Since The Nightly Show was abruptly (and unjustly) cancelled last summer, its host, Larry Wilmore, hasn’t exactly disappeared from the scene. He co-created the excellent HBO series Insecure , along with the show’s star, Issa Rae; he’s an executive producer of the hit ABC sitcom Black-ish; and let’s not forget the time he told Milo Yiannopoulos to go fuck himself on Real Time with Bill Maher.
Yesterday, per Vulture, Wilmore announced he’d be hosting a new podcast over at Bill Simmons’s new-ish website the Ringer, called Black on the Air. In a short teaser featuring Simmons and Wilmore, Wilmore says the podcast will be “me kind of weighing in on issues of the day with my audience, and then I’ll be interviewing some really cool people.” His first guest is the TV legend Norman Lear, who not only created some of the most iconic sitcoms in television history, but happens to give a great interview. We won’t have to wait long: The first episode drops tomorrow, Thursday May 11. Upcoming guests include Bernie Sanders and Neil deGrasse Tyson.
In a press release, Simmons called Wilmore “one of a kind — not just one of the best thinkers and fearless voices we have, but someone who can talk to anyone about anything … I think it makes perfect sense for Larry to become the 22,354,919th human being with a podcast.” As Vulture’s Nicholas Quah points out, the announcement comes shortly after Wilmore appeared as a guest on Simmons’s own podcast. Crooked Media founders (and former Obama staffers) Jon Favreau and Dan Pfeiffer also showed up on The Bill Simmons Podcast shortly before they launched Keepin’ It 1600, their 2016 campaign podcast that eventually led to the created of Crooked Media shortly after the election. That’s the kind of empire-building we can get on board with.