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Wherever you go, there you are.

This episode contains strong language and graphic imagery. Sensitive listeners, please be advised.

STORIES
“A Christmas Misadventure”: ¡Feliz Navidad! Lupita is in Mexico for Christmas when a friend invites her to join him and his relatives for the holiday.

Original score by Parker Halliwell, Jr. AKA Dakim.

“TikTok Ticket”: Phoebe didn’t grow up with much else besides her dreams. To support herself and her family, she leaves Uganda for difficult work abroad, despite warnings from her loved ones.

This story references forced labor. Please take care while listening.

Thank you, Phoebe Kukkiriza, for sharing your story with us.

Produced by Anna Sussman. Original score by Clay Xavier.

Original Mind Your Own theme song by Sandra Lawson-Ndu AKA Sandu Ndu x Peachcurls ft. Ehiorobo. This episode also featured the songs Color by Preyé and Journey With Me by Blocka Beats ft. Karun.

Executive Producers: Glynn Washington and Mark Ristich
Managing Editor: Regina Bediako
Director of Production: Marisa Dodge
Series Producers: David Exumé and Priscilla Alabi
Music Supervisor: Sandra Lawson-Ndu
Story Scouts: Ashley Okwuosa, Fiona Nyong’o, Jessica Kariisa, Lesedi Oluko Moche
Editors: Nancy López and Anna Sussman
Engineering: Miles Lassi
Operations Manager: Florene Wiley
Story Consultant: John Fecile
Graphic Design: Jemimah Ekeh
Original Artwork: Mateus Sithole

Special Thanks: Allan Coye, Jake Kleinberg, Samara Still, Sarah Yoo, Warner Music Group, and Afripods

Mind Your Own is a production of KQED’s Snap Studios, with sales and distribution by Lemonada Media. Hosted and produced by Lupita Nyong’o.

Snap Studios is home to the Snap Judgment and Spooked podcasts.

Transcript

MIND YOUR OWN TRANSCRIPT

EP 8: SAFE PASSAGE

Lupita: This episode contains strong language and graphic imagery. Sensitive listeners, please be advised.

Lupita: I love taking trips. I live for that moment of anticipation when the tickets have been bought, or like the car’s packed up and you’re about to launch yourself into something totally different from your everyday humdrum. 

But different isn’t always better, and you have to be ready for anything. 

I’m Lupita Nyong’o, and this is Mind Your Own. 

[Mind Your Own theme song]

[intriguing music]

Lupita: When I was 22 years old, I was in college in the US. I decided to go back to Mexico where I’d lived to spend time with some friends over the Christmas break. Mexico is home to me. You know, it’s my second home. It’s my birth home. I spent some formative time there as a teenager, as you can imagine. I went to school there. I learned how to cook mole, which is an insane process. I learned how to make tortillas from scratch. Also, an impossible task. Tres leches? Ooh. I learned how to dance in Mexico. It was a place where I got rid of my shyness, forgot that people were watching me, and learned how to dance like no one was looking. So, I kind of flourished. Going there felt like a homecoming. 

I made my way to Mexico to the city of Taxco, where I lived. And Taxco is really small, and I just wanted a change of scene. So, my friend Mateo suggested, “Hey, you know Alessandro?” He’s this Italian friend that we had in common. “He has family in a town that’s about eight hours away.” We would leave and have Christmas with them and then come back. 

I wanted more of a family feeling to Christmas. I have more than 30 cousins, you know, so Christmastime is big, and yeah, I was just missing that warmth. 

And so, we head off for our eight-hour drive. I was looking forward to feasting. Their family was Mexican-Italian, so I was looking forward to that blend, you know, good pastas. Come on, man. I was looking forward to singing Feliz Navidad. 

We get there, and there was like the main house, which was all on one floor. And then to one side of that main house was a bungalow with a living room on the bottom and a kind of loft-like bedroom at the top. So, I walk into the living room, and Alessandro is there with three or four of his friends. And I’m trying to make my way to the ladder that gets me to the loft where I’m staying. 

