The other side of Eric Omondi

Everything around funny man Eric Omondi is funny.

Take his call back tune for instance. It features a voice of a person speaking in a Luhya accent, talking about mundane things, funny but stereotypical of the people from Western Kenya when it comes to phone calls. It keeps one glued to the phone, somehow forgetting that the person on the other end is supposed to answer.

Chasing after Eric is an extreme sport - he is flying all over to shoot skits, one minute in Kisumu, the next in Nairobi; now on an artificial turf with balls, the next second in an office boardroom with a socialite. His current content revolves around the AFCON, and Kenya’s tiff with our neighbours Tanzania, which had the likes of award-winning musician and Bongo star Diamond reposting the skits.

“I will be happy when Kenyan comedy goes around the world and comes back home. My impact on the game is to make sure the Kenyan flag flies high everywhere in this globe,” he said when I asked him what his greatest joy is. “The world has to appreciate and respect Kenya’s comedy.”
What is notable about Eric is his relentlessness towards his craft. He ventured out of clique of comedians to start his own show, which tanked after a few episodes. On his list of drawbacks, he does not even consider that among the top.

“The only time I did something and people never laughed was in 2011 in some remote village in Malindi. But I guess they did not know who I was and what I was about,” he says, before laughing at the episode. He has done shows in 19 counties out of the 47, in Eric Omondi Stadium Tour.

Coloured hair now, faux dreadlocks the next, his relentlessness knows no boundaries nor challenges. He pushes on to be in your face, making appearances at Jimmy Fallon’s Tonight Show, and recording skits in the streets of New York.