Strong Reception with Eli James

Hi Strong Reception fans! I’m back and I’m trying something different here - a very short-form solo episode under the heading “The Song Diary”. Since moving to London, I’ve had an urge to create quickly digestible episodes where I choose a song that’s speaking to me at the moment because of what’s going on in my life and in my head.I hope you enjoy this reflective little dive into a little-known song called “Can’t Help Thinking About Me” from 1966, by an as-yet unknown songwriter named Davy Jones, who had only just changed his name to David Bowie. I think this brave little teenage song is so different for its time and gets at some very adult things - even if it didn’t mean to! What happens to our brains and our bodies when we suffer a serious blow? If you’re anything like me - it’s an instinctive momentary regression to childhood that can overtake us if we don’t go to work on it. But I also think it’s vital and totally okay to acknowledge that we feel like a friendless kid when the sh-t goes sideways! XSubscribe to “Strong Reception” wherever you get your podcasts, and leave a comment for the show on Twitter at @strongpod or follow me on Insta at @eli_james_is_my_name. Let me know what you think!

"Summer of Soul" is a groundbreaking documentary that I want everyone on Planet Earth to see. Ahmir "Questlove" Thompson (founding member of The Roots and professional musical encyclopedia) made his directorial debut on a subject close to my heart: the all-but-forgotten Harlem Cultural Festival of 1969. This series of six Sunday concerts in New York's storied neighborhood of Harlem was unlike anything before or since. Performers at the free festival included Nina Simone, Stevie Wonder, B.B. King, Gladys Knight and the Pips, Max Roach, the 5th Dimension, Mahalia Jackson, and so many more. Over 300,000 people showed up - almost exclusively from the neighborhood. More than 40 hours of beautifully shot video remained hidden from the public for 52 years, locked away in the videographer's vault — until now. In this episode, I speak to Rolling Stone journalist Jonathan Bernstein, whose tireless research on the long-lost festival first helped me understand its significance. His article for Rolling Stone, published in 2019, was (controversially) titled "This 1969 Music Fest Has Been Called ‘Black Woodstock.’ Why Doesn’t Anyone Remember?" Jonathan and I break down our reactions to "Summer of Soul" and delve into the history of the Harlem Cultural Festival itself, including what's known about the festival's charismatic, passionate founder, Tony Lawrence, who pretty much disappeared without a trace soon after the event was over.Subscribe to “Strong Reception” wherever you get your podcasts, and leave a comment for the show on Twitter at @strongpod. Let me know what you think by leaving the show a review and a rating. Thank you!

This week I am pleased to present my conversation with Chris Durosinmi, who is running to be the next City Council Member for the 37th District in Brooklyn. This episode is part of my series of interviews with the candidates in this all-important primary election, which takes place June 22 in New York City, along with the races for mayor, comptroller, public advocate, borough president and hundreds of City Council seats.Chris Durosinmi is a Brooklyn native and community organizer who has held several staff jobs in city and state government, and currently works for the Wildlife Conservation Society. He and I discussed some of the most urgent issues facing the people of this underserved district, like the decline in trash pickup and sanitation resources, the need for greater support for those coming home from prison, and how New York's voting apparatus would benefit from greater transparency. (We get into New York's cryptic fusion voting system, for instance. Why are we the only state to do it?)To find out more about this City Council race, check out my episodes with candidates Misba Abdin, Sandy Nurse and Rick Echevarria. Subscribe to “Strong Reception” wherever you get your podcasts, and please leave a comment for the show on Twitter at @strongpod.

Subscribe to “Strong Reception” wherever you get your podcasts, and please leave a comment for the show on Twitter at @strongpod. Let me know what you think!This week I am thrilled to present my conversation with Sandy Nurse, who is running for a second time to be the next City Council Member for the 37th District in Brooklyn. This is part of my series of interviews with candidates in this all-important race. Sandy and I talked about what the city can do going forward to prevent what happened to this district last year — when this underserved area was left without a Council Member during one of the worst crises in the city's history: COVID-19.Sandy Nurse has a history of organizing and activism in New York, starting with her encampment at the Occupy Wall Street protests in the fall of 2011, and her co-founding of MayDay Space in 2014. She ran for this City Council seat last year, but was removed from the ballot by the Board of Elections, as were several other candidates hoping to beat the heavily favored party-backed candidate, Darma Diaz. Sandy is back in the mix, running to unseat Diaz for the 2022 term.FOR VOTERS: Voting opens on June 12 and ends on June 22 in the massive NYC primary that also includes the races for mayor, public advocate, comptroller and borough presidents. The deadline to register to vote in this primary is May 28, and the last day to notify the Board of Elections of an address change is June 2. Also, make sure you read up on an exciting new development in our election process, ranked-choice voting, in which voters will be able to pick their top five candidates in every citywide primary.

