Episode 311: Jack Harlow

“Say Hello”

Jack Harlow is from Louisville, Kentucky, and started performing and releasing music in 2015, when he was in high school. In 2020, he released his first album, which went double platinum. He was nominated for a Grammy for Best Rap Performance. He’s had multiple number one hits across his first three albums. For his fourth album, Monica, which just came out in March 2026, he switched things up dramatically. I was curious how and why-how did someone who had so much success as a rapper approach a new way of making music? So for this episode, I spoke to Jack Harlow about the song “Say Hello,” which is the closing track on Monica.

You can buy or stream “Say Hello” here.

Illustration by Carlos Lerma.

footnotes:
Aksel Arvid – producer
Jermaine Paul – bass
Robert Glasper – piano
Stephane Clement – trumpet
Ravyn Lenae – backing vocals
Jackman. – album by Jack Harlow
Slum Village and Outkast

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Key Change: Baz Luhrmann

“Time After Time” by Cyndi Lauper

My guest today is Baz Luhrmann, the award-winning director whose films include Moulin Rouge!, Strictly Ballroom, The Great Gatsby, Elvis, and Romeo + Juliet. His newest film is EPiC: Elvis Presley in Concert, a critically acclaimed documentary about Elvis that’s playing right now in theaters and in IMAX. Before becoming a massively successful film director, Baz began his showbiz career as an actor, and as a ballroom dancer, in Australia. His first film was Strictly Ballroom, which came out in 1992, and became one of the highest-grossing Australian films of all time. It was originally a play, and there’s a song in the film that was part of the story all the way back when it was first performed on stage. And that’s what Baz and I talked about for this episode.

You can buy or stream “Time After Time” by Cyndi Lauper here.

footnotes:
“One” by John Farnham
National Institute of Dramatic Art (NIDA), Cate Blanchett, and Mel Gibson
Ted Albert
Tara Morice and Craig Pearce

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Episode 310: Thompson Twins

“Hold Me Now”

Thompson Twins originally formed in 1977 in Sheffield, in the UK. “Hold Me Now,” their iconic hit, came out as a single in November 1983, and eventually on their 1984 album, Into the Gap. That album went to number 1 in the UK and went platinum in the US. The song spent 21 weeks on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. So for this episode, I talked to the founding member of Thompson Twins, Tom Bailey, and he told me how he and his bandmates, Alannah Currie and Joe Leeway, made “Hold Me Now.”

You can buy or stream “Hold Me Now” here.

Illustration by Carlos Lerma.

For a transcript of this episode, click here.

footnotes:
Alex Sadkin – producer
Phil Thornalley – engineer
Boris Bransby Williams – drummer
RAK studios
Bob Marley
Oberheim synthesizers and Fairchild compressors
Bill Wyman and The Rolling Stones

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