Marquette’s National Association for the Advancement of Colored People hosted its bi-annual Wild’N Out event Feb. 9 at the Weasler Auditorium.
The night was an hour-and-a-half event full of comedy, freestyle rap, Papa John’s pizza and music.
The event’s theme was Wild’N Out inspired by the 2005 American sketch comedy and rap battle improv Game Show hosted by comedian and musician, Nick Cannon, which features celebrities such as Iggy Azalea, Kevin Hart and Snoop Dogg.
Cree Howard, President of NAACP and senior in the College of Arts & Sciences, said the mission of the NAACP is to ensure political education on social and economic equality and to eliminate race-based discrimination on campus.
“We want to do this because first of all it brings out a lot of people and second of all, you just get to have fun, laugh,” Howard said.
She also said this was the second year the NAACP hosted Wild’N Out.
The show puts two teams of comedians against each other in a series of “improvisational comedy” games. The auditorium made a rivalry between the NAACP students from Chicago and students from Milwaukee.
Vice President Olivia Ford, a senior in the College of Health Sciences , said the NAACP strives to foster a welcoming environment for people of color on campus and create the best inclusive community they can.
Her role in planning the event was to organize the food being offered, marketing, hold practice with the contestants and be a host on the side.
Various comedic segments opened the night starting with “In the Classroom”, a competition in which contestants had to create improvised raps of what someone would do in a classroom. The goal was to maintain the rap without repeating it until someone messed up.
The second segment, “Talk and Spit,” placed contestants in two back-to-back chairs where they sat with mouths full of water. People from the opposing team made jokes and comedic disses in hopes of getting the members of the opposing team to spit their water out.
Ford said the “Talk and Spit” segment was her favorite part of the night.
“I thought it was really entertaining trying to make the other girls laugh and how they tried their hardest to do so even though some of them would not laugh, so I really enjoyed that,” Ford said.
Next up was a game of Jeopardy with a comedic twist. Team Milwaukee and Team Chicago members raced to the microphone to claim their improv category of choice; Ghetto comedy, Hip Hop, Holidays/Celebrity, Finish the Lyric and Throwback.
Audience members were invited up to the stage to participate in the jeopardy rounds and received cheers from the remaining crowd.
Zaida Dangerfield, a junior in the College of Nursing, attended the event to support one of her fellow sorority sisters.
“I thought it was very funny. A lot of participants and a lot of people were engaged,” Dangerfield said.
The night ended with a raffle giving away two Nicki Minaj Concert Tickets and a pair of Air Pods. Aside from Wild’N Out, Howard said the NAACP also plan to host future voting, enhancing the environment and heart health events.
“We hold an assortment of events we try to make sure we have some fun as well as some educational about what is going on in our society and our community in Milwaukee,” Ford said.
This story was written by Mimi Sinotte. She can be reached at [email protected].
