Watch The Pilot For ‘African Time’, A Comedy Series On Nigerian Immigrants In America
A year ago, Black-Ish writer, Damilare Sonoiki blessed us with a trailer for the then-called, African Booty Scratcher, a comedy series on the relatable experiences of a Nigerian immigrant family in today’s America, and we couldn’t be more excited. Finally, someone was telling the often hilarious and equally difficult plight of Nigerian immigrant parents and their first-generation kids.
Clearly every other Nigerian, at home and abroad, was excited too, as the trailer has over six million views on Facebook and over 300,000 on Youtube.
Fast forward to today, and the show has thankfully been renamed African Time, and a pilot starring Dulo Harris, Niki Guluchi and her son Dani Dare, has been released.
Created, written and produced by Sonoiki, African Time tells the story of a ” family of Nigerian immigrants and their struggle to balance wanting a better life for their son, Ayodeji, with wanting him to maintain their traditional values and cultural identity “.
Basically the show will most likely include a lot of second-hand embarrassment for us all, as we watch Ayodeji balance being Nigerian at home and American everywhere else.
What’s super refreshing about African Time, is the show highlighting how the bias against African migrants doesn’t only come from White Americans, but also from almost every other demographic in the US, including Black Americans.
For example, Ayodeji’s teachers, both black and white, struggle to pronounce his name and resort to calling him everything else but his name; from Arrivederci to Ayo-bibliboop. But I’d just like to be petty and use this opportunity to point out that they can pronounce and spell ‘Schwarzenegger’ and ‘Gyllenhaal’.
In addition, all his classmates (White, Black and Asian) resort to teasing Ayodeji and calling him an African Booty Scratcher. All this pressure leads Ayodeji to ask his parents if he can be called ‘Justin’, a more acceptable, digestable, white-sounding and easily pronounceable name, at school. And like a true Nigerian father, dry jokes and all, his dad responds with… “Justin?! Is your last name Timberlake? Next thing we know, you’ll want to start a boyband and call it out of sync”
No, we couldn’t make this up if we tried. Watch the hilarious and entertaining pilot below and see for yourself:
