Kimmie Lovegrove First Nations Comedian - Navigating The Comedy World

In this week's funny episode, Caroline is joined by the incredibly talented Kimmie Lovegrove, a proud Ngarrindjeri and Romanian woman who has been gracing the comedy scene since 2014. With accolades such as Deadly Funny finalist in both 2017 and 2018, and appearing as a special guest on the prestigious Melbourne International Comedy Festival roadshow in 2021. Kimmie has taken her passion further by curating comedy shows and creating comedy workshops through her company Kungari Productions, to help support and make way for other Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander comedians in Victoria.

Caroline and Kimmie engage in a lively discussion about navigating the comedy industry as a Blackfulla, delving into the art of crafting jokes and the delicate balance between humour and offence. Kimmie graciously opens up about her personal journey into the world of comedy. From a spontaneous school talent show comedy skit that secured her first-place victory, to the revelation of stand-up comedy as her calling, Kimmie shares the unique twists and turns that have shaped her path. We also get to hear Kimmie's invaluable insights as she offers advice for aspiring comedians reflecting the lessons she has learned along her remarkable journey. 

To keep up to date with Kimmie’s magic, you can follow Kungari Productions HERE.

If you enjoyed this episode, please leave a rating and review so we can elevate First Nations people and stories and don’t forget to follow the show! Follow Caroline on Instagram @blak_wattle_coaching and learn more about working with Caroline HERE

We would like to acknowledge Aboriginal people as Australia’s First Peoples’ who have never ceded their sovereignty. We acknowledge the Wurundjeri/Woiwurrung people of the Kulin Nation where the podcast was recorded. We pay our deepest respects to Traditional Owners across Australia and Elders past and present. And our future young generations.

This episode is for entertainment purposes only and doesn't replace medical advice. 

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Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:00

This podcast is brought to you by On-Track Studio. Welcome to Yarning Up, the podcast that showcases First Nations stories and conversations to help us learn and unlearn Australia's history to work towards a better future. I'm your host, Proud Barbara Woman and founder of Blackwell Coaching and Consulting, Caroline Cow. We acknowledge the Rurundari people and elders where this podcast is taped, but we also acknowledge the lands that you are listening in from today. It always was and always will be unseated Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander land. Well, I am so excited for today's show. I'm so excited for a number of reasons. I think, firstly, there's no denying it's a heavy, heavy time. And, you know, people and communities are carrying a lot. And I think in between all of what's happening in our lives, we need moments of joy. We need moments of silliness and lightness and easy, breezy kind of spaces. So I'm really excited to bring this individual to your ears today because I know that they always bring the joy. And also, maybe selfishly, I'm excited because I know that every time I'm in this person's company, I'm always laughing. I'm always in stitches, and I always walk away feeling good. And so I'm so excited to have my next guest on the show, Kimmy, Kimberly Lovegrove. A comedian, a community woman, um, somebody who is really just doing their bit to make our lives a bit more fun and a bit more joyful. So welcome to the show today, Kim. It's so lovely to see you.

SPEAKER_01 2:05

Thank you. Oh, I've been waiting to like for you to like invite me to be on here. So I'm like, okay, I'll just keep doing what I'm doing. I'll wait for that invite.

SPEAKER_00 2:16

And um today's my day.

unknown 2:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 2:20

Oh, Kim. I, you know, you and I have been friends for such a long time. And I think um it's one of those things sometimes that I guess I'm a bit slack at making sure, but I've got a long list of people. And you know, whoever really wants to get on and have a yarn, I'm always open for it. But I'm so excited that we're here today to have a yarn because I I just have so much admiration for you. You are you are just such a deadly, deadly person. But before we get into talking about all of the things you're doing, revolutionising the comedy space ultimately as a black sister, um, I want to start with asking you who's your mob, where you're from, and a bit about your your personal story.

