This week, we're letting our friends at It's Been a Minute take over our feed. In this episode, guest host Juana Summers talks with Danyel Smith about her new memoir, Shine Bright: A Personal History of Black Women in Pop . As a previous editor-in-chief for both Billboard and Vibe magazines, host of the Black Girl Songbook podcast, and longtime music reporter, she uses her expertise to spotlight the stories of pop powerhouses like Gladys Knight, Mahalia Jackson, Whitney Houston, and more. In her...
May 24, 2022•32 min
You know Ben Baller as the jeweler who has iced up the biggest names in hip-hop. But before that, he was a record executive listening to Jay-Z's first album before anybody else. The guy's got stories. Like how he was fired by Dr. Dre for speaking out against the bad contracts Dre was giving to his artists. So Ben gets fired? So what. He's a master of reinvention. He sells his sneaker collection for millions and starts designing high-end jewelry. Now he's telling stories about making pieces for M...
May 17, 2022•38 min
For years, Desus Nice and The Kid Mero lived the lives of many struggling New Yorkers: juggling multiple odd jobs, battling roaches, and just trying to make ends meet in the Bronx. But they also spent plenty of time online, where their constant back and forth on Twitter was so funny that followers demanded they make a podcast. Their eponymous show, Desus and Mero , has since exploded over the last decade, so much so that it is now coming for the throne of late night on Showtime. And still, even ...
May 10, 2022•35 min
In your mind, Kelly Rowland might be the teenager of Destiny's Child fame, or the solo artist with dance floor anthems like "Commander." But these days, Kelly's much more than a pop star. She's an entrepreneur, philanthropist, writer and mother of two beautiful children. She recently published a children's book called Always with You, Always with Me , her ode to working moms. This week on The Limits, as we gear up for Mother's Day, Jay and Kelly explore motherhood: how Kelly juggles being a good...
May 03, 2022•33 min
As a former NFL player and star of the Bachelor, Colton Underwood has embodied the highest ideals of masculinity. He worked hard to fit the mold of what everyone expected him to be. Until it almost killed him. When he finally accepted his sexuality and came out in 2021, the impact felt seismic. This week, Colton talks about navigating his football career as a closeted gay man—what it was like to experience locker rooms, and the homophobia that came with them. And why the sports culture makes it ...
Apr 26, 2022•36 min
We've all failed before. Competition, rejection, loss...it's all a part of life. It's what The Limits is about: overcoming those obstacles to become great. This week, we're featuring an episode of NPR's Life Kit featuring Jay Williams where he talks about the long, often grueling process of working through our disappointments. He describes the winning principle that got him through a career-ending motorcycle accident, through depression and addiction, and through multiple suicide attempts: you c...
Apr 19, 2022•24 min
Denzel Curry brought his rage to rap. For years, he's been known for taking a crowd and turning it into a moshpit. It was his way of taking his internal pain and expressing it. These days, though, Denzel is looking inward and so is his music. Now his mission is to find peace, and he wants the rest of us to find it too. Denzel pioneered the Soundcloud rap movement, but the death of his friend, XXXTentacion, made him reconsider his own relationship to fame. In this episode, Jay and Denzel talk abo...
Apr 12, 2022•22 min
Michele Roberts grew up watching the NBA on her TV, but she never imagined she would one day be a trailblazing executive for the league. After Michele was named executive director of the NBA Players' Association (NBPA), she became the first woman to hold this position, and the first woman to lead a major sports union in North America. The recently-retired Roberts has been a beacon for the league's star players, guiding them through a near-lockdown, a global pandemic and a full-blown strike in re...
Apr 05, 2022•32 min
On this week's episode of The Limits , we're in instant replay mode. We're bringing you back to where it began, with our first conversation with sports marketing executive Maverick Carter. Maverick is the architect behind LeBron James' athletic empire, and he sat down with Jay to share how he and LeBron succeeded on their own terms, why LeBron's mother initially doubted their vision, and what Mav really thought about LeBron's decision to return to Cleveland. For sponsor-free episodes, weekly bon...
Mar 28, 2022•36 min
TJ Adeshola has been changing the game in sports media and tech for years. The Twitter Global Head of Content Partnerships got his start at ESPN, where he was grateful to receive guidance and opportunity from several Black mentors. When he entered the tech world at Twitter, however, he didn't see many people who looked like him. From then, TJ's mission has been clear: to diversify tech spaces from the inside out – and he's been breaking those barriers as a leader for nearly a decade. As he puts ...
Mar 22, 2022•30 min
Hip-hop producer RZA of the Wu-Tang Clan always knew he was going to be one of the greats. And believing it was his first step to achieving legendary status. RZA was confident about what his music would sound like and what he wanted to say. But he also had the confidence that he could turn other artists into stars. All RZA needed was a little time and trust. He asked the members of Wu-Tang to give him five years and he would get them to number one on the charts. Now known as the Five Year Plan, ...
