State Champ Radio Music
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If Canadian music sounds a little bit sadder over the next year, there’s a good reason: Across the country, fans are grappling with the heartbreak of a painful World Series loss. In Toronto, where fans of all stripes tuned in, the city is feeling the weight.
For one glorious week, the city became the epicenter of not just sports, but culture. As the Toronto Blue Jays played the Los Angeles Dodgers for baseball‘s biggest prize, the game emanated not just from the Rogers Centre, but homes, bars and even music venues.
It wasn’t just that Toronto was watching baseball. Baseball became part of the city’s cultural rhythm, blurring the lines between the game and the music that soundtracks it. In that moment, baseball became a mirror for Canadian culture — uniting generations, artists and genres around a team that felt bigger than the city it played for.
For bands who had shows on the night of the pivotal Game 7 on Saturday night (Nov. 1), they got creative — watching the game on an iPad onstage, as the Beaches did, or projecting it right behind them, like Born Ruffians.
At the Rogers Centre, artists became part of the texture of the game. Baseball collector and superfan Geddy Lee of Rush was a regular sight as he remained glued to his seat throughout the series, Arkells frontman Max Kerman joined a busker to sing Tragically Hip songs for patriotic fans, Justin Bieber brought his wife Hailey to catch the game from Los Angeles, decked out in a Bieber Blue Jays jersey (for pitcher Shane Bieber, not Justin).
Even Drake, who is famously associated with the Toronto Raptors, jumped from his typical courtside spot at the Scotiabank Arena to a private box at Rogers Centre to watch Games 1, 6 and 7 of the World Series. At the OVO-presented Vybz Kartel concert in Toronto, the Jamaican dancehall star donned a custom Blue Jays jersey.
Where countless rappers drop bars about Steph Curry, Kobe Bryant or Allen Iverson, baseball’s cultural currency often feels as timeless as the game itself. Songs associated with baseball tend to date back four decades, if not 10, and reference players from a century ago: more Babe Ruth and Joe DiMaggio than Shohei Ohtani and Vladimir Guerrero Jr..
That might change now. From Vladdy’s “born ready” swagger to Ernie Clement’s power of friendship, the 2025 Blue Jays were full of lovable characters and storylines to latch onto. The demographics of baseball are also changing.
While basketball touts the game going global, baseball has been there and continues to spread far and wide across the world. This series had impact players from Canada, the United States, Dominican Republic, Venezuela, Mexico and more, while Dodgers players like Ohtani, Roki Sasaki and Yoshinobu Yamamoto have become cultural icons in their homeland of Japan. The Major League Baseball season began with a game in Japan and finished in Canada, the first time it’s ever started and finished outside of the U.S.
That sense of global reach — and the music and celebrity culture intertwined with it — is no accident. Uzma Rawn Dowler, Chief Marketing Officer of Major League Baseball, says the league has been intentionally weaving music into the fabric of the game.
“Music is such a staple in baseball,” says Dowler in an interview with Billboard Canada during Game 6 at the Rogers Centre in Toronto. “We have our player walk-up songs, but we’ve also found that music is a passion point for our young and diverse fans.”
That approach also extends to creating moments that feel authentic to each city. “We want to make sure we’re relevant to the market,” Dowler says. “Here in Toronto, we had Drake for Game 1 — and he was back for Game 6 [and then 7]. In Tokyo, for our opening game with the Dodgers and the Cubs, we had music acts that were relevant to that market.”
Dowler’s strategy — to make baseball feel as musically and culturally relevant as any other sport — is reflected on the field too.
“If you go in one of our clubhouses and you listen to the playlist, you’re going to hear every different type of music,” says EJ Aguado, Vice President of Player Engagement and Celebrity Relations at Major League Baseball. “You’re going to see and hear guys from all different walks of life, so many guys from different countries. You’re going to see that too with how different celebrities and artists show up here. It’s going to appeal to a bunch of different people and I think that’s just representative of our game.”
