In this episode of Audicted, cohosts Katie O’Connor and Kat Johnson celebrate Black History Month in conversation with award-winning author C.J. Farley. The episode includes an excerpt from The Book of Baraka by Ras Baraka and Jelani Cobb. Download or stream the full episode here.
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On the importance of telling Black stories
C.J. Farley: Obviously, when people go missing, it's a terrible crime. But when stories go missing, it's not only a crime, it’s actually on us as a society. We're complicit in that crime in not telling the story, in not saying that this person deserves attention, deserves respect […]. And I think attention needs to be paid to stories of people like Lorraine Hansberry, a great creator, which, of course, Imani Perry does wonderfully. And attention needs to be paid to missing Black and Brown girls. And I'm just glad that Audible is telling all these kinds of stories to really help right the wrong of the crime of these missing stories in American life. Because it's so important to tell everybody's story in a rich, satisfying way.
On authenticity in performance
CF: Narration is vitally important. Not that long ago, I worked on a piece called The Mountain and the Sea by the poet Kwame Dawes. It was a love story set in Jamaica and I wanted to make sure, and Kwame wanted to make sure, that the voice, the narrator who read it, really was authentic, had a Jamaican accent. Because so often Jamaican accents are just butchered in Hollywood. So, for The Mountain and the Sea, we sort of went the extra mile: had a studio in Jamaica, [made] sure we cast our Jamaican narrator, Paula-Anne Jones, who just delivered a terrific, melodic performance. Her voice sounded like music and it really got the spirit of Jamaica. It really conjured up the sort of love affair at the heart of the book better. And again, it just really brought home to me the point that narration is so important. The way we speak really speaks to what we're speaking about. And as an executive editor at Audible, and someone who's looking to cast people in these roles, I always want to make sure it's authentic because the listener can feel—and the story will hit home more—when that reader is authentic the way Paula-Anne Jones is in The Mountain and the Sea.
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