BRITTANY LUSE, HOST:
Hello, hello. I'm Brittany Luse, and you're listening to IT'S BEEN A MINUTE from NPR, a show about what's going on in culture and why it doesn't happen by accident.
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LUSE: For the next few weeks, I am bringing The Smackdown, a debate series, to American cities all across the country to find out, what are the most influential things and the most important people that come from those places? I'm debating who and what are the greatest of all time.
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LUSE: Today's cage match is being held in Birmingham, Ala., and our debaters this week are Gulf States Newsroom sports and culture reporter Joseph King and AL.com life and culture reporter Cody Short.
Joseph, Cody, welcome to IT'S BEEN A MINUTE.
CODY SHORT: Thank you for having us.
JOSEPH KING, BYLINE: Yeah, thank you. I appreciate the opportunity.
LUSE: Are the two of you ready to fight to the death?
SHORT: I am.
KING: I'm ready right now.
(LAUGHTER)
LUSE: OK. All right. That's what we like to hear. All right, well, just kidding, just kidding. There will be no blood here, or at least I hope not. But let me set the stage for what will happen. We have two categories. We'll each select a contender for each category. That includes me. We'll each make our case. That also includes me. And then a select jury of NPR culture critics will determine a winner. I'm sure you're dying to know what the categories are.
KING: Yeah. I'm on the edge of my seat right now.
SHORT: I need to know.
LUSE: All right. OK. I need to know. All right. Well, the first category. What is the single most influential thing from your area? We're talking about a cultural object. It could be a music genre. Maybe a food came from there. You decide what you think is the most influential thing from your area. We're talking, you know, anything from the general Birmingham metropolitan area. That's fair game. That's our first category.
KING: I got you.
LUSE: The second. Who is the most important person that comes from your area? Maybe it's an artist, a politician or your neighbor. I don't know. But again, you decide, and you make your case. There will be winners. There will be losers. And there will be surprises.
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KING: Let's do it. Vamos.
LUSE: Cody and Joseph know the rules. They know the stakes. And I gave them two weeks to scour the archives, call their sources and decide who are the most important people and things to come out of Birmingham.
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LUSE: Two weeks later. It's time to debate.
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LUSE: Without further ado, it's time for our first category. Who is the most important person to come out of Birmingham? Joseph, you're up first.
KING: Basically - OK, all right, here we go. Y'all ready? Y'all ready?
LUSE: Ready.
KING: On the 12 February in 1980, Radric Davis was born.
LUSE: I only know one man with that name.
(LAUGHTER)
KING: Yeah, that's right. You may know him by his stage name - Gucci Mane, Gucci Mane La Flare, Mr. Zone 6, the Trap God, Big Guwap, Gucci Two Times or Big Guwop sloppy bread, waffles with cheese.
LUSE: (Laughter).
KING: All right?
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "THAT EVER LIVED")
GUCCI MANE: (Rapping) Big Guwop, sloppy bread, waffles with cheese. Yeah, extra cheese on mine.
KING: Many folks out there associate Gucci Mane with Atlanta, and they are not wrong. But I'm here to bring Gucci back home.
LUSE: OK.
KING: That's because he is a product of Bessemer, Ala., right outside of Birmingham.
LUSE: Wow.
KING: He has given a nod to his Birmingham roots throughout his music. For instance, in his song "Realest Ever Lived," he says, I got fans all in Japan, but I was born in Birmingham.
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GUCCI MANE: (Rapping) I got fans all in Japan, but I was born in Birmingham. I'm selling Cali kush in Bessemer, Ala. I'm the man.
KING: I'm selling Cali kush in Bessemer, Ala. I'm the man.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "REALEST EVER LIVED")
GUCCI MANE: (Rapping) Gucci Mane, I'm the realest rapper ever lived.
KING: Not to mention his own record label, 1017 Records, is named after his grandparents' address in Bessemer. I was actually just watching a video where Gucci Mane went back to Bessemer. And you can see him on his grandparents' front porch, pointing at the 1017 hanging by the door.
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GUCCI MANE: The real 1017.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #1: 1017. 1017 (vocalizing).
KING: And, you know, Gucci is easily one of the most influential rappers of today. He's one of the pioneers of trap music, which can be heard all across modern music, not just in rap.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "7 RINGS")
ARIANA GRANDE: (Singing) Look at my neck, look at my jet. Ain't got enough money to pay me respect. Ain't no budget when I'm on the set. If I like it, then that's what I get, yeah.
