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Hari Kondabolu: "I'm a killjoy who does comedy"

Hari Kondabolu is back with a new album, Mainstream American Comic, stuffed with inherently political observational comedy.
Hari Kondabolu's new comedy album, Mainstream American Comic, explores that ignorance and hypocrisy that litter the U.S. political landscape. (Kill Rock Stars)
White people don't like to be called white people.
Tolerance is a very low bar for humanity. 
All lives don't matter.

This is the world as seen through the eyes of stand up comic Hari Kondabolu. Today he joins guest host Rachel Giese to discuss his incisive new album, Mainstream American Comic, and why observational comedy is inherently political when it comes from certain perspectives.

 

Kondabolu also speaks to how audiences have reacted to his more sensitive material — like jokes about 2042, when people of colour are projected to outnumber white Americans for the first time — and how he's handling a recent influx of hate mail spurred by this tweet. 

He also reflects on growing up pre-Aziz Ansari and Mindy Kaling, and the joys of being a killjoy who does comedy. 

"I love the fact that when people google 'Mainstream American', this album is going to come up," says Kondabolu.