They’re all hunched over, and I see these syringes, and Alessandro says to me this really low, weak voice in Spanish, “Hey, Lupita, do you want something?” And I say, “No thanks.” 

I watch him basically smack his arm and shoot up. His eyes rolled back and he just like let go on the couch. And his friends followed suit. And like they’re barely talking. They’re just groaning. 

I’m with Mateo and I’m like, “What the hell is going on here?” He was like, “I don’t know what to say. I mean, I didn’t expect it to be this bad, you know? His sister was in recovery. I don’t know what she’s doing drinking. I didn’t know he was in this bad place again.” And I was just like, “This is not Christmas.” This did not feel like Christmas. This is terrible. But I also felt stuck. I didn’t have my own car. Actually, I’d never driven on the right side of the road, so I really couldn’t get myself out of there. I actually did look into the bus schedule to see whether I could take a bus, but it was obviously going to be costly to me. 

Okay, I gotta turn this thing around. Let’s take matters into our own hands. Let’s do the tree. Let’s get food. Let’s make this the Christmas we want it to be.

[Market sounds]

On Christmas Eve, we’re walking the streets, you’re overhearing music, there’s festivities. There’s lots and lots and lots of food, more food than you can possibly eat. We went out to look for Christmas adornments, but everything was sold out. There was like crepe paper and this tinsel stuff, some things are like faded, the globes are like dented. It was the dregs, dregs of Christmas ornaments left. So, we gathered these things, put them on this emaciated tree. And Christmas Day itself, man, nobody really said “Feliz Navidad.” It was just like back to the booze, back to the drugs. Everybody just in their own world. And every two seconds, someone was offering me alcohol. I wasn’t drinking alcohol. So, I’m watching all this sober. 

Christmas is family and here I was, not with family at all. And this family was not with each other. I said to Mateo, “We are leaving. We are leaving. I don’t care. We are going and we are going tomorrow.” And then he said, “Okay, cool. I get it. Let’s do it.”

And then he comes to me and he says, “I spoke to Alessandro and, um, we got to take his car.” And I’m like, “Why?” 

“Well, basically he’s just informed me that the reason why he came here in the first place was because he owes money. And so, he fled to lay low here. He needs a different car.” And I was like, “Yeah, but that’s really putting us in danger.” And he was like, “Yeah, but then it’s safer for us to be in his car than for him to be in his car, and I just want to help my friend out.” 

The thing about Alessandro, when he put his mind to something, you couldn’t get him off it. He would wrap himself around you and then you had no choice. And I was like, “No, no, I am not staying another day. We’re taking his car.” 

And so, next day, packed up the car, got on the road, left that very, very dark scene. Halfway through our journey, we get stopped by the police, highway patrol cops. And as we’re stopping, we’re pulling to the side. Mateo is like, “Oh, shit, I didn’t check the trunk for drugs.” 

[tense music]

Lupita: And now I’m sitting there and I’m like, for the first time in my life, cops are stopping me. And I don’t know if there’s drugs in my car. It’s not just like weed, it’s heroin, it’s cocaine, it’s real felony shit. And then my next thought goes to, I have a Mexican passport. If I am found with anything, I am being taken to prison here and there’s nowhere they’re shipping me to. I am stuck in my country, a country that I am unfamiliar with, okay? And I was like, “What the hell?” 

The cops come and it’s me, a Black woman, and Mateo, a white man. And I’m just like, hopefully, his whiteness makes it seem like nothing’s going on here. 

So, they come, “Hola, hola.” 

[Spanish language]

And I’m like, “Oh.” He says, “Yeah, we’re coming from here. We’re going to Taxco. Okay, todo bien, yeah yeah.” They ask us to pop the trunk. I am not breathing. 

