Our Current Comedian Crush Zainab Johnson On Making Space for Herself in Comedy

Zainab Johnson has a theory about her success, and she calls it “the Zainab effect”—her uncanny ability to level up even the most busted situations into something worth watching. It’s a fitting explanation for how a woman who started doing open mics at hookah lounges has turned brutal honesty about her identity into a thriving comedy career. 

Johnson credits her success to a simple approach: She got on stage and told the truth. She’s Muslim. Her parents have 13 kids—same mother, same father. People laugh. So she came back the next day and shared more stories. She’s been doing it for 14 years now, longer than she’s done anything else except, as she puts it, living. 

But Johnson’s path to comedy wasn’t exactly clear to her. Growing up, she watched Whitney Houston, TLC, and Beyoncé. What she didn’t see was a “dope a** Muslim woman on TV,” she explains on Let’s Try This Again with B. Simone. ”There was nothing telling me that was okay for me.” 

That absence of representation became both her pain point and her purpose. At 13, Johnson stopped wearing her hijab—partly rebellion against her parents, partly exhaustion with being prejudiced by strangers. Now, as an adult, she’s determined to be what she never had: visible proof that Muslim women can take up space however they choose.

Zainab Johnson on Life as a Black Muslim Woman in Comedy

Breaking into stand-up comedy as a Black Muslim woman

Johnson stumbled into stand-up the way most people stumble into their callings—accidentally, while working a day job she didn’t love. She signed up for a local open mic on a whim, fully expecting to bomb but at least come away with a great story to tell. Johnson didn’t know she was good at comedy until the first time she grabbed a mic and got on stage.

“I definitely thought I would fail,” she says. “Who just thinks they’re funny? You have to be kind of delusional and a bit arrogant to believe you’re funny.” 

But something clicked that first night on the stage. Johnson had spent years as a stand-up fan with many friends in the comedy world, but she’d never imagined she’d be behind the mic. But she thought she’d fail at comedy. Her only goal was to tell a good story. After that first set, she went back the very next day. 

Turning our differences into our superpowers

Johnson’s comedy draws heavily from the particular intersection of identities she occupies—Black, Muslim, woman, sister to a small village’s worth of siblings. She doesn’t shy away from the more complicated aspects of that identity, including the ways it’s been shaped by external forces. 

When headlines about police brutality dominated the news cycle, Johnson took the pain and processed it through comedy. “When I get on stage, I get to either forget about it or talk my way through it,” she says. “Everybody is affected by what is happening in the world, and we get to share in that experience.” 

Nothing is off-limits for Johnson, including criticisms lobbed at her for not covering her hair as a Muslim. Her response? “Well, this is a wig. So technically, I am.”

Whether it’s calling out the stigma against Black women and how they wear their hair or encouraging a younger generation of performers to lean into whatever it is that makes them different, Johnson is proof that the things that set you apart are the things that make you essential. 

Johnson is currently on a nationwide tour, and (insider tea) she and B. Simone are discussing doing a show together. For more of the details, tune into the rest of Let’s Try This Again.