January 27, 2022 • 11 mins
In this Money Moves bonus episode, Amanda talks about the development of her community-based entertainment company Smart, Funny, and Black. Her aspirations of the brand and how it's empowering the black community.
Moreover, she shares information of the development of her talk show, which she made during the pandemic, named "Views from Amandaland." Amanda reveals her future ambitions of producing and selling programs.
Amanda Seales is a multifaceted creative. She is a comedian, actress, writer, singer, producer, podcast host, EDITOR and activist.
You may have seen her in HBO's Insecure, her very own standup special "I be Knowing." In addition, she is the creator and host of the variety game show "Smart, Funny, and Black" and the host of the insightful podcast "Small Doses. "
Host IG: @itstanyatime
Guest IG: @amandaseales
Website: Smart Funny and Black
Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey, Money Movers, Welcome back to Money Moves, the daily
podcast determined to give you the keys to the Kingdom
of financial stability, wealth and abundance. Amanda, I want you
to talk to us about your community based entertainment company,
(00:22):
Smart Funny and Black. Tell us more. I need to
know everything. So Smart Money and Black started as just
like a game show, and we say we're community based
because everything we create is for the advancement, empowerment and
upliftment of the Black community. Of course, you know, anyone
can watch, but it's for us. And we are very
(00:42):
conscious about making stuff that is that is not just
about like the black experience, is also about Black history,
also about black culture and using comedy to do that.
Our our motto is by any joke necessary. And I
started with this game show, but it has blow awesome
into so much more by nature of the fact that
(01:03):
people really wanted work in this space. And I think
there was this thought process that said, like, black people
only like a certain kind of comedy, and that was
the case for like a long time. But there's like
this other argument where we always talk about that we're
not a monolist, so why would there only be one
type of Fundy and so, you know, Smart Funny and
Black really speaks to um a very into an intellectual
(01:26):
based comedy. It's very witty, it's very clever. And we
started SFP Society, which was a community based app that
we had for a little bit. You know, We've done merch,
we do live shows. We've done two national tours. We
sold out the we sold out the Candy Center and
had people swag surfing in the concert hall during during
Drum's era. And now we are launching our Smart, Funny
(01:49):
and Black Patreon. And what's cool about Patreon is that
Patreon is a community. It's a platform, a stream up
platform where your fans can come for your content. And
we are doing a pay what you want model. You know,
the lowest you can pay is five dollars, but if
you want to pay twenty, we ain't gonna stop you
(02:09):
or a hey, let's put it out there. But it's
community based and it's also independent. And I really feel
very strongly about making sure that my Smart Phony of
Black brand continues to be owned by me because I
need to ensure that what we are putting out is
at the highest caliber, that it is always about uplifting
our community, and that is not letting commercial nonsense friend
(02:34):
upon the actual substance of the content. So yes, I
am selling shows and working on shows that are coming
out of Smart Phonny and Black Productions. But you will
be able to get Smart Phonny and Black Entertainment on Patreon,
and I hope that you guys tune in because we
definitely have some dope step that we're creating for you,
okay on Patreon Smart Funny and Black. I love that
because I completely appreciate your sense of humor and the
(02:55):
wittiness behind it, the smartness, the intellect, the intelligence. Like
I love being challenged and having like a good belly
laugh where I'm like trying not to pee my pants,
but I feel like my brain cells are not being lost,
So I love that. I just think that we are
in an era where everybody has a platform, you know that,
you know, social media is a gift in a curse,
and then it gives everybody a voice. But unfortunately, there's
(03:16):
a lot of folks that are really irresponsible with that platform,
you know, And I'm fortunate, And I don't just mean
the people that are speaking, I mean people are irresponsible
with who they're listening to you know, and so I
don't take it lightly that I have one point eight
million people that are subscribed to hear what I have
to say. And with my art, I don't take it
(03:38):
lightly either, And so blending those two worlds of my
social consciousness with my creative consciousness is really like a
beautiful thing that I get to do. And smart, funny
and black is not only allowing me to do that
with my work, but ranching out and doing that with
other people's work in the same space. And I hope
money moves audience. You do follow her on Instagram because
I was checking out. I've followed you for a while,
but I was checking out, Um, your new series that
(04:01):
you have on your Instagram that you're always talking about,
So please tell us about it. It's really cool. I
hope you guys check it out. But tell us about
that and or and how that came to be. So
Views from Amanda Land is a series that I created
out of this pandemic, this little panini that we're in,
because it was like, I'm in the house, I need
to make I need to make something. I'm the kind
(04:23):
of person where if I'm not creating, I will fall
into a depression. So it was like, all right, like
let's create. And I was really fortunate to also have
built up a team around me that's like excited about
creating the same way I am. So Views from mandal
Land was born out of the fact that people be
asking me all these questions and my d ms y'all.
