Exclusive Interview: Pop Culturalist Chats with My 90s Playlist’s Tracy Clayton and Akoto Ofori-Atta

Tracy Clayton and Akoto Ofori-Atta are throwing it back to the ’90s and we’re all about it! Each week, audiences can tune in to hear the co-hosts and pop culture enthusiasts share never-before-heard details about the biggest hits from the era on their new podcast, My 90s Playlist, from Sony Music Entertainment. From the Backstreet Boys to TLC to Natalie Imbruglia, there’s something for everyone! Pop Culturalist had the pleasure of chatting with Tracy and Akoto about My 90s Playlist, how this partnership and friendship formed, and which artists are on their bucket list to cover!

PC: Tell us about My 90s Playlist. How did this podcast come to fruition?
Tracy: My 90s Playlist is a podcast about really big, iconic hit songs of the ’90s. Akoto and I look back at songs from the Backstreet Boys to TLC and revisit them. We talk about what we loved about the songs, and also because of the connection with Sony, we get to learn new extra information that a lot of times hasn’t been released yet.

As far as how it got started, I was contacted by Multitude, which is a production company based out of Greenpoint, Brooklyn. They pitched me the show and I said, “Yes!” They asked me about a co-host, and I was like, “I have the perfect person.” They met Akoto and they were like, “All right, that’s that. That sews it up.”

Akoto: Thank you Tracy for hooking me up with my dream gig.

Tracy: Aw.

PC: The two of you have incredible chemistry. How did this partnership form? How did you meet?
Akoto: I used to work at The Root as the social media manager. I did a lot of arts and culture stuff while I was there. Tracy was brought on to spearhead The Root‘s internet gossip columns called The Chatterati and The Grapevine. That’s how we became professionally acquainted. A year or so after that, we met in person and then she moved to New York, and we became fast friends.

Tracy: She can’t get rid of me; it’s so great.

Akoto: And I don’t plan on it! Since Tracy moved to New York, we’ve been really close. She’s been a part of big moments in my life and vice versa. One of the things that we do together a lot is laugh, which I think is important for any friendship, but we also recall things that we remember from our childhood, particularly around pop culture and music. We talk about those things and laugh about them a lot, even before the podcast. In a lot of ways, it feels like a very natural extension of our friendship. So, what you’re describing as chemistry, yeah, it’s chemistry, but it’s also just how we hang out.

Tracy: Yeah. I actually like her. It was pretty much a no brainer for me when Multitude was talking about co-hosts because I know via my podcast experience that you always get the best content when you’re working with somebody who gets it and really speaks your language. Akoto is always talking about music. She’s always singing. We’re always talking about ad-libs, and we’re hilarious (in my estimation, at least).

PC: Something that I think a lot of listeners don’t realize is how much work goes into producing a podcast. What is the process like when you’re working on a new episode?
Tracy: COVID complicated things. Once we finally got to the part where we were supposed to start recording episodes, we started in the studio and then the lockdown happened. There was some troubleshooting that had to go along with that and some waiting to make sure that things were safe outside so that we could get back in the studio. But overall, our producer, Eric with Multitude, would email us research that would be good for the show. We sometimes did independent research—I know that Ko did a lot. She’s a very, very disciplined journalist, with a capital J. We would do our own research and we’d have points to talk about when we got in the studio. Then, we just riffed when it was time to play a game.

Akoto: This is my first time hosting a podcast.

Tracy: Oh right.

Akoto: I was a huge fan of Tracy’s breakout podcast, Another Round. When hosts have good chemistry, it can sound like we just get up there and start talking, but I learned from Tracy, even before I started podcasting, that even that takes thought, work, and planning. That’s true in this case, too. We did a lot of research and a lot of thinking about how we wanted to talk about these iconic songs and what we wanted to share with people about them.

Tracy: I always forget that this is Akoto’s first podcast. You’re so good.

Akoto: I learned from you, girl.

Tracy: Oh my God. You’re going to make me cry. Don’t do it. But, it is really impressive though to do something that’s new in this time. Learning how to podcast is one, but to do it when maybe the world’s ending, that’s a whole different thing. Kudos to you.

Akoto: Why, thank you. You’re great.

PC: You all are covering a lot of really incredible artists. Is there an artist or band that you haven’t covered yet that you’d love to do in the future and why?
Akoto: Oh my God.

Tracy: So many.

Akoto: We have to do a Whitney Houston episode. It would be an affront to my spirit if I didn’t ever get to do a Whitney episode. I love her so much. I still don’t think thirty, thirty-five years later that we’ve ever heard a voice like hers.

Tracy: No. Best vocalist of all time.

Akoto: I thought every American in the country could agree on this one fact that Whitney, despite all of the things, all her trouble, that she was the absolute best, but that doesn’t seem to be a position that everybody takes. Any opportunity I get to sing her praises, I would love to do that.

