The Read
The Read is a weekly pop culture podcast. One of several podcasts affiliated with the Loud Speakers Network, "The Read" is hosted by American comedians Kid Fury and Crissle West and based in New York City. History. Prior to starting "The Read", Kid Fury became popular online through his YouTube stand-up series "Furious Thoughts" and met co-host Crissle West through Twitter, where the two bonded and Fury asked West to start a podcast together. The first episode of "The Read" was released on March 4, 2013. "The Read" is distributed via the iTunes Store, iHeartRadio Talk , SoundCloud, Spotify, and Stitcher. On iTunes, the podcast peaked at number three in the "New and Noteworthy" section charts and at number one in the comedy section charts. As of 2019, the podcast had over 85 million listens around the world, and received over 1.5 million unique listens every month. Fury and West have hosted several live shows for "The Read", including one at the Essence Festival in 2018, where they became the first podcast to be a headlining act. In 2019, Missy Elliott was awarded the MTV Video Vanguard Award, where she thanked Kid Fury and Crissle for helping  to make it happen. Special guests have included Kelly Rowland, Trina, Franchesca Ramsey, LeVar Burton, Shaun Ross, Charlamagne Tha God, Estelle, Jenifer Lewis, Jazmine Sullivan, Reagan Gomez, and Roblé Ali. The hosts of fellow Loud Speakers network podcast "The Friend Zone" - Dustin Ross, HeyFranHey, and Assanté - also make regular collaboration appearances. In 2021, it was announced that Issa Rae's audio company Raedio signed a record deal with "The Read" to produce a comedy album with pop culture commentary from Kid Fury and Crissle and music from up and coming recording artists. Format. During podcast episodes, Kid Fury and West  discuss and analyze pop culture and current events. The podcast's format has five sections: Television show. On March 13, 2019, it was announced that Fuse had greenlit a variety/talk show based on "The Read", titled "The Read with Kid Fury and Crissle West". Kid Fury and West served as executive producers, as did Chloe Pisello, David Martin, Jon Thoday, and Richard Allen-Turner. The show premiered on October 11, 2019 on Fuse. Reception. Critical reception. Tre'vell Anderson of "Out" called "The Read" "Black queer excellence", writing, "The pair consistently, and quite remarkably, have crafted a show that is  more than just a pop culture recap, deftly melding together conversations about politics, social justice, the importance of therapy, career advice, and self-help." Writing for "Ebony", Elizabeth Aguirre called the podcast "so unapologetically Black it hurts" and wrote, "Hosts Kid Fury and Crissle start off innocently enough, but by the end of the show, the duo will have you rolling in your seat." "HuffPost"s Taryn Finley referred to "The Read" as "a fun, slightly raunchy, expletive-filled, brutally honest podcast that doubles as a safe space for black people", and stated that, with "The Read", Fury and West "made  a definitive mark" and "have helped usher in a wave of black podcasters after them". For "The Guardian", Lilah Raptopoulos wrote in 2014 that "[Fury and West's] is a casual but energising voice in the podcast world," adding, "The podcast world is one dominated by straight white male comedians reaching middle age. Kid Fury and Crissle are black, gay, young and cool. Their perspective is more sensitive to race, sexual identity and the minority experience than any other podcast that exists right now."