Keyaira Kelly on co-hosting a podcast with her mom and more

Everyone loves their mom, but how close are you with her really? For writer, editor, and on-camera personality Keyaira Kelly, the answer is, “very.” As the host of the “Talk To Your Mom” podcast, Kelly explores the relationship between Black mothers and daughters in a unique way, without awkwardness, judgment, or trepidation. The podcast, featuring raw conversation between Keyaira Kelly and her mother, Tarawoner Kelly, herself a successful CEO, covers everything from cheating in relationships to raising children. This isn’t a “Tell me how you and dad met,” type of podcast, but more of a “Tell Me About The First Time You Had Sex,” as title of the show’s first episode explains. But while Kelly and her mother are comfortable discussing all manner of topics with each other, she realized early on that many women aren’t. “One of my roommates a few years pointed out a few years ago that I talk to my mom every morning, and how amazing that was. I didn’t realize how rare that was because that was just my normal experience,” Kelly told Marcom Weekly. “As I talked to more of my friends, Black women, and White women too, I learned that they weren’t having these conversations, so the idea of “Talk To Your Mom” was that any millennial daughter who is yearning for some real talk from her mom, can almost see my mother as a surrogate for conversation they can’t get from their biological mother,” Kelly said. Mothers can also use the podcast to “lean on me and listen to me as an example of what could be going on in their daughter’s heads,” she added. “Generational knowledge is wealth, and we believe that the more that you have these conversations and know about your background, the more healing can happen,” Kelly said. To that end, the success of Kelly’s podcast can be chalked up as a win for Black-owned and focused media, something that she has championed throughout her career which has spanned multiple organizations and companies within the digital and print media worlds. Two years ago she penned an article on Hello Beautiful, titled “How Black Hollywood Is Failing The Black Press,” which incidentally led to her being featured on the popular morning radio show, “The Breakfast Club,” where she spoke to the sidelining of black reporters and journalists in the entertainment space. Two years since she wrote her article, Kelly believes that there’s been progress, with Black actors and directors pledging to make more time for the same outlets that have elevated them throughout the years. But the issue doesn’t end there, as the role of black people in the media space has often been seen as an issue to fix in front of the camera. And while the hiring and celebrating of Black actors, stories, and experiences are important, so is hiring Black people to run things behind the camera. “In every single role of creation, it’s important to have diversity, if you only have one group of people controlling the narrative our stories don’t get told,” she said. “Even with something as simple as lighting, I’ve been in situations as a hostess where someone didn’t know how to light my skin properly, so I came out blue or purple, so it didn’t show the luminescence of my skin. It takes people to realize that it’s not just being represented on screen, it’s being shown in your best light,” Kelly explained. Season two of “Talk To Your Mom” is now available on Spotify, Apple, YouTube and Google Play.

Keyaira Kelly on co-hosting a podcast with her mom and more

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Post written by: Michael Heusner

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Keyaira Kelly on co-hosting a podcast with her mom and more

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Post written by: Michael Heusner

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