Music News

24 Mar 2025

Live Nation to Pay $20M to Settle Lawsuit Claiming It Failed to Warn Investors About Antitrust Risks

Live Nation has agreed to pay $20 million to settle a lawsuit claiming the company failed to warn investors about the kind of anticompetitive behavior that ultimately led to the Justice Department’s sweeping antitrust case.

In a filing Friday (March 21) in California federal court, attorneys for the plaintiffs said the deal with Live Nation would provide a “fair, reasonable, and adequate result” for thousands of investors who could be covered by the settlement. Live Nation continues to deny any wrongdoing, according to the court filings.

The case, filed in August 2023 as a proposed class action, claimed that Live Nation had failed to disclose to investors that it had engaged in anticompetitive conduct that was “likely to incur regulatory scrutiny and face fines, penalties, and reputational harm.”

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“Defendants made materially false and/or misleading statements and omissions of material fact about the company’s compliance with antitrust laws, its cooperation with governmental investigations, and the regulatory risks it was currently facing,” attorneys for the investors wrote.

As the government’s antitrust investigation was slowly revealed in the press — and then the blockbuster case was finally filed in May — Live Nation’s share price dropped, allegedly causing investors to face “significant” losses.

“The gradual revelation of the truth about the company’s anticompetitive conduct in violation of antitrust laws, refusal to fully cooperate with investigators, and undisclosed risks of regulatory action caused precipitous declines in the market value of the company’s stock,” attorneys for the investors wrote.

The DOJ and dozens of states filed their case in May, with the aim of breaking up Live Nation and Ticketmaster over accusations that they form an illegal monopoly in the live music industry. The case, which remains pending, accuses the company of a wide range of wrongdoing, including coercing artists into using the company’s promotion services and retaliating against venues that opted not to use Ticketmaster.

According to the lawsuit filed by the investors, Live Nation’s stock dropped $7.92 per share, or 7.8 percent, when the feds filed their case. Even before the lawsuit was formally filed, media reports about the investigation — including that Live Nation had “stonewalled” a Senate probe — had caused similar decreases in price.

According to settlement papers submitted on Friday, experts for the investors estimated that a best-case scenario might net them a whopping $743 million in damages at the end of the lawsuit. But their lawyers said that continuing to litigate the case also posed “significant” downside risk.

“The settlement provides a favorable, immediate and guaranteed recovery and eliminates the risk, delay, and expense of continued litigation,” plaintiff’s lawyers wrote. “While a greater recovery might be a theoretical possibility, evaluating the benefits of settlement must be tempered by recognizing that any compromise involves concessions on the part of all parties.”

Under the terms of the deal, the attorneys who represented the plaintiffs will be able to seek as much as 33 percent of the settlement, meaning up to $6.6 million. The two named plaintiffs, shareholders Brian Donley and Gene Gress, will get an extra $5,000 each.

A spokeswoman for Live Nation and an attorney for the plaintiffs did not immediately return requests for comment on the settlement.

24 Mar 2025

LISA of BLACKPINK Says She Was ‘Too Shy’ to Tell Justin Bieber How Much She Loves Him

Even LISA isn’t immune to Bieber Fever. In a recent interview about her favorite songs, the BLACKPINK star shouted out Justin Bieber‘s breakout hit before recalling how starstruck she was the first time they met.

While speaking to The Guardian in a piece published Monday (March 24), LISA shared that the American pop star’s “Baby” is a song she can sing every word to without fail. “Everyone knows the lyrics to ‘Baby’ by Justin Bieber and Ludacris, don’t they?” she told the publication. “I think everyone was a Bieber fan when they were young.”

“I met him a few years ago, but just for a quick hi,” the Thai rapper added. “I didn’t tell him how much I loved him, because I’m too shy.”

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In the same interview, LISA shared which music she wakes up to — SZA’s “Snooze” and Ariana Grande’s Eternal Sunshine — as well as the first song she fell in love with. “My older cousin would come ’round to play at my house, and she was a big fan of Britney Spears,” she said while on the topic of the latter. “She put on ‘… Baby One More Time’ and I was like, ‘What is this song? I love it.’ I watched the music video and fell in love with her.”