They'd be asking me about life lessons. They'd be asking
me about should I be with my man, should I not?
(04:44):
Should I leave my dream behind? Should I not? Should
I should? I'm just like okay, And so I was like,
how can I create a talk format that is very
like authentically Amanda, but it also leaves room to talk
about a myriad of talk thics. Not it's not just politics,
not just education, et cetera. And so bus roman Land
(05:06):
is a format where we have folks sending questions. I
answer their questions, and their questions are answered, sometimes just
very directly with me talking like this. Sometimes I have
a character that I pull out. Sometimes we'll do a sketch,
sometimes we do an interview. It's really just like me,
You're not really sure what you're gonna get, but you
know what's gonna be good. It's gonna be funny. And
it's gonna be intellectual, and so we do that. We
(05:28):
did the first four episodes. We're launching. The next four
are with our Patreon and okay great, yes, and it's
a hundred percent produced by my smart funding and black
production team. Wow. So I love this and I edited.
I mean I'm supposed to. They're always like a Manda.
Please let people know that you are an editor. So
there you go, Ricarlo, I edit it, and I have
(05:48):
had to learn how to like own the fact that
I'm editing the show and I'm good at it. Wow,
I mean I love this. I mean I have to
add editor now to the to the credits and accolades.
Owner paid. Until I'm being paid to edit, I don't know.
I'm not. I'm not gonna claim the title. You can
because you're the CEO, so technically you know it's under
(06:11):
the umbrella Touche touche, so this is fair. But you know,
the CEO tends to pay themselves last, so we could
go into the weeds on that one. But anyways, al right, aman,
do you have so much stuff on the go? What's next?
Can you please tune us in? We know we're gonna
tune into the Patreon, but like, tell us some secret
stuff that you're working on, you know what. To be honest,
(06:33):
I'm really just working on creating and selling shows. And
that's something that I never had the bravery to do.
Like as as much as we talked earlier on about
like the confidence and the discipline, etcetera, etcetera, it was
like that I just had this wall in front of
me when it came to doing that. And then you
had people Charltte would be like, I don't understand. You've
been produced since it was like eight years old, but
(06:53):
there was just something about this entertainment business that felt
like I couldn't step into that space. And what I
really lives was that I didn't have the team around
me that I needed in order to step into that space.
And now that I do, I feel empowered to bring
my creativity into that space, into the commercial space in
a real way. And so I'm hoping that you all
(07:15):
will see a lot more from me on a higher
level of production very soon. Wow. I love that, and
like I want to tap into this because you know,
here's the thing is, black women like you exude confidence
and you've achieved so much, but you just were like
super vulnerable and you're like, yeah, I didn't think I'd
be able to do this, or I didn't think I
had the team around me. Like how do you deal
(07:35):
with those blocks? And you know, work past those little
voices inside that are like maybe you can't do it. Well,
you do just that you deal with them. And I
think a lot of us don't. We run from them,
We mask them, we avoid them, Um, we lie to
ourselves about the origins of them. And so I had
to just keep and I think sometimes when we don't
(07:58):
find the answer immediately, we just which try to forget them.
So I kept asking myself this question, you know, and
I took a minute for me to really get to
the bottom of like, oh, that's what it is. And
and also I think I'm I'm a pretty open person.
So if I'm not getting the answers within myself, I'll
ask people like why do you think I'm afraid of this?
(08:21):
You know? And it's not just anybody. I'm not just
talking to the teller at Wendy's. Oh that does sound good.
