Helga

Teacher, author and speaker, David Kyuman Kim shares the concept of "radical love" in halls and on college campuses across the country as well as on his former podcast, Love-Driven Politics. In 2015, David presented a TEDx Talk on the topic at Connecticut College where he is also a Professor of Religious Studies and American Studies and the Peace and Conflict Coordinator. In this episode, David joins host Helga Davis to discuss the role of community and love in this nation during a critical time in our history.

"People are eating a lot of things, but I think those things are eating them alive. Like anger, like enmity, like vitriol, like contempt. You eat those things and they eat you. You consume those things and they consume you. And to go to your neighbors, to as you say make an argument, you're not really making an argument. You're actually inviting them into a different way of life. And that's a powerful thing." -David Kyuman Kim

Learn more about New Sounds at newsounds.org.

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Author Jacqueline Woodson won the 2014 National Book Award for Brown Girl Dreaming, and this past January began her two-year tenure as the National Ambassador for Young People's Literature; her latest book Another Brooklyn was a New York Times best-seller. In this conversation, host Helga Davis sits down to talk with Woodson about family – the alternative one she was born into and the one she made for herself. Finding the ones with whom she can connect has been invaluable for her; here she shares how she made her community and how they have influenced her process.

"For me the extended family is about having more parenting tools. [...] And then we have to make other decisions, we're a biracial family, right? We're a two-mom family, we're not going to send our kid to a school where they're the only kid of color, or the only kid in the class with two moms or two dads. So we had to, from a very early age, start investigating which schools are going to see my kid as wholly human." –Jacqueline Woodson

Learn more about New Sounds at newsounds.org.

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Director, playwright and screenwriter Kenneth Lonergan is widely known for winning the Oscar for best original screenplay at the 89th Academy Awards for his film Manchester By the Sea, and as a co-writer on Martin Scorsese's Gangs of New York. In this episode, host Helga Davis and Lonergan work through their shared upbringing at the Walden School in New York – exploring memories both charged and powerfully formative – while also exploring daily rituals and what it means to fuel one's creativity.

"Without cultural appropriation there is no culture. Especially in this country. I know what it means, but I know that it's misapplied when it's taken to that [extreme] degree and it becomes meaningless. You can't name an artist, a writer, or anybody who puts anything out in any kind of creative capacity, who doesn't appropriate left and right from all kinds of cultures and influences." -Kenneth Lonergan

Learn more about New Sounds at newsounds.org.

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Thelma Golden is the director and chief curator of the Studio Museum in Harlem, an appointee to then President Obama's Committee for the Preservation of the White House, and the recipient of the 2016 Audrey Irmas Award for Curatorial Excellence. In this conversation, Golden discusses being taught canon revision with her father growing up, her first memories of seeing the world through art, and the rituals she need to get through the day.

"I exist perpetually, but also for me, very beautifully, constantly in motion. And I love that and it's how I think of myself and see myself. So in order to be with myself, I need to find some stillness." -Thelma Golden

Learn more about New Sounds at newsounds.org.

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Hilton Als is an intellectual omnivore who roots his art and criticism in reality and a search for the truth. A writer, New Yorker theater critic, curator, photographer, director and professor, Als’s work gracefully slips between genres to comment on contemporary American politics, pop culture and the African-American experience and to place the current condition in a longer history. In this tenth and final episode of the first season of Helga, Als and Davis talk about what he learned living next to Sonic Youth's Kim Gordon and Thurston Moore, and how to get comfortable owning your anger and art-making.

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About the podcast:

HELGA with host Helga Davis features probing conversations with artists across the creative and performing arts that have a unique, uncompromising voice and a stake in the matter of social change.

Produced by Q2 Music www.q2music.org

Q2 Music is WQXR, New York's multi-platform home for dynamic and inspiring contemporary music. Discover countless new artists via our 24/7 music stream – hand-crafted daily to reward your curiosity – and surprise your imagination with a world of new sounds.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Playwright and stage actress Sarah Jones dexterously hops from one character to the next. In her one-woman shows, she seamlessly slips into characters of different class, race and gender backgrounds. Her award-winning multi-character performances cover topics such as sex work, post-9/11 America and racism in the healthcare system and illuminate the differences and strengths between one another. Sarah and Helga talk self-worth and self-love in a culture that teaches self-alienation.

