Music Interviews

Music & Culture

Jon Batiste On Sharing Joy In A Painful Year: 'I Want To Reaffirm People's Humanity'

1:34pm July 05, 2021

by Terry Gross

Batiste is the bandleader of The Late Show with Stephen Colbert. In March 2021, he joined us from his home piano, playing songs from his album, We Are, as well as music he wrote for the film Soul.

Queue Listen Now

Music & Culture

The Traditional Chinese Pipa Meets Guitar In Min Xiao-Fen's 'White Lotus'

8:45am July 03, 2021

NPR's Leila Fadel asks Min Xiao-Fen, virtuoso on the Chinese stringed instrument pipa, and guitarist Rez Abbasi about their collaboration on White Lotus, a new album.

Music & Culture

Shaking Up The Classical Canon: Randall Goosby Talks With Lara Downes

5:00am July 03, 2021

by Lara Downes

The rising young violinist discovers his musical roots and questions the traditional borderlines of the repertoire.

Min Kwon's America/Beautiful will be released July 4.

70 New Ways To Think About 'America The Beautiful'

4:31pm July 02, 2021

Pianist Min Kwon asked 70 artists to examine and interpret the patriotic standard on solo piano. "What they have in common is what they want America to sound like," she says.

Music & Culture

Bruce Springsteen: On Jersey, Masculinity And Wishing To Be His Stage Persona

2:02pm July 02, 2021

by Terry Gross

"People see you onstage and, yeah, I'd want to be that guy," Springsteen says. "I want to be that guy myself very often." His one-man show returned to Broadway this week. Originally broadcast in 2016.

Queue Listen Now

Sly Stone performs at the Harlem Cultural Festival in 1969, in a still from the film Summer of Soul.

Music & Culture

Questlove Discusses His Must-See New Doc, 'Summer Of Soul'

1:02pm July 02, 2021

Summer of Soul is a new documentary telling the story of a series of six concerts that took place in Harlem in 1969 — and is also Amir "Questlove" Thompson's first gig as a film director.

L'Rain's Latest Album 'Fatigue' Explores The Power Of Change

8:00am June 27, 2021

NPR's Lulu Garcia-Navarro speaks to musician and singer L'Rain about her latest album Fatigue.

Music & Culture

Hiss Golden Messenger's M.C. Taylor Processes His Pandemic Blues In Latest Album

9:24am June 26, 2021

NPR's Leila Fadel speaks with M.C. Taylor, frontman for the North Carolina-based band Hiss Golden Messenger, about the new album Quietly Blowing It.

"I feel like music is just a facet of my life, like it doesn't take hierarchical dominance over the people that I love and it never will," Lucy Dacus says. Her third album, Home Video, depicts memories and relationships from her years growing up in Richmo

Music & Culture

Lucy Dacus Is Her Own Unreliable Narrator

6:25pm June 25, 2021

NPR's Ailsa Chang talks with Richmond, Va., songwriter Lucy Dacus about the childhood memories — real and imagined — that populate her latest album, Home Video.

Mia Berrin of Pom Pom Squad. The band's full-length debut, Death of a Cheerleader, is out now.

Music & Culture

Life In Plastic: The Sweet And Sinister World Of Pom Pom Squad

6:01am June 25, 2021

by Alex Ramos

On their full-length debut, Death of a Cheerleader, Mia Berrin and her band queer the American adolescent experience with camp style, girl-group nostalgia and a dose of the uncanny.