Transcript of Why did Taylor Swift stop singing in a country accent? New

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I'm Manny.

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And this is Devin. And this is No Such Thing, the show where we settle our dumb arguments and yours by actually doing the research. On today's episode, why did Taylor Swift stop singing in a country accent? Oh, that's it.

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Listen to Look Back at It on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. All right. So today's episode was inspired by a listener email. This is from Joel V. He says, my wife asked me a question the other day as we were driving somewhere. This is his wife. Why do we only hear pronounced accents in country music songs? It seems like whenever Americans hear songs by British artists, we can never really discern their accent. However, With country songs, the accent is clear. Are there other top genres where accent is clear? All right, Joel. Great question.

And Miss Joel.

So this is something we've been talking about over the years and thinking about accents and music more broadly before we get, you know, zero in on Joel's question. How do you all feel with this general premise that basically outside of country music, it's kind of hard to discern accents in music.

Yeah, I don't know if it's that black and white, but I certainly, I know what they're getting at, which, you know, growing up I've been always fascinated hearing or like finding out that a singer is English. Uh, you know, we, we see this in acting all the time, but it happens in music, in music as well.

I feel like this is more of a thing in pop music, uh, where it's harder to discern, you know. I think our classic example is like, we think of, like you're saying, like someone from the UK.

Yeah.

And not being able to be like, oh shoot, I thought you were American. Um, but because, you know, in let's say a genre like rap, yeah, it is very clear when there is a—

what's close to the spoken word.

Yeah. Exactly.

Dizzy rascal. Yes.

Yeah. What are some other examples of artists that you were like, "Whoa, I didn't realize this person was from this place"?

Well, I remember, uh— Do you guys remember Leanna Lewis?

Oh, yeah.

So, in 2008, I think, she had this song "Bleeding Love." Mmhmm.

Classic.

But I don't care what they say. I'm in love with you. They're trying to pull me away, but they don't know the truth. And—

The reason it's more clear to me, as you guys know, obviously I am married to an English woman and you like, I can tell the most obvious difference between the American accent and the English accent is they don't pronounce R. So instead of first, it'd be like first or whatever, or like, you know, let's go out there. Let's go out there. And Leona Lewis. And so you can hear in, in the verse, it's not just that her accent disappears. They are literally pronouncing the words like Americans.

Tryin' hard not to hear, but they talk so loud. Their piercing sounds fill my ears. Tryin' to fill me with doubt.

So that's always been—

Do you think this is like an intentional—

It would be hard to act to like accidentally pronounce first like an American, I think, instead of— I don't know, maybe when you're singing, you're reading out, enunciating the letters.

That's kind of my— that's my, my guess. I think I was thinking of I was thinking about trying to think of some examples, and then I was watching a movie yesterday and Elvis Costello was in it. And Elvis Costello is English. He's a rock kind of new wave rock guy. And I was like, oh, let me, let me listen to him and see, because I remember listening to him back in middle school or something, and I didn't know anything about him. And I was listening to him, just, I guess I assumed he was American. And he had a lyric in a song that was like something, Mr. Oswald with a swastika tattoo. And I assumed he was talking about Lee Harvey Oswald, and I was like, okay, there's a lot of theories around this guy. I've never heard this particular one. So I remember actually looking it up then. Yeah, but it was like, oh, it's talking about like a well-known fascist British politician. Yeah, I was like, oh, that makes sense.

And then the references.

Yeah, so I was like, so it was from that context clue, but even in his songs that are Some songs he's more belting it out and some he's not talking, but a little bit more like faster where it seems more closer to language. When I listen to him, I wouldn't— I don't hear an accent at all. So it's only the contextual clues of what he's singing about.

The lyrics give it away for you.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Are there reverse examples? Are there Americans that try to sound British?

Yeah, I think there's a lot of like, um, like the Ramones kind of do a little affect. Like, uh, whatever, Blitzkrieg Bop or something. And they're just singing in a— it's just a little style where it's like not how you would actually talk if you were a person. They're just like a little— totally, you know? Yeah, so that's the most prominent example I can think of. And then I was— there's a band, Rancid, who are like later on, who are like very influenced by The Clash, who are an English band. And the guy's just clearly doing, uh, Joe Strummer. Clearly just heard him and is singing like him. It's like, I don't know, maybe he's just some street punk guy doing this thing, but it's like, yeah, he's trying to do this thing. And then it's funny because then there are bands copying this guy. It becomes a copy of a copy of all these guys, mostly American, trying to sound like this British guy from, you know, generations before.

Now that's fast, but those are the ones I've, I've thought of.

Oh, the guy from Gorillaz, Damon Albarn from the band Blur. He's English.

Oh yeah.

And Gorillaz. And they, I guess they do a lot more kind of almost talking stuff. So he, you can hear his He sounds extreme. He has a strong accent. Yeah, it comes through in the music because it's more talking. Like, if you listen to whatever Clint Eastwood or any of those songs—

I ain't happy, I'm feeling glad I got sunshine in a bag. I'm useless but not for long.

So there's no, no mystery there. Yeah, that's when he's belting it out, you wouldn't hear it.

Like the English singers that sound English when they sing. So what's her name? Lily Allen. Yeah, that big Lily Allen song from like the mid-2000s, it was very clear.

Yeah.

Yeah. And again, that's like a little more talky.

When you first left me, I was wanting more, but you were fucking that girl next door. What'd you do that for?

Yeah, there's the lack of R's.

Yeah.

Does Adele do this?

I was, I was just, yeah, let's play her out.

That's, this is my, my belting theory. If you're belting it out and Adele is one of our great belters. I think it's a lot harder to hear.

Yeah, well, let's put it this way: her singing accent is nowhere near her.

Well, that's the thing. Yeah, because that's the thing, you know, she has a very thick accent. Yes, talking.

And jellied eel is little chopped up bits of eel, which is probably just boiled, actually, now I think about it. So got no flavor in it at all.

Because that's— I was trying to think of, like, okay, the Beatles, and it's like, I— you obviously know they're English, but it's more like, okay, I recognize that's John Lennon's voice, and I know how he sounds when he's talking.

Yeah, yeah.

I don't actually think there's an accent when he's singing. Then there's obviously songs when they're doing more of a talk, like you can hear it more. But mostly, if you hear whatever, Tristan shout or something, yeah, wouldn't think that.

But let's hear Adele. Yeah.

There's a fire starting in my heart, reaching a fever pitch, and it's bringing me out the dark.

It's just kind of like the classic soul singer voice, you know, that doesn't necessarily sound English.

What about Taylor Swift?

Yeah, you think about it, like, when she first came out, she was singing in that, like, crazy Nashville country accent. Like, I remember one of my good friends, his cousin, like, went to, like, high school with— or elementary school, younger, uh, with Taylor Swift. And she's from Pennsylvania. And I was like, "Wait a minute. You went to school with Taylor? Isn't Taylor Swift from, like—" Yeah, Kentucky or— Yeah, somewhere down south. And it's like, no, she's from—

Pennsylvania.

