Amena:
Everybody. Ooh you all. Welcome back to a new episode of HER with Amena Brown. I hope you are in some ways getting into a little bit of a summer vibe as you are listening to this episode because we are here in the living room with a guest. And I am so excited to welcome writer, journalist, culture and arts critic, co-host of the hit NPR podcast, Pop Culture Happy Hour, and author of Wannabe: Reckonings with the Pop Culture That Shapes Me. Welcome Aisha Harris.
Aisha:
Hi Amena. Thanks so much for having me.
Amena:
I'm here clapping for us because in my mind, Aisha, even though as you know when we are podcasting, we're recording for an audience of zero that's present with us while we record.
Aisha:
Yes, yes, yes.
Amena:
So I am always imagining there are at least 30 people here with me live, even though it's just us here. So I had to clap for myself and the other 29 of us that are here live.
Aisha:
I appreciate it. I love it. Got to get that energy going.
Amena:
That's it. That's it. So glad to have you on the podcast, so many things I want to dig into. But I wanted to start with something that's very important, which is snacks. So a part of the premise of the HER with Amena Brown living room comes from this idea that when my girlfriends come over, especially if they're very close to me, sometimes the conversation gets to a point where it's like, this is not for a coffee shop, this is not for a restaurant. We need to really be in each other's house so we can fully talk our things.
And sometimes depending on one's busyness or one's financial availabilities, there's sort of an ad hoc snack situation. There's like, "Girl, I got three and a half bell peppers, I'm about to bring over there." And I'm like, I got three-fourths of this hummus that I started a little bit. And we just bring our little snacks together. So I want to know, when you get together with your friends, when you're in this living room situation, what is your snack that you would see yourself bringing to the living room?
Aisha:
I'm going to sound a bit like an alcoholic, but probably the alcohol.
Amena:
I respect this.
Aisha:
I have an abundance of alcohol in my apartment right now. My partner subscribes to a monthly wine club and he kept forgetting to put it on pause because we don't drink that much wine. These are cases of wine. And I'm just like, where are we going to put this? We live in a townhouse. We don't have a wine cellar or anything. It makes for a very good party favor. I'm now in my thirties, so dinner parties and all that are the things that are my friends and I are doing. And so instead of having to be like, "Oh, what should I bring?" I'm just like, grab a bottle of wine. I don't even know if it's good, but that's what we're bringing. So wine usually, or some sort of beer, cocktail mix.
Amena:
I feel that this is a correct choice. This feels like the right thing to do. I mean, my first, what I felt was my first grown birthday gift. I think I was like 24, 25, and this man bought me a bottle of wine for my birthday. And I was like an adult. I'm officially grown now. Was it a bottle of Yellowtail? Sure. Does that matter at this moment? No, it was that bottle that really mattered. I feel like you just, in most situations you going to win. It feels very sophisticated bringing a bottle of wine.
Aisha:
Absolutely. Yellowtail in your twenties is totally, totally fine. But even in your thirties, just do what you got to do. If you like it, you like it. That's how I feel.
Amena:
I feel if you like it enough to drink it, you'll do that. If not, it goes great in a spaghetti sauce. It's like there's always going to be a use somewhere-
Aisha:
Yeah, cup of wine.
Amena:
... for that bottle of wine. So I give a shout-out to that. I also want to know, do you have a favorite writing snack when you were writing your book? Or generally when you're writing, do you have a snack or some set of snacks that you're like, this is what I have to have for my writing process?
Aisha:
No, actually. I'm not really a snacker, or at least not in that way. I tend to snack when I am watching something or reading. But actually just when I'm writing, snack is just one more thing. Trying to eat while writing is just one more thing that's going to distract me. And I'm already a very huge procrastinator. So adding in, trying to actually feed myself at the same time, it just doesn't work.
