Brown Sugar: The Podcast

In Episode 10, the season finale, we have a candid conversation with the most special of guests, our lovely parents!

Aside from raising these three cracking young ladies, they have plenty of accomplishments and valuable life lessons. Tune in to hear them dish their advice on relationships, careers, parenting and more! 

Does Aky's dad bring up Singapore as much as she does? Is Hannah's mum as much of a romantic as Hannah? And, does Rachelle's mum talk as much as she does? 

#GrabYourTea 

In Episode 9, we are joined by tech start-up founder David Fisayo to explore the issues faced by young black professionals in the UK. We discuss code switching and how facets of black identity can be perceived as unprofessional. Finally, we also discuss the morality of “playing the game” to be seen in white-majority workplaces. To wrap up, David then provides some insight into his career-defining moments that led him from KPMG to starting his own company.

Episode 8 is Part 2 of our discussion around whether you can be pro-black and date outside your race. Joined by special guests Noni and Ore, we dig deeper into gender differences within this debate and whether it is fair to gatekeep other members of the black community. Finally, we share more of our own experiences with interracial dating.

This week's episode is centred around the question of if you can be pro-black and date outside your race. To dissect this question, we’ll be discussing what exactly being “pro-black means, the importance of the black family and whether or not who you date is a political statement. To conclude, we’ll go through some of our favourite/least favourite celebrity examples! In this two part episode, we're joined by two special guests of the pod Noni and Ore to give us their views.

In Episode 6, we play a card game called 'We're Not Really Strangers' which aims to dig deep and reveal intimate truths. We reveal our biggest fears, insecurities, embarrassing memories and life lessons and learn not only more about each other, but our own selves! 

In episode 5, we dabble in a game of the Oppression Olympics i.e. the competition that arises when minority groups try to ascertain which group is the most oppressed, competing for a "prize": a seat at the table. 

Are there finite seats at the table or should we be breaking down the table of the oppressors and be making our own? 

Lastly, can an intersectional lens facilitate solidarity across different communities? 

In Episode 4, we'll have a chance to dissect what exactly "Cancel Culture" is and the many nuances to this ever expanding debate through a fun game of to cancel or to keep. We’ll also be joined by two guests Diyora Shadijanova and Xi Bovell to see what they have to say about the debate. Diyora talks with us about the evolution of the term itself, and the complex relationship that exists between cancel culture, activism and social media. Xi highlights today's conflation of cancel culture and collective action, and then gives us some pointers for some actions we can do instead of "cancelling". Lastly, we finish with a self-inflicted exposé of some of our worst and most "cancellable" online statuses of the past. 

This episode centers around dating as a black woman. We discuss the beauty standards surrounding hair and when we'd feel comfortable being wigless in front of a new partner. Black women face a constant seesaw of being either fetishised or deemed undesirable. This is compounded by cultural expectations and being asked "when will you marry!" at every family gathering. We break down how to set your standards confidently and believe that you don't need to 'settle' in order to settle down. 

In Episode 2, we dissect a term called 'white fragility' (coined by sociologist Robin D'Angelo), which describes the disbelief and sensitivity that white people exhibit when they are told they are complicit in society’s institutional racism. 

Should the onus be on people of colour to keep having these exhausting conversations? Or should the supposed ally be in charge of their own “wokeness"?

Lastly, we discuss reverse racism and epistemic violence, and why tweeting  #StopWhitePeople and #StopBlackPeople are NOT the same thing...

Get to know Brown Sugar!


Find out why we went to prison, why Aky finds incorrectly used apostrophes so frustrating, what Hannah would do with a million dollars and about Rachelle's awful dress sense in our Get to Know Me tag!

Grab your tea, we'll bring the sugar!