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Last year, LEGO surprisingly teamed up with Pharrell to bring to life his biographical documentary in the animated Piece By Piece, and now, the iconic toy company will continue their relationship with Hip-Hop as they’re now collaborating with the legendary Run-DMC and the Global Girls Crew.
In an effort to spread an uplifting message to the young girls today who’ll become the women of tomorrow, LEGO and Run-DMC have teamed up to remix their classic 1983 hit “It’s Like That.” And with the help of the Global Girls Crew, turned it into a girls’ anthem for 2025. Starring the likes of DJ Livia, drummer Nandi Bushell, singer Pink Oculus and Chinese alt-pop artist Cacien, the visuals to “She Built That” features both live-action appearances from the aforementioned artists and LEGO versions of themselves as well as the iconic group, Run-DMC.
Looking to inspire young girls to take the initiative and chase whatever dreams they may have for their future, the song and video are sure to be a hit among parents who not only want to encourage their daughters to blaze their own path in life, but also show them what old-school Hip-Hop sounded like and how influential it still can be today.
Check out the video to “She Built That” and let us know what you think about the joint in the comments section below.
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Billboard’s Friday Music Guide serves as a handy guide to this Friday’s most essential releases — the key music that everyone will be talking about today, and that will be dominating playlists this weekend and beyond.
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This week, Sabrina Carpenter torches a former flame, Lil Wayne continues to surprise, and Addison Rae makes a grand debut. Check out all of this week’s picks below:
Sabrina Carpenter, “Manchild”
Although Sabrina Carpenter still has multiple hits from her Short n’ Sweet era hanging around radio, she’s returned more quickly than expected to eviscerate an ex: “Manchild,” which Carpenter created with her collaborative cohorts Amy Allen and Jack Antonoff, functions as a colorful, country-tinged bookend to her No. 1 hit “Please Please Please,” allowing the pop star to take down the man she begged to not embarrass her with lines like, “Why so sexy if so dumb?”
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Lil Wayne, Tha Carter VI
Hip-hop may have changed around Lil Wayne since he kicked off his mega-selling Carter series more than 20 years ago, but Weezy accounts for that evolution on Tha Carter VI — which features relatively new stars like Jelly Roll and BigXThaPlug — while also remaining a singular voice in popular music, capable of warbling a Weezer hit (“Island Holiday”), placing his voice next to Andrea Bocelli’s (“Maria”), and, of course, stringing together gonzo rhymes for minutes on end.
Addison Rae, Addison
It’s time for the doubters of Addison Rae’s musical chops to be bid adieu: on debut album Addison, the former influencer turns in a tour de force of personality and pop know-how, breathing each syllable and gliding over every synth riff with enough detail to give the listener a glimpse inside her world, and the confidence to sell her artistic vision.
Turnstile, Never Enough
Even though Turnstile represents one of the biggest hardcore breakthroughs of the past decade, their long-awaited new album Never Enough is not a hardcore project — instead, the Baltimore quintet experiment with horns, synths, song lengths and sonic textures on the follow-up to 2021’s Glow On, although the head-banging hooks remain immediate enough to satisfy longtime listeners.
Mariah Carey, “Type Dangerous”
As she’s returned to the top of the Hot 100 for multiple years in a row with her holiday classic “All I Want For Christmas Is You,” Mariah Carey has concurrently tinkered with her traditional approach to rhythmic pop, and “Type Dangerous,” a sultry new R&B single that samples Eric B. & Rakim’s “Eric B. Is President,” finds the legend continuing to innovate instead of resting on her laurels.
Ed Sheeran, “Sapphire”
Ed Sheeran continues to explore different musical cultures on “Sapphire,” a free-spirited new anthem that, like recent single “Azizam,” looks east for inspiration: with backing vocals and sitar from Indian superstar Arijit Singh, the song doubles down on the growing trend of South Asian production reaching Europe and North America, in the name of a type of love without geographical boundaries.
KATSEYE feat. Ice Spice, “Gnarly (Remix)”
KATSEYE’s recent single “Gnarly” leapt off the speakers with an irresistible audacity upon its release, and now that the song has gone viral for the global girl group, Ice Spice has gleefully hopped aboard to compare herself to LeBron James in his rookie year and sneak in some brand promotion (“No soda, the ceiling is Starry!”).
