Today on Movement, we revisit a story we first recorded in 2021, following Sahba Aminikia - a classically trained Iranian composer, forced to flee the country he called home, while making music that transforms pain into beauty.

Arabic music filled the air of Laura Elkeslassy’s Moroccan Jewish childhood home in Paris, especially on Fridays before Shabbat. But she didn’t grow up speaking Arabic so she didn’t understand the words. In New York as an adult, Laura’s search for a wedding song takes her on a surprising journey where she connects with new musical, spiritual and political lineages and steps into her power as a musician and community leader.  Learn more & sign up for Laura’s newsletter where she will announce the forthcoming studio release of Ya Ghorbati. Read more about the stories behind the songs via Ayin Press.

After years of singing backup in Havana, Cuban musician Cimafunk found his own sound by refusing to choose between tradition and innovation. The breakthrough came when he realized Afro-Cuban rhythms and American funk are not just compatible, they're in the same lineage. 

Ali Sethi released a song that got so popular, some claim it had the power to unite two countries at war – but his artistic journey all began with a suggestion from a college professor. 

When you don't feel like you belong to the country you were born in, where do you call home? Born to Chilean exiles in France, rapper Ana Tijoux didn't find home in a place, she found it in Hip Hop.

Lupita Infante is the granddaughter of Mexican cultural icon, Pedro Infante, but she is also an artist in her own right, carrying legacies from both sides of her family. Through songwriting, GRAMMY performances and stints on Mexican television, Lupita is charting a new path for herself, while honoring and questioning the culture she’s inherited. 

Peter One has had two big breaks, decades apart, on different continents. But both times, he has chosen to live a double-life: working as a touring musician and also holding down a “regular job” in order to lead a “simple life.” 

In the early 1900s, the ‘Little Syria’ neighborhood thrived in Lower Manhattan, but today few people know it even existed. Rapper and poet Omar Offendum aims to change that.

For Satomi Matsuzaki, the lead singer and bass player in Deerhoof, music has been a humanizing tool in the face of the sometimes dehumanizing experience of being an immigrant. Look no further than the band’s new single, Immigrant Songs.

Lalin St Juste knew, even as a child, that singing was a path towards her own healing. As she grows up, she goes on a journey reclaiming her Haitian heritage – and uses music as a process of healing herself and her bloodline.

The LA-based folk musician Annahstasia was “discovered” by the music industry when she was just 17, but the backing of a label wasn’t the breakthrough she’d imagined. The breakthrough had to come from within. 

How do we turn pain into empathy? Meklit talks with Liberian-American singer Mon Rovîa about his long journey to doing just that. 

Bashar Al Assad, Syria’s brutal dictator, has fled the country -- opening a new and uncertain chapter after more than a decade of Civil War. Meklit speaks with the Syrian electronic composer Samer Saem Eldahr (otherwise known as Hello Psychaleppo) about how that conflict changed his life and music. 

Diana Gameros was living in the US in 2010 when her home city of Juarez, Mexico became known as one of the most dangerous places on Earth. She was undocumented at the time; she couldn't travel back and forth even to see family. In this episode Diana tells the story of what it meant to finally go back and perform in Juarez after many years away. 

Chhom Nimol of the band Dengue Fever tells the harrowing story of the 22 night she spent in an immigration detention facility.

Meklit talks with Tunisian singer Emel Mathlouthi about the moment that turned her into a viral sensation and the voice of a revolution -- but also about what it means to move beyond the shadow of that one moment. 

Adi Oasis released an album and had a baby in the same year -- she thought it would be the end of her music career, but it's been the opposite. Adi and Meklit talk about the challenges of being a mama musician, and how motherhood changed how they see their own sense of place. 

Cheakaity is a DC-based soul singer who was brought into the world with a weighty name: the one who breaks unbreakable things. He talks with Meklit about lineage, prophecies and the fear of living a life unfulfilled. 

Victoria Ruiz fronts the leftist punk band Downtown Boys, and has spent her career walking the line between pragmatism and idealism -- often in extremely visible settings, and often with painful consequences.

Fanny was the first all-women band to release a record on a major label, in 1970. Meklit talks with lead guitarist June Millington about the incredible pressures of navigating the industry at that time and how parts of their story were never fully told.