Episode 217 | Becoming a Liberated Creator with Talib Jasir

In this episode of The Art of Letting Go, Mike Brown is joined by Talib Jasir—creative entrepreneur, author, and founder of the Afros & Audio Podcast Festival—for a powerful conversation about reclaiming your voice as a creator. They dive deep into the realities of independent podcasting, bridging the gap between mainstream and indie creators, and what it truly means to be a liberated creator.

Mike also opens the episode with a personal reflection on accountability, the power of community, and silencing the inner critic. Whether you're a podcaster, artist, or simply navigating your purpose, this episode is an inspiring reminder to keep showing up for yourself, your voice, and your vision.

Plus: a meditation moment from James “DatYogaDude” Woods to help you ground and reset.

🎧 Featuring:
 – Talib Jasir (Founder, Afros & Audio) 

www.afrosandaudio.com

www.vanguardpn.com

www.talibjasir.com

 Mediatation by James “DatYogaDude” Woods (15 Seconds of Freedom)
 Hosted & produced by Mike Brown

Transcript

episode 217.wav

Mike

[ 00:00:00 ] What's going on, everybody?  This is Mike Brown, and I want to welcome you to today's episode of The Art of Letting Go.  I have a really dope conversation in store for y'all.  If you're a podcaster, if you're a creative or you fall somewhere on the spectrum, I'm talking to Talib Jasir today, the founder of Afros and Audio, and we are talking about podcasting.  We are talking about being Taliberated as a creative, and I know that you all will enjoy this conversation.  So stay tuned and enjoy the show.  Yo, what's up?  This is Mike Brown, and this is The Art of Letting Go.  I wanted to start taking these beginning parts of the episode to just reflect a little bit, just to check in with myself, see how I'm doing.  Let y'all know how I'm doing and things have been going well this month has been really busy; I'm moving again, staying on the East Coast but just moving into a bigger space, staying in New Jersey.  Also, reconnecting with basketball – I haven't played basketball in almost shit over a year and I've been getting used to being in this version of my body, being 38, 200 pounds.  One thing that's been helpful for me lately has been accountability.  And right now I'm in accountability challenge with some friends from college where we are holding each other accountable for 14 days to stay consistent in accomplishing our goals.  I chose some things that I felt like I liked to do or want to do, but also there's resistance that comes up for me.  There's something that stops me.  For example, making music, there's something that makes me feel like I'd rather scroll on Instagram or I don't have enough time.  All those excuses that we sell ourselves to believe that we can't put effort into our passions and our goals and our gifts.  And it's been really nice to reconnect with music.  It feels like riding a bike.  It feels like restarting playing basketball.  You know, my jumper was pretty rusty when I got back on the court, but as I've been practicing and playing more often, I'm feeling that uh muscle memory of what it feels like to shoot that shot.  Same thing with making music-like I'm starting to feel that muscle memory of it.  Started out as taking 10 minutes a day to just put into making music, and it's been turning into like maybe two hours a day.  I just need those 10 minutes to get me started.  And I'm recognizing with everything I do, I just need to start.  And as we get more mature, I understand how people get lost or just stop doing things.  It is hard to get started, but it's beautiful to have a community of people who are on their own paths and on their own journeys to support you and staying on track.  And that was what led me to this conversation today with Talid.  I feel like I've ran into him multiple times at different podcasting events, and it was really dope to connect with him and just talk to him about his journey in founding a podcasting festival, how it came about, and also just getting to know him more as a creator, thinking about and looking at my own journey as a creative and just what it's taken for me to get here and the work I've had to do in healing that inner critic, healing that inner voice that needs some quieting down.  I think that's why I took on some of the things that I took on in this 14-Day Challenge.  To really just let that negative voice know, like I got this, I'm in control and you can fall back, so that's where I'm at.  Y'all got a really dope show in store for you.  I don't even think I have to let you know that I asked ChatGPT and I might start doing this every week, but ChatGPT asked me, what has my inner critic tried to stop me from doing and what would happen if I stopped listening?  That's a good question.  I feel like the inner voice That inner critic, not the inner voice, but the inner critic can be loud, but I don't ever let it stop me.  I can't think of a time where I've stopped, maybe slowed down, but I'm learning to pace myself without it and just giving myself grace.  Yeah, that's the biggest thing that's come up for me in these 14 days of this challenge.  Truly giving myself grace.  There hasn't been a day.  Well, there have been a couple of days, but I'm not having 100% days on these tasks.  But also I'm giving the day everything that I have.  So that feels important to me just to know that I am doing what I need to do to get to where I need to go.

