In 1921, a man named Harry Pace started the first major Black-owned record company in the United States. He called it Black Swan Records.
In an era when few Black musicians were recorded, the company was revolutionary. It launched the careers of Ethel Waters, Fletcher Henderson, William Grant Still, and Alberta Hunter, artists who transformed American musi ... Show More
May 7
Willie McGee and the Traveling Electric Chair
This episode includes topics and archival audio that some people will find disturbing.Seventy-five years ago, on the night of May 7th, 1951, close to a thousand people gathered around the courthouse in the small town of Laurel, Mississippi. They came to witness an execution. Will ... Show More
27m 39s
Apr 23
Sealab: A Home on the Ocean Floor
From ancient myths of sea monsters lurking below to Jules Verne's Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, the ocean has long been both a source of fear and fascination. For Captain George Bond, a Navy medical officer in the 1960s, the deep sea was humanity's next frontier. Underse ... Show More
20m 21s
Apr 2
Guest Spotlight: William Parker's War on Slave Catchers
This week we're bringing you a story from our friends at History This Week, a podcast from the History Channel.April 3, 1951. A man who escaped slavery is grabbed off the streets of Boston and thrown into a carriage. He fights back, shouting to the crowd, but it doesn’t matter. U ... Show More
38m 41s
Jul 2021
The Vanishing of Harry Pace Trailer from the Creators of Dolly Parton's America
Hi, Dolly Parton's America fans!
We're sharing a new trailer for our new 6-part series The Vanishing of Harry Pace -from the creators of Dolly Parton's America, Jad Abumrad and Shima Oliaee - now premiering at Radiolab.
It was Motown before Motown, FUBU before FUBU: Black Swan Re ... Show More
2m 7s
Jul 2023
Becoming the people we want to be, with Gina Birch, Kathleen Hanna, Mark Moore, and Stephen McRobbie
Gina Birch, Kathleen Hanna, Mark Moore, and Stephen McRobbie how their teenage years influenced their path into music, how it felt to be doing something creative and combative for a living, and being at peace with themselves later in life.Gina Birch was inspired to form post punk ... Show More
29m 24s
Jan 2022
Musical collage with Mad Professor, Suzanne Ciani, Matthew E. White and Georgia Anne Muldrow
Mad Professor, Suzanne Ciani, Matthew E. White and Georgia Anne Muldrow discuss how listening to music lets you travel through time, packaging their work into album form, and which part of the music-making process they enjoy the most.Matthew E. White is a singer, songwriter, prod ... Show More
29m 57s
Aug 2023
Music is escapism with Nitin Sawhney, Tim Burgess, Nainita Desai and Ayanna Witter-Johnson
Nitin Sawhney, Tim Burgess, Nainita Desai and Ayanna Witter-Johnson discuss how their family and cultural history impacts their creativity, being conscious of who they’re representing when creating, and how their output is a reflection of their changing identities.Producer, compo ... Show More
36m 58s