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The family of late British singer Danielle Moore, the vocalist for dance band Crazy P, has released a statement revealing her cause of death. Moore died by suicide on Aug. 30.
In the statement, her family said, “Whilst we will never fully understand why Danielle took her life, we know that how she died bears no relation to who she was in life.
“Danielle cared deeply about the well-being of others and the world in which she lived,” the statement continued. “She was pained by social injustice and the impact of consumerism. She was an empath, instinctively compassionate and loyal, nurturing the truest of connections with the people in her life. The image of human kindness and generosity of spirit.
“We also know that Danielle would never have wanted her outcome for anyone else. She overcame two periods of significant mental ill health in the distant past and was so grateful that she did. With support and treatment, Danielle came through what had seemed, at those times, to be intolerable and wanted to keep on living.
“We would like to take this opportunity to highlight the prevalence of neurological and psychiatric symptoms during the perimenopause; something which is well known within the scientific community, but little talked about outside it. They say that to be forewarned is to be forearmed, so if any good can come from Danielle’s death, perhaps it will be increased awareness and understanding of the impact that the perimenopause can have on women’s mental health.
“We would like to thank everyone who came to see Danielle perform over the years and enabled her to do what she loved. She was as captivated by you as you were by her. We would also like to thank everyone for their words of kindness since Danielle’s death. The outpouring of love and support has been overwhelming.”
The disco house group was formed in the mid-1990s by artists Chris Todd and Jim Baron while they were attending the University of Nottingham, with the duo releasing their debut album, A Nice Hot Bath With… in 1999 on Paper Recordings. In 2002, Moore and keyboardist Mav Kendricks joined the band — which also included bassist Tim Davies — and they released their sophomore effort, The Wicked Is Music.
They released seven more albums over the years. Their most recent, Any Signs Of Love, was released this past November 29, almost exactly three months after Moore’s death.
If you or someone you know is in crisis, reach out to the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline by dialing 988 or visiting the website for free, confidential support 24/7.
Eminem’s longtime spokesperson has spoken out against the collection of leaked songs from Slim Shady’s vault in recent weeks. While the Detroit legend hasn’t officially released anything this year, fans have stumbled upon a handful of tracks that have gone viral on social media, including songs with longtime collaborators 50 Cent and Dr. Dre, as […]
Bad Bunny’s “DTMF” becomes the first song to debut at No. 1 on the TikTok Billboard Top 50 chart since August 2024, bowing atop the Jan. 18-dated survey.
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 Jan. 6-12. Activity on TikTok is not included in Billboard charts except for the TikTok Billboard Top 50.
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“DTMF” starts at No. 1 after the release of its parent album, Debi Tirar Mas Fotos, on Jan. 5. It’s the fifth song since the ranking’s inception to debut atop the tally, following FamousSally and YB’s “Wassup Gwayy” (Sept. 23, 2023), Playboi Carti’s “Sky” (Oct. 7, 2023), Bobby Caldwell’s “What You Won’t Do for Love” (Feb. 24, 2024) and Clean Bandit’s “Symphony,” featuring Zara Larsson (Aug. 31, 2024).
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It’s also Bad Bunny’s first No. 1 on the TikTok Billboard Top 50, which began in September 2023. His previous best, “Monaco,” peaked at No. 5 in November 2023.
“DTMF” benefits from uploads referencing the song’s lyrics (DTMF is an acronym for the album’s title, which translates to “I should take more photos”), with users lamenting the losses of relatives, pets and relationships with photos and videos of their own. Bad Bunny himself posted a video on TikTok reacting to the trend.
“DTMF” concurrently debuts at No. 38 on the Billboard Hot 100 despite just five days of tracking (Jan. 5-9), earning 11 million official U.S. streams in that span, according to Luminate. It’s expected to sport a sizable gain on the Billboard charts dated Jan. 25 (Jan. 10-16), following its first full week of tracking.
