Identified with Nabil Ayers

At five years old, Eleri Ward told her mother: "They don't like me, so why would I go somewhere where the people don't like me?" At 15, she acted on it, and never looked back. The singer, songwriter, and musical theater artist talks to Nabil Ayers about growing up between two very different sides of a family: an Italian grandmother who kept an immaculate family tree (there's a pope in it), and a father she chose to stop seeing as a teenager.  She traces the confidence she believes she was born with, the mother who "fought in the court and won like a badass," asking for a violin at age two, five years across Berklee and the Boston Conservatory — and the silent pact she made in April 2020 to never change her voice for anyone again, the decision that opened up her entire career. 00:00 "A relationship is chosen"01:01 A pope in the family tree01:57 Two dads and a court order04:07 Walking away at 1506:21 The five-year-old who knew07:44 A formidable mother09:54 Fashion design, real estate & a business therapist12:42 "I wanna play the violin" — at age two17:36 Berklee, the Conservatory & the Broadway grind20:24 The April 2020 pact25:03 What is family to you? - Identified is a podcast series that explores identity, race, culture, and family through personal conversations. Hosted by author and music executive Nabil Ayers, each episode dives into lived experiences that reveal how our backgrounds shape who we are—and how we find belonging. Nabil is the author of My Life in the Sunshine (Viking, 2022), and has written for The New York Times, The Guardian, and GQ on themes of race, music, and personal history. He’s also the President of Beggars Group US, co-founder of Sonic Boom Records, and founder of the record label The Control Group / Valley of Search. Identified brings together notable voices for reflective, vulnerable conversations about where we come from—and where we’re going.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

At sixteen, freshly sober, Moshe Kasher sold ecstasy at raves — greeting customers he recognised from his Tuesday night recovery meeting. On this episode of Identified with Nabil Ayers, the comedian and author of Subculture Vulture unpacks a childhood that explains it: two deaf parents who met at the World Games for the Deaf, a mother who took the boys to Oakland "on vacation" and never went back, and a father whose calendar — found after his death — counted the days to their return in X's that simply stop. It's a conversation about building a self from borrowed worlds: raised broke in Oakland's hippie disability-rights scene, then shipped to Brooklyn's Satmar community six weeks a year to live as a Hasidic boy — too white for Oakland, too gentile-seeming for Brooklyn, at home in neither; the rabbi who humiliated his own son to teach Moshe that "everybody's stupid" in somebody's language; the bad kids who became his first family, rehab at fifteen, sobriety at sixteen, and the question that followed — now what?; the six subcultures that answered it; shiva as the most perfectly designed system of grief he knows; and the day — one year after his father's death, long-haired and unrecognisable — he stopped trying to stuff himself into his bar mitzvah hat, let his hair down, and walked to temple as himself. "That's when I became a man." His answer to what family means now, with a daughter of his own: pouring the coins he collected along every one of those paths into her — and letting her choose. Identified is a series of conversations with artists about the roots of who they are — family, place, and identity — hosted by Nabil Ayers. 00:00 The sober ecstasy dealer03:42 Two deaf parents & the Thunderbolt06:15 The calendar full of X's10:30 Hasidic summers, six weeks a year14:51 "Everybody's stupid": the rabbi's lesson16:24 Too white for Oakland, too gentile for Brooklyn17:15 Sober at 16: now what?19:51 Subculture Vulture: six universes22:12 His father's final weeks24:42 Shiva: a perfect system of grief28:04 Taking the hat off31:57 What family means now - Identified is a podcast series that explores identity, race, culture, and family through personal conversations. Hosted by author and music executive Nabil Ayers, each episode dives into lived experiences that reveal how our backgrounds shape who we are—and how we find belonging. Nabil is the author of My Life in the Sunshine (Viking, 2022), and has written for The New York Times, The Guardian, and GQ on themes of race, music, and personal history. He’s also the President of Beggars Group US, co-founder of Sonic Boom Records, and founder of the record label The Control Group / Valley of Search. Identified brings together notable voices for reflective, vulnerable conversations about where we come from—and where we’re going. Read more about Nabil:➡️https://www.nabilayers.com/ -#MosheKasher #Identified #NabilAyers #SubcultureVulture #Family #Identity #PodcastSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

