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Floyd Roger Myers. Jr., an actor best known for his role as a young Will Smith in season three of the original The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air series has died at 42. TMZ was first to report the news, saying that his mother, Renee Trice, announced that her son had passed away early Wednesday morning (Oct. 29) from a heart attack at his home in Maryland. She reportedly noted that her son had suffered three previous heart attacks over the past three years.
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Trice honored her son in a Facebook post featuring a picture of Myers Jr. with his family with the caption, “THIS NOT SUPPOSED TO BE SO.”
The actor’s younger sister, Tyree, shared a remembrance on a Gofundme page to support her brother’s family in which she wrote, “It is with heavy hearts that we share the unexpected passing of my beloved brother, Floyd Roger Myers Jr , who tragically left us today after a sudden heart attack. He was a devoted father, loving brother, and friend whose kindness, laughter, and warmth touched everyone he met. Roger leaves behind his four beautiful children — Taelyn, Kinsley, Tyler, and Knox — and our loving family is now facing the unimaginable loss of someone who meant everything to us.”
Myers Jr. made his on-screen debut in 1992 when he played Young Will in an episode of the sitcom that helped launch rapper Smith into a three-plus decade acting career. That same year, he also played Jackson 5 member Marlon Jackson in the ABC miniseries The Jacksons: An American Dream, which also starred Vanessa Williams, Angela Bassett and Billy Dee Williams.
The actor’s limited resumé also included a one-episode appearance in the short-lived 2000 WB TV drama Young Americans. Myers Jr. was also the co-founder of the Fellaship Mens Group, whose goal is to help men “lead, heal & thrive.” The group honored the father of four with an Instagram tribute that read, “RIP to our good brother @rocwonder one of our co founders. Gone but never will be forgotten. The mission will continue in your honor. Next mens meeting will be one for the books like we talked about! Love you bro, rest easy, big bro will take it from here.”
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If you attended one of the Oasis ’25 reunion shows this summer you will likely never forget the soul-stirring echo of 50,000+ fans shouting out the lyrics to “Wonderwall” along with singer Liam Gallagher as if the tune was the Oasis National Anthem.
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Which it basically is.
That explains why on Thursday (Oct. 30) Oasis announced that they are marking the 30th anniversary of one of their most indelible hits, which has racked up more than three billion streams to date. The band’s biggest hit and an unmovable staple of their live shows will be celebrated with a limited-edition (What’s the Story) Morning Glory? 7″ singles box set due out on Dec. 12, a replica of a highly collectible 1996 cigarette-style CD box set.
The new box includes four 7″ singles — the 2014 remastered versions of “Wonderwall,” “Some Might Say,” “Roll With It” and “Don’t Look Back in Anger” — along with their original b-sides, respectively, “Round Are Way,” “Talk Tonight,” “It’s Better People” and “Step Out.”
In addition to playing around the world on a reunion tour that nobody ever thought would happen, Oasis have spent the year looking back at some of their musical highlights. Last month, they released the 25th anniversary reissue of their Wembley Stadium live album, Familiar to Millions and the 25th anniversary reissue of their fourth album, Standing on the Shoulder of Giants, as well as an unplugged version of “Morning Glory.” To celebrate the launch of their first run of shows in 16 years in July, the group also issued a box set collecting all their studio albums.
This month they also announced a massive book chronicling the tour, Oasis Live ’25 OPUS.
Oasis will march on Friday night (Oct. 31) with the first of three shows at Marvel Stadium in Melbourne, Australia, followed by two gigs in Sydney next weekend and a final run of shows in Argentina, Chile and Brazil to round out the month.
Though a Nov. 23 show at MorumBIS in São Paulo, Brazil is currently the final scheduled date, earlier this month Liam Gallagher answered a fan’s complaint about one of his favorite songs not make the set list by offering up a cryptic tease about future dates. “Chill Winston it’s not even HALF TIME yet it’s a tour of 2 half’s,” Gallagher wrote. To date, spokespeople for the band have not returned Billboard‘s request for comment on potential 2026 tour dates.
Billboard’s Live Music Summit will be held in Los Angeles on Nov. 3. For tickets and more information, click here.
