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This episode was originally published on August 14, 2024 as “Karinda Dobbins: Black and Blue.”
(Over a blue background with blue and orange text saying “ha ha!” repeated, Karinda Dobbins, a Black woman with short hair, smiles and leans back. (Photo Edited by Lissa Deonarain)
On this week’s episode, we speak with Bay Area based comedian Karinda Dobbins about the release of her debut comedy album, Black & Blue. In Black & Blue, Karinda shares personal stories, finding humor in the most ordinary moments of her daily life, including her girlfriend’s arbitrary policy on household pests, the changes hipsters have brought to Oakland, and a Black woman’s unique packing list for hiking.
Featuring: Karinda Dobbins, standup comedian, writer, and actor Music Credits: Dee Yan-Key “Hold on”; Audiobinger “The Garden State”
Making Contact Team
Karinda Dobbins – https://karindadobbins.com/ More Information:
TRANSCRIPT
Making Contact Button: Making, making contact, making, making, making contact.
Anita Johnson: I just love talking to comedians. I appreciate how they bring their personal life experiences to the stage, and allow us to laugh with them. The funniest jokes are the ones we can relate to – the ones that bring us back to the moments we’ve gone through, in life. And comics that are vulnerable in exploring those “real life” moments use comedy as a tool to tell the truth about society, about culture, and about all the things that are happening around them.
My next guest Karinda Dobbins is that kind of comedian. Karinda’s debut album is called “black and blue”. In all her lighthearted humor, she has a way of making us reflect on serious issues – like COVID:
Comedy Clip: Got to Have an Answer
Karinda Dobbins: One of my first shows, I did after we got out of lockdown. I was doing a show and I was at the bar trying to turn in my drink ticket. Because, you know, that’s how they usually pay us. So I was there trying to get my payment. And this guy was at the bar. He was eating his food and I was letting him know that I was staying safe. I was like, “Sir, I’m gonna be six feet away from you. Like, I’m not gonna breathe on your food. Everything’s good.” And he said to me, “Well, If it’s in the air. It’s in the air.”
And I didn’t want to get pulled into this conversation, but now I have to. I was like, ” Excuse me, sir, what do you, what do you mean?” He was like, ” Well, if COVID is in the air, it’s in the air. And if it’s as dangerous as they say it is, these flies are flying around in the air. How come these flies ain’t dropping dead from COVID?” And I didn’t have an answer for that. I didn’t have nothing. But I was up at 12:30 at night Googling, do flies drop dead from COVID? Cause I gotta have an answer for these people when they come up to me in public. So now if I ever run into that guy again, I’ll be like, well, sir, COVID is a respiratory disease and flies don’t have lungs. So nah, these flies ain’t drop dead from COVID out here.
Anita Johnson: That’s Karinda, sparking the laughs in the room. I spoke with her last week about her comedy album, Black and Blue and what it meant to record her album during such unprecedented times…post-COVID restrictions.
Karinda: We’ve recorded the album right at the end of the pandemic in San Francisco at the Punchline and my best friend in comedy, Daya Lakshminarayanan and I, we both recorded our albums on the same night. And it was a great. It was a great night. I think it was a good time because people were really ready to get out of the house. And people were really ready to laugh again. And I was glad that we could do that in San Francisco.
Anita: At the top of this conversation, in my introduction, regarding who you are, where you come from, your comedy chops, early beginnings, I played for the listening audience of Making Contact. I gotta have an answer, bringing into this conversation. Aside from having an answer, what else did the pandemic teach you?
Karinda: Wow. So many things. I think one of the things that taught me is that your health is your number 1 priority in life. You know, we get caught up with so many things but if you don’t they say health as well. And I think the pandemic bore that out because so many people lost so many, um, people that were close to them. And I think one of the other things it taught me is that I really don’t need a lot to be happy, We were confined to our house and we were just making art, creating, writing out in the yard with the plants and. It was kind of… you know, when people say a simpler time, that’s really what it was for us.
Anita: You know, I hear that the event drew a diverse crowd with a lot of Black and brown faces in the audience. As a Black comedian who spent over a decade living in the Bay Area — and that’s Northern California for folks that don’t know. In what ways have you personally been affected by the decline of San Francisco’s Black population and the city’s increasing lack of diversity?
