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Suge Knight and Diddy have been rivals and enemies since the ’90s, when their respective labels — Death Row and Bad Boy — fought for rap supremacy in a feud that culminated in the tragic murders of both 2Pac and The Notorious B.I.G.
Knight, who is currently serving 28 years in California for voluntary manslaughter, caught up with Chris Cuomo on NewsNation to talk about Diddy’s arrest. Suge started the conversation with a disclaimer, saying that he doesn’t “jump up and cheer for no Black man going to prison or any other human being going to prison.”

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However, he suggested that Diddy may be in for a tough time behind bars because of his fame. “I mean, one of the things is this: I don’t care who you are, prison and jail is a negative environment,” Knight said. “Somebody can do something to him and get a name for themself, they gonna actually do it. Or if they can do whatever they feel they gotta do to prove themself.” He added: “But we also gotta learn… We gotta learn from our mistakes. Everything don’t have to be a mistake, you gotta better yourself. But we all know what we signed up for in life.”

Cuomo also asked the founder of Death Row Records if he felt like Diddy was in danger and if he had any advice for him. “I don’t wanna say he’s in danger and neither should he say that,” he advised. “Because once he gets to the point where they feel he’s gonna be suicidal… you don’t have the rights to nothing: no sock, no drawers, no T-shirt, no blanket, no sheets. You’re naked in a cell as a crazy man, so he definitely don’t wanna do that.”

His other words of wisdom were to ask for kosher meals because they’re difficult to be tampered with. “Maybe he should get on the Jewish diet because the kosher meals is way better than the food somebody else is making for you,” he said. “At least they gonna come hot. They gonna come sealed and you’re gonna be the one to open them. That’s very important.”

Diddy is currently being held in Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn, a jail notorious for its violence and subpar living conditions. MDC Brooklyn has housed high-profile prisoners like R. Kelly and Ghislaine Maxwell, and some judges have even refused to send people there, according to The Associated Press. He’s been placed on “procedural” suicide watch, something that is common when it comes to detainees of his stature. A spokesperson has maintained that he’s “strong, healthy and focused on his defense.”

You can watch the full interview here.

Veteran Christian hard rock group Stryper adds its 13th top 10 on Billboard’s Top Christian Albums chart as When We Were Kings enters the list (dated Sept. 28) at No. 2. During its launch week (Sept. 13-19), the set earned 6,000 equivalent album units in the United States, with 5,000 in album sales, according to Luminate.

“We love what we do and the fans love it even more,” Stryper frontman Michael Sweet tells Billboard. “My mentality is to always outdo the last album. Whether we do or not, we’ll go into a project certainly trying our best to do just that. We’re so happy with how Kings turned out, and the Stryper army worldwide seems to agree. We are blessed!”

The new set from the four-piece unit, which formed in 1983 and is based in La Mirada, Calif., follows The Final Battle, which arrived at its No. 3 Top Christian Albums best in November 2022, and Even the Devil Believes, which in September 2020 became the band’s first No. 1. Stryper first reached the chart with The Yellow and Black Attack, which entered in November 1984 and reached No. 10 the following June.

After over 40 years together, three of the four members of Stryper are originals, including brothers Michael and Robert Sweet, along with Oz Fox. The newest rocker in the foursome is Perry Richardson, who replaced Tim Gaines in 2000. Richardson formerly played bass for country artists Trace Adkins and Craig Morgan before joining the faith-based bangers.

Adams’ Sunny Days Shines

Yolanda Adams banks her 17th top 10 on Top Gospel Albums as Sunny Days bursts in at No. 9 (1,000 units).

The set is the Houston native’s first entry on the chart since May 2011, when Becoming started at its No. 3 best. Before that, What a Wonderful Time hit No. 2 in December 2007, after The Best of Me became her fifth No. 1 that May.

Last year was a banner year for live events, with grosses from the top 100 tours up 53% from 2019, the last full year before the pandemic, according to figures reported to Billboard Boxscore. In March, Billboard and Luminate collaborated to dig deeper, and published The Shared Impact of Touring and Streaming. On Wednesday (Sept. […]

Welcome to Billboard Pro’s Trending Up newsletter, where we take a closer look at the songs, artists, curiosities and trends that have caught the music industry’s attention. Some have come out of nowhere, others have taken months to catch on, and all of them could become ubiquitous in the blink of a TikTok clip. 

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This week: Ryan Murphy’s new FX series about the Menendez Brothers inspires streaming gains for a heavily featured late-’80s act, dance crazes help a new viral hit by Odetari and an old one by Freak Nasty, and can you believe it’s Sept. 21 again already?

