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Ye says he and his wife Bianca Censori one-upped the Grammys. In since-deleted Instagram posts, Ye (formerly known as Kanye West) shared a screenshot of Google stats that show Censori was searched more than the awards show itself. He then followed that up with a post proclaiming, “We beat the Grammies [sic]” and another saying, […]
Anyma has been spending a lot of time at Sphere amid his ongoing residency, but the producer’s first meeting with the venue in April of 2023 didn’t go exactly as planned.
“We had an appointment to go at 3:00,” says Anyma’s agent, CAA’s Ferry Rais-Shaghaghi. “I show up there, and he doesn’t show up. I’m calling like, ‘Dude, where are you? We have this appointment.’ He’s like, ‘I’m in a studio session, just hit me up after.’”
So, Rais-Shaghaghi stepped inside a smaller version of the Las Vegas venue erected in Burbank, Calif., that’s used as a demonstration and testing space. There, he says, his mind “was blown by the capabilities of what it could do.” He walked back outside, called Anyma, the electronic music artist born Matteo Milleri, and said, “Dude, you need to see this. This is built for you.”
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Milleri went to check it out the very next day and, after seeing Sphere’s capabilities, called Rais-Shaghaghi with a directive: “You have to get this done.”
Fifteen months later, in July 2024, Anyma was announced as the first-ever electronic headliner at Sphere, the cutting-edge venue that opened in Las Vegas in September 2023. Anyma’s show opened Dec. 27, with its first eight dates selling 137,000 tickets and grossing $21 million, according to numbers reported to Billboard Boxscore. The final four shows will happen Feb. 27-28 and March 1-2.
With Vegas already an established destination for dance music, there had been a lot of talk about which dance artist would be the first to play the venue.
“It’s a big approval process, and for it to be probably the hottest venue in the world, you’ve got to understand the list of people that want to go in there,” says Rais-Shaghaghi, who started working with the melodic techno artist in 2023.
Anyma had a particularly strong case for being a fit. Visuals are a crucial element at Sphere, which centers on a 160,000-square-foot LED screen that curves and towers to a height of 240 feet. Anyma had already done significant visual world-building, carving out a singular and well-established aesthetic in both his solo output and as one half of the duo Tale Of Us. (Anyma released his debut album, Genesys, in 2023 with Genesys II coming last year. Both were released on Interscope Records.) Technology has also been deeply embedded into his output, with the producer over the years releasing NFTs that debuted art from the Anyma project, with the artist and his team using this project to blur the lines between show visuals and fine art.
Incorporated during live shows, this imagery melded concepts related to futurism, transhumanism, space, life, death, rebirth, apocalypse and intimacy and set them to a style of pummeling melodic techno favored in places like Burning Man and Tulum that’s grown in global influence and mainstream popularity over the last few years.
Anyma also had a strong track record of moving hard tickets, a historically soft area for many electronic acts. Tale Of Us’ Afterlife event series, headlined by the duo and featuring a collection of support artists, has happened around the world and featured imagery on massive screens as large as 65 feet tall.
Eight Afterlife shows in Colombia, Peru, Brazil, Argentina and Mexico held between February and May 2024 sold 228,000 tickets and grossed $19 million, according to numbers reported to Billboard Boxscore. Afterlife (which is also the name of Tale Of Us’ label) also sold 37,200 tickets and grossed $4.2 million over two shows at the L.A. State Historic Park in October 2023.
“When we were starting to really push boundaries and break records with attendance and sales, it was like, ‘Where do we go next?’” says Rais-Shaghaghi. “Then I started hearing about Sphere… It’s an almost 18,000-capacity venue. Who has done that business, not only in North America, but globally?”
Anyma having done that kind of business, he continues, “Was a huge factor, because Vegas is a destination. People from all around the world are going to [Sphere]. If you’re planning to do a show there, you have to do at least six to 10 shows for the financials to make sense, and if you’re doing 10, that’s 180,000 tickets. You can’t just be like, ‘I did L.A. and New York and blew them out.’ You have to have a global business. We’ve done stuff in Europe, the Middle East, Asia, Australia, South and North America. We had that.”
