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Source: Getty Images / Soulja Boy / DDG / Halle Bailey
Soulja Boy calling out DDG for allegedly putting his hands on Halle Bailey was definitely not on our 2025 bingo card.
In a stunning twist of events, Soulja Boy took to X, formerly Twitter, to invite DDG to a well-deserved fade after news broke of the singer requesting a restraining order against the rapper/streamer and father of her child.
On Wednesday, May 14, Big Draco said in a post that planned on “beating the f*k out” of DDG in the wake of details and photo evidence hitting social media when news of Bailey’s restraining order hit timelines where she also alleges the former couple “fought each other” during an incident in January.
“You a b**ch a** n**ga for putting yo’ hands on Halle,” the “Crank Dat” rapper wrote on X.
Social Media Slams Soulja Boy For Blatant Hypocrisy
Well, right message, wrong messenger. That’s what many people on X are saying because Soulja Boy isn’t exactly a champion of women’s rights, mainly because he was just found liable for sexual assault of a former assistant who had to pay $4 million to.
“you ain’t even the n***a to be talkin , you hit women too . Right message wrong messenger,” one reply to Soulja Boy’s tweet read.
Another reply read, “Congrats on being the first rapper to defend a female while whooping another female ass.”
“Didn’t you sexually assault your assistant?” another user wrote on X.
Rapper Freddie Gibbs got in on the fun, replying with a simple laughing emoji.
We are definitely in the upside-down, or maybe Soulja Boy was high when he let that post off because there is no way he sent that without being aware that he is definitely in the same boat as DDG.
SMH.
You can see more reactions below.
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After working with Jack Antonoff on her last two albums, Lorde surprised fans in April when she announced her fourth studio LP, Virgin, and the producer’s name was nowhere to be found in the credits.
But in a Rolling Stone cover story published Thursday (May 15), the New Zealand pop star finally explained why she chose not to work with her longtime collaborator this time around. Calling Antonoff a “positive, supportive” teammate, she revealed that she simply felt like it was time to make a change.
“I’m very vibes-based,” she told the publication. “I just have to trust when my intuition says to keep moving.”
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For Virgin, Lorde’s intuition led her to Jim-E Stack, who executive produced the album alongside the “Royals” singer. She also worked with producers Fabiana Palladino, Andrew Aged, Buddy Ross, Dan Nigro and Dev Hynes of Blood Orange on the record.
Her partnership with Stack and Hynes will extend to touring when she embarks on her Ultrasound trek in September, with both collaborators serving as opening acts along with The Japanese House, Nilüfer Yanya, Chanel Beads, Empress Of and Oklou. “Very proud and excited to be bringing my most talented friends in support,” Lorde said when she announced the tour on May 8. “Come see what’s under the skin.”
Dropping June 27, Virgin will arrive four years after Lorde’s last album, Solar Power. Both the 2021 LP and 2017’s Melodrama were produced by Antonoff, with whom the “Green Light” artist famously had a close friendship.
“When I came to New York, we had only written together maybe a couple of times, and we were very obsessed with each other on a creative level and as buds,” Lorde told Billboard of her dynamic with the Bleachers frontman in 2018. “I was sort of doing nothing in New York, and we did this thing where for five days in a row, we just kept having dinner every night, just getting to know each other.”
“We still FaceTime almost every day,” she added at the time. “When you work with someone, you sometimes think, ‘Maybe it will just be for this time, and we say we’re going to keep in touch but we won’t.’ But we really … I’m like, ‘Hey, dickhead, what are you getting me for Christmas?’”
The two stars were so close as friends and collaborators, they often found themselves faced with rumors that their relationship had turned romantic. Both parties, however, denied the speculation on multiple occasions, with Antonoff tweeting in 2018, “normally i would never address rumors but i resent having the most important friendships and working relationships in my life reduced to dumb hetero normative gossip … im not seeing anyone. lol.”
The next month, Lorde told fans on an Instagram Live, “Jack and I are not dating … I love him. He’s awesome, but we’re not dating.”
See Lorde on the cover of Rolling Stone below.
YG revealed he was the victim of sexual abuse when he was a teenager on his poignant “2004” single in March. Now, the Compton rapper is opening up to about being sexually assaulted by a 30-year-old when he was just 14 years old.
“I kept it inside for a long time,” he told ABC News on Wednesday (May 14). “My family’s first time hearing about that was when the record came out.”
The 35-year-old said he played the candid track for some of his male friends and was surprised to hear that many could relate after enduring similar experiences growing up. “90 percent of the people that I played it for — the men, the males — they all got similar stories. That was the conversation everyone was having,” he said. “It was like, ‘Yeah, I was sexually abused.’”
When the encounter took place over 20 years ago, he thought it was “lit” and didn’t realize he had been sexually assaulted. “It wasn’t a thing that I did some with an older woman — it’s lit,” YG explained of his thought process at the time. “You go through life and you see stuff and you learn stuff and it’s like, ‘I got raped.’”
“2004” came together when J.LBS (J Pounds) pushed YG to open up about something he had never talked about before on a record during a studio session. “He like, ‘You gotta talk about something you ain’t never talked about. You gotta dig deep! What’s something that you ain’t never told somebody that nobody know,” he recalled. “Then I was like, ‘Bop twice my age.’ And everybody was like, ‘What?!’”
