A group of 277 attendees at the notorious Fyre festival are to receive settlement payouts of $7,220 each, according to the latest lawsuit ruling, at the US bankruptcy court in New York. The 2017 event drew global attention after the supposedly luxury music experience, promoted by supermodels and set to feature artists such as Major Lazer and Migos, turned out to resemble a disaster relief camp with windswept tents and decidedly non-gourmet food. Attendees had spent between $1,000 and $12,000 on tickets to the festival, which was cancelled on its opening day. Organiser Billy McFarland was sentenced to six years in prison for fraud in October 2018, The Verge reports.

"Fueled by a young population, great musical talent, and more streaming opportunities, Africa’s music industry is booming, and the world’s major record labels are taking notice" - QZ starts its article about the potential of music in Africa. Universal and Warner, two of the biggest record labels, are taking action "signing top African artists, hiring personnel for their operations in the continent, and entering deals with local labels and music streaming companies as they strategically position themselves for a share of Africa’s growing music earnings".

Fiona Apple covers Sharon Van Etten’s 'Love More' for Van Etten's 'Ten' anniversary reissue, adding heartbeat drums and subtle piano to the song; Low cover Bob Dylan’s 'Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door' for the Uncut compilation 'Dylan Revisited'; The Black Keys share their version of 'Crawling Kingsnake' by Big Joe Williams, from their album of Mississippi hill country blues standards 'Delta Kream', out May 14.

Saturday Night Live star Pete Davidson is set to play Joe Ramone in a new biopic 'I Slept With Joey Ramone', based on the memoir of the same name by Joey Ramone's brother, Mickey Leigh, who is also one of the film’s executive producers. Davidson and his frequent collaborator Jason Orley also penned the script for the film, with Orley also directing the biopic, Rolling Stone reports. Mickey Leigh shared a bed with Joe Ramone, as well as childhood, family, and a lifetime.

Puerto Rican star was the big winner at the Latin American Music Awards, taking home five awards including artist of the year, album of the year for 'YHLQMDLG' and favorite male artist. Bad Bunny was followed by Karol G and Nicki Minaj who took three awards each including song of the year thanks to global hit 'Tusa', Hola! USA reports. Check out all the nominees and winners here.

The staff of The Verge recommend their favorite music straming services:

Radio Dismuke, a little-known streaming service with a constant diet of pop and jazz from the early part of the last century

Soma FM - has tons of different genre stations

YouTube Music - incomparable catalog

8tracks - lets users upload playlists of at least eight songs, possible to get three skips per playlist per hour

KEXP - consistently excellent music selection by the public radio station based in Seattle

Aux Live - a music-focused service with a range of live concerts and documentaries

Qobuz - a place with higher-resolution music

Spotify - a nice user interface and compatibility with almost every piece of streaming hardware on the market

Apple Music - does a great job of syncing all of the music across devices

Live Music Archive - over 200,000 concerts in lossless audio quality for free

Guitarist Anthony Garone wrote a book 'Failure to Fracture' chronicling his 22-year-long journey of learning how to play King Crimson’s 11-minute instrumental 'Fracture', Guitar World reports. Robert Fripp once described his 1974 masterpiece as “impossible to play”, especially because of the section roughly three minutes in where the guitarist begins a nonstop barrage of notes called a “moto perpetuo” – an Italian term for “perpetual motion”. Over the years, Garone published blog posts and videos about his efforts, and kept working at it until he had a breakthrough after enrolling in a week-long guitar instruction course led by Fripp in rural Mexico in 2015. Last year Garone released a video of him playing the song (watch it below). 'Failure to Fracture' is released May 18.

YouTube star Chris Crocker, who shot to online infamy for their ‘Leave Britney Alone’ viral video, has sold the original clip as an NFT (non-fungible token) for 18.69 ether, which is roughly equivalent to around $41,000. Crocker explained to Business Insider that selling the video was their way of reclaiming the clip after years of relentless mockery and abuse. The money made from the sale would go primarily towards helping their grandmother, and their gender transition surgery.

London based rapper Berwyn shares a smooth '100,000,000', following in the rich British lyrical tradition; Matthew E. White and Lonnie Holley share a psychotic jazz groove 'Broken Mirror (A Selfie Reflection) /Composition 9'; José González announces his new album with gentle and personal 'Visions'; 'Instrumental' is the highpoint of Samba Touré's latest album.

24-year old Grammy-nominated rapper CHIKA has announced her retirement from the music industry due to the impact it was having on her mental health. In a statement, she told fans that “the mental toll being in the industry has taken on me is not something you bounce back from easily”. CHIKA is known for being vocal about political and societal issues and was detained by police at a Los Angeles protest over the police killing of George Floyd last year.

