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Charli xcx’s original idea has been turned into a film, which also features the British pop star playing a fictionalized version of herself, and A24’s The Moment released its first trailer on Thursday (Nov. 20).
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The chaotic teaser sees her diving into a reimagined version of her Brat era. Charli’s artist name and her 2024 album are used throughout the clip, which finds the singer preparing for her first arena world tour while navigating the turbulence of fame and a spotlight that’s burning brighter than ever.
“When I felt like people started to care about me, nothing else mattered,” Charli says in the trailer. “Nothing was more important than Brat.”
2026 is shaping up to be a busy campaign for Charli on the silver screen, with the Aidan Zamiri-directed movie coming to theaters on Jan. 30.
The Idol’s Rachel Sennott, award-winning actor Alexander Skarsgård and reality mogul Kylie Jenner are set to appear in the film alongside Charli. The rest of the cast includes Rosanna Arquette, Kate Berlant, Rish Shah, Jamie Demetriou, Arielle Dombasle, Hailey Benton Gates, Trew Mullen, Mel Ottenberg, Richard Perez, Isaac Powell, Shygirl and A. G. Cook.
The Moment serves as Zamiri’s feature directorial debut, while Charli xcx is on board as a producer through her Studio365 production company.
As far as the rest of her film endeavors, Charli xcx is slated to deliver multiple original songs for Emerald Fennell’s Wuthering Heights adaptation, and the first arrived with “House” earlier in November. The 33-year-old also notched roles in upcoming projects including Daniel Goldhaber’s remake of Faces of Death, I Want Your Sex, The Gallerist, 100 Nights of Hero and Sacrifice.
Watch The Moment‘s trailer below.
Trending on Billboard The Brothers Gibb had already enjoyed two fairly full career arcs as hitmakers by the time the Bee Gees surfaced for a third time in the mid-’70s — this time as Miami-dwelling disco dons. They got off to a pretty good start with a pair of Billboard Hot 100 No. 1 hits, […]
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The Weeknd‘s massive After Hours Til Dawn tour has racked up yet another huge record thanks to worldwide grosses topping $1 billion. According to a statement from Abel Tesfaye’s team, the grosses make the AHTD outing the top-earning tour by a male solo artist in history.
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The billion mark was crossed following the recent onsale dates for upcoming spring and summer 2026 dates in Mexico, Brazil, Europe and the U.K., which bumped the tour’s total ticket sales to more than 7.5 million to date across 153 shows since its July 14, 2022 kick-off at Lincoln Financial Field in Philadelphia.
In mid-August, Billboard Boxscore reported that at that point the tour had grossed $635.5 million and sold 5.1 million tickets since launching, making it the biggest R&B tour in history. That meant that AHTD easily overtook Beyoncé’s 2023 Renaissance World Tour, which took in $579.8 million over 56 shows. The Weeknd lapped Queen Bey when it crossed the $600 million mark following two return performances at Philly’s Lincoln Financial Field on July 30-31.
The gaudy numbers for AHTD made it the ninth tour to hit the $600 million and above mark, with the Weeknd the only R&B and Black artist on a list that features pop and rock acts including Elton John and Harry Styles. The Weeknd’s attendance at the shows is also a record-setter according to Billboard Boxscore, making him the only genre act and only Black artist to sell more than five million tickets on a single tour, as well as just one of eight to sell more than five million tickets and gross more than $600 million.
In addition to the record-setting box office figures, the singer’s team said to date the Weeknd has donated more than $8.5 million to his XO Humanitarian Fund as well as to Global Citizen, with additional proceeds from the 2026 dates set to continue supporting World Food Program Global Citizen.
After the 2025 North American stadium leg featuring 40+ sold out shows set highest attendance records by a Black male artist at venues in New York, Denver, Santa Clara, Seattle, Edmonton, Montreal, Orlando, Arlington and Houston, as well as breaking the all-time record for the most shows by a male solo artist on a single tour with six performances at Toronto’s Rogers Centre, the trek will continue next year with 40 more dates in Mexico, Brazil, Europe and the U.K. The next leg kicks off on April 20 with the first of three stop at Estadio GNP Seguros in Mexico City.
