Poster of A Black Show

A Black Show

N/A

Director: N/A

Release Date: November 23, 2024

Where to Watch

I’m not going to lie. I had some initial misgivings about A Black Show W/ Elon James White. I saw earlier televised podcasts known by the acronym ‪#‎TWIBIU‬ of the original audio podcast when This Week In Blackness Prime was formerly known as Blacking It Up. Just visually recording an audio podcast felt like a waste of time as much as I loved seeing their faces. It was Blacking It Up, but now with moving pictures! Yawn! It didn’t have the same punch as the original shorter solo segments of This Week in Blackness featuring Elon James White, which lasted four seasons. This Week in Blackness featuring Elon James White’s quick cuts, change in close up to medium to long shots, audio cues and VH1 style subtitles to underscore the cadence of his speech could only work visually. Initially A Black Show did bring some of the visual spice of This Week in Blackness featuring Elon James White combined with some televised TWIB Prime audio podcast-Quickhits, but with slicker graphics and a studio. Even though it lasted a half hour, it still felt too short like MTV news meets TWIB. I enjoyed the show, but I was waiting for something to really make it feel like a television show with segments that differed substantially from TWIB Prime’s segments. As A Black Show progressed, I got in depth interviews with notable figures and more as shown in “So…about the word N*****,” which I recommend that everyone watch: a substantial editorial segment and Politrickin’, a segment which features current news stories with commentary from the original hosts, including Aaron Rand Freeman, L. Joy Williams and Imani Gandy, and other talent either gleaned from past audio podcasts or featured for the first time on this show such as Dara Wilson, Rodimus Prime, Feminista Jones and Pia Glenn. Instead of begrudging the time taken away from other audio podcasts, I’m excited that A Black Show exists and am sad that there is only one remaining show for this season.

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