That's crazy. I actually haven't— I don't know, I've never heard that song.

Yeah, her transition to pop was like a gradual thing, right? Like 1989, I guess, was like the official—

that was the one that was fully no country.

Yeah, like I'm not pretending anymore at all. But that early stuff, that's really like a country twang.

Yeah, fully country accent as opposed to what I was imagining, which like a little bit of a, you know, a tilt.

Yeah. No, that's like a— Yeah, that's a little bit crazy. And then, you know, now she's making pop music and like it doesn't exist anymore. But this is the crazy thing. When I was looking for this, so she performed this more recently on the Eras Tour. So I was curious How's it sound? How similar does Taylor sound? Let's hear it. Does she go back to that twang?

And he says, our song is a slamming screen door, sneaking out and tapping on your window. When we're on the phone and you talk real slow, 'cause it's late and your mama don't know. Our song is a—

No, she's doing like the pop version now.

She completely lost the accent. Wow. Or more accurately, she's no longer putting on an accent. Yeah.

It's like, you know, obviously she was much younger when that song came out. But this is not like, okay, my voice is different. I'm singing in a different key. This is like, I'm not— No, the style is different.

Yeah.

Yeah. So what I want to do is I'm going to play some songs and I want you guys to try to guess where the artist is from. The one rule is if you know who the artist is, don't say anything.

Where the artist is from in terms of just their nationality.

Yeah. I don't know this.

I don't know this song either. Well, you're not guessing the song. I know, I'm just clarifying. There's something away. I get $5 if I get this. There was something about the way he said the word to, to, that I thought was English.

Yeah, I'm getting English vibes, but I'm, I'm in my head now.

Okay, so that is McGee from New Jersey.

What the hell? Wow, that's incredible.

All right, let me play.

The cameras and cops, we could have been stars on our mother's news screens.

I'm going UK again.

I think he said cameras in a very UK way.

There's a couple, couple tip-offs for me. Cameras. What do we got?

This one's a little bit of a cheat. It's Mustafa. He's Canadian. Mm. So I'll give you half a point for that one.

All bets are off.

Where in Canada do we know?

Toronto. Toronto.

They do have an accent there.

I'll give you half a point because, you know, okay, the Queen's on the money. Yes, I'll give you that one. Okay, I'll give you guys an easy one.

I don't know, I'm scared now, but they wouldn't be dropping the N-word like that, I don't think, over there, so Yeah, this guy's American.

Yeah, this is no cap from Mobile, Alabama. All right, let's do it.

What if, what if we run away? What if, what if we left today? What if we said goodbye to safe and sound?

This has to be like one of the One Direction guys.

What if we lost their minds? What if we let them fall behind and they never found American?

American. I'm going to go English. English.

You're going American. You're both wrong. What? This is Troye Sivan from Australia.

I was like, I thought it was like, I thought that was Nick Jonas.

Close. Yeah, me too. I thought it was like, what's it, what's the guy's name from, uh, One Direction? Not him, the other one. Zayn. Zayn. Um, cuz he said never without an R, but I guess in Australia they also do that.

You guys did horrible at that game. We did. Yeah. Any right?

Yeah. We got a half point for Canadian. I should also get a half point for Australian. So I got a full point.

So maybe we're not so good at— well, at least you two aren't so good at discerning. Yeah. Well, at least we think we are. So we are going to be joined by New Yorker music writer and critic Kellefa Senneh, and we're going to go deep on genre, on gatekeeping, and of course, accents in popular music. All of that after the break. Alright fellas, I need you to help me with a problem that I got. You know, usually we're the ones helping other people with their problems, but I'm about to go abroad and I want to watch Met games.

Noah, how can I watch them? That's a tough one. Maybe get a really large telescope?

I don't think that's the best way to do it. Manny, do you have any solutions on how I could watch Mets games abroad?

I think I've got a slightly more practical solution for you, Devin. If you use NordVPN, you'll be able to change the location of your laptop's IP address and watch the content with no problem. What about my privacy online?

I'm worried someone's watching me.

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Sounds comfy. So many— I've heard I keep hearing about these VPNs and how they're super slow. How do I make sure my internet is not throttling?

If you wanna use a VPN without slowing down your internet, Devin, you're gonna wanna use NordVPN because whenever I use it, I don't see any buffering or lagging while I'm streaming my favorite content. How do I get NordVPN? Devin, if you or our listeners wanna get the best discount off of your NordVPN plan, go to nordvpn.com/nst. Our link will also give you 4 extra months on the 2-year plan, and there's no risk because Nord has a 30-day money-back guarantee. The link is in the show notes. That's nordvpn.com/nst.

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A win is a win. A win is a win. I don't care what y'all say. Yep, that's me, Clifford Taylor IV. You might have seen the skits, the reactions, my journey from basketball to college football, or my career in sports media. Well, somewhere along the way, this platform became bigger than I ever imagined. And now I'm bringing all of that excitement to my brand new podcast, The Clifford Show. This is a place for raw, unfiltered conversations with some of your favorite athletes, creators, and voices that not only deserve to be heard, but celebrated. One week I'll take you behind the scenes of the biggest moments in sports and entertainment, and the next we'll talk about life, mental health, purpose, and even music. The Clifford Show isn't just a podcast, It's a space for honest conversations, stories that don't always get told, and for people who are chasing something bigger. So if you've ever supported me or you're just chasing down a dream, this is right where you need to be. Listen to The Clifford Show on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And for more behind the scenes, follow @Clifford and @tiktokpodcastnetwork on TikTok.

Imagine an Olympics where doping is not only legal but encouraged. It's the Enhanced Games. Some call it grotesque, others say it's unleashing human potential. Either way, the podcast Superhuman documented it all, embedded in the games and with the athletes for a full year.

Within probably 10 days, I'd put on 10 pounds. I was having trouble stopping the muscle growth.

Listen to Superhuman on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

So, in the studio, we're joined by Kay. Who's a critic and a writer at The New Yorker, an author of Major Labels: A History of Popular Music in Seven Genres.

Good news, bad news. You have my book here.

I have the book here. On the table.

But then I was looking at the COVID I was like, wow, why does it have a kind of a plasticky— That's a library book. I support my local library, man.

You know, what I was doing early in this podcast was I was buying every single book. And then I got some books that I didn't want to keep.

I see. You're saying this might be one of them. We'll find out. This is the audition to me saying that.

By the end of the episode.

You know? Is that a thing on your show? Like, at the end of the episode, if it goes well, I get to watch you log on to Amazon and buy it?

Um, so just as a reminder, uh, this episode started with a question from a listener named Joel. "Why do we only hear pronounced accents in country music?" First of all, do you agree with that premise? No! That's crazy.

That's insane.

OK. All right, we're on the same page.

Well, like, what's an accent? Right?

