The Optics of Accountability

Wireless Festival gets cancelled and the easy headline is to blame Kanye West, but that story is too neat. I talk through what’s actually happening behind the scenes: government pressure, visa power, sponsor risk, and the uncomfortable truth that “cancel culture” doesn’t land equally. Kanye’s antisemitic statements and harmful comments about slavery still matter, and I’m clear about impact, accountability, and why mental health can be context without becoming a free pass.

From there, I widen the lens to the world of work, because the same inconsistency shows up in who gets protected, who gets forgiven, and who gets left behind. We touch on the United Nations recognising transatlantic slavery as the gravest crime against humanity, what that means for education, and why reparations keeps hovering in the background of every conversation about fairness in the UK.

Then we get practical. AI adoption is becoming workplace literacy, and if women and especially Black women are slower to get access, encouragement, and confidence, the gender pay gap risks gaining a new layer. I also break down what layoffs at KPMG and Oracle signal about today’s labour market, why offers can be rescinded, and why you should not resign without a signed contract and start date. We finish on culture and confidence: high-end Nigerian restaurant closures, Angel Reese choosing to be valued, and how I’m building Sister Scribble around intentional planning and owning your narrative.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Oh, yeah, out of the space, out with space, but genetic space. From goldman stuck to WC. Building legacy for all systems. This leg just couldn't stop this low. Love the creatures, watch me grow. Let's just up the game which joke. Every sister how to own their throat. Let me show you how to Not forget to level that's what we do. Black Queen Energy Grow.

