Born in Derby in 1992, comedian Munya Chawawa is best known for his online sketches skewering politicians, musicians and celebrities. Aged 11, Munya and his family moved back to England from Zimbabwe, to the village of Framingham Pigot in Norfolk. He went on to study psychology at Sheffield University before working for 4Music and Reprezent Radio. It was his catalogue of characters – newsreader Barty Crease, drill rapper Unknown P, and his most famous video, Matt Hancock’s It Was Me (Shaggy parody) – that rocketed Chawawa’s career during the Covid pandemic and led to millions of followers and a BBC show, followed by writing for Charlie Brooker. Chawawa is on his first live tour until 28 October.
My dad would have inspired this kind of swag – he loves a high pulled-up sock. The shoes look Thomas the Tank Engine-affiliated – that cartoon shaped my fashion choices for a bit too long. I was still wearing Velcro Tank Engine shoes as a teenager – it might explain the late onset of my romantic life.
This photo was taken in Derby where I lived until I was four. Behind me is what looks like a spade and a treasure chest. I was a real player as a kid. My mum would often arrange my action figures in a huge fight scene for when I woke up in the morning – toys would be hanging from the ceiling and popping out of vases. It sparked my imagination and I became obsessed with building worlds. I was one of those kids who had a three-hour performance planned for his parents – like what Beyoncé did with the Renaissance tour but a stripped-back version in a Derby living room. During the show I’d do ventriloquism – moving the mouth of my Ernie doll from Sesame Street while I clearly spoke – and would showcase my breakdancing and singing skills, too. A triple threat.
I attribute my path as an entertainer 100% to my uncle and grandad. We’d go to my grandparents’ house on a Friday and my Uncle Doug would come loaded with an artillery of jokes. He and my grandad would go back and forth, and I thought, “I want to compete with the big dogs.” My grandparents bought me a joke book and I’d memorise every page so that when Uncle Doug came over I could do a trade-off. He was a hard guy to make laugh, so it was a real accomplishment if he cracked.
When we moved to Zimbabwe, I had this glistening novelty of being the British kid. My friends there had never heard of Derby, so as far as they were concerned I’d been brought up in Big Ben. I was very popular at school – academic and sporty – and I was terrified of getting into trouble because I had very strict parents. I was head boy and class prefect but I was also Munya the joker. I was living a double life.
Moving back to England [because of political and economic unrest in Zimbabwe] was a complete culture shock. To be academic in Zimbabwe was the currency of popularity, but in the UK I was called a boffin for putting my hand up in class. I didn’t even know what boffin meant. It sounded like something you could catch in a game of Quidditch.
Slowly but surely that confidence and self-esteem started to go. The bullies didn’t ever physically hurt me as I looked like I could put up a fight – every kid in Zimbabwe is shredded because we had to do two hours of sport every day after school. Instead, they’d do things to get into my head. I had to have surgery to get my appendix removed, and while I was in hospital we had a substitute teacher who asked why I wasn’t at school, and the boys in my class said, “Munya is smoking weed; he’s a dealer.” In a design and tech lesson we had to make mechanical creatures out of wood, and I did an intricate hippo as it reminded me of Zimbabwe. We went on our lunch break and when I came back it had been destroyed and covered in glue. The bullies shamed me for being proud of my culture and work ethic. I’d go home and write poetry and raps about the cold, hard streets of Norfolk. Eventually I figured out my own path, writing incredible speeches and hosting breakdancing competitions at lunch, and I got elected as head boy. I would always be late to lessons as I’d be fist-bumping every year 7 waiting outside their class. That was the spark of old Munya reigniting.
At school my dad would push me into public-speaking competitions – his vicarious ambitions for me lay in law. I did it to please him, but from that experience I realised TV presenting was what I wanted to do. When I tried to get into the industry [in 2014] people were confused. I’d been let go from one presenting job because, they said, “Our audience doesn’t understand you. You’re streetwise – but you’re not an idiot?” The subtext was that I should be this cool urban guy because of my skin colour but I was using long words and being articulate. As if the two can’t coexist. I realised that if I couldn’t get through the front door of the industry, then I’d have to go through the window. And that’s how I ended up doing sketches.
In 2018, Jamie Oliver released a jerk-rice video and I saw that it was creating this huge response on the internet. I figured people would take notice if I made a parody [Oliver was accused of cultural appropriation for his “punchy jerk rice” recipe]. The day after I uploaded my “Jonny Oliver” video, I had 30 comments and 16 new followers on Instagram, which was huge for me. I refreshed it and had another 60 new followers. TV agents had told me I needed at least 30,000 followers for them to even talk to me, so I went at it relentlessly, uploading two sketches a week, based around characters on the news. I got to 30,000 and I overtook all the presenters combined at 4Music. That got me a job there, but the week after the channel changed and I was effectively redundant. I decided to keep going online. We had an incredible news cycle during lockdown and, as TikTok and Instagram Reels were not yet in full fruition, attention was focused on my videos.
When you go viral you think, “Cool, this is fantastic.” And if it flops you think, “OK, I’ll try again.” In standup, if you’re not doing well, you can see people’s reactions in real time. When a show goes great, you get the dopamine but also a rush of relief. You think, “Maybe I’m not a great impostor. My worst fears of being embarrassed have not been realised.” I hold the mic so hard that I’ve developed the grip of a shotputter, and I get so much adrenaline that I can’t sleep. To calm the energy, I bash through Duolingo late into the night.
Standup is about proving to myself that I am meant to be here – it makes me petrified but I know I have to pay my dues to the craft and rebuild my confidence from when I was a kid. That determination is from growing up in Zimbabwe. If I’m going to do something, I will work myself to the bone to enter the playing field. Sketch comic by day, standup comic by night, Duolingo specialist by midnight.