They look in the back. It’s just our luggage. They toss it around. We’re both sitting in the car because they haven’t asked us to get out. And then they shut the trunk, they come back to the windows. They’re looking at us, they’re looking inside the car, and then they nod their heads, and off we go. 

Man, I broke down and cried. I cried. When we got far enough, I had Mateo stop the car again. And now we searched the car, every crevice for anything, a syringe, anything. We looked everywhere. On the carpet, everywhere. 

And we were good. 

[contemplative music]

Lupita: Don’t go anywhere. More Mind Your Own, after this quick break.

Welcome back. You’re listening to Mind Your Own. 

[music]

I’ve been on my fair share of road trips, but I’ve also had to make longer journeys. There’s nothing like that feeling of being buckled into the seat, as the plane starts to taxi. You’re peering through that little window at everything you’re about to leave behind and in anticipation of everything ahead. 

For me, there’s always been choice, excitement, and freedom to those journeys. But for our next storyteller and millions like her, freedom is part of what they leave behind. 

Our story starts when Phoebe Kukkiriza, a young Ugandan woman, is getting ready to do just that. 

I hope you’re listening. 

Please be advised, this story references forced labor. 

There is a well-traveled flight path that every month carries dozens of young women from East Africa to Saudi Arabia. And there, they’re put to work as live-in maids. This industry, the domestic servant industry, is riddled with human rights abuses. 

Reporter: 2.8 million women work as maids in the Middle East. 

Reporter: [crosstalk] –workers being treated inhumanely by their employers in Saudi Arabia, according to the Ministry of Gender, Labor, and Social Welfare– 

Reporter: –Zaituni Zawedde, who hails from Masaka, died in Saudi Arabia, where she had been working as a domestic worker. 

Phoebe: I was like, “If I die, I die.” I want to go and work in Saudi Arabia.

Lupita: For 20-year-old Phoebe Kukkiriza, it wasn’t an easy choice. There were a lot of factors at play, but she decided to go. 

Phoebe: So, I entered the plane. The person who sat near me, that girl was young, but it was her second time to go. Me, I was very happy on my phone. I started seeing this girl crying. Then I was like, “You, girl, why are you crying?” For her, she thought she was going to hell again. Me, I was going to hell the first time. 

Lupita: When Phoebe decided to go to Saudi Arabia to become a domestic worker, everyone in her life, her father, her friends, cautioned against it. 

Phoebe: People send a lot of those messages. Okay, “people, they are torturing, people they are killing.” Like, you receive a lot of videos. 

Lupita: Phoebe’s sister was adamant that she changed her mind. 

Phoebe: She said, “Do not go. Do not go.” We had no work, I was not working, but she was like, “They kill people. Don’t go.” So, me, I was like, “I’m going.” 

Lupita: Phoebe felt she had no choice if she wanted the future she imagined for herself. 

Phoebe: Because I wanted to change my life, first of all. The only hope I had was to go to Saudi Arabia and then fetch money. So, here you can work like for five years, not even five years. Okay, you work for today’s food, you don’t save. 

Lupita: She had been working in a little eatery in an open-air market, not making much money at all. So, she signed a two-year contract with an agency, and she got on a flight bound for Saudi Arabia. 

Phoebe: I also prayed, prayed and prayed. I was praying for my bosses to be nice to me. So, God help me. You know. Let me find that family. One that is good, one that is having humanity, Father, please help me. I’ll be their friends. But one thing that came into my mind, it’s good not to know the future. Okay? What is going to happen. 

Lupita: After two flights took her halfway around the world, Phoebe landed in Saudi Arabia. When she landed, she was herded into a waiting room with a group of young women. Phoebe’s name was the first one called. A man in a kanzu, and a woman in an abaya joined her. She was assigned to work with them for the next two years. 

It was a quiet ride. Peering out the windows, Phoebe tried to get a glimpse of this Saudi Arabia. But it was dark, and the windows were tinted. The ride wasn’t too long. And when they got there, what she found waiting for her surprised her. 

