W. Kamau Bell performs tomorrow at the Sixth and I Historic Synagogue.
The world of late night talk shows has always been melanin-deficient in terms of hosts, and this was even more the case back in 2012, before Trevor Noah and Larry Wilmore began their respective runs on Comedy Central. It felt like a breath of fresh air that year when Chris Rock tapped comedian W. Kamau Bell to host a show on FX (and later FXX).
Though Totally Biased with W. Kamau Bell only lasted two seasons, the program was groundbreaking. The comedy addressed highly charged topics like race and gender relations and boasted one of the most diverse writing staffs in television.
“A talk show is a huge undertaking,” Bell says of that experience. “The talk show space is pretty crowded, but there’s more room for unique voices.”
Though the show failed to catch on, Bell has kept plenty busy since. A prolific podcaster, he currently hosts three programs, Kamau Right Now, Denzel Washington Is The Greatest Actor Of All Time Period with comedian and writer Kevin Avery, and Politically Re-Active with comedian Hari Kondabolu (from 2010 to 2014 he also hosted The Field Negro Guide to Arts & Culture with Living Colour guitarist Vernon Reid).
Bell has also started production on the second season of his CNN documentary series, United Shades of America, in which the host explores the nooks and crannies of this country and the people that inhabit them.
All of this is on top of his live performances. He maintains a steady calendar of stand-up performances and also tours college campuses with his show, The W. Kamau Bell Curve: Ending Racism In About An Hour.
“I’m a big believer in making your own gravy,” Bell says of his busy schedule. “I’m trying to create art and projects that I don’t see out there in the world.”
All of Bell’s work, whether it’s meant to be specifically political or deals with pop culture, in some way deals with race, identity, and what it means to be American. For him, the first goal to entertain, but then to also engage in a conversation and use his creative outlets to move that conversation forward.
Bell is on tour to support his new comedy album, Semi-Prominent Negro, and he performs on Thursday at the Sixth & I Historic Synagogue.
While the album draws upon many of the same themes, the current act takes more of a personal turn because of the fact that he is now married and the father of two young girls. The fact that he is in an inter-racial marriage and his daughters are mixed race has also had an effect on his outlook, with his relationship and the world’s view of his children providing fodder for new material.
“There are always two strains for me: the personal and the political,” Bell says. “For the personal, there are two main questions: ‘How can I get my kids to do better?,’ and then there’s the question of ‘How is the world going to treat them?'”
Bell feels that Semi-Prominent Negro represents his best work as a comic, but that doesn’t mean that he’s taking anything off his plate to focus on stand-up. In fact, he’s taking on even more projects. He hopes to produce feature length documentaries, his favorite film genre, and is also working on a book that synthesizes the random thoughts and conversations that have informed his life path.
“In [United Shades of America] we’re talking about places,” he says. “If I could do more, I would do more about cultures and specific people.”
W. Kamau Bell performs on Thursday, October 13, at the Sixth & I Historic Synagogue. 7 p.m. doors, 8 p.m. show. Tickets $25.
