A man can get on a track and literally make two noises and be the GOAT. When you listen to a girl rap, she gotta have all the bars, all the flows, be melodic, she gotta look good. They expect so much of us, and I mean, I like to work, so I’ll do it. | | | | Megan Thee Stallion in New York, April 22, 2019. Her album "Fever" is out today on 300 Entertainment.
(Johnny Nunez/WireImage/Getty Images) | | | | |  | “A man can get on a track and literally make two noises and be the GOAT. When you listen to a girl rap, she gotta have all the bars, all the flows, be melodic, she gotta look good. They expect so much of us, and I mean, I like to work, so I’ll do it.”
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| | rantnrave:// South African journalist RIAN MALAN's epic investigation of the complicated copyright history of "THE LION SLEEPS TONIGHT" is arguably the greatest piece of music journalism ever written, and today, 19 years later, he and director SAM CULLMAN bring the story to a new generation and a new medium with the NETFLIX documentary THE LION'S SHARE. Malan's original piece traced one of the most familiar and lucrative melodies of the 20th century to a 1939 recording by South African singer SOLOMON LINDA, who in the ensuing decades would be screwed by publishers on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean and all but forgotten by them and everybody else. It's a story about how music is created, how it travels, how it's co-opted, how credits disappear into the ether (if only you had had a good blockchain application, Solomon Linda), how our cultural stewards pick winners and losers with sometimes devastating effect, how even folk heroes like PETE SEEGER and the WEAVERS can contribute to the forgetting, and how a sublime 13-note melody can endure through all of that, appearing and reappearing in many strange and wonderful guises along the way. "The Lion's Share," part of Netflix's REMASTERED series, takes the story forward. A few years after Malan's piece appeared in ROLLING STONE, Linda's daughters, with the journalist's help, sued DISNEY, whose usage of "The Lion Sleeps Tonight" in THE LION KING generated lots of money, none for them. They settled out of court, for what seemed like a lot at the time but may have been too little. Three Americans are still credited, today, as the composers of "The Lion Sleeps Tonight." How many other creators, from South Africa to South Carolina, from 1939 to 1999, remain uncredited, uncompensated and all but undiscovered? Who's being newly forgotten today?... SPOTIFY isn't the only music company obsessed with podcasts. All three major labels now have podcast divisions, with SONY MUSIC's announcement of a joint venture with ADAM DAVIDSON of NPR's PLANET MONEY and radio and podcast veteran LAURA MEYER. For Sony, "this is just the beginning," a source tells VARIETY. A key quote from Spotify finance chief BARRY MCCARTHY about what podcasts mean to his company: "Users who engage with podcasts engage significantly more on the platform, and not only do they consume podcasts, but they consume more music"... NIPSEY HUSSLE's final (presumably) song and video arrive today, a collaboration with DJ KHALED and JOHN LEGEND. Proceeds from the song will be donated to the late rapper's children... It's FRIDAY and that means there's also new music from MEGAN THEE STALLION, TYLER THE CREATOR, CHRISTONE "KINGFISH" INGRAM, MALUMA, CARLY RAE JEPSEN, WU-TANG CLAN, THE NATIONAL, BRAD MEHLDAU, KANY GARCÍA, SEBA KAAPSTAD, OPERATORS, INTERPOL, LINDA MAY HAN OH, THEO CROKER, DAVE DOUGLAS/URI CAINE/ANDREW CYRILLE, INJURY RESERVE, CURREN$Y & STATIK SELEKTAH, LEWIS CAPALDI, LUCETTE, SLOWTHAI, ASEETHE, FULL OF HELL, COM TRUISE, SAM COHEN, STEEL PULSE, IMPERIAL WAX, NICK LOWE, SISKIYOU, RAMMSTEIN, THE HEAD AND THE HEART, DIONNE WARWICK and ALEX LAHEY... RIP KHAED and DEANE CAMERON... RIP also architect I.M. PEI, who will forever have a place in rock and roll's heart as the designer of the ROCK AND ROLL HALL OF FAME and in my heart for the JOHN HANCOCK TOWER, the mirrored monolith that soars over my native Boston. | | | - Matty Karas, curator |
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 | Rolling Stone |
| How American music legends made millions off the work of a Zulu tribesman who died a pauper. (Originally published in May 2000.) | | |
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 | Narratively |
| When Spanish authorities sentenced provocative rapper Valtònyc to prison for “glorifying terrorism,” his dedicated fans helped him make a daring escape across the border. | | |
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 | MusicAlly |
| Performer and producer Otis McDonald has given away most of his music through YouTube’s royalty-free audio library, which it makes available for creators to soundtrack their videos. His songs have been used in more than 3.5m YouTube videos that cumulatively have more than 7.6bn views. This is his story. | | |
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 | The Ringer |