DatYogaDude

[ 00:05:04 ] This is James Woods, aka That Yoga Dude, with 15 Seconds of Freedom.  Going out into the environment can sometimes be stressful.  So learning how to be relaxed, how to be calm, how to be yourself, even when things around you are a little hectic, by breathing deep, focusing on your breath, allowing your thoughts to come and go, your anxiety, your fear, your worry.  Feel them in your body.  Let the thoughts run through your head.  And then watch as they leave.  With every breath.  Focus on calming.  Relaxing.  Releasing.  Focus on the things you can't control.  Your breath.  Your body.  Your focus.  Take a deep inhale and a long, slow exhale.  As always, feel free to feel free.  Namaste.  Peace.

Mike

[ 00:06:31 ] Today, I have a special guest in the building.  You are a creative entrepreneur, an author, life skills coach, podcast producer, and the founder of Afros and Audio Podcast Festival.  Welcome to the show, Talib.  How are you doing today?  Thanks, Mike.

Talib

[ 00:06:50 ] I'm doing well, man.  Thank you for having me.  Of course.  How long have you been in podcasting or like just in the podcasting industry?  I started in 2017.  I created an audio fiction podcast and I was one of a few creators that looked like us at the time.

Mike

[ 00:07:06 ] That's really dope.  What inspired you to start Afros and Audio?

Talib

[ 00:07:12 ] Well, it came from the audio fiction I created.  I created that looking for a community of more audio fiction creators.  And what the industry was then in 2017 isn't what it is now, where we have a lot of Black creatives starting and maintaining series and shorts and all that sort of thing in the audio fiction space.  2017 is just not what it is today.  Thankfully, we have exploded in that space and there's still so much room for us to grow.  But it was me looking for community, not finding it and wanting to create something.  And so the initial Afros in Audio, it was not about a podcast festival.  That didn't even enter my mind.  Afros in Audio was just about an online community for audio fiction creators.  But when that didn't go anywhere, I pivoted.  And now we have the podcast festival, which has been around for seven years now.

Mike

[ 00:08:04 ] That's so dope.  And I will tell you, I started podcasting in Los Angeles and like, the community, it didn't really feel like there was a lot of just Black and brown-focused community for podcasting.  And when I moved to the East Coast, it was like my world exploded.  And it really felt like family going to some of the Black Podcast Association events and just being around other people that look like me, that do the same thing I'm doing.  It's just been a really dope experience.  I was feeling like there's almost two worlds in Black podcasting – podcasters and professionals.  And then you have like the, I guess, mainstream podcasts, kind of like the Joe Rogan, the Fugitive Worlds, and all of those spaces.  And I was thinking, how do we like build that bridge to, to align those worlds?  Cause it seems like they bring in so much, just so much revenue off of what they do.  And it's like, how do we connect more of like the black podcast and professionals to those worlds?  Or how do we bring them into our world, you know?

Talib

[ 00:09:08 ] Yeah, yeah.  And I think just because you have a celebrity status or monetization doesn't make you any more professional than the indie podcaster.  So I just wanted to, I'm sure you didn't even mean that, but I just wanted to really put that out there because I think people get that mixed up because just because a celebrity gets a deal for a podcast doesn't mean they're a professional at podcasting.  It means they're a professional at whatever the hell they do outside of podcasting, right?  Right.  And so.  I believe that there's two different lanes and it's always two different lanes.  There's the independent, the underground rapper and the mainstream, right?  And sometimes you're going to get the more authentic, the different quality out of the independent versus the one that's being kind of coached and rehearsed and all of that.  So I think that for me, celebrity podcasts that are monetizing on a big level, I think there's a space for them.  In the last four years, we haven't had to say, this is what a podcast is whenever we say, 'I make a podcast.'  So I think that's important.  But I think the independent podcaster has the possibility in them.  There is nothing that distinguishes us except for access and the willingness to go limitless with it.  And so we have the opportunity to level up-you know, enter these spaces.  It's just, there's this educational piece to it.  There's the pitching piece to it.  There's, you know, all of these things that we still have to understand and learn because when you get to that celebrity level, you have a team.  And most people forget that, that there's a whole machine behind people that helps them to market, that helps them to look great on camera, on the microphone.  And as an independent, you don't have that.  So there's always going to be that learning curve or that late start, you know, around the race because of that.  But it's possible and it's attainable.  And I think as long as we continue to carve out this space for ourselves, knowing that independent podcasters are more than 70 percent of the global marketplace.  Without us, this industry dies.

