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Nyge Turner and Merk Nguyen aim to challenge misconceptions about the Black Panther Party in this episode of Adult ISH. Nyge opens up about the rich significance the party had on him and his family in Richmond, California, both past and present. He also talks to Saturu Ned, a former member of Oakland’s original chapter of the BPP about the long-lasting legacy of the movement (full interview embedded below). Then, comedian Lil Rel Howery (“Get Out,” “Bad Trip”) gets into what inspired his role as Wayne in “Judas and the Black Messiah,” and how he speaks truth to power in his comedy and acting.
It’s also the Radiotopia Spring Fundraiser — your support helps foster independent, artist-owned podcasts and award-winning stories they distribute like Adult ISH! Donate today at https://on.prx.org/3wl9pWn.
Episode Transcript
Nyge: So what was your intro to the Black Panther Party?
Merk: Um Killmonger from Marvel’s “Black Panther.”
Nyge: (laughs) No like the actual like Black Panthers?
Merk: No, I’m kidding. I mean, I really don’t have a specific memory because when it comes to the Black Panther Party, my mind just associated them as part of the Civil Rights Movement. But I just wasn’t exposed to them or what they did.
Nyge: Well, this isn’t about the Marvel “Black Panther,” but also they did have ties in Marvel or whatever, like how the movie starts out in Oakland. And the actual Black Panthers started out in Oakland. But this we’re talking about today, the political party, the Black Panthers, that were formed in the 1960s and they challenged police brutality in the U.S. and they gave back to the community in a lot of different ways. And there’s a ton of misconceptions about them. And so that’s why we wanted to talk about them today.
Merk: Okay so what was your first intro to them?
Nyge: My first intro to the Black Panther Party, I guess I was probably like five or six and I was like riding in the car with my dad through Oakland. And I remember we got pulled over and he was like telling me, like, what you do when you get pulled over and like, you put your hands like on the dash and like have them where they can see them and you just answer everything, “Yes, sir. No, sir. Yes, ma’am. No, ma’am.” Like all that. And you follow everything step by step. Or it could really be life or death. And I noticed like my dad’s tone for the conversation. So I remember it was like a really serious conversation. But after we got our ticket and like kept going, my dad was talking about, like, you know, there was actually a political party that they would ride around, like armed with weapons and stuff like that, and they would patrol police stops in Oakland. And so when a Black person would get pulled over by the police, the Panthers would pull up behind them and make sure that the traffic stop went, I mean, as well as a traffic stop can go. And the police were just doing their job and not doing extra and beating all these Black people who were just supposed to be getting a ticket or something like that. And so my intro to the Panthers were like they were kind of superheroes that, like, protected you from like police brutality, you know.
Merk: Real life superheroes. So what other kind of significance did they have to you in your life, especially because you grew up in Oakland?
Nyge: I mean, I grew up in Richmond. Like, just so nobody calls me out and are like…
Merk: “Hey…”
Nyge: “You ain’t really from Oakland.” But I grew up in Richmond, which is right next to Oakland. But for like every family function, we always went to a bakery called It’s All Good Bakery, and It’s All Good Bakery was, I guess it’s like known now as a — it used to be a secret meeting spot for the Panthers. And so when you go to It’s All Good Bakery to get a cake or whatever, it would be like pictures and stuff on the wall of like the Panthers and things like that. And so I would like look at these pictures of them and kind of just imagine like what they were like. And then in preschool even, I remember we did like a Black dictionary book where we just had to like, you know, do dictionary definitions like all these different people who were involved in civil rights for like Black people like W.E.B. Du Bois or George Washington Carver or MLK or Langston Hughes or whatever, like all these important like figures in the Black community. And so I remember doing a page on the Panthers and I remember cutting out like the definition of like who the Panthers were and then cutting out their picture and pasting it into my dictionary. And this is like, you know, when I first started school and then pretty much beyond that, like every year at school, we talked about the Panthers somehow, some way. Oh yeah, also, I had another a number of family members who are Panthers, too, and they would always talk about how, you know, the reason that you have hot lunches or the reason why there’s like free clinics in low-income areas and stuff like that was because of the Panthers. And that painted them in a different light than a lot of other people have them painted in as like a terrorist organization in their eyes. And so I grew up with like a very different definition or view of the Panthers.
