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      Meshell Ndegeocello’s Magnificent Mix, and 9 More New Songs

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      Hear tracks by Peggy Gou, Killer Mike, Sparklehorse and others.Every Friday, pop critics for The New York Times weigh in on the week’s most notable new tracks. Just want the music? Listen to the Playlist on Spotify here (or find our profile: nytimes). Like what you hear? Let us know at theplaylist@nytimes.com and sign up for our Louder newsletter, a once-a-week blast of our pop music coverage, and The Amplifier, a twice-weekly guide to new and old songs.Meshell Ndegeocello featuring Jeff Parker, ‘ASR’The songs on Meshell Ndegeocello’s magnificent new album, “The Omnichord Real Book,” are always in flux. In its seven-and-half minutes, “ASR” hints at fusion jazz, Funkadelic, Ethiopian pop, reggae and psychedelia; the guitarist Jeff Parker, from Tortoise, teases the music forward. As the song accelerates, Ndegeocello sings about pain, heartbreak, healing and perseverance, and she vows, “We’re here to set the clock to here and now.” JON PARELESPeggy Gou, ‘(It Goes Like) Nanana’Peggy Gou is a South Korean-born, Berlin-based D.J. and producer with a penchant for dreamy house beats and a velvety touch. Her latest single “(It Goes Like) Nanana” plays out a bit like her own personal reworking of ATC’s ubiquitous 2000 hit “All Around the World,” but with a kinetic energy that’s distinctly her own. “I can’t explain,” Gou sings over a thumping beat and light piano riff, before deciding she can best express the feeling she wants to describe in nonsense words: “I guess it goes like na na na na na na.” LINDSAY ZOLADZDoja Cat, ‘Attention’Doja Cat returns with a vengeance on the menacing “Attention,” a statement record that puts her pop sensibility aside (at least for now) and leans into her ample skills as an M.C. “Look at me, look at me — you lookin’?” she begins, and for the next few minutes commands the floor with charismatic grit. “Baby, if you like it, just reach out and pet it,” she sings on a hook that recalls ’90s R&B, albeit filtered through Doja’s alien sensibility. The verses, though, are pure venom: “Y’all fall into beef, but that’s another conversation,” she spits with that signature fire in her throat. “I’m sorry, but we all find it really entertaining.” ZOLADZKiller Mike featuring Future, André 3000 and Eryn Allen Kane, ‘Scientists & Engineers’Ambition and achievement, electronics and exaltation all figure in “Scientists & Engineers” from “Michael,” Killer Mike’s first solo album since he formed Run the Jewels with El-P. “Scientists & Engineers” has five producers including James Blake and No I.D. The track pulsates with keyboard chords under the elusive André 3000 (from Outkast), who insists, “Rebelling is like an itch.” The music switches to silky guitar chords for Future, who sings, “It’s better to be an outcast in a world of envious.” And a beat kicks in with trap drums and blipping synthesizers behind Killer Mike, who boasts in quick triplets: “I’m never chillin’, I gotta make millions.” A multitracked Eryn Allen Kane wafts choirlike harmonies — and gospel-tinged sentiments like “I’mma live forever” — while the rappers redefine themselves. PARELESFlesh Eater featuring Fiona Apple, ‘Komfortzone’None other than Fiona Apple decided to collaborate with Flesh Eater, a Nashville avant-pop group, on the mercurial seven-minute excursion “Komfortzone.” Over a low, sputtering programmed beat and outbursts of noise and electronics, Flesh Eater’s lead singer, Zwil AR, sings hopscotching melodies reminiscent of Dirty Projectors. Apple sprinkles in some piano and eventually adds vocal harmonies on refrains like “A field of sunflowers with their backs toward me/I’m on the train.” It’s as willful as it is arty. PARELESSparklehorse, ‘Evening Star Supercharger’Mark Linkous was making his fifth album as Sparklehorse when he died by suicide in 2010. Now his family and a handful of collaborators have completed it, due for a September release as “Bird Machine.” A preview single, “Evening Star Supercharger,” tops unhurried folk-rock with the tinkle of a toy piano, as Linkous cryptically but matter-of-factly considers mortality and depression: “Peace without pill, gun or needle or prayer appear/Never found sometimes near but too fleet to be clear.” In the sky, he calmly watches a star going nova: “Even though she’s dying, getting larger.” PARELESOmah Lay, ‘Reason’The Nigerian singer Omah Lay has split his songs between partying and self-doubt; he has also been featured by Justin Bieber. “Reason,” from the newly expanded version of his 2022 album, “Boy Alone,” has minor chords and grim scenarios: “I don’t know who to run to right now/Army is opening heavy fire.” The beat is buoyant, but the tone is fraught. PARELESDavid Virelles, ‘Uncommon Sense’A low-riding shuffle beat isn’t the Cuban-born pianist, composer and folklorist David Virelles’s most common environment. But “Carta,” Virelles’s new LP, puts him and his longtime first-call bassist, Ben Street, together with Eric McPherson, an innovator and tradition-bearer in today’s jazz drumming. This is the closest Virelles has come to making a standard-format jazz trio album, though it’s still not exactly that. On the opener, “Uncommon Sense,” McPherson’s shuffle kicks in after 25 seconds of solo piano, and Virelles has already led things down a tense path, changing keys capriciously while building up a foundation for the Cubist phrase at the center of the tune. McPherson’s elegantly splattered drum style, using traditional grip to roll his rhythms out as close to the ground as possible, gives solid support to Virelles while he toys with contemporary-side influences: the bodily elocution of Don Pullen’s piano playing, the harmonic splintering and superimpositions of Craig Taborn, the rhythmic restraint of a Gonzalo Rubalcaba. You wouldn’t need to be told this album was recorded at Van Gelder Studio to realize it’s speaking with jazz history — the antique, the modern and what’s barely come into shape. GIOVANNI RUSSONELLOBen van Gelder, ‘Spectrum’“Manifold,” a new album from the rising bandleader Ben van Gelder, celebrates the voice. The voice of his saxophone, the voice of the pipe organ, the human voice, the collective voice of an eight-piece band. Each has its own grain. The organ has its own prominent side-narrative in jazz history, but the Amsterdam-based van Gelder is culling from a different stream, closer to contemporary classical composers like Arvo Pärt and György Ligeti, using dissonance and space. The Veracruz-born vocalist Fuensanta sings no words on “Spectrum,” the album’s rangy centerpiece track; she joins the horns, sounding almost like another reed instrument. Beneath them, Kit Downes toggles between minimalism and high-rising waves on the pipe organ. RUSSONELLOElliott Sharp, ‘Rosette’The composer Elliott Sharp has been devising systems of pitch and structure since the 1970s. His latest album, “Steppe,” is inspired by geography. It’s music for six overdubbed vintage electric steel guitars, microtonally tuned and arrayed in stereo, exploring texture and resonance. “Rosette” is built from quick, cascading, staggered, overlapping little runs. It’s bell-toned and spiky, crumbling and reassembling. PARELES More

