Meklit Hadero on the Intersection of Music, Storytelling, and Community Building
Bonus Episode • 31st October 2024 • Queue Points • Queue Points LLC
00:00:00 00:37:19

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Jay Ray:

Meklit Hadero is an Ethiopian-American vocalist,

Jay Ray:

songwriter, and composer, known

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for her electric stage presence, innovative sound

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and vibrant cultural activism.

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Her

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

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at #12 on the NACC World Charts.

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

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continents.

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

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

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Meklit has

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

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

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

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activism.

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

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

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slate of radical programs supporting social justice

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focused artists during the height

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of the pandemic.

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

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

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Geographic Storytellers

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Summit, as well as at institutions, organizations and

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Universities around the globe.

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

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Artistin-Residence at Harvard University.

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

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

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Artist Award.

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

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

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

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Her

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

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

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

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, live performance series and community building initiative uplifting

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the stories, songs and cultural power of immigrant musicians.

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The show airs monthly on PRX’s

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The World to an audience of 2.5 million listeners.

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Season 2 of Movement launches

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July 16, 2024, wherever you get your podcasts.

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Enjoy the show.

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

Jay Ray:

I am DJ Sir Daniel.

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

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as Johnny Ray Kornegay III.

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What's happening y'all.

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

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the needle on black music history.

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

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staunch supporter of all black stories.

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

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that are coming from the diaspora.

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

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please introduce our guests.

Jay Ray:

Folks, um, we are incredibly excited to welcome

Jay Ray:

Meklit Hedero to Queue Points.

Jay Ray:

Meklit, welcome to the show.

Jay Ray:

How are you?

Meklit Hadero:

Oh, I'm so good.

Meklit Hadero:

It's so good to be here with you.

Meklit Hadero:

I love talking about all things diaspora.

Meklit Hadero:

So here I am at home, you know?

Meklit Hadero:

DJ Sir Daniel: We had to do it.

Jay Ray:

Absolutely.

Jay Ray:

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

Jay Ray:

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

Jay Ray:

Your podcast is a radio show.

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

Jay Ray:

And all the things, right?

Jay Ray:

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

Jay Ray:

This was back in August.

Jay Ray:

It was at the Yerba Buena Gardens Festival.

Meklit Hadero:

Yes.

Jay Ray:

I wanted to be here so bad.

Jay Ray:

So you did this performance.

Jay Ray:

It was, um, called Meklitz Movement Immigrant Orchestra.

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And from the description, it was 13 musicians.

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representing 11 countries, including India, Mexico, Ethiopia,

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

Jay Ray:

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

Jay Ray:

to convene all of these musicians.

Meklit Hadero:

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

Meklit Hadero:

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

Meklit Hadero:

and I think, you know, the underlying.

Meklit Hadero:

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

Meklit Hadero:

artists than I can do by myself.

Meklit Hadero:

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

Meklit Hadero:

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

Meklit Hadero:

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

Meklit Hadero:

communities and cultures of all kinds.

Meklit Hadero:

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

Meklit Hadero:

there's an X factor in it.

Meklit Hadero:

So that actually, the movement immigrant orchestra actually started

Meklit Hadero:

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

Meklit Hadero:

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

Meklit Hadero:

is just constant and oppressive.

Meklit Hadero:

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

Meklit Hadero:

starts from our cultural power.

Meklit Hadero:

So we just started.

Meklit Hadero:

having gatherings and food and what happens when you get musicians

Meklit Hadero:

together is that they want to play.

Meklit Hadero:

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

Meklit Hadero:

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

Meklit Hadero:

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

Meklit Hadero:

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

Meklit Hadero:

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

Meklit Hadero:

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

Meklit Hadero:

stories that were echoes of each other.

Meklit Hadero:

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

Meklit Hadero:

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

Meklit Hadero:

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

Meklit Hadero:

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

Meklit Hadero:

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

Meklit Hadero:

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

Meklit Hadero:

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

Meklit Hadero:

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

Meklit Hadero:

Like they're so beautiful.

