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16 Aug 2023

Herb Alert: Keke Palmer’s Boyfriend Darius Jackson “Moved On,” New Usher Video Has Social Media Lit

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Boss Featuring Keke Palmer terrace after party

Source: Rebecca Sapp / Getty

In news that should surprise absolutely no one, Keke Palmer and her boyfriend Darius Jackson have allegedly broken up. More importantly, Usher dropped his new video for “Boyfriend” which stars the actress, and social media is loving the visual and the petty.

As for Jackson, People reports that Keke’s baby daddy has “moved on” after he publicly shamed her for being serenaded by Usher while at one of his Las Vegas shows. Keke was having none of the tomfoolery, creating t-shirts that capitalized on his “You a mom” reaction that got him dragged. Per a source, the fitness instructor and actor is focusing on acting and we would hope co-parenting the child, Leodis Andrellton, he just had with Keke.

We’re going to guess she isn’t losing much sleep since she’s busy participating in a marketing masterclass with the rollout of the new Usher visual. On Tuesday (Aug. 15) she shared a clip which was a blatant troll aimed at Jackson. Today (Aug. 16), as promised, we got the video and social media has been celebrating ever since.

Keke can be seen getting her dance on in the video for the smooth addition to Usher’s catalog. Also worth noting, she totally slid past the “video vixen” trope and offered a direct shot at her baby daddy.

See reactions to the quasi-drama below. Keke Palmer gonna be alright and get her coins.

16 Aug 2023

Fans Concerned About Kodak Black’s Health After He Doses Off On IG Live

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2023 Broccoli City Festival

Source: Prince Williams / Getty

Kodak Black fans have began to worry about the rapper’s physical health as the “Roll In Peace” artist fell asleep during an IG Live session.

The incident occurred Monday (Aug. 14) while Kodak was streaming live to his millions of fans. With a cup in his hand, he nodded off for a few moments before regaining consciousness and continuing on with the show. Fans in the comments wrote things like “Tf,” “Kodak leanin’” and “Pray for Kodak.” They were obviously concerned that the rapper’s documented use of drugs might be catching up to him as suddenly falling asleep isn’t a common occurrence.

The incident comes just weeks after Kodak Black was seen being wheeled into a Broward County, Florida hospital and months after a judge ordered Black to check into a drug rehabilitation center. The man is obviously battling demons, but hopefully they won’t get the best of him as too many rappers these days are dying way before their time whether it be through drug use or violence.

While it’s easy to assume that drug or alcohol use was the main culprit behind his dozing off on IG Live, Kodak could’ve just been hella tired, or maybe he didn’t get adequate sleep the night before. Still, given his history, one would think the man has a problem and needs professional help.

What do y’all think could’ve been behind Kodak dosing off during IG Live? Let us know the comments section below.

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16 Aug 2023

Sydney and Noah Sierota From Echosmith Play How Well Do Your Bandmates? | Billboard

Echosmith siblings Sydney and Noah Sierota test their knowledge and see how well they actually know each other.

Sydney Sierota
Hey, we’re Echosmith and we are here to find out, how well we know each other. He is my brother. So you’d hope pretty well.

Noah Sierota
Let’s find out.

Producer
Who’s the best dancer?

Sydney Sierota
Depends on what kind of dancing we’re talking about, if we’re talking about noodle-y dance moves, I feel like it’s you.

Noah Sierota
I’m the king of the noodle dance. Yeah,

Sydney Sierota
You’re kind of like a noodle vibe. If we were to go to like a salsa class and learn something, I probably would pick it up a little quicker.

Noah Siertoa
Sydney when we were kids did a ballet class. She was trying to do it. She was holding the bar, and she fell and hit her head.

Sydney Sierota
That doesn’t have anything to do with dance and dance ability. That’s just being clumsy.

Producer
Who is most likely to cry in front of fans?

