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      2 Chainz Is a Dedicated Father With a Competitive Streak

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      The rapper’s list of must-haves revolves around his love of sports and his three kids, although he’s not above teaching them the art of losing.The Atlanta rapper 2 Chainz has lived a lot of life.A one-time college athlete born Tauheed Epps, he scored his first major hit as a rapper with the Lil Wayne-assisted “Duffle Bag Boy” in 2007, when he was still known as Tity Boi, one half of Playaz Circle. By 2011, Epps had rebranded himself 2 Chainz, releasing a series of solo mixtapes considered regional classics and eventually signing with Def Jam.In the decade since, the rapper, now 44, has fashioned himself into one of the premiere hip-hop emissaries across culture with his roguish magnetism and whimsical boasts, outlasting countless peers as he diversified into a television host (starring in Viceland’s luxury goods show “Most Expensivest”) and brand pitchman (appearing in a Super Bowl commercial and recently partnering with Krystal for “creative marketing”).His seventh album as 2 Chainz, “Dope Don’t Sell Itself,” out Friday, is a nod to the rapper’s enduring subject matter — his past as a drug dealer — but has been billed as his “last trap album.” Featuring a new generation of hustlers-turned-artists like Lil Baby, Moneybagg Yo and Lil Durk, the release will likely be “the last time you’ll hear all of this type of stuff in one space,” 2 Chainz clarified in a recent phone interview, as he explores “other types of music that I enjoy doing — sample-based, digging in the crates, the more lyrical side of 2 Chainz.”“Music, for the most part, is a young man’s game, but I’m just as energetic and passionate as I was when I first got on,” he said. “I was a late bloomer anyway.”Calling from a luxury vehicle, 2 Chainz shared 10 of his beloved necessities, most of which revolve around his ultimate reinvention: becoming a family man.Here are edited excerpts from the conversation.1. A Higher Power Off top, we gotta give praise to God. My beautiful kids keep me going — having an extension of myself, it just brings on new responsibilities, new challenges. I have three kids: A 13-year-old who’s really into volleyball, a 9-year-old who’s very into art and expression. My youngest is my only son — he’s 6 years old and he’s really into basketball. I can honestly say he completes me. I thank God also for my wife and my mom. My wife, obviously, for procreating with me and being such a good life partner. And my mom, for birthing a millionaire, a genius, a guy who still has some of the best ideas and marketing rollouts in the game.2. Atlanta Hawks Basketball is my primary joy in life. We like to go watch the Hawks games. I’m also a minority owner of a byproduct of the Hawks, the College Park Skyhawks. We get a lot of perks, and the kids like to go in there and run around, let their hair down. It’s about me trying to find a way to not just use my money but use my time to be a part of their lives, whether it’s picking them up from practice or just going over homework. My jump shot is still super wet, and I teach them. We go out on the court and do drills together, so they honor my game and they respect it.3. ESPN You know I’m into my sports, so I can’t live without ESPN — period. That’s all I watch. I go to sleep maybe 6 a.m., get up maybe noon, hit the gym. I start working late at night and it stays on in my studio. It’s probably on six, seven hours a day. It’s wall-to-wall with me, man. I’m watching “SportsCenter” and my wife just goes to her iPad and watches Netflix.4. Raw Rolling Papers My guy Josh laces me with all the up-to-date and newest Raw releases — whatever product comes out. The type of papers I use come in rolls, that’s why my joints be longer than a lot of people’s. Think of a tissue roll, except it’s raw paper.5. Me Time Every other week — every 10 to 14 days — I get a manicure and pedicure. I call it “me time.” I just really go sit down, I’m checking emails, might order a drink from next door and watch ESPN. Just let somebody pamper me — massage my feet, massage my hands. I feel like I put in enough work to get those types of perks. I care about myself and the temple that God blessed me with.6. “Scarface” One of the original stories of nothing to something. I come from that. I wasn’t a dishwasher, I wasn’t necessarily from Cuba or anything like that. But, man, I ain’t have nothing. Now I’m talking to you in my Maybach truck, smoking one of these long joints.7. Craps It may be funny, but I recently taught my kids how to shoot craps. Craps helped me triple my re-up. Craps also hurt me. But there was an era when I couldn’t lose. I remember going to get my first gold teeth from shooting dice. The reason I put it on the kids wasn’t because they would have to go get gold teeth, it was so they could see something, math-wise. That’s a byproduct of being from Atlanta, really knowing how to gamble and shoot dice. My nine-year-old got a little upset when she lost her money. But I’m making them feel all that!8. Trappy Goyard My dog Trappy, the original Frenchie — you can look him up on IG. I would call him the godfather: a lot of Frenchies came after him but none could match that blue fawn coat and big ol’ pretty head and smile, muscular toned body. My wife’s got a dog that’s 18-year-old. I might look it up in the Guinness Book. Gucci’s a girl Chihuahua. She barks and she bites people. Amazon Prime — bit. Instacart — bit. Little cousins — bit. I need to clone her. She’s older than my kids! I think it’s $25,000 for cats, $50,000 for dogs.9. Quiet Storm Radio If you’re talking about a Sunday when I’m just getting up from a long Saturday night where I’ve been smoking my gas, drinking a little Casamigos, micro-dosing a little shrooms, I might want to hear something soothing and player. I eat pancakes on Sundays — I don’t eat stuff like that during the week — so my wife might be walking around making my turkey bacon and pancakes. I put on 104.1 [WALR-FM, Kiss FM in Atlanta] and I listen to whatever they’ve got in rotation. Everything from Frankie Beverly to old Michael Jackson. Quiet storm is a perfect way to describe what I want on Sundays.10. Grown-Up Toys Family time, we get in the yard a little bit. We will pull the ATVs out. I have 100 acres at the house, so all of my kids know how to ride four-wheelers. I have a few different grown-up toys, I like to call them. The Can-Am side-by-side, the Polaris. I got a Sherp — Ye bought like 10 or 20 of them. That’s the biggest toy and if somebody sees it, they want to get lost in the woods. I got some fast [expletive], I got some [expletive] I done flipped. But I’m still here. More

