arts & entertainment
Rissa Riss
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become a true professional, she says.
“He is so influential to the life I have now.
He taught me about choices and about sac-
rifice—how to sacrifice the life you live for
the life you want to live.
“He has an awesome, awesome training in
comedy…And he let me open for him.”
Rissa was expelled from Humboldt
Elementary in third grade, for dissing
the school’s principal. “I wrote on the bath-
room wall that she was a big fat pig,” Riss
4.
Also in that class was Anthony Branch,
who later took the street name Lil’ Smurf
and was shot dead in a parking lot in North
Portland. “Some people get breaks, some
don’t,” she says.
She lives in Las Vegas. It’s a good
place to be a comic, she says. “It has so
many things all packed into this small
space,” she says. “It’s close to LA and it’s
closer to Portland than Dallas, Austin or
Houston. But comedy is the same no matter
where you go.”
She supports other
Portland artists. Rissa
has produced shows for Lady
Trinity of the hip hop trio
‘Rose Bent.’ “She’s the great-
est,” she says of Trinity. She
admires crooner Aaron
O’Bryan
Smith,
Black
Govament, Ieasha Spinks,
fellow comic ‘Seeznin’s The Mayor!’ and
more.
She gives back. Rissa helped fellow
comic, Carmen Trineece Anderson get
started in comedy. Anderson is a single
mom dealing with late-stage cancer, Riss
says.
“This woman is on chemo yet she is still
striving
to
live
her
dream.
“I can’t complain about anything, I can’t
say I stubbed my toe. I have to pull a
Carmen. It’s the new Malcolm X: ‘by any
means necessary.’ She inspires me.
“I don’t care if my mom died, my man left
6.
Funny girl Rissa Riss dishes on
comedy, career and getting
expelled in 3rd grade
says. “OMG That’s horrible for a third-
grader.”
Humboldt wasn’t all bad for Rissa. “I was
on the drill team in 1st and 2nd grade,” she
remembers. “We were the Humboldt
Firefoxes.”
In 4th and 5th grade, at Woodlawn
Elementary, Rissa was in the same
class as vocalist Nehemiah Booker. “That
was the coolest class,” Rissa says.
Nehemiah would sing at all of our assem-
blies. He’d sing a Gospel song called
‘Tomorrow.’ We thought he was the greatest
R&B singer alive.”
5.
7.
me, I got my leg cut off.
I have to do this show.”
She studied African
dance. ‘At Wood -
lawn everyone took
African dance,” she says.
“That class taught us so
much about our culture
and about discipline. It
gave us an opportunity to
see our fellow students
perform. It gives a per-
son hope and the idea
that you can do some-
thing. It really instills in you a confidence
that may not be instilled in everyone.
“My teacher also taught us Algebra and
French. She was awesome and she did not
take any crap. If you misbehaved, she’d say
‘I’m sending you to Africa’, and you’d have
to go out the door. People didn’t act up
because they didn’t want to get sent to
9.
Rissa Riss
Africa.”
She’s shy. “I always hated any recog-
nition or awards. Don’t bring atten-
tion to me unless I’m on stage.”
She’s trying to clean up her act. “I just
did a show where I did not use the F-
Bomb, not even once,” she says. That takes
practice!”
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NOVEMBER 6
The Portland Skanner Page 7