TWENTYONE 21 is a scripted, audio comedy that follows the story of two friends, co-workers, and roommates who share the same birthday and just so happen to believe that they'll unlock mystical, melanated powers on December 21st (or at least that's what Cici read on "Black Twitter").

CICI: Full of life, eclectic who stomps to the beat of her own drum, even if it’s a little off. She is the yang to Funks' yin, often outgoing and brings her bestie for the ride.

FUNKS: A tall, awkward Nigerian-American Black girl who is nervous around guys, likes to stick to the rules, and is the much more cynical one of the bunch. Count on her to try to be the voice of reason in many of their shenanigans

They live in Bowie, Maryland, and work in the leasing office at THE COMPLEX, a high-rise apartment owned by MR. CALLAHAN: a bougie, older Black man who is very much out of touch with his community.

And what's an apartment complex without a suave maintenance man? Introducing FABIAN, the too-cool-for-school maintenance guy who Funks has a crush on but he's too oblivious to notice.

As the girls pursue these "melanated powers," life starts to get really weird. They get zapped into portals and judged by the Council of Black Folk, end up in life-or-death dance battles for their livelihoods, and even find themselves trapped within an anime-inspired universe. But somehow when the dust settles, the only people who notice all the weird sh*t is them. Go figure.

Y'all got live-action web series money? Nah, but seriously with all the crazy sci-fi stuff we've got going on, live-action just didn't make sense for us. The audience for narrative audio is growing, but funny enough, most people we talk to have no idea about the space. We're going to change that! And while not at all free to accomplish, we saw the most accessible medium to begin this story was in the narrative audio format. We knew we were on track when we hosted a few private table reads without any sound effects and still found our audiences laughing.

How are you supposed to know what the heck's going on you ask? Happy to answer! Narrative audio uses careful dialogue choices and immersive sounds to help the listener visualize what they are hearing. A character might make it a point to notice how large the crowd is (or you'll hear that in the ambiance) and to pass time, we're carefully employing custom songs that tell the story. Ah, that's right, every episode has a song written just for the show and each covers a wide range of genres from hip top to country.

Also, this format lets us share the story with the world for free! We'd love to one day see Cici, Funks, and all of these other characters on television screens, but for now, we're happy to let the world hear their voices and use the sounds to imagine the environments.

So this train is already a-moving. We began our writers' room in December 2022 and have been plugging away ever since at breaking story and banging out episodes. We got our cast locked in in June 2023 and we're going into production this summer. Our goal is a September 2023 release date for the series with weekly episodes to come after the pilot.

Again, we wanted to give rising talent an opportunity to showcase their skills here so everything we are doing is being produced independently. Each and every dollar you all help us raise will go first to paying our talented cast and audio engineers and then towards marketing this series so more ears can reach it.

We'd also love to submit this to a few contests/awards festivals, so when we smash this initial goal, stay on the lookout for the stretch goals that we add to the campaign!

Please follow us on Instagram @TwentyOne21Podcast and share this crowdfund with your friends! Cast interviews are on their way!

Thanks!

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Uzo, Courtney, and Donnell: The TwentyOne 21 Creative Team