Fresh Air - Boots Riley wants to 'compel and repel' you

Episode Date: May 13, 2026

Boots Riley’s new film is called ‘I Love Boosters,’ and it stars Keke Palmer as the leader of a crew of women shoplifters in the Bay Area who steal from luxury stores and sell the goods cheap to people who can't afford retail. 20 years before the movie, Riley wrote a song by the same name with his hip-hop group The Coup. The song is a love letter to shoplifters, or boosters, as they're called. Riley talks with Tonya Mosley about why his music, shows, and films -- including the 2018 movie ‘Sorry To Bother You’ -- continue to explore the contradictions that capitalism produces. Riley was a labor organizer in his teens.See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.NPR Privacy Policy

This is Fresh Air. I'm Tanya Mosley. My guest today is filmmaker, rapper, and community organizer, Boots Riley. His work for the last few decades has circled the same argument, that capitalism produces the contradictions we live with, and that art can make them visible. He made that argument as the frontman of the Oakland-based hip-hop group The Coo, and in his screenwork with his 2018 film, Sorry to Bother You, a surreal satire about a black telemarketer who finds success after he learns to use his white voice. And he's making the argument again in his latest film, I Love Boosters, which was first a love song he wrote 20 years ago about shoplifters, or Boosters, as their call. A booster is a person who jacks from the retail and sells it in the hood for dirt cheap, resell. In these hard times, they press on like lean nails. And all of my experience, their sex has been beam up back in elementary, my shoes used to rap. Every time I soaps hit the street that would flap, I love

Jackson, Anderson a cap because my jacket didn't have a brand name in the back years later this lady took me to her apartment it looked like

the Macy's sportswear department clothes on the chairs on the couch in the carpet a 20 had me icy like a in the Arctic if it wasn't for the hard work of a booster most couldn't go to the clubs

that were used to if you don't fit the dress cold they'll boot you like people who get dressed up won't you I love Boosters The film stars Kiki Palmer

as the leader of a crew of women shoplifters in the Bay Area who steal from luxury fashion stores and sell the goods cheap to people who can't afford retail. Demi Moore plays the fashion designer who stores their robbing from, and Lakeith Stanfield plays a figure

who threatens the whole operation. As you heard, before Riley made films, he made music. The coup released their first album, Kill My Landlord, in 1993. Before that, he was a labor and community organizer, a UPS worker, and a telemarketer, a job that would eventually become the subject of sorry to bother you.

Boots Riley, welcome back to fresh air. Thanks. Thanks for having me. You know, I have watched I Love Boosters twice, and both times I was thinking, what does Boots know about Boosters? Well, I have been a broke rapper for a long time having to stay fly. You know, it's just a job requirement. And so I've definitely had to deal with. with a lot of boosters. When I wrote that song 20 years ago,

it was a lifetime of experience. So, and also just saw how much of a service it provided a community who's, in my case, the black community, I don't think they only exist in the black community, a community whose style is inspiring these things that are costing more than people can afford with the income. something that they have. That is the interesting, it's not an inversion, but it is the thing that we

sit with as the audience, because we are living this world through the boosters themselves. And so we're able to see from the inside how they're interpreted from the outside and what's really happening. But you know, that term boosters, I had never heard that before. I think I heard like, okay, in Detroit, I know somebody with the hookup or, you know, I know a guy. Yeah. It's funny because online, there's this whole debate about where that term came from. There's people in New York saying, we came up with the term. There's people in, obviously, in the Bay Area saying we came up with the term.

And there's people in Chicago saying, no, no, boosters, we did that and such. So there's this whole debate. And, you know, obviously, I can come from the Bay Area. So I'm going to, you know, shoot shots on that behalf. However, yeah, I think it was all over. So, and definitely people had different ways of calling it. But, you know, I have no idea where it came from. There's somebody that could probably call in and tell us the etymology of that.

