Music
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Amid election season, Bad Bunny is making sure that the more than three million residents living in Puerto Rico know his political stance.
In a Sept. 24 tweet, the Puerto Rican artist shared a set of photos of billboards across San Juan that read: “To vote for PNP is to vote for corruption,” “Who votes for PNP doesn’t love Puerto Rico” and “Voting for PNP is voting for LUMA.” The latter of the three is a private energy company responsible for power distribution and transmission on the island.
“Announcements paid by Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio,” he captioned the post. “A Puerto Rican who does love Puerto Rico.”
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Billboard has reached out to Bad Bunny’s rep for comment.
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The billboards are in protest of the Partido Nuevo Progresista (New Progressive Party), one of the major political parties in Puerto Rico that traces back to 1967 and currently holds both the seat of the governor and of the resident commissioner.
The powerful PSAs also come on the heels of Bad Bunny’s latest song, “Una Velita,” in which he reflects on the devastating aftermath of the Category 5 Hurricane Maria that occurred in 2017. “There were five thousand that they let die, and we will never forget that,” he chants in the track.
“Obviously the light will go out, God knows if it’ll come back,” he continues over an intense folkloric beat. “The bridge they took so long to build, the growing river will break. A few songs on the phone for when the reception goes out. The sign was sent and they don’t want to see it, it’s up to the Boricua to want to wake up … Remember that we’re all from here, the people will have to save its pueblo.”
Always passionate and vocal about the social issues that affect the Puerto Rican community, in 2022, Benito also released a 23-minute-long documentary for “El Apagón” in which he addresses blackouts and gentrification, among other topics, taking aim at the local government for its inaction.
For the sixth consecutive month, Zach Bryan has one of the 10 biggest tours in the world. For the second of the last three, he’s at No. 1. According to figures reported to Billboard Boxscore, Bryan grossed $93.2 million and sold 467,000 tickets from 13 shows around the U.S., returning to the top of Billboard’s monthly Top Tours chart.
When Bryan topped the list in June, Billboard noted that he was only the second country act to rule the tally since it launched in early 2019, following Morgan Wallen. Now, he’s the only artist in his genre to claim multiple months at No. 1. Bad Bunny and Elton John lead overall, each having topped seven monthly charts.
Bryan kicked off The Quittin’ Time Tour in March at a string of North American arenas. By the end of May and into June, he began sprinkling in stadium plays, multiplying his potential nightly audience by three or four and prompting his first monthly win. In August, stadiums made up the majority of his calendar — for 10 of his 13 shows. Those were spread across major markets such as Atlanta, Philadelphia and Minneapolis, leaving only Kansas City and Grand Forks, N.D., in arenas.
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This transition from indoor basketball courts to outdoor football fields joins Bryan with fellow country superstars such as Luke Combs and Wallen as well as the biggest of the big beyond genre, like The Rolling Stones and Taylor Swift.
A double-header at Philly’s Lincoln Financial Field earned the biggest gross of Bryan’s career. The Aug. 6-7 stay earned $20.7 million and sold 103,000 tickets, followed immediately by another six-digit attendance total at Atlanta’s Mercedes-Benz Stadium on Aug. 10-11 ($17.8 million; 100,000 tickets).
Since beginning in Chicago on March 5, The Quittin’ Time Tour has grossed $318.1 million and sold 1.6 million tickets. Bryan will resume the trek with 18 shows in November and December. Most of his remaining 2024 dates bring him back to arenas, which means he could add another $60 million by year’s end, approaching the $400 million mark.
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Bryan’s summer on top was briefly interrupted by Coldplay’s July victory. This month, Chris Martin & Co. dip to No. 2, with a gross of $86.4 million from 626,000 tickets sold. Though the band misses Bryan’s high mark by about 7%, its attendance total is tops for August.
As has been customary amid the Music of the Spheres World Tour, Coldplay’s August schedule was compact, including three shows in Munich, four in Vienna and two in Dublin. The extended run at Vienna’s Ernst Happen Stadion on Aug. 21-22 and 24-25 is both the highest grossing ($33 million) and bestselling engagement of the month (251,000 tickets).
