Curated playlist

Race-related controversies in music

Kanye WestKanye West recorded "Through the Wire" with his jaw still wired shut. A 2002 car accident had shattered it.
Gangsta rapGangsta rap first went by a different name: reality rap. Schoolly D and Ice-T said they described a world they knew.
Roger WatersThe Dark Side of the Moon, with lyrics written entirely by Roger Waters, spent 736 consecutive weeks on the Billboard 200 chart, a run that lasted until July 1988. Waters is an English singer-songwriter, musician and political activist,…
Liam GallagherLiam Gallagher traces his love of music to a hammer. During his teens a student from a rival school hit him on the head with one. He credits that blow with changing his attitude toward music. Until then he preferred sports and had no…
Dixie (song)Abraham Lincoln asked for the song "Dixie" the day after General Lee surrendered.
Ice CubeIce Cube, born O'Shea Jackson, started writing raps in ninth grade because a friend challenged him in typewriting class. The friend, nicknamed Kiddo, lost the contest. The class was at George Washington Preparatory High School in Los…
Iggy AzaleaIggy Azalea, born Amethyst Amelia Kelly on the 7th of June 1990, told her parents in 2006 that she was going to the United States on a holiday with a friend. She was shortly before her sixteenth birthday. The holiday never ended. She…
The Night They Drove Old Dixie DownA Canadian wrote "The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down," one of the greatest Civil War songs.
Post MalonePost Malone, born Austin Richard Post, failed an audition in 2010 for the Texas metalcore band Crown the Empire. He had gone in as a guitarist. The audition ended when his guitar strings broke, and the band turned him down. He was a…
GrimesGrimes is the stage name of Claire Elise Boucher, a Canadian musician whose name came from a mistake. When MySpace let artists list three musical genres, she typed "grime" in all three boxes. She had no idea what grime music actually was.…
Bully (album)Bully is the twelfth studio album by the American rapper and record producer Kanye West, and it reached listeners in 2026 after more than a year of missed deadlines. Its first public glimpse was a short black-and-white film. In it, West's…