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Music & Culture

Adele's album '21' was released a decade ago. Now she's made history

6:52am December 22, 2021

Adele is the first female artist to have an album spend 10 consecutive years on Billboard's top 200. She's only the tenth artist to hit the milestone, joining the likes of Metallica and Bob Marley.

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Remembering rapper Drakeo the Ruler, fatally stabbed at a Los Angeles music festival

5:13pm December 20, 2021

by Andrew Limbong

Rapper Drakeo the Ruler, killed backstage at a Los Angeles concert on Dec. 19, overcame significant legal troubles to achieve renown with his distinctive flow and idiosyncratic wordplay.

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Afghan music students, teachers and their families disembark from their flight to Lisbon on Dec. 13. The group of more than 270 evacuees had been staying in Doha, awaiting resettlement in Portugal.

Afghan music students escaped the Taliban and are beginning their new lives abroad

11:21am December 20, 2021

Students and faculty with the Afghanistan National Institute of Music flew last week from Doha to Lisbon, where they will start their new lives and reconstitute their celebrated academy in exile.

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Kangol Kid, pictured in 2017 in New York City, has died at age 55 after being diagnosed with colon cancer.

Music & Culture

Kangol Kid, hip-hop pioneer, has died at 55

7:07pm December 18, 2021

by Hazel Cills

As a member of the hip-hop group UTFO, he was part of a pioneering era of New York City rap in the early 1980s. The Brooklyn group was best known for their 1984 hit song "Roxanne, Roxanne."

Anthony Tommasini, chief classical music critic for The New York Times.

Anthony Tommasini, classical critic for the Times, looks back ahead of retirement

8:13am December 18, 2021

NPR's Scott Simon speaks with Anthony Tommasini, chief classical music critic for The New York Times, about his storied career and pending retirement.

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With her humor and wit, Julz Sale (center) helped Delta 5 craft a high-voltage sound that, to this day, still rings true.

Music & Culture

Delta 5's Julz Sale had complete control

11:43am December 16, 2021

by Loren DiBlasi

With her ferocious voice and a cutting sense of humor, singer and guitarist Sale — who died in September — helped Delta 5 craft a high-voltage sound that still rings true today.

Music & Culture

'Throughline': 2 decades later have we caught up to Radiohead's prophetic vision?

5:50am December 16, 2021

The team of the NPR history podcast Throughline talks to singer Thom Yorke and art designer Stanley Donwood about two Radiohead albums that captured the anxieties and dread of the early 2000s.

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Mickey Guyton, Adia Victoria and Chapel Hart's Devynn Hart have made the industry a more welcoming place for others who look like them.

Music & Culture

How Black women reclaimed country and Americana music in 2021

11:00am December 14, 2021

Black women leveraged the power of streaming platforms and social media to bridge the chasms previously carved by labels, publishers and radio.

Music & Culture

Recommended listening: Louis Armstrong's 'The Night Before Christmas'

8:16am December 14, 2021

Writer Danny Freedman in Smithsonian Magazine argues that trumpeter Louis Armstrong's recording of "The Night Before Christmas" should become required holiday listening.

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Latin Grammy winner to Cuban leaders: 'We're done with your lies and indoctrination'

4:44pm December 13, 2021

by Elisa Baena

Afro-Cuban rapper Yotuel Romero discusses the song that won Song of the Year and inspired protesters in one of the biggest waves of demonstrations in Cuba in decades.

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