Featured Work
#FindingBET
When I first embarked on this journey with my creative partners, I don’t think any of us knew how much of an impact #FindingBET would have on our lives, much less the industry.
The creative synergy amongst the team is what made this project so special and so fun to work on. We respected and trusted each other’s crafts at all times – constantly challenging ourselves on how we could elevate the next production or the next edit.
Since launching the pilot episode with Nivea in September 2017, #FindingBET has garnered over 28M views, 40K subscribers on BET’s YT channel and currently holds the highest watch-time across Viacom Digital Studios at 9:54. I am extremely grateful to each artist for their transparency and in return, I try to tell the most authentic story possible. Storytelling has always been a passion of mine, it wasn’t until this show that I truly realized that it was my calling – with each episode it becomes clearer that narratives are the stories I’m meant to tell.
As Season 2 comes to a close and with Season 3 on the horizon, my main goal is to figure out how we are going to outdo ourselves.
You are only as good as your last performance.
Stay Tuned.
Rate The Bars
It will never cease to amaze me the phenomenon that is #RateTheBars all started from a random conversation with @IyanaRobertson saying, “I just want to watch Joe Budden rate bars.”
Me: “Yooo!!!!!!!!!!! (insert every Black Twitter meme ever)”
We spent the next few days working through the logistics of what we thought would just be a hilarious one-off segment. D-Day finally arrives, and Joe is in the building on a promo run for his latest project, Rage Against The Machine.
We can barely contain ourselves with excitement. After we complete the video interview about his album, Iyana passes Joe 10 cards of carefully curated bars. And well, we all know what happened after that. Well actually you don’t—which is the whole point of the story. Joe was up for the task; giving his unsolicited opinion on other rappers is kind of his thing (I’m actually surprised no one thought of this before). Everyone in the studio is basically in tears by the time the last card hits the floor, but it wasn’t until we actually got the footage back that we knew we’d struck gold.
Three years later, #RateTheBars is still one of BET Digital’s top-performing series, generating over 40M views, two spin-offs and more shady rapper moments than you can count. I will forever and always be grateful for this show because it affirmed my creative partnership with Iyana and our genius.
The Glam Gap
For the past few years, I’ve been focused on expanding and nurturing BET Digital’s music vertical, so when the concept of Glam Gap was presented by Danielle Prescod, I knew it was an opportunity for me to step outside of the box I’d inadvertently put myself in.
As a Black woman first, and second as a content creator, the types of discrimination discussed in GLAM GAP were too important to ignore. It felt so good to go to work and create something that truly mattered – something that wasn’t just to entertain the masses.
I can honestly say exposing some of the injustices that we as Black women experience every day, was truly rewarding. But it didn’t come without its own challenges. I found it both disheartening and extremely difficult (seriously, like next to impossible) to find positive images and stock footage of Black women on the internet.
*Searches Black woman model*
Results: 2 pages of content displaying images of white women with black paint on their face.
*Searches Black woman doctor*
Results: 1 page of content displaying images of Sudanese patients on hospital beds being treated by white doctors.
*Searches Black woman smiling*
Results: 100 pages of white women, in black, smiling.
I was experiencing my own injustices as a Black creator, while trying to produce a show about other injustices we face as Black women – story of our lives. GLAM GAP opened up a long-overdue conversation about Black women in the health and beauty space. It even influenced networks to produce similar content.
These conversations are necessary. This show was necessary.