Some say Raymond Antrobus isn't being deaf correctly. "There are people who feel like I shouldn't be doing this in a view, talking," he tells GRAMMY.com over Zoom. "That I should be signing, and I should get an interpreter."

Instead, the poet uses use technology that dramatically improves his quality of life. Among other things, his phone acts as an external mic, which boosts the clarity of the input.

"If technology has enabled me to have a direct conversation, then am I just performing something?" he asks. "Is that not authentic?"

Antrobus is far more concerned with the authenticity of his artistic output. Mixed in an accessible way for hard-of-hearing listeners, his new album, An Investigator (of Missing Sounds), is an unvarnished portrait of his experience.

"There is a kind of authenticity within it, which is to say that there are also shortcomings, there are also contradictions. It's not trying to be perfect or say something perfect," Antrobus says. 

Poems like "The Perseverance," "The Acceptance" and "Every Sound in the World" are charged with Antrobus's ethos — to "honor my authentic self, and what deafness is to me, what language is to me, and my day-to-day experiences.

"Because I'm in my head quite a lot," he continues. "I'm trying to convey what this internal headspace is like, and get it out and share that and hope that people resonate or understand what I'm speaking about."

Read on for an interview with Antrobus about the road to An Investigator (of Missing Sounds), navigating his deafness and his personal conception of his artform.

This interview has been edited for clarity.

What did you want to artistically impart with An Investigator (of Missing Sounds)?

Almost like an experiment, if I'm honest. There was no real grand vision.

I've been performing and writing poetry since I was a kid. And every now and then, I meet someone who's interested in recording my poems and my words.

Collaborating with [producer] Ian Brennan with his experience, and his understanding and appreciation of the voice as an instrument, felt like a worthwhile, important, potentially powerful collaboration or connection to make.

I think I wanted to create something that was kind of unexpected. The idea of the investigation of missing sound is to find a way into silences, to find a way into places where there's perhaps not much language — or no language, no noise, silence — and try and voice it.

I know that sounds quite vague and out there, but that's how almost in the dark I was in this collaboration and bringing it together.

Tell me more about how it came to be.

We recorded about three times that amount of material; it was Ian who kind of constructed the order, the atmosphere.

One way I think of Ian is as a kind of scientist of sound. He's done things with the track or the sound, which I don't access. I have to let other people listen to it to tell me what else is happening — my own missing sound, because there's things in there that I'm missing.

This is our second collaboration album; that was the case with the first one as well. So I don't hear any high decibel sounds. So if there's anything that's kind of faint, or an alarm, or a ringing, or anything high pitch, is just not going to... I just don't pick that up.

Ultimately, there were so many poets who record their poems and make poetry albums who I love. Poets like Jerome Ellis and some dub poets from the '80s and the '70s, like Linton Kwesi Johnson and Jean "Binta" Breeze and Mutabaruka.

So, I'm very much inspired by quite a lot of British, or European and Caribbean poets and noise makers, in a way. I've always wanted to make projects or records where the most important thing is the voice and the words. And that has been difficult to find someone that aligned with that vision.

I was in a band once and they just wanted me to rap. And I was like, "No, no, no. I'm a poet. I can't. Just don't let me rap." So that was a frustrating, a kind of creatively frustrating experience that I've had.

Whereas in An Investigator (of Missing Sounds) with Ian, he was just free. He was like, just record the poems, just let the voice and the words just do what they do instinctively.

Being trusted as a poet — and as a vocalist as well — is a new and liberating terrain for me.

Tell me how you've navigated your deafness up to this point.

I was educated in deaf school in London. I was slow to read, and I was slow to write.

So much of my engagement with language and with the written word has always felt very charged because I had to do so much work with speech therapists, with teachers of the deaf, with English teachers. Luckily, I got a lot of support when I was a child, because my deafness was picked up late.

I feel like with almost every poem I write, or every poem I record, or every poem that I want to get heard, it feels like I'm trying to honor the teachers or the people that have given me this speech or this language — and I don't want to waste it.

That's why it feels like so much is at stake for me. This is not something I can take for granted. Having a voice, wanting to be heard and channeling that through poetry felt and feels appropriate.

I'm sure this life change deeply altered your perspective as a poet.

I think so. It has enriched it, but it's also complicated it more — because I suppose people think about deafness or deaf identity as a kind of culture, a kind of lifestyle.

There's this idea sometimes within that community that there's a certain way to be a deaf person. So if you are speaking rather than signing, and you are someone who has done a lot of work to be able to sound like a hearing person, sometimes there's a bit of guilt that comes with that because my access is a privilege.

I have also visited deaf schools all over the world, around Africa and the Caribbean, around Europe. One of the most consistent things I see is a lack of funding to deaf schools. Most deaf schools and places that students don't even have hearing aids, let alone high-tech hearing aids that come with an app.

So it is complicated, but at the same time, it's also been quite interesting with the new technology, for example, watching films that I'd seen when I was younger and then realizing how much I had made up the plot of those films, or just had a completely different idea of what the films were about or what was going on.

The hearing aids aren't a cure, they're still an aid. The problem isn't always the sound itself. The volume of the sound is still happening, but then sometimes my brain just can't figure  out exactly what it's saying.

Can you give me an example?

I went to see Oppenheimer the other day. I thought it was a really good film, but I missed quite a bit of it because it was in this IMAX, a very bassy cinema, and the film is very talky film. With a lot of the dialogue, it was almost like reverting to my older days when I was just having to patch things together.

So I had to watch the film and then actually read about Oppenheimer and the experiment in New Mexico, everything like that after I'd watched the film to pick up on what has happened.

But I mentioned that film because I was actually really struck with the sound structure of it. It was an event of sound for me. The idea that light travels faster than sound — how that is a principle throughout the whole film.

I feel like there were a lot of things I noticed in that film in terms of the sound — that maybe hearing people, people that don't think as much about the physics of sound and the way of being in sound, might have missed.

That's interesting to me. It is a rich experience, but it still can be an alienating one knowing that most often other people are on a different page from you.

**To get back into An Investigator (of Missing Sounds): what made Ian the man for the job? Ian seems to possess an uncommon level of perceptiveness.**

He does. So many things came together in our meeting, but basically he'd reached out and said that he was a fan of my work.

I'd written a children's book; Ian bought it for his daughter, and she really resonated with it as well. And then Ian was releasing a polemic book on the music industry [2016's How Music ies (or Lives): Field Recording and the Battle for Democracy in the Arts], which is a really good read.

