Toya Talks Podcast

Send us Fan Mail Politics can feel like a sport until the scoreline is your mortgage, your food shop, or whether you feel safe walking down the street. I start from that uncomfortable truth and break down what the US midterm elections signal about voter patience, Donald Trump’s shrinking room to move once Democrats control Congress, and why “I think it might have been too tough” on immigration is...

Send us Fan Mail Black History Month is supposed to be loud, visible and impossible to ignore, so what does it mean when the UK suddenly feels quiet about it? We unpack the silence, the shifting politics behind it, and why “tolerance” can still sit on top of deeply rooted institutional racism. If you’ve felt that weird absence of events, workplace talks and public celebration, you’re not imagining...

Send us Fan Mail I got my official ADHD diagnosis in my forties, and it’s forcing me to tell the truth about what people never see behind “high functioning”. On the outside I’m building, leading, creating, parenting, delivering. Inside, it can feel like 20 tabs are open at once, ideas are loud, tasks are heavy, and the effort it takes to look composed is the part nobody claps for. I talk through A...

Send us Fan Mail A grand jury says “no indictment” and the timeline instantly gets flattened into “case closed” online, so we slow it right down and get precise. We talk through the Nolan Wells update, what a grand jury actually does in the US (and why it is not a criminal trial), and why “consistent with drowning” still leaves a family living with unanswered questions. If you care about justice,...

Send us Fan Mail The job market is brutal, interviews are getting longer and cheekier, and too many of us are trying to hold everything together while quietly running on empty. We’re back, and we start with the real reasons people disappear: burnout, change, family life, and the pressure of masking when you’re neurodivergent and “high functioning”. I talk about what it looks like to prioritise the...

Send us Fan Mail A workplace investigation is meant to find facts, but what happens when it starts to feel like a sentence? We return to Toya Talks with a heavy, urgent conversation sparked by the death of Professor Jason Arday, following weeks of intense coverage, plagiarism allegations, and questions about his life and work while Cambridge University pursued an independent investigation. We’re n...

Send us Fan Mail A photo can look like friendship and still hide risk. Today we’re asking a question that cuts through the nice memories, the group chats, and the holiday pictures: who keeps the only Black friend safe? I’m careful with facts and I refuse to fill gaps with speculation, but I’m also honest about why so many Black people feel fear before reassurance when we see certain stories unfold...

Send us Fan Mail £12,500 in your pocket today sounds like relief, but what if the price is your state pension arriving a year later? We get into the Citizens Advance proposal making waves in the UK and ask the real question underneath the headlines: do younger generations still believe retirement is guaranteed, or does it feel like the goalposts keep moving until there is nothing left to reach? Fr...

Send us Fan Mail A make-up technique isn’t just a technique when it comes from a community that has watched its creativity get copied, commercialised, and stripped of its origin story. I’m speaking on the Painted by Esther and Patrick Ta situation because the reaction online is not only about beauty products, it’s about power, credit, and what happens when money walks into the room and suddenly so...

Send us Fan Mail A well known brand drops into my inbox, praises my TikTok, then asks for a full video turnaround within hours and never once mentions payment. That one email opens a bigger conversation about workplace boundaries, self-worth, and why I refuse to build any part of my life on “maybe there’ll be future work”. If you are a content creator, freelancer, or employee who is tired of being...

Send us Fan Mail Someone can do everything “right” at work and still get blindsided by an office bully, a microaggressive comment, or a private Teams thread that was never meant to reach you. We’re not pretending that’s fair. We’re talking about what to do next, how to stay strategic, and how to protect your credibility without spending your whole life sat in HR. We start with the reality of workp...

Send us Fan Mail Wireless Festival gets cancelled and the easy headline is to blame Kanye West, but that story is too neat. I talk through what’s actually happening behind the scenes: government pressure, visa power, sponsor risk, and the uncomfortable truth that “cancel culture” doesn’t land equally. Kanye’s antisemitic statements and harmful comments about slavery still matter, and I’m clear abo...

Send us Fan Mail The news cycle is screaming, the cost of living is climbing, and somehow we are still expected to perform at full capacity. I sit with that tension out loud, starting with the fear and uncertainty around the Iran conflict, the way power plays get framed, and how ordinary people end up carrying the fallout through stress, disruption and constant unease. Then I bring it back home to...

