Akilah Hughes is an American writer, comedian, YouTuber and podcaster. She is originally from Northern Kentucky and now resides in Los Angeles. 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, her daily news podcast "What a Day" from Crooked Media debuted at number one on the charts.
Early life and education
Hughes was born in Edgewood, Kentucky and attended Boone County High School in Florence, KY. She attended Berea College in Berea, Kentucky, where she graduated in 2010 with a B.A. in Broadcasting. In 2012, Hughes moved to New York City to pursue comedy. She attended the Upright Citizens Brigade on scholarship. 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.
In 2013, Hughes' YouTube channel "It's Akilah, Obviously!" first went viral with her comedy video titled "Meet Your First Black Girlfriend". In the video, Hughes rapid-fire answers hypothetical questions a white boyfriend might ask her. The video now has nearly 2 million views. Hughes has continued to make comedic videos on her YouTube channel and has amassed more than 150,000 subscribers as of February 2020. 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.
Television
In 2018, Hughes appeared in the Dee Rees-directed Samsung commercial that aired first during the 2018 Academy Awards.The spot was created by Wieden & Kennedy Portland and also starred Taika Waititi, Constance Wu, Issa Rae, and more. Produced by Anonymous Content, the commercial celebrated the spirit of independent creators. During the U.S. midterm elections of 2018, HBO ran a series of 4 episodes of Crooked Media's Pod Save America throughout October and November. In each episode Hughes played a correspondent in a segment titled Democracy or Else explaining canvassing and other civil actions to take to encourage voting, with guests like Steph Curry, and Chance the Rapper. Hughes also guest starred on Bob's Burgers Season 10 episode 17 titled "Just the Trip" as Nat's love interest, Theresa. It originally aired March 22, 2020.
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. On September 24, 2019, Hughes' debut book, Obviously: Stories From My Timeline was published by Penguin Random House. Obviously is a comedic book of essays based on Hughes' journey from growing up in a small Kentucky town to pursuing comedy in New York City.
Hosting
In 2016, Hughes moderated the 2016 Brown & Black Democratic Presidential Forum, which was broadcast live on January 11, 2016. at 8 p.m. ET on Fusion, a joint venture between the Disney-ABC Television Group and Univision Communications. Participating in the event are Democratic hopefuls Hillary Clinton, Martin O'Malley and Bernie Sanders. The event was co-moderated with Jorge Ramos, Alicia Menendez, and Rembert Browne. The forum focused on five key issues areas including: social justice, the economy, education, healthcare and immigration. The forum was also broadcast on Iowa Public Television on January 13, 2016, at 9 p.m. CT. In 2017, Hughes hosted the first season of GK Now, a daily culinary news show for Genius Kitchen for Scripps Network. In October 2019, "What a Day", a daily news podcast from Crooked Media Hughes and political journalist Gideon Resnick host the show. "What a Day" is released every morning Monday through Friday and covers the biggest news of the day.
Digital IP/Copyright Lawsuit
On Aug 25, 2017, Hughes filed a copyright infringement claim in New York federal court against fellow YouTube content creatorCarl Benjamin alleging that he violated fair use principles when he used selections of Hughes's video entitled "We Thought She Would Win" to make his own video entitled "SJW Levels of Awareness" cut and edited from the original work posted by Hughes. The judge ruled that the video met three of the four fair-use standards and dismissed the lawsuit with prejudice. Benjamin filed a motion dated February 18, 2020 requesting attorney's fees and costs. On March 4, 2020 Hughes opposed the motion.
