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06 Sep 2023

Allison Russell Is Building Her ‘Rainbow Coalition’ One Song at a Time

During the week of the winter solstice last December, Allison Russell stood in a large circle of “goddesses,” chanting and singing together to conjure communal joy out of thin air. Drums, guitars and strings joined her and her circle of “chosen sisters” as they celebrated “being back in our bodies.”

If that sounds more like a new-age spiritual exercise than a recording session, Russell will be the first one to tell you that two things can be true at the same time. “It ended up being very witchy and woo-woo and wonderful,” she tells Billboard. “We just got to be so present and say ‘F–k oppressors telling us we’re not gorgeous and perfect as we are.’”

That sentiment was the leading ethos behind the creation of The Returner, Russell’s spellbinding sophomore LP (out Friday, Sept. 8 via Fantasy Records). The folk star wanted to create an album that didn’t look back on the pain of the past — she had already done that on her outstanding 2021 debut album Outside Child — but rather firmly planted itself in the present and called for a much-needed celebration. Or, as she more poetically puts it, The Returner is about “stealing joy from the teeth of turmoil.”

To accomplish that goal, Russell ventured outside of the world of Americana music that made her one of the fastest-rising folk stars of the last few years. Taking a “rhythm-first” approach to creating the new sound, the singer-songwriter and Dim Star — the production duo of Russell’s partner JT Nero and Drew Lindsay — employed elements of funk, rock, disco and pop to further bolster her folk roots and give The Returner a fresh new sound.

Russell says that this approach came about in part because she spent the last few years getting to tour internationally for the first time. “We toured in a lot of places where English isn’t the first language,” she said. “We realized that there’s a transcendence that comes when you allow yourself to feel music with your whole body. A lot of the demos started with us hearing the polyrhythmic layers of groove within some of the things that JT [Nero] and I were writing. That informs melody, that informs even the syllables, the words that are chosen.”

After spending three months working with Dim Star to create demos that achieved something close to the sound they were looking for, Russell recounts being contacted by her label in late 2022 and told that, in order to release an album in 2023, they would need her master by the end of the year thanks to ongoing delays in vinyl production.

Where most artists would panic, Russell felt relief — booking six days at L.A.’s Henson Recording Studios (a space “presided over by my hero, Kermit the Frog,” Russell quips), the multi-hyphenate embraced the do-or-die nature of the sessions. “We recorded Outside Child in four days, so we were like, ‘Oh, we have six whole days in the studio? That’s great,’” she recalls. “It actually felt magical — Joni [Mitchell] recorded Blue there, Joni recorded Court and Spark there, Carole King recorded Tapestry there, Tina Turner and Cyndi Lauper blew everything off the top of ‘We Are the World’ there. There were all of these good ghosts in the walls.”

In order to bring the expansive new sound of The Returner to life, Russell brought together a 16-person band of women to the week-long studio session. Featuring artists like SistaStrings, Joy Clark, Elenna Canlas, Elizabeth Pupo-Walker and a dozen others, the group became the engine through which Russell and Dim Star engineered their creative vision.

“The magic of this circle is that everybody is such a high-level, multifaceted artist; everybody’s a lead singer, everybody’s a writer, everybody’s a composer, everybody’s a multi-instrumentalist,” she said. “So when we go in the studio, it’s with this level of trust — and because of that, the album ends up being a musical conversation in real time with these brilliant artists that I feel so privileged to be working with.”

Throughout her conversation with Billboard, Russell refers to the femme-focused troupe as the “Rainbow Coalition,” a name she also interchangeably uses for the community of artists she surrounds herself with and her fans. While the name may evoke a sense of LGBTQ-centric idealism that Russell shares with those she accepts as her chosen family, the singer points to the term’s long history for context.

Before the name was adopted into a larger cultural context, the original Rainbow Coalition was formed in 1969 Chicago by Fred Hampton, the deputy chairman of the Black Panther Party. Hampton helped bring together the Young Patriots (made up of poor Southern whites), the Young Lords (made up of Puerto Rican migrants) and street gangs throughout the city to work together towards social change.

