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Ahead of Sebastián Yatra’s performance at Viña del Mar, the singer sits down with Billboard to share the inspiration behind his upcoming single, “La Pelirroja,” reveals a new album is coming this year, his friendship with Carlos Vives, performing on Broadway and more! Leila Cobo:Hi, Sebas. Sebastián Yatra:Hi, Leila. How are you? It’s been many […]
PARTYNEXTDOOR has walked back his Tory Lanez diss.
PND previewed a snippet on his Instagram Live of a song on Wednesday (Feb. 26), where he’s throwing shot at fellow Toronto artist Tory Lanez. “I’m not y’all n—as friend. What are you talkin’ about bro? Stop saying my name,” he could be heard saying before playing the track.
“F—k what Tory Lanez say, he knows the B, I’m runnin’ it,” Party says in his signature flow. “I did everything he did he’s just a running man … drama man … I’m the daddy let me slap you OK.”
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He later sings about Tory sounding like him and seems to refer to his guilty verdict in the Megan Thee Stallion case: “You said I sound like Young Thug, you know you sound like me,” he says. “Life is short, the lawyer’s cheap/ The people that love me, they love me/ Would’ve been back in the streets by Monday.”
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However, a few hours later, Party admitted that recording and teasing the song was a mistake. “I was told about what you said without hearing your video for myself,” he wrote in his Instagram Story. “You didn’t say anything that I wouldn’t say myself, now that I seen it I was wrong. City is stronger together.”
The video he’s referring to is the one that was posted to Tory Lanez’s Instagram on Feb. 19, where the currently incarcerated artist mentioned in a phone call from behind bars that Party, Drake, and The Weeknd‘s latest efforts have inspired him to record an album this year. “PARTYNEXTDOOR showed his best work of 2025, Drake showed his best work of 2025,” Lanez said. “The Weeknd showed his best work of 2025, now it’s time for me to come out.”
Many fans were confused by Party’s shots because Drake has shown support for Lanez a few times, most recently calling for his freedom during a Christmas giveaway on a stream with Adin Ross.
Tate McRae has ticked a lot of career dreams off her vision board over the past few years. But that doesn’t mean the “Sports Car” singer is done searching for new challenges. In an interview with Pride about her deep connection to her LGBTQ+ day one fans and the star’s upcoming Miss Possessive tour in support of her So Close to What album, McRae didn’t hesitate when asked which one of her idols she’d like to hit the studio with.
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“My dream is to write with SZA. She’s one of the coolest and best writers ever,” McRae said of the “Luther” star who is gearing to to hit the road with her Super Bowl LIX halftime show compatriot Kendrick Lamar in April. “I love her. I think it’d be a mix of pop and R&B. I’d let her take the charge! I just want to always keep pushing my comfort zone. I never want to recycle and do the same things. As an artist, I want to be uncomfortable and shock myself sometimes.”
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While she’s manifesting things, the goal-driven McRae also said she “would die” to perform at the MTV VMAs. “That’s something I’ve watched all my idols do for so many years,” she said of the show that has been a launching pad and showcase for some of her obvious influences in the past, from Madonna to Britney Spears. “From some reason, that specific performances is something I’ve always wanted.”
She also had to give it up for her day-one queer fans, saying that they are her absolute “favorite. No one beats them. Nobody is better than them. My whole team is gay! That’s the only opinion I really want when I’m releasing music. I feel lucky that I have their opinion. We want to do the most and push the boundaries, but it’s also the most brutally honest advice.”
As an example, the 21-year-old noted her 2023 performance at the G-A-Y & Heaven Nightclub in London, which she called one of her all-time high points. “I ditched the mic and just started dancing,” she said. “There was only like 150 people in the room and it was some of the craziest, loudest energy I’ve ever felt. I just wanted to whip my hair, do a kick, and leave! That’s all I wanted to do.”
