SPIN

May 17, 2012 – In 2009, sassy Baltimore Club MC Rye Rye, a then-recent addition to M.I.A.'s N.E.E.T. Recordings entourage, was set to release her debut album to an eagerly awaiting audience. Her work with Blaqstarr on earlier tracks like "Shake It to the Ground" and "Hands Up, Thumbs Down" (a version of which eventually morphed into M.I.A.'s "World Town") promised witty dance-floor provocations, hometown pride, and off-the-cuff jokes set to the tune of sweaty, fast club music. But then, after an unexpected pregnancy, Rye Rye told her fans that they would have to wait just a little big longer. Three years longer as it turns out. She's spent the time well. Released on May 15, Go! Bang! Pop! (Interscope) has benefited from the rapper's growing musical tastes, an arsenal of heavy-hitting producers, and the music scene's current embrace of melting-pot, rap-meets-pop open-mindedness.

April 9, 2012 – On Friday night, three days after the postponed release of her sophomore album Pink Friday: Roman Reloaded, Nicki Minaj performed a surprise three-song show in Manhattan's Times Square. For an album that went straight to the top of the charts, it's been interestingly polarizing in both content and reception; inside Minaj is a thespian, a sugary pop goddess, and a fierce rapper, all while repping for the girls in her home-borough of Queens and cutting down claims of selling out. The latter made the night's show that much more surreal, as her small stage stood bathing in the glow of Manhattan's brightest LCD screens. The massive, looming constructions flashed advertisements for Broadway shows, The New Girl, tourist packages and a screaming, logo-emblazoned backdrop courtesy of the night's sponsor, Nokia.

January 30, 2012 – Wednesday night, moviegoers at 200 theaters in the U.S. will get a look at Chemical Brothers: Don't Think, a documentary directed by the Chemical Brothers' longtime visual collaborator Adam Smith that captures the massive chaos of the big beat duo's live show — specifically, an appearance at Japan's Fuji Rock festival through the lenses of 20 cameras amid 50,000 party-goers. The music from this particular live set is fantastic, though that's kind of a given. As for what's captured onscreen during the 80-minute ride through strobe-lit delirium, the truly great moments are found when you look past Smith's trippy visuals and into the crowd, where you'll spot pockets of people having very different reactions to the same bombardment of sound.

September 14, 2011 – "I'm feeling very emotional," Katy B confessed Tuesday night from the cramped Studio at Webster Hall in NYC, where the 22-year-old U.K. native and burgeoning queen of dubstep celebrated the U.S. release of her debut album On A Mission with her first stateside concert. The feeling was also transmitted loud and clear in her music. Katy's presence is much like her art: unassumingly powerful. She's a small girl with wavy auburn hair, dressed Tuesday night in a Rinse FM t-shirt in solidarity with her producers at the London pirate radio station, huge gold hoop earrings, and an engagingly playful half-smile. A graduate of the BRIT School, a prestigious performing-arts institution located in the South London suburb of Croydon that shaped leading ladies from the U.K. pop circuit including Amy Winehouse, Adele, Leona Lewis, and Jessie J, Katy's alma mater almost works to her detriment.

July 18, 2011 – Moombahton came about because I didn't want to get beaten up," jokes 32-year-old Washington, D.C.–based DJ and producer Dave Nada about the origins of his homegrown dance genre. In the fall of 2009 Nada -- one-half of production duo Nadastrom, alongside Matt Nordstrom -- agreed to play a "school-skipping party" for his younger cousin. But when he arrived, teens were dancing to the fast tropical rhythms of reggaeton and bachata -- not a good sign considering that Nada typically spun house and club music. So he improvised, slowing Dutch house DJ Afro-jack's "Moombah" remix from a pounding 129 bpm to a cooled-out, reggaeton-friendly 108. The revelers promptly turned the small basement from a mere party to a raucous blowout.