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No matter how large or small the venue, you never know who will show up to a concert in Music City.
On Sunday evening (March 9), rapper Snoop Dogg made a surprise appearance at Nashville music venue Losers Bar & Grill. The 16-time Grammy-nominated entertainer treated the audience in the 500-capacity venue to a rendition of his 1994-released song “Gin and Juice.”
Country singer-songwriter Ernest was among those who joined Snoop during the evening, and shared photos from the performance over the weekend. The two entertainers have previously collaborated on an as-yet-unreleased song called “Gettin’ Done,” which Ernest performed during a show in Nashville last month.
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“SNOOP X DEVILLE,” the country artist captioned his carousel of photos with the rapper.
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The venue also shared a clip of Snoop’s performance on Instagram, captioning the video on Monday (March 10): “You never know who might hop up on stage. This Life Ain’t For Everybody! @snoopdogg #LosersWin”
This is just Snoop Dogg’s most recent appearance in Nashville. In November, he joined Jelly Roll on stage during the “Son of a Sinner” singer’s headlining show at Bridgestone Arena, where the two traded verses on “Drop It Like It’s Hot” and collaborated on a song inspired by Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers’ “Mary Jane’s Last Dance.”
During his career, Snoop Dogg earned three Billboard Hot 100 chart-toppers, including 2004’s “Drop It Like It’s Hot” with Pharrell, as well as a feature on the 2006 Akon hit “I Wanna Love You” and the 2010 Katy Perry hit “California Gurls.” Snoop Dogg (initially known as Snoop Doggy Dogg) first gained prominence through his collaborations with Dr. Dre, including “Deep Cover” and his contributions to Dr. Dre’s groundbreaking 1992 album, The Chronic. Snoop made his solo studio debut on his 1993 album Doggystyle, which set the stage for further hit albums, including The Doggfather. Along the way, he notched numerous hits including “What’s My Name?,” “Gin and Juice” and “Still a G Thang,” and later teaming with Pharrell for songs including “Beautiful” (with Charlie Wilson) and “Drop It Like It’s Hot.”
Ernest, a longtime friend of Jelly Roll, is known for his work writing hits including the “Save Me” singer’s “Son of a Sinner,” the Morgan Wallen/Post Malone hit “I Had Some Help” and Wallen’s “You Proof,” “Wasted on You” and “More Than My Hometown,” among others. Ernest earned a No. 1 Billboard Country Airplay hit with the collaboration “Cowgirls” (with Wallen).
Celine Dion is speaking out against artificial intelligence-generated music that is using her likeness.
The legendary vocalist took to Instagram on Friday (March 7) to share a statement, writing, “It has come to our attention that unsanctioned, AI-generated music purporting to contain Celine Dion’s musical performances, and name and likeness, is currently circulating online and across various Digital Service Providers.”
The statement continued, “Please be advised that these recordings are fake and not approved, and are not songs from her official discography.”
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However, Dion did not indicate exactly which AI-generated songs or performances have been circulating. See her post here.
Dion recently made her long-awaited return to the stage last year, performing Édith Piaf’s 1950 classic “Hymne à L’Amour” on the Eiffel Tower at the 2024 Paris Olympics opening ceremony in July. The event came after she cancelled the dates on her North American Courage world tour before revealing she is fighting Stiff Person Syndrome, a rare neurological disorder that causes severe muscle spasms. Accompanied by a piano and rocking a stunning white gown, the singer delivered her effortlessly flawless vocals as she belted the lyrics to the song, which translates to “The Hymn of Love.”
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“I haven’t fought the illness; it’s still within me and will be forever,” she told Vogue France early last year, noting that she follows athletic, physical and vocal therapy five times a week. “Hopefully, we’ll find a miracle, a way to heal through scientific research, but I have to learn to live with it. I work on everything, from my toes to my knees, calves, fingers, singing, voice… It’s the condition I have to learn to live with now, by stopping questioning myself.”
She concluded, “There is one thing that will never stop, and that’s the desire. It’s the passion. It’s the dream. It’s the determination.”
Mase is planning a comeback. During the March 7 episode of his sports talk show It Is What It Is, the Harlem rapper-turned-sports pundit kicked things off by revealing that not only is he going to drop his first album since 2004’s Welcome Back, but Cam’ron helped curate the tracklist. “Mo, what’s good? Can y’all […]
LISA lets her Swiftie flag fly whenever she does karaoke, with the BLACKPINK star revealing in a new video that her go-to song for the occasion is one of Taylor Swift‘s early hits.
While recounting some of her “firsts” with White Lotus costar Tayme Thapthimthong in a recent Teen Vogue video, LISA had an immediate answer to a question asking which song she’s first to queue up during karaoke. “For me, I’ll go for Taylor Swift,” she said. “‘You Belong With Me.’”
