Charlamagne Tha God, The Black Effect Network
Charlamagne Tha God is an O.G. and possibly the Berry Gordy of podcasting.
Gone are the days when he was Wendy Williams sidekick. Now the homeboy one of the most influential and important voices in entertainment.
Whether it is on his morning show on terrestrial radio, MTV shows, and specials, bestselling books, or his Brilliant Idiot podcast, America wants to know what the Moncks Corner, South Carolinian has to say on just about anything.
Luckily, over the last few years, he has been talking about things that seem to elevate spaces that feed Black creatives, invests in Black creatives, and above all give Black creatives the freedom to create and own their creations.
In September 2020, he announced that he would be launching in partnership with iHeartMedia, a joint podcast publishing venture, The Black Effect Podcast Network.
The BEP promises to give to the world 18 podcasts, all selected and developed by Charlamagne, on iHeartRadio and other podcast platforms.
But in addition to that, it was announced in December 2020 that he will now be made the Senior Creative Officer of Culture content and programming for the number one radio company in the nation, reconfiguring his current deal with the entity.
Charlamagne has “renewed” and “extended” his deal another five years as a host for “The Breakfast Club,” the top nationally syndicated radio show in the country.
On “The Breakfast Club,” he was able to scoop two major moments in the 2020 presidential election: President-Elect Joe Biden flubbing up and saying “you ain’t Black if you don’t vote for me” and Vice President-Elect Kamala Harris saying she smoked weed in college while she was listening to Snoop and Tupac — before either of the rappers had released records.
With this new positioning, Charlamagne’s The Black Effect Network (which is living into its name) has the potential to put so many people into play that have voices that deserve to be heard.
“I give my sincerest thanks to iHeart for empowering me over the past decade to be the best talent that I can be, and for honoring me as an owner and executive,” said Charlamagne. “I love the audio business and iHeart is the biggest and best audio company in the world. As Co-Founder and Chief Creative Officer of the Black Effect Podcast Network and now Senior Creative Officer of Cultural Content and Programming at iHeart, all I want to do for the next five years is continuing to move the culture of radio and podcasting forward by curating a new era of voices, programming, and events. God is great! Now, it’s time to get back to work.”
The first solid show that The Black Effect Podcast Network can list on its content roster is the podcast version of The Breakfast Club.
But there are these names: comedian-actress Jess Hilarious, social justice activist Tamika Mallory, attorney and TV host Eboni K. Williams, N.O.R.E. and DJ EFN’s Drink Champs, Karlous Miller, DC Young Fly and Chico Bean’s The 85 South Show and NBA All-Stars Matt Barnes and Stephen Jackson’s All The Smoke podcast.
Oh, iHeart has opened the doors now! It’s that Black Effect.
Charlamagne also launched Black Privilege Publishing as a new partnership imprint from Atria Books at Simon & Schuster. BPP will drop social justice leader and activist Tamika D. Mallory’s debut book State of Emergency in May 2021. At the same time, he will debut his new show on Comedy Central.