While the original coalition fell apart after Hampton’s assassination in December 1969, Russell says that the core organizing principle of the original Rainbow Coalition remains a cornerstone of her own worldview today. “Any of us, globally, who are interested in the business of harm reduction, and of pushing for equality versus inequality — that’s the Rainbow Coalition,” she says. “There’s so few places where we can gather people from all different kinds of beliefs, histories, ethnicities and heritages in joyful assembly — but we have that in playing and listening to live music together.”

It certainly helps Russell’s righteous cause that she finds herself in storied company — in the years since she began working as a solo artist, the Montreal-born artist has become a contemporary of superstars like Brandi Carlile, Annie Lennox, Chaka Khan, and even Joni Mitchell, who brought her onstage earlier this year for her Joni Jam concert at The Gorge.

“Community is vital [in the music industry], both in terms of sharing resources and also just artistically,” Russell offers. “Getting to be a part of that event, where we were all there in service of Joni and in reverence and celebration of our elder was the most inspiring, transcendent, beautiful thing to get to witness and to be a part of.”

After being welcomed with open arms by artists like Carlile and Mitchell into the industry, Russell is now laser-focused on doing her part to leave the world a better place than she found it. One way she intends to do that is by fighting back against the ongoing wave of anti-LGBTQ legislation sweeping through the U.S., targeting healthcare and privacy rights for the transgender community, as well as First Amendment rights for drag performers.

Even broaching the subject of anti-LGBTQ legislation immediately prompts Russell’s indignant fury. “It is domestic legislative terrorism,” she says, her friendly smile dropping into a grimace. “It’s so serious, and we sleepwalk through it at our peril, right? This is some Third Reich s–t, and we cannot allow it to continue; we must fight back. And that’s what I’m talking about when it comes to the Rainbow Coalition — it’s all of us who stand at any intersections of the margin, anyone who loves us, and anyone who stands with us.”

Russell, believing in the power of live music to bring people together, decided to channel her anger into action. Teaming up with Jason Isbell and number of LGBTQ non-profit organizations in Tennessee, Russell co-organized Love Rising, the star-studded benefit concert that took place just weeks after the state passed laws banning gender-affirming care for minors and banning drag shows in public spaces. Featuring performances from superstars like Maren Morris, Sheryl Crow, the Brothers Osborne, Hozier and plenty more, the event was a runaway success — especially considering they raised over $500,000 for LGBTQ charities in the area.

Looking at all the artists who came out to support Love Rising — especially many of the straight artists who chose to speak up for the LGBTQ community — gives Russell a sense of hope for the future. “It’s exactly what we need,” she says. “It’s people like Hayley [Williams] taking a red eye flight to come back from opening for Taylor Swift, because she said she’d rather die than not be there to support the trans and drag community in Tennessee. These incredible allies are so important.”

But the work is far from over — Russell says she plans to use her upcoming tour for The Returner as on opportunity to work with organizations like the Human Rights Campaign and Headcount to register concert-goers to vote in the 2024 election and learn more about the attacks against the LGBTQ community. “It’s all hands on deck,” she resolves.

She’s also not taking her eyes off the music industry at large — amid the rising tide of harmful rhetoric, Russell says that a number of fellow artists in the industry have remained “deafeningly silent” on the topic, specifically in the mainstream country space. Russell doesn’t name anyone in particular, in part because she doesn’t want to add to “the algorithm of problematic artists,” but also because, as she says, she’s not trying to rehabilitate the “empathy deficit” she sees in the genre.

“I’m not interested in fixing the toxic white supremacy and masculinity of the mainstream. I think it’s a waste of energy,” she says. “I’m much more interested in building the beloved community of people that are ready to show up and do this work together, that believe in equality. The others will come along eventually.”

In large part, that is the message of The Returner — it takes a village to make deep, meaningful change in the world around you, and Russell is ready to build that village from the ground up.

06 Sep 2023

Tiddy Whisperer Drake Shows Off Huge Bra Collection

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Lil Baby & Friends Birthday Celebration Concert

Drake has been having a ball on his It’s All A Blur tour given the fact that droves of women have been tossing bras onstage, with some of the women and their sizes going viral. The “Tiddy Whisperer” himself showed off the huge collection of bras he’s amassed while on tour in a new photo, and the rapper’s mischievous smile says everything it needs to.