Sydney Sierota
I’m most likely in general, I don’t even think I’ve really seen you cry.

Noah Sierota
You’ve seen me cry.

Sydney Sierota
When?

Noah Sierota
I don’t know when I was a kid.

Sydney Sierota
Exactly.

Producer
Who’s most likely to be late to the studio?

Noah Sierota
It’s her, she’s always late, not just to the studio, but in life.

Sydney Sierota
I am a little bit late. But when we were making the new album, I lived all the way in San Diego and I was driving to L.A., it was at his house most of the time. So he had a very short commute and I had two plus hours without traffic. But you know, if you have a little tension in the studio, because you’re like a little bit behind or whatever, it kind of makes more magic happen.

Watch the full video above.

16 Aug 2023

Tony Hawk Shares Rare 2Pac Photo Via Social Media

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Tony Hawk is as much a pop culture icon as any, so it goes without saying that he’s crossed paths with plenty of others with the level of fame that he has, if not more. The skating legend recently shared a rare photo alongside the late Tupac “2Pac” Shakur that Hawk had digitally restored.

Tony Hawk, 55, shared the image of him and 2Pac, telling a story of how he attended an American Music Awards ceremony because his sister was performing with singer Michael Bolton. While he initially stated that the year of the photo in question was 1991, he corrected it and said that it could be from 1994.

From Tony Hawk’s IG:

I attended the American Music Awards in 1991 because my sister was there performing with Michael Bolton. While backstage, I saw Tupac standing alone and I recognized him from Digital Underground (go listen to “Same Song” for context). His first album had not dropped yet, and nobody else seemed to notice him. I took a picture of him and [Riley’s mom] Cindy, and I thought she took one of him and me. This was in the era of point-and-shoot film cameras so results were unreliable. Unfortunately I never found the photo once the roll was developed. But thanks to modern technology and maestro digital artist @_vemix_ , the image has materialized.

Hawk went on to say that 2Pac was “effusive and gracious” after meeting briefly, adding that he was the most gracious with his time out of the celebrities he met at the time. Later in the caption of the post, Hawk corrected the timeline to say the photo might be from the 1994 AMAs. If the photo was taken in 1991, 2Pac made his debut in the fall of that year with the album, 2Pacalypse Now.

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Photo: Getty

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16 Aug 2023

How Pedro Capo Rediscovered His Sound After ‘Calma’ & Returned to His Roots

Pedro Capó is currently on the road with his La Neta Tour — his first official trek since the pandemic — which kicked off in May in Spain and is en route to Latin America and the United States this fall. 

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“I’m happy that we finally got here. They all sold out,” he tells Billboard. “La Neta is the little boat that could.” 

The tour backs up Capó’s sixth studio album, La Neta, which was released in December 2022 via Sony Music Latin. The ultra-personal 10-track set finds the artist navigating emotions of honesty and vulnerability, and delving deeper into lyrics about  love, happiness, loneliness, life and death. The title track, he says, is “a different sound.” 

“It marks a road ahead for me because sonically I was coming out of the whole ‘Calma’ thing, which was beautiful, amazing. The pandemic came, I kinda got lost in my sound a little bit, which is kind of the process,” he explains. 

Although “Calma” gave the Puerto Rican artist many first-time milestones in his career, including his first-ever Billboard No. 1 hit, a Latin Grammy for song of the year, and the opportunity to travel the world, Capó admits that all the success was new to him. 

And suddenly, on the heels of his first big hit at 38 years old, the pandemic hit. 

“That silence was necessary for me to come back to my roots,” he recalls. “What would have been of Pedro without that in the middle? Where would he go naturally as a creative? And that’s what ‘La Neta’ was for me.[…] The album is something I recorded, produced, and wrote in its entirety in my house. Very personal. It’s a pandemic album, a picture of everything that happened to me in my life.” 

Capó’s North American leg of his tour kicks off October 21st in Orlando and will visit Miami, New York, Los Angeles and Chicago. He also promises more new music in the works. 

