Between founding the string and jug band Carolina Chocolate Drops and winning a Pulitzer Prize and a MacArthur grant, Rhiannon Giddens has become one of folk music's foremost advocates for understanding the crucial role of Black musicians in the history of American roots music. This weekend, a North Carolina-based festival that she curated, Biscuits & Banjos, will feature dozens of Black artists performing and speaking on panels about their experiences in the genre. Karen Cox hide caption
Composer Jennifer Higdon during rehearsal at the OK Mozart Festival in Oklahoma. Her music receives over 250 performances each year. OK Mozart Festival/OK Mozart Festival hide caption
Jane Remover, a 21-year-old musician whose youthful interest in online gaming transformed into a music career, is a central figure of digicore, an emerging offshoot of the hyperpop culture that took off in the 2010s. Brendon Burton hide caption
The Madi Diaz song "God Person" is just one of the tracks that hit us hard. Courtesy of the artist hide caption
PlaqueBoyMax attends ComplexCon in Las Vegas in November 2024. Already an online celebrity for his livestreams, he released his debut EP, LONDON, on March 20. Sara Jaye/Getty Images for Complex hide caption
Thought he spent time around the folk revival scene of the 1960s, Michael Hurley quickly cut a unique path for his career, with an extremely independent approach to recording and releasing music. Sarah Taft hide caption
Jason Isbell says his latest album, Foxes in the Snow is about "growing and changing ... and not about accusing Amanda [Shires] or any other individual person of any wrongdoing." Christy Bush hide caption
Wadada Leo Smith (left) and Vijay Iyer have known and collaborated with each other for decades. They have just released their second album as a duo, Defiant Life, with Smith on trumpet and Iyer on piano. @ogata_photo hide caption
Lucy Dacus frames her new album, Forever Is a Feeling, around a vision of love as a well-tended slow burn. hide caption
Over just a few months, the four members of the K-pop group BLACKPINK (left to right: Jisoo, Jennie, Lisa and Rosé) have all debuted new releases as solo artists. Photos by Jisoo/Mok Jung Wook/Wontae Go/Kenneth Cappello hide caption
"When people grieve or go through a great loss, there are just ugly parts that come out of people when they're in survival mode," Japanese Breakfast's Michelle Zauner told NPR, reflecting on the complicated relationships behind her new album. Pak Bae hide caption
Playboi Carti onstage in February, performing with The Weeknd during the 67th Grammy Awards. The rapper's long-delayed third studio album is titled, simply, MUSIC. Amy Sussman/Getty Images hide caption
The coronavirus pandemic reordered almost everything about the music industry, from touring to streaming, interrupting careers and stealing lives. Illustration by Jackie Lay. Photos by Frazer Harrison / Stephen Shugerman / Matt Winkelmeyer / Clive Brunskill / Pascal Le Segretain/Getty Images hide caption
American composer Steve Reich has invented, developed and evolved interlocking patterns in his music for more than six decades. Carolyn Cole/Los Angeles Times/Getty Images hide caption
Extended silence during a concert often feels like a gift an audience grants a beloved artist, like Barbra Streisand, whose devotees at one show sat in almost unbearable anticipation to hear her sing. Jeff Fusco/Getty Images hide caption
SZA performs at the Glastonbury Festival in June 2024, teasing the insect imagery that would appear some months later on LANA, a supersized reissue of her landmark album SOS. Joseph Okpako/WireImage/Getty Images hide caption
Electronic music producer and DJ Jennifer Lee — aka TOKiMONSTA. Nolwen Cifuentes for NPR hide caption
