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      ‘Is She Sure?’ How the Breeders Joined Olivia Rodrigo’s Guts Tour.

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      The ’90s alt-rock icons hit the Madison Square Garden stage for the first time Friday night, after the 21-year-old pop star invited them to join her on the road.Olivia Rodrigo remembers her life in two parts: before she heard the Breeders’ “Cannonball,” and after, she told the crowd at Madison Square Garden on Friday night, when her Guts World Tour arrived in New York.And that is how the ’90s alt-rock idols came to play the New York arena for the first time last week, 31 years after that song from their platinum 1993 album, “Last Splash,” charted on Billboard’s Hot 100.Rodrigo’s camp initially approached the Breeders in September about opening some dates on the tour supporting her second album, “Guts.” “My first reaction was, Wow, that seems kind of odd,” the band’s bassist, Josephine Wiggs, said in an interview. “But after I’d thought about it for a while, I thought, ‘That’s actually really genius.’”Kim Deal, the singer-guitarist who leads the band with her twin sister, Kelley, said she was surprised when they got the invite. “I’d heard ‘Drivers License,’ and I liked that a lot,” she said, referring to Rodrigo’s breakout 2021 smash.Kelley wondered if it might be a mistake. “I thought, ‘Is she sure? Do they really mean us?’”The Breeders onstage at Madison Square Garden on Saturday. The band’s performance the night before was their first-ever on the arena’s stage together.Jutharat Pinyodoonyachet for The New York TimesBut Rodrigo made her enthusiasm clear when the shows were confirmed, reaching out personally to share her excitement. “She texted each one of us individually,” Kelley recalled.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Beyoncé’s ‘Cowboy Carter’ Opens at No. 1 With the Year’s Biggest Sales

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      The pop superstar’s new album also reigns on Billboard’s Top Country Albums chart, the first time a Black woman has led that tally in its 60-year history.Beyoncé’s genre-bending “Cowboy Carter” has become her eighth No. 1 album, opening with the biggest sales of any release so far this year.“Cowboy Carter,” billed as “Act II” of a trilogy that began with Beyoncé’s dance-oriented album “Renaissance” almost two years ago, had been expected by fans, and the music industry at large, as primarily a country project. And indeed it features banjos, lyrics about hoedowns and a remake of Dolly Parton’s classic “Jolene.” But Beyoncé’s new release turned out to be a much broader take on modern pop music, with a kaleidoscopic array of references to the Beatles, Nancy Sinatra, Chuck Berry, rap and mellow rock, and critics praised it as a bold vision and a challenge to the historical segregation of pop genres.“Cowboy Carter” arrives with the equivalent of 407,000 sales in the United States, and in addition to topping the all-genre Billboard 200 chart it is also No. 1 on the magazine’s Top Country Albums chart, the first time a Black woman has led that tally in its 60-year history. Each of Beyoncé’s eight solo studio LPs, going back to “Dangerously in Love” in 2003, has hit No. 1 on the Billboard 200.Of its composite total sales figure, “Cowboy Carter” sold 168,000 copies as a complete album, including 62,000 on vinyl versions sold through Beyoncé’s website. The 27-track full album also racked up 300 million streams, according to the tracking service Luminate — a blockbuster number, but less than Future and Metro Boomin had for their new joint release, “We Don’t Trust You,” which opened at No. 1 last week with 324 million clicks. (That album falls to No. 2 this week, with its overall numbers down 48 percent from the opening.)As impressive as Beyoncé’s numbers were, they may not hold for long as the year’s biggest, with Taylor Swift’s latest, “The Tortured Poets Department,” set for release next week.Also this week, Morgan Wallen’s “One Thing at a Time” is No. 3, Ariana Grande’s “Eternal Sunshine” is No. 4 and “Hope on the Street Vol. 1,” a six-track release by J-Hope of the K-pop giants BTS, opens at No. 5. More

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      J. Cole Apologizes for Kendrick Lamar Diss Track

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      J. Cole also vowed to update the track, “7 Minute Drill,” or remove it from streaming services after it was featured on his new album, “Might Delete Later.”The rapper J. Cole apologized on Sunday for releasing a diss track about Kendrick Lamar, saying he felt “terrible” and vowing to update the song or remove it from streaming services.The apology followed an exchange of verses that began in October, when J. Cole and Drake ranked themselves, with Lamar, as the “big three” in hip-hop in the song “First Person Shooter.” In March, Lamar dismissed that comparison in a guest verse on the song “Like That” by Future and Metro Boomin, rapping that there was no big three, “it’s just big me.”In response, J. Cole on Friday released the diss track “7 Minute Drill” on his surprise new album, “Might Delete Later.” It includes the lines: “I got a phone call, they say that somebody dissing / You want some attention, it come with extensions / He still doing shows but fell off like ‘The Simpsons.’”Two days after the song was released, J. Cole apologized for it while onstage at his Dreamville Festival in Raleigh, N.C., according to videos posted on social media. During his headlining performance, he said that when he saw the response to the song after it came out, it didn’t “sit right with my spirit,” and that he was speaking about it at the concert to end the beef.He also called Lamar one of the “greatest” to ever use a microphone and said he hoped Lamar would forgive him.“The past two days felt terrible,” J. Cole said. “It let me know how good I’ve been sleeping for the past 10 years.”As of early afternoon on Monday, “7 Minute Drill” was still available on major streaming services.J. Cole released “Might Delete Later” on his Dreamville Records label, an imprint of Interscope Records, which is owned by Universal Music Group. Universal did not immediately respond to a request for comment.Lamar does not appear to have addressed the track or the apology publicly. Representatives for Lamar did not immediately respond to a request for comment.Drake seemed to respond to Lamar’s verse at a concert in Sunrise, Fla., in late March, according to Complex. He told the crowd that people had been asking him how he was feeling and that he had his “head up high,” and felt as if no one could mess with him.Lamar, Drake and J. Cole have worked together in the past and have individually received numerous awards for their music, including multiple Grammy Awards and nominations. In 2018, Lamar received the Pulitzer Prize in music for his album “DAMN.” More

