Tej Nagaraja

Tej Nagaraja, editor of this issue of WIN, is an educator, journalist, and activist in New York City.

We’ll Never Turn Back

Mavis Staples. Photo by Paul Natkin.

Mavis Staples Sings Her Own Time

Mavis Staples
We’ll Never Turn Back
2007, Anti Records, $18.98

Smart enough to reject a Bob Dylan marriage proposal back in the day, Mavis Staples endures. With her latest record, featuring selections from the Black Freedom Movement songbook, she cosmically plays with time—while transporting us to a bygone cultural moment, she sneaks the era’s sensibilities (spiritual, political, musical) seamlessly into our own. A bold move, it comes off as refreshingly passé.