Speaker 1: On Theme is a production of iHeartRadio and fair Weather
Speaker 1: Friends Media.
Speaker 2: You are stars, and now it's time for roll credits.
Speaker 3: We're doing roll credits this early episode.
Speaker 1: Yes, we have an announcement, drum roll please, but a bit,
Speaker 1: a bit, a bit, a bit, a bit, a bit
Speaker 1: a bit. The announcement is that the episode you just
Speaker 1: heard about, Black Muses, is going to be our last episode.
Speaker 1: We have loved creating this show and sharing black stories
Speaker 1: with y'all, and we wanted to tap in with y'all
Speaker 1: and let y'all know.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it seems a little abrupt, but I do think
Speaker 4: an abrupt ending is the blackest thing we can do,
Speaker 4: because if you recall a second family matters, Okay, what
Speaker 4: happened my wife and kids?
Speaker 1: Okay, girlfriend, I feel like you have a deeper historical
Speaker 1: knowledge of abrupt endings than I do.
Speaker 3: That break it down for me.
Speaker 4: They didn't get good endings. You got they're coming back.
Speaker 4: You know, somebody went upstairs and just they.
Speaker 3: Went up the stairs to nowhere.
Speaker 4: Yeah, so I feel like, you know, we are part
Speaker 4: of a true, storied tradition of ending black shows abruptly,
Speaker 4: and I just think it's really appropriate and.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well We did start our show with the episode
Speaker 1: about first episodes, so.
Speaker 3: We're very very on the very meta here.
Speaker 1: How do you feel about endings in general? I.
Speaker 4: You know, feel different ways about different endings, you know.
Speaker 4: I think any work ending I'm okay with. Yeah, life
Speaker 4: ending I'm more sad about. So I feel good about
Speaker 4: what we did it. On theme, There's definitely more stories
Speaker 4: that I would love to tell. But the thing about stories,
Speaker 4: they find their way into the world. It doesn't have
Speaker 4: to be a podcast. It can be just me sharing
Speaker 4: something with someone personally. It could be written down, I
Speaker 4: could take up collage. There's so many ways to get
Speaker 4: stories out there. So excited about that.
Speaker 3: What about you?
Speaker 5: How do you feel?
Speaker 1: I'm cool with endings too, Like I have had to
Speaker 1: work my way into contentment with some endings. But I
Speaker 1: like change, and I know when like I'm ready for
Speaker 1: a change in things, and also when I'm not ready
Speaker 1: for a change in things. I think the work that
Speaker 1: I've done over the years, like for my mental self,
Speaker 1: has really helped me get comfortable with like not freaking
Speaker 1: out over those things.
Speaker 3: So yeah, I think I'm good with endings.
Speaker 4: You know, since this is a very special role. Credits
Speaker 4: the segment where we give credit to a person, place,
Speaker 4: or thing. What would you like to give credit to
Speaker 4: in regards to this podcast.
Speaker 3: I like to give credit to you.
Speaker 1: I think that it's a blessing to be able to
Speaker 1: work with somebody you've known for a really long time,
Speaker 1: and I admire the work that you do, Like I
Speaker 1: think that you are very meticulous in your work. I
Speaker 1: think that you care a lot about your work, and
Speaker 1: I think that it's like, that's cool, but also it's
Speaker 1: about black stories, and black stories are cool, and the
Speaker 1: stories we were telling were cool. So having a thing
Speaker 1: that will exist in the world forever, like as a
Speaker 1: representation of the things that you and I care about
Speaker 1: in our shared relationship. We did an episode on diaries
Speaker 1: personal narratives. We've talked about on the show, and those
Speaker 1: are like individual narratives, but I think it's interesting to
Speaker 1: think about this show as a shared personal narrative and
Speaker 1: one that will be able to exist for ever. I mean,
Speaker 1: as long as the technologies that we have.
Speaker 6: As long as they don't turn off the internet, turn
Speaker 6: off the Internet machine, which they might be knowing pretty soon,
Speaker 6: we have both I think brought very different things to
Speaker 6: the show and I know, the long list of ideas.
Speaker 1: That we have, like those aren't going anywhere, Like I
Speaker 1: know if anybody wanted to come up to you and
Speaker 1: talk to you about some of those things, that you.
Speaker 3: Are still very invested in those ideas.
Speaker 1: It's not like just because the show isn't there to
Speaker 1: carry them as a vessel, that doesn't mean that you
Speaker 1: don't still love and care about and want to nurture
Speaker 1: those ideas about black storytelling.
