Black Pumas Make The Perfect Pair

XPN | By Talia Schlanger,

Published September 5, 2019 at 3:54 PM EDT

Grammy Award-winning musician and producer Adrian Quesada was just about to get in the car after having lunch with a producer friend in Austin when he casually tossed out the question, "Oh hey! By the way, do you know anybody who would, like, sing on these songs?"

Quesada had been on the hunt for the right voice to bring the soulful sound he heard in his head to life on a new project to no avail, and asked his friend whether any names popped to mind. Quesada's friend asked if he had heard of Austin-by-way-of-LA busker and singer-songwriter Eric Burton? Quesada did some digging and found it was love at first listen. Together they became Black Pumas, a band that caught major buzz at SXSW in 2018, a mere month after its formation.

Black Pumas have now released its self-titled full-length debut album. Hear live performances and a conversation with Quesada and Burton about their unique, respective backgrounds, including why Quesada says musicians are the "truck drivers of the art world." It's all in the player.

Talia Schlanger

Talia Schlanger hosts World Cafe, which is distributed by NPR and produced by WXPN, the public radio service of the University of Pennsylvania. She got her start in broadcasting at the CBC, Canada's national public broadcaster. She hosted CBC Radio 2 Weekend Mornings on radio and was the on-camera host for two seasons of the television series CBC Music: Backstage, as well as several prime-time music TV specials for CBC, including the Quietest Concert Ever: On Fundy's Ocean Floor. Schlanger also guest hosted various flagship shows on CBC Radio One, including As It Happens, Day 6 and Because News. Schlanger also won a Canadian Screen Award as a producer for CBC Music Presents: The Beetle Roadtrip Sessions, a cross-country rock 'n' roll road trip.

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Kimberly Junod

World Cafe senior producer Kimberly Junod has been a part of the World Cafe team since 2001, when she started as the show's first line producer. In 2011 Kimberly launched (and continues to helm) World Cafe's Sense of Place series that includes social media, broadcast and video elements to take listeners across the U.S. and abroad with an intimate look at local music scenes. She was thrilled to be part of the team that received the 2006 ASCAP Deems Taylor Radio Broadcast Award for excellence in music programming. In the time she has spent at World Cafe, Kimberly has produced and edited thousands of interviews and recorded several hundred bands for the program, as well as supervised the show's production staff. She has also taught sound to young women (at Girl's Rock Philly) and adults (as an "Ask an Engineer" at WYNC's Werk It! Women's Podcast Festival).

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