Laughing it Forward
Just For Phills
By Danica Samuel | Photography by Pam Lau
The Scarborough-raised comedian wears multiple fitteds, but the best one fosters community through laughter
Last summer, Hassan was in his jack-of-all-trades era, or as he puts it — wearing multiple fitteds. He’s venting to me on Facetime from his front porch, with the camera angle shifting everywhere. At the time, he was taking on the roles of a tour manager, booking manager, marketing team and event planner all at once. It was a big moment for him—his first independent comedy tour across Canada.
Shirt and shorts, KUWALLA. Shoes, NIKE. Hat, AMOIRE.
He had freshly parted ways with a manager days before the tour started, and the sponsors he relied on to do the heavy lifting pulled out. There was a growing chip on his shoulder about the industry — a typical resentment many of us feel when climbing the ladder of success. But he was adamant about his resilience and moving forward with the ‘Where is Hassan Phills’ tour regardless of any obstacle or lack of acknowledgement from mainstream media.
His plight of entrepreneurial woes led him down an introspective dialogue on support, community, and still being able to switch between a 59Fifty and 39Thirty. It's that inner dialogue many trailblazers contemplate — how to be the change they want to see in the world. For Hassan, that starts with community, and it was first defined in the back seat of his mother’s two-door Honda Civic.
Like myself and anyone who grew up near Teesdale Place in Toronto’s Scarborough neighbourhood during the late 90s to early 2000s, Hassan’s mom, Ms. Zerafu, was a familiar face. She had an infectious smile and gracefulness that made you feel safe— like someone you convinced yourself was an angel when walking down a dark alleyway.
“I mean, in the end, that’s exactly what Islam is. It’s not meant for a specific set of people, nationality, or ethnic group. It’s meant for mankind as a whole. So, if you can speak to a type of humour that appeals to all mankind. To me, that’s dope.”
Ms. Zerafu, a Djiboutian immigrant, was a mother to Hassan; but aunty to the Teesdale community. One of her most notable gestures of kindness was offering a ride to people heading in the same direction.
“I remember having to slide from the passenger side to the back seat when she picked up people, and I kept thinking – If I knew she was going to make all these stops, I would’ve taken the TTC,” says Hassan, reliving his impatient thoughts from way back when.
“Teesdale was like the UN of Toronto”
Growing up with his mom in apartment 112 of 30 Teesdale, he says he never felt like an only child because of the neighbourhood’s tight-knit community that gave him the splendour of an adopted family. Many memories were made within those four buildings facing one another in a roundabout echo chamber of loud public transit trains rushing through Victoria Park Station. The neighbourhood’s stand-out debut in the 2005 seven-part series ‘The Real Toronto’ was opened with a group of diverse young kids (Hassan’s friends) chanting their neighbourhood block’s name in the camcorder.
“Teesdale was like the UN of Toronto,” he says, naming out all the diversity he grew up with from all corners of the globe— Africa, the Middle East, Asia and the Caribbean.
His community planted the early seeds of his ambition to become a comedian. It’s where he and his friends spent the $24 Ms.Zerafu gave them on weekends to take advantage of Blockbuster’s 3 DVDs/VHS deal. They’d stay up late watching funny movies and Comedy Central –savouring the punch lines to use at school the next day.
Top and Trousers, KUWALLA. Sneakers, CONVERSE.
Jacket, KUWALLA.
Ever since Dunkaroos were snacks for recess, Hassan has mastered the form of humour that is a snarky take on those inner thoughts you won’t dare say out loud, like being the “ghetto-Grammarly” for a SoundCloud rapper. He’s able to create a space where you feel as though you’re at a kickback hanging out with him and close friends — a recreation of his childhood moments in Teesdale.
He also doesn’t rely on stereotypes to get a laugh. When I asked him if it was a conscious effort to avoid telling jokes at the expense of his Islamic religion, as many other comedians resort to, he simply said it's just not his thing. Instead, Hassan shares hilarious cross-cultural moments like a teacher who mistakes his durag for religious attire or an elderly Muslim man encountering a Jamaican on Eid.
He shares stories of his multicultural environment and believes that anyone can relate to it, even if they are not Muslim, “I mean, in the end, that’s exactly what Islam is. It’s not meant for a specific set of people, nationality, or ethnic group. It’s meant for mankind as a whole. So, if you can speak to a type of humour that appeals to all mankind. To me, that’s dope.”
