Healing Trauma With Laughs On “Listen To Black Men”

T he season finale of Listen To Black Men takes on the power of healing trauma through laughter in various situations.
The second season of the popular digital series Listen To Black Men comes to a close with an episode that touches on dealing with traumatic situations through the power of laughter. For this episode, Mouse Jones and Tyler Chronicles are joined by three veteran comedians: Darnell Perry, Vanessa Fraction, and Darren Brand.

The conversation starts with a discussion of how female comics face greater challenges than their male counterparts. When Perry asked if it was better now for comediennes than 15 years ago, Fraction was direct.

“I think it is different now than 15 years ago,” she began. “The possibilities for us are bigger.”

The discussion then turned to how each comic looks at comedy as a way to deal with trauma in their lives.

Brand opened up about how it helped him as he grew up in a household roiled by verbal abuse.

“Between 2020 and 2023, I had to perform dealing with the deaths of six people close to me,” he remembered. “Someone died that morning, I had a show that night. And the people in the crowd don’t realize as much as you need me? I need you.”

The effects of the COVID-19 pandemic were also discussed as Tyler Chronicles spoke about being scared that comedy was gone, compelling him to perform on Instagram Live. “I was battle rapping myself – for hours!!” Brand followed that up by stating, “To take away real laughter and energy from people – that’s how we survive? That was probably the most down & depressed feeling in my life.”

Mouse asked the panel about the struggles of being on the road and dealing with the effects of being unable to be at home.

“You have to be ultimately selfish at some point, and it’s horrible,” Perry answered.

Tyler Chronicles spoke about how being focused on his comedy career made him think about time running out to be the active father that he wants to be. Perry agreed.

“My buddy just had a baby, he’s 51. We call him “Grandpa Daddy”. He’s not gonna see that kid turn 30.”

Fraction remarked, “You have to be intentional about it. The same way we put intention towards our career…you sometimes have to do that same thing with your personal life.”

Check out more from the season finale of Listen To Black Men above.