"Hard, kinetic, enthralling piece of writing, the kind that rap rarely gives us anymore" - Stereogum wrote about King Von's raps, ending with "it’s been a long time since a rap storyteller showed this much promise". Unfortunately, he won't have a chance to prove it - King Von was murdered at his album-release party in Atlanta on Friday, CNN reported. King Von is at least the 16th hip-hop artist murdered in 2020 in the US.

Iggy Pop gave a great speech on Nine Inch Nails' Rock & Roll Hall of Fame induction, describing NIN's music as "a focused and relentless process of emotional destruction which paints a portrait of pain, pressure, and dissatisfaction", CoS reports. He then described how seeing NIN live (1995 in LA's Forum with David Bowie) felt - "Trent held the center of the room just by being a kind of dark spot, hunched behind the mic. I had seen the same thing accomplished in different ways by T. Rex at Wembley, Nirvana at the Pyramid Club, and Bob Dylan in 1965. This is the mark of a master artist – simply to connect”. Trent Reznor said that “as an artist I think the most significant accomplishment or feeling is realizing that something you created from a fragile and intimate place has reached out, resonated, and affected someone else", adding “the journey is far from over"

Ariana Grande has climbed the Billboard 200 chart for the fifth time with her latest release 'Positions', with 174,000 equivalent album units earned in the U.S. in the week ending Nov. 5. 'Positions' is Grande’s third No. 1 album in less than two years and three months -- the fastest accumulation of three No. 1 proper studio albums ever by a woman. Grande has also done the chart double in the U.K., where 'Positions' and its title track rule the charts. Grande has also done the chart double in the U.K., where 'Positions' and its title track rule the charts, UK Official Charts reports.

Bones Hillman, longtime bass player with seminal Australian rock outfit Midnight Oil, died at the age of 62 after a battle with cancer, Ultimate Classic Rock reports. “He was the bassist with the beautiful voice, the band member with the wicked sense of humour, and our brilliant musical comrade” - reads a statement from Midnight Oil. He passed away Saturday Nov. 9, the same day the Australian Albums Chart was published, featuring Midnight Oil's 'The Makarrata Project' as the new No. 1.

Radio stations in the US are flipping to all-holiday formats a bit earlier this year than usual, Variety reports. WWIZ in Youngstown, Pa., moved to wall-to-wall seasonal tunes as early as late September, this week Los Angeles’ KOST, among others, also flipped the switch.

James Erskine’s documentary 'Billie' is constructed entirely from interviews by Linda Lipnack Kuehl, a high-school teacher and Holiday fan, who interviewed almost 200 of Billie Holiday's friends and colleagues. Kuehl was found dead in 1979 from a presumed suicide, and her interviews found their way to a private collector, from whom Erskine bought the rights. His film is a journey through Holiday’s life, narrated by the voices on those tapes – eyewitnesses to one of the 20th century’s most remarkable artists, Guardian says presenting it - "listening to musicians, lovers, pimps, childhood friends and FBI agents recounting their time with Holiday is an evocative and transportive experience".

A great profile in the LA Times on Irving Azoff, the most powerful manager in music - getting inducted in Hall of Fame today - manager to The Eagles, Bon Jovi, Lizzo, Roddy Ricch and many others. Azoff started in 1970s, and says there wasn't really that much competition - "I never felt the music business was that competitive. It’s just not that f—ing hard. I don’t think there’s that many smart people in our business”. He still manages artists, although it's not about the money, as the singer-songwriter and Azoff client J.D. Souther famously put it - “Irving’s 15% of everybody turned out to be more than everyone’s 85% of themselves”.

French singer and sound designer Hélène Vogelsinger explores abandoned places and connects with their energies to create immersive and suspended moments in her modular synth compositions. Her last piece was made for an abandoned cloister, but she ended up playing it in a castle at the south of France (the family who lived there helped refugees who fled war).

Music fans are patient and are hoping to return to shows once they're an option, Live Nation report on refunds shows. Refund rates remain low, more than a half a year after the lockdown began, 83% of Live Nation customers are electing to keep their tickets for rescheduled show dates rather than get their money back. Live Nation remains confident in a summer 2021 return.

DJ Mag presents six African MCs representing a new, experimental wave in African hip-hop:

O'Kenneth - Ghanian rapper fusing the grit of UK drill and the grandiosity of its Brooklyn counterpart with local influences

Natty - sub-zero chilly Nairobi drill

Moonchild Sanelly - "Future Ghetto Funk"

Sho Madjozi - Pan-African rap

MC Yallah - dark, industrial dance

Prettyboy D-O - at a hectic crossroads between contemporary Afrobeats, dancehall, hip-hop and R&B

At the end of last year, Indian indie singer-songwriter Prateek Kuhad was playing to an audience of 9,000 at an outdoor concert in Delhi's Garden Of Five Senses, capping off a huge, 30-date tour of India, but he wasn't really popular outside his home country. But, then, a stroke of luck happened - Barack Obama put Kuhad's song 'Cold/Mess' on his annual list of favourite music, and immediately the attention grew. US label Elektra Records will re-release the 'Cold/Mess' EP this winter - "to lay the groundwork for the next album that's coming out". He's conquered a billion people by now, there's six billion more left... BBC reports on the pretty story.

