Frannie Kelley
Frannie Kelley is co-host of the Microphone Check podcast with Ali Shaheed Muhammad.
Prior to hosting Microphone Check, Kelley was an editor at NPR Music. She was responsible for editing, producing and reporting NPR Music's coverage of hip-hop, R&B and the ways the music industry affects the music we hear, on the radio and online. She was also co-editor of NPR's music news blog, The Record.
Kelley worked at NPR from 2007 until 2016. Her projects included a series on hip-hop in 1993 and overseeing a feature on women musicians. She also ran another series on the end of the decade in music and web-produced the Arts Desk's series on vocalists, called 50 Great Voices. Most recently, her piece on Why You Should Listen to Odd Future was selected to be a part of the Best Music Writing 2012 Anthology.
Prior to joining NPR, Kelley worked in book publishing at Grove/Atlantic in a variety of positions from 2004 to 2007. She has a B.A. in Music Criticism from New York University.
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The Rhode Island-born producer and DJ tells the story of the father/son talk he once had with Cam'ron, delineates EDM and hip-hop and calls out the whole music industry for being flaky.
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The singer and songwriter played a major role in creating a contemporary, conservative gospel sound.
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"Whatever I feel like is missing, or whatever type of track or energy I'm trying to feel or I feel like I'm not hearing in wherever music is at that period of time, I try to create it."
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The guaguanco is one of three rhythmic patterns that live under the umbrella of the rumba. It was once subversive and now serves to bring drummers and singers and dancers together.
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The most philosophical member of Top Dawg Entertainment in a Microphone Check conversation about Ab's high expectations of his audience and what he's trying to make for them.
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In almost every Hollywood depiction of the American military, at some point a bunch of guys will jog past the camera, singing and stepping in unison. That rhythm infiltrated the Army in 1944.
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At the close of Microphone Check's onstage conversation with the producer and DJ, he took to the decks to demonstrate what he meant when he said, "When I want you to understand something, I remix it."
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In a conversation with author Nelson George at the Brooklyn Museum, the elusive singer and songwriter spoke on his idols, his process and his teenage years, and hinted at a new album.
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This week the hip-hop magazine revealed its annual cover highlighting new acts, which prompted the usual avalanche of debate over the artists featured, those absent and the state of the genre.
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The rapper from Gary, Ind., moved to L.A. 10 years ago, where he met Madlib, a producer revered for his collaborations. The two of them have now made an album Gibbs thinks can't be touched.