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Gucci Mane finally linked up with his doppelgänger, NBA referee James Williams.
The Atlanta rapper attended the playoff game between the Cleveland Cavs and the Miami Heat on Tuesday (April 29), and posted a picture on Instagram of himself and Williams having a courtside chat.
Back in 2021, NBA superstar Ja Morant reshared a photo of himself and Williams posted by the NBA’s Latin America X page, writing, “Me & Gucci,” and it went viral. And ever since, Williams said fans and players only refer to him as “Gucci or Guwop.”
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“I am Gucci Mane, at this point that’s who I am,” Williams told the Crown Refs podcast back in 2023. “I’m actually shocked when somebody on the floor calls me James. Nobody calls me James, everybody calls me Gucci or Guwop.”
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He continued by saying that he doesn’t take it seriously and actually finds the situation funny. “I’ve really just embraced it. I think that it humanizes us,” he said. “Referees who are just the cops out there, I’m not a big fan of ’cause that’s not how I referee. I like to go out there, I like to have fun; engage the fans, the players, the coaches. While we have a job to do, you should still have fun while you’re doing it.”
He added, “Once that thing went viral, just like my life has been completely altered forever. It’s a part of who I am at this point. Nobody calls me James, it’s really quite comical to be honest with you.”
@crownrefs In this classic clip from episode 304 of the Crown Refs Podcast, NBA Finals referee James “Gucci” Williams talks about his famous nickname and how he’s embraced it because it’s fun and humanizes officials. Be sure to check out the RefMasters app, available for iOS and Android. @RefMasters ♬ original sound – Crown Refs
He then told a funny story about a time when he was in Chicago catching a flight and a random youth basketball team wanted to take a picture with him. “The other day I was in O’Hare and there was a basketball team walking through,” he recalled. “I’m walking to my gate and they’re like, ‘That’s the Gucci Mane ref. Can we get a picture?’ I think it’s funny, I really do. I don’t take myself too seriously. We get to referee a kid’s game for a living.”
Williams has been in regular rotation during the NBA playoffs this year, so fans will be seeing more of Gucci Mane’s twin reffing games.
NFL star Sauce Gardner shuts down wide receivers on the field, but the New York Jets cornerback may have locked up Ice Spice off the field. The Bronx rapper posted a since-deleted selfie to her Instagram on Tuesday (April 29) featuring herself posing with Gardner in front of a mirror. Billboard has reached out to […]
Don Toliver and Doja Cat have joined forces for a new song titled “Lose My Mind,” which will appear on the F1 movie soundtrack. On Wednesday (April 30), Don Toliver dropped off the music video for “Lose My Mind” after teasing the song just 24 hours earlier. The song will appear on the soundtrack for […]
WWE’s WrestleMania 41 in Las Vegas showcased the best wrestlers and musicians. From meet-and-greets with fans to Travis Scott’s appearance, fan opinions on John Cena and Cody Rhodes, and catching up with Bianca Belair before SmackDown, keep watching to catch everything you missed during the big weekend!
Were you at WrestleMania 41? Let us know in the comments!
Fan 1:It’s my first mania. I had to, I saved so much, went through so much, just to get here. And you know, the payoff is good.
Carl Lamarre:They were just like, “Yo, if we see New Day, we might have to jump.”
The New Day:For what? Who gonna jump us? Who gonna jump us? They can barely get off the couch how are they going to jump at anybody? Who said that?
Fan 2:Travis Scott is a b—h.
Fan 3:These fans. I mean, they’re the best in the world. I mean, they’re so passionate about everything that happens around WWE.
Excision, or Marilyn Manson because it’s angry and sexy.
Carl Lamarre: I love that. We spent the week in Las Vegas for all of the WWE activities before and after the main event. What’s going on y’all? I am deputy director of R&B/hip-hop, Carl Lamarre, and we are here live at WrestleMania in Las Vegas at WWE World. Billboard kicked off WrestleMania week on Thursday at WWE World. Think of it like Comic Con for wrestling fans. Wrestlers were signing top cards and belts. You could walk down the ramp to your favorite superstar’s entrance. Some pros were even giving wrestling demos in the ring. You could also catch a live podcast recording and thank John Cena for his 25 years in wrestling. Fanatics hosted a Make-a-Wish event with superstar wrestlers Tiffany Stratton and Braun Strowman in attendance.
