Akilah Hughes

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 Crooked Media podcast "What a Day" with Gideon Resnick.[1]

Akilah Hughes
BornAkilah Hughes
(1989-08-31) August 31, 1989
Kenton County, Kentucky, U.S.
Occupation
  • Comedian
  • Author
  • YouTuber
  • Podcast Host
Alma materBerea College
Years active2006–present
Website
itsakilahobviously.com

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
  1. "Crooked Media Expands Into Daily Podcasts With 'What a Day'". The Hollywood Reporter. Retrieved 2020-02-04.
  2. "Celebrating our Founding Fellows". Annenberg Innovation Lab. 2019-08-29. Retrieved 2020-02-07.
  3. Nicolaou, Elena. "YouTube Star Akilah Hughes Tells Us How To Be Very Online & Stay Sane". www.refinery29.com. Retrieved 2020-02-04.
  4. Kelly-Clyne, Luke (10 April 2020). "You've Never Seen Patty-Cake Played Like This". Vulture. Retrieved 16 June 2020.
  5. "Chance the Rapper, Steph Curry and Akilah Hughes want you to vote". The FADER. Retrieved 2020-03-19.
  6. Petski, Denise (2015-09-22). "Sundance Institute Announces 2015 Episodic Story Lab Projects". Deadline. Retrieved 2020-02-06.
  7. "Akilah Hughes on telling 'Stories From My Timeline' in upcoming book 'Obviously'". EW.com. Retrieved 2020-02-04.
  8. Robinson, Judah (2015-12-17). "Fusion Announces Moderators Of 'Brown & Black' Presidential Forum". HuffPost. Retrieved 2020-02-06.
  9. 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.
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