The song reigns over a pair of previous TikTok Billboard Top 50 No. 1s in Stepz’s “Rock” and M.I.A.’s “Paper Planes” at Nos. 2 and 3, respectively, while the top four is rounded out by a newcomer to the region in Braelyn Rankins, Theo Somolu, Aaron Pierre and Kelvin Harrison Jr.’s “I Always Wanted a Brother” from the Mufasa: The Lion King film.
After debuting at No. 10 on the Jan. 11 ranking, “I Always Wanted a Brother” lifts six spots as creators continue to hone in on the “What did you say about my brother?” verse, sung by Taka/Scar voice actor Harrison, and the way the word “brother” is sung, though some instead utilize the eponymous “I always wanted a brother” refrain.
The scene has spawned lip synchs, animation edits and dances, with the song rising another 44% in streams to 4.5 million in the week ending Jan. 9.
G3, the artist name of basketball player LiAngelo Ball, snags the other top 10 debut on the TikTok Billboard Top 10 dated Jan. 18 with “Tweaker,” which bows at No. 6. Released Jan. 10, “Tweaker” became Ball’s first Hot 100 appearance, debuting at No. 29 on the Jan. 18 list via 12.4 million streams.
There’s not yet a highly centralized trend surrounding “Tweaker” on TikTok; users are generally quoting its “I might swerve, bend that corner, whoa” chorus, featuring dances, reaction videos, lip synchs, car footage and more.
There’s one other newcomer to the TikTok Billboard Top 50’s top 10: Flawed Mangoes’ “Dramamine,” which vaults 20-7 in its fifth week on the survey.
“Dramamine” is a cornerstone of what’s known as Hopecore TikTok, which generally consists of inspirational messages/quotes, videos and the like.
Ethel Cain’s “Strangers” is looming directly outside the top 10, starting at No. 11. Despite Cain releasing a new album, Perverts, on Jan. 8, “Strangers” is actually from her previous album, 2022’s Preacher’s Daughter. The TikTok-viral edition of the song is a pitched-up edit, with many users ranking the ways in which Cain sings the lyric “Am I making you feel sick?” toward the end.
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.
It’s been more than two years since Justin Bieber released new music, but a video the singer posted on Instagram Story on Wednesday (Jan. 15) got fans excited for the new dad’s next musical era.
The clip was preceded by a brief infrared video of the singer bobbing his head to an ominous-sounding, chopped-and-screwed track, which funneled into footage of Bieber — shown from behind in a hoodie that initially obscures his face — nodding along to what sounded like a rough demo. The on-screen graphics read “2:57:04,” and were accompanied by video camera and hand writing emoji just below.
In a 24-second snippet, a raspy-voiced Bieber sings lines that sound like, “B–ch I’m takin’ bait/ I’m takin’ it/ You takin’ bait/ I’m shakin’ it/ You’re shakin’ it/ Shakin’ off the hate/ Okay, okay, okay, okay, okay, okay/ I’m shakin’ off the hate, okay (undecipherable)/ Go out the country and I’m not feelin’ nice/ Got the sun on my skin/ Okay, okay, okay, okay/ I bought my Birkin for my b–ch/ You lookin’ good for a Tuesday.” By the end of the preview, the camera zooms in on the rear-view mirror, confirming that the man shaking his head is a a shades-wearing Justin, smiling and mouthing the lyrics to the song that features only spare acoustic guitar accompaniment.
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Given Bieber’s boatload of finely-crafted big pop hits, the untitled song sounds more like a rough iPhone Notes sketch at this point, with scratchy, sometimes mumbled vocals, no drums or the singer’s signature sky-high falsetto vocals. The clip ends at the 3:26 mark, suggesting that the track will land somewhere around the pop radio single sweet spot.
At press time no other information was available on the song.
The rest of the reel featured Bieber vibing to other artist’s tracks, including Gunna’s “Got Damn” in a snowy snap of JB’s shadow flipping the middle finger in a winter wonderland; he later included a close-up of his face nodding along to the track as the camera zoomed in on a diamond-studded hoop earring. Elsewhere, he communed with an impressively antlered buck to Sleepy Hallow’s “Call Me,” while another clip that looked like footage from his recent holiday get-away in Aspen, CO with wife Hailey and their infant son, Jack Blues, with Bieber swinging the camera around to the strains of Playboi Carti’s “Cancun.”
