Mavis Staples takes her mission to the stage on ‘Live in London’
Mavis Staples was still in grade school when she started singing in front of congregations in South Side churches. Now at 79, Staples remains very much at home responding in...
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9 moments from the Grammys: Women rule, from Dolly Parton to Janelle Monae
Call it payback or a long overdue acknowledgment, but the 61st annual Grammy Awards essentially served up a three-hour-plus nationally televised tribute to women in music Sunday. The Grammys certainly...
Jpegmafia has developed his own hip-hop vocabulary, and is riding it to success
As a 29-year-old hip-hop artist coming off his first widely praised album, JPEGMAFIA is still processing his late-blooming success. At the top of his 2018 release, “Veteran” (Deathbomb Arc), he...
Super Bowl music review: An empty-calorie display of corporate-pop competence from Maroon 5
In the moments after its Super Bowl halftime headlining performance, Maroon 5 had to consider the cold reality that it was just upstaged by Travis Scott’s comet, Big Boi’s prodigious...
With ‘Sunshine Rock’ Bob Mould has a head-scratcher that works
With four song titles including variations on the word “sun” and a primary-color lollipop of an album cover that suggests a Top-40 bubblegum collection from the ‘70s, “Sunshine Rock” (Merge)...
Sharon Van Etten hits the reset button on her career
All the traditional barometers of success – a series of acclaimed albums leading to bigger tours in front of larger audiences – were pointing up for Sharon Van Etten in...
Maggie Rogers lets bombast rule on debut album, ‘Heard It in a Past Life’
Pharrell Williams could think of no higher praise when he compared Maggie Rogers to a Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup at a college class in 2016. The viral video of Williams...
Chicago rapper Mick Jenkins is aware and raps about the world — just don’t call him ‘conscious’
Mick Jenkins’ 2018 album, “Pieces of a Man” (Free Nation/Cinematic), dares to ask uncomfortable questions: Why do you try to act cool when you’re falling apart? Why are you afraid...
Guitar hero Steve Gunn puts new emphasis on songs for ‘The Unseen in Between’
Steve Gunn sometimes gets dubbed a “guitar hero” as if he were some kind of classic-rock throwback, but he’s anything but. As a solo artist and with a variety of...
R. Kelly and the music industry’s complicity
When RCA Records dropped R. Kelly from its artist roster a few days ago, those outraged by the mounting allegations against the R&B star might’ve justifiably been asking themselves, “What...