Why did Taylor Swift stop singing in a country accent?

Summary

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NO SUCH THING – Episode Summary

Episode Title:

Why did Taylor Swift stop singing in a country accent?
Date: May 6, 2026
Hosts: Manny Fadell, Noah Friedman, Devin Joseph
Guest: Kelefa Sanneh (The New Yorker music critic, author of Major Labels)

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Episode Overview

This episode tackles a fun, deceptively complex question: Why did Taylor Swift drop her country accent when she transitioned to pop music? Along the way, the hosts (Manny, Noah, and Devin) and guest Kelefa Sanneh explore issues of authenticity, genre "gatekeeping," personal and performative accents in music, and the broader cultural factors that shape how artists use their voices. It’s a lively, research-driven exploration of why singers sound the way they do, why it sometimes changes, and what that says about pop culture, musical genres, and identity.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Listener Email: The Country Accent Conundrum

• Listener Question (02:57): Why are country music accents so pronounced compared to other genres, and why do British accents seem to disappear in pop?
• Hosts’ Initial Thoughts (03:40-09:53):
  • Pop vocals often mask natural accents (Leona Lewis, Elvis Costello), while rap and spoken genres preserve them (Dizzee Rascal, UK grime).
  • Some American artists try to sound British (Ramones, Rancid); some Britpop artists lean into or eschew their accents based on the genre.
  • Sample quote:
    • “Do you think this is, like, intentional?” – Devin Joseph (06:03)
    • “It would be hard to accidentally pronounce ‘first’ like an American. I think instead, maybe when you’re singing, you’re enunciating differently...” – Manny Fadell

2. Taylor Swift: A Case Study in Genre and Accent

• Taylor’s Country Roots (10:58):
  • Early Taylor Swift albums featured noticeably put-on country accents despite her being from Pennsylvania (“not Kentucky or Nashville,” jokes the crew).
  • Clip comparison: Early vs. recent “Our Song” performances; Swift’s accent and delivery have fully shifted as her style went pop (12:26).
  • “She completely lost the accent. Or more accurately, she’s no longer putting on an accent.” – Manny Fadell (12:43)

3. Game: Guess the Artist’s Nationality by Singing

• The hosts test if accent really disappears in pop by playing songs and guessing the singer’s origin. They fail hilariously – Americans sometimes sound British, Canadians sound UK-ish, and Australians can pass for Americans (13:04–16:15).
• Memorable quote: “You guys did horrible at that game!” – Devin Joseph (16:06)

4. Interview: Deep Dive with Kelefa Sanneh (21:00–63:38)

a. Do Only Country Artists “Perform” Accents?

• Sanneh immediately rejects the premise (“No. That’s crazy. That’s insane.” – 21:45).
• All musicians perform, and accent is just one tool—used for genre alignment, not necessarily ‘fake.’

b. Gatekeeping and Authenticity in Country and Elsewhere (23:01–29:09):

• Country’s Identity:
  • Its “authenticity” is about nostalgia (rural, Southern, White) and exclusion as much as inclusion.
  • “Any community needs gatekeeping… Accents can be one way of doing that.” – Kelefa Sanneh (23:43)
• Race & Segregation:
  • “It’s not a coincidence that Elvis, a white guy, ends up selling a lot or that Eminem, a white guy, ends up selling a lot.” – Kelefa Sanneh (39:28)
  • Popular music genres often become racialized, reflecting social divides.

c. How Accents “Fit” Genres (31:52–36:23):

• The “country accent” is a semi-invented amalgam that becomes a signaling device (for listeners and gatekeepers).
• Britpop bands singing in ‘American accents’ is both cultural tribute and genre requirement.
• “There is a certain way of having an accent that seems to fit with country music... it’s inevitable people would start using that accent.” – Kelefa Sanneh (33:14)

d. Music as Imitation and Community

• Singing style is largely “intuitive imitation” of genre heroes – singers don’t scheme their accents, they absorb genre norms by osmosis.
• Pop music tends towards a neutral or generic American accent for mass appeal.

e. Globalization, Internet, and Linguistic Flattening (44:36–55:18):

• Old: Regional differences encoded in genres (NY vs. Houston hip hop) due to industry and local dialect.
• New: Internet flattens (mainstream) accents, but also creates niche communities with their own codes.
• “The Internet feels like it’s doing both at once… connecting everyone, but also enabling creation of these communities.” – Kelefa Sanneh (55:18)

f. Diversity, Appropriation, and Accusations of Inauthenticity (57:44–73:29):

• Accents remain tools for fitting in or standing out within genres (reggaeton, reggae, pop).
• Contemporary examples: Jack Harlow’s “Black-coded” R&B album, Timothee Chalamet’s “wiggerness” promo, Mac Miller’s R&B turn—where backlash or acceptance often hinges on (perceived) authenticity and/or quality.
• “What irks people generally is…it’s so transparent…when it’s convenient for you.” – Noah Friedman (72:12)

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Notable Quotes & Moments with Timestamps

• On accent as a musical signifier:
  • “Accents are an important musical tool if you’re making pop music with your voice.” – Kelefa Sanneh (43:07)
• On the Taylor Swift switch:
  • “She completely lost the accent. Or more accurately, she’s no longer putting on an accent.” – Manny Fadell (12:45)
• On how genres invent community:
  • “Any community needs gatekeeping… Accents can be one way of doing that.” – Kelefa Sanneh (23:43)
• On pop “neutrality”:
  • “One thing that popular music does is find what used to be called the lowest common denominator... doing something that feels more, maybe neutral.” – Kelefa Sanneh (60:39)
• On accusations of inauthenticity:
  • “Are you putting on a costume when it’s convenient for you?” – Devin Joseph (72:06)
• Pop imitation:
  • “They start vibing…what comes out sounds like their version of their favorite records.” – Kelefa Sanneh (60:39)
• Cultural code-switching:
  • “What irks people generally... is when it’s so transparent...it’s not as manipulative as it might sound.” – Noah Friedman (72:12)

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Segments by Timestamps

• [02:57] – Listener email sparks episode
• [03:40–09:53] – Explaining and debating the accent phenomenon in pop, rap, and country
• [10:58–12:43] – Taylor Swift: early vs. current style comparison
• [13:04–16:15] – Accent-guessing game (with musical clips and laughs)
• [21:00–63:38] – Kelefa Sanneh interview: genre, race, authenticity, global pop
• [67:53–73:29] – Modern “inauthenticity”/cultural backlash (Jack Harlow, Timothee Chalamet, Mac Miller)
• [73:29–end] – Wrap-up, shout-outs, related recs

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Final Thoughts

• Taylor Swift’s accent switch is a microcosm of how artists perform genre expectations—accent included—until they switch genres, at which point genre conventions and mass appeal demand a more “neutral” sound.
• Accents in music are signals to both community and outsiders: sometimes inclusive, sometimes exclusionary—always a blend of history, imitation, and cultural negotiation.
• Backlash or acceptance of accent/code-switching (e.g., Jack Harlow, Timothee Chalamet) often depends on whether the shift is perceived as genuine or self-serving.

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Additional Resources

• Major Labels by Kelefa Sanneh
• [No Such Thing episode on “Is Taylor Swift Bigger than Michael Jackson?” (#36)](link in show notes)
• Playlist for this episode (link in show notes)

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For further feedback or questions, contact the show at [e-mail] or visit nosuchthing.show

Transcript

[Devin Joseph]

Hey, what's up, y'?

[Noah Friedman]

All?

[Devin Joseph]

It's Devin. Just a heads up, we have a no Such Thing listener survey out right now that you can take. It's your opportunity to tell us what you like about the show, what you would like for us to change about the show. As we're thinking about programming for season three of no Such Thing, this is something we're going to be paying very close attention to. So you can take that survey by either clicking the link in our show notes or going to no Such Thing, that show. All right, enjoy today's episode.

[Kelefa Sanneh]

Kaleidoscope.

[Manny Fadell]

I'm Manny.

[Noah Friedman]

I'm Noah.

[Devin Joseph]

And this is Devin. And this is no Such Thing. The show where we settle our dumb arguments and yours by actually doing the research on today's episode. Why did Taylor Swift stop singing in a country accent?

[Manny Fadell]

Oh, that's good. That's good.

[Devin Joseph]

We explore authenticity in popular music.

[Manny Fadell]

There's no. No such thing. No such thing. No such thing. No such thing. No such thing.

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[Devin Joseph]

All right, so today's episode was inspired by a listener email. This is from Joel V. He says, my wife asked me a question the other day as we were driving somewhere. This is his wife. Why do we only hear pronounced accents in country music songs? It seems like whenever Americans hear songs by British artists, we can never really discern their accent. However, with country songs, the accent is clear. Are there other top genres where accent is clear? All right, Joel, great question.

