Jay Ray: 00:00:09

Meklit Hadero is an Ethiopian-American vocalist,

Jay Ray: 00:00:12

songwriter, and composer, known

Jay Ray: 00:00:14

for her electric stage presence, innovative sound

Jay Ray: 00:00:16

and vibrant cultural activism.

Jay Ray: 00:00:19

Her

Jay Ray: 00:00:20

latest EP, titled Ethio Blue, was released March 8, 2024 and spent nearly 2 months

Jay Ray: 00:00:26

at #12 on the NACC World Charts.

Jay Ray: 00:00:31

Meklit’s Ethio-Jazz performances have taken her to renowned stages across 4

Jay Ray: 00:00:35

continents.

Jay Ray: 00:00:36

Her albums have topped world music charts across the US + Europe,

Jay Ray: 00:00:40

received rave reviews, and been covered extensively by the press.

Jay Ray: 00:00:45

Meklit has

Jay Ray: 00:00:45

collaborated with renowned artists such as Kronos Quartet, Andrew Bird,

Jay Ray: 00:00:50

Preservation Hall Jazz Band, and the late creator of funk music, Pee Wee Ellis.

Jay Ray: 00:00:56

Meklit has always straddled her creative practice with her passion for cultural

Jay Ray: 00:01:01

activism.

Jay Ray: 00:01:02

She is the former Chief of Program at Yerba Buena Center for the

Jay Ray: 00:01:06

Arts in San Francisco, where she helped design and implement a

Jay Ray: 00:01:11

slate of radical programs supporting social justice

Jay Ray: 00:01:14

focused artists during the height

Jay Ray: 00:01:17

of the pandemic.

Jay Ray: 00:01:19

She is a sought after thought leader and speaker and has given

Jay Ray: 00:01:22

talks on multiple TED Stages, at the UN, and at the National

Jay Ray: 00:01:27

Geographic Storytellers

Jay Ray: 00:01:28

Summit, as well as at institutions, organizations and

Jay Ray: 00:01:32

Universities around the globe.

Jay Ray: 00:01:35

Meklit is a National Geographic Explorer, a TED Senior Fellow, and a former

Jay Ray: 00:01:40

Artistin-Residence at Harvard University.

Jay Ray: 00:01:43

She is the co-founder of the Nile Project, a

Jay Ray: 00:01:45

featured voice in UN Women’s theme song and the winner of the 2021 globalFEST

Jay Ray: 00:01:52

Artist Award.

Jay Ray: 00:01:54

Meklit has been a guest DJ on KCRW’s Morning Becomes Eclectic,

Jay Ray: 00:01:59

created new works via commissions from Lincoln Center, MAP Fund, Center for the

Jay Ray: 00:02:03

Art of Performance at UCLA, Stanford Live, NYU Abu Dhabi and many more.

Jay Ray: 00:02:11

Her

Jay Ray: 00:02:11

music has been featured by the New York Times, BBC, CNN, NPR, Washington Post,

Jay Ray: 00:02:17

Vibe Magazine, San Francisco Chronicle, Boston Globe and many more.

Jay Ray: 00:02:22

Meklit is co-founder, co-producer and host of Movement, a podcast, radio series

Jay Ray: 00:02:28

, live performance series and community building initiative uplifting

Jay Ray: 00:02:32

the stories, songs and cultural power of immigrant musicians.

Jay Ray: 00:02:37

The show airs monthly on PRX’s

Jay Ray: 00:02:39

The World to an audience of 2.5 million listeners.

Jay Ray: 00:02:43

Season 2 of Movement launches

Jay Ray: 00:02:45

July 16, 2024, wherever you get your podcasts.

Jay Ray: 00:02:51

Enjoy the show.

Jay Ray: 00:02:52

DJ Sir Daniel: Greetings and welcome to another episode of Queue Points podcast.

Jay Ray: 00:02:56

I am DJ Sir Daniel.

Jay Ray: 00:02:58

And my name is Jay Ray, sometimes known by my government

Jay Ray: 00:03:01

as Johnny Ray Kornegay III.

Jay Ray: 00:03:03

What's happening y'all.

Jay Ray: 00:03:05

DJ Sir Daniel: Listen, Queue Points podcast is the podcast dropping

Jay Ray: 00:03:07

the needle on black music history.

Jay Ray: 00:03:10

And Jay Ray, I am so proud that we are a podcast, a movement that, um, is a

Jay Ray: 00:03:16

staunch supporter of all black stories.

Jay Ray: 00:03:21

Coming from not only here in the United States, but of course, all the stories

Jay Ray: 00:03:26

that are coming from the diaspora.

Jay Ray: 00:03:29

And we have a special guest on this episode, Jay Ray,

Jay Ray: 00:03:33

please introduce our guests.

Jay Ray: 00:03:35

Folks, um, we are incredibly excited to welcome

Jay Ray: 00:03:40

Meklit Hedero to Queue Points.

Jay Ray: 00:03:44

Meklit, welcome to the show.

Jay Ray: 00:03:46

How are you?

Meklit Hadero: 00:03:48

Oh, I'm so good.

Meklit Hadero: 00:03:49

It's so good to be here with you.

Meklit Hadero: 00:03:51

I love talking about all things diaspora.

Meklit Hadero: 00:03:54

So here I am at home, you know?

Meklit Hadero: 00:03:57

DJ Sir Daniel: We had to do it.

Jay Ray: 00:03:58

Absolutely.

Jay Ray: 00:04:00

So we have several things we want to discuss with you.

Jay Ray: 00:04:04

Of course, we want to get into your podcast, but here's what's interesting.

Jay Ray: 00:04:08

Your podcast is a radio show.

Jay Ray: 00:04:09

So it's like podcast radio show all the movement.

Jay Ray: 00:04:14

And all the things, right?

Jay Ray: 00:04:16

But before we get into that, so I recently caught, um, that you did a performance.

Jay Ray: 00:04:25

This was back in August.

Jay Ray: 00:04:27

It was at the Yerba Buena Gardens Festival.

Meklit Hadero: 00:04:31

Yes.

Jay Ray: 00:04:31

I wanted to be here so bad.

Jay Ray: 00:04:33

So you did this performance.