Max B is finally free after doing a prison bid that took him out of the limelight for 18 years, but it appears that the Silver Surfer is back on his board. In Max B’s quest to show and prove he’s still the waviest of them all, Boss Don Biggavelli says new music is on the way despite the landscape changing vastly since he’s been away.
Max B, 47, sat down with Billboard‘s Angel Diaz for a comfortable Q&A session that delved into the newly earned freedom for Wavy Crockett, running into Method Man at a recent New York Jets game, and more. However, fans of the influential Harlem star are wondering when the new drops are coming, and Max said it’s all in motion.
“It’s going to take me a little second to shake the rust off. I had went to the studio yesterday and the mic was sounding too perfect. So, it was a little throwing me off a little bit,” Max explained, this after showing a strong salute to how the game has evolved and the expansion of business opportunities.
He added, “So, once we got that right, we wind up doing like two joints or something, you know what I’m saying? Just to get the feel, and we going in there today.”
Max B explained that a project is on the way, but no definitive date was provided.
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Even before its release to streaming services, “I Run,” a dance/EDM track by the artist HAVEN., was a viral sensation online, amassing millions of plays on TikTok after it was teased on Oct. 10. “I love this song so much,” said one TikTok commenter. “DROP THIS RIGHT NOW PLEASEEEE,” commented another.
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For HAVEN., a new artist project from British producers Harrison Walker and Jacob Donaghue, who also makes music under the name Waypoint, it was the kind of debut that could change the trajectory of their lives. But now, a swirl of legal complaints and takedown notices have engulfed the song, resulting in it being removed and reuploaded to streaming services multiple times — and stopping its momentum just as it was poised to reach the Billboard charts.
The frenzy of activity around “I Run” prompted multiple A&Rs at major and independent music companies to look into signing the track and the people that created it as it awaited official release. It also caught the attention of the popular UK R&B singer Jorja Smith. The uncredited female vocalist on “I Run” sounded eerily similar to Smith, prompting the singer to to post a video of herself on TikTok using it. She asked in the caption: “who actually is this?” and noted in a reply to a comment “it’s not meeeee” when fans asked if she sang on the track or if it was AI. (The video has since been deleted). Around that time, HAVEN. jumped in, adding #jorjasmith to a now-deleted social post about the song, according to a member of their team. “It was more so just embracing that it does sound like her,” a spokesperson for HAVEN. said. “It became an organic trend.”
That’s when questions started circulating about the origins of HAVEN.’s viral track — and whether or not it was an unauthorized AI deepfake of Smith’s voice. Ultimately, the song was released in late October by Isekai Records, Broke Records and AAO Records, and it continued to amass major listenership — so much so that it quickly reached #11 on the U.S. Spotify chart and #25 on Spotify globally. Meanwhile videos using the song kept going viral on social media, including one in which the rapper Offset apparently played the song during a Boiler Room DJ set, with the video overlaid with text that said, “Unreleased Jorja Smith.” (The song was not actually used during Offset’s recent Boiler Room set.)
Just as the song was taking off, it was taken down from streaming services. The Orchard — to whom Smith is signed — as well as the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) and International Federation of the Phonograph Industry (IFPI), issued dozens of takedown notices for “I Run” upon its official release, according to screenshots of the notices, alleging various issues with the song, including that the song “misrepresents” another artist and that it constitutes copyright infringement.
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As a result of the dispute, the song has also been withheld from the Billboard charts, including the Billboard Hot 100, on which some chart prognosticators had predicted it would debut this week. Billboard reserves the right to withhold or remove titles from appearing on the charts that are known to be involved in active legal disputes related to copyright infringement that may extend to the deletion of such content on digital service providers.
Broke Records tells Billboard that it filed dozens of counter-notices, asserting HAVEN.’s ownership of the song and noting that no lawsuit has been filed against them to date in association with the song. (The Orchard declined to comment.)
Donaghue and Walker maintain that they wrote and produced the song in ProTools, sharing screenshots and videos of the ProTools session files and stems with Billboard. They admit, however, that “AI-assisted vocal processing” was used to “transform solely [their] voice” in the song. Specifically, they say they used AI music generator Suno to turn Walker’s voice into that of a woman’s — without referencing Smith. According to Suno prompts shared with Billboard, the producers wrote into the model a prompt that included, among other requests, “soulful vocal samples” to get the voice they ultimately used on the song.
