Music
Fatima al Qadiri's Poetry of Terror and Protest
Fatima Al Qadiri has just released her second full-length album, Brute. A concept album, it is, according to Al Qadiri, a protest album in the lineage of Marvin Gaye’s “What’s Going On.”
Music
Music
Different Shades of Punk: White Lung, Parquet Courts, Scandal, Modern Baseball
Sometimes genres die quickly (electroclash), sometimes they remain with us forever (teenpop). Sometimes they stop developing and get kept alive indefinitely by loyal keepers of their flame and proud denizens of their subculture.
Music
Esperanza Spalding’s Flow
During the 53rd Annual Grammy Awards ceremony in 2011, jazz bassist Esperanza Spalding was awarded Best New Artist, a trophy assumed earmarked for Justin Bieber (who else?), and the scandal that ensued changed the recording industry forever.
Music
Prince, Rock Hero
What did Prince mean?
Music
Hip-Hop Report: Kendrick Lamar, Macklemore & Ryan Lewis, Azealia Banks, 2 Chainz
The big question in hip-hop this season: which megaartiste made the superior album, Kanye West or Kendrick Lamar?
Art
The Forgotten First Woman Violinist to Perform on the American Stage
Violinist Camilla Urso "stood on the stage like a statue on fire," in the words of writer Theodore Tilton.
Music
Singing Along with Two Titans of Brazilian Music
My roommate once noted how I only sing in the apartment when we play Brazilian music.
Music
Kanye West Fragmented
First things first: Kanye West’s release strategy for his new album was a catastrophe.
Performance
An Opera of Love Songs to Science
"Maybe there’s a physicist sitting right beside you, who can explain this better than we do, but we're in the business of art, so we’ll make a metaphor," sings Hai-Ting Chinn in Science Fair: An Opera With Experiments.
Music
Techno Mix: Madrid Plastic, Chicago Minimal, Intergalactic Maximal, and Detroit Analog
El Guincho's "Hiperasia," DJ Slugo's "Cocaine Music," "Star Wars Headspace," and Moodymann's "DJ Kicks."
Music
Bowie's Last Role
There’s never been an album quite like David Bowie’s "Blackstar" in rock & roll history.
In Brief
8,000 Afropop Tracks from Guinea's First Decades of Independence Digitized
When French colonial forces pulled out of Guinea following its declaration of independence in 1958, they notoriously even took the lightbulbs.