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    Chubby Checker, Outkast and the White Stripes Will Join the Rock & Hall of Fame

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    Joe Cocker, Cyndi Lauper, Bad Company and Soundgarden — but not Oasis or Phish — are also part of the 40th anniversary class.Chubby Checker is finally joining the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, 65 years after “The Twist” became a No. 1 hit and an international dance craze.Checker, 83, who has campaigned for decades to be admitted to the pantheon — at one point taking out a full-page ad in Billboard magazine that said “I want my flowers while I’m alive” — is part of the 40th annual crop of performer inductees. He is joined by Joe Cocker, the White Stripes, Outkast, Cyndi Lauper, Bad Company and Soundgarden, the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Foundation announced on Sunday evening, after a Rock Hall-themed segment on ABC’s “American Idol.”Those artists — a lineup that mixes classic rock, hip-hop, 1990s-vintage alternative rock and a female pop icon — will formally join the hall on Nov. 8 in a ceremony at the Peacock Theater in Los Angeles that will stream live in Disney+.Checker, Cocker, Outkast and Bad Company were all accepted on their first nomination.The induction of the White Stripes, the stylish garage-rock minimalists whose “Seven Nation Army” has become a stadium-rousing standard, could lend some anticipatory drama to this year’s ceremony. Since the band broke up in 2011, Meg White, its drummer, has become one the great recluses of 21st-century pop, rarely seen in public and declining all interview requests — which would make any possible appearance by her a major coup for the Rock Hall.Among the other honors this year, Salt-N-Pepa, the pioneering female rap group, and the singer-songwriter Warren Zevon will receive the musical influence award. The musical excellence citation will go to the keyboardist Nicky Hopkins, the studio bassist Carol Kaye and the producer Thom Bell, a key figure in Philadelphia soul. Lenny Waronker, a producer and longtime executive at Warner Bros. Records, will receive the Ahmet Ertegun Award.Among the nominees who failed to make the final cut this year are Oasis, the Britpop standard-bearers who have reunited for perhaps this year’s most in-demand world tour, and Phish, the veteran Vermont jam band. Phish won the hall’s fan ballot — a single vote, entered alongside those submitted from the hall’s voting body of more than 1,000 music historians, industry professionals and previously inducted artists.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      A Special St. Patrick’s Day Guest: the Head of King George V

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      At its show in Australia this weekend, the raucously political rap trio Kneecap brought what appeared to be the missing head of a King George V statue onstage.The irreverent, unrepentantly political Northern Irish rap trio Kneecap welcomed a special guest onto the stage of its show in Melbourne, Australia, over St. Patrick’s Day weekend: the head of King George V, which appeared to be a missing piece of a statue that was decapitated in the city last year.“Some madman dropped by with a huge King George’s head so he could hear a few tunes for our last Melbourne show!” the group posted on Instagram, alongside a photograph of the enormous bronze face onstage in front of one of the group members, Mo Chara.It was the latest twist in a monthslong mystery, after a towering statue of King George V in the King’s Domain area of Melbourne was decapitated and vandalized with paint last June, part of a wave of anticolonial vandalism that targeted imperial statues across the state of Victoria. The missing head seemed to briefly reappear in January, when a video posted on Instagram showed it on a barbecue grill, lit on fire. But it has been missing, again, ever since.“Allegedly his head was cut off last year in the city..…anyways he was put on stage for a few tunes and then whisked away,” the group wrote in its post. “Remember every colony can fall 🔥”.Kneecap — a trio composed of the West Belfast musicians Mo Chara, Moglai Bap and DJ Provai — has raucously burst into the mainstream over the past year with a critically acclaimed, truth-adjacent biopic. The group is known for its high-volume Republican politics and gleefully inebriated shows, in which its frontman, Bap, regularly appears shirtless and slugging from a bottle of Buckfast, the cheap tonic wine that is a universal Irish touchstone for a messy night out.Central to the group’s ethos are anti-colonialist politics and promotion of the Indigenous language. Bap, Chara and DJ Provai perform in both Irish and English, and they have spoken often about the importance of promoting and preserving the Irish language, which was banned across the island during British occupation.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Roy Ayers, Vibraphonist Who Injected Soul Into Jazz, Dies at 84

