Luana Pagani moderates a conversation about how four artists (Chiquis, Camila Fernández, Lupita Infante and Majo Aguilar) are taking their illustrious family names and trailblazing with their own sounds, and how they’re marrying the past and the future at Billboard’s Latin Music Week 2024.
Luana Pagani moderada una conversación sobre cuatro artistas con apellidos insignes están forjando sus propias historias y éxito, uniendo pasado con futuro.
The last time Audrey Nuna released an album – 2021’s A Liquid Breakfast – the world was still largely in the shadow of the COVID-19 pandemic, Olivia Rodrigo had just launched her Sour LP and Taylor Swift was the very beginning of her Taylor’s Versions campaign. Three years later, Nuna returns with a darker, grittier companion to A Liquid Breakfast titled Trench.
Featuring a collaboration with Teezo Touchdown and an interpolation of Brandy and Monica’s timeless “The Boy Is Mine,” Trench showcases the marvelous sonic evolution Nuna has undergone since first signing to Arista half a decade ago. Foreboding synths anchor apocalyptic anthems like “Dance Dance Dance,” while forlorn acoustic guitar serves as the backbone for quieter, more jaded moments like the evocative “Joke’s on Me.” In the years between her debut and sophomore albums, Nuna moved to Los Angeles and experienced an unmistakable darkness rooted in the city’s synthetic nature around the same time her frontal lobe started to fully develop.
Trench is born out of the tumult of those years, and throughout the record’s double-disc journey, Nuna comes out on the other side with a greater understanding of how to streamline her idiosyncrasies into a concise project. She raps and sings across the record’s moody, glitchy trap and R&B-informed soundscape, while still leaving room to incorporate notes of rock, folk and dance-pop. All of those styles were on full display at her electric album release show at Brooklyn’s Sultan Room on Oct. 15, which was packed wall to wall with adoring fans who perfectly matched Nuna’s thrilling stage show.
“I would say the tagline for this project is ‘soft skin, hard feelings,’” Nuna tells Billboard. “I think that really encapsulates the duality my whole shit is based on… this idea of blending things that don’t normally go together. I love beautiful chords and R&B, but I also love harsh sounds and really raw synths. The whole sound is a blend of our tastes – me and [my producer] Anwar [Sawyer,] and that whole first project really helped me carve out the sound naturally.”
A Jersey kid and Clive Davis Institute of Recorded Music dropout turned rising cross-genre star, Audrey Nuna is ready to enter the next phase of her career with Trench. In a heartfelt conversation with Billboard, Nuna details the making of Trench, how she understands herself as a Korean-American navigating hip-hop and R&B and how the ‘90s informed much of her approach to her art.
You signed to Arista in 2019. How do you feel that your relationship with them has evolved over time — especially going into this new project?
I think it’s like any relationship where we’ve been building a lot of trust. They signed me when I was pretty young, and it’s been five years. When they signed me, they were all super excited — and we have an unusual, unique artist-label relationship where we’re building it all together from the ground up. I’m grateful for the freedom to do what I want to do. I’m pretty blessed in the fact that I’ve never felt like I had to do things. I’ve always been able to maintain a sense of independence, which is a f—king blessing.
Why is the album called Trench? How did you land on that title?
I really love words. I just love that word, [“trench.”] First and foremost, I love that it’s double consonants in the back and front. I love that it sounds kind of harsh, but there’s also a bit of balance to it. There’s also this analogy of war and defense mechanisms and the hard, brutal reality of that. I think it’s really interesting that when you zero in on something so harsh, you will always see this warm flesh underneath. It’s that concept: we’re all human, but we go through all these hard things that kind of push us against our nature, which is warm. It was just really ironic to me, and that duality was something I wanted to present throughout the album.
Why did you choose to present Trench as a double-disc album?
I just felt it would be a great way to showcase the two sides of this character in this world. At the end of the day, while I was organizing the tracklist, I realized that they’re very much one and the same, but almost inverses of each other. I think that this idea of showcasing those. They’re inverse, but they’re also parallel.
