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It won’t be hard for Kid Cudi to pursue happiness on Friday (Sept. 13) because his 2008 breakout debut hit “Day ‘N’ Nite” is now a diamond-certified record by the Recording Industry Association of America. The diamond certification is given to artists whose songs have moved 10 million units. Plus, Cudi’s “Pursuit of Happiness,” featuring […]
There was never a Plan B for Lil Tecca, who is gearing up to unleash his Plan A album next Friday (Sept. 20). Ahead of the LP’s arrival, the New York rapper stopped by Billboard News to discuss all things surrounding his new project and much more.
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Plan A serves as Tecca’s fourth studio album and boasts 18 tracks with a lone feature from Don Toliver and production from Taz Taylor and the Internet Money crew.
“I honestly got the name Plan A when I was about to finish Tec, my last album,” he said of the title’s inspiration. “I think it kind of summarizes where I was at in my life when I was probably 14 and I kind of decided that I wanted to rap and actually only rap. There would be people in class telling me, ‘Ay bruh, you know gotta have a backup plan and sh– like that.’ I’m like, ‘Not really, bro. I don’t really got no back-up plan.’”
Tecca added: “We recorded most of it in Miami. I was just in the studio every day with Internet Money, Taz [Taylor] and all of them. There were a couple songs I had did in New York and at the crib too. I didn’t produce a lot of it, but definitely my beat selection is what drives a lot of the production… The whole message is like decide what you want to do and do it.”
The 22-year-old also debunked the bizarre situation involving the Pennsylvania Army National Guard using his personal photo taken from his “Ransom” hit’s cover art as part of a recruitment flyer.
“That sh– is real,” he said. “I seen that sh– on Twitter — I’m like, ‘What is going on right now? … They got in contact with the people that was responsible and he’s like, ‘Sorry, we used the picture by accident.’ He used super-big words. Basically that’s what he was saying, ‘We didn’t know this was an artist.’ My thing is that picture doesn’t exist without ‘Ransom.’”
“Ransom” arrived in May 2019 as Tecca’s breakout smash when he was just 16 years old. It eventually reached the top five on the Billboard Hot 100 when it peaked at No. 4. The track’s currently 8x-platinum.
“That was my first time hopping on a beat that was not from YouTube,” Lil Tecca revealed. “That was my first time ever taking edibles in the studio. I had edibles and a drink from Starbucks.”
Juice WRLD eventually hopped on the official remix and Tecca reflected on being amazed watching a master at work in the studio with the late rapper.
“That right there was one of the craziest moments ever,” he said. “I remember when I first met him he was like, ‘Ay bro, this flow hard.’ That was my first time ever meeting someone that I seen online that was going crazy at the time and actually gave me an opinion on my music… It really meant a lot, bro.”
Tecca went on: “All the stuff he would say to me and actually seeing him work. Seeing it. Seeing it in person though — it was crazy… He did the verse. He did it in one take. It kind of fried me because I didn’t really know people were doing stuff like that at the time. I was really used to writing s–t and reading it off my phone.”
Plan A hits streaming services on Sept. 20. Watch the full interview below.
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In a new interview, LL Cool J admitted to being nervous about the response his 14th solo album The FORCE would get, saying that he had a hard time sleeping the night it dropped. However, when he checked social media, he was relieved by the positive response.
“When I told people, ‘Yo, I wanna do a culturally relevant album’ in the midst of all these [younger artists], people looked at me like I had nine heads,” the 56-year-old told Variety. “They looked at me like I was a hydra — a hydra! — looking at me crazy like that, not because of any ill will, but just ‘How can you do that?’”
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While the genre has welcomed older acts, their mainstream success has been hit-or-miss, unless you’re Jay-Z, Nas or Eminem. LL was up for the challenge, though, saying, “It’s like breaking the 4-minute mile. Nobody thought it could be broken until Roger Bannister did it, and then a lot of people started breaking it.”
Adding, “Now you’ll see, when [The FORCE] has success, you’ll see people believing that they can make it happen, and it’s gonna extend the life of hip-hop in general. But if somebody doesn’t do it, if I don’t do Rock the Bells and [other] festivals and show that guys without records in the marketplace still can be relevant, and then if I don’t tell you that a guy who’s been out for a long time can make a new record and be relevant — if nobody does it, it never happens.”
