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Motown Records icon Smokey Robinson remembers that at one of the storied label’s holiday parties in the late ‘60s, he received a very special gift.
“Stevie Wonder came,” Robinson recalls to Billboard, “and gave me a cassette tape with the music for [the No. 1 R&B/pop hit] ‘The Tears of a Clown.’ But he couldn’t think of a song to go with it and wanted me to write a song for that music. And so I did. And ‘Tears’ became one of the biggest songs I’ve ever been associated with around the world.”
Now, as NBC gets set to premiere its holiday special A Motown Christmas, Robinson is promising music fans a “great night featuring legendary Motown artists and contemporary artists singing music and having a good time together.” The two-hour special bows Wednesday (Dec. 11) at 9 p.m. ET/PT on NBC and will stream the next day on Peacock.
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Halle Bailey and Smokey Robinson in ‘A Motown Christmas.’
Carell Augustus/NBC
Hosts Robinson and Halle Bailey will be welcoming a diverse cast of performers that includes Gladys Knight, Martha Reeves and the Vandellas and the Temptations as well as Ashanti, Andra Day, BeBe Winans, Jamie Foxx, JoJo, Jordin Sparks, MGK, October London, Pentatonix and the hosts themselves. More than 25 Motown gems and other songs will be performed via a tuneful array of solos, duets and group medleys.
Among the highlights: London’s medley of Marvin Gaye songs (including “What’s Going On”); Knight (“Midnight Train to Georgia”); Pentatonix’s Four Tops medley (including “I Can’t Help Myself”); Foxx (“Little Drummer Boy”); Bailey and The Supremes’ medley (including “Stop in the Name of Love”); a Temptations medley (including “My Girl”); Andra Day (“Higher Ground”), Ashanti (“Santa Baby”) and Robinson performing his and the Miracles’ classics including the aforementioned “The Tears of a Clown.” Rounding out the show will be a world exclusive performance from the Broadway company of MJ the Musical.
Gladys Knight in ‘A Motown Christmas.’
Justin Lubin/NBC
Calling fellow host Bailey “a wonderful young woman and a great talent,” Robinson also talked about working with the executive producers of A Motown Christmas, Debbie Allen and Motown alumnus Suzanne de Passe. “Debbie and Suzanne are my sisters,” he says. “I’ve known them forever and ever, so it’s always great to work with them. Debbie is one of the best choreographers and dancers that you’d ever want to meet. And Suzanne is a Motown mainstay. At one point she was our A&R director for music and now she’s a top movie and television producer.”
Asked about Motown founder Berry Gordy’s reaction to the holiday special, Robinson notes, “I think he’s going to love it because, you know, he is the reason for the season. On the very first day at Motown, he sat us down — it was four people there other than him — and said, ‘I’m going to start my own record company, and we’re not just going to make Black music. We’re going to make beats for everybody, make music for the world; quality music.’ So we set out to do that and, thank God, I think we accomplished it. If it hadn’t been for Berry, we wouldn’t be having a Motown special.”
Jamie Foxx and Halle Bailey in ‘A Motown Christmas.’
Todd Williamson/NBC
Despite two Oscars and nine Grammy Awards, sold-out shows around the world and the adoration of a generation, Billie Eilish still gets anxious about whether she’ll ever be able to write another song.
CBS Morning‘s Interviewer Anthony Mason caught up with Eilish on tour at the United Center in Chicago to talk about intense writer’s block she and brother/producer Finneas were paralyzed by last year, as well as whether she cares about winning any more Grammys; the singer is up for seven Grammys at next year’s show, including record of the year and song of the year for “Birds of a Feather” and album of the year for Hit Me Hard and Soft.
Letting out a huge laugh, Eilish said the continued accolades from the Recording Academy are “the craziest thing in the world,” leaving her “blown away and excited and honored and humbled all at the same time.”