The White Lotus star also shared which track she can’t listen to anymore: “This is a bit savage, but probably ‘Boombayah’ by BLACKPINK. Not because of the song, it’s just that the dance moves are really aggressive,” she clarified. “There’s a lot of whipping your head, so it’s really intense to perform.”

The interview comes just a few weeks after the release of LISA’s debut solo album, Alter Ego. Featuring singles “Rockstar,” “New Woman” with Rosalía and “Born Again” featuring Doja Cat and RAYE, the LP debuted at No. 7 on the Billboard 200 and at No. 1 on the Top Album Sales chart.

This summer, LISA and the rest of BLACKPINK will reunite for a world tour kicking off in July.

24 Mar 2025

Bunnie XO Opens Up About ‘Lonely’ IVF Journey

Bunnie XO is opening up about the lesser known emotions of IVF.

In a new episode of her Dumb Blonde podcast, the star got vulnerable about her emotions as she goes through the process of trying to conceive a child with her husband, Jelly Roll. She compared the process to “slot machine in Vegas” due to its unpredictable outcome.

“Honestly, when I was going through this, I realized how lonely of a journey IVF is. It’s very lonely. And granted, you have people surrounding you, and like, you know, hopefully if you’re going through it, you have, you know, friends, family who love you and know you’re going through it,” she explained. “But at the same time, it’s just you and these hormones and the waiting and the egg retrieval. And like, you’re the only person who can go through that, you know? So it’s a lot to bear.”

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Bunnie previously opened up about her IVF journey on a July episode of her podcast. “I’m in my baby mama gardening era,” she joked, adding that Jelly said he would “love” to have a baby with her. “That was not the response that I thought he would say,” she admitted, noting that he’s “so excited” about the possibility of having children together.

The couple first met back in 2015, when Bunnie watched Jelly Roll perform at Sin City’s Country Saloon in Las Vegas. They tied the knot a year later, in August 2016. Bunnie is the stepmother to Jelly’s 15-year-old daughter, Bailee Ann, and eight-year-old son, Noah.

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24 Mar 2025

Selena Gomez & Benny Blanco’s ‘Ojos Tristes’ vs. Jeanette’s ’80s Hit: Here’s What’s Different

Selena Gomez and Benny Blanco — her fiancé who happens to be one of the top pop producers of today — are making the rounds with their joint album I Said I Love You First. 

Best representing the creative collaboration between two halves of a shared heart, the set is home to 15 tracks, including “Call Me When You Break Up,” featuring Gracie Abrams, and “I Can’t Get Enough,” the pair’s 2019 team-up with J Balvin and Tainy. 

“It just felt like it was a little taste of what we are and how we made this together, and how much we loved it and how much we love each other,” Gomez recently said about working with her romantic partner in an interview with Apple Music’s Zane Lowe. “And it just felt like it was meant to be.”

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One of the set’s standout track is “Ojos Tristes,” a bilingual glam-pop track that features vocals from the Marías leader María Zardoya, who is also credited as a songwriter and producer. The song — whose lyric video has nearly 2 million views and is in the top 10 on YouTube’s Trending chart for music at the time of publishing — samples Jeanette’s 1981 classic “El Muchacho de los Ojos Tristes.”

Below, Billboard compares the 2025 version with the original by the English-born Spanish singer.

Title: “El Muchacho de los Ojos Tristes”

Artist: Jeanette

Year: 1981

Song: A song about a young man with sad eyes became one of the most emblematic songs of Jeanette’s career. Lyrically, she sings about coming across a lonely man who has sad eyes and needs love, and her desire to see him again and make him feel better. Musically, it’s a soft, glam-pop ballad that transmits melancholy backed by Jeanette’s dreamy and dulcet vocals. “El Muchacho de los Ojos Tristes” was written and produced by Manuel Alejandro and marked the third single from Jeanette’s Corazón de Poeta album released in 1981.

