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Yvonne Orji

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Yvonne Orji On Her First-Ever HBO Comedy Special, Faith & Celebrating Black Joy

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Quarantining from her home in Los Angeles, the Nigerian-American comedian spoke to GRAMMY.com about the overwhelmingly positive response around "Momma, I Made It!," her forthcoming memoir and much more
Rachel Brodsky
GRAMMYs
Jul 8, 2020 - 9:33 am

Like her first-ever HBO comedy special states, Yvonne Orji has made it. The Nigerian-American actress and comedian has been on the come-up for a few years now, securing her first major role—sans agent!—in 2015 playing Issa Rae's best friend Molly Carter on HBO's smash hit "Insecure," which recently wrapped its fourth season. But what many fans of the show might not realize is that Orji has been on the comedy circuit since the mid-'00s, starting with a stand-up stint while competing in the Miss Nigeria in America pageant in 2006. From there, Orji, who also has a master's in Public Health from George Washington University, did stand-up at clubs in New York and Los Angeles and, in 2018, nabbed an opening slot for comedy king and GRAMMY winner Chris Rock.     

Now, Orji is enjoying a wave of praise for her very own televised special "Momma, I Made It!," which was released in June on HBO. Filmed at the Howard Theater in Washington, D.C., and partially in Orji's native Lagos, Orji spends the majority of her hour dropping hilarious anecdotes about her Nigerian-American experience, telling her mother she wanted to be a comedian ("I said, 'Momma, I want to do comedy'... SHE heard, 'So, you want to prostitute youself all about the world!'") and sharing her shock and delight at being able to set her bills to autopay.

Even though her parents have long since gotten on board with her comedy career, Orji jokes a lot that they'd be even happier if she'd just get married already. 

"It’s like, sure, they want me to be happy, but in the back of their mind they're also like, 'Can you be happy with a nice Nigerian man who's also possibly Ibo?' And I'm just like, 'I can't make any promises,'" Orji laughs over the phone.

Quarantining from her home in Los Angeles, Orji spoke to GRAMMY.com about the overwhelmingly positive response around "Momma, I Made It!," separating Yvonne the comedian from her very different "Insecure" character and why now—in the time of coronavirus and the Black Lives Matter movement—it's more important than ever to show and experience Black joy.

So, with the pandemic still going on, are you getting to spend lots of time in that house you talked about purchasing in "Momma, I Made It!"?

I am. And it's like the more time I spend in it, the more money I'm spending on it. It's so funny the things you notice when you're at home. You're like, "You know what? I should also... And I think I need to..." 

So, I'm definitely sinking more money into it. I'm hoping that I get to enjoy it, but high-key I feel like whoever buys this house from me is going to enjoy it in a very interesting way.

It seems like kind of a natural fit that you’d do a comedy special on HBO, given how you more or less have one foot in the door with "Insecure." When did HBO originally approach you to do this?

So, HBO had come out to see me, I want to say early 2018. I was opening up at Caroline's as part of the New York City Comedy Festival in 2018. We'd kind of been having the conversations and they wanted to see my [comedy] hour, etc. And then I think we'd gotten busy with filming ["Insecure"], etc. And then at the end of 2018, I also had another run in New York and they came out again. And that's when we were just like, "All right, I feel like you've seen the beginning of it. You've seen it 12 months afterwards." And so, they were like, "Okay, let's make this happen."

Oh wow, that much lead up?

Well, we did the deal in December 2018. [Then] I took 2019 off to write my book. And then we started filming “Insecure.” And so, we already knew that in 2020 I would do a tour and then we would shoot the special for the special to be released in 2020.

I looked at my schedule and I was like, the only time I could actually do a tour is this sliver of time between January and February. And I was like, "It's a winter tour. Why do I do this to myself?" I had no clue Corona would be happening—I was more worried about snow. Who knew a global pandemic was on the rise? So, yeah. It actually all worked out because then I was able to do a 13-city tour, finish it up in D.C. when I shot the special. And then they gave the [air] date of June because they were like, "’Insecure’'s going to be going. You have a built-in audience. We think it'd be great to happen around the same time—a summertime special." So, I'm like, "Okay, great."

[I] did not know the world would be burning, Black lives still needed to be mattering in the way that they are, we still need to be having that messaging of like, "Hey, Black lives still matter," and also, "Wear your mask." So, it was like so many things happening when the special came out. And I was, "All right. Is this a good time? What?"

Yeah, you must be experiencing an odd combination of feelings—because on one hand, streaming services like HBO are doing all they can to showcase content to amplify Black voices. But on the other hand, getting to this place has been incredibly traumatic, societally speaking. Not to mention, you’ve lost the ability to promote the special in-person.

Yeah. I understood HBO's strategy when they picked the date. And I was like, "Oh, 6/6. Great, yes." And I was like, "You're absolutely right. We'll be towards the end of the season. And it's going to be a great season. Hahaha." And then it was like, "Okay, Corona."

Prentice Penny, our showrunner, had his movie premiere [for Uncorked]. And he couldn't do South by Southwest and it was a letdown. He'd been building up to his directorial debut as a feature filmmaker. And I remember that moment of just being like, "Hey man, listen, you're going to have a captive audience. Everyone will be at home. It's going to be fine."

Slowly but surely, it was like, "Well, we can't do the talk shows. We can't do the press." I was like, "Oh my gosh. Okay. All right. Well, I can't be encouraging in this crisis and then be mad that I also got caught up in the whirlwind of things that couldn't happen in Corona." And so, I was like, "Okay, well, same thing applies." Penny’s movie became number one on Netflix because literally, everybody had finished watching everything else on Netflix. So, it was just like, "Well, at least the ratings will be good. People will be at home to see it."

And then the week of [my premiere], all the protests happened. George Floyd was murdered. The country was in a upheaval. And I was just like, "Yeah, no, this is very much different than “We can't go outside.” I don't know how to say, 'Hey guys, I know things look bleak. You just want to support me and watch my special?'" I was like, "No, there's no way to say that and not seem tone deaf and not seem... " And I was prepared. I was like, "This might just be a casualty of what it is."