‘Menendez Story’ Drives Streaming Gains for Milli Vanilli’s Catalog 

The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story – the latest installment in Ryan Murphy’s Monsters anthology series – has unsurprisingly inspired loads of controversy and discourse, but it’s also inspired some new interest in Milli Vanilli’s catalog. 

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The vocal duo, best known for their three 1989 Hot 100 chart-toppers and the infamous revocation of their best new artist Grammy after being exposed for lip-syncing,also plays a key musical role in the first few episodes of Menendez Story. The opening episode features three of their biggest hits — “Girl You Know It’s True,” “Girl I’m Gonna Miss You” and “Blame It on the Rain” — even earning its title from the latter. Though the events of Menendez story take place several years after Milli Vanilli’s reign, the duo’s music is used to help set the scene and explore the two brothers’ friendship. 

“Blame It On the Rain,” the most prominently featured Milli Vanilli track in the series, posted at 68% increase in streaming activity, going from 75,000 official on-demand U.S. streams during the period of Sept. 13-16 to over 125,000 streams in the four-day period following the series premiere on Netflix (Sept. 20-23). Similarly, “Girl You Know It’s True” jumped 32.5% in streaming activity to nearly 135,000 streams (Sept. 20-23). “Girl I’m Gonna Miss You” earned the biggest streaming increase out of all three tracks, exploding a whopping 258% from 28,000 streams (Sept. 13-16) to 103,000 streams (Sept. 20-23). Overall, streams for Milli Vanilli’s entire catalog leapt 114% after the release of Menendez Story, crossing 552,000 official on-demand U.S. streams during the period of Sept. 20-23. – KYLE DENIS

‘Perfect Couple,’ Perfect Synch: Nicole Kidman Helps Meghan Trainor Dance Up in Streams

The Perfect Couple, the latest bestselling book-turned streaming series starring Nicole Kidman, has been a smash hit for Netflix since premiering earlier this month — and while the mystery involves a murder taking place at a posh wedding, the opening of each episode showcases a much lighter mood than the high-stakes family drama. Kidman, along with costars like Liev Schreiber and Meghann Fahy, spend the theme performing a full-cast, choreographed dance routine on a beach, turning in slow motion and clapping as a voice sings, “Anything that feels this good / Well, it must be illegal, it must be illegal.”

That voice belongs to Meghan Trainor, whose track “Criminals” serves as the theme song for The Perfect Couple after being featured on the deluxe edition of her June album Timeless. And the streaming synch has already helped “Criminals” triple up in streams compared to its pre-Perfect Couple numbers: after earning 263,000 U.S. on-demand streams the week prior to the show’s Sept. 5 premiere, according to Luminate, the song earned 972,000 streams during the week ending Sept. 19, along with 2,400 in weekly digital sales. 

While “Criminals” has yet to hit the Hot 100, the song’s rise is arriving at an enjoyable moment for Trainor, who’s celebrating the 10-year anniversary of “All About That Bass,” and performing at New York’s Madison Square Garden tonight. – JASON LIPSHUTZ

Fraternity Rush Season Revives Freak Nasty’s “Da’ Dip” 

It’s still early in the school year, which means that rush season is in full effect. In a natural progression of the undergraduate fraternity rush process, many pledges now document their journeys to brotherhood on TikTok. Part of that process now includes filming adorably dorky TikTok dance trends – including the latest viral choreography to Freak Nasty’s 1997 smash “Da’ Dip.” 

 The dominant choreography template was originated by user @varsnikk earlier this year (Aug. 14), but as is the case with most TikTok dance trends, the moves have become more simplified as the trend became more viral. That original clip boasts over 700,000 views, while the official “Da’ Dip” TikTok sound now plays in nearly 350,000 posts. Several major stars have hopped on the trend – including Matthew Morrison and Ice Spice – but the recent uptick in engagement has been spurred in large part by “#pledgetok” videos. Essentially, pledges (prospective members of a fraternity) execute the dance trend while commenters around the world cheer on their awkward moves and laud their favorite “divas.” Normally, the young men are dressed in some combination of a navy sports jacket and khakis, and they execute the dance with fellow members of their pledge class. 