As Billboard reported, The Music of the Spheres World Tour is already the highest grossing and bestselling rock tour in Boxscore history, with $1.06 billion and 9.6 million tickets sold through Sept. 2. Next on its record-breaking schedule is the 10 million ticket threshold, which will certainly clear during the Australia and New Zealand leg in October and November.
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Metallica follows at No. 3 on August’s Top Tours chart with $74 million and 621,000 tickets. The latter figure barely misses Coldplay’s ticket sales, separated by just 5,000 tickets, or less than 1%. The hard-rock legends sport two appearances in the top 10 of Top Boxscores, at Nos. 8-9 with stints at Foxborough’s Gillette Stadium and Chicago’s Soldier Field, respectively.
At No. 4, P!nk is the lone woman in August’s top 10 at $55.6 million and 329,000 tickets, next followed by Jhene Aiko’s $16.3 million and 150,000 tickets. While gender representation can be marked by the whims of monthly schedules – there were five women on the charts for June and July, and September marks the launches of major treks by Sabrina Carpenter, Charli XCX and Billie Eilish – it’s startling to see women make up less than 7% of August’s top-30 pie.
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Interrupting Coldplay’s sweep of Top Boxscores, Outside Lands Music and Arts Festival is No. 2. The San Francisco festival grossed $29.5 million and sold 184,000 tickets across its Aug. 9-11 run.
Outside Lands is joined by Montreal’s Osheaga Music & Arts Festival, which rounds out the chart’s top 10 with $14.7 million and 137,000 tickets sold. It’s one of a string of festivals, along with Ilesoniq and Lasso Montreal, that pushed Evenko to No. 5 on the month’s Top Promoters ranking.
On the venue rankings, it’s the fourth consecutive win for Sphere among rooms with a capacity of 15,001 or more (excluding stadiums). Again, Dead & Company ushered the immersive arena to its victory, which closed out its summer-long residency on Aug. 10.
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Whether it’s breakups or spicy wings, SZA isn’t letting anything bug her — for the most part.
On the latest episode of First We Feast’s Hot Ones posted Thursday (Sept. 26), the Grammy winner opened up about her music, career and relationships in between bites of spicy wings, all while wearing alien-like prosthetics and a pair of antennae. “I’m just tired of being not a bug,” she explained of her costume choice.
While talking to host Sean Evans about which songs make her the most emotional to perform, SZA replied, “‘Nobody Gets Me’ because my ex-fiancé hates me so much, and it’s so unfortunate.”
“Every time I sing it, it’s like, ‘Damn, what the f–k?’” she continued, adding that she also gets in her feels while singing Ctrl tracks “Normal Girl,” “20 Something” and “Drew Barrymore,” which she says reminds her of seeing “the boy you like … f–kin’ on some other girl” at a house party.
SZA has been open in the past about how her relationship with her ex has inspired her music, particularly “Nobody Gets Me.” “This particular song in entirety is a story about my ex-fiancé and how we went through all these arguments, and we broke up,” she told Hot 97 in December 2022. “I just felt like I was gonna be doomed to be in hell for the rest of my life because nobody understood me the way he did, and nobody motivated me the way he did.”
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While speaking to Evans, who brought up when SZA told Billboard in 2023 that the success of her hit “Kill Bill” “pissed [her] off” because it was “super easy” to write, the R&B star opened up about how she finds the music industry confusing because of how unpredictable it can be. “I never know what’s happening,” she said on Hot Ones. “I be like, ‘I thought you liked this.’ Then they’re like, ‘No, stupid, we hate this.’”
“It’s abusive, but it’s also very fulfilling and validating,” she added. “The toxic [relationships] are the most fun.”
The interview comes ahead of SZA’s highly anticipated third album Lana, which will follow her critically acclaimed sophomore record SOS. The 2022 LP ruled at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 for 10 weeks, marking her first album to top the chart.
After sweating through increasingly spicy wings that led her to question Evans’ “sinister and insidious” intentions for the show, the “Snooze” singer gave a candid response when asked at the end of the episode to give fans a life update. “I’m going through a breakup, it’s hot as f–k,” she said.