Editor’s Pick: Little Simz, Lotus
The creation of Little Simz’s excellent new album Lotus may have been tumultuous — ““I got to a point where I lost my sense of purpose,” the British rapper recently told Billboard — but the result is on par with her 2021 breakthrough Sometimes I Might Be Introvert in terms of lyrical dexterity, and with even more luxurious production — these grooves, combined with Simz’s nimble delivery, are worth sinking into for hours.
The Academy of Country Music held a round of layoffs on Thursday (June 5), with approximately one-quarter of the staff impacted, Billboard has learned.
“Coming off a successful 60th ACM Awards week and renewal with Prime Video through 2028, the Academy implemented a strategic staff realignment in an effort to support its future business and growth initiatives, resulting in the elimination of five staff positions across various departments including communications, marketing, events and community relations,” the ACM told Billboard in a statement. “We thank these individuals for their dedication and contributions to the work of the Academy.”
ACM staffers who were laid off include Alexis Bingham (coordinator, events), Lexi Cothran (senior manager, communications and strategic initiatives), Jesse Knutson (director, publicity and media relations), and Brittany Uhniat (manager, creative and content production).
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Prior to joining the ACM, Knutson joined the ACM in 2022 and previously worked in television news, including time at Nashville’s NewsChannel 5 (WTVF). Bingham served as an intern at the ACM before joining the staff full-time in 2021. Cothran joined the ACM in 2024, and previously worked for PR companies including Shore Fire Media and Sweet Talk PR. Prior to joining the ACM, Uhniat served as creative coordinator at Resin8 Music.
Nearly a month ago, on May 8, the Academy of Country Music celebrated the milestone 60th annual ACM Awards, which aired on Prime Video from the Ford Center at the Star in Frisco, Texas. Ella Langley, Lainey Wilson and Alan Jackson were among the night’s biggest winners, with Wilson taking home her second ACM entertainer of the year trophy. Meanwhile, Langley won five trophies and Jackson was feted with the inaugural ACM lifetime achievement award. The 60th anniversary ACM Awards was hosted by Reba McEntire.
Meanwhile, the ACM also recently announced that the organization and ACM Awards producer Dick Clark Productions (DCP) had cemented a deal with Prime Video for the ACM Awards to continue on Prime Video for the next three years, running through the 63rd annual ACM Awards ceremony in 2028.
The first part of the new Billy Joel documentary, Billy Joel: And So It Goes, premiered at the Tribeca Festival in New York on Wednesday and it featured a section about one of the most difficult periods in the 76-year-old singer’s life. According to People, the film co-directed by Susan Lacy and Jessica Levin delves into a dark incident early in Joel’s career when he attempted suicide two times after having an affair with a former bandmate’s wife.
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“Bill and I spent a lot of time together,” Elizabeth Weber says in the documentary about the affair she had with Joel when he was in his 20s and she was married to the singer’s best friend and Atila bandmate drummer Jon Small. She says in the film that the affair was a “slow build” until Small, who had a son with Weber, suspected something was going on and Joel fessed up to the affair, telling him, “I’m in love with your wife.”
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Joel — who did not attend the premiere after cancelling a summer run of shows due to a recent diagnosis of the brain condition normal pressure hydrocephalus — says in the film that he felt “very, very guilty about it. They had a child. I felt like a homewrecker. I was just in love with a woman and I got punched in the nose which I deserved. Jon was very upset. I was very upset.”
The brawl marked the end of Atila and the pair’s friendship, with Weber leaving Small — and later reconnecting with Joel, to whom she was married from 1973-1982 — and the singer spiraling into a dark period of drink and depression. “I had no place to live. I was sleeping in laundromats and I was depressed I think to the point of almost being psychotic,” Joel says in the film. “So I figured, ‘That’s it. I don’t want to live anymore.’ I was just in a lot of pain and it was sort of like why hang out, tomorrow is going to be just like today is and today sucks. So, I just thought I’d end it all.”
Joel’s sister, Judy Molinari, was a medical assistant at the time and she gave him some sleeping pills to help him get some rest. “But Billy decided that he was going to take all of them… he was in a coma for days and days and days,” she says: “I went to go see him in the hospital, and he was laying there white as a sheet. I thought that I’d killed him.”
The singer said he was “very selfish” at the time and recalled waking up in the hospital determined to end his life again. Molinari said her brother drank a bottle of the furniture cleaner Lemon Pledge, with Small driving him to the hospital after that attempt. “Even though our friendship was blowing up, John saved my life,” he says of his former bandmate.