Kanye West And Wireless Context

Government Pressure And Visa Power

Mental Health Versus Harmful Impact

Who Sets The Forgiveness Bar

Festival Organiser On Second Chances

Race And Inconsistent Cancel Culture

SPEAKER_01 0:29

Hey everyone. Now before anyone says, Tony, where have you been? What's going on? A lot. A lot. Um, yeah, so last week I I had hoped that I would drop an episode, but honestly, um, it just was it was overwhelming. It was very busy, and I had to prioritize what I needed to do in that moment. And I was dropping the next edit from Sister Scribble for those of you who do not know what Sister Scribble is. It is, of course, my stationary company. And um, I was dropping the blueprint edit, which I was introducing some new um pieces to the Sister Scribble ecosystem, um, notepads and greeting cards. I did introduce a notebook as well, and the notebook completely sold out. Um, but I'm gonna get into like Sister Scribble, the blueprint edit a little bit later. I do want to talk about kind of what's been dominating the press right now, but I also want to give um different perspective. Um so I want to just firstly just say this because I have spoken about Kanye West before, and I guess what I I want to be clear about is my position. And I've always said that one thing I admire about Kanye West is his business mind. You cannot talk about business, marketing, strategy, and not mention Kanye West in the conversation, especially with a collaboration with Adidas. It was marketing genius, and in a time where you know, marketing and understanding how to use marketing and just knowing what the Yeezy brand stood for and how it had grown exponentially with the collaboration with Adidas, albeit how it came to an abrupt end, I think we can't just ignore that genius side of Kanye West, right? Because one thing you we can't deny is his brilliance in terms of his mind. Um, but then I don't think we could talk about his mind without talking about, you know, he suffers from bipolar disorder. But what has been dominating the press right now is as it stands today, and I it's what date is it? I think it's the 8th today of April. But um, Wireless has been cancelled, and it's been cancelled due to a lot of things that I definitely want to explore a little bit more because I think it's really important that we have the conversation on the podcast and really understand kind of what's going on. I'm really sorry if you can hear some background noise, but I can't close the window because it's too hot. I've got allergies. Um, I'm assuming they're allergies, so I just sound bunged up. So it is slightly a recipe for disaster. However, we have a very good microphone and good software system, so you should be able to hear me. So Wireless didn't get cancelled because of Kanye West. I I feel like if you say that sentence in isolation, I don't think it's accurate. Wireless got cancelled because government pressure, and not necessarily because sponsorship deals were pulled. This is a this is a fully fledged political reasons as to why um wireless was pulled, but let's just kind of get into it. We should all be concerned and we should all wake up and pay attention to what's going on, not the what the press feed you as what the narrative is, but actually what sits behind everything. I want to be clear about what happened. Kanye West was set to headline all three days of the Wireless Festival. Now, brands like Pepsi and Diasio had pulled out because Kanye West has said anti-Semitic things on a continuous basis, they are deplorable, they are disgraceful. The things he he has said. He hasn't just said them, he's created songs that are anti-Semitic, and he has said things that are so deplorable about slavery, about his own black community. He said that slavery was a choice. If you fully understand the history, the black history, and understand slavery and what happened during the transatlantic slavery, you could never conclude that it was a choice. And the fact that he said these things and continuously has said them, to be honest with you, I actually thought that was the end of Kanye West Korea. Like when you talk about cancel culture, I I believe that he was done. Okay. Bearing in mind, I believe that he was considered a billionaire, or at least was on his the trajectory for billionaire status. So we need to remember that, like as we go on and we we talk in in this segment. Now, I want to talk about the uncomfortable part of this. Kanye West has said that he has bipolar disorder, and at certain points he has said that he didn't want to be on medication. I think there was an issue about whether he was medicated or not. And people are asking, how much responsibility then do you give him for the things that he has said? Now, people have drawn comparisons in another situation where John Davidson, who has Tourette's, um, used racial slurs, and this was said when Delroy Lindo and Michael B. Jordan were on stage at the BAFTAs present in an award. Now, I want to contextualize something for people who are using that as a comparator because John Davidson at the BAFTAs using racial slur, and the response from the media and for the press at large, actually, was to have empathy because he has Tourette's. So now we have to ask, okay, so what's the difference here? So I want to be very clear. Tourette's is involuntary and there's no intent behind it and no ideology. But Kanye West's words they carry meaning and they reinforce harm. And they've been repeated over and over again, and they've been repeated, not just not just repeated, but publicly on a consistent basis. Now, bear in mind, mental health might explain the behaviour, but it doesn't erase the impact. And I think that's really important because the impact of the things that he said are so detrimental because of the position he holds, because of his fame and celebrity status, and because of what he's actually said, like the historical pain that he has unearthed in the things that he has said, and he hasn't just said them once or twice, he's created music, he's done so much that is so harmful on a public stage. And honestly, when I when I think about it, and even when I first heard it, I was shocked to be honest. I was I I was appalled, I was shocked. I I you immediately default to this is a mental disorder. So hearing him confirm he has bipolar disorder makes sense. So what we're actually watching isn't cancel culture. I don't think you know it's completely cancel culture. I think there is it's government-led, yeah, you hear me, and there's economic accountability as well, hence why you see a lot of like the big um brand sponsors for wireless pull-out. And bear in mind, Pepsi was the first to pull out and they were replaced by Coca-Cola. This is where it gets uncomfortable because we live in a world where someone can say something offensive and lose everything overnight. But people link to the Jeffrey Epstein and link to the files, mentioned in the files. There's no accountability, no investigation, no prosecution, just silence. No cancellations, no mass boycotts, no urgency, just silence. Now let me be clear. I don't support Kanye West at all. I was recently asked about going to the Wireless Festival and I said no. Partly because I'm just not I just I it's not that I I want to be clear, it's not about forgiveness from my perspective, it's about having deeper conversations about that level of accountability, how we hold him accountable. Um but I wouldn't go to his concert. I don't know which Kanye West we're gonna get. And personally, I don't want to be on the forefront of that because since he has said that that slavery was a choice, I also have choices in how I spend my money, how I interact with his content, and how I show up to certain things or not. And I think what he has said has gone too far, quite frankly. But what doesn't sit right with me is how inconsistent it all is. Because who actually decides when someone is finished, when someone is cancelled? Is it the public? Is it brands? Is it the government? Or is it who has the most money on the table? The energy that Keir Starmer had for the Wireless Festival is the energy I'm gonna need him to have in asserting a clear position with Trump when it comes to the Iran War. Because the way Keir Starmer was moving was like he wanted tickets to Wireless Festival because I just don't understand this energy. Keir Starmer, where was this energy for Peter Mandelson's um relationship, friendship with Epstein? Where was this rigor that you suddenly have? You didn't have the rigor before you appointed him as the ambassador to the US? Um, I'm just trying to now understand, and I'm just trying to figure out why it is that a lot of these politicians, instead of them to do their jobs, they'll start poke nosing into things that, to be quite honest, if you're gonna have a position on that, you need to have a position on everything because there's a lot of things going on here, and you ain't playing chess or checkers at all, like we see you. The way the government was so heavily involved in this wireless festival, I have many questions and I have many of the answers because I'm just like, what is this? So before um Kanye West, so before they they pulled Wireless, I just want to kind of go through a few things that happened yesterday because ultimately the reason why Wireless is cancelled is because the UK government have basically said they're not gonna give him um Kanye West a visa and therefore are not allowing him in the country. So Wireless were like, well, if that's the case, we're gonna pull Wireless. So there was a statement yesterday released by the Board of Deputies of British Jews, and it reads, It has been less than a year since Kanye West released a song entitled Hell Hitler, The Culmination of Three Years of Appalling Antisemitism. He also made a number of deeply offensive comments about the black community, saying that the 400-year experience of slavery was like a choice. Even while claiming remorse today, his latest album includes a track first released last