Episode 546
with Sam Jay, Jelani Memory, Leyla McCalla & Black Violin
Host Luke Burbank and announcer Elena Passarello celebrate "Black History Month" with this special episode. Comedian Sam Jay (Saturday Night Live) discusses developing a whole new kind of late night show with her HBO series PAUSE with Sam Jay; writer and publisher Jelani Memory (A Kids Book About Racism) explains how he launched a book series for parents and kids to tackle heavy topics; cellist and folk musician Leyla McCalla brings the musicality of Langston Hughes' poetry to life with "Song for a Dark Girl" from her Smithsonian Folkways album Vari-Colored Songs; and instrumental duo Black Violin unpack the intersection of hip hop and classical music, before performing the titular track of their album Stereotypes.
Sam Jay
Comedian
Sam Jay is a stand-up comedian and Emmy-nominated television writer. She was named one of Variety’s 10 Comics to Watch for 2018, and since then, Sam’s stardom has only risen. She debuted her first one-hour stand up special, Sam Jay: 3 in the Morning, on Netflix while her weekly late-night HBO series PAUSE with Sam Jay earned her a 2022 WGA nomination for Comedy/Variety Sketch Series—and she was her own competition, receiving nominations for her work on SNL and That Damn Michael Che in the same category in the same year. Most recently, Sam starred in the Peacock comedy series Bust Down, executive-produced by Lorne Michaels, which she created with co-stars Chris Redd, Langston Kerman, and Jak Knight." Website • Twitter • Instagram
Jelani Memory
Writer & Entrepreneur
Jelani Memory is an African American writer, storyteller, and entrepreneur who lives in Portland, Oregon with his wife and six kids. When he realized that there was no adequate book to teach kids about racism, he wrote one and called it A Kids Book About Racism. It was a smashing success, and the seed of his idea has grown into the media company A Kids Company About, which has since launched a podcast network and an educational streaming platform, in addition to publishing over 50 kids books—on topics like divorce, optimism, voting, cancer, shame, racism, gratitude, empathy, and being non-binary—that have sold hundreds of thousands of copies. Website • Instagram • YouTube
Leyla McCalla
Musician
Deeply influenced by traditional Creole, Cajun, and Haitian music, as well as by American jazz and folk, Leyla McCalla’s music is at once earthy, elegant, soulful, and witty — it vibrates with three centuries of history, yet also feels strikingly fresh, distinctive and contemporary. Leyla’s debut album, Vari-Colored Songs: A Tribute to Langston Hughes, was named 2013’s Album of the Year by the London Sunday Times and Songlines for its haunting mixture of music and message. “Her voice is disarmingly natural, and her settings are elegantly succinct…her magnificently transparent music holds tidings of family, memory, solitude and the inexorability of time: weighty thoughts handled with the lightest touch imaginable,” wrote The New York Times. A limited release at the time, the album saw it’s re-release from Smithsonian Folkways Records, and its topics are only amplified by the year’s social and political unrest. “[The album] is an illuminating conversation between artists both past and present, and balm for the soul,” said Bandcamp. Website • Instagram • Listen
Black Violin
Hip-Hop Duo
Black Violin is the hip-hop duo of Wil B. and Kev Marcus. Both classically-trained string instrumentalists—Wil on viola and Kev on violin—the pair met as students at Dillard High School, an arts magnet school in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. The two began performing string covers of hip-hop songs under the name Black Violin in 2004 and have since toured with Mike Shinoda of Linkin Park, composed music for the Fox television show Pitch, opened for the Wu-Tang Clan, and collaborated with 2 Chainz, Lil Wayne, and Alessia Cara, among others. They released two independent and self-financed albums before releasing their major label debut, Stereotypes which was followed by a Christmas album called Give Thanks. Website • Instagram • YouTube
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Luke Burbank: Hey there, Elena.
Elena Passarello: Hey, Luke. How's it going?
Luke Burbank: It's going well. Hey, are you ready to play a little "station location identification examination"?
Elena Passarello: Let's do it.
Luke Burbank: This is where I'm going to quiz Elena. About a place in the country or on the radio. And she got to guess where I am talking about. All right. This city is home to the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum, which was created by former players back in 1990. You can see all kinds of amazing stuff, including some really great kind of information on folks like Jackie Robinson and Buck O'Neil.
Elena Passarello: I'm making this noise to stall because I do not know the answer.
Luke Burbank: But the good news is I've got lots of hints. How about the fact that Charlie Parker is from this place? Now, I always kind of knew Charlie Parker's nickname to be Bird, but I guess before that folks would call him Yardbird because he really loved chicken. And then it got shortened to Bird. Anyway, he was born in this place, and he played his first gig at Country Club Plaza in this town.
Elena Passarello: Okay. I think that that's where they have crazy little women. Kansas City, Missouri.
Luke Burbank: Kansas City, Missouri is exactly right where we're on the radio on KANU Radio. It's also the home to Cathay Williams, who in 1861 was the first African-American woman to enlist in the U.S. Army. (Wow.) Back when women were prohibited from serving, she posed as a man to get into the Army. So shout out to Cathay Williams and shout out to everyone tuning-in in Kansas City, Missouri. Congratulations on your football team's success of late. And thanks for tuning into Live Wire. Shall we get to the show?
Elena Passarello: Yeah, let's do it.
Luke Burbank: All right. Take it away.
Elena Passarello: From PRX, it's Live Wire! This week: comedian Sam Jay.
