Music
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Tyler, The Creator has had his fair share of weirdo run-ins already this year. First, he recently called out some fans for asking him “weird a– questions” whenever he’s randomly spotted somewhere. Now, he’s taking aim at an undisclosed shop owner for posting a screenshot of security footage without his consent with a lengthy rant […]
One of Chappell Roan‘s most iconic looks was hot to go at a recent auction for Los Angeles wildfire relief, with the star’s quintessential blue-sequined marching band unitard pulling in tens of thousands of dollars for the cause at Give a Frock’s charity benefit. As announced on Instagram by Julien’s Auctions on Tuesday (Feb. 25), […]
The Lumineers’ Automatic debuts in the top 10 of multiple Billboard charts dated March 1, paced by its No. 2 starts on the Top Rock Albums and Americana/Folk Albums tallies. In the week ending Feb. 20, Automatic, The Lumineers’ fifth studio album, starts with 29,000 equivalent album units earned in the U.S., according to Luminate. […]
Andy Reid is not happy about the Taylor Swift slander. The Kansas City Chiefs coach joined NFL on NBC this week for a wide-ranging conversation about the Super Bowl, where he came to the “I Can Do It With a Broken Heart” singer’s defense after she was met with boos from the crowd at the […]
Another week means another new episode of Billboard Unfiltered. This episode was broadcasted live on Wednesday (Feb. 26) with the core four back together.
Drake and PartyNextDoor topped the Billboard 200 with $ome $exy $ongs 4 U earning 246,000 first-week units. The feat brings Drizzy to 14 No. 1 albums, which ties him for the most ever among soloists.
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Deputy Director Damien Scott thinks Drake cracked the code with his album sequencing in the streaming era with Views. “Views, to me, is where Drake figured it out. He’s like, ‘Oh, this long-ass album with a multitude of genres.’ He figured out how to make an album for the way people consume music now and then he kept trying to make that album over and over again,” he said. “He’s never dropped below a certain qualitative point where people are like, ‘I’m not gonna pay attention to this.’ … I’m curious to see what the staying power is.”
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Staff Writer Kyle Denis considered the first-week sales for Drake to be “soft” when comparing to his previous bodies of work. “I’ll never take away this kind of feat. Tying the record for most No. 1 albums by a rapper, that’s something to celebrate about. But at the same time, when you contextualize these numbers they’re kind of soft,” he said. “I think him not clearing 300,000 is pretty surprising to me… This is squarely more in his wheelhouse and he’s still 100K behind his collab albums he did with Future and 21 Savage.”
When looking ahead to the all-time No. 1 albums list, Billboard charts expert Trevor Anderson wonders if Drake albums will continue to remain events. “Will Drake ever come out and it’s eh, fine, top 10 or will they always be events?” Anderson pondered.
Deputy Editor Carl Lamarre reported that he’s hearing that Drake could possibly come with his next heavily-anticipated solo album this summer surrounding his three-night headlining performance across the pond at Wireless Festival.
Meanwhile, J. Cole returned with “Clouds” last week, and it appears a possible feud with Freddie Gibbs is brewing on the horizon. After side-stepping the Kendrick Lamar feud last year, would Cole step into the ring with Freddie Kane?
“If he were to go at Cole, I don’t have any inside information, but I don’t think Cole would be like, ‘I’m alright, man.’ Gibbs is basically calling him a b—h, like you’re not gonna squeeze off with anybody. The dude’s still an amazing rapper,” Scott said. “The circumstances around the Kendrick beef are very particular… It won’t be like that otherwise.”
Ye and The Game also reunited earlier this week and appeared to be using Tina Knowles as the duo’s creative muse while Yeezy teased Game’s The Documentary 3.
“He’s just too old to be acting like this,” Denis said. “45 and 47, really? It’s just so desperate and so pathetic and it’s so clear you want their attention and they haven’t given you it in recent years.”
Watch the full episode below.
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: A viral TikTok is remixed into a best-selling protest song, an indie rock institution is introduced to younger fans (again) through a big movie synch and Philadelphia gets to celebrate yet another February win via a breakout rap hit.
‘Hostile Government Takeover’ Dance Remix Turns Bleak Current Events Into a Bop
A few weeks after Donald Trump returned to the White House and started dismantling norms left and right, the TikTok user AGiftFromTodd recorded a 30-second video of himself getting ready to leave his house while crooning an original song that began with the line, “We’re in the middle of a hostile government takeover/ I wanna talk about it, but I’ll be late for work.” Todd’s soulful alarmism went viral, with thousands of likes and shares on TikTok upon its Feb. 4 upload, and while he posted a few new versions of the song in the following weeks, the one that’s crossed off to streaming services in a major way is an EDM remix that pairs hopelessness with a club thump, courtesy of producer Vinny Marchi.
