It’s time for my weekly podcast recap except it’s two weeks cause I skipped last week due to losing my laptop and mental health issues.

Good news is you get more awesome shows at once, all of which have BIMPoC creators and/or majority/ all BIMPoC casts!

Quick Disclaimer:

My media memory sucks on the best of the days and is worsened by depressive episodes. I tried to recall and research CWs and maturity ratings as best as I could but they’re not gonna be as accurate as I’d like for the first 3 podcasts.

Alright, here we go!

Anyone who knows me knows how much I’m fascinated by traditional Storytelling and history, and Temujin: An Audio Drama is a masterclass in both, and also a great audio drama.

Premise: A historical drama based on the central Asian epic: “The Secret History of the Mongols.”

The story is told by fallen aristocrat Jamukha, the biggest rival to Genghis Khan, on his potential last night of life, recounting his perspective on their shared childhood and how it shaped the events that happened.

It’s a perfect example of dramatic retellings of history.

Maturity and Content: It’s a history podcast that contains some violent events, the death of family, hunting, implied sexual assault, and probably one or two other things I’ve missed. It’s not explicit or particularly adult oriented, but that’s the content it discusses.

The writing hooks you in and the voice acting sells it, drawing you to want to hear how the story goes. The history itself is fascinating. Hamilton’s got nothing on this.

I wasn’t able to stop listening till it was over. And! It’s only about 2 hours, so that’s pretty doable!

Next, to go a completely different route down into romcom land, lemme tell you about @ObserverPix’s Margarita and Donuts!

Premise: Josephine, a paediatrician with shitty dating luck stunbles into a relationship with Malik, the ophthalmologist across the hall.

It’s a fantasticly joyful show about daring and overcoming past relationship traumas, with hilarious writing, entirely too loveable characters, great sound design and world building, and amazing explorations of healthy relationships.

Maturity and Content: It’s a romcom. No explicit sex scenes but there’s talk of sex, a scene that starts with kissing and the sounds of clothes being taken off and the characters explicitly acknowledging it before fading to black, etc. Probably more PG-13ish.

If you’re looking for something that’s just fun this is definitely one of my top recs these weeks. And you can consume it as released episode by episode, or by listening to the 2 hour supercut, which combines them all together!

Also, the bonus episode “Love in the Time of Corona” is a real cathartic and wholesome episode exploring long distance relationships and the impacts of social isolation and being a doctor in our current time, with a really sweet bent to it all.

CW: current events obviously.

Going back into the history side.. holy shit @AudioHarlem. If you at all enjoy crime gang fiction and explorations of history and culture, this it it!

Premise: The story of Madame Stephanie St. Clair, The Numbers Queen of Harlem, described as Broadwalk Empire meets Downton Abbey

The story follows yet another incredibly fascinating person that we don’t learn enough/ at all about, and presents it in a fantastically put together package. The writing is crisp, the voice acting is delightful, and the quality of the whole thing is top notch!

Content and Maturity:
It’s mob fiction and based on historical reality. Racism, sexism, and violence are frequent topics. Shootings occur. Corrupt cops pop up.

Season 2 features a kidnapping plot, sex trafficking, prostitution, and public indecency of a minor.

The show neatly broken up into 2 seasons of 4 episodes each that are easily digestible (10-20 minutes each). The story is not over yet either!

It’s honestly a delightful time, and if you at all like this style of fiction, you gotta give this a listen.

Now we get to the part where I continue some shows I’d already started. And can I just say... how dare you @FlyestFables, you had no right to make me cry like that. Multiple times. I was just trying to do my work and enjoy a delightful podcast, and then tears happened. Rude tbh.

For a recap on what the show is about, check out my summary from when I started below.

And in case it wasn’t clear, it only gets better and more emotional. I absolutely adore fables, and the form of storytelling they represent, and this show freaking nails it. Holy shit. https://twitter.com/ammourazz/status/1294635155810914315

The narration? Deeply emotional.
The fables? Continuously resonant and tear inducing.
The music and songs? Phenomenal and creates the exact emotional response each time.

And the show only gets better the further you get. This is a phenomenal show for any listener imo.

Content Warning:
The end of season 1 features depictions of a respiratory illness. The holding environment for the fable is a child reading it to their parent who is in a hospital bed and presumed terminal. This is Ep 7-8. Illness is explicitly described at E7 2:40-4:05z

Speaking of continual entries, I finally caught up on @KalilaStormfire which means I’m stuck waiting for the next episode with the rest of y’all who have obviously already listened to this fantastic show.

What, you haven’t listened to it yet? Well here’s the pitch: https://twitter.com/ammourazz/status/1298056820028772353

If you like Magic, explorations of beliefs cross culture, stories about the fae, social commentary, stories of personal healing, discussions of queerness, or all of the above, you should be listening to this.

The production value is phenomenal and starting S2, Sarah Buchynski..

is brought on as sound designer and does an amazing job.

Also hey, remember when I said I was real excited for the transition from solo narration to full cast because the cast contained a bunch of cool people? Holy fuck was that an understatement. Like fucking damn.

The show still has a great mix of the original format of Kalila (+ redacted) talking into a recorded alone, and constantly uses that to ground the listener, while also intertwining in a larger plot with a stellar cast who nail their roles perfectly.

