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Forward Ever Backward Never

The Next Room: Forward Ever, Backward Never Interview with Nadir Omowale

Jane Asher is a natural connector, who got her start in media through Michigan radio in 1980. She soon traveled west and has worked at legendary radio stations such as KTYD Santa Barbara, KGB, KSON and K-BEST 95 in San Diego. She also received the prestigious Marconi Award for her work on 98.1 KIFM. Her natural curiosity led her to expand her business by including marketing and social media. When anyone asks her what she does for a living she responds; “I connect inspired people with one another, especially those with a desire to help others.”

Jane invited her friend Nadir Omowale on the show to talk about the release of his new single “Run” a song about stamina and perseverance. Lyrically the protagonist is running for his life, but metaphorically, “Run” is in many ways, a symbolic story of daily struggle for every Black person on the planet. From the slave catcher’s hounds, from the Klansman’s noose, from oppression, from discrimination, from the police, we’re constantly running. And failure isn’t an option. “If I let them catch me, I’m as good as dead.”

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Ideas Adrift Song Premier: Nadir Omowale – “Run”

As I’ve said before, if you want to know what’s happening in and around Detroit music, you really need to follow journalist, Jeff Milo. He’s that Everywhere-All-The-Time kind of cat who seems to know about every new band and every great show. And it isn’t hard to follow him. He writes for the Detroit Free Press and the Metro Times, he’s on he radio on WDET’s Culture Shift, he has a really interesting podcast at the Detroit Library, AND he has his own blog called Ideas Adrift.

Here’s what Jeff had to say about Nadir’s single, “Run”:

Channeling the visceral energies of Gaye’s “Inner City Blues” and the Isley Brother’s “Fight the Power,” but transfusing the impassioned (and even flat out angered) mixture of ire and empathy, of fatigue and ferocity, of resolve in the face of fear—Omowale has produced a powerful anthem for our current moment—drawing upon unhealed trauma and tragedy from more than two decades into the past.

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© Nadir Omowale