And I ask this question knowing that you no longer live in the Bay Area. You’re in Southern Cal now, am I correct?
Karinda: Right. I’m mostly in Southern Cal, but I do come back to the Bay, but when we taped our special, it was really a delight because Daya, obviously, she’s Indian and I’m Black and we wanted to bring Black and brown people to San Francisco because, like you said, when I started 10 years ago, our audiences look very different. Now because of gentrification and because of the cost of living and in San Francisco and in Oakland, our audiences are very tech bro. Everybody’s just kind of homogenous.
And so I think it affects the comedy. I think it affects the type of comedy that you can do, because a lot of times as people of color, we don’t have to do a lot of the legwork on certain jokes because they just know, and at the top, we just get right to the chase. And so if you don’t have diverse audiences, there’s a lot more background that you have to do on certain jokes. And so it’s definitely had a negative effect on comics who used to have more diverse audiences in San Francisco and Oakland, East Bay in general.
Anita: And what you’re referring to is setting up the joke for the audience.
Karinda: Right. That’s the landmark in a sense of like something that should normally take maybe 30 seconds. Now might take a minute and a half. Yeah, because you know, you don’t have that. Connection and people don’t already know that you got to do more, a little more work to explain what you’re talking about.
Anita: Right. You know, black and blue largely speaks on your experiences navigating, and you’re talking about navigating these spaces just right now, right? And this is the legwork, when we think about navigating these spaces, mainly due to their lack of inclusivity, do you feel that comedy is a way of processing the trauma you’ve experienced in these non-inclusive faces such as Hollywood, the biotech industry, and the rapidly gentrifying New Oakland?
Karinda: Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. And as you know, a lot of Black people can’t afford therapy. So, I definitely work it out on stage. It’s very cathartic. I mean, you get to go up there and tell your truth in a funny way. And, hopefully people relate to it. The stage is definitely where you get all of that out.
Anita: And, since we’re talking about Oakland’s rapidly changing demographics, let’s play a bit from the CD, “Black and Blue.” It’s “Old Oakland versus new Oakland,” off of the CD, “Black and Blue.”
Karinda Comedy CD: Black women out here doing all kind of stuff we don’t think they would be doing. I injured myself last year and I’m sure you know if you injure yourself in California, you gotta do yoga. I think that’s in the charter of the state. And I was like, I don’t want to do yoga but I had to find a yoga class that speaks to my heart. So I do trap yoga.
A lot of people was like, “Ah, trap yoga, that doesn’t sound like that go together.” But you didn’t think sushi and burrito went together either, but you probably have one every day. You know, sushi burrito. I love trap yoga. My teacher, she’s from Oakland, but she studied in India, so she’s a certified Vinyasa yoga instructor.
But her classes started out a little different, you know what I mean? Like, she’s walking around, surveying the class. She’s like, “This class is about to be real [bleep] hard.” And she’s giving you little ratchet affirmations in between your yoga stances. You like, coming up out of Young Cobra or whatever and she’s like, “I want you to stay loose.” I’m like, okay, I’m staying loose. She’s like, “I want you to bend over.” I’m like…alrighty. She’s like, “I want you to look over your left shoulder.” I was like, oh, what’s over my left shoulder? She’s like, “I want you to look over your left shoulder and I want you to say goodbye to being a side chick in your own life.”
I was like, oh my God, I always should have been in this class.
You coming up out of the next dance and she’s like, “I still want you to stay loose.” I’m like, okay, I’m staying loose. She’s like, “I want you to bend over again.” I’m like, alrighty. She’s like, “but this time I want you to look over your right shoulder.” I’m like, oh, what’s over my right shoulder? She said, “I want you to look over your right shoulder and I want you to say goodbye to all the [bleep] you let slide.”
I was like, lady, I don’t even know you, but you’re seeing right through me. It’s very uncomfortable. It’s very uncomfortable.
But my favorite is, I was trying to do upward facing dog. I’m sure you guys know, it’s kind of difficult to do upward facing dog. And this is how I was doing it. She was like, “that ain’t it.” I was like, but I’m trying though. And for some reason I just started grunting even though I was doing the position wrong. And I was like, mmm. She was like, “I want you to bend over backwards for your [bleep] self for once.” I was like, oh!
