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In late May, Teezo Touchdown — clad in all-black leather, spiky silver nails piercing his shoulder pads — leaped across the stage of Los Angeles’ Fonda Theatre. As he performed his groovy 2023 song “Mood Swings,” he screeched helium-pitched “Wee!” ad-libs mid-air, and a vibrant flower bouquet encasing his microphone swung along with him.
“A night at Lil Yachty’s house” inspired his mic setup, Teezo says today as he periodically munches on a raw orange carrot that matches the couch he’s lounging on. Teezo and Yachty were marathoning Morrissey music videos, and the way the former Smiths frontman nonchalantly swung a bouquet of flowers in the “This Charming Man” video “really influenced” Teezo — so much so that the avant-garde 31-year-old rapper-meets-rock star eventually made it his own.
He has now whirled that microphone onstage at the country’s biggest arenas and stadiums, thanks to opening gigs for Tyler, The Creator in 2022 (after featuring on Tyler’s “RunItUp”) and Travis Scott in 2023 (after appearing on Scott’s UTOPIA track “Modern Jam”). “Being an opener is so hard,” Teezo admits — but he gained valuable perspective playing for early arrivers interested in the main act.
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“I’m like the doorman welcoming you into Tyler’s crib, Travis’ crib: ‘Can I grab you anything? He’ll be down shortly. But while you here, let me entertain you,’ ” he explains. That attitude has also informed Teezo’s recent guest appearances on tracks by artists including Drake, Doja Cat and Don Toliver — A-list collaborations that launched him onto the Billboard Hot 100 with “Amen,” from Drake’s 2023 album, For All the Dogs, marking Teezo’s highest-charting entry, at No. 15.
“Teezo is your favorite artist’s favorite artist,” says his manager, Amal Noor, who has worked with him since 2019. “He respects these artists’ careers, and to know that they love him creatively is an amazing feeling.”
Jean Paul Gaultier top, Diesel jeans, Athanasiou bracelet.
Ariel Fisher
Teezo Touchdown photographed on July 18, 2024 in Los Angeles. Vintage Jean Paul Gaultier top, Louis Vuitton belt and jeans, Prada shoes.
Ariel Fisher
Following his own first headlining tour last spring, which came on the heels of his 2023 debut album, How Do You Sleep at Night?, Billboard’s 2024 R&B/Hip-Hop Rookie of the Year is still coming to terms with his current level of stardom. “I can still go to Whole Foods and grab my six hard-boiled eggs or go to Paris and walk the streets, and no one bats an eye,” he says. “But on the other end, I’m on the biggest albums in the world, biggest tours.”
Long before he became Teezo Touchdown, the artist born Aaron Lashane Thomas followed in the footsteps of his father, a DJ and avid music collector, and started DJ’ing in the second grade, performing at friends’ parties, weddings and graduations in his hometown of Beaumont, Texas. “Every year, I would get something music-related for Christmas, but in seventh grade, I got this small box. There was a key inside to the studio that my dad had built for me upstairs,” he says. Teezo made his first song ever that day — and he still plays the piano riff at studios he visits “to call back to that kid on Christmas, like, ‘Look where you at right now.’ ”
Tragedy affected his trajectory early on. After his girlfriend was fatally shot in 2016, Teezo channeled his grief into his art, and in February 2019, he dropped the somber single “100 Drums,” which decried gun violence over a sample of Panic! at the Disco’s emo smash “I Write Sins Not Tragedies.” Chance the Rapper and Trippie Redd both noticed, and the latter flew him out to L.A. for the first time the following month. Noor noticed, too: After seeing a clip of the “100 Drums” music video on a meme page, she also reached out to Teezo.
While spending time at his childhood home afterward, Teezo stumbled upon his father’s toolbox. “Punks are usually spiky. My dad had nails around the crib, and I was like, ‘This is going to be my spike,’ ” he says. In March 2020, Teezo asked his best friend to braid the nails into his hair for the first time, for his “Strong Friend” music video. “I think I was meant to find [the nails],” Teezo says, adding that he has comfortably slept with them in his hair multiple times.
