Music
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In our Latin Remix of the Week series, we spotlight remixes that the Billboard Latin and Billboard Español editors deem exceptional and distinct. We might not publish a review every week. This is our selection today. Explore Explore See latest videos, charts and news See latest videos, charts and news Pipe Bueno has brought back one of his most famous songs from […]
Clairo is kicking off 2025 with a bang, unveiling a brand new music video for her breezy track “Terrapin” on Thursday (Feb. 6), starring none other than “Weird Al” Yankovic. Explore See latest videos, charts and news See latest videos, charts and news The four-minute theatrical visual finds Yankovic emerging from a teal green home […]
At the turn of the millennium, Irv Gotti – who died Wednesday at age 54 – helped bring a new class of hip-hop and R&B acts to fame as the co-founder of Murder Inc. Records.
Also known as The Inc. Recordings, the imprint quickly established itself as a major force in the two genres, with Ja Rule and Ashanti emerging as its flagship stars. The Gotti brothers founded Murder Inc. Records, named after the famous Depression-era crime syndicate, as an imprint of Def Jam in 1998. The next year, Ja Rule burst to prominence with his debut album, Venni Vetti Vecci, which debuted at No. 3 on the Billboard 200 and gave the MC his first solo Billboard Hot 100 entry, “Holla Holla,” a No. 35 hit.
From there, the rapper continued to produce hit after hit, including three No. 1 smashes – “Always on Time,” featuring Ashanti, and a pair of featured spots on Jennifer Lopez’s “I’m Real” and “Ain’t It Funny,” both of which trace their chart-topping status to their respective Ja Rule and Ashanti-penned Murder Remix versions.
Ashanti, too, became a powerhouse inside Murder Inc., thanks to her signature hooks across the imprint’s biggest hip-hop records that led to her own string of huge R&B crossover hits. That combination culminated in a historic feat in 2002, as she became the first woman – and only third act at the time, joining The Beatles and Bee Gees – with three simultaneous top 10 hits on the Hot 100.
Gotti himself carved out a Hot 100 pedigree largely as a producer, with a credit on 28 charting Hot 100 hits from songs performed by Ja Rule, Ashanti, DMX, Jay-Z, Mary J. Blige, Fat Joe and Ye. As a credited artist, Gotti scored a top 10-charting hit on the Hot 100 with “Down 4 U,” which peaked at No. 6 in 2002 and was credited to Irv Gotti Presents The Inc. featuring Ja Rule, Ashanti, Charli Baltimore and Vita.
Given the imprint’s stamp and Gotti’s role in that pivotal era for hip-hop and R&B, Billboard revisits the Murder Inc. legacy with a review of its top 20 hits on the Hot 100.
Murder Inc.’s Biggest Billboard Hot 100 Hits ranking is based on weekly performance on the Hot 100 from its Aug. 4, 1958, start through Feb. 8, 2025. Songs are ranked based on an inverse point system, with weeks at No. 1 earning the greatest value and weeks at lower spots earning the least. Due to changes in chart methodology over the years, eras are weighted differently to account for chart turnover rates during various periods.
“The Way That I Love You” – Ashanti
DMX‘s ex-wife opened up about the late rappers unfortunate business decisions and finances. Sitting down with Carlos King for his Reality with the King podcast, Tashera Simmons revealed DMX was on his way to becoming a billionaire at one point. “I remember looking at our bank accounts and the zeros wouldn’t stop. I’m not even […]
Mumford & Sons is gearing up to release the band’s first album in seven years — and now, the group is also planning to bring Rushmere on the road. On Thursday (Feb. 6), the group comprised of Marcus Mumford, Ben Lovett and Ted Dwane announced a small run of tour dates supporting their upcoming LP. […]
Kendrick Lamar rarely does interviews these days, but he sat down with Apple Music’s Nadeska and Ebro Darden on Thursday morning (Feb. 6) in New Orleans prior to taking the stage this weekend for the Super Bowl LIX halftime show. Lamar answered questions for about a half-hour, and while Drake wasn’t brought up directly, K. […]
Drake was in a giving mood during the second stop of his Anita Max Win Tour in Australia and New Zealand. During his set at RAC Arena in Perth, Australia, the Toronto rapper randomly spotted a couple of fans in the crowd and gifted them $20,000 apiece, as captured by Australian hip-hop Instagram account Take […]
Kanye West is coming to his wife Bianca Censori‘s defense after her see-through dress at the 2025 Grammy Awards red carpet stirred online controversy. “My wife’s first red carpet opened a whole new world. I keep staring at this photo like I was staring in admiration that night Thinking wow I am so lucky to […]
Travis Kelce might be an NFL superstar, but he’d probably argue he isn’t the only pro athlete in his relationship with Taylor Swift.
