In 2006, Luenell was a fan favorite in the mockumentary “Borat.” However, “the original bad girl of comedy” has a career spanning over twenty-five years, beginning on the standup circuit.

Currently, she is touring across the country on her “Fresh Out of Favors Tour.” She’s also part of the all-female “Because They’re Funny Comedy Festival” at the Anthem Theatre in Washington, DC on Saturday, October 7, 2023, with fellow comediennes Nicole Byer, Ego Nwodim, and Aida Rodriguez.

Luenell also has an ongoing Las Vegas residency at the Jimmy Kimmel Comedy Club.  And she is the star of her own comedy special, produced by Dave Chapelle, directed by Stan Latham, and currently streaming on Netflix.

Luenell says two of the most exciting things about the new special is the respect it adds to her career and looking up at herself on billboards all over the country.

“Somebody asked me how I feel about everything going on now, and I said I feel seen,” said Luenell. “It doesn’t matter when you get it, as long as you get it.”

Luenell says her new special captures her humor, her vernacular, her tonality, her intelligence, and her relatability.

The name of her new Netflix special is “Chappelle's Home Team - Luenell: Town Business,” produced, as mentioned earlier, by the one and only Dave Chappelle.

“There are Netflix specials dropping all the time. Then there’s a Dave Chappelle produced Netflix special,” declared Luenell. “That’s on another level.”

“I don’t know if all specials get translated into fifty different languages,” said Luenell, “but I know mine does. I don’t know that every special goes to one-hundred and twenty-five countries, but I know mine does.

Taped in the place Luenell calls home – Oakland, California at Yoshi’s Jazz Club – her special, she says, is a love letter to the city and she hopes she has given Oakland a reason to be proud.

Oakland has one of the highest crime rates in America and the chance of being a victim of a property or violent crime is one in thirteen, according to a report released on Neighborhood Scout.

Luenell says her positive achievements display the wonderful things that can come out of Oakland.

Luenell reflected on how her comedy special came to be.  She says it began with a chance meeting between Luenell and Chappelle in Canada at the Just for Laughs Comedy Festival in Montreal.

She says they then ran into each other again in New York when Eddie Murphy was making a return to Saturday Night Live after twenty-five years to guest host.

Then during the COVID shutdown, she says, Chappelle invited her to join him for his comedy show “Comedy in the Cornfield.” Luenell was accompanied on that trip by her daughter, DaNelle.

Luenell says DaNelle told her, while Chappelle watched her perform, that he was going to get Luenell a comedy special.

“He told her, then she told me. And if anybody knows anything about Black mothers – you can lie to my friends, you can lie to my neighbor, you can lie to me, but don’t lie to my child,” said Luenell. “Because then, now we got a problem. I knew it was going to happen because Dave knows the rules.  He knows better.”

Luenell says she knew then the comedy special was going to happen; she just did not know when. However, within a year, it was streaming on Netflix.

Chappelle brought in legendary director Stan Lathan to direct because he knew he would be a great fit and Luenell affirms it was a fantastic pairing.

Luenell had worked with Lathan before on Kevin Hart’s BET mock reality show “Real Husbands of Hollywood.”

“The fact that he directed my comedy special was a cherry on an already delicious cake,” said Luenell.

Luenell continues to shine in the glow of her accomplishments. In September of 2023, she was honored with the Comedienne of the Year Award at the Comics Rock Convention in LA.

She was also a brand ambassador for Rihanna’s Savage x Fenty lingerie plus, and she has a cameo appearance in Rihanna’s Savage x Fenty Fashion Show Vol 2.

In the future, Luenell would like to be the next Black female late night talk show host.

Luenell’s new comedy special, “Chappelle’s Home Team – Luenell: Town Business,” is currently streaming on Netflix. For more information on Luenell, her merchandise, and her upcoming standup comedy tour dates visit http://heyluenell.com.

Charm La’Donna interprets her consciousness and her healing through dance. Additionally, she translates her language of expression through multiple mediums of art.

Charm is known for carrying a sense of creative direction and produces art through her lens for other legendary artists. 

In an exclusive interview, Charm explained to the Los Angeles Watts Times that she is a positive product of her environment.

It started with Charm acknowledging her inner child. In her most explorative age, she recalled her early fascination with different channels of art.

“I think this is something that’s been in me since I was a kid,” explained Charm about her long-time passion for dance, music, and theatre. “Dance is always the forefront and as I got older, I was able to expand and venture into other art that I’m passionate about,” she said.

Leaning into her heart space, Charm is waking up to a life of being a leading contributor to colossal projects such as influencing the production of DAMN & The Big Steppers tours with Pulitzer winning artist, Kendrick Lamar.

She also allotted her talents to wash over Dua Lipa’s “Dance the Night” music video and The Weekend’s Super Bowl performance, running adjacent to Beyonce.

Recalling her evolution as a choreographer, Charm stated, “If we’re talking about how I started creating in the beginning — it was just me, being the little girl in the mirror, wanted to do dance steps and making them up myself, and it evolved into the stuff you see now.”

Fatimah Robinson, one of the most sought-after and award-winning choreographers, met Charm when she was 10 years old.

From there, Robinson began to cultivate the light that was shining through Charm. As a mentee, Charm absorbed how to handle herself in a place of creative business — as a Black woman.

Diving into the dimensions of being a Black woman while leading a team in mainstream creative industries, Charm had to demonstrate her worth on multiple occasions.