In terms of why the residency ultimately landed with Anyma and not Tale Of Us, Rais-Shaghaghi says, “Anyma is really the visual component of the project, and the one that really created all the NFTs, storylines and the visual elements. The focus really became building that into, in a sense, a movie that Matteo directs and creates. It just made the most sense because of the characters, because of the storyline and obviously having a vast amount of music that he was working on and exploring a bit outside of the techno underground world.” (In regard to the future of Tale Of Us, he says “both guys are super-focused on their solo projects right now.”)
Knowing the creative universe Anyma created could be dramatically expanded at Sphere, Anyma’s team began planning and production for the show shortly after Milleri and Rais-Shaghaghi first saw the venue’s capabilities at the April 2023 meetings in Burbank. Rais-Shaghaghi says he doesn’t have an exact number for what the production cost to make, but says “it’s millions,” adding that “if anyone else wanted to create this show without having the creative genius of someone like Matteo and his incredible team and had to outsource it and build everything [from scratch], it would probably be, in my opinion, a $15 million to $20 million dollar show.”
Visuals were developed by Milleri, working in partnership with Anyma’s longtime visual creative director and lead CG artist Alessio De Vecchio and head creative Alexander Wessely, a Swedish artist whose resumé includes work on The Weeknd’s Afterhours Til Dawn Tour, multiple Swedish House Mafia videos and more.
“Matteo creates entire worlds rather than just shows, and that aligned with my own interest in dissolving the lines between the physical and the digital,” Wessely says of creating the Sphere show. “Evan Baker, Matteo’s manager, initially connected us, and once we started talking, it quickly became clear that this was going to be something different.”
Anyma
Courtesy of Anyma
In more ways than one, certainly. Sphere is a technological marvel that offers visual storytelling opportunities no other venue can. As such, it requires that much more from the creators of those visuals.
“The Sphere is a cathedral of technology, and building inside it felt like constructing a new reality from the ground up,” Wessely continues. As the project’s head creative and stage designer, as well as director of selected visual pieces, he says he had to “navigate an entirely new way of working. The 180-degree projection required rethinking everything: how we design space, how we frame motion, how we manipulate perception. It was like re-learning a language while simultaneously writing poetry in it, trying to shape something new while staying in control of the chaos.
“I’ve worked across different scales, whether in theatre or massive commercial stages, but this was something else entirely,” he continues. “The scale, the complexity, the unpredictability, it felt endless. At times, it felt like the project was pushing us as much as we were pushing it. Overwhelming in the best and worst ways. But in the end, that’s what made it so rewarding.”
The intensive production process ultimately produced a show titled Afterlife Presents Anyma: The End of Genesys, which finds Anyma playing his music in tandem with visuals centered around a storyline that Wessely says is about “the relationship between humans and technology, where one ends and the other begins.” Visuals feature two characters, a female robot and human man, who appear in intensely detailed and stunningly intricate settings that span the desert, space, a futuristic city, a forest and more, with interstitial scenes projecting images of things like thousands of blinking eyes and countless human bodies floating across the screen. Meanwhile, artists including FKA Twigs, Grimes and Ellie Goulding make memorable appearances in the imagery. The overall effect is often stunning.
As Anyma, De Vecchio and Wessely worked out the creative, Rais-Shaghaghi’s role was largely, he says, “making sure with the team that we were always going by the guidelines, restrictions and limitations with Sphere… You can’t just go and create it and be like, ‘Alright, here it is.’” Among the many tiny technical details to consider were background images “that the human eye would never catch,” says Rais-Shaghaghi, “but if they put it in the system and the system flagged that they weren’t in [the right] resolution, it becomes a giant conversation.”
