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Australia’s music industry is mourning the loss of Matthew Capper, the long-serving former managing director of Warner Chappell Australia, who died unexpectedly earlier this month following a surgical procedure.
Capper suffered a ruptured appendix in late December, and could not fight off the infection after the operation, reads a statement from his family.
A stalwart with more than 20 years’ service at Warner Chappell Australia, Capper led the business as managing director from 2010, until his departure in February 2024, part of a company-wide downsizing.
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Dan Rosen, president of Warner Music Australasia, remembers Capper as a top-notch executive, a good sport, and a great person. “He cared deeply about the songwriters he represented,” Rosen writes in a message to staff, The Music Network reports, “and his efforts to protect and celebrate their music made a lasting impact on Warner Chappell and the broader music community in Australia. He was above all else, in every interaction, a gentleman.”
In 2005, Capper became the youngest person ever appointed to the AMCOS board at the age of just 28. Two years later, in 2007, he became the youngest to join the APRA board, at 30. He remained a director on both boards until late February 2024, as well as serving as deputy chair of the AMCOS board from 2020-2024.
Friends, former colleagues and business rivals are paying their respects. “I’m completely shocked and saddened to hear of the passing of dear friend and colleague, Matthew Capper. I remember Matthew as an incredibly sincere, principled professional who was passionate about music publishing. He was self-deprecating, always loved a joke and enjoyed spending time with colleagues,” comments Dean Ormston, CEO of APRA AMCOS.
“He had great regard for the work of APRA AMCOS and was very proud of his long connection to the organization and staff. He will be sorely missed by us all, and our thoughts go out to his friends and family at this very difficult time.”
Jenny Morris, chair of APRA, says Capper’s death is a tough one for the industry. “We have had many losses from the music industry family in the last few years, all of which have been sources of great sadness, but Matt’s death has been a huge shock,” she remarks. “Matt was one of the most decent, wise and funny people and I feel very privileged not only to have known him, but to have had his friendship.”Capper, she continues, “worked with genuine care and a great amount of industry awareness on the APRA board, and on more than a few occasions sent supportive messages at just the right time. He was an empath as well.”
Through his career, Capper was a tireless advocate for the music publishers community. He was voted into the position as chair of the Australasian Music Publishers’ Association (AMPAL) in 2013, almost a decade after joining the trade body’s board, in 2004. Capper also represented AMPAL on the International Confederation of Music Publishers (ICMP) board, both as non-executive director and more recently as Treasurer, a position he was especially proud of. His involvement with ICMP extended to chairing its Australasia and Asia Regional Group.
“I was lucky to spend a lot of time with Matthew on the AMPAL, AMCOS and APRA boards, often travelling to Sydney together from Melbourne for meetings,” remembers Jaime Gough, chair of AMCOS. “Matthew was a true professional, a great mentor and sounding board. He was passionate about the songwriter and publisher members we represent, and a vocal advocate for their rights.”
Gough, managing director of Concord Music Publishing ANZ (formerly Native Tongue), continues, “I am still in a state of shock at Matthew’s passing. He had so much more to give to the music industry, many more meals to cook, and will be sorely missed. My thoughts go out to his family and friends.”
The late executive will not have a funeral, per his wishes.
Capper “reached some dizzying heights, and he met a lot of people that he greatly respected, even after meeting them,” reads the family statement. “We think he was quietly proud of his achievements. We certainly were. We’re also certain he thought he had a lot more work to do. Hopefully others have been inspired by him and can continue that.”
Just weeks after Scorpions drummer Mikkey Dee detailed his near-death experience following a sepsis diagnosis, the band has made the decision to postpone their upcoming Las Vegas residency.
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The residency was originally slated to launch on Feb. 28 and run until March 11 as part of the German band’s 60th anniversary celebration. Performing at PH Live at Planet Hollywood and supported by Buckcherry, the group took to social media late last week to announce their new dates.
