Original-Cin Chat: Kenny Robinson on 30 Years of Nubian Comedy and a Crave Debut

By Jim Slotek

Three decades ago, comedian Kenny Robinson’s fledgling Nubian Comedy Revue began attracting an enthusiastic Yuk Yuk’s audience that was unused to seeing an entire show of comedians of colour.

So it was back then that I found myself at a table with Yuk Yuk’s founder Mark Breslin, the only white guys in a packed house.

Robinson’s list of former hometowns includes one we shared on the outskirts of Winnipeg - Transcona (a town since swallowed up by the ‘Peg). I suggest to him that being the only non-white in the room might have been a more common experience.

Russell Peters and Kenny Robinson, post-show in the alley

“Every day from the first day of school!” he says with a laugh. “From your first hockey practice to the dinner before you married your wife. It’s a lifetime spent.”

What started out as a programming roll of the dice has become a comedy institution every last Sunday of the month. And what was once called The Nubian Disciples of Pryor is the subject of People of Comedy: Celebrating 30 Years of the Nubian Show, a special concert and retrospective available for streaming on Crave starting Wednesday, April 9.

The concert, recorded in June of last year, is more representative of the demographics now, Robinson says. “It’s probably, like, 60-40. The audience knows what it’s getting, but 10 years ago, it may have been a surprise when they got there.”

Its reputation now precedes it. “Name” comics in town to film movies – including Dave Chappelle twice – would drop in to do a set.

“They were making a lot of films here. And they’d be like, ‘What is there to do in the Great White North on a Sunday they had off?’” Robinson recalls. “Tommy Davidson was our first celebrity drop-in. we had Mike Epps during that period of time, (Director) Robert Townsend used to hang out in the back of the room. He hired Subliminal, who was our DJ, for the Sonny Liston story (Phantom Punch). A couple of the comics got put in movies from there.”

There were also years when a handful of Nubian regulars were showcased at Montreal’s erstwhile Just For Laughs Festival as part of their New Faces program.

There was, in fact, no shortage of comics of colour in Toronto in the ‘90s, the likes of Gavin Stephens, Ronnie Edwards, Jean Paul and a kid named Russell Peters. But finding their audience was key to finding their voice.

Like Peters, the Nubians ended up doing turn-away business by tapping into an audience of first-to-third generation young Canadians with disposable incomes and a keen interest in comedy that spoke to their experience.

Now on the Forbes list of highest-earning comedians, Peters’ accidental rise to fame started on the Nubians’ Yuk Yuk’s stage, Robinson recalls. “(The late producer/writer) Joe Bodolai saw him at a Nubians show, which led to his Comics special, which led to his Comedy Now, which led to being leaked on the Internet. Which led to him blowing up.” (Bodolai would also go on to produce the sketch series After Hours, starring Robinson and Trey Anthony).

True enough, Peters initial annoyance at seeing his specials carved up and jokes shared licence-free worldwide, ethnicity-to-ethnicity, had the unforeseeable effect of making him one of the world’s best known comedians.

“It was a real pleasure for him to come back and do the show,” Robinson says of Peters’ closing set. “He’s got a thousand different reasons why he can’t, and we certainly couldn’t pay him what he was worth.”

But the relationship between the two remains intact. “When my brother was in Chicago in the VA hospital with his issues he had, he had an Indian doctor who said he saw Russell in Houston. So, Russell gave me an autographed CD that I gave to this doctor. I’ve got this guy trying to save my brother’s life, and he’s dropping Russell’s name.”

And on that night last June, after the last paying customer went home, the Nubians took their celebration to the alley.

“We did all these B-rolls with Russell and me in the alley afterwards. It was funny, we didn’t even have a cast party, but nobody wanted to go home. So, we all hung out in the alley until 3 in the morning.

“Every show, I get four orders of wings comped, because I cut that deal back in 1995. And my son held the wings, and everybody just kind of joined in communal wings in the alley.

“Not since MuchMusic used to have those street parties has there been that kind of action in that back-lane.

“Ain’t that just the way we do it!”

People of Comedy: Celebrating 30 Years of the Nubian Show. Starring Kenny Robinson, Russell Peters, Hassan Phills, Zabrina Douglas, Marc Trinidad. Directed by Darell Faria, executive produced by Anton Leo, produced by Zoe Rabnett. Begins streaming on Crave, Wednesday, April 9.