Petal Modeste: What if you could share the wisdom, wit, values, and good humor of your entire immediate family with the world and in so doing, build a multimillion-dollar business, and change the world for the better. Sounds too good to be true?

Well, for Mirthell and Rita Mitchell and their 4 children, better known as the Onyx family, this is real. In 2016, Mirthell, a former minister of religion and marriage and family therapist, and Rita, a former CEO of a medical company,  founded Onyx Star, Media LLC and along with her their 4 children, produce a wide variety of entertainment content, including Onyx, Family, Onyx Kids and other brands on YouTube, Disney plus, Hulu, Amazon, Apple, Roco, among others.  Through their videos, Vlogs, Podcasts, shows, books and comedy sketches, the Onyx family accomplishes its mission to tell the story, feed the soul, make them laugh, heal the heart. And that mission has resonated big time. The family’s channels have over 10 million followers and more than 5 billion views worldwide. Rita and Mirthell join us today to share their journey and inspire us in our efforts to change the world for the better through our work and our parenting. Welcome, Rita and Mirthell, to Parenting for the Future. We are so excited and honored to have you here.

Mirthell Mitchell: Oh, we’re so happy to be here.

Petal Modeste: So, I understand that you both met at Oakwood College, where Mirthell, was doing a bachelor’s in divinity, and you, Rita, were a pre-med student. You got married pretty soon after meeting. So, Rita, tell us how you met, and how you knew you had found the one in Mirthell.

Rita Mitchell: You know I was a freshman at the time, and it was our second semester, and at Oakwood a common thing we do on the weekends. We go to church, and then after that we go to dinners. We kind of all split up, and we go to dinners at people’s homes off campus and my roommate at the time she was like Rita, you’ve got to come to this dinner with me, and I was like, I don’t know if I really want to go. I wasn’t really in the best mood, and she’s like, “please, if you come I’ll do anything”. And I was like, “all right”.  You know. She begged me for a while, and I said fine, and she was telling me on the way, these are Canadians, and I was like Canadians. And I walk in, and I’m sitting on the couch, and I’m just watching everybody, and I’m telling you it’s like I saw Mirthell, and I said, “he’s good looking”, and he came over. He said, it’s like we like a moth to a flame. He came over to the couch, sat next to me, and we started talking. And the funny thing is, he was there. His one of his friends was there to actually introduce him to another woman. I completely forgot about her. 

Petal Modeste: And the rest is history. Huh?

Rita Mitchell: The rest is history. He even took us back to the dorm, and it was like me everybody naturally just relegated themselves to the back seat and left the front seat open for me. It was almost like they just knew.

Mirthell Mitchell: And I’ve been driving her ever since. Yeah, and she’s a good driver. But like, I guess I’m the driver.

Petal Modeste: Driver. I know me and my husband have two totally different stories about how we met, so I’m glad that at least you agree on how you met. So, after college, you both went on to attain graduate degrees, and you were also raising children. Right? So, Mirthell tell us what life was like in those early years for the family?

Mirthell Mitchell: Life was super rewarding, but it was also tough. because I had a minister’s salary, and I was not a Mega Church minister. I was living in the States at the time, because I wanted to make sure that Rita finished her nurse practitioner degree. We decided to go the nursing route, we were having children and it just seemed impossible to merge the two together. So, she went the nursing route, but as she was in school, I was the only one working, and with the Canadian dollar went down to even 70 cents for the American dollar, paying American bills with Canadian salary, traveling the distance from Buffalo, New York area to Toronto, which where I worked, you know. So, it was. like an impossible situation to be able to keep up. We had dollar store Christmases and then we began to lose our home. We began to lose our and so our children really came into this world with hard knocks, life and the values. So, when we work together now, and I know that we’re heading to now from the struggle, life to the onyx life. But when we work together now, besides my youngest son, who kind of grew up in the onyx life. My daughters have a keen awareness of the value of hard work , a keen awareness of the value of achievement. A keen awareness of the joy of both sharing your space and sharing who you are and what you have, and having your own, and an appreciation of that balance.

So, it creates a closeness and a bonding. That is unique because we get to have things now in this world. And appreciate it, because we did not always have those things.

