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From Mariah Carey‘s iconic gold Emancipation of Mimi gown to Destiny’s Child‘s grown and sexy Destiny Fulfilled… and Lovin’ It tour looks, 2005 was stacked with memorable fashion moments across pop culture. As the midpoint of the ’00s decade, 2005 housed the last vestiges of Y2K style before the culture slowly began its transition into more […]
HipHopWired Featured Video
Source: Venla Shalin / Getty
Mass Appeal just shook the game with a major announcement: they’re set to drop seven albums from rap legends in 2025, and it’s a celebration of Hip-Hop’s golden era like never before.
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Fans can expect brand-new projects from some of New York’s most iconic names, including Nas & DJ Premier, Ghostface Killah, Mobb Deep, Raekwon The Chef, Big L, and De La Soul. As for the seventh artist? Mass Appeal is keeping that under wraps, but they’ve promised a surprise that’ll be well worth the wait
One of the most anticipated projects in the lineup is Ghostface Killah’s “Supreme Clientele 2“, the long-rumored sequel to his 2000 classic. For years, fans have speculated whether this project would ever see the light of day, and now, it’s officially on the way. Meanwhile, fellow Wu-Tang legend Raekwon “The Chef” will be serving up heat on his upcoming album Emperor’s New Clothes, which is expected to deliver the gritty lyricism he’s known for.
Mass Appeal isn’t just looking to drop music, their goal is to honor the legacy of artists who’ve shaped the culture with timeless contributions. That’s why two of the first albums will pay tribute to fallen legends Prodigy of Mobb Deep and Trugoy The Dove of De La Soul, bringing fans new music that carries their spirits forward.
To top it all off, a posthumous album from Big L is also on the way, a rare and exciting treat for fans of the Harlem MC whose legacy still looms large in hip-hop history. Mass Appeal is clearly on a mission to blend nostalgia with fresh energy, and 2025 might just be a legendary year for rap.
More than three decades after The Bodyguard cemented Whitney Houston as a movie star, a remake is in the works — and Tyra Banks thinks Taylor Swift is the modern-day pop star who can fill the icon’s shoes this time around.
While guest-hosting a recent episode of Today With Jenna & Friends, the supermodel revealed that — as a big fan of the original movie — she’d love to see the Eras Tour headliner take over Houston’s role as famous musician Rachel Marron in the new film. “I’m so beyond excited,” Banks began of the announcement earlier this month that Warner Bros. is developing a revamped Bodyguard. “That movie is everything.”
When co-host Jenna Bush Hager asked her who should star in the flick, Banks replied, “I think Taylor Swift, because business, commerce, art.”
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And? “She would freaking sell like crazy,” the America’s Next Top Model host added.
As for who should step into Kevin Costner’s shoes as the leading lady’s titular protector, Banks thinks a certain British actor could balance out an onscreen duo with the “Fortnight” singer. “Okay, I’m just gonna be real. I’m a Black girl,” she said. “It was Whitney Houston as a Black girl and Kevin Costner as a white man. What if we flipped it, and it was Taylor Swift and Idris Elba?”
Of her idea for the pairing, Banks excitedly added that Swift and the Beast star would be “hot!”
Directed by Mick Jackson and released in 1992, The Bodyguard marked Houston’s first starring role in a film after she’d already scaled to the top of the charts as a pop star. Its corresponding album remains one of the best-selling soundtracks of all time, spending 20 weeks at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 and spawning Houston’s timeless, Billboard Hot 100-topping rendition of Dolly Parton’s “I Will Always Love You.”
And though casting details for the upcoming remake remain unknown, Swift — who’s previously acted in films such as The Giver (2014), Cats (2019) and Amsterdam (2022) — does already have a connection to the project. Sam Wrench, who directed her blockbuster Eras Tour concert film, will be helming the new Bodyguard, as reported by Deadline on April 11.
Watch Banks share her thoughts on the upcoming Bodyguard remake above.
Sean Ono Lennon is confident that the One to One: John & Yoko documentary “is going to be very revelatory for everybody who sees it. For sure.”
