Nasser Al-Rayess: The Shawarma King found his calling in comedy

On his first international tour in Australia, Nasser Al-Rayess, the Shawarma King and Comedy King, took the time out of his packed schedule, moving from city to city, to share his story with us.

He has a fondness for Lebanese girls and their cutesy accent when speaking English. One of his most popular posts is when he mimics the rant of a Lebanese girl that unfailingly begins with a rollercoaster “By ze way…”

Born in San Francisco, California, Nasser has only been to Syria, where both of his parents are from, once when he was two years old. “It’s my dream to go to Lebanon and Syria”, admits Nasser. His single mom was big on education, she put her two boys in summer school, confining their vacations to the States. Nasser wound up with a bachelor’s in political science and an MBA from UC Berkeley.

The turning point

He started doing content in 2018, then stand-up comedy in 2023. He gained momentum in 2022 and 2023, but it wasn’t till 2024 that he put together his first tour in February, four cities, four shows. He worked in consulting at the time, and his job was so disorganized that he hadn’t been put on a project for a long time.

He was told that if he doesn’t find a billable project within two weeks he would get fired, right when he began touring.

I decided to take a risk, go fully into content and stand-up and leave the job. I dreamed and prayed that it could be a career of mine, and Allah sent me a sign that it was time.

For the first four months after quitting his job, he got a lot of anxiety and ate shawarma left and right. At the time, he hadn’t told his family. When he did a TV interview, his mom’s cousin watched in Syria, called his uncle and broke the news. The whole family berated him. To this day they would tell him: “When will you be done with this and go get a real job?”

A hankering for Shawarma

“My love for shawarma is real don’t get this twisted” Everyone knows Nasser as the Shawarma King because he did so much content on it, he even put out the song “Be My Shawarma”.

It’s a connection to his childhood, when his uncle brought shawarma every two weeks and the entire family would go to the table and devour the boxes with sandwiches and toum. It was one of his favorite memories, only chicken shawarma for Nasser. He would duet people making it and critique them on TikTok early in his career. It evolved into jokes and memes, to reviewing shawarma all over the world, becoming his brand.

Despite the levity of his chosen profession, there are moments where he wonders if he’s taking it too far. He considers himself a comedian not an activist, he does however have values he adheres to. He spoke up for Lebanon when it was getting hit, while being wary in politics so as not to be misconstrued as a political satirist.

Comedy as his calling

Because he didn’t have a traditional path, he dealt with imposter syndrome a lot in his first two years in the stand-up comedy business. Some old-school comedians don’t think he’s a comedian because he didn’t spend fifteen years in a comedy bar doing five minutes over and over again. He would be on certain stages and feel he didn’t deserve to be there. What he had to unlearn was that those people’s opinions didn’t matter.

There are many paths to success. The most important thing is to be true to yourself. “Me being on stage, in these positions, meeting these people meant that I was supposed to be there”. The more he was in those moments, the more his imposter syndrome faded.

Where social media is concerned, it was always a means to an end, to give people a glimpse into who he believed he was. The goal was to get big enough to be able to get into stand-up comedy and acting, which is the next step for him. He doesn’t like anyone holding the door for him and deciding his fate.

Traditional gatekeepers have bias and if you look at them the wrong way, they will close the door, and I wouldn’t get the opportunity.

Today, he’s most proud of the version of Nasser who went against the family’s dreams for him to become a doctor. “The Nasser that listened to the voice in his heart, didn’t silence it, then knew what the path was. That Nasser is the reason we’re here today, I’m most proud of him”.

A sturdy foundation

A devout Muslim, his faith grounds him. Whenever he would pray, he would talk to God about his dream and ask him for the strength to follow it. “My strength and patience came from Allah. I would not be in this position without something that’s greater than me, this is what I was meant to be doing”, says Nasser.

Seeing his single mother go against the grain and be so stubborn and consistent with her dreams for her kids, taught him to be stubborn and consistent with his own dreams. She did things against her family’s wishes knowing it was best for him and his brother, like enrolling them in a private Christian high school in San Francisco that’s forty-five minutes away.  She knew it would bring the most benefit to her boys. “The key to making it in this business is consistency and discipline, how you approach your work, your art, and how you approach your relationship with yourself”.