"Right now, when you get songwriters in the room, they're trying to write a radio hit, because that's the only way you make money. If we create an environment where songwriters are not worried about this, if they're not freaking out about paying their rent, and they're just able to focus on being creative, there will be a musical renaissance" - US writer Emily Warren tells BBC about her initiative The Pact, a group of the world's biggest songwriters who got together to stop the practice of pop-stars taking credit for songs they didn't write any part of. It used to be rare, but in recent years, artists have started demanding a share of the publishing "ninety-nine per cent of the time", says Tayla Parx, another Pact member, whose credits include Ariana Grande's 'Thank U Next' and 'High Hopes' by Panic! At The Disco. Warren, who recently received a Grammy nomination for her work on Dua Lipa's 'Don't Start Now', says that demands for co-writing credit start with a 1% share, rising as high as 20%, with an average of about 15%. Since The Pact launched two weeks ago, more than 1,000 people have signed the open letter.

Mick Jagger and Dave Grohl have just released their first song together, a lockdown-themed number 'Eazy Sleazy' written by Jagger and performed by both the rock stars. The Rolling Stone says to the Consequence it's the only song he's written on the subject of lockdown, in a "semi-humorous way", just like the lyric “Shooting the vaccine/ Bill Gates is in my bloodstream/ It’s mind control".

The music streaming giant has stepped into music listening hardware business - Spotify is launching a smart device for the car called the Car Thing. The new voice-controlled device, which only works with a Spotify Premium account, will let users say “Hey Spotify” to ask for a song, album, artist, playlist, station, or podcast. It also features a dial to browse, select, play and pause content, a 4″ touchscreen and four preset buttons for shortcuts to user's favorite artists, playlists, stations, and podcasts. The device connects to Spotify’s app on a smartphone and connects to the car stereo via Bluetooth, AUX or USB cable, TechCrunch reports. Initially available for select US users, the new gadget’s anticipated retail price is $79.99, but is available at no cost for a limited time for those select users, with SPOT only charging $6.99 postage.

Phoebe Bridgers’ guitar that she smashed against an amplifier on Saturday Night Live in February, was sold for a shocking $101,500 in a GLAAD auction, Loudwire reports. Bridgers, who identifies as bisexual, was nominated for outstanding breakthrough music artist for Thursday’s GLAAD Music Awards. The winner was the upstart rapper Chika. Bids for the guitar had remained in the low five figures in the days leading up to the auction’s close, but the price went up in a bidding frenzy Sunday, the last day of the auction. Jason Isbell has said the guitar was worth around $85, before it got smashed, which means the price went up 1,200-fold after Bridgers had smashed it.

Streams of DMX’s catalog of songs increased 928% in the United States in the days following his death - his tracks garnered 75.7 million on-demand streams (audio and video combined) on April 9 and 10, a nine-fold increase compared to the 7.36 million they earned on April 7 and 8. In terms of music sales, DMX’s collected songs and albums sold 101,000 copies on April 9-11 – up 1,036% compared to the 9,000 they sold on April 6-8.

Jim Ward of the At The Drive-In, delivers a positive message "to die a better man" on 'Paper Fish', with help from friends, members of Incubus and Thursday; Keen Dreams share dream pop song 'Pinks & Reds'; Trade Wind shares atmospheric indie rock 'Die! Die! Die!' together with a morbid video; Mina Tindle shares a pretty live version of 'Give A Little Love'.

The London soul singer Olivia Dean has announced as Amazon Music's Breakthrough artist for 2021, NME reports. As streaming platform's Breakthrough artist, Dean is now set to receive substantial support from Amazon Music including bespoke video and audio content, global marketing support, increased visibility across Amazon Music’s playlists and programming, and a high-profile Amazon Original track which is available only on the streaming platform.

"I love streaming. I stream a lot of music myself. The access we have to all kinds of music from all over the world is incredible. But I believe streaming must be fixed" - Nadine Shah tells the Guardian about the issue ahead of a publication of the UK parliamentary report about it. She and other artists, such as Nile Rodgers, Ed O’Brien of Radiohead, as well as songwriters for stars such as Kylie Minogue, have hit out at an “archaic” streaming model that allows major labels to maximise their revenue while some musicians struggle to make minimum wage.

Deaf actor and dancer Mervin Primeaux-O’Bryant and hearing dancer and choreographer Brandon Kazen-Maddox have started a new project producing sign language covers of 10 seminal musical works recorded by Black female artists. The two men sing with their hands, giving the song a special structure, as the New York Times notes: "A good A.S.L. performance prioritizes dynamics, phrasing and flow. The parameters of sign language — hand shape, movement, location, palm orientation and facial expression — can be combined with elements of visual vernacular, a body of codified gestures, allowing a skilled A.S.L. speaker to engage in the kind of sound painting that composers use to enrich a text".

Music journalist Greg Cochrane and Savages drummer Fay Milton have launched a new podcast Sounds Like a Plan which aims to shine a light on the music community’s fight against the climate crisis, NME reports. Launched this month, SLAP will feature an “inspiring climate advocate from the music community" like The 1975’s manager Jamie Oborne, Radiohead’s Ed O’Brien, and Melvin Benn, director of Festival Republic, which includes Reading + Leeds, Latitude...