Exactly. And I obviously am out of the loop. But I want to talk a little bit about what you were saying about the Boosters place and how they serve the community. And let's talk about that a little bit through the character Corvette. herself, who's played by Kiki Palmer. And she isn't just a booster. She is a designer.

And Christy Smith, the fashion mogul that she admires, who's played by Demi Moore, steals one of her designs. And basically, this woman is hailed as a genius, but she's stealing from black and brown communities. When was the first time you kind of realized that idea that, like, what is being stolen is actually maybe yours in the first place? You know, I think you'd have to back it up to when I was 14 or 15, you know, and I got involved in supporting people who were organizing a canary worker strike in Watsonville, California. So I got invited to a youth event based on that. And, you know, they, someone was like, hey, you know, we're going to have this thing. we'll be by on, you know, we'll be by at noon on Saturday. And back then, there's no cell phones.

There's no anything. So you could totally ghost somebody a lot easier. And I planned on it. So I was like, I'm just, yeah, come by. I'm not going to be there. And so, but I forgot about it. And so they came by with a van full of 14-year-old girls. Yeah.

And they were like, hey, you want to go to the beach? beach. And I was like, oh, yeah, I definitely want to go to the beach with y'all. And they were like, but first we're going to stop and stop off and support the Watsonville canary workers. And then so that's kind of how I got hoodwinked into it because I entered the van with, you know, flirtatious goals. And, and then, uh, and, uh, then. I met these girls who were like they were talking about things that were on the news, world events, these sorts of, and things that I purposely was trying to ignore because I didn't have a sense that I could have any effect on it, right? I didn't have a sense that, like, it didn't matter if I paid attention or not because what am I going to do? These are just things that happened.

And they were talking about it. And I realized that they felt that they could have something to do with what happened. Yeah. And it was connected to this canary worker strike that we were going to. That this was not only about someone trying to get higher wages, but it was about how you might be able. to create a movement that has the power to affect those who are in power. And it started to me talking, started the conversation about what power actually is under this system.

So I went in that one trip from wanting to get with these girls to wanting to be them. Yes, to wanting to be them in understanding because they're opening up your world. But you grew up in a household with a father who also was teaching you through his actions, being an organizer, working in Detroit on behalf of the auto workers. And yeah, but the thing is, is that you don't, one thing that I think was good is my parents didn't, like, say, here, you have to learn this and blah, blah, blah, because I probably would have later thought of it as their stuff and not mine. Yeah. I don't know if they did that intentionally or that's just how it was. was but yeah they'd have when I was when we lived in Detroit we lived there till I was six um they'd have meetings but the meetings would always and I didn't know they were meetings

because they would always end in like bidwist parties or like you know playing records and dancing so I just knew people were around sitting on couches talking to each other and they end up having fun so I just thought they were having parties but it didn't shape what I thought community was. Something you do in this particular film, I love Boosters, the news is always there. It's the radio. It's the TV. But since we're sitting in the world of the Boosters, we are the Boosters.

We are seeing what is just such a short, distorted view of them because we see their whole worlds. When did you start to also understand that, and, you know, I'm super interested in this. as a journalist, that, oh, what I am seeing is just a very small part of what is my reality here. Yeah. Well, okay. So after the Watsonville Canary Workers Strike, then I was helping to organize something called the Anti-Racist Farm Workers Union. And we did all this stuff. And you're 15.

15 by this time. At that point, I'm 15. Yeah. You know, and, you know, they're giving us assignments like, you know, You know, you guys got to run off the flyers while we're in the fields. You got to make signs. You got to make a skit. You know, all these things.

