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Sabrina Claudio is not the same person she was a year ago — much less eight years ago, when she first introduced herself with a shimmering neo-soul EP, titled “Confidently Lost.”

Now, having amassed millions of fans with sultry, golden-hour slow jams and trips down melancholy lane, she’s presenting her most earnest songwriting yet in her newest album, “Fall In Love With Her,” released June 9 on San Francisco indie label Empire.

“I think in the past couple years, people in my life that I love have helped me get out of my shell and shown me how important vulnerability is,” she says. “Now I’m like, you know what? I’m gonna tell y’all everything, how about that?”

For her fifth studio LP, Claudio steered her R&B sound into a less-traveled, alternative direction that showcases her deft pen and ethereal vocals in a novel guise. Her longtime producer, Ajay “Stint” Bhattacharyya, cited shoegaze bands like Cocteau Twins and Slowdive as influences that came up during recording sessions. For Claudio, wading into those uncharted waters became part of a larger shift in her career.

Until recently, the Cuban and Puerto Rican singer-songwriter — who in 2023, earned a Grammy for traditional R&B performance as a songwriter on Beyoncé’s slick “Renaissance” cut, “Plastic Off the Sofa” — preferred to toil in privacy, channeling her expression into songwriting more than social media. But this year, she’s inviting the outside world to experience her personality with a new interview series on YouTube titled “Fall In Love With…”

To hear her tell it, she’s eager for the effort to help fans and listeners see the person she is behind the music. “I hope that people can listen to [the album] knowing that, yes, [I’m singing about what] I experienced, but I just pray that they are able to interpret it and relate it to their own life however they possibly can,” she says.

Sabrina Claudio presents her most earnest songwriting yet in her newest album, released June 9.

(Baylee Kiesselbach)

Come July, she’ll embark on a U.S. tour with rappers Russ and Big Sean; soon after, she’ll make her acting debut in a short film directed by filmmaker and best friend Jazmin Garcia-Larracuente, who was inspired by early drafts of songs off “Fall In Love With Her” to write a script. “I’m very proud of myself,” Claudio says. “I think I killed it, and I’m excited for everybody to see it.”

In her latest interview with The Times, she spoke of the intimacy required in songwriting with others, the possibility of an all-Spanish EP and her approach to storytelling.

This interview has been edited and condensed for length and clarity.

After releasing your last album, 2022’s “Based on a Feeling,” you focused on writing for other artists. Is that usually how it goes between albums for you?
Typically [after] I finish an album, I always go through the phase [when] I need to take a break because creatively I’m worn out. I wouldn’t do anything, which actually only emphasized the lack of motivation to continue and make more music. But this time around, I wanted to remain creative, and the best way to do that was to get in rooms with other creatives to help them get into their world, rather than always having to focus on mine.

I thought it was going to be difficult for me, because I’m not a natural collaborator. Before I was very anti-having songwriters in my room. It was a whole ego thing for me … but I loved it so much that I ended up doing it for much longer than I was anticipating. I find so much inspiration being in rooms with artists for other projects.

On this album you worked on some of the tracks with a songwriter, Nasri Atweh. I’m curious if there was hesitation to share your own process with someone else?
There was a time in my life when I [felt] obligated to have writers in my room. My guard was up. It’s not because I don’t think that these songwriters were amazing, because they were. Some of my favorite songs I wrote with another person, like “Problem With You” off [my album] “Truth Is.” But for some reason, my brain would say if I didn’t do it 100%, then it’s not mine. And that’s so not the reality of making art.

With Nasri, he’s my manager’s brother. I met Nasri 10 years ago. I’m glad that it happened when it did. Being the songwriter in the room for other people put things into perspective, because I realized how important collaboration was. Nasri was able to eject things from me that I didn’t even know existed. I’m on a different wavelength now.

Working with a songwriter is like an intimate therapy session.
I’m an extremely private person. I think the past couple years, people in my life have helped me to get out of my shell and have shown me how important vulnerability is. I didn’t even want to expose myself, which is why I tend to write from experiences that I technically didn’t experience, or from conversations with others, or movies. It was a protective layer. But now I’m like, you know what? I’m gonna tell y’all everything, how about that? [laughs] And it’s worked out!

You’ve said that when it comes to songwriting, you usually let yourself be led by the music, then the lyrics. Can you tell me more about “One Word” and how that track came to be? It’s one of the most powerful songs on the album.
I wrote that during a heartbreak. I wanted to talk about an experience I had with a person I felt very deeply for, [who] essentially didn’t fight for me to stay. But it was the biggest act of love that he could have done for me.

I worked with my producer Stint, [who] I work with all the time, and Heavy Mellow. He was heavy on this project, no pun intended. I was venting,; I was really heartbroken. I was finding comfort in these men that I’ve known and trying to get their perspective on things.

Another song is “Worse Than Me,” which sounds completely different from the rest of the tracks. It’s a little more assertive and seductive, with trip-hop-inspired drums. How did that come to be?
Before I discovered the new sound [of] the album, I still was gravitating towards my typical R&B, neo-soul-type vibes. I was just trying to get back in the groove of Sabrina Claudio, quote-unquote, because I was just coming out of writing for everybody else. I was trying to tap back into my own world.

And I think I needed one sassy song. [laughs] That’s kind of what I’m known for: the sass, the crying, or the sexy. And I just felt like if I didn’t have the sexy, I at least needed to have the sassy.

This is the first time you’ve really worked with a more alternative sound — did you find yourself accessing parts of yourself that the traditional R&B sound didn’t?
Oh, absolutely! I love working with Stint and all of my producers because they have such a wide palette when it comes to music. Genres I never grew up listening to — all these sounds are new. It pulls different things out of me that I wouldn’t be able to get if it was my traditional R&B sound. And naturally, I’m always going to do that because that’s just how I am, but it was interesting to hear where my R&B and soul brain goes over these more alternative rock/indie vibes.

“My fans are able to see who I am as a person and how deeply I love, how loyal I am,” Claudio said of her interview series, “Fall in Love With…”

(Baylee Kiesselbach)

For example, “Detoxing” — I wrote that song with Nasri, but we didn’t have the outro. So I took it to Stint, and he pulled up all these references of bands [like Radiohead], and he was teaching me so much. And then he [said], “You know what, at the end I want to do something really big and really rock. I want to break it down. But then I want people to be shocked. I want you to belt, and I want you to say something, and I want you to purge, and I want you to take the concept of the song and really just yell it like you’re just trying to get rid of something.” I listened back, and I’m even shocked at some of the things that I was able to tap into. I don’t belt! [laughs] I didn’t even know I could do that!

You have the song “Mi Luz” on the album, which is the first time you’ve included a Spanish song in an LP. What made you feel this was the right time to finally do that?
First of all, I don’t understand why I’ve never added a Spanish record to any of my albums. I listen to a lot of Spanish music in my daily life, a lot of reggaetón. You’d be surprised, my music is so calm and emotional … and then I’m twerking in my car listening to reggaetón. [laughs] So I felt in the sense of wanting to evolve, I feel now’s the time. And the process is really interesting, because my brain doesn’t actually think in Spanish, especially when it comes to songwriting.

Any Spanish record [of mine] you’ve heard, I’ve done with Alejandra Alberti, who is also Cuban. She’s from Miami, she’s a Virgo, so we connected on all those things. I tell her what I want to say, and she just computes it in her brain and she translates it in a way that has taught me. “Mi Luz” [was] the first time I contributed lyrically in Spanish. And it was always something that I was afraid of doing, because I’m always afraid of sounding dumb. I don’t know why, but I have that fear. But I felt very comfortable, very safe with Ale.

Would you release an EP of Spanish tracks?
I think I would! If I have Ale, I think we could probably knock out an EP very quickly. I’d be down.

You said in your recent Genius video that you really want reciprocal love because there’s only so much self-love you can give yourself. Is there any difference in your work depending on how your personal life is going, or do you manage to block out the noise?
I get very consumed by whatever I’m most passionate about in the moment. When I’m talking to somebody or I’m dating somebody, I do have the tendency to revolve my world around whatever we’re building. So when I’m dealing with that, I do find that I put my career second. Because I crave love very badly — which is toxic for me — I’m willing to nurture.

I’m pretty confident in my career. It’s the one thing I have control over. Everything’s amazing, and I get to make music whenever I want. But I don’t necessarily have control over the relationship that I’m trying to build, so I get very consumed and I put that first. But I’m hoping that if I get into something else that’s much healthier and not destroying our mental health, then I can do both at the same time! I just have to find that person first.

You’ve acknowledged that you’re a private artist, but I really like what I’ve seen so far from your new interview series, “Fall In Love With…” Can you tell me how the idea of doing that came about?
I have to say I was anti-miniseries, but my manager, Alyce, told me in the beginning stages of [making] this album, “The music, as vulnerable as it is — nobody’s going to relate to it or feel the depth of it if they don’t know who you are as a human.” She said, “Nobody knows that you’re funny; nobody knows that you’re outgoing. You’re not this mysterious person that you think you are, and you need to show people that.”

So at first, it annoyed me, because I was like, ugh, not me having to do things online. [laughs] I think doing this type of content was uncomfortable for me. I said, “If you guys want me to do this, I don’t want to be doing 20 episodes. I want four episodes, and I want it to be with people I know and I love and I will be comfortable with.”

And it turned into “Fall In Love With…” and I just thought it was special. I love to give credit to the people who have loved me through every stage of my life. And in the midst of it, my fans are able to see who I am as a person and how deeply I love, how loyal I am. And that opened the door to just so many other things. I just became so much more open-minded.

Born and raised in Houston, singer-songwriter Kane Rodriguez grew up surrounded by music. His grandfather, father and brother are musicians, and the sounds of cumbia, banda and norteño were ever present in his house.

The 22-year-old Texican launched his music career by playing with his brothers in a cumbia group in his teens but says he always felt more of a calling toward corridos. He leaned into his musical tastes at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, uploading videos on TikTok of himself singing and playing his guitar.

His first big hit was his 2022 melancholic cover of Aldo Trujillo and Legion RG’s “El Chaman,” which tells the story of an enigmatic character whose emotional availability contradicts his tough-guy appearance. The clip was just him and his guitar in front of a plain background while being filmed at an upward angle — nothing fancy, but his voice and musicality shined.

“I started seeing myself grow and grow, and then a couple videos would go viral, and people asked for more,” Rodriguez said in a recent interview. “I guess people really like how I sound just with the guitar, so I just try to keep recording. … I think TikTok, for me, is a big part [of my success].”

The singer and multi-instrumentalist released his debut studio album, “La Batuta,” in April under Warner Music México.

The LP’s intricate instrumentation works deftly to complement Rodriguez’s gravelly vocals and his swashbuckling lyrics, telling tales of romantic conquests, occasional sadboi reflections and living it up with his compas over the course of 13 tracks.

The “Se Volvieron Locos” artist has been touring the U.S. since his album’s release and was scheduled to perform at Downtown L.A.’s Peacock Theater — in a billing with Chino Pacas, Estevan Plazola, Los Caimanes De Sinaloa, T3R Elemento, El de La Guitarra and Omar Ruiz — but the show was canceled because of the temporary L.A. curfew and the ongoing ICE raids in the city.

Rodriguez fans can rejoice, however, as the singer has a show scheduled for June 20 at El Farallon Event Center in Lynwood. Ahead of his performance, Rodriguez spoke about his rise to fame, collaborating with other artists and his hopes for the future.

This interview has been edited and shortened for clarity.

This is your first studio album. What was the process of recording it like?

It took a while, a cool seven months to get it done. But we picked the right songs and we got the right songwriters. We added different genres, so it took us a while, but I think it was worth it. It’s a big jump from [playing] live to the studio.

How do you think being from Houston informs your work as an artist, and what kind of obligation do you feel to represent the city?

Right now in Houston there’s really not that many corrido artists, so I think being one of the few ones from Houston really helped because I get a lot of support from my hometown.

I grew up in the southeast part of Houston [in an area] called Pasadena, on a little trailer park. It wasn’t nothing too crazy or nothing too bad. I think growing up in a neighborhood like that made me hungrier to make it out of the hood. That just helped me build up.

I think right now Houston needs somebody that could rep them and take them to the next level on the corrido side, and I think I have that responsibility. I want to take that responsibility, and hopefully we can make it bigger.

You’re now on tour and collaborating with big artists. How does it feel to continue to grow in popularity, and how are you managing that emotionally and professionally?

It’s a dream come true. I’m coming from playing in backyards like almost every day, playing 10 hours a day. To play in front of people with big artists — it’s just crazy. It’s really hard to to believe, but I try not to get too excited or get too comfortable. We try to keep our feet on the ground. It’s sort of incredible how everything is building up real fast.

Who are some of the acts you’ve had the chance to work within a professional space that you kind of can’t believe actually happened?

For sure Legado 7 — they’re OGs. I think everybody would listen to them back in 2018, 2019 when I was in high school. So getting the chance to be in the studio and make a hit song with them is even crazier.

And Adrian L Santos also. That fool’s from my family’s hometown over there in Mexico. He’s real poppin’ and a real humble guy. Working with him was one of the best experiences.

Being a musician can feel sometimes, from the outside looking in, like it’s not a “real job,” but getting that cosign from a label changes things. What was your family’s reaction to that moment?

