Panama Jackson explains why Tyler Perry’s catalog of content is riddled with problems but still worth watching. He also analyzes “A Jazzman’s Blues,” which he believes again … missed the mark. This episode contains movie spoilers.
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Panama Jackson [00:00:07] Tyler Perry. One of the most polarizing figures in Black art and cinema. If you’re familiar with him, you either love or hate him. Most likely, I suppose, is the middle ground, and that’s probably where I fit in. But today we’re going to talk about the frustration, the inspiration of Tyler Perry. Today. It’s Tyler Perry Day on Dear Culture, the podcast for by and about the culture. And Tyler Perry. Oh, he’s the culture. What’s going on, everybody? Welcome to Dear Culture. And if you saw that intro, you already know what we’re talking about today. Tyler Perry.
Tyler Perry [00:00:53] Hey. Are you gonna buy me another day?
Panama Jackson [00:00:55] I’m a person who’s made countless films. I think he might be up to about 30 now, but he’s made films that your family probably love. Some people in your family probably hate. But for a certain segment of our population, he is the catalyst for so much discussion and debate. He’s a person that’s polarizing. He’s a person that people in your family either know and love. If you’re like my family, you were probably in the early aughts buying DVDs of his stage plays from one of your cousins who was kind of whose employment status was a little bit up in the air, but always seemed to have DVDs for you to buy for five or ten bucks a pop. That’s how I was introduced to Tyler Perry. I remember buying plays like a diary of a mad Black woman. My parents went to go see his plays, come out, find.
Tyler Perry [00:01:45] Come on, as long as you got a piece of steal, you gonna have peace, load your steal, thank you, Jesus.
Panama Jackson [00:01:49] The stage plays, the chitlin circuit plays. And they loved him. In fact, my parents still love Tyler Perry movies. But in our culture, in our community, there is a rift of sorts. There are some people who absolutely cannot stand his movies cinematically. They think they lack writing or careful writing. They think that the swiftness with which that with which Tyler Perry writes in films means the quality is going to be low. And Tyler Perry himself has acknowledged the fact that he doesn’t even have a writers room. I actually started a podcast at one point that jokingly asked the question, What if Tyler Perry had a writer’s room? My goal was to take a look at all of his movies that don’t feature Madea and see if we could fix the movies or what we would do to the movies to change them, to presumably make them better. His Madea character is one that lots of people loathe. Though I think she’s also extremely funny and a crutch. She’s a gun-toting grandma who speaks her mind and doesn’t suffer fools.
Tyler Perry [00:02:54] Sometimes just got to do crazy stuff. Hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah.
Panama Jackson [00:02:59] She’s Madea. She’s one name Madea. At this point, if you’re in the Black community and you mentioned Madea, you’re not talking about your Madea, you’re talking about Tyler Perry. So Tyler Perry is effectively appoint for some people. That’s very frustrating because he creates so much art that people engage with. But he’s also an inspiration to others. He’s as successful as you can be as an entrepreneur, as a creator. He has his own studio in Atlanta at this point. They film their shows on his lot. Parts of Black Panther were filmed on Tyler Perry’s Lot. The Walking Dead films on Tyler Perry’s Lot. People go there to make movies now. Tyler Perry is successful. He did it his way. So. How do we how do you balance the man who’s done so much for the community and for building something on your own with the art that comes out that creates so much frustration? Well, we’re going to take an opportunity to talk about that today. Before we get into that. I want to talk specifically about my own relationship with Tyler Perry. Well, his films. I don’t actually know the man personally. I’ve never seen them, never met him, none of that stuff. But I’m sure I probably passed him on a highway in Atlanta at a time or two because most of my family’s off 85 south or down that way. Well, I’m guessing the studios are aware his studios are. I’m one of those people who enjoys Black movies and Black film. Period. Full stop. I watch all of them. If it’s bad, if it’s good, if it’s critically acclaimed, if nobody’s heard of it, I’m watching it. I just like seeing Black stories on TV or on in theaters. Like, I’m one of those people just going to watch all of it, which means that I watch every one of Tyler Perry’s movies, every single one of them. I’ve even gone to theaters to see his movies like in recent years. So I’m not I’m not the kind of person that’s going to say Tyler Perry is bad for the community or bad for the cinematic community. In fact, I actually think that Tyler Perry has probably inspired a lot of these artists that we see that create good Black movies in films now to be good at what they’re do right, good at what they do. People are putting a lot of time and creativity and effort and energy into creating amazing works of art. That tell Black stories in ways that we’ve never seen before. Now, now, maybe they’re not doing it because of Tyler Perry directly, but nobody wants to be making Tyler Perry movies. Right. Like, that’s that’s a thing in our community. I will watch