Hari Kondabolu | |
---|---|
Birth name | Hari Karthikeya Kondabolu |
Born | New York City, U.S. | October 21, 1982
Medium | Stand-up, film, podcasts |
Education | |
Years active | 2006–present |
Genres | |
Subject(s) | |
Children | 1 |
Relative(s) | Ashok Kondabolu (brother) |
Website | harikondabolu |
Hari Karthikeya Kondabolu [1] (born October 21, 1982) [2] [3] is an American stand-up comedian and writer. His comedy covers subjects such as race, inequity, and Indian stereotypes. He was a writer for Totally Biased with W. Kamau Bell and the creator of the 2017 documentary film The Problem with Apu .
Kondabolu was born October 21, 1982, in the Flushing neighborhood of the New York City borough of Queens, to Uma and Ravi Kondabolu, [2] who had immigrated from the city of Tenali in the Coastal Andhra region of South India. [4] [5] His mother was previously a physician in India, and both parents became the heads of New York area medical labs. Ravi Kondabolu had immigrated to the United States in 1978. [6]
Kondabolu attended public schools in Queens: PS 69 in Jackson Heights, PS 115 in Floral Park, MS 172 in Floral Park, [7] [8] and Townsend Harris High School in Flushing, where he graduated in 2000. [9]
Kondabolu is the older brother of Ashok Kondabolu, who is a former member of the group Das Racist.
Kondabolu continued performing standup when he attended Bowdoin College; he called his years at Bowdoin "incredibly formative" [10] and continues to spend part of every year in Maine. [11] He studied at Wesleyan University during his third year, focusing on identity and race, globalization, and "the impact of popular culture on society." [12]
Although his stand-up comedy career was gaining traction in 2007, he was accepted to the Masters in Human Rights program at the London School of Economics in 2007, and thus took a hiatus year from stand-up to earn his MSc. [13] [14] [15]
While in Seattle, Kondabolu began participating in its alternative comedy scene. [4] [16] His act included "a bit where I used to read the U.S. citizenship application onstage." [17] In 2006, Kondabolu performed at the Bumbershoot Music and Arts Festival in Seattle, which he credits as his "big break," as a booker for HBO's Comedy Festival saw his name on the Bumbershoot website. [18] Later, Kondabolu also filmed "Hari Kondabolu: Warn Your Relatives" in Seattle. [19] [20] [21]
Kondabolu has since made numerous television appearances as a stand-up comic. His first notable television appearance was on Jimmy Kimmel Live! in 2007, when he also began to appear in a variety of national comedy festivals, including the 2007 HBO US Comedy Arts Festival. [22] In October 2012, he performed stand-up on an episode of Conan and, in March 2014, he performed stand-up on The Late Show with David Letterman . He has made several appearances on Comedy Central, including a 2008 episode of Live at Gotham , [23] three episodes of John Oliver's New York Stand-Up Show in 2010 and 2012, [24] [25] [26] and most prominently, his own episode of Comedy Central Presents which aired on February 11, 2011. [27] He has also appeared a number of times on British television, including on Russell Howard's Good News in 2011 and 8 out of 10 Cats in 2012. In 2012, he had a recurring sketch as part of BBC Three's Live at the Electric hosted by Russell Kane. [28] He has also performed at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival [29] and was a featured comedian for the US State Department-sponsored "Make Chai Not War" comedy showcase in India in 2012. [30] [31]
From 2012 to 2013, he was on the writing staff for the FX comedy series Totally Biased with W. Kamau Bell , produced by Chris Rock and hosted by W. Kamau Bell, on which he often appeared as a correspondent.
His first stand-up comedy album, Waiting for 2042 , was released in March 2014 on Kill Rock Stars. [32]
His second comedy album, Mainstream American Comic, was released on July 22, 2016, on Kill Rock Stars. [33] [34] It debuted at #1 on the iTunes US comedy charts [35] and at #2 on the Billboard comedy charts. [36]
Since 2017, Kondabolu has served as a panelist on the NPR comedy news quiz Wait Wait Don't Tell Me. [37]
In 2018, he spoke about his experience of teaching a workshop at the Columbia River Correctional Institute Comedy School in North Portland as a guest on Live Wire! Radio. [38]
Kondabolu's humor often centers on social issues such as poverty, racism, and a rejection of Indian stereotypes seen in media. He has spoken about the challenges of dealing with white fragility when addressing race in his comedy. [39] He has also addressed a variety of other social subjects, such as the LGBT community.