Petal Modeste: So, talking about sort of the journey to being the Onyx family. If I recall Rita, you eventually convinced Mirthell  to give up his ministry and practice and move with you, and obviously your kids to Florida, because you had this great opportunity to serve as CEO of a new medical company. After only a short time in your new role, however, you found it unfulfilling, and it was so demanding that you were spending less and less time with your family. For some reason you started to pay attention to YouTube. And I really want to understand how come like, what was appealing to you about YouTube? How did you and Mirthell eventually embark on this decision to become basically youtubers.

Rita Mitchell: Well, I love the way that you sum that up because it was so true. That’s exactly how it all happened, and, like you said I was exhausted. I would leave the house at 7 in the morning, come home around 6 Pm. Spend an hour with the kids and then work till midnight. It was just brutal. And you know I was looking at YouTube and I was just escaping and looking at everybody else’s life on YouTube going, “How do I have that life where it felt like they just wake up, put a camera on them.” And then that’s what they do. And I noticed that there were a few people that I used to watch that started doing these skits, and you know I was being very logical and I was like they would not do this unless they were making money. And I checked this site that showed how much views and what the estimated revenue was, and these channels were making like a stunning amount of money. And I said, What okay? You know what? I don’t know how they get paid. I don’t know if we did it if we would get paid. But I thought, wouldn’t it be fun if we did skits as a family, and what’s the worst that could happen. We make great family memories. So, I brought the kids in, and I wasn’t expecting to tell Mirthell yet, because I was like I just dragged them down to Florida.) So let me not tell him yet. So, I’m like telling the kids because the kids they had already like, especially Shiloh, our youngest, he was already saying, I want to be like, Evan, this youtuber at the time, who would just unbox like toys. Everybody was already watching it, but nobody really thought that they could be A Youtuber. But we started talking. And as we’re talking, Mirthell walks in, and he’s like, “what are you talking about?” And I was like, oh, boy. So, I’m like, well, you know, this is something that I was thinking about doing. And Mirthell, said, “okay, cool. Let’s go get costumes.”  This is the thing about Mirthell. I’m the planner. He is the action. I will plan. I’ll have analysis, paralysis, and he will be like, no, let’s go and do it.

Petal Modeste: That’s me Rita!

Rita Mitchell: Exactly so. You know how that is. So, I was so grateful that God was like, let me bring this man into this room before. And we did it and we did it. We started it, imperfectly. We did it , we started with our cameras on our phone. And it’s not the 2025 cameras And I just I just made it happen. I went online and I started studying about algorithms. I started studying saving your metadata. I started learning everything I could so that we would have success. And it just grew and it’s funny because you could know everything. But it’s that spark. It’s that something that you can’t really explain. You can’t even force. And within 2 weeks it just took off, and my life was never the same.  Within one month we were able to pay off every single debt we had. 

Petal Modeste: Wow!

Rita Mitchell: So, it was. incredible, and it just changed our lives. And I’m just so grateful that Mirthell did come in, and he said, all right, let’s go.

Petal Modeste: So, what made you say yes to this Mirthell and how did you develop this What I would call the mindset of an entrepreneur? Because it’s a different way of thinking and looking at the world.

Mirthell Mitchell: I was taught that it would be education that breaks the ceiling, and so I gravitated towards education. And so, when she came to me with that idea, I was at such a desperate spot because I had left my private practice. I left my church ministry,  and that’s all I knew. My dad was a minister all his life until he died from cancer. So, all I knew was how to parlay my education into opportunities, but not make further opportunities with my education, because that’s another thing. You can do both. You can take your education and become an entrepreneur, and that’s sometimes the best thing, because now you’re able to live out your passion and your mission in life. So, when she told me this, I was having a very hard time . I had been resentful about the move, and I wanted to prove to her that I could be positive. And now  we have been able to live and shine our light, and live a purposeful life as opposed to just looking for wealth or looking to keep up and survive.

Petal Modeste: I had mentioned that your mission is to tell the story, feed the soul, make them laugh and heal the heart. Was this your goal, Rita, from the very beginning? And if not, how did this emerge as your mission?