Speaker 3: So yeah, that's what I'll say today.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I think when one thing that stands out about
Speaker 4: what you just said is you made the comment that
Speaker 4: a good thing about podcast is that people can discover
Speaker 4: them at any time. And I found myself discovering podcasts
Speaker 4: that Laura ended in twenty sixteen, and I'm like, yeah.
Speaker 3: So that's a cool thing.
Speaker 4: And like people like you said, can go through the catalog.
Speaker 4: We got what forty six episodes, Yeah, you know, you
Speaker 4: can run through the catalog. We've been on other people's
Speaker 4: shows too, talking about different aspects of black storytelling.
Speaker 5: So that's fun.
Speaker 4: It's like a snapshot of you know, where we were
Speaker 4: during this time, what we were thinking about, what we
Speaker 4: cared about. So you know, I think it'll be interesting
Speaker 4: to look back, like, you know, when we fifty, like,
Speaker 4: oh look at us.
Speaker 1: I'm going to be cringing, cringing from wherever I am
Speaker 1: in the future, listening to myself. Just so I don't
Speaker 1: like listening to myself. I have There are hundreds of
Speaker 1: episodes of me out there, maybe over a thousand at
Speaker 1: this point, and that's going to be an.
Speaker 4: Experience kind of like that you go to see what
Speaker 4: was I talking about, burn it all, what was said,
Speaker 4: And on that note, I'd like to give credit to
Speaker 4: like all the moving parts that made this happen. I
Speaker 4: know when we were first talking about starting this podcast,
Speaker 4: you were like, I heart just doesn't give podcasts to
Speaker 4: you know, non famous black women, and kind of like
Speaker 4: sitting in that and being like what does that mean?
Speaker 4: And like how are we going to you know, stewart
Speaker 4: this into the world. So you know, I heart ate
Speaker 4: that one little thing, okay, you know, just being able
Speaker 4: to have this platform. We had so many people who
Speaker 4: helped us like get it started. You know, bridget Todd
Speaker 4: gave us a lot of advice. Christian from unladylike she's
Speaker 4: really cool, met with us, still keeps up with us.
Speaker 4: Sees how we're doing, and you know, she'll give you
Speaker 4: down to the set on how much stuff costs and
Speaker 4: how much she spent and who's charging what. So you know,
Speaker 4: just like Tari our producer, and all the people who
Speaker 4: stepped in to produce the show, and you know, Tari
Speaker 4: might have been out, Like those people have been really
Speaker 4: cool and it's like you hear us talking and you
Speaker 4: know a lot of time it is like in the
Speaker 4: first person, but it's not a it's not a two women.
Speaker 3: Show at all.
Speaker 4: Even the people we've researched, you know, the people who
Speaker 4: made their archives available, the people who did research before
Speaker 4: us so that we could just you know, do research
Speaker 4: for the podcast.
Speaker 3: Yeah, shout out to all of those people.
Speaker 4: Yeah, because it's like we're all in conversation with each other,
Speaker 4: and I hope this podcast, this show is a testament
Speaker 4: to just the ongoingness of blackness, of black stories in
Speaker 4: that conversation that we have with each other, and hopefully
Speaker 4: we'll be in conversation with you know, other art forms
Speaker 4: in the future, people who maybe want to know, like
Speaker 4: what were people thinking about copsidy in the twenty twenties,
Speaker 4: They'll be able to go back and listen to our
Speaker 4: show and then you know, maybe do a retrospective of like.
Speaker 5: Yeah, that shit wasn't built the fuck.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 4: You know, we occupy this space in this time, and
Speaker 4: we've been in conversation with people in places of the past,
Speaker 4: and we'll be in conversation with people and places in
Speaker 4: the future and that's exciting for me.
Speaker 1: And shout out to all of the guests that have
Speaker 1: come on the show as well, Yeah, that have generously.
Speaker 5: Who's your favorite guests?
Speaker 3: Oh, don't do that for me.
Speaker 2: I got my fave.
Speaker 3: I got my fa Donovan. Oh.
Speaker 5: I was gonna say Michael Eigenzalas.
Speaker 1: Oh, I liked him too. I really liked Donovan. I
Speaker 1: mean he hit us up with the archival material that.
Speaker 4: Was enjoying to go through on all the sound design
Speaker 4: in that episode would not have happened without Donovan.
Speaker 1: Because he had the files. He had the fire files.
