Songs of Protest & Healing: Meshell Ndegeocello on the Gospel of James Baldwin
How the cultural and literary icon continues to deliver lessons of freedom, humanity and humility.
What's Going On
Songs of Protest & Healing: Roberta Flack & Donny Hathaway’s ‘Be Real Black for Me’
Seratones’ A.J. Haynes on this compelling, comforting celebration of hard-won Black love.
Rebels Without a Pause: Chuck D’s Living Legacy
A roundup of ferociously intelligent MCs carrying his fearless torch.
Songs of Protest & Healing: Christian Scott aTunde Adjuah on ‘Shallow Water’
The visionary trumpeter finds his personal and ancestral heritage in an Afro New Orleanian anthem.
Discover
Murda She Wrote: July 2020
Summer heats up with new music by Koffee, Chronixx, Tessellated & Crayon and Aluna, Princess Nokia & Jada Kingdom.
Roll Over, Beethoven: A Rocker’s Guide to 20th-Century Classical
How pop’s cutting edge found comrades in the renegades of modernism and postmodernism.
Singer-Songwriters, Unsung
Emitt Rhodes, Terry Callier, Bridget St. John and other master storytellers you need to know.
Conversations
“A Very Powerful Thing Our Ancestors Gave Us”: A Conversation With Jon Batiste
In a new single and in the streets, the pianist and bandleader furthers the great tradition of black American protest.
The Call of the Wild: A Conversation With Steve Von Till
In post-metal titans Neurosis, on his extraordinary new solo album, and throughout his first collection of poetry, the singer and musician summons up the eternity of the natural world.
The Psychedelic Furs Return to Post-Punk Glory
Frontman Richard Butler on the band’s triumphs, missteps and stellar new album, ‘Made of Rain’ — the Furs’ first studio record in nearly three decades.
Features
You Don’t Have to Be Ashamed: The Tender Revolution of Steven Grossman
Recording for a major label in the mid-’70s, the brilliant but forgotten singer-songwriter offered an honest, thoughtful expression of gay identity.
Anti Band: The Unruly Legacy of NO TREND
A new box set from Drag City uncovers the brazen contrarians of the legendary D.C. hardcore scene.
Essays
Between ‘Fun House’ & ‘Funtime’: Iggy Pop in the Seventies
Brilliantly out of step, the rock provocateur architected revolutionary sounds with the Stooges and Bowie.
The Darkness & the Daydream: The Grateful Dead in 1970
At the onset of a long goodbye to the psychedelic Sixties, the great American rock band released two rootsy studio masterpieces while unspooling marathon lysergic improv onstage.
In Memoriam
Tony Bennett: I Will Be Remembering Johnny Mandel
Our finest jazz and traditional-pop singer reflects on his collaborations with the late, great composer-arranger.
Malik B: 1972 – 2020
During his inspired years with the Roots, the extraordinary MC set a standard for how rappers can lead and interact with live bands.
