She is young, über talented and enigmatic. It is such a delight to watch Amythyst Kiah take her place center stage. She grew up in a world of rock and alternative, and then studied roots music in east Tennessee while in college. Kiah found camaraderie and excitement in the room with Rhiannon Giddens as part of Our Native Daughters , and has now gone on to release the solo Wary + Strange , with its unusual combination of roots influences and alternative sounds. Hers is a powerful presence on stage and off. We talk music and history, and explore how she crafts lyrics from both lived and observed ..read more

You may want to take a moment right now to make sure you have some tissues nearby. When I welcomed Timothy Showalter of Strand of Oaks back into the World Cafe studio for our first in-person interview since before the pandemic, that was the one thing I wish I'd had ready. Because Timothy is one of those people who feels ... and makes you feel, too, both in conversation, where he's earnest and generous and empathetic, and with his music. You will hear Showalter talk about making his latest album during a time of great upheaval in his life, which included moving to Austin, Texas, after living in ..read more

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Béla Fleck is arguably the greatest living banjo player in the world. He's also one of the most adventurous. In a career spanning nearly 50 years, he's experimented with jazz, folk, pop, rock and classical music, picking up 15 Grammys along the way, never afraid to try something new. The "new" this time, is actually something old. Fleck cut his teeth, so to speak, playing bluegrass, his first musical love. For the first time in more than two decades, Fleck has returned to the genre with My Bluegrass Heart , an ambitious double album featuring some of the best players in the world, including Sa ..read more

To celebrate the 30th anniversary of World Cafe , we'll be looking back and posting playlists from each year of the show. As music has evolved over the years, so have our playlists, which have grown to reflect many genres and styles of music. In 1992, while grunge rock continued to hold high court on the sales charts and on radio station playlists, a number of important records found their way onto the World Cafe that year, including Harvest Moon by Neil Young, Tori Amos's remarkable Little Earthquakes , the excellent debut by Arrested Development, and the genre defying Joshua Judges Ruth by L ..read more

If Yola 's debut album, Walk Through Fire , was about surviving the struggle and overcoming the odds, then her new album, Stand For Myself, is about not being afraid to burn it all down, taking names along the way. Like her first album, Stand For Myself was produced by Dan Auerbach . The record showcases Yola's array of gifts as a singer, songwriter and performer, branching out beyond country and soul into blues, pop, gospel and more. Beyond genre, the true heart of the album is Yola herself. Tackling a myriad of subjects, from heartbreak to performative wokeness and sex positivity, Stand For ..read more

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World Cafe has been on the air for 30 years this year. To celebrate, every week for the next 30 weeks, you can join us while we look back into the archives. But let's be clear: World Cafe has no plans to slow down... so we also want to look forward to the future of music – with our 30 Under 30 list. We've chosen 30 artists who are 30 years old or younger, who we believe are poised to be the next generation of World Cafe stars. Each week, we'll reveal one of the artists on that list. SHAMIR YouTube Based in Philadelphia, Shamir first made waves in 2014 with a pop song called "On The Regular," r ..read more

To celebrate the 30th anniversary of World Cafe , we'll be looking back and posting playlists from each year of the show. As music has evolved over the years so have our playlists, growing to reflect many genres and styles of music. World Cafe in 1991, the first year we were around, was strong on singers and songwriters: Uncle Tupelo, Loreena McKennit, Billy Bragg, Bruce Cockburn (our first guest), Bonnie Raitt, Kirsty McColl, Marc Cohn and Tom Petty are all represented. The year was also peppered with some of our now long-time favorite albums, like Screamadelica by Primal Scream, Matthew Swee ..read more

At 10 a.m. ET, on Oct. 14 1991, from the third floor of WXPN 's broadcast studios in a turn-of-the-century building in West Philadelphia, original World Cafe host David Dye, along with a small production staff, debuted the very first Cafe . The then-new national show went out live to its five original affiliates, including WFUV in New York, KUMD in Duluth, Minnesota, KUNI (now Iowa Public Radio ) and, of course, WXPN. The very first guest on World Cafe was Canadian singer-songwriter Bruce Cockburn , who had just released his twentieth album, Nothing But A Burning Light , produced by T-Bone Bur ..read more