LUSE: That's true.
KING: And to bring it back to Bessemer, back to 1017, Gucci signed so many artists or so many names that you know. I'm talking about Young Thug, Waka Flocka Flame, Chief Keef, OJ da Juiceman, Young Scooter, Migos and more. I could really keep going, but I think you get my point. There's no one more deserving of the title of the most influential person from Birmingham other than the one and only Gucci Mane.
SHORT: Wow.
LUSE: That's actually impressive. I'm not going to lie. So true. I never really associated him with Alabama. I really had previously only associated him with Atlanta.
KING: That's right.
LUSE: But, Cody, what about you? Are you a big fan of Mr. Mane?
SHORT: Of course. I mean, am I from the South if I don't love Gucci Mane?
LUSE: (Laughter) That's the question.
SHORT: That was a very bold choice, Joseph, but I feel like my person is still going to knock Gucci Mane out of the water. And I'm sorry. I'm sorry in advance.
KING: OK. We're going to see, man.
LUSE: OK. All right. Well, you know what, though? Now that you've already offered this apology, I want to hear your argument. Cody, you are up next. Who do you think is the most influential person to come from Birmingham?
SHORT: Well, I have to start by saying you can't talk about Birmingham without talking about the Civil Rights Movement.
LUSE: Very true.
SHORT: There are so many events that placed Birmingham at the epicenter of the battle for racial equality in this country. And those events were not lost on the person I think is the most influential person to come from Birmingham. And her name is the Angela Davis.
LUSE: Oh, I see Joseph hanging his head.
SHORT: Sorry, Joseph.
(LAUGHTER)
KING: Oh.
SHORT: Angela Davis was born in Birmingham, Ala., in 1944, and she would go on to be one of the Black academic leaders for a generation. She would fight back against power as a member of the Black Panther Party, and she was an architect of the prison abolition movement. And her seminal texts, like "Women, Race And Class," are still an inspiration to young activists today. But what inspired her to do all of this? The inspiration came from her being a child of Birmingham.
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SHORT: When she was a kid, Angela lived on Center Street, which - for those who don't know, Center Street became known as Dynamite Hill because of all the bombings that took place there.
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ANGELA DAVIS: I grew up in Birmingham, Ala. Some very, very good friends of mine were killed by bombs, bombs that were planted by racists. I remember from the time I was very small. I remember the sounds of bombs exploding across the street, our house shaking. I remember my father having to have guns at his disposal at all times because of the fact that at any moment, someone - we might expect to be attacked.
SHORT: White supremacists and Klan members were trying to drive out middle-class Black people who had moved there.
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DAVIS: The man who was at that time in complete control of the city government - his name was Bull Connor - would often get on the radio and make statements like [expletive] moved into a white neighborhood. We better expect some bloodshed tonight. And sure enough, there would be bloodshed.
SHORT: White racists were responsible for more than 50 bombings of Black property. And as a young girl, Angela Davis saw that and what happened to her peers and other kids her age and their parents. When she was little, she was a Girl Scout, and this is what she credits her political activation to. As a Girl Scout, she would march and picket and protest racial segregation. But that little girl would grow up from being a Girl Scout into a Black philosopher.
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DAVIS: I mean, that's why when someone asks me about violence, I just find it incredible because what it means is that the person who's asking that question has absolutely no idea what Black people have gone through, what Black people have experienced in this country since the time the first Black person was kidnapped from the shores of Africa.
SHORT: She would change how the world thought about Black people, women and the working class. And that is why I think Angela Davis is the most influential person from Birmingham.
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LUSE: First of all, great pick. Great, great, great pick.
SHORT: Thank you.
LUSE: Amazing pick. I think so many people associate Angela Davis with California...
SHORT: Yes.
LUSE: ...But very, very, very important to remember that she is a daughter of the South. So very, very, very great pick.
SHORT: Thank you.
LUSE: But I just also want to note for people who are listening and cannot see what I'm seeing, Joseph has been, like, rubbing his temples (laughter).
KING: Because I know - I already know what - who they're going to choose. You know, I probably lost.
LUSE: I mean, you know, it's too soon to call it, Joseph.
SHORT: I was going to say, you're giving up so easily.
LUSE: This is a competition. I mean, look. Cody said that, you know, Angela Davis grew to become a Black philosopher. I think put another way, Gucci Mane is also a Black philosopher, just in a different way.