Please check out my conversation with Rick Echevarria, who is running for City Council in New York's 37th Council District in Brooklyn. This episode is part of a series in which I will be interviewing candidates running in the June 2021 primary for this City Council seat. Rick and I talked about how New York's outdated voting system impacts the city's most vulnerable residents in a very real way. This system resulted in the 37th District being without a Council Member for nearly all of 2020 — a year of acute suffering brought on by the pandemic.Rick Echevarria grew up in the Bushwick section of this district (the neighborhood I call home), and is running on a platform of housing equity and fighting housing corruption. He ran for this office last year, but was removed from the ballot by the New York City Board of Elections, as were several other candidates hoping to beat the heavily favored party-backed candidate, Darma Diaz. Rick is back in the mix, running to unseat Diaz in the massive 2021 city primary, which opens on June 12 and ends on June 22. FOR VOTERS: The deadline to register to vote in this primary is May 28, and the last day to notify the Board of Elections of an address change is June 2. Also, make sure you read up on an exciting new development in our election process, ranked-choice voting, in which voters will be able to pick their top five candidates in every citywide primary.Subscribe to “Strong Reception” wherever you get your podcasts, and leave a comment for the show on Twitter at @strongpod. Let me know what you think of my convos!

L. Joy Williams doesn't rest much. Running on four hours' sleep each night, she dons an array of hats during the day, moving at a breakneck pace to empower more Americans to engage with the political process. I'm grateful she made time to drop by "Strong Reception" to talk with me about increasing voting access in New York, as well as to provide her own inspiring definition of civic engagement.On her podcast, "Sunday Civics," L. Joy Williams hopes to make everyday civics exciting to listeners who think their elected officials aren't interested in them. She does so by offering up simple, powerful action steps busy people can take to make their voices heard in the halls of power, and by hosting eye-opening discussions of Black political history in America.In addition to her leadership as president of the Brooklyn NAACP, L. Joy also heads her own campaign strategy firm, LJW Strategies, and has planned campaigns for political luminaries including Stacey Abrams, Cynthia Nixon and Jumaane Williams. She also serves as chair of the Higher Heights Political Action Committee, an organization working to get more progressive Black women elected to local, state and federal office, and which helped raise the profile of Vice President Kamala Harris during her 2020 presidential run. Subscribe to “Strong Reception” wherever you get your podcasts, and leave a comment for the show on Twitter at @strongpod. Let me know what you think of my convos!

Welcome to the first-ever bonus episode of Strong Reception! I couldn't resist putting out this short "extra track." There are just too many smile-inducing moments contained in this unplanned 20-minute convo between myself and Renée Graham, associate editor and opinion columnist at the Boston Globe. After recording our "In Memoriam" episode last month, Renée stayed on the line to keep chatting about music. We bonded mightily over our mutual love for The Clash — a "forever band" that will live in perpetuity in our hearts. As a teen in New York City, Renée was there when word of the Clash first hit the U.S. in the late '70s, and she was hooked from the first notes. I didn't hear the Clash until I started college in the '90s, and it was a "where have you been all my life?" moment I'll never forget. I'm also amazed at how NOT confrontational I became when Renée admitted her indifference (and low-grade hostility) to the Beatles! Whereas a few years ago I would have angrily tossed out any goodwill that might have existed between a Beatle-dismisser and me, in this instance I listened patiently and maintained an open-minded curiosity when Renée said she thinks the Beatles are "fine," and aren't as good as Oasis. (SERIOUSLY, WHAT??!!)For any Clash uninitiated, I've created a playlist you can listen to containing some of the songs we mention. Here's the Apple Music playlist. And here's the playlist on Spotify. It's a great place to start with one of the most revered, daring and influential bands to come out of the initial "punk rock" era.

As 2020 draws to a close, I am joined by Boston Globe columnist Renée Graham to discuss some of the music legends we lost this year. Renée is an award-winning journalist and among the most fun conversation partners I've had on the subject of music. It's her second time on the show (See Episode 3) and I'm so excited to have her back. She and I each picked three artists to pay tribute to. Some of them are household names, and some are as underground as they come — but all of them had a giant impact on the music we love.BONUS FEATURE: Check out the special playlist I created to go along with this episode, so you can follow along and hear more from the artists we talk about. The "In Memoriam" playlist has tracks by Nas, The Pointer Sisters, Toots and the Maytals and much more. Click the links to listen on Apple Music or Spotify.