Merk: And has your definition changed over the years?
Nyge: I mean, I’ve learned more about like what they did or the things that they were involved in. And I formed different opinions about, like the way they went about certain things that they don’t exactly align with the way I would have handled them or whatever. But I mean, who knows? You know, like, I’ve always kind of felt this pressure being a Black person that, like, you kind of have to either align yourself with Malcolm or Martin with how Martin Luther King went peacefully about certain things or whatever, but then how Malcolm X just didn’t want to lay down and take it or didn’t want to — or noticed that like it wasn’t working when we tried to go about it peacefully and things like that. And always in my life, whether it was at school, whether it was at, you know, any experience where I was with a lot of other Black people, like it was always, you know, kind of like, who are you? Who do you want to align yourself with? And that was a real kind of conflict for me where I had to, like, juggle things and form my own opinion, which is, you know, I understand both ideologies and, you know, on certain things, I align more with Martin. On certain things, I align more with Malcolm because, you know, they were both fighting a battle that I have to fight every day.
Merk: Yeah, and thank you for sharing that part of your battle and identity, because that’s what we do here on Adult ISH, a show produced by YR Media where we dig deep into our histories and beyond the MCU. I’m Merk Nguyen.
Nyge: And I’m Nyge Turner. When it comes to the Black Panther Party there’s a ton of misinformation about who they are, what they did and even who they represented. Today, we wanna educate you more about them because maybe there’s a lot you didn’t know about them.
Merk: Yeah, like for me, I admittedly don’t know a lot about the Black Panthers. And a major thing that I am learning in adulting is that in order to actually get to know someone and show them that you really care, you got to know where they came from, their story and their history. And as a Vietnamese person, there have been times where people don’t understand that part of my culture, including myself. And there’s this disconnect. And on one hand, it’s like, “Man, I just wish you knew this.” But then at the same time, it’s a teachable moment in the same way that me as a non-Black person not knowing about the Black Panther Party disconnects me from getting to know Nyge and so many other Black people who I want to advocate for in my life and my activism.
Nyge: And that’s why we got this episode. To better educate everyone here so that we can show how we care about each other and who we are and where we come from. So first, we’re going to get into an interview with Saturu Ned, a former member of the original Oakland chapter of the Black Panther Party, about the long lasting legacy of the movement.
Merk: And later we’ll have on comedian and actor Lil Rel Howery. He’ll talk with us about his role in the movie Judas and the Black Messiah, plus his personal connections to the Black Panther Party, growing up in Chicago.
Nyge: Alrighty, let’s get it going.
[Music Break]
Nyge: Today, we’re airing an old interview from about a year and a half ago with Saturu Ned, formerly known as James Mott, an original member of the Black Panther Party here in Oakland. Right now, we’ll pick up with Saturu as he tells us about witnessing founding members protest a bill specifically crafted to disarm the members of the Black Panther Party and prevent them from conducting their cop patrols.
Saturu: I was going to school in Sacramento, California, and I decided it was 1967 senior cut day. We actually had those. So I cut by myself. I don’t know why I did it that way and why I went by myself. I ended up downtown. I’m standing there. So I was there the day that, you know, little Bobby Hutton, Reggie Forte, Emory Douglas, Bobby Seale came to the Capitol and I watched as they rushed Ronald Reagan off the state police. And they left these little children standing there. So we all ran down to the other entrance and went in behind them. And it was an amazing thing and exposed me hearing someone who are these brothers reading this constitution saying we have the right to self-defense and bear arms because at that time, the patrols in Oakland had started. The party was local in the Bay Area, Richmond and Oakland, but they had already started the patrols where they would go, take the law books, read the law. You get pulled over, they would start reading the law, but also they would have their weapons, which were open breached before they passed this law. It’s called a mole for that. And it was designed against the Black community because the aspect of Black people defending themselves against excessive force was not heard of.
