View the full episode transcript.

In the early 2000s, the underground DVD business was a major conduit of culture. Through films I purchased from my neighborhood independent DVD retailer, I got insight into the backstory of hip-hop artists and street culture all across the United States.

One of the films that showcased some of the overlooked inner-city Black communities of this country during that time period, Hood 2 Hood: The Blockumentary, also included an early depiction of hyphy culture as I knew it to be — hyper aggressive.

As the “hyphy movement” spread in years to come, the way the culture was shown deviated drastically from the origins of the term. It was made palatable for mainstream audiences and sellable for record labels. A lot of people outside of the region, and even people within the Bay Area, grew to think of hyphy as more comical than militant. And with that, some of the artists began to cater to that image, almost becoming caricatures themselves.

As an avid Bay Area hip-hop consumer, this impacted me directly. But the people who were working behind the scenes, making media and contributing to the culture, were hit even harder.

In this episode, filmmaker Aquis “Cash Out Quis” Bryant discusses the era before hyphy went nationwide. Mac Dre’s former manager Chioke “Seaside Stretch” McCoy shares insight on how Dre’s murder pushed the culture into the spotlight; and how the industry subsequently took the “hyphy movement” and ran with it. And Rita Forte, a former radio host known as DJ Backside, opens up about the highs of taking the hyphy sound around the world, and the lows of seeing her DJ career come crashing down after a bad experience working for a local radio station.

Episode Transcript

Pendarvis Harshaw, host: Heads up, this podcast contains explicit language.

[Music]

Pendarvis Harshaw: Back in the early 2000s, the “Independent” DVD business was booming, discs were being sold in barbershops and train stations around the country. I’d get mine from a set of twin brothers who used to slang burnt CDs and DVDs on the corner of Alcatraz and Market street in North Oakland.

All I needed was a few bucks and I could purchase anything they had– animated children’s movies, raunchy adult flicks or even blockbuster films. But what caught my attention were the underground documentaries about hip-hop and the streets of America.

Locally, there were joints like Go Dumb USA, Oakland Gone Wild, and High Side’N 1 & 2. These films took viewers to a world not readily shown in the mainstream or silver screen, which gave insight to stories of street culture in America. I loved that kind of media.

But, as a young journalist, that wasn’t the kind of media I was making. Even if I was talking about similar topics, my work was a little more, um, mainstream.

In 2006, through Oakland’s Youth Radio, I wrote and published an audio commentary for National Public Radio. It was about the cycle of birth and death.

Radio Announcer: Youth Radio’s Pendarvis Harshaw says the problems are all related.

Pendarvis Harshaw: My commentary was partially inspired by my friend Willie Clay, who had been killed in January of that year.

Clip of Pendarvis Harshaw: Will was my boy, and to be putting on a button-up and these hard-bottom shoes to put him in a casket, it just didn’t seem real.

Pendarvis Harshaw: I was proud to honor a friend’s story on national airwaves. And, at the same time, I was hella frustrated: none of the homies were going to hear it. You’d be farfetched to find a group of teenage Black men riding around slappin’ their local NPR station. I felt confined.

[Music]

Pendarvis Harshaw: I was doing stories about my community, but they were being made palatable for predominantly white middle class audiences. I wanted to tell stories that would be on the local hip-hop radio station, or on BET. I wanted to make a hood classic, like the bootleg DVDs people were selling.

But, I didn’t have a lane for that. So, I was using what channels I had to tell stories of what I was experiencing. And I was just one of the many folks in my circle trying to make note of what was happening around us.

Back then some of my Youth Radio folks did a piece for NPR all about the Hyphy Movement. This one featured my longtime friend, well-known Oakland-based educator and event host, Leon Sykes:

Leon Sykes, in clip: The hyphy movement is an act of free living. It’s like having the Holy Ghost. Something just comes over you.

Pendarvis Harshaw: Yeah, Leon talked about the spirit and… some of that goofy stuff too.

Leon Sykes, in clip: You can’t stop, you hear a song, we get hyphy to Mary Had a Little Lamb,

[Mary Had a Little Lamb plays for a few seconds, before being interrupted by a record scratch]

Pendarvis Harshaw: Yeah, a lil comical. But it was dope to hear my patnas talk about an aspect of our region’s hip-hop culture on a national program.

And that story was one of a handful of pieces that came from national outlets– from your MTVs and BETs, to print publications like XXL, USA Today, The Los Angeles Times and The Guardian– they all did specials on the hyphy movement.

