In this episode of The Antidote, Amy and Grace connect with Peloton instructor, makeup artist, motivational speaker, and writer Tunde Oyeneyin about gifting people with confidence, discovering her calling, and walking down the street with her tiny king Caesar.

Amy and Grace share their bummer news of the week: The Supreme Court versus Roe V. Wade, plus wildfires ravaging New Mexico. Amy and Grace also share their antidotes for the week, which include watching stand up live again and happy hours on IG Live. 

This week’s Creative Tap-In: "The creative adult is the child who survived." -- Ursula Le Guin

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FULL TRANSCRIPT

Amy The world is a dumpster fire. I'm Amy.

Grace And I'm Grace.

Amy And we want to help. And fair warning. Our help comes with some strong language attached. So if you are sensitive, maybe go lie down and, you know, like, turn this off. Because we about to say some things.

Grace As a reflex to the f---ing madness on the news. We're keeping it positive, uplifting, but opinionated.

Amy We talk about cultural moments we love.

Grace Talk to people we adore.

Amy Crushes we have..

Grace And self-care we stan.

Amy During these trying times. We all need a show that focuses on joy.

Grace This is the Antidote. Oh, hi. Welcome, everyone, to another episode of our show. We're so happy to have you.

Amy Yeah. Welcome back. This week has been a little insane.

Grace Yeah, in so many ways.

Amy So many ways. Like culturally, spiritually, physically.

Grace Nationally.

Amy Nationally.

Grace News wise. Yes. All those things. All the things.

Amy Mm hmm. Yeah. I mean, the Met was last week, which is like I mean, you can't I'm not even going to talk about Kim K and the disrespect of wearing that dress, but I will talk about how beautiful Rihanna looked as a marble statue.

Grace Oh, my God. Because the thing is, is she's like 15 months pregnant. Yeah. So everywhere. So she probably didn't want to go through all the drama of, like, getting dressed to go to the Met just so we could live, you know what I'm saying.I was just like, it's for us every time. So they did this beautiful marble statue of her. I think it's her Vogue cover where she is pregnant. It was so stunning. So we still got our Rihanna moment.

Amy I'm like, Is it real art?

Grace It's digital art. But regardless, at least I got my Rihanna moment, you know, cause that's who I watched the Met Ball for. And the only other person that I was like ahhh was Lenny Kravitz looking fine in that corset. I don't know how.

Amy He he never misses. He never. He's like, Hey, guys, I'm going to allow you to see me.

Grace If you need a little treat for your eyes. Go look at him getting ready on his Instagram. He's got, like some still pictures of him getting ready. And just that 57 year old body is just right and tight. Let me just tell you that. It's good. It's working.

Amy It's all working, Lenny. All your parts are working for me.

Grace Yeah. Anyway, moving on. We can't have the antidote if we don't have something to get an antidote from.

Amy Yeah. Starting up top now with our bummer news of the week. First up, you know, the Supreme Court decided they might overturn Roe v Wade. And the only way we found out, because a leaked document allegedly written by Justice Samuel Alito started circulating and it was like quietly circulating since February. And somehow it hit Twitter and the world now knows. And in the draft, Justice Alito wrote, We hold that Roe and Casey must be overruled. The document is marked first draft and dated February 20, 2022. But the thing that's infuriating about it is I have now seen breaking news just this just today, that part of the draft said that the U.S. needs a and I quote, domestic supply of infants to meet needs of parents seeking to adopt that those who would otherwise abort must be made to carry to term, to give their children up for adoption, because the adoption needs in America are so high, we don't want to import. Like what? That's the implication. The end was just me adding my own implication. But like what. What?

Grace Yeah. That that's the most insane justification.

Amy You a judge, fool. You a judge, sh--.

Grace First of all, I don't know the statistics exactly, but it seems like there's still a lot of kids to adopt. They might be older kids. Yeah. If you don't want like a fresh if you want a fresh baby. That's true. Like they only stay fresh for a few weeks. So I feel like if Amy Coney Barrett wants to do, like, farms for these children to just come out and then, you know, give them to, I guess, rich people, it feels very Handmaid's Tale. If that ain't the most f---ed up thing I've ever heard.

Amy That's the thing that's so agonizing to me is like there is no domestic shortage of children. This is not a system that will now occur if Roe v Wade is struck down. It's not like, Oh, great, now I can adopt domestically. No, Angelina Jolie wanted to get her baby from over there. So that's what she did. Like, that's not it's not that they can't or don't want like it just it's like making two things compute that don't compute. And also.

Grace They absolutely don't.

