November 19, 2021 • 18 mins
Zainab is an American Stand Up Comedian and actress. She is best known as a semi-finalist on last comic standing, Amazon’s Upload and Host of Netflix 100 Humans.
She discusses her journey through stand-up comedy. Finding her voice, committing to her authentic self, navigating through a male-dominated field, and the power of advocating for yourself.
Host IG: @itstanyatime
Guest IG: @zainabjohnson
Guest Website: https://www.zainabjohnson.com/
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey, Money Movers, Welcome back to Money Moves, the daily
podcast determined to give you the keys to the Kingdom
of financial stability, wealth and abundance. Once again, I'm super
excited to welcome another special celebrity guest who's here to
(00:22):
care with us the details of her journey to success
and the move she's made to get there. She's a
stand up comedian, actress, writer who was quickly bringing a
unique and engaging presence to the stage on every project
she touches. You've seen her on the Last comic Standing Netflix,
Humans and the History of Swear Words, and as well
(00:44):
on one of my favorite pandemic TV shows, Amazon Primes
Upload Money Moves Family, please help me welcome Zanab Johnson
to the podcast. Welcome, Welcome, Welcome, Zanab. It is such
a pleasure to have you here speaking on our Money
Moves podcast. How are you today? And well? Come? Oh,
thank you so much for having me. Danyel, I'm I'm well,
(01:04):
like I'm sitting here with you. I have no complaints whatsoever.
I love it. I love it, I love it well.
I have to say I have been a fan of
your work. I love to have a good belly laugh
and I also discovered you on one of my favorite
pandemic shows, U Upload on Amazon, which I thoroughly enjoyed.
But I know, none of this hard work is an
(01:24):
overnight sensation. I want to go back and can you
tell our Money Moves audience how you did this? Oh? Um?
Part of it was hard work and resilience and consistency.
I moved to l A right after college, I think
at this point twelve years ago. Um and yeah, and um,
(01:49):
I think part of it was just me, like being consistent,
working hard, and then the other part was just like
letting the universe like work. It's magic. I love that.
I love that. You know, it's such an interesting thing
because I know a little bit about your background. I
know you grew up in a Muslim household. Um, you
(02:09):
went and got a math degree and education degree, which
is you know, my background is in science as well.
You know, I have African parents and they were very
like get in education. So what was it like saying,
you know what, I'm gonna step back from that and
go into comedy, which is a very male dominated film.
You know, how was that? Um? Well, the reason why
(02:32):
I went to school is because I was trying to,
like break the cycle. You know, my mom has thirteen children,
and I watched my mom try her hardest to get
her degree as she raised us. And I think me
seeing that made me go like, okay, well I don't
let me do the thing that she wasn't able to do, right. Um.
(02:54):
And I chose math and education because I was good
at it and I didn't really have anybody he's saying
that there were other options besides like the traditional way,
you know. Um. Then I moved to l A with
a friend. My friend was like, yeah, girl, I'm she
had she got a degree in engineering. She was like,
I'm going to l A. I'm gonna be famous. At
the time, she just spoken word and I'm like, who
(03:15):
are the famous spoken word people? But okay, and so
she was like I'm gonna be famous. And I was like, well,
I can't let her go and be famous without me,
right because if you think of all the women that
are famous, I don't know who their best friends are.
So I was like, well, I have to come with her.
And so we moved here and it was a lot
of like you know, hitting my head. It was a
(03:36):
lot of figuring out what works for me. It was
a lot of being lost, you know, if I'm being honest,
It was a lot of like what am I doing here?
What what am I looking for? How do I do it? Um?
And then a friend of mine, a comedian, a stands
up comedian, he called me one day and said, hey,
this show is looking for funny women. And I'm like, well,
why are you calling me? And he was like, you're funny.
(04:00):
But I mean at the time I didn't know. He
was like, because you're funny, and I'm like, no, I'm not,
and he was like, you are funny. Just go to
the auditions because I'm not funny, but maybe I am.
Like you know, what it is of us are fighting.
But the thing that a comedian does and knows is
(04:21):
they know how to be funny, and they know how
to be funny. On Q A lot of people are
extremely funny when they don't even know it, you know.
