State Champ Radio Author: djfrosty
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Concert film Usher: Rendezvous in Paris will be streamed exclusively on BET+. Jointly announced by BET+ and Sony Music Vision, the film’s streaming release begins on May 8. Explore Explore See latest videos, charts and news See latest videos, charts and news “I’m happy to be partnering with BET+ to bring the celebration of my […]
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Just days after Maryland Senator Dick Van Hollen was able to confirm that wrongfully deported Kilmar Abrego Garcia was still alive and well in a Salvadorian prison, we’re learning that his wife and children in New Jersey had to be moved to a safe house after the Trump administration publicly revealed their home address.
According to Raw Story, Jennifer Vasquez Sura and her children had to be swiftly moved out of their home and into an undisclosed location after the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and White House Press Secretary, Karoline Leavitt, took to X and posted an old order of protection that Sura filed against Garcia in 2021. In an obvious attempt by this administration to further smear Garcia’s character to “justify” his deportation and their refusal to facilitate his return, the Trump administration just made Sura’s life that much more difficult by doxxing her address and putting a target on her home for MAGA to harass (as they’re known to do).
Per Raw Story:
“I don’t feel safe when the government posts my address, the house where my family lives, for everyone to see, especially when this case has gone viral and people have all sorts of opinions,” said Vasquez Sura. “So, this is definitely a bit terrifying. I’m scared for my kids.”
A DHS spokesperson did not respond Monday to a request for a comment about not redacting the family’s address, according to the newspaper’s lengthy story about Vasquez Sura—who shares a 5-year-old nonverbal, autistic son with Abrego Garcia and has a 9-year-old son and 10-year-old daughter from a previous relationship that was abusive.
On Wednesday, The New Republic published a short article highlighting the safe house detail and noting that “the government has not commented on the decision to leave the family’s address in the document it posted online,” sparking a fresh wave of outrage over the Trump administration endangering the family.
As with everything else that this administration does, it’s all about the cruelty.
Fortunately, Jennifer Vasquez Sura and her family have been moved to a safe house, but we just hope that the Trump administration doesn’t learn its whereabouts because knowing them they’ll just “leak” where that place happens to be too.
What do y’all think about this latest development in the Kilmar Abrego Garcia case? Let us know in the comments section below.
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A new documentary has been announced by the BBC titled P Diddy: The Rise and Fall, which will examine the life and current circumstances of Sean “Diddy” Combs. Yinka Bokinni will serve as the lead journalist investigating the finer points of Combs’ status, from being a mogul to where he currently stands, as he faces a legal battle for the ages.
The BBC announced that the upcoming documentary will undoubtedly bring into focus the fame, power, and influence that Combs gained over the years as the head of Bad Boy Records and producing several hit songs for artists under his guidance. The documentary will also peer behind the veil and reveal how Combs allegedly used his stature to control others, dole out violent threats, along with countless reports of sexual assault and abuse.
Combs will face trial next month over charges related to racketeering, sex trafficking, and transportation to engage in prostitution, among other heinous claims. Combs and his legal team have claimed that their side is innocent despite mounting complaints filed by accusers.
In a statement, Bokinni said, “My job is to tell stories—but never did I imagine I’d be telling this one. Investigating the alleged actions of Diddy has forced a spotlight onto the darker side of an industry so many of us dream of belonging to. We sang his songs, bought into the lifestyle, watched the shows and wanted more. This has been an emotional, sometimes difficult experience. And with a trial on the horizon, what happens next will no doubt be gripping—in the most sobering way.”
P Diddy: The Rise and Fall airs this coming Monday (April 28) on BBC Three and Player. Learn more here.
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Photo: Samir Hussein / Getty
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Lil Wayne will be enjoying the NFL Draft in style. He has announced a Green Bay Packers-themed capsule collection with Mitchell & Ness.
As per Hypebeast, Lil Wayne is taking his love for the green and gold to new heights. This week, the authentic sports clothing brand announced a new drop that reinterprets the Green Bay Packers’ signature logo and marks. These limited-edition pieces put a fun twist on team wearables and game day apparel. Included in the capsule is a black jersey that features high density rubber print Packers lettering, tackle-twill name, and number graphics. In terms of branding it also carries screen-printed logos on the sleeves, an embroidered NFL crest and the Lil Wayne logo on the gusset. In addition, there is also a hooded sweatshirt and T-shirt in the mix, both available in two colorways.