Sam Jay: A lot of people we talk to are not TV savvy, and that's on purpose because we want real people with real opinions and not people who have practiced opinions. You know what I mean?
Elena Passarello: And writer Jelani Memory.
Jelani Memory: We lie to ourselves about what is okay and not okay for kids. And that's not for their sake. I actually believe it's for our sake.
Elena Passarello: With music from Leyla McCalla and Black Violin. I'm your announcer Elena Passarello and now the host of Live Wire, Luke Burbank.
Luke Burbank: Hey, thank you so much, Elena Passarello. And thanks to everyone for tuning in from all over the country, including Kansas City, Missouri. This week we are celebrating Black History Month and we have a special episode in store with a lot, a lot to get to. So let's jump right into our first guest. She was named one of Variety's Ten Comics To Watch back in 2018, and it turned out a lot of people did watch her and have been watching her. She released a stand up special on Netflix, "Three in the Morning." She was then hired as a writer on Saturday Night Live where she wrote those black Jeopardy sketches, which are kind of legendary in the world of SNL these days. We talked to Sam Jay about her weekly late night HBO series. It's called "Pause with Sam Jay" and it is a really inventive take on the whole idea of what a late night talk show can be. So check this out. It's our conversation with Sam Jay. Sam Jay, welcome to Live Wire.
Sam Jay: Hi. Thank you guys for having me.
Luke Burbank: It is so hard to make a show that doesn't look like other shows because, like, almost everything has been done. But you somehow accomplished that with pause. I mean, it's really a vibe. I'm just curious what the conversations were like when you were developing the show. Like what you wanted it to kind of look and feel like.
Sam Jay: We had a lot of conversations about what the show was going to be, you know, some trial and error of like fleshing out some ideas, and then, first, we definitely started with a feeling and we just wanted it to feel like how real people have conversations and, you know, not knocking any late night. It's a format and it's a format that's worked for years, but it just doesn't ever feel to me like what people talk like for real. It just feels like this very canned conversation. And I was like, all right, we can just make something where it feels like how it is when you're, like, hanging out and talking. And also, how do we get some, like, real perspective and honesty on some of these like harder to discuss topics? And then I was just watching stuff and I was like, oh, you know, maybe it should kind of feel like Playboy after Dark. I don't know what, why I was watching that. (Yeah, Yeah.) So that was like an influence for sure. And then it was like, well, what is my version of that? And I was chilling with one of the writers and we were having some drinks and talking after one of the writers rooms at my house. And most of the people who write for the show are like my friends and friends I've had in comedy for a long time. So it is very comfortable with one another. And we were talking and arguing and yelling at each other about something which is normal. And I was like, It should feel like this. Whatever this is, this is how it needs to feel because this feels like the most me. Anyone who knows me knows I will corner you in a party and scream at you to death about something. And so I called Princess drunk and I was like, I know what it is, is like a party. And then it's like this and it's like that. And I was like, Do you get it? And he was like, no. And I was like, fine, I will call you tomorrow when I'm sober and explain is clearer. And I called him the next day. And I was like, no, like it's a party. The jump from the party to the interviews because we already had the interview structure kind of there and it was like, This is how you do it, because we already decided the interviews are going to be in the world and like we had already had that structure. But I was like, This is how we bridge these two things. And he was like, I'm down that see what that looks like. And I was like, Cool. And then we just tried it.
Luke Burbank: We're talking to Sam Jay about her show "Pause with Sam Jay" on HBO. Season two is out now. I'm curious about the the production of the because the thread, as you mentioned, of the show is kind of a party at your house where you're talking to your friends and and then you go out in the world and do some reporting and interviews and sketches. But when you're talking to your friends in the party part of it, do you forget the cameras are there? Does it feel really organic or do you have producers coming around with like, you know, cue cards going, "Do you guys know how to get to this topic?"
Sam Jay: No, no, no, no, because I wanted everyone to feel comfortable and like, not like they're on TV because I feel like that's how we're going to kind of get the best and most honest stuff out of people. So once we roll, we're rolling. I don't want anyone managing or touching or positioning my friends. There's no boom mikes in the room. A lot of people we talk to are not TV savvy, and that's on purpose because we want real people with real opinions and not people who have practiced opinions. You know what I mean? (Mm hmm.) We don't have a lot of cameramen in the room. It's just two dudes on roaming cams, body noise, just, you know, moving around like a real party. It's okay for to feel like you're really in a space and in a party space and definitely no cue cards. The people who come don't even know the topic. They truly just show up. And I know the topic. (Okay.) I'm aware of what we need to talk about that day, but they just come to truly hang out and then I'll kind of just spark an idea. And a lot of times it just takes over the party, you know? And then this season, my fiancee was very helpful in the booking of people, and so she knew everything we wanted to talk about and like she was just good at, she knows my friends and we have a lot of mutual friends and she's like, this is like a good group of people that they'll take to this conversation. So there's a little bit of manipulation in that way. Like the jail episode, I just invited a bunch of people I know who've been to jail. We find our way into different ways, but I'm always super aware, but I don't even tell them, right? They just show up.
Luke Burbank: One of the really memorable scenes from the season, you're you're riding a horse through a predominantly black neighborhood and you're going, "the crackers are coming." I'm wondering, that's very different performatively from doing stand up in a club or for writing for SNL. Like, are you fully comfortable now being out in public doing stuff like that guerilla style kind of filming?
