Music News
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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.
Long-dormant D.C. post-hardcore outfit Fugazi will be making their extensive vault of live recordings much more accessible, bringing the archive to streaming at long last.
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After 14 years spent as a digital archive on the Dischord Records website, Fugazi will begin to upload their live recordings onto their Bandcamp page. Launching on Friday (May 2) as part of Bandcamp Friday, the first two offerings will bookend the band’s career, including their debut show at D.C.’s Wilson Center on September 3, 1987, and their “to-date final performance” in London on November 2, 2002.
Further shows will be uploaded on a monthly basis, while the band’s online archives will also remain accessible.
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Fugazi first formed in 1986, comprising noted members of the D.C. hardcore and punk scene, including Ian MacKaye of Minor Threat and Guy Picciotto of Rites of Spring. Between 1990 and 2001, the group released six studio albums, largely avoiding commercial success along the way. While the band would chart modestly in the U.K., their U.S. peak occurred in 1995 when fourth album Red Medicine reached No. 126 on the Billboard 200.
The group’s live performances were arguably one of the strongest aspects, however, with their DIY punk ethos resulting in the band performing over 1,000 shows across 16 years, with most gigs being priced as low as possible – often $5 – to make them accessible to everyone.
In 2004, the band’s extensive live archives were opened up and they began to issue their Fugazi Live Series recordings as physical CDs to fans. In 2011, the archives moved online, with more than 800 shows being made available for fans to purchase – complete with false starts, stage banter and audio dropouts.
“We liked this idea of, ‘Let’s just let it be everything,’” Picciotto told the New York Times in 2011. “There doesn’t have to be the idea that this is the great, golden document. It’s all there, and it’s not cleaned up. You get what you get.”
Fugazi have been inactive since embarking on an indefinite hiatus in 2003. Though members remain friends and regularly perform together both privately and in other bands, there is yet to be any official word of a potential reunion from the revered group.
Katy Perry has assured fans that she’s “ok,” despite a recent barrage of online vitriol that has come her way.
The singer addressed the recent negativity from online commentators in an Instagram comment on a fan page, expressing her gratitude toward her fans for their ongoing support during what she labels an undoubtedly difficult time.
“I’m so grateful for you guys. We’re in this beautiful and wild journey together,” Perry wrote. “I can continue to remain true to myself, heart open and honest especially because of our bond. I love you guys and have grown up together with you and am so excited to see you all over the world this year!”
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Perry has found herself as something of a lightning rod for negativity in the past few weeks, with much of the discourse related to her spaceflight aboard the Blue Origin NS-31 on April 14.
While the likes of Kesha had been roped into the ongoing drama following an online post that seemingly referenced fast-food chain Wendy’s’ snarky jab at the “Firework” singer, English musician Lily Allen recently walked back her comments about calling Perry and her spaceflight “out of touch.”
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“There was actually no need for me to bring her name into it, and it was my own internalized misogyny,” Allen said on her Miss Me? podcast. “I’ve been thinking about it a lot, and it was just completely unnecessary to pile on with her. I disagree with what it was that they did, but she wasn’t the only person that did it. She was possibly the most famous and the one that divides people the most.”
The Instagram post which Perry responded to was a video of a Times Square billboard that congratulated the singer for the opening week of her Liftimes tour, and ostensibly aimed to serve as comfort amidst the online backlash.
As Perry continued, she explained that much of her ability to survive the barrage of negative comments has come about through plenty of therapy and personal growth.
“Please know I am ok, I have done a lot work around knowing who I am, what is real and what is important to me,” she noted. “My therapist said something years ago that has been a game changer, ‘no one can make you believe something about yourself that you don’t already believe about yourself’ and if I ever do have any feelings about it then it’s an opportunity to investigate the feeling underneath it.
“When the ‘online’ world tries to make me a human Piñata, I take it with grace and send them love, cause I know so many people are hurting in so many ways and the internet is very much so a dumping ground for unhinged and unhealed.”
Perry recently launched her Liftimes tour in Mexico on April 23, with each night also featuring fans being brought onstage during a special request section of the set. “What’s real is seeing your faces every night, singing in unison, reading your notes, feeling your warmth,” she concluded. “I find people to lock eyes and sing with and I know we are healing each other in a small way when I get to do that.
“I’m not perfect, and I actually have omitted that word from my vocabulary, I’m on a human journey playing the game of life with an audience of many and sometimes I fall but… I get back up and go on and continue to play the game and somehow through my battered and bruised adventure I keep looking to the light and in that light a new level UNLOCKS.”
Perry will bring her Lifetimes tour to the U.S. next week, with a headline date in Houston, TX set to take place on May 7.
