It’s not a bold statement to say that we could all stand to learn more — especially when it comes to issues regarding race. Podcasts are low-hanging fruit in terms of educating yourself, and lucky for you, there are plenty of Black podcasters making their thoughts available to you through this medium.
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So in addition to redistributing wealth to organizations for Black equity, signing petitions, contacting your local officials, and protesting in the streets, don’t forget to also simply take time to listen to Black people.
Here’s a list of recommendations of podcasts hosted by Black people — from an Asian woman who is far from knowing everything. Some skew more historical, some more current and progressive. Several dive into deep issues around race, while others aren’t about race per se but instead about those individuals’ interests like food or comedy.
You can listen to any of these wherever you listen to podcasts. If I missed any that you’d recommend, please add them in the comments.
Weekly episodes, launched June 2020
On this iHeartRadio podcast, Linqua Franqa and Dope KNife — two hip-hop musicians, friends, and roommates out of Athens, Georgia — share their progressive political views grounded in their own personal experience and our country’s history of systemic racism. The duo covers topics such as defunding the police, Black capitalists, and the harm brought on by the model minority stereotype.
One lesser-known event I was unaware of until I listened to this podcast was the killing of Latasha Harlins, a 15-year-old Black girl shot by a Korean grocery store owner, around the same time as the Rodney King beating. Their latest episode includes an interview with Shahid Buttar, an activist, artist, attorney, and Democratic Socialist who is running against longtime Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi for San Francisco’s representative.
Outside of rap and podcasting, Dope KNife works as an illustrator and music producer, while Linqua Franqa, also known as Mariah Parker, is Athens’ elected District 2 Commissioner and a vocal activist.
Bimonthly episodes, launched in 2015
People’s Breakfast Oakland is a grassroots organization centered around equipping the houseless community with necessary resources like tents, clothes, hygiene packs, and food. The group was founded by Delency Parham and Blake Simons, who met at a protest at the University of California Berkeley to demand the name of Le Conte Hall (after a slaveholding family) be changed. After learning of their mutual Bay Area origins and family ties to the Black Panther Party, they became friends and eventually founded both People’s Breakfast — in addition to the Hella Black Podcast, which aims to spread Black political education for Black liberation.
The show seeks to “educate and inform our listeners on all things related to Blackness,” and covers subjects like the Black community’s alliance with the LGBTQ community, systemic oppression, and other topics. A recent episode touches on how the Covid-19 pandemic is disproportionately affecting the Black community.
3. 1619 Project
Five-episode series, launched in 2019
You have probably already seen this New York Times-produced, Pulitzer Prize-winning podcast being recommended. But if you still haven’t carved out time to listen, here’s another reminder.
The show dives into U.S. history, from the slave ships that landed on Virginia’s shores, to President Abraham Lincoln’s contrived attitudes toward enslaved people and the way slavery shaped the founding of the U.S. economy. It also covers other issues from how Blackface shaped U.S. popular culture to the deliberate lack of adequate medical care that Black people receive.
The phrase “systemic racism” is pretty self-explanatory. To not be an accomplice to systemic racism, you first need to understand the system itself. These five episodes are a step toward revealing the system that built this country and built against Black people.
4. Iconography
Weekly episodes, launched July 2019
Hosted by two cultural connoisseurs, Ayo Edebiri (a comic and writer) and Olivia Craighead (a freelance writer), who invite a friend each episode to talk about a chosen icon, from John Legend to Ziwe Fumudoh.
Edebiri does stand-up and co-stars in Comedy Central’s digital series Ayo and Rachel are Single. Craighead has written for The New Yorker, The Wall Street Journal, The Fader, and Glamour about entertainment and cultural phenomenons. I would say these two are celebrity academics. Make sure to stay tuned until the end of each episode to hear a game of Vroom Vroom, where they string together an ad libbed movie idea, in 60 seconds, that will lead to an actor’s Oscar win. And listen to the Lizzo is Rick and Morty episode for some nuanced hot takes on the self-love queen.