YG hopes his honesty influences peers and fans to tell their own stories. “Especially coming from an artist — somebody like me — it’s unexpected,” he added. “People put me in a box… They look at us like we gang members, we animals, we not human, but it’s like, bro, I’m human. I go through real-life stuff.”
While “2004” came as a shock to many of YG’s fans and friends, it’s only the tip of the iceberg as far as his personal story goes, and he’s planning to delve deeper into his life with the arrival of his The Gentleman’s Club album this summer.
“People say I live a dangerous life — I talk about that and I give it to you straight like that,” he said. “Now me going through this growing stage of my life, it ain’t hard for me because I’m telling my truth.”
This year marks a chapter of change in YG’s life, who was baptized for the first time with his children in March. “2004” arrived with an accompanying music video, co-directed by the rapper himself, which boasts over 1.5 million views on YouTube.
Watch the full interview with YG below.
If you or someone you know is struggling and in need of help in the wake of sexual assault, please contact RAINN at 800-656-4673 or at online.rainn.org.
Mewow! Billboard’s Power Pets is a new feature focusing on musicians’ best friends — no, not the humans — but the furry (and some scaly and feathery!) ones who bring extra joy and companionship to artists. Celebrities will be sharing sweet details about their beloved pets and how their furbabies enrich their lives. For the second story in the installment, we talked to country artist Chase Rice.Chase Rice may sing “you’re right there in that bench seat next to me” in his emotional tune “Bench Seat,” but nowadays, it’s Jack – his beloved dog and best friend – who sits next to him on the concert stage during his performance of that song.
“[‘Bench Seat’] was the reason I got Jack,” the country artist tells Billboard of his black Lab and the track about the healing power of dogs that was inspired by a friend’s mental health struggles. As the songwriter previously shared, Rice’s pal’s own dog saved the friend from a very dark moment by simply laying its head on his lap to create an unbreakable connection during that difficult time.
“[Jack] was originally supposed to be the puppy in the video, but it took us a year and a half to get it together, so he’s the middle-aged dog in the video,” Rice explains of the visual for “Bench Seat,” which reveals that the track is from the pooch’s point of view. “That song is the very reason that I got him. I knew the day that I wrote it that it was finally time for me to get a dog.”
Rice says that he’s always wanted a duck dog since childhood, so that’s what he looked for when he began his search. “I met a guy who works with Mossy Pond Retrievers in Georgia, and he said if you want a duck dog, get a black Lab, so we made a plan.” Now, shares Rice, Jack is “certified as a master hunter and he’s my best buddy.”
And a much-loved friend at that. “Before every meal, I have him sit and I hug him and tell him, ‘I love you and you’re the best dog I’ve ever had.’” the singer-songwriter says. “He has no clue that he’s the only dog I’ve ever had, but I’ll keep telling him that all the same.”
Rice says Jack has taught him about love and responsibility as well: “I know he’s made me a better man.”
Read on to learn more about Jack from Chase Rice.
All About Jack
Image Credit: Evan DeStefano
Age: 4 years Hometown: Nashville Type/breed: Black Lab Favorite toy: Water bottles. It drives me crazy, but he loves them. Favorite nap spot: The couch, then the floor, and back and forth for no reason.
“He was the chunkier one out of the two males from [the litter I was considering]; the other one looked like the Terminator,” Rice recalls of selecting his pup. “Jack looked fat and I loved that. He’s since shaped up.”
The Best Thing Jack Has Changed About Chase’s Life
Image Credit: Evan DeStefano
“The time we spend and adventures we get into” are two things the singer cherishes that his dog has brought into his life. “I’ve ended up chasing birds in places I had never even heard of because of Jack and knowing I didn’t want to miss the opportunity to see him get one more bird.”
“One time this year I sent Jack on a 350-yard retrieve for a wounded mallard in Oklahoma; just a few hand signals and he was all over that duck,” recalls Rice. “That’s a long retrieve, but he did it perfectly. Just a few hours later, he was on stage with me that night partying. He’s a jack-of-all-trades: business by day, party by night.”
Jack’s Reaction to Being on Stage
Image Credit: Evan DeStefano
“I bring him on stage for one song during my set; he just sits next to me and looks for my approval at the end to not have to heel anymore and to be able to go party with the fans,” explains the artist.
As for the first time Jack went on stage? Rice says the Lab was still a puppy at the time, and was “a little nervous.” But that didn’t last. “He got used to it when I started letting him go down and run towards the crowd, because he loves people. The first time I did it was really just about me wanting to have my dog with me. He was going to training that night for about six months, and I wanted him with me as much as possible, so I brought him up there on stage. That was a tough night once he left.”
Jack’s Musical Tastes
Image Credit: Evan DeStefano
“I think he’s pretty sick of hearing anything by me at this point,” admits the singer.
Regardless of how Jack may feel about his music, that hasn’t stopped Rice from mentioning his beloved buddy in his songs. “‘Arkansas’ had a mention of him in there,” the songwriter shares. “An unreleased song called ‘October’ has his name – not sure if I’ll put that one out. He will get a bunch of songs over these next few years, I’m sure.”
A Sibling for Jack?
