Episode 25 Featuring Valerie Graves

Shennell Barnes talks to Valerie Graves about her career and book 'Pressure Makes Diamonds'

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:02):
Welcome to Dear America, where your voice matters and every
vote counts. Join us as we explore the power of
black and brown communities in shaping our future. It's time
to make your mark and be heard.

Speaker 2 (00:17):
Hello America, this is Dear America with Chanelle Barnes and
I am I'm honored. I'm honored and humbled to be
joined with Miss Valerie Graves, Miss Valerie. Well, I just
want to make sure I say on record, I said,
Miss Valerie. Miss Valerie said, I can call her Valerie,
so definitely yes. Okay, So let me just do this

(00:38):
introduction because I think it's important that everyone know exactly
who you are. We're joined by a true pioneer in
advertising and media, name one of the one hundred best
and brightest by Advertising Age, She's broken barriers as a
chief creative officer, shape campaigns for Fortune five hundred companies

(01:00):
and written the award winning memoir Pressure Makes Diamonds. From
Motown Records to the Clinton campaign, She's been behind some
of the most influential messaging of our time. Welcome Valerie.

Speaker 3 (01:14):
Oh, thank you, thank you for that introduction.

Speaker 2 (01:17):
Now, thank you, thank you. So let's just jump right
into it. You grew up in Michigan, you were a
teenage mom. I'm certain that you faced a ton of challenges.
Can you talk to us about some of those obstacles
actually shaping or shaped some of your success?

Speaker 4 (01:34):
Now, well, I actually was not that girl that you
expected to be a teenage mom. For my early life,
I've kind of got a lot of my identity out
of being one of the smart kids. And it was
kind of the way Michelle Obama was as a kid, right,

(01:56):
But you know, there was no Michelle Obama, of course.

Speaker 3 (02:02):
So I went through.

Speaker 4 (02:05):
A kind of explosion in my family when my mother
remarried when I was thirteen. The chapter in the book
is called mom Drops the Nuclear family Bomb.

Speaker 3 (02:15):
Yes, and that's kind of what happened.

Speaker 4 (02:18):
And that's where I lost my way from being the
excellent student and wound up pregnant, fell in love for
the first time, I got my heart broken, and it's
just kind of spirally at that time.

Speaker 3 (02:34):
So that did lead to a lot of break.

Speaker 5 (02:37):
Will do that, A heartbreak will do that?

Speaker 3 (02:39):
Oh yeah, yeah, I was.

Speaker 4 (02:42):
I think one chapter begins, I wondered if anyone ever
died from a broken heart, because when you haven't felt
that you know, you can't imagine what that's like, but
at any rate, it did mean that instead of heading
off to Harvard or somewhere I thought I would be going,
I ended up having to get a job and support

(03:05):
a child, with a lot of help from family and
people who were like family to me. But still, you know,
I primarily had a baby. My friends were going off
to college, and I was getting an Union card, you know,
and working at a real.

Speaker 3 (03:20):
Job in a hospital as a ward clerk.

Speaker 4 (03:23):
Okay, yeah, so there was there was that challenge, But again,
I had my own expectations of the kind of life
that I was going to have, and at a time
when a lot of people had just kind of abandoned
that expectation of me.

Speaker 3 (03:42):
You know, nobody was mad.

Speaker 4 (03:43):
A lot of girls had babies, but they just didn't
expect me to be one of them. And they just
sort of thought, well, all of these, you know, big
things that we hoped would happen for her aren't going
to happen.

Speaker 3 (03:55):
So a lot of people gave up on me.

Speaker 4 (03:57):
But I honestly can say that I never gave up
on myself.

Speaker 2 (04:01):
How did you find the how did you find that
within yourself?

Speaker 5 (04:05):
That level of perseverance, that level of great.

Speaker 3 (04:08):
It was always who I thought I was.

Speaker 4 (04:13):
The Well, the subtitle of the book is Becoming the
woman I pretended to be. And by pretended, I don't
mean you know, asn't fake it till you make it.
I mean holding a picture of myself that was very

(04:33):
consistent with who I had always thought I was and
who I thought I would be, and always kind of
having that person, uh to try and become in front
of me. So that's what the pretended to be part
of it is about. There was always a picture of
you know, what Valerie is going to be, like, what

(04:53):
Valerie is going to be doing anyway?

Speaker 5 (04:57):
I love it.

Speaker 2 (04:57):
And so you started your career at BBDO and JWT
agencies where black women.

Speaker 5 (05:05):
Were rare in creative roles.

Speaker 2 (05:07):
What were those early days like and how did you
navigate the industry during that time.

Speaker 4 (05:12):
My very first job was at the agency that later
became DMB and B. It was Darcy mcmadison Masius Advertising,
which was in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, and I was one
of two women in a group with twenty two men
working on a Pontiac car account.

