Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer joins The Track Star Podcast for a conversation that moves from Motown to modern Detroit, using music as a way into the state she represents.

Through artists like Madonna, Aretha Franklin, and Eminem, Whitmer reflects on growing up in Michigan, the state’s deep musical lineage, and how Detroit became a global center for sound, from the Motown assembly line to rock and hip-hop.

The conversation also opens up into something broader: how listening shapes leadership, why asking questions matters more than having answers, and how the small, often invisible systems of everyday life, from roads to water to schools, shape whether people have the space to create at all.