WBEZ Chicago has a new podcast that we think Art of Power fans will enjoy. It's called Shoes Off: A Sexy Asians Podcast! It's a show celebrating badass Asians who are making a mark on pop culture and entertainment. Give it a listen!

His annual ‘Black List’ elevated films like ‘Juno,’ ‘Argo’ and ‘The King’s Speech.’ Now he wants to change how Hollywood finds its talent. Franklin Leonard tells Art of Power’s Aarti Shahani how his nerdy beginnings in Georgia set the precedent for his career as a revered film executive. He explains how creating his first 'Black List' broke an unwritten Hollywood rule, what show biz can learn from the NBA about finding the best talent, and the power of imagery in dismantling racism and...

Back in the 1960s – before Gloria Allred became one of America’s most prominent women’s rights attorneys – she says she was raped at gunpoint. She became pregnant and had a back-alley abortion that nearly killed her. “It did teach me a lesson,” Allred tells Art of Power host Aarti Shahani. “And the lesson is that abortion should be safe, legal, affordable and available.” In conversation with Shahani, Allred explains how that traumatic life event changed her worldview and preceded her...

She helped organize one of the largest labor movements in history, but her name is often left out of the narrative. As an organizer in the 1960s, Dolores Huerta says it was not always easy to assert her power. “As a woman, I had to do something about the way the women were being treated,” she told Art of Power’s Aarti Shahani. Huerta explains how she raised 11 children in voluntary poverty while leading a nationwide civil rights battle (01:45). She dissects the mechanics of the famous 1965...

Scott Budnick might be best known for producing The Hangover trilogy, one of the most successful R-rated comedy franchises ever. But making frat-boy comedies and spending years among ladder-climbers and clout-chasers in Hollywood left Budnick wanting. “I just felt empty inside,” he tells Art of Power’s Aarti Shahani. Budnick tells Shahani about the turn of events that led him to become one of California’s foremost advocates for criminal justice reform. He explains how he broke into the film...

'Queer Eye,' both the original version on Bravo and the newer Netflix reboot, is one of the most celebrated reality TV shows on the planet. But it was no sure thing. Creator David Collins tells Aarti Shahani the show's amazing creation story. He says God used him as a vessel to help gain cultural acceptance for the LGBTQ community. And he reflects on how others can do for their community what 'Queer Eye' has done for the LGBTQ+ movement. This episode was originally published on May 6, 2021.

Stacey Abrams is one of the highest profile democracy activists on the planet. She's also an entrepreneur, lawyer, novelist, and she nearly became the first Black woman to govern a state in the U.S. In conversation with Aarti Shahani, Abrams opens up about her inner wiring. She says she writes novels in order to live the adventurous lives she cannot, she explains why neither victory nor defeat are permanent, and she reflects on her 2018 election loss. "Crisis sometimes changes us, but more...

First, a lovely update from Aarti. Then, Sal Khan, a man who challenged the education model we’ve been using for centuries. In so doing, he created the largest school in existence. Khan tells Art of Power host Aarti Shahani about the humble origins of Khan Academy, how he wanted to offer a world class education — like a Harvard or an Oxford — except online and free for everyone, and how he had the confidence to revolutionize education. This episode was originally published on May 20, 2021.

In this week’s episode of Art of Power, host Aarti Shahani sits down with Congresswoman Cori Bush (D-Mo.), a former Black Lives Matter activist who lost two elections before finally winning Missouri’s 1st congressional seat in 2020. Rep. Bush tells Shahani about her early exposure to politics (12:36), the adversities she endured in her early life — including eviction, homelessness and rape (19:12), the 2014 shooting death of Michael Brown Jr. in Ferguson that pushed her to seek public office...

In this week’s episode of Art of Power, host Aarti Shahani sits down with Indra Nooyi, who became the first woman and immigrant to head a Fortune 50 company when she was named CEO of PepsiCo in 2006. Nooyi and host Aarti Shahani discuss her unusual family – where the men pushed her to be more ambitious. Aarti asks Nooyi how she manages to stay so light-hearted when people cut her down at work. (It’s something she does over and over again.) Her answer? It’s not what Aarti expected. Indra...

In this week’s episode of Art of Power, host Aarti Shahani sits down with the woman who helped build Ukraine’s fledgling democracy. Daria Kaleniuk is the executive director of Ukraine’s Anti-Corruption Action Center. She has spent a decade building sweeping anti-corruption infrastructure, much to Russia’s chagrin. As Vladimir Putin invades her home, you may have seen her calling out U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson in a recent press conference that went viral. In our conversation, Kaleniuk...

Jameela Jamil has been revered and despised as the internet’s loudest anti-fat-shaming activist, a social media Candyman out to get the diet industry. But whatever the public opinion, she couldn't care less. In this week’s episode of Art of Power, host Aarti Shahani sits down with the premiere social media activist of a generation. We discuss her unexpected career launch in the U.K. (1:40), a life-threatening discovery that shook her into upending her life (2:41), her unfiltered social media...