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Lily Allen will take her acclaimed West End Girl LP on tour in 2026 throughout the U.K. The shows will make for the British star’s first full tour in seven years.
Allen released West End Girl on Friday (Oct. 24) via BMG and the record shares intimate and explicit details on the breakdown of her marriage to Stranger Things star David Harbour; the pair were married in 2020 and separated earlier this year.
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The 40-year-old will play the album in full at a run of dates in March 2026, kicking off at Glasgow’s Royal Concert Hall on March. 2. She’ll then play a run of shows that take her to Liverpool, Birmingham, Sheffield, Manchester, Nottingham, Cambridge, Bristol, Cardiff, wrapping up with two nights at the London Palladium on March 21.
The show – Lily Allen Performs West End Girl – will see the singer-songwriter perform her brand-new album in its entirety and in the order the songs appear on the record. Tickets for the shows go on sale at 10 a.m. (GMT) next Friday (Nov. 7).
West End Girl is Allen’s first album since 2018’s No Shame and her fifth overall. Allen’s debut solo single “Smile” from Alright, Still hit No. 1 on the U.K. charts in 2006, and she has two chart-topping LPs to her name: It’s Not Me, It’s You (2009) and Sheezus (2014).
The album details alleged infidelity by a partner, assumed to be Harbour. On the tracks “West End Girl” and “Nonmonogamummy,” Allen details a situation in which she felt pressured to enter into an open relationship, the terms of which were subsequently violated by her partner. On songs such as “Madeline” and “P—y Palace,” she also sings about alleged infidelity. The pair tied the knot in an intimate ceremony in Las Vegas in 2020 after meeting on dating app Raya the year prior.
Speaking to Interview magazine, however, Allen says that some creative license has been used in her songwriting, disclosing that “some of it is based on truth and some of it is fantasy.” She also detailed the songwriting process and her feelings on the songs now that she is removed from the relationship. “At the time, I was really trying to process things, and that’s great in terms of the album, but I don’t feel confused or angry now. I don’t need revenge,” Allen said.
“I wrote this record in 10 days in December, and I feel very differently about the whole situation now,” she added. “We all go through breakups and it’s always f—ing brutal.”
Lily Allen U.K 2026 tour dates:
March 2: Glasgow, Scotland @ Glasgow Royal Concert Hal
March 3: Liverpool, England @ Liverpool Philharmonic Hall
March 5: Birmingham, England @ Birmingham Symphony Hall
March 7: Sheffield, England @ Sheffield City Hall
March 8: Newcastle, England @ Newcastle City Hall
March 10: Manchester, England @ Manchester Aviva Studios, The Hall
March 11: Manchester, England @ Manchester Aviva Studios, The Hall
March 14: Nottingham, England @ Nottingham Royal Concert Hall
March 15: Cambridge, England @ Cambridge Corn Exchange
March 17: Bristol, England @ Bristol Beacon
March 18: Cardiff, Wales @ Cardiff New Theatre
March 20: London, England @ London Palladium
March 21: London, England @ London Palladium
Billboard’s Live Music Summit will be held in Los Angeles on Nov. 3. For tickets and more information, click here.
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Reneé Rapp is officially heading to Australia for the first time, joining the Australian Open 2026 AO Live lineup on Jan. 31 at Melbourne’s John Cain Arena.
The singer-songwriter and actress will perform on Saturday night of the five-day concert series, which runs Jan. 28 to Feb. 1 during the final stretch of the Australian Open. Her set is scheduled to run from 2–7 p.m. AEDT, just before the AO Women’s Final kicks off at 7:30 p.m. at the same venue.
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Rapp’s upcoming performance will mark her debut on Australian soil, following a massive year that saw her second studio album, Bite Me debut at No. 1 on the U.K. albums chart and No. 3 on the ARIA Albums Chart, while her 2023 debut Snow Angel earned the largest first-week sales for a female artist’s debut album in the U.S. that year.
Before heading Down Under, Rapp will hit the road in early 2026 for a European swing that is slated to kick off on March 11 at Lotto Arena in Antwerp, Belgium and keep her on the road through a March 22 show at the 3Arena in Dublin, Ireland.