And I saw “Insecure” come out in episode eight, which is the episode where Issa and Jay kind of melt all of our hearts and fall in love all over again. And just the response of that, people were like, "Man, we needed this 30 minutes. We needed to see Black love. We needed to laugh. We needed to see Black joy." And I was just like, "You know what? Rather than looking at it as a negative, we need levity." Trust me, America does not want Black people angry all the time because it's not going to end well for somebody, and it's not going to be Black people. And so, it's like in the midst of the process, in the midst of the fighting for justice, we need to take off the cape for just a second and laugh.

Black joy has been something that was always celebrated, was always necessary. And I think that's just the way that I chose to look at it. And leading up to it, I went through my phone and it was just very nostalgic for me really just to look at trips I had taken, things that made me laugh. I found this Instagram page that was just slides of Black people laughing. And I was like, "What are they doing?" and I just started laughing. So, I posted. I took three hours just posting a moment for Black joy. And I just was like, "From my moments of Black joy, from other people's moments of Black joy."

And then I talked to HBO and I was like, "Yo, we need to tell the world that Black joy is a form of activism as well." And so, we created that video of just all the things that Black joy is.

Speaking of “Insecure,” was it tricky to get the general public to separate you—Yvonne the comedian—from self-serious Molly?

It was so funny because this was definitely a very difficult season for Molly in terms of the fans' acceptance of her. They were not accepting. They were not here for me or my character. And so, it's funny because the trailer dropped about a month before and people were like, "Are we going to watch this?" or, "We going to support Yvonne because I can't not see her as Molly?" And I'm like, "Guys." And then you had this Twitter battle of people being like, "We have to learn to separate the actors from the roles they play." I was like, "Thank you." I was kind of letting the interwebs do their thing. And I think overall, I think the excitement of like, "Well, let's see what she gon' talk about." And there was that, "We didn't know the girl from ‘Insecure’ did comedy." And once people had the screeners, their response was like, "Wait. No, guys, you for real have to watch this." Questlove from The Roots was like, "I love this." And all the different outlets that we went out to saying, "No, this is a worthy watch," I think that also really helped.

And then when people did watch it, it was just kind of like, "Wait, we feel like we were transported to Nigeria. Yvonne's mom is the true star of the show. Can we get that whole entire outfit?" I think people were just discovering me in a way that they didn't even know they missed. They were just like, "I didn't even know that I needed this, but I'm glad I got it." [When people said] "I've watched this three to five times already," I'm like, "You have?" I was like, "Are you editing it? Because that's how many times I watched it while I was in the editing process."

Yeah, how did you feel watching yourself back that many times?

I was trying to make it the best it could be. I'm very Nigerian. I was like, "I got to get an A-plus on this." I told HBO, "I'm giving you a comedy special/documentary/music video." And they were like, "What?" I was like, "Just don't believe me. Just watch." So, I had my own theme song created. I had Chris Robinson, who does all of the music videos, direct it. It came out exactly how I wanted it.

Then when I was watching it the day of with people on Twitter, it was like, "Oh my god! They laughed! They got it! Yes! They're retweeting." But it was definitely different to watch it with an audience than by myself in a dark hole in my room.

I love how your comedy explores what parents expect of their children and how those expectations can be such a moving target. For instance, you’ve experienced a ton of career success over the last few years, and yet your family is constantly questioning you about when you’ll meet a man and get married.

It's like, "I'm trying my best. It's not on me, guys. It's not on me." It’s like, sure, they want me to be happy, but in the back of their mind they're also like, "Can you be happy with a nice Nigerian man who's also possibly Ebo?" And I'm just like, "I can't make any promises."

The special hops back and forth between you performing onstage and then spending quality time in Nigeria with your family. With the pandemic still going on, do you have any idea when you'd be able to see your parent in-person again?

No, for sure. So many things happened. They were supposed to come in May and then their flight in Nigeria got canceled. And then it was like, "Oh, well, I guess they won't be here for the special." So, then it was like, "Let's go in July." And then it just got worse. Their flight also got canceled. So, I'm like, "Father in heaven, when am I going to see them?" Because they don't like being in America when it's cold. And there's a very short window because they spend time in Maryland. Obviously, if they came to L.A. it'd be a little bit warmer. But still, their home base is Maryland. I don't even know what it's looking like in terms of them coming to America this year. Obviously, I miss them, but I also want them to be healthy. And they need to get their checkups. And it's all the real things that you're dealing with in real time.

How do you keep in touch when they're overseas?

We WhatsApp. We have a family group chat to make sure that everyone is okay and protected, etc. But the special airs in Nigeria on July 1. So, that's going to be very exciting for all of their friends to be able to get to see. They've seen it, but now it's like everyone else is going to see it. So, they send me messages of like, "Mrs. So-and-so saw it and this is what she said." I'm like, "Okay. All right. Okay." So, I'm not in a lot of trouble, but my mom did see it and say, "You are talking about me a lot." I'm like, "Yeah! It's called 'Momma, I Made It.' I'm going to talk about you." And she's just like, "Well, you know, I'm just saying." 

The special hones in on Nigerian parent-child dynamics, but I bet lots of other children of immigrants could relate to everything you described. Did you find that to be the case?

It's so funny. A lot of the messages have been like, "I am Latin American and I know that story," or, "I am Asian American and I know that story," or, "My parents are from X, Y and Z." And it's just like, "Wow, we really are all similar in our own specific kind of ways."

I’m so excited to see what you do next. What can you tell us about the memoir you’ve written, coming out next year?

It's called Bamboozled by Jesus: How God Tricked Me into the Life of My Dreams. I feel like, especially with the special, I've come to a beautiful bookend for the end of a chapter in my life. And I'm not so far removed from the beginning stages of having a dream to seeing it through that I can't look back and help the next generation who have an improbable dream. I’m like, "Hey, if there's anything at all you see in my life, I'm not only showing you how I did it, but obviously my faith is an anchor to my success and so many things in my life."

