Frannie Kelley
Frannie Kelley is co-host of the Microphone Check podcast with Ali Shaheed Muhammad.
Prior to hosting Microphone Check, Kelley was an editor at NPR Music. She was responsible for editing, producing and reporting NPR Music's coverage of hip-hop, R&B and the ways the music industry affects the music we hear, on the radio and online. She was also co-editor of NPR's music news blog, The Record.
Kelley worked at NPR from 2007 until 2016. Her projects included a series on hip-hop in 1993 and overseeing a feature on women musicians. She also ran another series on the end of the decade in music and web-produced the Arts Desk's series on vocalists, called 50 Great Voices. Most recently, her piece on Why You Should Listen to Odd Future was selected to be a part of the Best Music Writing 2012 Anthology.
Prior to joining NPR, Kelley worked in book publishing at Grove/Atlantic in a variety of positions from 2004 to 2007. She has a B.A. in Music Criticism from New York University.
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The 20-year-old started making viral videos; now, he has released his debut album. He owes his success, in part, to a social media-fueled youth culture revolution that prizes teen perspectives.
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The label and its founder, Sean "Diddy" Combs, helped to shape much of what we take for granted in pop culture. The new documentary Can't Stop Won't Stop tells Bad Boy's story.
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The prolific rapper and mentor recorded a song the day he got out of federal prison this May — and he's put out 10 projects this year. His secret? "Don't never drop your head," he says.
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The producer and manager, who's worked with The Weeknd, Drake, Young Buck, Esthero and thestand4rd, is fighting the good fight.
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The West Coast legend, one of the main instigators of G-funk, has seen the underside of the industry. It's not pretty, but he stays smooth.
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The Compton rapper, who beat back the sophomore jinx with his new album Still Brazy, is questioning a world that barely ever makes sense.
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Our producer, David Luke, father of David Luke III, put together this podcast, in which past guests like Danny Brown, Solange Knowles and T.I spoke about fatherhood and father figures. It's OK to cry.
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"I'm a manager. I am in the service industry. The service industry. I'm Midas f****** Muffler."
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She's the one behind the curtain of the biggest and best-loved rap and R&B songs in recent memory.
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"I don't want anybody to do exactly what I'm doing," says the Atlanta rapper. "I want people to look at why I'm doing what I'm doing. And if you agree with that, you go do what you do about it."