Meklit Hadero on the Intersection of Music, Storytelling, and Community Building

Her albums have topped world music charts across the US + Europe, received rave reviews, and been covered extensively by the press. Meklit has collaborated with renowned artists such as Kronos Quartet, Andrew Bird, Preservation Hall Jazz Band, and the late creator of funk music, Pee Wee Ellis. Meklit has always straddled her creative practice with her passion for cultural activism.

She is the former Chief of Program at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco, where she helped design and implement a slate of radical programs supporting social justice focused artists during the height of the pandemic. She is a sought after thought leader and speaker and has given talks on multiple TED Stages, at the UN, and at the National Geographic Storytellers Summit, as well as at institutions, organizations and

Universities around the globe. Meklit is a National Geographic Explorer, a TED Senior Fellow, and a former Artistin-Residence at Harvard University.

She is the co-founder of the Nile Project, a featured voice in UN Women’s theme song and the winner of the 2021 globalFEST Artist Award. Meklit has been a guest DJ on KCRW’s Morning Becomes Eclectic, created new works via commissions from Lincoln Center, MAP Fund, Center for the Art of Performance at UCLA, Stanford Live, NYU Abu Dhabi and many more.

Her music has been featured by the New York Times, BBC, CNN, NPR, Washington Post, Vibe Magazine, San Francisco Chronicle, Boston Globe and many more. Meklit is co-founder, co-producer and host of Movement, a podcast, radio series , live performance series and community building initiative uplifting the stories, songs and cultural power of immigrant musicians. The show airs monthly on PRX’s The World to an audience of 2.5 million listeners.

Season 2 of Movement launches July 16, 2024, wherever you get your podcasts. Enjoy the show.

This was back in August. It was at the Yerba Buena Gardens Festival.

And I think when you get people together, um, there's from across, you know, boundaries, whether those boundaries are invisible lines on a map that are called countries, or whether they are, um, you know, uh, from different communities and cultures of all kinds. I think there's always a power in gathering folks and

there's an X factor in it. So that actually, the movement immigrant orchestra actually started out of this series of gatherings of immigrant musicians that we were having. I was like, you know, our communities are under attack in a way that is just constant and oppressive. And we need to be together and understand from a place that starts from our cultural power. So we just started. having gatherings and food and what happens when you get musicians together is that they want to play.

And so we would, but people also had this very deep understanding of the struggles, you know, like a lot of times immigrant communities can be siloed across ethnicity or language or But we actually have a lot of the same struggles, we all, that's what solidarity means, like actually we are all the same forces that are oppressing, you know, it's, it's a cross, it's a cross. Um, so we just, like, we started gathering folks and realized we had so many stories that were echoes of each other.

And then we would be sharing these very deep, powerful stories with each other. And then people would be like, you know, you get into an emotional space. And But then you're like, okay, we're going to put it in the music and we would have these jams that would just last and they were, you know, I was like, yo, this, you know, the first one, there's this, um, uh, Malian and Goni player called Mamadou Sidibe and he grows the gourds in Chico, California.

And then in Oakland, he builds them and they are these artworks. They are these, I mean, they're literally like sound artworks. Like they're so beautiful. And he started playing with, um, a cellist from Korea and a guitarist from Spain, and everybody was like. Uh, I, it, uh, but like we, we literally, like, actually, it's not a place for words. It's a place for sounds and we just wanted to be together and play together, and that's how the immigrant orchestra started.

But what I, but then what I didn't totally realize was how cathartic it would be for the audience, you know, because we came from this, like, we built a love amongst each other and, you know. And then we were able to bring that to the audience and they wouldn't let us go for two hours, two hours telling us the experiences that they had had in this concert. So it was very special. We will be doing more of it. Um, we need solidarity.

Um, and when we can do it with cultural power at the center, then we can invite so many others into that space of, of love and connection.

You know, when, when music is involved and those emotions get high, there's a cracking open of your spirit and it allows the source to come through. And I say that all the time. And that's what I'm hearing about. That experience that J Ray was speaking of, but you also get to experience something that I feel is also life changing. And that's travel, travel changes. You travel makes you a different person. And as an, as an immigrant myself, I experienced that as a, as a child.

So what, what are you hoping or what is your plan to bring that experience to a larger audience? Um, To create, to let, to allow everybody else to feel that shift, because like you said, right now, immigrants are under attack. Black people are, Black people are under attack and they don't understand.

And a lot of times we don't understand that we're all one in the same. And just because we may have been born someplace different, there are, there are powers that be that are trying to eliminate. Um, large groups of people. So in your messaging and in your travels and all the work that you're doing, you're doing, what is your game plan to, to use your, your powers to crack that collective experience?

Ethiopiques that folks would hear. That was him as the composer and vibraphonist and conga player. Now, itio jazz came about because Murata Astatke was the first African to graduate from the Berkeley college of music. And he went to New York and he was playing congas with a bunch of Cuban congeros and he saw, Hey, they're bringing their. Traditional music into a relationship with jazz.

