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Adrian Younge's new project sounds like James Baldwin meets Marvin Gaye

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Adrian Younge's new project sounds like "James Baldwin hooked up with Marvin Gaye" An unapologetic critique of racism in America — and a funky paean to its great

EPISODE 206

Adrian Younge is a producer for entertainment greats ranging from Jay Z and Kendrick Lamar to the Wu Tang clan, a composer for television shows such as Marvel's Luke Cage (with A Tribe Called Quest’s Ali Shaheed Mohammad), and owner of the Linear Labs record label and analog studio. Younge has a new mixed media project that breaks down the evolution of racism in America that he calls his “most important creative accomplishment.” A short film, T.A.N., and podcast, Invisible Blackness, accompany the album The American Negro (available Feb 26). Younge tells Switched on Pop how his experience as a law professor and his all-analog approach to recording resulted in a sound he describes as “James Baldwin hooked up with Marvin Gaye.”

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Additional production by Megan Lubin

SONGS DISCUSSED

Adrian Younge - Revolutionize, The American Negro, Revisionist History, Black Lives Matter, Margaret Garner

Gil Scott Heron - The Revolution Will Not Be Televised