Apple Music has named Ole Obermann and Rachel Newman as the company’s new co-heads, Billboard has confirmed. The news was first reported by Music Business Worldwide. Obermann, who left his role as global head of music business development at ByteDance earlier this year, worked at the Chinese company for more than five years, having started […]
Julien Baker and TORRES’ Send a Prayer My Way debuts at No. 5 on Billboard’s Top Album Sales chart (dated May 3), and also takes a bow in the top 10 on both the Vinyl Albums and Indie Store Album Sales rankings. The set – the first collaborative effort from the duo – was released April 18 and sold about 6,500 copies in the United States in the week ending April 26, according to Luminate.
Previously, Baker has placed two solo titles on Top Album Sales. Baker is also a member of the group Boygenius, which has notched a trio of titles on the list.
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Billboard’s Top Album Sales chart ranks the top-selling albums of the week based only on traditional album sales. The chart’s history dates back to May 25, 1991, the first week Billboard began tabulating charts with electronically monitored piece count information from SoundScan, now Luminate. Pure album sales were the sole measurement utilized by the Billboard 200 albums chart through the list dated Dec. 6, 2014, after which that chart switched to a methodology that blends album sales with track equivalent album (TEA) units and streaming equivalent album (SEA) units.
In addition to the No. 5 bow on Top Album Sales for Send a Prayer My Way, it also starts at No. 4 on Vinyl Albums, No. 6 on Indie Store Album Sales, No. 16 on Americana/Folk Albums and No. 34 on Independent Albums.
Elsewhere on Top Album Sales, Doechii scores her biggest sales week yet, and first No. 1, as Alligator Bites Never Heal reenters atop the chart with 14,000 sold. Until April 18, the set was only available to purchase as a download and in two vinyl variants. On April 19, it garnered a wider availability on vinyl, including two new vinyl editions (both color variants) exclusively available via Target and Urban Oufitters, along with a widely available CD.
A trio of former No. 1s are next up on Top Album Sales: Sabrina Carpenter’s Short n’ Sweet rises 7-2 (8,500; down 14%), Kendrick Lamar’s GNX climbs 8-3 (8,000; down 16%) and Lady Gaga’s MAYHEM ascends 14-4 (nearly 7,000; down 11%). Many titles on the chart vault up the tally with big positional climbs, but with declines in sales, as the chart adjusts back to normal following a crowded Record Store Day-infused chart a week ago.
Childish Gambino’s 2024 album Bando Stone and the New World reenters Top Album Sales at No. 6 with nearly 6,500 copies sold following its first physical release, on vinyl. It’s the best sales week and first week in the top 10 for the title.
Chappell Roan’s chart-topping The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess jumps 19-7 (5,500; down 20%), Elton John and Brandi Carlile’s Who Believes In Angels? steps 10-8 (just over 4,500; down 50%), Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours races 36-9 (4,500; down 3%) and Billie Eilish’s Hit Me Hard and Soft flies 38-10 (nearly 4,500; down 2%).
With the release of Cowboy Carter last year, a lot of noise was made about whether Beyoncé was “country enough” to put out a country album. More than one year (and her first album of the year Grammy) later, the answer is: of course she was. And she’s further proving her genre prowess on the […]
Los Ángeles Azules and Thalia unite for their first No. 1 on Billboard’s Regional Mexican Airplay chart, as “Yo Me Lo Busqué” flies 9-1 on the May 3-dated list.
“Yo Me Lo Busqué” ascends to the summit with the Greatest Gainer honors, awarded weekly to the song with the largest weekly gain in audience among the chart’s 40 songs. The song earned 6.4 million audience impressions, up 47%, in the U.S. in the week ending April 24, according to Luminate.
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“Yo Me Lo Busqué” was released January 18 via Promotodo. The Mexican label achieves its second No. 1 on the Regional Mexican Airplay chart, thanks to another collaboration featuring Los Ángeles Azules. Their previous hit, “Perdonarte Para Qué?” with Emilia, reached the top spot for one week in September 2024.
As “Yo Me Lo Busqué” takes over Regional Mexican Airplay, Thalia scores her first No. 1, besting her previous No. 5 high through “Tú y Yo” in July 2002.
With their latest chart-topper, Los Ángeles Azules secure their sixth No. 1 on Regional Mexican Airplay, among 17 career top 10 hits. The group’s breakthrough classic, “El Listón De Tu Pelo,” remains their longest-reigning No. 1, holding atop the list for seven weeks in 2000.