Like—

And to be fair to Joel, he says pronounced accents. Like, yes, I think he thinks you can hear, you know, if someone's got an English accent, for example.

Well, I wonder if when Joel says pronounced accents, he means fake. Is that his polite way of saying fake? I think he—

yes. From the rest of the email, it seems like performative, maybe, if not fake.

Well, yes.

Put on. Like leaning into it.

Yes. It's funny because in one definition, any musician who has any, the accent is performative by definition if you're performing. But yes, in terms of there being a noticeable difference between the accent and the way you talk in everyday life, or a sense that the accent is there to help you try to like fit in with the genre you're part of. Yeah, you hear some of that in country, but yeah, I think you hear it other places too. Obviously country has a more regional identity in some ways, Although even that gets a little complicated by what we mean by regional. There's a lot of different— a lot of different reasons a person might have an accent. So, yes, you tell me where we going.

But I want to start with country music. Okay. Because that was where, you know, that was Joel's question. But you talk about this. Country is an interesting genre because I think it gatekeeps in a way that a lot of other genres just don't. I disagree, but please continue. Oh, okay. There is this thing in country music in which they love to talk about sort of like authenticity and holding on to that. And there are certain— you talk about this in your book— certain signifiers of country music that we all know of. So can you talk a little bit about sort of like country music's positioning of sort of like authenticity and sort of this fear of like almost being too big and like holding on to that?

Well, I want to zoom out a little bit because when I think about musical genres, I think of them as communities. And it's like a community of listeners and musicians, sometimes literally in the same room, but sometimes it's just like you're listening to the music and you're like imagining the other people that might also listen to this music. And you're like, you know, you're listening to Dolly Parton. Workin' night through five. What a way to make a living. —giving any— And for the half hour that the album lasts, you can become the kind of person who listens to Dolly Parton. Like, that's part of the fun. And so when you think about a community, any community needs gatekeeping. Yeah. Sometimes the gatekeeping might be like literally turning people away. And especially if you want it to feel, to have some sense of intimacy, some sense of like, oh, me and you have something in common that's a little different from those people out there. We need some way to distinguish ourselves. And accents can be one way of doing that. That could be one signal. I use this kind of language, but also vocabulary and all sorts of things.

And so I think that the question of how inclusive or exclusive a community is, is a little bit hard to, it's a little bit hard to define 'cause it depends who wants to get in. And again, the bigger your community is, the more you're gonna maybe look to charts or other metrics of success to see to see like what we all agree on. And so yeah, the question of like, it's hard. So yeah, it's hard to even know how you would rank like, does country, is country music more gatekeepery than techno? I don't know, man. Like techno has some rules and those clubs might be like literally hard to get into. Whereas like anyone can buy a ticket to a country music concert. So I think that in country music, yes, there's gatekeeping, but there is, I think more than that, there's a sense of identity. And so the question of what that identity is, is obviously extremely vexed in every genre, including country music. You could look at them not playing Beyoncé, but you have to keep in mind, these are the same radio stations that also don't play Taylor Swift because they also don't view Taylor Swift as like really country enough.

But they're happy to play Shaboozie. Mm-hmm.

Can you walk us through this, like, country music identity.

It starts as a kind of disparate thing, right? Country and Western. When Billboard is doing these charts of country music and Western music, and those are thought of as, like, maybe slightly separate things, right? You think about the musical traditions of the American Southeast. You think about what would be called sometimes hillbilly music. You think about string bands, and then you think about Western music, the iconography of cowboys. Yeah. You know, Texas swing, all sorts of stuff. And that stuff kind of mashes together and it becomes something with a more specific identity. And in some ways that identity is inclusive, right? Because you know, the idea that someone in Nashville, Tennessee would wear a cowboy hat is a little weird in the first place. There's not a lot of ranches in Nashville, Tennessee. So the Western thing kind of migrates, but it also becomes exclusive in various ways. One way it becomes exclusive is, you know, it's thought of as this is rural music. And a lot of country songs from the beginning of its existence as a genre are about the fact that the singers themselves used to live in some rural place, or America used to be rural, and now we've come to the city, which is what creates the country music industry right now.

We've come to— we're at the Wheeling Jamboree or we're at the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville, but we remember the way things used used to be. So that sense of like, we remember how things used to be when things were more rural, is a big part of the identity of country music as a rural genre. At various points, it comes to be perceived as a Southern genre. The Western part sort of like fades away a little bit. You know, nowadays you don't say country and Western. You say country. Obviously, one of the most fun ones, which I've saved until now, is it comes to be thought of as white music. Yeah. And this despite the fact that obviously if you look at the history of country music, there's tons of Black musicians who have contributed to this history. Here's Dee Ford Bailey with the Fox Chicks.

Catch it. Stick it. Yeah, yeah.

And what happens at a certain point is that the genre itself comes to be seen as segregated in a way that kind of mirrors the segregation of American life. So the white performers from this genre are kind of pulled out towards this thing that gets called country music, and some of the Black performers, you might say, are excluded from that tradition or are considered more rhythm and blues. And so, you know, you have, you have Ray Charles making a country album that doesn't necessarily get played on country radio stations. Broken heart, but time has to steal— So part of the identity of the genre is it's gonna be a white genre. Yeah. And that's a thing that is hard to— that's an interesting thing to kind of grapple with because I think a lot of people have a reaction when they hear that of like, that's really bad. Yeah. That it's white. But then you think about R&B, which is thought of as a Black genre.

Well, Jack Harlow would say otherwise. That's right.

Come on in, Jack. With his extra tall hat. Exactly. I mean, obviously I love it when people are playing and transgressing in that kind of a way. Yeah. But generally the idea that R&B music is Black music is often talked about as something to celebrate. Yeah. Like, this is a Black musical tradition. Like, this is great. This is something to be proud of. But, you know, If you do the math, in a country that's, what, 13% Black, if you have Black genres, you're also going to have white genres, just like mathematically. And so, one way I think about country music is that it's almost mathematically necessary if you're going to have some disproportionately Black genres in America, that in a country that's still, whatever it is, 58% non-Hispanic white or something, you're gonna have some disproportionately white genres. And then the question is, well, like, how do we think about that? And how do we think about diversity within a genre? And the reason I bring up R&B is because it's a good example of how, like, we might not want that. We might not look at R&B and be like, "Wow, that's a shame that it's so many Black performers.

I wish it was only 13% Black performers and 18.5% Hispanic." And, you know. So, you know, I don't think it's obvious that musical segregation is bad or is a problem in a genre. One of the things I love about popular music is that it reflects America, good, bad, and otherwise. And so to the extent that Americans are living somewhat segregated lives, I would expect and even in a way celebrate the idea that music would reflect that rather than sugarcoating it or rather than pretending something different is happening. So yes, country has and still does kind of grapple with its identity as white music. So yes, you get all these things and you still have this, but you do still have this trace of an accent. Yeah. And when we think of an accent, we kind of think of a country accent as a singular thing. Country roads, take me home, to the place I belong. Whereas of course, traditionally, someone from Georgia and someone from Texas have pretty different ways of speaking, especially if you're from one of those places. In country music, one of the things that happens is that all these different regional musical traditions sort of combine into one sort of all the same, but sort of different mega tradition, right?

