I once earned N500 per month for comedy –Ali Baba

Weekend Magazine: At the time you started comedy, how did you identify the void and decide to make an industry out of it?  Ali Baba: It was my intention from the beginning to make an industry out of comedy. A soon as I discovered that people found the things I said funny and I started […]

Weekend Magazine: At the time you started comedy, how did you identify the void and decide to make an industry out of it? 

Ali Baba: It was my intention from the beginning to make an industry out of comedy. A soon as I discovered that people found the things I said funny and I started performing in 1987, I found that people appreciated humour, they recognized it and it gave me a sort of fame in school that I did not accomplish from playing football, volley ball or judo and also money. It brought on a new vista of recognition for me. For every event they did in school then, I was called the resident John Chukwu. A friend of mine, said, “Your name is Alleluya we call you Ali, why don’t you use Ali Baba?” That’s how the name came about. The value proposition of my art was that, it was fresh, different. The comedy industry in America was fully established. We only heard about the activities and successes of that comedy industry. We didn’t have anything like standup comedy in Nigeria. John Chukwu had a hint of it but he was an MC and wasn’t doing full standup. Comedy gave me an opportunity to express myself and job satisfaction. I enjoyed it thoroughly. All of these made me know the future would be brighter. I thought about the society beyond university and began leaving school to perform in Lagos, Benin, Port Harcourt and every time I went, comedy was accepted. That showed its universality. All I needed to do was ensure I added the issues that were relatable into my jokes and it worked. The total clincher was that I used to earn N100 monthly from my dad, sometimes N120. From doing comedy I found I could earn N500 and stopped going home to collect money. It was a no-brainer that I would make a lot of money from it. 

WM: Comedy gave you a lot of money as a student. Why was it still important for you to go through with school and graduate?

Ali Baba: I was supposed to transfer to Law in year two, but two things happened. I couldn’t read Law and become a comedian. I would lose one year and then have to stay additional four years because Law then became a five year course, Law school, NYSC and I wasn’t ready for that. Also the course I was doing, Religious Studies and Philosophy gave me the time I needed to do my comedy. 

WM: Were you able to strike a balance with school and comedy?

Ali Baba: It affected me. What a lot of people do not see is the double effort you make to catch up with the things that you have lost, even as a celebrity. You travel often and away from family and so when you return, you have to make up. That make up is what matters. What happens with many is that they don’t make up for their absence. For me, it was that every time I travelled for events and I returned to school, I was heading to the library to catch up. So I read up, finished my term papers and submitted. When I was done I realized that although I made impact, becoming a comedian my grades were affected. For people who are going into entertainment, you have to balance it or one will suffer. 

WM: Do you a feel a sense of responsibility to younger comedians? 

Ali Baba: Yes, especially the fact that one has to point the road for them. You are a pathfinder for them and so your performances must be exemplary. You can’t do dirty jokes so that they know dirty jokes don’t work especially when you see the kind of audience with children, mothers, pastors, imams and all that. You have to doctor what you say and work that thin line between being funny and offensive. That sense of responsibility permeates every performance I give. I try to always chaperon those I work with. Some may go renegade on me and do some dirty jokes because they’re comfortable with it. I said to one of them one day, “you do not know half the dirty jokes that I know. I could be on stage for two hours telling dirty jokes.” What holds me back is that every time you do a dirty joke, you reduce your market by 50 percent. That sense of responsibility informs what I do because young comedians watch me. Spontaneity is really what makes a comedian last long on stage or even extend your career because every career has a time factor. It’s a heavy load on the shoulders but bearable if you have your goals properly fashioned out. 

WM: You were in the ‘Wedding Party.’ Please share with us what that experience was like.

Ali Baba: I’m a comedian I do impressions.  A lot of the things we did – Sola and I – were not in the script. We had to infuse them to bring as much humour out of the movie as we could. 

WM: You started the competitive show, ‘Spontaneity.’ How has that impacted on you as a big brother grooming these youngsters? 

