The Metro

After a two-year break, the Hospitality Included food and drink festival is set to return to Detroit’s North End. The Detroit-based industry group Hospitality Included will host 30 of the city's top bars, restaurants and pop-up chefs as vendors at the one-day outdoor festival. Popular eateries including Freya, Fried Chicken & Caviar, Flowers of Vietnam and Dutch Girl Donuts will have food on offer.

Hospitality Included Fest '25 is August 24 at Detroit Design District in Detroit’s North End neighborhood.

Thor Jones, founder of Hospitality Included, joined the Metro to discuss the festival, what it took to bring it back after two years, and the 'community ticketing' model the festival is using this year for admission.

Listen to The Metro weekdays from 10 a.m. to noon ET on 101.9 FM and streaming on demand.

It's hard to find a more home-grown Detroit artist than Beth. You can tell the second she lays her silky-sultry vocals on the track that the singer-songwriter is a direct descendent of the Motown sound.

From touring around the world as a backup vocalist for legendary artists KEM and Anita Baker, to her time in the music competition show The Voice, it's clear that Beth's sound is widely sought after. 

Today, Beth joined The Metro and shed light on her experiences navigating the entertainment industry.  

Eve Ewing is an author, poet and a professor of sociology at the University of Chicago. Before she became a professor, Ewing was a middle school teacher for Chicago public schools. Since then, she's spent several years thinking about how schools work and uncovering the historic wounds that explain how education today has fallen short, particularly for children of color. 

In her latest book “Original Sin: The (Mis)education of Black and native Children and Construction of American Racism,” Ewing situates the construction of Americans schools alongside American slavery and the attempted genocide of Native Americans. She argues they are used as a tool to condition Black and native communities. 

While schools here in Michigan are struggling to develop student’s reading and math skills, producer Cary Junior II explored why Ewing believes the way we measure and define intelligence is inadequate. 

The Palisades nuclear plant in Covert Township got one step closer to reopening after federal regulators allowed the plant’s owners to load fuel into the facility. Some reporting suggests that Holtec International plans to reopen the reactor by October.  

That move is part of a larger trend. 

In recent years, there’s been a lot more political energy behind opening nuclear reactors. During his time as president, Joe Biden unveiled a plan to ramp up America’s nuclear energy capacity. When he got into office, President Donald Trump signed an executive order with the goal of quadrupling nuclear power in 25 years. 

Many climate change defenders are divided on these decisions. That’s because nuclear energy could provide a ton of clean energy for Americans, but it also has the capacity to kill people and contaminate the earth. That’s why environmentalists have generally stood against the nuclear energy comeback. 

In order to assess nuclear energy in terms of risk and reward, journalist, editor, producer, and co-founder of Foxtopus Inc Laura Krantz joined the show.

She produced the 2022 podcast, “Wild Thing: Going Nuclear,” where she explored the possibilities and drawbacks of nuclear energy. Krantz spoke with Robyn Vincent about why she thinks nuclear energy is important — and what concerns her about nuclear reactors.

Listen to The Metro weekdays from 10 a.m. to noon ET on 101.9 FM and streaming on-demand.

Tariq Gardner grew up in Detroit surrounded by music. His mother is renowned bassist Marion Hayden. Jazz was in the house and his hands from an early age.

He studied jazz and contemporary improvisation at the University of Michigan. Gardner has played everything from straight-ahead jazz to neo-soul, hip-hop, gospel, and Afro-Cuban. He’s performed at the Detroit Jazz Festival, the Cape May Jazz Festival, and with artists across the country.

He leads Evening Star, a band of longtime collaborators, blending Detroit’s jazz tradition with global rhythms and modern grooves.

The band is a featured artist in WDET’s 2025 Sounds Like Detroit Music Showcase.

Tariq Gardner joined the show to discuss his musical journey.

Listen to The Metro weekdays from 10 a.m. to noon ET on 101.9 FM and streaming on-demand.

The day before Detroit’s primary election, Detroit City Clerk Janice Winfrey told The Metro "less than five" polling places in the city have accessibility problems — and that her legal obligation includes ensuring entrances and voting machines are accessible.

This week, nonprofit advocacy organization Detroit Disability Power pushed back. The group disputed Winfrey’s claims, pointing to its 2025 survey of 167 polling locations. The findings, they say, reveal widespread barriers and raise serious concerns about Detroit polling place accessibility ahead of the November election.

Eric Welsby, the policy director for Detroit Disability Power, joined Robyn Vincent on The Metro to dispute Winfrey's claims. He explained the persistent barriers for people with disabilities at Detroit polling locations and how this issue is not unique to Detroit.

You can’t trust everything you see and hear nowadays, especially text messages and emails.

One of the most common scams recently are fake toll road fines that are sent via text message. The FBI calls it “smishing," which combines the abbreviation for text messages, SMS, with phishing.

The problem has gotten so big that the Michigan Secretary of State's website has as pop-up warning at the top of their homepage, reminding Michigan residents that the Secretary of State will never solicit payment via text message.

So what’s behind the text message toll road scams? How can people identify a scam? What makes seniors so vulnerable to cyber scams?

Lexi Lutz joined the Metro to help answer those questions. Lutz is the senior corporate counsel for privacy and cybersecurity at Nordstrom, and she appeared on The Metro in her capacity of founder of Opt-Inspire, a nonprofit that works to keep seniors cyber-secure, and helps them use digital technology safely to connect with loved ones.

Listen to The Metro weekdays from 10 a.m. to noon ET on 101.9 FM and streaming on demand.

The Detroit Land Bank Authority has made tremendous changes in Detroit since its conception in 2008. But without a subsidy from the city for the 2026 fiscal year and new leadership entering the conversation, the authority's future is unclear.

Over almost two decades, the land bank has sold about 50,000 properties. That’s sometimes translated into less blight, more resident control over their own neighborhood, and more small-scale development projects. 

With over 60,000 properties left to be sold and the general mayoral election looming, many are asking: What should change about the land bank? And what should stay the same? 

Detroit Land Bank Authority CEO Tammy Daniels joined Robyn Vincent to discuss.

Listen to The Metro weekdays from 10 a.m. to noon ET on 101.9 FM and streaming on-demand.

What happens when building or renovating a space creates more than just profits? What does it look like when design and functionality come together to better a community? 

The New School is a collective of 8 women-led architecture firms, working to reimagine Detroit from the ground up, no pun intended.

The group hopes to connect like minded people and change the landscape of architecture to be more inclusive.

Laura Marie Peterson, director of 1+1+ and Laura Walker, owner and co-founder of Other Work, joined The Metro to describe how architecture can serve a community.

Listen to The Metro weekdays from 10 a.m. to noon ET on 101.9 FM and streaming on-demand.

The Charles H Wright Museum of African American History has been a staple for generations of Detroiters. 

It's been 60 years since The Wright first opened its doors in 1965, the same year that the Voting Rights Act was signed into law.

Through the years, The Wright has been a place of learning and a frequent field trip destination where visitors learn histories often left out of major cultural institutions. 

Director of Design and Fabrication Kevin Davidson spoke with The Metro's Tia Graham about the legacy of The Wright.

Listen to The Metro weekdays from 10 a.m. to noon ET on 101.9 FM and streaming on demand.