He asked me to come and basically read some poems at the launch. I did that. And at the launch I had a ESL interpreter show up; I was like, Wait, I recognize you. She happened to be one of my support teachers for when I was at school.

So, that was a kind of strange coincidence where we had this whole kind of conversation around the chances of that happening.

At the end of the event, Ian just said, "Look, you have a voice —I just hear something and recognize something that I need to capture."

Because at this point, I've spoken to Ian at the length about the philosophy of sound, about the philosophy of what makes a great vocalist, about the capturing music, and lyrics, and vocals that are outside of the mainstream Amplifying voices and sound that are basically from the margin and trying to center that.

I think Ian and I just kind of had a lot of similar understandings and similar appreciations for those kinds of, I suppose, marginalized narratives. And it just kind of connected, synced together.

It was just like a gut feeling — that this is someone I should work with. This is someone I feel I can trust with my poetry, with my voice to put on a record and hopefully get it heard and have it resonate with others.

Where do you want to go from here? What possibilities are flung open thanks to An Investigator (of Missing Sounds)?

Maybe four years ago, I was teaching creative writing in a men's prison. Most of the men I was working with, they're in jail for life and they're not coming out, and they've taken a liking to poetry.

Half of the group were raised in the same part of London that I'm from. And they'd been given copies of my books before I'd gone to work with them.

The ones who were from where I'm from in East London, in Hackney, once they heard me read the poems they said to me, "Look, I liked reading your work, but when I heard you, I understood you. I had to hear you to understand where you're from and what you're about."

I connected with that, and I never forgot that. That, for me, told me to lean more into my voice and to get some recordings out. And I feel like having had that now, it would just open up my work and the world that I'm talking about, this kind of internal world of mine, to hopefully find more worlds to connect with.

I'm still interested in further collaboration. I'm interested in reaching audiences outside of people who might feel like poetry isn't for them, or that poetry is too, I don't know, earnest, or too predictable, or too much of an old idea. But I truly believe that if poetry had nothing to offer the world today, that it would've died a long time ago.

There's just no way that this art form, which is one of the most ancient art forms of humanity, which is still very much living, breathing, being practiced, being taken seriously by a lot of people in the world.

So I really do feel like, or hope, one of my hopes is that the album would just reach the ears of people who wouldn't have opened up a poetry book in a library or bookshop and connected. But when they hear the voice, maybe they connect with that.

Meet Question, A Rapper/Producer Who Doesn't Want To Be Boxed In By Blindness

So you've been hard at work binge studying the full list of 58th GRAMMY nominees. Now that you've sized up the entire GRAMMY field, we've dissected all 83 categories to bring you 58 interesting and informative factoids about this year's nominees that will help skyrocket your GRAMMY IQ near genius level. Read all 58 facts below.

1. Kendrick Lamar

Kendrick Lamar is the leading nominee for the 58th Annual GRAMMY Awards. The critically acclaimed rapper received 11 nominations, a total topped by only two artists in GRAMMY history. Michael Jackson received 12 nods for 1983, as did Babyface for 1996. 

2. Taylor Swift

Taylor Swift received noms for Album, Record and Song Of The Year. It's the second time she has achieved this sweep. She first accomplished it six years ago. Only one other female artist in GRAMMY history has received nominations in all three categories more than once. Mariah Carey achieved the triple play for both 1990 and 2005.

3. Max Martin

Max Martin co-produced two of the contenders for Record Of The Year — Taylor Swift's "Blank Space" and The Weeknd's "Can't Feel My Face." It's the first time in five years that one producer (or team of producers) has produced or co-produced two of the nominees in this category. The Smeezingtons (Bruno Mars, Philip Lawrence and Ari Levine) produced two of the 2010 nominees — Cee Lo Green's "F*** You" and "Nothin' On You" by B.o.B Featuring Bruno Mars.

4. Alabama Shakes

Alabama Shakes are nominated for Album Of The Year for Sound & Color. The band received a GRAMMY nomination for Best New Artist three years ago. (Two other Album Of The Year candidates this year, Taylor Swift and Kendrick Lamar, are also past Best New Artist nominees.)

5. Ronald Isley

R&B legend Ronald Isley is a featured artist on Kendrick Lamar's To Pimp A Butterfly, a current Album Of The Year nominee. Isley received his first two GRAMMY nominations 46 years ago for the Isley Brothers' classic "It's Your Thing." The trio won for Best R&B Vocal Performance By A Duo Or Group.

6. Courtney Barnett

Courtney Barnett is vying to become the second Australian artist to win Best New Artist. Men At Work won for 1982.

7. Maroon 5

Maroon 5 are vying for their third award in the Best Pop Duo/Group Performance category. The Los Angeles-based quintet is nominated this year for "Sugar." The group won the 2005 award for "This Love" and the 2007 award for "Makes Me Wonder."

8. The Chemical Brothers, Skrillex

The Chemical Brothers and Skrillex are each contending to become the first three-time winner in the category of Best Dance/Electronic Album. The Chemical Brothers, nominated for Born In The Echoes, previously won for Push The Button and We Are The Night. Skrillex, nominated along with Diplo for Skrillex And Diplo Present Jack Ü, previously won for Scary Monsters And Nice Sprites and Bangarang.

9. D'Angelo And The Vanguard

D'Angelo could be headed for his second award for Best R&B Album. He and the Vanguard are nominated this year for Black Messiah. He won the 2000 award for Voodoo. To date, only three artists have won multiple awards in this category. Alicia Keys has won three. John Legend and TLC have each won two.

10. Nicki Minaj

Nicki Minaj is vying to become the first female solo artist to win for Best Rap Album. She is nominated for The Pinkprint. Lauryn Hill shared the 1996 award in this category as a member of Fugees for The Score. (The title of Minaj's album is a nod to Jay Z's The Blueprint, which was a 2001 nominee in this category.)

11. Kacey Musgraves

Kacey Musgraves could become the first female solo artist to win twice in the category of Best Country Album. Musgraves is nominated this year for Pageant Material. She won two years ago for Same Trailer Different Park.

12. Joey Alexander

Joey Alexander, who is nominated for Best Jazz Instrumental Album and Best Improvised Jazz Solo, is just 12 years old. If the piano prodigy wins either award, he'll become the youngest individual artist to win a GRAMMY. The current record-holder is LeAnn Rimes, who was 14 1/2 when she won her first GRAMMY. (The Peasall Sisters were even younger when they won for their contribution to the O Brother, Where Art Thou? soundtrack. But they were a group.)

