Q: How do you enter a room?
A: First of all, I’m always fashionably late. So when I’m there, people are chatting already. I just walk in, eavesdrop on a conversation, and I get on that train.
Q: When did it occur to you that you’re funny?
A: It was when I dropped a truth bomb on a friend but in a way they thought was funny. I just spoke the truth: “I think your outfit is absolutely ugly”. And everybody burst out laughing.
Q: How did you find your comedic voice?
A: Like that. One day, I said something and people chuckled. As much as I synthesise all my influences, my personality is a big part of my comedic style. When I tell jokes, even to people I don’t know, I want them to feel like they’re sharing a laugh with a friend – that it’s a friend joking with them.
Q: Do you care about what other people think about you?
A: Yes. All the time. I like feedback. But I also know the type of people that don’t like me, the ones that wouldn’t be in the same room as me. It affected me at one point but I’ve learnt that I can’t be everyone’s cup of tea. You can’t change the world – but you can work on becoming your best self. Lady Gaga said something like that once.
There’s often more to the funny guy than just mere lols. With Kishan J, there’s much, much more. I’ve witnessed his magic first hand – how he lights up a room, how eyes lock on to him, how he rewards the attention in a way that inspires a dam-bursting surge of endorphins and how, privately, one-on-one, his words land with a poignant gravity.
The Singaporean mediascape is big on ‘influencers’ and though he’s often classed as one, Kishan is foremostly and unmistakably an artist. His influence is the result of how publicly his work resounds. After his start on the local comedy platform Wah! Banana, he branched out on his own as an actor, host and all-around talent. On the sprawling canvas of humour, he paints in the bold, vivid colours of his personality. This is now on full display on The Donkeys podcast, which he co-helms, a burgeoning success with 53,000 followers and counting and as a purveyor of creative solutions and events programming for brands and corporate entities.
To boil it all down, Kishan is one of the rare ones. Every time I meet him, I think to myself that if there were more people like him here, Singapore would be a vastly more vibrant and exciting place. He is proof that you don’t have to follow the script, that you can play your own role in your destiny, that character, personality and the unavoidable fact of one’s talent are meshed together with an intimacy we are too fearful and oblivious to acknowledge.
Jim Carrey, if you’re reading this, you and Kishan should link up real soon. Lady Gaga, too.
