PODCAST · music
Object Of Sound
by Sonos
Object Of Sound brings you in tune with the music shaping our culture today. Hosted by poet and critic Hanif Abdurraqib, each episode blends the eclectic curation of freeform radio with artist interviews and textural storytelling, guiding you to a new way of listening. Produced by work x work for Sonos
Episodes
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The Sound of Where You Come From (feat. Angélica Negrón)
What is the sound of where you come from? Is it a particular song you remember from your childhood? Maybe it’s a collection of remembered sounds from your first home—a train that passed nearby, or the wildlife that would sing at night. Maybe it’s the first song that you ever really connected to,...
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The Listening Lounge: The Sound of Where You Come From
Imagine walking inside a room that was made for fans of this show. We've teamed up with the first-ever immersive podcast experience happening Feb 23-26 at Wythe Hotel in Williamsburg Brooklyn to make it happen. Flip through original vinyl and artifacts from the show, add your selects to a living...
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This Year In Music (feat. Kelela, Sam Sanders, & Santigold)
Welcome to our first ever year end special, ‘This Year In Music with Hanif Abdurraqib.’ December is the perfect time to look back on all the incredible music that has been released over the past year: the songs that moved us to dance, and the songs that helped us endure. In this hour-long deep...
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Future Facing Sound (feat. Fatoumata Diawara)
In Mali, where Fatoumata Diawara was raised, it is common for women to sing, but much rarer for women to play an instrument. As a result, Fatoumata—who is one of the first, if not the first woman guitarist in all of Mali—has developed a self-taught, intuitive guitar playing style that is entirely...
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Celebrating The Last Waltz (feat. Hrishikesh Hirway)
The night before Thanksgiving, Hanif has a special invented tradition: every year, he makes a batch of cupcakes and watches The Last Waltz—and every year, he finds new things to love about the film. Directed by Martin Scorsese, The Last Waltz is a 1978 concert film documenting the final…
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Growing Up and Alongside (feat. Ben Gibbard)
“Music is a time machine,” says Ben Gibbard, singer and guitarist of Death Cab for Cutie. Just a few bars of a beloved song can be transportative, an instant reminder of another time and place. “And if you've been that in someone's life, you have a responsibility to keep that material alive.” For...
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When It’s All Gone, Something Carries On (A Tribute to Scott Hutchison)
“While I’m alive, I’ll make tiny changes to Earth.” Written by Scott Hutchison, the late frontman of the band Frightened Rabbit, this line has provided comfort, consolation, and inspiration to those who loved Scott’s music. A talented and witty lyricist, Scott’s songs could be devastatingly...
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The Breakup Album (feat. Tegan and Sara)
Before Tegan and Sara sat down to make Crybaby, they had to navigate a series of breakups—with their label, their management, and (almost) with each other. “This is our breakup record,” says Sara Quin, “but we're not going to break up. We’re siblings. We can’t.” In the turmoil that followed…
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The Wonders of Songwriting, Pt. Three (feat. Carly Rae Jepsen)
Carly Rae Jepsen is a writer’s writer. “I am very excited about the idea of writing it in all directions,” Carly says — and for the making of her latest album, The Loneliest Time, that meant writing literally hundreds of songs. On this episode of Object of Sound, Hanif and Carly Rae Jepsen talk...
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The Wonders of Songwriting, Pt. Two (feat. Nick Hakim)
“One of the most meditative things about writing is that you kind of forget where you are,” says Nick Hakim. “If you're tapped into it, you're not really thinking about anything else.” On this episode of Object of Sound, Nick recalls the spontaneous 5:00am recordings and free writing that went…
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The Wonders of Songwriting, Pt. One (feat. Ravyn Lenae)
“I came into my own and I was able to find my voice through my writing,” says artist Ravyn Lenae. The making of her album, HYPNOS, was a four-year-long journey of blood, sweat and tears—but the result is a meticulously crafted debut, a collection of songs on which Ravyn herself has curated every...
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The One Who Digs (feat. Björk)
“It’s like digging a hole and moving into it, and listening to a lot of bass, and loving it.” So says Björk of the meaning behind the word ‘Fossora’—the title of her tenth studio album, just released today. On this episode, Hanif and Björk break Fossora down concept-by-concept, from the sextet of...