Mike

[ 00:11:10 ] That's so real.  And I think that's why the work that you're doing with Afros and audio is so important is because people get that opportunity to get that education and just learn.  And when I was mentioning professionals, I think I was thinking more in the aspect of like the podcast producers, the podcast engineers.  You listen to so many shows and it does feel like they could use a producer.  And when I went to Podcast Movement, I met so many.  Producers and stuff that were trying to get the NPR job, the Vox job, or just these companies that even for myself last year, I did so much applying for podcast producer jobs.  And none of these companies are trying to really work with me.  They don't respect my independent experience.  How do we get those people that have the revenue to bring us into those spaces?  Or do we even need that?

Talib

[ 00:12:01 ] I mean, we need it.  We obviously need it.  It's all about upper mobility as well as representation, as well as stop playing in our faces.  We're viable.  We have the experience.  We know what we're doing.  And so when we don't get picked for the jobs, it speaks more about implicit bias and all of that versus our experience and what we have to bring to the table.  And so I think this industry will start to look like any other industry if we, again, don't continue to be persistent.  Pushing ourselves in spaces, sitting at existing tables while building our own.  So yes, we need the jobs, right?  It's necessary.  It's necessary for ourselves, but it's also necessary to show that there are folks who have the ability to work at this level because they are.  But there's also a space for us to, one, create our own, be entrepreneurs and create your own system and service and business where you can provide these services at a high level, But also when we are so focused on the major conglomerates, we're not looking at the smaller podcast companies that are looking for producers, the independent podcast hosts that's looking for a producer.  And so I think there is an opportunity to do both at the same time is to really look small as well as big simultaneously.

Mike

[ 00:13:22 ] I agree with that.  I think that that makes so much sense because it's one door that everybody's trying to go through.  But working with somebody small and being able to build and grow together, that's powerful.

Talib

[ 00:13:33 ] Yeah.  You want to always be growing your portfolio.  And one of the reasons why Afros in Audio exists is because of a, I guess it was a boot camp and accelerator program that one of the conglomerates had.  And it was about women of color and podcasting back in 2017.  And over 17,000 women applied for this, but only 13 were chosen.  And it was my thought that how many more times will we look outside of ourselves for opportunities?  But more than that, how many folks, how many women stopped on that day because they didn't get chosen and decided that what they were bringing to the table wasn't enough or wasn't worthy of being chosen?  I guess it doesn't matter, so I'll just go ahead and do something else.  No, right?  There's this opportunity for us to build and create and do it anyway.  And I think that's the point, is that we get to look at each other, provide those opportunities within our own ecosystem while sitting at existing tables.

Mike

[ 00:14:37 ] I definitely wanted to transition to some creative questions.  I wanted to ask you, though, I saw on your Instagram that you were reciting some lyrics that you wrote.  And I'm curious to know, like, what does writing do for you?

Talib

[ 00:14:48 ] Well, writing is everything to me.  I've been a writer all my life.  I started writing early, but as far as like poetry and short stories, I probably started in fourth grade.  And it's then where I started realizing the power of words and language, and whether spoken or written.  Just from either feedback or things that people would say about my writing, or how it impacted them.  That's when I was like, oh, this means something, you know?  And so for me, it's the expression of my inner world, those things that come up in my head that I'm able to express out, whether it's fiction or nonfiction, it's so necessary and why I'm a life coach.  For creatives and entrepreneurs specifically, is that I think that we have been deTaliberately stifled and oppressed, repressed, and suppressed to not believe that what we have inside of our minds, our spirits, to let out, isn't worthy of coming off of our hard drives.  Or we show it to a select people that we feel safe with, but never really push it out there.  And so my work is to not only be possibility, but also to make sure that people understand that it is so necessary to pull out of yourself what's in there, because if not, it just festers and it won't let you alone anyway.  You know, it's going to keep tapping you on your shoulder like we're going to do it today.  We're going to get to it now or you can wait another 10 years, you know, because I might not have another 10 years.  Right.  So it's like let's be urgent about the things that we want to do.  And so, for me, writing is is a part of my commitment to being urgent.  And committed to being a Taliberated creator.  That's creating whatever the hell I want when I want.

