Podcast 360 Episode 2

Host:Toya Coleman and Sequoia Holmes

Podcast 360 - Episode 2 - S2 Transcript

P360 S2 E2_Toya Coleman and Sequoia Holmes

Arielle: [00:00:00] Welcome to Podcast 360 powered by the Podcast Academy. In three questions answered in 60 seconds each, you'll experience a 360 degree view of podcasting from a lineup of industry experts. The hosts of your favorite podcasts will take turns interviewing each other, creating a chain of podcast knowledge and perspective.

Let's meet our industry experts. Today's host is 

Toya: I'm Toya from Harlem, the creator of That Wasn't In My Textbook Podcast. And you heard me on last week's episode when I was interviewed by Arielle Nissenblatt. 

Arielle: And who is our guest this week? 

Sequoia: Hi, I'm Sequoia Holmes, host of the newly Webby Award winning podcast, Black People Love Paramore. Contrary to the title, it is not a podcast about the band Paramore. It's a show about the common and uncommon interests of Black people in order to help the community feel a bit more seen. 

Arielle: First, the game before the game. We ask our guests to share two [00:01:00] truths and a lie. Our hosts will guess which is the lie, and we'll find out the answer together at the end of our conversation. Let's play Podcast 360.

Toya: Sequoia, thank you so much for joining Podcast 360 as my guest. It's great to have you.

Sequoia: I'm so excited. It's going to be so fun.

Toya: I know, right? As you heard from Arielle, every episode of Podcast 360 starts the same way, with a round of Two Truths and a Lie, where you provide us with three facts about yourself, and I'll guess which one is a lie.

You'll hold the correct answer until the very end of this conversation, when we'll reveal which one is actually the lie. Are you ready? 

Sequoia: I'm ready. My parents changed my name after I was born because my grandma didn't like my original name. I fought in and lost an amateur MMA fight when I was 17. I made the basketball team in middle school, but hurt my leg before the season began, so I never made it off the bench.

Toya: Wow, these are good.

Sequoia: Thanks. 

Toya: Alright, so the first one, I just want to make sure I remember. The first one is [00:02:00] that your name was changed because your grandparents didn't like your original name. 

Sequoia: Mm hmm. 

Toya: The second one was that you fought in an MMA fight at 17, and the third one is something about breaking your leg.

Sequoia: I hurt my leg, and I play basketball, so I never came off the bench. 

Toya: Ah, these are really good. You know, I heard the key to winning these are having these extreme situations. Um, I'm gonna say that The, uh, 17, like, fighting MMA fight at 17 and losing is a lie. You'll hold your answer until the end. 

Sequoia: Yes, I will hold my answer until the end, yep.

Toya: Okay, so now that that's taken care of, we're gonna learn even more about you as I ask you three questions related to podcasting, and you'll have only 60 seconds to answer each. After that, we'll pick one of the subjects we covered, and we'll revisit it in greater detail, and you can elaborate on any thoughts you want to share.

Shall we get started?

Sequoia: Mm hmm. Mm hmm. 

Toya: My first question is just like, tell me how you started Black People Love Paramore. 

Sequoia: I have three ways that I started Black People Love Paramore. [00:03:00] One, I had a Paramore phase growing up, so I love Paramore. I am Black people. Two, Every time Black people tweeted about loving Paramore, there would just be other Black people in the comments being like, Yeah, we do love Paramore.

Why do we love Paramore? And the tweet would go viral all the time. And three, my roommate, who I lived with for 10 years, shout out Tom. She is a white woman, and she was sitting on the couch with me one night, and she was like, You know, I really hate Paramore. And I was like, that's anti Black, and so I tweeted it.

I asked Twitter, is it anti Black for my white roommate to say that she hates Paramore? And they were like, yep. And therefore, Black People Love Paramore was born. 

Toya: Wow. Well, shout out to Twitter, your roommate, and everyone else in your phase of loving Paramore. 

Sequoia: Mm hmm. 

Toya: Okay, so my second question is, I know you've, I know it's not about Paramore in particular, but you did have the lead singer of Paramore as a guest on your podcast.

Can you talk about the process of getting a star [00:04:00] guest or getting like a big guest because you've had other big names like Kid Fury from The Read and a lot of podcasters are listening to this. So what was your process, and maybe if it's under 60 seconds, like your tip to like getting your dream guest on there?

Sequoia: Okay, I got Hayley's. I went to a Spotify event. I was invited to my first Spotify event for my podcast. I went to the event. The manager of the event was also tight with Hayley's manager, and she asked me, Sequoia, have you been to a Paramore concert? And I was like, no, I've never been to a Paramore concert. She was like, we're gonna change that.