Also, before LL worked with Q-Tip on his latest release, he says he recorded a bunch of songs with Dr. Dre, but the Queens MC wasn’t confident in the raps he laid down, so he decided to start over. “That would have meant I would have more confidence in him than I have in myself when it needs to be equal,” he told the outlet. “He deserves a better LL than that. For me to go in there and not give Dr. Dre the best possible LL, it’s not fair to him and it’s definitely not fair to me, because it means I’m not taking advantage of the opportunity.” He continued by saying, “We both knew it wasn’t there. The sonics were there, but I gotta deliver on the writing. I’m not putting nothing out if I don’t feel it’s right.”
Later in the interview he revealed that he and the late Michael Jackson have unreleased songs stashed away and that the King of Pop was inspired by LL’s song “I’m Bad” to make his own “Bad” song. “Me and Michael Jackson went to the studio, man,” he said. “Mike showed a lot of love to me in general, and definitely to hip-hop. Let’s be clear: For me, he’s the king. I’m a Michael Jackson fan, B. His talent speaks for itself.” Adding, “[Former Def Jam chief] Russell [Simmons] played my record for him and Quincy [Jones], and they got inspired. That’s OK.”
There’s nothing in the water this year. Pharrell has announced that his Something in the Water festival in Virginia Beach will no longer be taking place in October and has been postponed to April 2025. While pre-sale tickets still went on sale on Friday (Sept. 13) and the festival’s lineup was set to be revealed […]
Lauren London sat down with Radhi Devlukia on the A Really Good Cry podcast and talked about how she’s been handling grief since her boyfriend Nipsey Hussle was murdered in 2019.
“I still feel like a mess, that’s the thing,” she said of how she’s been dealing with his death. “I guess I have to ask my friends how far I’ve come because I still genuinely feel like I have not arrived anywhere.” Adding, “I feel like I’m really heavy a lot, but again, I have to counter that to just, like, the grace of God, because if it was up to me, I would be sliding in here on my stomach, but I also don’t want to take away from the work that I’ve done from then until now. So, I don’t wanna do that, ’cause I’m good at doing that.”
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She credited her kids and her community for helping her “push through” the pain. “God just placed people in my life that can kinda just usher me in and teach me and guide me. I always say the prayer of strangers held me up.”
London also talked about how she’s been teaching her two sons about dealing with losing Nipsey. “It’s so different with both of them, because one’s 14, the other one’s 7, so you know. I’m always, like, a container for whatever emotion they have,” she explained. “I’m just like, ‘It’s OK to feel all these things, you know? I’m holding it for you, I feel you, I understand, I hear you.’” Adding, “But also, playing his music. I’m always telling them to journal as well, like, write him a letter, tell him how you feel.”
Earlier in the interview, London told Devlukia that their love was “intentional, pure and safe” and talked about what she learned from him. “All the things he was saying to me made more sense after he left,” she said. “I’m such in my cave and a homebody, that he would be like, ‘People really need to hear from you. You have a lot of truth you should share.’ He saw me like my kids see me.”
She added, “But when he was here, just the reliance on God. He really relied on God, he truly believed in himself, he really did not believe in ‘Somebody else has the keys to your destiny as much as you and your creator does.’ And authenticity is something you can’t buy, it’s something that you can’t fake, it’s something that you can’t put on.”
On the fifth anniversary of his death, London shared a tribute on Instagram. “If you know me You know March is always tough for me 31 days of holding my breath,” she wrote. “This day decided to fall on Easter Sunday this 2024 Interesting…. considering your name #GodWillRise Energy never dies…. I love you. Eternal.”
You can watch the full interview here.
This past July, the Desert Hearts crew road-tripped out to Arizona for their first edition of the festival outside California.
After being bounced around SoCal a bit after launching the festival near San Diego more than a decade ago, then moving to Riverside County in 2022, then to downtown Los Angeles in 2023, over the July 4 weekend, the team assembled in what seems to be a viable new home at the Playa Ponderosa ranch near Flagstaff, Arizona, throwing the festival in partnership with the Phoenix-based Walter Productions.
For this edition, Desert Hearts also went back to its origins, returning to its original single stage format for its 72 hours of house and techno. The lineup included Anja Schneider, Ardalan, Coco & Breezy, Rinzen, Life on Planets, Lubelski, Mary Droppinz, Walker & Royce and many more, including, of course, the Deserts Hearts founders/house DJs, each of whom played separately and then together for a closing set.
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Hear this closing set exclusively below, along with sets from Desert Hearts’ Lee Reynolds, Los Angeles legend Doc Martin and club maven Öona Dahl.
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In a statement posted to social media after the event, the Desert Hearts team wrote that their goal with the 2024 festival was “to return Desert Hearts to the quality of events we hosted at Los Coyotes Indian Reservation. The result surprised us and far surpassed anything we’d ever done!”
