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Source: Courtesy of Billboard / Courtesy of Billboard
Billboard Magazine is looking at BigXthaPlug as Rap’s newest star. He has been chosen to grace the cover of their “Future Of Hip-Hop” issue.
Source: Courtesy of Billboard / Courtesy of Billboard
This week the music industry trade publication released their first cover series of 2025. On the cover BigXthaPlug is featured and with a headline that reads “BREAKS THROUGH GENRE NOW”. In the exclusive interview he details his come up, his recent success and more. Early in the feature he explains that his father was the one who saw his musical talent early on. “The first time I remember having a mic in my face was when I was about 9 or 10 years old. My pops took me to this spot, and right in the middle of the room, there was a round wooden table with a mic…” he revealed. “Then they just put me on the mic, and I just started rapping. Afterwards, my dad told me, ‘You’re good—you need to rap for real.’ That was one of my earliest memories for sure.”
Later on BigXthaPlug explains his creative process and makes it clear that he makes music for everyone. “I’m talking about something,” he explains. “A lot of older people who love music—that’s what they grew up on: actual substance. Here’s this young dude that sounds old, but he’s on these young-old beats. I literally mixed everything up so everybody could love it.”
Billboard Magazine’s “Future Of Hip-Hop” issue is out now. You can view BigXthaPlug’s interview below.
Halsey is paying tribute to the Princess of Pop.
The singer took to Instagram on Monday (July 1) to tease what appears to be a cover or an original song that samples Britney Spears’ 2000 hit, “Lucky,” an ode to the lonelier side of fame. “She’s so lucky, she’s a star/ But she cry, cry, cries in her lonely heart, thinking/ If there’s nothing missing in my life/ Then why do these tears come at night?” Halsey sings the chorus in the teaser clip, adding her own type of pop twist on the track.
“When I was 5, it always felt like Britney was singing directly to me,” Halsey wrote over a clip rocking pink hair and a t-shirt that says “Lucky” across the front. “24 years later, these words hit different. love you forever.”
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See it here. Billboard has reached out to Spears’ reps for comment. “Lucky” appeared on Spears’ sophomore album, Oops!… I Did it Again, and peaked at No. 23 on the Billboard Hot 100.
Last month, Halsey confirmed that their fifth studio album is complete and on the way, after fans noticed that she had unveiled a cryptic new website titled “ForMyLastTrick.com.” The page boasts several illustrated badges, some of them leading to what appear to be clues about the new album.
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Halsey’s new record will follow 2021’s If I Can’t Have Love, I Want Power, which peaked at No. 2 on the Billboard 200. The About-Face Beauty founder dropped a few singles in the three years since, including 2023’s “Die 4 Me” and 2022’s “So Good,” both of which charted on the Billboard Hot 100.
In September, Halsey teased that their next album would be on the emotional side. “Splitting myself in two everyday so that I can give you my deepest wounds (and a handful of perfect joys) for the 5th time in 10 years,” she wrote on Instagram at the time.
Kate Hudson is gearing up to dive into the music world with her debut album, Glorious, and the superstar joined The Howard Stern Show on Wednesday (May 8) to take the stage. Explore Explore See latest videos, charts and news See latest videos, charts and news The Almost Famous star performed “Gonna Find Out” from […]
Kelly Clarkson is in the trees, in the breeze with a brand new Olivia Rodrigo cover. For her The Kelly Clarkson Show‘s popular Kellyoke segment on Thursday (April 25), the star took on Rodrigo’s “Can’t Catch Me Now,” the powerful ballad off the Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes soundtrack. Dressed in an olive […]
Maggie Rogers got “Greedy” this week with her flawless cover of Tate McRae‘s hit single, which she performed at the BBC Radio 1 Live Lounge. Rogers put her characteristically folksy spin on the pop hit, stripping down the verse before belting the powerful chorus: “I would want myself/ Baby, please believe me/ I’ll put you […]
Miley Cyrus gives the Talking Heads‘ jittery 1977 new wave classic “Psycho Killer” a fresh spin in a fan-posted video of the singer’s cover of the track from her November performance at Los Angeles’ Chateau Marmont. In the minute-long clip, Cyrus trades the original’s spare, bass-thrumming, quick-strummed guitar for finger-picked acoustic guitar and banjo, giving the track a country makeover.