Sam Jay: No.
Luke Burbank: You're shaking your head. No.
Sam Jay: No, no. This season is actually the first time we're doing stuff like this because last season due to COVID, we couldn't. So a lot of the sketch stuff last season was super sketchy in a way that we never intended the show to be. We had always intended for it to feel very in the world, and because of COVID, we couldn't like do it that way, which is sometimes like a good thing because some of the ideas were like super mean. It was like, Oh, this was probably we shouldn't have done that. Like, I don't know if you saw last season, but we did a Go Judge Me sketch where like I was judging people for their Go Fund Me because I was like just going through this period where I was just like, incised by people and their requests on Go Fund Me. I just thought it was ridiculous. But that original idea was like we were going to take real people with Go Fund Mes that we did not like and have them write it on a card and like sit in the street and beg. (Oh my god)
Luke Burbank: Oh man.
Sam Jay: In hindsight: bad! At the time we thought maybe we were making a point. But hindsight it's like, I'm kind of glad that like, that didn't go that way. So but the show was always kind of intended to be that in the world. (I see.) And like, we just had to pull things into the studio because of COVID. And so stuff became a lot more sketchy last season than we wanted. And this season we were really diligent about like, let's try to make the show we wanted to make. (Yeah.)
Luke Burbank: Like you still feel kind of self-conscious or just like everybody is looking at me on this random street in Boston.
Sam Jay: Yeah, dude, I was on a horse dressed like Django screaming. Yeah, this is kind of what was happening, for sure.
Elena Passarello: I love all these challenges that this show is setting for you. You know, I'm assuming interviewing is the same way. It's not the same thing as doing standup. It's not the same thing for like writing for SNL. Did you have a natural affinity for it or did you have to, like, go to boot camp to learn how to do it?
Sam Jay: No, I just sat down and did it and then people were like, you're pretty good at that for someone who doesn't do that. And I was like, okay. But I do have like a natural curiosity about people, and I'm just like that in my regular day. Like I'll sit down and end up knowing how someone fully grew up, like issues they had with their parents because I just ask questions and I'm very curious about the makeup of people and why they think the way they think more so than what they think. I kind of like to know like, well, how did you get to this thinking? So that's just like a natural thing for me to just ask a bunch of stuff.
Elena Passarello: What kinds of questions help you understand how someone thinks versus just their opinions? Like, what kinds of things do you ask to know that just.
Sam Jay: Just life experience questions like what they've been through. You know what I mean? Like, sometimes I'll ask someone like, when's the first time you felt that way? You know, like, what was going on? Like, what do you think sparked this initial feeling or did you always feel this way? You know, just curious George stuff. I just be curious.
Elena Passarello: Just Curious George.
Luke Burbank: I'm curious about your time at SNL. I'd heard that you were hesitant about taking the job, which I was surprised because for most people in comedy, that's like the dream.
Sam Jay: Um, I just didn't really I don't want to say I was hesitant. It just wasn't really a thing that was like on my radar at the time. I didn't really think I'd ever end up there. I don't do sketch. I've never written sketch. Like I just didn't see myself in that, like NBC, kind of a more family Middle America space. And so when it all kind of came to me, I was just like, I guess, you know, because I just didn't know what to think of it. And then once I was kind of in the process, then I was like, I guess I really want to do this, or this could be really cool. But it just took me a while to warm up to the idea just because I never saw myself in that space. (Wow.) I was still in this very much, "I'm a standup and I do stand up and that's what I do" space. And I was looking for my next standup opportunity, you know, a special offer or something like that was what I thought was next for me. And this just kind of came like a train and like just came from the side and was like, what about this? And I was like, all right, you know.
Luke Burbank: This is Live Wire from PRX. We are talking to comedian and writer Sam Jay about her HBO show "Pause with Sam Jay." Much more with Sam in a moment. So don't go anywhere. We'll be right back. Welcome back to Live Wire from PRX. I'm your host, Luke Burbank. Along with Elena Passarello. We are celebrating Black History Month this week by sharing some of our favorite interviews from over the last couple of years. And right now, we're playing our conversation with comedian Sam Jay, talking about her HBO show, "Pause with Sam Jay." Take a listen. You did have a special that you released on Netflix, I think it was in 2020 "Three in the morning." And that was it was super funny, by the way. (Yeah.) But it also came out at a kind of a weird time where you weren't really touring because a lot of clubs were closed. But now when you're out and you're performing, you're doing standup. People obviously kind of know who you are from the HBO show and from from the special. What's that like for you being a celebrity now? Like, how's that feel?
Sam Jay: I don't feel like a celebrity yet, and I don't know that I ever will. I have to, I guess, give it up to my girl. She, she doesn't make me feel like a celebrity at all. And every day she treats me very bad. (Your fiancee?) Yeah, my fiancee. She doesn't treat me like any type of a celebrity. Sometimes I'm like, I got to go, she's like, to do what? I'm like, make my TV show, you know, like.
Sam Jay: Live the dream.
Sam Jay: You know? So I think it's just, you know, always being around friends that I've known forever and stuff like that kind of keeps me in a, I don't want to say grounded headspace, but in a headspace where I don't always remember that that's going on. Doing this with my friends, too, I kind of forget like what I'm doing. I'm just like hanging out my friends and making fun stuff. And so I forget even that, like I'm a face of anything, even at Pause, like, sometimes Jason has to, like, yell at me in the writers room because it'll be quiet and I'll be like, just chillin with everyone else. And he's like, You have to tell us what to do. And I'm like, Oh yeah, I like that idea. And this is cool cause I was like, Oh, I wonder what everyone else is going to say.
