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20 Apr 2023

David Guetta, Anne-Marie & Coi Leray’s Haddaway Update Debuts in Hot Dance/Electronic Songs Top 10

David Guetta, Anne-Marie and Coi Leray leap onto Billboard’s multimetric Hot Dance/Electronic Songs chart (dated April 22) with “Baby Don’t Hurt Me” at No. 8. The track starts with 2.5 million official streams, 1.4 million radio airplay impressions and 900 downloads sold in the April 7-13 tracking week, according to Luminate.

The reworking of Haddaway’s Eurodance classic “What Is Love,” which reached No. 11 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1993, amounts to Guetta’s 21st Hot Dance/Electronic Songs top 10, the fourth-most among all acts since the chart began in January 2013; Kygo leads with 24 top 10s, followed by Calvin Harris and The Chainsmokers, each with 22. “Hurt” is singer Anne-Marie’s second top 10 and rapper Leray’s first.

The debut also gives prolific DJ/producer Guetta a record-extending 76th charted title, the most of all acts. (Kygo is next, with 62.)

Concurrently, “Hurt” begins on the Dance/Electronic Digital Song Sales chart at No. 3.

The track traces the model of Guetta’s collab with Bebe Rexha, “I’m Good (Blue),” a reimagination of another Eurodance smash, Eiffel 65’s “Blue (Da Ba Dee),” a No. 6 Hot 100 hit in 2000. “Good” scores a 30th frame at No. 1 on Hot Dance/Electronic Songs, becoming only the fourth track to have logged 30 or more weeks on top, after Marshmello and Bastille’s “Happier” (69 weeks; 2018-20), Elton John and Dua Lipa’s “Cold Heart (Pnau Remix)” (36; 2021-22) and Zedd, Maren Morris and Grey’s “The Middle” (33; 2018).

‘Dancing’ to No. 1

Frank Walker and Ella Henderson ascend to the Dance/Mix Show Airplay summit with “I Go Dancing.” The first leader for both acts, among three and four top 10s, respectively, is drawing core-dance airplay on Music Choice’s Dance/EDM channel, KMVQ-HD2 San Francisco and WCPY (Dance Factory FM) Chicago, among other supporters.

It’s a busy week on Dance/Mix Show Airplay, with three tracks reaching the top 10. John Summit scores his third top 10 and Hayla, her second, with “Where You Are” (12-6); Kaleena Zanders earns her inaugural top 10 and Shift K3Y presses his second with “V I B R A T I O N” (15-8); and Duke and Jones draws their first top 10 and Marlhy, her second, with “State of Mind” (21-10).

(The Dance/Mix Show Airplay chart measures radio airplay on a select group of full-time dance stations, along with plays during mix shows on around 70 top 40-formatted reporters.)

‘Hammer’ Time

On the Top Dance/Electronic Albums chart, Brooklyn-based DJ/producer/singer Yaeji arrives at No. 9 with her first album, With a Hammer. The set arrives with 3,500 equivalent album units, including 2,600 from traditional album sales. With vocals in Korean and English, the release also hits World Albums (No. 13) and Heatseekers Albums (No. 18).

Yaeji is known for her underground hit “Raingurl,” from her five-track EP2. The short set hit No. 5 on the now-defunct sales-only Dance/Electronic Album Sales chart following its November 2017 release.

20 Apr 2023

Taylor Swift’s ‘Willow’ & ‘Cardigan’ Were Originally Meant for The National

“Willow” and “Cardigan” are two of Taylor Swift’s most beloved tracks on Evermore and Folklore, respectively. But what if they didn’t make it into her discography?

That was almost the case, according to the superstar’s frequent musical collaborators The National. In a new interview with The Telegraph published on Thursday (April 20), the band’s Aaron Dessner and Matt Berninger revealed that the two songs were originally intended to be for The National.

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“I’d taken a swing at [‘Cardigan’] and ‘Willow’ and a couple of others, and I wasn’t having a lot of luck, so Aaron sent them to Taylor,” Berninger recalled. “I always have a lot of music to work on, and I am looking for something to connect emotionally. The reverse has happened, too, where Aaron wrote something for Taylor, and I dove right in. It works both ways.”

The National is gearing up to release their ninth studio album, First Two Pages of Frankenstein on April 28, and previously revealed that Swift will be featured on the track “The Alcott.” The group previously collaborated with Swift on Evermore‘s “Coney Island.”

“We’re all big fans of Taylor, and she’s been really generous with us, inviting us to be part of ‘Coney Island,’” Aaron’s brother Bryce Dessner previously shared in an Apple Music interview. “And obviously my brother’s worked with her a lot, and I’ve done a bunch of orchestration for her albums.”

He continued, “‘The Alcott’ is a song that she co-wrote with Matt [Berninger], where she co-wrote the lyrics. It’s really amazing to hear her, the way she was able to take what Matt had done and then reinvent the song, and it’s really a special song.”

