Identified with Nabil Ayers

In this episode of Identified, Nabil Ayers sits down with bestselling author and literary agent Betsy Lerner to explore identity, family history, and the complicated path to becoming a writer. Betsy reflects on her upbringing, the influence of her family, and how personal experiences eventually shaped both her writing and her career in publishing. Known for her work as a literary agent as well as her acclaimed memoirs and books on writing, Betsy has spent decades helping writers uncover the stories only they can tell. The conversation explores how identity, family dynamics, and cultural background can influence the stories we carry and the stories we are willing to share. Betsy also reflects on the emotional challenge of writing personal material, the tension between honesty and vulnerability, and why the most powerful writing often comes from confronting the truths we try hardest to avoid. This is a thoughtful discussion about storytelling, memory, and the role writing plays in helping us understand where we come from. Guest: Betsy Lerner Host: Nabil Ayers Executive Producer: Kieron Banerji Produced by Palm Tree IslandSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Have you ever found community through your art? In this episode of Identified, Nabil Ayers sits down with musician Ryan Kattner to talk about growing up in an Air Force family, moving every three years, and never quite feeling rooted in one place. Ryan reflects on being mixed race, with a Filipino mother and a white father, and how navigating different cultural spaces shaped his sense of identity. He shares what it was like to feel caught between worlds, passing in some environments while feeling out of place in others. The conversation explores how constant movement shaped his understanding of family, where friends often became family, and how music eventually became a space where he felt understood and connected. Ryan also talks about the realities of life on the road, the bond that forms between musicians, and how creativity can help process loss and major life moments.   Guest: Ryan Kattner Host: Nabil Ayers Executive Producer: Kieron Banerji Produced and Distributed by: Palm Tree IslandSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

How much of who we are is shaped before we ever have a say? In this episode of Identified, Nabil Ayers sits down with musician Damon McMahon, formally Amen Dunes, to explore how family history, inherited trauma, and cultural identity shape who we become. Damon reflects on growing up between two very different worlds: his mother’s side of European Jewish Holocaust survival and his father’s working-class Irish American roots. He shares stories of how these legacies lived quietly in his family — sometimes spoken, often unspoken — and how they influenced his sense of self from an early age. The conversation moves through complicated family dynamics, childhood instability, and the ways creativity can act as a private space for processing what’s difficult to articulate. Damon talks candidly about how his music has long been a way of exploring identity, releasing emotion, and trying to understand the forces that shaped him. They also discuss how becoming a parent reshaped his understanding of family — not as something inherited, but something actively created.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

What does it mean to raise yourself across cultures—and carry tradition forward through food? In this episode of Identified, chef and author Camille Becerra sits down with host Nabil Ayers for a heartfelt conversation about family, identity, and the life-shaping power of memory. Born in Puerto Rico to a Puerto Rican mother and Cuban father, Camille moved to New Jersey at just one year old and grew up between cultures, languages, and generations. She reflects on growing up with a single mother, navigating a distant relationship with her father, and finding connection through her Puerto Rican family’s rituals—like traveling alone as a child to visit cousins, or waking early to buy bread from the local bakery. Food became her anchor and a bridge to memory and belonging. Camille opens up about defining family on her own terms, the blurred lines between relatives and chosen loved ones, and what it means to pass down tradition through flavor. Guest: Camille Becerra Host: Nabil Ayers Executive Producer: Kieron Banerji Production by Palm Tree Island See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Is Blood Really Family? In this episode of Identified, host Nabil Ayers sits down with Traci Thomas, creator and host of The Stacks Podcast, to explore the deeply personal terrain of identity, family, and legacy. Traci opens up about growing up mixed-race with older parents, navigating loss at a young age, and the impact of her Black and Jewish heritage on how she views belonging. Their conversation weaves through themes of grief, motherhood, and emotional inheritance, as Traci reflects on what it meant to lose her father in her twenties—and how that absence continues to shape her relationship to parenting and selfhood. She shares insights on the expansive nature of chosen family, the cultural roots of inclusion in Black and Jewish communities, and the quiet power of forging your own path in the absence of clear models. Traci’s honesty about not feeling naturally inclined to motherhood—while fully embracing the role—offers a fresh and nuanced view of modern parenting. This episode challenges traditional definitions of family, makes space for contradiction, and honors the complexity of claiming one’s story. Guest: Traci Thomas Host: Nabil Ayers Executive Producer: Kieron Banerji Production by: Palm Tree IslandSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In this episode of Identified, Nabil Ayers is joined by acclaimed comedian, actor, and musician Tim Heidecker for an unexpectedly candid conversation about ancestry, grief, and identity. Tim traces the impact of family tragedy across generations—from the death of his grandfather’s mother in childbirth, to the sudden loss of a sibling in his father’s childhood, and how that cascade of trauma subtly shaped his own upbringing in suburban Pennsylvania. He reflects on the weight of generational loss, the evolution from a tight-knit extended family to one defined by chosen bonds, and how becoming a father redefined his understanding of connection, vulnerability, and care. With humor and heart, Tim shares how he's created a nurturing and playful environment for his own children—while still reckoning with the echoes of the past. This episode explores themes of grief, resilience, chosen family, and the quiet strength it takes to raise a family differently. Guest: Tim Heidecker Host: Nabil Ayers Executive Producer: Kieron Banerji Production by Palm Tree IslandSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

