LeBron James and Maverick Carter’s production company, Springhill Company, launched an original YouTube series, Recipe For Change: Amplifying Black Women, featuring Mary J. Blige, Saweetie, Tabitha Brown, Jackie Aina and more. The series celebrates the stories, traditions, identities and experiences of Black women as they gather around a dinner table for necessary conversations.
In the first episode, the women explore a variety of topics and issues Black women face including colorism, code-switching and mental health.
During the dinner, the women discussed hearing the phrase “strong Black woman.”
“My first reaction is pressure. There’s such an enormous amount of pressure for us to be strong that we don’t get the luxury of being weak, of being fragile, of being vulnerable,” former Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms said.
While discussing code-switching, writer and professor Roxane Gay observed how Black people are forced to compromise to survive and prosper in this country.
“Code-switching is not just being versatile. It’s not just being a Swiss Army knife. It’s that you’re forced to compromise who you are and speak in other ways in order to survive,” Gay said.
Gay, whose career is largely based in academia, said she wonders if she will ever have the opportunity to show up as her complete self.
Nadine Zylstra, the global head of YouTube Originals, believes the conversations are necessary to influence society’s perspective on Black women.
“Our upcoming projects highlight important stories and raise impactful voices to not only educate and entertain our audiences, but to also inspire meaningful change,” Zylstra said in a press release shared with Blavity.
YouTube’s Brandcast will have five new original projects from the YouTube Black Voices Fund (BVF). To better understand the impact of the BVF projects, YouTube commissioned Fluent Research to study and measure the appeal, resonance and impact of a selected group of BVF programs among more 18 to 34-year-olds.
“As a direct result of watching BVF content, 80% of the participants reported they were likely to take action on racial justice issues,” Allison Caplovitz, Ph.D., director of content and evaluation research at Fluent, said. “This study supports YouTube’s ability to achieve its mission to engage Black and non-Black viewers with impactful content that highlights the Black experience.”
YouTube will also broadcast Retro Tech: Future Tech with Marques Brownlee, A New Green Book featuring Terrell Grice, The Mandela Project and Spectrum Global: Being Black In…. which reimagines a popular Jubilee video series and explores Blackness across the globe, according to a statement sent to Blavity.
