Ebenhaezer Dibakwane had a Damascene moment of unconversion. From the story he tells me I am now convinced such a thing is possible.
It’s not that he lost his faith in some kind of higher power, but at 19 — 10 years ago — he found himself in the depths of an existential depression about his faith and the particular way it was expressed.
He was an active proselytiser for his church, teaching Sunday school and seeking out converts, when he realised he was no longer that person. But who was he?
He was born and raised in Hoedspruit, Mpumalanga.
“It was a very weird space to grow up in and in the early days we had trouble with our neighbours. Every week they would put their rubbish in front of our gate before the pick-up. I would have to get up earlier and move it, but you would never see them dropping it off. It was a very, very, calm get out of town. I mean in comparison to other places.”
The youngest child of high-performing educators (his father was a school principal and his mother a teacher) the answer was always there. He was a comic. “The only place I felt alive and at home was on the stage doing standup.”
Comedy was more than a personal refuge; it was his superpower.
“I was good at seeing both sides, playing with ideas and language. I am also eight years younger than my next oldest sibling, so I would be the fool, make them laugh long enough to want to keep you around.
“I remember realising quite early on what the psychology of laughter is. What is happening is that you are having an involuntary action, you are laughing and you can’t help it. I kind of understood that power. And I knew that I could use it.”
Which he did both at home, to defuse his father’s anger when he got up to no good, and at school, where he used it to drive home certain home truths without getting into trouble.
He was playing with identity, accents, race and class in a role that he was almost born for because he could straddle and understand the South African subcultures.
“I hit the ground preaching.” And he was rapidly acknowledged for his talents, winning the newcomer award at the 6th Annual Comic’s Choice Awards in 2016 and appearing on Blacks Only on Comedy Central, on Bantu Hour and Game On.
You know the 20-years-olds, they're not worried about race. They are very much to the point
His gospel is the place where clear-sighted social commentary meets self -knowledge, meets belly-aching laughter, and it is the chapter and verse he has been playing with all his life. It's where he came to life and found meaning.
He is telling me this over lunch at the Big Mouth in Sandton's Nelson Mandela Square. I swear I did not pick the place on the basis of its name, but rather for the delicious sushi and edamame beans, but in the event it seems prescient.
We are chatting so much he can’t get more than a few mouthfuls of his gourmet burger down.
We talk about stage fright, failing spectacularly, working the audience and how comedy is changing for the next generation.
“You know the 20-years-olds, they're not worried about race. They are very much to the point — they are working out how to make millions by just chilling at home with automation and putting out scripts and a bunch of videos virtually. It’s because they’re geniuses. We look at it as lazy. My mind is about the whole process of getting to a place and they’re like no dude, we’re there already — they’re trying to get to the next place.”
Having said all that, he is in fact getting to the next place himself. You may have seen him taking his driver’s licence exam on national television in the Tropika TV commercial, and is about to break out in two Netflix series both as the lead and in the writers’ room. This has happily taken the edge off the drive to survive purely through stand-up.
It has liberated him.
“I don’t have to rely on stand-up so I can keep my stand-up pure. My larger desire is to have a conversation around our duty and our contribution to our immediate space. I’m tired of this idea of us speaking about places we don’t know. I won’t talk about Alex. I live in Sunninghill and I come from the north — and I should talk about the places I come from, and actually take action.”
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