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31 Jul 2024

Go Backstage With ‘Voice’ Newbies Snoop Dogg & Michael Buble as They Join Reba & Gwen for First Coach Quartet

The Voice season 26 is just around the corner, and the newest group of coaches recently teamed up for a high-energy performance of Four Tops’ 1966 hit “Reach Out I’ll Be There.”

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In a new clip shared exclusively with Billboard on Wednesday (July 31), fans get a behind-the-scenes look at the coaches’ playful banter and connection as they gear up for the performance.

“Out of all the people you thought would become a superband, this wasn’t it,” Michael Bublé said of himself, Snoop Dogg, Reba McEntire and Gwen Stefani. He added, “If you were wondering, ‘Can Snoop Dogg sing?’ Yeah, he can sing.”

It was announced back in May that Snoop will be sliding into one of the signature spinning chairs on the singing competition show alongside fellow newcomerBublé. The panel for this fall’s season 26 will be rounded out by returning coaches McEntire and Stefani, with the former notching her third consecutive season on the series and No Doubt singer and solo star Stefani adding yet another notch with her eighth go-round.

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Bublé isn’t a total stranger to the Voice stage, as the Canadian singer previously appeared as an advisor to Team Blake in season 3. Snoop also has Voice bona fides, thanks to his gig as a Mega Mentor in season 20.

Watch the behind-the-scenes clip below, and catch season 26 of The Voice when it premieres Sept. 23 at 8 p.m. ET on NBC.


https://youtube.com/watch?v=1_KWkZbYBhU&version=3&rel=1&showsearch=0&showinfo=1&iv_load_policy=1&fs=1&hl=en-US&autohide=2&wmode=transparent

31 Jul 2024

StubHub Sued By DC Attorney General Over ‘Junk Fees’ Tacked On to Ticket Prices

StubHub is facing a lawsuit from Washington DC’s attorney general over allegations that the ticket resale platform foists “convoluted junk fees” on concertgoers after luring them in with “deceptively low prices.”

In a complaint filed Wednesday, Attorney General Brian Schwalb accuses StubHub of violating the District’s consumer protection laws by using the “drip pricing” — an “exploitative pricing scheme” in which a company requires consumers to pay fees that weren’t advertised in the initial price.

“For years, StubHub has illegally deceived District consumers through its convoluted junk fee scheme,” Schwalb said in a statement announcing the case. “StubHub lures consumers in by advertising a deceptively low price, forces them through a burdensome purchase process, and then finally reveals a total on the checkout page that is vastly higher than the originally advertised ticket price.”

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The “hidden” fees imposed by StubHub total “upwards of 40% of the advertised ticket price,” the lawsuit claims, and DC consumers have allegedly paid $118 million in such fees since 2015.

In a statement, StubHub said the company was “committed to creating a transparent, secure and competitive marketplace” for its customers. “We are disappointed that the DC Attorney General is targeting StubHub when our user experience is consistent with the law, our competitors’ practices and the broader e-commerce sector. We strongly support federal and state solutions that enhance existing laws to empower consumers, such as requiring all-in pricing uniformly across platforms.”

Consumers have complained for years about “convenience” and “service” fees that are tacked onto the price of tickets for concerts and other live events. Laws requiring “all-in pricing” — the full, final cost, presented at the beginning of a sale — have been enacted by New York, California and other states in recent years. A federal bill (Transparency in Charges for Key Events Ticketing, or TICKET, Act) was passed by the House of Representatives in May and is awaiting a vote in the Senate.

Hidden fees are also a key accusation in the pending antitrust lawsuit against Live Nation filed by the Department of Justice earlier this year. In that case, the DOJ has argued that such fees levied by Ticketmaster on American concertgoers “far exceed” those in other countries.

“Any fan who has logged onto Ticketmaster’s website to buy a concert ticket knows the feeling of shock and frustration as the base cost of the ticket increases dramatically with the addition of fees,” the DOJ wrote in its complaint against Live Nation. “Whatever the name of the fee and however the fees are packaged and collected, they are essentially a ‘Ticketmaster Tax’ that ultimately raise the price fans pay.”