Phoebe: So, when we reached home, all the people were waiting for me. They were very, very happy to see me. The boys, the girls, they were all home. Their children were all home. So, when we came, they ran from upstairs. They came, they gave me hugs, they were kissing me. 

Lupita: There were seven children in the house, four boys and three girls. And she was taken aback by their warm reception. 

Phoebe: I didn’t know how to greet and I was like, “Oh, why are they kissing me?” [laughs] Because for us, it’s rare to kiss somebody like that. Yes, they all kissed me. We went, they said, “Sit down here.” They gave me tea. Then mama asked me, “Do you have a mother?” Then I said, “Yes.” “Do you have a father?” “Yes.” “You have your sisters?” “Yes.” “Do you have a child?” And I was like, “Mm, yeah.” Because at the company they told us, “You should tell them you have kids, so that they can trust you with their kids.” Then I said, “Yes, I have.”

Lupita: Phoebe had even prepared a picture on her phone of a neighbor’s child. 

Phoebe: I showed them. I told them, “See.” They were like, “Mm, Masha Allah.” Little did they know that it was my neighbor’s child. [laughs] 

Lupita: After this welcome and a chicken dinner, the family put Phoebe to work. 

Phoebe: So, you wake up in the morning and clean downstairs, upstairs, clean. Then after them waking up and then you clean their rooms. You make their bed, each and everything. You know what made me maybe annoyed was making their beds. 

[Phoebe continues]

Lupita: And she’d wash all the dishes and do all the laundry. She would scrub the white tiles of the house and pick up the clothes thrown on the floor.

Phoebe: –all the time. Like, it’s when you sit down and then they call you. You have to be recleaning the house. They make it dirty that time, you clean it again. 

Lupita: When she’d get a small break, Phoebe would go back to her room. It consisted of a bed in the family’s storage room alongside a washer and dryer. And she’d lie on her bed, exhale, and open up her phone. It was her lifeline to Uganda. 

Phoebe: We had a pastor who was preaching audio messages. You put there and listen, because the moment you could put on the phone, you could see Uganda things, what are they doing? What’s up in Uganda? Just to know what’s up in Uganda. 

Lupita: She called her dad almost every day, and he’d give her encouragement. He’d say, “You’re okay. You’re okay.” But then her boss decided Phoebe was spending too much time on that phone, and he confiscated it. 

Phoebe: When they took my phone, it was the only problem I was seeing. I was seeing like, “The world is not on my side. Nobody loves me.” Even if you could give me food, even if you could buy me anything I want. But when you take my phone, you want to kill me because it’s the only thing I can use to take off the stress to forget everything I’m here with. 

Lupita: The stress and loneliness were starting to really weigh on her. She’d spend up to five months without even leaving the house, because her boss had wanted her to stay inside. And when she did leave, it was only to get COVID tests. She did know other Ugandan women working as maids who were in the houses around her. 

Phoebe: It’s like they are also in jail. 

Lupita: Before Phoebe’s phone was taken away, they would communicate through group chats. 

Phoebe: We had our phones, so we made the group and we joined, because others, they were like, “They don’t give me food, they don’t give me this.” Torturing them, not respecting them somehow. 

Lupita: She was so far away from home. She never saw or spoke to anyone familiar. And Phoebe noticed that she never got her passport back after she entered the country. So, when her phone was confiscated, she felt trapped. 

Phoebe: When you’re in a place you don’t know and they take off your communication, you can think you’re dying. You know my life, me, I’m always happy. So, they wanted to know what pissed me off. When you could do something, they take your phone. You mess up with something, they take your phone. They want to – ok, to use that boss thing, “I’m the one controlling you.” They want to take over, controlling you. They want to know what is your weakness, so that they can control you. 

Lupita: So alone in that storage room that she called a bedroom, without her phone, she would think about her family, about home, about her childhood. 