According to Luminate, “Da’ Dip” earned over 320,000 official on-demand U.S. streams during the week of Sept. 13-19. That marks a 95% increase in streaming activity from three weeks prior (Aug. 23-29), when the beloved Miami bass track pulled in just over 165,000 streams. “Da’ Dip” has ballooned in streams for each of the past few weeks, helping the track notch a No. 16 debut on the Billboard TikTok Top 50 (chart dated Sept. 21). Should “Da’ Dip” continue its streaming revival, Freak Nasty could add a few more chart accolades to the No. 15 Hot 100 peak the track earned back in 1997. – KD

Numbers Going Strong: Odetari Manages to ‘Keep Up’ Momentum With New Viral Hit

In January, Billboard Dance editor Katie Bain wrote a digital cover story about Odetari (along with frequent collaborator 6arelyhuman) asking if they were the future of dance music; eight months later, the former is providing further evidence that he just might be. His adrenalized new single “Keep Up” – which sounds like the perfect gamer soundtrack, down to its verses even lifting a bit of the melody from the classic Sonic the Hedgehog Green Hill Zone theme – has been steadily taking off since its July release. 

Sonic edits have actually played a big part in the song’s viral success on TikTok – including a couple posted by the producer himself – to the point where a Change.org petition to get the song included in the third Sonic the Hedgehog movie is just a few hundred signatures away from its 5,000 goal. An associated dance has also played a major part in the song’s social media proliferation, with the song’s rapid pace making it a particular degree-of-difficulty challenge. 

It’s all added up to help “Keep Up” increase by millions of streams over the past few weeks. The song racked up 4.2 million official on-demand U.S. streams for the week ending Sept. 19, which is up 91% from where it was three weeks earlier, according to Luminate. It’s already on No. 21 on the Bubbling Under chart – so if it keeps it up, Odetari might not be too far away from his first-ever Hot 100 hit. – ANDREW UNTERBERGER

Season’s Gainings: “September,” Remembered Once More

If you missed observing September Day this year, you’d probably be forgiven – it came over the weekend, and once again with no Demi Adejuyigbe celebratory viral video, with the writer/comedian having retired from his once-annual duties in 2021. But fear not, plenty still remembered the 21st night of September: Earth, Wind & Fire‘s signature 1979 smash racked up a little over 1.7 million official on-demand U.S. streams on Saturday, a 144% gain from the previous week. That is down just a little from the nearly 1.8 mil the song pulled on Sept. 21, 2023, though – so if anyone wants to pick up the torch from Adejuyigbe before the song really starts to reverse momentum and risk losing its perennial status, you’ve got a year to figure out how. – AU

Is this your card? Halsey just unveiled the latest piece of the puzzle for her upcoming album The Great Impersonator, sharing the track list with a clever video posted to the singer/songwriter’s socials Wednesday (Sept. 25). The clip shows a set of hands holding a deck of cards, deftly holding them up one by one […]

Fashion Week is taking over France, and so is a wave of Latin artists.  Paris Fashion Week — running from Sept. 23 to Oct. 1 — is hosting its annual event where a number of designer brands are presenting Womenswear Spring/Summer 2025 collections. Music stars have been spotted all over during the coveted week, either […]

André 3000 had an interesting way of describing his jazz career.
During a recent interview with the Recording Academy, Stacks was asked whom he considers his peers now that he’s venturing into a different genre. “A long line of historical bands like Sun Ra, the Chicago Art Ensemble. Even rapper Lil B,” he answered. “I was joking to myself. I was like, ‘I’m almost the Lil B of this type of music.’ Lil B is… they call it ‘Based Rap.’ My son actually turned me on to Lil B.”

He then expanded on his Based God comparison, saying, “a lot of what he’s doing is made up or improv or really reactionary.” Adding, “It’s not this studied, perfect thing. Because I came up in the ‘90s, we came up with Nas and Wu-Tang and some of the [people] considered the best rappers around. It was about clarity. It was more of a studied kind of thing. A person like Lil B is not studied at all. But the way the kids respond to him, it’s because of that. It’s kind of like a punk way of rapping, and I like it. [And what I’m doing is] almost like punk jazz or punk spiritual jazz. It’s pure feeling.”

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Elsewhere in the interview, the Atlanta rap legend was asked about his visibility during the past year or so being that he’s tried to shy away from the spotlight in the past. He admitted that he somewhat prefers this era of fame because the lights aren’t as bright. “It’s almost like [laughs] superstar lite, like Coke Lite or Coke Zero. It’s like Superstar Zero,” he quipped. “You’ve got the fame, but it’s not as intense as it was before. It’s different. A lot of people are weirded out about the direction, so it’s not the same intensity of the whole world onboard with you — which is kind of cool for my age and tastes. I like this pace a lot, compared to just being all over everywhere all the time.”

