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NPR Music remembers musicians — singers, songwriters, instrumentalists — and other visionaries we lost in 2016. Explore and celebrate their musical legacies.

Any day now, the United Nations will declare India's population the largest in the world. The country's next generation is poised to be healthier, more literate — and more female — than ever before.

Clayton sang backup with Ray Charles, Joe Cocker, Carole King and many others. Now she has a new album — where she's front and center — called Beautiful Scars. Originally broadcast in 2013.

Mothers and children, husbands and wives, doctors, truck drivers and religious leaders are all grappling with the fallout from the sudden U.S. cuts in aid.

Trump called climate change a hoax. Biden calls it an existential threat. Washington Post journalist Juliet Eilperin talks about how Biden might reverse some of his predecessor's policies.

Grand Rapids musician, Jed LaPlant, is out with a new album now, I'll See You Again. His first release, the lyrics throughout are heartfelt, authentic and…

Jesse Harris sets a striking and spare tone for a cabaret dreamscape.

The LAPD detained at least 16 journalists covering a protest in March 2021, a low point in a year of increasing mistrust and hostilities between police departments and the media.

The new song "Magnolia Blues" by Adia Victoria is a courageous reclamation of the singer's Southern identity. Her new album A Southern Gothic is out in September.

Animator Joseph Barbera, half of the legendary duo of Hanna-Barbera has died. Barbera, 95, created a host of cartoon characters, from the Flintstones to the Jetsons and Tom and Jerry.

You may not know it, but the person in the adjoining cubicle could be a singer, a dancer or a painter. A civil engineer by trade but a pianist at heart, Mel Rusnov believes in cultivating hidden talents.

Everyone Is Crying Out to Me, Beware, the second album from Ukrainian-born singer-songwriter Alina Simone, is utterly haunting. With bare-bones arrangements and Simone's powerful, poignant vocals at the forefront, the record burns through a collection of songs by Siberian punk-folk singer, Yanka Dyagileva, with cathartic fervor. Though the lyrics are in Russian, the emotions are raw and easily felt.

He was born and raised in Spain, and came to New York to study — much like a Spanish poet who came before him. The jazz bassist sets the volume Poeta en Nueva York to music in this live broadcast.

The world of music seems to have fewer and fewer borders these days. Bela Fleck, Edgar Meyer and Zakir Hussain are players who regularly cross over into new frontiers. Now, all three have collaborated on an album called The Melody of Rhythm.

Texas Sheiks offers new versions of old blues, Western swing and ragtime music. The Sheiks are led by singer-songwriter Geoff Muldaur and the album features the guitar work of the late Steve Bruton.

With the help of legendary Nashville session musicians and a little paternal assistance from Paul Simon, Harper Simon has just released his solo debut. But don't be fooled by his pedigree: The younger musician has his own sound.

After toiling for years in obscurity, New Jersey native Ted Leo has become a favorite among indie rockers. His latest CD is Living with the Living.

Blind since birth, the New Orleans piano wizard embraces all of the bluesy musical styles of his native city, as well as the classical training of his youth. He gives an interview and performance in NPR's Studio 4A.

Breaking away from the formula of his early work, 1994's The Diary showcases Scarface at a high point in his solo career. The Houston-bred rapper set his gritty angst against a backdrop of live instrumentation and laid-back tempos that made for a Third Coast classic.

The two Cuban singers and rappers grew up in a remote town poised between the Castro regime and an American military base. Their debut album, La Corona, is full of the struggles and passions of their peers — set to some of the freshest new sounds from the island.