Music News

26 Apr 2023

Rapper MoneySign Suede Dies at 22 in California Prison Stabbing

Rapper MoneySign Suede has died after he was stabbed in a shower at a California prison, authorities and his attorney said.

Jaime Brugada Valdez, 22, of Huntington Park was found in the shower area of the Correctional Training Facility in Soledad State Prison shortly before 10 p.m. Tuesday, according to a statement from the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.

Despite life-saving efforts, he died at a prison medical facility.

The agency didn’t detail his injuries but said his death was being investigated as a homicide.

“They said it was a stabbing to the neck,” Valdez’s attorney, Nicholas Rosenberg, told the Los Angeles Times.

Suede signed to Atlantic Records in 2021 and released his most recent album Parkside Baby in September, the Times said.

The Monterey County prison houses more than 4,000 minimum- and medium-security inmates.

Valdez was sent there after being sentenced in Riverside County in December to serve two years and eight months on two charges of being a convicted felon in possession of a gun, according to state corrections officials.

26 Apr 2023

Fat Joe Fights for Health Care Price Transparency at Capitol Hill

Fat Joe is using his platform for a good cause.

The 52-year-old rapper flew down to Washington D.C. on Wednesday (April 26) as a spokesperson for Power to the Patients, which advocates for health care billing transparency. He spoke to a crowd at Capitol Hill, sharing how his hometown of NYC’s The Bronx has “protected” him throughout his life, and that he’s ready to help out the “voiceless” people in his community in return.

“They know they got somebody here who’s willing to step up and fight for their rights and fight for their families, fight for their health,” Fat Joe is heard saying in a clip shared by TMZ. “This is not a rocket scientist thing. Just show us the prices so we can know whether we want to go to this hospital or if we want to go to the other hospital.”

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Fat Joe, a longtime Power to the Patients supporter, is also set to perform at an event sponsored by the organization ahead of the White House Correspondents’ Association on Thursday (April 27), taking the stage alongside fellow rappers Busta Rhymes, French Montana and Rick Ross.

“It’s your right to know HOSPITAL PRICES,” the “Lean Back” rapper captioned a post on Instagram, in which he shared a number of snaps from his trip to the nation’s capital so far. See the post below.

26 Apr 2023

Janet Jackson Concert Moved After Atlanta Hawks’ NBA Playoff Win

The Atlanta Hawks are still alive in the NBA Playoffs, and that will force fans planning to attend Janet Jackson’s concert in the city this week to wait a day to see the music star.

The Hawks rallied to beat the Boston Celtics 119-117 in Game 5 of their playoff matchup on Tuesday night, sending the series back to Atlanta for Game 6.

It means that State Farm Arena was double-booked for Thursday night. The casualty was Jackson’s concert, Live Nation said in a statement following the the team’s victory.

The concert was moved to Friday, and all tickets for Thursday’s show will be honored for Friday night. Refunds will be available at the point of purchase for those who are unable to change their plans.

State Farm Arena’s Twitter account posted this message late Tuesday: “SHOW UPDATE: Due to tonight’s @ATLHawks Game 5 win, we will host Game 6 on Thursday, moving Thursday’s Janet Jackson concert to Friday. If you have tickets to the original show date, they will be honored for Friday’s date.”

Doors for Jackson’s show Friday will open at 6:30 p.m. and the concert will begin at 7:45 p.m.

26 Apr 2023

Jessica Simpson Is Ready for Summer, Poses in SKIMS Bikini

Jessica Simpson is ready to soak up the sun, and is supporting another female business owner at the same time.

The star took to Instagram on Wednesday (April 26) to share a stunning mirror selfie, in which she’s seen rocking a neon green bikini from Kim Kardashian’s SKIMS swim collection. To put together the look, Simpson paired the swimsuit with a pair of hot pink platforms from her own shoe line.

“SKIMS Swim + @Jessicasimpsonstyle Shoes = Neon Energy,” Simpson captioned the snap.

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While the “I Wanna Love You Forever” singer looks glowing and confident in her new Instagram post, she’s been open for years about her struggles with body image, especially when it comes to body shamers online.

In April 2021, the star’s mom, Tina Simpson, appeared on TODAY, where she discussed the hardest part about her daughter living in the spotlight. “I have to be honest: To me, the hardest thing with Jessica has been the weight. Because the way people judge her, it’s unbelievable. Body shaming is a terrible thing, and no girl should have to go through that — or guy. Period,” she told TODAY‘s Sheinelle Jones. “Because of that, it catapulted all kinds of different emotions and different things in her life, too, you know? And then it made her want to be a recluse, in a lot of ways, and to hide out and not want to get our of her house.”