Image Credit: Evan DeStefano
Rice mentioned in a sweet March 2023 Instagram post for Jack’s 2nd birthday that his dog was “dangerously close to having a little bro.” So did the musician grow his family? “I’ve really been messing with the thought of breeding Jack or just getting another breed that’s not a working dog,” he shares. “With my schedule, it’s gonna be real tough to have two, so for now, I’m sticking with just Jack. Quality over quantity.”
It’s been 13 years since Xzibit dropped his last album Napalm, and a whole lot has changed since.
Not just with Xzibit, who has since ventured into the cannabis industry, acted in dozens of films and gone through divorce — but to the music industry as a whole. The way albums are marketed and rolled out now is completely different than it was when Napalm dropped, while Xzibit’s core fans are now well into their 30s and 40s.
I ask if the rap veteran is aware people may not be as quick to tune in to his music. “This’ll be the litmus test,” Xzibit says of his new album Kingmaker, which drops on Friday. “Let’s see what happens. It’s a nice science experiment.”
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Regardless, the former Pimp My Ride host is not nervous or worried, he’s amped. The album has colossal features from big West Coast names like Dr. Dre, Ty Dolla $ign and Ice Cube, and Xzibit has steadily promoted the project for months, appearing on seemingly every podcast known to man.
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Kingmaker is an ambitious return to form, with Xzibit fully embracing his veteran status in the hopes of spreading some knowledge. Songs like opener “Play This At My Funeral” aim to inspire the youth, and offer guidance to those in need of it.
“I’m not preaching, I don’t wanna preach,” the rapper clarifies. “The church and politics are way too violent, I’ll stick to gangster rap.”
Below, Billboard chats with the rapper about his new album, his reunion with Dre, his Pimp My Ride legacy, his thoughts on the state of rap media and more.
You haven’t put out a record since 2012. I’m curious as you started getting back into the studio if there was any imposter syndrome or insecurity creeping in during the album’s early days?
I think the benefit of being able to have had a career spanning from 1996 to now, the self-doubt kinda [goes] out the window. I’m coming into the energy of where music is right now — and not necessarily ignoring what’s happening in music, but just realizing I need to do what I need to do extremely well. I don’t need to chase a trend or follow a sound, I just need to do Xzibit music really well.
What was it like then putting the album together? How did your sound change after all those years away from the booth?
I started and stopped the album like four or five different times because I didn’t like what was coming out. There are three songs that made it from the first original Kingmaker sessions, only three. Everything clicked when we did “Play This at My Funeral.” Now, that song gave me a nod to what the messaging should have been about, and that messaging was speaking from a position of power. If this was my last project, what would I wanna leave the game? That was the voice that I needed to find.
Tell me more about “Play This at My Funeral.” At what point in the creative process did that song transform into more of an anthem for your entire career?
I didn’t name the song until after it was done, and when I listened back to it, there was no hook. Just one long verse. When I heard the statements that were being made in it, and how final and immovable [they were] — the song has nothing to do with me dying, but it has everything to do with the state of the union of how I feel about music. How I feel about the state of affairs in this world that we’re living in. I just thought it was very fitting to start the album off with that.
So at this moment, how are you feeling about the state of hip-hop right now?
I think it’s grown substantially — and, to be fair, the state of hip-hop is well. There is so much music that comes out, and it’s hard to kinda grasp the way it was. There are new ways of communicating, new ways to get through to the audience. I think because it’s grown so much hip-hop is experiencing some growing pains. The only way we can keep going is to tend to it and make adjustments accordingly.
For example, I think hip-hop has grown to the point now where it needs sub divisions. It needs adult contemporary, alternative hip-hop, and I think looking at it from an objective point of view: it’s too hard to lump everybody in and just call it hip-hop. If you look at the birth of what Travis Scott is doing and the energy he brings to it, that was birthed around the Anger Management time when we were going out with Linkin Park and Limp Bizkit. That kinda energy merged those audiences, so now it’s a hybrid. It’s something different and it needs to be addressed as such.
Is that difference inherently good for hip-hop?
Absolutely! Hip-hop was once just one piece of music, now it permeates through all things. That’s a double edged sword as well.
After being in the game for so long and watching the extinction of albums and physical media and the rise of streaming, does it worry you at all about how music is consumed?
The audience and the artists are great, what we’re experiencing are the gate keepers trying to keep control of the gate. It’s the middle men that are trying to keep the revenue going a certain way. Music has been here since the beginning of time and will continue to be here. As far as how it’s consumed, how we communicate, that’s the main thing I worry about. The tug of war of who’s in control.
On “Shut Yo Mouth,” you rap: “Here to address the nation like a congregation/ While you gossip like a b—h in your conversations.” Compton AV rapped a bar about Akademiks in the song too. What are your thoughts on hip-hop media after watching it evolve over the years?
I feel like hip-hop media is like the Basketball Housewives, and ain’t none of ’em married. It’s the drama of it, and I get it, but it reminds me of the tabloids from back in the day, the National Enquirer‘s. It’s about everything but the music. People are making livings off that media, I get it, but I think: Where’s the other side of it? The real hip-hop reporting that’s being drowned out? Now, the essentials of what hip-hop needs to be recognized for — the people behind the scenes and behind the music and networking of hip-hop — are being drowned out by the drama of hip-hop. There needs to be a balance.
“Shut Yo Mouth” is just the anthem for telling people to shut the f—k up. We’re in a world now where everybody has a soap box and a megaphone, but that doesn’t necessarily mean everyone needs to be heard.