So yeah, so um, I went and I did this
audition and I had to do like a lot of
improv and stuff like that. And then one thing left
to another. I started working for, you know, a manager
that had produced a lot of comedy. I found myself
(04:42):
in comedy clubs all the time. I found myself being
a part of like sketch groups and in prov groups. Um.
And then one day I realized I was working in
a in an office. It's just a manager. And I realized, like,
if I was gonna work in an office, will be
tied down. It's like I could just go use my degree,
you know. Um. And so that day I quit and
(05:03):
I went to an open mic and and honestly, Tanya,
nothing felt the way that felt, and I knew, and
I'm so glad that I have this. I'm so glad
that I have this instinct, like I knew that nothing
felt like that, and then I needed to follow it
and now I'm here. Wow. I love that story because
(05:25):
I think so often people are tied to this idea
of this is what I should do and this is
what I need to do. But once you really align
with you know, understanding and following your intuition, I mean
I think everything just explodes from that. Yeah. I write
this quote recently, and I'm so sorry that I can't
remember who said it, but it was like life happens
(05:48):
in the spontaneity, you know, like what you're supposed to
do is you're supposed to plan right, um, And because
that moves you forward, but you have to leave like
a little room for the magic to happen. And I
feel like I've done that, and I do that and
and I allow things to to run their course. And
I'm so far really happy where it's gotten me. Yeah,
(06:12):
you know, being a black female, UM Muslim comment comic
in a very male dominated world. How is that then,
being able to integrate that into your comedy and share
those life stories and how does your family feel about that? Uh?
Comedy stands up specifically is definitely male dominated. I think
that I fare well though, and I just I I've
(06:39):
navigated it in a successful way for the most part.
I think because I I try to always be my
authentic self like it services me the most. Um, I've
recognized when I stray away from that and it doesn't
service me. So I'm always trying to be at that
(07:00):
place where I am me unapologetically and I find that
male female or whatever I can't accept that, you know, UM,
my family at first they were scared. Like I remember,
I did a TV taping for my stands up in
Atlanta a couple of years ago, UM, and my mother
drove down with some of my siblings and they were
(07:22):
in the studio audience, and my younger brother told me
after the fact, he was like, I was so scared
before you walked out. He was like, it's the scariest
I've ever been in my life. And I was like,
why were you scared? He was like, cause I don't
remember you being funny. He was like, growing up, you
were never funny, like so, I didn't know what to expect.
(07:45):
But in the moment you grabbed the mic and the
first word you said, you had complete control of the audience,
he said, And I was just immediately at ease and
laughing with everybody else. So I think my family, I
think they love it. I think I used them their
source material p um and so at this point they feel, well,
at first, they feel very celebrated, you know. At this point,
(08:07):
I think they're like, Okay, she's gonna have to start
cutting our some check because we're giving her material um.
And I think now they make fun of me, like, um, okay, everybody,
you know, be careful. They gonna put this in a bit. Yeah,
But but overall they're proud. That's wonderful. I love that,
and I love that they were there to support you.
(08:28):
I can just picture your brother in the audience like
oh no, please don't let her bomb. And then I
was like, wow, she's amazing. Yeah, yeah, okay, they have.
So you left New York and you moved to l
A to pursue your dreams of being a stand up comedian.
Can you tell us about how it was breaking into
that business. I mean essentially you had to brand and
(08:50):
market yourself to get successful. Can you share any tips
with our audience? Absolutely. One thing that people should know
about being a stands up comic is at the beginning,
you actually pay. Like for the first two years, I
paid for open mic every single day, or rather every
single night, multiple times a night. Like people say, oh,
(09:12):
come and you get five minutes, but you have to
either buy a drink or you have to pay five
dollars or you know, you have to patronize the business.
So for the first like two years, that's what people
need to understand. That you come out your pocket a lot.
Like I remember the first a couple of times I
featured for like a headline and comedian on the road.
The club wasn't paying to bring me out there, so
(09:34):
I had to pay for my flight. I had to
pay for my hotel try and crash on somebody's couch.
And so you're like, yeah, oh, I'll go to Florida
this weekend. It makes six hundred bucks. But it's like
I'm Const'm leaving, Yeah, I'm leaving fifty bucks in a
hole because of what it cost me to get there.
