State Champ Radio Author: djfrosty
Page: 7
Drake
Apple Music’s 2025 Top Artist 🍎🌟
… But Kendrick’s ‘Not Like Us’ Is No. 1 Rap Tune!!!
Trending on Billboard
Flea has a simple, come together now message on his first-ever solo single: “live for peace, live for love.” The simple, open-hearted plea comes more than five minutes into the nearly eight-minute song “A Plea,” which dropped on Tuesday morning (Dec. 2).
The free jazz/spoken word jam is the first taste of the hyperkinetic Red Hot Chili Peppers bassist’s upcoming, as yet untitled, debut full-length solo album, which is due out next year on Nonesuch Records. Though best known for his bass-thumping in the Chili Peppers, Flea returns to his first instrument, the trumpet, on the album a release described as filled with a “dream band of modern jazz visionaries.” Additional details about the albums guests and track list will be announced early next year.
In the meantime, Flea dropped the high-energy video for “A Plea,” which was directed by his eldest daughter, 37-year-old photographer Clara Balzary. In the visual, Flea performs a series of modern dance-style moves in a blank space, walking in slow motion, shaking his head and arms, punching the air, flailing his torso, shaking his butt and patting his belly along to the song’s uptempo jazz groove.
The song, written and performed by Flea, features his work on electric bass, trumpet and Gil Scott-Heron-like spoken word-style vocals, including such provocative lyrics as “Who’s your neighbor, who’s your friend?/ Ahh there’s hate all around/ I don’t care about your f–king politics/ I don’t wanna hear about your politics/ Well, he said boo/ She said hooray.”
As the tempo increases to a frantic pace, Flea laments that the “beautiful kids” are scared of the coming “ugly” and of guns, making a plea for “peace and love” while confirming that hate is never the solution. He’s joined on the track by double bassist Anna Butterss (Boygenius), guitarist Jeff Parker (Tortoise), drummer Deantoni Parks (We Are Dark Angels), percussionist Mauro Refosco (David Byrne), alto flutist Rickey Washington and trombonist Vikram Devasthali (Angel Olsen), with additional vocals by Chris Warren (The DX Band) and the song’s producer, Josh Johnson (Leon Bridges), who also plays alto sax.
In a statement, Flea, 63, described the song’s lyrics as reflective of the divisiveness in our country and world right now and yearning for “a place beyond, a place of love, for me to speak my mind and be myself. I’m always just trying to be myself… I don’t care about the act of politics. I think there is a much more transcendent place above it where there’s discourse to be had that can actually help humanity, and actually help us all to live harmoniously and productively in a way that’s healthy for the world. There’s a place where we meet, and it’s love.”
While Flea has been slappin’ the bass with the Chili Peppers since 1982, he’s also contributed to a number of supergroups, including Radiohead singer Thom Yorke’s Atoms For Peace, as well as sitting in with everyone from the Circle Jerks to Tom Waits, Johnny Cash, Alanis Morissette, Nirvana and Jane’s Addiction. He’s also long had a sideline acting and making cameos in films and TV shows, including Back to the Future Pt. II, My Own Private Idaho, Inside Out 2, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, Baby Driver, The Big Lebowski and Obi-Wan Kenobi, among many others.
Watch the video for “A Plea” below.
Trending on Billboard Waiting for the first snow is a winter tradition — but what if only a single snowflake arrives? That’s what happens in The First Snow of Fraggle Rock, the new holiday special arriving Friday on Apple TV, which finds Gobo (John Tartaglia) venturing to “Outer Space” — aka the human world — […]
Trending on Billboard
Leon Thomas’ “Mutt” is the most-heard song on United States radio stations, as it jumps to No. 1 on Billboard’s Radio Songs chart (dated Dec. 6).
The survey reflects airplay audience on more than 1,000 radio stations covering multiple formats, as monitored by Mediabase, with totals delivered to Billboard by Luminate. The data contributes to the Billboard Hot 100, which also blends streaming and sales figures.
“Mutt” lifts one spot to the Radio Songs summit with 64.4 million in audience Nov. 21-27. Notably, it completes the longest ride to the top of the chart, 35 weeks, for a title by a male soloist. Overall, only Dua Lipa’s “Levitating” took longer, 37 weeks, to lead in 2021, while Gabby Barrett’s “I Hope,” featuring Charlie Puth, now shares second place via its 35-week journey in 2020. (Radio Songs began in December 1990.)
