Hanif Abdurraqib didn’t watch the Grammys. He’s not one to put stock in the pageantry of awards shows in general, preferring to “give [artists] their flowers” in more personal and direct ways. Despite this, Abdurraqib—a cultural critic and poet who was recently named the Brooklyn Academy of Music’s guest curator at large—has faithfully participated in an annual Grammys pool with friends for nearly a decade. And this year, for the first time ever, he won in a landslide.
“I always try to outsmart what I actually know,” said Abdurraqib. “But this year I was like, I know how the Grammys operate. I know how they move. And I had Phoebe Bridgers getting shut out, and apparently within all the categories that shut her out, I picked the correct [winners]. So I won the pool before the night was over.”
That small victory speaks to Abdurraqib’s larger status as a cultural diviner of sorts. As the best-selling author of books like Go Ahead in the Rain: Notes to A Tribe Called Quest and the upcoming A Little Devil in America: Notes in Praise of Black Performance, Abdurraqib doesn’t just listen to songs—rather, he seems to absorb and metabolize them. He can intimate what we should be listening to and which conversations we should be having before the rest of us, which is perhaps why he was able to pinpoint the Grammy results while remaining happily disengaged from the ceremony itself.
Abdurraqib’s excellent new podcast, Object of Sound, reflects that duality: It features fascinating, insider conversations with musicians, but deliberately operates outside the churn of a press cycle, or the coldness of the algorithm. Each episode, he invites artists, writers, and thinkers to explore a specific theme that excites them or “draws them closer to their work,” with the intention of revealing backstories and ideas behind our favorite songs. The resulting interviews feel intentional and expansive, and Abdurraqib relishes these opportunities to burrow into the underexplored aspects of an artist’s oeuvre and career, and locate where their “shared investments” lie.
The first half of the season, which launched in January, has featured musicians like Jeff Tweedy of Wilco on the art of the cover song, and the duo Sylvan Esso, whose members Amelia Meath and Nick Sanborn chatted candidly about the challenges of being both romantically and creatively partnered with the same person. Moses Sumney discussed the curation and multiplicity of the self in relation to his album Græ, while Jazmine Sullivan was invited to explore the literary themes and traditions of oral storytelling that permeate Heaux Tales.
Abdurraqib stressed that Object of Sound, produced by Sonos Sound System, is not just a place for artists to promote their albums, although they can and do. But his priority is fostering meaningful conversations, and catalyzing discovery for listeners.
“Particularly in this time, I feel like there are people—and I am among them—kind of just aching for conversation, you know?” he said. “And conversation that maybe decenters the real horrors of the present world, and one that perhaps brings people a little closer to a reality that grounds them in something they love and something they’re comfortable with. And in a way, I’m looking for that too.”
In his partnership with Sonos, Abdurraqib was essentially given carte blanche to prioritize and curate the conversations he truly wanted to have, unconstrained by an obligation to timeliness or the perceived relevance of his guests. Some guests, like Meshell Ndegeocello, haven’t released new music or been at the center of cultural conversations for years—but her interview, in which she muses about James Baldwin and other literary ancestors, is one of the most memorable of the season.
This freedom also flips the other way. Should a smaller, newer artist grab his attention, Abdurraqib is able to capitalize on his excitement and set up a conversation before their so-called breakthrough. He booked this week’s guest, the Phoenix–based musician Sydney Sprague, after falling in love with her album Maybe I Will See You at the End of the World, released last month.
“I think it feels apocalyptic,” said Abdurraqib of Sprague’s debut LP. “And I think she’s wrestling with some things on the album about what it is to get to another side of survival that you didn’t see yourself getting to.… And it didn’t matter to me that she is not yet one of the biggest singer-songwriters in the world, or whatever. I was interested to talk to her because her music and her outlook on the making of that album just really grabbed me, and I figured we’d have an interesting conversation.”
Listen to Abdurraqib’s interview with Sprague below.
Abdurraqib’s recent evolution into a sought-after podcast host began after he wrote and narrated an episode about Cat Power on the second season of KCRW’s Lost Notes. The success of the episode led to a gig hosting the show’s third season, Lost Notes: 1980, which made many a “best of the year” list. Then Sonos came knocking, resulting in a partnership that has allowed him to live out a “long-held dream” of hosting a radio show. In addition to his interviews, Abdurraqib curates a playlist for each episode, and offers listeners prompts to engage more deeply with the music they love. His post-interview meditations are just as engrossing and essential to the show as his artist interviews; it’s in these quiet, ruminative appendices that his prowess as a poet and storyteller really shines.
Abdurraqib thinks it’s too soon to tell how the pandemic has influenced music, but he’s been personally drawn toward music with themes of “doom and darkness,” including recent offerings from Adrian Younge, Nick Cave, A Winged Victory for the Sullen, and Lucy Dacus. “There’s something really grounding about kind of drifting into sonic darkness,” he said. In a recent interview with KeiyA, he credited her album Forever, Ya Girl for transporting him to “a world that is not necessarily the world I’m sitting in, which of course I needed more than ever in that moment.”
Object of Sound offers a similar respite to listeners; a safe, stimulating space to settle into for half an hour. It feels both timely and timeless—for the pandemic, and whatever comes after. Said Abdurraqib, “I think as we enter a phase of what might feel to some like a post-pandemic life of sorts or a vaccinated life, in the fall or winter of next year, I hope [Object of Sound] could be a good pathway to keeping people feeling good about the possibility of music until they can see it in concert and be in spaces with it again.”
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