You get country music out of all these different regional traditions that exist before it. And so similarly, maybe, and I'm not a linguist, maybe you get something that sort of feels like a country accent so that when, Taylor Swift, from outside of Pittsburgh, is making country records and selling— sending them to country radio. She's using a little bit more of a country accent.

Yeah.

00:31:33

And when she starts making records that are more considered or marketed or influenced by pop music, you hear less of that.

00:31:45

Hate, hate, hate, hate, hate, baby. I'm just gonna shake, shake, shake, shake, shake, shake it off. And I think, you know, we're talking about music, right?

So we're talking about singers and we're talking about people using their voice and also using words to create music. So whenever you're turning words into music, the question of how you pronounce those words is gonna be an important musical strategy, right? So that the sounds of country music, the sound of a pedal steel, or of an electric guitar, maybe we associate that with certain pronunciations, a certain way of dropping a G, a certain way of extending a vowel here or there. So when you start making that music, I think, I don't wanna say naturally, it's hard to know what is or isn't natural, but I think it's inevitable that people would start using that sort of accent. 'Cause it feels organic.

Yeah, it feels like it's linked to the sort of music you wanna make. That you're making.

And you know, once you start looking for that, that's everywhere, right? That's like, That's like British rock bands in the '60s singing with an American accent. Yeah, yeah. Because that's what seems to go with rock and roll. And like, if you tried to pin down Mick Jagger's accent, you'd be like, well, that's not, it's not English.

I can't get no satisfaction.

And, you know, a certain kind of American drawl seemed like it fit with a backbeat and an electric guitar. And so, yeah, there is a certain way of of having an accent that seems to fit with country music. And I think that as with anything that has to do with music, I think there's a corny way to do it. And there's a way to do it that doesn't feel that corny. And so obviously part of your job as a singer, as a performer of popular music is not to seem corny. That's like really important. And there's no rules about how to do that. It's just like the audience is gonna decide what does and doesn't feel corny. Feel a little ridiculous. And you know, and it's fascinating when you see people from other parts of the world, right? You see Shania Twain from Canada.

You're still the one I run to, the one that I belong to. You see Keith Urban.

Yeah. I believe born in New Zealand, but spent some time in Australia. Yeah. People always get mad if you mess that up. Yeah, let's be careful. But yes, from that part of the world. I wanna love somebody Love somebody like you. And yes, while I personally think it would be fascinating to hear like a Keith Urban record with like a thick accent that suggests Australia and New Zealand, obviously he's found a way to do it where it's not corny. He doesn't sound like he's on Hee Haw, but it fits into other songs you hear on the radio. So it's not jumping out at you of like, what's this guy from a different country doing on my radio station? So yeah, people find a way to fit in. And hopefully not make it sound too ridiculous. Obviously, there are moments in popular music where people lean into their local accent, right? And that can be a musical strategy, right? If you're kneecap and you're like, we're not going to rap all the time in English, we're going to use our indigenous Irish language.

Fucking catch a mockery, bariak pentila, bariak sneeshikos, a cocktail breath for unleashing the beast.

And then another time Sometimes people wanna be part of a tradition, so they're delivering lyrics in English. I think a professional linguist could probably write a really interesting paper, and probably has, about the use of English in K-pop. And the use of sometimes not quite idiomatic English. And maybe there's a specific thing where then, like, if you're in Cat's Eye or something, you're using a kind of K-pop-ish English to signal that you belong to this K-pop community.

Hotty hotty like a bag of Takis, I'm the shit. I'm the shit of the envy, they be trying to copy.

I'm the shit, I'm the shit. Even though obviously the music and the language of K-pop is very much influenced by American pop music.

Yeah, yeah, it's this weird sort of— I think there was an interview or there people were questioning some of the members of Cat's Eye about like, why did you guys use these lyrics in this song? And they're like, we didn't write this, you know, my boss made me. Yeah, it sounds kind of weird to us too, but now it's becoming its own new thing of Well, and you see that, that's similar.

That's like Britney Spears, right? Yeah, exactly. Hit Me Baby One More Time. Yeah. Max Martin. Like he didn't know that we don't say that.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. You're right. For those of you who don't know, Max Martin is a legendary Swedish producer and songwriter who's produced some of the biggest pop hits over the last 30 years, working with Britney Spears, Taylor Swift, the Backstreet Boys, and more. Hit me one more time.

We don't, that's not a thing.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Or like, you know, when you think of like Backstreet Boys.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I don't know what you say. I want it that way. Like, what are you talking about? And yes. And if a song becomes big enough, we're like, oh, that's just the language of pop music.

Yeah, it becomes its own thing.

Yeah.

I want to go back to your country music example because you talk about in your book too, especially early days of country music, of these white artists who are writing, speaking to this like K-pop example, as if they are Black artists in trying to use Black lingo. And I think of the Tom Hanks scene in the new Elvis movie of like, you know, zoom into his face. He's like, "He's white?" [SPEAKING IN FOREIGN LANGUAGE] [Speaker] He's white? [Speaker] And like this realization that like Elvis is not a Black guy. Can you talk about sort of like what was the goal of these artists during that time? And, you know, these white artists and trying to sound Black, quote unquote, or, you know, taken from Black artists?

You know, it's funny, authenticity is a slippery thing to define, but it's a quality that often people seek out in popular music. But it's not the only quality that people seek out in popular music. You might pair authenticity with something more like relatability, right? So you hear a voice and you're like, oh, this person's kind of normal. This person's kind of like me, right? Maybe the opposite of that is like, whoa, this person comes really comes from the real, whatever the real is supposed to be. Right? This person represents a very different world from my world. And so, yes, there's certainly moments in American music where, you know, in the Elvis example, maybe to listeners in that moment, a certain kind of rhythm and blues is associated with Black singers.

00:38:19

You ain't nothing but a hound dog girl, you're crying all the time. You ain't nothing but a hound dog girl.

And like, there was something exciting reading about a singer who could get close to that. You know, you see maybe some of that with Eminem. Yeah. Who— Eminem was always very careful, I think, that he's not— he's not doing anything where it sounds like putting on a show exactly. Yeah. But he's also not necessarily talking the way a white kid from Detroit who wasn't a rapper might talk. Yeah. And like, there's certain things he can say and can't say, and like, you he could say, "Yo," and it doesn't sound that weird, but there's maybe other things that he would say that he would sound as if he was leaning into it a little too much. And so, yeah, obviously at various points there's this moment in Elvis's career where being perceived as like, maybe he's Black, could be helpful. But obviously, given the demographics of America, it's more often helpful to be perceived as part of the majority group. And it's not a coincidence that, Elvis, a white guy, ends up selling a lot, or that Eminem, a white guy, ends up selling a lot. And so I think, and that's something that musicians have to figure out, right?