“I spent about a month locked myself in Nashville and we put forth a great number of songs that would be coming out by the end of the year,” he notes. “There’s a little bit of country with what I bring to the table, and I couldn’t be happier. I think it’s going to be a special one.” 

Watch Capó’s interview with Billboard News in the video above.

16 Aug 2023

Tencent Music’s Quarterly Profit Jumps 52% on Music Subscriptions

Tencent Music Entertainment Group’s (TME) quarterly net profit surged by more than 50% for the quarter ending in June on the strength of its online music business, sending its stock up 5% in mid-day trading on Wednesday.

Net profit for TME’s second quarter was RMB1.30 billion ($179 million), up 51.6% from second quarter last year, the Chinese company reported on Tuesday. Total revenues rose 5.5% to RMB7.29 billion ($1.01 billion) in the quarter ending June 30, as a more paying subscribers helped the online music business contribute more than half of TME’s earnings for the first time since the company’s launch in 2016.

TME is growing increasingly focused on its music business, and its company promotions which resulted in a record high of 99.4 million paying users this quarter, are paying off, executives say.

“As we continue driving the healthy development of China’s online music industry, we have seen users become increasingly accustomed and willing to pay for copyrighted music, whether for songs they want to listen to or for premium listening features they enjoy,” TME executive chairman Cussion Pang said on Tuesday. “This marks a significant step along TME’s growth trajectory.”

Quarterly revenue from online music services jumped nearly 50% to RMB4.25 billion (US$586 million) on strong music subscription revenue growth and advertising services and contributed more than 58% of the company’s total revenues.

The number of monthly active users for online music fell nearly 5% to 594 million in the second quarter this year from 623 million in the year-ago quarter, but the number of paying online music users rose more than 20% to 99.4 million from 82.7 million a year ago.

Revenues from music subscriptions grew 37% to RMB2.89 billion ($399 million). 

TME’s social entertainment business, which it has de-emphasized for the last several quarters in a row, saw mobile monthly active users fall 18% to 136 million from 166 million, while paying social entertainment users also declined 5% to 7.5 from 7.9.

Monthly average revenue per paying user (ARPPU) rose 14% to RMB9.7 ($1.33) for online music, while monthly ARPPU for social entertainment declined 20% to RMB135 ($18.50).

Tencent Music executives said they are in the process of deploying several service enhancement and risk control measures that will promote music-centric live streaming, which they expect to put pressure on TME’s social entertainment services revenues throughout the rest of 2023.

“TME remains confident about delivering year-over-year net profit growth for 2023, driven by the continued strong performance of online music services, laying a much more solid foundation for the company’s healthy and resilient development in the long run,” a spokesperson said.

16 Aug 2023

Ed Sheeran Reveals He & Taylor Swift Still Haven’t Re-Recorded Their ‘Reputation’ Track ‘End Game’

Ed Sheeran and Taylor Swift both have a number of projects in the works at the moment, but re-doing their 2017 collaboration “End Game” for Swift’s imminent Reputation (Taylor’s Version) isn’t one of them. Not yet, anyway.

The ginger-haired pop star revealed in a recent interview on Andy Cohen’s Deep & Shallow SiriusXM podcast that he and Swift still haven’t reunited in the studio to take a second stab at “End Game,” which also originally featured Future and served as the third single from Reputation. “No, I haven’t,” he confirmed. “No. No. But 1989 (Taylor’s Version) is the next one coming out. That’s the next one.”

Swift has released three “Taylor’s Version” records so far, with 1989 set to become the fourth in October. That means that only her self-titled 2006 debut album and Reputation, the final album she released under her former record label Big Machine, are left for her to re-record. And while “End Game” is still on the to-do list, 2021’s Red (Taylor’s Version) did already bring along two Swift-Sheeran duets: “Everything Has Changed (Taylor’s Version)” and “Run,” a previously unreleased From the Vault track.