Nyge: After witnessing this protest in the California Congress, Saturu joined the S.N.C.C., or SNCC, as they used to call it, which stood for the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee.
Saturu: And students all across the country, including myself, were members. And that’s when the concept first came, “What do we want? Black power. What do we need? Black power.” Anything Black was demonetized, but the idea was beginning the aspect of we can have our own power. We can determine who we are. We can definitely have our own economics. Again, it started with the student movement. I was still going to college at the time, as many of us were. We were organizing BSU’s and student organizations bringing students together. I was also running track. I was coming in one day. We have these relays called the West Coast Relays and people come from all over. We were slated to run. We had an unbelievable team. I was a quarter miler and coach Jim Sack says you had two visitors. So I’m joking with him. I said, “I’ve been going to class,” and he was visibly upset. So he told me the visitors you have were two FBI agents, and I looked at him. I said, “What do they want with me?” He said, “You have an ultimatum and a choice. You can either continue what you’re doing and face the consequences.” And I looked at him, he said, “Or else they’ll send you to any college in the country.” If you look at it hindsight, they always know your full potential. If they can discourage you or derail you in any kind of way, you’re already a born leader. And this is inherent in most young Black men and women. So I looked in and I said, “Coach, I’m not going to stop what I’m doing.” I got real serious because I realized he was not playing and I never saw him again. Because after that season, June that year, 1969 in our office in Sacramento, we were the third office to the COINTEL program to be attacked by J. Edgar Hoover.
Nyge: Here, Saturu is referencing COINTELPRO, or counterintelligence programs, which was run by the FBI and controlled by President Hoover. The state used this program to target what they called, quote, Black nationalist hate groups like the Panthers and also Malcolm X, Stokely Carmichael and even Martin Luther King Jr.
Saturu: So at that point in time, in 1968, after the office was attacked, we were lucky to live that day. So I had that direct experience of what COINTELPRO could be. And I want everyone to understand as brothers and sisters — and I have the opportunity to work with some of the most brilliant men and women — and believe it or not, we stay in contact all across the country, no different than yourselves who made a sacrifice and said we are going to jump in all in and do what needs to be done. We’re going to be that stop gap. And so we did. We had party members come from all over the country and ask them, what direction do you want to go in? Do you want to go in that direction and say that you are the Vanguard and you are going to — you’re the revolutionary soldiers and want to start a war with America? Or are you going to continue developing the survival programs, which are the stabilization of our community? Because the idea was survival programs pending revolution. We create thriving communities. We’re working with our brown brothers and sisters, progressive whites, Asians, Native Americans, poor whites are all doing well. And then when you come and take it away, that’s when you’re going to have a real revolution. You’re not going to take away our prosperity ever again. We learn that lesson and the government knew this, you know. And I want you to understand, it wasn’t just the FBI in early 70s. Richard Nixon took it away from Hoover. It’s no longer your pet project. It was the CIA files on us. NSA, firearms, tobacco, the Treasury Department, State Department, but all of these forces came against us in a 16 year period. There’s a group of us who have a long tenure because we were the ones taking the brunt of everything and we were the architects. In a corporation, we’d be the project managers. “Saturu.” “Yes.” “We want you to go to Chicago.” “Yes.” “And help start two health clinics.” “Right on, comrade.” You never said no, we didn’t think that way. Deep deep down inside, we’re asking ourselves how are we going to do this? But using the ideology and methodology step by step and bringing people to the table. We found that we were able to make it work, so we realized at that point, if you have a concept and you become the hub and you’re appealing to people, you’d be surprised how people say, “I’ve been waiting for this, what do you need me to do? And I can bring this resource to the table. We’re going to make this happen.” So we realized that we begin the concept from a breakfast program to free health clinics to the WIC program. So that was part of what I was doing. But I don’t want to leave out the part — I don’t know if you guys knew that — the Black Panther Party had a singing group. The singing