Asked about what he listens to to pump him up for games, former Toronto Blue Jay and current Los Angeles Dodger Teoscar Hernández told Billboard Canada he keeps the tempo low.
“For me, it’s more relax time,” he said. “I listen to a lot of Christian music. That’s what makes my mind and my head calm so I can be ready for the game.”
For his part, Blue Jay shortstop-turned-second baseman Bo Bichette said “I’m a huge [Justin] Bieber fan.” He loved seeing the Canadian star singer in L.A. supporting the Jays.
Players each had their own walkup music, which ran the gamut from System of a Down’s heavy rock song “B.Y.O.B” (Addison Barger) to Chappell Roan’s “Pink Pony Club” (Davis Schneider). Guerrero tends to use songs by Latin trap and reggaetón artist Eladio Carrión, who appeared at games in L.A., while Alejandro Kirk uses regional Mexican songs by artist Xavi. Ironically, the biggest Canadian tune was used by a Dodger, with Ohtani walking up to Michael Bublé’s version of “Feeling Good” — something that gave diehard Jays fan Bublé mixed feelings.
You could feel the city, and the country, coming together to unite fans of all ages, and that was reflected in its soundtrack too. The Weeknd collaborated with the Blue Jays for exclusive merch, while Abel Tesfaye narrated a hype-up video for Rogers Sportsnet. A rerecorded version of Queen’s “I Want It All” with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra became the team’s rallying cry.
This season, Scarborough artist Azeem Haq teamed up with rapper Choclair for a new version of the Blue Jays’ classic seventh inning stretch theme song “OK Blue Jays.” During the playoffs, the song was played on Sportsnet and trended on Instagram reels as fans used the song to cheer on the team. The song, which plays off the 1993 World Series-referencing line “like Carter did to Philly” from Choclair’s 1990 CanCon hit “Let’s Ride,” references every era of the Blue Jays and all of their playoff theatrics.
Haq tells Billboard Canada he was actually at the ’92 and ’93 World Series where the Blue Jays won back-to-back championships, attending the games with his uncle and father, and now he’s happy to bring the fandom into the new era for his four nephews, who all appear on the track. “It’s a generational thing,” he says. “My dad handed the love down to me, I’m handing it down to my nephews.”
This time around, political statements didn’t capture conversation the same way as they did for the NHL’s Four Nations tournament that pitted Canada and the United States against each other during a tense time of international relations earlier this year. There was notable backlash to singers changing the lyrics to “O Canada” before World Series games — JP Saxe singing “home on native land” (first sung by Jully Black) and Rufus Wainwright borrowing the “that only us command” line first used by Chantal Kreviazuk in that earlier hockey tournament.
There was also fan backlash to a Game 2 performance by Jonas Brothers, who played a song following a touching Stand Up To Cancer segment between innings. Where the halftime performance is an integral part of the Super Bowl, MLB games don’t have as natural a mid-game music segment (though for her part, Dowler says the amount of time between innings was the same as previous tributes; they just went to Jonas Brothers instead of a commercial).
Still, there was a concerted effort to bring star power to the series. In L.A., celebrities like Brad Pitt and Sydney Sweeney showed up to the game, while Toronto set up a red carpet-like photo op with the Commissioner’s Trophy for celebrities like P.K. Subban, Jerry O’Connell and Vampire Diaries‘ Paul Wesley to pose with. In Toronto, Pharrell Williams opened the series with gospel group Voices of Fire for a flashy version of the American national anthem.
Even amid the heartbreak, something shifted. Baseball, often seen as the slower, quieter sport, suddenly felt alive in the country’s cultural bloodstream. In Toronto, it felt like one of the biggest moments of collective pride and energy since the 2019 Toronto Raptors championship — something the city has been begging for since the pandemic.