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Storytelling Through Song (feat. Danielle Ponder)
“When I'm onstage, it's the happiest I feel. It's the most in love with myself I feel,” says Danielle Ponder. “I know that’s my purpose.” On this episode of Object of Sound, Danielle and Hanif talk about how Danielle left her successful career as a public defender to follow her purpose and become…
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Writing For the Future (feat. Madison Cunningham)
Welcome to Season Four of Object of Sound! To kick us off, Hanif sits down with Madison Cunningham, who just released her latest album, Revealer. Hanif and Madison dig deep into the songwriting process: the vulnerability and ultimately, the surrender that is required to put a piece of yourself…
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You Belong To No One (feat. Margo Price)
“I have lived half my life in fear of judgment,” says Margo Price. “I'm so done with it.” In the final episode of this season, recorded from the back lounge of Margo’s tour bus, Margo reveals how the experience of writing her autobiography, Maybe We’ll Make It, empowered her to let go of her fear...
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Homecoming (feat. PJ Morton)
So many coming-of-age stories focus on leaving where you’re from—but what compels someone to come back? Musician PJ Morton returned to his hometown of New Orleans in 2016, and since then, he’s established an independent record label, founded a non-profit organization, and worked to restore the…
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Beautiful (feat. Mavis Staples)
“I still have every bit of my voice,” says singer and civil rights icon Mavis Staples. “It’s still here, and I’m still here.” Throughout her career, Mavis has used her voice to uplift the truth through song, and after seventy years, she has no interest in slowing down. This year Mavis is on tour...
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Karaoke Dreams (feat. Marianne Chan, Garvaundo Hamilton, and Raina Lee)
“Anyone who loves music can karaoke.” So declares Raina Lee, Karaoke Queen and author of Hit Me With Your Best Shot: The Ultimate Guide to Karaoke Domination. In celebration of National Karaoke Week, our new favorite niche holiday, we’re devoting a whole episode to karaoke. We’ll hear tips for...
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My Anger Is My Friend (feat. Yaeji)
What does anger look like? In Yaeji’s case, the answer is simple: a fearsome, bedazzled hammer. At least, that’s the idea behind her forthcoming debut album. “It's a story about me and my anger,” says Yaeji. “My anger is materialized into this hammer that I befriend.” In this episode, Hanif sits...
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Nothing Is Easy (feat. Jack White)
Jack White has won twelve Grammys, founded his own label, and is regularly ranked as one of the top guitarists of all time—but, “I’ve never felt like I’ve arrived or felt satisfied,” he tells Hanif. It’s that restlessness and discomfort with success that keeps pushing Jack into new creative...
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The Sounds of the Game (feat. Monica Lynch & Haley O’Shaughnessy)
Just in time for the final weeks of March Madness, we’re bringing two of our favorite things together – music and basketball. Hanif heads to a Cleveland Cavaliers v. Detroit Pistons game to take in the sounds courtside. Then, together with sports journalist Haley O’Shaughnessy and former Tommy…
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Transformation Through Repetition (feat L’Rain)
“I'm just so fascinated by the voice,” says Taja Cheek, the experimentalist and multi-instrumentalist behind L’Rain. “It feels so scary to me, but that's also what kind of draws me closer to it to try to figure it out.” It’s this fascination Taja credits with inspiring the dreamy and ethereal…
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Great Movie Soundtracks (feat. Wesley Morris)
“Soundtracks are the unsung heroes of film.” That’s the premise of this special episode of Object of Sound, recorded live at On Air Fest 2022. Hanif and New York Times critic at large Wesley Morris took to the stage in Brooklyn to talk about four of their all-time favorite Black movie…
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To Love Ourselves Well (feat. Allison Russell)
“The journey to self-love is not quick, or easy, or ever over,” says musician Allison Russell, whose solo album Outside Child was released to widespread acclaim last year. In this episode, Allison and Hanif sit down to talk about healing and moving towards self-love through trauma—and the...
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Detroit Techno (feat. Eddie Fowlkes and Imani Mixon)
“For a very long time, people knew of techno as a genre, but never placed it in Detroit,” says writer and cultural producer Imani Mixon. In this episode, we’re digging deep into the origins of that Detroit techno sound. Hanif and Imani are joined by “godfather & originator” of Detroit techno...
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The Magic Trick (feat. Ibeyi)
Welcome back to Object of Sound. In the debut episode of our third season, we’re talking about the power of music to heal, inspire, and invite magic into our lives. “When we sing, we are deathless” says Lisa-Kaindé Diaz, one half of the duo Ibeyi describing her relationship with twin sister and...
