Panama Jackson never knows what’s going to come next when he asks each guest, “Do you have a confession about your Blackness?” Blackfessions have become synonymous with Dear Culture, and we’ve rounded up some of our favorites from the year, including W. Kamau Bell, Shameik Moore, and Eboni K. Williams. Enjoy!
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Panama Jackson: [00:00:00] You are now listening to theGrio’s Black Podcast Network, Black Culture Amplified.
What’s going on, everybody? Welcome to Dear Culture, the podcast for, by, and about the culture here on theGrio Black Podcast Network. I’m your host, Panama Jackson, and the year is coming to a close. 2023 has been one for the books for many reasons, but especially for us here at Dear Culture. And part of the reason why it’s been one for the books is because we’ve had so many wonderful guests and people who had so many interesting things to share.
Thank you. Now, you know, if you listen to this podcast that one of my favorite segments to do here is our Blackfessions, and let me tell you, they never disappoint. Our Blackfessions are, I sit and talk to people for 30, 45 minutes just so I can get to the Blackfessions because you really never know what you’re going to get.
So on this episode of Dear Culture, we’re going to break down some of our favorite Blackfessions from 2023. So. So, you know, when it comes to TV, movies, music, and books [00:01:00] that people are into, it’s always fun for our guests to show that black people aren’t a monolith, right? So and that’s exactly what happened with comedian, W. Kamau Bell.
W. Kamau Bell: This is a blackfess-. I just feel like this. I’m thinking about, uh, uh, one of the first concerts I ever went to was a Tom Petty concert.
Panama Jackson: Okay.
W. Kamau Bell: Now, now I’m going the other way. I’m going like, and, and I’ve been to a great, and I’ve been, one of my best friend was a Grateful Deadhead. So I’ve been to several Grateful Dead concerts.
As a, as a teenager, not as like, now it might be cool for black people to be at a Grateful Dead concert, but back then it was not,
Panama Jackson: They’re selling those t shirts at, at Target right now, you know what I mean?
W. Kamau Bell: Yeah. Like, that’s the, that’s the thing. In the 90s, I’m just trying to get, I’m trying to give you both. I’m trying to give you Celebrated Kwanzaa went to a Grateful Dead concert, so you can take the black person.
Panama Jackson: We call that well rounded. Well rounded? We call that well rounded. Cause I used to listen to Motley Crue. In middle school, I was a Motley Crue dude. Like, Motley Crue and Skid Row and all, those are my bands.
W. Kamau Bell: Yeah. 100%. So. That’s funny. Yesterday I saw a black dude wearing a Nirvana t shirt. I’m like, you have [00:02:00] no idea that I died for you to wear that t shirt. You have no idea how much I suffered so you could walk down 6th Avenue wearing a Nirvana t-shirt, black man.
Panama Jackson: There you go. I love that. For music executive, Whitney Gail Benta and hip hop caucus executive Brittany Bell Sarat, It wasn’t what they liked, but what they didn’t like that made these Blackfessions, like, spectacular. Do you have a Blackfession for us?
Whitney Gayle Benta: Yes. Alright, what you got? My Blackfession… My Blackfession is, um, I am a West Indian. My father’s side is from Trinidad, Antigua, St. Kitts. Um… And I absolutely hate, like, soca and reggae music.
Panama Jackson: Really?
Whitney Gayle Benta: Yes, there’s certain songs I’m from New York. I know. There’s certain, there’s certain songs I like, but like real talk, if you were to get me off a dance floor, I’d be like, all right, let [00:03:00] me go sit down.
And I, and I cringe, because I’m like, I know my grandmother’s like rolling over in her grave right now. You know, I’m like, ugh, but yeah, I can’t, I can’t stand it.
Panama Jackson: I got to say thank you for that, because that’s a real Blackfession. That’s like cultural and personal, like, that’s, that’s where you come from.
And you like, yeah. I just, that, you know, that, thank you, that is a real share. That is, I feel like that’s a real, a real share.
