Think of the best songs of 2021 as a playlist catering to the most basic human urges. Within it, booties were called, muffins were buttered and bloody revenge was contemplated. It was quite a year.
NPR's annual list of the year's best albums is full of work by musicians who hit career peaks, discovered their voices or willed something new into reality.
Bruno Mars and Anderson .Paak, masters of throwback, have delivered a tribute to Black pop's imperial era. If you're feeling the album's sound, there's plenty more where it came from.
Adorning hues that recall the title of her latest EP, If Orange Was a Place, the Nigerian singer performs a Tiny Desk home concert from an elegant performance space in Lagos.
With his brothers Charlie and Robert, the multi-instrumentalist helped define R&B's sound in the 1970s and '80s, bringing a distinct flavor of synth-heavy electro-funk.
Nicki Nicole's Tiny Desk home concert is representative of her artistry writ large, as an artist born in 2000 but with a connection to sounds and styles beyond her years.
The versatile and impassioned singer was ready to throw in the towel until she heard a message in a Nina Simone song that told her, "You're going be fine. I understand how you feel. Keep going."
The producer, who died this month at 53, crafted career-defining records by Mary J. Blige, Faith Evans and The Notorious B.I.G., armed with a desire to understand his artists as people first.
After a silent year in which artists were sent grants instead of invitations to perform, the beloved festival was determined to go on this year, as carefully as possible. And how possible is that?
TheTonight Show music director has been branching out: In addition to buying a farm, he's making his directorial debut with Summer of Soul, a documentary about a 1969 concert series in Harlem.
After nearly three decades spent producing massive hits for a long list of (other) legends including Janet Jackson and Mariah Carey, the pair called in some favors for a long-belated debut.