Audrey Tang is a genius, a hacktivist, and a software engineer who protested Taiwan’s government during the 2014 Sunflower Movement – and then became an insider, as the first nonbinary and openly transgender cabinet member in the world. Tang and host Aarti Shahani talk about Taiwan’s COVID-19 “miracle”; the platform they helped create to democratize Taiwan’s fragile democracy; a rare childhood heart condition and Taoist meditation; and how their personal identity is a metaphor for the way...

America’s air campaign against terrorism in the Middle East was one of the most precise in history, according to military officials and media reports at the time. But award-winning investigative journalist Azmat Khan did not believe what she read in the papers. So, she decided to find the truth for herself. She put her body on the line and crisscrossed war zones to figure out how America’s wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were actually going. We discuss tricks of the trade: how Azmat shook off...

Google hired computer scientist Timnit Gebru to sniff out bias and other unethical practices in the company’s sprawling artificial intelligence work. After she drafted a paper that did just that, she says, the company moved to fire her. In this episode of Art of Power, Gebru walks host Aarti Shahani through the twists and turns of life that led her to Silicon Valley. A refugee from Ethiopia, she migrated to Massachusetts as a teen, and then headed to Stanford University (though her college...

Allyson Felix used her legs to become the most decorated track athlete in American history, with more world titles than Usain Bolt and Carl Lewis. Though it wasn’t until her journey into motherhood that she found and used her voice. In this episode, host Aarti Shahani talks with Felix about her metamorphosis – from quiet superstar to unexpected activist. The daughter of a pastor and a teacher, she discusses her early years, when she avoided politics (and also happiness!). We dissect just how...

Nikole Hannah-Jones won the Pulitzer Prize for creating The 1619 Project, a series from The New York Times that reframes American history by placing the institution of slavery at the center of the national narrative. The project was released as a book this month. On this episode of WBEZ’s Art of Power podcast, Hannah-Jones tells host Aarti Shahani how she dreamt up the project while on sabbatical, what the backlash has taught her about how power works, and why journalism is not a neutral...

The inaugural season of WBEZ’s Art of Power podcast comes to a close after nearly 30 episodes. In our season finale, Aarti asks listeners to take stock, internalize lessons learned and make a commitment: What am I doing — or going to do — to fix this broken world? We, the creators and listeners of Art of Power, are not just in the business of learning. We are in the business of learning in order to do. To help you, Aarti and her producers share their favorite power lessons. And she publicly...

Tarana Burke created the “Me Too” movement 15 years before #MeToo went viral in the wake of the 2017 Harvey Weinstein scandal. On Art of Power, she tells host Aarti Shahani how she did it. Burke, author of the new memoir Unbound, said she had to fight with herself before she could even say the words “me too” out loud. She had to build a grassroots movement in the shadows, in defiance of movement leaders who wanted her to fight against racism, not gender violence and sexism. And she had to...

Margaret Cho, an elder stateswoman in comedy, began touring the stand up circuit as a teenager. She dropped out of school and, at age 23, helped create the very first TV sitcom about an Asian-American family, All American Girl. The show bombed. And in the immediate aftermath, she looked in the mirror (literally) and blamed the failure on her inability to lose weight. Years later, she realized she was missing the historical context of the era and the “invisibility” that Asian-Americans were...

Common is an actor, writer, and hip hop artist who’s won a Grammy, an Emmy and an Oscar, putting him a Tony award away from a rare EGOT. As he explains on Art of Power, Common is not just a man of contradictions, but a man able to hold contradictions — the dark and the light, hate and love. That’s key to his worldview and his inordinate success. You may have seen him on screen, in Selma, John Wick 2 or dozens of other films. He’s also got a new album out, A Beautiful Revolution Part 2. He...

Nearly one third of American workers under age 40 are thinking about changing careers, according to a Washington Post poll. I was one of them. I pivoted from grassroots organizer in prisons to NPR’s Silicon Valley correspondent. I then pivoted again, to podcast host/owner and book author. As a woman who devours career change stories, I can safely say: Robin Arzón has one of the very best. Arzón is the head instructor at Peloton. An ultramarathoner and a fitness guru with fans across the...

When Kemp Powers seized the world’s attention in 2020 with two blockbuster movies — 'One Night In Miami,' which he wrote, and 'Soul,' which he co-wrote and co-directed — he was 47 years old. His envious achievements are the culmination of an un-envious journey, a hard slog filled with tragedy and self-doubt. A recovering journalist, Kemp and Art of Power host Aarti Shahani talk about how the newsroom almost killed his creativity and how he salvaged it one snowy night when he nearly...

Yaël Farber grew up in South Africa during Apartheid, an era when the country’s white minority government racially segregated and brutalized Black South Africans. Farber, a white woman, said the cognitive dissonance she experienced “turned into a clarity and a rage.” Today, she’s one of the world’s more respected stage directors and playwrights. She’s responsible for a number of acclaimed revivals (including Hamlet and The Crucible) as well as original plays documenting oppression during the...