Almost broke my spine for that lady. I love that class. What kind of yoga do y’all do, San Francisco? Goat yoga? I heard about it. Naked yoga? Naked goat yoga, okay. I thought trap yoga was different.
Anita: Now, Karinda, in your stand up, you talk a bit about the racism that you’ve experienced in your life. Experiences that can be viewed as absurd or highly offensive in nature. What’s the process for you as a comedian turning the absurd into funny? And I ask that because in your debut comedy CD, “Black and Blue”, you have a bit called, Not My Harriet, referring to Harriet Tubman, the American abolitionist and social activist.
One part that stood out for me was when…it was towards the end, but you talked about made out of leather and contradictions talk a bit. I love that. I love that. I mean, it’s like, I got it. Talk a bit about your process of creating as an artist, especially when we think about taking the absurd and turning it into funny.
Karinda: Oh, man, but that’s been the story of Black comedy since we got here, I think — the ability to take our experiences and the absurdity and the pain and all of the things that happened to us and be able to turn that into something relatable and funny and, as you said, point out the absurdities and things. That’s hugely gratifying for me because so many times people take our experience and I think they make fun of it without really keeping the pain in it.
So it’s kind of tricky to do both of those things. It’s like, yeah, I want you to see the absurdity of this, but all, and I want to make you laugh, but also want you to feel the pain of it a little bit. And that’s the line that we all kind of walk in comedy.
Anita: Being that we’re talking about “Not My Harriet,” let’s listen to it. It’s track nine on the Comedy CD, “Black and Blue.” Again, this is Making Contact. Thank you.
Karinda Comedy CD: Black women trying to hurry up and get Harriet on that $20 bill. They said it might take till 2030. Black women’s like, no. But I don’t know how I feel about that. I don’t know how I feel about Harriet being on the $20 bill. Because on one hand, I get it. In this country, when you do great things, they want to try to put you on money. You know what I mean? That’s how they memorialize you.
But on the other hand, Harriet was fighting for Black people not to be a type of currency. I don’t know how she would feel about betting on money, you know? And I don’t want people throwing Harriets at the strip club. I don’t want that. I don’t want people using Harriets for the drug deal. You know what I mean? That’s disrespectful. I don’t want rappers talking about dead Harriets. I don’t want that. How about we put Harriet on a coin? Let’s do that. Let’s put Harriet on a coin. You know why? You know what people do with coins? They polish it, they put it in a little sleeve and they put it in the drawer.
They keep her safe. That’s what I want for Harriet. That’s what I want. And they’re talking about putting Andrew Jackson on the back, putting Harriet on the front. No, that’s what we not gonna do! Yeah, you gonna put a white dude on the back, Harriet gotta watch her back the whole time she on the 20 bill. Y’all gonna have to find a picture of Harriet running like this. Have a pair of Air Jacksons on…made out of leather and contradictions, I don’t know.
Making Contact: You’re listening to a conversation I had with comedian Karinda Dobbins about her debut CD, Black and Blue on Making Contact. To stay up to date with our shows and get more information about the person profiled in this week’s episode, visit us on Facebook / Instagram / LinkedIn / X at @focmedia_org. Now back to the show.
Anita: Now, learning a bit about you. Reading your bio, you entered this comedy space off of a dare. And that was the first time you really said, okay, I’m just gonna do this based on a dare from a friend. You’ve gone from that dare from a friend to sharing the stage with notable comedians such as Trevor Noah, Roy Wood Jr., Gina Yashere. How has your identity been received throughout your years in the Black comedic space, both as a woman and then also as a lesbian? How has your years
Karinda: Wow, that’s um…I don’t know. I always try to bring my full self, my full comedic self, no matter where I am and there may be times I’ve done a predominantly gay audience and they may not have necessarily wanted me to talk about my Blackness and that’s informed my comedy.
And I’ve been in Black, uh, comedic spaces where they don’t necessarily want to hear about me being a lesbian — and corporate spaces, where they don’t want to hear about either. So I’ve tried to bring my full self on every stage that I come to and I feel like as long as I can make my personal experiences funny, that usually overcomes some of the pushback I get from being my full self.