You expressed some concern regarding Kendrick and Drake’s beef when it happened last year, but now that it’s been a little over a year, I’m wondering if you’re still worried about the precedent this sets for rap beefs moving forward?
I’m not worried it’s just that history repeats itself. That was a David and Goliath moment and it played out how it played out, but my worry is when people start being physically hurt. It happens so often, we loose so many good people that way. That doesn’t happen in any other genre of music. The spirit of competition is always welcome in hip-hop. It’s when it starts translating into other things.
What does it mean to be a Kingmaker?
I’m giving you the information you need to make yourself a king or queen in your own right. Some people, this is gonna go over their heads, some people, it’s gonna hit a bullseye. Everybody has a different understanding of life, but this is the best way I could communicate my journey and my experiences in this art form.
What was it like to link back up with Dr. Dre on “Leave Me Alone?”
We were supposed to come out on March 28, and then [“Leave Me Alone”] came in. I was like, “Oh s–t!” It was crazy. Swizz Beatz actually did the track and Dre did co-production, and just to have both of them together on a track, I don’t think that’s ever been done. It was really exciting. To have Dre on the album after all this time means the world to me. He’s my brother, he’s coach.
What was your most memorable studio sessions with Dre over the years?
The first one is always the best. When we did “B–ch Please” together. The insanity of it was being a fan first and then you basically get recruited into The Avengers. I’ll never lose that feeling, because it keeps things in perspective. The direction Dre gives when he’s in the studio only elevates the record, because you rely on his experience. Even if it takes you out of your comfort zone.
Obviously, I have to ask you about Pimp My Ride. The show really became a cultural force of nature on its own. Looking back on it, what was the biggest lesson you learned from that time in your career?
The power of television and how you become essentially part of people’s families. You’re part of people’s childhoods and developments. You’re in their homes. I didn’t realize the impact of that show until I was in Italy at one of the fountains. I was just sitting there, and this little old lady pushes past my security and starts, literally, grabbing my face with no fear. Just pushes past these gigantic dudes, and it dawned on me that people fell in love with my character. It has nothing to do with my music.
How do you think that show impacted pop culture?
Pimp My Ride‘s impact was unexpected — it really was amazing to see it grow into what it was — but what I take away from it was it wasn’t about me. It wasn’t about the cars. It wasn’t about the garage. It was about wish fulfillment, and people having that feeling that, “This could happen to me.” I think that was dope man, I’m glad we were able to put something out that was positive when reality television at the time was really bent on people’s embarrassment.
Still, you have random people pinching your face in public. Was it scary to go from being a rapper to the face of a mainstream movement like Pimp My Ride?
I didn’t realize what was happening. I wanted the world to know me as Xzibit the hardcore punch-him-in-the-face rapper, but life has a weird way of showing you different paths, and it’s up to you to be brave enough to go down it. That’s kinda what I just relied on, and sometimes those paths aren’t very well lit. It’s a risk, but I’ve never been afraid of taking risks. So I just went down that path… I didn’t wanna live with regrets.
Did taking that path negatively impact your rap career?
It took a backseat. I wasn’t able to tour [or] record. It was a constant film schedule, so I knew I had to dedicate time to do [Pimp My Ride] and I did. I’m glad I did it, but on the music side, it definitely was a disconnect. I was doing music, but I wasn’t able to give it the attention that I wanted to give it in order to proceed with it. You can’t be in two places at once, but I still got the same gratification building something outside of music as I did [with] music.
You were also one of the earliest rappers to pivot into the cannabis industry. What are your thoughts on the industry now?
It’s interesting to see people try to own the plant, which you can’t do. What we can do is come with the best versions of it and the most reliable versions of it. When you try to dominate it, and I think that’s this capitalist idea of “cornering the market,” it’s not gonna work. You can’t squeeze out and make it difficult for the people who are part of the culture. Cannabis is culture, it goes hand in hand with so many other things. You can’t corner that. Nobody’s gonna buy “McDonald’s Cannabis.”
What I think needs to happen is that Big Pharma is gonna need to come in when it’s federally legal to partner with the people who have been part of the culture from the beginning. You’re gonna need that bridge. Cannabis is not like alcohol or clothing where you can just slap a hip-hop label on it and put some funky music behind it. People need cannabis to work.
Having dabbled in all these different industries, how do you feel about this point in your rap career? Do you feel any pressure to try and cater Kingmaker to the younger audience or to the algorithms that seem to run music?
People will find me if they find me, but you can’t perform an algorithm. My audience is in front of me at that stage. My algorithm is in live performances, but whatever this album does, I feel really good about getting back in front of my people. I feel really good about the music I’ve created, and let’s let this thing be a good time, man. This is gonna be a really big moment for me. I worked really hard on this record. Still being able to do it at this level is a blessing, I can’t tell you enough how excited I am.
“Forever,” Prince famously declared in the pastor-like open to his carpe diem chart-topper “Let’s Go Crazy” – “that’s a mighty long time.” “Live now,” the Purple One urged us in song, “before the Grim Reaper comes knocking on your door.”