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      Lawsuit Against Live Nation Details the Killing of Drakeo the Ruler

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      The Los Angeles rapper’s family is suing the promoters of the Once Upon a Time in LA festival, citing negligence in the face of a large gang presence.A wrongful-death lawsuit filed Wednesday in Los Angeles said that negligence and lax security amid a large gang presence at a Live Nation music festival led to the fatal stabbing of the rapper Drakeo the Ruler in December.The suit, which seeks more than $25 million in damages on behalf of the rapper’s minor son, named the festival’s organizer, Live Nation, the world’s leading concert promoter, as a defendant, along with three co-promoters — Bobby Dee Presents, C3 Presents and Jeff Shuman — as well as Major League Soccer’s Los Angeles Football Club, which subleased its stadium for the event.Drakeo, born Darrell Caldwell, was preparing to perform at the festival on the night of Dec. 18 when he was confronted backstage by more than 100 people, according to the lawsuit — “a violent mob of purported members of a Los Angeles-based Bloods gang.”The attack “was the result of a complete and abject failure of all defendants to implement proper safety measures in order to ensure the safety and well being of the artists whom they invited and hired to their music festival,” the suit said. At a news conference last week, lawyers for the rapper’s family called his death a “targeted assassination.”A spokesperson for Once Upon a Time in LA, which is owned by Live Nation, said in a statement that the festival “joins Drakeo’s family, friends and fans in grieving his loss” and was “continuing to support local authorities in their investigation as they pursue the facts.” The company declined to comment on the lawsuit; the other defendants did not respond to requests for comment on the filing.In recent months, Live Nation has faced criticism regarding festival security after 10 people were killed in the crowd at Travis Scott’s Astroworld festival in Houston in November. As dozens of of Astroworld lawsuits proceed, the House Committee on Oversight and Reform has said it would investigate the festival’s organizers.At Once Upon a Time in LA, artists like Snoop Dogg, Ice Cube and Al Green were set to appear across three stages. But the suit argued that given the festival’s setting in South Central Los Angeles (one of the city’s “most dangerous areas”) and the purported criminal affiliations of some of the artists on the bill, it was “highly probable that the music festival would attract a heavy presence of gang activity.”Drakeo, 28, was a rising star in the city’s rap scene who had collaborated with mainstream acts like Drake, but was also being targeted by the Bloods, the suit said. In 2019, he was acquitted of felony murder charges in connection with the killing of a member of the gang; following a plea deal related to additional conspiracy charges in the same killing, he was released from jail in November 2020.“It had been widely known to the public that certain members of the Bloods gang had rejected the acquittal, and sought to exact ‘street justice’ against Mr. Caldwell in order to avenge their slain member,” the suit said.The lawsuit specifically cited the “ongoing public feud” between Drakeo and the Los Angeles rapper YG, although it added that “there is no evidence to indicate that YG had anything to do with the events” that led to Drakeo’s killing. An account of the rapper’s death published in Los Angeles Magazine last month by an eyewitness and member of Drakeo’s entourage also invoked YG’s presence at the festival and raised concerns by Drakeo’s family that the rivalry had played a part in the killing.Representatives for YG said he has not been questioned by the police in connection with the incident, but declined to comment further. Los Angeles police have not announced any arrests related to the case, and the investigation remains ongoing.According to the lawsuit, Drakeo’s entourage of 15 was split into two smaller groups by festival security, owing to Covid protocols, leaving the rapper with one personal security guard, who was not permitted to carry a weapon inside the concert grounds.An initial altercation between Drakeo’s group and several other people was followed by scores of others, “many dressed in all red and wearing ski masks,” descending on the rapper, resulting in a “vicious and unrelenting attack” that left Drakeo with an ultimately fatal stab wound to his neck.The promoters and security staff “knew or should have known that Mr. Caldwell’s safety was at risk,” the suit said. More

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      Remembering Greg Tate, Critic and Catalyst

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      Subscribe to Popcast!Apple Podcasts | Spotify | StitcherGreg Tate, the pioneering critic, died last December at 64. His 1992 anthology “Flyboy in the Buttermilk: Essays on Contemporary America” is a startling document of the innovations taking place in the Black music, film and art of the time, and also a guidebook for a sui generis style of writing that was deeply lyrical on its own terms.Tate’s criticism was political, empathetic and skeptical all at once. It valued exuberant expressiveness along with a mischievous twist, and sought out the most provocative creators and rewarded them with close attention and, when warranted, loving scrutiny.On this week’s Popcast, conversations with two of Tate’s contemporaries about the fertile Black writing and arts scene in New York in the late 1980s and early ’90s, the overlap between creators and critics, and the impression Tate left on his peers and on those who came after.Guests:Michael A. Gonzales, who writes about music and true crime and is the co-author of “Bring the Noise: A Guide to Rap Music and Hip-Hop Culture”Joan Morgan, program director at the Center for Black Visual Culture, N.Y.U. Institute of African American Affairs, and the author of “When Chickenheads Come Home to Roost: A Hip-Hop Feminist Breaks It Down”Connect 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. Follow our host, Jon Caramanica, on Twitter: @joncaramanica. More

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      J Dilla Was a Revered Rap Producer. A New Book Deepens His Legacy.

