When HBO axed “Brothers in Atlanta,” a comedy created by native Diallo Riddle and his writing buddy Bashir Salahuddin that had been in development from 2011 to 2016, Atlanta’s loss was Chicago’s gain.
Instead of throwing in the towel, the duo turned their attention to Saluhuddin’s hometown, the South Side of Chicago, which became the foundation for their hilarious Comedy Central show, South Side.
“Coming out of that painful [HBO] experience, we were, like, ‘Look. I’m from Atlanta. You’re from Chicago. We need to tell the Chicago story now,’” Riddle says, recalling the conversation he had with Salahuddin after HBO halted their show.
“So at that point, we started developing a show with Comedy Central about Bashir’s hometown of Chicago,” Riddle says. “And so, when we hired our writers, we made sure that everybody was from Chicago.”
South Side, which premiered on Comedy Central in July, follows two recent community college graduates, Simon (played by Salahuddin’s brother, Sultan) and Kareem (Kareme Young). The accomplishment encourages them to leave their jobs at the local Rent-T-Own, where they spend their days repossessing microwaves, and XBox game consoles from residents behind on their payment plans. But both quickly realize that leaving their jobs will be harder than they thought.
The comedy’s portrayal of its namesake is self-aware and witty, but it also manages to humanize Chicago’s South Side and its people in a way that’s unique to television right now, which is brimming with varying dramas such as Showtime’s The Chi and Dick Wolf’s Chicago Fire, Chicago P.D. and Chicago Med franchise.
“Our approach to comedy has always been that we wanted to tell a hard comedy about cities that people don’t really understand. But once we translate it for them, they’ll understand, like, ‘Oh. This is a universal thing,’” Riddle says. “What you call your friends, it might be ‘shawty’ or it might be ‘joe.’ Those kinds of things change, but Bashir and I always knew that we knew how to tell a story, and we knew how to tell a story humorously.”
Currently in the middle of season one, South Side airs every Wednesday on Comedy Central. The TRiiBE spoke with the multi-hyphenate Riddle, who created, produced, wrote and stars in South Side alongside Salahuddin, about the style of authenticity their show brings to Chicago.
The following has been edited and condensed for clarity.