And then there's a famous story of him, uh, playing with John Coltrane and Coltrane took him aside and said, yo, you gotta bring your traditional music together with jazz. Like you bring it to the root. He ended up moving back to Ethiopia and created Ethio jazz from there. So there would be no Ethiopian jazz without not only the mentorship of African American giants. Of music, but also Cuban musicians.

And we know that the, the histories of forced migration that birthed, that birthed the music of the Americas runs deeply, deeply through every single time that I stand on a stage and sing, I sing solidarity like that is my. So there's, sometimes I like to say that we use music to talk about the things that are hard to talk about the places where our tongues get stuck. And so.

The, the first thing I'm going to do is I'm going to, the first thing I'm going to do is I'm going to write songs that acknowledge history, that look history in the eye, and do not erase any peoples from any, from any story. So that's number one, number one, number one. Number two, the, the project, you know, Movement is a podcast, it's a radio show, it's a live performance experience that is about the intersection of music and migration. Here's the way I think about it.

We have a national strategy that is our podcast and radio show that's about narratives of migration based in the people who have experienced it. That means our stories coming from lived experiences with nuance. With tenderness with a focus on ancestral wisdom, continuum, epiphany, um, right as we can look pain, trauma, and difficulty in the eye and say that we get to make the meaning out of all of those experiences.

Now, at the same time, understanding that we're in a place where oppression must be challenged every single day, but oppression cannot be challenged only on You know, only in this way, like what I started to understand was that, like, I loved making the podcast and the radio show, but I needed it to live in my community too.

I needed it to be in my everyday where I walked down the street and to be able to have an impact on my direct community and the movement and the movement gathering strategy, the immigrant orchestra, our solidarity building strategy really comes out of that. So, and it's also, uh, solidarity also for me means that. We understand that in the age of climate crisis like things are probably about to get a lot more difficult before they get better.

And we need each other we need interconnection to be able to be, to be able to not just withstand but to create new systems that are based from the ground up.

And so, So, so the Immigrant Orchestra, our gathering strategy, building solidarity, not just within immigrant communities, but across oppressed communities, is a part of how we create new systems that will actually get us to the place we want to go, which is non hierarchical, which is based in culture and cultural power, which is, um, organized, which is being able to say what our communities need and pressure the people who are in power to support us in getting where we

folks what they need every single day. I think I'll stop.

It was like a very little boutique booking agency and it was called 2042.

And it was about, at that time, back in 2017, that was the year that the United States was no longer projected to have a cultural majority or an ethnic majority. I don't like the word majority minority because we're not a minority, actually, in the world. We're the, we're the majority.

multi talented musician, editor, sound designer, and we started making stuff, and then, uh, and then it evolved into this today, and it took a long time, took a long time to find our partners, we knocked on many doors, many people were like, yes, yes, yes, yes, no, yes, yes, yes, yes, uh uh, yes, yes, yes, yes, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, and so we just, we had to find our own way, you know,

So, so songwriting for me is like catching melodies as they come, recording them, and then going into the studio and like, Working it, working it, working it, working it. So the essay writing, the storytelling, is a working it, working, and it's very emotional. It's actually, it's actually kind of difficult, you know, because you have to process, I don't know, like, not in a lot. It's just like you have to find a little fractal place in your own life

where some huge question gets distilled into like a very simple exchange. And so it's actually interesting. I haven't thought about it, but I have started collecting stories, the way I collect melodies and then finding where I can insert them. So maybe it's more, maybe this question has brought out for me how it's more similar than I realized. And then I do have to like work it, work, work, work. And it's different because it's prose. And then I have to speak it out loud.

So I write it, I speak it, I edit it. Cause it has to sound good spoken. So that's very different, but it's sort of similar when you write something and then you sing it and you realize, Oh, okay. The phrasing, all the phrasing of this word, I need a word. That's kind of two, that's two syllables here. I can't use the word that's for, you know, so, so it is a Cree. It is a very creative process. What I'll say that's different. That's really fun for me is that I've not.

I haven't ever quite done the essay based creative writing that I have to do to make the stories come alive in the podcast and that's a new muscle for me and I'm really enjoying it. I do love it. Like I find that the final Outcome is like this exact place between like, just speaking a story and then like crafting, you know, the crafting part of it. So I, I actually really enjoy it, even though it's, it's a challenge. It's not like, it takes me time. I don't, it's not instantaneous at all.

I'll work on an essay for like two weeks. Stuff like, you know, things like that.

And I don't know if you experienced it, experienced this, but there is becoming more and more. There's a voice that's getting louder amongst. Black Americans, um, that are, feel like they're in, uh, not competition, but there is this, I don't know, this weirdness that has, that I'm feeling developed, not even developing, but it's been there for a while. And you hear things because we're so, we're so, you know, we're so stealth because I'm, I'm here, I've been here. So I'm S but I'm stuff.