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      The Detroit musician wasn’t known to give many interviews, and his influence has grown exponentially since his 2006 death. “Dilla Time” by Dan Charnas explores what drove him.Even during his lifetime, there was something unexplainable about J Dilla, the Detroit-born hip-hop producer and M.C. He was an open secret, an under-acknowledged force shifting and shaping modern music. Followers spoke of him reverentially and with enough hyperbole that he could feel inaccessible to listeners who didn’t quite get it. In the 16 years since his death, the aura around him has only grown.The writer Dan Charnas conducted nearly 200 interviews to write “Dilla Time,” a 400-page biography out on Tuesday that thoroughly examines the hip-hop producer’s unique approach. But Charnas, the author of the 2010 book “The Big Payback: The History of the Business of Hip-Hop,” could barely recall anything that J Dilla, born James Dewitt Yancey, said during the one occasion they spent together, in the summer of 1999.He remembered Dilla crouched over his MPC3000 sampling drum machine in the basement studio of his family’s home in the Conant Gardens neighborhood of Detroit. He remembered going out for Mongolian barbecue with the rapper Chino XL, Dilla and Common, who was in town to work with Dilla on what would become his album “Like Water for Chocolate.” But that’s about it.“I was talking rather than listening,” Charnas said in a recent video interview, “and so the big shift for me is that I’ve had to do really, really careful listening over the past four years to try to get this story.”Dilla, who came to attention via his work with the Pharcyde, A Tribe Called Quest and his own group Slum Village, died in February 2006 from complications of a rare blood disease three days after he turned 32. He was beloved by his contemporaries and a small following of fans for his off-kilter beats — and he was not known to talk to journalists often. (Charnas could find only 16 interviews.)Common remembered seeing Pharrell Williams bow down to Dilla when they met and recalled how Kanye West excitedly showed everyone in the studio the album that Dilla had given him to pull drum samples from.“I didn’t grow up listening to John Coltrane and Miles Davis. I didn’t even grow up listening to Fela Kuti or Jimi Hendrix,” Common said in a phone interview. “I’m bringing up their music because these artists and their work are everlasting. And J Dilla is one of those individuals.”Dilla’s career was rooted in seemingly contradictory ideas. He became known for matching somber, yet comforting tones with rugged, crackling drums. He often worked alongside artists who were positioned as the sanctimonious counterbalance to the increasingly materialistic and hypersexualized world of late ’90s hip-hop, but he himself was unapologetically enthralled with jewelry, expensive cars and strip clubs. As technological advances made music production easier, and as a result, more uniform, Dilla used those tools to find possibility in imperfections.Charnas wrote “Dilla Time” to help make J Dilla’s contributions to music known.Listenership and the breadth of Dilla’s influence have grown exponentially since his death. There are now annual Dilla Day events around the world, and his music has been celebrated by institutions like Lincoln Center and the Detroit Institute of Arts. His MPC3000 is displayed behind a glass case at the National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington, D.C. Charnas teaches a course about Dilla, which is how the book originated, as an associate professor at the Clive Davis Institute of Recorded Music at New York University.Over the years, there has been almost a deification of Dilla; Charnas’s book takes great efforts to humanize him. Though he is sympathetic to his subject’s struggles — particularly his misfortunes as an artist in the major label system and his deteriorating health — Charnas does not shy away from describing his imperfections.Dilla had a temper and could become jealous, those closest to him said to Charnas. When he was frustrated, his quietness would break as he lashed out at them. But the same people who told Charnas these unflattering stories continued to care about Dilla unconditionally.