In case you missed it, the 2022 season of the NüVoices podcast has new theme music composed and recorded by April Zhu! April is not only a journalist and a previous guest on the pod, but is also a talented musician who can play six instruments: violin, piano, guitar, ukulele, banjo, and taiko.
Here’s what April said about making our new theme song:
“The NüVoices team more or less gave me carte blanche to make whatever I wanted, so working on a new intro song felt like play. I started with a blues scale to stay away from the overwrought, vaguely oriental pentatonic, and this soon gave way to the bones of the song: a funky, slidey bassline and ukulele played clawhammer style, a banjo plucking technique, for warmth and momentum. The lead line is also uke, but put through some stuff that gives it that phone static and some Head Hunters Chameleon glitch.”
Many thanks April!
About April: April Zhu is a writer based in Nairobi, Kenya. She is also a Senior Editor at Guernica Magazine and the producer of “Until Everyone Is Free,” a sheng’ podcast on the life and work of Kenyan socialist and freedom fighter Pio Gama Pinto.