20 Apr 2023

‘Ziggy Stardub’: Inside the Reggae Recast of David Bowie’s Glam Rock Classic

From its grim, cinematic observations about the apocalypse on opening track “Five Years” to the haunting reassurance that we’re not alone on concluding song “Rock ‘n’ Roll Suicide,” David Bowie’s The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars is a masterpiece that’s often hailed as one of the greatest albums of all time.

The glam rock classic, loosely based around the narrative of a red-headed, androgynous, extraterrestrial rock star, quickly elevated Bowie to superstar status in 1972. Fifty-one years later, Ziggy Stardust has received a spectacular reggae recasting: Ziggy Stardub, a new album by the Easy Star All-Stars, due April 21 on Easy Star Records. It’s the latest in the New York City-based independent’s series of reggae tributes to landmark rock and pop albums. Other titles include 2012’s Thrillah (based on Michael Jackson’s blockbuster Thriller) and the series’ best-selling release, 2003’s Dub Side of the Moon (inspired by Pink Floyd’s The Dark Side of the Moon).

“Ziggy Stardub is like taking David Bowie and the Spiders from Mars band [bassist Trevor Bolden, guitarist Mick Ronson and the sole surviving member, drummer Michael “Woody” Woodmansey] on an airplane traveling back to Jamaica in the late 1970s; what would happen if we did that? People aren’t used to hearing music they are familiar with in a totally different light, but hopefully, they’ll come along for that ride with us,” explains Michael Goldwasser, the producer and arranger of Ziggy Stardub (and the other Easy Star tribute albums. Goldwasser is also a co-founder of Easy Star Records with Lem Oppenheimer, Eric Smith and Remy Gerstein, and is bandleader, producer and multi-instrumentalist for the Easy Star All-Stars). “All of our tributes start with great source material because it always comes down to the songs, and the great artists we work with.”

Each of the featured vocalists on Ziggy Stardub brings their distinctive styling to Bowie’s powerful, otherworldly lyrical imagery. British lover’s rock crooner Maxi Priest delivers a smooth, soul-inflected rendition of the “hazy cosmic jive” that is “Starman,” Ziggy Stardub’s first single; veteran Brooklyn/Jamaican singer Carlton Livingston’s joyous take on “Star” incorporates a rollicking ska tempo mixed with 1950s rock n’ roll; “Hang On To Yourself,” featuring Fishbone, Johnny Go Figure and Living Color’s Vernon Reid, fuses early digital dancehall sonics into soaring rock riffs; Macy Gray offers a gritty interpretation of “Rock ‘n’ Roll Suicide”; and British reggae band The Skints bring the requisite crunching guitars to “Ziggy Stardust.” Representing a younger generation of Jamaican singers, Mortimer’s exquisite vocals capture the essence of “Soul Love” and Naomi Cowan integrates a “rock and rollin’ bitch” persona into her gorgeously trippy reading of “Moonage Daydream,” complemented by Alex Lifeson’s blistering guitar lead.

As a teenager in England in the 1970s, David Hinds — lead singer/songwriter and founding member of Grammy-winning British reggae band Steel Pulse — describes David Bowie’s influence as inescapable. Even so, he never heard “Five Years” prior to Easy Star presenting it to him. To gain a greater understanding of Bowie’s artistry while recording the song, Hinds abandoned his usual approach to executing melody and syncopation. “Steel Pulse is all about rhyme, bounce, singing on a particular rhythm; with the Bowie song, it was about expressing word by word, phonic by phonic, syllable by syllable, without that being too overdone,” Hinds tells Billboard. “In making that effort, I experienced what Bowie was about, and I just hope justice was done to the song.” The restrained anger in Hinds’ vocals conveys Bowie’s striking, poetic vision of Armageddon, punctuated by the evocative lyric, “Five years, that’s all we got.”

Ostensibly, there’s little sonic overlap between reggae’s roots rock and British glam rock, yet Goldwasser’s nuanced, layered arrangements and crisp production create an expansive common ground, seamlessly meshing the originals’ celestial impressions with signature Jamaican sounds, including thunderous basslines, bubbling keyboards and flying cymbal drum patterns. “When working within the framework of a song with an established melody and harmonic structure, I consider what to include or interpolate; that’s why the tribute albums take longer than the original albums I have produced,” says Goldwasser. “I put in many interesting details to give the listener something different to focus on each time. I treat these tribute albums with reverence and humor: music should be fun, but I have reverence for the original material, and anyone listening will recognize both of those facets.”

Goldwasser’s admiration for the original songs and his meticulousness in transforming them into finely sculpted reggae tracks for Easy Star tribute albums has turned many rock fans into reggae enthusiasts. “Before the release of Dub Side of the Moon, we got hate from people on Pink Floyd and classic rock message boards who said things like ‘Dark Side of the Moon is sacred, how dare they?’ After the album came out, on those same message boards, people said ‘Easy Star did a great job.’ People have told me that listening to our tribute albums got them into reggae. That’s part of Easy Star’s mission: to break down barriers. If you can open your mind and your heart to different music, you can open your mind and your heart to different people.” 