Don’t go anywhere. More after this quick break. 

You’re listening to Mind Your own. Let’s jump back into that story. 

She grew up in a small village without electricity, and she remembered the first time her dad brought home a TV. 

[TV program music swells]

Phoebe: I think it was the first TV. It was the first TV I saw during my childhood. 

Lupita: Phoebe remembered how when her dad brought home that TV and turned it on, she saw a woman, a presenter on a TV show, and something inside her was awakened. 

TV Anchor: Frances Akello retired into farming. 

Phoebe: I saw what they were doing and I was like, “I can do that. I can do that.” You could just feel it in you that you can do it. 

Lupita: As a little girl, she practiced being a TV news presenter in her living room. But her dad would tell her to focus on her schoolwork. And she also knew somewhere in her heart that being a TV news presenter wasn’t meant for her because of where she was from and who she was. 

Phoebe: It required money. Of course, we didn’t have for that course. And as you know, sometimes it needs connection, you know. And I was very, I was there in the village – deep down there, no one could recognize your talent. No one can recognize you when you’re very deep down there in the village. So, you just have little hope, very little of it. 

Lupita: So, she focused on her schoolwork and basically on survival, because her family had very little money. Now in Saudi Arabia, she was making 900,000 Ugandan shillings a month, five times what she was making before at the eatery. She sent all her earnings back home. But in exchange for her family’s financial security, she’d had her freedom taken away, all in the service of this Saudi Arabian family. Her contract would end in one more year, but whether or not the family would allow her to go home remained to be seen. 

Phoebe: I told you those people were not bad, according to the others. I don’t know– their nature, that nature of seeing you like a slave. They are trying to remove it, I don’t know, in their bodies or their mind or their what, but it is still there. 

Lupita: She did form a close bond with the children of the family. One of the boys was nonverbal and stuck by her side all day and all night. She’d often ask her bosses for things she needed and even just things she wanted, and they would give them to her. So, she did feel that some part of them was interested in being human with her. Like the next time they confiscated her phone. 

Phoebe: I once told them, “You have even taken my phone. But for you, you’re with your people talking to them directly, and you’re having your phone. Don’t you see that, it is an injustice?” 

Lupita: After that conversation, they didn’t just return her phone, they bought her a brand new mobile and they set it up with a SIM card and messaging apps. So, now she could be in touch with her whole family and even that pretend “daughter” back home. 

Phoebe: They said, “Phoebe, you want TikTok?” Then I said, “Well, what is TikTok?” I said, “Yes, just put it in.” Then after, I went on TikTok, I opened up an account. Just maybe if they could give you likes you could feel at home. It’s also another medicine for you to talk to the person – to talk to who understands your language. It’s another medicine for you to stay longer in Saudi Arabia. 

Lupita: So, she made little videos for TikTok. 

Phoebe: Hi, guys [Luganda language].

Lupita: Her dancing with the kids. Her trying new food in Saudi Arabia. 

Phoebe: Hello. Hi. Yeah, we are eating some … Yeah, please don’t be, what, jealous. You understand? 

So I used to do those videos for me and maybe for those few people who are following me. 

Lupita: One time, she posted this video of her taking out the garbage because it was a rare moment when she was alone and outside of the house, and she was feeling kind of free. She was hoping that other maids in Saudi Arabia might see this TikTok and relate.

Phoebe: For other people were hiding themselves for being maids. But for me, I was just proud of it. It’s the topic which came in my mind, taking out rubbish. “If you’re out there, I’m here taking rubbish, where are you?” I was like, “I wish I could find anyone taking rubbish.” I say “Hi,” Ugandan girl taking rubbish, I say, “Hi. Hi to you.”

Lupita: She was finally a presenter, presenting the trash. 

Phoebe: You people, you don’t know, for us who are working in Saudi Arabia, we are working. What are you presenting? Me, I’m presenting rubbish. 