Amy Yeah. And the fact that Justice Clarence Thomas apparently said in Atlanta, we can't be an institution that can be bullied into giving you the outcomes you want. Like he's like you can't bully the Supreme Court.

Grace I mean, what is a protest then? A protest is not bullying. A protest is saying this is the will of the people. Nine people who control the fate of 300 million people. Yeah, that's the reason why that's a citizen's right and a citizen's duty to protest things that they don't like. That's what protest is for. That's the reason why we have free speech. So we can let the nine people.

Amy Nine.

Grace Who control our entire.

Amy Livelihood.

Grace Livelihood of. 300 million people. We could be like, Hey, guys, we don't like it. Like you don't like that you might take away rights for women, that you're going to force women to carry pregnancies to term that they can't afford. B are sometimes medically necessary. C Come from rape or incest. D Just because you don't want to. It can also just because you don't want to bring a child into the world because it's her body still. And yet even my most feminist badass friends or whatever, when they decide to have children, more of this sh-- is on them than it is ever on the man. That's just how our society is built.

Amy And how our bodies are built.

Grace That's how our bodies are built. That's biologically we have to go through the trauma of birth. And then once that's over. Women have, you know, often breastfeed and that's on us. Like, there's so much of child rearing. Like, men have not still gotten to the point where they're. 5050 childbearing with us. So you know if we're going to be signing up for all that work, we should want to do it right.

Amy It takes me right back to that quote from Veep. Vice President Selina meyer said, If men could have abortions, you could get them at an ATM. And I'm like, It's so f---ing true the way that this country wants to police women's bodies, the men and then the white women who vote for them, who don't even realize what they're doing to themselves.

Grace So it would be chaotic if this actually has been handed down and if it has been handed down by the time this episode airs. I guess we're in the sunken place, but so far it has not been handed down yet. But it seems likely that it will.

Amy Yeah, well, the bummer news doesn't stop there. First, I'm scared for our bodies, and now I'm scared for our world. There are strong winds that are fueling wildfires in New Mexico. And it's just another sign of climate change and how our country is. You know, our world is literally being like, hey, can you leave? Basically the cow canyon slash hermits. Peak fire is the largest fire in the history of New Mexico and it's burned through 165,000 acres so far. And the fire is causing so much damage that it's threatening a multi-generational culture that has endured there for centuries. There are descendants of Hispanic settlers who arrived there long before the U.S. was even a country. It's like, literally bad. Like, I don't know how to spell out bad, except that, I mean, all the things I just said, it's bad.

Grace Sounds pretty bad.

Amy And there are at least six other wildfires currently scorching other parts of New Mexico, according to the National Interagency Fire Center. And this week, President Biden approved a disaster declaration for five counties. Like all of New Mexico is on fire.

Grace I don't even know. Like if a fire broke out in my apartment, I'd be like, okay, let me grab my computer and my photos and my documents. And I would lose everything else, like the trauma of losing all your belongings and losing your home.

Amy And this is a fire that's literally caused by severe drought and the climate crisis. And so it's sort of like, who is responsible? It's it's us. Yeah. The call is coming from inside the house. It's. It's people.

Grace Climate change. Like the there's the assertion that climate change still isn't real is so crazy to me.

Amy Yeah. No, it's real. Let's just say it now. It's real.

Grace Okay, well, let's get into the antidote.

Amy Yeah. So this is the segment where we tell you about the culture we consumed and things we did this week that made us feel better about the bummer news. What was your antidote this week? Grace?

Grace Well, I am currently working on a show on Netflix starring the lovely and amazing Michelle Buteau. Oh, my God. So, yes, she is the best. So we as a staff went to go see her standup show at the Netflix is a joke festival nice this week and it was really lovely because first of all, you know, we've been working all over Zoom and it was so great to meet my coworkers for the first time and see what their legs looked like. See how tall they were walking over there. And I was like, Oh my God, one girl. I have freckles. I was like, growing up freckles, you can't see that other zoom. And so we had a dinner at Superbowl first, and then we walked to the Hollywood Palladium, where it was a lineup of comics, not just Michelle. It was hosted by Lily Tomlin.

Amy What?

Grace And Jane Fonda.

Amy That's so cool. Legendary.

Grace And I was like, and then I saw them up close. I was like, These bitches look good. They they look good. Right. So it was so cool to see them in person. And it was on the day that that we learned about the Roe v Wade thing. And so it's good to like be in a real, like liberal feeling crowd. Although there was one comedian that was definitely not liberal, but everyone else was, it was women. So there was Michelle Buteau who killed it. I think she did the best. But I am I don't know, biased.

Amy I bet she did.

Grace Margaret Cho.

Amy Yeah.