Video: A video published on Jeanette’s official YouTube channel shows the then-30-year-old singer performing the song in a live television setting. Completely alone onstage, the artist interprets the song’s lyrics with grace, passion and her own sad, brown eyes glistening. She’s wearing a sequined purple dress with cowboy boots as she sways side to side.

Title: “Ojos Tristes”

Artist: Selena Gomez & Benny Blanco

Year: 2025

Song: While the ’80s song is about the desire of knowing more about that mysterious man with the sad eyes, Gomez’s “Ojos Tristes” is about an unwanted breakup. “It’s not your fault I have to leave/ Please don’t you look that way, baby […] Those sad eyes, sad eyes/ You know I don’t wanna say goodbye,” she sings at the beginning of the track. Produced by Blanco, Josh Conway and Maria Zardoya of The Marías, the song conserves its hazy-disco aura, but with more percussion and instrumentation. The Marías also sings Jeanette’s timeless chorus in Spanish and adds another verse about never forgetting her ex despite the years.

Video: An official music video has yet to be released, but a lyric video featuring Gomez hugging Blanco in bed on a loop captures the nostalgic sentiment of the song.

24 Mar 2025

Rhiannon Giddens Explains Mixed Feelings About Playing on Beyoncé’s ‘Cowboy Carter’

One year after the release of Beyoncé’s Billboard 200-topping album Cowboy Carter, “Texas Hold ‘Em” banjo player Rhiannon Giddens is opening up about feeling conflicted over her contributions to the culture-shifting project.

In an interview with Rolling Stone published Sunday ahead of the release of her own album What Did the Blackbird Say to the Crow, Giddens shared that she has struggled with the pros and cons of appearing on such a high-profile album. On the one hand, plucking strings on the LP’s No. 1 Billboard Hot 100 hit single “Texas Hold ‘Em” allowed her to feel embraced by the mainstream Black community for the first time, she says — but on the other, it also made her feel like her contributions were simply part of a “transaction.”

“There are so many of us struggling to maintain our humanity in this industry,” Giddens told the publication. “My biggest talent is collaboration. I’m really into sharing and being one of many, and I feel like that’s important, but you can’t be a superstar and do that. You just can’t!”

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“There are two examples I could pull out, in my entire 20-year career, where I feel like I had to make a compromise in order for a greater good,” she continued. “This was one of those times … And there were definitely benefits: I’ve heard from people saying more people are taking banjo classes and dancing to it because of [‘Texas Hold ‘Em’]. It also gave me an entrée into the Black community that I’ve never had, to be honest. Because of all the things I’ve been fighting for my whole life, it’s been difficult to be seen as a Black musician, especially since I’m mixed, all this sh–. But for the first time, I felt acceptance from the mainstream Black community, which made me weep.”

That said, Giddens said it was “really hard” to feel as though her talents were “treated as any other transaction in the music industry.” “Because I certainly didn’t do it for the money, I can tell you that,” she elaborated. “I did it for the mission. So, my idea of what the mission is and somebody else’s idea of what the mission is are not going to be the same thing. There’s a reason why I’m not a multi-millionaire. If you are a multi-millionaire, there are reasons why. No shade, whatever. It means you do things in a certain way.”

The folk musician went on to give an example of a mainstream artist whose mission she does resonate with: Kendrick Lamar, whom Giddens says uses his platform “in an intensely activist way.” “I don’t know how he does it, but he did it,” she said. “He’s unique. Most people aren’t like him. So I can’t expect everybody to be like him, and that’s fine.”

Released in March 2024, Cowboy Carter was one of the year’s most talked-about albums. Featuring collaborations with Dolly Parton, Willie Nelson, Miley Cyrus and Post Malone, the project sparked much discourse about the bounds of genre and whether Bey was “country enough” to make the pivot. The album was notably shut out by the Country Music Awards, receiving no nominations despite its success on the country charts (including the superstar becoming the first Black woman to ever top the Hot Country Songs chart). Cowboy Carter did, however, receive both best country album and album of the year at the 2025 Grammys.

