How skit-making became the new oil – Baba De Baba

Chidi Uzoma popularly known as Baba De Baba is a Nigerian comedian, MC, actor and a story teller. His journey into the comedy world has had some highs and lows. He shares his experience in this exclusive interview with ORJI ONYEKWERE.

Tell us more about your Comedy Check Up.

It’s a show to check mate and regulate the comedy industry, we may not get the result immediately but we are getting close. The essence of the show is to make sure that comedians do their original jokes. It’s the first comedy show in Nigeria where no comedian is allowed to use another person’s joke.

Since it started, comedians’ are now becoming conscious and careful of what they say. It’s so because those days, a comedian can do another person’s joke with confidence and the other comedian will go about telling other people that you are using his jokes; he will not have the balls to confront you, but since I started doing comedy check up, people have been confronting those using their jokes to stop doing that.

The major essence of the movement is to ensure that people are doing their own jokes and for fans to know the originators of these jokes. Unlike music; when you hear a song you already know who has the song.

If a musician is using a line from another musician’s song, he will give credit to that musician and in most cases they will even mention the name of the original owner of the song in their song, just one line they used. But for comedians, they don’t do this, they don’t give credit to the owner s of the jokes they perform, and in most cases the real owners of these jokes don’t have the platform to perform.

For instance, an up and coming comedian may go to a place like a comedy club and he is begging to be allowed to perform on that platform because the host is a bigger comedian. Thereafter the bigger comedian will now perform on a bigger stage with the same joke the young, up and coming art used in his comedy club and the young comedian cannot fight him.

This whole movement is to control this to an extent because it may not be eradicated completely.

Is the movement getting the support of the big heads in the industry because that will make the younger ones take the movement serious?

It’s not getting their support yet because these guys are the ones that are supposed to champion this movement but they did not do it. I feel they have tried in making comedy a business and that’s strong enough but it’s now left for us to regulate it, which is what I am trying to do.

I thought the comedians have a strong union, I remember speaking to Ali Baba a long time ago and similar thing came up, he said they are working on it…

For now there’s no union, forget about what they have been saying there’s no union, we only have clique. This issue we are fighting, the main problem are the bigger brands because these are people who don’t want to have issues with anybody.

If a comedian says your joke and you report it to a bigger comedian, his boss or someone he respects, he will tell you ‘leave it, since you can write jokes why not write another one. Instead of addressing what ‘I complained to you and telling your boy to create his own jokes, you now want to make me feel like I am a trouble maker. Majority of our big heads are the cause of this problem because if they have taken it seriously, it will not get to this stage.

Musicians have PMAN, actors have AGN, are you looking towards that line with other younger comedians to form a strong union since the older ones cannot do this?

We have comedians group but some comedians are not there. We have like three or four comedy associations. For instance, you create your own association, another person wants to have his own faction and these guys keep dividing comedians.

We don’t have any major comedy association, we only have the one organized by this or that person; like we have a group where you have the big comedians and their boys are with them and other comedians are there. If you want to start, somebody would want to fight it.

There was a time a big comedian called for comedians meeting and another big comedian called for another comedians meeting that same day, now you have to go for whoever you think you respect and you can benefit something from. This drama has been own for years and I don’t know why it’s not working out.

We are not organized but we are united to an extent. For instance, you invite a comedian to your show unlike musicians who are business minded people, they don’t care who you are because once they make appearance on your show, you will pay them. But in the case of comedians, once a comedian is your friend and you invite him to your show, he may not charge you at all, even professional fees.

For instance, I invited Gbenga Adeyinka to my show last year, he could not come but he now sent me money for not coming, this is somebody I am supposed to pay.

That’s how the industry is, we love ourselves and our senior colleagues support us if they are available and you invite them to your show, they will show up. Some may intentional not come because they feel they are not your mate, they may give you a genuine reason why they are not coming but they will not make you feel bad.

Why would you say that men should take charge of their homes and women should keep quite when the men are talking, people might see you as a male chauvinist…

No, in that particular contest I did not mean that women should not talk, what I meant is that sometimes women don’t want to allow men talk anymore. For instance, I went for a meeting with a lady to meet a client who is supposed to bankroll my show, and as we were discussing the man said he stays at LASU, Ojo side.

The girl with me now jumped in and said she used to know that side, she has a friend there. You are supposed to shut up because I was discussing business and do you know that this girl never accepted that what she did was wrong.

She deviated from the whole business discussion I was having with the man and a lot of ladies are like that. When men are talking, you are not supposed to talk unless they mention your name.

What inspired your interest in comedy and why did you choose the name Baba De Baba?

I didn’t know I was going to be a standup comedian but I knew I will be a comedian and an acting comedian. It was my mother that calls me Baba De Baba; she gave all of us nick names.

As a young boy I have always been funny and my mum like me so much. She now called me Baba De Baba; she said I behave like an adult just like my son does today. He does not have friends that are young like him apart from his classmates. He likes hanging out with adults.

