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Music
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Proms among music festivals pledging 50/50 gender split in lineupsLiverpool Sound City, Aldeburgh and Gilles Peterson’s Worldwide festival also promise gender equality among acts by 2022 -
Playboi Carti – cocksure catwalk energy from rising Atlanta rapperThe 21-year-old rapper – flanked by an oddball entourage of bodyguards and mannequins – is already showing impressive levels of self-belief
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Rolling Stones reveal dates of UK tourShows in London, Manchester, Cardiff and Edinburgh will be band’s first UK gigs in five years -
Everybody has a dark side. We’re all complicit…Award-winning Edinburgh hip-hop trio Young Fathers on ‘bad men’, shadow-boxing with portraits, and their new album, Cocoa Sugar -
Madonna’s lesson in maturity or gateway for Goop?Still 20 years on, Madge’s earth mother opus that influenced Adele and Britney, is still the template for modern pop
Playlists
Interviews
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Janelle Monáe on her music, politics and undefinable sexualityThe cyborg-fixated singer is back with her first album for five years. Outspoken as ever, she explains why she’ll always speak up for black women – and how much she misses her mentor, Prince -
How she became pop's 'lesbian Jesus'The LA singer-songwriter has gone from Disney Channel starlet to maker of sublime queer electropop. She explains how Katy Perry’s iffy-in-hindsight I Kissed A Girl helped start her journey -
We’re about camaraderie, not HillaryWomen are expected to take a back seat in the arch-conservative world of bluegrass music. But Aoife O’Donovan, Sara Watkins and Sarah Jarosz refused to be sidelined – even after Hillary Clinton ‘borrowed’ their band name -
Tracey Thorn’s cultural highlightsThe singer and author on 70s clubland, the photography of Andreas Gursky and a musical about a Sheffield drag queen
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Nils Frahm – short on harmony but texture and tone in spadesFrahm jokes about his musical limitations, but his piano solos are quiet riots that transport you to a higher plane
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Davido – Nigerian pop superstar feels the loveAfter a string of hits in 2017, fans are giddy throughout the crossover star’s biggest London date, despite a momentum-stalling interval -
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Insecure Men: Insecure Men – slacker supergroup find redemption in popAsked to leave Fat White Family due to addiction issues, Saul Ademczewski cleaned up, convened with Childhood’s Ben Romans-Hopcraft, and made an album of hope and horror -
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The most talked-about man in musicHis new album Channel Orange was rushed out a week early to rave reviews, then he made headlines worldwide by blogging about his sexuality. 'I wanted to wake up without this freakin' boulder on my chest,' he says in this Guardian exclusive
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In focus
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Brit awards 2018: five things we learned, from Haim's humour to Stormzy's powerEd Sheeran lost out, Jack Whitehall won big, and politics should be on the stage rather than the red carpet – here are the big takeaways from the 2018 Brits -
Taylor Swift copyright lawsuit dismissed by US judgeSongwriters Sean Hall and Nathan Butler alleged the singer stole the lyrics to their song Playas Gon’ Play for her 2014 hit Shake It Off -
Black Panther soundtrack review - Kendrick Lamar's Superfly momentThe rapper’s flair for knotty nihilism shines through as he curates an all-star album featuring the Weeknd and James Blake -
Coachella 2018 lineup announced, headlined by Beyoncé and EminemThe Californian music festival will also feature the Weeknd, David Byrne, Cardi B and dozens more pop and rap stars
By genre
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One to watch: Kali UchisThe Grammy-nominated singer’s dreamy, soulful vocals belie a life marked by struggle
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Principal Sound review – Luigi Nono's fragile postcards from VeniceAlongside works by Morton Feldman, the experimental music festival centred on the Italian composer’s enigmatic pieces that blur instrumentation into electronics -
The Real Thing singer Eddy Amoo dies in AustraliaAmoo, 74, led UK soul band which had No 1 single with You To Me Are Everything
You may have missed
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How Isaac Hayes helped create psychedelic soulThe singer’s Hot Buttered Soul, released in 1969 and soon to be reissued, ripped apart the rules and inspired many new waves of music -
Kendrick, Timberlake, Stormzy, Dua Lipa and moreWho savaged Theresa May and who smashed up a Lamborghini? The verdict on this year’s Brit awards performances -
Grime pioneer who reinvigorated the rave sceneThe underground MC, who has died of skin cancer, straddled the worlds of grime and drum’n’bass with extraordinary verve
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Festival set to ban plastic bottles in 2019Emily Eavis says festival is working on ‘enormous project’ to ban plastic bottles on site when it returns after year off in 2018 -
The Smiths reunion that wasn'tThree former members of the indie band were due to reunite for a series of gigs that fell apart as soon as they were announced. Mike Joyce and Craig Gannon explain why they tried to make it happen -
Form 696 is gone – so why is clubland still hostile to black Londoners?Met police form 696, which once required club promotors to detail the ethnicity of their clientele, has been removed. But discrimination is cropping up in other ways
Live review Paul Weller – the Modfather battles the nostalgia industry