Present company excepted, however. “I do think I know my parents pretty well,” says Ono Lennon, who co-executive produced the film (along with Brad Pitt and others) and served as its music producer. “I knew about that time. It was only a couple years before I was born. My mother spoke about it a lot. I know a lot about their story, including (this time period), so I would not frame it that I learned something necessarily.”
Other viewers, however, will get a thorough look into one of the most dramatic 18-month periods in the couple’s lives — which, for anybody who knows about them, is saying something — from their move to New York City’s Greenwich Village in 1971 to the One to One benefit concert at Madison Square Garden on Aug. 30, 1972, Lennon’s only full-length performances after the Beatles’ 1970 split. One to One premiered at the Venice Film Festival last August, also showing at the Telluride Film Festival and Sundance Film Festival before its IMAX rollout on April 11. One to One opens wide in theaters starting April 18 and will stream on Max later this year.
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Directed by Kevin Macdonald and distributed by Magnolia Pictures, One to One employs a montage-style collection of footage and sound recordings (some provided by the John Lennon Estate) to present Lennon and Ono primarily in their own words, without third-party narration. “Certainly Kevin and myself were sitting around in a room for quite a few weeks, scratching our heads — not in a bad way — deciding what direction we wanted to go in,” says co-director and editor Sam Rice-Edwards. “We didn’t want to make just another Beatles or Lennon documentary; there’s plenty out there, and this needed to be original and fresh.
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“Kevin came up with the concept of presenting the world as John and Yoko would have seen it in 1972; we felt if you did that, and we also spent time with them, in a way, that was really what people hadn’t done before. We found moments where we felt like the camera wasn’t on them…which gave us a fresh look at John and Yoko and allowed (the viewer) to be with them in a way you hadn’t before.”
Ono Lennon — who acknowledges that left to his own devices “I probably would’ve made a live concert film” — felt the approach was “really effective in telling their story. It’s not easy to maintain such a complex story, but (One to One) does it very beautifully. If it was narrated it would’ve been more of an op-ed. This is a true documentary in that it allows the subjects to tell their own story.”
Using other period footage — snippets of TV shows, commercials, news footage, etc. — to provide a context for the time, One to One finds Lennon and Ono embroiled in strident political activism, including an association with Jerry Rubin, that made them targets for FBI surveillance and, ultimately, attempts to deport Lennon by the administration of then-President Richard Nixon. “It’s really a beautiful story because you realize they were willing to risk everything, their careers and even their personal safety, to fight for their political and moral beliefs,” Ono Lennon says. But, he adds, only to a point.
“I think an important message to glean from the film has to do with the way my parents reacted to the more extreme elements of the radical activists they were working with at the time,” he explains. “At a certain point they realized the people they we working with, or some of them — Jerry Rubin specifically — were proposing to do things that were not necessarily aligned with my parents’ philosophy of pacifism and peace and love. You witness the trajectory of my parents experimenting with the radical groups and then realizing that they’d sort of gone too far, and they had to pull back — not just because it became dangerous for them but because people who were arguing for potentially violent activism were basically becoming as bad as the people they were fighting, which is really an important message for today, too.”
Ono Lennon says that as a youth his mother spoke frequently about that particular time, including being “freaked out” about the FBI wiretaps on the couple’s phones. “My early childhood was chaotic, obviously, and a lot of stuff that was happening in the film, the echoes were still resounding throughout my childhood,” he recalls — which includes the FBI planting an agent with the family after Lennon’s assassination in 1980. He adds that Ono “never believed activism was worth losing your life over. She always felt like it’s important to protect yourself so you can keep on doing good. If you’re not alive, what’s the point? Some people glamorized certain revolutionary kinds of characters willing to resort to violence. She never admired those people, and I don’t, either.”
The grail find for the One To One documentarians was an unlabeled box of reel-to-reel tapes that held recordings of Lennon and Ono’s phone calls, which they began making when they discovered their lines were bugged. The conversations, with manager Allen Klein as well as a variety of employees and friends, were discovered by Simon Hilton, vice president of Multimedia Projects for the Lennon Estate, amidst the Lennon archives in New York. Rice-Edwards recalls that “we knew pretty quickly this was really important. Listening to John and Yoko, or the people around them, when they thought they weren’t being listened to was extremely revealing about who they were. And a lot of what they were talking about in the phone calls was relevant to events we were covering in the film.” Ono Lennon, meanwhile, considers the tapes “a pot of gold,” for the film as well as for himself.