SHORT: I can't even argue with that. That is true.
KING: You hitting on something, yeah.
LUSE: (Laughter).
KING: Thank you for helping me. Thank you for helping me. Yeah, you're right. OK.
LUSE: Well, you know, I have to say, you both have presented very different ways of looking at influence, but I have a departure from both of the ways that you have even presented, OK?
KING: OK.
LUSE: And I want to share it with y'all now. I want to tell you about the person that I think is the most influential person from the Birmingham area. This story takes place in the winter of 1902.
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LUSE: Mary Anderson had recently moved to Birmingham, Ala., and made some money as a real estate developer. And she used that money to take a trip to New York City, which is exactly what I would do if I had come into some money. I would just be like, let's go on vacation. Mary was riding in a street car when she got to New York City. And it was snowing and sleeting, and it kept piling up on the windshield. She watched as the driver had to keep wiping the windshield down so he could see out and it was cold, and it was gross. Nobody was winning in this scenario.
And all of this got Mary thinking. When she got back to Birmingham, she sketched up a fan-type windshield wiper that could be cranked by hand from inside the vehicle. And she filed a patent for it, which read...
UNIDENTIFIED VOICE ACTOR: (As Mary Anderson) Be it known to all that I, Mary Anderson, a citizen of the United States, residing in Birmingham, in the county of Jefferson, in the state of Alabama, have invented a new and useful improvement in window-cleaning devices.
LUSE: Mary was granted patent number 743801 for her new device, and she began sending it out to manufacturing firms. But here's the tragic part.
KING: OK.
LUSE: There were no bites - zero. Her great-great-niece still holds on to some of the letters Mary got back from those companies and read them to NPR back in 2017.
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SARA-SCOTT WINGO: (Reading) Dear Madam, we beg to acknowledge receipt of your recent favor with reference to the sale of your patent. In reply, we regret to state we do not consider it to be of such commercial value as would warrant our undertaking its sale.
WINGO: They missed out, don't you think?
LUSE: 19 years later, two years after the patent had lapsed, Cadillac began installing a type of wiper as a piece of standard equipment in its cars. The kicker - Mary would live to see her invention become so ubiquitous to the point that we don't even think about it now, except when we need to get new ones. Mary never got any money for her windshield wiper. And honestly, that sucks, but she did get some credit. In 2011, Mary Anderson was inducted into the Inventors Hall of Fame.
KING: Hold on.
SHORT: And she's from Birmingham?
KING: Oh, I didn't even know that.
LUSE: Birmingham.
SHORT: You see how Birmingham has produced so many legends?
LUSE: (Laughter). So we have all selected our contenders for the most influential person to come from Birmingham. We have the cultural influence that you gave us, Joseph, with Gucci Mane. We have the deeply historical civil rights influence that you have shared with us, Cody. And we also have the so vital to everyday life and commonplace that we don't even think about it influence that I shared with Mary Anderson. The NPR select jury has declared that Cody has picked the most influential person to come from Birmingham - Angela Davis. Cody, who are you dedicating this win to?
SHORT: Well, of course, I'm dedicating this to all the people in Birmingham and, even more so, all the Black women across the country. And, you know, I have to rub this in Joseph's face just a little bit...
(LAUGHTER)
SHORT: ...'Cause I got you on this one, Joseph.
KING: I think you might have (laughter).
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LUSE: One category down. One to go. When we get back, we're debating, what is the most important thing with roots in Birmingham? After a quick break.
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LUSE: All right. It is time for our next category. What is the most important thing to come out of Birmingham? Maybe it's a movie or a philosophy or an archaeological site. Joseph, you are up first.
KING: OK, OK. Here we go.
LUSE: What is the most important thing with roots in Birmingham?
KING: To tell you what I think is the most influential thing for Birmingham is, I first have to tell you the story of one man, Herman Blount. Have you heard of him?
LUSE: No, never.
KING: Now, Herman was born in Birmingham in 1914 and grew up playing the piano. Even as a boy, he was considered a prodigy. There are stories of him as a young man seeing some of the great Black musicians like Fletcher Henderson and Duke Ellington when they passed through Alabama. And Herman himself would one day become just as legendary as those men, although his story is far more out of this world.
LUSE: OK.
KING: All right, so here's where things get wild. Herman moved to Chicago, but before that, he claimed that in a vision, he was teleported to Saturn and approached by aliens with antennas on their eyes and ears.
LUSE: What?