it either way. Right. Like, if you make it in your Black, there’s a good chance I watch it. I am intimately familiar with the entire South West Detroit Cinematic Universe. I’m the guy who watch Plug Love multiple times on purpose. When I see people who’s who want to be credited with names like Sequoia from up the block, and that’s actually on the credits. I’m all in. I’m watching that stuff, whether it’s on Amazon Prime, whether it’s on Tubi, whether it’s wherever. But I’m also going to watch all the critically acclaimed stuff, too. Like, I’m going to watch the suites of films in short films that are respected artistically, that open in in film festivals. Like if I get an opportunity to check it out, I’m going to. So that puts me in is really interesting position because I’m critical of Tyler Perry, right? Like I’m critical of some of the work that he does. But I also enjoyed and I’m going to watch it. Right. So I get both sides. I understand the inspiration and I also understand where the criticism comes from. Now I come from a family, a southern Black family. So, again, we’ve been we’ve been watching his movies for a long time. I have favorites. For instance, the family that prays. I love that movie. Do I think it’s a great movie? It’s probably one of his better ones. I enjoy it. I can watch that all day long. Good deeds, ridiculous movie because the premise of the movie falls apart. If you know one simple fact about veterans benefits, which I happen to know. But I like good deeds is bad is it is good. Bad is. It is. I enjoy. Diary of a mad Black woman who has come out. I even like, like daddy’s little girls, which, again, the end of that movie is bad. I’m I’m somebody who enjoys movies like Acrimony and Temptation Confessions of a Marriage Counselor, because as bad as those movies tend to end like it’s not all bad through the movie, I can enjoy it without. Looking at it from a lens of is this forwarding the cause of Blackness or Black art or anything like that? I can I can take these things as just films. But he also has extremely bad movies, too. Madea’s Family Funeral, I think, is the full title of that. I went to go see that in theaters and I was so mad at myself after I walked into this. I can’t believe I spent money on this. Right. So like Tyler Perry has managed to frustrate me too. And as a human, I think he’s great because I think of everything that he’s done. But I’m also wondering, like. Could could Tyler Perry do better? Right. Like, could we get better art from this? And I don’t know the answer to that question. I thought. And that’s what we’re going to get to. A Jazzman’s Blues was his shot at doing that. The way that A Jazzman’s Blues was rolled out, the stories behind it, the 27 years that he’s been sitting on this story, because he wanted the opportunity to do it the right way. Well, I think that gives us an opportunity to genuinely look at the way that he does business, the way that he does work, and what happens when Tyler Perry seems to really, really care about something. So we’ll take a look at A Jazzman’s Blues. We’re going to talk about that after the break.
Solea Pfeiffer [00:09:02] My mother, she wanted me to marry a rich man. She told me if I didn’t leave with her they we’re going to kill you. I thought you moved on.
Panama Jackson [00:09:12] In September of this year. 2022. September 11th, I believe, was the fall was the the Netflix release of Tyler Perry’s latest film, A Jazzman’s Blues. Now, let me tell you something. When I saw the trailer for this movie, I was conflicted. Because here’s the thing. I don’t expect greatness from Tyler Perry’s movies. I don’t think he makes these movies to be great. I don’t actually know what his motivations are. I think he believes in telling Black stories, which is what he does. Even if the. The dialog and the scripts need a lot of work. It almost feels most times as if there is no script. Like people show up and just start talking or they get told. Here’s what’s going to happen in the scene. Go. And I actually wonder how that works with. With. Like the more seasoned actors that are in his movies. I mean, the Cicely Tyson of the world, he’s think of everybody, you know, that somebody in the Black community, we’ve all been in Tyler Perry’s movies, the Felicia Rashad’s, the Cicely Tyson’s, Taraji Henson. The list goes on and on. Like, I probably should have printed out a list of all the big names that have been in his movies the Derrick Lewks, Idris Elba. Gabrielle Union. Tracee Ellis Ross. Like the list really is Kimberly Elise. Like, I’m going to end up doing this over and over when I see. But I also wonder if those people who have been in movies and films and things that we really enjoyed, did they get the scripts in advance? Do they get them the day they show up? Who knows? Like, I don’t know. But what I do know is that. Somehow Black people of note want to be in his movies because there’s a respect that they have for Tyler Perry and possibly the respect that they have for the art that’s being created. Like maybe the telling of Black stories trumps the need for it to be told perfectly. Like, you know how we like to say don’t make perfect the enemy of good? Well, I think a lot of times Tyler Perry’s movies aren’t even that good, but maybe people who are making them were like, Listen, I want the opportunity to tell this story. Lou Gossett Jr. Alfred Woodard. I’m just gonna. Sanaa Lathan. I’m just gonna. There’s going to be random outbursts of me naming people who’ve been in these movies as