She credited her observation of Robinson with helping her to understand this lesson as well as learning to excel while being the only Black woman in the room at times.

Charm emphasized Robinson’s impact by stating, “She has always been someone I looked up to and someone I admired as a Black woman. I was fortunate to have someone I could see myself be at a young age.”

Describing Robinson’s personality, Charm said that her mentor’s qualities of a mother and big sister allowed Charm to grow while teaching her valuable lessons at the same time.

A Compton native, Charm explained her upbringing as the battery behind her energy and the frequent passageway to her creativity.

“Family, friends, my experience — it’s what helps cultivate my art,” noted Charm. “Growing up, I had an amazing experience.  I been able to wrap my head around all of my experiences into my art.”

Charm considered her power through movement and the healing it creates.

Her statement echoed the NYU peer-reviewed thesis, “The Shame We Hold: The Body’s Dance Towards Freedom,” the Auto-ethnographic perspective of intergenerational trauma and the effects it has on the human by noted art therapist Paris Marcel.

Narrowing the focus on the body, the movement and the physiological release of stress and trauma, Charm confirmed the previously noted scientific behavior of body movement and its influence on the process of healing.

“Seeing all the things growing up and experiencing certain situations that may not be normal with the average person.” said Charm. 

“I feel like dance was a way for me express, cope, and deal and unleash emotions when I felt like my words couldn’t say anything.”

NBA Champion Jrue Holiday and his wife, two-time Olympic gold-medalist Lauren, recently hosted their Inaugural Holiday Dual-Court Classic.

The Classic featured a celebrity basketball game along with a marketplace that consisted of Black-Owned businesses that benefited from the Jrue & Lauren Holiday (JLH) Social Impact Fund.

In 2020 as the NBA returned to action during the Pandemic Shutdown, Jrue pledged $5.3 million of his salary to launching the JLH Social Impact Fund: a grant program for Black-led non-profit and Black-owned businesses in Los Angeles, New Orleans, Greater Milwaukee, and Indianapolis.

Lauren expressed how the Holiday Classic is meant to highlight the businesses in the Marketplace. She and Jrue not only wanted to help sustain the businesses, but wanted to make the owners feel like they are family.

“When Jrue and I started the JLH Fund it was like get money out and make sure that we’re meeting needs and then we realized we have some pretty incredible grantees,” Lauren said. “It kept growing and kept feeling more like a family.”

Celebrities and athletes in attendance included NBA Champion Anthony Davis, New Orleans Pelicans vice president of basketball operations and team development Swin Cash, former NBA star Troy Daniels, Hall of Famer Abby Wambach, R&B star Estelle, model Don Benjamin, and two-time Super Bowl champion LeSean McCoy. The event raised over $150,000.

Jrue enjoyed seeing the grantees together in one place, talking about their businesses to attendees.

“I think sometimes, especially in the Black community, it gets hard to get everybody together, but we also love us a barbeque, we love us a little party,” Jrue said. “It’s times like this where we get the grantees in one place where we get to know them as people.”

The Celebrity basketball game was team Jrue vs team Lauren with Cash and Estelle as assistant coaches. There was also a three-point shootout and a goalie challenge.

“I love their foundation, I love everything they’re doing,” Estelle said. “I know they’ve been putting their own behind it for so long … I’m here to support, this is what I pull up for.”

Over 20 organizations and businesses were at the Holiday Classic, including Pucker Up Lemonade, Shero Games, Play Black Wallstreet, and A Future Superhero.

“It’s amazing to see all these people here flourishing in their businesses by the help of Jrue and Lauren,” said Atlanta Falcons wide receiver Devin Fuller. “I know they’re faith-based people and they’re always trying to help people in every way possible, this event shows that.”

The Holiday Classic took place in August, which is National Black Business Month. Organizations like FundBlackFounders and The Kinship Advisors helped the JLH Fund support their grantees.

“We’re building the community into this opportunity to be exposed to these businesses and non-profits which will elevate them in ways they have not had exposure to in the past,” said The Kinship Advisors Founder and CEO and JLH Fund manager Alexys Feaster.

Milk and Honey Therapy was created by husband-and-wife duo Nicole and Nick Osbourne to make holistic mental health more accessible.

“We have a number of different products, we have our stickers which are feelings wheel stickers, it’s basically a mental health tool to help you regulate your emotions,” Nicole said. “We also have our therapy card deck which is a deck of 150 different therapy skills and tools.”

Pucker Up Lemonade has been a loyal vendor of the Taste of Soul, selling a variety of lemonade, infused water, and iced tea. When Jrue and Lauren visited her shop in Compton, owner Karneisha Christian introduced them to other business owners who were nearby her.

“They’ve invited us to their home. They always order lemonade for the holidays,” Christian said. “They’ve inspired us just with their passion to give back.”

Parenting for Liberation is a non-profit that helps parents learn how to raise liberated children.

“I’ve been in social justice work my whole life but then when I became a parent, I realized I wasn’t parenting in alignment with my values,” said Parenting for Liberation founder Trina Greene.

“So I interviewed all these Black parents and all their stories are in the book which is called Parents of Liberation as well.”

McCoy noted how seeing Jrue and Lauren give back to the community inspires him to do more philanthropy work.

“I love when athletes are doing things like this,” McCoy said. “I do a lot of charitable work … and now you have a guy, a peer of yours, a ballplayer is doing the same thing. It makes you want to strive to touch even more people.”