December 12, 2023 • 35 mins
Y’all. This is the last episode of HER with Amena Brown and I’m in my feelings. Tune in to hear what I’ve learned in our living room, what’s next for me and my BIG THANK YOU to all of the listeners. To stay up to date on my creative work, subscribe to my Substack, follow me on Instagram, or check out my website amenabrown.com.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:39):
I almost don't know how to start this episode. I'm
not gonna lie about it, but I have an announcement,
and my announcement is that this episode you are listening
to is the last episode of her with Amina Brown.
I know, y'all, I know, I know at least two
of y'all were like, oh, I know, I'm feeling that
way too. And I wanted to have my last episode
(01:02):
to be one where I could talk specifically to you
as the listeners, and then some of you were like, hey, wait,
I just got here. So I wanted to give a
little review of how this podcast came to be, what
I feel like the podcast has taught me, how I
feel I've changed, and what's next for me and what
I hope is next for you. So this podcast originally
(01:26):
started in twenty eighteen, and it's very interesting to think
about the full circle moment of this podcast coming to
a close because I remember that the end of twenty seventeen,
which I think I've talked about here on the podcast,
but the end of twenty seventeen and twenty eighteen was
probably one of the roughest times in my life outside
(01:47):
of the last year and a half of my life. Truthfully,
But at that time, it just felt like everything was
falling apart. You know. I had had my book come
out in November of twenty seventeen. My team that I
thought was going to help me do my book tour
(02:08):
and figure out all of that walked away about a
week and a half after my book came out. So
I didn't have a manager, didn't have a booking agent,
didn't have any gigs for my book tour that was
supposed to happen the following year. Then I got this
opportunity to potentially be on radio here in Atlanta. I
(02:30):
was being considered to join a morning show here and
it fell through in the worst way. Like if I
can be honest with y'all, the initial person that reached
out to me, I knew him, you know, we had
met before, and so he had reached out to me like, oh,
I think he'd be such a great fit for this,
but I need to sit you down with the host
(02:52):
of this morning show. And so I met him and
the host of the morning show at this coffee shop,
and the host talk to me for a few minutes
and asked me a couple of questions about myself. Wanted
to know you know what I thought I would bring
to the radio show, And after I answered, the host
(03:13):
kind of turned back to the person that was my
original contact, and they just went on having a conversation,
almost as if I wasn't there, Like they just ignored
me the rest of the meeting. It was very devastating,
and it was during a time that a lot of
other disappointing things had already happened. So I just remember
really being very sad and full of grief during that time,
(03:38):
and I sort of had put a lot of my
hopes in that radio show opportunity, because I thought, if
this radio show opportunity comes through, then that'll prove to me,
like I'll be okay, you know, that'll prove to me that,
you know, I'm not forgotten in this moment, like this
isn't the end for me, or you know, all those things.
(03:59):
And then when the radio fell through too, it was
just like one disappointment too many, and so I entered
into probably what was one of the worst depressions of
my life at that point, just you know, to where
I was so depressed that I'm not really functioning, you know,
during the day or able to get out of bed
and things like that. It was very, very hard, and
(04:22):
at some point in my depressed stupor, I started to
think about radio because I have always dreamed since I
was a little girl of having my own radio show,
which is why it was so personal to me that
I was potentially getting this opportunity. And it was interesting
(04:44):
because once I had some time to myself, I started
to think, well, why am I waiting for them to
give me an opportunity on a radio show when podcasting
is right there, like I can have my own radio thing.
And by this time I had started podcasting because my
(05:04):
sister in law and I had our podcast together at
that time, which was called Here for the Donuts. That
was my first foray into podcasting. And then when my
book came out, How to Fix a Broken Record, it
had its own like limited series podcast that just had
I think it just had ten or twelve episodes to it,
and I was considering, you know, what I want to
do like a solo podcast, and I just started kind
(05:28):
of letting myself dream it up a little bit. And
my initial idea for what would be my solo podcast
was I wanted it to feel like a late night show.
But in the middle of the day or in the morning.
You know. I wanted to have like segments and I
wanted to be like the Amina Brown Show. But I
(05:51):
got nervous about that because I felt like that would
take a lot more like ingenuity, Like I would have
to really think through all these segments, and I didn't
want I didn't want my feeling like I needed to
have all these ideas together to keep me from just starting,
because I feel like there's some things about having a
(06:12):
show that you just have to start. You have to start,
you have to try, you have to see you know
what it's going to be. So anyway, so I had
that in my mind and then the other thing that
I had in my mind is at this time of
twenty eighteen, I was still working in white evangelical space.
I over the past couple of years before that, had
(06:34):
really built a lot of community with women of color
who were also working in a lot of these predominantly white,
you know, Christian conservative spaces. And some of it was
just predominantly white Christian spaces, even if they weren't conservative,
but most of it was. And the main thing that
a lot of the women of color were talking about
when we got in the room and it was just us,
you know, as we were talking about equal pay and
(06:56):
how could we, you know, make sure that we were
getting paid fairly and appropriately at our speaking gigs. How
could we make sure that a white man wasn't coming
in there and getting paid twenty thousand dollars, but when
they book a woman of color, they book all of
us for a panel and pay us two hundred bucks,
you know. So that was a part of the conversation,
(07:17):
and publishing was a part of the conversation because in
that part of sort of Christian conservative industry, books were
really the end all be all almost. It was like,
if you wrote a book, that's how you could get
more speaking gigs, that's how you could seem like official
or legitimate to the people who might book you for
(07:38):
their big churches or whatever. And for a while it
was even a struggle for women of color to just
even get book deals. But by the time you got
to like twenty sixteen twenty seventeen, there were more women
of color starting to get book deals. But then can
they get literary agents, can they have someone to help
them negotiate a good book deal? And even if they
(07:58):
get the book deal, do they act surely have the
support of the publisher. Does the publisher even know other
platforms outside of white folks to help promote these books?
To do they even know how to promote these books
to other women of color, other communities of color. And
so I was having lots of conversation with women of
color around this, and I started to think to myself, Well,
(08:22):
the quicker idea that I know I could do tomorrow
is I could interview women of color on my podcast.