I remember them as we go through it. Like, if I think of a movie and I’m like, Oh yeah, that person has been in this movie. That person is in this movie, too. Bow Wow. Perhaps one of the greatest cinematic actors of all time. I don’t actually mean it, but I really enjoy Bow Wow. He’s wonderful. I really, really. Lauren London. Teyana Taylor. You seen it was that Madea family, family something she called Byron over and it was terrible. But either way. Back to A Jazzman’s Blues. Tyler Perry releases the trailer for JazzMan’s Blues, and I watched all the press run up to it. I read a lot of the articles. I heard the story about how he went to go see an August Wilson film and. You know, it inspired him at that moment to start laying the foundation for what would be A Jazzman’s Blues, which is a story. It’s kind of an unrequited love story. But set in the the Deep South. Jurnee Smollett-Bell. She’s in temptation. Brandy. Lance Gross told them, We keep doing this. In A Jazzman’s Blues. It takes place in the forties in the Deep South. It’s in Georgia. And the premise of the film is like, you have these two people who couldn’t be together for for various reasons.
Joshua Boone [00:12:48] Yeah, we did something. We both need a real bad, she laughed.
Solea Pfeiffer [00:12:53] I need you to be happy because we can’t be sad together, you hear me? You are the only person that makes me safe.
Panama Jackson [00:13:00] And I actually thought the movie was going to be them finding love again later in life. But that’s not actually what happens in the movie. The movie’s effectively. One about. What happens because of their love to the main character. One of the main characters in Spoiler Alert, forget this. If you’re watching this and we know we’re talking about Jason, this is a spoiler, so I don’t even care. There’s a lynching. So it turns into like trauma porn at some point. And we’re all like like the uproar online was. I sat through two plus hours to see a lynching at the end of this movie. Like, they can’t even think he couldn’t even make it out. But here’s the thing. A Jazzman’s Blues is probably his best movie. It has some it has the typical Tyler Perry issues. The script needs work. But you know what? You can always tell when the people that are acting in his movies are really, really good at what they do. Because the way that they are able to improvise and and kind of work, the chemistry is there to work off one another. It enables it enables conversations that effectively are realistic. Like there are movies you watch, you can tell there’s no script and people are not very good at improvising. They’d be terrible answers like Whose line is it anyway? But A Jazzman’s Blues. They were better at that, but it still just suffered from like you have to ignore things that, you know, don’t work. Like, for instance, in Jazzman’s Blues, like. The baby is supposed to be the mixed child of the two main characters, one whose passing is white and one who is just a Black man from not just a Black man. He’s a Black man from Georgia. But somehow the baby comes out light skinned enough to be passing in life. So much so that he runs on a racist ticket for I. I cannot remember what he’s running for. I apologize, but he’s running for office in Georgia in 80. In 1987, 40 years ago, his daddy was the one that was lynched. And you look at the kids like, there’s no way there’s no way that these things happened or, I don’t know. That’s what I’m saying. Like jazz. A Jazzman’s Blues is a film. Where? It’s good on its face, but the things that Tyler Perry typically allows to happen detract from the film in a way that you’re watching. And it’s like if you only did this a little bit better, if you gave a little bit more of a care. This could have been awesome. But here’s the problem maybe it’s not a problem. Maybe it’s just the other side of the criticism. Actually, we’re going to take a quick break here and then I’m going to come back and we’re going to talk about my problem with the way that I approached watching A Jazzman’s Blues and what that criticism looks like on the other side. So we’ll take a quick break here on Dear Culture. All right, we’re back back here on Dear Culture. We’re talking to Jazzman’s Blues, and which is the story of Bayou and Leanne. Leanne is passing for White, Bayou was a young man who falls in love with Liane when they’re living in the same town in Georgia. And Liane leaves because of her love, with her love for Bayou. This plot twists A Jazzman’s Blues is a long movie that probably could have been shortened by 35 to 40 minutes. But. Here’s the thing. A lot of people really like this movie. So like I do, a lot of times I go on Facebook and I write my thoughts down and things like that, and it turns out a ton of people were really they loved the film. They loved the the love story. They loved it was shot beautifully. That’s one thing. I’ll give Tyler Perry a lot of credit for this this man, because he you know, he’s the writer, the producer, the director. Like he’s all in your you’re always surprise when he’s not even in the movie. Right. I remember reading a story where it was alleged or he wanted himself Will Smith and oh my goodness, I cannot remember who the other person he wanted to be. Halle Berry. That’s right. He wanted Halle Berry to play the lead character, I presume himself to play Bayou. Who was the other main character in Will Smith. Probably play Willie Earl, his turncoat brother, who gave him up to the white people that resulted in his lynching. Let me tell