Busy Being Black with Joshua Rivers

Kelechi Okafor is a fitness guru, a personal trainer, womanist, twerk innovator and pole dance instructor whose podcast Say Your Mind is one of the most hilarious, delightful and enlightening podcasts I listen to. I came into our conversation thinking I’d get the Kelechi we see on social media. The Kelechi who tells people to get a straw to suck their mum, the one who calls out caucasity when she...

Today, I’m in conversation with Christania, the editor and chief of queer Black online magazine AZ Mag. Together with a small group of queer Black women, Christania set up AZ mag because she didn’t see herself reflected in mainstream LGBTQ media. AZ Mag is a triumph and what Christania has helped create is a much-needed and remarkable platform that is bringing together the queer Black community in...

FKA is a globe-trotting drag superstar. Raised in the cradle of boarding schools in middle England, their subsequent education in the ways of the world, and how their race informs their work, has been a source of considerable growth and introspection. From understanding their Blackness in its proximity to whiteness, to the role mixed race kids play at the intersection of colliding cultures, FKA’s...

Shahmir Sanni was thrust into the international spotlight after blowing the whistle on Vote Leave’s law-breaking during the EU referendum. Shortly after the story broke in the Guardian, he was outed by Number 10 — thus putting in jeopardy the lives of his family back in Pakistan, his own mental and emotional health and his future. But like so many queer people of colour, Shahmir is resilient and b...

As I tore through Dr Kehinde Andrew’s new book, Back to Black, scribbling in the margins and highlighting passage after passage, I felt within me the fire I first felt reading Malcolm X and James Baldwin. In Back to Black, Dr Andrews calls us to revisit and reimagine the Black radicalism of yesteryear -- a Black radicalism that is too often conflated with cultural nationalism. My main question aft...

Travis Alabanza is an electrifying talent and one of the most prominent and emergent queer voices in the crossover of arts and politics. They've performed at the Tate, had their poetry published on highly-regarded platforms and tours their work internationally, but their work runs deeper than the places they perform because their work comes from a place of searing honesty. Among much else, Travis...

Reverend Jide Macaulay is the theologian and spiritual leader behind the House of Rainbow, a welcoming and affirming community for LGBTQ people and our allies alike to join in the celebration of their faith. Reconciling our sexuality and our faith, though, is hard work. I, like many, spent years praying the gay away and have only just begun the long journey towards forgiveness. We discuss the misi...

At one of the lowest moments of my life, Lady Phyll reached out, literally held me and helped nurse me back to life. She's well-known as the co-founder and executive director of UK Black Pride and for turning down an MBE from the Queen in 2016 in protest of this country's colonial legacy. She is a mother, activist, lover, mentor and icon to many and her life is best described in her own words. We...

At just 28, Phil Samba is already a legend. When he writes, we read and when he speaks, we listen. His openness about both his sexuality and his sexual health means he’s often inundated by other young Black men who want to know more about him — how he’s cultivated his openness, how he’s come out and how he’s become the young man he is. Phil is already miles beyond where I was at 28 and sitting in...

Tobi Kyeremateng is a theatre, festivals and live performance producer who focuses on carving out space for young black people in theatre. After seeing her first West End show, Wicked, she says she was in awe, but having not seen any Black people on the stage, didn’t walk way feeling like she belonged in that space. She’s since used her life experience and her passion for the arts to show young bl...

Dean Atta is one of my favourite poets, and one whose work has been commissioned by esteemed organisations throughout the UK, including the Keats House Museum, National Portrait Gallery, and Tate Modern. His work is so deeply rooted in his experience as a gay Black man and through it, he tussles with, or extols the virtues of, what it means to live and love and survive while Black.  Throughout our...

Today, I’m in conversation with Lili Ming and Kenny Jones, founders of Transparency, a new video platform centring trans people and their experiences. Drawing from their own transitions, Lili and Kenny have created Transparency to speak to the multiplicities of the trans experience, and as a place where life-saving information and first-person advice is available for those who need it. Our convers...

Busy Being Black means we’re busy building our legacy. What can we create that answers the questions we have today and which provides a manual for those of tomorrow? Topher Campbell is a Jerwood Award-winning director of stage, television and film who creates generous works of art that allow us the space to see ourselves and draw our own conclusions about how we best make the most of our lives. Ru...

This episode of Busy Being Black contains references to situations and substances some might find uncomfortable to listen to. Living in the fullness of our queer Black lives means learning to live in the messiness. This was a lesson I learned as I dealt with my emotional fallout after watching Micheal Rice’s documentary, #parTyboi. #parTyboi explores and exposes the crystal meth epidemic that is r...

Busy Being Black means that those of us at the embattled intersections are often busy doing the life-giving work of loving ourselves a little bit harder. Throughout my conversation with the persistent optimist Rikki Beadle-Blair, I’m reminded of just how essential our point of view is. Are we able to look at our lives, at our selves, and see the beauty that abounds? Are we able to understand that...

Busy Being Black means the search for possibility and meaning in our lives is endless. In part two of my conversation with Marc Thompson, a gay Black elder, HIV activist and writer, we wax lyrical on everything from our favourite books to the role cultural appropriation can play in how we better understand and bump into our history. If you haven’t yet listened to our first conversation, I Have a V...

Busy Being Black means we recognise we did not get here alone. Marc Thompson is a gay Black elder, an HIV activist and writer, and one of three founders of Black Out UK, a platform dedicated to amplifying the stories of gay Black men. In my first of two conversations with Marc, we discuss the gay Black experience in the 1980s, including the little known effects of the HIV crisis on our community....

Busy Being Black means cultivating a mindset that allows us to constantly embrace and celebrate cultures outside our own. Ryan Lanji, an art and fashion curator, was raised in Canada in a melting pot of cultures and realities that has left a lasting impression on how he sees and interacts with the world around him. His club night, Hungama, is named so for the Hindu word for chaos and bedlam — a wo...

Busy Being Black means we refuse to let wherever we come from define where or how far we will go in life. This is just one of the lessons I was reminded of in my conversation with Bisi Alimi, the activist and angelic troublemaker behind the Bisi Alimi Foundation. Bisi was born in Lagos in 1975 and came to international attention when he became the first ever person to come out on Nigerian televisi...

Busy Being Black is a podcast exploring how we thrive in the fullness of our queer Black lives. Thank you to our partners: UK Black Pride: http://ukblackpride.org.uk// BlackOut UK: blkoutuk.com/ Be sure to follow Busy Being Black: twitter.com/_busybeingblack instagram.com/_busybeingblack Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices