A man and his horse walk into a bar.
That’s not a setup for a joke. It really happened. And it’ll happen again. The man is Chaz Stephens: comedian, rapper, son of a local Black rodeo legend. The horse’s name is Cowboy, and Stephens—aka ThunderWof—takes him to gigs wherever he can. More on that later.
ThunderWof has been boots-on-the-ground when it comes to building the Tulsa comedy scene. Last spring, he filmed a comedy special called “The Horse and The Wof” at the Spotlight Theater, becoming the first Black artist ever to produce a sold-out show at the historic venue. This week brings another first: Circle Cinema, which has never screened a local comedy special before, will show “The Horse and The Wof” on June 12, followed by a Q&A with Stephens, director Ian Upton, and comedian Evan Hughes. A portion of the ticket sales will go to support the Union Speech and Debate Team that nurtured Stephens’ own talent.
I sat down with ThunderWof at his family's DNR Ranch to talk about the special, the horse, meeting Ethan Hawke, and making comedy history in Tulsa.
Ryan Anderson: Why do they call you ThunderWof?
ThunderWof: My junior year of high school, my friends and I used to rap together, and my nickname back then was Charlie The Kid, but that was such a basic rap name. I was like, “I can come up with something better.” My uncle's rodeo nickname used to be Apache Kid because they lived on Apache Street in north Tulsa, so I was like OK, I'll go by Apache The Kid. And then I was listening to Young Thug, the Black Portland mixtape, and in the song “Movin” he goes, "Thugger, Thugger"—I thought he said, "Thunder, Thunder." I was like, “that's tough,” so I went by Apache Thunder, and I was like, you gotta have something cooler to it, so then I made it Apache Thunder Wolf. Then it dropped from Apache Thunder Wolf to just Thunder Wolf, and then [my friends and I] took the “l” out of Thunder Wolf, so still pronounced Thunder Wolf, but we just didn't want to keep an extra “l” in the name for no reason.
Ryan Anderson: You wear a lot of hats, including a cowboy hat. Can you tell me about the culture of being a cowboy in Tulsa?