Busy Being Black with Joshua Rivers

Jul 1 · 23m

There is perhaps no better person to speak to about Black creative expression and excellence through art than Kadiatu Kanneh-Mason—the matriarch, mother and woman who makes possible the prodigious creativity of the seven Kanneh-Mason siblings.   In her book, To Be Young, Gifted and Black, Kadiatu shows that the key to a creatively fulfilling and purposeful life is in how we live in between the highs and the lows—the relationships we nurture, the humour we entertain and in the routines we build that honour and sustain our passions.  Part II of my conversation with Kadiatu continues on Patreon for Regular Listeners: patreon.com/busybeingblack This conversation was recorded at Manngington Book Bash 2025, one of the UK's most cherished literary festivals.  If the interiority & craft of authors, writers & artists stir your imagination to whirling, come to Mannington Book Bash 2026. Thank you to Henry Layte and the team at the Book Hive. Busy Being Black's theme music was created for the show by Lazarus Lynch and Joshua Pleeter. The oceanic cellos that open the show were created for Busy Being Black by Dylan Halverson. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Jun 24 · 55m

I sat down with award-winning author Brandon Taylor live at Brixton House Theatre to mark the UK launch of his latest novel, Minor Black Figures. Our conversation explores what happens when Black artists resist the demands of the always-on attention economy to instead embrace the archives, tend to our cultural inheritances and allow ourselves—and the characters in our art—the messy complexities we are so often encouraged to hide. 06:20 How's your heart? 18:00 Real Life in a Black Square Summer 36:00 Minor Black Figures in Interminable Pandemics 43:00 It's okay to be an uppity negro Get your copy of Minor Black Figures from your local bookshop. This episode includes the voices of: Lorraine Hansberry and Pamela Sneed.  If the interiority & craft of authors, writers & artists stir your imagination to whirling, come to Mannington Book Bash. Busy Being Black is only sustainable with community support. Become a Regular Listener on Patreon ✷ patreon.com/busybeingblack See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Apr 24 · 58m

As we bear witness to the destruction of our world and kin through handheld technologies designed as slot machines, and increasingly disoriented by the hourly oscillations between the cannibal horror and unutterable awe of being human in 2026, Minna Salami reminds us that we won’t build new worlds with the same words that built this one. Read that again, friends. With her full-bodied philosophy, sensuous knowledge, she calls us back to the wild, sensate, subterranean and queer within and beyond us so that we can reclaim what europatriarchal knowledge systems taught us was uncivilised and savage—including the innumerable ways of knowing that have nothing to do with taxonomies or science or murder. Minna says that ‘freedom is the ability to conjure and then create of our lives the sense of rapture and joy that is our birthright.’ And we know very well that europatriarchal knowledge systems quite explicitly do not offer that as an option About Minna Salami ✷ Minna is an acclaimed afrofeminist scholar, author and cultural critic. Her publication, Kaleido, explores society, culture and power through the kaleidoscopic method: a sensuous, multilayered and epistemically polyamorous approach to knowledge that draws from multiple intersections and cultures. Busy Being Black is the award-winning podcast for Black LGBTQ+ creative, cultural & spiritual inquiry. If the podcast moves you, please: Support ✷ https://buy.stripe.com/aFa3cw82KfqeeNE0UdgjC00 Subscribe ✷ http://www.youtube.com/@busybeingblacktube Follow ✷ https://www.instagram.com/_busybeingblack PERKS + PARTNERS advaya creates courses to awaken the human spirit & inspire purposeful action in the world. Otherworlds begins on 12 May and provides the perspectives, practices & community we need to become active & empowered agents for emerging futures: https://advaya.life/otherworlds 🔑 BUSY-OTHERWORLDS for 15% off advaya+ membership Founded in 1969, Pluto Press is one of the world’s oldest radical publishers & their focus remains making interventions in contemporary struggles: https://www.plutobooks.com/?s=imagination&post_type=product 🔑 BUSY50 for 50% off See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Apr 18 · 52m

My bodacious conversation with theatre-maker and cosmological enchantress Candice D'Meza opens with my poem, Our Life Together. Inspired by an exchange between Nikki Giovanni and James Baldwin, the poem is a fitting expression of the ways Black artists think, feel and create across time and space to build the worlds we need now. Candice D'Meza builds liberated worlds through art, cosmology and the Imagination Institute, where she teaches others to reclaim the operational divinity & living power of the Black radical imagination: https://www.candicedmeza.com/ How to inhabit the version of yourself that has already made it through Why the crisis of imagination leaves us vulnerable to the violent desires of capitalism Embracing the body's curriculum and learning through pleasure instead of pain What Harriet Tubman teaches us about the impossible Why they can never make us forget who we are Busy Being Black is the award-winning podcast for Black LGBTQ+ creative, cultural & spiritual inquiry ✷ https://www.busybeingblack.com/ If the podcast moves you, please: Support ✷ https://buy.stripe.com/aFa3cw82KfqeeNE0UdgjC00 Subscribe ✷ http://www.youtube.com/@busybeingblacktube Follow ✷ https://www.instagram.com/_busybeingblack PERKS + PARTNERS advaya creates courses to awaken the human spirit & inspire purposeful action in the world. Otherworlds begins on 12 May and provides the perspectives, practices & community we need to become active & empowered agents for emerging futures: https://advaya.life/otherworlds 🔑 BUSY-OTHERWORLDS for 15% off advaya+ membership Founded in 1969, Pluto Press is one of the world’s oldest radical publishers & their focus remains making interventions in contemporary struggles: https://www.plutobooks.com/?s=imagination&post_type=product 🔑 BUSY50 for 50% off See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Mar 25 · 42m

