In December, I had the good fortune of seeing Trevor Noah’s stand-up show at the Paramount Theatre (he is performing there again on Friday, March 23). No spoilers about his new material here, but I will say I was glad that Noah carried on his tradition of fanboying about President Barack Obama. But this time, instead of a fictional tale, it was a true story: his own real-life experience of meeting the first black president in American history. Noah’s Obama story feels like a sort of climax to the comedian’s swift ascent to late-night royalty.
The child of a black mother and white father in apartheid-era South Africa, Noah’s biracial identity was a dead giveaway of his parents’ interracial crime. Noah was considered “colored” in South Africa due to his light complexion, and he remembers not being allowed to interact with his father in public during his childhood. Noah spent his youth absorbing pop culture and “training” to one day be considered black in America. He would practice changing out his South African accent and imitating the African American figures he heard on TV.