There are many pathways in when it comes to making it as a writer. For Gina Yashere (Bob Hearts Abishola), that path was anything but direct. In fact, for the longest time she didn’t even think of being a writer. She was an engineer, but her love of comedy, when given the chance to thrive, won out, leading her to perform stand-up, write sketch comedy in the UK, and even become a finalist on NBC’s Last Comic Standing. To get through that door as a working writer in Hollywood, it literally came down to a fortunate Google search by a veteran show creator in need of a Nigerian woman writer that opened the way for her television career. 

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Second Career

In order to get a sense of the winding career path for Yashere, we have to start at the beginning with engineering, as television and comedy came as a second career for Yashere. 

“I was working as an engineer in an industry that was not ready for women engineers. I was the first elevator engineer for Otis in their entire 100 year history in the UK, which sounds great, but as a woman, and a Black woman, in an industry when you’re working on construction sites with men, I put up with a lot of racial abuse on site every day.” 

Yashere stuck with the job for several years, hitting the goals set for her, but not getting promotions she qualified for. When a slump hit the building industry, people were being laid off, but as the poster girl for the company, Yashere knew she’d never be let go. She had to take action to make a difference in her life. 

“I marched into my manager’s office and was like you need to let me go. I do not want to work here anymore. I am not going to be your poster girl anymore.”

The company fought a little bit, but ultimately let Yashere go. They gave her a couple months’ pay in the split, and Yashere set off to enjoy her summer before getting a new engineering job. This became a career she never went back to, because she started to discover her real passion.

As a child, people were always telling Yashere that she was really funny and should be acting or doing some sort of performance. When she found herself with the summer off, she decided to try things that weren’t accessible to her while working as an engineer. 

“I started helping with community initiatives and one day they were doing a fundraiser. They were like we need singers, poets, dancers and I wrote for me and a couple of my friends what I thought was a play. When we performed it, people laughed their asses off, so it turned out to be a comedy. And that’s how I got into comedy. And it was like wow, I can do this.”

The spark from that experience launched Yashere in a whole new direction. She thought:

“This will be fun to pursue for a little bit and I’ll go back to engineering. Then I went from there to performing in competitions and then became a stand-up and then started doing open mics and people started offering me money to do shows for them. From there I started writing on people’s sketch shows on TV in the UK.”

Writing for television was something Yashere never imagined herself doing, but following the joy of her comedy, stand-up and creative path, she realized this was what she was meant to be doing. 

“It’s been the best. I love this. I was always going to be a good engineer, but I was never going to be the best.  Whereas this, I felt a passion and a need to be the best and it drove me forward.”

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Breaking Through

Yashere had gone around to networks and studios pitching a series based on her Nigerian background and her family, but nobody wanted it. She said: 

“I had doors shut in my face left, right and center. Even though I’d done great pitches, they were like, we’re not sure this will work. But when a successful White man went, I want to make a show with Nigerians, they were like, that sounds interesting… As a Black woman in this industry, it’s been very, very difficult to get through the doors of this industry. Bob Hearts Abishola came about because a successful, well-respected White man brought me in. This opportunity would never have happened any other way.”

With so many obstacles for writers of color and women to get in a room, Yashere wants to use her position to open doors for others, which is something she’s dedicated herself to doing on Bob Hearts Abishola.

Bob Hearts Abishola

Sometimes life, and a career in entertainment, can bring big surprises. That definitely happened for Yashere when in the summer of 2018 she got a call out of the blue from Chuck Lorre Productions wanting to fly her from New York to LA for a meeting. 

“Chuck has an idea for a TV show. He’s like, I want to make another show with Billy Gardell, but I don’t want to make another Mike & Molly. I’ve just come from a trip to Africa and I’ve got an idea that maybe the female protagonist in this show would be an African immigrant. And that’s where you come in. I was in a room with him, Eddie Gorodetsky and Al Higgens, who are his longtime collaborators. And he was like, we’re three White guys. If we’re going to make this show, we need somebody with a comedic sensibility and from the background that we described to help us create this show and make it authentic.”

While the opportunity was intriguing, Yashere was curious how the trio found her. She expected to hear they had seen her on The Tonight Show or one of her specials. 

“They went, oh, we typed Nigerian female comedian into Google and that’s how we found you. I was furious. Obviously I didn’t show that in the room, but I was furious. I was like really, a Google search.”

The search had led Lorre to a stand-up set Yashere did where she talked about her upbringing and Nigerian background. Her mom had been in the audience that night and stood up, making the crowd go nuts for Yashere’s performance.

Initially Yashere passed on the collaboration:

“My brother and best friend called me up from London and were like, are you an idiot. This is an opportunity. I know it’s not come the way you want it to come, but it doesn’t matter. It’s still an opportunity… So then I sat in a room with them and brought all my ideas and brought my life story into the room and gave them these stories to mold into this pilot. Abishola had been left in America with a child because her husband wants to be an architect and can’t do that in America and went back to Nigeria. That is the story of my parents.”

In The Writers’ Room

Even though a co-creator of the show, Yashere started out in the room at Bob Hearts Abishola as a producer. By season four, she’d risen up the ranks to become co-showrunner. 

“I learned as much as I could and progressed, so I worked my way up the ladder very, very quickly which is unheard of in this industry. And definitely unheard of for a woman, and a Black woman to boot.”

When staffing the room, Yashere has committed herself not only to finding new voices, but also in fostering their growth up the ranks. 

“I said to Chuck and the guys, well you found me, which is wonderful, but trust and believe there are other me’s out there. Let me help you find them. And I was able to get other writers in the room who look like me who wouldn’t have been able to get in the industry and now they’ve progressed.”

What does Yashere look for in up-and-coming writers for her room? 

“We want people who want to tell stories, who are interested in opening up and telling their own stories and helping other people get their stories out.”

In the room, Yashere wants all the writers to contribute. 

“I don’t believe in hierarchy. Everybody pitches in. You have a thought, say it. Even if it’s something we’re not going to use. It doesn’t matter, because what you say, someone else can springboard off.”

Finding Focus

Yashere received some vital advice that she’d taken in intellectually, but being competitive, it took a long time to finally put into action. Once she did, it was a game changer. The advice: never look at what other people are doing and compare yourself to others. 

“I had to focus on enjoying that journey rather than going, oh, but I should be there. I should be getting what that person is doing. The moment I actually just relaxed and started enjoying the journey, it’s like the universe clicked into place in abundance.”

Creating Your Own Opportunities

Along with keeping focus on the road your own journey takes you, Yashere encouraged:

“Don’t wait for the gatekeepers to validate you. Create your own content.”

With all the online activity and ability to make projects of your own, Yashere offered:

“That’s how Issa Rae became the huge, mega multi-hyphenate that she is now. She wrote her own content, put it online and then that led to Insecure, which led to the explosion of her career. So writers, create. Don’t wait for someone to discover you.”

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