Born of an Iraqi father and a Moroccan mother, Adib Alkhalidey has long had the feeling of being stateless. A suffering identity void, but difficult to fill in the multicultural neighborhoods in the north of the city where he grew up, on the sidelines of the resurgence of anti-Arab racism in the wake of September 11. He finally had to reach his thirties for the comedian to call himself entirely and proudly Quebecois. The result of a long journey that serves as the premise for his fourth show with an evocative title: Quebecers Tabarnak.
Quebecois Tabarnak, because yes, Adib Alkhalidey wins the same title as a Tremblay from Saguenay or a Gélinas from Mauricie. These people from the hinterland, about whom he knew almost nothing during his adolescence in Saint-Laurent, but to whom he now feels intimately linked. Ten years of touring across Quebec enabled him to discover that he ultimately shared a lot with them.
“It’s easier to feel Quebecer when all your cultural codes, from your birth, are Quebecers, recognizes the comedian in an interview at the To have to. In my case, I had to learn through the years. I had to understand things, push my curiosity. There is something more voluntary in the fact of belonging to a society when you are the son of immigrants. The Quebec identity is something that is acquired. »
Like what there can be cultural convergence without effort – on both sides, that said. Does this mean that an immigrant who deigns to speak French and who cannot recognize Ginette Reno or Véronique Cloutier is less of a Quebecer? Adib Alkhalidey hesitates when asked the question: after all, he is only a comedian who seeks at best to provoke thought; he never had the ambition to raise major political debates, even less to change the world.
Then, he gets wet and tries to begin to answer: “I don’t think you choose where you belong. People today give themselves far too much credit on these existential questions. The only thing we have the power to choose is to put down roots in Quebec or not. We can leave our roots on the surface or we can fully assume our identity. »
To put yourself in danger
At 34, the comedian finally chose rooting after years of reflection and torment. More Quebecer than Quebecer, he now lives in the countryside with his wife, far from the show businessof which he knew the behind the scenes when his former friend and accomplice of the first hour, Julien Lacroix, was plunged into turmoil in connection with stories of sexual misconduct.
It was therefore in his haven of peace that he experienced the pandemic, which kept him away from the scene for two years, to his greatest regret. However, it was an opportunity to indulge in another of his passions, music, after releasing a critically acclaimed debut album in 2020, evil hearts, under the pseudonym Abelaïd. The successive confinements also gave him sufficient latitude to refine his fourth one man show, the most successful of his career. The most risky, too, by tackling head-on subjects as explosive as the feeling of belonging and the quest for identity.
“The danger of showbiz, is that the bigger you get, the more comfortable projects you are offered. But there’s no point in doing this job if you don’t put yourself at risk. The real challenge, where I am in my career, is always feeling uncomfortable. I like jumping in the water when it’s still cold. That’s what excites me in this job,” says Adib Alkhalidey, who doesn’t want to be confined to “ethnic humour,” even though he has flirted a lot with the genre since his debut.
Quebecers Tabarnak pushes, this time, the reflection a notch further. And to Adib Alkhalidey’s delight, the public reaction so far has been excellent. New dates have even recently been added to the Gesù and in a few venues elsewhere in Quebec. The comedian is now juggling the idea of touring the region, even if he hates hotel life.
Son of immigrants
Because 12 years after leaving the National School of Humor, Adib Alkhalidey is no longer as driven by ambition as before. If success was no longer there, he would leave the spotlight without flinching, he assures us.
This social disappointment that he no longer fears, his father before him suffered much worse anyway. Professor of Arabic literature in Iraq, he was forced to flee the regime of Sadaam Hussein in the 1980s because of his political commitment. He will first settle in Morocco, where he will meet Adib’s mother, then the family will settle in Montreal.
The patriarch will accumulate badly paid odd jobs before becoming a taxi driver, a real humiliation for the man of letters that he was. “He never managed to speak French, but he loved the French language. That’s why we came to Montreal, by the way, ”says Adib Alkhalidey, who pays a vibrant tribute to his father, now deceased, in his new show.
The comedian inherited his interest in reading, failing to have received a legacy of a country, a sense of belonging. Adib Alkhalidey had to fend for himself before achieving this. For a long time, he thought he was more French than Quebecer. Maybe it was because growing up in modest apartment buildings in north Montreal had more to do with hate by Mathieu Kassovitz only with Watatatow.
However, the Just for Laughs festivals on TV were a first trigger. A long journey will follow, recounted at length in Quebecois Tabarnak. From now on, Adib Alkhalidey really has the impression of being one of us, of being a full part of the family. For better and for worse. Even when a quidam writes to him cavalierly on social networks that he should “go back home if he is not happy”. Even when a maniac murders six Muslims in cold blood at the great mosque of Quebec.
The strength of identities is forged in adversity. “I have an unconditional love for Quebec,” summarizes Adib Alkhalidey.
Performing at the Gesù on May 21 and 22 and June 23 to 25, then on tour
in Quebec until March 2023.