'How many Black friends do you have?': Ziwe explores the sweet spot between confrontation and comedy
The internet sensation talks to Q’s Tom Power about her new book of essays, Black Friend
Back in 2020, Ziwerekoru "Ziwe" Fumudoh blew up online for her Instagram Live series, Baited, where she'd ask celebrity guests pointed questions, like "how many Black friends do you have?"
The comedian and writer started Baited as a YouTube series in 2017, eventually moving it to Instagram Live during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic. The success of the series helped her get her own satirical late-night talk show, titled Ziwe, which premiered on Showtime in 2021. Each episode also featured comedy sketches and Ziwe as her own musical guest.
It's important to mention that Ziwe conducted her interviews as a character, who was also named Ziwe. But even though it was just a performance, that didn't stop people from being afraid of her in real life.
"People have been afraid of me my whole life, honestly," she told Q's Tom Power in an interview about her new book of essays, Black Friend.
"The character is derived from my personal experiences and traumas. And that's why I was able to write a character that exploits awkward encounters for comedic relief. These are the encounters that I have in my real life that I've always thought, like, 'Wow, I wish there was a camera on me to see how wild this is.' And now I've actually manufactured that into an interview program."
But when it comes to the question that made her famous — "how many Black friends do you have?" — Ziwe initially had no idea the power it held.
That's sort of the complexity of Baited, right? It's baiting you into answering impossible questions.- Ziwe
"It was just sort of a filler question that I would ask in between other questions I preferred," she said. "But as I kept asking that question in one interview, and then the second, and the third, I found that people would always offer the same answer to how many Black friends that they have: four to five."
Ziwe said she found it amusing that a pattern emerged from that question, with most people choosing to answer with an "inoffensive" number. But really, there is no good answer to that question.
"I don't think I've ever stopped to count any of my friends and any of their races," she said. "And I don't know if I would recommend anyone does that. But that's sort of the complexity of Baited, right? It's baiting you into answering impossible questions. It's almost like a cultural litmus test, but for our viewing pleasure, like for comedic effect, rather than the conservative route where you're testing them in order to skewer them for not having the same ideals as you."
The full interview with Ziwe is available on our podcast, Q with Tom Power. She also talks about her meteoric rise, getting her first joke on The Late Show With Stephen Colbert and more. Listen and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.
Interview with Ziwe produced by Glory Omotayo.
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