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Alex Warren tops Billboard’s Streaming Songs chart in his first appearance, as “Ordinary” lifts 4-1 on the May 3-dated tally. “Ordinary” reigns with 21 million official U.S. streams earned in the week ending April 24, up 3%, according to Luminate. The song becomes the first No. 1 to rise to the top of the list, […]
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In a recent sit-down with Hip-Hop Wired, R&B group B5 dropped a bombshell about a major opportunity that slipped through their fingers, all because of label politics.
Back when they were signed to Diddy’s Bad Boy Records, Disney had a whole TV show lined up for them. The Mouse House was feeling their vibe heavy and even wanted to sign them to Hollywood Records. But when it came time to lock it in, Diddy wasn’t trying to let them go without a fat check.
“Disney had a show idea for us,” the group said. “But Bad Boy kind of shut it down. Disney wanted to sign us to Hollywood Records because we were doing so much with them. But Puff wanted a certain amount of dollars. That’s a big check.” Long story short, the deal fell through, and Disney took the whole idea and gave it to another group on the come-up, the Jonas Brothers.
The rest is history. The Jonas Brothers took that platform, ran with it, and became global pop stars. Meanwhile, B5 was left wondering what could’ve been. It’s a tough reminder of how the business side of the industry can block blessings, no matter how talented you are. B5 had the look, the sound, and the fanbase, but the bag wasn’t right for Diddy, and the door closed before it ever really opened.
One move changed everything. B5 missed out, and the Jonas Brothers cashed in. Check out the full conversation below.
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Major League Soccer, or MLS, is currently two months into its 2025 season, and fans in more than 100 countries and regions can sign up for MLS Season Pass to access every single soccer match with no blackouts. To make things even sweeter, the subscription service on Apple TV is now 30% off as of May 1 for season pass users.
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Season after season, MLS continues to grow in global recognition. Thanks to key acquisitions of superstar talent — such as Inter Miami’s Lionel Messi — the league has skyrocketed in popularity and is becoming home to elite footballers. Like Messi, MLS has also welcomed some well-known Premier League football stars into the mix, including David Beckham, Ashley Cole, Gareth Bale, Thierry Henry and Javier “Chicarito” Hernández over the years.
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With the competition continuing to level up, MLS and Apple TV are offering fans a way to catch all the premium pitch action with the MLS Season Pass. With a subscription, users gain access to every league match in a season, including the playoffs. It carries all matches live or on-demand right on the app, alongside in-depth coverage and analysis, and exclusive content. The subscription also includes access to coverage of the Leagues Cup, an annual mid-season competition open to all clubs from MLS and Mexico’s top division of men’s football, Liga MX.
If that wasn’t enough, the service has sweetened the deal by lowering its price for both non-Apple TV+ subscribers and Apple TV+ subscribers on May 1. For non-subscribers, the price is dropping from $99 to $69. For Apple TV+ subscribers, the cost will go down from $79 to $59. To note, these price drops only apply to the full season plan, not monthly plans. Also, if you’re a season ticket holder, one MLS Season Pass subscription will be included with your account at no additional cost. The free pass is available for one per account.
If you’ve been on the fence about making the plunge into the vast, exciting world of the MLS, kicking and screaming at your TV every weekend for Sunday Night Soccer, there’s no better time to grab a subscription. Subscribe here.
Want even more content? Apple TV+ has a great selection of original TV shows, including hit shows such as Severance, Your Friends and Neighbors, The Morning Show and Ted Lasso. The streaming service also has must-see music specials and concert series such as Soundbreaking, Behind the Music, 1971: The Year That Music Changed Everything, Jennifer Lopez’s Apple Music Live Concert, The Beatles: A Complete Anthology, Bruce Springsteen’s Letter to You and much more.
Bruce Springsteen: Backstage and Backstreets, produced by ABC News Studios, was nominated for outstanding arts, culture or entertainment coverage at the 2025 News & Documentary Emmy Awards. The nominations were announced on Thursday (May 1).
