How Charlamagne Tha God Is Building “The BET Of Podcasting”

Charlamagne tha God (0:00)

The position you want to be in is in the position of ownership. Right. Because that way you're able to make decisions, you're able to empower other people, and you just get a bigger slice of the pie.

Maneet Ahuja (0:16)

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BMW, the ultimate driving machine. Now back to the show. Welcome. I'm Maneet Ahuja, Editor-in-Large at Forbes and Founder of Iconoclast, and we're here at the NASDAQ Market Site. My guest today didn't just make his name in the media business, he reimagined it. Co-host of The Breakfast Club, founder and majority owner of The Black Effect, 60 plus shows and counting, best-selling author, recent inductee of the Hollywood Walk of Flame, class of 2027, and this summer on Forbes' list of the highest paid podcasters for 2026 Charlamagne Tha God, thank you so much for joining us.

Charlamagne tha God (1:33)

Hey, Maneet, how are you?

Maneet Ahuja (1:35)

Good. Well, it's great to be here with you today. You're coming fresh off of your show, so I appreciate you making the time.

Charlamagne tha God (1:41)

Happy to be here.

Maneet Ahuja (1:42)

Yeah, so there's a lot going on. You seem to be in the news a lot. You cover the news and you're in the news. You landed in our top 10, as we said, for our podcasting list this year, but that's only part of it. In December, my colleague Jabari wrote about you. You renewed an iHeart Media up to $200 million for five years. When you talk about that deal. Who said all that?

I think we said it in Forbes. I think it was out there in the news. But talk to us about what that deal signifies for media in this moment.

Charlamagne tha God (2:15)

Man, that's a great question.

I think a lot of times people see those figures and they get thrown out there, but I think the bigger thing people should take away is just the opportunities, situations like that create for other people. I always say that if what I build only benefits me, then it's not big enough. So we should look and say, hey man, you got somebody who has created infrastructure. It's an infrastructure that not only employs a whole team of people at The Black Effect, but also we have a board and we're able to put money and provide opportunity for several other creators. Like you said, we got 60 plus shows. So for me, deals like that just symbolize that what we're doing is working and that infrastructure will continue to grow and hopefully we're creating an institution with The Black Effect that will be around for years to come.

Maneet Ahuja (3:10)

So how big is the overall operation? Because we said 60 plus shows and counting.

Charlamagne tha God (3:14)

Yeah.

Maneet Ahuja (3:14)

That's a really big infrastructure, as you mentioned, that you're coming right out of the gate with.

Charlamagne tha God (3:19)

Yeah. I mean, Black Effect, man, I can't take any credit other than coming up with the idea, but our daily operations are-

Maneet Ahuja (3:28)

You have a great partner. You just spoke about it.

Charlamagne tha God (3:29)

My good sister, Dolly Bishop. She's the president of The Black Effect Podcast Network. So she handles all the day-to-day operations. We got a staff of 17 people, which consists of producers, talent booker, a bunch of different titles. So we got a pretty big team.

Maneet Ahuja (3:48)

So that's not all. Since June, there was also big news that The Breakfast Club has streamed live daily on Netflix. Talk to us about Netflix's shift into podcasting from your perspective. We've covered it across the media ecosystem.

It's pretty big news. Everyone's keeping an eye on what's going on.

Charlamagne tha God (4:06)

I think it's great because a platform like Netflix shouldn't limit itself to just television or films or documentaries. We're in a business where everybody's vying for your attention.

They want to create all of these different properties that basically keep you engaged with their platform. So if you see millions of hours being devoted to a medium like podcasting, why wouldn't you get in that business if you were in Netflix? It's so good for the creators, because Netflix made an investment in the podcasting. Now you see Disney, they're like, oh, we want to jump into that game. Now you see-