For the “Vibe Check” podcast hosts, Black history is celebrated in every episode. At the Amsterdam News, every month is Black History Month.
Sam Sanders, creator and former host of NPR’s “It’s Been a Minute”; Saeed Jones, founding LGBTQ editor of BuzzFeed; and Zach Stafford, the first Black editor-in-chief of “The Advocate,” sat down with the AmNews to discuss “Vibe Check” and America’s past, present, and future.
AmNews: It is such an honor to be in the presence of such professionals in the podcast field, especially during Black History Month. You guys thoroughly explore culture through unapologetically Black and queer lenses. Your analysis is particularly fresh, given the insanity of the last couple of months. People are feeling overwhelmed by the amount of information circulating, and there is something incredibly special about how your podcast breaks down and explores these topics.
Sanders: We are trying, with this show, to remind people that, one: However you feel about this, you are allowed to feel because we come to these episodes with different feelings every week from the three of us, but two: … If you feel like you can do something, do it in a way that works for you. It can be small, it can be local, it can be outside of the box.
AmNews: Who is an African American figure you wish would get more recognition during Black History Month?
Sanders: I think it’s less of which one to honor, but how do we honor them differently and holistically? For example, George Washington Carver — he was a bisexual; he was kinda cranky, messy, and mean. Am I hearing about the big players that we always hear about holistically? I want to hear about their flaws, I want to hear about their struggles … because if we only hear about these heroes of Black history as gods who do no wrong, we never think that we could do what they did.
Stafford: Angela Davis. I saw [on] Facebook [that] it’s the anniversary of my first time meeting her 15 years ago. She told me to “live in the contradiction.” I was almost your age [22] and it changed my life. I think about it every day.
Jones: I think about [Richard] Bruce Nugent — he was one of the baby gays of the Harlem Renaissance. He was the only out member of the Harlem Renaissance; he was a poet, fiction writer, and artist. He was also alive within five years of me being born, which is incredible.
Sanders: Everyone forgets this: The freaking March on Washington … we organized that sh*t. Bayard Rustin — there was a movie about Bayard Rustin that got an Oscar nomination for Coleman Domingo and we still don’t talk about that man enough.
AmNews: For someone who wants to listen to your podcast, what is or are good episodes to start?
Jones: Democracy TBD, the candidate who ran on identity politics, Donald Trump, won.
Sanders: You Can’t Turn Cotton Candy Into Steak — we all felt differently about the movie, and it was still the best hour of criticism.
Stafford: Cheers, Queerleaders! You want some quick reactions that are thoughtful and juicy, come to “Vibe Check.”
AmNews: Who has been your favorite guest?
Jones: For National Poetry Month last year, we were able to have my dear friend Ada Limón, our current U.S. Poet Laureate, on the show. That was an incredible honor.
Stafford: Cord Jefferson — he is our most dreamy guest.
AmNews: Who is your dream guest for the show?
Stafford: Solange Knowles.
AmNews: The queer community has always been under attack; however, it feels like, in the last couple of years, queer folks have become more mainstream; so have the attacks. Saeed, what is your message for the LGBTQ+ community?
Jones: I want to say to, especially our trans fam, get behind me. They’ve got to go through me and they’ve got to go through the rest of this LGBTQ community to get to y’all. I want them to know that we are ready to put our lives and our bodies on the line in defense of them. They are not alone.
AmNews: Who is dominating pop culture for you right now?
Stafford: I have been very impressed with Kendrick.
Jones: And the tour hasn’t started yet; the award cycle will be for next year. Oh — Doechii.
Sanders: Yes, she is something else.
The last two movies that were cultural forces and dominated months of press around themselves were “Barbie” and “Wicked” — and both of them are decidedly queer. The marketing campaign for “Barbie” was queer-coded and “Wicked” went even further than the Broadway play or the book when you got to the point of Jonathan Bailey’s dancing, flirting with the boys and the girls. I think we are on the verge, on the cusp, of queer icons taking over Hollywood.
AmNews: What are your thoughts on the Black Lives Matter movement in 2025?