Here’s a look at their collection of No. 1 hits since the chart’s inception in 1994:
Title, Artist, Peak Date, Weeks at No. 1“El Listón De Tu Pelo,” Feb. 5, 2000, seven“Nunca Es Suficiente,” featuring Natalia Lafourcade, Jan. 26, 2019, three“Túi Y Tú,” with Cazzu & Santa Fe Klan, May 20, 2023, one“La Cumbia Triste,” with Alejandro Fernández, April 13, 2024, one“Perdonarte Para Que?” with Emilia, July 20, 2024, one“Yo Me Lo Busqué,” with Thalia, May 3
Notably, as “Yo Me Lo Busqué” also takes the lead on the Latin Pop Airplay chart –where it jumps 2-1 with a 39% increase in audience, to 7.2 million– Los Ángeles Azules and Thalia swap successes in new chart achievements. While Thalia scores her first-ever No. 1 on the Regional Mexican Airplay chart, Los Ángeles Azules claim the top spot on the Latin Pop Airplay chart, marking their first No. 1 there. It’s the third No. 1 for Thalia on Latin Pop Airplay, who in addition to her new airplay achievement, has also secured No. 1s on Tropical Airplay, twice, in 2000 and 2002.
After sparking romance rumors for more than a year, Lucy Dacus finally confirmed that she and Boygenius bandmate Julien Baker were dating in March — but there’s still one thing about sharing her relationship publicly that makes the “Night Shift” singer “uncomfortable,” she says.
While speaking to The Forty-Five in an interview published Monday, Dacus began by talking about how her new album, Forever Is a Feeling, started out as a gift to her girlfriend, with the Virginia native initially confessing her feelings for the guitarist through some of the songs on the LP. “It was like, ‘OK, feelings are on the table, and we ought not touch them, because our relationship is too important, and I support what you want for your life,’” Dacus reflected.
“Or like, ‘Wow, what a surprise that we’re saying this out loud,’” she continued. “‘But let’s ultimately just say that we matter to each other and move on.’ That was real. That’s how I felt.”
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Now that they’re together, however, Dacus says she isn’t exactly excited about the fact that fans will now be combing through the lyrics on Forever Is a Feeling for clues about her relationship with Baker. “In a way, that’s the bit that makes me feel uncomfortable,” she told the publication.
“The lore of it all – people treating our lives like a Marvel Universe,” added the songwriter. “But then again, what is lore if not the story? Some parts of my story I keep for myself, but this is the story that defines my life. So what am I gonna do?”
The interview comes a full seven years after Dacus, Baker and Phoebe Bridgers first established Boygenius, debuting the supergroup in 2018 with a self-titled EP. The trio reunited in 2023 to drop their first full-length album as a group, with The Record winning three Grammys at the following year’s awards show.
When finally addressing her relationship with her bandmate for the first time publicly last month, Dacus said in an interview with The New Yorker, “It’s been interesting, because I want to protect what is precious in my life, but also to be honest, and make art that’s true … Maybe a healthier way to think about it is that [my relationship]’s not actually fragile.”
She later told People, “It’s funny to just say it so plainly, because I feel like there’s all of this tension of people guessing.”
“I don’t know, we just talked about it kind of recently, and we were like, ‘What is actually at risk for people knowing this?’” she continued. “We wanted to be protective because it matters so much. I hope to God people knowing won’t make it a less true or pleasant experience … She’s ready to be telling people, too. So, from us to you, we are in love.”
Latto headlined Syracuse University’s Block Party 2025 over the weekend, and she got around to posting some pictures from her time on the central New York campus on Tuesday (April 29). While she’ll always be Big Mama, Latto went by Big Daddy in Syracuse as she rocked a throwback ‘fit that went diamond in the […]
Did you know Ben Affleck and Jon Bernthal were hip-hop heads?
As the two actors promote their film The Accountant 2, they sat down with Complex for their “GOAT Talk” series and the topic of Rap Mount Rushmore came up, with Ben offering up some interesting picks.
“I think Lil Wayne should be on there,” he said. “You were talking about Eazy-E today. We were talking about back when we were young. I mean, you know, a lot of talk about, ‘Well, Slick Rick.’ And then of course, there’s Kendrick right now.’”
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Ben seemed to feel put on the spot and was throwing out names off the dome, but when Jon asked him to confirm, the Armageddon actor answered, “Yeah, I mean, I kinda at random, but, yeah I’d take that Mount Rushmore. I’d take that,” before also bringing up Dr. Dre and Snoop Dogg.
Bernthal essentially agreed with Ben’s picks, but replaced Slick Rick and Lil Wayne with the Notorious B.I.G. and 2Pac while also acknowledging that he liked the idea of Affleck putting Weezy on his.
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“I mean, I think you need Biggie on there. You need 2Pac on there,” The Punisher actor said. “But I’ll put Eazy on there and Kendrick, but I love that you put Lil Wayne on there.”
Ben then said that ‘Pac is probably his pick for greatest rapper ever before telling a funny story of his son asking him if he ever heard arguably the greatest diss song of all-time. “My son played me this song the other day,” he joked. “And he’s like, ‘Yo, you heard this?’ And he played me “Hit Em Up.” And I was like, ‘Have I heard this? Mothe—-er, I had a whole f—in’ life that I lived before you were born.’”
You can check out the full video below.