With only four other acts — U2, Phish, the Eagles and Dead & Company — headlining Sphere thus far, there was only a small number of teams to reach out to for advice. “As a whole, everyone was being very helpful and open to have conversations,” says Rais-Shaghaghi, who adds that Anyma’s team can now be a resource as well. “This is a brand new, state-of-the-art venue that everyone is learning how to use in real time. I think we were one of the [teams] that’s probably created a lot of guidelines for other people to follow because of everything we experimented with and have done.”
As for Anyma, after the residency wraps in early March, he’ll play major festivals including Ultra in Miami, Tomorrowland in Belgium and Hungary’s Sziget. With his Sphere shows featuring much unreleased music and debuting a track with Ellie Goulding, it seems there’s also more coming from the artist, who Rais-Shaghaghi says is, as the Sphere show suggests, perpetually future-focused.
“The most interesting thing about him is he’s always thinking about the next thing,” Rais-Shaghaghi says of what’s next. “And obviously, this is such a high bar to set.”
Bad Bunny adds his 26th No. 1 on Billboard’s Latin Airplay chart with “El Clúb,” which lifts 2-1 to lead the Feb. 8-dated ranking. It’s the first song from Debí Tirar Más Fotos to top the overall radio ranking. “El Clúb” reigns after a 5% gain in audience impressions, to 9.2 million, earned in the […]
The Grammys telecast is all about music, but on the red carpet in the hours leading up to the ceremony, it’s all about the fashion. And the 2025 awards were no exception, with the industry’s biggest names all gathering in their most dazzling gowns and suits at Crypto.com Arena on Sunday evening (Feb. 2) before […]
Chrissy Teigen is defending Selena Gomez after her tearful video about the Trump administration’s mass deportations led to a response video from the White House. “I love her,” the Cravings author told TMZ of Gomez on Monday night (Feb. 3). “Empathy should never be frowned upon or made fun of, and the fact that the […]
Killer Mike has reportedly filed a lawsuit against the security firm that executed his arrest at the 2024 Grammy Awards in Los Angeles.
Per Rolling Stone, Killer Mike — born Michael Render — claimed that S & S Labor Force attempted to “degrade, embarrass and physically hurt” him during the arrest, which saw the Run The Jewels rapper escorted out of Crypto.com Arena on Feb. 4, 2024.
Filed on Monday (Feb. 3) in Los Angeles County Superior Court, Mike made claims of assault, battery, intentional infliction of emotional distress, and false arrest and imprisonment.
“Defendants wrongly caused plaintiff to be falsely arrested and had him placed in jail during the remainder of the Grammy Awards Ceremony,” the suit reportedly states. “Plaintiff was therefore deprived of the valuable opportunity to be present at the awards ceremony where he was scheduled to appear on primetime television in front of a huge international audience to appear and speak and be recognized on the telecast for his historic achievements.”
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S & S Labor Force called Mike’s legal allegations “unfounded” in a statement to Rolling Stone. The security company did not immediately respond to Billboard‘s request for comment.
Shortly after the arrest, sources close to Billboard relayed that the altercation stemmed from an issue with a Grammy Awards security guard over media access credentials outside the Peacock Theater where the pre-show was taking place.
The confrontation took place about an hour after Killer Mike won best rap album for Michael and best rap song for the track “Scientists & Engineers” with André 3000. During the scuffle, Mike allegedly shoved a female security worker, after which LAPD officers reported to the scene and handcuffed the rapper.
Killer Mike was charged with one count of misdemeanor battery and released without bail. However, the Los Angeles City Attorney decided not to pursue the charges.
“Even though plaintiff sought to explain the situation in a respectful way, defendants used physical force to invade plaintiff’s bodily autonomy, using hands to touch plaintiff’s person in a manner both offensive and harmful without any justification or provocation from plaintiff, and to restrain him against his will,” the suit continues.
Killer Mike is seeking damages for the incident.