[Music]

Pendarvis Harshaw: After years of neglect and underreporting from major media platforms, the Bay Area’s hip-hop scene was once again in the limelight.

But when the hyphy movement went mainstream, it changed things. And that’s what capitalism does to culture, right?

I’m Pendarvis Harshaw, and this is Hyphy Kids Got Trauma.

[Music]

Pendarvis Harshaw: First time I saw “hyphy” in the media was on those hood DVDs from the early 2000s, and it looked a lot different than the national depiction. There was a film series that originally debuted in 2004 named Hood 2 Hood: The Blockumentary.

[Clip from Hood 2 Hood plays]

Quis Bryant, in clip: America is a cold place, everywhere you go, it’s the same. The only thing that changes is the slang a muthafucka talks and the weather a muthafucka’s getting money in. Coast to coast, street to street, projects to projects. War to war, zone to zone, side to side, hood to hood this is the blockumentary.”

[Music]

Pendarvis Harshaw: The movies featured the grimiest hoods, the biggest guns, and the heaviest regional accents. There was rapping, fashion, cars, drugs, and more.

Hood 2 Hood changed everything for me.

In addition to showing me what was happening in the neighborhoods all around this country, the footage on the double disc DVD showed the streets of the Bay Area as I knew them to be: fast, hyperactive, and enticingly dangerous.

I was so juiced when I found out this film, a portal into what was going on in pockets of Milwaukee, Baltimore, Memphis and more, was created by someone from the Bay Area.

Quis Bryant, guest: I was going to Black neighborhoods. I was going to low income neighborhoods. I was going to the highest crime rated neighborhoods.

Pendarvis Harshaw: That’s filmmaker Aquis Bryant, aka Cash Out Quis.

He’s a stocky brown brotha, who’s bald with low-cut facial hair, raised on the west coast of the United States in the mighty town of Vallejo, California.

Quis tells me during a recent phone call, that back in the day when he was making this film, he didn’t really have a goal beyond just trying to see how people were getting it all across the United States.

Quis Bryant: The only way you could see how a person was living was to actually go there and see with your own two eyes. It was where, back then, you know, each different region, each different city, everybody had their own particular fashion and slang because the Internet wasn’t merging things.

Pendarvis Harshaw: So Quis left Northern California to document what was really happening in working class Black communities around the country. And people let their guard down and showed him things that were going on in their hoods, And Quis captured it on camera,while carrying our region with him.

Quis Bryant: Man bringing that Bay Area flag, I was received well, for the simple fact that, you know, the Bay Area is one of the only, like regions in the United States of America that’s not gang banging, as far as like Bloods and Crips.

I slid around the country neutral, you know what I’m saying. I didn’t have any ties to anything that could have been opposing. You know what I mean? Then on top of that, I kept me a nice sized sack of that California weed, that was, you know what I’m saying, is a plus

At that time, you know, purple was hot.

Pendarvis Harshaw: Yeah, speaking of weed, the content of the films: drugs, guns and all of that, it toed the line of self incrimination. But in reality, Quis was simply going to places where cameras aren’t often rolling, and people were eager to show him how they were living.

[Clip from Hood 2 Hood]

Quis Bryant, in clip: Hell yeah, here ya’ll from man?

Person 1, in clip: Check this out mayne, this is yo number one player, Ed Lover from Milton Street.

Person 2, in clip: Respect it or accept it, cause you ain’t gon’ check it. On my momma. Three fingers. You see it.

Quis Bryant: It was like a first of its kind since it was pre YouTube. It was like a whole, like, generation of people that that was their first time traveling out of their areas

Pendarvis Harshaw: I personally needed to see those other neighborhoods. Through this documentary I saw glimpses of spots like Little Rock, Omaha and Gary, Indiana, locations I’d heard about, but I couldn’t tell you anything about. It made me feel connected. Like, their hood is just like our hood. And their stories aren’t getting widely told either. And the Bay isn’t the only slept on region.

Even if it was a bit sensational, it was dope to see my area mentioned as a part of this bigger story of hip-hop and street culture in America.

[Music]

Pendarvis Harshaw: The first of Quis’ three-part Hood 2 Hood documentary series was filmed a few years prior to the explosion of the quote “hyphy movement.”