You got to plan the caravan thing. We're doing this door-to-door thing. So it was like, you know, and I was willing to do more because I wasn't where anybody knew me. Like, you know, 15 years old, you're trying to be cool. And you don't want people to see you doing certain things. I would have never, like, walked up to someone and passed them a flyer because maybe they'll think that's not.

nerdy or something like that. I don't know. But I got involved doing all that stuff. So then I get back to school. And one of the first thing, and so I'm totally, I'm a revolutionary at that point. I'm a communist by then. And I'm like, okay. So I start using these ideas of how to get people involved and there was a and a bunch of students and me started this this uh walkout against year-round schools. It's pretty easy to get high schoolers to walk out against the idea of going to school year-round. Yeah. Yeah. So you get 2,000 students to walk out. Get 2,000 students to walk out and, you know, this is very different than what I'm doing because I'm invest. I know everybody and And, you know, so I, so I have the bullhorn.

We're in front of the school. And I'm saying things about what we're going to do. The plan is to march down to the school board. And the principal, Mr. Allerie, who was an ex-cop, buff, like, and walked around, like, in a pose with his arms out. So you knew that he, his biceps were, were too big for his arms to go at his side. I see it. And he walks out there and he says, Riley, give me that bullhorn.

And so I was like, okay. And everybody was like, what are you doing? And as I was handing it to him and trying to take it back, like a good 15 or 20 students come and help me to try to pull it from him. And we eventually get the bullhorn back. back from him. But this guy, Navin, it cuts his arm. And it splirts out onto a Leary's shirt.

Wow. Right. And we all march down to the, we all marched down. They were so, this was the 80s, this was 86. And so in my lifetime, my conscious lifetime, I had never seen anything like that. But I think it scared the school board to where as soon as we got there, they came out and announced they were reversing their decision. Wow. And so we were drunk with power, basically.

We're like, what? Is this easy? Right, right. Right. And the next day was the first time I ever saw a color picture on the cover of the Oakland Tribune. And what was it? There was a color picture of perspillar with blood all over him. Yep.

saying that students attacked Principal Illyri on the way to, you know. And so that was a quick lesson. That was your first real lesson. Yeah. Yes, about that perception there. I was really fascinated by that news component in this film, too, because we see that dynamic about protests all the time where there's a particular part of the protest that becomes the news story versus the protest itself.

In many instances, it's because of the looting. The looting is the thing that we see the most more than anything else. So also I want to put this in the context in the movie because what you're making is a great point that I think. But what I'm setting up in the movie has to do with when I would be watching TV a lot, I was like addicted to TV. And my father would always be like, you know why you think it's interesting? why you think those people's lives are interesting. And he would say, because they're not watching TV. Because the reality for many of us is we're spending so much time watching these screens.

And so I'm like trying. And so for me, what we do see on these screens is a huge part of our life. It's a huge part of what affects us. And so I want that representation on there, not only the interpretation, from what happened in real life to what's happening on the screen, but how we are affected by all these things. It's interesting about the casting of this film because you've got some real big heavy hitters.

You've got Don Cheadle. You've got Demi Moore, Kiki Palmer, who's been around since she was 11. She's been famous. And Lakeith Stanfield, part of whom you made famous with, sorry to bother you, but he's since gone on and done so many things. And what's interesting is I interviewed Tessa Thompson a little while ago, and she told me the story of how you almost took her out of the cast of Sorry to Bother You because she had gotten a Marvel movie. And you felt like she might be too exposed and too well known.

It wasn't just the Marvel movie, to be fair, but yeah. But the fact that she was well known. So what has changed for you in this idea? Because in this film, I mean, you've got all these heavy hitters. I think maybe just more confidence in myself. like I saw with Tessa how we made that a very specific thing

you know what I'm saying and I was like yeah and that I can write it in a way that we can shape it in a way where it does have its own specificity and so and I think maybe I was more reacting to how a lot of movies do

like it's the George Clooney is George Clooney breaking in the banks It's George Clooney being a sniper. It's George Clooney. And I was like, I don't want the, it's George Clooney doing this thing. I want it to be this character, right? And I think that what I've realized is that even though the star of it all, stars how big someone is, can make people come to a movie for that.