“He never really said anything to me, the only practical answer I can give as to why Billy took it so hard was because he loved me that much and that it killed him to hurt me that much. Eventually I forgave him,” Small says in the movie. Joel later wrote the song “Tomorrow Is Today” for his 1971 Cold Spring Harbor album, in which he delves into his despondent feelings at the time. “Oh my I’m goin’ to the river/ Gonna take a ride and the lord will deliver me/ Made my bed, I’m gonna lie in it/ If you don’t come, sure gonna die in it,” he sings on the track.
At Wednesday’s premiere, Lacy shared a message with the audience from Joel in which she said “He will be back. Billy wishes he were here tonight, and he asked us to convey his greetings to you all. He said ‘getting old sucks, but it’s still preferable to getting cremated.’” Billy Joel: And So It Goes will stream on HBO in July.
If you or someone you know is considering suicide, please contact the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline by dialing 988, text “STRENGTH” to the Crisis Text Line at 741741 or go to 988lifeline.org.
Hey man, what’s happening?” LaRussell says exuberantly as he walks down the street on a bright Wednesday morning in the Bay Area.
The passerby who just shouted hello will be the first of several to call out greetings to the 30-year-old rapper as he ambles through his hometown of Vallejo, Calif. “Hey!” “What’s up, brother?” “Hi!” he calls back to them like a particularly neighborly sort of mayor — if mayors wore fuzzy hats embroidered with the face of Winnie the Pooh.
“I walk each morning, and no matter if I’m on this side of Vallejo or the north side where my mom lives or wherever, people are excited to see me,” he says, “because I mean something to this place. I’m someone who really made it who went to the same schools.”
LaRussell isn’t just a local, but a local celebrity — one who has created an innovative, community-focused infrastructure to nurture and forge his artistic independence. He has endeared himself to fans with not only his breezy, conversational flow — delivered over groovy production on an astounding 40 albums going back to 2018 — but also a business model built around sliding scales that allow them to bid on everything from merchandise to concert tickets to royalties to the chance to hang with him and play pickleball.
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“In the beginning, I had zero dollars, so I didn’t really need checks and balances. If you gave me a dollar, I was richer than I was prior to that,” he says. “As that elevated, I started finding ways to make it make more sense.”
LaRussell’s success is centered on him being both immensely charming, with a wide and frequent smile that’s certifiably megawatt, and prolific. He says it’s never taken him more than 15 minutes to write a song, and songs come to him frequently, creating a lot of material to monetize. “The universe really gives it to me,” he says. As an independent artist, he has the freedom to determine his own release schedule, which so far in 2025 has included dropping five albums.
“The way labels treat artists where they can only release so much music at a certain time, it’s like you’re telling someone to stop doing what they love and not feed their family,” he says. “Music just kind of oozes out of me. It’s what I do when I’m sad, happy, stressed, so being independent allows me to really cater to how I feel as a human.”
LaRussell
Jessica Chou
LaRussell releases music through Good Compenny, his label and company that’s based in the creative compound he has built in Vallejo. The sprawling space offers rooms and tools for recording, content creation, photography, merch shipping and more, with construction currently underway on a storefront that will sell all things LaRussell, including his first book, Limitless: The 10,000 Shot Theory, a hybrid memoir/self-help tome he calls “a book about life” that has sold thousands of copies since he self-published it in 2023. Upstairs from the work facilities, an eight-unit residential complex houses him and his family, along with a crew of engineers, videographers, managers and protégés like fellow rapper Malachi.
Here the vibe is familial and the ability to create is always just a few doors down the hall. LaRussell equates this hub to building “a store in a place that didn’t have a store. I didn’t know what people liked, but I knew what I loved and what I needed.”
While he considered decamping to New York or Los Angeles earlier in his career, “because you think all the infrastructure is there, so you have to move there to succeed,” he was broke, so moving wasn’t an option. “That encouraged me to build my platforms and my independence here,” he says of Vallejo, a city of roughly 122,000 north of Berkeley. And “here” happens to be a place where he’s now part of an esteemed hip-hop lineage: Vallejo’s native sons also include E-40 and Mac Dre.
Now he’s literally making change in his own backyard through a series of performances he and his team host at the compound, where music, food, drinks and bounce houses for kids are all part of the package for a suggested donation of $100 (though the team has accepted much less; those who can’t afford to pay more are subsidized by those who can).
LaRussell says he doesn’t tour in the traditional sense, although he does perform more intermittent dates “all throughout the year” at venues nationwide ranging in size from 200 to 2,000 capacity. He says intimate spaces “are preferred” — like the NPR Tiny Desk concert he did with a crew of 10 musicians and singers last November that has aggregated hundreds of thousands of views.