[Noah Friedman]

And Ms. Joel.

[Devin Joseph]

So this is something we've been talking about over the years and thinking about accents and music more broadly. Before we get zero in on Joel's question, how do you all feel with this general premise that basically, outside of country music, it's kind of hard to discern accents in music?

[Manny Fadell]

Yeah. I don't know if it's that black and white, but I certainly. I know what they're getting at. Which, you know, growing up, I've been always fascinated hearing or, like, finding out that a singer is English. You know, we see this in acting all the time, but it happens in music. In music as well.

[Devin Joseph]

I feel like this is more of a thing in pop music where it's harder to discern. You know, I think our classic example is, like, we think of, like, you're saying, like, someone from the UK and not being. And be like, oh, shoot, I thought you were American, but. Cause, you know, in, let's say, a genre like rap, it is very clear when there is a.

[Noah Friedman]

Well, it's closer to spoken word.

[Devin Joseph]

British rap.

[Noah Friedman]

Yeah, exactly. Dizzy Rascal.

[Manny Fadell]

Yes.

[Noah Friedman]

Yeah.

[Devin Joseph]

What are some other examples of artists that you were like, whoa, I didn't realize this person was from this place.

[Manny Fadell]

Well, I remember. Do you guys remember Lianna Lewis?

[Devin Joseph]

Oh, yeah.

[Manny Fadell]

So in 2008, I think she had the song Bleeding Love.

[Noah Friedman]

Classic.

[Kelefa Sanneh]

But I don't care what they say. I'm in love.

[Manny Fadell]

And the. The reason. It's more clear to me, as you guys know, obviously, I am married to an English woman, and you like the. I can tell the. The most obvious difference between the American accent and the English accent is they don't pronounce R. So instead of first, it'd be like, first or whatever. Or like, you know, let's go out there. Let's go out there. And Leona Lewis. And so you can hear in. In the verse, it's not just that her accent disappears. They are literally pronouncing the words like Americans. So that's always been.

[Devin Joseph]

Do you think this is, like, an intentional.

[Manny Fadell]

It would be hard to act, to, like, accidentally pronounce first, like an American I think instead, I don't know, maybe when you're singing, you're reading out, enunciating the letters.

[Noah Friedman]

That's kind of my. That's my.

[Manny Fadell]

My guess.

[Noah Friedman]

I think I was thinking of. I was thinking about trying to think of some examples. And then I was watching a movie yesterday and Elvis Costello was in it. Elvis Costello is English. He's a rock kind of new wave rock guy. And I was like, oh, let me. Let me listen to him and see. Because I remember listening to him back in middle school or something and I didn't know anything about him. And I was listening to him just. I guess I assumed he was American. And he had a lyric in a song that was like something Mr. Oswald with a swastika tattoo. And I assumed he was talking about Lee Harvey Oswald. And I was like, okay, there's a lot of theories around this guy. I've never heard this particular one. So I remember actually looking it up then. Yeah, but it was like, oh, it's talking about like a well known fascist British politician.

[Manny Fadell]

Yeah.

[Noah Friedman]

Oh, that makes sense.

[Manny Fadell]

And then the references.

[Noah Friedman]

Yeah, I was like, so is from that context clue. But even in his songs that are some songs he's more belting it out and some he's not talking, but a little bit more like, faster, where it seems more closer to language. When I listen to him, I wouldn't. I don't hear an accent at all. So it's only the contextual clues of what he's singing about.

[Devin Joseph]

They'll hear it, give it away for you.

[Manny Fadell]

Yeah, yeah.

[Devin Joseph]

Arturic reverse examples are there. I think so Americans that try to sound British.

[Noah Friedman]

Yeah, I think there's a lot of like. Like the Ramones kind of do a little effect like whatever, Blitzkrieg bop or something. And they're just singing. It's just a little style where it's like not how you would actually talk if you're a person.

[Manny Fadell]

They're just like a lift. Totally.

[Noah Friedman]

You know?

[Devin Joseph]

Yeah.

[Noah Friedman]

So that's the most prominent example I can think of. And then I was. There's a band, Rancid, who are like, later on, who are like, very influenced by the Clash, who are an English band. And the guy's just clearly doing. Joe Strummer. Clearly just heard him and is singing like him.

[Manny Fadell]

It's like, I don't know, maybe he's

[Noah Friedman]

just some street punk guy doing this thing. But it's like, yeah, he's trying to do this thing. And then it's funny because then there are bands copying this guy. It becomes a copy of a copy of all these guys, mostly American, trying to sound like this British guy from, you know, generations before. Now that's fascinating. But those are the ones I've. I've thought of. Oh, the guy from Gorilla. Damon Alburn from the band Blur. These English. Oh, yeah, and gorillas. And they. I guess they do a lot more kind of almost talking stuff. So he. You can hear his. He sounds extreme. He has a strong accent, and it comes through in the music because it's more talking. Like if you listen to whatever, Clint Eastwood or any of those songs.

[Kelefa Sanneh]

I'm feeling glad I got sunshine in a bag. I'm useless. But not for long.

[Noah Friedman]

So there's no. No mystery there.

[Manny Fadell]

Yeah. When he's belting it out, you wouldn't hear it like the English singers that sound English when they sing. So what's her name? Lily Allen. Yeah, that big Lily Allen song from like, the mid-2000s. It was very clear.

[Kelefa Sanneh]

Yeah.

[Noah Friedman]

Yeah. And again, that's, like a little more talky.

[Kelefa Sanneh]

Yeah.

[Manny Fadell]

There's the.

[Noah Friedman]

The lack of ours, I suppose.

[Manny Fadell]

Does Adele do this?

[Devin Joseph]

I was. I was just.

[Noah Friedman]

Yeah, let's play. That's. This is my. My belting theory. If you're belting it out and Adele is one of our great belters, I think it's a lot harder to hear.

[Manny Fadell]

Yeah.

[Devin Joseph]

Well, let's put it this way. Her singing accent is nowhere near her.

[Noah Friedman]

Well, that's talking. Yeah, because that's the thing. You know, she has a very thick accent.

[Devin Joseph]

Yes.

[Noah Friedman]

Talking.

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[Noah Friedman]

Because that's. I was trying to think of, like, okay, the Beatles. And it's like, you obviously know their English, but it's more like, okay, I recognize that's John Lennon's voice and I know how he sounds when he's talking. I don't actually think there's an accent when he's singing. Then there's obviously songs when they're doing more of a talk, like you can hear it more. But mostly if you hear whatever. Tristan shout or something, you wouldn't think

[Manny Fadell]

that, but let's hear Adele.

[Devin Joseph]

Yeah.

[Kelefa Sanneh]

There's a fire starting in my heart reaching a fever pitch, and it's bringing me out the dark.

[Manny Fadell]

It's just kind of like the classic soul singer voice, you know, that doesn't necessarily sound English.

[Noah Friedman]

What about Taylor Swift?

[Devin Joseph]

Yeah, you think about it like, when she first came out, she was singing in that, like, crazy Nashville, country accent. Like, I remember one of my good friends, his cousin, like, went to, like, high school with. Or elementary school younger. With Taylor Swift. And she's from Pennsylvania. And I was like, wait a minute, you went to school with Taylor?

[Noah Friedman]

Isn't Taylor Swift from, like, yeah, Kentucky or.

[Devin Joseph]

Yeah. Somewhere down south? It's like, no, she's from Pennsylvania.

[Kelefa Sanneh]

And he says, our song is a slam scream door sneaking out tapping on your window when we're on the phone and you talk real slow? Cause it's late and your mama don't know our song is.

[Manny Fadell]

That's crazy. I actually haven't. I don't know. I've never heard that song.

[Devin Joseph]

Yeah, her transition to pop was like, a gradual thing, right? Like 1989, I guess, was like.

[Noah Friedman]

That was the one that was fully. No country.

[Devin Joseph]

Yeah. Like, I'm not pretending anymore at all. But that early stuff, that's really, like a country Twain. Yeah.

[Manny Fadell]

Fully country accent, as opposed to what I was imagining was like a little bit of a, you know, a tilt.

[Devin Joseph]

Yeah, no, that's like.

[Noah Friedman]

Yeah, that's a little bit crazy.

[Devin Joseph]

And then, you know, she's making pop music and, like, it doesn't exist anymore. But this is the crazy thing. When I was looking for this. So she performed this more recently on era's tour. So I was curious, how does it sound, how similar this Taylor sounds?

[Manny Fadell]

Let's hear it.

[Devin Joseph]

Does she go back to that twang?

[Kelefa Sanneh]

And he says, our song is a slamming screen door Sneaking out and tap it on your window when we're on the phone and you talk real slow? Cause it's late and your mama don't know our song is late?