At first they were real iffy, because a lot of people don’t make it out in music. It’s real hard. So they were there, mentally. But the good thing about my parents is they let me do it. They stood back. They’d seen the hunger that I had for it and knew I wouldn’t listen — I’d just keep doing it. Right now they’re real proud, and I’m happy to see them like that.

You’ve got your album out, you’re going on tour — where do you see it going from here? Where are you trying to go?

My vision in the next two years is: I’m trying to sell out stadiums. That’s one of my goals. My biggest dream is to have thousands of people sing my songs.

Growing up in a small town in New Hampshire, Nora Princiotti lived two hours away from the nearest mall, so the Scholastic Book Fair was her lifeline to pop culture purchases.

In fall 2003, the then-9-year-old made a beeline to the fair and bought gum, glitter gel pens and “Metamorphosis,” the second studio album from “Lizzie McGuire” star Hilary Duff.

At that time, Duff was “the single most important person in the world to me outside my immediate family,” Princiotti writes in “Hit Girls: Britney, Taylor, Beyoncé, and the Women Who Built Pop’s Shiniest Decade.” “This is the first day of the rest of my life.”

This proclamation is no exaggeration. Duff’s CD was Princiotti’s gateway to the vibrant pop music universe of the 2000s — an era that “Hit Girls” thoroughly examines through the lens of some of the decade’s music icons.

The chronological book opens with Britney Spears reigniting industry interest in mainstream pop after the roaring success of her snappy debut single, 1998’s “…Baby One More Time.” Princiotti subsequently devotes chapters to Rihanna’s world-shifting dance music and savvy use of technology; the scrappy (and occasionally bumpy) pop-punk odyssey of Avril Lavigne; and the complicated relationship between indie rock and pop, exemplified by “American Idol” sweetheart Kelly Clarkson.

She also reexamines with a much kinder eye the music of Ashlee Simpson, whose career cratered after she was caught lip-syncing on “Saturday Night Live,” and then-tabloid fixtures Lindsay Lohan and Paris Hilton.

Princiotti, a staff writer at the Ringer who covers pop music and the NFL and co-hosts the podcast “Every Single Album,” says she was certain which artists needed to be included in “Hit Girls.”

“I had the idea a little bit before the Y2K resurgence that we’ve experienced over the last few years,” she says. “But it was trickling into the ecosystem. And I had this very clear idea that there are all these disparate segments of the pop star world and the version of that world that existed in the 2000s. … Even though that music is different, it all fit together to me really obviously, because I was the fan.”

Princiotti augments her rigorous research with colorful memories from this era, including chatting on AIM (her handle was mangorainbow99), digging up Taylor Swift rarities on YouTube and hearing Lady Gaga’s “Just Dance” at a high school dance.

Finding a cohesive story of the 2000s was more challenging. “The question that I had to answer [in the book] was, ‘Other than the audience — and other than having this feeling inside me that a book that covered the rise of Britney Spears also needed to cover ‘Rumors’ by Lindsay Lohan and also needed to cover Ashlee Simpson, because that’s how I lived it — what actually ties these artists together?’”

That uniting thread is Spears. The book deftly traces the parallels between the evolution of Spears’ career and how the decade itself unfolded — from the way her music broadened beyond teen pop (e.g. the electro-disco “Toxic”) to the negative impact the intense tabloid scrutiny had on her mental health.

“She is the artist of the 2000s,” Princiotti says. “If you think of the aughts as a whole, it starts with Britney, [and] she manages to keep it going. There’s so many things that I think just come back to that one woman.”

Princiotti also concludes that the female pop stars of the 2000s helped legitimize pop music.

“There’s something about what all of these women — because it is women in the book — did to chip away at the idea that pop is disposable and unserious music, that somehow got us to this place where it is more often recognized as a serious art form, something that moves culture [and] is worthy of real, deep criticism,” she says.

“You’re seeing every day where there are thesis-driven projects about Taylor Swift and the music of Taylor Swift, and [people asking,] ‘What does she mean to society?’ and ‘What does she mean to culture? The thing that struck me was, ‘Oh, we didn’t have that. It wasn’t like that — and now it is.’”

“I came away with an appreciation of just how early in her career she laid the blueprint of how she would develop her fan base,” Nora Princiotti says of Taylor Swift.

(Ballantine Books)

Given the book’s narrow time frame — “Hit Girls” starts just before Y2K and ends in the early 2010s — the book also takes a different spin on the careers of Swift and fellow superstar Beyoncé.

The latter was newly emerging as a solo artist with 2003’s “Dangerously in Love” after breaking through with Destiny’s Child. Princiotti argues that Beyoncé’s success on the pop charts opened doors for hip-hop and R&B artists, which had a seismic impact on culture as a whole.

Although these genres had started making massive inroads into the pop charts and mainstream music starting in the late 1990s, Princiotti observed in her research that magazine and tabloid covers still largely prioritized white artists.

“While there was a clear relationship between the interest in an artist like Britney Spears’s life and the interest in her music, that feedback loop did not exist for a lot of Black artists,” she writes. “Which meant that hip-hop could dominate popular music while being shut out of the elite celebrity spaces that promote true pop stardom.”

Swift, meanwhile, was an earnest country-pop wunderkind building her fan base one MySpace comment at a time — and even then happened to be a genius at understanding the psychology of fandom and the online habits of her followers.

“I came away with an appreciation of just how early in her career she laid the blueprint of how she would develop her fan base,” Princiotti says. “When it’s all said and done, we will look back at her artistic legacy, yes, as the songwriter of a generation, yes, as the poet laureate of young women.”

“But I do think that the legacy of Taylor Swift is going to start with the communities of people that she brought together within her fan base — and how powerful and sometimes scary and how mobilized that fan community has become, and how she built it to be that way.”

As with Swift, many of the artists in “Hit Girls” remain popular today. Lavigne and Beyoncé are currently on major tours; Clarkson has found success with her daytime talk show; Rihanna is a billionaire business mogul thanks to her brands Fenty Beauty and Savage X Fenty. And Duff, who now has four kids, starred in the TV show “Younger” and, most recently, the short-lived “How I Met Your Father.”

Near the end of “Hit Girls,” Princiotti explores the ongoing influence of these artists and this decade — from the current crop of young pop stars led by Olivia Rodrigo and nostalgia festivals like When We Were Young to fashion trends such as dark denim, “going-out” tops and butterfly hair clips.

Princiotti herself maintains a love of pop stars and offers solid theories about why this specific era remains such a fascination: a heady mix of nostalgia, second chances and perspective.

“For people like me who lived through at least some of it, it’s the ability to go back a little bit older and wiser,” she says. “We can take the best of it and then reexamine the worst of it with more open eyes. And there’s something to me that’s very satisfying about that.”

Rhiannon Giddens is down at the river, carrying a flame of heritage, and she’s inviting anyone who wants to join her to come down and light their own wicks.

Rivers are traditionally sites of salvation, as well as play. Last summer, Giddens was making her new album of traditional banjo and fiddle tunes with Justin Robinson, “What Did the Blackbird Say to the Crow,” and they were recording a few songs at Mill Prong House in Red Springs, N.C. Stepping inside the house, built on a plantation in 1795, Giddens recoiled at the intensity she felt.

“I knew who was working these fields,” she says. “I knew who was serving in this house — and it was people who looked like me. And then seeing up on the wall, like, a reunion photo of these old white dudes who went to Chapel Hill, at the end of the Civil War, and one of them had my Black family’s last name from Mebane [N.C.] … I was just like: I can’t right now. I had to run out to the river.”

In a moment captured by a photographer, she was crouching by the water just before it started to rain, “and I’m thinking: how many people have come down to this river for respite? How many people in the history of this plantation — turned manor house, turned private property — have come to exactly this spot, distressed over whatever reason?”

Giddens carries the weight of this on her shoulders — of the distress, but also of the joyful culture and music-making of her ancestors — and she extends an open invitation to audiences to share and learn their stories and their culture. She did so at her inaugural Biscuits & Banjos Festival in her native North Carolina, and she’s doing it in her current Old-Time Revue tour — which will make a special blockbuster stop at the Hollywood Bowl [on June 18].

The program will feature Giddens playing with Hollywood banjoists Steve Martin and Ed Helms, along with a reunion of the all-female banjo supergroup Our Native Daughters. “So many banjos,” she says. “This evening is going to be amazing. I wanted to call it a ‘Banjo Jamboree,’ but they wouldn’t let me,” she laughs, speaking to The Times via Zoom.

Balancing laughter and sorrow seems to come easily to Giddens, 48, who has been on a serious mission to rekindle the legacy of the banjo and string band traditions as authentically Black creations ever since she met fiddle player Joe Thompson in 2004 and became a disciple. She’s referred to as an “elder” in the “Blackbird” liner notes, which doesn’t bother her: “To an 18-year-old, I am an elder,” she says. “I’m almost 50, and we are the half generation. We’re the point five, because our parents didn’t pick this up.”

From the Carolina Chocolate Drops to her solo music, from composing the Pulitzer-winning opera “Omar” to helming the Silkroad Ensemble, Giddens is at the fore of a movement of Black artists — including Beyoncé, whose country album “Cowboy Carter” features Giddens on banjo — reclaiming their cultural heritage and making it sing again.

Rhiannon Giddens

(Rick Loomis / for the Los Angeles Times)

A river (of sorts) played a role in another piece of Black Southern iconography this year — in the climax of “Sinners.” Giddens was a musical consultant on Ryan Coogler’s blockbuster film and contributed her banjo to the song “Old Corn Liquor” on its soundtrack. She was also meant to appear onscreen in the central juke joint — her Chocolate Drops bandmate, Justin Robinson, does — but she couldn’t make it work with her busy schedule. She admittedly hasn’t seen the film (“I don’t like horror movies, so I actually don’t want to see it”) but she’s still a fan.

“I think what they’ve opened up with the whole conceit behind it is super important,” Giddens says.

In a way, “Sinners” is a vampiric, IMAX-sized version of her own project, in that it’s about how so much of our popular musical culture was invented by Black folks in the South and co-opted by white performers (whether Elvis, the Rolling Stones or the country and folk music industries) — but also about how music can be a time machine, a way to seance with people up the river of history.

“Beyoncé, ‘Sinners,’ and then, in its own small way, Biscuits & Banjos is like this little triangle of a cultural movement,” Giddens says, “which I didn’t see coming, and I’m just super grateful. Because it’s been a desert. … We’re all toiling in our corners, on our own, and it kind of feels like we’re carrying all of this on our own.”

Her Durham festival, which took place in April, drew musical legends — Taj Mahal, Christian McBride, the Legendary Ingramettes — and basically “most of my favorite people making music right now,” says Giddens. She also judged a biscuit competition and participated in contra dances, which is what got her into this music in the first place.

“People were just really ready,” she says, “ready to come and feel good, and to celebrate our humanity together.”

For Giddens, the stakes couldn’t be higher. She and Robinson learned their tunes and their art directly from Thompson, who died in 2012; they were playing his music together in Ojai recently “when it just hit me how important it was what we were doing,” she says, “like how complete the sound was together. I said: ‘If one of us gets hit by a bus, this tradition is dead.’ ”

That’s why she wanted to record the tunes they inherited from Thompson, as well as from Etta Baker and other North Carolina string band players — hence the “Blackbird” album. But she also insists that the only way to truly pass the flame is through playing together in person.

Rhiannon Giddens crouching by river near Mill Prong House in Red Springs, N.C.contemplating the historic struggle of her slave ancestors. “I’m thinking: how many people have come down to this river for respite?” she said. “How many people in the history of this plantation — turned manor house, turned private property — have come to exactly this spot, distressed over whatever reason?”

(Karen Cox)

“I know that learning from Joe forms the center of my character as a musician,” she says. “I learned stuff off of recordings, fine, but I have something to go back to that was a living transmission. And I just think you should have something of that, especially in this day and age.”

Giddens has passed her tradition down to many students in the past 20 years, including her nephew Justin “Demeanor” Harrington — who plays banjo and the bones, and also raps, and who is traveling with her Old-Time Revue.

This will be Giddens’ first time at the Bowl; likewise for Amythyst Kiah, a banjo player from Johnson City, Tenn., and one of Our Native Daughters. That project began in 2019 as a one-off album recorded in a small Louisiana studio, of songs inspired by the transatlantic slave trade and the suffering and often unheard voices of Black women.

“Music has a way of disarming,” says Kiah, “so it allows for people to be able to engage with the subject matter in an easier way than just talking about it.”

The fierce foursome — which also includes Allison Russell and Leyla McCalla — toured with their songs before the pandemic, and later brought their banjos to Carnegie Hall in 2022. “Now we’re playing in a stadium,” says Kiah, “which is insane.”

The star-studded Bowl show is “not what I usually do,” says Giddens. “It’s stepping out a little bit for me, not to mention the size of the place, which is kind of freaking me out.”

But really it’s just another river — or rather, the same river Giddens has been inviting folks to join her at for the last 20 years.

The death of Beach Boys founder Brian Wilson is an immeasurable loss for music and for California, both the place and the dream of it that Wilson conjured with his regal and tender compositions.

Wilson was the visionary of the defining American rock band, one who competed with the Beatles to move pop music into new realms of sophistication and invention, while writing songs capturing the longing of an ascendant youth culture.

