12-year-old Manchester DJ Cael Bell had his equipment confiscated by the teachers after hosting a rave in the school bathroom, The Mirror reports. The boy invited “all the boys from year 8” at St. Antony’s Catholic College in Manchester, UK, and together they held an impromptu dance fest in the boys lavatory during lunch period on December 11th. The set included complimentary soft drinks and Cadbury Twirls, and it lasted 30 minutes before the teachers broke it up. Bell’s mother said that the boy’s speaker and lights have been impounded, although she did not herself punish him - “Am I wrong for finding this funny?”.

BadBadNotGood are back where they left with Ghostface Killah - 'The Chocolate Conquistadors' with MF Doom goes totally into the psychedelic jazz-hip-hop territory; an interesting cover - a senior man named Frank Watkinson made a lovely folk-rock remake of Slipknot's 'Snuff'.

Afropop Worldwide presents the pop music of Nigeria, by far the strongest scene in Africa. Burna Boy, Wizkid, Yemi Alade, Tiwa Savage, Olamide, and Fireboy DML are the biggest on the Nigerian Afropop scene presented in AW's feature, which also covers the rising social activism.

“With your help, our artists and songwriters not only raised the spirits of millions everywhere, but also brought awareness to worthwhile causes that will help to repair a world so badly in need of repair" - UMG's Lucian Grainge said in his year-end letter to staff, Variety reports. He added - "more often than not, that awareness will trigger action, funding, and, ultimately, results… When the harsh realities of inequality and racism exploded across the globe, our artists were galvanized and, together with them, we responded quickly”.

"Years from now, when we look back at this time period... there will also be this album that has recorded the stories and names of all these ordinary women who would have otherwise been entirely forgotten" - Chinese music critic Postman tells BBC about the new album by Chinese singer Tan Weiwei. The highpoint of that album is 'Xiao Juan', a moody, excoriating diatribe against domestic violence, still considered a taboo topic for many.

Guardian took "the essentials of pop and disco to distil an alchemic cocktail of club euphoria" for their 50 best albums of the year list, with Fiona Apple on top.

The top 20 are:

20. Grimes – 'Miss Anthropocene'

19. Lady Gaga – 'Chromatica'

18. Run the Jewels – 'RTJ4'

17. Fontaines DC – 'A Hero’s Death'

16. Phoebe Bridgers – 'Punisher'

15. Jay Electronica – 'A Written Testimony'

14. Jessie Ware – 'What’s Your Pleasure?'

13. Bob Dylan – 'Rough and Rowdy Ways'

12. Chloe x Halle – 'Ungodly Hour'

11. Róisín Murphy – 'Róisín Machine'

10. Moses Sumney – 'Græ'

9. Taylor Swift – 'Folklore'

8. J Hus – 'Big Conspiracy'

7. Haim – 'Women in Music Pt III'

6. Waxahatchee – 'Saint Cloud'

5. Sault – 'Untitled (Black Is)'

4. Perfume Genius – 'Set My Heart on Fire Immediately'

3. Rina Sawayama – 'Sawayama'

2. Dua Lipa – 'Future Nostalgia'

1. Fiona Apple – 'Fetch the Bolt Cutters'

Creed singer Scott Stapp will be portraying Frank Sinatra in the upcoming biopic about Ronald Reagan, simply called 'Reagan'. The biopic will feature a scene in which Stapp will perform as Sinatra at the Cocoanut Grove, "at a time when Ronald Reagan was president of the Screen Actors Guild and the club was a staple of old Hollywood", Billboard reports. The film, directed by Sean McNamara, is slated to arrive in 2021, and it will find Dennis Quaid in the titular role of Ronald Reagan.

This year's social media star released the numbers for 2020, here's a pair: over 176 different songs surpassed 1 billion video views; over 70 artists that have broken on the platform have received major label deals, including Claire Rosinkranz, Dixie D'Amelio, Powfu, Priscilla Block and Tai Verdes.

Paul McCartney and Rick Rubin are joining forces for a six-part documentary series that will take a look at the ex-Beatles' rich career, and the first official trailer is out now (watch it below). In the trailer, the duo talks about how the bass guitar can control a band, and McCartney explains how the Beatles wrote their tunes - “we realized we were writing songs that were memorable, not because we wanted them to be memorable, because we had to remember them”. According to Deadline, the untitled project is the first time that the original masters have ever left Abbey Road Studios.

Seattle blues singer Lady A has released a new song called 'My Name Is All I Got', written seemingly in response to her ongoing legal battle with country band Lady A, formerly known as Lady Antebellum, Pitchfork reports. It is a heartening blues song about standing tall and being proud of your identity with one line saying it all - “Oh they tried to take my name, but my name is all I got”.