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No Earbuds Allowed: 5 Songs For Commuting By Bicycle

NPR's soon-to-be London correspondent Ari Shapiro on his trusty steed.
Denise DeBelius / NPR
NPR's soon-to-be London correspondent Ari Shapiro on his trusty steed.

Ari Shapiro is wrapping up his tenure covering the White House for NPR and is about to make the transition to a new role as NPR’s London correspondent. To distract him from readying himself for the big move, NPR Music asked him for this playlist.

I ride my bike to work every morning, and one of the scariest things I see is people with earbuds in their ears, but no helmet in sight. That’s not me, I swear. I always wear a helmet, and I never wear headphones or earbuds. Cars are unpredictable! Bicyclists need to be aware of their surroundings!

But I confess that I sometimes tuck my iPhone into the inside pocket of my suit jacket and turn on the volume just loud enough for me to hear it as I ride. I love Morning Edition, but it doesn’t carry over the sound of traffic. And I want to listen to something that will make me start the workday feeling happy. So here are five songs that make me pick up the pace and gird myself for a day of battles at the White House.

Copyright 2024 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org. utm

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Ari Shapiro has been one of the hosts of All Things Considered, NPR's award-winning afternoon newsmagazine, since 2015. During his first two years on the program, listenership to All Things Considered grew at an unprecedented rate, with more people tuning in during a typical quarter-hour than any other program on the radio.

Shapiro has reported from above the Arctic Circle and aboard Air Force One. He has covered wars in Iraq, Ukraine, and Israel, and he has filed stories from dozens of countries and most of the 50 states.

Shapiro spent two years as NPR's International Correspondent based in London, traveling the world to cover a wide range of topics for NPR's news programs. His overseas move came after four years as NPR's White House Correspondent during President Barack Obama's first and second terms. Shapiro also embedded with the campaign of Republican Mitt Romney for the duration of the 2012 presidential race. He was NPR's Justice Correspondent for five years during the George W. Bush Administration, covering debates over surveillance, detention and interrogation in the years after Sept. 11.

Shapiro's reporting has been consistently recognized by his peers. He has won two national Edward R. Murrow awards; one for his reporting on the life and death of Breonna Taylor, and another for his coverage of the Trump Administration's asylum policies on the US-Mexico border. The Columbia Journalism Review honored him with a laurel for his investigation into disability benefits for injured American veterans. The American Bar Association awarded him the Silver Gavel for exposing the failures of Louisiana's detention system after Hurricane Katrina. He was the first recipient of the American Judges' Association American Gavel Award for his work on U.S. courts and the American justice system. And at age 25, Shapiro won the Daniel Schorr Journalism Prize for an investigation of methamphetamine use and HIV transmission.

An occasional singer, Shapiro makes frequent guest appearances with the "little orchestra" Pink Martini, whose recent albums feature several of his contributions, in multiple languages. Since his debut at the Hollywood Bowl in 2009, Shapiro has performed live at many of the world's most storied venues, including Carnegie Hall in New York, The Royal Albert Hall in London and L'Olympia in Paris. In 2019 he created the show "Och and Oy" with Tony Award winner Alan Cumming, and they continue to tour the country with it.

Shapiro was born in Fargo, North Dakota, and grew up in Portland, Oregon. He is a magna cum laude graduate of Yale. He began his journalism career as an intern for NPR Legal Affairs Correspondent Nina Totenberg, who has also occasionally been known to sing in public.

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