Game 7 of the 2025 World Series was reportedly the most watched baseball game since 2017, garnering 5 million more viewers than Game 7 of this year’s NBA Finals. It feels like baseball is more culturally relevant than ever, and the nail-biting Blue Jays-Dodgers World Series was a major part of that.
“I think we’re in the middle of the crest of the wave right now,” Dowler says, speaking about the worldwide cultural resonance of the sport. “This should not be unexpected for baseball anymore. This is what fans should expect from MLB — and that’s what we’re really, really excited about.”
“It’s great to bring music artists out here and show that the biggest stars are at baseball’s biggest stage,” says Aguado, noting that the celebrity calls they make are to real baseball fans, not just recognizable names. “This is the centre stage of the sports universe right now and we have the biggest and brightest on the field and off the field here in one place.”
For four games during the World Series, that place was Toronto. It ended with a gutting result, but it reignited a passion for baseball that will outlive 2025 — and might even spawn a few new Blue Jays anthems.
This article was originally published by Billboard Canada.
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After turning the Broadway smash Wicked into a blockbuster film, starring Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo, last fall, director Jon M. Chu and supervising music editor Jack Dolman are returning later this month with the second part of the musical adaptation, Wicked: For Good, to bring the story of Elphaba, Glinda and Oz back to the big screen once again.
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Successfully translating the songs and script of a beloved musical onto film is no easy feat, but the task was made even more challenging from Chu and his team when it was decided to bisect the story into two separate parts. It called for some creative solutions to build out Wicked: For Good into a story that can stand on its own, and as part of this retooling of the show’s second act, Chu and Dolman worked with composer Stephen Schwartz to craft two new songs — “The Girl in the Bubble,” sung by Grande, and “No Place Like Home,” sung by Erivo.
There were other challenges for Chu as well — famously, the director opted for all of the songs to be sung live while filming, presenting a number of technological challenges when editing the film in post-production, and while trying to make the songs larger than life, the sheer scale of the cast, choreography and sets made the ensemble numbers a remarkable juggling act.
But if anyone is up for the task, it’s Chu. He has had a lot of experience directing music and dance-focused films in the past, including his adaptation of Lin Manuel Miranda’s In the Heights. He also worked on multiple films in the Step Up franchise and Justin Bieber’s early concert film Never Say Never.
To walk Wicked fans through the process of adapting the songs of Wicked for the screen, the creation of two new songs, and what they’ve learned from working with top musicians like Grande, Erivo, Miranda and Bieber, Chu and Dolman joined Billboard‘s new music industry podcast, On the Record w/ Kristin Robinson, this week.
Below is an excerpt of that conversation.
Watch or listen to the full episode of On the Record on YouTube, Spotify or Apple Podcasts here, or watch it below.
There are two new songs in Wicked: For Good which were not included in the original stage production. How did you work with Stephen Schwartz to make sure the new songs felt like they still fit with the original ones?
Chu: All credit to Stephen Schwartz, he had to have such an open mind and not be precious about what he wrote, and be open to new themes [and songs]. Because I knew by splitting the movie into two — well, one, that was a big decision, but I needed the room, otherwise too many songs would be cut in a one-movie version and wouldn’t be Wicked to me.
I knew this was the first time Wicked was going to be crystallized forever, and so I really wanted to be true to the musical that I fell in love with. I felt the duty to make sure it was Wicked in whatever form. By splitting it into two, then you have to face more questions in the second act, because that’s where I wanted to get closer to these girls. I didn’t just want it to be about Dorothy dropping in and the plot moving. I wanted to understand, once they made the choice to go different ways after “Defying Gravity, how hard those consequences really are.
There was no scene or song yet that let’s us getting closer to Elphaba and understanding how it feels —how lonely it is — to be courageous and make a hard choice. She faces the question of ‘why defend a home that doesn’t even want you?’ The same thing goes with Glinda — we never get to see the moment [in the musical] where she decides to break out and to pop her bubble. So, I knew we wanted to either tackle this in new scenes or songs for those two moments, and of course, Schwartz was like, “It’s a song. I know what it is. Give me 48 hours.” And he started sending me voice memos, which is a really fun thing to get in the middle of the day.
