He was plainspoken and unpretentious, steeped in the vernacular but a masterful blunt-force storyteller. Tupac is a natural comparison, but so is Bruce Springsteen. | | | | Nipsey Hussle in Atlanta, Dec. 10, 2018. He was murdered a year ago today.
(Prince Williams/WireImage/Getty Images) | | | | |  | “He was plainspoken and unpretentious, steeped in the vernacular but a masterful blunt-force storyteller. Tupac is a natural comparison, but so is Bruce Springsteen.”
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| | rantnrave:// It's strange to be living in the middle of an entertainment hub that's all but stopped entertaining. Clubs closed. Theaters closed. No one making movies. Anything that can be stopped, stopped. But there's a strange ring of familiarity, too. Not to compare anything else to the horror that Los Angeles and the rest of the country—and world—is going through right now, but this is, by my count, the third time Los Angeles has shut down, at least figuratively speaking, in the past 12 months. Two months ago, the death of KOBE BRYANT ground LA to an emotional halt. You could feel the stillness for days. And exactly one year ago today, the murder of NIPSEY HUSSLE stunned the sprawling city into silence. People and businesses continued to function, unlike now, but the soul of the city was paralyzed. Horrified. Confused. Devastated. To the rest of the world, Nipsey Hussle was a rapper. In LA, he was a businessman, a hustler, a tech incubator, a philanthropist, a local hero who was from here, who never left here and who had dedicated his life to lifting up his neighbors, to lifting up an entire city if he could. As JEFF WEISS recalls in a gut-punch of an essay for LEVEL, Hussle's funeral 11 days later united the city's rival gangs, its warring rappers, its Eastside and its Westside. "To overcome those deeply rooted divides in both life and death is practically unheard of," Weiss writes. "Nipsey was the only one." Or maybe he was just the first one. In at least some corners of the city, the unity has held. Weiss goes on to trace the community that has continued to sprout from the seeds Hussle planted. Artistic collaborations. New businesses. People trying to not just to remember his legacy, but carry it forward. The ASSOCIATED PRESS quotes the director of the city's Gang Reduction and Youth Development program saying Hussle's death "created an opportunity for conversations to happen, for communication to happen, for leadership to happen that maybe wouldn’t have happened otherwise in the memory and spirit of Nipsey Hussle." He was also, it should be noted, a hell of a rapper—one who knew how to put his thoughts into action. MusicSET: "Nipsey Hussle Left Hip-Hop, and Los Angeles, Better Than He Found Them"... I don't envy anyone in the touring or ticketing business right now. This, from STUBHUB, is a little weird though. If you bought tickets through StubHub for an event that's been canceled, the ticket reseller isn't offering refunds, except "in jurisdictions where they are required." Instead, it's offering credits worth 120% of the original purchase. If, however, you sold tickets through the platform for a now-canceled event, StubHub wants its money back, and "we will charge your credit card on file to reverse the transaction." Does that seem fair? Just asking... TENCENT completes its purchase of 10 percent of UMG... The FADER FORT, a longtime SXSW staple, has morphed this year into a two-day livestream that starts at 10 am ET today. The long list of performers includes KESHA, FINNEAS, DJ SHADOW, JESSIE REYEZ and EARTHGANG... Also going digital this year: MIDEM... Longtime LA TIMES music writer RANDY LEWIS is "calling it a day"... RIP LOU "L.A." KOUVARIS. | | | - Matty Karas (@troubledoll), curator |
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 | Level |
| The late Los Angeles rapper’s legacy is undying - and still unfolding. | | |
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 | Stereogum |
| Myspace changed the way we discovered music and fell apart after conquering the world. | | |
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 | Stan |
| As social media influencers continue to win more and more of the "war on attention" how do the songs they introduce to the world resonate with fans beyond a listen? | | |
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 | Billboard |
| The executives who watch over the finances of rising acts and superstars play an even more essential role at a time of industry uncertainty and turmoil. | | |
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 | Rolling Stone |
| Lady Gaga, Alicia Keys and more have delayed albums due to the pandemic, despite the ability to release music digitally. “If this continues, I think people should push back their records,” says one A&R. | | |
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 | NME |
| Now isn't the time to postpone new releases, says columnist Mark Beaumont. Instead we need a sonic tsunami to get us through. | | |
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 | i-D Magazine |
| How hip-hop fandoms grow around delayed albums, and what the industry learns from them. | | |
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 | British GQ |
| As the streets of London go into lockdown, The Specials’ "Ghost Town" -- and the feverish social background against which the song was written -- feels more resonant than ever. | | |
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 | The Guardian |
| Model turned author Jenny Boyd’s new book details a life living with Mick Fleetwood, inspiring a Donovan song and working with the Beatles. | | |
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 | Los Angeles Times |
| Some L.A. staging and event-production firms have, in a matter of days, remade their companies to build a first line of defense against the coronavirus. | | |
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 | JazzTimes |
| Fifty years after the release of Miles Davis’ electric masterpiece Bitches Brew, Craig Taborn, Gerald Cleaver, Brandee Younger, and more discuss its legacy. | | |
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| Level |
| The tragedy of her death obscured the real person who worked on these songs and entertained audiences. | | |
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 | Quartz |
| Twitch, the world's largest livestream platform, looks very different in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic. Normally a haven for gamers, the Amazon-owned site is now flooded with streams from entire industries cast off from their normal source of income. Yoga and Zumba instructors, blocked from their gyms, are flooding Twitch's sports and fitness channel with at-home workouts. | | |
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 | Texas Monthly |
| It’ll never match the live experience, but maybe it isn’t supposed to. | | |
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| Billboard |
| UK artists Elton John, Paul Weller and Keane are backing social media campaigns to lift the troubled music retail sector. | | |
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 | Amazon Music |
| This documentary traces ODB’s rise from unsigned hype to household name, exploring key moments in the rapper’s life and the music that defined his debut solo record – from ‘Shimmy Shimmy Ya’ to ‘Brooklyn Zoo.’ | | |
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| The Guardian |
| What can we expect as the coronavirus forces presenters to broadcast from their living rooms? Sirens, pancakes, family interruptions -- and big happy bangers. | | |
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 | Music Business Worldwide |
| Matthew Smith of Royalty Exchange calls for faster payments -- and more generous splits -- for artists. | | |
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 | Resident Advisor |
| Party crews discuss how they've been impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. | | |
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| Los Angeles Times |
| The deadly outbreak among members of a choir has stunned health officials, who have concluded that the virus was almost certainly transmitted through the air from one or more people without symptoms. | | |
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 | Robin Sloan |
| Its origin is a mystery. All we know is how it sounds: stately and nostalgic. | | |
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 | YouTube |
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