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      Popcast (Deluxe): A.I. Pop Stars and Luke Combs’s ‘Fast Car’

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      Subscribe to Popcast!Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Stitcher | Amazon MusicThis week’s episode of Popcast (Deluxe), the weekly culture roundup show on YouTube hosted by Jon Caramanica and Joe Coscarelli, includes segments on:The recent wave of generative A.I. music, including songs “by” Taylor Swift and Harry Styles, Drake and the Weeknd, Kanye West, Jay-Z, Michael Jackson and othersLuke Combs’s cover of Tracy Chapman’s “Fast Car,” which is now No. 4 on the Billboard Hot 100, topping the original’s 1988 peak of No. 6Viewer questions about band reunions and pop star protestsNew songs from Doe Boy and Nia ArchivesSnack of the weekConnect With Popcast. Become a part of the Popcast community: Join the show’s Facebook group and Discord channel. We want to hear from you! Tune in, and tell us what you think at popcast@nytimes.com. More

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      The Fierce, Flourishing World of Battle Rap

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      The Fierce, Flourishing World of Battle RapBattle rap is an art form and a sport, as well as an industry that has been slowly growing over the last decade. While there are proving grounds all over the country, New York is its epicenter.Bosevich4 (center, in cap) and Bizzness (arms crossed) at a January battle rap tournament at the Trap NY in Brooklyn.Dexter (center, in hoodie and glasses) at an iBattle event in Staten Island in February.The crowd at a Chrome 23 tournament hosted by Remy Ma in Manhattan in February.Christopher Lee for The New York TimesOn the eastern edge of Bedford-Stuyvesant — a Brooklyn neighborhood synonymous with hip-hop excellence — a tiny wellness center is tucked between a Pentecostal church and a real estate office. Inside its sterile, 800 or so square feet, there’s a wall of mirrors, stock photos of people performing various exercises and fluorescent lighting that makes the plastic plants in the corner look even more fake. On certain nights, one could be excused for thinking this is a waiting room and not what it actually is: a battleground.Here, in this unassuming room, the Trap NY — one of several battle rap leagues based in New York City — hosts most of its events. If your only exposure to these face-offs is the climactic scene of “8 Mile,” this venue might seem underwhelming at first; it’s certainly less colorful than the steampunk underground arena where Eminem triumphed over Anthony Mackie.But those tapped into today’s vibrant and multilayered battle rap ecosystem know that this modest gym is far more than a setting where wannabe rappers roast each other. Founded by Tyrell Reid, known as No Mercy, the Trap NY is a well-known institution where future stars of this culture are born.Tyrell Reid, a.k.a. No Mercy of the Trap NY, at a coin toss to determine which rapper will perform first at a January event.“This is one of those places where you can make a statement with the right type of performance,” said Hero, 29, a rapper from Dallas. “It’s a place where you’ve got to prove you’re one of them guys that matter in battle rap.”Battle rap is an art form and a sport, as well as an industry that has been slowly growing over the last decade. Leagues like the Ultimate Rap League (URL), King of the Dot and Rare Breed Entertainment have amassed large and devoted followings by presenting national events with some of the best battlers in the world. These organizations now pay top dollar to M.C.s who can keep their fans engaged — and prove themselves against the competition.The audience at Chrome 23’s Manhattan battle.Mazi and Dexter at iBattle’s Staten Island event.Today, hundreds of aspiring rappers are after the money and respect that come with being a top-tier battle rapper. For many, that journey starts in spots like the Trap NY. Hero is one of a host of rappers who fly halfway across the country just to rap at the wellness center. Almost none of them get paid. They come to the Trap because they know one good performance there can mean a chance to become a part of battle rap’s next generation of elites.These battles often have a simple structure: three rounds in which two M.C.s try to out-rap each other with a cappella verses crafted specifically for their opponent. In the end, there’s usually no official victor. Half the fun for many viewers — both in person and online — is debating who won.Competitions like these are one of the most foundational and time-honored traditions in hip-hop, a culture celebrating its 50th anniversary this year. While battle rap operates outside the machine of the hip-hop industry, organizations like the Ultimate Rap League are dedicated to bringing it to a wider audience. Founded in 2009, URL has accrued hundreds of millions of streams and sold out venues of 1,000-plus seats with its thrillingly produced events. Between ticket sales, ad revenue, pay-per-view broadcasts and app subscriptions, outfits like URL have taken the street art of battle rap and turned it into a legitimate business.Remy Ma, center, started a league of her own with the goal of providing more opportunities for women in battle rap.“This was a sport that didn’t really have the recognition nor the respect from hip-hop culture to the point where these M.C.s could get paid,” said Troy Mitchell, known as Smack, one of the founders and owners of URL. “Once we brought it from the streets and took it to venues, we started to create a business out of it, a business where we could actually pay M.C.s to do something that they love to do.”The immense lyrical talent on URL’s roster has been key to its success. Unlike recording artists, battlers don’t have to worry about musical trends or chart data; hiring producers or booking studio time; TikTok virality or playlist placement. This frees them up to focus on intricate wordplay and detailed storytelling.However, it also means that if their pen isn’t mighty enough to impress the excitable, often ruthless audience, there’s not much else they can do to win them over. With a crowded field of highly skilled M.C.s, this sport has achieved a standard of lyricism that many feel is missing from mainstream hip-hop today. As DNA, a well-known 31-year-old battler from Queens put it, “I can name on one hand how many people I think are as lyrically inclined as a battle rapper.”Alex Braga — known as Lexx Luthor, a Staten Island-based battle rapper and owner of iBattle — blows smoke in the air at a February event.This perhaps explains why big names in hip-hop are increasingly taking note. Drake has hosted and sponsored several URL events, and said at one of them that these rappers are “people that I’m obviously extremely inspired by, that motivate me when I’m writing.” URL’s “Homecoming” event, which sold out Irving Plaza in Manhattan this past November, attracted New York royalty including Busta Rhymes, Fabolous and Ghostface Killah as spectators. Remy Ma even started a battle rap league of her own, Chrome 23, with the goal of providing more opportunities for women in battle rap. The organization sold out New York’s Sony Hall in February with an event that included the finals of a $25,000 all-female tournament, a milestone in this male-dominated sport.