XXL magazine revealed their Freshman Class list for this year with 12 rappers to watch: "NLE Choppa calls home to Memphis while Polo G and Calboy represent Chicago. Lil Tjay and Fivio Foreign hold it down for New York. Baby Keem rests his head in Las Vegas. Jack Harlow is a proud Louisville, Ky. native. Rod Wave hails from the bottom of the map in St. Petersburg, Fla. Down South gets love from Chika in Montgomery, Ala., and both Mulatto and Lil Keed are hot in the streets of Atlanta. San Francisco rapper 24kGoldn earned the most fan votes to land the title of the Freshman 10th spot winner".

“We are the first country in Asia to legalise same sex marriage. We’ve been supporting the Hong Kong democracy movement and the cause of Tibet" - Freddy Lim of Taiwanese metal band Chthonic says in Guardian interview. He is also a member of the Taiwan parliament, where he pushes for young people and progressive ideas: "That younger generation have been born into independence, into a democratic country that they don’t want to sacrifice. With this generation making political decisions, it can make Taiwan more progressive, to care more about oppressed people and those who suffer with tough lives”. Recently, he started a new podcast with Emily Y Wu, Metalhead Politics where he mixes the two worlds.

“Lana is simply one of the best songwriters in the country, as we speak. She just creates a world of her own and invites you in. So a big favorite of mine, the lovely Lana Del Rey” - Bruce Springsteen said in a recent broadcast on SiriusXM, Stereogum reports. Springsteen also played Del Rey’s own 2012 song 'American' during the radio show, which notably name-drops him: “Springsteen is the king, don’t you think/ I was like, hell yeah that guy can sing”.

UK rapper Stormzy has donated £500,000 to fund educational scholarships for students from disadvantaged backgrounds, BBC reports. His gift to the Black Heart Foundation is the first major funding arrangement since he pledged £10m to help organisations that are dedicated to fighting racial inequality in the UK in this decade. Stormzy’s £500,000 donation will cover the cost of awarding cash grants to about 50 students.

Glitchcore has skyrocketed from a fledgling scene into a sizable movement in just the past year - Complex looks back on the latest mini-genre sensation on SoundCloud. People also call the genre digicore and robloxcore, but what this songs have in common is "a ridiculous, infectious gridwork of glitches". Most of these artists are teens who grew up listening to pop-punk and emocore. They are David Shawty, whose tracks teem with glittering glitches and often dabble in darker hues; Osquinn who makes everything from megabouncy electro-rap to twinkling storms of low-end; Glaive - produces a synthesis of indie rock and electronic; Capoxxo, Dreamcache and Oaf1 all experiment in genre. When it all comes together, it’s both hideous and strangely winsome - like a painting that goes so far into kitsch it comes out the other side as genius.

TikTok has 85 million American users and it is a hub for creativity of all kinds, especially for musicians, The Forty-Five reports on impact of politics on music. From the hopefuls to the viral hit makers to the bona fide superstars, TikTok has become the best tool for music promotion. If the American ban on TikTok activates the American users would be kicked off the app and US companies would no longer be able to advertise on there. It is now owned by a Chinese company, if their American operations are bought by an American company before September 15, American TikTok users will remain active.

"The movie theater business could come back on with a flip of a switch," Audrey Fix Schaeffer, a spokeswoman for the American National Independent Venue Association tells Variety. Live music is much different - "it will take at least four months for touring to be scheduled and for all the venues to be able to have a calendar, because it is such an intricate process". Livestream and socially distanced gigs aren't the solutions either: "The economics don’t work for the vast majority of it, whether it’s streaming, or whether it’s a socially distanced thing, because it costs so much in the overhead that you cannot make it".

Electronic duo Darkstar have shared a simple yet moving tribute to UK venues. The video accompanying their track ‘Blurred' compiles Google Earth footage of music institutions across the UK, reflecting on the ongoing loss of public space and cultural venues.

Taylor Swift holds the top spot of Billboard's 200 for a third consecutive week with her pop-folk album 'Folklore - aided by the arrival of its CD version in stores, 'Folklore' earned 136,000 equivalent album units in the U.S. last week, Billboard reports. It's the first album by a woman to spend its first three weeks at No. 1 since 2018, when Lady Gaga reigned the top with 'A Star is Born' soundtrack. Three new albums among the top 10 at the Billboard: country superstar Luke Bryan debuts at No. 5 with 65,000 equivalent album units earned with 'Born Here Live Here Die Here'. Alter-rock band Glass Animals achieves its first top 10 album as 'Dreamland' arrives at No. 7 with 60,000 equivalent album units earned. Rapper NLE Choppa closes out the top 10 as his 'Top Shotta' bows at No. 10 with 36,000 equivalent album units earned.

