‘COUNT TO TEN’ PODCAST WITH CRITICALLY ACCLAIMED BIPOC AND QUEER ARTIST, INFLUENCER, AND CONTENT CREATOR BRI HALL LAUNCHES NEW EPISODE: RACE & ROYALTY WITH BRITTANY LACKEY & GERMANI MANNING OF BLACK GIRL BRAVADO
“Some proclaim the title of social media influencer just because they have a lot of followers, but [Bri Hall] is using her platform for good to reach her 1 million followers around the world.” — START YOUR DAY, BLACK NEWS CHANNEL
“[Count to Ten] aims to unpack appearance-based discrimination and more… [Bri Hall] wants the podcast to elevate people’s various lived experiences with the hope of also hitting home with those who haven’t lived them.” — WWD
Multi-hyphenate BIPOC and queer artist / influencer Bri Hall launches episode 2 of her new weekly podcast ‘Count to Ten’ presented by RedCircle. Available across all streaming platforms now, the new episode entitled Race & Royalty features Brittany Lackey and Germani Manning of Black Girl Bravado. Oftentimes when we think of a “post racial society,” we hear about minorities who have “made it.” Minorities who exist in the top 1% of society as the beacon of hope. Sometimes this is used to gaslight experiences with race by saying, “that was not racist, it was classist,” when it can be one, the other, or both. Today’s episode is all about exploring intersectionality of race, class, and power. Tune in now, here.
Raised in the DMV area (D.C., Maryland, Virginia) and now based in Los Angeles, Hall has achieved over 1.1 million followers across social media plus 50 million views and counting on YouTube as a content creator. Through her various work, including partnerships with Fenty Beauty, Calvin Klein, Clinique, Facebook, Google, etc, and her music project under the moniker La Hara, the rising thought leader has garnered positive praise from ABC, Allure, BET, Black News Channel, Bustle, Cheddar, Elite Daily, Harper’s BAZAAR, ESSENCE, NBC, NYLON, PopSugar, Refinery29, Washington Post, WWD, among several others. Utilizing her dedicated fanbase and established platform, Hall hopes to open an honest dialogue around delicate and indispensable topics such as race/racism, feminism, sexuality, intersectionality, the model minority, DACA/Dreamers, invisible disabilities, mental health, and more.
‘Count to Ten’ is a statement of defiance against the notion of “staying calm”—something individuals in marginalized groups are told to undermine their experiences when facing complex issues around social and racial injustices, gender or identity inequality, mental health, and more. Taking ownership of the phrase “count to ten,” the podcast is Bri Hall’s way of breaking that silence and creating a safe, educational yet entertaining space where listeners can feel seen and heard. Throughout the podcast, Hall will tap a special guest to provide their unique insight and expertise on select themes. Upcoming guests in the first season include Keziah Dhamma (aka Swirly Curly), Brittany Lackey and Germani Manning (Black Bravado), Bukola Odeosun, Darian Harvin, Aliza Kelly, Kristopher Head, Charlotte Nguyen, Helya Mohammadian (Slick Chicks) and Marta Elena Cortez-Neaval (Abilitee), MANNYWELLZ, and Jen Winston (The Greedy Bisexual).
For Bri Hall, every project is an opportunity to explore new avenues to push boundaries and showcase different sides of her as an ever-evolving creator and trendmaker. On the ‘Count to Ten’ podcast launch, she states, “I’m excited to share a huge part of myself that supporters don’t always get to see from an Instagram photo or a makeup tutorial. Between filming for videos and creating content, I’m deeply engaged in conversations with colleagues, friends, and family about social justice, personal struggles, and marginalized identity. It feels like such an organic step to use my platform to further delve into these stories on a larger scale. I hope that people will learn more about marginalized identities and themselves through this podcast. Oftentimes, the gap between empathy and apathy is a lack of understanding and a fear of asking the wrong questions. By having a first person, fly-on-the-wall invitation into these conversations, I hope a deep feeling of connection between diverse communities will emerge for my fans and new listeners.”
