Commotion with Elamin Abdelmahmoud

For almost 20 years, NPR's Tiny Desk Concerts have given the internet a chance to see some of the biggest artists and promising upcoming talents in an incredibly intimate, live setting that has made for unforgettable moments. At the same time, the series has become a crucial and trusted hub for Black pop music. At the inaugural Departures festival in Toronto, Elamin sat down with Bobby Carter, the host and series producer for NPR's...

This year, on the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation, the group chat gathered to talk about Kent Monkman, Kent Monkman is having a profound impact on the way we understand Canada’s past – and the histories of Indigenous peoples.  Riley Yesno, Susan Blight and Marion Newman celebrated Kent Monkman, whose gender-fluid alter ego, Miss Chief Eagle Testickle is now the subject of an opera in development. They spoke with Elam...

Pretty much every best-of-2025 music list of note has featured Brooklyn band Geese’s third album, Getting Killed, at or near the top – a remarkable feat for an indie rock band whose members are still in their early 20s, and whose music is wilfully idiosyncratic, if not downright polarizing. Music journalist Emilie Hanskamp explains how Geese took the music world by storm this year, while CBC’s Lisa Christiansen explains why she jus...

With a hot debate raging between prominent Toronto content creators Marlon Palmer and City Boy JJ about the right and wrong ways to use the Toronto accent as a comedic tool to gain online popularity, Commotion guest host Radheyan Simonpillai is joined by culture critics Sandy Hudson and Matt Amha to discuss why conversations around who gets to celebrate and monetize local culture are more complicated than we might think.

Sophie ...

Remembering Frank Gehry – one of the most famous architects of the last half-century, who had an improbable path to global stardom. Elamin Abdelmahmoud sits down with architect and designer Lukasz Kos and architecture critc Alex Bozikovic to talk about how Frank's love of the arts gave rise to buildings that were works of art on their own – and what his lessons will be, for architects coming up today.

With the release of season ...

Club Chalamet is a Timothée Chalamet fan club started by Simone Cromer. Elamin is joined by pop culture writers Kayleigh Donaldson and CT Jones to dig into the business behind Club Chalamet, what it reveals about the current state of fandom, and whether the parasocial obsession with Timothée Chalamet has gone too far.

Plus, with iHeartMedia announcing its "Guaranteed Human" pledge, Elamin is joined by music industry insider Mich...

With the Netflix release of the Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs docu-series ‘The Reckoning,’ executive produced by 50 Cent - Elamin is joined by entertainment reporter Taryn Finley and New York culture critic Jay Smooth to discuss the series and its approach to the Diddy scandal. 

Plus, Canada has a new Heritage Minister – the seventh in fewer than 10 years. The Globe and Mail’s deputy arts and film editor Barry Hertz calls it a revolvi...

Zacharias Kunuk’s films are legendary for the way they show the beauty of Canada’s North and the richness of Inuit culture. His latest film 'Uiksaringitara (Wrong Husband)' is an epic love story, set four thousand years ago. Two artists from Igloolik, filmmaker Nyla Innuksuk and actor Zorga Qaunaq talk to Elamin Abdelmahmoud about the film and how Zacharias Kunuk’s movies have influenced Inuit storytelling in film.

Theatre criti...

Imagine this: Two of the best hockey players on the best teams in the NHL are arch-rivals on the rink. Off the ice: they’re lovers. That’s the premise of a new series on Crave called Heated Rivalry – adapted from a popular series of romance novels. Lainey Lui and former pro hockey player Brock McGillis join Elamin Abdelmahmoud to talk about a show that might be the steamiest on TV right now.

Plus, people are talking about C...

Choclair’s first full length album in 20 years - veteran music critic Dalton Higgins and Canadian music industry veteran Craig ‘Big C’ Mannix join Elamin Abdelmahmoud to review the new album and reflect on Choclair’s early rise to prominence. And Guardian columnist Stuart Heritage discusses the upcoming fourth entry in the action-comedy film series Rush Hour, a movie that is reportedly being made at the request of President Donald ...

For decades, Thomas King was considered to be one of the most prominent Indigenous authors and creators, so news that he has no Indigenous ancestry came as a shock to many people this week. Jesse Wente is a writer and Storyteller in Residence at Toronto Metropolitan University. Jesse worked closely with Thomas King on the screen adaptation of Thomas King's novel 'The Inconvenient Indian.' Jesse joins Elamin Abdelmahmoud to work thr...

With the recent passing of reggae legend Jimmy Cliff, Elamin Abdelmahmood is joined by University of West Indies professor Sonja Stanley Niaah and culture critic Danae Peart to look back on the role Cliff played in the genre’s rise to global pop dominance.

'Stranger Things' season five returns to Netflix this week. TV critics Alison Herman and Hoai-Tran Bui join Elamin to talk about how the show became a cultural phenomenon, and...