13. Emmylou Harris, Rodney Crowell

Emmylou Harris and Rodney Crowell could be headed for their second GRAMMY in three years in the Best Americana Album category. They're nominated this year for The Traveling Kind. They won two years ago for Old Yellow Moon. To date, Levon Helm is the only two-time winner in this category.

14. Empire: Season 1

Empire: Season 1 is nominated for Best Compilation Soundtrack For Visual Media. It's vying to become the second television soundtrack to win in this category. The first was Boardwalk Empire: Volume 1, which won four years ago.

15. Producer Of The Year, Non-Classical

One thing's for sure: There will be a first-time winner for Producer Of The Year, Non-Classical. Three of the nominees (Jeff Bhasker, Diplo and Larry Klein) have been nominated in this category once before (though they didn't win). The other two contenders, Dave Cobb and Blake Mills, are first-time nominees.

16. Lalah Hathaway

Lalah Hathaway is vying to win for Best Traditional R&B Performance for the second year in a row. She is nominated this year for "Little Ghetto Boy." She won last year as a featured artist on Robert Glasper Experiment's "Jesus Children." Only two other artists, Aretha Franklin and Beyoncé, have won twice in this category — and neither of them won in back-to-back years.

17. GRAMMY Creators Alliance

What do 58th GRAMMY nominees Kenny "Babyface" Edmonds, Charles Kelley, Adam Levine, and Ryan Tedder have in common? They are co-founders of the GRAMMY Creators Alliance, a collective established by The Recording Academy to help today's leading artists, songwriters and studio professionals form a powerful voice in shaping music's future.

18. Jay Mohr

Jay Mohr is a first-time nominee for Best Comedy Album for Happy. And A Lot. Should he emerge victorious, Mohr would become the fourth former "Saturday Night Live" cast member to win the category. The SNL cast alumni who have previously won Best Comedy Album are Jimmy Fallon, Chris Rock and Eddie Murphy. Mohr's SNL tenure ran from 1993–1995.

19. Roger Waters

Roger Waters' The Wall is nominated for Best Music Film. Pink Floyd's original recording of The Wall received a 1980 GRAMMY nomination for Album Of The Year. That album was voted into the GRAMMY Hall Of Fame in 2008.

20. Pharrell Williams

Pharrell Williams could be headed for his second consecutive award in the category of Best Music Video. The multitalented star is nominated this year for "Freedom." He won last year for "Happy." To date, Peter Gabriel is the only artist to win back-to-back awards in this category. He won the 1992 award for "Digging In The Dirt" and the 1993 award for "Steam."

21. Jimmy Carter

Jimmy Carter could become the first former U.S. President to win twice for Best Spoken Word Album (Includes Poetry, Audio Books & Storytelling). The 39th president is nominated this year for A Full Life: Reflections At Ninety. He won the 2006 award for Our Endangered Values: America's Moral Crisis. (Barack Obama won twice in this category before he became president.)

22. Keith Urban

Keith Urban is nominated in the category of Best Country Solo Performance for "John Cougar, John Deere, John 3:16." John Cougar, as the artist was then known, won a 1982 GRAMMY for Best Rock Vocal Performance, Male for "Hurts So Good." Urban won four GRAMMYs in the Best Male Country Vocal Performance category.

23. Big Sean

In addition to contending for his first career GRAMMY for "One Man Can Change The World," Big Sean is a curator for the fourth annual GRAMMY Amplifier, which provides aspiring artists with the opportunity to showcase their talent. The Detroit rapper — along with fellow 58th nominee Sam Hunt and Lzzy Hale of the GRAMMY-winning band Halestorm — will select the program's top three winners, who will be announced during GRAMMY Week.

24. Tamar Braxton

Tamar Braxton is a finalist for Best R&B Performance for "If I Don't Have You." This could be her first GRAMMY win. Braxton's older sister, Toni Braxton, has won seven GRAMMYs, including one just last year for Love, Marriage & Divorce, a collaboration with Babyface. It was voted Best R&B Album.

25. Björk

Björk is vying to become the second female solo artist in a row to win Best Alternative Music Album. She's nominated for Vulnicura. Last year the award went to St. Vincent for her eponymous album. Only one other female solo artist has won in the category — Sinéad O'Connor, who took the 1990 award for I Do Not Want What I Haven't Got.

26. James Bay

Englishman James Bay is a finalist for Best New Artist. Another Englishman, Sam Smith, won the award last year. If Bay wins, this will be the second time that artists from England have won in this category in successive years. Amy Winehouse and Adele won for 2007 and 2008, respectively.

27. "Girl Crush"

"Girl Crush" is nominated for Song Of The Year. The song, co-written by Hillary Lindsey, Lori McKenna and Liz Rose, could become the second song written by an all-female songwriting team to win in this category. The first was "Bette Davis Eyes," the 1981 winner, which was co-written by Jackie DeShannon and Donna Weiss. (Four female songwriters have won the award solo: Carole King, Julie Gold, Alicia Keys, and Amy Winehouse.)

28. "See You Again"

"See You Again" from Furious 7 is nominated for Song Of The Year. It's the first film soundtrack song in 12 years to receive a nom in the category. "Lose Yourself" from 8 Mile was a 2003 nominee. Wiz Khalifa and Charlie Puth co-wrote their hit "See You Again" with Andrew Cedar and Justin Franks. Eminem co-wrote "Lose Yourself" with Jeff Bass and Luis Resto.

29. Ed Sheeran

Ed Sheeran is represented in the Album Of The Year category for the third year in a row. This year, he is a featured artist on The Weeknd's Beauty Behind The Madness. Last year, he was nominated for his own album, X. Two years ago, he was a featured artist on Taylor Swift's Red.

30. The Weeknd

The Weeknd's Beauty Behind The Madness is nominated for both Album Of The Year and Best Urban Contemporary Album. It's the fourth album to be nominated in both categories in the four years that the GRAMMYs have had an urban contemporary category. Beyoncé's self-titled album and Pharrell Williams' Girl were nominated for both awards last year. Frank Ocean's Channel Orange was nominated for both awards three years ago.

31. Ian Brennan

Producer Ian Brennan is nominated for Best World Music Album for his work on Zomba Prison Project's I Have No Everything Here. Brennan recorded the album over 10 days in 2013 with a group of male and female maximum security prisoners. Brennan won the same award for 2011 for his co-producer role on Tinariwen's Tassili.

32. Glen Campbell: I'll Be Me

Glen Campbell: I'll Be Me is competing for Best Compilation Soundtrack For Visual Media. Two tracks from the album won GRAMMYs last year. "I'm Not Gonna Miss You," which Campbell co-wrote with Julian Raymond, was voted Best Country Song. The Band Perry's version of Campbell's 1967 hit "Gentle On My Mind" won for Best Country Duo/Group Performance. Campbell, a six-time GRAMMY winner, received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Recording Academy in 2012.