Speaker 3 (05:35):
So when I think about that period in my career.

Speaker 4 (05:39):
I call it my life as a white guy, because
it was really just for me. At that time. I
was just happy to be there. I had a job
in advertising. I never knew anybody who had a job
in advertising, but again, always expecting that I was going
to do different things and big things and all of that.

Speaker 3 (05:59):
I've found myself there absolutely.

Speaker 4 (06:02):
So I spent a couple of years just kind of
being one of the guys, learning how to joke the
way that they joke and laughed at the things that
they laughed at.

Speaker 3 (06:14):
Mostly yes, you know.

Speaker 4 (06:15):
But then later on I began to find my own voice,
and when I moved into multicultural advertising, I really found
my calling.

Speaker 5 (06:27):
You mentioned in.

Speaker 2 (06:28):
One of your interviews, because I reviewed so many of
your interviews in advance of our time together, that you've
become a master at code switching.

Speaker 5 (06:37):
Can you tell me a little bit more about that.

Speaker 4 (06:40):
Well, I was a code switcher reallegged right from the beginning,
because I grew up in public housing. Although it was
very nice public housing, you know, with backyards and fences
and all that, because it was really housing that was
built for all the auto workers who.

Speaker 3 (06:56):
Had swarmed into Pontiac. But I always.

Speaker 4 (07:02):
Wanted to speak standard English from the moment that I
realized there was standard English. My mother pretty much just
standard English. But all around me was, you know, black dialect,
kind of Southern dialect because so many people were from
the South. So I was code switching by Kindergarten.

Speaker 5 (07:24):
Right, right.

Speaker 2 (07:26):
Given the state of the nation now, I think there
are so many people that are wanting to tell their stories,
wanting to tell them authentically and being true to who
they are. Do you still suggest that code switching is
important as you're navigating these different environments.

Speaker 3 (07:44):
I don't think it's as necessary as it was for me.

Speaker 4 (07:48):
I think certainly black culture is leading in a way
that it absolutely was not when I was a young
person looking for that first job.

Speaker 3 (07:57):
I look at a generation.

Speaker 4 (08:00):
Were almost two generations now who expect to be able
to go to work and be their authentic selves. And
I couldn't applaud that more. My generation kind of never
expected to be able to be themselves in these white
workplaces that we were going into.

Speaker 3 (08:19):
I had to learn and earn my way into being.

Speaker 4 (08:24):
Able to be my authentic self and finding value in
being my authentic self in the way that I think
is not really necessary now because black culture leads so
much where world popular culture goes.

Speaker 2 (08:40):
Absolutely, in your in your book or your memoir, pressure
makes diamonds. You capture your struggles, your challenges. Is there
any specific pressure if you could just pinpoint one of them,
because I know there are series, but one specific pressure
that really pushed you into becoming a full dime that

(09:00):
you always were.

Speaker 4 (09:01):
It was the pressure of living up to the expectations
that I'd had for myself for my whole life, that
I was going to quote be somebody and go somewhere.
That was just so ingrained in me that the times
when I felt I wasn't really doing that were a

(09:24):
lot of There was a lot of pressure on me,
mostly self inflicted. I could have just had a job
and stayed in Pontiac, Michigan, but it was almost not
in my DNA to do that.

Speaker 5 (09:37):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (09:38):
Absolutely, I think there are a lot of women, and
I can speak personally, where we have a vision for ourselves,
We know where we want to go, but sometimes we
feel lost in getting there, and that level of pressure
could be heavy and maybe could even cause someone to
crumble underneath that pressure. What's your ad vice two women

(10:02):
who are navigating trying to get to that expectation of themselves,
but they just haven't quite achieved that yet.

Speaker 1 (10:10):
Well.

Speaker 4 (10:10):
I had my moments of crumbling, of feeling lost, of
feeling like it was never going to happen for me,
and that no one cared whether it happened or not.
And I remember one particular moment I was just lying
on my couch and I started to cry. I remember
tears rolling down into my ears and suddenly coming to

(10:35):
this place of realizing that I cared. That no matter
who didn't believe in me anymore or what I was
going to do, that the important thing was that there
was a part of me that cared, and you know,
just sort of being able to pick myself up from them.
I moved halfway across the country in order to hit

(10:58):
the reset button. So my advice is, no matter where
you are, you can get to where you want to
go from there.

Speaker 3 (11:09):
Yes, just pick yourself up.

Speaker 4 (11:12):
Just stay in touch with that authentic part of yourself
who believes in you and your dreams. Because if you
have a dream and you really believe in it, it
is almost a magical process of manifestation.

Speaker 2 (11:29):
Yes, this is I mean, this is exactly what I'm
gonna just speak for myself is what I needed to
hear today.

Speaker 5 (11:35):
So I thank you so much for sharing it.