Luke Burbank: That is like the weirdest moment of adult life and you're having an intense version of it, but where you look around the room and you realize, Oh wait, yeah, I'm in charge of this.
Sam Jay: Yeah, it's so weird and people don't really talk about it. I still don't realize like, Oh, we're going to make this. (Yeah!) You know, it's still just like dreaming to me. And then when we make it, oftentimes we're like, Oh my God, we forgot. They're going to do the things we say. We're on set all the time, like embarrassed because we'll see a joke actually in our face and be like, Why didn't someone say no? Why didn't someone... why is this like this? And they were like, because we wrote it that way.
Luke Burbank: Well, I'm curious what the kind of prime goal for you with the show is, if it's being funny or being thought provoking. And I know it can be both things. It's like a false choice. But I'm curious if there is one that's really primary in your mind. Like what? What you hope people take away from the experience of watching this show?
Sam Jay: I will be honest ,really, no one's ever asked me this. So thank you for a new question because I don't want to seem like I don't care if it's funny. I care if it's funny. But I thought about this show and what I wanted to do with this show, and I was like, funny can't be the priority. The priority has to be the topic and how we're going to get into the topic and what our goal is with this topic. Like, why are we talking about this? Why now? Why is this important for me to talk about? And what are we bringing to this conversation that hasn't been brought to the conversation before? So like, those are the priorities and then, how do we make this funny? But if something doesn't feel funny immediately, we don't not explore it. We just challenge ourselves to find the funny within it.
Luke Burbank: Well, you've done a great job with it. You and the whole team making the show. I mean, it is really...
Sam Jay: Oh, thank you.
Luke Burbank: ...thought provoking, funny. And for me, as you know, a white straight dude, it's just a view into a world that I don't live in all the time. And I just feel like it really informs me and really gives me a whole different perspective. So (That's awesome.) congratulations on the show and all your success. You've got like 50 projects going and they all seem to be going really well. So...
Sam Jay: Thank you so much!
Luke Burbank: Thank you so much for coming on Live Wire, we appreciate you.
Sam Jay: Thank you for your time.
Luke Burbank: That was Sam Jay right here on Live Wire. You can catch "Pause with Sam Jay" on HBO on demand right now. She's also in this new Kenya Barris movie, "You People." She's also starring Jonah Hill and Eddie Murphy. It's on Netflix. I haven't seen it yet, but it's on my list. Also, if you want to be adventurous and, you know, leave the house, you can catch Sam in person. She'll be on the road this year. She's going to be heading to Phoenix, Minneapolis, Portland and a bunch of other places. Live Wire is brought to you in part by Alaska Airlines. Alaska Airlines offers the most nonstop from the West Coast, including destinations like Hawaii, Palm Springs and San Francisco. And as a member of the OneWorld Alliance, Alaska Airlines can connect you to more than 1000 destinations worldwide with their global partners. Learn more at Alaska Air dot com. This is Live Wire from PRX. We are celebrating Black History Month this week on the show and our first musical guest rose to fame during her time as the cellist for the Grammy Award winning string band the Carolina Chocolate Drops. Then she moved out on her own and her solo debut album, "Very Colored Songs: a tribute to Langston Hughes" was rereleased by Smithsonian Folkways. And we're going to hear something from that album now, plus a little interview that she did with us back in 2020 all the way from New Orleans, Louisiana. Leyla McCalla. Welcome to Live Wire.
Leyla McCalla: Thanks for having me.
Luke Burbank: This album is amazing. I feel remiss that I didn't know about it back when it was originally released, but I'm super excited that Smithsonian Folkways is putting it back out because it is a gem.
Leyla McCalla: Thank you. Thanks so much. Yeah, it feels it feels good.
Luke Burbank: I mean, when you when you released it in 2014, did you have a sense that it would it would have a kind of a second life like this? I feel like it's it's it's hitting a lot of people's radar for the first time right now.
Leyla McCalla: Yeah. I mean, I always felt that the poems themselves were timeless and, and, I knew that that would carry the songs, you know? What I didn't realize maybe was where this album would take me in my life. And so it's exciting to kind of reconnect with the with the reasons why I started putting out records, because this is my first album. And, you know, it was a big sort of coming into myself as an artist and kind of claiming that about myself.
Luke Burbank: Was there a particular piece of work by Langston Hughes that sparked in your imagination the idea for this record?
Leyla McCalla: Yeah, I would say it's the song "Heart of Gold," which is the the song that opens the record. Yeah, that's the song that I think I first really heard music, you know, when when I was reading this poem. And so it's been interesting to think about that because the deeper I go into his work and, you know, I hear music in a lot of his work, it doesn't feel exclusive to the poems that are represented on this album. But I did a show, it was like an album release. So and I've been performing the songs for so many years now, and I tried to, you know, stay true to the order of the songs on the on the album and even that was kind of like, Wow, my head was just in such a different place when I first assembled these songs. I'm like, Wow, I had a really specific idea of the story I was trying to tell that, and that story has really changed. (Mm hmm.) So it's been interesting to just think about, you know, how your mind changes. But then the songs kind of, ah, are still true to some some part of your journey, you know?
