Comedian and Writer Ziwe on Her Insightful, Hilarious New Book, Black Friend: Essays

Ziwe is a comedian and writer perhaps best known for her provocative Instagram Live and Youtube interview series, Baited, or her Showtime variety sketch show, Ziwe. Both shows highlighted her talent for getting to the heart of the most divisive American issues, while still managing to produce hilarity. Today, she’s here to discuss her most personal project yet: Black Friend: Essays. Ziwe talks about how her comedy background helped lay the foundation for the book’s content and structure, the reason the essays are heavily footnoted, and why becoming a good artist means being very bad at your craft for a long time.