Frannie Kelley
Frannie Kelley is co-host of the Microphone Check podcast with Ali Shaheed Muhammad.
Prior to hosting Microphone Check, Kelley was an editor at NPR Music. She was responsible for editing, producing and reporting NPR Music's coverage of hip-hop, R&B and the ways the music industry affects the music we hear, on the radio and online. She was also co-editor of NPR's music news blog, The Record.
Kelley worked at NPR from 2007 until 2016. Her projects included a series on hip-hop in 1993 and overseeing a feature on women musicians. She also ran another series on the end of the decade in music and web-produced the Arts Desk's series on vocalists, called 50 Great Voices. Most recently, her piece on Why You Should Listen to Odd Future was selected to be a part of the Best Music Writing 2012 Anthology.
Prior to joining NPR, Kelley worked in book publishing at Grove/Atlantic in a variety of positions from 2004 to 2007. She has a B.A. in Music Criticism from New York University.
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The hometown shows the duo played had a bittersweet quality because people thought it might be their last chance to see one of the most-respected and best-loved groups of all time together. -
"The best way to represent the places where you from is be yourself, completely," says the musician and actor. -
The guaguanco is one of three rhythmic patterns that live under the umbrella of the rumba. It was once subversive and now serves to bring drummers and singers and dancers together. -
In almost every Hollywood depiction of the American military, at some point a bunch of guys will jog past the camera, singing and stepping in unison. That rhythm infiltrated the Army in 1944. -
The rapper from Gary, Ind., moved to L.A. 10 years ago, where he met Madlib, a producer revered for his collaborations. The two of them have now made an album Gibbs thinks can't be touched. -
The rap duo OutKast launched what may be its farewell tour over the weekend at Coachella, but the group and its fans, who have waited a decade for the reunion, might not have the same expectations. -
We couldn't fit everything into Thursday's story about the legacy of Comin Out Hard, so here are some extras, including Eightball on touring in a rental car, MJG on Eazy-E and Yo Gotti on mentorship in the Memphis rap scene. -
From the birthplace of Stax and Sun Records, and the site of Martin Luther King Jr.'s assassination, the pair of rapper-producers snatched soul music and put it to work for a new generation. -
This week we're looking back at the year in music through the lens of NPR Music's 50 Favorite Albums of 2013. It's the annual list assembled by our in-house experts, including NPR music editor Frannie Kelley and Ali Shaheed Muhammad, producer and founding member of the rap group A Tribe Called Quest. The pair host NPR's Microphone Check.
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The duo from Huntsville, Ala. parted ways last fall but say now that they've had some time to grow as men, they're ready to clock back in.