Speaker 2 (11:38):
Two years ago, you served as a creative director and
copywriter for the NBA's Get Out the Vote video. Do
you believe content like this still has the power to
activate voters, both within the NBA community and beyond.

Speaker 3 (11:53):
Well, I hope, so, I certainly hope.

Speaker 2 (11:56):
So.

Speaker 4 (11:57):
I think that when I did that work, I was
thinking about the journey that my own son went on.
He once didn't vote because he was certain that Hillary
Clinton was gonna win and it didn't really matter whether
he voted or not. And he has totally evolved from
that place to being a person who even votes in

(12:18):
local elections and off your elections.

Speaker 3 (12:21):
So yeah, yeah, So I hope.

Speaker 1 (12:25):
So.

Speaker 4 (12:25):
I hope to have been part of someone's evolution out
of the mindset that their vote didn't matter, because every
vote counts. It's how we've gotten what we've gotten in
this country, and we have come a long way despite
being in not the best times right now and having

(12:49):
to remind ourselves how bad we are, you know, how
absolutely magnificent we are as women, as people of color,
as immigrant population, as all of the groups that are
currently under assault right now, it's it's a good time
for us to remember that the vote has always been

(13:10):
our friend.

Speaker 2 (13:12):
As a mom, just taking a step back, how did
you specifically navigate that conversation with your son bringing him
to the outcome that his vote matters, all votes matter.

Speaker 3 (13:24):
Well, I certainly can't take all the credit for that.

Speaker 4 (13:28):
My husband, whom I met when I was eleven years old,
that other story.

Speaker 2 (13:35):
You need to come back, so we talk about this story,
and he needs to come with you.

Speaker 3 (13:39):
Unfortunately, he passed away a couple of years.

Speaker 5 (13:41):
Ago, so sorry, my condolences, thank.

Speaker 3 (13:44):
You, thank you.

Speaker 4 (13:45):
But at any rate, he was a political journalist, and
he also was a person who had this wonderful quality
of being able to listen to people with whom he
very much disagreed without trying to make them feel that
they didn't have the right to feel the way they felt.

(14:06):
And he is the one who really sort of talked
to my son in this calming, wonderful and brilliant way
that he had about the importance of voting, or about
the importance of having an informed opinion about things instead
of just well, everybody knows or people say.

Speaker 3 (14:27):
That kind of thing. That was actually quite frustrating to
me as a mother to listen to my son talk
like that.

Speaker 5 (14:35):
But I can't imagine.

Speaker 4 (14:37):
My husband had infinite patience, and I have to give
him most of the credit for Bryant's political evolution.

Speaker 5 (14:44):
Yes, I love it.

Speaker 2 (14:45):
You worked on political campaigns like the Clinton campaign, which
is interesting that you cited that that's the moment that
your son actually realized, Okay, it may be time to vote.
But just stepping into your work there. Given what you
saw in the last presidential election this past one, what
advice would you have provided to Democrats and Republicans.

Speaker 3 (15:09):
Boy, that's a great question. I have to tell you.

Speaker 4 (15:12):
I think that Kamala Harris ran a brilliant campaign. I
think that what happened with the last election, and this
is just my personal opinion, is that it had less
to do with politics and more to do with a
certain group of people watching the country change and being

(15:37):
so uncomfortable with that. Yes, I mean, Kamala Harris was
clearly the more qualified candidate. I thought that she ran
her campaign beautifully and it was about people and about
the ideas that she had for how to make life
better for Americans. So I don't know that I would

(15:58):
have that much advice for them to do anything differently,
I think they got caught in a particular moment in
American history where the country has to decide what it is,
what it stands for, and how important our constitution and
the rule of law are.

Speaker 5 (16:19):
Sure.

Speaker 2 (16:19):
Absolutely, and what about your advice to Republicans if any.

Speaker 4 (16:25):
I don't have any advice for the Republican Party as
it is currently constituted, except that if there are those
among them who are really right thinking people of integrity,
that they need to grow a pair.

Speaker 5 (16:43):
Yes, okay, all right.

Speaker 2 (16:45):
I wasn't expected at this valerie, but I love it.

Speaker 4 (16:50):
Now.

Speaker 2 (16:51):
As someone who's been at the forefront of diversity and advertising,
what role do you think major brands should play in
advancing or protect diverse voices and media.

Speaker 4 (17:02):
I think that they have to demand accountability because the
only people who can create diversity are the people who
are at the top, and they have to show commitment
for it. I have been very pleased to see that
there are some major corporations that said, no, we have

(17:24):
a commitment to diversity, We're not changing. I can name
a couple of them, but that probably wouldn't be fair
because there are a lot of them that are standing
up and saying no. Diversity is something that we believe in.
But I think, as I had always thought about advertising,
it could change in a heartbeat if the clients demanded diversity.

