Get Ready, Late Night: Ziwe’s Going to Be an Iconic Host

The first time I talk to Ziwe, she’s ready to take on late night but not entirely sure how. “Hopefully we have explosions, confetti cannons, and dancers,” she says. Weeks later, she calls back to say a plan has emerged: The set of her forthcoming Showtime series, Ziwe, will be a pink wonderland, “like Barbie’s Dreamhouse.” Ziwe will dress more like a doll than a typical variety show host, an aesthetic send-up of the suits, ties, and skylines that have dominated the genre for decades. When it premieres May 9, Ziwe will be less Late Show and more The Eric Andre Show, a variety series that wants to lob a firecracker at the system. “You know how they say in theater, never bring a dog or baby onstage because you don’t know what they’ll do?” Ziwe says. “Well, I love dogs and I love babies.”

The 29-year-old mononymic Nigerian American comedian, who’s calling from her Brooklyn apartment, has already produced two versions of Ziwe on her own—first on YouTube, then on Instagram. Both focused on Ziwe as she asked a series of (usually white) guests confrontational questions about race. On YouTube, those guests tended to be fellow comedians. But the pandemic-born Instagram Live version matched the Desus & Mero writer with figures like cookbook author Alison Roman and influencer Caroline Calloway, shortly after each found herself swimming in the waters of cancellation. Viewers watched rapt as Ziwe asked Calloway to identify Black icons like Marcus Garvey (“Never heard of him”) and Huey P. Newton (“Is he…a poet of the Harlem Renaissance?”). Soon, thousands were tuning in weekly to see her guests squirm over deceptively simple questions (“How many Black friends do you have?”) that forced them to acknowledge their own biases. Even her viewers had to wonder how well they’d fare under the same microscope.

Baited With Ziwe, as it was originally called, wasn’t on TV, but it became the show of the summer anyway, drawing bigger-name guests like Rose McGowan, Alyssa Milano, and the Tony-nominated playwright Jeremy O. Harris. Fans started tagging Ziwe on social media whenever the rich and famous sparked uncomfortable headlines—a not uncommon occurrence—and the host herself reached out to potential interviewees like J.K. Rowling and Jameela Jamil with a signature Twitter summons: “Would you be interested in an interview on my Instagram Live? You’d be an iconic guest.”

“I’m really appreciative that people are paying attention to the work that I’ve been doing for a while,” Ziwe says, “because I remember when no one was paying attention.”

The Instagram show begat a book deal: a forthcoming collection of essays titled The Book of Ziwe. Then Showtime and A24 announced the late-night Ziwe, which began filming in February. It’s the first time that Ziwe, who cut her teeth interning for Stephen Colbert and writing for Robin Thede, will star in her own series—and she got the call while producing content from her couch. “It’s honestly wild,” she says. “I really don’t leave. There’s a pandemic. I’m not going to glamorous parties.”

Ziwe and four staffers (Cole Escola, Jamund Washington, Jordan Mendoza, and Michelle Davis) are writing the series, with each episode revolving around a different theme: allyship, immigration, beauty standards, wealth. There will be two guest interviews as well as sketches and musical performances, with a twist: “I’m a musical guest every episode,” Ziwe says. That’s not a joke: She’s got the chops. She spent years writing and performing comedic pop songs with titles like “Make It Clap for Democracy.” She’ll also perform new material on the show, aided by comedian Patti Harrison.

The suburban Massachusetts native born Ziwe Fumudoh—she doesn’t use her last name professionally—says she wasn’t expected to take this particular path: “I didn’t grow up with comedy nerd parents who watched the Late Show With David Letterman. My parents are immigrants. That wasn’t the vibe. We watched TV Land.” Ziwe attended predominantly white schools and later enrolled at Northwestern University to major in radio/television/film and African American studies. Trayvon Martin’s death marked a critical turning point in the way she thought about race.

“I don’t know how you can listen to [the 911] call and think anything other than this kid was murdered in cold blood,” she says. “My friends from high school were reacting in the opposite way. They were like, ‘Well, stand your ground. What can you do?’ ” Ziwe’s work explores this disconnect. “Race permeates every aspect of our lives,” she says. “The comedy that I try to make talks about the battles that we’re fighting, and how we have to open our eyes and really unlearn all these racial biases if we want to succeed and grow as a country.”

The comedian’s been working simultaneously on the show and her book. When she needs a break, she turns to Real Housewives or documentaries. (“I love to learn passively.”) She’s also been reading about outré comedian Andy Kaufman, someone Baited observers keep comparing her to. “Some people have described my comedy as [being] on the precipice of trolling,” Ziwe says. She’s comfortable with that notion, though it makes her want to dig deeper: Can one troll artfully? Can the notion of provocation itself be subverted? She’s thinking about asking those who drew the comparisons in the first place. Don’t worry, though. She just has a few simple questions.

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