They continued by saying that “The last five years have been incredibly challenging for DH since losing our long-time home during the pandemic. Canceling the 2023 camping festival was the hardest thing we’ve had to do since founding Desert Hearts. But it was your resilience and unwavering support that kept us going.”
Keep it going yourself with these seven hours of music from the fest.
The Desert Hearts Crew
Öona Dahl
Doc Martin
Lee Reynolds
Rick Ross sounds like he’s open to reconciling with Drake. During an appearance on Caresha Please with Yung Miami, Ross talked about the infamous incident in Vancouver and his relationship with Drake. When asked if all it would take is a phone call between the former collaborators, Ross said he would maybe consider it. “I […]
Ethan Slater and Lilly Jay are now legally divorced, TMZ reports.
The couple separated last year, after which the Broadway actor began dating his Wicked co-star Ariana Grande.
According to TMZ, Slater and his high school sweetheart — who share a young son — reached a settlement that was approved by a judge as of Thursday. Like all divorces in the state of New York, the terms of the agreement are sealed.
Billboard has reached out to Slater’s reps for confirmation.
The news comes about a year and two months after reports first emerged of the Broadway actor’s romance with the “Yes, And?” singer, whom he met on the set of Jon M. Chu’s Wicked films. A few days after news of his relationship with Grande surfaced, Slater filed to divorce Jay on July 26, 2023, after five years of marriage.
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Meanwhile, Jay told Page Six at the time: “[Ariana’s] the story really. Not a girl’s girl. My family is just collateral damage.”
The following September, Grande filed to legally end her marriage to luxury realtor Dalton Gomez two years after they tied the knot, logging their date of separation as Feb. 20, 2023, in the court documents. The Victorious alum and Slater have since kept their romance low-key, though the couple have been seen out in public together a number of times. In April, Grande supported Slater at his final Broadway performance of Spamalot, and in June, the pair attended the Stanley Cup finals together.
As for the public scrutiny she’s faced for her relationship over the past year, the “7 Rings” star has remained diplomatic. Ahead of the release of her Billboard 200-topping album Eternal Sunshine, she acknowledged on The Zach Sang Show that the negative attention presented “an insatiable frustration, an inexplicable hellish feeling with watching people misunderstand the people you love, and you.”
Doja Cat aired out a lot grievances on her 2023 album Scarlet. And in a new interview with Jack Harlow for Present Space, the “Paint the Town Red” rapper explained why tapping into her own fury was such an important part of her creative process. “Scarlet is a very, to put it simply, quite an […]
This week, Billboard’s New Music Latin roundup and playlist — curated by Billboard Latin and Billboard Español editors — features fresh new music from artists including new music by Chencho Corleone, Arthur Hanlon, Yotuel & Darell; Cris MJ, FloyyMenor & Louki, and more.
In her latest release, X Amor II, Kim Loaiza builds upon the foundations laid by her 2023 debut, X Amor. The Mexican singer demonstrates her evolving artistry through an eclectic mix of genres ranging from reggaetón to música mexicana, peppered with other unexpected styles. A standout track includes the opener, “5 Babys,” a powerhouse intro that features an all-female lineup with Spanish MC Ptazeta, Mexican reggaetonera Bellakath, Argentine lyricist Yami Safdie, and Colombian rapper Fariana.
Argentinian stars LIT Killah and Nicki Nicole team up with the release of “Somos 3,” an electro pop track with subtle trap and Afrobeat undertones, courtesy of producers Tatool and Francisco Zecca. The single was recorded during the summer in Madrid.
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Cumaná, Venezuelan newcomer MARI also dropped “La Carajita,” which offers a “hypnotizing fusion of urban music and Venezuelan llanero music, subtly transporting us to the countryside through sustained falsetto verses like ‘the street is calling me,’ and bringing us back to the city with forceful drum rhythms, rap and cuatro,” wrote Billboard Español‘s Sigal Arias-Ratner.
Other new releases this week include Charly García’s La Lógica del Escorpión, Chino Pacas’ corridos “Otra Vez Pegue Un Vergazo,” Mike Bahía’s tropical pop “La Pena,” and a whole new remix EP by Nathy Peluso, Club Grasa.
Last week, Andy Rivera’s “Moncler” won the poll, bringing in nearly 88% of the votes. Who should win this week? Give these new releases a spin and vote on them below.
What’s your new favorite Latin music release?/¿Cuál es tu nuevo lanzamiento favorito de música latina?