How Jamie Foxx Developed a Comedy Routine Everyone Could Enjoy

Whether you are a comedian or professional speaker or even a writer or a illustrator, it can be difficult to create something that people from different backgrounds understand and enjoy.

What one group of people finds funny, for example, may not be something someone somewhere else finds funny. People just have different background knowledge and life experiences to pull from.

When superstar Jamie Foxx first developed his comedy routine, he learned this lesson the hard way. He says he bombed in front of his first performance in front of white people.

They just didn’t get his jokes — the same jokes that killed in front of other audiences.

So, he decided to test out parts of his routine in front of different groups of people. He could not spend his life customizing his jokes depending on where he was. Instead, he had to come up with a routine for his performance that was universally funny.

So, he went to Iowa to test out and discover a solid 15 minutes of material that a group of mostly caucasians would find funny.

Then he took the “high brow political stuff” back to African American audiences and saw what they understood and found funny. There he got another 15 minutes of material.

So he built up his routine bit by bit testing out what worked. That is how he built a 30–45 minute routine that everyone found funny.

All artists can learn from this.

You and your work is going to appeal to a certain audience right from the start. They are going to get it without a lot of hard work.

The challenge artists have, then, is to discover through trial and error what is universal about their work.

What will people of all different backgrounds be able to connect with and enjoy?

Trial and error. Sharing and feedback. These are the only ways to find out what is universal about your art.

Inspired by Jamie Foxx’s interview on the Tim Ferriss Show. Listen here.