“You have to allow yourself to sit in your fire and burn.”

Rapsody is back from her hiatus with the jam-packed, undeniably raw and emotionally attuned new album Please Don’t Cry. Host Chloe Aftel dives deep with Rapsody to explore all the emotional healing that took place behind the scenes for this record to come into creation, how her background and upbringing influence the music she makes decades later, and all that Rapsody has learned along the way about love, spirituality, and the music industry.

Highlights:

• The rapper’s journey from growing up as youngest sibling of five in North Carolina to a multi-decade career in the rap industry;
• Her friendships and lessons learned from Erykah Badu, Kendrick Lamar, Jay-Z, and more;
• What she learned from Glennon Doyle’s book Untamed on her healing journey and unlearning the “good girl syndrome” in her own life;
• Navigating the tricky web of being a female rapper, going against the grain of what is expected.

Rapsody (born Marlanna Evans) is a Grammy-nominated songwriter and rapper celebrating the release of her fourth studio album, Please Don’t Cry. The album brings together a multitude of profound artists, including Erykah Badu, Lil Wayne, Alex Isley, Baby Tate, and more. Largely hailed as one of the greatest living lyricists of her genre, Rapsody has a unique skill for wordplay, timing, and rhyme patterns and has amassed a global fanbase for her music. In her latest, 22-track album, Evans goes deeper and more introspective than ever before, letting the world know exactly how she is. Stream Please Don’t Cry wherever you listen to music, and follow Rapsody on instagram, X, and Facebook.

Chloe Aftel has spent her career working in commercial photography, photojournalism, and film. She’s an established name in modern photography with work featured in The New York Times, Mother Jones, Playboy, Dazed & Confused, Vogue Germany, The Hollywood Reporter, The Wall Street Journal, Vogue Italia, Vanity Fair, Rolling Stone, Teen Vogue & more. Chloe has photographed victims of sexual violence, reported on Covid’s impact on the trans community, and gained access as the first reporter in the Covid wards of the West Coast’s hardest hit hospitals. She has covered underground abortion providers, the impact of gender pronouns on daily life, and clergy abuse. Her first book, “Outside and In Between,” is an award-winning anthology covering gender non-conforming people across America. Aftel is working on her next feature book on male bisexuality.

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