[Devin Joseph]

No, she's doing, like, the pop version now.

[Manny Fadell]

She completely lost the accent.

[Noah Friedman]

Wow.

[Manny Fadell]

Or more accurately, she's no longer putting on an accent.

[Devin Joseph]

Yeah, it's like, you know, obviously she was much younger when that song came out. But this is not like, okay, my voice is different. I'm singing in a different key. This is like.

[Manny Fadell]

No, the style is different. Yeah. Yeah.

[Devin Joseph]

So what I want to do is I'm going to play some songs, and I want you guys to try to guess where the artist is from. The one rules. If you know who the artist is, don't say anything.

[Manny Fadell]

Where the artist is from in terms of just their nationality.

[Devin Joseph]

Yeah.

[Kelefa Sanneh]

Welcome to.

[Noah Friedman]

I don't know this.

[Manny Fadell]

I don't know this song either.

[Devin Joseph]

Well, I'm guessing the song.

[Manny Fadell]

I know. I'm just clarifying. There's something away.

[Noah Friedman]

Do I get $5 if I get this?

[Manny Fadell]

There was something about the way he said the word to T O that I thought was English.

[Noah Friedman]

Yeah, I'm getting English vibes, but I'm. I'm in my head now.

[Devin Joseph]

Okay, so that is McGee from New Jersey.

[Manny Fadell]

What the hell? Wow, that's incredible.

[Devin Joseph]

All right, let me play.

[Kelefa Sanneh]

The cameras in cops. We could have been stars on our mother's new screens.

[Noah Friedman]

I'm going UK again.

[Manny Fadell]

I think he said cameras in a very UK way.

[Noah Friedman]

There's a couple. Couple tips. Cameras, what do we got?

[Devin Joseph]

This one's a little bit of a cheat. It's Mustafa. He's Canadian. So I'll give you half a point for that one.

[Noah Friedman]

All bets are off.

[Manny Fadell]

Where in Canada do we.

[Devin Joseph]

Toronto.

[Noah Friedman]

Toronto.

[Manny Fadell]

They do have an accent there.

[Devin Joseph]

I'll give you a half a point. Cause you know. Okay, the queen's on the money.

[Manny Fadell]

Yes, exactly.

[Devin Joseph]

I'll give you that one. Okay, I'll give you guys an easy one. I ain't really got no Jerry so I put a lean on ice I just hope that God don't take no more of my niggas life we driving so deep in the street and we waiting on the life go. I hope he saveway full of cars like there. We hope the don't.

[Manny Fadell]

I don't know, I'm scared now, but they wouldn't be dropping the N word like that over there.

[Kelefa Sanneh]

So.

[Manny Fadell]

Yeah, this guy's American.

[Devin Joseph]

Yeah, this, this. This is no cap from Mobile, Alabama. All right, let's do what if. What if we run away?

[Kelefa Sanneh]

What if. What if we left today? What if we said goodbye to safe and sound?

[Manny Fadell]

This has to be like one of the One Direction guys.

[Noah Friedman]

American, American.

[Manny Fadell]

I'm gonna go English.

[Devin Joseph]

English, American. You're both wrong.

[Manny Fadell]

What?

[Devin Joseph]

This is Troye Sivan from Australia.

[Noah Friedman]

I was like. I thought it was like. I thought that was Nick Jonas.

[Manny Fadell]

Close. Yeah, me too. I thought it was like, what's it. What's the guy's name from. Not him, the Zane Zayn. Because he said Neva without an R. But I guess in Australia they also do that.

[Devin Joseph]

You guys did horrible at that game. We did any, right?

[Manny Fadell]

Yeah, we got a half point for Canadian. I should also get a half point for Australian. So I got a full point.

[Devin Joseph]

So maybe we're not so good at. Well, at least you two aren't so good at discerning. Yeah, well, at least we think we are. So we are going to be joined by New Yorker music writer and critic Keleficenay, and we're gonna go deep on genre, on gatekeeping, and of course accents in popular music. All of that after the break.

[Manny Fadell]

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[Devin Joseph]

need you to help me with a problem that I got. You know, usually we're the ones helping other people with their problems, but I'm about to go and I want to watch Met games. Noah, how can I watch them?

[Noah Friedman]

That's a tough one. Maybe get a really large telescope.

[Devin Joseph]

I don't think that's the best way to do it, Manny. Do you have any solutions on how I could watch Mets games abroad?

[Manny Fadell]

I think I've got a slightly more practical solution for you, Devin. If you use NordVPN, you'll be able to change the location of your laptop's IP address and watch the content with no problem.

[Noah Friedman]

What about my privacy online? I'm worried someone's watching me.

[Manny Fadell]

First of all, no one is watching you, Noah. But in case someone was watching you, NordVPN provides you with privacy online, leaving no digital footprint by hiding your IP address. It's like wearing an invisibility cloak while you're surfing the web.

[Noah Friedman]

Sounds comfy.

[Devin Joseph]

So, Manny, I've heard about these VPNs and how they're super slow. How do I make sure my Internet is not throttling?

[Manny Fadell]

If you want to use a VPN without slowing down your Internet, Devin, you're going to want to use NordVPN. Because whenever I use it, I don't see any buffering or lagging while I'm streaming my favorite content.

[Devin Joseph]

How do I get NordVPN?

[Manny Fadell]

Devin, if you or our listeners want to get the best discount off of your NordVPN plan, go to nordvpn.com nst Our link will also give you four extra months on the two year plan. And there's no risk because Nord has a 30 day money back guarantee. The link is in the show notes. That's nordvpn.com NST.

[Devin Joseph]

So in the studio we're joined by K, who's a critic and a writer at the New Yorker, an author of Major Labels, A history of popular music in seven genres.

[Kelefa Sanneh]

Good news, bad news. You have my book here, I have the book here on the table. But then I was looking at the COVID I was like, wow, why does it have a kind of a plastic key? That's a library book.

[Devin Joseph]

I support my local library, man. You know what I was doing early in this podcast was I was buying every single book. And then I got some books that I didn't want to keep.

[Kelefa Sanneh]

I See, you're saying this might be one of them.

[Devin Joseph]

We'll find out.

[Kelefa Sanneh]

This is the audition by the end of the episode. You know, is that a thing on your show, like, at the end of the episode, if it goes well, I get to watch you log on to Amazon. Yeah, yeah.

[Devin Joseph]

And buy it. So just as a reminder, this episode started with a question from a listener named Joel. Why do we only hear pronounced accents in country music? First of all, do you agree with that premise?

[Kelefa Sanneh]

No. That's crazy. That's insane.

[Manny Fadell]

Okay.

[Devin Joseph]

All right. We're on the same page.

[Kelefa Sanneh]

Well, like, what's an accent?

[Devin Joseph]

Right.

[Manny Fadell]

And to be fair to Joel, he says pronounced accents like you.

[Devin Joseph]

Yes.

[Manny Fadell]

I think he thinks you can hear, you know, if someone's got an English accent, for example.

[Kelefa Sanneh]

Well, I wonder if when Joel says pronounced accents, he means fake. Is that his polite way of saying fake?

[Devin Joseph]

I think he. Yes. From the rest of the email, it seems like, performative, maybe, if not fake.

[Kelefa Sanneh]

Well, yes.

[Devin Joseph]

Put on, like, leaning into it. Yes.

[Kelefa Sanneh]

It's funny because in one definition, any musician who has any. The accent is performative by definition, if you're performing. But, yes, in terms of there being a noticeable difference between the accent and the way you talk in everyday life, or a sense that the accent is there to help you try to, like, fit in with the genre you're part of. Yeah, you hear some of that in country, but, yeah, I think you hear it other places, too. Obviously, country has a more regional identity in some ways, although even that gets a little complicated by what we mean by regional. There's a lot of different. A lot of different reasons a person might have an accent. So, yes, you tell me where we

[Manny Fadell]

going,

[Devin Joseph]

But I want to start with country music.

[Kelefa Sanneh]

Okay.

[Devin Joseph]

Because that was where, you know, that was Joel's question. But you talk about this. Country is an interesting genre because I think it gatekeeps in a way that a lot of other genres just don't.

[Kelefa Sanneh]

I disagree, but please continue.

[Devin Joseph]

Oh, okay. There is this thing in country music in which they love to talk about sort of, like, authenticity and holding onto that? And there are certain. You talk about this in your book, certain signifiers of country music that we all know of. So can you talk a little bit about sort of, like, country music's positioning of sort of, like, authenticity and sort of this fear of, like, almost being too big and, like, holding onto that?