Tiffany Stratton:I love the kids. That’s, like, my favorite part of being a superstar is getting to meet them and, like, do stuff like this, where they get to do their own entrances.
Keep watching for more!
Megan Thee Stallion announced she’s building her own Popeyes store from scratch, and showcased an active construction site in a new video on social media. On Tuesday (April 29), Meg hopped on Instagram wearing a yellow hard hat to announce she was constructing her own Popeyes location. In a video on social media, she wandered […]
Lil Durk remains behind bars in California, counting down the days until his trial is set to begin in October for his murder-for-hire case.
Durk’s family posted a clip to Instagram on Tuesday (April 29) giving fans an update on the Chicago rapper’s legal situation, and they claimed that the prosecution is building a case that uses his own lyrics against him.
“The recent developments in Durk’s legal case have brought a harsh truth to light: the government presented false evidence to a grand jury to indict him,” a statement from Durk’s team in the video reads. “This isn’t justice. That’s a violation of the very system that’s supposed to protect all of us.”
The clip goes on to explain that Durk has always been a vivid storyteller with his music, and his creative art shouldn’t be held against him in a court of law.
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“Durk has always used music to tell stories, to express pain to heal — and yet those same lyrics are now being used against him. We refuse to stay silent as Black artists continue to be criminalized for their creativity. Rap is art,” the video continued before calling for public support. “As a family, we are asking the public, the fans and the culture to stand with us. Stand for truth. Stand for fairness. Stand for The Voice.”
Lil Durk’s legal team continues to fight for his freedom. Earlier in April, Durk’s attorneys called for the case’s dismissal and claimed that “false evidence” was given to a grand jury.
Prosecutors are attempting to tie lyrics from Durk and Babyface Ray’s “Wonderful Wayne & Jackie Boy” to the murder of Lul Pab. While the track was released in December 2022, which would be a few months after Pab’s death, but Durk’s team says those lyrics were penned long before the shooting in January 2022.
“Told me they got an addy (go, go)/ Got location (go, go)/ Green light (go, go, go, go, go)/ Look on the news and see your son/ You screaming ‘No, no,” he raps on the track in question.
“The government told the grand jury that Mr. Banks, through specific lyrics in his music, celebrated and profited from a revenge murder that he had ordered,” Durk’s attorney, Drew Findling, said in the filing. “That claim is demonstrably false. Unless the government is prosecuting Banks on a theory of extra-sensory prescience, the lyrics could not have soundly informed the grand jury’s finding of probable cause.”
Lil Durk was arrested in Florida in October on a murder-for-hire charge hours after a few of his Only the Family associates were also indicted.
Prosecutors believe Durk plotted to have Quando Rondo killed as retaliation for the death of his friend King Von, who was murdered by Rondo’s associates in Atlanta in 2020, but the 2022 Los Angeles shooting ended up leaving Rondo’s cousin Lul Pab dead.
With Durk behind bars awaiting trial, the rapper’s team pieced together his Deep Thoughts album, which arrived in March and debuted at No. 3 on the Billboard 200 with 64,000 album-equivalent units earned.
See his family’s statement below:
On its face, Kendrick Lamar and Playboi Carti seemed like an unlikely duo until King Vamp recruited K. Dot for a few features on his Music album. They hit the stage together for the first time on Tuesday night (April 29) when Lamar brought out Carti as a special guest in Atlanta to perform their […]
Riding a hot streak that has already established her among 2025’s buzziest names, Doechii lands a historic win on Billboard’s Rhythmic Airplay chart as the first artist to send her first three charting titles as a lead artist to No. 1 on the radio ranking.
The feat comes as “Anxiety” storms 6-1 to crown the list dated May 3 and was the most played song on U.S. panel-contributing rhythmic radio stations in the tracking week of April 18-24, according to Luminate, a 20% surge from the prior week. Thanks to the boon, “Anxiety” wins the week’s Greatest Gainer award, given to the song with the largest increase in play count.
