OK, mic check, mic check Oh, there you are.

Microphone checking.

OK, were checking our microphones.

Hi everyone, welcome, welcome.

We are going to make an episode called Ask Me Anything.

The deal is, we are both hosts, were both podcasters, were both Black and were both artists, so we got a lot in common.

A lot.

I feel like were always in a position of being very curious with other people.

Well, you wanted to interview me and I was like, absolutely not, I want to interview you.

Because I am also very curious about you.

So were going to be asking each other questions.

Yes, Im nervous about that part.

But Im ready for it.

So, welcome to Ask Me Anything.

On the next Homegoings, a double interview with two Black podcasters, me, Myra Flynn and Saidu Tejan-Thomas Jr.

Were calling it Ask Me Anything.

Does anything mean everything?

You can ask anything, it doesnt guarentee that youre going to get an answer to everything.

Cocoa butter or Vaseline?

Cocoa butter.

Mmmm.

Co-host a nationally syndicated radio show with your nemisis or make music no one listens to?

Music nobody listens to.

So welcome to the show, Homegoings.

Thank you.

Now, you know what it is.

I'm so happy to finally be on.

I've been such a fan.

Thank you.

I'm such a fan of you.

So Saidu has, I mean, your resume is insane.

You had.

He's a host.

He's a podcaster and has had a show called Resistance that was on Spotify and Gimlet.

Did you win a Peabody?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Mm.

Thank you.

You came here when you were eight from Sierra Leone?

Yeah, I was eight years old.

Lived in Virginia.

In Northern Virginia.

That's where I grew up and went to school in Richmond, Virginia, down south, and then moved to New York about 2017, 2018.

Youre 30?

Im 31 now.

Youre 31 since last night?

Did I tell you that I was 30 last night?

Yes.

Happy birthday.

What?

What's happening?No, I'm a Sagittarius.

My birthday was in December.

Oh.

Yeah, it was December 8th.

Okay.

You know that thing that happens when you, like, turn and age, but you don't quite feel it yet.

I mean, I know that you do.

Yeah, that's how I feel.

I feel like I have to always say, like I have to constantly remind myself that I'm 31 now, which is such a weird age.

But yeah, I'm 31.

Okay.

Yeah, just a baby.

Yeah.

I feel like an old man.

Well, you have a Peabody.

You should.

You definitely should.

nobody gets that for doing anything light.

So I asked you at the, like, right when we sat down, if you knew what a homegoing was.

Yeah, it sounds like maybe?

Maybe.

Yeah, because it's one of those words that I feel like I just used context clues to figure out what it was, but I didn't quite know.

I thought it was like, just like a sort of kind of celebration or something.

After being away from home for a long time and returning and being given that celebration.

Yeah.

Those of us who know what a homegoing is, is he close?

What the.

Not the collective, mmmm.

So, yeah, a Homegoing is a traditional black Christian funeral that is super celebratory.

I mean, besides the dead body in the middle of the room.

Right.

Everybody is pretty much eating great food and singing and dancing and partying and it's a celebration.

And I've always thought that that was a really appropriate way to talk about how it feels to walk around being Black bodied, like regularly.

Like you're both, like, celebrating and mourning.

Right.

Always.

That's a bar.

Yeah, that's a bar.

Listen.

Yeah, I feel like the show, like it's those goals and like, I think some people would be like, why did you name it after a funeral?

And I'm like, No, it's deeper than that.

Its deeper than that.

Yeah, yeah.

Totally.

I totally identify with that because I feel like I am that all the time.

Like you see me at a party and Im lit, I'm having a great time.

But when I sit down to write, oftentimes it's very reflective very sad, very like I'm memorializing things and I think that is also a representation of like, yeah, what is the Black experience like?

You are holding those two things at the same time, always, even when you're smiling.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

I'm going to start off with the ask me anything questions is it really anything?

Anything?

Anything.

Does anything mean everything?

I mean, you can ask anything.

It doesn't guarantee that you're going to get an answer to everything, but you can ask me anything, you know.

Oh, Lord.

I'm very eager to ask you my questions.

Oh, my gosh.

Should we play the game?

Yes, let's play the game.

Have you guys ever played would you rather?

Yeah.

Like somebody was like she knew.

You knew we was about to play that game.

Oh, we're going to play would you rather.

And what the game is essentially is like I ask her sort of lightning round a bunch of questions and she has to answer like very quickly.

She can't think like, for example, would you rather New Balance Shoes or Chuck Taylors?

That's a softball version of the game.

Oh, God.

And she has to immediately, like, answer the question, and she's going to have 30 seconds to do it.

the question, and she's going to have 30 seconds to do it.

And it's going to be fun.

It's going to be it's going to be really fun.