The One to One concert materials have been released before, but Ono Lennon and the filmmakers went to great pains to correct shortcomings from the original source material, which was initially released as a TV special directed by Steve Gebhardt and featured appearances by some of the other acts, including Stevie Wonder, Roberta Flack and Sha Na Na. “There was some really crazy camera work,” Rice-Edwards says. “A lot of people working on the film, the camera people, were really high, so we had to work with that. But there was some really great stuff as well. That fact it was shot on film originally — in lovely 35mm — helped, and it was certainly good. We just treated it in the right way and made it the best we could.”
On the audio side, Ono Lennon found that “the recordings themselves were quite chaotic…. There were mics that were misplaced, and a lot of mics were moved between the matinee and evening shows. It seems like things were done in an improvised and last-minute manner. But we didn’t mind because it was more fun to have the challenge. I don’t want to give away too many of the tricks. I think there’s a reasonable amount of movie magic in there, let’s put it that way; it was a great time, technologically speaking, for us to reinvestigate the mixes. We have more tools than ever to bring out the best and turn down what’s undesirable. It did take a lot of work to get it where it is now, but that was part of the joy of doing it.”
He did come away with favorites among the performances, including sharpening the mixes of “Cold Turkey” and “Come Together” and hearing his father’s performances of the song “Mother.” “To see him sing that song, which is a very different style from Beatles music…His voice is so incredible and so moving,” Ono Lennon says. “It’s kind of shocking, honestly, and it’s very sweet as well…very vulnerable, but also powerful at the same time.”
His mother’s aggressive rendition of “Don’t Worry Kyoko” also resonated with him. “She had several styles (of music), but ‘Don’t Worry Kyoko’ is the more challenging, punk rock stuff…there wasn’t even (punk rock) yet. Some people might not have liked listening to it on the stereo, but when you see the show and see the audience live, it really does translate. It’s all about the energy, and the groove is there. It’s undeniably rockin’.” He adds that Ono, retired at 92, was not deeply involved with One to One but is “not unhappy with anything” about the film.
ONE TO ONE: JOHN & YOKO
Courtesy of Magnolia Pictures
Ono Lennon has finished work on a One to One soundtrack release slated for Oct. 9 in several formats and packages. The full two concerts will definitely be part of it, while additional performance content from the period — such as songs from Lennon and Ono’s stint on The Dick Cavett Show during September 1971 — is currently being discussed and licensed.
“Whatever we can put on we’re putting on,” says Ono Lennon, who’s also finishing work on a new album of his own. “I think we’ll put on basically everything that would make sense to put on it…to satisfy the hardcore fans.”
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Wallo267 continues to live in his purpose. He recently discussed how he saved an allegedly suicidal man from jumping off a bridge to his death in Philadelphia.
As spotted on TMZ, the media personality was recently in Beverly Hills for business. The celebrity website caught up with him while he was on foot and he made it clear it was his duty to assist. “I was driving, I just came from the airport in Philadelphia. And in the process of me driving, I seen a brother right there, two police officers was there,” Wallo267 told the reporter. “He was going through a lot of depression. A lot of family issues, lost his mother, niece, just a lot,” he explained. “Just totaled a car. I had a chance to get up close on him, called some of his family members, got him on a FaceTime. We was able to help him come down, so it was a blessing. He was going through a lot.”
Wallo267 also added that the local authorities on the scene were not able to truly connect to the man. “I think sometimes when you’ve got the complexion for connection and you see your people in the community. There’s some support there.” He went on to speak to his family directly after the successful intervention. “I think finding people to talk to and getting the right help, I think that’s the best thing you can do,” Wallo said.
You can see Wallo267 talk about the situation with TMZ below.
The ban on narcocorridos in certain Mexican states have most recently caused chaos at a Luis R Conriquez show in Texcoco, a city in the State of Mexico just 15 miles outside Mexico City.