Then it's my job to make them forget what they know about that person, right? What they know about that actor. And it's also the actor's job. So I'm picking people that can pull that off. Why was Kiki the person that had to be Corvette? Oh, I saw how in other movies they were like, okay, she does this one thing or these two things, this certain cadence. And they were like missing this whole other piece of her. Of Kiki.

Yeah. And not in all the things they did this. She's shown herself. That's how I knew it, right? And also I met with her. and I could see this thing and her willingness to go there, you know. And in the same way that often I'm trying to cast against type, in that way, I saw with this, like, this is a chance to see someone do stuff that they haven't done before

and that she has this whole skill set that people were underappreciating. You've said that you love stories that live inside of a contradiction. And what strikes me about this moment now in your life is you might have the most contradictions of all that you are living in this moment. I mean, you have produced a $20 million film. You're inside the system critiquing the system. But I'd like to know, how are you thinking about that? Yeah. Well, I think that we're all inside the system.

I think if I had a job, I've had many jobs at retail. I've had many jobs, you know, doing stuff. of constructed redwood decks, all sorts of things like that. And I'm inside the system. Like there's no getting out of it until we have a movement that creates a whole different system. But in particular, though, I mean, when your first movie, Sorry to Bother You came out, it was like a breakthrough of, oh, he is really speaking to the system. He's talking truth to power. It's very an anti-capitalist movie.

But now you're like a, you're entering the seasoned successful. role, almost to the point where you are the system. You're part of that. And I think what my films and my music has always said is that we all are the system. And my goal with my art is to instigate class struggle. So the reason that people know about me, for instance, is because of originally, because of the music and now because of the movies. But from day one with the music, we were on EMI records, no longer existing.

corporation, but they were maybe one of the most owned by a lot of heinous multinational corporation with investments all over the place, right? The reason is is because I want this out on a platform to talk to people who, you know, they're not seeking out alternative things. They're not going to the punk DIY spot. So you got to get inside in order to get to the people that you want to talk to. But I wouldn't even put it that way because we're inside already. There's no getting out of it.

There's no making, even if you make a commune in the woods by virtue of you not actually changing the way things are. You're living inside capitalism. Our guest today is filmmaker, rapper, and organizer, Boots Riley. His new film is titled I Love Boosters. I'm Tanya Mosley, and this is fresh air. This is Fresh Air, I'm Tanya Mosley, and my guest today is Boots Riley. His new film, I Love Boosters, is a satirical look at a crew of women shoplifters in the Bay Area. Before Riley was a filmmaker, he spent more than two decades fronting the political hip-hop group The Coup, whose albums include, Kill My Landlord, Steal This Album, and Party Music.

Before he was a rapper, Riley loaded packages. onto airplanes for UPS. And before that, he was a teenage labor organizer. He came up alongside radical politics. His father, Walter Riley, is a civil rights and criminal defense attorney in Oakland who organized auto workers in Detroit before going to law school. I want to talk a little bit about your use of the body and all of your bodies of work. So I'm not spoiling it because I'm sorry to bother you has been around for many years. So I can talk about how like the workers, the workers turn into horses. If you haven't seen it yet, that's on you. Right. Exactly. But in sorry to bother you, the workers turn into horses. And I'm a Virgo.

Cudy is like this 13 foot tall presence in a world that, you know, doesn't make space for him. In Boosters, I can't talk about you, you know, there's a spoiler there, but Lakeith Stanfield's character, it is very, much in the body. So every one of your political arguments is something done to a body. So in your films, capitalism doesn't just show up as a system. It also shows up in like the very physical manifestation. Yeah, that's interesting. I mean, why is it physical for you? Well, I think it might be connected to my work in music, right? No matter how, you know, like, so when I started, when I decided to become a rapper, I was not good at all. I wasn't just not good.