Ariel Fisher
His unorthodox image complemented his developing sound, which he now describes as “R&B with the boom of rock.” He didn’t think he could meld those genres until he saw the Afropunk festival’s Instagram post about Black rock band Living Colour and his producers, Brendan Grieve and Hoskins, played him a mashup of Craig David and metalcore band Killswitch Engage.
How Do You Sleep at Night? (released last September on Not Fit for Society/RCA Records) showcases Teezo’s genre-defying talents — from the garage punk-meets-R&B anthem “Too Easy” to the guitar-driven indie-rock jam “Impossible.” It failed to crack the Billboard 200, but Teezo only cares about the numbers for one reason: “I’m so obsessed with numbers because I just want to make my team proud. I’m proud because I’m making music and one person knows who I am.”
Drake called How Do You Sleep at Night? “some of the best music ever” when Teezo played it for him a month early. But ironically, Teezo’s profile expanded even further when Kendrick Lamar name-dropped him in the opening lines of his Hot 100 No. 1 Drake dis track, “Not Like Us” (“Nail a n—a to the cross/He walk around like Teezo”). Having just started his own tour (a “little bubble” filled with “loving fans”) at the time, “I made a decision that I wasn’t going to listen to any of the back-and-forth,” says Teezo, who claims to have somehow avoided listening to the inescapable “Not Like Us” in its entirety. “I’m seeing a mob mentality, and I don’t like division. Sorry I’m so kumbaya, but it’s all love over here.” The simple fact that both Drake and Lamar “know who I am… it’s still one of those moments where you have to pinch yourself. The kid in Beaumont, I’m pretty sure he’s jumping through the roof right now.”
Vintage Jean Paul Gaultier top, Louis Vuitton belt and jeans, Prada shoes.
Ariel Fisher
Vintage Jean Paul Gaultier top.
Ariel Fisher
Come October, Teezo will hit the road again on Don Toliver’s North American arena tour — an opportunity he initially hesitated to take because he wanted to focus on making his next album. But “[Don] was like, ‘Teezy, I’m telling you. If you know you got a tour coming up, it’s going to make you lock in.’ I needed a fire under me, and that was the fire.”
And it’s working: Teezo has already started on his next project. “The word that [we] keep bringing up is ‘undeniable.’ Everything that we’re making, is it undeniable?” he says. “If it’s not, put a red mark on it and let’s move on to the next.”
This story appears in the Aug. 31, 2024, issue of Billboard.
In late May, Teezo Touchdown — clad in all-black leather, spiky silver nails piercing his shoulder pads — leaped across the stage of Los Angeles’ Fonda Theatre. As he performed his groovy 2023 song “Mood Swings,” he screeched helium-pitched “Wee!” ad-libs mid-air, and a vibrant flower bouquet encasing his microphone swung along with him. “A […]
The Atlanta Braves made it all about Ludacris on Wednesday night (Sept. 4) when the team honored the hometown hero with a bobblehead night and a ceremonial first pitch. After handing out the bobble to the first 15,000 fans who showed up at Truist Park — depicting the Grammy-winning MC wearing jeans, a throwback Hank […]
Three out of 996. That’s the number of individual Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Hispanic inductees born in Latin America. The stats remain low even when adding members of Ibero-American heritage born in the English-speaking world: one in England and 11 in the United States.
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As of the 2023 class, the 15 inductees with confirmed Hispanic roots represent just 0.015% of the total inductees into arguably the most prestigious pantheon of rock. What’s more, no act that sings exclusively in Spanish has ever been included.
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This statistic not only reflects a low representation for Latin America, a region with a longstanding and powerful tradition of rock artists and fans — as this year’s induction ceremony approaches in October 19, it also presents an opportunity for the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame to embrace a more inclusive and diverse future, one that highlights how rock & roll brings people from different countries, cultures and languages together.
