Rose Reid and a Tale of Two Women

Rose Reid and her mother Gail of the podcast The Women share the stories and legacies of singer-songwriter Buffy Sainte-Marie and Director of UN Women Phumzile Ngcuka Mlambo. Recorded in the before times!

Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:05):
Hey, this is Annie and Samantha and welcome to Stephane
Never Told your production of I Heart Radio. Today. We
are thrilled to be joined by some some guests I'm
super excited about. We have Rose Read who's yea indeed,

(00:29):
the podcast The Women and her mom Gil. Hello, everyone,
Thanks so much for joining us, both of you. We
were so excited to have you on because obviously your
show was right up our alley and we love everything
that is happening. Um, we didn't get to listen to
a couple of episodes, is beautiful. Thank you so thank
you so much for sharing and thank you for stopping by.

(00:52):
Both of you. We're thrilled in our hometown of Atlanta, Atlanta.
G A. Yes, we did a lot of sleu thing
to figure this out. Really, we could just asked, We're like,
let's get to the bottom of where that from. There
was a little bit of stalking in her like does
she living at enough? Does she know she's kind of
Atlanta number? I know this notice, you know, I gotta

(01:15):
keep it mysterious. Yeah, could you tell us a little
bit about your podcast The Women? Sure? So, I'm Rose Reed,
I'm the host of the Women, and I Heart radio
show it is. It's a long form biographical interview show.
So every episode I get the opportunity to sit down
with one woman who's done something pretty extraordinary. And we've

(01:36):
had a range of folks on from whistleblowers, politicians, uh
doctors and singer songwriters, and you know, behind every baby
is a village and behind every podcast is a family
that either tolerates it, or supports it or ignores it.
And I'm on the end of the spectrum where my
mom is a huge supporter and a and a big

(01:59):
part of it made So yeah, Gail, Well, for me,
it's been an incredible opportunity to explore something that would
have never occurred to me that I would enjoy, which
is editing audio. I love storytelling, love reading, and I
love listening to podcasts. Became of age and have spent

(02:23):
most of my adult life listening to NPR and it
really was addicted to quite a few of the interview
shows and was just thrilled when Rose was able to
put her vision of the women on paper and present
it and team up with the folks at I Heart
who have done a great job of supporting the distribution

(02:46):
of the show. So um, Yeah, it's great. Yeah, and
I love that you're here, that you had the idea
to bring your mom in and she you've been on
the Women as well. Um, because the title is stuff
bomb never told you. I've never been able to commis
my mom to come on. I tried really hard because

(03:07):
I was like, Mom, we could do this thing about
where I tell you what modern dating is like and
you tell me what it was like at your time.
She was like, no, she wasn't game. No, she doesn't game.
I feel like I want to join this conversation. I
have never met your mother, but I know plenty of
about her, and I feel like I already know her,
So I feel like I should join in and be like, hey,

(03:29):
come be a part with us, because I think that
would be up. Yeah, next went show and she should.
Maybe she might, she might listen to you. Um, that's
the power of friends. You know, Mom's love friends. True.
That is true. That's like a universal truth. Okay you
heard it here first, Okay, okay, perfect Um. And can

(03:52):
you now that you told us about your show, could
you tell us a little bit about yourselves and how
you got into this. What do you want to know?
What do you not want. I know. I did say
that you are part of the Freemake project, which is phenomenal,
and of course that got me excited. I was like,
oh my god, she's a part of this really great
concept and idea about maybe some of the abolition movement

(04:15):
and some of the idea of abolishing all of that's
a whole other story. We won't go there, but the Freemake,
it was a big project and it was a big conversation. Um,
so I would love to hear that project the A
r C podcast, Like ARC, it's it's changed because of
but okay, I know of course, like they find my
squarespace and they're like, can you change it from ARC

(04:37):
to A r C. And I'm like, oh, I forgot
how to use squarespace. Um, but yeah, all of that.
Let us know how you got into this world, because
you've already been doing a lot of these projects and
being opening up ideas and especially for our perspective, one
of the things that we want to focus on. Everybody's

(04:58):
happy that. I was like, let social justice level of
things that need to change, and you've been a part
of that obviously are ready. So I love that. What
have you been working on? What are you working on. Well,
I've been producing with my own company for the last
four or five years. I was at Gimwitt Media before that,
which is a podcast production company, and before that, I
was working advertising, Ogilvie and May They're trying to stay sane.

(05:20):
I essentially always wanted to do radio. I really wanted
just one of those radio jobs where you work in
front of like a big soundboard and you have your
headphones on and you're kind of taking calls from people
driving in their cars. That was my dream. But I
graduated during the recession and I was in l A
at the time, and actually it was my dad who

(05:41):
gave me this PEP talk who I couldn't even get
a unpaid internship part time at NPR at the time,
and I was I was working some odd jobs making
ends meet, and my dad was like, with your free time,
you love radio, just go to a obscure radio station,
walk in and just say I'm here for the internship

(06:01):
on a Monday morning at nine am, and they'll take you.
And that's exactly what I did. I walked into KPFK
Pacifica on a Monday morning and walked in said I'm
here for the internship and the next day I was
cutting tape, and so you can imagine that kind of
full circle. Ten years later, after doing video production and
got into podcast production once standistry started booming and I'd

(06:24):
already knew how to cut audio, I have a I
actually have a very similar story. That's funny story. Actually, yeah,
I in high school. I applied. I wanted to make documentaries, okay,
and I applied to you. At the time, this company
was owned by Discovery Channel, and I applied and they

(06:46):
were like, you'rer a high school student, A little enthusiastic.
Dragon later and then I was going to move to China.
I had a whole other thing after college. And a
week before I was set to move, I get a
call and they're like, hey, are you still interested. I
haven't updated my resume or anything. It's been years. And
I came in and interviewed and gave me to happen.