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FOREVER is also the name of the fourth project and third studio album from EKKSTACY, the Canadian alt/indie musician who knows a little something about getting crazy and living like there’s no tomorrow. Yet on the new LP, out Friday (May 16), he’s entered a new chapter: fundamentally changing his recording process, embracing a new band-centric sound and turning out his most energized and confident work to date.
“I wish I could have stayed there longer,” EKKSTACY – born Khyree Zienty, but known to friends and fans as Stacy – says over Zoom from Vancouver. He’s talking about Mexico, where he and his girlfriend have just spent a long weekend to celebrate his 23rd birthday and recharge for what should be a big year ahead. Now he’s back home, about to go to Los Angeles to shoot a fifth music video from the LP, and ready to talk about a record that he had “so much fun” making, with a lot of the credit going to his new producer, Andrew Wells.
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“I love that fool,” Stacy says of Wells, whose impressive writing and production CV includes Fall Out Boy, ROSÉ, Meghan Trainor, 5SOS and Halsey. “We just clicked. Our first session we did two songs, full songs, first day we met. I was like, ‘Alright we just gotta do it with him.’” The two met before EKKSTACY and his band went out on a two-month tour last fall, Stacy having written and recorded acoustic demos for most of the songs. FOREVER was done when he returned from tour, in short order. “With Wells, it was so easy,” he recalls. “Andrew is just so good at producing. We’d be finishing the songs in like an hour, hour and 20 minutes. It would be done.”
That hit-it-and-quit-it energy is felt throughout FOREVER, and it is in marked contrast to the way EKKSTACY used to craft records. Through his come-up — including the 2021 aura-defining EP NEGATIVE and its breakout single, “I walk this earth all by myself,” followed by his debut album, 2022’s misery — Stacy’s music mirrored that of some of his early influences. “I used to listen to a lot of Current Joys and programmed, like Linn drums and lo-fi guitars, sh-t like that.” Comparisons to bedroom pop acts with a surf bent, like Surf Curse, Current Joys and The Drums, were inevitable; Stacy even collaborated with The Drums’ Jonny Pierce on a 2021 single. “But then I got into a lot of emo,” he says. “I got into Remo Drive, and blink, and then a lot of Nirvana. I got to the point where I was, ‘Okay, I can’t make this anymore. I have to do something else.’ I was tired of the computer-indie sound, you know? I wanted to go full band.”
Stacy says he’d already reached the point of burnout on his old sound by the time he made his last record, 2024’s self-titled EKKSTACY. While it arguably won him more mainstream attention than ever, due in part to features from The Kid LAROI and Trippie Redd, he recalls that album as going through the motions. “By then I was inspired by other stuff. And I just didn’t think I had the tools to just do what I wanted really, so I just stuck to what I knew, and I was tired of that. It was kind of just beating a dead horse. I had really done everything I could do in that space, but I just had to make a whole ‘nother f–king album of it. And I was just like, ‘This f–king sucks, dude. F–k this.’”
He doesn’t mince words. I talk to a lot of young artists who, perhaps understandably in this age, are guarded in conversation. Not so Stacy, who lets it rip with very little filter, on everything from music to drinking and drugs to girls to – you name it. He has no qualms telling me, a decades-long New Yorker, that he “hates” our city, having spent some time here last year, before quickly adding, “It’s just not for me, I’m not built for it.” He dismisses his first full-band recording, last year’s one-off single “Mr. Mole,” with, “Sh-t’s ass, I f–king despise that song.” And when I point out that he’s never done the most high-profile tracks from the EKKSTACY LP on tour – “alright” (with LAROI), “problems” (with Trippie), and the uncommonly sunny, buoyant “bella” – he bluntly replies: “Yeah, and they never will be. I don’t like those songs. They’re just so – cringe-y, to me.” Fair enough.
But back to what Stacy does like and is proud of. FOREVER offers the most thrilling one-two punch opening of any EKKSTACYrecord: the power-pop explosiveness of opener “if I had a gun” reminds me of a sped-up take on the old INXS chestnut “Don’t Change,” and its energy would no doubt be approved by the Paulson brothers of Stacy faves Remo Drive. It’s followed by “forever,” on which another of his heroes, blood-pumping Canadian countrymen Japandroids’ influence can be heard in a rousing, shouted, “Hey! Hey!” Later, the album’s standout rawker “she will be missed” offers a frenetic stop-start feel that isn’t far afield from blink-182, who EKKSTACY opened for last summer, a career moment.
EKKSTACY
Michael Donovan
But there’s more than just one flavor to FOREVER. There are gentle acoustics on “messages” and “one day I’ll wake up from this.” “wonder” serves up gauzy Beach House feels (Stacy is an unabashed fan of ‘00s and ‘10s indie) while “shoulders” — a C86-styled track that opens, “It’s summertime / You made it out / Soon I’ll be ashes / In the ground” — might earn a Morrissey thumbs up. There are two forays into shoegaze-adjecency: the dreamier “head in the clouds” and “stain,” maybe EKKSTACY’s heaviest track to date. “Yeah, I really love My Bloody Valentine,” he explains. “I was just listening to them a lot when I was in Poland. I’ve always loved that sound and so I just wanted to see what I could do with it.”
