Speaker 1: This is ke Talk. I'm absolutely thrilled that our profile
Speaker 1: guest this morning is ready and willing and able to
Speaker 1: talk to us. Domi Moraki joins us this morning. She
Speaker 1: was at the Give Comedy Festival at the Baxter a
Speaker 1: few weeks ago and of course brought the house down.
Speaker 1: And of course, Demy is internationally celebrated. Just to name
Speaker 1: a few of her many career highlights. She's known, of
Speaker 1: course for her radio work. She was the first African
Speaker 1: female stand up comedian to have a special on Netflix
Speaker 1: in Netflix Presents Comedians of the World. I Adored as
Speaker 1: Nonny and Seriously Single, also still currently on Netflix and
Speaker 1: you can also catch her on Last One Laughing South Africa,
Speaker 1: hosted by Trevoroa on Amazon. Domi Moraka, good to have
Speaker 1: you with us on weekend Breakfast.
Speaker 2: Hello, Hello, how are ye?
Speaker 1: I'm really well. I was trying to work out I
Speaker 1: was speaking to my producer Vicki earlier and thinking how
Speaker 1: long ago was it since we last spoke, and I
Speaker 1: think it was probably about five years ago, So we
Speaker 1: need to do a bit of a catch up in
Speaker 1: how life has been treating you in the last five years.
Speaker 1: The last time I spoke to you you were in
Speaker 1: the States. But where are you this morning?
Speaker 2: From?
Speaker 1: Where do you speak to us today? Madam? Please?
Speaker 2: I know today I'm in Johanna's birth. I'm so sad
Speaker 2: because Cape Town spoils me. I moved from from Atlanta
Speaker 2: and I think I was in Drover for about half
Speaker 2: a day and I went straight to Cape Town. And
Speaker 2: the thing about Keith count is, oh, my gosh, like
Speaker 2: a warm hug. And then you come to drobak warps
Speaker 2: into shape, yeah and let you sleep. So yeah, I
Speaker 2: also spoiled drab right now?
Speaker 1: How do you deal with the with the travel aspect
Speaker 1: of your life? Because I are you? Are you quite
Speaker 1: an internally grounded person? Because you the fact that you
Speaker 1: move around so much, I would imagine could kind of
Speaker 1: leave you feeling a bit disoriented. But are you quite great?
Speaker 2: Yes? I think when you're a comedian, you become nomadic,
Speaker 2: so you get you get quite used to it. I
Speaker 2: mean at the beginning, oh my gosh, it felts like hell.
Speaker 2: I remember that the most heroin trip was Australia. I
Speaker 2: to fly between Australia, New Zealand and here, and I
Speaker 2: had to go to different parts of Australia. I think
Speaker 2: that was the first time I realized that you can
Speaker 2: travel within one country and still be in different time zones. Yeah,
Speaker 2: it's horrible. My legs were spoiling. I My party was
Speaker 2: like what I'm really doing? Oh my gosh. It was terrible,
Speaker 2: and I was trying to call the kids but I
Speaker 2: was like fixing up the terms to call them. Not
Speaker 2: it is terrible.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, difficult stuff, difficult stuff, but you settled into it.
Speaker 1: So when you look back over your career, do you
Speaker 1: have the highlights that you know when we get sent
Speaker 1: bios for guests and they say, and she's done this,
Speaker 1: and she's done this, and she's done this. These are
Speaker 1: all the kind of things that people might pinpoint. But
Speaker 1: for you, I'm wondering if if the highlights necessarily match
Speaker 1: those bullet points that get sent out on a bio,
Speaker 1: or are there kind of smaller, more personal moments that
Speaker 1: you've had over the years that you kind of hold
Speaker 1: a little bit closer to your heart and think, oh,
Speaker 1: that was a really great show, or meeting that person
Speaker 1: or that fan really held something special for me.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so I think that's what people would know about.
Speaker 2: I mean, I remember doing an event for all mutual
Speaker 2: and Grapa. Michelle was the keynote speaker and I had
Speaker 2: to do I was in seeing and I did a
Speaker 2: bit of comedy upfront and I brought it onto stadium.