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      He helped introduce a funkier strain of the music in the 1970s. He also had an impact on hip-hop: His “Everybody Loves the Sunshine” has been sampled nearly 200 times.Roy Ayers, a vibraphonist who in the 1970s helped pioneer a new, funkier strain of jazz, becoming a touchstone for many artists who followed and one of the most sampled musicians by hip-hop artists, died on Tuesday in New York City. He was 84.His death was announced on his Facebook page. The announcement said he died after a long illness but did not specify a cause or say where in New York he died.In addition to being one of the acknowledged masters of the jazz vibraphone, Mr. Ayers was a leader in the movement that added electric instruments, rock and R&B rhythms, and a more soulful feel to jazz. He was also one of the more commercially successful jazz musicians of his generation.He released nearly four dozen albums, most notably 22 during his 12 years with Polydor Records. Twelve of his Polydor albums spent a collective 149 weeks on the Billboard Top 200 chart. His composition “Everybody Loves the Sunshine,” from a 1976 album of the same name, has been sampled nearly 200 times by artists including Tupac Shakur, Dr. Dre, Mary J. Blige and Snoop Dogg. The electric piano hook from “Love,” on his first Polydor album, “Ubiquity” — which introduced his group of the same name — was used in Deee-Lite’s 1990 dance hit “Groove Is in the Heart.”“Roy Ayers is largely responsible for what we deem as ‘neo-soul,’” the producer Adrian Younge, who collaborated with Mr. Ayers and Ali Shaheed Muhammad of the hip-hop group A Tribe Called Quest in 2020 on the second album in the “Jazz Is Dead” series, which showcases frequently sampled jazz musicians, told Clash magazine. “His sound mixed with cosmic soul-jazz is really what created artists like Erykah Badu and Jill Scott. It was just that groove.“That’s not to say people around then weren’t making music with a groove,” he added, “but he is definitely a pioneer.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Jay-Z Sues Rape Accuser and Lawyers, Saying They Knew Claim Was False

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      The anonymous woman withdrew her sex abuse suit last month, but the entertainer says in court papers she has since admitted her account was fabricated. She and her lawyer deny that.Jay-Z filed a lawsuit on Monday against the anonymous woman who withdrew her rape lawsuit against him last month, asserting that she and her lawyers knew the allegations were false but proceeded with the claim anyway.The lawsuit, brought in federal court in Alabama, where the woman lives, was filed against both the accuser and her lawyers, Tony Buzbee and David Fortney. In the suit, Jay-Z, born Shawn Carter, said the woman had admitted to his representatives that she had made up the story.But in a statement, Mr. Buzbee said the suit has “no legal merit” and that the woman continues to stand by her account.The woman originally sued Jay-Z last year, naming him as a defendant in one of the dozens of cases that have accused Sean Combs of sexual abuse. In this case, the plaintiff accused Mr. Carter and Mr. Combs of raping her when she was 13, at an after-party following the MTV Video Music Awards in 2000. After an NBC News interview with the plaintiff highlighted inconsistencies in her account, the plaintiff acknowledged that she had “made some mistakes” in presenting the allegations.For about two months, the plaintiff’s lawyers defended the veracity of her allegations in court papers, but last month, they withdrew her claim with no public explanation.In the new lawsuit, lawyers for Mr. Carter assert that the plaintiff — who is not identified — has “voluntarily admitted directly to representatives of Mr. Carter that the story brought before the world in court and on global television was just that: a false, malicious story.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Angie Stone, Hip-Hop Pioneer Turned Neo-Soul Singer, Dies at 63