Talk to me about “Mine,” in which you interpolate Brandy and Monica’s “The Boy Is Mine.” How did that one come together?
I had the idea for that song because I love the romance of ‘90s R&B. The producer I worked with, Myles William, had the idea to reference such an iconic song, and I loved the idea because it was still so current sonically with the Jersey club in there. I think combining those two things was very fascinating to me. Even flipping the original meaning of the song where two characters are fighting over one guy into me making the guy cry instead – it’s more of that harshness that Trench is about.
Being that you’re a Jersey kid, did you hear Jersey club a lot growing up?
Actually, yeah! It’s so funny because in high school, and even before then, Jersey club was always circulating. Not as much on the radio or anything like that, but more on people’s phones on YouTube or if you were in the car with your friends. It was so specific in what it was that to now see it be such a big part of the mainstream is really mindblowing.
You teamed up with Teezo Touchdown on “Starving.” How did that come together?
I had that song starting with the demo. We were thinking about a feature that was. In the beginning, we were thinking of Steve Lacy or Fousheé. I think my A&R suggested Teezo because he’s been working with him, and it just made sense. “Starving” is also a very pop record, and kind of out of my comfort zone — which is interesting, because for most people a track like that is very left-field. I think having an artist [who] understands what it’s like to stay in a pocket of the most pop song on your record actually feeling like the B-side is really cool.
It was just really cool to see him do his thing on there because he just brought a fresh energy that you wouldn’t normally expect someone to rap or sing with. He almost reminds me of André 3000, because of the way he makes anything sound good by how he wears his energy. Same with his fashion — the way he wears the clothes is what makes it work.
What was on the mood board while you were creating Trench?
The movie Akira. When I made “Nothing Feels the Same,” Akira was definitely in my head as this villain coming into herself – in the movie’s case, himself. It just felt like a soundtrack for a darker transformation for me. On the other side of that, I was also weirdly inspired by more bubblegum-esque aesthetics, and combing those two things. You can hear it on a song like “Sucking Up.” I’m really inspired by the ‘90s, like KRS-One, but also PinkPantheress and jazz influences like Chick Corea or Hudson Mohawke on the dance side and even Korean 90’s alternative artists. There’s a lot of different stuff.
What was the entry point to hip-hop?
I grew up pretty musically sheltered. My parents are immigrants, so they put me on to some Korean older folk music. Knowing popular music came very late. I specifically remember listening to [Ye’s] Yeezus sophomore year of high school for the first time. At that point in my household, cursing was bad. To hear something so vulgar and raw and different from anything I’ve ever heard before, that was a bit of an entry point for me. [I found a] space and form of expression where you can truly say what’s in your heart and not necessarily care about the world. I think that was very enticing to me.
Meeting Anwar and listening to everything he put me onto and obsessing over Sade together [was also formative.] Sometimes, I feel like when you don’t know what your lineage is because of immigration and you don’t see a lot of people doing what you’re trying to do, you have more freedom because it’s a blank canvas.
How do you navigate conversations where your race is emphasized in relation to the kind of music you make? How do you understand yourself as a Korean-American operating in traditionally Black spaces like hip-hop and R&B?
Being boxed into “Korean-American” is definitely a thing. In my case, I learned to acknowledge that I am who I am, and being an American is part of my identity, but it’s not necessarily the only thing that you want to be attached to your identity. At the end of the day, we’re human. Yes, I grew up eating kimchi jjigae, my parents spoke Korean to me, I was exposed to all of these other Korean things – that’s gonna bleed into everything I do, whether I want it to or not.
At the beginning of my career, seeing the hyper-emphasis on [my race] was very interesting because growing up I never felt Korean-American, I never felt Korean enough. And now it’s like you have to be “very” Korean. It’s very extreme. At this point, I’m all about paying respect to where the genre comes from and understanding that I am a visitor and a guest. It’s about respecting the craft and studying it and not viewing it as anything other than what it is – something that is worthy of all of the respect in the world. Also keeping the conversation going and asking questions, I’m not gonna understand every last reference.