In an appearance on V103’s Big Tigger Morning Show shortly after the 2024 arrest, Killer Mike downplayed the situation, which he called a “speed bump.” “I won a Grammy,” he said. “We party all night. Shout out to my record label. Ain’t nothing had happened, man. But we winners. That’s it.”
Kacey Musgraves is stopping false rumors in their tracks regarding her reaction to Beyoncé‘s best country album win at the 2025 Grammys. The “Rainbow” singer and Bey were two of several artists nominated for best country album at the awards show Sunday, for Deeper Well and Cowboy Carter, respectively. Ultimately, the prize went to the […]
To no surprise, Usher brought his A-game to The Jennifer Hudson Show on Tuesday (Feb. 4). Skating his way onstage to raucous applause and shout-outs, the eight-time Grammy Award winner had plenty to talk about — including a key piece of advice he had for Super Bowl Halftime headliner Kendrick Lamar. Having experienced his own […]
The Recording Academy raised almost $9 million on Sunday (Feb. 2), the day of the 67th annual Grammy Awards, to aid in relief efforts related to the devastating wildfires that hit the Los Angeles area beginning on Jan. 7. Over the course of the entire Grammy weekend, the Recording Academy and MusiCares raised more than […]
After being one of the most frequent visitors to the top of the Billboard Hot 100 around the turn of the 2020s, Travis Scott is back there for the first time in nearly half a decade this week with his new single “4×4.”
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The new single, whose net proceeds Scott announced will benefit Direct Relief’s California Wildfire Response Fund, debuts atop the Hot 100 this week, making for Scott’s fifth career No. 1 on the chart. It’s also the first rap single to top the chart in 2025, following four weeks of Lady Gaga & Bruno Mars’ ‘Die With a Smile” reigning.
How did “4×4” get over the top on the chart? And what does the song tell us about where he might go next as an artist? Billboard staffers discuss these questions and more below.
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1. Though Travis Scott topped the Hot 100 three times at the turn of the decade, this is his first time back to No. 1 since. On a scale from 1-10, how big a deal is “4×4” debuting at No. 1 for him?
Kyle Denis: Probably a 6? We’ve seen this film before with Travis seemingly coming out of nowhere to debut atop the Hot 100 with a boatload of pure sales. If anything, he’s probably a bit annoyed that his true smashes and signature songs – like “Goosebumps” or “Fein” — keep missing the top spot in favor of loosies like this one.
Carl Lamarre: 8.5. Whenever an artist of Travis’ caliber lands a No. 1 song, it’s a noteworthy achievement, regardless of the circumstances. Travis, who’s evolved into a hip-hop supernova since 2018’s Astroworld, sees anything less than a chart-topping single or album as a flop. Despite his busy tour schedule, various business ventures, and preparation for his Coachella performance, it’s a relief for Team Travis to know that musically, he’s still in high demand, even after a two-year hiatus since Utopia.
Jason Lipshutz: Fittingly, a 4. Travis Scott carries the distinction of charting higher with his minor hits than with most of his signature songs — think of how “The Scotts” and “Franchise” brought him to the top of the Hot 100, for instance, while “Goosebumps” and “FE!N” did not. We’ll see how “4×4” continues to perform on the Hot 100, but considering that this is a standalone single from an artist with multiple No. 1 hits whose commercial power was never in doubt, this chart-topping debut represents another feather in Scott’s cap rather than a monumental shift in mainstream appeal.
Michael Saponara: 4. I don’t think he necessarily needed any validation, but it has been over four years since his last No. 1 hit and “4×4” is the first since the Astroworld Festival tragedy. We’ll see if it infiltrates radio and can last on the charts heading into his Coachella performance in April.
Andrew Unterberger: Yeah it’s a 5 at most. Never a bad thing to have another No. 1 on the roster but what are the chances this song is actually better-remembered or more meaningful to Travis’ catalog than “FE!N” (Hot 100 peak: No. 5) five years from now? Not particularly high I’d say.
2. What do you see as being the biggest factor in “4×4” getting over the top where his other singles of recent years have generally fallen short?
