Red Hot's Latest Compilation Album Celebrates Queer and Trans People
![Sam Smith & Beverly Glenn-Copeland](https://media.wnyc.org/i/800/0/l/85/2024/11/SamSmith.jpg)
( Credit: Eleanor Petry/ Courtesy of Red Hot Organization )
A new 46-track album celebrates celebrates queer and trans artists while exploring queer and trans experiences through music. Featuring artists like Sam Smith, Faye Webster, and André 3000, the album includes a combination of covers and original compositions. Producers Elia Einhorn, Terrance Thomas, and Red Hot A&R assistant Agnes Walsh join us for a Listening Party.
[MUSIC - Luscious Jackson: Citysong]
Alison Stewart: This is All Of It on WNYC. I'm Alison Stewart. Coming up on the show this week, we'll send you into the Thanksgiving holiday prepared for almost any situation. Tomorrow, we'll talk about how to preserve your favorite family recipes, and also what podcasts you might want to binge on your travel to your gathering. And on Wednesday, we'll talk about how to navigate difficulty family dynamics. That is in the future. Let's get this hour started with the new album, Transa.
In a bold effort to bring awareness to trans artists, a new album features trans, binary, and allies, more than 80 to participate in an album titled Transa: Selects. Transa: Selects emerged from a collaborative project with Red Hot, an organization that began using music as a tool to fight HIV and AIDS more than 30 years ago. Here's a sample. Let's listen to trans musician Benét and singer Faye Webster singing Make 'Em Laugh.
[Playing Make 'Em Laugh by Benét Nutall and Faye Webster]
Alison Stewart: The album features 46 tracks. That's three and a half hours of songs, covers, and new music, including a battle from Sade, her first song in six years, which is dedicated to her trans son. The album blends eclectic genres from house, techno, spoken word, and R&B to create a soundtrack that speaks to resilience and self discovery. Transa: Selects is out now. Joining me to discuss the genesis, the music and the movement it represents are the producers of the album, Elia Einhorn and Terrance Thomas. Hey, hey--
Terrance Thomas: Hey, Alison.
Alison Stewart: Also joining us is Agnes Walsh from the Red Hot Organization. Nice to meet you.
Agnes Walsh: Nice to meet you as well.
Alison Stewart: Agnes, I want to get a little background on the Red Hot Organization. Those of us from the '90s remember when it first came out with George Michael and Madonna to help produce a wide range of albums to bring awareness about HIV and AIDS. When you think about what roles those records play, what did they play in the fight?
Agnes Walsh: I actually wasn't alive during most of that. I'm a very recent addition to the Red Hot team. I may have been either unborn or a very young baby at the time, but I think its legacy does impact my life. I did come out as transgender many years ago, and I think that the recorded testament of all the people who came before me who proved that you could actually do it, Red Hot was one of those.
Alison Stewart: Well, tell us about the catalyst for the new album.
Agnes Walsh: Well, I guess the joy of being transgender, at least prior to the political moment of today, but even more so still, that-- I think when you listen to Red Hot, and at least when I listened to Red Hot's Transa, and I recognized a lot of these names since before the project was even conceived as an idea. Like Time Wharp, for example, she's one of the artists on the album that I'd been working in comedy with for years prior to this project. It's a testament to the friendship of what it takes to make something together as transgender people, what we do to survive, and what you can make out of it, hardship or not.
Alison Stewart: Elia and Terrance, let's bring you into the conversation. The new album features folks like Andre 3000, Sam Smith, Allison Russell, Fleet Foxes--
Terrance Thomas: Yes.
Alison Stewart: Yes. Well, how did you first hear about Transa?
Elia Einhorn: This is Elia speaking. I was producing another series for Red Hot, the Red Hot & Ra series, which is tied to climate justice. All their records are tied to a different cause, and this was a celebration of Sun Ra. The two people that concepted this album were Massima Bell, who's a trans woman from Iowa now living out in L.A, and Dust Reid, who lives in New York and was the producer behind the wonderful Arthur Russell tribute record that Red Hot did about a decade ago. So I was working on the Sun Ra record, and the two of them had just come up with the idea and had one track, I think, recorded out of 46. I think the first one was Jeff Tweedy from Wilco with Claire Rousay, the incredible trans musician and sort of orchestrator. I mean, she's incredible. They said, "Elia, would you come on and help us bring some artists on?" I said, "Of course," and two and a half years later, here we are, and the record's finally out.
