Music

03 May 2024

Fans React to Kendrick Lamar’s Explosive Drake Diss ‘6:16 in LA’: ‘This Rider Music’

Kendrick Lamar surprised the rap world by hurling another bomb in Drake’s direction with “6:16 in LA” arriving on Friday (May 3).

The Al Green-sampling Drake diss track has yet to hit streaming services and is currently only available on Kendrick Lamar’s Instagram, but that didn’t stop fans from going ballistic Friday morning heading into the weekend.

K. Dot accuses Drake of having traitors inside the OVO camp leaking information to the opposition while name-dropping 6 God affiliates like Akademiks and Zack Bia.

“Have you ever thought that OVO was working for me?/ Fake bully, I hate bullies/ You must be a terrible person/ Everyone inside your team is whispering that you deserve it/ Can’t Toosie Slide up out of this one, it’s just gon’ resurface,” Lamar raps.

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Fans, critics and more flooded social media with opinions of Kendrick’s surprise attack, with “6:16” arriving just three days after the scathing “Euphoria,” which served as the Compton legend’s response to Drake’s “Push Ups” diss.

“Kendrick don’t give two sh–s about you needing a club banger… This rider music. Underground rap fan heat,” Hot 97 host Ebro Darden wrote.

Another person saluted Akademiks being name-dropped on tracks by both sides in the war. “Akademiks being mentioned by both Drake and Kendrick Lamar in diss records is legendary. He’s apart of HipHop history, even if you love him or hate him, thats objectively a win for independent media,” they wrote.

While Spotify’s Carl Chery added: “Every now and then I hear people say Kendrick is too high brow and his lyrics are too hard to understand. I heard it a few times in the context of this battle. This is rap. You guys just have a low rap IQ.”

Some fans were left with their jaws on the floor after finding out that Taylor Swift’s frequent collaborator Jack Antonoff was a co-producer on “6:16 in LA.” (Drake poked at Lamar for working with Swift on “Push Ups.”) “So this track literally is Taylor Made Okay Kendrick I see you,” one Drake fan said on X.

The debate about who’s winning the Drake-Kendrick war is sure to rage on well into the weekend as fans await the 6 God’s next move — which better be his best move — in the battle.

Find more of the reactions to “6:16 in LA” below.

03 May 2024

Jonas Brothers Postpone Series of Concerts in Mexico Due to Nick Jonas Getting Sick

The series of concertsthe Jonas Brothers were scheduled to perform in Mexico City and Monterrey this weekend and early next week have been postponed to August due to Nick Jonas‘ health issues.

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“Due to health issues, Nick Jonas is unable to offer a concert of the quality that his Mexican audience deserves,” Mexican promoter Zignia Live announced in a statement on Friday (May 3). “For this reason, the Jonas Brothers events in Mexico City and Monterrey — scheduled for May 3 and 4 at Arena CDMX, and May 6 and 7 at Arena Monterrey — will be rescheduled.”

Nick Jonas revealed on Instagram that he is suffering from influenza-A. “Hi guys. I have come down with the nasty strain of influenza-A that’s been going around, and I’m not able to sing at the moment,” he wrote. “We always want to be able to give you guys the best show and I’m just not able to do that for these shows in Mexico at this time.”

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Jonas informed fans that the shows will now take place on Aug. 21 and 22 in Mexico City and Aug. 24 and 25 in Monterrey. “We are incredibly sorry for the inconvenience this causes some of you,” he expressed. “Love you all. You’re the best fans in the world. Will bring 120% in August!”

Produced by Live Nation, THE TOUR is the Jonas Brothers’ most ambitious to date, with 98 shows in 26 countries. According to a statement from their promoters in Mexico, “Each night is a celebration of five albums and features their greatest hits from over the years, including a variety of deep cuts spanning their entire career and favorite hits.”

The Jonas Brothers, which also includes Nick’s brothers Joe and Kevin Jonas, are considered one of the most successful pop groups of the past two decades, with more than 20 million albums sold. On the Billboard charts, they have placed 26 hits on the Hot 100 and three consecutive debuts at No. 1 on the Billboard 200. Among other accolades, they have received two Grammy nominations and recently unveiled their own star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

Watch the video announcement of the postponement of shows in Mexico below:

03 May 2024

The 15 Best Lines from Kendrick Lamar’s ‘6:16 in LA’

They say styles make fights.

