Black and Nuanced Podcast

As an Afro-Caribbean woman, I’ve had to navigate multiple worlds beyond my comfort and rarely with enough language. When I fell into a dark space at the end of 2022, I was lost and couldn’t understand why. Coming out of that moment, changed me. It changed how I viewed myself and the people, places, and things I interacted with. This solo episode serves as a preview of the nuanced journey I take my...

Having immigrant parents, getting a good education was over emphasized in our household. Lucky for me, I was down for traditional schooling, having gone to a four year college then grad school. But after seeing “battle royale" play out between the Biden-Harris administration and Congress over student loan debt cancellation AND realizing how much I owe, I chatted with my co-producer, Wize Grazette...

I thought I had my career path figured out in my early 30s. I was making decent money as a freelance contractor at Viacom in New York and I had never thought about leaving my TV production gig until it exhausted me. I didn’t feel like I maximized pursuing my goals of being a radio personality. I also didn’t imagine jumping careers at 33 but I did. Syndicated radio personality, Lenny Green, became...

I’d be lying if I said I didn’t have lingering PTSD from my past work experiences being the only Black woman or Black person in an all white corporate space. The reality is a lot of Black people do. There are also some that don’t. These experiences marked very transitional moments in my life so I called up Amadi Pate, a TV and film coordinator, and Stephen Williams, a brand marketer, to share thei...

Being unemployed [for a third time] in New York crushed me and this time around, the additional bump in benefits, because of the pandemic, was gone. There were more rules and monitoring than before. I was embarrassed by being unemployed at my “big old age” in my late 30s. But after every storm, there’s supposedly a rainbow. It would take me another year to see that. Tonja Stidhum, a writer, direct...

In the words of Jay-Z, “I’m not a businessman, I’m a business, man.” I studied entrepreneurship in undergrad because my natural inclination was to always be in charge of some sh*t. But I still had a lot to learn. They say to be an entrepreneur, you need to find a need that exists and build a business around that. Well that wasn’t my motivation. I didn’t want future million dollar checks being assi...

And then the music stopped. In a game of musical chairs, I was left without a seat. But the game wasn’t musical chairs, it was my health. I had experienced a bout of debilitating back pains in 2021 that took me down. I had taken walking, standing and sitting up straight, and being active without being in pain, for granted. But the story doesn’t actually start there. Let’s just say it did. In my la...

In my best Biggie rapping voice but remixed, “What’s grief? Grief is when you need any noise to go to sleep, grief is isolating yourself for several weeks.” You get the lyrical point. What I didn’t understand, until I navigated that darkness I mentioned in episode two, was that grief wasn’t limited to losing a loved one. My body was grieving some things that my mind was slow to catch up with. It w...

In the season finale, I finally figured it out. From forming a second business prematurely, to getting laid off a third time, to grieving some sh*t my body needed to release, I was ready to go full throttle with storytelling as a living. The gag is I had been doing it in my own way for so long. I was just ready to own it more confidently and take it to new heights. Knowing people in real life doin...

This season, I did something different. I got a little more personal and vulnerable and decided to share stories about the nuances of being a Black woman still navigating various aspects of my life in ways I didn’t expect to or want to. I invited some guests to join me along the way.

When you stay ready, you ain't got to get ready. That proved to work in WVZ MFG Publishing Co's favor, when Dave Giles II landed songwriting placement on Beyonce's Renaissance album.  With this interview being recorded back in November, when the Grammy nominations were first announced, Dave and his business partner, Daryl Garrett Jr., shared their insight on how they're empowering Black artists th...

Reunited and it feeels so good!  Been gone for almost 2 years and now I'm back with a new and more intentional season, fully rolling out in March.  To whet your appetite until then, this Thursday it was only right to drop my interview with WVZ MFG Publishing and Grammy nominated songwriter, Dave Giles II, the weekend before the Grammys. He reveals the album and the song that earned him h...

Four scores and two years ago, just kidding. Two years ago (not fully into 2021 yet), I took a leap of faith and moved to South Florida June 2018, taking a $75,000 pay cut. I was making bank in TV production y'all. I believed that strongly in what I was about to do down there. Didn't know that it would rock my world the way it did but so grateful it did and even more grateful for the people that I...

