In early March, the veteran A&R Chris Anokute was listening to a SoundCloud link from an aspiring artist. The track came to an end, and the platform’s algorithm automatically queued up Curtis Waters’ “Freckles.” “I felt like he was telling my story,” says Anokute, who worked with Katy Perry at …

Drake captured the Number One spot on the Artists 500 for the third week in a row, pulling in 122.6 million streams for the week of June 12th through June 18th. The Toronto rapper’s closest challenger was Lil Baby, who underscored an impressive week on the charts with a rise …

Prince’s “Blue Angel” Cloud 2 electric guitar — “the most significant Prince guitar that’ll ever come up for auction” — sold for a high bid of $563,000 Saturday, exceeding pre- auction estimates. The 1984 custom-made instrument, long thought to be lost, was played by Prince on the tours in support …

Weezer put a new spin on socially distanced late-night performances with their rendition of “Hero” on The Tonight Show Wednesday. To start, the band transformed the riff-heavy track into a piano power ballad, led by frontman Rivers Cuomo, who appeared at his piano at home and began performing the song …

Wilco’s Jeff Tweedy called for the creation of a program that would allow songwriters and musicians to regularly donate a portion of their royalties to organizations fighting for racial justice. Tweedy opened his statement by noting that the modern music industry is “built almost entirely on black art” and that …

Brian Eno’s collaborative albums with John Cale and bassist Jah Wobble — 1990’s Wrong Way Up and 1995’s Spinner, respectively — will be reissued with a handful of bonus tracks each. The sets will arrive on August 21st via All Saints Records. The reissues coincide with the 30th anniversary of …

Nile Rodgers’ We Are Family Foundation announced the creation of its new Youth to the Front Fund, which will benefit activists and organizations fighting to end systemic racism. Per a press release, the YTTF Fund will specifically support and fund “under 30-year-old BIPOC [Black Indigenous People of Color] youth activists, …

UPDATE (6/19): The International Slavery Museum has deduced that Penny Lane’s name is not connected to the slave trade. Liverpool’s Penny Lane — of Beatles fame — might be renamed, according to Steve Rotheram, Liverpool’s Metro Mayor. Last week, four road signs bearing the name were spray-painted over, according to …

The Louisville, Ky. police department has voted unanimously to ban no-knock warrants in the wake of the death of Breonna Taylor, a 26-year-old EMT who was killed in an unannounced police raid on her boyfriend’s apartment. The legislation, titled Breonna’s Law, will officially ban the practice of no-knock warrants, or …

For starters, it’s no Harry Potter. But when Aretmis Fowl debuts on Disney + on June 12th, you’ll wonder why this fussed-over and broken film version of Irish author Eoin Colfer’s young-adult bestseller — about a 12-year-old criminal mastermind — had to be this dramatically inert and emotionally barren. Colfer …