(07:07):
Here I am ten years later, So what about you,
gayl did you get into this? I really got into
it with Rose. I've had through pure fear, calling her, crying,
being like I need help, I need help, but need help?
Was that it? H You know? I always have harbored
this dream of hosting a radio show, and it really

(07:31):
harkens back long before podcast days, when I used to
listen to the radio growing up in New York and
f M d j's were such cool people, mostly men,
but there was one woman in New York who had
the late night midnight to four am UM shift, Alison Steele,
the Niberg and I love the way music was played,

(07:58):
one song flowing into another, or the idea of creating
a theme. I never had the urge to write music myself,
but I'm a big enjoy music a lot, as you
could hear on the Buffy interview, but I just never
acted on it. She's been an accountant for most of
her life and part time. I mean she doesn't actually

(08:20):
cut the audio, but my mom will listen to episodes
and give feedback on what's the story here, or what
should we open with or what should we trim and
and I think one of my my best contributions, if
I may say, at the beginning and when Rose did
her earliest interviews back in the fall, it was constantly

(08:41):
reminding her of what her mission was, that we're telling
stories about extraordinary women who have done extraordinary things. And
when you kind of start to bridge into journalism. The
temptation is to do a deeper dive to get other facts,
maybe to interview other people. And I think it took

(09:04):
three or four episodes, but we don't even have that
discussion anymore. But Mom is really good at like what's
the core what's the core theme here? And how do
you keep proximity to it? That's beautiful. Yeah, yeah, that's great.
Do you know the podcaster's prayer? No, don't judge me
by my first fifty episodes, So good for you. Get

(09:25):
that part out of the way. Yeah, you're still I'm
still good. Okay, Yeah, but your time is running out. No, No,
I'm going to hold onto it. Um. But it kind
of a segue off of that because we wanted to
spotlight two women that you've already covered on on your podcast,
the women, Um, and one of them is Buffy St. Marie,
which she I hadn't heard of her, so this was

(09:47):
news to me, Um, but you didn't know Buffy, totally
new to me. But see that. I I listened to
your episode and it was beautiful and I loved all
the music in it, and I think this is great
that we're going to talk about her because I grew
up in a house that we listened to like pop
that's it, you know, whatever was on the radio that

(10:08):
that was it. We weren't a big music household, and
my dad loved music and he had records, but it
was sort of like whatever he liked or what ever was,
and that was it. Um. So I'm really excited to
talk about this and to hear about um your experience
with her, because it's kind of a personal story. How

(10:28):
do you bring in the guitar again? Oh? Please, I
actually use a guitar in here. I was gonna say
there's one around here somewhere. No, No, that's really clear. Alright, alright,
can only do so much work for the podcast, that's true.
That's fairly unpaid. Internship is really uh you know, they
say not the first fifty episodes. Okay, yes, I know,

(10:52):
but I really enjoy it. So's it's great for me.
I like it much better than accounting at this point
in my life. I think the first time I ever
heard Buffy's name was in our blue Aerostar van, probably
driving around very close to here in downtown Atlanta, listening
to a live album of the Indigo Girls and one

(11:12):
of their songs um they introduced by saying and this
next song was written by Buffy St. Marie. It's called
Burying My Heart at Wounded Me, and that just I
mean in the way that that song is saying it.
The lyrics are like a history lesson and it's so inspiring.
And also it's the kind of song verymart A wounded

(11:34):
specifically where you know you it's almost like a crash
course in the truth of you know, American colonialism, what
has been happening to Native Americans and their land for
hundreds and hundreds of years. And it's it makes you
want to run, it makes you want to be active,
it makes you want to vote. It's just the kind
of song that makes you want to do so many things,

(11:56):
and you find yourself singing to it every time. And
after that, Mom went through a real Buffy face. But
Mom knew of Buffy from when she was a teenager. Yeah,
as I said in the podcast, it just happened to be.
One of the first songs that I learned to play
was written by Buffy called Universal Soldier, and it that
song has pretty intricate and descriptive lyrics. But because I

(12:23):
learned it and then played it so much when I
was so young. You know, I could still recite the
words to it. Um. And that's actually one of my
head and talents. A lot of lyrics in my head. Um, yeah,
I six ft four with missiles and with spears. He's

(12:44):
all of thirty one and he's only seventeen. And then
it goes through these various religions. He's been Catholic, a Hindu,
and Atheist, and Jane a Buddhist and a Baptist and
a Jew. It's just you know, um. So as soon
as I heard this cut on The Indigo Girls, I
just was fluttered with memories about the the other song,

(13:06):
and then I wanted to know more about her because
she really had disappeared from the American music scene. Uh.
And that's when I bought her. I'm sure it was
the greatest hits album, and I have to confess when
when we were still buying things on c D. And
then that's how Rose got more exposed to her other songs.

(13:28):
And that's when I learned about all the other songs
that were so famous that she had written. Just so
interesting when we interviewed her, listening to her talk about
how she really had a fight for recognition as a songwriter.
I think it was easier in the music business to
accept women as singers, but there were very few women

(13:51):
and back in the early my youth that actually wrote
music and play their own music. Right, And she in
the interview you all did with her, she talks about
that about how she sold for one dollar. Right, she
sold Universal Soldier for one dollar in a in a bar.
You can imagine the scene, like if you watch Mrs.

(14:13):
Maisel and you think of the gas light or when
you think of these like maybe coffee shops that a
lot of folk singers would go to in the West Village.
It sounded like it was a scene like that where
somebody sounds like offered as if they were helping her,
um swindled her. Sure, So, if you're familiar with anything
that's going on right now, especially with Taylor Swift's album

(14:34):
and the right and the writing that she's really doing
about the quagmire that she's in, where they were basically like,
you can earn back the right of your six albums
if you make six more albums for each album, you
can earn one and that that kind of language is
not I mean, I don't know where we get off

(14:54):
and like still continuing the intentioned servitude speak like I
thought we were retiring that or at is like being
shameful about it um or like closeting it in some
way behind masking it, behind some other man bureaucracy. Shiny shiny,
I'll help you, help you dance. But it reminded me
so much of the kind of rigama role that Buffy

(15:16):
went through forty fifty years ago. Of your talents, you
can earn back your talents if you like are indentured
to me as an actor, I do some acting, and
I it shocks me how many times people are like,
you should be so honored to be in my project.

