
Rodney Carmichael
Rodney Carmichael is NPR Music's hip-hop staff writer. An Atlanta-bred cultural critic, he helped document the city's rise as rap's reigning capital for a decade while serving on staff as music editor, culture writer and senior writer for the defunct alt-weekly Creative Loafing.
During his tenure there, he won several Association of Alternative Newsweeklies awards for column writing, longform storytelling, special projects, investigative and feature reporting on gender and economic inequality issues ranging from strip club class-action lawsuits to harm reduction needle exchange programs. "Straight Outta Stankonia" — a cover-to-cover look at Atlanta's gentrifying cultural landscape through the lens of OutKast, which he conceived and co-wrote — was honored as one of the Atlanta Press Club's Top 10 Favorite Stories of the Past 50 Years in 2014.
A Georgia State University alum (journalism/playwriting) and former Poynter Fellow for Young Journalists, Carmichael started his career in Waco, Texas, where he received a Cox Rookie of the Year nomination for his enterprise reporting and feature writing on religion, health and social services at the Waco Tribune-Herald. Even then, race and culture lay at the heart of his coverage.
Back in Atlanta, a three-year stint at the urban lifestyle weekly rolling out deepened his commitment to cultural reporting. After covering red carpets (BET Awards, MTV VMAs), profiling Black business leaders and penning cover stories on artists ranging from Ciara to Andre 3000, his passion for storytelling led him to the alt-weekly world. During his first five years at Creative Loafing (Atlanta), he led local music coverage as music editor of the alternative weekly with the third-highest readership in the nation. During the next half-decade, Carmichael dug deeper by covering his hometown from the underground up. As it underwent cultural upheaval and shifting socioeconomics, he used Atlanta's creative economy — expanding from music, film, TV and tech — as a lens to explore the city's oft-competing identities: New South gateway, human rights hub, Black Hollywood, strip club capital and hip-hop hotbed.
Now, covering hip-hop from a national perspective at NPR, he continues to work at the intersection of race and culture. The stories he tells combine reporting and criticism to focus on black cultural production and all its sociopolitical implications. As creator and co-host of the podcast Louder Than A Riot, he and co-host Sidney Madden trace the collision and interconnected rise of hip-hop and mass incarceration in America.
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Ayesha Rascoe talks with Sidney Madden and Rodney Carmichael of NPR's Louder Than A Riot about the RICO charges against Young Thug and the wider intersection of criminal justice and hip-hop.
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The new album by hip-hop superstar Kendrick Lamar is called Mr. Morale & the Big Steppers and is out Friday. It's been more than 5 years since his last album.
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Since the 1990s, police and prosecutors have used lyrics to build criminal cases against rap artists. It's a practice that blurs the distinction between entertainment and criminal confession.
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In 2001, a rising No Limit Records artist was sentenced to 30 years for a crime he maintains he didn't commit. The hosts of Louder Than A Riot explain how a new development could spell early release.
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Rapper McKinley "Mac" Phipps was sentenced to 30 years for allegedly killing a fan at one of his shows. NPR podcast Louder Than a Riot explores new evidence that Mac is likely innocent.
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NPR Music's Rodney Carmichael breaks down what he learned making The Formula, a video series in which five of hip-hop's best producers discuss the alchemy of sampling.
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At 25, she mixes the bluesy melisma of Nina Simone and the deep register of Sarah Vaughan — two of her influences — with songwriting as devastating as her delivery.
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The godfather of 21st century soul electrified NPR's Tiny Desk Fest audience, with a little help from rising R&B star Lucky Daye.
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A nomadic storyteller with a cross-genre style ranging from folk to rap, Mereba slays the devil in her solo set behind the Desk.
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The British rapper made a trip all the way from the UK just for this Tiny Desk performance and powered through a set that made the personal political.