33. Carrie Underwood

Carrie Underwood is vying to take home the award for Best Country Solo Performance for the third time in the past four years. She's nominated this year for "Little Toy Guns." She won the 2012 award for "Blown Away" and last year's award for "Something In The Water."

34. "Glory"

"Glory," which won an Academy Award last year, is nominated for three GRAMMYs: Best Rap/Sung Collaboration, Best Rap Song and Best Song Written For Visual Media. Common and John Legend, whose recording of the song was heard at the end of Selma, co-wrote the song with Che Smith.

35. Paul McCartney

Paul McCartney has won GRAMMYs in the Pop, Rock and Traditional Pop Fields. Could he be headed for an award this year in the Rap Field? He's nominated in two rap categories — Best Rap Performance as a featured artist on Kanye West's "All Day" and Best Rap Song as a co-writer of that song.

36. Anoushka Shankar

Anoushka Shankar, a nominee for Best World Music Album for Home, is vying for her first career GRAMMY. Shankar is the daughter of the late Ravi Shankar, a recipient of a Recording Academy Lifetime Achievement Award. Ravi Shankar: A Life In Music is on display at the GRAMMY Museum through April 1. The exhibit offers visitors a glimpse into the sitar legend's early life and his impact on Western music.

37. Slipknot

Slipknot could be headed for their second award in the category of Best Metal Performance. The band is nominated for "Custer," a track from.5: The Gray Chapter. Slipknot won the 2005 award for "Before I Forget."

38. Best Rock Performance

Three female-fronted groups are nominated for Best Rock Performance: Alabama Shakes (fronted by Brittany Howard), Florence & The Machine (fronted by Florence Welch) and Wolf Alice (fronted by Ellie Rowsell).

39. Sam Hunt

Sam Hunt is a finalist for Best New Artist. He is just the fourth male country solo artist to receive a nomination in this category. He follows Billy Ray Cyrus, Brad Paisley and Hunter Hayes. Historical note: For two years in the mid-'60s, the GRAMMYs awarded a separate Best New Country & Western Artist award. Roger Miller (1964) and the Statler Brothers (1965) were the winners.

40. Kelly Clarkson

Kelly Clarkson, the only two-time winner for Best Pop Vocal Album, could be headed for her third award in the category. She's nominated this year for Piece By Piece. Clarkson won the 2005 award for Breakaway and the 2012 award for Stronger. Her competition includes two other past winners in the category: James Taylor (who won the 1997 award for Hourglass) and Mark Ronson (who shared the 2007 award for co-producing Amy Winehouse's Back To Black).

41. MusiCares Person of the Year

Current GRAMMY nominees Charles Kelley, John Legend and Pharrell Williams are slated to perform at the tribute gala honoring 2016 MusiCares Person of the Year Lionel Richie. Taking place Feb. 13 in Los Angeles, the gala raises funds to support the mission of MusiCares, which ensures music people have a place to turn in times of financial, medical and personal need.

42. Bob Dylan

Bob Dylan's Shadows In The Night is nominated for Best Traditional Pop Vocal Album. The album is a collection of songs made famous by Frank Sinatra. Both of these artists have received Lifetime Achievement Awards from The Recording Academy — Sinatra in 1965; Dylan in 1991. (Coincidentally, both artists were 49 at the time they received those honors.)

43. Snoop Dogg

Snoop Dogg has never received an Album Of The Year nomination as a lead artist, but he has been a featured artist on two nominated albums in the category. He's featured on Kendrick Lamar's To Pimp A Butterfly, a nominee this year. He was previously featured on Katy Perry's Teenage Dream, a 2010 nominee.

44. Mark Ronson, Bruno Mars

"Uptown Funk" by Mark Ronson Featuring Bruno Mars is a finalist for Record Of The Year. This is the second time these two musicians have shared a nomination in that top category. Ronson co-produced Mars' "Locked Out Of Heaven," which was a nominee two years ago.

45. Irving Azoff

Irving Azoff will be honored at Clive Davis' and The Recording Academy's annual Pre-GRAMMY Gala on Sunday, Feb. 14. Known as the manager of bands such as the Eagles, Fleetwood Mac and Journey, Azoff now runs Azoff MSG Entertainment — a multifaceted company overseeing publishing rights, artist management, branding, and venue management. His current roster of clients includes 58th GRAMMY nominees Maroon 5 and Don Henley.

46. Best Music Film

Three of the films nominated for Best Music Film are focused on great artists from the past. What Happened, Miss Simone looks at Nina Simone, who died in 2003. Mr. Dynamite: The Rise Of James Brown focuses on the R&B legend, who died in 2006. Amy tells the story of Amy Winehouse, who died in 2011.

47. Charles Kelley

Charles Kelley is nominated for Best Country Duo/Group Performance for "The Driver," a collaboration with Dierks Bentley and Eric Paslay. As a member of Lady Antebellum, Kelley won back-to-back awards in this category. The trio took the 2009 award for "I Run To You" and the 2010 award for "Need You Now."

48. Foo Fighters

Foo Fighters are nominated for Best Music Film for Sonic Highways. They won this award four years ago for Foo Fighters: Back And Forth. Two artists, Sting and Madonna, each won twice in a predecessor category, Best Music Video — Long Form.

49. Sam Hunt

Current nominee Sam Hunt will perform at GRAMMY In The Schools Live! — A Celebration Of Music & Education during GRAMMY Week. The event features participants from the GRAMMY Foundation's GRAMMY Camp programs, including GRAMMY Camp — Jazz Session students.

50. Best Song Writtern For Visual Media

Two songs from the 2015 film Fifty Shades Of Grey — "Love Me Like You Do" and "Earned It (Fifty Shades Of Grey)" — are vying for Best Song Written For Visual Media. It's the first time in three years that two songs from the same film have been nominated in this category. Two songs from The Hunger Games were nominated for 2012.

51. Little Big Town

Little Big Town may be on their way to a second win for Best Country Duo/Group Performance. The co-ed quartet is nominated this year for "Girl Crush." They won three years ago for "Pontoon."

52. Drake

Drake could be headed for his second award for Best Rap Album. The superstar rapper is nominated for If Youre Reading This Its Too Late. He came out on top in this category three years ago for Take Care.

53. Muse

Muse are vying to become the first British band to win twice in the category of Best Rock Album. The band is nominated this year for Drones. They won the award five years ago for The Resistance. To date, the only bands to win two or more times in the category are either American (Foo Fighters, Green Day) or Irish (U2).