And there was a lot about white evangelicalism as an
industry that was unethical and inequitable, you know. So there
was a lot about that that I was going to
be able to change the way that system was set up.
(08:45):
But if I had a platform of my own to
offer that women of color when their books came out,
when they had initiative, they wanted to promote that, I
had a place where they could come and share. So
that was the originals behind her with Amina Brown. And
the podcast actually had a different name that I won't say.
(09:06):
I had a different name that I had been like
holding on to for years for another project I wanted
to do. And when I went to look up that
name in the podcast app, these two other women had
posted like five episodes and then like abandon it, and
I was like, oh, I don't know. I just felt like,
(09:27):
now I want to just use something else. So I said, well,
if I use her, then it's clear that this is
a podcast that centers women, and there's only going to
be one her with Amina Brown. I just couldn't imagine
there'd be another podcast with that with my name, you know.
So I started the podcast in the spring of twenty eighteen,
not far from my birthday, and the original premise of
(09:50):
the podcast was that it was all interview based and
I interviewed women of color based on a theme. I
think my first season's theme was body, and then I
had another season that was Lost and Found, which was
really interesting to dive into. I can't even remember what
(10:13):
my third season was now, but I had three seasons,
and I'm trying to think because I remember when I
did Body, I tried to approach the theme like with
a poet's lens, right, so I would have I think
I interviewed a personal train. I interviewed a nawa aja
about how to train the body. But then I interviewed
(10:33):
my friend Ddre Riggs about the body of a paragraph right,
and then with Lost and Found, that was just very
poignant to me because I got a chance to really
like think about, you know, interviewing a woman of color
who could share stories of getting lost, of losing a job,
(10:53):
of could be finding yourself or finding a new role
or you know. So I got to sort of work
around with themes like that. So we did the first
two seasons, and then this was so this was twenty eighteen.
Then I went into twenty nineteen and I did season three.
Then I cannot even tell y'all what season three's theme
(11:13):
was now, and did season three in twenty nineteen, and
then when it got to be I think, I think
maybe we ended up doing season three closer to the
end of twenty nineteen because of like the way some
other scheduling things had gone for me. And then we
were planning for season four. The season four theme was
(11:37):
going to be Taste, which I was so excited about
because y'all know I love to talk about food and
I was looking forward to seeing like many how many
women of color in the food industry can I interview?
And we were just getting ready to start approaching that
when the pandemic tipped, so we were kind of like
on hold and trying to figure out what and I
(11:59):
think think I had reached out already to a couple
of I think I had reached out to one photographer
shout out to Phyllis Iller, also known as Melissa Alexander,
and so I went ahead and interviewed her while we
were in the lockdown period and interviewed her via zoom.
And then my friend Caitlin Curtis, who I have had
here on the podcast many times, she had a book
that was coming out in the spring of twenty twenty,
(12:21):
so she and I. I was supposed to host her
live event, which didn't happen because we couldn't meet in person.
So I hosted her and interviewed her on Instagram and
then I told her if it was okay with her,
I could record the audio and release that as an episode.
Now Here's what's interesting. When I think back on the
(12:43):
journey of the podcast, you know, I'll say one of
the questions I wanted to cover here is like, what
do I feel like I've learned in the process of
doing this podcast. And I think I learned pretty quickly
in that first season that I wasn't trying to have
a Christian podcast, And of course I can look back
on my last you know, five years of life or
(13:04):
so five or six years really and see that the
writing was on the wall with me about where I
wanted my career beheaded, where my spirituality was headed, that
I wanted my spirituality to be broader than being evangelical
or being conservative in that regard. And so I started
to feel a little nervous, like, you know, what if
(13:26):
I want queer folks on my podcast, Like I don't
want that to seem strange to my audience. Like I
wanted to make sense to my audience that anyone who
is a woman of color is welcome here on this podcast.
So I realized I was going to have to be
really clear about the tone of what I was doing,
(13:48):
to make sure that it was clear that this wasn't
a podcast that was for Christians or to produce any
sort of Christian content or anything like that. And I
hoped that the people that were following me or following
along that were Christian might still want to but that
(14:08):
it would be clear that this is a podcast that
I hope you listened to, whether you're a Christian or not,
you know, whether you were raised in church or not,
you know, So that meant I had to interview people
a little bit differently, to not assume that everyone listening
understands Christian jargon or understand certain terms that if you
grew up in the church that you may say, like
(14:28):
making sure to explain some of those things. And then
that generally started to make me think. Of course, a
lot of the women of color I featured at first
were women of color that I had met being in
church environments, you know. But then realizing I wanted to
broaden the scope of who I was interviewing, and my
experiment was working for me in the sense that I
(14:49):
realized I really enjoyed what I was doing. I enjoyed
interviewing women of color. I enjoyed the conversations that we
were having, and I wanted to do this more so.
February of twenty twenty comes and I had the opportunity
because of Together Live, which is a tour that Jennifer
Walsh and glenn and Doyle put together many years ago.
(15:10):
But what ended up being the last tour of Together
Live happened in twenty nineteen and Jennifer Walsh and Glennon
Doyle and I'll be Abby Wanback invited me to be
a part of that tour well. Then the few of
us who were a part of the Together Live tour
were also invited to attend Makers, which is a global
women's summit that typically always happens in la and I
(15:34):
was very excited to attend. I had heard such good
things about Makers, and so we were sort of doing
like a Together Live segment there and Together Live as
a tour. One of the partners or sponsors for the
tour was P and G, and so I had met
some of the folks that work with P and G,
and I just decided in the green room while we
(15:54):
were at Makers, I was like, I'm going to ask
one of them if they have information about, you know,
how P and G could possibly become a sponsor for
my podcast. And so I asked one of the women
there that I had been working with, and she was like, oh,
I don't I don't help with that, but she was like, oh,
I do know somebody that's starting a network, and I
(16:19):
think you should talk to her and see if that
would work. And so the woman who's over the Seneca
Women podcast network was there at Makers, and so the
woman from P and G introduced me to her and
we stood outside and talked together for like twenty minutes.