Meklit Hadero:

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

Meklit Hadero:

from Spain, and everybody was like.

Meklit Hadero:

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

Meklit Hadero:

it's not a place for words.

Meklit Hadero:

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

Meklit Hadero:

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

Meklit Hadero:

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

Meklit Hadero:

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

Meklit Hadero:

love amongst each other and, you know.

Meklit Hadero:

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

Meklit Hadero:

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

Meklit Hadero:

they had had in this concert.

Meklit Hadero:

So it was very special.

Meklit Hadero:

We will be doing more of it.

Meklit Hadero:

Um, we need solidarity.

Meklit Hadero:

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

Meklit Hadero:

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

Jay Ray:

Yeah.

Jay Ray:

Mm-Hmm?

Jay Ray:

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

Jay Ray:

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

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

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when you're in that moment, there is.

Jay Ray:

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

Jay Ray:

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

Jay Ray:

source to come and move through you.

Jay Ray:

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

Jay Ray:

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

Jay Ray:

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

Jay Ray:

And I say that all the time.

Jay Ray:

And that's what I'm hearing about.

Jay Ray:

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

Jay Ray:

to experience something that I feel is also life changing.

Jay Ray:

And that's travel, travel changes.

Jay Ray:

You travel makes you a different person.

Jay Ray:

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

Jay Ray:

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

Jay Ray:

experience to a larger audience?

Jay Ray:

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

Jay Ray:

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

Jay Ray:

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

Jay Ray:

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

Jay Ray:

And just because we may have been born someplace different,

Jay Ray:

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

Jay Ray:

Um, large groups of people.

Jay Ray:

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

Jay Ray:

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

Jay Ray:

to crack that collective experience?

Meklit Hadero:

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

Meklit Hadero:

DJ Sir Daniel: That's

Jay Ray:

It's what we do here on Q.

Jay Ray:

DJ Sir Daniel: That's what I do.

Jay Ray:

That's what we do.

Meklit Hadero:

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

Meklit Hadero:

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

Meklit Hadero:

actually come at it in just one way.

Meklit Hadero:

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

Meklit Hadero:

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

Meklit Hadero:

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

Meklit Hadero:

Talk

Meklit Hadero:

DJ Sir Daniel: Love that.

Meklit Hadero:

I could just keep going.

Meklit Hadero:

Um, okay.

Meklit Hadero:

From a personal place.

Meklit Hadero:

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

Meklit Hadero:

I make music that's Ethiopian jazz.

Meklit Hadero:

I stand on the shoulders of Giants.

Meklit Hadero:

I am on a continuum.

Meklit Hadero:

The music that I make is deeply influenced by Ethiopian pentatonic

Meklit Hadero:

scales, melodies, and rhythms.

Meklit Hadero:

African music and jazz is also African music.

Jay Ray:

Yes.

Meklit Hadero:

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

Meklit Hadero:

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

Meklit Hadero:

that I speak about everywhere I go.

Meklit Hadero:

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

Meklit Hadero:

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

Meklit Hadero:

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

Meklit Hadero:

Ethiopiques that folks would hear.

Meklit Hadero:

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

Meklit Hadero:

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

Meklit Hadero:

from the Berkeley college of music.

Meklit Hadero:

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

Meklit Hadero:

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

Meklit Hadero:

Traditional music into a relationship with jazz.

Meklit Hadero:

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

Meklit Hadero:

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

Meklit Hadero:

traditional music together with jazz.

Meklit Hadero:

Like you bring it to the root.

Meklit Hadero:

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

Meklit Hadero:

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

Meklit Hadero:

of African American giants.

Meklit Hadero:

Of music, but also Cuban musicians.

