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A new supreme is rising — and her name is Blue Ivy Carter!
Beyoncé kicked off her 32-date Cowboy Carter stadium tour at SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, Calif., on Monday night (April 28), and her eldest daughter stole the show several times.
After dazzling the crowd with an “America Has a Problem” dance break borrowed from 2023’s Renaissance World Tour — and a cameo alongside little sister Rumi during “Protector” — Blue returned later in the show for “Déjà Vu,” the 2006 Billboard Hot 100 top five hit that introduced the world to her mom’s Grammy-winning sophomore solo album, B’Day. Decked out in an on-theme brown leather chaps and tank combo with fringe details, the young singer-actress-dancer pulled out her best model walk as she strutted down center stage before leading her mom’s dancers in a thrilling rendition of the original mid-’00s “Déjà Vu” live performance choreography.
With her lengthy braids contouring the intense hairography and her lines and extensions crisper than ever, Blue flawlessly executed the dance break — and proved the enduring influence of Josephine Baker, whose iconic “Danse Sauvage” inspired the original “Déjà Vu” choreography. Elements of the moves Blue nailed have appeared in countless Beyoncé performances, from the song’s music video to the 2006 World Music Awards to her 2018 Coachella headlining set.
In the two years since she made her dancing debut on the Renaissance World Tour with “My Power” and “Black Parade,” the eldest Carter offspring has blossomed into a truly self-assured performer. In December, Blue joined her mom for the NFL’s Netflix-assisted Christmas Day halftime show, also known as “Beyoncé Bowl,” a 13-minute showcase of the Cowboy Carter LP. Blue has definitely spent the past few years living up to the Carter family name, and even her aunt Solange couldn’t resist showering her with love on social media. “TT’s babbyyyyyy killing s–t!” she posted on X Monday night (April 28), quoting a clip of Blue breaking down the “America Has a Problem” dance break.
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Outside of dancing, Blue Ivy has also made a killing at the box office. Last year, she starred as Kiara (Simba and Nala’s daughter) in Mufasa: The Lion King, Disney’s Barry Jenkins-helmed prequel to 2019’s photorealistic Lion King remake, in which her mother voiced Nala. The $722 million-grossing film arrived four years after Blue won a Voice Arts Award (best voiceover – children’s audiobook award) for her narration of Hair Love, the audiobook companion to Matthew A. Cherry’s 2019 Oscar-winning independent animated short film of the same name.
Launched in support of her historic Cowboy Carter album — which finally won Bey the long-elusive album of the year Grammy and made her the first Black woman to hit No. 1 on Top Country Albums — the Cowboy Carter Tour will visit nine American and European cities via a series of mini-residences hosted at some of the world’s grandest stadiums. The show is with flying cars and horseshoes, a special tribute to the Renaissance album and live renditions of every Cowboy Carter track (save “My Rose”).
Watch Billboard’s footage of Blue Ivy slaying the “Déjà Vu” dance break below, and check out a side-by-side clip of 2006 Beyoncé and her eldest daughter killing the choreography.
Nothing More scores its third No. 1 in a row on Billboard’s Mainstream Rock Airplay chart, ruling the May 3-dated survey with “House on Sand.”
The song, which features I Prevail’s Eric Vanlerberghe, follows two-week reigns apiece for “If It Doesn’t Hurt” and “Angel Song,” the latter featuring Disturbed’s David Draiman, both in 2024.
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In all, Nothing More boasts four Mainstream Rock Airplay No. 1s, as “Go to War” led in 2017.
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“House on Sand” marks the third No. 1 from Nothing More’s album Carnal, which debuted at No. 9 on the Top Hard Rock Albums chart last July. It’s the second time in 2025 that an act has earned a third leader or more from an album, after Falling in Reverse scored its fourth from Popular Monster in March with the Saraya-featuring “Bad Guy.”
Vanlerberghe, one of two vocalists from I Prevail, lands his first No. 1 solo; I Prevail has three: “Hurricane” (2020), “Bad Things” (2022) and the Halestorm collaboration “Can U See Me in the Dark?” (2024).