*Formerly recorded in October 2020* When I decided to leave New York and my career in TV production to venture into commercial radio in South Florida, I didn't know what I was in for. I was just excited for a new change of scenery of growing through the trenches in the gritty. I had also hit a crossroad in TV production. I felt like the one career I walked away from was radio. I had done college r...

When Orlando Lima decided to leave his corporate position at Def Jam last year to pursue the spirits industry, he didn't fathom the road ahead aka the pandemic. Having both worked at VH1 where we met, navigating challenges in and out of the corporate space wasn't new to us but what does that look like when the world is on a stand still?   No stranger to the podcast, Orlando shares what entrep...

During the early part of quarantine in 2020, Carl Seaton sat down for my new video series, Black + Nuanced in HD, an extension of my podcast, Black + Nuanced.*    TV director Carl Seaton is no stranger to my podcast and when the pandemic hit, we all had to reimagine what content creation looked like as a whole. When we spoke a few months ago, Hollywood was trying to adjust to a "new normal" that h...

*During the early part of quarantine, DJ Poizon Ivy sat down for my new video series, Black + Nuanced in HD, an extension of my podcast, Black + Nuanced.*    Poizon Ivy is more than what meets the eye and is definitely more than a DJ. A sound strategist for the Dallas Mavericks on a short list of women that have DJ'd for an NBA team,  she and I discuss the pressure to succeed growin...

*During the early part of quarantine in 2020, Jordan sat down for my new video series, Black + Nuanced in HD, an extension of my podcast, Black + Nuanced.*    I met Jordan during my time at VH1 and Nickelodeon. A renaissance man in his own right, Jordan's story to working as Nick Cannon's director of photography is not for the faint of heart. He and I chopped it up working with Nick, the...

*During the early part of quarantine in 2020, DJ Domo sat down for my new video series, Black + Nuanced in HD, an extension of my podcast, Black + Nuanced.*    DJ Domo puts on for the DMV area but her journey hasn't always been easy. We met during Power Rising Conference in 2018. Having been featured on her Women in Radio panel in DC for her company, Girlaaa World, it was only right to f...

Black women are often forced or expected to self-sacrifice usually to our detriment. It sometimes shows up in motherhood, our careers, and our personal lives. Add a pandemic to the mix and it becomes an entirely different beast.   My next guest is someone who did as she pleased and lived life as she saw fit. When she became a mother, her instinctual nature to protect and provide naturally cha...

I met Toine Edwards during my short stint in Miami, as the local host for the Rickey Smiley Morning Show. He was the lead digital producer for all the stations and also the one that trained me. We connected immediately, bonding over our love and reverence for Rickey Smiley, as well as creating digital content. It was so refreshing meeting someone with the same hustle and entrepreneurial spirit tha...

Our wellbeing, as Black women, has been heightened especially because of rona and Black bodies being killed too consistently. Yet we're still expected to show up as superwomen in all the places we occupy space even when we're exhausted mentally, emotionally, and physically. Lest we forget corporations are now acting like black is in, as if we'll ever go out of style, and wanting to include us in m...

Fresh off my hiatus, the idea of being an alpha women or even presenting as an alpha didn't really take in my mind. I always assumed that I was born this way and attributed it to having big Leo energy and God. As I continued to evolve, I would be told directly or indirectly that I'm intimidating and that I needed to be easy in my personal and professional spaces. My 5’2 energy is intimidating? TUH...

HBO's Insecure season 4 finale left us feeling some kind of way. I wanted to check in with my former guest co-hosts that helped me deliberate on various themes mid-season. The finale just hit differently though. We explored the highs and lows of what happened with Lawrence and Issa [hint: it involved Canola Oil aka Condola], Andrew being sick and tired of Molly's shit, and how they addressed vario...

This week is a special release and celebration of my podcast releasing 50 episodes. I wanted to lighten but spice things up while trying to understand the allure of OnlyFans before it became associated with Demon Time (#IYKYK) and adult entertainment.  OnlyFans is a subscription based website for creators to privately share their content for a fee. Patreon does the same thing. I'm on Patreon...