year with the abhorrent title Gas Chamber. The Jewish community will want to see a genuine remorse and change before believing that the appropriate place to test the sincerity is on the main stage at the wireless festival. As such, we are willing to meet Kanye West as part of his journey of healing, but only after he agrees not to play at the Wireless Festival this year. If I'm being completely honest, I I agree to the point where you can't test sincerity by putting Kanye West on a main stage at a concert. I I agree with that because I think the true test of sincerity is how he uses that learning, um, what he does here on in with that learning, how he shows remorse and sincerity on a practical level. So I I actually agree with that. But then I I guess I question who gets to dictate how who gets to dictate that quantifying going on that journey of healing then has to be him agreeing not to do the concert. I don't I don't understand who gets to decide the barometer. Does that make sense? Because for me it's like is it because one is seeing wireless festival as a reward for sincerity? Is is that what we're saying? Because if that's is how it's positioned, then I can understand that. But the reason I say this is because from my perspective, I don't think Kanye West should have ever been given main stage. To be honest, if you want me to be completely honest, Kanye West hasn't shown or shared like his commitment to this journey that he he's on of bipolar. He hasn't sincere there's been no sincerity and no explanation or accountability for the things that he has said, and the things he said about slavery he hasn't really addressed. Now, there is a track on his album and he talks about a white queen, but the way he positions this song, it's almost like he's pitting off his white queen against the black community again. It's like a lot of gaslighting. So I don't understand who made and why the decision was made for him to do wireless point blank. Now, Melvin Ben is the managing director of the Wireless Festival, he's one of the main organizers, and he's separately come out and he has said a couple of things. One of which is that Pepsi knew, being one of the lead sponsors, knew that Kanye West was headlining for those three days. They, you know, they said, Are you okay with this? And Pepsi agreed. Pepsi Diaggio, I think their withdrawal from sponsoring the Wireless Festival is performative. They would have asked the question, they would know because a lot of these brands, when they're sponsoring these events, they want to know who's been booked because again, you're assessing risk. So for Pepsi to very publicly withdraw seems very performative, but I digress. So now that obviously Wireless has been cancelled, and I I personally think that's the right approach. I think that it's galvanised a lot of controversy, negative press. I think anyone else that they would have had as a replacement to headline, I think that it would have been marred because of all this controversy. So I think the right approach is to to to cancel Wireless. Um, I'm interested to understand where Kia Starmer sits with this whole thing with Wireless because he keeps talking about the UK economy and yet he involves himself in in things that, to be honest, has nothing to do with him. Not when uh Trump is threaten threatening you know mass destruction of Iran. You know, focus on that, focus on speaking to your allies about how you guys are going to deal with Trump because Trump started a war, didn't tell any of you guys, but then expected you all to back him. And now the Strait of Hamous is closed, and he is he the threats that Trump is threatening are of such grave concern that I would think that the Wireless Festival would be the least of Keir Starmer's concerns, and in terms of priorities, wireless wouldn't be one of them. I digress. So Melvin Ben, uh manager and director of Festival's Republic, he has this statement since cancelling um Wireless Festival this year. I'm deeply committed um anti-fascist and have I'm a deeply committed anti-fascist and have been all my adult life. I lived in kibbutz for many months in the 1970s that was attacked on October 7th. Um I'm pro-Jew and Jewish state while being equally committed to a Palestinian state. Having had a person in my life for the last 15 years who suffers from mental illness, I've witnessed many episodes of despicable behaviour that I have had to forgive and move on from. If I haven't, if I wasn't before, I have become a person of forgiveness and hope in all aspects of my life, including work. Ye's music is played on commercial radio stations in this country. It is available via live streams and downloads in the country, in this country without comment or vitriol from anyone, and he has a legal right to come into the country and to perform in this country. He is intended to come in and perform. He yeah, he is okay. That makes sense. We are not giving him a platform to extol opinion of whatever nature, only to perform the songs that are currently played on the radio stations in our country and the streaming platforms in our country and listened to and enjoyed by millions. Forgiveness and giving people a second chance are becoming a lost virtue in this ever-increasing divisive world. And I would ask people to reflect on their instant comments of disgust at the likelihood of him performing, as was mine, and um and offer some forgiveness and hope to him, and hope to him, as I have decided to do. How is cancel culture distributed? Because the reality is Kanye West's music is played, he has millions of downloads, streams. There is a um, I believe there's a festival called Bully, and Kanye West has been headlined and sold out. So, how are we applying this cancel culture? Because I don't really understand. We have so many um conflicting uh opinions about mental illness and how it's applied, and we've just come off the back of Easter, where this country is in the UK is heavily a I would say um is a mixed-faith country, but this country observes things like Christianity and Catholicism, so it preaches forgiveness. How are we applying that? These are the things that really confuse me about this country because then I start to ask the question is the application dependent on race? Is it dependent on race? Because we have many examples where forgiveness is given to us to freely given to other races outside of the black race in a way that is free, like free forgiveness, like the it hasn't been contingent or something, whereas forgiveness applied to uh people who are black, it it's few and far between, like the scope of where that forgiveness sits is very high. I say this because I think the application of forgiveness comes with the application of fairness, and I again talk about how institutionally racist this country is because if you are gonna apply to one, it applies to all, in my opinion. Kanye West should have never been booked. I don't think that he's done enough of the work to warrant a stage of that magnitude. Kanye West continues to do things, albeit not um as outward, like not as like publicly, but he's doing things like this album where he has certain tracks named certain things that are you know, he hasn't actually spoken to the black community about this uh his alleged allegation of slavery being a choice. We haven't seen the work. He continues to gaslight, he continues to say certain things, and it's not it, it doesn't come with accountability. I've not seen any accountability from him, and this is where I then hold Wireless accountable because if you're gonna book somebody as controversial as Kanye West and you're going to attribute and accept his explanation of bipolar disorder, which is a mental illness, how much of accountability are you then applying? Applying to Kanye West, how do you not know he's not going to get up on that stage and repeat all the anti Semit uh anti-anti-Semitism that he has been um he he did re not too long ago? How do you how how are you how are wireless going to take accountability and how are they going to afford the protections of the audience and the listeners at that concert to reassure us that he's not going to continue to spill this hate? And part of that healing journey, part of that forgiveness journey starts with accountability. And I don't think Kanye of us has done any of that. Going silent and then saying, Oh, I've got bipolar disease is not enough. It's he work. Now, some of you will say, Yep, but he was due to meet with um senior rabbis here in the UK, but that's not enough of the work. True forgiveness, in my opinion, is you you can give that true forgiveness, but there needs to be a healing journey that he goes on, and part of that journey is then him going on it and then having the ability to be able to access things like wireless and like other festivals, but he has to go on that journey for a sustained amount of time. I'm not saying it has to be prescribed time, but there needs to be enough time for us to see work being done from a black community perspective. I don't see where what you said, there's no being accountability. The where I draw the line is when you have the British government involving themselves in it, and then say, Oh, we're not gonna give him visa to to come, we're not gonna let him in. I read somewhere that he was he actually applied for a visa and got it, but now what the the UK government has done is rescinded that. It's interesting how public pressure, scrutiny, and a lens can be shone on something, and immediately the government will react. Um, and there doesn't seem to be um like I I do know what it is, I like fairness and I like considering everything. And I think that the government get involved in things that have none of their business, but they won't involve themselves and they won't take a stand when it comes to Trump. They won't take a clear, visible stand when it comes to the Epstein files. There's been no arrests, no investigations, no criminal investigations, no charges in relation to the Epstein files. But you're talking about wireless.