Rita Mitchell: I think that my goal in the beginning was to just entertain, build the audience. I’m always aware, just as you know many people are of our ethnicity that anytime you put yourself out there, you are either going to be a role model or you’re going to be somebody that could be detrimental to our culture, because everyone looks at us. As soon as you put yourself out there. That’s what they’re evaluating. Are you good for the culture or not? And you can’t just be, you know. At 1st we started with costumes that were, you know, just like what you would see like on Disney or Marvel, or DC, and I started to really have this idea that we needed to really show ourselves more; we need to have something that is meaningful. So, I said, what about the name? Onyx? Now enter Mirthell, who’s always looking for you know the heart and the mission of what we’re doing. He’s the one that came up with our mission statement because he wanted to make sure that we were doing was a bridge from ministry in the Church to now ministry to the world, and we knew that ministry, just it can come in several different ways. This one was to touch people and bring joy. And so that’s how the mission started. it evolved and I would say that, like I expected. We started to get feedback from so many people in the community where they were like, you know, I’m so glad that my children can see other children, their complexion, their age just being entertaining and laughing like I can set my kids in front of you guys and not worry. 

Petal Modeste: What reservations. And either of you can answer this. What reservations, if any, did you have about making this a family venture, including the children because they’re young. They needed to be educated. I think you might have been homeschooling them. Actually, you have to confirm that. But you know, you have to really think about their education, their advancement, their overall development. And now they’re becoming youtubers. Was there any sort of conflict in your mind? Or was it always clear to you that this would be a family thing? You would figure out how to make sure your kids continue to evolve and to grow, but that this was this was the plan that you would do this as a family?

Mirthell Mitchell: You know it’s interesting. We were very committed to homeschooling, and when you’re very committed to homeschooling, then you start seeing education a little bit differently. You see, education as opportunities for life to teach you lessons. So that means education is everywhere to a homeschooler but with the understanding that there are many ways to educate. You don’t always have to be sitting behind a desk with everybody facing forward, facing one person who is supposed to be in charge of giving information.  We understood that each individual cannot be told who they’re going to be. They have to be inspired, and we are to discover who we are to be and then follow that path. 

Rita Mitchell: And I think for me at the time I never thought it was mutually exclusive. It was like, I never knew that this would become our family business. It was so flexible that I never said to them. You only can do this. When this came into our lives like it was just. It was like that magical piece that we didn’t know was missing, and they just blossomed.

Petal Modeste: So, Rita, I understand that you have a rule about comments on your channels, which is that no one in the family ever reads them. Is that still the rule? Tell me.

Mirthell Mitchell: I think a few, a few, a few people have broken that.

Rita Mitchell: I think that it’s not. It’s not such an ironclad rule anymore. And I’ll tell you a few things why. Firstly,  when we first started, I mean, the trolls were out of this world on YouTube just for anybody. And so, we still actually have a long list of words that just don’t show up in the comments like a long list of phrases and words, and it was more needed back then. Nowadays, I think YouTube’s system has gotten smarter. We don’t necessarily go through all the comments. It’s really impractical.  What we do now is, we do tend to look at some of the comments, especially maybe when we first upload, and maybe the first  few comments. We had to build up that resiliency. I had seen way too many people, gradually became a slave to the comments. Oh, they didn’t like this. So let me do this. Oh, they didn’t like that. Let me do that. Because we all know you could get 10 positive ones and one negative. And what will your mind focus on?

Petal Modeste: The one!

Rita Mitchell: Exactly. So that was something that was definitely a role. When I started, I said, guys, we’re not doing this. If I cannot get a promise from you that you will not look at comments, I said. One of the things we have to understand is we are entertainers, and we will not, and we cannot entertain everyone. We can’t make everyone happy. Maybe our stuff will not be for everyone. But we do not need to read the people who say, oh this isn’t for me.  And that was more important, especially back then, because they were younger. You know our oldest ones were teenagers. Our youngest child was like 9, so it was very important that we did not do that. It’s not so much a hard, fast rule. Everybody’s an adult, and everybody can just choose what they want, but because we started off that way, we are nowhere near someone who will, you know, start looking at comments and then becoming dependent on that validation.