I was just gonna say, but sometimes, you know, my
barista at Starbucks is a wealth of wisdom. But you
know what I am that person. For other people, people
who have never met me will come up to me
and just ask me random questions and there's something I
guess about my demeanor that makes them feel like I
(08:43):
think she may know right. But I say all that
to say, that's really been um, it's really been just
a journey of like willfulness that gets me to the
bottom of those questions and gets me to the other
side of those walls. And when I say willfulness, it's
just a willingness to keep it real with myself and
no matter what I uncover, right, because then you might
(09:06):
uncover something that you don't like. I mean, I've had
to uncover at a certain point like oh I'm jealous.
Oh that's ugly, And then you gotta work your way
back from that, like well, why are you jealous? What
is that? What's the root of that? You know, how
do you how do you change your thinking to not
operate in such a toxic space? And you know, how
do you start to celebrate people instead of as seeing
(09:27):
their see instead of seeing their advancements as a reflection
of your failures. And it's so easy to do that,
and it's not it's not to say that you're saying
they shouldn't have that I should have it. But it
can really just be the toxicity of competition, right, And
so a lot of us don't want to admit to
ourselves the places where darkness has risen to the surface.
(09:48):
But we all have it. It's like this shirt. I mean,
we all have darkness and light in our in our
in our spaces. And when you when you address it,
that's how you deal with it, and that's how you
get over it, and that's how you stop letting it
impact your guidance and your your path. You know, It's
so funny because I also feel like these are the
lessons that it's taken me years to learn. So this
(10:10):
is why Cordy is so incredible. You know, you you
just can't get it at this magnitude in your twenties,
even though you know what we thought we knew everything,
but unfortune. So that's why I'm like hopeful. I've get
so excited to share these things because I was like,
didn't someone tell me this when I was twenty two?
Could I have learned this at twenty two? But I
also think like millennials now there's so much more hip
(10:30):
to the game. They are so much more open and
receptive to learning this, I hope um, and so sharing
stories helps. I think there's definitely a certain level of openness.
I think I fear that there's also the the other
part of that is that there's like a certain level
of like lack of context for things, and like people
(10:53):
just like like there's just kind of a oh, I
get it now because now someone has said it to me,
and it's like, well, experience is really the best teacher.
Experience is the best teacher. That is so true. Thank
you so much for tuning in Money Moves audience. If
you want more or a recap of this episode, please
go to the bank Greenwood dot com and check out
the Money Moves podcast blog. Money Moves is an I
(11:19):
heart Radio podcast powered by Greenwood Executive produced by Sunwise Media, Inc.
For more podcasts on I heart Radio, visit the i
heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your
podcasts from.
Hey, Money Movers, Welcome back to Money Moves, the daily
podcast determined to give you the keys to the Kingdom
of financial stability, wealth and abundance. Amanda, I want you
to talk to us about your community based entertainment company,
(00:22):
Smart Funny and Black. Tell us more. I need to
know everything. So Smart Money and Black started as just
like a game show, and we say we're community based
because everything we create is for the advancement, empowerment and
upliftment of the Black community. Of course, you know, anyone
can watch, but it's for us. And we are very
(00:42):
conscious about making stuff that is that is not just
about like the black experience, is also about Black history,
also about black culture and using comedy to do that.
