Today on AirTalk: Changes to the Grammys, audio erotica, how incarceration shaped American music, charter schools, gifts for dad, and lessons from past relationships.
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The Recording Academy has tweaked some of its rules for the 2026 Grammy Awards, including the addition of five new categories.
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Listen to the conversation:
Guest Mikael Wood, pop music critic for the LA Times
New categories: A best Asian pop music performance category celebrating releases across K-pop, J-pop, C-pop and beyond, a new best traditional pop vocal performance category, and a new best Latin song category recognizing songwriters for their work on Latin songs recorded predominantly in Spanish will be all included in the awards.
New changes: The other changes include augments to the R&B and folk categories, with a new best R&B collaboration or duo/group performance award joining the reimagined best R&B solo performance category. Also, the Grammys will now allow artists to submit in the category four times, up from three. That is in an attempt to better reflect the current music market, where it can take time for an artist to break through.
With files from the Associated Press.
Guest:
Have you listened to audio erotica?
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Apps like Dipsea and Quinn create audio stories, similar to the old radio plays of the 1920s or short audio books for a more modern comparison. But these audio stories contain explicit sex scenes and even feature big name actors like Andrew Scott and Shawn Hatosy.
Listen to the conversation:
Guest: Tristan Taormino, sex educator with a masters in public health. She has written, produced and filmed erotica and pornography .
Who is listening: This type of erotic content is predominantly consumed by women. Even the companies producing the content are majority owned by women.
Join the conversation: If you listen to audio erotica, why do you prefer it over reading smut or traditional porn? What do you get out of it that other mediums don’t offer? Give us a call at (866) 893-5722. You can also email us at atcomments@laist.com.
Guest:
Tupac Shakur (L) attends KMEL Summer Jam at Shoreline Amphitheatre on August 1, 1992 in Mountain View California.
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From outlaw cowboys to RICO charges, crime and incarceration have been popular topics for musicians throughout American recorded music. But how and why did prison become so ubiquitous in our music? A forthcoming book, The Midnight Special: The Secret Prison History of American Music explores the intertwined histories of incarceration and music through five musicians.
Listen to the conversation:
Guest: Colin Asher, author of The Midnight Special: The Secret Prison History of American Music
The musicians: The Midnight Special profiles Huddie Ledbetter, Elmo Hope, Johnny Cash, Ike White, and Tupac Shakur who span genres and the twentieth century, telling a story of mass incarceration, addiction and drug policy, and commercial music.
Guest:
L.A. Unified School District headquarters in downtown Los Angeles.
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The Los Angeles County Board of Education has voted to allow Locke College Preparatory Academy in Watts to continue operating. This follows LAUSD’s decision to end the charter and take back operation of the school, which they tie to poor proficiency scores for English language arts and math.
Listen to the conversation:
Guests: Howard Blume, L.A. Times staff writer who covers education; Tanya Ortiz Franklin, LAUSD board member for District 7, which includes Locke College Preparatory Academy; and Cristina de Jesus, President and Chief Executive Officer of Green Dot Public Schools California, a non-profit network of public charter schools; they operate Locke College Preparatory Academy
Argument for the charter school: Green Dot Public Schools, which has been operating the charter school for the last 17 years, has seen proficiency scores improve at the school: a 16% increase for English language arts and 9% for math.
The vote: The Los Angeles County Board of Education voted 5-2 in support of keeping Locke College Preparatory Academy operated by Green Dot Public Schools.
Guests:
What should you get your dad for Father's Day
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Typically, dads are practical. Which means a gift card to Home Depot, a box of fresh tools, or even a new BBQ grill are all in the realm of what we expect our dads to want. But that’s not always the case! So, ahead of this year’s Father’s Day, we want to talk about the best gifts for dad!
Listen to the conversation:
Austin talks with LAist listeners.
Join the conversation: We want to hear from you! What is the best gift you’ve gotten your dad and why? Are you a father? Tell us about the most memorable gift you’ve received from your kids! Give us a call at (866) 893-5722 or email us at atcomments@laist.com.
What did you learn from past relationships?
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We all have our own paths to walk in life before we find the one, or ones, we want to spend the rest of our lives with. But the journey makes the destination, and today on AirTalk we want to hear from you about the lessons you learned from past relationships that still resonate.
Listen to the conversation:
Guest: Jenny Taitz, assistant clinical professor of Psychiatry at UCLA and board certified therapist with a private practice here in L.A.; she’s author of How to Be Single and Happy: Science-Based Strategies for Keeping Your Sanity While Looking for a Soul Mate
The ones that didn’t get away: Relationships fail for a variety of reasons, but they say practice makes perfect. What is something that being with your ex taught you about yourself? Maybe it was a deep conversation that led to you maturing, or maybe it was the final straw that made you realize you could want more for yourself?
The practical: Hey, maybe they taught you how to drive stick, or how to bake a pie, or do your taxes.
Join the conversation: Give us a call at (866) 893-5722 or you can email us at atcomments@laist.com. Include your first name and email.
Guest:
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