Highlights From The Nasty Show in New York City! Just For Laughs 2021

Published by Sara Dahms at August 4, 2021

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Every year in July Just for Laughs takes over comedy and Montreal with one of the biggest gatherings in the comedy business. With Covid travel restrictions looming large over this year’s event, the festival’s organizers split the event into 3, with some home grown events in Montreal, and a series of shows on each coast in the US. The Nasty Show landed, appropriately, in New York City for the first time ever. Sara Dahms, our comedy junkie, went to NYC to experience it live.

“The Nasty Show” is one of the longest running and most popular shows in the Just for Laughs comedy festival catalog. This year’s edition was hosted by Big Jay Oakerson and featured Donnell Rawlings, Ari Shaffir, Rosebud Baker, Robert Kelly, Yamaneika Saunders and Paris Sashay and it was AMAZING!!!

Big Jay Oakerson did an outstanding job as the master of ceremonies. His crowd work with “the Columbian Marc Maron” and the Broadway dancers were two of my personal highlights from him. Jay’s talent is undeniable and the fact that he grew up loving Andrew Dice Clay and Howard Stern gives him that comedic edge I am always a fan of.

The first comic Jay brought up was Paris Sashay. I remember seeing her do a 5 minute set four years ago at The Big Hunt in DC and writing about how my “Spidey senses” were telling me that she’s a star. I was so happy to see her on my favorite stage, in my favorite city, performing right alongside some of the best comedians in the business! Paris had hilarious stories about her sexuality, took us all to school and taught women everywhere about “the cramp.” Paris Sahay has a genuine coolness about her and her jokes are fire. I cannot wait to see where her career takes her four years from now.

Robert Kelly hit the stage next. Bobby is not only a hilarious comedian, he’s also one of the geniuses who created ways to bring people together, make the lockdown fun, and help keep comedy alive throughout this pandemic. Robert Kelly always kills, and tonight was no different. His crowd work was on point and his jokes about role playing and concerns about having to give his son advice about girls one day were hilarious! Bobby wears his toughness like a suit of armor, but underneath is the kindest, most caring person you could ever meet and that sweet heart of his is the reason why he can get away with roasting a person or saying whatever nasty material he wants and his fans will always be ride or die.

Rosebud Baker followed, and it’s funny, but I could totally see her holding her own along the likes of Colin Quinn, Patrice O’Neal and Robert Kelly on any episode of “Tough Crowd” back in the day. Rosebud is just as big of a badass as any of the aforementioned comedians, however, there was one joke in her set that gave us a peek under her armor. It was about her recent experience with going through marriage, pregnancy and a miscarriage. I hate to use the word brave but it was a brave joke to write and to tell, especially on a stage as big and far reaching as this. I truly felt like it wasn’t just the subject matter that made this joke a brave choice for Rosebud. It was the fact that she decided to write a brilliantly funny and well thought out bit about something so personal and allow herself to be vulnerable like that, then hit it out of the park with a follow-up punchline that left her armor perfectly intact and her audience feeling a little bit more connected to her than they were before. She nailed it. Bravo, Rosebud.

When Jay brought Ari Shaffir up to the stage he described him as being a “living legend” and I completely agree with his sentiment. Ari is a true artist and a fearless comedian. Kanye West talked about how fear and worry can weigh on a person’s mind and soul when he was on “The Joe Rogan Experience” and like Kanye, Ari is also an artist who has found a way to tune out all the bullshit and stay true to his craft. The first bit in Ari’s set was a brilliant joke that perfectly summed up the psyche of those comedians who’ve changed the themes of their once dark and edgy comedy to more politically correct topics and then try to force their personal artistic choices onto the entire comedy community. This joke alone could capture the genius that is Ari Shaffir but it’s actually what he did right after it that truly illustrates what makes him unique. Ari took the punchline of this joke and immediately used it as a bridge to open a discourse between him and the two Hasidic Jews that were in the audience. This created moments in comedy that were not only beautifully reminiscent of his “Jew Hour” they also provided him with the perfect segue into his next joke. It was perfection!

Yamaneika Saunders was another hilarious comedian to take the stage for “The Nasty Show” and I absolutely love her style. As an artist, Yamaneika’s not afraid to take risks. She does so with her fashion choices, the content she creates on social media and the material she writes… and they always pay off. Yamaneika found a way to make political humor nasty and gave us a different perspective on Chuckie Cheese and American Girl dolls. Yamaneika has style, soul and a sense of humor that leaves your face hurting from laughing so hard.

The final comedian of the night was Donnell Rawlings. In the past few months I’ve seen Donnell go up at “Dave Chappelle’s Summer Camp” in Ohio, the Dave Chappelle and Joe Rogan shows in Las Vegas and now the Just for Laughs “The Nasty Show” in New York and the one thing that always stands out to me is the amount of fun this man has when he’s on stage. His energy is electric, and it connects him to the audience and completely wins us over every time. His jokes about Cardi B’s song “WAP” had the audience dancing while they were laughing and me praying for a Cardi B, Megan Thee Stallion and Donnell Rawlings collaboration! We literally ended the 2021 Just for Laughs “Nasty Show” on a high note and I could not have been happier with the way this wild hybrid comedy festival turned out.

Watch it for yourself, available now through August 31!