54. Bill Charlap

Jazz pianist Bill Charlap, who is nominated for Best Traditional Pop Vocal Album for The Silver Lining: The Songs Of Jerome Kern, a collaboration with Tony Bennett, is the son of two past GRAMMY nominees. His mother, Sandy Stewart, received a 1962 nomination for Best Solo Vocal Performance, Female for "My Coloring Book." His father, Moose Charlap, shared a 1966 nod for Best Recording For Children for Alice Through The Looking Glass.

55. Kendrick Lamar

Kendrick Lamar could be headed for his second consecutive award for Best Rap Performance. He's nominated this year for "Alright." He won last year for "I." This would make him the second artist to win back-to-back awards in this category. Jay Z and Kanye West took the 2011 award for "Otis" and the 2012 award for "N****s In Paris."

56. GRAMMY Hall Of Fame

James Brown's "Cold Sweat — Part 1" is part of the 2016 GRAMMY Hall Of Fame induction class. Often called the first true funk recording, its influence — along with that of later Brown acolytes such as Prince and the Time — can be heard in Mark Ronson and Bruno Mars' Record Of The Year-nominated "Uptown Funk."

57. Max Martin

This is the third year in a row that Max Martin has received a Song Of The Year nomination. The Swedish hit-maker is nominated for co-writing Taylor Swift's "Blank Space." He was nominated in the same category last year for co-writing Swift's "Shake It Off" and two years ago for co-writing Katy Perry's "Roar." Martin received his first nom in the category 16 years ago for co-writing Backstreet Boys' "I Want It That Way."

58. Taylor Swift

Taylor Swift received her third nomination for Album Of The Year for 1989. She won the 2009 award for Fearless. If she wins again this year, she'll become the first female to win Album Of The Year twice for albums on which she was the lead artist. (Lauryn Hill, Norah Jones and Alison Krauss have each won Album Of The Year twice, but each won at least once for an album that was not a solo project.)

The 58th Annual GRAMMY Awards will be held Feb. 15 at Staples Center in Los Angeles and broadcast live in high-definition TV and 5.1 surround sound on CBS from 8 p.m. ET/5 p.m. PT). For updates and breaking news, visit The Recording Academy's social networks on Twitter and Facebook.

No one is arguing that “Bridgerton” is realistic or even particularly historically accurate — in fact, leaning into anachronisms is the point. Entering its third season, which premieres on May 16, the pulpy Netflix show based on a series of romance novels by Julia Quinn — often classified as “bodice rippers” — mixes modern life ideas with Regency-era social rules.

From Lady Whistledown's tantalizing gossip columns to the complex romances of the Bridgerton siblings, the series grips viewers with its blend of historical drama and contemporary flair. One key note in that chord is classical music. Instead of using current tracks like some historical-contemporary-hybrids (most famously “A Knight’s Tale" in 2001), “Bridgerton” has mastered the art of the classical cover. 

Paired with original compositions by Kris Bowers, an Oscar winner and GRAMMY nominee — including one for Best Score Soundtrack For Visual Media for "Bridgerton" — the tone of the show is that of a heightened, classic world. Bowers, along with music supervisor Justin Kamps collaborates with the Vitamin String Quartet and other artists to create a full circle sonic landscape. They make the classical music in “Bridgerton” pop by re-recording, rearranging, and reimagining contemporary pop songs as classic pieces. 

Over three seasons, as well as with the spin off, “Queen Charlotte,” the team has included a mix of the newest songs as well as nostalgic favorites. This season features GAYLE’s “abcdefu,” which was released in 2022 as well as a cover of Pitbull, Ne-Yo, and Afrojack’s “Give Me Everything,” which was released in 2011, which can appease the full gamut of millennial and Gen Z viewers.  

Regency traditions 

The Regency period in which the show is based, spanned from 1811 to 1820, and was known as an era of elegance and refinement in British history.  In the first chunk of the 1800s, pop music included pieces by Beethoven, Liszt, Haydn, and Mendlesson (famous for the “Wedding March”). Waltzes were all the rage, and this “new” music was considered much more emotional and passionate than previous offerings. The romance of being swept away in a dance increased the thrill, and string quartets were highly popular. 

As seen throughout the series (and much like today), society placed a significant emphasis on social gatherings and music played a central role in these events. Balls, soirées, and intimate musical evenings were common, the perfect backdrop for orchestrating romance. 

In “Bridgerton," the show's modern portrayal of the Regency period occasionally features or references music from the time period, such as Vivaldi’s “The Four Seasons,” which was written a century before the events in the show but was and is still a popular piece of classical music. The show frequently uses arrangements of classical songs in a slightly modern way, but most often, it underscores scenes with either classically arranged covers of pop songs or original music by Bowers. 

Contemporary music covers

Choosing between a cover or original music is a nuanced decision for the music team. The music team considers “whether or not, there's something that can, lyrically, even though we don't hear lyrics, speak to a moment really well,” said Bowers. Absent a cover by an outside band, Bowers arranges pop hits to suit the tone of the scene. He said, “when you're saying something with a song, you're making commentary on what's happening.” 

When they do outsource tracks, more often than not, these covers come from Los Angeles-based Vitamin String Quartet. VSQ is the new Mendlesson in that they have been the predominant wedding-march artist for nearly a decade, known for producing string renditions of highly eclectic mix of artists including Cardi B, Lana Del Rey, Björk, and Sigur Rós. 

They contributed four covers in season one, including Billie Elish's “bad guy” and Ariana Grande's “Thank U, Next,” about which Leo Flynn, VSQ Brand Manager at CMH Label Group said, “Talk about a great track changing the temperature of a room.” In season two, VSQ’s cover of Robyn's “Dancing on My Own” played under a dance scene. 

When we spoke to James Curtiss, Director of A&R at CMH, the song placements for season three were still a mystery. Curtiss shared, “When we finished that Taylor [Swift] record, we sent it right over to the people at ‘Bridgerton.’” 

[Spoiler alert:] Since then, we have learned Swift's “Snow on the Beach” will be featured in season three. This isn't the first time Swift's music has been featured in the show: Duomo’s cover of “Wildest Dreams” played under the honeymoon scenes in season one. 

Composer Bowers added his favorite cover of the season is in episode eight, the finale, but what title that is will be a surprise. The surprise of an “unexpected cover” as Bowers calls it is that when you “hear a song that you know, and have this strong indelible connection with it that is represented in this style that you typically don't feel like is for you. People get excited by having this music that they really love be elevated to this other level.” He said the familiarity makes “you feel connected to this time period, these characters, and these people in a different way.” 