What we’re seeing here are two rappers standing on top of the game at different sides of the spectrum. There’s Drake, the hitmaking machine who’s never backed down from a challenge. Then there’s Kendrick, the more complicated lyricist who’s managed to collect plaques without chasing commercial appeal, but someone who hasn’t been battle-tested like the person he’s currently in the ring with. This doesn’t mean Kung Fu Kenny isn’t familiar with the “Secretz of War“; he’s a student of the game, after all.

On “Taylor Made Freestyle” — the diss track Drake was forced to take down — Drake goes on a rant at the end, telling Kendrick he hopes he’s in the lab cooking up quintuple entendres. That’s just what Kendrick did on this latest diss track “6:16 in LA.” If you let the chatter online tell it, the title is a play on numerous things. One is an obvious play on Drake’s timestamp series. Another is a nod to Ice-T’s “6 ‘N the Mornin’.” But once you get into numerology games, you slowly start to resemble that Always Sunny meme with Charlie losing it in front of an evidence board trying to tie everything together.

Here’s a list of all the things the song title could maybe refer to:

  1. – June 16 is Tupac’s birthday
  2. – June 16 is Canadian Father’s Day
  3. – June 16 was the series premiere of Euphoria
  4. – June 16 was Nicole Brown’s funeral
  5. – 6:16 can also be applied to various bible verses (see Ephesians 6:16)
  6. – This tweet
  7. – The song features a sample of Al Green’s “What A Wonderful Thing Love Is”
    • – Al Green once got hot grits poured on him in the morning.

All that, plus Jack Antonoff (frequent collaborator of Taylor Swift, oft-mentioned by Drake throughout this feud) produced the song alongside Sounwave — and the streets are even saying the cover art is a picture of Drake’s Maybach driving gloves.

We haven’t even gotten to the bars yet. We have to mention a line from “euphoria” first, though. Remember when Kenny spit, “‘Back To Back,’ I like that record/ I’ma get back to that, for the record”? Who knew he was talking about himself surprising everyone with another diss track so soon? The guy is an acrobat, the Simone Biles of Rap.

Below, we compiled a list of what we thought were the best lines off “6:16 in LA.” This was a diabolical showing from the King of the West. With rumors of a Whoo Kid disstape on the way, we await the King of the North’s next move. God, I love this game.

03 May 2024

Beartooth Earns Second Mainstream Rock Airplay No. 1 With ‘I Was Alive’

After notching its first No. 1 on Billboard’s Mainstream Rock Airplay chart last November, Beartooth scores its second on the May 11-dated survey with “I Was Alive.”

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The song follows the group’s one-week rule with “Might Love Myself.”

The two No. 1s mark new heights for the band from Columbus, Ohio, on Mainstream Rock Airplay, which the act first hit with the No. 33-peaking “Beaten In Lips” in 2015. It logged two initial top 10s with “Hated” (No. 6, April 2017) and “Disease” (No. 9, December 2018). Beartooth boasts 12 total career entries on the chart, all on Red Bull Records.

Concurrently, “I Was Alive” ranks at No. 15, after reaching No. 13, on the all-rock-format, audience-based Rock & Alternative Airplay chart, up 5% to a new weekly-best 2.6 million audience impressions April 26-May 2, according to Luminate. The track is Beartooth’s second-highest-ranking hit on the list, after “Might Love Myself” rose to No. 11 in November.

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On the most recent multimetric Hot Hard Rock Songs chart (dated May 4, reflecting data April 19-25), “I Was Alive” placed at No. 19, after reaching No. 10 in April. In addition to its radio airplay, the song earned 306,000 official U.S. streams in that span.

“I Was Alive” is the second single, after “Might Love Myself,” from The Surface, Beartooth’s fifth studio LP. It debuted at No. 1 on the Top Hard Rock Albums chart in October 2023 and has earned 91,000 equivalent album units since its release.