In a final shout-out to the audience that has always had her back, McRae added, “I love you guys so much. Y’all are my number ones. You know that as much as you guys ride for me, I ride for you. I feel very grateful to have you guys in my life and surrounding me.”
As she awaits the March 18 kick-off of her tour in Mexico City’s Pepsi Center WTC, McRae will appear as the musical guest on Saturday Night Live this weekend alongside host comedian Shane Gillis.
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Hot 107.9’s Birthday Bash has seen its fair share of memorable moments, from surprise guests to on-stage shenanigans. We have pretty much seen it all over the past 29 shows, and yet, each year becomes hotter than the last!
We take a look back at 20 of the biggest moments in Birthday Bash history! Consider it a warm-up for this year’s Birthday Bash!
Scroll Down and Tune In FRIDAY @ 5 pm For A MAJOR BIRTHDAY BASH ANNOUNCEMENT!
20 Memorable “Birthday Bash” Moments
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1. Latto Brings Out Usher For Birthday Bash
2. NLE Choppa & Sexyy Red Get Frisky On Stage
3. Megan Thee Stallion Performs “Realer”
4. Lil Baby Brings Out Lil Durk
5. 21 Savage Brings Out Latto & Cardi B
6. Lil Baby & His Son Having a Ball
7. Migos Hits The Birthday Bash Stage For The Last Time
8. Gucci Mane Brings Out Rick Ross
9. Fabo From D4L Performs “Laffy Taffy”
10. BeatKing’s Final Birthday Bash Performance
11. Gloss Up Shares The Stage With Her Son
12. DaBaby Hops In The Crowd & Turns Up
13. 21 Savage & J Cole Light Up The Stage
14. Ludacris & Mystikal On Stage
15. Killer Mike Awarded The Inaugural Rico Wade Game Changer Award
16. T.I. Shouts Out Young Thug
17. Pastor Troy Performs “No Mo Play in GA”
18. Latto Gets Freaky On The Mic
19. Yung Miami Twerks On Stage
20. Gucci Mane Brings Out Lil Wayne
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Source: Scott Dudelson / Getty
The Marathon never ends. Nipsey Hussle’s brother Blacc Sam teased in a recent interview on his late brother’s first posthumous album is expected to drop this summer. Due to the untimely passing of Neighborhood Nip, we have not gotten a new project in about six years.
Blacc Sam also spoke to Power 106 on a collab project that was pretty much 80% complete before Nip passed with West Coast artist, Bino Rideaux, “The team kind of came in and got some unreleased verses in music that he had done with Bino, and just kind of tightened it up,” he explained. “It sounds amazing, and it should be dropping this summer.”
The album will include work from some of the same producers who helped shape his critically acclaimed 2018 album Victory Lap. Mike & Keys, Axl Folie, and My Guy Mars, who worked on tracks like “Double Up,” “Dedication,” and “Hustle & Motivate,” are confirmed to return for the project. These producers are known for their signature West Coast sound, blending soulful melodies with Nipsey’s raw and honest storytelling.
Fans have eagerly awaited new material since Nipsey’s tragic death, and this album promises to honor his legacy while giving listeners a glimpse into the artist’s evolving journey. Blacc Sam has been vocal about ensuring the album stays true to Nipsey’s vision, creating something authentic that reflects his impact The announcement has sparked excitement, as the Crenshaw rapper’s fans are ready to hear the final chapter of the rapper’s musical story—one that was tragically cut short but will live on through his work.
Check out the full conversation with Blacc Sam and Power 106 below:
All that glitters is gold when it comes to Dreamworks’ new film announcement, with the animation studio revealing Thursday (Feb. 27) that a fifth Shrek movie is in the works featuring Zendaya as the beloved ogre’s daughter. In a teaser clip shared on YouTube, the Spiderman star (who has landed six songs on the Billboard […]
Forever No. 1 is a Billboard series that pays special tribute to the recently deceased artists who achieved the highest honor our charts have to offer — a Billboard Hot 100 No. 1 single — by taking an extended look back at the chart-topping songs that made them part of this exclusive club. Here, we honor the late Robert John with a look at his lone No. 1: The sweetly insensitive 1979 throwback smash “Sad Eyes.”