(17:48):
At the time that I got into advertising, it was
a time of an affirmative mindset with the government, and
all they had to do was say, oh, if you
have the US Army account or the US Marine's account,
or any government account, then you have to have people
working on our business who reflect the diversity of the

(18:11):
American population.

Speaker 3 (18:12):
All of a sudden, they could find.

Speaker 4 (18:14):
Us, you know, because the excuse always was that they
wanted to hire people of color, that they just couldn't
find us.

Speaker 5 (18:21):
Right, that's right.

Speaker 2 (18:22):
Well, I was just doing some reading and saw that
Joy read over at MSNBC and shout out to Joy
because we appreciate her so much. There are tons of
other journalists that are just being taken away from the
opportunity to storytell. I know advertising also has its space

(18:44):
for storytelling. Do you think we're going to continue to
see a decrease in representation just based on the state
of the nation, Given what we're seeing even with our
black journalists.

Speaker 3 (18:56):
For this moment. Yes, I do.

Speaker 4 (18:59):
I'm really an OG in advertising and advertising came alive
for me when I joined the Uniworld, which is now
called UWG Advertising, because it was an agency that was
devoted to black culture, black consumers, and ultimately it expanded

(19:22):
beyond that to you know, be people of color that
were represented. And I think those guys had the right idea.
The Byron Lewis's and Carolyn jones Is and Carol Williams
who started their own excuse me, Tom Morell who started
their own agencies. I don't think anyone is ever going

(19:46):
to give us what we want and what we deserve
as cultural leaders in the advertising industry until we are
again creating our own businesses and coming from a place
not only of authenticity, but of ownership.

Speaker 2 (20:09):
Absolutely, I think there's been an evolution. I wonder if
you agree that there's been an evolution of how you know, advertisers,
marketers are thinking about reaching black audiences or audiences of color.
How have you seen that evolution over your tenure in
this work.

Speaker 4 (20:27):
Mostly I think it's been a devolution, Okay, And when
I look at commercials, well, you look at all of
the integrated couples and you know, just like multicultural families.
Although I think that's a lovely picture, I don't think
that culturally it is accurate. Yes, And I think that

(20:52):
it was one of those things that evolved because people
thought of, Okay, we'll solve a problem. We just like
make the wife black and the husband white, and the
kids will be like whatever they are.

Speaker 3 (21:03):
But that does not create a culture.

Speaker 4 (21:07):
It doesn't have a genuine place of shared experience.

Speaker 3 (21:14):
To come from.

Speaker 1 (21:15):
Right.

Speaker 4 (21:16):
Maybe it will two generations from now, but not now. Yes,
so I think that culturally we've taken a step backward
to just relying on casting rather than culture.

Speaker 2 (21:32):
Yes, there are tons of content creators right now.

Speaker 5 (21:35):
People are waking up.

Speaker 2 (21:37):
They're deciding to own their youtubes, their facebooks, their Instagrams,
their tiktoks. What's your advice for budding content creators who
are just waking up and making the decision to start
to tell their story and or the stories of other
specifically for our people of color.

Speaker 3 (21:56):
Keep doing what you're doing.

Speaker 4 (21:58):
I think that all of these things are a brave
new world, and so nobody has all of the answers.
It's certainly not me who's who's coming from a more
traditional kind of background when it comes to storytelling.

Speaker 3 (22:13):
But my story is not your story.

Speaker 4 (22:16):
Although we have I'm sure a lot in common, you know,
we don't know each other very well. I know that
instinctively because we're both African American women. So what I
say is, keep keep telling your stories, keep doing what
you're doing. My breath is taken away by just watching them.

(22:37):
I have a nephew who's a filmmaker. I have a
niece who is an actor and a content creator now.
And I have another niece who has come from a
totally sort of unexpected point of view on the subject
of diabetes. She's a Type one diabetic and now she's

(22:59):
an ambassador for the American Diabetes Association. She's written two
children's books about living with diabetes.

Speaker 3 (23:08):
And you have to everyone to share, Oh please do.

Speaker 4 (23:11):
Her name is Sophia bass These are all my Bassier
nieces and nephews. These are my brother's children. But they
are all telling stories having impact in different ways, and
I just stand back and watch them. And that's kind
of how I feel about a lot of people who

(23:32):
are creating content today. They don't really need advice for me,
they just need to do more of what they're doing.

Speaker 3 (23:38):
Keep it going.

Speaker 2 (23:39):
Yeah, I love that you're leading the charge with Afro
Games Afro Games Johannesburg, blending basketball and hip hop in
a revolutionary way that speaks to both culture and community.
What inspired you to create this unique fusion and how
do you envision Afro games changing the next for black

(24:00):
creators globally.

Speaker 3 (24:02):
Well, basketball has been very, very good to me. Let
me just say that my son was a very short
person who was.