Watch SZA on Hot Ones above.
Cardi B and Offset‘s relationship issues spilled over publicly onto social media on Wednesday night (Sept. 25).
The Migos rapper set things off during Cardi’s Instagram Live when he accused her of cheating on him while pregnant with their third child. (She gave birth earlier in September.) “U f–ked with a baby inside tell the truth!!” he wrote in a comment on her Live session.
She tweeted, “AND DID !!!!!!,” which left some fans on X wondering if she was confirming her estranged husband’s accusation. (Billboard has reached out to Cardi and Offset’s reps for comment.)
Cardi — who is in Paris for Fashion Week — then carved out some time to blast her estranged husband on Instagram Live. “All weekend you was blowing up my phone, I blocked you … You tryna get me mad, ‘Let me show you the b—-s I’m f–king,’” she said. “I don’t care. … You’re f–king lame.”
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Cardi continued to explode on Offset, from whom she filed for divorce over the summer. “I’m too much woman for you. I’m too much of a boss b—h for you. And I always been too good for you … I don’t make you feel like you’re that n—a in this home,” she said. “I make you look good.”
While she’s thankful for her three kids with Set and credited him as a father, Cardi admitted she regrets her relationship with the Atlanta native. “All three of them — I don’t regret none of them, but I regret you,” she claimed. “I don’t regret my kids. You a good daddy. You aight. I don’t regret none of them. … But f–k you. I regret you. I’m too good for you. I’ve always been too good for you, n—a.”
Offset fired back in the comment section of her live, as captured by DJ Akademiks. “Insecure,” he wrote. Another captured by Akademiks saw the Migos rapper write: “The fact u keep going shows you hurt leave along don’t you got a n—a ain’t we divorced.”
Cardi and Offset married in 2017. She filed for divorce the first time in September 2020, but quickly called it off. The former couple share three kids — Kulture, 6, Wave, 3, and welcomed their third on Sept. 7.
Watch Cardi’s explosive IG Live session below.
Herb Alpert laughs when he says that his sister Mimi — who at 98 is nine years his senior — often asks him, “Why are you doing these concerts? Why are you traveling? Why do you want to do that?” But the 89-year-old trumpet-playing music legend has a ready answer.
“I have to explain to her that it gives me energy to do it,” Alpert — who just released his 50th studio album, appropriately titled 50 — tells Billboard via Zoom. “I’m not on a victory tour here. It’s not about that. It’s that I love doing it. I love to play the horn. I love to play the horn. I love playing with great musicians. I love doing it. I’m a right-brain guy; I play, I’m painting for over 50 years, sculpting for over 40. It just gives me reason to be.”
He’s quick to add however, that “this is landmark year for me. I can’t believe I’ve recorded 50 albums out there. I’ve been married (to singer Lani Hall) 50 years this year. A lot of things have happened in my life that are so startling. I never dreamed of having a career like I’ve had. I’m certainly grateful for it.”
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It’s hard to come up with a superlative that definitively captures Alpert’s career. Born in Los Angeles into a family where everybody played an instrument, Alpert started on trumpet when he was eight, studied at the University of Southern California and played in the Trojan Marching Band and the U.S. 6th Army Band.
He began writing songs during the late ‘50s and putting out records of his own, first billed as Dore (his given name) Alpert, in 1960. Since then, he’s sold more than 74 million records worldwide with his Tijuana Brass band and on his own; placed 39 songs on the Billboard Hot 100 (including two No. 1s); won eight Grammy Awards; received a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award; won a Tony; got inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2006; and received National Medal of the Arts in 2013.
Alpert was also the “A” in the famed A&M Records label, which he started in 1962 with Jerry Moss. Moss passed away 13 months ago, and another of A&M’s stalwarts, Brazilian keyboardist and Brasil ’66 bandleader Sergio Mendes, died earlier this month — another death that hit close to home for Alpert, who signed the group to A&M and produced its 1966 debut album, which remained on the Billboard 200 for more than two years and was voted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 2012. It was Mendes who introduced Alpert to Hall, too, when she was part of Brasil ’66.