Like with my voice, like what am I signaling to people? And often there's a move. I think you often see a move early if we're talking about this particular thing of like white artists who might be perceived vocally as Black. Maybe that's something that happens a little more early in the career. And sometimes there's a move later in the career. Toward music that seems more authentic or race appropriate or something. You know, there's some, it's funny, you know, if you think about like the trajectory of Kid Rock, where he starts his career really wanting to be part of this hip hop scene.

Sway to the groove that no one tops, slam move to the kid in black Reeboks, not a teen heartthrob, but I rock the set.

So fuck Corey Haim and Johnny Depp, then let's go. eventually finds his own identity, which is very much a reclamation of his roots and the music his father listened to and living way outside of the city in Detroit and literally going to Hank Williams Jr. shows with his dad.

Living my life in a slow hell. Different girl every night at the hotel. I ain't seen the sun shining 3 damn days And there is this idea of, like, "Well, yeah, over time you return to what you 'really are.'" Yeah.

Post Malone, another great example of this, starting with "White Iverson." Yeah. Saucin', saucin', I'm saucin' on you I'm swaggin', I'm swaggin', I'm swaggin' on you To fully making country music now. Yeah.

—And you know, I would— I imagine and hope he's not done yet. I hope we get a metalcore record from him eventually. I know he enjoys that kind of music as well. I think sometimes we forget what it was like for us when we were teenagers and trying to figure out like, well, I want to be cool. What does it sound like if I'm cool? What, like, if I use this word, if I use that word? And sometimes in this context, we even talk about appropriation which I think sometimes, I think sometimes there's more of it than we realize. Like, there are things that we learn and literally hear from birth from our parents, but most of the rest of our lives is things that we pick up from our friends or from someone else or like— From culture. Yeah, you didn't come out of the womb, no matter what race you are, you maybe didn't come out of the womb like hip-hop or you didn't come out of the womb country, "This." And so there is a certain idea of like, we're forming our identity based on what sort of feels right. And as I said, with musicians, with people, it's the same way where sometimes it can feel corny.

We probably all know people that are like trying a little too hard. And it doesn't necessarily mean that they're trying too hard in a way that transgresses a racial boundary, right? It could be like a white person trying too hard with like a certain identity that we think of as white. And so yes, the idea of like trying a little bit, but not too hard is something that musicians definitely do. And yes, so you hear that, you hear that with accents. And again, accents are an important musical tool if you're making pop music with your voice. And it's, you know, I think you've seen that especially with hip-hop, where when hip-hop goes international, it sounds a little different. Like Polish hip-hop sounds a little different because the rapping is in Polish, and so you get different rhythms. You hear that in Certainly in the UK and the rhythms of like Black English speech, you know, gives you grime and gives you UK drill. And like literally the beats are different and the way they ride the beats, right? You have rappers being more in the front of the beat rather than riding the back of the beat.

And so yeah, you hear that naturally from the speech patterns and the fact that the Caribbean influence and West African influence in the UK influences the Black British accent. But also means that some of the hip-hop has closer relationships to Afrobeats and the dancehall reggae because that's also in the vocals. How could you make that your hobby? Empty tummy, that nigga eat brass. Went on a mill, then dash.

Listen, look, baby, bend your back and then dig it, dig it.

Bend your back and then dig it, back and then dig it. Got one more digging, back in one minute, back up, that's finished. Unknown T, homie, MP, Ako Gali Onmi.

I feel like we're currently in an era of hip-hop hip-hop that is like, at least in the US, well, mainstream.

You about to make a big claim?

I'll say mainstream hip-hop, it's become a bit flattened in terms of regional sounds. I think there is more underground stuff that definitely, you know, you talk about Detroit and there's definitely some more interesting stuff happening that's not in the mainstream. But there was a time when certain radio stations wouldn't play music from different areas, right? So New York radio stations would only play quote unquote New York artists. Think about this with OutKast in the '90s being booed at the Source Awards. The Source Awards, the South got something to say. So here's some background for you who are not hip-hop heads. In 1995, Source Magazine is this huge New York-based hip-hop magazine. They have an award show based out of New York and OutKast, the Atlanta group, wins for Best New Artist.

And the winner is, ladies, help me out.

OutKast.

And the New York crowd boos them because at the time New Yorkers aren't interested in hearing music from down south or even the West Coast. And Andre 3000, who's a member of OutKast, says this infamous line: But it's like this though, I'm tired of folks, you know what I'm saying, close-minded folks, you know what I'm saying.

It's like we got a demo tape and don't nobody wanna hear it, but it's like this, the South got something to say. That's all I got to say.

New York radio stations would not play OutKast because they weren't seen as, you know, being cool to New Yorkers.

But also this had a lot to do with the economy and the technical infrastructure. Like people used to buy their records at stores. Yeah. So there were distributors that would distribute records in, you know, Southwest Wholesale or whatever the big distributors were, especially in the '90s. And you would build your audience through record stores, through shows, and through terrestrial radio stations. So you'd get hot in your town, and then you'd try to expand outward from your town. And literally, in a pre-internet age, you're just listening to a different radio station in New York than someone is in Houston or in Atlanta or in Orlando. And so, yeah, it was just like, it was literally different radio stations, different record stores, different compact disks, and also different people. So, you know, that guy you knew from high school that became a rapper is gonna sound very different if you're in the Bay Area versus if you're in Philadelphia. So yeah, like everything, like a lot of things in American life, it was very fragmented. Like, it was— it's— I think it's hard. I think it's probably hard for younger people to even understand. Like, it was hard to get those albums.

Like, like, I would mail order those albums because there's all this crazy down south stuff happening. And we're not getting it in New York. So yes, there was a time when the hip-hop world was a lot more fragmented. And obviously at the time, the artists, it was cool that they could sort of make a living, but it was frustrating to the artists, right? They're like, how do I break through?

I wanna be bigger.

And so yeah, there was this idea of fragmentation. And because hip-hop is so closely based on the rhythms of spoken language, you get like different beat patterns based on different accents and different slang and different vocabulary. And so yeah, you get this incredible diversity where the music sounds different based on the local slang and the local speech patterns.

Is that diversity in the sounds of a genre unique to hip-hop for such a young genre? You would imagine that everything would sound kind of similar before it started to break out, but in other genres as they kind of first were formed, did you get that level of fragmentation?

