Essay
I. I grew up between Minneapolis and a small farm just outside the city on the occupied Indigenous homelands of the Dakota people in the Twin Cities and also of the Anishinaabe, or Ojibwe people, to the north. As an adult who has moved away from and returned to Minneapolis multiple times over the past »
Music
Summer is the season when the new recruits arrive. They are kids, eight or nine years old, and most have never touched an instrument. On June 20, 2019, I crowd into an air-conditioned classroom with about thirty of them, sitting on industrial carpet, facing forward. LeBron Joseph stands in front of the whiteboard writing out »
Memoir
Windy Gap Road twists up Little Brushy Mountain, dense forest on all sides until you crest the top and feel like you’re driving right into the sky. Follow the road a short way until it crosses Cling Johnson Road, named for my great-grandfather, and at the very end, you’ll hit the Johnson homestead: a medium-sized »
Essay
“Mundane practices are what form habits, stabilize norms, and reproduce culture. This begs the question: What culture am I reproducing by repeating the words Ole Miss?” As someone not originally from the South, I find it difficult to pronounce the words “Ole Miss.” Saying it feels like playing dress-up because it forces me, even if »
Essay
One thing I did not have on my 2020 Bingo Card was being sonically minstrelized by a white man. A friend asked me to write a short reflection about OutKast and their connection to Afrofuturism for a special issue of a fiction magazine featuring writers of color. My piece talked about the Kast’s use of »
Essay
“So much of what is calling to us in the South remains yet unheard.” A Southern Cultures issue on the Sonic South is especially welcome in this moment, so necessary as we continue to listen for what is hidden within the culture and history of the region. And while we listen for these rhythms, the muffled »
Interview
As part of the current exhibition Reckoning and Resilience: North Carolina Art Now, the Nasher Museum of Art recorded a conversation between artist Clarence Heyward, whose paintings are part of the show, and Tatiana McInnis, who teaches American Studies and Humanities at the North Carolina School of Science and Math in Durham, NC. This conversation has been »
Interview
In advance of two special issues, Regina N. Bradley and Charles Hughes caught up to discuss the hip-hop South and the many ways that their varied interests intersect—from hip-hop histories and futures to riffing and representation. Those issues are now available: The Sonic South (Spring 2022), guest edited by Bradley, and Disability (Spring 2023), guest »
Music
My first exposure to the concept of love was memorizing 1 Corinthians 13 in Sunday school. Even as a little girl, the idea of a love that was patient, kind, selfless, and unconditional sounded like something I wanted to be a part of. Later on, Disney movies and fairy tales filled my tiny head with »
Essay
Imagine the thrill. A letter drops through a mail slot, the phone rings, or your email pings. The message contains a beautiful proposition. Atlanta’s High Museum will give you a not unsubstantial amount of money. In return, you agree to make photographs in the South. Otherwise, you can do whatever you want, knowing that your »
Essay
Confronted with another year of the pandemic–another year of heartbreak, isolation, and resolve–we turned to imagination. We launched the year with an issue on the Imaginary South, guest edited by the esteemed writer and sociologist Zandria Robinson. “There are Souths that are only imaginary because most dominant stories about the region do not acknowledge they »
Essay
The capillaries that connect your heart to your lungs are both airstreams and blood flow. Doctors call them periarterial. In the maze of small blood vessels that process oxygen no one knows where your heart ends and your lungs begin. Maybe there is no end to your heartbeat, your breathing. Even when the decade starts »