Dame Vera Lynn, the endearingly popular “Forces’ Sweetheart” who serenaded British troops abroad during World War II, has died at 103, BBC reports. During the war and long after, Lynn got crowds singing, smiling and crying with sentimental favorites such as 'We’ll Meet Again', and 'The White Cliffs of Dover'. She hosted a wildly popular BBC radio show during the war called 'Sincerely Yours' in which she sent messages to British troops abroad and performed the songs they requested. The half-hour program came on during the highly coveted slot following the Sunday night news. “Winston Churchill was my opening act”, she once said. The NME emphasizes "the most punk thing she ever did" - in 1985 she played an anti-heroin gig at London’s Crystal Palace Bowl with space-rockers and famed psychedelics fans Hawkwind.

This week UK buskers have returned to the streets, which brought out the issue of the exchange of physical money. World Health Organisation has countered claims that banknotes could transmit Covid-19, but they did however emphasised the importance of hand-washing after handling cash. A busking guide recommends that buskers use “a box with plastic inside for your drops” but stresses the public health benefits of cashless reader and PayPal. Yet James Stephen, a folk busker from Stockport, said that PayPal “has a few more steps in it than opening your wallet and throwing a coin in. People may think, ‘Oh well, bit of a faff that, I’ll just walk past’”.

UK electronic-jazz drummer Moses Boyd and drill rapper Digga D are the most nominated artists for this year’s AIM Independent Music Awards, with three nominations each. Electronic music trailblazers Flying Lotus and Floating Points, as well as Polish pianist Hania Rani and psychedelic R'n'B singer Greentea Peng are vying for two awards each. The most attractive category, Best Independent Album, is filled with interesting releases: Brooke Bentham 'Everyday Nothing', Everything Is Recorded 'Friday Forever', Kidjo Ojua 'The Mixtape', Kim Gordon 'No Home Record', Laura Marling 'Song For Our Daughter', Moses Boyd 'Dark Matter', Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds 'Ghosteen', The Ninth Wave 'Infancy', Phoenix Da Icefire & Husky Brown 'Panacea' and Sarathy Korwar 'More Arriving'.

A fun new song 'Pelota' by the psych-trio Khruangbin; 'Dreams' by Hannas Georgas is a simple, almost cold, albeit full-hearted song produced by The National's Aaron Dessner; Braids 'Snow Angel' is elegiac and threatening, a pearl!; J Cole's 'Snow On Tha Bluff' addresses the issue of Black Lives Matter protests (supposedly he's aiming at activist and rapper NoName); Idles' new song 'Grounds' features a big beat and a big riff.

SoundCloud producer DJ Skarface has shared ‘Rage The Jewels’, a mash-up mix that pairs Run The Jewels instrumentals with De La Rocha’s RATM vocals. RTJ's El-P gave his approval to the project on Twitter as he tweeted “oh shit” while sharing a link to Skarface’s SoundCloud mix. Skarface has made a version of ‘Rage The Jewels’ with separated tracks available for free on Bandcamp. A name-your-price download option is also available, with proceeds from the downloads going to the National Lawyers Guild.

Akon has secured $6 billion to build a cryptocurrency-powered city in Senegal, and he’s calling it Akon City. The Senegalese-American artist struck a partnership with the African country’s state-owned tourism company to create a fully sustainable tourist city beginning of the year, and now, Akon has gotten the ball rolling on the city’s development by entering the huge deal with the United States-based engineering and consulting firm KE International. The first phase of the project is focusing on constructing roads, a school, a police station, a power plant, a waste facility, a hospital, and a mall by the end of 2023. The second phase will begin the following year and will focus on courting businesses to run on Akon’s own AKOIN cryptocurrency. By the time it’s completed in 2030, Akon City will also include parks, universities, a stadium, and an industrial complex.

