MC Abbey blasts comedians who ‘steal’ people’s jokes

Nigerian stand-up comedian and well-known master of ceremonies, MC Abbey aka the Prof, has blasted most of his colleagues, specifically the up-coming ones who, according to him, ‘pack people’s already-made jokes.

The pastor cum comedian, in a chat with National Mirror, addressed them as non-comedians, adding that there is more to being a comedian than just waiting to steal people’s jokes.

According to him, “Most of them come into the industry not because they are gifted but because they have interest in the money and there is a wide gulf between being gifted and having just interest.

“I have interest in football but that’s not my gift so I won’t pursue my interest, I rather pursue my gift,” he said.

“There were days when we made peanuts but we’ve worked and crafted to the point where we command what we earn and people think that’s all about it and they just want to run into it and feel that they can start making money, but it’s wrong.

“A lot of people are in this category and that’s why they can’t last because all they do is to pack peoples jokes. We call them ‘live band’, they listen to every body’s jokes and gather them together and that’s what they use.

“They are not comedians because they are not original, if you don’t know how to think out humor out of ashes, if you don’t know how to think humor out of a situation then you are not a comedian.

“We all started with some of our colleagues’ jokes. Like, let’s fine tune this, let’s use this, but we didn’t end there or stop there and we didn’t stay there for too long. We learnt the act of developing ourselves through hard work, reading, thinking and taking yourself out of the box and all that which has expanded our minds, and we crack jokes and we build materials to form every day experience.

“But some of these guys just come and when they are done cracking every body’s jokes, they cannot be spontaneous. Thank God Alibaba (my mentor) is doing Alibaba spontaneity, you could see a lot of them messing up, and they cannot be spontaneous when you give them topic to crack a joke on.

“I know a lot of people can be slow in building up but if you can’t do one or two things you need to ask yourself “is this my calling, is this what I’m born to do?” If not, you go and do other stuff.

“I didn’t start comedy because I was hungry; I started it because I discovered this is my passion although I have a lot of them,” the clown added.