you, usually in Tyler Perry’s movies, by the way, the light skinned people somehow managed to be the angelic whatever. Colourism is the thing in his films. In this movie, the light skinned people were all bad too, of the light skinned people in the movie tried to have him killed. He dies because of the other one. Right. Like Leanne, his boo. He dies because he goes back because he wants he wants to go get her. He wants to say help save his mama’s. His mom is juke joint and he goes back for her. Willie Earl, his brother, who was light, goes and tells the police that that he’s back in town because the police were trying to find him, that he’s back in town. And Leanne’s mama, who’s also passing for white, basically tells the police that he whistled at a white woman, which is why he had to leave town in the first place. So Bayou goes to Chicago and comes back for his white passing boo. But instead of sending in sending sending a letter saying, once I come to Chicago, he decides he needs to go back. Terrible decision. Point is all the light skinned people in the movie basically try to have this man killed and successfully pull it off in the end. When I went when I wrote my my thoughts on Facebook about A Jazzman’s Blues, I was surprised at how many people genuinely loved it. I guess surprise is a strong word. I knew people were going to like the movie because I do think it’s his best film. Like it’s the best looking. It’s the one where I think the the collection of people that were in the film, I think a lot of them have Broadway experience. So everybody that was in it was did a really good job of bringing the story together and making you believe that they were that the story they were telling was organic. Like it felt that way when you’re watching it. But see, here’s the problem. So a better Tyler Perry movie means you’re probably hit in like the midpoint of being a good movie. Like, there are really good movies that I’ve seen and they’re really bad movies I’ve seen. This movie is probably in the middle. But of those movies in general, but because it’s a Tyler Perry film, there’s an entirely different cinematic universe that you’re working with, right? So of all of his films, this is probably got to be the best movie he’s ever made, and it’s still just not that great or but it could be. It could have been so much better. And it brings to bear this thought and this notion of like, does the art need to be really good in order to be success? And it doesn’t need to be good to be successful. Like, what do we need to be getting out of the art? For it to be critically enjoyed by a mass of people. Right. Like. Tyler Perry has a huge audience, and he knows his audience probably better than anybody who does it out here. Like, I genuinely believe that Tyler Perry knows exactly what to give his audience, but what he also knows is that his audience is going to show up regardless, not because the art is that good. I don’t know that everybody’s critically looking at the art. Maybe we don’t need to do that every time. But they’re showing up because it’s Tyler Perry, right? It’s kind of like the way that. I think a lot of older Black people won’t be ever be critical of Barack Obama because he ascended to a place they never thought imaginable. And if you get somewhere that nobody ever thought was possible, the way that you’re viewed in certain communities is is going to be completely different. Right. You have a lot of younger people who are more critical because they expect someone like Obama to ascend to the presidency because they believe that they are doing the work to move the needle on race relations and social justice and all this. So they were like, listen, we should be able. We’re fighting so that this can be this doesn’t have to be something that we can’t believe in anymore. But for generations of people who grew up in places where. You know, they were still colored in white drinking fountains in code and white entrances. To see a Black person ascend to a certain space is such a such an inspiration is so is so amazing that the criticism is unnecessary. Like, why are we criticizing this person who was able to do this? And I think that’s where Tyler Perry sits with a lot of people, because think about how successful is his success, makes him Teflon to a lot of people. So when we criticize, when people like myself criticize this stuff, it’s like, what? Why are you criticizing his work? His work is amazing. It exists. The existence is as important as if it’s good or not. And I do think that’s a valid argument, because I’m somebody, again who will watch all of these things and I enjoy the Black storytelling. I’m glad Tyler Perry’s able to make these stories and in and get A Jazzman’s Blues. Onto Netflix like millions of people watch this film. And that’s better because it’s storytelling. But then. You get the people who probably you’re professional, you’re you’re youngish, or let’s say your 25 to 44 year old professional Black persons who are looking for more out of the art. Let’s say you’re 25 to 44, you’re a professional Black persons who are looking for more out of the art, like they want to see art that reflects them in a realistic fashion, which is why I think shows like Insecure do so well. Shows like Donald Glover’s Atlanta do so well, which recently, as of this taping, released an episode titled Work Ethic that was a direct shot at Tyler Perry. And the way that his studios are run in, the way that the art gets created and how basically you can film six shows in a day.