Ian Fraser 'Lemmy' Kilmister of the iconic Motörhead is the subject of the new biopic as a "vanguard and talisman of the loudest, dirtiest and most liberated rock ’n’ roll band in the world", according to The Hollywood Reporter. The upcoming film, 'Lemmy,' is to be directed by Greg Olliver, who spent three years following Motörhead and Kilmister for the 2010 documentary of the same name. The film will cover Lemmy’s youth in England, his stints as a roadie for Jimi Hendrix and a member of Hawkwind, and his legendary 40-year run as the driving force behind Motörhead. Loudwire suggests 13 actors who could play Lemmy (aren't they way to pretty to play him?!?).

Billboard has made a list of executives from 75 independent music companies - labels, distributors and associations - the most powerful people in indie music. Indie labels and artists - independent by their ownership through entities other than the three major music groups - account for nearly one-third of the global music market, and, according to research by MIDiA, they’ve achieved a faster rate of streaming growth on Spotify in 2019 than the majors. The people commanding them are, to name just a few, Patrick Amory from Matador Records, Bang Si-Hyuk from Big Hit, Noah Assad from Rimas, Fiona Whelan Prine from Oh Boy Records, Frabian Eli Carrión from Real Hasta La Muerte, Camille Soto Malavé from GLAD Empire, Michael Weissman from SoundCloud, Bryan “Birdman” Williams from Cash Money Records...

About 2,000 live music venues and promoters from the USA have banded together to form the National Independent Venues Association, and for more than two months the association has been lobbying Capitol Hill for another round of COVID-19 financial relief, Pitchfork reports. Measures advocated by the group include tax credits, continued unemployment insurance benefits, and payroll assistance. Music-lovers and musicians support the initiative - more than 500,000 emails have been sent through the Save Our Stages website, and more than 600 artists - including Lady Gaga, André 3000, Kacey Musgraves, Bon Iver, Joni Mitchell, Neil Young, Alabama Shakes, and Patti Smith - have publicly championed NIVA’s plea for federal rescue under the #SaveOurStages hashtag. According to a recent survey, almost 90 percent of independent venues will have to close permanently within months if they can’t secure federal funding.

The Roots and Michelle Obama are hosting a virtual festival on June 27, with a lineup featuring The Roots, SZA, Roddy Ricch, Lil Baby, Kirk Franklin, H.E.R., G Herbo, Earthgang, Polo G, DJ D-Nice, Snoh Aalegra, and Musiq Soulchild, CNN reports. Various non-musical guests will make appearances as well (no word on Barack Obama yet). The virtual fest, organized through When We All Vote as the 13th annual Roots Picnic, can be watched via the Roots’ YouTube page.

Last weekend British jazz pianist and composer Keith Tippett has died, with Raspberry Fields' Piotr Orlov writing a lovely short text about the musician. Orlov sees him as "an indispensable connector between the post-psychedelic jazz-rock folks, the free-form players, the South African expats who were completely turning the sound of improvisation upside down, and the chaotic big-bands that were striking many different kinds of fancies". Tippet collaborated a lot - with Stan Tracey, Julie Tippetts (his wife, née Driscoll, King Crimson - "his career encompasses many many records and musical turns that are beyond dope, and have seemingly little to do with one another, except that the players on them strangely overlap, and Tippett is often near the center".

Warner Music Group, Sony Music and Spotify plan to commemorate the June 19 holiday celebrating the end of slavery in the U.S., Billboard reports. At Warner, Juneteenth is not being treated as a day off but rather “an important time for all of us to learn, reflect, and connect as we continue to battle systemic racism". Spotify will exclusively feature black artists on Friday, June 19th.

Among the 40 artists on the 2020 Long List for the best Canadian album are: Caribou, Lido Pimienta, Jessie Reyez, Andy Shauf, KAYTRANADA, The Weeknd, U.S. Girls, dvsn, Leif Vollebek, Jacques Greene, Daniel Caesar, Cindy Lee, Men I Trust, and Allie X.

