Ep7: Trusting Your Voice with Keri Perkins

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Episode Summary

Wilma and Keri have known each other for almost fifteen years, since the days they were both PR girls in London — two women of colour in a profession that didn't always know what to do with them. Keri was running global comms for Nando's at the time, flying to Australia for forty-eight hours at a stretch and sleeping with her phone under her pillow in case of "chicken crisis." She was the woman behind the Nando's Black Card, the underground membership scheme that connected the brand to early-career artists like Stormzy, Little Simz and Ed Sheeran before any of them were household names.

Then she walked away. Eleven years in, she left for a yoga teacher training in Costa Rica that she says she didn't go on to become a yoga teacher. She just wanted to understand why this thing was changing her. She came home a teacher anyway.

This episode tracks the whole arc. From fashion to chicken to yoga to sound. From "I'm no Lauren Hill, I shouldn't be singing" to building Healing Sound System and co-founding Wykd, a free wellbeing project for the Notting Hill community after Grenfell. Wilma and Keri get into radical self-care as activism in a burning world, why "sound bath" isn't quite the right word, the difference between magic and bullshit, and what it costs to back yourself when no one else is convinced yet.

About the Guest

Keri Perkins is a cultural strategist, speaker, sound practitioner and yoga teacher. She spent eleven years at Nando's, latterly as Global Head of Communications, where she created the Nando's Black Card. She's the founder of Healing Sound System, a movement, mindfulness and sound practice focused on nervous system regulation, and co-founder of Wykd, which delivers free wellbeing sessions in London communities. She still advises brands across art, music and culture, and has spoken at Tate Late, the House of Commons, International Music Summit, Brighton Music Conference and ADE. She sits on the board of Bridges for Music in South Africa.

Connect with Keri:

• Instagram: @itskeriperkins
• Instagram (Healing Sound System): @healingsoundsystem

Key Topics Discussed

The Pivot Nobody Saw Coming

• Eleven years in PR, sleeping with her phone, traveling the world for a chicken brand
• Why she walked away when most people stay forever
• The financial reality of changing your life "relatively dramatically"

The Black Card Story

• How the Nando's Black Card became more difficult to get than an Amex Platinum or Soho House membership
• Building underground cultural cachet before anyone used the word "influencer"
• Why she focused on emerging artists instead of celebrities

How Yoga Found Her

• A conversation with a stranger called Andy at Snowbombing in Austria
• Walking past the studio in Notting Hill every day without knowing it was there
• The first class: "the most natural high I'd had ever"
• A whisper, then a bolt: deciding in Costa Rica to teach

Backing Yourself

• "Three cheers for me and to hell with the rest of them" — her father's saying she misunderstood for years
• Snoop Dogg thanking himself at his Hollywood Boulevard ceremony
• Why having your own back is a radical act, not a selfish one
• Wilma's three principles: boundaries, lower expectations, and self-love

Radical Self-Care as Activism

• Angela Davis on radical self-care in political times
• Why activists were arriving at DRK Beauty Healing therapy rooms on their knees during George Flo

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