AMVCA-winning skitmaker Layi Wasabi has said he never intended to be regarded as an intellectual comedian.
The content creator, whose real name is Isaac Ayomide Olayiwola, explained that the label has placed added expectations on him.
Speaking on the Joey Akan Experience podcast, Wasabi recalled that his journey into comedy began with stand-up performances during his school days.
Peer feedback showed him he was funny, and he began creating content that felt natural.
Audiences later labelled his work intellectual comedy, a tag he did not pursue.
Wasabi said he started making comedy primarily for himself before it found a wider 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.
The recognition, however, has come with constraints. He described the intellectual label as both a crown and a cross, noting that audience expectations now influence the material he chooses to release.
“I find the tag of being an intellectual very burdensome. It’s a cross as much as it’s a crown,” he said.
“There are 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 are 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 comedy.’ So you get that kind of burden. So, I mean, it’s a crown, like I said, but it’s still a cross.”
The law graduate said maintaining the style requires extensive behind-the-scenes work.
He cited research, fact-checking, and continuous learning as necessary to keep his content fresh and avoid repetition.
“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 the need to keep your mind up to date, because you don’t want to keep the same knowledge for a long time. It starts to become stagnant and stale.”
Wasabi also weighed in on the debate about skitmakers and acting.
He disagreed with filmmaker Daniel Etim’s position that skitmakers are not actors, arguing that strong acting ability is central to producing quality skits.
“To be able to be a great skitmaker, you have to be a good actor,” he said.
