Pierce Freelon
Grammy-Nominated Family Music Artist & Afrofuturist Creator

Sandeep Kulkarni (00:03.224) Today's guest is Pierce Freelon, a Grammy-nominated artist, author, and Afrofuturist creator working at the intersection of children's media, music, and storytelling. His work spans albums, books, PBS, film, and community building.

Suraaj Parab (00:21.981) Welcome Pierce to Artist Conversation.

Pierce Freelon (00:24.815) Thank you. Thanks for having me, a pleasure to be here.

Sandeep Kulkarni (00:28.108) Great to have you over here, Pierce. We were both going through your website and doing a lot of research. There are a lot of interesting things I found, and we want to ask you about a whole bunch of things.

I want to begin with your origin and purpose. You work across music, books, film, podcasts, and children's media, but all of it feels connected with a bigger purpose. When did you first realize that your creativity wasn't meant to live in just one lane?

Pierce Freelon (01:07.067) Well, I think my parents gave me a really good example for how to live a robust and diverse life. My mom, who is a Grammy-nominated jazz vocalist, also has a green thumb. She's a gardener, a great mom, and a chef. People think my mom can sing, but I'm like, "Wait till you try her sweet potato pie." She's multi-talented. My dad was an architect by profession, but he was also a photographer, a basketball player, a fisherman.

In our careers, people want to silo you to be in one lane, but that's not how we are as human beings. I've had the luxury in my career of being able to follow my nose and go where I'm interested, leaning in where I'm curious. A lot of times, the directions that I go in are just a natural offshoot of a trajectory that I'm on.

For example, when I put out my first children's music album, DAD, I had a song on there called "Daddy Daughter Day." It was a big song on children's radio, and we got a story on NPR. A publisher for Little, Brown Books for Young Readers was listening to NPR Morning Edition that morning, and she called my manager. I didn't go out thinking, "I want to write a book about being a dad." I wrote a song that led to the book, and the book led to other things. It's been an organic uprising for me.

Sandeep Kulkarni (02:59.064) Very cool. It is amazing to be connected with all these things that you're doing. It's not only the music aspect, but it's the books, film, and podcast, too. I felt a sense of completeness—like a complete artist. You're not just doing one thing; you have your hands in so many different things and you're excelling at all of them. It allows you to grow as an artist overall.

Pierce Freelon (03:40.667) Thank you. I'm glad that you see it as whole and complete. It's funny; what you're looking at is a very highly curated glimpse into the many things that I do. For example, I was involved in politics; I ran for mayor. There's nothing on my website about my political career. I used to be a professor at UNC, too. There are parts of my identity and my journey that don't show up in the bio. What you're really seeing are the pieces of myself that align with where I'm headed at this juncture in my journey.

It's cool to start off in music, go into education, and maybe quit everything and go be an entrepreneur. It's okay to try different things and follow your highest passion as you're trying to figure out what you want your mark to be on this world.

Suraaj Parab (04:54.709) A lot of your work feels very rooted in imagination, care, and possibility. What first drew you to Afrofuturism as a creative language?

Pierce Freelon (05:08.675) Well, first of all, I'm into sci-fi. Before you put the "Afro" on the "futurism," I was just into future stuff. My favorite show growing up was Star Trek: The Next Generation. My parents fell in love reading the book Dune together. In sci-fi, my dad's favorite movie was The Matrix. It's just an interesting way to think about life.

As an American Black person, I think Black people in this country and our ancestors have had to tap into the future as a survival mechanism. When your ancestors are enslaved, or when your great-grandparents are living in a segregated community where you can't drink from the same water fountain or use the same bathroom as your white counterparts, you really need to get creative and think about what else is possible.

I always think about the most generic example in Black history of a future-thinking leader: Martin Luther King Jr. When you go back and listen to his "I Have a Dream" speech, everything that he talks about at the time was pure fantasy. Little Black boys and little Black girls drinking from the same fountains and going to the same schools was science fiction in the fifties and sixties. Now, we are living in his radical imagination.

There's a great scholar, writer, and poet that I love named adrienne maree brown. She says, "All organizing is science fiction." Whether it was Harriet Tubman freeing slaves, Martin Luther King Jr., or Gandhi, whoever is a world changer out here has to live in their imagination and think, "This whole colonizer thing? I'm not feeling that. I see a better future." That type of leadership requires a vivid imagination and, very importantly, a deep and full-throttled knowledge of your own worthiness. When you pair those things together—knowing you have worth as a human being while living in a world where the institutions running your life don't necessarily see that worth—you better get that imagination churning so you can leave this world better than you found it.