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Christmas At Home with Hanif Abdurraqib (feat. Hrishikesh Hirway and She & Him)
Welcome to our first ever holiday special, ‘Christmas At Home with Hanif Abdurraqib’ an hour long deep dive into the world of Christmas Music. Whether you’re flooded with warm nostalgia at the first beat of Jingle Bells, or like Hanif didn’t grow up with the holiday but are nonetheless enchanted…
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Harvest Together (feat. Aaron Dessner)
“Collaboration—that's the easiest way to grow” says Aaron Dessner, member of the National and Big Red Machine, and a prolific collaborator with artists from Taylor Swift to Kanye West. In our final episode of Season two, we’re talking to Aaron about what it’s like to learn and experiment…
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In Praise of Aaliyah (feat. Kathy Iandoli and Kiana Fitzgerald)
It’s been 20 years since Aaliyah’s passing, and for most of those years, her music has been largely inaccessible. Kept off streaming platforms, hidden from the internet. That is, until now. With nearly all of Aaliyah’s catalog freshly released into the world, we’re celebrating by devoting our…
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Source Material (feat. Sufjan Stevens and Angelo De Augustine)
What do you do when you revisit a beloved movie from your childhood, only to find out it's not quite what you remember? If you’re Sufjan Stevens and Angelo De Augustine, you write a song about it. Their forthcoming album, A Beginner’s Mind, is a journey back into childhood nostalgia and...
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Southern Identity (feat. Adia Victoria)
“What about the Black woman who does not care to save you?” asks Adia Victoria. “How about the Black woman who is trying to look after her own skin, because you're not looking out for her?” Adia’s forthcoming album, A Southern Gothic, is rich with these questions and the characters who ask them,...
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Screwed Up Sound (feat. Lil Keke and Brandon ‘Jinx’ Jenkins)
DJ Screw changed hip hop forever. You’ve heard his signature sound, even if you don’t know his name. On this episode, co-hosted by Mogul’s Brandon ‘Jinx’ Jenkins, we sit down with Lil Keke to talk about the warbly, slowed-down style of mixing called Chopped and Screwed born out of Houston in the...
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Everything You Hear Belongs to You (feat. Bartees Strange)
“The way I look at music is it's all mine” says Bartees Strange. “I can do whatever I want with whatever I hear, period.” When Bartees approaches a song—whether he’s reimagining or remixing another artist, or writing for himself—he doesn’t hold back. In this episode, Hanif and Bartees talk about...
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Ode to Joan (feat. Joan Armatrading)
“All I need to be inspired is to be alive,” says Joan Armatrading. Throughout a career spanning over 50 years, Joan credits her singular songwriting to a relentless fascination with other people: how they love and live. This week on Object of Sound, listen in as Joan and Hanif talk about the...
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The Crossfade (feat. Thao Nguyen and Josh Kun)
We’re breaking format to create something completely new: a collaborative performance of music, poetry and ideas between Hanif, artist Thao Nguyen (Thao & The Get Down Stay Down) and scholar Josh Kun. Named after the tool that mixes tracks on a DJ controller, Josh has been organizing an event...
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Guitar Sheroes (feat. H.E.R.)
Hanif and Grammy award winning artist H.E.R. sit down to talk all about the guitar: H.E.R.’s relationship to the instrument, her many inspirations and the long lineage of Black women who’ve defined popular music and culture before her. They discuss how H.E.R. intuitively found her voice on her...
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Biz Markie Was More Than “Just A Friend” (feat. Lynnée Denise and Dart Adams)
“His fingerprints are all over the culture.” On this week’s episode, we pay tribute to the great Biz Markie, the legendary rapper, deejay, sampler, and emcee who passed away earlier this month. Hanif invites hip hop experts, Dart Adams and DJ Lynnée Denise onto the show, to celebrate the fullness...
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The Contract (feat. Wesley Morris and Switched On Pop)
Love it or hate it, every summer has a song you just can’t escape from. It’s playing out of every car window, at every bodega, in every club and in your head on repeat. “We are all unknowingly entering into a contract to declare one song as a song of the summer” says Hanif. But in a time when...
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Confessions (feat. Lucy Dacus)
“I care about words more than music,” says musician Lucy Dacus. Lucy recently released her third album, Home Video is a compilation of stories and vignettes pulled directly from her journals, dating back to her childhood. For Lucy, deep honesty in the form of song lyrics is almost compulsive. On...
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Summer of Soul (feat. Questlove)
For 50 years, footage of the Harlem Cultural Festival – a summer-long fête featuring the likes of Nina Simone, Sly and The Family Stone, and Stevie Wonder – was buried in the archives. And the story of the Harlem Cultural Festival was buried along with it. Finally, the footage is being brought to...