I think hip-hop is really good at taking like vernacular culture and turning it into music, right? So you have this incredible diversity underneath, which is maybe a little bit different if you have like a guitar-based genre. Yeah, everyone's got to learn guitar, and then yeah, the licks might be a little different and and these people play the Stratocaster and these people play the Telecaster and like. And you do hear some diversity, but yes, I think hip-hop, one of the great strengths of hip-hop was that there was this incredible untapped linguistic richness in all these different communities where before hip-hop, it was just maybe guys who would be just like telling stories on the corner. And everyone in the neighborhood would be like, "Yeah, that guy's really funny." they would just gather, that guy's a good storyteller, or that guy's got good jokes, but it didn't have a way to travel outside the neighborhood. So, so one of the things that hip-hop did really well was it took this thing that felt really local and, and blew it up. And I think even now a lot of the best hip-hop sounds really local. There's something, there's something really seductive about the idea of like, oh, I'm in this person's world, and you know, this is what it's like when you're like like with NBA YoungBoy and his crew.

And this is the Baton Rouge vibe. And I can hear that in the music in a way that feels really unmediated and direct. She went right low like she counting, nigga. Mass say the pen that made us thick automatic, nigga.

Trump mask, pulling up in that Rolls and on Trump, nigga.

Mask, thuggin' on shit, nigga, straight from out the trunk, nigga. Mask.

Well, I felt like that might have been at the core of the whole, I mean, the Drake Kendrick where he— Kendrick makes music that is so personal and intimate sounding, whereas Drake— and I'm a Drake apologist, obviously, but it's just like, based on the song, it could sound like it's from anywhere in the country. And so I think there's that level of authenticity in Kendrick's music where it's like, oh, this is clearly his life.

Yeah, although, you know, it was— it's funny, it was kind of later in Kendrick's career that he really started to lean into the sounds of LA hip-hop. Mm, you know what I mean? Like The early records when he was considered like a little more conscious or something, maybe had a little less geographical specificity. Uh-huh.

What if a dream was reality and reality was a dream?

Ain't as complicated as it seems if things we imagine actually happen and real life situations was artificial. Or at least they did. He was also looking back to Freestyle Fellowship and other more like underground LA things. And so one of the interesting things that happened was that that, you know, over the years, and then especially at that like, uh, Not Like Us moment, you got something that felt very specific to LA.

Yeah, right.

Hey, I'm tripping, I'm sliding, I'm riding through the back like mustard on a beat, bro.

He a freak though.

Yeah, got Mustard. He's gonna bring the whole city together, and if you're from LA, you're like part of Kendrick's crew. And that's not exactly the feeling you got. And Drake is interesting in a different way, right? 'Cause he has this relationship with Houston and he has like probably one of the best ears in the history of hip hop. Like just his knack for being like, oh, there's something cool going on halfway around the world, right? I think One Dance by Drake is like one of those songs that's sort of like so prescient, so influential, right?

I need a one dance, got Hennessy in my hand.

One more time before I go. Think about like the whole Afrobeats movement that comes after the success of One Dance and the fact that Drake was able to hear, oh, this African thing, and it's kind of got a Caribbean feel, which we have in Canada, but it's also this interesting other UK, London, Lagos thing that's happening. Yeah. So yes, I think, and the idea And you know, at various times, you know, there's obviously some videos where you hear Drake talking and he's got like a thick Canadian accent. You're like, oh yeah, right. The whole world, look around, look around you, look at this. We created this. This didn't exist before we were here. Look around at the square. I promise you right now, we did this. Doesn't matter what anybody says. They could say it's disrespectful. They could say it's this and that. But part of his skill was this thing that traditionally rappers weren't supposed to do, which was he can kind of like move around and he can borrow sounds from different regions. And you know, in the old days that might've seemed inauthentic, but you know, Drake's success, it sort of made hip hop fans think a little differently about authenticity, right?

He's like, yeah, I'm wearing a sweater. Like, so what?

I was going to say, it feels like the slider has changed now, right? You were talking about these two sort of like knobs. There's like, does it sound good? And is it quote unquote authentic? And I feel like now in hip hop, it's really like, does it sound good? People don't really care about authenticity that much. Authenticity. As long as the person feels like it's like, it's cool.

But authenticity can mean so many different things, right? It can mean like, do you have credibility in your neighborhood? Like it might literally, in hip-hop traditionally, one thing it's meant is like, can you put on your jewelry and walk down the street? Yeah. Right? That's a kind of authenticity. But obviously another kind of authenticity is like, does this music reflect who you really are? Does this feel like you? Do we feel like we're getting to know you? And that's a maybe a more traditional pop kind of authenticity where you're communicating through the music, and what people want is a sense that they can make a kind of personal connection with you. And that it's less about necessarily like, what's your reputation in the neighborhood? And it's more like, does this highly artificial thing you're doing into a microphone somehow feel honest? And I think that kind of, that's a kind of authenticity too. And that's really important, right? And a kid gets that from Tyler, the Creator, and it has nothing to do with like, oh, is Tyler, the Creator a tough guy or not? They're like, no, I'm getting to know this person and his worldview, and he doesn't seem like anyone else, and I'm really getting a sense of that.

This is really his point of view. This is not some guy in an office telling him to make this type of music.

Yeah, but I think also we've kind of like, we sort of hinted at but not really talked about one of the things that I think a lot of people think about when it comes to accents, which is diversity and geographical diversity, and this idea that a lot of people have that we're so much more connected now, we can hear each other now, is some of that geographic diversity maybe going away. And it's interesting, when you look at the studies of this, there is some sign of that, but the asterisk, as far as I can tell, is that that's happening more within races than between races. There is some research to suggest that Black and white speech patterns are actually getting further apart, but that within white speech patterns in America, some of the regional variety is disappearing, right? Like the classic New York accent, maybe even the classic Boston accent. [Speaker:ZUBIN] Yeah. [Speaker:STEVE] And then within Black speech patterns, some of that geographic diversity is disappearing, but the Black and white are diverging. And there would also be, that would be confounded also by class. A lot of times you have more regional variation among working-class people.

And if there's more, if a higher percentage of Black people are working class than white people, then you would you would expect more speech diversity among Black people in the US to begin with than white people. And so, but even when you think about culture, like the ways in which the internet in some ways does have a leveling effect, but it also enables the creation of these weird niches and communities and, you know, whatever you can think of, there's a community devoted to it. And probably a sub-community of people who find it sexually arousing, right? Like, the internet, like, and so the idea that people can find these groups, the internet feels often, and social media feels like it's doing both at once. It's kind of connecting everyone, but it's also enabling the creation of these communities. And so that's something that we're kind of starting, only really starting to figure out, is like, how much regional variety is there gonna be in accents in 10 years, in 20 years? And you know, this is just talking about English in America. Yeah. Right? If you look at other countries, not just in the UK, where some of the same stuff is happening, some of the regional variety is maybe declining a little bit, but then of course you also have British accents that are influenced by African languages, by Indian languages.

And then you have these kind of like international versions of English that are emerging because you have so many people using English to communicate for whom maybe that's not their native language. And so you have these different, some of them are Creoles and some of them are maybe not quite Creoles. So you have that. And then you have that happening with other languages, right? You're having, you think about the different accents within Spanish speakers in the Americas. And, you know, these moments where an English speaker might not notice of like, oh, that's Bad Bunny doing kind of a Dominican accent. They're like, tip his cap to dembow music. You know, from the home of reggaetón or something.

