Music News

20 May 2024

42 Dugg Releases New Video ‘Win Wit Us,’ Announces Debut Album

42 Dugg has started the rollout for his debut album, 4eva Us Neva Them. Yes, you read that right. If you’re confused about how this could be his first album, it’s because the five projects he’s released so far are technically, mixtapes. Even though the last four were released under Yo Gotti’s CMG label, and while Dugg did appear on CMG the Label’s two compilation albums Gangsta Art and Gangsta Art 2, 4eva Us Neva Them will indeed be his first official album with the Memphis-based imprint whose roster also includes Yo Gotti, Moneybagg Yo, GloRilla, Blac Youngsta, EST Gee and Mozzy, among others.

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Last week, Dugg posted the album artwork on Instagram and revealed the June 7 release date while telling his fans to check out the lead single “Win Wit Us” in the caption. “Don’t worry I’ll Turn this b—ch back UP??,” he wrote May 16. “4eva Us Neva them my first album JUNE muf—king 7th‼️‼️‼️‼️ Here’s ah lil something to set the tone though #winwitus OUT NOW”

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The Detroit rapper has remained active since being released from prison in October 2023 after serving 17 months for gun possession. He dropped a few loosies including “Go Again,” “SpinDatBac,” “Wock N Red,” and was featured on Sexyy Red’s “Perfect Match” alongside G Herbo. So, with “Win Wit Us” he looks to keep that momentum going.

The video shows Dugg sporting the gradient Supreme x Nike Ripstop tracksuit surrounded by his best buds talkin’ that talk over aggressive production. In signature four-two fashion, his chorus melts into his verses, as he captures street life in a way only he can.

See his post below.

20 May 2024

Randy Rainbow Reimagines a Dolly Parton Hit to Slam Donald Trump With ‘Forty-Five’: Watch

With Donald Trump spending much of his time in court as of late, internet sensation Randy Rainbow decided to serve up his latest take on the former president’s legal troubles with a little help from Dolly Parton.

In his new video published Monday (May 20), Rainbow parodied Parton’s iconic work anthem “9 to 5,” replacing the titular hours with Trump’s presidential number, “Forty-Five.” Donning his best Dolly drag (as well as a feathered pink cowboy hat), the comedian goes straight for the jugular regarding Trump’s ongoing presidential campaign. “Lots of presidents have screwed up the nation/ But guess who’s first on the ‘worst of all time’ list?” he sings at the outset of the new track. “Number forty-five!/ What a slimy little cretin/ He just spends his life/ Just a-lyin’ and a-cheatin’.”

As is custom for Rainbow’s parodies, the clip starts with the singer in a fake interview with the former president, asking him questions about his ongoing hush money trial in New York before making a sarcastic quip about his effectiveness as a candidate. “How are you supposed to campaign from a courtroom?” he asks. “You don’t have time for this legal nonsense, you’re a working gal of the ’80s!”

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Rainbow’s harshest barbs, though, came in the lyrics to his “9 to 5” parody, wherein he calls the former president everything from a “one-term bum” to a “low-down snake.” The comedian called out Trump’s illicit connection with adult film star Stormy Daniels and his $60 branded Bibles, saying that he was “payin’ off his porn stars” and “pimping out Jesus.” In one particularly sharp jab, Rainbow called Trump a “dime-store thug/ Just fighting for his freeness,” before adding that he “spends his life compensating for his penis.”

Trump is currently facing 34 counts of falsifying business records in New York, stemming from his alleged hush money payments to Daniels prior to the 2016 election. The case is currently being heard in front of Judge Juan Merchan, with closing arguments set to take place on Tuesday, May 28. The former president still faces three other potential criminal trials relating to election interference on a federal and state level, as well as allegedly mishandling classified documents.