But that's you know, that's like all for the love
(09:54):
I remember, um, And this is something that I really
had to learn. You know. Tell you when you go
to like a regular job, you know that you clock
in right and at the end of a week or
two weeks, you know that that computer will generate how
much you work, what your pay raid is, and you'll
get a check. Right. Stand up. It is a it
is person to person, right. I remember I was in
(10:17):
Detroit and I did a show and the guy, the
promoter was like, Hey, come down and do the show.
It's last minute, so I can't pay you, but I'll
give you gas money. He's like, I'll give you sixty
dollars gas money. And in my money, what the sixty
dollars will get you? Where Detroit? From airport? Like Detroit
I was. I was driving from like a suburb of Detroit. Okay,
(10:40):
began at the time. Yes, So I'm like that, but
I'm thinking, like cool, as long as I don't go
back home in the hole, right, Like, as long as
he covers gas money, I'll never forget. My mother came
with me to this show in Detroit when the sixth Mile.
It was at a strip club, which even that was
new for me. I was like, oh, I thought we
were doing comedy. Why are in the straight Once you
(11:00):
see a g string, you don't want to hear a joke,
you know. So I get up and I do this
that I have a great time. When I get off stage,
I tell my mom, I'm like, okay, we can go.
I'm done. And she was like, wait, did you get
your sixty dollars? And I was like, well no, I
mean he said he was gonna give it to me,
but I saw him when I got off stage and
he didn't offer it to me. So I guess I'm
(11:21):
just not my mother said, And I've never heard my
mother speaking like this. She's that girl. This ain't no charity.
Go get your money. And because I felt like, well,
I'd rather be in trouble with this man and not
my mother, I went to the guy and I was like, hey,
you said you were gonna give me sixty dollars, right,
(11:42):
He was like, oh, yeah, it's nothing, But that moment
taught me like, in this business, you gotta stand up
for you have to you have to say yeah, you
have to say what you want. You have to let
people know what you are worth, you know, like, especially
as a black woman, there there's so many clubs that
don't even allow black There are very few black women
(12:04):
women of color headlining national clubs. Yeah, I mean you
can probably bury on them on your hands. Yeah, absolutely. Um.
And then once you actually get in that circuit, once
they decide you're one of the ones that we want
to let in, then you have to fight for a
workable rate, right, and that requires you speaking up directly.
(12:29):
That requires you speaking up to the people that you
have in place that advocate for you, being a lawyer
or manager, agent, etcetera. But it all, it all forces
you to not just use your voice on stage, but
to use your voice to advocate and be like the
leader of your story off stage. I'm so glad you
(12:49):
said that because oftentimes, you know, we don't want to
ruffle anyone's feathers or it makes us uncomfortable. But you
have to do it because nobody else is going to
do it for you, and that is that is a
huge lesson. I feel like the older you know, as
we grow throughout life that like we need to really
understand the black women as well. Saying that, So, tell
me your career is accelerating. Um, what was the point
(13:11):
that you really realized that this was going to be
a viable and lucrative career for you. The moment I
started like headlining, The moment I started headlining clubs that
were in different cities, in different parts of the world,
and I was actually being paid. You know, it's a
trip to um be wondering how you're going to pay
(13:34):
your rent to knowing that your rent is going to
get paid by the art that you're doing, you know.
And I think that my first year headlining, I didn't
even realize it in a moment, Like, you know, I
knew I was getting paid, and I knew I was
paying my rent, But I did my attaxes after that
year and I was like, oh, oh I do actually, yeah,
(14:01):
like you have a salary being an artist, you know,
and there's some consistency in it, and yeah, that's what
I mean, that's That's that's when it made sense. That
that's when it all came together for me, like, oh wow,
I'm really doing this, like this is my livelihood. I
(14:22):
do think though, you know, comedy is very um location specific,
and by that I mean the comedian in Los Angeles, uh,
the stands up comedian. Because we know that it's changed.
There's so many people who have become uh comedians by
doing like online personalities or funny videos online. They may
(14:44):
not be they may not translate the same way when
you put them on the stage with the mic, you know,
by themselves. So so it's a bit different now. But
if we talk about like a pure stand up comment,
right and in that pure art form um, if you're
in l A, you're not gonna make money off of
just doing spots around the city. It just doesn't pay enough,
(15:05):
you know, it doesn't pay enough versus the cost of living.