[Kelefa Sanneh]

Well, I want to zoom out a little bit, because when I think about musical genres, I think of them as communities, and it's like a community of listeners and Musicians, sometimes literally in the same room. But sometimes it's just like you're listening to the music and you're, like, imagining the other people that might also listen to this music. And you're like, you know, you're listening to Dolly Parton, And for the half hour that the album lasts, you can become the kind of person who listens to Dolly Parton. Like, that's part of the fun. And so when you think about a community, any community needs gatekeeping. Yeah, sometimes the gatekeeping might be, like, literally turning people away. And especially if you want it to feel. To have some sense of intimacy, some sense of, like, oh, me and you have something in common that's a little different from those people out there. We need some way to distinguish ourselves. And, you know, accents can be one way of doing that. That could be one signal. I use this kind of language, but also vocabulary and all sorts of things. And so I think that. I think that the question of how inclusive or exclusive a community is is a little bit hard to. It's a little bit hard to define because it depends who wants to get in. And, you know, you're. And again, the bigger your community is, the more you're going to maybe look to charts or other metrics of success to see, like, what we all agree on. And so, yeah, the question of, like, it's hard. So, yeah, it's hard to even know how you would rank. Like, does country. Is country music more gatekeeper y than techno? I don't know, man. Like, techno has some rules, and those clubs might be, like, literally hard to get into, whereas, like, anyone can buy a ticket to a country music concert. So I think that in country music, yes, there's gatekeeping, but there is. I think, more than that, there's a sense of identity. And so the question of what that identity is is obviously extremely vexed in every genre, including country music. You could look at them not playing Beyonce, but you have to keep in mind these are the same radio stations that also don't play Taylor Swift because they also don't view Taylor Swift as, like, really country enough, but they're happy to play Shabuzzi.

[Devin Joseph]

Can you walk us through this, like, country music identity?

[Kelefa Sanneh]

It starts as a kind of disparate thing, right? Country and western. When Billboard is doing these charts of country music and western music, and those are thought of as, like, maybe slightly separate things, right? You think about the musical traditions of the American Southeast, you think about what would be called sometimes hillbilly music. You think about string bands, and then you Think about Western music, the iconography of cowboys, you know, Texas swing, all sorts of stuff. And that stuff kind of mashes together, and it becomes something with a more specific identity. And in some ways, that identity is inclusive. Right. Because, you know, the idea that someone in Nashville, Tennessee, would wear a cowboy hat is a little weird in the first place. There's not a lot of ranches in Nashville, Tennessee, so the western thing kind of migrates. But it also becomes exclusive in various ways. One way it becomes exclusive is, you know, it's thought of as. This is rural music. And a lot of country songs, from the beginning of its existence as a genre or are about the fact that the singers themselves used to live in some rural place, or America used to be rural. And now we've come to the city, which is what creates the country music industry. Right now. We've come to. We're at the Wheeling Jamboree, or we're at the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville. But we remember the way things used to be. So that sense of, like, we remember how things used to be when things were more rural is a big part of the identity of country music as a rural genre. At various points, it comes to be perceived as a southern genre. The western part sort of, like, fades away a little. You know, nowadays you don't say country and western, you say country. Obviously, one of the most fun ones, which I've saved until now, is it comes to be thought of as white music.

[Devin Joseph]

Yeah.

[Kelefa Sanneh]

And this despite the fact that, obviously, if you look at the history of country music, there's tons of black musicians who have contributed to this history. Here's D. Ford Bailey with the Fox James. And what happens at a certain point is that the genre itself comes to be seen as segregated in a way that kind of mirrors the segregation of American life. So the white performers from this genre are kind of pulled out towards this thing that gets called country music. And some of the black performers, you might say, are excluded from that tradition or are considered more rhythm and blues. And so, you know, you have. You have Ray Charles making a country album that doesn't necessarily get played on country radio stations. Here's a broken heart

[Devin Joseph]

but time has

[Kelefa Sanneh]

to steal so part of the identity of the genre is it's gonna be a white genre.

[Devin Joseph]

Yeah.

[Kelefa Sanneh]

And that's a thing that is hard to. That's an interesting thing to kind of grapple with, because I think a lot of people have a reaction when they hear that of, like, that's really bad that it's white. But then you Think about R and B, which is thought of as a black genre.

[Devin Joseph]

Well, Jack Harlow would say otherwise.

[Kelefa Sanneh]

That's right.

[Noah Friedman]

Come on in.

[Kelefa Sanneh]

Jack with his extra tall hat.

[Sponsor/Advertisement Voice]

Exactly.

[Kelefa Sanneh]

I mean, obviously I love it when people are playing transgressing in that kind of a way. But generally, the idea that R and B music is black music is often talked about as something to celebrate. Like, this is a black musical tradition. Like, this is great. This is something to be proud of. But, you know, if you do the math, in a country that's what, 13% black. If you have black genres, you're also gonna have white genres, just like mathematically. And so the. And so one way I think about country music is that it's almost mathematically necessary if you're gonna have some disproportionately black genres in America. That in a country that's still, whatever it is, 58% non, Hispanic, white or something, you're gonna have some disproportionately white genres. And then the question is, well, like, how do we think about that and how do we think about diversity within a genre? And the reason I bring up R and B is because it's a good example of how, like, we might not want that. We might not look at R B and be like, wow, that's a shame that it's so many black performers. I wish it was only 13% black performers.

[Devin Joseph]

And when it's more white and a

[Kelefa Sanneh]

half percent Hispanic and, you know, so, you know, I don't think it's obvious that musical segregation is bad or is a problem in a genre. One of the things I love about popular music is that it reflects America good, bad and otherwise. And so to the extent that Americans are living somewhat segregated lives, I would expect, and even in a way celebrate the idea that music would reflect that rather than sugarcoating it or rather than pretending something different is happening. So, yes, country has and still does kind of grapple with its identity as white music. So, yes, you get all these things and you still have this. But you do still have this trace of an accent.

[Devin Joseph]

Yeah.

[Kelefa Sanneh]

And when we think of an accent, we kind of think of a country accent as a singular thing. Whereas, of course, traditionally, someone from Georgia and someone from Texas have pretty different ways of speaking, especially if you're from one of those places. In country music, One of the things that happens is that all these different regional musical traditions sort of combine into one sort of all the same, but sort of different mega tradition.

[Devin Joseph]

Right.

[Kelefa Sanneh]

You get country music out of all these different regional traditions that exist before It. And so similarly, maybe, and I'm not a linguist, maybe you get something that sort of feels like a country accent. So that when Taylor Swift from outside of Pittsburgh is making country records and sending them to country radio, she's using a little bit more of a country accent. And when she starts making records that are more considered or marketed or influenced by pop music, you hear less of that. And I think. I think, you know, we're talking about music, right? So we're talking about singers, and we're talking about people using their voice and also using words to create music. So whenever you're turning words into music, the question of how you pronounce those words is gonna be an important musical strategy, right? So that the sounds of country music, the sound of a pedal steel or of an electric guitar, maybe we associate that with certain pronunciations, a certain way of dropping a G, a certain way of extending a vowel here or there. So when you start making that music, I think. I don't want to say naturally, it's hard to know what is or isn't natural, but I think it's inevitable that people would start using that sort of accent.

[Devin Joseph]

It feels organic.

[Kelefa Sanneh]

Yeah. It feels like it's linked to the

[Devin Joseph]

sort of music you want that you're making.

[Kelefa Sanneh]

And, you know, this. Once you start looking for that, that's everywhere, right? That's like British rock bands in the 60s singing with an American accent, because that's what seems to go with rock and roll. And, like, if you tried to pin down Mick Jagger's accent, you'd be like, well, that's not. It's not English. I can't get no satisfaction. And, you know, a certain kind of American drawl seemed like it fit with a backbeat and an electric guitar. And so, yeah, there is a certain way of having an accent that seems to fit with country music. And I think that, as with anything that has to do with music, I think there's a corny way to do it, and there's a way to do it that doesn't feel that corny. And so, obviously, part of your job as a. As a singer, as a performer of popular music, is not to seem corny. That's, like, really important. And there's no rules about how to do that. It's just like the audience is gonna decide what does and doesn't feel a little ridiculous. And, you know, and it's fascinating when you see people from other parts of the world, right? You see Shania Twain from Canada. You're still the one I run to The. You see Keith Urban.

[Devin Joseph]

Yeah.

[Kelefa Sanneh]

I believe born in New Zealand but spent some time in Australia.

[Manny Fadell]

Yeah.

[Kelefa Sanneh]

People always get mad if you. If you mess that up.

[Noah Friedman]

Yeah.

[Manny Fadell]

Let's be careful.