I'm actually paralleling my journey with journeys of other people from the Bible who also had a battle of integrity. I'll tell a story about when I had to lean into integrity and why that's so much more important than just getting success. Success without integrity: [that’s] not going to be sustainable. It's like, "Here's my journey on an integrity moment that was in question. And then here's somebody else in the Bible who also was challenged. And look at how it turned out for both of us."

A lot of times people find things when they're 85 and on their death bed or after they get a family and it's like, "Well, I guess, God can come into my life now." But for me, I got saved when I was 17 and I developed a really cool friendship with him. And I'm 36 now. I'm like, "Yo, I don't want to wait until 50 to be like, 'Hey God.'" I want to enjoy what that looks like now. And I'm kind of battling against [people saying] "The Bible is outdated," or, ""God or religion is not pertinent or relevant to our lives today.” And I'm like, "I beg to differ."

Yeah, I was aware that you value your faith very deeply. I’ve always wondered—comedian culture as we know it can often be a cynical, non-believing sort of place. It makes me think about what the dynamic is like when you travel in comedian circles. Does it matter?

I think when you meet me, you know three things about me. I say it all the time. I love to laugh and smile. I love God. And I love a good body roll. And I lead with like, "Yo, God is my homeboy." But it's not in a way that's off-putting. It's not in a way that's like, "I can't hang out with you.”

Actually, people have messed up the purity of Christianity. Jesus walked with people that [didn’t believe in him]. I'm very confident in who I am. So, obviously you have to kind of protect your space, like who gets in the inner court, but it's not to be like, "Hey, I'm Christian so thus, you go over there and I can't hang out with you or learn anything new from you or enjoy your company." I think, for me, that's what I like to show. It’s just like, "Yo, faith is actually really inclusive. It's people who mess it up. It's people who shun other people in the name of faith." And I'm like, "That's called the division."

Looking into the future, are you more interested in leaning into comedy or acting, or balancing a combination of both?

Well, it's funny because after the special, everyone was like, "When's the next one?" I'm like, "Everybody calm down." I was like, "This was not built in five seconds. This took time to curate." It's funny because it's like the thing you enjoy about something, you enjoy it because there was attention to detail that was paid.

I think we're also in a place where I don't know what comedy looks like or acting, for that matter, looks like right now because, when are we going to be allowed to act again? Are we going to be able to gather again in groups of 300 to 3,000?

I don't know what either one of these mediums look like, but comedy is definitely one of those things that you don't dispose of because it allows people to get to know the you that you are. A character is a character. And some characters are amazing. And I'm grateful to play one that I enjoy and also learn from. But I'm so grateful, after the special, that people really got to know a little bit more about the person I am, the person behind the character. So, I think it's a two-hander. You work both of them.

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King Bach

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King Bach On His Comedy Album 'Medicine,' Loving Ludacris & Trying Not To Throw Up

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The YouTube and former Vine star opens up to the Recording Academy about creating his first comedy album, who he listened to growing up and why laughter has been a cure-all in his life
Rachel Brodsky
GRAMMYs
Oct 4, 2019 - 12:54 pm

Andrew Bachelor, otherwise known as rising comedy titan King Bach, is definitely on his way to achieving royalty. 

Starting out producing comedy sketches on YouTube, Bachelor eventually switched to the now-defunct short-form outpost Vine, where he'd go on to amass more than 15 million subscribers and more than five billion views. Nowadays, the funnyman is dipping his toes into the TV and music world, where he currently stars in IFC's variety sketch series "Sherman's Showcase," among other things.

Meanwhile, Medicine, which dropped in mid-August, is his debut comedy album, and is filled with 15 true-to-life tracks—with music videos—that skewer everything from his weak stomach ("Bulimic") to the lies people tell each other when they first meet ("Secrets"). 

Below, Bachelor opens up to the Recording Academy about why laughter is truly the best Medicine, who he listened to growing up and the different ways he utilizes social-media platforms to reach new audiences. 

What sparked the idea to make a comedy album?

I've always loved music, ever since I was younger. And when I started making the comedy skits, I actually thought of making a parody music video, and I just love putting together music that people just like to listen to and have fun with listening to it and having a laugh at the same time.

So I figured why not make original music that I own and, I could just share with everyone and not feel any type of way of me taking someone else's style. This is my style, my unique style. So yeah and then I figured it's a comedy album and they're saying laughter is the best medicine, so I named the album Medicine, because every track they're laughing at.

Who did you listen to growing up?

I listen to a lot of Ludacris, Ludacris is my favorite rapper since I was little. Just his style, his energy, I like songs that have a lot of energy behind them. Now music has changed though we realize, that energy has kind of tapered down a little bit. So most artists, it's a lot of mumbling going on, it's more like vibes and feeling it out as opposed to the lyrics. So I'm doing a mixture of both.

Yeah, we've been hearing a lot of "genre labels don't matter anymore" nowadays.

Yeah the whole thing is, what I realized in doing comedies, why it's so good, when you're laughing about a joke or anything, you forget all your problems. You forget about the bad day you had, you forget about your breakup, you forget about somebody who's passing. You just forget about everything and you're literally focused on that joke that that made you laugh in that moment. So that's the mood that I want people to feel like when they listen to the album, they can just forget about everything else and just enjoy the music and just stay present.

Have you personally used comedy as a coping mechanism?

Yeah, with everything, it kind of puts me in a better mood and lets me forget. The way I look at is, I'm being myself, I am being unique. Some people may find it funny but I'm being me, like these are my point of views. Every song on the album is a situation that happened in my life. So it's a situation that happened in my life and I took it and I found the comedy in it.

There's a song on there called "Bulimic." I have a very weak stomach and throughout the days I'm constantly trying to stop myself from throwing up. And it's just been something I've dealt with since I've been seven years old. So I tried to find the light of that and I made a song called "what you going to do if I throw up on you?"

Are any other themes that have come up repeatedly in your comedy that you've touched on with Medicine?

Yeah, there's a song on there called "Secrets," and it's about everyone letting out the secrets and being honest. And the way I directed in film, that music video was pretty much like a YouTube skit. The concept of the video was the speed dating situation, and everyone thinks that speed dating is going regular, but then the speed dating announcer, he announces that she puts truth serum in the guys drink. And it forces them to let out their deepest and darkest secrets. So these guys are confessing their secrets against their will. So that's how I kind of shoot my skits as well, I come up with a concept and I just shoot it around that.

