Xeno Isabella McDonnell

About Aniefiok Ekpoudom:
Aniefiok ‘Neef’ Ekpoudom is a writer and storyteller from South London whose work documents community and culture in contemporary Britain. His debut book Where We Come From: Rap Home and Hope in Modern Britain is a social history of British Rap. It was released via Faber & Faber in January 2024. As a journalist, he writes long-form essays and profiles for The Guardian, GQ and more. From charting a history of Black Football culture in South London to mapping the forces of migration and music that formed J Hus, his writing weaves social, cultural and narrative history to explore the current, lived realities of peoples across the UK.

Summary:
In this episode, we discuss the social history of Britain through the lens of British rap with a focus on South London, Wales and the West Midlands; migration, music and belonging through the lens of the Windrush generation; resilience, adversity and hope in the UK rap scene; community through pirate radio; how British rap reshapes and remakes a sense of home and belonging for Black British communities back then and today; vulnerability through music and mental health; the importance of diverse social archives; the importance of creativity in crafting a deeper sense of belonging; and how the music gives us hope.

References:
'Where We Come From: Rap, Home and Hope in Modern Britain' by Aniefiok Ekpoudom
'Beloved' by Toni Morrison

Follow Aniefiok:
Website: https://aniefiokekpoudom.com/
IG: @Aniefiokekp
X: @AniefiokEkp

Credits:
Photo of Aniefiok by Blaow
Our theme music is by Alix Julian Edwards
Our branding is by Somewhere Off Grid

About Stephanie Sy-Quia:
Stephanie is a writer, teacher, and printmaker. She was born in 1995 in California and currently lives in London. Her debut, Amnion, was published by Granta Poetry in 2021. Her writing has appeared in the FT Weekend, the TLS, the Economist, the Guardian, and TANK. She is a Ledbury Poetry Critic. In 2023, she guest curated Ledbury Poetry Festival.

Summary:
In this episode, we delve into Amnion, mixed identities, embodied writing, family histories, ambient language, the power of language and resistance against translation, gender, classism and racism, education and privilege, girlhood in boarding school, liberation through writing and relationships as a mixed person, self-exoticization and fetishization, Philippine history, and the amniotic borders and boundaries we must all cross toward self-empowerment, self-knowledge and liberation.

References:
'Amnion' by Stephanie Sy-Quia (Granta Poetry 2021)
'Ambient Language' by Stephanie Sy-Quia

Follow Stephanie:
IG: @c_est_qui77
X: @snsyquia

Credits:
Image of Stephanie by Alex Sy-Quia
Our theme music is by Alix Julian Edwards
Our design is by Somewhere Off Grid

About Sam Johnson-Schlee:
Sam is an academic and writer living by the sea in North Essex. Sam is the author of Living Rooms, published by Peninsula Press. He writes non-fiction and memoir about the politics and culture of everyday life. He is interested in how paying attention to familiar objects and practices can open up new perspectives on the world we live in, and he writes a newsletter on Substack called 'Sifting and Sorting': a series about digitising his late father’s collection of over two thousand CDs and an occasional series of personal essays about the music.

Summary:
In this episode, we discuss the politics of the home and the interior, what it would mean to ‘abolish the family’, the privatisation and atomisation of domestic life, rentier capitalism, nature connection and domestic spaces, radical connection and collective living, the value of public space, how the interior influences public life, what it would mean to re-imagine our domestic lives and more topics.

References:
'Living Rooms' by Sam Johnson-Schlee
'Abolish the Family: A Manifesto for Care and Liberation' by Sophie Lewis
'They Call It Love: The Politics of Emotional Life' by Alva Gotby
'Strayed Homes: Cultural Histories of the Domestic in Public' by Edwina Attlee

Follow Sam:
IG: @snfschlee
X: @SNFSchlee
Substack: @siftingandsorting

Credits:
Image of Sam by Kenza Barton-Schlee
Our theme music is by Alix Julian Edwards
Our design is by Somewhere Off Grid

About Noreen Masud:
Noreen Masud is a lecturer in twentieth-century literature at the University of Bristol, the author of A Flat Place, and an AHRC/BBC New Generation Thinker. She grew up in Lahore and Fife.

Summary:
In this episode, we dive into A Flat Place, the psychogeography of flat landscapes across Britain and Pakistan, kinship with non-human animals, more-than-human ethics, belonging and unbelonging in language, literature as home, C-PTSD and (dis)embodied writing, creativity and mental health, erasure of global majority and diaspora stories, colonialism, imperialism and trauma, among other topics.

Resources:
A Flat Place by Noreen Masud

Connect with Noreen:
X/Twitter: @NoreenMasud
IG: @Noreen_Masud
Website: noreenmasud.com

Credits:
Our theme music is by Alix Julian Edwards
Our brand design is by Somewhere Off Grid

Xeno podcast was founded and is hosted by Isabella McDonnell. Isabella shares a short message of gratitude, a peek into what's in store for the upcoming podcast episodes over this next year, and an exciting new community-based venture in the outdoors.

Follow us on Instagram @xeno_pod and subscribe to our newsletter at xenocast.org.

You can listen to all our episodes on Spotify and Apple Podcasts. Please rate us and share a review of the podcast!

To find out more about Roots of Belonging, follow us on Instagram @rootsofbelonging and subscribe to our Substack and newsletter at rootsofbelonging.org.

About Lawrence D'Silva:
Lawrence D’Silva is an environmental scientist, nature presenter and filmmaker. From a safari Land Rover guide in southern Africa to working in environmental investment in London, nature has always been Lawrence's passion. He aims to entertain and inspire action and debate through film. Lawrence identifies as being mixed, with one side Welsh and the other South Indian, via Malawi. Lawrence grew up on tales of Malawi and India's Malabar coast and loves both places (as well as Britain). Both places are subject to intense environmental pressures that impact communities and nature alike.

Summary:
In this episode, we discuss colonialism, mixed heritage and British identity, class and race dynamics, our mixed experiences growing up, environmentalism, personal and embodied connection to place/landscapes, biodiversity and sustainability, self-exploration, rethinking personal belonging in the UK, intergenerational trauma, ancestral stories, and Family Constellations therapeutic practices.

Resources:
'Late Light' by Michael Malay
'The In-Between World of Vikram Lall' by M.G. Vassanji
'The Salt Path' by Raynor Winn

Connect with Lawrence:
IG: @nature_lawrence
Website: https://www.lawrencedsilva.com/
X: @lawrence_dsilva

Credits:
Image credit: @mixedracefaces
Our theme music is by Alix Julian Edwards
The Xeno brand is by Somewhere Off Grid