In Wednesday’s lawsuit, Schwalb argues that StubHub imposes those same fees on its customers. Calling it a “a classic bait-and-switch scheme,” the lawsuit claims the final price of a StubHub ticket is only revealed after customers have “invested time and effort clicking through an intentionally long, multi-page purchase process” — which features a countdown clock to “create a false sense of urgency.”

“StubHub designed this unfair and deceptive scheme to make more money,” Schwalb wrote. “By forcing consumers to click through over a dozen pages before they see the real price, StubHub puts consumers in the position of having to choose between either paying those unexpected fees or abandoning the time and effort they have expended.”

In addition to springing such fees at the end of a transaction, the lawsuit also accuses StubHub of choosing deceptive names for them — a claim that echoes longstanding complaints about what vaguely-named ticketing fees imposed by many companies actually cover.

“What StubHub identifies as ‘Fulfillment and Service Fees’ are in fact influenced by factors unrelated to ‘fulfillment’ or ‘service,’” the lawsuit reads. “Furthermore, the fees vary wildly, and StubHub never discloses to the consumer how those fees are calculated or what services these fees fund.”

Read the entire lawsuit against StubHub here:

31 Jul 2024

New Senate Bill Could Protect Artists from AI Deepfakes

A bipartisan group of U.S. senators introduced the highly anticipated NO FAKES Act on Wednesday (July 31), which aims to protect artists and others from AI deepfakes and other nonconsensual replicas of their voices, images and likenesses.

If passed, the legislation would create federal intellectual property protections for the so-called right of publicity for the first time, which restricts how someone’s name, image, likeness and voice can be used without consent. Currently, such rights are only protected at the state level, leading to a patchwork of different rules across the country.

Unlike many existing state-law systems, the federal right that the NO FAKES Act would create would not expire at death and could be controlled by a person’s heirs for 70 years after their passing. To balance personal publicity rights and the First Amendment right to free speech, the NO FAKES Act also includes specific carveouts for replicas used in news coverage, parody, historical works or criticism. 

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Non-consensual AI deepfakes are of great concern to the music business, given so many of its top-billing talent have already been exploited in this way. Taylor Swift, for example, was the subject of a number of sexually-explicit AI deepfakes of her body; the late Tupac Shakur‘s voice was recently deepfaked by fellow rapper Drake in his Kendrick Lamar diss track “Taylor Made Freestyle,” which was posted, and then deleted, on social media; and Drake and The Weeknd had their own voices cloned by AI without their permission in the TikTok viral track “Heart On My Sleeve.”

The NO FAKES Act was first released as a draft bill by the same group of lawmakers — Senators Chris Coons (D-DE), Marsha Blackburn (R-TN), Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) and Thom Tillis (D-NC) — last October, and its formal introduction to the U.S. Senate continues to build on the same principles also laid out in the No AI FRAUD Act, a similar bill which was introduced to the U.S. House of Representatives earlier this year.

While the music industry is overwhelmingly supportive of the creation of a federal right of publicity, there are some detractors in other creative fields, including film/tv, which pose a threat to the passage of bills like the NO FAKES Act. In a speech during Grammy week earlier this year, National Music Publishers Association (NMPA) president/CEO David Israelite explained that “[a federal right of publicity] does not have a good chance… Within the copyright community we don’t agree. … Guess who is bigger than music? Film and TV.” Still, the introduction of the NO FAKES Act and the NO AI Fraud Act proves there is bicameral and bipartisan support for the idea.

Earlier this year, proponents for strengthened publicity rights laws celebrated a win on the state level in their fight to regulate AI deepfakes with the passage of the ELVIS Act in Tennessee. The landmark law greatly expanded protections for artists and others in the state, and explicitly protected voices for the first time.

Though it was celebrated by a who’s who of the music business — from the Recording Academy, Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), Human Artistry Campaign, NMPA and more — the act also drew a few skeptics, like Professor Jennifer Rothman of University of Pennsylvania law school, who raised concerns that the law could have been an “overreaction” that could potentially open up tribute bands, interpolations, or sharing photos that a celebrity didn’t authorize to lawsuits.

