Inner Circle Podcast

There's a camera on your street reading every license plate that passes. You didn't vote on it — and you probably just found out it exists. The Inner Circle Podcast closes the week on the surveillance story sweeping the country: 76,000 cameras, thousands of police departments, one private company holding the data — and citizens climbing poles to tear them down. Buela asks the question the...

You work one job. But your paycheck has two addresses. Tonight the Inner Circle says the quiet part out loud: the bill nobody sends you but everybody expects you to pay. Abe, Ms. B, and Buela open the books on the money that crosses the ocean every month — voluntarily AND involuntarily. Ms. B does the math on a community that "budgets Liberia like a monthly bill" and drops the idea that...

The largest Liberian community outside Liberia. An organization since 1974. So when the headlines turned on us — who spoke? Nobody. And tonight the Inner Circle says it out loud. Abe, Buela, Peterson, and original panelist Sam put the silence on trial: the scandal that ran 24 hours with no one to answer it, the candidates "doing politics in America as though they are in Liberia," the may...

Summer's over. The stories are not. Abe, Ms. B, and Buela run the whole season back — completely unscripted, and it might be the most fun hour of the year. Messi retires from international play and the panel has questions. A 19-year-old named Yamal steals a World Cup and one co-host's whole heart ("I don't watch soccer — I just wanted to be in the fries"). And David Beckham g...

Two get-togethers. One question: do we show up? The State Fair opened its gates today — the biggest fair in the country, everything on a stick, two million people calling it the Great Minnesota Get-Together. And this weekend, the Inner Circle 501(c)(3) throws its own: a community gala with a tournament, an all-black dinner night, and a state representative as keynote — all for one scary-big dream....

The ladies take over. And they take on the hardest story in the community. A Liberian success story — 24 group homes, a government post back home — is now the headline everyone's whispering about. But this episode isn't about one man. It's about what one headline does to everybody else: the honest operators, the new applicants, and every immigrant who built a business in an industry th...

A former vice president is sitting in jail. The largest drug seizure in Liberia's history. And your group chat hasn't talked about anything else for a week. Abe, Buela, and Peterson ask the question nobody in the diaspora wants to answer: why do we know every detail of a scandal 6,000 miles away — but can't name our own city council member? The panel digs into the arrest at the airport...

Prince Harry gave up the palace for the American dream. Six years later, he's packing it in — and every immigrant knows exactly why. Abe, Buela, and Ms. B put the royal exit on trial: Did Meghan know what she was marrying into? Can a man who's never seen anybody work survive in a country where you actually have to? And why does a co-host two years off the plane say America is lonelier than...

$863 per kid before the first bell. Phones getting benched. AI detectors reading your essays. School is back — and it's a whole different game now. Abe hands the co-host chair to an actual college student, and Buela Johnson delivers the line every teacher and parent needs to hear: "You can score a grade with AI. But can you defend the grade?" Inside: the community college move that t...

MPR dropped an investigation: a Liberian government official running Minnesota group homes from 5,000 miles away — $36 million in taxpayer money, neglect findings, and a community holding its breath. Let's be clear: he has not been accused of any crime. But the questions won't wait. Can you run a business you can't see? Where does hustle end and greed begin? And should a platform built...

A jury already made Meta pay $6 million. Now the states are in court arguing your child's attention was engineered on purpose. So who's really guilty — the platforms, the parents, or all of us? Abe, Peterson, and brand-new co-host Buela Johnson go three rounds: infinite scroll vs. personal responsibility, the tobacco comparison, and whether parents should be on trial too. Abe confesses. Pe...

3 million Black-owned businesses. Only 194,500 with a single paid employee. That gap is the whole story. "There's living in the business, and there's building the business. We tend to live in the business." Abe and Ms. B break down why access to capital — not effort — built the gap, how $211 billion becomes $600 billion, and the local owners proving it's possible: from rentin...

The co-hosts got caught up. The show went on anyway. Peterson's first-ever solo flight landed on ELECTION NIGHT — and he called it live on air: Amy Klobuchar, projected winner for governor. History moving in real time. Plus the realest take you'll hear on why immigrants sit out politics: many of us fled countries where politics meant danger. But "if you do not mess with politics, poli...

