Is Gina Yashere the woman king of comedy?
Detroit will find out Saturday
One of Gina Yashere’s funniest clips on YouTube concerns her decision to leave her job as an Otis elevator engineer and pursue comedy. When she broke the news to her Nigerian mother, she thought she might as well come out to her as a lesbian, too.
“That did not go well,” says Yashere. “She was like: ’What? Why are you telling me that my daughter is a gay clown?’”
Make that a creative and very successful clown with an international fan base. Born in London to Nigerian parents, Yashere is yet another English performer who has conquered America. Her achievements include becoming the first and only British comedian to perform on HBO’s “Def Comedy Jam,” being a British correspondent for “The Daily Show with Trevor Noah” and starring in several comedy specials on Netflix.
Last year, Yashere was promoted to executive producer and co-showrunner of “Bob Hearts Abishola,” the CBS sitcom that she co-created with mega-producer Chuck Lorre. It's about a businessman (Billy Gardell) with a compression sock factory who falls for and marries his Nigerian nurse (Olowofoyeku) after a heart attack.
Yashere also co-stars on the show (now approaching its fifth season) as Kemi, Abishola’s outspoken, indomitable friend and co-worker.
On Saturday, she is bringing her Woman King of Comedy tour to Detroit’s Majestic Theatre. She spoke to the Free Press this week about why she moved from England to the United States, what she won’t be talking about at her concert and why TV and movie CEOs need to open their overstuffed wallets and pay their fair share to the writers and actors currently on strike. If that last part sounds like the confident, no-nonsense Yashere speaking, well, that’s a compliment.
Her connection to Detroit
Although “Bob Hearts Abishola” is filmed in Los Angeles, the half-hour series is set in the Motor City. The Detroit-centric details rolled out in the first season included the name of Kemi and Abishola’s fictional workplace, Woodward Memorial Hospital (after the city's main avenue), the Jamerson Middle School attended by Abishola’s son (which sounds like a nod to the great Motown bass player James Jamerson) and the real DDOT line, 16 Dexter, that was seen on the bus that Abishola takes to work.
But while Yashere plays a Detroit dietitian on TV and has done stand-up in nearby suburbs in real life , Saturday will be her first time performing in “the city proper, as she puts it. She says she is looking forward to meeting Detroiters, eating some favorite local dishes and seeing the birthplace of “obviously, Motown, come on.”
Notes Yashere, who grew up listening to the iconic label's hits: “It’s like a pilgrimage for me.”
What drew her to the United States
Yashere, who now lives on the West Coast, says it was “your movies and TV shows” that made her dream about being here when she was a child.
“I was given an impression of a lifestyle that I did not have myself in England and I wanted a part of. I just thought everything American was cooler. Your toys were cooler as a kid. Your candy was cooler. And coming from England —I was watching shows that were primarily made in Los Angeles — your weather was better. Immediately, I was, like: 'I want to live there. I don’t want to be here.'"
Since moving to the U.S, about 16 years ago, she has seen the nation -- or at least a percentage of it -- going backwards on issues of race, immigration and the LGBTQ community. “The majority of the people are not in agreement with the way the Supreme Court and these right-wing Republicans are sending the country. The majority of people are not like
that, so that is what gives me hope,” she says.
What she likes most
about Americans
Yashere is a fan of the honesty and straightforwardness of people here, especially when it comes to their attitudes about success. ”I work hard for what I get, and when I get it, I celebrate it and go