unknown 24:33

Okay.

AI Adoption Gap For Women

Practical Steps To Learn AI

Layoffs And A Brutal Job Market

Internal Moves Over Risky Quits

Why Nigerian Restaurants Are Closing

Angel Reese And Knowing Your Worth

Sister Scribble Blueprint Edit And Vision

Listener Support And Final Goodbye

SPEAKER_01 24:34

The United Nations have voted to recognize that the transatlantic slavery of Africans was the gravest crime against humanity. It's been a long time coming. It is a first step. I do want to be really clear that the slave trade and chattel slavery lasted over four hundred years. Till today, there has been no reparations, there has been no conversation about reparations, but this recognition by the United Nation hails the first step, the gravest crime against humanity, but there is not enough education in the schools about that transatlantic slavery, where Africans were enslaved and treated and became chattel, no one wants to talk about that. So when Kanye West failed to address his statement that the slave trade was a choice, it actually was the gravest crime against humanity. But what does this actually mean? The United Nations have taken several years to get to this point, and it hails a turning point in how slavery has been recognised. But let's see what happens going forward. And I think the reason why it's taken so long to get here is because we need to talk about reparations, and it's a very difficult conversation to have, especially when we look at the British Empire and their involvement in the transatlantic slavery. Do we need to talk about how um slave owners were received compensation for the ending of slavery? Do we need to have that conversation? You see, in the history books in school, they weren't teaching that. They weren't. I don't even want to get into what they taught in school because that was not the transatlantic transatlantic slavery. That was a version of slavery that was comfortable to the teachers teaching it and those who had written the curriculum at the time. But this marks and hails a massive turning point in how the transatlantic slavery is seen, bearing in mind there were three countries opposed to this recognition. And we all know which countries they are if you don't go and Google it. But without focusing on that too much, it's about focusing on the positive impact this has in the direction in which we as black people and the descendants of slavery now move forward in terms of what this means and what we want it to mean. And I do think there needs to be conversations about reparations. And I think the this is what I mean. Kia Starmer doesn't want to talk about what the how this has been recognized in the United Nations. He's coming to tell us about wireless. So I do want to move this episode slightly, and I want to have a conversation that I had said that I wanted to talk about um in previous episodes about the adoption of AI and actually the lack or slow adoption of AI from women, um, especially black women. And I think it's a conversation we we need to have because you can't run away from it. AI is being integrated within our laptops, our new computers, in our workplaces. There has been a lot of fear-mongering about how AI is here to replace our jobs, and it doesn't help that you have big organizations letting go of their workforce to invest further money into AI. However, I still want to have this conversation because I think that it will inform or should have informed our approach or strategic thinking when it comes to AI. It's really important that we recognize patterns. So when I say patterns, what I mean is when new technology reshapes work and the people who adopt it early tend to gain more leverage, more pay, visibility, and influence. So when women and especially black women are slower to adopt um new technologies because of lack of time, access, trust, training, or even encouragement, I guess every now and then what I've noticed is technology, like there'll be like a technology shift that comes along and it changes the rules of work. AI is definitely one of those shifts. But the problem is not just whether AI will replace jobs, the problem is deeper than that. It gets encouraged, we get encouraged to use it and to adopt it. Um, who gets trained to use it, who gets paid more because of it, and who gets left watching on the sidelines? Because if women are slower to adopt AI in a labor market that already underpays and underpromotes us, then AI doesn't just become a tech story, it becomes a pay gap. And for us women, it becomes a greater pay gap. Um it then also becomes a confidence story, and for I I guess for black women, especially, potentially an unemployment story too. AI is already reshaping how we work and how work gets done, how employers hire because they use AI now. A lot of employees use AI now, and also it does speak to which skills get rewarded. AI is not just about chatbots on your phone, it is becoming a workplace literacy. This is not about ability, it's about access, it's about trust, and it's about encouragement and socialization. Um I just want to like bring some context to this as well. Men aren't inherently better at AI, they are often simply earlier, louder, and more encouraged as adopters. Deloitte um did a study and they recently found a clear gender gap in UK and US generative AI adoption, with women also reporting lower daily use and lower confidence in its productivity gains. McKinse says that men are receiving more encouragement to use AI tools while women are more likely to miss out, especially at entry level. So if employers start rewarding AI fluency informally before they build fair access, inequality grows. If AI becomes the new extra incentive, then it becomes a marker at work, and women are less encouraged to use it, then bias gets dressed up as innovation. PWC recently did a study, and findings on wage premiums and faster wage growth in AI-exposed industries makes this a credible risk. The existing UK gender pay gap means women are not starting from a level playing field anyway. Race and gender do not um stack neatly, they compound. Black women are really dealing with just one gap. We know that the intersectionality of being a woman and being black means that that pay gap is even greater. It often, like that gender pay gap, is often gender, it's race, it's the motherhood gap, and potentially now the AI gap. So US evidence shows that black women face longer unemployment durations and rising unemployment. And we do, I don't know if you you've all seen it, but there is like an unemployment pandemic amongst black women. UK evidence shows persistent ethnicity pay gaps, compounded motherhood penalties and longs long-standing concerns about ethnic minority female female unemployment. It is heavy because I guess it's like another thing that we now need to consider, but I don't even think it's considered. We just need to adopt, we need to use, we need to be proactive. Britain often lags in naming what America is already measuring. And I say this all the time. That's why I always come on here on the podcast and I'll give you the stats in America. I'll share the stats, and I always say what happens in America usually happens here. The difference is access to funding to do a lot of these research studies and then have the ability to share and disseminate the information and results that come off of these studies. We see in America, we don't see enough here, especially when it comes to exposing gaps in the UK that relate to black women. I don't see enough studies here done in the UK. I'll see the Harvard studies in America, I'll share the results because nine times out of ten is happening here. The UK are just not naming it. Let's just call it what it is. In