The 50 best albums of 2024
Topped with Charli xcx’s swaggering yet vulnerable Brat, here are the year’s finest LPs as decided by 26 Guardian music writers
The Long Wave: The Lamar v Drake beef has gone legal – what does it say about today’s hip-hop industry?
In this week’s newsletter: Lawyers are now involved in the most explosive rap feud of the century. A look at the potential cultural and commercial impact, and how hip-hop became big business
Jay-Z accuses lawyer behind Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs joint rape allegation of trying to ‘extort exorbitant sums’
Rapper says the plaintiff’s attorney has made ‘a terrible error in judgment’ but the opposing side say Jay-Z is ‘orchestrating a conspiracy of harassment’
Irish rap comedy Kneecap tops British independent film awards
Director Rich Peppiatt said ‘there is an irony in the best British film being Irish’ as his Belfast-set film won seven prizes in total
The Guide #167: Could Kendrick Lamar’s GNX jumpstart a new wave of surprise releases?
In this week’s newsletter: Just when it seemed there was nothing shocking about an unexpected album drop, Lamar made a truly transgressive move
Chappell Roan, Hozier and Travis Scott to headline Reading and Leeds for first time
Bring Me the Horizon, the Sheffield metal band who headlined the festival in 2022, complete the lineup
‘They felt they couldn’t market us to white people’: 90s hip-hop iconoclasts Digable Planets return
As they mark the 30th anniversary of album Blowout Comb, the Grammy-winning trio revisit their egalitarian ethos, anti-fascist lyrics and Pink Floyd influences
War’s Lonnie Jordan: ‘We don’t shoot bullets; we shoot rhythms’
The frontman of one of the great groundbreaking rock-funk-soul acts of the 60s and 70s talks about politics, peace and their influence on rap music
Rapper Rhymefest on Trump, Kanye and David Cameron: ‘There’s a political realignment happening in the US’
Che ‘Rhymefest’ Smith co-wrote some of Ye’s biggest hits. Now he’s plunging into the vipers’ pit that is Chicago city politics
Kendrick Lamar: GNX review – amply backed-up grandstanding
Fresh from his feud with Drake, the US hip-hop star’s latest album finds him on imperious form
Kneecap: UK government acted illegally in withholding funding from Irish rap trio
The Department for Business and Trade said Kemi Badenoch’s decision to rescind funding had been ‘unlawful and procedurally unfair’
Nines review – British rap great bows out with glittering career highlights
This rapturously received set of greatest hits showcases the rapper’s full street-hardened and uniquely influential discography – but is it really his final gig?
Rapper Slowthai and a friend raped two women after gig, court told
Chart-topping British rapper claims the woman consented to all sexual activity, in a trial set to run for three weeks
Drake claims UMG and Spotify ‘artificially inflated’ Kendrick Lamar’s diss track Not Like Us
Feud escalates as rapper’s lawyers file two petitions alleging Universal Music Group and streaming giant conspired while also accusing them of defamation
Kendrick Lamar: GNX review – stunning surprise from a rapper determined to be the greatest
After his beef with Drake, Lamar expands his list of targets with enthralling rhymes and adventurous arrangements. At this point, he’s deferring only to God