Hip-hop
Lizzo On Feminism, Self-Love And Bringing 'Hallelujah Moments' To Stage
Lizzo is rapper and singer and her new album is her star-making break-thru. She also plays flute, is a self-proclaimed big girl, a feminist, and a lot of fun to talk to.
Year In Review: The Top Pop Of 2008
Rock critic Ken Tucker offers up his top 10 lists of the best albums and singles of 2008.music. Here's his look at some of his own favorites.
Questlove On Prince, Doo-Wop And The Food Equivalent Of The 'Mona Lisa'
In an interview recorded onstage, Amir Questlove Thompson the cofounder and drummer of the Roots, the houseband for The Tonight Show talks with Terry Gross about music, his father doo wop singer Lee Andrews who died last month, and about Prince.
There Is A Rich World In Kendrick Lamar's 'To Pimp A Butterfly'
Fresh Air music critic Ken Tucker says the rapper's second album has an excitingly adventurous sound.
Questlove's Roots: A 'Meta' Memoir Of A Lifetime In Music
Ahmir "Questlove" Thompson, the co-founder of and drummer for the hip-hop band The Roots, has been a musician since he was a teen. In Mo' Meta Blues, he explains how his musician father groomed him for a life in show business from an early age.
Adrian Younge: Looking Back To Move Hip-Hop Forward.
Spaghetti Westerns, Philadelphia soul, opera and the Wu-Tang Clan all come together in the music of Adrian Younge. He has produced and composed two new albums — one with William Hart, the lead singer of The Delfonics, and another with rapper Ghostface Killah.
Jay-Z: The Fresh Air Interview
Jay-Z is one of the most successful hip-hop artists of all time. On Fresh Air, he discusses growing up in Brooklyn surrounded by drugs and violence, and the stories behind many of his famous songs.
Jason Moran: 'Ten' Years Later.
Moran's new album, Ten, is like a stack of progress reports -- on his personal growth as pianist and as a composer, on the development of a trio with stable personnel for a decade, and on how jazz itself has progressed over the last 10 years.
Ahmir Thompson Reflects On His 'Roots'
Drummer Ahmir Thompson, also known as "Questlove," talked with Fresh Air in 2003 about his career in the hip-hop group The Roots.
'Notorious': Hip-Hop History, Sweetened A Bit
Director George Tillman Jr.'s Notorious, which follows the life and death of the rapper Biggie Smalls, opens in theaters this weekend. David Edelstein has a review.