If you love music, you have to know where it came from... Whether you say jazz or blues or bossa nova or samba, salsa, all these names are all Africa's contributions to the Western hemisphere. If you take out the African elements of our music, you would have nothing. | | | | Bassist Ron Carter and pianist Randy Weston, circa 1961.
(Herb Snitzer/The LIFE Images Collection/Getty Images) | | | | |  | “If you love music, you have to know where it came from... Whether you say jazz or blues or bossa nova or samba, salsa, all these names are all Africa's contributions to the Western hemisphere. If you take out the African elements of our music, you would have nothing.”
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| | rantnrave:// It seems a little late in the timeline of civilization for pop musicians to be dropping anti-gay slurs in their songs like random drum fills. The proper time to do so was never. But it also seems a little late in the timeline of hip-hop for a musician like BON IVER's JUSTIN VERNON to be collaborating with EMINEM without understanding that the license to freely drop slurs is, and always has been, an essential part of Eminem's brand. So while I sympathize with Vernon's plight over his allegedly inadvertent collaboration on Em's song "FALL," his public campaign against the song ("we are gonna kill this track," he tweeted) seems a little strange... On the other hand, I love the response to another new Eminem song from KALA BROWN, the victim of a gruesome crime who is used as a gratuitous simile in Em's "THE RINGER." A spokesperson for Brown noted that Eminem's music "can come off a little unnerving," but: "It was a clever line that rhymed and we'd like to leave it at that. Everyone expresses themselves in their own way, and if anything, people will always feel a flash of Kala's struggle when hearing that line." That's my pop music review of the year, right there... I learned more about life from reading about music in the VILLAGE VOICE than I learned about music from reading about music anywhere else. RIP to the most influential music journal that ever was, and to everything else the Voice represented at its best. And thank you MOM for buying my first copy for me when I was a suburban kid dreaming of a culture that seemed tantalizingly close and yet so far away... School supplies, 2018 version: pencils, notebooks, rulers, rap songs, music videos. More than 200 schools across the US have incorporated MUZOLOGY, which uses pop videos to teach math. GARTH BROOKS' manager, BOB DOYLE, helped develop the program; it employs professional songwriters to compose musical lessons that sound like contemporary pop songs. In London, rapper CONFUCIUS MC is teaching lyricism to primary school students as well as writing rap songs to teach various subjects. He says other teachers are "perplexed because these are kids who can’t read, don’t write, don’t have very good levels of retention, but they’re learning these raps word for word in 10 to 15 minutes." One wonders if KRS-ONE knew, when he rapped "YOU MUST LEARN" all those years ago, that the best means of learning may have been contained on the very BOOGIE DOWN PRODUCTIONS record on which he was rapping... RIP RANDY WESTON, CONWAY SAVAGE, MIKE KENNEDY, ELLIE MANNETTE and IOSIF KOBZON. | | | - Matty Karas, curator |
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 | The Verge |
| Music-making AI software has advanced so far in the past few years that it’s no longer a frightening novelty; it’s a viable tool. | | |
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 | Nash Country Daily |
| Carrie has always championed women. We covered a lot of ground in this interview, from the lack of opportunities for females on country radio and how to handle haters on social media to women being pitted against each other and how to be the BOSS. | | |
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 | WBGO.org |
| Randy Weston, a pianist and composer who devoted more than half a century to the exploration of jazz's deep connection with Africa, died on Saturday at his home in Brooklyn. | | |
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 | Detroit Free Press |
| The Queen left us with many lessons. But none was more important than teaching us how to live with purpose and live our way. | | |
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 | Very Smart Brothas |
| There has never been a better and greater and more accurate synopsis of the smelting of beauty and majesty and history and messy and ugly that happens in our pews each Sunday. Aretha Franklin’s funeral was, fittingly, the Aretha Franklin of funerals. | | |
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 | The Ringer |
| The singer’s "Mooo" became a viral hit out of nowhere. Then, problematic tweets from her past resurfaced, making her neither the first nor last sudden celebrity to suffer a social media reckoning. Are we building them up too quickly or are we too quick to tear them down? | | |
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 | The Times |
| Paul McCartney played at Abbey Road Studios again a few weeks ago, and what a trip that was. He sang hits including We Can Work It Out and Drive My Car about the distance of three McCartneys away from his audience. This tiny gig was part show of the decade, part Madame Tussauds on tour. | | |
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 | The Washington Post |
| How Drakeo the Ruler, 03 Greedo and others are painting a new picture of the West Coast. | | |
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 | Esquire |
| Welcome to the new vaudeville circuit, where live entertainment hasn't died--it's just gone to sea. | | |
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 | NME |
| A near-Twitterstorm set our columnist Mark Beaumont thinking that bands shouldn't bother trying to chase Sheeran-level online reach. | | |
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| | | ghetto music: the blueprint of hip-hop |
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 | Longreads |
| The Black press has always been where Black artists could have their work spoken about with integrity. | | |
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 | Rolling Stone |
| Weezer’s version of Toto’s “Africa” is one of several high-performing rock covers that are reaching an audience outside of rock. | | |
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 | The Creative Independent |
| Music lawyer Kelly Vallon--who works with clients like Beyoncé, Justin Timberlake, and Alicia Keys--discusses what's exciting about her work. | | |
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 | The Guardian |
| After misidentifying a body part on the Strokes’ famous album sleeve, I realised I was the victim of the modern age where the LP sleeve has become irrelevant to most. | | |
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 | Okayplayer |
| When Ali Shaheed Muhammad and Adrian Younge join forces they are The Midnight Hour; this is the story of how they crafted their self-titled debut, which is a fierce argument for live instrumentalism. | | |
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 | Pitchfork |
| Having lost in the court of public opinion, Dr. Luke beefs up his defamation lawsuit. | | |
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 | DJ Tech Tools |
| Love them or hate them, doing a rewind is a big part of dance music culture and DJs, and indeed random people in clubs are still doing cheeky reloads. | | |
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 | The Daily Beast |
| The game-changing album, released in 1968, marks its 50th anniversary with a wondrous deluxe box set. The Band’s lead guitarist and songwriter opens up about its creation. | | |
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 | Music Business Worldwide |
| Steve Salm on building up a business which will turn over more than $400m this year. | | |
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 | Synchblog |
| Content platform Twitch generates a huge amount of revenue, but despite music being used in most of its streams, the music industry doesn't see a penny of it. Ben Gilbert investigates. | | |
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 | YouTube |
| | | | Randy Weston feat. Sahib Shihab |
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