Grace Was also incredible. Like, I grew up, like, idolizing her. Yeah. And I used to watch her sitcom or whatever it was only was season, but I used to love her second single, you know, just a queer Asian icon. Just. Yeah, just. It was such a pleasure to see her. Cristela was great. Angelia Johnson was great. Tracey Ashley was one of my favorite comics. And Amy knows this is that I love stand up. Like, literally if I had sort of got my sh-- together when I was in my twenties, I started doing stand up. I probably would be a stand up, but and everybody tells me it's still not too late, but I'm just like, I feel like it's too late because I'm too busy. And I got. I ain't got time.

Amy What shows you going to at 11 p.m.?

Grace You know what I'm saying. I ain't got time to be to be bombing, you know, multiple times with my manager. Come see me do something, be bad. Nah, I'm good.

Amy Sorry to crush your dreams. It's too late.

Grace But I will sit in the stands and just watch people do it because I absolutely adore it. And so was the first stand up show I'd been into in two years. Just I love female stand ups and it was just great to see such a great lineup of the ones who are really, really, really doing it. And it was such a fun, fun time that obviously made me laugh a whole lot. So that was my antidote. Amy, what was yours?

Amy Wow. I love how we kind of always have, like, similar antidotes. Mine's like that. The budget version of your antidote. My antidote this week was having a virtual a happy hour on IG Live with my writing program. I started this writing program called Tribe last year during the pandemic when it was like, you know, Black creatives, how do we convene? Like, how do we find each other? And there are a bunch of writers in the program. There have been about 33 writers who have come through the program to date. And he graduated a class recently and now are trying to find ways to stay in touch. And they're sort of spread out. So a lot of them are here in L.A., some are in New York, some are in different cities. So my friend thought of this amazing idea to host like virtual happy hours with the writers so that we could stay in touch. And so we've been doing it on Fridays just real quick, like it's not even an hour because, you know, I'm just busy. So it's six to like 640. But we get on, we have a drink, we talk about writing journeys and careers and how they're feeling about their craft and where they're at along the journey. And it's so great. It's like I I'm not someone who's like, jumping on July like that. Like, you know, I'm not just like a rapper back stage being like, let me just get on the line real quick. Let me just share my thoughts with the world. Like that's not what I do. I'm a pretty private person, but being able to do that in this way with friends and like feel like stay connected, you know, it's like so special and it's been really fun and I look forward to it every week. It has been really fun to do virtual happy hours on IG Life. And you know what it's like? It's not like as like functional as Zoom, but it's nice because your other friends can join and like leave comments and talk to you and all this stuff. So I was like.

Grace Give you little reactions.

Amy Yeah, I'm talking to like an old person who discovered IG live super late. But. But yeah, that was definitely my antidote this week.

Grace Well, I love that because you know, it's about giving back to, you know, these these glorious writers that you mentor. I like already stole one of them, my my sweet assistant Liz who I saw. She was wearing a fun wig.

Amy Yes.

Grace On IG live.

Amy That she dyed herself. She dyed it herself. I was like, this is beautiful.

Grace I enjoy watching those. The ones that. I think so. Yeah, I think that that's a wonderful antidote.

Amy Thank you. Also, we want to know what your antidotes, our listeners tell us your self-care stories, please. We love to hear from you guys. So head to our Web site antidoteshow.org. Just know the on that one just antidote show dot org and scroll to the bottom and press contact us. Send us a voice note or a video. We might just play it. On a future episode.

Grace Yeah, we're considering doing a mailbag episode soon, so please, we need contents for our mailbag episode so we can speak directly to you.

Amy So shoot us an email and we look forward to receiving it. In the meantime, we'll be back right after this break. Welcome back to the Antidote. We have a special guest today. Who is it, Grace?

Grace Well, our lovely and amazing guest is probably the person I see the most, although this is our first time meeting.

Amy What?

Grace This host, author, motivational speaker, model and peloton coach is my favorite instructor. His bike bootcamps and arms workouts have me calling out to the ancestors for strength, and she has used her platform to speak out on Peloton about racial justice, grief and women's issues. Sis is a founder of the Speak Movement and Instagram Live series aimed at giving a platform to those facing adversity. She hosts the new Peloton podcast Fitness Flipped and her new book, Speak Find Your Voice, Trust Your Gut and get from where you are to where you want to be. Drops on May 3rd. Please welcome the glorious Tunde Oyeneyin.

Amy Woo!

Tunde Oyeneyin Not the ancestors.

Grace Yes, the ancestors girl. And honestly, like those 2 pound weights that I have on the back of my bike, they be feeling like 15 pound weights when you're done.