LaRussell photographed May 13, 2025 in Vallejo, Calif.
Jessica Chou
For live shows, he accepts almost any ticket offer. “I like everybody to be in the building,” he says, noting that most people do pay more than the minimum, with several tiers of preset ticket prices also listed for most of his shows in traditional venues. The system is roughly the same with merch: His team screens all bids and sends counteroffers if the initial sum is too low. In 2024, Kickstarter recruited him for the Let Me Hold a Dolla campaign, which encouraged people to donate a buck to him en masse. While he initially thought he would decline the offer “because I really go out and work; I don’t like asking for handouts,” he ultimately decided it was OK to ask for “the bare minimum of support.” The campaign ultimately raised $39,423 from 713 backers, with those who donated getting rewards like early access to music, entry to a backyard show and a chance to spend a day with LaRussell.
Collaborators can even bid on LaRussell features, and he has been known to record 10 or 20 in a day. “The minimum I’m getting for a feature is like $500,” he says, “so if I do 20 at just the minimum offer, I’m making 10 grand that day.” Selling portions of his song royalties to fans also generates income: His catalog has 100.2 million on-demand official global streams, according to Luminate.
His proverbial open-door policy to all aspects of his career naturally also leaves him open to the interesting opportunities that come walking in. When one backyard show attendee later became the head of marketing for the San Francisco Giants, she recruited LaRussell to record an anthem for the team to be played at its home, Oracle Park. He wrote the song, “Nothin Like It,” immediately after getting off a Zoom call discussing the project, then “sent it back to the marketing team in like five minutes.” He’s currently working on more music, another book and a comedy in the style of Chappelle’s Show.
But even as his projects expand beyond Vallejo, he knows his wider success is rooted here: Staying part of this community means that as he champions the city, it champions him right back.
“You don’t just see me online rapping,” he says, continuing his stroll through town. “You see me with the kids and in the public. You see me as a human before you see me as a rapper. I think that feeds a different type of support between me and my base.”
This story appears in the June 7, 2025, issue of Billboard.
No billionaires bickering here — just your regularly scheduled edition of Executive Turntable, Billboard‘s weekly roundup of promotions, hires, exits and everything in between across the music industry. Let’s get to it…
Veteran touring executive Leslie Cohea will join WME’s Nashville office in mid-July as a partner and music touring executive. She comes to the agency after 10 years at Sandbox Entertainment, where she served as global head of touring and played a key role in guiding the careers of artists including Kacey Musgraves, Dan + Shay, Kelsea Ballerini, Midland and Little Big Town. Before playing in the Sandbox, Cohea spent nearly a decade at AEG Live/The Messina Group, focusing on touring and concert promo and producing national tours for biggies like Ed Sheeran, Dave Matthews and Eagles. Named a Billboard executive of the week in 2023, Cohea will report to WME co-heads Becky Gardenhire, Joey Lee and Jay Williams.
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iHeartMedia announced that Scott Hamilton shifted from his role as principal accounting officer to a consulting position, effective June 2. Subsequently, Michael McGuinness, the deputy CFO since 2019, was appointed as the new accounting chief. Hamilton has served in senior accounting roles at iHeartMedia since 2010 and previously held leadership positions at Avaya and PwC. McGuinness joined iHeartMedia in 2019 and brings prior experience from The Hain Celestial Group and Monster Worldwide. In its SEC filing regarding the change, iHeart emphasized that Hamilton’s transition is not due to any dispute with the company, including issues related to accounting practices or financial reporting.
Big Loud Records appointed Lauren “LT” Thomas as senior vp of radio promotion. Thomas joins Big Loud’s fellow svp of radio promo Tyler Waugh, with both execs reporting to evp of radio promotion Stacy Blythe. Thomas previously served as svp of promotion at Sony Music Nashville, where she led promotion efforts for RCA Nashville and Columbia. Prior to her role at Sony, Thomas worked for five years at Phoenix country music station KMLE-FM. –Jessica Nicholson
Melanie Johnson is PPL’s first-ever director of transformation, a role created to lead a company-wide innovation initiative aimed at expanding PPL into the global leader in neighbouring rights royalty collections. Reporting to CEO Peter Leathem, Johnson will leverage her extensive experience across publishing, labels, DSPs and tech — including roles at Audoo, Utopia Music, Facebook and Sony/EMI — to enhance royalty distribution through amped-up technology and data systems. Her appointment comes as PPL reports over $375 million in collections for 2024. Johnson also serves as vice chair of Music Minds Matter and has been a trustee for the Ivors Academy Trust. Leathem said Johnson’s “commercial thinking, paired with deep industry knowledge” will be a great asset to the UK collective management organization.