Lupita: She went to bed in the little room after posting that video, her little room in the big white house. And then, in the morning–

Phoebe: I wake up when it’s already 100,000 views. I didn’t watch it because you knew, after all, no one is going to watch me. But after waking up, boom. So, people were very, very, very happy about those videos. And it made people say, “Ah, this girl is proud of her job.” And that’s when we went viral. 

Lupita: She made more videos. Lip syncing, talking to her fans. 

Phoebe: As a maid in Saudi Arabia, sit down, get a chair, I narrate for you. 

Lupita: And to her haters. 

Phoebe: My first point, if you don’t like me, block. Block me everywhere. Make sure– [crosstalk] 

Lupita: Talking to the family babies. 

Phoebe: Hi, baby. Hi, baby. 

Lupita: They liked, they shared it on Facebook, on Instagram, on TikTok, like everywhere, on YouTube. It feels very good because for you, you posted your video for you because you never knew that maybe someone out there can watch you. It feels so, so good. But as good as it felt to get those likes, she was still alone. Birthdays came and went, holidays came and went, and she was still working in the service of another family at their beck and call. 

Phoebe: Oh, my God, they made me miss home so much. I wish I was home. I could sit down with my family like this. You start missing your family, you start knowing that money is not like the best thing. Home is the best. East or west, home is the best. When you’re tired, your body is tired, you think home, for sure. Miss home totally, when you don’t want anything, you want home. 

Lupita: Her contract was coming to an end soon. Who knew if she would be allowed to leave? Remember, she didn’t have her passport. And because she was sending all her money home, she didn’t have any to buy a ticket. So, she went to the father of her host family. 

Phoebe: First of all, I told them, “I want to see my kid.” 

Lupita: The kid she didn’t have. 

Phoebe: I want to see my kid badly. Now, if you tell someone that I want to go home, my time is over, and he does not react. You have to cry, so that they can see you. I used to cry. “I want to see my family, I want to see my mother.” Like, every time I could cry for them. “You don’t want me to go and see my family. For you, you are here with your family.” I could cry, like, every day. 

Lupita: And worn down, Phoebe’s boss finally agreed to buy her a ticket back to Uganda. Even as she packed her bags and made her final TikTok, she doubted it would actually happen. 

Phoebe: Even the step to the airport, I didn’t believe it. I thought, maybe they are going to call me and tell me come back. Maybe my things are not good. Even stepping in the flight, I thought of, maybe they are going to tell me, “No, you’re not qualifying.” Oh, my goodness, I couldn’t even believe it. 

Lupita: She had promised her Saudi Arabian family that she would return, but she knew she wouldn’t. She knew she couldn’t. On that flight home, Phoebe thought about what she’d do when she landed. She didn’t want to go back to her old job at that eatery in the market. Maybe she would rent out a small stall on the roadside in Kampala and sell goods. 

Phoebe: When I came back, I never thought of anything. Just making for myself a business. That’s what I was thinking. 

Lupita: When her plane landed at Entebbe, she walked out of the airport and proceeded to look for her sister, who was to take her home. And there was a crowd of people. 

Male Speaker: Hello, how are you? You’ve come to receive Phoebe? Wow, guys, Team Phoebe, Phoebe [Luganda language].

Phoebe: News anchors, the YouTubers, they welcomed me from the airport. 

Reporter: Amazing experience … for the first time. It’s been almost two years. Now she’s back in the country, but right now she’s back and her fans are showing her love. People have traveled– [crosstalk] 

Phoebe: I had very many people who welcomed me from the airport. I was very famous. 

Reporter: So, you’re all from TikTok. You just saw that she’s coming today and you decided to come and welcome her. 

Lupita: A small group of Phoebe’s fans had gathered before dawn outside the airport. 

Reporter: But you guys, I’m really moved by this love. These people came yesterday here. 

Lupita: They were wearing t-shirts with Phoebe’s face on the front. 