And I hear the things I hear the comments every now and then I hear the little. You know, those foreigners, this, those immigrants, that, you know, uh, Caribbean people think they're better than everybody. Africans do this and that, you know, you hear little stuff like that. And I'm wondering how you've dealt with it. Does a movement help you help in that healing process? Because I think for me, I try not to get.

sidetracked by all those conversations, because I really do believe that that's just another distraction to keep us fragmented. And of course, when we're fragmented, you know, the powers that be are going to keep winning. And so, but I'm just wondering for you, McCleat, like in, in doing movement. And, and, and, and healing. Does that bring about a healing for you as we deal with this amongst ourselves in this community, as black people from all parts of the diaspora, all parts of the world?

that is a very alienating thing. If you're an African American person hearing an African say, what is race? That sounds like a slap in the face. I can, I can walk into and, and the reason that I can, so I can walk into that conversation with empathy right from the start, but because I have lived both sides, right? Because I've, because my communities are both communities. And what I mean by that is that in Ethiopia, it's all about ethnicity. It's all about like, are you Amhara?

Are you like, I'm actually also, to ethnicity. My father is from a place called Kambatha, which is in the south of Ethiopia. It's not a ethnic group that has a lot of political power. It's, it's like relatively small. There's not a lot of language speakers. Uh, my mother is Amhara, which is one of the, you know, larger tribes that has had historically a lot of political power. That itself was like an inter ethnic marriage. That was a big deal back then, you know?

Um, so they come to this country and they, and they have these identities. that have a meaning for them, given the context that they were in, and then everyone around them tells them, that doesn't matter. What matters is that you're black. And it's like, well, what does it mean to be black? And you have to learn. And so, and you also have to, so, so, so, so, so I try to have empathy for both sides because also for my parents, it's like a shock, they're like, wait, what? You know?

So, so, so I think there's like a basic, um, lack of communication or, or like just understanding of context that kind of leads to some of this stuff. Um, and then somebody saying, well, you don't think you're us. There was a lot of that.

And I, you know, for me and I was like, well, what does somebody see walking down the street for me, you know, and then so then you're living this in between and that was like my whole teenage years, you know, like my whole teenage years was trying to find peace with that. Um, and I honestly did it through reading black American literature, you know, and talking to and talking to my community, you know, and that's how I that's how I like.

And then reading like Audre Lorde and, um, bell hooks and, but then literally Toni Morrison and Ralph Ellison and that's how I, that's how I, that, so because all of them are speaking these very complex stories and saying nobody gets to make anyone a monolith. And then I was saying, Oh, okay. It's okay for me to not be a monolith. Um, I can accept my complexity and my hybridity. And I might be a paragraph. I'm not a sentence. But I'm pretty much guessing that they aren't either.

And somebody tries to make you just, to, you know, describe you as two words, a black man. Yes, you are and maybe sensitive and an introvert and you know like and you're and your roots are from North Carolina and your roots might be from Congo or you know, like it's just we all have We all have so much and like, nobody can simplify any of us. solidarity building as a strategy and a practice is always about

understanding that we have more in common than we do apart. And, I think my healing So, oh, the one thing I wanted to say, there's this, the first episode that we did in the podcast, season one, episode one, is a brother called Oddisee, and I don't know if y'all know

Like, I do think that there's so much that happens when love is involved, you know, when personal connection is involved. And that can be like between friends, that can be within a family, that can be within a community. But we do have so much more in common than we do different. And the oppressive forces that seek to destroy us, that seek to minimize us and strip us of our power are the same exact ones. So who is winning? Who is winning when, when those things, when those words get spoken?

And so there is a deep healing that needs to happen. Um, and you know, I think that, you know, there's a, there's a strange thing that happens when we think things are our own struggles. We think we, we think they, it is up to me to solve this, this deep wound. But this is a systemic problem. This is a systemic problem that needs systemic solutions that are working at very large scale levels.

I think we're further along than we ever have been, even as we still see those narratives popping up in people that we love, you know, in people that we love and, and cherish and adore, and we don't, you know, so, so we can be nodes of healing, and our healing can radiate outwards, And at the same time, like, these are, these are systemic questions that have to be answered at a systems level.

And then I am, uh, I just got the masters of a new record that will come out next year on Smithsonian Folkways called A Piece of Infinity, and it's, um, uh, interpretations of several different traditional Ethiopian songs with some originals. There's a very special song in there called Stars in a Wide Field that is based on, um, the, Children's riddles from my father's tribe Kambatha that are translated and they're like, it's a cosmology. It's a universe. It's a war.

It's like literally seeing into into the way of being the way people walk through the world, you know, so that's like a collaboration between like You know, millions of children and me, you know, because they're also like, they're also, they're a mix of improvised and, uh, improvised riddles

and like, like, you know, like in traditional poetry, people memorize like thousands and thousands of them, and then you got to bring them out at the right time, like that kind of thing.

for joining us as well, y'all.