Hey, friends! In this episode we're talking about Josh Kun's term: audiotopia. An idea that names popular music's ability to create utopias for  listeners, speak back to American racial hierarchies, and challenge nationalist narratives.

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Before we give you the tl;dr (too long; didn't read) of Kun's Audiotopia: Music, Race, and America, we explore the boundary-pushing ability of music in our case study: the public censoring of the Shirells' 1960 classic, “Will You Still Love me Tomorrow.” How dare a group of black women speak aloud their anxieties about sex and intimacy- blasphemy!

 

We talk about the audiotopias we create for ourselves. Kohar admits to making 700+ song playlists. Like, who does that?! And Iman flames Kohar for having boomer-adjacent music taste, while she describes herself as moving between the genres of house and hoe.

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As always, we close out with our half-baked thoughts. The segment where we share ideas we haven't fleshed out, but stand fully behind. You'll just have to listen to the episode to hear those. 

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As a special treat (you're welcome), we created our own Audiotopic playlists. You can listen to Iman’s on Spotify and  Kohar’s (much longer playlist) on Apple Music.