I was bad. Not only did I know that, my friends knew that. Yeah. So it was surprising to them. And that in what sense? I was just not good. I had to learn, you know, how to not be corny. I had to learn, you know, all sorts of things.

And it is, you know, it is a skill. It is a talent. It is something that you build and you hone. And only because I was, I came from a disciplined party, did I know that I, did I have the philosophy that I could get better? Yeah, that I could just work on it and figure that out. Why was wrapping the thing you wanted to invest in to get better? First, I saw it around me. And so I thought that it was a cool thing to do.

But when I solidified, when it solidified that I'm going to do this was, We were working in the Double Rock projects in San Francisco. This is 89. And there was a case in which a woman named Rossi Hawkins and her two twin sons got beat down, her two twin eight-year-old sons got beat down by the police. And the neighborhood of Double Rock came out and started. started charging the police. And the cops shot in the air.

The crowd ran away. And the story that everybody tells, the thing that made everyone turn around was someone started chanting, fight the power, fight the power. And that was 1989, do the right thing. The song from Do the Right Thing, Fight the Power. It was all over the radio. And that was a unifying rallying cry. So I started seeing.

with music and now art in general how it could have that place. So I started doing that. Now, started doing music, I taught myself, blah, blah, blah. What I learned from music. Yes, about the body. Yeah, is what I learned from music is that it doesn't matter because I got known as a lyricist, right? So it didn't matter how great someone's lyrics were, like, except to a couple, like, rap lyric nerds or whatever, right? it didn't matter people are like what does the beat sound like what does that how does that beat make

me feel and a lot of that for in the particular way that it was a visceral thing like that ate away you feel it the the way the music might drop out or something come in it it makes you it makes your heart pump in a certain way it makes you feel connected and And so my whole style, even when it's not sticking to the body, is about creating a viscerality through cinema, right? And so it's how the camera moves. It's everything. And so part of what I'm also doing is making you think about something physical, right? Something like how do we touch the system?

We don't just think about it. It's not just these theoretical things because I'm starting my art from a very personal place. And sometimes it can get grotesque. Yeah. It can get grotesque like, and sorry to bother you and they turn into horses. I mean, it's a very disturbing thing to feel. Thank you. And it's some disturbing things in this movie, too, I would say.

Yeah, but it's a spoiler. Definitely. So what I want to do is compel people and repel people at the same time. Right. I want to have that push and pull. I want people to be able to feel things to know this is made by someone. This is made by hundreds of people. Because healing does what in that way? Yeah. It makes you engage with it in a different way. So let's say a very, let's say a very basic thing. If I'm like, this person is sad and therefore we're playing the violence, you know, like you'll be like, okay, they're sad. And you're, you're, you're, you're, you. You're, you're, you're, you. You're, you're, you're. You're. You're. You're. You're. You You won't even question it, like they're sad and blah, blah, but you go on automatic. And I don't want people to be on automatic. I want people to be understanding, you know, it's like seeing the brush strokes, right, in something. Like, it doesn't take you out of the painting to see the breaststrokes.

It brings you into it more. And so I want people to think about, engage with this work in a different way. And so that goes from, so the grotesque part is something that I think is connected to, you know, what we might, the horrors that we see and atrocities we see happening in our real life and how do we get a hold of that. And to do that in the midst of something that is ultimately optimistic. Yeah. Yeah. When you say ultimately optimistic.

I think the art that I make is optimistic. And to put that in this context is something that makes you think about what's in front of you in a different way. Like, I show the seams and stuff, and that has to do with, I'm trying to make things that are janky and with this beautiful clutter. And it's very inspired to me. And you use the term janky, you know, which is typically a negative term. Like, it's janky. It's busting. Yeah.

It's not good. Punk is a negative term, too. But you're not using it that way. So you're not using janky in a negative way. No, I'm like, this is like the jankiness of life. And obviously, I'm choosing what's in the frame. and it's very made, right? And it's heightened.

