It’s really all coming together for stand-up Michael Yo as he hits the big 5-0.
“I released a special [Snack Daddy], I just shot another Dry Bar special that’s gonna come out and I’m 50 – yes, I’m 50!” the Houston-born comedian says with zeal. “People can’t tell ‘cause I’m half black and Asian – Black don’t crack, and Asian don’t raisin! I tell people I’m 137 years old.”
“But yeah, the 5-0,” Yo says wistfully ahead of Friday September 13 date at House of Blues. “Not to get too deep, but it’s a weird thing, because I am 50 but if we were to hang out, you would never think I’m 50. I don’t feel it! Literally I feel like I’m in my 20s. It’s a weird thing where I don’t even feel my age. I think when we were growing up, when you say someone who is 50 – they LOOKED 50. Even go back to look at old sitcoms, where the parents are supposed to be 35 but they look like 60? Now we know how to take care of ourselves, we eat healthy and all this. But I feel the best I’ve ever felt in my life: mentally, physically, in material and family. It’s all clicking together.”
Despite his rapid fire recording pace, Yo promises new stories and jokes for his Issa Truuue! Tour. “100 percent new material,” he affirms. “and that’s the stress of it. Stand up is just part of me. I tell me I can’t live without my family, or stand up. Like literally it is my right arm. No matter how tired I am, if there is a comedy club around, I will go to it. Me and my wife will go on vacation, and if the kids go to sleep early, I will look for the closest comedy club. Just to go up – which annoys my wife a lot! It is just part of me. There is no pressure because I love it. If you love what you do.”
“Now I will admit, unlike a singer who can sing a couple of hit songs for the rest of their life – [with comedy] after they see it once live, they don’t want to see it again. That’s what makes it so hard to be a stand up comedian. But since I talk about my life so much, it has become so easy to find my voice and different angles on things. Crazy things happen every single day – between my kids, my wife, my parents are ridiculous, you know? I talk to them all the time, so I always got material coming in.”
Speaking of family, Yo’s young family is growing up – and the lingering thought remains: what happens when his kids are old enough to watch the jokes he’s told about them? “Now more than I ever, I have to be more careful because they actually understand what I am saying,” he explains, charting his thinking on the looming subject and explaining an announcement for his upcoming material. “I’m more of a family comedian now, I’m going the clean route and not cursing and all that, because I want my kids to be able to watch my comedy. But at the same time – you still gotta be able to make jokes about them.
“So how do you do that where if they see it, but don’t totally understand it yet? So you kinda make a choice that they’ll understand it later in life, and get over it. It’s that weird things because I talk about the balance between my daughter and son, and the different things they do. But I don’t want them to ever see it and say, ‘aw, my dad thinks I’m this’ because it is just jokes. So even though I don’t curse in my stand up, I still don’t really let them watch anything I do because they won’t understand it – but probably when they’re teenagers like 15 and 16 is the first time they’ll see my stand up.”
Some may call it re-branding, other may merely observe it as a natural evolution: but Yo pivoting to a clean-only perspective may not surprise longtime followers of his work. “The thing is – I’ve never cursed that much.”
“[Not to say] this is a religious moment in my life, but eight months ago I was just like: I’m gonna dedicate my stand up, and really everything I do, because I’ve always been a believer in God, but I just said that I don’t need to curse. I’m just gonna make this change that going forward, all my comedy is gonna be clean. Right now, I have people who are 40 or 50 years old, bring their 21 or 22 year old kids to my shows. And it’s always been like that because I don’t really curse, but man, I want to be open to everybody coming.”
As if the universe desired to affirm his shift in direction, Yo says it was nearly instant when a new door opened that led to the realization of a life-long dream. “Right when I started doing [clean material] 8 months ago, literally 3 months later, I got the call for Scrambled Up, a game show. I’ve been wanting to host a game show all my life! They told me, and I was so excited I hung up and told my wife and started crying. But then he called back and said I forgot to tell you, but you’re shooting 160 episodes! In 4 weeks! So I’ve been shooting 8-9 episodes per day. [And] after doing that for 12 hours, to still go up onstage and practice has been a lot. But great things are happening.”
“They say it’s really not on your time, it’s on God’s time. I really believe that. I’ve worked so hard, like I was the person who would shoot all the pilots and be told that you’re not famous enough – you may be great or the best host, but you’re not famous enough. But now I’ve got my shot and I feel like everything is happening for a reason. 5-6 years ago, when I had the opportunity, I wasn’t as good as I was now.”
Dreams fulfilled begat more dreams it seems, as Yo is forthcoming about another bucket list item for his career: the classic American sitcom. “My dream, since my stand up is so successful right now, I would love to do my own sitcom about my life. People know that. I see the reaction live, they love the stories and I would love to bring that to a sitcom.
“But it’s a thing where I’m really trying to break more into acting but also balance it with family. On this game show, I’ve been away from my family for like 6 weeks. I’ll fly from Atlanta to Las Vegas every weekend to see them. It’s a lot, but it’s also, you have to do what you have to do. So I have to balance everything with family first and those opportunities go around them. Because even if your kids say they understand, all they’re going to remember the times you were gone. Not the time you’re there. I try to limit that as much as a possible.”
While other passions come and go, Yo stands strong with his true professional love: stand-up. “My friend told me the greatest thing,” he says. “If you tell a joke about your family and they laugh, that means they’ve identified with it because they’ve got through exactly what you’ve gone through. If you say a joke nobody laughs to, you’ve not related to anybody. That’s why I love comedy, man. It’s a superpower! Just you on stage making somebody laugh for an hour. It’s the best job. If I had to rank it, it would be comedy, by far. Above acting, above hosting a game show, because without comedy, professionally I would be so miserable. I love it that much.”
With this tour, Yo says he aims to honor his parents – and even gave his mother the title quote. “My mom is ruthless and so blunt and will just say the most cruel things to people, then say ‘Issa true!’ I remember I was hanging out with my mom, and this was like two weeks ago, and she was looking at a person and she said ‘Wow, they have nice teeth and a long face.’ And I just said, ‘Oh my God mom – you can’t say that!’ And she says, ‘Why? Issa true.’ So that’s my mom, she keeps saying things she should not be saying and this whole tour is dedicated to my parents and my mom especially.”
“But the great things is everybody has a person in their family, whether they’re white, Asian, black, Hispanic, that talks like that. I think that’s why my comedy relates – because yes, my mom is Asian and my dad is black, but so many people after the show go: my Dad is like your dad, or my Mom is like your mom? When it comes down to it, we all got crazy people in our family.”
Fans of Yo should be eating well for the foreseeable future. Between his tour, his game show, and his most recent specials dropped on YouTube, there is plenty of content to fill the hours. “People can watch Snack Daddy and my last one (I Never Thought) now. I never thought I’d self-produce it, but I got tired of waiting for people to say yes, and to give me a platform, so I did it myself.
On the trend of comedians turning to self-distribution over waiting for Netflix money, Yo has powerful insights. “Why wait for someone to give you an opportunity when you can make it yourself? Now with cameras and stuff – before it would take $200,000 or $300,000 to shoot a special. You can shoot a special now that is the same quality for 15 grand. And you own it! And you license it! And you make money from everything. So yeah, I think it’s great comedians can control their own destinies. When it comes down to it, there will always be people that will say no. But what got me through the tough times were those 300 or 400 people in the audience who laughed and said yes.”
Yo’s performance is scheduled for 7 p.m. on September 13 at House of Blues, 1204 Caroline. For information, call 888-402-5837 or visit houseofblues.com/houston. $29-49.