“There are no corridos. What do we do? Should I just go home instead?” Conriquez, who pioneered the regional Mexican subgenre corridos bélicos, told the rowdy crowd that protested his firm stance on not performing corridos that night. He was following the rules and regulations established by Texcoco, a municipality that, since April 9, prohibited expressions that glorify violence following the implementation of a law targeting mass events.
“It feels awful not to be able to sing what people want to hear, but we join the cause of zero corridos,” the Sonora-born artist added, stirring up a strong reaction by the audience who booed him, threw punches and caused significant damage to the venue, ending the show abruptly. (Read Conriquez’s exclusive interview with Billboard detailing exactly what happened that night.)
Corridos are a style that dates back to the Mexican Revolution in the early 20th century. Over the past few decades, the subgenre has birthed various iterations, including corridos bélicos, corridos alterados, corridos verdes, corridos tumbados and narcocorridos, to name a few.
While Conriquez’s situation has sparked mass media attention, the ban on narcocorridos, songs that often name-check Mexican drug kingpins or cartel figures, goes way back to the 1970s, when Los Tigres del Norte ushered a new era for corridos. Since, calls for censorship of this popular style of music — which has only gone global over the past few years thanks to a new generation of hitmakers, including Gerardo Ortiz, Peso Pluma, Natanael Cano and Conriquez — have only intensified.
Sinaloa was among the first states in Mexico to call for a ban on narcocorridos in the 1980s. Other states followed in efforts to regulate or control the diffusion of narcocorridos. Today, 10 (out of 32) states in Mexico have implemented bans and limitations on the broadcasting of corridos in public spaces, including Baja California, Chihuahua, Guanajuato, Quintana Roo, Nayarit, Jalisco, Michoacán, Aguascalientes, Querétaro and Estado de México. Without a federal law, the local government would apply penalties that range from fines or up to one year in prison to those who play music that advocates violence.
“This censorship has followed regional Mexican music for many years but in reality, it reflects what happens every day in our environment,” Rafael Valle, programming director of Guadalajara radio station La Ke Buena, previously told Billboard. “If the song says some word that is not allowed on the radio, obviously we modify the song, but we don’t censor it because that would mean not playing songs that people are constantly requesting.”
States have gone so far as to banning actual artists from performing in certain cities. In 2012, Los Tigres were “indefinitely banned” from Chihuahua after the norteño band sang narcocorridos during a weekend concert there. “We ask concert organizers and the artists themselves to think about the difficult situation the country is in,” government officials said then. Murders and drug-related violence linked to organized crime in Mexico continues to engulf the country today.
This year alone, a number of new bans have taken into effect in Mexico and have even expanded into the U.S. In an unprecedented move, the U.S. State Department canceled work and tourist visas of Mexican corrido group Los Alegres del Barranco after they displayed images of the leader of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG), Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes, also known as “El Mencho,” during a concert on Saturday (March 29) at an auditorium at the University of Guadalajara.
Below, see Billboard‘s updating timeline on state and federal actions against narcocorridos implemented this year in Mexico, and their impact on Mexican artists.
January 5, 2025
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Sorry Hunger Games participants but it seems like the highly anticipated redo of the now infamous Fyre Festival will no longer be taking place this coming May.
Months after Billy McFarland announced that he was indeed going to hold a sequel to the abomination of a festival from 2017 that left whatever reputation Ja Rule had remaining in shambles, ABC News is reporting that McFarland is no longer going through with the festivities and has actually refunded ticket buyers their money without any word if Fyre Festival 2 will be happening at all.
While we’re sure that ticket holders are disappointed that they won’t be living it up in Mexico (at least it isn’t an island this time), we can’t help but feel some of them must have let out a sigh of relief as there was always that possibility that Fyre Festival 2025 could’ve gone just as left as it did in 2017 except with tacos this time.
ABC News reports:
A message sent to a ticket holder said, “The event has been postponed and a new date will be announced. We have issued you a refund. Once the new date is announced, at that time, you can repurchase if it works for your schedule.”
