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Ye (formerly Kanye West) continues to be in hot water after attempting to release his highly controversial song “Heil Hitler.” After being yanked down by streaming services and DSPs on Thursday (May 8), CEO of Simon Wiesenthal Center, Jim Berk, shared a statement to Billboard, voicing his dismay and disappointment in the mercurial MC.
“Kanye West’s release of a song entitled ‘Heil Hitler’ on VE Day, the anniversary of the defeat of the Nazi regime, is hate speech, pure and simple—totally in line with the despicable messages we now expect from West,” said Berk.
Berk’s frustration didn’t stop there, as he directed his attention to Elon Musk’s social media platform X, for enabling such vitriol to be spewed by Ye and others.
“But his partner in spreading dangerous vitriol against Jews is X, which is allowing flagrant violation of its own rules reading, ‘You may not directly attack other people on the basis of race, ethnicity, national origin, caste, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, religious affiliation, age, disability, or serious disease.’”
He continued: “We call on X to remove West from its platform and for other platforms and distributors to refuse to host or monetize this song. There must be a clear line when it comes to glorification of genocidal regimes, particularly to millions of young people.”
After experiencing failed attempts on DSPs, West uploaded the song to SoundCloud, where it was later pulled down as well. This prompted Ye to share his thoughts on X.
“Heil Hitler by Ye has been banned by all digital streaming platforms,” Ye wrote. “While Rednecks by Randy Newman remains streamable They’re literally keeping the n—-s down.” Previously teased by Ye, “Heil Hitler” had terse subject matter ranging from the rapper’s nitrous usage to custody issues over his four children with ex-wife Kim Kardashian.
Billboard reached out to Ye’s camp for comment.
Legendary house label Trax Records has dropped its first vinyl release in a decade. The project is a six-track compilation called Rising Again and features the work French duo Jacques x Gregory, American house producer Joe Smooth, KushGad, Spada, ThadX and veteran house producer and Trax affiliate Screamin’ Rachael. Five hundred copies of Rising Again […]
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Back in 2021, Wu-Tang performed with the Colorado Symphony Orchestra at the renowned Red Rocks Amphitheatre with about 9,500 fans in attendance.
The concert was filmed in a documentary with performance footage and interviews with the legendary hip-hop group. A Wu-Tang Experience: Live at Red Rocks Amphitheatre is available to watch on premium video on-demand platforms.
Where to Stream ‘A Wu-Tang Experience: Live at Red Rocks Amphitheatre’ Online
At the moment, A Wu-Tang Experience: Live at Red Rocks Amphitheatre is available to rent for $4.99, or buy digitally for $12.99 on Prime Video, Apple TV and other digital marketplaces.
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In addition, if you’re looking for an alternative way to stream, you can watch A Wu-Tang Experience: Live at Red Rocks Amphitheatre through Apple TV, which doesn’t require an Apple TV+ subscription to watch the movie. After buying, the movie automatically downloads into your video library, so you can stream it at your convenience.
However, rentals for both services are accessible for 30 days after purchase, and for 48 hours once you begin watching the movie.
Meanwhile, A Wu-Tang Experience: Live at Red Rocks Amphitheatre features hit songs, like “Protect Ya Neck,” “Bring the Pain,” “C.R.E.A.M.,” “Shimmy Shimmy Ya,” “Bring da Ruckus,” “Triumph” and many others.
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‘A Wu-Tang Experience: Live at Red Rocks Amphitheatre’
Directed by Gerald K. Barclay and The RZA, A Wu-Tang Experience: Live at Red Rocks Amphitheatre follows Wu-Tang Clan performing with the 60-piece Colorado Symphony Orchestra at Red Rocks Amphitheatre in Morrison, Colorado.
Watch A Wu-Tang Experience: Live at Red Rocks Amphitheatre on Prime Video or Apple TV. In the meantime, watch the trailer below.
Want more? For more product recommendations, check out our roundups of the best Xbox deals, studio headphones and Nintendo Switch accessories.
Live Nation is asking the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn a ruling last year that said the concert giant couldn’t enforce “opaque and unfair” arbitration agreements against ticketbuyers, warning the justices that the scathing ruling “creates massive uncertainty.”
The decision, issued in October by a lower court, said the contracts Live Nation had forced concertgoers to sign – requiring them to resolve disputes via private arbitration — were “so dense, convoluted and internally contradictory” that they were “borderline unintelligible.”
But in a petition to the Supreme Court this week, Live Nation says that the decision must be reversed, warning it would have “far-reaching consequences” for how arbitration works and could potentially cause massive headaches for companies that have long relied on such agreements.