20 Apr 2023

Joey Bada$$ Is Chasing His ‘EGOT’ Dreams: ‘That’s Something I See in My Future’

Last year, Joey Bada$$ stampeded his way back into rap contention when he released his third studio album, 2000. 

Dubbed a sequel to his lauded 2012 mixtape 1999, the album showcased the now-28-year-old’s growth as a charismatic rhyme slinger. While his steely Brooklyn bravado outclassed the competition as proven in “One of Us” and “Make Me Feel,” Joey also unapologetically unpacked his trauma and grief (“Survivors Guilt” and “Head High”), making 2000 an indelible hip-hop gem last year. 

“I recently successfully grieved, if that makes sense,” Bada$$ says retrospectively. “I can’t tell you what it looks like for me now. I don’t even want to think about grieving anything or anyone right now, but my approach now at this age would be more direct and head-on. I buried things and would substitute grieving time with work and anything that would take my attention away from grieving a loved one or a situation. Now, I would try to do my best to deal with it.”

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And though Joey enjoyed his 2022 wins — including rave reviews on the acting side for his roles on popular TV series Power Book III: Raising Kanan and Wu-Tang: An American Saga, he’s ready to take a sharp pivot musically. His first step was releasing “Fallin’,” a one-off single glazed with R&B sensibilities, last month. After flexing his rap muscles last year, Joey slows the tempo down on his new release, providing a slick offering about falling deeply in love. Though he’s clearly in his R&B bag, he does a great job keeping his rap base enthralled with a meaty verse, rapping “They say all is fair in love and war and I ‘fraid to risk it all/ F–k it, if I trip and fall, barely do I miss your call.”

Below, Joey speaks to Billboard about piecing together his third album 2000, almost making an entirely different album, his EGOT aspirations and more.

You’re already dropping new music after releasing an acclaimed album last year. Where’s the urgency coming from?

Well, it doesn’t feel like urgency on my end. It’s just hunger and excitement. It’s more activation. Prior to 2000, it was a five-year gap. So, 2000 has me feeling activated again. There was a lot of music that I made at the time … but to me it was never a dull moment. I was working on our craft the whole time. Now, I’m feeling activated again and feeling excited about making some music. I got so much music. Imagine taking five years off?

Last year, J.I.D said you were sitting on the album and keeping it hostage before releasing it.

Well, respectfully, that was a whole different album. I played him 50 different albums. It was more so a matter of me deciding what I actually wanted to do. What really happened was I put out All-Amerikkkan Badass, experiment with some new s–t, and still doing the s–t that comes naturally easy for me. But by the time I looked up, I’m like, “Oh s–t, five years went by and we lost two.” All this time had elapsed.

So I felt like it was only right that I had to feed my core [fanbase], because they kept me afloat. Even with so much time away, I was able to still do shows and pack them out. Like, my streaming was never down, so I felt like it was only right. I feel eager to tell people something new. All these experiments that I’ve been working on in that block of time. 

I read that while you were making 2000 you and almost made an album similar to K Dot’s Mr. Morale and The Big Steppers. How true is that? 

Yeah — so around that time I was working on an album called Survivor’s Guilt. It was more moving in that direction, [around] the title track of that. You know, after a while I just wasn’t solid about that music anymore. I don’t want you to think I’ve been sad this whole time. I want [fans] to see me grow, and where I’m actually at now. It just became a matter of me spiritually, how I didn’t align with that music anymore. So I pivoted from the more therapeutic introspective sound.

Which records were most therapeutic to you? 

Definitely “Survivor’s Guilt” and “Head High” for sure. “Survivor’s Guilt” was a moment — and I recorded that song [probably around] 2020 and had that for like three years. 

That was a lot of heavy s–t.

It wasn’t the session that was crazy, it was going through it that was crazy. And I wrote that in the midst of the pandemic. I just thought about the concept of being rich, and just the spoils of living a life of luxury, and where that takes a person. I just kinda expanded on this idea — and then it just became a song about me grieving the loss of my brother. I didn’t intend to write about that. I actually didn’t write it — it came from the heart. It was one of those things with me just rehearsing some lines in the shower, going over it in my head, and then I went downstairs and it was a piecing back-and-forth type of thing until I had this whole verse. 

I didn’t even know how much bars it was, because I was just spitting from the spirit — from my heart — and it was magical. I remember following that experience, for the first time I went to get a reading from a psychic. And one of the things she told me — which was crazy to me — I told her about the spirits that are following me and my angels, and at the end of the session she asked me if I wrote a song about him. I feel like I finally mended my heart with that song, when it came to that situation with my brother and how I felt about it. 

How do you find that balance in being away, but also finding the urgency to be present and release music constantly?