At the time, McFarland said a statement, “I’m sure many people think I’m crazy for doing this again. But I feel I’d be crazy not to do it again.”
“After years of reflection and now thoughtful planning, the new team and I have amazing plans for FYRE 2,” he added.
Like the initial Fyre Festival event, McFarland’s Fyre Fest 2 promised “an electrifying celebration of music, arts, cuisine, comedy, fashion, gaming, sports, and treasure hunting — all set in the stunning location of Isla Mujeres, Mexico,” according to the event’s website.
Honestly, it was probably for the best. McFarland just spent four years in prison for his first Fyre Festival f*ckery, so if he decided to pull the plug on the sequel it was probably because he felt it could land him back in the slammer. Just sayin’.
It definitely didn’t help that McFarland apparently didn’t have permission to even host the event on the Isla Mujeres (Island of Women) in Mexico.
Bernardo Cueto, tourism secretary of the State of Quintana Roo, where Isla Mujeres is located, told ABC News over a phone call that his agency would be the one giving permission for that kind of festival, but Fyre Fest 2 was not something he was informed about, nor was an event by that name happening in Playa del Carmen or Isla Mujeres.
Yeah, McFarland definitely wanted to avoid another possible investigation that could lead him right back into the bing and with $1,400 a ticket. He was going to raise some more eyebrows if things went left again.
What do y’all think about Fyre Festival 2 being canceled? Did attendees avert another disaster? Let us know in the comments section below.
This week, Billboard is publishing a series of lists and articles celebrating the music of 20 years ago. Our 2005 Week continues here with a conversation with veteran film star Eric Roberts about starring in three of the biggest videos of 2005 — including the clips for two of our editorial staff’s top three songs of the year.
Twenty years ago, Eric Roberts was a three-time Golden Globe-nominated actor who was starring on an ABC sitcom (Less Than Perfect) and frequently linked to his Oscar-winning little sister, fellow film star Julia Roberts. But 2005 marked a turning point in his career, when he starred in a trio of music videos that would introduce the prolific actor to a whole new generation: The Killers’ “Mr. Brightside,” and Mariah Carey’s two-part “It’s Like That” and “We Belong Together.”
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In all the videos, he portrayed a shady character who stood in the way of the true love stories at the heart of the storylines. For The Killers, he was the handsome, leering stranger who was keeping frontman Brandon Flowers from a burlesque dancer played by actress Izabella Miko. For Carey, he was a controlling record-exec beau (hint, hint) who was keeping Mimi from the impeccable buzzcut of Prison Break star Wentworth Miller.
He made the absolute most of his limited screen time – memorably taunting Flowers during a contentious game of checkers in the Sophie Muller-directed “Mr. Brightside” and wearing abject heartbreak across his face as Carey left him at the altar in the Brett Ratner-helmed “We Belong Together.”
The Killers “Mr. Brightside”
Courtesy Photo
In honor of 2005 Week, Billboard caught up with Roberts (with a cameo from his actress wife Eliza Roberts for some extra context) to chat about starring in the videos for our No. 1 and No. 3 picks for the staff’s 100 Best Songs of 2005 list and what he remembers about that surreal time — and about the new video he just shot with a star artist of today.
Let’s rewind back to 2005 for a minute. What do you remember about being asked to do The Killers’ “Mr. Brightside” video?
Eric: Well, I turned it down at first, because I don’t do videos. I didn’t know anything about them, so I just said no — just kind of a knee-jerk response. And then all my kids called me and said, “What are you doing? You can’t do that! It’s The Killers!” So they told me to call them back and to say I’m available. So I did, and [director] Sophie Muller took me.
Smart kids. What do you remember about that set and about filming with the band?
Eric: It was kind of insane. It was kind of nutty and all over the place, and I never really knew what I was doing or what I was playing, and I just let Sophie boss me around.
Was there a script or a storyboard, or was it very much like, you get into this world and on this set and kind of react in real time?
Eric: I don’t remember ever seeing a script or ever seeing a storyboard, so I don’t know.