For me, the medium through which I do that happens to be music and art. Martin Luther King Jr. had his medium through preaching and the Christian organizing tradition. People have different ways of doing that. You could do it through food, music, film, writing, or politics. What is this thing in the world that you want to change or see differently in the future, and why? That is a driving question for me because what else are we here for if not to make the world doper than we found it?

Sandeep Kulkarni (08:57.378) It's amazing you mentioned that. Now I have to go and listen to the speech again. I've heard it multiple times, but now that you said that about Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., I'll go and listen to it while this is fresh in my brain. The way you described that is nice. We are living that right now, but at the time in the '60s, it would have felt like a fantasy.

Pierce Freelon (09:24.187) And it's wild because that wasn't so long ago. My kids now can take for granted the fact that they can go to school with kids who look differently than they do because he was bold enough and gave his life to sacrifice for the change that he knew was necessary. The least I can do is write a song about it. Nobody's coming for me with a rifle, so I appreciate that sacrifice, but I also see my obligation to shift things through the gifts that I have. My gifts include storytelling, music, speaking, and mentoring. I'm trying to change the things that I can change.

Sandeep Kulkarni (10:34.188) Love that thought process. I wanted to ask you more about children's media and storytelling. Your albums like Black to the Future—which, by the way, I love that name—help define your voice in children's music. What do kids allow you to say artistically that adults sometimes make more complicated?

Pierce Freelon (11:01.615) Making music for kids is about trying to instill certain values using music that is catchy and earwormy. There are nursery rhymes and children's songs in every tradition that help you learn the alphabet, count, or learn the days of the week. Kids' brains have incredible neuroplasticity; they are like sponges. It's an impressionable time to communicate to a human being because they are going to take those melodies and ideas with them for their entire lives. For me, it's a really important time to be in the ears of young humans.

There's a lot out there. One of the biggest songs on YouTube is "Baby Shark" with billions of listens. I'm not hating on "Baby Shark," but I get curious about what ideas we are implanting in the minds of young kids. A lot of kids listen to adult music—whatever their parents are listening to. Making sure that the music is high-quality, age-appropriate, and introducing them to concepts that will turn them into dope, cooler adults is a fun challenge. A young audience offers me unique, intimate access, which comes with a big responsibility to put something meaningful and substantive into their hearts and minds.

Sandeep Kulkarni (13:30.816) That's really nice. "Baby Shark" and others like that are insane. We were just at our friend's place, and they have two little daughters. The one-year-old was eating and watching those videos with total concentration. My friend asked me, "Do you have any clue how much money these YouTube channels make?" and I said, "Yeah, I have an idea."

Pierce Freelon (14:05.177) A lot of children's media is educational and cultural. What an impressionable time for those kids, and for the parents, too. When kids are enjoying my music, I want to make sure the parents aren't saying, "Man, can you turn this off? I'm tired of hearing it." I want to make something that is enjoyable for the whole family. It is definitely geared toward the kid, centering their perspective as the primary audience, but parents are co-listeners in the rooms and in the cars. Whether it's a podcast, an audiobook, or an album, I want something that the whole family can really enjoy.

Suraaj Parab (15:02.517) Continuing on that topic, you have written for PBS Kids shows like Alma's Way and Work It Out Wombats!, and co-created the podcast Jamming on the Job. What makes storytelling for children feel meaningful to you right now?

Pierce Freelon (15:23.747) Writing for those shows has been a joy. When I'm making albums for my own voice, I draw from my personal experiences as a father, a son, and a grandson. On my album Black to the Future, there's a song called "No is a Love Word," which is something my grandma used to tell me all the time. When you tell somebody no, you're offering them a gesture of love. It's a little counterintuitive, but as an adult, it's really important to understand the power and the care behind an intentional no.

When I'm writing for a show like Alma's Way, the main character is a Black and Puerto Rican girl who lives in the Bronx, New York. I know a lot about the Bronx because I grew up listening to hip-hop, so I know the lingo and the slang, but I actually have to step into the character of a six or seven-year-old girl and tell the story through her eyes. That's a fun songwriting and voice-acting challenge.

The podcast Jamming on the Job, which I co-created with 123 Andrés, is all about careers. We want to introduce kids to different career trajectories, particularly ones where there aren't enough Americans to fill those jobs. PBS stands for Public Broadcasting Service, so this is a public service of the United States. They are trying to make sure kids have an interest in clean energy fields, like being an engineer or a wind turbine service technician. Right now, there are jobs across the country opening up in these areas, and there aren't enough educated applicants to fill them.