“The Human Artistry Campaign applauds Senators Coons, Blackburn, Klobuchar and Tillis for crafting strong legislation establishing a fundamental right putting every American in control of their own voices and faces against a new onslaught of highly realistic voice clones and deepfakes,” Dr. Moiya McTier, senior advisor of the Human Artistry Campaign — a global initiative for responsible AI use, supported by 185 organizations in the music business and beyond — says of the bill. “The NO FAKES Act will help protect people, culture and art — with clear protections and exceptions for the public interest and free speech. We urge the full Senate to prioritize and pass this vital, bipartisan legislation. The abusive deepfake ecosystem online destroys more lives and generates more victims every day — Americans need these protections now.”

The introduction of the bill is also celebrated by American Federation of Musicians (AFM), ASCAP, Artist Rights Alliance (ARA), American Association of Independent Music (A2IM), Association of American Publishers, Black Music Action Coalition (BMAC), BMI, Fan Alliance, The Azoff Company co-president Susan Genco, Nashville Songwriters Association International (NSAI), National Association of Voice Actors (NAVA), National Independent Talent Organization, National Music Publishers’ Association (NMPA), Organización de Voces Unidas (OVU), Production Music Association, Recording Academy, Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), SAG-AFTRA, SESAC Music Group, Songwriters of North America (SoNA), SoundExchange, United Talent Agency (UTA) and WME.

31 Jul 2024

Bill Maher Calls Taylor Swift ‘Tacky,’ Says Travis Kelce Is Going to ‘Dump Her’

Bill Maher made the bold choice of dissing Taylor Swift on his Club Random podcast this week, picking on everything from the 34-year-old pop star’s Eras Tour to her romance with Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce. 

While speaking to guest Haliey Welch — better known as the viral “Hawk Tuah” girl — on his Sunday (July 28) episode, the 68-year-old comedian was the first person to bring up Swift. “I liked her more when she was country,” he said. “I love ‘Sparks Fly.’ I love it.” 

That was pretty much where the flattery stopped, though. “I’m sure she’s a lovely person, but the whole thing with the football player … it just felt like 35 is a little old to be like, ‘My boyfriend’s a football player, and I wear his jersey to the game with his number on it,’” Maher continued, referencing the 14-time Grammy winner’s high-profile visits to Arrowhead Stadium during the 2023-24 NFL season. “Right? I mean, come on.” 

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The political commentator went on to say frankly that Kelce is “gonna dump her.” “With her, it’s like the Gatorade at the Super Bowl,” he added. “You know you’re gonna get dumped — you just don’t know when.”  

Welch then remarked that Swift’s next album would be next-level if a Tayvis breakup did occur — “It won’t be f–k John Mayer no more, it’ll be f–k Travis” — to which Maher questioned, “Is she still singing about [Mayer]?”  

“Her tour is the Eras Tour… it must’ve had the songs about all the people that she wrote songs about,” the Real Time host continued, agreeing with Welch that it’s “very tacky” for Swift to still be singing about her past exes. “You can’t control what the muse dictates to you — she’s a songwriter. I can’t fault her for that. But [her breakups] seem like such a recurrent theme.”  

That’s when Maher ended the Swift discussion with a pretty outdated joke: “At some point, you just want to say, maybe you should write a song called, ‘Maybe It’s Me.’”  

Billboard has reached out to Swift’s rep for comment. 

Though Maher apparently dislikes that the musician performs her older music on the Eras Tour, millions of Swifties would probably beg to differ. In 2023, the Eras Tour generated approximately $900 million in ticket sales — a number that’s no doubt significantly higher when factoring in the four months she’s been touring in 2024 since it was calculated.  

Swift has also been open about how quips about her dating life and songwriting topics affect her. When the Netflix series Ginny & Georgia included the line, “You go through men faster than Taylor Swift” in 2021, for instance, she was quick to put it on blast. 

“Hey Ginny & Georgia, 2010 called and it wants its lazy, deeply sexist joke back,” she tweeted at the time. “How about we stop degrading hard working women by defining this horse s–t as FuNnY.” 

