All-Black comedy tour celebrates Black History Month in Winnipeg

As Black History Month nears its end, Canadian comedians are making sure it goes out with a bang — some laughs.

Emmanuel Lomuro, a sudanese refugee from Cairo, Egypt, is part of this year’s Underground Comedy Railroad Tour. This year, it features five all-Black comedians who all travel across Canada during Black History Month in February.

Although the tour has been going on for the past 13 years, Lomuro said it’s rare otherwise to have Black comedians performing together.

“It doesn’t happen. Especially being here (in Winnipeg), there’s no other Black comedian so I’m often by myself,” said Lomuro. “Going out there, it’s fun because you get to see people that look like you, doing what you’re doing, so you just feel a lot more comfortable going on stage. The crowd definitely gets a little bit of a different vibe from the show that I’m usually on.”

Bigger cities are calling for Lomuro to join them, but for the local comedian, Winnipeg is home.

“There’s too much pull to leave here. I kind of want to make it my purpose to be the first one to make it from here, to stay here,” he said.

“Often, our best talents are going down to the States to go get what they’re worth. But I feel like if enough of us stand here, put our feet in the ground, we can kind of build the infrastructure that it needs to get to,” he said. “But it kind of takes the sacrifice of a couple people to like, sacrifice their full potential.”

Tamara Shevon, one of the co-founders of Underground Comedy Railroad, said touring has been fun — despite some challenges. “We’ve been going from city-to-city in Canada in the deep winter so. You can imagine how fun that is.”

Shevon said the tradition of annual touring in February during Black History Month is crucial. 

“It’s really important to highlight and showcase Black talent altogether as a unit,” she said. “It’s really nice to be able to know we can tell jokes and be able to be in a setting where people relate to our experiences. But to also be in a setting where people don’t actually have to be Black to come to the show. So you get to have a mixture of, you get to show your culture and your heritage and have people learn and understand, but then you also get to share your experiences so it’s for everyone.”

Underground Comedy Railroad has two shows at The Basement in Winnipeg — Friday at 8:30 p.m. and Saturday at 9:00 p.m.

“It’s gonna feel like kind of like, a Def Jam, you know like back in the day, that kind of comedy style. But also you’re gonna leave feeling like you learned a lot. You saw people’s experiences. You had a good time,” said Shevon.