Mano Sundaresan

Bashar Jackson, better known as the Brooklyn rapper Pop Smoke, died Wednesday morning in Los Angeles during what appeared to be a home invasion. He was 20 years old.

While the Los Angeles Police Department would not identify Jackson by name as the victim in Wednesday morning's shooting, NPR confirmed his death through his record label, Republic Records.

The night of the 2006 MTV Video Music Awards, Yasiin Bey was behind bars.

Earlier that evening, fans who wanted a glimpse of Justin Timberlake, T.I. or Avenged Sevenfold had gathered on the sidewalk around the entrance of Radio City Music Hall. It was Aug. 31, almost exactly a year since Hurricane Katrina had touched down in New Orleans. Bey, then still known as Mos Def, wanted to send a message to the Bush administration, as well as the celebrities cozying up inside the venue, about their response to the disaster.

After weeks of teasing snippets, Lil Uzi Vert has released "Futsal Shuffle 2020," the single that he's "going with" from his long-awaited album Eternal Atake.

"I'm not gonna be that artist that's gonna put out the same body of work until I die, because that's probably gonna be the reason I die — 'cause that sounds boring."

Brittney Parks, the 25-year-old artist who records as Sudan Archives, speaks the way her music sounds — meandering passages that flutter and unravel, threading darkness and humor, creating novel avenues to fundamental truths. The truth she's landed on here — that a lack of change might literally kill her — is evident in her work, which never sits still.