Flynn said, “There’s something about the past that’s inherently romantic,” and the use of VSQ songs “unites something from the past with what’s going on now.” Because classical music “feels very idealized and formal,” he said, “there’s all this history and mystique built into it.” 

Flynn also mentioned that “Bridgerton” fuses past and present on a “major storytelling scale” between the historically-inspired stories themselves, the “visual feast” of the show, and the music. Curtiss added that the “romantic nature of the string quartet” juxtaposed with pop songs helps viewers tie the feeling of going to a bar or club to the experience of hearing “the popular bangers of the day,” as he called Beethoven et al., at a ball in the Regency era. 

Original compositions

When the music needs to set a specific tone without taking the audience out of the action to try and name that tune, “Bridgerton” often uses original compositions by Bowers. Bowers said, “Looking at pop music for those things like rhythm and tempo and all that stuff also helps in moments where we want to have the score feel a little bit more modern and not as traditional.” He continued, “I’ll put something in the violas and the celli that have this kind of guitar and bass feeling to them even though we’re looking at it orchestrationally from a classical perspective.” He explained that “borrowing the rhythms or the way that parts interlock from pop music” makes it feel like a modern classical sound. 

Each character and couple has their own theme. Bowers explained that it was enjoyable to create themes that could fit both heartbreaking and celebratory moments. “The melodies are still the same even if the harmonic tone is changed,” he said.

Instrumental Pop In Visual Media

The “Bridgerton” style of using instrumentalized versions of pop songs is not unique. Famously, “Promising Young Woman” used a haunting version of Britney Spears’ “Toxic,” adapted by Anthony Willis, and “Westworld’s” Ramin Djawadi used adaptations of Radiohead among others. “Wednesday” featured a stirring string version of the Rolling Stones’ “Paint it Black.” The popularity of Vitamin String Quartet and other classical cover bands has not waned and, if anything, is becoming more of a mainstream staple.

As season three approaches, the unveiling of the time-spanning, romantic soundtrack is highly anticipated. Four episodes air May 16 and the second half of the season airs June 13, with original compositions by Kris Bowers and additional music by various artists, including Vitamin String Quartet, who will be taking over Pandora’s Classical Goes Pop in anticipation of their fall, “Bridgerton”-music-filled tour. 

Overall, to find the tone of the whole series, Bowers said, “Season three actually has a lot more lightness to it. (Showrunners) Shonda (Rhimes) and Jess (Brownell) really want to have a lot of fun this season so there's a little bit more of a playful, youthful quality to the music.” Whatever tunes make it into the season, they are sure to be a feast for the ears. 

Meet Usher Collaborator Pheelz, The Nigerian Producer & Singer Who Wants You To 'Pheelz Good’

"Your story is like that of a superhero. Literally, there needs to be a Marvel movie about her."

So gushed moderator Jamie Dominguez, the national director of industry relations at the Mechanical Licensing Collective, onstage at the acoustically designed National Sawdust space in Brooklyn. To a small crowd hiding out from the spring drizzle, Dominguez extolled the remarkable journey of Japanese hip-hop artist Awich. Hailing from Okinawa, Japan, Awich may just be a flesh-and-blood woman, but her sheer fortitude and tenacity are Stan Lee-scaled.

Born Akiko Urasaki — her stage name is short for "Asian wish child" — Awich was a natural fit for  the GRAMMY Museum-sponsored "A New York Evening With…" interview and performance series. Introducing Awich and Dominguez, Lynne Sheridan, Vice President of Public Programming and Artist Relations for the GRAMMY Museum, called her "the queen of Japanese hip-hop" and "the living embodiment of all that makes the genre so culturally vital."

"As she reaches global stardom on the strength of her music’s emotional potency and limitless originality," Sheridan continued, "Awich now moves forward with her mission of uplifting her community while fearlessly speaking her truth." With that, Awich and Dominguez hit the ground running, with a tip of Dominguez’s hat to the timeliness of the event: "Happy AANHPI month."

They started at the beginning: Awich is from Okinawa, a small island far from the Japanese mainland. To hear Dominguez tell it, Brooklyn is actually full of Okinawans. "I figured," Awich replied, "because Okinawans are everywhere."

The importance of Okinawa’s innate mysticism and turbulent history to Awich’s art cannot be overstated. As Awich explained, Okinawa was once the Ryukyu Kingdom, colonized by China, then Japan, before becoming an American territory after World War II. Her parents grew up during the latter period, which lasted until The United States returned Okinawa to Japan in the early 1970s.

"When they gave it back," everything changed," Awich said. "We drove on the other side of the road, the currency was different. It was always chaos, but Okinawan people always found a way to live through these complex changes." Because Okinawans, she says, are a resilient, hospitable people, "We value each other as brothers and sisters."

Awich speaking at National Sawdust during her "A New York Evening With..." appearance in 2024. Photo: Rob Kim/Getty Images

Awich’s father was born on the day Japan attacked Pearl Harbor; in the post-war era, it was rough going for Awich’s family, to put it lightly. One particularly jarring story involved a U.S. military jet crashing into a schoolhouse while her mom was in attendance.

In 1986, Awich was born in an Okinawa steeped in American influence. As a teenager, she became obsessed with Tupac Shakur; listening to the hip-hop icon helped her learn English. "In Japanese, it's like there's a different, poetic, more indirect way of expressing. It's beautiful in its own way, but I felt like English is so simple, to the point and quick." Which describes the quintessentially American hip-hop idiom to a T.

"What he was saying and what he was doing, what his passion was, what his message was, his poetry book, his interviews, his speeches at the community center, his lyrics, his struggles, that's all I wanted to know," Awich says of Tupac. "And I just would study him all day, all night."

While she later learned to sing — and sing tremendously — rap proved to be her ideal creative vehicle. "I was already a poet in my own head before I met rap music, she said. "So when I [became acquainted with] rap music, I felt like, 'Oh, you don't have to sing to be a musician? I can do this!" 

The story rolled on: at 19, Awich moved to the U.S., against her parents’ wishes. "They gave up because I was a stubborn young lady," the rapper said impishly. She opted to put down roots, not in the "overwhelming" New York or LA, but in Atlanta, partly to "watch the city grow."

She met her future husband on a fluke, walking to school; he convinced her to play hooky. "I sometimes hitchhiked to school, because it was just so far away," Awich said. "I was looking in his eyes; I'm like, All right, I don't think he's a serial killer. And then I got into the car and we started talking."