Kyle Denis: Travis has been teasing this song for months, so there was fervent anticipation across his fanbase. Snippets have been circulating since last September, and another teaser dropped during the Oct. 18 episode of WWE SmackDown. Two weeks later (Oct. 30), Scott performed the song at the last show of his $209 million-grossing Circus Maximus tour, and then again during his headlining set at Rolling Loud Miami’s tenth anniversary (Dec. 14). At the top of the new year (Jan. 6), Scott appeared in-person at WWE Raw and confirmed that “4×4” would be the program’s official opening theme. Later that month (Jan. 20), he played the song at the 2025 College Football Playoff National Championship halftime show, sharing a link to pre-save the song shortly after.
We’re already well acquainted with the buying power of Scott’s fanbase (this is also his first solo post-Utopia release), but with the “4×4” release, he also explicitly courted fans across two sports that are having major moments in American culture right now. Football, of course, is always the talk of the town, but between last Christmas’ Beyoncé Bowl, Kendrick Lamar’s forthcoming halftime show, and the Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce of it all, it’s smart to align yourself with American football in some way. Similarly, WWE Raw’s move to Netflix was a milestone moment for the evolution of live events and on-demand streaming services. Most importantly, sports fans put their money where their mouths are; they buy game tickets, jerseys, caps, etc. Selling pure copies of music feels like a Herculean task nowadays, but Travis Scott has cracked several codes.
Carl Lamarre: Quite frankly, the record is just straight heat. Travis hasn’t had a bulletproof single since “Sicko Mode,” and that song itself is forever entrenched in the Hip-Hop Hall of Fame when speaking of hits. So, understandably, it’s hard to topple that kind of success, knowing how much of an explosion “Sicko” made circa 2018. As for “4×4”, the buzz was created before the song’s release. He teased the initial record during his campaign with WWE months back, then performed the song at halftime for the College Football Playoff Championship game before ultimately unleashing the video. By creating a feverishly high demand for the song, Travis’ supporters came in droves when it was time to cheer on La Flame.
Jason Lipshutz: Fan excitement. Sure, it’s easy to point to the oversized sales numbers that helped “4×4” top the Hot 100 in the same way that Days Before Rodeo was able to top the Billboard 200 last year, but Scott boasts the rabid base to justify those numbers and push more minor projects to the top of the chart. And while “4×4” isn’t functioning like a durable hit on streaming services yet, it’s also Scott’s first solo single since 2023, and one that fans feverishly wanted to be officially released for months. This Hot 100 debut doesn’t happen without that type of widespread listenership.
Michael Saponara: Hype. He’s been teasing “4×4” for a while in multiple forums, whether that be his DJ sets or a performance debut atop Atlanta’s Mercedes-Benz Stadium as part of the College Football Playoff National Championship halftime show. The Tay Keith-produced track also made noise in the wrestling world while serving as the official theme song of Raw when it made the jump to Netflix at the top of 2025.
Andrew Unterberger: Gotta be the charity element. The hype helped, of course, but the sales number this song posted means fans really voted for this one with their wallets — and if they knew their funds were going to a cause as meaningful as L.A. fire relief, I’m sure that swayed a lot who were on the fence about whether or not they really needed to purchase the physical edition.
3. Of his three 2019-20 No. 1s, the only one that showed particular chart endurance was “Highest in the Room.” Do you see “4×4” as being that type of hit, or more of a quick-fader like “The Scotts” or “Franchise?
Kyle Denis: I anticipate it ending up somewhere in between. With the WWE Raw assists, I see “4×4” having more staying power than “The Scotts,” but it’s also not Travis’ best effort as far as standalone singles go… so I wouldn’t expect it to truly give “Highest” a run for its money chart-wise.