“If allowed to stand, the decision below will enable mass arbitration plaintiffs to continue their abusive strategy of racking up procedural costs to the point of forcing the defendant to capitulate to a settlement, rather than proving their allegations,” Live Nation’s lawyers write. “These highly disruptive consequences reinforce the need for review.”
The appeal to the Supreme Court comes in a class-action lawsuit accusing Live Nation of violating federal antitrust laws by monopolizing the market for concert tickets and engaging in “predatory” behavior. Filed in 2022 on behalf of “hundreds of thousands if not millions” of ticket buyers, the case claims Live Nation and Ticketmaster abused their dominance to charge “extraordinarily high” prices to consumers.
Faced with those allegations, Live Nation argued that fans had waived their right to sue in court when they bought their tickets because they had signed arbitration agreements — a common requirement when purchasing tickets and other services from many companies.
In rejecting that argument in October, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruled that Live Nation’s agreements were “unconscionable and unenforceable” since they would make it “impossible” for fans to fairly pursue claims against the company.
“Forced to accept terms that can be changed without notice, a plaintiff then must arbitrate under … opaque and unfair rules,” the appeals court wrote at the time. “The rules and the terms are so overly harsh or one-sided as to unequivocally represent a systematic effort to impose arbitration as an inferior forum.”
The ruling described Live Nation’s agreements in scathing terms, calling them “so dense, convoluted and internally contradictory to be borderline unintelligible” and “poorly drafted and riddled with typos.” The terms were so confusing, the court said, that Live Nation’s own attorneys had “struggled to explain the rules” during a court hearing.
The criticism centered on Live Nation’s decision to alter its terms of use to require fans to submit to “novel and unusual” procedures for “mass arbitration.” That new process, offered by an upstart arbitration firm called New Era ADR, was aimed at handling many cases at once rather than individually, which Live Nation believed was necessitated by aggressive tactics from lawyers representing huge numbers of concertgoers.
But in rejecting that new process, the Ninth Circuit said Live Nation was essentially trying to have its cake and eat it too: “Defendants sought to gain in arbitration some of the advantages of class-wide litigation while suffering few of its disadvantages.”
In this week’s petition to the Supreme Court, it was Live Nation’s turn to level criticism – calling the Ninth Circuit’s ruling a “deeply flawed decision” that exemplified the kind of “judicial hostility” to private arbitration that’s prohibited under federal law.
“The Ninth Circuit’s decision below flouts [federal arbitration law], defies this court’s precedents, and threatens to block sensible measures for addressing the new phenomenon of mass arbitration filings,” the company’s lawyers write.
The plaintiffs in the case will file a response in the weeks ahead, and the justices will decide whether to take the case at some point in the next few months. Reps for both sides did not immediately return requests for comment.
Lola Young’s “Messy” moves up two spots to No. 1 on Billboard’s Pop Airplay chart (dated May 17). The song tops a second individual-format radio ranking, after it led Alternative Airplay for a week in April. “Messy,” on Day One/Island Records and promoted to radio by Republic, becomes just the sixth song by a solo […]
Jackson Wang shares what fans can expect with MAGIC MAN 2, the creative process behind “GBAD,” his collaboration with Ciara at Coachella, and working with Pharrell on Joopiter. He also hints at upcoming projects with Pharrell’s Billionaire Boys Club (BBC), teases a tour for MAGIC MAN 2, and more!
Are you excited for MAGIC MAN 2? Let us know in the comments!
Tetris Kelly:
Jackson, Tetris with Billboard News ready to get in conversation with Jackson Wang, what’s up man? Thanks for coming.
Jackson Wang:
Hey, thank you for having me.
Of course, you got a lot going on, my friend. So we’re gonna start with the music. Of course. MAGIC MAN 2 you’ve been teasing. You’ve been telling everybody about it, but MAGIC MAN, the first one, debuted at 15 on our Billboard 200 charts.
Thank you. Thank you. Please make me top five.
There you go. See he’s already said what he wants. What made you decide you want to follow up the 2022 project with a second version of MAGIC MAN?
I’ve been working on stop for over 11 years, and I was just like, hey, I need to recharge. I need to refresh and be inspired again. So I took a year off, and I was like, hey, you know what? I haven’t actually made a song for myself. You know, when I was in my youth, I’ve always, you know, wrote songs or produced songs, trying to show everyone, hey, I can do this, I can dance, I can sing, I can perform. But what about me? What do I want to say as a person? So I took that year off and I just started writing diaries and converted them into music.