I’ve been running a fan campaign since 2020 to advocate for Argentina’s Soda Stereo’s induction into the RNRHOF, as their first Spanish-language band. Despite frequent comments our team’s effort has sparked on social media, I don’t believe the Hall is biased against Hispanic artists. It only seems they haven’t been exposed enough to authentic rock en español to properly consider its inclusion, and they still think of Ritchie Valens and Carlos Santana as the only Latin rock legends. That perception could be rectified in under six hours by watching the docuseries Break It All on Netflix, which covers the history of rock in Latin America.
The RNRHOF aims to recognize artists who’ve significantly contributed to the evolution, development, and perpetuation of rock & roll. However, it never mentions that this recognition is limited to a specific language or market — so anyone in the world meeting their induction criteria is supposed to be eligible. But the reality is quite different; for decades they’ve only looked on the same horizon, mostly inducting white male musicians. It wasn’t until recent years, thanks to diversity and inclusion movements, that more female and African American acts have been significantly included. Hispanic acts, however, have remained ignored.
The RNRHOF’s nominating committee consists of 30 experts, none of whom are Hispanic. This puts our campaign on a collision path against history, and the entire hopes of a rock en Español induction in the hands of people who may not possess the best expertise on Latin music.
Soda Stereo
Caito Lorenzo
Rock Hall executives explain controversial multi-genre nominations by referencing Motown Records’ old motto, “The Sound of Young America.” They say they want to bring back the original spirit of the 1950s. However, focusing only on what young people in the United States listen to could limit real inclusion and diminish their global appeal. This is also unfair to followers abroad, because rock and roll was born in the U.S. but belongs to the entire planet.
When John Sykes took over the RRHOF foundation, he promised more diversity to prevent the institution from becoming irrelevant. I started the Soda Stereo Rock Hall campaign hoping his pledge would finally recognize a Latin American band. According to a June 2024 U.S. Census report, Hispanics now represent 19.5% of the US population — and with Spanish being the second-largest language by number of native speakers in the world, and easily the second-most spoken in the United States, it’s time to include Latin acts in the mix. Many experts agree that the first band should be Soda Stereo, followed by the other three of the “sacred tetralogy” of Spanish-language rock: Heroes del Silencio (Spain), Los Prisioneros (Chile), and Caifanes (Mexico).
But it can’t stop there. Foundational icons of the movement should also be considered: El Tri and Javier Batiz (Mexico), Charly Garcia and Luis Alberto Spinetta (Argentina), Miguel Rios (Spain), and Los Saicos (Peru), as well as icons like Maná and Café Tacuba.
As for Soda Stereo, the band’s import in the history of popular music is undisputed. Cirque du Soleil paid tribute to Soda’s legacy in 2017 and 2018 with a tribute show, Sep7timo Día, an honor bestowed only on three other acts: The Beatles, Elvis Presley and Michael Jackson. Michel Laprise, director of the show — who spent months talking to fans worldwide to understand the band’s legacy — expressed on a video recorded at their Montreal headquarters for our campaign, “The quality of their rock music, the intensity of what they did, is universal and ageless … Then we realized they’re not in the Rock Hall of Fame. It doesn’t make sense; they should be there. Let’s correct that and celebrate the timeless quality and relevance of that music”.
Soda Stereo disbanded in 1997 still at the peak of its career, exhausted from an intensive tour schedule. It reunited for a record-breaking tour in 2007, and intended to resume recording new albums and touring. Sadly, Gustavo Cerati, the band’s charismatic frontman, fell into a coma in May 2010 after a solo show in Venezuela, and died on September 4, 2014. His passing led to an outpouring of love and respect from fans and colleagues around the world, and his massive funeral was compared to the funeral of iconic tango legend Carlos Gardel in 1935.
Coldplay’s Chris Martin is without a doubt Soda Stereo’s most high-profile and vocal global fan; Gorillaz’ Seye Adelakan, a loyal admirer since his teenage years, says: “They transcend the Spanish language.” Shakira cites them as her inspiration to become an artist; Andy Summers wanted to do more music with Cerati after they recorded together; and Bono prayed onstage for his recovery.
