Growing up with gal-dem

Welcome back to Growing up with gal-dem, this week we’re joined by Lila Iké, genre-bending artist whose work touches reggae, hip hop and R&B. Joining us from Jamaica, Lila’s extract reads from an old Facebook bio written when she was 15. Reflecting on the wisdom and foresight she shared as a teenager 12 years ago, Lila talks through existential teenage thoughts and feelings, grounding yourself as a musician, and the importance of mentorship, friendship and collaboration in creative practices. 

Speaking from shared experiences as Existential Teens™, Natty, Nie, and Lila talk about growing up online, what it meant to post “into the void”, and what wisdom we can take from our younger selves - no matter how or where we shared it. 

You can catch Lila Iké at City Splash in Beckenham this September, tickets via Eventbrite here. 

This week’s episode is sponsored by Transport for London. Visit madeby.tfl.gov.uk/i-stand-with to find out more about how TfL are standing up against hate crime on the public transport network.”

Transcripts of each episode of Season 5 can be found here.

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We’re back with season 5 of growing up with gal-dem, welcoming our new host Niellah Arboine! 

This week, we’re kicking off with a bang with incredible artist Cat Burns, celebrating introspection, self-care and self-respect in the wake of her incredible new single Into You. 

Looking back on an iPhone note recorded in lockdown, Cat, Natty and Nie discuss what it means to hold yourself to a higher standard, the strength we can draw from voicing your opinions, the sacred space that is the Notes app, and how we can treat ourselves as gently and carefully as we would our best friends. 

If you haven’t already listened to Into You, listen through here or watch the incredible video released this week here.

Transcripts of each episode of Season 5 can be found here.

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It’s the final episode of this season of Growing up with gal-dem, and our last episode with Charlie! We’re rounding out the season with a special episode featuring everyone’s podcast dream girl-group, The Receipts. Joined by Tolly, Milena, and Audrey, we dig up old facebook statuses, blog posts, and recap the inevitable learnings (and cringes) that come as you grow up online. 

Covering everything from their upcoming book Keep the Receipts, to bride prices, motherhood, and “unleashing the beast”, this is is a beautiful conversation to close out our series. 

You can listen to The Receipts on Spotify, and find pre-orders of their book here.

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This week on Growing up with gal-dem, Natty and Charlie are joined by Christine Checinska, curator at the V&A and fashion historian. Christine talks us through her childhood as a creative child, teacher reports and advice on nurturing her skills, and how her interest in blackness, fashion, and self-imaging started. 

Covering everything from diasporic fashions, respectability politics, and the nuances of black womanhood, this week’s episode is a beautiful journey into conversations and areas that deserve our attention and interest. Listen through, and if you’re able - visit some of Christine’s curated work at the newly re-opened V&A in London.

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This week on Growing up with gal-dem, Charlie and Natty are joined by Sri Lankan musician Priya Ragu, who’s work fuses her Western influences with her South Asian origin and merges intercultural accumulation of traditional rhythms and contemporary r&b and soul. Raised in Switzerland by refugees of the Sri Lankan Civil War. Ragu and her brother, Japhna Gold, were not encouraged to pursue music, however Ragu did it anyway. 

Priya joins Natty and Charlie to talk through her vision board - our first ever vision board for Growing up with gal-dem! What at the time felt like distant dreams came to fruition for Priya over an incredible year, with vogue features, NPR tiny desk appearances, and record label attention. Through the episode Priya talks to Natty and Charlie about trusting and investing in your dreams, collaborating with friends and family, and balancing international musical success with a day-job in accounting.

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This week on Growing up with gal-dem, Natty and Charlie are joined by award winning British Sudanese economist and writer Nesrine Malik. Reflecting on her upbringing and travel to the UK, Nesrine talks to Natty and Charlie about what it means to navigate the worlds of education and work having grown up in the Middle East and Northern Africa, and how our need to mythologise, create stories, and sometimes delude ourselves is a universal trait. 

Nesrine reads an extract from an article written 9 years ago, and discusses how her own approach to criticism and writing has changed over the years, and how important it is to recognise and respect the ways our own experiences and advantages have shaped the way we think. Natty and Charlie reflect on this within the context of group-think, communities, and safe spaces. How do our attempts to create spaces of comfort or recognition based on shared experience potentially push us into damaging or limiting ways of thinking, and how can we prioritise inclusivity without inadvertently becoming exclusionary?

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Content warning: mentions of assault. 

This week we’ve brought you a bumper 50 minutes worth of podcast, a beautiful conversation between Natty, Charlie, and the incredible poet, activist, writer and actor Staceyann Chin. Covering everything from motherhood, queerness, creativity and growing up in the Caribbean, Staceyann brings us into her world and how her upbringing and experiences in both Jamaica and the United States have informed her creative and activist organising. 

Reading her powerful poem “Common Truths or Why I Love My Pussy”, Staceyann, Natty, and Charlie talk about girlhood growing up under patriarchy, the violence that exists in so many young women’s upbringing, and what it means to fight for a future that you might not yourself benefit from.

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This week Natty and Charlie are joined by Liv Francis-Cornibert, writer, Advocacy Academy alumni, and co-founder of the group Legally Black to discuss burnout and mental health within activist and social justice work circles. 

Reflecting on a poem written for an online diary, Liv, Natty, and Charlie talk about how hard it is to reconcile intersectional politics and work with our capacity to work and hold multiple stories at once, and how often we sacrifice our mental health in the process. 

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We’re back with another season of Growing up with gal-dem, and this season Charlie and Natty are joined by incredible artists, speakers, and authors for 8 episodes. In this first episode of the new series, we’re joined by the incomparable Sampa The Great, who reads a poem from 3 years before, and talks about racism in the music industry and community, how our words and power can become affected by the hurt we feel, and how we can find strength and healing in shared community. 

Sampa shares how her upbringing, and movement from a majority black country to Australia affected her, and how this influenced her perception and understanding of racism, and solidarity with Indigenous Australians.

You can find transcripts for past episodes of Growing up with gal-dem on our website here.

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