It shows what “hyphy” was before it became mainstream enough to be mentioned on NPR. And unfortunately, like many things in popular culture, it took a tragic incident to get the hyphy movement on the national map…

On Halloween night 2004, Andre Hicks, beloved rapper known to fans and loved ones as Mac Dre, was killed after performing at a show in Kansas City, Missouri.

His death led to him becoming the patron saint of the hyphy movement.

[Music – Thizzle Dance by Mac Dre]

To this day, when his music comes on, people turn hands to form T’s and Thizz dance in his honor. “Do it for Mac Dre,” is a battle cry.

His life’s story is legendary: after achieving early stardom as a rapper in the late 80s and early 90s, he was sent to prison for conspiracy to rob a bank. He didn’t budge when pushed to snitch on his comrades. And after he was released, he reinvented himself and made music that impacted a generation of kids of all races from this region.

Quis says Dre’s passing kicked off a new chapter in the story of the Bay.

Quis Bryant: The hyphy stuff really starts like we had been doing it, but it didn’t really get on like a national, national scene until like after Dre died, it was picking up steam…

Pendarvis Harshaw: Mac Dre’s music was foundational. And the photos and videos his Thizz Nation camp produced gave visuals to culture of the Bay Area.

Quis looks at Mac Dre’s Treal TV 1 and Treal TV 2 as landmark films of that era.

Quis Bryant: Yeah man, it was just a build up and then, you know, it start like, bringing our culture to, like, the forefront.you know what I mean?

[Music]

Pendarvis Harshaw: The news of Mac Dre’s death sent a wave of grief through the Bay, but no one felt it like the folks inside of Dre’s camp.

Seaside Stretch, guest: Mac Dre, before his passing, it was just– he was, he was releasing music at a different pace than everybody else.

Pendarvis Harshaw: That’s Chioke McCoy, aka Seaside Stretch, a promoter and manager who’s worked with a little bit of everybody, from San Francisco’s pop star 24k Goldn to one of Atlanta’s coldest lyricists and political activists, Killer Mike.

But Stretch started off working with Mac Dre after a chance meeting on a flight from Vegas back to the Bay. The two linked there, but didn’t become formal partners until a few years later.

Seaside Stretch: It was literally when Thizz entertainment started. So that was somewhere around – formerly working with him – somewhere around like 2002, 2003.

Pendarvis Harshaw: Stretch started with promoting for Mac Dre, and over the years he’s worked with the motherload of artists from Northern California. In 2006, Stretch was focused on working with North Oakland’s Mistah F.A.B.

Things were active in the Bay musically back then, but Stretch says the culture didn’t make sense to outsiders.

Seaside Stretch: I think that at the time everybody felt as if the bay was being ignored, blackballed, hated on, or whatever. But in reality, the Bay Area was just going to its own beat of its own drum, didn’t play by anybody else’s rules, didn’t kiss no ass, didn’t do any of the things that other people would do to get on. Meaning that like Bay artists weren’t moving to New York or moving to L.A. or like Atlanta. They wasn’t doing none of that. They was waiting for people to come to the Bay. And I think that at the time it was like, ‘well, if they don’t fuck with us, then we’ll just do our own thing.’ So I think the 2006 was a culmination of doing your own thing and it paying off where you were not not concerned with what was going on on the outside.

Pendarvis Harshaw: But Stretch says that the term “hyphy”, commercially, wasn’t reflective of what was happening in neighborhoods across Northern California.

Seaside Stretch: It was presented in a way that would be more friendly to everybody. You know what I mean? Just the term “hyphy,” was, it meant something completely different than what it was commercialized as. You know what I mean? It it wasn’t a good thing, you know what I’m saying? Like, they didn’t say like, ‘Oh, them kids is hyphy, and that meant that they were just dancing around having a good time.’ No, that meant that they were destructive and violent, you know what I am saying? So, I think that, you know, it was marketed in the way that, you know, that corporations do to sell a product, which was the music so… That’s the results of what people seen and what people lived were two different things. But I think it became a self-fulfilling prophecy where the people who were a part of the culture ended up changing things to fit what was sellable.

Pendarvis Harshaw: Stretch says the first time he even heard the term “hyphy movement” was through a marketing scheme Warner Brothers put together for the Fairfield-based group, The Federation. And the next time Stretch heard the term was also through the media.

