Christina Blyde

Diali Cissokho, a Senegalese musician, moved to the United States several years ago hoping to meet like-minded musicians. He formed the band Kaira Ba with four North Carolina natives.

A bastard film is a film that does not fit into any particular category. Bastard films are offensive, disturbing or just plain nonsensical.

Mount Moriah is getting ready to continue their national tour for their critically-acclaimed album, "Miracle Temple." The band was signed by Merge Records and this is their first release under the new record label. "Miracle Temple" offers fans more of Heather McEntire's soulful vocals and lyrics but takes chances with a more intricate sound. Host Frank Stasio talks with founding members Heather McEntire and Jenks Miller about the band's incredible success.

Experts are in Durham today and tomorrow, attending a conference on Haiti. Their goal is to assess and improve aid efforts to the country following the devastating earthquake there three years ago.

It's a collaboration between Duke University and North Carolina Central University called, “Humanitarianism in Haiti: Visions and Practice."

Free speech is considered a hallmark of universities across the nation, but in the 1960s, that wasn't always true. At least not for the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. In 1963, the North Carolina legislature passed a speaker ban, prohibiting communists from speaking on campus.

Students on campus bristled at the notion that they could not listen to anybody they chose.

  The Third Expression is an interesting hodgepodge of genres -- jazz, roots music and country -- and they only hit the Durham scene about two years ago.

Elaine Neil Orr was born and raised in Nigeria, the daughter of Baptist Missionaries. When she began writing her memoir about 10 years ago, her mother gave her a keepsake – the 1853 diary of the first Baptist Missionary in Nigeria. This artifact spoke to Orr, and it was the inspiration for her first novel, “A Different Sun: A Novel of Africa” (Berkley Trade/2013).

Several years ago, Chris Benfey decided to write a traditional memoir. He soon realized, however, that his family was anything but traditional. His new book, “Red Brick, Black Mountain, White Clay” (Penguin/2012), is part memoir, part history, part archeology.

It tells the stories of his ancestors’ work as bricklayers, his father’s escape from Nazi Germany and his great aunt and uncle’s pivotal role in the founding of Black Mountain College. Chris Benfey is a Professor of English at Mount Holyoke College. He joins Host Frank Stasio to discuss his family’s North Carolina stories.

Today, Pope Francis officially became the 266th Pope for the Catholic Church, and the first representative of the New World. The 265 men who served before him were all European, but Pope Francis was born in Argentina, where he continued to serve until the church tapped him for the top job in Rome.