Music & Culture

Chloe Howl performing in 2013. The singer was one of four women from the U.K. music industry to launch the Stop2018 campaign.

Music & Culture

U.K. Campaign Against Sexual Assault, Discrimination The Latest In A Growing Movement

8:29am December 21, 2017

by Andrew Flanagan

The campaign, Stop2018, has four simple requests it wants to see enacted in the coming year in order to make the country's music industry more equitable for women.

Elbow perform on KCRW's Morning Becomes Eclectic at The Village Studio.

Music & Culture

Elbow, 'All Disco' (Live)

5:00am December 21, 2017

by Jason Bentley

Watch the U.K. band perform a track from its latest release Little Fictions, an album about the joy of new love and fatherhood.

Jennifer and Hazel Wrigley are featured in this episode of The Thistle & Shamrock.

Music & Culture

The Thistle & Shamrock: The Gathering

10:12pm December 20, 2017

We feature family torchbearers for tradition — and forces for innovation in vocal and instrumental music — the Brennans, the Fishers, the Cunninghams and the O'Domhnaills.

Reggie "Combat Jack" Ossé attends the Spotify Mogul launch party in May 2017. The hip-hop personality has passed away at the age of 48.

Music & Culture

Reggie 'Combat Jack' Ossé, Hip-Hop Journalist And Podcaster, Dies At 48

8:34pm December 20, 2017

by Sidney Madden

Entertainment lawyer-turned-hip-hop podcaster Reggie Ossé started his interview show, The Combat Jack Show, on a lark, but it turned into an essential document of rap in the Internet age. He was 48.

Goran Bregović in his native Sarajevo. Bregović's latest album, Three Letters from Sarajevo, is available now.

Music & Culture

Goran Bregović Reconciles Religion With Music On 'Three Letters From Sarajevo'

5:04pm December 20, 2017

"I like to understand music as a conversation," the Balkan singer says. "Music is language."

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Music & Culture

Big Thief, 'Mythological Beauty' (Live)

4:10pm December 20, 2017

The Brooklyn folk-rock band performs a powerful story-song about family and pain live in the KCRW studio.

Curtis Harding (center) and his band pose inside the World Cafe Performance Studio.

Music & Culture

Curtis Harding On World Cafe

3:39pm December 20, 2017

by David Dye

The young Atlanta-based artist has an old soul — key word, "soul." Hear a performance of songs from his new album, Face Your Fear.

The Beatles' Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (50th Anniversary Edition)

Music & Culture

The Best Reissues Of 2017

3:04pm December 20, 2017

by Tom Moon

It was a good year for previously unheard songs from classic albums and discoveries of studio works and live performances that never saw the light of day.

Rapsody released Laila's Wisdom, her sophomore album and first since partnering with Jay-Z's Roc Nation, in September.

Music & Culture

Define Your Line: Rapsody On Coexisting In Rap's Power Gap

2:18pm December 20, 2017

by Rodney Carmichael

As women lit up hip-hop this year, an old idea persisted that only one female MC can wear the crown at a time. Our year-end series continues with an artist determined to coexist without compromise.

Music & Culture

World Cafe Remembers The Musicians We Lost In 2017

1:38pm December 20, 2017

by Talia Schlanger

We were lucky to have some of the artists who died in 2017 pass through the World Cafe to perform. Listen back to their sessions.