“Mutt” is Thomas’ first Radio Songs leader as a recording artist and second as a co-writer and co-producer; it follows SZA’s “Snooze,” which notched three weeks at No. 1 in 2023.
Plus, “Mutt” is the first Radio Songs No. 1 for an R&B song (defined as those that have hit Billboard’s Hot R&B Songs chart) since “Snooze.”
“Mutt” racked up 13 weeks at No. 1 on the R&B/Hip-Hop Airplay chart, 10 weeks atop Mainstream R&B/Hip-Hop Airplay, three weeks leading Rhythmic Airplay and two weeks in charge of Adult R&B Airplay. It has also crossed to pop radio, ascending to a new No. 4 best on the latest Pop Airplay list.
“Mutt” concurrently leads the multimetric Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart for a 14th week and Hot R&B Songs for a 31st frame. It has hit a No. 6 high on the Hot 100.
Meanwhile, “Mutt” is the fourth Radio Songs No. 1 of 2025 promoted by Interscope Capitol. It follows Doechii’s “Anxiety” (five weeks at No. 1 in May-June); Kendrick Lamar and SZA’s “Luther” (six, April-May); and Lady Gaga and Bruno Mars’ “Die With a Smile” (eight, February-April). Interscope Capitol is the only label team with a quartet of Radio Songs No. 1s in a single year this decade.
Sabrina Carpenter is putting as much distance as possible between herself and the Donald Trump administration after the White House shared a video set to her song “Juno.”
On Tuesday (Dec. 2), the pop star slammed the government for posting a compilation of United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers chasing, tackling and handcuffing people on the streets while a snippet of the Short n’ Sweet hit plays. “this video is evil and disgusting,” Carpenter wrote on X.
“Do not ever involve me or my music to benefit your inhumane agenda,” she continued.
Billboard has reached out to the White House for comment.
Carpenter’s reply comes one day after the White House first posted the video, which puts a shocking spin on the Grammy winner’s gag of “arresting” people at her Short n’ Sweet Tour for being too attractive just before performing “Juno” each night. Before the trek wrapped in November after more than a year on the road, Carpenter had distributed fuzzy pink handcuffs to everyone from Millie Bobby Brown, to TWICE, SZA and Miss Piggy of The Muppets.
The Girl Meets World alum would then dive into the song, with fans in the crowd looking forward to the new pose Carpenter would strike at every show after the line, “Have you ever tried this one?”
That same line can now be heard over the arrest footage in the White House’s video, which was posted despite Carpenter being a vocal Trump detractor. After his election win in 2024, the vocalist told fans at a concert, “Sorry about our country, and to the women in here, I love you so so so so so much … I really hope for the rest of this night you can enjoy yourselves, because you absolutely deserve it.”
This is far from the first time the Trump administration has irked musicians and their fans by using music without authorization, nor is it the first time it’s happened in the past few weeks alone. Just last month, Olivia Rodrigo condemned the White House for pairing a video encouraging self-deportations to her song “All-American Bitch.”
“don’t ever use my songs to promote your racist, hateful propaganda,” she wrote at the time.
Shortly before that, Kenny Loggins slammed the twice-impeached POTUS for using “Danger Zone” in an AI-generated video of himself dumping feces on “No Kings” protestors, and Swifties called out the White House for making a TikTok using Taylor Swift’s “The Fate of Ophelia.”
Source: ALFREDO ESTRELLA / Getty
While Donald Trump is out here illegally bombing “drug boats” in international waters and pardoning a former drug trafficking ex-president here in the United States, El Chapo’s son is actually being held accountable for his drug-related transgressions and may serve some serious jail time as a result.
According to the New York Times, El Chapo’s son, Joaquín Guzmán López, pleaded guilty to kidnapping a former drug-dealing colleague, Ismael Zambada García, and delivering him to authorities on U.S. soil in July of 2024. The news comes on the heels of the Trump administration declaring war on drug trafficking from Latino countries such as Venezuela (which has no real history in the drug trade), though many feel that this administration’s seemingly inevitable invasion of Venezuela is nothing more than an attempt to steal their oil reserves, which is valued in the trillions.
Still, while that is going on López took accountability for his role in the kidnapping of Ismael Zambada García. The once mighty Sinaloa cartel that El Chapo ruled with an iron fist continues to come apart at the seams, as its leaders continue to end up behind bars on American soil for moving weight both in Mexico and the United States.