It isn’t known when the trend of the tossing of bras began on the tour, but Drake has certainly been egging his women fans on to join in the festivities. In one virtual clip, Drizzy called out one fan and her bra size, who then went on to get featured on Playboy’s OnlyFans page.

During a stop in Washington, D.C., one bra was so large that Drake counted out the letters, all the way up to L, which became another moment. It hasn’t been all wins because some items tossed on stage during his set have been returned to their owners with the Canadian’s dry wit hammering home why he didn’t accept the items.

However, the bras seem to have made it to Drake’s trophy case as it were as evidenced in the photo below. Just with an eye test, there are at least over 100 bras in the background. Guess these women didn’t need those expensive over-the-shoulder boulder holders after all.

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Photo: Getty

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06 Sep 2023

Charles Wesley Godwin Honors His ‘Family Ties’ on New Album: ‘I Had One of the Best Writing Years of My Life’

Seven years before he was born, Charles Wesley Godwin’s parents survived a hurricane and subsequent flood in 1985 that was determined to wreak havoc on West Virginia. For a harrowing several hours, his mom and dad navigated treacherous waters and a washed-out bridge by car and foot trying to reach the safe embrace of their parents and grandparents.

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As they walked along the ridgelines of the Allegheny mountains, they saw Godwin’s uncle, waving a flashlight in the darkness, waiting on them. “He had no idea they would be coming, no way to reach them, but he just said he had a feeling they would come, so he went to the hill that night to wait on them,” Godwin says.

That true tale is recounted in “The Flood,” a song on Godwin’s third album, Family Ties, out Sept. 22 on Big Loud Records. Godwin calls the song a chronicling of “the bravest moment in my mom’s life.” It is one of several family-oriented songs on the project, alongside the towering romance of “Willing and Able” (written for his wife Samantha), “Gabriel” and “Dance in Rain,” written for their children, and the keen-eyed “Miner Imperfections” (a tribute to Godwin’s father).

Godwin has been among the acoustic, roots-oriented singer-songwriters and groups surging to the forefront over the past few years, including Zach Bryan, Tyler Childers, Billy Strings and Turnpike Troubadours. Since the release of his 2019 debut Seneca and its follow-up, 2021’s How The Mighty Fall, Godwin has further refined his considerable skill as a detailed storyteller. “The Cranes of Potter,” from How the Mighty Fall, cast a critical eye on big-city development, while that album’s title track surveyed the toll time ravages on the weak and strong alike. Much like those previous projects, Godwin is the sole writer on nearly every song on the new, 19-track album.

The aforementioned “Miner Imperfections,” written with Zach McCord, is one of the few exceptions. The track showcases Godwin’s rough-hewn vocals as he sings of the worthy qualities and shortcomings of a working-class man trying to build a simple, loving life, and his pride in all of it.

“[Zach] had that chorus, and my dad was a coal miner, so I loved the idea,” Godwin says. “His dad’s a blue-collar guy from West Virginia and both of them were similar, in that they were pretty quiet guys, but extremely loving fathers at the same time. We worked on it that whole day and We just wrote it for our dads. It felt like a perfect song for this album.”

Godwin picked up a guitar just over a decade ago, inspired by watching a Grammys performance from The Avett Brothers, Bob Dylan and Mumford & Sons.

“It blew me away,” he says. “It made me want to pick up a guitar. I thought it would just be another productive hobby, since after high school, I wasn’t playing sports anymore.” But rather than the onslaught of bro-country that dominated the country radio airwaves around that time, Godwin’s influences veered toward names like Prine, Kristofferson and Nelson.

He first played onstage while still studying finance at West Virginia University; a college classmate essentially forced him onstage during a semester abroad in Estonia, during Godwin’s junior year.

“I brought my guitar [on the trip] and one night we went to a show in Tartu,” Godwin says. “I didn’t know it, but one of my roommates took my guitar out of my room after I left and brought it to the show. When the concert was over, he ran up onstage — and somehow didn’t get kicked out — and got everyone in the room to start chanting, until I got up there and played a song.”

