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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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The success of the polymath's technicolor Whack World EP left something darker brewing beneath the surface. Years later, she talks about pushing through self-doubt to rediscover her confidence.
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Two of the new Grammy categories reflect trends that are booming among musicians and the industry.
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NPR'S Andrew Limbong talks to Rodney Carmichael about rapper 21 Savage's new album, American Dream.
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NPR's Rodney Carmichael speaks with André 3000 about his new album New Blue Sun.
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Out now, the outrageous half of OutKast about talks about his first album in 17 years, his wild ayahuasca trip and why he gets so many requests to play flute at funerals.
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Themes emerge quickly when you dig into the nominations for the 66th Grammy Awards. The major categories are dominated by women and seemingly up for grabs; elsewhere, progress is not always so clear.
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The show has always been the biggest dedicated stage for hip-hop. In the year of its 50th anniversary, with chatter of its demise looming, how do those in the building see things?
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The unwritten rules of rap unpacked in Louder's second season are held together by a scarcity principle that came to define the show itself. As it draws to a close, the team reflects on its mission.
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Rapper Doechii hoped her video "Crazy" would make a statement by presenting her nude body as a vessel of power, not sex. YouTube saw things differently.
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Not everyone who was part of rap's ascent gets included in its story. MC Sha-Rock, of the original Funky 4 and the Funky 4 + 1, reaffirms her role in hip-hop's formative years as the first woman MC.