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Comedian who mimics Kagame and other celebs

Friday October 25 2013
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Jean Claude Gatete the comedian in action. Gatete claims he can imitate anyone’s voice. Photo/Correspondent

He is not a popular comedian. You will not find him at big comedy shows but when he takes the podium at wedding ceremonies, the audience remains silent.

Sturdy and stout, in his executive suit, Jean Claude Gatete can easily pass for a businessman who is just attending a wedding reception, but that is before he grabs a microphone.

When the MC invites the 25-year-old to break monotony of speeches by cracking a few jokes, you cannot help but wonder where comedy fits in a wedding reception.

When he took the podium, I thought it will be the same old embarrassing jokes, which would not be suitable for a wedding ceremony.

When he started talking, my curiosity increased as the comedian introduce himself to an equally puzzled audience.

But Gatete has a different strategy. His jokes are neither dirty nor irritating as most comedians are doing lately. In today’s comedy industry, comedians struggle to come up with civil jokes. It either has to be about sex or mocking a certain group of people.

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For Gatete, however, fusing civility and cultural values is the key to keeping his act clean. Starting off with a mix of old Rwandan classics, Gatete uses music to win over his audience.

As they begin to warm up to his jokes (It takes an effort for any comedian to win over an audience), he switches to what he does best, imitating popular people and voices to perfection.

Gatete uses common radio and TV programmes and voices to entertain his audience. To avoid going political, he only uses the template of the programmes to speak about the wedding, as if reporting live from the field but everything rotates around the wedding itself.

For example, on that particular evening, he used the popular BBC Kinyarwanda service programmes Imvo ni Mvano and BBC Gahuzamiryango, imitating the presenter Ally Yusuf Mugenzi to inch perfection.

For a moment, people at the reception thought Mr Mugenzi was actually the one speaking. To complete his act, Gatete also imitated BBC reporters including Jean Claude Mwambutsa, Ignatius Bahizi and Patrick Misigaro.

Gatete talks about the wedding in the format of a radio programmes. After BBC, he switches to mimic Remy Maurice Ufitinema, a reporter with the Rwanda Broadcasting Agency particularly for Rwanda Television.

In between the ‘talk shows’ or ‘TV/Radio reports,’ Gatete is able to introduce the voices of government officials among them, President Paul Kagame.

“I can imitate everyone but my favourite is President Paul Kagame who I adore so much as well as the US President Barack Obama. I also mimic prominent journalists including Ally Yusuf Mugenzi, Remy Maurice Ufitinema, Jean Butoyi and Jean Claude Mwambutsa.”

“I also imitate pastors including Pastor Ezra Mpyisi and Pastor Ombe Nyamuhombeza. I discovered that I could perfectly imitate people in 2009 and around 2010 is when I realised it was my talent,” Gatete told Rwanda Today.

The comedian who is also hilarious in real life says he had not considered going commercial after his first attempts to sell comedy on stage flopped.