Lil Wayne explained why this capsule collection is important to him in a formal statement. “We had to create something that reps the G but still drips with that Tunechi flavor. It’s more than merch,” he said. “It represents legacy, loyalty and a little bit of luxury for the real ones.” Emilie Arel, president of Mitchell & Ness, also commented on why the collaboration made so much sense. “This collaboration represents the essence of Mitchell & Ness – merging one of the most talented worldwide entertainers with iconic sports franchises and bold merchandise designs” she said. “We couldn’t be more excited to launch a collection with Lil Wayne at the NFL Draft and are excited to see this relationship come to life and different points throughout the year.”
The Lil Wayne x Mitchell & Ness capsule is available now. You can shop it here.
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Katy Perry must be feeling nostalgic for her brief time in space, as the pop star brought two fans dressed as astronauts up on stage with her at the kickoff show of her Lifetimes Tour Wednesday night (April 23).
In a clip from the show posted on X, Perry chats with her crowd at Arena CDMX in Mexico City between songs while walking around on stage when she spots two fans wearing blue NASA suits. “You guys look so good,” she gasps. “You just got back from space!”
“I want these gentlemen to come on stage, because they are dressed like my most current timeline,” she adds as the rest of the audience cheers, later snapping a selfie with the fans on stage.
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Wednesday’s show marked the first of more than seven months’ worth of performances blocked off on Perry’s global trek, which supports her most recent album, 2024’s 143. She also played several hits from past albums — while dressed in various spacey outfits and at one point suspended from the ceiling by wires — such as Billboard Hot 100-toppers “Dark Horse,” “E.T.” and “Roar.”
It was also the former American Idol judge’s first concert since returning from her 11-minute trip to space, with Perry joining Gayle King, Lauren Sanchez and more passengers on Blue Origin’s first-ever all-women flight crew on April 14. While hurtling through the edge of the Earth’s atmosphere, the musician sang part of Louis Armstrong’s “What a Wonderful World” and filmed a video revealing the Lifetimes Tour’s setlist.
Upon returning, Perry emerged from the rocket, kissed the ground and told reporters that the expedition had been “the highest high.”
“It is surrender to the unknown, trust,” she continued. “This whole journey is not about just going to space. It’s the training, the team, it’s the whole thing. I couldn’t recommend this experience more … It’s about making space for future women and taking up space and belonging. And it’s about this wonderful world that we see right out there and appreciating it. This is all for the benefit of Earth.”
But while Perry has said that she views the flight as being empowering for women, many people — from Emily Ratajkowski to Olivia Wilde — have criticized the trip as a waste of resources. “What’s the point?” asked Olivia Munn on Jenna & Friends. “Is it historic that you guys are going on a ride? I think it’s gluttonous.”
The “Firework” singer hasn’t directly addressed the hate, but at Wednesday’s show, she reportedly asked the crowd, “Has anyone ever called your dreams crazy?”
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According to reports, the senior producer for the long-running CBS investigative news program 60 Minutes resigned on Tuesday(April 22), citing a loss of journalistic independence. “Over the past months, it has … become clear that I would not be allowed to run the show as I have always run it,” Bill Owens wrote in a memo sent out to staff, adding, “To make independent decisions based on what was right for ‘60 Minutes,’ right for the audience.
“So, having defended this show — and what we stand for — from every angle, over time with everything I could, I am stepping aside so the show can move forward,” Owens concluded. His departure sent shockwaves through the news industry, as he was only the third person to ever hold that position in the show’s history. He maintained that he was not apologizing for the work done on the Harris interview in the memo, nor would he recommend a retraction.Observers quickly noted that the 57-year-old’s reference to losing journalistic control was tied to the show being sued initially for $10 billion recently by President Donald Trump, who took umbrage over the program’s October 2024 interview with Kamala Harris. Trump alleged that the interview was heavily edited to make him look bad. He recently upped the suit’s claims for damages to $20 billion.Another aspect of Owens’ resignation is that it comes at a tense time for CBS’ parent company, Paramount. Shari Redstone, the president, has been currying favor with Trump in order to get approval for the sale of her media conglomerate to Skydance Entertainment. Skydance Entertainment is run by David Ellison, the son of tech magnate Larry Ellison. Paramount reportedly has been in settlement talks with Trump since January. CNN’s Jake Tapper called the network out on Tuesday evening, addressing Redstone directly as he highlighted the severity of Owens’ resignation. “And that is the context of Shari Redstone’s likely bending of the knee. Hope the money’s worth it, Shari,” he said.
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For the past few months the entire Hip-Hop culture has been convinced that Diddy is pretty much cooked as his sex trafficking trial is set to get underway in just a few weeks. But low and behold former Diddy critic, Ray J, believes that Diddy will not only walk away Scott-free, but feels the charges lobbed against him are “nonsense.”
