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Hey, everybody. This is Chris Malanfi, host of Hit Parade, Slate's podcast of Pop Chart History.

Welcome to The Bridge.

This is a special episode of The Bridge, celebrating the release of my new book, Old Town Road.

We're making this show available to all hit parade listeners and

ad free for Slate Plus members. This discussion of my book was recorded live on Tuesday, November 14th,

2023 at Housing Works Bookstore in New York City. I was joined by Dan Charnas, author of the New York Times bestseller

Dilla Time, the life and afterlife of Jay Dilla, and the acclaimed The Big Payback, the history

of the business of hip-hop. My thanks to Hip Parade listeners who came to Housing Works that

evening, Dan and I were joined by a few dozen audience members for this lively discussion.

Enjoy.

Thank you all for coming tonight.

It's a pleasure to see you all here.

And my deepest thanks to this man right here, Dan Charnas, a great author in his own right, and I'm just so honored to have you here.

Thanks for having me.

I was going to read a little bit from the book, but if you have any requests or initial thoughts or anything like that?

I do. I have a lot of initial thoughts.

Lay it on me.

I just want to tell you just a little story to illustrate how I feel about this book.

So my day job as I teach history and writing to undergraduates at Tisch at the Clive Davis Institute for recorded music.

And this freshman history course that I teach is all about argument,

making arguments for historical figures.

...