The fourth annual festival took over Pullman Yards on April 25 with Charlamagne, DJ Envy, and a star-loaded lineup — plus a major sponsorship moment from Summer Grays’ new social platform My Butler AL.
ATLANTA, GA — The fourth annual Black Effect Podcast Festival landed at Pullman Yards on Saturday, April 25, and turned the historic Kirkwood venue into the largest gathering of Black podcast culture of the year. Charlamagne Tha God and DJ Envy hosted alongside Loren LoRosa, with music by DJ Loui Vee.
State Farm presented. A pop-up rain shower halfway through the day didn’t move the crowd one bit.
The day’s most-anticipated drop-in came from Yung Miami, who joined Crystal Renee Hayslett (Sistas) for a live taping of Keep It Positive, Sweetie just one day after releasing her new single “Spend Dat” on April 24. Caresha showed up in full promo mode, and the timing made the appearance one of the most-talked-about moments of the festival.
By nightfall, Drink Champs took the closing slot and N.O.R.E. and DJ EFN delivered the surprise of the evening: CeeLo Green and K. Michelle sat down for the final taping. Two Atlanta legends closing out the night in their own city — the kind of full-circle moment that gets a podcast festival trending.
The festival floor stayed loaded all afternoon. Two-time Olympic boxing champion Claressa Shields worked the carpet in purple. Sheryl Underwood was in the building.
Michael Bivins, Lil Duval, AJ Calloway, Ray Daniels, KevOnStage, and Tika Sumpter were all on the grounds, with appearances on stage tapings and the day’s panel programming.
The schedule rolled through Grits & Eggs Podcast, Club 520, Reality With The King, The Don’t Call Me White Girl Live Show, and panels covering Gen X to Gen Z, AI, and audio and media development — a lineup designed for an audience that lives at the intersection of music, comedy, podcasting, and culture commentary.
My Butler AL Plants Its Flag
Sitting on the sponsor list alongside State Farm: My Butler AL, the new social platform from founder Summer Grays, which launched in March.
The brand was named from the stage throughout the day, and the My Butler AL video commercial ran on the venue screens between sets. In the week leading up to the festival, the company’s :30 radio spot was in rotation on 96.1 The Beat — the Atlanta iHeartMedia station that carries The Breakfast Club, co-hosted by the same Charlamagne Tha God and DJ Envy headlining the festival.
My Butler AL is being built as the social platform Facebook and Instagram used to be — a place to post, build a following, and connect — minus the shadow banning, content takedowns, and algorithmic gatekeeping that have made the legacy platforms increasingly hostile to Black creators. The pitch is simple: grown adults should be able to speak freely on their own social feeds without being put in timeout.
Pulling that pitch directly into a roomful of podcasters, comedians, and content creators — the audience most affected by Meta’s moderation — made the sponsorship one of the more strategic plays of the weekend. For an app four weeks into its public life, the level of festival saturation Summer Grays pulled off is the kind of run most early-stage platforms spend a year trying to build.
The Vibe Inside Pullman Yards
Outside of the main stages, the festival grounds delivered.
The Black Effect Marketplace powered by Shopify spotlighted Black-owned brands and product drops to a buyer-ready crowd. The Zen Lounge offered back and hand massages between tapings — a thoughtful, on-brand reset for an audience moving from set to set all day. Food trucks kept the lines manageable from doors to closing, and the Pitch Your Podcast Booth stayed busy with creators looking for their shot at the network.
“We’re celebrating and uplifting the power of Black voices, creating space for creators to inspire, connect and shape culture,” said Dollie S. Bishop, president of The Black Effect Podcast Network. “From conversations on AI and investing to the future of audio, we’re bringing the culture together for connection, innovation and a few surprises.”
The surprises landed. The rain didn’t stop nothing. And by the time the lights went down at 8 p.m., the 2026 Black Effect Podcast Festival had cemented its place as one of the most important annual stops on the Black media calendar — with My Butler AL’s name running through the day from start to finish.
The 2026 Black Effect Podcast Festival took place Saturday, April 25 at Pullman Yards in Atlanta. Presented by State Farm. The Black Effect Podcast Network operates under a joint venture between Charlamagne Tha God and iHeartMedia.
Festival photography by Derek Whyte & Paras Griffin/Getty Images for iHeart Media and The Black Effect Podcast Network.