group was called The Lumpen. And I was a member of that singing group and we created chants and music behind everything we did. We began to realize this was a cultural form of people coming together. We were pretty good. Just like art, music is important, the message in the music. So a lot of people would read the newspaper, they might not come to the rallies but boy they listen to music. You know, back then it was the funk and nothing but the funk, which still is because the funk is our roots. So there’s a book out. It’s called “Party Music” by Professor Ricky Benson, “The Untold Story of the Movement and the Influence on the Black Power Movement” and the influence we had on everyone’s music, from James Brown, Aretha to Chaka Khan, you name it, to Bob Dylan, John Lennon, and the list goes on. So we actually toured all over the country and our message was one of revolution and revolutionary change as music can be influential today. The second phase we went into after 1970, we came out of uniform, dressing like everyone here. It was a matter of creating survival programs and educating our community and teaching people, you can trust each other. It’s amazing. And that was key, the trust. No division. This is what it means when we say power to the people. The definition by Dr. Huey P. Newton, power is the ability to define phenomena, anything, and make it act in a desired way, according to our needs. And guess what? On everything from media to social media, everything, that’s where it’s at right now. That truly is the new revolution. We will tell people that revolution is today may not be revolution tomorrow. The only constant in the universe is change. We used to have mass classes on ideology of revolutionary thought and change. How you could use it in your everyday life, in your business, in your education, in everything that you were doing? In 1977, the Oakland Community School, the Panthers school, as they call it, was awarded by the California state legislature and then Governor Jerry Brown, an award for educational excellence and setting the standard for education in the state of California. The concept of “each one, reach one, each one, teach one,” it was probably one of the most amazing periods of our time. And the amazing thing is that we did not teach the ideology of the party. It was about revolution. Yo, let’s go out and change it. We didn’t do that. We taught them before STEM. It was like foreign languages, everything, and we taught them how to think and not what to think. They had their own disciplinary board to pose a nine-year-old breakfast, lunch and dinner. People like Maya Angelo, she was teaching there three days a week. It was an amazing period of time. The actual things that the party did in a 16 year period, it was officially dissolved in 1982 by Dr. Huey P. Newton. Well, I want you to imagine it was an amazing thing. We think about it. We were internally infiltrated and we were being attacked like the Germans attacked London. You know what I mean, think about that and still we stood and still we did what needed to be done.
Nyge: Before the Panthers began to institute their survival programs, there were very few social services in Oakland and across the country.
Saturu: We had nothing. There were no social service programs at all, no medical programs. There wasn’t Medicare. There weren’t any food banks or any health operations. If you did not have, quote unquote, what the regular system provided, you were just out of luck. So all these programs, everything that was created, Urban League’s, all these things came out of the effort of the Black Panther Party and the work that we did in establishing what we call modern day social service programs, but what we have to invest is like when we talked about the Oakland Community School, the concept of the children and the youth are our future. So I think that’s where we’re at, working with the young people, getting to understand they haven’t been equipped with their history, who they are. Once that happens, you can’t do nothing to me. We had this concept of including everybody. You must remember, at the time that women actually ran the Black Panther Party. We also taught women in the women’s rights movement. We would always say you don’t have a separate agenda that’s separate from the mass agenda, whether it’s the Vietnam War, with the student movement, problems in the Black community, police brutality. We all came together under a collaborative to address all of them. So everybody didn’t feel like there was this independent type of thing or self-interest. It became a general truly mass appeal of power to the people. That’s what we call the spirit of openness. And everybody coming together and making a change does not take away who you are, does not take away your own merit, does not take away your own brains. It says that you’re really brilliant and beyond because you’re able to work with the masses. A single spark becomes a prairie fire.