Eliza: Yes, there was a storyboard, and it was pretty elaborate, because remember: Sophie had to wrangle these dancers and performers, singers and artists, and an actor who’s used to linear material, scripted, and she had a vision in her head. But within that, she allowed a lot of freedom. She had a lot of respect for what was going on. It’s true that there was never really an explanation, because when people talk about the story of a song, it’s very different from talking about the story of a book or a movie.
What do you remember about filming?
Eric: It was a great big, huge set, and it was cool. It was like a bar.
Eliza: Everyone wanted to come with us. It was so funny, because going from clueless to kind of realizing, like, “Oh, this is really something, it’s like a tipping-point thing.” Eric was doing a series with Zachary Levi at the time [the four-season ABC sitcom Less Than Perfect], and when Zach heard they wanted Eric in [The Killers’ video], Zach literally followed us to set just to see. Everybody showed up. And then we realized, “Oh, I guess we’re really lucky to be here.” But there was a vibe, definitely. I mean, Sophie creates a vibe, and what you saw on the screen was even more in in person.
In 2005, you also had a pair of videos with Mariah Carey. The “It’s Like That” video, which was released first, ends with a “To Be Continued” message, leading to “We Belong Together.” Were those filmed at one time?
Eric: Yeah, those were done at the same time.
What do you remember about that set and working with Mariah?
Eric: I remember her being a queen, just an absolute queen. How she looked, how she acted, her humor — she was a cool chick.
Eliza: She had this incredible two-story trailer, and everyone really wanted to be careful. They had parasols and they didn’t want to call her to set until the moment they needed her. And she was nothing like that! She didn’t require it at all. She kept making fun of everybody for that. She’s like, “What are you doing?” And totally accessible. It was just a fun, amazing set. It was kind of like two parts or two episodes of a series, but shot right at the same time.
Eric, you had initially said no to The Killers, and then obviously that was such a huge success. Did that lead to an easy yes when Brett Ratner came calling for the Mariah videos?
Eric: Why I ended up saying yes to everything is because of her [points to Eliza].
So Eliza and the kids basically talked you into all these music videos?
Eric: Yup, and I go, “OK.”
Eliza: First of all, Brett — we love Brett, and he’s a friend. We always say yes to him. He’s brilliant. But it was the same record label [The Killers and Carey’s songs were both released by Island]. So first Eric said, “Do you really want me to do another one of your artists so soon? I think you’re mistaken. You can’t possibly want that.” And I’m like, “Nope, that’s what they want.” And of course we’re not going to let him not do Mariah Carey. Plus he’s always been secretly in love with her a little bit.
Wait, Eric – can you confirm that part of the story?
[Eric shrugs]
Eliza: I’m outing him! I mean, she’s phenomenal. And he was like, “She’s so beautiful. I think I have a little crush on her.” And he doesn’t do many crushes. And then when we hired [Eliza’s son] Keaton’s then-girlfriend, who’s a makeup artist, [to work on the video] Eric’s like, “You don’t have to have Christina keeping an eye on me with Mariah!” [Laughs]
The Killers’ and Mariah’s videos were very different, but can you compare Sophie and Brett’s directorial styles at all?
Eric: They had something in common: Their sets are kind of mad. They’re kind of insane. They’re typically explosive. They’re fun sets to be on.
Eric, you also presented at the 2005 MTV Video Music Awards, the year “Mr. Brightside” won for best new artist in a video. Do you remember how you were feeling that night?
Eric: Vaguely, yeah. I remember being there. God, that was a generation ago, so it’s a little tough, but I was there. I don’t really remember having a feeling, I just remember being there.
And during your speech, you slipped in a shout-out to your stepson Keaton, who’s a musician…
Eliza: They kind of forgot to give us any copy or anything, because there was a lot of distraction. So that’s when we kind of put together our own and gave a shout-out to Keaton. I got a million texts suddenly from all kinds of people, some of them being like, “Oh, that took such chutzpah! What balls Eric has!” Like, everyone’s here to promote. Let’s not pretend that’s not the case, right? That’s what this is about, right? So might as well promote someone who’s up and coming, and not just people who don’t need promotion. I mean, come on, guys.
I think they struck it from the from the broadcast later… In the live show, it aired, but then in the repeat, they cut it.
