About this episode
On today’s episode, we’re tackling a question from a listener named Joel: Why do singers lose their accents when they sing?
Our guest this week is New Yorker writer Kelefa Sanneh. In this wide-ranging conversation, we explore identity in country music, why Taylor Swift stopped singing with a twang, how Drake changed the way people think about authenticity in hip-hop, and why Adele and Harry Styles don’t sound British when they sing.
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Check out Kelefa’s book Major Labels: A History of Popular Music in Seven Genres
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