Candy O’Terry

4 Women, 4 Good.

You don’t have to look very far to find women doing great things for their community and the world.

I’ve had the honor of interviewing more than 800 women, and I can tell you with absolute certainty that the yardstick by which these women measure success is often related to the amount of good they have done in the world. Here are 4 women doing just that. To hear their full interviews, just go to candyoterry.com/podcast or search “The Story Behind Her Success” from your smartphone using your podcast app.

At a time when the news either makes us scream or cry, these 4 women are living proof that love and light are all around.

Thank you, Cara, Erica, Natalie, and Nancy, for sharing your stories with me. Raising our hands, opening our hearts (and our purses) and using our voices to advocate for others, are signs of a life well lived. There is great joy in giving, and these 4 women are proof of that.

photo:Jack Foley Photography

Cara Belvin

Cohasset, MA

Have you ever met a woman whose karma and smile charmed you from the moment you met her? That’s Cara Belvin, Founder of empowerHER, a national non-profit devoted to matching girls who have lost their mothers early in life with strong female role models. You would think that an organization like this existed in the United States, but it didn’t until Cara launched the non-profit from her kitchen table in 2013. Cara knows firsthand what it is like to be a motherless daughter. She lost her mom, Kit, to breast cancer when she was only 9 years old and was blessed to have her father’s love and her aunts to guide her. Unfortunately, many girls aren’t that lucky, and they carry the loss of their mothers for a lifetime. Originally from Southington, Connecticut, Cara is now a wife and mother of 2. Her little nonprofit is now national with chapters in 10 major cities. Their signature fundraising event is Luminaria where donors buy candle bags that are lighted and displayed in iconic locations across the country, just in time for Mother’s Day. Says Cara, “I’ve learned everything from these girls. They have more courage than I ever had. I think of their mothers every day because our mission is to take care of these girls.”

If you know a girl who would benefit from this incredible organization, visit www.empoweringher.org

Erica Horan

Mansfield, MA

There’s a major accident and traffic is at a standstill. State troopers close the road in both directions and soon, you hear the sound of a helicopter in the distance. Before you know it, Boston Medflight has landed, swooping in to save lives. For Erica Horan, it’s just another day in the chopper, because she is a critical care nurse for Boston Medflight. This is her dream job, and Erica is very proud to work for the nonprofit which provides lifesaving help to the sickest of the sick, regardless of their ability to pay. A wife, and mother of 3, Erica also holds a black belt and is an Air Force veteran who served on the front lines in Afghanistan. For her, service to others is a way of life. In our interview, recorded in the Medflight hangar at Mansfield Airport, Erica shared that she is keenly aware that sometimes, her face or the touch of her hand are the last things a person sees, or feels. She credits her grandmother for giving her a strong sense of faith and a moral compass that has never steered her wrong. Her advice for women everywhere? “Get out of your comfort zone!”

To donate to Boston Medflight, visit www.bostonmedflight.org.

Nancy Frates

Beverly, MA

It was every mother’s nightmare. The date was March 13, 2012, when Nancy Frates’ son Pete was diagnosed with ALS. Known as Lou Gehrig’s Disease, ALS is a horrible way to die. Always brutal, always fatal, the disease would cripple and kill her son within seven short years. But during that time, the Frates family rallied around Pete and he would become the face of the Ice Bucket Challenge. A lifelong athlete, Pete played Division 1 baseball for Boston College and was recruited to play professional baseball in Europe. When a friend shared the details of a social media stunt involving dumping ice cold water on someone’s head to benefit the ALS Foundation, he was all in and Team Frate Train was born. Using the power of social media, Pete showed the world what ALS was doing to him, and as awareness of the disease increased, the money poured in. The Ice Bucket Challenge raised 220 million dollars for the ALS Foundation and its global partners making it the most successful fundraiser of all time. Nancy’s interview was recorded just a few months before Pete died at the young age of 34 on December 9, 2019. Her words reveal the depth of a mother’s love: “My husband and I cry, but we also cry tears of joy because look at what this child of ours has done. Look at the people he has inspired. We are filled with immense pride.”