Jay Ray: 00:04:35

It was, um, called Meklitz Movement Immigrant Orchestra.

Jay Ray: 00:04:40

And from the description, it was 13 musicians.

Jay Ray: 00:04:44

representing 11 countries, including India, Mexico, Ethiopia,

Jay Ray: 00:04:48

Cuba, Italy, Taiwan, Spain, Iran, Mali, Haiti, Palestine, Meklit.

Jay Ray: 00:04:56

Let's talk about you and your musicianship and a bit about what inspired you

Jay Ray: 00:05:04

to convene all of these musicians.

Meklit Hadero: 00:05:09

Well, thank you for asking about that moment, because I

Meklit Hadero: 00:05:12

have to say that was like one of the highlights of my entire musical career,

Meklit Hadero: 00:05:17

and I think, you know, the underlying.

Meklit Hadero: 00:05:20

thing for me is that I like to tell bigger stories together with other

Meklit Hadero: 00:05:24

artists than I can do by myself.

Meklit Hadero: 00:05:26

And I think when you get people together, um, there's from across, you know,

Meklit Hadero: 00:05:34

boundaries, whether those boundaries are invisible lines on a map that

Meklit Hadero: 00:05:39

are called countries, or whether they are, um, you know, uh, from different

Meklit Hadero: 00:05:45

communities and cultures of all kinds.

Meklit Hadero: 00:05:47

I think there's always a power in gathering folks and

Meklit Hadero: 00:05:51

there's an X factor in it.

Meklit Hadero: 00:05:52

So that actually, the movement immigrant orchestra actually started

Meklit Hadero: 00:05:56

out of this series of gatherings of immigrant musicians that we were having.

Meklit Hadero: 00:05:59

I was like, you know, our communities are under attack in a way that

Meklit Hadero: 00:06:03

is just constant and oppressive.

Meklit Hadero: 00:06:06

And we need to be together and understand from a place that

Meklit Hadero: 00:06:10

starts from our cultural power.

Meklit Hadero: 00:06:12

So we just started.

Meklit Hadero: 00:06:13

having gatherings and food and what happens when you get musicians

Meklit Hadero: 00:06:18

together is that they want to play.

Meklit Hadero: 00:06:20

And so we would, but people also had this very deep understanding of the struggles,

Meklit Hadero: 00:06:26

you know, like a lot of times immigrant communities can be siloed across ethnicity

Meklit Hadero: 00:06:30

or language or But we actually have a lot of the same struggles, we all, that's what

Meklit Hadero: 00:06:36

solidarity means, like actually we are all the same forces that are oppressing, you

Meklit Hadero: 00:06:41

know, it's, it's a cross, it's a cross.

Meklit Hadero: 00:06:44

Um, so we just, like, we started gathering folks and realized we had so many

Meklit Hadero: 00:06:50

stories that were echoes of each other.

Meklit Hadero: 00:06:52

And then we would be sharing these very deep, powerful stories with each other.

Meklit Hadero: 00:06:57

And then people would be like, you know, you get into an emotional space.

Meklit Hadero: 00:07:03

And But then you're like, okay, we're going to put it in the music and we

Meklit Hadero: 00:07:06

would have these jams that would just last and they were, you know, I was

Meklit Hadero: 00:07:10

like, yo, this, you know, the first one, there's this, um, uh, Malian and

Meklit Hadero: 00:07:17

Goni player called Mamadou Sidibe and he grows the gourds in Chico, California.

Meklit Hadero: 00:07:24

And then in Oakland, he builds them and they are these artworks.

Meklit Hadero: 00:07:28

They are these, I mean, they're literally like sound artworks.

Meklit Hadero: 00:07:32

Like they're so beautiful.

Meklit Hadero: 00:07:34

And he started playing with, um, a cellist from Korea and a guitarist

Meklit Hadero: 00:07:43

from Spain, and everybody was like.

Meklit Hadero: 00:07:46

Uh, I, it, uh, but like we, we literally, like, actually,

Meklit Hadero: 00:07:50

it's not a place for words.

Meklit Hadero: 00:07:52

It's a place for sounds and we just wanted to be together and

Meklit Hadero: 00:07:55

play together, and that's how the immigrant orchestra started.

Meklit Hadero: 00:07:58

But what I, but then what I didn't totally realize was how cathartic it would be

Meklit Hadero: 00:08:02

for the audience, you know, because we came from this, like, we built a

Meklit Hadero: 00:08:06

love amongst each other and, you know.

Meklit Hadero: 00:08:10

And then we were able to bring that to the audience and they wouldn't

Meklit Hadero: 00:08:13

let us go for two hours, two hours telling us the experiences that

Meklit Hadero: 00:08:18

they had had in this concert.

Meklit Hadero: 00:08:21

So it was very special.

Meklit Hadero: 00:08:22

We will be doing more of it.

Meklit Hadero: 00:08:24

Um, we need solidarity.

Meklit Hadero: 00:08:27

Um, and when we can do it with cultural power at the center, then we

Meklit Hadero: 00:08:31

can invite so many others into that space of, of love and connection.

Jay Ray: 00:08:36

Yeah.

Jay Ray: 00:08:37

Mm-Hmm?

Jay Ray: 00:08:37

DJ Sir Daniel: know, McLee, as I listen to you speak, um, what stands out to

Jay Ray: 00:08:43

me is something that I've always, that I always talk about on this show when

Jay Ray: 00:08:47

we discuss the power of music and the fact that musicians, singers, musicians,

Jay Ray: 00:08:54

when you're in that moment, there is.

Jay Ray: 00:09:00

Being in that moment of being on stage and playing together as a

Jay Ray: 00:09:03

collective is a cracking open, cracking open of your spirit to allow the

Jay Ray: 00:09:11

source to come and move through you.

Jay Ray: 00:09:13

That's what happens during our praise and worship at church.

Jay Ray: 00:09:16

You know, when, when music is involved and those emotions get high, there's

Jay Ray: 00:09:20

a cracking open of your spirit and it allows the source to come through.

Jay Ray: 00:09:24

And I say that all the time.

Jay Ray: 00:09:26

And that's what I'm hearing about.

