State Champ Radio Author: djfrosty
Page: 698
Billboard Women in Music 2025 was full of love and sisterhood. If you couldn’t make it, don’t worry: We’re here to catch you up on everything you missed at this year’s show. From Drew Afualo reading Muni Long’s birth chart to aespa snapping pics on a Polaroid to Ángela Aguilar’s passionate performance of “Cielito Lindo,” […]
FKA Twigs announced Friday night (April 4) that she has to cancel the remainder of her April tour dates in North America due to “ongoing visa issues.” The announcement affects her scheduled performances during weekends 1 and 2 at Coachella in Indio, California, later this month, as well as this weekend’s AXE Ceremonia in Mexico […]
Travis Japan continues to expand their reach in its home country and around the world in 2025, taking on challenges on a global scale. The popular boy band is currently on the road promoting its second album VIIsual — which topped the Billboard Japan Hot Albums chart after dropping in December — traveling to eight cities around the country for the domestic Travis Japan Concert Tour 2025 VIIsual tour that kicked off in January. The group is also set to tour Asia and the U.S. for its second global trek this summer.
Billboard Japan caught up with the six members (Noel is currently taking a break for health reasons), who continue to improve themselves by learning from each other, and asked about the appeal of their new songs “Say I do” and “Tokyo Crazy Night.” The group also looked back on their world tour from last year that took them to six cities around the globe and shared some takeaways from the experience.
Trending on Billboard
Could you share your impressions from your first world tour, Travis Japan World Tour 2024 Road to A, which took place last fall?
Shizu: We toured six cities around the world to promote our first album Road to A, and were able to interact further with our fans outside of Japan. I felt like I’d been given a very valuable experience. The venues weren’t exactly big, but I was glad we were able to show the appeal of Travis Japan that can only be expressed on those kinds of stages. We had a lot of fun on tour, learning the local languages along the way.
Shime: It was our first time doing it, so of course I was looking forward to it but also a little worried about how it would go. But when we actually got on stage, the audience got really excited and cheered so much. Our fans taught us some of the local languages in-between songs, and we learned a lot on that world tour.
Chaka: We’d been waiting to do a global tour since our debut in October 2022, so when it finally became a reality, we boarded the plane with a mixture of anticipation and anxiety. It was a completely new environment for us, but we went on stage with the confidence that our fans had given us, and the entertainment that we’d built up. Above all, I thought it was wonderful that we were able to connect with people through entertainment. We could have done better in certain aspects, but I think it was a very fruitful tour.
Genta: After experiencing the world tour that the seven of us had been aiming to do, there were definitely some fun parts, but also a lot of difficult parts. But as the other members said, we gained a lot of experience and everything we went through made us stronger. I’m really grateful that we were able to show our performances on stage with the support of our fans and staff who have stood by us. I was also happy to have experienced the culture and food of each country we visited. I strongly felt that I want us to keep expanding our reach and gain more experience.
Machu: It was our dream and a huge goal that we’d been working towards, so I was really happy that it came true. Up until then, we’d been getting responses through social media from our fans overseas who couldn’t come to our domestic tours, but when we were able to communicate with them directly in their home countries, we realized once again just how many people were supporting us. It was a really wonderful opportunity.
Umi: It really hit home how big the world is after we did our global tour, and I could feel firsthand just how many fans were waiting for us. I had a really great time, but simultaneously felt that I need to study languages more.
You’re stepping into new genres with “Say I do” and “Tokyo Crazy Night.”
Umi: It does feel like “Say I do” is a kind of song we’ve never done before. We don’t have many songs where we open up like that to the love interest, so I was happy we could sing lyrics like that, and that karaoke-friendly sound is really good, too.
Machu: The lyrics are straightforward, aren’t they? It’s a love song that really gets the message across.
Shizu: I think it’s delightful because it’s pop and uses sounds that make people feel happy.
Shime: I also think the lyrics are really good. The part that goes, “The illumination in my heart lights up every time I see you,” I wonder if our fans think like every time they come to our shows. I think there are parts that everyone can relate to.
“Say I do” is the theme song for Honnou Switch, the drama series starring Chaka.
Chaka: When I read the lyrics, I could imagine the situation in the drama, and I feel that (the lyrics and drama) are strongly linked. There are two people who love each other, and the lyrics are full of both their feelings and the messages they convey to each other. I also think it’s cute that there’s a development in the lyrics. Expressing that kind of feel is a new side of TJ. It’s fun discovering we can express things like this too.
Genta: We put aside our “weapons” (dance) for the first time in the accompanying music video and set up a company called Doki Doki Ren’ai Sodanjo (Racing Heart Love Consultation Center). We work there as employees and solve people’s problems.
“Tokyo Crazy Night” is the theme song for the drama series Tokyo Camouflage Hour, starring Machu.