The reel ended with a pull-out image of Bieber in full winter regalia — black snow pants, boots, a purple hoodie, black vest, knee-length striped scarf and pink wool hat — talking on his phone while listening to NAV, Cash Cobain and Bay Swag’s “6AM Thoughts.” A final slide was a re-post of a viral video of a salty young man on a bus raising his eyebrows to the strains of 1990s R&B crooner Tevin Campbell’s 1993 slow jam classic “Can We Talk.”
Bieber’s most recent album was 2021’s Justice and to date he has not announced an official release date for his next project. The singer launched a tour in support of that album in February 2022, revealing that June that he’d been diagnosed with Ramsay Hunt syndrome, which caused “full paralysis” on one side of his face. His struggle with the symptoms of that ailment led to the postponement of some dates, before Bieber cancelled the entire rest of the world tour to focus on his health.
He has been mostly off the music radar since, with the exception of a surprise appearance in October on stage with Don Toliver at L.A.’s Crypto.com arena, where he jumped out during “Private Landing,” the pair’s 2023 track that also featured Future. Bieber didn’t sing at that gig, but showed up to seemingly act as hype man.
Bieber did, however, play his first gig in more than a year last February, when performed a short, surprise set of classics and recent hits at Drake’s Toronto club History during NHL All-Star weekend. A few days earlier, he’d posted a series of snaps from what looked like studio sessions, in which he seemed to be laying down vocals alongside a drummer and vibing out in a recording session.
He’s continued to tease his next era with more pics in October from a studio session in which he was seen at the keyboard and microphone, again, presumably working on new music.
Just a few weeks before that, singer/producer Mk.gee told the New York Times that he’s been in the studio with Bieber, revealing, “He’s searching. Anything that comes out of his mouth: That’s pop music. You can really do pretty wild stuff behind that, just because it represents something.”
Bieber’s most recent single was 2022’s one-off, “Honest,” which featured Toliver.
Travis Kelce has been playing for the NFL for about 12 years, leaving many football fans curious as to whether he plans on hanging up his helmet any time soon. And according to the 35-year-old tight end, even Taylor Swift has some thoughts. While talking about his career on the Stephen A. Smith Show Wednesday […]
Welcome to a brand new year of pop star greatness! Our Greatest Pop Stars of the 21st Century and Greatest Pop Stars of 2024 lists are now over and done with, but the race for 2025 has just begun. Explore Explore See latest videos, charts and news See latest videos, charts and news On this […]
Nora Fatehi and Jason Derulo have kicked off 2025 with a single designed to combine cultures. On Thursday (Jan. 16), the Bollywood superstar and veteran hitmaker unveiled “Snake,” a thumping dance collaboration that joins East Asian melodies with American dance-pop production, creating a sensual duet with global aspirations.
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Fatehi tells Billboard that the track came courtesy of a discussion with producer Tommy Brown (Ariana Grande, Victoria Monét) about finding a sound that could unite audiences in different regions of the world. “My main word was ‘exotic,’ and I wanted to make sure that it was dance-oriented — that whoever heard the song would want to move,” she recalls. “And after finishing the song, we were thinking about which artist would really be a good collaborator, and Jason’s name came up. And I’ve been a fan, and someone who’s really appreciated his journey, for a very long time.”
“I’m always looking for music that speaks to me on a different level, and that’s a little left-of-center,” Derulo adds. “When I heard this for the first time, I was like, ‘Oh, s–t. What’s this? This sounds really different, and really cool.’”
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Fatehi signed a label deal with Warner Music Group in February 2024 after the Toronto native of Moroccan descent moved to India and became a Bollywood staple, with over a dozen film credits and 47 million Instagram followers. After performing in Hindi, Telugu, Tamil and Malayalam films, watching her Bollywood songs explode on YouTube and sharing English-language solo tracks as an independent artist, Fatehi says that the Warner deal last year helped kick-start plans for a global music career.
