Chapter 1: What makes Rafi Bastos unique in Brazilian comedy?
This is Rafi Bastos. He is the biggest stand-up comedian in Brazil. He's hosted Brazil's version of SNL. He's an actor, a television personality, and he has now built an entirely global audience, purely in a second language. He taught himself English just so he could travel the world and do his passion. He grew up originally in Brazil, a country where life can be hard and laughter is survival.
People are making jokes in favelas, they give ruthless nicknames to their friends, and they oftentimes turn their pain into comedy before it becomes despair. But what makes Rafi different is that he's always been a little bit outside of Brazilian culture. He's always been a little more skeptical. And of course, that makes him so funny. He's like Brazilian Larry David, right?
He's an immigrant comic that now is in America that is discussing American life and American culture and the English language and why airplanes are so crappy for tall people. In today's episode, we talk about why Brazilians are so funny and why happy cultures can sometimes ignore real problems and what happens when a comedian stops trying to be viral and starts really being honest.
Rafi is just a brilliant guy. He's one of my favorite stand-up comedians. I get to watch him every single week at the Comedy Cellar. And on top of that, he's just a truly amazing person.
Chapter 2: Why do Brazilians find humor despite challenges?
So I hope you guys enjoy this episode half as much as I enjoyed half. So without further ado, sit back, relax, and welcome to Canada. Rafinha, how are you, brother?
My pleasure, brother. Thanks for having me.
Of course, thank you for joining me.
My pleasure.
I'm very excited. It is not always that I get a comedian superstar like yourself in the room. Superstar, wow.
Superstars, I think- You gotta tell the bookers.
It doesn't matter. They're not going to book me. Maybe they're listening. Maybe they're listening.
Who knows?
Not only are you a superstar in America, but in Brazil.
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Chapter 3: How does Rafi's upbringing influence his comedy?
Because it's not actually in America. It is in English.
Fair.
So people... I have like... Followers from all over the world now. Like it's crazy. I did like a tour in the middle East. I go to Italy and I have Italian people watching me. That was not the plan when I built like an, uh, an Instagram in English, cause I was trying to conquer an American audience, but I was able to build like an Amsterdam audience.
I wasn't the plan, but it happened, you know, it was crazy.
And it's interesting anytime someone has a massive audience in a very specific sub region of the world, right? Like I was hanging out with an Australian friend of mine who is a very big comic in Australia, but has only like, you know, 600,000 followers on Instagram.
And I was like, I know people, I know like a makeup influencer with three times this, but this guy, when we walk around Australia shuts it down. Like everywhere we go, there's kids running up to him, can I have a picture, dah, dah, dah. Because it's such a small country that when you have 600,000 in a country of 25 million- Smalling population.
Exactly.
It's huge. Yeah, geographically, it's too big. But he's so famous in this population. So I wonder when you walk around Brazil, are you being accosted on the street? Are people stopping you? Are you getting photographs nonstop?
Well, and I'm not going to say that every people approaching is the nicest one.
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Chapter 4: What cultural differences does Rafi experience in America?
I'm a big fan. But now people who pay to watch me, they're like, bro, that's so good that you're here. I see myself in you. So I see that a lot now. I feel like for a while I was just a famous person, which is also a good position to be in. but now I feel like my audience really likes me. They enjoy what I do. They follow my journey. It's crazy. It's crazy.
It's not as big as it was like 10 years ago, but I feel like it's more engaged.
It's more honest. It's more connected.
It is. It is. No doubt. No doubt. For sure. For sure. But yeah, the problem in Brazil, we are very isolated. It's a huge country. We have, I don't know, 350 million people in Brazil. But if you think about it, we are the only country that speaks Portuguese in the area. So it's us. Like a Brazilian comedian can only tour in Brazil, Portugal. Yeah.
Well, Angola, if he wants to, I don't know, to make just a few bucks because the money is not that much. The currency sucks. You can go to Cabo Verde. Like there's just a few. like a few places that we can go, you know? So for me to do in English was a way for me to just go, you know, to do more than just my people. Because we are very limited because of the language.
But this is one of my favorite topics because I've maybe shared this before on this show, but I'll share it with you. My father traveled in Europe for like his work. And so growing up, he would come home and he would tell us stories from all the places he went.
And you probably have brothers everywhere in the world.
Exactly, exactly. I hope, and I hope to meet them, please. Reach out to me, okay? Hopefully they book some shows. It'd be nice. But he travels all over, and every time he comes home, we sit at the dinner table, he comes home, he brings gifts, he brings souvenirs from wherever he went, and he tells me stories about, this is why the Dutch are funny. because they're very serious.