So I usually have a tea with me or some sort of beverage of some sort. I'm not going to lie. I will sometimes also have a glass of wine or something to get the brain a little lubricated and loose and not all hung up in my thoughts as I can be when I'm completely sober. But yeah, I'm not really a snacker while working. Yeah, can't say that I am.
Amena:
I feel you on the use of snacks as procrastination because I like to ask other writers this because that's definitely a thing for me of like, oh man, I sat down to write, but I feel like I probably need some brownies. I probably need to bake those brownies from scratch. I probably need to bake two batches so I can give some, just anything to not sit there.
Aisha:
Yes. You know how I know that it's gotten really bad. It's when I decide, oh, I think I'll just clean right now instead of write.
Amena:
Yeah. Because I'm like, in what other world would I worry about a baseboard? Never.
Aisha:
No, never.
Amena:
I don't care. Except when I stare at the cursor and I'm like, anything's better than this. Anything's better than this.
Aisha:
Let me get that grout in my bathtub.
Amena:
Let's see what the tile's doing. Anything, but write, please, please.
Okay, I also want to ask you when you were approaching what is now Wannabe, how did the idea of the book arrive to you? And I'm always curious about this when I'm talking to other authors. Because for those of us, and this was me once and is many future book authors where they are on the other side of that. I've always dreamed to write a book or I hear a lot of people telling me to write a book, but not always knowing what is the actual process. So how did Wannabe as an idea arrive to you?
Aisha:
Yeah, I was kind of in a similar boat where for a few years I had editors and agents approaching me as, "You should write a book." They'd seen my work in Slate or the New York Times, which was where I was previously. And I met with some agents and I talked about that. And I never really came upon the right idea.
It took me a while. At first I thought, oh, is there some movie that has been ignored or something where I can bring it to the surface in a new way and heavy interview style sort of history digging. One of my favorite authors and one of my favorite books, and I don't read too many books more than once, but one that I have read many, many or several times is Mark Harris's Pictures at a Revolution. First of all, no relation to him, but I do respect him.
And that book is basically a history of the 1967-68 Academy Awards. And it covers the five best picture nominees. And he does this great job of putting together a thesis around how this was where Hollywood was dividing between the classic Hollywood, the studio style Hollywood and the new Hollywood, which was the Scorsese years and those sorts of things. And it's really, really fascinating. It's deeply reported and deeply researched.
And at first I thought, oh, I want to do something similar to that, but I couldn't find the right subject. And who knows, maybe somewhere down the line, the right subject will come along where it's a little bit more nerdier. Not that my book isn't nerdy, it's very nerdy, but nerdy in a different way. And so ultimately just before the pandemic, I had another editor reach out to me, Daniela, who is great. And she said, "Have thought about writing a book?" I'm like, "Yes, I have, but I haven't stumbled upon the right thing." And she put me in touch with an agent.
And my agent, Aaliyah, also wonderful, really kind of helped me figure out, okay, here are things you could do. What kind of themes or what kind of format do you keep coming back to when you think about yourself writing a book? And I said to myself, "Well, so much of my work is about writing in essay form, critical essays, reviews, that sort of thing. Maybe I should just do that." And I decided, I wanted to talk about, make it personal, deeply personal, but also critical and kind of assessing how pop culture has had such a huge influence on me. Yes, that is what I do in my professional life, but it's also very much just always been a part of my life since I came out of the womb.
And I wanted to make something that people, especially millennials who are my age and who grew up in the 1980's and the 1990's, they can relate to. But I think also there are plenty of themes within this story that so many people can understand and relate to regardless of their background.
And when I say talk about the fatigue of the franchisification of everything in Hollywood and how everything needs a spinoff and how everything needs a gritty reboot or a prequel. And I think that for me it's important to sort of acknowledge that even if you are not like me and you're not a pop culture reporter, an arts reporter or whatever, we are all affected by it. And I was hoping that people would get a sense of how we can maybe change our relationship to how these things affect us. Or just think about how these things make us respond to ourselves and also to each other, especially on social media.