“He was an extraordinarily gifted musician. We just hit it off,” Alpert says of Mendes, adding that he and Hall spoke with him almost daily during the last year of his life. “He was a real person. He was excited about so many things. He loved great food. He loved great wine. He loved great restaurants. He spoke several languages. He was into life. He was a very unusual guy. He’s missed by everyone who came into contact with him.”
Alpert’s record of having four albums simultaneously in the Billboard top 10 back in 1966, meanwhile, was matched last year by none other than Taylor Swift.
“I sent her a nice little FaceTime, and I was very happy for her,” Alpert says. “I think she’s a really good artist. I don’t actually follow her music. I hear a couple of things, but I like her. She has a lot of integrity. She understands her audience. She’s very sensitive. She’s smart. I don’t think that record is carved in stone; I like to see other artists jump in there, too. I have other records, so it’s alright.”
What’s most impressive and inspiring is that Alpert is still doing it, and also planning for the future. He’s released a dozen albums since 2010 — eight of which debuted in the top 10 of the Billboard Jazz Albums chart. He approached the 10-track 50 much like he did his other releases.
“I don’t even think about it as being an album,” he explains. “I have a studio at home here, and I just record at my whim, individual songs and melodies that just touch me…. I don’t have a master plan for recording an album. I don’t have a concept. I just take songs that I like, and when I feel it’s worthy of putting out there for other people to listen to, I put out an album. But really I’m just trying to entertain myself more than anything.”
50 features Alpert’s usual mix of original compositions and covers. One of those covers — The Chords’ 1954 hit “Sh-Boom (Life Could Be a Dream)” — is particularly special for him.
“I was kind of a snob with classical music until I heard ‘Sh-Boom,’” Alpert recalls. “I was in high school, and it was the first time I heard a song like that. There was something about it…. I remember sitting down at a friend’s house who had the radio on, listening to this song, thinking, ‘I like that. I like the feeling of that song.’ I really didn’t understand what the lyric was about ’til much later, but I liked the harmonies and the feeling. That song got me on to pop music and got me thinking about some of the songs that were out there in that period. Then I started listening to jazz and never looked back.”
Alpert maintains that his litmus for music has remained the same throughout the decades. “Melody reigns supreme,” he says. “Any artist who’s had success over the years has to have good taste when it comes to melody. You can have a fabulous lyric and terrible melody and I don’t think that song’s gonna go very far. But you can have a fabulous melody with a pretty good lyric and that’ll go far. And if you have a fabulous lyric with a fabulous melody, i.e. Burt Bacharach and Hal David and all those sophisticated songs they did, it hits. Even with jazz, after expressing a melody all of a sudden they’ll improvise on the chord changes of the particular song and invent a whole new melody. That’s exciting.”
As he reaches this year’s milestones, Alpert is already eyeballing the future. He plans to release a recording of “The Christmas Song” for this holiday season (“It touches me, and I feel like a lot of people might feel the same”) and reports that “I have another Christmas album in my head.” And while he and Hall have concert dates books into mid-December, next February Alpert plans to hit the road with a revived version of the Tijuana Brass, the band he led from the early ‘60s into the mid-70s and released hits such as the Billboard Hot 100 top 10 “The Lonely Bull” and the Billboard 200-topping 1965 album Whipped Cream & Other Delights.
“A lot of people have asked; they want to hear that Tijuana Brass sound again, so I’m gonna do it and I’m excited about it,” he says. “I always like the music. It always gave me a good feeling when I hear it, and I know a lot of people feel the same. It’s gonna be fun for me to revisit that whole sound again and play some of the old standards — ‘The Lonely Bull,’ ‘Spanish Flea,’ ‘This Guy’s In Love With You.’” He also plans to include his 1979 hit “Rise” in the repertoire, one of his two Hot 100 toppers (the other being “This Guy’s In Love With You”).
And beyond all that? “I hope to keep living,” Alpert says with a laugh. “Honestly, I don’t know if there’s anything I’m missing. I play the horn every day. I’d like to be able to play a little better bebop, but that’s an inch at a time. There’s not much, though. It’s been a great life.”
