[Unedited] Hanif Abdurraqib with Pádraig Ó Tuama

On Being with Krista Tippett

On Being Studios

Society, Spirituality, Society & Culture, Sociology, Culture, Science, Religion & Spirituality, Krista Tippett, Social Sciences, On Being, Arts

4.7 • 10.2K Ratings

🗓️ 29 April 2021

⏱️ 86 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Hanif Abdurraqib’s writing is filled with lyricism, rhythm, people and precision. In his essays and poetry, he introduces readers to a soundscape of Black performance and Black joy: we hear hip-hop and jazz, we hear Nina Simone, Aretha Franklin and Little Richard. Music and performance of every kind are the source of his fascination, focus and wisdom: what makes people cry, or feel safe, or brave; held in struggle, joy, or love. Hanif is interviewed by our colleague, Pádraig Ó Tuama, a poet himself and the host of On Being Studios’ Poetry Unbound podcast, now in its third season.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Support for on-being with Christa Tippett comes from the Fetzer Institute, helping build
0:04.5	the Spiritual Foundation for a loving world.
0:07.7	Fetzer's new study, what does spirituality mean to us?
0:11.4	Reveals how spirituality informs our understanding of ourselves and each other, and inspires us
0:16.5	to take action for the common good.
0:18.8	Explore these findings and more at spiritualitystudy.org.
0:24.2	I'm Christa Tippett.
0:25.5	Up next, my colleague, the poet, Padre Gotuma, interviews, poet and cultural critic,
0:31.4	Hanif Abdulrahkeib.
0:33.1	This is the unedited version of that interview.
0:35.8	The shorter version with wonderful music is this week's produced on-being.
0:41.2	So, Hanif, I am thrilled to talk to you, and a question I'd like to ask you is to tell
0:47.2	us your earliest memory of music?
0:53.1	The first song I remember hearing, or the first song I have a vivid memory of, is weirdly
1:00.7	a song that gave me a nightmare when I was a kid.
1:05.2	And I don't remember my dreams much, I never have, but I remember this so vividly that the
1:12.0	details of the nightmare still stick with me, and that song was Nina Simone's version
1:18.0	of pirate Jenny from her 1964 concert album.
1:23.5	And of course, pirate Jenny is a song that first got its notoriety in the three penny
1:31.4	opera.
1:32.9	But Nina Simone, as gifted as she was at many things, was perhaps most gifted at taking
1:40.4	songs that were perhaps not constructed with black people or a black experience in mind,
	...

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