Send us Fan Mail A five-hour wait in A&E with my toddler stripped away any illusions I had about emergency care. Corridor beds, exhausted staff, and a doctor arguing for babies to be seen before a sixty-year-old with a rash this is the UK’s reality, where private healthcare won’t fast-track an emergency and winter air feels like a petri dish. I share what we saw, what it did to me as a mum, an...

Send us Fan Mail Headlines collide when you put workers’ rights, political power, and culture on the same table. We start with UK TikTok moderators who say they faced harassment, punishing KPIs, and union busting while screening the content the rest of us never have to see. From there we unpack Pat McGrath Labs entering Chapter 11 Bankruptcy in the US and what it reveals about cash flow, innovatio...

Send us Fan Mail Power makes itself felt in our bills, our jobs, and our beliefs and this week we trace that line from Arctic ice to everyday life. We unpack why Greenland has become a pressure point, how tariff threats could ripple through British businesses, and what a fraying “special relationship” means for a post‑Brexit UK with less leverage at the table. It’s not just geopolitics; it’s the c...

Send us Fan Mail A hard truth set the tone for the new year: a fatal accident in Nigeria and the stark reminder that infrastructure and governance shape lives. I share why that grief paused my urge to create and how honesty, not forced optimism, can be the smartest way to start January. From there, we move straight into the UK job market, where rising employer costs, higher NI, and a punishing tax...

Send us Fan Mail Policy shapes pay packets, childcare, heating bills, and even how we move around our cities. We break down Rachel Reeves’ Autumn Budget without jargon, showing how frozen thresholds create fiscal drag, why dividend and property tax hikes shift the balance toward taxing wealth, and how ISA changes nudge under 65s into risk. We look at the upside too, scrapping the two child cap, ta...

Send us Fan Mail A superstar stopped a show to eject a sleepy fan, and the crowd divided. We look past the memes to the real duty of care at live events, the difference between standards and humiliation, and why humility travels further than hype. That contrast sets the stage for a wider theme: how power is used in public, at work and in culture. From Lupita Nyong’o’s choice to refuse typecasting...

Send us Fan Mail Ready to name the fear behind a big career leap? We start with the uncomfortable truth: stepping into leadership is hard when you’ve rarely seen anyone who looks like you survive and thrive there. That honesty opens a wide-angle look at credibility, negotiation, and why “director” should be a strategic choice, not a trap. You’ll hear practical pay tactics, a clear-eyed read on gen...

Send us Fan Mail A cold November forecast isn’t just about the weather. We unpack the rumoured tax rises and talk plainly about value: why working people are told to pay more while getting less from basics like transport and the NHS. From there, we zoom in on power dynamics how leadership shields or exposes you and what it really means when institutions police tone instead of tackling racism. If y...

Send us Fan Mail Pressure has a way of revealing what systems are really made of. We start with a bruising week and widen the lens: from alleged deodorant burns and the surge in hair relaxer lawsuits, to NHS resident doctors preparing to strike for pay and staffing, to the silent epidemic of “polite” horrible bosses who weaponise calm and call it leadership. The through line is accountability—of b...

Send us Fan Mail Power is shifting, and the cracks are showing. We open with a stark look at UK politics and ask why half of Conservative members still reject a Black woman leading then widen the lens to the monarchy’s legitimacy crisis and Sarkozy’s prison sentence for conspiracy, drawing a blunt line between optics, accountability, and who is allowed to hold power without question. From crown je...

Send us Fan Mail A week off turned into a reset I didn’t know I needed: a solo first-class dash to Paris for skincare and quiet, then a Black Tech Fest panel that cracked open my entire view of leadership. Four Black women drew a bright line between management and leadership, spoke candidly about mental health and neurodiversity, and made the case for sponsorship over mentorship names in rooms, bu...

Send us Fan Mail A poll shock, a policy gamble, a courtroom reckoning, and a boundary that saves a life this episode traces how power, data, culture, and healing collide. We open with a blunt read on fresh numbers putting Nigel Farage within striking distance and ask the tougher question: when the main parties feel unmoored, how do we vote with integrity rather than despair? That thread pulls stra...