“There’s such a huge pay gap when it comes to men and women in battle rap,” Remy Ma — who got her start in these kinds of competitions — said in an interview, “and I feel like somebody who knows battle rap really needed to step in and give them a chance to even out the playing field.” (The $25,000 prize went to C3, a Queens native.)AS THE AUDIENCE and respect for battle rap has grown, so has the money. Today, URL pays its biggest stars up to six figures, and many rappers now feel their talent is better compensated and more appreciated in battle rap than it would be in the recording industry.According to DNA, a lot of the people in the recording business “have all the popularity in the world but then the deals that they have are terrible. Top battle rappers, we make more than a lot of recording artists get and we have the creative freedom of independent contractors.”But in order to earn a spot in a league like URL, rappers must first cut their teeth in smaller, more humble arenas. And while battle rap has proving grounds all over the country, New York is its epicenter. Aspiring talent flocks to the city, hoping to get noticed via local leagues like the Trap NY, iBattle or WeGoHardTV. Their battles take place in rented-out gyms, galleries and clubhouses where audiences as small as a dozen crowd around unpaid talent in cramped semicircles.What they lack in size or flash, though, they make up for in import. The people who run them are well-respected and highly connected in the world of battle rap, and bigger organizations like URL often look to them to scout their next stars. Today, many of battle rap’s biggest talents — like the hardened yet deeply human Eazy‌ the Block Captain or the Indian American rapper Real Sikh, known for his dizzying flow and wordplay — were groomed and discovered in places like the Trap NY.“A lot of people sleep on the battles that happen here,” said Chris Dubbs, a 20-year-old rapper from New Jersey and one of ‌the Trap’s rising stars, “but naw, man, this is where you’re seeing the stars of tomorrow.”From left: Bosevich4, Chris Dubbs and Bizzness at the Trap NY in January.Since founding the Trap NY in 2013, No Mercy, 35, hasn’t turned much of a profit. In fact, he usually loses money on his events. But for him, the point isn’t to create a successful business, it’s to nurture promising new M.C.s and give them tools to succeed. While rappers on the Trap may not find immediate fame or fortune, they will gain a mentor who can take their battle rap career to the next level if they’re willing to work hard and listen to feedback.“We don’t want to sell people on the idea that if you do one battle over here, you’re going to be this huge star overnight,” No Mercy said. “No, expect that, for at least a year, you’re going to be grinding with us in order to elevate. Look at where you are now and see where you are within the next year; see if there hasn’t been a change.”However, Alex Braga — known as Lexx Luthor, a Staten Island-based battle rapper and owner of iBattle — argues that institutions like his are far more than just a steppingstone. As URL gains more of a national profile, he believes small franchises are crucial for maintaining a sense of community and highlighting talent that may not be as traditionally marketable. (While the majority of URL’s stars are straight Black men, iBattle regularly hosts rappers of all races, religions, sexual orientations and genders. A recent battle featured a white Christian rapper facing off against a bisexual Jew.)Hitman Holla and Eazy the Block Captain at the Chrome 23 battle.Pristavia at Chrome 23’s February event.Lexx became a league owner about six years ago. His career as a battler was just beginning to take off when iBattle, a league he grew up performing in, started to decline. It was then that he realized how important places like these were to him.“It just felt like the longer I stayed a battle rapper, the less and less there was of a community,” Lexx said. “So when iBattle went defunct and the original league owner couldn’t run it anymore because of health issues, I knew I couldn’t let it die.”IT MAY BE confusing to hear battle rap called a community when events often involve rappers spraying insults, death threats and literal spit in their opponents’ faces. During one of the Trap’s events, Chris Dubbs rapped to Xcel, “Your death all over social media once I blast mags/Soon as I click that bro, It’s tic-tac-toe: y’all gonna see X on a hashtag.”But look beneath the violent tenor of these battles and you’ll notice signs of deep camaraderie. Rappers will often nod in approval or even give a pat on the back when their competition lands a particularly good punchline; if someone starts forgetting what they wrote, their opponent might mutter words of encouragement; and when it’s all over, the rappers will, almost without fail, exchange congratulatory daps and embraces.Smiledini and Cashis Clay at iBattle’s February tournament.“It’s like boxing,” explained Cheeko, one of the owners of URL. “Boxers, they appreciate each other’s skill sets, they root for each other. You rarely see M.C.s that have a disdain for each other. It’s almost like a brotherhood.”This mutual respect plays a big role in battle rap’s appeal. To many M.C.s, this culture offers a necessary but all-too-rare opportunity to express themselves in a way that is productive and safe.“Battle rap is the only place where you can have two people get their frustration out, say what they don’t like about each other and then at the end of it shake hands,” said Xcel, 37, who got his start on the Trap and has since performed on battle rap’s biggest platforms. “It’s the only place in the world where a Crip can battle a Blood and nobody dies.”There are many unifying forces in the battle rap community, but perhaps the strongest is a deep belief in the art form itself. As hip-hop continues to be a dominating force in popular culture, some in this world say battle rap could make a leap into the mainstream.“Within the next 10 years, I guarantee you battle rappers are going to be household names the same way industry artists are household names,” said Dubbs, who is vying to become one of URL’s next big stars. “People are finally starting to take notice and it’s a beautiful thing. Get into it now so you can appreciate it while it’s still in its beginning stages.” More

