transcript
show notes
Hari Kondabolu is a comedian, writer and podcaster whose work has landed him everywhere from Jimmy Kimmel Live! and Conan to Comedy Central, and his documentary The Problem with Apu. He also has a Master's in Human Rights from the London School of Economics, which may explain why a conversation with Hari can go from tennis and punk rock to race, power and colonialism without ever feeling like that much of a detour.
Hari and I had actually been talking before we started recording, and at one point we realized, "Wait, this is the conversation." So we hit record and just kept going. I really enjoyed getting into his journey from working in immigrant rights in Seattle and treating comedy as a hobby to accidentally having a career take off around the same time he got accepted to the LSE. We get into why he has such little patience for comedians who hide behind "it's just a joke," the difference between shocking an audience and actually saying something, and why he thinks comedy is art in the first place.
Watch Hari's recent comedy special "Vacation Baby"
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