“It’s been such an honor to see the love and support for ‘I Run’ these past few weeks,” HAVEN. said in a statement to Billboard. “What started as something fun and experimental between two producers and music-lovers ended up taking the internet by storm. I’m aware that AI has become part of that storm. It shouldn’t be any secret that I used AI-assisted vocal processing to transform solely my voice for ‘I Run.’ As a songwriter and producer I enjoy using new tools, techniques and staying on the cutting edge of what’s happening. To set the record straight, the artists behind HAVEN. are real and human, and all we want to do is make great music for other humans.”
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Suno does not allow users to request specific artist or song names. But the company is currently in the midst of a blockbuster lawsuit with the three major music companies — Sony, Universal and Warner — over allegations of widespread copyright infringement of the majors’ sound recordings during the AI training process. Given Smith is signed to The Orchard, a Sony Music-owned distributor, it is possible her sound recordings were used in Suno’s training. According to the lawsuit and to AI music expert Ed Newton-Rex in an article for Music Business Worldwide, users can find savvy or accidental ways to prompt Suno into providing results that seem to contain recognizable pieces of intellectual property from artists like ABBA, James Brown, Michael Buble and more.
The takedowns list a variety of reasons for the request for removal, according to emails obtained by Billboard, including one from Spotify that says, “We have received a complaint that your content infringes the sound recording rights of a third party. While this claim is under investigation, the content has been removed.” Another from Spotify says the content “violates exclusive rights.” A third reads, “Spotify may remove content that misrepresents a track as originating from or featuring an artist or that uses an artist’s name in a misleading way.” One from TikTok also lists the reason why the track is muted as “it contains unauthorized copyrighted music.”
“Sound recording copyrights are not going to protect her voice if the voice sounded like her. There would have to be a sample of her sound recordings,” says Theresa Weisenberger, lawyer and co-lead at BakerHostetler’s AI practice, adding that voices are only protected by publicity rights — the legal right that varies state-to-state in the U.S. which protects one’s name, image and likeness from exploitation.
Historically, these rights have been mostly limited to commercial contexts, like misleading endorsements. The singer Bette Midler once famously sued the Ford Motor Co. over ads featuring a Midler impersonator who was hired by the company. Amid the boom in AI and deepfakes, however, lawmakers in Tennessee passed a new law, called the ELVIS Act, to dramatically expand the right to stop voice cloning in any context. And federally, lawmakers are currently considering a similar law, the NO FAKES Act, that would do the same thing nationally.
“I think this ought to be a wake up call for people to look at the status of the NO FAKES Act and to deal with how long it will take to get that moving and into a national uniform law,” adds Kenneth Anderson, an attorney at Rimon Law who recently advised his client, Ben Folds, though a deepfake situation. “We have a problem that is rapidly overtaking the music industry. It’s rampant and it’s increasing.”
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To fight the takedowns, HAVEN.’s labels started reuploading the song over and over, leading to a seemingly endless game of whack-a-mole for both sides. The impact on “I Run” became even more pronounced when the song did not appear on The Official Charts in the U.K. or the Billboard charts.
“Once that counter notice is filed and then a lawsuit is not filed, a platform is free to put the song back up if they want to,” explains Weisenberger. “But the fact that platforms aren’t doing that might speak to the PR issue this song causes.”
For Broke, an indie record label founded in 2023, “I Run” was gearing up to be their (and HAVEN.’s) biggest hit yet, and its founders tell Billboard they feel the song is being discriminated against by bigger industry players. “HAVEN., an independent producer-songwriter who created a global breakout hit on his own, is the one being fully de-platformed through a sophisticated campaign by a major label,” the label said in a statement to Billboard. “It is difficult to imagine this recording, if released by a major label, being treated in the same way as HAVEN.”
The song has become a lightning rod for conversations around generative AI use in the creation of popular music. To date, some music streaming services still do not have AI-specific policies in place, and those that do, like Deezer and SoundCloud, tend to only penalize fully AI-generated works, not something like “I Run,” which contains significant human input. As Billboard reported in 2023, however, an increasing number of platforms have broadened the ability of rightholders to issue takedowns when publicity rights — the right to one’s name image likeness and voice — are violated, due to the rise of AI-generated deepfakes. This is done on a voluntary basis and is not required by law.
