Frannie Kelley
Frannie Kelley is co-host of the Microphone Check podcast with Ali Shaheed Muhammad.
Prior to hosting Microphone Check, Kelley was an editor at NPR Music. She was responsible for editing, producing and reporting NPR Music's coverage of hip-hop, R&B and the ways the music industry affects the music we hear, on the radio and online. She was also co-editor of NPR's music news blog, The Record.
Kelley worked at NPR from 2007 until 2016. Her projects included a series on hip-hop in 1993 and overseeing a feature on women musicians. She also ran another series on the end of the decade in music and web-produced the Arts Desk's series on vocalists, called 50 Great Voices. Most recently, her piece on Why You Should Listen to Odd Future was selected to be a part of the Best Music Writing 2012 Anthology.
Prior to joining NPR, Kelley worked in book publishing at Grove/Atlantic in a variety of positions from 2004 to 2007. She has a B.A. in Music Criticism from New York University.
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The lyrics to the R&B singer's "It Won't Stop" are warm and unpretentious, while the performance demanded by the music is not for the meek. In a boxing gym, she executed with muscle and grace.
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Issa Gold and AK move words and beats so deftly on their new album, it can be difficult to keep up. But they're saying it's OK if you don't catch every word; if, right now, you don't know everything. -
The New York rapper on the music industry — from sitting on the shelf, to refusing deals, posthumous releases to sales expectations — music journalism and taking risks, personal and professional. -
The Los Angeles rapper tells Microphone Check the true stories behind his debut album and the rise of his partner, DJ Mustard. -
"I met James Brown as a kid. I was seven years old," says the renowned producer. "I wasn't the same since." -
The guaguanco is one of three rhythmic patterns that live under the umbrella of the rumba. It was once subversive and now serves to bring drummers and singers and dancers together. -
The most philosophical member of Top Dawg Entertainment in a Microphone Check conversation about Ab's high expectations of his audience and what he's trying to make for them. -
A series of stories about trying to listen better to the rhythms around us — in music, in speech, in our surroundings and in our own bodies. -
In almost every Hollywood depiction of the American military, at some point a bunch of guys will jog past the camera, singing and stepping in unison. That rhythm infiltrated the Army in 1944. -
At the close of Microphone Check's onstage conversation with the producer and DJ, he took to the decks to demonstrate what he meant when he said, "When I want you to understand something, I remix it."
