Born and raised in Oakland, Helixir Jynder Byntwell did drag as a hobby until August 2022. That's when they quit their job, won the SF Drag King of the Year competition, and became a professional king, all in the span of a week. Since then, they’ve joined the Rebel Kings of Oakland, a performance troupe based at the White Horse Bar. They’ve also participated in several well-attended performances in New York and in the Bay Area, most recently at the Castro Street Fair. Byntwell’s performances...

Inside of a classic Queen Anne Victorian in West Oakland, photographer Traci Bartlow displays beautifully framed images of the people who shaped hip-hop culture here in the Bay Area, and across the nation. Photos of Outkast and Queen Latifah, Busta Rhymes and ODB, hang alongside images of the Luniz and Shock-G, as well as E-40 and The Click. While the photos tell a story about what life was like in growing up in Oakland, it's her house, which is a photography museum and a boutique hotel, that...

Despite the uptempo party music and the perception of free-spirited fun, it's clear that 2006 was a violent year in my Northern Californian community. But until recently, I hadn't stopped to consider the issues impacting the kids of the Bay Area in the early 2000s, during the hyphy movement: violence, crime, poverty, sexism, racism, and other forms of discrimination. These are no different from the issues we're facing today. If you look closely enough, you'll see that all these issues are...

In the early 2000s, the underground DVD business was a major conduit of culture. Those documentaries showed the backstory of hip-hop artists and street culture all across the United States. One of the films Hood 2 Hood: The Blockumentary,, also included an early depiction of hyphy culture as I knew it to be-- hyper aggressive. But as the "hyphy movement" spread, the way the culture was shown drastically deviated from the origins of the term. In this episode, filmmaker Aquis "Cash Out Quis"...

Before the "hyphy movement" and even prior to having its own name, the style of dance now commonly known as Turfin' or Turf Dancing, provided an outlet for young folks in Oakland to party to their favorite music, have fun by physically telling stories and express themselves while taking up room on the floor. In this episode, we talk to Jeriel Bey, the person credited with coining the term, "Turfin'," Jacky Johnson, a founding Youth Uprising staff member, and Jesus El, my longtime friend and a...

The Hyphy Movement was often looked at as goofy, but there was a lot of pain behind those big sunglasses and oversized airbrushed t-shirts. Welcome to Hyphy Kids Got Trauma, a four-part series about the Bay Area, and the significance of the year 2006. In part one we land in Oakland and meet host Pendarvis Harshaw, a budding journalist at 18 years old. We see the highs and lows, the songs and scars, of that year through his eyes, and meet a few of the artists behind the music. 

Rightnowish Presents 'Hyphy Kids Got Trauma' - A four part exploration of a transformative year in Bay Area music history, 2006, through the eyes and ears of Pendarvis Harshaw. As a college student and burgeoning journalist at the time, Pendarvis navigates the shifting tides of a culture in transition, all set to the seminal sounds of the Bay Area’s “Hyphy Movement.” It was an era fueled by uptempo, bass-heavy songs with a free and fun-loving vibe. But 2006 also marked the second highest...

Hey Rightnowish listeners, today we’ve got a special bonus episode to share with you. It’s from our friends at Ritually, a new podcast, from Brazen Media hosted by London-based journalist Nelufar Hedayat. She’s reported about all sorts of things — human trafficking, the war in Afghanistan (where she was born), the climate crisis and more. Now, she’s looking inward, and trying to answer some big questions that came up for her during the early days of the pandemic. What does spirituality look...

What began as a personal quest to get out of this rut (or flop era as the chronically online people say) that I was experiencing, quickly developed into my focal point for work. So, I enlisted the help of my podcast department colleagues to help me figure out how I would translate this self help journey for our Rightnowish podcast. I know this was my idea but still... I was lowkey nervous about stepping into the limelight as the host, airing out personal woes of not feeling my best self,...

Jewelry designer and brand creator of Wyphys, Chelsea Macalino-Calalay exudes fierceness, but also serenity. Rocking bleached brows that match her shag-mullet, a crystal blue gem on her canine tooth, delicate rings, and a thick gold chain, heart pendant choker, that was inherited from her auntie, Macalino-Calalay’s style is all encompassing. If her style and brand aesthetic was personified in a doll, it’d be more akin to Bratz then Barbie, because her custom jewelry pieces are about making...

The dahlia is San Francisco’s official flower and it’s also a favorite for the Excelsior raised floral designer, Jessica Alicia Cotrim. Her love for San Francisco and her neighborhood is on full display when you walk into her cozy shop, Beija Flor Flower Gallery. Between the hanging dried roses, there’s Muni inspired artwork and pieces flaunting the 415 area code. The register table is adorned with hella stickers promoting local businesses and creatives.  Besides repping her San Francisco...

When Sophia Mitty first started to sew, she was making it work from her bedroom. She’d place a wooden board on top of her bed as a makeshift table in order to cut out patterns. Nowadays, Mitty has her own work space to really spread out and create. Located in South San Francisco, her studio complete with heavy duty industrial sewing machines, affectionately dubbed “Sew City” (or “The Stu” for short) is a playground of color. In foggy frisco, where gray skies are plentiful, Mitty’s colorful...