SPEAKER_01 3:07

Sweet. So um I am a proud Nabandary woman from the Lower Mari and South Australia and Kurong Lakes. And I am also Romanian, not a lot of people know that about me, so yeah, trying to bring those two cultures together is always fun. Um and yeah, my personal journey is it's a very interesting one. And if you've been to like one of my comedy shows, you know that I have I had a little bit of identity crisis when I first uh found out I was Aboriginal. I actually thought I was Sri Lankan because my mum she didn't tell me who my real father was, and then when I actually found out um I decided to kind of like take it upon myself to learn about my family, my culture, because I wasn't getting that from my mum. And yeah, it's been I was probably like nine and a half, ten years old when I found out, and so yeah, it's been a long kind of like journey of learning where my place is in community, not just um back home, but also in Melbourne. Um, because I grew up I grew up in Dandong and then kind of like moved around a lot, so like people say like a part of the remaining culture is gypsy, so and gypsies tend to move around a lot trying to we don't like to stay in one place for too long, and so that's kind of what I grew up on, and so when I finally settled um here in Melbourne, I was just like, Okay, this is my home. I'm not going to kind of continue on with that cycle that my mum has tried to pass down onto me, so trying to break down those cycles from my dad. I have like eight siblings from several different women. Uh, he was definitely a ladies' man, and so I do like once again, my dad is a major inspiration to my comedy because I just hear all these stories, and I would hear from all these different uh women how they like that they met my dad, they loved him, loved him very much. I'm like, how how much? Like, like closely, how close were you to my father? And are your children my siblings? That is always a worry that I'm just going to oh I remember when I first started doing comedy, and I did a joke about how I have a sibling in every state and territory of Australia, and there were two um uh black brother boys sitting at the front, and when I said, Oh, I probably have a sibling in Perth, they're like, Yeah, that's where we're from. I'm like, You're probably my brother. Calm down, have another shot, please. I need to make money.

SPEAKER_02 6:13

I mean, what a huge journey though. I mean, like, from not fully knowing parts of your identity and who you were as a child, and I must say, earlier this year, um, one of our sister girls, Roxy, they and I were watching one of your comedy shows, Funny Titters. It was um, and you told that story on stage about finding out that you were Aboriginal, and it was this like long elaborate joke with grandmas and puppa dumps, and you painted the whole scene. And I was literally in ditches, but it kind of it sort of begs these questions, sis, and it's what you do so skillfully and so beautifully, and I think it's what you know why comedy is so important because uh you know, for for black fellas, particularly, or black female comedians, uh, you know, I think in a way, uh it's like you have been able to um take these really taboo topics like uh our identity, like our bodies, our sexuality, just our broader experiences as a black woman and black women, and showcase that all while like eliciting all of this laughter and joy. And it's like through this medium of of comedy that you know it's it's said in a really skillful way that is positive and cathartic, but it also does still challenge norms and stereotypes and and ways that we think we know black fellas. And so, yeah, when you were sharing that story on stage about, you know, not knowing your identity and and um you know learning your aboriginality and that process, you know, it's something that is a really difficult moment in our lives, and somehow you've made it into this joyful thing. And there's parts of you when you're listening to um jokes, you think, Oh, am I meant to laugh at this? Like, is it okay for me to laugh at that? And I want to play a little clip that I have of you um on stage um to kind of talk to that, that notion of tabooness.

SPEAKER_00 8:35

Uh, but I do come from a long line of players. Yes. My dad was the biggest player of them. Oh yes, he inseminated five women at once. So that's why it's a little bit confusing when people are like, so how are you related to Santa? Um, wait, the thing is, um that's my half-brother's niece nephew's sister, Uncle Boy. That's completely.

SPEAKER_02 9:07

It's one of those things, yeah, that it kind of like stuff is on TV like, oh my god, should I be laughing at the same time? I want to ask you just like straight off the bat, you know, are there some topics that we shouldn't be laughing at? Are there some things that are sacred and shouldn't make its way onto the comedy stage? Or for you and for, you know, for mob, is the point of it making people as come uncomfortable and as sort of like yeah, as uncomfortable as possible? What are your thoughts on that?

