Mano Sundaresan
Mano Sundaresan is a producer at NPR.
He joined in 2019 as an NPR Music intern and cut his teeth for several years at All Things Considered, where he helped launch the artist interview series Play It Forward. He currently produces Louder Than A Riot and The Limits With Jay Williams. His favorite piece he's worked on is a profile of Zoomer sensation PinkPantheress.
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Kanye West has made stumbling rollouts, toxic comments and blown deals his calling card. But at the launch for his new album Vultures 1, it's clear there's one place where his magnetism hasn't faded.
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For years, the relatable Michigan rapper's lore was missing a crucial component: an album. In the lead up to its release, he talked leak culture, becoming a talk-show host and his idea of taste.
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The unwritten rules of rap unpacked in Louder's second season are held together by a scarcity principle that came to define the show itself. As it draws to a close, the team reflects on its mission.
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In 2016, a rift between hitmakers showed the limits of rap's tolerance for rule-breakers. As Mark Anthony Neal explains, "authentic" Black masculinity has always been a moving target in hip-hop.
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Not everyone who was part of rap's ascent gets included in its story. MC Sha-Rock, of the original Funky 4 and the Funky 4 + 1, reaffirms her role in hip-hop's formative years as the first woman MC.
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Already a quiet influence on the hyperpop scene, fame, relationships, stimulants and screens collide in brakence's "realer-than-real" sound.
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In this week's Heat Check selects, prodigies past and present connect with OGs and friends, rappers stretch the limits of genre, young artists breathe new life into unmistakable samples and more.
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This week's Heat Check selects feature an R&B newbie enlisting a legend, a spaced-out rapper deciding to go it alone, artists from Compton, London and Nigeria refusing complacency and more.
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LIL YACHTY: "You recording?" ENGINEER: "Yep." LIL YACHTY: "I TOOK THE WOOOOOOOOCK TO POLAND!" F1LTHY: "What the hell was that??" ENGINEER: "Do you wanna try that again?" LIL YACHTY: "Nah trust me."
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This week's Heat Check selects come largely from iconoclasts who have already zeroed in on their individual aesthetics: a singsong rap soulman, an alté sensation a noise-rap radical and more.