Macklemore‘s “f–k America!” chant has drawn condemnation from a trio of the Seattle-bred MC’s hometown sports franchises. According to Fox 13 Seattle, The MLB’s Seattle Mariners have joined the NHL’s Seattle Kraken and MLS’ Seattle Sounders FC in calling out the “Thrift Shop” rapper for controversial comments he made at last weekend’s Palestine Will Live Forever concert in the city.
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“We are aware of the incident and agree with the other teams in town: Sports and music should connect, not divide us,” Mariners vice president of communication Tim Hevly reportedly said in a statement to the station. “We continue to monitor and research latest developments.”
Macklemore performed a new song at the event, “Hind’s Hall 2,” the sequel to his May song of the same name whose proceeds are meant to help the United Nations Relief and Words Agency (UNRWA), which provides assistance to Palestinian refugees. “Straight up, say it, I’m not gonna stop you,” Macklemore told the crowd in fan video from the show. “I’m not gonna stop you… yeah, f–k America.”
On Tuesday, Macklemore was dropped from the Las Vegas Neon City Festival lineup with no reason given for the scratch. In a lengthy statement on Wednesday, Macklemore — who has been a loud supporter of the Palestinian people in the midst of the yearlong war sparked by Hamas’ deadly Oct. 7 attack on Israel — explained his mindset at the show.
“Unfortunately, the historic event in my hometown that brought thousands of people together to raise awareness and money for the people of Palestine has become overshadowed by two words,” he said, adding that he hasn’t been “OK” in the months since the Israel-Hamas war broke out after the militant group’s murder of more than 1,200 Israelis and kidnapping of more than 250 others. ”I have been in utter disbelief with how our government is showing up at this moment in history. I don’t think I’m alone. Some days I don’t know how to love something that is hurting others so much. I don’t think I’m alone.”
In the wake of Hamas’ surprise attack almost a year ago, Israel has waged a relentless bombing campaign on Gaza that Palestinian health authorities say has killed more than 41,000 people and driven most of its two million-plus residents from their homes; Israel recently opened a second front in the war in Lebanon, where attacks on the Iranian proxy group Hezbollah this week have already killed more than 500 as the Pentagon fears a potential Israeli ground invasion that could lead to a devastating regional war.
Macklemore’s 2012 song “Can’t Hold Us” has been a staple of the seventh-inning stretch at Mariners games and the statement from Hevly comes after the Sounders and Kraken also distanced themselves from the rapper earlier this week; Macklemore and his wive, Tricia Davis, are among the minority co-owners of the Sounders and the Kraken.
“We believe that sports bring people together and unite us. We are aware of Macklemore’s increasingly divisive comments, and they do not reflect the values of our respective ownership groups, leagues, or organizations,” the Sounders and Kraken said in a joint statement on Monday. According to Fox 13, as the backlash over the comment continues to build, the Mariners, Kraken and Sounders are “evaluating their next steps regarding his involvement with their respective organizations.”
At press time a spokesperson for Macklemore had not returned Billboard‘s request for comment.
A performance years in the making became dazzling reality in August at Burning Man, when DJ-producer Mita Gami played with conductor Meir Briskman and an orchestra assembled especially for the occasion.
The hour-and 15-minute performance happened mid-week at Burning Man 2024 on the festival’s famed Mayan Warrior art car, a new version of which made its debut at the event this year after the original was destroyed in a fire in April 2023.
The Israeli conductor came up with the idea for the performance years ago and brought it to Gami, with the pair performing together since 2022 with an electronic/classical fusion show for which Briskman wrote and conducted the orchestral elements, with Gami producing and performing the electronic components.
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For Burning Man, the orchestra was assembled after the pair put a call out to players, with 123 people applying to be in the orchestra and 37 of them ultimately selected to perform. On Instagram, Briskman wrote that the performance came together “after 3 years of work, 1467 phone calls, 4356 emails [and] 5942 WhatsApp messages”
“Our search to find classically trained players that were going to Burning Man began through posting via our instagram stories,” the pair tell Billboard in a joint statement. “The message rapidly spread, and we received an overwhelming number of responses. Despite the limited rehearsal time, we embraced the challenge and turned our dream into a magical reality, delivering a complex performance that flowed effortlessly.”
