The Shade Room Founder Is Ready to Dial Down the Shade

Angie Nwandu launched The Shade Room successful 2014 arsenic a broadside hustle. Today, that broadside hustle—which grew from an Instagram-only personage tabloid into a media institution with a 40-person staff—reaches 29 cardinal societal media obsessives by tapping into their wolfish appetite for drama.

The Shade Room pioneered a unique, if somewhat innovative, marque of integer media, merging elements of instrumentality civilization astir the instrumentality of personage quality (Shade Room regulars are called Roomies). More than your run-of-the-mill gossip rag oregon quality aggregator, TSR evolved into an accusation hub for “the culture,” Nwandu says, “but besides a reflection of it and dependable for it. We’re known arsenic a megaphone.”

The superior absorption of the level is the fragile satellite of Black celebrity. Want to cognize who NFL backmost Jalen Hurts got engaged to oregon wherefore Naomi Campbell has beef with Rihanna? Maybe you are wondering wherefore a Louisville pistillate claims Kanye West “telegraphically” told her to allegedly bargain a conveyance with a kid inside? TSR has you covered.

I precocious phoned Nwandu to chat astir the arguable power of The Shade Room and the bequest she wants to permission behind. The level has dilatory branched into antithetic sum areas—politics, investigative reporting, spirituality—and she says that’s each portion of a larger program to yet determination beyond personage gossip, which she describes arsenic “tiring.”

Nwandu hasn’t gotten determination yet. The week we spoke, euphony mogul Diddy was arrested aft a expansive assemblage indicted him connected charges including enactment trafficking and racketeering conspiracy (he pleaded not guilty), truthful we besides talked astir that—and Nwandu was an unfastened book.

JASON PARHAM: The Shade Room was a pioneer of societal media-centric personage quality connected Instagram. Today determination are hundreds of accounts that bash what you do. How does that feel?

ANGIE NWANDU: Nobody ever gives this motion to The Shade Room but we served up a blueprint that was capable to beryllium replicated. I’m friends with Shawn McKenzie [founder of The Spiritual Word] and Jason Lee [founder of Hollywood Unlocked], and we’ve had conversations. I had talks with some of them wherever I shared tips and advice. I’m blessed to spot that our blueprint was capable to animate different Black media companies who are thriving successful their ain right. To spot the occurrence of each these platforms is astonishing to me. I’m really truly arrogant of that due to the fact that who doesn’t privation to commencement thing that creates a ripple effect?

The Shade Room has ne'er shied distant from contention but I ideate determination are editorial guidelines that you follow. What won’t you post?

If I accidental which stories, it would decision the intent now. I volition say, what we don’t bash is retired people. A batch of radical nonstop america precise salacious stories wherever they are outing people. That’s thing that we enactment distant from. In the opening we were kinda wild, but mostly that is thing we person avoided. I’ve seen the harm successful what it does to radical who are not acceptable to measurement retired successful that way. We person tried to determination distant from penetration of privateness successful definite areas.

But is it not called The Shade Room for a reason?

We’re trying to alteration what we station and determination towards positivity. We utilized to station clapbacks each time agelong and we person eased disconnected of that. It’s been hard due to the fact that our sanction is The Shade Room—like, if Diddy goes to jail, we person to get that up. But there’s a batch we won’t post. It’s been a dance, for sure.