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      After having success as a member of the Sequence, an early female rap group, she re-emerged in the 1990s as a practitioner of sultry, laid-back R&B.Angie Stone, a hip-hop pioneer in the late 1970s with the Sequence, one of the first all-female rap groups, who later switched gears as a solo R&B star with hits like “No More Rain (In This Cloud)” and “Wish I Didn’t Miss You,” died on Saturday in Montgomery, Ala. She was 63.Her agent, Deborah Champagne, said she died in a hospital after being involved in a car crash following a performance.Alongside musicians like Erykah Badu, Macy Gray and Lauryn Hill, Ms. Stone was part of the neo-soul movement of the late 1990s and 2000s, which blended traditional soul with contemporary R&B, pop and jazz fusion. Her first album, “Black Diamond” (1999), was certified gold, as was her sophomore effort, “Mahogany Soul” (2001).A prolific songwriter with a sultry alto voice, Ms. Stone specialized in songs that combined laid-back tempos with layered instrumentation and vocals.“Angie Stone will stand proud alongside Lauryn Hill as a songwriter, producer and singer with all the props in place to become a grande dame of the R&B world in the next decade,” Billboard magazine wrote in 1999.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      ASAP Rocky, Cleared in Legal Battle, Gets Right Back to Fashion

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      At a dinner in Milan the rapper spoke about beating his assault case, his maturing style and when a new album may finally arrive.ASAP Rocky is well aware that his life could be very different right now.“I feel so lucky to even be here talking to you,” Rocky said, speaking here late into the night on Thursday at a dinner celebrating his appointment as creative director for the Ray-Ban eyewear empire.After all, it was just last week that the rapper was found not guilty on charges of shooting a former collaborator, sparing him up to 24 years in jail.“I feel blessed, I feel lucky and fortunate,” Rocky said.And so, just after 10 p.m., and only a couple hours after landing in Italy, Rocky arrived at Trattoria del Ciumbia in an understandably triumphant mood.“I’m so happy to see y’all faces, this is crazy,” he called out to a room peppered with fashion designers, models and sundry celebrities like Romeo Beckham and Charli D’Amelio. For the remainder of the hour, Rocky worked the room like Frank Sinatra at the Copacabana.He shook hands and posed for endless photos with his eyes hidden behind blacked-out sunglasses. He autographed a box of his special-edition Ray-Bans printed with a reworked image of a $100 bill, with his face where Benjamin Franklin’s would normally appear. He poured shots of tequila for the table. If there were any lingering concerns about how the fashion world would receive post-trial Rocky, they were brushed away by hugs, clinked glasses and general good feelings pinging around the room.Clockwise from top left: Ice Spice, ASAP Rocky and Romeo Beckham, Charli D’Amelio, Amina Seck and Alioune Badara Fall.Photographs by Lucas PossiedeWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      7 New Songs You Should Hear Now

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      Hear new music from Doechii, Valerie June, Perfume Genius and others.Doechii performing at the Grammys.Mario Anzuoni/ReutersDear listeners,Did any musician have a better February than Doechii?* Going into this month, the Tampa, Fla., rapper and self-proclaimed Swamp Princess was a rising star but hardly a household name. Then on Feb. 2, she had a breakout night at the Grammys, giving an unforgettable (and impressively gymnastic) performance that showcased the full scope of her artistic vision, pulling off an upset win in the best rap album category for her razor-sharp “Alligator Bites Never Heal” and giving one of the night’s most memorable, emotional speeches. If you didn’t know her in January, you know her now.But as Doechii makes clear on “Nosebleeds,” an audacious one-off single she dropped just hours after her triumphant Grammy night, she was fully prepared to win that award. “Will she ever lose?” she ponders on the track with her signature cartoonish bite, before offering an answer straight out of another famous Grammy speech: “I guess we’ll never know.”Doechii’s bold, keyed-up victory lap kicks off this eclectic roundup of some of the most notable new songs released in February, though it eventually segues into some softer sounds from the indie-rock group Mamalarky, the alt-country staple Waxahatchee, and the ambient folk composer William Tyler, among others. What would happen if you didn’t have any new music to listen to this month? I guess we’ll never know.Cut my mic off ’cause I’m ’bout to misbehave,Lindsay*OK, maybe Kendrick Lamar, but that’s the only other acceptable answer!Listen along while you read.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      RZA Talks About Wu-Tang Clan’s Final Chamber Tour

