Compost, Cotton & Cornrows
Compost, Cotton & Cornrows
Podcast Description
Compost, Cotton & Cornrows is disrupting sustainability storytelling and amplifying Black and Afro-Indigenous voices shaping a new narrative for liberation, cultural preservation, and planetary healing. From doulas and scientists to farmers and fashion designers, our guests are visionaries redefining what it means to build a sustainable future. This is an unapologetically intersectional, intergenerational, and global space celebrating the power of Black regenerative practices. Each episode is a dynamic fireside chat with changemakers across the Black diaspora, whose expertise and experiences span industries and identities. Compost, Cotton & Cornrows is more than a conversation—it’s an archive, a call to action, and a blueprint for the futures we’re creating for us, by us.
Podcast Insights
Content Themes
The show primarily focuses on sustainability, cultural preservation, and planetary healing through the voices of Black and Afro-Indigenous changemakers. Episodes highlight diverse topics like conscious fashion with industry leaders like Nia Thomas, who discusses ethical luxury, and marine science represented by guests such as Dr. Tiara Moore, who brings attention to challenges faced by Black scientists. The podcast aims to redefine what sustainability looks like in various industries and identities.
Compost, Cotton & Cornrows is a podcast centering Black sustainability leaders across fashion, agriculture, wellbeing and beyond. Through storytelling, culture, and climate conversations, the show explores how ancestral wisdom and modern practices can cultivate regenerative futures. Hosted by Dominique Drakeford, each episode unearths powerful insights that shift the narrative of environmental justice.
In this vivid and electric episode of Compost, Cotton & Cornrows, Dominique Drakeford is joined by the incomparable Maya Penn — youth climate solutionist, award-winning animator, founder, and unapologetic disruptor shifting culture through creativity and care.
Maya opens up about the realities and responsibilities of being a youth activist at the forefront of climate justice — carving space in a movement that often tokenizes youth while demanding labor without systemic support. With nearly two decades of experience (yes, starting at age 8), Maya reflects on how her early curiosity became a catalyst for global advocacy — and why today’s youth activism must go beyond awareness to radically rebuild systems from the root.
They dive deep into the need to center climate justice — not as a trend, but as the core framework for collective liberation — reminding us that climate is not a siloed issue, it’s the multiplying force behind everything we care about.
Maya also shares her passion for animation as activism, lifting the veil on her groundbreaking film ASALI: Power of the Pollinators — a visually lush, emotionally charged environmental short she wrote, directed, and animated, featuring a powerhouse cast (Whoopi Goldberg, Viola Davis, and more). Through Upendo Productions, Maya is proving that art, especially from the margins, can shift the world.
Tune in for a journey into:
🌀 The growing pains and power of Gen Z climate leadership
🌺 ASALI: Power of the Pollinators and animation as climate education
🛑 How environmental injustice shows up community and conversation
📣 Why we must center climate justice — not just “climate change”
🖤 Storytelling, cultural preservation, and the spiritual nature of sustainability
This episode is a love letter to young visionaries — and a reminder that the revolution will be illustrated.
Compost, Cotton & Cornrows: the space where Black & Afro-Indigenous Vanguards are redefining sustainability through storytelling!
@Compost_Cotton_Cornrows
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