How we gather, listen, and connect.
Music is one of the most reliable ways humans have found to reach each other — and one of the most powerful tools communities have for preserving their history and culture. Our programs are designed around that belief: public spaces where people can gather, listen deeply, and engage with the records, artists, and eras that have shaped who we are and who we're becoming.
Our signature format. Held on Sunday evenings, each listening session is a collective act of cultural preservation — a space where we slow down, engage deeply with music, and recover the history and context that streaming culture tends to strip away.
Most sessions center a single album from start to finish on a high-fidelity sound system, pausing between sides to share history, invite questions, and open space for collective dialogue. Others follow a wider thread — a genre, a scene, an era, a cultural movement, or a connecting idea across multiple records. A guest co-host might explore the politics of funk, the migration of reggae into diaspora communities, the evolution of jazz as protest, or the roots of a regional hip-hop scene.
Each session features guest co-hosts — educators, DJs, journalists, and cultural voices — who help excavate the production, politics, and social conditions behind the music. Conversations move across race, migration, labor, gender, and power.
Cue the Record curates its own record collection — available in person at our events and through a mobile pop-up — selected with the same intention we bring to every session. Every record is chosen because it is worth sitting with: music that carries history, demands attention, and rewards deep listening.
Our library is a curated and growing collection of books, periodicals, and reference materials spanning music culture, audio, art, and design — available to browse during our events and programs. Together, the records and the library form a living archive: a resource for anyone who wants to go deeper into the music, the history, and the culture surrounding it.
From time to time, Cue the Record expands beyond the records. Film screenings, panel discussions, artist talks, and intergenerational community gatherings grow out of the same spirit as everything else we do — following the music wherever it leads, and building the infrastructure for ongoing cultural engagement.
Community Programming is where we deepen relationships: with the artists whose work we center, with the institutions and organizations whose missions align with ours and with the neighborhoods we call home. These events are often collaborative, always contextual, and grounded in the belief that communities build power when they see themselves reflected accurately in history and when they gather regularly enough to trust one another.
We are also developing pathways for young people — including those returning from incarceration — to engage in cultural production, programming, and the creative economy through partnerships with aligned organizations.
Interested in partnering on cultural programming? Email contact@cuetherecord.org
Extended Play is Cue the Record's curated vinyl DJ format — a journey through deep cuts, international sounds, funk, soul, and the genres that rarely make it to center stage.
Where our listening sessions slow things down around a single record or theme, Extended Play opens the floor: a carefully sequenced set that traces connections across artists, eras, and geographies. The focus is on breadth — exposing listeners to music that has been historically under-credited or commercially overshadowed, and honoring the communities whose creativity it represents.
These events are designed to feel like a guided voyage. The sequence matters. The transitions are intentional. Every record played earns its place.
Cue the Record exists because music is one of the most reliable ways humans have found to reach each other and connect. Our programs are the practice.