But if you are in New York, which is a
very comedy specific city, you actually never have to leave
the city to make a reasonable living being a stands
up comment. Now, of course l A and New York
their opposites, right, but just think about it. In Ohio,
(15:27):
nobody's just staying in Ohio doing spots and and just
in in living in the you know what I'm saying,
really thriving like they have some other um side hustle.
So it really depends. The business of stands up can
get really complex, but I think the things that offset
(15:47):
it are um, when you book a TV show. When
you know that's the thing that offsets a tour is
when you book a TV show or a movie. It's
it's almost like supplemental income. Okay, I'll sit down for
a little while and do this thing and it'll be
this big pay day and as soon as I'm done
with that, I'll get right back on stage and then
I'll start making the money this way, you know, all right, ZANEA,
(16:09):
So can you tell us what's coming up for you next,
where we can find you and what we are working on? Yeah,
I mean on all social media platforms. It's just my
name is Zane AB Johnson, very simple, z Ai and
A B. Johnson. I have like dates now. My calendar
is filling up, so definitely go to my web. I
(16:31):
can't wait to hear you. Yeah, yeah, comes to it.
If I'm in the city near you, please come and
see me to see me for an hour is an experience. Um,
we just wrapped on Upload season two. Yeah, so I
don't have the release date for that, but when it
does come out, please check out Upload season two if
(16:52):
you haven't watched it yet, and you know, follow tans
lead and check out Upload season Good guys, it'll kind
of blow your mind literally. But I love your character
on there. I think you are just perfect like this,
you know, super fun, outgoing black woman who just tells
it like it is. And I just I love how
(17:14):
you influence that show. So it's really great to see
you there. And I hope you guys check her out
on social media. Make sure you follow her on social
so you find out if she's coming to a town
near you. And of course check out Amazon for Upload.
It's a great, great program. It will really get your
brain thinking Inzana. Thank you so much for coming today
and sharing all your wisdom and insights on your journey.
(17:34):
It was such a pleasure. Thank you so much for
having me. This has been a pleasure. Thank you. Hey
money movers. If you want to hear more about Zane
AB's journey or get a transcript of this excellent session,
please go to bank Readwood dot com. And check out
the Money Moves blog. Thank you so much for tuning
in Money Moves audience. If you want more or a
recap of this episode, please go to the bank Greenwood
(17:56):
dot com and check out the Money Moves podcast blog.
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Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts from.
Hey, Money Movers, Welcome back to Money Moves, the daily
podcast determined to give you the keys to the Kingdom
of financial stability, wealth and abundance. Once again, I'm super
excited to welcome another special celebrity guest who's here to
(00:22):
care with us the details of her journey to success
and the move she's made to get there. She's a
stand up comedian, actress, writer who was quickly bringing a
unique and engaging presence to the stage on every project
she touches. You've seen her on the Last comic Standing Netflix,
Humans and the History of Swear Words, and as well
(00:44):
on one of my favorite pandemic TV shows, Amazon Primes
Upload Money Moves Family, please help me welcome Zanab Johnson
to the podcast. Welcome, Welcome, Welcome, Zanab. It is such
a pleasure to have you here speaking on our Money
Moves podcast. How are you today? And well? Come? Oh,
thank you so much for having me. Danyel, I'm I'm well,
(01:04):
like I'm sitting here with you. I have no complaints whatsoever.
I love it. I love it, I love it well.
I have to say I have been a fan of
your work. I love to have a good belly laugh
and I also discovered you on one of my favorite
pandemic shows, U Upload on Amazon, which I thoroughly enjoyed.
But I know, none of this hard work is an
(01:24):
overnight sensation. I want to go back and can you
tell our Money Moves audience how you did this? Oh? Um?
Part of it was hard work and resilience and consistency.
I moved to l A right after college, I think
at this point twelve years ago. Um and yeah, and um,
(01:49):
I think part of it was just me, like being consistent,
working hard, and then the other part was just like
letting the universe like work. It's magic. I love that.
I love that. You know, it's such an interesting thing
because I know a little bit about your background. I
know you grew up in a Muslim household. Um, you
(02:09):
went and got a math degree and education degree, which
is you know, my background is in science as well.
You know, I have African parents and they were very
like get in education. So what was it like saying,
you know what, I'm gonna step back from that and
go into comedy, which is a very male dominated film.
