Hari Kondabolu was born in 1982 in the Little India neighborhood of Flushing, Queens, New York. His parents, both medical professionals, settled there when they first emigrated from Andhra Pradesh, India.
Pursuing the American Dream, the Kondabolu family moved to Floral Park, Queens, when Hari was 8 and his younger brother Ashok was 6. Ashok Kondabolu now performs as Dap, the hype man in the hip-hop group Das Racist. Hari and Ashok occasionally team up for The Untitled Kondabolu Brothers Project, an evening of improvised comic cultural commentary. “It was not my parents’ dream to have their sons in the entertainment field,” says Kondabolu, “but they couldn’t be prouder. Our parents provided us that freedom.”
Ravi and Uma Kondabolu raised their sons to be proud of their Indian heritage, so it is not surprising that cultural identity is a prime factor in their respective arts.
Hari (pronounced HUH-ree) complains in his set that Microsoft Word spell check always tries to correct his name to “Hair.”
Dude should push the button to add his name to his personal dictionary, instead of pushing the “racist” button.