We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Wafeeq Zarif. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Wafeeq below.
Hi Wafeeq, thanks for joining us today. Do you wish you had started sooner?
I DEFINITELY wish that I had started my career as a professional comic sooner, because time is the most valuable commodity anyone has, and I lost lots of time by waiting so long to start my comedy career.
Losing the time by waiting so long isn’t what bothers me the most. WHY I waited so long to start my comedy career is what pisses me off. I didn’t wait for the right reason. I waited because of fear and laziness. Fear of trying kept me from trying, and laziness caused me to procrastinate for decades. Looking back on it, I was such a b*tch, and I HATE going out like a b*tch. I’d rather get rejected by a beautiful woman in public rather than let her leave without trying to get her name and number. I don’t care if I fail. Not knowing whether I could’ve succeeded scares me far more than failure.
If I could go back in time I would’ve skipped college altogether, moved to New York City right out of high school, and I would’ve started my comedy career there at age 18. My mother would’ve objected to this, of course, but I would’ve done it anyway. You see, the key is to identify exactly what you want to do with your life as early as possible, and doing it as quickly as possible. The earlier the better. The majority of professional athletes decided at an early ages – usually by age eight – that they were going to play a sport professionally. They identified what they wanted to play, and they started training for it as kids. Most importantly, their parents cultivated this decision, held them accountable, and kept them consistent in this endeavor. That’s how they eventually got to the pros.
The same goes for all the great innovators and inventors. Mark Zuckerberg determined in college that he wanted to create the greatest social media network of all time, so he dropped out of Harvard to focus on Facebook. Bill Gates and Steve Jobs did the same to focus on Microsoft and Macintosh (Apple). I love that Harvard University encourages students to drop out if they have an idea and desire to create something great. The only thing the school asks is that the students tell everyone they went to Harvard when they make it big. Harvard even tells incoming freshmen that it’s better to create a job than get a job. I love that mentality!
Dave Chappelle, Bill Burr, and Kevin Hart all started comedy early and moved to New York City, because they knew comedy is what they wanted to do professionally. I, like many others, was taught to take the safe path of getting a Bachelors degree, getting a job, and taking it from there. I understand that was the path to success for my mom’s generation, but it’s never what I wanted to do with my life. This was confirmed to me when I got an internship at The State newspaper in Columbia South Carolina. One day my cousin’s husband at the time picked me up from work, and he asked me if I thought being a reporter was what I wanted to do with my career. I said no, because the money just wasn’t long enough, and I didn’t find the work fulfilling enough. I told him that I wanted to create something.
One day one of the editors asked me what I wanted to do with my career life, and I said that I wanted to do something that allowed me to push my agenda onto people, and push my voice out onto the world. I told her that I wanted to make movies, because everyone watches movies, and that would be the best medium for me to push my agenda and voice out to the world. She was surprised that I didn’t say be a reporter for the New York Times. Shout out to the New York Times Student Journalism Institute. I’m class of 2004.
I see comedy as my entryway into the entertainment industry, and the entertainment industry is my medium to push my agenda and voice onto the world. I just wish I had started when I was 18 years old instead of going to college. That way I’d be further along by now, and I’d conceivably have more time to make my impact.
Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.
Time waits for no man, but a man can wait, and still be right on time.
Oh, I may be doing stand-up comedy fulltime now, but it damn sho’ took a long time to get here!
But that’s my fault. Let me explain…
I’m a journalist by trade because I majored in broadcast journalism in college, I’ve written for The State newspaper in Columbia South and The News & Observer in Raleigh North Carolina. My mother was a writer for the Associated Press in New York City and the Florence Morning News in Florence South Carolina, so she taught me to write at an early age.