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      Cisco Swank Puts His Spin on Jazz-Rap on ‘More Better’

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      The 23-year-old pianist, drummer and rapper puts a pandemic-era spin on jazz-rap on his debut, “More Better,” and he always keeps the faith.At a recent Sunday afternoon performance in Brooklyn’s Clinton Hill neighborhood, the pianist Francisco Haye sat behind a piano at Emmanuel Baptist Church, leading his quintet through a number of recognizable jazz standards. Yet they weren’t straight-ahead: Songs like “All the Things You Are,” “Little Sunflower” and “My Favorite Things” each had wrinkles — a bouncy backbeat or a near-frenetic breakdown — that made them feel fresh.It was the kind of set that might rankle those who prefer to hear Ella Fitzgerald, Freddie Hubbard and John Coltrane without frills, yet these listeners — made up of elders who have known Haye since he was a child growing up in the congregation there — seemed to embrace what he was trying to do.The goal, he told them, was to take “cliché jazz tunes and not make them boring.”Haye’s artistry is informed by artists like Robert Glasper and Roy Hargrove, both classically trained jazz musicians who have blended the genre with hip-hop, R&B and rock, aligning the music with alternative rap and the neo-soul movement that emerged in the late 1990s. Haye, performing under the name Cisco Swank, plays melodic piano chords over lush soul and trap-inspired drums and raps in a manner that recalls the weary lethargy of Mike and Earl Sweatshirt, but with the polish of a Village Vanguard headliner.Jazz-rap hybrids aren’t new, of course, but Haye, 23, without pandering to any audience, is tapping into a subset who dig lo-fi underground rap.Haye’s earliest musical memories involve playing drums and piano at the church, when he was only 3 or 4 years old. Lindsay Perryman for The New York Times“He’s sitting right in the center of a lot of points,” said the noted trumpeter Ambrose Akinmusire in a telephone interview. “And it doesn’t seem like he’s trying to. It’s just who he is. He is Black music. All of it. It’s in every note.”Haye runs through the tapestry of jazz, R&B and rap on his recently released debut album, “More Better,” which at times ruminates on the pandemic but without wallowing in despair.“Teary-eyed still thinkin’ ’bout 2020/Quarantined, bro, the streets eerie,” he raps on “If You’re Out There.” “City full of dreams, concrete, but I see it when I look in the sky.” On “What Came From Above,” over a melancholic piano loop and stuttering electronic drums, Haye admits he is “renewed” back at home with his family. (He returned to Crown Heights, Brooklyn, from the Berklee College of Music, where he studied piano performance and contemporary writing and production when the pandemic took hold.) On “Over Now,” he laments the end of a romantic relationship with keen self-awareness. “I try to smile through it,” Haye raps with an exhausted tone. “I don’t really like fast moving/I try not to commit, bro, I’m last to it.” Even the LP’s title — thought of randomly during a rehearsal — is meant to convey perseverance in dark times.Haye, tall and skinny with long dreads and a boyish charm, peppers his conversation with affirmations like “facts” and “fire,” and speaks easily and expertly about a wide range of musicians — Beethoven and Bach, Kirk Franklin and Richard Smallwood. While growing up in Flatbush, he was exposed to all of this music by his mother, Adriane, who directed the youth choir at Emmanuel, and his father, Frank, who was the director of music there.Haye’s earliest musical memories involve playing drums and piano at the church, when he was only 3 or 4 years old. Seeing his father in action in front of large congregations sparked a real interest in music. “I feel like it played an important role in how I see people present music and how you interact with people,” he said during a lunch interview. “The whole idea of just music being more than just notes and harmony. It’s serving a bigger purpose, whether it’s bringing someone out of a wack week or bringing them closer to God.”Music can serve “a bigger purpose,” Haye said, “whether it’s bringing someone out of a wack week or bringing them closer to God.”Lindsay Perryman for The New York TimesAt home, he said, there were “mad musical instruments everywhere,” which made being an artist seem like the coolest job ever. He absorbed Baroque music, Stevie Wonder and other Motown soul, as well as old-school rap. (His mother grew up in the Bronx at the beginning of hip-hop culture and used to rhyme under the name Micki Dee.)Haye started thinking about blending genres during his freshman year at LaGuardia High School: His favorite rapper, Kendrick Lamar, merged rap and psychedelic jazz on his 2015 album “To Pimp a Butterfly,” and Glasper’s song “Portrait of an Angel” doubled as his alarm clock. “That really was the point where I was like, ‘I’m trying to do something very much like this,’” Haye said.He formed a jazz fusion band and started playing around the city. He began rapping as a student at Berklee, tinkering with the conversational cadences heard on “More Better” while releasing music on SoundCloud. “I was like, ‘Oh, maybe we should just play this song with the band but put a trap groove over it,’” Haye recalled. “Slowly, it just started merging into what it is today.”He met the Chicago-based multi-instrumentalist Luke Titus over social media at the start of lockdown in 2020 and started sharing audio files with him, which led to the collaborative album “Some Things Take Time,” released two years later. “The narrative was definitely about being patient during a time with so much uncertainty,” Titus said over the phone. “It was about not forcing things and allowing things to come when they come.” Those themes are also relayed on “More Better” in Haye’s singular voice.“He draws from so much influence of being from New York,” Titus added, pointing to the city’s renowned jazz and rap scenes. “He might have all these jazz chops, but he’ll pick the simple melody and play what needs to be there in a very lyrical way.” He added, “He’s one of those rare guys who doesn’t overthink things too much.”Haye noted that while his album was born of the pandemic, it’s rooted in a sense of uplift rather than resignation. “It’s just like seeing the clouds in the distance, like seeing the light at the end of the tunnel,” he said. “It’s being able to say, ‘Oh, I can make it as long as I have faith.’ Even if it’s not a spiritual faith, if it’s just faith that things will get better, it will work out.” More

