Under the impetus of Mamane and his company Gondwana Productions, African comedy has been experiencing a particular boom over the past decade.
Convinced that African comedians should be able to make a living from their art, he decided in 2015 to launch Abidjan Capitale du Rire, Africa's first comedy festival. The Cotonou Comedy Festival in Benin, launched at the end of December 2025, now enriches the comedy scene in Africa and opens up a new front, triggering what could be called the first "war of laughter."
Abidjan, Capital of Laughter: the pioneer of French-language stand-up comedy
Launched in December 2015 and produced by Gondwana-City Productions, Abidjan Capitale du Rire has established itself as one of the most ambitious festivals in French-speaking Africa. The 11th edition will take place from February 13 to 15, 2025, in Abidjan.
The festival has revealed or highlighted many African comedians such as Boukary, Deperpignan, and Willy Dumbo, who are now familiar names on the comedy scene. It also regularly welcomes big names in Ivorian and pan-African comedy such as Gohou and Digbeu Cravate.
Since 2015, the festival's shows and highlights have been broadcast on CANAL+, ensuring pan-African and international visibility for the event.
In addition to the festival itself, Gondwana-City Productions is behind other comedy formats such as the show Le Parlement du Rire, also broadcast via CANAL+ packages, and the Gondwana Club in Abidjan, which offers Abidjan residents high-quality comedy shows every week.
This strategy, combined with the opening of the Gondwana comedy school, has enabled the festival to expand its influence, attract talent, and position Abidjan as a major center for comedy on the continent.
Cotonou Comedy Festival: the ambition of a newcomer
The comedy scene reached a milestone in 2025 with the launch of the Cotonou Comedy Festival in Benin. Organized by Benin's Agency for the Development of Arts and Culture (ADAC), in partnership with the JokeNation group and in conjunction with the Montreux Comedy Festival, this event aims to make Cotonou a hub for comedy in West Africa.
This first edition, held from December 1 to 6, 2025, brought together some thirty comedians from Africa and elsewhere, including Kev Adams, Herman Amisi, Frida Choco Bronzé, Willy Dumbo, Caroline Vigneaux, and Sam du Barça—a mix of Beninese, French-speaking, and international artists.
The festival is supported by TV5MONDE, which broadcast two shows on all its channels and digital platforms in early 2026, as well as by RFI and Bénin TV (SRTB), which also broadcast the event.
While Abidjan Capitale du Rire has established itself as an institution of African humor with a consolidated presence and international reach, the Cotonou Comedy Festival offers a new dynamic by combining training, artistic innovation, and a desire for internationalization.
This dual approach creates healthy competition, with each event giving talented individuals new opportunities to make a name for themselves and, above all, to practice their craft and make a living from it. This has always been the ambition of MAMANE, who said at the launch of his school: "We are forming a family within which African comedians can become professionals, so that their art can become an economy, profitable and job-creating, as it is elsewhere in the world, like music and soccer."