There's a saying: "You can't be what you don't see." Everybody sees LeBron James and wants to be a basketball player. Hopefully, people have seen the Artemis II mission and want to be an astronaut. They see teachers and firefighters. But then there are all these other jobs: robotics engineers, nurse practitioners, fundraisers, or music therapists—someone who does therapy through music rather than just being a commercial musician. These are well-paying jobs, and if you find out about them at a young age on a podcast, maybe it's something you decide to pursue. It's been joyful because I'm also learning about these jobs as a creator and voice actor. We interview real people who work these jobs, and they advise us on what the challenges are and how they got into it, which gets written into each episode.

Sandeep Kulkarni (19:53.038) Very cool. Your children's book, music, and screen work all seem to belong to the same universe. When you create, are you thinking in songs, stories, images, or all of them at once?

Pierce Freelon (20:24.463) As an Afrofuturist, I appreciate the metaphor of a universe. To quote my grandmother, Queen Mother Frances Pierce, "No is a love word." The reason there is continuity between the projects on my website is because "no" is a tool in my toolkit. When a project comes to my desk that is not in alignment with the higher vision for my career, I offer a loving no.

That "no" is a love word for me personally because it keeps me focused on my alignment, but it's also an opportunity for the other person to find a collaborator who fits better. When you know what your vision is, it's easy to discern whether something is in alignment with you or not. I say no to quite a lot of things, and I say yes with intention. When I commit to something, I really pour everything into it. That's why you see continuity in my work; I know when to say no, and I'm not afraid to say it. What's left are the things that are aligned.

Sandeep Kulkarni (22:23.683) I'll remember that: "No is love." Saying no is very important in life and work. I work in tech, and we frequently tell people they need to learn how to say no. Describing it as a loving choice that gives the other person an opportunity to find the right project alignment is a great perspective.

Suraaj Parab (23:03.861) Moving ahead to community and world-building, you have built not just projects, but ecosystems, from Black Space to your community work in Durham. What does it mean to you to make art that also creates spaces for other people?

Pierce Freelon (23:30.275) Sticking with the universe metaphor, when you create something, it's kind of like a star. Black Space is a star; it's a hefty thing, and I played a role in founding it and creating the conditions for it to erupt into existence. The physics of how a star galvanizes what's around it into a solar system is just the nature of the universe. The gravity of the star attracts other masses toward it, and those masses form a community.

Igniting that star brought people into my orbit, like my friend Jay Rowdy—represented by the 12-foot puppet looking over my shoulder right now. He was based in Chapel Hill at the time and heard about this place in Durham where they were making beats, talking about Afrofuturism, doing poetry, and working with high schoolers. Those things interested him. The gravity of Black Space also attracted Reem, a brilliant music engineer who has mixed and produced a lot of my albums. Community is a natural byproduct of doing purposeful work; it attracts like-minded folks into your orbit, and those people become part of your solar system.

Ten years later, you take a step back and look at the wonderful ecosystem you've created. We've got albums, t-shirt designs, events, animated projects, voiceover work, and a bunch of high school students who are now professionals. One young lady, Kennedi Carter, started doing photography with Black Space and went on to photograph Beyoncé and other major celebrities. I can't take credit for her unique talent, but I created a space that attracted her like-minded trajectory. She encircled our orbit for a while before going off to do her own massive things. Community is a natural byproduct of doing purpose-aligned work in public.

Sandeep Kulkarni (27:25.85) It's amazing to see students absorb as much as they can in that environment and then find their own successful paths. I used to be a college professor before I joined tech, and it was always incredible to see my students go out and achieve great things. It's a wonderful feeling.

Pierce Freelon (28:18.009) It's bittersweet, I would say. I mentioned Kennedi, who is a brilliant photographer we met during her sophomore year of high school when she participated in our digital storytelling workshop. But because I'm still in Durham where I grew up, I also see kids who came through Black Space around that same time who are now homeless on the street. What we poured into Kennedi, combined with the right external support systems around her, allowed her to run with it. Other kids haven't had the same opportunities or circumstances to thrive.

