Music

Robert Randolph was tooling around Florida when the call came. The musician, whose sacred steel slide guitar has powered his own Family Band albums and has popped up on records by Elton John, Ozzy Osbourne, Rob Thomas, Santana, and Dave Matthews Band, was behind the wheel when his office phoned …

Just a few days before he would make his inevitable appearance on Usher’s Super Bowl LVIII halftime stage, rapper-producer extraordinaire Lil Jon tells me about the self-soothing mantras that kicked his decade-long wellness journey up a notch. “My affirmations in my time of really finding meditation were ‘I am healthy, …

Meshell Ndegeocello is spearheading the next installment in the ongoing Sun Ra tribute series, Red Hot + Ra, with the LP Red Hot & Ra: The Magic City, out April 12. The LP isn’t a traditional “tribute” album filled with covers. Rather, Ndegeocello and her numerous collaborators honored Sun Ra …

Flatland Cavalry frontman Cleto Cordero has pretty sound advice for Red Dirt bar bands making the sudden leap into theaters and onto festival main stages. “Keep your ears open whenever you walk on stage,” Cordero tells Rolling Stone. “We have in-ear monitors, and those things change how you’re perceiving reality. …

Anyone complaining about the state of hip-hop needs only to look beyond the top of the charts, as the latest episode of our Rolling Stone Music Now podcast makes clear. In the episode, Andre Gee breaks down some of his under-the-radar 2023 hip-hop picks, from Zelooperz‘ experimental Microphone Fiend to …

Rapper Roddy Ricch is the victor in a legal battle that claimed his highest-charting megahit “The Box” infringed on the copyright of a 1975 soul song titled “Come on Down.” In a biting ruling, a Manhattan-based federal judge found that “no reasonable jury could find that the works are substantially …

Pearl Jam have released a new single, “Dark Matter.” The rousing, guitar-heavy track is the title track and first listen off the rock band’s forthcoming 12th LP, out April 19 via Monkeywrench/Republic. Dark Matter, a follow-up to 2020’s Gigaton, was produced Andrew Watt at Rick Rubin‘s Shangri-La studio in Malibu. …

Jessica Pratt returns this spring from a five-year hiatus with Here in the Pitch, the singer-songwriter’s first album since her acclaimed 2019 LP Quiet Signs. Ahead of the album’s May 3 release via Mexican Summer, Pratt has shared the first single and opening track, “Life Is,” inspired by the orchestral …

Killer Mike swung by The Late Show to perform “Exit 9,” a song off his Grammy-winning 2023 album, Michael. The Atlanta rapper dedicated the performance to his grandmother, Betty, breezing through the pensive track, which finds him pondering current successes and past struggles, progress and setbacks, and all the work …

In early 1970, Brian Wilson called Beach Boys manager Fred Vail to a Los Angeles hotel room to propose an idea that was outlandish even by his wild standards: a country music album with Vail on lead vocals that he’d produce. The fact that Vail was a businessman without any …