Popular comedian AY has claimed that he has over a 100 pair of shoes in his closet and he is bent on acquiring more.
“I love shoes. Though I have over 100 pairs, I still want to buy more and more.
“All I need is to find something that I like; it might be something
similar to what I have in my closet, but I would still buy it. I don’t
repeat shoes often so that people won’t say I am going broke. If you see
me repeat a shoe and believe I don’t have any other one and the best
you can do is talk about it, I see you as an arm-chair critic. If you
have an opportunity to go into my closet, you will be looking for an
opportunity to withdraw your statement.”
The happy father of one, who disclosed this in a recent interview
with PUNCH further discussed his brand and issues with entertainers like
Jim Iyke, Tonto Dikeh who find his jokes offensive.
“A lot of people still get it wrong when it comes to understanding
that comedians are jokers. It is quite unfortunate that people are
taking comedians too seriously and taking politicians as jokers. There
are lots of things we hear about politicians and we say they are jokes
but when comedians crack jokes that are meant to be humorous, make
people laugh, people take the comedians seriously. I think it is an
issue of priority. Because of the way I mimic people, a lot of people
before now used to tell me that the day Chris Okotie or Obahiagbon would
catch me, I would be in trouble.
The truth is that we make these people more popular by talking about
them. We are social commentators. Gone are the days when comedians would
go out there and talk about how lions are chasing monkeys. Nobody is
going to laugh. People need to relate to the situation around them.
People compare us with our counterparts abroad, they can talk about
their presidents. An Obama for example would laugh about it and when he
has the opportunity to go on stage, he talks about that comedian and
makes reference to what the comedian said. He might even create his own
version and life goes on.”
Lending a voice to the recent controversial ‘rape joke’ cracked by
Comedian, Basket mouth on facebook, AY said “The joke that my colleague
shared was an existing one that had been there for a while. Forget the
fact that he came out to champion it and even put it on Facebook; a joke
is a joke. These are realities that people have not come to terms with.
Comedians did not invent rape, so if I talk about an existing situation
in the country, I am calling the attention of those in authority to the
problem so that they can take care of it.
As I said, comedians are social commentators. The comical part of it,
you can just act and re-enact. His tweet does not mean that he is a
rapist or does anyone have a record that Basket mouth is a rapist? For a
fact, he was talking about a topical situation. For instance, he said
that in America, when you take a girl out on a date, day one, this is
what happens. Day two, this is what happens but here in Nigeria, you
spend this amount of money on day one, two, three and the girl is not
forthcoming. The next thing is maybe the guy wants to go and take the
girl by force. It is also a message for girls who always want to be
collecting without paying. If I were a girl, I would know that if I
collect on day one, I wouldn’t do so on day two, so that things would
not result in violence. Why can’t people see it from that perspective
rather than castigating a comedian who just cracked a joke.