The “Anti-Hero” singer announced last week that 2014’s 1989 was next in line at her final U.S. leg 1 stop on the Eras Tour — which Sheeran says he’s hopeful he’ll be able to attend once the trek makes its way to Europe. “I would love to go and see Taylor’s show, but we’re all playing on the same dates every single weekend,” the “A Team” musician, whose currently embarked on his record-breaking Mathematics Tour, told Cohen. “I think there’s a chance next year when she’s in the UK…”

Sheeran himself is busy gearing up to release a new record of his own, which he confirmed to Cohen is coming soon. The revelation comes after the Grammy winner’s repeated “Autumn is coming” messages to fans on Instagram, which turned out to be teasers for the fall-themed LP he has in store.

Fans even recently pieced together a possible release date based on numbers printed on the jerseys Sheeran wore at a pair of recent concerts: 9/29, or September 29th. “It’s an album about Autumn and I kind of have no expectations for it,” Sheeran shared, not confirming the project’s release date. “It was the album I was trying to make, and then Subtract happened. So I kind of have finished it over the last year and, yeah, it’s ready to come out, so I’m gonna put it out.”

One thing’s for sure, though: You probably won’t ever catch Sheeran singing the new songs, or any of his music, for that matter, as a headliner at the Super Bowl. “I think it’s an American thing,” he explained. “I think I, I don’t have pizazz… I don’t, you watch Prince, you watch Michael Jackson, you watch Katy Perry, you watch Lady Gaga, you watch Rihanna, you watch Beyoncé. Like all of these amazing performers. I’m just not that, I’m not gonna have dancers on stage.”

Check out clips from Ed Sheeran’s interview with Andy Cohen below:





16 Aug 2023

Charli XCX’s ‘Speed Drive’ Finally Has a Music Video (With a Sam Smith Cameo)

Barbie summer isn’t over yet — not if Charli XCX has something to say about it. On Wednesday (Aug. 16), the “Beg For You” singer released her long-awaited music video for “Speed Drive,” nearly one month after the theatrical release of Great Gerwig’s Barbie.

The English pop star kept the visual somewhat simple, appearing alongside social media personality Devon Lee Carlson in a pink convertible car. Charli takes the passenger seat in a white onesie, pink feathered boa and sunglasses, while Carlson kicks the car into overdrive to do doughnuts in an abandoned parking lot. Just moments after getting out of the car to dance to the track, Charli’s phone rings — to the tune of her 2016 car-centric track “Vroom Vroom” — and she accepts a call from a special friend who also appears on Barbie: The Album.

“Did you have a chance to listen to the new mix, babe? What did you think?” Sam Smith asks her from a dressing room, wearing a satin pink robe. “I’m actually on set of a music video right now,” Charli tells the “Man I Am” singer. “Oh okay, sorry, it’s just that we gotta submit it so we can get it out,” they add, to which Charli suggests, “Maybe I can call you back right after and we can talk, is that good?” “Love it,” Smith replies.

The track then picks up again, and — after a makeup, hair and wardrobe adjustment — Charli wildly dances to the song in a black overcoat and pink baseball cap as Carlson continues to whip around the parking lot. Charli later rejoins her for a drive, but they crash — likely a nod to the pop star’s 2022 album, Crash.

Following the release of Barbie: The Album, “Speed Drive” became Charli XCX’s first song since 2014 to chart on the Billboard Hot 100, peaking at No. 73 on the all-genre tally. The track was featured prominently in Barbie during a scene in which the titular character escapes inept Mattel executives.

Watch the visual for “Speed Drive” in the video below.

16 Aug 2023

Skrillex, Boys Noize & Chris Lake to Play Friendship 2024: See the Complete Lineup

A boatload of party people will start next year off with a bang on the 2024 sailing of Friendship, the annual party cruise from Gary Richards.