The performance was managed by Amal Medina, a member of Gami’s management team, a co-talent buyer for Los Angeles-based electronic events company Stranger Than and the talent buyer/events coordinator for Mayan Warrior. Medina helped manage the orchestra and handled logistics such as vetting the musicians, organizing rehearsals in San Francisco and at Burning Man and sourcing equipment and instruments and managing the orchestra. Tal Ohana of Stranger Than helped gather equipment and staging elements for the performance, The Mayan Warrior team worked on onsite and sound and lighting elements.
The performance was well-aligned with the goals of the new edition of Mayan Warrior, with the art car’s founder Pablo Gonzalez Vargas telling Billboard in 2023 that the team was planning to “slowly transition into a more diverse spectrum of musical and cultural performances. The goal over time is to have more live acts with real instruments that can provide new experiences.”
Other performers on Mayan Warrior during Burning Man included Rüfüs du Sol, whose set is also up now.
Watch the Mita Gami & Meir Briskman Orchestra Set exclusively on Billboard.com below:
After a years-long hiatus, FORM Arcosanti is returning to Arizona on Oct. 4-6, with the festival today (Sept. 26) announcing that Beck is joining the lineup as a Friday night headliner. Esteemed duo Ho99o9 has also been added to the Friday night bill.
Happening at the artist community of Arcosanti, two hours from Phoenix, the weekend’s lineup also includes heavy hitters like Kim Gordon, Thundercat, Skrillex, Floating Points, James Blake, Empress Of, Bonobo, Kevin Morby and many others. See set times for the weekend below.
Programming highlights include Friday’s late night shows, which will feature a four-hour b2b set from Four Tet and Floating Points from 10-2 a.m. On Saturday, Jamie xx will close out the dancefloor from 12-2a.m., and on Sunday, James Blake will give a sunset hour performance that will be immediately followed by a performance from Thundercat. Later that night, Skrillex will perform from 11-2 a.m.
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“In such a crowded festival landscape it’s a privilege to do a show with so much support from the artists themselves,” Zach Tetreault, who founded the festival with his band Hundred Waters in 2014, tells Billboard. “At only 2,500 capacity we don’t have the budget of other festivals, but we do have the heart. That’s clearly resonating, which is so inspiring. This year’s program has some of my favorite artists across genres from earth-shattering poets Aja Monet and Mustafa; to the most powerful living songwriters like Jessica Pratt, Angel Olsen and Sir Chloe; to my favorite DJs on the planet, Four Tet, Skrillex and Jamie xx. I feel like FORM attendees will take an emotional journey each day that ends in the best party ever each night.”
Along with the music, FORM will host daytime cultural programming that includes a discussion on global spiritual spaces and intentional communities, a talk on stopping state violence and protecting the freedom of reproductive decision making, a talk on decarbonizing the music industry, a discussion on the mythology of the afterlife, along with pool parties, nightly stargazing, a saxophone meditation session, a listening room presented by Discogs, an installation by land artist Jim Denevan and more.
“FORM celebrates those shaping the world we want to live in, despite the challenges,” cultural program curators Molly Hawkins and Kim Swift tell Billboard. “Through performance, discussion, social spaces, artworks, activities and partnerships, we explore different perspectives on how individual choices and creative acts can have positive and lasting impact on our world.”
FORM Arcosanti
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FORM Arcosanti
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FORM Arcosanti
Courtesy of FORM Arcosanti
A week after its strong No. 2 debut on the TikTok Billboard Top 50 chart dated Sept. 21, BabyChiefDoit’s “Rollin’” is the ranking’s latest No. 1, lifting 2-1 on the tally dated Sept. 28.
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The TikTok Billboard Top 50 is a weekly ranking of the most popular songs on TikTok in the United States based on creations, video views and user engagement. The latest chart reflects activity from Sept. 16-22. Activity on TikTok is not included in Billboard charts except for the TikTok Billboard Top 50.