Petal Modeste: You did make a decision also, I understand, early on to not be political, to not be religious. I’m interested in what the thinking was behind that.

Mirthell Mitchell: Many of our societal problems are rooted in the family, and that’s the reason why a podcast like this is so important is because some of the greatest challenges that we face as a people and the greatest solution to those is common values that we all share. It doesn’t matter what your faith is or what background you come from, or if you have no faith at all. We all have a yearning and a desire as first to be kind to one another, to experience, kindness and sharing, and these are common values that every single religion shares. Everybody gravitates to love, no matter who you are, no matter what your belief system is. And so, I equate love to sharing God And since it’s a common thing, I did not think that I need to talk about the belief systems that may be different. And so, it was very important for me when I’m talking to children, that I’m not indoctrinating others with my belief system. But I don’t think anything was wrong with sharing the commonality that I have with a Muslim, with a Jew with an atheist is this commonality of love.

Petal Modeste: Yeah

Mirthell Mitchell : And so, we determined that we are going to spread love. Politics can be very dividing as well. but yet once again, there’s a whole lot of commonalities, because everybody wants to be in a well-running country where everybody is respected.  So, we don’t believe in being political, and we do not believe in pushing religious agendas, but we do believe in love and the commonalities that we share.

Petal Modeste: Very well put. So, what advice do you have for other families who are contemplating, you know, doing what you guys did. And how do you support up and coming entrepreneurs who, like you, would love to start a business on YouTube would love to become a Youtuber, etc. And most importantly also, have powerful positive messages to share with the world?

Rita Mitchell: I think that the advice that I would give is to definitely not look at it anymore as being a youtuber as much as being a social media influencer.  Tik Tok is huge. Instagram is still getting bigger. I wouldn’t say primarily, go on Facebook, I think you know. He really does but I think that those are the Big 3 that I would focus on. And I think if you are a certain type of influencer, I would say, you can do also Snapchat, but I think that for the most part the average person is going to do really well if they focus actually, if they do, their 1st entrance into it with TikTok. One thing I love about TikTok is that it is extremely casual. You could just get on there. People are in their bonnets, and they’re just talking. And it’s so, it’s so casual. It gets people very comfortable with the camera and if you know how to edit for TikTok, you’ll know how to edit for anything. But then there is that learning curve that YouTube is now. Back in 2016, I would still say you had to be polished, but nowhere near like how you need to be right now. The funny part is that we don’t necessarily do casual. We’re so structured because of how we started while other people are way. More like, yeah, I’m just going to get in the car, I’m going to start talking for us. It’s like, Well, where’s the ring light? You know?

Petal Modeste: Yeah. Yeah. The makeup blah, blah.

Rita Mitchell: I think it’s evolved so much that every few years I get this question, and every few years I have to keep changing it because it’s like, you know, everything is so different. And now, with AI, its completely different. Because now they’re just going to make up AI families that we’re going to watch. My advice is study. AI. Study how you can incorporate that into whatever thing that you want to do. If you want to be like us and be like on a social media family, I would say, you know, start on TikTok. But I would say this, too. I personally, and I could be wrong. I personally do not feel that we’re headed more towards family influencers in the same way, like, I feel like there’s eras, and there’s phases for things. And I think that primarily we’re going to utilize social media and everything as a way to connect and as a way to communicate with each other. But for entertainment, I do not believe that it’s going to be the same. I don’t believe that people are going to be looking at families in the same way to do vlogging or skip videos or things like that. I believe that kids these days want drama and they’re also very self-aware. they’re into anime. They’re into so many different things that if we started off doing the same thing that we did almost 10 years ago, we would not have been successful. Now there’s a phase. So, the next piece of advice is, you must look at what you are currently.  Do not look to be what we were 10 years ago.

Everything has changed. There’s always a new opportunity. You just have to know what time it is right now, and the way that I look at it is, if you want to be a social media influencer. People want to connect, and they also want to know what is useful for them. They don’t just want mindless entertainment. 

Petal Modeste: When people come to you, and they say, “help me.” Do you have a mechanism to support them. Is there a way that you have sort of packaged some of your lessons, learned some of your experience?   