System Of A Down have just come together to release their first new music in 15 years, inspired by near-war tensions between Armenia and Azerbaijan. They released two new songs, 'Protect The Land' and 'Genocidal Humanoidz', the former in a more hard-rocky tone, and the latter more classic SOAD ska-metal.

Ken Hensley, keyboardist, vocalist and founding member of glam-prog band Uriah Heep, has died at age 75, Deadline reports. Having formed in 1969, Uriah Heep had a string of classic albums in the '70s, including '…Very 'Eavy …Very 'Umble', 'Demons and Wizards', 'The Demon's Birthday', and more. Hensley wrote or co-wrote many of the band's most famous songs, including 'Easy Livin'', 'Lady in Black', 'July Morning' and 'Stealin''.

Fast-rising West Coast rapper Drakeo the Ruler accepted a “sudden” plea deal offered for time served from the Los Angeles District Attorney’s office on Monday, and was released from prison after two and a half years behind bars, NPR reports. The 26-year-old was found not guilty of murder and attempted murder in July 2019, but was kept in jail based on two gang-related charges that rested on the bizarre assumption that his rap group, the Stinc Team, constituted a gang.

A No Deal Brexit will have a potentially "catastrophic" impact on the UK music industry because most of the British musicians would be unable to afford to tour the EU, NME reports. UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson has warned that the UK should prepare for a No Deal Brexit when the transition period ends on January 1, which would mean new rules, tariffs and restrictions, making it much harder for smaller and middle-size bands to cross the channel.

Canadian singer-songwriter MorMor released 'Don’t Cry', an industrial pop song; underground rap veteran Mr. Lif and producer Stu Bangas present their collaborative project Vangarde with 'Shelter in Place'; multinational group Seba Kaapstad collaborates with Sudanese/American rapper Oddisee on a strong but gentle song 'I’m Scared'; Post Truth Serum released a simple-but-great video for their song 'This Is The End'.

Holden Matthews, a 23-year old black metal musician from Louisiana, was sentenced to 25 years for setting three Baptist churches on fire in March and April of last year, Washington Post reports. The court also ordered he pay over $2.6 million in restitution for the damages to the trio of religious buildings. The son of a sheriff's deputy claimed to be inspired by the infamous '90s church burnings by black metal musicians in Norway and committed the acts of arson as an attempt to bolster his profile as a black metal musician. He even posted videos and photos of the crimes on Facebook.

With mask-wearing, seating, proper ventilation, reduced capacity, and hygiene protocols, the risk of the virus spreading through indoor concerts is "low to very low", a study by a group of German scientists has shown. They have put on a concert in August to see how COVID-19 spreads at shows and found that "the risk of getting infected is very low", New York Times reports. "There is no argument for not having such a concert" - dr. Michael Gekle, one of the scientists at Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg who did the study, said.

U.S. District Judge Paul A. Engelmayer has sentenced Anthony Ellison (33), to 24 years in prison for kidnapping rapper Tekashi 6ix9ine. Judge cited Ellion's leadership role in a gang active nationwide, AP reports. Tekashi 6ix9ine described the 2018 kidnapping at trial last year, saying Ellison and another man forced him into a stolen car at gunpoint, beat him, taunted him, and stole a bag full of jewelry before releasing him. In April, Tekashi 6ix9ine began serving home confinement for the last four months of a two-year prison term he was given for his role in a drive-by shooting in New York that he committed when he was with the gang.

German Federal Finance Court (Bundesfinanzhof) has made two new decisions that declare techno is music and the DJ is a musician, Sueddeutsche Zeitung reports. Entrance fees for techno and house concerts are tax-reduced to 7% from earlier 19%. According to the second decision, turntables, mixing consoles and CD players can also count as instruments, at least if they are “used to perform the piece of music and not just to play a sound carrier", and also to "perform their own new pieces of music by using instruments in the broader sense to create sequences of sounds with their own character”.