Other benchmarks for Stacy on the new LP include more guitar playing than ever. He shares guitar credit on some tracks with his bandmate and right-hand man in live shows, Erez Potok-Holmes, but he has sole guitar credit on most songs. He’s also using his voice like never before. While he is blessed (and cursed, maybe) with a sweet, melodic timbre that will never allow him to be truly screamo, on songs like “she will be missed,” he pushed himself with Wells’ help. “I wanted to really sing,” he says. “On my older records I’m not singing as hard as I can, and I’m really maxing my sh-t on this album. I’m at the top of my range a lot, but in a good place, where I’m really projecting.”
What hasn’t changed throughout EKKSTACY’s musical eras has been the angst. He was a SoundCloud rap-era teen, an acolyte of XXXTentacion and Lil Peep; the faded emo trap of his early single, 2020’s “Uncomparable,” wouldn’t sound out of place next to Juice WRLD. When Stacy turned a sonic corner and leaned into lo-fi indie, then came the real gloom with titles like “it only gets worse I promise” and “christian death” (a fan favorite). His brand was equal parts self-deprecation (“I just wanna hide my face”), melancholy and worse (“wish I was dead” “I want to sleep for 1000 years” and “I want to die in your arms”). If angst was your thing, and for millions it is, EKKSTACY was your man.
The disaffection is tempered a bit on the new album, but still presents throughout: “What’s wrong with my head / How long can I take it” he wonders on “what’s wrong with me”; “I’m so sick /I’m so tired of everything” on “one day I’ll wake up from this”; and “can’t put the bottle down” on “stain.” On the wiry, propulsive post-punk of “sadness,” Stacy’s entire lyric is a recitation of generally not-good things: “Drinks, pills, nicotine chills, death, sadness and fear.” “I was just kind of describing my thoughts, and everything that’s around me,” he says of the compact song.
Stacy’s candor about his drinking and drug use is refreshing. I am no expert on addiction, but I believe I am safe in saying that, in general, honesty is the best policy, and the artist makes no bones about his penchant for hard partying, mostly with alcohol but with no shortage of pills and powder. “My thing is – I’m an alcoholic,” he admits. “It’s just straight-up, I am. I am an alcoholic and I’m functioning. Sometimes it gets really bad and there’s been times when it’s like, I can’t function, and I go into psychosis, and I start doing really crazy sh-t. And then sometimes it’s like I’m fine, and I just drink every f–king day, but…if I could shake that? If I could snap my fingers and not drink anymore, I would. But – I don’t know – the thing about drinking for me is that I just have so much time on my hands. And I have nothing to do really, so it just creeps up every day. I’m like, ‘Well, sh-t, I guess I’m gonna drink this bottle of vodka that’s on my f–king counter! [laughs] I don’t have sh-t to do tomorrow!’”
And, of course, there’s the road, which has tested the most disciplined of sober souls. Time and again it has roped Stacy back into wild living, nowhere more so than in Germany, where he enjoys an outsize popularity and has toured extensively. “I can’t explain it, but I love it there!” he says. “I feel like a god there [laughs] – I mean, no, I’m just f–king around, but I just love it.” Godlike treatment often means getting offered a lot of things that can be hard to turn down. “I did [coke] hardcore for like a week in Germany,” he recalls. “And for me, coke is like – I liked it, but I didn’t love it as much as people say they do. I’m a really anxious dude. Like really bad, I’ve always been like super anxious. So I would wake up and just be almost on the verge of psychosis, every morning. So once I ran out of Xanax, I really couldn’t do coke.” (We commiserate on the wonders of Xanax, and why it’s the wildly popular – and widely abused – drug that it is.)
But Stacy’s most recent visit to Deutschland may have been a breaking point. “I was just doing a lot of drugs and partying really hard,” he says. “And when I got home from it, it kind of transferred to me in Vancouver, like I was doing drugs at the club and sh-t, and I was just like, ‘Dude, I can’t do this.’ I remember I woke up one morning after doing a lot of coke, and I was just sweating and f–king freaking out in my bed. I opened all the windows in my house and laid in front of the window for like two hours, and I was having such a bad panic attack. ‘Cause I was on a bender for like a month.”
Stacy offers even more detail on his use of the anti-seizure medication Klonopin, along with a ton of alcohol (“I was going f–king mental. For like, a good month.”) before getting around to how he moved past this dark period. It happened during his Vancouver panic attack. “I called the girl I’m dating now,” he remembers. “I’d talked to her for like year, before we even met. I called her that morning, when I was losing my sh-t. I had really liked her for a long time, but I had never met her, ‘cause she was hesitant to come meet me. She’s pretty shy, and she’s just smart.”
During our talk, he mentions a Russian girl he used to crush on, who inspired him to get the Cyrillic любовь (“lyubov” or “love”) tattoo splayed across his chest – just one piece in a mural of ink that covers much of his body. Another woman, a fellow musician he declines to name, was dating Stacy in the early days of FOREVER, and helped him find his songwriting mojo. “She’s an incredible writer,” he explains. “And at the beginning of the record, I was kind of like, ‘F–k, like what the f–k do I write?’ Watching her write, it blew my mind. And helped me write a lot of songs. She would talk to me about writing. She’d say, ‘You take it so serious! You just gotta write.’” But no one has impacted his personal trajectory quite like his current girlfriend. “I called her that morning and I talked to her on the phone for hours and hours, and I was just like, ‘I need to meet this person, dude.’ So I don’t know, I just kind of threw the drugs away that morning. I still had some problems with pills for like a few months after that, but the hard sh-t I stopped.”
