They don't say "Detroit Vs. Everybody" for nothing: Dismissed from the outside and splintered within, Michigan's rap cities turned scrap-or-die underdog status into a gritty aesthetic all its own.
Though defined from the start by outsiders — hip-hop flyover country one day, scrutiny magnet the next — Chicago's poets, brawlers and hustlers remain the last word on what gives the city its soul.
Taylor Sheesh, the Philippines' top Taylor Swift impersonator, has set out on her own tour across the country in a bid to get the global superstar's attention.
The 'anti-city' country song is a well-worn trope, one that pits idyllic country life against the corruption of the city. But Aldean's controversial song reveals the dark heart of the tradition.
The Latin Alternative Music Conference just wrapped its 24th edition. Colombian hip-hop duo Dawer x Damper and Argentinian rock band Usted Señalemelo received this year's Discovery Awards.
The current rap capital thrives on a thrilling contradiction: Its best music is at once hyperlocal and globally accessible, true to its roots but built for scale.
Beneath the 8 million stories in the culture's birthplace lies a bigger one: the story of American Blackness, which crystallized in a music that can't and won't stop growing.
Octavia Butler's novel Parable of the Sower — depicting a dystopian U.S. in 2024 — was published 30 years ago. Toshi Reagon's new musical retelling explores the web of past, present and future.
In August 1973, an 18-year-old DJ Kool Herc played his sister's back-to-school fundraiser in the rec room of their apartment building. But he and his friends sparked something much bigger.
Known for its thumping backbeat, vocals and shimmering accordion riffs, Conjunto has been around for more than a century. Now more young musicians are picking up the beat
For years, the relatable Michigan rapper's lore was missing a crucial component: an album. In the lead up to its release, he talked leak culture, becoming a talk-show host and his idea of taste.
Harvey talks with NPR Music's Ann Powers about her album I Inside the Old Year Dying, a ragged, highly crafted adaptation of her epic poem Orlam, and why she prefers to make art without boundaries.
The Black Opry Revue show emerged from a simple directory of Black country and Americana artists and blossomed into a full-blown community of artists and fans.