Joey L It's not unusual to find jazz musicians backing hip-hop MCs or soul singers, but when the likes of Kanye West and Beyoncé make special appearances with a jazz group, you know something's out of the ordinary. And the Robert Glasper Experiment, who have welcomed both superstars onstage, are no ordinary jazz outfit. They're just ...

Getty Images Despite the rave scene dying out around the turn of the millennium, its soundtrack is everywhere. Electronic dance music record sales are surprisingly healthy, as most other genres languish on life support. Its artists headline huge festivals; its producers helm songs that top pop charts; its hooks soundtrack commercials; its ...

Getty Images for Etam Over his 30-year career -- from an abortive stint with Bow Wow Wow to huge transatlantic success with Culture Club to a chameleonic solo career -- Boy George has rarely been out of the headlines. In recent years, run-ins with the law have eclipsed his music, but with his new Kinky Roland-produced dance album 'Ordinary ...

Simone Joyner, WireImage Although he wears cute, cartoonish mouse heads when he performs, Joel Zimmerman is not the cuddliest guy on the music scene. Judging by his various online spats with DJs, promoters, fellow electronic music producers (and even their fans), the artist known as Deadmau5 can seem ornery indeed. On the other hand, his ...

Alexandre Isard / Arts&Crafts In the cafeteria of the Crescent School for boys in north Toronto, amongst a wall of class photos, is a 20-year-old portrait of one Jason Beck, a noble-looking prefect. He seems fully prepared to embody the school's motto: 'Men of Character From Boys of Promise.' Around the back of the building, on a folding ...

Chris Strong Mavis Staples has been singing professionally for six decades, but she's no nostalgia act. The messages of protest and freedom in her civil rights era-era hits with her family band, the Staple Singers, remain relevant today and she's regularly reinvented herself in the company of some of music's most intriguing names -- from Bob ...

Fifty years since Ben E. King left the Drifters to start his solo career, his hits are still being covered by everyone from 'American Idol' hopefuls to Michael Bublé to U2. And yet, throughout the past decade, the soul legend with the rough-but-tender voice has kept a low profile, singing in supper clubs and jazz lounges to audiences of ...