Title

Kyenkyen Bi Adi Mawu
Produced
Ann Heppermann, Kara Oehler, and Rick Moody

Presented

Weekend America, USA, 2006
Collection
TCF Winners
Tags
Africa, Family, Music
Kyenkyen_pidgey
05 17

Story

This story is a window into the life of Mohammed Naseehu Ali, who left his home, family, and future in tribal government to become a musician and writer in America.

Still, he often thinks about his childhood and a particular song that ties him to his father and his homeland. 

Kyenkyen Bi Adi Mawu won a Best Documentary: Honorable Mention award in the 2006 Third Coast Festival/Richard H. Driehaus Foundation competition.

Producer

Ann Heppermann and Kara Oehler are public radio producers and media artists based in Brooklyn and Boston. Their stories and long-form documentaries have aired nationally and internationally on public radio shows including: This American Life, Morning Edition, BBC, Radio Lab, Re:sound, and numerous others. Individually and collectively, their radio stories and media projects have won Peabody, RTNDA Edward R. Murrow, NFCB Golden Reel, PRNDI, Associated Press and Third Coast International Audio Festival (TCIAF) awards, and been exhibited at Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), UnionDocs and Conflux, among other venues. They have held guest lectures at TCIAF, Center for Documentary Studies at Duke, the South Asian Journalists Association Convention at Columbia University and Universität Konstanz.

For the past three years, they were series producers for American Public Media's Weekend America. Currently, Ann and Kara produce, and sometimes host, the new NPR show Hearing Voices.

Rick Moody is the author of five novels, three collections of stories, a memoir, and, most recently, a volume of essays On Celestial Music and Other Adventures in Listening. He also plays music in The Wingdale Community Singers, whose third album "Night, Sleep, Death" was just released by Blue Chopsticks Recordings. 

Extra

Kyenkyen Bi Adi Mawu first aired on Weekend America as part the Song and Memory series.
Hear more audio work from Ann Heppermann and Kara Oehler, and take a peek at their website.
Hear more audio work from Rick Moody, and have a listen to 18:59 podcast he co-produces with Michael Hearst.

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