“We regret to inform you that due to Mikkey Dee’s ongoing recovery from his recent hospitalization, we have made the decision to postpone our Coming Home to Las Vegas Residency to August 2025,” they wrote. “The health and well-being of our brother is of the utmost importance. We wish Mikkey a full and speedy recovery and look forward to rocking with you all again soon!”
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The new dates will see the Scorpions performing in Las Vegas from Aug. 14 – 23, with all previous tickets honored for the new dates. The group are still scheduled to return to the stage in March, with a Mexico City show set for March 15.
Dee first detailed his health issues in early January, revealing he had been hospitalized following a “very serious” blood infection. He later expanded upon the health scare in an interview with Swedish publication Aftonbladet, explaining that what began as a simple sprain quickly evolved into something far worse on the weekend before Christmas.
“The ankle swelled up like hell, then it took on a weird shape and appearance and looked like an overcooked ham,” Dee said. “I became very ill so I had to go by ambulance to Sahlgrenska and there they found that I had sky-high values, so I became priority one there.
“It was surgery right away, the first of three. They cut away what was dead and infected and badly infested. It was not a good journey I was on… Another day and I’d be playing drums with Lemmy in heaven. I can say that.”
Somewhat coincidentally, his near-death experience took place almost nine years to the day since his Motörhead bandmate Lemmy Kilmister passed away, on Dec. 28, 2015.
Dee has performed with Scorpions since early 2016, joining the band in the wake of Motörhead’s untimely dissolution in late 2016. To date, Dee has only played on one of the band’s albums, providing percussion for their 19th album, 2022’s Rock Believer.
Matty Healy and Taylor Swift‘s musical story still has pages to come, according to a report by U.K. tabloid The Sun. The 1975‘s next album, possibly titled God Has Entered My Body and maybe with a track of the same name, has lyrics that an unnamed “insider” believes to be about the pair’s public romance in 2023.
Just one alleged line was published in the report Saturday night (Jan. 18): “Keep your head up, princess, your tiara is falling.”
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The Sun quotes its source as saying “everyone at the studio,” presumably during a 1975 recording session, thought “God Has Entered My Body” addresses Healy and Swift’s relationship and how it fared amid fame. The purported insider tells the publication, “Matty will never publicly comment on his relationships, but he lets his deepest feelings out in his songs and gets everything off his chest.”
Healy is not doing press at this time and is not currently active on social media, but he does have a verified account on Reddit from which he occasionally interacts with fans of The 1975.
In a discussion on The 1975 subreddit on Sunday showing an article that cites The Sun‘s initial report, Healy chimed in among the murmurs about his supposedly Swift-inspired song.
“Huge if true,” wrote Healy.
As fans point out, The 1975 frontman captioned an unarchived Instagram post from 2021 with “Keep your head up, princess, your tiara is falling.” It’s one of only four posts presently on his Instagram grid. Another studio snapshot from 2024 has the caption “GHEMB,” an acronym for “God Has Entered My Body” that Healy’s used before.
In November, Healy shared what looked to be a working track list in a now-deleted post on X (formerly Twitter). While he made a joke there (“This is my ‘names for our children’ folder”), in a Reddit thread he commented, “Nah it’s real tracklist.” Among the song titles listed were “Alone Together,” “Give Us Back Our Present,” “Commercials in a Hotel Room,” “EVERYTHINGAMAZINGNOBODYHAPPY,” “Pepsi-Cola Addict” and “Naked When You Found Her.” “God Has Entered My Body” was not on that particular list.
The 1975’s next full-length release will be their sixth studio album, and the follow-up to 2022’s Being Funny in a Foreign Language, which was co-produced by Jack Antonoff with Healy and bandmate George Daniel. Being Funny debuted in the top 10 of the Billboard 200 albums chart, at No. 7, and reached No. 2 on three others: Top Rock Albums, Top Alternative Albums and Independent Albums.
