Featured stories about Music
Stories about Music
Popular, yet banned, songs in Cuba
"Listening to the song for the first time was a discovery for me at a time when food was scarce in my house."
Making Turkish music in Hungary: Can this be a ‘Nasip Kısmet’ moment?
How fortunate is it to be able to play Turkish folk songs in Hungary, despite the anti-immigrant, Christian-values agenda of the prime minister, Victor Orbán.
A dive into young people's discontent through the Hong Kong indie band, My Little Airport
A dive into the discography and lyrics of My Little Airport (MLA), a 17-year-old indie band in Hong Kong, offers a perspective into young people's discontent in the city.
Georgians who look different: ‘Friends ask me to dress in a way that won't get me beaten’
Tsitsi Chkheidze aka Indigo, Sandro "Manson," and Eka Mdzeluri, share their experiences living and working in a society where their nonconformist appearances have drawn criticism and judgment.
Malaysian rapper Namewee breaks the hearts of mainland Chinese ‘little pinks’
"Sorry for hurting you. It’s okay to delete Weibo, Oh, I hear a sound, a fragile heart is broken into pieces... It’s Okay I still have IG and FB…"
Peter Telfer, the Trinidadian percussionist who made African drumming a church staple, goes to his Creator
"I remember the first time I heard ‘O Creator’. It woke me up because [...] it was our rhythm, it was our chant, it resonated with us, a Caribbean people."
How Namadingo is uniting generations of Malawian musicians through Reggae duet mashups
The duets have also introduced younger fans to an older generation of musicians, including Giddes Chalamanda, the oldest living legend in Malawian music today.
‘Kazakh language is perfect for rap': Interview with cultural commentator Yevgeniya Plakhina
Sung in a mix of Kazakh and Russian, played with traditional nomadic and new musical instruments, contemporary alternative music from Kazakhstan offers an eclectic and rich environment.
Flower power: Rapper Trinidad James irritates compatriots with sneaker brand misnomer
The debut of the rapper's new sneaker brand, marked by a plethora of inaccuracies about the country's national flower, was followed up by an apathetic apology with additional blunders.
Hope amid scarcity and fear: Cuba after July’s historic protests
"Cuba understood that it had the right to have rights."
The activist side of K-pop in Peru
Peruvian kpoppers were responsible for up to 15 K-pop trending topics on Twitter in 30 days.
Preserving Africa’s musical heritage by combining traditional folk music with modern sounds
There has been a lot of renewed interest among African musicologists, historians, and enthusiasts to record, digitize, and archive traditional music and ancient sounds from indigenous communities in Africa.
Critical thinking is crucial to progressive art: Bosnian musicologist Amila Ramović
Amila Ramović, assistant professor at the department of music theory and pedagogy at the Music Academy of the University of Sarajevo, talks about critical thinking through art.
From vaxxing to doxxing: The social media power of Nicki Minaj
After reporter Sharlene Rampersad pressed Minaj's relatives for an interview by implying their privacy would be more quickly respected by her local news outlet than by CNN, Minaj doxxed her.
Asking for a cousin's friend: The viral load of Nicki Minaj's vaccine misinformation tweet
The controversial tweet followed others that dealt with COVID-19 vaccination, including Minaj's announcement she would forego the Met Gala because attendance was vaccine contingent and she hadn't done “enough research.”
Dalit erasure, or how Rolling Stone India failed to demonstrate diligent storytelling
A special cover by pop culture magazine Rolling Stone India and music platform Majjaa carrying interviews of singers Dhee and Vincent de Paul stirred controversy and widespread displeasure.
‘If you thirst for freedom, seize it!’: The songs of the Belarusian uprising
The songs of protest that have become some the most vital symbols of the 2020 Belarusian revolution are varied in their origins and surprising in their complexity.
Artists join activists in protest to save a water reservoir in Kazakhstan's capital
A group of contemporary artists and activists joined forces to protest the urban developments at the Malyi Taldykol water reservoir in Kazakhstan's capital city.
Eccentric reggae pioneer Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry dies at 85
"Jamaica has lost the rhythm and soul of a prolific music icon who has inspired many. Perry was one of the most important creative figures to come out of Jamaica."
The first woman dub poet, Jean ‘Binta’ Breeze, dies at her rural Jamaican home
Reflective of Jamaica’s storytelling tradition, her work involved repeated chanting in a narrative style.
