It's Been a Minute

After a year that offered many moments of reflection—from the coronavirus pandemic, to protests for racial justice, to the long election season—acclaimed poet Claudia Rankine 's latest book offers a framework to process it all. That book is called Just Us: An American Conversation , and in this episode, we revisit her chat with NPR's Audie Cornish. In the book, Rankine has conversations about race...

Sam sits in the Fresh Air host chair to talk with writer and director Aaron Sorkin. His latest film The Trial of the Chicago 7 covers the events at the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago when several prominent anti-war activists were accused of conspiring to start a riot. Wanna show your love for 'It's Been a Minute'? Support your local NPR station: donate.npr.org/sam See pcm.adswizz.c...

Sam shares holiday recommendations with Audie Cornish , co-host of All Things Considered and Consider This , and Bob Mondello , NPR's film critic. They discuss not only their holiday favorites, but also the holiday things they hate. And yes, they'll discuss Love Actually. Wanna show your love for 'It's Been a Minute'? Support your local NPR station: donate.npr.org/sam See pcm.adswizz.com for infor...

This year has been hard for pretty much everyone, but that still hasn't stopped people from getting married, having babies, starting new jobs, and telling us all about those milestones and celebrations in voice memos on our show. So in the spirit of the season, we picked a few of our favorite 'Best Things' from 2020 and called up the people who sent them: a listener who found the courage to make a...

Without movies or TV shows to shoot or music to record, celebrities were restless in 2020 and eager to connect with a public that, at least for a while, couldn't care less about them. Sam wraps up the year in celebrity culture with Lindsey Weber and Bobby Finger , co-hosts of the podcast Who? Weekly , and breaks down how a pandemic changed our relationship with the rich and the famous. Stuck in qu...

Songwriter Phoebe Bridgers has had a big year, but it's also been bittersweet. With four Grammy nominations for work on her acclaimed 2020 album Punisher , Bridgers, like most touring musicians, has been stuck at home. She talks to Sam about her love/hate relationship with touring, how she aims for the universal in the specificity of her lyrics, and her hopes for music—and everyone—in 2021... or w...

Coronavirus has transformed pop culture and placed its creation in the hands of anyone who has social media. Sam chats with E. Alex Jung , a writer at New York Magazine, about pop culture's shift this year to the internet . Then, Sam talks to Alex Zaragoza , senior staff writer for culture at Vice, about her beef with the new Netflix series Selena: The Series and the exploitation of Selena. Wanna...

Are you sick of the friends and family you've been stuck with? Sam teams up with Anna Sale , host of the WNYC podcast Death, Sex & Money , to explore how our pandemic 'pods' are being tested by the coronavirus. In this episode, Sam digs into friendships under strain. Then, head on over to the Death, Sex & Money podcast feed for Anna's look at how two people stuck apart during the pandemic have fal...

"What has this pandemic been like for you?" When we put that question to people, the answers we got depended a lot on where they were in life — if they were in school, if they had a job, if they had lost a loved one, if they were vulnerable to the virus. So in this special episode of It's Been a Minute , we'll hear from people of all ages, from all over the country — and world — about how their li...

Cathy Park Hong talks with Sam about her book Minor Feelings: An Asian American Reckoning . She discusses how watching comedian Richard Pryor influenced her to write honestly about Asian American identity, and how her Korean parents' experience of immigration has made their understanding of race different from her own. Hong is known globally for her award-winning poetry. She also serves as poetry...

For the holiday, Sam revisits his conversation with award-winning author James McBride. McBride's latest book Deacon King Kong tells the story of how one man's decision brings together the different racial communities of 1960s Brooklyn to solve a larger issue. Sam chats with McBride as he shares his thoughts on the hope he has for communities, the parallels he sees to the world we're living in tod...

With the holidays coming, we're all trying to figure out how to celebrate with loved ones from a distance. When all we have to connect this year are phone calls and video chats, how do we make the most out of our conversations? In this episode from NPR's Life Kit Sam gets advice from the owner of a hair salon, whose job has taught her to be a good conversationalist. Then, Sam talks to journalist a...

