Hari Kondabolu Biography

Hari Kondabolu () is an American stand-up comic. He is known for his politically and socially charged comedy, has appeared on television on many occasions, and was a writer for Totally Biased with W. Kamau Bell.

Early life and Education

Kondabolu was born in Queens, New York in 1982, to parents who had immigrated from Andra Pradesh, India. He attended Townsend Harris High School in Flushing, New York and graduated in 2000.

Kondabolu is the older brother of rapper Ashok Kondabolu, who is a former member of the group Das Racist.

He began performing standup when he then attended both Bowdoin College and Wesleyan University, graduating from the former with a B.A. in Comparative Politics in 2004. Kondabolu continues to spend part of every year in Maine. On February 23, 2007, The Bowdoin Orient reported:

While spending his junior year at Wesleyan University developed Kondabolu as a "scholar and an artist" because of the campus's politics and a thriving art scene, Bowdoin provided Kondabolu with the audience to hear that art. Kondabolu left for Wesleyan as a sophomore, but word of mouth made his audience even larger when he returned to Bowdoin as a senior.

After graduating from Bowdoin, Kondabolu worked as an immigrant rights organizer in Seattle, where he began participating in the alternative comedy scene. He also earned a Masters in Human Rights from the London School of Economics in 2008.

Career

Kondabolu has since made several television appearances as a stand-up comic. He made his first notable television appearance on Jimmy Kimmel Live! in 2007, when he also began to appear on a variety of national comedy festivals, including the 2007 HBO US Comedy Arts Festival. In October 2012, he performed stand-up on an episode of Conan and, in March 2014, he performed stand-up on The Late Show with David Letterman. Additionally, he has made several appearances on Comedy Central. Among these, he was featured in the July 18th, 2008 episode of Live at Gotham and later on the January 15th, 2010, July 20, 2012, and August 17, 2012 episodes of John Oliver's New York Stand-Up Show. Most prominently, his own episode of Comedy Central Presents aired in 2011. He has also appeared a number of times on British television, including on Russell Howard's Good News in 2011 and 8 out of 10 Cats in 2012 and has acted in various comedic short films online. In 2012, he had a recurring sketch as part of BBC Three's Live at the Electric hosted by Russell Kane.

He has also performed at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival and was a featured comedian for the US State Department-sponsored "Make Chai Not War" comedy showcase in India in 2012.

From 2012 to 2013, he was on the writing staff for the FX comedy series Totally Biased with W. Kamau Bell, produced by Chris Rock and hosted by W. Kamau Bell, on which he often appeared as a correspondent. In 2014, he appeared on Ken Reid's TV Guidance Counselor Podcast. In 2016, he appeared as a fictionalized version of himself in the Comedy Central webseries White Flight.

His first stand-up comedy album, Waiting for 2042, was released in March 2014 on Kill Rock Stars.

Kondabolu's humor often centers on social issues such as poverty, racism, and a rejection of Indian stereotypes seen in media. For example, his 2007 short film Manoj, which has played in comedy and film festivals around the world, including the Just for Laughs Festivals in Montreal and Chicago, mocks comedians who broadly exploit their ethnic backgrounds for their material.

He and younger brother Ashok Kondabolu do a monthly, mostly improvised talk show together in New York City called Untitled Kondabolu Brothers Project. Past guests have included Ajay Naidu, Aasif Mandvi, W. Kamau Bell, Leo Allen, Victor Vazquez (Kool AD of Das Racist), Charles Mudede and Blue Scholars. In January 2013, they started Untitled Kondabolu Brothers Podcast, with new episodes premiering every two weeks.

Discography

• Waiting for 2042 (2014)