Despite its legacy and positive impact on rock’s development in Latin America, the band has yet to be nominated for the Rock Hall. Our petition has gathered close to 40,000 signatures from 68 countries across all continents, and the endorsement of historically significant Hispanic rock stars. Many believe that if Soda Stereo was from the U.S. or Europe and sang in English, it would have been inducted long ago.
The Rock Hall should not induct Soda Stereo merely to satisfy a diversity quota. But it should also not discriminate against it because of their Latin American origin, or because of the band’s legacy being unknown to them, or especially because its music is in a language they don’t like or understand.
Rock and Roll is created worldwide and in many different languages. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame could honor and celebrate that? Especially at a time when multicultural bridges and better social understanding are most needed.
Miguel Gálvez is a journalist and the creator and director of the Soda Stereo Rock Hall campaign.
True love is where you find it. And sometimes you find it at a Deftones show in Las Vegas. In honor of her eighth wedding anniversary to Jelly Roll, Bunnie XO posted footage of the singer’s surprise onstage proposal to her during a show by the “My Own Summer (Shove It)” band that led to […]
Being a celebrity comes with tons of perks — free stuff, fancy awards, fame, fortune, etc. — but it also comes with an unending scrutiny and prying into your private life, often in the form of totally made-up, fake tabloid headlines.
Adele, known for her cheeky wit, figured she’d have some fun with the spotlight the tabs often focus on her during her limited run of shows at a custom venue in Munich by cooking up her own phony gossip rag called the Saturn Times. On Thursday (Sept. 5), the singer posted some of the highlights from her dip into the scandal sheet biz by sharing some of the silly headlines from her bogus broadsheet after wrapping up the 10-show run during which she previously said she’d had “the time of my life.”
“After years of putting up with the tabloids, I decided to join in on the fun and create my own for the Munich shows,” she explained. “When I tell you it was a highlight of my week to write and create these every Sunday after the shows…I think I missed my true calling! A friendly piss take on myself and the real ones! Truly, it is so much fun writing absolute nonsense! 🪐”
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Unlike the sometimes hurtful, totally ridiculous headlines in the real tabs, the Saturn Times is just silly fun, including one from week one in early August that screamed “It’s One Adele of a Ride!” accompanied by a pic of the “Easy On Me” star tooling around on a bike in the empty stadium along with a short story about her ride-around.
“Days before opening night, Adele was seen gallivanting around the grounds of Adele World on a bike, as she prepares to kick off her run of shows in Munich,” it read. “Dressed in all black with white trainers, the London born songstress was sure to stay safe and responsibly wore a helmet.” Another one, under the screaming headline “Saturn Satire!” chronicled her meeting with the Munich’s chief of police, while one from week two yelled “STORM ADELE” in a report on foul weather that almost scotched he shows.
Further down the page, an editor’s note from Adele paid tribute to her fans. “Hello… it’s me. This show is yours and yours only,” it read. “I want you to experience it in any way you want. Standing, sitting, crouching, jumping or even hopping on one leg for all I care!” But, she warned, please don’t stand on chairs, because it’s dangerous and not fair to the fans behind you. “Also, a gentle nudge to remember to be kind to each other, we’re all here to have a great time.”
Other headlines poked fun at the almost weekly false reports about her alleged engagement to longtime boyfriend sports agent Rich Paul. “After sending fans into a meltdown by seemingly announcing she’s engaged for the 100th time this year,” it teased. “The blonde singer, 36, spotted the precious moments in the crowd. One newly engaged couple had flow all the way from Venezuela.”
Later editions joked about more bad weather, which allegedly forced the singer to match her custom gown with New Balance sneakers (“ADELE’S BALANCING ACT”) as well as bragging about the alleged Guinness world record set by the massive screen erected in the custom venue for the residency shows. “Oh ma gawd, I can’t believe it!” Adele crowed in the cover story. “Out of all the screens in the world! What is the likelihood of this one being a new record held?”