Machu: It’s retro-style city pop and so cool, and matches the drama it accompanies. It’s also a genre we’ve never tried before, so I think our fans will be able to see a new side of us.
Shime: I really like the chorus. The melody of the chorus, the rhythm of the song, and the background sounds all go really well together, and it’s a lot of fun to sing. It’s a cool song, so we have to sing it in a cool way, but it’s just so fun. I want our fans to sing it at karaoke with cool expressions on their faces.
You have a second world tour lined up this year.
Machu: During our first trek, we directly sensed how much so many people support us, and having experienced that means a lot. This time, we can plan ahead from the rehearsal stage and include things like, “Let’s make a section where we sing together with the crowd” so we can kick up this year’s global tour a notch from last year’s. I want to deliver a lot of thanks again this year too.
Genta: We hope to be able to deliver Travis Japan’s performance to more people, while making use of the experience we gained last year. The theme songs for the drama series starring members have also been released, so I want to convey the appeal of those new songs as well.
Chaka: I’m going to take the feelings and love we received from everyone on our domestic tour, the performances we want to show and deliver, plus our wonderful songs, put them all in a carry-on case and board those planes!
Machu: What the heck do you mean? Sounds like you’ll get stopped at the security checkpoints.
Shime: [Laughs] I want to spread lots of happiness. We’ll all work hard to put on shows that will make you love Travis Japan’s performances and entertainment even more.
Shizu: Every time we perform during our tours and events overseas, the number of people we want to see again increases, and it feels like our family is growing. I’m sure there will be fans from each country who will be coming to our shows for the first time, so I want to give it my all to make them feel like they’re part of our family too. We want to make this a tour that people want to come back to, and also want to create a space that makes us want to go back.
Umi: Being able to perform for local fans on our world tour is a really big deal for us. There are things you can’t understand until you feel the passion of the local fans directly, so we’ll perform with the same power as everyone waiting for us, and it’d be great if we can make them happy with our dancing and singing.
Travis Japan World Tour 2025 VIIsual
Jul 25 – Hammerstein Ballroom – New York, NY
Jul 27 – The Grove of Anaheim – Anaheim, CA
Taipei – coming soon
Hong Kong – coming soon
Bangkok – coming soon
–This interview by Atsuo Nagahori first appeared on Billboard Japan
Olivia Munn wants celebrities to stay down to Earth — literally. The actress co-hosted Today With Jenna & Friends this week, where she called out the upcoming all-female space flight headed by Jeff Bezos’ space tech company, Blue Origin. “What are they doing?” she said. “I know this probably isn’t the cool thing to say, but there […]
Fyre Fest founder Billy McFarland is pushing back after Mexican government officials poured cold water on his plans to resuscitate his flailing Fyre Fest 2.
Hours after the city council of Playa del Carmen, a seaside resort town along Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula, took to X (formerly Twitter) to announce the event was not happening, McFarland issued a statement of his own calling media reports of the news “inaccurate” and “based on misinformation.”
The disagreement began Wednesday night (April 2) when an account for the Playa del Carmen City Hall posted a statement that, when translated to English, claimed no event called Fyre Fest 2 was happening in the coastal city.
Trending on Billboard
“In response to rumors about a supposed event called ‘Fyre 2,’ we inform you that no event of that name will be held in Playa del Carmen,” the statement read. “After a thorough review, there is no record or planning of any such event in the municipality.”
That led McFarland to fire back today, taking to Instagram to claim that “Fyre has been working directly with the government of Playa del Carmen and their officials since March 5, 2025, to ensure a safe and successful event.” McFarland then shared about a dozen documents on the festival’s Instagram account detailing its work with Playa del Carmen government officials to secure the proper permits for the festival, which has long been billed as a redemption project for McFarland following his disastrous 2017 Fyre Festival in the Bahamas. For that event, ticket holders were promised a luxury destination music festival only to find, on arrival at Great Exuma island, that the event they were promised was completely unrealized.
McFarland ended up serving a four-year prison sentence for misleading investors about the project. Since his release in 2022, he has promised to stage a makeup event to clean up his image and help repay the $26 million he owes his victims in restitution.
As part of Friday’s document dump, McFarland shared an email from someone with a gobiernodesolidaridad.gob.mx email address — a URL tied to the Playa del Carmen municipal government — that he called an “official invitation letter” designed to be sent to artists’ representatives to help procure talent for the festival. (The name of the email’s sender was redacted.)
“We are actively working with Fyre Festival 2 organizers to ensure a successful event from May 30 – June 2, 2025,” the email reads. “The event organizers have secured some of the best beach clubs, villas and experiential locations.” McFarland also included copies of alleged event authorization permits from Luis Armando Herrera Quiam, secretary general of Playa del Carmen, along with an alleged film permit and environmental impact assessment.
