Tai Nguyen Finds His Comedy Zen

As you know, Com­e­dy Wham focus­es on Austin com­e­dy. While many have trav­eled the road to be here, it’s rare to have some­one land in our midst from as far away as Tai Nguyen. 

Born in Viet­nam, Nguyen had a brief stint in sun­ny Cal­i­for­nia before mak­ing Austin his home. Unlike many come­di­ans who had a steady diet of US or British humor in their ear­ly years, he came from a much more iso­lat­ed envi­ron­ment, with nary a TV or radio (or toi­let) to be found at home.

Com­e­dy Wham Presents: Tai Nguyen

Of all things, an inter­est in rap videos hap­pened to give Nguyen his first glimpse into stand-up com­e­dy. he took an imme­di­ate lik­ing to it, but it would still be over 5 years before he took in his first expe­ri­ence with live com­e­dy. Like many oth­er come­di­ans in Austin, Tai Nguyen found him­self being called Velvee­ta Room thanks to its door­man, Michael David Park. He spent many a night in the dark­ness of the crowd in that club. It wasn’t until June 2015 that encour­age­ment from cowork­ers led him to take the next step into step­ping behind the mic himself.

Besides relent­less­ly prac­tic­ing his sets, Tai Nguyen has quick­ly expand­ed into more projects, includ­ing video sketch­es and per­fect­ing his onstage ​“mad rap skills”(with Austin local Sam Har­ter) as The Ying Yang Broz. Check out their very first per­for­mance on YouTube, and find more videos week­ly at their home at YingYang​Broz​.com. He has also appeared on Punch, and the 2016 Fun­ni­est Per­son in Austin Con­test, bare­ly a year after his first open mic. Nguyen is in love with the rush of per­form­ing, and it shows in every­thing he does. 

To see more of Tai Nguyen, you can catch him co-host­ing Live at Cold­towne every Fri­day at 10pm with Sam Har­ter, and find more upcom­ing appear­ances on his Last Gas Com­e­dy page. Dur­ing the inter­view, he even reveals an excit­ing project in the pipeline.