On this week’s MiniPod our host Angela Rye (supported by hosts Tiffany Cross and Andrew Gillum) turn DOWN an invite from MSNBC. God bless. In more important news, yet another blatant assault on a Black man by police officers. What was 22 year old William McNeil Jr’s crime? Asking what he was pulled over for and requesting the officer call their supervisor. They smashed his window, busted his face, and arrested him, giving him stitches, a chipped tooth, and a concussion. It’s sad that if we’re be...
Jul 25, 2025•23 min
This week hosts Tiffany Cross, Angela Rye, and Andrew Gillum comment on a passing of note. The community lost Malcolm-Jamal Warner this week. Malcolm-Jamal played Theo Huxtable on The Cosby Show and was known for his spoken word and musical prowess. We’ll remember him today on NLP. Hunter Biden has been doing interviews and laying it ALL out there, going into detail about his drug addiction, and certain dynamics within the Democratic party. Our hosts dig into the details while Tiffany questions ...
Jul 24, 2025•1 hr 21 min
Angela Rye interviews Rodney Taylor’s fiancée, Mildred Pierre. Rodney Taylor didn’t know he was undocumented until he was 17. Earlier this year, I.C.E surrounded his car and arrested him in front of his family. They told him that he’ll be deported back to Liberia without seeing a judge or receiving a hearing, even though he hasn’t been back to Liberia since he was two years old. At 46, he lives in Georgia where he works as a barber. Taylor is a father of seven children who he shares with his fia...
Jul 23, 2025•40 min
This week hosts Tiffany Cross, Angela Rye, and Andrew Gillum are joined by special guest, 13 year old influencer and political savant, Knowa De Baraso. Knowa’s gone viral with his hot political takes and become a go-to interview for national and international news stations . He plans to bring his sharp wit to his interviews, and brutal honesty to topics that usually feel off-limits to young voices. Knowa is joining NLP on the Reasoned Choice Media Network with his own show, Now You Know with Kno...
Jul 18, 2025•12 min
This week hosts Tiffany Cross, Angela Rye, and Andrew Gillum cut through the NOISE. EVERYONE is talking about Jeffrey Epstein’s “client list,” an alleged list of rich and powerful people who molested children trafficked to them by the billionaire, Epstein. Trump’s attorney general, Pam Bondi, seems to have gone back on the Trump campaign’s promise to release the client list. Now, MAGA world is torn. Some are choosing to trust their dear orange leader while others are bucking Trump’s orders to fa...
Jul 17, 2025•1 hr 7 min
Angela Rye in conversation with Congresswoman LaMonica McIver. McIver has put forward a resolution in the House honoring the victims of the 1967 Newark Rebellion, which she says the city is “still recovering from.” The congresswoman tells us about her new bill AND some of the impacts she expects from Trump’s budget. Congresswoman McIver is also facing assault charges from Trump’s DOJ tied to an incident at an ICE detention center earlier this year, the same incident that saw Mayor Ras Baraka arr...
Jul 15, 2025•18 min
At NLP we countdown to the 2026 midterm elections at the end of every episode. BUT our hosts Angela Rye, Tiffany Cross, and Andrew Gillum have different opinions on the value of strategizing for the next election. That is, if Trump lets us have an election… Should we be planning for midterms or is our countdown a pipe dream? If you’d like to submit a question, check out our tutorial video: www.instagram.com/reel/C5j_oBXLIg0/ Welcome home y’all! —--------- We want to hear from you! Send us a vide...
Jul 11, 2025•29 min
This week hosts Tiffany Cross, Angela Rye, and Andrew Gillum cover a VERY important topic: housing and financial literacy. We’re doing some hardcore adulting today y’all. Why is it so hard to buy a home these days? How do we build wealth for a down payment–or anything for that matter? These questions may sound dry but the answers as to how we got into this housing crisis are INVALUABLE. They’ll include some advice and personal stories from our hosts (and guest) on how you can secure your finance...
Jul 10, 2025•1 hr 4 min
A recording of NLP’s show at Essence fest in New Orleans! Hosts Tiffany Cross, Angela Rye, and Andrew Gillum team up with special guests to track Project 2025, take stock of the current state of America, and ask what it means to build a country that truly serves all of us. Featuring special guests Rep. Jasmine Crockett, State Rep. and Vice Chair of the Democratic National Convention, Malcolm Kenyatta, President of the Power Coalition for Electoral Justice, Ashley Shelton, and more… Democracy req...
Jul 08, 2025•1 hr 1 min
Add to your reading list with our hosts Angela Rye, Tiffany Cross, and Andrew Gillum. They share some of their favorite fiction and nonfiction, and chat about reading strategies for the aspiring and veteran bookworms. THE READING LIST Angela: Just Permanent Interests by William L. Clay Critical Race Theory - the key writings that formed the movement Medical Apartheid by Dr. Harriet Washington The Life and Times of Ron Brown: A Memoir Assata: An Autobiography My Grandmother’s Hands by Resmaa Mena...