Speaker 2: As she walked off stage, she came to me because
Speaker 2: we're sitting at the front, and she held my hands
Speaker 2: as she said, my darling, you're extraordinary and it meant
Speaker 2: everything to me to hear that from Macgretha Michelle. It
Speaker 2: meant everything. My first one. I meant sure that I
Speaker 2: did at god of She was also really huge for me,
Speaker 2: firstly because I had every race in that room. That
Speaker 2: room was full. I didn't know I could throw a
Speaker 2: room by myself, and it was. Man. I couldn't help
Speaker 2: but cry at the end of that show because I
Speaker 2: could not be incredibly blessed I am, but also to
Speaker 2: have a mixed audience like that. And the same thing
Speaker 2: happened again when I was in Queenstown, and I remember
Speaker 2: the lady who ran that room came to me and said,
Speaker 2: do you know that the last time we had a
Speaker 2: room this fall and b this next was when we
Speaker 2: had a musician, a conmemboration musician. She mentioned, I think
Speaker 2: it may have been put Garren or someone and she said,
Speaker 2: that was the last time we sold a room like this.
Speaker 2: It was so full that we get extra chase, you know,
Speaker 2: and put them out, And I thought, this is so cool.
Speaker 2: So even when I hear you mentioned the stuff I've done,
Speaker 2: it reminds me of how much I like to beat
Speaker 2: myself up and feel so irrelevant. And then when you
Speaker 2: do interviews like these and people speak about what you
Speaker 2: tell you go, You've done so much. But because you
Speaker 2: spend so much germ on Instagram and other people are doing,
Speaker 2: we forget what read done. And sometimes you forget that
Speaker 2: people are doing stuff it's already done. Yeah, who were my?
Speaker 2: What am I doing? Meanwhile, Babe, you've shuttered ceiling?
Speaker 1: They do you do you suffer from imposter syndrome?
Speaker 2: Like?
Speaker 1: Yeah, and how do you deal with that? Because I mean,
Speaker 1: I think we all do, and I.
Speaker 2: Was.
Speaker 1: I've spoken about it on the show an awful lot
Speaker 1: about imposter syndrome, and for some reason, it seems to
Speaker 1: affect us as women of color more and I'm not
Speaker 1: quite sure what. I am quite sure why, But what
Speaker 1: what do you do with that? What do you do
Speaker 1: with that voice? When it's loud well, first day I
Speaker 1: go on Instagram, Yeah, no, for sure.
Speaker 2: But I have a five minute journal, which I was
Speaker 2: very better at keeping up with, but now it's got
Speaker 2: I've gotten much much better at it, and I actually
Speaker 2: go through it because I've found that because I started
Speaker 2: it a few years ago, when I revisited at the
Speaker 2: first time, because I'm on my second one, the first one,
Speaker 2: actually get to see the stuff I'd achieved, because you know,
Speaker 2: you feel it in in the morning, you know, talking
Speaker 2: about the stuff you'd like to achieve, and then your
Speaker 2: affirmations that at the end you get to say what
Speaker 2: you got to achieve that day. So when I revisit
Speaker 2: them and I get to read about the stuff I'd
Speaker 2: achieved on different days, I've blown away and it kind
Speaker 2: of starts chipping away at that voice. But sometimes I
Speaker 2: even go, why is that big day? Because sometimes that
Speaker 2: voice is there because you actually haven't been doing the
Speaker 2: work on you. You haven't been nice to you, you
Speaker 2: haven't done anything for you. So it also helps me
Speaker 2: realize when I've neglected myself.
Speaker 1: When you look back where you've come from and terms
Speaker 1: of the comedy scene in South Africa and you look
Speaker 1: at the comedy landscape now, not just here but across
Speaker 1: the continent, I suppose globally as well. How do you
Speaker 1: see it having changed since you kind of first put
Speaker 1: foot on the comedy stage.
Speaker 2: It's a lot more accessible. I love that now anyone
Speaker 2: who goes I want to try comedy has a lot
Speaker 2: more opportunity to try in terms of club availability, language,
Speaker 2: and yeah, like I said, accessibility and seeing more people
Speaker 2: who look like you're doing it because for me, I
Speaker 2: feel like when I started doing comedy, there were a
Speaker 2: lot of male, white males, black male doing it. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I was hardly seeing white female or black female doing it,
Speaker 2: you know, So just watching it grow like that, and
Speaker 2: in terms of NAC I don't think I'd seen anyone
Speaker 2: doing comedy in the next and so watching it grow
Speaker 2: from that perspective was just It's just been crazy in
Speaker 2: terms of black females, the black female voice, and now
Speaker 2: watching it become more and more diverse has just been exciting.