Richards, who has long produced music as Destructo, has revealed the Friendship 2024 lineup on Wednesday (Aug. 16), with the bill featuring Skrillex, Bob Moses, Chris Lake, Chris Lorenzo, J. Phlip, Todd Edwards, Nina Las Vegas, Rusko, Mr Carmack and a flurry of other stars, in addition to rising artists including Mary Droppinz, NALA, QRTR and many more.

The ship will set sail from Miami on Jan. 6, 2024, cruising to Belize’s Harvest Caye, a site that will host 24 hours of shenanigans including a beachside set from Skrillex. This Harvest Caye trek will also include the first ever island iteration of Richards’ Sunrise Sermon event, which he started in downtown Los Angeles in his early rave promoting days. The boat returns to Miami on Jan. 11.

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Outside of music, Activities on the boats will include stand up comedy, skateboarding and a cabaret set from Dita von Teese. Friendship 2024 happens aboard the Norwegian Joy, which can hold 3,500 passengers. While the voyage is already largely sold out, a limited numbers of cabins remain.

“I’m always trying to push the envelope of new music by keeping things interesting and exciting,” Richards tells Billboard. “We have five full days, so I wanted to represent as many parts of the globe as possible to keep it spicy. We have artists from Africa, Russia, Brazil, New Zealand, Australia, England, Germany, Italy, Canada, and the good ole US of A.”

He continued, “Some fresh new highlights I’m digging right now include VTSS, Vigro Deep, Sun El Musician, Nitepunk, Raven, Mersiv, A Hundred Drums, Nala, QRTR, G-Rex, Mary Droppinz, Safety Trance, Enoo Napa, and Da Capo. And of course my BFFs as always Boys Noize, Skrillex, Chris Lake, Chris Lorenzo, Bob Moses plus, plus, plus all on a private island in Belize.”

Richards launched Friendship in 2018, with the concept echoing that of Holy Ship, the party cruise Richards launched in 2012 via HARD, the electronic festival production company he founded in 2007 and which was acquired by Live Nation in 2012. Richards departed HARD in 2017.

See the complete lineup for Friendship 2024 below.

Friendship 2023

Friendship 2023

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16 Aug 2023

Mario on Nas’ Storytelling, Being Inspired by Tupac & More | R&B Hip-Hop Power Players 2023

Mario opens up about his love for R&B and hip-hop, being inspired by 2Pac’s “Dear Mama” and more.

Mario:
It’s the 50th anniversary and everybody’s here with me celebrating hip-hop or R&B.

Yeah. Billboard 50th anniversary, thank y’all for all you have done. So many stories told through music, so many lives touched, so many lives changed.

I was just talking to my Virgo brother Nas, right? He was the epitome of what hip-hop was in my middle school years. Lyricism, the beat selection, the storytelling, the way he transitioned through his albums, the competitiveness of hip-hop, we all learned that you know what I’m saying? I learned that through Nas. I learned that through people like Jay-Z, you know what I’m saying?

Keeping it nostalgic, you learn that through Puff. Puff takes samples from the ’80s and the ’70s and ’60s, and he brings it and he makes it fresh. He puts great R&B records and groups together it’s just hip-hop has had such a great marriage with R&B from like the late ’90s and the early 2000s. And it just makes you appreciate storytelling and makes you appreciate the texture and makes you appreciate the culture of hip-hop and R&B.

My mother played “Dear Mama” for me from Tupac, I will say my early middle school years. And I just remember telling her one day I said “Mom, I’m gonna write a song like that for you.” It’s not quite the same as “Dear Mama” but I ended up writing a song for my mom so like, I don’t know, I just think hip-hop is just- it’s something that when you hear it and you feel it, it takes you back to a space in time. R&B, when you hear it and you feel it, it makes you want to express yourself, makes you feel something, makes you feel your emotions, and it makes you feel your vulnerability.

Watch the full video above.