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Perhaps it made counterintuitive sense that Robert John would finally score his career-making solo ballad at one of the most inhospitable times for downtempo pop music in the history of top 40. The year 1979 was defined first and foremost by disco: the thumping dance music that not only made stars out of the Bee Gees, Chic and Donna Summer but also convinced artists as far-flung as Herb Alpert, Rod Stewart and Blondie to get on the floor. All six of those artists topped the Hot 100 with disco (or at least disco-influenced) songs in 1979, and the charts’ biggest exception to disco’s dominance — power-poppers The Knack, who ended up with the chart’s year-end No. 1 with the irresistible “My Sharona” — was still just as propulsive and beat-driven. The Hot 100 certainly should not have had room at its apex in 1979 for a song as slow-paced, winsome and unapologetically retro as “Sad Eyes.”
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But Robert John’s path on the charts had never exactly been a logical one. His career arc was atypically jagged and erratic for a pop singer, starting at an unnaturally young age and continuing for decades, but rarely for more than a hit song at a time, and often with many fallow years coming in between them. By 1979, John had technically been a hitmaker for over 20 years, but he also hadn’t reached the Hot 100 since 1972, and he had even given up on making music altogether for a stretch in the mid-decade. For him to return to recording and immediately top the Hot 100 for the first and only time in his career, with a song at about half the BPM of most of the hits surrounding it on top 40 at the time? Sure, why not.
In truth, it wasn’t like “Sad Eyes” was the only slow song making it on the radio in the late ’70s. There were still plenty of nuggets of AM gold to be found among the silver disco balls littering that era’s charts, sweetly harmonized gems like Walter Egan’s “Magnet and Steel,” Olivia Newton-John’s “Hopelessly Devoted to You” and Barry Manilow’s “Can’t Smile Without You.” Even disco stalwarts the Bee Gees kicked the year off with “Too Much Heaven,” one of the group’s most sentimental ballads, topping the Hot 100. Another such hit from the time that had just missed the top 10 in 1978, Toby Beau’s “My Angel Baby,” caught the ear of producer George Tobin, who felt a song like that would be a good fit for Robert John.
John would take some convincing. He was essentially retired from music at the time, and was working construction in New Jersey. John had become frustrated with the industry after 15 years of recording — dating back to the minor 1958 hit “White Bucks and Saddle Shoes,” which he recorded as Bobby Pedrick, Jr. when he was just 12 years old — which had failed to result in a consistently sustainable career for him. The final straw came following the success of his 1971 version of The Tokens’ Hot 100-topping 1961 smash “The Lion Sleeps Tonight,” which went to No. 3 on the chart and sold over a million copies — but still didn’t inspire much belief in him from his then-label, Atlantic Records. “The company didn’t have enough faith to let me do an album,” he told Rolling Stone. “I decided that if that’s what happens after [such a big hit] then I just wasn’t going to sing anymore.”
Tobin invited John to live with him as they worked on the song that would become his comeback single. They eventually came up with “Sad Eyes,” a breakup ballad built on a plush water bed of aqueous electric piano, twinkling glockenspiel, loping bass, buoyant guitar and a crisp drum shuffle. The production was lovely without being overwhelmingly lush, and John’s mostly falsetto vocal was its perfect match — particularly towards the song’s end, when the song modulates up and John uses his doo-wop background to hit some unreal upper-register ad libs as the chorus repeats to fade.
