Image source, Getty Images

Not literally, if you're at work (unless your boss says its ok).

But we are done for another day. Scroll down for new music from the likes of Dua Lipa, Tinashe and Frank Ocean; the first academic conference dedicated to Prince; Kendrick Lamar talking about his chart-topping US album DAMN; plus some exciting live news in the shapes of Bananarama and DJ Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince. Together at last.

Oh, and since we posted on Frank's new music earlier today, he's only gone and shared ANOTHER new track.

This one features Young Thug and is called Slide on Me, external and it's brilliant.

On your way now.

It's not the greatest song ever written, it's not the greatest voice ever singing it, but this weekend marked the 10th anniversary of the internet earworm Chocolate Rain.

The song made a star out of Tay Zonday, the unassuming young man with the baritone voice who wrote and sings the track.

"I did about 30 radio interviews in the course of a week,” Zonday told Stereogum.

"Three of the four major labels wanted to sign me. People contacted me to sing at their corporate parties, their kids’ Bar Mitzvahs, sign me to publishing deals.

 "It was extremely overwhelming." 

Read more, external

*He's even recorded an anniversary version, external of the song.

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Will Smith and his musical buddy DJ Jazzy Jeff have announced their first ever UK concert in the summer, summer, summertime (summertime).

The hip-hop duo have been booked to headline the Livewire Festival on the English seaside resort of Blackpool this summer.

The pair released five albums together until they went their separate ways in 1993. 

They're playing the weekend event held from 25-27 August at Headland Arena – alongside The Jacksons and Pete Waterman’s Hit Factory. 

"Let me hear you say, boom, shake, shake shake the Ballroom."

NME

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For the erstwhile Oasis frontman, now at the head of his own flock of High Flying Birds has teased the release date of his new album.

The singer has been chatting to Radio X's newest host Russell Brand about the follow-up to 2015’s Chasing Yesterday.

"I believe it’s slated for a November release," he said in response to a listener's question.

When Brand pushed him for a song title, he said “there’s one just called Instrumental Number Three”.

Sounds catchy. Number three, number three, number three....

Image source, RCA Records

Counter-intuitively, Tinashe has performed her new single Flame while submerged in a swimming pool. We suspect there's a clever directorial metaphor there but, whatever it is, it's gone right over our heads.

Anyway, the song's pretty good. And she sets fire to her bed with a sparkler, so that's worth looking forward to.

It's been four years since Queens of the Stone Age last released an album - the Grammy-nominated ...Like Clockwork.

But the wait for the follow-up shouldn't last much longer, as the group were pictured on Instagram over the weekend mastering their latest disc.

Mastering, for those of you who don't know, is the last stage in recording an album - it's where all the songs are tweaked ("turn up the vocals!") to make sure everything sounds pristine and consistent when played in sequence.

Of course, there are still press releases to prepare, artwork to be shot and music videos to be budgeted. But something is imminent. Hopefully.

Image source, Mercury Prize

Put it in your diaries now: The Mercury Music Prize will take place on Thursday, 14 September at the Hammersmith Apollo.

Record labels can start submitting albums for consideration from tomorrow. 

Stormzy, The xx and Laura Marling all have a fighting chance of being nominated. Ed Sheeran is also eligible - and it'll be interesting to see whether the jury tip their hat to his success, or turn the spotlight on a less commercial act.

Albums released up to 21 June, 2017 will be eligible, so upcoming records by Gorillaz, The Amazons and even Liam Gallagher could make the cut.

The nominations will be revealed on Thursday, 27 July; and the ceremony will be fully supported by BBC Music. So there.

Image source, Apple

Rap star Kendrick Lamar doesn't do many interviews - so when he speaks, people pay attention. 

And they'll have a lot to digest from his first chat about his new album, Damn, which took up 45 minutes of Zane Lowe's Beats 1 Radio show.

Amidst a track-by-track breakdown of the new record, Lamar admitted he'd recorded several unreleased songs about President Trump.

