Steve Canal builds the thing most people can't: culture that actually pays. On this episode of Butternomics, Brandon Butler sits down with Steve Canal, co-founder of One Venture Group and part of the team behind ONE Musicfest and TwoGether Land, to talk about how Atlanta actually works.

The city moves on relationships, and Steve has spent his whole career proving it. He breaks down how he built by leading with one question: how can I help? He explains why trust compounds when you show up for people before you need anything, why the door in this city opens when somebody vouches for you, and how he turned that into real brand partnerships and real money.

The conversation gets into what it takes to align big brands with cultural moments that feel authentic, why reading culture is a skill most people never develop, and how Steve picks the partnerships worth saying yes to. He's a two-time bestselling author who has been recognized by the Ebony Power 100 and the Inc. 5000, and he keeps it direct about the work behind all of it. If you're building something in Atlanta, this one will save you years.

Mandii B pulled up to Butternomics and broke down the real podcast money blueprint. Most creators chase a network deal thinking it means marketing, studio time, production help, and guest booking handled for them. None of that is guaranteed. A network deal is really just you licensing your content so they can sell ads against it. The expenses, the editing, the booking, the studio, all still on you.

The real play is diversification. Patreon brings Mandii a quarter million a year by itself because subscriptions hit different when your audience actually believes in the work. Live shows start small but build a real connection with the people who already ride for you. Merch is a slower bag, but it's another lane when the demand is real.

The lesson is simple. Stop waiting on somebody else's deal to validate your show. Build the audience, own the income streams, and let the network come to you on your terms.

Tendernism didn't start on the internet. It started 50 years ago in a kitchen in Robbins, Illinois, with a young Walter Johnson cutting wingtips off chicken wings for his brother's restaurant. 50 years. 50+ states.

Casino kitchens, backyard cookouts, and every Southern state he could get to so he could learn what the old folks knew about a pinch of this and a pinch of that. By the time the camera found him, the craft was already there. The world just hadn't caught up yet. In this episode, Brandon Butler sits down with the man who invented Tendernism to tell the full story.

How the word actually got named (an oxtail, the sun, and meat that peeled off the bone like an orange). Why he calls oxtails "Black Diamonds." How he ended up on the phone with Snoop and Ron Isley. And the Muhammad Ali line that made him realize this was bigger than food: "Ali shocked the world in '65. I shocked 'em in 2025."

Walter is proof that your time is your time. The meat was just the entryway. Tendernism is the movement.

On this episode of Butternomics, our host, Brandon Butler, talks with entrepreneur and attorney Khadijah Robinson about what happens after the deal closes. Khadijah opens up about building Nile List from a spreadsheet to an acquired platform, all while balancing a high-powered legal career. She shares what most people get wrong about acquisitions, why the VC system doesn’t work for most Black founders, and what it really means to protect your peace while scaling impact. If you’re thinking about building something big, this conversation will save you years of mistakes.

On this episode of Butternomics, Rev. Dr. Jamal Bryant sits down with host Brandon Butler to break his silence on the Target Fast and reveals exactly how 40 days of strategic economic pressure stripped $12 billion from Target's valuation. From a 9.7% drop in foot traffic to forcing the first-ever HBCU business pipeline, Bryant pulls back the curtain on the full strategy, the demands, the negotiations, and what the Black community actually won.

He also shares the vision for New Birth City, a 300-acre development bringing micro homes, senior housing, and Black-owned businesses to one campus, and drops a masterclass on why boycotts without demands are just cancel culture in disguise.

On this episode of Butternomics, Mayor Andre Dickens pulls back the curtain on how Atlanta really runs. With the World Cup bringing 4.5 billion eyes to the A and the Neighborhood Reinvestment Act reshaping the south and west sides of the city, the 61st Mayor of Atlanta delivers a masterclass on how to tap in before the world shows up.

He breaks down the low-interest city loans most entrepreneurs don't know exist, the $5K and $10K micro-loans being handed out through Showcase Atlanta ahead of the World Cup, and the anti-displacement programs under the Neighborhood Reinvestment Act paying $30K to keep legacy homeowners in their homes. He gets into Invest Atlanta, the tax allocation districts that built Atlantic Station and the Beltline, the cautionary tale of Black entrepreneurs who lost everything during the 96 Olympics, and the 4,000 appointees who really run Georgia.

If you live in Atlanta, run a business in Atlanta, or want to own anything here, this is required listening before the world shows up.

Jai Ferrell is the first Black woman CEO of the Girl Scouts of Greater Atlanta in over 100 years. She walked into a $25 million business with 125 employees, three properties, horses, and 2,000 acres of land.

Before this, she was managing billion-dollar portfolios at the busiest airport in the world. In this conversation, she breaks down the real enterprise behind the cookie, why women and girls receive less than 2% of all philanthropic giving, and what it actually looks like to make hard calls at scale.

It costs $300,000 to $400,000 a year just to protect voting rights in Georgia. The SAVE Act would charge you $33 to $130 for a new ID just to vote. DEI rollbacks are cutting off SBA loans and grant funding to Black businesses right now. Attorney Gerald Griggs sat down with Butternomics and unpacked the economics of civil rights, how legislation is quietly hitting Black wealth, and why Georgia has the highest rate of people under state control in the entire country. He also dropped a number that should stop every Black professional in Atlanta: 2.2 million registered voters. A governor's race takes 1.9 million.

Pastor Troy has been independent for over 25 years. He signed with Universal, watched them hand Nelly $5 million on a $90 million return, and made a decision: if he ever came back, it would be as a label, not just an artist. He left by choice. His first independent album after the deal sold 60,000 to 70,000 copies at $8 each. He sold his master to the bootlegger for $25,000 before the album even dropped. He turned 60-second radio jingles into a monetized marketing play that BMI still pays on. Now he owns a vinyl store on Peter Street, runs his own streaming platform, and operates a TV network. This is not a music conversation. This is a masterclass in ownership.

The average non-technical founder loses $50,000 and years of their life trying to build an app. Amanda Spann knows because she's coached thousands of them. Her first app cost $40,000 and took 18 months. Her sixth one took weeks. The difference was a framework she built after documenting every mistake, every bottleneck, and every dollar wasted. She sat down with Butternomics and broke down why most app ideas fail before they launch, why AI won't build 100% of your startup no matter what anyone tells you, and why talking to 300 people before writing a single line of code is the move that separates the founders who make money from the ones who lose it.