Speaker 1: So I really appreciated that. But I also like, just
Speaker 1: like how that was an earlier episode for an interview,
Speaker 1: but it was like so rich. I felt like, like,
Speaker 1: I appreciate that you brought that idea. I know that
Speaker 1: it was like a collaborative effort because it's his book
Speaker 1: that came out into the world, but also like thinking
Speaker 1: about it from a black storytelling perspective of like how
Speaker 1: people were crafting narratives in the media. I went in
Speaker 1: my live in a crack era. Okay, I've heard plenty
Speaker 1: of stories, but I didn't know what it was like
Speaker 1: to like live during that time.
Speaker 3: So it was pretty heavy.
Speaker 1: It's heavy subject material, but I think it didn't feel
Speaker 1: like that when we were having that conversation. I know
Speaker 1: that the seriousness, the way, the gravity of course all
Speaker 1: of those things that exist, and of course the stories
Speaker 1: in there. The book could get pretty dark, but at
Speaker 1: the same time there were still levity in moments speaking
Speaker 1: of what black people are good at beyond endings, we
Speaker 1: are good at making things funny when they ain't funny.
Speaker 6: It's always a little funny. It's always a little funny.
Speaker 6: If we gonna find that little.
Speaker 4: Inkling, we're gonna find that mustard seed of funniness. Yeah,
Speaker 4: So where can people find you? Now that on theme
Speaker 4: is done?
Speaker 1: So y'all can find me in many places. I think
Speaker 1: one of the best catchalls to go to first is
Speaker 1: probably Eves Jeffcoat dot com. And if you don't know
Speaker 1: how to spell my name. That's why v E S
Speaker 1: j E F F co A T. That is my website,
Speaker 1: Evesjeffcoat dot com and you can get two other things
Speaker 1: from there. There's a contact form on there. You can
Speaker 1: sign up for my newsletter on there, and you'll get
Speaker 1: information about the things that I have going on in
Speaker 1: the yoga yoga teaching space because I'm a yoga teacher,
Speaker 1: about things I have going on in the post space,
Speaker 1: and about things that I have going on in the
Speaker 1: writing space and the travel space. So if you sign
Speaker 1: up for a newsletter you can get that information. You
Speaker 1: could also if you're on Instagram, go to Instagram at
Speaker 1: not Apologizing and I post stuff on there as well.
Speaker 1: You can keep up with what I'm doing there, and
Speaker 1: you can also hear me on podcast. I'm pretty regular
Speaker 1: on stuff Mom never told you, so if you want
Speaker 1: to go there, once a months, I host a monthly
Speaker 1: series that we do there called Female First, and often
Speaker 1: talking about some similar things that we would talk about
Speaker 1: on this show. It's not all about black people, but
Speaker 1: if you're interested in people in history who had pioneering accomplishments,
Speaker 1: then you can go there. But those are some of
Speaker 1: the spaces you can go to to keep up with me,
Speaker 1: and I have new adventures coming up. So if you're
Speaker 1: interested in all of those things, then keep it up
Speaker 1: with me and travel and yoga and podcast life, then
Speaker 1: those might be good places for you.
Speaker 5: I love it.
Speaker 3: What about you? How can people keep up with you? Uh?
Speaker 5: You know, I just be on the block for real.
Speaker 6: If you see a little Honda Civic which one girl,
Speaker 6: great skirt, don't tell people.
Speaker 5: That with my personalized say.
Speaker 4: Well, my book is coming out in February, pros to
Speaker 4: the People. It's available for pre order now, but I
Speaker 4: have been sending the link for pre order because we
Speaker 4: don't have the cover on it, and I feel like
Speaker 4: it's not cute right now, but you know you still
Speaker 4: pre ordered. Okay, but you know what I'm saying, Like,
Speaker 4: I feel like it's cute when you can be like
Speaker 4: pre order. You can see the cover, you can see
Speaker 4: the t you can see the you know, the little
Speaker 4: images on the inside.
Speaker 3: Okay, but how can people pre order it? Though? Where
Speaker 3: did they go?
Speaker 5: They can go anywhere anywhere that sells books.
Speaker 3: Then pre orders.
Speaker 4: You can just google pro to the People by Katie
Speaker 4: Mitchell and all the pre order links will show up,
Speaker 4: So whoever you want to support, whether you want to
Speaker 4: support it indy.
Speaker 5: So yeah, that's the that's the main thing, pro to
Speaker 5: the people.
Speaker 4: I'll be talking about that a lot, hopefully on other
Speaker 4: people's podcasts, talking about that.
Speaker 1: People who listen to one theme, why would they like
Speaker 1: pros to the people.
