Daniel Omara blames musicians for failing comedy

According to Daniel Omara, the introduction of musicians at comedy shows has been one of local comedy’s greatest sins having let the entire industry down. He  pointed out fellow comedian Alex Muhangi’s Comedy Store as the biggest culprit. Omara said people looking for music show up disguised as comedy fans.

“Using music has been disastrous to the comedy industry, and I have cited this many times. Comedy Store uses musicians to promote comedy events. Here is the cycle, you are going to use music to promote an event, which means you are pushing for a music audience, not a comedy audience,” Omara argued.

"Music can be a passive activity. We are in the club vibing, how many times have you seen people in the club reciting song lyrics? People go in there and be on their phones until they hear something vulgar that picks their attention,” he noted.

Because of that, Omara said now people ask about the artiste performing before deciding on whether to attend a comedy show or not, relegating them from main acts to curtain raisers.

“Right now you ask someone are you coming to a comedy event and they ask you which musician is performing. That is a problem we created ourselves as an industry. By bringing music, we have now become curtain raisers at our own events,” he said.

Singers Jose Chameleone and Bebe Cool, he claimed, were the first sign that mixing music and comedy was set to become the disaster it is today.

“We have ruined comedy. Fourteen years ago, comedy night was about comedy. I saw this problem as far back as 2011. We used music then as Mic Check at Theatre Labonita, and the one day we had Chameleone and Bebe Cool, and they both failed to agree on who was the bigger artiste. They both couldn’t not perform first. Which meant our show could not begin. I saw a problem from that day,” Omara said.

The comedian made the remarks while appearing on a local radio show July 14, 2023 to discuss whether the local comedy industry is stunted.