Few know him as Afamefuna Igwe Mba, but this act popularly known as Klint da Drunk is a household name in the comedy circle in the country. He spoke with Solomon Nda-Isaiah and  Kucha E. Jeremiah  recently.

Tell us little about yourself.

My name is Afamefuna Klint Igwe Mba aka Klint Da Drunk.

I’m married with a son, I live in Lagos and I’m a comedian.

How have the ups and downs in the comedy business like?

There are plenty ups and plenty downs.  It is always like that.  Like the saying goes, “every dog has its day”.  Sometimes you have you days and sometimes you don’t.  It is always like that and I can’t start mentioning all the ups and downs because they are numerous.  But, one thing is for sure, it’s really been beautiful in my own side, ’cos, comedy has really taking me from one level to another level and to a level where I can come out and say, yes,  it’s really been good, the ups are far greater than the downs.

How old are you in the comedy business?

I’d been into the business for a very long time, but came into limelight around 2002 to 2004, people got to know me that much, but before then, I’d been doing the business in silence.  It was after my performance at one of the Nights of Thousand Laughs shows in Port-Harcourt, I think 2002, that I came to fame, and since then, it has really been good.

How is your wife’s reaction towards your comedy job?

My job is my job.  It is the same thing like every other job.  Everybody got to do one job or the other for a living.  My relationship with my wife is beautiful and she knew I was into showbiz before we married.  She has no problem with that and likewise me.  People always ask questions like, how do you manage the girls that come around? the truth is this,  every successful man in this world have girls that come around him and every successful woman would have men that would flock around her too, so, it is the issue of your ability, know what you want to do and what you really want in life, that’s what make you matured and a man.

But that’s not the issue.  To me, the issue should have been on how I manage with the movements from one place to another for events.  If I am not wrong, businessmen travel more than we the comedians do.  Some of them travel out for business sometimes for two to four months.  As for me, I think the longest time I’d stayed away from my family was a month and that was because I’d travelled abroad for a tour.

Right now, I told my wife  that if I was going for tour that would last long, we’ll go together.  My wife has business of her own, and so, she is not answerable to anybody.  We can move together, and if I’m going to stay for too long, she can stay with me for a while and go back and continue with her business, then after the event I comeback to meet her.

Aside comedy, do you do other things?

Yea, I’m an artist.  I paint.  I’m working on my art exhibition, it would come up soon in Lagos, and I’m releasing my album too.  I hope and pray everything should work out perfectly.  The single would be out first week of December and from there, people would get to know more about it.

You spoke about releasing your album soon.  Tell us the style of music the public should expect from your forthcoming album?Well, the style of the music...you know, now-a-days, artistes do mostly a crossover style in their music and mine also is a crossover, it’s a mixture of many styles.  Some of my songs are reggae, some are dancehall, some are house, and it is just a combination of different styles.  I believe in one thing, that varieties are the spice of life and I should be able to make my album to have a variety of songs that could appeal to the listeners.  People who love reggae would like enjoy the reggae, those that love house, would enjoy the house and those who love hip-hop or RnB would enjoy them.  It’s a crossover.

You speak brilliantly off stage, but whenever you are on stage, you make fool of yourself.  Can you tell us how you manage the two characters, so that one does not affect the latter?

Most comedians actually come on stage and crack-jokes but as for me, I always had it in mind that instead of cracking jokes, I should be the joke.  That is, when I am the joke, it would actually be a different ball-game.  I’d always wanted to act right from when I was still small.  I’d acted some couple of movie.  There’s even a movie we shot recently, we started the movies in Nigeria and ended it in South Africa.

The issue of comedy, I’d always wanted something different, so, I felt that drunk act would be that different thing I’d wanted.  We use to have a caretaker in the village, and I watched him close then, he was a habitual drunker, and whenever he comes home drunk, he always make full of himself and we had  a good laugh.  I felt I could use his drunken art to reach out to people and since then I’d been doing it.

I love going to programmes where I can actually perform and use this act to send a messages across to people because, at the end of the day, if you look into it you’ll learnt something.  Like the campaign I’m trying to do, it would be on responsible drinking.  I’m trying to make people see me as a joke, so that when they go out to drink, they’ll drink responsibly.  If you don’t, you’ll end up being like the character I portray on stage, and if you become the character, automatically you become a laughing stock.  You’re not really funny but you are just stupid.  It is a stupid thing when you don’t have control over liquor and that’s the idea.

Its like for sometimes you’ve gone behind the scene, can you tell us little on your sudden resurfacing?

It’s not really that I’d gone behind the scene, I withdrew because, I felt, if I keep pushing up, a time would come when people would get tired of the whole thing.  Sometimes you push and sometimes you relax.  That is the reason why you don’t just continue breathing in; you breathe out to breath in fresh air.  As for my case, it was more of a relaxing moment and then come back again.  I’m starting my comeback this November in a very big way.

How has comedy paid your bills?

Yes!  it doesn’t pay the way it should have been, like it does to our counterparts, abroad.  In Nigeria, most comedians are underpaid but overworked, but still, it has been paying the bills.

Did you study comedy in your school?

No!  I studied fine and apply art.  I majored in painting.  I was in IMT Enugu.

How is the relationship like with your fans, when you are off-stage?

Some people still think that they would see me the same way on stage.  I think that is somehow funny, because, Segun Arinze can be an armed robber in a movie but when he comes out, I don’t think you’ll see him carrying a gun to rob anybody.  It’s an act and I know people are getting to understand it now.

Should we take it that you drink as your name implies?No!  I don’t like alcohol.  Alcohol irritates me; it doesn’t go well with my system.