I can’t imagine getting a voice memo from Stephen Schwartz.
Chu: It’s pretty epic. One thing about Stephen that I dont think people know is that he is a great storyteller — not just writing music and lyrics, which he’s always fantastic with — but he also prioritizes storytelling and character before anything else. t’s not about necessarily the melody for him, it’s about is this telling the story, the feeling that you need for this story. And I love that about him.
Jack, as music editor, I know it’s been said before that throughout the filming of Wicked Cynthia and Ariana were singing live, but what’s the mix between singing live versus doing some pickups to smooth things out in the record studio later on?
Dolman: There’s very little of that kind of pickup material at all. It was like being in a candy store all the time. You have these vocals and you have alternate visual takes. And John can speak to this, the alternate visual takes are going to be chosen for a variety of reasons by the director whether that’s performance reasons, for emotional reasons, but each one has these incredible vocals so how do you even begin to choose? Working with singers at the caliber of Cynthia and Ariana is something that I don’t know if I’ll ever have the chance to be able to do again. And it just meant that you had this embarrassment of riches. You could swap out one live syllable of a vowel in one word with another one, and it would, it would embolden the character in that moment, and it was just incredible to be able to work with that.
Jon, As you’re trying to edit the film and create that final product for Wicked, how did you make decisions based on the fact that sometimes one vocal performance might be your favorite for the music, but also a different shot might be your favorite for the visual?
Chu: It was always a give and take, but when you have the best singers in the world you have a lot of control because when I’m on set I’m not worrying about if they are a little sharp or flat, they are always on. It was great and freeing to let them be live and it is something that we didn’t necessarily expect in the beginning.
But if you look at the film as a whole, we all had to agree on what our philosophy is on a musical movie. Because, I think, anyone taking on a musical movie could do in different ways. Some people want to have such clean tracks, no footsteps, no door closing, like they just it want to feel like it’s an album when you go into songs, but that’s just not my philosophy. That’s not why I love music or musicals or movement.
So to me, it was like, “How do you make it feel like it is emerging from the character just as naturally as dialog?” So yes, it might be a little bit messier. You might hear the chair move, and yes, we have to decide, like, how loud that chair is, is it on beat? Is it off? Is it okay that it’s off beat? That’s all part of the fabric what we’re doing.
Jon, you’ve just worked with so many great musicians as a filmmaker, from Justin Bieber, Lin-Manuel Miranda, Cynthia Erivo, Ariana Grande. I’m wondering, has there been anything that has surprised you with how these people work?
Chu: I feel very lucky. I learned a lot from each of them. When I think about Lin-Manuel Miranda, I don’t believe in genius. I think people can make genius things, but I don’t think people are just geniuses. However, Lin is pretty as close as you can get. His voice messages of songs are amazing and insane. He has great understanding of language. I think that’s the thing I learned the most, is how important lyrics are. I had done dance movies, and I had done movement stuff and and so I knew how to find the lyricism and musicality in that, but lyrics were so important In The Heights, and I had to make room for that, and I had to understand that and he had to teach me a little bit.
I think I felt that similarly with even Justin Bieber, even at 14 years old — no matter what you say about him, he was doing big shows. And in the tour bus, he’d be alone playing video games after coming down from the show, and then he would go — just naturally, as a kid — to his computer, and he would start writing music in every city he was in. He had a folder from every city and in those folders were tracks and tracks of stuff that he was doing alone. None of this was ever going to be released. It was him as a 14-year-old doing some amazing stuff, but it wasn’t, quote, unquote, “part of his brand” or whatever at that moment. I knew very early, “Oh, this kid is, like, the real deal. He loves music. He’s going to do this for the rest of his life. This is not a performance. This is just what he does.”