Kondabolu and his younger brother Ashok performed in a monthly, mostly improvised talk show together in New York City called Untitled Kondabolu Brothers Project. Past guests have included Ajay Naidu, Aasif Mandvi, Bell, Leo Allen, Victor Vazquez (Kool AD of Das Racist), Charles Mudede and Blue Scholars. In January 2013, they started Untitled Kondabolu Brothers Podcast. [40] After a hiatus from 2015 onwards, the podcast debuted again as the Kondabolu Brothers Podcast in 2018 on the Earwolf label. [41] [42]
He is a co-host of the podcast Politically Re-Active with Bell, which debuted in June 2016. [43] He also debuted as a rotating host on The Bugle alongside Andy Zaltzman in the fall of 2016 after the departure of John Oliver. [44] [45]
Kondabolu wrote and starred in Zia Mohajerjasbi's 2007 short film Manoj, [46] which has played in comedy and film festivals around the world, including the Just for Laughs Festivals in Montreal and Chicago, and which mocks comedians who broadly exploit their ethnic backgrounds for their material. [47] In Manoj, Kondabolu portrays both Manoj, a fictional Indian immigrant comic who plays to white audiences by repeating their stereotypes of South Asians, and an Indian-American who is critical of Manoj's approach.
Kondabolu portrayed "Crossword Businessman" in the 2009 film All About Steve , [48] a movie he mocks in Mainstream American Comic. [49] He also played a supporting role in the 2016 film Five Nights in Maine , [50] although none of his scenes were included in the final 75-minute cut of the film. [51] [52] Also in 2016, he appeared as a fictionalized version of himself in the Comedy Central web series White Flight. [53]
Kondabolu is the lead, creator, and executive director of The Problem with Apu , a documentary about the character Apu from The Simpsons that premiered in November 2017 on TruTV. [54] [55] The film contextualizes Apu within minstrelsy and other tropes in American pop culture history that have historically stereotyped minorities. [56] [57] Along with Megan Stalter, Kondabolu is a co-host of Season 1 of Netflix's Snack vs. Chef , a reality cooking competition series.
Kondabolu lives in Brooklyn with his wife and son, born in 2020. [58]
Apu Nahasapeemapetilon is a recurring character in the American animated television series The Simpsons. He is an Indian immigrant proprietor who runs the Kwik-E-Mart, a popular convenience store in Springfield, and is known for his catchphrase, "Thank you, come again". He was voiced by Hank Azaria and first appeared in the episode "The Telltale Head". He was named in honor of the title character of The Apu Trilogy by Satyajit Ray.
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Christopher Paul Gethard (; born May 23, 1980) is an American actor, comedian and writer. He was the host of The Chris Gethard Show, a talk show based in New York City, which aired from 2011 to 2018. He hosts the podcasts Beautiful Stories From Anonymous People and New Jersey is the World.
The Bugle is a satirical news podcast, created by John Oliver and Andy Zaltzman in 2007. It is currently hosted by Zaltzman and a rotating cast of co-hosts including Alice Fraser, Nish Kumar, Anuvab Pal, Hari Kondabolu, Tom Ballard, Tiff Stevenson and Helen Zaltzman. It focuses on global news stories, especially about politics in the United Kingdom, United States, and India.
Wyatt John Foster Cenac Jr. is an American comedian, actor, producer, and writer. He was a correspondent and writer for The Daily Show from 2008 to 2012. He starred in the TBS series People of Earth and in Barry Jenkins's first feature Medicine for Melancholy. He also hosted and produced the HBO series Wyatt Cenac's Problem Areas.