Our our motto is by any joke necessary. And I
started with this game show, but it has blow awesome
into so much more by nature of the fact that
(01:03):
people really wanted work in this space. And I think
there was this thought process that said, like, black people
only like a certain kind of comedy, and that was
the case for like a long time. But there's like
this other argument where we always talk about that we're
not a monolist, so why would there only be one
type of Fundy and so, you know, Smart Funny and
Black really speaks to um a very into an intellectual
(01:26):
based comedy. It's very witty, it's very clever. And we
started SFP Society, which was a community based app that
we had for a little bit. You know, We've done merch,
we do live shows. We've done two national tours. We
sold out the we sold out the Candy Center and
had people swag surfing in the concert hall during during
Drum's era. And now we are launching our Smart, Funny
(01:49):
and Black Patreon. And what's cool about Patreon is that
Patreon is a community. It's a platform, a stream up
platform where your fans can come for your content. And
we are doing a pay what you want model. You know,
the lowest you can pay is five dollars, but if
you want to pay twenty, we ain't gonna stop you
(02:09):
or a hey, let's put it out there. But it's
community based and it's also independent. And I really feel
very strongly about making sure that my Smart Phony of
Black brand continues to be owned by me because I
need to ensure that what we are putting out is
at the highest caliber, that it is always about uplifting
our community, and that is not letting commercial nonsense friend
(02:34):
upon the actual substance of the content. So yes, I
am selling shows and working on shows that are coming
out of Smart Phonny and Black Productions. But you will
be able to get Smart Phonny and Black Entertainment on Patreon,
and I hope that you guys tune in because we
definitely have some dope step that we're creating for you,
okay on Patreon Smart Funny and Black. I love that
because I completely appreciate your sense of humor and the
(02:55):
wittiness behind it, the smartness, the intellect, the intelligence. Like
I love being challenged and having like a good belly
laugh where I'm like trying not to pee my pants,
but I feel like my brain cells are not being lost,
So I love that. I just think that we are
in an era where everybody has a platform, you know that,
you know, social media is a gift in a curse,
and then it gives everybody a voice. But unfortunately, there's
(03:16):
a lot of folks that are really irresponsible with that platform,
you know, And I'm fortunate, And I don't just mean
the people that are speaking, I mean people are irresponsible
with who they're listening to you know, and so I
don't take it lightly that I have one point eight
million people that are subscribed to hear what I have
to say. And with my art, I don't take it
(03:38):
lightly either, And so blending those two worlds of my
social consciousness with my creative consciousness is really like a
beautiful thing that I get to do. And smart, funny
and black is not only allowing me to do that
with my work, but ranching out and doing that with
other people's work in the same space. And I hope
money moves audience. You do follow her on Instagram because
I was checking out. I've followed you for a while,
but I was checking out, Um, your new series that
(04:01):
you have on your Instagram that you're always talking about,
So please tell us about it. It's really cool. I
hope you guys check it out. But tell us about
that and or and how that came to be. So
Views from Amanda Land is a series that I created
out of this pandemic, this little panini that we're in,
because it was like, I'm in the house, I need
to make I need to make something. I'm the kind
(04:23):
of person where if I'm not creating, I will fall
into a depression. So it was like, all right, like
let's create. And I was really fortunate to also have
built up a team around me that's like excited about
creating the same way I am. So Views from mandal
Land was born out of the fact that people be
asking me all these questions and my d ms y'all.
They'd be asking me about life lessons. They'd be asking
me about should I be with my man, should I not?
(04:44):
Should I leave my dream behind? Should I not? Should
I should? I'm just like okay, And so I was like,
how can I create a talk format that is very
like authentically Amanda, but it also leaves room to talk
about a myriad of talk thics. Not it's not just politics,
not just education, et cetera. And so bus roman Land
(05:06):
is a format where we have folks sending questions. I
answer their questions, and their questions are answered, sometimes just
very directly with me talking like this. Sometimes I have
a character that I pull out. Sometimes we'll do a sketch,
sometimes we do an interview. It's really just like me,
You're not really sure what you're gonna get, but you
know what's gonna be good. It's gonna be funny. And
it's gonna be intellectual, and so we do that. We
(05:28):
did the first four episodes. We're launching. The next four
are with our Patreon and okay great, yes, and it's
a hundred percent produced by my smart funding and black
production team. Wow. So I love this and I edited.
I mean I'm supposed to. They're always like a Manda.
Please let people know that you are an editor. So
there you go, Ricarlo, I edit it, and I have
(05:48):
had to learn how to like own the fact that
I'm editing the show and I'm good at it. Wow,
I mean I love this. I mean I have to
add editor now to the to the credits and accolades.
Owner paid. Until I'm being paid to edit, I don't know.
I'm not. I'm not gonna claim the title. You can
because you're the CEO, so technically you know it's under
(06:11):
the umbrella Touche touche, so this is fair. But you know,
the CEO tends to pay themselves last, so we could
go into the weeds on that one. But anyways, al right, aman,
do you have so much stuff on the go? What's next?
Can you please tune us in? We know we're gonna
tune into the Patreon, but like, tell us some secret
stuff that you're working on, you know what. To be honest,
(06:33):
I'm really just working on creating and selling shows. And
that's something that I never had the bravery to do.