It's just like, it's really interesting to think about how we are in this weird moment where there's more things to consume than ever before. Things are at our fingertips. Movies, TV shows, you can find pretty much the most niche interests or fetishes or whatever. You can find some version of it somewhere.
And how does that affect us and how does that make us do things that we maybe should do or say things that we maybe shouldn't? Or how does that make us feel bad about ourselves? Or those sorts of things. So it really kind of evolved out of my desire to both share a little bit more of myself and my upbringing and where I've come from, but also look at where we are now on a larger scale in terms of the culture and how we talk about these things.
Amena:
I really loved that you chose pop culture as the lens for your book. It made it really interesting to me because it kind of felt like it had these concentric circles almost. That at the center is your life, your story, your experiences, and then in part the pop culture that you experienced and how that shaped you. And then even this wider lens of, and even if you're not me, here are the other ways these things affected many of us. So I loved just getting to get that lens inside of a book this way. That was such a great lens that you chose.
I also really identified with the chapter about your name. I too have a name that comes from a very interesting origin and is also considered to be a Muslim name because of the language that it ... Well, it's in many languages because it's derivative of Amen. But I go all sorts of places and people have various feelings. They have various different feelings.
And you're like, it's just my name. I'm just growing up as a person. But now I'm here trying to get some copies made and apparently the employee there is like, "That's a Muslim name." And I'm like, "Yes, okay. Mm-hmm. All right, sure." They're like, "That's the way we say Amen in my country." "Yes. Okay. Mm-hmm."
So I really identified with just the beauty of the Stevie Wonder story that you told of the actual origin of how you became Aisha. And the ever present song and pop culture phenomena of Another Bad Creation also singing this. Could you give us some thoughts about what was it like to write that? I thought it was a wonderful introduction to you in the book. Talk to us more about that.
Aisha:
Yeah, that was the very first essay that I wrote, and it was the one I actually included in my proposal to my editor to land the deal. And to be honest, it was one of those things where I thought about what my name has meant and how people have reacted to it over the years. And even now I'm still dealing with it in the sense that I've realized that this is just a hunch I have, but Uber and Lyft, when I'm trying to get them, a lot of times they will cancel on me and I wonder if it's because of my name.
I have a photo of my dog, that there, but now I'm wondering if my name is also a concern. And then the ones who usually do pick me up tend to be Muslim or people who have Arabic names that sound like mine. So anyway, so I'm still in this weird push and pull with that sort of thing, but I still love my name.
But basically what the chapter is about is that I had sort of these two songs that were connected to my name one in a way that I liked, and that's Stevie Wonder's Isn't She Lovely? And in that song, this is of course on Songs of the Key of Life, and he wrote it for his daughter whose name is Aisha. It's not one of his most famous songs, but it is on one of his most famous albums. And I think people know the song, but if you're not listening to the lyrics closely, the lyrics where he mentions her name could just glide run over you. No one's really thinking, oh, that's the song where he calls her Aisha.
And then I came of age at a time when Another Bad Creation who were what I like to call the New Edition babies. They were kind of a spinoff of New Edition, and they ranged in age from eight to 12 years old. There were five or six of them, and they were kind of the boy group who had a hit song. It was a top 10 hit, Billboard hit back in 1991 or '92, I can't remember. And it's called Iesha.
Anyone who's my age or a little bit older, it still happens to me to this day where they might, if I meet them for the first time, they'll be like, "Have you heard this song?"
Amena:
You're like mm-hmm.
Aisha:
I'm like, "I know which song you're talking." Well, actually sometimes it's that song and other times it's a French song. It's kind of by I think a Middle Eastern performer and it's called Aisha, and it's just kind of like "Aisha, Aisha." It's either that song or that song.
Amena:
Wow.
Aisha:
I didn't put that part in the book. But there are other songs. No one thinks of the Stevie Wonder one.