SPEAKER_01 9:37

Um, I'll I'll give an example. Um, I had a comedian perform for me for like for the very first time, and I had no idea like I had met him at an event previously. I'm like, okay, I want to give you a shot. You know, you're new to the comedy game. I've seen you on TV a couple of times. I want to introduce you to kind of our community and how we roll. And so um, usually when I get comedians to perform at any of my shows, I don't kind of uh ask them what jokes they're doing, I just give them the freedom to talk that have 10 minutes to do their thing on stage. And this particular comedian did a joke about domestic violence, family violence, and I had no idea that that was one of the jokes that he did, and it wasn't until probably within the two way two weeks after that show, I was getting a lot of feedback from um the organizers, their kind of supporters that went along to the show, people in community, and they were saying, Oh, just so you're aware this joke didn't fly with us, we didn't find it funny, is actually really disrespectful. And so I had never been in that situation before where I was getting all this negative feedback, and I was like, Okay, how do I handle this where I can reassure um my audience community that this won't happen again, that to please come back to a show, but also make sure that um the artist was you know not feeling that they weren't gonna get a gig from me ever again, and so I kind of like just instead of just singing singling out the one person, sending a like broad email just saying, Okay, these are the topics that uh had have been mentioned to me uh with the feedback that we've received, like no one's like in trouble or anything, no one's like gonna get sued, but just when you're doing um shows for kind of um audiences that are marginalized to just be aware of that. So I do a joke about incest and how in Australia it's legal to marry your cousin, and so that like white followers, if there's any white followers listening right now, I know you love a good incest joke. I have had uh whenever I do it at black stage, all the white followers in the room, they like get they cheer for it's like, yeah, yeah, that's us. I'm like, I wouldn't praise that, but yeah, I yeah, it's I think with black followers when it comes to storytelling, we can't have a filter. We have to just come out, say the truth, and not be blunt with it and beat around the bush because that's what white followers do, that's not us, and that's you know why people keep coming back. That's why you know we have a lot of white followers coming to our elders asking for guidance and kind of support on what's the right way to you know acknowledge country and to give back to uh our communities and kind of making I always make sure that with my communities because they ask, or is there like any topics that you don't want me to talk about? I'm like I'm giving you the opportunity to tell the truth in your storytelling, and if people you know don't like it or don't agree with it, then we can start to have those conversations, and so that's what Kungity Comedy is. It we talk about you know the hard nitty-gritty stuff that people are afraid to talk about, and then after the show, you know, maybe the next day, not after the show while people are getting drunk because that's a bad that's a bad bad idea to have a little feedback sesh after a show and just kind of have that conversation and really kind of unpack what that joke was, why that joke was even done or said. So yeah.

SPEAKER_02 14:03

Yeah, I mean, it's fascinating because I mean, hearing, I guess, you know, in a roundabout way, there are some things that aren't, you know, funny, such as domestic violence. I mean, some would argue that incest jokes are also quite triggering as well, depending on your experience. I guess, you know, thinking about like black fellas too, and like you say about that notion of storytelling, some of the things that black fellas experience are so abhorrent, are so racist, are so unfair and cruel. But yet we always do when we're in circle together and there's no white fellas around and we're sitting around, we are still laughing about it. We still hold on to that humour. It's like thinking about on ABC, the black comedy show, for instance, that ran from like I think it was like 2014 to 2018. Yeah. And they spoke about like really taboo topics as well. Like, you know, I always think of the white women trope of Tiffany and you know, how that this black follower gets a white girlfriend and she then starts yarning up like she's a black feller.

SPEAKER_00 15:14

And she loves that culture in a way, she just loves it. True, true.

SPEAKER_02 15:22

Uh, what have you been saying out to me like that for? You know, the real housewives of narrow mine, and you know, so we're taking these kind of really interesting concepts and taboo concepts, but making them really palatable for black people, you know, for us to have a laugh, um, which is really important in terms of our healing, you know, not everything can be hard and and we can't be in the you know arena fighting all the time. We need places where we can just laugh at ourselves and laugh at the state of the world. And so, yeah, I guess as a comedian though, it would be really tricky, I imagine, in this day and age to strike that balance. You know, even if you think about like old school comedians like um people who have been cancelled now, like Dave Chappelle and Chris Rock, and you know, their whole shtick was like putting black folk or their their communities down, you know, pay like sort of downward punching for them for joy. And so I imagine as a comedian this in this day and age, it's a really hard balance, like to find that balance of that leaving people feeling a bit uncomfortable and a little bit, oh, should I be laughing about this? Should I be going learning about this? Should I go and like take a bath or a long hard look at myself after this? Um, and then still also creating a space where people can laugh at some of the really awful social ills. You know, with that in mind, sis, you know, do you have a, I guess, a joke or jokes or a bit of your your stand-up routine that never fails to make people laugh. That even after all these years, once you say it, you still get people in stitches. And can you share it with us here?

