Andrew Flanagan

The NPR Music staff spent Friday morning listening to the rapper's new album. Here are eight reactions to what will likely go down as one of the best albums of 2017.

The 14-track album features guest appearances from U2, Rihanna and beats from a cross-section of rap's production elite.

The Finnish electronic music experimentalist was widely influential for his patient explorations of aggression and shadow.

The blues-rock guitarist was found dead in his Massachusetts home. Police said he died of natural causes.

Coverage of the December fire that killed 36 people in an Oakland, Calif., warehouse and DIY venue during a dance party won the Pulitzer for Breaking News Reporting.

Chinese-born composer Du Yun has taken home the 2017 Pulitzer Prize for music for her opera Angel's Bone, a work that melds fantasy with an allegory about human trafficking.

A long list of artists contributed work to the series, including Feist, Bon Iver, Sleater-Kinney, Nico Muhly, Björk, Laurie Anderson and many more.

Spotify has long evangelized free listening as a way to pull users in to paying for its service. The music industry's patience with the strategy seems to have run out.

One of the most important records in pop history is getting an appropriately comprehensive reissue.

The "best rapper alive" dropped the presumptive first single from his forthcoming album on Thursday night.

The Montreal-based band really wanted to write celebratory songs for its sixth album. But they quickly realized it's not the time for dancing.

Dylan received criticism last fall after greeting the announcement of his Nobel Prize for Literature with silence. It turns out he was just busy revisiting his artistic development.

Drake set streaming records last week, an album chart record on Monday and singles chart records today. How'd he do it?

NPR's Audie Cornish speaks with NPR Music editors Jacob Ganz and Andrew Flanagan about the latest in music news — a new album by the late Chuck Berry, the streaming service SoundCloud survives bankruptcy, the curious case of a hoaxster and the latest from Kendrick Lamar.

The story of a mysterious Florida musician, fake identities and the record-breaking sale of a rare album that might not actually exist.

The song is taken from Berry's first record in 38 years, CHUCK, due out on June 16.

Shot just days before Portman gave birth to her second child, the video curves its melancholy around a new arrival.

Berry was central to the development of rock 'n' roll, with indelible hits like "Maybelline," "Roll Over Beethoven," "Rock and Roll Music" and "Johnny B. Goode."

During his 72-year career, Cotton became one of the greatest and most respected bluesmen of the latter 20th century.

McCartney has long sought control of The Beatles hits he co-authored and has filed a court case against the company that controls them.