Do you consider yourself a storyteller? It’s in human nature to tell stories. Stories have been used to pass down knowledge and legacy. The power of storytelling has the ability to transcend time. It has a way of connecting people across scripted lines in our society. 

A new exhibition opening next week wants to explore storytelling through the lens of food, poetry, comedy, visual art, fashion, film, and performance.

“Many Tongues,” curated by Omo Misha of Irwin House Global Art Center, will use activations to dive into the power of storytelling, while uplifting Detroit creatives.

Brittini Ward or Eye N Eye is a storyteller, poet and multidisciplinary artist. Her recent works include “The Seer,” commissioned by the Kennedy Center, and “Grandma’s Baby,” featured in Wasserman Projects’ Bas Bleu Exhibition.

LaMarr Ward is a film maker, multidisciplinary artist and featured panelist for “Many Tongues.” His works, “Windstorm Chronicles” will be on display.

They joined The Metro to talk about “Many Tongues” and the importance of storytelling as a connector for all people.

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You may be familiar with the Grammy-winning band Red Hot Chilli Peppers, famous for songs like “Dani California on Stadium Arcadium” or “Can’t Stop” off the 2002 album “By The Way.”

Hall of Fame Red Hot Chili Peppers drummer Chad Smith recently announced The Chad Smith Foundation. Chad grew up in Michigan and returned to the place where he got his start to help students do the same. 

The Curtis and Joan Smith Scholarship will honor his parents while also providing need-based support for incoming music students to the University of Michigan School of Music, Theatre and Dance. 

During U-M’s Band O Rama, Chad joined the Michigan Marching Band in Hill Auditorium for a performance including U of M’s fight song “The Victor’s” and the Red-Hot Chili Peppers classic “Can’t Stop.”

Tia Graham had the chance to chat with Chad about the foundation, the scholarship and growing up in Michigan.

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Ijania Cortez brings Detroit’s stories to life through color and community

Whether on canvas or a towering wall, Detroit artist Ijania Cortez creates portraits that reflect the city’s people and places. She uses vibrant color, often with neon tones, to capture the spirit of everyday Detroiters and the icons who shape the city.

Cortez’s murals appear throughout Detroit, including Cutter’s in Eastern Market and the Ruth Ellis Center’s Clairmont building. Her work celebrates community and the stories that define it.

In 2021, Cortez received the Kresge Gilda Snowden Emerging Artist Award and collaborated with Hubert Massey and the Detroit Institute of Arts Partners in Public Art Mural Program. She has also taken part in the BLKOUT Walls street art festival.

In 2025, she was recognized as a Ruth Ellis Center honoree and featured artist in Murals in the Market, hosted by 1xRUN.

The Carr Center is a hub for the visual and performing arts in Detroit focused on promoting and sharing the work of Black artists.  For the last 3 decades, it has thrived on collaborations with local community groups and organizations. 

The Detroit Fine Arts Breakfast Club is a local art enthusiast group that supports the fine arts in Metro Detroit. 

Recently, The Carr Center and Detroit Fine Arts Breakfast Club teamed up to present Bridges: Because of Them – Honoring the Past, Uplifting the Present, Shaping the Future. 

The show is curated by co-founder of Detroit Fine Arts Breakfast Club, Henry Harper, local art buyer Kendale L. Jones and multi-disciplinary artist Andre Reed Jr. 

Oliver Ragsdale Jr. is the CEO of the Carr Center and Henry Harper, the co-founder of Detroit Fine Arts Breakfast Club, and owner of Harper Galleries of Art and Interior.

Henry and Oliver joined The Metro to talk more about the exhibition and Detroit’s fine arts scene.

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Hamtramck has a vibrant arts scene. In duplexes around the city, you can hear people playing in a local band or practicing their comedy. 

Those people are often young and queer. 

Hamtramck Queer Alliance is making sure its presence is known and spreading the word, supporting the education and advocacy of all gender and sexual minorities, who are often involved in creative spaces.

Passenger Recovery was founded in 2016 with the goal of helping traveling artists maintain sobriety with tools and resources to allow for safe experiences on the road.  

Now, the artistic and sobriety space, Recovery Community Center, is trying to do even more to foster and protect local and visiting talent, and to expand its programming. They’ve found they often partner with the Hamtramck Queer Alliance, providing a safe space for all sorts of communities in the area. 

Bryan Wolf is the Director of Passenger Recovery and Passenger Radio, a music and sound professional and educator. Tim Price is Outreach and Marketing Director of Social Media for Passenger Radio WHCK. He is also the founder and curator of the Christopher Street Gallery in Hamtramck.

Bryan and Tim joined The Metro to talk more about what’s being happening in Hamtramck’s arts and culture scene.

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The Museum of Contemporary Arts Detroit is celebrating 20 years in 2026. As part of its anniversary, the museum is undergoing renovations and will remain closed through 2026. 

MOCAD will reopen with the theme of “Radical Imagination, Intersectional Futures.” The anniversary program will honor MOCAD’s roots as a site for civic and community engagement. 

Until the space reopens, MOCAD will host exhibitions and shows at the Mike Kelly Mobile Homestead. 

