A South African / Swiss mixed-race comedian, Trevor Noah, killed it on the Tonight Show with Jay Leno in January.
“I’m a little disappointed. I thought I was coming to the richest land in the world where you guys were ‘making it rain’ as you say, but it turns out America has the credit rating of a black man,” he said.
Yes…he went there and Jay Leno, guest Glenn Close and the Tonight Show audience loved it.
Noah talked about how it was to grow up as a biracial child during the apartheid and how his lifelong dream was to be “American black” or African American.
“It’s funny because they (black Americans) are not from Africa, but we’ll play along,” he said.
Noah joked about the cool walk (or swag) of blacks, the creative names like Schanequa and DaQuandra, and how blacks have changed the English language.
Noah said black Americans can take a common expression such as ‘Do you know what I mean?’ and turn it into ‘Na’o meen?’ and everybody will still understand it clearly.
His standup was risky, risqué and may have walked a thin—yet funny – line, but the best comedians turn the “things that make you go hmmmmmm” into laughter. It paid off because not only was Noah the first African comedian to ever appear on the show, but Leno gave him a pat on the back and asked him to come again.
Check out a clip of the performance we found on 2oceansvibe.com
Photo for lead image via Yo’ Mzansi.com.