[Kelefa Sanneh]

But yes, from that part of the world. And yes, while I personally think it would be fascinating to hear, like, a Keith Urban record with like, a thick accent that suggests Australia and New Zealand, obviously he's found a way to do it where it's not corny. He doesn't sound like he's on Hee Haw, but it fits into other songs you hear on the radio. So it's not jumping out at you of like, what's this guy from a different country doing on my radio station? So, yeah, people find a way to fit in and hopefully not make it sound too ridiculous. Obviously, there are moments in popular music where people lean into their local accent. Right. And that could be a musical strategy. Right. If you're kneecap. And here's like, we're not going to rap all the time in English. We're going to use our indigenous Irish language. And then in other times, people want to be part of a tradition, so they're delivering lyrics in English. I think a. A professional linguist could probably write a really interesting paper and probably has about the use of English in K pop and the use of sometimes not quite idiomatic English. And maybe there's a. Maybe there's a specific thing where then, like, if you're in Cat's Eye or something, you're using a kind of K popish English to signal that you belong to this K pop community. Even though obviously the music and the language of K pop is very much influenced by American pop music.

[Manny Fadell]

Yeah.

[Devin Joseph]

Yeah. It's this weird sort of. I think there was an interview or people were questioning some of the members of Cat's Eye about, like, why did you guys use these lyrics in this song? And they're like, if you didn't write

[Noah Friedman]

this, you know, my boss is made.

[Devin Joseph]

Yeah, it sounds kind of weird to us too. But now it's becoming its own new thing of like, well, you.

[Kelefa Sanneh]

And you see that? That's similar. That's like Britney Spears, right?

[Devin Joseph]

Yeah, exactly.

[Kelefa Sanneh]

Give me, baby one more time Max Martin, like, he didn't know that. We don't say that.

[Devin Joseph]

For those of you who don't know, Max Martin is a legendary Swedish producer and songwriter who's produced some of the biggest pop hits over the last 30 years, working with Britney Spears, Taylor Swift, the Backstreet Boys and more.

[Kelefa Sanneh]

Hit me one more time. We don't.

[Devin Joseph]

That's not a thing.

[Kelefa Sanneh]

Or like, you know, when you think of, like, Backstreet Boys, I don't want to say I like, what are you talking about? And yes, and if a song becomes big enough, we're like, oh, that's just the language of pop music.

[Devin Joseph]

Yeah. It becomes its own thing. I want to go back to your country music example because you talk about in your book, too, especially early days of country music, of these white artists who are writing, speaking to this, like, K pop example as if they are black artists and trying to use black lingo. And I think of the Tom Hanks scene in the new Elvis movie of, like, you know, zoom into his face. He's like, he's white. He's white. And, like, just realization that, like, Elvis is not a black guy. Can you talk about sort of like, what was the goal of these artists during that time? And, you know, these white artists and trying to sound black, quote, unquote, or, you know, taken from black artists.

[Kelefa Sanneh]

You know, it's funny. Authenticity is a slippery thing to define, but it's a quality that often people seek out in popular music. But it's not the only quality that people seek out in popular music. You might. You might pair authenticity with something more like relatability.

[Devin Joseph]

Right.

[Kelefa Sanneh]

So you hear a voice and you're like, oh, this person's kind of normal. This person's kind of like me. Right. Maybe the opposite of that is like, whoa, this person comes really comes from the real. Whatever the real is supposed to be.

[Devin Joseph]

Right.

[Kelefa Sanneh]

This person represents a very different world from my world. And so, yes, there's certainly moments in American music where, you know, in the Elvis example, maybe to listeners in that moment, a certain kind of rhythm and blues is associated with black singers. Like, there was something exciting about a singer who could get close to that. You know, you see maybe some of that with Eminem, who. Eminem was always very careful, I think that he's not. He's not doing anything where it sounds like putting on a show. Exactly. But he's also not necessarily talking the way a white kid from Detroit who wasn't a rapper might talk.

[Noah Friedman]

Yeah.

[Kelefa Sanneh]

And, like, there's certain things he can say and can't say. And, like, you know, he could say, yo, and it doesn't sound that weird, but there's maybe other things that he would say that he would sound as if he was leaning into it a little too much. And so, yeah, obviously at various points, there's this moment in Elvis's career where being perceived as, like, maybe he's Black could be helpful, but obviously, given the demographics of America, it's more often helpful to be perceived as part of the majority group. And it's not a coincidence that that Elvis, a white guy, ends up selling a lot or that Eminem, a white guy, ends up selling a lot. And so I think. And that's something that musicians have to figure out. Right. Like with my voice, like, what am I signaling to people? And often there's a move. I think you often see a move early. If we're talking about this particular thing of, like, white artists who might be perceived vocally as black, maybe that's something that happens a little more early in the career.

[Devin Joseph]

Yeah.

[Kelefa Sanneh]

And sometimes there's a move later in the career toward music that seems more authentic or race appropriate or something. You know, there's some. It's funny, you know, if you think about, like, the trajectory of Kid Rock.

[Devin Joseph]

Yeah.

[Kelefa Sanneh]

Where he starts his career really wanting to be part of this hip hop scene. Move to the kid in Black Reeboks. Not a team heartthrob, but I rock the set. So Corey High man Johnny Depp. And let's go. Finds his own identity, which is very much a reclamation of his roots and the music his father listened to. And living way outside of the city in Detroit and literally going to Hank Williams Jr. Shows with his dad. Living my life in a slow hell different girl every night at the hotel I. I ain't seen the sun shining three damn days. And there is this. This idea of like. Well, yeah, over time, you return to what you quote, unquote, really are.

[Devin Joseph]

Yeah. Post Malone. Another great example of this, starting with White Iverson.

[Kelefa Sanneh]

Yeah.

[Devin Joseph]

Like fully making country music now.

[Kelefa Sanneh]

Yeah.

[Devin Joseph]

Last call, last chance. 9 to 5ers, truckers, dancers, couple trucks.

[Kelefa Sanneh]

And, you know, I would. I imagine and hope he's not done yet. I hope we get a metalcore record from him eventually. I know he enjoys that kind of music as well. I think sometimes we forget what it was like for us when we were teenagers and trying to figure out, like, well, I want to be cool. What does it sound like if I'm cool? What? Like, if I use this word. If I use that word. And sometimes in this context, we even talk about appropriation, which I think sometimes. I think sometimes there's more of it than we realize. Like, there are things that we learn and literally hear from birth from our parents, but most of the rest of our lives is things that we pick up from our friends or from someone else or like, yeah, you didn't come out of the womb. No matter what race you are, you maybe didn't come out of the womb like hip hop or you didn't come out of the womb country, you know, and so there is a certain idea of, like, we're forming our identity based on, you know, what sort of feels right. And. And as I said, with musicians, with people, it's the same way where sometimes it can feel corny. We probably all know people that are, like, trying a little too hard, and it doesn't necessarily mean that they're trying too hard in a way that transgresses a racial boundary. Right?

[Manny Fadell]

Yeah.

[Kelefa Sanneh]

It could be like a white person trying too hard with, like, a certain identity that we think of as white.

[Devin Joseph]

Yeah.

[Kelefa Sanneh]

And so, yes, the idea of, like, trying a little bit but not too hard is something that musicians definitely do. And yes, so you hear that. You hear that with accents. And again, accents are an important musical tool if you're making pop music with your voice. And it's, you know, I think you've seen that especially with hip hop, where when hip hop goes international, it sounds a little different. Like Polish hip hop sounds a little different because the rapping is in Polish. And so you get different rhythms. You hear that certainly in the UK and the rhythms of, like, black English speech, you know, gives you grime and gives you UK drill. And like, literally the beats are different. And the way they ride the beats, right. You have rappers being more in the front of the beat rather than riding the back of the beat. And so, yeah, you hear that naturally from the speech patterns. And the fact that the Caribbean influence and West African influence in the UK influences the black British accent, but also means that some of the hip hop has closer relationships to Afrobeats at the dance hall reggae, because that's also in the vocals.

[Devin Joseph]

I feel like we're currently in an era of hip hop that is, like, at least in the U.S. well, mainstream.

[Kelefa Sanneh]

You're about to make a big claim. I wanna say big claim.

[Devin Joseph]

I'll say mainstream hip hop, it's become a bit flattened in terms of regional sounds. I think there's more underground stuff that definitely, you know, you talk about Detroit and there's definitely some more interesting stuff happening that's not in the mainstream. But there was a time when certain radio stations wouldn't play music from different areas. Right. So New York radio stations would only play, quote unquote, New York artists. Think about this. With outkast in the 90s being booed at the Source Awards.

[Kelefa Sanneh]

Source Awards, the sounds got something to say.

[Devin Joseph]

So here's some background for you who are not hip hop heads. In 1995, Source magazine is this huge New York based hip hop magazine. They have an award show based out of New York. And outkast, the Atlanta group, wins for best new artists.