Hey, what’s your music one?
Brittany Bell Surratt: Uh, that Lauryn Hill should not be considered in the top three, uh, female rappers.
Panama Jackson: Hmm, that’s a take. That’s a take. I, uh, okay.
I, as even as somebody who doesn’t love The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill as much as everybody else does, I think what you
Brittany Bell Surratt: That’s a Blackfession for you!
That’s a, that’s not what you just said in a 25th [00:04:00] Anniversary of Miseducation.
Dawn Richard: I’m embarrassed by both of you right now. I’m embarrassed.
Brittany Bell Surratt: I hope they scrubbed it from the internet because…
Panama Jackson: First off…
Brittany Bell Surratt: That is a masterpiece.
Panama Jackson: You do not get an opportunity to be more upset at what I said than what you said.
That, that’s not a thing.
Brittany Bell Surratt: That was appalling.
Panama Jackson: You gonna have to fall back a little bit. No, you gonna have to fall back a little bit.
Dawn Richard: Both of you are ridiculous.
Panama Jackson: I’m fine with mine. Lauryn Hill is, I, I, Lauryn Hill is my favorite verse in hip hop history. These next two Blackfessions definitely went against popular opinion.
Here’s rapper and founder of Pendulum Inc. Academy, Mickey Factz and author, Bassey Ikpi.
Mickey Factz: I never liked Fresh Prince of Bel Air.
Panama Jackson: That’s Blackfessionn. That is 100 percent a Blackfession. Why?
Mickey Factz: I just never got into it. I never, I just could never, it never made sense to me. I just, I just couldn’t, I tried. I tried. I just can’t. It’s not, [00:05:00] just didn’t like it.
I didn’t like it at all, actually. I love Will Smith. I love all of the actors, right? But it’s just, it was never for me. It felt, it felt, it was too much. It felt, it felt like a caricature of the culture. Even though Will Smith is from the culture, it felt, it all, even as a, at a younger age, it felt dramatized.
Because when I look at the video, parents just don’t understand. And then when I first saw the, the, the first intro to the, to the movie, to the, to the television show, I’m like, Oh, this is just an extension of the video. This is going to be fire. And then it was a sitcom and it was like, nah, this doesn’t feel right.
He ain’t rapping on his. I just never got it.
Panama Jackson: You feel like culturally it just didn’t work or like you, you just had an issue with the way that I guess, I’m not trying, I’m not trying to make it bigger than it is, but like the culture is [00:06:00] being used to sell a product.
Mickey Factz: No, culturally it worked because clearly people loved it.
Right.
For me, I couldn’t get into it. I just couldn’t get, I tried. I tried. I just couldn’t.
Panama Jackson: Bassey. Do you have a Blackfession for us?
Bassey Ikpi: I do. And I’m afraid that. This is going to, uh, ban me and bar me from ever being invited to Oprah Winfrey’s house. Um, I’ve always wanted to go to her Garden of Eden and pick cabbage with her.
Uh, I, I feel like this is, this is, this is, this is the moment that that, that dream ends. I am not a fan of Maya Angelou’s poems. Her poetry. I am not a fan. I love her books. I’ve read all of her books multiple times. I know why The Caged Bird sings. Like, it just, it just did something to me when I, when I read it for the first time in the fifth grade.
It’s still one of my favorite books of all time, but her poetry [00:07:00] just doesn’t do it for me. It’s, I’m not going to call it what I want to call it because I don’t want people mad at me, but I just, I just don’t like it. I don’t like her poetry. Love her. Love her books. Love her quotes. Love her poetry.
Panama Jackson: Cause her poetry was, I didn’t realize she’d written all the poetry in this movie.
Um.
Bassey Ikpi: All of them.
Panama Jackson: But maybe, yeah, I didn’t love the poetry in this movie. so old. Yep.
Bassey Ikpi: Yeah.
