This week on The Limits, Jay talks to author and editor Dave Zirin about the intersection of sports and politics. Dave has written 11 books on these topics, covering the many ways that activist athletes have unveiled larger systemic issues of racism and injustice in America. Dave gets into it with J...

On this week's episode of The Limits, Jay talks to his ESPN colleague and longtime friend, Stephen A. Smith. The First Take co-host and network star has reinvented how sports, politics, and candor can go together on the air. As one veteran executive told him shortly after his 2003 ESPN audition, "It...

Hollywood powerhouse Tracy Oliver sums up her career simply. "When people go right, I always tend to go left." She wrote the hit 2017 film Girls Trip, becoming the first Black woman to pen a movie that grossed over $100 million at the box office. On today's episode of The Limits, Tracy tells Jay ho...

This week, Jay is in mixtape mode, pulling together three of his favorite conversations on The Limits. With The Breakfast Club losing co-host Angela Yee to do her own show, Charlamagne tha God shows what it means to be proud of longtime colleagues as they move on to other things. He talked to Jay ab...

On this week's episode of The Limits, Jay looks back on his conversation with a recently split, beloved comedy duo. For years, Desus Nice and The Kid Mero lived the lives of many struggling New Yorkers: juggling multiple odd jobs, battling roaches, and just trying to make ends meet in the Bronx. But...

This week, Auntie Oprah (as Jay calls her) lent us an episode from Trials to Triumphs, a podcast on the Oprah Winfrey Network. Hosted by Ashley Blaine Featherson-Jenkins, Trials to Triumphs discusses the personal and professional struggles of innovators–just like The Limits. On today's episode, Ash...

This week, we revisit one of Jay's favorite conversations with the incomparable Niecy Nash. In her own words, Niecy has made it "from the hood to Hollywood." She talks to Jay about her early days in Hollywood with clarity–and hilarity. The 2022 Oscars may be infamous now for very different reasons, ...

On today's episode of The Limits, Jay speaks with Colman Domingo, star of stage and screen. He's the ultimate character actor, known for stealing scenes in films like Ma Rainey's Black Bottom, Selma, and If Beale Street Could Talk. He embodies every character he takes on, most recently earning an Em...

In this week's episode of The Limits, Jay talks to Steve Stoute, a music executive responsible for shaping the careers of the biggest stars in recent memory. Nas, Mariah Carey, Will Smith...Steve Stoute's resume rivals any of the biggest players in the industry. He spent the '90s molding talent at I...

On today's episode of The Limits, Jay talks to legendary fashion designer, Dapper Dan. For over five decades, "Dap" has revolutionized the way hip-hop and fashion have influenced each other, dressing the likes of Eric B. and Rakim, LL Cool J and Salt-N-Pepa. He also always makes sure everything goes...

On today's episode of The Limits, Jay sits down with his mentor: the all-time great, Duke college basketball coach Mike Krzyzewski, better known as Coach K. For Jay, this is the man who helped him channel his inner rage and insecurities as a teenager into reaching the ultimate heights of college bas...

We're in instant replay mode this week on The Limits, revisiting Jay's conversation with billionaire tech mogul Mark Cuban.Whether it's the NFL or the NBA, healthcare policy or America's two-party political system, Mark Cuban believes that when you buck tradition, you begin to grow. In this episode,...

One of Al Harrington's biggest takeaways from his sixteen-year run in the NBA? Never let a rookie take your spot. The former power forward constantly found ways to evolve the game to outsmart new competitors — and, in his words, "provide a new offering."In his post-game career, he's used that mindse...

When New York multi-hyphenate Jon Gray set it upon himself to bring the Bronx to the world through food, he faced two battles: establish a successful business at the tail end of a recession, and overcome the high-end culinary world's historically white gaze.Now, Ghetto Gastro, the food collective he...

U.S. soccer star Megan Rapinoe is of course a champion on the field, but off the field, she's a champion for the causes that matter. She has long been one of the biggest voices advocating for equal pay in the U.S. Soccer Federation, which was historically reached via collective bargaining agreements...

This week, we're letting our friends at It's Been a Minute take over our feed. In this episode, guest host Juana Summers talks with Danyel Smith about her new memoir, Shine Bright: A Personal History of Black Women in Pop. As a previous editor-in-chief for both Billboard and Vibe magazines, host of ...

You know Ben Baller as the jeweler who has iced up the biggest names in hip-hop. But before that, he was a record executive listening to Jay-Z's first album before anybody else. The guy's got stories. Like how he was fired by Dr. Dre for speaking out against the bad contracts Dre was giving to his a...

For years, Desus Nice and The Kid Mero lived the lives of many struggling New Yorkers: juggling multiple odd jobs, battling roaches, and just trying to make ends meet in the Bronx. But they also spent plenty of time online, where their constant back and forth on Twitter was so funny that followers d...