The Bay Area is home to enchanting ecosystems. For starters, we have sand dunes, golden grassland hills, redwood forests, and the pacific coast. Whenever I get a waft of the marine fog or the cool Bay breeze, I feel cleansed. Now imagine being able to take in that smell whenever or wherever you are. That’s precisely what the fragrance, Memoria, by Mauricio Garicia conjures.  The perfumer’s fascination with fragrance began in his abuelita’s garden. In foggy South San Francisco, her small...

In a city that gives the cold shoulder to working class people and creative folks that aren't backed by trust funds or tech money, Medicine for Nightmares Bookstore opens their doors to those who still care about the artistic soul of San Francisco. It's a place where you can walk in and be greeted with a warm "Hey hermano, Hey prima, Hey familia," and strike up a conversation with the booksellers, fellow readers or local writers that frequent the Mission shop. It's a venue where folks can...

On today's show we're passing the microphone to Dr. Felicia Gangloff- Bailey and Karega Bailey, hosts of the SOL Affirmations podcast. Karega and Felicia are both educators, and members of the R&B-soul-hip-hop band SOL Development. They're also a married couple who’ve navigated the harsh realities of losing loved ones to gun violence, as well as the unfortunate passing of their first child, who was just a newborn, as they've previously discussed on Rightnowish.  In this episode, Felicia...

Elena Pinderhughes has been around the East Bay jazz scene since before she learned how to walk. Since recording her first published work as a kid, she has gone on to share stages with Herbie Hancock and work with Carlos Santana. She's also played NPR's Tiny Desk with Chief Xian aTunde Adjuah (formerly Christian Scott) and even rocked onstage with Future at Coachella . But Elena says she wouldn't be where she is today without family support and the musical institutions of the East Bay....

Raised in musical family, Giulio Xavier Cetto's musical influences range from his Venezuelan-Italian heritage to Bay Area rap. Giulio can play multiple styles and genres with ease, but at the intersection of jazz and hip hop is where his artistry truly shines. He brings an electric energy to his performances, encouraging audiences to not only vibe, but to get up and dance. Playing tribute to these genres, Giulio hosts and performs at a reoccurring "Sunday Slaps" night at San Francisco's...

Dr. Angela Wellman’s musical journey traces back to her upbringing in Kansas City, MO. As a young person involved in a music training initiative that was backed by the CETA (Comprehensive Employment and Training Act) program, she found the trombone– or rather, it found her. In 2005, after music carried her around the map, Angela founded the Oakland Public Conservatory of Music as a way to assist Black and brown kids in accessing musical education. Now, after receiving numerous accolades for...

Dimming one's light in the face of haters is not something Lidia Rodriguez knows how to do. Whenever she gets comments from guys about her size or gender, the baritone player is quick to clap back with a joke and prove them wrong. "When I'm playing my bari sax, I feel huge. I feel powerful. I feel seven feet tall. I feel like no one could tell me s**t. Like I feel so good about myself. " Lidia Rodriguez is a musical force performing and recording across genre. She gets down playing cumbia...

Welcome to the first episode of Liner Notes, the Rightnowish podcast series all about jazz in the Bay Area. We're starting this off with a conversation with someone who has a wealth of knowledge, especially when it comes to jazz, Greg Bridges. As a journalist and longtime radio host at Bay Area radio stations KCSM and KPFA, Greg is steeped in Bay Area jazz history. As a reoccurring host of events like the San Jose Jazz Festival, he also has his finger on the current pulse of the culture.

This episode originally aired on April 22, 2022 . Terisa Siagatonu's poetry navigates climate change and its impact on marginalized communities from the lens of someone who was proudly raised in San Francisco, by a family with deep Samoan roots. In our conversation, Terisa looks back at January 2022's underwater eruption that caused massive tsunamis in Samoa, Tonga, Fiji and other nations in Oceania. Initially, the disaster made headlines and relief efforts filled social media feeds, but...

This piece was originally a part of Rightnowish's 2021 series, Roll With Us, all about the Bay Area's community and culture on wheels. Every Sunday San Francisco's Richard Humphrey teaches weekly roller dance classes in San Leandro; his students have the honor of learning from someone who has been on quad skates for five decades. From 1979 to 1988, Richard was a part of the Golden Rollers, a trio of skaters who regularly performed in Golden Gate Park. By now, Richard has taught thousands of...

Anwar Bey grew up in Southern California, but spent his formative, young adult years in San Francisco. He moved to the Bay Area to live out his dream of creating video games. Then in 2021, after spending a decade in Northern California, he moved to Johannesburg, South Africa. That's where he's found the clarity to write about the future. Bey is the author of a series of sci-fi stories titled, The Book of Woldu. It's an exploration of love, family and intergalactic time travel from the...

Inside of Mohammad Gorjestani's office, there's hella artwork. The filmmaker and co-founder of Even/Odd Studios, has painted collages of wrestlers from Iran mounted near photographed images of Bay Area sideshows. There's stories embroidered on skateboard decks, family heirlooms in the form of pottery and even a tiny replica IranAir airplane. Books written in Farsi line the walls, and Persian carpets on the floor, require you to change out of your footwear and into slippers, as is the custom...

Imagine opening a letter from yourself as a high school student, addressed to the current version of you. 10, 15, or even 30 years ago, what did you care about? What were you curious about? Did you have fears about the world? goals of being a lawyer or a ball player? boy bands you wanted to see in concert? friendships that you hoped would last forever? Do you even remember the high school version of you? On this week's episode of Rightnowish, we combine forces with students from Oakland's...