Media isn't dead. It's different. It will probably never be the same. That's uncomfortable, exciting, exhausting, and bewildering. Free Agency is my attempt to wrestle, explore, and explain much of what continues to happen around us, and the forces that are weaving that together.
Why: Well, media is a hard place to be in, and it is a glorious place, all at once. You are really beset by the winds of platform changes, advertisers whims, and the changing perspectives of consumers. But, we want and need entertainment, so it's not going anywhere soon.
However, it is much easier to speak of media in terms of what is happening, instead of what is being built. There are institutions among us, silent giants, but they slip through the radar because we call them everything but what they are.
Where have you been? What do you even do?
Free Agency is the result of almost a decade of being in, out, and around the creative industries. I say in and out, because I have never really felt like I had a foot firmly in one place, for that long. After building and leaving Blavity, I went to do a fellowship, where I looked at IP and creativity across the UK and the Caribbean.
At that point, what we had built was often perceived as just a website where Black people did stuff and looked happy. Ironically, there's lots of businesses to be built in the things people ignore and choose to misunderstand.
I went to work for the Smith Family (yes, that one), and people talked about it like it was just entertainment.
I worked at an international bank in 56 markets across Asia, and that was just communications.
Everything is just something, until it isn't.
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