Detroit is Different

Detroit is Different

The Detroit is Different podcast is about exposing artistry, business, ideas, and dynamic people, places, and things that make Detroit a mecca. Tune in weekly and subscribe to get the true stories from the people shaping the culture of an American classic city.

  1. You Have to Do the Work; Yelena Ramautar on Caribbean Identity, Black Detroit, & Community

    2d ago

    You Have to Do the Work; Yelena Ramautar on Caribbean Identity, Black Detroit, & Community

    “I came here from her love an spirit of Detroit”—that truth opens a powerful Detroit is Different conversation with Yelena Ramautar, Community Engager for the Caribbean Community Service Center, about migration, belonging, memory, and the work required to truly become part of a community. Yelena traces her journey from Guyana to the Bronx, then to Detroit in 2015 after her adoptive mother told her, “I got a home. Just come on. You can find your way and figure it out.” She reflects on New York gentrification, school closures, immigrant identity, and the shock of being “othered” at a predominantly white college after growing up among Black, Caribbean, Latino, and African communities. In Detroit, she learned that relationships may crack the door open, “but you have to do the work to show that you’re invested.” Her mother’s Detroit story—Cass Tech, Wayne State, teaching, and hearing Dr. King speak on Woodward—connects Black excellence, movement history, and family legacy. This episode asks what responsible cultural connection looks like as neighborhoods change and diasporic communities meet. Yelena’s story reminds us that Detroit’s future depends on honoring memory, resisting extraction, building trust, and turning migration into meaningful commitment to people, place, and shared liberation across generations. Detroit is Different is a podcast hosted by Khary Frazier covering people adding to the culture of an American Classic city. Visit www.detroitisdifferent.com to hear, see and experience more of what makes Detroit different. Follow, like, share, and subscribe to the Podcast on iTunes, Google Play, and Sticher. Comment, suggest and connect with the podcast by emailing info@detroitisdifferent.com Find out more at https://detroit-is-different.pinecast.co

    1h 26m
  2. Bigger Than the Original Vision: Tiara Jones on Family, Faith, and Black Legacy

    2d ago

    Bigger Than the Original Vision: Tiara Jones on Family, Faith, and Black Legacy

    “You carry this brilliance in you—this is something that’s in your DNA.” In this moving Detroit is Different conversation, Tiara Jones, owner of Black Beautiful & Brilliant, shares how love, grief, family, and purpose shaped her decision to continue the brand created by her late husband. Tiara traces her roots from Inkster to Alabama, connecting her family’s Great Migration story and the trauma of racial violence to the strength that generations carried into Metro Detroit. She reflects on meeting her husband during the COVID era, building a life together, and choosing to preserve his vision after his passing: “I’m going to pick this brand back up, because it can be bigger than what he envisioned.” More than clothing or a slogan, Black Beautiful & Brilliant becomes a lesson for their son and daughter about “what love looks like,” commitment, loyalty, and cultural pride. Tiara also speaks honestly about grief, finding her voice, supporting Black women, and reminding the community that brilliance is not something granted from outside—it already lives within us. This episode connects the past to the future by showing how ancestral survival, neighborhood memory, Black enterprise, and family legacy can become tools for healing, ownership, and collective possibility. Detroit is Different is a podcast hosted by Khary Frazier covering people adding to the culture of an American Classic city. Visit www.detroitisdifferent.com to hear, see and experience more of what makes Detroit different. Follow, like, share, and subscribe to the Podcast on iTunes, Google Play, and Sticher. Comment, suggest and connect with the podcast by emailing info@detroitisdifferent.com Find out more at https://detroit-is-different.pinecast.co

    39 min
  3. Brick by Brick: Alonzo Bell’s East Side Mission & Beyond

    2d ago

    Brick by Brick: Alonzo Bell’s East Side Mission & Beyond

    “Sometimes people think that because it don’t happen overnight, they’re not doing well… keep going. Don’t stop.” In this powerful Detroit is Different conversation, Rev. Alonzo Bell, Executive Director of The Redeem Team, traces a life shaped by East Side Detroit, faith, family, discipline, and the long work of community service. Bell takes listeners from his family’s Arkansas roots and Black Bottom beginnings to Gratiot, where poverty was real but love, church, and neighborhood connection gave children a foundation. He reflects on Martin Evers Missionary Baptist Church, Pastor Austin Byrd Jr.’s civil-rights vision, the changing East Side of the 1980s, and the perseverance required to keep building when resources are scarce. “It comes a certain point of time where you just put enough time in and then the scales begin to move in your direction,” Bell explains. His story connects Detroit’s past—migration, Black church leadership, neighborhood pride, factory loss, and survival—to its future: patient institution-building, youth guidance, faith-centered organizing, and leadership rooted in service. This episode reminds us that community transformation is not a sudden breakthrough; it is brick-by-brick work, witnessed by the people, strengthened through relationships, and sustained by those committed enough to keep fighting for generations ahead. Detroit is Different is a podcast hosted by Khary Frazier covering people adding to the culture of an American Classic city. Visit www.detroitisdifferent.com to hear, see and experience more of what makes Detroit different. Follow, like, share, and subscribe to the Podcast on iTunes, Google Play, and Sticher. Comment, suggest and connect with the podcast by emailing info@detroitisdifferent.com Find out more at https://detroit-is-different.pinecast.co