His potential as a musician was solidified when he received a Facebook message from a local fashion designer who had seen his impromptu performance and offered him 150 Euros to play music during a local fashion show. “Drinks were on me that night,” he recalls with a laugh. “That just changed my whole life.”

Along the way, Godwin has slowly, deliberately built his career, playing shows, and drawing fans with his burly vocal and nuanced writing style. But not long after the release of How the Mighty Fall, Godwin began facing new pressures as labels began sniffing around.

“I was having a hard time dealing with it, to be honest,” he recalls. “I was in a funk for a handful of months. I was trying to get back to writing songs, spending each morning going into the woodshed, kind of writing garbage but just trying my best. A bunch of labels wanted to hear what I was working on, even though I had just come out with an album. It threw me off because I had two albums out at that point and was selling tickets all around the country. To me, I was not a risk, yet folks were still kind of wanting to cherry-pick whether I had ‘it’ or not.”

He recalls that it took him “a few months to get my head around that, and be confident again. I had all these guys depending on me, my family. I want to keep growing on their behalf, and I’d be lying if I said I didn’t care if a label worked out or not.”

A heart-to-heart with his father offered perspective. “He said, ‘All you have control over is the pen in your hand and the notebook in front of you. Everything else will happen in time if it’s meant to be.’ It helped me to shake all that stuff off.’”

The next morning, Godwin wrote “Two Weeks Gone,” start to finish; the song served as a launching point for what became Family Ties. “I just thought, ‘Okay, how about I just go within myself and write what’s personal to me? I’m gonna write about my family this year.’ I ended up having one of the best writing years of my life last year, and that led to the album.”

Earlier this year, he released the EP Live From the Church, recorded at The Church studio in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He recorded Family Ties at Echo Mountain Recording, an old Asheville, North Carolina church building that was remodeled into a recording studio and has since become a go-to recording center for artists including The Avett Brothers (Godwin was inspired to record there thanks to the 2017 The Avett Brothers documentary May It Last: A Portrait of the Avett Brothers).

“I always wondered what it would be like to get to record in a place like that,” Godwin says. “This time around, I finally had the opportunity and resource to do it. And in a practical sense, the main room is so big — and they have so many iso booths — that all of us were able to record live to tape at the same time. It was a best-case scenario to work in that studio.”

He also nods to his roots with “Cue Country Roads” and cover of the John Denver classic “Take Me Home, Country Roads,” which he performs to close every show. Godwin says he recorded it with the blessing of the manager of Denver’s estate. “He and his son came out to Red Rocks when I played there in May,” he says. “They said they loved it and wanted to do whatever they can to help, because they view it as kind of helping the song reach the next generation.”

The label issues resolved themselves, too; in March, Big Loud, home to artists including Morgan Wallen, HARDY, and Hailey Whitters, announced it had signed Godwin. Family Ties was completed before he signed his label deal.

“We made the album in January and handed it in to them and they said, ‘We love it,’ and that was it. There was no helicoptering over making the album or anything,” Godwin says.

Godwin spent much of this year opening for Zach Bryan’s Burn, Burn, Burn Tour and will join Luke Combs’ 2024 summer stadium tour. But before then, he will continue with the house of worship-turned-house of music conduit when he headlines two shows at Nashville’s own Mother Church, the Ryman Auditorium on Dec. 7-8.

“I’m just very grateful for the people that connect with my music,” Godwin says. “It’s amazing just how diehard they are and it’s going to be a really special couple of nights.”

06 Sep 2023

Big Daddy Weave’s ‘Heaven Changes Everything’ Tops Christian AC Airplay Chart

Big Daddy Weave rolls up its seventh No. 1 on Billboard’s Christian AC Airplay chart, as “Heaven Changes Everything” ascends to the top of the tally dated Sept. 9.

The song increased by 4% in plays in the week ending Aug. 31, according to Luminate.

The track is an homage to Jay Weaver, the band’s former bassist from its inception in Mobile, Ala., in 1998. He passed away in January 2022 at age 42 from health complications due to COVID-19.