Tunde Oyeneyin Yeah, I hear it. I hear the ancestors answer that call. They said, I know she didn't call us for this again.

Amy Grace, you can do it.

Grace She's like, the ancestors are busy.

Tunde Oyeneyin Yeah, well, thank you. Thank you so much, Amy. Grace, so wonderful to be here with you all.

Amy Thank you. Thank you. You are so impressive. But we aren't here to talk about your many, many, many accomplishments. Okay? Today we're here to get deep.

Grace So let's check in first. How are you feeling today? Like, for real? Like not small talk. Is there anything weighing on you?

Tunde Oyeneyin Okay, not small talk I am feeling. Hmm. Oh, so many feelings. I am feeling overwhelmed. There's so much happening right now. I'm feeling overwhelmed. And in this overwhelming moment, I also feel so much gratitude because I'm overwhelmed with opportunities, the blessing and the power of both ends. And I'm tired. Yeah, right. I just I'm. I'm tired. I just came from Brooke Shields. Hi. Because she read my book and highlighted and underlined and highlighted and wanted to interview. And that is I just posted something on Instagram and I said, let me let me not act like this is not a big deal. So yeah, so I'm also just I am also in this moment where I came home and put my bags down. I'm talking my dogs abandoned my dog all day long.

Grace Cesar, an icon. 

Tunde Oyeneyin Yeah. I thought to myself, what is this universe that you landed in? So I am overwhelmed, I'm overjoyed. I'm in deep gratitude. And I'm also tired. But I'm good.

Amy That makes a lot of sense. I can't believe us and Brooke Shields. Did you hear that, Grace? I mean, I'm just hearing.

Grace I know. I'm so sorry that you went from the palace to the ghetto.

Amy Hey, girl. Wow, you took it that way. And instead I was like, wow, we amazing.

Grace We are. We are. I mean, wow. Yeah. You know me.

Tunde Oyeneyin I'm happy to close out the night with beautiful sisters.

Grace So thank you so much.

Amy Yes. Well, let's keep those good vibes going. We need that right now. This show is called The Antidote because life is hard and we all need different antidotes to deal with the bullsh--. So we want to know what's your antidote? In other words, what's something non-work-related that's bringing you joy this week or this month?

Grace Oh.

Tunde Oyeneyin My dog. My dog. Cesar. Cesar, my dog is my best friend. The other night here, too, to spend the night at one of my friends houses because my schedule's kind of crazy that day. And I said, it's not even fair to him to not, you know, have zero attention today so to stay with you know so I just recently moved and I'm in a much larger space and you know, I'm in this space in my life where I think that so often in life we let me rewind and say, I'm a single woman, I'm 36 years old. I live in Brooklyn by myself.

Amy Feel you, feel you.

Tunde Oyeneyin I think so often, like we life, we wait, we wait, we wait for things to start living. We wait for a to find a partner. We wait to have children. You wait to do all the things. And so I said, let me show up for myself in this moment by myself. Let me create this and then they can join. Yes. And so I just recently moved into my first home and I have I have not spent a night here by myself without my dog yet. And so I was here last night without my dog. It felt so. I missed. And you know what it was like to walk this dog to had a great day and like I felt really good about it. And then I, you know, I'm used to hearing his pitter patter, then I'm used to feeling his the warmth of his body. And yeah, so my dog, when he when I began to go in mode where I realize that I haven't looked up from the computer or gotten up from my desk in 8 hours. I look at him and then he brings me back to my center. He's like, okay, sis.

Grace I mean, first of all, his Instagram presence is iconic. I just like to talk about like, because he just seems so unbothered. He's so I bond, he's unbothered. And I just want to know, like when you got him, did he come with that energy or was it just like I'm around sun, I'm like, and I got to be chill, you know what I'm saying? She's got so much energy, I got to, like, calm down.

Tunde Oyeneyin Well, you know what? I think that animals do take on a lot of characteristics of their of their their owner. And I am a vibrance and wild and all things. When I am home in my house sister's I am so yeah, yeah. And so unfazed and quite unbothered. And so I think he does pick up some of that from his mother. But this dog just he takes it to a whole nother level. He's so unbothered, so unfazed. Only thing he cares about is like, feed him, pet him, and life is good. He's so famous. Any time I'm walking him around the neighborhood, people don't even say hello to me. They. They run and they say, Cesar, and they run and start petting Cesar. And I'm like, Cesar, okay, you pay the bills.

Grace You don't pay a lick of rent.

Tunde Oyeneyin Okay. He's now reached a new level of fame. And so he's been acting, you know, just like the most as of recently.

Amy I love that, Cesar. You bring me to the party. You put me on the guest list.

