Nuyorican Rule Proved Comedy Has No Borders

You've heard of Saturday Night Live, you've heard of In Living Color, but have you heard of Nuyorican Rule?

Founded in 1994 by comedian Angelo Lozada, Nuyorican Rule was one of New York's pioneering comedy collectives, delivering unfiltered takes on family, politics, and Latin American life through hilariously irreverent comedy sketches.

Lozada often credited his upbringing in the Bronx as a major influence on his comedic style. A proud Puerto Rican performer, Lozada built a career around using comedy to connect people across backgrounds, performing in both English and Spanish and drawing on his heritage to explore the shared absurdities of the human experience.

Over the span of an impressive 12-year run, the troupe appeared on BET's ComicView, Martin Lawrence's First Amendment, and NBC's Showtime at the Apollo, taking the impact from neighborhood stages to living rooms across the country.

It all started on NYC's Lower East Side, where audiences could catch the comedy troupe monthly at the legendary Nuyorican Poets Cafe. Founded in 1973, the iconic institution became a hub for Latin and Afro-caribbean musicians, playwrights, slam poets, comedians and performers of all kinds. The term "Nuyorican", once considered derogatory, had since been reclaimed to rally together people of Puerto Rican descent who grew up in New York City while still identifying with their ancestral home. Gatherings at the cafe became a space where artists could sharpen their skills, build community, and reach new audiences while still remaining unapologetically rooted in their culture.

"Whenever we do our show at Nuyorican Poets Cafe, we see a cross-section of people," Lozada shared in an interview with NY Daily News. "But I stopped trying to appease mainstream audiences a long time ago. Thinking about how my humor can appeal to them drove me crazy for years. Now, I just do what I do as long as it's effective — which means make people laugh, or think."

Nuyorican Rule became a proving ground for performers who would go on to build careers of their own, including Selenis Leyva, who audiences will recognize from Orange Is the New Black. Lozada himself even spent years touring with comedian Trevor Noah and performing as the warm-up act for Comedy Central's The Daily Show.

Angelo Lozada sadly passed away in 2019, but his influence continues to be felt in New York's comedy scene and in the generations of Latino performers who will follow. Nuyorican Rule helped demonstrate the power of seeing your own experiences, language and culture reflected onstage while making room for audiences from every background to laugh along.

In honor of Hispanic Heritage Month, we're opening the Apollo vault and bringing a few of the Nuyorican Rule's Showtime at the Apollo appearances back into the spotlight! Click below to check them out.