Elena Passarello: That's got to be really interesting because the first time you approached the album, you're working with a text that's 60 years old, and now when you approach the album, there's a new older text and it's yours. Like you write your own archive now.
Leyla McCalla: I'm like, Well, I used to really be like wanting to be super creative about songwriting, you know? Not that I'm not, but I'm like, God, it's so nice to connect with that sort of beginner's mind. (Yeah. Mm hmm. )
Luke Burbank: Right. It's sort of like first thought, best thought.
Leyla McCalla: You know? Totally.
Luke Burbank: Were you a singer as well all along as a kid, or were you because you were learning some complicated music And obviously that was a big focus of your life. But was the singing part of it as well?
Leyla McCalla: No, I was terrified of singing for a long time. Oh, yeah. No, that was scary. But I, I actually I think this album really brought my voice out and kind of made me realize that I need to be this needs to come from my voice, you know? It's just a calling, I guess. And once once you kind of feel that pull, it's hard to not go in that direction.
Luke Burbank: Was was that hesitation partly because of like the classical music tradition? There's not a lot of like singing along from the orchestra while the movement is happening.
Leyla McCalla: I think that I think that I had thought of myself as an instrumentalist for a long time. You know, I was going to be a cellist. And I think that singing felt like this vulnerability, like, you know, it's just not it's just not my lane, you know. But I started experimenting with cello, playing in different musical settings. And then, you know, I was playing with a lot of singer songwriters and, you know, started thinking of myself as a composer. And and that's when I was like, well, maybe I could sing, too. It just felt like it opened up this whole world of possibility for me musically and creatively, that that it still it continues to do that for me. And, and it's interesting because it is definitely my it's like my newest instrument in some ways, but it's also like my most powerful one because it's coming from my body and, you know.
Elena Passarello: It's probably the easiest to carry around. You know, you didn't have to have a hard case.
Leyla McCalla: It's definitely easier than the cello.
Luke Burbank: Well, what song are we going to hear today?
Leyla McCalla: So I'm going to play a song for you. This one's called "Song for a Dark Girl." This was, comes from a poem written by Langston Hughes in 1927. And I find that the words to this song really seem to apply to our world today.
Luke Burbank: Yeah. All right. This is Layla McCalla here on Live Wire.
Leyla McCalla: Way down south in Dixie. Break the heart of me. They hung my black young lover to a cross roads tree. Way down south in Dixie. Bruised body high in air. I asked the White Lord Jesus, What was the use of prayer? Way down south in Dixie. Break the Heart of me. Love is a naked shadow on a gnarled and naked tree. Way down south in Dixie. Break the heart of me. They hung my black young lover to a cross roads tree. Way down south in Dixie, bruised body high in air. I asked the White Lord Jesus, What was the use of prayer. Way down south in Dixie. Break the heart of me. Love is a naked shadow on gnarled and naked tree. Love is a naked shadow on a gnarled and naked tree. Love is a naked shadow on a gnarled and naked tree.
Luke Burbank: Leyla McCalla right here on Live Wire. Thank you so much. The album, "Very Colored Songs," has been rereleased by Smithsonian Folkways, and it is available now as a tribute in part to the poetry of Langston Hughes. Layla, thank you very much for taking the time to talk to us today.
Leyla McCalla: Thanks so much for having me.
Luke Burbank: That was Leyla McCalla right here on Live Wire. Her album, "Very Colored Songs, A Tribute to Langston Hughes," is available on Smithsonian Folkways now. And since we spoke to Layla, she also created a theater piece and released an album called "Breaking the Thermometer," which explores the history of Haiti and her personal discovery of her roots in the country. The album is sung mostly in Creole and uses archival tape from Radio Haiti and is very, very cool, actually. All right. Our next guest is a father who wanted to figure out how to talk to his kids about racism. And he was looking around for age appropriate books on the topic and he couldn't find any. So he wrote one which led to him founding a media company that's now published over 50 kids books on such topics as divorce, optimism, voting, cancer, empathy, being non-binary, among other things. The company also produces a bunch of podcasts, and they've sold hundreds of thousands of copies of their books. Let's take a listen to our conversation with Jelani Memory. Recorded in front of a live audience in Portland at the Alberta Rose Theater. Jelani, welcome to the show.
Jelani Memory: This is wonderful to be here. I grew up in Portland. This is my hometown.
Jelani Memory: Hometown kid, you're on Live Wire. Yeah.
Luke Burbank: These books are really amazing. I've been reading through a number of them this week. I'm curious, though, before this all started, before you you wrote this this first book, a kids book, about racism. Were you a writer? Like, what were you doing for your job at that point? Did you know how to write a book?
Jelani Memory: I was a bad reader as a kid. Growing up I literally would read so slow that I would pretend to read in class. And eventually, once you pretend to read for long enough, you stop reading altogether. So I didn't fall in love with books until I became an adult. And I fell in love with writing and writing for adults, writing for kids, writing for myself. But I wasn't a writer professionally. I was an entrepreneur. Starting companies, started a really wonderful company here in town called Circle Media Inc, and this book came out of a project that I just wanted to do for my kids to help start a conversation.
Luke Burbank: From kind of a messaging standpoint. What were you hoping your children and you have, you have six kids. You have some biracial children. You have some white children. What were you hoping they would learn from this book that you were writing?