the US, they often have better um funding to count the problem. In the UK, we often have the problem before we formally measure it, if at all. And this, to me, as far as I'm concerned, it's grounded by the fact that the UK is only now moving towards mandatory ethnicity pay gap reporting for larger employers. AI adoption is learnable, it's practical, and not reserved for tech people. You do not need to become an engineer. That's I I guess that's the point because people say tech and they're like, oh, I need to become become like a tech major or an engineer major. No, you just need to stop being a bystander, if I'm being completely honest. You need to be able to use more than just Chat GPT, and this goes for me, by the way. Yeah, I have shared um, is it Google LM, um, Claude. There's so many different AI platforms that we need to become familiar with, and we need to start incorporating um AI and understanding how we use AI as part of our everyday life, as part of work, as part of your training. If your organizations are not offering mandatory training when it comes to AI, you need to apportion that time during your working day to do additional training. There should be some policy within your organization about learning and development, and it doesn't always start with going on a course, it actually starts with researching and you doing the work. And if you find courses and they won't allow you to go on those courses, there's so much free accessible courses that you can go on. If Chat GPT are giving you free access to Chat GPT, sorry, before a paid access, a lot of these AI platforms give free accesses. Go be curious, is what I'm saying. Be curious, don't be left behind and allow yourself to fall into yet another pay gap when it's within your reach to be able to go out, learn, and attain information. AI is not waiting for women to feel ready, and the labor market is not pausing while we catch up. So this is the moment to move from intimidation to experimentation because the risk is not just that men use AI more, the risk is that AI fluency becomes part of who gets promoted, who gets paid more, who gets seen as strategic, and who gets left behind. And for black women in economies already uncomfortable with our representation and with um rising and increased unemployment, that is a risk we simply cannot afford. So I always say you're the architect of your career, you're the architect of, to an extent, your life. And AI is a part of our lives. Uh, I believe it was last year or the year before where Keir Starmer said he wants to make the UK the center of excellence for AI. Whether he achieves that or not, it's actually how he positions and AI is being positioned as not just important but actually critical. AI is also being used in different things. I believe when um uh the US uh invaded Venezuela, they used AI. I believe they said that in a statement. I saw it on the news on a news outlet. But either way, it's how AI is now being integrated in life. It's being part, it's like I'll give you an example. You can't run away from having a laptop that doesn't have Microsoft Word, Microsoft um PowerPoint. It's becoming like that, where it's become part of your life. If you can't use AI, if you can't strategically see AI as an ally, the gap becomes wider. And where we talk about inequality on other things, we're gonna be talking about inequality of AI. And that firmly like lands at our door because the responsibility to educate, to stay abreast of how technology is moving and changing begins and ends with us. It becomes a choice, not just as women, but just as people who are in society, actively contributing into society and into the economy. So when we talk about the world of work and what's happening at the moment, let's talk about KPMG. So KPMG UK have recently announced plans to reduce its audit division following a proposal that could lead to a redundancy of up to 440 employees. According to a Bloomberg report, the cuts mainly target assisted managers who are qualified accountants representing approximately 6% of the division's 7,100 strong workforce. So a spokesperson for KPMG UK explained that while the firm typically experiences natural attrition, current market conditions have led to low attrition rates in some audit areas, prompting the need to right-size these sections. The final number of job cuts has not been disclosed as proposal remains subject to a redundancy consultation process. So the source of that is Reuters, and this has been reported also by Naira Metrics. Now, I can't talk about KPMG without talking about Oracle because Oracle's one was that was wild. Wild. So after weeks of speculation, fresh reports suggests that Oracle has begun a fresh round of layoffs. Bearing in mind they had recent layoffs, I believe, last year. And this time the impact is being felt across teams, including India. Oracle employees on several social media sites have basically said that they woke up um to early morning emails, some as early as 6 a.m., informing them that their position had been eliminated with immediate effect. So the layoffs are reportedly affecting um parts of Oracle's computing business in several regions, including India and Mexico. So we're talking about um 30,000 employee layoffs and finding out about these mass layoffs at six o'clock in the morning. Deloitte, I recently spoke about Deloitte's layoffs. Um, and it and I completely you know have been very open with everybody that listens to the podcast about where the the market, the workers, the that labour market looks like here in the UK, but it's felt all over the world. This is not the right time to leave your job because you're gonna get like if you're a higher earner in the 40% threshold mark, right? You're leaving your job for a£20,000 pay increase. Think about it, please. Think about it, because after tax, it ain't that. You can't stand your job. Think about it. Mental health is where I draw the line. Because for me, when your mental health is being compromised, you really and and you know that you need peace of mind and you need to leave. That's why I say, okay, you know what, I hear it. But unemployment also triggers a certain level of of mental health as well. Because I remember when I was unemployed in my early 20s, my mental health was severely compromised. Severely. Back then I walked out of a job that was mentally like driving me crazy. And after tax, I I only had like 200 pounds, so I had to leave. But I was unemployed for about almost I I wanna do you know what? I was unemployed for six months to start with, and then so basically I was unemployed on and off for almost 12 months, and that was a market that was really bad. But we have since then we have seen AI, we have seen COVID, we have seen so much that has happened. It's not an employee's market. In fact, it hasn't been an employees' market for a very long time. That's not to say there are not jobs, but the barrier to entry for those jobs are very high. And I've said before, where you know, you would have a role that's advertised on Monday, they're click they're bringing the closing date forward because of the amount of people that are applying. So you know that that shortlist is hard, the interviews are harder, they become more multi-layered, and they're using the market to beat down salaries. It's it's a tough time in the unemployment market in the moment. A lot of organizations, whether you are, you know, I don't know, blue chip or whatever we're calling these big companies, every organization is feeling the wrath of redundancies. The wrath of redundancies. I know there've been employment changes here in the UK from April, and I do need to sit down and actually kind of talk talk you all through what those