Ahmed AhmedAhmed was born in Helwan, Egypt in 1970. When he was just 1 month old, his family moved to Riverside, California. Citing his mixed cultural roots, Ahmed claims to feel culturally "bipolar". He's been an active comedian since 1989 when he moved to Hollywood to pursue his career.
Ahmed's comedy style is both satirical and observational. He primary focuses on race, islamophobia, Arab identity and culture, and stereotypes. Mr. Ahmed has been in several films and television shows including Iron Man, You Don’t Mess With The Zohan, Vince Vaughn’s Wild West Comedy Show, The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, Swingers, Roseanne, JAG, Tough Crowd with Colin Quinn on Comedy Central, and MTV’s PUNK’D. He is close friends with Vince Vaughn, who he claims is a personal hero. Ahmed has appeared widely in the press discussing race, post-9/11 America, the role of comedy, and his newest of many ventures. |
Before late 2001, Ahmed's comedy was much more charged. In an article in late 2001, just after September 11th, he discusses how hard it was to find work after the attacks, the rise of islamophobia, and the necessity to cut jokes deemed to go too far.
From 2001 to 2004, Ahmed partnered with Rabbi Bob Apler touring the US with their 2-man act called "One Arab, One Jew, One Stage" which tackled interfaith harmony and essential human dignity. In 2004, he was the winner of the first annual Richard Pryor Award for ethnic comedy at the Edinburgh Festival in Scotland. Also in 2004, he performed with Axis of Justice, a social justice project headed my musicians Serj Tankian and Tom Morello. From 2005 to 2011, Ahmed was part of the Axis of Evil comedy tour featuring Middle Eastern American comedians. A very popular multinational tour, Axis peaked with their own Comedy Central special in 2007. In 2011, Ahmed released his film Just Like Us at Tribeca. The film showed the stark contrast between Western expectations of comedy and humor in the Middle East and the reality of comedy there. In October 2012 Ahmed began unveiling the "Next Generation" of the "Axis of Evil Comeddy Tour" featuring young, up-and-coming American comedians of Middle Eastern descent. |
Comedy
Mr. Ahmed's newest venture is "The Next Generation of Evil Comedy Tour" which features up-and-coming Muslim American comedians. Read all about it in the Rolling Stone article here.
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This shows one of Ahmed's most famous bits at a stop on the "Axis of Evil Comedy Tour". He explains how he is on the no-fly list because he shares a name with a Muslim terrorist.
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This is an excerpt from the Comedy Central Presents special for "The Axis of Evil Comedy Tour". Here Ahmed relays the joke about a Dubai mosque that got him banned from the United Arab Emirates for a year.
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Media Coverage
In this Al-Jazeera Interview, Ahmed shares experiences of his early life, American life post-9/11, Islam, and his current projects.
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Mr. Ahmed was featured along with Dean Obeidallah and others in a PBS special, "STAND UP: Muslim American Comics Come of Age."
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Ahmed takes the role and effect of comedy very seriously. He addresses some issues of race, Islam, and comedy in his film Just Like Us.
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