Adele recently revealed that after she finishes her upcoming Weekend With Adele residency in Las Vegas at the Colosseum at Caesars Palace on Nov. 23 she will “not see you for an incredibly long time.”
Check out some headlines from the Saturn Times below.
As Adele prepares for her final concert before stepping away from the spotlight for a “long time”, ticket prices have soared to record highs.
The British singer, known for her record-breaking hits like “Someone Like You” and “Hello,” recently announced that her last performance will take place on Nov. 23 at The Colosseum at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas, marking the end of her Weekends With Adele residency and the beginning of an indefinite hiatus.
Originally, tickets for the show ranged from $400 for regular admission to $1,000 for VIP passes. However, the demand has skyrocketed, with last-minute resale platforms such as Viagogo and Gametime reporting prices as high as $17,050 and $18,766, respectively, for top-tier seats.
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During her final Aug. 31 performance of a 10-show residency in Munich, Adele told fans, “I just need a rest. I have spent the last seven years building a new life for myself and I want to live it now.”
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“I want to live my life that I’ve been building and I will miss you terribly.”
She reiterated her decision to step back from music, stating that she has no current plans for a new album. This follows her most recent album 30, which debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 in 2021 and featured the chart-topping single “Easy on Me.”
Adele’s Munich residency also saw emotional highlights, including a rare performance of “Chasing Pavements“—her 2008 breakout hit that earned her two Grammy Awards in 2009 for Best Female Pop Vocal Performance and Best New Artist.
Throughout the residency, Adele also confirmed her engagement to Rich Paul on stage and praised rising star Chappell Roan, calling her “spectacular.”
As her Las Vegas residency comes to an end, the Nov. 23 concert is shaping up to be a historic event, with fans scrambling for tickets and prices reaching unprecedented levels. Many are willing to pay top dollar to witness Adele live, whose career highlights include three consecutive Billboard 200 No. 1 albums, before she takes her much-needed break.
Green Day experienced an unexpected pause at their Saviors Tour concert Wednesday night (Sept. 4) at Comerica Park in Detroit. The group abruptly ran offstage just as it began the bridge of “Longview,” as the crowd continued singing the song in the band’s absence. Reliable sources on site confirmed to Billboard that an unauthorized drone had […]
Lainey Wilson scores her first top 10, with her best sales week ever, on Billboard’s Top Album Sales chart (dated Sept. 7) as her fifth studio album Whirlwind arrives at No. 3 with 34,000 copies sold in the U.S. in the week ending Aug. 29, according to Luminate. The set is the follow-up to her breakthrough album Bell Bottom Country, which was her only other charting set on Top Album Sales, peaking at No. 15 in November 2022.
Whirlwind also arrives in the top 10 across an array of Billboard album charts, including Independent Albums (No. 1), Top Country Albums (No. 3), the Billboard 200 (No. 8), Vinyl Albums (No. 3) and Indie Store Album Sales (No. 10).
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Also in the top 10 of the latest Top Album Sales chart, Travis Scott’s Days Before Rodeo charges in at No. 1 with the second-largest sales week of 2024, Sabrina Carpenter notches her biggest sales week ever – and the year’s second-largest for a vinyl album – with the No. 2 bow of Short n’ Sweet, Thomas Rhett achieves his seventh top 10 with the No. 5 debut of About a Woman, and FONTAINES D.C. land its first top 10 – and best sales week – with the No. 8 start of Romance.
Billboard’s Top Album Sales chart ranks the top-selling albums of the week based only on traditional album sales. The chart’s history dates back to May 25, 1991, the first week Billboard began tabulating charts with electronically monitored piece count information from SoundScan, now Luminate. Pure album sales were the sole measurement utilized by the Billboard 200 albums chart through the list dated Dec. 6, 2014, after which that chart switched to a methodology that blends album sales with track equivalent album units and streaming equivalent album units. For all chart news, follow @billboard and @billboardcharts on both X, formerly known as Twitter, and Instagram.