On the porch, he shifts positions and tells me about the full circle moment where he understood the magnitude of building community. It was 2021, when he took a trip to North Sudan with a close friend. He was riding passenger side through the desert about 40 km from Khartoum with hitchhikers spread along the way, “no communication, just their thumbs out,” he tells me. Much like Ms.Zerafu, his friend’s uncle made many stops to pick people up and drop them off. This time, Phills wasn’t impatient in his seat, as he understood the importance of helping others reach their destination. “My mom did this so frequently. Either she made a means to get to a place, or she would pay it forward.”
The bond between him and his mother is heart melting; it gets empathetic “awws” during his comedy shows as he tells stories about the two of them figuring out life together in Teesdale. During his Where is Hassan Phills tour stop in Montreal, he unlocked a memory on stage about being a young basketball player and playing poorly the one time his mother showed up to watch his game – zero points scored, a lot of missed shots and more time on the bench than on the court. Being upset on the car ride home, he vented about how he hated his performance the one time she showed up. Ms.Zerafu replied, “I didn’t come to see you score points and win. I came to watch you have fun.” And in a mic drop ending to that story on stage, he tells the audience how he always makes sure to drop 40 metaphorical points at his stand-ups and, most importantly, like mom said – have fun.
Top, AMOIRE. Trousers, KUWALLA. Sneakers, CONVERSE.
Hat, AMOIRE. Shirt, KUWALLA.
“I’m trying to touch every corner, borough, nook and cranny in this country”
In early spring, close to a year after our porch conversation, I touched base with Phills to see how things were since we last spoke. He was fresh off a good Ramadan, clear-headed and prospering. The fun had only begun. He had a new manager, received the Drake follow on IG, and opened for R&B group DVSN on their Working On My Karma tour. He sold out back-to-back comedy shows with hilarious names like Eidiot Mubarak, and the once 19K followers on the Gram grew to 37K. He was officially in his clout era — undeniably bursting through the industry and making a name for himself that’s impossible to ignore.
When you ask his childhood friends like Shahriyar Patwary, he’ll tell you that Phills was born to do it and is definitely going places. Bringing people together through laughter is now his two-door recipe to pay it forward as his mom did.
The more we speak here and there, he reminisces about all the moments of the community leading up to his dedication to stand-up. From the simple things like his friend downloading Dave Chapelle’s Killing Me Softly and other comedy specials onto his iPod before high school basketball tournaments or his former co-workers at Footlocker motivating him to take comedy seriously. Each moment played a critical part in his vision.
“I’m trying to touch every corner, borough, nook and cranny in this country,” he tells me firmly. And it’s evident. Unlike many entertainers and performers, Hassan included unpopular destinations like Waterloo, Edmonton, Kitchener and Calgary on his tour stops. He does it intentionally and laughs about the cities being so often forgotten; the locals thank you sincerely for even showing up.
His conscious choices to stamp these cities with his tours pay off, and people come to his aid when he needed it, like The Green Room, a Muslim community centre in Edmonton that assembled a group of volunteers to help with his show back in July last year. That same month, his comedian friends Alistair Ogden and Providence Ndizeye set up The China Cloud venue for his Vancouver show and were his performance's opening acts.
Hitting the year-long mark of our conversation about life and his journey to success, I wanted to know more about how the community was showing up for him. Most importantly, I wanted to see if he had plans to pay it forward like his mom always did. He says he’s working on that and ultimately wants to be in a position that will better his family, friends, and communities – Muslim, East African, and rising comedians. He’s sat on podcasts and collaborated with other comedians for content, like the Random Order Show. His presence on social media continuously shows him as a man of the community, bringing laughter and cheer —on and off the stage, even if he’s telling Uber drivers he works in adult films.
On June 6th, three days after the photoshoot and a day of catching up in person, I got a text from Phills. It was an image of his headshot on a red flyer alongside comedian Malik Elassal. It’s for a Just For Laugh Gags Toronto show. I wanted to know if there was another epiphany he had, a call back to his time impatiently waiting for his mom to drop the community off from the back seat of the Civic. So I asked him about this transition from all his frustrations last year to what he’s receiving in abundance now. He said, “It’s never really about getting on; it’s about waiting your turn.”
CREDITS
Photographer, Pam Lau
Assistant Photographer, Antoine Quiet
Stylist, Renée Bu & Sophie
Videographer & Editor, Danica Samuel
Studio, IGD Studio (Toronto)
CLOTHING CREDITS
Kuwalla (Montreal)
Armoire by Marcus Troy (Montreal)