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This Summer of Live Music (feat. Esperanza Spalding and Cherie Hu)
We’re in an unprecedented moment of emergence: long-shuttered venues are reopening their doors, artists are hitting the road again, and you’re probably thinking about what concerts you’ll be heading to in this new world. We’re looking ahead to a summer full of live music, and what it means to...
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Ode to the Duet (feat. Sharon Van Etten)
After a long year apart, there’s something particularly comforting about listening to a duet. In this week’s episode, we talk to Sharon Van Etten, who recently released ‘Like I Used To’ a duet with Angel Olsen. Hanif and Sharon dig into the interpersonal stories behind some of their favorite duet...
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Ahead of Their Time (feat. Mykki Blanco)
Welcome to season two of Object of Sound! As the world opens back up, we’re entering a moment of collective renewal and return, so it feels right to speak with an artist who is versed in reinvention: Mykki Blanco. Hanif sits down with Mykki to talk about the release of their new album ‘Broken...
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Musician’s Work (feat. Brittany Howard)
For the season finale of Object of Sound, a reminder that you are an artist, regardless of what you do for work. Before Brittany Howard became a striking soloist and lead singer of Alabama Shakes, she worked at Cracker Barrel, sold cars, and even delivered mail in rural Alabama. In this episode,...
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Beyond Tastemaking (feat. Hrishikesh Hirway)
What does it mean to be a curator of songs? The one friend who recommends new records, specifically with your tastes in mind. Hanif speaks with Hrishikesh Hirway, the creator and host of Song Exploder and a fellow music enthusiast. In this episode, Hanif and Hrishikesh discuss the communal and...
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They’re Calling Me Home (feat. Rhiannon Giddens)
What makes a home? Is it where you create? Where you feel seen? And for a musician like Rhiannon Giddens, how does the idea of home shape the sound of her music? This week, Hanif sits down with North-Carolinian multi-instrumentalist Rhiannon Giddens from her new homebase in Dublin. They talk…
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Protest and Possibility (feat. Vijay Iyer)
When you think of protest music, you might think of the rock anthems of the 1960’s, or rap that turns frustration into elegantly poignant lyrics. For pianist Vijay Iyer, music without lyrics—has always been political music. This week, we talk with Vijay about the release of his new album…
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Redemption Songs (feat. Julien Baker)
When Julien Baker and Hanif first met, they felt pulled by the orbit of each other’s work—work that is emotionally layered and complex. This week on the show, Hanif and Julien catch up. Of course, they talk about Julien’s recent album release, Little Oblivions —which Hanif wrote the liner notes...
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Hop On the Souuuul Train (feat. Ericka Blount Danois)
This week marks the release of Hanif’s new book, A Little Devil in America: Notes in Praise of Black Performance, and the opening chapter dives into the colorful world of Soul Train. Bell bottoms, the Soul Train line, afro’s as high as the sky. Hanif and journalist Ericka Blount Danois talk…
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Songs for the End of the World (feat. Sydney Sprague)
For Hanif, music that some folks would consider ‘dark’ like emo, doom metal, and goth, have helped him find illumination. In this episode, Hanif talks to a master of darkly humorous lyrics, Sydney Sprague, about her debut album, ‘maybe I will see you at the end of the world’ and what it takes to...
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ABOUT THIS SHOW
Object Of Sound brings you in tune with the music shaping our culture today. Hosted by poet and critic Hanif Abdurraqib, each episode blends the eclectic curation of freeform radio with artist interviews and textural storytelling, guiding you to a new way of listening. Produced by work x work for Sonos
HOSTED BY
Sonos
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Frequently Asked Questions
How many episodes does Object Of Sound have?
Object Of Sound currently has 62 episodes available on PodParley. New episodes are automatically indexed when they're published to the podcast feed.
What is Object Of Sound about?
Object Of Sound brings you in tune with the music shaping our culture today. Hosted by poet and critic Hanif Abdurraqib, each episode blends the eclectic curation of freeform radio with artist interviews and textural storytelling, guiding you to a new way of listening. Produced by work x work for...
How often does Object Of Sound release new episodes?
Object Of Sound has 62 episodes. Check the episode list to see recent publication dates and frequency.
Where can I listen to Object Of Sound?
You can listen to Object Of Sound on PodParley by clicking any episode. We provide an embedded audio player for direct listening, and you can also subscribe via your preferred podcast app using the RSS feed.
Who hosts Object Of Sound?
Object Of Sound is created and hosted by Sonos.
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