“He was private, and there’s still things I don’t talk about,” said Frank Nitt, Dilla’s close friend since middle school whose music he later produced as part of the group Frank-n-Dank. “But on the flip side, being who he was and how he’s being perceived by the people at this point, there’s a lot of misconceptions.”One of the foundational Dilla myths is how he arrived at his signature sound, in which the rhythm can feel off, different or just wrong. Some have said it was a failure to quantize his compositions, a feature in digital recording that eliminates human error and puts the timing of drum beats in their “correct” place.Charnas explains that Dilla’s process was more complex and that he took multiple steps to purposefully accentuate the sonic effects of error. The result was a fresh rhythmic feel that Charnas labels the titular “Dilla time” — differentiating it from straight time and swing time, the two rhythmic patterns that defined Western music. Dilla’s explanation for his innovation? He would just say that’s how he nodded his head.Charnas traces Dilla’s influence beyond hip-hop and soul, as it extended to pop, electronic music and jazz. His imprint can be found in songs by artists like Michael Jackson, Flying Lotus, the 1975 and Robert Glasper. (“Dilla Time” reveals that Dilla blew off potentially working with ’N Sync, twice.) Sometimes Dilla’s impact has been circuitous. He inspired young Los Angeles jazz musicians like Terrace Martin and Thundercat. Then Kendrick Lamar had those artists work on and expand the palette of his landmark 2015 album, “To Pimp a Butterfly.”Charnas also clarifies the story around “Donuts,” an instrumental album that Stones Throw Records released right before Dilla’s death that has become a key entry point for new generations of fans. It’s been said that Dilla recorded “Donuts” in the hospital, embedding messages for loved ones in his compositions as the end approached. In reality, “Donuts” was born from one of the many beat tapes he had made. It was largely edited and extended by Jeff Jank, who worked at Stones Throw, and completed months before Dilla died.Though he settled on J Dilla around 2001, he was alternately credited under names including Jay Dee, Jaydee, J.D. and Jon Doe. For much of the mid-90s into the turn of the century, he was part of two production collectives, the Ummah and the Soulquarians, alongside more famous members.In the book, Charnas relates how during the making of D’Angelo’s 2000 opus “Voodoo,” D’Angelo and Questlove called Dilla and Prince their “two North stars.” Dilla was around for many of the recording sessions at New York’s Electric Lady Studios, but none of the songs he initiated were completed. In the end, when he received his copy of the record, he was disappointed to realize that his name was nowhere in the liner notes.“The main theme for James in this story is credit, being seen,” Charnas said, “and he’s struggling to be seen.” Even on Common’s “The Light,” the biggest hit Dilla ever produced, he’s listed as “The Soulquarian’s Jay Dee for the Ummah,” leaving him, as Charnas said, “smothered in brotherhood.”Charnas’s main reasons for writing the book are not only to make Dilla’s contributions to music known but to also explain that the devotion from fans is justified. “Ultimately it’s really about me saying to everybody who loves Dilla: ‘You were not wrong. Your affection was not misplaced,’” he said. “He is special, more special than many of you all even know.” More

