‘The Qube’ Creator Anna DeShawn is Creating A Space For LGBTQ Podcasters To Thrive
The podcasting industry is experiencing a renaissance. Podcasts centering content created by the community, for the community, are difficult to discover on popular podcast apps like Apple, Spotify, and Google unless you hear about them through word of mouth. Many learned the amount some podcasters were earning when it was reported that Spotify inked a deal with Joe Rogan for more than $100 million. For Black LGBTQ+ folks in the space, deals like Rogan’s are not on the table or even a possibility. Anna DeShawn, co-founder of The Qube app, is on a quest to change that.
If you’ve never visited Chicago, you’ve probably still heard of the South Side. Giants of Black culture and liberation have called the South Side their home—Common, Michelle Obama, Kanye West, and Fred Hampton are folks from the sprawling section of the city—the largest of the three sections of Chicago. So, even if the name is unfamiliar, you’ve undoubtedly felt the impact of people who are from there.
The South Side is also home to DeShawn, who grew up in a working middle-class household with both parents. Because her father was a dean and coach, DeShawn tells The Reckoning that leadership lessons were all around her.
“I learned a lot from my dad about leadership, and how tough it is. It can be really challenging, at times, to lead students and their parents through an educational experience for four years, and meet people's expectations.”
A graduate of Drake University, DeShawn majored in radio and television production. She came out as a lesbian towards the end of her freshman year in college. DeShawn tells The Reckoning that she was clear about the need to leave home to attend school.
“I needed to find myself and figure out what the heck I was feeling and why this was happening,” she said. “I grew up in a religious household. I didn't know how my family would react to that.”
As DeShawn was coming into herself, she was also realizing a dream that would become a driving force in her career pursuits.
“I wanted to be the next Robin Roberts because she was the only Black woman on ESPN doing sports,” she said.
So, that’s what she went to college to do, but she noticed that her image was absent from the professional stages that she was most interested in occupying.
“I quickly realized that people who were on television didn't look like me, and they still don't look like me. There's no masculine-of-center women, period, on television,” she observed.
DeShawn’s career trajectory shifted when she fell in love with radio in college. The medium provided a solution to one of her biggest challenges—visibility. “On radio, no one has to see me,” she said. This gave people the opportunity to focus on her information and delivery.
“I quickly realized that people who were on television didn’t look like me, and they still don’t look like me. There’s no masculine-of-center women, period, on television.”
The work of pioneering Black women like Ella Baker and Fannie Lou Hamer inspired DeShawn. These were women she hadn’t been taught about in any of her grade school studies, and she wanted other people to know about them. She thought, “I can do PSAs about these women and syndicate them to college radio stations, and then we can have a college radio network. That's how [E3 Radio] started.”
Founded in 2009, E3 Radio has taken on many forms in the internet radio space—Facebook lives, on-demand shows, and interviews. DeShawn ran the station while working as a corporate success manager full-time.
“It wasn't a job [it was a career]. It wasn't something I turned off when I left. I was working all the time,” she tells The Reckoning. “Something had to give.”
DeShawn was reaching her breaking point, and the pandemic became the catalyst for change.
“My wife and I contracting COVID-19 took me over the edge,” she said. “When she was hospitalized, I had time to reflect on what I was doing with my time and I knew it was time for a change.”
When it was time for DeShawn to make the leap to run the station full time, she thought, “If you give everything that you gave to corporate to your own stuff, what can you make out of this? I didn't wanna live life with any regrets at all. I wanted to give myself everything I was giving to everybody else.”
From “Radio Head” To The Qube
A newer venture for DeShawn, podcasting has become more integral to E3 Radio’s strategy over the last five years.
“At the beginning, I definitely was not on the podcasting train, and I don't want anyone to get that twisted,” she says through laughter. “I was definitely a radio head.”
As she was conversing with more LGBTQ+ people, the question about how to find podcasts to listen to kept coming up.
“We were all having the same problem that we couldn't find anything good unless a friend told us to go listen to this podcast,” says DeShawn.
The goal of The Qube is to provide visibility and discoverability to BIPOC podcasters with a focus on queer, trans, and people of color creatives. The other goal is to disrupt the podcasting space.
“I hope that we can show people just how many BIPOC folks are out here creating amazing content and just how much [platforms] are not amplifying these creators,” she said. Highlighting queer excellence is central to DeShawn’s work.
She does this through her Queer News podcast several times a week. Listeners get to hear DeShawn’s voice with her signature opening: “Family, it’s your favorite queer radio personality…” welcoming us into the news for the day.
“I hope that we can show people just how many BIPOC folks are out here creating amazing content and just how much [platforms] are not amplifying these creators.”
The Qube hopes to challenge major podcasting platforms to do better about engagement and representation and to think about what they should be doing to better represent the diversity of podcasting voices in the space while providing opportunities for podcasters to get paid for their work.
“How can we change the model? My hope is that we can figure out a system where people who have under 500 downloads can still get paid a little something,” she said. “Maybe it'll cover their monthly subscription to whatever platform they wanna use. We can figure this out.”
For full-time tech start-up leaders, like DeShawn, who depend on fundraising and revenue from their ventures to support the development of the applications, the process can be daunting.
“Fundraising for startups, in general, is a challenge. Pre-seed investment is even more difficult to secure because you have little to back up your claims,” according to Crunchbase. “The process will be long, arduous, and complex, but securing the support of pre-seed investors has the potential to supercharge a business’s growth.”
But despite the obstacles, DeShawn says her faith has been strengthened by her work on The Qube.
“I understand now just how much it takes. I think I understand that now more today than I did when I first took the big leap,” she said.
DeShawn is more determined than ever to reach the masses. And in the spirit of one of her sheroes—Shirley Chisholm—she is bringing her folding chair to the podcasting table, and she’s not moving for anyone.
Johnnie Ray Kornegay III (aka Jay Ray) serves as Deputy Director of Strategy and Impact for The Counter Narrative Project (CNP), an organization committed to countering narratives and speaking truth to power. In addition, he is co-host and producer of the podcast Queue Points, a visual podcast where he and his co-host, DJ Sir Daniel, inform and celebrate Black Music creatives through meaningful dialogue.
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