In fact, the song was so sweet that it was easy to miss just what a cad John was playing in its lyrics. The “Sad Eyes” in question belong to a lover who John is breaking it off with, presumably because his main squeeze is returning from afar: “Looks like it’s over, you knew I couldn’t stay/ She’s comin’ home today,” he explains in the opening lines. The song’s patronizing attempts to comfort the soon-to-be-ex on the verses (“Try to remember the magic that we shared/ In time your broken heart will mend”) turn to outright selfishness on the chorus (“Turn the other way… I don’t want to see you cry”) — but they never quite feel mean-spirited enough to the point of distracting from the song’s intoxicating sway.
After a false start with Arista, Tobin and John eventually caught the interest of EMI America, launched just the year before, which released the record in April 1979. The song debuted at No. 85 on the Hot 100 dated May 19, though it didn’t top the chart until 20 weeks later — tying a Hot 100 record to that point, set the year before by Nick Gilder’s “Hot Child in the City” for longest trek to No. 1 — when it finally knocked The Knack out of the top spot after its six-week reign with “My Sharona.” (John also set a record with the longest time in between his first Hot 100 entry and his first No. 1, dating back 21 years to his “White Bucks and Saddle Shoes” debut in 1958, though Tina Turner would take that mark over a half-decade later with her “What’s Love Got to Do With It.”) “Sad Eyes” lasted just one week atop the listing, before the disco order was once again restored — as the song was unseated by Michael Jackson’s all-timer Off the Wall lead single, “Don’t Stop ‘Til You Get Enough.”
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This time, Robert John at least would get to make a full album: a self-titled LP, also released on EMI in 1979, which peaked at No. 68 on the Billboard 200 that October. But the album failed to spawn another top 40 hit — the groovier “Lonely Eyes” peaked just outside the region in early 1980 — and John would only make the chart subsequently with a trio of covers, faring the best with his No. 31-peaking take on Eddie Holman’s “Hey There Lonely Girl,” from 1980’s Back on the Street. That album would prove to be his last, and John mostly retired from recording and performing again after that.
Robert John might never have gotten the sustained success or career stability he hoped for as a singer, but he did have hits in four separate decades, he did get his name multiple times in the Billboard record books, and he can claim to be one of just a few artists in the world to rule the age of disco with a not-even-remotely-disco record. Even he eventually turned the other way, that’s nothing to be sad about.
This analysis is part of Billboard’s music technology newsletter Machine Learnings. Sign up for Machine Learnings, and other Billboard newsletters for free here.
In an interview in 2023, Techstars managing director Bob Moczydlowsky told Billboard, “If Streaming 1.0 was about making all the music play, Streaming 2.0 should be about being able to play with all the music.”
In 2025, that statement feels prescient. Bloomberg reported on Feb. 14 that Spotify’s long anticipated superfan tier will likely roll out later this year and include extra features like high-fidelity audio, access to concert tickets and song remixing tools for an additional fee on top of Spotify premium.
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Also this month, the AI remixing app MashApp launched on the Apple App Store, offering users the ability to quickly and easily mash up selected songs from the Universal Music Group, Warner Music Group, Sony Music and Kobalt catalogs. Similarly, Hook, a competitor, just announced a new partnership with indie distributor Too Lost to license its works for Hook’s library of mashable, customizable songs. (Hook also previously struck a deal with Downtown for its library of music.)
Even though remixes of songs have dominated TikTok and other short-form video apps for years — and were all over SoundCloud and YouTube before that — participating in the fun of creating them has had barriers to entry. A user would need to learn how to use a digital audio workstation (DAW), like Garageband or ProTools, to create a good-sounding rework of a song, and they’d likely need the stems (the individual instrument tracks that make up a song), too. Now, with AI-powered stem separation and remix apps, there’s almost nothing left standing between a music fan and getting creative with their own derivative mashups.
But copyright law, the longtime nemesis of remixing, remains a major obstacle. For years, record labels and publishers have been playing an ever-expanding game of whack-a-mole with unauthorized remixes online, trying to retain control over their sound recordings. In the TikTok age, unauthorized remixes have gotten even further out of control as sped-up, slowed-down and other types of reworkings gained prominence. But it seems some companies are now taking the “if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em” philosophy by uploading officially sanctioned sped-up, slowed-down, a cappella and other alternate renditions of their work to streaming services.
