Last week I touched on the fact that DKB would have to excel at the Nite of a 1018 Laughs and Music show to make a name for himself and the Ghanaian comedy industry. Since Sunday, his name has gone viral in a positive manner for the good show he put up.
However, in the midst of the euphoria and raining of adulations, and rightly so, on the young man, we failed to look at some of his flaws on stage. I had mentioned in my review of the show that he carried his luck too far on the area of vulgarity, and he probably need to look at that in subsequent shows.
There were two other areas where I thought he should have stayed away from. The first area where I thought DKB rode his luck a tad far is where he decided to use rape in a not too tasteful manner as a material to joke about.
In my humble view, rape is a serious issue and must be treated as such and any attempt by a comedian to joke about the subject must come with all the circumspection it deserves so he would not send the wrong signal to both perpetrators and victims as though he is endorsing such a criminal behaviour. I am very certain he didn’t mean it yet threw in a caution.
Secondly, I think DKB’s joke that drew the most laughs was about a victim of down syndrome, and his way of doing things, who was his mate in senior high school. Whether he made that joke up or it was real, is not as important as the message it would send.
I went to read about the subject and got this definition: “down syndrome is a chromosomal condition that is associated with intellectual disability, a characteristic facial appearance, and weak muscle tone (hypotonia) in infancy.
All affected individuals experience cognitive delays, but the intellectual disability is usually mild to moderate.”
In our attempt to crack jokes, we should not let victims of such sicknesses or their families feel that we are unconcerned about their plight and not just that, but would also go as far as joking about it.
I think DKB could have found a different material in place of this and would still make the audience cackle on the night.
Don’t get me wrong, DKB was amazing on the night. He surprised everybody who was in the auditorium of the Accra International Conference Centre, including himself maybe, with a 5 star performance.
I will pay to watch him again and again based on the performance last Saturday night.
I am just cautioning that particular topics are totally no-go area for comedy. He was the best on the night as on my scorecard he had 8.2/10 with both Bovi and Dan D’Humorous (the one with a pot belly) getting 8/10 each, Funny Bone 7.5/10 and Okey Bakasi 7/10.
A friend asked me on Facebook why I rated him 8.2 and not 10 as he deserved that.
I think it must have something to do with some of these jokes.
