Jeremiah Frazier, known professionally as FrayWay, embodies the multifaceted talent that Chicago’s entertainment scene has cultivated. A comedian, musician, actor, and host with a theatrical background, Frazier brings a unique blend of polished skill and natural talent to his performances. In this revealing conversation, he discusses his journey from Chicago Public Schools dean to full-time entertainer, sharing insights about the city’s demanding comedy culture and the importance of developing one’s craft before seeking fame.
Chicago is known for producing some of the best comedic talent. How has performing in the city shaped your approach to comedy?
Performing in Chicago is definitely an advantage because Chicago’s gonna let you know if you supposed to be on stage or not. We have some of the best crowds, energy wise, they expect for you to put on a show. So coming from Chicago, growing up in Chicago, even in the school system in Chicago, before you were groomed or becoming an entertainer, you always had those people, the roasting groups, the lunchtime, everybody talking about each other.
So you really was, without even thinking about it, getting your chops then. That’s what Chicago is all about, everybody being able to hold their own, take care of themselves, and it works comedically when you can stand on your own. Chicago is a man, it’s like we produce the best talent, I think, because of that, because of us being a blue collar city, we know we gotta work hard, we know we gotta bring it. We know it’s a lot of competition here, so if you ain’t bringing it, you’re gonna get lost somewhere in the shuffle, and so it’s definitely an advantage coming from Chicago and going to other cities.
What’s the story behind FrayWay and how does it reflect your comedic style?
I got to credit to my old coworkers, because I used to work before I did entertainment full time. See, I was working while I was working, so before I went full time, I was the dean for the Chicago Public Schools, and I know a lot of people don’t know that, my coworkers used to call me Fray, which is half of my last name, Frazier.
Miss Cole, my best friend Trice, they called me Fray, and they stuck with me. I’m like, I like that, so ever since maybe 2017, I said, you know what? All my life I’ve been doing things everybody else way, we’re gonna start doing it the FrayWay, so I put the name together, FrayWay, and that’s where it comes from. When you get FrayWay, you get it, you get me authentic, unapologetic, the way I want to do it, that’s FrayWay.
You’ve performed with many of Chicago’s finest comedians. How does that community influence your growth as a performer?
It contributes tremendously to the growth, right away the impact of performing with some people that’s been doing it for 30 years, like Leon Rogers, Damon Williams, George Willborn, Marlon Mitchell, B. Cole, Shawn Morgan. These guys have been like killing the comedy game, and are still relevant today, very much still funny, and so when you listen to them, observing them, or on the same shows as them, on the same tickets as them, you automatically have to hide what you’re doing, because you don’t want the show to ever drop.
One thing I learned from them, Marlon Mitchell especially, he told me, man, just ride the wave, if the show is here, just keep it there, take it higher, whatever you do, don’t let it drop, and so there’s always an extra energy when guys like that is in the room, and it’s an appreciation to the art that they have built.
Honestly, they’ve done all the hard work, because they had to construct and navigate through a lot of things that us behind them didn’t have to, and because of that, I feel like all of us are better comedians because of them, and then they would probably tell you the same thing about the Robin Harris’s and Bernie Mac’s and the other people that came from here, of things they learned from. So it’s all a generation of navigation, now it’s our job, we’re going to give it to the next generation of comedians.
Chicago got some dogs, we got some dogs, Lil’ Rel, Deon Cole, Corey Holcomb, that’s all Chicago, Adele Given, we got women too, powerhouses, Just Nēsh’s, Correy Bell’s, we got powerhouses.
Comedy can be both a grind and a gift. What keeps you motivated during the tougher times on the road or on stage?
That is a perfect combination of what comedy is, a grind and a gift, being naturally gifted is something I don’t take for granted, I’m naturally gifted and I always let people know that I’m also trained in theater. I went to Columbia College, I graduated with a B.A. in theater, and so I have the analytical skills, I understand the process, I understand improv and different levels of acting and different things that maybe other people have not gotten analytically and theoretically because they haven’t got that training.
They actually taught me the grind of working and character analysis and getting all the way 100% locked in and not relying just on my God-given talent, but, understand that there are some different circumstances in this, and independently. A lot of comics are independent, so understand that grind is you got to do it all. You got to be your media, you got to be your public relations, you got to be your spokesperson, you got to be your driver, you got to do your own contracts and negotiations, I tell people show business is 10% show and 90% business.