As for the “Karma” singer’s relationship with Kelce, the couple appears to be doing just fine (although some of Maher’s comments do echo complaints from NFL fans who didn’t like seeing Swift on their TV screens during Chiefs games). Now going on a year of dating, they were most recently spotted at the star’s Eras show in Gelsenkirchen, Germany, July 18, cozying up next to each other as they exited the backstage area. 

Watch Maher discuss Swift below.

31 Jul 2024

Kendrick Lamar’s ‘Not Like Us’ Plays at Kamala Harris’ Atlanta Rally: Watch the Crowd Sing Along

Kendrick Lamar’s “Not Like Us” has infiltrated election season. Kamala Harris hosted a rally as the likely Democratic party nominee in the upcoming presidential election on Tuesday night (July 30) in Atlanta, and K. Dot’s Drake diss was played at one point.

Footage from the vice president’s livestream of the rally quickly went viral on social media, with the crowd singing along to “Not Like Us” and especially joining together for the “wop, wop, wop” and “A-minor” punch lines. One male fan specifically went viral for his passion while rapping to the song.

“The way everything in this song can apply to Trump too,” a fan responded on X. “She is so smart.”

Another added a shot in at Drake: “Even in presidential rally drake getting cooked!”

Even nearly three months following the release of “Not Like Us,” the track hasn’t lost steam while sitting at No. 3 on the Billboard Hot 100 dated Aug. 3. Lamar’s Drake diss has been swallowed up by other avenues of pop culture, including the political realm and the sports world.

Hip-hop was definitely in the building on Tuesday night, with Quavo also endorsing the vice president and speaking about his commitment to gun safety following the loss of his nephew Takeoff, who was fatally shot in November 2022.

“One of these issues that I care about is resolving the gun violence issues,” Quavo said to the crowd. “You can’t understand the struggle of gun violence if you not in the field or in the heart of it. So, one thing I learned from working with Vice President Harris is she always stand on business. From inviting me to the White House last year to discuss these solutions, to passing the biggest gun safety laws today.”

Megan Thee Stallion also hit the Atlanta rally stage in a blue pantsuit with her dancers, where she performed hits such as “Body” and the Yuki Chiba-assisted “Mamushi.”

“Now I know my ladies in the crowd love their bodies. If you want to keep loving your bodies, you know who to vote for,” she said to kick off her performance.

It remains to be seen if “Not Like Us” will remain a part of Harris’ campaign when she heads to Philadelphia next week (Aug. 6) for a rally where she’ll unveil her VP pick, per Reuters.

President Joe Biden stepped down from the presidential race on July 21, and plenty of artists have backed Harris in her pursuit of the Oval Office, including Cardi B, Lizzo, Ariana Grande, Charli XCX, Demi Lovato, Questlove and more.

31 Jul 2024

50 Cent Describes Initially Being Left Off 2022 Super Bowl Halftime Show Roster: ‘Eminem Wouldn’t Do It Without Me’

If you don’t remember 50 Cent‘s name on the original lineup of artists for the iconic 2022 Super Bowl halftime show featuring Dr. Dre, Snoop Dogg, Mary J. Blige, Kendrick Lamar and Eminem that’s because, according to 50, “they” didn’t want him there.

In a new feature in The Hollywood Reporter, 50 goes into detail about the drama behind the scenes of the Super Bowl LVI performance that featured him as a surprise guest, but which he said almost didn’t happen. “They wanted to leave me out of it. They didn’t want me there,” 50 said, echoing a since-deleted Instagram post from Sept. 2022 in which he said, “[Eminem] is the man, he wouldn’t do the show without me,” after the performance won three Emmy awards; rapper N.O.R.E. also mentioned the initial snub on his podcast around the time.

Asked who “they” were, 50 said it was Jay-Z’s Roc Nation who didn’t want him on stage that night. “Eminem wouldn’t do it without me,” 50 (born Curtis Jackson) reiterated about Marshall Mathers, who first signed Jackson and helped him release his smash 2003 debut studio album, Get Rich or Die Tryin’. “That’s how I ended up on the show because he was not coming if I didn’t do it. When that happens, you go, ‘Damn, so you just lost Eminem because you didn’t bring 50? Damn. All right. Bring 50 then.’ But if it was up to them, they would not have me there. I’m the surprise. I’m not on the bill at all. But they couldn’t get Em to do it without me.”

