Tag Archives: music-features

Saidêra’s “Sincronicidade” opens as if a couple of friends are winding down their evening by playing soft, pretty music in a living room, weaving samba-like acoustic riffs together with a gentle throb of hand percussion. But as the other listeners lean in, eager to catch the velvety details, Saidêra jolt …

It’s rare to hear someone say “Play that new Isaiah Rashad!” in a turnt setting. Rashad has been an introspective rapper signed to hip-hop powerhouse Top Dawg Entertainment since 2013; he’s has the immense skill and vulnerability of his labelmate Kendrick Lamar, but none of the party songs. His 2014 …

“All of the biggest bands in the world, they had to start somewhere. Everybody I know started out like this: in a van,” Dave Grohl says at the onset of his new documentary What Drives Us, a film that chronicles the early touring days of some of rock’s most enduring …

The British musician Tirzah constructs hushed songs that echo regardless. Across a handful of releases — an excellent string of EPs followed by her 2018 debut Devotion — the singer born Tirzah Mastin, alongside her longtime collaborators Mica Levi and Coby Sey, unfurl emotions with the patience and care of …

In 1980, the United States Department of Justice brought a case against the city of Yonkers, arguing that the New York suburb had effectively institutionalized segregation through housing and education policy. Yonkers was home to a decent portion of low-income housing, but it was all concentrated in the minority neighborhoods …

Linda Perry may have been writing hits for Adele, Christina Aguilera, and Pink, but it’s been over a decade since the former 4 Non Blondes front woman has released original music that she sang herself. “The Letter” is a deeply moving song that she wrote for the soundtrack of Soleil …

When sweet-voiced singer Teni the Entertainer imagines the perfect place, it looks a lot like a Disney theme park. There’d be water slides, family, friends, and lots of food, she says. The fare offered would be that of her native Nigeria. “Jollof rice, pounded yam, egusi, àmàlà, and gbegiri!” the …

Paloma Rocío Castillo Astorga was just 18 when she wrote her first song. She self-released it as a single — “Not Steady,” a gauzy, Spanglish R&B reproach to an overzealous suitor — with a music video that she filmed in the parking lot of her tía’s apartment complex. Within a …

One of the last times Annie Clark went to see her father in a Texas prison, a fellow visitor asked her to autograph a receipt — the only paper they had on hand. “You can’t bring phones in, so you can’t take a normal selfie. I guess I’m glad that …

Marie Ulven, a.k.a. Girl in Red, stops herself mid-apology — the kind you utter when you think you’re talking too fast or you’re unsure whether the listener gets your drift. “I’m not gonna say sorry,” the 22-year-old musician says firmly, breaking off from a discussion of her new album, If …