Like as as much as we talked earlier on about
like the confidence and the discipline, etcetera, etcetera, it was
like that I just had this wall in front of
me when it came to doing that. And then you
had people Charltte would be like, I don't understand. You've
been produced since it was like eight years old, but
(06:53):
there was just something about this entertainment business that felt
like I couldn't step into that space. And what I
really lives was that I didn't have the team around
me that I needed in order to step into that space.
And now that I do, I feel empowered to bring
my creativity into that space, into the commercial space in
a real way. And so I'm hoping that you all
(07:15):
will see a lot more from me on a higher
level of production very soon. Wow. I love that, and
like I want to tap into this because you know,
here's the thing is, black women like you exude confidence
and you've achieved so much, but you just were like
super vulnerable and you're like, yeah, I didn't think I'd
be able to do this, or I didn't think I
had the team around me. Like how do you deal
(07:35):
with those blocks? And you know, work past those little
voices inside that are like maybe you can't do it. Well,
you do just that you deal with them. And I
think a lot of us don't. We run from them,
We mask them, we avoid them, Um, we lie to
ourselves about the origins of them. And so I had
to just keep and I think sometimes when we don't
(07:58):
find the answer immediately, we just which try to forget them.
So I kept asking myself this question, you know, and
I took a minute for me to really get to
the bottom of like, oh, that's what it is. And
and also I think I'm I'm a pretty open person.
So if I'm not getting the answers within myself, I'll
ask people like why do you think I'm afraid of this?
(08:21):
You know? And it's not just anybody. I'm not just
talking to the teller at Wendy's. Oh that does sound good.
I was just gonna say, but sometimes, you know, my
barista at Starbucks is a wealth of wisdom. But you
know what I am that person. For other people, people
who have never met me will come up to me
and just ask me random questions and there's something I
guess about my demeanor that makes them feel like I
(08:43):
think she may know right. But I say all that
to say, that's really been um, it's really been just
a journey of like willfulness that gets me to the
bottom of those questions and gets me to the other
side of those walls. And when I say willfulness, it's
just a willingness to keep it real with myself and
no matter what I uncover, right, because then you might
(09:06):
uncover something that you don't like. I mean, I've had
to uncover at a certain point like oh I'm jealous.
Oh that's ugly, And then you gotta work your way
back from that, like well, why are you jealous? What
is that? What's the root of that? You know, how
do you how do you change your thinking to not
operate in such a toxic space? And you know, how
do you start to celebrate people instead of as seeing
(09:27):
their see instead of seeing their advancements as a reflection
of your failures. And it's so easy to do that,
and it's not it's not to say that you're saying
they shouldn't have that I should have it. But it
can really just be the toxicity of competition, right, And
so a lot of us don't want to admit to
ourselves the places where darkness has risen to the surface.
(09:48):
But we all have it. It's like this shirt. I mean,
we all have darkness and light in our in our
in our spaces. And when you when you address it,
that's how you deal with it, and that's how you
get over it, and that's how you stop letting it
impact your guidance and your your path. You know, It's
so funny because I also feel like these are the
lessons that it's taken me years to learn. So this
(10:10):
is why Cordy is so incredible. You know, you you
just can't get it at this magnitude in your twenties,
even though you know what we thought we knew everything,
but unfortune. So that's why I'm like hopeful. I've get
so excited to share these things because I was like,
didn't someone tell me this when I was twenty two?
Could I have learned this at twenty two? But I
also think like millennials now there's so much more hip
(10:30):
to the game. They are so much more open and
receptive to learning this, I hope um, and so sharing
stories helps. I think there's definitely a certain level of openness.
I think I fear that there's also the the other
part of that is that there's like a certain level
of like lack of context for things, and like people
(10:53):
just like like there's just kind of a oh, I
get it now because now someone has said it to me,
and it's like, well, experience is really the best teacher.
Experience is the best teacher. That is so true. Thank
you so much for tuning in Money Moves audience. If
you want more or a recap of this episode, please
go to the bank Greenwood dot com and check out
the Money Moves podcast blog. Money Moves is an I
(11:19):
heart Radio podcast powered by Greenwood Executive produced by Sunwise Media, Inc.
For more podcasts on I heart Radio, visit the i
heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your
podcasts from.
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