Jelani Memory: You know, it wasn't so much that I hope they would learn something. I wanted them to know that it was always okay to talk, to talk about skin color, to talk about race, and especially to talk about racism. So I've got brown kids and I've got white kids. I don't want my white kids to be the ones in the classroom who were trying to touch somebody's hair or say something uncomfortable. And I want my brown kids to walk through life without having words to describe their experiences. And so that was really the hope with the books. And it was my kids who said, Dad, you should make more books. You could do a kid's book about ice cream, you could do a kid's book about divorce, you could do a kid's book about anxiety. And that's what spurred me forward.
Luke Burbank: There's something in this book that you and I were talking about backstage, Jelani, before the show, where you're writing this from your perspective as a black man and what it's felt like to you when people have acted in a racist way towards you, even if they're not aware that they're doing it. And and you basically write that when that happens, it makes you feel- and then on the next page in very, very small print, it's just the word small. And like I'm 45 years old, I have been trying to be as aware in the world as I can, you know, as a white person with a lot of privilege. I don't think I ever thought about it from that perspective. It's an amazing way to convey those kinds of things. And you just like just knew how to do that somehow, because this is a kind of a complicated book for being so simple.
Jelani Memory: Yeah. I mean, look for people of color. Racism is the water that we swim in every day. We think that happens for for people of color as adults, but it happens to us as kids as early as three, four. As soon as we enter into the classroom. For me, growing up here in the whitest big city in America, I was often not the only brown kid in class, which meant that I was facing questions, stares, comments, right, all of those things. And it would just sort of, again, diminish, reduce, which is, I think, the universal experience of feeling discriminated against or misunderstood or or considered less than because of your gender, because of the color of your skin, because of the choices that you've made in your life. And I it's funny, I put that in the book and my kids immediately got it. It wasn't a new idea to them. They totally understood it.
Luke Burbank: Now that you have this really expansive kind of library of different topics that you're addressing with the company, how do you identify which are the ideas that you want to put your time and resources behind?
Jelani Memory: It is really simple. We look for authentic voices. Most of the folks who've written with us have never written a book. They don't consider themselves writers, but they walk in with a decade, two decades, a lifetime of experience around a specific subject. For us, it's unnecessary that they have a prerequisite of being good at writing. It's a prerequisite they have an authentic story to tell. We help wrap around a process around that to create a book together.
Luke Burbank: Including and I would imagine he has written a book before, but the A Kid's book About Imagination is written by National Treasure: LeVar Burton. (Yeah.) How did you make that happen?
Jelani Memory: I mean, you know, talk about an absolute dream come true. So believe it or not, his people reached out to us and said, LeVar knows about your books and he likes them.
Luke Burbank: I mean, honestly, is there anybody more important to literacy in this country than LeVar Burton by way of Reading Rainbow?
Jelani Memory: He's it. He is, absolutely it! And for me, again, not just as a young black kid, but as a grown black man. Right. I grew up on "Roots." I grew up on Reading Rainbow. Right. I grew up on Track. So he was everything right? Sort of the black pass, the black present and the black future, Right. So we hop on the call and it's through Zoom. But I'm like fighting back tears and like, you know, getting really giddy. And I think we're going to have to pitch him on. Hey, let's I'm really excited about this book and I just really want to like it. We're going to give you an advance. We're gonna do all the things and and he stops me somewhere mid pitch and says, Jelani, I want to make a book with you. I'm like, I'm here to work with you. And that was the greatest gift. And to get to write that book with him was was amazing.
Luke Burbank: We are living in a moment where a lot of kids are probably overhearing a lot of conversations about war. And this led to an opportunity for you to kind of like what sort of rapid release a kid's book about war. Tell me the story of how that came together.
Jelani Memory: Yeah, there are a few moments along the very short history of our company where we felt the need to sort of go beyond our mandate as a business, to go beyond our mandate to make money for our investors and just to do the right thing and do it in the way that I think only we can do it. So, you know, when lockdowns happened back in 2020 for COVID, we did a kid's book about COVID 19, made it in a week, got it out as a free e-book, and released it to everyone because we thought kids had questions, they needed answers. We found an epidemiologist to do that book with. When the string of murders happened in Atlanta, we did a kid's book about anti-Asian hate for the 100th anniversary of the Tulsa race massacre. We did a kid's book about the Tulsa race massacre so that with under the belief that every kid in every elementary school should learn this part of our country's history, again. (Yeah.) Made the book released for free. So we found ourselves as a team watching what was happening in Ukraine and going. I've got questions, but, man, my kids have questions. Let's make a book. Let's make it free and let's get it to everyone. So we found a wonderful Emmy Award winning journalist Sarah Jones spent time in conflict zones Yemen, Syria, you name it. And not just that interviewing kids who've been affected by conflict. We said, hey, come do a book that was on a Sunday. We workshopped it on a monday. We edited it on a Tuesday. We designed it on Wednesday, and we released it last Thursday, actually. (Wow. Well, that's great.)
Luke Burbank: This is Live Wire Radio. We are talking to Jelani Memory about his series of kids books that deal with often very serious topics. I'm wondering how do you sort of decide what's too much information or what's something that could be potentially kind of unsettling for a young person to read about?