Speaker 3 [00:22:43] Sandra He is not working.
Speaker 4 [00:22:45] Scott.
Speaker 3 [00:22:46] All right. Moving on. Mr. Chocolate is the only person who actually knows what’s going on.
Panama Jackson [00:22:55] Van one of the characters on the show, Donald Glover’s girlfriend. Sometimes girlfriend, ex-girlfriend. But they have a child together. Van shows up to do a little work, even though she thinks she’s a little bit too good for it. And her daughter, Lottie, ends up being cast just because she makes a statement on set and boom, all of a sudden. Tyler, I’m sorry, Mr. Chocolate. Mr. Chocolate is the name of the person that owns the studios, has her in like five or six different TV shows immediately. Right, because that’s how quick he works. So you get these and that’s not a good thing, by the way, because, again, it speaks directly to the moment when he he pointed out to everybody that he makes that he doesn’t have a writer’s room effectively in all of us collectively, like, duh. Absolutely. We can tell. We watch your stuff. We know that there’s nobody else helping you out because if you did, things would be different. So it’s like you get art that that critiques him. But art that elevates the way that we see ourselves in these stories. The storytelling, I think, ends up being better. And I think that a lot of these a lot of this are ends up existing in this much better space because a lot of people, like I said earlier, are trying to avoid being Tyler Perry. And I don’t know how I feel about that necessarily, because, again, I do believe that that Tyler Perry is effectively I’m not I used to call him a necessary evil. Right. And I said that because I thought that we needed him because we needed somebody to make more to tell more Black stories and get all these Black these Black people into these movies, which he has done. Right. You know, famously, Taraji said Tyler Perry paid her what she was worth, you know, and she’s somebody who was an Academy Award nominated actress who didn’t feel like she her full worth and full value was being respected by Hollywood. But Tyler Perry. Absolutely right. So I used to say it was a necessary evil, but I don’t I don’t think that anymore because I think that’s that overly that that that makes it way too negative. Like Tyler Perry has given plenty to to the Black community and Black culture. And I think. What I’m going to say is perhaps controversial. I think it’s better we’re better off because of it, because you have all these people who are able to work. You have what I do believe is Tyler Perry inspiring other people to get into the filmmaking game and do it their way. But you get this wave of more creative storytellers. You know, I’m not saying Jordan Peele was was inspired by Tyler Perry. I don’t know. I can’t say that. But I mean, think about the art that is being created. And people will say, well, that ain’t Tyler Perry. That’s real art over there. But then you get more and more of that stuff. But Tyler Perry is still successfully creating his own art. So. You know, there’s this world we live in where I think that Tyler Perry is both. Frustrating because of the art that he creates, but inspiring because of the art, because of what he is, because of his success. And I don’t know exactly what that means for the community, for the culture at large. Right. Like. I don’t want Tyler Perry to stop making movies because I enjoy these. I’m going to watch them like I like. We need more Black stories being told. And frankly, I don’t think Tyler Perry cares. Like I don’t actually know how he feels about criticism. I’ve seen interviews and I remember when he was on the show Black AF and he was talking about the white gaze and he said, Well, he doesn’t care what people think about the art that he makes. What about.
Kenya Barris [00:26:16] What about the critics?
Tyler Perry [00:26:16] I don’t give a…..
Kenya Barris [00:26:19] I guess that’s amazing.
Tyler Perry [00:26:21] Can I just tell you why, Jay Lee? Because, listen, man, I know that I’m telling stories that my folks want to see. I’m talking from our point of view. We’re speaking a language. We’re speaking a shorthand that we get that white people don’t necessarily get.
