Music & Culture

Can the highly publicized band turn its hype into hits? Ken Tucker wants to join the fan club.

Formed in the 1930s during Jim Crow, The Blind Boys of Alabama have been singing gospel for seven decades. For the new album I'll Find a Way, the group has teamed up with a younger artist: Justin Vernon of Bon Iver.

Prism features one of the loudest bands of the bassist's career. The pleasures of the groove here are complex and deep — it's not just about moving feet.

Kicking off a week of stories on Morning Edition about the extraordinarily talented children often known as prodigies, NPR's David Greene spends a few minutes with a preteen musician who has already performed at Carnegie Hall and the White House.

All Things Considered's Audie Cornish speaks with the teenage New Zealand singer about her new album, Pure Heroine. "Royals" is just about the opposite of anything you'd hear from Lorde's pop peers.

Schneider's Burden of Proof is a frequently beautiful, often morose, downcast album. You get the sense that, when he sings about not connecting with someone he loves, he's also singing about not connecting with a bigger audience.

For three years, the jazz musician and his collaborator Mike Ladd have been working with war veterans-turned-poets to bring their words to light. NPR's Arun Rath speaks with Iyer and Iraq veteran Maurice Decaul about the album that resulted, Holding It Down: The Veterans' Dreams Project.

World music DJ Betto Arcos joins host Arun Rath with a stack of records by his favorite new California musicians — all with global influences.

Saxophonist Gabe Baltazar is one of the last living links to an era when Asian-Americans began to make a name for themselves in jazz. Now, at the age of 83, he's sharing his story in an autobiography.

Lawrence Lessig was not pleased when Liberation Music persuaded YouTube to take down one of his online lectures because of an alleged copyright violation. So Lessig, one of the most famous copyright attorneys in the world, decided to take a stand against broad, intimidating takedown notices.