Oak View Group welcomed Donna Freislinger Huffman as svp of global procurement. Reporting to CFO Ade Patton and president of premium experiences Josh Pell, Huffman will lead initiatives to streamline procurement, boost cost efficiency across OVG’s global footprint. Her responsibilities also include advancing supplier diversity and sustainability. Huffman brings over 20 years of experience from roles at United Airlines, Vanderbilt University and Hillrom, with a “track record for transforming sourcing organizations and driving enterprise-wide value,” said Patton.
Riser House Entertainment expanded its team with three key hires at the Nashville-based label and publisher. Alex Heimerman joins as vp of streaming and strategic partnerships, bringing experience from UMG Nashville, Red Light Management and The Trenches. Hayley Irvine becomes product manager, overseeing project execution after roles at BMG/Broken Bow Records. Eliza Charette steps in as project and label relations coordinator, supporting artist campaigns and operations, with priors at Madison Square Garden and Big Loud. All three report to Riser House president Jennifer Johnson and label manager Megan Schultz. “At Riser House, we don’t just chase trends — we build legacies,” said Johnson. “As our roster grows with some of the most authentic artists in music, it’s only fitting that our team grows too.”
NASHVILLE NOTES: Marketing agency Results Global launched a new four-person digital and social media division, led by Katrina Maddox, formerly head of digital at The HQ. Joining her are Lindsey Parrish, previously a marketing manager at MV2, and Tess Schoonhoven, who served as social media manager at Venture Music. Rounding out the team is Conner McEuen, appointed as paid media manager after his role as a paid social strategist at Zero Gravity Marketing … Bobbii Jacobs launched Wildflower Entertainment Group, a multifaceted company specializing in artist management, development, brand partnerships and talent booking. Alongside it, she introduced a sister venture, Backstage Access Presents, which focuses on curating VIP fan experiences. Jacobs brings extensive experience to the new ventures, having most recently served as partner and president at Forefront Networks.
IMAGINE, a Berlin-based creative studio specializing in music-driven storytelling, opened a new office in Paris as part of its European expansion. Marie Gleiss has been appointed head of expansion, and Maxence Janvrin joins as business development manager, both bringing deep ties to the City of Lights’s cultural scene. The duo will help advance IMAGINE’s mission of building brand connections through music-first strategies. Co-founder Shai Caleb Hirschson emphasized that music has the ability to foster brand recall and drive more than just clicks. “We’re not here to slap a jingle on a logo,” he said. “We create sound-first strategies that move people, inspire loyalty, and generate long-term brand value.”
Betsie Becker is officially the executive director of Berklee NYC, following her interim leadership since September 2023. Over the past two years, she has been instrumental in growing the campus’s leadership team, enhancing academic programs, and deepening community partnerships. Her achievements include appointing Merrily James and Daniel Pembroke to key roles and strengthening collaborations with NYC Public Schools, Carnegie Hall’s B-Side program and the Fashion Institute of Technology. Becker joined Berklee in 2019 as assistant vp for global program development and co-led the institution’s COVID-19 response. Her previous leadership experience includes roles at Juilliard, Decoda and Ensemble Connect.
Top Drawer Merch, a Los Angeles-based full-service merchandise company, appointed Claudia Peña as director of live events. In this role, she will lead the creation of immersive, attendee-focused brand activations at festivals, tours, and pop-ups, merging storytelling with commerce. Peña, founder of festival beauty brand Lunautics, brings experience in luxury retail and experiential marketing. Her hire follows Top Drawer’s success with events like SLANDER and Insomniac’s Starbase Festival.
BET has enlisted top talent to appear on its 25th annual BET Awards show, which will air live from Peacock Theatre at L.A. Live in Los Angeles on Monday, June 9, at 8 p.m. ET/PT on BET.
Comedian Kevin Hart is set to host the show. It’s his second time fronting the ceremony, having previously hosted in 2011.
Lil Wayne, Teyana Taylor, GloRilla, Playboi Carti and Leon Thomas are set to perform. GloRilla is one of this year’s leading nominees, with six nominations, including album of the year for Glorious. Playboi Carti has one of the most successful albums of 2025; Music (which was released after the eligibility period for the 2025 BET Awards ended) topped the Billboard 200 for three weeks in March and April.