Right now, Heart Land, a solo exhibition by Detroit-based artist Mary-Ann Monforton, is on display. It’s free and open to the public.

Jova Lynne, co-director of MOCAD, joined The Metro to talk more about renovations, new exhibitions and 20 years of MOCAD. 

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Capturing love through photography

Elonte Davis is a Detroit-based photographer and a 2025 Kresge Fellow. His work has been featured in Forbes Magazine, the Detroit Institute of Arts, and the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History.

For Elonte, photography is a powerful tool to spread love and joy, helping people see themselves differently and with greater appreciation.

For almost 30 years now, InsideOut Literary Arts has helped countless Detroit students find a love and passion for creative writing.

InsideOut was founded by Dr. Terry Blackhawk, a Detroit Public Schools teacher, who had a goal to inspire young people through the written and spoken word. Since 1995, the organization has expanded, offering classroom instructions, free performances and career opportunities after participation.

This year, the organization made it a point to fill spaces throughout the city with youth poetry. They purchased 30 billboards, replacing ordinary ads with student writing. And as you drive through the Avenue of Fashion, you’ll see a new mural by artist Oshun Williams.

To cap the end of its 30th year, a party at The Norwood celebrates the joy and impact InsideOut Literary Arts over the past three decades.

Suma Karaman Rosen is Executive Director of InsideOut Literary Arts. Hajjar Baban is an InsideOut Alum and has a master’s in fine arts from University of Virginia. She is an award-winning poet and currently a poetry reader for Muzzle Magazine.

They joined The Metro’s Tia Graham to talk more about 30 years of poetry and more.

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What do you do to remember about family and friends who have passed on? Is it a tradition to keep photos up or maybe you save old voicemails. No matter how you choose to honor your loved ones, it’s important to keep their memories alive. 

Most of us are familiar with Day of the Dead, celebrated across the globe, from Mexico, Central and South Americas, to the Philippines, the tradition is a time to give offerings and to hold space for ancestors and loved ones lost.  

The Detroit Public Library continues to expand its offerings in the community with a celebratory event blending Halloween with “Day of the Dead.” The day of dancing will have music from Filipino EDM artist With Love, Harlow and Erika Irie.

With Love, Harlow joined The Metro to talk more about Filipino “Day of the Dead”. We were also joined by Detroit Public Library Manager Cully Sommers, who’s an expert on a popular library of music, arts and literature.

The event will take place at Detroit Public Library’s main branch on Saturday, November 1 from 2-5 p.m. 

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Donald Calloway has worked as an artist in Detroit for more than 30 years, constantly finding new ways to express his creativity. His work spans figures made from found and repurposed wood and metal, as well as portrait paintings and abstract sculptures.

A 2025 Kresge Artist Fellow and College for Creative Studies alum, Calloway has exhibited his work at the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History, the National Conference of Artists Gallery, and the Detroit Institute of Arts.

Our neighbors across the Detroit River have hosted the Windsor International Film Festival for 21 years. This year will be the first time the event will showcase outside of Canada. 

WIFF is working with with the Downtown Detroit Partnership so more film lovers have a chance to partake in the festival. 

Campus Martius Park will act as a satellite location and offer two films for audiences to watch. 

Vincent Georgie is Executive Director and the chief programmer for WIFF, and David Cowan is Chief Public Spaces Officer for the Downtown Detroit Partnership. They joined The Metro to talk more about the film festival. 

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Detroit or Waawiyatanong is the ancestral homelands of the three Anishinaabe nations: the Ojibwe, Ottawa, and Potawatomi.  

As you drive around the city of Detroit, oftentimes you’ll see street names like Cheyenne and Chippewa Avenue that serve as reminders of indigenous presence. 

For so many spaces in Detroit, the influence of the ancestral land holders persists. American Indians have been instrumental in the growth of the city. 

Today, on Indigenous People’s Day, the city of Detroit in collaboration with the North American Indian Association of Detroit, Detroit Indigenous Peoples Alliance, American Indian Health and Family Services, and Southeastern Michigan Indians will host a day of celebration. 

From noon-6 p.m., Hart Plaza will honor Indigenous People’s Day with cultural activities, including a powwow. 

Travis Schuyler is the program director with the North American Indian Association of Detroit. He spoke with The Metro’s Tia Graham. 

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James Boggs has the Detroit story. He was born into a sharecropping family in Junction, Alabama. He moved to the city and worked in the auto industry for over 20 years. His wife Grace was a Chinese American philosopher who was born in Rhode Island and lived in New York.

James and Grace Lee Boggs would go on to lead a movement of self-resiliency and working together as a community. They were instrumental in the Civil Rights Movement through the 60s and 70s and further into the eras with the Black Panther Party.  The two remained married for 40 years, until James’ death in 1993. 

Grace Lee Boggs carried their legacy and continued their work until her death in 2015 at the age of 100. She was an author, feminist, philosopher and social activist who inspired and changed the minds of so many, and made sure Detroit thrived with love and community. 