Springsteen has been nominated for three Primetime Emmys, but has yet to win. He was nominated for outstanding variety, music or comedy special for Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band (HBO, 2001), outstanding special class – short-form live action entertainment program for Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band Super Bowl Halftime Show (NBC, 2009) and outstanding variety special (pre-recorded) for Springsteen on Broadway (Netflix, 2019).
Springsteen has won 20 Grammys and an Oscar. He received a Special (honorary) Tony Award in 2018 to honor his show Springsteen on Broadway, which played in 2017-18 and again in 2021.
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Celine’s Story, an NBC News special with Hoda Kotb, Celine Dion’s first TV interview after being diagnosed with Stiff Person Syndrome, is nominated for outstanding edited interview.
As We Speak: Rap Music on Trial is nominated for outstanding arts and culture documentary. In the doc, which premiered on Paramount+ in February 2024, Killer Mike sat down with rapper Kemba to delve deeper into the criminalization of lyrics in hip-hop.
The 46th annual News & Documentary Emmy Awards honor programming that originally premiered in calendar year 2024. The 2,200 submissions were judged by a pool of more than 980 peer professionals from across the television and streaming/digital media news and documentary industry.
The 46th Annual News & Documentary Emmy Awards will be presented live at the Palladium Times Square in New York City, and will be streamed live on The Emmys website and via The Emmys apps for iOS, tvOS, Android, FireTV and Roku.
The awards will be presented in two ceremonies:
News ceremony – Wednesday, June 25, at 7 p.m. ET
Documentary ceremony – Thursday, June 26, at 7 p.m. ET
Here are the nominees in categories most relevant to the music community. The complete list of nominees is available on The National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences’ website:
Outstanding arts, culture or entertainment coverage
10 Million Names, ABC News Live, ABC
Bruce Springsteen: Backstage and Backstreets, ABC News Studios, ABC
“Finding His Voice,” CBS Sunday Morning, CBS
“Illegal Gambling,” Trafficked: Underworlds with Mariana van Zeller, National Geographic [Muck Media]
“The Last Heroes of Normandy,” ABC World News Tonight With David Muir and Nightline, ABC
“Netflix Is Betting Big on Latin America,” The Circuit With Emily Chang, Bloomberg
Outstanding arts and culture documentary
As We Speak: Rap Music on Trial, Paramount+ [MTV Entertainment Studios, District 33, Park Pictures, Strike Anywhere]
Butterfly in the Sky, Netflix [Sidestilt Films, Window Pictures, XTR]
Hollywood Black, MGM+ [Radical Media, Culture Machine, Significant Productions]
King Coal, POV, PBS [Narrow Vision Endeavors, Cottage M, Drexler Films, King Coal Productions LLC, Fishbowl Films]
Madu, Disney + [Disney Branded Television, Hunting Lane Films]
Outstanding edited interview
“Celine’s Story: An NBC News Special with Hoda Kotb,” NBC News Special Report, NBC News
“The Democratic Ticket,” 60 Minutes, CBS News
“Ketanji Brown Jackson,” CBS Sunday Morning, CBS
“Pope Francis,” 60 Minutes, CBS News
“Prisoner in Russia: The Brittney Griner Interview,” 20/20, ABC
Outstanding music composition – documentary
Billy & Molly: An Otter Love Story, National Geographic [Silverback Films]
“Dan Winters: Life is Once. Forever,” Photographer, National Geographic [Little Monster Films]
Endurance, National Geographic [A Little Dot Studios, Consequential, History Hit Production, Little Monster Films, National Geographic Documentary Films]
Frida, Prime Video [Imagine Documentaries, TIME Studios]
Mafia Spies, Paramount+ [CreativeChaos vmg]
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LeBron James is a future Hall of Fame inductee, and his historic feats could very well stand the test of time. However, LeBron James and the Los Angeles Lakers lost their first-round series in the NBA playoffs against the Minnesota Timberwolves, and fans online are piling on the slander.
LeBron James, who turned 40 in December, is still very much an elite NBA player, but his days of putting an entire team on his back appear to be all but over. Even with the offensive talents of Luka Doncic, King James couldn’t will the Lakers past the hungry Timberwolves, led by the explosive Anthony Edwards.
