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Kevin Mazur/Getty Images for Coachella The Grandeur of Great Protest Music
Political art that outlasts its times needs more than just a powerful message.
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Denis Balibouse / Reuters Is Empathy the Essence of Soul Music?
The genre’s sound, sentiments, and politics all aim for the same connection.
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Richard Drew / AP Terry Crews and the Discomfort of Masculine Anxiety
The responses to the Brooklyn Nine-Nine actor’s personal testimony in D.C. in support of a sexual-assault bill reveal the persistence of narrow definitions of manhood.
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Ser Baffo / Stringer / Getty Teyana Taylor’s Music Has Matured, but Has Her Label?
K.T.S.E., the new record from the most prominent female artist on Kanye West–fronted G.O.O.D. Music’s roster, buzzes with promise despite recent controversies stirred up by West, Pusha T, and Nas.
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Youtube Beyoncé and Jay-Z’s New Vision of Gender in ‘Apeshit’
In their recently released music video and collaborative album, the Carters show just how much their dynamic as a couple has evolved.
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Rebecca Blackwell / AP Nine Inch Nails Enters Its Least Compromising Phase Yet
The rock band’s Bad Witch completes a trilogy of terse, inventive, post-Trump blasts of rage.
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Mario Anzuoni / Reuters Mike Shinoda Asks Not to Be Defined by Loss
The rapper’s new album, Post Traumatic, insists that the music go on, nearly one year after the death of his Linkin Park bandmate Chester Bennington.
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mpi04 / MediaPunch / IPX How Will XXXTentacion Be Remembered?
The rapper, who died at 20, was a tragic hero to some young fans and artists, even while allegations of violence piled up against him.
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YouTube Do Beyoncé Fans Have to Forgive Jay-Z?
The Carters’ surprise collaborative album, Everything Is Love, insists that past grievances are buried. Will the Beyhive feel the same way?
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USA Today Sports / Reuters Beyoncé and Jay-Z’s Marriage of Conquest
With Everything Is Love, pop’s biggest couple celebrates itself—and its significance to America.
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Rob Grabowski / Invision / AP Kanye West’s Rock-and-Roll Moment
On the highlights of two recent albums—Ye and Kids See Ghosts—the rapper reaches across genres to redefine “freedom” again and again.
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Ash Kingston Serpentwithfeet’s Songs of Supernatural Intimacy
The experimental musician’s powerful debut album, Soil, blends gospel and the gothic.
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James Green / Getty Remembering Clarence Fountain, a Gospel Legend
The singer, who died at 88, was a founding member of the Blind Boys of Alabama, and embodied the vicissitudes of a decades-long career in music.
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Lucy Nicholson / Reuters What Went Wrong With Spotify’s ‘Hateful Conduct’ Policy?
The company’s quickly abandoned stance against misbehavior is a sign that the record industry still doesn’t want to police the ethics of its stars.
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Mario Anzuoni / Reuters The Trumpian Dissonance of Kanye West's ‘Violent Crimes’
On Ye, the album he premiered Thursday night, the rapper speaks of his daughters (and wife) with a disturbingly voyeuristic tone.
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Matt Detrich / USA Today Sports / Reuters Kanye West’s Ye Sparks and Sputters
Amid a few gripping moments, the rapper’s eighth album all-too-briefly glances at politics and mental health.
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Erika Goldring / Bennett Raglin / Getty / … Pusha T, Drake, and the Limits of Rap Beef
Four Atlantic staffers discuss hip-hop’s vicious and messy brawl of the moment and how the art of the diss track has evolved.
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Atlantic Records Cardi B’s ‘I Like It’ Is the Song of the Summer
Sorry, Drake.
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Dylan Martinez / Reuters Was Classic Rock a Sound, or a Tribe?
Steven Hyden’s book Twilight of the Gods argues that the appeal of the now-dwindling Baby Boomer guitar gods was only ever personal.
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Mario Anzuoni / Reuters Kanye West’s Hypocrisy on Empathy and Celebrity
The rapper insisting that a photo of Whitney Houston’s bathroom be the cover art for Pusha T’s Daytona is a clear betrayal of his rhetoric about compassion.
