Be Yourself
Nas, Labi Siffre, Sevyn Streeter, Peter Gabriel, Geese, and much more.
Good afternoon and welcome back to Vinson Cunningham’s Quiet Storm.
Happy New Year, friends. If you’re reading this, you survived, and that ain’t nothing. I was pretty sad the other day to hear of the abrupt firings of Ebro Darden, Peter Rosenberg, and Laura Stylez, the hosts of Hot 97’s “Ebro in the Morning,” a popular hip-hop morning radio show here in New York. I didn’t always love the tunes they played, or the hosts’ (sometimes simplistic) political commentary and (often needlessly oppositional) interviews, but—as radio shows so often do—it became a minor part of the texture of my mental life. When my first-born daughter was a little kid, the bodega across the street from her elementary school always played the show. On many mornings, as I stood waiting for a guy to make my girl a breakfast sandwich, I’d listen to Ebro’s rantings on culture and society and feel that, in a very small way, I could now more sensitively gauge the sentiment of the wider city.
This endangered ethos—the communal function of radio; how songs put together gather hearts and minds as well as ears—is a big part of why I started making this newsletter. I’m still trying to figure out how best to make use of the space, and have some modest experiments in the works, but mostly I’m grateful that you Stormers keep lending VCQS an ear. This “show” has listeners in 51 countries and 44 U.S. states, which, to be as eloquent as possible, is super super cool. I hope we can all get to know each other better—our moods, our ideas, our tastes, our hopes—in 2026. Thanks for rocking out.
Oh, and, in case you’re still reflecting on 2025, I recently wrote a quick missive for The New Yorker about some of my favorite songs of the year.
Much love. Until next time—Storm On:
Throughout the afternoon I watched them there, Snow-fairies falling, falling from the sky, Whirling fantastic in the misty air, Contending fierce for space supremacy. And they flew down a mightier force at night, As though in heaven there was revolt and riot, And they, frail things, had taken panic flight Down to the calm earth seeking peace and quiet.
—Claude McKay, from “The Snow Fairy”