Speaker 4 (24:12):
Very good at basketball, and once he made the varsity
high school basketball team, you could not tell him that
he was not going to play in the NBA. So
my husband and I was sort of steering him around
you like, how do you find another career? And in
fact he did become one of the top salespeople meet
in the NBA. And for a few years of the

(24:35):
NFL you worked for the Detroit Lions. So I know
the good that the sport of basketball can bring on
and off the court into a person's life. I know
that we have a lot of young men who are
kind of sports obsessed. In the case of Africa, the
sport is more soccer, but that is the genesis of

(24:58):
Afro Games is to create love for a sport that
I know brings opportunity. There are lots of kinds of
jobs that can be provided and the population of Africa
is the youngest on the planet. The average age of
an African is nineteen years old, so that means there

(25:19):
are a lot of young people who need jobs, who
need direction, who need a focus. And the purpose of
Afro Games was discover basketball and all of the good
things that it can bring into your life. Well, how
do you get people to discover basketball? You do something
that I've done before in my career, which is blended

(25:42):
with something that we already know you love. Yes, we
went to Johannesburg. We did a focused group with young
African men and found out that they were basketball already
because they are already living on social media. They are
into hip hop music as well as afrobeats and ama
piano music.

Speaker 3 (26:03):
They are into urban fashion.

Speaker 4 (26:06):
So all we had to do was add basketball to
the mix and they did. The first year of Afro Games,
we just saw so much love being created for the sport.

Speaker 5 (26:17):
Yeah, I love it.

Speaker 2 (26:19):
I love the vision. Are you planning to continue the vision?
What's the future?

Speaker 4 (26:24):
We are the future for US is Afro Games twenty
twenty five, which it will take place this year, yeah,
in September. We are right now in the very challenging
process of bringing in sponsors. But you know it's always
a challenge, yes, to get sponsors for events. But we

(26:45):
are partnered once again with Paramount Africa, which came with
us last year. They saw our vision. They took our
audience from our live audience of stay fifteen hundred to
just under three million eyeballs because of Paramount social media
on MTV, MTV.

Speaker 3 (27:06):
Base and b Et Africa platforms.

Speaker 5 (27:08):
So you know, beautiful.

Speaker 4 (27:10):
Kudos to Monde Twala, who is the visionary who saw
what we were doing and who has come back with
us for another year.

Speaker 3 (27:18):
So stay.

Speaker 2 (27:20):
Kudos to you for getting his going and bringing his
vision to life.

Speaker 4 (27:24):
Oh well, that took a whole team of people, and
I would be remiss not to say that I could
not have done this without a team of about six
other people who really came and did their thing as
part of it.

Speaker 3 (27:40):
I did what I do.

Speaker 4 (27:41):
Which is conceptualized, which is have the idea, which is
reach out to bring someone like an entity like Paramount
into the fold. But boy, I had people who were
just operations and sponsorship geniuses.

Speaker 5 (27:58):
Right, yeah, I love it.

Speaker 2 (27:59):
We're seeing such a rapid decline, if you will, on
folks ability to be able to create community, especially for
communities of color, in the way that you have been,
the way that you are through Afro Games. What is
your advice or opinion for how people should continue to
navigate this space where a lot of people don't want

(28:22):
to see black stories being told, They don't want to
see us in the news and media, but yet it's
important for us to be there.

Speaker 4 (28:29):
Well, I think that organizing community or gathering, I guess
it's more a word that I like. Community is very
much aided by doing it around a shared interest, right.
I look at things like there's an organization called ad
Color which brought together many, many people of color just

(28:52):
around the advertising field. Yes, Afro Games is organized around
sports and culture. So I think that it's very helpful
to find a shared area of interest that isn't necessarily
about race, yes, you know, but more about culture. And

(29:15):
there are all kinds of cultures.

Speaker 5 (29:17):
Yes, that's right.

Speaker 2 (29:18):
Before we transition into I have a segment called a
rapid fire wisdom. I have some wisdom here, Oh, I
think everything has been wisdom. But before we transition there,
I'm wondering, having written your book some years ago, is
there any thing from your book that you think people

(29:41):
should specifically pay attention to now that will help people
navigate the state of the nation right now.

Speaker 3 (29:50):
Wow, that's a deep question.

Speaker 5 (29:53):
I told you I can't prepare for you.

Speaker 4 (29:55):
Yes, from my book, I think the indomitability of spirit
is something that is divorced from time and space.

Speaker 3 (30:14):
It just is, you know, there is having a.

Speaker 4 (30:19):
Consciousness of one's ability to create whatever you can conceive,
and it's not through our conscious efforts. Yes, we have
to do some things, you know, you have to keep moving,
but it also will seem like your success has magically

(30:43):
just come into being if you focus on the spiritual
aspects of living. You know, that's beyond politics. It's beyond
any particular political climate. Yes, which changes anyway. And I've
lived through, you know, a lot of different kinds of

(31:06):
political climates.