I shared with her sort of like the vision of
this podcast, and she was like, hey, I'm starting this network,
(16:41):
maybe this would be like a good way we can
kind of like partner together. And so then I had
to rush off to the airport and she had to
rush off to a meeting, and I got home, and
I think I had a couple more gigs, and then
a few weeks later we were all home because of COVID.
(17:13):
So I thought at that point, like, wow, really cool
that we had that conversation. But that's it, you know,
that's all. There's nothing that's ever going to come of that.
And the woman who started Seneco Women podcast network did,
like a few months later follow up with me and say, hey, yeah,
the podcast networks still happening. Are you still interested in
bringing your podcast over to this network? And I said
(17:36):
I was still interested, And we went through like all
the particulars of everything, and she was like, the only
thing is we'll need to change your podcast from seasonal
over to a weekly. So I was going to go
from twenty to twenty four episodes a year to like
forty some episodes a year, which was a pretty big change,
(17:56):
but I was open to it, you know, and it
was very helpful for me, you know, not having the
road as much because everything was so shut down. So
in September of twenty twenty is when this podcast relaunched
to be a weekly, which meant I was still centered
on interviewing women of color and wanting to share their stories,
(18:20):
but I also had more episodes to fill, and so
I tried out some segments and stuff at first, and
then I just got caught up, honestly, in the rigor
of producing a weekly podcast. It was a lot of work.
So then I started doing solo episodes, which I had
never thought about before the podcast relaunched and became a weekly.
(18:42):
So I started doing solo episodes like these and figured
out that I liked them and the listeners were responding
to some of them, and it took me back to
some things that I love about the stage, which is
storytelling and getting a chance to like pick these stories
out and tell them. So it was very great because
(19:02):
I had a space where I could tell stories. It
was also hard because I was sort of telling stories.
When you're doing podcasting, it's like you're telling the story.
I'm here talking to y'all in a room with a
mic wherever you are listening, but I can't see you,
you know, I can't hear your responses, your reactions, like
I can't hear anything. And as a stage person, that's
(19:23):
very hard because I'm used to being on stage and
not even just like what people assume is the ego
gratification of just like having a room full of people
to clap for you. It's not just that. It's that
you're getting a chance to have a conversation with the audience.
You can say something and know if the audience thinks
it's funny or not, and know if the audience identifies
(19:45):
with what you're saying or not. You can feel all
of that in the room. So it was hard to
go from that to like recording this. And sometimes people
listen to a podcast episode and love it, they just
don't tell you. So every now and then when somebody
would like put a review out there or send me
a DM, I would be so excited to get it.
I would be like so happy. What have I learned
(20:06):
since starting this podcast? I guess I should say the
rest is history, right this podcast relaunched in September of
twenty twenty, which means at this point this podcast has
been around for almost five and a half years. Oh
my gosh, that just sounds wild. What have I learned
(20:28):
since starting this podcast? I feel like one thing I
learned is my main rule for choosing people to interview
is do I feel curious about them? Like when I
read their bio, when I go to their Instagram. Do
I want to know more about them? And if I
(20:48):
don't feel that way, then I don't need to interview
them because it will make for a bad interview. It's
like I have to come into it curious about you,
wanting to know more about who you are or how
you do what you do, and I think that makes
an interview really warm. I feel like I learned that.
I feel like I learned how to I don't know
(21:13):
if I want to say be more honest, but I
feel like because I was doing this podcast weekly for
the last three years of it, I feel like, in
a way, this podcast gave me a space to say
and express certain things, and process through certain things, and
talk about certain things with guests, and talk about certain
(21:35):
things with y'all. On a solo episode, that I probably
would never have thought to share. And so I think,
in a way, there were some things that I was
processing in life that this podcast gave me an opportunity
to find my voice and figure out how to say
those things. So I feel like I learned that. I
feel like I also learned that I love podcasting, but
(21:59):
I am primarily and with priority, a writer and a
stage person. So I realized as time was going on,
you know, eventually I'm going to want to like write
books again, go back on the road again, and have
to figure out how will I navigate that while having
(22:20):
a weekly podcast. You know, I learned that you need
a team to do this, you know, so big shout
out to my assistant and my friend Lee, who has
been with me since the very beginning of her with
Amina Brown the podcast. Big shout out to my husband,
who became the producer of this podcast. Really, Lee and
(22:45):
my husband have been with me from the beginning of
this idea germinating, and so, you know, I can't do
this thing by myself. The reason why it goes well
is because of the team that I have with me.
Shout out to my manager Celeste, who was there, and
my attorney Michelle, who's there to help with the negotiations
that we needed to do when it was time to
(23:07):
negotiate this podcast deal. So I learned, you know, I
needed a team, and because I had a team, that's
what made things go so well. How have I changed? Oh,
I mean, are we wanting to be in my therapy sessions?
(23:28):
I mean, I think in the five years that I've
had this podcast, I have grown more and more comfortable
in my skin. I have become less preoccupied with being
who who I think other people think I should be.
I completely let go of remaining in wide evangelical space
(23:53):
and all the ways that I would have had to
continue to make myself small to stay over there. I
discovered that I'm way more progressive than I could say
I was ten years ago, theologically and politically in a
lot of ways. You know, my politics have changed, My
(24:14):
theology has changed since starting this podcast. My self care
practices are better since I started this podcast. So I
feel like this podcast sort of entered my life at
a time where a lot of things were in flux,
and so I feel like I have grown and broadened
(24:34):
and evolved a lot in the five years that I've
been here talking to y'all. The other question is what's
next for me? And I think I will say it's
emotional talking to y'all, and I guess before I go
into what's next for me, I just wanted to say
a really, really big thank you. I said I was
(24:59):
not gonna cry on the podcast, but I just want
to say a big thank you to all of you
who have been listening to this, however long you have.
I know some of you are og people. You were
listening to this podcast when I was still doing seasonal stuff.
