Podcasters James Duncan and Fuhad Dawodu, the voices behind ShxtsNGigs, have landed in hot water after comments that many perceived as derogatory toward Black women.

Whilst I’ve never seen a full episode, their shorts now fill my timeline after the algorithms caught me watching a few which I found quite funny. The general vibe of the podcast is two young men commentating on life and topics from in and around the internet.

Their chemistry and humour has attracted 2.4 million monthly listeners and a global audience, securing them a show at the O2 arena. It stands to reason that they embarked on a tour of US podcasts this past summer including the Andrew Shulz podcast, Flagrant.

During the interview,  Shulz leaned into tired stereotypes about Black women and asked the duo if they preferred white or Black women. Their non-commital answer and attempt to move on led the host to deduce that they too shared in Shulz’s sentiment.

This caused uproar with Black American women who were also aggrieved when the boys complained there were no “baddies” in the US on another show. So that’s the context.

From what I hear their team have now removed several historical videos from their YouTube channel which may be deemed derogatory to Black women in a bid to further minimise the backlash. They issued a video apology which too was subsequently taken down after it was poorly received. The story has hit major news outlets including the BBC and the Independent.

To be honest, I had no concept how big these guys were – I’m not really their audience – but they seem to have fallen into the same trap a lot of talent of colour fall into when the hit the mainstream. They’re failing to grasp how to maintain the support of the audience that fueled their rise—rookie mistakes.  Just by their own experiences alone they should have realised Black women don’t stand for disrespect and it’s clear that noone on their extended team has the cultural competence to pick up on potentially inflammatory comments as these were apparenyly overlooked in the editing process whilst the inflammatory comments were kept in.

Here’s what I would have advised the duo to do as a publicist.

1.  Stop talking – a tough one as their show goes out weekly but I would have paused to understand what was happening.
2. Listen – Social media is a pretty vocal place so I would have listened to what their audiences were saying to identify what exactly people were pissed about.
3.  Talk to Black women they respect – most talent are encouraged to ignore the comments because it’s a bit if a wild west when it comes to what people do and say, however, armed with a sense of the response, I would have encouraged then to speak to a few of their peers to give their perspective on the comments and to sense check appropriate next actions.
4. Consult a PR professional who understands cultural nuances. Not all PR is the same, and having the right media expert on your team is essential.
5. Authentically apologise – It is now standard practice to issue a statement of apology once a line’s been crossed and the boys are the perfect example of why written statements can land better. In the video, they left the impression they were dancing around the issue. Whilst they did apologise their apology was to the “community” rather than Black women specifically, stoking the fire further.  Also watching their body language, they spent a lot of time looking away from the camera and adding all sorts of ad-libs to their statement leaving more opportunities for them to be pounced upon. Less is always more. A well thought out, written statement of no more than a paragraph would have allowed them to get straight to the point of acknowleding the pain caused, apologising and to offer to do better.
6. Wait for the dust to settle – some things you have to wait out to be honest. No retaliation. No further addressing. They have to be very mindful for a while as people have long memories.

Alternatively, they could have just leaned into it and not addressed it at all. After all it takes two people to tussle. Either way they were going to lose fans and a lot of men do agree with Shulz’ position. Their audience would have shifted but still engaged them nonetheless especially those who aren’t Black women. No apology and swift movement onwards might have defused the backlash sooner, given society’s long history of belittling Black women.

Either way, we’ll see how it all plays out…