Living for the City, New Video Podcast Series Hosted by Hanif Abdurraqib, Premieres May 13th on YouTube and Spotify
KEY TAKEAWAYS
- Living for the City is a new video podcast series hosted by MacArthur Fellow and NYTimes bestselling author Hanif Abdurraqib that explores the cities behind music’s most influential movements.
The eight-episode inaugural season traces Detroit’s global impact across Motown, techno, and hip-hop through conversations with the artists, DJs, producers, and communities behind the sound.
The series premieres May 13 on YouTube, Spotify, and Apple Podcasts, with new episodes released weekly on Wednesdays.
Before a sound changes the world, it starts somewhere small. A room, a block, a city.
Living for the City is a new video podcast series that goes back to those places. Each season follows a simple idea: every revolution has a zip code. The series begins in Detroit, a city that has shaped the sound of music for decades, from Motown to techno to hip-hop.
Hosted by MacArthur Fellow and New York Times bestselling author Hanif Abdurraqib, the series follows him through the neighborhoods, record stores, clubs, and street corners where these sounds first took hold. Along the way, he meets artists, DJs, producers, and the people behind the scenes who built these movements from the ground up.
“I am someone who has a deep investment in not just sounds, but the roots of the sounds, the hands and hearts that went into making the sounds, the places that help shape and define the sounds,” said Hanif Abdurraqib, host of Living for the City. “I am thankful for a project that lets me explore these stories and these people.”
Across eight episodes, the inaugural season explores Detroit’s lasting imprint on global culture. From Motown to techno to hip-hop, its influence spans decades, genres, and generations. Future seasons will spotlight cities around the world that have shaped music across generations.
Abdurraqib is one of the defining voices in contemporary cultural criticism, known for writing about music, sports, and Black performance with rare literary depth. His work has appeared in The New Yorker, The New York Times, The Fader, and Pitchfork. His books include They Can’t Kill Us Until They Kill Us and A Little Devil in America, which won the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Nonfiction, as well as There’s Always This Year, a New York Times bestseller. With Living for the City, he steps on camera as a host for the first time.
The official trailer for Living for the City is available now at https://www.youtube.com/@LivingfortheCityPod. The first episode premieres on May 13, 2026, with new episodes released every Wednesday. Listeners can stream the series on YouTube, Spotify, and Apple Podcasts. Living for the City is the first of a lineup of shows from Side Stage, a network from Live Nation and Magnet Originals, with more shows coming soon.