Bak Wants to Know Your Story

Bak feels opti­mistic about the future of Austin com­e­dy. And he should know — he’s spent the last twen­ty years deeply embed­ded in Austin’s nightlife. 

The come­di­an, blog­ger, pod­cast host and self-described ​“Down­town Rat” has wit­nessed the local com­e­dy scene grow from a hand­ful of clubs, to a full-fledged com­mu­ni­ty attract­ing tal­ent (and peo­ple like Joe Rogan) from all over. You’d think a long-time Aus­ti­nite would begrudge the change. Instead, he’s all for it. He firm­ly believes there’s enough room for every­one because we’re all unique and have some­thing to say. It’s just a mat­ter of fig­ur­ing out what that is.

Bak Zoumanigui, known as Bak, was born in Sene­gal but spent most of his ado­les­cence just out­side of Paris in Ver­sailles. He’s been a fan of com­e­dy for as long as he can remem­ber, find­ing inspi­ra­tion from French acts such as Les Incon­nus (The Unknowns). Bak mem­o­rized and per­formed the trio’s songs and com­mer­cial par­o­dies for friends in ele­men­tary school. ​“I would just do their sketch­es at recess by heart. To this day, I know all their sketch­es.” Anoth­er idol, Gad Elmaleh, whom Bak (and many oth­ers) describes as the ​“French Jer­ry Sein­feld” per­formed one man shows dressed in black and on a bare stage. He was a sto­ry­teller, writ­ing jokes around mun­dane obser­va­tions, a style that Bak still loves today.

At 16, his life was uproot­ed when Bak’s fam­i­ly made the move from France to Austin, Texas. ​“Six­teen is such a crit­i­cal age,” says Bak. ​“I basi­cal­ly had to start over with every­thing… the lan­guage, the cul­ture, girls, every­thing.” He focused on school and saved social­iz­ing for after grad­u­a­tion. When he was final­ly ready, his love of music and danc­ing led him Down­town. ​“It’s real­ly when I turned 18, I was like, I love music. I love to dance. Where is that at? It was down­town in the clubs. So that’s where I’ll go.”

Bak became a Sixth Street reg­u­lar. He befriend­ed bar­tenders, bounc­ers, and oth­er ser­vice work­ers and lis­tened to their sto­ries about what it’s like to work on Dirty Sixth. ​“Peo­ple don’t under­stand what it takes to be a bar­tender on Sixth Street, what it takes to be a DJ, and have to deal with stu­pid song requests. And now I got to tell that sto­ry some­how.” So in 2010 he start­ed a blog about Austin’s nightlife which lat­er evolved into the pod­cast, The Feed­bak. Both are still going strong today.

Bak is also a long-time mem­ber of the Austin com­e­dy scene. He’s been a Cap City Com­e­dy Club patron since 2002 and a loy­al Moon­tow­er Just For Laughs Com­e­dy Fes­ti­val attendee since year two. In 2011 when he final­ly per­formed his first open mic set, he did it at Cap City. One morn­ing he decid­ed it was time and gave it a shot that night. ​“I did­n’t know what to think when I got off. I was like, Yeah, that was kind of fun. But like, I got­ta do this again? Shit.” That ​‘again’ did­n’t hap­pen for anoth­er 8 years, but that’s prob­a­bly because he has a lot on his plate. 

Bak still does standup — and he’s also a father, tech employ­ee, MC, pod­cast host, blog­ger, event orga­niz­er, social but­ter­fly, etc. While his sched­ule is full, he makes the time to do the things he loves. As a com­ic, he’s find­ing his voice and unique point of view, lean­ing into his expe­ri­ence as a per­son with Sene­galese-French-Amer­i­can back­ground. ​“I’ve always believed that I have some­thing to share, that I have some per­spec­tive to give to peo­ple on-stage and off-stage,” says Bak. ​“I think every­body’s unique in a cer­tain way. It’s a mat­ter of tap­ping into what that is and express­ing it and con­vey­ing it to oth­er people.“

He’s also the orga­niz­er behind Next Record Play, a music triv­ia and com­e­dy show pre­vi­ous­ly known as Hip Hop Bin­go (but was forced to change the name due to Texas’ strin­gent bin­go laws). In 2019, Hip Hop pro­duc­er Just Blaze had a six-month con­tract pro­mot­ing Empire Records and need­ed help fill­ing clubs. After some brain­storm­ing, Bak designed a Bin­go game com­plete with chal­lenge rounds, like lip sync bat­tles and triv­ia, to keep peo­ple engaged. ​“Instead of let­ters on your card, it’s a bunch of artists. So it’s like, ​‘B Mis­sy Elliott,’ or ​‘G Ja Rule’.” The event soon expand­ed to include dif­fer­ent themes, edi­tions and genres. 

On the pod­cast, Bak is no stranger to vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty, shar­ing thought­ful respons­es to card game prompts and reflect­ing on his standup career so far. He’s work­ing on get­ting com­fort­able shar­ing his sto­ry on stage and look­ing for­ward to get­ting to know more of Austin’s come­di­ans and artists. So if you see him at a bar or club, don’t be a stranger. 

Fol­low Bak

• Web­site — the​feed​bak​.com
• Link­tree — link​tr​.ee/​t​h​e​f​e​edbak
• Twit­ter — @thefeedbak
• Insta­gram — @thefeedbak
• Face­book — face​book​.com/​t​h​e​f​e​edbak
• Youtube — youtube​.com/​t​h​e​f​e​edbak

Bak can be seen and heard:

• Record Play — ​“music triv­ia and com­e­dy show with a stank on it”. Win prizes, enjoy com­e­dy, music, and more!
  • Next show: R&B Edi­tion — 2/16/2023 at Soho House Austin, 7pm — RSVP at recordplay.live/rsvp
• The Feed­bak Pod­cast — week­ly episodes 
• Bar­rel O’Fun — 3/11/2023, 9pm