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October 17, 2004
Tissa Hami and the Ramadan Song
The BBC website has an article about a group of Muslim stand-up comics who recently staged a show in South Carolina. The trio of comics brought the house down with their unique humor, a combination of religious inside jokes ("So there was this guy praying next to me at the Mosque...") and witty critiques of the post-September 11 landscape.
The most interesting comic of the bunch is an Iranian-American woman named Tissa Hami, who hits the stage sporting a full-length black hijab (though she breaks the ice with the audience by saying she sometimes sports a slightly shorter hijab when she's feeling kind of "slutty"). Hami has even penned a take-off of Adam Sandler's "Hanukkah Song," appropriately titled "The Ramadan Song." Here's a taste of it:
When you feel like the only kid in town without a menorah or treeHere’s a list of people who are Muslim just like you and me
Mohammad Ali prays toward Mecca
So does Aladdin, and my sister’s best friend Becca
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar gives praise to Allah
So does much of Africa but not Nelson Mandela
When you’re down on your knees, tired of praying on the floor
Remember you were once joined by Tupac Shakur
Who needs the Dreidel Song or Winter Wonderland?
When you can sing along with the American Taliban (he converted)
Put your turban on, it’s time for Ramadan
Jerry Lewis has a telethon, it’s time to celebrate Ramadan
Martha Stewart, not a Muslim
If she wore a burka, it would really really puzzle’em...
It turns out that Tissa Hami is based here in Boston, and is about to start a stint as the comic-in-residence at The Comedy Studio in Cambridge. I may have to check her out while she's performing there; it's not often you get to see a new cultural thread get woven into the fabric of American comedy.... -andy
Posted by acarvin at October 17, 2004 9:45 AM
Listen to a computer-generated podcast of this article