Panama Jackson: Yeah. Okay. I can dig, I can dig that. I think it makes sense and it fits right in line with the movie. So as you know, if you pay attention to Dear Culture or anything that I do, I love all things black culture. I love making up rules to things that we do in the name of blackness.
I just, whatever that we can do to blacken things up in the name of culture, I’m all for it. Um, and I especially love classic, classic movies, music, whatever, what have you. But not everyone is up on that game. So here’s author and commenter, Jamilah Lemieux and actor, Shameik Moore with their Blackfessions.[00:08:00]
Do you have a Blackfession for us?
Jamilah Lenieux: I do. All right, what you got? I have never seen Juice nor Menace to Society.
Panama Jackson: How?
Jamilah Lenieux: I don’t, I don’t, you know, I told somebody that for the first time last week and I felt like a weight had been lifted off my chest. You know, I think part of it is those movies came out when I was a little girl, you know, so my mom was not showing me stuff like that.
Panama Jackson: Well, she shouldn’t.
Jamilah Lenieux: You know, and I don’t remember them coming on TV terribly often, um, and so I just somehow never saw them and have yet to have like the impetus to be like, okay, let me go out and watch them. And I’m curious about them, but I’m also like, I mean, I saw Boyz in the Hood and I was devastated, you know, like Ricky died.
Oh,
you [00:09:00] know, for years, I have, I actively avoided movies with death. Like I’ve never seen Titanic. Why? I know how it’s going to end. I’ve never seen My Girl because people told me that the boy got stung by a bee and died. You know, like, so to watch these, yes. So like to watch these movies where I know a number of people are going to get shot up in front of me.
Um, I just haven’t run to that
Panama Jackson: The way that the way that you feel about like Boyz in the Hood and seeing Ricky dying and how that hurts that doesn’t happen in Menace to Society because you don’t care for the characters the same way it’s pure nihilism like it’s 100 percent like it’s all bad from day one and never gets better. I would just be curious about your perception of Menance to Society watching that because I have argued people actually put this on Facebook. I think Menace to Society is terrible. I now have I’ve gone completely 180. And I think it’s actually a bad movie. Uh, it’s effectively a Tubi [00:10:00] movie just made in 1993 before we had all the other options so we wouldn’t know any better.
Shameik Moore: Truth is I’ve never listened to Mobb Deep. Not yet.
Panama Jackson: Really? You know, okay, I can understand that because again, if you, you know, if the Wu Tang was like new to you as well, like Mobb Deep, that that’s the same chamber right there, you know, to speak in the language of the Wu, right?
It’s the same chamber, but okay. I haven’t. So do you have any plans to check out Mobb Deep? Like the infamous, the infamous album, one of the greatest hip hop albums?
Shameik Moore: Yeah, for sure. Like, you know, I think it’s just the nature of it, nature of the beast. I have so much to learn and, you know, I think I’ve been caught up in my bubble and doing what I gotta do.
I think I only know about Wu Tang because it got into my bubble, you know, so, or I only appreciate Wu Tang the way I do because it, it entered my like bubble. So um, [00:11:00] yeah, like I’m not proud of not knowing Mobb Deep, you know, um, I’m just, I know I have, I was just asked this question and, uh, Atlanta being Tigger and, uh, you know, I didn’t know Mobb Deep, so it, I’ve heard of Mobb Deep, I just don’t know.
And I probably heard their music before. I just, I just don’t know, you know?
Panama Jackson: Let me say this. If they ever make a Mobb Deep movie, you will be perfect as Havoc. Like, straight up. Like, you will be the perfect Havoc. Like, I, and I mean that, like, from the heart. Like, that, I genuinely believe that. Like, 100%.
So food is always a popular black fashion.
I’ll never forget the time that my Grio colleague and friend and person that I love dearly, the host of the Blackest Questions, Chrissy Greer, told me that she puts ketchup and mustard in her grits. To this [00:12:00] day, that still stands as the most memorable, perhaps, I don’t want to, I don’t want to call her food choices disgusting.