Oh, Lord.

Okay, okay, right.

Go.

Okay.

Telekinesis or telepathy?

Telepathy.Okay, finish a bad book or never have time to finish a good one?

Finish a bad book.

Be an African queen 1000 years ago or an average person in the year 3000.

African Queen co-host, a nationally syndicated radio show with your nemesis or make music that no one listens to?

Music nobody listens to.

nobody needs that.

apple pie crust or peach cobbler?

Apple podcast or peach cobbler?

Oh, damn.

I told you 30 seconds was really quick.

You were right.

Like, Can we do that again?

I told him a minute.

He's like, a minutes too long.

Yeah.

All right, let's get a minute this time.

Let's get a minute.

Thank you so much.

Thanks Ferene.

All right.

Apple pie crust or peach cobbler?

Thank you for the enunciation.

Peach cobbler.

A third eye or a third ear?

Ear.

Spend a week in the freezing cold of the blistering heat?

Blistering heat.

Okay, lose your voice before a big show or be loud as hell and be wrong about something?

Oh, God.

Time Lose your voice before a big show.

Yeah, lose your voice.

Collab with Sade Adu or Beyonce?

Sade Adu.

Share an on screen kiss with Idris Elba or Denzel?

Idris Elba.

Be accused of plagiarism or plastic surgery?

Plastic surgery.

Okay.

Settle down in Vermont or California?

You got to answer.

Time.

I got you, Myra!

[laughing] You're a real one.

You're a real one.

You have a plant in the audience.

I should have picked somebody else.

Is it my turn now?

It's your turn.

Yeah.

Okay.

I'm a little slower.

That's fine.

But I'm not as mean.

That's good for me.

All right.

Editor or host?

Host, I'm a bit narcissistic, maybe.

Host.

Host, all right.

Like a love thats kind of okay or being alone and feeling great?

Oh, God, A love that's kind of okay.

Oh, no.

Oh, gosh.

All right.

Brooklyn or the Bronx?

Brooklyn, absolutely.

All right, calm down.

All right.

Earrings are necklaces?

Earrings.

Really, really tall socks that are kind of dope and fresh are really, really low ones that, like, set below your ankle.

Really tall socks that are duper fresh.

Shaving chest hair or leaving it?

Shaving it.

All right.

Cocoa butter or Vaseline?

Cocoa butter.

Mm hmm.

Mm hmm.

Gold or silver?

Gold always.

Hmm.

Pizza or donuts?

Pizza.

Okay.

Pizza.

Is mac and cheese a side or a main dish?

Mac and cheese is a main dish.

I don't know why I just said that.

Are you Black or are you white?

Time!

[laughing] Race is a social construct.

Oh, lord.

No, sir.

All right.

So do we know each other now?

I think.

I think we have.

Yeah, yeah, I think we have a good foundation.

Okay, cool.

Is there anything that's that's off limits for you today.

Like anything you'd like me to stay away from?

No, I mean, I think what's beautiful about this show is that it is so radically honest.

And I think that's what I try to do also in my in my work is ask that of other people.

So I'm always open to asking that of, of myself and other people doing that, you know, because I think that's like I like getting in the messy, you know, I'm saying like in the actual just like in the true messy truth of it all.

Okay, that's where the gold is.

Here's the thing, right?

Here's a question that I'm actually trying to ask because I went through this when I was making Resistance.

My show is about protesters.

It's about people.

The tagline is people refusing to accept things as they are.

So that lends itself very well to the protest.

But, you know, we cover other things as well.

But I don't think that I would have been able to really make that show the way I was able to make it.

Had a man not been killed on camera in 2020, George Floyd, where everyone was sort of scrambling for the opportunity to to to have a say in the conversation, to have to be to be on the right side of history.

And it'snot that I don't think that I would have eventually had my own podcast because I've A lot of guilt podcasts out there.

Right.

But there was a lot of there was a lot of like sort of like guilt, guilt money going around where people wanted to very much seem like they were on the right side of history.

And so I'm not quite sure when you started Homegoings, but I am curious about like how you came to it and if you felt any of that sort of weirdness?

Yeah, I don't know a Black person who, after George Floyd's murder, didn't feel like they were either a prophet or a unicorn.

Damn, thats a bar.

Its a really weird place to be or still a negro.

You know, it was the weirdest thing.

I have a journalism degree, haven't used it in such a long time.

I used to write for a newspaper, took 20 years off after I got laid off back then And so I was like, I'm going to go back to music and just see what happens because maybe I've got more job security in me, right, than a job.

And I did that for, like nearly 20 years.

Yeah.

And then I had this newborn baby, Avalon, and we were in Pasadena, California.

And three months after I had her, the world shut down right in L.A., really shut down because all the outside places were where people gathered the most.