This month, The James and Grace Lee Boggs Foundation is celebrating with a 10 year memorial of her death. The gathering will honor the life and legacy of the civil rights activist and take a look at how to move forward in this moment in time we’re in today.

Donald Boggs, son of James Boggs and Alice Jennings, J.D. joined Metro host Tia Graham to talk more about the 10-year memorial honoring the life of Grace Lee Boggs. 

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Bevlove is a Detroit R&B songstress who uses her words to paint pictures over smooth productions.

Bevlove grew up understanding the power of music. Like so many Detroiters, church played a huge role in fostering Bev’s musical curiosities. The fellowship and hallelujah choruses were all building blocks for the way Bevlove performs today.

CONTAINER On The Metro is a new WDET-produced storytelling series that brings Detroit’s creative heartbeat to the airwaves.

CONTAINER is a program created by The Love Building to showcase Detroit’s most promising creative talent across music, fashion, fine arts and food. Done in collaboration with WDET Public Radio with major support from the Gilbert Family Foundation.

William Shakespeare is regarded as one of the greatest drama writers in recorded English language history. His work has lived on through the centuries, and today’s writers and directors have found ways to keep his works alive. 

Shakespeare in Detroit is one group that has made a name for themselves being the premiere space for classical performances.

Beginning as an initiative in 2012 called Shakespeare Against Cancer, the group traveled across Michigan hospitals, healing through classical performances.  A year later, Shakespeare in Detroit hosted the cities first ever public show, a Shakespeare in the park experience.

Since then, the grassroots organization has expanded its offerings, working with kids and teens, helping the next generation of theater folks find their niche. 

Next week as part of the company’s intimate 2025 fall limited run series, “Jane Anger” will make its Michigan debut. The dark comedy takes place in the 1600s during the plague.

Samatha White the founding artistic and executive director of Shakspeare in Detroit. She is also the director of Michigan’s premiere of “Jane Anger”. 

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Since 1928, The Redford Theatre has been a fixture in the heart of the Detroit community. Standing just off of Lahser and Grand River in Detroit, the theater prides itself on showing unique films. 

Recently, the theater received a grant from the state historic preservation office to restore its iconic steel windows, helping maintain the historic space and keep the charm that makes it a special place to view a film. 

As one of the busiest times of the year for the theater, Halloween season has become a favorite among movie lovers. The line-up ranges from horror and gore to family favorites. 

Directly next door to the theater is the Motor City Cinema Society. Its main goal is to curate, preserve and showcase movies on film and provide an engaging and inclusive experience for our patrons. 

Redford Theatre programmer and volunteer John Monaghan joined the show to talk more about the importance of preserving and showing films of the past. 

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Nabeela Najjar is the creative force behind Seamstress Bee, where she works as a costume and fashion designer.

A graduate of the College for Creative Studies, Nabeela uses her vision to create mystical costumes and designs inspired by the dreamworld and nature. She hand-dyes flowy fabrics like silk and chiffon to form one-of-a-kind, ethereal garments.

Nabeela was named a Gucci Changemaker Scholar, and her work has been displayed at the Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit. Her designs range from everyday wear to conceptual pieces you’d see on the runway.

We talk about the roads often on The Metro. From reducing truck traffic in Southwest to the impact of I-375 on Detroit’s historic Black neighborhoods, yet, who’s making sure these roads and highways are clean of trash? 

In 2022, According to the Michigan Department of Transportation, it cost taxpayers in the state nearly 8 million dollars for crews to pick up trash along state roads. And according to MDOT the price tag would be higher if it were not for programs like Adopt-A-Highway and dedicated volunteers to clean stretches of highway.

So what does it look like when a young artist gets involved and brings the community with him to clean up roads in Detroit?

All Notes is a creative and community platform blending music, social impact, and digital media founded by Detroit-based artist TommyPAPI.

Through the initiative, the Afro-Caribbean musician hosts livestream performances, neighborhood cleanups, and resource drives, connecting artists of all disciplines through support.  

Tommy received the spirit of Detroit for The Highway Cleanup project in September 2025. He joined The Metro to speak about the award and giving back to the community he calls home. 

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Colorism is defined in the Oxford dictionary as “prejudice or discrimination against individuals with a dark skin tone, typically among people of the same ethnic or racial group.” 

It’s one facet of discrimination that often goes without proper acknowledgment, and one that Professor Rogerio Pinto aims to shine a light on through his work.

Rogerio Pinto is a University Diversity Social Transformation Professor. He is a Berit Ingersoll-Dayton Collegiate Professor of Social Work and he’s a Professor of Theatre and Drama, School of Music, Theatre & Dance at The University of Michigan. 

Born in Brazil, Professor Pinto has dedicated his life to breaking the social constructs of colorism and other “-isms” that divide people. 

Earlier this year, Professor Pinto curated and hosted “Colorism,” a mixed-media installation that used video, photography, tactile elements and a montage to explore colorism. “Colorism” took a look at the term from its roots to where we are today in society.

Professor Pinto also curated a Secret Society of Twisted Storytellers live event on colorism.

Professor Pinto stopped by The Metro to explore the complexities of colorism and its impact on people immigrating to the U.S., and how to tackle identity in times of division.

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