Jelani Memory: I'll say two things and they'll sound self-contradictory, but I promise they are not. We lie to ourselves about what is okay and not okay for kids, and that's not for their sake. I actually believe it's for our sake. They're topics that make us too uncomfortable. We don't know what to say. But kids are resilient, They're creative, they're thoughtful, and they're so much more ready for this stuff than we would ever let ourselves believe. And so they'll ask us questions that we're not ready to answer. And so in terms of the information that we put in the books, look, we make it developmentally appropriate. We think about the kids on the other end of it and what information they do and don't have very typically. But we find that most grownups wait too long and too late to tell their kids stuff. Instead of having these conversations too early and for me as a dad of six, look, I didn't have a dad when I grew up. I had to invent fatherhood for myself. And one of the things I knew I was going to give my kids is I was going to tell them stuff too early instead of too late because I found myself craving for adults to tell me things when I was young. And the one thing we find that folks say about our books is I wish I had these when I was a kid. I wish I had these stories because Grandpa died of cancer, because Mom and Dad got divorced, because I experienced anxiety, but I didn't have the words for it. I think that starts much earlier than we let ourselves believe in. So for us it's less about, Ooh, we shouldn't go there. Actually, how do we lean in more and make it understandable to kids?
Luke Burbank: It sounds like you sort of started this project because you wanted to try to start a conversation with your own children and therefore leave them better informed and better able to kind of go forward with their lives. How do you feel about the world that your kids are going into and that our listeners kids are going into? Because there's a lot to feel not enthusiastic about. I'm just wondering, kind of as someone who thinks about this a lot, how you feel about this sort of future.
Jelani Memory: So the world we live in. Look, I think it's broken. I think it's dark. I think it's screwed up in so many ways. I worry about sending my kids to school every single day, and I worry about how to manage their lives when they're home with us. Right. What are they living through? They're living through watching legislation in Florida around "Don't say gay." Right. My book is banned in three states. (What?!) There's legislation in Texas around not being able to bring up race in class because it might make kids feel uncomfortable. Pandemic, war, like, shall I go on? Right. But in the middle of that, I think this is the most remarkable generation. They are activists. They are inclusive. They are thoughtful. They are saying and doing things that we never thought of doing even as adults now. And so my hope is, is that if we equip them with the right tools when they're 20, 30, 40, they're going to be running the world, but with these ideas and with these stories. So it's the future that we all wanted for ourselves, right? Flying cars and inclusion. They'll get that.
Luke Burbank: I sure hope you're right.
Jelani Memory: Jelani, Memory, everyone. Thank you so much.
Luke Burbank: That was Jelani memory right here on Live Wire. You can check out all of the books and projects that A Kid's Co. has available over at A Kid's Co. dot com. So since we had Jelani on the show, Elena, it's been announced that the company A Kid's Co. is going to team up with the Jim Henson Company for a new TV series. Talking about like, you know, having difficult conversations. Now you can do that. And if you if you wonder about how effective a Jim Henson production can be in shaping a child's life, I, I did not go to first grade. I was I was unschooled. And I learned how to read from watching Sesame Street.
Elena Passarello: It's one of America's greatest teaching tools. So what a great partnership with this new initiative. It makes perfect sense.
Luke Burbank: Yeah, it's going to be to great taste that tastes great together. So that's really awesome. Make sure you check out A Kid's Co. dot com for more information. This is Live Wire. I'm Luke Burbank here with Elena Passarello. We got to take a quick break, but don't go anywhere because we'll be back with some incredible music from Black Violin that you do not want to miss. Stay with us. Welcome back to Live Wire. I'm Luke Burbank, here with Elena Passarello. It is our Black History Month special. This week on the show and our second musical guests met in orchestra class at Dillard High School in Fort Lauderdale. Unlike a lot of people who meet in orchestra class in high school, these two folks continued collaborating through college. And then after college, they got back together. They produced beats for 2Chainz and Lil Wayne, among others, and they've now released four albums, including the 2019 Grammy nominated album Take the Stairs. We talked to them back in 2021. This is Black Violin right here on Live Wire.
Wil B: Hey, thanks for having us.
Luke Burbank: I understand you guys met in high school music class. Did you like each other initially or did you feel like you were rivals? What was the original relationship like?
Wil B: I think the reason the relationship was like, you know, because he was a year above me. And I remember coming into the class and I was just like, He's good. Like, you know, I got a I got to compete against that. I got to I got to compete for his chair with this dude, you know? And it took me like a few weeks, you know. But then I got first chair. I was, you know, trying to try to keep up, you know, so.
Luke Burbank: So and then, Kev, you got into it because your mom was trying to keep you out of trouble.
Kev Marcus: Yeah. My mom or my mom felt like I was going down the wrong path, So she wanted to, you know, just get me into something else. She didn't think that this was going to happen. She was just literally trying to get me away from the kids in my neighborhood in any way she could. So she's like, Oh, music class, go to that. And then I kind of took a liking to it. My teacher kind of took, you know, took me under her wing and, you know, taught me everything she knew and then, you know, got to high school, meet this guy. And then we really started kind of flipping it up. And and then I think it just sort of happened, you know, she was never like the mom was like, go in a room and practice. Right now. She was never really like that. It was really more about trying to expose me to as many things as possible and hoping that I grab one of them, you know, and this is the one that I ended up, you know, grabbing hold of.
Luke Burbank: (Cool.) It's funny because if you type Black Violin into Google, one of the first things are the "people also ask" thing is what genre is Black Violin? Like people are Googling this on the regular, trying to figure out exactly what the genre is. How do you guys describe the music that you make?
Wil B: I mean, I think that's, I mean that's a great thing when people are just like, What is this?
Kev Marcus: I think that alone says what we are, you know, like just the idea that like, we're genreless.
Elena Passarello: Undefinable.