Check out Rainbow’s full parody video for “Forty-Five” below:



20 May 2024

Eminem’s Daughter Hailie Jade Marries Evan McClintock: ‘Waking Up a Wife This Week’

A little over a year after getting engaged, Eminem’s daughter Hailie Jade is now married. Congrats are in order for the 28-year-old, who revealed she tied the knot over the weekend with Evan McClintock.

“Waking up a wife this week,” she emotionally began in an Instagram post on Monday (May 20). ⁣”We couldn’t have asked for a better, more beautiful weekend celebration. So so many happy tears were shed, laughs & smiles were had, & so much love was felt.

Hailie continued: “Evan and I are feeling so grateful for all of the family & friends that traveled to support us and be a part of this new chapter of our lives as husband & wife.”

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The Detroit icon’s progeny shared wedding photos from her big day, which featured a kiss with her new hubby and pics from the stunning shoot of the couple driving off in a vintage white convertible.

TMZ also shared a photo of the sweet daddy-daughter dance between Em and Hailie. Slim Shady was suited up in a black tux and rocked matching sunglasses at the outdoor ceremony.

2024 is shaping up to be an incredible year for Eminem. In addition to walking his daughter down the aisle, the rap legend is gearing up for his next album, which is slated to arrive this summer.

Eminem announced plans for The Death Of Slim Shady (Coup De Grâce) in April, which he teased recently with an obituary for his alter ego. The LP will serve as his 12th studio album and the follow-up to Music to Be Murdered By, which was released in 2020. That project debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 to give Slim Shady his 10th consecutive chart-topper.

20 May 2024

Juvenile Says a New Hot Boys Album Is in the Works

Juvenile was on Instagram Live over the weekend when he got annoyed by fans asking about a Hot Boys reunion. The crew consisting of Juvenile, B.G., Lil Wayne, and Turk haven’t released an album since 2003’s Let ‘Em Burn, so he’s been asked about a reunion since before Instagram was even a thing.

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Well, it looks like all the pestering has finally worked, because the Cash Money Millionaire revealed that not only will the Hot Boys will be reuniting at Essence Fest in New Orleans this July, but that they’ve also been working on a new album.

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“Hot Boys is back together, man. What you talkin’ about put the Hot Boys back together? Show y’all ain’t keeping up with s–t,” he says in a clip from his Live. “Turk gonna be with me tonight, I’m gonna be with B.G. next week. Me, Wayne, Turk, and B.G., all of us gonna be on stage in New Orleans with Mannie Fresh and Birdman. And we already done started working on a Hot Boys album. Any other f—king questions? Keep on askin’ put the Hot Boys together. Have some f—kin’ patience.”

It’s unclear whether or not there is a larger rollout planned for the upcoming Hot Boys reunion. It’s hard to imagine the plan was to have Juvie randomly blurt it out on Instagram Live.

Juvenile most recently found success making a video for the title track to his 1998 album 400 Degreez. The video features producer Mannie Fresh and was made to celebrate the multiplatinum album’s 25th anniversary.

Aside from creative differences, one factor that greatly effected the Hot Boys is incarceration. B.G. and Turk both served lengthy prison sentences, with the former serving 12 years and the latter serving nine.

Since being released in September, B.G. has been dropping a torrent of music, including “Gold Teeth Grizzle” and “Really Understand.” A few months after Turk came home in 2012, a remix to his song “Zip It” surfaced featuring Juvie, Wayne and B.G., making it one of their first reunion songs since 2003.



Either way, this is great news for white tee enthusiasts everywhere.

20 May 2024

Taylor Swift’s ‘Cruel Summer’ Is Now Her Sole Longest-Charting Hot 100 Hit

Taylor Swift’s “Cruel Summer” becomes her sole longest-charting hit on the Billboard Hot 100, adding a 54th week on the survey, dated May 25. It one-ups the 53-week run of her fellow former No. 1, “Anti-Hero.”

“Cruel Summer” claims the mark among Swift’s 263 career Hot 100 entries, the most among women in the chart’s history.

