About This Series

Hyphenated: Music + Identity is an audio documentary series about immigrant and second generation immigrant musicians in Europe navigating their "hyphenated" identity through their music.

In recent years, in interviews I've done with what I call "hyphenated artists" – that being musicians with a hyphen between their identities – such as Haitian-Canadian, Nigerian-British, or Angolan-French – there has been a reoccurring topic of conversation about the issues they face in trying define themselves in their new home, how they search to understand who they are, how others perceive them, and especially how this journey influences the music they create.

Also, as one might expect, their music is a reflection of who they are. Therefore don't expect their music to fit neatly into one genre or another. There's no single checkbox for either these artist or their music. It's about borders and frontiers, both within themselves and their music.

So the mission of Hyphenated: Music + Identity is to put some light on these artists, give them space to tell their story, and to introduce you, the listener, to new music, and perhaps new perspectives on the world.

Producer/Creator

Ron Deutsch

I've had a long and varied career in the entertainment world. I began as a concert sound engineer in San Francisco in my 20's for bands ranging from the Grateful Dead to the Dead Kennedys, as well as artists including David Crosby, Jose Feliciano, and John Hiatt, amongst many others. In my 30's, I wrote screenplays in Los Angeles, and ran my own story analysis and script consulting business for a decade with clients including the Showtime Network, Village Roadshow, and director James Cameron. I also did production work for documentary filmmakers the Maysles Brothers and title designer Dan Perri. In addition to making my own short documentaries, I co-wrote and associate produced the documentary OK Buckaroos on the life and times of singer Jerry Jeff Walker, and am associate producer of Psychedelicized: The Electric Circus Story, a documentary on the infamous 1960's New York niteclub. For the last quarter century I've written and conducted interviews for both print and online publications, including National Geographic, Wired News, The Austin-American Statesman, The San Francisco Weekly, Gramophone, and Chamber Music America. I was a contributing editor at both Sonicnet/MTVnews and the International Documentary Association's Documentary magazine. And for the last decade, I have been a featured contributor to the National Public Radio program, Afropop Worldwide. I'm currently based in Spain.