WNXP Podcasts

Last week, we introduced you to Lovenoise. Now we’re zooming in on exactly how they pushed through barriers that had long existed in Nashville. We’re also going to travel further back in time, to the heyday of Nashville’s Black music scene, and the role the city played in unraveling it. Then we’ll meet the first generation of R&B players, hip-hop MCs and neo-soul singer-songwriters who found what they’d been looking for at those Lovenoise Sunday nights.

In the early 2000s, Holt and his fellow Lovenoise founders may have been new to putting on events – aside from the party promotion that some of them had dabbled in – but they were savvy enough to learn from what was already working in Nashville. That meant borrowing from the strategies of a couple of country-oriented showcases that were considered institutions in the city.

This week for What Where Wednesday, we discuss Music In My Neighborhood with Kimberly Kraft McLemore, VP of Education and Community Engagement for the Nashville Symphony. It’s a weeklong musical takeover of the North Nashville and Bordeaux neighborhoods — in a partnership with the symphony and local organizations to highlight the history, culture and residents.

Record of the Week artist Madi Diaz has a lot going on. Since her reign as WNXP’s Nashville Artist of the Month a couple of years ago, she’s been co-signed by Muna and Waxahatchee. Her friend Kacey Musgraves jumped on a duet. She was picked by Pitchfork as a top album and Rolling Stone recently proclaimed this “the year of Madi.” Oh and Harry Styles handpicked her to not only open some shows but to join his band for a massive world tour! In our interview Madi explains how that experience “blew the lid off” her thought process around songwriting and recording. She shares a unique, recurring performance dream and a real-life nightmare (with a happy ending) that brought that feeling to life while opening for Styles. And she walks us through several tracks on Weird Faith, expanding on the big picture themes she tackles in songs like “Kiss the Wall,” “God Person” and “Obsessive Thoughts.”

Sometimes, a concert can be so big that it makes the local news. Like in 2021, when legendary rapper Nas performed with the Nashville Symphony. So how did that watershed moment come to be? Behind the scenes — for some 20 years — the music promotion company Lovenoise was laying the groundwork, carving out “a safe space for Black culture,” and boosting artists of color.

“Making Noise” is a joint production by WPLN and WNXP, the sister stations of Nashville Public Radio. Senior Music Writer Jewly Hight reported the stories and hosts the show.

The editors and producers are Tony Gonzalez, Justin Barney, and Marquis Munson, with additional editing and guidance by LaTonya Turner, Meribah Knight, Nicole Kemp, Jason Moon Wilkins and Magnolia McKay. Fact-checking by Emily Siner.

The logo is by Mack Linebaugh, the accompanying live event on March 3 is directed by Nicole Kemp, and digital support comes from Rachel Iacovone and Carly Butler.

The music you heard comes from Blue Dot Sessions and from the creative commons of the Free Music Archive, where we found the artist Holizna and his tracks “Bus Stop,” “Chills,” “Life on Cassette,” and “Busking in the Sunlight.”

This week for What Where Wednesday, we discuss Chuck Indigo: Live From $ville with Carlos Partee, owner of Cashville etc. There’s a ton of nicknames to describe Nashville. Music City, more recently the It City, but Cashville as a moniker has embraced the city's black community. Partee has taken the name and turned it into a clothing and community brand highlighting black creatives through fashion and music. I sat with Partee at Cashville store front in 100 Taylor’s Arts Collective to discuss what the word Cashville means to him and the music showcase happening on Thursday.

Big Sigh is the fourth LP by British singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Marika Hackman, and her first original material in several years. The songs that make up Big Sigh are lush, expansive, thoughtful, and deep, so unsurprisingly my conversation with Marika Hackman felt that way, too. Hear Hackman discuss the making of Big Sigh -- a collection of tunes about "relief, release and acceptance" that comes with the "tackling of quite dark themes."

"Making Noise" is a four-part series by WPLN and WNXP about how the music promotion company Lovenoise has changed the music landscape of Nashville. Subscribe now!

This week for What Where When-sday, we discuss Black History in Music: Work, Worship, and Celebration at Jefferson Street Sound Museum with Lorenzo Washington, founder and curator, and Karen Lynn Coffee, vice president. Taking place every Saturday during the month of February, the event features an exclusive art exhibit that aims to celebrate businesses and entrepreneurs that made Jefferson Street a musician haven. Washington and Coffee discussed the event and the museum’s mission to keep the memory of thriving times on the historic street. 

Our Record of the Week is Katy Kirby’s Blue Raspberry. After graduating from Belmont University here in Nashville Tennessee, Katy Kirby released Cool Dry Place on the Keeled Scales record label out of Austin. The record received acclaim far and wide. The folks over at Anti- Records, home of Tom Waits and Fleet Foxes noticed it too and signed a record deal with Katy Kirby. The new label has a new expansion of sound on the record and features many Nashville musicians and explores concepts of religion, personal identity and what it is to be real.

Outside of being one of Nashville's most prolific MCs, Brian Brown's passion outside of music is sports. You can hear it in his lyrics you can see it on his social media the avid Detroit Lions fan and our WNXP Nashville Artist of the Month spoke about his love for the Lions and playoff prediction, the Tennessee Titans new head coach, and playing NFL Blitz while writing his breakout 2020 project Journey.