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Lords of the dance: Jay-Z announcing his new album

It's not just Jay-Z and Kanye West: The beatification of hip-hop

The Holy Grail? Yeezus? Why are rap’s power players obsessed with religious allusions? Gillian Orr takes a pew

Catherine with 9-year-old Tyler

Meet the positive pop star role-model dreamt up by a nine-year-old

Catherine Bennett is a bright, slightly clumsy, bike-riding, museum worker

Boldy James returns with a hooky new sound

The Playlist: Kanye West / Hunx and his Punx / Washed Out

The songs that are hot on our playlist this week

For the record: Rudimental

Our one-track minds: singles bounce back

British pop fans are buying more singles than at any time since the days of Bright Eyes and Blondie. Elisa Bray investigates

Bo-faced: Lady Catherine Anna Brudenell-Bruce, better known as ‘The Voice’ runner-up Bo Bruce

Bo Bruce: The real winner of The Voice

Aristocrat Bo Bruce has turned her losing talent-show turn into success. Matilda Battersby finds out how

Caught in the net: Sparkling single says that Beck is back

Fresh from last year's Song Reader sheet-music project and five years after his last full album, Modern Guilt, Beck (below) is back with a wealth of new material. Recently he showcased a sparkling new single, “Defriended” – it's at youtu.be/pDSjOM42HZU. The song is an expansive ballad flitting between electronic sonics and more organic sounds with an undertow of Beck's usual melancholia. The track, not pegged to any LP release, is reportedly preceding another standalone single this summer followed by two new albums. The first, due in the autumn, is said to be a small acoustic effort, while the latter will be a more varied affair.

Life after Oasis: Beady Eye frontman Liam Gallagher continues to look back in anger

The singer mouths off about nut allergies, Justin Bieber, drugs and that feud with brother Noel...

Mark Owen: 'I had to learn if there was anything more to me than a good bum'

Mark Owen: 'I had to learn if there was anything more to me than a good bum'

After recovering from alcoholism and affairs, Take That’s Mark Owen tells Adam Sherwin he thinks the group will one day play Glastonbury

Charlie Boyer, of Charlie Boyer and The Voyeurs

Fantasy Band: Charlie Boyer, Charlie Boyer and The Voyeurs

'Klaus Voorman's stark, simple playing on Lennon's Plastic Ono Band is exactly what this elegant group needs'

Joey Bada$$: A voice to listen out for

Caught in the net: New mixtape from a voice of the future

I voted for Joey Bada$$ (pictured) in last year's BBC Sound of 2013 poll. He didn't make the list but I maintain the young Brooklyn rapper is a voice to listen out for. “Word Is Bond” is his new track, released last week and trailing his upcoming mixtape Summer Knights. Find it at snd.sc/16nv7eP. Like his excellent mixtape 1999, still freely available at theproera.com/music/joey-badass-1999, the new single finds Bada$$ rhyming confidently over beats and samples, here provided by Statik Selektah, that recall the classic 1990s era hip hop of the likes of Nas' debut Illmatic – those piano loops are irresistible. As if to burnish his throwback credentials he references, among other things, George Pataki, the long-serving former Governor of New York, who first took office in 1995.

Travis’s singalong chart-toppers led the way from Britpop to Coldplay

Travis: Return of the invisible band

Travis's singalong chart-toppers led the way from Britpop to Coldplay. Their frontman tells Elisa Bray why they've been out of sight for a while

Royksopp continue the 'Late Night Tales' project

The Playlist: Chvrches / Royksopp / Cloud Control

The songs that are hot on our playlist this week

Stage time: Mick Jagger

From The Who to Bob Dylan and The Rolling Stones: The albums that make you wish you’d been there

Ahead of a new compilation of James Brown shows, Robert Webb lists the best live records

Pop festival of the week: Meltdown Festival, Southbank centre, London SE1

After Antony Hegarty's "future feminism" manifesto at last year's Meltdown, Yoko Ono grabs the curator's reins with a view to celebrating "strong female energy".

KT Tunstall: 'This is more emotional stuff than anything I've done'

KT Tunstall: 'This is more emotional stuff than anything I've ever done'

KT Tunstall's new album was written after her father's death and divorce from a fellow band member. That's why the songs are her most personal yet, she tells Craig McLean

 

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    The true effect of the badger cull

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    Theatre review: Daniel Radcliffe gives an admirably honest performance in Michael Grandage's The Cripple of Inishmaan

    First night: The Cripple of Inishmaan

    Daniel Radcliffe gives an admirably honest performance in Michael Grandage's comedy
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    Guides drop religious reference but pledge to self and the Queen

    After 103 years, organisation changes oath to welcome 'all girls, of all faiths, and none'
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    Chris Froome: Free from 'pain in neck' after Wiggins' exit

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    Hannah England: Keeping Track

    I've got the right times – now to focus on the chess
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    Beards, brawn and body art

    Meet London’s new batch of male models
    Scandi-geeks descend on Nordicana for fan-convention

    Scandi-geeks descend on Nordicana for fan-convention

    British love of shows such as The Bridge, Borgen and The Killing shows no sign of fading
    Behind the rhetoric what is really being done to combat desertification?

    The Great Green Wall of Africa,

    Behind the rhetoric what is really being done to combat desertification?
    Laughter Inc: the cheering growth of the chuckle industry

    Laughter Inc

    The cheering growth of the chuckle industry
    The bad science scandal: how fact-fabrication is damaging UK's global name for research

    The bad science scandal

    How fact-fabrication is damaging UK's global name for research
    To the manor born: The female aristocrats battling to inherit the title

    Female aristocrats battle to inherit the title

    A passionate protest is gathering pace among the women of Britain's aristocracy, who believe that men should no longer automatically inherit the family pile and title.
    Love struck: Photographs of JFK's visit to Berlin 50 years ago reveal a nation instantly smitten

    In pictures: JFK's visit to Berlin in 1963

    Photographer Ulrich Mack accompanied Kennedy on the entire trip. The results are an astonishing record of a watershed moment.
    Eat shoots and leaves: Mark Hix gets creative with fresh peas, mangetouts and sugar snaps

    Mark Hix gets creative with English peas

    English peas and their offsprings, such as mangetouts and sugar snaps, are great tossed into a salad, says our chef.
    Ceviche with a smile: Chef Martin Morales has turned South America's elegant cuisine into one of London's hottest food trends

    Chef Martin Morales: Ceviche with a smile

    Morales has turned South America's elegant cuisine into one of London's hottest food trends