You know, how was that? Um? Well, the reason why
(02:32):
I went to school is because I was trying to,
like break the cycle. You know, my mom has thirteen children,
and I watched my mom try her hardest to get
her degree as she raised us. And I think me
seeing that made me go like, okay, well I don't
let me do the thing that she wasn't able to do, right. Um.
(02:54):
And I chose math and education because I was good
at it and I didn't really have anybody he's saying
that there were other options besides like the traditional way,
you know. Um. Then I moved to l A with
a friend. My friend was like, yeah, girl, I'm she
had she got a degree in engineering. She was like,
I'm going to l A. I'm gonna be famous. At
the time, she just spoken word and I'm like, who
(03:15):
are the famous spoken word people? But okay, and so
she was like I'm gonna be famous. And I was like, well,
I can't let her go and be famous without me,
right because if you think of all the women that
are famous, I don't know who their best friends are.
So I was like, well, I have to come with her.
And so we moved here and it was a lot
of like you know, hitting my head. It was a
(03:36):
lot of figuring out what works for me. It was
a lot of being lost, you know, if I'm being honest,
It was a lot of like what am I doing here?
What what am I looking for? How do I do it? Um?
And then a friend of mine, a comedian, a stands
up comedian, he called me one day and said, hey,
this show is looking for funny women. And I'm like, well,
why are you calling me? And he was like, you're funny.
(04:00):
But I mean at the time I didn't know. He
was like, because you're funny, and I'm like, no, I'm not,
and he was like, you are funny. Just go to
the auditions because I'm not funny, but maybe I am.
Like you know, what it is of us are fighting.
But the thing that a comedian does and knows is
(04:21):
they know how to be funny, and they know how
to be funny. On Q A lot of people are
extremely funny when they don't even know it, you know.
So yeah, so um, I went and I did this
audition and I had to do like a lot of
improv and stuff like that. And then one thing left
to another. I started working for, you know, a manager
that had produced a lot of comedy. I found myself
(04:42):
in comedy clubs all the time. I found myself being
a part of like sketch groups and in prov groups. Um.
And then one day I realized I was working in
a in an office. It's just a manager. And I realized, like,
if I was gonna work in an office, will be
tied down. It's like I could just go use my degree,
you know. Um. And so that day I quit and
(05:03):
I went to an open mic and and honestly, Tanya,
nothing felt the way that felt, and I knew, and
I'm so glad that I have this. I'm so glad
that I have this instinct, like I knew that nothing
felt like that, and then I needed to follow it
and now I'm here. Wow. I love that story because
(05:25):
I think so often people are tied to this idea
of this is what I should do and this is
what I need to do. But once you really align
with you know, understanding and following your intuition, I mean
I think everything just explodes from that. Yeah. I write
this quote recently, and I'm so sorry that I can't
remember who said it, but it was like life happens
(05:48):
in the spontaneity, you know, like what you're supposed to
do is you're supposed to plan right, um, And because
that moves you forward, but you have to leave like
a little room for the magic to happen. And I
feel like I've done that, and I do that and
and I allow things to to run their course. And
I'm so far really happy where it's gotten me. Yeah,
(06:12):
you know, being a black female, UM Muslim comment comic
in a very male dominated world. How is that then,
being able to integrate that into your comedy and share
those life stories and how does your family feel about that? Uh?
Comedy stands up specifically is definitely male dominated. I think
that I fare well though, and I just I I've
(06:39):
navigated it in a successful way for the most part.
I think because I I try to always be my
authentic self like it services me the most. Um, I've
recognized when I stray away from that and it doesn't
service me. So I'm always trying to be at that
(07:00):
place where I am me unapologetically and I find that
male female or whatever I can't accept that, you know, UM,
my family at first they were scared. Like I remember,
I did a TV taping for my stands up in
Atlanta a couple of years ago, UM, and my mother
drove down with some of my siblings and they were
(07:22):
in the studio audience, and my younger brother told me
after the fact, he was like, I was so scared
before you walked out. He was like, it's the scariest
I've ever been in my life. And I was like,
why were you scared? He was like, cause I don't
remember you being funny. He was like, growing up, you
were never funny, like so, I didn't know what to expect.
