This year artists working within the orbit of the unstable category "roots music" got personal even as they explored complex cultural lineages and challenged the rules of established scenes and forms.

This year artists working within the orbit of the unstable category "roots music" got personal even as they explored complex cultural lineages and challenged the rules of established scenes and forms.

After a year defined by emergence and creative combination, our critics zoom in on their own listening to choose one inescapable album and song each.

Poet and critic Harmony Holiday spent her year interviewing descendants and torchbearers, finding that the soul of jazz needs preserving offstage and outside of the booth.

Marcus J. Moore reflects on the studio debut of pianist Julius Rodriguez, an artist seamlessly commingling jazz with more pop forms.

We ranked a list of 100 songs that reflects the sprawling, energetic messiness of 2022. Start listening.

We ranked a list of 100 songs that reflects the sprawling, energetic messiness of 2022. Start listening.

An irrepressible global pop star and political provocateur, Bad Bunny collects streaming accolades with ease, but refuses to temper his idiosyncrasies or move to U.S. pop's center.

After publishing a total of 125 Tiny Desks in 2022 — 77 filmed remotely and 48 shot in the office — we want to hear from you.

It was a heart-pounding, dance-inducing, head-spinning year in Latin music, from Bad Bunny's exponential rise to a relentless commitment from up and coming artists to play between genre lines.

We ranked our 50 favorite records of the year, from hip-hop to classical and everything in between.

Her album-as-Sistine Chapel: awe-inspiring from a distance and glittering with detail, a star-filled imaginary sky and an origin myth that comes to life through its brilliant brush strokes.

In 2022, the greatest difficult-to-classify sounds encompassed microtonal rock jams, tender ambient, Egyptian ghosts and an epic synth symphony.

NPR's pop critic and correspondent shares her favorite albums of this year.

The songs we love from the first half of the year span a wide emotional and musical range, from wild percussive romps to raw pleas for empathy to Beyoncé's command to leave it all on the dance floor.