Jay Jurden's new Hulu comedy special, Yes Ma'am, premiered earlier this month and makes it clear why he's become one of the most exciting queer voices in stand-up comedy today.Jurden's first full comedy project, released in 2020 along with his debut comedy album, Jay Jurden Y'all, which built the foundation for the material and perspective that audiences now see in his debut featurelength TV special. Yes Ma'am, filmed in New Orleans, brings that voice to a global audience while showcasing Jay's humor, perspective, and experiences as a queer Black man from the south.Notably, Jurden stands out for the way he talks about life as a queer Black man from Mississippi with honesty that feels both intimate and universal. He moves effortlessly from punch line to vulnerability, and the Hulu comedy special captures that mix in a way that feels completely his own.Out correspondent Lamont Baldwin sat down with Jurden to talk about the making of Yes Ma'am, the choices behind the material, and what he hopes viewers will take away from this special. Jay Jurden Jason Rodgers (@jasonrodgersphoto) Out: First off, congratulations on your debut Hulu comedy special!Jay Jurden: Thank you Lamont. It took a very long time. I was surprised that it happened and fun fact: I did not know I was recording this until about two weeks or three weeks out. I got the call that Comedy Dynamics wanted to shoot it in New Orleans. They were like, "Do you have an hour ready?" And the way I tour is, I basically treat every weekend like I'm going to do a special. So I was like," I'm ready." I've been working on some of these jokes since 2021, so I was very happy to be able to put it together for Company Dynamics and the people of New Orleans.Your first comedy special is a little like releasing a debut album. You only get one first impression. How did you decide which jokes belonged in this project and which ones needed to wait for another moment?I had a debut album that came out in 2020, so I had gone through the selection process of jokes before, but this is my first time kind of really choosing it for a special. When I was thinking about the jokes I wanted to do, on your debut album you want to do the hit singles. So there were jokes I knew I had to do. There were jokes that I'd done on The Tonight Show. I'd done the Tonight Show three times up to this point. I made sure to include all of the dirty versions of the jokes I had to kind of keep clean for standards and practices on NBC.Does this feel like your "mama I made it!" moment?Yeah. It's so funny you say it and phrase it that way. It's one of my favorite ways to look at it. I titled it yes ma'am, based on one of the things I say to my mom in a joke that's in the special. It is very much a mama I made it moment. I've had a number of those over my comedy career, but a special on a streamer because people do not want to pay for stuff to get made, and people do not buy things right now.So, for those two things to happen for me with this first hour special, I feel very grateful. And it was a cool "mama I made it" moment. She was at the taping, people are like, "do you do these jokes in front of your mom about sucking dick?" Yeah, I do. She's met my husband. So, it's a very cool moment to get to have a "mama, I made it moment" with your mom and kind of have basically a part of the title for the special. What does it mean to you to have this collaboration with Hulu?It's so funny because I have a joke about Abbott Elementary in the special. I'd had a couple of meetings with Hulu in the past. So this partnership started, I want to say, three years ago. They came to one of the early hours I did in Los Angeles and really liked my stuff, and they got kind of deeper into comedy, and they had the Hularious series that came out starting last year and kind of folded over into this year. So they were always looking for stuff, and I was lucky that Comedy Dynamics had a really cool partnership with them as far as producing my special and selling it to Hulu. So, it does feel like a cool, full circle moment. The funny thing about Hulu is that it is Hulu, but it's also Disney+. So people are like, "Jay, they let you talk about all this stuff on Disney?" I go, yeah, they did. You don't know what Mickey and Minnie get into you. You don't know.The comedy world is having an important conversation about representation. From your perspective, what role do Black queer comedians play in shaping that discussion?I think that black queer comedians, shoutout Wanda Sykes, have always been here. So there are a couple of stories when it comes to being a black and queer performer in comedy that have been with us for a very long time, and I think that the more representation that we have, the I think the more rich and the more textured and the more specific and nuanced comedy will be. I want to make sure I'm doing comedy so that Black people and queer people can come to my show and not only feel represented, but be happy And, most importantly, laugh. The one thing about black audiences and queer audiences, if it ain't funny, get offstage. I'm also a snob, so I hold myself to a very particular standard when it comes to comedy. Jay Jurden Jason Rodgers (@jasonrodgersphoto)Who are some of your comedy influences?Wanda Sykes changed the trajectory of my career both academically and comedically. I will always shout out Wanda Sykes. I'd be remiss if I didn't say early, early, early 2000s Dave Chappelle was one of the first people I saw as a young black person doing comedy, both for black people and for mainstream rooms in a way that didn't rob him of his blackness.We love Luenell. I think she's so funny. She's so dirty. She's so silly. Those are the people who really kind of changed the way that I look at comedy and that continue to influence me to this day.What do you want audiences to walk away with after watching this special?I want their cheeks to hurt. I want their stomachs hurt. I want people to feel like I just had to work out. I want people to really kind of see that comedy can be extremely funny and extremely well written and well executed. I want people to go, oh, wait a second, I really love this and I might not even be queer, I might not be black, I might not be southern. But I love this very southern, very queer, very black comedy special. And maybe that will tell those audience members, oh, okay. Maybe when you go pick any piece of media, expand your mind a little bit, go watch something, experience something that's a little different than you. So I want people to think, I got to see him live.Jay Jurden's debut comedy special, Yes Ma'am, is now streaming on Hulu and Disney+.