In your mind, Kelly Rowland might be the teenager of Destiny's Child fame, or the solo artist with dance floor anthems like "Commander." But these days, Kelly's much more than a pop star. She's an entrepreneur, philanthropist, writer and mother of two beautiful children. She recently published a chi...

As a former NFL player and star of the Bachelor, Colton Underwood has embodied the highest ideals of masculinity. He worked hard to fit the mold of what everyone expected him to be. Until it almost killed him. When he finally accepted his sexuality and came out in 2021, the impact felt seismic.This ...

We've all failed before. Competition, rejection, loss...it's all a part of life. It's what The Limits is about: overcoming those obstacles to become great. This week, we're featuring an episode of NPR's Life Kit featuring Jay Williams where he talks about the long, often grueling process of working ...

Denzel Curry brought his rage to rap. For years, he's been known for taking a crowd and turning it into a moshpit. It was his way of taking his internal pain and expressing it. These days, though, Denzel is looking inward and so is his music. Now his mission is to find peace, and he wants the rest o...

Michele Roberts grew up watching the NBA on her TV, but she never imagined she would one day be a trailblazing executive for the league. After Michele was named executive director of the NBA Players' Association (NBPA), she became the first woman to hold this position, and the first woman to lead a ...

On this week's episode of The Limits, we're in instant replay mode. We're bringing you back to where it began, with our first conversation with sports marketing executive Maverick Carter. Maverick is the architect behind LeBron James' athletic empire, and he sat down with Jay to share how he and LeB...

TJ Adeshola has been changing the game in sports media and tech for years. The Twitter Global Head of Content Partnerships got his start at ESPN, where he was grateful to receive guidance and opportunity from several Black mentors. When he entered the tech world at Twitter, however, he didn't see ma...

Hip-hop producer RZA of the Wu-Tang Clan always knew he was going to be one of the greats. And believing it was his first step to achieving legendary status.RZA was confident about what his music would sound like and what he wanted to say. But he also had the confidence that he could turn other arti...

Chef Marcus Samuelsson knows that the key to being a good chef is a lot like being a good athlete. You get up every day and keep pushing yourself. Despite being told that his Blackness would never let him own a fine dining restaurant, he made his way cooking in Michelin-starred restaurants around th...

It's Prime Time on The Limits. NFL legend Deion "Coach Prime" Sanders sits down with Jay to talk about his latest chapter coaching college football. The two-time Superbowl champion decided to bet on HBCUs as the future of the NFL, successfully making what Sports Illustrated has dubbed one of the mos...

In her own words, Niecy Nash has made it "from the hood to Hollywood." As she closes out her leading role in Claws, Niecy tells Jay about her early days in Hollywood with clarity–and hilarity. With the Oscars approaching next month, Niecy also gets real about the deeper reasons the Academy so often ...

Bobby Hundreds is a trendsetter, and he believes if you give yourself permission you can be too. As founder of the iconic streetwear brand The Hundreds, he's been at the forefront of design for decades, and in this episode of The Limits he tells Jay how he does it. For Bobby, success is about refram...

Whether it's the NFL or the NBA, health care policy or America's two-party political system, Mark Cuban believes that when you buck tradition you begin to grow. In this episode of The Limits, the Dallas Mavericks owner and billionaire Shark Tank investor challenges NFL franchise owners to rethink wh...

Brian Flores is not messing around. The former Miami Dolphins head coach was fired last month, and had his eyes set on the top job with the New York Giants. But a misdirected text from New England Patriots general manager Bill Belichick convinced Flores, who is Black and Latino, that the hiring proc...

Larry Miller has been a top executive in sports and athletic wear for decades. As the Chairman of Nike's Jordan Brand, he's in charge of a multibillion-dollar global apparel juggernaut. But as a teenager growing up in West Philadelphia, he made a violent mistake that haunted him for decades: he murd...

You know Ben Baller as the jeweler who has iced up the biggest names in hip-hop. But before that he was a record executive listening to Jay-Z's first album before anybody else. The guy's got stories. Like how he was fired by Dr. Dre for speaking out against the bad contracts Dre was giving to his ar...

It took a long time for Gabrielle Union to realize she had the wrong idea of success in Hollywood. That idea came from growing up in Nebraska, in white spaces, where she often embraced a role as 'the Black friend.' But in Hollywood she grew to reject those roles. Now her priorities are her own, and ...

Lenard McKelvey's mom was an English teacher. As a kid, he always had his head in a book — even when he was reading that book in a jail cell. But there were some things he couldn't learn from reading, and one of them was how to be true to himself as his radio career took off. Now he's Charlamagne Th...

Years before they built the SpringHill Company — an entertainment and development brand recently valued at $725 million — Maverick Carter and LeBron James were just two kids from Akron, Ohio who loved playing basketball. Over the past two decades, their friendship and ambitions have grown stronger a...

We all have moments when our limits are tested. On this show, host and ESPN correspondent Jay Williams asks how we define those limits — and what it means to exceed them. New episodes every Tuesday, starting January 4th.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privac...