All Billboard charts dated May 11 will update on Billboard.com Tuesday, May 7.

03 May 2024

Al Green Reacts to Kendrick Lamar Sampling Him on ‘6:16 in LA’ Drake Diss

Kendrick Lamar went back-to-back with the release of “6:16 in LA” taking aim at Drake once again on Friday (May 3).

Produced by Sounwave and Jack Antonoff, fans quickly picked up that the eviscerating diss track sampled Al Green’s “What a Wonderful Thing Love Is.”

The Willie Mitchell-produced song originally landed on Green’s I’m Still in Love With You Album, which was released in October 1972 and peaked at No. 4 on the Billboard 200.

The soul singer took advantage of the spotlight by tweeting out the YouTube link to his sampled track. “What a Wonderful Thing Love Is,” he simply wrote to X on Friday.

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Plenty of fans flooded Al Green’s replies urging the “Let’s Stay Together” artist to clear the sample so “6:16 in LA” could properly land on streaming services. It’s still unclear if he cleared the sample for further commercial use.

Kendrick isn’t the only rapper to sample “What A Wonderful Thing Love Is,” as Kanye West previously used it on “Out the Game,” which landed on Consequence’s Take ‘Em to the Cleaners mixtape om 2004.

There’s even a deeper Drake connection to “What a Wonderful Thing Love Is.” As pointed out by Complex, the original 1972 track’s credits find Mabon “Teenie” Hodges playing the guitar, who is a relative of Drake’s.

Kendrick Lamar continues to be well-calculated while throwing punches in Drake’s direction as he’s now dropped a pair of nuclear bombs on the 6 God. Three days after his scathing “Euphoria” diss, Kendrick unleashed the “6:16 in LA” track firing away at Drake and accusing him of having a leak in the OVO camp.

“Have you ever thought that OVO was working for me?/ Fake bully, I hate bullies/ You must be a terrible person/ Everyone inside your team is whispering that you deserve it/ Can’t Toosie Slide up out of this one, it’s just gon’ resurface,” he raps.

Following the release of “Push Ups” and the “Taylor Made” freestyle, Drake has now received a two-pack combination of disses courtesy of K. Dot. The ball’s now in Drizzy’s court with the rap world awaiting his rebuttal in what will be a pivotal moment in the boiling feud.

Listen to “6:16 in LA” below.

03 May 2024

Ghostface Killah & Nas Collaborate On A New Cut “Scar Tissue”

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Ghostface Scar Tissue

Source: Ghostface / Mass Appeal

It’s been ages since we’ve heard Hip-Hop legends Nas and Ghostface Killah on the same track, but two of the best MC’s from Hip-Hop’s golden era have once again reunited to give us some new work that gives us that OG feeling of what the rap scene in New York City was like back in the 1990s.

Collaborating for the new cut “Scar Tissue,” Ghostface Killah and Nas got into their bag of bars, but there wasn’t anything sweet in there. The two MC’s laid out the murder game and bodied the track with Ghost spitting, “Payback’s a b*tch ain’t it? That’s why I don’t talk to ni**as, I’m good, I ain’t gettin’ acquainted/Middle finger to the judge, we still killin’ the plaintiff! We Staten Island ni**as, we ain’t gotta explain it!”

Of course, Nas put in some work as well with his rhymes saying, “Nothing bigger than Ghostface and Esco/Legal Mexican cartel money, call me Arnesco/Guzman, Lopez, Garcia, gold-plated AKs lethal when you see us/Between the fingers, smoking on thousand dollar blunts, tell these suckas I got everything they want.”

Man, we need another Wu-Tang album with a Nas feature or two.

Check out “Scar Tissue,” and let us know your thoughts on the track in the comments section below.



03 May 2024

Danny Ocean’s ‘Reflexa’ & More: Which Is Your Favorite New Latin Music Release This Week? Vote!

This week, Billboard’s New Music Latin roundup and playlist — curated by Billboard Latin and Billboard Español editors — features fresh new albums from artists such as Danny Ocean, Kany García, Eladio Carrion and Fonseca, to name a few.

