Mean grandmothers, fat kids, and the humiliation of having to take the bus to a gig – it is all there in Howie Bell’s humour.

“My granny wasn’t no make a cake kind of sh*t,” Mr Bell joked in HBO’s P Diddy Presents Bad Boys of Comedy. “My granny was so mean she would say everything twice. Sit your a** down. Sit your a** down! She washed the mustard off my brother’s sandwich with a wet dishrag from the sink.”

Mr Bell, known as the “bad boy of Detroit comedy”, will perform in the Def Jam, Comic View Reunion Pre Labour Day Comedy Jam on Friday.

The show that also includes hit comics Sleepy Floyd, Brooklyn Mic and Drew Fraser, is organised by veteran Bermudian comedian Bootsie.

This will be Mr Bell’s first visit to Bermuda.

“We have been hearing about it all our lives through the Bermuda Triangle,” Mr Bell joked. “That is my only experience with Bermuda. I am hoping I won’t have those types of experiences.”

He has been researching the island a little bit, but said he is always ready to go with his comedy, and his story. He travels extensively, so he is accustomed to being thrown into new communities and cultures.

“I have been doing it so long I don’t know whether it is hard or easy,” he said. “I just do it.”

He has appeared in comedy specials such as the Howie Bell Show, and Def Comedy Jam, and movies such as Detroit Unleaded (2012), The Filthy Frank Show (2011), and the Workout Room (2019), among others.

Growing up in Detroit, Michigan, his focus was on acting.

“I did stage plays from the time I was a young kid all the way through college,” he said.

He changed his focus to standup, almost as soon as he graduated from Benedict College in South Carolina in 1997.

“I fell in love with standup,” he said. “I moved to Los Angeles and lived there for seven and a half years. That helped me get my feet on the ground.”

He has since moved back to Detroit. “The comedy scene has gotten a bit better here,” he said. “Now we have week long comedy festivals going on.”

His earliest attempts at standup did not go well. The first club he performed in was virtually empty.

“It was terrible,” he said. “There were only two people who stayed to hear me. That was pretty interesting. They said, we just wanted to see what you would say.”

Mr Bell is not sure if he even made them laugh, but he did not let the experience dissuade him from comedy. His trajectory to stardom was fast.

In 1998 he made it onto BET’s Comedy View, and appeared on the show five more times.

“It was at a good time,” he said. “There was no internet or social media. You had to be there to make it. It worked out. I was grateful.”

The Def Jam, Comic View Reunion Pre Labour Day Comedy Jam is an adult only night. All of the comedians involved are known for pushing the envelope.

On one episode of TheHowie Bell Show, Mr Bell joked about giving up blunts (tobacco cigars, hollowed out and filled with cannabis) in favour of smoking marijuana through pipes and bongs.

“When a white guy does that he’s a stoner,” Mr Bell said. “When you see a Black guy smoking out of a pipe he is a crackhead, even if they saw him put marijuana in there. They think it is a green crack rock.”

He also talked about his wife having Covid. “It took a long time for us to get back to kissing,” he laughed.

Mr Bell told The Royal Gazette the hardest thing about comedy is just being consistent.

“It is hard to continue to do it and continue to do it at a high level,” he said. “That has been the most difficult thing for me. Thank God, I have been able to make it happen.

“Creativity meets confidence will give you a good product. Be as create and confident as you can.”

Mr Bell said it is hard to continue being funny for as long as he has. “It takes work,” he said.

Being on the road a lot, also involves sacrifice at home, especially if one has children. Mr Bell has three who are now in their late teens and early twenties.

“That is always hard,” he said. “That is why when I am home, I spend as much time with them as I can. I am basically an at-home dad when I am not on the road. I do a lot of the cooking and cleaning, and a lot of the running around that my wife is not able to do.”

In addition to doing standup, he also runs the HBZ Premier Comedy Agency.

He books live comedy events across the United States, most notably the Latino Laff Blast featuring Joey Medina, Alex Reymundo 2 of Latin Kings of Comedy, and Super Comedy Week, a weeklong comedy festival in Detroit.

He is also getting ready to teach a master’s class in comedy at his alma mater.

“I don’t have a start date,” he said. “We are trying to make that happen this semester. I am trying to transition into becoming an instructor.”

His advice to budding comics is get on stage as much as possible, whether it is for two minutes or twenty minutes.

“You will start to build a foundation,” he said. “Artistically, you will have a better understanding of what you are doing.”

The comedy night was originally scheduled for August 2, but was postponed due to bad weather.

“The venue was, and still is, outdoors at the Snorkel Park in Dockyard,” organiser Bootsie said. “I was afraid we were about to be rained out, so I moved the date. Of course, wouldn’t you know, the weather cleared up at the last minute.”

The Def Jam, Comic View Reunion Pre Labour Day Comedy Jam will be held on September 1, at Snorkel Park in Dockyard. Doors open at 8pm and the show is at 9pm. Tickets are $40 available at bdatix.bm or 27th Century Boutique