Some of you just got here. Maybe, bless your heart,
if you just got here. There's still some old episodes
you can go back and listen to. There's a lot
(25:19):
of great stuff here. But however you came to this
and however long you were here listening, it has meant
the world to me to be able to share my
stories with you. To every guest that I've had here
that trusted me to interview, you trusted me to share
with me about what was happening in your life or
(25:41):
in your work. But I want to take a very
specific moment and thank all of you as the listeners.
This podcast would not be without you, and I appreciate
you listening, and I appreciate your support. This is a
bittersweet moment. You know, this podcast is end a bit
before it was my plan for it to end, but
(26:05):
I wanted you to have I wanted us to have
a moment where we could like actually have a way
to sort of commemorate all that has happened here. And
so I just thank you for listening to me at
your job. Some of you, I know were listening to
me when you were staying with your families during the holidays,
just trying to stay in the right frame of mind. There.
(26:29):
Some of you listen to this podcast on your commute
or as you're walking or taking a jog or whatever
exercise you like, and just know it has really really
meant the world to me to know that even though
I'm in this room by myself, that you're there on
the other side actually listening to all of this. So, yeah,
(26:51):
what's next for me? A little bit? It's I want
to say, there's a little bit of creative rest that
I think is next for me. I think that it
will be good for me to have, you know, some
time off, you know, to kind of see what other
creative stuff wants to come out. Now I am transitioning
(27:14):
over to the substack platform, so I'm looking forward to
exploring that, and the link to my substack will be
in the show notes for this episode as well as
in the description, So if you are interested in following
along with me next to see what's happening. If you
enjoyed my solo episodes here, substack will be a little
(27:37):
bit like that, but in writing form and maybe some
other forms too. We'll see what we develop over there,
but I would love for you to join me there,
to go ahead and subscribe there at that link. And
I think the biggest thing that's next for me is
returning to writing and returning to stage and figuring out
what is my voice now, what does it want to say?
(27:59):
And you know, what do I want to do with that?
What is my new poetry set going to sound like?
What is my next book going to sound like? And
giving myself an opportunity to explore all of that. When
I was talking on the phone to Lee and we
were talking about me recording this last episode, there have
(28:23):
been two meetings that Lee and I have had. This
is now the second creative project that she and I
have been talking through, where she said what if at
the end you did a benediction. And Lee is not
a religious person and I'm not as religious as I
used to be, so I knew when she said benediction,
she really meant it, like she knows that that could
(28:46):
be a bit of a trigger word to both of us,
but in the true spirit of what benediction can be, like,
I knew what she meant. You know that have bendediction
can have this way where you can say your say
parting words to one another and what you hope for
people as they leave you or as you leave them. Right.
(29:09):
So here's my like off the cuff benediction. I think
I first want to speak to the women of color
that are listening to this. You know that I know
what it's like to be in spaces that don't welcome you,
to be in spaces that want you to assimilate, that
(29:30):
want you to be silent, be quiet, that want you
to present in whatever the safe way is to them.
And for some of you, those spaces are at work.
For some of you, those spaces are in your family.
For some of you, those spaces are unfortunately even maybe
(29:52):
in your in your social sphere. Right. But my hope
for you is that you will find spaces where you
can open your mouth wide and laugh, where you can
be loud or be quiet as you need to, where
you are respected and honored, where you are given all
(30:15):
of the space and honor and care that you deserve.
I want to say to you, as women of color,
that your voice is important, that your voice matters, That
you do not have to share your story with anyone,
That is not your job to dig underneath your suffering
(30:39):
and share it with anyone. That you are a multitude
of things, that you are allowed to be a multitude
of things. That being who you are, whether you are
black or Indigenous or Latinae or Asian, whether you are
queer or trans, or gay or buy, whether you're Southern,
(31:04):
whether you're city, whether you prefer a rural space, whether
you live here in America or whether you don't, That
you're worthy, That you deserve wonderful things, that you deserve
to experience joy, and I want that for you. I
want to also speak to the people who grew up
(31:25):
in church like me, some of you that may have
encountered me from a church setting, and I want you
to know that it is okay to evolve, that it's okay,
and good for your beliefs and your thoughts on your
spirituality to shift. And if there is any message that
(31:48):
I have received very strongly the last two years of
my life, it's that wandering does not have to be
a bad thing. That if you are in a place
that feels like wilderness, that feels unsure, that feels uncertain,
that that does not have to be a bad thing.
That you are where you are, and that that's all
(32:10):
we can do sometimes is be present to exactly where
we are and where life has us at this moment.
I want to speak to the people who feel like
you're hanging on by a thread, to the people who
feel like you are underwater in your life and you
are having a lot fewer moments where you feel like
(32:33):
your head is getting above water to get air and
to breathe, And I want to say to you that
it won't be that way always. And I want to
say to you when you get your head up above
that water, to breathe in as deep as you can,
to find some people that you can lean on, to
(32:53):
remember that you are worthy of help, that you deserve
to have people that are you where you do not
have to feel like you are alone, and even the
times you feel alone, as humans, we're not alone. Even
the times we feel so lonely that we feel like
the thing that we're going through no one must know it,
(33:16):
there is somebody somewhere that does know it. And I
wanted to say to you, even if I'm here and
whatever you're experiencing, I may not know it individually myself,
but I hold space with you. I hope for you
as this year is ending and as a new year
is beginning, I hope that you can do as I'm
(33:38):
trying to do in this episode, even though I'm crying
all over it. I hope that you can honor your
endings when they come, whether it's a relationship or a job,
or a thing you used to believe, or a way
you used to look, or a piece of clothing you
have that may no longer be the right thing for
(34:00):
you anymore. I hope that you can honor your endings
when they come, and I hope that you can embrace
your beginnings too. Anyway, I love y'all and I appreciate
y'all so much. Y'all have been the best best audience
that Her with the Meana Brown could have, and I
(34:23):
hope we'll get a chance to see each other soon.
Find me on substack if you're not already following me
on social media. I'm mainly an Instagram girl, so you
know I'll be there and hopefully I'll see y'all soon.
And thank you, thank you, thank you so much for listening.