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Spotify added to these publicity rights protections just last month when it announced that it was strengthening its policies against negative uses of AI. This included increased protections around impersonation, and according to a source close to the situation, the platform’s impersonation rules did come into play with the takedowns for HAVEN.’s track specifically. The source adds that Spotify tends to side with the party that feels they have been deepfaked. (Spotify declined to comment.)
Now, HAVEN. is gearing up to release a re-recording of the song, featuring the vocals of a singer named Kaitlin Aragon. She was discovered by the team after posting a TikTok video, covering “I Run” which sounds fairly similar to the original. The hope is, for HAVEN.’s team, that they can recapture the same buzz as they achieved with the last version of the song and restart HAVEN.’s career — but this time, with human vocals.
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A week ago, an incident involving a man charging at Ariana Grande on the Wicked red carpet in Singapore made headlines — not just because of how terrifying it was, but also due to the heroic way Cynthia Erivo immediately stepped in to protect her costar.
Viral videos from the premiere show how the culprit — later identified as 26-year-old Johnson Wen, who was arrested for his actions — jumped over the barricade and barreled straight toward the pop superstar on the red carpet, putting an arm around her neck and grabbing onto her shoulder as Erivo pried him off and yelled at him not to touch Grande. Many were quick to praise the Tony winner for her quick thinking, but in an interview with Today Thursday (Nov. 20), she explained that it was all “instinct.”
“I wasn’t really thinking,” Erivo told host Savannah Guthrie. “I just wanted to make sure my friend was safe.”
“I wanted to make sure that she was OK,” she continued, shrugging. “That was my first instinct, yeah.”
Erivo’s instincts served her and Grande well. By the time security personnel jumped in to haul Wen away from the scene, the Pinocchio star had already mostly torn him away from the R.E.M. Beauty founder, whom Erivo further guarded by putting a protective arm around until Wen was a comfortable distance away.
“I’m sure he didn’t mean us harm, but you never know with those things,” she said, adding of Grande, “We’ve really looked after each other in this.”
Regardless of Wen’s intentions, the Australian man was placed under arrest by Singapore police and sentenced to nine days in jail for the charge of being a “public nuisance.” It’s not the first time he’s faced legal repercussions for his behavior, previously getting arrested for stage-crashing one of Katy Perry’s concerts over the summer and touching her without consent.
The Wicked premiere at which Wen charged at Grande marked the last stop on the film’s international press tour leading up to the Friday (Nov. 21) theatrical release of Wicked: For Good. The long-awaited film comes almost exactly one year after the first installment came out, shattering box-office records and earning Oscars for best costume design and best production design.
Watch Erivo’s full interview with Today above.
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Last year, RAYE swept the BRIT Awards and established her presence in the U.S. with the 070 Shake-assisted top 40 hit “Escapism.” In 2025, the British singer-songwriter has proven that her star power is not dimming anytime soon, earning her first solo entry on the Billboard Hot 100 with “Where Is My Husband!,” which currently sits at a No. 58 high on the chart dated Nov. 22.
Co-written and co-produced with longtime collaborator Mike Sabath, “Where Is My Husband!” finds RAYE blending Motown-era soul, big band instrumentation and a funky, rapid-fire cadence into an irresistibly animated plea for her imagined spouse to arrive already. “I would like a big and shiny diamond that I can wave around/ And talk, and talk about it/ And when the day is here, forgive me God, that I could ever doubt it,” she proclaims in the bridge, which went viral as a snippet on TikTok ahead of the song’s Sept. 19 release. “Husband” also serves as the lead single for RAYE’s forthcoming sophomore studio album, which follows debut My 21st Century Blues. In addition to helping RAYE become the first artist to win six BRIT Awards in a single year, the project also earned her 2025 Grammy nominations for best new artist and songwriter of the year, non-classical.
“Instead of being like, ‘How are we going to follow [My 21st Century Blues] up?’,” we were like, “You just toured the whole world, and it looked and sounded like this,” Sabath says about the inception for “Husband.” “You want to look and sound like that more. How do we design for that?”