(15:37):
Maybe I'll give you footage, like not even going to
consider paying you, and you probably won't even get that.
So uh, it's still very much a thing. And one
more thing about what happened with Buffy, and then we'll
we'll back up a bit and give some more backstory.
But eventually one of her her heroes, Elvis Presley, her

(15:59):
and was, hey, I love this song. It's like a
romantic song with me and for Silla, Yeah, I recorded
it and she was like nope, right, you know, and
that was an interesting story because it was Elvis's manager.
And you know, of course any artist can cover a
song and and make money off of that that record,
and you know, off of their version. But he wanted

(16:20):
the His manager was bullying her into giving her the
writing rights a cut of the publishing money because it
would sell songs. She would make money from his version
of it, you know, for every record she would make
I don't know, half a sun or whatever it was,
and he wants you know, the manager wanted to cut.
And I think getting to the root of that question

(16:41):
is I want ownership of something you've created and feeling
entitled to that, especially if it's a woman, if it's
a person of color, if it's a woman of color.
Is the audacity is is is incredible? Um, but it's
still so pervasive. You can see it today and just
the constant conversations when it comes to music, specifically as

(17:02):
you were talking about Taylor Swift and then they were
talking about people who women of color who are continually
bullied into well, we gave you this opportunity, you owe us,
instead of you earned this opportunity, we owe you, which
is an odd sense of ownership, as you said, and
like it is it is like an modern form of
indentured servitude. I gave you an opportunity, Now you need

(17:23):
to pay me back somehow. And it's like, wait, but
this is I did this, like creating, this is my content.
What are you talking about? What you're what you just
said to me is the core the essence of sexual harassment.
See how mom brings it back to the core, to
the proximity to the kernel of the truth. Though it

(17:43):
is that whole misogynistic idea that this is what we
have created in order to get what we have to do,
to unravel so many things, because it is it is
a core of this idea of you owe me. And
I think that what's really interesting when we think about
it unt of in its equal counterpart. You know, when

(18:05):
you see and you see this in the workplace, but
especially in art, as we're using this example. You know,
you see a man's career take off, and you hear, man,
he is brilliant. He is brilliant. And I think that
you you hear that. I often see that when you
know managers or big record label you know, big big

(18:25):
time producers will use that phrasing rather than oh buffy
st Marie O Taylor Swift. Maybe one day you'll you'll
work hard enough for me with the terms that I
make that you can eventually own that thing that you make. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
just all the systems in place. So I when I

(18:47):
I was thinking about this because I was listening to
this episode on Buffy St. Maria last night and I
learned to play the guitar because of Green Day. Yes,
Boulevard Broken Dreams is my first song. I can still
play it, um, But that got me to thinking of
when I was that age when you were learning Buffy
sat Marie and Universal Soldier, I was learning a lot

(19:09):
of men right, songs written by men, and uh, I
was honestly struggling for female artist. So I'm really glad
that you you brought this person to talk about the day. Um,
and I loved the music and like I said, it
was an introduction to me. So for any other listeners
who might not be familiar, could you both give a

(19:32):
rundown on who Buffy st. Marie is. Sure, I'll do
the primer and then mom, if you want to take
that away and add the deeper meaning, I'll see what
I can do. Buffy sat Marie is a singer songwriter.
She's an iconic folk singer. She really came of age
during the time of Bob Dylan and Joe Bias and

(19:53):
Joni Mitchell. And she was a folk singer and she
was a self taught musician. She also happens to be
and I'll go back before I go forward. She was
adopted UM, and she thought she was orphaned UM. She
actually was born on a reservation in Canada. And this
was during the time when there was a lot of

(20:16):
UM re education. I mean, I'm sure there's a better
way to phrase that, but that's the polite way that
the American government has started talking about its history. But
during their re education and placing children Native American children
in other places, whether it was a boarding school, UM,
adoption agencies. So she was actually adopted by a family
in Massachusetts, learned how to play the piano, play the guitar.

(20:38):
She was always a creative person and she really early
on in her early twenties, wrote a string of songs
ranging from protest songs like Universal Soldier to love songs
like until It's Time for You to Go, covered by
Elvis Pressley. Writing the music like up Where We Belong, Gentleman,
an officer, excuse me, an officer in a general and

(21:02):
she she's a really iconic UH folk singer, and she's
a true activist and native American activist. I think the
one thing that is really wonderful about Buffy is that
although some of her songs have been made famous by
other artists and covered by other artists, she has persisted
and she's released dozens and dozens of albums. But Gayle

(21:22):
from a from the perspective of the the vent Tam
War and actually growing up during that era when these
songs weren't just kind of nostalgia, but when they were actual,
real time calls to action. How would you phrase um
when you think of Buffy songs, Well, it definitely reminds
me of that time because the war was was very real.

(21:44):
It was a very everyday part of our lives then,
and it was it was foundational for me because I
was born in fifty five. By the time the war
was really in full swing, I was twelve and thirteen
years old, so it was my formative years. And one
of the things I really wanted to follow up on
what Rose said, not about the war, but I and

(22:07):
I didn't realize this about Buffy until we were doing
the piece on her, and I watched some some other
interview video of her. So when I listened when I
went to see Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, and
I heard her voice in the um they're just seeing
where Margot Roby, who's playing Sharon Tate and Quentin Tarantino's

(22:28):
movie Once Upon Time in Hollywood, gets in her car
and you hear a song. Come on, it's the Circle Game,
which is a very very well known Joni Mitchell song,
The Circle Game and the season's they go round and Round.
And I had never heard Buffy sing this song, and
I knew Joni had written it, and I know I

(22:49):
know Joni Mitchell's version and I but I knew because
we were in the middle of editing this this piece
that it was Buffy's voice. It was because she has
a very unmistakable kind of trill to her singing, and um,
when I looked up some video of her singing it,
I saw her being interviewed and what I understood from

(23:10):
what she was telling the story she was telling Joni
Mitchell's Canadian also, and she had heard Joni Mitchell long
before she was famous and taken that song and recorded
it as a way of giving Joni Mitchell's career a boost.
And I just think that's so interesting when somebody that

(23:31):
you know of that's so enormously famous, like Johnny Menell,
Joni Mitchell, is helped by somebody, you know, another sister,
if you will, another another musician who uh. And then
the interesting thing Buffy said in this interview was she
thought Joni Mitchell was so great, and Jonny gave her
a demo tape and she carried it around everywhere she