I honestly feel it’s been an evolution. All these cultures are merging, and I think that’s a beautiful thing. Ultimately, I pray that that would give us more empathy and understanding as a human race. My biggest thing is encouraging people to educate me constantly and keeping the conversation open. On both sides, you can get boxed into a narrative, but at the same time, it’s all very gray. Generally, just do what inspires you in a conscientious way. Just do shit.
You’re trying to break through in the wake of the Stateside K-pop boom. Has that phenomenon impacted the ways the market sees you and your music at all?
The sentiment towards Asian culture in general has changed in the past three years. Growing up, it wasn’t “cool” to be Asian. But it’s like this hot commodity now, Korean culture especially is at the forefront right now. Sometimes, you do get boxed into this “everything Korean is K-pop” [mentality.] I’ve been listed in random articles as one of “10 K-Pop acts to know.” Even labels that approached me earlier in my career were like, “Well, we have all these K-Pop acts, so you would be very welcome here.” At the same time, my music is worlds away from K-Pop.
It’s gray and it’s nuanced, but at the end of the day, I’m really proud to be Korean and proud that Koreans are being recognized for their excellence in music and visuals and fashion. When I see people who genuinely love the culture push and try to understand it outside of just the aesthetic, that brings me a lot of joy.
What was your time in Fort Lee like?
Fort Lee is like the K-Town of Jersey. It was kind of like a retreat. After I went to school for a year and then I dropped out and moved to Fort Lee. I stayed by all these Korean families, almost in the suburbs — but it was right outside the city, so there was a little bit more going on. That place is so warm and nostalgic in my heart because it’s the place where I really found my sound. It’s the most romantic place in my heart because all I did all day was make music. That was before I had a career; it was when I was doing it, not knowing if I was going to be able to do it.
There’s something so special about that; I realized you really never get it back once that period is over. You can spend your whole life emulating that, but it will never be as pure. I always look up to my 19-year-old self and the fearlessness that came out of true naïveté.
How do you view Trench in relation to A Liquid Breakfast? Is there a symbiotic relationship between the two records?
I think they’re very symbiotic, and I love that word. They follow the same character, [she’s] just gone through a bit more shit. The first project is Fort Lee; it’s romantic, it’s curious, it’s pink and blue and springtime. In between [A Liquid Breakfast and Trench,] I moved to LA and as sunny as that city is, there’s a level of syntheticness and darkness that I experienced. [By Trench,] this character went underground for two years and didn’t see sunlight for a long time.
And who knows, maybe this is a “part two” and there’s one more part that ends this story. I definitely think [Trench] is the darker counterpart, sonically, lyrically and conceptually. It’s a bit more complex and experimental. At its core, it follows the same character as the last album. Since the last project, so much has changed and so much has stayed the same.
I see a lot of the ‘90s in your approach to music videos. How did you develop your visual language, and did that intersect with and or influence your stage show at all?
I’m very ‘90s-inspired for sure. One of the first videos I remember being very inspired by was the Jamiroquai video, “Virtual Insanity.” And then obviously Missy Elliott, and anything directed by Hype Williams. I don’t know what was going on. I just think it was a golden age of music videos. People put so much value into music videos, but they were also so new to the point where people were just trying anything. I think that balance of having the resources and also having an innocence, in a way, towards the craft was so special.
And Thank God for the internet. I saw the shit that I had never seen before just browsing YouTube; seeing Spike Jonze’s work and the Beastie Boys’ “Intergalactic.” Finding all of those different things and combining them kind of exploded my DNA. Also, my dad used to own a clothing factory in the Garment District. I was mostly around fashion, and I think that was very formative for me.
Are you planning to tour behind Trench?
Yes, next year. I’m still figuring out certain things, but I think that it’s essential for me to do this album live. I came up during the COVID era, and I haven’t had an opportunity to just perform for people as a headliner. I’m just very spiritually ready to present an album in that space.
What song from the album are you most excited to perform live for the first time?