The song was originally released on Swift’s 2019 Republic Records album Lover. The label began promoting the song as a single last June, after Swift began performing it on her The Eras Tour, her first in which she’s been able to spotlight songs from Lover, which was released shortly before the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic.

“Cruel Summer” debuted at No. 29 on the Hot 100 dated Sept. 7, 2019, and remained on the chart the following week. It returned on the June 3, 2023-dated ranking, reached the top 10 last July and notched the first of its four weeks at No. 1 on the chart dated last Oct. 28, becoming the 10th of Swift’s 12 career No. 1s. It places at No. 20 on the May 25-dated Hot 100.

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Among Swift’s Hot 100 hits, “Cruel Summer” has also logged the most weeks in the top five (20) and top 10 (34).

Swift and Jack Antonoff co-produced “Cruel Summer” and co-wrote it with St. Vincent. Notably, in between its Hot 100 debut and re-entry, the three were credited as co-writers of Olivia Rodrigo’s “Deja Vu” for its interpolation of “Cruel Summer.”

“The song we said was the best [on Lover], but we thought, ‘Oh, you know what? This will be our secret best song,’ ” Antonoff said of “Cruel Summer” upon its Hot 100 coronation. Added Swift, “We just wanted to say thank you so much for making ‘Cruel Summer’ a Hot 100 No. 1, and it’s not even summer anymore. It’s deep fall, I’m wearing a sweater.”

Here’s an updated look at Swift’s longest-charting Hot 100 hits (through the list dated May 25, 2024).

  • 54 weeks, “Cruel Summer,” No. 1 for four weeks, beginning Oct. 28, 2023
  • 53 weeks, “Anti-Hero,” No. 1, eight weeks, beginning Nov. 5, 2022
  • 50 weeks, “Shake It Off,” No. 1, four weeks, beginning Sept. 6, 2014
  • 50 weeks, “You Belong With Me,” No. 2 peak, Aug. 22, 2009
  • 49 weeks, “Love Story,” No. 4, Jan. 17, 2009
  • 48 weeks, “Teardrops on My Guitar,” No. 13, March 1, 2008
  • 38 weeks, “Blank Space,” No. 1, seven weeks, beginning Nov. 29, 2014
  • 36 weeks, “I Knew You Were Trouble.,” No. 2, Jan. 12, 2013
  • 36 weeks, “Our Song,” No. 16, Jan. 19, 2008
  • 35 weeks, “Delicate,” No. 12, July 28, 2018

“Cruel Summer” additionally became Swift’s longest-leading hit on the all-format Radio Songs chart, reigning for 12 weeks – twice as long as her second longest-ruling single (“Blank Space”). It’s her also her longest-leading No. 1 on Adult Pop Airplay (23 weeks – the most for a song by a woman) and Pop Airplay (10 weeks). Plus, it crowned the all-genre Streaming Songs and Digital Song Sales surveys for a week each.

All charts dated May 25 will update on Billboard.com Tuesday, May 21.

20 May 2024

Sabrina Carpenter Says She’s ‘So Not Chill’ About Making Her ‘Saturday Night Live’ Debut

Sabrina Carpenter is amped up after making her Saturday Night Live debut, and it’s not just because of all that “me espresso” she’s been drinking.

Following her first-ever performance on the show Saturday (May 18), the 25-year-old singer shared her excitement the next day on Instagram. “literally working late cuz I’m a singer,” she joked, captioning a clip of her performing her hit single “Espresso” on the SNL stage the night prior.

Carpenter added, “@nbcsnl thank you for having us I’m sooooo not chill about it and never will be.”

In addition to “Espresso” — which recently peaked at No. 4 on the Billboard Hot 100, marking the rising pop star’s first-ever top 10 hit — Carpenter sang a medley of two of her Emails I Can’t Send standouts, “Feather” and “Nonsense.” For the latter, the Work It actress improvised one of her famous NSFW outros, singing, “He is 30 Rock-hard ’cause I said ‘hi’/ My sense of humor is but I am not dry/ SNL I just came for the first time.”