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The long history of mutual admiration between the two MCs will extend into the future thanks to an upcoming project from 50’s G-Unit Film and Television company, which he said is developing a series based on Em’s 2002 8 Mile feature film. “50 is like a brother to me,” Eminem told THR. “50 has proven again and again that there’s really nothing he can’t do, and nobody gets in the way of him getting it done.”

The story also notes that 50 is expanding his already sprawling TV holdings with an animated series for Amazon Freevee called Lady Danger Agent of B.O.O.T.I. featuring Nicki Minaj. “He’s a blueprint to what resilience looks like,” Minaj said of 50, whose expansive TV portfolio includes the six-season Starz hit Power — and spin-offs Ghost, Raising Kanan and Force — as well as another Starz series, BMF and upcoming shows including the boxing drama Fightland and Queen Nzinga, about an African warrior queen.

“Whenever he’s been counted out in the real world or within the entertainment business, he’s risen to the occasion and come out triumphant. He’s smart. He’s a businessman,” Minaj added. “I can see past the ‘funny 50’ — I see a very deep thinker. He’s honest. He’s mastered the chess game of reinvention throughout many eras of music, entertainment and social media. Yet he still somehow always seems to remain authentic. That is a very difficult feat.”

50 also said he’s launching his own FAST (free ad-supported streaming TV) channel, building his own film studio in Shreveport, LA and working on a novel about a Black female Texas Ranger.

31 Jul 2024

Zach Bryan Tops June Touring Report With Almost $69 Million

Zach Bryan rules Billboard’s June Boxscore report with 10 shows from The Quittin’ Time Tour. According to figures reported to Billboard Boxscore, Bryan grossed $68.9 million and sold 340,000 tickets in June.

It’s the first monthly win for Bryan, after scaling as high as No. 2 in March, seated behind Bad Bunny. He clocked two more top 10 placements in April (No. 10) and May (No. 4) before hitting the summit. Following Morgan Wallen (April 2023), he is only the second country artist to top the list.

The Quittin’ Time Tour has earned $184 million and sold 929,000 tickets since launching on March 5, current through the end of June. Barely past its halfway point, the trek has already quadrupled the gross of Bryan’s Burn Burn Burn Tour from last year, which itself had quadrupled 2022’s The American Run Tour. In two years, he has multiplied his average per-show gross by more than 14, up from $292,000 in ’22, to $4.3 million.

Coldplay is June’s runner-up, logging its third month at No. 2, in addition to its three months at No. 1. During the month, the British rockers grossed $68 million and sold 576,000 tickets.

The band’s consistency – six months in the top two, plus eight more elsewhere in the top 10 – has paid off: the Music of the Spheres Tour has grossed $875.8 million and sold 8.2 million tickets since launching in March 2022.

Both the tour’s gross and attendance are the second biggest in Boxscore history. Elton John’s Farewell Yellow Brick Road Tour (2018-23) grossed $939.1 million, and Ed Sheeran’s The Divide Tour (2017-19) sold 8.9 million tickets. With more dates scheduled, Coldplay is likely to overtake both by the end of the summer.

The major asterisk for these all-time highs is that Taylor Swift has not reported figures for The Eras Tour. Billboard estimated more than $900 million in the bank and over four million tickets sold by last November. Since then, she’s performed in Asia, Australia and Europe, with a return to North America scheduled for the fall, meaning that she is likely far beyond $1 billion and nearing Sheeran’s attendance total to boot.

While Bryan leads Coldplay on Top Tours, they reverse fortunes on Top Boxscores, with the latter’s three shows at Groupama Stadium in Lyon, France, ($22.6 million, 165,000 tickets) beating the former’s double-header at Mile High Stadium in Denver ($20.5 million, 110,000 tickets). The Lyon venue rules Top Stadiums.

Both acts litter the rest of Top Boxscores, with Coldplay appearing four times in the top half, and Bryan totaling six entries. That’s each artist’s entire slate of shows from June, dominating the chart in stadiums – Coldplay in Europe and Bryan in the U.S.