Jones: We are just beginning to see how the influence of this administration, ironically, trickles down more than money. Political trickle-down; how all of that will empower police forces and what they feel empowered to do. Even as the national conversation drifted away from Black Lives Matter, police shootings have gone up. The conversation might have drifted, but it’s gone up. It’s just as urgent.
AmNews: What does Trump’s re-election to the presidency say about America?
Stafford: It’s clarifying: There is no excuse anymore that people think that was an accident.
Jones: A dear friend of mine said, “The 2016 election was a mistake, but 2024 was a choice.” Maybe you don’t know every news story, maybe you don’t know every single thing, but you have a good sense of who that man is and the people he surrounds himself with. They are very consistent and a majority of people who voted in the last election decided that’s what they wanted.
AmNews: Do you think the way our political system is set up prompts the electorate to disenfranchise themselves?
Sanders: The challenge right now for people is to understand that reality and still stay engaged. I would love for our country to be sustained by five or six political parties, but in the meantime, am I still going to be active? I think that is the challenge for the next four years. If all of us tap out, who is working to change it?
Every system that I am a part of in this country is really flawed, and in spite of that, for some of the work that needs to be done to secure the rights of our people for the next four years, we’ll have to work within the systems.
Jones: To push back a bit, because we are in New York City in this specific moment in politics and news, I keep thinking about people saying, “We gotta roll up our sleeves.” Summer of 2020, a moment of unprecedented [and] diverse political action. [The following year], the city of New York elected who? And what’s happening now?
Yeah, I think it’s worth acknowledging; sure: Vote, call your representatives, get out there and protest. But sometimes I feel like we have these conversations and overlook the fact that it’s been happening. One of the largest trans protests that year happened in Brooklyn, and here is where we are. We have a Black mayor who fully sold out the city. Your paper focuses on the African American community and I know a lot of Black people in the city of New York voted for Eric Adams.
Stafford: And are still supporting him.
Jones: I am more of an outside-the-system kinda girl. I also think there needs to be some deep introspection. I will give you a specific example: To the point of civil rights, I would like to see Black churches become centers of civil rights activism as they were …
Sanders: I do hope that we get to a point in this second Trump term where there are just bodies in the streets again. That does work, it does work.
AmNews: There was a post online that said “loud about losing TikTok, quiet about losing civil rights.” Do you think activism that is performative, or social media activists, gets in the way of real progress?
Sanders: That is not activism.
Jones: I think people use what they feel they have access to, and what they feel works. Most people have a phone, access to social media, if you want to — there is the dopamine hit, there’s the likes. If you are in a city like New York and you are a Black person, you [think], “Yeah, I voted and look where it got us, isn’t this a Democratic-controlled city, and state, and how has my life been improved?” We always can benefit from introspection and thinking of what we have potential to change, but also, I think it’s an individual responding to systemic structures making them feel that their phone is the most powerful tool they have, when I would argue it’s voting.
Zach: TikTok knows me better than my government does. It shows me content I want to see, it sometimes pays me, gives me a voice, it does all the stuff that the government is not doing. The government doesn’t think about us.
Sanders: People think that their vote doesn’t count.
Stafford: But likes and comments get a reaction.
Jones: When I’m teaching, if three students in my class fail an exam, that’s on those students. If 70% of my class fails an exam, or let’s say 70% of an electorate in New York decides not to vote … hmmm.
Stafford: Whose fault is that?
AmNews: You agree that everyone has to use the tools that they have, and cope the way they want and can with this administration and what is going on in America. The point is to do something, no matter what it is.
Sanders: On top of doing something, I also can’t tell you how to feel when you are doing the thing … There will be some joyful warriors, there will be some angry warriors, there will be some silent warriors, but as long as you are fighting, I want you to fight. What we want to do with this show is respect every different perspective that we have ourselves, and every perspective that our guests have, so we all can say we are here for the right reasons, we are here for the right causes.
Jones: Being authentic is an intervention and is an opportunity — it disrupts false narratives, it exposes people to the potential in their own lives. Every week, if people take anything away from “Vibe Check,” they can see the three of us trying to show up in an authentic way and are more empowered to show up in an authentic way in their own lives.
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