I’m still trying to figure it out. You talking about, “Why you so ready already?” I’m tryna stay consistent. It’s a balance. I feel like that was successful for me, especially when I started in the blog era in the early 2010s. Like that was good, that was cool — drop a tape, take some years and come with another joint. Yeah, people were waiting for that. But the climate of the game’s so different. Like, now it’s about numbers on the board. It’s like, “Let’s go to the gym and put some shots up and whatever sticks, sticks.” I’m taking so much time to record quality s–t, so I’m able to put it on rapid-fire if that makes sense. 

Do you look at features differently now versus when you were coming up?

Well when I was coming up, features got way more … people wouldn’t care if the dude wasn’t Jay-Z to get on a record like mine. But now I look at it as an opportunity to keep the ball rolling. Also, when we was young, we had people hit my phone [while] we at the studio. If people sending me records, it’s like, “OK, cool. Let’s get to it and send it right back out.” It still feels like work, but I’m more engaged and I’m more in it, too … I’m trying to get to that 2000s Lil Wayne. It’s just all hunger and excitement right now. I’m outside.

You’ve worked with Larry June twice this past year. What makes him a unique artist to work with? 

One, June got incredible consistency. Two, like myself, June has a street core. That’s somebody that has hustled and he continues to send that message. [starts rapping June’s song] “That’s a solid plan.” He’s so simple that it’s hard as f–k. There’s s–t that you’re gonna be replaying. These are the types of messages you want to have buried into your self-consciousness. I feel like June has figured out how to speak to them, and he’s constantly giving you that concept. I’m even at that point in my career I’m thinking, “Who could I make a collaboration album with?” And he’s somebody that’s on my radar [for that]. 

Do you still want a Grammy?

I don’t. I’d appreciate one. I just look at it as something that’s recognition. When I was younger, I felt it was an accolade that I needed to validate myself. I’m actually very firm on the idea we [as Black people] need [our own] Grammys. We need to take it back. We had The Source Awards and s–t like that — because it really comes down to misrepresentation. That’s something that we’ve been dealing with for a long time — and, unfortunately, we’re going to have to continue to deal with it until we take the wheel. It would be cool. I got a spot in my house where it’d look real nice. 

I heard you were interested in playing Big L in a biopic. Is that something you’re still trying to do?

I’ve definitely been approached about that. I didn’t say I’d want to play him. I think the question somebody had asked me was, “Who was somebody I like?” And I feel like Big L is somebody — because coming up, I always got good comparisons with him. Honestly, I don’t want to play a rapper. Even with Wu-Tang, it was a hesitation for me — but I did it, really because I have such admiration for RZA. But I want to stay clear of things that are actually too similar to who I actually am. 

Seeing BMF and Ghost, where does Raising Kanan rank?

It’s the best show. I think BMF is a great story, but I think we got more talent at Raising Kanan. We got an Oscar winner and a Tony winner who spearheads the show. They got Oscars at BMF? 

I know you said you don’t care about Grammys, but you starred in Two Distant Strangers, which won the Oscar for best live action short. Has the thought of EGOT crossed your mind?

Absolutely. Before I even got the Oscar, it’s funny, because that was gonna be one of my album titles at one point. It was gonna be The EGOT. That’s definitely something that I see in my future that I feel that I will manifest. 

When I got the Oscar, the next day I was sitting on my couch and there was a whole bunch going on and I just needed to meditate. I could get a Grammy too! I wasn’t striving for a f–king Oscar — it just came.

 

20 Apr 2023

Zendaya Stars in Her First Louis Vuitton Campaign: See the Photos

Zendaya has landed another major partnership. On Thursday (April 20), Louis Vuitton announced that the Euphoria actress has been named a house ambassador, and stars in the luxury fashion brand’s newest campaign for the Capucines handbag.

This partnership marks Zendaya’s first with Louis Vuitton. The photos for the Capucines bag features the star drenched in sunlight, posing with several models of the purse in Cote d’Azur (the French Riviera).

Zendaya

Zendaya

Courtesy of Louis Vuitton

“I remember growing up around LV campaigns,” the “Replay” singer shared in an interview with Vogue. “There was this one that I loved from the early 2000s of Naomi Campbell, and she’s like sprawled out over a trunk. I can still see it. I can see the image in my head and I remember seeing it in magazines as a kid.” 

Starring in the campaign adds another dose of nostalgia, as the Louis Vuitton iconography played into her social media usage and made frequent appearances on Myspace during the social networking site’s prime. “Everyone had the LV-print on their Myspace page,” she explained. “At least I had that! Let me not try to put that on nobody else. That was definitely me.” 

Zendaya was most recently an ambassador for Valentino, joining the fashion house’s family in 2020.

20 Apr 2023

HHW Gaming: Agents Will Fight On With Year 5 of Content In ‘Tom Clancy’s The Division 2’

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Tom Clancy's The Division 2 Pushes On With Year 5 of Content

Source: Ubisoft / Tom Clancy’s The Division 2

Happy Division Day. Ubisoft is celebrating by giving long-time The Division players what they want, more content for Tom Clancy’s The Division 2.

