Janelle James Tickets | Schedule for 2024/2025 Events

Janelle James

Janelle James is a writer, comedian, and actress from the United States. She has written Black Monday and acted on TV shows like Corporate, Crashing, and Central Park. In 2017, she released her debut comedy album, titled Black and Mild. She was chosen by Variety as one of the 10 Comedians to Watch (2020). She was also nominated for the Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series award for a Dorian Award,  a TCA Award, and a Primetime Emmy Award.

Early Life

Janelle James was born in Los Angeles, California, in the United States, on September 23. She grew up in St. Thomas, and when she was 16, she moved to the U.S. mainland. She now lives in New York's Brooklyn.

Career

James began her career in 2009 at an open mic event in Champaign, Illinois, where she lived. She said that her way of making people laugh was "just talking shit." Her stand-up comedy is about a lot of different things, like Trump, being a mom, being a woman over 35, and dating. James said his favorite comics were Bill Burr, John Early,  Hadiyah Robinson, Richard Pryor,  Wanda Sykes, and Kareem Green.

In 2016, Just for Laughs and Brooklyn both liked James's work. She became better known when she opened for Chris Rock on his Total Blackout tour in 2017. Her first comedy album, Black and Mild, came out that year. The show was taped in Minneapolis at Acme Comedy Company. She was on Netflix's comedy show The Comedy Lineup in 2018. She was also supposed to perform at the Netflix Is a Joke comedy festival in Los Angeles in 2020, which was the first of its kind.

James worked as a staff writer for The Rundown with Robin Thede (2017) and the Showtime comedy Black Monday. She was a regular cast member of the series as well. She has also been on the TV shows Crashing and Corporate and writes for and does the voices for Central Park. In 2021, she was one of the comedians featured on Netflix's The Standups.

She became well-known because she was a main character on the ABC comedy show Abbott Elementary. Critics have said she did a great job as the self-centered principal, Ava Coleman. In 2019, she hosted the podcast Strong Black Laughs, which featured interviews with well-known Black comedians like Luenell and Sherri Shepherd. In 2020, she hosted the comedy podcast You In Danger, Gurl, about warning signs in relationships and weird dating stories. In 2022, James hosted The Final Straw, a game show on ABC.