Hari Kondabolu

Politics and sports are the same thing in some ways. I like sports; I don't like the sports aspect of politics. The conventions are basically the playoffs, and the election's the Super Bowl. To me, it doesn't feel important.

Introductions are always weird for me because my name is Hari and it's constantly mispronounced . 'Hurry', 'Hairy' - there are different ways to screw it up, and it leads to these awkward conversations.

I'm not like most comedians. I don't deal with just heckles - I'm also dealing with threats and anger. Here I am, a brown person on stage being quite blunt. I talk about white privilege; I talk about U.S. imperialistic practices; I talk about colonialism. I'm not saying things that are easy for people to laugh at.

When I was a young student, I only listened to foreign music, mainly rock music and hard rock. Then I surprised myself by discovering ethnic music. Now I like to listen to music from different places, and in many situations. Even when you work, some ethnic music calms the nerves.