News
Op-Eds
Lifestyle
Video
BlavityU
Creators 100
Events
Submit a Story
Blavity News is a community and platform for Black Voices, Stories, Creators and thought.

Sign up for our newsletter to get the freshest stories in your inbox, every day!

I agree to the terms and privacy policies.

News

Politics

Culture

Lifestyle

Social Justice

Blavity x HP

Blavity x Mastercard

Op-Eds

Write a Story

My Account

Privacy Policies

Terms & Conditions

Partner With Us

Careers

Shop

Blavity is a community of the most exceptional multi-cultural creators and influencers in the world. We partner with diverse content creators and influencers to help them reach a wider audience, amplify their message, and fund their hustles. We believe that the world shifts according to the way people see it— and if you change the way people view the world, you can transform it. A subsidiary of Blavity, Inc.

© Blavity, Inc., 2022
Sign Up

Blavity News is a community and platform for Black Voices, Stories, Creators and thought.
© Blavity, Inc., 2022

YouTube Originals Partners With LeBron James' Springhill Company To Present 'Recipe For Change: Amplifying Black Women'

May 27, 2022 at 4:57 pm

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.