Anita: It sounds really interesting just to hear you describe it as such, because I’m listening to you and I’m thinking, it’s almost like, what do I bring to the cookout?
Karinda: Right. I mean, it’s always a navigation that you’re going to have to do in any space that you’re in. I mean, as Black women, we know how to do that. I mean, I did it in corporate America. I’ve done it in comedy. There’s always a feeling that a lot of times Black women are too much, and so a lot of times we sort of pull back on the fullness of who we are and I have done that at times. But as I’ve gotten older and I’ve gotten more years under my belt and in comedy, it’s like, no. I want to bring the fullness of who I am to whatever space I’m in. And so I try to do that every time I step on stage.
Anita: Before the break, Karinda talked about what it’s like being a Black woman comedian in certain spaces. I wanted to ask her about another piece of her identity: being a Black lesbian specifically.
Karinda: I don’t like lesbian weddings. Because they’re all outside in the woods…Sound like that it’s cold. Every lesbian wedding I’ve been to has been in the woods. And they’re very long. They all start out something like this: you’re walking in, and they’re like, “Yes, Tracy, please start reading the 300 word passage from the little known 19th century feminist we’ve never heard of. Go. And then after you’re done, please start the three hour African drum circle.”
And their vows always start out like this: “We met. Our souls met. A thousand years ago. In another lifetime. But I knew our souls would meet again in this one.” And I’m like, what are you talking about? What are you talking about? Like, I crawl out of every lesbian wedding looking like Leonardo DiCaprio from The Revenant.
It’s just a bear crawling out of that shallow grave. I got bear coat on me. Like, oh, what year is it? It’s cold. And every time you go to a lesbian wedding, you gotta go to REI. I don’t know if you guys know this, but there’s a map on the wall. At REI. And you just point to the woodsy area your lesbian wedding is gonna be at and they just give you the shoes for that terrain. Be like, “Yeah, it’s gonna be muddy. Just get ready to slog uphill.”
Anita: Now, when I first heard this, I mentioned how much I appreciate it, the Not My Harriet bit, but then wedding in the woods, me being a self-identified Black queer woman, oh, no, she didn’t! It was a whole moment. I’m like, oh my goodness.
Karinda: I was fed up when I wrote that joke. I mean, I literally had been to like 10 weddings in the woods. I was like, this, that’s enough.
Anita: What’s the difference for you as a comedian between the stereotype and the archetype, especially when creating a joke? Because, you know, if …a lesbian did that, it could be seen as offensive, right?
Karinda: Right, right. I mean, I lived it. I think that’s the difference, right? Because if you’re taking the stereotype and you haven’t lived it, or at least been adjacent to it, I think that’s when it gets problematic. But they say all stereotypes are rooted in some truth, but then, I think if you live in the truth, then it’s always going to be funny.
Anita: No, absolutely. It’s like, I’m a complex individual. I am this multifaceted I have multi-layered oersonality and the sense of you’re Black, you’re a woman, you’re queer, you’re this biotech person. Now, you’re bringing it to this writer comedic space, as well as actor backing up a bit for the listening audience. So we talked about how you entered the comedy space, solely from a friend. But I think for many people who are not comedians— and I’m not a comedian, but I have, friends… — and they tell me about this process because you’re shifting from one world to the other and then trying to process things on a regular basis, and it’s extremely difficult and can be challenging if you’re not dedicated to the craft.
Now, being on stage in particular, thinking about an open mic night, it’s not for the faint of heart. How has the navigation of these spaces helped you to hone your craft, now at this point of your career?
Karinda: I mean, you just got to do the work, man. I cut my comedic chops in San Francisco, but almost every comic who comes up in the Bay, you have to move in order to take the next step in your career and some people choose to move to New York. I chose LA, because I grew up in Detroit and I didn’t want to go back to the cold. So I was like, let me see what’s popping in LA and once you get down here, it’s a different. It’s a different beast. Hollywood is…how can I say? I mean, there’s so many ways that you can go in Hollywood, right?