Jay Ray: 00:09:28

That experience that J Ray was speaking of, but you also get

Jay Ray: 00:09:32

to experience something that I feel is also life changing.

Jay Ray: 00:09:36

And that's travel, travel changes.

Jay Ray: 00:09:39

You travel makes you a different person.

Jay Ray: 00:09:42

And as an, as an immigrant myself, I experienced that as a, as a child.

Jay Ray: 00:09:47

So what, what are you hoping or what is your plan to bring that

Jay Ray: 00:09:54

experience to a larger audience?

Jay Ray: 00:09:57

Um, To create, to let, to allow everybody else to feel that shift,

Jay Ray: 00:10:02

because like you said, right now, immigrants are under attack.

Jay Ray: 00:10:06

Black people are, Black people are under attack and they don't understand.

Jay Ray: 00:10:10

And a lot of times we don't understand that we're all one in the same.

Jay Ray: 00:10:15

And just because we may have been born someplace different,

Jay Ray: 00:10:19

there are, there are powers that be that are trying to eliminate.

Jay Ray: 00:10:25

Um, large groups of people.

Jay Ray: 00:10:27

So in your messaging and in your travels and all the work that you're

Jay Ray: 00:10:31

doing, you're doing, what is your game plan to, to use your, your powers

Jay Ray: 00:10:37

to crack that collective experience?

Meklit Hadero: 00:10:42

Oh, you just got right to the heart of 2024, didn't you?

Meklit Hadero: 00:10:47

DJ Sir Daniel: That's

Jay Ray: 00:10:48

It's what we do here on Q.

Jay Ray: 00:10:49

DJ Sir Daniel: That's what I do.

Jay Ray: 00:10:50

That's what we do.

Meklit Hadero: 00:10:54

you know, I, first of all, there's so many, like,

Meklit Hadero: 00:11:00

when it comes to cultural strategy, there's never, like, you can't

Meklit Hadero: 00:11:04

actually come at it in just one way.

Meklit Hadero: 00:11:06

So what I, what I want to say is that there's a few different ways

Meklit Hadero: 00:11:11

that I can answer that question and I'll just run through them.

Meklit Hadero: 00:11:13

And then you stop me if you have questions in between, cause you know, I could talk.

Meklit Hadero: 00:11:17

Talk

Meklit Hadero: 00:11:18

DJ Sir Daniel: Love that.

Meklit Hadero: 00:11:19

I could just keep going.

Meklit Hadero: 00:11:21

Um, okay.

Meklit Hadero: 00:11:24

From a personal place.

Meklit Hadero: 00:11:25

I just want to speak for a moment about my music.

Meklit Hadero: 00:11:29

I make music that's Ethiopian jazz.

Meklit Hadero: 00:11:32

I stand on the shoulders of Giants.

Meklit Hadero: 00:11:35

I am on a continuum.

Meklit Hadero: 00:11:38

The music that I make is deeply influenced by Ethiopian pentatonic

Meklit Hadero: 00:11:42

scales, melodies, and rhythms.

Meklit Hadero: 00:11:46

African music and jazz is also African music.

Jay Ray: 00:11:49

Yes.

Meklit Hadero: 00:11:50

And so it There, for me, making Ethio Jazz is a place where

Meklit Hadero: 00:12:00

I have turned my experience of African diaspora solidarity into a sound practice

Meklit Hadero: 00:12:09

that I speak about everywhere I go.

Meklit Hadero: 00:12:13

Um, There's an amazing story about the origin of Ethiopian jazz, which

Meklit Hadero: 00:12:17

is that there's a man by the name of, um, is the creator of Ethiopian jazz.

Meklit Hadero: 00:12:24

And if you know, like the Ethiopiques, like the, like all those first

Meklit Hadero: 00:12:28

Ethiopiques that folks would hear.

Meklit Hadero: 00:12:30

That was him as the composer and vibraphonist and conga player.

Meklit Hadero: 00:12:34

Now, itio jazz came about because Murata Astatke was the first African to graduate

Meklit Hadero: 00:12:41

from the Berkeley college of music.

Meklit Hadero: 00:12:42

And he went to New York and he was playing congas with a bunch of Cuban congeros

Meklit Hadero: 00:12:47

and he saw, Hey, they're bringing their.

Meklit Hadero: 00:12:50

Traditional music into a relationship with jazz.

Meklit Hadero: 00:12:53

And then there's a famous story of him, uh, playing with John Coltrane

Meklit Hadero: 00:12:59

and Coltrane took him aside and said, yo, you gotta bring your

Meklit Hadero: 00:13:03

traditional music together with jazz.

Meklit Hadero: 00:13:05

Like you bring it to the root.

Meklit Hadero: 00:13:07

He ended up moving back to Ethiopia and created Ethio jazz from there.

Meklit Hadero: 00:13:12

So there would be no Ethiopian jazz without not only the mentorship

Meklit Hadero: 00:13:16

of African American giants.

Meklit Hadero: 00:13:20

Of music, but also Cuban musicians.

Meklit Hadero: 00:13:23

And we know that the, the histories of forced migration that birthed, that

Meklit Hadero: 00:13:28

birthed the music of the Americas runs deeply, deeply through every single

Meklit Hadero: 00:13:34

time that I stand on a stage and sing, I sing solidarity like that is my.

Meklit Hadero: 00:13:40

So there's, sometimes I like to say that we use music to talk about the

Meklit Hadero: 00:13:45

things that are hard to talk about the places where our tongues get stuck.

Meklit Hadero: 00:13:49

And so.

Meklit Hadero: 00:13:51

The, the first thing I'm going to do is I'm going to, the first thing I'm

Meklit Hadero: 00:13:56

going to do is I'm going to write songs that acknowledge history, that look

Meklit Hadero: 00:13:59

history in the eye, and do not erase any peoples from any, from any story.

Meklit Hadero: 00:14:05

So that's number one, number one, number one.

Meklit Hadero: 00:14:11

Number two, the, the project, you know, Movement is a podcast, it's a

Meklit Hadero: 00:14:15

radio show, it's a live performance experience that is about the

Meklit Hadero: 00:14:19

intersection of music and migration.

Meklit Hadero: 00:14:22

Here's the way I think about it.