You became pretty famous from using Vine, which sadly doesn’t exist any longer. Have you embraced the similar-minded Tik Tok to create the same short-form comedy? 

Yeah, listen, I'm a creator at the end of the day and I am on the social media application. So I'm on Tik Tok, I'm on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, I'm on everything. And I'll just take one video and I'll just post it everywhere. So if someone only has Tik Tok, they're getting it on Tik Tok. If they only have Facebook, they're getting on Facebook, so I use them all. You name the app, I got it.

So what's your strategy when deciding how to best utilize different apps?

I kind of see how the platform is being used and I kind of adapt to that. So Tik Tok is more music-based, so if I have an idea and it's music based and it's a fun, bubbly, energetic vibe that'll go on Tik Tok. So yeah definitely got to think about, it's like you got to know your audience.

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Ronny Chieng in Netflix's 'Asian Comedian Destroys America!'

Ronny Chieng in Netflix's 'Asian Comedian Destroys America!'

Photo: Marcus Russell Price/Netflix

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Ronny Chieng On His Debut Netflix Comedy Special, The Future Of Live Comedy And The Importance Of Diversity In Storytelling

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Quarantining from Sydney, Australia, the funnyman spoke with GRAMMY.com about the perceptive messages behind 'Asian Comedian Destroys America!' and why he still believes in the American experiment
John Ochoa
GRAMMYs
Aug 2, 2020 - 6:00 am

The opening of Ronny Chieng's 2019 Netflix standup comedy special, Asian Comedian Destroys America!, is almost prophetic. In the first 10 minutes, he spills biting critiques about the return of infectious diseases like the measles, the rise in "stupid anti-vaccination idiots," the role the internet plays in making people dumber and how Amazon makes it so you never have to leave your house to buy anything—all things highly relevant in today's pandemic-struck world. It's like a dark comedy turned accidental prophecy.

"Predicting the worst things to happen in the world, turns out, isn't that hard," he tells GRAMMY.com by phone while quarantining in Sydney, Australia. "You just have to assume everything's going to be terrible."

Released last December, the special sees Chieng ridiculing the absurdities of American culture from an outsider's perspective. He destroys America's addiction to hyper-consumerism—"We need [Amazon] Prime harder, faster, stronger … Prime Now … When I press buy, put the item in my hand, now!"—and obsession with individual freedoms. 

Chieng, who was born in Malaysia and reared in Manchester, New Hampshire, Singapore and Australia, brings a truly international point of view to his comedy and special. And even though his jabs against American culture are painfully, and hilariously, revealing, his sharp takes come from a place of love. 

"I think the American values are universal and I think people get behind that," he says. "That's why immigrants go to America, because they see something there in the ideology of what the country is supposed to be about. Now, the execution in America is not always [clear,] as we've seen since the founding of America. The execution of those ideals has never been perfect. But I think the fact that America, hopefully, is striving towards those ideals of equality is what draws people there."

Of course, Chieng has never shied away from calling out stupidity in America and around the world. As a correspondent on "The Daily Show With Trevor Noah" since 2015, he's tackled everything from coronavirus misinformation to frivolous lawsuits against food companies. The beloved show's commitment to finding a deeper meaning within seemingly simple jokes, he says, has impacted his own approach to comedy. It's a concept he practiced in Asian Comedian Destroys America!

"'The Daily Show' changed the way I think of comedy forever now," he says. "I feel like I definitely think of jokes now in terms of, 'What are you trying to say with the joke? Is what you're trying to say intentional or not? Is this really the message you want to put out there?' I think I feel a little bit of an additional burden to make sure that I represent myself and, by extension, Asian people in general in a certain way. I want to represent them with power and dignity and strength and intelligence."

GRAMMY.com spoke with Ronny Chieng about the perceptive messages behind Asian Comedian Destroys America!, the future of live comedy and the importance of racial diversity and authenticity in mainstream storytelling.

Even though you released your special last December, it talks about a lot of issues we're experiencing as a society right now in terms of global health and race relations. When you think back on the special through this lens, how does it feel to have basically predicted our current situation?  

I wish I could have predicted the stock market; that would actually have been useful. Predicting the worst things to happen in the world, turns out, isn't that hard. You just have to assume everything's going to be terrible.

I was trying to give a timestamp to the special, actually ... Not that I didn't want it to be a classic, timeless special, but I just wanted people to know the context in which I was making it and I was writing it and I was performing it. This was the world we were in … So I was deliberately trying to make sure people understood that this was me in America in 2019, and I guess I'm kinda of glad I did that ... I want people to know that I was thinking of this before all this happened.

In the special, you make a case for an Asian-American president. In your opinion, how would an Asian-American president handle this kind of double-barreled blast of a pandemic and nationwide protests?

I think the spirit of the joke was that Asian people will approach problem-solving with logic and science-solution-based ideas. So I would love to believe that if an Asian person [were] president, they would do the same thing. I don't want to point fingers here, but you look at the Asian countries and how they handled the coronavirus outbreak, and most of them handled it a lot better than America: Singapore, Vietnam, Taiwan, Japan, South Korea. So bringing some of that scientific-based thinking into American politics, I think, could help.

And with regards to the nationwide protests, I'll be damned if I know how to solve any of this; it's a mess. But again, in the spirit of the joke, I think there's something towards having a third-party race that acts as a referee in situations, that has no racial agenda [and] who just wants things to work and wants things to work well. I think everyone could benefit from that kind of approach ... a more logical and unbiased approach would help everything.

In past interviews, you've talked about the rise in cultural influence of Asian-Americans in the U.S. We are seeing an explosion of Asian and Asian-American culture and creatives breaking through the American mainstream. As an Asian living in America, how does it make you feel to see your people and culture reflected on such a national level nowadays?

Obviously, it feels great to have your ideas and stories being told from an authentic point of view. So for me, storytelling is all about authenticity, and I just feel like the problem with having Asian side characters isn't so much that they are side characters—it's that there's no authenticity in it. It's basically tokenistic.