His death leaves only two surviving members of the original lineup — Mike Love and Al Jardine, Wilson’s high school friend who sang lead on early hits like “Help Me Rhonda” and wrote songs for beloved later-period albums like “Surf’s Up” and “Sunflower.”

On the day the world learned of Wilson’s death, Jardine briefly spoke to The Times to remember his lifelong friend and bandmate. The guitarist, vocalist and songwriter — now on tour with his Pet Sounds Band playing Beach Boys hits with a focus on their 1970s output — looked back on six decades of writing and performing with one of the greatest minds of popular music.

Jardine’s conversation was edited for length and clarity.

I just lost my best friend and mentor. It’s not a good feeling, but I’m going to carry on and continue to play our music and perform with the Pet Sounds Band.

Brian was a great friend. We grew up together, we went to high school together. We were both dropouts, which is not a bad thing as long as you have a vision of the future. His and mine was to make music.

We were very good friends and very successful in part because of his great talent. He had an amazing ability to compose, very simple things and very complex things, all at the same time. He was a visionary.

We all grew up together musically, but he grew exponentially. He became a leader, and formed new ways of chord construction, things no one had heard before, and we rose to the challenge with him.

It’s been said that Brian invented the state of California, the state of mind. That’s a cute way of saying it, but he really invented a new form of music in the ’60s and ’70s. It was very sophisticated, but went way beyond that. He was a humble giant, a great American composer.

I don’t think anyone else could walk in his shoes, given all that he went through. I did write some songs he liked, and did help him get through treacherous times. It must be so frightening to be left in the wilderness by yourself and not know how to get home. He said one song I wrote helped him get through that, which is quite a compliment from the great Brian Wilson, who had his own demons to deal with.

Brian Wilson’s band was a reawakening of his professional life. He never enjoyed touring, so this band was a whole new life for him, to experience his own music and an adulation that he never had before.

The Beach Boys — Dennis Wilson, left, Al Jardine, Carl Wilson, Brian Wilson, Mike Love — perform circa 1964 in California.

(Michael Ochs Archives / Getty Images)

His legacy is of course in the music, and any interpreter of that legacy has to be sharp and devoted to it. We have the most devoted people that could be there to do that, so many original members of his band. My son Matthew, he’s Brian’s voice, and the DNA is there. With his arranger, Darian, arranging all vocals, we have all the muscle and genius to pull it off.

When Carl Wilson and I were singing those parts back then, we’d abbreviate things — you can’t do everything you did in the studio with only five of us. Now we’ve got 10 people onstage and I just heard some background parts yesterday that sounded just like we used to — you can hear Carl and Dennis in there.

When we take the band out, I have a little white piano onstage, like the one he played in the past. It’s a symbolic moment, the empty piano.

While the Beach Boys tour was a hit-based performance, with this iteration, we’re more introspective, deeper cuts, performing much of the 1970s catalog. There’s quite a few numbers the public hasn’t heard, exploring the heart and soul of those albums. I was hoping Brian would have been able to join us.

But it’s wonderful, we’re hoping this music should last forever, and be felt at the deep levels that Brian experienced it.

It sure is a great responsibility to play it, but it just feels natural to me. I’ve been doing it for so long, It doesn’t feel weighty. I’m confident, especially with this band being so remarkable. I’m still learning from Brian after all these years.

“The more things change, the more they stay the same,” French writer Jean-Baptiste Alphonse Kerr said in 1849. Nearly 200 years later, that is sadly true of the greatest protest songs. In 2025, songs like Bob Dylan’s “Masters of War” and Sam Cooke’s “A Change Is Gonna Come” are as needed for their messages as they were when they were written more than 60 years ago.

So when Grammy-winning jazz drummer Terri Lyne Carrington set out this year to pay homage to one of her stick-wielding idols, the legendary Max Roach, by revisiting his seminal 1961 album, “We Insist!,” it turned out to be more than a musical tribute. In the process of recording the album “We Insist 2025!,” Carrington took time to reflect on how issues of inequality, racism and more that Roach fought against in 1961 are unfortunately just as prevalent today.

“Wow, I can’t believe that this stuff is still relevant,” Carrington says. “When we look at these examples of how things have shifted in some ways, but not in other ways, it can be very depressing, especially right now. When we started this record, the election hadn’t happened yet. I thought I knew what was going to happen during this election, and it was still relevant. But now it’s even more relevant.”

Now 59, Carrington, who also serves as Zildjian Chair in Performance at Berklee College of Music in Boston, is ready to pass along some of the fight for social justice to the younger generation.

“I do feel like it’s a youthful game. I had an uncle that I would talk to when I was in my 20s, who has since passed. He would say that this is your fight now, and I would be mad at him, feeling like he wasn’t doing more,” she recalls. “And he would say, ‘No, this is your fight now. I‘ve done it, I‘ve been there, I‘m tired.’ I get that sentiment too. I‘m going to do whatever I do, but I‘m relying on the younger generation and how pissed off I feel like they are and what that will do.”

Terri Lyne Carrington playing a drum kit.

(John Watson)

Among her many ventures to champion the jazz music she loves so much is A&R for iconic jazz label Candid Records, founded by the great jazz writer Nat Hentoff in 1960. So, she called on the younger generation to help share her vision of “We Insist 2025!”

“I thought of calling the people that had been signed or were being signed to Candid Records because I do A&R for Candid. So I thought this would be a great opportunity to also shine a light on a lot of these artists, young people and progressive artists that are being signed right now to Candid. It‘s kind of like a family gathering; we all came together to pay tribute to this great artist and this great project,” she says.

At the center of the next generation of jazz artists on the album is vocalist Christie Dashiell, with whom Carrington collaborates on the album.

“Somebody like Christie Dashiell was really important to the project, because I felt like the voice is so out front. It‘s what people relate to; the average ear relates to the voice the most,” Carrington says. “I just feel like she perfectly embodies all these different areas of Black music traditions. That was really important, so I started there. What is the voice that’s going to work with this idea?”

Having toured with Herbie Hancock and played with giants as Dizzy Gillespie and Stan Getz, Carrington has a strong sense of jazz history and rightly sees herself as a bridge between the history and future of jazz. She made sure that bridge was strong on “We Insist 2025!” by including trombonist Julian Priester on the record, who, at 89, is the last living musician who appeared on Roach’s 1961 work.

“Jazz has always been about these kinds of bridges between generations. It‘s been such an important part of jazz. Mentorship, apprenticeships — it‘s an apprenticeship art form,” she says. “So we did contemporary things with this music, but it wasn‘t so contemporary that there was no place for a Julian Priester. I think that the ability to be a bridge is important — pointing to past legacies, to the foundation of what we stand on, while trying to also point to the future or reflect the present is important.”

As much as the album‘s original political message weighs in this turbulent current climate, and as much as Carrington wanted to make the record a vehicle for younger artists, the impetus for “We Insist 2025!” was to pay tribute to Roach for the centennial anniversary of his birth. For Carrington, the heart of her interpretation was to honor the music and spirit Roach created on “We Insist!”

Jazz drummer Terri Lyne Carrington poses for a portrait.

(David Butow / For The Times)

“I had a history with reimagining projects in other people‘s work, and helping that legacy continue, but doing it in a way that also has my own identity involved in a way that really feels new, in a sense,” she says. “The music is not new, but so many elements around those things are new. So I feel like it‘s reshaping these things a little, even though we didn‘t change the lyric content. By changing the music around the lyrics, it gives the lyric a different slant.”

As one of the country‘s primary ambassadors of jazz music today, Carrington hopes the record will introduce new fans to Roach’s considerable legacy while helping to revive the soul of protest music. To that end, she has discussed bigger plans with his family.

“I‘ve talked to Max‘s son, Raul Roach, quite a bit about trying to collaborate by doing shows that would be expansive. Doing some of this music, maybe doing some other Max music, like some of the double quartet music,” she says. “So we‘ve talked about finding ways to continue this celebration of Max Roach and his artistry. There‘s a lot there as a foundation that can be expanded upon.”

Billy Joel’s life is awash in revelations these days — some bad, some worse.

Last month, the “Only the Good Die Young” singer-songwriter canceled all his upcoming concerts, revealing he was struggling with a brain disorder that causes a potentially reversible kind of dementia. Then last week, he divulged that he attempted suicide twice in his 20s after falling in love with his bandmate’s wife and causing the downfall of the band itself.

“I felt very, very guilty about it. They had a child. I felt like a homewrecker,” Joel says (via People) in the first half of the two-part documentary “Billy Joel: And So It Goes,” which premiered last Wednesday and hits HBO Max in July. “I was just in love with a woman and I got punched in the nose, which I deserved.”

Joel said both he and his friend and Attila bandmate, Jon Small, were upset by what happened while Joel was living with Small and Small’s then-wife, Elizabeth Weber. So upset that Attila — a Led Zeppelin-inspired metal band, according to the New York Times — broke up and Joel started boozing, which sent him into a tailspin.

“I had no place to live,” Joel says in the documentary. “I was sleeping in laundromats, and I was depressed, I think to the point of almost being psychotic. So I figured, ‘That’s it. I don’t want to live anymore.’”

He tried twice to end his life in the early 1970s, according to the documentary. First, he took the entire lot of sleeping pills that his sister, then a medical assistant, had given him to help him sleep. That put him in the hospital.

“He was in a coma for days and days and days,” Judy Molinari says in the program. She thought she had killed her brother.

Joel says in the doc that he woke up in the hospital still suicidal, hoping to do it “right” the next time. His sister said he wound up drinking “lemon Pledge” furniture polish. That time, an unlikely person took him to the hospital: Small, his then-estranged best friend.

“Eventually,” Small says in the documentary, “I forgave him.”

As for those impulses to harm himself, they wound up paying off for Joel after he checked out of a facility he had checked himself into after the second suicide attempt.

“I got out of the observation ward and I thought to myself, you can utilize all those emotions to channel that stuff into music.”

Joel reconnected with Weber about a year after that, wrote about her in the 1973 song “Piano Man,” and married her from then until 1982. Marriages to Christie Brinkley, Katie Lee and current wife Alexis Roderick would follow.

The first part of the documentary covers Joel’s childhood and runs through his 1982 motorcycle accident, according to the New York Times. He doesn’t meet his “Uptown Girl,” Brinkley, until Part 2.

Sly Stone, a funk pioneer whose influence and impact as leader of the musical group Sly and the Family Stone was as enduring as his career was brief, has died. He was 82.

An agent of change before he vanished from the public eye, Stone died “after a prolonged battle with COPD and other underlying health issues,” according to a statement from his family, which didn’t specify when or where he died.

From his beginnings in a family gospel group and his time as a lively San Francisco DJ, Stone became one of the major innovators in R&B, rock and pop music. There was a keen curiosity, even a restlessness, in the way he kept changing his group’s sound during its short, spectacular stint at the top.

Stone had a capacity for summing up the zeitgeist of an America in social transition, from collective joy (“Dance to the Music”) to racial harmony (“Everyday People”), and from the search for transcendence (“I Want To Take You Higher”) to the broken idealism in which the 1960s ended (“Don’t Call Me Nigger, Whitey”), a timeline in which he created a template for future generations of funk-rock hybrids.

After a musical peak that lasted six years, Stone released a few inconsequential records, spent decades mired in addictions to cocaine and sedatives, was arrested for possession of crack and lived in a camper van, a husk of his younger, vibrant self.

But several recent documentaries and Stone’s 2023 memoir “Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin)” made a renewed case for the relevance of his bountiful vision, even amidst a tragic life.

“When Sly comes on stage, you see older people looking like, ‘What’s this?,’ and younger people losing their minds,” said Questlove, the director of “Summer of Soul” and “Sly Lives! (Aka The Burden Of Black Genius),” in an interview with the Times in 2021. “It’s an absolute lesson in how transformative they were.”

Stone formed Sly and the Family Stone in 1966, bringing in his brother Freddie (guitar) and sister Rose (piano). Stone played keyboards, guitar, bass and drums and wrote, arranged and produced all of the group’s music. The great funk bassist Bootsy Collins once called Stone “the most talented musician I know.”

Sly conceived of the Family Stone as a rainbow coalition of soul, with male and female, white and Black members. Traditional R&B was entering an expansive, transformative phase, which Stone accelerated with his innovations in funk, rock and psychedelia, not to mention fashion: He came to one interview, a reporter noted, in “knee-high fox fur boots, cut velvet knickers and a red satin shirt with 20-inch fringe on the sleeves.”

Between 1967 and 1973, Sly and the Family Stone had nine singles in the Top 40. “Dance to the Music,” the exuberant title song to their second album, hit No. 8 on the Billboard Hot 100. The hits that followed included three No. 1 songs — “Everyday People,” “Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Again)” and “Family Affair” — as well as a No. 2, “Hot Fun in the Summertime.”

The mass of musicians he influenced ranges from Miles Davis to Janet Jackson, Herbie Hancock to Ice-T. “Everyday People” alone was covered by Aretha Franklin, Joan Jett, the Staples Singers, the Supremes and Pearl Jam, and it was interpolated by Arrested Development on the 1992 hit “People Everyday.” John Legend won a Grammy in 2007 for his cover of “Family Affair.” Prince, who was lavish in his praise of Stone, hired the Family Stone’s horn section to tour with him in 1997.