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      Ice Spice Joins Taylor Swift’s ‘Karma,’ and 9 More New Songs

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      Hear tracks by Dua Lipa, Water From Your Eyes, Ichiko Aoba and others.Every Friday, pop critics for The New York Times weigh in on the week’s most notable new tracks. Just want the music? Listen to the Playlist on Spotify here (or find our profile: nytimes). Like what you hear? Let us know at theplaylist@nytimes.com and sign up for our Louder newsletter, a once-a-week blast of our pop music coverage, and The Amplifier, a twice-weekly guide to new and old songs.Taylor Swift featuring Ice Spice, ‘Karma’Mutual appreciation or celebrity damage control? Taylor Swift’s apparent new boyfriend — Matty Healy, from the 1975 — mocked the Bronx rapper Ice Spice and made other offensive comments on a since-deleted podcast that may (or may not) have been ironic comedy; social media flared. Now, proclaiming admiration and good feelings all around, Ice Spice gets her moment on a remixed Swift track that predicts karmic revenge on all the singer’s antagonists and obstacles. Ice Spice seizes the opportunity in her verse, warning, “Karma never gets lazy.” JON PARELESBeyoncé featuring Kendrick Lamar, ‘America Has a Problem’Beyoncé has now handed over the opening minute of her song “America Has a Problem” to Kendrick Lamar — the Pulitzer Prize-winning rapper who has previously collaborated with her. His verses use multiple voices and registers to pick fights with corporations (Universal) and technology (artificial intelligence) while acknowledging hip-hop history by praising Jay-Z. It’s a commercial nudge to the “Renaissance” album that also deepens its sense of layered traditions and lore. Somehow the new track’s timing adds up to 4:20. PARELESDua Lipa, ‘Dance the Night’“I don’t play it safe,” Dua Lipa insists on her gleaming, disco-kissed “Dance the Night,” the first single from the soundtrack to the upcoming “Barbie” movie. But the song itself — a rehash of the trusty “Future Nostalgia” formula with a little “Can’t Stop the Feeling!” thrown in — makes the opposing argument. Though disappointingly self-serious and light on “Barbie Girl” camp, “Dance the Night” is a blandly fun summer jam that shows off Lipa’s easy confidence: “Ooh my outfit’s so tight,” she sings, “you can see my heartbeat tonight.” LINDSAY ZOLADZWater From Your Eyes, ‘Everyone’s Crushed’The title track from the Brooklyn art-rock duo Water From Your Eyes’ excellent new album “Everyone’s Crushed” is a kind of lyrical Rubik’s Cube, finding Rachel Brown twisting and rearranging a few deadpan phrases until they click into new meanings. “I’m with everyone I love, and everything hurts,” Brown declares, prompting Nate Amos to blurt out a caustic, angular guitar riff. The song makes space for both a collective feeling of generalized malaise and also the relief of sharing it with others: “I’m with everyone I hurt,” Brown concludes, “and everything’s love.” ZOLADZSquid, ‘The Blades’Squid is one of the British bands that’s reconfiguring prog-rock in the wake of post-punk, mingling musicianly technique and caustic attitude. In “The Blades,” Squid sets up a tense 7/4 beat and a gnarled counterpoint of guitars, drums and horns, as Ollie Judge sings, insinuating and eventually yelping, about surveillance and callousness. The song peaks with a dire vision of crowds that look like blades of grass, “begging to be trimmed,” then tapers down to a quietly alienated coda. PARELESJeff Rosenstock, ‘Liked U Better’The Long Island punk lifer Jeff Rosenstock’s knack for writing shout-along choruses is on full display in “Liked U Better,” a one-off single that’s as blistering as it is catchy. Racing thoughts and a palpitating heartbeat set the song’s antic tempo, before he shrugs them all off in a cathartic refrain: “I liked you better when you weren’t on my mind.” ZOLADZJess Williamson, ‘Time Ain’t Accidental’A dinky drum-machine beat from a cellphone app ticks behind “Time Ain’t Accidental,” a song about a brand-new romance with a longtime friend from a rarely visited town. Jess Williamson, born in Texas but well-traveled, has lately collaborated with Katie Crutchfield (Waxahatchee) as the countryish indie-rock band Plains; this will be the title song of her next solo album. “I have a life somewhere real far away,” she sings, and later, with guitar and banjo joining her, “Look me in the eyes, I know it’s experimental.” But the song revels in staying smitten. PARELESBlk Odyssy featuring Kirby, ‘You Gotta Man’The situation is clear — “You gotta man, I gotta girlfriend” — but the music is blurry and dazed, as the R&B songwriters Blk Odyssy, from Austin, and Kirby, from Memphis, trade impressions and rationalizations about an infidelity that was fueled by “dopamine and Hennessy.” Above a slow, woozy beat, amid a welter of echoey voices and electric sitar, Blk Odyssy’s delivery is disbelieving and hesitant, answered by Kirby’s high whisper, both of them uncertain and then amorous; “See you next lifetime,” they vow before parting. PARELESIchiko Aoba, ‘Space Orphans’“Space Orphans” joins Ichiko Aoba’s extensive catalog of quiet, skeletal, soothing songs, often accompanied only by her acoustic guitar; they are akin to bossa novas, American folk-pop and Japanese koto melodies. A string arrangement — warmly sustained and sometimes harmonically ambiguous — opens up the track as her Japanese lyrics speak of an otherworldly romance, where “We go to sleep each night/In some quiet place, that’s neither land nor sea.” In an initiative led by Brian Eno called EarthPercent, the Earth is credited as a co-writer and gets royalties for environmental programs. PARELESAnjimile, ‘The King’There are clear echoes of the minimalism of Philip Glass, Meredith Monk and Steve Reich in “The King.” The track progresses from a complex, wordless chorale into a keyboard-arpeggio whirlwind as Anjimile sings biblical allusions and sensible advice: “What don’t kill you almost killed you,” he observes. PARELES More

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      Young Rappers in Seville, Spain, Turn “Tears Into Rhymes”

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      La Barzola, a neighborhood in Seville, Spain, is home to a diverse population of working-class families, many of them immigrants, with the pulse of community and creative resistance running through their veins. The heart of the barrio is the Plaza Manuel Garrido, a public park and social nexus. And within this space is a basketball court that a group of aspiring rappers call their own.

      Hip-hop was born 50 years ago from the rubble of urban distress in the Bronx, an act of resistance and self-expression by society’s most vulnerable. Today, the music is everywhere: a multi-billion-dollar ecosystem. But it also remains a deeply personal form of expression, including for the young men in this community.

      “Whatever pain, anger or frustrations we harbor from our everyday experiences, music allows us to excavate those things and make something useful out of it,” Zakaria Mourachid, 21, who makes music under the name Zaca 3K, said. “We take our anger out on the music. We turn our tears into rhymes, because it makes us feel free in a world that creates barriers around us everyday.”

      Just like the originators of hip-hop, the rappers of this collective ground their material in their personal narratives.

      “Overcoming immigration, overcoming having to leave one’s country of origin, overcoming being separated from our families and overcoming the loss of those we meet who may or may not continue the journey with us.” More

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      Fans Remember Tina Turner as a Resilient Trailblazer