Crowd: Welcome back, Phoebe.

Lupita: They’d made signs that said, Team Phoebe. 

Man: Team Phoebe!

Lupita: One guy came all the way from Jinja, more than two hours away. 

Man: [crosstalk] all the way from Jinja, just to come and meet Phoebe. That’s amazing. 

Phoebe: Hi, Phoebe. Hi, Phoebe. Hi, Phoebe. You know. I was very, very happy and felt so special. 

Lupita: Phoebe did interviews back-to-back with talk shows, newspapers, and podcasts across Uganda. And at one point, she was a guest on this entertainment show called Fun Plus. 

Interviewer: [Luganda language] Fun Plus. [Luganda language]

Lupita: And then a little while after she appeared on that show, the producer called her with an offer, an amazing offer. They needed a new full-time host for Fun Plus. 

Phoebe: She told me, “You know what? They gave you a job. You’re going to work.” 

Lupita: The evening of her first broadcast, Phoebe traveled 40 minutes by boda boda, a motorbike taxi, in the rain to the studio. She stood in front of the camera for her first ever live broadcast and her body was shivering. 

Phoebe: Then the heart starts beating. Oh, my God. And that show had a lot of time. I was like, people are going to see me alone, and people are going to judge me. The words – and I’m a talkative, but I thought the words were jamming, the head was jamming, the words could disappear, I could stammer. Oh, my God. [laughs] 

Lupita: Phoebe told herself to think about that young version of herself, the girl who dreamed of this. 

Phoebe: I could go back and tell myself, “You know what, little girl? Everything is going to be okay.” 

[show intro song] 

Lupita: The show started with a song, I know who I am. 

Phoebe: [singing] I know who I am. I walk in power, I walk in miracles. I live a life of favor. Because I know who I am.

Lupita: And Phoebe introduced herself. 

Phoebe: [Luganda language] If you know who you are, sweetheart…

Lupita: Thank you, [Luganda language] to Phoebe Kukiriza for sharing your story with Mind Your Own. Phoebe still hosts Fun Plus in Kampala. For more of Phoebe’s latest TikToks, head on over to our show notes. 

Thanks for listening. It’s been so good to have you, and I enjoyed going with you to the set of a TV show. The lights were bright and our heart was beating so fast. We looked into the camera and we knew who we were. 

See you the next time you Mind Your Own. 

Until then, here’s a song from the continent: Color by Preyé. 

[Color by Preyé] 

Lupita: Mind Your Own is hosted and produced by me, Lupita Nyong’o. This is a production of Snap Studios at KQED, with sales and distribution by Lemonada Media. 

The executive producers are Glynn Washington and Mark Ristich. Our managing editor is Regina Bediako. Our director of production is Marisa Dodge.

Original music in my story, “A Christmas Misadventure,” was by Parker Halliwell, Jr., also known as Dakim. The story “TikTok Ticket” was produced by Anna Sussman, and original music by Clay Xavier. This episode featured “Journey With Me” by Blocka Beatz and Karun.

Our Mind Your Own producers are David Exumé and Priscilla Alabi. Our story scouts are Ashley Okwuosa, Fiona Nyong’o, Jessica Kariisa, and Lesedi Oluko Moche. Our editors are Nancy Lopez and Anna Sussman. Our story consultant is John Fecile. Engineering by Miles Lassi. Our music supervisor is Sandra Lawson-Ndu, also known as Sandu Ndu. She also created the Mind Your Own theme song with Peachcurls, featuring vocals from Ehiorobo. 

Graphic design by Jemimah Ekeh. Original artwork by Mateus Sithole.

Special thanks to Allan Coye, Jake Kleinberg, Samara Still, Sarah Yoo, Warner Music Group, and Afripods.

Make sure to follow Mind Your Own and listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, or wherever you get your podcasts.

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Now go out, get together, and mind your own… intention.

[Transcript provided by SpeechDocs Podcast Transcription]