Samay Raina has been making up to his fans for the two-year drought on his YouTube channel. The comedian, who had been touring the world with his show Unfiltered, ended the long self-imposed exile from the online space by announcing the eighth edition of popular online chess tournament Comedians On Board (COB). Raina failed to come out on top there, but he kept giving his fans what they wanted—more content.

Lots of chess, virtual golf and poker streams later, Raina dropped his latest and biggest project India’s Got Latent on 14 June. In the format show, contestants show off their varied talents to a panel of judges and stand the chance to win all the revenue from the ticket sales. How? Before they go up on stage, every performer has to rate themselves out of 10. If their rating matches the judges’ average score, they make bank.

Yesterday, Raina recorded another episode of the show at Mumbai’s The Habitat with rapper and internet personality Arpit Bala joining him on the judges panel. If you want to catch the show live, you’ve got one more opportunity tomorrow when the comedian is joined by Karan Singh Magic and Anshu Bisht aka Gamerfleet. That’s an almost chowkdi reunion.

We spoke with Raina about his inspiration for his latest project, his standup special Unfiltered and his future plans for chess. Scroll on to see what the ‘Supreme Leader’ has to say.

How did you come up with the idea for ‘India’s Got Latent’?

I’ve been looking for a regular property that could go up on my YouTube channel for a long time. Like, every YouTuber has a format that they post regularly like meme reviews, roasts, commentary videos. Just when I had started, I had a series called Convincing Random Strangers On Omegle To Play Chess. But that was a very high-effort property. So I was looking for something that doesn’t take so long to produce but also at the same time adds some value to my channel. Over the last year I came up with many ideas like ‘Two Truths, One Lie’, ‘Street Joke Night’. After thinking about it a lot I thought I’ll look around for some inspiration. So, I came across Kill Tony and added some layers to it—I added a scoring system, people are allowed to showcase their talents other than standup comedy and a self-awareness angle to see what the performers think of themselves as well. I actually really enjoy Raunaq Rajani’s Relationsh*t Advice where four comedians come together and fool around, have fun. I wanted to do something similar so I thought of this idea.

So what are your plans for ‘India’s Got Latent’?

To be honest, we are still working on the show. Even for today’s recording (featuring Arpit Bala) we’ve changed two aspects of it. With every episode we are learning new things. We are trying to figure out what we can do in case we don’t get a winner in a particular episode. Because each episode should have some high-point, right? So we’re figuring out those details. Things will slowly fall into place as we record more episodes.

You also had a famous series called ‘Bharvo Ke Khiladi’ on your YouTube channel. Will you be bringing that back as well?

I feel like that’s going to be my personal project. Because I don’t think I’ll be able to find a sponsor for that series. Even for the last episode, I paid out of my own pocket. So it’ll be a self-produced project but it’ll definitely come back. But it’ll drop when people are least expecting it. But I also want to keep levelling up as well. So I have to figure out what else I can do with the show.

Coming to your standup, you have been on tour with your show ‘Unfiltered’. How long will you be performing it and have you started working on new material?

I actually have a lot of new material now. But I’ve noticed that a new audience has discovered my content in the last 6-7 months. I can sense it with the kind of engagement I’m getting and the increase in my followers. So I think I’ll do two more rounds of the tour for these new followers and then release it before announcing trials for my new hour. But that will begin soon so I have something to perform and tour with once I’ve released Unfiltered.

So you’ve recorded ‘Unfiltered’?

Yes, that’s already recorded. But I’m still deciding on how I want to release it. I can drop it in 3-4 parts and then release a compilation as the entire hour. I feel like unless it’s a coherent piece, it doesn’t make sense to release it as a whole. Also, to be honest, nobody really watches an entire hour these days. Even India’s Got Latent, the first episode was almost an hour-and-a-half. But we edited it down and released it because thanks to social media everybody’s attention span is… insert “arre maa ch*di padi hai” meme.

People also associate you with dark humour now. Do you feel like the Indian taste is slowly evolving to appreciate this brand of humour?

If you actually see Unfiltered I only have 15 minutes of dark material in it towards the end. But somehow I’ve been branded as this dark comedian. I personally identify as a comedian jise bahut chul hai. That manifests itself in various ways. It might be a dark or convoluted joke or some different kind of stream. I just do it for the kicks. Even if you look at my body of work, it’s content that I’ve put out on the fly. It’s not curated in any particular way. I’ve been like this since I was a kid. During the school assembly, when they used to make us sing the national anthem and ask us to be quiet, I used to think to myself if I laugh now I’m going to get in trouble. But mujhmein woh chul thi toh main hass deta tha. Audience mein bhi woh chul hai. That’s why they enjoy my content. Also, because dark material has a higher shock value, it travels more and then people think that’s all I do. If you look at my standup as a whole, 80 percent of it is just random jokes.

And speaking about the audience, yes people are opening up to new kinds of content. They are opening their mind up to different kinds of standup. Even if you look at the memes that the newer generation is laughing at, it’s all so weird. Toh woh zamaana badal hi raha hai.

Coming to your one true love—in a recent stream you mentioned you’re tired of the chess grind. Does that mean there will be no more ‘Comedians on Board’?

So, to be honest, I’m tired of grinding constantly. I win and lose and it’s a cycle where I remain on the same chess rating. But I love chess and I will continue promoting the game. The chess grind streams will stop after I reach 2000 rating on Chess.com though. After I reach that milestone, I just want to do fun streams where I promote the game. Comedians on Board, Under the Board, Underwater… sab karenge.