Best Podcast Reviews

Doggie Diamonds: Podcasting Without a Filter

September 4, 2018 7:36 am

Last updated on September 5th, 2018

Gregory Lewis, publicly identified as “Doggie Diamonds”, is known for his interviews, which he has been creating for around 10 years first in video form and now in the form of a podcast: “Doggie Diamonds No Filter”.

He’s had major success in his interviewing career through YouTube and podcasting, he started off in music production. During that time, he decided on his stage name.

“When you play tag you have to put your feet in, everyone says ‘doggie doggie diamonds’,” said Doggie Diamonds. “Me being a music producer, I feel like I’m the chooser and if I choose to work with you you’re IT. So I’m Doggie Diamonds.”

He made the switch from producing music to doing interviews with musical talent.

“I had a relationship with a lot of people but I always had a big mouth and liked to talk and had opinions on stuff so I started doing a radio show,” said Diamonds.

His resume boasts interviews with superstars such as Nicki Minaj, Gucci Mane, Foxy Brown, Cam’ron, Future and many others. He’s done between 2,000 and 3,000 interviews.

“Me being in the music industry, I knew a lot of people already, when I transitioned from producing to doing interviews. I was like you know ‘you already know me,’ so I was asking questions and it was good because I have been able to ask them from the side of being an artist,” explained Diamonds. “The average writer doesn’t know what to ask them. It’s a very, very rehashed story. But for me I can ask them something on the inside about the music. Something the average interviewer, journalist or fan wouldn’t think to ask.”

Eventually he switched from video interviews to podcast interviews.

“It was a natural progression,” said Diamonds of the transition from doing interviews on video to doing interviews on a podcast. “It’s all media at the end of it all, doing DVDs, that’s what I was doing initially, I was like the first person to do interviews on the internet.”

When he heard about podcasting he realized that he had been doing essentially the same thing but on video. Now, he’s been podcasting for two years.

The podcast has a focus on Diamonds himself, with interviews making up only one portion of the show.

“There is a reason it’s called “Doggie Diamonds No Filter,” I am the personality, it’s about me,” said Doggie Diamonds. “I give my opinion and interject and I say things. The show is about me—I just have a guest. Whether they’re there or not, I can talk for two hours without breathing, without drinking. I talk for a living.”

The second half of the show’s title “No Filter” is there for a reason.

“I care about telling the truth, you can call me whatever you want but you can’t call me a liar,” said Doggie Diamonds. “It’s not a gossip thing. I don’t like to gossip, I like to tell the truth.”

Having no filter could, generally speaking, cause some upset within one’s audience but for Doggie Diamonds the “no filter” model has worked out well.

“Fortunately, people love my perspective, so I get to give you my perspective because it has no filter,” said Doggie Diamonds.

Though he always wants to focus on the art and entertainment and media, Doggie Diamonds feels he has a responsibility to cover other issues and topics as well.

“As a black man in entertainment, and in media, I have to talk about black issues, I have to or you’re talking about bullsh*t– if you’re talking about a new album coming out and an innocent black man got killed by the police, you’re talking about bullsh*t,” he said. “I have to speak on issues talking about black people, politically, socially, financially.”

He doesn’t want to be identified as a black podcaster but just as a podcaster. He doesn’t want to be put in a box.

“Every other race of people get to talk about whatever they want on their podcast or their platform,” said Doggie Diamonds. “As black podcasters we get held to a stigma that we have to talk about issues going on in our community which I want to cover— but I’m an international, I want to talk about more than that.”

Dealing with that label is one of the challenges Diamonds faces amongst many others as he navigates a career in interviewing. Others include YouTube’s changing algorithm, dealing with haters and more.

In spite of any challenge presented to him, Diamonds is in it for the long haul.

“I’ve been doing interviews for 10 years, I plan on doing interviews ’til the day I die. so, it is what it is you know, even when I’m 60 years old, I still be doing interviews,” he said.