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He also released the album film Listening to the Sun and said it’s to help remind fans that he dropped an instrumental flute tape. “The album has been out a year, and we recently dropped this film that we did to the album that came out a year ago, but we just released it on YouTube,” he said. “So, a lot of people are just now discovering the album. It’s like, ‘Yeah, we heard something about this flute thing,’ but they never heard it. Now that this video is out, a lot of people are hearing it again, or for the first time. So it’s a cool thing that you kind of get this second wave of people that are just now hearing it.”

Eight years later, we still get those goosebumps every time. Travis Scott and Kendrick Lamar may need the Heimlich after seeing that their 2016 “Goosebumps” collaboration’s visual recently surpassed 1 billion views on YouTube. The trippy BRTHR-directed clip gives Scott his second entry into the Billion Views Club behind 2018’s “SICKO MODE,” while K. Dot […]

The Weeknd announced Wednesday (Sept. 25) that he and Playboi Carti are officially releasing their “Timeless” collaboration on Friday. The two performed “Timeless” for the first time at The Weeknd’s one-night-only concert in São Paulo, Brazil earlier this month, where the Canadian-Ethiopian superstar performed his latest single “Dancing in the Flames,” his aptly titled “São […]

As the International Bluegrass Music Association’s annual IBMA Week launches in Raleigh, North Carolina, Jerry Douglas is among the storied honorees: The 30-time IBMA Award recipient will be inducted into the Bluegrass Music Hall of Fame on Thursday (Sept. 26) by fellow bluegrass luminary and 2023 honoree Sam Bush.

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Over the course of nearly five decades, Douglas’s contributions and influence on genres including bluegrass, country and Americana have been indelible, thanks to his masterful, pioneering musicianship on the dobro, as well as his work as a producer (on more than 100 albums), bandleader, and songwriter.

“It’s not something you expect,” Douglas, 67, tells Billboard of the induction. “I was shocked, surprised, and humbled, all those things. It’s the acceptance that’s really cool about it, being accepted in a place along with Bill Monroe and Earl Scruggs [both members of the Bluegrass Music Hall of Fame’s inaugural class in 1991]. You don’t think about your name being mentioned in the same paragraph as those guys, but sometimes it happens.”

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The Bluegrass Hall of Fame honor isn’t the only award he could take home Thursday evening: he’s nominated in other three IBMA categories, including album of the year (for co-producing Tuttle’s City of Gold), resophonic guitar player of the year and collaborative recording of the year (for Authentic Unlimited with Jerry Douglas’ Fall in Tennessee).

The induction comes a week after his Sept. 20-released new album The Set (out on Nolivian Records), marking the 16-time Grammy winner’s first album in seven years.

Together with his Jerry Douglas Band cohorts — Mike Seal (guitar), Christian Sedelmyer (fiddle) and Daniel Kimbro (bass) — Douglas offers up reimaginations of six beloved older songs alongside five new compositions. The album takes its name from Douglas’ intent to capture more of the essence of the group’s live shows.

The songs on The Set span decades and styles, such as “From Ankara to Izmir,” which Douglas had previously included on his 1987 album Changing Channels.

“When I cut the song, I envisioned it as a different thing,” he says. “When you write a song and record it soon after, you don’t really know that song. It takes on different features and becomes something different than it started as. I originally cut it with lap steel and made it tougher sounding. Later on, I started playing it on dobro instead. Now, it’s a combination of electric guitar, bass, dobro, upright bass, and fiddle. It covers all the bases, but we have space in there, too.”

The lead single from The Set is a rendition of The Beatles’ 1968 song “While My Guitar Gently Weeps.” Songs written by each bandmember are also featured including Sedelmyer’s “Deacon Waltz,” Kimbro’s “Loyston,” and Seal’s “Renee.”

“This is a band record. Everybody had a hand in it,” Douglas says. “I may have picked the songs and produced it, but everybody’s personality and music are on the record.”

Ohio native Douglas moved to Music City in 1978, initially to play for the country vocal group The Whites. He released his first solo album, Fluxology, a year later. His first Grammy nomination came in 1982 for his work on The Whites’ album You Put the Blue in Me.

“I moved to Nashville at a good time,” he recalls. “It was right after what we called ‘The Urban Cowboy Scare,’ when everyone had a mechanical bull and bruises. But when I got to Nashville, Ricky [Skaggs] broke out and Emmylou [Harris] and Randy Travis and all these traditional artists and I was playing so many of those records and dobro was on radio.”

His musical dexterity made Douglas an in-demand session musician; he’s played on over 1,500 albums including projects for George Jones, Garth Brooks, Paul Simon, Emmylou Harris, Sierra Ferrell, Dierks Bentley and James Taylor. He’s earned the Country Music Association Awards’ musician of the year honor three times.