[Music Break]
Nyge: The entire interview, which I conducted with other folks at YR, is much, much longer than what we’re hearing today. So if you want to listen to the whole thing, which is full of amazing historical anecdotes, you can check it out on our website at adultishpodcast.com. When we come back from our break, we’ll talk to actor and comedian Lil Rel.
[Episode Break]
Merk: Here with us and reppin’ for Chicago kids on the West Side is award-winning comic Lil Rel Howery. In addition to his stand-up, you’ve seen him in sketch comedy and on shows like “Insecure” and “The Carmichael Show.” He’s had his own sitcom. Been in movies like “Get Out”, the new hysterical prank film “Bad Trip” and of course, “Judas and the Black Messiah.” So, let’s give it up for Lil Rel. Thanks for being here!
Lil Rel: Well, thanks for having me.
Nyge: You’re in “Dark Humor,” this docuseries on YouTube that gets into experiences of Black comedians like yourself. You talked about how comedy allows you to speak truth to power. What kind of power is that?
Lil Rel: Comedy is one of the most powerful things because it’s where you to be the most honest. So, you know, like I always look at like Chris Rock to me, the bit he does about they should charge more for the bullet than a gun and maybe people will stop just shooting those bullets. And as crazy and funny as the sound, that’s really a good idea. Like ’cause then it makes you wonder about your politicians like, yeah, yeah, comedians aren’t smarter — are we smarter than y’all? Should we be running for office? Because, like, you know, if you look at like Jon Stewart or Wanda Sykes, we all have these great perspectives, but we all sit down — I know sometimes we all at the comedy club is over — we sit down and be like, we’ll talk politics and like, who do we vote in? So it’s a lot of power humor where like it just moves the needle a little bit and makes you think.
Merk: Another character that you played recently was Wayne in “Judas and the Black Messiah.” And there, you are this mysteriously suave and powerful figure who influences Bill O’Neal, LaKeith’s character, on carrying out the plan to give Chairman Fred Hampton the sedatives. How did your thoughts on the Black Panther Party change from before you got your script to bringing that character to life?
Lil Rel: So that story, I asked to be in the movie. Like I don’t do that all the time, but I’m like, “Yo, you’re not — you can’t tell the story and not have me in this movie.” So I hit up the Lucas Brothers. I hit up Ryan Coogler and they made it happen, right? And then they was like, this is what we need. Rel, we got something. I’m like, “Alright cool.” And because I grew up knowing the Fred Hampton story. You know, that’s where my family’s at. My dad, my uncle, they always talked about Fred, the way where he was murdered. It was down the street from where I grew up in. My grandparents had their home the whole time. So my dad grew up in the house. So when all this was happening, like my father used to tell the story like you know, he’s a catch when he talks about it too like — and sometimes happy, like when the Panthers had their shoot out against the police, the neighborhood was like, “Yo, everybody thought that was gangster.” Because, you know, that has been the problem over time. Historically, they always try to tell the Black Panther story like they was a terrorist organization. And what I love about this particular film is it told the truth. Also, Fred Hampton was only 21 years old. You know how afraid you got to be? You’re afraid of basically — he’s not a kid, but like he’s 21. The threat, just because — and people realized it wasn’t a threat about what he was going to do for Black people only. It was rich against poor for him. So when he was able to gather all these different people from different walks of life, that was like nah they’re like playing us, all of us. That was scary politically, you know, that brother would have been mayor, governor, probably president. He had that type of power. He could speak to any group of people and everybody. I mean he was thinking of bringing the gangs together, bringing like — he was able to talk to everybody. And that’s frightening for the powers that be.