August Ponthier came out to the world in an article, messaging their mom the day before it dropped: "I just want you to read it before you react… I hope you can love this about me."  On this episode of Identified with Nabil Ayers, they trace the whole road there: a nuclear-family childhood in a conservative Texas football town, church school every day, and the "classic recession divorce" delivered in a Baskin-Robbins parking lot at nine years old. August and Nabil talk about remaking family on your own terms: growing up adultified and alone, learning that your parents are just people; jazz school in Denton — the most music-filled time of their life — then New York in 2017 with less than a month's rent and a contact list built by DMing Sofar Sounds artists from Texas; the sister who always saw them.   00:00 "I hope you can love this about me"01:27 A nuclear family in Texas02:40 The recession divorce & Baskin-Robbins06:24 Football town, church school09:12 "A huge fan of divorce"10:55 Jazz school, then New York on a month's rent15:43 Coming out via an article20:42 The sister who always knew22:48 Loneliness, Elton John & the record27:57 "Family is a choice" - Identified is a podcast series that explores identity, race, culture, and family through personal conversations. Hosted by author and music executive Nabil Ayers, each episode dives into lived experiences that reveal how our backgrounds shape who we are—and how we find belonging. Nabil is the author of My Life in the Sunshine (Viking, 2022), and has written for The New York Times, The Guardian, and GQ on themes of race, music, and personal history. He’s also the President of Beggars Group US, co-founder of Sonic Boom Records, and founder of the record label The Control Group / Valley of Search. Identified brings together notable voices for reflective, vulnerable conversations about where we come from—and where we’re going. Read more about Nabil:➡️https://www.nabilayers.com/ - #AugustPonthier #Identified #NabilAyers #ChosenFamily #Queer #NonBinary #PodcastSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Two days before Thanksgiving, on the night of Thursday's first sold-out headline show at New York's Roseland Ballroom, Geoff Rickly got off the subway to the news that his nana had died, peacefully, in her favourite chair, logged into the band's website. He played the show.  On this special reissue of Identified with Nabil Ayers, the Thursday frontman traces where he comes from, and why the band became the family he never quite had at home. 00:00 Band as family01:16 An only child in New Jersey03:11 Thanksgiving & the Tofurky review04:06 Interviewing his dying grandfather06:18 The ancestor who survived on rats07:51 "Maybe I'm tougher than I think"09:46 The lost book & the last Rickly13:18 His nana & the Roseland show16:15 Latchkey kid: always alone20:27 What is family? The band. - Identified is a podcast series that explores identity, race, culture, and family through personal conversations. Hosted by author and music executive Nabil Ayers, each episode dives into lived experiences that reveal how our backgrounds shape who we are—and how we find belonging. Nabil is the author of My Life in the Sunshine (Viking, 2022), and has written for The New York Times, The Guardian, and GQ on themes of race, music, and personal history. He’s also the President of Beggars Group US, co-founder of Sonic Boom Records, and founder of the record label The Control Group / Valley of Search. Identified brings together notable voices for reflective, vulnerable conversations about where we come from—and where we’re going. -#GeoffRickly #Thursday #Identified #NabilAyers #PostHardcore #Family #PodcastSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Vagabon has lived in America most of her life, and still feels like she's from somewhere else. On this episode of Identified with Nabil Ayers, she traces why: born in Yaoundé, Cameroon, moved to Harlem at nine when her mother, a lawyer,  brought the whole family along to chase her own ambition, then raised between two worlds in one day: American school by morning, Cameroonian food and language at home by night. It's a conversation about carrying a place with you: the grandmother who ran the school inside the family compound; the all-girls Catholic school she couldn't wait to escape (and the classmates who now DM her about her music — "you were so mean to me"); the guitar her parents gave her for graduating with honours, and teaching herself on Taylor Swift songs before she knew Joni Mitchell existed; going home after fifteen years to find she could still walk the compound with her eyes closed; the 300-strong group of first-generation Cameroonians in New York who speak like her, joke like her, emote like her; and why the stories of oral-history cultures can vanish in a single uninterested generation. Her answer to what family means, consistency, is one of the show's best. And then, for the first time, a guest flips the question: Vagabon asks Nabil, and gets the story his whole book is about. 00:00 "I'm from somewhere else"00:45 Yaoundé to Harlem at nine04:12 Two worlds in one day05:48 Her mother's leap06:51 Catholic school & the ledger of enemies08:48 A guitar for graduating with honours11:33 The grandmother's school & stories that skip13:21 Back home after 15 years15:00 The 300 Cameroonians of New York17:30 Family is consistency — and the question, flippedSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.