Music Features

A throng of teenagers are chasing a double-decker bus through Manhattan’s Washington Square Park hoping to get a glimpse of Brooklyn drill sensations 41, a group comprised of Brooklynites Jenn Carter, Kyle Richh, and TaTa. Republic Records, their label, wrapped the bus with their faces and invited fans to join …

In the Sixties and Seventies, Sly Stone and his band invented an undeniable cocktail of pop, soul, and psychedelia on hits like “Dance to the Music,” “Hot Fun in the Summertime,” “Family Affair,” and more. But Stone also grappled with drug addiction for decades, which is clear from the first …

Early on Adele‘s new album 30, she highlights voice memos from her son, Angelo, where he’s asking her some big questions about life. On “I Drink Wine,” it’s her turn. In posing those questions, Adele has written one of the best songs of her already-storied career, a gorgeous power ballad …

The scorching Atlanta sun is in full effect as Moneybagg Yo‘s car pulls into a Starbucks parking lot. The plan is to grab a quick coffee here before heading to a nearby studio, where he’s working on some new tracks for a deluxe reissue of his hit album A Gangsta’s …

Simply Red is the wild card on this year’s Obama summer playlist. You expect the former president’s curated playlists to be loaded with impeccably hip picks, from all over the worlds of pop, soul, jazz, rock & roll, and his 2021 Summer Playlist is no exception. He’s got vintage classics …

When the producer Quantic and the Colombian singer Nidia Góngora connected for Curao, an album-length collaboration from 2017, the result was a low-key triumph. Ping-ponging tracks like “Que Me Duele?” rushed breathlessly towards the dance floor, while quieter moments like “Maldito Muchacho” left room for Góngora to showcase her formidable …

I t’s noon in the Catskills, and Claire Cottrill is thinking about buying a barn. The 22-year-old singer-songwriter, who performs as Clairo, recently purchased more than five acres of property in nearby Massachusetts, and she has big plans to use its well, churn butter, and convert that prospective barn into …

When Michelle Zauner thinks about her latest album as Japanese Breakfast, she thinks of persimmons. “Persimmons are pretty present in a lot of Asian cultures, as gifts that you give to people,” she says over the phone from her home in Brooklyn. “I had seen an image of these hanging …

This week Bob Dylan turned 80, and singers and musicians have been covering his songs for roughly 60 of those years. Still, it’s always a treat when someone digs a little deeper into Dylan’s catalog than “Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door” or “Like a Rolling Stone.” On her new collection of …

Last Friday’s re-release of Nicki Minaj’s breakout 2009 mixtape Beam Me Up Scotty comes as a growing number of popular artists open up their back-catalogs to streaming platforms. For artists whose profile grew at the height of the blog era, many of these early releases offer a look at important …