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She also appeared as Daphne alongside the night’s host, Jake Gyllenhaal, in a Scooby Doo-themed skit during the episode. In spite of what some fans predicted, the installment featured no allusions to the two stars’ mutual connection, Taylor Swift, who befriended Carpenter on the Latin America, Asia and Australian legs of her Eras Tour more than a decade after dating the Brokeback Mountain actor.

The May 18 show marked SNL‘s season 49 finale, meaning the series won’t resume until the fall. A week prior, Vampire Weekend performed on the Maya Rudolph-hosted episode, before which Dua Lipa did double duty as musical guest and host.

See Carpenter’s post below.

20 May 2024

Saweetie Pays Homage to Grace Jones, ‘The Inspiration Behind the NANi Cover’

Saweetie saluted Grace Jones on the icon’s 76th birthday Sunday (May 19), and thanked her for inspiring the cover art of the rapper’s newest single “NANi.”

“Happy birthday to THE ICON, Grace Jones,” she wrote on X. “thank you for the massive print you’ve made in fashion, culture & cuntiness. The inspiration behind the NANi cover.”

The pose Saweetie is striking on the “NANi” single artwork is directly inspired by the artwork for Jones’ 1985 greatest hits album Island Life, which features the almost-nude singer stretching her right arm forward, with a microphone in hand, and stretching her left arm backward, touching her right foot that’s extended upward while her left leg stands strong. But the impossible arabesque pose, captured by Jean-Paul Goude, is actually a montage of images of Jones striking different poses that were cut and pasted together. It also made Billboard‘s 100 Best Album Covers of All Time list at No. 27 last year.

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The “Icy Girl” MC recreated the image for her “NANi” cover, but instead of holding a mic, she’s holding a lime-green hair dryer that’s blowing her bubblegum pink locks away. “we gon’ fkkk up the Summer,” she wrote last week while officially announcing “NANi.”

Earlier this month at the 2024 Gold Gala — where Saweetie received the first-ever Billboard Gold Music Honor during the event dedicated to recognizing the 100 most impactful Asian Pacific changemakers in culture and society over the past year — she told Billboard on the red carpet, “‘NANi’ is that girl. ‘NANi’ is main character energy.”

20 May 2024

Tyla Sizzles & Stops Traffic in Twerk-Filled ‘Jump’ Video Featuring Gunna & Skillibeng

“From Jozi to Ibiza,” it’s all eyes on Tyla. The South African singer returned on Monday (May 20) to drop off the steamy “Jump” video featuring appearances from Gunna and Skillibeng.

Nabil helms the colorful clip while Tyla invites the YSL rapper and Jamaican dancehall artist to Africa for the visual.

The Grammy-winning musician twerks from the balcony and even stops traffic with her breathtaking looks. “See me now, and that’s what they prefer/ I don’t touch no wheel ’cause I got a chauffeur/ First class how I get ’round the world,” she sings.

A fight briefly interrupts the action while Tyla undergoes several vibrant wardrobe changes before settling on a Rolling Stone lips logo tank to roll to the club with Gunna.

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“A perfect picture like a Polaroid/ She a trophy, no award/ Baby sweet and tender like sirloin/ Told the chauffeur take you to a Chanel store/ Ever play with you, it be a world war,” Wunna raps.

The boastful “Jump” had a run on the TikTok Billboard Top 50, where it peaked at No. 11 in April. The Sammy Soso-produced track landed on Tyla’s self-titled debut album, which landed at No. 24 on the Billboard 200 in March following its release.

The 22-year-old graced the cover of Billboard in late March alongside her debut’s arrival, where she displayed the utmost confidence in herself and declared her run has only just begun when it comes to carving out her global legacy.