(23:53):
went and would play it for anyone she could get
to listen to it. So really helped contribute to to
somebody else's career. Yeah, and I thought that was pretty amazing.
It's a strong sentiment. Also, there was an autobiography published
on Buffy St. Marie about a year ago, and the
forward is written by Joni Mitchell and it has that
sentiment exactly of you know, when I was coming up

(24:13):
and I looked up to Buffy and there were very
few true singer song writers, as Buffy was also a writer,
and so that was a really it's a really interesting
connection to think of that, and also to remember an
apropo of our conversation of really that network of women
and really, um, one woman's success as as many others,
but there's many women behind it. That's beautiful. Yeah, that's

(24:36):
one of our favorite things to talk about women supporting women. Yes,
and this might seem like a this is an artsy
question I wouldn't like, but I feel like you two
will be good at it. How can I tell you
that my mom used to watch Northern Exposure perfect? How
would you describe her music for people who haven't heard

(24:59):
it Buffy's music, Well, it's definitely what I would call
folk music. It's a lot of solo guitar accompanying a
single vocal. Almost everything I've I've heard of hers is
her singing unaccompanied by a band or with other people

(25:20):
singing and doing harmony with her. So in a in
a sense, I would totally describe it as classic sixties
folk music because that is really how you picture all
all the singer songwriters that came from that era, Bob Dylan,
Leonard Cone, Judy Collins, everybody playing guitar. John Denver. Yeah,

(25:48):
I know you think you you imagine someone standing on
stage with you know, an acoustic guitar and pouring their
heart out. That's Buffy, say Murray. Yeah, totally. And in
her lay to work where I've seen more current videos
on YouTube, mom is the original sleuth. Yeah, it's dangerous

(26:09):
so on. On more current music of Buffy's, I hear
drums and certain way of singing that and even the
lyrics now that I know of her, like her process,
she's really she's really brought in, like she's made kind
of the music industry that pushed her out for so

(26:30):
long and even blacklisted her Johnson administration the next administration,
I guess the next in administration radio stations following suit.
She has kept true to her her north Star and
her compass and even and in doing so, she has
evolved and really embraced her roots and so many of
the people that joined her on her albums and some

(26:52):
of her especially more recent albums and moms talking about future,
a lot of artists, um, other Native American artists and
Native American instruments and ways of singing, and she really
has folded that into her later work. Yeah, I'm going
back to Universal Soldier. I know on her website correct,
she has like almost like group notes or something like

(27:14):
it's an and it's you know, it's an annotated you know,
line by line, referencing what each what each line is
referring to in terms of he's he's five ft, five
ft two and six ft four. Those were the hyper parameters.
He's seventeen and thirty four. Yeah, you gotta say it, mom,
Please stop leaving me out here to dry. He's all

(27:39):
of thirty one and he's only seventeen. So the age parameters.
But I know that age parameters for the draft, yes,
and for going for going to war. So she basically
she takes her song on line by line, dissects not
just the inspiration, but references what that means in the
historical context. See what I mean by history. Lesson is crazy.

(28:00):
So stay home from school. I know I'm just doing.
That's the takeaway. Now, that is something your mother would
never tell you. That's true. That's true. Um. And so
going back to the blacklisting, you pointed out in that
episode that if you look at white artists, they were
not similar. Find that really inter Jill and Joan Bias.

(28:22):
They're doing protest songs and nobody. I mean, it was
a complete opposite. They weren't blacklisted. They their careers were
defined by it. Right, They made a whole career out
of protesting. I mean, we just saw Bob Dylan being
award a Nobel Prize for what could be looked at
as a canon of protest songs, just saying, just saying,

(28:45):
and she she was really big, as we've said, into
activism and intersexual feminism. Perhaps before that was a big
buzzword what it's all about, um because she's she said
something about like it asked me more than being emotional
or being angry, and with Universal Soldier, you see that
like she did this content like everything meant something, and

(29:10):
I think that's really powerful. And we're talking about the
I feel like sometimes and all the time, and sometimes
art and creativity kind of gets just dismissed um as
it's like oh yeah, like they're going to do this thing.
But it can be super powerful way to move people.
I think today has become more controversial even to do

(29:33):
so as you are part of the Freemac project that
was very controversial, and back to the Black Lives Matter
conversation is controversial. Yeah, I think it was one of
the big controversies when when it was coming out, because
they were like the whole level of just to do
what they say and you'll be okay. Just follow the
law and you'll be okay. And there's this whole like

(29:53):
drawn line in that level of blue lives matter, All
lives matter, Black lives matter, and why this is so
important and the incarceration of people of color, especially black men,
as we've talked about mania times, and it's continue to
talk about as part of the political conversation, and why
is it not a bigger part of the conversation as
the debates are happening, all that and whatnot, and then

(30:15):
we talk about Yeah, for the longest time, music did
do that, and sometimes it was as simple as just
be saying I'm angry. But for women of color, for
women in general, for women who protests, they have to
give a rational reason as no, really, I know what
I'm talking about. Let me break it down for you.
This is what this looks like instead of just being like,
I'm angry, I'm gonna, you know, have a protest in

(30:37):
bed type of thing. It's important, it's important. All of
that is important, But the level of proof that someone
has to give to be taken seriously, as I know
what I'm saying, I know that I am a person
of color, and these are the reason these things matter,
and whether it's about drafting in war or that was
unnecessary or whatever, what we want to say back and

(30:59):
forth and even today again talking about the free me
or any conversation, when it comes to proving who understands
an idea or something that we're trying to fight for,
we have to prove more often than not why we
are rational and not just emotional, you know what I mean?
And I feel like, yeah, that's something that Mom and
I talk so much about because, I mean, when we

(31:23):
think about in historical contexts and some of these institutions
that we're trying to change, these institutions that were trying
to change, were set up for the very reason that
we are trying to change them. And we when we
think about, you know, the United States is kind of
being this special project that you know, really took its
autonomy to a whole new level. You know, when we

(31:46):
think of being a kind of a cousin or stepchild
of the commonwealth, I mean we think of how these
systems and really codification of law is used to with
a pen define who are the haves and have nuts?
And then as those of us who women, people of color,
marginalized groups, as we try to carve out places for