Poet and author Dean Atta returns to Busy Being Black to share how therapy, memoir-writing and entering into his "big man stage" have transformed his relationship with his mental health, creativity and self-acceptance. The episode opens with a joint reading of Dean's poem "Two Black Boys in Paradise"—the poem that inspired the BAFTA-winning animation of the same name—and closes with Dean reading "On Days When" from his poetry collection There Is Still Love Here. Busy Being Black is the award-winning podcast for queer Black creative, cultural and spiritual vitality. If the show moves you, consider ⁠buying me a coffee or a book⁠. Dean Atta is an award-winning Black British writer from London known for his heartfelt storytelling rooted in his Greek Cypriot and Jamaican heritage. He writes poetry, fiction and nonfiction for all ages. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Mar 10 · 52m

Art is a vital mechanism through which we process grief and sustain life. In times of intense discord, denying our impulse to create often results in destructive behaviours. Artist and writer Rosel Jackson Stern offers a gentle provocation to anyone feeling paralysed by the current geopolitical climate: find and nurture even the tiniest moments of joy. By anchoring life in joy, Rosel has built an artistic and spiritual practice that moves them closer—with every prayer, sweep of the brush and stroke of the pen—to a world where queer Black people experience an abundance of peace, community and creative vitality. It is in and through our joy we find our freedom, and this episode is a reminder that liberation is rooted in the timeless intimacy of the present moment. Watch this conversation. About Rosel ✷ Rosel Jackson Stern (they/them) is an artist, journalist and writer whose creativity spans several mediums and modalities. The purpose of their work is to carve out space for the unknown, and is a testament to what happens when we take leaps of faith. Busy Being Black is the award-winning podcast for Black LGBTQ+ creative, cultural & spiritual inquiry. If the podcast moves you, buy me a book. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Oct 21 · 57m

Today marks eight years since Busy Being Black first came to life: on 21 October 2017, I produced and hosted an event called Forbidden Fruits, anchored by a conversation about love, intimacy and belonging among queer Black men. I couldn't have known in that moment how much I would need this space. Ben Ellis is a poet—and a poet in the way James Baldwin, Toni Morrison and René Ménil meant it: one ordained to dive into the unconscious and awaken the rest of us with their marvels. I am stunned and struck by the energy of Ben's poetry, his vulnerability, his rage. I am enlivened by his sensitivity, his heartache and his desire for peace of mind. I am grateful to honour my own thresholds by bearing witness at the gates of his. If you enjoyed this conversation, you'll enjoy the ⁠Black Marvellous⁠: a growing collection of conversations that adventure into Black imaginative vigour—in art, attitude and life. — Chapters 00:26 Are you avoiding your own emergence? 02:04 The ordination of the bard: 8 years of Busy Being Black 12:43 Ben recites Pansies 16:32 All my poems are sad n*gga poems 24:19 There is no word for depression in my native tongue 29:25 Who is served by the performance of our grief? 33:16 Ben recites Milkshake 37:09 Can we reclaim any spirituality from within the religions that have harmed us? 47:23 I am Black first and Black also 51:00 Ben recites To Orlando 53:37 Peace of mind 55:55 Every gesture is a prayer when you know who you are — Thank you: This episode includes wisdom from ⁠Candice D'Meza⁠, ⁠Rev. Jide Macaulay⁠ and ⁠Bayyinah Bello⁠. If this conversation resonates with you, there are three ways you can show your love: leave a comment, rating, or review; share this conversation on social media; or ⁠buy me a book⁠. The songs 'Busy Being Black' and 'Baptism' were created for Busy Being Black and in collaboration with Lazarus Lynch and Joshua Pleeter, and Dylan Halverson, respectively. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Sep 21 · 55m

A tender meditation on grief, healing and courage with multidisciplinary artist Phoebe Boswell, who creates portals that return us to our miraculous hearts. If you'd like to see the art we discuss in this conversation, you can watch this episode on @busybeingblacktube. The ⁠⁠Black Marvellous⁠⁠: a growing collection of conversations that adventure into Black imaginative vigour—in art, attitude & life. — If this conversation resonates with you, there are three ways you can show your love: leave a comment, rating, or review; share this conversation on social media; or buy me a book. The song 'Busy Being Black' was created for the show and in collaboration with Lazarus Lynch and Joshua Pleeter. The song 'Baptism' was created for the show and in collaboration with Dylan Halverson—and inspired by the oceanic overwhelm I felt engaging with Phoebe Boswell's art & the music she commissioned from bassist Gregg August: 'The promise of your redemption is within the depths you've been avoiding.' See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Jun 25 · 56m

Inspired by Afrosurrealism, surrealist philosophy and the archetypal imagination, the Black Marvellous is a growing collection of conversations that adventure into Black imaginative vigour—in art, attitude and life. Who better than Mojisola Adebayo to remind us of the adventure and irreverence of Black artistry, during and beyond times of crisis? In this conversation, which originally aired in February 2023, Mojisola takes us on a journey from Goldsmiths University to Antarctica, to space and back again, to explore how we utilise performance to challenge the sanctity of whiteness, what an orgasm-seeking space odyssey tells us about the world-changing potential of queer Black pleasure, and how the reanimation of the life and story of Henrietta Lacks prompts us to consider our own genealogical and cosmic immortality. — Thank you: If this conversation resonates with you, here are three ways you can show your love: leave a comment, rating, or review; share this conversation on social media; or ⁠buy me a book. The song 'Busy Being Black' was created for the show and in collaboration with Lazarus Lynch and Joshua Pleeter. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.