Speaker 2: And I remember having this conversation actually I think it
Speaker 2: was with Celia, and we're talking about how if we
Speaker 2: didn't get it right, I don't think it would have
Speaker 2: grown so much for the women because you need to
Speaker 2: get it right for it to grow for other women.
Speaker 2: When I think about Male Jones in Cape Town, I
Speaker 2: think about Tracy Class. I'm like, if those people were
Speaker 2: not getting it right, it would not have grown for
Speaker 2: the other women. And when you think about the African continent,
Speaker 2: people people like the Goop, like funny Face from Ghana.
Speaker 2: You think about what's his name from Nigeria. There's a
Speaker 2: from Nigeria who even came to South Africa and he
Speaker 2: even takes when he's his great coming from South Africa,
Speaker 2: he takes with him to London and to Nigeria and
Speaker 2: across the continent. But the Internet has also helped with
Speaker 2: these comedians again get showcased everywhere, you know what I mean.
Speaker 2: My issue is, you know the inter comedians, don't get
Speaker 2: me wrong, That's what I would introduced comedians. Yeah, kind
Speaker 2: of a camera. I'm thinking about stand up comedians specifically.
Speaker 2: So yeah, I think accessibility is really is what's helped us.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 1: I you your book came out in Oh gosh was
Speaker 1: it twenty twenty eighteen twenty nineteen, and you mentioned journaling there.
Speaker 1: I loved your book. I absolutely loved it. It's still
Speaker 1: on my shelf in my office. At home and I
Speaker 1: mean you you write beautifully. Is it something that you
Speaker 1: would Is there is there room for more writing in
Speaker 1: your life? Another books?
Speaker 2: Yes, once, once I can find support group of procrastinators,
Speaker 2: but it's probably someone's trying to start one and they're procrastinating.
Speaker 2: But I loved you know what I loved about writing
Speaker 2: that book is I was like, because I never said
Speaker 2: of a team suicide, and I think I was hearing
Speaker 2: about a lot of suicides at the time. And I
Speaker 2: wrote that book because I was saying, man, yes, we
Speaker 2: all go through a lot. But I don't feel like
Speaker 2: when people see us and I was so called great lives,
Speaker 2: they know about how much we go through. They just
Speaker 2: see the great, filtered stuff. They don't get to see
Speaker 2: that we all have a struggle. And I just want
Speaker 2: everyone to just keep pushing, just keep pushing. And I
Speaker 2: would love to write again, because again, I've been pushing
Speaker 2: through a lot, and I meet too many young ladies who, man,
Speaker 2: they want it now, they want it instantly, and when
Speaker 2: you tell them how much they have to work, they
Speaker 2: look at you like, why are you trying to make
Speaker 2: it hard for me just because you're already there. You
Speaker 2: try to make it look like it's so hard, and
Speaker 2: I'm going, I'm not saying it's hard, but I'm saying,
Speaker 2: put in some work make it worth it. So I
Speaker 2: really I would really love to write more. But also
Speaker 2: what kills the about myself purpose. One of my uncles
Speaker 2: was like, you you are too honest. So I'm like,
Speaker 2: but that's what people need meet the vulnerability.
Speaker 1: I agree, I agree, and then the acting work.
Speaker 2: I think.
Speaker 1: In fact, the last time that we spoke it was
Speaker 1: when Seriously Single had just come out, and I remember
Speaker 1: feeling like it was just so refreshing. You were so
Speaker 1: brilliant and it you were so funny. It was just
Speaker 1: I just I just loved it, and it kind of
Speaker 1: spurred a lot of other locally produced like brilliant comedy,
Speaker 1: relatable kind of you know that that Joe Burg scene,
Speaker 1: young Single, you know all of that stuff that that
Speaker 1: is so relatable to so many of us. Are you
Speaker 1: are you looking? Can we expect to see you in
Speaker 1: anything soon? Would you ever write anything?
Speaker 2: Like?
Speaker 1: I could see you writing like a like a sitcomy
Speaker 1: type thing, so like, you know, like a comedy drama
Speaker 1: y thing.
Speaker 2: Ever, keen, So my I've had I've heard quite a
Speaker 2: long journey had sitcom in this country. I think it's
Speaker 2: almost every come I've written a little bit nominated for
Speaker 2: us after I was one. So in terms of film,
Speaker 2: I started writing and I had no idea how hard
Speaker 2: film is. So funny enough, I had written Miss Education.