In 2024, Healy was featured on his friend (and George Daniel’s fiancée) Charli XCX‘s Brat companion album, Brat and It’s Completely Different But Also Still Brat, on the moving song “I Might Say Something Stupid.”
Swift’s The Tortured Poets Department album, for which Healy was an assumed muse, was released in 2024 and finished the year as the most popular album in the U.S., based on music data tracking from Luminate. It earned 6.955 million equivalent album units in 2024 in the U.S. and spent 17 nonconsecutive weeks at No. 1 on the Billboard 200.
A longtime friend to Healy, Swift surprised fans at The 1975’s concert at the O2 Arena in London in January 2023 when she covered the band’s “The City” and debuted her Midnights single “Anti-Hero” live. They’d known each other since at least 2014, when Swift attended The 1975’s concerts in Los Angeles and New York.
Speculation that they were dating in 2023 came in early May that year. Healy was seen smiling and singing along to her hits from the VIP tent at several shows on The Eras Tour — and even unexpectedly took the Eras stage in a skeleton suit to play guitar with friend/opener Phoebe Bridgers.
Healy and Swift were spotted holding hands at a dinner and leaving the studio together in New York that month, which was as close to a “confirmation” of a relationship as they gave. In the middle of a rainstorm at Gillette Stadium in Foxborough, Mass., on May 20, Swift shared with the crowd, “I’ve just never been this happy in my life, in all aspects of my life, ever, and I just want to thank you for being a part of that. It’s not just the tour. I just sort of feel like my life finally feels like it makes sense.” She then said, “So I thought I’d play this song which brings me a lot of happy memories,” and played Midnights track “Question…?” for the first time.
They reportedly split in June 2023.
Healy, who recently said he isn’t interested in making an album about “stuff that was said about me or my casual romantic liaisons,” is now engaged to model Gabbriette Bechtel. Swift is dating Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce.
Almost 60 years to the day since it was first recorded, the original lyrics to Bob Dylan‘s “Mr. Tambourine Man” have sold at auction for a total of $508,000.
The lyrics were sold via Julien’s Auctions alongside a number of other Dylan items – including a signed oil painting and numerous pieces of original art – which were originally part of the personal collection of late American journalist Al Aronowitz. Famed for introducing Dylan to The Beatles in 1964 and for being the first manager of The Velvet Underground, Aronowitz spoke about his unique connection to “Mr. Tambourine Man” in a 1973 article – of which an original version was included in the sale.
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Explained Aronowitz: “Bob Dylan wrote ‘Mr. Tambourine Man’ one night in my house in Berkeley Heights, N.J., sitting with my portable typewriter at my white formica breakfast bar in a swirl of chain-lit cigaret [sic] smoke, his bony, long-nailed fingers tapping the words out on my stolen, canary-colored Saturday Evening Post copy paper while the whole time, over and over again, Marvin Gaye sang ‘Can I Get a Witness?’ from the 6-foot speakers of my hi-fi in the room next to where he was, with Bob getting up from the typewriter each time the record finished in order to put the needle back at the start.”
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“At the breakfast bar I found a waste basket full of crumpled false starts,” added Aronowitz. “I took it out the side door to empty it into the trash can when a whispering emotion caught me, like a breeze that sometimes gently stops you cold just because of its own ghostly power to make you notice it. I took the crumpled sheets, smoothed them out, read the crazy leaping lines, smiled to myself at the leaps that never landed and then put the sheets into a file folder. I still have them somewhere.”
The lyrics as sold made up two pages of yellow paper which contained three progressive drafts of the lyrics, typewritten and providing an insight into Dylan’s writing process. The lyrics are believed to date back to March of 1964, based upon the information available.
Dylan first began performing “Mr. Tambourine Man” privately in 1964, eventually recording the track as part of a number of takes on Jan. 15, 1965. The song was later included as the first song on the acoustic side to Dylan’s fifth album, Bringing It All Back Home, in April 1965.