6,000 people attended two illegal “quarantine raves” in Manchester, England on Saturday, June 13th, which left one young man dead due to suspected overdose death. According to the BBC, there were also three stabbings, and the rape of an 18-year-old-woman. Streams of young people were seen on their way to the two "quarantine raves" on Saturday evening. There was also a large police presence at both sites.

"I want to see a new generation of female writers achieve even more without age-old sexism holding them back" - former NME editor Charlotte Gunn told Music Week about her new project - The Forty-Five, an online platform with an all-female base of contributors. The site's already online - there's an interview with former Maccabees frontman Orlando Weeks who's just released his solo debut; also, a commentary on Lady Gaga’s queer pop dominating the charts.

John Prine sang "Got no future in my happiness/Though, regrets are very few/Sometimes a little tenderness/Was the best that I could do" on 'I Remember Everything', the last song he recorded before he passed away from COVID-19; JD Simo's 'One Of Those Days' is a soulful, psychedelic and amusing rock; Bettye LaVette remade Billie Holiday's iconic 'Strange Fruit' reminding us public executions of this day aren't that different from the ones from two centuries ago; bass icon Bootsy Collins released 'Stars', featuring philosopher Dr. Cornel West, drummer Steve Jordan, banjo legend Béla Fleck, and EmiSunshine & Olvido Ruiz; Pop Smoke's posthumous album is coming out in July, 'Make It Rain' sounds promising, in mainstream hip-hop terms; Woodkid's 'Pale Yellow' is a strange fruit, dramatic, cinematic, folk-ish.

An encouraging story in the Rolling Stone about clubs in New York, California, and California D.C., shut down in March due to coronavirus, opening lately to shelter anti-police brutality protesters. Venues like Flight Deck, Club Cumming, 9:30 Club have become havens for protesters offering them charging facilities, hand sanitizer, water, restrooms and basic first-aid, some milk to dull the sting of pepper spray...

Rage Against the Machine were a target to some fan criticism due to band's "political opinions", with one fan saying "music is my sanctuary and the last thing I want to hear is political bs when i’m listening to music". RATM's Tom Morello answered kindly - "Scott!! What music of mine were you a fan of that DIDN’T contain 'political BS'?. I need to know so I can delete it from the catalog". Lawyer Elisabeth Ryan, Morello's Harvard colleague, was more straightforward saying - "What machine did you think they have been raging against for decades? The Ice cream machine? The ATM? Lawnmowers?".

Billie Eilish shared her anger over the killing of Rayshard Brooks in an Instagram post - “man FUCK. watching this video made me so fucking angry”, she wrote aside a photo of Brooks. “FUCK THIS SHIT. JUSTICE FOR RAYSHARD BROOKS. FUCK THIS SHIIIIIIIIT. #justiceforrayshard !!!! WHY ISNT EVERYONE TALKING ABOUT THIS??”, Billie Eilish added. On Friday, Brooks was shot in the back and killed while fleeing after Wendy’s employee called police to report a man sleeping in their drive-thru, Billboard reports. Eilish’s brother Finneas also reacted to the murder via Instagram: "Asleep in his car in a parking lot. Shot to death. Don’t let yourself be numb to this. Don’t let the world stay this way”. In similar news, Beyoncé has shared an open letter on her website to Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron, seeking swift justice for Breonna Taylor, the 26-year-old emergency room technician who was killed in her home by Louisville police, Time reports. Also, Barbra Streisand has gifted her Disney shares to the young daughter of slain Minnesota man George Floyd, CNN reports.

“Just the idea of playing a gig – we’d play a gig for an empty room, really. We’re super keen to get out there” - surf rock duo Hockey Dad told Guardian about their concert in July while 400 carloads of fans watch from behind their windscreens. Drive-in festival Airwaves will happen on the Sunshine Coast for three nights from 10 July, headlined by the Chats. The Drive-In is a “live entertainment precinct” about to happen in Melbourne, offering weekly live music. Drive-in Entertainment Australia plans to launch around the country next month...