(34:55):
Her with Amina Brown is produced by Matt Owen for
Sober Fee Productions as a part of the Seneca Women
Podcast Network in partnership with iHeartRadio. Thanks for listening, and
don't forget to subscribe, rate, and review the podcast.
I almost don't know how to start this episode. I'm
not gonna lie about it, but I have an announcement,
and my announcement is that this episode you are listening
to is the last episode of her with Amina Brown.
I know, y'all, I know, I know at least two
of y'all were like, oh, I know, I'm feeling that
way too. And I wanted to have my last episode
(01:02):
to be one where I could talk specifically to you
as the listeners, and then some of you were like, hey, wait,
I just got here. So I wanted to give a
little review of how this podcast came to be, what
I feel like the podcast has taught me, how I
feel I've changed, and what's next for me and what
I hope is next for you. So this podcast originally
(01:26):
started in twenty eighteen, and it's very interesting to think
about the full circle moment of this podcast coming to
a close because I remember that the end of twenty seventeen,
which I think I've talked about here on the podcast,
but the end of twenty seventeen and twenty eighteen was
probably one of the roughest times in my life outside
(01:47):
of the last year and a half of my life. Truthfully,
But at that time, it just felt like everything was
falling apart. You know. I had had my book come
out in November of twenty seventeen. My team that I
thought was going to help me do my book tour
(02:08):
and figure out all of that walked away about a
week and a half after my book came out. So
I didn't have a manager, didn't have a booking agent,
didn't have any gigs for my book tour that was
supposed to happen the following year. Then I got this
opportunity to potentially be on radio here in Atlanta. I
(02:30):
was being considered to join a morning show here and
it fell through in the worst way. Like if I
can be honest with y'all, the initial person that reached
out to me, I knew him, you know, we had
met before, and so he had reached out to me like, oh,
I think he'd be such a great fit for this,
but I need to sit you down with the host
(02:52):
of this morning show. And so I met him and
the host of the morning show at this coffee shop,
and the host talk to me for a few minutes
and asked me a couple of questions about myself. Wanted
to know you know what I thought I would bring
to the radio show, And after I answered, the host
(03:13):
kind of turned back to the person that was my
original contact, and they just went on having a conversation,
almost as if I wasn't there, Like they just ignored
me the rest of the meeting. It was very devastating,
and it was during a time that a lot of
other disappointing things had already happened. So I just remember
really being very sad and full of grief during that time,
(03:38):
and I sort of had put a lot of my
hopes in that radio show opportunity, because I thought, if
this radio show opportunity comes through, then that'll prove to me,
like I'll be okay, you know, that'll prove to me that,
you know, I'm not forgotten in this moment, like this
isn't the end for me, or you know, all those things.
(03:59):
And then when the radio fell through too, it was
just like one disappointment too many, and so I entered
into probably what was one of the worst depressions of
my life at that point, just you know, to where
I was so depressed that I'm not really functioning, you know,
during the day or able to get out of bed
and things like that. It was very, very hard, and
(04:22):
at some point in my depressed stupor, I started to
think about radio because I have always dreamed since I
was a little girl of having my own radio show,
which is why it was so personal to me that
I was potentially getting this opportunity. And it was interesting
(04:44):
because once I had some time to myself, I started
to think, well, why am I waiting for them to
give me an opportunity on a radio show when podcasting
is right there, like I can have my own radio thing.
And by this time I had started podcasting because my
(05:04):
sister in law and I had our podcast together at
that time, which was called Here for the Donuts. That
was my first foray into podcasting. And then when my
book came out, How to Fix a Broken Record, it
had its own like limited series podcast that just had
I think it just had ten or twelve episodes to it,
and I was considering, you know, what I want to
do like a solo podcast, and I just started kind
(05:28):
of letting myself dream it up a little bit. And
my initial idea for what would be my solo podcast
was I wanted it to feel like a late night show.
But in the middle of the day or in the morning.
You know. I wanted to have like segments and I
wanted to be like the Amina Brown Show. But I
(05:51):
got nervous about that because I felt like that would
take a lot more like ingenuity, Like I would have
to really think through all these segments, and I didn't
want I didn't want my feeling like I needed to
have all these ideas together to keep me from just starting,
because I feel like there's some things about having a
(06:12):
show that you just have to start. You have to start,
you have to try, you have to see you know
what it's going to be. So anyway, so I had
that in my mind and then the other thing that
I had in my mind is at this time of
twenty eighteen, I was still working in white evangelical space.
I over the past couple of years before that, had
(06:34):
really built a lot of community with women of color
who were also working in a lot of these predominantly white,
you know, Christian conservative spaces. And some of it was
just predominantly white Christian spaces, even if they weren't conservative,
but most of it was. And the main thing that
a lot of the women of color were talking about
when we got in the room and it was just us,
you know, as we were talking about equal pay and
(06:56):
how could we, you know, make sure that we were
getting paid fairly and appropriately at our speaking gigs. How
could we make sure that a white man wasn't coming
in there and getting paid twenty thousand dollars, but when
they book a woman of color, they book all of
us for a panel and pay us two hundred bucks,
you know. So that was a part of the conversation,
(07:17):
and publishing was a part of the conversation because in
that part of sort of Christian conservative industry, books were
really the end all be all almost. It was like,
if you wrote a book, that's how you could get
more speaking gigs, that's how you could seem like official
or legitimate to the people who might book you for
(07:38):
their big churches or whatever. And for a while it
was even a struggle for women of color to just
even get book deals. But by the time you got
to like twenty sixteen twenty seventeen, there were more women
of color starting to get book deals. But then can
they get literary agents, can they have someone to help
them negotiate a good book deal? And even if they
(07:58):
get the book deal, do they act surely have the
support of the publisher. Does the publisher even know other
platforms outside of white folks to help promote these books?
To do they even know how to promote these books
to other women of color, other communities of color. And
so I was having lots of conversation with women of
color around this, and I started to think to myself, Well,
(08:22):
the quicker idea that I know I could do tomorrow
is I could interview women of color on my podcast.
And there was a lot about white evangelicalism as an
industry that was unethical and inequitable, you know. So there
was a lot about that that I was going to
be able to change the way that system was set up.