Mathilde O'Callaghan "Tig" Notaro is an American stand-up comedian, writer, radio contributor, and actress known for her deadpan comedy. Her acclaimed album Live was nominated in 2014 for the Grammy Award for Best Comedy Album at the 56th Annual Grammy Awards. The special Tig Notaro: Boyish Girl Interrupted was nominated in 2016 at the 68th Primetime Emmy Awards for Outstanding Writing for a Variety Special. In 2017, the album Boyish Girl Interrupted was nominated for the Grammy Award for Best Comedy Album at the 59th Annual Grammy Awards.
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Earwolf is an American comedy podcasting network founded by Scott Aukerman and Jeff Ullrich in August 2010. In 2011, they announced a partnership with Funny Or Die. It merged with podcast advertising network The Mid Roll in 2014, a separate company founded by Ullrich, to form Midroll Media. Midroll was acquired by the E. W. Scripps Company in 2015. In July 2020, Sirius XM acquired Midroll Media, which includes Stitcher Radio and Earwolf, for $325 million.
Walter Kamau Bell is an American stand-up comic and television host. He has hosted the CNN series United Shades of America since 2016, and hosted FXX television series Totally Biased with W. Kamau Bell from 2012 to 2013. He is the host of the live radio show and podcast Kamau Right Now on KALW, and also co-hosts the podcasts Denzel Washington Is The Greatest Actor Of All Time Period with Kevin Avery (comedian) and Politically Re-Active with Hari Kondabolu. In 2022, Bell directed and produced the documentary miniseries We Need to Talk About Cosby.
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Waiting for 2042 is the 2014 debut comedy album by stand-up comedian Hari Kondabolu. The album deals largely with the theme of civil rights and discrimination, mainly racism and race relations in the United States. It also touches on LGBTQ+ rights, feminism, and environmentalism.
Ahamefule J. Oluo is an American musician, trumpeter, composer, stand-up comedian, and writer. He was the first artist-in-residence at Town Hall Seattle.
Denzel Washington Is The Greatest Actor Of All Time Period, sometimes abbreviated to DWITGAOATP, is a weekly podcast co-hosted by W. Kamau Bell and Kevin Avery. Designed to highlight and canonize the career and cultural significance of actor Denzel Washington, the show reviews each of his films, discusses "Denzel news," and interviews filmmakers associated with and inspired by his work. As the show has evolved, it has also expanded to include discussions on the state of black film and diversity in media. The show is produced by Earwolf.
Politically Re-Active is a political comedy podcast hosted by comedians W. Kamau Bell and Hari Kondabolu. The left-leaning show, organized around guest interviews, launched in June 2016 and initially focused on the 2016 United States presidential election, but continued through October 2017. After a hiatus, it resumed in October 2020.
The Problem with Apu is a 2017 American documentary film written by and starring comedian Hari Kondabolu and produced and directed by Michael Melamedoff. It focuses on the character Apu Nahasapeemapetilon, an Indian immigrant in the animated sitcom The Simpsons who, for a period, was the only figure of Indian heritage to appear regularly on mainstream U.S. television. The film explores encounters with negative stereotypes, minstrelsy, racial microaggressions, and slurs against people of Indian and South Asian heritage.
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Then came word in 1992 that the Indian government planned to use the Wyra acreage for other purposes. "My brother and I rushed back to India and offered our own money to start the college," he said. In 1994, Kondabolu Venkaiaah Choudary Memorial began in rented quarters with only 28 students. ... Ravi, who lives in Jamaica Estates, said he works long hours as chief technologist in the cardiology department of New York Flushing Hospital in an effort to send at least $15,000 annually back to India to support the college.
MSc in Human Rights: ... Merit ... Hari Karthikeya Kondabolu
Fresh new episodes from this season will include stand-up performances from Jack Whitehall, Al Jackson, Chelsea Peretti, Chris D'Elia, Hari Kondabolu, Jay Larson, Jessi Klein, Kyle Kinane, Louis Katz, Matt Fulchiron, Mike Vecchione, Natasha Leggero, Nate Bargatze and Sheng Wang.