Kev Marcus: Yeah, undefinable. So I love that that's one of them. That's one of the best things anyone's said to be like that. They people are like literally trying to find the box to put us in and we cannot be contained.
Wil B: So they, they love to put you in boxes though, you know.
Luke Burbank: Do you guys feel like you draw from the world of string music about equally to say, the world of hip hop?
Kev Marcus: I don't think that it's 50/50. I think maybe when we started it was a bit more 50/50 cause we were super classical like in college, you know, in the throes of it, studying it. But we lived hip hop, so we felt like, you know, a lot of the reason why we were successful at the beginning was because we blended it with such great respect for both sides, you know, whether it be classical, a hip hop. Now, I mean, I don't know. I like, you know, Will, you said something to me the other day in the interview about, like, you didn't even think of yourself as a classical musician anymore, which is crazy because you play viola and that's the only thing of the older classical, you know, at this point, maybe like we've kind of created our own like string sound that that's what we kind of draw from at this point. You know, like we've already been influenced by the classical and now it's sort of like kind of, you know, cementing the Black Violin sound.
Wil B: (Mm hmm.) Yeah. I mean, you just said it. I mean, the reason why I feel like for me, it's hard for me to consider myself a classical musician because it's, again, that whole idea of being in a box, you know, is just I like to pluck my my viola like a guitar. Like, I love doing that. I do that more than a bow, you know what I mean? So for me, I just mean going in this direction. And to answer your question, it's definitely not 50/50. But I would say for me it's more like 70/30.
Luke Burbank: Which one's the 70?
Wil B: The 70 is everything else. And the classical is 30, you know, because because, you know, I like to I like to just dabble and do a lot of different things. And and I love chamber music. I love certain composers, you know, Shostakovich. And but I think the idea of classical music being in this box, we got to we got to move from there because if this if this genre is going to survive, it's got to move away from this idea that it needs to be this and needs to be that, the stereotypes or whatever. And for me, I'm I'm I'm gone, thinking about this genre in terms of trying to try to fit its mold.
Luke Burbank: Are you guys at this point tired of being constantly asked during interviews about your experience as black men, you know, playing violin and viola and in the classical space? Or is is that something that you accept as kind of like part of trying to really shake up what people's expectations are and getting the word out to other people, particularly young people of color, that the classical music and string music can be for them.
Wil B: Yeah, I mean, it doesn't bother us. I mean, it is what it is because when people see us on stage, even before they see us of stage, they just hear the idea of, Oh, I'm coming to this concert, it's a voilin concert, you know what I'm saying? So we come on stage, I'm going to speak the way that I speak. I'm from South Florida, so I'm I speak with a little, you know, with a twang or whatever, you know, is then and I'm going to play this violin because I've been trying to play this violin for 27 years. So and whatever perspective or whatever thought, you know, you had in your mind about the violin or about me. You know, hopefully they're shattered by the time you leave. You know, you leave the theater and, you know, buy a CD and at the same time, you know.
Luke Burbank: Yeah, right. You got to hit that merch stand. Got to it on your way out. Do not miss the merch. Well, what song are we going to hear?
Kev Marcus: All right. So, you know, speaking of all of this, you know, I mean, just this idea of doing things that people don't expect. We're going to play the song stereotypes off of our album. That was our third album and the song in general is this really like kind of like a microcosm of what people think, you know, they're supposed to do, you know? And we always like to say, Hey, you know, when someone says, hey, you know, you it, you shouldn't do this because you're a girl. You shouldn't do this because you're too young or you're too old to be doing this just like that's what you should be doing because no one else is doing it. And you should be running towards shattering that stereotype. So this one, we call it "Stereotypes."
Kev Marcus: "Stereotype" An awful, unfair and untrue belief that many people have. With a particular character. I take pride of place.
Kev Marcus: Standardized mental picture. Comportamiento de una persona basada en su raza.
Luke Burbank: That was Black Violin here on Live wire. Here's a fun update. Earlier this year, they received a Grammy nomination for best Americana performance for the track "The Message," in collaboration with the Blind Boys of Alabama. And black violin is out on the road this spring, hitting cities like Madison, Salt Lake City, Tucson and Portland. So look for them coming to a town near you. That is going to do it for this week's episode of Live Wire. A big thanks to our guests Sam Jay, Jelani Memory, Leyla McCalla and Black Violin. Live Wire is brought to you in part by Alaska Airlines.
Elena Passarello: Laura Hadden is our executive producer, Heather de Michelle is our executive director. Our producer and editor is Melanie Sevcenko. Our assistant editor is Trey Hester. Our marketing manager is Paige Thomas, and our production fellow is Tanvi Kumar. Our house band is Ethan Fox Tucker, Sam Tucker, Ayal Alves and A. Walker Spring, who also composes our music. Molly Pettit is our technical director and mixer, and Our House Sound is by D. Neil Blake.
Luke Burbank: Additional funding provided by the Regional Arts and Culture Council and the James F and Marion L Miller Foundation. Live Wire was created by Robin Tenenbaum and Kate Sokoloff. This week we'd like to thank members Kristel McCubbin Masterson of Yamhill, Oregon, and Laura Corvin of North Bend, Washington. For more information about the show or how you can listen to our podcast, please visit Live Wire Radio dot org. I'm Luke Burbank for Elena Passarello and the whole Live Wire crew. Thank you for listening and we will see you next week.
PRX: PRX.