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That said, the process of recording he third album, Hit Me Hard and Soft, was tortuous, with Eilish, 22, saying that at some point the siblings were “pretty stuck,” a feeling she said you never get used to. “It happens and you’re like, ‘what the hell?! I’m never going to create again,’” she said. After months of dead ends, Eilish and Finneas said that things got unstuck precisely on May 25, 2023, when they stumbled on the beginnings of the song “Wildflower.”
“And then ‘The Greatest,’ and it started to become clear that we were telling the truth,” Finneas said of the period when things began to flow again. Eilish, who said she never considered herself a singer until recently, has begun taking vocal lessons, something she’d resisted because of her insecurity about not feeling like she was a “big singer,” or having a teacher tell her she wasn’t. “When you’re a girl and you’re bad at something once, then all the boys think you’re bad at that forever,” Eilish explained about her insecurities as a female athlete growing up.
Eilish also took Mason on a tour of the traveling recording studio she sets up in her green room at every venue — which also includes a piano — explaining that she jams with friends at night after shows. She then cued up a two-second snippets of a pair of new songs she’s been working on, including one that was just her voice and a jaunty piano line and another with her signature breathy vocals over a subdued beat.
“It’s not even serious, it’s just… we’ve been making music and crocheting,” she said. Eilish will play the SAP Center in San Jose, CA on Tuesday night (Dec. 10) as part of Hit Me Hard and Soft The Tour.
Watch Eilish on CBS Mornings below.
Sabrina Carpenter‘s blockbuster sixth studio album Short n’ Sweet is continuing to stack up accolades, with a few of its singles earning new multi-platinum certifications Monday (Dec. 9). As announced by the Recording Industry Association of America, the 25-year-old pop star’s smash hit “Espresso” — the lead single from Short n’ Sweet — is now […]
Machine Gun Kelly and Megan Fox have broken up again, according to TMZ and Us Weekly. The news comes just over a month after the pair shared that the Jennifer’s Body actress is expecting her first baby with the musician. Both publications reported that the pair broke up in late November. Trending on Billboard Billboard […]
Nearly a year ago to the day, 4batz released his “Act II: Date @ 8” single, which went on to power the Dallas native’s rise with a boost from Drake, who hopped on the remix and helped Batz earn his first top 10 hit on the Billboard Hot 100.
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Ye (formerly Kanye West), SZA and Robin Thicke were just a few of the stars to lend co-signs to the R&B singer while fans seemingly had something to say at every step of Batz’s ascension, whether that be his signature Shiesty look, the duality of his street persona matched up with his airy vocals and some even falsely accused him of being an “industry plant.”
The 21-year-old looks to build on his Rookie of the Year campaign with his Thank U, Jada project, which is expected to arrive at the top of 2025.
“I want people to know I’m uncut. I’m a regular n—a. I don’t give a f–k, but at the same time I do for the right things,” Batz tells Billboard News. “I want people to know that I’m an honest person and I feel and I want to bring an evolution to music and start my own little thing.”
Last year, 4batz pulled up to one of Drake’s shows — his first concert ever — and got some advice from the 6 God when it comes to being a prolific performer.
“I asked him, ‘Bro, how do you perform like that?’ He said, ‘Look up House of Blues by 2Pac.’ I looked that up and I studied him,” Batz recalls. “I bring energy. If I’m turning up, they gonna turn up … That’s one of the things he told me.”
Batz added to his list of star-studded collabs when Ye hopped on the remix to “Act III: On God (She Like).” He called West the “smarted person” he’s ever met in his life thus far.
“Genius. He actually the smartest person I ever met in my life,” Batz says. “[Ye] drove me two hours to Santa Barbara. It’s just me and Bianca. I’m like, ‘Huh? I’m really in a car with Kanye West.’ And he’s recording me. I’m in the backseat and he’s playing his music.”
Growing up in Dallas, 4batz felt his options were limited to the streets, school, basketball and rap, but he refused to be boxed in while taking a risk in being emotional with his music. Partly inspired by heartbreak and losing his father, Batz began singing.
