Incongruous liaisons:
Incongruous liaisons:

Routes of humour, insult and political (in)correctness in Nigerian stand-up jokes

Summary/Abstract: Nigerian humourists have always told risible jokes within myriad pre-colonial satirical acts.Following on their heels in recent times, stand-up comedy has emerged as one of the mostprevalent art forms in the country, providing entertainment through laughter-eliciting jokes.Accompanying this development also, is an increasing attitude of offence-taking which hasseen post-mortem criticisms and castigation of comedians. Not much scholarly attention hasbeen paid to this menacing backlash against ostensible “inappropriate jokes” and the fact thatstand-up humour is primarily derived from causing offence. What happens is that jokeperformances take place within liminal moments, which allows for audience’s suspension ofoffence and the performer’s unwritten consent to stay within socially accepted bounds of goodhumour. Through performance analysis, this paper sets out to study how four randomlyselected Nigerian comics—I Go Dye, Basket Mouth, Klint da Drunk and AY—deploy selfcensorshipin averting offence within their joke routines. The essay finds that despite thespecificities of stand-up arts, which place peculiar demands on artists’ joking capabilitiesespecially in its dependence on courting audiences’ participation and familiarity, thesecomedians have devised specific means through which they circumvent the stringency ofeliciting mirth through insult. Hence, their jokes and those of others who have learned theirtrade well, often elicits hilarity rather than offence.

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