Grace Cesar signing tiny autographs with his little paw.

Amy Here's another one. Tunde, stop walking. I've got to sign another one.

Tunde Oyeneyin I'm sure he will make a cameo before. Before we're done here, he will make a cameo.

Grace Oh, my goodness

Amy I'm already obsessed.

Grace That is very exciting to me. So you used to be a celebrity makeup artist, and I actually do. You do. From time to time. I know you work with Revlon, and from time to time you'll do a little like I learn how to do my eyes. I see. I did it today for you.

Tunde Oyeneyin Yes, eyeliner.

Grace Or whatever I did, I did my eyes.

Tunde Oyeneyin I see the wing.

Grace But point being like now that it's so interesting that you had this whole other career like when you were living here in L.A. as a makeup artist, like and now you are, you know, obviously this, you know, peloton coach like author doing all these other things like, so what is what is the role of makeup like? How has it changed for you? Like, what role does it have in your life right now? Is it more? 

Tunde Oyeneyin Yeah. That's a great question. Nobody's ever asked me that before. I would say that I fell into the world of makeup. I fell in love with it because I enjoyed gifting people with compliments. Growing up, I didn't have a lot of confidence. I struggled with my way. I grew up in a predominantly white neighborhood. I went to predominantly white school. Not only was I one of the only Black kids, I was the only dark skinned black girl. And so I didn't see people that look like me. My mother was light skinned. The media didn't use dark skinned women to represent beauty. It wasn't until I saw an image of Naomi Campbell appear. She was being interviewed on something and I saw her. I yelled to my mom to come into living room. She came into living room. I said, Mom, she's beautiful. My mom said, Yes. I said, If she's beautiful, then do you think it's possible that I'm beautiful too? And I slowly found confidence. And once I've found it, once I taste it. Once I realized what it looked like. Felt like. I felt like I wanted to share it with everyone. I want everyone to experience this feeling that I'd found. And so I felt to make up because I loved gifting people with confidence. Now, the role that makeup plays in my life now is makeup allows me to show the world, number one, the energy I'm on. It also allows me to also shift the energy that comes my way. You, baby, you throw a red lipstick.

Grace You talking to Amy right now.

Tunde Oyeneyin Then you walk through a crowd of people like you throw a red. Can't nobody tell you nothing.

Amy No, no.

Tunde Oyeneyin Right. Like and that's the you. It's this layer of pow that you bring that energy that you bring.

Amy I love that. And you really are speaking like straight to me because I love a bold lip. I don't have one on right now. And the pandemic kind of ruined that for me because of masks and stuff and.

Tunde Oyeneyin Girl.

Amy But I bought my first red lipstick today and literally today I told Grace right before we started recording. I was like, I didn't put it on because I didn't want Grace to think I was dressing up for Tunde.

Tunde Oyeneyin Oh my God.

Grace Literally I'm just like.

Tunde Oyeneyin We're all friends.

Amy Yeah. Well, especially like Grace and I work in, like, still a predominantly male dominated industry in film and TV. And for me, it became important on set to wear a bold lip, like at least one day a week. I'm like, I'm going to wear a bold lip. Sorry, you work with the lady I'm going to wear, you know. Yeah. Well, tied to the makeup journey, I wanted to ask about hair like you cut your hair last year. It was a big moment for you. How liberating was that feeling and what pushed you to do the big check?

Amy Oh, so many factors played into it. I mean, as a Black woman, as a woman in general, you're hair is so much of your identity. Your hair is so much of your identity. I was in a space where I found that if I had braids versus silky straight weave versus a ponytail versus my faux goddess locks, like, depending on how I looked, people would treat me different. Yeah, man, yes. Would approach me differently if I had straight hair or straight. We've been yo, yo, yo, yo, say Black. If I had my goddess locks in queen, this empress and so and so and so I just I wondered what I would be like if I was just me. I also didn't know what I look like. I mean, I've been wearing a weave since kindergarten, all literally. I didn't know what I would look like owning my own beauty. Yeah, there is this thing. You look at yourself, and there was a difference in the beauty that you see in yourself. Because you look at yourself and you say, Oh my God, it's just me.

Grace Yes.

Tunde Oyeneyin No hiding. I was. I was hiding.

Grace Yeah.

Tunde Oyeneyin This is just me.

Grace That's beautiful. And I connect with that a lot, you know, because again, I'm from a, you know, I lived in New York for many, many years. And I and I would sometimes experiment, like with different hair and stuff like that. And yes, it's very true that people like perceive you very differently. But like from the outside looking in as, you know, somebody who's written with you since like 2020, late 2020 when I got my peloton bike and, you know, a member of BGM, like, you don't know like how that move was so moving to so many black women in that group. Like we discussed it for a while, just like the queen. Two day she cut her hair off. Yes. Let's go, sis. Like because it is true. Like as Black women, we are so identified with our hair and most of the identification comes from how long is it the how does it lay? Does it lay straight? Do you have edges? You know, it's all so.