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“Hostile Government Takeover” by AGiftFromTodd & Vinny Marchi spent a good chunk of last weekend at No. 1 on iTunes, selling 4,800 downloads from Feb. 21-24, according to initial data provided by Luminate. Meanwhile, its streams keep climbing — the dance remix earned 597,000 official U.S. on-demand streams over that four-day span, up from 153,000 streams from the previous Friday-to-Monday tracking period. As the song continues to spread, the good news for Todd Givens Jr. is that the next four years will offer plenty of new material to riff on for follow-ups. – JASON LIPSHUTZ
Yeah Yeah Yeahs ‘Edge’-ing Towards Another Newly Viral Hit Thanks to ‘Gorge’ Synch
If there’s one rock act from 20 years ago that doesn’t especially need any more bumps from newfound Gen Z virality, it’s probably New York’s the Yeah Yeah Yeahs. The trio, which reunited in 2022 for its first album together in nearly a decade, spent a stunning eight weeks atop the Billboard TikTok Top 50 chart last year for signature 2003 power ballad “Maps,” racking up millions of streams a week for the revitalized (and re-viralized) hit. Now, the group is surging again with a catalog hit – though this time, it’s not with another decades-old song, but rather a song from that reunion album.
“Spitting Off the Edge of the World,” which was the lead single of 2022’s Cool It Down and featured an assist from acclaimed alt-pop singer-songwriter Perfume Genius, has gotten a big look in Apple TV’s original movie The Gorge, released on Valentine’s Day. The song plays during a pivotal love scene between the film’s co-leads – played by film stars Miles Teller and Anya Taylor-Joy – and it shot to near the top of the Shazam charts almost immediately after the film’s release, still sticking around there a week later, as folks scrambled to find out what the doomy song playing in the action romance was.
A whole lot of those Shazamers undoubtedly ended up streaming “Spitting” as well – as the song racked up 629,000 official on-demand U.S. streams for the tracking week ending Feb. 20, a 375% gain for the song from the previous week, according to Luminate. And many ended up purchasing the song, too: “Spitting” sold nearly 3,000 copies in that week, a massive gain from the just-over-100 it moved the week before, and good enough for a No. 15 debut on the Digital Song Sales chart – the group’s first-ever appearance on that listing. – ANDREW UNTERBERGER
Philly MC Skrilla Taps RWE Basketball Star & TikTok ‘Clipfarming’ for Latest Viral Hit
Last fall (Sept. 9, 2024), a nameless TikTok account uploaded a snippet of a then-unreleased Skrilla song titled “Doot Doot.” The snippet quickly rent viral due to his rambling opening verse, 1ellis’ gritty production and his memorable delivery of the phrase “six, seven.” Since September, the snippet has been used in over 126,000 TikTok posts, eventually giving way to an official DSP release on Feb. 7, 2024.
As the “Doot Doot” snippet continued to make the rounds on TikTok going into 2025, the song earned an unforeseen supporter in Taylor “TK” Kinney, a basketball star for RWE of the Overtime Elite league. Hailing from Newport, Kentucky, the baller has found a way to say “six, seven” in Skrilla’s cadence in nearly every interview from the past few months. The phrase is now synonymous with both TK and Skrilla on socials, and the two young men got to link up in person at an RWE game two weeks ago.
For weeks, TikTok users have been responding positively to TK’s “clip farming” — a practice that basically entails purposely doing something in hopes that it will be clipped and reuploaded across social media – by making edits of his game highlights that are soundtracked by his “six, seven” quip merged with the “Doot Doot” snippet.
According to Luminate, “Doot Doot” earned 1.7 million official on-demand U.S. streams during its first week of released (Feb. 7-13). That figure shot up 105% the following week to over 3.5 million streams. The track has already racked up 3.2 million streams over the first four days of this tracking week (Feb. 21-24), according to initial data provided by Luminate, which marks an 88% jump from the same period the prior week.
With its official music video garnering over 1.26 million YouTube views in just over a week and no signs of slowing down on TikTok, there’s tons of room for Skrilla ‘s latest hit to continue growing. – KYLE DENIS
The 2025 Oscars are just around the corner, and Live With Kelly and Mark is celebrating Wicked‘s big award year. In a two-minute clip shared by the morning show on Tuesday (Feb. 25), Mark Consuelos and Kelly Ripa take turns reciting the opening line: “The Land of Oz-cars, where envy is green and faces defy […]
It’s a homecoming for Master P. The New Orleans rap dignitary has been named the President of Basketball Operations at the University of New Orleans.