Hipgnosis Songs has acquired more than 33,000 songs from Kobalt Music Copyrights S.à.r.l. for $322.9 million, including songs from 1,500 songwriters, Music Business Worldwide reports. The catalog includes hits such as Fleetwood Mac’s 'Go Your Own Way' and 'The Chain', 'All I Want For Christmas Is You' and 'One Sweet Day' by Mariah Carey, 'Bailando' and 'Hero' by Enrique Iglesias, 'Higher Love' by Steve Winwood, 'Roar' and 'Teenage Dream' by Katy Perry, 'Halo' by Beyoncé, 'Love Shack' by the B-52s, 'In Da Club' by 50 Cent, 'Sorry' by Justin Bieber, 'Let It Go' from Disney’s 'Frozen' soundtrack and thousands more. Hipgnosis Songs Fund Limited total portfolio now comprises 117 catalogs and 57,000 Songs, with an aggregate acquisition value of £1.18 billion ($1.525 billion).

Kanye West has admitted defeat in American presidential elections, and has turned his attention to the next election, in 2024, the USA Today reports. West cast his vote in Wyoming, where he penned his own name on a 2020 election ballot. The 43-year-old artist appeared on pre-printed ballots in just 12 states: Arkansas, Colorado, Idaho, Iowa, Kentucky, Louisiana, Minnesota, Mississippi, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Utah and Vermont. West got 60,000 votes across these 12 states, Deadline reports.

Owners of big music companies like Madison Square Garden and Liberty Media have continued to spend millions of dollars supporting Republican causes like President Donald Trump’s re-election campaign and Republican candidates for House and Senate races, while the employees of those companies have turned toward Democratic candidates, especially presidential challenger Joe Biden, in record numbers, Billboard reports on the interesting political topic.

Spotify has announced a new feature through which artists, labels and rights holders can promote specific songs within the service's autoplay and Radio algorithms, The Verge reports. This visibility boost will be available at the cost of lower royalty payouts. Spotify hasn't yet announced how much lower.

American Recording Academy is changing the name of its best world music album category to best global music album, reflecting a change, rather an evolution in the world. The renamed Grammy will be announced on November 24 and given in February 2021. The Academy sees the new term as "a more relevant, modern, and inclusive", symbolizing "a departure from the connotations of colonialism, folk, and ‘non-American’ that the former term embodied while adapting to current listening trends and cultural evolution among the diverse communities it may represent”, Billboard reports. This year's Best World Music Album winner was Celia Angelique's 'Kidjo'.

Tracy Chapman performed on television night for the first time since 2015 to sing her most famous song 'Talkin' Bout a Revolution' on Seth Meyers' show, to remind American viewers to vote on Election Day. The 56-year-old songwriter did get some grey hair, but she sounds as fresh and powerful as ever..

Catchy children’s song 'Baby Shark', recorded by South Korean company Pinkfong, has become the most viewed video ever on YouTube with 7.04bn views over four years after it was first uploaded, Inquirer reports. It surpasses 'Despacito', the 2017 single by Puerto Rican pop stars Luis Fonsi and Daddy Yankee. Catchy 'Baby Shark' has prompted a spin-off live tour, merchandise, books and more, plus reworkings of the song, including one featuring - Luis Fonsi...

A viral video of Paul Harvey, 80, a former music teacher with dementia, performing a piece based on just four notes, has inspired a £1m charity donation from Scotland's first ever billionaire Sir Tom Hunter. Mr Harvey is suffering from dementia, but has continued to be able to play and compose piano pieces. His improvisation, 'Four Notes' has also reached the top of the iTunes and Amazon charts last week.

The latest Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band album, 'Letter To You' debuts at No. 2 on the Billboard 200 album chart for this week, making Springsteen the first act with a new Top 5-charting album in the United Sates in each of the last six decades, from the '70s to the '20s, Billboard reports. Luke Combs has also set a record this week - his 'What You See Is What You Get' comes back to No. 1 on the Billboard 200 chart, following its deluxe reissue on Oct. 23, with a streaming total of 102.26 million weekly streams, setting a new weekly streaming record for a country album.

'Looked Over Your Shoulder' is signed by Busta Rhymes, when maybe it's more a Kendrick Lamar/Michael Jackson song (it heavily samples 'I'll Be There'); 'Happy' is Danny Elfman's first new song in 36 years, accompanied by a spooky video; 'Babylon Exists' by The Late One is an activist reggae ballad with a strong political message; yet another protest song 'New America' sees the underestimated newcomer A$AP Twelvyy getting a helping mic from Conway the Machine; Karen O and Willie Nelson covered the iconic David Bowie and Queen classic 'Under Pressure'; an awesome video of icy soundworld by Dan Holdsworth for a Patten song 'Cerulean'; R-Mean features Method Man in good form on 'Circus'; 'Evans a Gift' by Loud Tides is a smoothy jazzy song; Riz Ahmed is moody, affirming the basics on 'Once Kings'; Patrick Watson drops a soothing piano on 'Lost With You'.