(07:45):
But in the moment you grabbed the mic and the
first word you said, you had complete control of the audience,
he said, And I was just immediately at ease and
laughing with everybody else. So I think my family, I
think they love it. I think I used them their
source material p um and so at this point they feel, well,
at first, they feel very celebrated, you know. At this point,
(08:07):
I think they're like, Okay, she's gonna have to start
cutting our some check because we're giving her material um.
And I think now they make fun of me, like, um, okay, everybody,
you know, be careful. They gonna put this in a bit. Yeah,
But but overall they're proud. That's wonderful. I love that,
and I love that they were there to support you.
(08:28):
I can just picture your brother in the audience like
oh no, please don't let her bomb. And then I
was like, wow, she's amazing. Yeah, yeah, okay, they have.
So you left New York and you moved to l
A to pursue your dreams of being a stand up comedian.
Can you tell us about how it was breaking into
that business. I mean essentially you had to brand and
(08:50):
market yourself to get successful. Can you share any tips
with our audience? Absolutely. One thing that people should know
about being a stands up comic is at the beginning,
you actually pay. Like for the first two years, I
paid for open mic every single day, or rather every
single night, multiple times a night. Like people say, oh,
(09:12):
come and you get five minutes, but you have to
either buy a drink or you have to pay five
dollars or you know, you have to patronize the business.
So for the first like two years, that's what people
need to understand. That you come out your pocket a lot.
Like I remember the first a couple of times I
featured for like a headline and comedian on the road.
The club wasn't paying to bring me out there, so
(09:34):
I had to pay for my flight. I had to
pay for my hotel try and crash on somebody's couch.
And so you're like, yeah, oh, I'll go to Florida
this weekend. It makes six hundred bucks. But it's like
I'm Const'm leaving, Yeah, I'm leaving fifty bucks in a
hole because of what it cost me to get there.
But that's you know, that's like all for the love
(09:54):
I remember, um, And this is something that I really
had to learn. You know. Tell you when you go
to like a regular job, you know that you clock
in right and at the end of a week or
two weeks, you know that that computer will generate how
much you work, what your pay raid is, and you'll
get a check. Right. Stand up. It is a it
is person to person, right. I remember I was in
(10:17):
Detroit and I did a show and the guy, the
promoter was like, Hey, come down and do the show.
It's last minute, so I can't pay you, but I'll
give you gas money. He's like, I'll give you sixty
dollars gas money. And in my money, what the sixty
dollars will get you? Where Detroit? From airport? Like Detroit
I was. I was driving from like a suburb of Detroit. Okay,
(10:40):
began at the time. Yes, So I'm like that, but
I'm thinking, like cool, as long as I don't go
back home in the hole, right, Like, as long as
he covers gas money, I'll never forget. My mother came
with me to this show in Detroit when the sixth Mile.
It was at a strip club, which even that was
new for me. I was like, oh, I thought we
were doing comedy. Why are in the straight Once you
(11:00):
see a g string, you don't want to hear a joke,
you know. So I get up and I do this
that I have a great time. When I get off stage,
I tell my mom, I'm like, okay, we can go.
I'm done. And she was like, wait, did you get
your sixty dollars? And I was like, well no, I
mean he said he was gonna give it to me,
but I saw him when I got off stage and
he didn't offer it to me. So I guess I'm
(11:21):
just not my mother said, And I've never heard my
mother speaking like this. She's that girl. This ain't no charity.
Go get your money. And because I felt like, well,
I'd rather be in trouble with this man and not
my mother, I went to the guy and I was like, hey,
you said you were gonna give me sixty dollars, right,
(11:42):
He was like, oh, yeah, it's nothing, But that moment
taught me like, in this business, you gotta stand up
for you have to you have to say yeah, you
have to say what you want. You have to let
people know what you are worth, you know, like, especially
as a black woman, there there's so many clubs that
don't even allow black There are very few black women
(12:04):
women of color headlining national clubs. Yeah, I mean you
can probably bury on them on your hands. Yeah, absolutely. Um.
And then once you actually get in that circuit, once
they decide you're one of the ones that we want
to let in, then you have to fight for a
workable rate, right, and that requires you speaking up directly.
