Music

Samuel Yirga is a pianist from Ethiopia. A 20-something prodigy, Yirga is too young to have experienced the Ethio-jazz movement of the early 1970s, but he has absorbed its music deeply — and plenty more as well. With his debut release, Guzo, or "Journey," Yirga both revives and updates Ethiopian jazz.

Next week, Solange Knowles (sister of Beyonce), will release a brand new EP called True, and you can hear "Lovers in The Parking Lot," a lovely, very satisfying song from it, now. Alongside the other songs she's released from this project, "Lovers" has a matter of fact, gentle-voiced femininity.

Transcript

CELESTE HEADLEE, HOST:

This is TELL ME MORE, from NPR News. I'm Celeste Headlee. Michel Martin is away. So maybe you're the type that scours YouTube for the latest music videos and maybe you're addicted to services like Spotify and Pandora. If so, you have probably heard something from Macklemore and Ryan Lewis. The duo's been rapping since 2000. Now they have their first studio album, and it has lyrics about everything from gay marriage to the merits of thrift shopping.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "THRIFT SHOP")

Siblings Ian, Eric, and Brittany Hölljes — three of the four lead singers in the American folk-rock band Delta Rae — first learned the power of a good story when their parents read them mythological tales. In fact, the band's name is inspired by a fictional story the Hölljes' mother intended to write. Flash forward to 2012, and the band has put those lessons to good use.

If you've ever seen a Tiny Desk Concert, you understand the draw. The hottest musicians — some famous, some just discovered — rock out in an unusual venue: the NPR cubicle of Bob Boilen, host of All Songs Considered.

Vocalist Bessie Smith's musical career, spanning 1923-33, has been collected in a new 10-CD box set, Bessie Smith: The Complete Columbia Recordings.

Got an idea for a classical cartoon, or a reaction to this one? Leave your thoughts in the comments section.

Pablo Helguera is a New York-based artist working with sculpture, drawing, photography and performance. You can see more of his work at Artworld Salon and on his own site.