“I’m hoping for bigger tracks and bigger projects, and this [single] essentially introduces me to the international market in a very unique way,” Fatehi explains. “It allows people to know what I bring to the table as a performer, as a dancer, as a singer. … Bollywood made me the artist I am today, and I love to bring those elements into my artistry.”
Meanwhile, Derulo — who released Nu King, his first album in nine years, in 2024 — says that the opportunity to hop on “Snake” resulted in a greater knowledge of Bollywood, and made him appreciate Fatehi’s performance chops, particularly as a fellow dancer. “I dove into Nora’s world, and got a chance to watch her music videos and watch her in Bollywood [films] and see who she was as an artist, and was blown away,” he says. “I don’t think people are ‘performers’ anymore — it’s a really sad fact. But to find a performer like Nora? Good luck trying to find another performer who can sing and dance at that level.”
Those skills are on display in the “Snake” music video, which was filmed in Morocco over the course of two days and blends shape-shifting visual effects with a mix of bellydancing, hip-hop and Bollywood choreography. “I learned a lot from him on set,” Fatehi says of Derulo. “He’s been doing this for over 15 years, and still has the work ethic and seriousness on set to perfect every detail. I was very inspired.”
While Fatehi is planning for “Snake” to kick off a year with more English-language music as part of her Warner deal, Derulo is also prepping new music, this time with an old friend: J.R. Rotem, who helped deliver Derulo’s 2009 Hot 100 chart-topper “Whatcha Say” to the masses and helmed his 2010 self-titled debut album before they went their separate ways.
“It’s the first time I’ve worked with him in 15 years,” Derulo says. “We put aside our differences, and it’s been incredible to work with him again. We just did a week in Miami, and [worked on] some of the most amazing songs that I’ve done in a long time. I’m really excited about the new music, and the new album that’s coming in ’25.”
The Brit Awards has announced its host for the upcoming 2025 ceremony. Comedian Jack Whitehall will return to the role, having hosted the awards four times previously. The Brits will be held on March 1 at London’s O2 arena. Nominations are due to be announced in the coming weeks, alongside performers at the event. The […]
When Evan Lo walked onto an in-progress livestream by Kai Cenat, the Twitch juggernaut with some 15.8 million followers, and his influencer pal Fanum on Nov. 16, 2024, they received the guitar-wielding stranger with a friendly, split-second greeting. But when he began strumming the vibey opening chords of his viral track “Swimming,” the streamers halted. A look of starstruck bliss crossed Fanum’s face, while Cenat — after a quick online search to confirm his guest’s identity — began screaming: “Oh, my gosh! It’s him! Yo, you a GOAT!”
Flawed Mangoes photographed December 5, 2024 in New York.
Justin J Wee
The GOAT in question is better known as Flawed Mangoes, a Boston-based musician whose gently expressive guitar work and mesmerizing, ambient loops have soundtracked a slew of content creators’ motivational speeches and uplifting memes. Dubbed “hopecore,” this positivity-focused music has gained traction as a tonic to social media’s often toxic offerings — and based on his comment sections, Flawed Mangoes has helped many a bro tap into their sensitive side. Sure enough, before Lo left the livestream, he played that comfort-food instrumental while another guest, the Chicago rapper G Herbo, gave an inspirational speech — and Herbo’s young son was left wiping away tears.
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“It was so chaotic,” Lo says, chuckling. “Like, ‘Am I overwhelming this kid right now?’ But watching the video [later], it was a wholesome thing … It’s very surreal to think that people are actually having significant moments [with my music].”
Flawed Mangoes photographed December 5, 2024 in New York.
Justin J Wee
Justin J Wee
This digital cover story is part of Billboard’s Genre Now package, highlighting the artists pushing their musical genres forward — and even creating their own new ones.
