In need of some new tunes? Writer Hannah Agpoon ’22 and photographer Ariel Richards ’23 asked professors what they’ve been listening to lately.
“Some Chinese pop music, the stuff that teenagers and people in their early twenties listen to. Actually, I had my students perform a Chinese New Year celebration by listening to one of the songs. His name is Yi Bo Wang, he is one of the most popular idols in China right now.” -Qiaomei Tang, Chinese and Japanese“I’ve been going back to the music of my earlier years. Public Enemy and a number of other rap groups are really the soundtrack of my formative years. … They just spoke to young people in urban areas, not just in New York, but like anywhere in this country, who were struggling, and they gave us words to encourage and lift us up.” – Raquel Greene, Russian“[I listen to] classical music. There is a Korean pianist, Yiruma, and I have also been listening to Yo Yo Ma. I enjoy instrumental music [for the] relaxation.” – Dixuan Yujing Chen, religious studies“Aya Nakamura is one of the few young black female singers in French at the moment. She’s extremely popular. She speaks to young people in the suburbs where she’s from but is also is getting a lot of prizes for her music. It’s accessible and fun and yet she rewrites her own language doing it.” – Marion Tricoire, French“I just read this book by Hanif Abdurraqib. He’s a hip-hop critic, and he was going back through ‘A Tribe Called Quest.’ So I’ve been listening to that, and I’ve been listening to ‘Aquemini,’ one of OutKast’s first albums.” – Nicholas Barnes, political science“I’ve been listening to the Frozen II soundtrack. ‘Lost in the Woods,’ that’s a good one. It is like all my college day songs wrapped up into one, it is so hysterical. When I was in college, we listened to Chicago and Peter Cetera and Air Supply. The song has got this 90s vibe to it, and I laughed so hard seeing that in the movie.” – Cynthia Hansen, linguistics