But I want something that makes you think about that jankiness and see the seams and see things. So I can say like we have, and it's about textures. We have miniatures. We have stop motion. You know, we have all sorts of stuff. Let's take a short break. If you're just joining us, my guest is filmmaker, rapper, and organizer Boots Riley. His new film, I Love Boosters, a real.

arrives in theaters on May 22nd. We'll be right back after a break. This is fresh air. This is fresh air. I'm Tanya Mosley. And my guest today is Boots Riley. His new film is called I Love Boosters out May 22nd. You know, Boots, you have talked a lot about your father.

And there's so many parallels between you and him. You know, we're recording this the day after Mother's Day. And I had me thinking about your mother because there's something that you said years ago about your late mom that is stuck with me. You said that she put her hopes and dreams aside and that watching her life taught you that many women don't have a chance to realize theirs. I don't remember saying that, but it sounds right. Yeah. Yeah. Tell me about your mom.

So my mother was born to a black pre-beat poet. named Lawrence Patterson and a German Jewish mother named Anita Pinner in New York and she was born in the 40s so just even then being mixed, it wasn't something

that is as prevalent as now and she got pregnant with my sister when she was 15 and kind of was left alone. To care for her. Yeah, yeah. And before that time, she was part of the children's theater workshop that became Sesame Street. How? In what way? She was one of the cast members.

Really? What was her role? I don't know. I just saw a picture and she told me about it because this would come up all the time about, because she then had four kids. And so she would sometimes let folks know, not just sometimes. a lot of times. Let folks know what she gave. Well, what she gave up. Oh. And I didn't find out until after she died, she wrote a lot of poetry by reading her journals. Don't read your mom's journals after she dies. You'll find a lot about other men and very specific things that you don't want to know about your mom. But you also found out that she was a poet. And her mother also, though, was a poet. Her mother also was involved in theater and was the director of Oakland Ensemble Theater. Because she then later came, even though her mom moved away from her when she was a teenage mother, she came to be like, no, you're going to help me with this. And she moved to Berkeley.

That's how she got to the West Coast. So your grandmother, your mother's mother is what introduced you. You talk about these stories about the theater in Oakland. That was your maternal grandmother. Yeah, yeah. But it was, it definitely did not make me want to do theater. That's that whole experience. Yeah, just like in the sense that it was boring, old people stuff.

You know, like somebody sitting on the couch arguing with each other. There was always a slap. Like, I think the actors of a certain age, they always want to slap. Right. They'll be like, should they slap me? You know, something like that. That's the action. Right.

Or that's like the emotional thing. What are the things I'll say, Boots, that struck me, though, about that quote that you don't remember that you said about your mom? I mean, it sounds true. When did you realize that, though, that, wow, my mom maybe didn't have a fully realized life? Was that something that you had the emotional intelligence as a child? Or was it when you were older? Well, I think, you know, she told us. And also that was what she was doing later was like, okay, I'm doing this.

now because I've had this other life, right? She was around artists. She was around musicians. I was around jazz musicians, John Handy, you know, like all... Some great ones from really. Yeah, Oliver Johnson. One time she took us to France, and we were with all these jazz musicians who were from Oakland, you know, that was around the same time.

I was 15. So I saw all this stuff. At the same time, I did also... see like, oh, these people don't grow up. Like, I've had this idea about artists and musicians specifically. Like, there's a rested development compared to the rest of whoever I knew, right? And so I was like, I definitely don't want to be a musician. Because I want to grow.

I want to involve. I felt like it was just, and it was maybe the particular people she was around, right? So, but my point is, is that she wanted to be a. around the excitement of creating things. And so it took, you know, all of these things about art and music that she was exposing me to. And so there was definitely a huge artistic influence from that and from her whole side of things. But it was, yeah, very much I could see, like, she wasn't making things in the way that she wanted to do. Maybe not fulfilled.

