Big Shaq: Who is the comedian that has the world saying 'mans not hot'?

Big Shaq is the creation of Ghanaian comedian Michael Dapaah.

By now you should have heard the freestyle.

I'm talking about the 'mans not hot' freestyle that has the hilarious "The ting goes skrrrahh/ Pap pap ka ka ka" bars. The Fire In The Booth freestyle was released on August 29, 2017, has been watched 4.9 million times.

The Big Shaq freestyle was so popular that the man behind the character Michael Dapaah released it as a track and shot a music video for it.

 

The 'Mans Not Hot' video has gained 12 million views since its October 25, 2017, release. To say that the freestyle is a phenomenon at this point is an understatement. At a wedding reception in Lagos, Nigeria, a couple and their friends recited the lyrics on the dance floor.

It's not every day that a comedian drops a funny freestyle that becomes a worldwide hit. Before MC Shaq graced 'Fire In The Booth', Roll Safe, a hilarious wannabe character came to drop his own bars.

Played by Nigerian Kayode Ewumi, the freestyle had more views than MC Shaq's with 9.6 million views. Roll Safe's freestyle was a national hit riding off the character's web series. However, his was not a global sensation.

 

Who is Michael Dapaah and how did he get the world into reciting UK slangs?

Dapaah was born in January 1991 in the United Kingdom. He grew up in Croydon.  In 2008, he took a short course at the National Youth Theater. He would later graduate with a degree in  Theatre, Film and Television Studies from Brunel University.

 

Michael Dapaah would flip his talent for humour into an online following with his online skits. Encouraged by the positive feedback, Dapaah would launch a YouTube series called #SWIL.

#SWIL stands for Somewhere In London. In the web series, Dapaah plays four hilarious characters.

These characters are Dr Ofori is the Uber driver/relationship expert, MC Quakez, a rapper of little talent, Patrick Clover, a corrupt community officer and MC Shaq, the self-acclaimed road man with no street credentials.

 

As far as YouTube series is, the first season of #SWIL was a success. It got over 1 million views in its first season, None of the videos did less than 200,00 views.

"I’m very observational in my comedy and what I create with the characters that I’m blessed to play. I don’t believe comedy needs to be offensive, and I don’t believe it needs to be a mockery of anything" he tells Fader in October 2017.

 

"In all my content I don’t really swear or use profanity, because I believe comedy can just be pure.

"I try to find the balance of taking what I've observed or what I think is going to be funny, and portraying it in a way which relates to a mass audience. You've got to remember, the characters that I play? They’re some people’s actual lives" he further says.

 

His parents might have not initially liked the idea of him being a comedian but these days Michael Dapaah is known by the likes of DJ Khaled and co. They definitely won't be mad at that.

 

"I’m more overwhelmed — not surprised — by the reception globally. Since the end of the last year, we've had a strong U.K. following, so we expected it to do well here" says the Ghanaian-British act.

The next thing for Dapaah is to do a proper comedy stand up show for his fans. While he is at that, he shouldn't forget that the world wants to see MC Shaq and his other characters again.