Editorial
News, conversations, local scenes, new voices, and releases worth spending time with.
news Aug 12
Verified reporting on Pabllo Vittar’s documented onstage appearance during Rosalía’s second Rio LUX Tour performance, with the evidence boundary kept explicit.
news Aug 11
Limp Bizkit, Simple Plan and Spiritbox top a December run that links anniversary sets, familiar headliners and a deep local-international undercard.
news Aug 10
The rare co-ed quartet’s first full album marks the closing stretch of its DSP era, but the members say the group is not breaking up—leaving a global fandom to distinguish a contract ending from a creative ending.
The latest
news Aug 10
A new Rp0 copyright-recording tariff removes one barrier for Indonesian creators. The harder test is whether PDLM and the country’s collective-management system can turn fuller, cleaner ownership data into accurate payments.
news Aug 10
Hosts, presenters, performers, and partner messaging have turned SAMA32's closing week into a broader statement about South African music, live-event scale, and the awards' return to Sun City on Saturday, August 15, 2026.
feature Aug 10
Thabo Malefane's Sync Money makes a grounded case that sync licensing is really a lesson in rights discipline, catalogue building, and the business habits artists often pick up too late.
review Jul 31
The South African star uses her second album to make global scale feel like an extension of home rather than an exit from it.
feature Jul 30
A London stage, a 40-piece orchestra, and five unheard songs show how a concert film can deepen an album instead of merely advertising it.
spotlight Jul 28
Spotify built a two-week program around how young Nairobi listens. The revealing part is what happened when the playlist left the screen.
feature Jul 26
Five years of platform data shows enormous growth, but the most important signal is not export success. It is what Nigerian listeners choose at home.
feature Jul 24
The global recorded-music business grew again in 2025. Sub-Saharan Africa grew much faster, yet the size and distribution of its recorded revenue tells a more complicated story.
feature Dec 13
Previewed in a Pepsi campaign, performed on tour and released first as a bonus video, “Grown Woman” spent a decade hiding in plain sight.
feature Jul 29
Beyoncé’s credits reveal a collaborative method built on demos, vocal composition, samples and radical revision—not the simple fraud-or-genius story argued online.
spotlight Dec 14
A leaked Sia demo was never a *This Is Acting* track. Its composition found an authorized home years later in Natalie Portman’s fictional pop world.
feature Dec 14
The song circulated without authorization in 2016, attracted an unproven Lady Gaga theory, then emerged legitimately—sung by Raffey Cassidy—on the Vox Lux soundtrack.
feature Jun 9
Before “Witness” titled a No. 1 album, a Twitter hack produced an uncertain demo. Its journey clarifies what was leaked—and what Perry officially released.
feature Nov 4
Adele’s most rhythmic single from 25 is not about a romance already forgotten—it captures the anxious wait to learn whether love will last.
feature Oct 9
Minaj’s own comments transformed an anonymous old leak into a rare documented writing demo, though its producer, session date, and future remain unresolved.
feature Oct 7
The band’s ambitious fourth album, Ryan Tedder’s burnout and a tropical-pop standalone single reveal a career forced to rethink the album cycle.
spotlight Sep 9
The Tennessee singer converted online intimacy into charting independent releases, his own label and a 2016 debut album that tested the limits of fan-powered pop.
feature Aug 12
The 2016 collaboration was neither a leak nor a Jepsen album track, but a carefully released meeting between PC Music’s maximalism and pop’s great romantic.
feature Jul 1
A Tidal premiere, a wider July release and a surreal animated video gave Mustard’s 2016 collaboration a more complicated history than its hook suggests.
feature Jul 1
Goodrem’s fifth album was neither a leaked project nor an extended version of “Wings,” but a carefully staged Australian pop comeback built around resilience and release.