Mar 15, 2022•36 min
Chef Marcus Samuelsson knows that the key to being a good chef is a lot like being a good athlete. You get up every day and keep pushing yourself. Despite being told that his Blackness would never let him own a fine dining restaurant, he made his way cooking in Michelin-starred restaurants around the world. After landing in New York in his early 20s, he set his sights on building a restaurant empire, starting with the renowned Red Rooster in Harlem. Today, he is a James Beard award winner, Top C...
Mar 08, 2022•30 min
It's Prime Time on The Limits . NFL legend Deion "Coach Prime" Sanders sits down with Jay to talk about his latest chapter coaching college football. The two-time Superbowl champion decided to bet on HBCUs as the future of the NFL, successfully making what Sports Illustrated has dubbed one of the most shocking recruits in college football history. The head coach of Jackson State University now feels his calling is to raise the next generation of young, Black athletes. He's coaching them to be be...
Mar 01, 2022•33 min
In her own words, Niecy Nash has made it "from the hood to Hollywood." As she closes out her leading role in Claws, Niecy tells Jay about her early days in Hollywood with clarity–and hilarity. With the Oscars approaching next month, Niecy also gets real about the deeper reasons the Academy so often overlooks Black women, and why she isn't looking for their approval. Her outlook is faith-based and positive, not in small part because she has found love again with her wife, musician Jessica Betts. ...
Feb 22, 2022•31 min
Bobby Hundreds is a trendsetter, and he believes if you give yourself permission you can be too. As founder of the iconic streetwear brand The Hundreds, he's been at the forefront of design for decades, and in this episode of The Limits he tells Jay how he does it. For Bobby, success is about reframing your perceived weakness as your greatest strength. In the early days of The Hundreds, when Bobby found himself with limited merchandise, he branded it 'exclusive' and suddenly buyers found his des...
Feb 15, 2022•32 min
Whether it's the NFL or the NBA, health care policy or America's two-party political system, Mark Cuban believes that when you buck tradition you begin to grow. In this episode of The Limits , the Dallas Mavericks owner and billionaire Shark Tank investor challenges NFL franchise owners to rethink who they hire and why. He applies that same logic to the healthcare industry, where he plans to upend the market by flipping the market on its head. These big ideas come from a man who hustled his way ...
Feb 08, 2022•33 min
Brian Flores is not messing around. The former Miami Dolphins head coach was fired last month, and had his eyes set on the top job with the New York Giants. But a misdirected text from New England Patriots general manager Bill Belichick convinced Flores, who is Black and Latino, that the hiring process was rigged against him, and that race was a major factor. He responded to the NFL by filing a class-action lawsuit on Tuesday. He was one of only three Black head coaches in the NFL at the time of...
Feb 04, 2022•24 min
Larry Miller has been a top executive in sports and athletic wear for decades. As the Chairman of Nike's Jordan Brand, he's in charge of a multibillion-dollar global apparel juggernaut. But as a teenager growing up in West Philadelphia, he made a violent mistake that haunted him for decades: he murdered an 18-year-old man, Edward David White. Later in life, as he ascended the corporate ladder, Miller kept his past a secret, afraid that it would jeopardize his career. In this episode of The Limit...
Feb 01, 2022•24 min
You know Ben Baller as the jeweler who has iced up the biggest names in hip-hop. But before that he was a record executive listening to Jay-Z's first album before anybody else. The guy's got stories. Like how he was fired by Dr. Dre for speaking out against the bad contracts Dre was giving to his artists. So Baller gets fired? So what. Ben Baller is a master of reinvention. He sells his sneaker collection for millions and starts designing high-end jewelry. Now he's telling stories about making p...
Jan 25, 2022•39 min
It took a long time for Gabrielle Union to realize she had the wrong idea of success in Hollywood. That idea came from growing up in Nebraska, in white spaces, where she often embraced a role as 'the Black friend.' But in Hollywood she grew to reject those roles. Now her priorities are her own, and she's learned hard lessons about what to pay attention to — and what to ignore. In this episode of The Limits , Union tells Jay Williams how she learned to stand up for herself, why 'balance' is a myt...
Jan 18, 2022•48 min
Lenard McKelvey's mom was an English teacher. As a kid, he always had his head in a book — even when he was reading that book in a jail cell. But there were some things he couldn't learn from reading, and one of them was how to be true to himself as his radio career took off. Now he's Charlamagne Tha God, host of the massively influential radio show The Breakfast Club and his own late-night show on Comedy Central, Tha God's Honest Truth . In this episode of The Limits , Charlamagne tells Jay Wil...
Jan 11, 2022•46 min
Years before they built the SpringHill Company — an entertainment and development brand recently valued at $725 million — Maverick Carter and LeBron James were just two kids from Akron, Ohio who loved playing basketball. Over the past two decades, their friendship and ambitions have grown stronger as they have defied assumptions of what athlete-driven business ventures can be. In this episode of The Limits , Carter — CEO of SpringHill — sat down with Jay Williams to share how he and James succee...
Jan 04, 2022•36 min
We all have moments when our limits are tested. On this show, host and ESPN correspondent Jay Williams asks how we define those limits — and what it means to exceed them. New episodes every Tuesday, starting January 4th. Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoices NPR Privacy Policy
Jan 03, 2022•3 min