    2h 3m
  4. Dexter Roots, Civil Rights Power: Jade Mathis Carries Detroit Forward

    Jun 18

    Dexter Roots, Civil Rights Power: Jade Mathis Carries Detroit Forward

    “I didn’t want to be any attorney. I wanted to be a second chance attorney for our people,” Jade Mathis shares in a Detroit is Different conversation that moves from Black Bottom ancestry to courtroom advocacy and City Hall leadership. Jade’s Detroit story begins with grandparents who migrated from Little Rock and Tuscaloosa during the Great Migration, met in Black Bottom, and built family roots on Dexter and Philadelphia, where her grandmother gardened, fed neighborhood children, and kept beauty alive on the block. Jade carries that same community care into her legal journey. After illness shifted her path from journalism to law, Jade pushed through LSAT setbacks, law school rejection, and taking the bar six times before becoming the attorney she promised God she would be. Her work included the Project Clean Slate, expungements, NAACP service, GED tutoring, and civil rights cases with Attorney Ben Crump traveling the nation, representing families struggling from police killings and fighting through litigation, protest, and grief. Now leading Detroit’s Civil Rights, Inclusion & Opportunity Department, CRIO, Jade brings those lessons home: clean records, recognize grassroots leadership, defend rights, and make government answer to the people’s future. Detroit is Different is a podcast hosted by Khary Frazier covering people adding to the culture of an American Classic city. Visit www.detroitisdifferent.com to hear, see and experience more of what makes Detroit different. Follow, like, share, and subscribe to the Podcast on iTunes, Google Play, and Sticher. Comment, suggest and connect with the podcast by emailing info@detroitisdifferent.com Find out more at https://detroit-is-different.pinecast.co

    1h 10m
  5. Music Dads, Daughters, and Detroit Legacy with Brittini Ward

    Jun 18

    Music Dads, Daughters, and Detroit Legacy with Brittini Ward

    “Literally all of the creative gifts I have come from him.” Brittini Ward brings that truth into Detroit is Different with a conversation rooted in lineage, love, and the music that raises us. From tracing her family’s migration through Kentucky, Arkansas, Jackson, Mississippi, Parkside, Six Mile, Palmer Park, and Sherwood Forest, Brittini shows how “this creativity, this movement, this dance, this Detroit, this down south” lives in the body before it ever becomes art. She reflects on her father—“drawing,” “pop locking,” DJing, writing, singing, serving as Sergeant Ward, and still making tapes saying “Goodnight, LaMarr Ward, goodnight, Ashlee Ward, goodnight, Brittini Ward” so his children could feel him close. That spirit becomes Baba Duke, her multimedia exhibition at Irwin House honoring music fathers and daughters through oral histories, portraiture, sound, memory, and love. This episode is about more than an exhibit; it is about how Black Detroit preserves fathers, daughters, neighborhoods, and futures through story. It connects the past we inherit to the future we build when memory becomes community practice. Come listen, feel, remember, and bring somebody you love there. Visit Baba Duke at Irwin House Detroit, 2351 West Grand Boulevard, Thursday–Saturday 12 PM–7 PM and Sunday 12 PM–6 PM. Detroit is Different is a podcast hosted by Khary Frazier covering people adding to the culture of an American Classic city. Visit www.detroitisdifferent.com to hear, see and experience more of what makes Detroit different. Follow, like, share, and subscribe to the Podcast on iTunes, Google Play, and Sticher. Comment, suggest and connect with the podcast by emailing info@detroitisdifferent.com Find out more at https://detroit-is-different.pinecast.co

    1h 11m
  6. Detroit is the Mecca for Pan-African Thought and Action: Baba Mike Anderson on New Afrika

    May 28

    Detroit is the Mecca for Pan-African Thought and Action: Baba Mike Anderson on New Afrika