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      Many said her music and her life story were inspirations as she overcame abuse during her marriage to Ike Turner and emerged as a star on her own.Rock and soul singers, civil rights activists and political leaders mourned Tina Turner on Wednesday as a trailblazing artist whose music and life epitomized resilience, determination, heart and the power to not only survive but thrive over five decades in the music industry.“Tina would have so much energy during her performances and was a true entertainer,” Magic Johnson, the former star of the Los Angeles Lakers, wrote on Twitter. “She created the blueprint for other great entertainers like Janet Jackson and Beyoncé and her legacy will continue on through all high-energy performing artists.”As news spread of Ms. Turner’s death, at 83, in Switzerland, many said her life story was an inspiration as she overcame abuse during her marriage to Ike Turner and emerged as a star on her own, with the release of her solo album “Private Dancer” in 1984.“This woman rose like a Phoenix from the ashes of abuse, a derailed career, and no money to a renaissance like I’ve never seen in entertainment,” Sherrilyn Ifill, the former president of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, said on Twitter. “She became fully herself and showed us all how it’s done.”Mick Jagger of the Rolling Stones, who toured with Ms. Turner in Britain in 1966 and then in the United States in 1969, in a series of concerts that helped introduce her music to white audiences, said that he was “so saddened by the passing of my wonderful friend Tina Turner.”Tina Turner with Mick Jagger at a Live-Aid concert in Philadelphia in 1985.Rusty Kennedy/Associated Press“She was truly an enormously talented performer and singer,” Mr. Jagger wrote on Instagram. “She was inspiring, warm, funny and generous. She helped me so much when I was young and I will never forget her.”Former President Barack Obama said on Twitter that “Tina Turner was raw. She was powerful. She was unstoppable. And she was unapologetically herself — speaking and singing her truth through joy and pain; triumph and tragedy.”“Today,” he added, “we join fans around the world in honoring the Queen of Rock and Roll, and a star whose light will never fade.”The actress Angela Bassett, who was nominated for an Oscar for her portrayal of Ms. Turner in the 1993 film “What’s Love Got to Do With It,” said in a statement: “How do we say farewell to a woman who owned her pain and trauma and used it as a means to help change the world?”“Through her courage in telling her story, her commitment to stay the course in her life, no matter the sacrifice, and her determination to carve out a space in rock and roll for herself and for others who look like her, Tina Turner showed others who lived in fear what a beautiful future filled with love, compassion, and freedom should look like,” Ms. Bassett said. “Her final words to me — for me — were ‘You never mimicked me. Instead, you reached deep into your soul, found your inner Tina, and showed her to the world.’”The R&B and soul singer Aaron Neville recalled when the Neville Brothers toured Europe with Ms. Turner in 1990, selling out shows with more than 70,000 fans in attendance. It was during that tour, he said, when he came up with the idea for his song, “The Roadie Song,” as he watched the crew set up stages all across Europe.“She showed us much love and respect,” Mr. Neville wrote on Twitter. “I know she has a place in the heavenly band.”Ms. Turner’s career began in the late 1950s, when she was in high school in East St. Louis, Ill., and spanned half a century, as she moved from singing R&B and soul into rock and pop. She was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame with Mr. Turner in 1991 again as a solo artist in 2021.She gave her final public performance in 2009 and then retired.Beyoncé, left, and Tina Turner perform at the 50th Grammy Awards in Los Angeles on Feb. 10, 2008.Robyn Beck/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images“Tina Turner was our voice,” Mayor Eric Adams of New York wrote on Twitter. “She’s an icon who knocked down boundaries, shook our soul and redefined music. She overcame so much to become an icon.”Kelly Rowland, the singer formerly of Destiny’s Child, is part of a younger generation of singers who drew inspiration from Ms. Turner: “Thank you Queen, for giving us your all!” she wrote. “We Love You!!”The R&B singer Ciara wrote: “Heaven has gained an angel. Rest in Paradise Tina Turner. Thank you for the inspiration you gave us all.”And rapper and songwriter Kid Cudi wrote that Ms. Turner was a hero to his mother, and “she was the ultimate superhero to me too.” More

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      Listen to the Mother of All Playlists

