The Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Suzan-Lori Parks talks storytelling, family, and creating a one-act play for each day of the year.

Enongo Lumumba-Kasongo, is a music professor who also performs as the rapper and producer Sammus. Here, she talks about navigating childhood anxiety and showing up as a socially conscious artist.

Tremaine Emory, streetwear fashion designer, discusses self-validation in consumer culture, and what it means to reshape the world into a place different than it was before.

Whitney White, Obie Award-winning theater director, talks about how powerful moments on stage originate in the body, and how she preserves her inner self amid the demands of large-scale productions.

Singer-songwriter Brittany Howard discusses her early experiences with grief and its impact on her creative awakening, her stages of self-discovery, and her understanding of passion and authenticity.

Helga Davis’s fearless conversations with artists and thinkers of all kinds returns for another season. Listen to new episodes every Tuesday!

Black people know this: There’s a difference between what you say and what you mean. It’s been a matter of survival for us. For over 30 years, American visual artist and cinematographer Arthur Jafa has captured the histories and experiences of Black Americans with projects that exemplify both the universal and particular facets of Black life. In the second part of this masterclass in Black thought, Jafa continues his free-from improvisation through his breadth of knowledge and...

I don't want to be the prisoner in a box, even if it's a box I made. For over 30 years, American visual artist and cinematographer Arthur Jafa has captured the histories and experiences of Black Americans with projects that exemplify both the universal and particular facets of Black life. In this masterclass in Black thought — the first episode in a two-part series — Jafa shares a free-from improvisation through his breadth of knowledge and understanding of visual culture — embedded with...

This [term] 'femme' becomes more possible to me as a figure for not just embodiment, but for thought, action, engagement, connection. Macarena Goméz-Barris is Professor and Chair of Modern Culture and Media at Brown University, founder of the Global South Center at Pratt Institute, an organization which supports artists, activists, and scholars in their efforts to decolonialize local and global communities. In this episode, Goméz-Barris talks about how one can and must find beauty in the...

There are whole histories of African American artists wrestling with stereotypical depictions and minstrelsy - and it seemed worthy anyway to me as an artist to consider them as some kind of artwork. American painter and silhouettist Kara Walker rose to international acclaim at the age of 28 as one of the youngest-ever recipients of a MacArthur Genius grant. Appearing in exhibitions, museums, and public collections worldwide, Walker’s work wrestles with the ongoing psychological injury...

I like to say we're living in a precedent time, not an unprecedented one. How do we understand that? Being at the museum or writing histories both in poetry and in non-fiction are ways of trying to understand that.  “Gatekeepers” hold an essential role in our culture as those in positions of power who determine what we see and hear — and therefore how we understand our world. The poet Kevin Young holds dual gatekeeping roles as both director of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African...

It’s hard when you try to talk across racial groups about race ... I do believe that there's a better chance of them getting further if we can create spaces of both accountability and connection.  Tricia Rose is a pioneering scholar in the field of hip-hop, Chancellor's Professor of Africana Studies at Brown University, co-host with Cornel West of “The Tight Rope” podcast, and Director of the Center for the Study of Race and Ethnicity in America.  In this episode, Rose discusses how she...

Within seriousness, there's little room for play, but within play there's tremendous room for seriousness. It's through the act of serious play that wonderful ideas are born.  Carrie Mae Weems is one of today’s most influential and generous contemporary American artists, as devoted to her own craft as she is to introducing other artists into the world. Her photography and diverse visual media has won her numerous awards including the Rome Prize, a MacArthur genius grant, and four honorary...

I knew that there was a power I had when I stripped off my shirt and looked you in the eye as I moved my hips. But I also knew the other side of that attraction to me was the impulse to kill me. Legendary dancer and choreographer Bill T. Jones has made a career of engaging his audience with brutal, unapologetic honesty. His seductive work has grappled with provocative political issues ranging from sexuality, race, and censorship to power and the AIDS epidemic — while also innovating in the...

Once I could feel grounded in an East African context and value who I am in an American context - suddenly it was so apparent that music was where I was supposed to be. The dynamic, ascendant jazz singer Somi has been celebrated for her artistry as much as her activism. She became the first African woman ever nominated in any of the Grammy’s Jazz categories last year, and she has performed at the United Nations’ General Assembly by invitation from UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon. Somi...

I was making it for the people who feel like they don't really get a shot or are not seen, talked about, or cared about at all.   Even with his surging popularity in indie and rock scenes, Bartees Strange strives to bring his music to unexpected audiences and to tease apart the racial boundaries between them. He reckons with the concept of what it means to write music for the kids who are not seen, heard, or cared about.  In this episode, Stange talks about growing up on a military base...

Usually the things that are the farthest out — that look the least like art to me — are the things that become the most important.   American painter Glenn Ligon is one of the most recognizable figures in the contemporary art scene. His distinctive, political work uses repetition and transformation to abstract the texts of 20th-century writers. In this episode, Ligon talks about childhood and what it means to have a parent who fiercely and playfully supports you. He also discusses the...

There are times in life when you need to be able to live in the vision, where you are making a leap of faith into something unknowable. Claudia Rankine is a professor of the Creative Writing Program at New York University, a recipient of fellowships from the MacArthur, Guggenheim, and National Endowment of the Arts, and one of the most celebrated writers of our time. In this episode, Rankine talks about who holds the power in our democracy and what it means to earn a mother’s...

'Safe' also has another connotation of being not willing to take risks or to push a boundary. Michael R. Jackson is the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of A Strange Loop, a play into which he poured almost 20 years of self-investigation. He’s also fresh from a Tony Award for Best New Musical as well as being named one of Time Magazine’s 100 Most Influential People of 2022. In this episode, Jackson talks about what it means to be fearless as an artist, the lies of our “if this, then that”...

Artist, performer, and host Helga Davis brings a soulful curiosity and love of people to the podcast Helga, where she talks about the intimate lives of creative people as they share the steps they’ve taken along their path. She draws listeners into these discussions with cultural change-makers, whether already famous or rising talents, whose sensibilities expand our imaginations as we explore what we think we know about each other. The new season of Helga is a co-production of WNYC Studios...