Speaker 4: So people is celebrating black bookstores, and I'm profiling over
Speaker 4: sixty black bookstores. And one thing about profiling a very
Speaker 4: specific type of thing over and over again, you gotta
Speaker 4: find what makes it different. So there's a lot of
Speaker 4: funny stories, little known or never before told stories in there.
Speaker 4: Y'all know, I like drama. Y'all know I like mess
Speaker 4: I kept be cute.
Speaker 3: Though that it was a complete contradiction to what between
Speaker 3: the lines.
Speaker 4: But if you can't, I kept it cute. And that's
Speaker 4: all I'm gonna say on that.
Speaker 3: She said she's telling y'all to DM her.
Speaker 1: However, y'all can find Katie ask her about that.
Speaker 3: What she preordered a book and then read it, read.
Speaker 4: It, then you gotta sign an NDA because don't play
Speaker 4: with me, y'all ain't gonna have folks.
Speaker 3: Coming at me.
Speaker 4: It's also like a very heavily designed book. I think
Speaker 4: it's interesting you said, like, I'm meticulous. I didn't know
Speaker 4: that about myself. I think before start this podcast and
Speaker 4: working on the book, I didn't know that I was meticulous.
Speaker 4: I always thought I was a slacker, and I always
Speaker 4: thought I was like very type B personality.
Speaker 3: I mean, did we know each other in middle school.
Speaker 4: I think I got it from from college. I went
Speaker 4: to an engineering school, and I just like, did not
Speaker 4: care about engineering. So I was just chilling All through college.
Speaker 3: I was chilling.
Speaker 4: And then I go into the workplace and I'm like,
Speaker 4: I also do not care about this. So I was
Speaker 4: never doing anything I cared about, I think, and so
Speaker 4: I was just like, oh, I just don't care about anything.
Speaker 3: But that's not true.
Speaker 4: So now that I'm working on these projects that I
Speaker 4: really care about, I think you'll see a lot of
Speaker 4: the details.
Speaker 5: It's very rich in epemera.
Speaker 4: You'll see things that I've gotten from the archives that
Speaker 4: are in the book, whether it's pictures that I've sourced
Speaker 4: from people who snapped a picture in nineteen ninety five
Speaker 4: and I tracked them down.
Speaker 5: Or FBI files letters.
Speaker 4: There's a lot of cool stuff in there. And going
Speaker 4: back to the ongoingness of black history and our stories.
Speaker 4: A lot of the bookstores blend into each other in
Speaker 4: a really beautiful way. DC there's Sankofa, and the owner
Speaker 4: of that used to go to Vaughn's when she lived
Speaker 4: in Detroit because she's from Detroit and being at Vaughn
Speaker 4: showed her that there could be a bookstore like that
Speaker 4: that focused on Black power and Pan Africanism. So now
Speaker 4: Sankofa still exists, but Vonn doesn't exist. And mister Vaughn,
Speaker 4: who just turned ninety, lives in Atlanta, and you know,
Speaker 4: me and him and his sons hang out and talk
Speaker 4: and you know, talk about what it was like to
Speaker 4: be ran up on by the Detroit police and the
Speaker 4: FBI because they don't like you selling black power stuff
Speaker 4: to niggas in Detroit, Like why these niggas.
Speaker 5: Wanted to learn how to read so man suspicions.
Speaker 4: So there's things like that, And I keep it at
Speaker 4: a register that's not so stuffy because I'm not so stuffy,
Speaker 4: and I want people to actually read it and get
Speaker 4: something out of it. So it's not a textbook. It's
Speaker 4: me translating the oral history and the history found and
Speaker 4: you know, primary documents, So I'm excited about it too.
Speaker 2: And with that, it's a right.
Speaker 3: That's it. That's all, y'all.
Speaker 1: So with that said, you heard all the lovely stuff
Speaker 1: we just talked about. Keep up with us. Don't stop
Speaker 1: being black if you're black, don't stop enjoying black stories.
Speaker 3: Because this continues.
Speaker 2: Yes, thank you, Bye bye.
Speaker 1: On Theme is a production of iHeartRadio and Fairweather Friends Media.
Speaker 1: This episode was written by Eves Jeffco and Katie Mitchell.
Speaker 1: It was edited and produced by Tari Harrison. Follow us
Speaker 1: on Instagram at on Themeshow. You can also send us
Speaker 1: an email at hello at on Theme dot Show. Head
Speaker 1: to on Theme dot show to check out the show
Speaker 1: notes for episodes. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the
Speaker 1: iHeartRadio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to your
Speaker 1: favorite shows well