Acting and making people laugh have always been my passions. I love acting because it allows me to live a life different than my own. I grew up watching In Living Color. That was the first funny thing I remember seeing, and it made an indelible impression on me. Damon Wayans, Jim Carrey, and Tommy Davidson were my comedic heroes. Really the entire cast of that show the first few seasons was sooooo talented, and I wanted to be on that show sooooo badly as a kid. I’d watch In Living Color reruns in college, then a buddy of mine named Tyrone Hicks and I would go out in public and perform improvised routines inspired by In Living Color. We’d be in the line at Subway acting like Damon Wayans’ Black militant prisoner who doesn’t know how to use the new words he has learned behind bars. We’d loudly question why Subway chose to use only WHITE American cheese instead of the darker colored cheddar. The workers thought we were nuts, but they’d actually try to explain that the choice in cheese wasn’t racism. LOL
In middle school I made a guy named Marcus Coleman forget to finish trying to intimidate me when I distracted him with a question. That’s when I knew that I had a way with words. I started getting attention from the pretty girls my senior year in high school by how daring and funny I was in class. I don’t know if you know this, but boys and men make many of their decisions based on what girls and women like. I was no different, LOL.
When I was in college my homey Rashad Newson told me that I should be a stand-up comedian. I thought he was just saying that to say it, but it was really confirmation. I should’ve listened to him and dropped out of school to pursue my comedy career. If it didn’t work out, I could’ve always moved in with him, because he had a dope music collection.
Tyrone convinced me to take an improv class for an easy A to improve my pitiful GPA. I was so good in the class that a couple of theater students recruited me to join a theater fraternity. I pointed out the information letter they gave me said that applicants had to be theater majors. They said of course, and that I was obviously a theater major. I was a Mass Communications major, but somehow my improvisational acting was so good that it fooled a couple of theater majors into thinking that I was a theater major. That was more confirmation.
Fast forward to 2009. I was unemployed in Raleigh North Carolina, bored, and I knew that I wanted to get onstage and perform somewhere. I happened to see a place called Comedy Worx on Peace Street when I was riding the city bus home. I switched routes and went to a computer lab at North Carolina State University. I went inside and tapped the keyboards on each computer until I found one that someone forgot to log out of, I hopped on, and I searched for Comedy Worx online. I called the number on the website that looked like it was made in 1991, and a gruffy voice guy answered the phone. It sounded like an angry Santa Clause. The angry Santa voice told me that if I pass the Intro to Improv class, I could join the club and perform, and that membership came with free entry into shows. That was a deal I couldn’t pass up, so I paid the $150 to join the class, and I stuck around fulltime until 2021.
My biggest takeaway from my time at Comedy Worx is that nobody gets paid doing improv. People use the skills they learn doing improv to get paid doing other things like writing, acting, and stand-up comedy. The skills I learned and stage presence I developed at Comedy Worx allowed me to make a smooth transition into stand-up comedy in July of 2021. I figured with the pandemic causing Comedy Worx to temporarily close, and the fact that I wasn’t getting any younger, it was time for me to stop being a b*tch and start doing stand-up.
I have to give credit to former co-workers of mine named Paul Robinson and Andrew “AJ” Ward for forcing me to try stand-up when I was still acting like a scared little b*tch in 2019. One day they told me that they were planning a comedy show, and they wanted me to perform five minutes of comedy. Of course I told them no, because I had no material. Once again, I was acting like a b*tch constantly procrastinating and talking myself out of doing what I was supposed to be doing. Paul told me something that really inspired me. He said he knew that I wanted to do comedy, because every time he and I talk about our favorite comedians, I always speak with a great knowledge about comedy that only someone who performs comedy really understands. Paul said that he could tell by just listening to me that I belonged onstage, and he ended by telling me something that scared me straight.
“Wafeeq, if you need help coming up with material – I’ll help you – but if you don’t do this, you’ll regret it for the rest of your life. Now stop being a b*tch.”
I realized that he was right, and that was my opportunity. AJ simply said, “You have 30 days to get ready. Now stop being a b*tch.”
I somehow came up with five minutes of jokes on masturbation, and I mean EXCLUSIVELY on masturbation. Knowing what I know now about comedy, it was SO BAD, LMAO!!! I literally stood there for five minutes talking about what a man thinks before, during, and after masturbation, and I even acted it out. SO GROSS, LMAO!!! What’s crazy is the majority of the audience were our coworkers, and the majority of them were women. They sat there looking at me with looks on their faces that said they knew something was funny, but they couldn’t laugh because they couldn’t relate.