Mirthell Mitchell: We love to help. And we saw some disparities between African Americans online. And so, it was like a throwback to black entertainment. B – black entertainment and U – YouTube, youtubers, basically. It was for that community. And we were looking for a broader perspective to show the world. So that was what our intent was. And so right now we don’t have the BU family anymore.  However, there are individuals that were a part of that that have grown to help communities.  One family that we know right now is on a hit show. Abbott elementary,  their children are  both on Abbott. We’ve had really great people join that group. We have a document that we try to share with everybody as much as possible. It’s 10 tips for any business that you have, so we give that for free. We also have some other documents that we used to charge for.

Rita Mitchell: And I’ll say one of the reasons why we don’t necessarily have a full course anymore is because it’s it rapidly changes. Especially now with AI you know I follow AI news. It’s just lightning fast, and it’s just like you just date yourself. And another thing that was happening, too, was that I was trying to encourage people to just be entrepreneurs in general, because I saw how the freedom it gave me with my life. And one thing I noticed, too, that is, that once they start to see that people are making good money in one area. Laws come down like that, and then people stop making money. And one of the things that people don’t realize is that our journey on YouTube and even on social media has been full of challenges. We ‘ve dealt with every single policy change that has hit YouTube. We’ve dealt with problems on other platforms, unfair policies we’ve dealt with, mistaking our account for things that were like phishing or something, and we’ve had to get appeals. We’ve been blacklisted. We’ve had to get that reversed. It’s been a minefield. The advice is, find people in your niche. Because you guys, you’re going to need support and build that community because, baby, you’re going to need it.

Petal Modeste: Yeah. You know, I’m very happy. You talked a little bit about some of the challenges, because we really haven’t focused a lot on that.

Petal Modeste: So, to the extent you can discuss them. What are one or two exciting projects that ONYX  media is working on? 

Mirthell Mitchell: Well, we created book a book series that is an adaptation of our videos so that kids would be eager to learn to read. A hundred books is my personal goal for a series that we now have. I think we have 20 something, and I’m trying to get it to get it to 100 books, children book series. 

Rita Mitchell: Now is like the perfect time. We’re all older. The brand has evolved while we still do things as a family, our main thing is doing more of our separate brands under the umbrella of our family brand. So, we have our daughter, who’s a gamer. Her brand is just thriving. That’s my second daughter, Sinead. We have my oldest daughter. She’s more into nostalgia. We have our 3rd daughter who’s a very business minded – she writes, she does gaming, she’s also our head editor. And then we have our son, who is also into writing. He’s also into gaming. But he’s going to college in the next few months.  So, these are the things we are working on. And so, we’re doing it in multiple genres. His is more the children. But we have other genres that are hitting different niches within, and it’s all going under our publishing company while we still keep up the visual part of our brand. So, there’s another piece of advice for anybody: Create books, because that IP is worth a lot. And so having a big catalog of books is like sitting on a pile of gold. The same thing with our videos. We have like thousands of videos. Now, we’ve licensed them. That’s why we can be on Hulu. We’ve been on Southwest airlines. We’ve been on.

Petal Modeste: Amazon Prime.

RIta Mitchell: And Peacock. And you know all of these things because we actually have a catalog. So, whatever you do, whether it’s a podcast whether it’s books, whether it’s videos,

Mirthell Mitchell: Build a catalog 

Rita Mitchell: That IP is worth everything.

Petal Modeste: I’m calling you guys after this, okay? So, as you both know, our goal on this podcast is to really give all who parent a better understanding of the forces, shaping the future as well as cutting edge, parenting, tools, and resources, all of which they can leverage as they raise their children to thrive in and positively impact their world. Our world is challenging. You all know all the things that are happening. Our climate is warming; wars and conflict abound. Technology is connecting us in more ways and at greater speeds than ever before, while simultaneously amplifying our best and worst instincts, economies, democracies, human rights, and the international norms we have taken for granted for so long all seem to be in freefall. So, it’s no wonder that anxiety and depression and other mental health challenges are at an all-time high among children and adults alike. So, as  you think very carefully about all the phenomena that are influencing our future. How is your work changing? I mean, you touched a little bit on this just now, Rita. You know you talked about books, and that books are timeless, but in terms of the substance of what you’re producing, what you’re writing about in the books. How is the time that we’re living in impacting that content?

