Music Features

H.E.R. has music in her blood. Her Filipino mother instilled an early appreciation for karaoke, and the rising R&B star would belt Mariah Carey, Alicia Keys and Whitney Houston as a toddler. Thanks to her dad’s cover band rehearsing in her family’s Vallejo, California home, she was surrounded by instruments …

Vox Luxmakes for polarizing viewing. The film — whichstars Natalie Portman as an empty, narcissistic pop star — isvisual candy peppered with uncomfortable extended sequences of visceral violence that fails to capture the wicked majesty of pop and its stars in the way it thinks it does. Yet, for a …

Before the rapper Smino dropped his official debut, blkswn, in 2017, he started to loathe the music on it. “There was a point when I got to the end of the project where I was like, ‘I hate that shit,’” he recalls. “Then people are like” — he adopts a …

Nothing sums up 2018 like the fact that Toto’s “Africa” has become our unofficial anthem. It’s a song that’s ridiculous by definition — an Eighties ode to Africa by a bunch of L.A. rock dudes who’d never set foot in the place. But something about this song speaks to our …

Less than a week before her death, Aretha Franklin was on the phone with a friend, planning her next record. “I knew she was under the weather,” says Harvey Mason Jr., an R&B producer and session pro known for his work with Whitney Houston, Michael Jackson and Justin Timberlake. “But …

Young Thug saves the best for last on his new EP: The final track, “High,” is a striking, AutoTune-slathered duet between the rapper and Elton John, whose voice is imported via a sample of the classic hit “Rocket Man.” Fervent Young Thug fans — is there any other kind? — …

Aretha Franklin, who died on August 16th at age 76, recorded more than 40 full-length albums in her six-decade career. It’s a deep catalog, crowded with indisputable classics and hidden gems. Rolling Stone’s music staff is paying its R.E.S.P.E.C.T.s to the Queen with tributes to our favorite Aretha LPs. Next …

On the cover of 2016’s Puberty 2, Mitski Miyawaki stands in a meadow wearing an oversized white tee, her face painted the same color. She’s half-turned toward the camera, staring down the viewer in what feels like an image of rebirth. In many ways, it was. Puberty 2 capped off …

In 2017, two of the most popular singles in America were bilingual: Luis Fonsi and Daddy Yankee’s “Despacito” featured a yearning guest verse from Justin Bieber, while J Balvin’s club missile “Mi Gente” gained incendiary power thanks to a Beyoncé cameo. In both cases, the English-speaking singers made notable effort …

For the past six years, System of a Down guitarist Daron Malakian has been sitting on an entire album with no plans of releasing it. He recorded it entirely himself with the intention of putting it out under the name Scars on Broadway, a side band he launched during System’s …