The men on the other hand were CRYING, because they could most DEFINITELY relate, LOL. I was in a leadership position with our company at the time, but I didn’t care. I had to tell my truth, LOL! Several people – all men of course – told me offstage that they didn’t know that I was so funny, and I said neither did I. That was a good night. LOL
Unfortunately, I succumbed to laziness, and I didn’t do anything related to stand-up comedy again until July 2021. That’s when I started consistently writing jokes and performing in open mics. Soon after a local producer named Khari Reed offered me a spot in one of his shows. I performed decently in the show and at his open mics, so he kept offering me performance opportunities and advice on how to become a better stand-up comic. I listened to Khari, added advice I got from my mentors Matt White, Brandi Roberts, and Andy “Big A” Forrester, and this led to more and more performance opportunities.
As much as I was developing, there was still one major obstacle. I was working fulltime with hours that prevented me from maximizing my developmental opportunities. In July of 2023 I asked God to open a way for me to lean harder into doing stand-up comedy fulltime. I also asked God to make a way for me to get off work early to do a show despite me not having an approved time off request. Well, I was fired that same day, so I’d say God answered my prayer quick, fast, and in a hurry. I was fired in time to do the show that night, I got paid $250, and I’ve been doing stand-up comedy fulltime ever since.
I finally feel like I’m doing what I’m meant to do, and it feels great! Ali Siddiq said that D.L. Hughley told him that he’ll only be as funny as he is honest. A good comic makes an audience laugh at jokes, but a great comic makes the audience laugh at his or her perspective on life. Comedy is about life. I’m Muslim, so my way of life is Islam. Islam informs and defines me and literally everything I do every second of the day. Islam is my life, and since comedy is about life, I must talk about Islam when doing comedy.
I talk about being born and raised Muslim, yet somehow growing up in church thanks to my grandparents. I explain the principles of Islam in my act, and I’m always pleasantly surprised when a middle aged White woman approaches me – the big Black Muslim – after a show to say that she really appreciates my explanation of Islam and my relationship with God. That tells me that the information I’m giving about Islam while – in the words of Khari Reed – “making strangers laugh” is helping the Muslim ummah (community).
That’s far more fulfilling than training people to sell internet, cable TV, and cellphone services, and my reach goes much further than it would’ve had I kept writing for newspapers – mostly because people stopped reading newspapers. R.I.P. the Sunday funnies.
Looks like Paul Robinson was right.
We’d love to hear the story of how you built up your social media audience?
Are you consistent? If not, you might as well quit. That may sound harsh to some, but it’s the truth. The most important thing in social media marketing is consistency. People have short attention spans, and it’s basically out of sight out of mind. You can have the best content in the world, but if you aren’t consistently posting and engaging with your audience, you’ll fail miserably.
Like so many others, I had to learn this the hard way despite being warned about this from the beginning by social media guru, content mastermind, and comedian Mr. Kevonstage. I call him Mr. to put respect onto his name because he’s the GOAT. Please tell me you know GOAT is an acronym for greatest of all time.
Post consistently at the same time every day. If that’s not convenient, just post every day. The key is you MUST BE CONSISTENT. Posting every day is what the pros do, so if you want to be professional, shouldn’t you be doing that too?
The next thing to do is figure out what makes you unique and make your content specific to that. I’m a Black American man who was born and raised Muslim yet somehow grew up in church, and I’m a comedian. That’s a unique set of attributes and circumstances, so I focus my content on telling my story of growing up Muslim as a Black male in America while going to church with my grandparents. This is called finding your niche and sticking to it exclusively.
Relegating yourself to your niche will feel crazy at first because you’ll keep thinking about all the other demographics, genres and groups you think you’re missing out on. However, stick to the plan. Going after everyone is like trying to please everyone. If you do that, you’ll up pleasing no one.