I’d say, “Baby OG.” I just love it; it never gets old. I sampled my 19-year-old self on that song. There’s a demo from 2019 called “Need You,” and that never got put out. But we just sampled it one day and it ended up becoming “Baby OG.” The meanings of the songs were so parallel. I didn’t realize that until after I finished the song. It’s kind of a meeting of past and future self.
Do you plan to return to Clive at any point or are you full steam ahead with your career?
I can’t afford it. [Laughs.] I can’t afford that s–t! I think if I were to go back to school, I would not go to school for music. I’d want to study history or fashion design.
In a past interview, you named Chihiro from Spirited Away as the fictional character you relate to the most. Is that still true, and have you heard the Billie Eilish song inspired by that character?
I think that will always be true. I love Miyazaki’s protagonists because most of the time, they’re kids who are just so courageous and wise. I think that was super empowering to see as a kid. That was one of my earliest memories of digital cinema and animation. I have heard “Chihiro” from the new Billie album. She’s so sick. It’s so awesome to see her sonic progression.
Liam Payne‘s girlfriend, influencer Kate Cassidy, has spoken out for the first time following the 31-year-old singer’s death.
On Friday (Oct. 18), two days after Payne suffered a fatal fall from the third floor of a hotel in Buenos Aires, Cassidy thank supporters via Instagram Stories for “all the kind words and love” sent her way in the past 48 hours. “I have been at a complete loss,” she wrote. “Nothing about the past few days have felt real.”
“I ask and pray that you’ll give me the grace and space to navigate this in private,” Cassidy continued before addressing Payne directly. “Liam, my angel. You are everything. I want you to know I loved you unconditionally and completely.”
“I will continue to love you for the rest of my life,” the social media star added. “I love you Liam.”
Cassidy and Payne had been dating for about two years prior to the former One Direction star’s death on Oct. 16. The former would often post videos with her boyfriend on TikTok, and in September, she shared with followers on the app how she and the singer first met while she was working as his server at a bar in Charleston, S.C.
Cassidy was with Payne in Argentina prior to his death, according to videos on her TikTok, as well as Snapchats posted by the musician. The couple had attended Niall Horan’s concert together while in the country.
A few days prior to Payne’s death, Cassidy posted that she was leaving Argentina solo.
Payne died Wednesday around 5:07 p.m., according to the preliminary autopsy report, which also revealed that he appeared to have been alone when he fell. Investigators also believe that the star was potentially under the influence of substances when he died, but are still waiting for further toxicology reports.
Cassidy’s words are the latest message of grief posted by someone close to Payne in the days since his passing. His former One Direction bandmates Horan, Harry Styles, Zayn Malik and Louis Tomlinson each shared individual tributes in addition to a joint statement on Thursday (Oct 17), while Simon Cowell posted a memorial Friday. Social media has also seen an outpouring of condolences from musicians such as Ed Sheeran, Rita Ora, J Balvin, Cher Lloyd and more, in addition to countless anguished posts from fans.
In a statement to the BBC the day after Payne’s death, the singer’s family also spoke out. “We are heartbroken,” they said. “Liam will forever live in our hearts and we’ll remember him for his kind, funny and brave soul. We are supporting each other the best we can as a family and ask for privacy and space at this awful time.”
There’s a question Joy Oladokun often finds herself asking when thinking about her career: “If Nina Simone had the internet, what would she do with that?” she ponders. “Like, what sort of Mavis Staples-meets-Azealia Banks tweets would we have gotten from her?”
The High Priestess of Soul is far from the only artist the folk–pop artists finds herself ruminating on: throughout her conversation with Billboard, Oladokun drops names ranging from Big Mama Thornton to Paul McCartney to Big Freedia. But the artists she often finds herself thinking about, she says, are the ones whose names she doesn’t know.
“I think a lot of my music comes from a place of knowing that not all Black queer people got to live this long or get this far,” she explains. “It feels like I’m fighting with both the idea of progress, the reality of progress and the cost of it.”