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Dubbing it the “pop of the future,” Danny Ocean presents his third studio album, Reflexa. Navigating through heartbreak, lust, love and the desire to live authentically, the 12-track set is perhaps Danny’s most personal album yet, but it’s also his most sonically experimental — in it he fuses his signature pop sound with electro and Middle Eastern influences. 

In “García,” the title track of Kany García’s new album, the Puerto Rican singer-songwriter pens a letter to herself, addressing the young, vulnerable Kany and the present day star, equally vulnerable (“Tengo miedo de meterme en esta ola de ficción/I’m afraid of losing myself in this wave of fiction”).

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Other new releases include Piso 21 and Wisin’s “La Misión”; Silvestre Dangond and Carlos Vives’ “Tú o Yo,” and more.  

Last week, music fans voted for Belinda and Natanael Cano’s new single “300 Noches” as their favorite music release of that week. Coming in closely behind was Anitta’s new album, Funk Generation, which had 41 percent of the vote. Beli and Cano’s heartbreak track — produced by Marcelo Rivera Levy, Mr. Naisgai and Ángel Sandoval — beat out other new releases such as Yuridia and Los Ángeles Azules’ “Felicítalo”; Rels B and Junior H’s “Un Desperdicio”; Bruses and Humbe’s “Bestia”; Aitana and Sebastián Yatra’s “Akureyri”; Danny Ocean’s “Ley Universal” and Marc Anthony’s new album, Muevense.

Who should win this week? Vote among other new releases:

03 May 2024

Ed Sheeran Reflects on the 10th Anniversary of ‘X’ Album & Which Hit He ‘Didn’t Really Like at First’

It’s been 10 years since Ed Sheeran unveiled his massively successful sophomore album, x, which gave fans enduring hits including “Thinking Out Loud,” “Don’t” and “Sing.”

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“I think at the time you don’t really realize what’s happening,” he tells Billboard of his Billboard 200-chart topping 2014 album on the red carpet of the 2024 Blue Diamond Gala on Thursday (May 2), where he headlined the Los Angeles Dodgers Foundation charity event. “You go from one song to the next song to the next song. At the time, I was just happy that people are liking the songs and now I look back at the album, and it’s an album people really liked, which I guess is good. It took me from arenas to stadiums and I feel like it was such an important album in my career.”

Shockingly, he had to warm up to one of the album’s biggest hits. “I remember ‘Photograph’ taking a really long time to get production right. It look a long while,” he recalls. “That was the song that I didn’t really like at first because we spent so much time doing it and it ruined it. Now, I can look back and enjoy the process.”

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Since x, Sheeran hasn’t slowed down one bit. He completed his mathematical equation of albums with 2017’s ÷, 2021’s = and 2023’s –, as well as his 2019 collabs album No. 6 Collaborations Project and his most recent release, Autumn Variations. “It’s important to never do the same thing twice,” he says of keeping his career exciting after all this time. “Musically, I’m always like, ‘Have I said this before? Has a song sounded like this before?’ It’s less about what other people are doing, and more about what I’ve already done and constantly doing something different.”

The star is set to drop x (10th Anniversary Edition) on June 21, an expanded version of the 12-song original featuring nine bonus tracks, none of which have ever been available on vinyl before.

03 May 2024

Hozier’s Former Hot 100 Leader ‘Too Sweet’ Tops Its First Airplay Chart

Following its ascent to No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 dated April 27, Hozier’s “Too Sweet” rules its first radio chart.

The song crowns Adult Alternative Airplay, where Hozier earns his sixth leader – and his fourth in a row. It leaps 5-1 on the May 11-dated ranking, up 18% in plays at the format April 26-May 2, according to Luminate.

“Too Sweet” follows the Irish singer-songwriter’s reigns with Noah Kahan’s “Northern Attitude,” featuring Hozier (five weeks at No. 1 beginning in January), “Francesca” (one week, September 2023) and “Eat Your Young” (two weeks, May 2023).

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Four No. 1s in a row mark the longest streak for any act on Adult Alternative Airplay in more than a decade and a half, since Counting Crows achieved four consecutively in 2004-08. The all-time record belongs to U2, who strung together six straight in 2001-05.

