“Tell Your Neighbour Life is Very Tricky”

Performing The City in Swahili Comedy Shows in Nairobi

Abstract

There has been phenomenal growth in the entertainment and creative industries in Kenya, especially since the turn of this millennium. The emergence and rising popularity of comedy shows in the country attests to this trend. To illustrate this development in Kenya, this paper offers a close reading of performances by MCA Tricky, a comedian who appears on Churchill Show, which is broadcast on Nation Television (NTV) and whose recorded videos are available on the YouTube channel of the same name. Focusing on various aspects of humor and the trickster motif, the multilayered nuances and meanings of these performances are examined. Based on everyday life experiences, the Kenyan audience can easily identify with and relate to the jokes and comedy of MCA Tricky. MCA Tricky satirizes the actions and choices of various characters in the urban space of Nairobi, including the street boys, whom his persona exemplifies. Following Bakhtin’s notion of “carnivalesque,” the comic performances of MCA Tricky can be considered as subversions of dominant narratives and political power. These comedies generate humor particularly due to how Tricky fashions his persona along the lines of the trickster figure, found in many traditional African oral narratives, through the use of such techniques as parody, paronyms, puns, and ellipsis. By mocking their actions and ways of thinking, Tricky lets members of the audience laugh at their own miscalculations and bad decisions. At the same time, the audience can obtain insight into situations in their lives that are similar to the ones Tricky dramatizes. Just as his stage name suggests, the performances of MCA Tricky portray him as tricky and streetwise. Ironically, he often finds himself in tricky circumstances. For instance, in the episode where he addresses a letter to the president with the aim of applying for employment, the boundaries separating two social categories—the ordinary person and the political elite—are demolished. But this closeness to the presidency, albeit through epistolary form, does not alter his status as a street boy. All in all, most of MCA Tricky’s performances help to promote a democratic mindset among the citizenry, since the underprivileged can be seen here to subvert hegemonic discourses. To arrive at these conclusions, I outline nine steps in one of MCA Tricky’s performances, “MCA Tricky Writes A Letter to the President.” Clearly, what this episode exemplifies is that comedy serves the dual function of entertainment as well as sociopolitical critique.