It's a sobering reminder that while we play an important role in the community, we cannot assume responsibility over the final outcome. I am just as responsible for Kennedi's outcome as I am for the brother I saw on the street corner. It's still touching because that same brother came up to me a few weeks ago and said, "Man, that time we spent in Black Space was some of the best years of my life. I learned so much." It doesn't take away from the pride I feel about the work we put in, but it teaches you that your efforts impact people in different ways, and you can't be everything to all people. That has to be okay, too.

Sandeep Kulkarni (30:16.718) Absolutely. You move between being an artist, educator, public servant, and community builder. How do you balance service with self-expression without losing either one?

Pierce Freelon (30:37.097) I don't think they are mutually exclusive. If your career is purpose-aligned, then your work naturally becomes a service. There's a Japanese concept called ikigai, which means a reason for being. Translated into English, it sits at the intersection of four components: doing something you love, doing something that is good for the world, doing something you are good at, and doing something you can get paid for.

If all four of those boxes are checked, you are living in your ikigai. I've been in that alignment for quite some time, which is why there's no difference for me between service and doing what I love. If both of those boxes aren't checked, you're going to get a "no" from me. That is the sieve through which I determine whether something is worth my time.

The financial piece of the equation is important because if you can't sustain yourself through your practice, you end up losing significant time working an unrelated job just to buy back the freedom to do the other three components unrestricted. Making money within your alignment frees you from that obligation.

Suraaj Parab (34:07.187) Regarding your creative range, your work includes a Tribeca-selected film, children's picture books, PBS albums, and even an ice cream venture, Coco Fro, with your wife. How do you know when an idea is meant to become a song, a film, a food product, or something else entirely?

Pierce Freelon (34:37.531) The honest answer is that I don't know initially—I find out through the process of doing. About a month ago, I thought my next album was going to be entirely about food. It made sense because I have this freeze-dried ice cream product, Coco Fro, and I'm working on a children's picture book about lactose intolerance tied to it, alongside a web series.

I got to work on the album, but the music coming through me wasn't about food at all. I was writing about going camping, about astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson, and about the "dap"—the specific way we shake hands in the Black community. I gave myself permission to write these songs even though they didn't fit my food concept.

Two weeks ago, I sat down with my engineer, Reem, and realized all these new songs shared a completely different theme: Black boys. I recognized that the food album will still happen down the line, but my immediate project needed to be dedicated specifically to that demographic.

I have the awareness to respond to my own intuition and remain obedient to where it leads. The tentative title is Black Boy Joy, Black Boy Glow, or Black Boy Whimsy. Since making that pivot, an incredible wave of opportunities has already opened up to place these songs on different projects. The process instructs me what the project wants to be. As long as I stay true to my North Star of purpose-aligned Afrofuturistic work that uplifts children, a shift like this stays beautifully within our orbit. In the entrepreneurial world, they call that design thinking—maintaining the cognitive flexibility where innovation and intuition live.

Sandeep Kulkarni (39:21.358) I love that: "Honing my antenna to receive the instructions." When you look ahead, what do you hope children and families carry away from your work? What do you hope it awakens in them?

Pierce Freelon (39:51.279) I hope that my audience smiles. I hope they feel. It's a simple, foundational answer because the most sacred things in this life are simple. Being alive alone is a tremendous miracle; we have all beaten incredible, billion-to-one odds just to exist. Waking up in the morning, taking a deep breath, eating your favorite fruit, squeezing a pillow under warm blankets, or kissing someone you love on the cheek—that is the true wonder of being alive on this planet.

If my work can evoke a smile, a feeling, or a new perspective, then my goal is fully accomplished. What the audience chooses to do with that spark is completely up to them, and honestly, none of my business. I just have to keep creating from an open heart space and trust that it's enough.

Suraaj Parab (41:56.63) Pierce, thank you so much for spending this time with us. We deeply appreciate the imagination, care, and intention you bring to your work and to the worlds you are building for families.

Pierce Freelon (42:13.797) Thank you for the thoughtful questions. I feel like I've been sitting in a great philosophy class.

Sandeep Kulkarni (42:18.094) This conversation is a profound reminder that storytelling can do so much more than just entertain—it opens up deep pathways for possibility, connection, and belonging. Thank you.

Suraaj Parab (42:37.141) To everyone listening, thank you for being here with us. If this conversation resonated with you, please share it with someone. Go check out Pierce Freelon's books on Amazon, and listen to his music on Apple Music, Spotify, or your favorite streaming platform. Follow him on Instagram and visit his website to connect with his incredible work. We will see you in the next episode of The Artist Conversation.

Sandeep Kulkarni (43:17.198) Thank you, everyone