SPEAKER_01 17:09

Because we all need to laugh. So it hands down, it has to be, I've named it my Sri Lankanism joke. Um, so basically, that never seems to fail. Like, I just love when I have Sri Lankan people come to my show and they ask, Oh, I really wanted to ask, um, where you got that inspiration for like that Sri Lankan joke, and so I have to pause for a moment. I'm like, um, it was a very um, you know, traumatic experience. Because when I first came up with that joke, um, it was just, you know, about me kind of thinking I was Sri Lankan for half of my life, and then when I would see when I'd go to the Dandy Dong Marcus and I would see Sri Lankan people there, I'd say hello in um my stepdad's uh language, and they would just look at me weirdly and like, I'm one of you, welcome me, open your arms, embrace me. I should have known I was black, but a different kind of black. So I I still am very careful when I do do the bit about how we're all like sitting at the table, and there's a massive spread of Sri Lankin food, and I can't handle too much chili. My mum and stepdad Link Arms stand up, and my mum is has like a glass of wine, and I say goon because goon is what poor people buy when they need wine, and she announces to everyone, okay everyone, me and Tony getting married. Kimmy, you're not actually Sri Lankan. I'm like okay, okay, cool, cool, cool. Um and then I t I kind of like talk about how that was such a shock for everyone, including my nana, and how it kind of like happened in real slow motion because there was like just you know, when you get such shocking news and your body is just like who what the hell is happening? Everything is going in slow motion. I felt like the flash, and I had um, because there are some like hot foods I can eat, and curry puffs is one of them. I do love me a good curry puff when it's mild with some tomato sauce, and so I have just eaten a curry puff, and you can just imagine in slow motion after giving such shocking news, you don't want to choke, so you the food flies out of my mouth and hits my nana straight in the face, and she's shocked as well, and her mouth is also open, and so as the food is flying over the table, lands in her mouth, she starts choking, ambulance is cold, she uh she has to go to the hospital for a couple hours, and then the next week when we all get together, she tries to uh give me the ambulance bill and it's addressed to my government name, and because I owe the government a shit ton of money, uh because I have so many degrees, I tell her that's not me. My name is Kimmy, and that is not how you spell my full name. So if someone sends me a bill with my full name Kimberly, and if it has L-E-Y, I say that's not me. That's that's my cousin that looks just like me.

SPEAKER_02 20:45

Well, I hope I hope no one from Centralink is listening right now or any of the um your hex debts.

SPEAKER_01 20:52

It's like when when I when I start making millions and millions dollars, that's when I will be able to uh pay back my hex debt and give some money to pay for the trauma of um my jokes. If it offends any government.

SPEAKER_02 21:12

If you ever needed to, that you yeah, you can um bankroll the the loy the legal team.

SPEAKER_00 21:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 21:19

I mean, with that in mind, um Carl's gonna call you cuz everybody's when you were growing up, which comedians were you listening to? Who was who was kind of inspiring you? And was that always on the cards? Like, did you always want to get into comedy or did you just like stumble in it?