Because the Lakers are one of the NBA’s marquee teams, anything they do will be examined under a bright light. After trading their talented big man, Anthony Davis, to the Dallas Mavericks for Doncic, some believed that the team was poised to make a deep run. Adding to this, the Lakers were a higher seed than the Timberwolves, and Game 5 was thought to be a bounce-back game for the Lake Show.
What the Lakers didn’t expect to face was a rejuvenated Rudy Gobert, not exactly known as an offensive threat, but he led the Timberwolves in scoring with 27 points and hauled in 24 boards. Julius Randle poured in 23, and Edwards had 15 but also hauled in 11 rebounds and eight assists. Doncic led all scorers with 28, while James dialed in 22.
Because NBA fans live to pile on LeBron James whenever he loses, the jokes about his age and more have been relentless on X. We’ve got the responses listed below.
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Photo: Getty
Playing one-on-one with Kobe Bryant was a hooper’s dream while growing up, but that quickly turned into a nightmare for Bow Wow, who got shut out 10-0 when facing the Mamba Mentality.
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Bow Wow joined Club Shay Shay for an interview on Thursday (April 30), during which he reflected on having the chance to play Bryant one-on-one back in 2011 when Bow pulled up to the Lakers superstar’s day camp.
As far as the stakes, Bow had to pay $1,000 in cash if he lost, but if he could’ve just scored a single bucket on Bryant, the Hall of Famer would’ve gifted the Like Mike star a pair of floor seats to every home game for an entire season.
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“He took it for real. I left that gym and I said, ‘I will never play in the NBA, nor do I want to,’” Bow said before being pressed by Shannon Sharpe about how many points he scored. “None! He smothered me. He had his thumb in my waist. He was hand-checking.”
Bow continued: “He was telling me, ‘You’re gonna go wherever the f–k I want you to go.’ … What was so dope about the one-on-one was people got to see Kobe in a light that they never got to see Kobe in. You hear about the Mamba Mentality, but it’s tough to hear on TV. You hear ’em in the one-on-one … He talking to me crazy like I’m not Bow.”
Even though it’s been 14 years, Bow Wow still recalls the one chance he had to make an open jump shot, but Bryant’s 6’6″ frame closed quickly, and the glance at a clean basketball was gone within seconds. “By the time I raised up, it was no time. The way he closed out, that 6’6″ turned into 7’1,” he said.
Bryant ended up dishing out the $1,000 to his campers, and even with the loss, Bow has a memory he’ll cherish for a lifetime.
“That right there is like a bucket list [goal],” Bow Wow said. “Every kid would love to play Kobe Bryant one-on-one. And then for [his death] to tragically happen, that’s something I’m going to hold dearly to my heart.”
Bryant, his daughter Gigi and seven others were killed in a helicopter crash on Jan. 26, 2020. Bow Wow paid tribute to Kobe shortly after his death by posting a photo with his own daughter along with the hashtag “Girl Dad,” which went viral as Bryant was a father to four girls himself.
Watch the full interview and one-on-one game with Bow Wow below.
HANA‘s “ROSE” returns to No. 1 on the Billboard Japan Hot 100, logging its second week atop the tally released April 30.
The major-label debut single by the septet born from the No No Girls audition show dropped digitally on April 2 and debuted at No. 1 on the chart dated April 9. The CD version launched with 46,866 copies after being released April 23 and hit No. 3 for sales. The single ruled video views this week while coming in at No. 13 for downloads (2,741 units), No. 3 for streaming (8,369,460 streams), and No. 9 for radio airplay. The track has been dominating the video metric for four straight weeks.
&TEAM’s “Go in Blind” soars 66-2 this week, selling 620,541 CDs in its first week, marking the group’s biggest sales week to date. The track also ranks at No. 15 for downloads, No. 58 for streaming, No. 45 for radio, and No. 28 for video.