Meklit Hadero: 00:14:23

We have a national strategy that is our podcast and radio show that's

Meklit Hadero: 00:14:28

about narratives of migration based in the people who have experienced it.

Meklit Hadero: 00:14:35

That means our stories coming from lived experiences with nuance.

Meklit Hadero: 00:14:41

With tenderness with a focus on ancestral wisdom, continuum, epiphany, um, right as

Meklit Hadero: 00:14:51

we can look pain, trauma, and difficulty in the eye and say that we get to make the

Meklit Hadero: 00:14:58

meaning out of all of those experiences.

Meklit Hadero: 00:15:01

Now, at the same time, understanding that we're in a place where oppression

Meklit Hadero: 00:15:06

must be challenged every single day, but oppression cannot be challenged

Meklit Hadero: 00:15:10

only on You know, only in this way, like what I started to understand

Meklit Hadero: 00:15:14

was that, like, I loved making the podcast and the radio show, but I

Meklit Hadero: 00:15:18

needed it to live in my community too.

Meklit Hadero: 00:15:20

I needed it to be in my everyday where I walked down the street and to be able

Meklit Hadero: 00:15:24

to have an impact on my direct community and the movement and the movement

Meklit Hadero: 00:15:28

gathering strategy, the immigrant orchestra, our solidarity building

Meklit Hadero: 00:15:31

strategy really comes out of that.

Meklit Hadero: 00:15:35

So, and it's also, uh, solidarity also for me means that.

Meklit Hadero: 00:15:42

We understand that in the age of climate crisis like things are

Meklit Hadero: 00:15:45

probably about to get a lot more difficult before they get better.

Meklit Hadero: 00:15:49

And we need each other we need interconnection to be able to be,

Meklit Hadero: 00:15:54

to be able to not just withstand but to create new systems that

Meklit Hadero: 00:15:57

are based from the ground up.

Meklit Hadero: 00:16:00

And so,

Meklit Hadero: 00:16:02

So, so the Immigrant Orchestra, our gathering strategy, building solidarity,

Meklit Hadero: 00:16:08

not just within immigrant communities, but across oppressed communities, is a

Meklit Hadero: 00:16:13

part of how we create new systems that will actually get us to the place we

Meklit Hadero: 00:16:18

want to go, which is non hierarchical, which is based in culture and cultural

Meklit Hadero: 00:16:23

power, which is, um, organized, which is being able to say what our communities

Meklit Hadero: 00:16:29

need and pressure the people who are in power to support us in getting where we

Meklit Hadero: 00:16:34

folks what they need every single day.

Meklit Hadero: 00:16:37

I think I'll stop.

Jay Ray: 00:16:39

Wow.

Jay Ray: 00:16:40

I have a question in here.

Jay Ray: 00:16:44

It is.

Jay Ray: 00:16:46

I find it so innovative that you as a multifaceted creative also decided

Jay Ray: 00:16:58

to insert podcasting into your work.

Jay Ray: 00:17:06

Wind.

Jay Ray: 00:17:07

Wind.

Jay Ray: 00:17:08

How did that come about?

Jay Ray: 00:17:10

Because I, seeing this is like, Oh my goodness.

Jay Ray: 00:17:14

This is like the perfect way to extend these conversations, these stories, right?

Jay Ray: 00:17:20

That, that impact people so deeply.

Jay Ray: 00:17:23

So how did that epiphany come?

Meklit Hadero: 00:17:27

It wasn't an epiphany.

Meklit Hadero: 00:17:29

I wish it was.

Meklit Hadero: 00:17:29

I wish I had a great epiphany story for you, but you know how sometimes things

Meklit Hadero: 00:17:34

are just one foot in front of the other,

Jay Ray: 00:17:36

Yes.

Meklit Hadero: 00:17:37

you know, sometimes it's like, well, you know, anyway, um, I had

Meklit Hadero: 00:17:42

a very dear friend called Julie Kane.

Meklit Hadero: 00:17:44

She is now, um, Senior editor at through line, which is, um, a new show

Meklit Hadero: 00:17:51

on NPR and they do, um, long form.

Meklit Hadero: 00:17:54

They do hour long documentaries weekly, which are amazing.

Meklit Hadero: 00:17:58

And Julie was, um, Julie invited me.

Meklit Hadero: 00:18:02

She basically was like, Hey, I want to make a podcast about world music.

Meklit Hadero: 00:18:08

What do you think?

Meklit Hadero: 00:18:09

And we started to, at the time I was, I had a booking, I had a

Meklit Hadero: 00:18:12

booking agency with my partner.

Meklit Hadero: 00:18:13

It was like a very little boutique booking agency and it was called 2042.

Meklit Hadero: 00:18:19

And it was about, at that time, back in 2017, that was the year that the United

Meklit Hadero: 00:18:25

States was no longer projected to have a cultural majority or an ethnic majority.

Meklit Hadero: 00:18:30

I don't like the word majority minority because we're not a

Meklit Hadero: 00:18:33

minority, actually, in the world.

Meklit Hadero: 00:18:34

We're the, we're the majority.

Jay Ray: 00:18:35

are Right.

Meklit Hadero: 00:18:36

you know,

Meklit Hadero: 00:18:37

DJ Sir Daniel: call a thing, a thing

Jay Ray: 00:18:38

right?

Meklit Hadero: 00:18:39

you know, so, so we had, so, and I was telling her about 2042, and

Meklit Hadero: 00:18:44

then we decided together Like let's, let's do a podcast about music and migration.

Meklit Hadero: 00:18:50

And so we kind of started, uh, we started cooking it and she brought in an amazing

Meklit Hadero: 00:18:56

producer who has been my ride or die, Ian Coss, who's like, just want a Peabody.

Meklit Hadero: 00:19:01

He's genius.

Meklit Hadero: 00:19:01

He's like the most trust based heartfelt person.

Meklit Hadero: 00:19:06

Um, yeah.