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      ‘Encanto’ Soundtrack Repeats at No. 1 for a Third Time

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      The Disney album held off the latest from the prolific rapper YoungBoy Never Broke Again on the Billboard 200.The soundtrack to “Encanto,” Disney’s latest animated hit, tops the Billboard album chart for a third time this week, holding off the latest from the popular and prolific rapper YoungBoy Never Broke Again.“Encanto” had the equivalent of 115,000 sales in the United States last week, up 11 percent from the week before, as songs like “We Don’t Talk About Bruno” and “Surface Pressure” remain big hits on streaming services. Its total included 139 million streams and 119,000 traditional album sales, according to MRC Data, Billboard’s tracking arm.“Colors,” the latest mixtape from YoungBoy, a 22-year-old from Baton Rouge, La., who has been a star attraction on YouTube for the last few years — and a regular contender on the music charts with a rapid-fire schedule of albums and mixtapes — was held to No. 2 with the equivalent of 79,000 sales. Most of that total came from the 119 million clicks that songs from the album drew on streaming services; “Colors” also sold a little under 2,000 copies as a complete package.Gunna’s “DS4Ever,” which opened at No. 1 two weeks ago, falls one spot to No. 3 in its third week out, followed by the Weeknd’s “Dawn FM.”Morgan Wallen’s “Dangerous: The Double Album” holds at No. 5. Since it came out 55 weeks ago, “Dangerous” has landed outside the Top 10 only once, when it was pushed out by a number of holiday albums in December. More

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      glaive Showcases His Less Hyper Pop, and 13 More New Songs