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In keeping with the folky feel, Cyrus twangs up the vocals as well, crooning, “Cuz my bed’s on fiiiiiire/ No, don’t touch me baby/ I told you I’m a real live wire,” while messing with the lyrical timing to draw out and emphasize different syllables, transforming it into more of a bluegrass hoedown.
She then tells the crowd, “if you know this song, this is the regular part,” before breaking into the French-tinged chorus, which she also Miley-fies to make it uniquely her own. Speaking of which, Cyrus also completely rewrites the tune and adds her own fresh verse, on which she sings, “I love you psycho killer/ I’mma love you forever/ You know I’ll never run away,” cheekily asking the intimate audience if her take is “better than the original.”
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The video appeared to be from the same intimate November Chateau show that spawned the first live performance of Miley’s Billboard Hot 100 No. 1 smash “Flowers.” At press time a spokesperson for Cyrus had not returned Billboard‘s request for further comment on whether the singer’s rendition of the Talking Heads song will be included on the upcoming 16-track Stop Making Sense covers albums; Paramore’s rendition of “Burning Down the House” has already been released.
The tracklist for the Everyone’s Getting Involved: A Tribute to the Talking Heads’ Stop Making Sense tribute album has not yet been released, so it’s unknown if that is the song Cyrus will cover on the LP, though her name was among those announced as contributing to the celebration of the 40th anniversary of the Heads’ landmark Stop Making Sense concert film. In addition to Cyrus and Paramore, the soundtrack is slated to include covers by: Lorde, The National, Teezo Touchdown, Kevin Abstract, Jean Dawson, girl in red, BADBADNOTGOOD, Blondshell, The Cavemen., Chicano Batman, Money Mark, DJ Tunez, El Mató a un Policía Motorizado, The Linda Lindas and Toro y Moi.
It’s no surprise Cyrus gave the song so much personal attention, since she clearly has an affection for the band. During her 2023 New Year’s Eve special, the singer teamed up with Talking Heads singer David Byrne for covers of David Bowie’s “Let’s Dance” and Byrne’s “Everybody’s Coming to My House.”
Watch the Cyrus “Psycho Killer” video here.
Jack Black teamed up with his longtime bandmate Kyle Gass to record a cover of Britney Spears’ 1998 breakout hit, “…Baby One More Time,” and the star revealed he’s a fan of the pop princess at the premiere for Kung Fu Panda 4 on Sunday (March 3). Explore See latest videos, charts and news See […]
Maren Morris sounds perfectly fine on her own on a cover of Billy Idol’s 1982 classic “Dancing With Myself.” The countrified, sultry take on the new wave rocker’s ode going it alone dropped on Thursday (Feb. 15), along with an appropriately one-woman music video shot inside Nashville’s iconic Grimey’s record store.
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As you might expect, Morris layers the original snarling rock tune with banjos, strummed acoustic guitars and her signature smoky vocals on the track produced by Gabe Simon (Noah Kahan, Lana Del Rey). In the visual, Morris dances her way through the aisles of the empty independent record store, pulling out pieces of vinyl and hoisting them over her head in between trips to a makeshift stage where she croons the song’s onanistic refrain into into a mic for an audience of none.
Morris, who finalized her divorce from husband Ryan Hurd earlier this month, told Yahoo! Entertainment that the song is a celebration of her single life. “I’m in this new slate in life and I want to sort of lean into the vulnerability of the lyrics, because when I was [writing] them down, I don’t know, it kind of struck this melancholic note and I feel like that’s such a relatable theme to singleness,” she said. [Being single] is fun and you’re really getting to know yourself, which is important because you are the longest relationship you’ll have in your life so you need to tend to that one. But there’s also, you know, moments of bittersweetness when you feel on those occasional nights a little lonely.”
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The singer said filming in Grimey’s was especially sweet because it’s located in East Nashville, which is where she lived when she first moved to town. “I just put my entire heart into not giving a s–t and dancing and looking stupid,” she said. “I felt really emotionally connected to the song. … I just was like, I am dancing with myself.”