KING: He says the aliens told him to dedicate his life to music and that the aliens said society is about to enter into chaos, and that his music will speak to the people. Herman did just that. You actually probably know him better by his cosmic name - Sun Ra.
LUSE: Oh, my gosh.
KING: Yeah.
LUSE: (Laughter) Now it all makes sense. Now it all makes sense. OK.
KING: Wanting to get rid of his birth name - which he called a slave name - Herman changed his name to Le Sony'r Ra, or more simply Sun Ra, after the Egyptian god. This cosmic entity would go on to push the boundaries of jazz music, pushing it to include keyboard synthesizers and more experimental sounds. And even today, his psychedelic music still sounds otherworldly.
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SUN RA AND HIS ARKESTRA: (Singing) Love and life interested me so that I dared to knock at the door of the cosmos.
KING: But more importantly, Sun Ra, alongside the likes of Octavia Butler, would help create one of the most important Black art movements of all time - Afrofuturism.
LUSE: OK. Keep going. Keep going. That's good. That's good.
KING: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
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KING: Let's lay out how influential my pick is, OK?
LUSE: OK.
KING: Y'all will agree with me that Erykah Badu and Outkast are some of the greatest artists ever, right?
SHORT: Sure.
LUSE: Yeah. I actually would, yeah.
KING: Right. Right. OK. And that Marvel's "Black Panther" is one of the biggest movies of this century, right?
SHORT: Yeah.
LUSE: That's true. That's very true.
KING: Without Birmingham and without Sun Ra, you don't have Afrofuturism. And without Afrofuturism, you wouldn't have the great musicians like Erykah Badu, Outkast or Janelle Monae. You wouldn't have one of the biggest movies of this century - "Black Panther," or "Black Is King" or "Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse." And you wouldn't have the eye-opening creativity that has inspired whole generations of Black artists to reimagine their pasts and futures.
LUSE: OK. You know what? Joseph, I've got to hand it to you. That was a really good pick.
SHORT: Hold on. This is the thing category. Is it because Sun Ra considered himself a thing and not a person?
KING: No. See, Sun Ra was the first artist to practice Afrofuturism.
SHORT: So Afrofuturism is the thing?
KING: Afrofuturism...
LUSE: Afrofuturism is the thing.
KING: ...Is the thing, yes.
SHORT: Ah, OK. All right.
LUSE: I think he's very agreed upon as an Afrofuturist pioneer, I would say.
KING: At the time, you know, people thought he was weird. You know, they thought he was weird wearing these elaborate costumes and goggles and head pieces and walking around with a staff. But, you know, that grew on some people, and that is a whole genre of that. And I'm saying that genre wouldn't have been here if it weren't for Birmingham.
LUSE: Cody? I can see that you're skeptical, but I can also see you're ready to share your pick. What do you think is the most important cultural object to come out of Birmingham?
SHORT: OK, so I'll also start with a question. When you think of a hot summer day in the South, what is the one thing you know will cool you down and lift you up when you drink it?
KING: Lemonade?
LUSE: Sweet tea?
SHORT: You're right, Brittany - sweet tea.
LUSE: (Laughter) I'm the real Southerner, I'm sure. I'm the real Southerner. I'm the real Southerner.
SHORT: OK, so, when I was young, growing up here in Birmingham, my mom - I can picture her now. She would always keep her styrofoam cup full of shaved ice.
LUSE: Yes.
SHORT: And it came from one of the very best things to come out of Birmingham. And that is Milo's - Milo's sweet tea, to be specific. And it's true. When you think of the South, you think of sweet tea.
LUSE: Yeah.
SHORT: And when you're in the South, you know the very best sweet tea is from Milo's.
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UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #2: (Singing) Everybody goes to Milo's. With the secret sauce that's known all around. Everybody goes to Milo's...
SHORT: So the backstory goes, Milo Carlton came home after World War II, and he and his wife Bea opened a hamburger stand called Milo's. The little stand would one day grow into a $129 million company, and you will find locations all across the state of Alabama today. But the restaurant became a success because, yeah, the burgers are good. But also because of the sweet tea. So 40 years after the hamburger stand was started, Milo's son, Ronnie, was looking at the restaurant sales and realized it was the tea that was the most popular item on the menu. Not the burgers.
LUSE: Whoa.
KING: What y'all know about that Milo's? I know we got about five, six jugs of it, and we run through one every day (laughter) up in this house. Famous sweet tea, baby.
