It takes some serious balls to be joking about arranged Indian marriages- especially in front of an audience in Dubai. Or to be doing a schtick in Saudi Arabia about how the Arabic language is so hard to understand, that it needs to buy a vowel.

Luckily, Sam Khullar packs a solid pair.

As one of the upcoming masters of ethnic comedy, Khullar- better known by his stage name Sugar Sammy- never passes up a chance to break the boundaries of what some people may call dirty jokes. He calls it the facets of life.

“Look, there’s reason men think about sex every 52 seconds,” Sammy tells andPOP. “I’m not gonna deny it, and just be a clean comic. It’s sort of like denying the fact that life is clean or life is dirty- you have to address both. So I’m an in-between type of guy.”

That persona is the reason why the 30-year-old Montreal native is on a Just for Laughs-sponsored Canadian theatre tour- which to Sammy, is the ultimate rite of passage as a stand-up comic.

“It’s all been club acts for the last few years,” explains Sammy, who was voted as ‘the funniest comedian’ by the Montreal Mirror three years in a row. “But everyone knows that the next big step for comics is doing it in theatres. And to add on the fact that it’s Just for Laughs, it’s really awesome.”

Sammy agrees that he’s come quite the long way since his days aspiring to become a comedian at eight-years-old while watching Eddie Murphy’s Delirious. He vividly remembers pointing to the comedian on the television screen and telling his mom that’s exactly what he wanted to be. Not exactly the ideal career that a parent hopes their child to pursue, but luckily, Sammy’s family was always in full support.

“My home is such a great environment to thrive in,” says Sammy. “We’re always messing around, and I’ve always been running my material by my parents, my brother and my sister. They’re all jokers.”

Eventually when he was 19, the Indo-Canadian was offered his first chance to rock the mic on-stage at an unpaid student fundraiser at McGill University- where he was pursuing cultural studies. Sammy recalls the rush that he felt after the first gig -it was like a comedy drug- and it prompted him to seek bigger outlets.

He became a regular at Montreal’s Comedy Works club.

And then in 2004, Just for Laughs, the mecca of all comedy festivals, came to recruit.

“That’s when I started planning my career steps,” says Sammy. “My foot was in the door, and I knew for sure I wanted to do that for a living. So I just laid it all out on the table, planned it, and now I’m going to try and follow it.”

The surprising thing about the plan, is that it ended up having Sammy use the entire world as his audience- on an international scale. Literally. Last year, the comic went on a world tour to 13 different countries, five different continents.

“We really went all over, it was exciting,” says Sammy. “We toured for 11 months, South Africa, the Middle East, Dubai, the US, the UK, Australia. I love touring and finding new audiences. That’s how it’s been for a while now, haven’t been home for more than a month or two per year.”

But he’s still not satisfied. The comedy drug nags at him- just like after his first taste on-stage back at the student fundraiser- because there’s still one continent left to leave in gut-busting laughter.

“Haven’t done South America yet, but we’re working on that,” says Sammy.

Though the most important question seems to be, how does one man manage to take on a world audience? Well it does help if you can speak four languages. Sammy may be the funniest quadra-lingual ever.

“It definitely helps me take on a more global perspective,” says Sammy, who can speak English, French, Punjabi and Hindi.

“My reaction time is a lot better in English, but I’ve been working at getting the other languages up to speed. Yet, I can adapt my act to all four.”

Adds Sammy, “but everyone has NBC and CNN, so even the furthest places around the world understand what I’m talking about. It’s not like they think I’m some guy coming to the village bringing them fire.”

Even more interesting enough is that Sammy enjoys all forms of international heckling. He’s become a staple for regularly incooperating the crowd into his gigs, and although most comedians view  hecklers to kryptonite, Sammy agrees that he can’t survive without them.

“Most comics hate it, but I can’t get enough of them,” he says. ”I know my material, I rehearse, edit it, so to have that fun with the crowd, that’s my reward with that show.”

It’s just one of the many things that make Sammy such a unique comedian. But the comic shares some insight to why he’s determined to carve his own path in the industry.

“I try to stand out, rather than blend in,” says Sammy. “My dad tells me every day ‘don’t listen to anyone, do what you want to do, and follow your own path.’ And because I do that, I’m totally in charge of my career.

“All the things I do- including the way I market myself- are different from the traditional style of being a comic. And I think that’s gonna help me be the best comedian I could be.”

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Read more at andPOP. andPOP - POP Culture with Substance

andPOP’s Jordan Bortolotti took to the streets of Toronto to see if he could make people laugh.

He couldn’t.

So he caught up with some real comedians, who were in town for the second Just For Laughs festival.

Check out the piece, featuring Sugar Sammy, Jeffrey Ross, Jo Koy and Kevin Hart.

Come back soon to see the full – hilarious – interviews with the comedians.

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1. Just For Laughs Twitterviews Russell Peters and More!
2. Just for Laughs Goes South
3. Just For Laughs Heads To Chicago

Read more at andPOP. andPOP - POP Culture with Substance