At one point, Giddens herself even responded to the backlash Cowboy Carter faced from country music purists — whose dismissal of the album she said was “just racism” in an IMPACT x Nightline interview. “Nobody’s asking Lana Del Rey, ‘What right do you have to make a country record?’” Giddens said in March last year. “People don’t wanna say it’s because she’s Black. You know? But they use these … these coded terms, you know? And that’s problematic.”

24 Mar 2025

Lizzo to Play Sister Rosetta Tharpe in Upcoming Amazon MGM Studios Biopic

Lizzo is putting on her guitar strap to take on the role of the iconic original soul sister, Sister Rosetta Tharpe in Amazon MGM Studios‘ upcoming biopic Rosetta, according to Deadline.

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Per the publication, the project is currently in development with producers Lizzo, Kevin Beisler, Significant Productions’ Nina Yang Bongiovi and Forest Whitaker. Natalie Chaidez and Kwynn Perry are writing the screenwriters.

An early description of the project says the film “captures a pivotal period in her life — one of groundbreaking innovation, defiant passion, and secret love. As she shatters musical boundaries with her signature guitar sound, Rosetta must navigate societal constraints, conceal her love for another woman, and ultimately transform a wedding into one of the most legendary concerts in history — the first stadium show.”

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Tharpe, often called the “Godmother of Rock and Roll,” blazed a trail for generations to come with her gospel folk and mastery of her signature Gibson SG guitar. From her 1938 recording of “Rock Me” through sold-out performances in the 1940s and 50s, Tharpe was known for her unique mix of gospel vocals and driving electric guitar playing, influencing a slew of later rock n’ roll icons from Elvis Presley and Chuck Berry to Johnny Cash and Little Richard.

She was inducted in to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame posthumously in 2018, and received a lifetime achievement award from the Recording Academy in 2020. The star died in 1973 after suffering a stroke.

Tharpe has previously been portrayed onscreen by Yola in Baz Luhrmann’s 2022 biopic, Elvis.

24 Mar 2025

Everything Nick Cannon Has Said About Being a Dad to 12 Kids & Wanting Even More

Nick Cannon is famous for numerous music, acting, comedy and hosting projects, but in recent years, he may have become best-known for being a dad — to not one, not two, but 12 kids and counting.

The Masked Singer ringleader first became a parent during his former marriage to Mariah Carey, with whom he welcomed twins Moroccan and Monroe in 2011. A few years after the couple separated in 2014, Cannon became a father again to a son named Golden Sagon, whom pageant star and podcaster Brittany Bell delivered in 2017. Three years after that, the Drumline star and Bell welcomed another child, daughter Powerful Queen.

In 2021, more kids came into the mix with twins Zion Mixolydian and Zillion Heir, Cannon’s sons with DJ and radio personality Abby De La Rosa. That same year, he welcomed a son named Zen with model Alyssa Scott; tragically, the little boy died of brain cancer when he was just a few months old.

The following year proved to be Cannon’s most fertile yet, with the Wild n’ Out comedian welcome five babies in the span of about six months. First came son Legendary Love with Selling Sunset star Bre Tiesi, followed by daughter Onyx Ice with model LaNisha Cole, son Rise Messiah with Bell, daughter Beautiful Zeppelin with De La Rosa and daughter Halo Marie with Scott.

All of this to say, Cannon is a very busy — and probably very tired — man. Throughout his fatherhood journey, however, the star has both maintained a good sense of humor about the situation while remaining open about his plans (or lack thereof) to grow his family even more.

From jokes about vasectomies to remarks about the joys of fatherhood, keep reading to see everything Cannon has said about his many kiddos, and whether he wants to have more, below.

24 Mar 2025

Tyler, The Creator Says He Won’t Be Performing Songs Off This Album While on Tour

While much of the 30-plus track setlist of Tyler, The Creator‘s Chromakopia: The World Tour centers around the rapper’s 2024 album, one fan made it clear that they want to hear at least one song from a different Tyler album, both online and in-person.

After Tyler made a stop at Orlando’s Kia Center on Saturday night (March 22), a fan took their in-person chants of hoping to hear Cherry Bomb‘s “Deathcamp” live to social media on Monday “I started that Cherry Bomb chant on Saturday and I will start it again tonight. I need to hear DEATHCAMP live,” the fan wrote on X.