In just over two years, Rapp has carved out a space as one of pop’s rising voices, earning both critical acclaim and a devoted fan base. She’s already taken her show to major U.S. festival stages, including Coachella, Lollapalooza, Governors Ball, and Boston Calling, and has made appearances on Saturday Night Live, The Today Show’s Summer Concert Series, and Late Night with Seth Meyers.
Before her music breakthrough, Rapp gained attention for her portrayal of Regina George in the Mean Girls Broadway musical in 2022 — a role she reprised in the 2024 film adaptation. The film’s soundtrack also featured Rapp and Olivia Rodrigo on the standout track “Not My Fault.”
Rapp joins this year’s AO Live lineup that also features an exclusive performance from The Kid LAROI and more. AO Pride Day on Jan. 30 will feature Australian favourites The Veronicas alongside Grammy-nominated duo SOFI TUKKER, while DJ and producer Peggy Gou will close out the event following the men’s final.
Each AO Live ticket includes full access to the arena concert as well as the Australian Open precinct. In addition to the headliner performances, the grounds will host acoustic sets in Garden Square and DJ-led parties on Grand Slam Oval. The event is presented by Tennis Australia and Untitled Group.
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The Australian Recording Industry Association (ARIA) has unveiled its full hosting lineup for the 2025 ARIA Awards, with Nova radio personality Tim Blackwell and triple j presenter Concetta Caristo confirmed as co-hosts for the main event.
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The ceremony, presented in partnership with Spotify, is set to take place Wednesday, Nov. 19, at the Hordern Pavilion in Sydney on Gadigal land. The 2025 broadcast will air live on Paramount+ from 5 p.m. AEDT, with a free-to-air broadcast of the red carpet from 7 p.m. AEDT on 10, followed by the awards show later in the evening.
ARIA also confirmed that Latifa Tee will join the co-hosting team for the main event, while Angela Bishop, Georgie Tunny and Latifa will lead the red carpet coverage.
Returning for his second consecutive year as host, Blackwell brings more than two decades of radio experience, currently anchoring the number-one rated drive-time show Ricki-Lee, Tim and Joel on Nova. Caristo, who co-hosts triple j Breakfast with Concetta and Luka, has emerged as a vibrant voice for youth audiences, and previously co-hosted ABC’s Logie-nominated New Year’s Eve special.
Latifa Tee, DJ and broadcaster, currently hosts triple j’s House Party and The Nudge, and will help bridge the red carpet and mainstage moments. Rounding out the coverage team, Bishop and Tunny return with extensive live entertainment and awards coverage experience on Network 10.
Blackwell said in a statement, “Australian music has had an incredible year. We’re punching way above our weight all over the world! To be back as your host for the second year in a row, I couldn’t be prouder to be part of the night celebrating the best artists on the planet.”
Caristo echoed the excitement: “Co-hosting the ARIA Awards and celebrating Australian music on the big stage is truly a dream come true! I get to hang out with so many incredible artists at triple j, and I can’t wait to celebrate them all on Australian music’s night of nights.”
The 2025 ARIA Awards will be streamed on Paramount+, with additional highlights, performances and moments shared across ARIA’s official social channels. The show is supported by the NSW Government through Destination NSW.
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Louis Tomlinson, Kane Brown, Steve Aoki, DJ Pee .Wee (aka Anderson .Paak) and Kaskade are among the artists set to perform at the 2025 Formula 1 Heineken Las Vegas Grand Prix, organizers announced Wednesday (Oct. 30).
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The performances will take place Saturday, Nov. 22, on the track’s Grid stage, with entertainment scheduled around the race itself. Fans with access to hospitality areas — including the Heineken Silver Main Grandstand, Paddock Club, Wynn Grid Club and others — will be able to catch the exclusive sets live from trackside.
Tomlinson, who rose to fame as a member of One Direction, will perform following the drivers’ parade as part of the American Express-presented F1 Grid Gigs series. He recently announced his third solo album, How Did I Get Here?, due Jan. 23, 2026, and will kick off a global tour in the spring.