Jul 04, 2025•27 min
This week hosts Tiffany Cross, Angela Rye, and Andrew Gillum grapple with the proposed federal budget. Trump’s “big beautiful” budget is poised to be the largest cut to the social safety net in generations, and the largest transfer of wealth from low income to high income Americans EVER. Millions of Americans will lose health coverage and access to SNAP or food stamps. Countless other federal programs are being cut while the budget for the military and mass deportation adds hundreds of billions ...
Jul 03, 2025•1 hr 10 min
Our hosts catch up with former Baltimore D.A. and friend of the show, Marilyn Mosby. After leading the charge for police and criminal justice reform in her city, Marilyn was persecuted by the same system she served, and prosecuted on dubious charges. After a campaign spearheaded by Angela Rye, Marilyn’s avoided jail time, but she was still charged and now faces new challenges… PLUS an insider perspective on Adnan Syed, the subject of the first season of the blockbuster podcast, Serial. If you’d ...
Jun 27, 2025•26 min
Power Outages. Natural Disasters. Political Collapse. Here’s How We Stay Ready. This week hosts Tiffany Cross, Angela Rye, and Andrew Gillum address the most vital topic of all: survival. The Iran-Israel conflict has a lot of us thinking about nuclear war–although it doesn’t necessarily take a war for society to collapse. Sharon Ross, AKA Ms. Afrovivalist, is a survivalist, a huntress, and a “prepper.” The logic of preparing for societal collapse feels more, well, logical than ever before. Sharo...
Jun 26, 2025•1 hr 2 min
Our hosts Angela Rye, Tiffany Cross, and Andrew Gillum discuss dynamics between the sexes in the Black community. Relationships between husband and wife, father and daughter, sister and brother–they shape how we move through the world. Let’s recognize what we share and what sets us apart so we can heal together. Get ready for another heady NLP MiniPod! Much love y’all. If you’d like to submit a question, check out our tutorial video: www.instagram.com/reel/C5j_oBXLIg0/ Welcome home y’all! —-----...
Jun 20, 2025•27 min
Escalation with Iran raises alarms, but don't worry, Black women will save us... This week hosts Tiffany Cross, Angela Rye, and Andrew Gillum ask: are we all gonna die??!? Seriously though, President Trump and the U.S.A. are likely to join Israel in their air attacks on Iran. What are the potential consequences of a direct war with Iran? Is this Iraq 2.0? Or something new, perhaps the beginning of WWIII?? Our hosts separate the facts from the nunsense. We’re also going to look at a brand new pol...
Jun 19, 2025•1 hr 18 min
Did Elon Musk just revive the ‘stolen election’ conspiracy? Two of y'all sent in questions about a recent tweet of Elon Musk's where he says, "Without me, Trump would have lost the election, Dems would control the House and the Republicans would be 51-49 in the Senate... Such ingratitude." The tweet fanned the flames of a conspiracy theory claiming that Musk hacked the voting machines or influenced the election illicitly (beyond the hundreds of millions of dollars that he legally dumped into Tru...
Jun 13, 2025•18 min
This week hosts Angela Rye and Andrew Gillum discuss the ICE raids and unrest in Los Angeles with L.A. Mayor Karen Bass. Tiffany Cross is out sick this week. We have all seen the sensational images from the protests and unrest in L.A. following last Friday’s ICE raids. The ICE raids targeted immigrants at their workplaces, including Home Depot and a clothing store. Since then, the National Guard has been called up by President Trump to quell what he’s calling an “insurrection.” The use of that w...
Jun 12, 2025•1 hr 19 min
Every month since October of 2022, Reverend Dr. Robert Turner has been walking from his home city of Baltimore to the White House, a journey he’s dubbed #40MilesFor40Acres. Whether rain, shine, alone, or with fellow advocates–Turner has been making the journey for nearly three years now. Angela Rye talks with him about his experiences and the success he’s had. PLUS, the Reverend Dr. recently added a stop on the march: the National Museum of African American History and Culture (The Blacksonian)....
Jun 11, 2025•27 min
This week hosts Tiffany Cross, Angela Rye, and Andrew Gillum address a topic that’s been in the news a lot late: Trump’s “Big Beautiful” budget. Despite Elon Musk calling the budget a “disgusting abomination,” and Trump himself asking Republican legislators not to cut Medicaid, the GOP budget plan will extend tax cuts for the richest Americans while slashing the social safety net; if the bill passes in its current form, millions of Americans will lose health care, food stamps, and more. Many are...
Jun 06, 2025•17 min
This week hosts Tiffany Cross, Angela Rye, and Andrew Gillum address the most important topic to us here at NLP: you. We called for you to imagine a new system and we have watched and read your responses. There are words of encouragement there–and words of rebuke. We want all the smoke, and the love, let’s get into it! From non-voters to Karens, the conversation (spurred by you) comes back to this: even when they try to support us, white people are constantly centering themselves. Their values a...