Concurrently, “House on Sand” ranks at No. 14, after reaching No. 13 the previous week, on the all-rock-format, audience-based Rock & Alternative Airplay chart with 2.2 million audience impressions in the week ending April 24, according to Luminate.
“House on Sand” also places at No. 17 on the multimetric Hot Hard Rock Songs tally; it hit a No. 11 best upon its debut in April 2024. In addition to its radio airplay, the song earned 364,000 official U.S. streams in the latest tracking week.
Carnal, Nothing More’s seventh studio album, has earned 73,000 equivalent album units to date.
On the heels of delivering Kush + Orange Juice 2, Wiz Khalifa is hitting the road. Wiz and Sean Paul announced the Good Vibes Only Tour on Tuesday (April 29), which will feature DaBaby as a special guest performer. The 15-date amphitheater run will go through North America this summer, kicking off on July 6 […]
Seems like Tyla is gearing up for her sophomore album by teasing a new single titled “Bliss” on Tuesday (April 29). “Take me out of my mind/ Oh-oh-oh, oh, oh-oh/ Take me out of my mind/ Oh-oh-oh, oh, oh-oh/ You take me to bliss,” she’s heard crooning in a video shared to her social media […]
So, who invented “rage” rap? Trippie Redd has an idea.
“The inventors of the rage sound is me, [XXXtentacion], Carti and Uzi,” he said in an Instagram Stories video posted April 27. “We paved the way. We popularized it. I’m not gonna let you old a– n—s say you invented something that you ain’t invent. N—s need to take they pills, man. You n—s be psychotic, like, out of they f—king mind. Your old a– ain’t invent sh—t.”
“That’s exactly why I ain’t pull up on his old a– ‘cause he always just wanna put a n—a beneath him and s—t. You ain’t really for black people. You ain’t really for your people, n—a. You be using n—as and you lost right now.”
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Trippie then added a message for younger artists to be careful who they chose to collaborate with.
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“Artists coming up — keep a hold of y’all craft, man,” the Ohio rapper warned. “Don’t give y’all s—t out to these old n—as ’cause they just wanna get around you, find out your sound, use you, and then dump you, n—a. They won’t f—k with you ever again. All these n—as cutthroat.”
And while he didn’t mention any names, Trippie may be referring to Ye’s April 26 comments during an interview with Sneako, claiming that he invented the style with his 2013 album Yeezus, and more specifically with the song “Blood on the Leaves.”
“I invented ‘rage,’ bro. ‘Blood on the Leaves,’ Ye claimed. “I invented this whole ‘rage’ sound … Yeezus is that energy. ‘N—as in Paris’ is the first time n—as was moshin’. We got Black people moshin’, that was some white boy s—t.”
Some fans on social media have credited Kid Cudi as the rapper to introduce that specific sound and point to his Man on the Moon series of albums and the fact that he often referred to himself as “Mr. Rager.”
When Moroccan-Belgian artist Dystinct announced his upcoming third album with a debut single featuring French Montana, the moment didn’t just mark a major milestone in his career—it signaled his arrival on a much broader stage.
The single, titled “Ya Baba” and released on April 18, should be seen as a high-profile collaboration that reflects the convergence of languages, identities and sonic worlds. It’s also a meeting point for two diasporic stories: French Montana was born in Casablanca and grew up in the Bronx; Belgium-born Dystinct also traces his roots to the same Moroccan coastal city.
With 18 Billboard Hot 100 hits over the past decade-plus (including standouts like “Unforgettable” and “Pop That”), French Montana has cemented his status as a powerhouse in U.S. hip-hop and pop. In “Ya Baba,” however, we hear French Montana rapping in Moroccan Darija (Moroccan vernacular Arabic) for the first time. It’s a full circle moment for an artist who left Morocco at age 13 but never lost touch with his roots. For Dystinct, this collaboration marks a major milestone in his global rise—joining forces with a U.S. pop heavyweight signals a new level of international recognition and reach.