I felt that with Ari and Cynthia as well. What I love about someone like Ariana is she’s also like a tech nerd — like, she gets in that Pro Tools and gets down. Like, she wanted to talk about craft with me and in the tech of it all. When she sees that computer and she sits down, it’s like — she is fast and she knows exactly where to go. I thought that was so beautiful.
And Cynthia obviously knows her stuff inside and out. She has such great taste and opinions about how her voice is. So all of them were different, in a way, but all of them were about craft. It was not about the performance of being a star at all. All of them [are doing what] fulfills them as a musician. They’re not focused on the red carpet — even though they do that very well, too.
Tell me about “No Place Like Home,” Elphaba’s new song in the film.
Chu: “No Place Like Home” is a nod to the L. Frank Baum book… Stephen really brought this to the table and said, “You know what happens when you start to question the thing that you’ve been fighting for? What happens when your home doesn’t even want you alive? Is home a place or is it an idea? And if it’s an idea, why do you need to be here for it? Should we just leave?” I think those questions, at least for me, I’ve always wondered about where Elphaba sits with this. Stephen already had an insight on that through this song. It was really cool to hear it for the first time.
When did you show Cynthia and Ariana these new songs?
Chu: The first time the girls had ever heard it was the first time we all got together at my house for dinner. I was about to leave for London to shoot the film so everything was moved out, but there was a piano in there because the person moving in brought their family piano and moved that in early.
So we all had dinner. This is at the end of COVID lockdown so we hadn’t all seen each other in person. And Stephen Schwartz, Winnie Holzman and two girls are there the first time. And the girls are together in front of us — they never did chemistry read together — and Schwartz got on the piano and started playing their new songs for them. They got to listen to [“No Place Like Home”] in front of us, and they just, I mean, there was lots of tears. It was just one of those great moments.
And then he sang the other one for for Ari [“The Girl in the Bubble”], and then he started playing “For Good,” and he’s like, “Shall we?” And they just did it for the first time together. And at that moment, I took my kids out of their bedrooms, and I was like, “You better watch this thing right now. This is history.” When they sang, it was like a revelation — like, “Oh my goodness, the world does not know what’s about to happen.”
I didn’t realize those songs were written so early, during COVID lockdown. Did Steven Schwartz take into account Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo’s voices specifically when writing these extra songs?
Chu: Yeah, at that point, they had already been cast, but he we didn’t say anything to them yet. I don’t think, well, maybe they knew, but they didn’t know what the song was or how it was going to be. When they came over that day, I was sharing costume designs and some production designs with them, so they were getting a lot that day just dumped on them to get a sense of it all. Everything would evolve though. The songs and images would evolve over time, but this was a starting point to get us there.
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Luke Combs, Lainey Wilson and Shaboozey are among the initial lineup of performers for the upcoming 59th annual CMA Awards.
The Country Music Association and ABC revealed the first round of performers for the Nov. 19 awards ceremony, with the lineup also featuring performances from Ella Langley, Megan Moroney, Shaboozey, Zach Top, Tucker Wetmore and Stephen Wilson Jr.
Wilson, the reigning CMA female vocalist of the year and a six-time nominee this year, will perform during and host the event, which will air live from Nashville’s Bridgestone Arena on ABC, and will stream the following day on Hulu.
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Combs will offer a rendition of his single “Back in the Saddle,” while six-time nominee this year Langley will perform her new song “Choosin’ Texas,” and reigning CMA new artist of the year and six-time nominee this year Moroney will perform “6 Months Later.”
Top, who has five nominations, will offer a performance of “Guitar,” while new artist of the year nominee Wetmore will perform his hit “Wind Up Missin’ You.” Wilson Jr., also a new artist of the year nominee, will offer a rendition of Ben E. King’s “Stand By Me.”
The evening will also feature plenty of collaborations, as Combs will join BigXthaPlug for their song “Pray Hard,’ while Shaboozey will team with Wilson Jr. to perform their collaboration “Took a Walk.”