EKKSTACY
Michael Donovan
It’s been a wild ride. Is it any wonder that at times on FOREVER, Stacy longs for a less complicated time? On “seventeen” he looks back six years to a more carefree point in his life, singing, “I’m not who I used to be / And I hardly know this new me…I kinda miss being 17.” He echoes the sentiment on thoughtful closer “keep my head down”: “I was young once / I miss it so much / Where did that go?” Simpler days. “Everyone was just happier,” he explains. “No one had jobs, and we were just kids, doing everything for the first time. The best day ever back then was all of us sleeping at one of our homies’ houses and getting hammered. And that was literally just peak life. And going skating.” At only 23, he says he doesn’t feel “old” as much as just “jaded,” and weary of the nonstop bacchanal. “I’ve just seen – so much has happened – I don’t even know what else I can feel,” he says. “I feel like I’ve just done enough partying, bro. Like, I feel like I’m ready to just be with one person. And this person I met is honestly like the most incredible person I’ve ever met.”
As for the year ahead, FOREVER feels like a record built to give EKKSTACY his most high-powered live show to date. Joining Stacy and Potok-Holmes on his upcoming summer tour will be two new band members, bassist and fellow Vancouverite Hannah Kruse, and drummer Sean Friday (Dead Sara), though he says they just may be “temporary.” And just possibly, Stacy won some new fans last year when he joined $UICIDEBOY$’ annual Grey Day arena tour, sharing a bill with the New Orleans punk-rap mainstays, as well as the acclaimed hip-hop adventurer Denzel Curry and others. It was a good look for an artist hoping to expand his audience, even if he had to warm to the experience. “At first I felt like I was such an outsider, that it was like, ‘What the f–k am I doing? No one f–king wants me here?’” he recalls. “But then we slowly started socializing with everyone, and it was sick, it felt like a little f–king society in there. And it was fun, after I started meeting fools, it was really nice. I made some really good friends.”
All that talk of psychoses, blackouts, anxiety and booze-and-drug benders has led more than a few observers in the past to worry about EKKSTACY’s health and future. But he’s quick to point out that he’s always been knee-deep in sad songs. As open as he is about his stresses and the potential pitfalls of self-medication, he’s equally quick to tamp down reading too much into depressive lyrics, and put off by the idea of commodifying mental health as a talking point. Not every tortured musical poet is necessarily going through it 24/7, nor considering self-harm – even an artist who once recorded “wish i was dead.”
“I’m just like – bruh, I was just a kid, talking like that,” he says. “I was just a kid, 18, 19. My brother is 19 now and I look at that fool like he’s a child. I just want people to f–king feel me. I want them to know that I’m just hanging out, and that I’m just normal. That I get f–ked up and hang out with my friends, and skateboard, and live normal as f–k. And I still stress about the same sh-t that everyone else stresses about.”
That said, FOREVER does feel like a marginally more hopeful record than Stacy’s past work. Even if some of the new record lingers on the past, its very title – also the name of Stacy’s upcoming tour — seems to anticipate many days to come. It’s certainly more forward-looking than NEGATIVE or misery. On the moving final track, “keep my head down,” he offers, “I won’t stop saying that things will be better soon / Put my head out the window I don’t have time to be blue.” When I observe that the lyrics suggest he may be in a better place, Stacy, true to his no-BS self, quickly retorts: “I don’t think I am in a better place. I think I am calmer, but I’m still f–king scared. But I’m definitely more mature, and just chilled out, than I have been in the past. But I’m still nervous.”
Nervous, but apparently in a great creative place – he says he is eager to work on another album – and in a relationship unilke any he’s been in. He’s even contemplating becoming a dad. “It’s on my mind,” he admits. “I want to get married and have a kid.”
So yeah, Prince, “forever” is a mighty long time. Maybe, like EKKSTACY, we just take forever day by day.
Fifteen years after achieving his first top 10 on Hot Latin Songs and his first No. 1 on Tropical Airplay with his take of “Stand by Me,” Prince Royce gifts his fans an entire album filled with pop classics in bilingual versions (English/Spanish) and bachata rhythms.
Titled ETERNO, the 13-track LP will be released Friday (May 16) under Sony Music Latin. It includes everything from “Dancing in the Moonlight” by King Harvest and “How Deep is Your Love” by the Bee Gees to “I Just Called to Say I Love You” by Stevie Wonder and “Go Your Own Way” by Fleetwood Mac, with “I Want It That Way” by the Backstreet Boys as the focus track. All the Spanish lyrics were written by Royce himself.
“For me, these are songs that are eternal, iconic, legendary,” the Latin star tells Billboard Español. “The intention with the album was somewhat similar to ‘Stand by Me.’ I wanted to bring back that nostalgia from a time when there was no Auto-Tune, when everything was raw, very real, into today’s world.”
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With a tracklist that also includes “Stuck on You” (Lionel Richie), “Right Here Waiting” (Richard Marx), “Can’t Help Falling in Love” (Elvis Presley), and “Yesterday” (The Beatles), Royce says it took his team about nine months to secure all the rights.
“When I was seeing that a song was going to go in, I was already like, ‘Okay, it fits in bachata,’” he explains about the selection process. “For me, the important thing was that the songs worked well in bachata, that the Spanish was good, that it flowed with the genre. Also I didn’t wanna force songs — it was important to keep the Prince Royce essence while also respecting the original song.”
