A WECB Show Profile: R&B&A
by Noah Adaikkalam
Marlon Polycarpe is a seasoned WECB veteran. Coming up on his fourth semester, this man brings us his first solo show “R&B & Animals,” R&B&A for short. The show is exactly what it sounds like. He plays fresh R&B cuts, mixing in some chill rap and soul while talking about animals that interest him. I interviewed him last week, and we talked about his show, his music taste, and what he tells you about animals:
Where’d you get the idea for your show?
This is my fourth semester at WECB. I had done a different show with two other hosts, for the past three semesters. But, they were busy this semester so just I wanted to do a show by myself and uh, my sister listens to my show, and she said that there were points in the last show that I did where I would get on tangents about animals. I would just talk about them for at least 10 minutes and my sister said she really liked that and I was like “I kinda like doing that too,” so I was like “I’m just gonna make a show about talking about animals.”
So what do say about the animals?
I start off the show, I’m tryna make this like a trend, but I start off the show before I introduce the animal, I try to describe the animal in the worst possible way. Last night, I said, “So, imagine an animal that is basically a plastic bag with Christmas lights hung on it. That’s the animal.” Then I do a little break and then talk about the animal. I usually talk about how big the animal is, it’s weight, I always say how - this is some dumb little shit I do on the show, but every animal I give the weight and then I give how many bananas that would be. So, if I can remember, “The box jellyfish can grow up to be 4.4 pounds, that's about 11 bananas.” Then, I go off on why I think the animal’s cool. Last night I was talking about the box jellyfish, how it’s actually an active hunter, and what kind of food it eats, what predators it has. Cool little fun facts about the animal.
How do you pick the animals?
I was initially going to start off about the show talking about my favorite animal, but I’m actually going to do that next week, but, I picked crocodiles because they’re one of my favorite animals and I figured that’d be easy to talk about. Last week I picked sloths cause last week was my sisters birthday so I picked her favorite animal… I picked jellyfish this week because I was planning on talking about my favorite animal this week, but it’s also a tree-dwelling mammal, I don’t wanna do two tree animals back to back, so I’m gonna do some ocean animal.
Next week, I’m going to be doing my favorite animal, and from there on, I think I’ll just take request and ask my friends what animals they’d like to learn about, and then do some research.
Why R&B?
I just love R&B. The show I did before, it was usually at 10 am, one time it was at 8 am, so I wanted to go for a more late-night show. My last show was a really fun time, but it was pretty manic cause it was three people and we were talking and it was in the morning it was kinda the wake-you-up kinda thing. This time around I wanted to do a more chill show, so I chose R&B.
Who do you play mostly in terms of R&B?
I try to really vary it up, like last night I played, matter fact I can pull this up right now… I played some Noname, Frank Ocean, I played Slow Jamz, I played Amphetamine, Why iii Love the Moon, by Phony Ppl, Who Can I Run to by Xscape, that kind of stuff. Next week I’m gonna play Biggie. Like I really like “Big Poppa”, that's kinda my song.
You like R&B, where did that start?
I think it came from in high school when I got into Hip-hop. Like Hip-hop, and R&B, and Soul, they’re connected, it’s rooted in black culture and what not. When I got into Hip-hop, I found myself listening to more R&B and Soul and Stevie Wonder. The people in my family don’t really listen to much R&B, but I just found myself gravitating to it I guess.
How has being at Emerson or being in WECB contributed to your music taste or being on the show, OTHER than you going on Animal tangents?
I think it influenced my music taste a little bit. Definitely I feel like the music in general at Emerson, honestly, I wouldn’t say that hip hop or R&B is one of the most popular genres on campus... The last show I used to do, which is called “Yo, pass the Aux”, the whole idea is that each of us would bring in a new playlist every week, and so we all had really different tastes in music and because of that show, I started to listen to more... I found some music that I really liked. I’m actually about to play a song –the show is called R&B&A, but I also play like rap, and like chill rap and what not– but I found a lot of music I find myself listening to regularly. At least my friends who I did the show with helped me broaden my taste in music.
Make sure that you catch his show this next Wednesday at 8 pm - 9 pm so you can hear him gives some facts about his favorite animals while spinning Biggie.