Meklit Hadero:

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

Meklit Hadero:

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

Meklit Hadero:

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

Meklit Hadero:

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

Meklit Hadero:

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

Meklit Hadero:

And so.

Meklit Hadero:

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

Meklit Hadero:

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

Meklit Hadero:

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

Meklit Hadero:

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

Meklit Hadero:

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

Meklit Hadero:

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

Meklit Hadero:

intersection of music and migration.

Meklit Hadero:

Here's the way I think about it.

Meklit Hadero:

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

Meklit Hadero:

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

Meklit Hadero:

That means our stories coming from lived experiences with nuance.

Meklit Hadero:

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

Meklit Hadero:

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

Meklit Hadero:

meaning out of all of those experiences.

Meklit Hadero:

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

Meklit Hadero:

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

Meklit Hadero:

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

Meklit Hadero:

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

Meklit Hadero:

needed it to live in my community too.

Meklit Hadero:

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

Meklit Hadero:

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

Meklit Hadero:

gathering strategy, the immigrant orchestra, our solidarity building

Meklit Hadero:

strategy really comes out of that.

Meklit Hadero:

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

Meklit Hadero:

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

Meklit Hadero:

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

Meklit Hadero:

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

Meklit Hadero:

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

Meklit Hadero:

are based from the ground up.

Meklit Hadero:

And so,

Meklit Hadero:

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

Meklit Hadero:

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

Meklit Hadero:

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

Meklit Hadero:

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

Meklit Hadero:

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

Meklit Hadero:

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

Meklit Hadero:

folks what they need every single day.

Meklit Hadero:

I think I'll stop.

Jay Ray:

Wow.

Jay Ray:

I have a question in here.

Jay Ray:

It is.

Jay Ray:

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

Jay Ray:

to insert podcasting into your work.

Jay Ray:

Wind.

Jay Ray:

Wind.

Jay Ray:

How did that come about?

Jay Ray:

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

Jay Ray:

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

Jay Ray:

That, that impact people so deeply.

Jay Ray:

So how did that epiphany come?

Meklit Hadero:

It wasn't an epiphany.

Meklit Hadero:

I wish it was.

Meklit Hadero:

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

Meklit Hadero:

are just one foot in front of the other,

Jay Ray:

Yes.

Meklit Hadero:

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

Meklit Hadero:

a very dear friend called Julie Kane.

Meklit Hadero:

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

Meklit Hadero:

on NPR and they do, um, long form.

Meklit Hadero:

They do hour long documentaries weekly, which are amazing.

Meklit Hadero:

And Julie was, um, Julie invited me.

Meklit Hadero:

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

Meklit Hadero:

What do you think?

Meklit Hadero:

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

Meklit Hadero:

booking agency with my partner.

Meklit Hadero:

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

Meklit Hadero:

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

Meklit Hadero:

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

Meklit Hadero:

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

Meklit Hadero:

minority, actually, in the world.

Meklit Hadero:

We're the, we're the majority.

Jay Ray:

are Right.

Meklit Hadero:

you know,

Meklit Hadero:

DJ Sir Daniel: call a thing, a thing

Jay Ray:

right?

Meklit Hadero:

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

Meklit Hadero:

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

Meklit Hadero:

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

Meklit Hadero:

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

Meklit Hadero:

He's genius.

Meklit Hadero:

He's like the most trust based heartfelt person.

Meklit Hadero:

Um, yeah.

Meklit Hadero:

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

Meklit Hadero:

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

Meklit Hadero:

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

Meklit Hadero:

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

Meklit Hadero:

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

Jay Ray:

Yeah.

Jay Ray:

Wow, wow, wow, wow.

Jay Ray:

Um, really quickly.

Jay Ray:

So in listening to movement, um.

Jay Ray:

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

Jay Ray:

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

Jay Ray:

the folks that you're talking to.

Jay Ray:

Um, you're welcome.

Jay Ray:

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

Jay Ray:

episodes kind of like songwriting?

