Viva Naija Meets with MC Abbey

Popular Nigerian comedian MC Abbey is in town and is in pretty excellent spirits  after the success of his show – I Laff in da Spirit – the first of its kind which went so well that he promises that this will now become an annual occurrence.

I laughed so much that I wangled a meeting with him and Emma Oh Ma God, my newest comedy bae. It was so good to meet them in a relaxed state as they chilled in their luxury short-let flat (dem say dem wan cook soup, they didn’t want to exist on burgers the whole time; can’t say I blame them!).

We had met briefly on the night of the show, and he was certainly at ease with me, but deep calleth to deep and we were instantly siblings when I heard he was from Ekpan. I myself have Delta blood and usually warm quickly to ‘Bendeh’ people, so body start to catch me anyhow!

My first question was the combination of arts he fused together for the ‘I Laff in da Spirit’ show – comedy and gospel music. So I asked him: I like bananas. I think salt is pretty useful too. It would never occur to me to mix them both. But he’s mixed two genres that have never been combined before and came up with a roaring success. What made him think that this combination would work?

He said he’d always thought that there was a way to make family-friendly comedy that could be enjoyed without seemingly compromising on faith, and felt that putting together two of the things that Nigerians loved the most could only lead to a sweet experience.

He has long followed this path as evidenced by his stint with The Experience, and his recent show – I Laff with MC Abbey – which featured some of the biggest comedy power houses in Nigeria – Bovi, Okey Bakassi, Yaw, and my #ElloBae Falz the Bahd Guy, so bringing it to the UK wasn’t much of a stretch.

But still – to organise a show in three weeks the way the UK show was?! The creative mastermind says it was God all the way – from securing the venue, to visa wahala, and getting a collection of funny people and entertaining musicians alike to come along. God and his UK agent/manager – Sheun David-Onamusi.

I for one am glad that God is still in the miracle-business, because lemme tell you, I was tickled, and the countdown to the next 365 days has begun already.