As someone who consumes a lot of culture, essentially I consume stories. Whether it's standup or movies or television shows, I'm a consumer of storytelling. So it's nice to see people who you can relate to in these stories, because I think for the longest time, we never saw any of that … So we got used to that, until we see stories being told from these authentic and powerful points of view. Then we go, "Oh yeah, we were missing this."

So I think that feeling is what's causing, as you described it, this kind of surge in Asian-American storytelling … I think there's always a search for the original story. We've never told these stories. We've never told them from this point of view. I think people are seeing how interesting that can be.

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And also, I think that society's demographic is changing ... I think I read a stat that Generation Z is going to be the most diverse generation in American history in terms of racial demographics. So part of seeing Asian people in storytelling in the West, it's just seeing stories reflecting actual society. We grow up and we see Asian people all the time. They're all around us, but then they're not in the stories that we tell in the West. I think, as the younger generation comes up ... it's not about diversity when we see Asian people or black people. It's about seeing actual society because that's how we understand society to be ... If you watch a TV show or a movie and there are no Asian people or no Black people or no Mexican people in America, you're almost like, "What? How is this America?" It's coming to a point where if you don't tell these stories, it becomes inauthentic storytelling.

I'm in the business of storytelling, so obviously it's nice that people want to hear my stories now. But also as just a consumer, it's nice to see those stories being told on TV; you feel empowered by it. I think storytelling affects society, which affects culture. It has real-world ramifications. If you only see Asian people in storytelling in a certain way, then that's how you think about them in real life.

It's getting increasingly harder to smile or laugh these days. In your eyes, what is the role of comedy today? What can the art form provide for everyday comedy fans in our current situation?

I think comedy helps to lighten people's mood and it helps them hopefully get through a day. I think laughter is such a release for people from the tensions of the day, so I think it's really good for mental health. I think it can help you deal with unpleasant situations a little bit better ... Either you yourself, or you see someone else making fun of a situation which you encountered that frustrated you ... and then you see a bunch of other people laughing at that same joke, and [you're] like, "Oh yeah, all these people agree, so I'm not alone, I'm not a weirdo."

Comedy, in a way, can support you in that way, indirectly. Even though you don't know any of these people, you don't know the comic, you don't know the audiences, but you feel supported that your view of the world, other people agree with it, even if maybe you weren't able to express it in that way ... Regardless of your emotional response, we all are talking about the same situation; we are still experiencing that same thing, whatever that joke was about. I feel like maybe that's a way people can deal with their emotions, maybe in a more positive way.

I think there's also a chance, with comedy, to see other people's point of view … whether you're left-leaning and then you see a more conservative comic making his point of view, or you're a conservative person and you see a more liberal comic making that point of view. It's a chance to see other points of view being expressed that you might not always encounter in your life.

You come from a standup comedy background, an industry that has been devastated by the pandemic. What do you think live comedy will look like in a post-pandemic world?

Damn, it's not looking good. Right now, it's looking like a lot of outdoor gigs. I've seen in New York, they're already trying to do more Central Park shows, they're trying to do shows literally in car parks on the back of a truck.

It's sad ... It's my primary profession, so this wasn't a side gig for me; this was my main thing. But I'm pretty hopeful of two things. One: I'm hopeful that comedy will adapt. I think what I've seen over the last couple of months is that people want it ... So it might go back to its roots a little bit, where comedy was always a room of 30-50 people. It's become theaters and arenas and stadiums, but really, comedy was for like 30-40 people in a room. Maybe it might go back to that, smaller numbers.

The other thing I'm hopeful for is that the strength of America is in its innovation. Maybe not its response to emergencies, but in its innovation, America's No. 1, so I'm still crossing my fingers for a vaccine. [Laughs.] And if a vaccine happens in the next year, then I think we can go back to the way it was before in terms of comedy audiences showing up to clubs.

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But one thing I have seen—it's still early days, and I'm no longer in New York—but people are showing up. And if you do a gig, people will just show up. I think, if anything, [the pandemic has] shown how indispensable standup comedy is. People just need it. They're willing to risk everything. Performers and audiences are willing to risk everything just to tell these dick jokes ... So for better or for worse, people are still showing up for comedy.

People who are still doing it, they're not doing it for money anymore … It's America, so I would love to see everyone get paid, but there is something powerful in [that]. When people do comedy now, it's purely for self-expression, because there is no money in it, and you're literally risking your life doing a show.

You recently told the "CBS This Morning" podcast that "The Daily Show" changed your approach to comedy in that it makes you think about the message behind the joke in addition to the joke itself. Similarly, your special carries a lot of messages about race, about your experience as a non-U.S. citizen in America. Do you foresee your comedy in the future always having this kind of deeper meaning?

"The Daily Show" changed the way I think of comedy forever now. I feel like I definitely think of jokes now in terms of, "What are you trying to say with the joke? Is what you're trying to say intentional or not? Is this really the message you want to put out there?" I think I feel a little bit of an additional burden to make sure that I represent myself and, by extension, Asian people in general in a certain way. I want to represent them with power and dignity and strength and intelligence.

So the jokes that I do, I keep asking myself, "If this is funny and it works, is it sending the right message?" But the more I do comedy, I think the better I get at telling funny jokes that say what I want them to say. And you can do it subtly or you can do it overtly, but as long as it is saying what you want it to say, and of course that it's funny. That's the real challenge for me, [finding] a combination of those two things. It gets easier for me to find those jokes and make them say what I want them to say, easier. I think it's a combination of getting older, more experienced with comedy writing, and knowing my voice better—knowing what I want to say [and] how I want to say it.

Do you feel your special accomplished that goal?

Yeah, if I do say so myself. I'm very happy with it. I'm happy with how it looked. I'm happy with the material; I was working on it for two years ... I'm really happy with Netflix and my producer at All Things Comedy, Mike Bertolina, and the director, Sebastian DiNatale, [and] everyone who worked on it. It was the first time I was given that [many] resources and creative control to do something that just had my name on it. They all supported that; everyone really supported the vision. I'm always very critical with my own performances. 