And I was like, okay, that's cool. So she reached out to. Hayley's manager and the manager was like, oh, we're gonna get her tickets to go to the Paramount concert this summer. By the way, Hayley's wants to come on the podcast. Is that okay? And I was like, is that okay? Yeah, that's more than okay. I would love to have Hayley's Williams on my podcast, so she came on my podcast.

That's the first thing. And then tips for other people. It really is a domino effect. So once I got Hayley's, I felt more comfortable reaching out to bigger people. I reached out to Kid Fury next. He was probably the second biggest person that I reached out to, and I evoked Hayley's name. When I reached out to Kid Fury, I was like, Hey, I have this podcast.

I think you would like it. I think you would like to come on and talk about this. Hayley's Williams has been on it. [00:05:00] I think you should do it. And then he did it. And every big person since then, I've referenced the previous big person. So I've referenced Kid Fury, Hayley's, and whomever else has come on the podcast.

Toya: Wow. That was great. And under 60 seconds, you gave us a tip and a story. All right. Um, that was impressive. I love that. Let's go on to the next question. And of course I can circle back. You are an award winning podcast. You just got a Webby Award, a People Voice of Podcast Award, which means you had to get your community to vote.

And so, can you talk about how you built this community and how do you speak to them and get them excited for something like being nominated? 

Sequoia: Yes, so this community built pretty organically. I would say the biggest platform that I've used to Build it is TikTok. TikTok obviously has the most interesting algorithm of the rest of the social media platform.

So you're able to have a larger reach on TikTok without being a large creator in the first place. So about a year and a half ago, I made a video because I was getting racist reviews on my podcast. I made a video telling TikTok I was getting these racist reviews, asking people to leave reviews. From that video, [00:06:00] it blew up, by the way.

I think it has like 500, 000 views or maybe a million at this point. I don't really know. People started listening to the podcast a lot. So then it's just an organic community after that. They're like, Oh, I'm invested here. This person I've seen their ascent and they're invested. So then when I asked them to vote for me for the Webby's, they were like, yeah, okay.

And I leveraged Hayley's and Paramore. I asked them to post and they did. 

Toya: And you did that with one second to spare. So now that we've done these three questions. It's been great getting to know you and hear your insights. We now have an opportunity to pick one of these topics we covered to go just a little bit deeper.

Is there anything that you're interested in talking about? 

Sequoia: Yeah, let's talk a little bit more about getting bigger name talent on the show and tips for that. Yeah, let's talk about that. 

Arielle: Podcast 360 will be back in just a moment. And we're back with Podcast 360. 

Toya: Okay, yeah, I think that's like really important.

And I know one of the main [00:07:00] like tips that people give podcasters just like get other podcasters. And so you have had like big name podcasters. Like I think of Kid Fury, I'm sure there's others. And then obviously you also have had celebrities. So yeah, if you want to speak and elaborate more on the process of, you know, getting guests and how you even pick your guests to make sure they're the right fit and they're like, are going to answer your questions correctly and be excited to be there because I've had some weird interviews sometimes.

Sequoia: That's very fair. For me, I much prefer to pitch guests as opposed to respond to pitches from guests. Because a lot of the time, it's not a good fit, although it has been a good fit sometimes, it has definitely worked sometimes. I have found when I'm the one finding the guests, being like, I would love to have this person on my podcast, and then pitching them, it works out better, the episode comes out better, and it's just more interesting.

The point that I want to make about getting bigger talent on your podcast is, I know this sounds cliche, I know this sounds corny, it absolutely is not. Shoot your shot because you miss 100 percent of the shots that you do not take. People have a plethora of [00:08:00] interests. When I reached out to Kid Fury, I've told this story on my TikTok before, but when I reached out to Kid Fury, I had drafted this email.

It was a beautiful, pristine email, okay? I had even bought the domain for at Black People Love Paramore pod to make it like more official so I could send the email from, you know, from the official, not gonna put the damn email out there, whatever, from the official email. And. Because I wanted this to be legitimate.

I didn't want it to be coming from at gmail or anything like that. Did that, drafted the email, it was beautiful, and then it deleted. As I hit send, it just would not send. I had pitched a topic that I thought he wouldn't talk about because I've been listening to Kid Fury for the last 10 years of my life.

I know what he's interested in. I had pitched, uh, what did I pitch to him? Zelda. The video game Zelda. Black people love Zelda. 

Toya: Yes, he's a big gamer. 

Sequoia: Big gamer. Big Zelda fan. So I'm like, okay, I'll pitch this. I'll tell him Hayley's come on the show. You know, I think that he should do it. It deleted. I was so annoyed. It took me like an hour to draft that email. I'm [00:09:00] not really much of a persevere type of girl. I tend to tap out. If you make it too hard, I'm assume it's not for me. Okay. I heard you. It's not for me. I said, you know what, I'm gonna draft this again. So I, I've never had an email delete also. What, what the hell was that?