What if your most formative identity traits come from people you didn’t grow up with? In this powerful episode of Identified, rapper and queer icon Cakes Da Killa reflects on growing up in Teaneck, New Jersey, raised by his teenage mother and grandmother. He shares openly about the complexities of reconciling with an absent father, discovering inherited traits in unexpected family members, and why — as a queer person — chosen family has always played a central role in his life. This episode touches on: Intergenerational strength from women in his family The slow repair of fractured paternal relationships The trauma of losing family homes and generational wealth The nuance of chosen vs. biological family And why his mother’s strength remains his biggest inspiration With clarity, wit, and raw honesty, Cakes shows that family — like identity — is something you get to define on your own terms.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In this episode of Identified, host Nabil Ayers speaks with Bandsplain host Yasi Salek, who shares a moving, honest account of growing up Iranian-American in 1980s Los Angeles. Yasi discusses her family’s immigration story post-Iranian revolution, her experience being the “other” in a predominantly white community, and the identity conflict that shaped her early life — including moments of rebellion in pursuit of American assimilation. The conversation explores the nuances of Middle Eastern family dynamics, the pressures of cultural tradition, and the value of commitment — both in blood ties and chosen families. Yasi reflects on a formative high school chapter in Singapore, her deep bond with her cousins, and the remarkable legacy of her grandfather: a communist, a vegetarian in the 1920s, and an enduring symbol of independence and personal philosophy. Guest: Yasi Salek Host: Nabil Ayers Executive Producer: Kieron Banerji  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In this episode of Identified, Nabil Ayers speaks with Massima Bell—music producer, model, activist, and co-creator of Transa—about her journey through gender, place, and chosen family. Massima grew up between two vastly different worlds: a 100-year-old farmhouse in rural Iowa and a life on the move with her mother, a PhD who brought her to urban and suburban spaces from Maryland to Buffalo. Her relationship with place—particularly the tension between the beauty of nature and the discomfort of rural social spaces—forms a backdrop to her story of coming into her identity. Massima shares how coming out as nonbinary and later as a trans woman shaped her relationships with her parents, especially the profound moment her father responded to her transition with just one word: “Congratulations.” She opens up about estrangement and reconciliation with her mother, the challenges of early transition, and the emotional weight of building a life where her body and spirit could align. This episode explores themes of gender identity, ancestry, estrangement, reconciliation, rural vs. urban America, and the power of chosen family—especially the trans women she calls her “sisters,” who form the heart of her most meaningful bonds. Guest: Massima Bell Host: Nabil Ayers Executive Producer: Kieron Banerji Production Company: Palm Tree IslandSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In this episode of Identified, host Nabil Ayers is joined by Jad Abumrad—artist, musician, journalist, and creator of Radiolab, Dolly Parton’s America, More Perfect, and Fela Kuti: Fear No Man—for a conversation about grief, family history, and what it means to belong to a culture you weren’t fully given.Jad shares stories from his Lebanese family: a great-grandmother whose ring he lost in the sea, a grandfather who buried his mother on the side of the road at age 10, and a father who narrowly survived a civil war and brought his entire extended family to Tennessee. But it’s only in recent years that Jad began to ask the deeper questions: What actually happened in Lebanon? Why did his family never talk about it? And what does it mean to claim a cultural identity that was never fully passed down?We also talk about: Growing up Arab in the U.S. during the Iran hostage crisis and 9/11 His early reporting in Lebanon and how it helped shape his voice The grief that shaped his family, and the one loss that reshuffled everything Choosing to raise kids with a sense of inherited identity—even when you didn’t grow up with one yourself Jad’s story is a moving reminder that family is built not just on what we’re given—but also on what we ask, uncover, and pass forward. Guest: Jad AbumradHost: Nabil AyersExecutive Producer: Kieron BanerjiProduced by: Palm Tree IslandMusic by: Noella & Patricia BrennanSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.