But yeah, I kind of went on a journey with how I reconciled the two of Aisha, Another Bad Creation being... I don't know, it's not the most embarrassing song. It's not like I'm named Roxanne and then I have that song hanging over my head. But Aisha was also one of those things where it's just like, ugh, I wish people knew that there were other songs that have my name in it.
So it was kind of a journey. And where that journey leads me is to realizing how so much of my resistance to Another Bad Creation was built in just like self-hatred to some point, or just not feeling comfortable about being a Black person. Especially a Black person who grew up going to school with mostly white kids and then having to deal with everything that comes with that. And what your name signifies and how I felt as though, oh, my name is kind of "ghetto." That's not a term that I use anymore. But back in the 1990's and the early 2000's, that was everywhere, especially among white suburban kids.
For me, it felt like a great sort of introduction to where I was going with this piece, which is shining a light on this. I think something that a lot of people have had experiences with, which is just the name that you're born with and not feeling comfortable with it. And then the myths that we tell ourselves, the cultural myths that we tell ourselves more broadly. So yeah, it was quite interesting to go on that journey. My dad, who was featured heavily in this first essay helped me out a bit with some of my memory of things, but he appreciated it, I think.
Amena:
Yeah, yeah, no, I love that. I really identified with that section of the book so much. Not even now that I think about it as much related to my name, but my face. By the time I got to be in my twenties, I would always at that time be confused with Cousin Pam. Or people would walk up all the time and be like, "You know who you look like? You look like-" It depended on their age if they would say Cousin Pam from the Cosby Show or if they would say Maxine from Living Single.
And I went through a long period of my twenties that I was just like, "I'm myself! I am not Maxine! I'm not Cousin Pam!" And then I would get annoyed how many Uber and Lyft cars I would get in and it would be the, "You know who you look like? You remember that show?" And I know where it's going, but I'm like, I'm not going to help you. I'm not going to, you think of this. I feel like I had to just have a little come together meeting with myself and be like, okay, first of all, being accused of looking like Erika Alexander, girl actually could be a great thought for you.
Aisha:
Yes, the great and good Erika Alexandra, yes.
Amena:
It's not a bad vibe for you, but I don't know why it just really got under my skin. I don't know if it felt this sense of you feel like now you can't just be who you are because now that has to be the introduction conversation. It just took me so long of just finally being like, "Okay girl. If you look like..." Well, of course now they would say, "You look like Erika Alexander." They wouldn't say Cousin Pam or Maxine either.
Aisha:
Can I ask you, were these mostly Black people doing this?
Amena:
Yes. They were mostly Black people. Yes.
Aisha:
Because I don't know how many not Black people were familiar. Well, they might have been familiar with the Cosby Show, but maybe not Living Single. But I can understand that frustration because for me, when people were coming at me and singing Another Bad Creation at me, it was a mixture. I had a 40 plus year old Asian dude who knew this song.
I guess because it was a top 10 hit in the 1990's. And I think it's, especially in that era, white kids and white people were getting into hip hop more. But it's tough because it does feel like people are unintentionally telling you your identity and when really you're just, I just want to be me.
That's the other thing is that what I hope to lay out in the book is that so much of how we relate to each other is through pop culture.
Amena:
Right.
Aisha:
It's sports and it's pop culture. Those are the things where you can reasonably be able to carry on a complete conversation with a stranger at a bar about and not know anything else about them. But, "Oh, I overheard you're talking about Succession," blah, blah, blah. I think that they're just trying to relate to you in some way. And even if it's annoying, it's like that's human nature to some extent.
Amena:
Right, right. Okay. I want to ask another favorites question here, and this is about, in a way, it's about what will become throwback concerts. And this came up because a friend and I were at a concert recently. We were kind of looking around and being like, okay. I mean, I feel like the definition of auntie is a thing I would like other people to discuss with me sometimes of I didn't think I was going to be an auntie at this age. That feels like it's coming down for us, younger and younger, all those things.
