Frannie Kelley
Frannie Kelley is co-host of the Microphone Check podcast with Ali Shaheed Muhammad.
Prior to hosting Microphone Check, Kelley was an editor at NPR Music. She was responsible for editing, producing and reporting NPR Music's coverage of hip-hop, R&B and the ways the music industry affects the music we hear, on the radio and online. She was also co-editor of NPR's music news blog, The Record.
Kelley worked at NPR from 2007 until 2016. Her projects included a series on hip-hop in 1993 and overseeing a feature on women musicians. She also ran another series on the end of the decade in music and web-produced the Arts Desk's series on vocalists, called 50 Great Voices. Most recently, her piece on Why You Should Listen to Odd Future was selected to be a part of the Best Music Writing 2012 Anthology.
Prior to joining NPR, Kelley worked in book publishing at Grove/Atlantic in a variety of positions from 2004 to 2007. She has a B.A. in Music Criticism from New York University.
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The rapper Drakeo the Ruler titled his latest album after the prison phone service provider GTL, whose lines he used to record it, leaving a trail to follow the money through a controversial industry. -
El-P and Killer Mike have always had their fingers on the pulse, and their fourth album once again captures the mood of a country on edge after George Floyd's death sparked national protests. -
Once part of Digable Planets, Butler continues to be a hip-hop innovator. He stays connected to new music through his son Jazz, who records as Lil Tracy. -
G Herbo came up in Chicago's drill scene — a style of music praised for its lack of affect and criticized for its portrayal of violence. But on his new album PTSD, he drops the mask and cries.
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The Buffalo, N.Y. trio sounds more like '90s street rap than modern hitmakers, but has found its way to success anyway: business co-signs from Jay-Z and Eminem and, this month, its major label debut. -
The rapper, who died suddenly in September at 26, built a community of musicians around him that crossed boundaries. Many of those artists showed up to memorialize Miller in concert last week. -
The 20-year-old started making viral videos; now, he has released his debut album. He owes his success, in part, to a social media-fueled youth culture revolution that prizes teen perspectives. -
The label and its founder, Sean "Diddy" Combs, helped to shape much of what we take for granted in pop culture. The new documentary Can't Stop Won't Stop tells Bad Boy's story. -
The prolific rapper and mentor recorded a song the day he got out of federal prison this May — and he's put out 10 projects this year. His secret? "Don't never drop your head," he says. -
The rapper has spent the year on an extended victory tour. Here are the spoils, recorded in a stripped-down set with a minimal backing track and longtime producer Zaytoven on keys.