After announcing last year that she was planning to “step back” from making country music — which she told the outlet was misinterpreted at the time — Morris said she’s in the “early creative stages” of writing her next album after going back to the drawing board on the project she was working on before the divorce. As for whether the album will be more pop than country, Morris said it’s “too early to tell.”
“Dancing” is Morris’ first new music since she dropped her two-song 2023 EP The Bridge. The singer will receive the Visionary Award for her commitment to speaking out about injustice at this year’s Billboard Women in Music Awards on March 6, where she will also perform.
Watch Morris’ video for “Dancing With Myself” below.
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When Karol G decided to go on a stadium tour, she recalls, someone asked her how prepared she was. “‘Beyoncé is doing stadiums. Taylor Swift is doing stadiums. Are you ready?’ And I answered, ‘No, today I’m not. But I will be ready, because it depends on me.’”
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Six months later, Karol G, the subject of this week’s Billboard cover story, was onstage in a phenomenally quick turnaround, and, most importantly, an astoundingly successful one. By year-end, she was the highest grossing Latin artist of 2023 according to Billboard Boxscore.
But planning to perform in stadiums and actually performing are two very different things. For Karol, it starts with the basic love of performance. “The stage is my happiest place,” she tells Billboard. “It’s not like I’m always happy and perfect when I go onstage. But when I go out, there’s nothing the energy in that place can’t cure.”
When it came time to plan her Mañana Será Bonito Tour, the singer says that she and her team knew it was time to take on bigger audiences. “It was something we discussed a lot internally,” she says. “I came from doing the ‘Bichota’ tour, then $trip Love tour. Everyone said, ‘You have to let people breathe. A lot of artists are touring.’ Then, I released Mañana será bonito. This album, I feel, got into people’s bodies, their veins, and it touched something in them. I had never felt as much love from my fans as with this album.”
Playing Mañana live became a mission. The first step in preparing, says Karol, was “proving to myself that I was ready to do it. We had the pressure of knowing Beyoncé and Taylor Swift would be touring at the same time, so it couldn’t look like Karol G was the one who had no business doing a stadium tour. It was a huge personal challenge from how I looked to how I thought.”
Among the challenges was getting physically fit — between changing her diet and exercise routine and getting mentally prepared for the show, Karol says the physical preparation for her show brought out a major change in her.
“It’s spending two hours and 45 minutes in a place that’s five or six times bigger than what you’re used to, singing and dancing, so there was a big physical challenge,” she says. “I had worked out my entire life, my muscles were used to it, so I began to see changes. And the more change I saw, the more I wanted to do!”
However, she says, the hardest challenge was having Mañana será bonito, and Mañana será bonito: Bichota season – two very different albums — coexist in the same show.
“It’s two completely different worlds,” she says. “So, I wrote a mini book [a concept that opens the show] where I explained everything, and I gave it to [the tour designers], and said: ‘This is my story. This is Carolina’s story, and I want her to be a siren.’ And they found the way to make it work.”
Going to a Karol G show is a bit like a religious experience — multiple generations gather together in a collective exercise of letting go that begins hours, even days before a show, when fans decide what to wear, what wig to buy, what signs to take to catch Karol’s attention; she’s known for constantly engaging with fans from the stage, sometimes dropping out of a choreography mid-song for a picture, a kiss, a hello.
“It’s an energy,” Karol says. “After a show, I put on Lana Del Rey’s ‘Summertime Sadness’ and I lie in bed crying thinking how amazing shows are. If you could turn off the light and just see the energy, it would be blinding. The most beautiful thing about my shows is people arrive with the intention to heal. Their intentions are so beautiful that when I go onstage, and all that energy is directed toward me, I feel like a battery that’s recharging, and filling up and sometimes I cry a lot in my shows. I try not to, but my heart feels like it’s going to burst.”
Read the full cover story here.
Could a Britney Spears and Jay-Z collaboration be on the way? Well, not exactly — but the “Circus” singer is trying to make it happen. In the caption of an Instagram post on Monday (Oct. 9), Spears proposed a cover of Beyoncé’s “Daddy Lessons” featuring a new rap verse from Jay-Z. “So many people have […]