But we were like, what will it be like? What will our throwback concert be when we're in our sixties? My friend asked me this, and I remember my last college Homecoming watching the women who graduated college in the 1970's and '80's, it was Brick House for them. When Brick House came on, they were like, it's all the Shake It, everything. And I remember my friends and I in that moment looking at each other and going, "Is that going to be Juvenile for us? Is that us in our-"
Aisha:
That's already happening.
Amena:
Is that us now? We're going to be for the '99 and the 2000? So when you think of yourself in true Auntie season Aisha, what are the songs or artists you imagine yourself still shaking it to or what's the concert you could see yourself going to at that point?
Aisha:
Okay, so I feel like the way that nostalgia happens happens even faster these days. So I think we're already in that era for concerts. I mean, what is Usher's Lovers and Friends tour but a complete throwback to my era? Usher's a decade older than me, but he crosses multiple generations at this point.
And when Confessions was out, I was a junior, senior in high school. So I think it's already happening. There's this party that I loved going to back when I lived on the East coast, it happened pretty often, a few times a year. And they've toured around the country and it's called Grits and Biscuits, and it's like all just southern hip hop. It started over a decade ago, and then it turned into this huge thing. But one show I went to, they had Juvenile show up and he did Back that Azz Up, thing up. I don't know if I can curse on here.
Amena:
Yes. We curse all the time, yes.
Aisha:
And it was magical. So that is what I've been shaking still. I still love going to those things. I'm also, I'm seeing Janet again this summer, which I'm very excited for. Now, granted, like her heyday, well, no, because again, she's also covered. I mean, the first time I saw her was the All for You tour with my mom, which I shout out to my mom for taking 13-year-old me to see All for You. May or may not have been that appropriate to see, but it's fine.
Yeah, so that would be my answer. Probably any kind of southern hip hop. If Brittany and Christina were to tour together, which I doubt will ever happen, and I want Brittany to just be healthy and happy. It doesn't sound like she wants to tour, but that would be another one where I'd be like, yeah, I'm going to be there. Yes.
Amena:
I like these choices. I told my friend, I said, I feel we might be 15 to 20 years away from this Destiny's Child reunion tour. Either them in their sixties or me in my sixties. That's my Rolling Stones I feel. I feel like them tickets come out-
Aisha:
Seriously.
Amena:
... I don't care how old I am, I'm going to be like, "We getting them tickets right now." I'm going to go there and lose my breath and everything else.
Aisha:
I'm just waiting. I want that to happen so badly. The only time I saw Destiny's Child was when they opened for TLC on their Fan Mail tour. And this was literally two months before they did the whole lineup change. So it was the original four Destiny's Child.
Amena:
Whoa.
Aisha:
Yes. Yep. Like Writings on the Wall had just come out a few weeks earlier. And then of course everything changed very quickly behind the scenes.
Amena:
So many things, things changed, bless their hearts.
Aisha:
But I would love to see the legendary lineup, the most lasting lineup in concert.
Amena:
Yeah. I would pay good money. I will pay good money for that.
Okay. I want to talk TV. I want to know, when you think about your young self, could your young self have imagined that watching television would actually be a part of your job, Aisha?
Aisha:
I think about this very often. How I'm just like, all those hours I spent in front of the TV as a kid paid off. And no, I would not have imagined it. I don't think I would've imagined it even 15, 20 years ago when I was in coll- ... Well, I'm not that old, but when I was in college, I don't think I would've imagined that.
I thought I was going to be a Broadway performer or at least doing regional theater somewhere. And I did do that for a very, very hot second after I graduated. I do have a degree in theater. But it's so weird to me to think about how I've been able to parlay this into a career. And I consider myself very lucky to be able to do so and write about movies and all these things. These are the things that I love to do.