But overall, I'm really happy with how it turned out, and I think it sent the message that I wanted it to send, even visually. For example, one of the visual themes in the special was—I wanted it to be [like] American show business, because I felt like Asian performers in America were never given that platform, [like] that Johnny Carson show. I wanted to recreate that feeling, that kind of classic American show-business vibe, and have someone on there who not only is an Asian person, but is talking about things not just for an Asian audience. Speaking for myself, everyone gets what they want out of the art that you create, but I personally feel like I achieved that.

Your special ends on a really uplifting note about racial harmony and finding the genuine niceness in strangers. There's been a lot of conversations about race and racial harmony in America these past few months. Where do you see this country going in the future in terms of race relations? How do we get through this turmoil as a society?

Dude, like I said before, I'll be damned if I can solve racism in America. [Laughs.] But I will say that I think the American values are universal and I think people get behind that. That's why immigrants go to America, because they see something there in the ideology of what the country is supposed to be about. Now, the execution in America is not always [clear,] as we've seen since the founding of America. The execution of those ideals has never been perfect. But I think the fact that America, hopefully, is striving towards those ideals of equality is what draws people there.

And then on a less philosophical note, if you want some actual hard data to be hopeful about, I think Generation Z is the most diverse generation. I think they'll be better equipped to handle a lot of this for many reasons. One: They've grown up with technology. Two: They've grown up with a lot of people around them who aren't of the same race, so I think they'll be more harmonious in their approach ... Again, I'm no sociologist, but I think what we're seeing right now is the last death throes of an older generational way of thinking. For me, this battle, as much as it is racial, it's also generational. I think it's old versus new, what we're seeing a lot of right now. I personally hope that "new" wins, because I think "new" is more progressive and I think they're less racist.

You have this great joke in your special about how Chinese citizens and non-U.S. foreigners look at America as being the best. You compare America to being the NBA. Given everything that's happening here recently, do you still stand by that belief that America is the best?

It's tough to judge someone when they are at a low point. If you judge anyone by their lowest point, no one is going to look good. Undoubtedly, I think America is at a bit of a low point right now. Do I still believe in the experiment? Yeah, I do, and that's why I'm going back. Even now, I just think of [America] as home … Is America the best? I think how it handles the next year will really determine.

One thing that is hopeful is that I think it's the only country that is capable of change like this ... a country that's capable of change through citizen protesting, through democracy, essentially; that's not as common as you would think. A lot of other countries wouldn't let it even get to this point where people can protest and air their views publicly. Obviously in America, it hasn't been just smooth protests. But I feel like the protests are making change happen. I think laws have been changed already, I think some people have been arrested. I guess what I'm trying to say is that, in America, I think change is still possible, which for a lot of countries it's not.

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Young Jesus

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Young Jesus Welcome You To Conceptual Beach

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GRAMMY.com talks to singer/songwriter John Rossiter about what the phrase "Conceptual Beach" means to him, how it's expanded over the years and how its creative spirit can be replicated in a time without live music
Eli Enis
GRAMMYs
Aug 11, 2020 - 9:10 am

The last two records from Young Jesus were all about letting go of convention. After years of writing and releasing songs within the boundaries of emo and indie-rock, L.A.-via-Chicago musician John Rossiter was basking in the creative liberation of improvisational jazz and amorphous post-rock. Young Jesus had been his songwriting vehicle since 2010, but once he moved to L.A. and overhauled the lineup with players who taught him to abandon traditional structure and embrace spontaneity, the band took on a much different form.

On 2017's S/T, a song like "Feeling" laced a trudging indie-rock hook in the vein of early Modest Mouse with tumbling, arrhythmic drumming and long passages of woodland field recordings. 2018's The Whole Thing Is Just There was even looser and featured frequent ad-libbing that culminated in a sprawling, 20-minute finale called "Gulf." That two-year period of prolific writing and frequent touring was as much a spiritual rejuvenation as it was a musical one, and naturally  the band were a bit tired when it wrapped up. Once they reassembled after some time off and began plotting the next record, the process felt less effortless than it did on the last two go-arounds.

"So we wrote a ton of songs and jammed a lot and it didn’t always feel great," Rossiter says. "It was the first time where I think we were playing and we would really question where we were going."

Whereas those previous albums were forged from capturing a feeling and not second guessing themselves, their new record Welcome To Conceptual Beach (out on Aug. 14 via Saddle Creek) was built by being more thoughtful and contemplative about the music. For Rossiter, that actually meant giving up some of his creative control.

"I think I can be pretty controlling sometimes and this record is reflective of, at least for me, grappling with that," he says. "Trying to trust more and let go a little bit on my own and be honest with myself and my shortcomings. What can I learn and where can I grow and what am I good at and what do I love? Those are questions I was asking myself and I think as a band we were asking ourselves."

The record that emerged is a lot more rhythmically focused and features more input from Rossiter’s bandmates and collaborators than ever before. Opener "Faith" is an organ-led bar ballad that verges on prog at points, "Pattern Doubt" is bolstered by gorgeous saxophone and dreamy piano sweeps, "Meditations" makes room for fluttering jazz flute, and "Lark" contains a passage in the middle where Rossiter speak-sings like a Baptist preacher over playfully campy funk music. There are moments of surging shoegaze and meandering post-rock that could’ve appeared on either of their last albums, but overall, Welcome To Conceptual Beach sounds less heady, less freewheeling, and more free-spirited than previous Young Jesus projects.

Some of that is likely a result of Rossiter making huge strides in his personal life that involved de-emphasizing intellectualization in favor of emotional tenderness. The lyrics of the record’s lead single "Root and Crown" serve as a sort of thesis for his new outlook on life through the lens of his band: "Every record needs a thesis, needs a crisis, or campaign / All my feelings need a reason, need a righteousness or blame."

"This record is about accepting the times when you’re wrong," he says. "Not necessarily having a reason but having a feeling and trusting that feeling and balancing it with reasoning. And learning that righteousness is really dangerous, to believe that there’s a right and that it’s not in flux or in negotiation with context and the people around you and the way people around you are feeling."