LANGUAGE ADVISORY:  This episode contains some strong language, including the use of a racial slur in the context of summarizing what the speakers have heard, felt, and experienced in their lives. Listener discretion is advised.

About the podcast:

HELGA with host Helga Davis features probing conversations with artists across the creative and performing arts that have a unique, uncompromising voice and a stake in the matter of social change.

Produced by Q2 Music www.q2music.org

Q2 Music is WQXR, New York's multi-platform home for dynamic and inspiring contemporary music. Discover countless new artists via our 24/7 music stream – hand-crafted daily to reward your curiosity – and surprise your imagination with a world of new sounds.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

When soprano Julia Bullock took the stage recently to sing the legacy and history of Josephine Baker, the groundbreaking African-American singer and performer who fought in the civil rights movement, she didn’t dress it up. There was no marcelled hair, no banana skirt. Just a woman using her voice to speak truth to power and telling the story of a woman who paved the way. Her star ascending, the Juilliard-trained singer and Helga talk about what can and can’t be processed through performance and what it means to find your voice and your place in the world.

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About the podcast:

HELGA with host Helga Davis features probing conversations with artists across the creative and performing arts that have a unique, uncompromising voice and a stake in the matter of social change.

Produced by Q2 Music www.q2music.org

Q2 Music is WQXR, New York's multi-platform home for dynamic and inspiring contemporary music. Discover countless new artists via our 24/7 music stream – hand-crafted daily to reward your curiosity – and surprise your imagination with a world of new sounds.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

For conductor Alejandro Hernandez-Valdez, an attentive and hungry audience is one of the essential parts of creating a transcendent musical experience. That’s why he scatters his Musica Viva choir at All Souls Church on the Upper East Side throughout the church. So the audience is in the middle of the action.

In this conversation, Helga and Alejandro talk about the challenges of managing both choirs and audience, the meditative qualities of live choral music, and the capability of music to transcend daily life to a spiritual plane.

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About the podcast:

HELGA with host Helga Davis features probing conversations with artists across the creative and performing arts that have a unique, uncompromising voice and a stake in the matter of social change.

Produced by Q2 Music www.q2music.org

Q2 Music is WQXR, New York's multi-platform home for dynamic and inspiring contemporary music. Discover countless new artists via our 24/7 music stream – hand-crafted daily to reward your curiosity – and surprise your imagination with a world of new sounds.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Alan Gilbert believes that conducting an orchestra is a process of “letting go together.” When the energy between a conductor and an orchestra is right, he says, it’s almost impossible to tell who’s leading who. Alan and Helga sat down in the New York Philharmonic music director's office to talk about what he means by serving a community, the moments in performance he lives for, and how maybe he could've benefited from showing his stress more.

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About the podcast:

HELGA with host Helga Davis features probing conversations with artists across the creative and performing arts that have a unique, uncompromising voice and a stake in the matter of social change.

Produced by Q2 Music www.q2music.org

Q2 Music is WQXR, New York's multi-platform home for dynamic and inspiring contemporary music. Discover countless new artists via our 24/7 music stream – hand-crafted daily to reward your curiosity – and surprise your imagination with a world of new sounds.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Solange is determined to express herself fully and with integrity. The musician, singer and songwriter has been writing music since she was in the fourth grade. In this episode, Solange and Helga retrace the pop-star’s journey from being a young mother in Idaho with a major-record publishing deal, to self-autonomy and accountability in the music business. The two also discuss the themes behind her recent album, "A Seat at the Table," of living authentically and of owning your voice, body and art while being black and beautiful in contemporary America.

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About the podcast:

HELGA with host Helga Davis features probing conversations with artists across the creative and performing arts that have a unique, uncompromising voice and a stake in the matter of social change.

Produced by Q2 Music www.q2music.org

Q2 Music is WQXR, New York's multi-platform home for dynamic and inspiring contemporary music. Discover countless new artists via our 24/7 music stream – hand-crafted daily to reward your curiosity – and surprise your imagination with a world of new sounds.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.