Though “Subterranean Homesick Blues” from the same album was Dylan’s first single to chart on the Billboard Hot 100, “Mr. Tambourine Man” would become his first to top the chart, albeit when The Byrds released a cover as their debut single that same month.
The sale of the lyrics is just another Dylan-related happening in recent months, with the venerated artist’s profile and legacy being thrust into the public eye as a result of James Mangold’s A Complete Unknown biopic. The wider response to the biopic has been widespread and immense, with Dylan seeing his catalog earn 11.6 million U.S. on-demand streams in the week ending Dec. 26.
Following its first full week of activity, Bad Bunny’s Debí Tirar Más Fotos climbs 2-1 on the Billboard 200 albums chart (dated Jan. 25), scoring the superstar his fourth leader on the list. Bunny’s album was released on an off-cycle Sunday (Jan. 5), and, thus, it arrived on the chart a week ago with only five days of activity (as the chart’s tracking week runs Friday through Thursday).
In the tracking week ending Jan. 16, Debí Tirar Más Fotos earned 203,500 equivalent album units (up 67%) in the U.S., according to Luminate — largely driven by streaming activity. The set was only available as a standard 17-song streaming album, and as a digital download for purchase (widely through all digital retailers, as well as Bunny’s official webstore). Traditional album sales drove just under 8,000 of the album’s activity for the week.
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Bunny previously led the Billboard 200 with Nadie Sabe Lo Que Va a Pasar Mañana (in 2023), Un Verano Sin Ti (2022) and El Último Tour del Mundo (2020).
At No. 2 on the Billboard 200, Taylor Swift’s 2023 album Lover: Live From Paris reenters, with 202,500 equivalent album units earned, all from album sales, following its reissue on vinyl (161,000 sold for the week), as well as its first release as a digital download album. The album was exclusively available only to purchase as either a vinyl LP or download in Swift’s webstore. It marks the 18th top 10-charting effort for Swift and the highest-charting live album in over five years. It’s the top-selling album of the week, and also scores the single-largest sales week for a live album on vinyl since Luminate began tracking sales in 1991.
The Billboard 200 chart ranks the most popular albums of the week in the U.S. based on multi-metric consumption as measured in equivalent album units, compiled by Luminate. Units comprise album sales, track equivalent albums (TEA) and streaming equivalent albums (SEA). Each unit equals one album sale, or 10 individual tracks sold from an album, or 3,750 ad-supported or 1,250 paid/subscription on-demand official audio and video streams generated by songs from an album. The new Jan. 25, 2025-dated chart will be posted in full on Billboard‘s website on Jan. 22 (one day later than usual, owed to the Martin Luther King Jr. Day holiday in the U.S. on Jan. 20). For all chart news, follow @billboard and @billboardcharts on both X, formerly known as Twitter, and Instagram.
Of Debí Tirar Más Fotos’ 203,500 equivalent album units earned in the week ending Jan. 16, SEA units comprise 195,000 (up 72%, equaling 264.03 million on-demand official streams of the set’s songs; it holds at No. 1 on the Top Streaming Albums chart for a second week), traditional album sales comprise 7,500 (down 3%, falling 6-8 on Top Album Sales) and TEA units comprise 1,000 (up 123%).
The 264.03 million streams of the album’s songs mark the largest streaming week for any album since Kendrick Lamar’s GNX arrived with 379.72 million (Dec. 7, 2024 chart), and the largest for any Latin music album since Bunny’s own Un Verano Sin Ti debuted with 356.55 million (May 21, 2022 chart).
Like in its opening chart week, Debí Tirar Más Fotos was sale priced for $4.99 in the iTunes Store, as well as in Bunny’s webstore.
