Music & Culture

Keyboard player and singer Mike Hicks tours with Keb' Mo', but when he's home in Nashville, he's a key figure in the city's R&B and soul scene.

Music & Culture

Just Off Music Row, Nashville's R&B Scene Thrives

1:07pm March 24, 2017

by Jewly Hight

Artists like Mike Hicks, Emoni Wilkins and Jason Eskridge are finding ways to straddle the city's music communities, making themselves indispensable to the industry as they band together outside it.

Queue Listen Now

Kendrick Lamar performs in Brooklyn in December 2016. On Thursday night, Lamar released a new song, "The Heart Part 4," that seems to preview a new album by Lamar, to be released on April 7.

Music & Culture

Kendrick Lamar Fires A Warning Shot With New Song 'The Heart Part 4'

12:01pm March 24, 2017

by Rodney Carmichael

The new song from the acclaimed rapper, which takes aim at phony rappers and President Trump alike, climaxes with the revelation of his next album's April 7 release date.

Music & Culture

Watch Caroline Spence Perform 'All The Beds I've Made' Live For Folk Alley

12:00pm March 24, 2017

by Elena See

The Nashville-based songwriter recorded a few tracks at this year's 30A Songwriters Festival in Florida, including this quietly hopeful love song.

Lydia Ainsworth performs "Afterglow" in the Optic Obscura installation during SXSW.

Music & Culture

Escape The Noise: Watch 9 Lullabies From Austin

11:17am March 24, 2017

by Lars Gotrich

Lydia Ainsworth, Phoebe Bridgers, L.A. Salami, Valerie June, Let's Eat Grandma and others sing us quiet songs on hotel beds and in art installations during SXSW.

Emma Watson plays Belle in Disney's Beauty and the Beast, a live-action remake of the 1991 animated film.

'Beauty And The Beast,' Music, And More From South By Southwest

11:14am March 24, 2017

by Linda Holmes

This week, we visit the new Disney live-action adaptation of Beauty And The Beast, and we all report back from Austin about the happenings at South By Southwest.

Music & Culture

South X Lullaby: Nick Hakim

11:00am March 24, 2017

by Lars Gotrich

In the Optic Obscura installation at SXSW, Hakim sings some psychedelic soul music for outer-space performed in a room that looks like outer-space.

Phantoms' self titled album is out March 31.

Music & Culture

Songs We Love: Phantoms, 'Just A Feeling (Feat. Vérité)'

10:57am March 24, 2017

by Megan Buerger

The Los Angeles duo makes escapist, vocal-heavy dance music inspired by the city's surreal nightlife. Vérité sings on the deep and flirty new single.

The Builders And The Butchers' fifth album, The Spark, comes out May 19.

Music & Culture

The Builders And The Butchers: White-Knuckle Americana

10:00am March 24, 2017

by Stephen Thompson

On The Spark, due out May 19, the band's acoustic folk-rock sound is shot through with nervy, hellfire-and-brimstone intensity.

"I was learning so much in school and becoming a more confident problem solver, but I was losing my identity as a musician," Jesy Fortino says of her time away from Tiny Vipers.

Music & Culture

Tiny Vipers Returns With First Album In 8 Years, Shares Synthetic Hymnal 'K.I.S.S.'

9:23am March 24, 2017

by Lars Gotrich

"Laughter came out of this awkward place of losing myself." After her last album, Jesy Fortino went back to school to become a civil engineer. Her new album sounds like nothing she's done before.

Delicate Steve performs a Tiny Desk Concert on Mar. 3, 2017. (Marian Carrasquero/NPR)

Music & Culture

Delicate Steve: Tiny Desk Concert

9:00am March 24, 2017

by Bob Boilen

This fierce and lyrical guitar player writes playful instrumental music led by hooky vocals — but there is no voice, just the human-like twang of a glass slide on a guitar.