[Kelefa Sanneh]

And the winner is.

[Devin Joseph]

Ladies Help Me outkast Ass. And the New York crowd booze them because at the time, New Yorkers aren't interested in hearing music from down south or even the West Coast. And Andre 3000, who's a member of Outkast, says this infamous line. But it's like this though. I'm tired of folks, you know what I'm saying? Close minded folks, you know what I'm saying? It's like we got a demo tape and don't nobody want to hear. But it's like this. The south got something to say. That's all I got to say. New York radio stations would not play outkast because they weren't seen as, you know, being cool to New Yorkers.

[Kelefa Sanneh]

But also this had a lot to do with the economy and the technical infrastructure. Like people used to buy their records at stores. So there were distributors that would distribute records in, you know, Southwest wholesale or whatever the big distributors were, especially in the 90s. And you would build your audience through record stores, through shows, and through terrestrial radio stations. So you'd get hot in your town and then you'd try to expand outward from your town. And literally in a pre Internet age, you're just listening to a different radio station in New York than someone is in Houston or in Atlanta or in Orlando. And so yeah, it was just like, it was literally different radio stations, different record stores, different compact discs, and also different people. So, you know that guy you knew from high school that became a rapper is gonna sound very different if you're in the Bay Area versus if you're in Philadelphia. So yeah, like every, like a lot of things in American life, it was very fragmented. Like it was. It's. I think it's hard. I think it's probably hard for younger people to even understand. Like it was hard to get those albums.

[Devin Joseph]

Like.

[Kelefa Sanneh]

Like I would mail order those albums. Cause there's all this crazy down south stuff happening and we're not getting it in New York. No. So, yes, there was a time when the hip hop world was a lot more fragmented.

[Devin Joseph]

Yeah.

[Kelefa Sanneh]

And you know, obviously at the time, the artists, it was cool that they could sort of make a living, but they were. It was frustrating to the artists. Right. They're like, how come? How do I break through?

[Devin Joseph]

I Want to be bigger.

[Kelefa Sanneh]

And so, yeah, there was this idea of fragmentation. And because hip hop is so closely based on the rhythms of spoken language, you get like different beat patterns based on different, on different accents and different slang and different vocabulary. And so yeah, you get this incredible diversity where the music sounds different based on the local slang and the local speech patterns.

[Manny Fadell]

Is that diversity in the sounds of a genre unique to hip hop? For such a young genre, you would imagine that everything would sound kind of similar. And before it started to break out, but, but in other genres as they kind of first were formed, did you get that level of fragmentation?

[Kelefa Sanneh]

I think hip hop is really good at taking like vernacular culture and turning it into music. Right. So you have this incredible diversity underneath, which is maybe a little bit different. If you have like a guitar based genre where everyone's got to learn guitar and then, yeah, the licks might be a little different and, and these people play the Stratocaster and these people play the Telecaster and like, and you do hear some diversity. But yes, I think hip hop, one of the great strengths of hip hop was that there was this incredible untapped linguistic richness in all these different communities. Where before hip hop it was just maybe guys who would be just like telling stories on the corner and everyone in the neighborhood would be like, yeah, that guy's really funny, or like they would just gather that guy's a good storyteller or that guy's got good jokes. But it didn't have a way to travel outside the neighborhood. So. So one of the things that hip hop did really well was it took this thing that felt really local and, and blew it up. And I think even now a lot of the best hip hop sounds really local. There's something, there's something really seductive about the idea of like, oh, I'm in this person's world. And you know, this is what it's like when you're like, like with NBA YoungBoy and his crew and this is the Baton Rouge vibe. And I can hear that in the music in a, in a way that feels really unmediated and, and direct.

[Manny Fadell]

Well, I felt like that might have been at the core of the whole, I mean, the, the Drake, Kendrick, where he. Kendrick makes music that is so personal and intimate sounding, whereas Drake, and I'm a Drake apologist obviously, but it's just like based on the song, it could sound like it's from anywhere in the country. And so I think there's that level of authenticity in Kendrick's music where it's like, oh, this is clearly his life.

[Kelefa Sanneh]

Yeah. Although, you know, it was. It's funny, it was kind of later in Kendrick's career that he really started to lean into the sounds of LA hip hop, you know what I mean? Like, the early records when he was considered, like, a little more conscious of something, maybe had a little less geographical specificity. What if a dream was reality and reality was a dream? Ain't as complicated as it seems if things we imagine actually happen in real life situations was artificial or to these they did. He was also looking back to Freestyle Fellowship and other more like underground LA things. And so one of the interesting things that happened was that, you know, over the years, and then especially at that, like, not like us moment, you got something that felt very specific to la. Yeah, right. Hey, I'm tripping, I'm sliding, I'm riding through the back like.

[Devin Joseph]

Mustard people.

[Kelefa Sanneh]

Yeah, got mustard. He's gonna bring the whole city together. And if you're from la, you're like part of Kendrick's crew, and that's not exactly the feeling you got. And Drake is. Is interesting in a different way, Right. Because he has this relationship with Houston and he has, like, probably one of the best ears in the history of hip hop.

[Devin Joseph]

Yeah.

[Kelefa Sanneh]

Like just his knack for being like, oh, there's something cool going on halfway around the world.

[Devin Joseph]

Right.

[Kelefa Sanneh]

I think. I think One Dance by Drake is like one of those songs that sort of, like, is so prescient, so influential. Right. I need a one dance Gotta Hennessy

[Devin Joseph]

in my hand One more time if I go.

[Kelefa Sanneh]

Think about, like, the whole Afrobeats movement that comes after the success of One Dance and the fact that Drake was able to hear, oh, this African thing, and it's kind of got a Caribbean feel, which we have in Canada, but it's also this interesting other UK London, Lagos thing that's happening. So, yes, I think. And the idea. And, you know, at various times, you know, there's obviously some videos where you hear Drake talking. He's got, like a thick Canadian accent, like, oh, yeah, right. The whole world. Look around, look around you. Look at this. We created this. This didn't exist before we were here. Look around at the square. I promise you right now, we did this. Doesn't matter what anybody says. They could say it's disrespectful. They could say it's this and that. But part of his skill was this thing that traditionally rappers weren't supposed to do, which was he can kind of like move around and he can borrow sounds from different regions. And, you know, in the old days, that might have seemed inauthentic, but, you know, Drake's success, it sort of made hip hop fans think a little differently about authenticity, right? He's like, yeah, I'm wearing a sweater. Like, so what I'm gonna say, it

[Devin Joseph]

feels like the slider has changed now, right? You were talking about these two sort of like, knobs. There's like, does it sound good? And is it, quote, unquote, authentic? And I feel like now in hip hop, it's really like, does it sound good? People don't really care about authenticity that much authenticity, as long as the person feels like it's, like, it's cool.

[Kelefa Sanneh]

But authenticity can mean so many different things, right? It can mean, like, do you have credibility in your neighborhood? Like, it might literally, in hip hop, traditionally, one thing it's meant is like, can you put on your jewelry and walk down the street? Yeah, right. That's a kind of authenticity. But obviously, another kind of authenticity is like, does this music reflect who you really are? Does this feel like you do? We feel like we're getting to know you, and that's maybe a more traditional pop kind of authenticity, where you're communicating through the music. And what people want is a sense that they can make a kind of personal connection with you and that it's less about necessarily, like, what's your reputation in the neighborhood? And it's more like, does this highly artificial thing you're doing into a microphone somehow feel honest? And I think that kind of. That's a kind of authenticity, too. And that's really important, right? And a kid gets that from Tyler the creator. And it has nothing to do with like, oh, is Tyler the creator a tough guy or not? They're like, no, I'm getting to know this person and his worldview, and he doesn't seem like anyone else. And I'm really getting a sense this

[Devin Joseph]

is really his point of view. This is not some guy in an office telling him to make this type of music.

[Kelefa Sanneh]

But I think also we've kind of like, we sort of hinted at, but not really talked about. One of the things that I think a lot of people think about when it comes to accents, which is diversity and geographical diversity, and this idea that a lot of people have that we're so much more connected now, we can hear each other now is some of that geographic diversity maybe going away. And it's interesting, when you look at the studies of this, there is some sign of that, but the asterisk, as far as I can tell is that that's happening more within races than between races. There's some research to suggest that black and white speech patterns are actually getting farther apart, but that within white speech patterns in America, some of the regional variety is disappearing.

[Noah Friedman]

Right.