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Shot in Morocco, the music video for “Ya Baba” combines the celebratory and the sobering: children playing in the alleyway, elders sipping tea, the hustle and bustle of everyday life. Its combination of Moroccan textures with Afropop grooves, and lyrics that toggle between English and Moroccan Darija, illustrates Dystinct’s ethos of musical diversity. “More money, more problems, ya habibi,” he sings—echoing one of the most iconic lines in hip-hop history, while capturing the emotional paradox of success and the generational weight that comes with it.
But Dystinct’s journey to this moment didn’t happen overnight.
Born and raised in Belgium to Moroccan immigrant parents, Dystinct has long been immersed in Arabic music, as Billboard Arabia wrote in its cover story last year. Yet his ascent to stardom started first through Dutch-language tracks before making his mark in Arabic. That moment arrived in 2023 with LAYALI, an album that passed 500 million streams and supported a sold-out world tour.
Dsytinct
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Songs like “Tek Tek” with MHD and “Y Dor” with Soolking positioned him at the heart of the MENA Afropop wave. The viral success of “La”—which soared to No. 1 on Billboard Arabia’s Hot 100—and the hit “Wala 5,7,10” cemented his status as a chart-topper, propelling him to No. 2 on Billboard Arabia’s Artist 100. Meanwhile, his track “Spider,” with French artist GIMS, reached new heights, earning multiple Diamond certifications, and is currently approaching 200 million streams. The versatility in dialects in these tracks—from Moroccan to Khaleeji Arabic—reflects his fluency, not just linguistically but musically, across several continents.
French Montana’s career paved the way for this kind of ambition, though from a different era and scale of global success. From his breakout mixtapes in the late 2000s to major label success, Montana represents an earlier wave of diasporic success—one that had to Americanize first, then reconnect with its roots. With “Ya Baba,” the script flips: Dystinct doesn’t compromise his sound for global appeal; he elevates it on his own terms, and French Montana meets him there.
In a world where music is increasingly borderless, this collaboration signifies more than a co-sign—it’s a recognition that cultural identity, when channeled authentically, has the power to travel. As French Montana raps in Darija and Dystinct carries Arabic textures across languages and platforms, “Ya Baba” becomes a symbol of the present moment: one in which artists don’t have to choose between global and local but can be both.
Dsytinct
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While in Auckland, New Zealand, for the latest stop on her Secret of Us Tour, Gracie Abrams paid tribute to the country’s patron saint of pop music, Lorde, whose ballad “Liability” the American singer covered during her show at Spark Arena Tuesday (April 29).
In clips taken by fans at the venue, Abrams sits at her keyboard on a B-stage while chatting with fans, whom she tells she’s been “thinking about [Lorde] a lot” while spending the week in the “Royals” singer’s home country.
“Obviously, being here, and also because she finally returned to save pop music …,” she continues of Lorde, whose comeback single “What Was That” dropped less than a week prior.
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After calling it “one of my favorite songs ever,” Abrams then dives into the moody Melodrama fan favorite, closing her eyes as she gently plays the piano. “They say, ‘You’re a little much for me/ you’re a liability, you’re a little much for me,’” she croons softly as the crowd belts along with her.
As the “That’s So True” singer highlighted, the cover comes just as Lorde reemerges from a four-year break between albums to kick off her next era, releasing “What Was That” April 24. Abrams — who recently wrote that she’s ready for “Lorde summer” on X — is just one of several stars who have expressed their excitement for the Kiwi artist’s return, with Olivia Rodrigo also jamming out to the new track in a TikTok and writing “I LOVE THIS MF SONG.”
But in addition to being her fan, Abrams is also Lorde’s friend. In her recent cover story with Billboard, the former opened up about her relationship with the latter, telling staff writer Hannah Dailey, “She’s like 800 years old inside … whenever we’re together, I feel my nervous system regulate differently.”
Abrams is currently in the midst of her first-ever arena tour, with about three months of shows in Australia and Europe left ahead of her before she returns to North America for a second Secret of Us leg. The trek supports her breakthrough sophomore album The Secret of Us, which reached No. 2 on the Billboard 200.