A career’s worth of those feelings come roaring out on Oladokun’s stunning new album Observations From a Crowded Room (out today via Amigo Records). Written and produced by Oladokun in the 15 months since her 2023 LP Proof of Life, the new record sees the singer-songwriter wrestling with her current place in the music industry and the world at large. Employing electronic flourishes to accentuate her pointed songwriting, Oladokun examines why it seems that social advancement in the music industry is always two steps forward, one step back.
The idea for the record started after a whirlwind of touring in 2023 — after running through the summer festival circuit and performing as an opening act for John Mayer and Noah Kahan’s tours, Oladokun found herself at the end of a grueling schedule, sitting by a river with her guitar somewhere in Oregon.
“I was on mushrooms,” she giggles. “I was having an emotionally hard time, then. And when the shrooms hit, I saw this moose — and right there, I just wrote the first song on the album.”
That song, “Letter From a Blackbird,” provides the central argument for the album within its first minute. “These days I sure regret how much of me that I have given/ I feel my patience running out, I hear the water sing to me,” she sings, accompanied only by a vocoder chorus of her own vocals. “Blackbird: what did you think you’d run into out here in the wild?”
Throughout the record, Oladokun contends with managing the expectations of her community (the hip hop-infused”Hollywood”), examining the history of marginalized artists (the pop-leaning “Strong Ones”) and her own desire for recognition from the industry (the fiery folk ballad “Flowers”). Punctuating those songs are brief “observations,” interludes scattered around the project that see Joy speaking directly to her audience and telling them, point blank, how she’s feeling.
While she’s become known in industry circles for her tell-all lyricism, Oladokun acknowledges that Observations is something entirely different that her past albums. “In a sort of unhinged way, Proof of Life was a democracy, and this was more of a dictatorship,” she says. “When you’re working with [other songwriters], sometimes you have to sacrifice a feeling or pull a punch just to get something through. The benefit of making this alone was just that, for 40 minutes, I could just be unfiltered. I’ll give you the choruses and hooks you can hold on to, but I also want to be as honest as possible.”
While Oladokun serves as the sole songwriter and producer on the vast majority of the album’s records, a few other songwriters appear in the liner notes — including Maren Morris (“No Country”), Brian Brown (“Hollywood”), Edwin Bocage and Theresa Terry (“Strong Ones”). As she puts it, Observations wouldn’t have been possible had she not made early connections with songwriters throughout her growing career.
“This album is the fruit of so many lessons learned, and people like Dan Wilson and Ian Fitchuk or Mike Elizando, or even like contemporary great songwriters like INK,” she says. “These were people who took time to really pour into me, and said, ‘Here’s what’s great about what you do, and here’s how we can elevate it.’”
The songs where Oladokun gets the most raw see the singer calling out Nashville, and the industry system therein that she says failed her. “Letter” opens with the thought that, if she drowned in a river, the city wouldn’t cry for her, but rather “breathe sighs of relief.” Penultimate track “I’d Miss the Birds” sees Oladokun calling out the town by name, decrying its willful ignorance of her and people like her, while “Proud Boys and their women” continue to thrive.
In the year since she wrote those songs, Oladokun’s feelings on Nashville have only calcified. “Put it in ink, Nashville should be ashamed of itself. I’ll say it as long as they don’t gun me down; this town is so full of s–t,” she says, staring directly into her Zoom camera. “It’s not even because Nazis can walk around freely — that’s a problem, but Nazis are gathering all over the states. My genuine issue is the people who only want to do enough to appear good, but will never lift a finger to actually help.”
In the eight years she’s spent living in the country music capital of the world, Oladokun says she’s watched firsthand as artists and executives praise the “progress” that the city has made socially while Black queer artists like her continue to be ignored. “I am the Ghost of Christmas f–king Past for this city. I am where I am at in my career in spite of this city. In spite the utter lack of support,” she says. “For all the f–king country girls in glitter shorts dancing around with drag queens, how many of them have offered me features or responded to even one of my f–king DMs?”
As she goes on, Oladokun catches herself and clarifies her point. “I want to separate the part of it that can seem personal, the part where it’s just, ‘Oh, people aren’t paying attention or being fair to me,’” she explains, addressing Nashville directly. “I’m not the only Black and gay talent in your city. I am one of a huge, growing faction of artists in your backyard who you don’t support, because you know what it will cost you.”