And I realize that a lot of people, especially in journalism, are not able to do that, or at least not do it to the extent that I am. And media is crumbling before our eyes, so who knows what my future holds. But for now, I'm feeling good and thankful, and I just want our profession to be better. Just even following these writer strikes. It's very disheartening and frustrating to see that people who make the things that we love can't get paid what they're worth.
Amena:
Right.
Aisha:
Yeah. I definitely, I didn't pursue theater in part because I didn't want to be a starving artist. Granted, being in media, it's not like I'm rolling in dough and I'm still paying off my student loans and probably will be until I'm 50 or 60 or until Biden finally does the right thing and just let's us all-
Amena:
Sets us all free from that. Right, right.
Aisha:
Yeah, yeah. Yeah. But yes, very lucky. Very thankful.
Amena:
I really loved about your book, just getting to read you and know more about you as a person, but getting to read you even deeper as a journalist, writer, as a critic. And even getting to read you writing about why critics are important to what we're doing and some of the sticky conversations that people in your profession end up in. I really appreciated getting to hear some of that lens from you.
I had a mentor once in my other life when I was writing more music journalism, and he would say, "Study the culture." He would say, "If there's a thing I would tell you study, study that." And I think in reading this book, it was so wonderful to read someone very studied on pop culture.
On what you like and what you enjoyed, but also on the greater ramifications of the TV we're watching, of the films or don't like. Of the film and TV we feel we should like even if we don't like it. So I want to ask you a couple of TV things. I want to know, do you have a favorite TV guilty pleasure or not so guilty pleasure?
Aisha:
Well, so we've actually done an episode on Pop Culture Happy Hour about this before. But I love the court TV shows. So Judge Judy, even though I recognize that she's very problematic for various reasons, including just being very pro-police sometimes where it doesn't necessarily warrant that, at least from my outside perspective. And also Judge Milian on People's Court. I love that show.
In my earlier years, I definitely dabbled in the other court shows like Judge Mathis and those sort of things. But I prefer my Judy and my Judge Milian. So yeah, it's definitely a guilty pleasure of mine. I don't know too many people my age who watch that stuff.
The thing is, I started watching Judge Judy when I was a kid because my Nana, my great-grandmother who we call Nana, when she would come over and stay with us during the day, she would have Judge Judy on. And so I got into Judge Judy. And now I got to say she's the one who more or less introduced it to me. And I love her. She's no longer with us, but yeah, that was something she imparted on me.
That, and she always had Murder, She Wrote and Matlock on in the background. And I just started watching Murder, She wrote in earnest. Because I knew it was in the ether, but I am now watching it on whatever streaming, I think it's on Peacock. So I'm going through it now and I'm like, "Oh my God, I love this." And I can understand why my Nana loved it too.
Because it's got a formula. You get in, you get out. You've got all these old classic Hollywood actors who are now in their later years and they just pop up. I'm like, "Oh, look. There's that Hollywood performer from whatever movie that I've seen." So anyway, to answer your question again, Judge Judy, Judge Milian, guilty pleasure.
Amena:
I respect this as a choice. I want to thank you for bringing Murder, She Wrote into the chat. My grandmother's show back in the day was The People's Court with Judge Wapner, and actually it had a really banging theme song. I still remember that ba, da, bum. It had a very nice-
Aisha:
They're still doing that theme song.
Amena:
That theme song. Yes. That theme song did some things. Yes, the percussion. I was like, you all really put some layers into this. I like that.
I also appreciated you even bringing Murder, She Wrote into your book when you were talking about, you had a chapter on, I'm sure I'm not going to say the name of the chapter correctly. But you had a chapter on just the expectations of procreation on women. And you talked about this character in Murder, She Wrote and how we are just watching her live her fancy free life until somebody gets murdered, and now she got to stop her wonderful child free life and get over here and try to figure out who murdered this person. I just appreciated those little Easter eggs throughout the book.
