Introducing the Black Monologues: Funmi's love letter to Blackness

MEET FUNMI...
29, NON-BINARY WOMXN

BRITGERIAN
SCIENTIFIC CREATIVE
CPTSD + FND
STORYTELLER
THEY LOVE
BLACKNESS

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Funmi Adebayo, is the CEO & Founder of Olorun Limited. Olorun Limited is a production company focused on illuminating Black Culture.
 
the Black Monologues podcast is the first production by Olorun Limited. It is a series of monologues by Black people, set to originally scored film music.
the Intention, is to create an immersive experience for the listener, so that they are taken into the world of the guest.
the Aim, is to evoke empathy and understanding of the guests’ experience.
the Interviews, are conducted by Funmi Adebayo, who carefully curates a line-up of guests to explore as many different perspectives within the Black community as possible.
the Unique Production Process, focuses on taking the raw interview and editing it down into a 15-20 minute monologue narrative, solely in the guests voice. An unbiased* approach is taken towards guests’ opinions and perspectives. It is then uniquely scored by composers to accompany the guests' monologue, using foley elements to create an immersive experience. Then sound engineered to provide another level of intimacy. We want you to feel like you are really sitting opposite the guest and listening to them tell you who they are and their experiences, with no interruption from you or anybody else, for that matter! The only time you hear a voice other than the guests, is when they are quoting somebody else's' words to them.  After all, those words wouldn't have been said in the guests voice!
the Debut Season is called “Love in all its different forms”. 22 people were interviewed, from every continent (except from Antarctica); between the ages of 6-70+, across different sexualities, genders, religions, socioeconomic backgrounds, occupations, disabilities and beyond. Themes such as self-love, storytelling, music, interracial dating, mixed race experience, cultural assimilation, faith, spirituality, activism + more are discussed through the lens of love. Episodes will be released every 2 weeks.

*Excluding slurs and offensive language targeted at disadvantaged groups. We believe you can be honest, without being offensive or punching down!

P.S. the entire production was done remotely, including the interviews, through the COVID-19 pandemic, by some miracle. Thank you, Zoom. 

the Production Team:

Meet Solomon. Composer.
A musician aka the last musicbender, gamer, anime fan, from Barbados, based in London

Email: solomonbeckles3@gmail.com
Instagram: @blizzardlp

Meet Simon. Composer.
An artist, entrepreneur, Blinkist fan, outdoor lover, ally, from Germany

Email: simon@simonashwood.com
Website: www.simonashwood.com

Meet Lewis. Composer.
A musician, writer, wannabe polymath, ally, from Wales, based in London

Email: lewisacampbell99@gmail.com
Website: www.lewisacampbell.co.uk

Meet Laura. Audio Production Assistant.  
A dj, budding radio producer/presenter, bonnet lover, from Angola, born & based in London 

Email: lcandengue@gmail.com
Instagram: @Lauracan._ 

Meet Naja. Audio Production Assistant.
A runaway neuroscientist, radio presenter, pop music fan, groovy ally, based in London

Email: naja.mahler@gmail.com
Website: www.najamahler.com

Meet Lizzie. Sound Engineer  
An artist, study of all trades & expert in music/radio production, based in London

Email: lizziebmusic123@gmail.com 
Website: www.lizziebmusic.com 

Executively p

Transcript

TBM Love

When, people said, aww Funmi, you keep saying you're going to do a podcast. When is your podcast coming? 

And I just thought, I know I should really do this. 

Then the pandemic hit, I saw the impact on society and I just thought

I'm not gonna let this year break me you know and I'm not gonna let it break so many people I care about 

Last year was difficult, last year was hard you know. We had to see a lot of us get dehumanised, get killed. We had to contend with ourselves, our families, our inner demons. Our inability, to really understand why,

Black lives must mean that you'll climb up the Capitol, you know, and be ready to kill one of your own, like is that really how much it angers you? That we now have a voice, that we can now speak and, you know, being on the Internet and seeing how many people talk on behalf of us, but arent us. How many people live behind profile pics and, you know, social media profiles, but you don't ever really know who they are, um they could be anyone you know? You might think, you might be thinking you're arguing with Tyrone. But you're really, you're arguing with Jerry!

And, you know, that's the thing, just because you're seeing on the screen that people are saying all these things, doesnt mean that's who they really are.  And, you know it's almost symptomatic of what's wrong with the world. 

The fact that we need to create entirely new personas, just to be accepted in a community and so many people willing to shift who they really are and how they really feel, what they really want to say, because they're trying to fit into a certain community. They're trying to fit, into a certain box.
And it can do one of two things, right?

It can, paralyse you. 

You know, people who sit outside, people who are on the margins, people who are not what their community expect them to be, become paralysed.

And there's a part of them that could die, that they could never recover because of that. You know, they could have been someone who felt so much more free, but the world said. To be free is to die, as a black person.

Freedom means death, at least, at least in the Western Eurocentric framing of the world.

And the other way you can go, is you can say, yeah, I am in this box, I fucking love this box.

And then you start to repeat the words of the people who put you in the box in the first place.

You know that black is this black as, they defined what Blackness was and they stamped us with it. 

And in some ways it's created unions.

So now I can be a black person and someone halfway across the world with no roots and no shared history to me, could also be a black person.

And it made me realise I could be freer. It made me realise that.

The truth is they try to shape us, morph us and put us into this box. Whether or not you embrace it or not, the only way to be free.

Is to be brave enough to, truly, get out the box, you know?

So, I thought, what can I do to get people to think out the box? What can I do, to get through to people? Not through Q&A's...

And discussions between people. I said no, how can I really, really get through to people?