(12:29):
That requires you speaking up to the people that you
have in place that advocate for you, being a lawyer
or manager, agent, etcetera. But it all, it all forces
you to not just use your voice on stage, but
to use your voice to advocate and be like the
leader of your story off stage. I'm so glad you
(12:49):
said that because oftentimes, you know, we don't want to
ruffle anyone's feathers or it makes us uncomfortable. But you
have to do it because nobody else is going to
do it for you, and that is that is a
huge lesson. I feel like the older you know, as
we grow throughout life that like we need to really
understand the black women as well. Saying that, So, tell
me your career is accelerating. Um, what was the point
(13:11):
that you really realized that this was going to be
a viable and lucrative career for you. The moment I
started like headlining, The moment I started headlining clubs that
were in different cities, in different parts of the world,
and I was actually being paid. You know, it's a
trip to um be wondering how you're going to pay
(13:34):
your rent to knowing that your rent is going to
get paid by the art that you're doing, you know.
And I think that my first year headlining, I didn't
even realize it in a moment, Like, you know, I
knew I was getting paid, and I knew I was
paying my rent, But I did my attaxes after that
year and I was like, oh, oh I do actually, yeah,
(14:01):
like you have a salary being an artist, you know,
and there's some consistency in it, and yeah, that's what
I mean, that's That's that's when it made sense. That
that's when it all came together for me, like, oh wow,
I'm really doing this, like this is my livelihood. I
(14:22):
do think though, you know, comedy is very um location specific,
and by that I mean the comedian in Los Angeles, uh,
the stands up comedian. Because we know that it's changed.
There's so many people who have become uh comedians by
doing like online personalities or funny videos online. They may
(14:44):
not be they may not translate the same way when
you put them on the stage with the mic, you know,
by themselves. So so it's a bit different now. But
if we talk about like a pure stand up comment,
right and in that pure art form um, if you're
in l A, you're not gonna make money off of
just doing spots around the city. It just doesn't pay enough,
(15:05):
you know, it doesn't pay enough versus the cost of living.
But if you are in New York, which is a
very comedy specific city, you actually never have to leave
the city to make a reasonable living being a stands
up comment. Now, of course l A and New York
their opposites, right, but just think about it. In Ohio,
(15:27):
nobody's just staying in Ohio doing spots and and just
in in living in the you know what I'm saying,
really thriving like they have some other um side hustle.
So it really depends. The business of stands up can
get really complex, but I think the things that offset
(15:47):
it are um, when you book a TV show. When
you know that's the thing that offsets a tour is
when you book a TV show or a movie. It's
it's almost like supplemental income. Okay, I'll sit down for
a little while and do this thing and it'll be
this big pay day and as soon as I'm done
with that, I'll get right back on stage and then
I'll start making the money this way, you know, all right, ZANEA,
(16:09):
So can you tell us what's coming up for you next,
where we can find you and what we are working on? Yeah,
I mean on all social media platforms. It's just my
name is Zane AB Johnson, very simple, z Ai and
A B. Johnson. I have like dates now. My calendar
is filling up, so definitely go to my web. I
(16:31):
can't wait to hear you. Yeah, yeah, comes to it.
If I'm in the city near you, please come and
see me to see me for an hour is an experience. Um,
we just wrapped on Upload season two. Yeah, so I
don't have the release date for that, but when it
does come out, please check out Upload season two if
(16:52):
you haven't watched it yet, and you know, follow tans
lead and check out Upload season Good guys, it'll kind
of blow your mind literally. But I love your character
on there. I think you are just perfect like this,
you know, super fun, outgoing black woman who just tells
it like it is. And I just I love how
(17:14):
you influence that show. So it's really great to see
you there. And I hope you guys check her out
on social media. Make sure you follow her on social
so you find out if she's coming to a town
near you. And of course check out Amazon for Upload.
It's a great, great program. It will really get your
brain thinking Inzana. Thank you so much for coming today
and sharing all your wisdom and insights on your journey.
(17:34):
It was such a pleasure. Thank you so much for
having me. This has been a pleasure. Thank you. Hey
money movers. If you want to hear more about Zane
AB's journey or get a transcript of this excellent session,
please go to bank Readwood dot com. And check out
the Money Moves blog. Thank you so much for tuning
in Money Moves audience. If you want more or a
recap of this episode, please go to the bank Greenwood
(17:56):
dot com and check out the Money Moves podcast blog.
Money Moves is an I Heart Radio podcast powered by
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