Even so, LISA recently told Jimmy Kimmel that she preferred to watch from the sidelines during the cast’s frequent karaoke sessions on set. “I’m just sitting in the corner of the room cheering them, hyping them up,” she said March 4 on the comedian’s late-night show, noting that she didn’t ever partake in singing while filming and instead preferred to dance. “I feel weird for me to grab the mic and sing karaoke. [There’s] a lot of pressure.”
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The Thai rapper has long been a fan of the “Karma” artist. In March 2024, she attended one of Swift’s Eras Tour shows in Singapore and posed with the 14-time Grammy winner backstage. “Had such a blast at The Eras Tour! Amazing performance💘 @taylorswift,” LISA wrote on Instagram at the time, sharing photos of her friendship bracelets.
A few months later, LISA raved again about the show. “She’s incredible!” the K-pop star told Elle of Swift in August. “Singing alone on a stage for three and a half hours is crazy … I maybe could do it with a lot of practice.”
The “Rockstar” singer makes her acting debut in the third season of HBO Max’s The White Lotus, which premiered in February. While LISA plays Mook, an employee at the titular fictional hotel chain’s Thailand location, Thapthimthong portrays Gaitok.
While speaking to Teen Vogue with the English actor, LISA also revealed what she bought with her first-ever paycheck — “I think it was a pair of sneakers or something” — as well as recounted the first time she was ever recognized in public. “After I debuted with BLACKPINK, we all went to Thailand for a trip or something,” she said. “We had like a fan waiting for us at the airport. I was like, ‘Oh wow. They love us!’”
Plus, the performer shared the first K-pop idol she ever looked up to and admitted to being a little bit “shy to answer.” “I love BIGBANG,” she said, covering her face. “I can’t pick one because I love them all.”
Watch LISA reveal her “firsts” with Tayme above.
Two of the core members of sprawling K-pop boy band SEVENTEEN, vocal unit leader and producer/singer WOOZI and performance unit leader and dancer/rapper HOSHI, have teamed up to release their first single album, Beam. The three-track EP from the group’s “mastermind duo” dubbed HOSHI X WOOZI dropped on Monday (March 10) as the logical follow-up to “Bring It,” a B-side from SEVENTEEN’S second studio album, 2017’s Teen, Age.
The collection kicks off with the slinky “PINOCCHIO,” a Billie Eilish-like whispery ballad that features additional vocals from SE SO NEON’s SO!YoON!, which slides into the banging lead single, “96ers.” With a mix of boy band pop and hip-hop bounce, the song is accompanied by a video in which the men dance and pose like art pieces in a swank gallery as they relish being on display, singing about first meeting as “runny-nosed kids” in middle school, then graduating from newbies to OGs.
“WOOZI and I have always been inseparable since we were young,” HOSHI said in a statement. “We’ve long dreamed of working as a unit, and now that we can finally present BEAM to the world, I’m beyond excited. This album truly reflects the kind of music we want to create, so we’re planning to fully enjoy ourselves on stage.”
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WOOZI added, “It’s an incredible experience to release a new album with my closest friend in life. We had an absolute blast working on it, and I believe that energy is what makes this album so honest and true to us.”
The EP wraps up with another high-energy, dance floor-ready house track, “Stupid Idiot.”
This year marks the 10th anniversary for the SEVENTEEN — which also features S.COUPS, JEONGHAN, JOSHUA, JUN, WONWOO, THE 8, MINGYU, DK, SEUNGKWAN, VERNON and DINO — who earlier this year released “Bad Influence,” their collab with Pharrell Williams that soundtracked the producer’s Louis Vuitton 2025 Paris menswear show. Last year, SEVENTEEN released their 21-track greatest hits collection, 17 Is Right Here, followed by the Spill the Feels EP in November.
Listen to Beam and watch the “96ers” video below.
On Thursday, March 6, Hamilton Leithauser kicked off his annual residency at Cafe Carlyle, the intimate posh supper club known primarily for its Marcel Vertès murals, martinis and cabaret and jazz performances by Peter Cincotti, Jeff Goldblum, Sandra Bernhard and others. The residency, which The Walkmen frontman began as an against-the-grain lark — he skipped 2020 because of the pandemic — has grown into a hot ticket. This time around, Leithauser will perform 15 dates through March 29 (his most ever), and unveil some surprises along the way.
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Opening night took place on eve of the release of Leithauser’s new album, This Side of the Island, a hook-heavy pop-rock record that he co-produced with his wife Anna Stumpf (who also plays keyboards in the band), and an assist from his friend, The National’s Aaron Dessner. This Side of the Island is a more concise and conceptual effort, compared to his last full-length, 2020’s The Loves of Your Life, which is a masterpiece of musical storytelling. And initial chart results for the single, “Knockin’ Heart,” indicate the new music is resonating: The song is currently No. 16 on Adult Alternative Airplay chart for a second week — Leithauser’s highest peak yet on the chart. “Knockin’ Heart’ also debuted at No. 42 on Rock & Alternative Airplay, Leithauser’s first time on that chart.