The group achieved perhaps their greatest renown in August 1969, when they landed a prestigious second-day gig at the Woodstock music festival, playing after Janis Joplin and before the Who.

Like many groups that weekend, they had equipment problems during the set, but resolved them with a bang-up 20-minute medley of “Everyday People” and “Dance to the Music.” “The delirium peaked during Sly & the Family Stone’s set,” journalist Ellen Sander wrote in the liner notes of the 2019 box set “Woodstock — Back to the Garden: The Definitive 50th Anniversary Archive.”

In his occasional interviews, Stone made it clear that he was what, at the time, was called a race man. “Everybody in our group is neutral about race,” he told the New York Times in 1970. “Everybody in the group knows that Blacks have been screwed over by whites — that most whites are prejudiced.”

The band moved to L.A. not long after Woodstock, and quickly found trouble. The Black Panthers lobbied Stone to replace the two white band members with Black musicians. Some band members were doing cocaine and PCP. “It was havoc. It was very gangsterish, dangerous. The vibes were very dark at that point,” Family Stone saxophonist Jerry Martini told author Joel Selvin. Their concerts routinely started hours late, or never started at all.

When the group returned in 1971 with “There’s a Riot Goin’ On” (the title was a reply to Marvin Gaye’s “What’s Going On”), the exuberance of their music had curdled. The songs had a flinty exterior and a troubled tone. Stone wove drum machines into the dense thickets of sound. The cover showed a red, white and black American flag; “Africa Talks to You” was torpid — funk without any swing. The tone is bleak, dissonant, even static.

Years later, “There’s a Riot Goin’ On” was recognized as a prophetic record, one of only a few that described the end of the 1960s’ idealism. It was the last significant music Stone released.

Sylvester Stewart was born March 15, 1944, in Denton, Texas. When he was 3 months old, his parents, K.C. and Alpha Stewart, moved the family to Vallejo, in the Bay Area. The family sang gospel music and were active in the Church of God in Christ, where K.C. was a deacon. “I thought everybody in the world played music,” Stone later said.

While still a youth, Stone cut his first record, a gospel 78 RPM disc with brother Freddie and sisters Rose and Vaetta, as the Stewart Four. A fifth-grade classmate misspelled Sylvester’s name on the school chalkboard, and the mistake turned into a prophetic nickname: Sly.

Before he reached puberty, Stone had mastered several musical instruments. In his teens, he recorded sporadically with various doo-wop and R&B groups. He studied music theory at Vallejo Junior College, then attended the Chris Borden School of Modern Broadcasting. In 1964, he got a job at the R&B station KSOL, where he brought the Beatles and Rolling Stones into the station’s playlist and showed off his slick patter. The station christened him Sly Sloan, but he hated the name, so he introduced himself to listeners as Sly Stone — a taste of stubbornness to come.

By 1966, after playing music in fits and starts, Stone had formed a new band by plucking the best musicians from his band, Sly and the Stoners, and his brother Freddie’s band, which included drummer Gregg Errico and saxophonist Jerry Martini. The brothers Stone enlisted bass guitar wonder Larry Graham, who’d been playing in a local jazz duo with his mother.

Their first album, “A Whole New Thing,” didn’t chart. Clive Davis, the president of CBS Records, who oversaw Epic, advised Stone to try for a more commercial sound. His first attempt was a bull’s-eye: “Dance to the Music,” a shared-vocal funk workout on which Graham begins to introduce his influential “thumping and plucking” style of bass, and trumpeter Cynthia Robinson warns, “All the squares, go home!”

The group’s third album, “Life,” was another dud, though it included top tracks “Life” and “M’Lady.” Soon after it disappeared, Stone recorded “Everyday People,” a jolly song about tolerance that featured an unusual one-note bassline by Graham, and popularized the phrase “different strokes for different folks.” In addition to “Everyday People,” 1969’s “Stand!” included the title track, “Sing a Simple Song,” “I Want to Take You Higher,” “You Can Make It If You Try.” and the playful but pointed six-minute track “Don’t Call Me Nigger, Whitey,” which used a vocoder, delay and distortion to create a menacing artificiality that caught on quickly with Parliament-Funkadelic and was revived by T-Pain.

Stone described the band’s fifth album, 1971’s ominous “There’s a Riot Goin’ On,” as “a very truthful album, made and then released at a very truthful moment in time. That’s what it was all about, because I know the truth always prevails. And that’s exactly what my music is all about.”

But there were other truths, particularly about drug addiction that Stone tried to keep hidden. Band members quit: first Errico, then Graham (who founded the funk act Graham Central Station), and later, Freddie Stone and Martini.

“Fresh,” in 1973, included the band’s final top-20 chart song, “If You Want Me to Stay.” Producer Brian Eno cited “Fresh” as the pivotal and irreversible production moment when “the rhythm instruments, particularly the bass drum and bass, suddenly become the important instruments in the mix.” `”Small Talk,” the following year, had a minor hit, “Time for Livin’,” and a cover photo of Sly, wife Kathy Silva (a Hawaiian actress whom he married onstage at Madison Square Garden) and their young son, Sylvester Jr.

The smiling family photo was deceptive, however. “He beat me, held me captive and wanted me to be in ménages à trois,” Silva later told People magazine. “I didn’t want that world of drugs and weirdness.” She left him in 1976 when his pit bull mauled Sylvester Jr., who was 2 at the time. Stone also had a daughter, Sylvette Phunne Robinson, with Family Stone trumpeter Robinson, and a second daughter, Novena Carmel, now a host for KCRW’s “Morning Becomes Eclectic” program.

Sly and the Family Stone’s next two albums, “High on You” and “Heard You Missed Me, Well I’m Back,” sold poorly. “Back on the Right Track,” in 1979, defied its hopeful title. There was another album in 1983. The adjective “reclusive” became permanently attached to his name.

Rumors persistently popped up, fostered by his absence: He’d recorded new songs, he’d worked with Prince, he had 100 new songs — no, 200 — he was on the verge of a comeback, always on the verge of it. He was convicted on charges of possessing cocaine in 1987. Two years later, he was arrested by FBI agents on a federal charge of unlawful flight to avoid prosecution on the charges. He was arrested again for cocaine possession in 2011, after which he claimed he’d been to rehab seven times.

When Sly and the Family Stone were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1993, Stone stepped to the microphone, said, “See you soon,” and split. It was years before the public saw him again.

The Grammys paid tribute to Stone in 2006. After a medley of his hits, sung by John Legend, will.i.am of Black Eyed Peas and Steven Tyler of Aerosmith, among others, Stone came onstage in a white mohawk, sunglasses and a metallic duster, with a cast on his right hand. He hunched over a keyboard, sang a bit of “I Want to Take You Higher” in a distracted manner, seemed to miss a few cues and walked off before the song was over.

He was booked to play Coachella in 2010, shortly after he was reported to be homeless, but he played “an abysmal, confused set,” the Guardian said. Stone came on stage 3½ hours late, and when he talked, he either mumbled or stopped in the middle of sentences. He said he’d been kidnapped and cheated by managers. He started songs, held on for a few bars, then drifted away. “To say that he seemed high was an understatement,” a New Yorker writer observed. The L.A. Weekly called it a “sad spectacle.”

Rarely had a great music artist suffered such a severe, rapid and irreversible downfall. People struggled to explain it.

“He’s had problems because he hasn’t been able to grow up,” Sylvester Stewart Jr., his son, said in 1996, after Stone finished a 45-day stay in rehab. “He’s meant no harm to anyone.”

“Sly never grew out of drugs,” his ex-wife, Silva, said. “He lost his backbone and destroyed his future.”

Still, the story of his musical exuberance and deep personal pain continued to inspire – and haunt – the inheritors of his vision. With his pair of documentaries, director and musicians Questlove used Stone’s life story to probe weighty questions about Black genius and how it’s embraced, exploited and neglected by the culture. The power of Stone’s music is bound up in his private pain.

“Soul music is releasing a demon that turns into a beautiful, cathartic exercise,” Questlove told the Times in 2025. “We never just see it as ‘I’m watching someone go through therapy.’

“Only time will tell,” he said, “if I had to make the Sly story to save my own life.”

His 2023 memoir, largely a study of his early life and craft, alluded to the toll that his drug use took on his output. “I should have stopped sooner,” he wrote. “Much sooner: less dust and powder, fewer rocks and pipes, enough days given back that might have added up to years.”

In the last years of his life, Stone worked on sobriety and lived quietly in the San Fernando Valley. His family, including brother Freddie, were left to speak up for Sly.

“When people ask me questions about what was going on behind the scenes and how did you make such great music, I tell them it was Sly writing what was coming out of his heart and soul,” he told the website Wax Poetics. “He is a true genius.”

Brendan Yates says he’s learned innumerable things fronting his band Turnstile over the last decade and a half, not the least of which is that an ambitious musician needn’t move to Los Angeles or New York to make it.

“There’s nothing we haven’t been able to figure out living in Baltimore,” Yates says, and Turnstile’s success suggests he’s right: In 2021, the band — which spent the 2010s steadily rising through the East Coast hardcore scene — scored three Grammy nominations with its breakout album, “Glow On,” a set of fervent yet luscious punk jams laced with bits of funk, dream-pop and electronic dance music. The next year, Turnstile toured arenas as an opening act for My Chemical Romance then did the same for Blink-182. At April’s Coachella festival, Charli XCX ended her main-stage performance with a video message predicting a “Turnstile Summer.”

Even so, the proud Charm City quintet — Yates on vocals along with guitarists Pat McCrory and Meg Mills, bassist Franz Lyons and drummer Daniel Fang — did come to L.A. to record its new follow-up LP, “Never Enough,” setting up a studio in a rented mansion in Laurel Canyon where the band camped out for more than a month.

“We were looking for the experience where you kind of isolate a little bit, and Laurel Canyon has this tucked-away thing,” says Yates, who led the sessions as the album’s producer. “It was such a vibe.” The result extends “Glow On’s” adventurous spirit with sensual R&B grooves, guest appearances by Paramore’s Hayley Williams and Blood Orange’s Dev Hynes, even a flute solo by the British jazz star Shabaka Hutchings; “Never Enough” comes accompanied by a short film that just premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival and will screen in selected theaters this weekend.

Yates, 35, discussed the album over coffee last month in Silver Lake, a few days after Turnstile played a rowdy gig at L.A.’s Ukrainian Culture Center that featured an endless succession of stage-diving fans.

Who did the cooking while you were recording in the house?

We had a couple friends come in and cook meals. And we kept the fridge stocked. “What are we gonna eat?” — you can lose hours out of every day to that.

What’s the advantage of making a record the way you did?

You can kind of break away from normal life for a little bit and just exist in the music. You’re not going to the studio but thinking, “I’ve got to go to the grocery store later.” You wake up, have your little peaceful time in the morning before you get started, then just go right into the living room. We didn’t really need to leave the house for weeks at a time.

In a recent New York Times profile, the writer referred to you as Turnstile’s “workaholic frontman.” A fair characterization?

I wouldn’t describe myself that way, but I understand the sentiment. I’m in a band with people I grew up with — my closest friends — and we’re really passionate about what we’re doing. I give myself to it, but it never feels like work. When I was younger, I always separated music and real life. I thought of music as the thing that I love and real life as going to school and hating it. Even when I went to university, I was like, I’m not gonna do music.

You wanted to protect music from the strictures of school.

I guess so. I was doing these majors that I had no interest in. I started with kinesiology until I realized I suck at science and math. I switched to criminal justice, then I was like, “Wait, what am I doing?” Honestly, I think I was just looking for whatever major I could mentally check out on the most to make more space for music.

Did you graduate?

I left early because I wasn’t interested and I wasn’t doing well, and I got the opportunity to tour with this band that I played drums in. Eventually, years later, I went back and got a communications degree online.

Why?

I ask myself the same question all the time. One thing is, I’d started and I wanted to finish it. I probably wouldn’t have gone if it wasn’t for remote schooling. I never went back into the classroom — I was in the back of the van writing essays.

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Did you get tickets to the Turnstile show in L.A. last night?

Does 35 feel old in hardcore years?

It would have seemed ancient to me as a 16-year-old. Never in my wildest dreams would I think at 35 that I’d be doing the same things I was hyped on doing when I was in high school. But I feel like age is a bit of an illusion. When you’re 12, you’re like, “I’m definitely gonna be married by 18 and have my first kid at 19.”

Certain aspects of aging are less illusory, right? Physical sturdiness, for example. How does that compare to 10 years ago?

I remember playing shows 10 years ago, and I had two knee braces on. At that time, I was just like, “This is what it is — here on out, this is what my knees are doing.”

You’re saying in fact you’re sturdier now.

What I figured out — look, I’m not a singer. Earlier on in playing shows, I’d throw the mic down and just jump into the crowd, mostly because of nerves and adrenaline.

Feels important to say that you’re definitely a singer.

I sing, but I wouldn’t call myself a singer. I’ve never done vocal lessons. Even forming the band, at that time everyone was like, “OK, we’ve got this band, but we should start one where you’re on the drums.” This band was literally: “Let’s do one on the side where I’m singing and you should get on guitar. Franz, you’ve never played bass, but you should play bass in this one.” Then you wake up 10 years later and — oh, shoot — this is the one we’ve put a lot into.

Turnstile, from left: Daniel Fang, Franz Lyons, Brendan Yates, Meg Mills and Pat McCrory.