To donate to the Peter Frates Foundation, visit www.petefrates.com.

Natalie Martinez

Mattapan, MA

You’ve got to have a big heart and a strong sense of purpose to work in the nonprofit world, and Natalie Martinez walks the walk and talks the talk. She’s spent her career advocating for causes she believes in. Now, as the Executive Director & Co-President of Strong Women, Strong Girls, she spends her days bringing the organization one step closer to championing the next generation of female leaders. Founded in 2000, the organization creates mentor matches between college students and girls between the ages of 8 and 11. And there is a reason for targeting girls in this age group. Research shows that a girl’s self-esteem peaks at about 11 and if she doesn’t have a positive role model, her confidence goes down dramatically. Today, Strong Women, Strong Girls/Boston is thriving with 550 elementary school girls from 45 different community centers across the city who are matched with mentors from 7 Boston area colleges. The mother of 3 daughters, Natalie says her message to her girls is the same message she brings to her work at Strong Women, Strong Girls: “Your path may not be like everyone else’s, but there is something unique in you that you have to contribute to the planet. In other words: little girl, you can do anything!”

Visit Strong Women, Strong Girls at www.swsg.org

You may know me as the voice you heard coming out of your radio for 25 years on Magic 106.7 in Boston. It was a long journey from secretary to co-hosting morning drive, but I learned so much along the way. There were so many highlights, but the two that mattered most to me were hearing my own songs on the radio and the creation of the weekly “Exceptional Women” show. Interviewing women is what I love to do and I’ve continued that with the launch of the weekly podcast series: The Story Behind Her Success. So far, nearly 1000 women have shared their stories with me and I’m not stopping!  Women around the world are downloading these inspiring stories and now, I’m bringing them back to local radio with the creation of the Candy O Radio Network.  Mothers, daughters, sisters and friends all benefit from positive messages: shared wisdom, rooted in hope, love and perseverance.  My goal is to create a place where inspiration is just a click away.  Take a look around and be sure to join her Think Pink Club! 

Kim Miles

If You Know, You Know

I REALLY SHOULD KNOW BETTER. IT HAPPENS EVERY YEAR. IT SHOULDN’T CATCH ME BY SURPRISE AFTER ALL THIS TIME AND YET SOMEHOW IT STILL CREATES A LUMP IN MY THROAT, A PIT IN MY STOMACH, AND A LITTLE BIT OF A HOLE IN MY HEART.

DREADED SUMMER CAMP DROP-OFF DAY.

Oh, wait…do you think I’m describing the feeling I have when I drop my kids off at summer camp? No, no, no … I’m describing the feeling I get when I see all of my friends on social media dropping off their kids at summer camp. Allow me to explain…

*Big sigh.* You see, I don’t have children. (more on that later.) I have 6 beautiful nieces whom I love to spoil. In addition, I truly feel as if all of my friends’ kids are like my kids. You will often see me at their soccer games, theater productions, graduations, you name it. I love to support all the little babies whom I’ve had the privilege of watching grow up right before my very eyes. I love to celebrate their successes, and I like to think that I’m here for them as a shoulder to lean on when things aren’t always so celebratory. My best friend once said to me, “Kim, kids will never get all that they need just from their parents, that’s why you play such a special role in their lives. Never forget that.” And I never have.

So what’s the big deal about summer camp drop-off? Why is this so different from other milestones like the first day of school or high school graduation or college drop-off day? It’s hard to describe but there is something incredibly visceral about seeing the next generation of campers being dropped off by their parents at my childhood summer home. These parents are the same “kids” who were my bunkmates summer after summer and now they’re dropping off their children to embark on the very same adventures that we, as kids, enjoyed every year.