Georgia's Senate runoffs have become national races as control of the Senate depends on who wins. Sam asks Tia Mitchell , Washington correspondent for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, if Georgia voters are looking at the runoffs the way the rest of the country is. Then, Sam chats with comedians W. Kamau Bell and Hari Kondabolu , hosts of the podcast " Politically Re-Active ", about how the Left i...

What's next for President Trump once he leaves the White House? And what's next for his business? And what's he being investigated for again? And by whom? We take a step back and break it all down with Andrea Bernstein , co-host of the WNYC & ProPublica podcast Trump, Inc. , about Trump's finances, his mounting debt and how, after decades of bad business, he has always managed to find a way out. S...

The rapper Bobby Shmurda had a big viral hit in 2014, and it looked like he was going to be a star. But just months later, Bobby and his friends were arrested and charged in connection with a murder and several other shootings. Our friends at NPR Music podcast Louder Than A Riot trace the interconnected rise of hip-hop and mass incarceration, and they take a look at Bobby's story in this episode....

What could a new president mean for the coronavirus pandemic? Sam talks to Ed Yong , staff writer at The Atlantic , about President-elect Joe Biden's coronavirus task force and how much the federal government can do to change the course of the pandemic. Then, Sam chats with comedian Matt Rogers , whose projects this year include competition show Haute Dog on HBO Max, Quibi's Gayme Show and the pod...

Talia Lavin went undercover in white supremacist online communities, creating fake personas that would gain her access to the dark reaches of the internet normally off-limits to her, a Jewish woman. That research laid the groundwork for her book, Culture Warlords: My Journey Into the Dark Web of White Supremacy . Lavin talks to Sam about what it was like to infiltrate those online spaces, what she...

Joe Biden appears to be inching closer to a victory, but there wasn't a blowout for Democrats this election. Sam talks to New York Times national political reporter Astead Herndon about what we know, what we thought we knew, and what the results could mean for the left moving forward. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage yo...

With the election still too close to call, The Atlantic reporter McKay Coppins joins Sam with the latest on what we know about the results, what they mean for President Trump, and how much Trumpism will live on in the Republican Party. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences. NPR Privacy Po...

It's Election Day, but instead of the latest politics news, we're giving you some therapy. Sam shares listener questions around mental health issues with psychotherapist Lori Gottlieb. In addition to her clinical practice, Gottlieb is the New York Times best-selling author behind Maybe You Should Talk To Someone: A Therapist, HER Therapist, and Our Lives Revealed . She and Sam discuss burnout, whi...

With 2020 progressing the way it has, comedian Sarah Cooper wants you to know that Everything's Fine in her new comedy special. Sam talks to Sarah Cooper about her journey from going viral on TikTok lip-syncing to President Donald Trump, to starring in her own Netflix special. Then, Sam chats with Linda Holmes and Aisha Harris , hosts of the NPR Podcast Pop Culture Happy Hour , about their favorit...

Election Night 2020 is a week away. It's hard to know whether we'll have results that night, in a week or maybe even a month. But that's exactly what happened 20 years ago — between candidates Vice President Al Gore and Texas Gov. George W. Bush. Sam goes back to that night with NPR's Ron Elving and Mara Liasson to chat about what they remember from working in the newsroom, why it was so chaotic,...

On this bonus drop, we feature an episode from the NPR podcast Rough Translation. A Chinese idol had millions of fans who adored him for his kindness and good looks. Then, this February, one group of fans accused another of violating their image of him. What happens is a lesson in morality and revenge, love and hate, and how these feelings are weaponized on the internet. See pcm.adswizz.com for in...

Voter outreach took on an unconventional form Tuesday night when Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez streamed her gameplay of the hit game "Among Us" on Twitch. While she played the game with friends, her stream became one of the 20 most watched streams in Twitch history. Sam chats with Wired writer Cecilia D'Anastasio who explains the streaming platform's potential to reach new voters. Also, the pandem...

Latinos are the second largest group of eligible voters by race or ethnicity in the United States, but they continue to be misunderstood and underappreciated by political campaigns of all parties. Sam talks to Lisa García Bedolla , a scholar of Latino politics, about how the word "Latino" encompasses diverse communities of all political stripes and life experiences, and he checks in with the forme...