Tunde Oyeneyin Do you have that good hair? What kind of hair is it?

Grace Exactly. For our listeners, it's the BGM is the Black Girl Magic Peloton Group. And I also belong to BPR, I think it's called and it's.

Tunde Oyeneyin She got to shout them both out.

Grace Yes, Black Peloton riders. So yeah, they're just, you know, Facebook groups of Black people who love to ride Peloton.

Amy I love it. I love it. I see a lot of articles about what you eat in a day to stay healthy to day and the things you eat to stay toned. I wanted to know if you had a favorite guilty pleasure, healthy or non just a thing that.

Tunde Oyeneyin Well, I mean. I'll say this, I'll say this. Me saying what I eat isn't so that somebody else follows now my guilty indulgences. And you know I love foods I love. Food. I think that food is part of enjoying life now. A good a really good salad. Also, like, you know, like makes my world happy and good and some of my friends make fun of it because I'm one of those people that genuinely love. And it's weird, but I also genuinely love shrimp tacos and fries. And a burger is my favorite food. And I like to drink beer and eat french fries. Ah, but now that I live in New York, I've never been big on pizza. Like, pizza's great, obviously, but New York should call it something or rather.

Grace I know. It's-

Tunde Oyeneyin Pizza. If you're if you're not having it in New York, it's not pizza.

Grace It's a whole other game.

Tunde Oyeneyin They don't tell you that.

Amy It should be called something else.

Grace It's a whole other game.

Amy It's like soccer and football. It should be called something else over here, because we doing it weird. Like, I agree.

Grace Yea.

Tunde Oyeneyin Call it cheese crusts.

Amy Yeah. Yeah, saucy cheese crust. 

Grace Yeah. New York and Italy, only people are allowed to call it pizza.

Amy That part.

Tunde Oyeneyin That's it.

Amy Yeah. Last question for you. I was wondering, did you ever think you were going to reach and connect to as many people as you have when you first started working with Peloton, especially on topics of race and grief?

Tunde Oyeneyin Yes and no, but mostly yes.

Amy Wow.

Tunde Oyeneyin When I after I took my very first cycling class, actually, I lived in L.A., I was a makeup artist. I was in a space where I hated my job. I told you I'd gotten to the world because I enjoyed getting people with confidence. I lost the artistry and it was all it was corporate. And for anybody that is an artist, like when you lose, the essence of it was when I got there and I understood that 15 years later a lot changed. The industry changed like. I fell in love with make up because the girl who was going through chemotherapy, I was able to give her eyebrows. I was able to show her eyelashes on. So she felt like she looked like herself. The woman that had been in abusive relationship for 20 years and couldn't look at yourself in the mirror. I was able to help her face the mirror. That's what I fell in love with. And so the industry was changing and it was all about this. And look at my dad. I'm going to have to make it. And so the the the gift I wasn't able to give the gift is that I got in the business to give. And so I was in this space of uncertainty and doubt, didn't know what I was supposed do with my life work. My parents driving my dream car, living in my dream neighborhood in L.A. felt like I had a lot to give up if I stopped.

Grace Yeah.

Tunde Oyeneyin And so I was in New York and I took a second class was my first time taking a cycling class. By the time I'd unclip from a bike, I was walking back to the hotel room. My walk turned into a skip, then a hop. I start laughing and I start crying all in 1 second. I feel this wave of blue energy move through my body, felt it from my fingertips to my toes. I knew after my very first class that I would be cycling for the rest of my life. I knew that I would be teaching. I knew that I'd be teaching on the world's biggest platform, and I knew that I would be able to touch tens of thousands of millions of people. After my first class, I had absolutely no idea what Peloton was, but I was certain. So when you asked me, did I know that I would reach people in this way? Yes, but no. But yes. I said in the third grade that I wanted to write a book. My book Speak comes out May 3rd. Speak, find your voice, trust your gut, and get from where you are to where you want to be. It's the story of all of the many lessons, the heartache and the trauma and the loss and the body image issues and the joy and the resilience and the triumphs. And I, I think that we're different as people. Yeah, but I think ultimately as people we all long for love, we all alongside. I hope that people read this book and they see. A little bit of themselves in me, and so they realize that we are more alike than we are different. I led a ride at Peloton. It was called the Speak Up Ride. Chelsea and I, Dr. Chelsea Jackson Roberts and I would teach a breathing speak up series of Peloton. And the first one was right after the murder of George Floyd. And, you know, the world was in a pause. And I led this Black Lives Matter ride. 22,000 people took that ride live. That's how many people go and seen J.Lo at MSG when she's in New York.

