Making

By WBEZ ChicagoSociety & Culture

Making episodes

June 01, 2023 Making Shonda
Shonda Rhimes has been called TV's greatest. With groundbreaking shows like
Grey's Anatomy, Scandal and How to Get Away with Murder, she became one of the most
powerful showrunners in Hollywood history. But, the battle to Hollywood's highest
echelons wasn't a joyride for a Black woman from Chicagoland. Hear from mentors,
colleagues and cultural commentators on how the queen of television came to be.
40 min
May 18, 2023 Making Jordan Peele
Jordan Peele is responsible for modern classics in the horror genre,
including the films Us, Nope and the Oscar-winning Get Out. Before all that, he was
a self-described nerd. He majored in puppetry in college before dropping out with
his friend Rebecca Drysdale to pursue a career in comedy. Hear from Drysdale,
Peele's early collaborator Brendan Hunt and cultural critic Aisha Harris about
Jordan Peele's rise to comedic and horror genius.
40 min
May 04, 2023 Making Kanye
Part 1: Touch the sky.
Before becoming a cultural lightning rod, Kanye West was a self-confident teenager,
handing out mixtapes on the South and West sides of Chicago. In the first episode of
our two-part podcast series, we track Kanye's meteoric rise from uncredited producer
to headlining star.
Making tells the story of a different, iconic figure every episode. Subscribe and
don't miss an episode.
39 min
May 04, 2023 Unmaking Kanye
Part 2: It all falls down.
Ye becomes a mouthpiece for the more sinister parts of American society. In the
second episode of our two-part podcast series, hear from friends, journalists,
activists, fans (and former fans) on Ye's second act, from superstar status to
cultural pariah.
Making tells the story of a different, iconic figure every episode. Subscribe and
don't miss an episode.
39 min
December 15, 2022 The life-changing moments that make an icon
Robyn Rihanna Fenty was just a 15 year-old student in Barbados when she
showed up late for her audition with record producer Evan Rogers. Fortunately, her
tardiness didn't matter. She crushed it.
“I just heard something really unique and special in her vocals, even though they
were raw,” Rogers said on Making. “It was just one of those moments where I think I
have something really special here.”
This was just one of many critical moments we've dissected in this season of Making
– the make-or-break moments that change the course of a life and often the course of
history.
In this week's season finale, host Brandon Pope takes a look back at some of the key
put-up-or-shut-up moments from this season, from Serena Williams to Frederick
Douglass to RuPaul and more.
26 min
December 08, 2022 Making Ida B. Wells
When Ida B. Wells was just 21 years old, authorities kicked her off a train
for sitting in the all-white “ladies' car.” She sued. She wrote about the experience
in her local church newspaper.
“I felt that one had better die fighting against injustice than to die like a dog or
a rat in a trap,” she said later.
Wells would soon become one of America's greatest journalism pioneers. After the
lynching of her close friend, she investigated the prevalence of lynchings across
the American South. She collected data, interviewed sources on the ground and wrote
fiery articles that dispelled racist myths. By the end of the campaign, she was one
of the most famous Black women in America.
While her force can be felt over a century later, in her time Wells faced backlash
from the white and Black community alike. She co-founded the National Association
for the Advancement of Colored People – or NAACP – in 1909, but was temporarily
ousted for being too radical.
“Doing good journalism actually means that you're not making any friends,” said
journalist Caitlin Dickerson, who wrote Wells' obituary for The New York Times
series Overlooked. “It's a bad sign if there's one group of people who think of you
as 'on their side.'”
On the latest episode of Making, host Brandon Pope leads a conversation with
Dickerson, Wells' great-granddaughter Michelle Duster and acclaimed scholar Paula
Giddings, author of Ida: A Sword Among Lions, on the life and legacy of this
journalism and civil rights hero.
33 min
December 01, 2022 Making Jesse Owens
Jesse Owens' four gold medals at the 1936 Olympics in Berlin is the stuff
of legend.
“A man who's a second class citizen at home, son of a sharecropper, grandson of
slaves, going over to Hitler's Germany,” explained ESPN reporter Jeremy Schaap on
Making. “And he rose to the occasion in a way that embodies true greatness.”
But Owens' journey from Alabama to Ohio to Germany and back again was filled with
many highs and lows. His mother used a hot knife to excise a tumor from his chest
when he was 5. He tied the world record in the 100 yard dash as a senior in high
school. His college years at Ohio State were marked by both racial segregation and
unparalleled athletic achievement.
And after his return to America following the Berlin Olympics, Owens and other
African-American medalists did not receive the same invitation to the White House
that their white counterparts did.
“It was one of the things that really hurt him,” said Marlene Rankin, Owens'
daughter and the co-founder of the Jesse Owens Foundation. “Not everything got to
him, but I think that did.”
On this week's Making, host Brandon Pope leads a conversation on the years that
defined Jesse Owens' life, featuring Rankin, NBCNews.com contributor Cecil Harris,
Owens' son-in-law and former business partner Stuart Rankin, and Schaap, author of
Triumph: The Untold Story of Jesse Owens and Hitler's Olympics.
36 min
November 24, 2022 Making Frederick Douglass
Frederick Douglass' journey out of slavery and into the most powerful rooms
in the country is a story of tenacity, luck and self-liberation. Hear the story of
his improbable rise with Douglass' great-great-great-grandson, Ken Morris; Douglass'
Pulitzer-prize-winning biographer, David Blight, and Emmy-award winning actor
Jeffrey Wright, who's lent his voice to Douglass for HBO and Apple Books. "He's a
founding father of the American conscious.” Wright says of Douglass on Making.
“That's how I view him.”
44 min
November 17, 2022 Making RuPaul
When RuPaul's mother was pregnant, she went to a psychic who said RuPaul
would be famous.
That psychic was right. With Emmys, Tonys and 14 studio albums, RuPaul Andre Charles
has become the world's most famous drag queen. But before superstardom, Ru was just
a kid in the big city, go-go dancing to make ends meet.
“None of us had any money back then. We were all shopping at thrift stores,” said
friend and legendary drag queen Lady Bunny. “We were all kind of artsy-fartsy
bums.”
Joining Lady Bunny are DJ and songwriter Larry Tee, author and drag historian Simon
Doonan and RuPaul's Drag Race All Stars winner Shea Couleé in conversation with host
Brandon Pope. A dive into the critical years that turned RuPaul into a supernova.
44 min
November 10, 2022 Making Maya Angelou
Perhaps best known for her seminal autobiography I Know Why The Caged Bird
Sings, Maya Angelou is one of the most celebrated literary minds in history, whose
poetry and prose has touched generations of readers. But before Caged Bird, Angelou
danced and sang on and off Broadway, earned the moniker “Miss Calypso” in the 1950s,
called dozens of American cities and African nations home, and even became the first
Black woman to work as a cable car conductor in San Francisco.
On this episode of Making, host Brandon Pope leads a conversation on Maya Angelou's
early days and what made her who she was. Joining him is Rita Coburn, co-director of
the Peabody-Award-winning PBS documentary Maya Angelou: And Still I Rise; Randal
Jelks, professor of African and African American studies and American studies at the
University of Kansas; and a legend in her own right, Dr. Maxine Mimms, the founder
of the Tacoma Campus of Evergreen State College and a longtime friend of Angelou.
43 min