Nyge: Growing up in the Bay Area, I, you know, grew up always going to It’s All Good Bakery, which is known around here as a Black Panther meeting spot back in the day. And I took classes at Merritt College, which is where Huey Newton and Bobby Seale went. And I have several family members that were Panthers. And so it’s always been a big part of my life. But I didn’t know the Chairman Fred Hampton story because, you know, that’s the other side of the country. And so I’m curious who the Panthers were to you like before you did this movie? Like, what was your relationship to the Panthers pre-”Judas and the Black Messiah?”
Lil Rel: Well, two things I met Chairman Fred Hampton Jr., his son, early in my comedy career, like he used to have his office in the same office with this guy named Jeff Egan, who’s a promoter who I used to do shows. So I’d come hang out at the office and Chairman Fred Jr. would be there just … man hitting us, facts, stories, things, ideas constantly, right? The Black Panthers was praised in my family, my mom, my aunt, they all knew Panthers. They all knew what they was doing. We wouldn’t have the breakfast program in schools if it wasn’t for the Black Panthers doing it first. They wasn’t even giving kids breakfast. The Lucas Brothers are my friends who helped create the script, and that’s who this all came from. This whole idea, even with the way they — the idea to start it from William O’Neil’s perspective, it’s from the Lucas Brothers. We was doing a sketch series in New York, “Friends of the People,” and we used to have our desks next to each other. And one day I’m looking at them, and I was like, “Why are you all researching all this Fred?” Like are y’all crazy?
Nyge: Yeah, like whatcha all doing?
Lil Rel: But the thing about the Lucas Brothers, they would research random stuff that easy could’ve — literally I’ve walked in on them and been like, “Why are y’all looking up snowboarding and the history?” They was doing research on him. And it’s crazy that it turned out to be this now Oscar-nominated film. And I’m so proud of my friends but I’m like “Yo.” They were sitting there like, “Who was William O’Neal?” William O’Neal, he represents a lot of the plight of a lot of black people that at that time, but even now, right? Capitalism, where, like, you have to make a weird decision to survive. And that’s what made the government, to me, even more sicker of … it was fun for them to pin us against each other. And it’s been like that since then. Black men are mostly influenced by a white man telling them what they do, right? Measure success because of it. Can I get to where this white man is. This is why I love Black women so much, they don’t care about that. They don’t care. Like, they literally just like we’re going to do it this way and this is the way I want to do it. And they measure the success of their own things they create for other people.
Merk: So you have worked with Daniel and Lakeith on the big screen before. “Get Out” was a very different style from Judas. Tackled racism head on as well though. Were there similar energies on both sets or were they pretty different?
Lil Rel: That’s interesting that you say that. I think it’s the same. I think that’s why it works in a way that some very, you know, the way, you know, the mindset, first off. The way Jordan Peele thinks. The way Shaka thinks, the way all of us, and then all of us know each other. To me, it felt the same way to be honest with ya. I didn’t really feel like it was a different — I felt like that’s why it worked. You know what I mean? Like it was once again, like, I don’t know if people get it, but that “Get Out” crew was … that was a good group of actors and actresses. If I was anybody, let me call these dudes. But LaKeith and Daniel are so brilliant. I guess this is really why I admire LaKeith and Daniel because sometimes I would just watch them be the character, you know what I’m saying? Like with LaKeith playing William O’Neal was tough, right? Because you’re playing this — you know, you’re like I wanna humanize this guy who did this terrible thing. But at the same time, I got to make sure — you know what I mean? I would see him battling with this. It was almost like watching “Get Out,” you know. Like the Georgina scene with the mom and the maid and you could see in their head, like they’re talking to each other.
Nyge: Yeah.
Lil Rel: I will sometimes see that with LaKeith, almost batter himself in being William. It’s just very interesting. And then with Daniel, just the way he engulfs the character. I’m happy that he’s getting a part because I think he’s just one of the most brilliant actors that I’ve ever seen, that could just give you energy even when he delivers those lines. We always laughed at like when I watched Judas and the Black Messiah. He would look at the trailer and, you know, “I am a revolutionary!” He would almost jump out of his shoes like it’s like he almost lost his feet. Like brother how? What was that like? It was like watching a Michael Jackson land in any movie. Like what the hell was that? But these guys are brilliant. And it’s so interesting that Get Out was nominated for an Oscar along with this, you know, those honest ways of shooting something.