Big Daddy Weave frontman Mike Weaver (Jay’s older brother) wrote “Heaven Changes Everything” with Jeff Pardo and Matthew West.

“This song hitting No. 1 means so much to us, especially in light of my brother Jay going home,” Mike Weaver tells Billboard. “The stories that we hear from people who have heard this song and have gone through something like this have ministered to us and have given purpose to the pain we’ve been going through.”

In addition to Mike Weaver, Big Daddy Weave is comprised of Brian Beihl, Jeremy Redmon and Joe Shirk.

Big Daddy Weave first topped Christian AC Airplay with “Every Time I Breathe” for three weeks beginning in June 2007. It had most recently reigned with “Alive” for three frames in August 2019.

On the Christian Airplay chart, “Heaven Changes Everything” ranks at No. 3, after reaching No. 2, with 5.8 million audience impressions (up 2%). Big Daddy Weave has notched seven No. 1s among 21 top 10s on the survey.

“Heaven Changes Everything” follows Big Daddy Weave’s collaboration with Katy Nichole, “God Is in This Story,” which led Christian Airplay for two weeks and reached No. 2 on Christian AC Airplay in late 2022.

Big Daddy Weave’s Heaven Changes Everything Tour is set to start Sept. 20 in Meadville, Penn., and wrap Nov. 5 in Port St. Lucie, Fla. Hannah Kerr and Tasha Layton will serve as supporting acts.

06 Sep 2023

Zach Bryan Triples Up at No. 1 on Artist 100, Hot 100 & Billboard 200

Zach Bryan zooms from No. 16 to No. 1 on the Billboard Artist 100 chart (dated Sept. 9), becoming the top musical act in the U.S. for the first time, thanks to his new LP, Zach Bryan.

The set, released Aug. 25 via Belting Bronco/Warner Records, debuts at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 with 200,000 equivalent album units in its opening week, according to Luminate. It becomes his first No. 1 album, after he charted five prior sets – all since only June 2022: American Heartbreak (No. 5 peak), Summertime Blues (No. 34), All My Homies Hate Ticketmaster (Live From Red Rocks) (No. 88), Elisabeth (No. 92) and Deann (No. 167).

All 16 of the new release’s tracks concurrently debut in the top 50 of the Billboard Hot 100, led by “I Remember Everything” featuring Kacey Musgraves at No. 1. It’s the first Hot 100 leader for each singer-songwriter.

All 16 tracks also debut on the Hot Country Songs chart, with six in the top 10. Bryan is just the third act to land at least six in the top 10 at once, after Morgan Wallen (a record nine) and Taylor Swift (seven).

Bryan is just the second country act to top the Artist 100 in 2023, after Wallen, who has led the chart for eight weeks this year (among 13 total weeks on top). One country act ruled in 2022 (Luke Combs), after two each led in 2021 (Wallen, Eric Church), 2020 (Combs, Kenny Chesney) and 2019 (Combs, Thomas Rhett). (Still, country music is surging in 2023, thanks in large part to Wallen.)

Meanwhile, Bryan becomes just the the second country male soloist to simultaneously triple up at No. 1 on the Artist 100, Hot 100 and Billboard 200, after Wallen, who has scored four such weeks, including the most recent such frame among all artists: On the April 22 charts, he led the Artist 100 and paced the Hot 100 with “Last Night” and the Billboard 200 with One Thing at a Time.

Elsewhere on the latest Artist 100, Miley Cyrus jumps 22-7, driven by her new single “Used to Be Young.” The ballad begins at No. 8 on the Hot 100, becoming her 12th top 10.

Plus, Tyler, the Creator vaults 52-8 on the Artist 100 thanks to a new vinyl deluxe release of his former Billboard 200 No. 1 Call Me If You Get Lost. The set soars 143-11 on the Billboard 200 (37,000 units) and returns to No. 1 on the Top Album Sales chart for a fifth total week on top.

The Artist 100 measures artist activity across key metrics of music consumption, blending album and track sales, radio airplay and streaming to provide a weekly multi-dimensional ranking of artist popularity.