Mike

[ 00:16:29 ] I feel that.  How do you not let that inner critic, like that inner voice, that negative inner voice stop you from putting yourself out there?  Because I mean, podcasting, poetry, like it requires some vulnerability to put yourself out there, just creating in general.  And how do you not let that stop you?

Talib

[ 00:16:49 ] I have let it stop me for many, many years.  And so at this point in my life, it's just, I don't have time.  I don't have time to allow any of that to stop me.  But I have for many, many years.  I told myself a worthiness and deserving story that I never tested.  And sometimes we have to be willing to go there to see how far we can go.  And I believe that the more you stretch, the more vulnerable you are, because I believe vulnerability is powerful, empowering.  There's nothing really weak about it unless you come at it with a weakness.  But if you stand on business and you're able to look people in their eyes and tell them what's up and who you are and why you are, then there's nothing but power inside of that.  And it's just necessary.  It's just necessary.  If we're not growing, we're dying.  And so we've got to push it out.  And not worry about what other people think.  A lot of times, we're worried about what people think, but they're not even thinking.

Mike

[ 00:17:50 ] I feel like a lot of the people that we worry about criticizing our work won't even put themselves out there.  So it's like, why even worry about that?  How much do you feel like you have to be tapped into your inner child when creating?

Talib

[ 00:18:07 ] Inner child is challenging for me because I had a traumatizing upbringing and because I got disconnected from my inner child purposely.  But going back to my inner child work more recently, and it's not really inner child work, it's just recognizing all of the things that I've actually gone through in my life and experienced that have been really great that I disconnected from just because of the trauma.  And so, knowing that my life has been truly purposeful, the things that I've experienced, the people I've met-when I talk about it, I start to see people say, 'Wait a minute, like you don't show up in that way at all.'  Like, that's not how you present yourself.  All of these amazing things happen to you, and I act like my life just sucked, you know?  Because more often than not, the trauma has been more subconscious and consciously followed me throughout my life.  And so, just to land a plane here, what that looks like for me is giving myself permission to just be.  Do I need permission to just be?  The answer is no.  And so, when it comes to my inner child, what I began to recognize that it was holding me small in a lot of ways because I was being held so small as a child.  And so, when I let my inner child show up, it was like, 'Oh, remember?  We don't do this.  We can't do this.  We are not smart enough to do this.'  And so, I had to kind of sit the inner child down and say, 'No, that's what you were told.  But that's not who we are, and that's not who we have to be.'  And so, you know, let's prove all of these theories wrong, all these lies about yourself-inaccurate.  And that's what I set out to do.

Mike

[ 00:19:58 ] That's beautiful.  Do you feel like you give empathy to those past versions of yourself?  I've started to.

Talib

[ 00:20:07 ] I've started to.  It was the time where I remember the first time I was ever asked to go to my inner child, think about the inner child.  I was like, let's just leave that broken N-word in the ground.  Let's just do that because he's not serving me at all.  And I was immediately disrupted in that.  Why would you say that?  Why would you call your inner child that?  And so it's just how I felt.  And I never had the awareness of turning that on.  So I really thought, let's just leave it buried and move on with our lives.  But Ayanna Van Zandt once said, 'What's under the rug is still in the house.'  And so it was still in the house.  And so there was no other choice but to begin to do the work to support myself now and then.  How did you get into life coaching?  Well, it started in 2015.  I had just got let go of a job and I had some bread and I was like, 'OK, what do I do with my life now?'  I've always had an entrepreneurial spirit, but was never an entrepreneur.  I was scarce like most people and understood deTaliberately through our education that a job and a paycheck is life.  So at that point in my life where I was at like this crossroads.  It's like, how do I want to contribute to myself and others?  And life coaching was what came to me.  And so I went there, did, you know, over a year of modalities and coaching and all this.  And what was interesting for me, spent a lot of bread in that because I believe that competence builds confidence.  And so I don't like to do things half-assed.  And so I really went in for those techniques and training.  But what's interesting about the work is that it was the beginning of my own self-awareness work.  It's the beginning of me saying, oh, it's not everybody else.  It's me.  So it was the beginning of my awareness work.  And I believe awareness is a hell of a drug.  Like once you start recognizing who you are, how you procreate and get to really determine how your life turns out, I believe that once you recognize that you have a choice, just a choice, your life changes.

