“It went from me wanting leggings that fit my body on my weight loss journey to people wearing them at the airport.” That single moment captures the heart of Ashley Nicole’s Detroit Is Different conversation. Ashley reflects on transforming a deeply personal health journey into a nationally recognized athleisure brand featured by Oprah and Good Morning America, while remaining grounded as a wife, mother, business owner, and creative spirit. She shares how authenticity, consistency, and showing both victories and setbacks built a loyal community that believed in her l”It went from me wanting leggings that fit my body on my weight loss journey to people wearing them at the airport.” That single moment captures the heart of Ashley Nicole’s Detroit Is Different conversation. Ashley reflects on transforming a deeply personal health journey into a nationally recognized athleisure brand featured by Oprah and Good Morning America, while remaining grounded as a wife, mother, business owner, and creative spirit. She shares how authenticity, consistency, and showing both victories and setbacks built a loyal community that believed in her Filled with stories about social media, branding, family, faith, and resilience, this episode explores how one woman’s commitment to herself became an invitation for thousands of others to believe in themselves. Ashley reminds us that when Black women create solutions rooted in lived experience, they build businesses that strengthen families, inspire future generations, and leave a lasting legacy for the Detroit community and beyond.

“The first thing I like to say when I talk to anybody who filled out the survey thank you thank you.” That simple expression of gratitude opens a powerful conversation with Marnita Harris of the Detroit Regional Chamber, revealing how something as ordinary as a neighborhood survey can become a blueprint for the future of Detroit. As Khary Frazier reflects on being selected for yet another survey, he realizes these questions were different because they centered families, neighbors, and the lived experiences of Detroiters instead of statistics alone. Marnita explains why every response matters, reminding listeners that authentic community voices shape the policies, investments, and decisions that will define the city’s future. Filled with humor, memories of Nielsen ratings, YouTube playlists, and the unexpected ways people participate in research, the conversation builds into a deeper examination of trust, representation, and civic engagement. “Who did they survey Who is really taking them” becomes more than a joke; it becomes a challenge for communities to recognize their own power in telling their stories. This episode connects Detroit’s long tradition of neighborhood organizing with the emerging tools of community research, showing that the future is strongest when it is informed by the wisdom of everyday people. Listen to hear why your voice is not just counted but needed.

“It’s our park,” Danielle Jackson declares, setting the tone for a conversation that reminds every Detroiter why Belle Isle is far more than an island in the Detroit River—it’s a living symbol of community, resilience, and shared responsibility. In this episode of Detroit is Different, Danielle, representing the Belle Isle Conservancy, explains how “we’re the nonprofit partner” helping preserve one of Detroit’s greatest public assets while inviting residents to reclaim ownership through participation and presence. Reflecting on the COVID-19 pandemic, she shares how “you could literally get a prescription to go to the park,” describing the national ParkRx initiative that encouraged healing through nature, movement, and fresh air. Khary connects those memories to the emotional significance of the Belle Isle memorial honoring lives lost during the pandemic while reminding listeners that “as far as us being citizens and appreciating the asset that’s right here in our city—get there.” Together they unpack Belle Isle’s complicated governance, its deep place in Detroit’s identity, and why protecting public spaces requires community engagement across generations. This conversation honors Detroit’s past, celebrates the people working today to steward its treasures, and challenges listeners to imagine a future where Belle Isle continues serving as a place for healing, education, recreation, and collective pride for every family that calls Detroit home.

Dear KIP:D+ Team,

Thank you for the consideration and the thoughtful reviewer feedback regarding not being selected for this round. Detroit is Different and KIP:D+ have traveled almost parallel timelines since 2014, and over those years it has been one of the great honors of my life to welcome hundreds of Detroiters and people carrying Detroit stories into the Hope Village neighborhood to sit down, have a conversation, and leave part of their Detroit story with us. That is why this particular decision was difficult for my team who invested themselves in the application. Storytelling, oral history, preserving community memory, activating community space, strengthening belonging, and centering community voice aren’t ideas Detroit is Different is proposing to begin—they describe work we have been living. Our archive now holds thousands of hours of conversations and a history of bringing people together through podcasts, films, events, screenings, neighborhood discussions, and cultural programming. We have worked to make Detroit is Different a place where Detroit can recognize itself and in particular Legacy Black Detroit can speak for itself, question itself, laugh with itself, and leave something behind for the people coming next. So while I understand that grantmaking is competitive and subjective—and appreciate an average reviewer score of 17.3 out of 20—I would be dishonest if I said that not advancing was not deflating. Especially when one reviewer offered perhaps the greatest compliment possible: “the project feels like home.”

At the same time, this experience helped reaffirm something about my own creative process. I have never had much enthusiasm for repeatedly translating Detroit is Different into grant language hoping that a selection committee will recognize its value. Creativity is subjective. A musician can be brilliant and still play for a room that isn’t their audience. The answer isn’t always to change the music; sometimes it is to find, nurture, and appreciate the people who already hear it. Detroit is Different is not built around chasing online trends or bending conversations toward whatever content arc is popular that week. We explore Detroit—community, life, business, society, history, and creativity—through conversation grounded in thought and lived experience. And people are listening. Our recent content over the last 30 days (July 18 – August 16, 2026) has now reached 206,892 total views: 103,459 on Facebook, 55,624 on TikTok, 33,258 on Instagram, and 14,551 on YouTube. I know much of that reach comes through short-form video, but I am grateful that those shorter pieces are becoming doors into deeper conversations. More importantly, audiences inside and outside Detroit continue finding value in stories rooted specifically in this city and its people. That reminds me that cultural work doesn’t always need to become more like the internet to matter; sometimes the internet needs more opportunities to encounter work grounded in culture, memory, place, and real human thought.

My team understands more clearly now why I believe our strongest opportunities often come from people who already see the value in what we are building

So I sincerely thank KIP:D+ for something I didn’t expect to receive from this process: greater alignment within my own team around where Detroit is Different should place its energy. My team understands more clearly now why I believe our strongest opportunities often come from people who already see the value in what we are building—the collaborators, neighbors, institutions, audiences, guests, and supporters who recognize Detroit is Different before we have to explain why it matters. That isn’t bitterness toward the grant process; it is clarity about creative dignity. We will continue welcoming people into Hope Village. We will continue documenting the stories that may never become headlines. We will continue building an archive of Detroit thought, memory, creativity, struggle, humor, business, family, and possibility. And we will continue doing it in our own voice. Thank you for the feedback, for the affirmation contained within it, and for helping us recognize that sometimes a “no” doesn’t have to make you question the work—it can help you better recognize the people who have been saying YES to it all along.

With appreciation,

Khary Frazier
Detroit is Different