Carl Lamarre: Travis’ partnership with the WWE should help keep the song moving, as the track is now the theme song for Monday Night Raw. For my hip-hop and wrestling enthusiasts, that’s a big deal for Team Travis, as the latest Netflix deal between WWE and the streaming conglomerate means a bigger and newer audience for both parties. So, because of that, and seeing how he’s taken the record into different sectors, like the wrestling world and the college football arena, I’ll give it up the leg up over “Franchise” and “The Scotts” when speaking of staying power.
Jason Lipshutz: I’m guessing it will be somewhere in between — not a months-long hit, but not a forgotten piece of chart trivia, either. “4×4” sounds designed for live-show enormity, its orchestral thump and gargantuan drums slotting in nicely during the maximalist stretch on his set list. That will help “4×4” endure in fans’ minds, regardless of how many weeks the song logs on the Hot 100.
Michael Saponara: If this was a scale, I’d be leaning more toward the “Highest in the Room” side of things, but I don’t think it will match the longevity of “Highest” – that’s one of Trav’s signature tracks. However, “4×4” should have more legs than “The Scotts” or the gaudy “Franchise,” which burned bright and burned quickly during the COVID-19 pandemic when Scott’s rage was blanketed.
Andrew Unterberger: The song is already out of the top 50 on both Spotify’s Daily Top Songs USA and Apple Music’s real-time chart, so I’m guessing it’s gonna be more of a quick fader.
4. Do you think “4×4” points to any particular new evolution within Travis Scott’s sound or style for where he may go next, post-Utopia? Or is it more likely just a one-off not meant to signal much about his future direction?
Kyle Denis: I get one-off vibes from this. It’s a bit weak lyrically, but I don’t mind how the production feels like an offshoot of his Astroworld soundscape. He made some really nice choices with the background vocals too.
Carl Lamarre: This is a one-off situation for Travis. The guy is always working and experimenting. He’s still savoring Utopia’s wins and the impact it created over the last two years after its release. Consider this his victory lap, especially since he’s now a stadium-level artist, courtesy of his fans.
Jason Lipshutz: The latter. There’s no indication that “4×4” precedes a new Travis Scott project, and sonically, the song fits neatly into what he was accomplishing with Utopia. Considering the five-year gap between Astroworld and Utopia, we may be a ways away from a proper new Scott album and the stylistic shift that it may signify, so “4×4” likely represents a placeholder until that new era comes.
Michael Saponara: This feels like more of a one-off to set the tone for the year, although I wish it was a jetsetter into La Flame’s next era. I’d expect that to come around Coachella. The marching band horns aspect is experimental for Trav’s sound – I don’t think we’ve heard him utilize that mixed in with his trap drums on a track before.
Andrew Unterberger: I could see it leading to a more lush, string-based sound on his next album — the success of Bryson Tiller’s “Whatever She Wants” and 21 Savage’s “Redrum” set the table for that already a little bit last year. I hope so, it’s a good sound for Travis.
5. Travis Scott is the first rapper to top the Hot 100 in 2025 — who do you predict will be the second?
Kyle Denis: Probably Kendrick with whatever song gets the biggest boost from his Super Bowl halftime show. If not him… it could very well be Drake, ironically; it’s not implausible that one of the songs from his forthcoming Valentine’s Day joint album with Partynextdoor sneaks a week atop the Hot 100 when the full set drops on Feb. 14.
Carl Lamarre: Dare I say: Drizzy Drake Rogers. Think about it. New album with PND next week? All eyes are on him after Kendrick’s Grammy sweep and upcoming Super Bowl appearance. This is a lay-up for him.
Jason Lipshutz: Kendrick Lamar, particularly if “Luther” receives a prime slot in the Super Bowl halftime show. Due to the Christmas music onslaught beginning in November, “Squabble Up” remains the only GNX song to top the Hot 100. That feels wrong! And I believe it won’t be the case for much longer.
Michael Saponara: PUT THAT GELO ON!
Andrew Unterberger: How fun is it that the answer here is almost certainly either Drake or Kendrick Lamar? (Or maybe not that fun, depending.)