Jay Ray:

Yes.

Meklit Hadero:

It's, it's very creative.

Meklit Hadero:

It's a very creative process.

Meklit Hadero:

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

Meklit Hadero:

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

Meklit Hadero:

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

Meklit Hadero:

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

Meklit Hadero:

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

Meklit Hadero:

cracking open that you talked about

Meklit Hadero:

before.

Meklit Hadero:

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

Meklit Hadero:

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

Meklit Hadero:

working it, working it, working it.

Meklit Hadero:

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

Meklit Hadero:

working, and it's very emotional.

Meklit Hadero:

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

Meklit Hadero:

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

Meklit Hadero:

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

Meklit Hadero:

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

Meklit Hadero:

And so it's actually interesting.

Meklit Hadero:

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

Meklit Hadero:

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

Meklit Hadero:

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

Meklit Hadero:

it's more similar than I realized.

Meklit Hadero:

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

Meklit Hadero:

And it's different because it's prose.

Meklit Hadero:

And then I have to speak it out loud.

Meklit Hadero:

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

Meklit Hadero:

Cause it has to sound good spoken.

Meklit Hadero:

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

Meklit Hadero:

you sing it and you realize, Oh, okay.

Meklit Hadero:

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

Meklit Hadero:

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

Meklit Hadero:

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

Meklit Hadero:

It is a very creative process.

Meklit Hadero:

What I'll say that's different.

Meklit Hadero:

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

Meklit Hadero:

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

Meklit Hadero:

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

Meklit Hadero:

for me and I'm really enjoying it.

Meklit Hadero:

I do love it.

Meklit Hadero:

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

Meklit Hadero:

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

Meklit Hadero:

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

Meklit Hadero:

It's not like, it takes me time.

Meklit Hadero:

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

Meklit Hadero:

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

Meklit Hadero:

Stuff like, you know, things like that.

Jay Ray:

Mm.

Jay Ray:

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

Jay Ray:

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

Jay Ray:

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

Jay Ray:

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

Jay Ray:

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

Jay Ray:

is becoming more and more.

Jay Ray:

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

Jay Ray:

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

Jay Ray:

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

Jay Ray:

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

Jay Ray:

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

Jay Ray:

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

Jay Ray:

So I'm S but I'm stuff.

Jay Ray:

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

Jay Ray:

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

Jay Ray:

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

Jay Ray:

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

Jay Ray:

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

Jay Ray:

Does a movement help you help in that healing process?

Jay Ray:

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

Jay Ray:

sidetracked by all those conversations, because I really do

Jay Ray:

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

Jay Ray:

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

Jay Ray:

that be are going to keep winning.

Jay Ray:

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

Jay Ray:

And, and, and, and healing.

Jay Ray:

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

Jay Ray:

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

Jay Ray:

diaspora, all parts of the world?

Meklit Hadero:

Yeah.

Meklit Hadero:

It's a very good question.

Meklit Hadero:

It's a very honest question.

Meklit Hadero:

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

Meklit Hadero:

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

Meklit Hadero:

DJ Sir Daniel: Yes.

Meklit Hadero:

It's painful.

Meklit Hadero:

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

Meklit Hadero:

of questions about where I belonged.

Meklit Hadero:

And, um,

Meklit Hadero:

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

Meklit Hadero:

scratcher growing up in New York.

Meklit Hadero:

I also came to this

Meklit Hadero:

DJ Sir Daniel: Oh, what part of New

Meklit Hadero:

years old.

Meklit Hadero:

Oh, um, Crown Heights,

Meklit Hadero:

DJ Sir Daniel: Me too!

Meklit Hadero:

I grew up in Crown Heights.

Meklit Hadero:

Yes!

Meklit Hadero:

760 Crown Street between Utica and um, Eastern Parkway.

Meklit Hadero:

lived on Eastern Parkway.