Aisha:
Yes. Jessica Fletcher was one of our few representations of especially an older woman who did not have kids and seemed to be really happy about it or just no hangups about it. She had plenty of nieces and nephews who would always come on the show. And then sometimes they would be somehow and involved with a murder or whatever. But she was literally an auntie. She was just like, "I don't have kids. I'm living my life." I'm sure this joke has been made so many times, but I often wonder at what point did she start going places and just wonder, "Okay, so who's going to get murdered at this new place that I visited?"
Amena:
Everywhere she went. She on vacation, she going shopping, somebody is murdered.
Aisha:
Yes.
Amena:
Now that you have taken this book idea from conception to now at the listening of this, your book will be out. What has been your favorite thing about working on this book that you can think of?
Aisha:
Oh, I'm such a tortured writer.
Amena:
Same.
Aisha:
I find it so tedious and stressful and anxious. I do think being done with it is probably my favorite part. But that's the thing is it's not just unique to this book, although this is by far the greatest undertaking on a single project that I've had to do, and it's taken me the longest time. This is two-ish years out of my life, and some of that was during the pandemic. So add on all those stressors of what was happening at the very beginning of the pandemic. It was a lot, but I'm just generally speaking, even if I only have to write an 800 word review, it stresses me out to no end. But why I keep doing it and why I keep coming back to it is because I like the feeling of accomplishment once it's done. And I enjoy actually the editing process as well.
I like being able to work with an editor to sort of refine things or to make things clear. Or sometimes just completely ditch a whole idea and be like, this isn't working, and just being afraid to kill your darlings. But yeah, I think it's just nice to have it out in the world and know that people, the small feedback I've gotten so far from people who were not at all associated with the book, I think has been really heartening. And it makes me realize why I wrote the book in the first place. Yeah, it's been a journey.
Amena:
I love that. And I very much identify with you saying the part about being done with it. Yes. Book writing be hard out here. It be hard. It's like it's beautiful when you can get to the end of it and say that you finished it, but all of them things leading up, it be hard. When I finished my first book, my husband was like, "You finished! Let's go celebrate." I literally sat down at the kitchen table and was like. Like just started crying. I can't even tell you why I was crying. I just like, "I'm sorry I can't do the brownies because I really need to sit here and cry for a few minutes."
It is hard. So I'm just really shout out to you, Aisha, for doing something that is as difficult as writing in general and now writing this book. And I really hope that you take all the opportunities to celebrate yourself because you deserve it.
Aisha:
Yes. I've mostly just been relaxing a lot more, which is not usually my mood anyway. I'm a very kind of naturally anxious person, which I'm trying to work on. But I didn't take any book leave from my NPR job. I took a day or two here and there, but I didn't take an extensive book leave. And so I was working all day and then trying to gear myself up to write at night. And I don't recommend it. Zero out of 10 stars. Would not do again.
Amena:
Do not visit that restaurant.
Aisha:
Yeah. But I also, I needed to keep making money.
Amena:
Right, right, right. For sure. Okay, last question for you. And then I want everyone to get all the information they can about how to follow you and how to make sure they can buy this book, buy lots of them.
Aisha:
Yes.
Amena:
So my last question is when the reader, if they have a physical copy, gets to the end, they close this book, if they have their e-copy, they've swiped through the pages, they've gotten to the end of this book. What do you hope readers feel or gain from having read your book?
Aisha:
I hope they feel a little bit smarter. A little bit more I can go to this party or hang out with these people and then have some talking points to bring to them. And I also hope they've had a chance to laugh a little bit and really think about the things that they love when it comes to pop culture and what their own relationship is to it.
And I don't know if that type of person to be very hostile on social media is going to read this book. But if you think that might be you and you do read it, maybe you'll come away and say, "Maybe I don't need to get upset when a critic says that they don't like this piece of pop culture that I really like." I quote him, and I'm going to paraphrase this, but I mentioned a moment from the Kenny G documentary. Where he's explaining in part. And this is why I respect this man, because the whole point of the documentary is sort of wrestles with how this bestselling musician is also one of the most critically reviled artists. And he's very aware of this and he explains it.