(08:45):
But if I had a platform of my own to
offer that women of color when their books came out,
when they had initiative, they wanted to promote that, I
had a place where they could come and share. So
that was the originals behind her with Amina Brown. And
the podcast actually had a different name that I won't say.
(09:06):
I had a different name that I had been like
holding on to for years for another project I wanted
to do. And when I went to look up that
name in the podcast app, these two other women had
posted like five episodes and then like abandon it, and
I was like, oh, I don't know. I just felt like,
(09:27):
now I want to just use something else. So I said, well,
if I use her, then it's clear that this is
a podcast that centers women, and there's only going to
be one her with Amina Brown. I just couldn't imagine
there'd be another podcast with that with my name, you know.
So I started the podcast in the spring of twenty eighteen,
not far from my birthday, and the original premise of
(09:50):
the podcast was that it was all interview based and
I interviewed women of color based on a theme. I
think my first season's theme was body, and then I
had another season that was Lost and Found, which was
really interesting to dive into. I can't even remember what
(10:13):
my third season was now, but I had three seasons,
and I'm trying to think because I remember when I
did Body, I tried to approach the theme like with
a poet's lens, right, so I would have I think
I interviewed a personal train. I interviewed a nawa aja
about how to train the body. But then I interviewed
(10:33):
my friend Ddre Riggs about the body of a paragraph right,
and then with Lost and Found, that was just very
poignant to me because I got a chance to really
like think about, you know, interviewing a woman of color
who could share stories of getting lost, of losing a job,
(10:53):
of could be finding yourself or finding a new role
or you know. So I got to sort of work
around with themes like that. So we did the first
two seasons, and then this was so this was twenty eighteen.
Then I went into twenty nineteen and I did season three.
Then I cannot even tell y'all what season three's theme
(11:13):
was now, and did season three in twenty nineteen, and
then when it got to be I think, I think
maybe we ended up doing season three closer to the
end of twenty nineteen because of like the way some
other scheduling things had gone for me. And then we
were planning for season four. The season four theme was
(11:37):
going to be Taste, which I was so excited about
because y'all know I love to talk about food and
I was looking forward to seeing like many how many
women of color in the food industry can I interview?
And we were just getting ready to start approaching that
when the pandemic tipped, so we were kind of like
on hold and trying to figure out what and I
(11:59):
think think I had reached out already to a couple
of I think I had reached out to one photographer
shout out to Phyllis Iller, also known as Melissa Alexander,
and so I went ahead and interviewed her while we
were in the lockdown period and interviewed her via zoom.
And then my friend Caitlin Curtis, who I have had
here on the podcast many times, she had a book
that was coming out in the spring of twenty twenty,
(12:21):
so she and I. I was supposed to host her
live event, which didn't happen because we couldn't meet in person.
So I hosted her and interviewed her on Instagram and
then I told her if it was okay with her,
I could record the audio and release that as an episode.
Now Here's what's interesting. When I think back on the
(12:43):
journey of the podcast, you know, I'll say one of
the questions I wanted to cover here is like, what
do I feel like I've learned in the process of
doing this podcast. And I think I learned pretty quickly
in that first season that I wasn't trying to have
a Christian podcast, And of course I can look back
on my last you know, five years of life or
(13:04):
so five or six years really and see that the
writing was on the wall with me about where I
wanted my career beheaded, where my spirituality was headed, that
I wanted my spirituality to be broader than being evangelical
or being conservative in that regard. And so I started
to feel a little nervous, like, you know, what if
(13:26):
I want queer folks on my podcast, Like I don't
want that to seem strange to my audience. Like I
wanted to make sense to my audience that anyone who
is a woman of color is welcome here on this podcast.
So I realized I was going to have to be
really clear about the tone of what I was doing,
(13:48):
to make sure that it was clear that this wasn't
a podcast that was for Christians or to produce any
sort of Christian content or anything like that. And I
hoped that the people that were following me or following
along that were Christian might still want to but that
(14:08):
it would be clear that this is a podcast that
I hope you listened to, whether you're a Christian or not,
you know, whether you were raised in church or not,
you know, So that meant I had to interview people
a little bit differently, to not assume that everyone listening
understands Christian jargon or understand certain terms that if you
grew up in the church that you may say, like
(14:28):
making sure to explain some of those things. And then
that generally started to make me think. Of course, a
lot of the women of color I featured at first
were women of color that I had met being in
church environments, you know. But then realizing I wanted to
broaden the scope of who I was interviewing, and my
experiment was working for me in the sense that I
(14:49):
realized I really enjoyed what I was doing. I enjoyed
interviewing women of color. I enjoyed the conversations that we
were having, and I wanted to do this more so.
February of twenty twenty comes and I had the opportunity
because of Together Live, which is a tour that Jennifer
Walsh and glenn and Doyle put together many years ago.
(15:10):
But what ended up being the last tour of Together
Live happened in twenty nineteen and Jennifer Walsh and Glennon
Doyle and I'll be Abby Wanback invited me to be
a part of that tour well. Then the few of
us who were a part of the Together Live tour
were also invited to attend Makers, which is a global
women's summit that typically always happens in la and I
(15:34):
was very excited to attend. I had heard such good
things about Makers, and so we were sort of doing
like a Together Live segment there and Together Live as
a tour. One of the partners or sponsors for the
tour was P and G, and so I had met
some of the folks that work with P and G,
and I just decided in the green room while we
(15:54):
were at Makers, I was like, I'm going to ask
one of them if they have information about, you know,
how P and G could possibly become a sponsor for
my podcast. And so I asked one of the women
there that I had been working with, and she was like, oh,
I don't I don't help with that, but she was like, oh,
I do know somebody that's starting a network, and I
(16:19):
think you should talk to her and see if that
would work. And so the woman who's over the Seneca
Women podcast network was there at Makers, and so the
woman from P and G introduced me to her and
we stood outside and talked together for like twenty minutes.
