Music

On Monday, June 18, rapper XXXTentacion was shot and killed in Florida. The fallout from his death has been complicated given the rapper's dark past. In 2016, he was charged with aggravated assault and battery and false imprisonment of a pregnant victim.

Priscilla Renea has just two solo albums, but she's written chart-topping pop songs for years: Rihanna's "California King Bed," Pitbull's "Timber," Fifth Harmony's "Worth It" and dozens more.

On NPR in 2012, Jill Barber called herself "Canada's Sweetheart." And even though her new album Metaphora, out now, doesn't conjure up the same sugary connotations as her previous works, she says the sweetheart title still holds true. "This record's maybe a little less sweet, but I hope it still reaches people in their heart," she says.

On March 6, 1963, John Coltrane and his quartet arrived at Van Gelder Studios in New Jersey to record an album. It was a busy time for the group, which featured pianist McCoy Tyner, bassist Jimmy Garrison and drummer Elvin Jones.

Even a professional gamer is no match for Kamasi Washington in the arcade classic Street Fighter II Turbo.

Earlier this week, we asked you for your favorite summer jams — the feel-good music that'll carry you through unrelenting news cycles, flat LaCroix, and incessant reminders from your mom ("HAVE YOU PUT ON SUNSCREEN YET?"). We loved your choices, from the sultry Calvin Harris and Dua Lipa song "One Kiss" to Korean boy band BTS's "Fake Love." More importantly, we appreciated your enthusiasm: "It bangs" was a common comment, along with "It slaps" and "IT BUMPS IN THE WHIP." (We may have learned some new terms).

For an emerging artist putting out a debut album, recording a session for this show, which airs across the country, could be a nerve-racking experience. Especially if your album features a full electric band, you planned to play with them for the session and on the day, one of the members gets sick and you had to go it alone in front of a live audience. That could be extra nerve-racking.

Pianist, vocalist and songwriter Marcia Ball brings together Texas blues with Louisiana flavors, melding boogie-woogie, zydeco and Swamp Rock. Influenced by artists of the region, such as Janis Joplin, Ball first came to the blues as a child by listening to Etta James and learned the piano through a mix of formal and informal lessons.

Virtuosity — of a dazzling, ebullient, yet altogether generous sort — might be the most obvious bridge between David Holland and Zakir Hussain. But there's also a deep cultural foundation behind their musical dialogue, which forms the beating heart of a project called Crosscurrents.

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DAVID GREENE, HOST:

Kamasi Washington's idea of heaven is the world he creates and retreats to in his mind. The jazz torchbearer's double album Heaven and Earth, out today, represents that inward heaven versus his outward reality on Earth.

On this week's episode of New Music Friday, All Songs Considered's Robin Hilton chats with NPR Music's Ann Powers and Rodney Carmichael, along with jazz critic Nate Chinen from WBGO about the most exciting new releases for June 22. Albums include the intense, industrial rock of Nine Inch Nails, the new joint project of Lecrae & Zaytoven and the wildly ambitious, shape-shifting jazz of Kamasi Washington.

Featured Albums

1. Nine Inch Nails: Bad Witch
   Featured Song: "Ahead Of Ourselves"

Chilled-out R&B is definitely not what I would be listening to moments before I jumped out of a plane, but Tash Sultana's new music video for "Salvation" proves that the sound is a perfect fit for falling through the brightest blue sky melding into the vast monochrome ocean.

A suspect in the murder of 20-year-old Jahseh Onfroy, better known as the controversial and chart-topping rapper XXXTentacion (pronounced "ex-ex-ex-ten-tah-see-ohn"), has been arrested, the Broward Sheriff's Office announced this morning. The police say that Dedrick Williams, 22 years old, was arrested for the the murder of Onfroy, who was shot outside of a high-end motor sports dealership in Deerfield Beach, Fla. on June 18.

Max Richter's music seems ready-made for movies – and that's not in any way a put down. The music is powerful on its own, but certain pieces take on new depth when paired with well-designed visuals.

Spinal Tap made its mark as one of England's loudest bands, releasing slightly above average records like Shark Sandwich. Now, Derek Smalls, the band's legendary bassist, is making waves of his on his own with a new reflective solo record in the vain of David Bowie's Blackstar and Leonard Cohen's You Want It Darker.

The behind-the-scenes concert reel is a music video staple, an opportunity for artists to prove, via sequences of young, fawning crowds, candid iPhone videos and electrifying stage gyrations, how lovable and human they are.

Liz Cooper & The Stampede's new video for "Hey Man," premiered on XPN, is a kind of mini episode of The Twilight Zone that plays as a rock and roll video. The song, from Liz's forthcoming album Window Flowers was recorded at Welcome to 1979 studio in Nashville and showcases the rockier side of Cooper's rock and roots musical equation.

Here is a music video in which the things you don't see or hear are almost as important as the things you do.

Note: NPR's First Listen audio comes down after the album is released. However, you can still listen with the Spotify or Apple Music playlist at the bottom of the page.

Note: NPR's First Listen audio comes down after the album is released. However, you can still listen with the Spotify or Apple Music playlist at the bottom of the page.

Note: NPR's First Listen audio comes down after the album is released. However, you can still listen with the Spotify or Apple Music playlist at the bottom of the page.