Think of it this way. There are 10 boxes of people available for you to own, and each box is a different demographic. If you go after all 10 boxes, you’ll end up with just 10% of each box, and that’ll be a grand total of 100%. However, the impact of that total 100% isn’t meaningful, because you ended up with just 10% of each box. You left 90% of each demographic on the table. Barely anyone in each demographic is paying attention to you.
Instead, focus on conquering 100% of just one box. The only way to do that is to give the demographic in that box just what it wants and nothing else. What it wants is content it can relate to, and nothing else. You’ll end up with a grand total of 100%, which is the same as what you would’ve gotten by getting 10% of each box. However, the impact of your 100% will be much greater, because you own an entire box. You have the full attention of the people within that box. Yeah the people in the other boxes don’t know you, but that doesn’t matter, because the purchasing power of the people in the box you own more than enough to pay you handsomely. Make no mistake about this. Whether you think of yourself as a salesperson or not, you’re in the business of sales, and what you’re selling is yourself. You need an entire box to buy your product whether it be a physical product or service, tickets to your live show, or views of your show on a streaming service.
I own 100% of the Muslim demographic box. The people within that box are loyal customers that come to my shows, book me for paid shows that no one else gets, and they support me rain or shine. That’s a community, not just a bunch of followers.
Which reminds me, focus on building an engaged community, not just a list of followers. The number of followers looks cool, but it doesn’t matter if they aren’t engaged with what you’re doing. What good is having a million followers if they aren’t engaged and paying attention to you? Kevonstage gives the example of a woman who had something like a million followers, and all she had to do to secure a lucrative payout in a branding partnership was get her followers to buy something like a thousand t-shirts. She couldn’t do that, because her followers weren’t engaged.
In contrast he mentions a company with far less followers that made $30,000 in a month because its followers were 100% engaged. That’s a community, not just a list of followers, and that’s what you want.
Once you have your niche, find the length of content your community responds to the best, and make content within your niche at that length that you can easily produce daily. I figured out that people stopped watching my minute long videos at about 15 seconds, so I decided to shorten my videos to 15 seconds. That boosted my retention rate way up. I needed Muslim themed comedic content that was easy enough for me to create every day on just my cellphone, and it needed to fit into 15 second increments. Thus, my Muslim News segment was born, because it checked all these boxes.
Once I figured out what I was going to create, and I consistently posted it every day, the next step was to find a trending topic to ride to greatness. It took a couple years, but I found it in the form of Ramadan 2024. I decided to do a Muslim News segment for each of the 30 days of Ramadan, and it went viral. I’d walk down the street and people would ask if I was the Muslim News guy, then ask to take pictures with me. It was crazy. The key is that I completed the previous steps mentioned first so that when the trending topic of Ramadan came, I was ready with content that fit my talents and met all the needs of the community I wanted to own: Muslim themed comedic content that’s no more than 15 seconds long and easy to create on my phone.
Kevonstage made a brilliant social media masterclass that I strongly suggest to anyone serious about social media marketing. Everything I know about social media I learned from him and my personal experience.
Have any books or other resources had a big impact on you?
If you’re serious about making a living as a stand-up comic, add the following to your collection, and study them often:
• The New Comedy Bible, by Judy Carter + the accompanying workbook
• Mastering Stand-up Comedy, by Stephen Rosenfield
• Lessons from The Second City Yes, And, by Kelly Leonard & Tom Yorton
• Sick in The Head, by Judd Apatow
• Improvise: Scene from the Inside Out, by Mick Napier
• Subscribe to Jerry Corley AKA The Joke Doctor’s YouTube channel
• Subscribe to Hot Breath! Comedy Network’s YouTube channel
Contact Info:
- Website: https://pushplaypods.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/wafeeqzarif/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/wafeeqzarifunleashed
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/wafeeq-zarif-8209038/
- Twitter: https://x.com/WafeeqZarif
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@wafeeqzarif
- Other: TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@wafeeqzarif