Friday, February 7, 2025

Prince Macheng shows true grit

He is witty, funny and describes himself as opinionated and this personality has driven My African Dream presenter Prince Macheng towards the lines of comedy.

His growing fan base has been accredited to his stage delivery and his understanding of different life challenges and being able to make reference to all of them in a humorous level.

The young lad is currently making waves in the comedy circles and he does not plan on stopping any time soon. It is no surprise that lately the young man has been trending all over town as the new hope for comedy. With his catchy name ‘Daddy Cheng’ one cannot miss him while on stage performing.

He claims to draw a lot of inspiration from a variety of issues happening all over the world. He said that he is an observational comic, so for him inspiration comes easily.

“I can easily sit in a combi, at a bus stop, be in a queue and be inspired by the politics or maybe past family experiences. I also use music, so all my materials are based on real life issues, travelling all over and eavesdropping on people’s conversations has proven to give birth to very good material as a lot of people can relate to those particular incidents” he said.

Macheng, however pointed out that the biggest misconception that people make about comedy is that it is a craft that is easy to crack but he says this is not true.

“A lot of people feel being a comedian is an easy task as one stands in front of a crowd and then is expected to be funny, but in between those moments people do not acknowledge that it takes courage and many skills to perform and make people laugh. The truth is that it is not as easy as it looks,” he said.

Macheng continued that he discovered comedy in 2003 but wasn’t interested in adding it to his vast array of talents until he realised how amazing it was.

“I found it fascinating that comedians have the ability to shake audiences across the world through nothing but humour. Comedy appeared to me as a beautiful craft that has the power to heal broken souls, but mostly to put a smile on someone’s face and since I am for world peace, I made it a point to master this skill,” he said.

He, however, does mention that while mastering the skill, he discovered that it is a challenging career path as it is difficult at times to come up with new and original material to present to people.

“But lately God has been on our side as comedians as a lot of things have been happening around the world, this gives us an opportunity to ridicule the whole happenings especially now that our country is about to hold its elections,” he said.

He added that the fact that comedians are given freedom of speech is the icing on the cake. He said, “Stand up comedy is very interesting because you can speak about issues that most people find too sensitive and add humour to it to cushion the blow. It is amazing how one can use it to correct the imbalance of politics, war, famine and other pressing issues that affect us”.

He also said that comedy has taught him to keep pushing himself beyond what other people think or say about him as a performer. “I have learnt how to deal with different types of crowds I have learnt to feed off the fear. It teaches me how to control hecklers in the crowd that is people who tend to harass the comic while he performs,” he said.

With so many comedians around, one may wonder what change Daddy Cheng is bringing to the comedy scene. He said, as a youth he is bringing his youthful image and material and fusing it with old materials to make it appealing, but mostly funny.

“My main target is to make people have the time of their lives whenever i am on stage, I always make sure that I present my material in a way that people forget their worries for a few minutes and focus on what i am saying, thereby brightening their day and mood,” he said.

Currently Macheng has been actively involved in different shows where he performed alongside his partners. The three comics have come up with their own brand name called ‘Tender Laughter Crew (TLC)’.

“TLC was founded by me and with the help of Charles and it became our company to brand it, market it, and sell it to potential clients. We all have our different styles of comedy, but what makes us unique is that we help each other with our sets so that we deliver full on laughter throughout our entire show, and we are planning a show on the roast of Nigel Amos ,” he said.

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