Hey, welcome to Feedback with Earbuds, the podcast recommendation podcast.
I'm your host, Ariel Nisblat, and I'm the founder of Earbuds Podcast Collective.
Earbuds is a weekly email newsletter that sends you a theme and five podcast episodes
on that theme, and each week is curated by a different person.
Anyone can curate a list.
You can learn more and subscribe at Earbuds.audio.
Feedback with Earbuds brings you podcast recommendations, insights from our curators,
tips on creating audio content, and community updates.
There are so many podcasts to listen to these days.
How do you choose?
We're here to break it down for you.
Hey, Earbuds.
Ariel Nisblat here.
Welcome to Feedback with Earbuds, the podcast recommendation podcast.
Let's hit some quick business before we get into the episode.
We are going to be taking a hiatus from this show for the month of December, which means
that this will be our last podcast episode for 2023.
Our weekly newsletter will still be going out as usual, so you can catch all of our new
podcast recommendations there, but we'll be back in some form on this podcast feed in
the new year.
We're going to take a pause to A, revamp the show, and B, because I am traveling for
the entire month of December.
So we'll be back in January, or later, we'll decide, we'll keep you updated.
What does this mean for you?
Well, as always, please do let us know how you're liking the show, or if you're not
liking certain things, or if you're liking nothing at all.
We don't mind.
We're really open to any ideas.
It'll be my New Year's resolution to improve the podcast when we start it up again in
the new year.
Okay, now let's get started on this episode.
As always, we start with a recap of last week's theme, which was podcasts unearthing hidden
stories.
Our curator was Holly Brown from Tink Media.
The podcasts that she recommended were A Crisper Bite, How Gene Editing Technology is Changing
Our Food, The Heist, Adoption, The Making of Me, Obscured from Kuwvenda Media, and Don't
Drink the Milk.
Thank you for curating that list for us, Holly.
If you missed last week's newsletter and the episodes they are in, you can find them linked
in the show notes of this episode here.
Now, for this week's recommendations, our theme is called Hip Hop Artifacts.
Our curator is Faye Mickens.
In just a bit, you'll hear from Faye about her podcast picks and why she selected them.
After that, you'll learn about our spotlight podcast pick, The Puzzler, a show about, you
guessed it, puzzles and word games.
It is actually my pick for one of the best new shows of the year.
It is a delight and a half.
And last, I'll share some podcast industry news and resources before we close out the
show for the week, actually for the year and send you off to listen to some podcasts.
Here are Faye's recommendations for this week's theme, Hip Hop Artifacts.
My name is Faye Bion Mickens.
I am an audio marketing professional specializing in digital content, namely music and podcasts.
I help to facilitate growth for shows.
So after the creator has done the heavy lifting of making this wonderful piece of art, this
audio time capsule or show, I help them figure out ways to capture the attention of their
potential audience.
So that can be everything from native podcast advertising to gorilla marketing.
It just depends.
The theme that I chose was Hip Hop Artifacts.
And what I mean by that is pretty much artifacts as far as investigative or information that's
lesser known to the public or the average hip hop listener.
So I chose this theme because this year we're celebrating Hip Hop 50th anniversary.
And I think that there are so many shows out there that they deserve a listen.
Hip Hop is so much more than sex, drugs and rock and roll.
There are moments of activism, social justice, nerd culture and women who have contributed
to the culture since its inception.
So I just wanted to shout out shows that I enjoy and that give me information that I
might not know.
So we can start with the dossier.
I chose the episode, The Wallace Estate versus the City of LA.
There are a lot of eyes on bad boy right now.
And I chose this episode because it uncovers evidence presented in the civil lawsuit pursued
by Biggie's widow, Faith Evans and his mother, Ms. Wallace.
So I mean, ultimately this ended in a mistrial.
But I found it interesting because, you know, they didn't deny that the police had intentionally
withheld evidence about Biggie's murder, not to mention the city had to end up paying their
legal fees just to fund the police already.
So I thought this was an interesting episode.
Let's start with the season is still continuing.
So I figured if people plug in here, you can kind of get a good basis for where the next
episodes are going.
And I will say that the dossier, the folks at DCP, the folks at Criminal Minded Media
did a lot of research.
And honestly, you can kind of Google the documents that they talk about in the show as well,
which is what I did with this particular episode too.
And what happened was all hail the Queen, introducing Queen Latifah.
My fandom for Queen Latifah spans across decades.
I love her ability to wear so many hats, actress, jazz singer, rapper, cover girl, record execs,
living single is my show.
I love when podcasts can share tidbits about our cultural curators that we didn't know.
In this episode and our hip hop aficionado, Dante Rose dropped several gems about Queen
Latifah and Tommy Boy Records.
For instance, I didn't know that MC Light was supposed to be on Ladies First, which is
like one of my favorite songs by Queen Latifah and Moni Love.
And the host, open mic eagle, just has a fun show here and is filled with little known
fun hip hop trivia facts.
Small doses side effects of Park and Light pimping with Lene Van Nie.
I love Amanda Seales and she was spitting poetry as Amanda Diva.
Her career just continues to thrive.
I'm also a new fan of Lene Van Nie, pronounced Nie not Naye.
She starts off the episode with that.
But Black women speaking freely on any topic is a form of protest and I just thought this
was a dynamic duo.
Amanda has so many great guests on her show, Ananda Lewis, Big Sean, like several people
have made appearances, but I think this is a great one to start with.
ODB, a son unique, episode one for the children.
Since I made this list, I actually have watched Wu Tang in American Saga and I've also been
on a deep dive with my Wu Tang throwbacks from 36 chambers to return of the 36 chambers
to liquid source to the purple tape.
