Angela Rye apologized to the content creators she hurt with her October 11 comments about political experience, admitting on the latest episode of Native Land Pod that she was “too vague, too ambiguous” when she took aim at critics without naming them. In the same episode, she called Detroit content creator Brandi McGill’s claim that Rye got her removed from Michigan Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed’s election night watch party defamatory, saying no one ever told Brandi she could not attend.
The 47 minute episode, titled “Angela Rye Reckons with Social Media Controversy,” was released Thursday, November 12. Bakari Sellers hosted and opened by checking on his cohost after what he called her “time in the barrel,” with Andrew Gillum also on the panel. Rye never said Brandi’s name, referring to her throughout as “content creator B.” Brandi, known online as Brandi Thee Millennial Manager, is the creator at the center of the feud.
Before reading a prepared statement, Rye revealed that she learned on Election Day that her mother had been admitted to the hospital, finding out through a call from the hospital itself, and that she fell apart right before Native Land Pod’s election night coverage. She said she had to write her thoughts down just to get through them.
In the statement, Rye cited Michelle Obama’s advice to go high when they go low and her mother’s saying to “make big things small and small things nothing,” then owned what she did. “I am a product of 90s hip hop and my diss track, well, it went too far,” she said. “By going above and beyond to not mention content creator B, I was too vague, too ambiguous. I ended up hurting creators who I’ve grown to know, respect, and love. I apologize to each of you for my words, which I never intended for you. I acknowledge that my impact was nevertheless hurtful.”
She also explained what set her off. “When you come for my loved ones, especially when they are in the fight for their lives, literally, I am sending for you overnight Federal Express, at least historically,” Rye said, before adding that she has learned she is “far too grown for that.” She said she now understands her clapbacks carry bigger consequences, and she blamed an online algorithm that rewards conflict, saying social media “rewards wreckage and penalizes grace.”
Rye traced the beef back to last year, when Brandi posted a video blasting her for criticizing California Gov. Gavin Newsom over reparations. In the clip, which Native Land Pod played on air, Brandi repeatedly called Rye “high yellow” along with several other names, insisted reparations would never happen and said the hosts should stop talking if they were not amplifying the Democratic Party. Rye noted that California has since moved reparations legislation forward and that Newsom signed it into law this year. She said she reached out to Brandi privately on Instagram with a two and a half minute voice note sharing lessons she learned from her mother, who was battling cancer, and that the message was met with “callous disrespect.” She declined to play the voice note, calling it a private conversation.
Made to order and shipped to your door.
According to Rye, the videos kept coming, questioning her intelligence, her looks, her age, her complexion and her experience. The breaking point came when Brandi made a video questioning whether Gillum deserves a platform. That is when Rye recorded the October 11 video.
Native Land Pod replayed that clip in full. In it, Rye joked about a post claiming the CIA stopped dropping off crack in Black neighborhoods and started dropping off podcast equipment, then went after “political commentators with no political experience,” “legal experts with no law degrees” and branding experts “with no brand.” She defended her answer to former President Barack Obama, who had said his ancestors sometimes ask him whether he has done enough. Rye’s answer was no, and she argued that everyone, herself included, could be doing more. Then came the line that went viral: “You never worked on the Hill. You didn’t work in an administration. You ain’t even worked in City Hall.” She told critics she was not telling them to “shut up and dribble,” but said some of them were lacking range and added that she has “a real job with real work” as an attorney.
Video:
Rye said Brandi’s response did not come until three days before Election Day, in the form of a remix of her message that pulled out “the most salacious and shady parts.” Even so, she said she still owns that her words were too vague.
Then came Election Day. Rye said Blavity founder Morgan DeBaun called her confused because sponsors were confronting DeBaun about supposedly helping keep a Black woman out of El-Sayed’s watch party. In the video Brandi posted, which Native Land Pod also played, Brandi said she was removed from the watch party because Rye and DeBaun refused to participate unless she was taken off, and claimed Blavity demanded it because “they have contracts and I don’t.” Brandi said the organization she was supposed to work with that night called to apologize, and she warned Rye, “This is not over.”
Rye laid out a very different version. She said she and DeBaun never discussed People’s Election Night, Native Land Pod’s own live election coverage, and only texted about Blavity coming on as a media partner, since Rye invites Black media outlets to stream the show’s coverage. She explained that partners, including The Root and the Working Families Party, reached out to correspondents and content creators to cover events in different states, and that The Root was the one that invited Brandi to El-Sayed’s event. According to Rye, after Brandi posted their private exchange with Rye’s voice underneath it to take shots at the podcast, Brandi’s invitation to appear on Native Land Pod’s livestream was rescinded, an appearance Rye said “was never going to happen anyway” because of the ongoing attacks. “Nobody told content creator B that she could no longer attend Abdul’s event,” Rye said. “That never happened.”
Rye said she texted El-Sayed, who then called her, so his team would know about the allegation and could make sure Brandi knew she was still invited. She said the video damaged her personally and professionally, that partners called asking what was going on and that one partner pulled out of streaming the coverage entirely. “It was all over a lie,” Rye said. She added that several content creators allegedly urged Brandi in group chats to take the video down, which Brandi eventually did, but said the follow up video “was no better.” Neither Brandi’s account of the watch party nor Rye’s account of how the invitations played out has been independently verified.
Rye said she was devastated by how many people believed the claim without asking her, and that friends she has shown up for were liking and reposting the video while others who promised to defend her “completely left me hanging.”
After the statement, Gillum compared the moment to his own federal indictment, saying seeing the case titled “the United States of America v. Andrew Gillum” wrecked him because it twisted the work he had given his life to. He then asked Rye whether she had been “too cute by one half” by speaking in generalities, opening the door for anyone to feel hit. Sellers followed up by asking why she responded at all.
Rye said she was looking at roughly 16 videos, some of which have since been taken down, and that comments about Gillum triggered her. “I am more loyal to other people sometimes than myself,” she said. She explained that being called “high yellow” over and over did not push her over the edge, but the claim that Gillum does not deserve a platform did. “I should not have been that general. I get it,” Rye said, adding that she avoided naming Brandi because she did not want to platform her. She even praised Brandi’s response video, in which Brandi spoke about how politics has harmed her, calling it “brilliant” and saying it “should be somebody’s campaign ad.” Rye insisted the two of them are on the same side and disagree only “2% of the time.”
Rye connected her instinct to defend people to being bullied in sixth grade, saying she promised herself in seventh grade that she would fight her own battles, and that she now does it for people who never asked her to. “I do need to get out of survival mode,” she said.
Gillum told Rye he is “no damsel in distress” and said her loyalty and her ego both push her into fights. He argued that Brandi became a symbol for people who feel locked out of rooms of power, while Rye became a stand in for colorism, privilege and elitism, and that both women lost their humanity in the process. Sellers said the content creators who now believe Rye is against them are the same people she fights for and creates opportunities for, including creators who got airtime on the election night show, and urged her to “let the work that you do speak for you.”
Rye closed by apologizing to her cohosts and the show’s production team, saying the controversy “didn’t just hit me. It hit the show.” She said the habit she is giving up is shade throwing, “definitely not to randoms,” and turned the conversation toward holding elected officials accountable after the midterms. “I have never, ever been confused about the necessary role everyday people must play in policymaking,” she said in her statement. “My entire career speaks to that.”