(32:11):
us in that system. We're not blowing up the system.
We're using that fountain pen with the best penmanship on
the best parchment paper to show no, I I get
your rules, and I play by them and not and
I'll do you one further. I'll do I'll be the
best at them. I just want to live. And that's Uh,

(32:32):
that's the fight that we see today. And I think
it's it is um disheartening, but also really empowering to
see the creative way that people play in that poker game.
If I see you, I raise you and I call you.
And so that's artists like Buffy, artists like Meek Mill,
you know, they use they use a language that has
been you know, kept from so many groups of people,

(32:53):
and they use their poetry and they get to the
kernel of truth of what they see, whether it's in
the in a more the criminal justice system, and they're
able to say, here are the shared values that no
one can deny, and here's the beauty of what can be,
and here is the beast of what we must recognize.
And so I think that's what's really extraordinary. Yeah, it's

(33:18):
such a nice room, good crowd, good crowd. We have
a lot more in our discussions, but first we have
a quick break for a word from our sponsor and

(33:41):
we're back. Thank you sponsor. Now back into the interview. Mom,
can you hum um? So people know up where we belong?
I can hear it in my head right now, go
for it. Richard Gear and his white outfit going to
pick up. Yeah right, love the night and shin or

(34:02):
Mulan rouge, all right on the elephant, love this soup?
Where we blong? Do I have to do this? Us up?
Where are we belonging? Us most terrible? Where the fine saying?
Just like hummet? So people can okay? Can we just not? Yea?

(34:24):
I loved it. Fans a karaoke over here, so this
is phenomenal. And I'm really bad, but I think I'm good,
So you can come to our house perfect. I do see. Really,
I was in a band in high school. This is
the Green Day cover band. It was Green Day based.

(34:45):
It was very close. I love Green Day adjacent. Oh yeah, yeah.
My My hit song was called I Don't Believe in
Love because I was so emo emo and I can
still play it, but anyway, I will not have a
lasting impact when it comes to the musical world, I believe.
But what do you think how what was Buffy's impact

(35:07):
on you both specifically, what do you think it will
be at large? Thinking about Buffy's music makes me think
about some of the artists in this world that their
their poetry and their their linked to life and their
want their want to share it with others. It is

(35:28):
such a on any day makes you just feel like, Okay,
I can get out of bed and there are other
people in this world that are not going to push
me around and they're gonna lift me up. And I
think thinking of Buffy's music, whether it's a love song
until It's Time for You to Go covered by Elvis
um Up Where We Belong, huge Grammy and Academy Award

(35:49):
winning hit from Officer and a Gentleman or um Bury
My Heart It Wounds, an a protest song and a
battle cry for justice. You you know, you see the
beauty and poetry and her penmanship. What about for you, Gail?
For me? What really has lingered with me? From talking
with Buffy? Which was really very special. Rose arranged for

(36:11):
a little follow up interview as you heard, and I
was sitting right in this very room. Yeah, that was
probably the best part of the Buffy thing. Yeah, it
was so great. But her her sincerity in talking to
me about my own musician ship. Mom was like, do
you think it's too old for me to perform? But

(36:34):
I'm too old to learn how to perform. You who
was like no, no, no, no, no no no no
no no no no no. She's just so encouraging but
just also just so sincere. And she really walked mom
through like this is what you're gonna do. Yeh. She
had no friends and family invited. They're the worst critics.

(36:54):
I thought that was great. I love that and has
really encouraged me to think about my singing and playing differently.
And the other thing too, was when she was talking
about how she came to write the song Universal Soldier
and she was in the airport and she saw winded
soldiers coming back from Vietnam. And this is before the
US had said we are at war, and they kept

(37:17):
it a secret for quite some time. Um, even though
people were dying. Her way of phrasing her opinion about
what was really going on underneath the surface, in terms
of people who wanted whose business it was to make
money off of the warmest machine essentially, uh so, being

(37:40):
that the Vietnam War really came out of the rah
ra Usa mentality of the nineteen fifties. Everything I knew
during that era contemporaneous with the war was we were
fighting communism, and that was it was an ideological fight.
But her ability to immediately see the underlying um money

(38:06):
making in the economics and greed driving and Richmond making
money off Poorman, I thought was just very imprescient. And
the way that she talked about it, it wasn't as
if she was apologizing for her opinion. It was as
if she was stating a fact that that was indisputable.

(38:27):
And I really respected how she presented herself. We could
keep talking about her forever, but there's a whole episode
on your podcast for listeners who want to learn more.
Um I also love it because it's Valentine's Day episode
and my mom is also my Valentine's and Valentine's episode
I did a similar thing about my mom. Yes, yes,

(38:51):
so I totally connected to that. But I guess we
should move on to our next person. Okay, another big favorite. Yes,
um so, yeah, someone else who wanted to talk about
is Fumzile Lambonuka and you got to interview her in Nairobi,
did Yes. It was amazing, very jealous of that opportunity.

(39:14):
I was. I was foot away from her, sitting next
to her in a conference room in a hotel in Nairobi,
and the whole time I'm holding my microphone. I thought,
oh my god, I'm holding my microphone in front of
this woman who has done so much for the earth. Crazy. Yes.
And it was a gender equality summit, Yes, yeah, so

(39:35):
and UH and the fall of nineteen was the twenty
five anniversary of essentially the Women's Bill of Rights um
that was made UH in the mid nineties. There were
a couple of really big conferences in Beijing and and
in Cairo So UH and Cairo ninety four. A lot

(39:55):
of countries, I think over a hundred and seventy five
countries came together and said, and I don't know if
you guys are going to laugh or you know, if
you say finally, but they basically said that women's rights
are human rights. It's like a kind of laugh, yes,
but what they One of the things that this was

(40:15):
called ratification. One of the things that this initiative really
did was give fuel to a lot of organizations and
also governments around the world to say, no, we have
to do this, we have an obligation to do this,
and we're going to be measured by quantifiable elements in
ten years. So maternal health, wanted versus unwanted pregnancies, those

(40:42):
kinds of things are measured globally and then compared um
during these conferences. And so the Nairobi Summit was anniversary
of the Cairo Conference in ninety four and people from
all over the world came together. It was hosted by
Ken Denmark and the United Nations and so the head

(41:04):
of You and Women, poom Zila, was there and um
I got to go and the United Nations Population Fund
helped me get to the summit and I did interviews
with them and that was really extraordinary. Yeah yeah, yeah,
that's really awesome. And she's really awesome. She's amazing. Yeah.