More performers and presenters for the 59th Annual CMA Awards will be revealed leading up to the ceremony. This year, the nominees for the entertainer of the year trophy are Combs, Wilson, Cody Johnson, Chris Stapleton and Morgan Wallen. Wallen is also the reigning CMA entertainer of the year.
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Following Ozzy Osbourne’s July 22 death, the legendary rocker makes his presence known on the TouchTunes charts for the third quarter of 2025, paced by a No. 2 debut on the TouchTunes Artists Chart.
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The TouchTunes charts for the third quarter of the year track the most played songs and artists on TouchTunes jukeboxes from July 1 to Sept 30, with the Frontline ranking inclusive of music released in the last 18 months, followed by the Catalog tally for any music that was released more than 18 months ago. The TouchTunes Artists Chart tracks the same period, combining all of an artist’s plays across both rankings. TouchTunes has jukeboxes in over 60,000 locations worldwide. Its data is not factored into other Billboard charts.
Osbourne’s music had not been featured on TouchTunes’ charts since the songs-based rankings’ inception in the second quarter of 2024 or on the Artists survey since it began in the first quarter of 2025. But after his July death, he vaulted onto the Artists tally at No. 2, behind only Morgan Wallen, who has reigned for all three of the ranking’s iterations so far.
On the TouchTunes Catalog Chart, Osbourne appears three times, twice under his own name. “Mama, I’m Coming Home” leads the trio at No. 3, while “No More Tears” enters at No. 24. The former peaked at No. 28 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1992, while the latter reached No. 71 the same year, both via the 1991 album No More Tears.
The third Osbourne-related song to chart, meanwhile, is Black Sabbath’s “War Pigs,” which enters at No. 21. The 1970 track stems from Osbourne’s time fronting the rock band and is featured on its sophomore release, Paranoid.
Both Osbourne and the original iteration of Black Sabbath performed at a star-studded final concert, Back to the Beginning, on July 5 in Birmingham, England.
Wallen’s reign on the Artists ranking, meanwhile, is assisted by music from his newest album, I’m the Problem, which was released in May, meaning the latest TouchTunes charts are the first full-quarter period the majority of the LP’s songs have been available. As such, one of the Frontline list’s big movers for the quarter is Wallen’s “What I Want,” featuring Tate McRae, which vaults 18 positions to No. 6 in its second quarter on the tally. Additionally, “I Got Better” and “20 Cigarettes” debut at Nos. 11 and 12, respectively.
In all, Wallen appears across the Frontline and Catalog charts 10 times this quarter — eight times on Frontline and twice on Catalog. That equals his count from the second quarter of 2025; “I Got Better” and “20 Cigarettes” replace “Lies Lies Lies” on Frontline, while “Last Night” departs from Catalog.
The Frontline and Catalog No. 1s are the same as they’ve been since their inception, as Shaboozey’s “A Bar Song (Tipsy)” reigns on the former while Chris Stapleton’s “Tennessee Whiskey” tops the latter. A change is coming soon, though, as “A Bar Song” is approaching its move to catalog status 18 months removed from its release.
Other Frontline movement includes debuts for songs from Alex Warren, Blake Shelton, Jessie Murph, Cardi B, Justin Bieber and Gavin Adcock. Murph in particular starts at No. 21 with “Touch Me Like a Gangster,” while her “Blue Strips” lifts 7-4 for a new peak.
Finally, the genre check-in: according to TouchTunes, the rock genre accounted for 39% of its plays across both Frontline- and Catalog-eligible titles, a 1% increase over quarter two and again the dominant genre on the platform. Country is second at 22%, though its dominance of Frontline-eligible songs remains, accounting for 41% of plays, followed by pop (19%), rap (14%) and rock (12%).
See all rankings below.