| The Backstreet Boys’ ‘Millennium’ album, which turns 20 this week, was a diamond-selling, ‘TRL’ mainstay in the pre-Napster era. It also may have helped bring about the bad times that followed. | | |
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 | GQ |
| After the huge critical success of her last album, "E•MO•TION," the Canadian singer returns with "Dedicated," a collection of songs that shows the full extent of what the 33-year-old star is capable of. | | |
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 | Complex |
| Houston rapper Megan Thee Stallion has attracted an ultra-positive, protective group of fans who are bringing positivity to stan culture. Meet the Hotties. | | |
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 | TechCrunch |
| Ticketmaster is turning to new technology to help fight ticket fraud. The ticketing giant today unveiled its next-generation digital tickets, "Safetix," which are tied to the ticket holder's mobile device through an encrypted barcode that automatically refreshes every few seconds. | | |
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 | Genius |
| Vener is best known for his work on ‘Entourage’ and ‘Ballers.’ | | |
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 | Los Angeles Times |
| Musician John Prine is donating proceeds from an auction to the Alabama ACLU, among numerous responses from pop artists to the state's new anti-abortion law. | | |
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 | The Atlantic |
| I decided to noise-cancel life. | | |
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| | | the bear and the maiden fair |
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| Los Angeles Times |
| Jeffrey de Hart is standing at the edge of a driveway in Downey. Not just any driveway, but the one before the ancestral home of the Carpenters. The two-story tract house, these days with several concrete deer frolicking in front, is recognizable from the cover of the duo’s 1973 “Now and Then” album, with siblings Karen and Richard sitting in his cherry-red Ferrari parked on their street. | | |
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| MusicAlly |
| It isn’t easy being Spotify. It’s harder being Spotify in India, a country where the launch of the world’s number one audio-streaming service has been the subject of much speculation and controversy. | | |
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 | The New York Times |
| Returning to venues where he attended metal shows years ago, Matthew DeFeo captures the vulnerability behind these artists’ angsty facades. | | |
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 | The Guardian |
| Inspired by punk’s energy, the new wave of British heavy metal helped put the ‘snot and piss’ back into rock music. Its leading players tell the story. | | |
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 | Variety |
| Sony Music Entertainment has formed a joint venture with two veteran podcast producers: Adam Davidson, a New Yorker staff writer and co-founder of NPR's "Planet Money" show, and Laura Mayer, who has worked at Stitcher, Panoply Media and WNYC. They'll create and distribute original scripted and unscripted podcast programming across multiple genres and topics | | |
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 | GeekWire |
| Lena Begun has been playing music since the age of 5. She attended a school for gifted children in Moscow and eventually received a masters degree from the Russian Academy of Music. The accomplished pianist is now bringing her gift to tech workers in the Seattle area who take a break at work for Play At Work, a music lessons company started by Begun. | | |
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| The New York Times |
| The musician’s 2015 album, “Currents,” catapulted him to the top of the festival circuit and into the studio with megastars. He’s still fiddling with its follow-up. | | |
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 | The Outline |
| A Q&A with the authors of ‘Blood on Black Wax,’ a new book about the best horror film soundtracks ever made. | | |
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 | Song Exploder |
| We’ll hear John Darnielle's original demo, and then, hear how the song evolved at Blackbird Studios in Nashville, with the help of John’s band, some incredible session musicians, and producer Owen Pallett. | | |
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 | Red Bull Music Academy |
| This music documentary takes you on a journey to the origins of the dance music scene in South Africa in the early 90's. The story of South Africa is a story of polarity, opposites and contradictions. The same can be said about our music. | | |
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 | YouTube |
| | | | Christone "Kingfish" Ingram |
| | From "Kingfish," his debut album, out today on Alligator Records. |
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