Popular Nigerian skitmaker, comedian and actor, Layi Wasabi, has said he did not begin making comedy to be seen as an intellectual but simply created content that felt natural to him.

Wasabi, whose real name is Isaac Ayomide Olayiwola, said his journey into comedy began with stand-up performances after he realised through feedback from people during his school years that he was funny.

Speaking on the Joey Akan Experience podcast, the AMVCA-winning content creator said audiences later described his style as “intellectual comedy”, a label he did not initially set out to earn.

“To be honest, yeah, when I started comedy, I didn’t start out with, ‘Oh, I wanted to be perceived as an intellectual,’” he said. “I just started comedy in a way that felt natural to me. And it was amazing that people were able to see what I do and tag it as, ‘Oh, this is different. This is intellectual comedy.’”

The 25-year-old law graduate said he made comedy primarily for himself before it found an audience.

“I didn’t go with the intention. I think I started creating comedy for me. Then it found people. I didn’t create comedy for people,” he said.

However, Wasabi said being described as an intellectual comedian comes with pressure, describing the tag as “a cross as much as it’s a crown.”

“I find the tag of being an intellectual very burdensome. It’s a cross as much as it’s a crown,” he said.

“There’s a lot of things that you might fear to explore after being given the tag as an intellectual. Do you understand what I mean? So there’s a lot of things that you might find funny, but you know the kind of audience that you’ve curated.

“Now everybody’s falling in love. I say, ‘Oh, Joey Akan is a fan, so let me not drop this kind of comment.’ So you get that kind of burden. So, I mean, it’s a crown, like I said, but it’s still a cross.”

Wasabi, who hails from Osogbo, Osun State, said creating content that appears effortless requires considerable research, fact-checking and deliberate effort to remain informed.

“Now you have to do deeper work before you put out a body of work or before you put out any content. You have to research, fact-check, just kind of put more thoughts into it,” he said.

“But there’s a lot of effort in being effortless. There’s a lot of research. There’s also keeping your mind updated because you don’t want to have the same knowledge for a long time. It starts to become stagnant and stale.”

The satirical skitmaker also disagreed with Nigerian actor and filmmaker Daniel Etim’s assertion that skitmakers are not actors.

According to Wasabi, acting is fundamental to producing quality skits.

“To be able to be a great skitmaker, you have to be a good actor,” he said.

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