Mirthell Mitchell: Well, we’re being a little bit more directive and proactive, because before we didn’t understand the vehicle, and how powerful it was. And so, the reason why we’re really leaning into the storytelling is because from the very beginning, like we said, tell the story, you feed the soul, make them laugh. You heal the heart.  Storytelling is transformative and so we’re telling these stories because we realize that our climate is in trouble, or that we realize that our societies are in trouble, and that our differences are dragging us further away than our commonalities are pulling us together. 

Petal Modeste: Last question and Rita you can start because I heard you say on an interview you’ve done (and I am very inspired by this) that people should never give up on their dreams even when they seem long in coming, because and we touched on it a little earlier. The wisdom and the knowledge that you are acquiring along the way will actually be very instrumental to you – when that time comes. So, what are your best practices for sticking to your dreams, no matter what?

Rita Mitchell: Wow! I love this question especially 10 years into it. Almost you know, even though it started in 2016, 2015 is when we started dabbling. So now we’re basically really 10 years into this. And one of the things that keeps me going is knowing that I was created for this. It’s like, I know that this is what I’m supposed to be doing every single time I’ve thought about doing something else.  I have realized that. That’s not my role. And you know, this is my faith in God. This is what I believe. I believe that He has us all in different lanes, and we are not supposed to be all things to all people. and that where He has us, we have to understand that will have challenges, and it’s designed to refine your character so you can’t run from this platform or this, you know, you’re calling to go and jump into somebody else’s lane and think. But it’s going to be easier over there. No, there’s a challenge in every single aspect of life. It doesn’t matter, or any field of work that you’re in. There’s going to be a challenge. You just have to accept that that is a part of life, and so that helps to keep me going.  Never giving up on your dreams is also like we’ve made it out. To be like the dream is something mythical, something mystical like. It’s just going to fall out of the sky. No, a dream is also something you literally create. We had to go out. We had to step out in faith; we had to create it. The not giving up is just putting your foot one foot in front of the other every day doesn’t have to be perfect. When you look back now and you realize everything you’ve been through, everything that you’ve worked through, you realize how it’s changed you.  So, pick your challenge, pick your dream, and then just stick to it because it will work out. The dream is not just to be honest family YouTubers. The dream is to make a difference. The dream is to continue to minister to millions of people.

Mirthell Mitchell: When you talk about a dream, . We went from the struggle life to the Onyx life. We went from empty glasses to full glasses, I went from bringing my children to prayer, meeting as a pastor, homeschooling them, and knowing that I had so many deficiencies that I did not know whether my education was going to be good enough for them. And they would turn on SpongeBob, and they would turn on the Wild Thornberrys, and Shalom would say, I want to be a cartoonist, and I want to be an “animationist”. Fast forward many years later, I am watching my daughter sitting around a table of writers that are from Nickelodeon that are with Doreen Spicer, who is a producer of the Proud Family. And she is writing her own episodes to our own cartoon that is right now on Disney Plus. On Hulu. On Peacock. My daughter writes all the music and has all the rights to all the music of our cartoon. We have been placed in a unique situation where my daughter’s dream, to now have her own cartoon with her own name.

Petal Modeste: Well, I think that’s a wonderful note to end on.  it’s a reminder of the power of faith and the power of belief, whatever your faith tradition might be, and that when you step out, you take the leap, the bridge appears, and things do work out. So, I am just so grateful to the two of you for visiting with us, for sharing yourselves and your story, you are an inspiration, both of you, as individuals, but also your family. And you’re a light in this world, and we need more and more of those these days. I hope you’ll come back and visit us.  All the blessings to you, to you both, and to your family.

Mirthell and Rita Mitchell: Thank you so much.

The Onyx Family

Onyx Monster Mysteries – Apple TV 

Onyx Family Ultimate Mishmash– Amazon Prime

The Onyx Family – FB

The Onyx Family YouTube

The Onyx Family – IG

The Onyx Family – TikTok