Drummer helped to define the sound of roots reggae and dancehall, and worked with stars including the Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan and Grace Jones

Sly Dunbar, the Jamaican musician and producer who created generations of global hits as one half of production duo Sly and Robbie, has died aged 73.

His wife, Thelma, told Jamaican newspaper the Gleaner that she found him unresponsive on Monday morning, with doctors later pronouncing him dead. Other sources close to Dunbar confirmed the news to the Guardian, adding that Dunbar had been unwell for some months.

Dunbar was half of the influential reggae rhythm section and production duo Sly & Robbie

The ‘Wall Street Journal’ ad, addressed to ‘Those I’ve Hurt,’ addresses the rapper’s previous antisemitic behavior

Rapper, now known as Ye, apologises to his family and to the Black community and says he loves Jews, blaming his bipolar disorder for his ‘poor judgment and reckless behaviour’

Kanye West has taken out a full-page advert in the Wall Street Journal apologising for his antisemitic behaviour. “I am not a Nazi or an antisemite,” he wrote. “I love Jewish people.”

In a letter titled “To Those I’ve Hurt”, he attributed his inflammatory actions, including making profoundly offensive statements and selling T-shirts bearing swastikas, to his bipolar-1 disorder, which he said he developed as a result of medical oversight failing to diagnose a frontal-lobe injury sustained in a car crash in 2002.

To Those I’ve Hurt:

Twenty-five years ago, I was in a car accident that broke my jaw and caused injury to the right frontal lobe of my brain. At the time, the focus was on the visible damage – the fracture, the swelling, and the immediate physical trauma. The deeper injury, the one inside my skull, went unnoticed.

‘I couldn’t think of a line for the chorus – but we had just been to France. I got Baudelaire into the lyrics somewhere, too’

This song was an ode to glam rock. My older sister was really into Marc Bolan and her passion for him and his sound really rubbed off on me. I love the vocal effects and drum sounds on those old records.

Super Bowl LX will take place February 8 in California

Why do we focus on the bad news stories about cuts and crises in classical music ? Musicians are doing incredible things to engage, support and sustain us; we should tell those stories too

When did you last read a good news story about classical music?

Think of the stories that have made the headlines in recent years: funding cuts to national opera companies, closure threats to university music departments, councils axing local provision, classroom music-making in decline.

The producers who helped define the sound of pop music in the 90s and 00s are in dispute over earnings from their final album as NERD

Chad Hugo is suing Pharrell Williams, his production partner in the Neptunes, over claims that Williams owes Hugo up to $1m from their final album as NERD, 2017’s No One Ever Really Dies.

The Neptunes defined the sound of pop music in the late 90s and early 00s, producing for artists including Kelis, Britney Spears, Beyoncé, Clipse and Justin Timberlake. As NERD, they released five albums.

Singer-songwriter Sam Amidon had just three weeks to make the two stars sound like seasoned balladeers. He recalls their charged harmonies in the little shed at the bottom of his garden

I was brought into The History of Sound as the music adviser, my main job being singing coach for the cast, especially Paul Mescal and Josh O’Connor.

My parents were folk educators. I grew up in New England, singing and playing all kinds of different folk including Appalachian fiddle tunes, as well as songs from the British Isles. My parents’ favourites were legendary Yorkshire singing family the Watersons. I now live in London and it was amazing how close History of Sound’s musical world matched my own. Ben Shattuck – who wrote the original short stories and the screenplay – made a playlist of all these different types of music so everybody could get a sense of the film’s world.

Rock band are preparing to take the stage at the Super Bowl alongside MAGA-despised singer and rapper Bad Bunny