(Atiba Jefferson)

For every fan of Turnstile, you’ve got someone accusing you of ruining hardcore. Ever hear a critique that actually stung?

I have no interest in having any dialogue about anyone’s opinion about anything that I’m doing.

I appreciate the definitiveness of that.

It just doesn’t matter.

Whose praise has been especially meaningful? There’s a great viral TikTok of James Hetfield and Rob Halford digging your set at some festival.

We’ve had so many cool moments like that — just like, “How is this real?” Obviously, getting to meet your childhood heroes is huge. But then there’s also the people you build relationships with and end up in the studio together — Dev or our friend Mary Jane Dunphe. You realize: These are actually my favorite people making music right now.

Notwithstanding your view on the opinions of others, what’s a moment on this album that feels creatively risky?

In the first single [“Never Enough”], after the band drops out, there’s like two minutes of just this synth chord. There was very much a conversation: “Is this too long? Should we shorten it?” And I’m sure there’s plenty of people where it might just be white noise to them — like, “Skip — I don’t need this.” But I feel like with this album there’s this intention to force yourself to sit with the chaotic moments and then sit with the very still moments and kind of have that relationship going back and forth. I think those moments of stillness are very connected to the film — you’ll kind of see how it all works together and why those moments are necessary. Our dream scenario would be that people’s first time hearing the album, they’re watching it with the film.

Someone says to you, “I didn’t really get the album until I saw the film” — that’s OK by you?

I would love that.

Who opened the door to the idea that you could make a movie?

The last album, we did a four-song EP [“Turnstile Love Connection”] that came with a video. I’d called my friend Ian [Hurdle], who’s the DP, and I was like, “Hey, I have an idea: We do this video, and it does all this and it’s about 10 or 11 minutes with these four songs.” I told him the whole idea, and then I asked him, “So who should we get to direct it?” He goes, “It sounds like you’re directing it.” I was like, “I guess you’re right.” I mean, I’m not a director.

You’ve now called yourself not a singer and not a director.

On paper, I don’t have any experience. The only thing I have experience in is really being excited about trying to make something work. But that video was a huge learning experience — the idea of, like, OK, this is possible.

There’s a rainbow color pattern that recurs throughout the new album’s videos. You’re using it as a live backdrop too. What’s it mean?

There’s a lot in the album that maybe ties into those colors. The record cover itself is a double rainbow. We were in Paris playing shows like a year and a half ago. We were walking around and it started raining while the sun was out. We’re like, “Yo, look” — there was this double rainbow. My friend snapped a photo, and that’s the album cover. Maybe there’s interpretations of that on a spiritual level — new beginnings or a transformation or openings to a different dimension.

Daniel Fang, Pat McCrory, Franz Lyons and Brendan Yates of Turnstile attend the 65th Grammy Awards in 2023.

(Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)

The album cover is very subtle. You could easily look at it and just see blue.

That was brought to me — how intangible the cover is. But that’s the point: I don’t want vibrant rainbows. I want it to almost feel like nothingness. A small speck in a vast universe is kind of the feeling that was going into the music. The blue too — in the film, there’s lots of ties to water and the vastness of the ocean.

Very Malibu of you.

I mean, side note: I drowned like 10 years ago in the ocean. I was saved by some locals — this was on a big surfer beach in Hawaii. This is not necessarily what the album is about, but more just like a thought process. What’s always fascinated me about the ocean is its power and how small I felt in that moment as I was passing out. And I truly did pass out — saw the white light and everything. Just how fast that could happen and how small I could feel put things into perspective in a different way.

OK, few more for you: One thing you guys have sort of crept up to but not quite done yet is a full-on ballad.

The final song on the new record [“Magic Man”] is literally just me and a Juno [synthesizer] in my room. In some ways it’s uncomfortable, but simultaneously it felt like it needed to happen. I needed to sing that.

You don’t drink. Does that have to do with your upbringing? Is it connected to a hardcore or straight-edge ideology?

Maybe experience seeing things when you’re younger that can lead you in a different way? But, I mean, getting into hardcore, finding out about straight-edge and stuff — I felt a little more comfortable in my own skin, not needing to drink. I like to make sure it’s never from a place of being stubborn, where I’m just like, “I don’t drink because I made up this idea in my head that I’m not going to drink.” I don’t think that’s a good way to be about anything in life.

Turnstile at the Ukrainian Culture Center.

(Eric Thayer / For The Times)

If you were starting the band now, would you still put your website at turnstilehardcore.com?

Probably. At the time, turnstile.com was taken. I feel like that was such a cool time, where every band’s MySpace or Twitter, it was the band’s name plus “HC.” That was such a time stamp. But yeah — hardcore music is what we all grew up in. It was like the funnel for us to find ourselves through a music scene and a culture and a community.

What feels outside the window of possibility for Turnstile? “We’ll never write a country song,” or “We’ll never play a cruise.”

We’ve done so many things that were outside our comfort zone. We did some arena shows, and that was such a cool learning experience — how to connect to someone who’s 100 yards away, sitting down in a chair, versus a kid that’s onstage with you. That show in L.A. the other night was like the ideal for us, where the stage is low and it’s this intimate room. But then I had so many close friends who couldn’t get in.

You could see the show as Turnstile keeping it real or as Turnstile indulging itself.

In a way, it made us inaccessible.

I look forward to the Turnstile Cruise in 2028.

It’s been offered. It’s never made sense. My first question is: What does the show feel like? Is it more about people going on a boat just to day-drink and throw up while we’re playing? Or can you figure out a way to make it an actual thing? I don’t know — it’s not off the table. But I’ve never been on a cruise in my life.

You’ve accurately sussed the vibe.

I’ve seen the pictures.

Prince, also known by his recording name Dellyswagz, heard about the choir through a friend who was a member when he first moved to Venice in 2017. He was a singer in Nigeria, and his friend told him it was a good community, that they could help him get settled. When he first arrived, they gave him clothes, helped him find work and provided him with legal assistance to begin the process of getting a visa.

He is now 38, soft-spoken, but when he sings, he sways with feeling, and belting the lyrics, his voice strains and nearly breaks. He dresses in blue-tinted sunglasses, a black leather newsboy cap and a full denim outfit. “Like a king,” he says, smiling.

Shortly after he was born, his parents split up, and his primary caregiver was his mother’s father, who he was very close to. When his grandfather died in 2011, Prince no longer had ties to the Lagos suburb where he grew up and in 2015 decided to cross the Sahara and the Mediterranean in search of a better life.

“Growing up a boy, your mom have to really pray a lot for you,” he explains. “Either you become a thug or a mafia.”

He lives in a shared apartment in Padua, 40km (25 miles) outside Venice, where he moved after losing his job in a factory and being evicted because he didn’t have his papers yet. His bedroom doubles as his recording studio, where on a cluttered desk with a large monitor, he is recording and producing Afrobeats songs for his first album.

In Nigeria, he was a professional dance teacher, by most accounts successful, yet he felt there was no future there. Friends and family had already left, including his father, who lived in the United Kingdom, yet he didn’t consider leaving until his uncle, who was living in Austria, called and suggested he make the trip with his uncle’s wife and three cousins. Prince gave away his speakers, clothes and sneakers to his students. Along with his family, he saved up thousands of dollars. He brought nothing with him and told his parents he’d already made up his mind.

“The journey was deadly,” he says with a serious expression. “My story comes with a lot of pain and loss.”

The first three weeks were spent on a large open-backed truck packed with dozens of people. They drove across the Sahara and slept on the sand each night. Some had to drink their own urine, he recounts, because they hadn’t brought enough water, and along the way, he saw bodies left in the sand. “I can’t count how many we buried,” he says without emotion, referring to the people who died on the journey. “We used sand to cover them up. There’s no details of a name or family to call.”

From Libya, he and his family members tried to cross the Mediterranean by boat eight times. The entire journey to Italy took him two years. Once, they were kidnapped by pirates when they were on a boat and released two months later after paying a ransom. Another time, he was held in a Libyan prison for four months. At one point, they ran out of money, and he worked as a security guard for seven months in a compound holding refugees and migrants.

Then, in October 2016, he and his family members tried to cross the Mediterranean again. They crowded onto a wooden boat with more than 200 passengers on board. In the middle of the night, water began to enter the boat, and it started to sink. As it capsized, people fell into the water. Prince jumped in to save his cousins. The sea was freezing, and everyone was shouting and screaming around him, and he remembers the dark water lit by stars. By the time he located his 14-year-old cousin Sandra, it was too late. She had drowned because she didn’t know how to swim.

He held her lifeless body floating on his chest with a life vest propped behind his neck for what he estimates was 25 hours before he and other survivors, including the rest of his family, were rescued by fishermen and brought back to Libya.

“I didn’t even know I was rescued because I was so tired,” he says. “My eyes were just seeing white. I wasn’t seeing any more because of the sea, the salt. I was so tired.” Prince and his family were never able to bury Sandra because he says her body was stolen by people smugglers.

In Libya, a fisherman from The Gambia taught him how to use a compass, and on his final voyage, he was the navigator, telling the boat captain in which direction to steer. Their boat was intercepted by a rescue boat off the coast of Lampedusa. “The journey is not something I would wish upon my worst enemy,” he says, shaking his head. The rest of his family, who had gone ahead separately, went to different parts of Italy and Austria.

Prince tried to live with his sister-in-law in Austria, but when the authorities threatened to deport him, he was brought back to Italy, where his asylum case was pending. His flight landed him in Venice. He doesn’t know why.

Life in Italy has been hard, he says. His father had warned him about living as an immigrant, telling him before he left, “It’s better to be a free man in your own country than a slave abroad.” Prince is starting to agree with him. When he was evicted from his apartment, he was homeless for seven months, sleeping on friends’ couches and in a garage.

For him, there’s nothing special to Venice. “All I do is go to work and come home, go to work, come home,” he says. If he could do it all again, he says, he would have stayed in Nigeria.

These days, he has a new job, but it is an exhausting night shift with a long commute that cuts into the time he has to make music. To save money, he has learned to subsist on one meal a day and has stopped painting, another favourite hobby. The choir is the only time he enjoys himself. “When I’m singing with them, I’m always smiling,” he says, “because that’s the only time I can be myself.”

By the time Cuco arrived at Dodger Stadium on a recent Tuesday evening, thousands of fans were already lined up outside the venue’s gates, waiting to be let in.

Though the matchup against the Arizona Diamondbacks wouldn’t begin for another two hours, these Doyer diehards made their way to Chavez Ravine early to catch the pre-game festivities. It was Mexican Heritage Night, and the team had plenty of entertainment planned for the fanbase that Fernando Valenzuela built: a mini-concert by the legendary La Original Banda el Limón de Salvador Lizárraga; a lucha libre exhibition; and the throwing of the ceremonial first pitch by Chavo Guerrero Jr., scion of the storied Mexican American Guerrero wrestling clan.

Luchadores perform in the outfield during Mexican Heritage Night at Dodger Stadium.

(Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times)

To complete this hodgepodge of a cultural celebration, the Dodgers also asked Cuco to sing the national anthem, a fitting invitation given that the 26-year-old Inglewood-born and Hawthorne-raised artist, whose real name is Omar Banos, had just put out “Ridin’” (released May 9 via Interscope Records). The LP, his third, is an 11-track gem of L.A. Mexican Americana dripping with the ageless sounds of Chicano soul.

Donning a team cap, a long white tee, black shorts, Dodger blue Nike SB Dunk Lows and his trademark glasses, Cuco walked into the stadium entrance reserved for suite-level ticketholders accompanied by his manager and a social content creator. Despite a heat wave that raised that day’s temperatures into the high 80s, a black Dodgers windbreaker that he planned to wear later in the evening hung around his neck. Pinned to it was a button that contained a portrait of Jaime Mendoza, his late maternal grandfather.

“My grandpa was big on the Dodgers,” Cuco said, noting that it was because of him that his whole family rooted for the Boys in Blue.

Cuco wears a pin with his grandfather Jaime Mendoza’s picture at Dodger Stadium.

(Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times)

As Cuco is escorted through the concrete bowels of Dodger Stadium by a pair of team publicists taking him to sound check, fans spot him and excitedly call out his name. Some even approach him for a selfie. When asked if he often gets recognized in public, the singer-songwriter chuckled.

“Yeah, if there’s a lot of Latinos around,” he quipped. “I’m always going to say yes to a photo. I’m never going to turn them down.”

It’s cliché for any artist to say that they’d be nothing without their fans, but this adage rings particularly true when it comes to Cuco. His loyal supporters, dubbed the “Cuco Puffs,” turned a former precocious marching band geek into a bonafide indie pop star.

He began his career in the mid-2010s by uploading Spanglish lo-fi love songs recorded in his childhood bedroom to Soundcloud and Bandcamp. Dreamy, synth-heavy ballads like “Lover Is a Day” (off of his first mixtape, 2016’s “Wannabewithu”) and “Lo Que Siento” (released as a single in 2017) quickly connected with countless bicultural, Gen Z Latinos, racking up millions of streams in the process. By the time Cuco started performing at backyard shows, he had packed crowds singing every lyric back at him.

Such was the hype around him that several labels got into a two-year bidding war to sign the unlikely teen idol with a ready-made fan base.

Cuco sings the national anthem before the Dodgers game.

(Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times)

“I don’t need a label. The labels mostly need me,” Cuco told The Times in 2017. “Like, in no cocky way, the reality of it is labels stay up because of the artists.”

When Interscope finally won out in 2019, it was on the artist’s terms — Cuco inked a seven-figure deal that allowed him to retain ownership of his music and gave him the creative freedom to do what he wanted. He was 20 at the time.

That summer, he released his debut album, “Para Mi,” a notable first effort that paired a blissful sound — inspired by a slew of genres, including psychedelic rock, bossa nova, pop and quiet storm R&B — with lyrics that touched on loneliness and substance abuse (“Take this and fly away till the substance numbs the pain,” he sings in “Ego Death in Thailand”). The album’s first single, “Hydrocodone,” is a nod to the pain medication he was on after being involved in a near-fatal car crash while out on tour in 2018.

This March, Cuco celebrated three years of sobriety.

The year 2022 saw the release of “Fantasy Gateway,” an ambitious concept album heavily inspired by psych rockers Tame Impala that takes the listener to another dimension, featuring notable collaborations with artists like Mexico’s indie darling Bratty and fellow sadboi romántico DannyLux. “Sitting in the Corner,” recorded with música Mexicana crooner Adriel Favela and country singer Kacey Musgraves, is a space pop ranchera that yearns for a lover who has left.

“It’s the vibe, man,” he says of the musicians he chooses to work with. “It’s not really about artists being big or not. It’s just if I get along with them and they have cool ideas and it aligns with my personality.”

With “Ridin’,” Cuco delivers his most mature album to date. Produced by Thomas Brenneck (Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings, Mark Ronson, Amy Winehouse), the record is a neo-Chicano soul instant classic that pays tribute to the likes of Brenton Wood, Al Green and Smokey Robinson — soul and R&B artists from the ’60s and ’70s whose music has been adopted by lowrider and Chicano culture — all while maintaining that distinct Cuco sound, a perfect marriage between the old and the new.

The album’s opener, “ICNBYH” (an abbrevation of “I Could Never Break Your Heart”), would be at home in an “East Side Story” mixtape compilation. Cuco’s psychedelia roots are most apparent in songs like “Ridin’,” a track that feels like you’re cruising on a spaceship down Whittier Boulevard.

“I couldn’t really try to make something that sounded exactly like [Chicano soul]. I was hoping to embody that timelessness, but I had to work in the most authentic way possible so that it felt that way,” he said.

“I wanted to go for more natural sounds with the soul sound, but I think it’s just inevitable for me sometimes. I’m just going to end up doing some psychedelic parts with the music because that’s what I’ve always been.”

“Ridin’” is an album of the summer contender for anyone whose idea of summer means hanging out at the beach with all your friends — this exact scenario describes the music video for the album’s first single, “My 45,” which stars Mexican American actress Xochitl Gomez as a femme fatale.

And while the LP is teeming with enough vehicular references to make Bruce Springsteen jealous (the cover shows Cuco sitting on top of his 1989 Toyota Supra), Cuco says “Ridin’” isn’t strictly meant for the car.

“I’m hoping that [“Ridin’”] is something that’s interpreted however the listener chooses to interpret it, whether they’re ridin’ in your car, ridin’ for somebody or just ridin’ through life,” he says.

After sound check, Cuco made his way back to the suite level to wait for the rest of his party to arrive, which included his parents, Adolfo Banos and Irma Mendoza. The only child of immigrants, the artist has made it a point to share his success with them. Forgoing wearing anything in Dodger blue, the elder Banos donned a hoodie from his son’s latest tour. Mendoza showed up wearing a team hat and a striped shirt. Affixed to it was a button identical to her son’s. It was her idea; she had made them the night before.

Cuco gets a hug from his dad after singing the national anthem.

(Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times)

As it got closer to game time, the singer was ushered down to the field once again. It was showtime.

Cuco poses with his parents before singing the national anthem.

(Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times)

“Please stand and remove your hats for the singing of the national anthem,” the stadium announcer said over the P.A. system. “Joining us today is Cuco, indie pop star from Hawthorne!”

Cuco took a beat before singing “The Star-Spangled Banner” in his patented soft and mellow voice. His parents stood approximately 20 feet away, beaming with pride. After it was all over, the singer quickly made his way to them, and was met with smiles and hugs.

A minute later, a production assistant grabs Cuco for his final obligation of the night. He’s handed a microphone and is escorted back to where he performed the national anthem. He’s met by a congregation of luchadores who will act as a chorus as he delivers the phrase popularized by the legendary broadcaster Vin Scully — “It’s time for Dodger baseball!”

In the fall, Cuco will go on a nationwide tour to promote the album — he’ll be performing at the Greek Theatre on Sept. 15. But right now it’s summer and he’s ridin’ with his loved ones, about to watch a game the Dodgers will end up winning 4-3 in extra innings.

There is no containing a star of Belinda’s caliber.

In the making of her fifth studio album “Indómita,” the Mexican singer and actor began to understand that what made her hard to contain — in life, in love and in her career — was worth writing an album about.

“I was reading a book and all of a sudden the word ‘indómita’ appeared,” says Belinda in an audio call from her home in Mexico City. “For two days, I kept dreaming of that word. ‘Indómita, Indómita,’” says Belinda during a recent audio call from her home in Mexico City.

Out on June 5, “Indómita” is an assortment of corridos tumbados, reggaeton, rock and pop ballads with exciting collaborations — ranging from the American rock band Thirty Seconds to Mars to Latin stars like Tokischa and Tito Double P.

“This album is very special, not just for women but for everyone who feels untameable, who feels strong, who feels like a warrior,” she explains.

The title directly translates to indomitable, or untameable, a term that seems to perfectly suit the 35-year-old artist, whose long and prosperous career made her an international household name.

Born in Madrid, Spain, as Belinda Peregrín Schüll, but known widely by her mononym, Belinda began her legacy in Mexican television, taking on lead roles in early 2000’s childhood telenovelas like “Amigos x siempre,” “Aventuras en el tiempo,” and “Cómplices Al Rescate,” where she played a set of twins who has been separated at birth. She also broke through the Disney sphere, appearing in the popular 2006 sequel of “The Cheetah Girls 2” as Marisol, a Spanish pop star and competitor of the titular girl band.

Belinda’s music career has been equally as fruitful, including a stint as a singing coach on the TV competition “La Voz” and dozens of hit singles, such as the popular “Amor a Primera Vista,” a 2020 collaboration with Los Ángeles Azules and Lalo Ebratt. Her previous studio albums, 2003’s “Belinda,” 2006’s “Utopía,” 2010’s “Carpe Diem” and 2013’s “Catarsis” have all graced Billboard’s Top Latin Albums chart.

Her new LP marks a personal artistic triumph for the artist, given its unique regional Mexican edge. “300 Noches,” her 2024 corrido track with Natanael Cano, made No. 4 on the Mexican Billboard pop chart and appeared on the Billboard Global 200, making it Belinda’s first appearance on the chart. Other corridos tumbados, like the rugged “La Cuadrada” featuring Tito Double P and the blistering “Mírame Feliz” with Xavi, unleash a new alter ego of the famed singer known as “Beli bélica,” the latter of which means “warrior” in Spanish.

“With this album, I’d like to open up the door to more women to sing corridos tumbados of heartache,” says Belinda.

The record is already scorching hot, with songs like “Cactus” making a subtle, prickly nod to her past relationship with Mexican crooner Christian Nodal, who famously tattooed her eyes on his chest. There’s also the reggaeton-corrido fusion called “La Mala,” which coyly addresses the rumors that Belinda is a cold, calculated lover — which heightened in the wake of her high-profile relationship.

Still, her notoriety as a heartbreaker has simultaneously granted her sainthood status from fans, who created fake prayer cards of the enchanting star to bolster their own love life.

“This album was made up of things that we live every day,” says Belinda. “Someone breaks our heart, we feel better, we fall in love, they break our heart again and so forth. Life is like that.”

But “Indómita” is much more than Belinda’s foray into regional Mexican music; there’s also “Jackpot,” a dazzling club alongside Kenia Os, a tribute to lightning-fast cars in “Rayo McQueen” — and even her love of anime in “Death Note.”

“I’m a versatile artist and this record reflects that,” says Belinda.

This interview has been edited and shortened for clarity.

What motivated you to release this album over a decade after your last one, “Catarsis”?
I know it might seem like it’s been a long time, but I never left. I’ve always been involved in music. I’ve done collaborations with Los Ángeles Azules, “Amor a Primera Vista,” that was super popular, with Ana Mena in “Las 12,” Lola Indigo and Tiny in “La Niña de la Escuela,” with Juan Magán and Lapiz Conciente in “Si No Te Quisiera.”

I’ve made a lot of music, but obviously this record means so much to me. It’s not the same to work on collaborations and music for other artists as it is to do it for myself. The album is full of collaborations with Thirty Seconds to Mars, who are one of my favorite bands of all time. It also has Kenia Os, Tito Double P, Neton Vega, who’s a hard-hitting act in the world of reggaeton and corridos tumbados, and Natanael Cano, who I can’t forget either. It’s a complete album, with lots of different styles.

Many of the songs on this album are corridos tumbados. Why did you dive into that style of music?
It’s a really stigmatized genre, and a genre that is specifically for men and for certain kinds of lyrics. I wanted to break that [idea] and say that instruments used — like the trombone, the alto horn, tololoche — aren’t just for men or for specific lyrics or a specific market. There can be more romantic lyrics, a mixing of sounds like pop with urban music. The challenge was also getting my collaborators to believe in this too, since they are used to other topics, but everyone trusted me and believed in the song[s] since the beginning and it was organic.

Tell me more about your collaborations. What did you learn from them and what did you teach them?
They’re so talented and play instruments very well, especially Natanael Cano — you can tell him to play any instrument. He’s very talented. We were in the studio and he started to play a Metallica song and I was like, “Wow!” Although we might pigeonhole them into this genre, they’re very versatile and talented. I admire them.

One of the singles of this album, “Cactus,” talks about your feelings toward an ex. How did it feel to release your emotions? And would you say that it helped you heal, as the song suggests?
I love healing through music. The first phrase of the song goes: “Therapy helps, but music heals more bad-ass.” Perhaps I couldn’t express with words what I can through music. As a composer we express our emotions through our lyrics. But it’s also important that people remember that not everything is based on experiences. It’s music so that people can identify themselves in love or heartache. I never mention anyone by name, but people can make their own conclusions or deductions. At the end of the day, I make music for people who can relate to the lyrics.

You’ve been in the spotlight for so many years. Do you believe there are two Belindas that exist? As in, one that is for the public and one that’s just for close family members?
Of course, I can guarantee it. There’s also a song where I express that idea that many times people have categorized me as a bad character, “La Mala.” At the end of the day, I know who I am and the people around me know the heart that I have — my feelings and intentions, my day-to-day. That’s what counts for me. If I paid attention to every comment [people made of me], my God, I’d be locked up in a room without an exit, which sometimes does happen to me.

How do you tune out those outside critics?
I try not to see these things. Sometimes it’s inevitable but I’m also not going deep into the web to find what people are saying. I do other more productive things that nourish me.

Obviously it hurts, because even if certain comments are not true, they still hurt because they carry negative energy. I don’t want to give into these comments as truth, but that energy of negativity or insult or humiliation or anything that comes from a negative side, obviously has a consequence. So one has to be careful about how they express themselves, because there’s so much negativity that exists, so it would be nice if we could just throw a bit more of love.

I heard you’re a big anime fan, and you show that in your song “Death Note.” Why was it important to include that?
I’m [an] otaku, even if people don’t believe it. I really like anime. I’m a fan of “One Piece,” “Death Note,” everything, “Attack on Titan,” but “Death Note” is my favorite. It’s pretty dark, but Ryuk is one of my favorite characters in life. I’ve always been a fan of terror, because within the darkness, there’s always some light.

You were born in Spain but were raised in Mexico. How have you navigated both identities?
I can’t pick one or the other, but I’ve always considered myself Mexican, because I was raised in Mexico and my accent is Mexican. I’m very, very much Latina.

What advice would you give your younger self?
Don’t take everything so personally and enjoy life. When I was little, I would think too much about what the world thought. I was always like, “do you like it? Oh you don’t, why?” and I would suffer. And now if I like it, OK, and if no one else likes it, then too bad, I like it!

Eight Mile Style, a company that owns some of Eminem’s most popular songs, is suing social media giant Meta over alleged copyright infringement.

The lawsuit, filed in a federal court in Michigan, accuses the Menlo Park-based tech company of storing, reproducing and distributing Eminem’s music without obtaining the license to do so.

Eight Mile Style, which is based in Ferndale, Mich., is seeking at least $109 million from Meta and a court order to stop several alleged forms of copyright infringement.

Music is a big part of social media. On Meta’s platforms such as Facebook and Instagram, people add music in photos and videos they share publicly or with their friends and family.

But the way social media has changed the way people listen to and discover new songs has also sparked concerns from artists about whether they’re fairly compensated.

“Meta’s years-long and ongoing infringement of the Eight Mile Compositions is another case of a trillion (with a ‘T’) dollar company exploiting the creative efforts of musical artists for the obscene monetary benefit of its executives and shareholders without a license and without regard to the rights of the owners of the intellectual property,” the lawsuit said.

