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.
-
This summer Nas is traveling the world performing his debut album in full. The crowds that are coming out to see him are turning up because the 20-year-old record is an acknowledged classic.
-
Then an intern, Oh gave Illmatic the highest rating in The Source magazine, marking it a classic. Today she's Miss Info and she talks about her review and making LL Cool J cry.
-
The rap duo OutKast launched what may be its farewell tour over the weekend at Coachella, but the group and its fans, who have waited a decade for the reunion, might not have the same expectations.
-
The Bay Area legend is widely known for creating slang, flouting the rules and knowing everybody from everywhere. He speaks about his long career, Master P, Lil Jon, T-Pain, Tupac and Too Short.
-
The 27-year-old Los Angeles rapper has done it all and, like the rest of us, knows he's not perfect. In a Microphone Check interview, he's thoughtful about his past and his new album, Oxymoron.
-
We couldn't fit everything into Thursday's story about the legacy of Comin Out Hard, so here are some extras, including Eightball on touring in a rental car, MJG on Eazy-E and Yo Gotti on mentorship in the Memphis rap scene.
-
From the birthplace of Stax and Sun Records, and the site of Martin Luther King Jr.'s assassination, the pair of rapper-producers snatched soul music and put it to work for a new generation.
-
The Tennessee musicians on where they come from, their definition of trap music and relationships, both working and romantic.
-
This week we're looking back at the year in music through the lens of NPR Music's 50 Favorite Albums of 2013. It's the annual list assembled by our in-house experts, including NPR music editor Frannie Kelley and Ali Shaheed Muhammad, producer and founding member of the rap group A Tribe Called Quest. The pair host NPR's Microphone Check.
-
We all listen to music differently. What we hear is shaded by our history, our knowledge, our equipment, our mood, our taste. But every year there are moments when everybody who lives and breathes hip-hop is on the same subject.