“I kinda got tired of the same spectrum of everybody has to be this type of person,” he added. “Where I’m from, being emotional ain’t the coolest thing in the world. You don’t get no cool points for that. My whole thing was I got my feelings hurt and I was like I don’t have nothing else to lose.”
Watch the entire interview with 4batz above.
Jade Thirlwall had auditioned for The X-Factor twice as a teen and was just not feeling it when the third time came around in 2011. Luckily, her older brother pressed her to give it one more try, which led to the 31-year-old singer being grouped with her future Little Mix bandmates, launching her into global superstardom.
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“I couldn’t be bothered because I was with a crappy boyfriend, and I was like, ‘Oh, I just want to hang out with him.’ I just didn’t know if it was realistic anymore,” Thirlwall told People magazine about last shot at the Factor when she was 15. “I was going to do an art degree for theater production and stuff. Then, my older brother was like, ‘Just go one more time. You never know what’s going to happen. You’ve got nothing to lose.’ I was like, ‘Fine.’ I went, and then I got put in Little Mix, so thank God.”
It was in that season that she was teamed up with Leigh-Anne Pinnock, Perrie Edwards and Jesy Nelson, with Little Mix going on to become one of the most successful winners in the show’s history and landing five No. 1 singles on the UK charts along with 19 top tens. The group went on hiatus in 2022 so that the members of the Brit Award-winning act could pursue solo projects, and Thirlwall told the magazine that she if fully ready to present her new vision to the world.
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The singer — who goes by Jade for her solo work — is off to a good start after landing a top 10 hit in the U.K. with her propulsive dance pop debut solo single “Angel of My Dreams” this summer, followed by kink-celebrating disco track “Fantasy” and the electro grinder “Midnight Cowboy,” co-written by RAYE. All three songs will appear on Jade’s upcoming, as-yet-untitled debut solo album, which is due out net year.
“You can really hear through the tracks that I’m trying to find who I am as an artist on my own,” she said. “I wanted to let fans in on that experience because it’s the truth.” Thirlwall said the inspiration behind her new single “Fantasy” was simple: “sex, darling.” The original idea was to write a love song, but in her own unique way, which led to the track on which she sings, “Passion, pain/ Pleasure, no shame/ If you like it weird, I like it strange/ It’s a fantasy, babe.”
“I wanted this liberating concept of feeling like you’ve found the right person that you can explore all your sexual fantasies with, a safe space for whatever you’re into. I’ve not seen much of that, actually, especially from a woman,” she said of the song that “heavily references” her 1970s disco-era sheroes Diana Ross and Donna Summer, but reflected in her own unique disco ball fashion.
Feeling more liberated and able to lean into more overtly sexy themes than in the innuendo-trafficking Little Mix, Thirlwall went all-in on the song’s promotion, releasing a line of “kinky merchandise” that she expected her team to reject. “Thankfully everyone was onboard,” she said, noting that the line of edible underwear, lubricant and sex toys was also originally going to include condoms, before she worried that it was too risky if, for some reason, they failed during use.
Thirlwall said she wanted the three songs released so far to reflect the “chaos of the record,” explaining, “You would not expect each song to come after the next. That’s definitely the vibe. I just want to show everyone a little taste of each part of me before the album comes next year.” She described the full LP as “quite experimental,” saying you can hear her trying to find her solo artistic groove on them. “I wanted to let fans in on that experience because it’s the truth. I’ve spent three years writing an array of so many different kinds of songs, and I want the unexpected twists and turns along the way,” she said. “I only get one debut solo album. Why not just do whatever I want?”
While she’s still putting the finishing touches on the album, Thirlwall said she can’t wait for her fans to hear it. “I’ve lived with it for a long time, so it kills me when fans are asking online, ‘What’s this clip? I’ve heard this might be the title of a song.’ I just want to blurt it all out and tell everyone, but I can’t,” she said. At press time a release date had not yet been announced for the album.