(41:25):
Can you tell tell us about her shore poom zel
Milamna Nuka. She is from South Africa and she poom
Zela leads You and Women and prior to that, she
was Deputy President of South Africa, which is the equivalent
of Vice President of South Africa. She was a minister
and Nelson Mandela's cabinet. She Nelson Mandel was one of

(41:49):
her mentors, uh and I guess technically her boss. And
she she was really active during uh, you know, apartheid,
just like so many of her peers and so many
people who she considered, you know, really her friends were
that whole um party that was with Mandela. And so
she worked her entire life looking at justice and really

(42:11):
looking at women as this key stone element in communities.
And it's something that she's been able to pinpoint at
every part of her career, whether she was she was
a teacher at the y w c A and as
a cabinet minister reforming mining rights. At every point, she
really sees how to impact the most women with institutional

(42:35):
change and reforming infrastructure. And she's really she's really incredible.
She also has a lot of like humor and light
and is just a delight to be around. Yeah. One
of the things that stuck out to me in that
and then your interview with her is um she she
too bought up the importance of women supporting women or

(42:56):
finding your mentors or inspiration and other women. And she
she said that she thought perhaps the South African government
was more afraid of women than men because they would yeah, yeah, yeah,
And it was just really amazing to hear her talk

(43:16):
about that, and then she would say things in passing
that I'd be like, wait, hold on, how many times
have you been arrested? Yeah? Um yeah. She was just
she was a delight and she she was in prison
like sending notes. So Pumila's husband wasn't prison right, Okay,

(43:38):
So her husband um and at the time was her
boyfriend fiance. And if you know, if you can imagine,
Pumsila was you know, a student and an activist, and
she was a part of the the political party of
Nelson Mandela was a part of and you know, all
of these people had been living um with out basic rights.

(44:01):
I just want to give some context for apartheid at
the time that our boyfriend was and now husband was
in jail. I mean, millions of people in South Africa
had their homes bulldozed because they weren't in the right vicinity.
They weren't in the right precinct for someone of their
color class to be in. So many South Africans who

(44:23):
were not white did not hell of electricity, did not
have running water, so the apartheid government had managed to
not only deprive people of their human rights, but of
um certain dignities that you know, all of white South
Africa had. And thinking of all these people who were
students and intellectuals and activists who were imprisoned, whether they

(44:45):
were doing something that technically broke the law or just
because they were perceived as a threat. Nelson Mandela surf
over twenty years in prison because you know, he was
perceived as a threat and he was the leader of
his party and that party was abolished um from South Africa. Uh,
they wouldn't recognize it as a party. So that also
makes us think about how recognition is so important today.

(45:09):
At that time, um whom Zelei's boyfriend on our husband
and as in so many of their friends were imprisoned,
and so they were passing notes to each other. I
I asked her how they communicated. I was one, you know,
as I just worked on the Meek Mill project. You know,
over a couple of years ago, I got really familiar
with how you know, you get your number and it's

(45:31):
very complicated to to get called and to receive and
make calls to someone in prison. You actually can't call
them and for them to call you it's um, it's
like a crazy Easter egg hunt. Um. And anyway, so
I was trying to picture what it was like for
her in the eighties to to talk to her boyfriend
on the phone while he was imprisoned, and she said, oh, no,

(45:54):
we couldn't talk on the phone. We had to send
each other letters. Oh, but they weren't like letters that
you could like to send. We smuggled letters and they
were on all kinds of pieces of paper from folded
up so guards couldn't pass it, or they were passed
on toilet papers so it could be inconspicuous. And so
there are all these notes that you know, essentially was

(46:14):
you know, their relationship while he was imprisoned. That just
sounds like love when you're like, hey, how are you today,
which is not what they would say, but of like wow, dedication.
I know. Puma Zi was saying during the interview that
some of these letters were read in public at A

(46:35):
long story and she didn't tell me all the details,
but during UM there was some kind of litigation and
these letters were subpoena at and they were read aloud
and she was so embarrassed and her husband came up
to her and tapped her and said, you know, I
never got that letter. I didn't know you said that
about so all. She's like, you know, dying of humiliation,

(47:00):
said he was just you know, I just think that's
such a sweet love story. There really is. She made
a point to say that she became much more cautious
about her activity when her boyfriend became imprisoned, because it
would not be smart for both of them to be
imprisoned at the same time. That's a really good distinction

(47:23):
that only one person of the household or one parent
can really afford to be right. Uh. And the other
thing talking about writing that I just found so amazing
A couple of things. First was just what a tremendous
opportunity the y w c A provided to her, just

(47:45):
the organization and the structure, because it introduced her to
so many things that she as a I mean, she
doesn't really talk about where she grows up. Well, well,
I mean we just didn't have time to go into detail,
but whom Zela grew up during a time where the
y w c A was really active in her community,
and it was one of her first jobs, and she
became a teacher. She even went to Switzerland when she

(48:08):
was really young, working in Switzerland as a teacher. But
she talks about this really strong community that she joined
and was a part of. And they had a pen
pal program, which you know, I hadn't thought about in
a million years. But kids used to write each other
and it was really cool to have a pal and

(48:28):
another another country. Yeah. Yeah, even even as a kid, though,
I was suspicious my pen pal wasn't real. You were
afraid of being catfished. I was like, Roman, you need

(48:49):
to give me some real facts here about your life.
I don't know. He wanted some details I did. I
wanted something I could fact check and prove he was real.
My brothers pracked me a lot, so I was very
I'm like, who's going to go to that elaborate of
my brother's. Absolutely they would totally at first grader, they

(49:11):
definitely would. Did you ever find out? No? I still
have my doubts about Roman. Roman, if you're listening Annie
from Lincoln County, were you really reveal myself? Just drop
some details along the way? Prize in Khakis, I don't
say either this is the beginning of a really bad

