Words like ‘cocky’, ‘arrogant” and ‘aloof’ come up a lot these days where Trevor Noah is concerned. But that said, any individual with a sense of impartiality would also agree that adjectives like ‘successful’, ‘funny’ and ‘charming’ do define him.
Born on February 20, 1984 in the most famous township in Africa—Soweto, he was the first-born son of a black African Xhosa woman and a father of Swiss origin. He will not be drawn too much into speaking about his father, but describes himself as having been a sheltered child who spent a lot of time indoors—his mother, who was to later remarry and have two more sons, gave him the freedom to decide what to do with his own life.
Comedian Trevor Noah, Johannesburg; 14 October 2011 – Photo by Brett Eloff
“I never went to college, and I was never nagged about it like one would expect a Xhosa mother to,” he quips. “I believe university and all tertiary institutions are there to help people decide what career to go into, and I happened to be fortunate enough to have gone straight into work after I discovered that I really liked stand-up comedy and saw that as something I would definitely want to spend my life doing. It is such a cool form of expression,” he continues.
Earlier in 2011, Noah packed up and relocated to Los Angeles in a bid to conquer the world’s biggest comedy scene. So naturally, I asked him if, with this move to tinsel town in the United States, he was trying to be South Africa’s next Charlize Theron.
“Not at all,” he answers. “When I went over there, it was like working for the same company but moving to a different branch in a different city, just like taking a work transfer. I knew even before I booked my plane ticket that I already had gigs booked; I had an apartment waiting for me… so I was certainly not going there to try my luck. And I really wouldn’t recommend that anyone go to a new country to just see what happens,” he asserts.
By now my pop-culture comparison with Charlize Theron is starting to feel rather loose—anybody who has been in and around the entertainment industry of South Africa, and followed this young man’s career, knows that Noah has been steadily and successfully building his “brand”, and by the looks of things, making good money.
Noah isn’t keen on calling himself a “comedy businessman” or any kind of businessman, for that matter. In as much as he agrees that the business of comedy has boomed on the continent, especially during the last decade, he still insists that he wouldn’t go as far as honoring himself with that businessman tag.
“Entertainment and comedy have been around for as long as language has existed. People have been telling stories and making others laugh for centuries, long before someone decided to add the financial aspect to it. Business requires an awful lot of work, whereas entertaining people is probably the most organic, most natural thing out there,” explains the former actor and radio DJ.
Noah’s reluctance to align his craft too much with business is rather refreshing, seeing as there are few comics in South Africa who have enjoyed the success that he has. Noah has hosted numerous television shows; hosted and produced his own self-titled late-night show; acted as MC at the biggest award-events; and filled 3,000-seater venues for his one-man comedy tours. So does he feel he’s reached the ceiling here at home?
“I definitely don’t feel like I’ve done everything that can be done in comedy here at home; that’s why I still come back from time to time, because I still have projects here. I feel the comedy industry on this continent is actually only in its fetal stage. We as comedians still need to find our own identity. We need to move past the stage where American comics still have a huge influence on our material and stage acts,” he says.
So now that we are on the topic of material and where material is derived from, we cannot ignore the rumors emanating from other South African top comics like David Kau, accusing him of using some of their jokes without their authorisation.
“I choose not to respond to people who accuse me of such. I think my work IS my response. It speaks for itself. I wouldn’t have reached the heights that I have reached if all I did was chop other comics’ material,” he says.
So as I continue to probe these accusations and the rumours that he was actually pushed out of the country, Noah tells me his theory regarding this problem: “I find that with us Africans, we like to bring each other down and not celebrate each other’s success. We insist on finding fault within someone’s success when it suits us. I remember at some point in (American hip-hop phenomenon) Jay-Z’s career, all these other rappers came out of the woodwork and accused him of stealing their rhymes. Look where he is now! I am at that point where I don’t even let it get to me,” he declares.
It’s pretty understandable that Noah would think there are envious forces out there. His career is illustrious. His DVDs sell in numbers unheard of in these parts. A representative at NuMetro Distribution, Billy Dundee, revealed that Noah’s first DVD, titled Day Walker, sold in excess of 50,000 copies, giving Noah multi-platinum selling status. “His second DVD, called Crazy Normal, was released at the end of July and has already reached 20,000 units sold,” says Dundee.
Then there’s every performing artist’s dream: endorsing a major company, which Noah has also bagged. Cell C brought Noah on board as a CEO, although in his case the acronym stands for “chief experience officer”. An entire marketing campaign was designed around him to publicize that Cell C were upgrading their systems and call centres and creating a 4G network.
He is—as expected—very evasive about the amount he gets out of this deal, but a source at Cell C, who insisted on not being named, reveals that Noah could be getting around
R10 million ($1.2 million) a year for an endorsement like this.
So with this major endorsement deal, huge performance venues where each person attending forks out anything between R120 ($15) to R200 ($25) for a single ticket, TV shows and MC work, why is it that Noah doesn’t even want to consider listing his company, Ark Angel Entertainment?
“I am where I am today because I focused on my craft. I don’t see the people who come to my shows as numbers. I have chosen instead to surround myself with business-minded people who will worry about the numbers while I continue to worry about perfecting my craft,” says the man who insists that his only real wealth lies in ideas and jokes that are guaranteed to make you laugh.
“I’m not big on property or cars. What’s the point of owning a fleet of cars when you can only drive one at a time? I’m actually very ‘liquid’ when it comes to my investments, mainly because I am a nomad who believes that things like property tie one to a particular place.”
Well, with over 180,000 fans on social network Twitter, it seems Trevor Noah’s enthusiasts will be following him wherever his work takes him. It was Soweto yesterday and LA today, but it’s definitely going be somewhere else tomorrow.