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      Hear tracks by Raveena, the Weather Station, Immanuel Wilkins and others.Every Friday, pop critics for The New York Times weigh in on the week’s most notable new songs and videos. 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.glaive, ‘Icarus’The ostensibly summery, mid-tempo “Icarus” shows off the relatively less hyper side of the hyperpop star glaive, though its lines still hit like angst-ridden daggers: “We’re flying too close to the sun,” he sings to his romantic partner in crime. A highlight from the deluxe edition of his 2021 EP “All Dogs Go to Heaven” (cheekily retitled “Old Dog, New Tricks”),“Icarus” has an instantly catchy hook that shows why many hail glaive as the potential breakout star of his underground subgenre. But the song still retains an appealingly edgy sense of emotional mayhem: “I’m setting fire to my room, ’cause I don’t know what else to do!” LINDSAY ZOLADZThe Smile, ‘The Smoke’The Smile — Thom Yorke and Jonny Greenwood from Radiohead with Tom Skinner, a drummer from Sons of Kemet — has quickly demonstrated its range. The trio snarled through its first single, “You Will Never Work in Television Again,” only to play things cool on its second, “The Smoke.” A minute-long instrumental intro sticks to syncopated bass and dub-echoed drums, in a 10-bar pattern that threatens to trip up unwary dancers as it seems to switch between 4/4 and waltz. Yorke’s high vocals and a hazy horn arrangement join the rhythmic crosscurrent as he sings about what might be the heat of desire or destruction, crooning, “Smoke wakes me from my sleep.” JON PARELESImmanuel Wilkins, ‘Fugitive Ritual, Selah’Peaceful and incantatory, “Fugitive Ritual, Selah” offers a moment to re-center amid the dicey, kinetic tour de force that is “The 7th Hand,” the alto saxophonist Immanuel Wilkins’s second album with his quartet. Wilkins is more often in a high-octane mode, but here he nearly caresses each note. He wrote “Fugitive Ritual, Selah” — which weaves through a melody built around harmonic shifts until finally landing on a repetitious, soothing coda — as a tribute to spaces like the Black church, where a distance from the white gaze allows for freer expression. GIOVANNI RUSSONELLOPierre Kwenders, ‘Papa Wemba’The Congolese musician Pierre Kwenders was born in Kinshasa and has lived in Montreal since 2001. “Papa Wemba,” from an album due in April, is a tribute to the singer, bandleader and snappy dresser Papa Wemba, who brought Congolese rumba, or soukous, to an international audience from the 1970s until his death in 2016. “Papa Wemba” adds electronic clout to the soukous beat — it sounds like it’s being punched out on a Teletype — and stirs up a rhythmic vortex with echoing guitars, gruffly sung and chanted vocals and a twin-saxophone riff that approximates the horns saying “Papa Wemba.” PARELESRaveena featuring Vince Staples, ‘Secret’Serpentine and luxurious, Raveena’s “Secret” is a pulsing after-hours affair. With her barely there voice, the R&B singer whispers silken come-ons, a steady thrum ricocheting off a muted tabla drum. It’s retrograde but futuristic, like the forthcoming concept album it appears on, which tells the story of a space princess from ancient Punjab. “Wait a sec, I’ll hit you right back,” Raveena coos in the chorus. You can almost feel her hot breath on your neck. ISABELIA HERRERASaba featuring G Herbo, ‘Survivor’s Guilt’“Survivor’s Guilt” is filled with wounds, yet Saba’s flow is breathless, like he’s outrunning the aftermath of trauma in real time. “I’m trying to move better/What’s really eating when you from a food desert,” he raps, echoing the hyper-speed flows of chopper forebears like Twista. A guest verse from G Herbo cements the song as an unforgettably Chicago linkup. HERRERAEx-Void, ‘Churchyard’Reuniting two members of the too-short-lived noise-pop band Joanna Gruesome, Ex-Vöid is a relatively new, jangly British power-pop group set to release its debut album later this year. The lush, taut “Churchyard” retains their previous band’s keen sense of melody, but this time favoring the sort of clean, bright guitar tones that broadcast their penchant for pop songcraft loud and clear. ZOLADZTess Parks, ‘Happy Birthday Forever’Tess Parks’s voice has an alluring, husky grain on “Happy Birthday Forever,” the first single from her upcoming album, “And Those Who Were Seen Dancing.” The Toronto-born artist