Akilah Hughes
Akilah Hughes | |
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| File:Akilah Hughes by Nick Rasmussen.png | |
| Born | Akilah Hughes August 31, 1989 Kenton County, Kentucky, U.S. |
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| Alma mater | Berea College |
| Years active | 2006–present |
| Website | |
| itsakilahobviously | |
Akilah Hughes (born August 31, 1989) is an American writer, comedian, YouTuber and podcaster. She has been a digital correspondent for MTV, HBO, Fusion, Comedy Central and more. She began her career on a YouTube channel, "It's Akilah, Obviously!", which has amassed more than 150,000 subscribers. In October 2019, she began to co-host the daily news podcast "What a Day" with Gideon Resnick on Crooked Media.[1]
Education
In 2019, Hughes became a fellow in the founding cohort of the USC Annenberg Innovation Lab's Civic Media Fellowship, which is supported in part by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation.[2]
Career
YouTube
In 2013, Hughes' YouTube channel "It's Akilah, Obviously!" first went viral with her comedy video titled "Meet Your First Black Girlfriend".[3] In April 2020, Comedy Central's YouTube channel released three sketches starring Hughes and Milana Vayntrub as part of a new digital sketch series called Making Fun With Akilah and Milana.[4]
Television
During the U.S. midterm elections of 2018, HBO ran 4 episodes of Crooked Media's Pod Save America with Hughes as a correspondent.[5]
Writing
In 2015, Hughes was awarded a fellowship from the Sundance Episodic Story Lab, with a half-hour comedy pilot titled Unlikely, co-written with Lyle Friedman.[6]
On September 24, 2019, Hughes' debut book, Obviously: Stories From My Timeline was published by Penguin Random House.[7]
Hosting
In 2016, Hughes co-moderated the 2016 Brown & Black Democratic Presidential Forum on Fusion.[8]
In 2017, Hughes hosted the first season of GK Now, a daily culinary news show for Genius Kitchen (now Food.com) for Scripps Network.[9]
References
- ^ "Crooked Media Expands Into Daily Podcasts With 'What a Day'". The Hollywood Reporter. Retrieved 2020-02-04.
- ^ "Celebrating our Founding Fellows". Annenberg Innovation Lab. 2019-08-29. Retrieved 2020-02-07.
- ^ Nicolaou, Elena. "YouTube Star Akilah Hughes Tells Us How To Be Very Online & Stay Sane". www.refinery29.com. Retrieved 2020-02-04.
- ^ Kelly-Clyne, Luke (10 April 2020). "You've Never Seen Patty-Cake Played Like This". Vulture. Retrieved 16 June 2020.
- ^ "Chance the Rapper, Steph Curry and Akilah Hughes want you to vote". The FADER. Retrieved 2020-03-19.
- ^ Petski, Denise (2015-09-22). "Sundance Institute Announces 2015 Episodic Story Lab Projects". Deadline. Retrieved 2020-02-06.
- ^ "Akilah Hughes on telling 'Stories From My Timeline' in upcoming book 'Obviously'". EW.com. Retrieved 2020-02-04.
- ^ Robinson, Judah (2015-12-17). "Fusion Announces Moderators Of 'Brown & Black' Presidential Forum". HuffPost. Retrieved 2020-02-06.
- ^ Spangler, Todd (2017-09-19). "Scripps Networks Launches 'Genius Kitchen' Online Food Network, Folding Food.com Recipes Into the Mix". Variety. Retrieved 2020-02-06.