(49:32):
Netflix movie or a really good Hallmark movie. I'm not
really sure I like that line right there. Yes, we
do have some more for you listeners, but first we
have one more quick break for work from our sponsor

(50:00):
and we're back. Thank you sponsor. Let's get back into
it as we were like reading and researching and hit
listening to uh the interviews on Pumsila. She sounds like
she's just a die hard like has always been in
trucking through in being an advocate in her her focus
was to not only find rights for all, which, by

(50:21):
the way, during their part time it was just hey,
let's just survive as black people in this community that's
been taken over by absurdity and racism essentially UM into hey,
how let me go one step further because I know
even in this women are being looked over UM and
we saw that she was one I believe or was
that right? And as for you and women, like, what

(50:43):
is her motivation that she continues on this line like
it's just such a powerhouse move that not only did
she focus beyond that, but going into the u N
which is a representation for all, Like did she talk
about that a little more? Well? I think and for
Pumsila and I think this relates back to, you know,
when you start a penpower relationship when you live in

(51:05):
a country that doesn't even provide everyone with equal rights.
She she describes having this epiphany of being a global
citizen and there she has friends and other countries, and
I think for her and for so many of her peers, uh,
so many other people who worked in the Mandela cabinet,

(51:26):
they were not satisfied by just saying, oh, we're gonna
They were not satisfied with doing the bare minimum for
switching the government from after apartheid. They really wanted to
establish human rights, basic dignities to every single person in
the country, and that meant bringing electricity, That meant getting
running water to almost every citizen, and trying to make

(51:50):
an infrastructure where not only had there been none, but
the apartheid government had actively tried not to build it.
And Um working within the cabinet and becoming the minister.
She worked as a minister overseeing the mining and reforming
mining and South Africa, and then she worked as its
deputy president. And then she took a break and she

(52:13):
got her UM. She went back to school and really
studied information, really study technology. She really is really interested
in how do we have new tools and use technology
to share education and information and mobile ways and smart ways,
bring it to rural areas, bring it to people who
have been marginalized or left out because of rugged terrain

(52:37):
or because of bad government. And she is not satisfied
with the status quo. I think she is one of
those people who looks at the world and I think
when we have a sigh, she's like, that is an opportunity, man.
So I think when we look around and we're like
another are now you know, another picture of all these

(52:59):
men making decisions for women, she looks at it as like, no,
I know who my call is tomorrow morning to talk
about gender equality in their administration. And yeah, I think
we had an interview earlier today when we were talking
about it. When we talk about phenomenal people who make
a change or push to make change or fight for

(53:21):
other people's rights, it's literally those who are like, oh,
there's not anything for that, there's not an opportunity to
let me go find it, let me go do this.
I'm going to create my own way. I'm going to
create my own steps, or I'm going to create my
own path in order to get this done, which is
a phenomenal take And that's kind of an understanding today
as we are sitting on a lot of things that

(53:42):
we thought we had gotten past, uh, and we're having
to have backpack. Is kind of like, Okay, let's refine
those steps. How do we get back and go beyond
this boulder, this hump rather and this block for us?
How do we continue on and seeing creating a new path,
finding a new way. And I think that's what's so
inspiring about people like Poomsila. They look at these problems like, oh,

(54:05):
my friend is throwing a party and has no appetizers.
I know exactly what I'm going to make tomorrow. Like
they look at something as opportunity and solution and then
how to scale that And that's what's so impressive. But
more than a dinner party, more like you know, um
global global change and gender equality across every nation, all

(54:26):
the things, all the things you know, just just making
vast massive changes for everyone, all good for the better.
I love it so with that because you kind of
already highlighted it from each of these women Buffy to Pumsila,
what are takeaways that you had from each of the
interviews or conversations that you're like, yes, I'm gonna live
that way, or I'm gonna I'm gonna think that way,

(54:47):
or I'm gonna push that way from Poomsila sitting next
to a woman who was mentored by Nelson Mandela and
who worked in his parliament and seeing her joy and
her lightness really made me think about how we all
have a gift to carry ourselves in our own way.

(55:08):
When she sat next to me and I asked her
how she got the news that she became minister in
his cabinet, and she said, oh, I got a phone
call when I was traveling and they told me to
come in and see the president. And I don't think
that you ever get called in for good news. So
I avoided him for weeks and then and then finally
they called her and they were like, um, no, really

(55:29):
come in and he told her, he said, I really
think that you should be a minister in the cabinet.
And she said she refers to him as Tata that
the affection named her father. She said, I'm not ready.
There's so many competent people in your cabinet. Why would
you choose me? And he said, I've been a prisoner
most of my life and no one has taught me

(55:50):
how to do this job. And I learned every day
and so will you. And Pumila said to me that
that inspired her. But after that was like, yes, okay,
then really took that as as like carte blanche for
like I can if he can say that I can
believe in myself and just her humor, that's just such

(56:11):
such a lovely thing to walk away from. Uh. This
is something that my mom and I talk a lot about.
So many of these interviews um and what we share
with our audience is condensed a bridge version of a conversation,
So usually would take an hour, we cut down to
a half an hour, or we take ninety minutes. We
cut it down to forty minutes. But after listening to

(56:33):
these multiple times and thinking about these women in the
context of their backgrounds, different historical contexts, these different countries,
from South Africa to Kenya to Canada to America, we
often find ourselves talking about the patterns of the way
that a lot of women, I feel like they had

(56:55):
a choiceless choice, that they had to do the right thing,
that they have a moral compass that they couldn't ignore.
So we we talked about we were just talking about
this about how these these interviews really bring up kind
of common How how would you phrase it? As I
listened to a new interview, it is the norm to

(57:19):
hear something that will remind me of that there's a
common thread. There's so much commonality, whether it's two different
people whose lives were tremendously affected by being pen pals.
Because I was thinking, yes, mean right whom Zela had
a pen pal and that really made her think herself
as a global citizen. And one of my guests, yes,

(57:41):
me and Abdelmajid, who is a Studentese Australian writer, her
parents ended up in Australia because of her mother had
a really good pen pal. I mean, that's unbelievable. And
so that that's been a common just those interesting they're
not coincidences, they're just you think about penpals as something
that we did for fun or amusement, cultural sharing before