“There are so many situations where a fight needs to be had. A revolution is needed, and I want to inspire it" - Burna Boy said in an NME interview about his new album 'Twice As Tall'. It's the lies in school he heard that sparked his anger: “The schools in Nigeria would rather teach you another man’s history than your own", for example the 18th-century Scottish explorer Mungo Park, who Burna was told in school “discovered the river Niger”. “That’s one of the fucking scams we’re taught!” he splutters. “This is a river that has been drank from and bathed in, and children have been given birth to in, for thousands and thousands of years. Now suddenly a man called Mungo Park comes from fucking England or some shit and ‘discovers’ the Niger? How do you discover something that people have their history in? Then you go and teach these people’s children that in schools! That’s something to fight against".

18 must-hear folk albums of 2020 so far, Brooklyn Vegan says, are the ones by Phoebe Bridgers, Jason Isbell, Bill Fay, Waxahatchee, Laura Marling, Microphones, The Innocence Mission, and others...

PopMatters chose "12 brilliant jazz albums", among them albums by Thana Alexa, Franco Ambrosetti, Kneebody, Todd Marcus...

Brooklyn Vegan also chose 15 "must hear" metal albums: Oranssi Pazuzu, Paysage d'Hiver, Umbra Vitae, Ulcerate...

Pete Way, the founding member of the pioneering UK hard-rock band UFO, has passed away at the age of 69, Blabbermouth reports. The legendary musician suffered major injuries in an unspecified accident two months ago and died Friday. Formed in 1968, UFO helped bridge the gap between hard rock and heavy metal, influencing acts like Iron Maiden, Metallica, and countless others, before disbanding in 1983.

"Perhaps dancing is the thing I miss most of all at the moment. I don’t go out clubbing that often but it is on the dance floor that I find that rush of euphoria, that glorious mix of privacy and connection that you get in a room full of strangers, all caught up in the thrill of the music, the buzz of the moment" - Tracey Thorn of the Everything but the Girl, wrote in New Statesman about being in lockdown. So she started working out at home through online classes - and so it happens that she ends up practicing to one of her own songs...

Jónsi shared a collaboration with Liz Fraser, and 'Cannibal' sound just like that - Sigur Ros meets Cocteau Twins; Nas is back in shape - 'Ultra Black' is sharp and entertaining and juicy; Emiliano Melis released a melodic ambient electronic tape loop composition; Black Noi$e shared a hip-hop banger '1999'; The Killers shared a disco-rock ‘Dying Breed’, with their "most romantic lyric ever"; First Aid Kit shared a cover of Willie Nelson's ‘On The Road Again’, with proceeds going to Crew Nation; GNOD & João Pais Filipe shared live video for ambient and hypnotic 'Terra'; Melvins' Buzz Osborne released acoustic-horror song 'I'm Glad I Could Help Out'; Rufus Wainwright's new song is called 'Devils & Angels (Hatred)' but it's full of life; The Flaming Lips shared their new acoustic psychedelia called 'Will You Return / When You Come Down'; Bobby Sessions dropped militant/protest rap 'Fight'; a great little thing by Paul De Jong - he wrote a poem 'This Poem Will Fade and Die', 97-year old musician and educator Catherine Luening read it, he then set it to music (piano), and made a video featuring Luening in her Manhattan apartment listening to the track for the first time.

Black Music History Library is a living collection of more than a thousand books, articles, documentaries, series and podcasts about the Black origins of traditional and popular music dating from the 18th century to present day. Resources are organized chronologically and by genre for ease of browsing. It covers K-Pop, Latin Pop, West African, punk, hip-hop, jazz, electronic/dance, classical, música tropical and much more.

Sam Fender played a sold-out show for 2,500 fans at Newcastle’s drizzly Gosforth Park. Socially distanced show had groups of five at 500 individual platforms set metres apart. Telegraph said the gig was "a strange affair, but in their 500 little bubbles, fans had an absolute ball". NME writes that "hometown hero lifts gloom with life-affirming, groundbreaking show". Chronicle has pictures from the show. The Libertines, Two Door Cinema Club and Supergrass will follow suit at the venue over the summer.

Iranian band Arsames have fled their home country to avoid having to serve a 15-year prison sentence for playing metal music. Arsames insist they don't play satanic music, rather they sing about Persian history - "is it a crime that we love music and our country?!”. Metal is viewed as a Satanic form of music in Iran, which violates the country’s strict blasphemy laws and could result in execution, Loudwire reports.

Music venues in England have been given the green light to reopen from Saturday, BBC reports. Music and performance venues will be able to reopen with socially distanced audiences - venues will have to limit capacity and enforce wearing of masks, Route Note reports. New powers will be introduced to penalise the organisers of mass gatherings including raves. Nightclubs and discos will remain shut. Organisers of illegal raves will face fines of up to £10,000 under new rules. West Midlands Police shut down 125 parties and raves, including one of up to 600 people, last weekend, while London's Metropolitan Police have said that more than 500 illegal events were organised in the city in just one month, Evening Standard reports.

Wu-Tang Clan frontman RZA teamed up with American ice cream company Good Humor to pen its new ice cream truck jingle. It might seem funny, but RZA has pointed out that the popular ice cream truck jingle 'Turkey in the Straw', often heard from trucks has a history rooted in racism, explaining the song was popularized via minstrel shows "and some adaptations paired it with hateful, racist lyrics". RZA hopes his new jingle will be adopted by ice cream truck drivers all over, so it's been made free to use. It will even be included as an industry-standard in ice cream truck music boxes.