You can come down here and you can just try to make it in stand up or you can come down and you can try to be a writer on a comedy show or you can come down and you can try to sell a pilot, get your own show, or you can come down and do voiceover work. There’s so many lanes to choose. So when you get down here, you gotta start to pick your lanes. And that’s what I’ve tried to do since I moved to SoCal.
Anita: And then also see you navigating that space and knowing that there are particular gatekeepers, right? I would see that being challenging because you got to understand the who’s who. But when I think about what’s happening right now in the comedic space n recent years, we’ve seen increased representation and acclaimed towards the work of Black women in entertainment such as Issa Rae, Tiffany Haddish, and Ava DuVernay. What do you attribute to this moment of increased representation of Black women in entertainment? And do you feel that it’s inclusive of queer Black women?
Karinda: I think it is to a point. I mean, everything has its limits. I think one of the things that I think helped of representation in Hollywood at this moment is that YouTube came along and the ability to make your own content. And I mean, that’s really how Issa Rae did it. She crowdfunded, she made her own show and from there, she catapulted to Insecure. I mean, if you have the ability to make your own content, get eyes on it, have people see you and what you’re capable of, I think that makes Hollywood take notice.
And then, you get to sort of navigate how you want to, move in those spaces once you get there. So I think being able to create your own content has been key in this era for Black and queer creatives.
Anita: Talk a bit about the honesty required to create effective funny to be a good comedian and the vulnerability and the level of honesty that needs to be met in order for you to really penetrate the audience for them to be like, have a good hearty laugh.
Karinda: I think the number one thing you got to do is you got to be honest. I mean, audiences can sniff out a phony and you got to be honest, who you are. That’s the number one thing. And number two, I think you have to put funny first. A lot of times, I make jokes about things that have happened to me, racist things or sexist things, or being queer, people doing things that are more offensive to me, but it’s like, if I can’t make those things funny, they never get into my act. So I think that’s number two. And I think number three is just that fondness you have for the art. That’s really what drives you because there’s a lot of things that go on in this business before you ever hit the stage. So, if you don’t love it, I mean, really have a passion for it, you won’t make it and you won’t connect with the audience once you get on that stage.
Anita: I remember recently I watched some of your bits online and there was a story you were talking about road rage.
Karinda: 100 percent true [laughter]. Since we didn’t know each other so much, I’m going to tell you guys something about me that I’ve been trying to fix. I have really, really bad road rage. And I’m trying to be better in 2024, but I was in the parking lot with a woman and we came to a head and I think she thought I was trying to beat her to a parking spot and I wasn’t and she mouthed the word bitch to me.
And so I just started following her around the parking lot.
And when she stopped, I jumped out, and I was like, What did you say to me? But then in that moment, I realized that that’s not a healthy reaction, right? Because whatever happened, like, I shouldn’t be going from 0 to 60 to this person that I don’t even know, I just met. It just happened again recently. A guy cut me off, and he gave me the finger. And I realized that’s what’s triggering to me. Somebody doing something to me and then blaming me for it. And then I followed him around the parking lot. He jumped out, I jumped out. He was like, I don’t want to get into a road rage thing with you. And I was like, road rage?
I was like, get some of this Road Sage, sir. Let’s clear this negative energy. Like, we both need therapy. Let’s work this out together. [laughter].
Anita: So I was like, yeah, yeah. So what’s next? What’s coming up for you? What’s the next thing? On the horizon right now.
Karinda: I’m concentrating on on writing. I’m co writing with some other comics and we’ve been in touch with some production companies and they’ve given us notes. So, we’re kind of working on those. That’s what I’ve been concentrating on, and I really have some ideas in my head that I would love to see on TV or in a miniseries or a movie even.
Anita: I wish you the best with all of it. Karinda Dobbins, I really appreciate you and thank you for speaking with me today here on Making Contact.
Karinda: Thank you so much for having me. It’s been fun.
[Music up then fade]
Anita: Again, I spoke with comedian Karinda Dobbins about her debut CD Black and Blue on Making Contact. If you want more information about her cd or about our weekly shows visit us at focmedia.org. Also you can visit us on Twitter or Instagram and leave us a comment. We’d really like to hear from you.
I’m your host Anita Johnson. Thanks for listening to Making Contact.