changes are because they affect us here in the UK. But the reality is the unemployment market, the labour market, the strain of the increased unemployment is not just felt here in the UK, but in the world. We're feeling it. Our US cousins are feeling it. In Africa, they're feeling it. Like I have a lot of people that I speak to, and when they talk about what's happening in the labour market, it is scary. And whilst organizations go through, especially here in the UK, consultate formal legal consultations, the reality of sending emails at six in the morning saying you're going through a consultation, that's legal. They're allowed to do that. They are allowed to do it. But when you have organizations like Oracle potentially, you know, making 30,000 employees redundant, what that does is it puts pressure on an already pressurized unemployment market. Then what happens is the roles become thinner. What happens is you have more people applying for these roles. What happens is they're beating down the salaries as low as they can get it because people are trying to get back into work. It is a vicious, vicious, vicious cycle. Do not resign from your roles until you have a signed contract with a start date. The excitement of receiving an offer is not enough for you to resign. I keep saying this because I know what my mailbox is saying on the toytalks.com uh mailbox. It's saying a lot. You guys are going through a lot, but a lot of you are making some very, very silly decisions. And there is at least four people in my mailbox who have had offers rescinded. Someone had a role rescinded after signing the contract. They give them, they give them their notice in accordance to the contract before they even started. It is not a good labour market at the moment. It is bad. It is real bad. And then you see a lot of organizations rushing to AI adoption and getting rid of staff only to rehire them. There's a lot going on. So I I I use KPMG, I use Oracle, but there's so many other organizations that are going through a redundancy. There's so many people who are experiencing it at the moment. It's a tough time to be unemployed. And it's equally a tough time to be looking for roles. Um, I will always say interview as much as you can, even if it's just to get to the practice to understand what's happening in the market. But even getting those interviews are really, really hard. Um trying to navigate your internal organizations is something that we don't talk about enough on the podcast, like navigating internally, internal promotions and moves. And I think we need to explore that more, especially when you're working for big organizations that have the ability to have internal moves. If you're working for global organizations, new roles can often come from within rather than outside, being able to explore that, or even when you talk about pivoting, people talk about pivoting from the perspective of pivoting out. We don't have the discussion enough about pivoting internally. A lot of people have been in their organizations for a really long time. Part of that has been internal pivoting, and we need to explore and have that conversation more. I need to kind of do some research and see what studies are out there about that, um, and maybe offer some advice about how we can do that internally. Um, and even if like it's not the role that you're in now, but you've seen another role within your organization that you think you can do, apply. Um, some organizations give preferential treatment for people who apply internally. Some organizations they choose to to recruit externally because they want new talent, new minds outside of the organization. Strategic hiring is is plays a role here, but I definitely want to open up our minds to what possibilities um sit within our organizations because outside that labour market is peak. I love when you guys leave comments. Um, wherever you listen to the podcast, a lot of you leave comments. I read all those comments, so I know there's a lot of comments that are left on Spotify. Um, I've had a few comments on um Apple Podcast. Um, but someone left a comment recently and they said, Toya, can you talk about the closures of high-end Nigerian restaurants? And I thought that was quite interesting because I know Shakara and Stork. Um I think um they've closed down or they've said they're closing down for now to reopen new location. Some uh high-end Nigerian restaurants are closing in indefinitely. And this is what I'm gonna say about it. A lot of these high-end restaurants, Nigerian restaurants, I was wet Nigerian ones specifically because we've seen closures, um, a pattern of closures amongst them. A lot of these Nigerian high-end um restaurants, they are looking for to charge an exorbitant amount of money for the experience. Okay, so because food is an experience, but that experience includes not just the food, it's the location, the ambiance, the customer service, the way the food is presented, how uniquely ingredients are put together to deliver exquisite high-end food. But that comes with high-end prices, and I don't know about you guys, but I'm not spending£50 on jello rice. That's mad. That's actually wild and bombasticatedly mad. Do you know how mad that is? 50 50 British, you must be out of your mind. However, a lot of these high-end restaurants, the reason I have a problem with them is you will you will put six pieces of rice on a plate, you will balance it on fish, maybe monk fish, and then you will cut yam in a shape I've never seen before and balance it on top and want to charge me£300. When I can go to Dawson Market, Lewisham Market, Peckham Market, Chatham Market, and go and get all them things and it won't even reach up to£50. But you want to be charging me£200, and then the service is not even there. There's dust in the corners of your restaurant, and it takes you£55 million hours to come and take my order. Make it make sense. But then I also think about who are these high-end Nigerian restaurants targeting? Because they're not targeting me and you, by the way, yeah, they're not. They're targeting a clientele who don't mind spending£200 on food. And let me get let me just say this: it's not that I'm Nigerian, I don't want to spend£200 on food. But if I'm gonna pay for an experience, yeah, the experience has to be so unique that I don't mind that I have Jolof rice at home. I'm willing to eat in your restaurant. But how are you presenting that experience? Number one, you're not targeting me, you're targeting somebody who maybe is not necessarily Nigerian or who is happy to pay for an entire experience, but your experience has to be seamless and it has to be unique. I feel a lot of these restaurants are lacking innovation. I'm not telling you to use ballet and come and deliver my food to my table. That's not what I'm asking. But if you want to charge Michelin star money for non-Michelin star food, then the entire experience has to start from when I book to come to your restaurant. I feel a lot of these restaurants are targeting, and let me tell you, I feel like they're targeting non-black people. Sorry, but it's true. Sorry but not sorry, and that is fine. But non-black people have standards as well about the type of restaurants they go into and the amount they're willing to spend. I feel like a lot of these high-end Nigerian restaurants are not capitalizing on the true culture that we have here in London. I'm talking about London because there's one Nigerian restaurant I went to and they're trying to market themselves as high-end, it's in Stratford. I can't even remember the name. And they have live, they're meant to have a live band in the evenings and everything. I went into that restaurant, and I'm not gonna lie to