Laughs and Hip-Hop With Bryson Brown

Bryson Brown (Courtesy of Bryson Brown)

Bryson Brown may live in Houston, but "whenever I go onstage, I make sure to tell motherfuckers I'm from Austin," he explained.

"I was in Austin culture from the jump. Kickball at Givens every Sunday to Skate World, Tejano Ranch, Dance Across Texas … Every wave from Austin, I kinda was there, or in the midst of it."

Now the self-described blue-collar comic ("Dog, I'm literally the first hood comic to do this shit in Austin") has been a part of the national comedy scene for a decade, working his way up from open mics around town to touring across the nation with well-known comedians such as Ali Siddiq and Bruce Bruce. He came back to Austin for his latest live stand-up album, Lifestyle Jokes, recorded in January at Cap City Comedy Club. "I'm from Austin, I rep Austin all the time," he said. "That's what they say when I get onstage, but I always give props to Houston for building this shit. If I didn't make that move to Houston, I'm not as funny as I am."

The rising comic met us at swanky East Austin club the Pershing to discuss his come-up out of the local hip-hop community, his journey in the entertainment industry, and his predictions on what the future holds for his hometown.

Austin Chronicle: You've said that the roots of your comedy started with playing basketball and being on the bench, cutting up with your teammates. Your character of "The Benchwarmer" that you use on social media comes from this. A lot of musicians around town know you from doing drops or skits on albums and mixtapes. It seems that your roots came from Black culture in Austin. How did growing up Black and being in that culture influence your comedy, your roots, and where you got started?

Bryson Brown: You know, it's funny, bro. Growing up with [rapper/producer] Black Mike, him being like a staple in Austin, period. Just knowing Black Mike since like 13, 14. Coming up with him, fucking with the music with him and the branch of people he know and the street guys … I think Austin is one of them cities where if you know one person that knows everybody, you'll know everybody because it's not a big city to kind of be in [the] middle of shit. Whether you was rapping or not rapping, you were still in the middle of this shit, because your homie was rapping.

AC: Plus back then everybody was freestyling.

BB: Everybody was freestyling. That was the shit! I was freestyling. So just speaking on that culture, I think that's just it. I think that's why my comedy is so hip-hop and so rap music-ish because that's just what I was around all the time since like 12, 12 to now. … I don't know how I just fell into the shit. I think it was just by association, knowing people who were moving and shaking and just being there, figuring out where I fit in and knowing early it wasn't rap because honestly, I was too silly to be a rapper. I ain't have the story to be a rapper so I think comedy was just that thing.

AC: So your new album has recently come out on Helium. This is your second album that you've dropped in the last few years?

BB: This is the second album but third project. We got two albums and an EP. This album has some jokes from the EP. I dropped the EP in the beginning of the pandemic, when almost everything was closed and we were still kind of working a little bit.

AC: So you drop the first album, then the EP and then this album?

BB: I dropped the first album in 2020. Actually, I take that back. So I did one called Jokes and Shit at ColdTowne [Theater] maybe in 2018-19. It's like a little 20-minute project, but that was still kinda in the CD era so we burned CDs on that and then put it on SoundCloud and so I did that independently. That was the first one I ever did and it should still be up on SoundCloud. I did that but then I wanted to kind of get a little bigger and put it on iTunes. The next one, Side Bettin', was with Sure Thing Records, and they're an independent record label from Austin. They do a lot of comedy. That one did real good and hit No. 1 on the [iTunes] charts and then I came back with the EP. The EP was self-produced and I did that one on my own under my own shit, On a Budget Productions. With this one I did Helium [through Rhizome] and On a Budget Productions. It just keeps kind of getting bigger for me, you know? A little more reach.

AC: Obviously the Austin stand-up scene or comedy scene just in general has blown up. It used to be when you came to Austin, it was like, "OK, we got a bunch of music shows everywhere." Now it's like, "OK, we got comedy shows everywhere!"

BB: This is just my opinion, but I think right now it's just way more lenient to the out-of-town comic than a local comic. Now you got so much of an influx of California out here and they getting to it … Austin was so lazy because motherfuckers weren't leaving Austin.

AC: In music, they call it "The Velvet Coffin" because it feels good, but your career dies here.

BB: Is that right? I feel like that with the comedy, bro. If you was good in Austin, if you was working at Cap City and the [Velveeta Room] and you was getting Comedy Central auditions and you was doing Just for Laughs and shit, you didn't feel like you had to leave. But for me, I wasn't getting that. So I know what leaving did, and just bringing what I learned back here, motherfuckers ain't fucking with it. So I think for the out-of-town comic, they see the laziness in the city and they just took advantage of it. They got all the good venues. They got that out-of-town grind to where now you got local comics that are now trying to wake up. They're complaining about it, but I only see a handful of local comics that are still competing and still doing their thing out here and trying to, you know, stay with these out-of-town cats. These out-of-town comics came in hungry. They came in with a whole different mindset.

The future for Austin, bro, is it is what it is going to be, bro. It's going to be like California. Whole bunch of people out here that's not from here. It's going to be a whole bunch of different flavors. Hopefully it gets to a point where it's more diverse but I think it's becoming what it's going to be. It ain't [old] Austin no more that we know. If you're from here, it's not that no more. I wouldn't call it a tourist town but now it's a real city with everybody here. It's becoming a melting pot. If you're a local comic who started from Austin and you're from here, you better learn how to talk and change the shit up because Austin ain't weird no more. It's not that. It's not Keep Austin Weird no more. It's corporations now. This shit used to be mom-and-pop.

Bryson Brown’s Lifestyle Jokes is available now via Helium Comedy Records.