Among the classics he felt were essential for this album, he mentions “Dancing in the Moonlight” as a song with a “positive vibe” that had always reminded him of bachata; “Can’t Help Falling in Love” as a perfect “wedding song” that was somewhat difficult to adapt; “My Girl” by The Temptations as an iconic “doo-wop” he wanted to tackle even though it reminded him of his previous hit “Stand by Me”; and “Stuck on You” by Lionel Richie, one of his personal favorites.
ETERNO follows Prince Royce’s 2024 album Llamada Perdida, a deeply personal set that included several heartbreak songs. This new project was very different, and Royce says he had fun learning and researching the original artists and embracing the challenge of adapting himself to their songs.
“It was just like a fun, music-geek project. I ended up really enjoying it and really like dissecting each harmony and background vocal and recording it,” he says enthusiastically. “I’d like for people who know these songs to bring those memories back, and maybe the younger generation in Latin America who doesn’t know them creates new memories. I hope we can achieve that.”
Prince Royce ‘ETERNO’
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Snoop Dogg has enjoyed well over three decades of notoriety and the requisite ups and downs that come along with fame. In a recent sitdown with The Breakfast Club, Snoop Dogg addressed fans who refer to him as a sellout over his assumed alignment with President Donald Trump, and he appeared to clear the record.
The larger part of the conversation centered on Snoop Dogg’s legacy as an artist, learning how to adjust to being a grandfather, praising his wife’s guidance for his family, and promising some new music down the pipeline, including his upcoming 21st studio album, Iz It A Crime? He also spoke on Warren G, a past collaborator of both Snoop and Dr. Dre, who felt like he was left out of the Missionary album sessions with his past partners.
From there, the conversation shifted to Snoop’s appearance at the Crypto Ball around the time of President Trump’s inauguration. The Doggfather was blitzed by fans who felt that he betrayed them for doing the event, considering some of the president’s current political positions. Snoop was clear to draw a line right there.
“Can’t none of you motherf*ckers tell me what I can and can’t do,” Snoop said after explaining he DJ-ed a set at the event for 30 minutes. “But I’m not a politician. I don’t represent the Republican Party. I don’t represent the Democratic Party. I represent the motherf*cking Gangster Party period point blank, and G sh*t we don’t explain sh*t so that’s why I didn’t explain. That’s why I didn’t go into detail when motherf*ckers was trying to counsel me and say he a sellout.”
Snoop went on to say that he would frequently post certain things on his popular Instagram page to see what fans had to say, with some using keyboard courage to call the veteran rapper out his name. Snoop said he hopped into some DMs and addressed the critics head-on, confirming that everyone changed their tune after that.
Check out Snoop Dogg’s full chat with The Breakfast Club in the video below. Hop to the 21:00-minute mark to see the topic mentioned above.
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Photo: Screenshot / YouTube/The Breakfast Club
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Snoop Dogg has responded to the comments Warren G made on the Ugly Monkey podcast April 29, during which the “Regulate” rapper said he would like Snoop and his stepbrother Dr. Dre to hit him up more often.
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“Snoop and Dre get down and they doing things,” he said at the time. “And it’s no diss to neither one of them or anything like that, but it’s like, y’all could call Warren to come do a cameo or come hang out or something. I don’t want no money or nothing from nobody, just call me to be around.”
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Warren also mentioned not being able to get backstage during Dr. Dre‘s headlining Super Bowl LVI halftime performance in L.A.
Snoop and Warren go way back to their neighborhood in Long Beach, Calif., where they started the rap group 213 with the late Nate Dogg. Warren was also the one to introduce Snoop to his mentor Dr. Dre during the early ’90s.
So when Charlamagne Tha God of The Breakfast Club asked the Doggfather what Warren G means to him, the rapper answered, “Warren G is probably the best friend that I got that only me and him understand each other. Like, the passion Warren G has for me and had for me as an artist in the beginning is like Don King — like a promoter that promotes a fighter, like believing in Snoop before anybody else.”
Snoop then added that their friendship has been able to grow and evolve as they’ve gotten older and have become parents. “When he lost his mom, I didn’t understand, but I was there for him,” he said. “Then when I lost my mom, I didn’t understand and he was there for me. There’s been certain situations where we have become super close behind tragedy and behind love.”
However, he believes the two friends never fully addressed how their respective careers have turned out. “The music industry is trifling, it’s crazy,” Snoop continued. “You think about how he brought me to Death Row, but Death Row didn’t sign him, so there’s a lot of animosity and frustration and anger in him off of that. Not at me, but at the situation at whole.”
Added Snoop, “As an artist, if you’re pushing for me, you want for me to do this. But as an artist, I’m feeling f–ked up because they left my homeboy. These are things that we’ve never had a chance to fully get a understanding on because its pain.”
Watch Snoop’s interview with The Breakfast Club below.
Forever yours, faithfully. Steve Perry and Willie Nelson unveiled their new duet version of Journey‘s “Faithfully” for charity on Wednesday (May 14). The former Journey frontman and the country icon turn the band’s classic 1983 single into a wistful, meditative ballad as Nelson warbles, “Highway run in the midnight sun/ Wheels go round and round/ […]