Jon Batiste, Trent Reznor, and Atticus Ross won the Original score award at this year BAFTAs, for their work on the animated movie 'Soul', the Variety reports. Music movie 'Sound of Metal', about a metal drummer who goes deaf, has won the Editing and the Sound awards. 'Ma Rainey's Black Bottom', about the influential blues singer Ma Rainey has won the Costume design award. Check out all the nominees - here.

A commanding presence on the mic... effortlessly balancing raw charisma with hit-making savvy, DMX had a major impact on the sound and direction of an era in hip-hop - Rolling Stone writes presenting their selection on 16 essential DMX songs. The iconic hip-hop artist has died at the age of 50 after suffering “catastrophic cardiac arrest”. Rolling Stone expands the story on DMX with revisited articles about his debut and his identity.

New York art collective MSCHF which made "Satan Shoes" that purportedly contain a drop of human blood in the soles, has agreed to issue a voluntary recall as part of a legal settlement with Nike, the New York Times reports. The $1,018 trainers are modified Nike Air Max 97s, with only 666 pairs made and all but one, which Lil Nas X, who collaborated in the creation of the shoe, held so he could choose the recipient, have been shipped. MSCHF will offer full refunds to customers in order to remove the shoes from circulation. However, limited edition shoes can fetch higher prices among collectors so it is not clear how many - if any - customers will return the products.

Coleman Williams, aka IV, the son of Hank Williams III and the fourth generation of the Hank Williams’ line, shared his hard rock country debut 'Son of Sin', singed as IV and the Strange Band; Darkside - the duo of Nicolás Jaar and Dave Harrington - shared 'The Limit', a laid-back noisey dark-club tune; Assertion share an emo/post-hardcore song 'Deeper in the Shallow'.

Sorry share their new EP, including the moody 'Don't Be Scared'; Cigar Cigarette teamed up with MOTHERMARY for an industrial cover of Cyndi Lauper's 'Time After Time'; Beachy Head, the new group featuring members of Slowdive, Casket Girls, and Flaming Lips, share slow and psychedelic 'All Gone'; Du Blonde shared anthemic single - 'All The Way'; Paris-based artist Poté presents his debut album with 'Young Lies', featuring Damon Albarn; Detroit rapper Bruiser Wolf shares a jazz/funky 'Syndicate' from his latest album; Mark Mallman shares sad happy song 'For Love I Will Let Love Go'; St. Lenox tackles religion from a not-so-particularly-religious point in 'Deliverance'.

British label behind the xx, FKA twigs, Arlo Parks, Sampha, and many more, has changed its name from Young Turks to just Young, as Uproxx reports. Founder Caius Pawson explained that, when he named the label after a Rod Stewart song in 2005, he had been “unaware of the deeper history of the term.… and that the Young Turks were a group who carried out the Armenian Genocide”. The label will also donate an undisclosed sum to the Armenian Institute in London.

Ja Rule has teamed up with photographer Trevor DeHaas to sell the infamous cheese sandwich tweet from the ill-fated Fyre Festival as an NFT (non-fungible token), for an estimated price of $80,000. Tickets for the luxurious festival in the Bahamas ranged from between $4,000 to $12,000, however, the audiences that reached the island only got - the meagre snack. The Flipkick listing describes the tweet as a “Meme. Cultural touchstone. Cheese sandwich... The most iconic image from 2017’s most famous debacle". All proceeds are going towards the medical expenses for DeHaas’ daily dialysis and kidney transplant. Ja Rule recently sold his Fyre Festival logo oil painting in NFT for $122,000.

The Foo Fighters leader has announced 'The Storyteller: Tales of Life and Music', a memoir made as a spinoff from his pandemic Instagram account, @davestruestories, through which he shares tales from his music career. Grohl emphasizes that he wrote the book himself, without a ghostwriter. In the YouTube player below, hear an 11-minute extract from the book, narrated by Grohl himself. The book, due out October 5 through Dey Street Books, is available to pre-order from the newly launched website davegrohlstoryteller.com.

Country rockers Jason Isbell and Sturgill Simpson are the latest to be cast for Martin Scorsese’s upcoming film 'Killers of the Flower Moon', Deadline reports. Jesse Plemons would take on the lead role, next to Robert De Niro and Leonardo DiCaprio. 'Killers of the Flower Moon' follows FBI agent Tom White (Plemons) as he tries to solve the serial murders of members of the Osage Nation over oil rights. A prominent local cattleman named William Hale (De Niro) and his cousin Ernest Burkhart (DiCaprio) were among those implicated in the murders. Isbell will make his feature film debut as Bill Smith, an adversary of Burkhart, while Simpson portrays the infamous rodeo champion and bootlegger Henry Grammer.

Pitchfork did a great job of talking to the owners, bookers, and managers of 36 independent music venues in the US to see how they’ve been doing over the past year, and what their fans can do to help. The thing all of them are waiting for is best described by the Washington, D.C., 9:30 Club operator: "The show’s been booked, tickets have been sold, production is finished, soundcheck is done. The artist is excited and ready to go, and the audience is, too. It’s a magic moment".