Country star Kane Brown will perform ahead of driver introductions, bringing his crossover hits like “Heaven” and “What Ifs” to the pre-race stage. Other performers include Grammy-nominated producer Kaskade (who will close out the night with a post-race set), Las Vegas native Steve Aoki, DJ duo VAVO, and DJ Pee .Wee — the high-energy vinyl-spinning alter ego of Anderson .Paak.
Additional performances are planned throughout race weekend. At the T-Mobile Zone at Sphere, previously announced headliners include T-Pain, Machine Gun Kelly and Zedd, with sets from Sofi Tukker, Lauv, Cimafunk, Balu Brigada and others also confirmed. Meanwhile, the Heineken Stage will feature Shaggy, Dillon Francis, Jazzy, Jabbawockeez, Cirque du Soleil’s Mad Apple and more.
In addition to three days of performances, T-Mobile Zone at Sphere ticket-holders will also enjoy race-day activations and up-close views of the Grand Prix, including turn 5G and the chicane (a sequence of tight, alternating corners added to a racetrack, usually to slow down cars before a high-speed section) spanning turns 7 through 9.
“While the action on the Las Vegas Strip Circuit is the main event, the T-Mobile Zone at Sphere elevates the experience with its incredible fan zone entertainment,” Emily Prazer, president and CEO of Las Vegas Grand Prix Inc., said in the previous announcement.
“Las Vegas is an entertainment hub within itself, so it was only fitting to bring together some of the music industry’s best to create an unmatched concert experience for race weekend. Paired with the jaw-dropping graphics of the Exosphere and incredible views of the track, T-Mobile Zone at Sphere has the best of all worlds.”
The second annual Las Vegas Grand Prix takes place Nov. 20–22 on a 3.8-mile circuit that weaves through the Las Vegas Strip. For more information, visit f1lasvegasgp.com.
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Sean “Diddy” Combs is trying to expedite his criminal appeal, saying he could be close to getting out of prison by the time his case is heard if forced to follow the typical, drawn-out argument timeline.
Combs is challenging both his July conviction and the resulting four-year prison sentence for arranging the drug-fueled sex marathons, known as “freak-offs,” between his girlfriends and male escorts. Jurors found Combs guilty of illegal prostitution, but they acquitted him of more serious racketeering and sex-trafficking charges.
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As is the case in much of the court system, appellate procedure is usually slow. In the Second Circuit Court of Appeals, where Combs’ case will be heard, it takes nearly a year and a half on average to get a criminal appeal decided.
Combs’ lawyers don’t want to wait that long. They say in a Wednesday (Oct. 29) court filing that he could complete most of his prison sentence during the typical appeal timeline; Combs is getting credit for the year he’s already spent in jail, plus the sentence could be further trimmed down for good behavior or participation in a drug abuse rehab program.
“An expedited briefing and argument schedule is critical to ensure that Mr. Combs’s appeal of his sentence does not become moot while the appeal is pending,” writes his attorney, Alexandra Shapiro. “To ensure that Mr. Combs could meaningfully benefit from any appellate ruling vacating his sentence, we have proposed a schedule that would expedite this court’s consideration of Mr. Combs’s appeal.”
Shapiro suggests that the lawyers submit all their legal briefs by March and deliver oral arguments in April — that is, she wants the case heard just six months after Combs’ notice of appeal last week.
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Wednesday’s court filing says prosecutors have consented to this expedited briefing schedule. This means it’s likely to get approved, absent scheduling conflicts from the Second Circuit.
A rep for the prosecution did not immediately return a request for comment. Shapiro said in a statement to Billboard, “Sean’s appeal will challenge the unfair use of the Mann Act, an infamous statute with a sordid history, to prosecute him for sex with consenting adults.”
The Mann Act, which makes it illegal to transport people across state lines for prostitution, indeed has an ugly past. Originally called the White-Slave Traffic Act of 1910, it has its roots in a government campaign to criminalize interracial relationships. Combs’ legal team said from the beginning of the case that Mann Act prostitution counts were improperly tacked onto his sex-trafficking indictment, and this argument has taken center stage since Combs defeated the heftier charges at trial.