06 Sep 2023

Electric Zoo Festival Canceled Friday Because It Didn’t Have Permits — And the Problems Didn’t Stop There

Organizers behind the Electric Zoo festival on Randalls Island in New York canceled the Friday (Sept. 1) opening day because Department of Parks & Recreation officials would not issue the permits needed to stage the city’s largest EDM festival, promoters behind the event have confirmed with Billboard.

On Friday, when event organizers with Brooklyn venue company and concert promoter Avant Gardner canceled the festival’s first day, they blamed “global supply chain disruptions” in a statement, saying, “These unexpected delays have prevented us from completing the construction of the main stage in time for Day 1.” Organizers did not provide further specifics. A rep for the festival told Billboard on Tuesday (Sept. 5) that the application for the permits had been made well in advance, adding that the permit issue was resolved when the festival finally opened on Saturday.

Touring industry sources, however, say it was due to organizers’ failure to pay vendors from last year’s festival that led to a shortage of experienced concert professionals willing to work at this year’s event. Specifically, the main festival stage caused the most issues early Friday during an inspection of the site hours before the event was scheduled to open. City officials demanded the festival staff fix several safety and security issues before the festival could open. It took organizers more than 24 hours to fix the issues, leading to the festival opening two hours late on Saturday.

The problems did not stop there, though. Making matters worse, many fans did not receive their festival wristbands and tickets in the mail as promised, forcing attendees to queue up for hours to retrieve their tickets. And then on Sunday, organizers were forced to shut down access to the festival after the site reached maximum capacity. Some fans who reached the festival site after the gates were closed decided to jump fences or run through security checkpoints as a group, joining other ticket-holding fans in mad dashes past security staff. Hoping to deter fans from boarding ferries to Randalls Island, festival organizers announced on X (formerly Twitter) that the event had reached maximum capacity for “unknown reasons” and promised “everyone denied entry today will be issued a refund.”

The problems experienced at Electric Zoo mirror ongoing issues at the Avante Gardner venue. Created by owner and creative director Jürgen “Billy” Bildstein in 2017, Avante Gardner is known as a favorite for fans and acts because of its size and flexible space. To state regulators however, the 6,000-capacity venue has been the subject of ongoing legal disputes and investigations by agencies like the New York State Liquor Authority over overcrowding and drug use since 2016, according to court records. On Aug. 22, liquor authority chair and commissioner Lily Fan testified that Avant Gardner “couldn’t care less what people do in their establishment so long as they made money.”

The price tag for this year’s chaotic festival — including refund costs to fans who didn’t make it in, as well as paying Friday night performers The Chainsmokers, Excision and Kx5 their full fees — could total $25 million, according to former insiders at SFX Entertainment, which owned the festival from 2013 to 2022.

Electric Zoo was originally launched in 2009 by founders Mike Bindra and Laura De Palma and grew to be the East Coast’s biggest electronic festival, always taking place over Labor Day weekend. In June 2022, Bildstein led the purchase of Electric Zoo from LiveStyle, a holding company created in the aftermath of SFX Entertainment’s bankruptcy in 2015. Bildstein agreed to pay $15 million for the festival property, Billboard reported at the time, paying about half the money in cash and while agreeing to a convertible debt note to cover the unpaid portion of the purchase.

Avant Gardner staged the 2022 festival and racked up debt with a number of talent agencies and vendors, sources tell Billboard, leading to delays building out the festival site in 2023 that were partially to blame for the permit delays.

New York City Mayor Eric Adams suggested the city will launch an investigation into Electric Zoo’s organizers for going beyond the festival’s approved capacity. The New York Police Department estimated event organizers oversold the festival’s 42,500-person capacity limit by 7,000 tickets on Sunday.

“It’s unfortunate that the organizers wanted to turn our city into a zoo, and we were not going to allow that to happen,” Adams said during an NYPD briefing on Tuesday. “And we will be dealing with them in the next few days based on their behavior and actions.”

06 Sep 2023

Joe Jonas & Sophie Turner Speak Out on Divorce: ‘This Is Truly a United Decision’

Joe Jonas and Sophie Turner are speaking out after news broke that they are ending their marriage.