(58:06):
there was the Internet, but it really did open horizons
for so many people. Or just being in the right
place at the right time. People get opportunities that make
them who they are. So it's not you know, it's
not always in our control. We like to think that

(58:27):
we make decisions every day. We educate ourselves, we go
to college, we learn a skill, we pursue that as
a vocation or maybe an advocation or a hobby. But
life continually presents us with circumstances that really clearly define
our path. Granted, it is how you take that path

(58:50):
that makes you who you are. And my God preach
that is every woman. And you know, on this show,
it's just unbelievable how people step up to their circumstances
and also how they see tornadoes coming through their town
and everyone there's chaos, everyone's running and they say, Okay, well,
I guess I have to do something. And listening and then,

(59:13):
you know, really coming away from Buffy just makes me
think how lovely it is to have music in the
house and um, you know, having my mom have create
a home where singing and dancing and music playing and
blasting and her learning, Oh, I gotta learn this song
on this electric guitar and I want to play my
acoustic guitar for these songs. And you know when she played,

(59:36):
you know, she was in a good mood and that
was really nice for the house. And that really that's
all I think Buffy is an amazing artist and poet
and researcher, but she also really I think loved and
appreciated like our love of music. But I also think
another major commonality is when Rose talks to someone who's

(01:00:02):
from my generation, someone who came of age in the
sixties or the seventies, she always asked this question, which is,
why how do you feel about the fact that we're
still fighting today for the same things that you were
fighting for fifty years ago? And it just continually brings

(01:00:26):
home how hard it is to overcome the things that
we are fighting, whether it's sexual harassment or the record labels,
record recognition, gen valued right, women's health, which is health care,
the same conversations. Uh, sometimes there are conversations we thought

(01:00:49):
we had put to bed, and now here we are.
You know, the Supreme Court is hearing another case today,
so it's it's the never ending battle. And how how
do you I mean, I think that's the biggest challenges.
Do we ever reach a time when we can move
on to new So? All right, we got ten years,

(01:01:16):
we got this, so you know, I think the good
part with that is that, unlike before, we actually have
a roadmap and we actually have icons, We actually have
people who have already paved and had this conversation like
this is what we use. Not only can we use
this now, but we have even more science to go
behind it, and we can take what we gave you
way back when, not way back, but back when, and

(01:01:39):
now add to it because it's ore. There's a foundation
here now and then I'm very grateful for that as well,
because to hear it is it is that these are
people who have paved away and have already kind of
taken the big parts, the difficult parts by being the martyr, unfortunately,
and now we're here and picking back up where they
had Unfortunately. We would love to have have been to the

(01:02:00):
point where like we don't have to think about this
ever again, hallelujah. But we're not. But instead now we
have a little more of a clear roadmap of this
is how it went this way, and we're to come
back and reframe what we already saw can work and
what we know is true, which is a freaking amazing thing.
I will say, and believe me, I'm not an optimist.
This is the phenomenal moment. Not usually I'm the one.

(01:02:23):
This is everything is burning and we're all going to die,
but it's nice to hear, we hear some of the
things that yes, this has already been happening, they have
been fighting. Is we're not alone, and they're giving they
are giving us roadmaps, they're giving us, they're giving us
models for how we can fight. They're also um showing

(01:02:44):
us that we can lead our own fights. And I
think that that's what I love so much about the
podcast itself and using audio and in this way to
share women's stories and their own voices. For so long,
women's stories and their own voices um have been kept away.
They've been hidden figures um, so to speak. And I
think that that's one of the most exciting things about

(01:03:05):
this younger generation. And with the democratization of sharing information,
you can't keep women in the dark. You can't keep
people of color and their stories on the sidelines, because
they're front center. I totally agree, and that's definitely been
the theme for today and for the past couple of episodes,

(01:03:25):
and we love it, yeah, because I feel like these
women that we've spoken about today and that you talked
about on your podcast, that you talked with are inspirational
and we didn't have that for a long time that
women were doing these things, people of color were doing
these things, we just weren't hearing about it. But now
we're hearing about it. And just so many times I've

(01:03:46):
heard someone we've talked to say, you know what, I
saw a problem, no one is doing anything about it.
I'll do it then, right right. I'm very excited by
the idea of more and more people doing that thing.
And I think that's the way we're going to see change.
Because people in power I don't really have any reason
to change. Some of them do because they recognize how

(01:04:08):
I should help other people, I should uplift up their people.
But they don't really have necessarily the same reason, and
they don't see the same problems. Well, they haven't listened
to the Buffy St. Murray's songs or the or or
sat down with pumsil A and realized that, you know,
the little people's liberation, the women's liberation, liberation of marginalized people,
that you've been pushing, pushing, pushing because you want your

(01:04:30):
you know, your all, your land or whatever you think
it is. You have guess what your liberation is tied
up in our liberation too, And you know, if you
join our fight. Maybe men, you'll get to wear more
colors to work or whatever it is that you haven't
had yet. You know, there's so I think that's what's
really exciting about what's coming next is UM is really

(01:04:50):
winning over uh the institutional powers and having them realize
that their liberation is tied up in our own fully agree.
We always say sexism hurts everybody. Yes, yes, thank you
both so much for being here. Thank you were very generous.

(01:05:11):
Thank you so much. We love the podcast giving platforms
to women and people of that is the number one
thing that I love seeing in new media, in any media,
giving people, allowing people to have a voice in the story.
So thank you both of you for being a part
of that. And then we also need to know where

(01:05:31):
can we find you. You can find the Women anywhere
you listen to podcasts on I Heart radio or Apple
and you can follow us at the Women Pod on
Instagram and Twitter and uh yeah, tell us what you think,
tell us what you want and U We'll try to
give it to you. Yes, please go check that out listeners,
it's a delight UM. And if you want to email us,

(01:05:52):
you can. Our email is sept Media mom stuff at
iHeart media dot com. You can find us on Twitter
at mom Stuff Podcast or on Instagram that Stuff I've
Never Told You. Thanks as always to a super producer,
Andrew Howard Andrew, and thanks to you for listening. Stuff
I'll Never Told You production of I Heart Radio. For
more podcasts from I Heart Radio is a diheart radio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.