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Credit: Photo: Elizabeth Gillis NPR Music is celebrating Black Music Month with an array of brand new Tiny Desk concerts. Together, these artists represent the past, present and future of Black music. This month of carefully curated shows is a celebration of Black artists expressing themselves in ways we've never seen before, and of the Tiny Desk's unique way of showcasing that talent. It's practically a sin to not have […]

when the poems do what they do puts Aja Monet's incisive poetry at the head of a taut and multidisciplinary band. Fanny Chu/Courtesy of the artist In Black American folklore, music and poetry share the same soul. The poets of the Black Arts movement, particularly Sonia Sanchez, Nikki Giovanni, Audre Lorde and Amiri Baraka, were in touch with jazz as if it were of the same coterie, and they opened […]

Credit: Photo: Catie Dull NPR Music is celebrating Black Music Month with an array of brand new Tiny Desk concerts. Together, these artists represent the past, present and future of Black music. This month of carefully curated shows is a celebration of Black artists expressing themselves in ways we've never seen before, and of the Tiny Desk's unique way of showcasing that talent. I was working late when Kenneth "Babyface" […]

On her new album, The Age of Pleasure, Janelle Monáe concocts a vision of sensuality that is open to complication but goes down easy. Mason Rose/Courtesy of the artist In the already uncomfortably hot summer of 2023, talk of pleasure can hit like a forbidden tonic, providing relief from a steady diet of grief, outrage and anxiety. Janelle Monáe's new album The Age of Pleasure presents itself as both that […]