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Mrs. GREEN APPLE’s “KUSUSHIKI” follows at No. 3, down two notches from the week before. But the track continues to rule streaming for the third week in a row with 10,607,816 weekly streams.
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King Gnu’s “TWILIGHT!!!” rises 7-4. Streams for the Detective Conan: One-Eyed Flashback theme song are up to 227% (No. 4 for the metric), radio airplay to 280% and video views to 188% compared to last week. Mrs. GREEN APPLE’s “Lilac” follows at No. 5 on the Japan Hot 100, showing strength in karaoke, streaming and video, with karaoke holding the top spot for 16 consecutive weeks since the chart released Jan. 15.
The two debuts in the top 10 this week were CANDY TUNE’s second single, “Oshi Suki Shindoi” at No. 7 and RADWIMPS’ “Tamamono” at No. 9. The latter is the theme song for the ongoing NHK morning drama series Anpan.
The Billboard Japan Hot 100 combines physical and digital sales, audio streams, radio airplay, video views and karaoke data.
See the full Billboard Japan Hot 100 chart, tallying the week from April 21 to 27, here. For more on Japanese music and charts, visit Billboard Japan’s English X account.
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Lionsgate / 50 Cent Action Channel
50 Cent has another accomplishment to add to his ever-growing list. His action channel nabbed the number one spot on Roku and LG Channels.
Lionsgate announced that 50 Cent Action, the FAST channel curated by the Hip-Hop mogul, is the #1 action channel on both The Roku Channel and LG Channels and could find the same success on Sling TV’s Sling Freestream, which was just launched.
The channel features 50 Cent’s favorite premium films and television series, especially those in which he starred, such as Den of Thieves, The Expendables, and, of course, his hit crime drama Power, which has gone on to spawn a whole drug-dealing television universe, known as the Power Universe.
The Queens rapper, born Curtis Jackson, will be on hand at LG Ad Solution’s NewFronts presentation on Monday, May 5th, where he will participate in a live Q&A with the company’s CEO, Michael Hudes. During the session, he will discuss the success of his FAST channel and its future.
“This is the future of entertainment,” said Jackson. “It’s about making real connections. I’m hands on with everything and collaborating closely with Lionsgate – which has been a great partner – to give fans free, direct access to the best action movies and shows out there, all in one place. Fans can step into my world every time they turn on the channel.”
“50 Cent is a cultural icon with an unmatched connection to his audience,” said Jim Packer, Lionsgate’s President of Worldwide Television Distribution. “We’ve seen incredible momentum on the channel since launch, and our goal is to make 50 Cent Action one of the leading action destinations for fans and advertisers in the FAST Space.”
50 Cent continues to rack up the wins.
Kid Cudi is teasing his return with a new song called “Neverland.” On Thursday (May 1), Cudi shared a cryptic teaser on social media that merely shows some amusement park rides before posting the link to the rapper’s website. “Pre save NEVERLAND, my first single from my new album, NOW!” Cudi wrote on X. The […]
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May Day (May 1) is also known as International Workers’ Day and Labour Day in certain parts of the world, and it has particular resonance today, considering the current political climate. In America, protests are cropping up in an affront to President Donald Trump’s policies, and other protests around the world are in support of worker solidarity.
May Day’s roots were established in the late 1880s as the labor movement and unions advocating for better working conditions for laborers began to establish their presence. In America, protests in support of worker rights took place, and on May 4, 1886, in Chicago, a deadly bombing set off by anarchists left several people dead and dozens more injured. Union leaders decided from that point on that May 1 would be a day to honor those workers, and a sculpture sits today at Chicago’s Haymarket Square where the Haymarket Affair took place.
The wider focus of May Day is largely global, but there is a unifying message this year as the first 100 days of President Donald Trump’s second term just concluded. Within America, Trump’s policies have come under fire as some find his current path destructive and wanton. Outside of the States, organizers are protesting the Israel-Gaza conflict, working conditions, and more.
On X, May Day has been trending for much of the day, and we’ve got a series of posts to share below. To learn more about the day, click here.
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Photo: Remon Haazen / Getty
