Album Review: Jesse Singh, Baby Goat

Jesse Singh is a regular in the Toronto comedy scene, known for his Toronto manz accent (he’s from the West End of the city) and jokes that unite the most divided room.

Baby Goat is Jesse’s debut album and the jokes stream in immediately, ranging from immigration, and traveling in Canada, to parent relations and perception between generations. The album has two demarcations, the first one being an audio sketch where Jesse has an internal debate about the artistic validity of these jokes. Although the jokes he is critiquing are not hacky, he has punchlines and takes that take you by surprise, the internal debate is a universal one for BIPOC comics who feel unsure about how their material will be received, and whose North Star they may be following (their own, or that of an industry’s that is late to trends). The second demarcation is an audio recording of an amusing story about authenticity, which leaves one to believe the following jokes will continue on this theme but that’s not the case.

These brief interruptions offer a pre-emptive critique of what is (and otherwise would still be) a decent debut album of a budding comic with enough range to be sure to have more ahead.

Baby Goat was released November 3, 2023 on Comedy Records.
Listen to it here.