I shared with her sort of like the vision of
this podcast, and she was like, hey, I'm starting this network,
(16:41):
maybe this would be like a good way we can
kind of like partner together. And so then I had
to rush off to the airport and she had to
rush off to a meeting, and I got home, and
I think I had a couple more gigs, and then
a few weeks later we were all home because of COVID.
(17:13):
So I thought at that point, like, wow, really cool
that we had that conversation. But that's it, you know,
that's all. There's nothing that's ever going to come of that.
And the woman who started Seneco Women podcast network did,
like a few months later follow up with me and say, hey, yeah,
the podcast networks still happening. Are you still interested in
bringing your podcast over to this network? And I said
(17:36):
I was still interested, And we went through like all
the particulars of everything, and she was like, the only
thing is we'll need to change your podcast from seasonal
over to a weekly. So I was going to go
from twenty to twenty four episodes a year to like
forty some episodes a year, which was a pretty big change,
(17:56):
but I was open to it, you know, and it
was very helpful for me, you know, not having the
road as much because everything was so shut down. So
in September of twenty twenty is when this podcast relaunched
to be a weekly, which meant I was still centered
on interviewing women of color and wanting to share their stories,
(18:20):
but I also had more episodes to fill, and so
I tried out some segments and stuff at first, and
then I just got caught up, honestly, in the rigor
of producing a weekly podcast. It was a lot of work.
So then I started doing solo episodes, which I had
never thought about before the podcast relaunched and became a weekly.
(18:42):
So I started doing solo episodes like these and figured
out that I liked them and the listeners were responding
to some of them, and it took me back to
some things that I love about the stage, which is
storytelling and getting a chance to like pick these stories
out and tell them. So it was very great because
(19:02):
I had a space where I could tell stories. It
was also hard because I was sort of telling stories.
When you're doing podcasting, it's like you're telling the story.
I'm here talking to y'all in a room with a
mic wherever you are listening, but I can't see you,
you know, I can't hear your responses, your reactions, like
I can't hear anything. And as a stage person, that's
(19:23):
very hard because I'm used to being on stage and
not even just like what people assume is the ego
gratification of just like having a room full of people
to clap for you. It's not just that. It's that
you're getting a chance to have a conversation with the audience.
You can say something and know if the audience thinks
it's funny or not, and know if the audience identifies
(19:45):
with what you're saying or not. You can feel all
of that in the room. So it was hard to
go from that to like recording this. And sometimes people
listen to a podcast episode and love it, they just
don't tell you. So every now and then when somebody
would like put a review out there or send me
a DM, I would be so excited to get it.
I would be like so happy. What have I learned
(20:06):
since starting this podcast? I guess I should say the
rest is history, right this podcast relaunched in September of
twenty twenty, which means at this point this podcast has
been around for almost five and a half years. Oh
my gosh, that just sounds wild. What have I learned
(20:28):
since starting this podcast? I feel like one thing I
learned is my main rule for choosing people to interview
is do I feel curious about them? Like when I
read their bio, when I go to their Instagram. Do
I want to know more about them? And if I
(20:48):
don't feel that way, then I don't need to interview
them because it will make for a bad interview. It's
like I have to come into it curious about you,
wanting to know more about who you are or how
you do what you do, and I think that makes
an interview really warm. I feel like I learned that.
I feel like I learned how to I don't know
(21:13):
if I want to say be more honest, but I
feel like because I was doing this podcast weekly for
the last three years of it, I feel like, in
a way, this podcast gave me a space to say
and express certain things, and process through certain things, and
talk about certain things with guests, and talk about certain
(21:35):
things with y'all. On a solo episode, that I probably
would never have thought to share. And so I think,
in a way, there were some things that I was
processing in life that this podcast gave me an opportunity
to find my voice and figure out how to say
those things. So I feel like I learned that. I
feel like I also learned that I love podcasting, but
(21:59):
I am primarily and with priority, a writer and a
stage person. So I realized as time was going on,
you know, eventually I'm going to want to like write
books again, go back on the road again, and have
to figure out how will I navigate that while having
(22:20):
a weekly podcast. You know, I learned that you need
a team to do this, you know, so big shout
out to my assistant and my friend Lee, who has
been with me since the very beginning of her with
Amina Brown the podcast. Big shout out to my husband,
who became the producer of this podcast. Really, Lee and
(22:45):
my husband have been with me from the beginning of
this idea germinating, and so, you know, I can't do
this thing by myself. The reason why it goes well
is because of the team that I have with me.
Shout out to my manager Celeste, who was there, and
my attorney Michelle, who's there to help with the negotiations
that we needed to do when it was time to
(23:07):
negotiate this podcast deal. So I learned, you know, I
needed a team, and because I had a team, that's
what made things go so well. How have I changed? Oh,
I mean, are we wanting to be in my therapy sessions?
(23:28):
I mean, I think in the five years that I've
had this podcast, I have grown more and more comfortable
in my skin. I have become less preoccupied with being
who who I think other people think I should be.
I completely let go of remaining in wide evangelical space
(23:53):
and all the ways that I would have had to
continue to make myself small to stay over there. I
discovered that I'm way more progressive than I could say
I was ten years ago, theologically and politically in a
lot of ways. You know, my politics have changed, My
(24:14):
theology has changed since starting this podcast. My self care
practices are better since I started this podcast. So I
feel like this podcast sort of entered my life at
a time where a lot of things were in flux,
and so I feel like I have grown and broadened
(24:34):
and evolved a lot in the five years that I've
been here talking to y'all. The other question is what's
next for me? And I think I will say it's
emotional talking to y'all, and I guess before I go
into what's next for me, I just wanted to say
a really, really big thank you. I said I was
(24:59):
not gonna cry on the podcast, but I just want
to say a big thank you to all of you
who have been listening to this, however long you have.
I know some of you are og people. You were
listening to this podcast when I was still doing seasonal stuff.
Some of you just got here. Maybe, bless your heart,
if you just got here. There's still some old episodes
you can go back and listen to. There's a lot
(25:19):
of great stuff here. But however you came to this
and however long you were here listening, it has meant
the world to me to be able to share my
stories with you. To every guest that I've had here
that trusted me to interview, you trusted me to share
with me about what was happening in your life or
(25:41):
in your work. But I want to take a very
specific moment and thank all of you as the listeners.
