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Red for Revolution from Radiotopia Presents

March 6, 2025·35 min·3 clips

Ella Ali tells Lorraine she fell in love — and the punchline is revolution, not her, though the chemistry between them suggests both.

The episode opens with a promotional ad for a Radiotopia podcast called Suburban Paradise, followed by an Audre Lorde quote about doing battle where you stand. Narrator Adrienne Marie Brown introduces the series as a multi-channel generational story of love and liberation. Jasmine James records her first podcast episode as a newly graduated high school student who has just come out as queer to her grandmother Ella Ali, the only person she trusts. Jasmine explains that she and her grandmother have more in common than she realized, and she wants to document Ella's story while she still can. Jasmine then nervously prepares for a Zoom interview with Lorraine Giovanni, a gospel and soul singer who is a contemporary of Ella's. She has lied to Lorraine about the purpose of the interview and has not told her grandmother she contacted Lorraine at all. The interview proceeds with Lorraine recounting the day in 1971 when she heard on the radio that her best friend Joanne Sands had been shot and killed by a prison guard. The press described Joanne as a militant radical. Lorraine smoked cigarettes all day, waiting for a call that never came. The narrative shifts to 1971, where both Ella and Lorraine are separately devastated by Joanne's death. Joanne is buried in her hometown of Gary, Indiana. At the funeral, Lorraine and Ella share a silent glance that conveys a shared pain. Days later, at a political rally in Gary, Ella and Lorraine officially meet. Ella is there as a philosophy professor and revolutionary organizer; Lorraine is the featured singer. Their first exchange is charged with mutual admiration and gentle sparring. Lorraine delivers a speech about Joanne's murder, Black women's lack of protection, and the necessity of revolution — it is her first time speaking this way publicly. Ella tells her she thinks she fell in love, and Lorraine asks if she means with her. Ella says 'revolution, darling.' Backstage in a shared dressing room, Ella and Lorraine have an intimate conversation about the cost of speaking out. Lorraine fears ending up dead like Joanne or silenced like the blues women she admires. Ella asks who she is without her makeup mask. Lorraine applies red lipstick to Ella, and the two share a charged moment before being interrupted. Lorraine then sings a song about revolution at the rally, departing from her usual set, and the audience sees she has lipstick on her face. After the rally, Ella and Lorraine smoke together and Ella learns that Lorraine and Joanne had a physical affair. Ella confesses she told Joanne she loved her romantically, and Joanne did not reciprocate. Both women carry grief over Joanne's death intertwined with the complexity of their prior relationships to her. The episode ends with a frame-break: Jasmine, back in the present, nervously calls a friend and says she wants to tell them something, playing one of Lorraine's songs to say what she cannot yet say herself.

As heard by us

A grief-laced audio drama where private feeling and public struggle keep colliding.

Red for Revolution treats liberation as something first heard through sound: a funeral, a rally in Gary, a sound check, and a conversation that keeps opening out around Ali and Ella.

Read the full review in PlayNext →

Why you'd press play

If you want revolution heard through grief, nerves, and music, start here.

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →

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