What was something during that year that you felt like when you look back like you’re like, I’m so happy I took this year off because I had this moment.
Keep watching for more!
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We are still a long ways away from seeing what awaits the MCU’s version of Spider-Man following the events of Spider-Man: No Way Home. While there are many unconfirmed rumors on what we can expect, we have gotten some information on who will be cast in the fourth installment to the highly successful Marvel franchise.
According to Deadline, Emmy winner Liza Colón-Zayas has been cast to appear in the upcoming Spider-Man: Brand New Day.
Her role remains a mystery, but we’re low-key hoping that The Bear‘s star actress will have some kind of connection to a certain Black and Puerto Rican superhero who’s become quite popular in the Marvel universe as a friendly neighborhood web slinger himself.
Still, this is just wishful thinking at this point, but regardless, Colón-Zayas is already joining a star-studded cast that has taken the Spider-Man franchise to a whole new level.
Deadline reports:
The Emmy winner joins an ensemble led by Tom Holland, who plays Peter Parker and his superheroic alter ego, with Stranger Things‘ Sadie Sink also on board in a mystery role. Zendaya and Jacob Batalon, who respectively play Peter’s love interest MJ and close friend Ned, are expected to return.
Destin Daniel Cretton will direct, with Amy Pascal producing alongside Marvel president Kevin Feige, when production kicks off later this year. Pic is scheduled to swing into theaters on July 31, 2026.
Spider-Man: Brand New Day is set to release two months after Avengers: Doomsday. According to numerous rumors, Brand New Day will take place after the events of Doomsday and will place Spidey in a post-Doomsday reality where worlds have collided and characters from numerous Marvel films find themselves in the same space and time.
That being said, rumors have circulated that this may mean that Tom Holland’s Spidey will finally get to meet Tom Hardy’s Venom. Other rumors have Steven Yeun being cast as Mr. Negative as the primary villain for Brand New Day, and as much as we love Yeun, that wouldn’t be too exciting for hardcore Spider-Man fans who’d rather see another classic villain make their film screen debut. Hobogoblin maybe? A better iteration of Carnage? A new Venom who’s actually a villain and not an anti-hero?
What would you like to see go down in Spider-Man: Brand New Day? Let us know in the comments section below.
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t is clear Kendrick Lamar had a banner year in 2024. He leads the nominations for the 25th BET Awards with 10 nods.
As spotted on Deadline, Kendrick Lamar is poised to be the man of the hour at the 2025 BET Awards. On Wednesday (May 7), the television network announced the nominations for their upcoming ceremony and K-Dot locked in 10 nods throughout several categories. His nominations include Album of the Year for GNX, Video of the Year for “Not Like Us,” three Viewer’s Choice Award slots for “Not Like Us,” “Luther,” featuring SZA, and “Like That” with Future and Metro Boomin. He is also up for three Best Collaboration awards for “Like That,” “30 for 30,” and “Luther,” featuring SZA. He is also up for Video Director of the Year with his frequent collaborator Dave Free, and Best Male Hip Hop Artist.
While Kendrick is the front-runner some of his Rap colleagues will also have the opportunity to have a big night. Doechii is also nominated six times with her Alligator Bites Never Heal mixtape up for Album Of The Year, Video of the Year and Viewer’s Choice Award for “Denial is a River,” BET Her for “Bloom,” Best Collaboration for “Alter Ego” featuring JT, and Best Female Hip Hop Artist.Drake is also up for Best Male Hip Hop Artist, Album Of The Year for $ome $exy $ongs 4 U with PartyNextDoor, Video Of The Year for Family Matters, Best Group, Best Male R&B/Pop Artist, and Viewer’s Choice Award for “Nokia.”
The 2025 BET Awards will stream live Monday (June 9), on BET at 8 p.m. ET/PT hosted by Kevin Hart.
When John Cena dropped his 2005 debut album, You Can’t See Me, critics wondered if the wrestling powerhouse had more brawn than bars. What began as a perceived gimmick evolved into a two-decade-long run, marked by unfiltered charisma, sharp wit and unshakeable confidence. Sure, his popularity and in-ring dominance made him box office gold, but when he unleashed his mic skills — especially over Jake One’s soulful beats — Cena cemented himself as the godfather of the rap-wrestling crossover.
