The Black & Raww Podcast

Nelson Tanyanyiwa grew up in Harare, Zimbabwe, under the flight path of the old international airport — chasing planes from his garden and dreaming of becoming a pilot. At 18 he passed the psychometric tests, the further maths, the further physics. He got in. His family couldn't afford it.

So he deferred. Took a gap year working for a member of his church. And was offered an engineering scholarship by that same company. Fourteen years later, he's a Director.

But this episode isn't about construction. It's about what happens when the plan falls apart — and what you find on the other side of it.

Nelson and Tino get into the weight of parental sacrifice. What it does to a child to be told at ten years old "your education is your only family." Why well-intentioned pressure from parents can quietly crush the people it's meant to motivate. And what Nelson now does about it — running reverse mentoring sessions with parents to help them understand how their words actually land.

They talk about the moment a CEO rebuked Nelson for staying silent in a meeting — "I pay you for your voice. Don't ever come to a meeting I call and not voice your opinion" — and how that changed everything about how Nelson shows up in rooms.

And they get into YiTR — Youngest in the Room — the mentoring organisation Nelson built from 10–15 years of informal helping that grew too big to stay informal. Three peer groups. Students, professionals, founders. And the question Nelson wrestled with for a long time: should you charge people for help?

This is a conversation about non-linear paths, the cost of sacrifice, what genuine mentorship actually looks like — and why helping one person is always bigger than it seems.

🎙️ Connect with Nelson:

📸 @manelta | @YITR_LTD

💼 LinkedIn: Nelson Tanyanyiwa

📩 [email protected] | 🌐 yitr.co.uk

📖 Book coming 2027: Youngest in the Room

🎙️ Hosted by Tino Bvunzawabaya

Join the community:

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🌐 blackandraww.co.uk | 📩 [email protected] | 📸 @blackandrawwcic | @tino.bvu

Javel Watt stood at his friend's funeral and felt like a hypocrite. He knew where that life was headed. He did nothing to change it.That moment became everything.In this clip, Javel shares his message to any young person who looks like he did at 16 — "Pour into yourself as much as you can. Both street life and change are hard. Make a conscious decision and keep moving forward."Don't just grieve outcomes. Take action while you still can.🎙️ Full episode with Javel Watt — founder of Beyond the Narrative — available now on Spotify and YouTube.🌐 beyondthenarrative.co.uk | 📸 @beyondthenarrative_BTN📩 [email protected]🌐 blackandraww.co.uk📸 @blackandrawwcic | @tinotalk25

SURVEY FOR LISTENERS #BlackAndRaww #JavelWatt #BeyondTheNarrative #Podcast #YoungBlackMen #MentalHealth #StreetLife #Motivation #BlackMen #UKPodcast

Javel Watt arrived in the UK at age 3. By 12, the identity he'd been given had collapsed — he found out via Facebook that the man he called his father wasn't his biological dad, and an internal voice started telling him nobody wants you. By 16 he'd been stabbed — knife through his lung, diaphragm, liver, and intestines, one centimetre from his heart. He went to prison three times. After his final release in November 2024, he spent nine months homeless while raising his daughter Linnea weekly from a caravan on a holiday park.

Today Javel is the founder of Beyond the Narrative — a lived experience consultancy working across schools, prisons, and public sector organisations to change the system from the inside. While still incarcerated, he contributed to the David Lammy Review and was the only prisoner invited into governor-level policy meetings. He wrote and performed a play about stigma in prison that was used for staff training across multiple prisons.

In this conversation, Tino and Javel go deep on what happens when a child is handed over informally without the system noticing. What school exclusion actually does to a young Black man's life trajectory. Why punishing behaviour is the same as saying "I don't like how you express your pain." And why self-actualisation — not safety, not shelter — might need to come first for people living in chaos.

They get into Javel's Collective Individualism workshop, The Hustler board game built to channel street drive into something that builds a future, and the friend's funeral that made Javel realise he was living like a hypocrite.

This is one of the most important conversations Black & Raww has ever had.

SURVEY FOR LISTENERS

🌐 Beyond the Narrative: www.beyondthenarrative.co.uk

📸 @beyondthenarrative_BTN

💼 linkedin.com/in/javel-watt-4b9a38238

🎙️ Hosted by Tino Bvunzawabaya | @tinotalk25

🌐 blackandraww.co.uk | 📩 [email protected] | 📸 @blackandrawwcic

Everyone was happy he was gone. I wasn't sure I was.

In this episode, I'm sitting in my garden just thinking out loud about Keir Starmer — what he actually did that nobody gave him credit for, why he couldn't sell it, and what it means that Andy Burnham is almost certainly next.

This isn't a defence of Keir. It's an honest look at a man who could execute but couldn't communicate. And in politics, that might be the only thing that matters.

We also get into: Trump, the Peter Mandelson scandal, U-turns, the pipeline from austerity to now, and what any of this actually means for regular people in the UK.Spoiler: keep calm and carry on.

🎙️ Subscribe to the podcast —https://open.spotify.com/show/6YuvShs10SwaKexOf1JcHo📩

Substack (Thoughts Out Loud + more—https://tinobvunza.substack.com/

📋 Got thoughts on the podcast? Fill in the survey — https://forms.gle/ZhUEkqhCEbmBSki18

This one is personal.

For Father's Day, Tino sits down with his own dad and asks him the questions most sons never get to ask. What does it mean to be a biblical father? What is servant leadership when you're the one who has to hold the house together? And what happens when you get it wrong?

They go into the reality that our grandparents were learning just as our parents were learning, and our parents were learning just as we are now. The mistakes aren't excuses. But they are in context.

They talk about what it means to lead a family through faith, what his dad actually loves about Father's Day, and the fears that don't go away — no matter how long you've been a parent.

