Here is our list of specials on WPSU-FM during the month of March, celebrating Women’s History Month and Ramadan:
Women’s History Month: Four Women of the West
(Friday, March 6, 8:00 p.m. & Saturday, March 7, 6:00 p.m.)
This is the first in a series of four specials for Women’s History Month from Afropop Worldwide. In West Africa, women are on the cutting edge of musical and cultural progress. This program looks at four singer/composers with roots in tradition and unique ideas about how to keep them current in the fast-changing milieu of today’s African music. Mali’s Fatoumata Diawara keeps her focus on messages, mixing traditional sounds and rock idioms to reach young audiences. Senegal’s Aida Samb is finding new avenues for that country’s trademark mbalax sound, including collaborations with Afrobeats stars like Wizkid. Elida Almeida of Cape Verde has emerged as a freewheeling composer, able to draw on whatever influences she likes, and it’s working for fans of all generations. And Benin’s Angelique Kidjo, never one to sit back on her many successes, has covered Talking Heads’ 1980 album Remain in Light, in its entirety, re-Africanizing a rock classic for a new time. We’ll speak with all four artists, and hear their latest music.
Storytellers: Muslims, Community, and Culture in America
(Thursday, March 12, 3:00 p.m.)
This special broadcast celebrates Ramadan and Women’s History Month. There has been considerable attention paid to American Muslims in the 25 years since 9/11. But largely missing are people from the community telling compelling and authentic stories about their history and their own lived experiences. Comedian and host Sabeen Sadiq introduces listeners to engaging Muslim American storytellers, starting with Sadiq’s own honest and very funny story about growing up a sort of “secret Muslim” in Chicago. Listeners will be captivated and moved by these stories, which reveal the complexity and deep roots of vibrant Muslim communities in America.
Women’s History Month: Fairuz, A Woman for all Seasons
(Friday, March 13, 8:00 p.m. & Saturday, March 14, 6:00 p.m.)
This is the second in a series of four specials for Women’s History Month from Afropop Worldwide. Fairuz is the most popular living singer throughout the Arabic-speaking world and an artist with no real counterpart in Europe or the Americas. Since the ‘50s, she has appealed across boundaries of age, gender, class, religion, nationality, regional dialect, and political persuasion. Creating music as serious and engaged as it is popular, Fairuz, along with her collaborators from the Rahbani family of composer poets, has achieved near-universal appeal during a time of unprecedented division and social strife. The deepest understanding of Fairuz’s success carries a message that harmony among the Abrahamic faiths is not a lofty illusion, but something lost in the near past, that can be regained.
Women’s History Month: Reconstructing Somalia – Women’s Voices
(Friday, March 20, 8:00 p.m. & Saturday, March 21, 6:00 p.m.)
This is the third in a series of four specials for Women’s History Month from Afropop Worldwide. In this episode we take a rare look at Somalia’s formative, pre-civil war years (1960-90), which saw the birth of “soomaalinimo” – Somali patriotism. This national mood inspired people to put aside the clan identities manipulated by the colonial powers and dedicate themselves to the creation of a new national identity. And this was expressed in gorgeous, lyrical songs with influences from Arab art music, Hindi film songs and rich local traditions. Our principal guide is Lidwien Kapteijns (Professor of History at Wellesley College) whose book, “Women’s Voices in a Man’s World,” focuses on popular songs of this hopeful era that shaped the changing lives and status of women. We’ll hear beautiful archival recordings and get inside the crucial debates and gender negotiations contained in their lyrics. We’ll also learn why the promise of this all-but-forgotten era has never been realized in Somalia.
Women’s History Month: Afropop’s Tribute to Cesaria Evora
(Friday, March 27, 8:00 p.m. & Saturday, March 28, 6:00 p.m.)
This is the final program in a series of four specials for Women’s History Month from Afropop Worldwide. The beloved Grammy Award winning singer Cesaria Evora from Cape Verde passed away in 2011 at the age of 70. We celebrate Cesaria’s life and art with an encore of our 1995 recording of her magnificent New York City debut at the Bottom Line. Cesaria, known as the “Queen of the morna” is backed by her classy group featuring piano, acoustic bass guitar, cavaquinho and lead acoustic guitar. As a special bonus, two accomplished protégés of Cesaria’s, Fantcha and Mayra Andrade, pay their tribute with stories and songs inspired by one of the most influential and successful artists of the modern African era.
Distinguished Rebels
(Friday, March 27, 11:00 a.m.)
For Women’s History Month, we’re celebrating women who have changed the face of classical music. Learn more about women who have contributed to classical music as composers, performers, conductors and educators.