When I see these pictures, I’m literally transported to that spot right in front of the bunkhouse where I couldn’t wait to get out of the car and hug my friends, unpack my stuff, and usher my parents off to leave me at my most favorite place in the whole wide world. Camp was the best. If you had the privilege of going away to summer camp, you know the freedom that I’m describing—that special bubble that embraces you for 8 glorious weeks of a single season. It’s 8 weeks of silliness and singing; double dares and dances; sports and sailing; campfires and color war. It’s where first kisses and crushes take shape. Sometimes it’s even the backdrop to your very first heartbreak. And if you had a summer birthday that took place at camp like I did? Bonus! There’s nothing like a camp birthday celebration. It takes the cake. No matter the memory, you look back on those days with such nostalgia and you can close your eyes and feel all the feels all over again. When a song comes on the radio from those summers, you smile because you remember where you were and with whom, and you just know that when those friends hear that same song, they’re smiling, too.

“Strangely, there’s a unique sense of mourning that I experience when I see my friends at our summer home leaving their children to do what we did. I think it’s because I always saw us doing this together, as a group, watching the next generation build that same bond. ”

A bond that rings true to this very day. It doesn’t matter where I am in the world or how much time has passed, if I reconnect with an old camp friend, it’s like no time has passed at all. The jokes are still funny, the stories are crystal clear, and the walk down memory lane is always welcome.

My sadness lies in the fact that I realize I’ll never have the next generation with whom to share this experience. I’ll never have the opportunity to listen to my child tell me about their reign during color war or watch their eyes light up when they regale the tale of which team prevailed in the famed day-long relay race. I’ll never be able to show them my old yearbooks and have them read what my friends wrote to me on the last day of camp—the magic being that these are the friends who would have been the parents of their friends at camp. It’s a passing of the torch and another chapter that sadly stops with me. While most people enjoy the rites of passage such as the first day of school or graduation from high school and many go on to college, these rituals seem a bit more commonplace, hence those pictures don’t affect me the same way. The difference with camp drop-off is that not everyone goes to camp and that’s what makes it so special. That tiny community that becomes your whole world, your summer family: that gift is what I ache to have been able to give to my child so that we could have shared the experience together.

Despite this incredibly singular event, I’ve come to peace with not having children. So much so that I was invited to deliver a TED Talk on the subject. In my talk, I describe how I embrace my child-free life and explain that I am child-free by choice. There are a lot of life experiences that led me to the choices I’ve made, but I celebrate them and throughout my talk, I encourage other women to celebrate their choices as well. Whether those choices revolve around marriage, having children, career paths, it doesn’t matter. Women should be open-minded enough to learn about others’ paths and the decisions that support those choices. We should be lifting each other up and celebrating one another instead of speculating and judging. My favorite quote from my talk is: “Bridging the gap between our perceived, projected future self and our actual present-day self is an act of self-love and acceptance.” This is my wish for all women who struggle with their choices, and it is the mantra that I embrace and rely upon if ever I’m questioning my own.

All this said, I’m not sure if I’ll ever feel differently when the seasons change, the sun starts to shine, and the countdown to camp drop-off is on. I may still feel that pang while scrolling through social media and watching the annual ritual unfold. But that’s okay. As I listen and take comfort in my own words and bridge the gap between my nostalgia and my new rituals, I realize that I can celebrate my feelings by sharing memories with people like you: my readers, my audience. Perhaps this resonates with someone who was a lifelong camper and is feeling all the feels with me as I type these words. So to you, I’ll smush my s’more and scroll through social media when the summer days are upon us. I’ll even press “LIKE” when I see your child in front of their bunk with a huge smile on their face just because I know exactly what they’re feeling in that very moment. They may not remember to verbalize their gratitude, but allow me to speak on their behalf: Thank you for the gift that is summer camp.

Summer camp spirit lives on and on and on. (And for all my fellow Camp Tevya-ites from Brookline, New Hampshire…if you know, you know.)

Kim Miles, Founder & CEO of Miles in Heels Productions is the secret weapon you never knew your event was missing. From ideation to execution, Miles in Heels Productions are highly focused, outrageously entertaining events that get people talking – and listening! A self-professed serial connector and shoe collector, Kim can command a stage and focus critical dialogue like nobody’s business.

Korri Piper

Propaganda in Music: Can We Turn the Beat Around?

