It's Always Personal

I had to clarify a few critical details regarding the ongoing Rachel Nichols-Maria Taylor-ESPN spat, and where the Conservative sports media took the matter this week, as roles at the network changed abruptly. Also circling back to last week's topics, Team USA made an interesting decision this week as it finalized its Tokyo 2021 T&F roster and made its decision on Sha'Carri Richardson. Some ot...

Those who want to remain bogged down in mainstream America's favorite battle got a "Valley"-oop (Shout to the Phoenix Suns) with U.S. Olympic hopeful Sha'Carri Richardson losing her 100m slot after testing positive for marijuana, cannabis, THC or whatever it was. The 21-year old elite sprinter owned the matter, but you know certain folks can't let it go at that. No guests this week, so I guess IAP...

Not gonna lie, I don't understand the ongoing debates regarding the masculinity of black men. The subject is not my battle. Now, maturity! I'm more of a fan of solid maturity being exemplified by black men. In fact, the reception of Kevin Hart's new Netflix movie Fatherhood is just the type of film for me to observe and gauge where the average brother on social media's maturity level is. Before th...

Naomi Osaka vs The French Open 2021 (the hell is Will Smith talking about) and the media. Brandon Bellamy, a 49-year real estate and development CEO, becomes only black majority owner of a professional baseball team in Gastonia, NC. J. Cole's The Off-Season slaps. Are TV series like (Amazon) Prime Video's THEM and The Underground Railroad serving in purpose? Long-time hip hop producer Apollo Brown...

Starting around the 17:00 mark, IAP had to circle back on the vile nature of boxing talk or coverage on various YouTube channels that promote themselves as "new media." IAP interviews are often live streamed on the Pay Me No Mind YouTube channel, where boxing coverage is regularly featured to support the Bite Down Boxing (BDB) website. Over the past four years growth for BDB has been slow because...

We aren't all going to make it in the digital or content space. And, for a number of different reasons. DAZN Boxing's Akin "Ak" Reyes was invited onto IAP to talk about boxing, as well as to discuss how him, and his partner Barak Bess, have solidified themselves as part of boxing media. In the intro, we continue our examination of popular Black culture - or "the streets" - through the lens of (the...

The biggest moment of the week of April 18-24 was expected to be the conclusion of the murder trial of former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin for his role in the killing of George Floyd. America learned some new names in Daunte Wright, also of Minneapolis, as well as Columbus, Ohio teenager Ma'Khia Bryant and Elizabeth City, North Carolina's Andrew Brown Jr. All were fatally shot by polic...

It's Spring folks, and we've all been locked up for over a year. There appears to still be time to come out of the pandemic either the way some us entered it (maybe you were 10-15 pounds pre-March 2021), or improved in some kind of way. Yes, we can actually be what some people may be suggesting they are Instagram. Long story short, there's a really fun way to go about improving your wellness/fitne...

It's just one voice here on It's Always Personal, and not a ton of popular stuff, as a black man, is being said on this podcast. "We've gotta do better", is and continues to be an understatement. Over on IAP companion, the Pay Me No Mind YouTube channel where interviews are often live streamed, we just dealt with the (disheartening) adulation of "Franklin Saint" by many in the black community. Set...

This week's guest, Jason Harrison, is a Certified Strength and Conditioning Specialist who co-owns Present Tense Fitness (PTF). Harrison, his wife Susan, and yoga instructor Anna Shearer train clients out of their fitness studio that located in Dayton, Ohio's Oregon District. The Oregon District (OD) - a small stretch of boutiques, restaurants and bars - made national headlines in August 2019 afte...

No guest this episode. So, host Wood is left to his own devices. Perfect circumstances for some talk yo' ish! This episode's topics include a couple of major IAP hang ups, Soul Sonic being among the few options in "Black music" getting it right, IAP Covid-19 vax talk, looking at (well, debunking) some definitions of the simpler "strong black man" talk as seen on soc med, easing the household into...

Starting at about the 28:00-mark, check out a dope interview ( also live streamed on YouTube ) with this week's special guest Mephux of the LordMobb record label. Mephux is an in-house producer for LordMobb, a co-founder of the new venture, and in 2020 he actually helmed two projects for the artist for which LordMobb is a namesake of in Far Rockaway, Queens' Flee Lord. The Boston-based producer be...