Tom Clancy’s: The Division 2 was released in 2019 and is still pushing on four years later. During Ubisoft’s Division Day live stream, fans were treated to a look at the upcoming roadmap The Division 2’s Year 5 of content.

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Year 5 of Division 2 will kick off in June, but players won’t have to wait that long to try some new content. Beginning April 21, players can sign up to participate in a public PC test server for the new mode Descent.



From April 25 to May 9, players who log in during that time will also get the Resident Evil Leon Kennedy RPD outfit.

A Full Breakdown of Year 5’s Seasons

Broken Wings (June): This new season brings a new twist on Manhunts and introduces a new game mode titled Descent, a rogue-lite mode available for free to all Division 2 players when Year 5 begins. Players will also see the continuation of a multi-season rebuild of the Castle Settlement that will bring the devastated landmark back to life with a renewed purpose. As a part of the premium pass for Season One: Broken Wings, players will be able to unlock pieces of a Splinter Cell-themed outfit to help Fifth Freedom their way throughout DC and NYC.

Puppeteers: A challenging new Incursion will take Agents on a venture out to the Meret Estate for another confrontation with the Cleaners.

Vanguard: Agents will go back to New York City for the holidays and discover new revelations about Aaron Keener and his Rogues.

Black Diamond: New story DLC will be available that adds new zones, new main missions, and a whole new endgame structure. 

Ubisoft says each of the four seasons will continue introducing Manhunts, Leagues, and Events. Players must own the Warlords of New York expansion to have access to the new content. Descent mode will be available to all Division 2 players.

You can watch the full stream below.



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Photo: Ubisoft / Tom Clancy’s The Division 2

20 Apr 2023

The Deals: LL Cool J’s Rock the Bells Raises $15M; ICM Crescendo Acquires Anuel AA Royalty Income

LL Cool J‘s Rock the Bells hip-hop platform announced a $15 million Series B raise led by Raine Ventures, Irving Azoff of Iconic Artists Group and Paramount Global, with participation from Amex Ventures, Wildcat Capital Management and Capstar Ventures. Additional investment came from ASK Capital, North Island, AME Cloud Ventures and XO Capital. The funds will be used to scale the business, including by creating more long-form content projects, launching new retail projects, expanding to the European Union, growing the annual Rock the Bells Festival and launching new experiential events. Under the deal, Rock the Bells and Paramount Global have signed a multi-year first-look deal covering feature films and scripted and unscripted content as well as the opportunity to live-stream the 2023 Rock the Bells Festival. Additionally, they will partner on developing co-branded merchandise opportunities. Paramount Global will also provide marketing support for Rock The Bells content, experiences and activations.

ICM Crescendo Music Royalty Fund acquired the master royalty income of a catalog of songs owned by High Society Management, including several by Latin star Anuel AA such as “Sola (Remix)”, “Soldado Y Profeta (Remix)” and “Nacimos Pa Morir” featuring Jory Boy.

Snapchat struck new music licensing deals with UnitedMasters, BUMA/STEMRA, SUISA Digital Licensing AG — which includes the repertoire of SUISA (Switzerland), AKKA/LAA (Latvia), Albautor (Albania), Armauthor (Armenia), Autodia (Greece), COMP (Pakistan), EAÜ (Estonia), GCA (Georgia), LATGA (Lithuania), SOZA (Slovakia), Abramus Digital (Brazil), Soundreef (Italy) — and multiple direct-licensing publishers for its Snapchat Sounds library.

Independent Latin music label The Wave Music Group — founded in 2021 by Angelo Torres and Caleb Calloway — signed a long-term distribution agreement with Capitol Music Group (CMG). The first music to be released under the deal comes from Puerto Rican rapper and songwriter Young Miko, who dropped the first single under the agreement, “Lisa,” in March. CMG will provide The Wave Music Group with a number of services in support of its releases, supplementing the label’s in-house functions.

Reactional Music — which has developed a rules-based music engine that allows any music to be brought into a video game and interact in real time with the game’s visuals, sound and more — closed a pre-Series A funding round led by mobile music games publisher Amanotes and early-stage VC fund Butterfly Ventures. The round was also supported by several angel investors, including former Mediatonic chairman, Red Octane CEO and Take 2 Interactive CEO Kelly Sumner. The funds will be used to deliver the Reactional beta platform and SDK for developers, continue its music licensing operations and scale the Reactional team. Reactional is currently at work on several pilot projects, while the Reactional engine is now being used in a commercially-available game for the Playstation 5 and Playstation VR2; it has also struck multiple music rights agreements, including with Hipgnosis Song Management. The platform is expected to go live this year.

