Welcome back to significant others.

I'm Liza Powell O'Brien.

In yesterday's episode, we learned about the profound friendship between James Baldwin

and Maya Angelou.

Today, I'm so excited to welcome comedian, best-selling author, and host of the Emmy award-winning

CNN series, United Shades of America, W. Kamau Bell, to talk a little bit more about

the impact of these artists and the importance of affinity groups.

Kamau, thank you so much for joining us today.

Thanks for having me.

So this episode that we are discussing details, many things, but primarily the relationship

between Maya Angelou and James Baldwin.

So I was wondering if you might talk a little bit about how you see the impact that Maya Angelou

had on American culture, on pop culture, in general.

It's funny when I first think of Maya Angelou, it becomes like there's famous people,

there's icons, and then there's people who are like sort of this like holders of the

culture, which is sort of bigger than all those other things.

Like, you know, you can be Michael Jordan, you can be Oprah Winfrey, and then there's

the people that like Oprah's like, no, no, no, over here, there's a person who's

she's the person who unlocked, yeah, yeah, yeah.

So I think that, and happy in her lifetime, because this has not always happened for people

who hold the culture specifically black women, that she got to see it and be a part of it.

I don't think that, you know, there's, I think about like, someone like Nina Simone,

...