Some of us danced 'on the 1' (step-step-step-pause); others 'on the 2' (pause-step-step-step). To those who were perhaps more sophisticated than we were at the time, what you danced on or where you took the pause in salsa was often regarded as a defining measure of authenticity... To learn how to salsa was to learn about your relationship to time, about how to measure it and move to it and dwell in its pauses. | | | | Celia Cruz at the Fabrik in Hamburg, Germany, with Tito Puente on timbales, in 1986.
(Lüttgen/ullstein bild/Getty Images) | | | | |  | “Some of us danced 'on the 1' (step-step-step-pause); others 'on the 2' (pause-step-step-step). To those who were perhaps more sophisticated than we were at the time, what you danced on or where you took the pause in salsa was often regarded as a defining measure of authenticity... To learn how to salsa was to learn about your relationship to time, about how to measure it and move to it and dwell in its pauses.”
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| | rantnrave:// It's bad enough that women are routinely excluded from featured slots at actual music festivals, but now they're being excluded from hypothetical ones, too. England's READING AND LEEDS FESTIVAL, in an announcement that can best be described as aspirational, on Tuesday unveiled its initial lineup for summer 2021, a summer for which plenty of doubt remains that any major music events will take place. But just in case they do, rest assured that Reading and Leeds won't have to invest heavily in women's bathrooms backstage. Here's a nicely done graphic showing what that lineup, topped by STORMZY, CATFISH & THE BOTTLEMEN and POST MALONE, looks like with the all-male acts erased. File under lessons not learned in the great lockdown of 2020... In the at-least-trying-to-do-better department, the CMA AWARDS has nominated two women for Entertainer of the Year for the first time since 2000, when the award went to the not-yet-shunned band now known as the CHICKS (whose 2020 album came out too late to be eligible for this year's awards). The last time before that was 1979. Women are well represented throughout this year's nominees, led by MIRANDA LAMBERT and MAREN MORRIS. Perennial Entertainer of the Year GARTH BROOKS, who asked not to be considered this year, had his wish granted... The question of whether a politician can play an artist's music at a rally against the artist's wishes remains untested in court, but the issue of whether a politician can use an artist's music in an ad without asking permission seems much more black and white. Sync rights can get complicated sometimes, but they're not lacking in clarity. On Tuesday, EDDY GRANT sued PRESIDENT TRUMP's campaign for using his song "ELECTRIC AVENUE" in a video posted to TWITTER. Not waiting around for adjudication, or jury selection, or more than two or three news stories, Twitter removed the video a few hours later. The takedown seems unlikely to satisfy Grant's legal team, though; lawyer BRIAN CAPLAN told Billboard his client wants fees and penalties for the usage in the video, which the president himself tweeted and which was retweeted 95,000 times. Grant wrote the song, which became a major pop hit, in response to protests and rioting against police brutality and unequal treatment of people of color in London in 1981. The more things don't change... As apologies for having once worn blackface go, DAVID BYRNE, who wore it in a TALKING HEADS promo video 36 years ago, does as good a job as one can do. He acknowledges he did it, says it was wrong and he asks for grace. He doesn't say he was joking. He doesn't say it was a different time. He doesn't say that isn't who he was. He doesn't get defensive, or pat himself on the back for things he has done since. He hopes people will allow that "someone like me, anyone really, can grow and change." He asks for nothing else. Because of all that, I'm reasonably sure, no one will ask anything else of him as recompense... If you haven’t noticed yet, I've been going down a FANIA RECORDS/salsa rabbit hole in recent days. Byrne, who has a seemingly boundless curiosity about music from cultures that are foreign to him, collaborated with salsa queen CELIA CRUZ and JOHNNY PACHECO on this song for the SOMETHING WILD soundtrack (it also appears on his first solo album), and wrote this tribute to Cruz for Entertainment Weekly when she died in 2003... How to write a perfect TIKTOK song, according to expert JASON DERULO. Step 1: Stop trying to write a perfect TikTok song... RIP ERICK MORILLO, JAY WHITE and MARK COLBY. | | | - Matty Karas (@troubledoll), curator |
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 | Vulture |
| A frank talk with the rapper about his long, fraught journey to "Detroit 2." | | |
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 | Mic The Snare |
| The rise and fall of a $1.1 billion industry brought to you by Thomas Dolby, Jamster, Soulja Boy and Crazy Frog. | | |
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 | Los Angeles Times |
| Music clubs face extinction because of COVID-19. Passage of a bipartisan congressional bill called "Save Our Stages" may be their only hope. | | |
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 | The New York Times |
| The band’s 34-year-old frontman helped break down barriers between scenes, and was known for singularly wild live shows. | | |
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 | NPR Music |
| As a true diva, Cruz was of her time and capable of transcending it. Her voice carried lessons in presence and stamina, and her enduring legacy has created a space for feminist interventions in salsa. | | |
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 | The Atlantic |
| A decade ago, Katy Perry’s sound was ubiquitous. Today, it’s niche. How did a genre defined by popularity become unpopular? | | |
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 | PopMatters |
| Beyond NWA and Public Enemy: rappers have been sounding the alarm about police brutality since the birth of hip-hop. | | |
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 | The Tennessean |
| For country music fans, poring over the list of nominees for the 2020 CMA Music Awards can be a swift series of highs and lows. | | |
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 | Stan |
| Who controls the kingdom? The person that builds the kingdom or the person that runs it? | | |
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 | Hot Pod |
| On Joe Budden and Spotify's podcasting strategy. | | |
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 | Complex |
| In what was supposed to be an introductory interview with the ascending rocker/rapper/man of mystery, Teezo Touchdown took things into his own hands. | | |
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 | British GQ |
| “You can’t try to tailor-make a hit, you can’t tailor-make a TikTok song, you just have to create the best product.” | | |
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 | Pitchfork |
| The beloved franchise returns with the premise that one song can save the world. The only problem? The song kinda sucks. | | |
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| The Tennessean |
| The Ryman Auditorium has announced that the rest of its "Live at the Ryman" streaming concert series will welcome a small, in-person audience. | | |
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 | First Floor |
| a.k.a. Another reason to hold off on partying right now. | | |
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 | New Socialist |
| In expressing joy in the social, creating lived utopias beyond the family, and destabilising normality, Prince is a key example and practitioner of acid communism. | | |
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 | Tone Glow |
| Sly Dunbar is one of the most influential drummers of the 20th century. Joshua Minsoo Kim talked with him on May 11th and 12th, 2020 to discuss his collaborations, how his drumming has evolved, and his recent album with Robbie Shakespeare and Sasu Ripatti, "500-Push-Up." | | |
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 | MusicAlly |
| Made In Memphis Entertainment (Mime), launched in 2015, has a quietly radical idea at its core: 'disruptive decentralisation'. | | |
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| The Atlantic |
| This year’s national reckoning over policing means that more people could stand to seriously listen to the music of young artists who have firsthand experience with the system. | | |
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 | The Guardian |
| The soulful singer had a worldwide hit with 1992’s "Would I Lie to You," but he was dropped and his musical partner died. Now, he has poured his pain into a cathartic comeback album. | | |
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 | YouTube |
| | | | Celia Cruz and Johnny Pacheco |
| | From the groundbreaking 1974 salsa album "Celia & Johnny." |
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