My teenage daughter and I sat down to talk about propaganda in American music. She’s the sort of person who magically knows every lyric to any song ever written. I was excited to get her perspective on this topic. We initially considered music that has recently been released and in doing so discovered that we couldn’t provide full context for our examples and anecdotes without referencing some of the past. We’re hoping our conversation sparks similar interactions among your family and friends.

Korri: How do you experience propaganda in music? Actually, first we should probably define propaganda. Technically it’s defined as, “information, especially of a biased or misleading nature, used to promote or publicize a particular political cause or point of view.” I think propaganda is always aimed at pop culture, so I want us to view it from that lens.

Moirin: Music, at least in my generation, is consumed sitting on the bus with earbuds in. It’s in your head. So it becomes a personal experience, first. Then when you hear something that ignites your interest, you share it with friends. That’s why most people hang around their same demographic. They listen to the same types of music. So if people are listening to Taylor Swift and sharing the same demographic, they’re probably going to absorb the messages that she’s propagating.

K: So because the physical part of music has become more internal, it creates micro communities because of the way it’s consumed, by listening first as an individual and then internalizing the message?

M: Exactly. For example, if enough people are listening to Lizzo talk about body positivity individually, they are going to start to realize that they can love their bodies even if they don’t talk about it with their peers.

Or, you meet somebody who listens to the same artist as you and you end up finding that you connect with that person because of the topic that artist is promoting. That’s where music can inspire and cultivate newer ideas. If the artist/music comes together with a fanbase because of the artist’s popularity, then it’s likely that ideas instilled by their propaganda will follow.

K: I think it’s important to point out that the propaganda doesn’t always have to be negative. Biased? Sure. But misleading? Not always the case.

M: No. It doesn’t have to be negative or even necessarily intentional.

K: Sometimes it is, and that’s helpful. If you think about propaganda in music during the time when the general populace didn’t know how to read or write, songs were the thing that created stories. Through them you learned how to cook recipes, soothe a baby, take care of your family…whatever.

I don’t think that has actually changed so much. If you think about modern day country music, the themes are general: “I love Jesus, my momma, my baby, my dog…”

M: “ … my truck.”

K: [laughing] But maybe it’s not actually that superficial? Underneath what those messages convey is a deeper one that says, “this is what my values are, these are the things that are important to me.” I don’t know that those things change that much throughout time, or even between popular genres—rock, rap, hip-hop, country, soul—it’s all really just expressing what the people feel, what they need, what they think, and what they do.

My experiences were built largely off of attending concerts. I could immediately tell when I was comfortable and welcomed some place and when I wasn’t. At last count, I’ve seen something like 700 shows. For the most part I’d say music has helped me feel like I’ve found a community in the world within the propaganda.

M: Yeah, I agree. I don’t go a single day without listening to music on my own. Like when I come home, I turn my radio on. Every bus ride back and forth to school I have to turn my music on  …  It’s a distraction that isn’t harmful because let’s say one morning I want to time travel, then I’m going to put on my favorite 80s playlist, or my favorite 60s playlist. Or, I might feel life is uneventful right now and I’m too absorbed in my studies, or my athletics, or my activities so I’m going to put on my indie teen music and live out a movie in my head. And that brings a sense of comfort. Some people tell me they don’t listen to music and I just can’t seem to connect with them fully. Some because they don’t have earbuds. Some because they just have other outlets, or maybe they are less overwhelmed by the world and don’t need that kind of portal like I do  …  a lot of times I just need something to drown out the external [city] noise  …  For example, when I was talking about time traveling, I think there are these decades and movements that I really wish I could have been a part of. The music gets me as close as I can get.

K: It’s interesting that you say that because so much of my youth was spent doing the same thing. That’s got to be true for all generations. Unrest amongst the enslaved people was voiced in spirituals that gave birth to jazz and blues. Eventually, Elvis took it and “gave birth” to pop-rock.