It was through him that Awich learned about the Five-Percent Nation, an Afro-American Nationalist movement that deeply informed hip-hop legends like the Wu-Tang Clan. "It really teaches the Black, brown and yellow to be the original people of the earth… It was really fascinating to me." One thing led to another, and they fell in love and wed.

Awich’s husband was complicated and troubled, and unfortunately, involved in the criminal world — and, as such, in and out of jail. Just as they found out Awich was pregnant, he was incarcerated. Three days before their daughter, Toyomi Jah’mira, was born, he was released. 

Tragically, not long after, her husband was murdered in a street beef — the brutal culmination of violent events that included gunfire directed at their home. Of course, Awich was devastated. She turned to education as an outlet, earning a social degree in Georgia, and then two bachelor degrees at the University of Indianapolis. Then, she and Toyomi moved back to Okinawa.

"So you were a wife, a mother, and widow, all before the age of 24," Dominguez remarked. Awich answered in the affirmative.

Awich felt unmoored back in Okinawa. "It was a rollercoaster of emotion every day. One day I feel so sad and depressed, and the next day I feel like I could change the world," she related. "And the thing that kept me going was writing. I kept on writing journals, the things that I accustomed to do ever since I was a child. And I just kept on writing, writing, talking to myself."

After two years and a long talk with herself, Awich redoubled her commitment to music. And the conversation led to her creative process. Namely, writing and singing in three different languages — Okinawan, Japanese, and English. "The goal is for me to kind of just express or just catch what comes out in my mind," Awich said. "Each language has its own personality."

Awich talked about the meaning behind her latest album, The Union — "If you don’t know who you are, you won’t allow people to be who they are, and the unification of people coming together will never be achieved," she said.

She also discussed the hurdles of being an Asian woman in rap ("I always think that if I was a guy, I would've been way more famous"), and her appreciation of the Black culture that birthed her artform of choice. "I identify with the struggle," she said. "Hip-hop, the music, the culture, it represents the basic human struggle, and that's why it touches the people all around the world."

After a brief audience Q&A (mostly adulation from fans, and the revelation that she’s Team Kendrick in the Kendrick-Drake beef), Toyomi took the stage. ("Thank you for coming for my mom," the teenager sweetly, and sheepishly, offered.)

Following a projected video for Awich's song "Ashes" — about she and her daughter spreading her husband’s ashes in the sea — she then launched into a brief yet head-spinning performance of her trilingual bangers: “Queendom,” “Rasen in Okinawa,” “The Union,” and “Gila Gila.”

And with that, the globally rising star took her leave. "You’re about to take off into outer space, and it’s going to be beautiful," Dominguez said near the end. And, well — that’s what real-life superheroes do: transcend trauma, heartbreak and destruction, and take to the stars.

An "Evening With" Gossip's Beth Ditto Turns Hilarious & Rockin' With Real Power Tracks

"I feel I’ve always been in the business of shedding labels, but the world is doubling down," says Ani DiFranco. 

The GRAMMY-winning singer has long been heralded as rebel-rousing and outspoken. On her latest release, Unprecedented Sh!t, DiFranco continues to counter the ideologically divided world, and the labels it imposes. The album is DiFranco's 23rd, and arrives May 17.

It's not coincidental that Unprecedented Sh!t arrives in the midst of pre-election campaigning, affirming DiFranco's drive to use music as a vehicle to protest deep-rooted inequality and prejudices in America and beyond. On "Baby Roe," DiFranco reaffirms women's right to agency over her body and her access to a safe abortion. (DiFranco’s charitable foundation Righteous Babe has long supported women’s rights initiatives, including the National Abortion Federation, Planned Parenthood, and National Institute of Public Health.) Reproductive freedom is "an essential civil right, the centerpiece of what it means to be free as a woman in society," she says.

DiFranco has never shied from wearing her heart on her sleeve and championing her political views. Pre-election in 2016, she penned Binary, an album that explored themes of women’s right to choose, non-violence, and the fundamental necessity to coexist despite different views. The album epitomized what fans have long known: DiFranco’s politics are personal, delivered with a vulnerability and earnestness that gives her songs incredible resonance. 

She is a lyricist who has always worn her heart on her sleeve and, in 2019, brought that candor to a bestselling memoir. No Walls and the Recurring Dream detailed her Buffalo, New York childhood and adventures as a young folk-punk musician, a music label founder (Righteous Babe Records in 1989), a wife and mother. DiFranco continued to evolve post-memoir; in 2021, she dropped new album Revolutionary Love, and in 2023, released the 25th anniversary edition of Little Plastic Castle. She is, unsurprisingly, determined to rally the disillusioned into using their vote and their voices in the face of some, well, unprecedented s—. Indeed, she’s been writing her second children’s book, Show Up and Vote, to be released on Aug. 27.

But making record after record, touring and running her Righteous Babe Records (founded in 1989) hasn’t stopped DiFranco from exploring new artistic territory. She made her Broadway debut in the popular musical "Hadestown" in February this year, nearly 15 years after creating its original studio concept album.

DiFranco was life-altering for a generation of teenagers in the 1990s, perhaps peaking with 1995's Dilate. DiFranco’s spirited, down-to-earth delivery and fearlessness felt empowering, especially when the radio was otherwise transfixed by male-dominated grunge bands. DiFranco sang about burgeoning and disintegrating relationships. Her albums were documents of a buzzing, raucous city life; tales that played out in Chicago, New York, on trains, in shabby apartments, in cafes and bars. Not until "Red Letter Year" in 2008 did listeners hear a more relaxed DiFranco, who moved to the Bywater neighborhood of New Orleans the same year.

A transition from thriving in a bustling urban environment to the remoteness of her Louisiana home, which she shares with her 15-year-old daughter and 11-year old son, altered DiFranco's perspective. Today, DiFranco is prone to discussing the consciousness of rocks, plants and wildlife as easily as reproductive freedom. This spiritual awareness and a grounded observance of modern America presents both lyrically and musically on Unprecedented Sh!t, which seamlessly blends organic instrumental and vocal tracks with dissonant, warped synth effects.

DiFranco is unafraid to talk about aging and contemplating new ways to make music, now that she has finished a 23-album "series" of her life thus far. She is, of course, "an artist ‘til I die," so there is no risk that Unprecedented Sh!t is the last we will hear of DiFranco.

Ahead of the release of Unprecedented Sh!t, Ani DiFranco spoke with GRAMMY.com about her latest album, her Broadway debut, and a career of DIY achievements.

You have released 22 albums before this, which is a huge body of work for any artist. How is Unprecedented Sh!t a continuation of those ideas and stories, and how does it diverge?

