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Bartees Strange faces his fears on 'Horror'

What is your biggest fear? What's that thing that makes the hair on the back of your neck stand up? Makes your skin crawl? Makes you feel that pit in your stomach?

Fear can be unpleasant, but it's also a survival instinct. Sometimes, it can even be fun, like when you watch a scary movie. In today's session, recorded in front of an audience at World Cafe Live in Philly, Bartees Strange talks about his new album, Horror.

It's an album that sees him facing fears, dissecting them and being shaped by them. He also talks about how he had to conquer fear to make the album, about working with Jack Antonoff, about how his survival instinct helped him choose the city he lives in, and about navigating the indie rock sphere as a Black musician.


World Cafe: Bartees Strange set list

  1. "Sober"
  2. "Baltimore"
  3. "Backseat Banton"
  4. "17"

This episode of World Cafe was produced and edited by Miguel Perez. Our senior producer is Kimberly Junod and our engineer is Chris Williams. Our programming and booking coordinator is Chelsea Johnson and our line producer is Will Loftus.

Copyright 2025 XPN

Raina Douris
Raina Douris, an award-winning radio personality from Toronto, Ontario, is the host and writer of NPR's daily nationally-syndicated music interview and discovery program World Cafe. She has interviewed artists like Bruce Springsteen, Barbra Streisand, Questlove and Brandi Carlile, and was a 2022 keynote lecturer on the topic of Folk Music and music discovery at the Chautauqua Institution.
Miguel Perez
Miguel Perez is a radio producer for NPR's World Cafe, based out of WXPN in Philadelphia. Before that, he covered arts, music and culture for KERA in Dallas. He reported on everything from the rise of NFTs in the music industry to the enduring significance of gay and lesbian bars to the LGBTQ community in North Texas.