December 21 isn't just four days before Christmas for many in Australia.

The poet, author, educator and public speaker Nikki Giovanni has died at 81.

Ten years after “The Square,” an acquisition that put Netflix documentaries on the map, the streamer is back at the Sundance Film Festival with an eye towards acquisitions and two very different originals.

From the obsessive record collector to the casual listener.

Rhiannon Giddens is as much a scholar as a musician.

Nina Simone fans have a reason for feeling good: A previously unreleased recording of the legendary artist’s set at the Newport Jazz Festival in July 1966 is being released.

Angelo Badalamenti, the composer best known for creating otherworldly scores for many David Lynch productions, from “Blue Velvet” and “Twin Peaks” to “Mulholland Drive,” has died.

Documentaries about feminist leader and politician Bella Abzug and a deadly 1985 Philadelphia police bombing are the winners of this year’s Library of Congress film prize.

Documentaries about Julia Child, “Black Woodstock,” the pandemic and The Velvet Underground and acclaimed international films like Japan’s “Drive My Car,” Iran’s “A Hero” and Norway’s “The Worst Person in the World” just got a little closer to scoring Oscar nominations.

In Questlove's documentary “Summer of Soul” a musical flood, too long dammed up, is finally released.

This week’s new entertainment releases include documentaries about celebrity chef Wolfgang Puck and another on a landmark 1969 Harlem concert series known as “Black Woodstock” that featured Nina Simone, Stevie Wonder, Sly and the Family Stone.

Disney is celebrating this year’s Juneteenth with a new EP about the Black experience featuring actor and activist Yara Shahidi, Chloe Bailey of Chloe x Halle and rapper YBN Cordae, who is donating his proceeds to students attending historically Black colleges and universities.

After more than a year of uncertainty and ever-fluctuating release schedules, there will be a summer movie season.

While staying at a distance from each other, women attend an International Women's Day gathering at an avenue in Barcelona, Spain, Monday, March 8, 2021. Women in Spain are marking this year's International Women's Day with static protests, bicycle fun-rides and small-sized events to prevent gatherings that could trigger a new spike of coronavirus infections. (AP Photo/Emilio Morenatti)MADRID – Women in Spain on Monday marked this year’s International Women's Day with static protests, pot-banging, bicycle fun rides and other small-sized events to prevent gatherings that could trigger a new spike of coronavirus infections. Spain's thriving feminist movement has claimed a few victories in recent years, including the adoption of gender violence laws and forcing judicial reforms regarding sexual abuse. Far-right activists, meanwhile, have campaigned against gender violence laws that they say discriminate against men and lambasted the government’s push to make consent in sexual relations legally mandatory.

The film will debut at the 2021 Sundance Film Festival. (Sundance Film Festival via AP)Sundance Institute programs. Known as “Black Woodstock,” the festival occurred during the same summer as Woodstock — and just 100 miles away — but received far less attention. It debuted Thursday night at the Sundance Film Festival where it spawned immediate acclaim and countless at-home dance parties for virtual festivalgoers — a party Questlove extended with a live-streamed after-party DJ set. Morris Park for a celebration of soul, gospel, funk and, most of all of Black identity at a pivotal point in African American culture.

FILE - In this March 4, 2018 file photo, Chadwick Boseman arrives at the Oscars at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles. Actor Chadwick Boseman, who played Black icons Jackie Robinson and James Brown before finding fame as the regal Black Panther in the Marvel cinematic universe, has died of cancer. When the former playwright suited up as Black Panther, he brought cool intellectual gravitas to the Marvel superhero whose Wakanda forever! salute reverberated worldwide. You dont have the same exact experience as a Black actor as you do as a white actor. Before an auditorium full of actors, Chadwick Boseman stepped to the microphone.

Murakami said comparing the fight against the coronavirus to a war, as politicians often do, is inappropriate. Its not a war to kill each other but a fight of wisdom to let us all live, he said. Murakami has hosted his Murakami Radio every two months since August 2018 on Tokyo FM. Murakami began writing while running a jazz bar in Tokyo after graduating from university. Murakami said he worries the post-corona world may be a more closed and selfish place even if it has better protection.

(Republic Records via AP)NEW YORK, NY – The top 10 albums of the year by Associated Press Music Editor Mesfin Fekadu:1. A nomination — or eight — isn’t necessary for any real music fan to realize how outstanding, soulful and poignant Lennox’s debut album is. Lennox’s “Shea Butter Baby” is the best album of the year, no matter if awards shows think differently, including you, the Soul Train Music Awards. Summer Walker, “Over It”: Summer Walker’s debut album is perfect, as she spits matter-of-fact lyrics over some beats that borrow from classic ‘90s R&B hits including Usher, Destiny’s Child and 702. But even when she’s not sampling a song, Walker can hold her own, delivering a flawless album that’s easy to obsess over.