Heard the one about the standup lawyer? Why even top artists now need a side job

Want to survive in the arts? Get a side hustle. We speak to an award-winning poet and governance manager, a gigging guitarist and teacher – and a successful comic who doubles as an immigration lawyer

‘A male-dominated team does not reflect society’: why are only 5% of music producers women?

Beyond the stereotype of the knob-twiddling bloke are brilliant female producers, but gatekeeping, toxic masculinity and a lack of concrete support are holding them back

Mass brawls and possessed guitar pedals: the high-speed hijinks of British thrash metal

Unlike their American peers, British thrash metallers never hit the big time – but over 30 years on, their scene is thriving

AI song featuring fake Drake and Weeknd vocals pulled from streaming services

The song, called Heart on My Sleeve, has been removed from TikTok, Spotify and YouTube for ‘infringing content created with generative AI’

Women and non-binary producers ‘vastly underrepresented’ in 2022’s top songs

Find the Mix report finds inequality remains entrenched in music production and engineering, with less than 5% of credits going to women and non-binary people

Streaming sites urged not to let AI use music to clone pop stars

Record label Universal urges Spotify and Apple Music to stop copycats scraping song data

Surviving R Kelly Part III: The Final Chapter review – this glorious series has helped to make history

Repulsion and righteous fury at the activity of the R&B megastar give way to immense pride in every activist, survivor, journalist and film-maker who took on and defeated this wolf in wolf’s clothing

Charity raises £2.1m to buy and save grassroots music venues in UK

Music Venue Trust’s campaign, backed by Ed Sheeran, initially plans to buy nine venues from landlords

Simon Emmerson obituary

Founder of the bands Afro Celt Sound System and the Imagined Village, who produced albums by Manu Dibango and Baaba Maal

Can you copyright a rhythm? Inside the reggaeton lawsuit that could shake the pop world

Two dembow progenitors are suing superstars including Luis Fonsi and Daddy Yankee – in a case that also names Justin Bieber – claiming that they deserve credit for birthing the genre

‘Were we cursed?’: how Weekender by Flowered Up encapsulated the drug-fuelled rave era

The band’s prime movers went out every night for two years, wrote a 13-minute anthem about it, then celebrated its release with a wild illegal party that lasted a week – though they would finally be overcome by tragedy

‘It’s no good if gigs become the preserve of the posh’ – the crisis facing live music in Britain

Who will fill Britain’s eight new arenas now ticket prices are soaring? Is it true many bands would earn more stacking shelves? And how can official Taylor Swift tickets cost £4,000? Our writer investigates

Gender inequality and outdated voting metrics: are the Brit awards still hitting the wrong notes?

The ceremony will broadcast on a Saturday for the first time to attract viewers, but a shortage of women nominees and viral music stars suggests the awards remain out of step, say critics

Music venues threatened by energy crisis as well as slow pandemic recovery, say campaigners

Music Venue Trust says grassroots venues have not fully recovered from pandemic lockdowns, and now face skyrocketing inflation including a 25% rise in ticket prices

Barrett Strong, singer, songwriter and Motown’s first star, dies aged 81

Strong sang on the label’s first hit Money in 1960 and went on to co-write landmark songs including Heard It Through the Grapevine and War