Music companies, sensing the business opportunity, are also licensing to Hook and MashApp. While both have properly licensed libraries of songs to work with, these apps still leave a lot to be desired for users today. MashApp only has selected songs licensed from the three majors and Kobalt — among the recommended tracks are “I Want It That Way” by the Backstreet Boys, “Dreams” by Fleetwood Mac and “Tequila” by Dan + Shay. Hook has a similar problem — its top songs include “Buy The World” by Kendrick Lamar, Mike WiLL Made-It and Future, “Fall Back” by Lithe, “fisherrr” by Cash Cobain and Bay Swag, and more. If you look up a major artist on either of these apps, odds are they either have only a few of their tracks licensed, or don’t have their catalog at all.
For these apps to succeed, they must get deals done with, essentially, every rights holder on the recorded music and publishing sides to offer a comprehensive catalog — and if you look at the songwriter credits of any major pop or rap song, you’ll realize how challenging getting all of these parties to agree could be. Just one songwriter or company could hold up the licensing of a top song.
Spotify has already done the hard part by getting all the music on the service during what Moczydlowsky calls the “Streaming 1.0” period, but significant challenges still remain ahead if it wants to integrate these much more playful 2.0 remix features. The top streaming service made an enemy of the National Music Publishers’ Association (NMPA), the trade organization representing the vast majority of publishers in the U.S., in March 2024 by decreasing the royalties paid to publishers and songwriters in the U.S. on premium-tier streams by about 40%. Known colloquially as the “bundling” issue, Spotify argued that adding audiobooks into its premium subscriptions meant it could divide the royalty pool between music and book publishers.
The NMPA’s president and CEO, David Israelite, said Spotify “declared war on songwriters,” and to fight back, the NMPA launched a series of attacks, including sending Spotify a cease and desist letter warning that if it launched tools to “speed up, mash up and otherwise edit songs from their favorite artists… without the proper licenses in place from our members,” it “may constitute additional direct infringement.”
In January, Spotify’s standing with publishers seemed to be getting better. The streamer forged direct deals with Warner Music Group and Universal Music Group, which included improved remuneration on the publishing side. At the time, I noted in my analysis of these deals that Spotify likely came back to the negotiating table with publishers because the streamer knows it needs the publishers to voluntarily license their catalogs to support these upcoming features, including remixing. Still, that doesn’t mean all publishers, or the NMPA, have buried the hatchet.
On Feb. 4, the NMPA issued 2,500 podcast takedowns against Spotify, in a move that signaled that the NMPA will continue to hold a grudge. (Spotify called this move “a press stunt.”) Press stunt or not, Spotify needs the rest of the NMPA members on its side to make a remix tool with a full working library. Otherwise, they’ll be forced to launch with a piecemeal catalog like their start-up competitors.
But if anyone is poised to take over this budding remix market, it’s likely Spotify, given its pre-existing relationships and significant resources. Still, it remains to be seen how much users will even take to this type of feature. Is remixing the next big thing, or just another fad?
Netón Vega seems to be suddenly everywhere nowadays, but he’s hardly an overnight success. Born in La Paz, Baja California, Mexico, the 22-year-old artist is best known for co-writing countless hits, including Peso Pluma’s “Rubicon” and “La People.” After cementing himself as a go-to songwriter, Vega’s journey as a singer is just taking off — most recently, his reggaetón anthem “Loco” earned him his fourth top 10 entry on Billboard‘s Hot Latin Songs chart — and that’s exactly how he planned for it to be.
“Writing songs was the best first step because you start making points, and when you get hits from those songs you’re writing — well, that really gets your name out there,” Vega, this month’s Billboard Latin Artist on the Rise, explains. “Other artists start to know that you can write well and then eventually find out you can also sing. That opens doors for you. It’s what happened to me. The songs I wrote really took off. It was hit after hit, and everything after that just happened so fast.”