Meklit Hadero:

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

Meklit Hadero:

We lived in Bay Ridge.

Meklit Hadero:

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

Meklit Hadero:

We lived in all those places, the eighties.

Meklit Hadero:

DJ Sir Daniel: Mm hmm.

Meklit Hadero:

Mm

Meklit Hadero:

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

Meklit Hadero:

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

Meklit Hadero:

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

Meklit Hadero:

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

Meklit Hadero:

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

Meklit Hadero:

It's not a hierarchy, it's like

Jay Ray:

Right?

Jay Ray:

DJ Sir Daniel: hmm.

Meklit Hadero:

seeds, you know?

Meklit Hadero:

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

Meklit Hadero:

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

Meklit Hadero:

that is a very alienating thing.

Meklit Hadero:

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

Meklit Hadero:

That sounds like a slap in the face.

Meklit Hadero:

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

Meklit Hadero:

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

Meklit Hadero:

I have lived both sides, right?

Meklit Hadero:

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

Meklit Hadero:

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

Meklit Hadero:

It's all about like, are you Amhara?

Meklit Hadero:

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

Meklit Hadero:

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

Meklit Hadero:

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

Meklit Hadero:

It's, it's like relatively small.

Meklit Hadero:

There's not a lot of language speakers.

Meklit Hadero:

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

Meklit Hadero:

historically a lot of political power.

Meklit Hadero:

That itself was like an inter ethnic marriage.

Meklit Hadero:

That was a big deal back then, you know?

Meklit Hadero:

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

Meklit Hadero:

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

Meklit Hadero:

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

Meklit Hadero:

What matters is that you're black.

Meklit Hadero:

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

Meklit Hadero:

And you have to learn.

Meklit Hadero:

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

Meklit Hadero:

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

Meklit Hadero:

You know?

Meklit Hadero:

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

Meklit Hadero:

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

Meklit Hadero:

kind of leads to some of this stuff.

Meklit Hadero:

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

Meklit Hadero:

There was a lot of that.

Meklit Hadero:

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

Meklit Hadero:

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

Meklit Hadero:

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

Meklit Hadero:

was trying to find peace with that.

Meklit Hadero:

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

Meklit Hadero:

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

Meklit Hadero:

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

Meklit Hadero:

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

Meklit Hadero:

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

Meklit Hadero:

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

Meklit Hadero:

nobody gets to make anyone a monolith.

Meklit Hadero:

And then I was saying, Oh, okay.

Meklit Hadero:

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

Meklit Hadero:

Um, I can accept my complexity and my hybridity.

Meklit Hadero:

And I might be a paragraph.

Meklit Hadero:

I'm not a sentence.

Meklit Hadero:

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

Meklit Hadero:

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

Meklit Hadero:

you as two words, a black man.

Meklit Hadero:

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

Meklit Hadero:

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

Meklit Hadero:

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

Meklit Hadero:

like, nobody can simplify any of us.

Meklit Hadero:

solidarity building as a strategy and a practice is always about

Meklit Hadero:

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

Meklit Hadero:

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

Meklit Hadero:

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

Meklit Hadero:

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

Jay Ray:

Oh MC producer all the above.

Jay Ray:

Yes.

Jay Ray:

Yes.

Jay Ray:

Yes.

Meklit Hadero:

Yes.

Meklit Hadero:

Sudanese and African American.

Meklit Hadero:

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

Meklit Hadero:

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

Meklit Hadero:

they would be talking about foreigners.

Meklit Hadero:

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

Meklit Hadero:

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

Meklit Hadero:

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

Meklit Hadero:

And so.

Meklit Hadero:

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

Meklit Hadero:

when personal connection is involved.

Meklit Hadero:

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

Meklit Hadero:

that can be within a community.

Meklit Hadero:

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

Meklit Hadero:

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

Meklit Hadero:

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

Meklit Hadero:

So who is winning?