Did I ever tell you that Elvis is greatly loved in Ireland? Poppi and I stayed at a woman’s BnB and she literally had a 6-foot velvet Elvis. They have a radio station that is all Elvis, all the time. Supposedly he’s of Irish lineage. In American music, it definitely feels like there is a “before Elivs” and “after Elvis” time marker. He certainly fueled the fires of sexuality propaganda in music. I know you’re not a huge fan.

M: I respect his impact, but he sounds like too much of a character. It doesn’t feel authentic. I’ve always been more mellow with my music. I prefer the low-key stuff. He was loud and transitional and while I appreciate it, I don’t want to listen to it.

K: There are genres of music that I don’t enjoy either. When we talk about country music while I love Willie Nelson, Patsy Cline, Dolly, The Chicks, and even some Zac Brown Band. I just can’t grab hold of mainstream country music. It just hits me like someone is whining in my ear.

M: Well, first of all, you’re not from that time. You’re from a bridge generation. So maybe this contemporary pop-country stuff is an attempt to reconcile generations to ensure country music doesn’t die. By combining the generations they find a happy medium. That’s fine. It doesn’t appeal to me though, and I think that’s mostly because it doesn’t have much to do with our side of American culture.

K: What do you mean by “our side”’?

M: Geographically.

K: But there’s tons of people in CA who listen to country music.

M: Maybe I mean geographically more as urban vs rural + socio economics. I’m not saying “low upper middle” but you sit at home and work on a computer. Not saying that’s a bad thing, just saying you’re not working on a ranch, so you’re less likely to relate to songs about that because that’s not what you do.

K: I get what you’re saying, it’s not my lived experience.

M: No, it’s not.

K: That makes sense. What about what’s going on all over America in regards to country music? Think about our experience last summer: we were at a campground in northern CA, a beach in NJ, a beach in RI, and a beach on Cape Cod. All of those places are outside of the traditional seat of country music. You’d think it was relegated to certain areas—but that wasn’t our experience. Or, there’s me going to the Walgreens up the street in San Francisco and that’s what they have on for background music. That means something. That means the energy of the country is in favor of what that music is promoting. So what is that? Why is that?

M: You know there’s something about it that I can’t identify with, nor relate to. People try to think of rap, hip-hop, and country as total opposites when they literally have innumerable similarities, because they have this infectious quality about them. It’s less popular for girls, but a large number of boys from any race and any background listen to rap and hip- hop. It’s seldom I find a boy whose favorite genre isn’t rap. Why? If you conducted a survey of all Americans, I say the largest number would come back with country as their number one favorite music followed closely by rap and hip-hop. It’s just what people like.

K: If you look at these wildly popular shows like “American Idol” but still it says a lot about Americans when more folks vote for those shows than they do for the presidential elections. And arguably these shows don’t do much for the actual artists: I think the only people who’ve actually “made it” are Kelly Clarkson, Adam Lambert, and Clay Akin? Especially when it comes to “The Voice,” the winners are largely White and country musicians regardless of who their coach is.

M: Yeah, or even regardless of their individual talent. Objectively, the more talented singers (vocal range, ability) get eliminated.

K: So what is that saying? Is that saying folks who like that type of music are more inclined to own a tv, watch a tv, have a smartphone, vote on things? What is that saying about propaganda in pop-music culture? To your earlier point about guys and their preferred genre and the idea that rap and country have similarities …

M: …they tell stories.

K: Yeah, and most frequently those narratives are about men conquering whatever the heck is getting in their way. Or if it’s a lady, as the joke goes it might be, “Oopsies, I killed my husband (again)”.

I feel like certainly in terms of rap music and country music we’ve had a lot of male domination. Also, when those genres took a front seat in mainstream culture, the way that we consumed our music was very localized. A radio station in the middle of Tennessee was not going to play the same music that was piping over the airwaves in Harlem, NY. So there was less opportunity to build bridges even if there were shared experiences. Not everyone had money to buy records, tapes, cds, etc.