PRS for Music announced a partnership with music rights and metadata management software platform Orfium to expand PRS’s licensing coverage to music users in Africa. Under the deal, Orfium will license the PRS repertoire and provide the underlying technology infrastructure to serve African markets. Coverage provided by Orfium will extend to public performances, radio, cable TV and local and select multi-national online services. The deal will also expand the global reach of PRS’s Major Live Concert Service, a leading royalty collection service for large concerts, making it available for events held throughout Africa. The Orfium partnership will function alongside PRS’s existing agreement with South Africa collecting society SAMRO for its home territories.

SoundExchange announced a new data partnership with music metadata provider Music Story to improve SoundExchange’s creator metadata. The deal is designed to minimize the need for manual claiming and help ensure accuracy in monthly royalty payments. Music Story partner Muso.AI, a verified music credit platform, captures credits, correctly links music creators to their work and spots inconsistencies that impact their rights.

Live events company LiveCo struck a partnership with Park City, Utah-based boutique producing and presenting firm MagicSpace Entertainment to bring the company under the LiveCo umbrella. MagicSpace has launched tours including Simone Biles in the Gold Over America Tour, Rain – A Tribute to the Beatles, Mannheim Steamroller Christmas, A Magical Cirque Christmas and Alton Brown Live. LiveCo, which launched at the top of 2023, also boasts partnerships with Icon Concerts, Premier Productions, BASE Entertainment, Rush Concerts, Peachtree Entertainment and Transparent Productions; it also represents talent and productions including Jimmy O. Yang, Criss Angel, Cocomelon Live, Cody Johnson, Jo Koy, Dude Perfect, Zach Bryan, MercyMe, Elevation Worship and Gabriel Iglesias.

Enote, an app that provides a library of interactive sheet music to classical musicians, closed a 10 million euro ($10.97 million) pre-Series A funding round led by Dieter von Holzbrink Ventures (DvH Ventures), the EU’s European Innovation Council (EIC Fund) and the Rudolf Fuchs Family Office. The funds will go toward initiatives that introduce innovations to the app, empower educators and provide more musicians with the opportunity to access the Enote library. There remains an opportunity for angel investors, venture capital funds and family offices to participate in a second closing of the round, which the EIC fund has committed to matching euro for euro.

Web3 company OneOf acquired enterprise rewards and loyalty software company TAP Network, which has developed customized rewards and loyalty solutions for clients including Warner Music Group, Brave and Uber. The acquisition allows for the integration of TAP Network’s loyalty software IP with OneOf’s mass-consumer Web3 technology framework. The resulting Web3-powered tech stack, dubbed OnePlatform, will provide white-labeled turnkey loyalty, commerce and data solutions for enterprise clients in entertainment, media, finance, retail, travel, consumer packaged goods, telecom and more.

SoundCloud and Feature.fm formed a strategic partnership to provide exclusive resources and benefits related to Feature.fm’s marketing tools — including smartlinks and pre-saves — for SoundCloud artists. The benefits, which will become available next month, will include perks and discounts from Feature.fm and provide SoundCloud’s “Next Pro” tier of artists with a free plan and free ad credits, while providing artists in its “Next” tier with discounted pricing. As part of the deal, Feature.fm will introduce a new entry-level pricing plan that will be made available to all SoundCloud artists for the first 90 days.

Turntable LIVE acquired fellow music-centered social platform JQBX. The JQBX brand, domain and community will continue with special features at www.JQBX.fm. The acquisition follows the announcement of Turntable LIVE’s $7 million seed round.

Revelator, which provides digital IP infrastructure to music companies including royalty accounting, distribution and analysis, announced an expansion to Japan under a new partnership with Japanese music tech agency PRTL. Under the deal, Revelator will leverage PRTL head Taishi Fukuyama‘s “expertise to bring its innovative Web2 and Web3 solutions to a market that is experiencing rapid streaming growth and is wildly enthusiastic about NFTs,” according to a press release.

EVEN, a blockchain-enabled platform that allows artists to sell their music directly to fans in exchange for exclusive perks before uploading the music to streaming platforms, announced a $2.2 million funding round led by CSA Partners with participation from gener8tor, VC414, gAngels, Daniel Rotman, Adie Akuffo-Afful, Donte Murry and Ogo.

20 Apr 2023

Drake’s Thirst Trap Has Twitter Clowning His Alleged Surgically Enhanced Abs

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Drake Is Getting Roasted For His Alleged Fake Abs

Source: Cole Burston / Getty / Drake

Drake decided to bless his followers with a late-night thirst trap and instead reminded many that he might have cheated when getting his abs.

Spotted on TMZ Hip Hop, Drake shook things up on Instagram when he dropped a photo of himself wearing nothing but a towel after taking “a 5 min cold plunge for the soul.”

Immediately the reactions to the photo began pouring in. Of course, there was some thirst, but mainly people side-eyeing the rapper’s alleged fake abs.

“Just saw a photo of Drake in a towel & while many women may find that sexy.. all I noticed is he got abs but no chest. I know transmen with more chest than that & they cut the boobs off…. hit the gym you Canadian freak,” one Twitter user hilariously wrote. 

