The Nicnacjak Podcast

In this twelfth episode of Play It Back, Benjamin de Menil helps usher in the warm season by telling us about his earliest music memory of hearing “Yellow Bird” played by a steel drum band in Jamaica. The experience was a formative one, kindling a raging love affair with Caribbean arts that would lead to his eventual career as a label owner, producer, and academy founder specializing in bachata, popular traditional music of the Dominican Republic.

In grade school, when storyteller Marc Abbott fell in love with a particular Culture Club song, he just had to put it on a mixtape to impress a lucky girl. Marc was willing to go great lengths to record it -- even if it meant messing with his father’s sacred music collection.

This tenth episode marks Play It Back's one year anniversary! Musician, chanteuse, book lover, and performer extraordinaire Susan Hwang helps us celebrate by telling us a little something about her dad, Ray Charles, and the American dream.

At the age of 5, writer Jamie Brickhouse became obsessed with Peggy Lee and her song about escapism by means of “breaking out the booze and having a ball.” The song served as Jamie’s guide to several nights of debauchery while living in New York City. But things changed dramatically the night he drunk dialed the dazzling pop icon.

Native Kentuckian storyteller, choreographer, and live performer Mark Lamb counts the ways that he’s flown on the tails of Dolly Parton’s “Coat of Many Colors.” In his warm ‘n’ buttery voice, Mark waxes reminiscent about his brave journey from being a faux fur-sporting third grader, to a fully actualized performance artist and creative soul out and about in NYC today.

In this extra special episode of Play It Back, co-hosts John Asante and Jia H. Jung revel in the holiday spirit by rapping about their favorite (and most loathed) songs of the season. Add your choice picks to the official Play It Back Holiday Playlist Spectacular on Spotify(http://bit.ly/2igGgqa) just in the nick of time for Christmas, Chanukah, and the shiny New Year! (Photo: John Asante rockin' the sweater vest/peacoat combo, looking for that special girl to give that flower back in 1991.)

When London-based actor Laura Killeen worked at a florist as a teenager, she was introduced to a spacey, operatic pop tune that would serve as comfort and motivation when she needed it most.

In this episode of Play It Back, NBC Documentary producer and The Soundtrack Series podcast creator Dana Rossi reflects upon how a terrible recent tragedy brought her back to a song that she first heard in 1994 and found applicable as a salve to any trouble in high school...and beyond.

When independent radio producer Todd Whitney first discovered Lil B, he couldn't quite pin the quirky Bay Area rapper down. Were his songs serious, or was it all an act? On this episode of Play It Back, Todd explains why he gave Lil B another shot, and somehow became a preacher of the gospel of "The Based God."

At Play It Back, it's never too late to mourn the departure, or rather celebrate the life of, the most immortal music makers of all time. In this special retrospective episode, PIB co-host Jia H. Jung recalls when she first encountered The Purple One at 30,000 feet in the air, in 1986, at age 5, somewhere between Boston and Seoul. The voice of god, if you will...

For the sophomore episode of Play it Back, we continue our story time with writer, filmmaker, and former financial trader Adam Linn. He shares how a whole different shade of Tina Turner guided him like a guardian angel in a rollicking blind drive over San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge during a dark time in his youth in the 1990s.

For the very first episode of Play it Back, we talk with writer Katie Shepherd about the power of Tina Turner's monster hit from 1984 -- and how it strengthened the relationship with her mother as she fought a life-threatening illness.