“I’m really confident in what I’ve created,” she said. “Now’s a time where I can showcase a performance style where I’m not really dancing as much. Maybe I strip back a little bit more and I’m just serving vocals. But there’s no way to stop me. I’m always going to find a way.”

Watch the “Jump” video below.

20 May 2024

Tom Hanks Asks Son Chet to Explain the Drake vs. Kendrick Lamar Feud to Him: ‘Who’s Winning??’

Drake and Kendrick Lamar‘s rap feud is a family matter to the Hanks clan. Feeling out of the loop on modern hip-hop’s biggest beef to date, Tom Hanks recently reached out to his 33-year-old son Chet Hanks for an explanation of the whole debacle, making for a hilarious conversation which the latter shared on Instagram Monday (May 20).

Posting screenshots of the text chain on his Story, Chet revealed that his father — simply saved in his phone as “Pops” — began by messaging him, “Big Main, can you explain the Drake/Kendrick Lamar feud to me?”

Chet obligingly launched into a lengthy rundown of the feud, noting how each of the rappers has been dropping a series of diss tracks aimed at each other throughout April and May, starting with Drake’s “Push Ups.” Then came Drizzy’s since-deleted “Taylor Made Freestyle,” “Family Matters” and “The Heart Pt. 6,” as well as K. Dot’s “Euphoria,” “6:16 in L.A.” and “Meet the Grahams.”

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Of Lamar’s Billboard Hot 100-topping final diss “Not Like Us,” the younger Hanks told the Academy Award-winner that it was “pretty much the sonic equivalent of when you took me to your high school in Oakland and we walked in on the basketball game and everybody started going nuts.”

“Like if you heard it you would just automatically know how to Crip walk with a stank face while clutching an Oscar in each hand with Marshawn Lynch,” Chet added. “Then dap him up and tell him ‘Town Bidness’ which solidified the win not only for Kendrick but the entire West Coast.”

Suffice to say, Tom — who also shares son Truman with his wife, singer-actress Rita Wilson — was incredulous. “Holy cow!” he wrote back. “These are fighting words. People taking sides?? Who’s winning??”

“Did you not just read what I said,” Chet replied with three cry-laughing emojis.

20 May 2024

Could Taylor Swift Headline a Future Kelce Jam? Here’s What Travis Kelce Thinks

It sounds like Travis Kelce is all for having Taylor Swift headline a future Kelce Jam festival — but there would definitely be some logistical details that would need to be handled first. 

At his second-ever Kelce Jam music festival at Azura Amphitheatre Saturday (May 18) in Kansas City, the Chiefs tight end spoke with Billboard‘s Michael Saponara about the possibility of his superstar girlfriend ever headlining the event. “I don’t know, man — that’d be crazy,” he said with a big laugh. “We’d have to go to a stadium.”  

With respect to Swift’s dozens of sold-out stadium-sized stops on her ongoing global Eras Tour, Kelce added, “I don’t think the amphitheater we’re in right now could hold that.” 

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This year, Kelce Jam was headlined by Lil Wayne, 2 Chainz and Diplo and featured performances from Irie and E-V. In April, Kelce told Billboard that the festival would serve as his “last hoo-rah” to celebrate the Chiefs’ 2024 Super Bowl win. 

While at the event, Kelce also ranked his top three favorite Swift songs — the latter two of which are tracks from The Tortured Poets Department believed to be about him, so he might be a little biased. “Golly,” he told sports journalist The Schmo. “‘Blank Space,’ ‘The Alchemy’ and ‘So High School.’” 

The festival comes shortly after the 14-time Grammy winner gave both “The Alchemy” and “So High School” their live debuts at her Eras concerts in Paris May 9-12. The latter track was one of several new numbers she added to her three-hour-plus show as part of the Tortured Poets mini-set, while the former was included by Swift in the acoustic surprise song section of her final performance at La Defense Arena, which Kelce attended. 

See clips of the tight end talking about Swift at the 2024 Kelce Jam below.