Dominican, na que juabombo, juabombo.

I think we could be having this same conversation in Spanish with people talking about like, how come everyone who does reggaetón has to front like they're from Puerto Rico even when they're not? Yeah. I think different accents are going to continue to be linked to different genres, right? You think about reggae. Yeah. And like just about anyone who starts singing reggae, whether it's something more rootsy or more dancehall, is gonna do something that's like a little bit of an accent. You're gonna hear a little— even if you're Jason Mraz or something.

Before the cool done run out, I'll be giving it my best. This ain't nothing's gonna stop me but divine intervention. I reckon it's again my turn to win.

Sing some old lernsome Right, because those are the rhythms in the music. So that's gonna bring out the rhythms in the speech. So I think that that's something that's definitely gonna continue and that you hear, again, not just in country, not just in, you know, you hear that in, you know, if you're listening to Blink-182 and you're like, is that a Cali, like Tom's voice, is that a California version of an English version of an American accent?

Let's talk a little bit about, You touched on it in sort of all these other genres, but just like pop music more generally, you know, talking about like a Harry Styles or Adele and this idea of, you know, these UK artists singing in, you know, a quote unquote American accent. Would you attribute that to like you're saying, this is just like what we associate with, you know, quote unquote pop music and how it should sound like, or do you think it's a purposeful, like Adele's talking voice is very different than her singing voice. I don't know that maybe she would be as big if she sang in her talking voice.

I would love to hear it.

I would love to hear it too, but I don't know if it would have as wide of an appeal.

Traditionally hip-hop is unusual, right? Because hip-hop, there really is the expectation that the talking voice and the rapping voice, rapping is a little closer to talking, so it's gonna match. Singing is always gonna be like, it's not necessarily opera, where like you open your mouth, you're singing in Italian, it's a whole different thing. But there is more of a separation between singing a song.

Yeah, you're stretching out the words.

Yeah, and doing an interview. And so, and yeah, I think, you know, Adele is making music that's influenced by a particular tradition. Yeah. Whether it's, you know, Whitney Houston or whoever her influence is, and that's an American tradition, it's partly a Black American tradition. And so you're hearing that in her voice. You know, Harry Styles is kind of interesting because like you're hearing some of the American boy bands, but you're also hearing, you know, some Beatles.

Sweet creature, had another talk about where it's going wrong, but we're still young.

Some of that, some of that Paul McCartney and some of that stuff, which is, you know, influenced by America but routed through the UK. So yeah, I think that you're definitely Again, for most of these singers, I think it's pretty intuitive, right? It's not like they have a plan. It's like they go into the studio and they start feeling it and they start vibing and they're listening to their favorite records. And what comes out sounds a little bit like their version of their favorite records. Like I think because I love hip hop, I'm a sucker for vernacular and for local languages and for music where the rhythms are different because of the local language, right? But again, one thing that popular music does is find what used to be called the lowest common denominator, which used to always be said with a sneer, and I never understood why. I'm like, you mean the thing that appeals to the most people? Yeah. And so often that means doing something that's a little bit less peculiar and feels a little bit more maybe neutral so that when you're listening to Adele, whether you're in America, or India, or, you know, whether in Yugoslavia or Indonesia, like, you're kind of hearing the song and you're not thinking too much about her specific neighborhood.

Mm-hmm.

So we'd say in this case, like, the American accent is the neutral? Yeah, it feels a little neutral.

And, you know, obviously in the UK, where the discourse about accent and class is a lot more sophisticated than here, and so you have all these fights about BBC and Received Pronunciation. Yeah. And the idea of like, you know, the Queen's English. Yeah. The King's English. And, you know, the idea that certain accents are related to class and that if you're putting that on, that could be embarrassing, the same way we might consider certain racial accent transgressions to be embarrassing. And I think also pop music is so powerful and seeps into our lives that a big enough song, a big enough artist can change what we think of as the normal accent. You know, you think about the way that moment in the 1980s where people discovered so-called Valley Girl speech patterns.

So like, I go into this like salon place, you know, and I want like to get my toenails done, and the lady like goes, "Oh my God, your toenails are like so brody." It was like really gross.

And like that sort of makes its way into popular music And, you know, by the time you hear Katy Perry singing California Girls, you may be hearing an echo of that. California girls, we're unforgettable.

Daisy Dukes, bikinis on top.

And again, part of the fun of pop music is make-believe. Whether we're listening to like some drill track or we're listening to like a mainstream pop song, Part of the fun of it is like you can learn the lyrics, maybe in the privacy of your own car, you can sing along and you can like be that person a little bit. And I think that's something you don't have with movies in the same way. You can, you can memorize movie dialog, but there is something about popular music where you can kind of become that person. Yeah. Inhibiting it. Yes. And sometimes, sometimes an accent might seem like a barrier to that, but sometimes an accent might be part of the fun.

All right. That was Kay. Writer and critic at The New Yorker. If you enjoyed this conversation, check out his book Major Labels, available anywhere you purchase books, or if you want to be like me, you can rent it at your local library.

Well, now I'm interested, which one of you has the strongest accent?

Probably Devin. I would vote Devin. Yeah. Wow. I think so.

This is like the This American Life episode where they all got their testosterone tested. We're gonna do that anyway.

That's also Probably Devin. Yeah.

More No Such Thing after the break.

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Okay, we're back. I'm Manny. I'm Noah. Devin. All right, so that was K.

Learned a lot. Yeah, really fun conversation.

I felt like, you know, I was back in school, you know?

Yeah, just like kind of shooting shit at the cafeteria table, going through all of our—

going through all our favorite artists. Yeah, artists I don't really know about. I got some people— we should make a playlist for this episode. Yeah. People love the playlist.

I'm sure I'm looking at the clicks and people are listening.

I'm sure. All 10 of you. Yeah. So scroll down. But what I was trying to think about, you know, after, you know, we've had that conversation, I guess a week ago now. And during that time I've been trying to think through, are there any examples? We talked a lot about, you know, people sort of like playing in different playgrounds and sort of like just wearing different hats. So I was like, who's the last person that we know of who's gotten like sort of like negative backlash for doing a thing that is like not what we would think of as authentic to them? Yeah, Mr.

Harlow. Mr. Jack Harlow. Ah. Yeah. Now he's wearing Kangol hats. It's like, give me a fucking break.

So for those of you who are not online in a way that us three are, Jack Harlow is a white rapper. Yeah. Grew up outside of, I wanna say— Louisville, right? Louisville, Kentucky. What's poppin'?

Brand new whip, just hopped in.

I got options, I can pass that bitch like stocking. He has decided on this new album that he's put out, he got bored of his rapping, so he wanted to make an R&B album.

All I wanna do is get some time alone with you the way you want.