As Debí Tirar Más Fotos is mostly in the Spanish language, it is the 28th mostly non-English-language album to hit No. 1, and the first of 2025. Four mostly non-English titles topped the list in 2024, and all were Korean-language efforts. Of the 28 mostly non-English-language albums to reach No. 1, 18 are mostly Korean, six mostly (or all) Spanish, one mostly Italian, one entirely French and two mostly a blend of Spanish, Italian and French.
Taylor Swift’s Lover: Live From Paris returns to the Billboard 200, reentering at No. 2 with 202,500 equivalent album units earned (up from nothing the week previous). The eight-song set was recorded in 2019 and had a limited release on vinyl in 2023 (exclusively through Swift’s webstore), and spent one week on the Billboard 200 that March, at No. 58.
Lover: Live From Paris is the highest-charting live album on the Billboard 200 in over five years, since Lionel Richie’s Hello From Las Vegas debuted and peaked at No. 2 on the Aug. 31, 2019-dated chart. Further, as Lover: Live From Paris marks Swift’s 18th top 10-charting set, she ties with Mariah Carey for the third-most top 10s among women in the history of the Billboard 200. Only Madonna (with 23) and Barbra Streisand (34) have more among women. (Meanwhile, all 20 of Swift’s Billboard 200 chart entries, dating to her 2006 debut, have now peaked in the top 20.)
Lover: Live From Paris is Swift’s second top 10-charting live set, following Folklore: The Long Pond Studio Sessions (No. 3 in May 2023).
Of Lover: Live From Paris’ 202,500 units earned in the tracking week ending Jan. 16, album sales comprise the entire number (it reenters at No. 1 on Top Album Sales), with vinyl sales accounting for 161,000 (the largest sales week for a live album on vinyl since Luminate began tracking sales in 1991) and digital download sales accounting for the remaining sales. The set has no SEA or TEA units powering its reentry, since the album was not available on streaming services (thus, customers could not stream songs from the album directly), or through digital retailers such as iTunes, so customers couldn’t purchase songs from the album directly.
The Lover: Live From Paris album commemorates Swift’s The City of Lover live show on Sept. 9, 2019, at the Olympia in Paris. It was the only concert that Swift held to promote the 2019 album Lover, after her planned 2020 Lover Fest trek was cancelled due to COVID-19. Swift didn’t return to live shows until the career-spanning The Eras Tour kicked off in March 2023.
The City of Lover live gig was turned into an ABC-TV special on May 17, 2020 (titled Taylor Swift: City of Lover), and included only the eight songs that are also on the Lover: Live From Paris album. The album was initially released as a double-vinyl set, on heart-shaped color vinyl, in early 2023, exclusively through Swift’s webstore. The limited-pressing sold 13,500 copies in its one and only week of availability, and debuted and then-peaked at No. 58 on the Billboard 200 (March 4, 2023-dated chart).
Earlier in January 2025, Lover: Live From Paris was restocked on Swift’s webstore, for a limited time, on the same double-vinyl set, on heart-shaped color vinyl. At the time, customers were informed that the set would ship on or before Jan. 20.
In addition to the vinyl release, Lover: Live From Paris saw its debut as a digital download album, exclusively through Swift’s webstore, for a limited time. On Jan. 16, the final day of the latest chart’s tracking week, the set was made available in Swift’s store across four variants for six hours only, each priced at $4.99. One was the standard eight-song album, and the other three each contained the standard eight songs plus one unique live bonus track of a Lover album cut performed during The Eras Tour (“False God,” “I Think He Knows” and “Paper Rings”).
No version of the Lover: Live From Paris album was available during the tracking week on streaming services, nor through any digital retailer outside of Swift’s webstore. The album’s core eight songs were released as stand-alone tracks in May 2020 (the same week as the premiere of Taylor Swift: City of Lover TV special) widely through digital retailers and streamers.