‘Count to Ten’ episodes:
- January 18th — Do I Seem Relaxed with Keziah Dhamma (Swirly Curly)
- January 25th — Race & Royalty with Brittany Lackey & Germani Manning of Black Girl Bravado
- February 1st — Being First Gen with Bukola Odeosun
- February 8th — Do the Write Thing with Darian Harvin
- February 15th — Hex and the City with Aliza Kelly
- February 22nd — The Truth of Invisible Disabilities with Kris Head
- March 1st — Excluded? The Model Minority Myth with Charlotte Nguyên
- March 8th — Ableism in Fashion with Helya Mohammadian (Slick Chicks) and Marta Elena Cortez-Neaval (Abilitee)
- March 15th — Show Dates: How DACA has Impacted Artists with MANNYWELLZ
- March 22nd — The Greedy Bisexual with Jen Winston
About Bri Hall:
One of the brightest cultural leaders of her generation, Bri Hall embodies the kind of visionary creativity that defies all boundaries and transforms the way we view the world around us. With a global reach that now includes over 1.1 million followers across all platforms, the 27-year-old artist, social-media creator, and motivational speaker has continually turned her creative passions into a conduit for community-building and increased awareness of such crucial issues as social justice and mental health—all while channeling the singular joy of unbridled self-expression.
A first-generation American whose mother immigrated from Jamaica, Hall was born in New York but moved to Maryland at the age of five. As a young child she started drawing portraits, discovering an affinity for art that she partly attributes to an urge to connect with her absent biological father (a stained-glass artist). A lifelong creative polymath, Hall took up poetry in third grade, and within just two years saw one of her pieces published in a national poetry journal. Later on, she earned the distinction of being one of two students in the entire state to be accepted into a highly competitive visual and performing artists middle school, which helped to refine her raw talents and self-taught skills. Throughout her childhood, Hall further broadened her artistic horizons by learning to play clarinet in elementary school and later taking up piano while enrolled in a prestigious science and technology program in high school. During her junior year, she began exploring social media by kicking off a weekly Facebook feature in which she created time-lapse videos documenting her work as she drew or painted a portrait based on subject requests submitted by her followers. The feature was an instant hit, and in 2011 Hall launched a YouTube channel to showcase her increasingly in-demand speed portraits.
While studying animation and game design at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, Hall continued posting art videos and began appearing on camera—a turn of events that soon led to the launch of Smartista Beauty, a separate YouTube channel that served as a hub for the hair and beauty tutorials her viewers immediately clamored for. With her very first Smartista Beauty post amassing a staggering number of views, Hall quickly emerged as a beauty guru backed by an immensely devoted following (as well as support from global brands like Calvin Klein and Google). Not only known for the awe-inspiring ingenuity behind her wildly popular tutorials, she gained widespread recognition for the vulnerability and candor of her content, often using her videos as a sounding board for such complex and intensely personal topics as self-love and Black feminism. As more and more viewers tuned in for Hall’s insights into living a more fulfilled and empowered life, she took the stage for a TEDx Talk in 2018 and detailed her journey in following her creative dreams to incredible success.
In all of her endeavors, Hall merges her limitless imagination with a profound sense of purpose. In 2019, for instance, she made her musical debut under the name La Hara, an R&B project whose first round of singles included “Hereafter”—a quietly powerful track she wrote after the death of a close friend, then released during National Suicide Prevention Month in order to help others struggling with grief. More recently, Hall has aligned her longtime mission of increasing representation in media with her growing fascination with cosplay, tapping into her extensive makeup savvy and morphing into a series of iconic characters rarely performed by Black artists and creators.
In her commitment to endlessly magnifying the impact of her platform, Hall is now set to launch a weekly podcast called ‘Count to Ten.’ Presented by RedCircle, the show will include intimate and unfiltered conversations with guests whose personal experience speaks to the inequities affecting marginalized populations all around the world. To that end, the first season of ‘Count to Ten’ finds Hall and her guests discussing everything from the model minority myth and the intersectionality of race and class to ableism in fashion and the politics of natural hair. Inspired by the heart-to-heart talks she engages in on a daily basis—and the moment of re-centering pause many people with intersectional identities must frequently take in order to coexist in a variety of spaces—’Count to Ten’ ultimately reflects the driving force behind all of Hall’s output: a one-of-a-kind gift for taking the ordinary stuff of everyday life (a conversation, a bare face, a blank page), then introducing the extraordinary to expand our sense of possibility and reshape the way we live, work, and care for each other.