So they shut down the beaches, the hiking trails, like.

Like outside was not a thing.

Yeah.

Then yes.

George Floyd's murder in Pasadena, California, came with protests that some that were unsafe and some that were very close to our house.

And so it was this thing with my husband's Black and being like, I don't even want you to go to the grocery store.

And we had a newborn baby, so we couldn't leave our housebecause you'd get sick or you couldn't leave your house because you were afraid to get shot.

And then the Bobcat fires started 5 miles from our house and that was just like creeping down the mountain outside of our house.

And it was at that point where I looked at my husband, I was like, for moving back to Vermont and I hadn't lived here since.

Gosh, it had been such a very long time.

And my husband hadn't lived here since like junior high or something like that.

And so we were like, Let's try it.

We're going to make it cool.

We're going to there's other cool stuff happening.

Like, Well, you know, we're going to be great here.

And we came and it was at that point where I realized, Oh, I totally forgot about this kind of racism.

Hmm.

It had been a really long time since I felt that, like, I'm a good white person racism.

Been a really long time since I've felt that like I have every sign in my yard, but I'll still call the cops on your husband in a dark alleyway at night, right?

kind of racism, yeah.

I remember my husband and I went to the grocery store and some guy came up and he's like, hey!

And we're like, hi.

Like, do we know you?

And he was like, How do you all feel about the police?

Oh, and my husband literally had a baguette in his hand and my daughter in a wagon in the other.

And we were just like, I looked at my husband and this is like the 90th time this had happened.

And he was just like, Dude, I'm just trying to go home and cook dinner with my kid and my wife.

I remember it was the one year anniversary of George Floyd's murder and so there was this mad scramble of like the anniversary coming up.

What are we going to do?

And I remember being like, well, if were going to do something we should do a lot of something right and not stop doing it right.

And so it was a little bit of like, yeah, black girl, you go ahead, you know?

But it was it was also it was awesome because the show I was on, which only operated on listener questions, said Myra, you can make a series about Black people here.

And they gave me the green light under the umbrella of their podcast.

Yeah, so I called it Homegoings.

And then we had a big performance where I took the artists who are in the podcast and put them up on stage for a big performance.

And it went so well.

I kind of walked in the office and the vice president at the time was like, What do you want?

And I was like, I want this to be a real show.

And so I kind of fought to just make this my whole job but I'm a public figure here.

I sing here and I'm on the radio now.

And, you know, I always reported a lot on identity and the people who didn't like what I was reporting about could find where I was performing on my website, you know what I mean?

And show up.

And so that changed a lot because now I had a baby in the audience and then I would go to other places and they'd be like, Well, you come speak about DEI for us, will you come?

We can we put your face on the brochure of the thing for us?

you have like a DEI background and expertize or they were just assuming that you did?

I had exactly the amount most of us had at the time.

Yeah, right.

Yes.

At the time.

Which was more which was more than they had.

Which was.

Maybe not.

No.

I mean, I was just a person walking around trying not to get covid.

I don't know.

Yeah, it was strange.

I feel like the workthat you were doing on Homegoing is kind of aligned with the work that I was doing on Resistance, because you talk about race, but race is almost secondary to people's humanity on your show.

that I feel like is a hard I mean to me wasn't hard.

And I think to people who see and understand us as we are, it's not a hard thing.

But like for some reason you look out there and it feels like there's a lot of there's a lot of content or shows or whatever that don't do that.

And it didn't feel like your show was like that very much felt like your show was about who are you as a person, what are the things that you're dealing with in this on this earth, in your in your humanity?

I lose sleep over the show a lot because of what you're saying of, like, the boom bust of the podcast industry.

Mm hmm.

Particularly with folks of color.

Yeah.

We were last hired.

First fired in many situations.

I am.

I don't think I've said this.

I am exhausted.

You know?

I don't know what I'm chipping away at on this show, but it's definitely something toward humanity.

And I worry all the time that it's for optics or that it's not real.

Yeah.

Or that I'm not teaching the people who need to be taught or that the people who don't need to be taught and just want to live life and enjoy it and be Black and you know, live are getting something from that too.

It's like doing the splits every day.

But then I have like something like this and like the crowd looks like this and I'm like, Yeah, we're on to something.

Yeah, yeah, we're on the right track.

We're on the right track.

I'm not going to let this boom bust.

Yeah, it's like slowly, steadily chipping away at humanizing us.

Yeah, I dont want it to boom-bust either.

Whenever something bad happens and it's like, oh, now we need black voices, you know?

Right.

And it's also it's always temporary.

And I'm frustrated with that.

And I don't want that to be the case anymore for anybody.

