Joy, the Queen of Clean, believes God cares about every aspect of her life – even her hair. “He cares about your weave,” says the 38-year-old Christian comedienne with a chuckle. She had long been hoping to get a new coif of silky hair extensions, but the price tag was too steep. A man spotted her during a television appearance and offered to “bless her” with some weave.
For Joy, that was an answer to prayer. Now she has long, luxurious hair. “You tithe and give, He will bless with a new weave,” she says.
Joy is kicking off “Clean Comedy Night” on June 12 at the Comedy Club Stardome in Hoover. It features herself as well as funnymen Deno Posey and Max Karrh. The show starts at 7:30 p.m., but come early because at 7:20 p.m. she will spotlight a rap/singing group doing a special performance about living your dream. Admission is $10 and can be purchased by calling 205-444-0008.
Joy has been doing her special brand of profanity-free comedy as her side-gig for years, leaving audiences in stitches by pulling hot sauce out of her purse and making her made-up word “prodocious” a household name.
Slowly but surely she has made her rounds at churches, fundraisers, and comedy clubs, hoping for the day when she could do it full-time. And when times got hard, what kept her in the race was thinking, “What if you give up now? You overcome the frustration if you think about the latter end,” she says. “God ain’t in no hurry. He ain’t late, but He is not early.”
While waiting for God to open the door for her to be full-time, Joy saved her money, going without life’s luxuries so that she could invest in her business. “Every single day I work so hard to get to the next level,” she says. “Every day I do something to push myself. You can’t say I am trusting God and you are sitting at home lying in the bed.”
Last fall, she emailed the folks at Essence, a national women’s magazine, asking if she could be featured in their “Side Hustle” section. To her surprise, they agreed and in December 2009, she was the spotlight for the month. “It gave me a lot of exposure,” she says. “Comedians from around the world were calling me and asking me for tips.”
At the same time, Joy was being told that her temp job would be ending at the end of the month. But, by then she was ready to launch out as a full-time comedienne and in January this year that’s what she did.
Since being full-time things are picking up, she says. She has taped an appearance on Trinity Broadcasting Network and was recently signed to GospelFruits.org. Now that her dream is getting more and more within reach, she says she realizes the real purpose for it all.
“It is not just about your dream, but about being able to bless someone else,” she says. “It is about me blessing and encouraging others.”
For more information, you can go to her web site at www.joythequeenofclean.com.