Meklit Hadero: 00:19:07

multi talented musician, editor, sound designer, and we started making stuff, and

Meklit Hadero: 00:19:12

then, uh, and then it evolved into this today, and it took a long time, took a

Meklit Hadero: 00:19:17

long time to find our partners, we knocked on many doors, many people were like, yes,

Meklit Hadero: 00:19:21

yes, yes, yes, no, yes, yes, yes, yes, uh uh, yes, yes, yes, yes, no, no, no,

Meklit Hadero: 00:19:26

no, no, no, no, no, no, and so we just, we had to find our own way, you know,

Jay Ray: 00:19:30

Yeah.

Jay Ray: 00:19:31

Wow, wow, wow, wow.

Jay Ray: 00:19:33

Um, really quickly.

Jay Ray: 00:19:37

So in listening to movement, um.

Jay Ray: 00:19:42

You hear the sound design, you hear your storytelling in there as, um,

Jay Ray: 00:19:50

I love the way you just process the conversations that you're having with

Jay Ray: 00:19:53

the folks that you're talking to.

Jay Ray: 00:19:55

Um, you're welcome.

Jay Ray: 00:19:58

Um, so my question to you is how, if at all, is the making of these movement

Jay Ray: 00:20:05

episodes kind of like songwriting?

Jay Ray: 00:20:07

Yes.

Meklit Hadero: 00:20:09

It's, it's very creative.

Meklit Hadero: 00:20:11

It's a very creative process.

Meklit Hadero: 00:20:13

Um, it's very different from songwriting is I think of songwriting as a mix

Meklit Hadero: 00:20:19

of discipline and mystery, you know, um, you know, if you, if you ask

Meklit Hadero: 00:20:24

a lot of songwriters and you say, well, where did the song come from?

Meklit Hadero: 00:20:27

They're like, I don't, I don't, I don't really know.

Meklit Hadero: 00:20:31

You know, and it's, it's kind of like you and the, and it's about that

Meklit Hadero: 00:20:35

cracking open that you talked about

Meklit Hadero: 00:20:40

before.

Meklit Hadero: 00:20:41

So, so songwriting for me is like catching melodies as they come,

Meklit Hadero: 00:20:46

recording them, and then going into the studio and like, Working it,

Meklit Hadero: 00:20:50

working it, working it, working it.

Meklit Hadero: 00:20:52

So the essay writing, the storytelling, is a working it,

Meklit Hadero: 00:20:55

working, and it's very emotional.

Meklit Hadero: 00:20:57

It's actually, it's actually kind of difficult, you know, because you have to

Meklit Hadero: 00:21:01

process, I don't know, like, not in a lot.

Meklit Hadero: 00:21:05

It's just like you have to find a little fractal place in your own life

Meklit Hadero: 00:21:12

where some huge question gets distilled into like a very simple exchange.

Meklit Hadero: 00:21:22

And so it's actually interesting.

Meklit Hadero: 00:21:25

I haven't thought about it, but I have started collecting stories,

Meklit Hadero: 00:21:28

the way I collect melodies and then finding where I can insert them.

Meklit Hadero: 00:21:32

So maybe it's more, maybe this question has brought out for me how

Meklit Hadero: 00:21:35

it's more similar than I realized.

Meklit Hadero: 00:21:37

And then I do have to like work it, work, work, work.

Meklit Hadero: 00:21:40

And it's different because it's prose.

Meklit Hadero: 00:21:43

And then I have to speak it out loud.

Meklit Hadero: 00:21:44

So I write it, I speak it, I edit it.

Meklit Hadero: 00:21:46

Cause it has to sound good spoken.

Meklit Hadero: 00:21:48

So that's very different, but it's sort of similar when you write something and then

Meklit Hadero: 00:21:53

you sing it and you realize, Oh, okay.

Meklit Hadero: 00:21:55

The phrasing, all the phrasing of this word, I need a word.

Meklit Hadero: 00:21:58

That's kind of two, that's two syllables here.

Meklit Hadero: 00:22:01

I can't use the word that's for, you know, so, so it is a Cree.

Meklit Hadero: 00:22:05

It is a very creative process.

Meklit Hadero: 00:22:06

What I'll say that's different.

Meklit Hadero: 00:22:08

That's really fun for me is that I've not.

Meklit Hadero: 00:22:11

I haven't ever quite done the essay based creative writing that I have to

Meklit Hadero: 00:22:17

do to make the stories come alive in the podcast and that's a new muscle

Meklit Hadero: 00:22:21

for me and I'm really enjoying it.

Meklit Hadero: 00:22:23

I do love it.

Meklit Hadero: 00:22:25

Like I find that the final Outcome is like this exact place between like, just

Meklit Hadero: 00:22:33

speaking a story and then like crafting, you know, the crafting part of it.

Meklit Hadero: 00:22:40

So I, I actually really enjoy it, even though it's, it's a challenge.

Meklit Hadero: 00:22:44

It's not like, it takes me time.

Meklit Hadero: 00:22:45

I don't, it's not instantaneous at all.

Meklit Hadero: 00:22:48

I'll work on an essay for like two weeks.

Meklit Hadero: 00:22:52

Stuff like, you know, things like that.

Jay Ray: 00:22:54

Mm.

Jay Ray: 00:22:55

DJ Sir Daniel: And so I, you know, and, and listening to, um, movement and what

Jay Ray: 00:23:01

resonates with me a lot is the fact that as an immigrant, like I said before, I

Jay Ray: 00:23:08

came to this country at two years old, uh, from Barbados and growing up and being.

Jay Ray: 00:23:17

And matriculating through American culture and being a part of American culture.

Jay Ray: 00:23:25

And I don't know if you experienced it, experienced this, but there

Jay Ray: 00:23:30

is becoming more and more.

Jay Ray: 00:23:32

There's a voice that's getting louder amongst.

Jay Ray: 00:23:36

Black Americans, um, that are, feel like they're in, uh, not competition,

Jay Ray: 00:23:43

but there is this, I don't know, this weirdness that has, that I'm feeling

Jay Ray: 00:23:49

developed, not even developing, but it's been there for a while.

Jay Ray: 00:23:52

And you hear things because we're so, we're so, you know, we're so stealth

Jay Ray: 00:23:57

because I'm, I'm here, I've been here.

Jay Ray: 00:24:00

So I'm S but I'm stuff.

Jay Ray: 00:24:02

And I hear the things I hear the comments every now and then I hear the little.