Per the New York Times:
Love Hip-Hop Wired? Get more! Join the Hip-Hop Wired Newsletter
We care about your data. See our privacy policy.
While the drug charges in Mr. Guzmán López’s guilty plea were significant, they paled in cinematic drama to the accusations surrounding the abduction of Mr. Zambada García, his father’s former partner in crime. Known as El Mayo, Mr. Zambada García had long been one of Mexico’s most wanted men and had escaped capture countless times in recent years, evading both American and Mexican authorities.
By using his familial connections, Mr. Guzmán López persuaded Mr. Zambada García to come down from one of his hide-outs in the mountains of Sinaloa in July 2024 for what he thought would be a meeting to resolve a dispute among local politicians. Mr. Guzmán López then ambushed the older man, drugging him with sedatives and flying him in a turboprop plane across the border, where he was apprehended by waiting U.S. agents.
Talk about taking everyone down with him. Lopez must not have liked Garcia to have done him dirty like that.
While prosecutors have suggested a 10-year prison sentence for Lopez, as he has been cooperating with authorities on the matter, the final sentencing will be made by judge Sharon Johnson Coleman, who may or may not sentence him to more than a decade behind bars.
That being said, we wouldn’t be surprised if Lopez actually gets himself a presidential pardon, as 17 members of his family have already been welcomed into the U.S. by the Trump administration under unknown circumstances earlier this year. Could something already have been worked out behind closed doors by Trump and El Chapo’s family? El Chapo was said to have had a net worth of more than $10 billion, so how much of that could he have used to ensure safe passage for his family into the U.S.? We all know that Trump is all about that bribery. Just sayin’.
What do y’all think will end up happening with El Chapo’s son? Will he end up serving hard time, or will he ultimately find himself with a presidential pardon? Let us know in the comments section below.
Trending on Billboard
THE BIG STORY: It’s almost 2026. Music lawyers are grappling with streaming fraud, deepfakes and trillion-dollar battles over artificial intelligence. And the U.S. Supreme Court is talking about … file sharing?
Nearly 30 years after the industry-shaking debut of Napster, online piracy is no longer the existential threat it once was. (Don’t worry: We’ve got robot musicians to worry about now.) Are a commercially significant number of people really still illegally downloading music files when humanity’s full corpus of recorded music is available for $12?
But litigation moves at a glacial pace — and in the mid-2010s, piracy was still a big enough deal that the industry began cracking down on the internet service providers that enabled it. The biggest such case, filed in 2018 by Universal, Warner and Sony against Cox, eventually saw a jury award the labels a whopping $1 billion over piracy by Cox subscribers.
Related
Nearly seven years later, that case is now before the Supreme Court – something of a legal time capsule from an earlier technological era, but one that the justices are worried could lead to “extreme” outcomes for our current one.
For more, go read our full breakdown of the case and this week’s big oral arguments at the high court.
You’re reading The Legal Beat, a weekly newsletter about music law from Billboard Pro, offering you a one-stop cheat sheet of big new cases, important rulings and all the fun stuff in between. To get the newsletter in your inbox every Tuesday, go subscribe here.
Other top stories…
TALK THE LINE? The estate of Johnny Cash is suing Coca-Cola over ads that allegedly mimic the country legend’s voice – the first ever case to be brought under Tennessee’s recently enacted ELVIS Act aimed at prohibiting voice cloning in the A.I. era.
MEGAN THEE PLAINTIFF – A jury issued a verdict siding with Megan Thee Stallion in her defamation lawsuit against celebrity gossip blogger Milagro Gramz, who the star claims acted as Tory Lanez’s “mouthpiece” to spread misinformation after he shot Megan in 2020.
DIDDY V. NETFLIX – Lawyers for Sean “Diddy” Combs sent Netflix a cease-and-desist letter warning of litigation if the streamer releases a 50 Cent-produced docuseries Sean Combs: The Reckoning.
CAN’T SHAKE IT OFF – A federal judge refused to dismiss a lawsuit filed by hundreds of Taylor Swift fans over Ticketmaster’s botched sale of Eras Tour tickets three years ago, allowing the case to move ahead.
TAKE IT EASY – A judge rejected a civil lawsuit against Don Henley and Irving Azoff over the criminal prosecution of three men who allegedly tried to sell stolen Eagles lyrics – a case that ended in a spectacular collapse in 2024.