Her desire to take a breath and zoom out also happens during Observations. On the stirring soul anthem “No Country,” Oladokun looks to the various genocides occurring throughout the world — in an Instagram post, the singer named Palestine, Congo, Sudan and Nigeria as direct inspirations — and yearns for a moral imperative to protect people from harm our increasingly fractured world.
On an album that deals so much with her own personal struggles, Oladokun felt it was important to put her grievances into a larger context. “My job just isn’t that important. Like, my job is hard — but everyone’s job is hard,” she says. “It’s important for me to remember, because I as a human being never want to let this job stop me from being the best version of myself. I can’t let my tunnel vision of what my day-to-day is like distract from what I think the purpose of sharing my music is, which is to give people something to listen to in a weird world.”
That’s also, in part, why Oladokun never tries to offer big-picture answers to the problems she presents on Observations. Not only does she not have all the answers, but she points out that we all have to agree on what the problems are before we can talk about solutions. “It’s so important to name things, and I think a lot of the problems we have as a society comes from our refusal to name things,” she says. “The goal of this record was never to give an answer, but to say, ‘Ow. This hurts.’”
When Oladokun began writing Observations From a Crowded Room, she was considering quitting the music business altogether. When asked where she’s at with that internal conversation today, she shrugs. “My relationship with my job right now … there’s sort of an agnostic quality to it,” she explains. “I believe my career has a future, but it’s so rarely demonstrated in front of me of what it’s like for someone like me to do so. This is the beginning of a conversation — it’s me saying, ‘This is what it’s been like.’ And it’s a little bit up to other people to say, ‘That is what it’s like.’ I can’t be the only one trying to change the culture.”
A wry smile appears on her face: “Ask me again in a year.”
On Oct. 19, 2019, Dan + Shay and Justin Bieber’s “10,000 Hours” began a 21-week command on Billboard’s Hot Country Songs chart.
The duo of Dan Smyers and Shay Mooney landed the most recent of its three Hot Country Songs No. 1s, following “Speechless” (for nine weeks in 2018-19) and “Tequila” (four, 2019).
Pop superstar Bieber reigned with his only Hot Country Songs entry to date.
In its first full week of tracking, “10,000 Hours” totaled 33.3 million official U.S. streams, 19.6 million in all-format airplay audience and 53,000 sold, according to Luminate.
The song was written by Smyers, Mooney, Bieber, Jason “Poo Bear” Boyd, Jessie Jo Dillon and Jordan Reynolds, and Smyers produced it.
After learning that “10,000 Hours” had hit No. 1, Smyers told Billboard, “We wrote this song about our wives, and we’re glad that it means as much to our fans as it does to us. The reaction has been incredible.”
“10,000 Hours” also topped the Country Airplay chart, where Dan + Shay boast 11 No. 1s, between 2015 and 2021. Plus, the song hit No. 4 on the all-genre Billboard Hot 100 and reached the top 10 on Pop Airplay, Adult Pop Airplay and Adult Contemporary.
On Hot Country Songs, which became an all-encompassing genre ranking in 1958, “10,000 Hours” is the seventh-longest-leading No. 1. Another country/pop crossover hit holds the record: Bebe Rexha and Florida Georgia Line’s “Meant to Be” dominated for 50 weeks starting in December 2017.
Dan + Shay’s latest single, “Bigger Houses,” ranks at its No. 16 high on the Oct. 26-dated Country Airplay chart.
In six months, Venezuela went from opening its doors wide to concerts by international stars to a hotly disputed election, all while the Venezuelan music movement surges stronger than ever. What are artist’s roles in the current climate? Billboard Español Deputy Editor Sigal Ratner-Arias discusses their roles with some of the most famous and prominent Venezuelan artists in Danny Ocean, Lele Pons, Mau y Ricky, Elena Rose and Nacho at Billboard’s Latin Music Week 2024.