And here's why Germans are funny. Here's why Italians are funny. And then you go to North Italy and you go to South Italy, they're very different. And he would just explain these cultural stories and the whole family table, all six of my siblings, we would just sit there and laugh. And I became so obsessed with cultural perspective through a comedic lens.
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Chapter 5: What challenges do comedians face when transitioning to American audiences?
You won't go higher. You tell me. What do we give them? 12%. All right, we're doing 12% off. Should we go more? Hey, it's your world. I'm just living in it. Let's round up. 10%. No, 15%. If you use the promo code CAMP15, you're going to be getting 15% off. Yes. I think we should also do CAMP10. Just if someone doesn't want to take too much. Camp 10 or Camp 15.
Those are the only two that are available. And then maybe we send a little something extra to the ones that do 10. If you do Camp 10, maybe there's something extra. No promises, but it's an interesting experiment. I'm just curious to see what you guys do. Camp 10 or Camp 15 at Camp R&D. When you check out, you're going to be getting those discounts.
Thank you so much for rocking with us and wearing the threads. It keeps the lights on. It keeps the fire on. Anyway, let's get back to the show. What happened in a plane? This situation here, it was forced to land because, oh, a dog relieved itself in first class. This isn't even what I was talking about. There's a woman that had explosive diarrhea and ruined the whole aisle of the airplane.
And then they just like had to clean it up. Like it was a whole thing. And the plane was like, what do we do? Is it a medical emergency? Like at what point are they gonna save more money because they have to refund people's flights because people are complaining. Do we save more money turning this whole flight around or do we just give everyone a free ticket?
What did they do?
I think that one, they finished the flight, but they had to refund everyone, which is kind of, honestly, depending on the flight, I'd be okay with that. If I spent $3,000 for a first-class ticket and then they said, you have to be near some shit, but we'll refund you.
Oh, I would fly. Well, well. Bro.
Ben.
I would eat the shit.
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Chapter 6: How do cultural differences impact humor between Brazil and America?
If it's fear factor, I'll do it.
No, I broke my collarbone.
Oh, yeah.
And I had to fly to Brazil because I broke my collarbone and I flew to Brazil the next day to have surgery in Brazil.
So you flew with the broken collarbone?
Yes.
And I'm going to tell you, I bought a business flight. Flying with a collarbone on business flight, much better than flying economy. With a perfect shoulder. With a normal collarbone. Much better. There's no comparison. I'm telling you, I'm not lying. I found a good position and then I was like, I slept. Really? Something I never do when I'm on economy class.
Yeah, of course not. Did you explain to everyone as you're going through? You went through TSA and you're like, my shoulder's broken. Did you tell people this?
No. No. Why? No.
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Chapter 7: What are the implications of fame in the comedy industry?
No, they didn't. Oh, if they did, I had to tell them. But I just told, the only person I told to was, because they gave me a seat where my, like this was the, there's a little table, right? On the business class. So this was where the table was. I needed the table to be here. So I changed the seat with someone that the table was on the right.
And you explained the situation.
I explained the situation and the person understood. Wow. Yeah, it's okay.
I had someone explain a situation to me. I was flying during COVID. I had the aisle seat, woman in the middle seat, her husband in the other aisle. And it was like the big plane, so we're in the middle. And she gets up to go to the bathroom where I'll have our masks on. And I'm like pulling mine down to like eat, whatever, drink water, take a second, put it back up.
And he leans over to me and goes, hey dude, I don't give a shit. But my wife is super crazy about this COVID thing. Can you just, like, be cool?
What did you just do?
I was like, what do you mean? And he was like, I just saw you, like, with your mask down. I don't care. But she's going to freak out. The last flight we took, she made a whole scene because the guy next to us had his mask down. Just put your mask up. Like, I'm telling you, she's just going to lose it. And he was confiding in me, like, I can't control this lady.
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Chapter 8: How does personal experience shape a comedian's perspective on success?
I need you to step up just to be a hero for me. And I was like... All right. And I kind of did it because I was like, I don't feel like having a moment. And if I did take my mask down, I felt her staring. I felt the glare, the heat.
Ten minutes later, the woman was like, my husband here is going to create a whole story. He's going to create a whole story. Exactly. And please don't believe him. I couldn't care less about COVID. He's neurotic.
Yeah, exactly. They're both just putting on each other. It was so terrifying. I was like, oh, gosh. But I felt like I should step up. I should do the right thing. Nice. But it's specifically economy class for you because you're so tall, because you are 6'7".
But also I'm flying. It's okay.
Yeah.
You know, now that I moved to New York, yeah, it's not a good flight. But 10 hours sitting down to go and see my son, you know, at the end of the day, it's like life could be worse.
I need to explain the 6-7 thing to you.
Okay.
I think you'll find this funny. Also, if Colum's out there, you should bring Colum in here because Colum speaks Portuguese.
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