Ali Baba: We had a fountain of jokes in the industry and anybody who came along went there and dipped their hands into it and told. Jokes were replicated. You only needed to watch Night of a Thousand Laughs from volume one to 10 and you’d hear the same jokes. It’s easy for you to tell a story, any ordinary person can tell a joke but because you’re a comedian, you can tell it better. The problem was creeping in and affecting comedians. A comedian would plan to come on stage to tell two, three jokes and others before him go up and tell his joke. It weakens his performance. Meanwhile he is the owner of the joke. We thought there was need to do something about it. That’s how Spontaneity came about. It has helped to give the new crop of comedians a better understanding of the business and they now also know the nexus. They now know it’s not all about going up on stage and telling jokes, but it’s also about their ability to pick up a mic and be spontaneous with their jokes. It put them in a tight corner, the way the competition works, but it also makes their jokes tighter. I also wanted them to know that it is possible for a comedian to drive a N5 million car because if you work hard for it, you will get it. For the past three years, a comedian has received a brand new car. It’s a drain on my resources because we still don’t have sponsors, regardless we’ll still encourage the industry to grow.

WM: If you bowed out of comedy tomorrow, would say you have someone to take over?

Ali Baba: Oh yes. There’s Basketmouth, AY, Gordons, Bovi, Chuks The General, Funny Bone, Akpororo, Tee A. The list is endless, of the number of people who can carry the torch on to the next generation. By the way we now have a three tier generation of standup comedians. My generation begat the Basketmouth, Tee A, Teju Baby Face generation. The generation that followed this was the AY generation and this one brought Seyi Law, Akpororo and Bovi and the rest of them. But you can see that it doesn’t matter which generation you are in, your performance, talent, dexterity and commitment to the art can jump start you to play in the big league. So you find people who started like 10 years ago still crawling and people who started the same time who have leaped into the territories of the legends, so to speak. It’s interesting that in 1995 there was just me, Mohammed Danjuma, Basorge, Tony St. Ike, Yibo Koko, Oma Oma and Alam Blow. With time, some people dropped out. Mohammed passed on and some others went into other things. 

WM: Why didn’t you go into movies, which at the time seemed like the more profitable one?

Ali Baba: No, movies weren’t as profitable as comedy. Even till now. Comedians then made more money than actors. In 1994/95 I was charging a N100,000  per show. There was hardly any actor asking this kind of amount at that time. In 1996 I did a tour which was a deal of N1.9 million to visit eight states. By 1996 I was a millionaire from comedy. Actors, because their movies get pirated and government hasn’t really done anything to see that it ends, don’t earn a lot. For instance, what I made from the Wedding Party, for three weeks of shooting, is what I make from one comedy event. So imagine if I had four, five events in those three weeks. But then the mileage you get from a movie goes a lot further than you would get from an event. Actors living well make more money from their entrepreneurship and other sources. My first movie was My Guy, with Basorge in 1998. I wasn’t paid and even provided some of the things that were used. At some point I had to take a break from Wedding Party to go for an event which was paying more than the movie. People say Ali Baba is living well because he married a banker. But AY, Julius Agwu, Basketmouth and all the rest didn’t marry bankers and they are living very well. That’s an indication of what I was enjoying before these loud mouths came on board. Nobody knew we made so much money until they came and exposed everything. (laughter)

WM: Which has been your most copied joke?

Ali Baba: That would be the joke about the NEPA guy. In fact it’s been shot into a skit now. My grandmother’s house had a pole in front and there were staff of Delta Steel Company and Shell at the back of the house. They came to cut the light one time. I went home and heard the commotion as they were complaining that they had just paid for reconnection and this guy had come again to disconnect the light. They told him that when he finished, he should come down and they would cut him up. They had cutlasses and all sorts. There are variations of the joke now, with dogs and other additions. The one I have repeated the most is of Baba Ibadan the newspaper guy. A guy who came to my house to deliver newspapers and didn’t know I had a dog. The mai guard let him in and locked the door after him only for Baba Ibadan to be confronted by my dog. He began speaking Yoruba to the dog and begging it to have mercy. That’s an every green one for me and has the five punch lines of a joke.