Lorde, on the other hand, hasn’t dropped an album since 2021’s Solar Power, which debuted at No. 5 on the albums chart. Fans are hopeful that a new LP is coming soon, however, with the “Green Light” musician teasing in an April 15 voice note, “Everything is about to change … I’m so ready.”
Like millions of other fans, Kelsea Ballerini idolizes Taylor Swift, but when it came to starting her own music career, the former quickly learned that she’d need to find her own identity in order to stand apart from the superstar.
While speaking to Variety for her Power of Women Nashville cover story published Tuesday (April 29), the “Peter Pan” singer reflected on the struggle of coming up in Music City in the wake of the Eras headliner’s unprecedented success. At the time, the hitmaker’s shadow loomed especially large over aspiring stars such as Ballerini, who, like Swift, was also a young, blonde, female singer-songwriter — something that forced The Voice coach to find ways to stand out from the 14-time Grammy winner in order to be successful.
Recalling how one label executive dismissed her early on because, as Ballerini recalled him saying, “‘There’s already a Taylor Swift,’” the country artist conceded, “And he was right.”
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“There weren’t a lot of young female singer-songwriter girls in country music to look up to,” she continued. “I had to grow into my own identity as an artist and a songwriter and learn to differentiate myself.”
Distinguishing herself from Swift was even more difficult given Ballerini’s personal obsession with the “Love Story” singer — “Taylor was the North Star for me, and still is in a lot of ways,” she told Variety — but the Tennessee native eventually found her own distinct voice. Her self-titled debut EP dropped in 2014 via Black River Entertainment and earned Ballerini her first-ever Billboard Hot 100 entry with “Love Me Like You Mean It,” soon after which the project even got a cosign from none other than Swift.
“Driving around with the @KelseaBallerini EP on repeat.. SO lovely:)” the country-turned-pop behemoth tweeted in March 2015.
Swift quickly took Ballerini under her wing, with the latter telling Billboard the following year, “She’s like my big sister … She’s walked this so gracefully, so she’s the person that I go to when I’m like, ‘Hey, this is what I’m struggling with right now. How do I navigate this?’”
Also in her Variety cover story, Ballerini gushed about someone else who’s also been hugely influential in her life, but for very different reasons. Of boyfriend Chase Stokes, the singer recalled how patient the Outer Banks actor was as she released her 2023 EP Rolling Up the Welcome Mat — which is famously about her divorce from Australian musician Morgan Evans — as well as Stokes’ reaction to hearing Ballerini’s love song for him, “To the Men That Love Women After Heartbreak.”
“He loved it,” she said. “When we first started talking, I hadn’t put out Welcome Mat yet, and he stood beside me through that whole musical chapter. But when it was time to write Patterns, I wanted to write about the things we were learning in our relationship. And I think with a lot of patience and therapy, we mutually have grown a lot in these last two-plus years.”
SZA crowns both the latest Billboard 200 albums chart and the Billboard Hot 100 songs chart dated May 3. While it’s customary for star acts to lead both lists simultaneously, SZA does so differently than the way that the feat is usually achieved.
As previously reported, SZA’s album SOS rebounds for a 13th week at No. 1 on the Billboard 200. Concurrently, Kendrick Lamar and SZA’s “Luther,” from Lamar’s album GNX – not SOS – logs a milestone 10th week at No. 1 on the Hot 100.
Since the beginning of the 2020s, only three acts have led the charts simultaneously but with a Hot 100-topping song not from the album at No. 1 on the Billboard 200. The two prior to SZA: GNX headed up the Billboard 200 as Lamar’s stand-alone single “Not Like Us” led the Hot 100 for a week in February and Taylor Swift’s 1989 (Taylor’s Version) was No. 1 on the Billboard 200 as the then-four-year-old “Cruel Summer” ruled the Hot 100 for a week in November 2023.
Comparatively, in a hefty 50 weeks this decade, and continuing coordination common since the ‘60s, acts have doubled up atop the Billboard 200 and Hot 100 with albums and songs from those sets. Most recently, Lamar did so twice via GNX: the LP was No. 1 on the Billboard 200 as “Luther” (March 15) and “Squabble Up” (Dec. 7, 2024) topped the Hot 100. Leading the way since 2020, Morgan Wallen’s One Thing at a Time and its smash “Last Night” spent 11 weeks atop the Billboard 200 and Hot 100 side-by-side. (The set and song reigned for 19 and 16 total weeks, respectively.)