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If the crowd’s response to Leithauser’s opening-night performance is any indication, “Knockin’ Heart” won’t be the only song from This Side of the Island to chart. Here were some of the evening’s highlights.
More New Songs (And They Didn’t Come Easy)
Leithauser previewed three new tunes on This Side of the Island at last year’s residency: “Fistful of Flowers,” “What Do I Think?” and “Ocean Roar,” an ode to his late friend, the singer-songwriter and producer Richard Swift. This time, the audience got to hear all nine of the album’s songs, along with music from his past albums, such as “In A Blackout,” “A 1,000 Times” and “The Garbage Men.”
Leithauser says the album’s title was sparked when his two daughters read Jean Craighead George’s young adult novel, My Side of the Mountain — about a boy who runs away from his parents home in New York City and learns to survive in the Catskill Mountains. “It’s another way of saying, ‘From my perspective,’” he explains, adding he was “very isolated” when he was writing and recording This Side of the Island at his studio, the Struggle Hut. It’s an appropriate name given the length of time he wrestled with the music. “I literally recorded the piano and guitar “Fist of Flowers” when Barack Obama was president. This was at my old apartment, which I sold in 2017.”
Leithauser has no explanation for his delays. “If I knew, I would be so happy to know how to avoid it next time,” he says. “I had been working by myself for so many years, and I didn’t know what I had. When you’re really trying to finish something and you can’t it’s so frustrating. It gets kind of scary because your livelihood depends on it. You’re like, ‘What am I doing with myself? I’m wasting my life here.’
“I fought through it,” he continues, “and at the very end went upstate to work for one and a half days with my friend Aaron Dessner. He was the only outside person I had ever played anything for — even my wife. It could have been one of those moments where he could be like, ‘Dude, this ain’t happening. Just go to law school.’”
Instead, Dessner “was so complimentary, excited about it, and he wanted to play on some of it,” Leithauser says. “I was like, ‘Please, anything to change my perception, change my idea of what it is.’ He started putting little things on it and added a modern sound.” Leithauser left Dessner’s studio confident that This Side of the Island was ready to be released. “I was like, ‘Man, I want people to hear this.’”
Leithauser Goes Electric
An electric guitar has always featured in Leithauser’s Carlyle shows, but it’s usually played by one of his band members — most recently by master of subtlety Larry Oliver – while the man himself strummed an acoustic six-string. On this run, Leithauser’s breaking out his black 1961 Fender Jazzmaster and 1960 mapleglo natural Rickenbacker Capri 360 to reproduce the bright rock sound of This Side of the Island. Although he told the crowd that ear plugs were available, the volume was suited to the room, and it was a gas to see the packed crowd rocking out in sportcoats and evening wear as they sipped their martinis and goblets of wine.
A Rockin’ Wedding Standard?
“Knockin’ Heart”‘s lyrics and Leithauser’s full-throttle performance of it on the record makes it sound like fervent pledge of unconditional love: “From the courtship to the chapel, from the branches to the apple, to the elegy in the bone yard — you’ll be knockin’ in my heart.” Told that the song could be a wedding-reception staple, given the right band or DJ, Leithauser laughs. “I’d love to go to that wedding,” he says, adding that while the song’s message is, “I’ll love you through time. Actually, the person in the song can’t get through to the person they’re looking for. The idea is there’s a guy driving home from the party. He’s stoned and drunk and wishing he can say this to the person. But the person is not there.”
A (Psycho) Killer Cover
Leithauser’s Carlyle sets always include at least one cover, and on March 6, he chose the Talking Heads classic “Heaven” — which, he says, is one of his all-time favorite songs. (He also said elsewhere that he listened to Fear of Music, which includes that song, a lot while making This Side of the Island.) The choice was all the more appropriate, because former Heads frontman David Byrne has recruited Leithauser for his latest project. “It’s crazy,” Leithauser says. “When he contacted me, I thought I was being punked.”
Surprise Guests
Opening night belonged solely to Leithauser — as an ad-hoc record-release show should be — but he says that “a lot of well-known musicians are going to be coming out over the course or the four weeks” to join in on the fun. He’s keeping the names under wraps, “Because I want them to be surprising.”
Leithauser is the Kevin Bacon of indie rock, with a deep network of friendships with other musicians, so the surprises should be genuinely surprising. At his March 8 show, J Mascis was Leithauser’s special guest, and imagining the Dinosaur Jr. frontman at a strait-laced place like Cafe Carlye is mind-blowing on its own.
The upcoming season of You can’t come soon enough for Cardi B, who was almost speechless after seeing the trailer for the Netflix show’s fifth and final chapter arriving this spring.
On Sunday (March 9), the rapper helped announce that the first full-length preview of the April-slated season would be dropping the next day in a video posted to You‘s official Instagram. “Girl, I am shook — I just saw it,” she says in the clip, which came one day before the trailer dropped.
After giving fans the smallest taste of what to expect — “Joe got some money! He got a girl with money, chile,” she revealed — Cardi gave her ecstatic review. “I cannot wait for you guys to see the trailer,” she cheered, clapping her hands. “Y’all gonna gag! Got me gagging. Gagging!”
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The two-and-a-half-minute trailer, which has since dropped on Netflix’s YouTube, opens with Penn Badgley’s Joe Goldberg back in the same place he started five seasons ago: New York City. This time, though, the fictional stalker-murderer is a famous, wealthy socialite thanks to his relationship with Charlotte Ritchie’s Kate. However, the horrors of his dark past continue to threaten to come to light and disrupt his new lifestyle, especially as he falls in love yet again with a new woman played by Madeline Brewer.
The preview reaches a tipping point when Joe declares, “There isn’t a line I wouldn’t cross to protect this family,” at which point Kate stops him in his tracks. “You want us to kill everyone who is suspicious of us for the rest of our lives?” she asks incredulously, to which he sinisterly replies, “Is that so wrong? If it’s for the right reasons?”
The trailer then devolves into a montage of Badgley’s character committing a number of violent atrocities, from choking one person to bashing someone else with a concrete brick. “The killer finale you never saw coming,” onscreen text teases viewers.
The fifth and final season of You is set to premiere April 24 on Netflix. It will arrive seven years after the show first debuted on the streaming service.
And if you’re wondering why the “WAP” rapper was the one to announce the new trailer’s arrival, Cardi is a longtime fan of the show. In 2021, she fangirled over its leading man on X — which was then still known as Twitter — before both the musician and Gossip Girl alum hilariously changed both of their profile pictures to photos of each other.
Later, Cardi’s Billboard Hot 100-topper “I Like It” was featured in the first episode of You‘s fourth season, which dropped in 2023. That year, Badgley told Rolling Stone that he would absolutely want the hip-hop star to make a cameo in the show, but only if the role was right.
“Would I want her to be in You? Yeah, if it worked,” he told the publication. “I wanted her to be in season four. But it has to work. You know? How could she be anybody but Cardi B?”
See Cardi’s video and watch the trailer for You Season 5 below.
BLACKPINK‘s JENNIE snares Dua Lipa in her glittery web in the trippy video for the K-pop superstar’s solo track “Handlebars.” The dreamy visual for the mid-tempo tune directed by BRTHR (Charli XCX, the Weeknd) dropped on Monday morning (March 10) and it opens with JENNIE using a two-wheeled metaphor to lament her proclivity for falling […]
JENNIE couldn’t say enough good things about Doechii during her Monday (March 10) visit to The Jennifer Hudson Show, where the BLACKPINK star also opened up about her debut solo album and avoided giving spoilers on her girl group’s upcoming world tour. While speaking to host Hudson about working with the Swamp Princess on “ExtraL” […]
Tory Lanez released his Peterson album on Friday (March 7), which was entirely recorded while behind bars serving his 10-year sentence in the 2020 felony shooting case against Megan Thee Stallion. The incarcerated Canadian singer examines his relationships with his peers in the music industry, and how most have turned their backs on him since he got locked up.
However, Lanez showed love to Chris Brown on “T.D.F x L.A. County Jail” for allegedly supporting him financially and helping take care of legal fees.
“Where was you n—-s when I was in Cali fed up with no covers to bundle up/ Only real n—a that helped me was Chris Brown, that really my brother,” he raps.
Lanez continued to address his legal situation and standing with those in the music game on the outro of his album closer, “Free Tory.”
“I had no real, like, access to my funds. I was fed up and my lawyer wanted over, like, a quarter million to represent me for the appeal,” he said. “So, you know, I start hollering at all my rap friends, my celebrity friends, and nobody was there.”
Tory continued: “N—-s treating me like I was dead and this n—a Chris Brown — I’ll never forget it — this n—-a Chris Brown came out of nowhere. He just gave me the money. He said, ‘Look, bro, when you get outside, holla at me. Hope you come home.’ That’s a real n—a, bro.”
Billboard has reached out to Chris Brown’s rep for comment.
Lanez and Brown have a friendship that goes back to the 2010s, as they’ve teamed up in the past on tracks such as “The Take,” “Feels,” “Tell Me How You Feel,” “Flexible,” “Lurkin,” “Bad Then a Beach” and more.
Lanez (real name Daystar Peterson) was sentenced to 10 years behind bars in August 2023 after being convicted on three felony charges stemming from the 2020 Megan Thee Stallion shooting following a pool party in L.A.’s Hidden Hills.
