IGWEBUIKE: African Journal of Arts and Humanities

Stand-up comedy, a performance art with roots in oratory, classical Greek drama, and oral traditions, involves a comedian engaging directly with the audience through humorous storytelling and observations. Atunyota Alleluya Akpobome (Ali Baba), a pioneer of modern stand-up comedy in Nigeria, brought financial success and recognition to this art form. Despite scholarly attention to its business, aesthetics, and history, textual analysis of stand-up comedy remains scarce. This study reconfigures the discursive landscape of Nigerian stand-up comedy by positing Atunyota Akpobome (Ali Baba)'s performances as a rich, hitherto unexplored textual terrain. Through a critical close reading of selected performances, driven by the General Theory of Verbal Humor, and theory of cultural critique, this article excavates the complex web of meanings, ideologies, and cultural signifiers embedded in Ali Baba's comedic narratives. Employing a multimodal discourse analysis framework, the study reveals how Ali Baba's use of cultural references, vernacular expressions, and colloquialisms to convey social commentary and political satire. This paper argues that Ali Baba’s humour functions as a potent vehicle for social commentary, negotiating and subverting power dynamics, cultural stereotypes, and societal norms in contemporary Nigeria. By illuminating the textual nuances of stand-up comedy, this research expands the frontiers of comedy studies, African cultural discourse, and performance analysis.

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