Naomi Ekperigin

She steps up with the bright, wide-eyed grin of someone arriving at a brunch she is thrilled to attend, then immediately starts detailing the things that make her want to scream. Ekperigin talks fast, riding a wave of bubbly warmth punctuated by conspiratorial asides and a sing-song “Okay?” that dares the room to disagree. A typical bit sets up a sweet, relatable scenario only to drop into unhinged territory, like explaining how she unwinds after work by binging true-crime documentaries about murdered wives.

For years she was a writers’ room staple, working on shows like Broad City and Difficult People while working out sets in New York basements. Her half-hour sets for Comedy Central and Netflix gave her a broader audience, but she still feels most natural in club settings where she can treat the crowd like coworkers hiding out in a breakroom.

Her strongest material circles domestic life, marriage to her white husband, and the low-level panic of running everyday errands. She avoids grandstanding or heavy-handed lectures; she simply reports on what it feels like to be completely out of patience. Occasionally her conversational sweetness softens a bit that might hit harder with a colder punchline, but she layers tags onto a premise faster than most of her peers.

Raised in Harlem, Ekperigin developed her stage voice alongside years of live podcasting with her husband on Couples Therapy. That conversational muscle keeps her sets agile, making thoroughly scripted jokes feel like urgent gossip she could not wait to share.