We performers are monsters. We are a totally different, far-out race of people. I totally and completely admit, with no qualms at all, my egomania, my selfishness, coupled with a really magnificent voice. | | | | Leontyne Price (left, with Helen Vanni) makes her debut at the Metropolitan Opera in "Il Trovatore," New York, January 1961.
(Alfred Eisenstaedt/The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images) | | | | |  | “We performers are monsters. We are a totally different, far-out race of people. I totally and completely admit, with no qualms at all, my egomania, my selfishness, coupled with a really magnificent voice.”
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| | rantnrave:// Happy Black Presidents Day... Like good artists in any medium, all good musicians and composers put their lives into their music. Sometimes it's literal and explicit, sometimes it's metaphoric and oblique, sometimes it's buried under seemingly impenetrable layers, but it's always there. Their experiences, their perspectives, their dreams, their fears, their anger, their love. When 21 SAVAGE rapped "been through some things but I can't imagine my kids stuck at the border" three weeks ago on THE TONIGHT SHOW, he wasn't just looking for something to rhyme with water (as in Flint), and he wasn't just filling bars with words. He was expressing himself, subtly revealing something about his identify, and, it turns out, putting his life on the line. When he was arrested by ICE officers a few days later for overstaying his US visa, they didn't tell him he was under arrest but they did say, "We got Savage," according to his accounting of the arrest. We. Got. Savage. We got the guy who was rapping about us on TV earlier this week. Anyway you try to connect those dots, it's chilling. (And yes I know it's suddenly become a wee bit harder to believe everything celebrities tell us. But he *was* arrested, he *is* facing the possibility of deportation, and you don't get to stop believing everything everyone says just because one guy may or may not have been lying to us. You just don't. But that's a whole different rant.) And now comes this final question from JON CARAMANICA's Q&A with 21 Savage in the NEW YORK TIMES: Will he put this experience into his music? "Not right now, 'cause I feel like me putting it into music got me in this situation, kind of." How much more literally chilling can you get? This isn't just a war on immigration. It's also a war on expression, a war on art. Shoutout to other rappers, or any other musicians, who have 21 Savage's back, and who are willing to put a part of themselves on the line to do so. Like J. COLE rapping a verse of "A LOT"—the song 21 SAVAGE performed on "The Tonight Show" (fantastic song, btw)—during his halftime performance at Sunday's NBA All-Star Game... According to BILLBOARD, ARIANA GRANDE's THANK U, NEXT just had "the biggest streaming week ever for a pop album," which means that according to Billboard DRAKE doesn't make pop albums, which is a bizarre take on the 21st century musical landscape, and I would like to suggest that everybody at Billboard read this... The RYAN ADAMS news, or maybe Adams' old label BLOODSHOT RECORDS' response to the news, prompted country-rock singer-songwriter LYDIA LOVELESS to air out her own uncomfortable experiences with the label. "Essentially, and sadly, true," label co-owned ROB MILLER acknowledges in a lengthy response... RIP U TIN, KEN NORDINE, JOE HARDY and X. RAY BURNS. | | | - Matty Karas, curator |
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 | The New Yorker |
| As far-right movements have grown in the United States and Europe, some metal fans have begun having discussions about politics and expression that mirror those taking place in the broader culture. The anti-Fascist Black Flags Over Brooklyn festival took place at Brooklyn Bazaar, in Greenpoint, in late January. | | |
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 | Salon |
| A scholarly experiment to figure out how Spotify works (and how to trick it). Excerpted from "Spotify Teardown: Inside the Black Box of Streaming Music" by Maria Eriksson, Rasmus Fleischer, Anna Johansson, Pelle Snickars and Patrick Vonderau. | | |
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 | Los Angeles Times |
| Backstage on the Kiss End of the Road tour, a a two-year victory lap for the flamboyant hard rock quartet, which emerged 47 years ago as pop culture champions in platform boots and kabuki makeup. | | |
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 | The Guardian |
| Surveillance at concerts is just the beginning, as fears grow around an unregulated, billion-dollar industry. | | |
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 | Rolling Stone |
| The company finished 2018 with its first ever quarterly operating profit but still faces a few stark challenges. | | |
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 | The New York Times |
| “My situation is important ’cause I represent poor black Americans and I represent poor immigrant Americans,” the rapper said. | | |
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 | Billboard |
| William Shatner a.k.a. Star Trek's legendary Captain James T. Kirk embarked on a new frontier and boldly went where he'd never gone before: center stage to perform on the Grand Ole Opry. | | |
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 | Chicago Reader |
| Even when winter weather and winter malaise raise the bar for going out, you can still play an important role in sustaining DIY Chicago music. | | |
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 | BuzzFeed News |
| When I was a teenager, Adams’ songs convinced me that men had feelings too. But just because someone is sensitive doesn’t mean they care about you. | | |
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 | Medium |
| Spotify’s acquisitions of Gimlet and Anchor signal ambitious plans to disintermediate the music industry. | | |
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 | Guitar World |
| “It was just an incredible moment to be into the guitar." A round table of hair metal's giants looks back on the genre's final days. | | |
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 | The Washington Post |
| Audiences are told about classical music like a history lecture. Musicians think of key signatures and structure. | | |
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| Rolling Stone |
| At a time when the artist’s #YesWeCode initiative was at an impasse, its co-founder, Van Jones, found a life preserver from another Prince associate. | | |
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| The Guardian |
| Event organisers have accused the NSW government of being ‘hell-bent on destroying’ their industry. What’s going on? | | |
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 | SoulTracks |
| This morning, as I anxiously perused my Release Radar, the weekly Spotify playlist that curates new releases based on my tastes and favorite artists, my brow became increasingly furrowed. The new song by Maysa appeared to be a Spanish opera, and the brand new cut “Y2K” by Babyface, was an odd electronic British rap song. So what’s up? | | |
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| Billboard |
| This year’s awards honored more women and people of color in a ceremony that seemed more relevant to today’s music business, but still made some missteps. What’s next? | | |
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 | NPR Music |
| Trumpeter Terence Blanchard has career spanning three decades in both jazz and film scoring. We dive into his work with Spike Lee, his E-Collective band and a new commission. | | |
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 | Variety |
| The history of video games is littered with great ideas that were canceled before their time, drained of resources and put out to pasture because of budget or production woes. That said, there are vanishingly few games that made it all the way through the trials and tribulations of a multi-year development cycle only to have their wings clipped just before the copies flooded onto store shelves. | | |
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 | Mixmag |
| The restless pair from Belgium have remained as busy as ever in the past 10 years. | | |
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 | EDMTunes |
| Some musical trends come and go, while others stand the test of time. The Electronic Dance Music (EDM) scene falls firmly into the latter category -- with new sub-genres being introduced all the time, plus sell-out concerts and festivals. | | |
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 | YouTube |
| | | | | | From the Met's Jan. 3, 1985, performance of Verdi's "Aida"—Price's farewell to opera. |
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