SHORT: Remember how the burgers were making $129 million? Well, now the sweet tea company on its own, is raking in $440 million. And yeah, we may not know why Southerners are obsessed with sweet tea. Some people say it's because sugar used to be a dominant preservative. And others say it's because the tea was cheap and Southerners had less income. But no matter what, when you think of the South, you think of sweet tea, and you probably are thinking about Milo's sweet tea. And that is why it is the best thing to come out of Birmingham.
KING: OK.
LUSE: Wow. Wow. Wait, you're drinking something right now, Cody. I've seen you take sips. Is that Milo's sweet tea?
SHORT: It might be.
LUSE: (Laughter) I'll tell you what - they say America runs on Dunkin. But as you've described it, it sounds like the South runs on Milo's, is that right?
SHORT: Absolutely. Absolutely.
KING: I had me a Milo's burger not too long ago, you know?
LUSE: Wow. Wow. There you go. There you go. That is a very, very good contender for the most influential thing from Birmingham, Ala. I wouldn't want to follow that one, but unfortunately, I am up next. And I do still think that I have a very good case to make. I think that the most influential thing from Birmingham is the 16th Street Baptist Church. I'm sure as Birminghamians - that could be the wrong word for it - but I'm sure as Birmingham locals, you all know it.
The city's first Black church sits on the corner of 16th Street and 6th Avenue in downtown Birmingham, right across the street from the Kelly Ingram Park. And on September 15, 1963, it would become the site that would forever transform civil rights in America. That morning, four young girls - Denise McNair, Addie Mae Collins, Carole Robertson and Cynthia Wesley - all between the ages of 11 and 14, were getting ready for Sunday school. One church attendee remembers Denise asking Addie to tie her belt. And then it happened. A bomb exploded killing the four girls instantly and injuring 22 others. It had been planted by the white supremacist group, the Ku Klux Klan clan. The news of their deaths spread rapidly across the country.
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UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #3: Dynamite exploded on a Sunday morning, killed four little girls in Sunday school, Injured 20 other negroes.
LUSE: Between 1947 and1963, Birmingham had been the scene of more than 50 bombings by white supremacists. Cody, you touched on this earlier when you were talking about Angela Davis. But it was the 16th Street Baptist Church and the story of these young girls that finally started to change and shift the conversation around civil rights.
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UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #4: And we'll keep marching and marching and marching until one day, you'll look around and we'll all be marching together.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #2: Two hundred thousand negroes and whites marched on Washington, demanding passage of President Kennedy's Civil Rights Bill, most far-reaching of its kind in 100 years.
JOHN F KENNEDY: We are confronted primarily with a moral issue. It is as old as the Scriptures and is as clear as the American Constitution.
LUSE: President John F. Kennedy introduced the Civil Rights Act, which prohibited discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, or national origin.
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KENNEDY: And this nation, for all its hopes and all its boasts, will not be fully free until all its citizens are free.
LUSE: At a time when we see politicians in the Supreme Court presently chipping away at civil rights, and more specifically stripping away much of the Voting Rights Act, another landmark piece of civil rights legislation following the bombing, I think it's more important than ever to remember these moments and how they changed the country's attitude toward equal rights for all people.
KING: That was beautiful.
LUSE: I have a question. You know, both of you are from Birmingham, and you know, you both have just touched on the connection between Civil rights, the Civil Rights Movement in the U.S. and your city. What do you wish that people outside of Birmingham knew about the importance of that connection?
KING: I think that's one of the first things people think about when they think of Birmingham. Because I know a lot of people would still call Birmingham, Bombingham.
LUSE: Still.
KING: Yeah, still, I'll be like - there's some people that say I'm afraid to go down South because they're afraid of racism. When reality, racism is everywhere in the world, and I feel very comfortable in Birmingham, and I appreciate the city. So that's why I want people to think about.
SHORT: I want people to remember that it wasn't that long ago that my grandmother and her sisters were children crusaders and were jailed for protesting in downtown Birmingham. And those are the same rights that are being threatened today. I want people to know that Birmingham is not what it used to be, but I also want them to not forget what it was.
LUSE: Well, thank you both so much for sharing your reflections on the importance of your city to our history and to our country's history. I really appreciate that.
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LUSE: Well, we have all selected our fighters. Joseph, you chose Afrofuturism. Cody, you went with Milo's sweet tea. And I chose the 16th Street Baptist Church. The NPR select jury has voted, and they decided, based on our arguments, that the most influential thing to come out of Birmingham is Afrofuturism.