Four top stars — Mariah Carey, Jamie Foxx, Snoop Dogg and Kirk Franklin — are set to receive the Ultimate Icon Award.
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Living legend Stevie Wonder joins the list of presenters and participants, along with Busta Rhymes, Ciara, Quinta Brunson, Kerry Washington, Keke Palmer and more, Billboard can exclusively reveal. Other participants include Tyler Perry and LeToya Luckett-Coles and Devon Franklin from the cast of Divorced Sistas, a spinoff of the BET comedy series Sistas. The spinoff is set to premiere on BET+ on June 10.
As previously announced, BET will celebrate the 25th anniversary of the launch of its music video countdown show 106 & Park with a special tribute. 106 & Park aired on BET from 2000-14. There are reports that a reboot of the show will premiere by September.
Kendrick Lamar leads the 2025 BET Awards nominations with 10 nods. Doechii, Drake, Future and GloRilla are tied with six nominations, Metro Boomin earned five, and SZA and The Weeknd are tied with four each.
Connie Orlando — evp of specials, music programming and music strategy at BET — serves as the executive producer for BET Awards 2025, with Jamal Noisette, svp of tentpoles and music community engagement, for BET. Jesse Collins Entertainment is the production company for the show, with Jesse Collins, Dionne Harmon and Jeannae Rouzan-Clay also serving as executive producers.
Performers
Lil Wayne
Teyana Taylor
GloRilla
Playboi Carti
Leon Thomas
Ultimate Icon Award recipients
Mariah Carey
Jamie Foxx
Snoop Dogg
Kirk Franklin
Presenters/Participants
LeToya Luckett-Coles (Divorced Sistas)
Devon Franklin (Divorced Sistas)
Tyler Perry
Keshia Chante (106&Park Tribute)
Terrence J (106&Park Tribute)
Free (106&Park Tribute)
Julissa Bermudez (106&Park Tribute)
DC YoungFly
Big Tigger (106&Park Tribute)
Crystal Renee
Busta Rhymes
Ciara
Tyler James Williams
Quinta Brunson
Drew Sidora (Cast of Run)
Marques Houston (Cast of Run)
Annie ilonzeh (Cast of Run)
Erika Pinkett (Cast of Run)
Erica Mena (Cast of Run)
Ken Lawson (Cast of Run)
Claudia Jordan (Cast of Run)
Kerry Washington
Deon Cole
Druski
Kai Cenat
Mariah the Scientist
Keke Palmer
LaLa Anthony
Diamond White
T.I.P.
Xavier Smalls
Ashley Nicole Moss
Cam Newton
Stevie Wonder
Tichina Arnold
Tisha Campbell
Take it from Sabrina Carpenter, dating can be like the Wild West — especially when so many eligible prospects turn out to be stupid, slow and useless. Or, in other words: a “Manchild.”
Following her new single’s release the day prior, the pop star dropped the hilarious music video for “Manchild” Friday morning (June 6). In the Vania Heymann and Gal Muggia-directed visual, Carpenter travels all over the American West by hitching rides with a diverse crop of men, whose only similarities are their propensities for odd modes of transportation and their inability to get the Grammy winner where she needs to go.
Barreling down the highway on the back of a jet ski, in a shopping cart attached to a motorcycle and on the arm of a motorized recliner chair, Carpenter repeatedly rolls her eyes and sings, “Stupid, or is it slow/ Maybe it’s useless/ But there’s a cuter word for it, I know/ Manchild/ Why you always come a-running to me?/ F–k my life/ Won’t you let an innocent woman be?”
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“it’s exactly what i pictured in my head,” the Girl Meets World alum wrote of the video on Instagram shortly after it dropped. “no animals were harmed in the making but some men were.”
Released Thursday (June 5), “Manchild” marks Carpenter’s first piece of new music since the Short n’ Sweet deluxe album brought forth bonus tracks “15 Minutes,” “Couldn’t Make It Any Harder,” “Busy Woman” and “Bad Reviews.” The original LP arrived in August and spent four weeks atop the Billboard 200, marking the musician’s first-ever No. 1 album on the chart.
According to Carpenter, she penned the track with songwriter Amy Allen and producer Jack Antonoff shortly after finishing Short n’ Sweet. “it ended up being the best random tuesday of my life,” the “Espresso” artist wrote on Instagram Thursday. “this song became to me something I can look back on that will score the mental montage to the very confusing and fun young adult years of life.”