This podcast would not be without you, and I appreciate
you listening, and I appreciate your support. This is a
bittersweet moment. You know, this podcast is end a bit
before it was my plan for it to end, but
(26:05):
I wanted you to have I wanted us to have
a moment where we could like actually have a way
to sort of commemorate all that has happened here. And
so I just thank you for listening to me at
your job. Some of you, I know were listening to
me when you were staying with your families during the holidays,
just trying to stay in the right frame of mind. There.
(26:29):
Some of you listen to this podcast on your commute
or as you're walking or taking a jog or whatever
exercise you like, and just know it has really really
meant the world to me to know that even though
I'm in this room by myself, that you're there on
the other side actually listening to all of this. So, yeah,
(26:51):
what's next for me? A little bit? It's I want
to say, there's a little bit of creative rest that
I think is next for me. I think that it
will be good for me to have, you know, some
time off, you know, to kind of see what other
creative stuff wants to come out. Now I am transitioning
(27:14):
over to the substack platform, so I'm looking forward to
exploring that, and the link to my substack will be
in the show notes for this episode as well as
in the description, So if you are interested in following
along with me next to see what's happening. If you
enjoyed my solo episodes here, substack will be a little
(27:37):
bit like that, but in writing form and maybe some
other forms too. We'll see what we develop over there,
but I would love for you to join me there,
to go ahead and subscribe there at that link. And
I think the biggest thing that's next for me is
returning to writing and returning to stage and figuring out
what is my voice now, what does it want to say?
(27:59):
And you know, what do I want to do with that?
What is my new poetry set going to sound like?
What is my next book going to sound like? And
giving myself an opportunity to explore all of that. When
I was talking on the phone to Lee and we
were talking about me recording this last episode, there have
(28:23):
been two meetings that Lee and I have had. This
is now the second creative project that she and I
have been talking through, where she said what if at
the end you did a benediction. And Lee is not
a religious person and I'm not as religious as I
used to be, so I knew when she said benediction,
she really meant it, like she knows that that could
(28:46):
be a bit of a trigger word to both of us,
but in the true spirit of what benediction can be, like,
I knew what she meant. You know that have bendediction
can have this way where you can say your say
parting words to one another and what you hope for
people as they leave you or as you leave them. Right.
(29:09):
So here's my like off the cuff benediction. I think
I first want to speak to the women of color
that are listening to this. You know that I know
what it's like to be in spaces that don't welcome you,
to be in spaces that want you to assimilate, that
(29:30):
want you to be silent, be quiet, that want you
to present in whatever the safe way is to them.
And for some of you, those spaces are at work.
For some of you, those spaces are in your family.
For some of you, those spaces are unfortunately even maybe
(29:52):
in your in your social sphere. Right. But my hope
for you is that you will find spaces where you
can open your mouth wide and laugh, where you can
be loud or be quiet as you need to, where
you are respected and honored, where you are given all
(30:15):
of the space and honor and care that you deserve.
I want to say to you, as women of color,
that your voice is important, that your voice matters, That
you do not have to share your story with anyone,
That is not your job to dig underneath your suffering
(30:39):
and share it with anyone. That you are a multitude
of things, that you are allowed to be a multitude
of things. That being who you are, whether you are
black or Indigenous or Latinae or Asian, whether you are
queer or trans, or gay or buy, whether you're Southern,
(31:04):
whether you're city, whether you prefer a rural space, whether
you live here in America or whether you don't, That
you're worthy, That you deserve wonderful things, that you deserve
to experience joy, and I want that for you. I
want to also speak to the people who grew up
(31:25):
in church like me, some of you that may have
encountered me from a church setting, and I want you
to know that it is okay to evolve, that it's okay,
and good for your beliefs and your thoughts on your
spirituality to shift. And if there is any message that
(31:48):
I have received very strongly the last two years of
my life, it's that wandering does not have to be
a bad thing. That if you are in a place
that feels like wilderness, that feels unsure, that feels uncertain,
that that does not have to be a bad thing.
That you are where you are, and that that's all
(32:10):
we can do sometimes is be present to exactly where
we are and where life has us at this moment.
I want to speak to the people who feel like
you're hanging on by a thread, to the people who
feel like you are underwater in your life and you
are having a lot fewer moments where you feel like
(32:33):
your head is getting above water to get air and
to breathe, And I want to say to you that
it won't be that way always. And I want to
say to you when you get your head up above
that water, to breathe in as deep as you can,
to find some people that you can lean on, to
(32:53):
remember that you are worthy of help, that you deserve
to have people that are you where you do not
have to feel like you are alone, and even the
times you feel alone, as humans, we're not alone. Even
the times we feel so lonely that we feel like
the thing that we're going through no one must know it,
(33:16):
there is somebody somewhere that does know it. And I
wanted to say to you, even if I'm here and
whatever you're experiencing, I may not know it individually myself,
but I hold space with you. I hope for you
as this year is ending and as a new year
is beginning, I hope that you can do as I'm
(33:38):
trying to do in this episode, even though I'm crying
all over it. I hope that you can honor your
endings when they come, whether it's a relationship or a job,
or a thing you used to believe, or a way
you used to look, or a piece of clothing you
have that may no longer be the right thing for
(34:00):
you anymore. I hope that you can honor your endings
when they come, and I hope that you can embrace
your beginnings too. Anyway, I love y'all and I appreciate
y'all so much. Y'all have been the best best audience
that Her with the Meana Brown could have, and I
(34:23):
hope we'll get a chance to see each other soon.
Find me on substack if you're not already following me
on social media. I'm mainly an Instagram girl, so you
know I'll be there and hopefully I'll see y'all soon.
And thank you, thank you, thank you so much for listening.
(34:55):
Her with Amina Brown is produced by Matt Owen for
Sober Fee Productions as a part of the Seneca Women
Podcast Network in partnership with iHeartRadio. Thanks for listening, and
don't forget to subscribe, rate, and review the podcast.
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