Another Twitter user wrote, “Drake doesn’t do it for me. The abs aren’t real. I don’t see-“

“Can y’all please stop spreading that picture of drake? His lipo and sculpted abs are scary,” another Twitter user said. 

Damn, no one is here for Drake’s abs.

Drizzy is gearing up to head on tour with 21 Savage and looks to be in the best shape of his life. Until his first tour date arrives, you can entertain yourself with more reactions to this “thirst trap” in the gallery below.

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Photo: Cole Burston / Getty

2. Good question

3. Be great king.

20 Apr 2023

U.K. Dance Phenom Yuné Pinku on Her ‘Music For Introverted Ravers’

In Billboard’s monthly emerging dance artist spotlight we get to know Yunè Pinku, the 20-year-old artist building fantastical realms with her otherworldly voice and textured sonics.

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See latest videos, charts and news

The Project: Babylon IX EP, out April 28 on Platoon

The Origin: Born and raised in London, Malaysian-Irish artist Yunè Pinku worked a number of odd jobs before becoming a musician — including, as she told The Line of Best Fit, as a bartender, and as an intern both at Prada and at a crystal shop. Though she had learned to play piano, she seemingly found her comfort zone at her computer, where she began carving out ambient soundscapes with downloaded production software. Soon after, she started writing songs inspired by bedroom pop and what she described as “Bladee-weird Drain Gang stuff.”

During lockdown, Pinku channeled the energy she missed from dance music and going out into her experimentations. “Then I tried adding vocals on top of that, which were originally just gonna be placeholders,” she tells Billboard. By the time restrictions were lifted, she had made over 150 songs.

Despite not having any official releases to her name, Pinku earned a big co-sign from U.K. stalwart Joy Orbison (with whom she worked in music sessions), who invited her to contribute a guest mix to his Radio 1 residency in July 2021. Two months later, she featured on Logic1000’s single “What You Like,” followed by her solo debut “Laylo” in November. 

To start 2022, she found another big supporter in The Blessed Madonna, who named Pinku one to watch on her BBC Radio 6 New Year’s Day broadcast. Last April, she released her debut EP, Bluff, which led to billboard support from major streaming services and one of its tracks, “DC Rot,” landing on the FIFA 23 video-game soundtrack. (“My inner hooligan’s gassed,” she wrote on Instagram).

The Sound: Pinku has called her work “music for introverted ravers.” It juxtaposes electronic productions — an ever-evolving blend of U.K. garage, breakbeats, house, trance and more — with pop-structured songwriting to create a sound that’s animated enough for bedroom raving, yet mellow enough for introspective night drives.

But beneath the dance-y beats, a shadowy undercurrent runs through Pinku’s lyrics. Bluff, for instance, reflects the anxiety and angst of spending lockdown in isolation before re-learning how to navigate the outside world. Newer song “Night Light” takes the perspective of an AI searching for its maker.

“I would say I’ve got a default setting in my brain that’s quite existential,” she says. “A small thing could send me off into a doom scenario where I’ll be like, what’s the meaning of life, who are we? So I think it’s sort of these traces that come through.”

Part of Pinku’s strength is her use of textures, no doubt a remnant of her early soundscape sketches. Subtle sonics such as glittering synth constellations, the whirs of a machine powering up and softened glitches make her songs seem like they transcend the aural into the physical world.

“I’ve always really liked anything that sounds a bit twinkly or sparkly,” she says. “Textures are to me like 50% of a song, ‘cause you could have like a really good beat, but the textures and extra effects are how you make it interesting and more emotional.” Pinku even often treats her own otherworldly vocals as an instrument to blend and manipulate. But as she’s grown confident in her voice, she’s more open to bringing it closer to the forefront.

The Record: As Pinku was writing her new EP, she envisioned it taking place in a metaverse or cyber-realm — “So I thought, like, the idea of Babylon,” she says, “or like, the hanging gardens and cloud nine, where it’s these fantastical realms of existence.”

Pinku’s own fantastical realm took time to mold. Before Bluff, music had simply been a hobby. Post-release, she realized just how many eyes were on her. “There was like a five-month period where I literally couldn’t come up with any music, ‘cause I was like, ‘Oh god, they’re all gonna hate the music,’” she recalls. Then, during a breakthrough studio session in which she says she felt like she was “dying of hay fever,” she made two tracks in one day. One of those was recent single “Fai Fighter,” a bright, bouncy track which opens with an unhinged scream and features Pinku’s voice slicing through the air with its piercing whoops.

Whereas Bluff dons a shield of bravado and toughness, Pinku describes Babylon IX as being “gentler” and “more vulnerable on the lyrical side”: “This one is more about a delve into parts of desperation or being honest with yourself about yourself.” Her newest single, “Sports,” laments the idea of someone putting their screens before their IRL relationships over barraging drums and thunderous synths, while on opening track “Trinity,” she softly muses, “I never wanna be this lonely.” Additional tracks “Heartbeat” and “Blush Cut” bring out the EP’s dreamier, more delicate side with their crystalline production. It’s intimate yet vast, sad but sweet.

