Nkechi Chibueze - New Orleans Blossom

Take a moment and think back to your school days, if you can remem­ber them. I cer­tain­ly can because I am a baby, and I look about as old as a zygote. (In fact, I was just at my local DPS to get a new license, and I had to repeat the phrase ​“I’m not a minor” more times than I care to admit. Is that a hum­ble brag?) Prob­a­bly the fun­ni­est thing that ever hap­pened in grade school — besides the class clowns tor­tur­ing sub­sti­tute teach­ers with fake names and iden­ti­ty switch­es — was when a teacher swore. Whether it was a ​“Sit your ass down,” or a his­to­ry-teacher-slash-gym-coach say­ing ​“bull­shit,” hear­ing a teacher let out a curse was a spe­cial kind of delight. Hear­ing for­bid­den words from the author­i­ty fig­ure meant to set a good exam­ple, from the mouth telling us not to swear — it peeled back the mask a lit­tle, made them human, fal­li­ble, candid.

Watch­ing Nkechi Chibueze — a teacher/​comedian/​photographer out of New Orleans, Louisiana — brings me back to that exact kind of delight. Sure, know­ing that she’s a school teacher makes cer­tain jokes extra sat­is­fy­ing: Teach­ers aren’t sup­posed to say ​“tit­ty pock­et.” But it’s not just that. It’s her entire ener­gy — her abil­i­ty to deliv­er dev­as­tat­ing punch­lines with an upbeat tone, her flounce and flair mixed with a cer­tain mat­ter-of-fact­ness. Whether in a class­room or onstage, or even on Zoom, she knows how to make a room perk its ears up and pay attention. 

So, to what do we owe the plea­sure that is Chibueze and her com­e­dy? Well, fit­ting the theme of our Sum­mer Vaca­tion Series, she’s quite the glob­al indi­vid­ual: born in Eng­land to Niger­ian par­ents, raised in El Paso, and cur­rent­ly liv­ing in NOLA. But for her first thir­ty years of life, Chibueze nev­er imag­ined her­self becom­ing a com­ic. Still, one day she found her­self in an improv class in Dal­las. The expe­ri­ence was a mixed bag, to say the least. Or, rather, the lack of a mixed bag was the prob­lem: It was a homo­ge­neous class of well-acquaint­ed col­lege stu­dents, and then there was her, thir­ty years old, feel­ing like the prover­bial sore thumb.

“And then it was­n’t until I moved to New Orleans that I feel like things blos­somed for me,” she reflects, ​“because I took improv again in New Orleans. But then I was in a class where it was peo­ple from dif­fer­ent walks of life.” Their dif­fer­ences made them all the more deter­mined to find com­mon ground and build scenes from there. More than that, though, Chibueze cred­its The Big Easy — and, more specif­i­cal­ly, its tal­ent­ed and sup­port­ive black femme come­di­ans — for her stand-up career. 

Sur­viv­ing on her teacher’s salary, Chibueze began attend­ing free com­e­dy shows in the city, even­tu­al­ly stum­bling upon the Black Girl Gig­gles com­e­dy fes­ti­val. ​“All the comics were so dif­fer­ent,” she recalls of the fest. ​“Every­one had their own per­spec­tive … I was like, ​‘Wow, it’s so nice to get so many dif­fer­ent per­spec­tives.’ Like it was just a fresh breath of fresh air.” Before she knew it, she was ​“vol­un­told” to do an open mic – one in which the micro­phone was forcibly plucked from her hand, as she had no idea about allot­ted time, nor about hosts fran­ti­cal­ly wav­ing lights at the end of said allot­ted time. Still, to her sur­prise, she received a per­son­al invite to yet anoth­er mic; and, to her greater sur­prise, she got some real laughs there. ​“And I was like, ​‘Oh, so if I do it more, then I get bet­ter,’ and then, you know, hear­ing all the laughs … you get addict­ed to laughs and all of that. And so that’s how I started.”

Four years into com­e­dy, Chibueze is as smit­ten with New Orleans as ever. ​“No one’s try­ing to be like … main­stream comics that you see, you know, on the TV. Every­one’s like, ​‘No, we’ve got our own thing cook­ing here.’ And that’s why I just love it.” She even stands as a proud found­ing mem­ber of No Lye Com­e­dy, a NOLA-based col­lec­tive of black femme come­di­ans ded­i­cat­ed to build­ing a diverse com­mu­ni­ty of col­or in com­e­dy. Of course, the city also has its unique chal­lenges, like the strug­gle to pay come­di­ans for their time, giv­en the expec­ta­tion of free enter­tain­ment from barhop­ping tourists. That’s a work in progress they’re still navigating.

Even with all her accom­plish­ments, Chibueze admits that she strug­gles to rec­og­nize her own suc­cess­es; self-crit­i­cism is imbued in her from her strict African fam­i­ly, full of med­ical pro­fes­sion­als and nar­row expec­ta­tions of excel­lence. The down­time of the pan­dem­ic has actu­al­ly been a bit of a reprieve in that sense, giv­ing Chibueze time to slow down and reflect on how many plates she’s been impres­sive­ly spin­ning — between teach­ing, com­e­dy, pho­tog­ra­phy, and now grad school.

Now that the city is thaw­ing again and return­ing to indoor shows, she wants to move for­ward more pur­pose­ful­ly, chan­nel­ing the ener­gy of Simone Biles — doing things because she can, and in the way that only she can. ​“I’m just focus­ing on mak­ing sure I’m the best com­ic that I can be, and then find­ing the venues and avenues to dis­play that com­e­dy to peo­ple that want to see it. And maybe it may just be one per­son that wants to see it, but it still counts.”

We can’t wait to see Chibueze con­tin­ue to school every­one in her com­e­dy, pho­tog­ra­phy, infi­nite wis­dom, and actu­al school. And we hope she con­tin­ues to say ​“tit­ty pocket.”

Want to know more about com­e­dy in New Orleans, Louisiana?

Nkechi’s rec­om­men­da­tions for comics to check out from New Orleans include: Xan­der Bilyk, Aman­da G, Kee­da with a Q, Gene­va Joy, Mar­cus Bond, Lane Lonion, Lane Sparkus, Rochelle McConi­co (and her alter ego Stan­gela), and Kamari Stevens.If you’re in the New Orleans area, check out the com­e­dy scene which is nat­u­ral­ly inclu­sive, incred­i­bly diverse, and will leave you laugh­ing. Because so many shows are free in NOLA, Nkechi encour­ages audi­ences to tip comics or oth­er­wise sup­port per­form­ers financially.

Fol­low Nkechi

• Web­site — nkechichibueze​.com
• Pho­tog­ra­phy web­site — hap​py​blackchick​pho​to​.com
• Twit­ter — @happyblackchick
• Insta­gram — @happyblackchick
• Face­book — Face​book​.com/​h​a​p​p​y​b​l​a​c​k​chick
• Youtube — Youtube​.com/​n​a​r​c​i​s​s​i​s​t​i​c​f​a​t​chick

Nkechi can be seen and heard:

• No Lye Comedy
• Fun­ny but Make it Fash­ion show
• Black Women in Com­e­dy fes­ti­val cal­en­dar — stay tuned!