Panama Jackson [00:26:34] He’s successfully going to continue making it. And, you know, the way that he makes his movies makes me believe that’s probably true. I watched Acrimony. Nobody can explain how to write. His character got on that boat. And when he was asked that directly in an interview with a good friend of mine, Emilia King, or at least King Neal, at this point, you know, he was he answered the question. He was like, what? You mean, what does he get on about effectively? Right. Like it was just this is like one of the great myths or the great stories in Black storytelling. How in the world does she get on the boat? He don’t care because he just put her on a boat. Right. He needed to tell the story. And that’s how it happened. There are always going to be people who cannot appreciate the what he does because of that. And I get it. I understand. I am somebody who can suspend reality and watch these things. And I laugh at it, you know, argue my friends about it will have a good. Kiki about exactly how much nonsense we just watched. But I’m going to continue to watch it because I’m going to support Black cinema anyway. But I’m going to continue to watch it because I’m going to support Black cinema anyway. There are other people who can’t do that and I understand and respect that. Like if you’re looking for more out of your art and for out of the work, then maybe Tyler Perry’s just not the person for you. So he exists in this interesting place that creates polar opposites on the way that people interact with his work. But at the same time, he’s one of the most successful people ever doing it. The amount of eyes he gets on his work, the amount of people that talk about his work, the amount of people that enjoy it, the people like my parents who were always going to support Tyler Perry films and. If I asked them, was it any good? They’re never going to be like, nah. You know, they might just not be that great. Right? But it’s fine. It was it was fine. You know, like, what we’re looking for out of movies in cinema is largely going to dictate how we interact with with Tyler Perry and. You know, I think that’s probably how a lot of things happened in our community. But the good thing is we’re getting more Black stories told. So the way that I try to look at this stuff is that ultimately we are getting more Black stories told and maybe they could be told a little bit better. But, you know, a Black life can be very messy. A lot of our personal life stories and being told that will. So what are you going to do? And I think that’s even a point that interestingly was made in the show Atlanta when they were mocking critiquing Tyler Perry. But. The character, Mr. Chocolate pointed out that the very people who are critical of the work he’s doing are living lives that are being are being represented in the work that he’s creating. Because she the argument was that this is not relatable content for certain types of people in it. Mr. Chocolate points out, Well, here’s your life and here’s what I’m putting on TV is the exact same thing, right? So. Who are we to say? I know for me. I am always going to continue to watch Tyler Perry’s films. I am always going to be entertained by them. But I will also always understand the critiques. I will probably always want the movies to be a little bit better. I will probably always want the scripts to be better, or I will always not want to be taken for granted that I don’t see what’s on my screen. A Jazzman’s Blues is a great song. Was was a great Tyler Perry film that if you put it in the the grand scheme of his movies is probably fairly mid. Right. It’s just it exists. It’s the kind of movie that you could. I don’t know that I would ever watch it again because the way it ends was just too much me like, you know, I sat through two and some hours of this movie just to see a Black man get hung from a tree. I’m cool. I thought it was a love story. I wish this love story ended a little bit better, but I also knew what was going to happen. I think from the beginning. I think he telegraphed the end from the beginning. But you know, ultimately where you sit with Tyler Perry determines depends on what you want from your art. And I don’t think that’s ever going to change. I think that’s who we’re going to be forever when it comes to discussing art and Tyler Perry. But I guess one thing we can all say in that Tyler Perry that you can’t take away from him is this. Tyler Perry makes culture. He’s a presence. He’s a figure. He is somebody who’s successful and he’s somebody who is going to be a part of the cultural conversation as long as he’s alive. What that means for us all, who knows? But he’s going to be there forever, so I guess we might as well get used to it. And if there was another Tyler Perry on right now, I would go check it out. Thanks for checking out Dear Culture. Thanks for listening to my rant. My discussion about Tyler Perry. Dear Culture is a place where we talk about Black cultural issues. And like I said, that’s what Tyler Perry is. Dear Culture is an original production of theGrio Black Podcast Network. If you have any ideas, any suggestions, any email scams you want to try to get me to be a part of pyramid schemes. If you’d like to sell me something that requires me to bring in five or six more people to do it, please send all those emails to podcast at theGrio.com. Sasha Armstrong is a producer for this episode. It will be edited by Jesse Vargas. Regina Griffin is the managing editor of podcasts. My name is Panama Jackson. This is Dear Culture. Thanks for listening. Have a Black one.
Maiysha Kai [00:32:09] Don’t forget, you can listen to theGrio’s Writing Black podcast hosted by me Maiysha Kai. This isn’t your typical writing podcast. We interview any and everybody that has anything to do with writing from comics to poets to authors to journalists, to politicians and more. Remember, that’s Writing Black every Sunday, right here on theGrio’s Black Podcast Network, download theGrioo’s app to listen to writing Black wherever you are.