“Me and my friend were talking about it the other day,” Pinku says, “and we were saying [the EP sounds as] if a DJ was trying to summon a spirit on a mountain or something.”

Managed By: Emma Reid & Ferdy Hall, Outlier Artists

Management Strategy: “Our main aim managing Yunè has always been to make sure that this whole process remains not only fun and creative for her, but grows at a rate that she’s comfortable with,” say Reid and Hall. “This means saying ‘no’ to things is just as important as saying ‘yes.’ Growing her team independently via artist services company Platoon has allowed us the space and time to consider each step forward. Focusing on her long term ambitions rather than being preoccupied with short term trends that can often box in an artist’s growth rather than encourage it. This plays into our measurement for success, as long as we take a step forward with every move, then our plan and strategy is working. 

“Her biggest strength as an artist,” they continue, “is the quantity of quality music she’s able to make fast and her ability to envision the world that should sit around her releases. All we need to do is lean into that and put the pieces around her to make sure it’s all coming to life.”

First Song That Made Her Love Dance Music: Pinku was not a dance music fan growing up, thinking it to be only the trance her mother played around the house, but lockdown led to a change of heart. When she left her Spotify running in the background, the algorithm’s resultant “clubby drums” breached her subconscious. Pinku specifically remembers hearing songs from New York-based artist Eartheater’s 2019 album Trinity during those run-ons:

“They’re like trappy, kind of electronic, weird, blend stuff,” she says. “It’s cool ‘cause it’s quite experimental. It’s a mix of multiple genres and it kind of made me think, club music and electronic are like a whole [spectrum], and not just this or that.”

Advice Every New Dance Artist Needs to Hear: “Don’t be afraid to experiment or get quite weird with it. It’s electronic: you have so much space and there’s no rules with it, really.”

Why She Makes Music: “I think it’s just something I just do regardless of if anyone was listening to it. To me, it’s like getting things out of your soul in a way, which sounds very deep, but it’s like a diary for me. You free yourself a bit when you put it into a song.”

Up Next: In Pinku’s words: “A lot of shows.” She embarks on the next leg of her U.K./European tour next month, and in June she’ll venture this side of the pond for her first U.S. live shows at Brooklyn’s Elsewhere (June 15) and Los Angeles’ El Cid (June 22). SoCal fans can catch her again at HARD Summer (Aug. 5).

The rest of 2023 isn’t all planes and stages, though. Pinku’s also thinking about her eventual debut album. “I always enjoy the early stage of putting a project together ‘cause you’re just throwing out ideas of what you want it to be,” she says. “So I’m still kind of in the early stage where I’m just making tracks here and there and seeing if there’s any sound overall that’s coming out clearly and then just tweaking away at them.”

20 Apr 2023

Jay-Z Prison Reform Doc, Latino Music Diaspora Series Featuring Fat Joe Premiering at 2023 Tribeca Festival

This year’s Tribeca Festival is packed with musical stories, from biopics and documentaries to hard-hitting investigative films and docuseries that seek to inspire and shine a light on the sounds of the Latino diaspora.

Among the highlights of the NOW portion of the fest are Exposing Parchman, an investigative doc that explores the efforts to reform the Mississippi correctional system led by attorneys on behalf of the inmates of Parchman Prison. In addition to telling the inside stories of these inmates and their families, the movie zeroes in on the work of a team of Roc Nation attorneys and features Roc founder Jay-Z.

The screening will be followed by a conversation with the legal team, some of the film’s subjects and Roc Nation executives.

The fest will also feature the debut of the docuseries De La Calle, a journey into the Latino musical diaspora with special guests Fat Joe and Juelz Santana that a festival description says explores, “the evolution of Urbano music and cultures that ignited the musical revolution of Rap, Reggaeton, Bachata, Latin trap, Cumbia and other sounds that are influencing music and culture worldwide.”

Additionally, Choir will seek to lift up the spirits via the Disney+ film based on the Detroit Youth Choir, who went from rehearsing in a church basement with a handful of kids to taking the stage on one of the biggest reality platforms in the country as finalists on America’s Got Talent. The movie follows the new faces in the choir as they are put through their paces in auditions, asking the question, “can the DYC stay relevant in their hometown and on the national stage?”

The screening will be followed by a conversation with DYC artistic director Anthony White, director Rudy Valdez and executive producer Sara Bernstein, as well as members of the choir and a performance by the DYC.

This year’s event will also feature films about Alicia Keys, Gogol Bordello, Milli Vanilli, Gloria Gaynor, Biz Markie, The Indigo Girls, Tierra Whack and legendary Marvel comic book writer Stan Lee. Click here to see the full 2023 lineup of films.