Jay Ray: 00:24:07

You know, those foreigners, this, those immigrants, that, you

Jay Ray: 00:24:11

know, uh, Caribbean people think they're better than everybody.

Jay Ray: 00:24:15

Africans do this and that, you know, you hear little stuff like that.

Jay Ray: 00:24:18

And I'm wondering how you've dealt with it.

Jay Ray: 00:24:22

Does a movement help you help in that healing process?

Jay Ray: 00:24:25

Because I think for me, I try not to get.

Jay Ray: 00:24:29

sidetracked by all those conversations, because I really do

Jay Ray: 00:24:33

believe that that's just another distraction to keep us fragmented.

Jay Ray: 00:24:38

And of course, when we're fragmented, you know, the powers

Jay Ray: 00:24:41

that be are going to keep winning.

Jay Ray: 00:24:43

And so, but I'm just wondering for you, McCleat, like in, in doing movement.

Jay Ray: 00:24:48

And, and, and, and healing.

Jay Ray: 00:24:50

Does that bring about a healing for you as we deal with this amongst

Jay Ray: 00:24:54

ourselves in this community, as black people from all parts of the

Jay Ray: 00:24:59

diaspora, all parts of the world?

Meklit Hadero: 00:25:03

Yeah.

Meklit Hadero: 00:25:04

It's a very good question.

Meklit Hadero: 00:25:05

It's a very honest question.

Meklit Hadero: 00:25:06

I just want to thank you for your vulnerability also, because

Meklit Hadero: 00:25:10

that is, that's, it's painful.

Meklit Hadero: 00:25:13

DJ Sir Daniel: Yes.

Meklit Hadero: 00:25:14

It's painful.

Meklit Hadero: 00:25:15

Um, and you know, for me, like definitely growing up, I had a lot

Meklit Hadero: 00:25:23

of questions about where I belonged.

Meklit Hadero: 00:25:25

And, um,

Meklit Hadero: 00:25:29

I think that, you know, You know, I got called African booty

Meklit Hadero: 00:25:34

scratcher growing up in New York.

Meklit Hadero: 00:25:37

I also came to this

Meklit Hadero: 00:25:39

DJ Sir Daniel: Oh, what part of New

Meklit Hadero: 00:25:40

years old.

Meklit Hadero: 00:25:41

Oh, um, Crown Heights,

Meklit Hadero: 00:25:44

DJ Sir Daniel: Me too!

Meklit Hadero: 00:25:45

I grew up in Crown Heights.

Meklit Hadero: 00:25:46

Yes!

Meklit Hadero: 00:25:47

760 Crown Street between Utica and um, Eastern Parkway.

Meklit Hadero: 00:25:52

lived on Eastern Parkway.

Meklit Hadero: 00:25:54

We lived, um, but we lived all over Brooklyn.

Meklit Hadero: 00:25:57

We lived in Bay Ridge.

Meklit Hadero: 00:25:59

And then, um, at the end we lived, uh, in Park Slope.

Meklit Hadero: 00:26:03

We lived in all those places, the eighties.

Meklit Hadero: 00:26:05

DJ Sir Daniel: Mm hmm.

Meklit Hadero: 00:26:06

Mm

Meklit Hadero: 00:26:06

so, um, And definitely all of those things happened.

Meklit Hadero: 00:26:13

And I think that, you know, here's my generous.

Meklit Hadero: 00:26:20

So there are ways that I can look at these things with.

Meklit Hadero: 00:26:24

Like, I, I look at them from different levels.

Meklit Hadero: 00:26:26

I, so one level, and I don't mean to do this, it's kind of more like this.

Meklit Hadero: 00:26:30

It's not a hierarchy, it's like

Jay Ray: 00:26:32

Right?

Jay Ray: 00:26:32

DJ Sir Daniel: hmm.

Meklit Hadero: 00:26:33

seeds, you know?

Meklit Hadero: 00:26:34

So one way that I look at it is that, you know, when we came to this country,

Meklit Hadero: 00:26:43

there was a moment where my parents had to understand what race was.

Meklit Hadero: 00:26:49

that is a very alienating thing.

Meklit Hadero: 00:26:53

If you're an African American person hearing an African say, what is race?

Meklit Hadero: 00:26:58

That sounds like a slap in the face.

Meklit Hadero: 00:27:02

I can, I can walk into and, and the reason that I can, so I can walk

Meklit Hadero: 00:27:05

into that conversation with empathy right from the start, but because

Meklit Hadero: 00:27:09

I have lived both sides, right?

Meklit Hadero: 00:27:11

Because I've, because my communities are both communities.

Meklit Hadero: 00:27:14

And what I mean by that is that in Ethiopia, it's all about ethnicity.

Meklit Hadero: 00:27:19

It's all about like, are you Amhara?

Meklit Hadero: 00:27:21

Are you like, I'm actually also, to ethnicity.

Meklit Hadero: 00:27:25

My father is from a place called Kambatha, which is in the south of Ethiopia.

Meklit Hadero: 00:27:29

It's not a ethnic group that has a lot of political power.

Meklit Hadero: 00:27:32

It's, it's like relatively small.

Meklit Hadero: 00:27:34

There's not a lot of language speakers.

Meklit Hadero: 00:27:37

Uh, my mother is Amhara, which is one of the, you know, larger tribes that has had

Meklit Hadero: 00:27:41

historically a lot of political power.

Meklit Hadero: 00:27:43

That itself was like an inter ethnic marriage.

Meklit Hadero: 00:27:47

That was a big deal back then, you know?

Meklit Hadero: 00:27:50

Um, so they come to this country and they, and they have these identities.

Meklit Hadero: 00:27:54

that have a meaning for them, given the context that they were

Meklit Hadero: 00:27:58

in, and then everyone around them tells them, that doesn't matter.

Meklit Hadero: 00:28:02

What matters is that you're black.

Meklit Hadero: 00:28:04

And it's like, well, what does it mean to be black?

Meklit Hadero: 00:28:06

And you have to learn.

Meklit Hadero: 00:28:08

And so, and you also have to, so, so, so, so, so I try to have empathy for both

Meklit Hadero: 00:28:16

sides because also for my parents, it's like a shock, they're like, wait, what?