TouchTunes Frontline Chart
“A Bar Song (Tipsy),” Shaboozey (=)
“I’m the Problem,” Morgan Wallen (=)
“Pink Pony Club,” Chappell Roan (=)
“Blue Strips,” Jessie Murph (+3)
“I Never Lie,” Zach Top (-1)
“What I Want,” Morgan Wallen feat. Tate McRae (+18)
“I Had Some Help,” Post Malone feat. Morgan Wallen (-2)
“You Look Like You Love Me,” Ella Langley feat. Riley Green (-2)
“Just in Case,” Morgan Wallen (-1)
“All the Way,” BigXthaPlug feat. Bailey Zimmerman (+8)
“I Got Better,” Morgan Wallen (debut)
“20 Cigarettes,” Morgan Wallen (debut)
“Ordinary,” Alex Warren (debut)
“Not Like Us,” Kendrick Lamar (-5)
“Texas,” Blake Shelton (debut)
“Nokia,” Drake (-5)
“Messy,” Lola Young (-4)
“Love Somebody,” Morgan Wallen (-8)
“Luther,” Kendrick Lamar with SZA (-5)
“I’m a Little Crazy,” Morgan Wallen (-4)
“Touch Me Like a Gangster,” Jessie Murph (debut)
“Outside,” Cardi B (debut)
“Daisies,” Justin Bieber (debut)
“Last One To Know,” Gavin Adcock (debut)
“I Am Not Okay,” Jelly Roll (re-entry)
TouchTunes Catalog Chart
“Tennessee Whiskey,” Chris Stapleton (=)
“I Love This Bar,” Toby Keith (=)
“Mama, I’m Coming Home,” Ozzy Osbourne (debut)
“Lose Control,” Teddy Swims (-1)
“Friends in Low Places,” Garth Brooks (-1)
“Sweet Child o’ Mine,” Guns N’ Roses (+11)
“Simple Man,” Lynyrd Skynyrd (-1)
“Brown Eyed Girl,” Van Morrison (+7)
“Neon Moon,” Brooks & Dunn (-4)
“Whiskey Glasses,” Morgan Wallen (-2)
“I Think I’ll Just Stay Here and Drink,” Merle Haggard (-4)
“Drinkin’ Problem,” Midland (-3)
“Copperhead Road,” Steve Earle (-3)
“Family Tradition,” Hank Williams Jr. (-2)
“Fat Bottomed Girls,” Queen (-1)
“Rockstar,” Nickelback (-5)
“Thunderstruck,” AC/DC (+1)
“In the Air Tonight,” Phil Collins (+4)
“Cowgirls,” Morgan Wallen feat. ERNEST (=)
“Don’t Stop Believin’,” Journey (-7)
“War Pigs,” Black Sabbath (debut)
“Pour Some Sugar on Me,” Def Leppard (+2)
“Something in the Orange,” Zach Bryan (=)
“No More Tears,” Ozzy Osbourne (debut)
“Should’ve Been a Cowboy,” Toby Keith (debut)
TouchTunes Artists Chart
Morgan Wallen (=)
Ozzy Osbourne (debut)
Toby Keith (-1)
Chris Stapleton (-1)
Lynyrd Skynyrd (+1)
AC/DC (-2)
Zach Bryan (=)
Drake (=)
Shaboozey (-4)
George Strait (=)
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SZA is minding her own business. In a GQ cover story published Thursday (Nov. 6), the hitmaker spoke about how she’s chosen to stay out of two major feuds that have gone down recently in the music world — Drake versus Kendrick Lamar and Nicki Minaj versus, well, her.
Starting with the beef between two of her frequent collaborators, SZA — who recently co-headlined a stadium tour with Dot but has been friends with ex-boyfriend Drizzy for years — addressed why she chose not to take sides when one of rap’s biggest clashes on record unfolded last year. “It was something between two grown-a– men, so why would I insert myself between something between two grown-a– men, you know?” she told the publication.