Meta said in a statement that it has licenses with thousands of partners globally and an “extensive” global licensing programs for music on its platforms.

“Meta had been negotiating in good faith with Eight Mile Style, but rather than continue those discussions, Eight Mile Style chose to sue,” the company said in an email.

Eight Mile Style owns and controls 243 compositions recorded by Eminem, a rapper and music producer that has created popular hits such as “Lose Yourself.” Meta did remove some of these songs including “Lose Yourself” from its music libraries, but other versions of the music including a piano instrumental cover and a karaoke version still remain on the platform, according to the lawsuit.

Meta not only allowed users who upload these songs to infringe on copyright but knowingly stored and reproduced them in its music libraries so users can use the music in videos and photos, the lawsuit alleges. Users have added Eminem’s music in millions of videos that have been viewed billions of times, according to the lawsuit.

Meta also unsuccessfully tried to obtain a license for Eminem’s songs as part of negotiations with the digital music royalty company Audiam even though the firm didn’t have the authority to give them that license.

“Meta executives have actively encouraged such rampant infringement in order to attract as many users as possible to, among other things, make advertising on their services more profitable for themselves,” the lawsuit said.

More than 3 billion people use one of Meta’s apps daily, and the company makes billions of dollars every quarter from advertising.

In the first three months of this year, Meta’s revenue reached $42.31 billion, an increase of 16% year-over-year. The company’s net income jumped by 35% to $16.6 billion in the first quarter.

This isn’t the first time Meta has faced legal issues over the use of Eminem’s music. In 2013, Eight Mile Style sued Facebook, alleging the social network used the Eminem song “Under the Influence” for an ad without their consent.

“Dystopian” TV may seem ubiquitous, but not all dystopias look the same. We asked the creatives behind several series — totalitarian, postapocalyptic or both — to explain how they bring the term to life.

‘The Boys’: Normalized dystopia

A scene from the Vought on Ice performance in “The Boys” Season 4.

(Jasper Savage / Prime Video)

“Dystopia, by definition, suggests an imagined society in which suffering and injustice are normalized. The people in that society are meant to believe their leaders and heroes are always right and working in their interest no matter how evil their values are or how horrifying their behavior,” says Mark Steel, the production designer for the comedy-drama about controlling capitalist overlords (and the outsiders who want to bring them down).

“One of the principal rules for the look of ‘The Boys’ world was to stay close to the recognizable visual language of American media and culture today,” Steel says.

The show uses everything from patriotic rallies to kids’ puppet shows to an ice-skating performance branded with the name of the omnipresent corporation Vought International to parallel real life.

“I think absurdity is most effective and funniest when it is set against normalcy,” Steel says. “We were able to build the Vought on Ice show in a real professional arena at real scale with skaters, costumes and music. The genius of the piece was how far we could facilitate the performance before all hell breaks loose.”

‘The Handmaid’s Tale’: Manicured dystopia

A scene from “The Handmaid’s Tale.”

(Steve Wilkie / Disney)

“The Handmaid’s Tale’s” Season 6 co-showrunner Yahlin Chang says the word “dystopia” usually connotes overgrown trees and disaster zones. In her show, the slave slate known as Gilead is a veneer of perfection that’s fooling no one, “like a cake with a razor blade in it,” she says.

“Our dystopia has always been very beautiful to look at … because it was meant to sort of clean up the horrible modern world from before where women weren’t having babies and where the environment had collapsed,” she says.

The homes of the elite commanders and their families are pristine and conservative. Everyone else’s surroundings are worn and muddied. But the last two seasons have introduced a new concept: color. Bradley Whitford’s Cmdr. Lawrence, the brainiac who masterminded Gilead, has designed New Bethlehem, a supposed safe haven for anyone who escaped his country’s oppression to return and live out a Mayberry-like existence. So production designer Elisabeth Williams and her team went all in on white picket fences and manicured lawns.

“It’s meant to be the kinder, gentler version of Gilead and it has a deliberately beautiful, pristine sheen on the surface,” says co-showrunner Eric Tuchman. “It feels artificial and sterile, with a kind of a theme-park vibe to it. It doesn’t feel quite real.”

‘The Last of Us’: Dystopian or postapocalyptic?

A scene from “The Last of Us” Season 2.

(Liane Hentscher / HBO)

“The Last of Us” is set after an outbreak has wiped out much of human existence. Because of this, Season 2 production designer Don Macaulay says his show also has to try to define “postapocalyptic,” another term that, he says, “can, visually, be a million different things.” The creators referenced the video game his show is based on, as well as real-world places that saw mass destruction, like the area around the Chernobyl nuclear power plant.

“There is a certain amount of violence associated with it and destruction associated with it,” Macaulay says of this world. “But, for the most part, it’s really nature taking over again and what that looks like in various environments. … There’s places in our story that haven’t been touched by humans in decades.”

This consideration of the time scale of dystopia and apocalypse led to conversations about when the world in the show “ended” — and if that matched the events in the game. Bella Ramsey’s lead Ellie is a music aficionado. But how far back does that record collection go?

“People who get really into the minutiae may point out that there are a couple of instances … where we bent those rules a little bit,” Macaulay says. The show premiered 10 years after the game launched, “so there are things in the game that became fairly iconic that wouldn’t have been around in our timeline.”

‘Paradise’: A childlike vision

Actors Aliyah Mastin, left, Sterling K. Brown and Percy Daggs IV at the entrance to the bunker in “Paradise.”

(Brian Roedel / Disney)

More “Brave New World” than “1984,” “Paradise” is largely set after an environmental disaster, focusing on a group of survivors who live in an underground bunker that looks like the Grove shopping mall.

Production designer Kevin Bird says some of the first conversations he had with creator Dan Fogelman and others involved designing a “completely different experience from a show about a bunker that’s postapocalyptic and living in a rusty tower. We wanted the feeling of the town to be that idyllic, too-perfect way [that is] really just a way of distracting” characters from what’s really happening.

Here, he explains, essentials like food, clothing and housing are provided for everyone — “Just don’t stray too far from the path.”

Bird was aided by an early episode in which it’s made clear that billionaire Samantha Redmond (Julianne Nicholson) built the bunker as an ode to her deceased son; it’s what a child would create if instructed to make a perfect town.

“What was motivating her was to protect the rest of her family as long as possible,” Bird says.

‘Silo’: An aging dystopia

Avi Nash in “Silo.”

(Apple TV+)

The “Silo” bunker may be the future “Paradise’s” Samantha is attempting to avoid. In this show, production designer Nicole Northridge says, “The people have lived here for 350 years [and] they’re under no illusion that it’s a perfect world.” They just don’t know how to escape and, because it’s supposed to be set after a postapocalyptic event, they don’t know what’s waiting for them if they do.

The silo in “Silo” was designed in Season 1 by then-production designer Gavin Bocquet. Northridge says it was meant to have an “Eastern European socialist look, which is very functional, very austere.” Since this story starts centuries after the original inhabitants enter the bunker, she says, “Everything within the silo is essentially, when we come to it, reused, recycled and quite a bespoke make.”

But Season 2 introduces another silo, this one with graffiti and wall carvings. It also had flooded caverns. Northridge and her team had to research how concrete ages while submerged; the effects team built a giant chlorinated water tank. (The crew would sometimes go swimming in it after they wrapped for the day.)

When Domingo Hindoyan, the Venezuelan chief conductor of the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, made his debut with L.A. Opera last November with “Roméo et Juliette,” Times classical music critic Mark Swed called it “a coup for the company.” Swed also wondered if it was a “signal that he is a candidate to succeed Music Director James Conlon, who steps down in 2026?”

It turns out Swed was right.

On Friday, L.A. Opera announced that Hindoyan has been named the company’s Richard Seaver Music Director. He will succeed Conlon, the longtime music director who joined the company in 2006 and announced last year that he will step down at the end of the 2026 season. Conlon will take on the newly created role of conductor laureate.

In a statement, Hindoyan said he was deeply honored to become only the third music director in the company’s nearly 40-year history. “From the first rehearsal, I felt a strong connection to the extraordinary musicians, staff, and spirit of this company,” he said. “It is a privilege to follow Maestro James Conlon, whose legacy has shaped L.A. Opera into what it is today — a dynamic and ambitious institution.”

After considering “dozens” of candidates from around the world, L.A. Opera President and CEO Christopher Koelsch said he was “struck by the fluidity of his technique and the clarity and command of his musical ideas” after seeing Hindoyan at the Berlin State Opera in 2016. “His deeply collaborative nature and generous spirit in rehearsal make him a favorite among singers, who are inspired by the space he creates for musical risk-taking and expressive freedom.” Koelsch also praised Hindoyan’s “deep rapport with musicians and audiences alike.”

Hindoyan, 45, is originally from Caracas, Venezuela, and began his career as a violinist. Like departing Los Angeles Philharmonic Music Director Gustavo Dudamel, he attended Venezuela’s renowned public music education program known as El Sistema.

In addition to his role as chief conductor of the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, a role he has held since 2021, Hindoyan has served as principal guest conductor for the Polish National Radio Symphony Orchestra; he has conducted opera productions at New York City’s Metropolitan Opera, Lyric Opera of Chicago, Berlin State Opera, Vienna State Opera, Paris Opera, Royal Swedish Opera, Dresden Semperoper, Madrid’s Teatro Real and Barcelona’s Gran Teatre del Liceu.

In a statement, Conlon said he was happy to pass the baton to someone who shares his passion for opera.

“Domingo is an artist of exceptional depth and imagination, and I know the company will welcome him warmly,” Conlon said.

Hindoyan’s five-year contract will begin July 1, 2026, and continue through the 2031 season. According to a Facebook post from Hindoyan, the new role in L.A. will run concurrently with his position with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra.

Hindoyan, son of Venezuelan violinist Domingo Garcia, a former president of the Orquesta Sinfónica Venezuela, is married to the soprano Sonya Yoncheva, who’s singing at the Metropolitan Opera in Tchaikovsky’s “The Queen of Spades.” (Performances are scheduled on Wednesday and Saturday.) The couple has two children and lives in Switzerland.

In late April, the album “Tchaikovsky: Souvenir de Florence & Symphony No. 6 ‘Pathetique,’” from Hindoyan and the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, was released.

It’s all (Taylor’s Version) now.

Taylor Swift announced Friday that she had reacquired the rights to her early recordings, six years after music executive Scooter Braun bought her old record label (and with it, control of Swift’s first six studio albums).

Braun’s 2019 purchase of the Nashville-based Big Machine company — whose Swift holdings he later sold for a reported $300 million — inspired Swift’s massively successful “(Taylor’s Version)” campaign, in which the 35-year-old pop megastar has been meticulously re-recording each of those LPs in an effort to replace the originals in the marketplace.

“All I’ve ever wanted was the opportunity to work hard enough to be able to one day purchase my music outright with no strings attached, no partnership, with full autonomy,” Swift wrote Friday on her website after posting a photo on social media of herself surrounded by those early albums.

“I will be forever grateful to everyone at Shamrock Capital for being the first people to ever offer this to me,” she continued. “The way they’ve handled every interaction has been honest, fair, and respectful. This was a business deal to them, but I really felt like they saw it for what it was to me: My memories and my sweat and my handwriting and my decades of dreams. I am endlessly thankful.”

Last week, the New York Post’s Page Six reported that Braun — who once managed Swift’s nemesis Kanye West and whom Swift has accused of bullying her — was “encouraging” the new deal between the singer and Shamrock Capital, the L.A.-based investment firm that bought the rights to Swift’s early music from Braun in 2020. Yet a source close to the contract negotiations, who requested anonymity to discuss a sensitive topic, rebutted that claim.

“All rightful credit for this opportunity should go to the partners at Shamrock Capital and Taylor’s Nashville-based management team only,” the source told The Times. “Taylor now owns all of her music, and this moment finally happened in spite of Scooter Braun, not because of him.”

Shamrock was founded in 1978 by the late Roy E. Disney, a nephew of Walt Disney; Swift has struck several deals with the Disney company in recent years, including her decision to make a 2023 concert movie available to stream on Disney+.

The New York Post reported that Swift paid Shamrock between $600 million and $1 billion for the rights to her albums, a price range The Times’ source described as “highly inaccurate.”

Through a representative, Braun said on Friday: “I am happy for her.”

The pop star also provided an update on “Reputation (Taylor’s Version)” in her Friday note.

“[I]t’s the one album in those first 6 that I thought couldn’t be improved upon by redoing it. Not the music, or the photos or videos. So I kept putting it off,” she said of the anticipated redo, which will follow earlier “(Taylor’s Version)” updates of her albums “Fearless,” “Red,” “Speak Now” and “1989.” “There will be a time (if you’re into the idea) for the unreleased Vault tracks from that album to hatch,” she added.

Swift said she had “already completely re-recorded” her self-titled debut album, which she released in 2006 at age 16, and “really love[s] how it sounds now.”

The original “Reputation” followed a public feud with West and his then-wife, Kim Kardashian, that reshaped Swift’s established image as the girl next door: “My reputation’s never been worse,” she told a new love interest in the song “Delicate,” “So you must like me for me.” The LP found the singer — who had described 2014’s “1989” as her first “official pop album” — dabbling in sounds and textures borrowed from hip-hop and R&B; the song “End Game” even featured a guest verse from the rapper Future.