Jun 05, 2025•1 hr 32 min
This week hosts Tiffany Cross, Angela Rye, and Andrew Gillum define our democracy (what’s left of it). Nowadays it’s popular to say that the USA is a “democracy in decline.” But what does that actually mean when for many of us the system has been failing! Our hosts identify specific areas where our democracy has crumbled and begin to answer the question: exactly HOW and WHY has our democracy failed? This will be an ongoing conversation, and we’d love your input, send us a video! Speaking of ongo...
Jun 01, 2025•1 hr 15 min
Join hosts Angela Rye and Andrew Gillum on the State of the People Tour. This collaboration between a leading Black media platform and a national organizing campaign bridges local voices and national strategies, offering space for deep, honest, and community-rooted dialogue. Topics include the South’s leadership in Black political movements, exploring economic justice through labor organizing and cooperation economics, intergenerational strategizing, actionable state and local policy fights, and...
Jun 01, 2025•1 hr 12 min
Trump’s justice department has drastically scaled back its support for anti-crime initiatives. They’ve cut $500 million in grants from 200+ organizations focused on violence prevention. Angela Rye went LIVE to talk about the impact of these cuts on violence prevention in the Black community with two folks doing the work: Rev. Michael McBride (Pastor Mike) is the executive director for LIVE FREE USA , a national organizing and social change network committed to ending the criminalization of peopl...
May 28, 2025•39 min
If you feel like giving up and tuning out in this political moment–that is by design. Hosts Angela Rye, Tiffany Cross, and Andrew Gillum discuss how to stay motivated under a relentless Trump 2.0 and the nonstop news cycle. Our hosts have laid eyes on some Black communities working to become more self-sufficient during these dark times and they want to tell you about them. If you’d like to submit a question, check out our tutorial video: www.instagram.com/reel/C5j_oBXLIg0/ Welcome home y’all! —-...
May 23, 2025•24 min
This week hosts Tiffany Cross, Angela Rye, and Andrew Gillum interview Atlanta’s former mayor–and now GA gubernatorial candidate–Keisha Lance Bottoms. And we’ll respond to some of your criticism… Last week we did an episode about migrant rights that some of y’all pushed back on in the comments. Some challenged the notion that we ought to stand alongside communities who, according to some, do not stand alongside the Black community. Moreover, we hear your criticism that y’all want to know what to...
May 22, 2025•1 hr 11 min
In Florida they’re calling her ‘MAGA Marva’ Johnson, the ally of Governor DeSantis who is very nearly the 13th president of the historically Black university, FAMU. How did we get here, where a nominee who is roundly rejected by the community is STILL being lifted to the highest office? And what happens next? To answer these questions, Andrew Gillum is joined by two guests. Dr. Keneshia Grant, PhD and professor of political science at Howard U, and Monica Williams Harris, an attorney who serves ...
May 20, 2025•52 min
Hosts Angela Rye, Tiffany Cross, and Andrew Gillum are no strangers to Fox News telling lies. Recently, Fox misrepresented and subtly mocked Mayor Ras Baraka for comparing himself to the biblical figure David while on stage for Angela Rye’s State of the People tour. Angela’s not sure if she should be upset about it and is looking to her hosts for advice. Should we care about what the lying made-for-the-comfort-of-white-audiences news says? Or are we better off ignoring them? Here is the piece th...
May 16, 2025•20 min
This week hosts Tiffany Cross, Angela Rye, and Andrew Gillum speak with the Mayor of Newark, Ras Baraka. The Mayor made headlines last Friday after he was arrested by ICE while protesting a new ICE detention facility in his home city. Mayor Baraka’s arrest comes in the context of Trump’s sprawling campaign of retribution against his “political enemies.” From law firms, to judges, to universities and elected officials–Trump is weaponizing the federal government against anyone he perceives to have...
May 15, 2025•1 hr 12 min
Florida A&M University is in search of a new president. Several finalists have been put forward, including Marva Johnson, who has strong ties to Governor DeSantis and his anti-DEI, anti-Black history stances. Members of the community spoke out against candidate Johnson, calling her a “political plant.” Will the board of trustees appoint a MAGA-like president or listen to the will of the community? Hosts Andrew Gillum, Tiffany Cross, and Angela Rye will discuss. Sign this Open Letter Opposing...
May 09, 2025•23 min
This week hosts Tiffany Cross, Angela Rye, and Andrew Gillum host a special guest from the State of the People Tour. Ray Lewis went viral after delivering a fiery speech during a Q&A session at an SOTP town hall. “The only person who can save the streets is someone who comes from it,” he said. We agree–it’s exactly voices like Ray’s that we should be paying attention to in this political moment–and that’s why we’re having him on. Ray Lewis is a former street figure turned powerful voice for ...
May 08, 2025•1 hr 13 min
