Two disruptive hearts beat as one: As everyone from LIL NAS X to PPCOCAINE to someone in a corner office at MICROSOFT knows, TIKTOK is a place where you can launch a hit without going through the traditional music biz channels. And as artists like NLE CHOPPA and LIL TECCA know, UNITEDMASTERS is where you might go to distribute and monetize that hit beyond TikTok without having to talk to, or give your masters to, a traditional record company. A match made it heaven, then, unless you work for the traditional side of the business, in which case your mileage may vary. "This likely won't go down well with labels," TECHCRUNCH suggests in its story about TikTok's new deal with UnitedMasters, which, among other things, will allow TikTok artists to use the app to distribute songs to streaming services, and which will see the two companies working together to promote artists inside the app, with no need for label involvement on either end. For UnitedMasters and founder STEVE STOUTE, it's a sort of first-look deal for a bottomless well of new artists; for TikTok, it's a boost to the app's "appeal to independent-minded artists who operate outside the traditional industry machinery"; and for all those artists, a potential new path forward... Eighteen years (!) after the execution-style killing of RUN-DMC's JAM MASTER JAY in a Queens, N.Y., recording studio, two men, who apparently have been suspects for more than a decade, were charged with the murder Monday. Prosecutors say the 2002 murder was the result of a major cocaine deal that went bad. "I'm relieved," DARRYL "DMC" MCDANIELS wrote, even though "this latest news opens up a lot of painful memories." Federal prosecutors first accused one of the men, RONALD WASHINGTON, in 2007. The other, KARL JORDAN JR., was charged with the attempted murder of Jam Master Jay's nephew in 2003—the case was dismissed—and has, in retrospect, a creepy INSTAGRAM. Some cold-case perspective: The NOTORIOUS B.I.G. and TUPAC SHAKUR were murdered, respectively, only five and six years earlier... BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN's "THE RISING" soundtracked a stirring campaign video early in the first night of the DEMOCRATIC NATIONAL CONVENTION, but the Springsteen song that got repeated attention was "MY CITY OF RUINS," which supplied the night's "Rise Up" theme. The song was written, around the turn of the century, about Springsteen's (and my) old hometown, Asbury Park, N.J., which had been all but left for dead, and was repurposed as an anthem for New York when Springsteen used it to open the AMERICA: A TRIBUTE TO HEROES telethon 10 days after 9/11. Both Asbury Park and New York did "rise up" in the years that followed, but as my friend BRIAN HIATT notes in his book BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN: THE STORIES BEHIND THE SONGS, Asbury Park's recovery was a partial one. Residents of the city's west side, "located on the other side of an actual set of train tracks," are "still waiting for a fair share of the city's renewed prosperity to come their way," Hiatt writes. A warning, perhaps, for whoever is elected to lead America through its current moment of ruin. Rescue both sides of the metaphoric tracks this time, please... This is why FUGAZI was trending on TWITTER Monday, and it is glorious... RIP STEVE GROSSMAN, QUINN "DJ SPICOLI" COLEMAN and RICK COHEN.