you, I had to beg to be served. If I sit down for longer than 10 minutes, you haven't even asked me if I want cold water, that's a bad experience. Then when I ask you, okay, what is more popular on the menu, you're now saying, uh uh, uh, uh, that's not high-end experience to me. And don't come here and tell me, ah, toy, you're expecting high end in Stratford. I'm expecting high-end where you charge high-end prices. So I want a high-end experience. The price dictates the high-end, and the experience is what wraps it up in a bow. Do you understand what I'm saying? If you are going to serve me suya and you're gonna start balancing it like Lego, let the entire experience from beginning to end also donate high experience. You now come and deliver the food and everything. When I finish, the food will be staring at me, the bones will be staring at me. I will now come and beg you to come and take it and then order my champ man. It doesn't make sense. I recently went with my friend to go and watch Jar Jar's hair salon, an amazing theatre production. It was brilliant. I I'm so glad I went to go see it because I grew up in a hair salon. Let me let me tell you, I grew up in a hair salon. What do I mean by that? Hair salons were part of our culture growing up. I don't know so much now. Hair salons have changed, access to you know, hair salons have changed with all that controversy. My hairdressers is still like my old school hairdressers, right? It's just in a different location. But I grew up going there. I learned a lot in hairdressers. That's where you see the gossiping aunties, the ones that's fighting for a ponytail, the ones who have gone in with a high expectation, their high expectation in hair salons have been met, where you hear the gossip on the on the street, the personal and and anecdotes of people's lives, the the smell of the hair straighteners, the experience of rollers, understanding how new products are now being used in these hair salons, seeing what healthy hair looks like and the understanding of healthy hair, seeing different types of hair textures being treated and cared for in a hair salon at the backdrop of laughter, fun, and just a good getaway from everyday life was my hairdressers. So Jar Jar's hair salon encapsulates all of that and some dealing with contemporary issues that we're dealing with in society at the moment, but adding humour, and humour was a consistent feature in my hair salons. So going to see Jar Jar's hair salon in theatre, an amazing production. I'll encourage everyone to go and see it. I watched it at the Hammersmith Lyric Um Theatre, and it was absolutely brilliant. The ambiance, the atmosphere, the staging, the lighting, everything 1010. But you'll never get these high-end restaurants affiliating themselves with productions like that. But what they don't, they're missing a trick. This is where I talk about innovation. You know where they're missing a trick? A lot of these theatre productions, um, and I call them black theatre production because that's what they are. You go there, you see all different races there in the audience. But you don't think they have high-end money to spend in high-end restaurants. But you high-end restaurants are not targeting them, you're targeting people who will not be repeat customers. And actually, true money is made at restaurants by repeats. Word of mouth carries a level of marketing that you can't even pay for. So I'm not surprised to see a lot of these high-end Nigerian restaurants closing down or pausing. But I thought I hope that pausing is coming with thought. I hope it's coming with strategy, and I hope it's coming with understanding that if you're gonna balance yam, egg, and bread, and then you're gonna call it high-end uh delicacies, you're going to have one snail perch like a candle and charge me a hundred pounds. Make sure that your marketing through word of mouth emulates what happens in reality. Make sure that your services is running like clockwork, and please use some of the best ingredients. I don't care where you get those ingredients, make sure they're their top-end ingredients, they're clean, nice. Part of the experience is educating people, take people on a journey of food. Yam in Ibbo culture holds a historical importance, but you guys will be using it like potatoes instead of to tell me what yam really means, for example, in Igbo culture. People are interested in our culture. If you're not sure, go to the British Museum. But you don't want to infuse that in the history of your food. But you want to not have a Michelin star but charge Michelin prices, then give subpar service maximum price. It doesn't make sense. If you want people to spend money that they that they we are struggling to earn and we're struggling to navigate taxes, and you want people to spend that money, giving people an experience is not just a food, it's access. Know who you're targeting. Repeat customers come with repeat money. But what do I know? After all, me, I can make yam, I can make egg, I can go and get hard a bread, me, I'll sit here and balance. But if you want me to come out of my house, please, please, all those allegations, you need to be dodging them and defeating them. Because if you're gonna call yourself a high-end Nigerian restaurant and you're gonna charge them high-end prices, I want a high-end experience. Thank you. So, as this episode draws to a close, I want to end it on something a little bit lighter and still yet something very real. I want to talk about Angel Reese, and I have spoken about her before, and at the time in which I'd spoken about her, she was playing or had been drafted to the Chicago Sky. She is a very, very talented basketball player, and to be honest, brand ambassador, brand ambassador, and honestly, she is a mover and shaker in when we talk about socialites. She's she she's from the world of the life and the world of hard rock. So to see her rise has been amazing. Honestly, I really admire her. I love how she has a hustle mentality, but still remains very poised in her pursuit of success. Now, if you've been paying attention, you'll know that her time at Chicago Sky hasn't always been smooth. There's been tension, there's been losing streaks, and there's been actually a lot of noise. And when Teresa Weatherspoon, a black, hard-hitting, experienced head coach, was let go of, then things really did shift for Angel Reese, and she didn't stay quiet about it either. She spoke openly about the team's performance and held a mirror up to what wasn't working. And let's be really honest, when you are young, like Angel Reese, and you're confident and a black woman, ah, that doesn't always land well. But there were moments where Angel Reese was benched as part of Chicago Sky, rotated inconsistently, and let's call it what it is. She was managed in a way that didn't reflect her value. Now, whether that's strategy, politics, or personality clashes, we could debate that all day. But what matters is this she didn't shrink. Now she has um been traded. Yep, she's been traded to the Atlanta dream, a team out there in Atlanta, and she's been very warmly welcomed. And here's why I love this: not because it's glamorous, not because it's a win on paper, but because it's a decision. And it's a decision that says, I'm not staying where I'm tolerated at Chicago Sky when I know I should be valued. So the real lesson, and I think the real lesson that needs a stage and a moment, is because this isn't just about basketball. No, this is about workplaces, about friendships, relationships, and opportunities, and knowing your value. And I speak about it all the time on the Toy Talks podcast. How many of you have stayed too long, explained yourself way too much, and