Over half a decade since Nas proclaimed its death, Peter Rosser asks if hip-hop could, in fact, be the only music able to present an honest picture of our time.

A Welsh MP is seeking ideas for a folk music manifesto. Could a manifesto for traditional music in Ireland be developed?

'We need a population that is willing to rock the boat, stand up and be non-compliant with the status quo,' say the organisers of Trailblaze, which brings together musicians, artists, social entrepreneurs and activists.

Peter Rosser finds how American folk music revivals have been bound to the country’s social history

Commissioned to compose a work in response to 9/11, John Adams confronted the question: can modern classical music still be the transcendental force we need it to be? by Barra Ó Séaghdha

Obama and the music of Chicago become the vehicle for a writer's guilt

Those interested in our cultural space must abandon the fashionably apolitical, argued former Labour TD and Minister for the Arts and now President of Ireland, Michael D. Higgins, writing in 2001.