When hosts Bob Boilen and Robin Hilton are away, NPR Music's Saidah Blount and Daoud Tyler-Ameen hack past the All Songs firewall and take over the show.
Critic Ken Tucker reviews new music by the British punk band The Mekons and the American country-rock band The Mavericks. Both groups have recorded new songs that were inspired by recent news events.
An American black-music take on the Balkan brass band does a bit of Ellington/Strayhorn exotica. It totally works in spite of, or maybe because of, the multiple dialects at play.
NPR's Audie Cornish talks with Peter Hollens, an a cappella singer who regularly releases new music on his YouTube channel, about how the proliferation of music online could be a plus for artists.