Meklit Hadero:

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

Meklit Hadero:

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

Meklit Hadero:

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

Meklit Hadero:

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

Meklit Hadero:

things are our own struggles.

Meklit Hadero:

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

Meklit Hadero:

But this is a systemic problem.

Meklit Hadero:

This is a systemic problem that needs systemic solutions that are

Meklit Hadero:

working at very large scale levels.

Meklit Hadero:

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

Meklit Hadero:

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

Meklit Hadero:

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

Meklit Hadero:

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

Meklit Hadero:

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

Meklit Hadero:

to be answered at a systems level.

Jay Ray:

Wow.

Jay Ray:

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

Jay Ray:

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

Jay Ray:

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

Jay Ray:

that people should be on the lookout for?

Jay Ray:

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

Meklit Hadero:

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

Meklit Hadero:

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

Meklit Hadero:

You know, pandemic.

Meklit Hadero:

I have a five year old.

Meklit Hadero:

So

Jay Ray:

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

Meklit Hadero:

need I say more?

Meklit Hadero:

No, he is on the record.

Jay Ray:

Oh.

Jay Ray:

DJ Sir Daniel: Oh,

Meklit Hadero:

He is on the record.

Meklit Hadero:

He's on the record.

Meklit Hadero:

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

Meklit Hadero:

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

Meklit Hadero:

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

Meklit Hadero:

And he was like, it's like,

Meklit Hadero:

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

Meklit Hadero:

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

Meklit Hadero:

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

Meklit Hadero:

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

Meklit Hadero:

Ethiopian songs with some originals.

Meklit Hadero:

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

Meklit Hadero:

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

Meklit Hadero:

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

Meklit Hadero:

It's a universe.

Meklit Hadero:

It's a war.

Meklit Hadero:

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

Meklit Hadero:

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

Meklit Hadero:

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

Meklit Hadero:

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

Meklit Hadero:

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

Meklit Hadero:

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

Meklit Hadero:

right time, like that kind of thing.

Jay Ray:

That's so exciting.

Meklit Hadero:

Thank

Meklit Hadero:

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

Meklit Hadero:

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

Meklit Hadero:

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

Meklit Hadero:

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

Meklit Hadero:

Yes, I do.

Meklit Hadero:

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

Meklit Hadero:

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

Meklit Hadero:

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

Meklit Hadero:

audience know how they can find you also.

Meklit Hadero:

Yes.

Meklit Hadero:

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

Meklit Hadero:

Meklitmusic, M E K L I T music.

Meklit Hadero:

com.

Meklit Hadero:

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

Meklit Hadero:

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

Meklit Hadero:

name You can literally Google Ethiopian singer, San Francisco.

Meklit Hadero:

And I come right up,

Meklit Hadero:

DJ Sir Daniel: Boom.

Meklit Hadero:

Boom.

Meklit Hadero:

There

Meklit Hadero:

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

Meklit Hadero:

like, people forget how to find me.

Meklit Hadero:

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

Meklit Hadero:

What was that Ethiopian singer, San Francisco.

Meklit Hadero:

Okay.

Meklit Hadero:

DJ Sir Daniel: Dope.

Meklit Hadero:

Dope.

Meklit Hadero:

The one and only Maclete Hedero.

Meklit Hadero:

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

Meklit Hadero:

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

Meklit Hadero:

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

Meklit Hadero:

I'm DJ Sir Daniel,

Jay Ray:

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

Jay Ray:

for joining us as well, y'all.

Jay Ray:

DJ Sir Daniel: and this has been,

Meklit Hadero:

well, everyone.

Meklit Hadero:

DJ Sir Daniel: thank you.

Meklit Hadero:

And this has been Queue Points podcast, dropping the

Meklit Hadero:

needle on black music history.

Meklit Hadero:

We'll see you on the next go round.

Meklit Hadero:

Peace.

Jay Ray:

Peace, y'all.

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