“I have a lot of records [about the election]. Just off of pure frustration. Just off the simple wow-factor of what’s going on. What happens is, I have these records, and there are certain things in these songs that I may pull pieces from to make sure that it’s covered."

The main reason for avoiding big political messages on the album, he said, was that he felt "I can't change the world until I change myself".

"So when you listen to records like Pride, Humble, Lust and Love, these are all just human emotions and me looking in the mirror and coming to grips with them."

You can watch the full interview on Apple Music, external (even if you don't subscribe). 

Image source, Getty Images

French electro-rockers Phoenix premiered three new songs at a show in Belgium over the weekend, lifting hopes that they're on the verge of releasing their first new music since 2013's album Bankrupt.

The band played J-Boy, Ti Amo and Role Model at the gig in Antwerp, as seen from their setlist below.

Luckily, some punters also managed to grab a video of the band's performance.

The most recent new music from the band came from an ad for Calvin Klein, external, directed by frontman Thomas Mars' wife Sofia Coppola.

BBC 6 Music

Salford University is holding a conference on the life and legacy of Prince.

The week-long event, which runs 24-26 May, will see more than 60 academics from around the world discussing subjects relating to the life and works of the musician. 

It's a collaboration between Salford and Middle Tennessee State University and guest speakers include Dez Dickerson, the former guitarist from Prince's original band The Revolution

Salford University lecturer Dr Kirsty Fairclough spoke to 6 Music earlier (listen above).

Meanwhile, fans, friends and family marked the first anniversary of his death in Minnesota over the weekend.

The events included four days of sold-out concerts, panel discussions and parties at the 65,000 square-foot Paisley Park studio complex where the artist lived and died.

Image source, Getty Images

Billboard magazine

Image source, Getty Images

Sometimes hit singles come out of the blue; sometimes they're the result of gut-wrenching persistence; and other times you're basically forced to record them by your record company.

That, at least, is the story of Ariana Grande's Bang Bang - as recounted by Wendy Goldstein, vice president of the star's label Republic Records.

She told the story during a keynote speech at Canadian Music Week, as recounted in Billboard magazine.

“In the case of Ariana, we had her signed since she was 16 and we tried a lot of different styles of music and the truth is her voice sounded better on urban-ish leaning records - more Mariah Carey than a Katy Perry - but she didn’t necessarily have pop taste in music and always shied away from what were her biggest singles.

“So in the case of Bang Bang, she didn’t really want to cut it and I said, ‘You don’t have to cut it.’ In my mind, I knew the record was a smash and as an A&R person, you never let a hit record leave the building, so that record was not going to RCA, it was not going to Epic [laughs]. It was not going anywhere else. 

“So I started sending it to other artists. I sent it to Nicki Minaj and she loved it. We sent it to Jessie J; she loved it. So I cut both of them on it and then sent it back to Ariana. I kept her voice on the second verse and all of a sudden she got it. 

"She was like, 'Oh my God, you’re right; this is huge.’ So sometimes it’s a little working in the background or behind their back to make it great.” 

And if Grande had hated it? "It would’ve come out on Jessie J’s album,” Goldstein said.

Harry Styles (scream!) was the special guest (aaaaah!) On Graham Norton's chat show (aieee!) on Friday night (iidhfhityuthg!) where he took the opportunity (squeal!) to address some of the more outrageous rumours (gurgle!) about him.

You can watch the clip below once you stop screaming.

Image source, Getty Images

Ed Sheeran has publicly denied MTV's claims he's set to quit music, external.

And some denials really don't merit any more than two words.

Bravo, Ed. Bravo.

Image source, Glastonbury Festival

Possessed of a stunning voice and an equally-stunning head of hair, Josh Barry emerged victorious at the Glastonbury Emerging Talent competition on Saturday night.

Sounding just a little like Terence Trent D'Arby (and we mean that as a compliment), his winning song was a soul-scouring ballad called Spirit Road - which you can hear below.

The Londoner has already toured with Gorgon City and recently worked with SG Lewis, but now he gets his own slot at this summer's festival at Worthy Farm. 