What I love about Coleek Alaa's take on ODB's story, who's wonderfully portrayed by T.J.
Adams in the Hulu series.
But what I love about this show is that these stories about ODB stretched beyond the persona
that Dirty Let Us See in public.
With someone growing up who listened to Wu Tang, it was interesting to hear that there
was so much more under the surface.
And episode one actually starts off immediately with ODB helping to save a life of a young
girl in his neighborhood.
So Wu Tang is really for the children.
Next up, the Almanac of Rap comedy and hip hop part two.
Shout out to Don Will.
He's one of my dear hip hop friends.
I could have picked any episode, but I chose this one because it's a fun entry point to
those who are new to hip hop.
It also features the alloreto and luxury from the hip podcast, One Song.
I would recommend checking out not only this episode, but also the episode with DJ Tara.
Don Will does his homework and he also like comes prepared with fun receipts to share
via his newsletter and his Instagram page.
So it's a lot of fun to hear about some of his influences, but also his take on a lot
of hip hop culture in general.
This particular one comedy in hip hop actually has a fun additional, I guess, sidebar where
he actually includes a clip of one of their discussion points, which is Dan Ackroyd and
Tom Hanks rapping for Drag that, which is like I didn't know about, but it was really
cool to hear the conversation and also kind of see the flashback video of it.
And just to see how hip hop like spans across, you know, various genres in various decades
as well.
Finally, I think to honorable mentions, I would love to throw in Carisha Pleas and Women
in Hip Hop with Jazzy Bell, just because I think it's always good to have like a well
rounded list with various angles, but also including the voice of women, especially as
it relates to hip hop culture.
Both of those shows highlight and interview women across the board, so both onstage and
offstage from the boardroom to quite frankly the dressing room.
They both highlight women that have been important to the culture.
So I'd want to throw those in as honorable mentions.
I hope that people will get some variety added to their hip hop content.
Keep checking out Earbuds and I also write a monthly column for the Black Podcast Association,
which is called Diary of a Mad Black Podcaster.
It's fairly new, but hopefully it'll continue to grow, but you can check it out for marketing
tips and random memes.
Other than that, huge shout out to Ariel and Devon.
Thanks for having me.
Peace and love, Ellis Love.
Faye.
Thank you to Faye for curating this week's list of podcast recommendations and for sending
in that voice clip.
Faye's podcast picks will be listed in the show notes of this episode, so you can click
and start listening right now.
You can also of course find them on the Earbuds website, Earbuds.audio.
Do you want to be an Earbuds curator?
Great news for you.
You can.
All you have to do is submit a theme idea and five episode recommendations to our Curator
Submission Forum.
The link to curate is in the show notes of this episode and every episode, and it's in
our newsletter every single issue.
Go ahead and submit.
Now onto our Spotlight Podcast Pick.
It's a bonus recommendation located at the bottom of our newsletter and on the homepage
of our website.
This week we're spotlighting the puzzler.
Finally, your daily puzzle fix in audio form.
Every day in 10 minutes or less, New York Times bestselling author AJ Jacobs and his
celebrity guests will puzzle and laugh their way through new spins on old puzzle favorites,
like anagrams and palindromes as well as quirky originals such as Ask Chat GPT and
Audio Rebuses.
Plus, Chief Puzzle Officer Greg Plisca joins AJ each week to present new puzzles from the
Puzzle Lab, and there's a daily extra credit puzzler for our puzzlers at home.
Listen to the puzzler wherever you get your podcasts.
Now let's hit some podcast news and tidbits.
First, this week in Podcast The Newsletter, Lauren Pacell writes, I was smiling like an
idiot through every single second of feedback, Q6 Theatres' new audio drama about Akbar,
a queer brown aspiring drag queen who gets connected with Valerie, a white senior citizen
while he's working his job as a phone company rep.
We will link to this show from Q6 Theatres in the show notes of this episode.
Next, all Indian women know that being out in the city comes with rules about who gets
to be where and what you can and can't do.
City of Women is a podcast all about how those rules get broken, bent, and jumped over when
women decide to do things for themselves.
We will have it linked in the show notes.
Next, the subverse is a podcast about uncovering hidden and marginal stories about nature,
social justice, and the environment.
They're currently releasing a mini series about sci-fi writers from South Asia, and
you guess it, we will link to it in our show notes.
And before we go, what is James Cridlin covering in Pod News this week?
He's got stories on the winners of the Australian Podcast Awards 2023, winners of the 2023
Audio Production Awards.
He's got stories about Spotify Sunsetting Service in Uruguay, and more.
Read more about those stories by going to podnews.net.
And that is the end of our show for this week and until the new year.
Like I shared earlier, we've got a hiatus brewing.
Your weekly dose of podcast recommendations will be available in newsletter form at earbuds.audio,
where you can make sure you're subscribed to our newsletter.
I really appreciate all of you folks who tune into our podcast and those who reach out in
one way or another, whether it's including us on your weekly Instagram roundups, tagging
us on Twitter, telling me in real life to my face that you listen or anything else.
Thank you, thank you, thank you.
As a reminder, please reach out if you have any thoughts about our show.
It's so important to us to hear what you think and what might make our show even better for
you.
While we won't be back next week, we will be listening to podcasts and we hope you do
too.
Bye.
Feedback with earbuds is written and produced by me, Ariel Nissenblatt, with help from Devin
DeComo, our podcast and newsletter coordinator.
It's mixed and produced by Daniel Turrick, the best in the game.
Learn more about Daniel at his website, robotslap.com.
That's robotslap.com.
This newsletter is edited by the amazing Abbie Klianski.
The show is listened to by you, dear listener.
Yes, even you get a shout out in the credits.
Bye.