We Didn’t Come
Here to Shrink.
OUR SPACE. AND YOURS.
Real Conversations. Real Life. No Filters.
Unapologetically Grown is the podcast for Black women 50+ who have lived, learned, and leveled all the way up.
MEET YOUR HOSTS
The Women Behind the Mic
Audra Madison
STRATEGIST • STORYTELLER
If you want a woman who has built careers, brands, and building a beautiful life on her own terms, meet Audra.
A native New Yorker now calling Baltimore home, she carries that unmistakable NYC edge: fast-moving, straight-talking, always three steps ahead. A proud member of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc. and a Bennett Belle refined on the historic campus of Bennett College, she moves through the world with that same grace and grit.
Over 25+ years, she's woven through three very different worlds: music, financial services, and sports from ASCAP and EMI Music Publishing, to Fortune brand partnerships, to Director of Marketing for the Maryland Jockey Club, where she made history as the first African American woman to hold a leadership position at the home of the Preakness Stakes.
But let's talk about who Audra really is. She came up on BET, MTV Jams, and Saturday morning Soul Train lines. She’s a House Music lover who's never met a Salt-N-Pepa throwback she didn't sing every word to. For her, music is the one true universal language: the one that speaks straight to the soul.
She believes in Black women and Black culture and doubles down on both. When she's not strategizing, she's wandering art galleries, hunting her next pair of kicks, catching flights to exotic beaches for sun, saltwater, and soul time, or with the loved ones who keep her grounded.
What drives Audra? Standing on the shoulders of Black women—family and extended who refused to shrink and who remind her every day: without Black women, society loses.
Make no mistake: Black women are trailblazers. We set the tone for society. We are culture. We are pop culture. Period.
As founder and co-host of Unapologetically Grown, Audra brings the strategy, the sisterhood, and the receipts.
Valerie Royal
CO-HOST • COMMUNITY BUILDER
If you're looking for someone who has lived, laughed, and leveled up, you've found her.
Born and raised in Detroit where the people are real and the music is legendary, she took that Motor City grit to the yard at Florida A&M University, where her HBCU experience shaped her career and her soul. Think A Different World energy, but real life.
A proud member of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc., armchair matchmaker, and newbie golfer still figuring out the back nine, she brings fearless curiosity to everything including the microphone.
She's spent decades between the corporate work and the side hustles negotiating sponsorships for Fortune 100 brands, producing events that stopped rooms cold, championing financial literacy, and showing up for HBCUs and their football classics like it's a calling.
But let's talk about who Val really is. She came of age through asymmetric haircuts, A Different World, and Fashion Fair's iconic peacock blue eyeliner. If you know, you know.
She has never met a dance floor she didn't love. Her concert obsession started at 14 and hasn't slowed down since. She's been known to travel anywhere to see her favorites live. No regrets. Ever.
What drives her most? Watching women in their 50s thrive—not just survive. Midlife isn't a crisis. It's a comeback era.
As co-host of Unapologetically Grown, she's creating the girlfriend conversation you didn't know you needed. Grown never looked this good.
We Started This
Because We Needed It.
Too many conversations about women over 50 are written by people who haven’t gotten there yet.
"No Sugar Coating. Zero Apologies."
THE UG PROMISE"Just Grown Women Truth."
EVERY EPISODE"You've earned this conversation."
PULL UP A CHAIRPull Up a Chair. You've Earned This.
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