"Sometimes I think people are too problematic to be cancelled, or not relevant enough to be cancelled. I mean, it wouldn't even make news if he said something racist today, because he went on a racist rant in the 60s or 70s that was very famous" - Phoebe Bridgers told about Eric Clapton in a Double J interview. She added - "I have such an Eric Clapton rant, because I think it's just extremely mediocre music, but also he's a famous racist". Previously, she spoke how "John Lennon beat the [expletive] out of his first wife, and nobody really talks about it. And he was the most fake activism guy ever". But "it’s not true that only people who make [expletive] music like Eric Clapton are problematic. Daniel Johnston wouldn’t have made the music that he did if it weren’t for John Lennon, and he’s definitely the best Beatle. But you can’t deny someone is a bad person because you love their art".

The Notorious B.I.G.'s son Christopher "CJ" Wallace is to release a new album featuring reimagined versions of Biggie's records, All Hip Hop reports. 'Ready to Dance' will be a melding of Hip Hop and House, with guest musicians, vocalists, producers, and deejays. 'Big Poppa (House Mix)' is the first single off if.

Berlin clubs are closed since March, clubbers soon swelled the city with a network of underground raves on the banks of local lakes and deep in suburban forests and public parks, Electronic Beats reports. “It’s kind of an altruistic act that they’re doing this... I feel like something about it recalibrated my mental health - that kind of ambient boredom has gone away since then” - Irina, 32, said after attending one of the raves. In (geographically) similar news, Berlin's famous club Berghain is reopening parts of its space next month as an art gallery, the Quietus reports.

“When you make a woman feel like she’s the baddest bitch in the room, to me, that’s female empowerment” - Cardi B says in Elle interview about the backlash she got after her latest video 'WAP'. One of the colleagues who didn't appreciate her song was CeeLo Green who first accused her of "salacious gesturing", but afterward apologized saying - "I'm an advocate of artistic freedom and expression as well as a fan of Nicki, Cardi and Megan... I would never disrespect them by any means. I acknowledge them all as powerful, beautiful and influential women… and professionals".

"Political correctness has grown to become the unhappiest religion in the world. Its once honourable attempt to reimagine our society in a more equitable way now embodies all the worst aspects that religion has to offer (and none of the beauty) — moral certainty and self-righteousness shorn even of the capacity for redemption. It has become quite literally, bad religion run amuck" - Nick Cave writes in the latest edition of his Red Hand Files blog, answering to what his idea of mercy is, and what he thinks of cancel culture. "Cancel culture’s refusal to engage with uncomfortable ideas has an asphyxiating effect on the creative soul of a society... We are a culture in transition, and it may be that we are heading toward a more equal society — I don’t know — but what essential values will we forfeit in the process?".

When Mountain Goats hit it, they hit it real good - just like they did with their new folk-rawk 'As Many Candles As Possible'; The Japanese House released a new song 'Dionne', featuring Justin Vernon, an alter pop gem; Coastlands deliver mighty post-rock with 'Dead Friends'; Anjimile's 'Baby No More' is just some sweet jazzy pop.

Google beat back a lawsuit over alleged scraping of song lyrics from lyrics site Genius, according to Hollywood Reporter. Federal judge Margo Brodie in the Eastern District of New York found that while the claims of scraping were credible, the scraping did not constitute a copyright violation, since Genius isn’t the actual copyright holder, and the lawsuit was dismissed as a result.

Rocker and metal fan Valentin the Mad recorded 'Boar Metal', a "brutal death metal song with wild pigs on vocals", as he said, and it is literally like that, Loudwire reports. The guitarist and producer from Haifa, Israel recorded boars on the streets of his city - "wild hogs were always present in the city, but in recent years there has been a massive increase". The accompanying video also shows boars roaming the streets of Haifa, and Valentin the Mad sporting - boar's mask.

Beck released space-themed videos to his 2019 album 'Hyperspace', made in collaboration with NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Space.com. The 'Hyperspace: A.I. Exploration' visual album incorporates videos from NASA missions and artificial intelligence, with music from the latest Beck album.

“Hip-hop is from our people, African people, all of us. It’d be hard for me not to fall into what my people created... Growing into hip-hop I reckon was like me understanding who I was as a person” - Melbourne rapper Nelson told Guardian about the city's African diaspora rap scene. Its hotspot is 66 Records, a house to many with similar stories: Poni who fled civil war in Sudan via Uganda; Jordan “Lil Jaye” Yermian who bounced between Cameroon, France and Australia; Ater “BabyT” Mamer left Kenya for New Zealand as a baby before moving to Australia; Nelson was displaced by the Liberian civil war at just six months of age, BBG Smokey...

Berlin-based music producer Lyra Pramuk, who uses only her voice to produce "futurist folk music", made a mix for Fact magazine where she "explores the idea of ‘folk song’ as interpreted by women singers and storytellers from the past century to today". There's Joan Baez and Dolly Parton, as well as Lauryn Hill and Lingua Ignota, among others.