“Reputation” earned a Grammy nomination for pop vocal album, though it famously missed a nod for album of the year after Swift had scored three earlier nominations in that category. In 2024, the singer became the first artist to win album of the year four times when “Midnights” took the prize; Swift’s latest project, “The Tortured Poets Department,” was nominated for album of the year at February’s ceremony, but Beyoncé’s “Cowboy Carter” won.

Friday’s announcement came around six months after the finale of Swift’s blockbuster Eras tour, which launched in March 2023 and ran for 149 shows across five continents. The tour is said to be the highest-grossing of all time, with ticket sales in the neighborhood of $2 billion.

And in case anyone was unclear about how much this deal with Shamrock Capital means to Swift, she laid it out pretty clearly in her note.

“My first tattoo,” she wrote, “might just be a huge shamrock in the middle of my forehead.”

THEY say age is just a number – but how old you feel does not correlate to the number of candles on your birthday cake. 

A new study found 36 years old is the age when most of us notice we are no longer in the first flush of youth.

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But there are plenty of ways to continue to feel young at heart. 

Here Laura Stott suggests ways to turn back time in a flash, whatever your age . . .  

CHALLENGE YOURSELF

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Whether it’s a fun run, starting dance lessons or walking 10,000 steps a day, set a target that is achievable. 

Completing a task that stretches your capabilities has been shown to build confidence and provide a sense of accomplishment, which makes us feel more youthful.

Feeling physically fitter puts a youthful spring in your step, too. 

SAY CHEESE

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Forget Botox or going under the knife, if you want to take decades off in an instant, then just smile more.

Research has found that people with happy faces are perceived as younger than they are, and also feel it. 

One study found that images of cheery faces were considered much to be more youthful-looking than those with neutral expressions. 

PUT ON RECORDS YOU LOVED IN YOUR YOUTH

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Whether these are rave tunes or power ballads might depend on how many decades have passed – and whether you first heard them on CD, vinyl or cassette.  

But whatever, listening to those songs can turn back the years in your mind. 

Studies show that favourite sounds activate a region of the brain linked to autobiographical memories. 

HAVE MORE SEX

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Making love can leave you looking and feeling five years younger, according to one study. 

The research, for the charity Age UK, revealed that keeping busy between the sheets makes older adults both look and feel years younger.

Experts believe this is because sex releases feelgood hormones, endorphins. Another UK study even found that regular sex can make you look up to seven years younger. 

STAND UP STRAIGHT

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As we get older, practising good posture is a proven way to look and feel younger.

Keeping your spine tall, shoulders down and core strong will stop your skeleton from looking outwardly old, by preventing stooping or sagging.

It can make us feel more confident which also turns back the clock cognitively. 

Whether sitting, standing or walking, pay attention to posture, to harness its instant anti-ageing benefits. 

TRY NEW FOODS

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If you always eat the same foods, change things up a bit. 

Whether that means a cuisine you’ve never tasted, at a new restaurant, or just varying your mealtime routine, these new experiences should make you feel open-minded.

Even if you don’t enjoy the flavours, breaking a dietary rut should make you feel younger. 

STAY ORGANISED

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From filing your paperwork, to sorting your wardrobe, good housekeeping has been proven to make people feel younger. 

Researchers in 2019 concluded that the more ordered people’s homes were, the more youthful they felt – with a structured environment boosting their optimism and improving memory, even longevity. 

GET SOME KIP

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Studies show that tiredness from a lack of quality shut-eye can make us feel ten years older. 

Participants who did not have sufficient sleep reported feeling older than their real age. 

In contrast, research in Sweden, at Stockholm University, found that being well rested can make us feel up to four years younger. 

YOUNG AT HEART

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Embracing a youthful mindset can also work wonders. 

Don’t dismiss activities or opportunities as not being for you because of your age – challenge those ideas.  

Whether it’s downloading TikTok, a new hobby or wearing this summer’s latest trend, remain curious about new things – whatever your age. 

How to reverse ageing in just 2 weeks, according to royal go-to nutritionist

LONDON -based Gabriela Peacock, who has helped the likes of Prince Harry and Princess Eugenie prepare for their weddings.

She told Fabulous: “The science is evident that we all have the power to make simple life changing alterations to better our future selves – no matter what genetic hand we might have been dealt with.

“The reality is, we all sometimes indulge in unhealthy eating habits like processed foods, smoking cigarettes, drinking too much alcohol, inhaling city pollutants, and even drinking water from plastic bottles – none of this is good for us. 

“All this does is promote the ageing process, but we all have the potential to change this.”

It may be hard, but try to keep away from sugary carbohydrates, because they feed chronic inflammation, which is one of the worst enemies of reversing ageing. 

Now only will you end up putting on weight if you consume them regularly, but your energy and hormonal levels will be affected and this will influence how you look and feel.

Whatever your age or state of health, it’s never too late to reverse how quickly you are ageing and embrace the energy and vigour of a younger you.

Antioxidants, such as vitamins A, C, and E, are essential in neutralising free radicals—the culprits behind premature ageing. 

Integrating a spectrum of colourful fruits and vegetables into your diet provides a potent source of antioxidants.

Omega-3 fatty acids, abundant in fatty fish like salmon and flaxseeds, are vital for maintaining skin elasticity and hydration. 

Omega-3s act as nourishment for your skin, locking in moisture and diminishing fine lines and wrinkles. 

Collagen, a structural protein dwindling with age, can be replenished through collagen-rich foods like bone broth and lean protein sources. 

What Felix Mallard has grown to appreciate about living in L.A. is that there’s a pocket of town to match every vibe — even if that vibe is “Aussie,” which his proudly is, having moved from Melbourne seven years ago.

“There are a lot of places that remind me of home,” says the 27-year-old actor, who plays tough-shelled Marcus in Netflix’s “Ginny & Georgia,” which returns for its third season next week. “The coastal cities and certainly some parts of Silver Lake and Echo Park feel very Melbourne. They feel very hipster. I mean, that word has changed so much — I don’t know if bohemian is the right word either. But there’s a sense of wanting to engage with good food, good coffee and good art. That kind of thing is very important to people from Melbourne.”

In Sunday Funday, L.A. people give us a play-by-play of their ideal Sunday around town. Find ideas and inspiration on where to go, what to eat and how to enjoy life on the weekends.

As he carves his own space in Los Angeles, Mallard has been captivating Gen Z audiences with his nuanced roles, ones that tend to resonate with young men amid all of the distinct pressures they face. Last year, he starred in the romantic drama “Turtles All the Way Down,” the film adaptation of John Green’s young adult novel that explores the complexities of obsessive-compulsive disorder. He’s now set to headline “Nest,” a movie about a young family whose home is invaded by deadly arachnids. (“It’s a quiet meditation on masculinity and being a father, wrapped up in a really fun spider horror movie,” he explains. “A real one-two punch.”)

For Mallard, a perfect Sunday in L.A. involves surfing (a must), playing music loudly (he knows his way around the guitar, bass, piano and drums) and trekking from West L.A. to the Eastside in the name of adventure. Here’s a play by play.

This interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.

5:30 a.m.: Chase the waves
I’d get up early and have a surf. The funny thing with surfing in L.A. is that you have to go where the waves are good. So it could be anywhere — Manhattan Beach, Hermosa Beach, Huntington Beach, Malibu or Ventura. You’ve got to check the Surfline app and kind of know the seasons as well, like how winter brings north swells and summer brings south swells. But it’s a guessing game. You kind of throw a dart and follow it, you know? There’s a nice crew of Aussies, Kiwis and Americans. We all try and surf together, which is really sweet.

8 a.m.: Post-surf burritos
Now I’ll probably be in a raggedy flannel top and some track pants and some Birkenstocks. Really just kind of half asleep. But it’s mandatory after a surf to get a breakfast burrito. There’s a really, really good place in Hermosa Beach called Brother’s Burritos. They don’t do the typical kind of massive breakfast burrito. Theirs come in two little bite-size burritos, which is perfect for breakfast, you know? And then there’s another place in West L.A. called Sachi.LA that’s just off the Culver loop. It’s a really cool, funky little coffee shop and cafe with a little record store next door — the perfect kind of vibe after having a surf and being in nature all morning. I really try to enjoy the peace that comes after that.

9:30 a.m.: Catch up on shows
I’m going home and catching up on the week’s shows. Right now, I’m really deep into “Hacks” — obsessed with it. I feel like I came to it quite late and I’ve had to make up for lost time. And I’m really, really loving “Everybody’s Live With John Mulaney,” and “Last Week Tonight With John Oliver.” I feel like if you’re going to check in with the news these days, it’s got to be in a format that’s digestible. I think John Oliver has a really great way of doing that, presenting the outrage and the absurdity in a fun context.

Noon: Try to find the joy of cooking
I’ve always found it such a challenge to see cooking as the expression of love that I know it is — I just haven’t had the inspiration. But Jamie Oliver’s books have really helped me because he explains recipes in a way that teach you the fundamentals. He’s got this cookbook, “One-Pan Wonders,” with an herb-y chicken tray bake that’s really simple. You can put the vegetables at the bottom of the tray — and a lot of rosemary and a lot of lemon — and put the chicken on the bars above the tray, so that when it cooks, the chicken fat drops into the vegetables and creates this really lovely flavor in the veggies. And then you finish it off with some lemon and olive oil. So that’s the one I think I can do. But if anyone has seen that recipe, they’ll know it’s the easiest one in the book, so I’m not trying to brag here.

1 p.m.: Get lost in the music
It’s always a struggle to get up off the couch, but once there’s been some food, I’m off to play some music. There was this beautiful, really fun, cheap, grungy rehearsal studio in Culver City called Exposition Studios. It would be, like, $25 or $30 an hour, and you could rent instruments and rent a room and just play as loud and as long as you want. It’s not there anymore, but there are a few other places like that around town. I’ve gone to Pirate Studios in West Adams a couple times, and just anywhere I can play some music, really, really loud.

I’ve got an EP of songs that I’m working my way through. It’s very grungy, very emotion-based. It’s probably quite angsty. There’s a lot of anger in there, and then I think maybe a lot of sadness. It’s touching on a lot of the uglier sides of our psyche that we all have.

4 p.m.: Car entertainment
Now we start preparing the journey east. Because it’s L.A., you can’t pretend that you’re not going to spend some part of your day in traffic. So a podcast is a must. I’ll be listening to Louis Theroux. I just love how he asks questions, how he kind of gives a space for his guests to either showcase who they are or maybe unknowingly reveal parts of themselves they may not even intend to. How he holds the space for that is quite impressive, and it’s a good distraction while you’re driving.

5 p.m.: Fuel up with burgers
We’re going to Burgerlords. They do a really simple menu. You can get a smashburger, I think a vegan burger, and something else, and they’ve got a really nice selection of craft beers. And it’s kind of like a redone version of a ‘50s diner inside.

7 p.m.: Let loose at a punk show
From there, we’ll go to Zebulon. I love it. I don’t see too many venues with an indoor-outdoor kind of space. They have a big garden, so you can go and take a break outside and then come back in and enjoy that change of pace. It’s one of my favorite spots in L.A. to go and watch music, for sure.

The last time I went, we saw the Spits. They’re, you know, really proper punks. And then another time, we saw a band called Spy, and they were supported by Fentanyl, Blood Stained Concrete and Yard, which is a Polish hardcore band. So any time we’re out there, it’s usually for a bit more of a hardcore kind of scene. And they’re the most fun gigs to go to. Everyone’s there to release some tension, some energy. The fans are always super, super, super die-hard fans.

Midnight: Straight to bed

I’ll make the trek home and tuck into bed. That’s usually about midnight. I’d like to say it’s earlier and that I’m, like, healthy, but I’m not.

Relatives of five members of the band Fugitivo, aged between 20 and 40, received ransom demands after their abduction.

Drug cartel members are suspected of murdering five Mexican band members, who went missing after being hired to perform a concert in a crime-ridden city in the northeast of the country.

The Diario de Mexico newspaper said on Thursday that the bodies of the five musicians had been discovered after they went missing on Sunday, and nine suspects were arrested in connection with their abduction and killing.

According to authorities, the nine suspects are part of the “Los Metros” faction of the Gulf Cartel, which operates in the city of Reynosa, in Tamaulipas state, near the United States border.

“Law enforcement arrested nine individuals considered likely responsible for the events. They are known to be members of a criminal cell of the Gulf Cartel,” Tamaulipas Attorney General Irving Barrios told a news conference.

Tamaulipas is considered one of Mexico’s most dangerous states due to the presence of cartel members involved in drug and migrant trafficking, as well as other crimes, including extortion.

The announcement of the arrests came hours after officials said five bodies had been found in the search for the men, who were members of a local band called Fugitivo.

The musicians were hired to put on a concert on Sunday but arrived to find that the location of their proposed performance was a vacant lot, according to family members who had held a protest urging the authorities to act.

Relatives had reported receiving ransom demands for the musicians, who were aged between 20 and 40 years old.

Mexican musicians have been targeted previously by cartel members amid rivalry, as some receive payment to compose and perform songs that glorify the exploits of gang leaders.

Investigators used video surveillance footage and mobile phone tracking to establish the musicians’ last movements, Barrios said.

Nine firearms and two vehicles were seized, he said.

More than 480,000 people have been killed in drug-related violence and organised crime, and about 120,000 people have gone missing, in Mexico.