Grace And that's a big ride. Just for anyone who doesn't know Peloton, that is a impressive number to join a live ride.

Amy Wow.

Tunde Oyeneyin Right. Some 207,000 people have taken that right now to date. The reason I say that is to say that it was 22,000 people who united in solidarity in one moment together in In that time, remember how we felt? It was like this massive. Protest gathering virtually. And so. After that ride, there are people who messaged me, white women who messaged me and put on their page, post on their page and said they they'd never taken my class before. That was their first time riding with me and that they hadn't taken my class because we didn't look alike.

Amy Holy sh--.

Tunde Oyeneyin And because we didn't look alike, they thought we didn't have anything in common. And I applaud them for for being a courageous enough to say that on the page, because Lord knows the comments came after them. So I comment, I complimented them or commended them rather for that, because it's that type of vulnerability, honesty that makes and gets us out of this. Yeah, that makes change. You've got to call yourself out. Call yourself out. And then others will follow. They'll look deeper. And so it was as if that moment I thought to myself, if you don't invest 20 minutes in me in a cycling class because we look differently. If you're hiring manager, why would you invest 20 days, two years or 20 years in a candidate that looks like me? Right. So, yeah, that part of it. No, I didn't I didn't see that. I didn't know that that was going to be. Part of my purpose in this, however. I answered the call.

Grace And thank God you did. I won't even say because. Because, you know, you have such a like a light when you write. When I when you write with you. And I can even say that like on January 6th, during that crazy time when the capital was under siege, what I did is I got on the bike and I rode with you. And so you are really, you know, for someone who rides with you regularly, like you really do provide like for those of us that do look like you, you provided a space for us to feel safe. And obviously, you're doing the work for people who don't look like you. You've also spoken like I remember you. You did that thing with Shonda or whatever. You've done like speeches and you know, Peloton is giving you the platform to do, you know, talks about race. And I think it's such a beautiful thing that you do for people not only giving them the space to work out and feel good. And your playlist are fire, Girl, all that. But it also gives a lot of people the the strength and the opportunity to show up and be truthful and honest and vulnerable on your platform. So I thank you for that.

Tunde Oyeneyin Hmm. Thank you for that. Thank you I receive that.

Amy I feel so much better now that we've talked to you. That was this has been amazing.

Tunde Oyeneyin Thank you. So great to talk with you all.

Amy Yeah. Do you have I mean, we've heard about your book, but I'd love to if there's anything you want to tell us about if you'd like to mention the book that when it comes out, anything like that or anything you love.

Tunde Oyeneyin Yeah. So speak. Find your voice. Trust your gut. And get from where you are to where you want to be. It's available wherever you buy books. It's also available for audio version narrated by yours truly. It has been such a treat, such a joy, such a pleasure to see you. And I want to compliment you both for being two black women in this space. What a movement. This is in motion just to see you both in motion as black women in this predominantly non-black space. Breaking down barriers. I spoke with Bozoma St John recently and she said when you blast through glass ceilings. Take caution. There will be scars and I am sure the scars that the two of you that are inflicted that are you're healing from or possibly still cut and bleeding. And she also said, you blast through the ceiling and the person that follows behind you doesn't even know that you're the one to thank. And so for those that will follow behind you and don't know your name to thank you, I say thank you.

Grace Oh, my God. Tunde, thank you so much.

Amy Thank you so much.

Grace Thank you. This is such a joy to have you here.

Tunde Oyeneyin Thank you, ladies.

Amy And last but not least, where can people find you on the Internet just before we.

Tunde Oyeneyin Oh, well, you know, I'm Gen Z so you know, I'm on Instagram. Well, actually, Gen Z's on TikTok.

Amy TikTok

Tunde Oyeneyin I did just get a TikTok.

Grace Oh.

Tunde Oyeneyin I'm not good at using it yet.

Amy That's all right.

Tunde Oyeneyin But I but I do have and I think I have 20 followers. So thank you for the 20 of y'all.

Tunde Oyeneyin You going to have 22 after today, girl.

Amy All right. Okay. Give me 10 minutes.

Tunde Oyeneyin Yes. Instagram tune2tunde. And then I think it's the same thing. I'm pretty sure I put the same thing on Tik Tok tune2tunde on Tik Tok.

Amy Beautiful.

Tunde Oyeneyin Thank you.

Amy Thank you so much, Tunde.