Toya: I was gonna say, I don't think I've had. It usually goes into drafts if I think I deleted it or something. 

Sequoia: Not even a draft. It was nuts. I think it was because it was the first email I was sending from that hello, at, whatever. So I drafted it again and this time I'm like, you know what, he also really likes Golden Girls so I'm going to include that as an alt and that's what he chose.

Like a few days later his management got back to me and was like, oh yeah, Kid Fury really likes this idea. He would like to come on and talk about golden Girls. And I was like, see, I wonder what would have happened if I didn't pitch that, if I didn't include that in there. So it's one of those everything happens for a reason type situations.

And also you miss 100 percent of the shots that you don't take. Who's to say that Kid Fury wouldn't have come on the podcast before Hayley's came on the podcast simply because he likes the premise of it and because I pitched something that was specific to him. So pay attention to the people that you like and you want [00:10:00] to get on your podcast.

Tailor your pitch to them specifically. The less generic you can make your pitch, obviously, the better. And that's pitching across the board. Whether you're pitching a written article or a podcast episode, or yourself as a guest on a podcast episode, making it as specific as possible will always be the best way to go.

Toya: Yeah. 

Sequoia: And have faith in yourself. Have gumption.

Toya: I love that. I love that. Yeah, I always hear the saying, like, similar to what you just said, like, you miss 100 percent of the shots you don't take, but also, like, don't tell yourself no. 

Sequoia: Don't tell yourself. No, let somebody else. So, you know, I forgot about the email, but immediately after hitting send on it, I didn't think about it again until I got a response from Kid Fury's manager.

I literally woke up, looked at my phone, gasped, woke my partner up, was like, Oh, he said, yes, he said, yes. And he said, can we do it in person and not remote and I was like with me? He wants to be in the same room with me? So 

Toya: Yes, he does. Yes. I love that I love that. Yes, if you're listening and you're podcasting let this story be an example go for what you want.

Okay? [00:11:00] I really love that I think that was really helpful and useful even for me as someone who's getting back into pitching people to come on to my podcast. So thank you for that. 

Sequoia: Yeah, of course.

Toya: There's one more thing to do before we wrap up here. It's time to find out which of your three facts is the lie?

Again, for my final answer, I'm going to stick to my original answer, which was the MFA fighting at 17. Now you let me know. Was I right or wrong?

Sequoia: You are right. I was not. I did not fight in an MMA fight when I was 17. I'm offended. You don't think that I would fight in an MMA fight? 

Toya: You don't give me fighter, you know, as someone who also said later on, like, no, like, not like a physical fighter. 

Sequoia: I don't. I've never been in a fight a day of my life, but yeah.

Toya: But also like you kind of gave you gave it away later on. I've already yes, but you were like, I don't have gumption. Like if it's a no. So I feel like if you have that type of attitude, you're not trying to really tussle with anybody. 

Sequoia: That's true. [00:12:00] I like to think I'm a tussler, but I've never, never actually tussled.

Toya: Definitely a tussler. Yes, for sure. 

Sequoia: I would like to fight. I think now that I'm approaching 30 rapidly, I don't think that that's very, that very much gonna happen. But I do take boxing classes and I would like to enter an amateur fight, but I don't think so. at this point. 

Toya: Okay. Okay. Well, I support you. Let me know if you have that fight. I will be watching and supporting you. 

Sequoia: Thank you. 

Toya: Um, it was wonderful to have you as a guest today. Thank you for sharing about yourself and your podcast and giving us all these tips on just, you know, how to bet on yourself. Can you let our listeners know where they can find you, your social handles, your websites, any shout outs, any upcoming episodes you want them to check out?

Sequoia: Of course, well, thank you so much for having me. This is a very fun show, very from premise. And of course, you are a great host, as you know. But yes, you can listen to the podcast, Black People Love Paramore, anywhere you listen to podcasts, including YouTube. You can follow the podcast at BPLPPod across all social media networks.

And you can follow [00:13:00] me at Sequoia bholmes across all social media networks as well. 

Toya: Thank you, Sequoia, and thanks to the Podcast 360 team. 

Arielle: Thank you for listening to Podcast 360, where you experience a 360 degree view of podcasting. Special thanks to the Podcast Academy and DCP Entertainment. Follow us on social media at The Ambies and at DCP Official on Instagram.

And subscribe wherever you get your podcasts so that you never miss an episode.

Toya Coleman From - That Wasn't In My Textbook and Sequoia Holmes From - Black People Love Paramore.

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Podcast 360 - Season 2: Listen Here