Carpenter is currently on a short break from her Short n’ Sweet Tour, which kicked off last fall with a North American leg in September. This spring, she traveled across Europe on a run of dates that will pick back up with two performances at London’s Hyde Park in July, followed by another round of shows in the United States and Canada.
Watch the “Manchild” music video above.
When Tito Double P was deciding on a name for his debut album, he remembered a comment about him that had gone viral on social media.
“Tito se ve incómodo,” someone wrote, pointing out that Tito looked “uncomfortable” in a photo where he appeared in the background with other artists, including his superstar cousin, Peso Pluma.
“As a songwriter, a lot of artists would invite me to hang, and eventually, they would ask me for a song during those hangouts,” the 27-year-old musician explains with a smirk on his face. “But I was always in the background, looking very serious in photos and videos, and someone left that comment — I don’t remember if it was on TikTok or Instagram — and it got a bunch of likes. And from then on, whenever I uploaded a photo on social media, even if I looked happy, everyone would comment, ‘Se ve incómodo.’ It became a thing and I thought, ‘That’s what we should name the album — it will give people something to talk about.’ ”
Today, Tito Double P seems anything but incómodo. Last summer, his set of the same name shot to No. 1 on Billboard’s Top Latin Albums chart, dethroning Peso’s Éxodo, and earlier this year, Tito embarked on an arena and amphitheater tour — his first trek in the United States — for which his training included doing vocal and breathing exercises with a voice coach over the phone. With his No. 1 album and sold-out tour, Tito, who only just launched his career as an artist last year, has gone from songwriter to superstar-in-the-making.
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“There’s no manual for that, and it’s not an easy process to go from songwriter to singer,” the Sinaloa, Mexico-born artist reflects. “At first, it was always ‘Peso Pluma’s cousin’ or ‘That guy writes for Peso.’ Eventually, I finally became Tito Double P.”
Tito (born Roberto Laija) penned some of Peso’s early hits, including “El Belicon,” “Siempre Pendientes,” “PRC” and “AMG,” all of which catapulted onto the Hot Latin Songs chart in 2022 and helped usher in a global era for corridos and regional Mexican music in general. They also helped Tito become the genre’s most in-demand songwriter, which in turn laid the groundwork for his evolving career. He could have kept to songwriting, but Tito wondered what would happen if he released his own music on indie label Double P Records, which Peso and his manager/business partner, George Prajin, co-founded.
“First I said, ‘Let me release one song,’ because I kind of thought nothing would happen. But then it became a hit, so I released another one and then another,” he says. “The team asked me if I was going to be a singer or a songwriter and I said, ‘Let me record an album and see what happens.’ I also remember thinking that I wouldn’t tour, I’d just release music. But after performing onstage, now I don’t want to get off. I never thought this would happen to me.
“I went from songwriter to singer to artist in less than a year,” he explains, still sounding somewhat awed by his rapid ascent.
With his charming boy-next door personality, hoarse vocals, in-your-face delivery and unique writing style — which he compares to writing rap songs because he adds “too many words” and records in double-time — Tito stands out among música mexicana’s ever-growing field of emerging artists. He scored his debut Billboard chart entry as an artist with “Dembow Bélico,” a collaboration with Joel De La P and Luis R. Conriquez that hit No. 35 on Hot Latin Songs in July 2023. His first top 10 arrived a little less than a year later with the Joel De La P and Peso collaboration “La People II.” Overall, Tito has seven career entries on the all-genre Billboard Hot 100 and 23 career entries on Hot Latin Songs; Incómodo — which ruled Top Latin Albums for nine nonconsecutive weeks — reached No. 11 on the Billboard 200 last October. Tito closed 2024 at No. 15 on the year-end Top Latin Artists list, with 1.7 billion on-demand official streams in the United States, according to Luminate.
Tito says Peso is proud of his accomplishments — even if they’ve dethroned him on the charts. “He was proud and like, ‘¿Qué onda?’ [What’s going on?], at the same time,” he recalls with a gentle, almost timid smile as he remembers Peso’s reaction to Incómodo hitting No. 1 on Top Latin Albums. “It’s never a competition between us. To be honest, he was like, ‘Better you than anyone else to take me out.’ ”
That reflects the ethos at Double P Records, whose roster also includes Deorro, Dareyes de la Sierra and Jasiel Nuñez.
“The artists on the label get together in the studio to show each other what we’re working on and get feedback like, ‘That idea is great,’ or ‘I like the lyrics but not the tune.’ We share everything, from the producers we’re working with to writing together and collaborating. We’re like a family,” Tito says. “And we also get to be our own bosses. There’s no set timeline of when I have to release a song. We have so much freedom.”