You ended up introducing R. Kelly that night, who put on a wild “Trapped in the Closet” performance. Do you remember much about the performance that followed?
Eric: All went over my head.
Did you notice any big changes to your career or to your public image after appearing in these music videos?
Eric: The only really big change was kids knew who I was, and they never knew who I was before. I’d be in movie theaters, and these eight-year-old kids would say, “Hey, it’s you!” And I’d go, “Yeah, it’s me!” And it was shocking. Everywhere I went, little kids were following me. Yeah, it was fun.
I wondered which video you would get recognized for more.
Eric: Long-term, it was The Killers. But in the immediate, it was Mariah.
You know, in Billboard’s staff list of the 100 best songs of 2005, “We Belong Together” is at No. 3 and “Mr. Brightside” is at No. 1. How does it feel to be a big part of these songs that continue to have this legacy 20 years later?
Eric: Lucky, lucky, lucky. Fun to be a part of it.
You worked with The Killers again on the “Miss Atomic Bomb” video in 2012. What was it like reuniting with them?
Eric: What was funny about that was we were not in the same state as each other. When we shot that video, we were in different places. Crazy. [Eliza] arranged it all. In fact, it’s because of my wife that “Miss Atomic Bomb” got made, because it was not supposed to. Everything was against it. It wasn’t going to work. And she said, “I have an idea.” And she made it work.
Eliza: Eric was shooting in Detroit and I get a call from somebody, a producer, and he’s like, “Hey, we’re going to be doing a prequel to ‘Mr. Brightside.’ We want to know if Eric is available.” And I was like, “Of course he’ll do that! When?” And they’re like, “Day after tomorrow.”
Eric: I was like, what?
Eliza: Then he sends me the storyboard – without Eric, it can’t be done, right? What were you gonna do if I said no? Also, [original “Brightside” star] Izabella [Miko] was dancing in it and leaving for Europe the next day, so basically it had to be that day. So I was like, “Yes, he’ll do it. He’s not in town. Let’s figure this out.” And that director was an animator, and he’s amazing. So I asked his production, “I know you’re doing some green-screen work. I’m going to ship some clothes to you. I’m going to find someone to double Eric there.” I literally looked in the Yellow Pages.
Eric: She found a green-screener. Nicest guy in the world.
Eliza: A little guy who had a green screen [in Michigan], and after the film wrapped, Eric went there. He had no idea what he was doing. He put on his own white suit that I shipped there and smoked a cigarette and did his thing. So you see [Eric’s body double] reach for Izabella, and then she takes his hand and they do a little twirl, and they cut to Eric.
I hear that you just filmed a new video with Summer Walker as well, so your music video journey continues. What can you tell us about that one?
Eric: Summer Walker was the coolest. We had a lot of fun together, and it’s going to be a really good video. It’s going to shock you.
What does it take for you to say yes to a video now?
Eric: I just have to like the song and/or like the artist, and I’m in.
Speaking of which, what music are you into right now?
Eric: Well, you know, I’m a little bit biased, but I’m also very honest: Keaton Simons is my favorite singer/songwriter. He’s also my favorite guitar player. And it’s not because he’s him and I’m me. It’s because of his brilliant talent. You should listen to him; it’ll blow your mind. He’s mind-blowing, and I live for him musically. He toured for a year with Eric Clapton and now he’s with Brett Young.
And what’s next for you?
Eric: There’s a great movie out called Hippo, and it’s got three devastating performances in it. One of them is one of my favorite actors, and that’s my wife. It’s a miraculous movie. It’s not a picnic movie, but it is good.