Prior to SZA, Lamar and Swift earning such commands, no act had scored such a divergent double-up since August 1997, when Diddy (then Puff Daddy) was No. 1 on the Billboard 200 with No Way Out (with The Family) while being featured with Mase on The Notorious B.I.G.’s Hot 100 leader “Mo Money Mo Problems.” Among artists in lead roles, none had earned the honor before SZA, Lamar and Swift since 1975, when, for two weeks that January, Elton John’s Greatest Hits led the Billboard 200 as his cover of The Beatles’ “Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds,” not on the collection, topped the Hot 100.
The recent relative uptick in the feat suggests that songs’ success can be less tied to album campaigns than in the past. In the case of the acts above, the reign of “Luther” aligns with the recent reissue of SOS; “Not Like Us” was re-diss-covered after Lamar performed it at the Super Bowl LIX halftime show and it won five Grammy Awards, all within an eight-day span in early February; and “Cruel Summer” was revived from Swift’s 2019 album Lover, partly from fan fervor as she performed it early in the run of her The Eras Tour.
Meanwhile, in a digital era, artists can more easily release single tracks than before, while the likes of TikTok and media synchs can more randomly spark popularity for songs not on albums that acts are simultaneously promoting.
Further tying Lamar and SZA together, GNX is No. 2 on the Billboard 200, while the stars kicked off their co-headlining Grand National Tour April 19.
Mike Peters, the lead singer of Welsh rock band The Alarm died on Tuesday (April 29) at age 66 following a decades-long battle with cancer. The death of the author of such strident 1980s alt rock anthems as “Blaze of Glory,” “Spirit of ’76,” “Sixty Eight Guns” and “The Stand” was confirmed in a statement from the group’s publicist titled “Totally Free.”
As the lone remaining original member of the punk-turned-rootsy rock group formed in Rhyl, Wales in 1977 (originally known as The Toilets) Peters continued to tour and release music during a three-decade battle with several forms of cancer, putting himself up as an indefatigable advocate for blood cancer patients.
Last April, before launching a 50-date U.S. tour, he was diagnosed with Richter’s Syndrome, an aggressive form of lymphoma. According to the release, even after extensive treatment at the Christie NHS Foundation Trust in Manchester, U.K., including experimental therapies, doctors could not halt the cancer’s progress.
Michael Leslie Peters was born in Wales on Feb. 25, 1959 and logged time in early Hairy Hippie and The Toilets, forming the latter after being inspired by a Sex Pistols show he attended in 1976. Teaming up with childhood friend and bassist Eddie McDonald, as well as drummer Nigel Twist and guitarist Dave Sharp — initially as Seventeen — the group gelled as The Alarm in 1981, when they were signed to Miles Copeland’s IRS Records, the early indie rock home of groups including R.E.M., The Go-Go’s, Fine Young Cannibals, Wall of Voodoo and many more.
They got a crucial break when U2’s agent saw them live and invited the band to open for the then-ascending Irish group in December 1981. Their sound — a mix of acoustic roots rock, new wave balladry and howling, uplifting anthems — began to gain traction as they supported U2 on that band’s 1983 War tour.
The hard road work paid off on the Alarm’s 1984 debut album, Declaration, which spotlighted Peters’ sensitive, heartfelt lyrics on tracks including the opening salvo, “Marching On.” The anthem for youth found him wailing, “These are the kids they’re powerless/ So you tell them so/ These are the kids they’re powerful/ Don’t say you haven’t been told.”
Setting the tone for the next two decades, the album also featured such fist-in-the-air shout-along hymns to fortitude and fight as “Where Were You Hiding When the Storm Broke?,” “We Are the Light,” “Blaze of Glory” (not to be confused with the Bon Jovi song of the same name) and one of the Alarm’s most beloved calls to arms: “Sixty Eight Guns.”