“Rollin’” reigns thanks largely to lip-synchs set to the song’s “Don’t slip, don’t trip, don’t fall/ Come to the crib and take off your drawers” lyric, as well as a dance.
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In the latest Billboard chart tracking week ending Sept. 19, “Rollin’” earned 1.1 million official U.S. streams, a gain of 135%, according to Luminate. So far, the TikTok Billboard Top 50 is the only chart on which the song appears, and it became BabyChiefDoit’s first Billboard appearance overall upon its Sept. 21 bow.
Like many of the chart’s top-performing songs these days, some of the highest ranking TikTok uploads using “Rollin’” also set the song to footage from the Nickelodeon live action series Henry Danger, which aired between 2014-20. The song that originally sparked the trend of Henry Danger-related memes, Ashanti’s “Rain on Me,” concurrently remains at its No. 5 peak.
Alphaville’s 1984 single “Forever Young” follows “Rollin’,” leaping 7-2 for a new peak after previously rising as high as No. 4. The song, which eventually rose as high as No. 65 on the Billboard Hot 100 four years after its release in 1988, has fluctuated on the TikTok Billboard Top 50 the past month; after debuting at No. 50 on the Aug. 3 survey, it initially broke into the top 10 the following week and then rose into the top five on the Sept. 7 list.
Trends involving “Forever Young” have ranged from one where one person lifts the other in the air and spins them around while water sprays down on top of them from a bottle, to general content about getting older and reminiscing about one’s younger days, to edits of content about fictional characters who passed on early in their respective universes.
IV of Spades’ “Come Inside of My Heart” ranks at No. 3, jumping into the top 10 after debuting at No. 13 on the Sept. 21 tally. The song was released as part of IV of Spades’ 2019 album CLAPCLAPCLAP! and has largely been used in general viral content rather than with a major throughline trend. The track concurrently jumps 63% to 215,000 streams in the week ending Sept. 19.
Jack Johnson’s “Upside Down,” which peaked at No. 38 on the Hot 100 in 2006, debuts at No. 4 on the latest TikTok Billboard Top 50. Written for that year’s film Curious George, Johnson’s fan favorite nabs a place on the survey with a two-person trend in which one person flips the other upside down – with varying results.
Now that the TikTok Billboard Top 50 has existed for a year, celebrating its first birthday two weeks ago, the chart is sure to see songs connected to or affiliated with certain times of the year make what could be an annual return. This week, it’s Earth, Wind & Fire’s “September,” which re-enters at No. 13.
“September,” which spikes in all music-related consumption every year due to its opening Sept. 21-related lyric (“do you remember/ the 21st night of September”), debuted at No. 3 on the TikTok Billboard Top 50 dated Sept. 30, 2023. It’s back for another round via dances, lip synchs, sketches and other uploads celebrating the track’s yearly bump in attention, 45 years after it peaked on the Hot 100 at No. 8 in February 1979.
As the TikTok Billboard Top 50 tracked the Sept. 16-22 period, overall gains for “September” on the rest of the Billboard charts will be known on the Oct. 5-dated tallies, which comprise the Sept. 20-26 tracking week.
See the full TikTok Billboard Top 50 here. You can also tune in each Friday to SiriusXM’s TikTok Radio (channel 4) to hear the premiere of the chart’s top 10 countdown at 3 p.m. ET, with reruns heard throughout the week.
A new generation of artists are pushing the envelope in Arabic music, striving to explore new ground. Among them is Ayed, who humbly claims no desire to be a pioneer. Instead, he insists that his work merely carries forward the rich legacy established by the many artists who came before him. This young talent has achieved remarkable success in Khaleeji (Gulf) music while becoming the most-listened-to artist among his peer group. As of this publication, he holds the No. 1 position on the Top 50 Khaleeji Songs chart with his hit, “Lammah” (Hints), and ranks No. 9 on Billboard Arabia’s Artist 100. Despite these significant strides, he embodies the humility of the Khaleeji music legends that preceded him, utilizing modern production tools and techniques, which he credits for expanding the reach of his music.
