Salvado shares Omara’s sentiment on music killing comedy

n July this year, comedian Daniel Omara blamed the regression on consumption of local comedy on musicians. He argued that music fans turn up for comedy shows disguised as comedy fans. He singled out fellow comedian, Alex Muhangi’s Comedy Store as the biggest culprit; known for inviting artistes to perform at his comedy nights.

Now comedian Patrick Salvado Idringi has re-echoed Omara’s sentiments, saying when they organize comedy shows, they are forced to deal with the question of the musicians who are coming to share the stage. Music, he said, was introduced just to enable them tap into that audience but time has illustrated it was a blunder.  

“We are going back to how it was supposed to be. Let comedy be comedy and music be music. Unless maybe if a singer is going to launch an album and wants a comedian as emcee. If they said it is a comedy show, and one asks about the musician coming, it affects us as comedians. It means the person has not come to watch comedy. It drags us back as comedians. We also want our industry to grow because comedy is a big industry worldwide,” he told reporters ahead of the Daliso Chanponda show.

“The idea was to tap into the music audience but it got to a point where we cannot have a comedy show without singers. They used to be guests, not headline acts,” he added.