Subscribe on iTunes.

James McBride is a National Book Award winner for his novel The Good Lord Bird and an accomplished musician. He has worked as a journalist for newspapers including The Boston Globe and The Washington Post. For this week's episode of the New York Public Library Podcast, we're proud to present James McBride discussing James Brown's creative process, the politics of the musician, and New York City.

In his newest book, Kill 'Em and Leave 'Em, McBride takes on American musical icon James Brown. Though Brown was not a trained musician, McBride described a collaborative creative process:

"People forget or people don't know that James Brown, though he was not trained, he was an excellent musician. I mean Thelonius Monk was a terrible pianist, but he was a genius. Ira Gershwin, I can't remember George or Ira, couldn't read music. Neither could Errol Garner. So you don't have to be trained. So I mean what he did was he hired these men and women who were from the south, who had grown up listening to the blues and jazz, and he would sing what he wanted them to create. And when he sang it, they learned ways to create it, and if they couldn't create, they'd say, 'Okay, uh-huh, Mr. Brown,' and they would just do what they did and he would say, 'That's good. A little to the right. A little to the left.'"

Discussing Brown's identity and politics, McBride pointed to the ways in which Brown was sometimes more engaged than fellow singers in the Motown scene:

"He just said was what was safe to say. Every once in a while he would bust out and be courageous, and then he would run back to the safety of the music. Now that can't be said about most of your Motown acts and others who, while they were spectacular entertainers, didn't really represent the hopes and dreams of African-American life. And that's the difference between the Motown people and James Brown. James Brown was unquestionably black. Unquestionably strong. Unquestionably a man, so he had to at least show some of that courage, but in the end he knew the machine would gobble him up, and ultimately, I'm afraid to say he was right."

McBride spoke of changes in New York City life and what it can tell us about the presidential election:

"The whole business of displacement is a sad fact of African American life, even here in New York, which once had a great southern flavor to its African American population, and many of those people have gone down south. When I was growing up in New York, you had black grocery stores, black supermarkets, black-owned gas stations. That's all vanished. And now the view, the sort of societal view of black America is kind of like these kids doing hip-hop, and they obey their thirst, and they play basketball and it's completely different... New York has evolved to where it's a multiracial city, but it's not as multiracial as we think it is because it's becomes a city of haves and have-nots. And yet we scratch our heads and wonder why our family, our fellow American citizens elect someone like Donald Trump president."

You can subscribe to the New York Public Library Podcast to hear more conversations with wonderful artists, writers, and intellectuals. Join the conversation today!