In a recent appearance on Sneako’s livestream, Ray J made the shocking prediction that the embattled music icon will be getting out of prison because he feels that the case against Diddy is a conspiracy, which will apparently somehow come crashing down and Diddy will once again be a free man.
“Puffy ’bout to get out too. On The dead homies, n*gga. Puffy getting out. All that sh*t they trying to charge that n*gga for is nonsense, bro. He did something bad that we all seen and that sh*t’s unacceptable, but that’s not what the charges are for. The charges are weak.”
Yeah, we don’t know about that, Ray. Unless he’s privy to some kind of inside information, it seems like the feds wouldn’t bring this big a case against someone like Diddy unless they had all their ducks in a row. But hey that’s just us.
Though Ray J talks about the laced bottles of baby oil and Diddy using remote controls as sex toys as “nonsense,” Diddy’s actually being charged with sex trafficking and transportation to engage in prostitution. Things that seem like he might’ve done given the stories we’ve heard.
Still, this is 2025, and with a certain “business man” in power who’s known to get charges dropped for people who kiss the ring and even importing sex traffickers into the United States, Diddy may very well have a slither of hope of walking out a free man at some point during or after his highly anticipated trial. Just sayin’.
What do y’all think about Ray J suggesting that Diddy’s coming home sooner or later? Is he onto something or just straight bugging out? Let us know in the comments section below.
David Thomas, the howling lead singer of long-running Cleveland-bred post-punk rockers Pere Ubu has died at 71. The band announced the news on its Facebook page on Wednesday (April 23), revealing that the leader of the group — as well as their equally noisesome precursor, Rocket From the Tombs — had died after an unspecified “long illness.”
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The tribute added, “On Wednesday, April 23 2025, he died in his home town of Brighton & Hove [in the U.K.], with his wife and youngest step-daughter by his side. MC5 were playing on the radio. He will ultimately be returned to his home, the farm in Pennsylvania, where he insisted he was to be ‘thrown in the barn.’”
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The group noted that Thomas had been working on a new album with his band, aware that it would be his last. “We will endeavour to continue with mixing and finalising the new album so that his last music is available to all. Aside from that, he left instruction that the work should continue to catalog all the tapes from live shows via the official bandcamp page,” they said, adding that the singer’s autobiography was “nearly completed” and that they will finish it for him. They ended with a quote from Thomas, which they said, “sums up who he was better than we can”: “My name is David F–king Thomas… and I’m the lead singer of the best f–king rock n roll band in the world.”
David Lynn Thomas was born in Miami on June 14, 1953 and began his career in rock as the lead singer of the short-lived proto-punk Cleveland band Rocket From the Tombs after a stint writing for the Cleveland Scene alternative weekly newspaper under a variety of aliases, including Crocus Behemoth. Though they reveled in obscurity during their original one-year run from 1974-1975, and never released an album, the band’s distorted, frenzied sound — inspired by Detroit punk godfathers the MC5 and The Stooges — was a precursor to the worldwide punk revolution that exploded in the U.S. and U.K. in the mid-1970s.
After the band’s split, two members, guitarist Gene “Cheetah Chrome” O’Connor and drummer Johnny “Johnny Biltz” Madansky, went on to form legendarily shambolic Cleveland punk band the Dead Boys. Thomas and guitarist Peter Laughner teamed up to launch the artier, spikier Pere Ubu, whose name wast a riff on the outré 19th century French play Ubu Roi.
The avant garde group inspired by the sound collage techniques of musique concrète released its debut single, “30 Seconds Over Tokyo” in late 1975 on Thomas’ indie label, Hearthan Records. After a handful of follow-up singles, their debut album, The Modern Dance, dropped in 1978, signaling a purposeful deep-dive into the noise pool from jump on album-opener “Non-Alignment Pact,” which begins with 20 seconds of ear-piercing tones. During a period when such soft rock air bubbles as Terry Jacks’ “Seasons in the Sun” and America’s “Tin Man” were topping the charts, Thomas’ unhinged howl and saxophone/keyboard player Allen Ravenstine’s free jazz strangulated stabs and otherworldly synth tones were an astringent antidote to mainstream AM radio fluff.
With a three-guitar attack combined with Thomas’ yelping vocals and his very un-punk like insistence on wearing suit jackets and a tie on stage, the band cranked out a series of influential, though little-heard-at-the-time albums over the next four years. The LPs included 1978’s classic, Dub Housing and 1979’s New Picnic Time, experimental, chalkboard-scratching noise bombs that helped inspire future acolytes from Sonic Youth to the Pixies and Gang of Four. With a constantly rotating group of players surrounding Thomas — co-founder Laugher left after the band’s first few singles and died in 1977 of pancreatic cancer — the band released three more albums, 1979’s New Picnic Time, 1980’s The Art of Walking and 1982’s Song of a Bailing Man before breaking up.