Content Warnings:
The show does a pretty good job on covering the specific ones in S2.
Some discussions of transphobia, dysphoria, abortions, trauma, and some other personal topics.
General Maturity rating from my S1 review are still applicable.

The central plot also explores changelings who are half-human half-fae, and their role in society and struggle belonging to either. Needless to say this is resonant to a lot of mixed and biracial folks, and while handled well can be triggering, so approach with caution.

Back into Non-Fiction land, I’d like to take a second to get on my soapbox and tell y’all about the podcast that has occupied my cardrives for the last month: @aaolomi’s Head On History podcast.

Premise: A podcast that takes a topic of history and explores it over a season...

Broken across 10 episodes. The focus of seasons 1-3 is Islam, but there are discussions of other topics.

Content and Maturity:
Based off of a few college history courses, probably appropriate for almost audiences. Some academic discussions of gender and rights, war, etc

I’ve listened over the course of a month so I can’t be more specific cause memory. For the most part it’s an academic look at things that doesn’t get into triggering details but I could be forgetting stuff.

For a breakdown of what the show actually goes over:

Season 1: A broad history of Islam and the major empires and developments. This starts off with Muhammad PBUH, his life, and an exploration of the contexts in which Islam first developed, and then discusses the historical happenings that bring it to the modern day.

Season 2: A discussion of theology in Islam, the development of sects, practices, and various traditions. It tackles topics from the Shia/ Sunni split, the rise of Sufism, Ramadan as a tradition, and the theological historiahraphy that Islam created for its discussion.

Season 3: Islam in the margins and outside Arabia. North Africa, Andalus, India, Malay, China, and finally capping it off with Islam and the slave trade, and how black Muslims brought over were treated and effected by the colonisers. All fantastic topics rarely discussed.

Season 4: Empires of Faith - Pre-modern empires built on religion. Starts with Sargon of Akkad and discussions of empire, and explores Babylon, Egypt, Assyria, Ancient Israelite Religion, and more. A great breakdown of the historical contexts that led to empires and religions.

Finally, there are Head on History specials; single episode breakdowns of a topic outside the flow of the episode. All of these are fantastic explorations of how history connect to modern contexts and really tie in the topics to our modern day, while also standing on their own.

The one on Islamophobia explores the connection between historical anti-semetic practices and how they connect to modern day Islamophobia.

The one on Charlottesville perfectly breaks down how historical revisionism leads to our current state of Nazism in America.

The couple on Iran breakdown the context for modern political situations which is never honestly explained outside of rhetoric.

The AP World history one expertly states the case for the necessity of history education to preventing harm and the damage done by limited perspectives

My favourite one is the one on Saudi Arabia and the US, which breaks down the theological and political context of SA and the US’s relationship.

Spoiler: Wahabi ideology is only prominent because first British then American intervention. It would have died out otherwise.

CW: the specials obviously address a lot more current events. Approach some of those with caution.

AND! Season 5 is finally being worked on again and I’m super excited to see what comes of it. I’ve learned so much from this show that I really can’t recommend it enough.

The biggest advantage is that a lot of topics are reiterated as a result of overlap. For someone with my memory this helps a ton because by the 4th time I’ve heard the same thing it finally sticks, even if it can be a bit repetitive. And the production quality is great too.

And finally, the podcast to wrap it all up, this work of art deserves all y’alls time: @blackfridaycast.

Just, holy fuck.

Premise: Every Friday, random white people undergo Acute Spontaneous Melanization and wake up as black folks. Simple enough concept right?

The show is a phenomenal look at how the world might respond to that, which shines a light on our current circumstances of structural racism. Each episode examines it from a different perspective, whether a news interview, a political debate, or a sports commentary.

The different frameworks give a more wholistic view of the situation, and allow you to view the impacts on multiple levels.

Content Warning and Maturity: Probably PG? It has open and real discussions and depictions of racism, sexism, homophobia, and the intersections thereof...

The first episode also has a CW for cop based violence, but for the most part the presentation is all ages.

CW for suicide in the first episode (DM for details if you need that).

I can’t hush enough about this show. The first episode sold me on it but I was hooked...

By the slow rising tension I felt in my bones in the second episode. Everytime the sports commentator got interrupted so the other could talk about her raw power I felt an anger rise through me. Holy shit this show.

The writing is sharp, the production is clean, and the voices..

Holy shit the voice acting. A lot of amazing talent (some of which appear in other shows up thread) do a fantastic job bringing Tycho’s fantastic story to life. And it’s another one that wraps up in ~2 hours!

I’m gonna leave you with three final things about it:

1) The use of a casual conversation between friends for the two heaviest discussions “Really Black” and “Finale” is a masterstroke, grounding some of the most complex and important topics of the show in discussions that are 100% believable.

2) The twist in the finale is...

Not at all surprising if you know anything about the history of forced assimilation in the US, and how whiteness seeks to erase any differences (Christian Proselytising, Gay Conversion therapy, Colourism, Model Minority, etc). And tbh, that’s the strength of it.

3) I’m just gonna leave you with a quote from the show to summarise it all: “I can live like this, it’s other people who don’t seem to be able to.”

End thread.