Nyge: There’s something to what you said too like that I didn’t think about before. Like you were saying that all of you all know each other and y’all are having these conversations in these open, honest conversations. And it’s almost like “Get Out” is just one perspective of that same conversation. And then “Judas and the Black Messiah,” obviously taken from an actual event. But it’s another perspective of that same conversation that y’all are having together.
Lil Rel: Same conversation and also let me tell you something. African-Americans don’t get enough credit for how strong and resilient they are. We had slavery. There was so much thrown at us. And we to even be where we are now so we can sit in an interview and talk. I can live here. I can drive there. It was almost virtually impossible with everything that was thrown at us. And that’s why we think about the Fred Hampton story and you think about “Get Out.” It’s so many attacks on us and we still find a way to get through it.
Nyge: Yeah.
Lil Rel: And, you know, in “Get Out,” you know, me driving off represents that, right? Picking my boy up and we leave. We just like we outta here. Here we go. And in the Fred Hampton story. For Chairman Jr. to be able to still keep it going as much as he can, also for us to be able to make that movie with his story, with his truth, and it’s nominated for an Oscar, that’s resilience. That’s how resilient Black people are. But you’re talking about, they threw crap. We got so much thrown at us.
Nyge: Yeah.
Lil Rel: And we survived it sometimes.
Nyge: Right. You kind of blew my mind with that statement, too, because now I’m thinking like about LaKeith, like being controlled mentally in “Get Out” and then him being controlled mentally in “Judas and the Black Messiah,” like all the parallels. That’s next level. That’s next level right there. That’s crazy.
Lil Rel: And that’s why I told LaKeith, you got to do a comedy or something after this brother.
Nyge and Merk: (laughs)
Nyge: He got “The Photograph” like in there. So that’s like…
Lil Rel: Well, that was still more drama than … Which, you know, but “Sorry to Bother You” was the closest thing, you know, because that’s him and Jermaine’s complimenting each other and arguing. It’s still one of the funniest things I’ve ever seen.
Nyge: “I hope you just come up, brother.”
Lil Rel: “Yeah, you smell good.” Yeah.
Nyge: Alright everyone. Catch Lil Rel, Eric Andre and Tiffany Haddish in “Bad Trip” on Netflix. And see everything he’s up to by following him on IG @comedianlilrel and on Twitter @LilRel4. Thanks so much for being here today! This was great. I had a lot of fun.
Merk: Yeah, thank you.
Lil Rel: Thank you all for having me.
[Music Break]
Nyge: Okay, today’s top takeaway number one: The Black Panther Party is responsible for many programs and ideas we still use and pull from to this day even though they aren’t given the credit for it.
Merk: And two, there is power to the people and a lot of that power is knowledge. Educating yourself and those around you about what you stand for and why it matters is key. So with that, thanks for listening to Adult ISH, produced by YR Media, a national network of young artists and journalists creating content for this generation.
Nyge: More thank yous go out to our producer Georgia Wright, Executive Producer Rebecca Martin, and the young people at YR who contributed art for this episode. Special thanks to Chaz Hubbard, Michelle Klug and Kalen Luciano for helping us out with the Saturu Ned interview.
Merk: To stay connected with us, we’re on all the socials @YRadultISH. For the full cut of Saturu Ned’s amazing interview and to check out more of our episodes, come to our site adultishpodcast.com.
Nyge: We’re also proud to be members of Radiotopia by PRX. An independent listener-supported collective of some of the most powerful shows in all of podcasting. Find them at radiotopia.fm.
Merk: And now for next week’s out of context clip.
(closet door opening)
Nyge: Somebody coming out of the…
Merk: Hey hey, talk to y’all next week!