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Released on May 10, 2005, You Can’t See Me — a collaboration with his cousin, fellow rapper TradeMarc — debuted at No. 15 on the Billboard 200, also reaching No. 3 on Top Rap Albums — proof Cena had real appeal on the mic. Even while locking up with heavyweights like Triple H, Randy Orton, and The Undertaker each week, Cena carried that same grit and resilience into the booth. On tracks like “Just Another Day” and “If It All Ended Tomorrow,” Cena’s raw candor and introspection made him surprisingly easy to root for. As he raps on the latter: “You the new kid, now you gettin’ some shine/ When every vet sayin’ that it’s not yo’ time/ My hustle is non-stop and it’s not yo’ grind/ Plus I hear very clear, I’m not so blind.”
And though Cena was dubbed WWE’s Superman, his rap heroics on You Can’t See Me became every critic’s kryptonite. His bravado and swagger leglocked the doubters into submission. The album’s title track became his armor — its hook both a taunt and a shield — as he swatted away skepticism with a single phrase: “You can’t see me.” The song became both a gift and a curse: a champion’s anthem and rallying cry, but also a punchline for detractors who turned it into an easy jab, diminishing Cena even as he continued to dominate.
Now on his final lap as a professional wrestler, Cena’s recent partnership with Travis Scott — rap’s latest generational leader — speaks volumes about his influence across both arenas. WWE is in the midst of a renaissance, with pop culture once again reinvigorated by its presence. Hip-hop’s footprint in the ring is larger than ever: WaleMania just celebrated its 10th anniversary at WrestleMania, while wrestlers like Montez Ford and Trick Williams proudly showcase their rap chops with original music, and genre superstars like Drake, Metro Boomin, Lil Yachty, and Quavo now flood wrestling arenas with the same fervor and excitement as the everyday diehards beside them. Much of this stems from Cena’s early efforts to meld both worlds — what began as a desperate bid to save his WWE career ended up bridging a gap between music and wrestling, one that remains tightly connected to this day.
And while we may never get another album from the 48-year-old multi-hyphenate, You Can’t See Me still deserves a spin — for everything it gave to hip-hop, wrestling, and pop culture at large.
It’s Walton Goggins’ world, we’re just living in it. The actor who has been on a red hot streak lately thanks to his dual over-the-top roles in The White Lotus and The Righteous Gemstones is hosting Saturday Night Live this weekend and things are, honestly, off to a rough start.
In one of the promos for Saturday’s (May 10) show, the veteran character actor gets a little taste of what it’s like to be super recognizable, for… something. “I’m Walton Goggins and I’ll be hosting SNL this week with musical guest Arcade Fire,” Goggins says. Cast member Ego Nwodim can’t hold in her excitement, fangirling to Goggins that she loves his “music.”
“I… what… you think I’m Arcade Fire?” Goggins says a bit peeved. “Oh shoot, my bad,” Nwodim replies, embarrassed. “You thought Walton Goggins was four people?,” the host huffs while surrounded by members of the band. “We hung out at the Met Gala! Also, I literally said my name at the beginning of this!”
Not willing to endure the indignity any longer, Goggins says “screw this” and walks off. “We’re still cool, right Walton?” Nwodim asks Arcade Fire, as singer Win Butler waves goodbye to “Arcade Fire.”
Nwodim gets it right, kind of, in another promo.
“Walton, I hear you’re a pretty serious actor. So how do you prepare for the role of ‘Walton Goggins?,’” she asks. “I dunno, I just try to have fun and… um, wait a minute. Oh God. Oh Jesus, this is the role of a lifetime,” Goggins realizes, haunted. “How do we honor that which we have lived so directly, for he who can’t truly be himself is a fraud,” the actor continued as Nwodim and musical guests Arcade Fire slowly, nervously slip out of frame while the Righteous Gemstones star gets into serious method mode.
“… And… they’re gone,” he laments as he’s left alone on stage.
Finally, Nwodim tells Goggins she loved him in The White Lotus, while Butler adds that he also loved him in the holy roller Max comedy Righteous Gemstones. “Ah, much obliged,” says Goggins, who has been killing it for more than 30 years in films including Django Unchained, The Hateful Eight, Ant-Man and the Wasp and dozens of TV series before turning into a global sensation over the past six months.
“And I liked you in that other thing you were in,” Nwodim adds, at a loss to name the exact project. “Oh yeah, and that one episode of that… one show,” Bulter says, as Goggins blushes at the non-specific plaudits. “Wait a second, didn’t you also play that guy that…” Nwodim begins, as Goggins completes her thought with, “… in that thing with the other guy.”
“Yes!” Nwodim and Butler say in unison.
Watch the promo below.