At a pre-Super Bowl press conference Thursday (Feb. 6), the Kansas City Chiefs tight end praised the “remarkable” physical and mental stamina his superstar girlfriend demonstrated for nearly two years straight on her global Eras Tour, which kicked off in March 2023 and ended in December. “To see that week in, week out, traveling from one country to the next, how excruciating it is on her body and her mind … ” Kelce said at the New Orleans junket.
“Her work ethic, what I saw on that tour last year, was pretty remarkable,” he marveled. “It was the dancers, the band, the singers, it was everybody involved, and it was an absolute machine. It was something I could admire watching and take a lot of notes from.”
The Ohio native’s comments come just three days ahead of the Chiefs’ ultimate game against the Philadelphia Eagles, which will find Kansas City attempting to make history as the first team to ever win three consecutive Super Bowls. The “Fortnight” singer is expected to attend the showdown at Caesars Superdome in NOLA.
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The venue also happens to be one where Swift stopped last year on her Eras trek — and during one of her Louisiana shows, she appeared to “bless” the stadium by doing one of Kelce’s signature dance moves and holding up three fingers to welcome a “three-peat” for her boyfriend’s team.
The New Heights podcaster was asked about the gesture in another press conference this week. “We both, we love to manifest things,” he said, smiling. “Whatever she was doing, I’m sure it helped.”
The 14-time Grammy winner has also been open in the past about the amount of training she had to do to get in shape for such a demanding tour, for which she spent more than three hours onstage each night for a total of 149 shows. “Every day I would run on the treadmill, singing the entire set list out loud,” she told Time in December 2023. “Fast for fast songs, and a jog or a fast walk for slow songs.”
She also revealed at the time that she followed a program specially designed for her by her gym focusing on strength, conditioning and weights. “Then I had three months of dance training, because I wanted to get it in my bones.”
See Kelce talk about Swift’s athleticism below.
A recent column published by The Hollywood Reporter criticized Chappell Roan‘s best new artist acceptance speech at the 2025 Grammys, and Halsey is coming to her fellow pop star’s defense.
In a post to Instagram Stories, Halsey called out The Hollywood Reporter for publishing a guest column headlined “Chappell Groan: The Misguided Rhetoric of an Instant Industry Insider,” in which former music industry executive Jeff Rabhan said Roan’s speech calling out music labels was “a hackneyed and plagiarized script.”
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“I hope you’re embarrassed of the absolute personal attack that you’ve ran and disguised as critical journalism,” Halsey wrote to her Instagram Stories. “This is so far beneath the standard you should uphold as a publication.”
In his column, Rabhan — who worked as an A&R executive at Atlantic and Elektra Records, and currently serves as the CEO & co-founder of edutainment platform Bored-of-Ed — claimed that Roan’s call for labels to give artists improved healthcare benefits and a living wage was coming from “an artist basking in industry love while broadcasting naïveté and taking aim at the very machine that got her there.”
He continued, adding that “if labels are responsible for artists’ wages, health care and overall well-being, where does it end and personal responsibility begin? Should Chris Blackwell put a mint on her pillow and tuck her in at night, too? There is no moral or ethical obligation by any standard that hold labels responsible for the allocation of additional funds beyond advances and royalties.”
The “Ego” singer ripped into Rabhan’s “ranting, seething tantrum,” as they called it, claiming the former executive’s argument was “loaded with assumptions and accusations that generalize the experience of every artist to that of the most successful.” She pointed out that advances offered by labels only cover “affording survival” considering that making an album for a label “precludes [artists] from working a day job.”
“It’s a game of investment but the investment is towards producing the materials, the person *the ORGANIC MATERIAL* that is producing that product needs access to things like health care. Shocking, I know,” she wrote. “If you want to profit off of someone else’s art; that artist should have the basic living means to feel safe enough to create that art.”
In concluding the post, Halsey also pointed out that Roan is not an “instant industry insider,” as Rabhan claimed, but instead someone who has been working for over a decade to get to the position she currently occupies. “To compare the payoff of her actions to those of an industry titan with the power and financial leverage of Taylor Swift, when Chappell hasn’t even spun the block enough times to see the residuals of her long earned but sudden success, is irresponsible for someone with your experience in this industry,” she wrote. “Shame on you. Boot licking behavior.”
The speech in question saw Roan call out major labels for not providing adequate benefits to their signed artists, citing her own experience after being dropped from Atlantic in 2020. “It was so devastating to feel so committed to my art and to feel so betrayed by the system and to be so dehumanized to not have healthcare. If my label would have prioritized artists’ health, I could have been provided care by a company I was giving everything to,” she said.
Billboard and The Hollywood Reporter are both owned by PMC.