“I feel like that’s how everybody felt — with the exception of people who didn’t feel that way,” SZA continued. “I didn’t really have any stake, per se. Obviously, I love Kendrick. I’m signed to [Top Dawg Entertainment]. That’s my family. Obviously, I’ve known Drake for so long and we have a beautiful rapport. And, obviously, it’s always unfortunate when the unfortunate occurs.”
Despite her diplomacy throughout the back-and-forth, fans couldn’t help but wonder last year how SZA felt about two of her longtime friends — both of whom have helped her score some of the biggest hits of her career with their collaborations — going toe to toe. Tension had been brewing for years, but the feud reached a fever pitch in the spring of 2024 when the two men started lobbing searing diss tracks at one another left and right, including Lamar’s Billboard Hot 100-topping “Not Like Us.”
But while she didn’t necessarily take sides on a personal level, SZA was certainly caught in the crossfire professionally. On the one hand, she served as the Compton rapper’s main guest artist in his 2025 Super Bowl Halftime Show — during which he openly taunted his foe while performing “Not Like Us” — but on the other, she also sang her Drake duet “Rich Baby Daddy” every night on the Grand National Tour, her joint trek with Lamar. (“Why wouldn’t I?” she told the publication of putting the track on the setlist. “I don’t know why I wouldn’t be celebrating some s–t that I ate up.”)
Protecting her peace proved more difficult, however, when the Queen of Rap began firing off increasingly mean-spirited posts about her on X this past summer. While in the midst of dissing both Roc Nation CEO Desiree Perez and Top Dawg president Terrence “Punch” Henderson — who used to be SZA’s manager — Minaj dragged SZA into the mix with repeated insults about her appearance.
After getting in a few shots of her own during the back-and-forth on X, SZA stepped away. Months later, she told GQ of Minaj, “I don’t know her.”
“We have no connection to each other,” she continued. “There’s no backstory. Like, there was no through-line narrative. It was just like, ‘Roc Nation’ … I don’t know where it came from. That’s not even my place to correct a narrative that I don’t got s–t to do with.”
“It was a little strange,” SZA added. “It was very like, ‘Why?’ But also, you know, ‘I guess.’ ”
See SZA on the cover of GQ below.
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The Ball brothers are teaming up again — this time off the court and outside the booth. Lonzo and LiAngelo Ball are returning to the podcast world with their new series, The Ball and the Family Podcast.
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“The chemistry hits different when it’s real family,” Lonzo tells Billboard. “We joke, argue, push each other, hype each other up — you’ll see that. People will also see how our relationship has evolved, from kids in the backyard to dealing with everything we’ve been through.”
Set to debut Nov. 11, The Ball and the Family Podcast will feature 40 episodes with guests from across the sports and entertainment world, including Michael Porter Jr., Larry Nance Jr., Myles Turner, Donovan Mitchell and Jake Paul. The premiere episode will feature ESPN’s Stephen A. Smith. The show will stream exclusively on the Betr app, a gaming and media platform cofounded by Joey Levy and Jake Paul.
“You can come on the show and really be yourself. No filters. Real conversations. It’s your voice, heard by the world,” LiAngelo tells Billboard, promising a space for authenticity.
Though both brothers juggle demanding schedules, they’ll host remotely: Lonzo — now with the Cleveland Cavaliers — will record from Cleveland and on the road, while LiAngelo will be based in Los Angeles. They will also share hosting duties alongside Darren “DMo” Moore and Anthony “Ant” Salazar.
Beyond their shared ties to basketball and music, the Ball brothers aim to explore deeper conversations and dream of hosting guests like Tom Brady, Kevin Hart, Zendaya, Barack Obama, and Leonardo DiCaprio.
“We want to go deeper than basketball and music,” Lonzo says. “Everyone always sees the highlights, but we want to take people behind the scenes — family dynamics, growth, what we’ve learned. Real life conversations, but still fun.”