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      Few groups have had more impact on the shape and evolution of hip-hop than Wu-Tang Clan, the Staten Island supergroup that helped define the sound of 1990s New York rap and transform the industry.And yet seeing Wu-Tang Clan perform a full-length concert in the flesh — all of the members onstage together — is a privilege not many have experienced. Even in its golden era, the Wu-Tang Clan was never a reliable touring unit. Its smaller shows were often unruly, and by the time the group graduated to bigger stages, performances were often undone by competing egos and unreliable artist attendance, to say nothing of the limits on the opportunities available to rough-edged rap stars in the 1990s and 2000s.“There’s so many places we really haven’t been,” RZA, the chief architect of the Wu-Tang Clan, said in an interview on Popcast, The New York Times’s music podcast. “We had some successful touring, right? But not at the level of what the brand is.”He’s aiming to fix that with Wu-Tang Forever: The Final Chamber, billed as the group’s last tour, and the biggest road show it has undertaken as the headlining act, which will begin in June. All of the surviving original members — RZA, GZA, Raekwon, Ghostface Killah, Method Man, Inspectah Deck, U-God and Masta Killa — are slated to participate, as well as Cappadonna and Young Dirty Bastard, who will perform in place of his father, Ol’ Dirty Bastard, who died in 2004.“Jay-Z was like, Yo, I got the blueprint from you,” RZA recalled.Andre D. Wagner for The New York TimesThe tour, RZA told Jon Caramanica and Joe Coscarelli, is the culmination of a five-plus-year plan of legacy-building for the Clan, including a multipart documentary series, a dramatized mini-series, several individual biographies and a Las Vegas residency, the first for a hip-hop act.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      ASAP Rocky Found Not Guilty of Shooting Former Friend in Assault Trial

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      The rapper had faced two felony counts of assault with a firearm in connection with a 2021 altercation in Los Angeles.The courtroom broke out into cheers after the jury found the rapper Rakim Mayers, known as ASAP Rocky, not guilty of shooting a former collaborator.Daniel Cole/ReutersASAP Rocky, the Grammy nominated hip-hop artist, was found not guilty on Tuesday of shooting a former collaborator. The jury deliberated for nearly three hours in a case that threatened to derail his career.Rocky, 36, born Rakim Mayers, faced two felony counts of assault with a deadly weapon, stemming from an altercation with his one-time friend, Terell Ephron, known as ASAP Relli, near a Hollywood hotel in 2021.Rocky dived into the gallery to hug family including Rihanna, the singer, businesswoman, and mother of his two young sons, and embraced his lawyer, Joe Tacopina, after the verdict was read.“Thank y’all for saving my life,” he told jurors.The trial hinged on jurors’ assessment of the gun used in the incident, which prosecutors said was a semiautomatic firearm and witnesses for the defense testified was instead a prop gun acquired at the filming of a music video. No gun was presented as evidence in the trial and Rocky did not take the stand in his defense. He faced up to 24 years in prison if convicted of both counts.Rocky faced trial at a time when he had several notable projects in the works. He is scheduled to be one of the headliners of the Los Angeles stop of the Rolling Loud festival in March, and was announced as one of the celebrity chairs for the Met Gala, to be held in May. He also stars alongside Denzel Washington in a Spike Lee-directed movie scheduled to open in summer.John Lewin, a deputy district attorney for Los Angeles County, had asked the jury not to be swayed by the court appearances of Rihanna, who was a frequent presence during the 13-day trial and attended the start of closing arguments last week with the pair’s two young sons.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More