Music

"When I was first listening to [your music]," Morning Edition host Leila Fadel tells singer-songwriter Tianna Esperanza, "I was more listening to just the music, before the lyrics really set into my head – this sort of sweet track, like a renaissance-style music. And then you hear what you're saying." Sometimes, when I'm walking and a man looks at me, I think of all the ways I could make him […]

When you go back and listen to De La's early run you're getting a lesson about how hip-hop itself was born, how it survived in the past, how it functions at its most imaginative and how the artform can live on in the future. Jackie Lay/NPR For a long time, De La Soul tracks felt like Easter eggs, littered across the landscape for only the most enterprising young rap fans […]

BBoy B, Flash, 38 Slugs and Skol's 'Frankie Knuckles' tribute mural is displayed in the Fulton Market neighborhood in Chicago, Illinois on July 6, 2019. Raymond Boyd/Getty Images Last month, when Beyoncé became the winningest musician in the history of the Grammys, the prize that put her over the top was in the category of best electronic/dance album. And when she stepped onto the stage at Crypto.com Arena in Los […]

Wayne Shorter, photographed in 1985. David Redfern/Redferns Updated March 2, 2023 at 1:58 PM ET Wayne Shorter, the 12-time Grammy-winning saxophonist and composer and the creator of one of the singular sounds in contemporary jazz over more than half a century, died on Thursday, March 2 in Los Angeles. Shorter was 89 years old. Cem Kurosman, a publicist at Blue Note Records, which released Shorter's recent recordings, confirmed his death […]

This year's Black History Month celebration at the Tiny Desk features a carefully crafted lineup spanning many genres, generations and walks of life. Each artist represents the best in their class and will be performing at the Tiny Desk for the first time. Credit: Photo: Bob Boilen Hip-hop artists arguably make the most significant adjustments to play behind the Tiny Desk. The essence is two turntables and a microphone which, […]

Updated February 22, 2023 at 6:07 PM ET Eric R. Holder Jr. sits in the courtroom at Clara Shortridge Foltz Criminal Justice Center on Sept. 15, 2022, in Los Angeles. Holder, who was convicted last year of fatally shooting rapper Nipsey Hussle in 2019, was sentenced Wednesday to 60 years to life in prison. Apu Gomes/AP The killer of a celebrated Los Angeles rapper was sentenced Wednesday after a legal […]

Kelela's emotional remove paired with the ambiguity created by her vocal performance shifts this album from narrative-telling to mood-building. Photo by Alima Lee Since releasing her debut mixtape, CUT 4 ME, in 2013, the singer Kelela has always innovated at the crossroads of left-field R&B and forward-thinking electronic music. After six years away, she returns to a pop-music landscape that is focused on honoring the Black queer artists who invented […]