"That’s so important," he continues. "I wasn't noticing how people are feeling. At least in my band I was really pushing people very hard and I needed to take a minute and ask, 'Are you guys OK? Is this too hard? Am I pushing everyone too hard? Am I pushing myself too hard?' So that’s the record."

As Rossiter became more open with himself and those around him, he became more forthcoming about Conceptual Beach, which is what he describes as his "internal landscape." For years, Conceptual Beach had been both Rossiter's zine and a setting for personal journal entries, but back in 2018 he used the name for an event series in L.A. where Young Jesus were trying to deconstruct and rebuild what a concert can entail. Now, Conceptual Beach has made it into the title of this new album and Rossiter is even in the works of building an entire website around it called conceptualbeach.net.

We talked to Rossiter about what Conceptual Beach means to him, how it’s expanded over the years and how its creative spirit can be replicated in a time without live music.

The last time we talked, Conceptual Beach was an event series you were doing in L.A. where you would perform and people would do watercolor paint and it was this really multidisciplinary experience. How did the idea of Conceptual Beach expand from there?

When we had that concert and those experiences, it was really freeing. It's really freeing to see that you can have a show and not even play any songs and people will be excited about it. So it takes a lot of pressure off, I think I put a lot of pressure at least on myself, to write these epic, intense—I want the albums to be perfect. And that experience was like, "Wow this was a pretty often messy feeling thing."

I think Conceptual Beach was, for a while in many ways, me just trying to figure out how to live better on my own. And if I just write enough, if I’m just creative enough, my life will be good and happy. And it wasn't working. So I'm slowly learning to bring Conceptual Beach into the world and share it and ask other people what their inner landscape might be like and maybe I could learn something from that. And maybe the difficult, dark painful things and the joyful, lovely amazing things that I’ve seen on Conceptual Beach, I can start to share with my friends and my partner and my family.

I've never really cried in front of people before, and the past two years I quit smoking and someone asked me, how'd I do it? And I said, "Well, I cry four to five times a week and I feel really angry sometimes and I never felt that before." I put it all into a cigarette or maybe a drink, who knows. So Conceptual Beach growing has entered my life in a way that's changed me significantly, so I think it’s changed the music significantly and I think it's changed how we as a band deal with each other. How we deal with ourselves.

It's interesting how Conceptual Beach started as this very personal concept and has become more shared, whether it be in a concert setting or on a record that you collaborated so closely with your bandmates on. So as you've grown less guarded, Conceptual Beach has as well.

Yeah, so I'm in this book group that I help facilitate and it's full of these amazing people. One of the really powerful things about it and one of the things I've learned a lot through the friends I’ve made there is that they’re very embodied people. They're very connected with all sorts of transformative justice and social justice groups—it’s a current events book group so it draws those types of people towards it.

And some people suggested a few books that were really embodied and really optimistic. They offered a way out rather than pointing out what I think a lot of theory does, which is point out how shitty the world is and [present] a lens to examine its shittiness and really make an entire argument about how terrible it is. And a friend of mine who, like me, grew up really focused on our mind and our intellect, we started reading these books and we were like, "This isn’t for me. This is a bunch of wacky, new-age bullshit and it’s so accounting. It's asking the reader how they’re feeling. That's too much for me, I don't need that, I'm tough, I want people to get straight to the point."

And then we kept reading that and all of a sudden I was like, "Wait a second, this book cares about me. And it cares about the writer and how they’re feeling. And why am I upset about that?" Those are kind of beautiful things to do and to care about each other and to ask really actively how I'm feeling and how my friends are feeling. It really opened something in me. I would say I've probably read less this year than I have in a while and it doesn’t feel like a bad thing. It feels like I’m a little more connected with myself and, I think, to my friends.

I think it's kind of fascinating that you were really trying to reshape what a live show was a couple years back, and now the music community is facing an existential challenge and we need to reshape what a live musical experience is. Have you noticed anything anyone's doing that can maybe help carry on that spirit virtually for the time being?

I'm really working on it because honestly I get kind of anxious using social media so it's been hard for me to engage with it creatively. I do hope there's conversations happening and it's a conversation I'm continuing to have, is how to do these things without Instagram, Twitter, Facebook.

And I think there's a lot of potential for these extremely creative people that are in D.I.Y. or influenced by a band like ourselves or some kind of mix of the two. So many people have so much energy and creativity and ability to think of new workarounds. These are the type of people who can figure out how to get a 7" pressed just out of thin air or print a zine that you bring on tour and figure out how to give all that money to a mutual aid fund. These are people, to me, that are at the forefront of creatively engaging with the world we're in right now and I think we need to be thinking about how to protect ourselves a little bit and protect our scene, protect our data.

So I'd love to see that coming into play. I'd love to see musicians creating more and more of their own platforms, which I do see happening. That's some of the ethos of the website which is conceptualbeach.net situation. There's a lot of possibility, so much possibility. I've seen Patreons and I think that's a wonderful model and it's kind of a hard sell for people but I would like to see that pick up more. There's also so many fun things you can do with recording yourself, so to continue growing in that direction, there are ways to do it.

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Turning Jewels Into Water

 

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World Music Innovators Turning Jewels Into Water Fuse The Spiritual With Digital On Their New Album

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Genre pioneers Ravish Momin and Val Jeanty talk to GRAMMY.com about the making of their forthcoming work, 'Our Reflection Adorned by Newly Formed Stars'
Noah Berlatsky
GRAMMYs
Aug 8, 2020 - 7:00 am

"What is world music? What is global music? Do you have to show up in ethnic gear with a tabla and a sitar for you to consider me Indian?" drummer Ravish Momin says, with some exasperation. "Or what if I just showed up with an electronic drum pad? If you were a quote unquote, world promoter, you'd be like, 'No…that's not right.'"

Momin and Haitian-born drummer Val Jeanty's electronic music project Turning Jewels into Water draws on influences and collaborators from across the planet, but, as Momin says, their music isn't easily slotted into any one genre. On their new album from FPE Records, Our Reflection Adorned by Newly Formed Stars, laptops sound like traditional instruments and geeky experimentation is indistinguishable from spiritual yearning. It's music that pounds and shakes and shimmies so hard it lifts off from any one country, drumming in the stratosphere, and points higher up.