In a joint statement posted to both of their social media accounts, the two stars said that they are parting on the friendliest of terms. “After four wonderful years of marriage we have mutually decided to amicably end our marriage,” their statement began. “There are many speculative narratives as to why but, truly this is a united decision and we sincerely hope that everyone can respect our wishes for privacy for us and our children.”

The Jonas Brothers member filed for divorce in Florida’s Miami-Dade County on Tuesday (Sept. 5), Billboard confirmed. He stated in the court documents that “the marriage between the parties is irretrievably broken.”

The former couple met in 2016, and married in two ceremonies in 2019. The first was a surprise Vegas wedding in May that they held immediately after attending the Billboard Music Awards, where the Jonas Brothers had just performed. They then threw a lavish wedding at the end of June in Southern France.

They kept their first pregnancy mum, never confirming that the Game of Thrones actress was expecting, even though she was spotted out with a baby bump. Their daughter Willa arrived in the summer of 2020, they confirmed in a statement to Billboard at the time. Jonas and Turner kept their second pregnancy even more private, revealing only that the actress had given birth to a second daughter in the summer of 2022, and have not yet revealed her name.

See the former couple’s full statement about their split below:

06 Sep 2023

UMG and Deezer Outline New Streaming Model to Cut Through Noise

Deezer plans to implement a new streaming model with Universal Music Group later this year — a step that Deezer CEO Jeronimo Folgueira called “the most ambitious change to the economic model since the creation of music streaming and a change that will support the creation of high-quality content in the years to come.”

In an announcement on Wednesday (September 6), Deezer said it would roll out this “artist-centric” system in the French market starting in the fourth quarter of 2023. The new model aims to reward artists and songs that are driving listener engagement while also de-prioritizing white noise and other “functional” audio. “The sound of rain or a washing machine is not as valuable as a song from your favorite artist streamed in HiFi,” Folgueira declared.

As part of the new model, plays racked up by “professional artists” — which Deezer defines as acts with more than 1,000 streams per month spread across 500 unique listeners — with a “double boost.” (The announcement did not define what that “double boost” entails.) Similarly, songs that are driving listener engagement — the metrics for measuring this were also undefined — will receive the same bump.

In addition, Deezer plans to replace “non-artist noise content” — the sounds of whales or washing machines — with its own functional music, while also excluding this audio from the royalty pool so that payouts to raindrop recordings don’t come at the expense of payouts to singer-songwriters. “We are now embracing a necessary change, to better reflect the value of each piece of content and eliminate all wrong incentives,” Folgueira said in a statement. “There is no other industry where all content is valued the same.”

“With this multi-faceted approach, music by artists that attracts and engages fans will receive weighting that better recognizes its value, and the fraud and gaming, which serves only to deprive artists their due compensation, will be aggressively addressed,” added Michael Nash, UMG’s evp and chief digital officer. He also noted that the model may change in the future: “As the ever-evolving music landscape continues its rapid transformation, UMG and Deezer will rigorously address the impact of these changes as we incorporate new insights from data analysis and fine-tune the model, as appropriate.”

UMG’s quest for a new streaming ecosystem has been a major talking point for the company since January. That month, in a letter to staff, UMG chairman/CEO Lucian Grainge called for the development of “a model that will be a win for artists, fans, and labels alike, and, at the same time, also enhances the value proposition of the [streaming] platforms themselves, accelerating subscriber growth, and better monetizing fandom.”

Since then, UMG announced partnerships with both Tidal and Deezer to try to determine what that model might look like. Streamers can do “a better job of monetizing these high integrity, high intense artist-fan relationships,” Nash told financial analysts in March. “We’ve been speaking with platforms… about the enhancement of offers to the consumer that reflect the engagement with artists that are really driving the economic models of the platform.” 

Spotify CEO Daniel Ek, however, appeared less enthusiastic about implementing a major change to the streaming model during an earnings call in July. “Most studies we’ve done on this [show] that even if you change it to a user-centric or an artist-centric approach, it seldom leads to these gigantic differences that most people perceive it to do,” he said.

“But we’re always open to hearing how we can make the system [fairer] to more artists,” he added.

