Butternomics the Business of Culture

On this episode of Butternomics, our host, Brandon Butler, talks with philanthropic leader Cicley Gay about how nonprofits actually work and why so many people get it wrong. Cicley, board chairwoman of the Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation and founder of The Amplifiers, breaks down why a nonprofit is a $1.5 trillion industry that runs like a business, why no money doesn’t mean no money, and why a nonprofit is suppo...

On this episode of Butternomics, our host, Brandon Butler, talks with entrepreneur and financial planner Latavius Powell about the $2.5 billion NIL boom and what it’s really doing to young athletes. Latavius, CEO of CSG Wealth Management, breaks down why these million dollar checks are 1099 income, how the IRS becomes the worst loan shark a young person can face, and how athletes go rags to riches to rags without the right pl...

Most companies are still spending millions on beautiful, polished content that almost nobody cares about. Shannon Watkins has sat at the top of the brands that figured this out and the ones that didn't. Former CMO of Aflac, global CMO of Jordan Brand, and former global CMO at Fiserv, she's spent her whole career at the intersection of brand and culture, and she pulled up to Butternomics to break down what's really changing in how b...

David Shands started a podcast without knowing what a podcast was. He was selling t-shirts out of a kiosk in Cumberland Mall, running a conference where the tickets moved slow, so he interviewed his speakers to sell seats. That hustle turned into the Social Proof Podcast, two studios, a national summit tour, and over 500 episodes.

In this one he breaks down the part most people get wrong. A podcast is a marketing arm for a business...

Simone Hardeman-Jones flew into ATL to break down how she's reimagining what philanthropy actually looks like. As executive director of Green Light Fund Twin Cities, she walks into rooms full of wealthy people and convinces them to invest in the communities everybody else overlooks. We get into the Minnesota paradox. It's ranked number one in quality of life and dead last in the income gap between Black and white residents. Same st...

Atlanta calls itself the Black Mecca. But ask who actually owns the city, who gets pushed out when the money moves, and who benefits from all this growth, and the answer gets complicated. Nathaniel Smith has spent his life on that question. He's the Founder and Chief Equity Officer of the Partnership for Southern Equity, and he grew up in Kirkwood watching the Olympics, gentrification, and the crack era reshape the neighborhoods he...

Steve Canal builds the thing most people can't: culture that actually pays. On this episode of Butternomics, Brandon Butler sits down with Steve Canal, co-founder of One Venture Group and part of the team behind ONE Musicfest and TwoGether Land, to talk about how Atlanta actually works. The city moves on relationships, and Steve has spent his whole career proving it.

He breaks down how he built by leading with one question: how can...

Mandii B pulled up to Butternomics and broke down the real podcast money blueprint. Most creators chase a network deal thinking it means marketing, studio time, production help, and guest booking handled for them. None of that is guaranteed. A network deal is really just you licensing your content so they can sell ads against it. The expenses, the editing, the booking, the studio, all still on you.

The real play is diversification....

Tendernism didn't start on the internet. It started 50 years ago in a kitchen in Robbins, Illinois, with a young Walter Johnson cutting wingtips off chicken wings for his brother's restaurant.

50 years. 50+ states. Casino kitchens, backyard cookouts, and every Southern state he could get to so he could learn what the old folks knew about a pinch of this and a pinch of that. By the time the camera found him, the craft was already th...

It costs $300,000 to $400,000 a year just to protect voting rights in Georgia. The SAVE Act would charge you $33 to $130 for a new ID just to vote. DEI rollbacks are cutting off SBA loans and grant funding to Black businesses right now. Attorney Gerald Griggs sat down with Butternomics and unpacked the economics of civil rights, how legislation is quietly hitting Black wealth, and why Georgia has the highest rate of people under st...

Walter Johnson cooked for 50 years across 50 states before a single camera found him. He started cutting wingtips off chicken in his brother's restaurant in Robbins, Illinois. He worked casinos, restaurants, and backyard cookouts across the South, collecting seasonings and techniques from every state he passed through. Then a video went viral and the world learned his name. Forbes wrote about him. Snoop Dogg invited him to the comp...

On this episode of Butternomics, Rev. Dr. Jamal Bryant sits down with host Brandon Butler to break his silence on the Target Fast and reveals exactly how 40 days of strategic economic pressure stripped $12 billion from Target's valuation. From a 9.7% drop in foot traffic to forcing the first-ever HBCU business pipeline, Bryant pulls back the curtain on the full strategy, the demands, the negotiations, and what the Black community a...

The average non-technical founder loses $50,000 and years of their life trying to build an app. Amanda Spann knows because she's coached thousands of them. Her first app cost $40,000 and took 18 months. Her sixth one took weeks. The difference was a framework she built after documenting every mistake, every bottleneck, and every dollar wasted. She sat down with Butternomics and broke down why most app ideas fail before they launch,...

On this episode of Butternomics, Mayor Andre Dickens pulls back the curtain on how Atlanta really runs. With the World Cup bringing 4.5 billion eyes to the A and the Neighborhood Reinvestment Act reshaping the south and west sides of the city, the 61st Mayor of Atlanta delivers a masterclass on how to tap in before the world shows up. He breaks down the low-interest city loans most entrepreneurs don't know exist, the $5K and $10K m...

Pastor Troy has been independent for over 25 years. He signed with Universal, watched them hand Nelly $5 million on a $90 million return, and made a decision: if he ever came back, it would be as a label, not just an artist. He left by choice. His first independent album after the deal sold 60,000 to 70,000 copies at $8 each. He sold his master to the bootlegger for $25,000 before the album even dropped. He turned 60-second radio j...

Jai Ferrell is the first Black woman CEO of the Girl Scouts of Greater Atlanta in over 100 years. She walked into a $25 million business with 125 employees, three properties, horses, and 2,000 acres of land. Before this, she was managing billion-dollar portfolios at the busiest airport in the world. In this conversation, she breaks down the real enterprise behind the cookie, why women and girls receive less than 2% of all philanthr...

On this episode of Butternomics, Brandon Butler sits down with Mali Wilson, a music industry veteran who spent 15 years running Tree Sound Studios in Atlanta, one of the most iconic recording spaces in hip hop history. Lil Wayne was loyal to that building for over a decade. Drake, J. Cole, Big Sean, Wiz Khalifa, 2 Chainz — they all came through her doors, many of them before the world even knew their names. Mali took over a s...

On this episode of Butternomics, Brandon Butler sits down with Onaje Henderson, co-owner of Zucot Gallery, one of the largest Black owned art galleries in the Southeast. Onaje grew up watching his father, a Tuskegee trained engineer turned full-time painter, create in the family garage every single day. That upbringing sparked a 15 year mission to build a space where Black art, Black artists, and Black collectors are not just welco...

On this episode of Butternomics, Brandon Butler sits down with Courtney English, Chief of Staff and Chief Policy Officer for the City of Atlanta under Mayor Andre Dickens. Courtney is a born-and-raised Atlanta native, a product of Southwest Atlanta, Douglas High School, and Morehouse College, who got elected to the Atlanta Board of Education at just 24 years old, became the youngest board chair in the district's history at 28, and ...