I took up comdey to survive hardship------Klink da Drunk

Encountering Afamefula Igwemma off stage was a totally different experience. He cuts nothing of the picture he portrays on stage as Klint da Drunk. The Agwu_Ukwu, Nri born comedian was not born a drunk. A multi-talented artiste, Klint is not just a comedian par excellence, he's also a musician, actor, painter and a designer.

Unknown to many, Klint trained as a painter at the Institute of Technology,(IMT) Enugu, before abandoning his brush for the stage to make ends meet. Several years, after he made his mark as one of the leading comedians in the country. Klint da Drunk in this interview, reveals why he abandoned his career in music for comedy .

He also highlights part of his plans to use his act to affect the lives of those who live under the influence of alcohol as well as how he met his beautiful wife, Lilien, his stage personality and more. We ran into this prodigious artiste, last weekend, where he attended the premiere of a comedy movie, which he played a led-role titled, 'Eno De Sawa”, held at the Water Parks, Ikeja, with his beautiful wife, Lilien and engaged him in this revealing interview.

Find out more about Klint Da Drunk and the character he portrays from Benjamin Njoku and Ishola balogun:

Klint, when will you give up drinking on stage?

Never, I will never stop drinking. I will never stop being drunk on stage as a comedian because it's my source of existence and livelihood. Never, I can't stop it. It must continue.

How long have you been a humour merchant?

My brother, it has been a very long time. Like in 1993, when I gained admission to study Fine and Applied Art at the Institute of Technology,(IMT) Enugu. I was already doing certain programmes for NTA, ESBS and many other stations in Enugu then.

And that was after my secondary school education. I was doing some TV dramas as an up and coming talent. It was something few young men of my age then would want to engage themselves in because as at that time, the quest to work in an oil company, belong to those lucrative professions like medicine, law and engineering was very much in vogue.

But right from childhood, I have had this flair for entertainment. I started during my secondary school days where I would play the drunk and other comic roles. With time, it became an integral of me. I was in a drama group both in the church and in school.

I led my school band in secondary school then, and happened to be a force to reckon with when you talked of my school drama group.

In everything I did while I was growing up had some elements of humour in it. I'm not surprise today because I have always expressed that flair for entertainment right from childhood. Even when I completed my post-secondary education at IMT, Enugu, I was posted to Port-Harcourt for my National Youth Service Corps(NYSC).

But while in Port-Harcourt, instead of doing the service, I engaged myself in doing some entertainment stuff. I sojourned in Port-Harcourt for two years from 2000 to 2001, and principally engaged myself in entertaining people; going from night club to night club, performing on stage.

It was not lucrative then because there no were sponsors. Nobody then supported me. Even my parents were against my decision to go into the business of entertaining people. But because I loved what I was doing, I did not give up. I was performing for “spray-money.” I could go to four to five night clubs to perform at one night, just to have people spray money on me. Comedy for me then was for survival.

At what point would you say you started making money from the business?

It was after performing at the “Night of a Thousand Laughs” held in 2002 and 2003, at Port-Harcourt. It really exposed me and gave my the mileage I needed to move forward in the business.

Was it the highpoint of your career as comedian then?

It was obvious that when I was performing for the “spray-money”, I was never paid anything. But I would say the highest money I made as a starter then was N300. I was still at IMT when there was the need for me to perform during one of the shows held in the institution. In the past, I had done a lot of free shows and later I vowed never to do it.

As a result, the organizers of the show promised to pay me N300 at the end of the show. Between 1994 and 1995, N300 was a very big money for me as a student. At least, I was able to use the money to buy myself a second hand T-shirt and a pair of faded jersey.

That was the situation I found myself at the beginning. It was not easy for me in those days because comedy then was just for survival and not a money-making venture. We were just doing it to survive, unlike now where it has become a very big business. Continued    Source: nigeriafilms.com - NigeriaFilms.com

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