Meklit Hadero: 00:28:22

You know?

Meklit Hadero: 00:28:22

So, so, so I think there's like a basic,

Meklit Hadero: 00:28:29

um, lack of communication or, or like just understanding of context that

Meklit Hadero: 00:28:35

kind of leads to some of this stuff.

Meklit Hadero: 00:28:37

Um, and then somebody saying, well, you don't think you're us.

Meklit Hadero: 00:28:41

There was a lot of that.

Meklit Hadero: 00:28:42

And I, you know, for me and I was like, well, what does somebody see walking down

Meklit Hadero: 00:28:48

the street for me, you know, and then so then you're living this in between and

Meklit Hadero: 00:28:53

that was like my whole teenage years, you know, like my whole teenage years

Meklit Hadero: 00:28:57

was trying to find peace with that.

Meklit Hadero: 00:29:01

Um, and I honestly did it through reading black American literature,

Meklit Hadero: 00:29:06

you know, and talking to and talking to my community, you know, and

Meklit Hadero: 00:29:10

that's how I that's how I like.

Meklit Hadero: 00:29:13

And then reading like Audre Lorde and, um, bell hooks and, but then literally

Meklit Hadero: 00:29:19

Toni Morrison and Ralph Ellison and that's how I, that's how I, that,

Meklit Hadero: 00:29:23

so because all of them are speaking these very complex stories and saying

Meklit Hadero: 00:29:28

nobody gets to make anyone a monolith.

Meklit Hadero: 00:29:31

And then I was saying, Oh, okay.

Meklit Hadero: 00:29:33

It's okay for me to not be a monolith.

Meklit Hadero: 00:29:35

Um, I can accept my complexity and my hybridity.

Meklit Hadero: 00:29:40

And I might be a paragraph.

Meklit Hadero: 00:29:42

I'm not a sentence.

Meklit Hadero: 00:29:43

But I'm pretty much guessing that they aren't either.

Meklit Hadero: 00:29:47

And somebody tries to make you just, to, you know, describe

Meklit Hadero: 00:29:51

you as two words, a black man.

Meklit Hadero: 00:29:52

Yes, you are and maybe sensitive and an introvert and you know like and

Meklit Hadero: 00:29:58

you're and your roots are from North Carolina and your roots might be from

Meklit Hadero: 00:30:02

Congo or you know, like it's just we all have We all have so much and

Meklit Hadero: 00:30:07

like, nobody can simplify any of us.

Meklit Hadero: 00:30:10

solidarity building as a strategy and a practice is always about

Meklit Hadero: 00:30:14

understanding that we have more in common than we do apart.

Meklit Hadero: 00:30:20

And, I think my healing So, oh, the one thing I wanted to say, there's

Meklit Hadero: 00:30:26

this, the first episode that we did in the podcast, season one, episode

Meklit Hadero: 00:30:30

one, is a brother called Oddisee, and I don't know if y'all know

Jay Ray: 00:30:33

Oh MC producer all the above.

Jay Ray: 00:30:37

Yes.

Jay Ray: 00:30:37

Yes.

Jay Ray: 00:30:37

Yes.

Meklit Hadero: 00:30:38

Yes.

Meklit Hadero: 00:30:38

Sudanese and African American.

Meklit Hadero: 00:30:42

he tells this amazing story because he became the bridge between exactly what

Meklit Hadero: 00:30:49

you were talking about, where he would go to his African American family and

Meklit Hadero: 00:30:53

they would be talking about foreigners.

Meklit Hadero: 00:30:55

And he would go to his Sudanese family and they would be talking about African

Meklit Hadero: 00:31:00

American people and he would be like, No, he would say no, but what about

Meklit Hadero: 00:31:06

and he transformed his family as a hybrid, as a bridge, as a bridge.

Meklit Hadero: 00:31:11

And so.

Meklit Hadero: 00:31:12

Like, I do think that there's so much that happens when love is involved, you know,

Meklit Hadero: 00:31:17

when personal connection is involved.

Meklit Hadero: 00:31:19

And that can be like between friends, that can be within a family,

Meklit Hadero: 00:31:23

that can be within a community.

Meklit Hadero: 00:31:25

But we do have so much more in common than we do different.

Meklit Hadero: 00:31:28

And the oppressive forces that seek to destroy us, that seek to

Meklit Hadero: 00:31:34

minimize us and strip us of our power are the same exact ones.

Meklit Hadero: 00:31:38

So who is winning?

Meklit Hadero: 00:31:40

Who is winning when, when those things, when those words get spoken?

Meklit Hadero: 00:31:45

And so there is a deep healing that needs to happen.

Meklit Hadero: 00:31:48

Um, and you know, I think that, you know,

Meklit Hadero: 00:31:56

there's a, there's a strange thing that happens when we think

Meklit Hadero: 00:32:02

things are our own struggles.

Meklit Hadero: 00:32:05

We think we, we think they, it is up to me to solve this, this deep wound.

Meklit Hadero: 00:32:12

But this is a systemic problem.

Meklit Hadero: 00:32:14

This is a systemic problem that needs systemic solutions that are

Meklit Hadero: 00:32:17

working at very large scale levels.

Meklit Hadero: 00:32:20

I think we're further along than we ever have been, even as we still see

Meklit Hadero: 00:32:26

those narratives popping up in people that we love, you know, in people

Meklit Hadero: 00:32:30

that we love and, and cherish and adore, and we don't, you know, so,

Meklit Hadero: 00:32:36

so we can be nodes of healing, and our healing can radiate outwards, And

Meklit Hadero: 00:32:41

at the same time, like, these are, these are systemic questions that have

Meklit Hadero: 00:32:44

to be answered at a systems level.

Jay Ray: 00:32:48

Wow.

Jay Ray: 00:32:49

Meklit, thank you so much for sharing your gift, your gift of storytelling,

Jay Ray: 00:32:55

your gift of understanding and healing, um, with the Queue Points audience.

Jay Ray: 00:33:03

Um, so what are some things, um, that you would like to share with our folks

Jay Ray: 00:33:10

that people should be on the lookout for?

