Sony Music launches new podcast: "Without" -- What We Stand To Lose

Sony Music Entertainment and Hyperobject Industries announced the launch of Without, a new podcast hosted by international bestselling author Omar El Akkad that takes listeners on an exploration of the things we stand to lose, the things we should be losing, and what might still be saved.

Every episode of Without is a thought experiment – what would the world look like if something we’ve become used to were no longer around? In some cases, it’s something we’re already losing – species, natural phenomena, places. In other cases, it’s things we probably should learn to live without – fossil fuels, nuclear weapons.

In other cases, it’s purely a speculative thesis – what would happen if the internet totally collapsed tomorrow? Available now, episode one digs into the surprising significance of sand, uncovering its looming scarcity and the unexpected underworld of sand crime.

What? You've never heard of "Big Sand?" El Akkad explains how beach sand is too eroded to be used for concrete, so river sand is then dredged. The problem? River sand is becoming scarce. Scarcity drives up demand, prices, and illegal activity. There's actually a sand Mafia.

Do you know that audio maxim that authors should not narrate their own books? Well, in this case, author El Akkad is a terrific host, whose voice has a soft-edged, accommodating quality that complements a talent for narrative excellence. I listened to episode one, and any host that can make sand exciting has a gift for communication and connection with listeners.

Episode two is about coffee, and I promise you that you won't need any caffeine to stay engaged in this tale of a vital product that provides wake-up calls to millions of people around the world.

El Akkad is an author and journalist whose debut novel, American War, is a prophetic and haunting allegory for a very near dystopian future: a United States ravaged by climate change and disease. In Without, El Akkad continues his thought experiment around what our future could look like. From antibiotics to glaciers to public spaces, the podcast tackles how we process a world that’s changing faster right now than any other time in human history.

Omar El Akkad was born in Egypt, grew up in Qatar, moved to Canada as a teenager and now lives in the United States. His work earned a National Newspaper Award for Investigative Journalism and the Goff Penny Award for young journalists. His fiction and non-fiction writing has appeared in The New York Times, The Guardian, Le Monde, and Guernica, GQ. His debut novel, American War, is an international bestseller and has been translated into thirteen languages. It won the Pacific Northwest Booksellers’ Award, the Oregon Book Award for fiction, the Kobo Emerging Writer Prize and has been nominated for more than ten other awards. It was listed as one of the best books of the year by The New York Times, Washington Post, GQ, NPR, Esquire and was selected by the BBC as one of 100 novels that changed our world.

His new novel, What Strange Paradise, was released in July, 2021 and won the Giller Prize, the Pacific Northwest Booksellers’ Award, the Oregon Book Award for fiction, and was shortlisted for the Aspen Words Literary Prize. It was also named a best book of the year by the New York Times, the Washington Post, NPR and several other publications.

"Without is, in many ways, a show about the end of certainty. If there was ever a time when we could rely on the load-bearing beams of the world to stay unchanged, that time is over," said El Akkad. "From glaciers to seasons to the continued availability of a resource as common as sand, the Anthropocene is ridding us of our communal belief that some things will always be around, always be the same. This isn’t a show meant to scare people or scream that the end is nigh, it’s about how we think and behave in a world that’s changing faster and more fundamentally than at any other time in our history."

I highly recommend this podcast for several reasons. First, the premise is timely and thought-provoking. This world is losing animals, plants, environments, and resources every day. Asking: What will we do WITHOUT these things is vital to our survival on this planet.

Second, El Akkad is a terrific podcast host, who can weave a compelling narrative, and prompt us to think about what we're doing to our planet. As a host, El Akkad is not an alarmist who wants to scare us, but instead he wants us to assess our options on how we move forward with caring for our world.

Third, there are excellent production values by Sony Music and Hyperobject Industries, as they use sound to paint images for us, the listeners.

When you listen to Without, remember that 150-200 animal and plant species go extinct every day. 

Photo by Pok Rie