I think when I met you, you said we all saw that window open and we all knew exactly when it was going to start closing.

Oh, absolutely.

Because when it was open, it was wide open.

It was like like if you get a car and you get a podcast.

I was like, yeah, I was legit.

Like, Is this what it feels like to be white?

Because this is like, this is great.

Like, everyone's listening to me.

I go to a meeting and my word holds weight.

You know what I'm saying?

I'm in the room.

Yeah, I can ask for something.

And even though there isn't like, you know, even though there's pushback, eventually I can kind of like, get it.

But at the same time, I was like, Oh, this is like this aint going to last.

This aint going to last.

And so yeah, we were seeing that window closing as it was opening at the same time this way I'm also like really interested and in a way envious of what you've been able to cultivate because I feel like I in a sense, I kind of gave up, right?

I was kind of like, before this window closes on me, I'm just going to walk out No, I don't want that pain of having felt like I was used.

And so to take matters into my own hands, I just kind of ended my own show and walked away.

Do you think we do that as Black people?

You think we sabotage our own trajectory at times because it's easier than watching somebody else like hurt us and all the ways we're used to being hurt.

I've seen it happen and I think I've seen it happen in my own life as well.

It does.

I think we do and its because it's painful.

It's because you don't you know, you don't want that rejection.

I mean, who wants to feel like they are less than who wants to feel unwanted?

Being in these rooms and just thinking like, oh, maybe I don't deserve to be here because of whatever reason, right?

When you're super capable and you have all the skills, you might be even more capable than half the people in the room.

But you're doubting yourself because you've learned to doubt yourself, to get to where you are.

You've learned that that you've learned to use that doubt.

And I learned to use I've learned to use that doubt on that self-doubt to sort of prove the voice in my head wrong.

Right.

Like the whatever voice was implanted in there.

I feel like I'm consistently working to prove it wrong because I have to.

Otherwise I won't.

I won't get as far, you know.

And I think like a lot of Black folks do deal with that.

But then I sit in rooms with a lot of white folks and I don't think they've I don't think they've had a doubt a day in their life.

And they just are very much like just doing their thing and saying whatever and producing all kinds of work that I'm not impressed by.

I don't know personally, I don't I try my best to remember that I am African.

like a sense there is a sort of sense of being special.

Yes.

When you're an African boy growing up in an black household.

Everyone thinks I'm special.

Yes.

Oh, oh, oh.

So I try to I try to remember that.

I try to remember thatthe people in my family think I'm special.

Right?

I try to remember that I come from a background and a people who, you know, in Sierra Leone, everyone is Black, like your mailman is Black, the store clerk is Black, the bank teller is Black.

It's an affirming experience.

So like I come from that kind of stock, I come from the stock of people who know, who know their worth, who know that they're not going to accept less, who know that they're also hard workers.

Right.

Who know that they're going to do whatever it takes to get where they need to get.

So I try to remember that even in this country where for so long since I feel like since the day I stepped off this plane, I have felt stepped off the plane to come to this country.

I have felt like you know, maybe I'm not as good as everyone else here.

What brought you here?

Well, it was war.

I remember being really close to my family, sort of huddled up while war was happening outside.

I don't I don't even quite remember who was fighting and why they were fighting.

I mean, now I do, but I don't.

At the time I did it and when the war ended, my mom had already my mom had already came to America before the war.

The war, I think, was like her, her motivation, like it put a fire kind of under her ass to like get me over there sooner.

And so she filed papers for me.

And, you know, I came over as a refugee.

So it was definitely sort of like fleeing, fleeing instability because we didn't know if the war was going to start start again.

And yeah, then I, you know, I went from that environment where I loved it.

I loved every second of growing up in Sierra Leone except for, you know, the war times.

But and even those somehow we're being like we're like magical somehow.

Like we were we all everyone in the building we lived in hid in our basement.

In like the basement of the house.

And we sort of like we all slept there, like we all had this little, like, village in the in the basement of this house.

We would my sister would cook these big meals and we would all eat together, whispered together while soldiers were passing by so we wouldn't be heard.

Like it was a very communal experience.

And I like I enjoyed even every second of of that.

Right.

And so yeah, when I came here in a weird way, it kind of felt like because I was a child, I think I was able to sort of blank out the war war a little bit.

But when I came here, it felt like real war, On the next Homegoings, I think when I first came here I felt a lot of dissonance.

I feel like America wants to do that to you, too.

Absolutely.

Come become American, leave all the rest behind.

I feel like you have a little bit of a homegoing going on inside of you.

I have people in my family who look at me and they're like, We can't we can't believe you made it.

You're one of them cocky transplants from our small planet that no one's ever heard of.

You're one of them immigrants who crash landed in some cul de sac somewhere far, far away from home.