Tito is gearing up for future projects to maintain his momentum, including “tons of new music” with which he plans to shift from corridos singer to writing and recording songs about desamor (heartbreak). He also has an upcoming joint EP with Peso: “We have a lot of songs, but we’re still working on it because I was on tour and he had his own projects — but something big is coming with [Peso],” he teases of the project, which has no set release date.
Tito’s life has changed so much over the last year — but there’s still one moment in particular that reminds him of his growth. “One time, when Peso was just starting, he asked me to go do an interview with him because he didn’t want to go alone,” he recalls. “Literally no one knew who I was at the time, and I just sat there next to him, didn’t say a word, until the interviewer asked me, ‘And who are you?’ And I quickly responded, ‘Oh, no, I’m just his cousin.’ Today, I’m much more loose, more comfortable. Like, it’s still me but just more mature, motivated and grateful for everything that has happened and for what is coming.”
This story appears in the June 7, 2025, issue of Billboard.
On Friday (June 6), Lil Wayne continued his beloved decade-spanning series, Tha Carter, with the installment’s sixth entry. With a career built on longevity, evolution and unrelenting dominance, Wayne’s career arc is rare, but similar to that of another cultural titan: the Black Mamba, the late NBA great Kobe Bryant.
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Kobe defied physics with his aerial acrobatics and rim-rocking jams. Wayne trounced his competition with punishing punchlines and steely wordplay.
Like Wayne, Bryant’s early beginnings were rocky. Drafted by the Charlotte Hornets in the 1996 NBA Draft, a 17-year-old Bryant was traded to the Los Angeles Lakers for Vlade Divac. Bryant, who was a heralded high school phenom at Lower Merion in Philadelphia, was relegated to the bench his rookie season, backing up Eddie Jones. His minutes were inconsistent. He averaged a putrid six points per game. He shot four airballs in a crucial playoff game against the Utah Jazz. Lakers head coach Del Harris wasn’t keen on playing the rookie, though fans saw the spark. When Bryant showed glimmers of greatness, even in small increments, we stopped and took notice.
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Wayne’s career started earlier than Bryant’s. He signed with Cash Money at 11, before dropping Tha Block is Hot at 17. Powered by Juvenile, B.G., and Turk, Wayne was a young upstart, sliding in as an edgy wildcard capable of pouncing on any beat with ruthless intentions. Raw and unpolished, Wayne’s swaggering energy was the catalyst for hits like “Bling Bling” and “We on Fire.” Before vaulting into superstar territory, Wayne was a quintessential role player, playing alongside starry teammates — most notably, Juvenile. Juvie enjoyed a fruitful run in the late ’90s, courtesy of his RIAA-certified 4x platinum album 400 Degreez, and the success of “Ha” and “Back That Thang Up.” Like Bryant, who played alongside three all-star caliber talents in Jones, Nick Van Exel and Shaquille O’Neal, Wayne bided his time behind rap vets. But, when Wayne and Bryant’s names were called, neither flinched under the bright lights.
For both superstars, it wasn’t about endorsements and commercials. Their wins didn’t happen overnight. They trudged through the mud, battled against rivals, and tried to usurp their idols. Kobe had MJ. Wayne had Jay. Still, their admiration never blurred their undying ambition: Bryant’s “Mamba Mentality” was fueled by obsessiveness. After thousands of hours in the film room, Bryant’s level of authority on the court mirrored Wayne’s unmatched studio effort.
When Bryant delivered masterclasses on how to be clutch, Wayne taught MCs how to be prolific, dropping thousands of songs with charm and wit. Bryant was considered a flashy dunker, a human highlight reel devoid of a jumper. With hard work and dedication, he became a gutsy shot-taker, a five-time NBA champion, and spiritual backbone for a dynasty. As for Wayne, he flipped the script from being a Hot Boy sidekick to a mixtape monster and later a rap icon, all without a pen. Wayne and Bryant scoffed at their respective scouting reports during their rookie years and rewrote their legacies.
From Bryant’s nine-game streak of 40 points in February 2003 to his sacred 81-point game in January 2006, to even his seven-game winners in the 09-10 season, he was considered the gold standard of the NBA’s first decade of the 21st century, while Wayne’s Carter series and fiery mixtape run with Da Drought and Dedication simultaneously had him in the Best Rapper Alive category.
Kobe chased NBA greatness. Wayne chased lyrical immortality. Different courts. Same mentality.
