TV and Radio Personality Kendra G is a native of Waterbury, Connecticut, and a graduate of the HBCU Hampton University. Kendra talks with rolling out about her career, her show “Social Society,” and advice she would give to people looking to pursue their dreams.
How did Hampton University prepare you for your career in media?
I’m from Connecticut, and people don’t think this, but there are Black people in Connecticut, maybe not as much. So it was like, wow, not only are these women educated, well-spoken, and well dressed, but they’re beautiful. They’re the total package, and it was truly the essence to me that represented Black excellence, so I learned to be on top of my A-game. I will say this, “Kendra Hampton” is not the Kendra that I am today. At Hampton, Kendra was trying to fit in, she had this need to be accepted. She wanted people to give her flowers and to see her, and that was important to her. When I graduated, I let go of all of that. That’s when I think I came to life and realized, I got the sauce and I am the sauce.
How did the opportunity come about when making “Social Society?”
So it’s interesting. We can talk about my Instagram Live and Facebook Live dating show because that’s what led to Social Society.I was in a relationship and it ended right when COVID hit, and single life and COVID was a different type of single life. It was like Will Smith in I Am Legend, you had nothing. This was pre-mask. This was when the world was trying to figure out what the h— was happening. You couldn’t go to anybody, and you had to be by yourself. And I was like I’m not the only person that’s single, and everybody was doing Instagram lives. I had already done a couple of celebrity interviews, but I went live one night and said, ‘If you want to find love, I’m going to bring you on my show and start asking these questions.’ No lie, the first night, I knew I had something.
My slogan is we don’t guarantee love, but we do guarantee that you’re going to be entertained and we have not let anybody down in the entertainment factor yet. As it was growing, I began to pitch it. I actually pitched it to the ALLBLK network. In the pitch meeting, they asked me if I would go to Atlanta. I was like absolutely! And the rest is history. The opportunity they were referring to, which I didn’t know at the time, was Social Society.
What advice would you give when it comes to working hard and chasing your dreams?
The first thing I would say is you have to be all-in and you can’t play any games with it at all. All-in means you have to move to a different city, you have to be in shape, you have to stay up late, you have to network, you have to go to the job earlier, or you have to do free work. I feel like the money I make now is for all the times when I was working for free. It’s like it’s past paychecks that I’m getting now. It all adds up because you got to be on and you got to be 1,000% all-in. If you’re not 1,000% all-in and you don’t get the results you desire, you got to have an honest moment with yourself and say, ‘What can I do better?'”
