By Taylor Fields
Jan 22, 2021
The 2021 iHeartRadio Podcast Awards celebrated the best in podcasting over the last year, and in addition to winners across many different categories, the annual show also presented three Icon Awards to pay tribute to the creators, organizations and podcasts that have made groundbreaking contributions to podcasting’s expanding role in today’s popular culture.
Baratunde Thurston was honored with the 2021 Social Impact Award, as the comedian and activist s How To Citizen podcast provides new perspectives and practices from people working to improve society for the many. Presented with the award from
Questlove, Thurston explained the motivation behind starting his podcast, having grown up in Washington, DC with his computer programmer mother. He explained, My journey has been trying to bring the racial awareness I was born into, the sort of small-d democratic obsession that I started to develop, and my super geeky, nerdy tech-ness into some
Hillary Clinton and more. Bowen Yang and Matt Rogers of Las Culturistas and
Obama s Other Daughters Maame-Yaa Aforo, Ashley Holston,Shakira Ja nai Payeand Yazmin Monet Watkins traded off on hosting duties throughout the night.
Taking home the title of Podcast of the Year, voted on by fans, was Office Ladies, which is hosted by
The Office s
Jenna Fischer and
In their acceptance speech, Angela said of the win, This is so awesome, we are so thrilled! Thank you for listening to the podcast. We ve wanted to work together ever since
The Office ended, and this is a dream come true for us. Jenna added, We just absolutely love rewatching the show, and sharing our memories with you, and this award, it really, truly means a lot to us. We also wanna thank our team at Earwolf who helps us get the show off the ground each week, and thank you for voting for us!
This year's iHeartRadio Podcast Awards paid tribute to the creators, organizations and podcasts that have made groundbreaking contributions to podcasting’s expanding role in today’s popular culture