Related
DOING TIME – Fugees rapper Pras Michel was sentenced to 14 years in prison following his conviction on illegal foreign lobbying and conspiracy charges linked to Jho Low, the Malaysian financier who masterminded the 1MDB corruption scandal.
RESTAURANT ROW – Usher is suing music producer Bryan-Michael Cox and other organizers of a failed Atlanta restaurant project, claiming they misused money he loaned and still owe him $700,000.
MJ BIOPIC – Michael Jackson’s daughter Paris fired a legal broadside at the executors of her father’s estate, claiming a looming Michael movie and other projects are designed to “enrich and aggrandize” them rather than build wealth for the family.
FEE FIGHT – Nelly is demanding that a lawyer for one of his former St. Lunatics bandmates repay more than $78,000 he spent in legal bills to defeat her “frivolous” lawsuit over the rights to his debut album Country Grammar.
“STRONG WORDS” – Live Nation and Ticketmaster filed a long-awaited motion for summary judgment seeking to end the Justice Department’s sweeping antitrust case – claiming the feds used “strong words” that do not have “a lick of truth to them.”
MORE ACCUSERS – Two more of Smokey Robinson’s former employees — a woman and a man — came forward with claims that the 85-year-old Motown singer sexually assaulted them, adding to four earlier accusers.
LYRIC LITIGATION – GloRilla won a ruling dismissing — for now, at least — a lawsuit that accused her of stealing a social media personality’s viral catchphrase “all natural, no BBL” with the lyrics to her 2024 song “Never Find.”
CASE DROPPED – An appeal filed by Making the Band contestant Sara Rivers aimed at reviving her $60 million sexual assault lawsuit against Sean “Diddy” Combs was abruptly dismissed — a move that came after her lawyers failed to file basic court forms.
CASE TOSSED – A judge dismissed a civil lawsuit filed against Kevin Liles by an anonymous executive assistant who claimed she was sexually assaulted by the legendary record executive at Def Jam in the early 2000s.
GOING PUBLIC – StubHub is facing a class action claiming it hid key details from investors ahead of its $758 million initial public offering (IPO) in September.
TRIAL SET – Aaron Carter’s family will head to trial next year in a wrongful death lawsuit against doctors and pharmacies that allegedly gave the late singer access to Xanax pills before he drowned in a bathtub in 2022.
Source: PATRICK T. FALLON / Getty
It’s been over 25 years since the release of The Matrix, the science-fiction film that took hold of popular culture, and that has led to right-wing groups misinterpeting elements of the film. Co-creator Lilly Wachowski isn’t surprised by that, and explained why in a recent podcast appearance.“You have to let go of your work. People are gonna interpret it however they interpret it,” Wachowski said on the So True With Caleb Herron podcast. “I look at all of the crazy, mutant theories around The Matrix films and the crazy ideologies that those films helped create and I just go, ‘What are you doing? No! That’s wrong!’ But I have to let it go to some extent … You’re never gonna be able to make absolutely every person believe what you initially intended.”The main scene in question is the “red pill/blue pill” sequence, where Laurence Fishburne’s Morpheus offers the red pill to Keanu Reeves’ Neo in order to wake him up from the Matrix. The right-wing interpretation defines being “red-pilled” as someone who has awakened to the truth about society, more often than not aligning with far-right ideals. Elon Musk and Ivanka Trump have used the “red pill” reference, to which Lilly Wachowski replied, “F— both of you.”Wachowski had mentioned earlier in the interview that the movie she and her sister Lena created was a metaphor for the transgender experience, leading her to state: “Right-wing ideology appropriates absolutely everything. They appropriate left-wing points of view and they mutate them for their own propaganda, for their own to obfuscate what the real message is.”“That is what fascism does,” Wachowski added. “It takes these things, these ideas that are generally acknowledged as questions or investigations or truisms about humanity and life, and they turn them to something else so that they remove the weight of what those things represent.”
Trending on Billboard
Ellie Goulding revealed her baby bump on the red carpet of the 2025 Fashion Awards in London on Monday (Dec. 1). The 38-year-old “Love Me Like You Do” singer showed off her baby bump at the event while wearing a leather jacket over a black crop top, which revealed her bare belly bump.