[Kelefa Sanneh]

Like the classic New York accent, maybe even the classic Boston accent. And then within black speech patterns, some of that geographic diversity is disappearing. But the black and white are diverging. And there would also be, that would be confounded also by class. A lot of times you have more regional variation among working class people. And if there's more, if a higher percentage of black people are working class than white people, then you would, you would expect more speech diversity among black people in the US to begin with than white people. And so, but even when you think about culture, like the ways in which the Internet in some ways does have a leveling effect, but it also enables the creation of these weird niches and communities and, you know, whatever you can think of, there's a community devoted to it and probably a sub community of people who find it sexually arousing. Right. Like the Internet, like. And so the idea that people can find these groups, the Internet feels often and social media feels like it's doing both at once. It's kind of connecting everyone, but it's also enabling the creation of these communities. And so that's something that we're kind of starting, only really starting to figure out is like, how much regional variety is there going to be in accents in 10 years, in 20 years? And, and you know, this is just talking about English in America. Yeah, right. If you look at, if you look at other countries, not just in the UK where some of the same stuff is happening, some of the regional variety is maybe declining a little bit. But then of course, you also have British accents that are influenced by African languages, by Indian languages. And then you have these kind of like international versions of English that are emerging because you have so many people using English to communicate for whom maybe that's not their native language. And so you have these different. Some of them are creoles and some of them are maybe not quite creoles. So you have that, and then you have that happening with other languages. Right. You're having, you think about the different accents within Spanish speakers in the Americas and you know, these moments where an English speaker might not notice of like, oh, that's Bad Bunny doing kind of a Dominican accent to like, tip is tap to Dembo music, you know, from, from the home of reggaeton or something. I think we could be having this same conversation In Spanish, with people talking about, like, how come everyone who does reggaeton has to front like they're from Puerto Rico even when they're not.

[Noah Friedman]

Yeah.

[Kelefa Sanneh]

I think different accents are going to continue to be linked to different genres. Right. You think about reggae.

[Devin Joseph]

Yeah.

[Kelefa Sanneh]

And, like, just about anyone who starts singing reggae, whether it's something more rootsy or more dancehall, is gonna do something that's like a little bit of an accent.

[Devin Joseph]

Right.

[Kelefa Sanneh]

You're gonna hear a little. Even if you're Jason Mraz or something before the cool done run out, I'll be giving it my best. This, and nothing's gonna stop me but divine intervention. I reckon it's again my turn to win. Right. Because those are the rhythms in the music. So that's gonna bring out the rhythms in the speech. So I think that that's something that. I think that that's something that's definitely gonna continue and that you hear again, not just in country, not just, you know, you hear that in. You know, if you're listening to Blink 182 and you're like, is that a cal. Like Tom's voice? Is that a California version of an English version of an American accent?

[Devin Joseph]

Let's talk a little bit about. We've got. You touched on it in sort of all these other genres, but just like, pop music more generally, you know, talking about, like, a Harry Styles or Adele and this idea of, you know, these UK artists singing in, you know, a quote unquote, American accent, would you attribute that to, like, you're saying this is just like, what we associate with, you know, quote unquote, pop music and how it should sound like, or do you think it's a purposeful, like, you know, Adele's talking voice is very different than her singing voice. I don't know that maybe she would be as big if she sang in her, you know, talking voice.

[Kelefa Sanneh]

I would love to hear it.

[Devin Joseph]

I would love to hear it too. But I don't know if it would have as wide of an appeal traditionally.

[Kelefa Sanneh]

Hip hop is unusual. Right. Because hip hop, there really is the expectation that the talking voice and the rapping voice. Rapping is a little closer to talking. So it's gonna match. Singing is always gonna be like. It's not necessarily opera where, like, you open your mouth, big voice, you're singing in Italian. It's a whole different thing. But there is more of a separation between singing a song.

[Manny Fadell]

You're stretching out the words.

[Kelefa Sanneh]

Yeah. And doing an interview. And so. And, yeah, I think, you know, Adele is making music that's influenced by a particular tradition.

[Devin Joseph]

Yeah.

[Kelefa Sanneh]

Whether it's, you know, Whitney Houston or whoever her influence is. And that's an American tradition. It's partly a black American tradition. And so you're hearing that in her voice, you know, Harry Styles is kind of interesting because, like. Like, you're hearing some of the American boy bands, but you're also hearing, you know, some Beatles. Sweet creature had another talk about where it's going wrong, but we're still young. Some of that. Some of that Paul McCartney and some of that stuff, which is, you know, influenced by America but routed through the uk. So, yeah, I think that you're definitely, again, for most of these singers, I think it's pretty intuitive.

[Devin Joseph]

Right.

[Kelefa Sanneh]

It's not like they have a plan. It's like they go into the studio and they start feeling it and they start vibing, and they're listening to their favorite records, and what comes out sounds a little bit like their version of their favorite records. Like, I think because I love hip hop, I'm a sucker for vernacular and for local languages and for music where the rhythms are different because of the local language. Right. But again, one thing that popular music does is find what used to be called the lowest common denominator, which used to always be said with a sneer. And I never understood why. I'm like, you mean the thing that appeals to the most people? Yeah, like. And so often that means doing something that's a little bit less peculiar and feels a little bit more, maybe neutral. So that when you're listening to Adele, whether you're in America or India or, you know, whether in Yugoslavia or Indonesia, like, you're kind of hearing the song and you're not thinking too much about her specific neighborhood.

[Devin Joseph]

So we'd say in this case, like, the American accent is the neutral.

[Kelefa Sanneh]

Yeah, it feels a little neutral. And, you know, obviously in the uk, where the discourse about accent and class is a lot more sophisticated than here. And so you have all these fights about BBC and receive pronunciation and the idea of, like, you know, the Queen's English and the King's English and, you know, the idea that certain accents are related to class and that if you're putting that on, that could be embarrassing. The same way we might consider certain racial accent transgressions to be embarrassing. And I think also pop music is so powerful and seeps into our lives that a big enough song, a big enough artist can change what we think of as the normal accent. You know, you think about the way that moment in the 1980s where people discovered so called Valley Girl speech patterns. So, like, I go into this, like, salon place, you know, and I want, like to get my toenails done and

[Devin Joseph]

the lady like goes, oh, my God,

[Sponsor/Advertisement Voice]

your toenails are like.

[Devin Joseph]

So Brody.

[Kelefa Sanneh]

It was like, really? And like, that sort of makes its way into popular music. And, you know, by the time you hear Katy Perry singing California Girls.

[Devin Joseph]

Yeah.

[Kelefa Sanneh]

You're maybe hearing an echo of that. And again, part of the fun of pop music is make believe. Whether we're listening to like some drill track or we're listening to like a mainstream pop song. Part of the fun of it is like, you can learn the lyrics maybe in the privacy of your own car, you can sing along and you can like be that person a little bit. And I think that's something you don't have with movies in the same way you can memorize movie dialogue. But there is something about popular music where you can kind of become that person.

[Devin Joseph]

Yeah. Inhibiting it. So.

[Kelefa Sanneh]

Yes. And sometimes, sometimes an accent might seem like a barrier to that, but sometimes an accent might be part of the fun.

[Devin Joseph]

All right, that was K, writer and critic at the New Yorker. If you enjoyed this conversation, check out his book. Major labels available anywhere you purchase books. Or if you want to be like me, you can rent it at your local library.

[Kelefa Sanneh]

Well, now I'm interested. Which one of you has the strongest accent?

[Manny Fadell]

Probably Devin.

[Noah Friedman]

I would vote Devin.

[Manny Fadell]

Yeah.

[Devin Joseph]

Wow.

[Manny Fadell]

I think so.

[Kelefa Sanneh]

This is like the this American Life episode where they all got their testosterone tested.

[Sponsor/Advertisement Voice]

We're gonna actually do that anyway.

[Manny Fadell]

That's also probably Devin.

[Devin Joseph]

More. No such thing after the break.

[Manny Fadell]

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Mother's Day celebrate all the women who make life brighter with a gift from Pandora Jewelry. Choose jewelry that reflects what she means to you and the moments you share. Make it even more meaningful by personalizing your piece with an engraving in your own handwriting, something no one else has, either a date, a name, or something unique to you. Because the best Mother's Day gift says more than I love you. It says I appreciate you. It says, I see you find the perfect Mother's Day gift at your local Pandora store or [e-mail].

[Devin Joseph]

Okay, we're back.

[Manny Fadell]

I'm Manny.

[Noah Friedman]

Noah.

[Devin Joseph]

Devin. All right, so that was k. Learned a lot. Yeah.

[Manny Fadell]

Really fun conversation.

[Devin Joseph]

I felt like, you know, I was back in school, you know, like.

[Manny Fadell]

Yeah, just like kind of shooting at the cafeteria table. Going through all of our.

[Devin Joseph]

Going through all our favorite artists.

[Manny Fadell]

Yeah.

[Devin Joseph]

Artists I don't really know about.