dimmed your tone to make other people comfortable? And Angela Reese said no, not loudly, not recklessly, but just clearly. Knowing your worth isn't loud, it's selective. Selective about where you show up, how you're treated, and what you accept. And if I'm being honest, that's exactly what I'm building with Sister Scribble. Yep, honey, there is synergy here. It's not just about stationary for me, it's ownership of your narrative, and that's exactly what Angel Reese has done. She's owning her own narrative and dancing to the beat of her own drum. Because when you write things down, your plans, your boundaries, your standards, you stop negotiating with things you've already decided. So whether it's your career, your relationships, or your next move, take this with you. You don't need permission to move differently once you see things clearly. Yeah. That's where I stand on there. There's so many things that happen in the world that relate to the world of work, and I hope that you all catch it when I land it here on the podcast. Because whether you love basketball or not, there are still things that I feel like we can learn from. And Angel Reese is one to watch. I continue to say this about her. She's amazing. And it's a shame that women's basketball is not promoted as hard as male basketball. And in the UK, basketball is not like the sport that leads this country, football is. But for me, I swear in a past life, I was raised and born in America, not Trump America, by the way. So I did talk about obviously Sister Scribble and the stationary brand that I launched back in 2025, uh, November. And for me, it's more than just stationary, as I've I've previously said. For me, it's claiming your narrative, it's thoughts on paper, it's dancing to the beat of your own drum and not being silent or being silenced in how you show up for yourself and to the world. And I recently dropped um the blueprint edit, and this is from the insert that I actually put within um the customer orders. Every idea begins with a thought, but the most powerful ones are written. The blueprint edit was created for women who plan with intention, reflect with honesty, and build lives that are entirely their own. From daily notes to quiet reflections, these pages exist to hold the thoughts shaping your journey. Because when your idea and your ideas have somewhere to live, your blueprint begins. And that's what Sister Scribble is about. There's so much synergy between Sister Scribble and Toyota Talks. Because here we talk about the world of work, how we navigate, show up, highlighting the path of our success, how I draw on things that happen in the world to highlight certain points that we should be aware of, whether it's AI, whether it's understanding how we navigate strategically, whether it's somebody taking the spotlight from our achievements and taking our ideas as their own, whether it's understanding how to navigate difficult bosses, or understanding how to navigate discrimination based on gender, race, whether it's how we show up to work as ourselves, um, but maybe a hybrid version of ourselves, whether how we enforce our rights, it's also how we are clear in our thoughts. And for me, Sister Scribble is also about giving you the tools, the practical tools, the notepads, the notebooks to organize our thoughts and our ideas and give us our thoughts and ideas, our strategies, our strategic thinking, places to live. And some people have also often said to me, Toy, I wish you were there in the room. And the podcast provides that support, I believe, when you're in these difficult situations, but now you have actual practical stationary tools to support you, to guide you as you navigate the world of work. There are so many things that I'm bringing to Sister Scribble. So we currently have notebooks, we've got the notepads, we've got A4, A5 notepads, we've got the greeting cards for the things that we want to say, don't have the time to. There are, and they're bespoke things. I'm designing them all myself, having them manufactured, and I'm I really want to disrupt stationary. I want to inject meaning, colour. I want to inject um free-flowing thoughts, not just for people who maybe think differently because you're neurodivergent, but for people who are just looking for safe spaces to capture their ideas. This is why I have created Sister Scribble Stationery. You're not gonna find pieces that I have developed anywhere else. I'm disrupting the stationary market. Soon to come are gonna be journals. They're gonna be the burn folder journal. Yeah, that's coming. That's an exclusive. They're gonna have planners. People have asked for planners, intentional journals that will increase productivity and encourage you to think outside the box. They're all coming. I'm creating them, I'm one person and keeping up with social media and marketing. And I want to encourage you, if you haven't already, to go on the Sister Scribble website, www.sisterscribble.com. Go and see what we're doing over there and um make sure you sign up to the newsletters. You get exclusive um access to things when they launch. Um, they there will be like discount codes, um, as much as I can do. This is a premium stationary brand. Premium. We're talking quality paper, quality notebooks, and quality thinking. That's what we're doing over there at Sister Scribble. So don't underestimate what we're doing and how everything interlinks. Sister Scribble is a sister company, Satya Talks. They're not the same company. But I've created this stationary company to disrupt the stationary market, to infuse and inject creativity back in our stationery to allow us to have safe spaces to think, but more importantly, creating stationery that we want, we need, and we can use. I'm gonna leave it there because we've spoken about everything, honey. We've spoken about everything that we could talk of. I know we haven't spoken about Iran in the way that I would have loved to kind of go in depth in the way that we do. Maybe that's in the next episode. But I want to thank each and every one of you guys for listening, for tuning in, for being patient. And understanding, honey. I'm wearing very many different hats. And today is the Toy Talks podcast hat. If you haven't already, go ahead and listen to previous podcast episodes. So just if you're new here or you just want to recap on the things that we've spoken about, I will be back in two weeks' time for another brand new episode. If you have a life or work-related dilemma, email us hello at toytalks.com. There have been several emails that have come through and I've been dealing with assisting you guys, supporting you guys, and we are going to bring some of that into the Toy Talks podcast because you know what we do here in the Toy Talks ecosystem. We share, we rise together, and we also understand how we strategically are supposed to navigate in the world of work, especially now when things are fundamentally so different in the world of work. But we do it all here in a safe space. The Toy Talks Podcast teaches, educates, and guides you how to navigate the world of work and highlight the path of your success. My name is Toy Washington, and you have been listening to the Toy Talks Podcast.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:03

T-O-I-L, let me show you how to navigate and elevate, that's what we do. Black Queen, energy groom. No fantasy, just real talk. From classroom, dreams to boardroom walk. Black woman power, watch it shine. Breaking barriers, redesigning time. From Tottenham Road to CEO. Every step teaching what we know. Not just surviving but thriving more. Opening every closed door. Toya talks. Toya talks. Toya talks. Black queens to the top, but we're still going.