Just as she prophesied on Cowboy Carter‘s “Protector,” Beyoncé is watching her kids shine on their own.
Following the premiere of Mufasa: The Lion King starring Blue Ivy Carter in the leading role of Kiara, the superstar posted a heartfelt message dedicated to her 12-year-old daughter on Instagram Monday (Dec. 9) and wrote that she “could not be prouder” of her hard work. “My gorgeous baby girl,” Bey began, sharing photos of Blue modeling a gold Christian Siriano ballgown on the Mufasa red carpet. “This is your night.”
“You worked hard and you did such a beautiful job as the voice of Kiara,” added the “Break My Soul” singer, who also stars in the film as Nala. “Your family could not be prouder. Keep shining.”
The new live-action Mufasa comes five years after the 2019 remake of The Lion King, which also found Bey voicing the character of Nala and contributing a self-curated soundtrack album titled The Gift. The LP reached No. 2 on the Billboard 200 and earned a Grammy nod for best pop vocal album.
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Half a decade later, the vocalist is now sharing the cinematic spotlight with Blue, whom she joined on the red carpet Monday along with Jay-Z and Tina Knowles. The next day, Good Morning America aired a behind-the-scenes clip of the mom-daughter duo recording their parts for the movie — in which Bey’s firstborn at one point asks her mom to stop staring at her, to which the Destiny’s Child alum responds, “I can’t help it — you’re just too beautiful.”
“Seeing Blue as Kiara and hearing her voice come out of that character … it’s really hard to focus and do my job after that,” Bey says in a sit-down interview portion, tears welling up in her eyes. “I can’t believe that’s my baby.”
Blue Ivy adds, “This is just a great experience for me, and I’m really happy that girls who look like me all around the world are able to watch this movie and hear and see themselves in it.”
Bey — who also shares 7-year-old twins Rumi and Sir with the Roc Nation founder — has worked with her eldest daughter before. Blue joined her mom on some of the Renaissance Tour in 2023, performing choreography for “My Power” and “Black Parade” on stage on certain dates of the world trek — an opportunity Bey says the tween had to do some convincing in order to secure.
“She told me she was ready to perform, and I told her no,” the superstar said in last year’s Renaissance: A Film By Beyoncé, before noting that the resistance only made Blue train harder.
Mufasa: The Lion King hits theaters Dec. 20. Watch Bey and Blue on GMA below.
It was a très joyeux occasion for Paris and the world beyond this past Dec. 7, when the city’s Notre-Dame Cathedral reopened its doors after a five-year closure, which followed a 2019 fire which burned through the building’s roof. After years of rebuilding and renovations, the 860-year old Gothic cathedral has been restored to new glory.
This past weekend, celebrities and politicians including First Lady Jill Biden and President Elect Donald Trump traveled to Paris for the reopening of Notre-Dame, which included prayer, religious rites and speeches, including one from French President Emmanuel Macron.
Also, there was techno.
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A series of musical performances featured artists including Pharrell (who sang his 2013 hit “Happy”), French singer Garou, famed cellist Yo-Yo Ma, Gustavo Dudamel conducting the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France and French electronic producer Michael Canitrot. His 10-minute set in front of the soaring cathedral included his own tracks “Light Odyssey” and “Niteroi,” along with an unreleased production called “Icon” and a remix of Moby‘s 1991 classic “Go.”
“It was incredible, you could feel the emotion in all the artists,” Canitrot tells Billboard. “And as an electronic music artist, it was also a great opportunity to meet other artists like the violinist Gautier Capuçon or Pharrell, who played just before me with a 60-strong choir.”
See video and exclusive photo from the performance below.
Canitrot is well-acquainted with playing in the presence of historic buildings. His ongoing performance series, Monumental, has included sets in front of structures like the Eiffel Tower, the Notre-Dameof Laon cathedral in northern France and nearly 20 other architecturally and culturally signifiant buildings, largely in France, with some funding by the French National Commission for UNESCO.