En los últimos seis meses, Venezuela pasó de abrir sus puertas a conciertos internacionales a ser la sede de una elección presidencial criticada y controversial. A la vez, el movimiento musical de artistas venezolanos surge más fuerte que nunca. ¿Cuál es el rol de sus artistas?
Source: Joe Raedle / Getty / Donald Trump
There is truly no bottom when it comes to Donald Trump.
The disgraced former president continues to make a complete a** out of himself when he opens his mouth. The Orange Menace is currently on a press tour, which is honestly not helping his case regarding convincing people that he is worthy of being back in the White House.
Following his disastrous Univision town hall event, where we saw firsthand what happens when he is hit with real questions from real voters and not softballs from his fans, Orange Mussolini did a Fox News “town hall” moderated by Harris Faulkner, the featured only women in the audience.
In a despicable act, Trump made light of Amber Thurman, a Georgia woman, who died due to anti-abortion legislation passed by the state’s Republican legislative majority that didn’t allow doctors to give Thurman the care she needed when it was revealed her family would conduct a “prebuttal” to his event.
Per Raw Story:
During the Faulkner interview, she stated, “Amber Thurman’s family have come out on a press call, and they’re doing what’s called a prebuttal to our town hall right now.”
That led the former president to joke, “Oh, that’s nice,” to which the pro-Trump audience laughed before he added, “We’ll get better ratings, I promise,” which led to more laughter including from Fox’s Faulkner.
The fallout from Trump’s comments was swift. MSNBC host Anna Cabrera looked stunned and said to her guests, “The ratings? The laughter? Jennifer, how should voters square that moment with what Trump has said about how women should trust him, that he’s a protector of women?”
The reactions on X echoed disgust similar to Trump’s, as you can see in those reactions in the gallery below.
Megan Thee Stallion loves spooky season. Ahead of taking the stage in Chicago for Hottieween to close out October, the Houston rapper announced plans for her Megan deluxe album Megan: Act II on Friday (Oct. 18).
“MEGAN: ACT II OCTOBER 25,” she captioned the social media post. The Pen & Pixel-inspired cover art features the rapper growing butterfly wings and the title written out in diamond-encrusted letters.
Fans were very excited to hear more music was on the way for next week. “THIS COVERRRR COME ON MONEY MAKIN MEG,” one person wrote.
Megan Thee Stallion had teased that she was working on a mixtape earlier in October, but it’s unclear if this deluxe edition is related to the tape she referenced.
Megan will hit the stage for 2024’s Hottieween at Chicago’s United Center on Oct. 31. Tickets for the Halloween show sold out last week; all proceeds will be going toward supporting Megan’s Pete and Thomas Foundation.
Halloween is going to be a busy day for the Hotties. In addition to her Hottieween concert, Meg’s In Her Words documentary is slated to arrive on Prime Video the same day.
TIME Studios, Roc Nation and Amazon MGM Studios are all onboard to produce the revealing documentary surrounding the Grammy winner and her most vulnerable moments.
Megan arrived in June, and the project debuted at No. 3 on the Billboard 200 with 64,000 total album units sold in the first week.
After channeling Bruce Springsteen, Stevie Nicks, late Cranberries singer Dolores O’Riordan, Evanescence’s Amy Lee, David Bowie, Cher and other iconic stars as part of her countdown to upcoming album The Great Impersonator (Oct. 25), Halsey tapped into one of their biggest childhood influences on Thursday (Oct. 17).
To preview the 16th track on the album, the Spears-sampling “Lucky,” Halsey, 30, morphed into In the Zone-era Britney Spears, posting an image of herself with wind-tousled, blonde-streaked hair standing in a blue void while staring intently at the camera with a steely look.
“It’s Britney, b–ch!!!,” Halsey wrote of the eleventh preview of her fifth studio album. “The first superstar who ever inspired me,” they wrote of Spears. “There were infinite Britney looks to choose from, but I had to do this iconic album!,” they added of Spears’ 2003 fourth studio album, which featured the Madonna collab “Me Against the Music,” as well as the Billboard Hot 100 No. 9 hit “Toxic.” The accompanying image comes as Halsey promised to be “impersonating a different icon every day and teasing a snippet of the song they inspired.”