As for the rest of the top 10 on the latest Billboard 200 chart, four former No. 1s are at Nos. 3-6. SZA’s SOS is steady at No. 3 (102,000 equivalent album units earned; down 10%), Kendrick Lamar’s GNX is a non-mover at No. 4 (64,000; down 4%), Lil Baby’s WHAM falls 1-5 in its second week (55,000; down 60%) and Sabrina Carpenter’s Short n’ Sweet slips 5-6 (48,000; down 6%).
Billie Eilish’s Hit Me Hard and Soft is stationary at No. 7 (40,000 equivalent album units earned; down 7%), the Wicked film soundtrack falls 6-8 (39,000; down 15%), Morgan Wallen’s chart-topping One Thing at a Time dips 8-9 (nearly 39,000; down 4%) and Gracie Abrams’ The Secret of Us descends 9-10 (36,000; down 4%).
Luminate, the independent data provider to the Billboard charts, completes a thorough review of all data submissions used in compiling the weekly chart rankings. Luminate reviews and authenticates data. In partnership with Billboard, data deemed suspicious or unverifiable is removed, using established criteria, before final chart calculations are made and published.
Lucy Dacus‘ “Ankles” has been crowned the winner of this week’s new music poll, which features a diverse range of artists and genres. The new track received nearly 66% of the vote in a poll published Friday (Jan. 17) on Billboard, outpacing other notable new releases like Hailey Whitters’ “Casseroles,” Mac Miller’s Balloonerism, Mumford & […]
TikTok said Sunday (Jan. 19) it was restoring service to users in the United States just hours after the popular video-sharing platform went dark in response to a federal ban, which President-elect Donald Trump said he would try to pause by executive order on his first day in office.
Trump said he planned to issue the order to give TikTok’s China-based parent company more time to find an approved buyer before the ban takes full effect. He announced the move on his Truth Social account as millions of U.S. TikTok users awoke to discover they could no longer access the TikTok app or platform.
Google and Apple removed the app from their digital stores to comply with the law, which required them to do so if TikTok parent company ByteDance didn’t sell its U.S. operation by Sunday. The law, which passed with wide bipartisan support in April, allows for steep fines.
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The company that runs TikTok in the U.S. said in a post on X that Trump’s post had provided “the necessary clarity and assurance to our service providers that they will face no penalties providing TikTok to over 170 million Americans.”
Some users reported soon after TikTok’s statement that the app was working again, and TikTok’s website appeared to be functioning for at least some people. Even as TikTok was flickering back on, it remained unavailable for download in Apple and Google’s app stores. Neither Apple or Google responded to messages seeking comment Sunday.
The law that took effect Sunday required ByteDance to cut ties with the platform’s U.S. operations due to national security concerns posed by the app’s Chinese roots. However, the statute gave the sitting president authority to grant a 90-day extension if a viable sale was underway.
Although investors made a few offers, ByteDance previously said it would not sell. Trump said his order would “extend the period of time before the law’s prohibitions take effect” and “confirm that there will be no liability for any company that helped keep TikTok from going dark before my order.”
“Americans deserve to see our exciting Inauguration on Monday, as well as other events and conversations,” Trump wrote.
It was not immediately clear how Trump’s promised action would fare from a legal standpoint since the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously upheld the ban on Friday (Jan. 17) and the statute came into force the day before Trump’s return to the White House.
Some lawmakers who voted for the sale-of-ban law, including some of Trump’s fellow Republicans, remain in favor of it. Sen. Tom Cotton of Arkansas warned companies Sunday not to provide TikTok with the technical support it needs to function as it did before.
“Any company that hosts, distributes, services, or otherwise facilitates communist-controlled TikTok could face hundreds of billions of dollars of ruinous liability under the law, not just from (the Justice Department), but also under securities law, shareholder lawsuits, and state AGs,” Cotton wrote on X. “Think about it.”
The on-and-off availability of TikTok came after the Supreme Court ruled that the risk to national security posed by TikTok’s ties to China outweighed concerns about limiting speech by the app or its millions of U.S. users.
