Pushkin.

What do poll dancing, AI Chappots and diet culture all have in common.

These subjects have a home on Embodied, the award-winning podcast I host from North Carolina

Public Radio W-U-N-C.

My name is Anita Rao, and you can consider me your personal guide to taking on the taboo.

Join me to explore important questions about our bodies and our society, where nothing is off limits.

So go ahead, listen to Embodied Every Friday wherever you get your podcasts.

I think it's hard to talk about identity and I think that the music I make on my own is engaging with that in a way that I hope is inclusive that you know that anybody can come to and anyone can connect you know I don't need every person who listens to this album to be the son or the daughter of immigrants.

I don't need everyone who listens to this album to not identify a straight,

but I want to connect with all of those people.

And I think it's hard to try to connect with every different kind of person,

people that you might disagree with,

people that you might not have shared experiences with.

But yeah, why is it hard to connect in those ways?

It's hard to know.

That was Rostam, Bon Mondledge. I'm Sam Fregoso.

This is Talk Easy. Welcome to the show. Oh, The year is 2006. On the heels of graduating from Columbia University,

Rostam-Bot-Mongledge decided to create a band. A 22-23-year year old guy wanting to start a group with his friends is not an uncommon

desire. It seems everyone has a band in their early 20s. But what Rostam co-created was not your standard makeshift

musical collective. It was a coming together of skilled artists interested in a

kind of Sonic chemistry, an amalgamation of catchy pop,

neo-classical, African, and alt rock. It was unusual and daring. It was fresh and exciting. It was, well,

...