Part of, I feel like, some of the conversation around this album is really about the conversation he had on the New York Times podcast, which is their music podcast, in which they were talking to him about, you know, like we talked about earlier in this episode, a lot of white artists who come up in certain, you know, like hip-hop often pivot to whiter genres.

Jon's saying you didn't retreat into a whiter genre. In fact, you arguably went into deeper into Black music.

I got blacker. Yeah.

Deeper into Blackness. So is that, was that conscious? Absolutely. Because you like pushing that boundary, that line?

I think I love Black music. I love the sound of Black music.

Who among us? Yeah. I love the sound of Black music. Yeah.

So Jack Harlow puts out this R&B album. There's a little bit of backlash. And the fact that he's cosplaying. Yeah. As kind of like a— Yeah. A little bit of a Black guy, you know, both in his, you know, like sort of the promo for the album in terms of like his— what he's wearing.

Yeah.

Yeah. My issue with it is just— it's just not very good. Like, it's kind of just like a boring album. It's not interesting.

Yeah.

He talks about, you know, in his interviews, like he didn't do any, like, voice training or like, you know, it's just sort of— I'm like, so what did you do to prepare to make this R&B album? You know, it's like, but that's an interesting question.

Is the only thing stopping you from kind of, uh, respecting this, for a lack of a better word, is, uh, that it's not good? Like, what if that— what if the music was good and catchy?

Yeah, I wouldn't mind as much.

Yeah, because I feel like— well, yeah, because I feel like I, I was never a huge head, but Mac Miller. Yeah, yeah, he kind of moved into more of an R&B space. Yeah, I feel like— yeah, true. And, and granted, I don't think he was ever like I mean, obviously very successful, but it's successful in a different way where I feel like more respected, I guess, than Jack Harlow. And I, I'm wondering why exactly, even though he did change his sound, but not in a— he didn't get like whiter in, you know, not that, you know, in the same, generally the same way or direction as what we're seeing now.

Well, here's a, maybe a weird way to end this episode, but I think it does speak to this. Who just came to mind also, maybe because he's a friend of Drewski, but Timothée Chalamet, right? For Martyr Supreme. Yeah. He was promoting this latest film, this, you know, Oscar-nominated film. And to get people to go see it, he was doing a lot of things that people saw as like black-coded. He was leaning into his, you know, wigger. Can we say that? Wigger-ness. You can say it. I mean, don't have to There was a little bit of backlash online of like, Timothy, like, you're doing this rapping thing, you're, you know, you're hanging out with Druski, you're being a little too quote-unquote Black.

Really? I'm just a fan, you know.

I'm a fan of, of Black culture and hip-hop and all of it.

And how could you be, you know, a child of American culture without being influenced by it?

So it's a fine line. And that rubbed people a bit the wrong way because they didn't feel like it was authentic to who he was. And there was people defending him saying, hey, he grew up in New York around Black people. He's been rapping, you know, he was rapping Super Bass in high school, you know, like he's been down with the cause. But there was this conversation about like authenticity or are you putting on a costume when it's convenient for you?

Well, yeah, then it's like that's the code-switching thing because then when he's sitting down to do a more serious interview, he's not acting. Yes. I think that's more what irks people. Yeah. Generally where it's like, it's so transparent in that way. And I don't think it's like conscious. Conscious in a certain way, of course. But I don't think, you know, I don't think he and like his team sat down and were like, okay, when you go to this, do this. It's like, I think it comes easy to him. And granted, he's an actor, you know. But yeah, yeah, I guess it's, it's not as like manipulative as it might sound. Yeah. Yeah. Or like malicious, I guess, is my, my thinking.

I agree. I'm also from, you know, I grew up in a very poor, low-income neighborhood that was like 50% white and 50% Black. And those white guys do exist. Like, yeah, totally. Like, and then they'll go to college and like, you know, kind of, uh, straighten up a little bit. But I could totally see why some people were skeptical because he does come from— like, if your first introduction to Timothée Chalamet was like prestige actor, yes, and then you see him doing this, yeah, what you really need to do is go back to those YouTube videos from him in high school.

—Dragon! Thanks that I did for putting U-Switches on? Is it my fault that all U-Switches gone? Should've said thank you no, ya little hoe. Now I'm a ragged coffin with a bow.

No sss... no sss... no sss...

touch me like this. That's it for today's show. If you are a new listener, you may want to check out our episode on "Is Taylor Swift Bigger Than Michael Jackson?" It is number 36. I'm going to link to it in the show notes. And also just check out our whole archive. We got a lot of great episodes. They're all pretty evergreen, so you can make your way through it. No Such Thing is a production of Kaleidoscope Content. Our executive producers are Kate Osbourne and Mengesha Hadikader. The show was created by Manny Fidel, Noah Friedman, and me, Devin Joseph. Theme and credits song by Manny. Mixing by Steve Bone. Additional music for this episode by Zeno Pittarelli. Our guest this week was Kellefa. Kappa from The New Yorker. Thank you, K. Visit nosuchthing.show to subscribe to our newsletter. If you have feedback for us or a question you want us to answer, you can email us at mannynoahdebin@gmail.com. We'll be back next week. No such thing.

A win is a win. A win is a win. I don't care what y'all say. Yep, that's me, Clifford Taylor IV. You might have seen the skits, my basketball and college football journey, or my career in sports media. Well, now I'm bringing all of that excitement to my brand new podcast, The Clifford Show. This is a place for raw, unfiltered conversations with athletes, creators, and voices that not only deserve to be heard but celebrated. So let's get to it. Listen to The Clifford Show on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And for more behind the scenes, follow @clifford and @tiktokpodcastnetwork on TikTok.

On the Look Back at It podcast.

1979, that was a big moment for me. '84 was big to me.

I'm Sam Jay. And I'm Alex English. Each episode, we pick a year, unpack what went down, and try to make sense of how we survived it with our friends, fellow comedians, and favorite authors. Like Marc Lamont Hill on the '80s. '84 was a wild—

I mean, it was a wild year. I don't think there's a more important year for Black people.

Listen to Look Back at It on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Imagine an Olympics where doping is not only legal but encouraged. It's the Enhanced Games. Some call it grotesque, others say it's unleashing human potential. Either way, the podcast Superhuman documented it all, embedded in the games and with the athletes.

Athletes for a full year. Within probably 10 days, I'd put on 10 pounds. I was having trouble stopping the muscle growth.

Listen to Superhuman on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Hey, what's good, y'all? You're listening to Learn the Hard Way with your favorite therapist and host, Kier Gaines. This space is about Black men's experiences, having honest conversations that it's really not safe to have anywhere, but you're having them with a licensed professional who knows what he's doing. How many men Carry a suit of armor. It signals to the world that you not to be played with. And just because you have the capability, that does not mean that you need to. Listen to Learn the Hard Way on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast.

This is an iHeart Podcast. Guaranteed human.