In some sense it’s a continuation, and in another sense it’s a divergence in any of my records. There’s a sort of sonic divergence when you’re working with [producer] BJ [Burton], obviously. All my albums are unique in and of themselves, some veer more personal while some veer more political. Sometimes I’m more inward looking, and sometimes more outward looking.

I think we all have these different moments in our life that we move through. On this album, there was a lot of looking at my society, my culture, and speaking to things bigger than I.

I feel like I shouldn’t say this, but I wonder if it’s the last in a series.

What series is that?

The 23 albums series in the life and times of Ani D. I’m 53 pushing 54,  and I hate to make any statements about my farewell tour or anything, but I feel less motivated to write songs the way I have been. It’s a mode I’ve thoroughly explored. These days, I’m working on a theater piece and writing songs towards a theatrical production.

I’m always creating and inventing in my mind, but there’s definitely an itch to change the mediums.

There’s a lot of dissonant sounds, especially in the two tracks "Baby Roe" and "Unprecedented Sh!t." There's a sense of things falling apart, and that the world is driving you to the edge. Tell me about the state of mind you were in when you wrote those songs.

The reason I wanted to work with BJ is because he lives in world of machines, [and has] an immense facility with machines I know nothing about. After so much making, recording and producing my own records, I have longed to incorporate the noisiness of modern life, and the presence of machines in our lives. I couldn’t do that on my own.

In this modern age, the playing of instruments is just one spice, one ingredient to use in modern recording. There are so many ways to make sounds, put together tracks. With BJ, I was able to explore other worlds. So inherently, through us and the process, this sort of anxious, punishing, frenetic noise of the world comes in. The tenor of life in this world right now expressed itself in the music and recordings, balanced with moments of deep quiet and retreat.

The super dissonant, chaotic sounds BJ created from my guitar [are] really extraordinary. I would make recordings of just me and my guitar, and I overdub a few things — like me playing percussion, or vocal overdubs. He just manipulated [those sounds] in his spaceship, surrounded by buttons, toggles and dials, to create the soundscapes but the raw materials were extremely organic.

The only thing not manipulated is my voice.

On "New Bible," you sing "Our roots are meant to be interwoven" and that "men should stand down when women give birth." Tell me about your view of women, their role as leaders and mothers, and whether your views have changed over time.

I think that my views haven’t changed in that I feel differently, but I understand more in terms of reproductive freedom for women. It’s an essential civil right, the centerpiece of what it means to be free as a woman in society. As I get older, I understand with my full being that consciousness supersedes the body. Our spirit bodes and re-embodies, and this is one of many lives, identities and stories, and essentially me and you are one being. We are God, you and I and every living thing. Women are agents of creation. I wrote a song, "Play God," a few years ago: "you don’t get to play God man, I do". I’m literally the creator in this situation.

You have to respect creation and agents of creation, such as women. I speak to it in "New Bible" and in "Baby Roe," that we need to step back a minute from patriarchal religious dogma, from political debate, and look at what it is to be alive. It is not the body. Consciousness is the spirit, the soul, is God, and is light, and that is eternal. So, there!

Did performing as Persephone in "Hadestown" on Broadway have an impact on the music or themes on this album, in which you sing about hell and the sanctity of women, or was there just an organic alignment?

I relate very much to the character, and I have been involved in the trajectory of "Hadestown" since the beginning, since it was a gleam in Anaïs Mitchell's eye, so it’s very cool to come back into the fray after all these years to perform the part on stage. 

There are two couples in the musical: Orpheus and Eurydice, the young starry-eyed lovers, and Hades and Persephone, the old couple, married for eons as Gods. They’ve been through it all together, there’s a real push and pull tension between them, and Persephone is the bestower of life on Earth, joy, and bounty, while Hades is the captain of industry and the underworld — which represents the hell of the modern world and its enslavement of humankind. 

It’s a prescient modern take on Greek mythology. The relationship between her and Hades, you know they don’t ride into the sunset, but there’s hope – like, "we’ll try again next year" – and after being married for 20 years [to music professional Mike Napolitano], I very much relate to that need to renew one’s love and one’s relationship.

I’ve been a fan of yours since "Dilate" and so many of your songs are deeply personal to me. Do you have favorites from your earlier albums, or songs of yours that feel deeply necessary to perform live and to revisit frequently?

Certainly there’s a bunch that have risen as favorites for me, mostly because they work live, they’re very playable, and [are] other people’s favorites. Some that don’t work well live because they’re too slow, or sad, or too something, are my secret favorites. Those are "Hypnotized," "Hour Follows Hour," "Albacore" or "The Atom," which is epic at 10 minutes.

There’s a lot of allusion to nature on this album, which is quite different to those earlier albums in which you were in bars, on trains and on the road. Tell me about how your connection to the land informs who you are, how you live, and your perspective.

It’s been a long time coming. I’ve been a city kid most of my life and I’ve been rapt with the human drama therein, but like many humans, it gets old. The land —  all the forms of consciousness that are not human, all the sentient beings…plants, trees, rocks — is something more profound than human drama.

I live in Louisiana, New Orleans, way, way, way on the edge of town, right on the Mississippi River, which feels both very remote and very New Orleans. It very much feels like home after 20 years now. It’s an immense place, culturally and musically, and I love being surrounded by snakes, owls, the birds on the river: herons, eagles, ducks, egrets. It’s immense and wonderful. Turtles wander by in this big swamp. I really love it there.

You sing "I defy being defined" on "The Thing At Hand." Do you feel that rather than growing into firmer descriptions or identifying labels, you’ve actually shed them instead and is that liberating or confusing?

I feel I’ve always been in the business of shedding labels, but the world is doubling down. I sang about relationships with women and men when I was young, or I sang about my experience as a young woman not wedded to gender being the defining character of a person, or sexual orientation, or race, or blood. I feel like I've always tried to write revolution through just the approach to storytelling and my songs. You cannot hold me down with your preconceived notions of identities and "us and them" and tribe, so I feel like I've always been at this work. And in America, I feel like identity politics has become so fever pitched.

I’m a child of the '70s when identity politics was about asserting identity and waking up culture to the fact that we’re not all middle-aged white dudes, but it’s as though the tool of liberation has become the cage itself. [My children’s book] The Knowing speaks to this: Use identity for whatever purpose it serves to know and find yourself, your tribe, to know you’re not alone but also beware of identity and ending up in a silo, at odds with your fellow humans.

 On 'Little Rope,' Sleater-Kinney Still Wear Their Hearts On Their Sleeves