And that’s how we can feel stronger and feel like we can change something, you know?ĪMY GOODMAN: So, can you set the scene for us for “Rican Beach”?ĪLYNDA SEGARRA: Well, Rican Beach is a place in my mind, because in the album there is a storyline. You know, one of my heroes is Nina Simone, and I feel like it’s definitely the artist’s duty to talk about the times and to-in scary times, to bring these fears that we deal with alone into the public sphere. And now I feel like there is definitely more of a push for us to wake up and to sing what’s going on around us. You know, I felt like for the last couple of years, as the Black Lives Matter movement was growing, I was looking around at at least folk singers around me and wondering where our voices were. You know, we wanted to like be in touch with the land, you know, just live this very radical, like romantic life, I guess.ĪMY GOODMAN: Political songs and music-are you satisfied with politics being expressed in music, or do you think it’s not happening enough?ĪLYNDA SEGARRA: I think it’s just beginning. We wanted to get in touch with an America that, we felt like, was hidden. We were really just wanting to live on the outskirts of society, basically. So I learned in that way.ĪMY GOODMAN: Did you really hop trains across the country?ĪLYNDA SEGARRA: I did, yeah, a lot of hitchhiking and train riding to get around. And I learned in a very communal atmosphere, like playing around the campfire and learning a lot of American folk songs, a lot of like Appalachian songs and blues songs. And, you know, the group that I met there was a lot of other young street kids. So, it was when I got to New Orleans when I started playing music, because I started playing music on the street there, busking and just trying to make some money.ĪMY GOODMAN: How did you pick up the banjo?ĪLYNDA SEGARRA: Well, I first played the washboard, actually. I was really involved in the Lower East Side punk scene. That’s what I was doing, writing a lot of poetry, going to see a lot of music. I just decided to risk it and to go out on the road.ĪMY GOODMAN: Were you already playing music?ĪLYNDA SEGARRA: No, not really. And I really wanted to just kind of escape and see the country and get to know this America that was very like mythical to me. I, for some reason, just really felt like-like I didn’t belong here, or anywhere, for that matter. I was just kind of like a rebellious kid that felt like there was this big world out there for me. I began by asking her to talk about her life journey.ĪLYNDA SEGARRA: I left home when I was 17, as you said. Well, Alynda Segarra recently came into our Democracy Now! studios to perform and talk about her music. Another tune, “Rican Beach,” has been described as an anti-gentrication anthem. One tune, “Pa’lante,” is named after a newspaper published by the Young Lords. Part of it celebrates Alynda’s Puerto Rican heritage. Hurray for the Riff Raff’s new record, The Navigator, is out this week. NPR declared the same tune to be the political folk song of 2014. In 2014, the publication American Songwriter named her tune “The Body Electric” the song of the year. Over the past decade, her band, Hurray for the Riff Raff, has become one of the most celebrated bands in modern folk music. She eventually landed in New Orleans, where she learned to play banjo. When she was just 17, Alynda left her home in the Bronx and began hopping freight trains. AMY GOODMAN: We end our International Women’s Day special with the musician and activist Alynda Segarra, leader of the critically acclaimed band Hurray for the Riff Raff.
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