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Petey cuts through all the noise on 'USA'

We are all surrounded by a lot of noise. There's the noise that comes from outside — like ads, social media, the news and the radio — from the people and things around us, but there's also the noise inside your own head.

Petey has found ways to work with that kind of noise. It's what fuels much of the music on his new album, USA, which sometimes lyrically reads almost as a stream of consciousness. That inside-your-head noise is also what fuels his comedy. Petey's videos, where he plays all of the characters dealing with daily life, seem like the fragmenting of a single consciousness.

He started posting those videos on TikTok during the pandemic, a time when many of us were spending a lot of time alone with our own thoughts, and he quickly gained a following. In this session, Petey talks about becoming TikTok famous when you don't even consider yourself an "internet person," and we talk about how the pop punk he grew up listening to inspired his new album.

This episode of World Cafe was produced and edited by Miguel Perez. Our senior producer is Kimberly Junod and our engineer is Chris Williams. Our programming and booking coordinator is Chelsea Johnson and our line producer is Will Loftus.

Copyright 2023 XPN

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Raina Douris, an award-winning radio personality from Toronto, Ontario, comes to World Cafe from the CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation), where she was host and writer for the daily live, national morning program Mornings on CBC Music. She was also involved with Canada's highest music honors: hosting the Polaris Music Prize Gala from 2017 to 2019, as well as serving on the jury for both that award and the Juno Awards. Douris has also served as guest host and interviewer for various CBC Music and CBC Radio programs, and red carpet host and interviewer for the Juno Awards and Canadian Country Music Association Awards, as well as a panelist for such renowned CBC programs as Metro Morning, q and CBC News.
Miguel Perez
Miguel Perez is a radio producer for NPR's World Cafe, based out of WXPN in Philadelphia. Before that, he covered arts, music and culture for KERA in Dallas. He reported on everything from the rise of NFTs in the music industry to the enduring significance of gay and lesbian bars to the LGBTQ community in North Texas.