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Na'kya McCann Na'kya McCann is a reporter and host for Embedded: Buffalo Extreme.
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Na'kya McCann

Na'kya McCann

Reporter and Host, Embedded: Buffalo Extreme

Na'kya McCann is a reporter and host for Embedded: Buffalo Extreme. She is a college student studying social work, and a junior coach at BASE gym in Buffalo, NY. Buffalo Extreme is her first podcast.

Story Archive

Wednesday

How a Black cheer squad in Buffalo deals with the racist massacre blocks away

The Buffalo All-Star Extreme cheer team grapples with the repercussions from a mass shooting at a nearby grocery store. Kristen Uroda for NPR hide caption

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Kristen Uroda for NPR

Perspective

Code Switch

How a Black cheer squad in Buffalo deals with the racist massacre blocks away

This week, we're sharing the first episode of "Buffalo Extreme," a three-part series from our play cousins at NPR's Embedded. The series follows a Black cheer squad, their moms and their coaches in the year after the racist massacre at the Jefferson Street Tops in Buffalo, New York, just blocks from their gym. NPR hands the mic to the girls and women in that community as they navigate the complicated path to recovery in the year after.

How a Black cheer squad in Buffalo deals with the racist massacre blocks away

Listen · 32:47
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Monday

Buffalo Extreme: Winners
Kristen Uroda for NPR

Embedded

Buffalo Extreme: Winners

It's competition season, and the girls say they're over what happened at the Tops supermarket last year. "I'm fine!" But then the shooter has his sentencing hearing, and those feelings come flooding back. When they hit the stage — they're wobbly. And argumentative. The girls and Coach Yani open up about the hard truth: where they really stand one year later.

Buffalo Extreme: Winners

Listen · 38:42
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Thursday

Buffalo Extreme: Do Good, Get Good

It's hard enough for adults to carry on after a mass shooting. How do kids manage it? We hear from kids at a cheer team whose gym was blocks away from last year's racist massacre in Buffalo, N.Y. Kristen Uroda for NPR hide caption

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Kristen Uroda for NPR

Embedded

Buffalo Extreme: Do Good, Get Good

How do you make sense of something terrible that's happened—and move forward? From the cheer gym to the therapy office, we follow the parents, coaches and kids of Buffalo All-Star Extreme in the year after the Tops massacre. The mass shooting set back the cheerleaders' training schedule by months, and now competition is just weeks away. After everything that happened to her community, Coach Yani wants her team to win more than ever.

Buffalo Extreme: Do Good, Get Good

Listen · 48:07
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Tuesday

It's been one year since the Buffalo shooting. How has it changed the community?

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It's Been a Minute

It's been one year since the Buffalo shooting. How has it changed the community?

It has been one year since a white supremacist drove to a predominantly Black neighborhood with an AR-15 style rifle and murdered 10 people and injured 3 others. NPR's Embedded podcast has followed a cheerleading troop over the past year to understand how the mass shooting changed the community. This week, Brittany brings you the first episode in their multi-part series.

It's been one year since the Buffalo shooting. How has it changed the community?

Listen · 42:21
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Thursday

Buffalo Extreme: Base

The Buffalo All-Star Extreme cheer team grapples with the repercussions from a mass shooting at a nearby grocery store. Kristen Uroda for NPR hide caption

toggle caption
Kristen Uroda for NPR

Embedded

Buffalo Extreme: Base

Ayanna Williams Gaines is the coach and founder of Buffalo All-Star Extreme, a Black competitive cheerleading and dance team from Buffalo, New York. Williams Gaines started the gym as a space for Black girls to feel safe and to thrive in the predominantly white world of cheer. But on May 14, 2022, a white supremacist came to a predominantly Black neighborhood on the east side of Buffalo and killed ten Black people at a grocery store just a few blocks away from the gym. In the wake of the massacre, feeling like a target, Williams Gaines and her cheer families are faced with the challenge of making sure their cheerleaders feel safe and confident, on and off the stage.

Buffalo Extreme: Base

Listen · 43:05
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