Yeah. Which it strikes me with I Love Boosters that this is a movie about women who are creators and their dreams are happening against a system that won't let them. Yeah. Yeah. And I mean, that story is just so prevalent around these people I know. You're right. You're pointing out some connection that I didn't think about.

But I think for the same reason that I wrote the song I Love Boosters, I wanted to spend time with those characters and they seem interested. The real version of those characters, they still do exist. How do you think your radical 15-year-old self or 25-year-old self would look at yourself today? They'd be like, are you kidding me? You're making Star Wars for radical politics? When can I see it? That's how you describe this film is Star Wars for Radical Politics. You feel like this is the Star Wars for Radical Politics. Yeah, well, I mean, but to be fair, Star Wars was supposed to be the Star Wars for radical politics.

George Lucas, and I've confirmed this with him in person and you can find him online talking about it, I just want to drop the fact that I have met George Lucas. Right. And that you've had this conversation. Yeah, is that he originally was supposed to. do what became apocalypse now. Yeah. And after American graffiti, he had this

hit. He figured he could do whatever he wanted. So it was based on heart of darkness. So he was doing heart of darkness but where the main characters were the Viet Cong. Yep. And the person that they were going to get their version of Kurtz was someone who

had betrayed them and started working with the United States and became evil in that. They were like, it's too radical. You're not going to, you're never going to make this movie. Nobody's going to fund it. And he couldn't get funding.

And he was like, how about if I put it in space? Yeah. And that is a story that, like, I can see why you hold on to that. I think that's really interesting. For you, though, I just wonder, you know, that uses, like, space and science fiction and things. And your art is much more on the nose. It's much more on the head. much more it's using metaphor, but it's telling you.

Yeah. Here's my thing. I feel like as long as I can keep you, like, so I've just done a tour since South by Southwest. I've played this movie 35 times maybe, and I've sat through it every time. Boisterous laughter, sometimes I'm worried people aren't getting the dialogue

because they're laughing over certain parts. And, you know, it's crazy. So my thing is, in the same way with my music, if I keep you dancing, I got you, right? In this case, all of that stuff, whatever. If I keep you laughing and keep you interested and keep you on the edge of your seat and feeling surprised and engaged, then I have license to do almost anything. So, but it, it's a, it ends up being a balance because if I'm going to do this thing that says, Hey, it's like A, B, and C, I have to have something that's still pulling you in. And so that's actually been the thing that I've honed for 30 years. This is my second film, but it's not my second thing. Right.

And I think what makes the film work is that it just works on a basic level. And then you think about, like, oh, this is what he's saying. But it's very clear what I'm saying. It's not, it's not like, there's no, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. And I like art that does that. Boots Riley, thank you so much for this film and thank you for this conversation. Thank you so much for having me. Boots Riley's new film is I Love Boosters. It opens in theaters on May 22nd.

Coming up, book critic Marine Corrigan reviews two new novels that are worlds apart, but united by the bond of loneliness. This is fresh air. This is fresh air. Our book critic, Marine Corrigan, says although the main characters in new novels by Nigerian writer Pemi Aguda and American writer Elizabeth Strout are worlds apart, they're united by the bond of loneliness. Here's her review. In Beloved, Tony Morrison writes of a kind of loneliness that is wrapped tight like skin. I don't think Morrison's taught simile has been topped, but two new novels attests to the inexhaustibility of language to describe. a state we all unwillingly experience. Peek at the multiple categories that Pemé Aguda's debut novel, One Leg on Earth, is shelved under, and you'll start to understand how distinctive her writing is.

Amazon, for instance, sells the book under horror, occultant, supernatural, city life, and literary fiction. It's all those and more. Agudis shy main character is a 23-year-old Nigerian college graduate named Yosoye, a communications major. She feels lucky to have been assigned to an architectural firm in Lagos for her year of national service. Determined to shuck off what she thinks of as her inward tilt, Yosoye walks into a local joint shortly after moving into her one-room apartment. She convinces herself to sit down and order a beer. And when a man approaches, she goes off to a cheap motel with him and has sex. Then she discovers she's pregnant.

