You Had Me At Black is hosting its first East Coast taping in D.C. on July 22. (Photo via Facebook)
Pen came to the District for the Million Man March’s 10th anniversary in 2005 and took the obligatory trip to Howard University.
A black guy from Oakland, he was smitten by a Howard student who greeted him in French. “We don’t get that on the West Coast,” said Pen, describing the life-altering visit on an episode of the podcast “You Had Me At Black.”
The next day on campus, Pen was surprised to spot a black man in doctor scrubs, solid gold grills, and long dreadlocks. “The imagery of black people, who look like people I kick it with, walking around a campus with buildings named after black people that I’ve heard of looking scholarly… the aesthetic of it … there’s nothing like it on the West Coast that I’d seen,” said Pen, who was attending community college in Oakland and applied to Howard University a week after his trip.
“Even in the black community, we don’t see the diversity of our experiences—and outside of the black community, that’s definitely the case,” says Martina Abrahams, founder and host of the storytelling podcast.
A Georgetown University alum who now lives in Oakland, Abrahams is bringing the first live show on the East Coast of “You Had Me At Black” to D.C. on July 22.
“It’s gon’ be lit!” she tells DCist.
The 27-year-old marketing professional has lived in New Jersey, D.C., New York, and California. Along the way, she says, “I felt like I kept meeting people who had different experiences being black.”
Abrahams says that by the time she arrived in Oakland, as police brutality dominated national conversations, she found that the narrative of what it means to be black was skewed in the media as negative, one-dimensional, and incomplete.
So in February 2016, she tagged her sister Britney—an aspiring filmmaker, playwright, and photographer living in New York—to help her create a podcast that lets black millennials “tell true life stories.”
Abraham says that they made a decision early on that though anyone can listen to the podcast, they wouldn’t “water down our content” or have it function as a tool to explain blackness to people of other races. Instead, she says, “we’re building a platform to empower black people to feel bold and validated in their own stories and their own experiences.”
“You Had Me At Black” launched in May 2016 and has since featured three seasons of stories that range from getting into trouble as mischievous children to navigating the complexities of adulthood.
“Sometimes people will be nervous about sharing certain details of the story … we explain to them that sometimes those things that you don’t want to share are actually what’s going to help people the most—there’s someone else who feels the exact same way about something similar,” Abrahams says.
In just over a year, the team has grown to eight people, and 50,000 listeners have downloaded episodes in the U.S., UK, and South Africa, according to Abrahams. The team has also participated in events like South by South Lawn at the White House, Art Basel Miami Beach, Tech Inclusion San Francisco, and The Play Conference at Berkeley Haas School of Business.
Abrahams says one of her favorite parts of her “You Had Me At Black” journey is hosting live tapings—there have been three so far in Oakland.
“We bring on a handful of storytellers and it’s a room where the energy is so magnetic and so amazing—we usually have a packed house full of black and brown faces and it’s a very safe space where we really vibe off each other,” she says. It’s a unique experience that’s “fresh and fun” with good music, drinks, and food, she continues.
Abrahams and her crew are currently raising money to go on tour in order to reach storytellers who aren’t in Oakland and New York, where they record.
They’ve launched a Kickstarter campaign that’s about $3,000 away from reaching their goal of $25,000. The deadline is tomorrow, and if they don’t hit the mark, they can’t access any of the funds.
For the D.C. show, Abrahams says they’re looking for storytellers who are native Washingtonians or currently live in the area. Interested folks can email talktous@youhadmeatblack.com.
The live taping for “You Had Me At Black” is taking place at Smith Public Trust in Brookland on July 22. Tickets go on sale June 20.