SPEAKER_01 21:38

I kind of stumbled into it. Like I had a little taste of performance at a year five camp, and um m they had like a talent night, and me and my bunk mate were going to like do a dance routine, but then she got headlights, and the teachers asked me, Oh, do you want to come? Of like bow out, uh, because you don't have a partner, and I'm like, no, no, no, I'll I'll still do it, I'll I'll improvise. That's what I'll do. I will tell a long story for five minutes, and that's exactly what I did. I had five. You're like, I'm gonna use every minute. Yes, I'm gonna use every single last minute until it's at 459. And I I told a story about all the judges, and uh it worked in my favor because I won and I won to like uh family size like Mars bars. When I was trying to figure out like what I wanted to do with my life, I always knew that I wanted to make a change, I wanted to do something that would take someone out of their life for like five to ten minutes, make them kind of forget about the things that is going on in their life and make them smile or laugh in some kind of way, but I never thought of comedy as that being my thing, and so when I first moved to Melbourne, I went to uh my cousin Kevin's show that he was doing at the comedy festival, and so afterwards we he had invited a couple more cousins, I invited some friends, we went to the bar where he was staying at, uh, because the hotel had a bar, so we were kind of just knocking back drinks, and uh to me I was just talking shit, and everyone was finding it hilarious, and then some of the cousins were like Kimmy, you need to do comedy, Kevin. Help her out, get her on this on this journey, and then he mentioned Deadly Funny, and then that's pretty much how it started. I still remember the hotel, I still remember where I was sitting. I still to this day remember my very first performance with Deadly Funny, and I remember when I was about to walk on stage because it was at the Northgate Town Hall, and someone arrived late, and so where you have to walk on stage as the main walkway to get to your seat. So I was kind of like miming walking behind her, and I was just like, That that's my stage, that's my mic. What are you doing? Stop being late for a comedy show.

SPEAKER_02 24:28

Your first, your first time on stage, and you're already heckling. I love it. And then I think with you know, it sounds to me like Deadly Funny, which for our international listeners, um, Deadly Funny is a um, it's a part of the Melbourne comedy show we have every year, and a part of it is around First Nations artists. And over the years we've seen an explosion of uh Aboriginal and Torres Right Islander comedians, you know, Kevin Cropinieri, who's Kimmy's cousin, you know, Andy Saunders, Steph Tisdell, even my little cousin, Kylan Ambrum. Shout out to him. Um, and people like Kimmy who have just yeah, taken to it like um yeah, a duck in water, duck out of water, whatever that saying is. Yes. So it kind of sounds to me that, like, yeah, formerly your first sort of um introduction to to comedy was through the deadly funny process. But realistically, you have been born a performer. And if it wasn't for, you know, that that uh friend of yours getting headlights or munas, as we call them, um, you might not have been able to have that moment to shine. You know, as you were talking about that, it kind of makes me think about a yarn and like, you know, the confidence that you have when you're a young fella at school camps or at school assemblies to get up and perform and commit like a complete assault onto your peers. But in in your mind, you are like you're Janet Jackson or Britney Spears, like you are feeling it. It makes me think of a time when I was at a school, a school assembly. I reckon I would have been, I don't know, maybe like eight years old. So shame job, but so I asked to do a performance at a school assembly because that's when you do it. That's what you do when you're eight years old. You've got the confidence of a middle-aged white man in, you know, on in lycra. And I rehearsed and I rehearsed and I rehearsed. And I had like a portable boom box style, and I got up and I sang, this is so embarrassing, Candy Burrus's song. I'm showing my age here, don't think I'm not. It's like a club song. And then there's a line in the song that goes, and you're feeling good, and somebody starts getting hot, don't stop, just don't think I'm not. The whole song is about a girl out in a nightclub getting cheated on by a partner. And I'm like eight years old rocking this song. My teachers are probably thinking, What is going on at home? Is this daddy? Is it should we be calling child services? Because she's rocking out to this, like the most skankiest song. But it's kind of one of those things like schools and camps and uh assemblies kind of foster this creativity that there's parts of me in my older age in my mid-30s who is just like, I wish I had the confidence of that eight-year-old girl singing Candy Boris's don't think I'm not. Oh, I thought I'd share that. Speaking of which, getting up and performing, I know it's all fun and joy and hearing what you say about, you know, you wanting to give people a little bit of a respite from their lives. And I think that's why people go to comedy, that's why people go to gigs, is to escape their own reality in a joyful way in community for just a hot moment. And so, yeah, I want to thank you for your service on that. Thank you. Equally, I want to ask you about a topic about like bombing on stage. Like the I I even just saying the word gives me a little bit of anxiety just to think about. You know, I think all comedians at some point in their life would have bombed on stage. Yeah. But can you share with us? Have you bombed? Have you had a moment where you've said some jokes and they just have not landed or it's been silent? Can you walk us through that process if if you have? I'd love to know, yeah, your experience with it. I actually can't remember a time where I have bombed out. I mean, it's I mean, firstly, I I think it's interesting that to hear that you've never bombed on stage. Um, and also kind of circling back to what you said about the formula to a joke, you know, I think in another world, in another lifetime, I think I would love to try my hand in comedy. I mean, I it's sometimes tricky with my line of work, I guess, because I've been sort of not by my own, like I certainly don't juxtapose myself as this, but people feel that I'm like this expert and I'm the spiritual and knowledgeable, and and really at its crux, I'm just a silly little kid. I uh I'm laughing all the time. I um I try to make people laugh. I integrate even into some of the hardest workshops we do around race and power and privilege. We're always trying to bring joy and laughter into it. There's a beautiful um sort of framing around laughing in groups that we look at from a psychology standpoint. Um, Brene Brown, I'm sure a lot of people know who Brenee Brown is. She does a lot of work on shame and vulnerability. And she says that you can tell a lot by the development of a group, by how big their laughter is. The the louder the decibel, the more comfortable they are with each other because laughing is such a sort of, you're so exposed when you're laughing. You're not thinking, you're not, you're just in it, you're like rah, and it's like all visceral in your body. And so we try to interject laughter into what we do, even the hard, really hard, serious stuff sometimes. And so I want to circle back to what you said about some advice. So, for someone like me, if I was starting out my career as a comedian, how do I go about it? Like, what do I do? How do I like refine the jokes? Do you test them out at friends? Do you get people together? Like, what's the actual process for an aspiring comedian to make their mark in the industry?