The song mixed a jaunty rockabilly-meets-mariachi horns sound with another one of Peters’ rallying cries for misunderstood youth, in this case inspired by a late1960sGlasgow street gang who went by the song’s title. “They’re after you with their promises/ Promises of love/ They’re after you to sign your life away,” Peters sings in his signature urgent, raspy yowl. “Sixty-eight guns will never die/ Sixty-eight guns our battle cry/ Sixty-eight guns,” he adds on the chorus.
The group expanded their sound on 1985’s sophomore effort, Strength, which added some churchy organs to the title track and added a handful of other classics to their live repertoire, including the synth-speckled “Knife Edge” and yet another heart-pumping call to arms, the harmonica and piano painted homage to the band’s early origins, “Spirit of ’76.”
They would release three more albums during their initial run, including 1987’s Eye of the Hurricane — featuring their signature ballad, “Rain in the Summertime” — as well as 1989’s Tony Visconti-produced Change, which got them their first and only Billboard Hot 100 top 50 hit with “Sold Me Down the River” (No. 50). That album also represented one of the group’s chart peaks in America, topping out at No. 75 on the Billboard 200 album chart; Strength hit No. 39 in February 1986 and Declaration ran up to No. 50 in April of 1984.
Among their other Hot 100 charting singles were “Strength” (No. 61), “Rain in the Summertime” (No. 71) and “Presence of Love” (No. 77).
After the release of their fifth, and final, LP by the original lineup, 1991’s Raw, the band split up and got back together just one more time, for an episode of VH1’s Bands Reunited, in October 2003. Peters continued his musical march with the Poets of Justice band featuring his wife, Jules Peters, on keyboards, as well as releasing his first solo album, Breathe, in 1994, one year before his first cancer diagnosis.
Peters was diagnosed with non Hodgkin’s lymphoma in 1995, battling that form of cancer, as well as later being twice diagnosed with lymphocytic leukemia in 2005 and 2015. Taking on the disease with the same vigor that fed his songs, Peters co-founded the music-driven charity Love Hope Strength with his wife Jules — who was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2016 — as a means to raise awareness around stem cell donation. The organization’s “Get on the List” campaign at his shows helped add more than 250,000 people to the global stem cell registry.
The singer also kept a sparkle in his eye amidst his health battles, releasing an album by his hoax teen group The Poppy Fields, in 2004, scoring a hit on British radio with the blitzing “45 R.P.M.” Though the song clearly featured Peters’ signature vocals, at the time he said the masked effort was an attempt to shake-up the media’s perception of the by-then 20-plus year old band by concealing their identities and enlisting a group of younger musicians in the band the Wayriders to pose as the veteran act.
In addition to solo singles and albums, Peters, who shared the stage with icons including Bruce Springsteen and Bob Dylan over the years, performed with the indie/new wave supergroup Dead Men Walking with members of The Mighty Wah!, The Damned and the Sex Pistols and briefly joined on as the lead singer of Scottish band Big Country in 2011 following the death of singer Stuart Adamson.
In addition to touring, Peters performed the “highest show ever” on Mt. Everest in 2007, where he was joined by some other 1980s new wave legends, including Cy Curnin and Jamie West of The Fixx, Glen Tillbrook of Squeeze and Slim Jim Phantom of the Stray Cats for a show to raise cancer awareness. A tireless advocate for cancer awareness, Peters shared his stories with his fans and encouraged them to join him on mountain-climbing treks to Mount Kilimanjaro and the Himalayas and released a documentary in 2018 on the BBC about Jules’ cancer battle, While We Still Have Time.
Peters posted from his hospital room in January, his signature shock of long blonde hair shaved down to a slim mohawk, as he shared a new song, “Chimera,” which he said celebrated his receipt of his CAR-T cell therapy on what he called his “new birthday.” Peters booked a series of shows in June of this year in Wales, dubbed “The Alarm Transformation Weekends,” in advance of the upcoming release of his final album, Transformation. He also completed the second volume of his memoirs, Volume 2 HOPE – 1991-2005.
Check out some of The Alarm’s most beloved hits below.