RAYE first performed the then-unreleased “Husband” as the opening number during her Glastonbury Festival set in late June, preparing the stage for months of hype across social media. After RAYE’s first TikTok of her performance garnered nearly two million views, she continued teasing the song in subsequent posts, often leaning into her humor or giving fans glimpses inside the recording studio. Now, just over two months since its release, “Husband” has hit No. 13 on the Billboard Global 200, her highest ranking since “Escapism” peaked at No. 7 in 2023.
Below, New York-bred producer-songwriter Mike Sabath, 27, goes deep with Billboard about the composition of “Husband,” working with RAYE in the studio, and how they finished the song just 11 days before its release.
How did “Where Is My Husband!” come together?
We had an idea of the space we wanted to play in. [RAYE] was super inspired by The Supremes, visually and textually, and I’ve had this sonic vision since [My 21st Century Blues] — we reached it a bit with “The Thrill Is Gone” and “Worth It.” She had been touring for eons, and I had been doing other things and my own artist stuff. We got a ski cabin at Big Bear [Lake] in California for 10 days, but it took us five days to figure out how to eat and drink water there. (Laughs.) We’re musicians, we cook up in a whole different way!
With the last album, it all came together through the live show, which expanded and unified the sonic realm by making it super orchestral and brassy. She brings that queen energy. It’s like Your Highness who wears no shoes.
[With “Husband,”] we reverse-engineered it from her live show. It started with a drum roll and these brass hits, then I tapped a keyboard groove on the MIDI [controller]. It’s easy to [complain about not having] live drums, but it’s so important to get the idea out in its most simple form. There’s always time to sonically improve something, but there’s not necessarily another time when that stroke of inspiration is there. Lyrically, I just let her do her thing; I Americanize things when I need to. I come in like, (Sings lyric.) “He should holler.”
When did you know “Husband” was complete?
We literally didn’t finish it until 11 days before it came out. We got the foundation in Big Bear, and then we ended up finishing it at a studio in Joshua Tree, including the bridge. I did the horns at that studio, and then I added strings when I got back home. RAYE added a bass player and some piano when she went to London.
I feel like deciding if a record is done before it’s mixed is just silly. The mix is such a part of the color and the setting of the record; it reveals and cleans things. After one of the early mixes, for example, I realized RAYE needed to record more backing harmonies on the pre-[chorus].
This record was super untraditional in the way that we did the lead vocal. In the verses, there’s no lead vocal; it’s just doubles on the sides. And that’s how we did [most of] the record. She kept trying to cut a lead and didn’t like it, so I had to figure out what the “lead” meant in this context and create what it would feel like using four to eight voices. We did it with Tony Maserati, who’s a legend, and the sweetest dude ever.
In the 11 days before the song came out, I flew to Australia thinking the record was done. I landed at 4 a.m. and ended up in the Uber on Mixstream with Tony, making significant changes to the record over the phone as I’m completely delirious. When I finally got to where I was staying, we were still mixing, but I could look at the water, which calmed me. Physical location is a really powerful perspective tool in mixing. The song also had a different ending.
What was the original ending?
RAYE loves as much drama as possible, so she made this whole extra ending. I was like, “This is such a potent song, we should just end it.” And she’s like, “I want to do this thing!” I’m always supportive, so I let that happen, and that ultimately revealed other things that helped finish the record anyway. The day before we turned the song in, she calls me as she’s going to sleep in London, like, “Mike, we have to remove the ending.” It was hilarious because we made this whole thing for her ending, which we ended up keeping for the new ending. It was like a side quest.
I produced a new ending on the phone with Tony, and it was f–king insane. But it worked. After we turned the song in, RAYE and I were like, “I don’t know about the master.” Something about it just wasn’t hitting. We pulled that version, but we had to send them the mixed version, so I texted Tony out of his sleep. He got out of bed, made some coffee, went into the studio in the middle of the night, and bounced the final files. And then we delivered the record 11 days before it came out.
Was there a sense of “This is a hit!” when you turned the song in?
My biggest songs have been songs that I’ve been most excited to play for people — and that was the case with “Husband.” When it was done, I knew it was different. I really liked it, but I didn’t know it was going to be a hit. They were going to put out a different song, and I really pushed for this. It wasn’t that hard because it was pretty clear at that point, but I was like, “You have to come back with the drum roll!” Also, [“Husband”] was just more done at that point.
