Latest in United Shades of America

W. Kamau Bell has won three Emmys for his CNN show United Shades of America, a docuseries which sees him deploy incisive commentary and humor to explore complex social issues, especially ones relating to race and racism. His show is nominated again this year, for Outstanding Hosted Nonfiction Series or Special, but an…

W. Kamau Bell snapped up the Emmy for Outstanding Unstructured Reality Program for his show United Shades of America on Saturday night at the Creative Arts Emmys—his third consecutive win in this category. Accepting the statuette up on stage, he took the opportunity to call out the industry for falling short on…

A person who has spent most of his career "being anonymous, or nearly anonymous," W. Kamau Bell is still adjusting to the attention that his CNN unscripted series United Shades of America has brought him. Beginning his artistic journey as a "live performer [and] podcaster, working on lots of small things," Bell is now…

“We live in a time when people are being persecuted and targeted very cruelly,” W. Kamau Bell said, after picking up his Emmy for Best Unstructured Reality Series. He described his CNN series United Shades of America as giving people a “microphone” and “public square to tell their version of the story.” It’s Bell’s…

Stand-up comedian and activist W. Kamau Bell is known for many projects. He has two podcasts: “Politically Re-Active” with Hari Kondabolu as well as “Denzel Washington Is The Greatest Actor Of All Time Period” with Kevin Avery. He also has his own comedy special Private School Negro which debuts today on Netflix. He…

Talking about race, comedy, and storytelling first thing in the morning is quite a way to kick things off. On day 2 of SXSW, socio-political comedian & United Shades of America host W. Kamau Bell, activist & #OscarsSoWhite’s April Reign, and Luvvie Ajayi, the best-selling author of I’m Judging You: The Do-Better Manual…

Praised docuseries Born This Way may have won the category last year, but now newcomer United Shades of America has snapped up the Emmy for Unstructured Reality Program – hardly surprising, given the strength and current relevance of its content. On the CNN show, which first aired in 2016, host W. Kamau Bell travels…

United Shades of America with W. Kamau Bell is returning for a second season. Eight one-hour episodes have been ordered, to debut next spring. In its first season, the series was nominated for an Emmy Award. "I couldn't be more thrilled to work with CNN on more episodes of 'United Shades of America'," Bell said in a…

About 900K viewers caught W. Kamau Bell’s visit with the Ku Klux Klan on the debut of his new CNN series United Shades of America Sunday night at 9 PM ET. Kamau & KKK got edged out by Fox News’ 888K in the timeslot, but torched MSNBC’s 292K. In the news demo, Bell clocked No. 1 in timeslot among cable news networks…