    “Detroit is a very special place… the Mecca for Pan-African thought and action.” Baba Mike Anderson, citizen of the Republic of New Afrika, joins Detroit is Different for a powerful episode recorded on Malcolm X Day rooted in Black liberation, memory, and movement. Baba Mike carries us from his North End childhood on John R, where “you didn’t have to leave the neighborhood,” into the political fire of post-Rebellion Detroit, where Black Power, African identity, labor struggle, and self-defense shaped his path. He shares how reading J.A. Rogers, reading the Nation of Islam through the Pittsburgh Courier, meeting General Baker, and being introduced to the Republic of New Afrika awakened his consciousness. “It wasn’t long after that that I took the pledge,” he recalls, becoming a citizen of New Afrika and member of the Black Legionaires, the Republic's military arm. From New Bethel Baptist Church to African Liberation Day, Baba Mike connects Detroit’s role in Malcolm X, Pan-Africanism, reparations, and revolutionary organizing. This episode is not nostalgia; it is a blueprint. Baba Mike reminds us, “It’s really not about you. It’s about what you leave behind.” Detroit is Different is a podcast hosted by Khary Frazier covering people adding to the culture of an American Classic city. Visit www.detroitisdifferent.com to hear, see and experience more of what makes Detroit different. Follow, like, share, and subscribe to the Podcast on iTunes, Google Play, and Sticher. Comment, suggest and connect with the podcast by emailing info@detroitisdifferent.com Find out more at https://detroit-is-different.pinecast.co

    1h 43m
  7. Freedom Fighter is in My Blood: Jenell Mansfield

    May 28

    Freedom Fighter is in My Blood: Jenell Mansfield

    “The Freedom Fighter is in my blood,” Jenell Mansfield says, tracing her roots from Macon, Georgia, to Dexter-Davidson, the Jeffries Projects, Central High School, and Haiti’s revolutionary legacy. In this Detroit is Different conversation, Mansfield, a teacher and social worker running for Wayne County Commissioner in the 5th District, opens up about the generations that shaped her politics, purpose, and love for Black people. Her family story begins with Great Migration dreams, a veteran great-grandfather seeking something better, grandparents who came of age in Motown-era Detroit, and a Haitian father whose history taught her that freedom is never given. Mansfield connects personal memory to public policy, breaking down how housing, poverty, education, water shutoffs, and “hyper ghetto” conditions impact what Detroiters can imagine for their futures. She reminds us, “You can’t be what you can’t see,” while challenging listeners to think about what happens when Black communities are separated from resources, elders, and examples of possibility. This interview matters because it ties Detroit’s past to the political choices ahead, showing how lived experience, social work, teaching, and community love can become a blueprint for leadership rooted in the people. Detroit is Different is a podcast hosted by Khary Frazier covering people adding to the culture of an American Classic city. Visit www.detroitisdifferent.com to hear, see and experience more of what makes Detroit different. Follow, like, share, and subscribe to the Podcast on iTunes, Google Play, and Sticher. Comment, suggest and connect with the podcast by emailing info@detroitisdifferent.com Find out more at https://detroit-is-different.pinecast.co

    1h 18m
  8. From Road Rallies to Public Service: Mallory McMorrow’s Michigan Story

    May 28

    From Road Rallies to Public Service: Mallory McMorrow’s Michigan Story

    “You don’t tell us who we are, we tell you who we are.” That spirit drives this Detroit is Different conversation with Mallory McMorrow, who is running for a Michigan seat in the United States Senate. This interview opens with roots: how a Jersey-born industrial designer who lived across five states found home in Michigan through road rallies, Detroit architecture, car culture, and the creative question, “What can we build together?” McMorrow shares how her love of cars, Route 66 road trips, and design shaped her belief that even something as basic as “four wheels to get you from point A to point B” can become art, memory, and identity. From building a concept car live at an auto show to graduating into the 2008 economic crash, her story connects Michigan’s industrial past to its political future. Khary brings the Detroit lens—Flint, Roger & Me, blue-collar culture, and the pride of communities outsiders misunderstand. This is a conversation about belonging, reinvention, and why Michigan’s future must be built with the same creativity, grit, and community truth that shaped its past. Detroit is Different is a podcast hosted by Khary Frazier covering people adding to the culture of an American Classic city. Visit www.detroitisdifferent.com to hear, see and experience more of what makes Detroit different. Follow, like, share, and subscribe to the Podcast on iTunes, Google Play, and Sticher. Comment, suggest and connect with the podcast by emailing info@detroitisdifferent.com Find out more at https://detroit-is-different.pinecast.co

    46 min
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Ratings & Reviews

5
out of 5
9 Ratings

About

The Detroit is Different podcast is about exposing artistry, business, ideas, and dynamic people, places, and things that make Detroit a mecca. Tune in weekly and subscribe to get the true stories from the people shaping the culture of an American classic city.

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