Explore
See latest videos, charts and news
Goulding had not commented on the news at press time, but People noted that the child will be her second — she has a four-year-old son, Arthur, with her estranged husband art dealer Caspar Jopling — and her first with new boyfriend actor Beau Minniear (Night at the Eagle Inn, Bad Haircut), who also did not appear to have commented on the pregnancy at press time. According to the magazine, the couple began dating in July of this year when Minniear shared a photo roll that included a snap of Goulding, seemingly naked, in bed; after four years of marriage, Goulding and Jopling announced their separation in Feb. 2024.
Goulding released her fifth studio album, Higher Than Heaven, in April 2023, featuring the singles “Let It Die,” “Easy Lover,” “By the End of the Night” and “Like a Saviour,” scoring the singer her fourth No. 1 LP in the U.K., tying her with Adele as the two British female artists with the most chart-topping albums in U.K. chart history. She debuted her fourth collaborative track with Calvin Harris, “Free,” during one of his residency sets at Ushuaïa in Ibiza in July 2024.
She returned last month with the personal, emotional ballad “Destiny,” which she wrote in a lengthy Instagram post felt like her, “finally taking control of my sexuality and surrendering to Destiny, feeling free in knowing that the prize belonged to me in some way, even if that prize was just accepting my fate with a wine and a cigarette.”
At the time, she added, “The song focuses on a superficial but intense chemistry with someone that served a purpose, for total sensual and surrendering from a type of suffering, and how powerful it can feel in that moment even if it’s not love. This was the first time perhaps that I felt a loving affinity for a person I wasn’t in love with, instead a sort of gratitude for their raw acceptance of my need for exploration and catharsis with their sex ‘I hit the lotto when I found you’ I love the old school romance of that concept. For the first time ever I didn’t need a person for validation or protection, and the person didn’t need me. But we just wanted each other. That felt like a potent shift in the way I loved myself as a whole.”
Trending on Billboard
After starring in The Housemaid and wrapping the third season of Euphoria this year, Sydney Sweeney probably wouldn’t mind if her next role involved Greek islands, a confusing paternity situation and a whole lot of ABBA music.
While guesting on The Tonight Show on Monday night (Dec. 1), the actress raved about her love for Mamma Mia — a passion that naturally came up a lot while she was filming The Housemaid with Amanda Seyfried, who starred in both of the musical franchise’s films. “I am like the biggest Mamma Mia fan,” Sweeney gushed.
Sharing that she frequently listens to the ABBA-filled Mamma Mia soundtrack, Sweeney revealed that she once sent a video of her friends belting along to the songs on the beach to Seyfried. “I was like, ‘You’re forever my icon.’ I love her.”
Of course, Sweeney had to pounce on the opportunity to sing one of the movie musical’s tracks with Seyfried when they were on set of The Housemaid, which hits theaters Dec. 19. Showing the audience a TikTok of herself singing along to “Angeleyes” with Seyfried, Sweeney said, “All my dreams came true, it was amazing.”
The first Mamma Mia film — which also starred Meryl Streep, Pierce Brosnan and a long list of other A-listers — premiered in 2008. It was adapted from the jukebox stage musical of the same name featuring a soundtrack entirely comprised of ABBA hits.
Ten years later, the cast reunited for Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again. If the pattern continues, a third Mamma Mia would theoretically arrive in 2028 — and Seyfried has already said that she’d be game. She also said that she’d love to have Sweeney join the franchise, along with Sabrina Carpenter.
“I love portraying a mom, so I would love to see [my character] Sophie with her kids,” Seyfried told Entertainment Tonight in November. “Maybe she has a cousin she hasn’t seen in a while, and that could be Sabrina Carpenter. And then Sydney Sweeney could show up. There’s a bunch of girls I really want to be a part of it, and I’m all for it.”
In the meantime, Sweeney is looking forward to the third season of Euphoria finally coming to HBO Max in 2026. While speaking to host Jimmy Fallon, the Hollywood starlet teased that the Sam Levinson series might continue after season three — “You never know,” she said with a shrug — and added that wrapping the third installment in November was “bittersweet.”
Sweeney also described the upcoming season of Euphoria in one word, following Jacob Elordi’s lead. (When the Australian actor appeared on Fallon in October, he summed up the next batch of episodes with: “white fritillaries.”)
The Anyone But You leading lady’s word choice? “Self-discovery,” she hinted.
Watch Sweeney on The Tonight Show above.