26 Apr 2023

Tones and I’s ‘Dance Monkey’ Video Dances All the Way to 2 Billion Views on YouTube

Tones and I just keeps dancing. On Wednesday (April 26), the music video for the Australian indie sensation’s smash single “Dance Monkey” officially hit 2 billion views and counting on YouTube.

The amusing clip finds the artist otherwise known as Toni Elizabeth Watson donning old-age makeup and a gray beard to play an old man who escapes from a nursing home with his gaggle of buddies for a wild day out on the golf course.

“They say dance for me, dance for me, dance for me, oh-oh-oh/ I’ve never seen anybody do the things you do before/ They say, move for me, move for me, move for me, ay-ay-ay/ And when you’re done, I’ll make you do it all again,” she sings as the group goes joyriding in golf carts, throws back beers at the clubhouse and boogies on the putting green.

The grooving single was an instantly viral hit when Tones and I unleashed it back in 2019 as the second single from her debut EP The Kids Are Coming. While it charted at No. 4 on the Billboard Hot 100, the song hit No. 1 in more than 30 countries around the world and also earned the pop singer her first top 10 hit on Billboard‘s Pop Airplay, Hot Rock & Alternative Songs and Dance/Mix Show Airplay charts.

Since then, Tones and I released her debut studio album Welcome to the Madhouse, collaborated with Macklemore on “Chant,” and contributed “I Made It” to the soundtrack of the 2023 biographical drama True Spirit.

Rewatch Tones and I’s “Dance Monkey” music video below.

26 Apr 2023

Swifties Celebrate Four Years Since Taylor Swift Adopted Her Cat Benjamin Button

It’s been four years since Taylor Swift laid her eyes on and fell in love with a sweet, blue-eyed kitten on the set of her “ME!” music video in 2019, and Taylor Nation took to Instagram to celebrate four years of Benjamin Button.

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“And then there were #fouryearsofBenji!” the official account wrote on Thursday (April 26) alongside a series of photos in which the 12-time Grammy winning superstar is seen cuddling with the fluffy feline.

“He’s a good boy,” the account wrote in another post, and soon enough, the hashtag #fouryearsofBenji began trending on Twitter.

In a clip titled “ME! Behind The Scenes: The Story of Benjamin Button,” shared following the release of her colorful music video starring Panic At The Disco’s Brendon Urie, Swift took fans into the process of meeting and subsequently adopting her third cat.

“Hi honey, you’re beautiful,” she coos in the clip, holding a baby Benji. An exchange is then had with the kitty’s handler, and Swift asks if she can have him — and the rest is history. “Whenever I watch the video, I’ll be like, ‘That’s the first time I saw him,’” Swift later says to Urie.

Of course, the Swifties flooded Twitter with celebratory messages in honor of Benjamin Button’s big day. See below.

26 Apr 2023

Halle Bailey Makes ‘Part of Your World’ Her Own for Live-Action ‘Little Mermaid’: Listen

Halle Bailey is gearing up to make her Disney debut in the live-action version of The Little Mermaid next month, and ahead of the movie’s official release, fans were treated to her rendition of “Part of Your World” on Wednesday (April 26).

In a new interview with Zane Lowe on Apple Music 1, the singer — one-half of sister duo Chloe x Halle — revealed that she tried to keep her version of the track as close to Jodi Benson’s original in the 1989 animated film.

“Every time I hear Jodi Benson sing it, the nostalgia that I get is just amazing and it fills me up with so much joy,” she told the host. “I get goosebumps all over so I was very excited to do my own rendition of this song and try my very best to give the song justice, you know, because it’s an amazing work of art. I took inspiration from the original, really based off of the amazing base that we had of the original already.”

Bailey continued: “Jodi Benson is an iconic singer and she’s just such a lovely person inside and out as well. So when you are redoing a song that’s already great, you just have to really try your best to honor the original, as well as not be afraid to make it your own. So that’s truly what I tried to do.”

Leading up to the release of The Little Mermaid, the 23-year-old revealed that she has had some issues with controlling her nerves before the premiere. “I’m a little bit nervous just because this has been so long in the making. I mean, I auditioned for this film when I was 18, and I turned 23 this year,” she said. “Now that it’s finally here, I’m like, whoa, I can’t believe it. And it’s a very, very big pinch-me moment. I’m so excited. And I just can’t wait for people to see what we did to this film.”

Listen to Bailey’s version of “Part of Your World” in the video below.

26 Apr 2023

P!nk Gracefully Shuts Down Troll Over Body-Shaming Dig: ‘You’ve Got Too Much Free Time’

P!nk put a far-right commentator in his place on Wednesday (April 26) after he attempted to troll her on social media over her appearance.