Why do you think fans have latched on to the song so much?
The world really fell in love with her on the last record, so I think people wanted her to win. Also, I think a lot of people are looking for a husband. People want love; we’re humans, and people want a partner. That’s resonant in itself and probably why the bridge exploded first. And the song itself is just crazy. People want to hear real music s–t going on, and there’s all that happening in this record. It’s also the things that are intangible, too.
The whole journey with RAYE so far has been amazing. We started eight years ago, and to witness all of this and be a part of it has been beautiful. I’ve always been like, “You guys are sleeping on this girl!” She’s always been amazing. Generational artists don’t just pop up; they are trained and prepared for sustainability. [RAYE] is a generational artist, and I’m honored to be her friend.
A version of this story appears in the Nov. 15, 2025, issue of Billboard.
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At the 2025 Latin Grammys, Paloma Morphy won the coveted best new artist award, where she was up against promising newcomers such as Alleh of Alleh y Yorghaki fame; Isadora, Chayanne’s talented daughter; and flamenco guitarist Yerai Cortés.
“I feel like the new girl in the classroom,” she told Billboard during Latin Grammys week in Las Vegas. “Seeing all these artists for the first time off-screen was quite shocking, but I’m so happy, excited, and nervous. It’s truly a dream come true. I was scared before coming, thinking it would be full of competition … but I realized we’re all in the same boat. We’re happy to meet each other and support one another.”
Hailing from Mexico City, Morphy discovered her passion for music at a very young age when she joined chorus and talent shows. Aware of her super power, there came a point in her life where she felt spiritless and did not see a career in music viable. So, instead, she pursued a career in law. Her love for music, however, was always present, and after uploading her songs on social media—just as a hobby—Morphy officially stepped into the music realm in 2022 with her debut single “La Idiota Soy Yo.”
“I quit my job as a criminal lawyer to pursue my childhood dream of making music,” she noted. “I said I’d give it two years to see what happens.”
And in those two years, Morphy has not only captivated with her indie-pop sound, charming vocals, and bubbly personality, but she also released her debut studio album, Au, under Sony Music México this year, and was a two-time nominee at the Latin Grammys, ultimately winning the 2025 best new artist trophy.
Paloma Morphy accepts the Best New Artist award onstage at the 26th Annual Latin GRAMMY Awards held at the MGM Grand Garden Arena on November 13, 2025 in Las Vegas, Nevada.
Christopher Polk
“I was very sad and unmotivated, and I don’t know where I got the strength to move forward, but I connected with my dream since I was little that I never thought could be real,” she expressed in the media center backstage on the evening she won.
Moreover, she reflected on her time as a lawyer, admitting to Billboard: “There’s a reason I endured five years of that incredibly boring career, but yes, it gives me a different perspective, and all my songs are based on that experience. So far, I haven’t been able to write about things I don’t feel deeply about.”
Below, learn more about this month’s Billboard Latin Artist on the Rise.
Name: Andrea Paloma Barrios Gomez Álvarez Morphy
Age: 25
Recommended Song: “la mexicana”
“I wrote this song because, during my time working at the prosecutor’s office, I realized how many reports of gender-based violence never even reached the investigation stage. From that perspective, I wrote a song to Mexico as if it were a person I love, because I love my country; it’s beautiful in so many ways, but in this song, I ask Mexico: Why don’t you love me the way I love you? It’s truly my way of raising my voice, and it’s made me reflect on how we can truly make a difference.”
Major Accomplishment: Winning best new artist at the 2025 Latin Grammys, and her debut album, Au, garnering over 28 million streams on Spotify since its release this March.
What’s Next: A new collaboration with Neto Péña and Robot95 releases on Thursday (Nov. 20), in addition to working on new music that she will release in 2026 leading up to her sophomore studio album
Tate McRae wrapped the Miss Possessive Tour in Los Angeles on Nov. 8. Since kicking off in March, the tour grossed $110.8 million and sold 1 million tickets over 77 shows, according to figures reported to Billboard Boxscore. It’s easily the biggest of McRae’s fast-growing career, quintupling the earnings of her previous tour, just one year ago.