He’s also seen the ebbs and flows of music emanating from Nashville — for better and for worse. “The music is cyclical and here in Nashville I’ve seen it turn over three or four times. The last one was the bro-country movement, which is finally dead, thank God. It resides along with disco in hell somewhere. Now we’ve entered a totally new [time] where so many people are coming from different genres to country music.”

Over the decades, in addition to serving as band leader for his own group and the Grammy-winning The Earls of Leicester, he played as part of The Country Gentlemen while still a teen and has been part of bands including Boone Creek and J.D. Crowe and The New South (his work with the group earned Douglas his first Grammy win). He’s been a member of Alison Krauss and Union Station since 1998 and earned a wellspring of attention thanks to his work on the RIAA-certified eight-time multi-platinum soundtrack O Brother, Where Art Thou?.

Along the way, Douglas says he’s gleaned wisdom in the finer points of pulling together a group that heightens the musicians’ individual strengths.

“It’s all in the cocktail. How does this person support this other person? And that’s what it’s all about in a band — support. You can’t be practicing your next solo while someone else is soloing. I’ve seen that happen onstage. The cardinal rule is to listen to who’s playing before you. Listen to everything that’s going on around you, because you can pull all those things together and go in different directions. Just things you pick up along the way, like J.D. Crowe, when he would sing, he did not play, and then he would play coming out of that [singing] and that was like he’d just signed his name.”

Elsewhere on The Set, with “Something You Got” Douglas revisits his collaboration with Eric Clapton from Douglas’ 2012 Traveler album, with Douglas offering up lead vocals this time around.

Douglas says of Clapton, “He’s very, very philanthropic. It’s great meeting these fellows late [in life] like this. With James Taylor and Eric Clapton, those guys at one point, you wouldn’t have been able to get close to ’em, just because of the way they were. But through all of that, they are very well-read, intelligent people, and it’s wonderful to be around them. There’s so much history whenever you talk with those guys because they’ve been there and done everything you can do in the music business. I just happened to be lucky enough to hang around them once in a while. And icons like [guitarist, Country Music Hall of Fame inductee and “Nashville Sound” architect] Chet Atkins, I loved being around Chet. You’d just hang on every word he said because everything he said had like three meanings and they were all good. But he had done everything, too. How many people produced the Everly Brothers, Elvis Presley and Dolly Parton?”

The new version of “Something You Got” is notable, as Douglas is known as a performer who often sings lead vocals.

“I sang when I was a kid, until I started playing dobro and it just took over. I can find parts pretty easy, baritone and low tenor and things like that, but I wasn’t as comfortable in the lead role until I had a band and somebody needed to sing, so I was going to try it first. It’s funny how it surprises people when they do hear me sing, but I’ve been listening to the best singers on earth for 50 years and I know what not to do. I’m not a singer like Alison [Krauss] or Vince Gill. I’ll have them sing and I’ll play, because what I’m most comfortable doing is backing a singer.”

As he has looked up to his musical forebears, Douglas has also been a mentor and champion for artists including Tuttle and Billy Strings, as the sound of bluegrass continues to broaden and evolve.

“Historically, [bluegrass and jazz] come from the same place, but with jazz it’s more complicated while bluegrass is more rooted in the rudimentary chords, not a lot of diminished minors. Bluegrass music is more about social context in a way, but the social context that it was based on was a long time ago, and things have changed. That’s why now women are so well represented in the music. Growing up, as a kid, I didn’t see that many women [playing bluegrass], and if they did play, they were delegated to play the bass, which is a very important part of the music, but usually, it doesn’t really present you as the star on stage. I mean, some people can pull that off.

“But Missy Raines [the first woman musician to win the IBMA bass player of the year honor in 1998] turned it into a completely different thing. She has such a vocabulary with her bass [playing] that is different. And she’s a strong person who stuck it out when she was just kind of looked over when she shouldn’t have been [looked over]. The same with Molly [Tuttle] and [banjo virtuoso] Alison Brown. I like that it’s becoming more inclusive for everybody because back in Bill Monroe’s early days, it wouldn’t have been.”

Part of that evolution is being led by a new generation of bluegrass artists, including Strings, Tray Wellington, Wyatt Ellis and more.

“If it didn’t evolve, it would fade,” Douglas says. “The kids coming up who are playing are just incredible, and I know the internet has a lot to do with it. I had to sit there and listen to a record player, and I couldn’t slow my record player down either. So I had to put an ear on what was happening and try to figure it out. I didn’t have anything to see to give me an idea of what to do next. I didn’t even know if I had the thing tuned right at first. Now, you can study your favorite player online and pick up little things from that.”