Grace Thank you. So to close this out, we're doing our creative tap in, which is our segment about creativity. Amy, are you ready for this week's quote?

Amy Yeah, girl hit me.

Grace The creative adult is the child who has survived. And that's by Ursula Le Guin. Again, the quote is The creative adult is the child who has survived.

Amy Yeah. Oh, that's deep. Well, first of all, it makes me think of so many things, Grace, because first, it makes me think kind of a therapy and how your inner child the part of you that like and I don't know if it's all forms of probably some forms of therapy where they talk about your inner child being like the youngest part of you, where you first experience like pain or trauma. And that very often things that trigger you as an adult are result of a conflict that happened when you were younger. And you have to continue to soothe and feed your inner child as an adult so that you can say like emotionally open and emotionally available and unlocked and and not repeat traumas and all that. So it sort of made me think of that. But in general, it does make me think of that sense of play. One of my favorite therapist, Rene Brown, I've read, like all of her books, talks about how we need to cultivate play as adults. And and play is whether you are in a creative profession or not. You should find times in your day to sing, to dance, to make mistakes, to be creative for no reason with no outcome like monetary or necessary outcome, so that you can continue to be tapped into your younger self. So I truly do agree with this quote, that it's the child that survived because being an adult is learning the rules and, you know, wearing pants outside and like you're not picking your nose and singing on key and and structure and order and screen play software. And it's like as a kid, it's like, I just want to write a story. I'm just going to start writing and I'm going to pick my nose. I'm going to take my pants off in the middle of the room and just keep on dancing to music. And I don't know what the beat is. And I'm like, That is creativity being unburdened by the things you've learned and processed and just getting to be. So the quote weirdly like made me feel sad when I heard it, but that's what I think it means. And there is some happiness in that. What about you? What does it make you think?

Grace It just makes me think of, you know, as children, there's so many people who intentionally or unintentionally tell you what and what you cannot be. There's teachers who say there they're maybe they might be trying to be helpful, but they're saying, oh, you know, maybe you should pick something more practical or it's really hard to do that. I tried that and it didn't work out for me, so it probably won't work out for you. I once had a friend who had like a guidance counselor and she wanted to go to a certain university and the guidance counselor was just like, Well, I don't think that, you know, that's for you because you didn't take AP classes. And I feel like, you know, sometimes parents do that again, sometimes out of love because they think that steering you towards a more practical field is actually helpful because they don't want you to deal with a lot of disappointment. They don't want you to be. Or for several years. And, you know, I won't lie. You know, I really did get my career really poppin off until my thirties. So in a way, they were right. I was poor for about like over ten years after college or whatever. I was pretty poor, but there was something in me that needed to do this, that needed to be an artist, that needed to be a creative person. So when I think about the child who has survived is the child that was able to sort of block out all those voices that doubted the ability to create like thrive in a creative profession. What I love about this quote is that, yes, it is sort of you have to put on your armor starting when you're a child. If you want to become a creative adult, like you have to kind of put on your armor. Okay, I'm a black this teacher. I'm a black this friend. If you're still dancing and you're if you're still singing and even if it's not your profession, the fact that you are able to black out all the negative messages around creativity means that you are how you say a survivor like Destiny's Child. So thanks for listening to the antidote. We hope this injected a little bit of joy into your week. I know it did mine. How about you, Amy?

Amy I feel good, girl. We should do this again sometime. Oh, we'll be here next week.

Grace And in the meantime, if you'd like to follow us on social, follow me. Grace at Gracyact. That's G-R-A-C-Y-A-C-T.

Amy And follow me, Amy at AmyAniobi. That's A-M-Y-A-N-I-O-B-I. And follow the show at theeantidotepod.

Grace That's thee with two E's.

Amy If you like feeling good about yourself, please subscribe and rate of five stars at Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.

Grace Goodbye.

Amy And call a friend. The Antidote is hosted by us Amy Aniobi and Grace Edwards. It's produced by Jenna Hanchard and our associate producer is Taylor Polydore.

Grace Our executive producer is Erica Kraus and our editor is Erika Janik. Sound Mixing by Eric Rahmani.

Amy Digital Production by Mijoe Sahiouni. Talent Booking by Marianne Ways. Our theme music was composed and produced by TT The Artist and Cosmo, the true.

Grace APM Studio Executives in charge are Chandra Kavatii, Alex Schaffert and Joanne Griffiths concept created by Amy Aniobi and Grace Edwards.

Amy Send us your antidotes at antidoteshow.org And remember to follow us on social media at theeantidotepod. That's thee with two E's.

Grace The Antidote is a production of American Public Media.

Amy Bye bye.