On the Scene: Akintunde laughing it up on Sundays

SUNDAYS ARE FOR … Laughing.

At least on the first Sunday of every month.

In November, Christian comedian Akintunde, a former morning personality on WWDM-FM The Big DM 101.3, began the comedy showcase First Sundays at The Medallion Center.

“For a long time, I wanted to have a regular event in Columbia,” he said. “I wanted to have it in a place where it made sense.”

And while Sundays are a regular day of worship in churches, Akintunde didn’t want to host First Sundays in a church.

“A lot of time church is a very segregated world,” he said. “People go to their church. (At First Sundays), people can commune and fellowship with each other, and that was the idea.”

There’s another idea in the works, too.

“I’m really tweaking this for a national television show,” said Akintunde, who brings in guest comedians from around the country. “It’s the beginnings of if I were producing a national TV series. I want to make Columbia a hub for faith-based productions.”

Akintunde, who has done stand-up on BET’s “Comic View” and “Showtime at the Apollo,” has been working behind the scenes lately. He was a co-head writer and producer for “The Mo’Nique Show,” the talk program hosted by Oscar-winning actress and comedian Mo’Nique. The show, which was filmed in Atlanta, was canceled in July, but Akintunde said it was a two-year, 300-episode training in TV production.

“What it did is let me see we can do this anywhere,” he said. “It doesn’t have to be Atlanta.”

Ak, as he is often referred to, has called Columbia home for nine years. He didn’t think about relocating once he left The Big DM.

“I fell in love with my church,” he said, referring to Right Direction Christian Center. “I didn’t want to go back to Savannah, where I’m from. And I didn’t want to move to L.A. or New York.”

His schedule is dotted with appearances, from comedy tours to motivational engagements to a recent gig hosting the Stellar Awards nomination concert on the Gospel Music Channel.

“The best thing about it was I had never done a live telecast,” he said. “Usually, it’s nothing to do a take and say roll that back. And the audience gets right behind you.

“When they started counting down from 30, you knew this was being broadcast all over the country, all over the world.”

Wherever he is, the message is always comedy based, he said.

“Right now, we’re at a place where the world is in transition. It’s a perfect time for us to step up and be that light,” Akintunde said when asked about the importance of comedy. “Laughter is really a healer. It really is a stress reliever. It really has high ministry value.

“It’s a perfect time for us to distribute that laughter to world.”

But how does he keep the schedule straight?

“I really got a good team,” he said. He wife, Eunissa, is his manager. “Her and I together, we sit down and talk it through. I may do different things, but at the core it’s comedy.”

And downtime?

“My wife has been training me and making me commit to consistent vacations,” he said. “The main thing is I truly love what I’m doing.”

Ak wants to add one more thing to his schedule: radio.

“Radio is still one of the few mediums that has a focused audience,” he said. “TV is a broad, inconsistent, unfaithful audience. The reason why, there are so many channels. (Radio is) still one of the few ways to build and maintain an audience.”

There’s no home for his show, but Akintunde said he’s “in talks with a couple of stations.”

During this election cycle, don’t you think the radio dial could use a few more shows filled with laughter?