Jay Ray: 00:33:12

That you want to prep the folks for any upcoming performances, that sort of thing.

Meklit Hadero: 00:33:17

Well, uh, well, I do want to say that I released an album earlier

Meklit Hadero: 00:33:21

this year called Ethioblue and, um, it was my first album in several years.

Meklit Hadero: 00:33:28

You know, pandemic.

Meklit Hadero: 00:33:30

I have a five year old.

Meklit Hadero: 00:33:34

So

Jay Ray: 00:33:35

wants to be on the record, I'm sure.

Meklit Hadero: 00:33:37

need I say more?

Meklit Hadero: 00:33:38

No, he is on the record.

Jay Ray: 00:33:40

Oh.

Jay Ray: 00:33:40

DJ Sir Daniel: Oh,

Meklit Hadero: 00:33:41

He is on the record.

Meklit Hadero: 00:33:43

He's on the record.

Meklit Hadero: 00:33:44

The very first song, Antidote, he was four months old when we, when we

Meklit Hadero: 00:33:49

recorded, we were doing some recording and he was making such cute sounds.

Meklit Hadero: 00:33:53

We were like, okay, come on, come on in front of a mic.

Meklit Hadero: 00:33:56

And he was like, it's like,

Meklit Hadero: 00:34:00

there's like a little bit of that the right way.

Meklit Hadero: 00:34:04

And then I am, uh, I just got the masters of a new record that will

Meklit Hadero: 00:34:09

come out next year on Smithsonian Folkways called A Piece of Infinity,

Meklit Hadero: 00:34:13

and it's, um, uh, interpretations of several different traditional

Meklit Hadero: 00:34:17

Ethiopian songs with some originals.

Meklit Hadero: 00:34:19

There's a very special song in there called Stars in a Wide Field that

Meklit Hadero: 00:34:23

is based on, um, the, Children's riddles from my father's tribe

Meklit Hadero: 00:34:28

Kambatha that are translated and they're like, it's a cosmology.

Meklit Hadero: 00:34:32

It's a universe.

Meklit Hadero: 00:34:33

It's a war.

Meklit Hadero: 00:34:33

It's like literally seeing into into the way of being the way people walk

Meklit Hadero: 00:34:38

through the world, you know, so that's like a collaboration between like

Meklit Hadero: 00:34:42

You know, millions of children and me, you know, because they're also

Meklit Hadero: 00:34:47

like, they're also, they're a mix of improvised and, uh, improvised riddles

Meklit Hadero: 00:34:51

and like, like, you know, like in traditional poetry, people memorize like

Meklit Hadero: 00:34:55

thousands and thousands of them, and then you got to bring them out at the

Meklit Hadero: 00:34:58

right time, like that kind of thing.

Jay Ray: 00:35:03

That's so exciting.

Meklit Hadero: 00:35:05

Thank

Meklit Hadero: 00:35:05

DJ Sir Daniel: McCleat, I, and I, uh, I know I can speak for Jay Ray on this.

Meklit Hadero: 00:35:10

I am so happy that you took the time out to join us on this episode of Queue

Meklit Hadero: 00:35:15

Points and to share your perspective and take us on this journey with you.

Meklit Hadero: 00:35:22

Um, like I said, we see each other, you know, that

Meklit Hadero: 00:35:25

Yes, I do.

Meklit Hadero: 00:35:26

DJ Sir Daniel: had that I had that opportunity to share that experience and I

Meklit Hadero: 00:35:29

hope that, um, other people, you know, can get a glance into that part of our lives.

Meklit Hadero: 00:35:37

And I'm, we're so excited for what's coming up from you, but please let our

Meklit Hadero: 00:35:42

audience know how they can find you also.

Meklit Hadero: 00:35:46

Yes.

Meklit Hadero: 00:35:46

Um, so you can find me on all the things, on all the socials at

Meklit Hadero: 00:35:52

Meklitmusic, M E K L I T music.

Meklit Hadero: 00:35:55

com.

Meklit Hadero: 00:35:56

That's my Instagram handle, TikTok, like all those things.

Meklit Hadero: 00:36:00

And then, listen, I live in San Francisco, and if you forget my

Meklit Hadero: 00:36:04

name You can literally Google Ethiopian singer, San Francisco.

Meklit Hadero: 00:36:08

And I come right up,

Meklit Hadero: 00:36:11

DJ Sir Daniel: Boom.

Meklit Hadero: 00:36:13

Boom.

Meklit Hadero: 00:36:14

There

Meklit Hadero: 00:36:14

I'm telling you, because like part of the thing is I'm

Meklit Hadero: 00:36:17

like, people forget how to find me.

Meklit Hadero: 00:36:18

They're like, what was her name that I liked her.

Meklit Hadero: 00:36:21

What was that Ethiopian singer, San Francisco.

Meklit Hadero: 00:36:23

Okay.

Meklit Hadero: 00:36:25

DJ Sir Daniel: Dope.

Meklit Hadero: 00:36:26

Dope.

Meklit Hadero: 00:36:26

The one and only Maclete Hedero.

Meklit Hadero: 00:36:29

Thank you once again for joining us on this episode of Queue Points.

Meklit Hadero: 00:36:32

As I always say, Jay Ray, in this life, you have an opportunity.

Meklit Hadero: 00:36:35

You can either pick up a needle or you can let the record play.

Meklit Hadero: 00:36:39

I'm DJ Sir Daniel,

Jay Ray: 00:36:41

My name is Jay Ray and thank you so much, Meklit Hedero,

Jay Ray: 00:36:46

for joining us as well, y'all.

Jay Ray: 00:36:48

DJ Sir Daniel: and this has been,

Meklit Hadero: 00:36:49

well, everyone.

Meklit Hadero: 00:36:51

DJ Sir Daniel: thank you.

Meklit Hadero: 00:36:51

And this has been Queue Points podcast, dropping the

Meklit Hadero: 00:36:53

needle on black music history.

Meklit Hadero: 00:36:56

We'll see you on the next go round.

Meklit Hadero: 00:36:58

Peace.

Jay Ray: 00:36:58

Peace, y'all.

jazz

Meklit Hadero on the Intersection of Music, Storytelling, and Community Building