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      Hear songs by Brandi Carlile, 2Pac, Merle Haggard and more for Mother’s Day.Brandi Carlile’s “The Mother” is one of the more honest songs about motherhood in the canon.Ricardo Nagaoka for The New York TimesDear listeners,A lot of music about motherhood gets a bad rap.Given how much our culture devalues women’s work — and domestic work most of all — this shouldn’t be terribly surprising, but it’s still a bummer. That nebulously defined genre of dad rock has, over the years, earned a begrudging cultural respect, but the phrase “mom rock,” in the rare instances it’s used, still sounds like an insult.I remember discussing this double standard a few years ago when I was interviewing the singer-songwriter Anaïs Mitchell, who won a Tony for her score for the hit musical “Hadestown” and releases incisively observed folk music under her own name. Becoming a mother had ushered in a drastic change in her perspective — “a relocation of myself in the world and in my family,” in her words. She wanted to be able to write about that experience with all the richness and depth it deserved, even if it ran the risk of being labeled, as she put it with a laugh, “culturally irrelevant mom art.”Luckily, plenty of other songwriters have charted the choppy waters of motherhood — and of being mothered — proving it to be one of the most complicated, challenging and (at least sometimes) rewarding of human experiences. In honor of Mother’s Day (don’t forget: this Sunday!), I’ve put together a playlist of songs that reflect motherhood in all of its unruly complexity.But at the same time: not too unruly, on this day of celebrating moms. There is a time and a place for Danzig’s “Mother,” but it is neither now nor here on this playlist. Ditto John Lennon’s primal scream of “Mother,” though the Beatles’ “Julia” might have been a more appropriate choice. I would here like to acknowledge the existence of the Spice Girls’ “Mama” and Good Charlotte’s “Thank You Mom” without asking you to listen to them.The aforementioned Anaïs Mitchell, however, did make the cut, along with an eclectic group of artists including 2Pac, Brandi Carlile and Beyoncé. Mamma mia, here we go.Listen along on Spotify as you read.1. Kacey Musgraves: “Mother”The shortest, sparsest song on Kacey Musgraves’s 2018 album, “Golden Hour,” is also the most emotionally piercing. “I’m just sitting here, thinking ’bout the time that’s slipping and missing my mother,” the country renegade sings with heartbreaking plaintiveness, before zooming out a generation and imagining that her own mother is probably doing the same. Musgraves has said that “Mother” is one of the “Golden Hour” songs she wrote while tripping on LSD — but don’t tell her mom that part. (Listen on YouTube)2. Beverly Glenn-Copeland: “La Vita”The pioneering composer and new age artist Beverly Glenn-Copeland has, in recent years, experienced a long-delayed and much deserved uptick in popularity thanks to a series of reissues and the enthusiastic embrace of a younger generation of musicians. The enchanting “La Vita,” from Copeland’s self-released 2004 album “Primal Prayer,” features operatic vocals from the soprano Maggie Hollis, over which Copeland intones a stirring lyric that ends with a profoundly grounding reminder: “And my mother says to me, ‘enjoy your life.’” (Remember that refrain; it’s going to make another appearance later in this playlist.) (Listen on YouTube)3. Brandi Carlile: “The Mother”Carlile doesn’t sugarcoat the experience of motherhood in this beautifully written standout from her 2018 album, “By the Way, I Forgive You,” but that gives the song a lived-in honesty, and makes its warmth come across as something more powerful than empty sentiment. “They’ve still got their morning paper and their coffee and their time,” she sings of her “rowdy” friends without children. But for all that is lost, she realizes, so much has also been gained since the birth of her daughter: “All the wonders I have seen I will see a second time from inside of the ages of your eyes.” (Listen on YouTube)4. Merle Haggard: “Mama Tried”“Instead of life in prison I was doing one-to-15 years,” Merle Haggard once admitted of the slight embellishment as to how he spent his 21st birthday in one of his most famous (and semi-autobiographical) songs. “I just couldn’t get that to rhyme.” Though its title gives repentance some lip service — hey, at least he’s not blaming her! — Haggard still sounds like a hellion on this 1968 hit. The more sincere Mother’s Day gift would arrive much later, in 1981, when he released the gospel album “Songs for the Mama That Tried,” and even put sweet Flossie Mae Harp on the cover. (Listen on YouTube)5. 2Pac: “Dear Mama”The rap game “Mama Tried”? Of his cleareyed but thoroughly loving tribute to his mother, Afeni Shakur, Tupac once said, “I aimed that one straight for my homies’ heartstrings.” Mission accomplished. (Listen on YouTube)6. Anaïs Mitchell: “Little Big Girl”This one’s a heartstring-tugger, too. Mitchell is caught between being a child and an elder on “Little Big Girl,” a poignant song from her 2022 self-titled album. There’s a striking moment toward the end when she catches her reflection in a window and sees her mother, tired, “coming home from work.” Mitchell sings with great empathy, “Tell her you love her/Tell her you’re her.” (Listen on YouTube)7. Beyoncé featuring Blue Ivy: “Blue”Named after Beyoncé’s first child, “Blue” is all the more tender for its placement at the end of her imperial 2013 self-titled album; it follows “Heaven,” a wrenching ballad about suffering a miscarriage. Bey’s candor about both the grief of pregnancy loss and the joys of a hard-won motherhood helped this album feel like a turning point in her career: the beginning of her grown-woman era. (Listen on YouTube)8. The Shirelles: “Mama Said”The vocal sound of most ’60s girl groups was chatty and communal — a musical means of sharing wisdom, commentary and advice from woman to woman. This classic from the great early ’60s hitmakers the Shirelles passes on some maternal know-how that mama acquired in the days when she, too, was just a teenager in love. (Listen on YouTube)9. Romy: “Enjoy Your Life”Remember that Glenn-Copeland refrain? The xx’s Romy Madley Croft samples it to extraordinary effect in this recently released and stirringly soulful solo single. “I made a promise to my mother to stop worrying ’bout my problems,” she sings, as Glenn-Copeland’s voice rings out like a compassionate elder bestowing glowing benevolence on a musical daughter: “My mother says to me, ‘Enjoy your life.’” (Listen on YouTube)Hi, Mom,LindsayThe Amplifier PlaylistListen on Spotify. We update this playlist with each new newsletter.“The Mother of All Playlists” track listTrack 1: Kacey Musgraves, “Mother”Track 2: Beverly Glenn-Copeland, “La Vita”Track 3: Brandi Carlile, “The Mother”Track 4: Merle Haggard, “Mama Tried”Track 5: 2Pac, “Dear Mama”Track 6: Anaïs Mitchell, “Little Big Girl”Track 7: Beyoncé featuring Blue Ivy, “Blue”Track 8: The Shirelles, “Mama Said”Track 9: Romy, “Enjoy Your Life”Bonus TracksSome wise words from the Swedish pop queen Robyn, on her 2010 song “Include Me Out”: “All hail to the mamas, who hold it down/Hail to the pillar of the family/This one’s for the grannys, take a bow.”Also, few songwriters have captured the experience of adoption as poignantly and prismatically as Joni Mitchell did on “Little Green,” from her legendary 1971 album, “Blue.”Speaking of Joni: Hear a newly released recording of her performing “Both Sides Now” at last year’s Newport Folk Festival (and music from Dolly Parton, Rhiannon Giddens and more) in this week’s Playlist. More