Doechii, Billboard’s 2025 Woman of the Year recipient, traces her Rhythmic Airplay achievement to her first No. 1, the one-week champ “What It Is (Block Boy),” featuring Kodak Black, in June 2023. She returned to the summit in March with “Denial Is a River,” which reigned for three weeks, before “Anxiety” completed her third trek to the top spot. As noted, the trio makes Doechii the first act to send her first three entries as a lead artist to No. 1 in the 32-year history of the Rhythmic Airplay chart.
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Expanding to include lead and featured credits, Doechii is the third act in the overall club. There, she joins Ashanti, whose first two No. 1s were through featured slots on Ja Rule’s “Always on Time” and Fat Joe’s “What’s Luv?,” before her own chart-topping “Foolish,” all in 2002. The next year, Beyoncé inaugurated her solo career with three Rhythmic Airplay champs — a featured slot on Jay-Z’s “’03 Bonnie and Clyde,” and her own “Crazy in Love,” featuring Jay-Z, and “Baby Boy,” featuring Sean Paul.
Beyond the three aforementioned No. 1s, Doechii has one other Rhythmic Airplay entry in her account, a featured slot on Sleepy Hallow’s “A N X I E T Y,” which reached No. 31 in February. That track, from 2019, received a second wind thanks to TikTok-fueled virality, that in turn sparked Doechii’s own “Anxiety” single’s release.
Elsewhere, “Anxiety” leaps 10-5 on the Pop Airplay chart with a 21% rally in weekly plays and pushes 15-11 on the Mainstream R&B/Hip-Hop Airplay chart (up 14%), and even debuts on the Latin Airplay chart at No. 50. From the developments at pop, rhythmic and R&B/hip-hop and Latin sectors, “Anxiety” explodes 9-3 on the all-genre Radio Songs chart to 45.9 million in all-format audience for the week, a 24% improvement from 37.1 million in the week prior, and enough to win the Greatest Gainer prize.
“Anxiety,” initially a standalone single, was added to the digital and streaming editions of Doechii’s Grammy Award-winning mixtape, Alligator Bites Never Heal, in March. The hit single’s inclusion has helped the project break barriers of its own, including its first time in the top 10 of the Billboard 200 this week.
Ye’s (formerly Kanye West) Donda 2 album is on streaming services for the first time. West premiered the sequel in February 2022, and the project had only been available on the Stem Player until Wednesday (April 30).
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As of press time, Donda 2 is available on YouTube Music and Spotify, but is yet to hit Apple Music. The project is loaded with 18 tracks and guest appearances from XXXTENTACION, Don Toliver, Migos, Jack Harlow, Travis Scott, Playboi Carti, Baby Keem, Future and more.
Future served as the album’s executive producer and the cover art remains the same, showcasing Ye’s childhood home on fire.
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West originally premiered the album with a listening party inside Miami’s LoanDepot Park in February 2022, but many of the tracks were unfinished and never made it to streaming services as Ye focused on the Stem Player technology.
Ye also threw in cuts like “City of Gods” featuring Fivio Foreign and Alicia Keys, which arrived just prior to the Donda 2 listening party, and served as the lead single for the Brooklyn drill rapper’s B.I.B.L.E. album. The track reached No. 46 on the Billboard Hot 100.
“530” was one of the unfinished standouts on Ye and Ty Dolla $ign’s Vultures 2 album, but West felt strong enough about the cleaned-up version to include it on Donda 2‘s streaming release.
Kim Kardashian’s 2021 Saturday Night Live monologue is still included on “Sci-Fi.” “I married the best rapper of all time,” she can be heard saying to start the track. “Not only that, he is the richest Black man in America. A talented, legit genius who gave me four incredible kids.”
West has been holed up in Spain for much of April. A masked Ye hosted a live stream premiere for Donda 2 with popular streamers Digital Nas, Sneako and N3on on Tuesday night (April 29).
West has been under fire in recent months for controversial X rants filled with hate speech. On the music side, he released a visual edition of his Bully album in March.
Listen to Donda 2 below.
Don Toliver and Doja Cat are dropping their new collaboration “Lose My Mind” from the F1 movie soundtrack this week. The two are heard harmonizing on the hook “So why don’t we just lose my mind?” in the hi-tech video clip that was shared on Instagram by the Formula 1, F1 movie and F1 album […]