I don’t want to say that about anybody’s choices. But let me just say, it was… Off putting, perhaps. Uh, but here are some other food confessions we’ve heard this year from grio host Eboni K. Williams, hip hop journalist Jay Smooth, and fitness influencer Deja Riley, who’s the daughter of R&B legend Teddy Riley.
Check out their Blackfessions.
Eboni K. Williams: My Blackfession is… I don’t eat cornbread. Oh! Which is really, not only, not only is that weird because I’m black, I’m black and from Louisiana. Um, and I just don’t, I don’t like cornbread.
Panama Jackson: The whole genre of cornbread?
Eboni K. Williams: Yeah, I knew Claudia was going to say that, that sugary shit.
At that point, just give me cake. It is. It is. Okay. Yeah, at that point, I’ll just take Yeah. Okay.
Panama Jackson: All right. Well, that’s, those are Blackfessions.
Jay Smooth: Yeah. You know, that’s tough because being mixed, I feel like when I confess [00:13:00] to such things, people don’t act surprised. They just say, Oh, you know, that’s your white genes coming out, which, which may be the case. But, um, I’m trying to think, I mean, I’ll tell you. I prefer, uh, pumpkin pie over sweet potato pie. That’s one I’ll definitely catch a flack for.
Panama Jackson: Oh, wow. That is one you’re gonna catch a flack for. I’m gonna be the first one to give it to you.
Jay Smooth: That’s just how I feel, man.
Panama Jackson: Really?
Jay Smooth: It’s hard for me to think of other ones. But yeah, I mentioned up top, I never learned how to play spades. I was just, I was a poker kid.
Panama Jackson: You know, the spades thing is becoming very common. And I’m actually surprised that more people… Everybody has food ones, right? Food is apparently a thing that black people just love to unload. Like, listen, I don’t even like chicken.
I’m not saying me. I’m saying people say these things, or I don’t like mac and cheese. I’m, I’m, I’m learning that a lot of black people don’t really care for soul food as much as we think.
Deja Riley: I don’t know if people would be surprised about it, but I do not like Kool Aid. I absolutely positively do not. You Jen either.
Like, I, I absolutely despise [00:14:00] Kool Aid. And, um, you know,
Panama Jackson: Did you all grow up in Kool Aid houses? This is an expose. Whether it was Kool Aid available growing up in the houses.
Deja Riley: Maybe not for Jen. She’s saying no. I’m saying yes, because my grandma, and I’ll say, I’ll say half and half. Like if it were, if I was with my mom’s side of the family, no.
But my dad’s side of the family. Yes. And you know, my dad was raised in the projects. Like, yes. So my grandma, like, and she would take a whole bag of sugar. I watched her do it and take that whole bag of sugar. Just pour it all in to the Kool Aid. Oh my gosh. Just thinking of it. I’m like, just diabetes.
Panama Jackson: I don’t let my kids drink Kool Aid for that reason, honestly.
Cause I don’t know how to make it like measuring properly. I just got to pour in my heart. And pouring with your heart is how you get diabetes. So I don’t want to introduce that into my, into my family.
Deja Riley: Yeah, yeah, I won’t be making Kool [00:15:00] Aid for my kids because I don’t like it. I never even asked my husband if he likes it because we’ve just never been a Kool Aid household, but like our children won’t be having that.
So that’s my, my Blackfession.
Panama Jackson: Fair enough. Like I mentioned, it’s crazy how many people don’t know how to play spades, a classic black card game. I’m not even sure if white people know how to play spades. I have no idea, but when I think of the blackest things out there, spades is one of them, but there are lots of black people who cannot play space for various reasons.
It’s a subject of significant debate in the black community. There should be dissertations about this. There should be discussions and forums and panels. We’re talking about, you know, politics, but we need to be having spades panels out here because some people just can’t play spades and we don’t, we need to know why.