"People will say, I like this, don't you? And then that person says, no, I don't like this. You do?" And he basically says, "It hurts you. It makes you feel like it's personal." And I want people to take away, yes, it is personal, but it also doesn't have to be all the time. And we can like the things that we like to a degree, I mean, I'm not advocating for certain things that might actually physically hurt or just cause harm or in any way. I'm not playing the devil's advocate here. I'm just saying, you don't need to take everything so personally. And I think it would be, we'll all just feel better about that. If I say something about Marvel, I don't need people getting really upset with me about it.
Amena:
Two things can be true. You could love that and this other person just doesn't. And that's okay.
Aisha:
Exactly. It's okay.
Amena:
It's okay. That's what we're trying to say.
Aisha:
They can co-exist.
Amena:
Where can the people follow you and where can the people buy five copies of this book? And listeners, this is why I'm saying five copies. Number one, buying five copies supports an author. Okay, number two, you got your copy, you got four more to give away. You got four more in case somebody comes to the house and they're like, "Oh, I always wanted to read her book." Now you don't have to give away your copy because you bought five of them. You can just be like, "Here you go." It's a constant gift. It keeps on giving. So where can the people buy five copies of Aisha Harris's, Wannabe: Reckonings with the Pop Culture that Shapes Me? And where can the people follow? Tell us everything.
Aisha:
Oh my goodness. That's such a great, yes, I love it. Encourage the five copies. So of course I want to say support your local bookstore. I'm not sure when this is dropping, but if you pre-order it from Marcus Bookstore, which is in my current place of dwelling in Oakland, California. It is the oldest black-owned independent bookstore in the country. And if you pre-order it from them, they will ship it to you wherever you are, and it will come signed by me. So that's an option. But also your local bookseller, go to them, request it. And of course, Amazon. I did an audiobook for you.
Amena:
Okay. Okay.
Aisha:
I recorded the book, which is interesting because like recording audio, reading a book for audio is very different from writing for audio. But you'll get to hear me do my best impression of Dave Chappelle. So if you want to get the audio book, you can do that. And Amazon and all the other, Barnes and Noble, all those other places.
And then you can follow me at, I'm still on Twitter for the foreseeable feature. We'll see.
Amena:
It's a bad time.
Aisha:
The ship is still hobbling along, so you can find me on Twitter @CraftingMyStyle. And on Instagram if you want to see both me promoting my book, but also cute photos of my dogs @AHA88. So that's A-H-A, the number 88. And yeah, that's where I am these days.
I'm a little too old to be on TikTok, so you won't find me there. But yeah, that's it. Oh, and of course on NPR doing all the culturey things and Pop Culture Happy Hour. I'm not on every episode, but we've got four co-hosts and it's a great time. And if you're ever looking for that movie, TV show, book, album that you are excited about or want to hear us discuss, we're trying to cover a lot of things. So we cover Marvel. We do. I'm not usually on those episodes, but we do. And we cover a lot of things. So that's where you can find me.
Amena:
Love it. You all make sure I go to there. All of these things will also be in the show notes you all at amenabrown.com/herwithamena.
Aisha, thank you for sharing your story and your life with us in this book. Thank you for giving us intelligent things to say at dinner parties and at other sundry networking events. Thank you for giving us this wonderful lens on pop culture, how it motivates us, how it upsets us, how it changes us, how it inspires us. Just appreciate your work so much. Thanks for joining us.
Aisha:
Well thank you. And thank you for creating this sort of space for authors like myself to talk about the things that we love and our writing. I really appreciate it.
Amena:
HER with Amena Brown is produced by Matt Owen for Sol Graffiti Productions as a part of the Seneca Women Podcast network and partnership with iHeartRadio. Thanks for listening and don't forget to subscribe, rate, and review the podcast.