Cannonball with Wesley Morris

Six years ago, with the publication of The 1619 Project, Nikole Hannah-Jones argued that slavery was a foundational institution upon which the United States was built. President Trump called the project a crusade against American history — ideological poison that, “if not removed,” would “dissolve the civic bonds that tie us together.” Now, his administration is making a similar argument to attack diversity programs, historical discussions of slavery, civil rights and more as he pressures museums, schools, government agencies, national parks and other civic institutions to de-emphasize race.Wesley contributed to The 1619 Project, and he sits down with Nikole to trace the project’s journey from publication to this moment — when Trump has returned to power on a message that explicitly rejected its premise.Thoughts? Email us at cannonball@nytimes.comWatch our show on YouTube: youtube.com/@CannonballPodcastFor transcripts and more, visit: nytimes.com/cannonball Unlock full access to New York Times podcasts and explore everything from politics to pop culture. Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.

We're taking a break this week. See you next Thursday! Unlock full access to New York Times podcasts and explore everything from politics to pop culture. Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.

It’s been a long time since MTV was appointment viewing. And yet, billions of people are still watching music videos on the regular — on YouTube. Where does that leave a decades-old awards show dedicated to the craft? Wesley invites Niela Orr, a culture critic, on the show to discuss what makes an unforgettable video and to review this year’s nominees to see which ones should go home with the moon person. Yes, they still give ’em out.Thoughts? Email us at cannonball@nytimes.comWatch our show on YouTube: youtube.com/@CannonballPodcastFor transcripts and more, visit: nytimes.com/cannonball Unlock full access to New York Times podcasts and explore everything from politics to pop culture. Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.

Wesley was formed in the glory days of the summer movie: “Total Recall.” “Ghost.” “Pretty Woman.” All from the same epic summer of 1990. He found this year’s slate disappointing by comparison. So in this episode, Wesley invites his friend, the New York Times Magazine writer Sam Anderson, to travel back in time with him — to reimmerse themselves in the movies that shaped their adolescences, and maybe give you the edge-of-your-seat cinematic experience you deserve before summer is over.Thoughts? Email us at cannonball@nytimes.comWatch our show on YouTube: youtube.com/@CannonballPodcastFor transcripts and more, visit: nytimes.com/cannonball   Unlock full access to New York Times podcasts and explore everything from politics to pop culture. Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.

“Highest 2 Lowest” is an over-the-top, bougie and unapologetically New York movie. It might also be Spike Lee’s most conservative offering to date. Wesley invites critic Vinson Cunningham to discuss whether the 68-year-old director is picking up an old refrain, and telling young Black men to pull up their pants.Thoughts? Email us at cannonball@nytimes.comWatch our show on YouTube: youtube.com/@CannonballPodcastFor transcripts and more, visit: nytimes.com/cannonball Unlock full access to New York Times podcasts and explore everything from politics to pop culture. Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.

Wesley is joined by another unapologetic fan of the “Sex and the City” reboot, Taffy Brodesser-Akner. Together, they celebrate a show about old friendships and middle age. And blame you for its untimely end.Thoughts? Email us at cannonball@nytimes.comWatch our show on YouTube: youtube.com/@CannonballPodcastFor transcripts and more, visit: nytimes.com/cannonball Unlock full access to New York Times podcasts and explore everything from politics to pop culture. Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.

Wesley went to the final stop of the Cowboy Carter Tour. He talks through what he saw — the genre of it all, and the quietly powerful politics — with Salamishah Tillet, Times contributing critic and the professor behind an entire class about Beyoncé.Thoughts? Email us at cannonball@nytimes.comWatch our show on YouTube: youtube.com/@CannonballPodcastFor transcripts and more, visit: nytimes.com/cannonball Unlock full access to New York Times podcasts and explore everything from politics to pop culture. Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.

What does Ryan Coogler’s vampire movie “Sinners” have in common with the Drake-Kendrick beef? Wesley has a theory that he’s been sitting with for weeks. He shares it with the writer Rembert Browne, and together they consider the vampiric threats facing Black art in America right now.Thoughts? Email us at cannonball@nytimes.comWatch our show on YouTube: youtube.com/@CannonballPodcastFor transcripts and more, visit: nytimes.com/cannonball Unlock full access to New York Times podcasts and explore everything from politics to pop culture. Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.