The move was made official during a press conference on Wednesday (Feb. 26) where P — born Percy Miller — revealed his plans to restore glory to his hometown university’s basketball program.
“Today is history,” he began. “We’ve come a long way. Growing up in New Orleans, when I was a kid, I looked at the University of New Orleans basketball program as probably one of the best in the country. Every kid wanted to come to the Lakefront Arena and be a part of this.”
Master P continued: “I’m just so appreciative and blessed that God has given me this opportunity … to rebuild this program. We gonna change this. This is our culture, this is our team and this is our family. We want to give that family love out here to the city to bring the people back where it should be at.”
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The No Limit Records boss is promising to “change the culture” at UNO, and he’s got his work cut out for him, as the Privateers fell to a lowly 4-25 following loss to Texas A&M-Commerce on Monday (Feb. 24). The team is yet to secure a win on its home floor this season.
The 2024-2025 Privateers season has been draped in controversy, as The Field of 68‘s Jeff Goodman reported on Wednesday that the University of New Orleans has held out four of its top five starters on suspension due to an ongoing gambling investigation.
The team has lost eight straight games in the players’ absence. They last suited up on Jan. 27. “Leading scorer James White (19.2 ppg), Jah Short (9.2 ppg), Dae Dae Hunter (8.2 ppg) and Jamond Vincent (7.8 ppg) have all been out since the 74-58 loss to UIW,” Goodman wrote. “There is currently an ongoing school and NCAA investigation.”
https://twitter.com/GoodmanHoops/status/1894744804015194305?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Etweet
Master P has quite the hoops background in his own right. He was on a college basketball scholarship at the University of Houston before injuring his knee. P battled back to earn pre-season roster spots on the Charlotte Hornets and Toronto Raptors in 1998 and 1999, but was cut before the regular season.
He passed down his love of basketball to his children. P’s son Hercy Miller suits up for Southern Utah University, while Mercy Miller is a freshman at the University of Houston. The Houston Cougars are currently ranked No. 4 in the country and a bona fide National Championship contender.
Watch the full press conference below.
Brooks & Dunn are set to receive a lifetime achievement award at the 64th Western Heritage Awards, which will be presented at the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum in Oklahoma City, Okla., on Saturday, April 12. Each year, the museum recognizes individuals who have made significant contributions to Western heritage through works in film, […]
Drake becomes the first act in the 12-year history of Billboard’s Streaming Songs chart to earn 100 top 10s, scoring four new top 10s on the March 1-dated survey.
The rapper achieves the feat via songs from his new collaborative album with PARTYNEXTDOOR, $ome $exy $ongs 4 U, which concurrently debuts at No. 1 on the Billboard 200, as previously reported.
“Gimme a Hug” leads the way, debuting at No. 4 with 24.5 million official U.S. streams earned in the week ending Feb. 20, according to Luminate.
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Drake’s other new top 10s include “Nokia” (No. 7, 20.2 million streams), PARTYNEXTDOOR and Drake’s “CN Tower” (No. 9, 19.8 million streams) and PARTYNEXTDOOR, Drake and Yebba’s “Die Trying” (No. 10, 18 million streams).
Drake now boasts 103 top 10s on Streaming Songs, which was first published as of the Jan. 26, 2013, Billboard charts. He was part of the region on the inaugural ranking as a featured artist on A$AP Rocky’s “F–kin Problems” (alongside 2 Chainz and Kendrick Lamar), which ranked at No. 10 (and ultimately peaked at No. 2 in February 2013). His first top 10 as a lead artist followed that March with the No. 3 peak of “Started From the Bottom.”
His 103 top 10s is nearly double the next closest act; Taylor Swift has the second most at 58.
Most Top 10s, Streaming Songs
103, Drake
58, Taylor Swift
35, Lil Baby
33, Kendrick Lamar
33, The Weeknd
32, 21 Savage
31, Future
31, Travis Scott
Drake also holds the record for the most No. 1s on the chart: 20, 11 ahead of his next-closest competitor, Swift.
And the mark for most chart entries overall? Drake too — with 15 new appearances on the March 1 chart, he now has 277 entries; Swift is second with 179.
Concurrently, as previously reported, “Gimme a Hug” debuts at No. 6 on the multimetric Billboard Hot 100, leading all 21 songs from $ome $exy $ongs 4 U onto the ranking.