Charlamagne Tha God breaks down Angela Yee’s ‘Breakfast Club’ exit and where the show stands now

During a recent interview with DJ Vlad, Charlamagne Tha God addressed a question about the success and longevity of TBC as a pop cultural institution. 

Though it’s been three years since Angela Yee departed the famed and hugely popular radio platform, “The Breakfast Club,” (TBC) alongside co-hosts DJ Envy and Charlamagne Tha God (CTG), that hasn’t stopped curious listeners and fans from inquiring about the impact of that change. During a recent interview with hip-hop journalist DJ Vlad, Charlamagne Tha God was asked if Angela Yee leaving helped or hurt TBC. 

“Fantastic question,” started Charlamagne. “I think that’s inconclusive. I don’t think it helps our hurts, you know? I think that that was an era. Like, Angela was with us, what, 12 years, 13 years? Like, we launched ‘The Breakfast Club’ together. Nobody can ever tell me anything bad about Angela Yee in regards to ‘The Breakfast Club,’ because when we started in 2010, us three individuals, myself, DJ Envy, and Angela Yee, that is who God put in that position to be that show, and that show had tremendous success.”

TBC launched in 2010 and became the go-to spot for interviews with some of hip-hop and R&B’s biggest acts and the spot of tremendous controversy along the way, like the infamous Birdman “put some respeck” on my name incident, the Ray J interview (which CTG has credited with saving the show), or even the famous interview where DMX spoke about hating Drake during an interview, that famously wove itself into the Kendrick Lamar vs. Drake beef in 2024. Those incidents, among hundreds more, made TBC a required stop for any artist promoting a project or looking to clarify something that hit the e-streets. 

In late 2022, however, the pop culture radio space was shaken up when Angela Yee announced that she was leaving “The Breakfast Club” (TBC), the urban news and interview show headlined (to that point) by her, DJ Envy, and Charlamagne Tha God. The show was such a cultural institution—easily one of the most listened to shows catering to the hip-hop and R&B demographic in America—that it was inducted into the Radio Hall of Fame in 2020. News of Yee leaving was met with all sorts of questions, chief among them: why? The public answer was that Yee was offered her own show in the iHeartMedia network, “Way Up with Angela Yee,” something that she claimed she’d long desired. Everybody moved on.

In an interview with Math Hoffa for his “My Expert Opinion” podcast, Yee addressed the split, echoing sentiments she’d shared many times over. 

“I left ‘The Breakfast Club’ because I got my own show. I think anybody would want to branch off and have a show with their name on it. So if any one of us would have had that opportunity, I would understand branching off to do it. And so I’m just really excited to be in that,” she said to Math Hoffa. Continuing, she shared, “I don’t think anybody would say, no, I don’t want it because I’ve been asking for the show for years. I was on ‘The Breakfast Club’ for 12 years, and so I’m just grateful that it finally happened.”

It’s been three years since Yee left for her own show and both her show and TBC have continued to truck along, successfully, running back-to-back in most markets where the shows are syndicated around the country. TBC has added hosts Jess Hilarious and Loren Lorosa (in somewhat dramatic fashion), continuing the show’s legacy of success as well as that of the individual hosts, something that CTG says is his hope for what TBC is culturally. 

“I think that’s what I’ve always envisioned ‘The Breakfast Club’ to be. I’ve always envisioned ‘The Breakfast Club’ to be this hub where different talent can constantly come through and do exactly what Angela Yee is doing right now. So, did it help or hurt? I don’t think it helped our hurt. I think that it just, you know, enabled us to be able to bring on, now, two new talents who are having, you know, success in their own right,” he shared. “Like, I think it to me, it helps. It helped everybody. It helped Angela. It helps ‘The Breakfast Club,’ to me, personally.”