When TikTok users in the U.S. tried to watch or post videos on the platform as of Saturday night, they saw a pop-up message under the headline, “Sorry, TikTok isn’t available right now.”
“A law banning TikTok has been enacted in the U.S.,” the message said. “Unfortunately that means you can’t use TikTok for now.”
The service interruption TikTok instituted hours early caught many users by surprise. Experts had said the law as written did not require TikTok to take down its platform, only for app stores to remove it. Current users had been expected to continue to have access to videos until a lack of updates caused the app to stop working.
“The community on TikTok is like nothing else, so it’s weird to not have that anymore,” content creator Tiffany Watson, 20, said Sunday.
Watson said she had been in denial about the looming shutdown and with the space time on her hands plans to focus on bolstering her presence on Instagram and YouTube.
“There are still people out there who want beauty content,” Watson said.
The company’s app also was removed late Saturday from prominent app stores. Apple told customers with its devices that it also took down other apps developed by ByteDance. They included Lemon8, which some influencers had promoted as a TikTok alternative, the popular video editing app CapCut and photo editor Hypic.
“Apple is obligated to follow the laws in the jurisdictions where it operates,” the company said.
Trump’s plan to spare TikTok on his first day in office reflected the ban’s coincidental timing and the unusual mix of political considerations surrounding a social media platform that first gained popularity with often silly videos featuring dances and music clips.
During his first presidential term, Trump in 2020 issued executive orders banning TikTok and the Chinese messaging app WeChat, moves that courts subsequently blocked. When momentum for a ban emerged in Congress last year, however, he opposed the legislation. Trump has since credited TikTok with helping him win support from young voters in last year’s presidential election.
Despite its own part in getting the nationwide ban enacted, the Biden administration stressed in recent days that it did not intend to implement or enforce the ban before Trump takes office on Monday.
In the nine months since Congress passed the sale-or-ban law, no clear buyers emerged, and ByteDance publicly insisted it would not sell TikTok. But Trump said he hoped his administration could facilitate a deal to “save” the app.
TikTok CEO Shou Chew is expected to attend Trump’s inauguration with a prime seating location.
Chew posted a video late Saturday thanking Trump for his commitment to work with the company to keep the app available in the U.S. and taking a “strong stand for the First Amendment and against arbitrary censorship.”
Trump’s choice for national security adviser, Michael Waltz, told CBS News on Sunday that the president-elect discussed TikTok going dark in the U.S. during a weekend call with Chinese President Xi Jinping “and they agreed to work together on this.”
On Saturday, artificial intelligence startup Perplexity AI submitted a proposal to ByteDance to create a new entity that merges Perplexity with TikTok’s U.S. business, according to a person familiar with the matter.
Perplexity is not asking to purchase the ByteDance algorithm that feeds TikTok user’s videos based on their interests and has made the platform such a phenomenon.
Other investors also eyed TikTok. Shark Tank star Kevin O’Leary recently said a consortium of investors that he and billionaire Frank McCourt offered ByteDance $20 billion in cash. Trump’s former treasury secretary, Steven Mnuchin, also said last year that he was putting together an investor group to buy TikTok.
In Washington, lawmakers and administration officials have long raised concerns about TikTok, warning the algorithm that fuels what users see is vulnerable to manipulation by Chinese authorities. But to date, the U.S. has not publicly provided evidence of TikTok handing user data to Chinese authorities or tinkering with its algorithm to benefit Chinese interests.
Police in New York City have arrested a man in connection with the beating death of a pioneering rock musician in the Bronx.
Sharief Bodden, 29, was charged Friday (Jan. 17) in the killing of Peter Forrest, a 64-year-old Bronx resident, who under the stage name P. Fluid had been a frontman for 24/7 Spyz.
The Bronx band was part of a wave of Black-led rock groups, including Living Colour and Fishbone, that emerged in the 1980s, melding elements of heavy metal, funk, R&B, punk and other genres.