My mum used to call me Baba De Baba and it became my stage name and being a child I have always wanted to act. I attended a lot of auditions which I did not succeed but I felt I could also make people laugh by standing and talking not until I act.

I watched comedian Alarm Blow on Galaxy Television in 2004 and I said I could try my hands on becoming a standup comedian. That was how I went to him, I started working with him and that’s was how I started standup comedy

Are you not pushing your acting career?

I have featured in a couple of movies but just cameo appearances. There’s one cinema movie where I appeared as a standup comedian that hosted an event and most of the movies I featured in, I played the role of a comedian.

I featured in Sex for Mark where I played the role of a doctor though I did not do up to seven scenes. Comedy is what I do. I tried to do skits for years, it did not fly because we could not sustain it and doing skits, you have to be consistent though I had issues with my team.

You may want to shoot today, somebody will not show up either the camera guy or another member of the cast will not show up, so I lost interest in skit, it became tiring and boring. I started doing my normal Uncle Baba stuff and that one started flying. I stopped skits early this year since April and decided to do my thing alone and I am getting more results.

The content is growing and it has been accepted. For instance, my page had 400 followers when we were doing skits but when I started my own since April till now, I have about 29000 followers?

We have seen skits taking over the comedy industry, how are you transiting or adjusting to the new frontier of comedy making?

Skit is taking over because online skit has become the oil money and so those comedians who were doing it for fun those days; have started making money over night and they have become more famous than the stand up comedians overnight. While skit is getting more popular is because we don’t have enough comedy platforms.

Most of the comedians started doing skits because of the money online forgetting that you can still do your standup comedy and post it online. We now have more of skit makers than stand up comedians because even the stand up comedians are now moving into skit making. A lot of successful skit makers you know today were stand up comedians but they stopped writing jokes for standup comedy and once they started making money from skits and this is becoming challenging.

Comedy is a serious business because anybody can be an MC but not everybody can be a comedian. If a comedian has a problem with his wife, it may affect his performance on stage, he may not be able to concentrate. Comedy is more deep, when most of them started doing skits, they forgot standup comedy because skit is more time consuming as you have to post up to four or five skits in a week . So, your head will be filled with, ‘what do I post for my skits’ and you will end up forgetting about writing your jokes.

I have been a content creator, I don’t do skits and so I have been online for sometime before this interview I just try to get my jokes and write it down incase there’s anything in the offing. Most comedians don’t know how to balance skits and standup comedy at the same time. Basket mouth is doing skits, movies and standup comedy, same with AY, but a lot of comedians cannot multitask they just focus on one.

Some comedians have their habits like Alibaba who reads widely and do a lot of research which most comedians don’t do. What’s that distinctive attribute you have that makes you different from others?

What makes me different is that I tell true story and my voice is unique. If you hear my voice anywhere you will know and I am a story teller, I don’t come on stage to force people to laugh, I say things that will make people laugh. I do my research and read a lot but not like Alibaba, I can read anything but I don’t have books.

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The only book I have is on how to make it in life, how to be successful which are motivational books. I also read funny and trending events. If I am thinking of a joke, I just go to the comment section of the social media handle and look for how to create jokes out of those comments.

You said on your Facebook wall that most matured single men are confused. Why?

Yes most matured single men are still single because they are confused not because they are not ready to marry. They became single because they were waiting until they will make money or find a rich woman they will marry for a lot of them, you need to have money to marry a rich woman.

So, these guys are getting older and the money is not forthcoming and you don’t know how to go back and marry a poor lady because you would have been married since if it’s a poor girl.

However, you keep waiting thinking you will make it, the next thing is that when a man is getting older he doesn’t like older women and now his problem will be compounding. Initially you are looking for money; you cannot date a lady above 30 yearsand you are now looking for a lady in her 20’s because you can no longer be attracted to a lady above 30 unless the lady is rich.

Of course, you will want to marry her because of her money not genuine love. Now a lady in her 20s is seeing you as a sugar daddy because you are in your late 30s and 40s and you don’t have that money to impress her, before you know it, you keep getting older and still remain single.

You don’t blame any man waiting to make money before getting married because that’s what the society expects

You have to blame them. For instant, I am still single but I have a son. My case is different because it did not work out between us and we decided to go our separate ways. We don’t have issues. Nobody is dragging the other person, we have agreement that it’s not working and we decided to go our separate ways and we are good with that.

How do you think celebrities should handle their private issues, must everything cone on the social media?

I blame celebrities who bring their private issues to the media because they want validation from their fans. For instance, you are posting your wife’s picture on the social media that she is the best woman which you know that’s not true because she is frustrating you.

However when there’s problem you want to protect everything you have been saying and you also want to prove that she is a good woman because your fans are following.

In my own case, I never made it public or said anything about her. I don’t owe anybody any explanation and people don’t even know that we are no longer together because we have not come online to drag each other.

The only thing they know is that I am always talking about my son. If celebrities can do like this, you will not have a situation where people who cannot talk to you will now come on the social media to insult you. This idea of announcing that you are no more with your wife, who cares, you owe nobody any explanation apart from your wife’s family