For decades, listeners have grown accustomed to what is widely regarded as “NPR voice” – an accentless, low-register voice that’s often White and male.
Then came Ayesha Rascoe, a breakout star from the “NPR Politics” podcast who in 2022 took over as anchor of “Weekend Edition Sunday” and weekend host of the “Up First” podcast — a Black woman raised in Durham, North Carolina, sounding unmistakably like herself.
The chair comes with a lot of responsibility — and huge opportunities to shift the narrative around representation. And much of that representation has to do with Rascoe’s voice itself, one that has been subject to racist listener feedback and comments that she should “sound more professional” or that people don’t like the way she talks.
Recently, a listener DM’d her on Instagram to tell her she wasn’t pronouncing “oil” correctly. In an Instagram post, Rascoe responded that in her dialect, her pronunciation is just fine. She got an immense amount of positive feedback. “People were like, ‘I’m so grateful to hear someone who pronounces oil the way that I do,’” she said.
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To Roscoe, the incident is a great example of what change can look like when one stays true to who they are.
“I think it resonates more when people hear different voices and feel like they’re not just listening to the voice of God or someone high above them, but someone who is like them,” Rascoe said.
On air, Rascoe leads with authority and empathy. She chooses stories that speak to her own lived experiences and reach a diverse audience. She launched her tenure as anchor of “Weekend Edition” with a series about heroes of the civil rights movement. For the first episode, she spoke with her mother, Phyllis Jones, and an uncle, Ben Thorpe, about living through the desegregation of rural North Carolina in 1970. Lately, she’s been highlighting the role of historically Black colleges and universities in the country’s economy and communities. In her work, she said, she makes a point to “always try to think about people who fall through the cracks.”
The work is guided by her roots.
“I know that the wisdom and the knowledge that I have all come from my family, the people who have poured into me with their own accents.”
This profile is apart of The 19th’s Revolutionary series. Subscribe to The Amendment, our biweekly newsletter, to receive project updates and political analysis focused on gender, race and power.
our past coverage of Ayesha Rascoe
· April 26, 2023
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