What the back and forth means for the future of Fyre Fest 2 remains to be seen. McFarland had previously announced plans to stage the event on Isla Mujeres, a popular tourist destination in the Caribbean Sea about a 30-minute ferry ride from Cancun, located in the state of Quintana Roo. But in March, tourism officials there told several media outlets that no record of the festival existed.
Tickets for Fyre Fest 2 start at $1,400 a piece for a four-day pass (airfare and hotel not included) and go as high as $25,000 for artist passes. On the high end, fans can also purchase a $1 million package for eight people that McFarland says includes access to luxury villas, a private marina with high-end yachts and a private jet to and from Cancun.
Music stocks were battered this week after President Donald Trump unveiled the tariffs that will be applied to imported goods from around the world.
The 20-company Billboard Global Music Index (BGMI) fell 8.2% for the week ended Friday (April 4), marking the largest single-week decline in the index’s two-and-a-half-year history. Among the 17 stocks that posted losses, eight declined by 10% or more, and one — iHeartMedia — far surpassed a 20% decline. Of the 20 stocks on the index, only three South Korean K-pop companies posted gains for the week.
Markets around the world experienced large declines in the wake of the tariffs. In the U.S., the tech-heavy Nasdaq fell 10.0% and the S&P 500 dipped 9.1%. The U.K.’s FTSE 100 slipped 7.0%. South Korea’s KOSPI composite index fell 3.6%. China’s SSE Composite Index declined just 0.3%.
Trending on Billboard
SM Entertainment was the top performer of the week with an 8.3% gain, besting JYP Entertainment’s 3.3% increase and HYBE’s 2.3% improvement. No other music stock finished the week in positive territory, although French company Believe came close with a 0.1% decline.
Spotify fell 10.3% to $503.30, erasing approximately $12 billion of market value. While most stocks cratered on Thursday (April 3), Spotify had fared relatively well by losing just 1.2%. But Spotify shares fell 9.9% on Friday (April 4), paring down the once high-flying stock’s year-to-date gain to 7.9%.
Like Spotify, Tencent Music Entertainment bucked the downward trend on Thursday by suffering only a minor loss, but declined 9.5% on Friday, dropping 9.9% to $12.95.
Radio companies, which are heavily dependent on advertising revenue, were among the most affected stocks. iHeartMedia shares fell 26.8% to $1.20, bringing its year-to-date decline to 43.7%. Cumulus Media dropped 14.9% to $0.40. SiriusXM declined 14.2% to $19.51.
Live entertainment stocks were also hit hard. Sphere Entertainment Co., owner of the Sphere venue in Las Vegas, fell 19.5% to $26.74, mirroring sharp declines in gaming companies reliant on travel to Las Vegas such as Wynn Resorts (down 14.9% this week) and Caesars Entertainment (down 9.7%). Sphere announced on Friday that it has two new experiences in production: The Wizard of Oz at Sphere and From The Edge, a film about extreme sports.
Madison Square Garden Entertainment dropped 11.9% to $29.71, widening its year-to-date loss to 17.2%. Live Nation had been up 7.7% through Wednesday (April 2) but finished the week down 3.4% after losing a combined 10.3% over Thursday and Friday. German concert promoter CTS Eventim fell just 6.2%.
Music stocks started 2025 well, but concerns about tariffs have wiped out the index’s early gains. The BGMI has lost 18.0% of its value since Feb. 14 and has declined in five of the previous seven weeks. Halfway through February, the index had gained nearly 30% in the first six weeks of the young year. By Friday, that year-to-date gain was down to 6.3%.
Billboard
Billboard
Billboard
Comedian John Mulaney won’t be seeing Bone Thugs-N-Harmony at the crossroads — at least for the time being.
During his monologue of a recent episode of his Netlfix talk show Everybody’s Live, Mulaney told the audience a ridiculous story about how the show tried to get the legendary group out of Cleveland to make a surprise guest appearance and ran into a scammer in the process. “Before we get to the rest of the show, motherf—ker, let me tell you about the week I had,” he began. “We had something very special planned for you this evening that we had to scrap very recently.”
He then explained that they planned to do a bit about actor Richard Kind’s fictional recently deceased tortoise and wanted to figure out how to give the little guy a proper send off. “Then we were gonna be like, ‘How can we possibly pay tribute to dead tortoise here on our show? Then, ding-dong, the doorbell would ring, I’d walk up there, I would open the door, and it’s Bone Thugs-N-Harmony and they were gonna say, ‘Our tour bus broke down and we heard you guys were sad.’”