Dolly Parton fan named Alex Parsons has set up a petition to replace Tennessee's Confederate monuments with statues of one of the state's most admired country singer-songwriters, the Charlotte Observer reports. Parsons argues Parton "has given more to this country and this state than those confederate officers could ever have hoped to take away".

Lil Baby returns to No. 1 on the Billboard 200 albums chart with his latest release 'My Turn', with 65,000 equivalent album units earned, Billboard reports. It’s the second week at No. 1 for the album, following its debut atop the chart in March. 'My Turn' tallies the smallest sum for a No. 1 album in over a year, in a slow week for new albums - there were no debuts inside the top 40 of the new chart. Last week, the Atlanta rapper released the song 'The Bigger Picture' in response to the national protests over police brutality.

Music company BMG has pledged to address "inequities or anomalies" in the record contracts of black artists, following criticism of widespread financial inequality in the music industry, Music Business Worldwide reports. BMG CEO Hartwig Masuch said the label was “mindful of the shameful treatment of black artists”, and would begin a review of historic record contracts within 30 days.

age Against the Machine's music has proven to be relevant now, decades after it was released - politically charged band’s 1992 self-titled debut is back at No. 174 on the Billboard 200 chart, Forbes reports. The debut LP features the classic 'Killing in the Name', which was written in the wake of Rodney King’s beating at the hands of the LAPD and the subsequent riots that followed. In addition to that, all three of RATM’s original studio albums - the 1992 debut, 1996’s 'Evil Empire', and 1999’s 'The Battle of Los Angeles' - climbed to the Top 30 of Apple Music’s Rock Albums chart.

"Drab City make strangely cinematic music, full of flutes, vibraphones, soft vocals and glitchy beats" - Guardian writes in their newest "One to watch" segment about USA-Berlin duo. They've just released their new album 'Good Songs for Bad People' with "stronger, more haunting songs and a strangeness that feels fitting for our surreal times". Listen to the album in full at Bandcamp here.

Nashville country trio Lady Antebellum have changed their name to Lady A, alluding in their letter to fans to recent weeks of Black Lives Matter protests across the United States and the world, New York Times reports. In the United States, the term antebellum, which comes from the Latin for “before war,” is generally used to refer to the antebellum South, pre-Civil War, and can be seen as a way of romanticizing plantation life while overlooking centuries of black slavery. The band said it took the name when it formed in 2006, as a reference to the “‘antebellum’ style home where we took our first photos”.

A great little indie label One Little Indian - home to Björk, the Sugarcubes, Olga Bell, Cody Chesnutt, and more - has changed its name to One Little Independent Records, Flood Magazine reports. Label's founder Derek Birkett decided to change it this week after receiving an “eye-opening letter from a Crass fan” that made him feel "equally appalled and grateful to them for making me understand what must be changed”. He apologised "to anyone that has been offended by the name and the logo“ and admitted he recognises "now that both contribute to racism and should have been addressed a long, long time ago”. Birkett is making donations to organizations such as Honouring Indigenous Peoples Charitable Corporation and the Association on American Indian Affairs on behalf of the label.

The Flaming Lips performed on Stephen Colbert’s 'Late Show' last night, playing 'Race For The Prize' from their 1999 album 'The Soft Bulletin', while every member of the band and everybody in the audience was inside giant inflatable bubbles, a staple from the group’s live shows.

Fulltone, the guitar and bass effects company behind the popular OCD pedal, received heavy backlash after company's founder, Mike Fuller, went on an offensive social media tirade slamming the ongoing protests for justice following George Floyd's murder at the hands of police. "What is this like night 4 of looting with 100% impunity. The pussy Mayor and Governor don’t give a shit about small businesses, and it’s never been more clear" he wrote in a since-deleted post. After this post, music retail store Guitar Center announced they won't do business with Fulltone anymore, and numerous musicians - members of Blink-182, Indigo Girls, etc. - said they are planning to stop using Fulltone's equipment.