Anastasia Tsioulcas

Out of a well-documented generation of talented Tuareg rockers, the great guitarist has emerged as the most virtuosic and melodically innovative.

A fairy-tale romance between a dancer from Connecticut and a young Cuban studying at Columbia turned into a political thriller — and resulted in the unlikely birth of a new art form in Cuba.

See the first lady speak at the SXSW Music festival on a panel about the education of girls and young women, featuring Missy Elliott, Diane Warren and Queen Latifah.

The President and Michelle Obama welcomed the creator and some of the cast of the smash Broadway musical to the White House on March 14 — a visit that included a little Rose Garden freestyling.

The innovative keyboardist and co-founder of Emerson, Lake & Palmer died on March 10 at age 71.

Widely influential conductor and early-music specialist Nikolaus Harnoncourt has died at age 86 in the Austrian village of St. Georgen im Attergau, near Salzburg.

His wife, Alice Harnoncourt, announced his death on his website; the cause of death was not disclosed. Harnoncourt had announced his retirement Dec. 5 ...

The fluid and sprawling untitled unmastered. was released unexpectedly. It feels like a peek behind the curtain of the rapper's creative process — using some material that fans already know.

NPR's Rachel Martin spoke with Martin Molin, creator of the marble machine, on Weekend Edition Sunday. You can hear their conversation at the audio link.

The "Marble Machine" is a musical instrument by way of a Rube Goldberg contraption, the love child of a barrel organ, a kick drum, a ...

On Tuesday The Rolling Stones announced the band's upcoming performance in Havana, hailing it as a landmark occasion. The concert is slated for March 25 at the Ciudad Deportiva de la Habana, a centrally located "sports city" complex.

While the announcement heralds ...

Technological innovations like streaming are shifting how music gets released today — but artist exclusives are also changing the way fans process today's most popular tracks.

Oh, February. It's the month that feels like it will never end, leap year or not. The air is cold and damp, the sky is gray, the sidewalks are slushy and I just want to be transported far, far away.

So for this month's edition of Latitudes, I chose five ...

What was behind the decision not to invite the artists behind two tunes nominated for Best Original Song to perform on Sunday night's Academy Awards broadcast?

One of the snubbed musicians is singer and lyricist Anohni, whose song "Manta Ray," with music by J. Ralph appears in the documentary Racing ...

Reissue producer, engineer annotator and record collector Christopher King is a 78 RPM acolyte of the highest order: His love of raw sound seems to know no bounds — and the wilder the music, the better.

King's now-lengthy and incredibly wide-ranging discography is a testament to this obsession, ...

The classical music community has marked two sad passings of major composers this month: first the death of 93-year-old Pulitzer Prize winner Leslie Bassett on Feb. 4, and now the untimely death of another Pulitzer winner, Steven Stucky, one of the most widely admired and ...

It seemed like there was something for everybody at the 2016 Grammy Awards. Mark Ronson's high-spirited "Uptown Funk," featuring Bruno Mars, won Record of the Year. The songwriting award, Song of the Year, went to Ed Sheeran and Amy Wadge's "Thinking Out Loud," while Taylor Swift won Album of the ...

These days, the idea of home is on the mind of the fantastically gifted singer, songwriter and instrumentalist Rokia Traoré. It's been four years since Mali, Traoré's native west African country, began descending into ongoing bedlam. Only two months ago, jihadists attacked the Radisson Blu hotel in ...

Once upon a time, an artist actually had to sell albums to earn gold or platinum awards from the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). But today, the RIAA announced that they're catching up with how fans actually listen to music: On-demand streaming, either on video or audio ...

Italy wasn't a single nation until about 150 years ago, and there are some really fascinating regions that remain distinct. A case in point: the cultural, artistic and linguistic traditions that ground Canzoniere Grecanico Salentino (CSG), who come from Salento, on Italy's "boot heel" in Salento, ...

There are very few guarantees in life. But one of them must — must! — be that as soon as you hear "Made in Tribu Baharú," you'll start moving. (I promise.) It's a song from Tribu Baharú, a band from Bogotá, Colombia — and the sextet's high-energy, abundantly joyful calls ...

Not all that long ago, conventional wisdom held that the music industry was fracturing so much, and so quickly, that there wouldn't be many monster hits anymore.

But perhaps you've heard of a singer named Adele.

Her album 25 -- which was only released on Nov. 20 — ...