On Wednesday night, Acme Comedy Co. crowned its first Somali-American Funniest Person Contest winner, as DQ (the comedian, not the ice cream chain) beat out four other very funny finalists to bring home the $1,000 grand prize.
“I’m the shit!” he exclaimed while getting offstage following his coronation. “That was my attitude the whole time. I wasn’t trying to be arrogant; it was just sort of like a self-fulfilling prophecy for me.”
DQ has been the shit this summer. The 25-year-old St. Cloud resident beat out a field of hundreds of funny amateurs (or at least a few dozen funny ones and a lot more, um, big dreamers), who competed since May to join the prestigious ranks of former winners like recent Racket interviewee Nick Swardson, Tim Harmston, and Ali Sultan.
DQ's storytelling was on full-display Wednesday night, which included a bit about being robbed by a Somali crackhead. “I knew he was Somali because he robbed me but also lectured me," he joked. With the delivery and confidence of a seasoned pro, the upstart comic sealed the victory.
“I like comedians who make comedy look cool,” he says. “I never really liked self-deprecating comics.”
But less than a year ago, DQ didn’t even know that being a comedian was something he could do.
“I got tickets to a show and the comedian was terrible,” he says of his first exposure to live comedy. “He sucked. I was like, ‘I could do better than this.’ But I didn’t know that comedy was like a real path in life.”
After performing at a handful of open mics in St. Cloud, DQ realized that his approach was a little too intense at first.
“I was doing a lot of raw stuff,” he says. “It was funny to me, but not necessarily funny to everyone else. I learned real quick that in comedy, you need to warm it up. It’s like going on a date with a woman. You have to romance her and take it slow at first. You can’t just be like, ‘Let’s have sex!’ right away. That was kind of what I was doing onstage.”
DQ had originally planned to move to Minneapolis back in January to become more engrained in the local comedy scene, until all that ICE bullshit derailed his plans.
“I was doing open mics with my passport on me,” he says.
Ultimately it was his friend (and 2025 Acme Funniest Person finalist) Bryant Alexander who talked DQ into entering the contest.
“He called me about it and was like, ‘You could win this, bro. You gotta do it,’” he says.
DQ says Alexander has helped him navigate the Twin Cities comedy world, and credits his advice as a major factor in his victory. Alexander, who was in the crowd last night, was beaming with pride over his friend’s accomplishment.
“I’m so happy for him,” Alexander said while DQ basked in the limelight. “There haven’t been a lot of people of color who have won this contest, and to see him win after everything people have been through this year? Some things are bigger than comedy.”
What’s next in DQ’s young career? He says that he plans to take a trip to Nairobi with his father before finally moving to Minneapolis in order to get in as much stage time as possible.
“I grind,” he says. “I don’t turn down any stage time. The only thing I turn down is my collar.”