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Universal Music Group (UMG) and Udio, one of the top AI music models on the market, have announced a strategic agreement, thereby settling UMG’s copyright infringement litigation against Udio. Now, a press release from UMG states that the two companies will also “collaborate on an innovative, new commercial music creation, consumption and streaming experience.”
This deal includes a compensatory legal settlement for UMG, which sued Udio and its rival Suno with the two other major music companies in June 2024, accusing the two platforms of copyright infringement on an “almost unimaginable scale.” At the time, Suno and Udio were using UMG and the other majors’ copyrighted sound recordings to train their models, which could make realistic songs at the click of a button, without a license in place. (Sony Music and Warner Music Group are still involved in the lawsuit against Udio and Suno).
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According to the press release, this deal goes beyond just settling the lawsuit — it also provides licensing agreements for recorded music and publishing to UMG, creating a new revenue stream for the company and its signees. Notably, the lawsuit was only focused on the apparent infringement of UMG’s sound recordings, so this now provides a licensing framework for not just sound records but songs as well. Participating UMG artists and writers will be rewarded for both the training process of the AI model and for its outputs, according to a source close to the deal.
For now, Udio’s existing model will remain available for users as the AI company transitions over to this new model with UMG. Any song created with Udio’s existing model will be “controlled within a walled garden,” according to the release, and there are already amendments to Udio in place to make sure that all songs created with it are fingerprinted, filtered and more. According to a source close to the deal, users are not able to export their Udio songs for now.
The new collaborative platform will be launched in 2026, and UMG artists and songwriters can participate in it on an opt-in basis. The press release states it will be “powered by new cutting-edge generative AI technology that will be trained on authorized and licensed music. The new subscription service will transform the user engagement experience, creating a licensed and protected environment to customize, stream and share music responsibly, on the Udio platform.” The source close to the deal adds that works made within Udio’s forthcoming platform cannot be exported. Instead, users can enjoy their creations within the service, which will be geared towards fans. Some capabilities are said to include mashups, remixes and tempo changes to existing, licensed works as well as voice swapping with UMG artists’ voices who have chosen to make their vocals that available to users.
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This marks UMG’s latest collaboration with an AI music company, and certainly its biggest announcement to date. In the past few years, UMG has struck deals with “responsible” AI music companies, as the company often calls them, including KLAY, SoundLabs and Pro-Rada. More deals between UMG and AI companies are expected to arrive in the coming days.
“We couldn’t be more thrilled about this collaboration and the opportunity to work alongside UMG to redefine how AI empowers artists and fans,” said Andrew Sanchez, co-founder & CEO of Udio, in a statement. “This moment brings to life everything we’ve been building toward — uniting AI and the music industry in a way that truly champions artists. Together, we’re building the technological and business landscape that will fundamentally expand what’s possible in music creation and engagement.”
Lucian Grainge, chairman and CEO of UMG, said, “These new agreements with Udio demonstrate our commitment to do what’s right by our artists and songwriters, whether that means embracing new technologies, developing new business models, diversifying revenue streams or beyond. We look forward to working with Andrew who shares our belief that together, we can foster a healthy commercial AI ecosystem in which artists, songwriters, music companies and technology companies can all flourish and create incredible experiences for fans.”
Trending on Billboard On Oct. 10, Tame Impala‘s Kevin Parker and an intimately sized group of fans gathered in Mexico City’s magnificent Parque Quetzalcóatl for a DJ set by Parker. Produced by Cercle, the 90-minute set happened in conjunction with the Oct. 17 release of the new Tame Impala album, Deadbeat, a collection of dance […]
Trending on Billboard Billboard’s Top Holiday Albums chart returns for the 2025 season, with familiar favorites among the top 10 of the Nov. 1-dated list, including Vince Guaraldi Trio’s A Charlie Brown Christmas soundtrack, Michael Bublé’s Christmas and Mariah Carey’s Merry Christmas (at Nos. 2, 3 and 5, respectively). Leading the tally is the Christmas-meets-Halloween […]
