Los Angeles (dpa) – South African superstar comic Trevor Noah will take the helm of the satirical news programme The Daily Show late this year, replacing departing star Jon Stewart, the US broadcaster Comedy Central announced Monday.
“We set out to find a fresh voice who can speak to our audience with a keen take on the events of the day, and we found that in Trevor,” Comedy Central president Michele Ganeless said in a press release.
Calling him an “enormous talent” with an “insightful and unique point of view,” Ganeless said Noah was “poised to explode in America.”
The biracial son of a black Xhosa mother and a white European father, Noah, 31, often delves into racial politics and social commentary in his comedy.
He jokes that he “was born a crime” in apartheid-era South Africa. In a 2013 appearance on The Daily Show, where he has appeared just three times, he quipped fears of police attacks on black men in the US “reminded him of the old days” back home.
“I’ve always seen race from different points of view, just because of my upbringing,” he told Newsweek in a 2012 interview.
According to his personal website, Noah has worked as a radio DJ, an actor and the host of his “Tonight with Trevor Noah” television show in South Africa. His 2012 one-man show “The Racist” garnered him international attention on a worldwide tour.
In the US, Noah is still a relative unknown. One observer in the business took the news that he had beaten out more established would-be heirs to US TV comedy’s top job as making, and echoing, history.
“Thank you, President Obama,” African-American comedian Chris Rock wrote in a Twitter post linking to the announcement.