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Vega fell in love with music at a young age. By age 9, he was singing at school concerts and, five years later, he created his own band in Culiacán — where he grew up — with him as lead singer. What started off as a hobby quickly turned into a money-making business. The band was composed by fellow classmates and a neighbor who they recruited while eating burgers. “We were so busy playing at parties, it was crazy,” Vega remembers. “At the beginning, we actually didn’t know much to charge. We were getting like 500 to 1000 pesos per event, but we worked long hours and like five days a week. I would go to school defeated, but with money in my pocket.”
Like many kids who grow up in the state of Sinaloa, Vega listened to regional Mexican music, especially corridos, and then started writing his own. His parents — who encouraged Vega’s love for music — also consumed música Mexicana, but also the more traditional stuff, including norteña. “My parents were never opposed to me playing at events — sometimes they would go with me,” he says.
Two years ago, Vega met Jesús Josafat Chávez Angulo, who was part of the local music scene in Culiacán, and was the unofficial manager of a few groups in town. “It’s a small community and everyone knows everyone,” says Vega. “I was invited to his house and that’s where I met him. We got along really well and I started working with him.” Today, Chávez Angulo is Vega’s manager, and founder of Josa Records, the indie label home to Vega. “The support I needed then was being able to go record in a studio and be able to make music videos. It’s really what I needed to get my name out there.”
The opportunities started coming quickly through social media. People in Culiacán started discovering him, and one day, a friend and fellow musician told him that Peso Pluma wanted to record one of his songs. “I wrote ‘Rubicon’ and that was a before and after in my career,” he recalls. “I remember that person came up to me and told me that Hassan (Peso’s real name) liked the song, and wanted to record it. I was like, ‘Great, he can record it.’” The track peaked at No. 12 on Hot Latin Songs.
Vega’s big break as a singer came last year through a collaboration with Luis R Conriquez. The corridos bélicos pioneer reached out to Vega via Instagram. “He sent me a video saying he had a corrido, and he wanted to sing it with me. He came to Guadalajara and we recorded the song and video here.” The collaborative effort peaked at No. 2 on Hot Latin Songs in June, followed by “La Patrulla” with Peso, which also peaked at No. 2 on the tally in September.
Vega, who now spends most of his time in Guadalajara wrapped 2024 with the success of “Loco,” a reggaetón smash hit that showcased his versatility, and the rise of Mexican reggaetón. “I’m more comfortable maybe in Mexican music but I feel good in both genres. I don’t ever want to regret not doing a style. Having a song like ‘Loco,’ and for it to explode, it means a lot. People are discovering my music with this song. That’s always a good thing and I want to continue to do that with my music, without ever losing my essence, of course.”
Most recently, Vega released Mi Vida Mi Muerte, his debut album, which has further fueled his momentum. The set is stacked with heavy-hitters in the genre, including Óscar Maydon, Tito Double P and Gabito Ballesteros. In a nod to his growing popularity, Vega will headline the inaugural Michelada Fest in El Paso, Texas on May 3, along with Chino Pacas, marking his first U.S. performance.
Read more about our February Latin Artist on the Rise below.
Name: Luis Ernesto Vega Carvajal
Age: 22
Recommended Song: “I would actually want them to listen to my new album, from beginning to end. You can really get an idea of what type of artist I am and how much I enjoy making all kinds of music.”
Major Accomplishment: “Being nominated for Mexican music new artist and Mexican music collaboration of the year at Premio Lo Nuestro.”
What’s Next? “I really want to start performing in the U.S. I want to see how people will react to my songs.”
Cardi B and Ozuna teamed up for “La Modelo” in 2017, and the pair have reconnected in the studio, which sparked collaboration rumors. Cardi took to her Instagram Story early Thursday (Feb. 27) in the studio with the Puerto Rican artist, and the turn-up may have seen them join forces on a new track. “A […]