Noah Caldwell

Babacar Niang, known as Matador, raps at a recording studio at one of Africulturban's facilities in Pikine, Senegal on April 26, 2018.

How Senegal's artists are changing the system with a mic and spray paint

Ari Shapiro

A cultural center in Senegal is creating a safe space where artists can use their platform to speak about climate change while also finding opportunities in the art and music scene.

Yaram Fall makes tea in her home in Guet N'dar, Senegal on October 6. She is the head of an economic interest group for women who preserve fish. She represents hundreds of Senegalese women who do her kind of work, and she discourages youth from taking the boat to Europe clandestinely.

'Stay here, work here, succeed here': Why this Senegalese woman is against migration

Ari Shapiro

Yaram Fall is staunchly against people leaving Africa to build their lives elsewhere. "The development of Africa comes from its own people," she says.

Mamadou Niang at his home in Gandiol, Senegal, on Oct. 6. Mamadou's father worked their family farmland until he died in 2006, and Mamadou would have liked to follow in his footsteps. But he can't, he says, because rising seas are pushing salt water into the fields.

He has attempted the journey to Europe three times, and refuses to give up

Ari Shapiro

Mamadou Niang has decided he has no choice but to leave his native Senegal. Salinization has made it impossible to farm his family's land.

Pape Dieye in Guet N'dar, Senegal on October 7.

People smugglers keep trying to recruit this boat captain. He keeps refusing

Ari Shapiro

Years of captaining a boat have shaped Pape Dieye's calm and reassuring presence in Senegal. These qualities have also caught the eye of people hoping to make the dangerous journey to Europe.

Mamadou Thiam in Saint-Louis, Senegal on October 5.

Saint-Louis is being swallowed by the sea. Residents are bracing for a new reality

Ari Shapiro

The problem is as simple as it is devastating: the Atlantic Ocean is expanding into Senegal, and Saint-Louis is ground zero. Every year, the island loses a little bit of land to the sea.

The NPR team doing interviews in Senegal.

Travel diary: Tracking climate, migration and the far-right from Africa to Europe

Ari Shapiro

Welcome to the travel blog for the NPR project that examined how the ripples of climate change radiate outward.

How one county clerk in Michigan is preparing for a rocky election day

Noah Caldwell

NPR's Ailsa Chang talks with Justin Roebuck, Ottawa County, Michigan county clerk, about election integrity and misinformation.

Some tapes from Syrian Cassette Archive's collection.

The Syrian Cassette Archive, preserving a disappearing history

Ari Shapiro

When Yamen Mekdad and Mark Gergis met in 2018, the pair combined their love of Syrian cassettes into a project aiming to save them — and share them more widely.

Terri Lyne Carrington, whose new book <em>New Standards: 101 Lead Sheets By Women Composers</em> <em></em>explores the work of foundational women jazz artists.

Terri Lyne Carrington addresses women's omission from jazz canon with 'New Standards'

Juana Summers

After finding an abysmally low number of women artists' work within jazz's unoffical book of standards, Carrington set out to fix the problem with a book of her own.

On debut solo album, Marcus Mumford explores healing, mercy and forgiveness

Juana Summers

NPR's Juana Summers chats with Marcus Mumford about his debut solo album, Self-Titled, which is a deeply personal exploration of healing, mercy and forgiveness.