DAVID BAUDER,
AP
February 22, 2021 | 1:48 PM
NEW YORK (AP) — Barack Obama and Bruce Springsteen are teaming up for an eight-episode Spotify podcast sequence, swapping tales about their upbringings or even a White Area singalong round a piano.
The primary two episodes of “Renegades: Born in the United States,” a dialog recorded in Springsteen’s guitar-filled house studio in New Jersey, have been made to be had on Monday.
Spotify has moved aggressively in podcasts over the last 3 years, and made different programming bulletins Monday. The audio streaming carrier has already labored with Barack and Michelle Obama’s Upper Floor manufacturing corporate, and the previous first woman’s podcast is the carrier’s most well liked authentic.
The reputedly offbeat courting between the previous president and rock celebrity started when Springsteen carried out advantages for Obama right through his presidential campaigns. But it surely has blossomed into deeper conversations since he left place of job, Obama stated within the first episode.
“He’s a rock ‘n’ roll icon,” he stated. “I’m a attorney and flesh presser. No longer as cool. And as I love to remind Bruce each likelihood I am getting, he’s greater than a decade older than me.”
The lads recalled a White Area consult with, which incorporated Springsteen taking part in the piano as Broadway and Motown tunes have been sung.
“There have been libations concerned,” Obama stated.
Springsteen makes use of a couple of of the ones guitars right through the process the podcast. In that first episode, each males recalled feeling like outsiders rising up and turning to their fields as some way of discovering their voices, with just a little “megalomania” concerned. In later episodes, they discuss racism, fatherhood and marriage.
Their other halves, Michelle Obama and Patti Scialfa, additionally bonded, sealing their friendship.
“We nonetheless have a basic trust within the American best,” Obama stated. “No longer as nostalgia. However as a compass.”
The “Renegades: Born in the United States” sequence name references certainly one of Springsteen’s largest hits and may be a sly connection with the “birther” marketing campaign the place Obama’s eventual successor, Donald Trump, falsely instructed Obama’s origins have been out of doors of the rustic.
Spotify stated Monday it used to be running with Upper Floor on any other podcast, “Inform Them I Am,” which compiles tales from Muslim voices and can debut right through Ramadan.
The carrier additionally stated it had reached a care for Warner Brothers and DC Comics for a sequence of narrative podcasts, with the primary being “Batman Unburied.” Director Ava DuVernay is taking part in a brand new podcast about prime profile instances of police brutality.
Spotify could also be upgrading its sound, saying that it’ll debut Spotify HiFi later this yr, the place individuals with Spotify-connected audio system can join enhanced high quality track streams.
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