Stanford Arts

Songs in the Key of Life: Hanif Abdurraqib with Switched on Pop’s Nate Sloan at Stanford

The Stanford event brought poet‑critic Hanif Abdurraqib together with Switched on Pop host Nate Sloan to examine how individual songs become touchstones for personal history and broader cultural dialogue. Abdurraqib opened with Kate Bush’s “Watching You Without Me,” recalling a teenage breakup in which the track, introduced by his then‑girlfriend’s parents, crystallized a moment of gratitude and underscored the way black‑neighbourhood record collections preserve intergenerational stories. Sloan highlighted Bush’s ability to marry experimental studio tricks—backwards vocals, Fairlight CMI programming—with instantly memorable pop hooks. The conversation then shifted to Detroit emo outfit Fireworks, whose 2023 album *Lonely Higher Power* epitomizes the genre’s urgent, self‑reflective lyricism. Abdurraqib quoted the pre‑chorus—“I want to make you feel like you just read a dedication written in the book that you found”—as a textbook example of emo’s personalized emotional register, while also noting the “cauldron of misogyny” that fuels much of the scene’s discontent. Together, the dialogue illustrates how music operates as a conduit for identity, trauma, and social critique, offering artists and industry leaders a roadmap for crafting work that resonates across racial, geographic, and generational lines.