Chicago audiences are known for their high standards. How do you keep them laughing?
First of all, you got to keep them laughing because if you’re not making people laugh in Chicago, you might get shot after the show, people be willing to fight. So I’m a high energy guy, I like to make sure everybody’s having a good time. I make it my obligation to make sure whatever room I’m in, everybody’s having a good time because that’s how you want people to leave, knowing that they came for something that probably got more than what they expected.
That’s always what I try to leave with them, and so on the other side of that, we as artists, or at least I myself, I have high expectation for our audience in Chicago too. I expect them to have high energy just because it is Chicago. I expect them to know that, oh, we ’bout to rock. I expect them to know we gonna have a good time tonight, and so it kind of works both ways with the artists and the audience in the aspect of we both having expectations for each other, and when we meet each other’s expectations, oh man, sky’s the limit in whatever room we in that night for sure.
As a comedian, what’s your process for turning everyday situations into laugh out loud moments?
You have to, if you let life, it’s so important to take what goes on in life and turn it into something that can be creatively connecting because you’re not the only person that’s going through what you’re going through, and so the reason I believe that a lot of my material works is because it’s factual, it’s true, it’s my experience, it’s happened to me. I know it so well, and then if you ever tell a story and somebody be like, that happened to me too. It’s relatable, and so I have this thing where I have gotten into a certain age where I just, I don’t really let things bother me.
I understand life happens and some things you just can’t do nothing about, and so I get a lot of my writing just from day to day, my personal experiences of where I am, what’s happening, whether it be a grocery store, the airport, I’m in a different city, state, another interaction with another artist or family member, oh family especially, we do a lot of family jokes, and it also is a form of healing because it’s a lot of trauma in comedy. If you are outstanding in comedy, you’ve had some trauma in your life.
With so many streaming platforms and specials today, how do you plan to carve out your space in the comedy landscape?
Well, that goes back to the question about the grind, it’s part of the grind. The world changes so much, when I started doing comedy, the biggest thing you wanted to do was the local comedy clubs in your city. Like Jokes and Notes, that was up here, it’s getting your face on the wall at a comedy club, that was the high point, that was the goal, and then growing up after Kings of Comedy and all that stuff, it’s now I gotta do Wintrust, now I gotta do Arie Crown, and so now it’s changed into, I need a Netflix deal or Hulu or Tubi.
This business, it evolves so quickly that goals always change, and so my grind has always been, I’m just gonna keep doing what I do and where my feet land, it’s obviously where God wants me to, but of course I have plans and I shoot for those things, and if those calls come, I’ll take them, but you can never stop grinding or get discouraged if they don’t come. So there’s a basis in that, cause there’s always an audience for you, no matter if it’s a room of a hundred or a room of a thousand or a room of 10,000, there is an audience for everybody who grinds in this industry.
What advice would you give to up and coming comedians trying to make a name for themselves in a city like Chicago?
In a city like Chicago or whatever city you in, don’t ever let somebody tell you what you can’t do. That’s my number one rule. I don’t tell people a lot of my ideas because your ideas probably will never match up with the capacity of somebody’s idea for you. People have ideas for you and think you can only go to a certain extent, and so when you leave it up to people for validation and for ideas and different things like that, you’re really doing yourself a disservice.
Affirmation is different than validation, it’s good when somebody’s like, man, it’s nice to hear, man, that was a good set, man, you rock that. It’s good to hear that, but as far as you feeling like a certain artist or a certain person, you want them to give you those certain accolades or validate you, don’t look for it. Just keep your grind and understand that your ultimate validation is going to come from the residuals you receive through your gifts.
Looking ahead, what’s your ultimate goal in comedy?
My ultimate goal for comedy is I would love to have a new form of sketch comedy televised. Like for us, Saturday Night Live is the, I guess we would call it the blueprint maybe for sketch comedy now, but In Living Color, growing up in my day, which is what kind of got everybody involved, where you can maximize people’s talents because people like me who are not limited to just comedy, like the Jamie Foxx’s, y’all would never know that Jamie could act, sing, do stand up and play keys and plethora of other things if it wasn’t for those different sketch comedy shows, and so I wanna build a platform to show the variety of artists more as to what we just want them to be, or see them as in one aspect.