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When asked about his musical style, one that combines the rhythms and melodic structure of Khaleeji music but delivered through a sound that is very much Ayed, he says, “I don’t think I’ve done anything that different. It’s just a continuation of the music of my predecessors; I’ve followed in their footsteps. But let’s say we’re in the digital age now, and maybe that’s what has changed [regarding the sound]. But that aside, it’s the same kind of music.” Ayed aims to continue enriching the Khaleeji pop landscape, hoping to make a lasting contribution to its history. As a fan of the genre, nothing is stopping him from cementing his contributions to the genre as he strives for the excellence of the artists that inspire him be it Mohamed Abdu, Abdel Majid Abdallah, Rabeh Saqr or Rashed Al Majid.
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The year 2024 has been remarkable for Ayed, who graces the cover of Billboard Arabia’s September issue. It started with a bang: he netted the “Male Musical Artist of the Year” at the 2024 Joy Awards, a ceremony organized by the General Entertainment Authority that honors achievements in the Arab artist community.
Following this accolade, Ayed collaborated with Khaled Al Muthafar, a Kuwaiti performing artist, in the song “A’lam al-U’shaq” (The World of Lovers). Initially composed for Al Muthafar’s play, “Al’uwl Min Nweih” (The First of its Kind), the duo recorded it together when Ayed heard the song. The song proved a hit, finding virality across social media platforms and climbing the ranks of Billboard Arabia’s Hot 100 and the Top 50 Khaleeji Songs chart.
“I expected the song to be successful, but I didn’t expect this overwhelming success all over the Arab world,” says Ayed. “We were meant to collaborate on a project long ago and thank God I was able to work with him on this project and I hope this is the start of many successes for us together.”
Hot on the heels of this success, “Lammah” (Hints) also went viral a month after its release, quickly climbing to the top of Billboard Arabia’s charts. As of this article, it has held the No. 1 position on the Top 50 Khaleej Songs chart for eight consecutive weeks. It has broken into the top 10 on Billboard Arabia’s Hot 100, prompting Ayed’s return to the top ten on Billboard Arabia’s 100 Artists chart. Ayed always believed in the song’s potential, and its performance on the charts has validated his assumption.
Ayed’s artistic journey began at a young age, with the 2015 launch of “Nasitini” (You Forgot Me) on Instagram. It was remastered and rearranged in January 2016, tallying upwards of 16 million views on YouTube at the time of publishing this article. The song remains close to Ayed’s heart, as he’ll rarely forgo an opportunity to mention it: “It’s special,” he says, “because it marked my beginning. I think your first song always has a special place, regardless of what else you make. It’ll never be a disappointment. If my work ever comes up, that song’s inevitably mentioned, too.”
Ayed continued to evolve his craft in the next eight years. This evolution can be traced through the EP Bel-Mout Ja (A Hard Time Coming), then the two LPs, Thaman Al-Alam (The Price of Pain) and Kol Al-Khata (All the Mistakes), as well as several singles like “Rdy” (transliteration for “Inferior”), a late 2023 release that achieved remarkable success and propelled Ayed to the top of the charts. “Rdy” landed him his debut on Billboard Arabia’s Hot 100, landing the No. 4 spot in the week of Dec. 11, 2023. “Rdy” sparked curiosity about the artist’s love life, prompting Ayed to reaffirm on social media at the time that he keeps his personal life separate from his professional one.
In an exclusive reveal to Billboard Arabia, Ayed says that he is preparing to release an album, “The album will feature songs that, God willing, you will enjoy,” says Ayed. “The composers are diverse, with noted composer Rakan taking the lion’s share, followed by Yasser Buali and Saham. Most lyricists involved are part of a new generation of talent.” The composers Rakan and Yasser Bou Ali have been key to Ayed’s journey, shaping his sense of sound over the years. They’ve allowed him to deliver the essence of the voice of the generation preceding him, like Abdul Majeed Abdullah and Rabeh Saqer, while allowing it to take on a contemporary and dynamic style. Their continued collaboration on Ayed’s upcoming album reflects his commitment to the partnerships he has established and his belief in repeating his successes by drawing on the talent that enabled it.
Ayed
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