Alison Stewart: And how did you get involved?
Terrance Thomas: Actually, I-- This is Terrance speaking, by the way. I came to Red Hot's founder with one of my business partners to talk about a completely different tribute album. I won't say the name because I'm still hoping that happens. And in us sort of like generating some ideas back and forth about how it might work, I think Dust and John kind of took note of my passions for the community. I'm Black and queer, I work with a lot of Black queer and trans artists and have for many, many years, and it became an opportunity for us to collaborate. They introduced me to Transa, asked me to come on board as a producer. It was a little bit of a no-brainer. There were a couple of years into the project already, so I could sort of see what they were shaping, and think very, very deeply about how I might be able to contribute to it.
Alison Stewart: All right. Who wants to explain how the S in Transa is backwards? You'll take that, Agnes?
Agnes Walsh: We had to change it. We had to change it because we weren't coming up in the search queries. It's a stylistic S, we just thought it would look cool, but it's really hard to find the backwards S button on your keyboard. So for most intents and purposes, it's just a regular S.
Alison Stewart: [chuckles] There you go. Let's listen to another track from Transa. This is You Don't Know Me from Devandra Banhart, Blake Mills, and Beverly Glenn-Copeland. Let's listen, and we can talk about it on the other side.
[Playing You Don't Know Me by Devandra Banhart, Blake Mills, and Beverly Glenn-Copeland]
Alison Stewart: So, Elia, tell me about these three artists. Devendra Banhart, Blake Mills, and Beverly Glenn-Copeland.
Elia Einhorn: Sure. You know, this is the first song on the record. We have an introduction which is a piece of music and poetry, but this is the first song, and Devendra Banhart was, I think, one of the first people to sign on to the album. He was so passionate about it, and one thing I love about this track-- Oh, well, let me tell you about the other two first, I suppose. Beverly Glenn-Copeland is a trans man who's only really gotten the love he deserves in the last 5, 7 years, 10 years at most. He spent most of his life putting out gorgeous records in obscurity. And Blake Mills is one of the great producers of our time now working out of studios in Hollywood.
Now, one thing I love about this track is that it represents-- Right out of the gate, we've got two languages, singing in English and Spanish, we've got three different generations represented. We've got Blake, who is a millennial, we've got Devendra, and then we've got an octogenarian on the track, and it just feels so beautiful to have that inclusivity and to introduce Transa in that way. The other thing I'd say about this is that lyric that I believe was in the clip you just played, Alison, "Show me from behind the wall," it's very powerful and evocative. I mean, how can you really see the beauty and complexity of someone with that wall of bigotry between you? Now, if you're able to lift that, if you're able to just peek around or over that momentarily, you can see the totality of other people and the beauty that there is, not something that's happening much in the climate here in America right now.
Alison Stewart: Terrance, I'm going to ask you just to speak to the musicality of the performance. How do those vocal styles complement each other?
Terrance Thomas: To be perfectly honest, I think when you have an intention that's aligned, you oftentimes will have people find this really beautiful symbiosis in recording, and that's what happened. Obviously, Blake is an incredible, incredible producer and musician in general, and being able to have him sort of help bring that glue all together is really, really remarkable. But I think oftentimes, anyone can make music together so long as their intentions are aligned and so long as they are coming from a place of really genuine, meaningful collaboration, and I think that's what the song speaks to really, really beautifully.
Alison Stewart: Elia, when you think about Beverly Glenn-Copeland, what legacy has he created? Because, I mean, he's announced that he has developed dementia.
Elia Einhorn: Yes. Glenn is a very rare gem, both as an individual and as a trans elder. We don't have that many trans elders because of the way that the world treats the trans community, and all of the obstacles. As we were putting this record together, Glenn, as the representative of someone who will fight for beauty, even under the radar for decades, was so powerful for us. I think the other touch point was really the artist Anohni, who many of your listeners may be aware of through her own work and her work with Lou Reed and Laurie Anderson. Two trans pioneers who are of different generations, but are leaving legacies of love and the invitation to acceptance, not just of trans people, but across the board.
Alison Stewart: I'm going to ask you to pronounce your name, because I've pronounced it like 15 different ways.
Elia Einhorn: This is what happens when you invite someone on who's got a Welsh-Jewish name. It's tough. It's Elia Einhorn.
Alison Stewart: Elia Einhorn.
Elia Einhorn: Yes.
Alison Stewart: I'm speaking with Elia Einhorn--
Elia Einhorn: Alison, don't worry at all.
