke about his Netflix special, and why he did it. Here is what AY had to say.

AY during interview
Speaking about his Netflix comedy special, Spotting the Difference, AY said:

AY: It came as a result of people beginning to look at comedians as dropouts. The reason why we can’t cut across to the international market is because we are just limited with using pidgin English to tell most of our jokes. You know, the broken English is the language our people are used to here when you want to give jokes.

And it becomes even more interesting for them to enjoy the jokes more because you are breaking the English down by using broken English to give your narration. As a matter of fact, it sounds more interesting when you break it down. But then you know, it has formed a major limitation for comedians from this part of the world.

So everytime we get to travel, everytime we get to meet foreign counterparts, the usually would make reference to the fact that oh, we would have loved you guys to be part of this gig but the language barrier would not let us get you guys involved. And I said to myself, come on we do a lot of corporate events, even in Nigeria and then when we do corporate events, we don’t go there and start speaking all the pidgin or broken English.

We go corporate and we go all the way. When we anchor events, we go all the way and make it look very corporate for our clients to enjoy the benefits of having us do gigs. So for that reason, I was like yeah, I’m going to do like a one-hour special and guess what? Just because I was breaking out of the norm of what we are used to in this part of the world, it became an attraction for Netflix to say okay, based on this, I think we can have this guy come on board and be on the Netflix platform, and even create a better opportunity for others. Because I know that 80% of Nigerian comedians are very well schooled, even more than every other sector in the entertainment industry. But a lot of people, when they hear you speak pidgin English on stage, they are just quick to just judge and believe you are limited like that.

So this was a perfect opportunity to prove it and it is working for us now.

Seemingly responding to some of the negative reviews his special has been getting, AY said in an Instagram caption:

AY: I’m happy, I’m in a good place, I’m looking forward to a better future.

Source: Jide Okonjo

Email: elora.akpotosevbe@yahoo.com