In addition to all the mundane reasons why this pregnancy comes at a less than ideal time for Yesoye, there's also something weird happening in Lagos. Pregnant women have been walking into the ocean, jumping into lagoons and drowning themselves. Some force compels them to be one with water. Aguda has linked motherhood and the supernatural before in her 2024 short story collection, Ghost Roots, which was a finalist for the National Book Award.

Here, it's not only the mass suicides that render Yosoye's Lego sinister. It's also the locale of the building, project where she works, churning out promotional materials. Omi City will be a preserve of the wealthy, built on a peninsula reclaimed from the ocean. Right now, though, it's just miles of empty sand occupied only by the architectural firm's rough headquarters. The self-important employees there barely acknowledge Yosoye's existence. Her lifelong loneliness, motivates Yossoye to keep the pregnancy. Here's her thinking. An outline. That's what Yosoye had always

felt like, a hollow outline of a person moving through space. It explained why people looked at her and looked away. An outline had no mass, no grounding force. This baby was now a dark little spot inside that outline. Yossoye felt its weight. As it grew, she would be shaded in until she became a real person. Through uncanny language and images, Aguda enchants her readers into an intimate connection with Yossoye. Talk about enchantment. Every time Elizabeth Strout brings out a new novel, which is often, I think to myself, she can't pull up. another great book again, and then she does. Strout's signature subjects of loneliness and class humiliation

reappear in the things we never say, although Lucy Barton, a mainstay of her recent books, is absent. Instead, we meet someone new. Artie Dam is a 57-year-old high school history teacher, the kind of teacher who genuinely cares about his students and changes some of their lives. That said, Artie finds himself leading a secret life of sadness. He even contemplates suicide.

A puzzling separation from his beloved adult son is one cause, but there's also Artie's low-level feeling of isolation. For instance, arriving home after a cocktail party, Artie says to his wife Evie, I wonder why people never said anything real. Evie, a therapist, dismissively tells him not to be an idiot. We're told that Artie, as he walked to the closet with their coats, felt a dismalness returned to him.

There's a major secret revealed in the course of this story. An Artie's special area of interest, American Civil War history, allows the novel to make some profound commentary about our own contemporary civil wars. But Strout readers know her most overwhelming epiphanies sneak up in throwaway moments, fragmented short paragraphs. I'll leave you with one of those paragraphs, courtesy of Strout's omniscient narrator. So blind we humans are, so blind, to each other and to ourselves, moving through life as though through shadows, putting out a hand in the dark and thinking we have touched someone, and maybe we have, but mostly we travel through life unsighted, grasping only the smallest details of one another's selves, including our own, thinking all the while that we can see. Marine Corrigan is a professor of literature at Georgetown University. She reviewed two novels by Pei Mi Aguda and Elizabeth Strout.

Tomorrow on fresh air, as President Trump heads to Beijing for his summit with Xi Jinping, we speak with China expert in former national security official Rush Doshi. He says events of the past year show that China now faces the U.S. as a true peer as they square off over trade and tariffs, the Iran conflict, and the future of Taiwan. I hope you can join us. To keep up with what's on the show and get highlights of our interviews, follow us on Instagram at NPR Fresh Air. Fresh Air's executive producer is Sam Brigger.

Our technical director and engineer is Audrey Bintam. Our engineer today is Adam Stanishefsky. Our interviews and reviews are produced and edited by Phyllis Myers, Anne-Marie Baldinado, Lauren Crenzel, Teresa Madden, Monique Nazareth, Thea Chaliner, Susan Nukundi, Anna Bauman and Nico Gonzalez Whistler. Our digital media producer is Molly C.B. Nesper. Roberta Shorak directs the show.

With Terry Gross, I'm Tanya Mosley.