Twenty-four years ago, Wesley Morris and the film curator Eric Hynes were just a couple of “cooler-than-you” cinephiles working at Kim’s Video, the beloved New York City video store. They recently got together to dissect the trends, snubs and outliers on the Times’s 100 Best Movies of the 21st Century list and to shed a few tears over their own top 10s, which we've shared below. FROM WESLEY MORRIS: Norte, The End of HistoryMad Max: Fury RoadThe Piano TeacherO.J.: Made in AmericaWall-EMoonlightThe Holy GirlInherent ViceLove and DianeMagic Mike XXLFROM ERIC HYNES:In the Mood for LoveThe Act of Killing and The Look of Silence (tie)A.I. Artificial Intelligence The New WorldHale County This Morning, This EveningSynecdoche, New YorkCameraperson 35 Shots of Rum Inside Llewyn Davis and A Serious Man (tie)Zidane: A 21st Century Portrait Thoughts? Email us at cannonball@nytimes.comWatch our show on YouTube: youtube.com/@CannonballPodcastFor transcripts and more, visit: nytimes.com/cannonball  Unlock full access to New York Times podcasts and explore everything from politics to pop culture. Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.

Wesley Morris talks with Samin Nosrat, a chef and food writer, about her love-hate relationship with “The Bear,” a show that’s always racing against the clock. She says the best moments, in the show and in our own kitchens, happen when things slow down.Thoughts? Email us at cannonball@nytimes.comWatch our show on YouTube: youtube.com/@CannonballPodcastFor transcripts and more, visit: nytimes.com/cannonball Unlock full access to New York Times podcasts and explore everything from politics to pop culture. Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.

In the new HBO documentary “Pee-wee as Himself,” Paul Reubens, the creator of the iconic character Pee-wee Herman, comes out as gay. Reubens, who spent most of his career in the closet, had already come out years before but then returned to the closet during his time as the popular Saturday morning children’s show host.On today’s episode of “Cannonball,” Wesley Morris talks with the writer Mark Harris about Reubens’s relationship to being closeted, and they discuss what it means for artists to publicly come out. Thoughts? Email us at cannonball@nytimes.comWatch our show on YouTube: youtube.com/@CannonballPodcastFor transcripts and more, visit: nytimes.com/cannonball Unlock full access to New York Times podcasts and explore everything from politics to pop culture. Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.

The trial of Sean “Diddy” Combs ended on Wednesday when he was convicted of two counts of transportation to engage in prostitution but was acquitted of the most serious charges against him: racketeering and sex trafficking. Wesley Morris, our critic at large, attended some of the court proceedings over the past couple months, and he walked away with deep and complicated feelings about witnessing the drama of, as he put it, “yet another very famous Black man on trial.” On today’s episode, Wesley wrestles with those feelings in conversation with our producer John White.Thoughts? Email us at cannonball@nytimes.comWatch our show on YouTube: youtube.com/@CannonballPodcastFor transcripts and more, visit: nytimes.com/cannonball Unlock full access to New York Times podcasts and explore everything from politics to pop culture. Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.

Host Wesley Morris has a confession to make: He loves Bruno Mars. Nothing wrong with that, right? With the help of the culture writer Niela Orr, Wesley untangles his crush from his discomfort with the pop star’s cozy relationship to Blackness.Thoughts? Email us at cannonball@nytimes.comWatch our show on YouTube: youtube.com/@CannonballPodcastFor transcripts and more, visit: nytimes.com/cannonball Unlock full access to New York Times podcasts and explore everything from politics to pop culture. Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.

A new weekly podcast, hosted by the critic Wesley Morris. Come on in, the culture’s fine. Unlock full access to New York Times podcasts and explore everything from politics to pop culture. Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.

