Veteran satirist and TV host, Kwaku Sintim-Misa (KSM) is pleading with Ghanaians not to judge comedian DKB harshly.
Born Derrick Kobena Bonney, DKB became the talk of town after former First Lady, Nana Konadu Agyemang Rawlings walked out during his performance at the Easter Comedy show which took place at the Accra International Conference Center.
Mrs Rawlings is said to have left the auditorium because she was not amused that DKB told his jokes with vulgarity.
After her assertion went viral, DKB argued that he did vulgar jokes because he thought he was communicating to an older audience.
However, the man who crowned DKB ‘King of Comedy’ a few years ago, KSM came to his defence in a conversation on Hitz FM’s Showbiz this Week with MzGee appealing to Ghanaians to be lenient on him.
“I think the issue here is where the criticism came from and because it came from somebody powerful and very influential in society, it magnified the news. The question is, is DKB funny or not? And the answer is, it’s very subjective,” KSM said in his response to Mrs Rawlings’ comment.
Arguing that the language permitted in comedy depends on the audience, KSM drew a contrast between American comedians, Eddy Murphy and Bill Cosby’s style of comedy.
“You have to know your audience. There are people in the audience that do not like vulgar language and when you use vulgar language, they will walk out. Bill Cosby was one of my icons because his language was also clean yet he was so funny as opposed to Eddy Murphy who is also extremely funny but his language is adult,” KSM told MzGee.
“The point is, the audience that you are playing to, do they accept that kind of comedy and if the First Lady does not want to hear vulgar words in comedy she has every right not to like it,” he added.
Contrary to what many believe, KSM thinks DKB’s sense of humour is unparalleled and maintained his stance that the comedian is still ‘King of GH’ comedy.
“He has an amazing sense of humour. DKB is a very funny person. He is very hilarious. When he did his show called Point of View, he practically filled up the National Theatre. His last show I saw at Silverbird, he got a standing ovation. So, he has one bad night and all of a sudden, it’s like he is the worst that ever happened to Ghana comedy, I don’t think it is a fair assessment.”
KSM also claimed that DKB broke the jinx of Nigerian comedians ruling over our space and gave value to comedy in Ghana.
“He broke that chain when he went toe to toe with the Nigerian and flawed them. He went toe to toe with Basket Mouth and flawed him without a doubt. I am begging that let’s not use that one night to judge his string of performances,” he said.
“I will say frankly that his way of communicating is what people do not enjoy. Sometimes he can come up as abrasive and Ghanaians react negatively to that. So these are some of the things that have added to his negatives…They are worried he allows his personality to get in the way,” he concluded.
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