"How many yachts do you need, Abraham?" — "A LOT, if I can afford it!" Abe and Ms. B go head to head on the crisis nobody's group chat is talking about: America is aging fast, and somebody has to pay for it. Home care runs $34 AN HOUR — do the math, that's $139K a year. A nursing home? $10K a month. And Medicare? Doesn't cover long-term care at all. Inside: why Ms....

The internet played doctor with the biggest pop star alive — and she quit public life. Concern? Or cruelty? Ms. B: "If I can count your ribs, that's not shaming — that's the truth." Abe: "Whose place is it to comment on ANYBODY's body?" Nobody backed down. Plus: the childhood nickname "Booney Bones" that never healed, why our community says "she's...

"You basically decided to take your closet and turn it into a clothing store. I'm sorry to say." Ms. B and Yahri take over the Inner Circle Podcast Business & Finance Wednesday — and it gets REAL. Why staying in business is harder than starting one. The "boring stuff" behind every million-dollar launch. Working IN your business vs. building it. And why entrepreneurs who...

The 5th Annual On The One Music Festival (w/ Chadwick Phillips) He was on a major label, on shows with Kendrick Lamar — and months behind on rent. Nobody knew. Chadwick Phillips pulls up to the Inner Circle and drops GEMS: winning the Hot 97 talent show, the record deal that looked like stardom and paid like a side hustle, losing it all, moving to Minnesota — and building the On The One Music Fest...

Who leaves Hollywood... for Philadelphia?! LeBron just walked away from the Lakers to sign a veteran-minimum deal with the Sixers — fourth team, age 41, season 24. Abe calls it like he sees it: that's not love of the game, that's ring-chasing. Yahri's not so sure. Inside: the "grasshopper" problem killing LeBron's GOAT case vs. MJ and Kobe. Why he's playing for Philly...

The boat docked at 6:06 p.m. His mother's phone rang at 11:07. Nolan Wells never came home. An 18-year-old goes missing on a Fourth of July boat trip with his white friends off the Mississippi coast — and the internet declares its verdict before the autopsy comes back. Cover-up or tragedy? Rush to judgment or pattern recognition? The Inner Circle Podcast splits the table on the case gripping t...

67 years. Zero women of color in Coon Rapids City Hall. Thuba Nguyen is here to change that. The daughter of a Vietnam War refugee — brought to America by the act that reunited children of Black servicemen — Thuba went from a refugee camp to preschool classrooms to the State Capitol. Now she's knocking on doors in a city that's never seen a candidate like her. She gets real about code-swit...

10,000+ people. 100° heat. Four nightclubs packed beyond capacity. And nobody was counting. Liberia turned 179 , and the diaspora showed OUT. So which city really came out on top? Minnesota? Philadelphia? The DMV? California? Tonight, Abe, Ms. B, and Yahri rank the biggest Independence Weekend celebrations across North America, relive the WizKid moment, call out the cities that denied parade permi...

Snow, Hennessy, and Independence Day. How did Liberians turn Minnesota into Monrovia's second capital? The story of the "Liberian Weekend Off," why nobody who visits ever leaves, and a $1.6B economic footprint nobody's counting. Happy 26 — this one's on you

Division isn't just painful—it's expensive. While other communities turn their cultural celebrations into economic engines, we're splitting one holiday into multiple competing events and wondering why the sponsors, vendors, media, and crowds never reach their full potential. Tonight, we count the real cost of disunity: the money left on the table, the memories never created, and the op...

One Independence Day. Multiple events. No unified plan. With Liberia's 179th Independence Day just days away, the Inner Circle Podcast asks the question many in the community have been asking: Why can't we come together for July 26? The conversation gets real. The city denied the parade permit. The canceled Lone Star vs. Minnesota United match sparks fresh questions about planning and lead...

Minnesota is shaping up to be the place to celebrate Liberia’s 179th Independence Day — and we break down everything happening this weekend. Wizkid headlines Tribeville Fest at The Armory on Friday. The Independence Day Parade and Day in the Park take over Sunday. But one major event is no longer happening: the Liberia Lone Star vs. Minnesota United match was canceled after visa denials. Tickets w...