And then it gets deeper. They talk about power imbalances in marriage. What it does to a man when that's off. What it costs him. What he carries quietly.

For the young men out there navigating life without a father — there's a message in this one too.

This is the Father's Day episode we didn't know we needed.

🎙️ Listen on Spotify and YouTube
🌐 blackandraww.co.uk
📩 [email protected]
📸 Instagram & TikTok: @blackandraww
🎙️ Hosted by Tino Bvunzawabaya | @tinotalk25

Three men in my guest's life died alone last year. People were around them. Nobody knew for days. This is the conversation about silence we've been avoiding.

In this episode, I sit down with Ajani Kingdom — educator, author, founder of Brunch Brothers, and one of the most important voices on Black men's mental health in the UK.

We talk about the mask, the cost of silence, what it actually looks like to build a table and invite men to it and why "I'm fine" might be the most dangerous sentence a man can say.

CHAPTERS00:00 — Introduction02:30 — Who is Ajani Kingdom?07:00 — Building Brunch Brothers14:00 — The silence spreading through our community22:00 — Three men who died alone31:00 — What masking is actually costing us40:00 — How do you build a table men actually want to sit at?51:00 — Faith, identity and what grounds us58:00 — What Ajani wants young men to know

ABOUT AJANI KINGDOMAjani Kingdom is an educator, author and community builder who has spent 13 years working in schools, churches and alternative provision centres across the UK. He is the founder of Brunch Brothers — a space for men to come together, eat, and have honest conversations.

📖 An Invitation to the Table — available on Amazon📖 Four Fires — available on Amazon🎭 Stories Boys Don't Like to Tell — Oct 9–17 · Dugdale Art Centre, North London

Follow Ajani:→ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ajanikingdom/→ Brunch Brothers / Stories Boys Don't Like to Tell: https://www.instagram.com/sbdltt/→ Brunch Brothers Podcast on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/3skpoeY2Sks6qVUNAW0QrC

ABOUT BLACK & RAWWBlack & Raww is a podcast and community space for young Black men aged 16–25 to speak honestly about identity, masculinity, mental health, and everything we're taught to carry

in silence.

📩 [email protected]📱 Instagram & Instagram: @blackandraww

Watch On Youtube

#BlackMensMentalHealth #MensMentalHealth #AjaniKingdom #BlackAndRaww #Masculinity #MentalHealth #BlackPodcast #BrunchBrothers #UKPodcast #YoungBlackMen

The allure of the manosphere is real and that's exactly what makes it so dangerous.

After watching Louis Theroux's Netflix documentary, I had to talk about it. In this episode, I break down the 4-step funnel that traps young men: from self-improvement bait, to identity formation, to finding a villain, to having your pain monetised by men who don't actually care about you.

I also talk about the human cost. The young man crying in his car, the trauma behind the figures we see online, and why I'm not shocked our boys are falling for this. And I bring in a faith perspective that nobody else is talking about.

This isn't a shame episode. This is a reach-out episode.

If you're a young man listening to this I see you. And I want better for you than what the manosphere is selling.

📺 Watch on YouTube: Youtube Episode Out Tomorrow

🌐 www.blackandraww.co.uk

📸 @tinotalk25

Here are my raw thoughts about the new documentary on the manosphere. I thought it was so interesting to see these men express all their emotions. I say that because they don't share what has happened to them or how it made them feel. Their actions say it all. I'll do a longer podcast about this.

However, for today, I thought let me show you the rambling thinking my brain sometimes does. This is not edited.

I apologise if I say things that aren't PG. (E.g., women being "run through." You know I would never say that. I was using their language.)

See how easy it is to be a man who's feeling lost, lonely, with little purpose or even a man who has drive but takes poor advice from these men who are boys themselves.

What if the reason you're struggling financially isn't because you don't make enough money—it's because nobody taught you what to do with what you have?

In this powerful episode, Tino sits down with Dr. Paris Woods, bestselling author of The Black Girl's Guide to Financial Freedom (120,000+ copies sold) and the upcoming The Student's Guide to Financial Freedom.

Dr. Woods went from £70,000 in debt at age 30 to complete financial freedom. And in this honest, no-fluff conversation, she breaks down exactly how she did it—and how you can too.

This isn't your typical finance interview. It's a real conversation about:

• Why society is designed to keep you in debt
• The simple wealth-building formula that actually works
• How to recognize financial traps and bad advice
• Why financial freedom is 80% mindset, 20% practical skills
• What it really means to be free with your money and your time

Whether you've got £100 or £10,000 in your account, this conversation will change how you think about money.

Follow Dr. Paris Woods:

• Instagram: @authorParisWoods
• TikTok: @authorParisWoods
• Website: ParisWoods.com

It's December. Cuffing season. Everyone's talking about Christmas markets and Netflix with their person. But what about the rest of us?

In this raw and honest episode, I open up about my three-year journey as a single person, the reality of modern dating, and why so many young men are struggling right now. From the economics of dating apps designed to keep you single, to the fear of approaching someone in public, to watching all your mates get married while you're still here still trying.

I dive deep into Reddit threads that expose a crisis nobody's talking about: a 75% decrease in sexual activity among young adults, the death of third spaces, and why relationships feel more transactional than ever.

But this isn't just doom and gloom. I also share what happened when I finally took a risk, asked someone out, and remembered something important about myself.

Topics covered:

• Why dating apps are extortion and designed to keep you lonely
• The approach dilemma: when did talking to people become creepy?
• Economic pressure and prioritising your future over dating
• Masculinity, vulnerability, and the provider trap
• The comparison game and feeling left behind
• What happens when you take action despite the anxiety

If you've ever felt invisible, not good enough, or stuck while everyone else moves forward this one's for you.