In a first, the entire top 10 artists – Bryan, Coldplay, P!nk, Dead & Company, Aventura, Justin Timberlake, Kenny Chesney, Chris Brown, Green Day and Luke Combs – boast grosses of $30 million or more. Nine tours had done it in August and September 2022, and again in June and July 2023.

Further, the entire Top Tours chart is stronger than ever. German singer Roland Kaiser rounds out the list at No. 30, via $11.5 million from nine shows. That’s higher than the bottom of the list has ever been, outpacing the $10.8 million from Marco Antonio Solis last September. June marks the second month since the charts launched in 2019 that all 30 ranked tours reported grosses of $10 million or more.

June’s top 30 artists mix veteran artists such as Dead & Company, Billy Joel and Luis Miguel with fresh faces including Bryan, Feid and Noah Kahan. Classic pop groups make their mark, as Girls Aloud’s 2024 reunion lands at No. 14 with $19.1 million and Take That’s U.K. tour continues at No. 26 with $13 million.

The top-grossing venue of June is Las Vegas’ Sphere. The room hosted 10 shows across four weekends with artist-in-residency Dead & Company. The supergroup brought in $50.2 million and sold 162,000 tickets, enough to land at No. 4 on Top Tours and sprinkle Top Boxscores at Nos. 4, 5 and 8.

Up 38% from May, it’s Sphere’s second consecutive month at No. 1, with its one-of-a-kind concert experience driving high ticket prices. Madison Square Garden out-sold Sphere by more than 80,000 tickets and grossed about $12 million less, with the latter nearly doubling MSG’s average ticket ($309 vs. $156).

The lower-capacity venue charts are dominated by Glasgow (OVO Hydro), Atlanta (Fox Theatre) and Las Vegas (Dolby Live and Encore Theater at Wynn Las Vegas). Historically blocked by larger venues on the 5,000-capacity-and-under ranking, Encore Theater scores its first month at No. 1 on the new chart that breaks out venues with a cap of 2,500 or less.

31 Jul 2024

Keith Urban, Ashley McBryde and More Set to Perform at 2024 ACM Honors

Eric Church, Vince Gill, Emmylou Harris, Tyler Hubbard, Jamey Johnson, Ashley McBryde, Darius Rucker and Keith Urban are the first performers announced for the 2024 ACM Awards, which will be presented on Wednesday, Aug. 21 at the Ryman Auditorium in Nashville.

Carly Pearce and Jordan Davis are set to host the event, which will pay tribute to this year’s previously-announced honorees Walt Aldridge, Tony Brown, Luke Bryan, Alan Jackson, Shannon Sanders, Lainey Wilson and Trisha Yearwood.

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Pearce is hosting for the fourth straight year. Davis is the reigning ACM song of the year winner, having won at the May 16 show for co-writing “Next Thing You Know” with Josh Osborne, Chase McGill and Greylan James.

Brown has worked closely with both Harris, for whom he played piano, and Gill, for whom he produced many recordings, including one that won an ACM Award – “Building Bridges,” a 2006 collab with Sheryl Crow which was voted vocal event of the year.

In addition to performing on the show, Hubbard will present the ACM studio recording and industry awards portion of ACM Honors, which is in its 17th year.

Additionally, previously announced artist-songwriter of the year winner Chris Stapleton and songwriter of the year Jessie Jo Dillon will be feted at ACM Honors.

Limited tickets for ACM Honors are available through AXS, including VIP packages which include a ticket in the VIP artist section of the Ryman (first seven rows), a ticket to the VIP pre-party reception, a commemorative Hatch Show Print poster, parking, and drink tickets.

31 Jul 2024

Young Thug Denied Bond Again By New Judge In Atlanta RICO Trial

The new judge in Young Thug’s sprawling Atlanta gang trial has denied the rapper’s renewed request to be released from jail until a verdict is reached.

Two weeks after Judge Paige Reese Whitaker became the third judge to preside over the huge racketeering case, she rejected arguments from Thug’s attorney Brian Steel to release the rapper on bond and allow him to live under house arrest with strict monitoring.

Steel had argued that the recent turbulent events in the case — Judge Ural Glanville was ordered removed from the case over a secret meeting with prosecutors and a key witness — were the kind of “changed circumstances” that would allow her to overturn earlier rulings that kept him locked up.