Speaker 3 (31:07):
So that's the good news, is that you know.

Speaker 4 (31:10):
Nothing is forever, and the pendulum swings from one side
one extreme, it always to the other, it always does.
This too, shall pass is something to always keep in mind.
And I guess that's something from my book too, because
there were times when I needed to know that this
too shall pass right.

Speaker 2 (31:32):
Right, Okay, can you talk a little bit more with
us about some of the lessons that you got while
you're while doing your time with Motown.

Speaker 4 (31:41):
One lesson that I learned is that you can be
right about something, but timing is everything.

Speaker 5 (31:50):
Right.

Speaker 3 (31:51):
When I was at.

Speaker 4 (31:52):
Motown, we were dealing with Napster, if you can remember that,
and I said in a meeting, and remember I was
an advertising person coming into this, which Andre Herrell knew.
He was like, you'll pick up this business, don't worry
about it. But anyway, I said, well, we have to
learn how to market music online. And the general manager,

(32:18):
who was actually a supporter of mine, said, oh right,
and put our biggest customers out of business because at
that time we weren't selling records directly to consumers.

Speaker 3 (32:32):
We were selling them in the record stores.

Speaker 5 (32:34):
That's right.

Speaker 4 (32:35):
And I felt like the biggest idiot in the world
for having said that.

Speaker 5 (32:41):
And now we are.

Speaker 4 (32:42):
Yeah, but now go looking for you know, like Tower
Records now or any of.

Speaker 3 (32:47):
The giants of that time.

Speaker 4 (32:49):
So I was like, you can have a great idea,
you can be right about something.

Speaker 3 (32:56):
By timing is everything. So that was the one that's right.

Speaker 2 (33:02):
I think a lot of your career has been rooted
somewhat in the entertainment industry.

Speaker 5 (33:07):
What got you.

Speaker 3 (33:08):
There the love of music.

Speaker 4 (33:13):
I can still remember vividly the first time that I
went into a bar. It was really like a saloon
with live music, and there was a group playing that was,
you know, kind of reminiscent of a Crosby Stills, nash.

Speaker 3 (33:33):
A type group.

Speaker 4 (33:34):
And I just fell in love with live music, with
rock music, and a guest.

Speaker 5 (33:40):
I love rock music good, right.

Speaker 2 (33:45):
The biggest dream is to have a rock concert like
I would and bring back some of degrees.

Speaker 5 (33:50):
So I shared that love with you.

Speaker 3 (33:52):
Wonderful.

Speaker 4 (33:53):
Yeah, Well, I was in love with music, and as
often happens, when you have a belief you have something
that you love.

Speaker 3 (34:01):
I knew that I.

Speaker 4 (34:02):
Wanted to be involved with music, write about music. Opportunity
just comes out of nowhere. My first paid writing gig
was doing the program magazine for a huge and still
in existence music theater in Michigan called pineap Music Theater.
Pineab got all of the big national acts somewhere in between,

(34:27):
you know, New York and Chicago, they would play this
music theater in Michigan. So all of a sudden I
had entree not only two groups that were like Crosby
Stills and Nash, but to Crosby Stills, Nash of huge
groups like that and other groups that you know, were
hugely popular. Stevie Wonder people like that played at Pine No.

(34:50):
So that was my entrance to it. And actually my
first job in advertising I really lost because I couldn't
make up my mind between advertising and rock music land,
where I was living so out, way too late every

(35:13):
night and you know, not showing up on time for
work and you know, just generally messing up at work.
It was really when I moved to Boston that I
made the decision like, Okay, for me, it's going to
be advertising. This is how I'm going to make a living.
But I love music, and that was my entree all right.

Speaker 2 (35:35):
As someone who's worked on major campaigns for brands like GM, PEPSI,
and Big of America, how do you view the power
and responsibility that comes with these major corporations being able
to control narrative, especially as it pertains to the black community.

Speaker 4 (35:52):
Well, I didn't find them to be particularly controlling of
the narrative when it came to African American consumers. Okay,
Byron Lewis had instead of our advertising beyond the walls
at our agency, it was black art from his rather
extensive collection. And I used to ask him about that

(36:15):
all the time, and he said, people don't clients don't
come here to get advertising, they come here to get blackness.
And because I had a genius and a visionary like
him as my boss, and someone who seeded that notion
in my head, I always knew when I came to

(36:36):
UNI World that we knew something they didn't know, and
we knew something that their other advertising agencies didn't know too.
And you know, there came a time when they were
the other agency, the general market agencies put a target
on our back and really tried to get us off
of these big brands. But as long as our assignment

(36:56):
was to talk to the African American consumer, they could
never outdo us. That was my favorite, saying, you will
never out black me. How could that be?