Alison Stewart: [laughs] --and Terrance Thomas, and Red Hot crew member Agnes Walsh with a new compilation Transa that celebrates transgender communities. It is out now. Agnes, the album is billed as a "spiritual journey celebrating trans people." It's split into eight different chapters. Do we know what the eight signified? Was eight good? Was there a lot of people behind eight?
Agnes Walsh: Yes. Actually, we have very specific nomenclature attributed to each of the eight. In order, the first one is Womb of the Soul. The second, Trauma, Self, and Survival Mode. Third, Dark Night of the Soul and Self Reflection. Four, Spiritual Awakening. Five, Grief. Six, Self Actualization, Acceptance, and Self Awareness, or the Transformation Chapter. Seven, Gender Liberation, and eight, Reinvention. I really do appreciate the work that Dust and Massi have both done, not only just like intuiting what it's like to be trans, because we all either are trans or on some sort of gender liberation spectrum that we view ourselves, but this is what it feels like. It's the greatest joy and the greatest hardship, heartbreaking thing of my life to be trans.
Transa is maybe the closest a work of art has ever really gotten to at least vocalizing what it feels like to be on that roller coaster, all the beautiful aspects of it, all the loss. I mean, when you're trans, you definitely will live to see someone you know pass away. That's just the reality of being trans, but there's so much to look forward to that there was no other way I could have lived the rest of my life. With Transa being organized this way, we hope that-- not necessarily to have someone realize that they're trans just by listening to it. Many non-trans people can and should listen to it, but if there's a way to at least dip your feet into this experience, I think Transa organized in these chapters has my stamp of approval.
Alison Stewart: How did you decide on-- There are so many different kinds of genres on this album. One, what does it say that there's that many genres, and how do you sort of manipulate that many genres?
Terrance Thomas: I think we live in a time where genre is becoming, I won't say irrelevant, but--
Alison Stewart: Porous, kind of?
Terrance Thomas: Yes, exactly. Porous is a good word. And so in many ways, I don't think very much about genre per se. We always want to try to have certain things represented. What was really, really interesting about, for instance, having Allison Russell and Ahya Simone was the sort of Black Diaspora strings moment with harp and banjo. I think there was like one song that I could reference where I'd heard a harp and a banjo together, and that was it, and that was a really beautiful moment. But I didn't really care whether it came out sounding like a folk song or sounding like an R&B record or whatever. It was really about capturing a particular kind of feeling in a moment and tributing in that moment Jackie Shane with any other way. In thinking about genre, oftentimes it's just not something that I think too deeply about. It's something that you can look back on and reflect and say like, "Hey, this is what this feels like, or this is where this space is sort of leading us," but in the making, in the moment, who cares? [chuckles]
Alison Stewart: All right. Let's listen to a track from the album. This is a cover of You Make Me Feel (Mighty Real) from Moses Sumney, Lyra Pramuk-- did I get that correct? And Sam Smith. Let's take a listen.
[Playing You Make Me Feel (Mighty Real) by Moses Sumney, Lyra Pramuk, and Sam Smith]
Alison Stewart: That's a really good cover.
Elia Einhorn: Oh my God. I mean, just hearing that again, we're all vibing here in the studio. There's a little bit of booty shaking going on and kind of some feels too.
Terrance Thomas: Yes. They sound so fantastic to together.
Alison Stewart: It does. You know, I'm wondering, how did you make the decisions between original composition and covers?
Elia Einhorn: We left a lot of that up to the artists, and a lot of it was we trusted the artists. You know, my work aside from producing records is I host music radio on podcasts and TV. I think the ones I'm most associated with probably are like Pitchfork, Sonos Radio, and Talkhouse. That work brings me out to the Grammys pretty regularly, so I was there last year when Sam Smith and Kim Petras won. Sam is non-binary, Kim is the first trans woman to win a Grammy, and I was there with tears in my eyes as Sam stepped back and gave Kim the whole speech. I saw that moment, and we were like, "We've got to get Sam on the Record. We've got to get Sam." Their voice is just incredible. Everything they do, they're really an activist himself. I don't know if your listeners might be aware of their podcast, the Pink House, where they talk about gender and identity and inclusion.
When we went to Moses, at first we came with the idea of Is it Cold in the Water? Which was a tribute to Sophie, the trans musician who was another touchstone of this record and whose estate were on board for it. And Moses said, "I've got another idea too," and so Moses is on twice, but that's how this song came together. And what a change to Sylvester's original while also honoring it, right?