The Twitter back-and-forth started when Stew Peters posted a photo of the pop star performing on stage in a midriff-baring costume and snidely wrote, “Those aren’t child-bearing hips.”

Known for not holding back on social media, the “Never Not Gonna Dance Again” singer — and proud mom of daughter Willow Sage and son Jameson Moon, for the record — let the troll off relatively easy, merely quote-tweeting his post and writing, “Oh, Stewie. Stewie Stewie Stewie. You’ve got too much free time,” followed by a clown emoji.

Her fans, on the other hand, were less apt to let the body shaming slide. “When Stew finds out you have a child his mind gonna be blown…” one responded, while another tweeted, “Indeed those are not ‘child-bearing’ hips, those are ‘boss mom hips’! My favourite female/mom artist by far!” A third fan pointed out, “It’s mind-numbing that people actually think this way and say these things.”

Of course, P!nk has much more than misogynistic Twitter trolls to keep her busy and winning these days. Not only did she recently release Trustfall, her ninth top 10 album on the Billboard 200, but she’s also gearing up for not one, but two tours in support of the project.

Additionally, she and pal Kelly Clarkson just raised $60,000 to benefit nonprofit No Kid Hungry by donating a signed, one-of-a-kind soundwave artwork of their duet “Broken and Beautiful.”

Read P!nk’s classy clap-back to put the Twitter troll in his place below.

26 Apr 2023

What’s Your Favorite Regional Mexican/Urban Collab? Vote!

Once considered unorthodox, collaborations between regional Mexican music and urban artists are now considered part of the norm.

Over the past few years, the industry has witnessed unprecedented team-ups, including Bad Bunny‘s first major splash into this world alongside then-emerging corridos tumbados act Natanael Cano. In 2019, the pair released a remix to Cano’s “Soy El Diablo.”

Four years later, Bunny is back at it again, this time partnering with another newcomer, Grupo Frontera. Earlier this month, the Puerto Rican superstar and Frontera released the norteño-tinged cumbia “un x100to.”

Peso Pluma, Mexican music’s latest hitmaker, has delivered star-studded collaborations with non-regional Mexican artists, including Nicki Nicole, Ovy on the Drums and Blessd. Both Ovy and Blessd joined Peso to sing his signature corridos bélicos.

Meanwhile, in March, Nicky Jam and Luis R. Conriquez delivered “Como El Viento,” a melodious corrido with hints of trap. “I’ve always respected regional Mexican music,” Jam previously told Billboard Español. “It’s not from my culture — in Puerto Rico, you hear more salsa, merengue and Caribbean music, but I lived 10 years in Colombia, and over there you listen to it a lot. So they showed me this song and I thought it was the perfect one for me.”

Other collaborations between regional Mexican artists and urban acts featured on our list include Grupo Firme and Maluma’s “Cada Quien,” Ivan Cornejo and Jhayco’s “Está Dañada (Remix),” and Banda MS, Snoop Dogg and Becky G’s “Qué Maldición.”

So what’s your favorite regional Mexican/urban collab? Make your vote count in our poll below:

26 Apr 2023

Man Accused of Killing Taylor Swift Fan Jacob Lewis in Hit & Run to be Charged With Felony Murder

The man accused of killing 20-year-old Taylor Swift fan Jacob Lewis in a hit-and-run accident as he left the Houston Eras Tour stop last Friday will be charged with felony murder, a prosecutor in the case says.

According to KHOU-11, Lewis and his sister April Bancroft were driving back home from the concert at NRG Stadium when they had car trouble. Lewis started pushing the vehicle to the shoulder when he was struck by a suspected drunk driver — identified by police as 34-year-old Alan Hayes — who fled the scene. A tow-truck driver witnessed the incident and led police to Hayes, who was later arrested.

Hayes is currently being held in jail on $120,000 bond for DWI and failure to stop and render aid. Prosecutor Kelly Marshall told the outlet that Hayes has two prior DWI convictions and was arrested in Montgomery County on drug charges just a few days before the accident.

Meanwhile, Lewis’ sister has expressed gratitude toward Swift fans, who have extended kindness to her and her family in light of her brother’s death. A GoFundMe in Lewis’ name has raised more than $120,000 with the help of $13 donations from Swifties; the family will use the money for funeral costs and a scholarship in Lewis’ name.

“I cannot express the overwhelming happiness and gratitude from every #Swiftie out there,” Bancroft tweeted Sunday. “Thank you thank you thank you. I will get to your messages eventually if I haven’t already, your words have inspired me through my day so much.”