Whirlwind begins with 34,000 copies sold, and of that sum, physical sales comprise 22,000 (16,000 on CD and 6,000 on vinyl) and digital download album sales comprise 12,000.
The set’s first-week sales were bolstered by its availability across eight vinyl variants, three CD editions (including a signed edition sold in Wilson’s webstore, and a Walmart-exclusive CD containing a branded patch and a bonus track), a standard digital download album, and a deluxe digital album variant with four bonus “worktape” recordings (sold via Wilson’s webstore).
Scott’s 2014 mixtape Days Before Rodeo roars at No. 1 on Top Album Sales with 331,000 copies sold – the second-largest sales week of 2024 and Scott’s best sales week ever. (The year’s largest sales week remains the debut frame of Taylor Swift’s The Tortured Poets Department, with 1.914 million copies sold.) Days was released on Aug. 23 commercially and widely through streaming services for the first time. Digital download album sales comprise 300,000 of Days’ first-week sum, while CD sales account for the remaining 31,000.
Days’ first-week sales figure was aided by its availability across eight digital album variants, seven of which included bonus tracks (ranging from unreleased studio cuts, to live tracks, to remixes), and most were sold exclusively via Scott’s official webstore. The album’s CD sales were generated by a stand-alone CD, as well as a CD that was part of a deluxe boxed set containing a branded hat – both of which were exclusive to Scott’s webstore.
In the coming weeks, the album will profit from two vinyl variants that are yet to ship to customers, in addition to two deluxe boxed sets containing the vinyl LP and branded merchandise – all of which are exclusive to Scott’s webstore.
Sabrina Carpenter’s Short n’ Sweet starts at No. 2 on Top Album Sales with 184,000 sold – her biggest sales week and the fifth-largest sales debut week of 2024.
Short n’ Sweet’s sales were enhanced by its availability across nine vinyl variants, five CD editions, two cassettes and four digital album download variants (three of which were exclusive to her webstore). Vinyl sales combined totaled 105,000 – Carpenter’s best week on vinyl and the second-largest sales week of the year for a vinyl album. Short n’ Sweet also debuts at No. 1 on the Vinyl Albums chart. (The largest vinyl sales week in 2024 for an album is owned by the debut week of Swift’s Poets, with 859,000.)
As for the rest of Short n’ Sweet’s first-week sales, it sold 33,000 on CD; 45,000 digital download albums; and 2,000 cassettes.
Chappell Roan’s The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess is pushed down 3-4, despite a 20% gain in sales to 18,000 sold for the week.
Thomas Rhett racks up his seventh top 10-charting effort on Top Album Sales as his latest studio album, About a Woman, arrives at No. 5 with 13,000 sold. Of that sum, nearly 4,000 were from vinyl LP sales – Rhett’s best vinyl sales week ever. Its sales were helped by its availability across more than a dozen vinyl variants.
Post Malone’s F-1 Trillion falls to No. 6 after debuting atop the list a week ago. It sold 12,000 copies in its second week (down 84%). Stray Kids’ former No. 1 ATE dips 4-7 with 12,000 sold (down 17%).
FONTAINES D.C.’s Romance starts at No. 8 with nearly 9,000 sold – the first top 10 and best sales week for the act. The set was available across six vinyl variants (which sold a combined 6,000 – the act’s best week on vinyl).
Closing out the Top Album Sales’ top 10 are EHYPEN’s chart-topping Romance: Untold (moving 5-9 with 8,000; down 19%) and Billie Eilish’s Hit Me Hard and Soft (7-10 with 7,000; down 9%).
Fito Páez has been forced to cancel his September shows in Mexico City, Guadalajara and Bogotá. The acclaimed Argentine musician announced Wednesday (Sep. 4) on his social media that he broke five ribs over the weekend at his home. “On Sunday morning, I had a domestic accident that resulted in the fracture of five ribs,” […]