Hozier has also topped Adult Alternative Airplay with “Nina Cried Power,” featuring Mavis Staples (two weeks, 2018), and his breakthrough hit “Take Me to Church” (one week, 2014).

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Concurrently, “Too Sweet” vaults 22-15 on Alternative Airplay. On the all-rock-format, audience-based Rock & Alternative Airplay chart, it zooms 14-7 with 3.3 million audience impressions, up 36%. It’s Hozier’s third top 10 on the latter list, following “Eat Your Young” (No. 7, 2023) and “Take Me to Church” (No. 3, 2014).

A multiformat hit beyond rock radio, “Too Sweet” also jumps 14-11 on Adult Pop Airplay as the chart’s Greatest Gainer (up 49%) and 17-15 on Pop Airplay. It brings Hozier’s best showing on the former since “Someone New” hit No. 10 in 2015. On the latter, it’s his second entry, after “Take Me to Church” rose to No. 2.

On the most recent multimetric Hot Rock & Alternative Songs chart (dated May 4, reflecting data April 19-25), “Too Sweet” notched a fifth week at No. 1. In addition to its radio airplay, the song earned 29.5 million official U.S. streams and sold 6,000.

“Too Sweet” is from Hozier’s four-song set Unheard, a collection of previously unreleased material recorded for his 2023 full-length Unreal Unearth. The EP debuted at No. 3 on the Top Alternative Albums list dated April 6 and has earned 151,000 equivalent album units to date.

All Billboard charts dated May 11 will update on Billboard.com on Tuesday, May 7.

03 May 2024

Kendrick Lamar Tapped Jack Antonoff for New Drake Diss Track ‘6:16 in LA’

One might say Kendrick Lamar’s “6:16 in LA” is “Taylor Made.” A rep for Jack Antonoff confirmed to Billboard that the Bleachers frontman and frequent Taylor Swift collaborator worked on K. Dot’s latest Drake diss track.

Antonoff co-produced the seething “6:16 in LA” alongside Lamar’s in-house beat maestro Sounwave. (Variety was first to report that Antonoff co-produced the track.) The rapper uploaded the Al Green-sampling diss taking aim at the 6 God to his Instagram account on Friday morning (May 3).

In the track, Kendrick continued his psycho-analyzation of Drake while accusing OVO of having leaks in its camp. “Have you ever thought that OVO was working for me?/ Fake bully, I hate bullies/ You must be a terrible person/ Everyone inside your team is whispering that you deserve it/ Can’t Toosie Slide up out of this one, it’s just gon’ resurface,” he raps.

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Lamar continued to hammer home allegations of betrayal behind Drake’s back while spewing: “100 n—as that you got on salary/ and 20 of them want you as a casualty/ and one of them is actually/ is next to you / and two of them is practically tied to your lifestyle.”

Kendrick shared the track on social media with the cover art featuring a black Maybach glove. Fans began to speculate the meaning behind “6:16,” and some brought upon theories of June 16 being 2Pac’s birthday. Drake used AI-assisted Pac vocals in his “Taylor Made” freestyle, which he deleted from social media following a cease-and-desist from the late rapper’s estate.

Others pointed to June 16 being Father’s Day in Canada this year, while producer 9th Wonder reminded fans via X that HBO’s Euphoria debuted on that day in 2019. Drake served as an executive producer on the show, which also doubled as the title of Kendrick’s first diss targeting Drizzy earlier this week.

“6:16 in LA” arrives three days after K. Dot dropped his scathing “Euphoria” diss, and the 6 God is yet to officially respond.

However, Drake appeared to react to “Euphoria” by posting a clip from the 1999 rom-com 10 Things I Hate About You on Instagram, and hinted at his retort while leaving the stage after a surprise appearance at Nicki Minaj’s Toronto stop on the Pink Friday 2 World Tour on April 30. “You know what time it is — you know what I have to do,” he cryptically said at the time.

Antonoff’s work on “6:16” comes as a surprise, and serves as his first collaboration with Kendrick Lamar. Earlier this month, he helmed Taylor Swift’s The Tortured Poets Department as the primary producer; the record-breaking album arrived on April 19.

Listen to “6:16 in LA” below.