Speaker 5 (37:06):
That's right, that's right, You'll never out black You can't
do that.

Speaker 2 (37:10):
Yes, that's true. I want to go with some data.
I've been reading some articles and it said. One of
the articles said, with sixty percent of black adults expressing
concern about news media's ability to shape perceptions, how can
we build trust with the black community while maintaining authenticity.

Speaker 3 (37:32):
When you say we, I mean folks.

Speaker 2 (37:35):
In advertisement, folks in marketing, how can they maintain the
trust given how black adults are expressing just the loss
of their narrative in the media.

Speaker 3 (37:46):
Through authenticity and understanding of the truth of a culture.
If you see me and do you play that back
to me, then we can talk. Then I feel some
measure of trust that you are.

Speaker 4 (38:03):
Going to be representing me fairly and with dimension and
realizing that I have agency, And particularly if you realize
our contribution, if you recognize our contributions.

Speaker 3 (38:18):
To popular culture. Another Byron lewis saying, you know that
Black creativity is the dynamo of popular culture worldwide, and
we need to own that. And those marketers that play
back their understanding of that to us have a leg

(38:39):
up on everybody else.

Speaker 5 (38:40):
I love that.

Speaker 2 (38:42):
What gives you hope for the future as it pertains
to Black voices and media.

Speaker 4 (38:47):
Just the magnificence of black people. We cannot be stopped.
We've never been stopped will never be stopped. I visit
did Ghana a few years ago, and.

Speaker 5 (39:04):
A lot of head to Ghana.

Speaker 4 (39:06):
Yeah, yeah, because Ghana is very welcoming. Right now, it's
offering citizenship. But when I went there, I went to
the slave castles on the slave coast, and it was
very hot, and I remember like sort of ringing out
this paper towel that I had just perspiring to death

(39:28):
and noticing my sweat dropping on to the same stones
where these people had been kept in dungeon like conditions
waiting for the slave ships to.

Speaker 3 (39:45):
Come and pick them up.

Speaker 1 (39:47):
Wow.

Speaker 4 (39:49):
And I walked out the door of no return, and
I turned around and walked back in and threw my
hands up into the air and said, I'm back, bitcheso.
And I I was so filled with that reality that

(40:11):
four hundred years later and more, that here I was,
with my successful black self, having absorbed every blow, having
taken everything my ancestors, having taken everything that you could
throw at us, and look at me, here I am.

Speaker 3 (40:35):
I'm back.

Speaker 4 (40:37):
And it's that kind of resilience, that magnificence of spirit
that lets me know that even though these are painful
times for people who you know, share my mindset.

Speaker 3 (40:51):
This is not the end of us.

Speaker 2 (40:54):
Is that what you would say to those who are
feeling a bit hopeless?

Speaker 3 (40:57):
Oh?

Speaker 4 (40:58):
Yes, because how can you feel any more hopeless than
a person who has been ripped from their homeland, packed
like sardines into a slave ship, brought to a foreign land,
had your culture deliberately disrupted, broken up tribes just to

(41:21):
make sure that it wouldn't be easy for you to
communicate with each other, overcome all of the horrors you
know of being enslaved and ended up where we are now.
We've been through a lot worse than this, So I

(41:42):
guess that's what I would say to anyone who's feeling
hopeless now that we've.

Speaker 3 (41:49):
Been through worse.

Speaker 5 (41:50):
Yes, absolutely, they can't.

Speaker 3 (41:53):
Then you know, they can't kill us, They can't mess
with us.

Speaker 5 (41:57):
They cannot mess with us. I mean, that was amazing.
Words of wisdom?

Speaker 2 (42:03):
Any final words of wisdom for those fighting to be
heard in today's landscape.

Speaker 3 (42:08):
Don't give up your voice. Okay, don't give up your voice.

Speaker 5 (42:14):
All right, let's get into our rapid fire wisdom.

Speaker 3 (42:17):
Favorite book, the Autobiography of Malcolm X.

Speaker 5 (42:21):
Okay, that's amazing.

Speaker 2 (42:23):
The most important lesson you've learned during your time at Motown.

Speaker 3 (42:29):
That you can still be effective when you.

Speaker 4 (42:34):
Are not in control, because that was one situation where
I definitely was not in control of most of the
events going on around me. But I still think of
some of the things that I did there as being
very effective.

Speaker 2 (42:48):
Okay, all right, what campaign are you most proud of
and why?

Speaker 4 (42:53):
We did a campaign for Buick Enclave, which was supposed
to be the African American commercial. We featured the lead
interior designer of the Buick Enclave, who is a gorgeous
black man named Michael Burton in our commercial. Basically, we

(43:18):
took over the media rotation they ran our commercial. We
cannot turn on the television without seeing our Michael Burton commercial.
In quantitative research, it shattered records for changing purchase intent
and behavior. So I would take a certain amount of

(43:41):
credit for that advertising kind of taking the.