Seaside Stretch: It was like a little doc called The Hype on Hyphy. And it was dubbed “the Hyphy movement” and they were trying to put it in context. I think it was on BET or something to kind of show everybody what this new big thing is, because at the time there was also the snap movement that was going on in Atlanta, which was very successful and very commercially successful. And you can kind of, you know, that was being exposed to the world already. You also had what was going on in Houston, which was being exposed to the world already. So this was, oh a prepackaged, another movement we can put together and get behind, show the world, you know what I’m saying, and capitalize off. And that’s the first time I heard the term “hyphy movement.” You know what I mean?

[Music]

Pendarvis Harshaw: “Prepackaged movement.” “Capitalize off it.” Yeah.

I recall the BET documentary, as well as the Rap City series BET did, where they highlighted Hyphy for a week. Mixed emotions: while our lifestyle was in the limelight, the story wasn’t quite right.

A more accurate depiction came from Oakland’s Sway Calloway, as he hosted a special on the Bay for MTV’s My Block.

The episode starts with a nod to historical hip-hop figures, with cameos from MC Hammer and members of the Almighty Hieroglyphics. They were posted in the Dubs, a couple blocks from where my friend Will was killed.

Clip of Sway Calloway: What’s up world, welcome to My Block: The Bay, now this show is extremely important to me because this is literally my block, East Oakland 23rd Ave.

Pendarvis Harshaw: They do segments with E-40 and Too Short, as well as Zion-I and Nump. At one point, San Francisco’s San Quinn tells Sway, “I’m part of the hyphy movement, but my raps ain’t funny.”

In another segment Keak Da Sneak explains how Hyphy is another way of saying hyperactive. Stretch, who had seen “hyphy” become commodified, also looked to Keak for the origins of the term.

[Music – That’s My Word by Keak Da Sneak]

“…doing hella shit at one time,

my definition of hyphy is Thizzing and sniffing lines.”

Seaside Stretch: Arguably one of the biggest hyphy songs, That’s My Word, he says, “doing hella shit at one time. My definition of hyphy is Thizzing and sniffing lines.” [laugh]

So the Godfather of hyphy, gave you his definition of what it was. As somebody from East Oakland, I think that he would probably be qualified to define what hyphy was.

[Music – T-shirts, Blue Jeans, and Nikes by Keak Da Sneak]

Pendarvis Harshaw: On a sunny Saturday afternoon in the early 2000s, you could drive through East Oakland, bank a right on Bancroft and hear this Keak Da Sneak song blappin’ out of the speakers in front of a record store and cultural hub, named Moses Music.

And the person on the ones and twos was probably Rita Forte– formerly known as DJ Backside.

Rita Forte, guest: I literally asked the owner, who’s- his name was Moses, could I set up my turntables and just come on a Saturday and just DJ right outside, like for the public, just for free. Just so that people can see me.

Pendarvis Harshaw: In addition to spinning at the record store and breaking local artists’ records, Rita used to spin at parties and functions I attended.

She has locs now, but back then Rita, a taller brown-skinned sista would often wear her hair straightened to shoulder length or rock a baseball hat. She’d also wear these shirts that read “Got Bay?” with a question mark, a play off the old school Got Milk? Commercial. And she had a mixtape series of the same name.

Back then Rita was also traveling around the country, taking the Town with her.

[Music]

Rita Forte: Different cities would want me to come to their city and play a Hyphy set. You know, at first I didn’t catch on. I thought they just wanted to hire me. I don’t know, sometimes I’m that naive, but when they sent me the flier, it would say like Hyphy set by DJ Backside. I was like, Oh, you know.

Pendarvis Harshaw: And it worked for her, taking Rita from spinning records in East Oakland to spinning the globe.

Rita Forte: I got to travel internationally. I got to travel to Taiwan and to Germany, and those gigs definitely, they wanted me to play the Hyphy set.

Pendarvis Harshaw: So when you went to Germany and you were playing like white Ts, blue jeans and Nike’s.

Rita Forte: Yeah it was great.

Pendarvis Harshaw: What was that like?

Rita Forte: They were rocking to it. I mean, they knew that what I was coming to play. So there was definitely people in the crowd who knew it. There were people in the crowd who were, as I remember, you know, requesting certain songs, ‘Play that um E-40’ or whatever. You know, sometimes it would be a song that I would just be like, ‘For real? You know that?’ I mean, Hyphy– it stretched.

Pendarvis Harshaw: Hyphy stretched but it was also confining. Through her travels, Rita saw the limitations as it was a regional sound that was different than most other hip-hop at the time, especially on the East Coast.