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Source: Daniel LEAL / AFP / Daniel LEAL / AFP
The lawsuit filed by Drake against Universal Music Group was amended Wednesday (April 16) to include a new complaint, specifically that the music label used Kendrick Lamar’s Grammy wins and his Super Bowl halftime show performance of “Not Like Us” to promote the single and damage his reputation further. The new addition makes the suit 107 pages in total to account for new allegations.The new complaint states that the halftime performance by Kendrick Lamar, which was seen by 133 million people “including millions of children,” who had “never before heard the song or any of the songs that preceded it. It was the first, and will hopefully be the last, Super Bowl halftime show orchestrated to assassinate the character of another artist.” It goes on to allege that Kendrick Lamar purposefully excluded the word “pedophile” from the song, stating that “on information and belief” that he wouldn’t have been able to perform without that exclusion. The suit also claims that UMG caused intentional harm by negotiating the performance and promoting it afterward, as well as citing that the use of a photo of his Toronto home led to a shooting incident days after the release.The legal team for Drake also claimed that UMG CEO Lucian Grainge hugged and gave a high-five to Dr. Dre as “Not Like Us” played at the Grammy Awards (a YouTube clip of the interaction that was posted doesn’t have the song in the background, however) and that the crowd was singing along to “Not Like Us,” which would win Song and Record of the Year. Another allegation that remains is that bots were used by UMG to push the song on streaming platforms like Spotify. The claim was initially floated by an undisclosed person who appeared on DJ Akademiks’ show to claim he was paid to push the songs by Interscope.UMG issued a lengthy and bruising response to the amended complaint shortly after, writing in part: “Two weeks ago, his representatives celebrated a ‘win’: the granting of a routine discovery motion. That ‘win’ will become a loss if this frivolous and reckless lawsuit is not dropped in its entirety because Drake will personally be subject to discovery as well. As the old saying goes, ‘be careful what you wish for.’”
Ariana Grande is shedding light on how her Eternal Sunshine Deluxe: Brighter Days Ahead short film came together, with the pop star sharing behind-the-scenes footage on her YouTube channel Thursday (April 17).
Posted about three weeks after the project dropped — alongside the deluxe edition of Grande’s Billboard 200-topping Eternal Sunshine album — the video opens with the “Yes, And?” singer explaining the premise of her sci-fi-tinged visual. “This whole short film concept is basically about how when we’re young, sometimes we want to erase certain things, or rewrite certain things that feel painful in the moment,” she tells the camera, her neck and face made up to look like her skin was crudely stitched back together for one of the film’s Frankenstein-inspired scenes.
“But when we grow older, we would do anything to relive those moments, and we’re so grateful for them and for how they made us who we are and helped us become who we are today,” she continues.
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In the short film, Grande reprises her role as Peaches from the “We Can’t Be Friends (Wait for Your Love)” music video, this time several decades older and visiting the Brighter Days clinic to relive her old memories. Donning special makeup to make her look elderly, the Grammy winner watches herself as a child hanging out with her family, performing for thousands of fans, walking through the wreckage of a house she used to share with a romantic partner, and eventually getting abducted by a UFO.
The behind-the-scenes clip also features Grande giving fans a tour of the house set, pointing out her favorite details alongside co-director Christian Breslauer. It also gives fans a look at how they pulled off the UFO stunt, hooking the Wicked star up to special wires that hoist her up into the air.
Elsewhere in the new video, Grande explains the meaning behind a scene in which a crazed doctor — played by her real life father, Ed Butera — brings her back to life by injecting her with musical soundwaves. “My dad played the part of this mad doctor-scientist so beautifully,” she says over footage of the father-daughter pair filming the sequence. “The same thing that has made my life complicated in certain ways is also the same thing that heals me time and time again, and that is music.”
“It’s also been the most beautiful gift of my life and has always been the thing that has helped me heal — along with therapy and learning to take care of myself and boundaries,” she continues. “But time and time again, that’s always been the thing that puts me back together, as well as my family and healing those wounds as well. This is called when you have too many ideas and too many resources, it can go any which way.”
While sitting on the bed in one of the sets with Breslauer, Grande also gushes about how meaningful Eternal Sunshine has been to her. Originally released in March 2024, the project spent two weeks in the Billboard 200 top spot — to which it returned a year later with the deluxe release — and spawned two Billboard Hot 100-topping singles with “Yes, And?” and “We Can’t Be Friends.”
“I’m so grateful,” she tells the camera. “It’s my favorite album, and you’re my favorite director. These are my favorite videos, so yeah, we’re going to overdo it.”
Watch the behind-the-scenes video above.