Come join this amazing podcast by Barack Obama and Bruce Springsteen has their share the American stories and you will see what it means to be born in the USA.
Renegades, Born in the USA is an eight-episodes podcast featuring a deep and revealing conversation between two friends, Barack Obama and Bruce Springsteen, exploring a wide range of topics that includes, race, fatherhood, marriage, music and the state of America. This podcast is a personal, in-depth discussion that is exploring their past, their beliefs, and the country they love, as well as how it will be going forward. The podcast first episode came out February 22nd, titled "Outsider: An Unlikely Friendship."
Barack Obama wants the world to know how much he loves singing and he's rarely without a tune on his lips. Described as a shower-singer, bedroom warbler, an Air Force One air guitarist with a good voice, he is the proof that you can be embarrassing without feeling an ounce of embarrassment.
Both Barack Obama and Bruce Springsteen make amazing podcast hosts, as public figures with words has a function of meticulous craft; Bruce Springsteen as a songwriter and Barack Obama as a speaker. The podcast medium tends to favor deliberate, intentional essays and reporting or fast-paced dialogue. This podcast unfolds like a series of porch front chats between old friends and the conversation almost feels too loose.
Here is a quick summary of all episodes of the podcast that are out now and available to listen to.
In episode 1 of Our Unlikely Friendship, Barack Obama and Bruce Springsteen discuss the making of their friendship, growing up as outsiders.
In episode 2 of Race in the United States, they reflect about the early experience with race and racism and the uncomfortable conversation we need to have.
In episode 3 of American Music, they talk about popular music, the most American of art forms. We will be able to hear Bruce Springsteen play few songs and Barack Obama telling us the story behind one of his most famous speeches.
In episode 4 of Traveling in the U.S. & Finding Home, they discuss the loss of American innocence, the romance of the open, and ditch Mr. Obama Secret Service detail for a joyride in a vintage Corvette.
In episode 5 of Money and the American Dream, they discussed about growing up broke and happy, and also about issues of class, opportunity and what went wrong with upward mobility in America.
In episode 6 of Relationships with Our Fathers and Masculinity, President Obama and Bruce talk about their complicated relationships with their fathers, what it means to be a man, father figures, and role models.
In episode 7 of Fatherhood, Barack Obama and Bruce Springsteen discuss starting their families, the feeling experienced when their children were born, and balancing fatherhood with their careers.
In episode 8 of Looking Towards American Renewal, Barack Obama and Bruce Springsteen discuss the hope for American unification, they ask themselves what defines cultural appropriation, and Bruce shares memories fro when he was writing "Born in the USA."
The aim in the first episode, "Outsider: An Unlikely Friendship" is to set out of the cultural and political entrenchment of the last five years through an appreciation of the vastness of the American experience. In the podcast, we can also hear Bruce talking about running a racially integrated band and learning about the unknowable emotional cost that his late friend and saxophonist Clarence Clemons shouldered along the way. He revisited "American skins (41 Shots)," the song he wrote about the 1999 police shooting of Amadou Diallo, an unarmed Guinean immigrant shot at 41 times by plainclothes NYPD officers who claimed they mistook Diallo's wallet for a gun. It also reveals something about Springsteen's politics that he would be surprised to hear police officers being angry about the song.
The podcast between two old friends invites you to listen closer, to tune your thinking down to a different speed, and to consider, perhaps not brighter days. As it moves through different moments in times and ping-pongs between opposite but complementary perspectives, we start to see the show's vision of America as a society on the brink of the breakthrough.
Watch the trailer of Renegades: Born in the USA, now available as a video on YouTube and as a podcast form on Spotify.
To listen to Renegades: Born in the USA podcast, the first four episodes are now available on Spotify.
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