Angie Martinez Talks Authenticity, Podcasting and Lauren London

Angie Martinez has done well with her own podcast. After becoming a mainstay on Hot 97 before joining Power 105, she partnered with iHeartRadio to launch her IRL podcast in 2022. In a new interview with Billboard, Martinez explains why authenticity was an important element for her approach to the podcast.

“It’s been exactly what I wanted it to be,” she explains to Billboard. “I started quietly and was self-funding it at first because I really wanted to control the creative and the narrative because it was special to me. I really wanted to have meaningful conversations. I had a really bad car accident five years ago and, you know, when something like that happens and you’re reminded of your mortality, you ask yourself those important questions: ‘What do you really care about?’ ‘What do you really wanna do?’”

For Martinez, it was about being able to have real conversations. She shared that part of why her 2023 interview with Lauren London was significant was because it was honest.

“I just wanted to have more meaningful conversations on that level,” she adds. “So that’s why Lauren London was my first guest. She set the tone of the type of conversations I wanted to have, and people really resonated with it. I just did it from a place of purpose.

“Any conversation I have, whether on the podcast or radio or in my real life, I’m always searching for authenticity. That’s the core of who I am, so that’s gonna be with me no matter where my conversation is, but the difference is radio is more about what’s happening today. What is current? What is trending? What is the news story of the day? It’s very current, and I love that!”

Martinez is now teaming with The Volume to elevate IRL and take the podcast to the next level.

“But the conversations on the podcast are specifically designed to be tools for people in their real life,” she explains. “So yes, somebody happens to be really famous or talented, but these are the things real life has taught them. It’s a very specific conversation that’s different than what we’re doing on the day to day with radio.”