Music crosses boundaries between traditional and modern, local and global, personal and political. Take jazz — a musical form born out of forced migration and enslavement. We typically think it originated in New Orleans and then spread around the world. But today, we examine an alternate history of jazz — one that starts in Africa, then crisscrosses the planet, following the movements of people and empires -- from colonial powers to grassroots revolutionaries to contemporary artists throughout the diaspora.

This history of jazz is like the music itself: fluid and improvisatory.  

In this hour, produced in partnership with the Consortium of Humanities Centers and Institutes (CHCI) — a global consortium of 270 humanities centers and institutes — we hear how both African and African-American music have shaped the sound of the world today.

Original Air Date: July 04, 2020

Guests: 

Meklit Hadero — Valmont Layne — Gwen Ansell — Ron Radano

Interviews In This Hour: 

How Meklit Hadero Reimagined Ethiopian Jazz — So You Say You Want A Revolution — Reclaiming the Hidden History of South African Jazz — 'We Are All African When We Listen'

Further Reading:

CHCI Ideas from Africa Hub

Colonization in Africa was much more than a land grab. It was a project to replace — and even erase — local cultures. To label them inferior. Music, arts, literature and of course language. In other words, it permeated everything. So how do you undo that? How do you unlearn what you’ve been forced to learn?

In this hour, produced in partnership with the Consortium of Humanities Centers and Institutes (CHCI) and Africa is a Country — we learn what it means to decolonize the mind.

Original Air Date: March 20, 2021

Guests: 

Adom Getachew — Simon Gikandi — Ngugi wa Thiong’o

Interviews In This Hour: 

Reckon with the Past To Decolonize the Future — Reclaiming the Hidden History of Blackness — Never Write In The Language of the Colonizer

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Product Focus on Glazing

As more Baby Boomers enter retirement, the need for skilled workers is increasing across the American economy. The construction industry is not immune. Add on the struggle with convincing young people that a college degree isn’t always the ticket to a good life and skilled trades are a viable career choice. How can the construction industry recruit good talent?

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As national media interest in the riots fades, the sector needs to keep it firmly on the agenda

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The Portland Cement Association, representing America’s cement manufacturers, demonstrated the cement industry’s commitment to carbon neutrality to key executive branch decision-makers at the White House’s Concrete Innovation Summit – as well as outlined what steps must be taken to further reduce cement sector emissions.

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Baby boomers currently represent over 40 percent of the construction industry. 

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Bayer’s EcoCommercial Building Network, dedicated to bringing together varied disciplines in the pursuit of high-performance buildings, has expanded its expertise in the public sector for governmental and institutional projects.

As Earth Day 2024 spotlights ways to eliminate plastics, the Wege Prize is shining a spotlight on its innovative student teams that have created real-world solutions recently.

HOK designed the Institute for Specialized Medicine & Intervention’s new clinic in Quebec as a spa-like experience for underserved patients. Supporting this modern, comforting, healing environment, HOK specified Rockfon Medical Plus acoustic stone wool ceiling panels for all of ISMI’s treatment rooms.

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Following the 2023 debut of its “City of Yes” strategy to permit more housing faster in New York City, Mayor Eric Adams’ administration unveiled a raft of zoning changes last winter intended to make the proposed growth carbon-neutral, according to Adam Friedberg, a Buro Happold expert behind similar initiatives in the region and worldwide.

For the celebrity or celebrities that have shown genuine and productive support for their chosen charity or charities

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