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Wait, you're OK? You're listening to Radiolab Radio from WNYC.

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Oh, no, no, no, that's all in my head.

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This week at a staff meeting, our producer Tracy told a story really was the story of a moment from the weekend as the protests in response to the killing of George Floyd were really escalating, hurting my headphones.

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I just asked her to tell me that story again on tape. OK, so you were listening to a certain song. Yeah, what happened exactly? Can you set the scene?

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Yeah, yeah. It was Saturday and I had been feeling pretty sad all day, just feeling kind of grumpy. And I was like, OK, you know what?

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Soccer Saturday, let's just take a really long, hot shower, wash your hair, smell good, feel good. And so I did all of that, you know, and I was just feeling very good physically for the first time in a while, actually. And I decided I'm going to play Nina Simone.

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Baby, you understand me now? I just typed in Nina Simone and Spotify and just let them to start, you know, picking songs for me, basically I wasn't really being really specific. And I opened, so I have a balcony in my apartment and I opened the door to let some air in. And I'm just instantly barraged with all this. This cacophony of police sirens. People chanting and then all of a sudden in my room. The song that was playing was Backlash Blues Surmounts, and I was like, Whoa.

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So, Mr. Backlash, what is going on?

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Like, wow, this is a very weird sound experience right now.

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Back at. Backlash. What is that what is that what is that song just for people who don't know the backlash blues? She actually wrote it with Langston Hughes, Great Harlem Renaissance poet. He wrote the lyrics and she wrote the I guess the music and and the song is just like you think.

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Who do you think I am?

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My taxes and freeze my wages, send my son to Vietnam, you got me second class houses, second class schools that you can call colored folks off color.

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People are just second class or just second class fools. Mr. Backlashed, I'm going to leave you with the backlash blues. It was blue. Yes. Wow. I mean, other than the Vietnam reference, it's been really on the nose for right now.

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Yeah, like, wow, like this is the moon in 1967. Singing this out in is like a warning, a prediction or something like talking forward to us 50 years.

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Yeah. And one big question over this weekend, and I think we're going to have this question for a lot is like everyone was like, why is this happening now?

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And I'm like, literally half don't like start like this is like happening. This is it's right here. When things keep piling on, piling on, piling on, you know, there's going to be released and and, you know, you look at the last couple of months and it's just been piling on and pile on and pile on. It's coronavirus a virus that's killing mostly black and brown people. It's, you know, unemployment.

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And then you have like three really horrific killings of black people in three months. It just felt like there is a building up of stuff. And it almost it kind of made sense. Yeah.

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And so it was just a really bizarre moment. And then I listen to. Sunday in Savannah. At the beginning of this recording, you're saying something like to see you. Happily surprised that so many of you. We really didn't expect anybody to.

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Oh, I'm so glad you guys came out tonight. I didn't know that you would because of everything that happened. And I was like, wait, what happened? And I did some Googling. And I found out that she performed three days after Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated in Memphis.

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One more. Sunday in Savannah. Hear the whole creation shoutin, praise the Lord.

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So she had dedicated the whole show to him and everybody knows about Mississippi Goddam. She sings Mississippi Goddam, and then there's like a couple of moments, the Mississippi God damage also once again feel kind of prophetic, like this is a very angry song already. But then she kind of has like a moment where she's she just kind of like as like kind of adlib moment where she's saying, good God, you know.

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The king is dead. The king of love is dead. I bound to be nonviolent. Honey, we're not about to be nonviolent.

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Oh, and there is something very alarming or strange or I don't know what the right word is, but there is something kind of amazing to think like. These are the songs that she's singing for Martin Luther King Jr. and she's saying, yeah, let's get violent.

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You know what's gonna happen now? People are out there, and I should point out, you know, when she was performing, several cities in the United States were burning because there were riots in reaction to Martin Luther King's death.

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I mean, she also last year, a year ago, she has a period where she just starts talking and she's talking about other black artists who died.

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Coltrane left as Otis Redding left in the last few years. Can go on.

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Do you realize how many we have lost? When it really gets down to reality, then. Not a performance.

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Microphones and all that crap, but really something else, and most of them, like she's just she even says I don't know how to feel anymore and just so numb, we can't afford any more losses, you know.

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Oh, my gosh. The shooting is down one by one.

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Don't forget that. Because they are. Kilmer's one by one and hearing her say that, like, just. They're shooting us one by one. Yeah, it's just. I don't know. She's just so necessary. We just need her so much.

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And I just keep thinking, what would she be thinking about this moment and what would she have to say?

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You know, is here it feels like she already said it, you know?

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You know, I found this quote that she said, How can you be an artist and not reflect the times? That, to me is the definition of an artist.

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And I know that, like, one thing we were thinking about doing is reaching out to musicians and finding out how they reflecting the time. And I'm just going to be having and I think even just in my work, I'm going to be thinking about this challenge I at reflect the time. That's what you're supposed to do.

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Yeah. And know, you know, I kind of don't know if I'm up to it.

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Honestly, I you know, I if I can I think we're all feeling that from very different vantage points.

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Yeah. I think we we all are. We're all feeling a little like I'm you know, I feel like every black journalist has asked. Whenever this happens, a lot of black journalists, we get on our little in our group chats and we're like.

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Is journalism really the thing we should be doing right now? I got to say this, you know, like we go into this profession knowing that, like we're going to be entering mostly white spaces, but we do it because we really believe in serving our community. And, you know, in moments like this come up, you you doubt it and you're just like, is this really what else should I be doing? And I you know, I, I keep coming back to, like, I think I'm in the right place and I do, but I'm not sure it's hard.

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It's really hard.

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Yeah. He had to see mountain top. And he knew he could not stop. Always living with a threat.