Speaker 3 (43:44):
Ick out of Buick. That's a big thing to be
able to do in advertising.

Speaker 2 (43:52):
Yes, absolutely. What are three essentials for authentic storytelling? Top
three essentials.

Speaker 3 (44:00):
Doing work that is based on real values, on shared experience.
I need to have three.

Speaker 5 (44:12):
If you can't.

Speaker 3 (44:16):
There's two.

Speaker 4 (44:18):
Using building your work on certain pillars of when when
you're talking to African American audiences, for example, you really
can't talk too much. You can't overdo talking about the
relationships between family fathers. Uh, there's so much talk about

(44:42):
single parent households.

Speaker 3 (44:43):
But I always used.

Speaker 4 (44:45):
To remember that even if half of our families are
female headed, right, that means half aren't. And that's the
half that we don't hear enough about, and that African
America and consumers can't hear too much about.

Speaker 2 (45:02):
That's right, you know, that's right. You you actually let me
to my last rapid fire. Tell me if there's if
there's anything else that you would say to this, But
what's the biggest mistake you've seen brands make when targeting
black audiences?

Speaker 4 (45:16):
Being superficial, just being superficial finding out about something. Probably
the most egregious example of that that I can think
of that. I think it was Toyota that did the
grill yes with a car in it.

Speaker 3 (45:32):
It's like, whose stupid idea?

Speaker 5 (45:34):
We don't know?

Speaker 3 (45:35):
That's that? Or Pepsi with that March commercial.

Speaker 4 (45:41):
Oh yes, trivializing of everything that Martin Luther King stood for.

Speaker 3 (45:49):
That's right in the civil rights era.

Speaker 4 (45:51):
So you know they've been some real big booboos.

Speaker 5 (45:55):
Yes. Absolutely.

Speaker 2 (45:57):
The show is Dear America, and Dear America comes from
this concept of people's ability to be able to say
their love letter to America. So if you had the
opportunity to talk directly to America, which I think you
do right now through the show, what would you say
to Dear America. Black women need and what would that be?

Speaker 3 (46:20):
Dear America.

Speaker 4 (46:22):
Black women need to be valued, appreciated, understood for the
glue that we've been, the foundation that we've laid.

Speaker 3 (46:39):
For generations that came.

Speaker 4 (46:42):
You know, Nikki Giovanni said that black women should be
the ones who were sent to Mars because we've figured
out how to get along with everybody that's right, and
we had little Martian babies, we would like pat them
on the head and say you're going to be all right, Yes,
you know, you're all right. I think that there are
tremendous qualities in America already that are due to the

(47:08):
existence of black women in this society, and that we
aren't often given credit for it and value for it.
And that's what we need and I say need because
we've been getting along without it, because we always get
along long but it sure would be nice.

Speaker 2 (47:24):
That's right. I love that. What is your next step?
What can we look to see from you in the
next coming months?

Speaker 3 (47:33):
This year, I want to see Afro Games twenty twenty
five be bigger, better, bedder and bolder. Yes, and I
need to be there.

Speaker 5 (47:44):
Okay, I want the invitation.

Speaker 3 (47:47):
Listen, you have.

Speaker 4 (47:48):
That invitation as a matter of pace, I've heard that
from enough people that we are trying to add a
tour component amazing, so that you know, American audiences can
come and experience the wonder of South Africa and of
Afro Games. Yes, so please, but that is my aspiration

(48:12):
for the immediate future, for the foreseeable future.

Speaker 2 (48:16):
What about a part two to the book? Are we
considering that? Possibly?

Speaker 4 (48:21):
You know, I've been considering another book since I wrote
the first book, and there still is in a second book, so.

Speaker 3 (48:28):
I'm not sure that I have another book in me.

Speaker 4 (48:32):
When I wrote this, when I told my husband, I
don't know if I can write anything longer than a
thirty second commercial, and it said, well, you can write
this because you already know the story. That's right, And
I guess the story continues, but you know, one doesn't
necessarily look at one's life and say, oh, you know

(48:52):
there are things that I have, you know that can
benefit other people. I guess if I have, if I
feel at some point that I really have something more
to say, there'll be another book.

Speaker 2 (49:02):
Amazing And with that, this is Dear America with Chanel Barnes.
And again I am thrilled, honored, and humbled to be
sitting here with Miss Valorium. Yes, it's been an incredible
time and I can't wait to have you back on
the show.

Speaker 3 (49:17):
Well, thank you.

Speaker 2 (49:18):
Tune in next time where we will capture real voices
and real stories.

Speaker 5 (49:23):
Thank you. Bye.

Speaker 1 (49:27):
This has been a Project Ready and a Freedom Studios production.
To learn more and effect change, log on to Project
readynjy dot org or listen anytime on all major podcast
carriers