Rita Forte: Anytime I would go to New York, I would like drop by like probably at least five or six different record labels. It was a lot of kind of executives that I think we’re kind of like, you know, I don’t know if I would say hating, but just like being ‘what is this hyphy thing?’ And to be honest, I still think a lot of them still, you know, wonder what hyphy was, to this day. I feel like I had a recent conversation with someone and they were like,

‘Yeah, I never really understood it. I mean, are you guys still hyphy?’

‘Yeah’

‘Never really got it,’

You know? So when I hear that, I’m not too surprised because I don’t think we were the best translators of the movement.

Pendarvis Harshaw: So Rita, she tried taking that into her own hands.

Rita Forte: I would come back to the Bay, I’d be like, ‘Yo, Keak, this is what you know, you need to do this in your video,’ or FAB or, you know, Too $hort, whatever. Just any time I could have like, a little word or conversation with any of the artists, I’m like, ‘You need to make a video for this.’ You know what I mean? ‘You need to show.’ There’s so many hyphy songs that did not get videos, that was hugely a downfall.

[Music]

Pendarvis Harshaw: Rita’s efforts to push the Bay’s culture also led to her getting a show on air as a DJ and host with 106.1 KMEL, the Bay Area’s leading hip-hop station.

Having her own slot as a DJ and host on KMEL was huge for Rita’s career. But she felt like they were short-changing her with the time slot they offered.

Rita Forte: I thought that was kind of odd uh just hearing it. I was like 12 to 2 am, who am I gonna– on a Friday night? Like, what? Y’all can’t give me something, you know, in the daytime or something? You know that’s, that’s definitely what I was thinking.

Pendarvis Harshaw: Rita eventually took the gig, working from midnight Friday night until 2am Saturday morning. And it worked for her.

Rita Forte: I was on there every week, you know, at that time slot. And it turned out to be a cool timeslot, to be honest with you. People was getting out the club on a Friday night and they was turning me on, you know? So it was good. So I don’t know if they thought about that or what, but like it turned out to be an excellent timeslot.

And so KMEL definitely did that for me. It definitely elevated my career as a DJ, my success. I got opportunities, like I was saying, traveling, being on BET, working with all the artists in the Bay, working with artists outside of the Bay. And my show, not only was I a DJ, I was also an on air personality, so I also got to speak. So I would do interviews and everything like that. And I mean, that is some… that is some power.

Pendarvis Harshaw: When Rita joined KMEL, the station was going through some turbulent times. In the years prior, it had been absorbed by the major media conglomerate, Clear Channel. Then, Management fired some very well-liked on-air hosts. Local artists were upset that the place known as “The People’s Station” wasn’t playing local music as much anymore. And community organizers met with station reps to discuss the station’s content, amongst other things. Plus, there were competing hip-hop stations in the same market that were growing in popularity.

Rita Forte: I didn’t really understand that whole thing to the depth that I think I should have. Umm, You know, I’ll say the word, you know, cause eventually, maybe like six or eight months later, you know, I think someone said the word to me. They were like, yeah, like ‘You were like a pawn. You know, you were a chess piece.’ You know, you know, ‘You were used in this situation” and really, like putting it that clear to me. I was like, Ohhhhhh.

[Music]

Pendarvis Harshaw: Rita felt like her hiring was a part of the station’s attempt to show the community’s involvement. And then when she wasn’t needed anymore, things shifted.

Rita’s timeslot got moved back one hour and shortened. She was now on from 2am-3am on Saturday mornings, a relatively dead time. She took the change in stride, even took to Myspace to encourage her followers to tune in to her new and improved time of 2am.

She also changed her personal schedule, she’d go to clubs or events before her radio show. Or sometimes just pull up to the station and sleep out front in her car until it was time to go on air.

Rita Forte: One night I was in my car, sleeping, and I overslept. And I woke up, I remember, I woke up at three, at three, like on the dot, right after when my show was ending. And I was just like, [sigh] I just, I just knew it. I was like, that’s it. They’re going to use this. This is the end. And that’s exactly what happened.

Pendarvis Harshaw: Rita was let go from KMEL after she missed her DJ slot, and she never worked in radio again. She feels like she was blackballed back then, and to this day she still feels the weight of that time. After all that she did for the hyphy movement, she didn’t really get that in return.