06 Sep 2023

Ethan Hawke Admits to Daughter Maya Hawke That Lame Flirting Attempt with Rihanna Has Become His ‘Family Shame’

Years before Rihanna was the mother of two, Ethan Hawke very publicly tried to shoot his shot with the “Rude Boy” singer at the 2015 NBA All-Star game. The photo of the incident went viral at the time after Hawke very slickly traded places with his son in the front row at the game and was photographed leaning wayyy back in his chair and chatting Rihanna up.

“I’ve been caught by the paparazzi openly flirting with Rihanna,” the actor said, with his daughter, Maya Hawke, correcting him by noting that he was “openly trying to” flirt with the singer. “Trying to flirt,” he agreed, “and that’s been to the family shame.” Maya tried to bail him out by saying, “no, it’s family pride.”

Hawke posted a picture of the incident on Instagram in which his son is doing a face palm motion while watching his dad chat up the music superstar, with the actor captioning the pics, “after Rihanna’s brilliant half time performance, I’m hoping my son can find it in his heart to forgive a Dad for taking his moment.”

The revelation came during a game of “How well do Ethan & Maya Hawke really know each other” in a bit for Variety, in which dear old dad totally blew it when asked what Maya’s first school play was — it was Jenny in Jenny and the School for Cats, not the Artful Dodger in Oliver. The father-daughter pair are promoting the new movie Wildcat, in which Ethan directs Maya as author Flannery O’Connor (A Good Man Is Hard To Find and Other Stories) in a chronicle of her attempt to get her first novel published. The chat heated up when the interviewer asked if Ethan would rather see RihRih or Lady Gaga in concert.

Maya had a very fast answer for that one, because that information is “really available online,” she smirked in reference to the flirty pics. While Ethan said “both,” his daughter corrected him, saying the answer was “RihRih by a long shot.” To be fair, Ethan said he’s been to a Gaga show, but really would like to see Rihanna live sometime. Then, in a total dad moment, Ethan said he remembers taking Maya to see Lady Gaga once, with his daughter correcting him by noting that they went to see Madonna and Gaga was sitting near them at the show.

“We did have an amazing year where we went to see Madonna, Taylor [Swift] and Adele, and it was highly educational, very motivational year for me,” said Maya, who is also a recording artist who released her Moss album last year. If you’re keeping score, Ethan kind of got it when asked to name the fist song Maya ever wrote, remembering that the tune was written at their family home in Nova Scotia, though she was a bit fuzzy on how many Oscar nominations her dad has had (the answer is four, if you’re keeping score).

Watch the Hawke’s discuss the Rihanna incident below.

06 Sep 2023

Jung Kook Joins Global Citizen Fest 2023 As a Co-Headliner

2023 has been a huge year for Jung Kook. Not only did the BTS member earn his first solo credit atop the Billboard Hot 100 in July when “Seven,” featuring Latto, debuted at No. 1 on the chart, but the South Korean pop star is set to join the 2023 Global Citizen Festival lineup as one of its co-headliners. This not only marks Jung Kook’s Global Citizen Festival debut, but the global star’s debut performance at a U.S. festival (although it’s worth noting he performed as part of the 2023 GMA Summer Concert Series and was spotted at Coachella earlier this year as a fan).

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“I’m so thrilled to join this year’s Global Citizen Festival as a headliner!” said Jung Kook in a statement. “The festival sheds light on important causes and drives action and I’m happy to take part in it. I can’t wait to perform in front of many people at the Great Lawn in Central Park.”

The Global Citizen Fest takes place in New York City’s Central Park on Saturday, Sept. 23, as a free, ticketed event; people can earn tickets by taking action to help end extreme poverty via the Global Citizen app and on the organization’s website. With this fall concert, Global Citizen is urging world leaders gathered in New York for the UN General Assembly to tackle climate crisis, equity for women and girls and the global hunger crisis.

Jung Kook joins previously announced headliners Red Hot Chili Peppers, Ms. Lauryn Hill and Anitta. Conan Gray, D-Nice, Megan Thee Stallion, Sofia Carson and Stray Kids will also perform. Global Citizen Fest will be broadcast and livestreamed around the world.