Russell Peters: The Indo-Canadian comedian who tickled the funny bone of global audience

(September 30, 2021) ‘Someone’s going to get hurt really bad’, that’s the disclaimer that funnyman Russell Peters never fails to give before any of his performances. Witty, sarcastic and funny – the Indo-Canadian is a standup comedian whose jokes never run dry.

From being one of the first artistes of color to have achieved fame in comedy to becoming the first-ever comedian to get a Netflix special, Peters has become a name to reckon with in the standup comic circle. But it has been a long journey from this brown boy who was bullied in school and had to fight his way to the top.

From a bullied brown boy to a hip DJ

Born in Toronto to immigrant Indian parents who moved to Canada in 1965 from Bombay, Peters’ family moved to Toronto when he was six. But being a South Asian in the Canada of the 70s wasn’t easy for a young Peter as he was constantly bullied because of his ethnicity and cultural background. The bullying did affect him and what added insult to injury was his undiagnosed ADHD (Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder) that led him to a special school. Eventually, Peter took up boxing to help resist bullying as it gave him the confidence and helped him overcome his insecurities.

While Peters was up for becoming tough to protect himself, he was also a cool guy who loved mixing tapes. At 15, he started DJing. In the summer of 1985, he learnt to cut, scratch and mix, and got his first turntable. This love for hip hop helped him get many gigs as a teenager. By the 1990s, he had become a well-known DJ in Toronto. But Peters was a multi-hyphenate who was exploring more about himself with each passing year. While DJing  helped him evolve as an artiste, he equally loved performing on stage.

 

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The deep dive into comedy

For someone who loved listening to comedy records as a kid, Peters developed a penchant for standup. However, with no one of his color ever seen in the mainstream comedy market in Canada, he had to face strong dissent from his father. “Every reason my dad said I couldn’t do this, was every reason I could do it. For example, my dad would say, ‘There are no Indians in this business.’ I would say, ‘That’s why I’ll make it.’ He would say, ‘They won’t understand you.’ I would say, ‘That’s why I’ll make it’ I was the first guy who couldn’t be compared to anybody else,” he told Rajgirn in an interview.

While Peters was happy balancing his DJing with standup gigs, he worked as a shoe store attendant at ALDO to make ends meet. “I was already a comic, but I obviously wasn’t making any money, so I worked at ALDO during the day. Then I would go do comedy at night and I would DJ on weekends,” he told the Man magazine.

But things took a stunning turn for the 51-year-old when he met his idol American comedian George Carlin in 1992. Carlin advised Peters to get on stage whenever and wherever possible, and the comedian took that to heart. “It’s the reason I am where I am right now,” he wrote on his website. After doing standups at bars, Peters made his TV debut with Comedy at Club 45 and later tickled the funny bone of the audience with Comedy Now and Just for Laughs. For almost a decade, Peters kept coming on television but fame was still elusive. The stars finally shone upon him when a 2004 special on the Canadian TV show Comedy Now found its way to YouTube. In no time, the small snippets focusing on cultural groups from the show went viral and made Peters an overnight star.

 

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How the funny man became an overnight star

His observational comedy that found its footing in ethnic, racial, class and cultural stereotypes got him acclaim worldwide. For someone who makes money from his wit, Peters has never censored his act to suit the temperament of the audience. “The only thing I don’t touch on is religion. People are prepared to die for their religion. Otherwise, I don’t believe in censorship and won’t censor myself. If I do, I’m not being true to being a comedian – which is a truth-teller,” he told FirstPost.

Three years later, he became the first comedian to sell out Toronto’s Air Canada Centre with more than 30,000 tickets sold nationally over a two-day sales period. Not just this, the comedian broke a UK comedy sales record at London’s O2 Arena when he sold 16,000 tickets to his show in 2009. 2010 brought with it another record-breaking gig in Sydney with an audience of 13880 making it the largest stand-up comedy show ever in Australia.

Cashing in on the success, Peters released his autobiography, Call Me Russell in 2010 which chronicles his humble beginning as a brown, bullied kid to his rise as one of the world’s top-earning comics.

In 2013, he secured a third spot on Forbes‘ list of the world’s highest-paid comedians, and became the first comedian to get a Netflix standup special, Notorius.

While shows and television kept Peters occupied for majority of the time, the 51-year-old also tried his hand in Hollywood with films like Source Code, The Jungle Book, and Fifty Shades of Black.

In 2016, Peters turned producer with a Canadian music documentary series Hip-Hop Evolution that won him a Peabody Award and the International Emmy Award for Best Arts Programming.

Peters, who began at a time when people of color were almost invisible in the comedy circle, has come a long way. And the comedian is happy that the world of comedy has metamorphosed. “It’s no longer dominated by white guys. It’s obviously more diverse — not just racially, but gender-wise and culturally. It’s also global now. It’s more accepted as an art form unto itself in more and more countries,” he added.