Mike

[ 00:22:31 ] That's dope.  Something that came up for me just now was knowing that you're doing life coaching and even with Afros and audios, you are giving a lot of energy and like pouring a lot into other people.  How do you get poured back into?

Talib

[ 00:22:46 ] Well, I have a great family, you know, I have my children and my wife and the book you see behind you, the one with the red on it is Take What's Yours, Becoming a Taliberated Creator.  And I started this framework in my coaching, but also I live by it.  You know, when you're coaching a therapist, it's a gift and a curse because you spend a lot of time coaching yourself.  And so I came up with that in this.  Basically being very intentional about what I create, how I create, what I consume, how I consume, how I recharge, how I elevate myself, how I contribute to the world.  And so I follow these principles pretty much daily, weekly.  And it's a framework that, again, I share with my coaching clients, because a lot of times modalities or articles or whatever are telling you, follow this blueprint.  These intentional principles ask you to follow your own, discover your own.  If you want to consume in order to be inspired, where do you go?  How do you find it?  Not how I find it.  How I find it won't work for you.  I have one more question.

Mike

[ 00:23:48 ] What keeps you going in the journey when you face challenges and just the life journey in general?  Like what keeps you going?

Talib

[ 00:23:55 ] Well, one of the things that definitely keeps me going is my integrity to others.  And so what I recognize, I got late diagnosed with ADHD.  And so one of the things that I have done most of my life is diminish accomplishments and not really focus up on myself more than I am in contribution to others.  I know that, and again, this is how you learn and know yourself, is that I know that my motivator is my integrity to someone else.  So I have to get into a commitment for others or else I'll be sitting on my video game all damn day, escaping.  I've learned to balance that out.  And again, this is that journey of, beginning to understand yourself, shutting out the noise, going inside, understanding what makes me tick, understanding what I enjoy, what I don't enjoy, what I want, what I don't want, and not letting anyone else outside of myself dictate that.  And so I keep that as my North Star.  And I think that all of us get to discover and rediscover our North Star because it could change circumstantially, you know, conditionally.  I might not need the same North Star I needed a year ago.  And so constantly staying up on ourselves and allowing ourselves to shift and change how often we want, even if it's 10 times in one day.  I don't give a shit.  That's what I decided.  You know, it's who I am and I get to do who I want to be and who I am every single moment of my life without regard for anyone else's thoughts.

Mike

[ 00:25:33 ] Talib, where can the people find you?

Talib

[ 00:25:37 ] You can find me at Talib Jasir on Instagram.  I don't play around a lot in those spaces, but I'm there.  I'm trying, but it's hard.  And Afros and Audio, of course, on Instagram, @Afrosandaudio.  com to find out more about the conference, TalibJasir.  com to find out more about me, my writing, where you can get my books and stuff like that.  Yeah, I think that's it.  Vanguard Podcast Network is where you'll find all the podcasts.  Take What Shores, Become a Taliberated Creator actually has a limited series podcast component to it.  I just believe in multimedia, man.  Say Less, my other book, which is more poetry than anything, but very short form like haikus, but not haikus.  It has an animated e-book as well as a musical interpretation soundtrack for that my homeboy created for me.  So I just believe in, again, doing whatever you want.  How you want to do it and, you know, let people check it out.

Mike

[ 00:26:33 ] Thank you so much for coming on the show.  I really appreciate you hitting me up to even be on the show because it gave us the opportunity to connect.  Thank you so much for tuning into this week's episode of The Art of Letting Go.  If you like what you heard, please be sure to subscribe to the podcast wherever you listen to podcasts, as well as rate us and leave a review.  I love to get your feedback on the show.  If you want to further support the show, please subscribe to our Patreon as well as Substack.  I'm on Substack every week, giving just the life journeys in between the podcast.  So I would love for y'all to join me on this journey.  Thank you so much for tuning in.  This is the Art of Letting Go. Peace.