hasn’t released an LP since her 2013 debut “Blood Hot,” and has since been collaborating with Anton Newcombe of the Brian Jonestown Massacre, but “Happy Birthday Forever” proves she’s a confident, enchanting presence on her own. The song is propelled by a jaunty beat and a bright piano riff, but there’s a dark undercurrent to the way Parks delivers her lines, like she’s exhaling cigarette smoke from the corner of her mouth: “Get me outta here.” ZOLADZDora Jar, ‘Lagoon’A lurching drumbeat, a barely tuned piano: The songwriter Dora Jar — who has lived in New York, California, Poland and England — doesn’t need much more to profess her longing in “Lagoon,” in terms both mundane and surreal: “My heart is a crustacean/Could you come and crack it open?” There’s an Elton John backbeat in her piano chords, but also a 21st-century sense of possibility, as vocal overdubs surround her and, for some reason, what sounds like a banjo surfaces near the end of the tune. PARELESThe Weather Station, ‘Endless Time’“It’s only the end of an endless time,” Tamara Lindeman sings in the opening moments of this shattering new ballad, the first song released from the Weather Station’s upcoming album, “How Is It That I Should Look at the Stars.” Lindeman has said the March 4 LP is a kind of companion piece to last year’s excellent “Ignorance,” and “Endless Time” certainly mirrors its predecessor’s chilling evocation of loss as well as its elegant weaving together of the personal and ecological. But while “Ignorance” experimented with fractured, jazzy rhythms, “Endless Time” echoes through a sparse negative space — just a haunting piano accompaniment and Lindeman’s elegiac vocals. Any “companion record” to a strong artistic statement risks being dismissed as a collection of B-sides, but this arresting first single is Lindeman bringing her “A” game. ZOLADZDonna Missal, ‘Insecure’​​Sooner or later, every sound ricochets around Donna Missal’s “Insecure”: ticks and taps of percussion, calm keyboard note clusters, grainy simulated strings and whispery vocals that split into harmonies, get pitched up and down and waft up out of nowhere. “Never want to see you again,” she announces as the song begins, and she goes on to denounce her “baby” as an unapologetic liar. But the confrontation is hushed, private and solitary, as if it’s taking place in a sonic hall of mirrors. PARELESKatie Dey, ‘Real Love’The Australian songwriter Katie Dey is both deadpan and devastating as she sings about an abusive relationship and her own self-destructive impulses in “Real Love.” The verses have an offhand sound — a thumpy drumbeat, dinky keyboard chords — as she recalls how “I made myself small/you made yourself big,” but her vocals take on hyperpop glitches and an Auto-Tuned edge on the way to a chorus that crashes in with distorted guitars, as she declares, “I want love that hurts.” PARELESTyler Mitchell featuring Marshall Allen, ‘A Call for All Demons’The bassist Tyler Mitchell played briefly in Sun Ra’s Arkestra during the 1980s, then put in decades of work as a straight-ahead jazz musician before rejoining the group about 10 years ago, after its patriarch had died. By now, he’s a deeply embedded member of the band. Leading his own sextet on a new album, “Dancing Shadows” — with the Arkestra luminary and alto saxophonist Marshall Allen, 97, as a featured guest — Mitchell covers a range of Sun Ra material alongside his own tunes; throughout, he guides things from below with the same bobbing, pulpy vigor that makes him sound at home in the Arkestra. “A Call for All Demons” is a tune that Sun Ra first recorded in the 1950s, and on Mitchell’s album it serves as the opening invocation. RUSSONELLONyokabi Kariūki, ‘Equator Song’Nyokabi Kariūki’s “Equator Song” radiates the dissonance of bilingual (or even trilingual) existence. Kariūki, who grew up in Kenya and now lives in Maryland, recorded the song on a trip to Kenya’s Laikipia county, collaging the chatter of weaverbirds — wordless, sky-high vocalizations floating into the ether. “You’ll find my soul on someone’s tongue,” she sings in English, harnessing the experience of living in a language that will never be your own. But instead of lingering in the discomfort or seeking some empty form of reconnection, Kariūki moves fluidly between English, Maa and Kiswahili. It is an acceptance of the diaspora’s constant condition of loss, and the beauty that exists within it. HERRERA More