Thomas continued his experimental journey on a series of solo albums with his bands the Pedestrians and and Wooden Birds in the 1980s, before reforming Pere Ubu in 1987 for the recording of The Tenement Year, which leaned in a distinctly more pop direction (at least compared to the band’s earlier work), followed by 1989s’s Cloudland. Pere Ubu continued into the 1990s and early 2000s, releasing a string of albums including 1995’s Ray Gun Suitcase, 2002 St. Arkansas and their 19th, and final, studio effort, 2023’s Trouble on Big Beat Street.
In between Pere Ubu projects, Smith stayed busy with solo albums, Rocket From the Tombs reunions and experimental theater projects.
Check out some of Smith’s joyful noise below.
The launch of Bravas Entertainment was officially announced during an intimate Billboard Latin Women in Music cocktail reception at Telemundo Center in Miami on Wednesday (April 23).
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Founded by Sonia Clavell, Ivy Queen’s longtime manager, the new purpose-driven professional and artistic platform will provide education, guidance and resources to female artists with the hopes they can “develop their talents with freedom, dignity and purpose, breaking cycles of limitation and paving new paths for future generations,” according to a statement.
Bravas will offer services in music distribution, public relations, creative production, digital strategy, networking and professional mentoring.
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“This project has been in the making for four or five years. It’s the product of my experiences since I started in this industry,” Clavell, who first started selling chocolates at traffic lights before becoming a reputable music executive, said at the reception. “Brava isn’t born of success; it’s born of pain and exhaustion. It’s a project to build those women who have a voice but don’t yet have a microphone. We understand how difficult it is and how painful it is, but also how healing it is to have someone who believes in you. We’re not going to push doors; we’re going to build new ones.”
The invite-only event gathered industry leaders, honorees of the 2025 Billboard Latin Women In Music executive list and artists such as Ana Bárbara, Yailin La Más Viral, Darumas, Mirella Cesa and Ivy Queen, who is supporting the new platform and will have projects under Bravas.
“It’s difficult in the industry to make friends, but we need people who believe in our work and support our vision,” the Puerto Rican artist, known as the Queen of Reggaetón, said at the event. “Sonia’s work was born through my story. I started at 12-13 years old when everyone was a man in the genre. I didn’t know about copyright, royalties — anything. With this project, I know we’re going to save many women from things I’ve already gone through, and that’s gratifying.”
The first project under Bravas Entertainment will be a compilation album of female artists called La Liga Femenina, produced by reggaetón hitmaker Boy Wonder, and set to be released this summer.
The third annual Billboard Latin Women in Music special will air live at 9 p.m. ET / 8 p.m. CT on Thursday, April 24 exclusively on Telemundo, Universo, Peacock and the Telemundo app and throughout Latin America and the Caribbean on Telemundo Internacional.
Read Billboard’s Latin Women In Music 2025 executive list here.
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Draymond Green found himself trending on X after his teammate, Jimmy Butler, was injured by Amen Thompson during a play under the basket. Golden State Warriors fans called the play by the Houston Rockets a dirty one, prompting fans on X to call out Draymond Green’s well-documented record of being a physical player that others have referred to as dirty.
The Golden State Warriors and the Houston Rockets faced off in Game 2 of the first round of the NBA Playoffs on Wednesday (April 24) in Houston. The play in question occurred when Amen Thompson shot a floater and missed, with Jimmy Butler going for the defensive rebound. As Butler grabbed the ball, Thompson undercut him, causing the forward to crash down hard on his tailbone. A foul was called on the play, and Butler shot two at the line before heading back to the locker room and never returned.
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Warriors fans, angered that their reliable star was out of the game, called out the play. There were even some suggesting that Green pushed Thompson into Butler, but that was debunked on video replay. What we saw in the replay was Green boxing out, not shoving anyone. That said, Warriors fans were upset about the play, but the counter from NBA fans was brutal.
On X, several examples of Green’s physical play and roughhousing on the court that he’s known for were shown, all in an attempt to frame Green as the truly dirty player and take the heat off Thompson. Others brought up some of Green’s past antics, such as stomping on the chest of a downed player and other reported acts of on-court violence.
Coach Steve Kerr defended his player by saying that the taunts from the Rockets fans were disrespectful and asked them to tone down the “F You Draymond” chants. Kerr’s comments also got a response from basketball fans on X.
We’ve got reactions from all sides regarding the Draymond Green, Amen Thompson, and Jimmy Butler dustup below.
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Photo: San Francisco Chronicle/Hearst Newspapers / Getty