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The post drew a response from the Grammy-winning rapper ahead of his Miami show, when Tyler said that he wasn’t tweaking his setlist to cave to the crowd’s demands every show. “Chant all you want (i hope you dont, its mad annoying during the show) I’m not gonna play it, chanting doesn’t make me magically wanna play it,” he replied.

There seemed to be a split reaction from fans on social media as some wanted to hear the grungy track while others trusted Tyler’s vision. “if he doesn’t wanna play deathcamp don’t try to force him to play deathcamp it’s really not that hard people,” one person wrote. Another fired back: “N—a just add it to your set , we don’t care cuz you over the song , you made it for them to enjoy right ? Folks paying to come to your show , why not add a song they wanna hear .. everything you have is because fans spend hard earned money money to see you in wigs.”

“Deathcamp” served as a lead single in April 2015 alongside “F–king Young / Perfect” for Tyler’s Cherry Bomb album. “I’ve always liked Cherry Bomb,” Tyler told the Rap Radar podcast in 2023. “Because I say that era of me as a person was gross and I had to change — they associate that I hate the Cherry Bomb album. I’ve never stated that.”

The Chromakopia: The World Tour continues this week with dates in Miami, Charlotte, N.C., Pittsburgh and Columbus, Ohio.

Find Tyler, The Creator’s post below:

24 Mar 2025

Jermaine Dupri’s Magic City Docuseries Acquired By Starz

Jermaine Dupri‘s docuseries on Atlanta’s legendary Magic City strip club is officially underway. Deadline has reported that the five-part series entitled Magic City: An American Fantasy has been picked up by Starz.

Originally a three-part series, the project first premiered at SXSW in 2024 and centers around founder Michael “Mr. Magic” Barney and the dancers that have made the club the institution that it is within the rap community. “Magic City: An American Fantasy is a riveting behind-the-curtain look at one of the most unique places in Black culture,” Kathryn Busby, president of original programming at Starz said in a statement released with the news. “The docuseries’ unprecedented insider access and history unveiled from those who built its empire is a perfect complement to Starz’s slate of adult, culture-driving shows.”

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According to the film’s logline as quoted in Variety, the documentary follows Barney from the “opening a small strip club in Atlanta” to that club becoming “the most famous strip club in Atlanta, and soon, the world.” The new series also explores the aftermath of Barney’s drug conspiracy conviction that sent him to federal prison for seven years, with the series’ description adding that his time in prison meant “the empire he’s built may crumble.”

Created by Cole Brown and directed by Charles Todd, the series is also executive produced by Drake‘s DreamCrew Entertainment, which also executive produced the Netflix’s Top Boy and HBO’s Euphoria.

While no release date has been set, Magic City: An American Fantasy is expected to debut this summer.

24 Mar 2025

Kesha Announces Release Date for T-Pain Collaboration ‘Yippee-Ki-Yay’

Kesha is kicking off 2025 with a bang. The superstar’s first release of the year arrives in the form of a major collaboration with T-Pain.

The “TiK ToK” singer took to Instagram on Monday (March 24) to announce that the track, “Yippee-Ki-Yay,” will be released on Thursday (March 27). The corresponding cover art features Kesha in black underwear, wrapped in Saran Wrap. She has her eyes closed as a leaf blower blows air through her blonde hair.

See the post here.

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Kesha began releasing music under her own label, Kesha Records, in July 2024, starting with “Joyride” and following it up with “Delusional.” The independent label has a global distribution deal with ADA that gives her full creative control and ownership of her work. ADA is also working together with Crush Music, Kesha’s management company, to oversee marketing and promotion for the pop star’s next album, expected to arrive this year.

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The star’s new musical era comes after settling of a defamation suit filed by Dr. Luke in 2023, which came several years after the singer filed a suit against the producer in 2014 alleging physical, sexual and emotional abuse.

Kesha also previously teased that her upcoming sixth studio album is complete. “JUST TURNED IN MY ALBUM… TO MYSELF,” she wrote last week via Instagram.