Long before social media was filled with clips from people with microphones and podcast studios, we had kitchen tables and front porches, beauty shops and barbershops, church parking lots and family reunions. We have always found places to gather, talk, laugh, debate, tell stories and make sense of what is happening around us. It is part of how we build community, how we pass down wisdom, and sometimes how we get through the week.
And right now, Black podcasters are giving us an extension of that tradition while having some of the most interesting conversations in media. Former First Lady Michelle Obama and her big brother Craig Robinson are tackling life’s questions together on IMO. Deante’ Kyle and Big Kat bring their own brand of cultural conversation to Grits and Eggs. Assanté, Hey Fran Hey and Dustin Ross have spent years creating community through The Friend Zone, where mental health, mental wealth and mental hygiene meet culture and friendship. And with LOVERS by Shan, intimacy educator Shan Boodram is creating space for honest conversations about love, sex and relationships.
And that is barely scratching the surface.
Narrowing this list to ten was difficult because Black podcasting is not lacking voices worth hearing. So this is not a ranking, and it certainly is not an exhaustive list. These are simply ten shows we are listening to right now that are doing something worth paying attention to. They are making us laugh, challenging the way we think, creating space for conversations we do not always get elsewhere, and reminding us that sometimes the best part of a podcast is simply hearing Black people given the time and freedom to talk.
Here are ten worth adding to your rotation.
The Read — Kid Fury & Crissle West
At this point, The Read is not simply a podcast. It is part of the foundation of what Black podcasting became.
Since 2013, Kid Fury and Crissle West have built a space where hip-hop, pop culture, politics, listener letters, Black excellence, and whatever foolishness happened that week can all live in the same conversation. More importantly, they did it without sanding down the cultural specificity that makes the show work. You are listening to two friends who know exactly how to make each other laugh, when to push back, and when something deserves a read.
Gettin’ Grown — Chef Jade & Dr. Keia
There comes a point in adulthood when you realize the grown-ups you thought had everything figured out were probably figuring it out in real time, too. Gettin’ Grown, hosted by Chef Jade and Dr. Keia, has created what feels like an ongoing kitchen-table conversation about the sometimes beautiful, sometimes frustrating, and often hilarious experience of becoming an adult.
Jade and Keia make room for the uncertainty that comes with growing, changing your mind, setting new boundaries, and discovering that some of the things you thought you would have figured out by now still require work.
Here’s the Thing — KevOnStage & That Chick Angel
Some people can make almost anything funny, not because of the subject but because of how they see it, and that is exactly what makes KevOnStage and Angel Laketa Moore click on Here’s the Thing. One minute it is pop culture, the next it is relationships, sports, or whatever random internet foolishness has the timeline in a chokehold that week.
It also just feels like the kind where one story turns into three more, somebody brings up something totally unrelated, and everybody somehow ends up back where they started. And honestly, that is part of the fun.
Scam Goddess — Laci Mosley
Laci Mosley does not just hear about fraud; she wants the play-by-play on how somebody thought they were getting away with it, and that curiosity drives Scam Goddess, her award-winning podcast breaking down scams, cons, and audacious schemes from folks who decided the rules did not apply to them.
What sets it apart from true crime is the tone, since Mosley cares less about what happened than the nerve it took to try it, and the show stays researched without getting stiff, funny without losing the story, backed by a community she calls the “Con-gregation.” Mostly, there is a lot to learn from scammers about what not to do.
Black Men Can’t Jump [In Hollywood] — Jonathan Braylock, Jerah Milligan & James III
Representation has never been about seeing Black faces on screen; it has always been about who gets to be complicated, funny, in love, heroic, or simply present without their Blackness becoming the entire plot. The show uses film as a launchpad for bigger conversations about race and representation, celebrating a performance while questioning the story around it, and admitting when a movie just was not good. That balance matters, because Black audiences have always been sophisticated consumers of film, fully capable of loving something and critiquing it in the same breath, and this show gives that tension somewhere to live.
Moore Insight — Chris Moore
For many of us, sports have never been just about sports, but tangled up in race, money, politics, identity, celebrity and the stories we tell about who deserves to win, with athletes becoming cultural figures whose influence stretches far beyond the field, court or ring.
Moore Insight lives at that intersection, especially in a media environment built around instant reaction, where everybody is trying to figure out what is happening around the game while trying to keep up with what happens during it.
Pour Minds — Drea Nicole & Lex P
There are conversations Black women have publicly, and then there are the ones that usually stay between friends, and Pour Minds has never been particularly interested in maintaining that distinction.
Built by two best friends around candid talk on sex, relationships, dating, music, friendship and what it means to navigate adulthood as Black women, the show works because their friendship is the foundation rather than just the format, with enough history between them to disagree, challenge each other, overshare, and say the thing somebody else might have edited out.
Awf the Record — Mona Kosar Abdi & Jeannette Reyes
Mona Kosar Abdi and Jeannette Reyes spent years in an industry that basically told them credibility meant keeping most of themselves out of the story, and Awf the Record is them finally saying forget that.
Coming from journalism, they bring their full selves into conversations about news, culture, career, motherhood, and whatever else made its way into the group chat, blending real instincts for sourcing, context, and how information gets flattened into a headline with the understanding that Black audiences do not stop being Black when we consume the news.
Flagrant & Funny — Cari Champion & Jemele Hill
Cari Champion and Jemele Hill have been in sports media long enough to know what happens when Black women say what they really think, and long enough to stop asking permission first.
Shows like Flagrant & Funny matter because they buck up against an industry that expects Black women to overprepare and stay measured, so this feels like permission to loosen the grip. They know the game, the people covering it, and the business behind it, and now we finally get to hear in all of their glory.
Baby, This Is Keke Palmer — Keke Palmer
On Baby, This Is Keke Palmer, she gets in there with entertainers, artists and cultural figures and somehow the talk always drifts past whatever they showed up to promote, because she is genuinely listening, funny and charismatic as always, but also down to chase a thought wherever it wants to go until you are talking about identity, ambition, reinvention, or what it costs to become the person everybody thinks they already know.
People just want to tell her things. And sometimes the best question is not the one that blows up online; it is the one that gets somebody to say something real. And baby, Keke knows exactly how to ask it.