Meet The Black Umbrella

We had the good fortune of connecting with The Black Umbrella and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi The Black Umbrella, career-wise, where do you want to be in the end?
At the end of it all, we aspire for The Black Umbrella to really become a hub for other podcasters and creatives. We want to become a podcast production company and agency that primarily services people of color. We want to be podcast producers and hosts, tv hosts, interview experts and much more.

Let’s talk shop? Tell us more about your career, what can you share with our community?
We are The Black Umbrella – a podcast hosted by Frenchie, Nika and Wes. We are three best friends who came together in a time of uncertainty after college graduation to create a space to talk about life and its challenges. The story is always told that college is the guarantee to a great career, but we were living in the reality of the complete opposite. This experience is what brought us to the question, “What if we started a podcast to talk about this stuff?” The Black Umbrella allows us to grow as individuals and friends through important conversations that open our minds and change our perspectives. Our goal is to build a vibrant community and challenge our audience to grow along with us.
The COVID pandemic of 2020 completely changed the way we were able to record and publish our podcast. We went from meeting weekly in person to record to recording apart from each other at our separate homes. Our new season was a few months in when we were forced to furiously and quickly research ways to virtually record our episodes. We faced so many trials and tribulations during that time. The solutions that we found never worked fully and, many times, we would record a full episode only for audio to be deleted or corrupted. Still, every week, we huddled in front of our laptops, at our separate homes, and pressed record. We were determined to stay strong and still complete the season in the best way we could. Choosing to do it again every week was a huge testament to our resilience.
Today, we have a small recording studio that we made in a spare bedroom. It doesn’t matter what we have, we are dedicated to bringing weekly episodes to our little audience. One of the most rewarding aspects of being a creative is when someone reaches out to tell us that they really enjoyed our podcast episode and that it challenged them to open their mind about the episode topic. It feels so good when you receive praise for your creative work that you spend so many hours creating. As creatives, all we can do is make our art and put it in the world, we cannot dictate how the public will receive it. So, to hear that your hard work paid off and impacted someone is one of the best feelings in the world.

If you had a friend visiting you, what are some of the local spots you’d want to take them around to?
If my friend was visiting LA, I would take them to Elbow Room in Hollywood. It’s a great place to go for some great food and drinks. There are a few hot spots for bars and restaurants in the area. Of course, for visitors, the main attraction is the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

Who else deserves some credit and recognition?
We would like to shoutout Sistas Who Kill! They are a dynamic black girl duo that cover the little talked about stories of black women, crime, and the issues within the justice system.

Website: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/the-black-umbrella

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tbupodcast/

Twitter: https://x.com/TBUpodcast

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@TBUPodcast⁠

Other: Tiktok: https://www.tiktok.com/@tbupodcast