And well I just thought, well, they need to learn how to listen. 

I was listening to Clubhouse recently and I just thought, wow. People, there's so much talking going on and such little listening. And it's because.

When you're talking to someone else, you try, whether or not your conscious of it, to adapt, to the person you're talking to. Subconsciously. And so, you're never your true unfiltered self, you know? Like who are you when nobody is around, When nobody is seeing you. When nobody is watching you. That's who you truly are. 

And anything else, as soon as you're in a space with other people, is a performance, right?

So, you need to think, who am I dancing for? Who am I performing for? Whose gaze am I performing for?

And I think, if you care about the White gaze, so what fits into the social construct of Whiteness, which is often White people, but not always. Sometimes we internalise that too and other non-Black people. Then yes, you need to perform, because to not performance  is to die, right? That's the only reason why you're there, for entertainment. But, if you break out the box, then

You don't exist, according to certain boundaries and guidelines, you exist, because you just do, and the vast expanse of every possibility of what you could be is open to you.

 There's no limitations. There's no ceilings. You just have to decide that.

You're done with the performance.

You're ready to dance, sing, laugh, shout, scream, for yourself, because what's wrong with that?

What's wrong with just doing it for yourself? There's nothing wrong with that. 

There should never be others. That doesn't mean it has to hurt other people. 

It just means, it doesn't have to be wrong to focus on you. To make sure you're happy. To make sure you're well.

What's wrong with that? People's value is not tied.

Or should not be tied to what they can produce, and that's the economy, that's how we judge the economy.

That's how we judge GDP growth, productive output, economic output, how productive are we in society that we can put a number on. But we are so much more than that, and there's nothing wrong with that.

But you have to truly believe that to start to shape your environment around you, into what you want to see and not what you've just been given, you know, it really is.

It is it is imagining more. And that's scary and frightening, but we've done it before

And I know that we'll always be able to do it. And that's why I love Black people.

You know, when they took away our voices, our accents, our languages, we came together, we made our own. We created music out of it, we created sermons, spoken word, poetry, song, literature. And that's if you're just looking at the Black products out of the transatlantic slave trade, you know, there are people who live in this life.

Who genuinely feel free to wake up when they want to go to sleep, when they want to, and I'm not saying their life is perfect.

I'm saying, why can't we all have that if we just decide and, you know, the first person you're going to listen to on the podcast said.

You know. 

It's not an end state, you have to continue working through it. Katie also said, you know, why do we subscribe to these boxes? It doesn't fit us anymore. Ashley said we need to fight.

We can't just allow life to tell us it's not possible. You can't, you can't, you can't, right?

And then I learnt from Kobe & Kyle - Love is. Love is.

It's not a decision, actually. It's a realisation over time, I think.

Well, several, several iterations of realisations, that's what you hear when you hear Kyle & Kobe  speaking between them about what love is and what God is and what God has given to them and how God has freed them, you know, go to Goldalyn. 

Only 17 years old, powerful orator, based in Kenya with Albinism. She's showing that Blackness and what that could stand for?

Why does it have to be about skin?

Maybe what Blackness should stand for, assuming you believe Blackness is an experience, and assuming you believe blackness is an experience whereby you're always the ones who are downtrodden on.

Assuming that. If blackness is that. If we're going to say, Blackness, is that, then how about we decide then that we're going to show this world that we're not done?

Not everybody is free until everybody doesn't have to experience the experience of blackness, doesn't have to experience the definition of blackness, which means pain, which means suffering. Which means being targeted, which means being mocked, ridiculed, stolen from.

Called names you arent.

Things associated with you that have nothing to do with you.

These are all the things we feel as Black people.

Then let's make Blackness about stopping that.

And.

You know, Goldalyn has to experience the Black experience in her home.

From people who are just like her, also Black like her. And she's just got a difference that people have associated with bad things and it's not true.

Go to Dil, Sri Lankan, Singhalese, Blackness is if you're close to the equator.

You've got Gary foley, Wittiyana, Black Aboriginal Australian men.

Still not able to get land rights. Right. Still not able to. I learnt from them that. Look, if you've got a calling, if you're led. You have to follow it so that you can leave this life knowing that you tried. You've got Dapo.

 Who talks about how blackness is a European construction. You know.

That Blackness. Means no more to him than where he is, he said, as as as soon as he lands in Europe, he's Black.

So we need to think about that. We need to think about. Who is Black and when and why and when we get to the bottom of that, and even on the journey there. I think we'll get closer to the truth. So, the Black monologues.

 It's going to be you listening to a group of people talk about different things from the ages of five until 70 and beyond every continent.

 And.

Different sexualities, genders, religions, all of that. Because I wanted you guys to see that Blackness isn't any one thing, but the beauty is how it creates this tapestry.

Of all these different people dealing with all sorts of different struggles, yet somehow finding ways to overcome, and if Blackness isn't the most powerful force we all have in this world, no matter who you are, where you come from, that shows the power.

Of being an underdog and being able to overcome.

And that there are solutions to humongous social problems, if that isn't what Blackness is

Yo, so I hope this gives you guys hope.

I hope it helps you see that Blackness is whatever you want it to be and to not lose hope. 

So The Black Monologues, is my love letter to Blackness. 

You’ll be listening to Black people stories, their ideas and their perspectives. In their own voices, for once, ha. No vested interests, just how they truly feel. 

The debut season is about exploring love in all its different forms. 

And I hope you fall in love with Blackness, and all the people who make it what it is, just as I have. And I hope ultimately, you all learn, no matter who you are, that it’s okay to be free. 

But we aren’t done until freedom is open to everybody.