[Noah Friedman]

I got some.

[Devin Joseph]

Some people. We should make a playlist for this episode.

[Noah Friedman]

Yeah, people love the playlist a lot.

[Devin Joseph]

Lot of.

[Noah Friedman]

I'm sure I. I'm looking at the clicks and people are listening.

[Devin Joseph]

I'm sure all ten of you. Yeah.

[Noah Friedman]

So scroll down.

[Devin Joseph]

But what I was trying to think about, you know, after, you know, we've had that conversation, I guess a week ago now. And during that time I've been trying to think through. Are there any examples? We talked a lot about, you know, people sort of like, playing in different playgrounds and sort of like, just wearing different hats. So I was like, who's the last person that we know of who's gotten, like, sort of, like, negative backlash for doing a thing that is, like, not what we would think of as authentic to them?

[Manny Fadell]

Yeah, Mr. Harlow. Mr. Jack Harlow. Now he's wearing kangal hats. It's like, give me a fucking break.

[Devin Joseph]

So for. For those of you who are not online in a way that us three are. Jack Harlow is a white rapper.

[Manny Fadell]

Yeah.

[Devin Joseph]

Grew up outside of. I'm gonna say Louisville.

[Kelefa Sanneh]

Right.

[Devin Joseph]

Louisville, Kentucky.

[Kelefa Sanneh]

What's poppin?

[Devin Joseph]

Brand new, whip just hopped in. I got options. I could pass that bitch Like Stockton. He has decided on this new album that he's put out. He got bored of his rapping, so he wanted to make a R and B album. All I wanna do is get some time alone with you the way you want to, baby girl. Part of. I feel like some of the conversation around this album is really about the conversation he had on the New York Times popcast, which is their music podcast, in which they were talking to him about, you know, like we talked about earlier in this episode. A lot of white artists who come up in somewhere, you know, like hip hop, often pivot to wider genres.

[Manny Fadell]

John's saying you didn't retreat into a wider genre. In fact, you arguably went into deeper into.

[Devin Joseph]

I got black music.

[Manny Fadell]

Yeah. Deeper into blackness. So is that. Was that conscious?

[Devin Joseph]

Absolutely.

[Manny Fadell]

Because you like pushing that boundary, that line.

[Devin Joseph]

I think I love black music. I love the sound of black music.

[Kelefa Sanneh]

Who among us?

[Devin Joseph]

I love the sound of black music. Yeah. So Jack Harlow puts out this R and B album. There's a little bit of backlash, and the fact that he's cosplaying as kind of like a little bit of a black guy, you know, both in his, you know, like, sort of the promo for the album in terms of, like, what he's wearing.

[Noah Friedman]

Yeah.

[Manny Fadell]

Yeah.

[Devin Joseph]

My issue with it is just. It's just not very good. Like, it's kind of just like a boring album. It's not interesting. He talks about, you know, in his interviews, like, he didn't do any, like, voice training or, like, you know, it's just sort of. I'm like, so what did you do to prepare to make this R and B album? You know, it's like, that's an interesting question.

[Manny Fadell]

Is the only thing stopping you from kind of respecting this, for a lack of a better word, is that it's not good? Like, what if that. What if the music was good? And catchy.

[Devin Joseph]

Yeah, I wouldn't mind as much.

[Noah Friedman]

Yeah. Cuz I feel like.

[Manny Fadell]

Oh yeah.

[Noah Friedman]

Cuz I feel like I was never a huge head. But Mac Miller.

[Devin Joseph]

Yeah, yeah.

[Noah Friedman]

He kind of moved into more of an R B space.

[Devin Joseph]

Yeah.

[Noah Friedman]

I feel.

[Devin Joseph]

Yeah, true.

[Noah Friedman]

And, and granted, I don't think he was ever like, I mean, obviously very successful, but it's successful in a different way where I feel like more respected, I guess than Jack Harlow. And I'm wondering why exactly. Even though he did change his sound, but not in a. He didn't get like whiter in, you know, not, you know, in the same. Generally the same way or direction as what we're seeing now.

[Devin Joseph]

Well, here's a. Maybe a weird way to end this episode, but I think it does speak to this. Who just came to mind also maybe because he's a friend of Drewski, but Timothee Chalamet. Right. For Marty supreme, he was promoting this latest film, this Oscar nominated film, and to get people to go see it, he was doing a lot of things that people saw as black coded. He was leaning into his wigger.

[Manny Fadell]

Can we say that?

[Devin Joseph]

Wigger Ness.

[Noah Friedman]

You can say it. Don't ask me.

[Devin Joseph]

There was a little bit of backlash online of like, Timothy, like you're doing this rapping thing. You're, you know, you're hanging out with Drew Ski. You're being a little too quote unquote black. Really.

[Noah Friedman]

I'm just a fan, you know, I'm

[Kelefa Sanneh]

a fan of black culture and hip

[Devin Joseph]

hop and all of it.

[Kelefa Sanneh]

And how could you be, you know, a child of American culture without being influenced by it? So it's a fine line.

[Devin Joseph]

And that rubbed people a bit the wrong way because they didn't feel like it was authentic to who he was. And there was people defending him, saying, hey, he grew up, up in New York around black people. He's been rapping, you know, he was rapping super bass in high school. You know, like he's been down with the cause, but there was this conversation about like authenticity or are you putting on a costume when it's convenient for you?

[Noah Friedman]

Well, yeah, then it's like that's the code switching thing. Because then when he's sitting down to do a more serious interview, he's not acting.

[Devin Joseph]

Yes.

[Noah Friedman]

I think that's more what irks people generally where it's so transparent in that way. And I don't think it's like conscience conscious in a certain way, of course. But I don't think, you know, I don't think he. And like his team sat down and were like, okay, when you go to this, do this, it's like, I think it comes easy to him and granted he's an actor, you know, but. Yeah, yeah, I guess it's, it's not as like manipulative as it might sound. Yeah, yeah. Or like malicious, I guess, is my, my thinking.

[Manny Fadell]

I agree. I'm also from, you know, I grew up in a very poor, low income neighborhood that was like 50 white and 50 black. And those white guys do exist. Like, yeah, totally. Like, and then they'll go to college and like, you know, kind of straighten up a little bit. But I could totally see why some people were skeptical because he does come. Like, if your first introduction to Timothy Chalamet was like, prestige actor.

[Devin Joseph]

Yes.

[Manny Fadell]

And then you see him doing this.

[Devin Joseph]

Yeah.

[Manny Fadell]

What you really need to do is go back to those YouTube videos from him in high school.

[Kelefa Sanneh]

Is it my fault that all you were just gone? Just let the thank you note, you little foe Now I'm a ragged carpet

[Manny Fadell]

with a bow no, no, no, no. No such a thing.

[Devin Joseph]

That's it for today's show. If you are a new listener, you may want to check out our episode on Is Taylor Swift Bigger than Michael Jackson? It is number 36. I'm gonna link to it in the show notes and also just check out our whole archive. We got a lot of great episodes. They're all pretty evergreen so you can make your way through it. No Such Thing as a production of Kaleidoscope content. Our executive producers are Kate Osborne and Mangesh Hadakura. The show is created by Manny Fadell, Noah Friedman and me, Devin Joseph. Theme and credit song by Manny mixing by Steve Bone Additional music for this episode by Zeno Pittarelli. Our guest this week was Kelefa from the New Yorker. Thank you K Visit no Such Thing show to subscribe to our newsletter. If you have feedback for us or a question you want us to answer, you can email us@manny noadevinmail.com we'll be back. Next.

[Manny Fadell]

Thing.

[Devin Joseph]

In football, you've got guys from everywhere. Different backgrounds, different beliefs, all of it. You don't agree on everything, but you got each other's backs. That's how it works. And right now, off the field hates going up everywhere. Different communities, different ways. And Jewish communities are getting hit hard. That's not how a team operates. The blue square is just one way of showing you've got people's back. Facts go to bluesquarealliance.org, grab one share it. Be a good teammate.

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[Manny Fadell]

I'm U.S. transportation Secretary Sean Duffy. We all get distracted when we drive, whether it's from our phones or kids in the backseat bickering. But how we handle these distractions can be a matter of life or death. Before you get on the road for your next road trip, please put your phones on silent and take a mental note to focus on driving. Paid for by NHTSA

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this Mother's Day celebrate all the women who make life brighter with a gift from Pandora Jewelry. Choose jewelry that reflects what she means to you and the moments you share. Make it even more meaningful by personalizing your piece with an engraving in your own handwriting, something no one else has, either a date, a name, or something unique to you. Because the best Mother's Day gift says more than I love you. It says I appreciate you. It says, I see you. Find the perfect Mother's Day gift at your local Pandora store or [e-mail] this

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