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It’s another year in a successive growth pattern for McRae. She’s toured for the last four years, building upon each in every metric. She averaged 1,084 tickets per show in clubs on her reported dates from 2022, before scaling to 2,607 in 2023. Last year, she stretched to 5,999, before elevating to sold-out arenas, with an average of 13,480 tickets in 2025. This is the third consecutive year that she doubled her nightly ticket sales.
Compounded by surging demand and an ever-increasing ticketing market, McRae’s earnings grew even bigger. She’s up from a per-show average of $26,600 in 2022, to $96,800 in 2023, to $349,000 in 2024, and now to $1.4 million in 2025. She grew by 265%, then 261% and then again by 312%.
McRae’s busy touring schedule has complemented a nearly constant output of new music. I Used to Think I Could Fly was released in May 2022, followed by Think Later in December 2023 and So Close to What in February 2025.
McRae’s numbers have soared on a per-show basis, but she’s also added more dates to her schedule each year, creating exponential growth to her total figures. The Miss Possessive Tour is her first to sell more than a million tickets and gross more than $100 million, and she hadn’t come close before: The tour’s total attendance triples last year’s count of 336,000, and the total gross laps last year’s $19.6 million five times over.
The Miss Possessive Tour started on March 18 with one show in Mexico City before a string of Latin American festival slots. McRae played 26 shows in Europe ($27.9M; 359K tickets) and then 50 in the United States and Canada ($82.7M; 673K). Both regions were up, to say the least, from last year, with North America earning more than seven times its 2024 gross.
That global growth can be distilled to the local level. In New York, McRae has evolved from one show at Irving Plaza (1,200 capacity) in 2022, to two at The Rooftop at Pier 17 (7,494 tickets in 2023). She played her first solo headline show at Madison Square Garden in 2024 (12,458) and then played three in 2025 (41,503). She also had three arena shows in the Los Angeles area, selling 42,224 tickets at Kia Forum in Inglewood, Calif., up 612% from last year’s lone show at the Greek Theatre (5,930).
Over the course of three years, McRae has expanded her nightly reach by more than 5,300%. Fellow emerging pop stars have experienced similar growth in the last decade, but it hasn’t been quite as speedy. Both Billie Eilish and Dua Lipa kicked off their latest arena spectacles last fall, two years removed from the end of their previous tours. McRae, on the other hand, has fired off three tours in three years, with no more than six months in between any of them.
In the eight months since her latest album became her first No. 1 on the Billboard 200, she topped the Billboard Hot 100 alongside Morgan Wallen on “What I Want” and scored her first Grammy nomination with F1’s “Just Keep Watching.”
Now, McRae is preparing the deluxe release of So Close to What, set to drop on Friday (Nov. 21). It’s led by “Tit for Tat,” which debuted on the Hot 100 at No. 3 in October. In the year since the Miss Possessive Tour dates went on sale, she’s created enough new momentum to continue this growth into the latter part of the 2020s.
Source: Natasha Campos / Getty
GloRilla has always made it her mission to push boundaries.
Flipping classic songs can be risky, but she pulled it off with “WHATCHU KNO ABOUT ME”, a remix of Boosie’s “Wipe Me Down,” and fans ate it up. She also linked up with mid-2000s hitmaker T-Pain to bring back a nostalgic sound with her record, “I LUV HER.” If that wasn’t enough, Big Glo even made a Gospel song with Kirk Franklin.
Name something Gloria Hallelujah Woods can’t do, we’ll wait.
Now the Memphis rapper wants to take things up another notch with her latest idea. She recently took to social media to let her fans know she plans on releasing a full-length R&B album, “& I will be doing a rnb album.”
For most, this may come as a surprise, but if you dive deep into Glo’s life, it’s more believable. During a conversation with Billboard in 2022, GloRilla mentions her background in Church, which involved singing in the choir, “I came from a family of 10 kids. When I was younger, I used to go to Church and sing in the choir. So my mama always thought I can be a gospel singer.”
Fans went under her comments to impersonate how an R&B album would sound with her Memphis accent.
Another user dug up Big Glo singing her heart out:
One thing is for certain, GloRilla has walked down on any challenge she has faced; this one is no different. Now we wait for this R&B project