SPEAKER_01 31:08

The advice that I was given was to watch comedians that I think is funny and of not kind of like resemble their kind of like way of telling a joke, but just seeing their stage presence because you could write like you could create a really, really good five-minute like joke or storytelling and not have be able to kind of sell that joke on stage because you just don't know how to work a mic, you don't know how to kind of express yourself on stage. So that's why I always tell anyone that comes to me, make the stage your bitch, make the mic your bitch.

SPEAKER_02 31:56

Um, and so it's like it's like 10%, it's like 10% what you say, and then 9% how you say it, yeah, right? Is that right? Like it's all the little like intonations and the yeah, right, that's interesting.

SPEAKER_01 32:10

But I am more than happy to work with anyone that wants to do stand up.

SPEAKER_02 32:17

Um, I've had Is it too late for someone like me? Do you think there's a market for someone who or yeah, but I would have to redefine my whole brand and be like, I'm the funny gal. Like it's not too late. I can do it.

SPEAKER_01 32:35

It's not too late. If you look at the past two, three years of Daily Funny Winners, they've all been women, they've all been from Queensland. Um represent and they've all been over the age of 40. So there is defin uh even in Victoria, we have like Cheryl Hood, Annie Denise McGuinness, Annie Rio Ellis, and they've all won Deadly Funny, and they I just don't see them be given opportunities to perform. And so because I've been producing for the last two years, I'm like, okay, let's open that up. We need to see more black women on stage, we need to see more of our older ones on stage as well, because we need to learn from them, and if they're not if and if they're not being given these stage opportunities, then it's just like you know, we're just missing out on a dis disservice, and it's good to see like our older ones come out and you know, watch people that they can connect with um on a whole nother level. So that's kind of my ambition for you know my next couple shows is to really just change the way that people see um Aboriginal comedians and you know really kind of like break that box that a lot of you know white followers and people who you know think that they know comedy and who have never written a joke before actually come to a show. But if you want to practice jokes, be selective on who you share your jokes with. Make sure that they've actually been to a comedy show that they've performed before, because if you do, you know, some material in front of your friends and family that don't really get um how like comedy works or how to tell a story in like a public space, and if they say, Oh, that was a really bad joke, that's not gonna work, have a backup.