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But at a hearing Tuesday, Whitaker was unswayed. “I don’t know how I would have decided the bond originally,” the judge said. “That’s not before me. These are not the kind of changed circumstances [required under precedent], so I’m not going to reconsider the bond.”

Thug — real name Jeffery Williams — and dozens of others were indicted in May 2022 over allegations that their YSL was not really a record label called Young Stoner Life but rather a violent Atlanta gang called Young Slime Life. Citing Georgia’s Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) law, prosecutors claim the group operated a criminal enterprise that committed murders, carjackings, armed robberies, drug dealing and other crimes over the course of a decade.

The trial kicked off in January 2023 but has faced repeated delays and disruptions, including an unprecedented 10-month jury selection, the stabbing of another defendant and now the removal of the presiding judge. Prosecutors have only presented part of their vast list of potential witnesses, and the case is expected to run well into 2025.

Thug has been sitting in jail for more than two years while the slow-moving trial has dragged on, repeatedly denied bond by Glanville over concerns that he might intimidate witnesses. But with Glanville gone, Steel argued last week that Thug should not be “languishing in the county jail” under “tortuous” conditions when he has not be convicted of a crime.

At Tuesday’s hearing, he reiterated those pleas to Whitaker. “Mr. Williams has been in custody since the 9th day of May, 2022,” Steel said. “He has sat through unnecessary jury selection for months, bringing in over 2,000 people when the jurors were chosen from the first 511. That should not be on him. That is excess. He has now sat here for a month while the antics of Judge Glanville and [prosecutors] caused him to wander in squalor in a jail.”

Though Whitaker denied Thug’s renewed request for bond, the new judge suggested during the hearing that she would speed up the pace of the case, ordering prosecutors to better organize their planned witness testimony and evidence, saying, “It should not take another seven months.”

The judge is also still considering whether case should continue at all. Thug and three of the other YSL defendants have moved for a mistrial, citing Glanville’s conduct and other issues with the case.

At Tuesday’s hearing, Whitaker denied two of those motions, including one that had argued that a brand new judge could not possibly “make informed rulings” after missing the first 19 months of a trial in which over 100 witnesses had already testified. But she left two pending, including Steel’s accusations that Glanville’s behavior had irreparably broken the case.

“If that is the case, there will be a different ruling made that will impact this trial, that may result in a mistrial, that may result in a mistrial with prejudice,” the judge said.

31 Jul 2024

Sam Smith Enlists ‘Beautiful Soul’ Alicia Keys for New Recording of ‘I’m Not the Only One’

With a new version of their hit single, Sam Smith literally will not be the only one.

In a post to their social media on Wednesday (July 31), Smith announced that they would be releasing a new version of their In the Lonely Hour single “I’m Not the Only One” featuring R&B icon Alicia Keys. Posting a photo with Keys, Smith wrote about the singer’s support and talent, thanking her for joining them on the new version of the song.

“I’m Not The Only One feat. the truly incomparable @aliciakeys … I am so honoured to have such an incredible talent and a beautiful soul join me on this track to celebrate a decade of In The Lonely Hour,” they wrote in an Instagram caption.

This won’t be the first time the pair have sung the song together. Back in June, Smith hosted a 10th anniversary party in New York City for their debut studio album, where Keys appeared as a special guest to perform the track. “Can you believe we never did this before?” she expressed at the time. “That’s crazy!”

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The new song release comes alongside Smith’s 10th anniversary edition of In the Lonely Hour, which includes new recordings of the album’s classic tracks. For one song in particular — their singular, breakthrough hit “Stay With Me” — Smith decided to update the lyrics in order to better reflect their gender identity in 2024. “This song is truly so special to me, so for the 10 year anniversary I re-recorded the track … including the updated lyric ‘but I still need love, baby understand’ which felt really important to me,” they said of the change in a statement. “It’s beautiful to know that sometimes, we can change the past.”

Smith & Keys’ new rendition of “I’m Not the Only One,” as well as the rest of the 10th anniversary edition of In the Lonely Hour, will be released on Friday, Aug. 2. Check out Smith’s Instagram post below: