I’ve been following comedian Hari Kondabolu’s career for more than a decade, when I was introduced to him and his work on the show Totally Biased with W. Kamau Bell. I would describe him as a super smart, informed comedian who is really great at contextualizing contemporary events and trends, without losing the funny, the absurd, and the idiosyncratic. Kondabolu is quick to note that his approach to comedy broadly appeals to an NPR crowd (interpret that as you see fit).
Am I that target demographic? Yes, indeed. But it’s not just having my own views reflected back to me by a person of color that makes me feel good after watching his specials. What I’ve really come to appreciate about Kondabolu’s stand up is the way in which he presents his humanity, and the quirks of his personality. We expand on this idea in our interview below, where he talks about his approach to incorporating the parts of his life that make him a whole person: pop culture, history, parenthood, tastes in music, favorite historical figures. As a fan of his work, it’s these moments that encourage the parasocial relationship that makes me think we could be friends in real life. It’s intentional, but it’s also genuine. It’s those real person vibes in combination with the sharp reads on history, politics, and society that creates that hard-to-articulate “it” factor that has had me following his career since 2012.
Kondabolu is clearly a deeply thoughtful person whose comedy reflects his values, politics, and intellectual interests, but he’s also really, really funny. You can see for yourself Friday, September 6th at the Canopy Club. Tickets available here.
In the meantime, you can watch Warn Your Relatives on Netflix, and Vacation Baby on YouTube or Hulu.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Smile Politely: What is it like being a “smart” comedian?
Hari Kondabolu: [laughs] What it means is that you get described as smart and brilliant and — What did Time Out New York say? “Deals in calmly reasoned polemics.” But the word funny is not used nearly enough. The only thing I want to see is funny. “He’s really funny, hysterical.” I’m a comedian at the end of the day. All the other [things] — smart, well spoken and thoughtful — I’d like that to be the garnish around the funny. I do think certainly there’s a reason that I bring an NPR audience. I use big words and reference things that might not be in pop culture, and maybe more about world affairs and about more historical things, while still attempting to be relatable to any mainstream audience. I guess that’s what that means? Or maybe I just wear glasses? I don’t know.
SP: I wanted to ask you about your work on Totally Biased and what that show taught you about the craft of comedy and your comedy, specifically.
Kondabolu: That’s a really good question. First of all, it’s a show that has been canceled since 2013, and the fact that it still gets its flowers is really nice. I wish it got more. I feel like the fact that the clips aren’t readily available online — when FX pulled the clips after the show got canceled, I felt that was a really bad decision. They put the episodes up; the episodes aren’t going to be evergreen, but some of those clips will be. It’s just annoying to watch things and be like, “we covered this a decade ago,” and that’s the same angle we took and there’s no record of it. [I’ve seen things since] and it’s like, “okay, that’s literally almost verbatim what I said,” three years later, the same joke.
It taught me that there were more people who appreciated the point of view that I had, that [writer and host W. Kamau Bell] had, [that] the voice of the show [had]. It made me feel like maybe I wasn’t out on a limb the same way I thought I was. At the same time it also taught me that we were still on the cutting edge, because the stuff we were talking about in 2012 about trans rights, and police brutality, and the angles we took then became mainstream angles a few years later. All of a sudden you see even late night shows covering those issues. That started with us.
That Apu documentary I did comes from Totally Biased. That’s the thing that spurred me to write a piece about it. Things that a community know or feel or have discussed for years are new when you’ve been ignored by mainstream society, so all of sudden all our old stuff becomes new to everybody else. It helped me calibrate where we are as a society and as a performer in real time. When you’re doing stand up you’re doing it in real time, but you’re also releasing things to the masses once every few years in a special or a set. With Totally Biased every night we kind of got a sense of where people were.
I wish the show had a longer life, because to me it was grad school for being on television. I learned how to write for TV, I learned how to write for myself for TV. I learned how to produce segments and I learned how to write by myself, I learned how to write on a team, there’s so many things you learn. The weekly show was hard, the daily show was almost impossible, everyday pumping one out before we got canceled. Those are all things I learned how to do in basically a two year television boot camp, which is what it was.
It’s not like my point of view changed. It gave me confidence, it gave me a lot of knowledge about how to write a TV show, what I would want if I had an opportunity, what I wouldn’t want. I think it introduced me to the general public. People still bring up that spelling bee thing I did, or the Apu thing I did, or how I covered Columbus Day, stuff that was forever ago to me, and somehow it’s still relevant to people. It also says that the stuff we were doing was ahead of its time.
SP: In Warn Your Relatives, you make jokes about or reference everything from Kurt Vonnegut to Mortal Combat and the Human Torch, so I was hoping that you could talk about the diversity of media and pop culture references in your shows.
Kondabolu: God, I’ve been waiting for someone to ask that question my whole career. I’m a full human being and I felt like at a certain point, looking at my stand up, probably when I was in my mid-to-late 20s, I realized that I’m doing this job but I’m not in it. Do you know what I mean? It’s almost like I’m playing a role and I’m not in it. To make this material mine, I have to be in it. People have to see me as a full human being, so why don’t I talk about the other things I care about or find interesting? A five minute Weezer joke, which doesn’t seem to fit in anywhere else, but it’s me! As long as there’s enough for everybody I feel like those moments are really special. They’re both something I find funny and also a wink to the other people who love those things. It makes me feel part of a community in a weird way, a community of fans. [laughs]
SP: You’re dropping Easter eggs.
Kondabolu: Exactly! The goal is not to be pander-y, the goal is to be like, “I’m this, too.” When I drop a Pixies reference it’s because I want people to know that I fucking love the Pixies. I think from a practical perspective, the more you personalize a show — both in terms of a shared moment in this town in this space with the audience, as well as this is my family, this is my world, these are the things I like — when you talk about the heavier shit, you’re hearing it from someone you relate to as opposed to some stranger that shows up and starts yelling at you. When a friend criticizes you it’s different than when a stranger does it. The more that you can become friends with the audience and connect to the audience, the more they’re willing to listen to things that might be uncomfortable. Because I’ve trusted you so far and you’ve come through. You seem like somebody I would be friends with in this context and now you’re introducing this thought to me. I’ve noticed that it’s led to better shows and it leads to a broader connection with people. As much as I love the fact that I get so many activists and teachers and social workers and professors, people who love my comedy often because a lot of the subject matter, I also like the fact I get just comedy fans who love the craft and people who love the fact that I’m referencing things of their era. The audience is a reflection of me in a weird way, you look out into the crowd and you see all these people that you could protest [with], go to a concert with, talk baseball with — it’s the same people! It makes the audience feel like we’re all friends who just haven’t met yet.
SP: One of those little things that came up for me in Warn Your Relatives, that was like, “Somebody else thinks this?” was your bit about abolitionist John Brown.
Kondabolu: That was a bit that I fucking had on the shelf for years and I just didn’t think there was anywhere for it to go. And at a certain point you just say, fuck it. Make sure there’s enough stuff around it for people to laugh, that even if it doesn’t work they can hear you.
SP: Do you have favorite historical figures or a favorite historical figure?
Kondabolu: Oh, so many. I certainly think John Brown is one of them. As a character outside of his political beliefs, the fact that Frederick Douglass and Harriet Tubman were like, “love the attitude, love the effort, not for me, I’m gonna try to live a little bit longer.” [The raid on Harper’s Ferry] was clearly a suicide mission. It was contingent on so many people just joining this movement at the same time and it didn’t happen. Just the idea, “Well then I’ll die for it,” there’s something about that. He’s this incredible cross section between righteous religious fanatic, a bit out of his gourd, and just loving other human beings, just love. He’s an incredible combination of things. Definitely in the modern context would have been medicated.
SP: Involuntary 72 hour hold.
Kondabolu: [laughs] Yes! Without a doubt. Who else do I fucking love? Paul Robeson. I’ve always loved Paul Robeson. I’m just kind of shocked by the idea that this guy was the biggest star in the world, the fact that he played sports and was an opera singer and a movie star and nobody knows who he is now. His legacy being erased — and the fact that he stood up for that. We talk about Muhammad Ali — Muhammad Ali at least got his championship back. Paul Robeson took a hell of a hit.
Huge baseball fan, so Jackie Robinson, because he’s a complicated figure, too. He was a Republican, he supported Nixon, which he later in his autobiography talks about regretting. He was pitted against Paul Robeson in the McCarthy hearings, without realizing that’s what was happening, realizing he was used after the fact. The strength of character to do that. I think people forget that kind of rage killed him, ultimately — he didn’t live very long. That’s a painful thing to ask a human being to do. They also forget, he took it out on people for the rest of his career. After that first year, he was spiking people, he was like, “I am on my revenge tour,” basically. “I’m gonna play the best baseball in the league while also making you pay for all that bullshit.”
It’s funny to think about it, the majority of my heroes, they’re trail blazing Black people and a guy who was willing to die to end slavery. To me, they all did things that were incredibly hard to do. We use the word groundbreaking a lot for anything that’s the first of a thing, but we’re talking about real groundbreaking stuff where you’re putting yourself on the line to do something. I’m missing tons of people. bell hooks. It’s weird to call bell hooks a historical figure because she just passed away. We were friends. I think about how she lived her life in such a principled way, and just the ability to write about anger and love and being able to tie personal relationships as part of a political struggle. I just can’t believe she’s gone.
SP: I could probably ask you 500 more questions, but thank you so very much.
Kondabolu: Honestly, that was a great interview and your questions were really thoughtful. I’m so tired of answering the same things.
Hari Kondabolu
The Canopy Club
708 S Goodwin Ave
Urbana
F Sept 6th, 8 p.m.
$25
