Bold, Brown & British is an informative BAME indie podcast

Does it feel like you've exhausted and listened to all the possible podcasts available? IndieBloom bring you a new one to listen to, Bold, Brown & British.

Bold beginnings

Created by Quarina in London, Bold, Brown & British is a 'Podcast discussing life as a brown person in a Western world. Sometimes sassy, sometimes classy, sometimes hood.' With new episodes every Saturday it tackles ‘Log Kya Kahenge’ (an Urdu and Hindu saying used in India and Pakistan which means What Will People Say/Think).

Officially Bold, Brown & British started with it’s first episode on September 2020, but has lived in Quarina's head as an idea for about a year before that.

Previous experience leading up to the birth of Bold, Brown & British saw Quarina being a radio jockey for a couple of hospital radios at her local area. This mixture of music and ‘advice’ style was a lot of fun and created the tagline - 'Little person with a loud voice'. With all this presenting from her college days and work, it's something she's now used to. 

It's good to talk

Bold, Brown & British was born from conversations that inspire the content or topics. Though Quarina's influences and inspirations are from many areas, such as a situationship someone she knows has gotten themselves into, a quote she sees, or a chat with someone.

To set the scene for Bold, Brown & British podcasts, as it's currently produced remotely the set up consists of Zoom with a podcast mic for Quarina and headphones for her guests. Under normal circumstances, it would be her face to face carrying around her microphone in a room where there’s the least amount of echo.

The process typically continues as an idea, from recording, editing then publishing, but sometimes the conversations from the recordings end up in a completely different route to the original plan. The topic changes or gets tweaked, though this is something Quarina loves.

What Quarina doesn't love however is audio and sound quality issues. 'When you have no control over your guests microphones, internet connections or even background noise (you’d be surprised how many people decide to record in the middle of a family dinner or the TV on loud in the background) it can get a bit frustrating.' Frustrating indeed 🙈

A tough question we asked her was what’s been her favourite topic and guest(s), in which she replies 'In terms of topic, there’s a couple purely because I’m really passionate about them' - a recent one that’s not out yet on mindfulness and wellbeing. Other areas of discussion include, Are Influencers actually good influences? Beauty is in the eye of the…magazine, Brown girls in STEM and Does prejudice exist in the Workplace? (which includes a section on hating the phrase 'BAME'😝 ) check them out if you haven't already.

The easy part of this question is about the guests who've been on the podcast - between her sister and Prof. Osama Khan (who’s the Pro VC at Uni of Surrey), for totally different reasons. With her sister it was great to essentially have a recorded conversation (albeit a bit more formal), while with Osama, Quarina proudly states he was just so inspiring.

Pleasing situations so far with Bold, Brown & British have been twofold for Quarina. Firstly seeing it grow as much as it has - reaching 1000 listeners was a huge milestone for an indie creator like herself (well done 🙌)

As a result of this, people have reached out to her to say how much it’s inspired them and how glad they have been to know they’re not alone…Which makes Quarina's heart go fuzzy with warmth ☺ Ultimately that’s what Bold, Brown & British was set out to do!

Busy, Brown & British

There isn’t a typical working day on Bold, Brown & British. Some weeks Quarina is super organised with content and background work (social media posts, website posts, promotions and sound bytes) all ready in advance. While other weeks she's busy finishing it off on a Friday at 11:58pm for a midnight launch. 

While lockdown has been great in giving Quarina the time to focus on Bold, Brown & British more, with further people at home consuming digital media (including podcasts), it also highlights some really big issues within the Brown community. 

Advice Quarina would give her past self when starting Bold, Brown & British would be 'Just start. I was so worried about the logistics, and the over-planning, I should have just started and worked out the rest as you go along.'

Another tough question we asked Quarina about Bold, Brown & British was what's next? Her response being,

I have a few ideas of where I want to go. Ultimately it’s about inspiring people and the support of they are not alone in this diaspora of third culture identity. The ultimate dream is to be Spotify recommended on someone’s list. Fingers, toes and handkerchiefs all crossed! 

We're rooting for you 🤞🤞🤞

Whether you're a seasoned podcast listener or new to the game, IndieBloom recommends giving Bold, Brown & British a listen on all the available podcast channels, Spotify, Stitcher and Apple Podcasts. While checking out the Instagram page for all the latest within Quarina's mind and thoughts.