Then you had this technological advancement—the invention of the internet, streaming music, and huge corporate entities like Iheartradio emerged. Pre-Y2K kids would have been listening to only music their parents liked. Parents didn’t buy stuff like music for their kids. They bought sneakers, balls, ballet slippers and told them to get out of the house. If you think about it with a historical lens, we jumped very quickly from parents not consuming musical goods for their children to kids being overrun with it. Entre, KIDZBOP.

We haven’t really talked about any of the ladies of musical propaganda. I remember spending hours with my boombox waiting to hear Cyndi Lauper, Madonna, and Stevie Nicks on the radio. You’d end up memorizing the commercial breaks as much as you did the actual music itself. Talk about internalizing propaganda.

Those women (and many before them) paved the way for the current generation who have loaned their voices to “Me Too” and “Time’s Up”. It’s frustrating to watch because while we’ve made tons of strides, it’s still a mess.

Think of how Ke$ha and Taylor Swift both suffered experiences with sexual abuse/misconduct. Ke$ha’s persona of the party girl is celebrated in the American populace by consuming fast fashion, packing a club, having fun, and living by influencer’s videos. But at the end of the day, America doesn’t value that type of woman enough to validate or ratify her lived experiences. Yet Taylor, who originally came out more conservatively in the country market, was famous for being apolitical, and triumphed in her court case. Difference in their propaganda messages? One left the house after she brushed her “teeth with a bottle of Jack” and the other had that “good girl faith in a tight little skirt.”

M: This is all true. To be fair, I think those things are still changing for the better. Taylor has had to morph and mold her image over and over again. I mean, everyone was calling her a Trump-supporter until she literally released a song with the Fab Five telling Trump supporters they “need to calm down”. This is propaganda to the max.

Cardi B can also sing about being a stripper with little backlash because that’s a real experience of many American women. It’s a nice on-the-come-up story. So there’s certainly room for women here.

K: Can we reach back to how people consume their music again? I was thinking about how previously, you’d have to pay for music and own specific devices, which means your parents had to be of a certain socioeconomic group. You still need a device, but you don’t have to pay for music anymore. That’s a huge change. I spent years trying to hear lyrics right (and dissect their propaganda) but now Google can not only tell you the exact lyrics, it can also direct you to content that will analyze them.

I also thought about how you wanted me to take you to that show at the Fillmore, and I asked “Who is this artist?” And you said, “Oh she’s a YouTuber, Dodie.” I fully anticipated that I was about to walk into a pop-sugary event even though that’d be out of character for you. Instead she had a six piece band with strings and this amazing message about being open and accepting of the LGBTQIA+ community. I was NOT expecting that.

But, this is not someone who made it starting out like Tina Turner, Aretha Franklin, Whitney Houston, Mariah Carey or anyone who has been overly produced where their images and music and all the decisions involving their work were made ahead of time by people with different opinions than said artists.

We made some kind of a half-step when Madonna released “Like a Virgin”; Brittney Spears sang “hit me baby one more time”; and Christina Aguilera got “a little bit dirty”. I think these women were able to sing about sex because the country had recovered sufficently from Elvis’s hip-swinging along with the realization that we’re all actually here because sex happened. And yet, so much music seemingly talked about liberating women when they had actually been pushed into a box to embody a persona. When you fast forward through their struggles you have arguably more genuinely liberated messages coming from Lorde, Halsey, Lizzo, and Meghan Trainor…hopefully proselytizing messages more culturally relevant, helpful, and honest.

M: This is one hundred percent true. If it weren’t for the generation I was born in, I wouldn’t have discovered Dodie or had that queer outlet. I wouldn’t have made it to that concert and seen all the other kids like me. Those older artists you mentioned certainly paved the way for that.

There’s actually something else I wanted to say. It gets back to the country and rap/hip-hop piece of the conversation. I was thinking about the prevalence of country and hip-hop starting to increase in the 80s and 90s through Y2K. There is a circular relationship to the 2 because I think they are reactions to each other. There is a way that those 2 genres are viewed as opposing forces (again some, not all) country can be viewed as preserving and conserving older values while hip-hop is viewed as pushing new values. It’s basically the definition of liberal vs conservative. Are you withholding enlightenment based values or promoting them? You have Tupac saying in the 90s that he “sees no changes”. So then country music keeps working to prevent those changes. Then hip-hop says let’s increase those changes and it just keeps going and going and going. But, it hasn’t stayed totally static: now there are country artists who are trying to create a change so you have bands like The Chicks who use country in a new and innovative way. Just like Taylor Swift….