And Little Brothers Phonte falls into that category. Do you all have a Blackfession to share?
Phonte: Yes, I have a Blackfession to share. I have a Blackfession to share. I do not know, nor do I care to [00:16:00] know, to learn how to play spades.
Panama Jackson: What? You almost made me cuss. You don’t know how to play spades.
Phonte: I don’t care, dawg.
Yo, so for me, like, I don’t care. Like, I just don’t. So, for me, cards have never really been my thing. Um, but, you know, when I would play, I mean, Give me Uno over Spades all day. Like I don’t, you know what I mean? Like if Uno is the Supreme card game for me. Um, the thing with Spades was that I just remember like my family would play and they’d be at the table playing and they’d be at the table playing and like I’d be in the living room, I’d be in the den or whatever watching TV and you know, I watched like two, three episodes of something or whatever, watching the Smurfs or whatever the hell.
And like. I would go in the kitchen and they would still be playing and I was just like, Oh my God, like this is the same game. Like this is. Like, that’s not fun to me. Like, you know what I mean? Like, I don’t want to be, you know what I’m saying? Stuck at a table with you people for like [00:17:00] three hours, like on one game.
Like, that was also my thing for Monopoly, kind of. Like, it was just, this is way too long to the point to even be entertaining. You know what I mean? So for me, I just like Uno because Uno was quick. You know what I’m saying? You knew what it was. It’s just either you, hey, somebody put that draw four down.
Hey, you picking up four. Like it’s, it’s what it was. Spades just seemed extremely just labor intensive. And, uh, just, it just does not seem like a gratifying game to me at all. And I have no desire to learn how to play it and black people. I’m sorry, but. Fuck that game.
Panama Jackson: I gotta, I gotta say, bro. I am genuinely surprised that you don’t know how to play spades.
I that that you caught me by surprise in that when you seem like the kind of dude to know how to play spades.
Phonte: But I would happen to be fair. Like I said, I’m just not a card player. Like I remember in the dorm, you know, sometimes the homies would play some tonk. You know, I mean, and tonk was a little better because it was–
Panama Jackson: That’s how you get money for lunch [00:18:00] though.
You got to pay
Phonte: money, right? You get money. So I run a little tonk in there. That was cool. But I’m not really much of like a card player or gambler in that regard.
Panama Jackson: Well, that’s going to do it for this year’s Blackfessions roundup here at Dear Culture. We had an amazing year with people sharing all manner of things that were interesting.
Odd, but curious. And, you know, frankly, just further proof that we as black people are not a monolith. And I enjoy that. I like that. I like that part of our culture where, you know, we like to think about things as stereotypically black that we all share these same experiences and for the most part we do, but there’s nuance in all of it.
And that’s the, that’s the joy of black community and black culture. So thank you for checking out this episode on Blackfessions here on Dear Culture. I’m your host, Panama Jackson. Have a black one.[00:19:00]
Writing Black: We started this podcast to talk about not just what black writers write about, but how. Well, personally, it’s on my bucket list to have one of my books banned. I know that’s probably bad, but I think… They were yelling, N word, go home. And I was looking around for the N word because I knew it couldn’t be me because I was a queen.
But I’m telling people to quit this mentality of identifying ourselves by our work. To start to live our lives. And to redefine the whole concept of how we work and where we work and why we work in the first place.
My biggest strength throughout, throughout my career has been having incredible mentors and specifically black women. I’ve [00:20:00] been writing
poetry since I was like eight. You know, I’ve been reading Langston Hughes and James Baldwin and Maya Angelou and so forth and so on since I was like a little kid. Like the banjo was blackly black, right?
For many, many, many years. Everybody knew. Cause sometimes I’m just. Doing some– that I just want to do it. I’m honored to be here. Thank you for doing the work that you’re doing. Keep shining bright and we and like you said, we gonna keep writing black. As always, you can find us on theGrio app or wherever you find your podcast.