Explore
See latest videos, charts and news
See latest videos, charts and news
Adding, “The setup didn’t even make sense at all. But then, in honor of the tortoise, they were gonna perform ‘[The] Crossroads.’ If you’re not familiar with ‘Crossroads,’ it was an enormous hit that Bone Thugs-N-Harmony had in 1996 about their friend’s tragic death and I cannot overstate how hugely popular it was with horned-up junior high kids at Catholic schools to grind with each other during the Clinton administration.”
Trending on Billboard
The show then tracked down what they thought to be the group’s management and started the process of pitching them the idea. However, they quickly realized that they were being scammed.
They setup a Zoom call with the so-called manager where the individual told Mulaney and his writers that Bone loved the idea, but that Bizzy Bone would be too busy to be involved. Nothing out the ordinary, right? Well, they then tell the manager that the guys need to wear pants with back pockets so that they can pull out their wireless microphones after they ring the doorbell to which the fake manager responded: “The pants we bought don’t have pockets. If you want pants with pockets, you should get some yourself.”
And when the group hadn’t signed the contract to appear on the show, the manager requested $2,800 in cash for “running around money” because they were currently on tour — which was true — and their appearance would essentially constitute as a side mission. But once Mulaney talked his wife Olivia Munn into giving him the cash because he’s not allowed to have more than $300 in cash due to his past issues with substance abuse, the manager then requested $100,000 and finally the Everybody’s Live crew began to notice the red flags.
“I’m genuinely worried,” Mulaney admitted. “After a little investigating, I have come to believe that the man I was talking to was not the manager of Bone Thugs-n-Harmony.”
Stereogum managed to get in touch with one of the members in Bizzy Bone, but when the outlet mentioned if he had came across the story, he asked: “Whose that?”
You can watch the clip below.
Nicki Minaj may not have been in attendance at Ariana Grande’s R.E.M. Beauty event in celebration of her new liquid eyeshadows, but the rapper was certainly there in spirit via TikTok star Nia Ivy. Explore See latest videos, charts and news See latest videos, charts and news The social media sensation, who boasts 1.2 million […]
On Billboard’s first Adult Contemporary chart, dated July 17, 1961, Pat Boone ranked alongside the likes of Brooke Benton, Connie Francis, Patti Page, Frank Sinatra and Nat King Cole.
On the latest list, dated April 12, 2025, Boone shares space with artists including Teddy Swims, Sabrina Carpenter and (no relation) Benson Boone.
The legendary entertainer, 90 years young, debuts on the radio airplay chart at No. 30 with “One: Voices for Tanzania,” billed to Pat Boone World Missions. The track aims to support essential projects in Tanzania, with proceeds aiding clean water initiatives and helping to provide essential services to those in the Eastern African country.
Trending on Billboard
Joining Boone on the anthem are artists including Alabama, Deborah Allen, Billy Dean, Larry Gatlin, Vince Gill, Lee Greenwood, Wendy Moten and Pam Tillis, as well as Nashville’s Legacy Mission Village Singers, comprising refugees from Tanzania and Congo, and Tanzanian gospel act Sebastian Silas & God Is Love.
“When good people come together, we are one,” Boone shared on Facebook Reels in March. “And incredible things happen.”
By bookending the Adult Contemporary chart’s history to date, Boone, thus, breaks the record for the longest span of appearing on the survey: 63 years, eight months and three weeks. He passes the late Dean Martin (60 years and six months, from 1964 through the most recent holiday season), with fellow late legend Cole now in third place (60 years, five months and two weeks, from 1961 through 2022).
Meanwhile, Boone graces the chart for the first time in almost 50 years, since “Indiana Girl” wrapped its run on the May 17, 1975, ranking. He boasts four top 10s: “Moody River” (No. 4, July 1961), “Big Cold Wind” (No. 5, September 1961), “Johnny Will” (No. 10, January 1962) and “I’ll See You in My Dreams” (No. 9, March 1962).
The beloved singer/actor (and father of Debby Boone, likewise a chart veteran) logs his first new entry on any Billboard chart since The Gold Label Presents: Pat Boone R&B Classics: We Are Family dented Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums in February 2007. He notched 33 Billboard Hot 100 hits in 1958-69, with “Moody River” leading for a week in June 1961 and “Speedy Gonzalez” marking his other top 10 (No. 6, July 1962).
In February 1997, Boone hit the Billboard 200 with the head-turning (if not quite head-banging) I’m in a Metal Mood: No More Mr. Nice Guy. The set sports covers of rock classics including Guns N’ Roses’ “Paradise City,” Led Zeppelin’s “Stairway to Heaven” and Metallica’s “Enter Sandman.”
All charts dated April 12 will update Tuesday, April 8, on Billboard.com.
The reports of Dreamville Fest‘s death have been greatly exaggerated. Many fans were disappointed when they heard this was going to be the last year of J. Cole’s annual music festival, which has become a fan favorite over the course of the last five years. However, during a press conference on Thursday (Apr. 3), Raleigh […]