K: …and Maren Morris. She recently won an award at the Country Music Awards and used part of her speech to highlight the contributions that Black female artists have made in country music. It’s not nearly the same as those women receiving their own recognition, but it creates some whisper of intersectionality in the way that she’s trying to use her platform to give voice to people who aren’t seen or appreciated.

M: And yeah, so in those ways I think another similarity between those genres is that they are catalysts for change.

K: You think about moments in music that have meant something for the rest of this country ... Certainly what rock and folk music did during the Vietnam War is an example ...  Definitely I think about Pink Floyd and how education has changed in this country. In “The Wall” they’re talking about a time when it was legally possible to beat a child in a classroom. Before the ‘70s and ‘80s, children would never have had a voice to say, “teacher, leave them kids alone.” Punk definitely did something for American culture ... It screamed a defiant “no” to a system of that held “children should be seen and not heard.” And then you got into the ‘90s and you really started to see the beginnings of the conversation about mental health. People were talking about Kurt Cobain with Nirvana, Courtney Love with Hole, Trent Reznor and Nine Inch Nails singing, “I Will Make You Hurt”. They were talking about the mental anguish that occurs in all lives–young people, adults, people with access to resources, people without resources. They were talking about it in a much less guarded way and a much more explicit way.

Those conversations gave way to the early aughts, and now you have artists like Lil Nas X. Rewind enough years and you were never gonna have a compact, buff, gay, Black man…

M: with sparkly pink boots…

K: …doing a country music crossover with Billy Ray Cyrus to make a hit song?! That was never going to happen earlier. Even with previous crossovers, like RUN-D.M.C. and Aerosmith.

Look at the cancel culture the decade before that and think about what happened to The Chicks. Because they had something to say about the president at that point in time, they got banned from mainstream country music. There were literally cd burning parties hosted by radio stations. It was like they were on the commie List during the red scare. There are other bands in the rap and hip-hop genres like NWA and Beastie Boys, who were bitten because what they said was too controversial. Now the controversy has much less impact or the length of time that you have to pay the price…

M: …the punishment is less severe.

K: Yeah. In terms of memory longevity as well as financially.

There’s another thing I think about that wasn’t as of note to your youth as it was mine. Tipper Gore was at the forefront of a propaganda campaign to police language in music. It was decided that you could record whatever you wanted on your album, but it would be softened up for radio play, and albums would be labeled with an “explicit lyrics” sticker. Extremely helpful heads up to parents, but also a literal form of censorship and arguably a violation of First Amendment rights.

M: I’m not arguing that it’s democratic, but those forms of censorship could be considered minor. There is some language that gets extremely derogatory—towards women, for example—and so long as that’s around I think people who are into that kind of stuff can have the choice to listen to it on their own. I don’t wanna hear that on the radio.

K: I don’t wanna hear that message in general. Like much else, we take the bad with the good. Propaganda in music really does offer a space for everyone. It’s always been a place for people who didn’t fit in to be heard and/or push the margin towards the center. Think people in the ‘90s who weren’t part of the norm—they weren’t considered “cool.” Whereas now, I feel like if you take a stand and fly your “freak flag” you’re celebrated broadly—and you have access to so many more people. Anyone with an internet connection really.

M: Exactly. I can be a ‘60s-civil rights activist or the protagonist in an angsty teen indie film during my morning bus ride to school. And the crazy thing is all the other kids on that bus are probably doing the same thing as me.

K: For all of time there have been harmful and helpful pieces of propaganda in music. We figured out some ways to course correct—but opened ourselves up to new issues. We can’t definitively say it’s all been for the better or worse because mores aren’t static … but we can definitely say the propaganda’s moved like the rest of life where change is the only constant.