Despite being a naturally “introverted, shy person,” the thoughtful, easy-going Lo is quietly embracing his status as hopecore’s de facto poster boy. “In my head, it was never ‘I want this to be motivational and inspiring,’ ” he says. “[My music is] toeing the line between melancholy and happy in that bittersweet sort of way. I guess a lot of people identified with both sides.” In his estimation, a Flawed Mangoes fan is someone looking to “slow down and take time” for personal wellness: “I think people who can relate to needing that sort of energy in their life tend to gravitate toward my music.”
After signing with APG Music in April and releasing EP The Unwavering Hand in September, the 27-year-old is getting more comfortable showing his face to the world. He’s even preparing to spotlight his own vocals on an upcoming album in 2025, though he’s quick to manage expectations. “What inspires me the most is hearing singers who clearly aren’t very good at singing but do it anyway and really commit. Their lack of formal singing training becomes a character of the music itself. That’s really inspiring to me as someone who’s a very mid singer,” he adds with a sheepish smile.
This story appears in the Jan. 11, 2025, issue of Billboard.
Score one for Team Coco. Conan O’Brien has been selected as the 2025 recipient of the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor. He’ll receive the award on March 23, less than three weeks after he hosts the Oscars for the first time. The Oscars are set for March 3.
O’Brien, 61, will be the second former host of The Tonight Show to receive the Twain Prize. Jay Leno, who was both O’Brien’s predecessor and successor as host of that legendary late-night comedy franchise, received the honor in 2014. David Letterman, who was passed over for the job in favor of Leno when Johnny Carson retired in 1993, received the honor in 2017. Jon Stewart, whose The Daily Show in its heyday was often buzzier than The Tonight Show, received the honor in 2022. (Carson, who hosted The Tonight Show for 30 years and is widely regarded as the GOAT of late-night talk-show hosts, never received the honor. He died in 2005, seven years after the award originated.)
“For four decades, Conan O’Brien has brought his unique blend of the smart, silly, insightful, and hilarious into our homes,” Deborah F. Rutter, president of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, said in a statement. “From Saturday Night Live and The Simpsons —including the unbelievably funny monorail episode — to late night, podcasts, and all things Team Coco, Conan is a master of invention and reinvention, consistently pushing the envelope in search of new comedic heights.”
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“I am honored to be the first winner of the Mark Twain Prize recognized not for humor, but for my work as a riverboat pilot,” wisecracked O’Brien.
The presentation will take place in Kennedy Center Concert Hall. The program will stream on Netflix, date to be announced. Last year’s presentation to Kevin Hart marked the beginning of a long-term relationship with the streamer.
The 26th Mark Twain Prize will be produced by David Jammy and the creative team at Done+Dusted, the Kennedy Center’s producing partner for the Mark Twain Prize since 2018.
The Mark Twain Prize for American Humor recognizes individuals who have had an impact on American society in ways similar to novelist and essayist Samuel Clemens, colloquially known as Mark Twain. “As a social commentator, satirist, and creator of characters, Clemens was a fearless observer of society who delighted and informed onlookers with his uncompromising perspective on social injustice and personal folly,” the statement said.
Previous recipients are Richard Pryor (1998), Jonathan Winters (1999), Carl Reiner (2000), Whoopi Goldberg (2001), Bob Newhart (2002), Lily Tomlin (2003), Lorne Michaels (2004), Steve Martin (2005), Neil Simon (2006), Billy Crystal (2007), George Carlin (2008), Bill Cosby (2009; rescinded in 2018), Tina Fey (2010), Will Ferrell (2011), Ellen DeGeneres (2012), Carol Burnett (2013), Jay Leno (2014), Eddie Murphy (2015), Bill Murray (2016), David Letterman (2017), Julia Louis-Dreyfus (2018), Dave Chappelle (2019), Jon Stewart (2022), Adam Sandler (2023), and Kevin Hart (2024).
The event was created by the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, Bob Kaminsky, Peter Kaminsky, Mark Krantz, and John Schreiber.