Alison Stewart: Yes. I'm wondering about 80 artists, though. Just hearing you talk about like, you had this moment at the Grammys, like "We have to get that person on the record. We have to get that person on the record. We have to get that person." How did you get 80 artists on the record?
Terrance Thomas: Well, I think the final count was around like 104--
Elia Einhorn: 104, I think, yes. Even since we've told you [crosstalk]--
Alison Stewart: Wow.
Terrance Thomas: Yes, so I think the final count was somewhere around there. But everyone was just sort of incredibly, incredibly ambitious, I think. When it came to presenting this project to people, I think the responses just in terms of presenting it and being like, "Hey, this is what we're working on. This is what we'd like you to be a part of," the responses from everyone, all the artists, their teams, were so incredibly, incredibly genuine and moving. Like, there was crying in presentations and things like that from record executives, who are not people who typically are crying in presentations about coming on to an album.
When you have those sorts of moments, what actually ends up being the challenge is not the number of people coming in, but how you manage that, because there's only so many of us. There are only so many producers that are able to help get things across the line, so it's actually the resources to help. If this album could have been 200 artists, if there were enough of us to make that happen, that would have been the case. It's really about being able to manage how many people were really, really interested and invested in contributing to a really special project in a meaningful way.
Alison Stewart: I'm speaking with Elia Einhorn, Terrance Thomas, and Red Hot crew member Agnes Walsh about their new compilation. It's called Transa. It celebrates transgender communities. It is out right now. Some of the artists have connections to the album. Sade dedicated Young Lion to her son. Agnes, why is it important for people to publicly show their support for trans people in their lives?
Agnes Walsh: This actually happened yesterday-- My friend Devin, she runs a transgender recreational basketball league in Brooklyn called Basketdolls, and her mother has been diagnosed with an illness, basically. And without me telling Devin about the album-- Devin herself is transgender. Her mother sent her this song, Young Lion, being like, "This reminded me of you. It's so nice that I get to see you now as my daughter and get to a point where I have now basically taken a parallel journey to what the song Young Lion talks about as Sade re-accepts her son as her son." That's the significant point about why we do the music. I think when you can find a reason why this song or any of the individual songs on Transa fits into your life, that is why we do it. And yes, it was just yesterday this was told to me.
Alison Stewart: Very beautiful. Thank you for sharing that. Let's take a listen. This is Sade with the song Young Lion from the album Transa.
[Playing Young Lion by Sade]
Alison Stewart: Also, watch the video if you haven't had a chance to see the video for that.
Elia Einhorn: But also have tissues on hand.
Alison Stewart: Have tissues on hand when you watch that video, for real. Elia, what do you think are artists' responsibilities for helping facilitate social change?
Elia Einhorn: I'm always a little bit reticent to sort of ascribe responsibilities, but I will say in curating Transa, we hoped to include trans artists who are overlooked, but also allies who could help get the message across echo chambers and across political lines and across social lines. And Sade is one of those artists. Now, Sade had worked with Red Hot maybe 22 or so years ago, and the founder of Red Hot, John Carlin, knew that Sade, her son Izaak was trans, and that she was very supportive of him, and said, "Why don't we reach out?" Our producer, Massima, sent a letter to Sade through her band, and I will say Sade stepped all the way up. Because there's a way of sort of phoning in, helping out, and then there's what Sade did, which is writing a whole song for her son, really apologizing for not being there for him during the most difficult times of his life as he transitioned.
And, Alison, you mentioned this video. I got it on our text chain, our Transa text chain. My wife and I were in bed, it was about midnight a couple nights ago, it came through, I cried watching it. We'd never seen Sade open her private life so much. She's a very private person. To see Izaak, who was assigned female gender at birth, come up as this little child, and his journey, and then at the end, you see him now as a man, it's incredibly powerful. So Sade has really-- whatever those responsibilities may be for artists, she has gone above and beyond those responsibilities. She is just a goddess who can speak to everybody.
Alison Stewart: The name of the album is called Transa. I've been speaking with Elia Einhorn, Terrance Thomas, and Agnes Walsh. Thank you so much for bringing this to us.
Elia Einhorn: Thank you so much for platforming our record. It really means a lot to us, and we hope that people share this out into the world.
Alison Stewart: We'll go out on Adrianne Lenker's Feel Better.
[Playing Feel Better by Adrianne Lenker]