JJJJJerome Ellis talks with Maya and Cynthia about the intersections of being a black person who stutters and a musician, how his views of his disability evolved since childhood, and why it was so important for him to connect his stutter to his ancestral history of slavery in his work. He also highlights how the stage is a safe space for stuttering and music is a source of healing the pain he experienced as a child.

“Growing up I felt so much of the pain and also the beauty of the stutter. Over time I’ve come to feel the stutter alters time, and music is another way that we can alter time. Part of what I was trying to do with The Clearing is to try to undo some of the things that have been told to me about stuttering and to transform the stuttering narrative through poetry, music, history, and philosophy.”

Other topics include:

• Stuttering easily with animals
• Intersectionality
• Pain in not being able to connect with people
• The stage as a safe space 
• Comparing stuttering to being frozen in time
• Music as a source of healing
• Being at odds with language
• Poetry allows for so much freedom to explore language
• Getting through interviews with a stutter

LINKS FROM THE EPISODE:

Jerome’s album The Clearing

Jerome’s accompanying book to The Clearing

The Guardian article, Artist and stutterer JJJJJerome Ellis: ‘So much pain comes from not feeling fully human’

More about the collaboration between James Harrison Monaco and Jerome Ellis

Performance at the Metropolitan Museum of Modern Art

Brittany Cooper’s Racial Politics of Time TED Talk

Joshua St. Pierre, Canada Research Chair in Critical Disability Studies

Jerome's upcoming live performances:

April 10, 2022: Rewire Festival in The Hague, Netherlands

May 7, 2022: XJAZZ! Festival in Berlin, Germany

July 2022: Performances at Haus Der Kunst in Munich, Germany

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