Leadership should come in all different genders and colors. Marvel empowered a director and cast in 'Black Panther'; look at the result. I challenge not just the music industry but any company that’s living and breathing off the hard work of our culture to not just talk about diversity—give somebody the rock. | | | | Early start: The Mardi Gras Indian band Cha Wa at New Orleans Jazz Fest, April 28, 2018.
(Josh Brasted/WireImage/Getty Images) | | | | |  | “Leadership should come in all different genders and colors. Marvel empowered a director and cast in 'Black Panther'; look at the result. I challenge not just the music industry but any company that’s living and breathing off the hard work of our culture to not just talk about diversity—give somebody the rock.”
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| | rantnrave:// The cancellation of FYF FEST is a big loss for the summer music season in Los Angeles, and may or may not turn out to be a bellwether for the future of an increasingly crowded festival calendar. There will be plenty of blame to go around. It would be unfortunate—and categorically wrong—if fingers start pointing at the fact that the festival booked a decent percentage of women. Officially the fest, which was to be headlined by JANET JACKSON and FLORENCE AND THE MACHINE, says it "felt unable to present an experience on par with the expectations of our loyal fans and the Los Angeles music community this year," which, um, good luck parsing that. Unofficially, BILLBOARD says ticket sales were disappointing. There are a number of possible reasons for that, from the fact that there are probably more summer festivals at this point than any fan has asked for, to tales of disorganization and chaos at recent FYF Fests, to the fact that we're in the #MeToo era and FYF was founded and run until last year by a man accused of multiple sexual assaults. Maybe fans simply didn't want to shell out $149 for a single-day ticket or $249 for a weekend pass (that's triple what it will cost you to see JANELLE MONÁE, MIGUEL, ERYKAH BADU, TYLER THE CREATOR and lots more at AFROPUNK in Brooklyn this summer). Maybe (definitely) Janet Jackson and Florence and the Machine aren't as blockbustery as recent FYF headliners KANYE WEST, KENDRICK LAMAR, MISSY ELLIOTT and FRANK OCEAN. There was plenty of grumbling about the lineup when it was announced, and critics were still grumbling on Sunday, cancellation day. But the bill also included ST. VINCENT, FUTURE, the XX, MY BLOODY VALENTINE and plenty of other acts who don't exactly have trouble selling tickets in Los Angeles. And if your issue is that too many of them are—or include—women, then I will ask you to explain COACHELLA, which was almost singlehandedly carried this year by a certain female singer. And also to explain why a festival in which fewer than half the acts would have featured even a single non-male on stage is too feminine, in theory, for you or anyone to attend... What do APPLE's video ambitions mean for the future of Apple's music businesses? MATTHEW BALL explores the company's likely next moves in our new REDEF Original, "Prime, Apple Prime: What's Next for Apple and What Does Video Have to Do With It?"... Where are all the great protest songs?, you have been asking. DONALD GLOVER, d/b/a CHILDISH GAMBINO, debuted "THIS IS AMERICA" Saturday night on SNL and then released this astonishing, and astonishingly provocative, video, on Sunday. If you haven't already watched it a dozen times, you'll watch it a dozen times right now while unpacking and processing the layers of meaning and absorbing one of 2018's great singles along the way... RIP TONY KINMAN and WANDA WILKOMIRSKA. | | | - Matty Karas, curator |
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| | | monday morning you sure look fine |
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 | XXL |
| Many of today's new hip-hop artists respect rock legends more than rap gods. | | |
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 | The Washington Post |
| A Washington Post investigation found that this disregard for the singer’s alleged behavior played out on many levels, from billionaire record executives to the low-paid assistants. | | |
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 | The Daily Beast |
| R. Kelly isn’t the only artist we should be tuning out. From Chris Brown to Ted Nugent, there are many, many others who don’t deserve our time and money. | | |
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 | The Outline |
| From the start of her career, Morissette weaponized her rage about industry sexism into compelling, incisive music. Why didn’t people take her seriously? | | |
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 | REDEF |
| It's been a year since Apple made its first original video hires and released its first original series, yet the company's strategy remains opaque and confusing. The most likely answer is one that will lead the company to reinvent not another device category, but itself. | | |
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 | The Guardian |
| The industry faces threats from changing musical tastes, online commerce, and the instrument’s own durability. But new talent offers hope. | | |
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 | Billboard |
| With a new office headquarters, a new outlook and a digital-first future, iconic guitarmaker Fender is forging ahead in a difficult environment. | | |
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 | Okayplayer |
| Abiola Oke breaks down the meanings and intentions behind Donald Glover’s revolution-inducing visual for his new song “This Is America”. | | |
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 | Medium |
| The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame is on the cusp of being able to have a very female-friendly group of inductees, because over the next decade a huge number important female artists from the ’90s will become eligible for recognition. In order to actually have a female-friendly decade, however, the Hall of Fame has to acknowledge that it has a woman problem. | | |
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 | Los Angeles Times |
| The show's lineup represented an important step in the effort to bring gender parity to an overwhelmingly male-dominated festival scene. | | |
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| | | friday i got travelin' on my mind |
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| Billboard |
| Earlier this week, the company announced that it had successfully piloted its blockchain network, KORD with partners Warner Music Group, Warner/Chappell Music, BMG and Global Music Rights. | | |
|
 | Noisey |
| Twenty-four years after Mandela’s election, South Africa’s first post-apartheid generation is now coming of age. | | |
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| The Washington Post |
| A single event spawned a fiercely independent scene. | | |
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| The Daily Beast |
| Hollywood Reporter-Billboard Media Group president John Amato hindered reporting of sexual-harassment allegations against his friend Charlie Walk, sources told The Daily Beast. | | |
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 | Rolling Stone |
| With a new reissue out, the songwriter looks back on her classic, Stones-inspired skewering of male-centric rock mythology. | | |
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 | recode |
| His startup, Rival, has raised more than $30 million from Andreessen Horowitz, Upfront Ventures and several pro sports teams. | | |
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 | KUNC |
| Colorado State University’s Moving Through Parkinson’s class isn’t like other movement therapy classes. The class’s soundtrack isn’t playing on a laptop or a stereo. It’s coming from a group of music therapy students playing instruments in a corner of the room. | | |
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 | The Undefeated |
| The multiple Grammy winner talks about working with Spike Lee, listening to the universe — and the real-life hurricanes of this lifetime. | | |
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 | Fortune Magazine |
| There's a broken business model in the works. | | |
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| The Guardian |
| Pamela Des Barres had the giants of rock’n’roll in the palm of her hand, as her candid memoir reveals. | | |
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 | YouTube |
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