This is the story of how a group of people brought music back to Afghanistan by creating their own version of American Idol.

The joy they brought to the nation.

You're free completely.

No one is there to destroy you.

The danger they endured.

They said my head should be cut off.

I'm John Legend.

Listen to Afghan Star on the I Heart Radio app, Apple

Podcast, or wherever you get your podcast. Welcome to Noble Blood, a production of I Heart Radio and Grim and Mild from Aaron Manky.

Listener discretion advised.

It is April of 1668 and the London Tavern Keeper can't stop looking at the odd party of four all drinking together at his establishment. a her. The tavern keeper notices others covertly glancing her way.

But she's also undeniably strange.

She is not a black-haired, black-eyed beauty like the other women following the fashion of the age.

Instead, she has red hair and hazel eyes.

When she reaches for her beer, she moves as if she's used to being looked at, maybe even gocked at. The theater

at Lincoln's Inn fields is not far away. She could even be one of those salacious women, this new

class of people who call themselves actresses. Whatever she is, she's clearly

ignoring the man beside her who appears to be her date.

Instead the woman has her eye on another man at the table. The brazen flirtation with that man seems urgent. He has a regal bearing, though

the tavern keeper can't quite place him. What would a nobleman be doing here in a tavern with an

actress, a profession that's considered more or less equivalent to sex work. An actress who was married to a fellow

performer could be seen as respectable. But an unmarried actress, everyone knew

...