SPEAKER_02 34:53

Yeah, and also take it with a grain of salt too. Like that might not be your that might be like something that you find particularly funny, but that's not to say that it won't make other people laugh. Do you know? I might be I might be completely overzealous here, but for me, in thinking about 2024 and what I want to get out of my life and and reflecting on the year that was, um, I've been talking about picking joy and ease and rest for the longest time, and I'm constantly learning and unlearning. But next year, one of the things that I really want to cultivate more of is this inner child, this playfulness, like just going back to the things that I used to do as being a child, like yeah, like performing or dancing, or you know, and maybe comedy could be something that I can can chip away at. And I'll definitely be in contact with you my sis because I know that you will cultivate me, you'll hold me, and um, but I just think I want to push myself a little bit next year to do a bit of stuff just for a bit of joy and a bit of bit of being a bit silly and and being a little inner child again. Um, and like you say, you can give anything a go at any time, really. You know, we've got to stop thinking like that. So yeah, I appreciate that. Well, my sisters, what what's on the cards for you next year? What where can we connect with you? Have you got any shows in the pipeline? Are you um how is Kungari? Well, where can we connect with you and all your magic, all your black magic and all of your laughter next year?

SPEAKER_01 36:34

So everyone can check me out on Facebook and Instagram. But I am in the pipeline of doing a couple shows at the Melbourne International Comedy Festival. Um so trying to, you know, black out comedy festival for the entire time, hopefully. Um, but I am planning three concity comedy shows, which does include funny titters. So funny titters is coming back. Um that was one of my highlights of last year. I loved it. I'm really excited to kind of like bring that back and make it a kind of like yearly thing, and really trying to you know bring on more black women on stage, and I'm hoping to actually do that for International Women's Day. And um something that I wanted to do different with Kungity comedy was usually I'll have like uh the Korea lip sync battle with people like Mam along like the TV show, but I decided to change that and do karaoke uh for my Nadox show this year, which went off. Everyone was like drinking, having fun, getting up, singing. They didn't no one cared if they were good or bad. But I will say I had this one brother boy who uh I can't remember what song he sang, but he had a very beautiful voice, and then probably not even 10 minutes later, he asked me, Oh uh, is it okay if I do a cappella? And I'm just like, Oh, yeah, sure, sure, go for it. You did a capella of this like country song, and like man, you're putting the rest of us to shame, and we're all half drunk. What the hell is happening? But to create a space where everyone feels comfortable to just have fun, let loose, and just you know, really be connected with community again. When you know, sometimes during NADOC week it can be quite um, you know, impacting on our mental health because you know, everyone just wants a PC.

SPEAKER_02 38:57

And yeah, it's a tiring time, you need spaces for us, just us.

SPEAKER_01 39:02

Yeah, just us. It's just like, yes, you can sing, but he could sing. He sang.

SPEAKER_02 39:10

But I love that. I love the confidence of getting up singing a song and then being like, actually, let's just strip it back, let's do the rendition at the color star. I actually don't need that backing track. I've been waiting for my moment.

SPEAKER_01 39:23

Spotlight. I need a spotlight.

SPEAKER_02 39:25

The confidence. Oh, I love it. Well, I'm so excited that you are continuing to grow and evolve. And the beautiful thing that I there's many things I admire about you, but the way that you continually bring community into this, you're sharing the skills, you're sharing the knowledge, you're sharing the contacts, and you're just creating beautiful black spaces where we can choose black joy and yeah, re-recoup and recalibrate for a minute together, um, which is what we need more than ever before. So I'm excited to see what you create next here. Um, and everyone, go over and follow Kimmy. Go see what she's doing at um Deadly Funny, Melbourne uh International Comedy Festival, and just keep up with all of the joys um that you bring. So thank you so much for your time today, sis. I um I appreciate you. Thank you. Thank you so much for listening, you mob. If you are vibing this season of Yarning Up, then please head over to Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcast from to show us some love, rate, and review. Alternatively, you can get in contact and give us some feedback by visiting www dot carolinecal.com.