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      A Killing Jolts Sweden’s Rap Scene

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      Subscribe to Popcast!Apple Podcasts | Spotify | StitcherEinar, the Swedish rapper who in the last few years had become one of the most dominant performers in the country’s hip-hop scene, as well as a major pop figure, was shot and killed last October. The case remains unsolved.The crime shined a light on the intersection between Sweden’s rap industry and gangs, on rising gun violence in Sweden, and also government neglect of marginalized communities and neighborhoods.On this week’s Popcast, a conversation about the ripple effect of Einar’s murder, the evolution of hip-hop in Sweden and how the last three years have radically changed the country’s rap scene.Guests:Joe Coscarelli, The New York Times’s pop music reporterPetter Hallen, a veteran rap journalist and D.J. who hosts a show on the Swedish public service radio station P3 Din GataAlex Marshall, The New York Times’s European culture reporterConnect 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. Follow our host, Jon Caramanica, on Twitter: @joncaramanica. More

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      Cardi B Awarded $1.25 Million in Libel Lawsuit Against Blogger Tasha K

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      A federal jury awarded the rapper Cardi B around $4 million in a libel lawsuit against a celebrity gossip blogger who had posted videos in 2018 claiming that she was a prostitute who had contracted sexually transmitted infections and used cocaine.Cardi B, whose real name is Belcalis Almanzar, had sued the celebrity gossiper, known as Tasha K, in 2019 for posting more than 20 videos that spread “malicious rumors” about the rapper, according to the lawsuit, which was filed in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia, where Tasha K lives.The jury found Tasha K, whose real name is Latasha Kebe, liable on two counts of slander and one count each of libel and invasion of privacy, according to a verdict filed on Monday.The jury awarded Ms. Almanzar $1.25 million on Monday and an additional $2.8 million on Tuesday, according to separate verdicts filed on Monday and Tuesday. The award includes $25,000 for medical expenses and around $1.3 million to cover the rapper’s legal fees.Ms. Kebe had also posted in 2018 that Ms. Almanzar had herpes outbreaks in her mouth and that she would give birth to a child with intellectual disabilities.Ms. Almanzar, 29, testified in court this month that she “felt extremely suicidal” after Ms. Kebe posted the videos, adding that “only an evil person could do that,” Lisa Moore, a lawyer for Ms. Almanzar, said on Monday.In the lawsuit, the rapper’s lawyers said that the content would damage her reputation with her fans and affect her business prospects. Cardi B, a Grammy-winning rapper from the Bronx, found fame in 2017 with her song “Bodak Yellow,” which immortalized her propensity for making “money moves.”Ms. Kebe’s claims have helped her amass millions of views on Twitter, Instagram and her YouTube channel, unWinewithTashaK. Most of the content can still be viewed online, even though the rapper sent Ms. Kebe a cease-and-desist letter a few months after Ms. Kebe first posted about her in 2018, according to the lawsuit.Ms. Almanzar’s lawyers said Ms. Kebe was “obsessed with slandering” the rapper, and that she posted the content because it got more views than her other posts, according to the lawsuit. Ms. Almanzar’s lawyers said that the rapper was not a prostitute, had never had herpes and had never used cocaine.In a statement on Tuesday, Ms. Kebe’s lawyers, Olga Izmaylova and Sadeer Sabbak, said they disagreed with the verdict and planned to appeal it.On Monday afternoon, Ms. Kebe said on Twitter that “My Husband, Attorney’s, & I fought really hard,” adding, “it’s only up from here.”Ms. Almanzar had filed the lawsuit against both Ms. Kebe and Starmarie Ebony Jones, a guest on Ms. Kebe’s YouTube channel who had claimed to be a former friend of the rapper.Ms. Jones was not included in the verdict on Monday because she moved to New York after Ms. Almanzar sued her, the rapper’s lawyers said. The lawyers filed another lawsuit against her in New York, where she was found liable last year on counts of libel, slander and invasion of privacy. A lawyer for Ms. Jones could not immediately be reached for comment on Monday night.This case was not the first time the rapper found herself in court. She was indicted in Queens in 2019 in connection with a fight in a strip club the year before. The case is still ongoing. More