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Wondering how people manage to laugh in the face of unrelenting political assault is one thing; puzzling at the explosion of stand-up comedy across Africa is another. With the former, one ponders the question of social resilience among agents desperate to rescue and preserve dignity and self-worth; with the latter, one launches a sociological inquest into the emergence and diverse facets of an industry that has taken full advantage of all the affordances of the emergent techno-media.
Stand-up Comedy in Africa is a timely, interdisciplinary survey of an art form whose ubiquity prompts sundry technical, artistic, and political questions. For those seeking critical guidance on the ethics and praxes of popular performance in Africa, this is as good a place as any to start.
This book is a significant contribution to the rich, though understudied, area of research on comedy in general, and stand-up comedy in particular, in the African continent. Keen on probing and describing the specific techniques adopted by African stand-up comedians, the book presents engaged and intimate readings of different traditions of performance, which are informed by a depth of theoretical and conceptual approaches to this artistic and cultural practice. The investigation highlights the ample diversity of African stand-up comedy practice, not only in terms of geographical locations (which are as wide apart areas as South Africa and Egypt), but also through the inclusion of diverse media of representation such as live performances, satellite channels, and YouTube, and the investigation of various modes of performance ranging between one-person and multi-person performances, and scripted and non-scripted shows. This combination of vastness and depth produces valuable insights into people’s attempts to grapple with their realities, make sense of the world they live in, and carve out spaces for expression, representation and visibility.