Canadian comedian Sugar Sammy owes his career to Montreal. Born Samir Khullar in the city's Cote-Des-Neiges neighbourhood, the comedian and actor grew up multilingual — he speaks Punjabi and Hindi as well as French and English — and drew on his experiences living in a city whose cultural identity is so intrinsically (and, at times, controversially) tied to its linguistic history for You're Gonna Rire, the one-man, bilingual act that Sugar Sammy has been performing since 2012. Here, the stand-up tells us about the genesis of his act, and the unexpected consequences of using both official languages. 

 

Illustration by Brice Hall