Look, hip hop and rap music is infused in everything I do. I could always talk about hip hop and the genre of rap. However, sometimes the conversation just hits differently when the person speaking (STARTING AT ABOUT 27:00) can say, "Aye, that thing you used to like on TV... I led the team that created that." This episode's guest, Reggie Williams, founded hip hop blog/website/network Ambrosia For...

This is the "Season 2" finale episode. With two recent major business dealings Shawn "Jay-Z" Carter improved his already billionaire status by 40 percent according to Forbes. Like he chanted on "A star is Born" - clap for 'em. After you get done applauding, after yet another monumental "Reminder" about his winning prowess, ask yourself a question: What's the major takeaway from Jay's gains for you...

This is more of a freestyle rant It's Always Personal type...thing... for this episode that was intended to be just more of a "bonus" episode.  YouTube attacks and criticisms on the new film Judas and The Black Messiah that I had to defend. Reaction to Ilyasah Shabazz, daughter of Malcolm X, pouring her heart out on The Breakfast Club for a community that doesn't even care. The evil that men do -...

This episode's guest founded his own sub-genre "fit hop" in 2011 with his solo album The Workout. On Feb. 28 multi-platinum hip hop artist and producer Stic.man , one half of Dead Prez, releases his next project under the banner of his RBG Fit Club imprint - a short film called A Beautiful Run .  Stic dropped the sequel to The Workout around a year ago, and with his new Muhammad Ali-inspired...

Honestly, I don't know if the right people ever watch these types of movies - films like 12 Years... and The Birth of A Nation. May if everybody watched them, more would've been understood about the protesting and unrest of 2020.  Director Shaka King and producer Ryan Coogler delivered something to make people truly uncomfortable in the new critically acclaimed motion picture Judas and the Bl...

For this episode, IAP was joined by Cleveland-built poet & emcee Rain AKA Black Widow. Rain garnered some well-deserved attention with her feature on a track entitled "Belly" that appears on the recently released double album PORTISHUS by Hus KingPin . Hus' IG post that included a snippet of "Belly" led to Wood going down this rabbit hole of mystery lady Rain...  Turns out Rain is a veter...

This episode is a "dual-cast", and was live-streamed on The Pay Me No Mind YouTube channel (feel free to become a subscriber) while also being recorded for It's Always Personal. The title says it all, Madelyne Woods was gracious enough to appear on the show/podcast to discuss a host of topics.  Many of us were introduced to Woods in the 1990s as a BET news anchor, and later as the host of Vid...

It's Always Personal is a spinoff of the Pay Me No Mind Sports & Entertainment Podcast that surely lives on somewhere Google can find - if one chose to look. I forgot to mention, during this episode, that the Inauguration of the United States' 46th President went down this week, but it felt like a great moment to move beyond politics and the weightier issues of the world. Before moving onto th...

For 2021, I had to drop a special Martin Luther King  Jr. Day episode. Honestly, it's unbelievable that it took over 50 years to hear about the strength of the relationships between young heavyweight champion Cassius Clay, NFL icon Jim Brown, Civil Rights leader Malcolm X and legendary singer/songwriter Sam Cooke. Playwright Kemp Powers (Pixar/Disney's Soul) and No. 1 draft pick director Regina Ki...

Gathering with others, sharing and exchanging ideas and views with others... leaving ones house, everything "the American Way" took a major hit when "the walls fell" at the Capitol Building on Jan. 6. Lemme guess, the average brother didn't care. A lot of white people cared way too much. Busta Rhymes has been right all along!!! Genesis. Anarchy. When Disaster Strikes... It Ain't Safe No More. We'l...

(Not sure If I mentioned it on the podcast, but if Heaux Tales is a hard pass, give Tianna Major9's At Sixes and Sevens a listen.) I continue to just be an onlooker regarding the ever-evolving state of relations between black men and women. There's a major rift, and confusion, between "the point (guard) and the center" that I've noticed growing since the '90s. Personal politics as a black man or w...

I'm talking about Ma Rainey's Black Bottom because it should be what everybody's talking about, frankly. We can't give the late Chadwick Boseman his flowers, but he knew what kind of gem he left us with in his masterful performance as "Levee Green" - a young recklessly ambitious cornet player from Down South. As for Denzel Washington, the project's producer, and director George C. Wolfe and co-sta...

Former NFL All Pro defensive back Nnamdi Asomugha is busy being the change, I suspect, he'd like to see in the world. His latest movie Sylvie's Love, co-starring Tessa Thompson, is available to be streamed on Amazon/Prime Video. You should f------ watch it, and give Asomugha his f------ flowers. Or, shut the f--- up.