With these shows, Canitrot presents historic monuments in futuristic ways, using electronic music, lights and video mapping to create immersive experiences that Canitrot says “resonate with both electronic music audiences and the wider public.” His track record with conceptualizing and pulling off these shows “certainly played an important role in securing the Notre-Dame gig,” he says.
He and his team from Monumental, made of roughly 30 visual designers, lighting experts, technical producers and more, worked for months to make this show perfect. The focus was, he says, “on paying tribute to the greatness of Notre-Dame while offering a show that highlights electronic music and heritage.”
The pressure was high for the show, especially as Canitrot had to play it without rehearsing, given that his rehearsal was cut short by heavy winds the night prior. “That’s always quite stressful on such an important and technical show,” he says, “but in the end everything went well.”
Although his performance was relatively brief, Canitrot accomplished a lot in ten minutes. His performance was sequenced into visual and sonic chapters that went through themes of architectural renaissance and honoring builders from the past and present, then nodded to life and elevation via plant-inspired visuals, then paid homage the the cathedral’s new reliquary before shifting to a message of universal peace. These visuals were created in collaboration with Canitrot’s teams at Monumental Tour, AVExtended, and frequent collaborators Jérémie Bellot, and François Deretz, who altogether brought created music and visuals that bathed the famous cathedral in swirling lights and lasers.
With this performance, Canitrot not only added a globally significant performance to his resume, but helped expose electronic music to those who may not often hear it.
“I’ll always remember the moment when, at the end of my set, one of the church officials came to congratulate me,” he says. “To be able to play [electronic] music at such a moment was really important for me, it puts it on the same level as all other music and continues to democratize it for a wider audience.”
Michael Canitrot at Notre-Dame
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Michael Canitrot at Notre-Dame
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Michael Canitrot at Notre-Dame
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An Argentinian judge has charged two hotel workers in relation to Liam Payne‘s death, Rolling Stone reported Tuesday (Dec. 10), citing new documents.
According to the filings — which come about two months after the One Direction star suffered a fatal fall from the third-story balcony of his hotel in Buenos Aires — the publication reports that the two are CasaSur Palermo employees. The first is reportedly the hotel’s manager, while the second person is the receptionist head who called 911 leading up to Payne’s Oct. 16 death.
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It is not clear from the documents what specifically the two parties are being charged with, per the publication. The judge has only asked that the manager and receptionist be notified of the charges, calling for all suspects in the case to be questioned amid local authorities’ ongoing investigation into what played out the night of Payne’s fall, according to Rolling Stone, citing the documents obtained.
“Since there is sufficient reason to suspect that they have participated in the investigated act, we ask that the following people give a statement,” reads the filing.
Three others were previously charged in connection to the case: two individuals who work for the hotel are accused of supplying the “Strip That Down” singer with drugs, as well as a friend accused of abandonment of a person followed by death. All of them were detained by police in November.
All five individuals named by the judge will now have to face the courts. After interrogations, it’ll be up to the judge to decide whether they should be further prosecuted or dropped from the case.
Payne died Oct. 16 of multiple traumas. Toxicology reports showed that he had multiple substances in his system at the time, including alcohol, cocaine and prescription antidepressants.
Leading up to his fall from the balcony, the reception head named in the new documents placed two 911 calls. The first was to report that a guest was “trashing the entire room,” and in the second call, he urged that the guest’s life “may be in danger.” The receptionist also asked the dispatcher to send only emergency medical services, and to abstain from sending the police as well, according to a transcript of the call.
The latest update in the investigation comes about three weeks after Payne was laid to rest in a private service attended by his One Direction bandmates, family and girlfriend Kate Cassidy.
Mariah Carey has a million reasons to be thankful this holiday season. In fact, the Queen of Christmas has 16 million reasons according to the RIAA, which recently announced that Carey’s yuletide classic single, “All I Want For Christmas Is You,” has been certified 16x Platinum. The perennial holiday favorite — which was once again […]