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      Morgan Wallen Arrested, Accused of Throwing a Chair From a Bar Roof

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      The country superstar faces charges of reckless endangerment and disorderly conduct after the incident in Nashville on Sunday night.The country singer Morgan Wallen was arrested early Monday in Nashville on charges of reckless endangerment and disorderly conduct, after he was accused of throwing a chair from the roof of a downtown bar, according to reports.Mr. Wallen, 30, a superstar who had last year’s most popular album, and who had just opened his latest tour with two shows at a stadium in Indianapolis, was arrested and booked by police in Nashville, according to court records.WTVF, a CBS television affiliate in Nashville, reported that Mr. Wallen is accused of throwing a chair from the sixth story of Chief’s, an establishment on lower Broadway — an area of the city full of honky-tonks and concert venues — that had just been opened by another country star, Eric Church. The chair hit the ground near where some police officers were standing, and staff members at the restaurant told officers that Mr. Wallen had been responsible, the station reported, citing the police.Mr. Wallen was arrested on three counts of reckless endangerment, a felony; and one count of disorderly conduct, a misdemeanor. He was released early Monday and has a court date set for May 3.In a statement, Worrick Robinson, a lawyer for Mr. Wallen, said: “Morgan Wallen was arrested in downtown Nashville for reckless endangerment and disorderly conduct. He is cooperating fully with authorities.”In 2021, Mr. Wallen, then a rising star, was rebuked by the music industry, and his contract was temporarily “suspended” by his record label, after a video clip surfaced showing the singer casually using a racial slur among friends.Mr. Wallen apologized for that incident and his career recovered with little apparent effect. “Dangerous: The Double Album,” which had just come out, was a smash hit that remained high on the charts for well over a year, and his latest, “One Thing at a Time,” was another blockbuster, logging a total of 19 weeks at No. 1. More

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      Casey Benjamin, Free-Spirited Saxophonist, Dies at 45

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      A musical voyager who wouldn’t be limited by genre, style or even instrument, he brought exuberance to the Robert Glasper Experiment and other groups.Casey Benjamin, who brought colorfully expansive saxophone flourishes to the Grammy-winning Robert Glasper Experiment and added rich layers of texture to recordings by Solange, A Tribe Called Quest and many others, died on March 30 in Maryland. He was 45.The cause was pulmonary thromboembolism, his brother, Kevin Benjamin, said. He did not say where in Maryland Mr. Benjamin died.Known for his willingness to experiment, his exuberant stage persona and his trademark swirl of locs, often streaked with teal or red, Mr. Benjamin was a founding member of the pianist Robert Glasper’s combo, which, the critic Nate Chinen wrote in The New York Times in 2012, “specializes in deep, immersive grooves, nourished as much by hip-hop and R&B as any known species of jazz.”“Black Radio,” the band’s fourth album on the venerable Blue Note label, featured guest appearances by the neo-soul singer Erykah Badu, the rappers Lupe Fiasco and Yasiin Bey (formerly Mos Def) and others. It won the 2012 Grammy Award for best R&B album and rose to No. 15 on the Billboard album chart. Mr. Benjamin shared another Grammy with the band in 2015 when “Jesus Children,” a Stevie Wonder cover, won for best traditional R&B performance.Whether collaborating with Mr. Glasper or the critically acclaimed vibraphonist Stefon Harris in the band Blackout, Mr. Benjamin showed off his distinctive voice on his primary instrument, alto saxophone. In an obituary, the jazz bible DownBeat wrote that he “possessed a fluid, round sound on the alto saxophone and a unique sense of phrasing.”But he never let himself be limited by genre, style or even instrument; he created a rainbow of sounds using not only reeds and woodwinds but also a vocal synthesizer manipulated with a keytar (a keyboard instrument worn with a strap around the neck), along with other synthesizers and effects pedals.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Albert Heath, Jazz Drum Virtuoso, Is Dead at 88

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      He accompanied stars like John Coltrane and worked frequently with his brothers. “I’ve always thought I was a master,” he once said. Few disagreed.Albert Heath, a virtuoso jazz drummer who collaborated with luminaries like John Coltrane, Thelonious Monk, Nina Simone and Herbie Hancock; performed and recorded with his older brothers, Percy and Jimmy; and for a few years played alongside Percy in one of the great jazz ensembles, the Modern Jazz Quartet, died on Wednesday in Santa Fe, N.M. He was 88.The cause of his death, it a hospital, was leukemia, his stepson Curt Flood Jr. said.Mr. Heath, who was known as Tootie, was primarily a bebop and hard bop drummer but was adept in a range of styles. In 2020, the National Endowment for the Arts named him a Jazz Master, an honor that his brothers had received earlier.He accepted the news with a mixture of humility and self-confidence.“I am honored that they acknowledged me,” he told The Santa Fe New Mexican, “but it doesn’t mean anything because I’ve always thought I was a master.”From left, Albert, Jimmy and Percy Heath in an undated photo. They began working together as the Heath Brothers in 1975.Alan NahigianMr. Heath’s career had its origins with his family in Philadelphia, where his father played clarinet in an Elks marching band, his mother sang in a church choir and his brother Jimmy, a saxophonist, brought members of his big band — including his fellow saxophonist John Coltrane — to the Heaths’ house.“They’d have section rehearsals in our parents’ house because it wasn’t big enough to have the whole band in there, 18 pieces or so,” Mr. Heath said in an interview with the website All About Jazz in 2015. “So the trumpets would come one day, the reeds the next. The drummers and the bassists would be there a third day.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Margaret Tynes, Soprano Who Soared in Verdi and Strauss, Dies at 104

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      Because there were few opportunities for Black singers in the U.S., she became a powerhouse in Europe, performing in operas like “Tosca” and “Carmen.”Margaret Tynes, an American soprano who was acclaimed in Europe but neglected in the United States at a time when Black singers were newly breaking into the operatic world, died on March 7 in Silver Spring, Md. She was 104.The death was confirmed by her nephew Richard Roberts, who said Ms. Tynes died in a nursing home.In the 1960s and ’70s Ms. Tynes, with her incendiary, full-throated voice, in roles like Aida and Salomé, sang at opera houses in Vienna, Prague and Budapest, earning high praise on the continent — “an exceptional voice, intense in every coloring, vibrant and dramatic,” Milan’s Corriere della Sera newspaper wrote — even while U.S. critics were cooler. The Süddeutsche Zeitung of Munich wrote of her performance in Benjamin Britten’s “The War Requiem” that “What Britten expects of a woman’s voice can only be achieved by a singer of Margaret Tynes’s caliber.”But she did not make her Metropolitan Opera debut until 1974, when she was 55, in a run of three performances as the title role in Janacek’s “Jenufa” that began and ended her career there.Ms. Tynes, right, in 1957 with Joya Sherrill and Duke Ellington when they recorded “A Drum Is a Woman,” for which Ms. Tynes gained a measure of American fame.Everette CollectionMs. Tynes grew up in the segregated South and gained a measure of American fame in the 1950s, recording “A Drum Is a Woman” with Duke Ellington, singing heartfelt renditions of “Negro Spirituals” on “The Ed Sullivan Show” and appearing with Harry Belafonte in the musical “Sing, Man, Sing.” She also sang at the funeral of the musician W.C. Handy and toured the U.S.S.R. with Mr. Sullivan’s show in 1958.Her breakthrough in opera, the genre that defined her career, came in Europe in 1961, when she sang Salomé in Luchino Visconti’s production at the Spoleto Festival in Italy. Time magazine described her as “moving about the stage with catlike grace, her rich, ringing voice zooming with ease through the high, precarious lines,” and as a “girl with veins of fire.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Why Is Cardi B Fighting With Raymonte?

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      The rapper exchanged heated remarks with the social media personality Raymonte Cole after he suggested that her skin color was the reason brands consider her “marketable.”The rapper Cardi B found herself embroiled in a sharp back-and-forth with a social media personality this week after he brought up her social class, upbringing and skin color. A quarrel soon erupted over colorism and questions of who gets to profit over which public affect.Of course, Cardi B isn’t one to shrink from a fight, and it wasn’t even the first spat this year to involve a high-profile rapper. But the argument is notable for the difficult issues it broached having to do with colorism — the way prejudice can vary based on someone’s skin color, and how it can lead to stereotypes and differential policing of behavior.Here’s what we know about the charged exchange.What happened?In a TikTok video posted on Wednesday, the social media personality Raymonte Cole lamented being labeled too “ghetto” to be marketable while someone like Cardi B is still able to claim social status and brand deals.“What bothers me as a Black person, you guys say that I’m ghetto,” Mr. Cole said in the video, which he has since removed from his TikTok account. But Cardi B, he said, “is very, very ghetto. She’s way ghettoer than me.”The rapper fired back on X on Wednesday afternoon. “It’s crazy because when I became famous people said I’m ghetto,” she wrote.“To this day no matter what I accomplished I still get called a stripper all because I’m from the ghetto,” she continued. “People misinterpret me because apparently I’m LOUD AND GHETTO.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More