Tracy: Whitney’s got such a great story. We can do like a two or three-parter. The first name that popped into my head is Montell Jordan, so I’m going to go with that. First of all, he still looks great. I would love to talk about that. He looks like he just got off the set of “This Is How We Do It”. He’s someone who has managed to stay relevant. I know that we’re all in this wave of nostalgia now, but “This Is How We Do It” comes on at every party. It comes on at every kickback. I’d love to talk more about people like that. People who make these amazing songs that are considered one-hit wonders, but in my opinion shouldn’t be. He had a couple of other good songs. So, I would really love to talk about people who deserve more praise and attention.

PC: With you both being such great friends, what’s one fun fact that listeners would be surprised to learn about your co-host?
Tracy: I have to think about how mad Akoto will be if I share this secret.

Akoto: Oh my God.

Tracy: I don’t want to risk it. I don’t want to risk it. I’m going to pivot to something else.

Akoto: Give me a clue.

Tracy: The wedding.

Akoto: Oh God. Oh God.

Tracy: See!

Akoto: It gives me anxiety. [laughs]

Tracy: You go first. Let me think of another one.

Akoto: For someone who isn’t a trained singer and for someone who I think would describe herself as someone who can’t sing, right?

Tracy: Accurate.

Akoto: She has an amazing ear for harmony. It’s incredible that she can come into a song and just sing the second or third part. It blows my mind every time. She’ll tell you, sometimes we’ll just start singing, karaoke-style, and she’ll bust out into harmony. I literally have to stop singing. I’m like, “B-tch. You sound f-cking beautiful.” She’s the only person I know who can do that without having been an actual singer.

Tracy: Dang. That’s a good one. A thing that people would be surprised to hear about Ko. As a journalist who works for The Trace, she has to carry a lot of heavy stuff to be able to do her job, especially as well as she does. The Trace talks about a lot of gun violence and stuff. Right, Ko?

Akoto: Mm-hmm.

Tracy: Really heavy, kind of depressing stuff. I know that I forget about that a lot because you enjoy joy in a way that I feel like few other people do. When I think about Akoto, it’s like, “Sunshine, happiness, ad-libs from the ’90s…also, this really big, heavy, depressing job.” I’m like, “How are you able to do it?!” I always forget that. I think people would be surprised to hear that.

Akoto: The job makes me appreciate the other side of things.

Tracy: That wasn’t a good one.

Akoto: Okay, tell the wedding one.

Tracy: Four years ago, my dear friend got married. It was a gorgeous ceremony in Ghana. A bunch of our friends went, and it changed my life. Then randomly, I learned that she’s technically an actual Ghanaian princess. I’m like, “How have I never learned about this?”

Akoto: Overstated.

Tracy: I am being very, very dramatic—I do want to point that out—but I was like, “This is something that I would have loved to have known.” So, that’s always what I think about first because I didn’t know that sh-t for a long time. It’s my favorite secret Akoto fact. It stresses her out so much. Thank you for letting me share that.

Akoto: It does stress me out.

Tracy: Don’t worry about it. It’s 2020.

Akoto: I can handle someone outing me as a fake princess in the year that has brought so much craziness.

Tracy: If I was halfway almost a princess of anything, I would be introducing myself as the princess of, the duchess of, the countess of Kentucky. I might do that anyway. [laughs] This isn’t real at all.

Akoto: You should start calling yourself the Countess of Kentucky. It has a very nice ring to it.

Tracy: I’m going to write that down right now. Can I spell countess with a K?

Akoto: Girl, of course!

PC: You were talking about nostalgia a little bit earlier. If you could go back in time and tell your ’90s selves one piece of advice, what would it be and why?
Akoto: Girl, keep your Aaliyah CD. You’re not going to be able to hear her music on any streaming platform.

Tracy: That’s so good.

Akoto: One of my fondest memories I have from my childhood period is when I first got my own CD player. It was ’97 or ’98. I had Aaliyah’s One in a Million CD, and I played it over and over again. Can’t do that right now. I never kept the CD.

Tracy: Dang. I just realized that I’d never owned an Aaliyah CD, I don’t think. I just recorded them off the radio and then Napster came, and then I got them that way. Sorry, Aaliyah. And now I just have nothing. Wow.

This is so illuminating. I think my piece of musical advice to myself would be to pay more attention to Da Brat, the rapper. Literally last night, I was listening to “Ladies’ Night”. I was like, “Why is she not listed in the top three, four, five, six, seven rappers?”

Akoto: That’s an excellent point. Honestly, somebody needs to write the definitive Da Brat piece, because she really is a talented lyricist.

Make sure to follow Tracy (Twitter/Instagram) and Akoto (Twitter/Instagram)! Catch new episodes of My 90s Playlist every Tuesday!