Speaker 2: I was part of the writing team of Mys Education
Speaker 2: in Netflix. So I'm definitely polishing my writing and I
Speaker 2: probably will have something come out in the next couple
Speaker 2: of years. But in terms of my acting, I mean
Speaker 2: when I went to VIS I went to vis University
Speaker 2: because I wanted to become a writer. But when I
Speaker 2: got there, I encountered other crafts that I fell in
Speaker 2: love with, namely the writing and the stand up and
Speaker 2: you know, theater directing. So I will definitely definitely be
Speaker 2: doing more work and writing. I think right now my
Speaker 2: focus is in so much on the comedy. And I
Speaker 2: did The Honeymoon as well, which is on Amazon Prime,
Speaker 2: and that was also fun. And I think I'm trying
Speaker 2: to get to a point where I can do something straight,
Speaker 2: you know, because I did a drama called Diagon City
Speaker 2: and I was I was a killer in a like
Speaker 2: a hip woman. There's a brief rule that oh my gosh,
Speaker 2: the way you tuit it, I was like, I want
Speaker 2: one more person to try to trust me, love to
Speaker 2: let me audition for that. Do you know what I mean?
Speaker 1: I think it's a South African thing. I mean, you
Speaker 1: spend a lot of time in the stage. Do you
Speaker 1: think it's a South African thing that we are a
Speaker 1: lot more open? I think you know, I grew up
Speaker 1: in the UK, and I don't think there is open
Speaker 1: there in terms of allowing creatives to be diverse in
Speaker 1: their output. I mean, you've done radio, you've done TV,
Speaker 1: you've written. Do you think that that's South African thing
Speaker 1: that we are because we have to we have to
Speaker 1: be able to do whatever comes and whatever we might
Speaker 1: want to do. Do you think that's a South African thing?
Speaker 1: I just don't think that people are as open to
Speaker 1: creatives being diverse in our aparts of the world.
Speaker 2: I think, well, in America, I'm seeing it more and more.
Speaker 2: I don't know if it's because right now, like cost
Speaker 2: of living is really high, so everybody has at least
Speaker 2: two three jobs. I'm seeing it in the arts. The
Speaker 2: only difference I suppose is here you don't already have
Speaker 2: to be established to be able to do it because
Speaker 2: of what I've seen is the guys who already established
Speaker 2: are able to do it more easily, but the guys
Speaker 2: who aren't will struggle, you know, yeah, because everybody you
Speaker 2: have to have an agent for those things if you're
Speaker 2: trying to do them properly. Like I don't think Steve
Speaker 2: have you right, but I know he's the one who
Speaker 2: does the radio and the TV on such a high
Speaker 2: scale and the comedy you know. Yeah, and one decides
Speaker 2: as well as her writing agent and the active agent
Speaker 2: because they have an agent for everything every Yeah, which
Speaker 2: is funny because I was like, oh my gosh, you
Speaker 2: know South Africa, that's how always that's bad. And I'm
Speaker 2: saying that everybody else is doing it like that now
Speaker 2: because I have a writing agent, as a voiceover agent
Speaker 2: and actually agent, and a comedy agent and a manager.
Speaker 2: So sure, because we need especial list in every field. Otherwise,
Speaker 2: what's the point You're gonna have somebody booking for something
Speaker 2: you don't understand. When you're underpaid or you're underrepresented, you
Speaker 2: want somebody who's an expert in their field, do you
Speaker 2: know what I mean? Yeah?
Speaker 1: Yeah, to me, it's always lovely to speak to you.
Speaker 1: I feel like it's cannot possibly been five year insidince
Speaker 1: we last spoke, but it is. You can currently catch
Speaker 1: tom at on net No, Amazon, Last One Laughing soth Africa,
Speaker 1: hosted by Trevor Noa. The Honeymoon on Amazon and Netflix
Speaker 1: presents comedians of the World, which I think you can
Speaker 1: still find on there, and also seriously single. It's been
Speaker 1: an absolute pleasure and I always love chatting to you,
Speaker 1: Tomi Marak. Thank you so much for joining us.
Speaker 2: Thank you so much, keep going. I be in September.
Speaker 2: I'll be filming stuff