Previous winners of the Emerging Talent competition include Declan McKenna and She Drew The Gun while acts including Izzy Bizu have competed in the final.

Barry said he was so overwhelmed by his victory that he "couldn't even stand up". Judges said they were "pretty unanimous" after seeing him play at the Pilton’s Working Men’s Club. "He just lifted that whole room."

You can listen to a playlist of all eight Emerging Talent finalists on Soundcloud., external

After keeping fans waiting for what seemed like a decade for his second album, Blonde, R&B star Frank Ocean is apparently making up for lost time, sharing his second new track in a matter of weeks.

Frank played out a new song on his Beats 1 show at the weekend, the slow jam Lens.

He's also shared a remix of the track, external featuring rapper Travis Scott.

Listen below

Image source, Getty Images

Dua Lipa and US R&B singer and pulsating ball of libido Miguel go head-to-head in the new single from her long-awaited debut album.

Lost In Your Light sees the singers weave their breathy vocals around a story of insatiable love. Aww. 

The duet will feature on Dua's self-titled debut album which is due out 2 June.

Image source, Andrew Lloyd Webber

On Sunday night, Andrew Lloyd Webber and Hamilton creator Lin-Manuel Miranda got together at London's Other Palace Theatre for a live webchat.

Introducing the event, Lord Lloyd Webber said this was only his second-ever webcast ("the first was with Vladimir Putin"); while Miranda seemed overwhelmed by the presence of Tim Rice in the audience.

Lord Lloyd Webber recalled how, as a youngster, all his contemporaries wanted to be "a Beatle or a Stone. So if you said you liked Rodgers and Hammerstein, people looked at you as if you were from another planet".

Miranda, meanwhile, talked about writing Hamilton over beats in Apple's free music software Garageband, and how he first performed a song from the musical at the White House.

Incredibly, compere Paul Taylor-Mills hosted the event hours after completing the London Marathon. How he managed not to collapse in a heap is beyond us.

You can re-watch the entire chat on Facebook., external

Image source, Getty Images

Rihanna has felt the full force of the internet after posting a series of Instagram pictures showing the Queen's face superimposed onto her own body.

The British monarch turned 91 on Friday and we suppose the images (one of which is below) were meant as some sort of tribute?

Anyway, social media reacted in the way that social media tends to react..

"This is disrespectful and stupid," said flohberlin.

Henusinka added: "I would rather see the reaction of Rihanna when somebody makes fun of her."

While lynewrites2 wrote "oh gosh the whole of England may want to call a ban. Trouble."

BBC Radio 2

The original line-up of 80s girl group Bananarama are reuniting for their first ever tour.

Sara Dallin, Siobhan Fahey and Keren Woodward were permanent fixtures in the charts from 1982 to 1988, but never managed to hit the road.

"We had tried to do it, then I got pregnant while we were rehearsing," Woodward told Chris Evans' Radio 2 Breakfast Show.

The band did tour after Fahey quit (she was replaced by Jacquie O'Sullivan) but, after patching up their differences last Christmas, the original trio have announced 15 concerts this November and December.

Listen to their interview with Chris Evans above, and read more here.

Image source, Getty Images

Harry Styles may have prevented Ed Sheeran from scoring the UK's longest-running number one - but the star has broken a 22-year-old chart record, external down under.

Shape Of You is enjoying its 14th week at number one - beating a record previously set by Coolio’s Gangsta’s Paradise, which stood atop the singles chart for a mighty 13 weeks in 1995. 

Meanwhile, in the UK, the song returned to the top of the chart for its 14th week at the top last Friday. 

Only Frankie Laine’s 1953 hit I Believe has achieved more non-consecutive weeks at number one, spending 18 weeks on the snowy pop peak "back in the day".

In the album chart, Ed's Divide is still the leader while Kendrick Lamar's DAMN. just missed out, landing at number two, around 30,000 copies behind Ed.

Kendrick has cause for celebration back at home, though, where his record went straight to number one, with 2017’s biggest single-week sales for an album - a total of 603,000 copies, according to Nielsen Music, external. 

Image source, Getty Images