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LUSE: Joseph, congratulations. You are a winner. Who are you dedicating this win to?
KING: Oh, man, it feels good to be a winner, man, you know?
(LAUGHTER)
KING: But I dedicate this to all my people in Birmingham. I dedicate this to all my people in Alabama. You know, yeah, all these other states and all these other cities - they've got a lot going on, too. I give you that. But what you tend to forget is your grandparents and your great-grandparents came from down here. So I want you to remember that, too.
LUSE: OK, I like that. I like that. I like the connecting the lineage.
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LUSE: And thus concludes The Smackdown for this week. Joseph, Cody, thank you so much for teaching us all about the amazing things that have come from your neck of the woods.
SHORT: Thanks for having me.
KING: Thank you. Thank you.
SHORT: And, Brittany, I have to say that I think this is probably the Blackest episode that you all have had, and I just have to say that.
LUSE: Well, Birmingham is low-key chocolate city.
KING: Yeah. Yeah.
LUSE: (Laughter) Low-key chocolate city. Low-key.
SHORT: We are the original chocolate city.
LUSE: That was Gulf States Newsroom sports and culture reporter Joseph King. You can hear more of his work on member station WBHM. And that was also AL.com life and culture reporter Cody Short.
Last week, I asked for your favorite underrated inventions. And today, I made an impassioned argument for windshield wipers. But here's the inventions you all shouted out.
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UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #5: Hey, Brittany.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #6: Hey, Brittany.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #7: Hey, Brittany.
JUNIE: Hey, Brittany. It's Junie (ph), and my favorite underrated invention is that apple divider where it cuts out the core and then cuts the apple into individual pieces. It's super fab.
LAKE: Hey, Brittany. My name is Lake (ph), and my favorite underrated invention is the soda can. I think it's a trillion-dollar business idea. And no one's been able to reinvent it ever since it's been made.
NASIR: Hey, Brittany. Girl, my name is Nasir (ph), and my favorite underrated invention is weighted blankets because they keep you nice and cozy, and they put you to sleep, as they should.
AJ: Hey, Brittany. My name is AJ. My favorite underrated invention is a lemon squeezer because you can get every single drop of juice out of that lemon.
NICOLE: What's up, Brittany? This is Nicole from Minnesota. And the invention that I am loving up is peritoneal dialysis. It afforded me the freedom and flexibility to have a type of normalcy to my life while enduring one of the hardest health struggles ever.
CLOVER: Hey, Brittany. My name is Clover. My favorite underrated invention is the pllow. Whether you have one, two or 17, all of them bring you comfort, and, like, you can never go wrong with a good pillow. Like, let's go.
LUSE: Oh, my gosh. Junie, Lake, AJ, Nasir, Nicole and Clover, these are all incredible, incredible inventions to highlight. Very, very, very good choices. And I have to say, the lemon squeezer will get it every single time. There is something about the shape, the way that it's put together. It's just, like, whoever came up with that one, they were really, really, really, really thinking. So shut out to you on that one, AJ. I'm definitely, definitely with you on that.
Now, if you want to be heard on next week's Hey, Brittany, I have a burning question for you. I am getting my fall playlist together now that a little chill has hit the New York City streets. And I got to go out in my neighborhood and get my steps. And so I'm wondering, what song do you have on repeat right now? Because y'all know I love Tinashe "Nasty." But it's getting to be a little cold to be a nasty woman, I feel like, right now. I feel like I need to maybe get a little cozier. So let me know, what is on your fall playlist? What is that song you've got on repeat? Record your answer in a voice memo and send that voice memo to ibam@npr.org. That's ibam@npr.org.
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LUSE: This episode of IT'S BEEN A MINUTE was produced by...
BARTON GIRDWOOD, BYLINE: Barton Girdwood.
COREY ANTONIO ROSE, BYLINE: Corey Antonio Rose.
LUSE: This episode was edited by...
JESSICA PLACZEK, BYLINE: Jessica Placzek.
LUSE: Our executive producer is...
JASMINE ROMERO, BYLINE: Jasmine Romero.
LUSE: Our VP of programming is...
YOLANDA SANGWENI, BYLINE: Yolanda Sangweni.
LUSE: All right. That's all for this episode of IT'S BEEN A MINUTE from NPR. I'm Brittany Luse. Talk soon.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
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