Rita Forte: The fact that I was one of the biggest proponents of the hyphy movement. Again, I was traveling, I was getting hired outside. You know, I was one of the very few DJs doing that, like on large scales, like BET, like wearing my “Got bay?” shirt, you know, on TV, you know, shouting out these artists. Turf Talk, I remember when I came back from BET, Turf Talk was like, ‘Man, you shouted me out on BET!’ Like it was a big deal, you know. So I was out there campaigning for hyphy. It was just hard to really figure out like, what was real and what wasn’t and who had my back and who didn’t.

Pendarvis Harshaw: As an avid consumer of Bay Area hip-hop, man, I had no idea this was happening behind the scenes. But As I talk to folks about this era, it’s clear Rita’s story of the highs and lows of that period aren’t rare. Lots of people had career changing experiences back then. Numerous artists had projects shelved and contracts fall through. Clubs where shootings occurred were shut down. Rappers, dancers and models got caught up in fast money and drugs, things that didn’t last long. But for some folks like Rita, the dreams that didn’t pan out then, led to new opportunities today.

Looking back at it now, do you feel like that incident led to your career trajectory changing?

Rita Forte: Absolutely. I mean, we’re sitting in the career trajectory change right now.

Pendarvis Harshaw: We were sitting in the office of her graphic design and T-shirt printing company, The Olive Street Agency.

Rita Forte: After being DJ Backside for for 10-11 years, I learned a lot about choosing a name because that name was ooh spicy! So I really wanted to take the time of choosing a name for this next endeavor, the Olive Street Agency.

Pendarvis Harshaw: Olive Street in East Oakland is where Rita’s family has owned property for three generartions.And through her family, Rita’s developed a deep religious devotion and a sincere appreciation for the stories in the Bible.

Rita Forte: One of my faves, though, of course, is the story of Noah and the Arc, and specifically the part of that story where, you know, they’re out there, it’s raining, pouring, and Noah sends out a dove and the dove comes back with a olive branch in it’s mouth signifying that there’s hope, there’s land out there, there’s a tree out there, and to keep going.

Pendarvis Harshaw: Even though Rita is no longer spinning records or interviewing hip-hop artists live on the radio, some of the people she met back then are clients of her printing company. They use shirts to campaign for office, memorialize loved ones, or promote an upcoming project – I guess that’s storytelling on a different scale.

And Rita herself is still channeling the spirit of the soil and telling the story of a kid from East Oakland. But now it’s through an entity that she owns.

While capitalism can corrupt culture, you’re never gonna stop the independent entrepreneurs from telling their story. Especially out here, the home of slangin’ tapes out the trunk.

[Music]

Pendarvis Harshaw: Next time, on the final episode of Hyphy Kids Got Trauma, we discuss this generation as a whole, and the philosophy written in graffiti that inspired this project:

Rich Iyala, guest: Hyphy children got trauma and I put that on mommas. Hyphy children got trauma and I put that on mommas… Pretty much, it turned into a chant.

Pendarvis Harshaw: This is Hyphy Kids Got Trauma. Hosted by me, Pendarvis Harshaw

Produced by Maya Cueva

Edited by Chris Hambrick

Sound design and original music by Trackademics

With support from Eric Arnold, Sheree Bishop, Jen Chien, Holly Kernan, Victoria Mauleon, Marisol Medina-Cadena, Gabe Meline, Xorje Olivares, Delency Parham,

Sayre Quevedo, Cesar Saldaña, Katie Sprenger, Ryce Stoughtenborough and Nastia Voynovskaya.

This project was produced with support from PRX and is made possible in part by a grant from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation.

And it’s a part of KQED’s That’s My Word project, a year-long exploration of Bay Area Hip-Hop history. Find more at BayAreaHipHop.com

RIP Andre “Mac Dre” Hicks, and so many more. Keep it lit, peace.

Rightnowish is an arts and culture podcast produced at KQED. Listen to it wherever you get your podcasts or click the play button at the top of this page and subscribe to the show on NPR One, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, TuneIn, Stitcher or wherever you get your podcasts.

[ad fullwidth]=

[ad floatright]

2026 Voter Guide

The Speaker

Emma’s Must-Sees

Videos from KQED Live

Donor-Advised Funds

Rita ForteRita Forte

Hyphy Kids Got Trauma Pt. 3, ‘From DVDs to MTV’

Rita Forte, Women's Hoops and America