Today: The undoing of Kanye West. “We’re in deeply vile territory, and I can’t make intellectual sense of that,” Wesley Morris says about West, who now goes by Ye.In 2004, when Ye released “College Dropout," he seemed to be challenging Black orthodoxy in ways that felt exciting and risky. But over the years, his expression of “freedom” has felt anything but free. His embrace of anti-Black, antisemitic and white supremacist language “comes at the expense of other people’s safety,” their humanity and their dignity, J Wortham says.Wesley and J discuss what it means to divest from someone whose art, for two decades, had awed, challenged and excited you. Unlock full access to New York Times podcasts and explore everything from politics to pop culture. Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.

“Black Panther: Wakanda Forever” came into theaters with a huge responsibility: It had to address the death of Chadwick Boseman, the star of the first “Black Panther” movie, who died of cancer in August 2020.Wesley and J discuss how the film offers the audience an experience of collective grief and mourning — something that never happened in the United States in response to the losses of 2020. They interrogate what it means that this gesture of healing came from Marvel and Disney, a corporate empire that is in control of huge swaths of our entertainment, and not from another type of leadership.Additional resources:To hear what Wesley and J had to say about the first “Black Panther” movie, listen to this episode of “Still Processing” from 2018. Ryan Coogler, the director of “Wakanda Forever,” spoke to the author Ta-Nehisi Coates about the making of movie, and how it captured the real-life grief that people experienced after Chadwick Boseman’s death. Listen to their conversation here. Unlock full access to New York Times podcasts and explore everything from politics to pop culture. Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.

Beyoncé’s latest album, “Renaissance,” showcases a pop star letting go of all expectations. Wesley and J go deep into the album and this new era of Beyoncé. It’s an era of play, freedom, comedy and queerness — unlike anything we’ve ever heard from Beyoncé Knowles-Carter before. Soon, you’ll need a subscription to keep full access to this show, and to other New York Times podcasts, on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. Don’t miss out on exploring all of our shows, featuring everything from politics to pop culture. Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts.

Wesley and J discuss the push to “return to office” — and what it means for their lives, as well as American culture as a whole. What have 50 years of workplace sitcoms, from “The Mary Tyler Moore Show” to “Abbott Elementary,” taught us about our romance with the office? And what do TikTok parodies and the TV show “Severance” get right about the history of labor in America? In this period of returning to so-called normalcy, Wesley and J reflect on how we can ensure that the lessons of the early pandemic aren’t forgotten. Soon, you’ll need a subscription to keep full access to this show, and to other New York Times podcasts, on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. Don’t miss out on exploring all of our shows, featuring everything from politics to pop culture. Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts.

Donna Summer’s 1977 hit “I Feel Love” is the inspiration for the final track on Beyoncé’s new album, “Renaissance.” Summer became the queen of disco in the ’70s, but her catalog goes much further than that. You can hear her legacy in decades of electronic and R&B. “She is an architect of the pop culture we experience today,” J says.In this episode, J and Wesley revisit her 1982 album, “Donna Summer” — and explore why, out of all of her music, this self-titled album is the most distinctly Donna. Soon, you’ll need a subscription to keep full access to this show, and to other New York Times podcasts, on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. Don’t miss out on exploring all of our shows, featuring everything from politics to pop culture. Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts.

J Wortham and Wesley Morris are back, just in time for Scorpio season. Ever since they watched Jordan Peele’s latest film, “Nope,” together over the summer, they haven’t been able to stop talking about it. The film stars Daniel Kaluuya and Keke Palmer as siblings whose family horse ranch is threatened by an otherworldly creature. But instead of escaping or destroying the monster, they are determined to take a picture of it. Why is proof so important? And what does it mean to be believed? Today: The unresolved questions of “Nope” (some of them, anyway) and what the film says about the grimmer aspects of living in America. (Beware: Spoilers ahead!)“Still Processing” is back for a mini-season. New episodes on Tuesdays. Follow the show on Apple, Spotify, Stitcher, Amazon Music or wherever you get your podcasts. Soon, you’ll need a subscription to keep full access to this show, and to other New York Times podcasts, on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. Don’t miss out on exploring all of our shows, featuring everything from politics to pop culture. Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts.