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      Kendrick Lamar’s Super Bowl Halftime Show: The Peak of All Rap Battles?

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      The first rapper to headline the N.F.L.’s biggest stage solo made his Drake diss “Not Like Us” the centerpiece of his set at the expense of a larger statement.Of course he performed “Not Like Us.”In the lead-up to Kendrick Lamar’s headline performance at the Super Bowl LIX halftime show on Sunday night, most of the chatter focused on whether he would play the song that was effectively the knockout blow in his monthslong battle with Drake last year. The song that became Lamar’s signature hit, and a generational anthem. The song that won both record and song of the year at the Grammys just a week ago. The song that appeared to recalibrate hip-hop’s power rankings, perhaps permanently.So yes, Lamar played the song. Toward the end of the set, of course, building up anticipation with a couple of brief musical nods to it, toying with the audience’s emotions and thirst.Lamar leaned on songs from his most recent album, “GNX,” like “Man at the Garden” and “Peekaboo.”Doug Mills/The New York TimesBut what will always be remembered from this performance is not the musical choices Lamar made, or the aesthetics of his choreography, or the silhouettes of his outfit. What will remain is his grin when he finally began rapping that song. It was wide, persistent, almost cartoonish in shape. The grin of a man having the time of his life at the expense of an enemy.Lamar is perhaps the most sober of all of hip-hop’s contemporary greats, a ferocious storyteller who values tongue-tripping polemics and introspection; he is not exactly a beacon of joy. During the beef, he appeared to take on the dismantling of Drake as necessary homework.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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      Monica Getz, Advocate for Divorce Court Reform, Dies at 90

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      Her troubled marriage to the jazz star Stan Getz led to a headline-making divorce case. The result of the trial gave her a cause to fight for.Monica Getz, whose tempestuous 24-year marriage to the jazz star Stan Getz was whipsawed by his addictions and who, after losing a protracted legal fight to save the marriage, became an advocate for divorce court reform, died on Jan. 5 in Irvington, N.Y. She was 90.Her son Nicolaus Getz said the cause of her death, in a hospital, was bile duct cancer.The Swedish-born Ms. Getz was a student at George Washington University when Mr. Getz, one of the most revered jazz saxophonists of the 20th century, met her backstage at a campus concert and pursued her even though he was married. When they wed in 1956, the actress Donna Reed was the maid of honor at the nuptials in Las Vegas.The Getzes lived in a 27-room mansion called Shadowbrook, overlooking the Hudson River in Tarrytown, N.Y. They bought it in the mid-1960s when Mr. Getz’s fame was at an apex as a result of his bossa nova recordings: the album “Jazz Samba,” with the guitarist Charlie Byrd, and the hit single “The Girl From Ipanema,” on which his mellifluous tenor sax backed the breathy singing of Astrud Gilberto.Drugs and alcohol, however, created havoc in the Getzes’ marriage. Mr. Getz had begun using heroin at 16 and was arrested two years before the marriage for attempting to rob a pharmacy to get narcotics. At the insistence of his wife, a teetotaler, he would seek medical help and enter rehabilitation programs, but relapses invariably followed.Stan and Monica Getz in 1975.via Getz familyAt the couple’s divorce trial in 1987, Mr. Getz said he often drank to the point of blacking out. “I have a discography of 2,010 records,” he said, but “some of them I can’t even remember making.”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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      A 311-Year-Old Stradivarius Violin Sells for $11.25 Million at Sotheby’s

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      The money from the sale of the violin, which was once owned by the 19th-century virtuoso Joseph Joachim, will benefit a scholarship program at the New England Conservatory.A 311-year-old Stradivarius violin sold for $11.25 million at Sotheby’s on Friday, in a closely watched auction that drew interest from investors, collectors and classical musicians.The violin was made by the famed Italian luthier Antonio Stradivari in 1714, during the so-called golden period of violin making. It was later owned by one of the greatest violinists of the 19th century, the Hungarian-born virtuoso Joseph Joachim, a close associate of Johannes Brahms.The Stradivarius was sold by the New England Conservatory, which plans to use the proceeds of the sale to endow a student scholarship program. The instrument was previously owned by an alumnus of the school, Si-Hon Ma, who died in 2009. His estate donated the instrument to the New England Conservatory in 2015 with a provision that it could one day be sold to finance student scholarships.“Now we really have the chance to have it benefit so many more students — generations of students to come,” said Andrea Kalyn, the president of the conservatory.Sotheby’s said the buyer wished to remain anonymous.Among violins sold publicly at auction, the current record is held by the so-called “Lady Blunt” Stradivarius, once owned by the granddaughter of Lord Byron, which sold in 2011 for $15.9 million.The instrument sold on Friday was one of several violins owned by Joachim, who premiered the Brahms violin concerto in 1879.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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      9 Spellbinding Songs About Magic

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      Lady Gaga’s latest has inspired a playlist.Lady Gaga debuted her madcap video for “Abracadabra” in a Mastercard commercial during the Grammy Awards on Sunday night.Dear listeners,If you’ve noticed anyone walking around with their paws up, speaking in tongues and raving about the floor being on fire, allow me to explain: In an ad Sunday night during the Grammy Awards, Lady Gaga debuted a new single. It’s called “Abracadabra,” and it’s a gloriously nostalgic return to form, reminiscent of the infectious gibberish hook of “Bad Romance” and the go-for-broke electro-sleaze she perfected on “The Fame Monster” and “Born This Way.” Rejoice, ye elder millennials: A star has been reborn.As I’ve been strutting around all week with “abracadabra, abra-cadaaaabra” on an endless loop in my head, I’ve been thinking about how many great songs throughout pop music reference magic — as a tried-and-true metaphor for the mysteries of love, or just as a thematic excuse to get a little weird. (For Gaga, it’s a little bit of both, but always with emphasis on the latter.)The ’60s gave us spellbinding classics like the Lovin’ Spoonful’s “Do You Believe in Magic?” and the Drifters’ “This Magic Moment.” But “Abracadabra” is just the latest proof that pop still has magic on the mind: In the last year or so, there have been not one but two Top 20 hits called “Houdini.” (Though never forget that Kate Bush beat them both to it.)Since a definitive playlist of every song ever to conjure magic would be incredibly long and contain quite a few overindulgent duds, this collection reflects my own tastes. Which is to say that it omits Eminem’s “Houdini,” as well as the song it samples, that other “Abracadabra,” by the Steve Miller Band. Personal preference! But it does feature enchanting tunes from Electric Light Orchestra, Siouxsie and the Banshees, Screamin’ Jay Hawkins and, of course, Gaga’s latest incantation.Like a poem said by a lady in red,LindsayListen along while you read.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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      Review: Heartbeat Opera Compresses Strauss’s ‘Salome’

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      Heartbeat Opera specializes in daring reductions of the classics, and this may be its most implausible undertaking yet.Strauss’s “Salome” begins with a swiftly slithering clarinet flourish, like a snake darting into the undergrowth almost before you see it. The passage is over in a couple of seconds, but it sets the stage for what’s to come: sinuous, nocturnal, elusive.This germ of music ends up infecting one of the sickliest scores in opera: a 1905 one-act setting of Oscar Wilde’s languorously decadent, gleefully fetid fin-de-siècle play about a society slow-dancing toward self-destruction.It’s obvious, then, where Heartbeat Opera got the batty, witty idea of doing the work almost only with clarinets. The vividly unvarnished results, which opened on Thursday at the Space at Irondale in Brooklyn, may be the most implausible yet of this feisty company’s chamber-scale takes on the classics.Heartbeat’s productions don’t reduce canonical compositions so much as reinvent them, with orchestras that could fit around a dining table. Over the past decade, it has given us a six-instrument “Madama Butterfly” and a jazz-infused “Carmen,” both trimmed to an hour and a half. Beethoven’s “Fidelio” was pared to two pianos, two cellos, two horns and percussion.But even compressing the grandeur of “Tosca” to a few cellos, bass, piano, flute, trumpet and horn isn’t as out-there as imagining “Salome” for an octet of clarinetists. (To be precise, those eight musicians play a total of 28 instruments, including a handful of saxophones, and they’re buttressed by two busy percussionists.)The concept is radical because Strauss’s breakthrough opera is defined like few others by the expressionistic power of its huge orchestra. The score’s brilliance, though, lies in a paradox: For much of the piece, the sprawling forces are meant to sound seductively diaphanous, a Mack truck navigating curves with eerily catlike grace.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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      Ye Takes Back Apology and Calls Himself a Nazi in Social Media Rant

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      The rapper praised Hitler and took back an apology he made in 2023 for his past antisemitic remarks.Ye, the rapper and designer formerly known as Kanye West, took back the apology he made in 2023 for his past antisemitic statements, declared that he was a Nazi and professed his love for Adolf Hitler in an hourslong rant on social media.“I’m never apologizing for my Jewish comments,” he said in a post laced with vulgar language on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, as part of a barrage that began late Thursday night and lasted into Friday morning.The taunting statements were in stark contrast to an apology he made in 2023 after he had come under fire for making a series of antisemitic and pro-Nazi remarks, prompting businesses including Adidas to cut ties with him. In his 2023 apology, which was written in Hebrew, Ye asked forgiveness and said it “was not my intention to offend or demean, and I deeply regret any pain I may have caused.”Jonathan Greenblatt, the chief executive of the Anti-Defamation League, said in a statement on Friday morning that the organization had condemned Ye’s “dangerous behavior” and called the rapper’s recent posts on X “a flagrant and unequivocal display of hate.”“We know this game all too well,” Greenblatt said. “Let’s call Ye’s hate-filled public rant for what it really is: a sad attempt for attention that uses Jews as a scapegoat. But unfortunately, it does get attention because Kanye has a far-reaching platform on which to spread his antisemitism and hate. Words matter. And as we’ve seen too many times before, hateful rhetoric can prompt real-world consequences.”A representative for Ye did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Friday.Ye’s other posts touched on a series of topics, including Elon Musk, President Trump’s inauguration, and the see-through dress his wife, Bianca Censori, wore on the red carpet at the Grammy Awards last Sunday. “I have dominion over my wife,” he said.Over the years, Ye had mentioned several times a diagnosis of bipolar disorder, but in a podcast interview this week, he said that he had been misdiagnosed and that he has autism. More

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      Doechii’s Victory Lap, and 10 More New Songs

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      Hear tracks from Valerie June, Coi Leray, Destroyer and others.Every Friday, pop critics for The New York Times weigh in on the week’s most notable new tracks. Listen to the Playlist on Spotify here (or find our profile: nytimes) and at Apple Music here, and sign up for The Amplifier, a twice-weekly guide to new and old songs.Doechii, ‘Nosebleeds’Doechii was tearful and emotional — but primed with facts — when she became the third woman to win a Grammy for best rap album. She was also prepared; “Nosebleeds” was released almost immediately. Over stark, pushy, bare-bones electronic sounds, she gloats, “Will she ever lose? Man I guess we’ll never know” and declares her readiness for arena concerts: “I look good from the nosebleeds.” The track is barely over two minutes, but its last stretch segues into an entirely different sound: a double-time beat with Doechii cooing that she needs no advice from anyone who’s “never suffered.” The moment was hers to seize. JON PARELESLady Gaga, ‘Abracadabra’She’s overheard your theory that nostalgia’s for geeks — and she couldn’t care less. Lady Gaga mines the sonic and aesthetic shards of her own past on the insistent “Abracadabra,” the third single from her upcoming album, “Mayhem.” Fashioning an anthemic chorus out of self-referential nonsense syllables (“abracadabra, morta oo Gaga”) is so “Bad Romance,” but the verse’s thumping house piano refines the more recent sound of her mixed-bag 2020 release “Chromatica” into something sharper and more urgent. Gaga’s not forging new ground here so much as she’s remixing her former selves, reminding her many imitators who they learned their strangest moves from and grasping so strongly at dance-or-die self-seriousness that she somehow ends up doubling back into absurdist fun. LINDSAY ZOLADZValerie June, ‘Joy, Joy!’The resolutely upbeat Valerie June insists that everyone can find “that joy joy in your soul,” no matter what. Her twangy, wavery voice, doubletracked in not-quite-unison, rises over a brawny two-chord vamp that gets buttressed by saxophones, cymbals, cranked-up lead guitar and a string section, massing to overpower any doubts. PARELESGiveon, ‘Twenties’“Thought that if I put you first enough / we would last for sure,” Giveon laments, with neat wordplay, in a vintage-style soul ballad complete with strings and electric sitar. The reminiscences quickly lead into recriminations over “six years gone down the drain,” and none of the retro trappings cushion the pain. PARELESMoses Sumney featuring Syd and Meshell Ndegeocello, ‘Hey Girl(s)’Moses Sumney has revamped “Hey Girl,” a slow-jam come-on from his 2024 album “Sophcore,” to make it more gender-fluid by handing over verses to guests. Syd teases, “You say you ain’t done this before,” and Meshell Ndegeocello moves evolutionary goal posts, intoning, “I am not a woman, I am not a man / I am a water- and carbon-based life form you’ll never comprehend.’ The track’s easy-rolling syncopation and suavely supportive horn arrangement welcome them all. PARELESWe 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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      Irv Gotti: Key Milestones in the Life of the Rap Mogul

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      The producer, who died on Wednesday, built Murder Inc. into one of the most influential record labels of the early 2000s. His career was marred by a federal investigation and trial.Irv Gotti, who founded the record label Murder Inc. and helped shape the sound of hip-hop and R&B in the late 1990s and early 2000s when he shepherded the careers of Ja Rule and Ashanti, died on Wednesday at 54.Here is a brief look at how the rap entrepreneur and record executive worked his way from humble beginnings in Queens, N.Y., to the top of the charts before his momentum was marred by a federal investigation into the label in which he was charged with money laundering and acquitted.A Childhood in Queens, N.Y.Gotti was born Irving Domingo Lorenzo Jr. in Queens, N.Y., in 1970. He was the youngest of eight children, according to “The Murder Inc Story,” a documentary about his life that aired on BET in 2022. His family, which he described as one that didn’t have much money but had plenty of love, recalled him as a “clown” who loved performing, dancing and entertaining, sometimes even for small change.His foray into music began as a preteen, when he played for hours with a turntable and a mixer that his siblings had purchased for him. By the age of 15, he had begun to make a name for himself as a D.J. at local parties.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