5. Hella Nuts
Launched in March 2019
Black people are the highest-growing vegan population in America. Why? Consider what communities suffer from food deserts and the health repercussions of that reality. Unfortunately, affordable and the easiest to access foods are usually processed foods. Chef Mieko and Chef Kamari, the mother-daughter duo that owns Hella Nuts Eatery in Oakland, had frustrations with this system, so they started their own plant-based business as well as a podcast to demystify what eating more plant-based can look like.
Before Mieko and Kamari started their plant-based journey in 2018, they had always had a strong focus on nutrition and community. Mieko founded local nonprofit Imagine That Kids, which provided healthy foods and education to Black youth. Kamari shares those same values, working on policies to get fresh produce in liquor stores in food deserts.
6. Come Through
15-episode series, launched in April 2020
In this 15-episode podcast launched earlier this year, writer Rebecca Carroll (The Atlantic, The New York Times, Essence) interviews notable thinkers on issues around race in America in 2020. Guests include Issa Rae (HBO’s Insecure), Ava DuVernay (When They See Us and 13th), and Julián Castro (former U.S. Secretary of Housing).
Carroll has framed these conversations in the context of this historic election year, dissecting how White supremacy lives everywhere in our society from entertainment culture to climate change and health care.
Weekly episodes, launched in August 2017
In this show, tech engineers Stephanie and CoolBlkNerd discuss the underrepresentation of Black people and other minorities in the tech industry including “how they keep their sanity while trying to advance their career.” Topics include microaggressions, lack of upward mobility, and income disparity. For anyone who works in tech, this is a must-listen.
Every week, the millennial hosts have honest conversations about personal life and work, sometimes in true nerd fashion with a gaming metaphor or two. They hold each other accountable in their tech quest by challenging each other to be “cooler nerds” with tasks to level up their programming skills, on top of their day jobs and school and inviting other industry nerds to the table.
Monthly episodes, launched July 2018
We can’t talk about equality without talking about intersectionality. The Afroqueer podcast talks specifically about what it’s like to be queer in Africa. The show is hosted by Shelly Thiam, a Senegalese-American who started her journalistic career at NPR in Chicago. She decided to center her focus on queer African stories after the murder of Fanny Ann Eddy, a Sierra Leonean LGBT activist. In 2006, she founded None on Record, an archive of 1,000 first-person narratives of queer Africans in Africa. I’m still shocked from listening to the One Night in Marrakech episode and the tactics used to terrorize queer people.
9. Code Switch
Weekly episodes, launched in 2013
This weekly NPR show is hosted by Gene Demby and Shareen Marisol Meraji and run by a “multi-racial, multi-generational team of journalists fascinated by the overlapping themes of race, ethnicity, and culture, how they play out in our lives and communities, and how all of this is shifting.”
Prior to his work on NPR, Demby worked at The New York Times and the Huffington Post covering race and politics. Meraji, a Puerto Rican and Iranian journalist, reported on the wealth gap and poverty for American Public Media. The podcast is incredibly valuable for gaining perspective and education on how race impacts every aspect of society. Having been around since 2013, there’s a hefty archive to go through. Don’t miss the end of the show when the hosts play a song that is “giving them life,” reminding us that there is reprieve in art and music.
10. Tanya’s Table
Weekly episodes, launching this month (July 2020)
If you’re a fan of Oakland’s Brown Sugar Kitchen (who isn’t?) you might be interested to hear Chef Tanya Holland’s new podcast launching this month with Muddhouse Media.
Holland’s cooking is influenced by her Creole beginnings and French training — the result is her version of modern Soul food, including her famous fried chicken and waffles that she proudly proclaims is better than Thomas Keller’s. On the podcast, the season 15 Top Chef contestant will be interviewing prominent voices in their fields such as Questlove, Alice Waters, and Aisha Tyler. Stay tuned to listen when it launches on July 28 .
Remember subscribing, rating, reviewing, and financially contributing to podcasts is part of what keeps them going. So, do what you can to keep the mics on for Black voices.