So far that’s meant the gauzy pop tune “Panic Attack” in honor of Nicks, the twangy Parton homage “Hometown,” as well as the Harvey take on turbulent rocker “Dog Years” and tips to the enigmatic British pop star Bush on the chilly “I Never Loved You,” Cher with the aching “Letter to God (1974),” rock chameleon Bowie on the spooky “Darwinism” and Lee on the churning “Lonely Is the Muse.”
The pitch perfect look/sound experiment continued earlier this week with Halsey sporting a short copper-toned hairstyle for the O’Riordan rager “Ego,” rolling up their sleeves, picking up a guitar and posing in front of an American flag for the confessional “Letter to God” as The Boss and going acoustic for the lo-fi Linda Rondstadt tribute “I Believe in Magic.”
On Thursday, the Grammy-nominated singer booked an intimate Nov. 21 show at the 1,400-capacity Regency Ballroom in San Francisco; the show is a exclusively for Wells Fargo Autograph Credit cardholders.
See Halsey’s Britney Spears-inspired look below.
Simon Cowell is remembering Liam Payne following the 31-year-old singer’s death.
In a statement posted to Instagram Friday (Oct. 18), the X Factor creator — who gave Payne his start on the show in 2010 by placing him in One Direction — wrote that he feels “devastated” and “heartbroken” over the loss of his former mentee. “You never really know how you feel about someone until a moment like this happens,” Cowell wrote. “I feel empty.”
“I want you to know how much love and respect I have for you,” the mogul continued. “Every tear I have shed is a memory of you.”
Payne died Oct. 16 after falling from the third floor of his hotel in Buenos Aires, Argentina. A preliminary autopsy concluded that the star was potentially under the influence of substances when the fall occurred, moments before which a hotel manager had placed a 911 call to report that a guest was “destroying [their] entire room.”
In the wake of his death, Payne’s former One Direction bandmates each shared individual statements mourning the musician in addition to releasing a joint statement Thursday (Oct. 17). In his own message, Cowell shared that people would often ask him what Payne was like in real life, and he “would tell them you were kind, funny, sweet, thoughtful, talented, humble, focused. And how much you loved music. And how much love you genuinely had for the fans.”
The former American Idol judge also reminisced on the first time he crossed paths with Payne when the singer auditioned for The X Factor U.K. in 2008 but was sent home; two years later, he’d audition again and earn his spot in 1D. “I had to tell you when you were 14 that this wasn’t your time,” Cowell wrote. “And we both made a promise that we would meet again. A lot of people would have given up. You didn’t.”
“You came to see me last year,” Cowell continued. “Not for a meeting. Just to sit and talk. And we reminisced about all of the fun times we had together. And how proud you were to be a Dad. After you left, I was reminded that you were still the sweet, kind boy I had met all of those years ago.”
Cowell’s statement marks the first time the producer has spoken about Payne’s passing. Earlier in the week, Cowell’s auditions for Britain’s Got Talent — another of his talent shows — were postponed “due to the tragic passing of Liam Payne,” according to a statement posted by Applause Store Thursday (Oct. 17).
Cowell was instrumental in Payne’s career, assigning the singer to One Direction with fellow X Factor hopefuls Harry Styles, Zayn Malik, Niall Horan and Louis Tomlinson in 2010. The band went on to dominate pop music for six years after that, scoring four No. 1 albums on the Billboard 200 and six Billboard Hot 100 top 10 hits before disbanding in 2016, after which Payne and his bandmates each pursued successful solo careers.
Cowell also reflected on the similarities between Payne and the singer’s 7-year-old son Bear, whom he shares with ex Cheryl Cole. Wrote the producer, “He has your smile and that twinkle in his eye that you have. And he will be so proud of everything you achieved. And how you achieved it.”
He concluded his tribute “And now Liam, I can see the effect you had on so many people. Because you left us too soon. Rest in peace my friend.”
See Cowell’s full statement about Payne below.