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Among the band’s signature songs was was a remake of Kool & the Gang’s “Jungle Boogie.” Forrest quit the band during its 1990 tour with Jane’s Addiction, according to Rolling Stone.
The Black Rock Coalition, a New York-based artists’ collective, remembered Forrest as an “essential chapter to an essential band” in the history of the group, which was formed by Vernon Reid of Living Colour and other Black musicians.
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“Fluid was one of the most creative, charismatic, energetic and powerful frontmen in the business,” the organization wrote on its Facebook page. “His stage presence and dynamic personality were matched only by a rare few.”
Police say Forrest was found unconscious and beaten inside the private ambulette bus he drove on Monday. He was pronounced dead at the scene, and the medical examiner’s office determined he had blunt force injuries to his head and torso.
Surveillance video obtained by News 12 Bronx showed a man exit the bus around 9 a.m. and get into a separate car with a woman. About an hour later, another worker for the ambulette company arrived and discovered Forrest’s body inside the van.
Bodden faces murder, manslaughter, criminal possession of a controlled substance and criminal possession of a weapon charges.
No lawyer was listed for him in the state’s online court database. The Bronx’s district attorney’s office didn’t respond to an email seeking comment Saturday (Jan. 18).
Nelly will be performing at president-elect Donald Trump’s inaugural ball on Monday (Jan. 20), an inside source has confirmed to Billboard.
The 50-year-old “Hot in Herre” rapper joins a lineup of previously announced inauguration performers that includes Carrie Underwood, Kid Rock, Village People, Billy Ray Cyrus, Jason Aldean, Rascal Flatts, Parker McCollum, Lee Greenwood and Gavin DeGraw.
In an interview on Willie D Live, posted to YouTube on Saturday (Jan. 18), Nelly explained the reasons behind his decision to perform. He said in part, “I apologize. I didn’t know that I had to agree with your political choices, and I thought it was the things that you do not the things that you say should be done if you follow what I do. This shouldn’t even be an argument. He’s the president. He won. This isn’t a campaign. This isn’t the RNC. I’m not on the political campaign.”
Nelly went on to add, “I’m not doing this for money. I’m doing this because it’s an honor. I respect the office. It don’t matter who is in office, the same way that our men and women, our brothers and sisters who protect this country, have to go to war and have to put their life on the line for whoever’s in office. So if they can put their life on the line for whoever in office, I can damn sure perform for whoever … Nobody’s allowed to change, right? … If my past was once going to prevent me from winning today, I wouldn’t be here. I’m not saying that that he ain’t got some fucked up ways. That’s not what I’m saying at all. That’s why I’m not telling you who to vote for. But what I’m saying is that he’s the president of the United States…”
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During the interview, Nelly also addressed whether he was invited to participate in the Kamala Harris campaign. The rapper said he wasn’t invited, noting, “I didn’t get none of that 1.5 to try to help somebody get voted.”
Nelly isn’t the only rapper to participate in Trump’s inauguration festivities. Earlier this weekend, it was widely reported that Snoop Dogg, Rick Ross and Soulja Boy performed at the president-elect’s Crypto Ball pre-inaugural soiree in Washington, D.C., at the Andrew W. Mellon Auditorium on Friday (Jan. 17).
Snoop and his fellow rappers faced backlash for their performance at the event. In the comments section of a video from the show shared on the Shade Room’s Instagram, users criticized the artists for their participation. “This is culturally embarrassing and disrespectful as hell,” one commenter wrote. Another added, “Not a check in the world is worth selling my soul to the Devil…”
Former CNN anchor Don Lemon also covered the performance during his livestream, Lemon LIVE at 5, questioning whether Snoop and the artists were “sellouts” or “grifters who only care about a dollar.”
Snoop hadn’t publicly addressed the backlash at press time, but he did share an Instagram Story featuring himself and Ross at the event.