Momin's been difficult to pin down ever since he was a child. Though he was born in India, his father's job at an Australian bank kept the family on the move. "We lived in the Middle East for a minute. We lived in Australia for a minute. We lived in Hong Kong for a minute. We were just traveling around, and I was picking up music in all those places," Momin told me.

The family finally settled in New York in the late '80s when Momin was around 14. He was interested in jazz, and started taking drumming lessons. But he had trouble finding a teacher comfortable with his range of influences. "They'd be like, man, all that stuff you're doing, we've got to work on getting rid of all that and making you a real jazz drummer," Momin told me. "And I felt bad for a long time, like, oh shit, I'm doing something totally wrong here." It wasn't until after college when he studied with the great avante garde drummed Andrew Cyrille that he started to see his background as a resource rather than a hindrance. Cyrille, Momin says, "was the first drummer I'd gone to who listened to my audition and said, okay, cool, I see what you have. But I also see what you don't have. So let's find a way to make that work."

Momin went on to lead the global/jazz band Tarana for 14 years. He gradually became more and more interested in incorporating electronic percussion into his music. But, he says, "I immediately found out [I] was not accepted in the so-called jazz world at all. You can't be a legitimate jazz musician and have a laptop on stage. That was just heresy for a long time. It's still stuck, believe it or not, where Miles [Davis] left off. There are innovators, obviously, that have been pushing it, but it really hasn't kept up with electronic innovation happening elsewhere."

Looking for a new direction, Momin invited Val Jeanty to jam with him while he was in residency at Brooklyn's Pioneer Works. The two, who were already friends, clicked musically. Their first album as Turning Jewels Into Water, Map of Absences, was released in 2019.

Jeanty "was the first person that I met who was channeling electronics with this spiritual vibe," Momin says. "And I'd never really experienced that. I'd only heard experimental electronics like blips and screech, or very much four-on-the floor techno in New York. So it was incredible to hear this historical, organic rootedness, and have it still be all digital."

Jeanty started drumming with her family in Haiti during Vodou religious rituals. "You can think of it like church music, but in a different culture," she told me. "The drums are very important; it's like the heartbeat. Each rhythmic pattern is dedicated to a specific ritual."

For Jeanty, raised with drumming as part of religious festivals, all music is a spiritual practice. "In our culture, there's no separation between what we do and the music. It's all one. It's all a prayer. It feels for me like a spiritual practice, whether I'm listening to classical music, whether I'm listening to John Coltrane. It's the same thing."

Working with Momin has been exciting, Jeanty says, because "in the Indian culture, the music is very spiritual. So, we have that connection instantly. And he's also very progressive pushing it as far as using triggers, using Ableton Live. That's the stuff that I love. It's just great to have similar aspirations as far as keeping connected to the culture but working with electronic instruments."

One of the album's most ambitious mixtures of traditional and electronic music is "Crushed Petals and Stones Fall On My Drum." The track features South African percussionist and musician Mpho Molikeng, who plays a range of African instruments, including the lesiba (a mouth-resonated bow), and the mamokhorong (a kind of single-stringed violin). On the collaboration between Molikeng, Momin and Jeanty, electronics and indigenous instruments drone, thump and shake around each other as Molikeng chants, and it's virtually impossible to tell the analog from the digital. Here and there, meatspace and binary realm stomp and change places in a joyous dance or trance. And then they get up and do it again on a remix by Shanghai producer Laughing Ears, who ads a vivid club-ready techno sheen. From Haiti to India to South Africa to Shanghai, the petals fall everywhere, nowhere, and on all the spots in between.

"Swirl in the Waters," is another collaboration, this time with Washington, D.C.-based Iranian singer Kamyar Arsani, who plays the daf, a wide drum, and fronts the punk band Time is Fire. "I've been trying to get people involved in the project, who can again span different worlds and can do different things," Momin says, and, sure enough, on "Swirl in the Waters" Arsani moves seamlessly from spooky post-punk intonation to ululating Middle Eastern chant. "I used to be a goth when I was a high-school teen," Momin laughs, "and this track has that dark energy."

The album's title track, "Our Reflection Adorned by Newly Formed Stars" is a tribute to the Siddis, a group of Indians of East African origin who are believed to have come to India in the 600s AD. Momin says he was not aware of the Siddis while growing up. Their history is not commonly taught in much of India, a fact which Momin attributes to anti-Blackness. But, Momin says, "they have been here in India for a long time, and they came in not as slaves, which is really important to know. It's one of on the first instances of Africans ruling a non-African population."

The video for the song, designed by Art Jones, includes historical Siddi images, and a dancer rotoscoped in angular blocks of color, so they seem to pulse from future to past and back again. "It's capturing the spirit of the Siddis and the dancers and the movement. It's an imaginary timeline of what would have happened, if they had never lost their grandeur, and were still regal. It's creating awareness of the Siddis and their plight."

A track about the Siddis, and their mix of African and Indian culture and art, fits naturally on an album by a duo from the African and Indian diasporas, creating music steeped in where they're from, where they are and the journeying between the two. A tribute to the Siddi was initially Momin's idea, Jeanty says, but it made sense to her. "We're all connected. Especially right now with all this separation and division, I think it's important for us to know that we all belong to one thing, to one mother."

Work on the album began before the coronavirus made travel impossible, but the collaborators had to finish it in isolation, sending files back and forth. Jeanty acknowledged that the conditions were not ideal. "There's something spiritual about being in the same space at the same time," she said. "The virus is disconnecting us more, so it was a little bit more challenging than if we were together." The disconnection and the need to focus made the recording process "a little bit more intense. I do feel like there were some really potent moments that I couldn't get if this COVID thing wasn't happening," she laughed.

Our Reflection…is an album about bridging distances, that didn't seem bridgeable by music, boat or byte. "We want to just showcase the idea that, hey, look, we're still doing all this stuff, where we're bringing all these rhythmic and melodic and other practices from our folkloric traditions, but we're doing it in this new environment," Momin says. That new environment is the whole world, and some newly formed stars as well.

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