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Selena Gomez and Benny Blanco are teaming up for their new musical era, and the engaged couple dropped their newest song, a collaboration with Gracie Abrams titled “Call Me When You Break Up,” on Thursday (Feb. 20).
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Gomez, Blanco and Abrams joined Zane Lowe on Apple Music 1 this week to discuss the team-up, where the “That’s So True” singer opened up about how natural the song’s creation was. “For as long as I’ve cared about music, both of their work has been in my life,” Abrams said of Gomez and Blanco. “So anything that they want from me is a yes forever. And I just felt really grateful for the opportunity. And also just the song was immediately so stuck in my head as soon as I heard it for the first time. And of course, the opportunity to write my verse on it just happened so quickly, which I think is such a testament to how addicting the song is I think.”
“Call Me When You Break Up” is set to be featured on Gomez and Blanco’s upcoming joint album, I Said I Love You First, which is scheduled to arrive on March 21. The newly engaged duo announced the project last week, while also dropping its lead single, “Scared of Loving You.”
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Gomez discussed working with her fiancé in the interview with Lowe, sharing, “It just felt like it was a little taste of what we are and how we made this together, and how much we loved it and how much we love each other. And it just felt like it was meant to be.”
Blanco then gushed over Gomez, noting, “She’s had such a journey in life, both personally, medically, so many other things. She makes you just believe it. She’s like, ‘I’m not scared of dying young or anyone,’ but she’s scared of the fact of losing someone that she’s finally created a bond with where she feels comfortable enough. And somehow by God’s grace, I happen to be that person. I have no idea why, but I am.”
Watch the “Call Me When You Break Up” music video here.
Since releasing her first project, 2021’s Stones, country singer-songwriter Allie Colleen has been focused on building her own career and putting her own musical talents and vision at the forefront. She’s toured with Jelly Roll and Lee Brice and issued songs like “Halos and Horns” and “Tattoos.”
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But on her new five-song EP, Sincerely, Rolling Stone, she’s pulling back the curtain, revealing every facet of her life and personality.
She crafted Sincerely, Rolling Stone by turning to a close-knit group of friends and fellow songwriters, including Lockwood Bar, Megan Barker, Eric Dodd, Stephen Hunley, John Kraft and Craig Wilson.
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She wrote “Rolling Stone (Sincerely),” the first song written for the project, with Hunley, Dodd and Connor Sweet after coming off the road in 2021. The song sheds light on how having a fanbase who intimately knows an artist can bring immense joy for the act, but also carry with it an emotional weight for artists who are always on the move.
“It’s like Allie Colleen’s ‘Turn the Page.’ It’s my road song,” Colleen says, referencing Bob Seger’s classic about fame and life on the road. “It’s just saying, ‘I wish so badly that I could give you guys everything on the planet and be that, because you put artists on a pedestal, but I can’t.’ I champion Ashley McBryde, and to Ashley, that’s probably a little heavy — because I know I’m not the only person who has put this artist on a pedestal, whose music has saved me in seasons of my life. I’m very lucky to get that as an artist from certain people in my audience as well. So ‘Rolling Stone’ lands on [the lyric], ‘I want to be your rock, and I’m sorry that I’m not — sincerely your Rolling Stone.’ It’s my little sincerity message to my audience and to anyone who’s cared, especially the people who have followed me throughout the last couple of years.”
Sincerely, Rolling Stone also marks the first time Colleen has released a song inspired by her relationship with her father, Garth Brooks.
“Household Name,” which she wrote with Hunley and Dodd, opens with a roll of thunder, which may have some music fans instantly drawing ties to Brooks’ own 1991 two-week Country Airplay hit “The Thunder Rolls.” (“I listened to 47 minutes of consecutive thunder pre-roll to pick that out, and I think it’s perfect,” Colleen says).
“I write about my mamas all the time,” Colleen says, referring to her mother Sandy Mahl and her stepmother, Trisha Yearwood. “I have so many mama songs out there for both of my moms, and that always poses this silly question in the back of people’s brains — ‘What do you feel about your dad?’ And I’m like, ‘You guys can’t hear a song about my dad and just hear a song about Allie’s dad. You already have such a narrative of that.’ So I’ve never done a dad song.”
Colleen continues, “I’ve always kept those really personal, and just a between-him-and-I kind of thing. This was the first time I felt I could recognize my dad for who he was to me as an artist, and the way that I have never even second-guessed myself as an artist, because I saw it every day. I saw just a crystal-clear example of this is feasible. Someone can work their tail off and do this for a living. My dad has worked his tail off his whole life for everything he has — and that’s why I’m the way that I am, because I want to be just like my dad. I feel like so many people separate us because I don’t involve my family in my career in a commercial way, but I couldn’t be more clear that I am just like my dad, and I’m approaching my career like he did, which is working my tail off. I think ‘Household Name’ gave me an opportunity to say that.”
Elsewhere, “Oklahoma Mountains” touches on the grind any artist faces in building a career, but also includes the lyric, “If there ain’t no mountains in Oklahoma, then why have I always had to climb/ Carrying a shadow on my shoulder” — a line Colleen says she struggled with including.
“’Carrying this shadow on my shoulder’ is one of the lines I fought for a long time on, like, maybe it should just be ‘saddle,’” she explains. “[If someone] sees ‘saddle,’ you’re just going to see that she’s just a hard worker. I don’t want there to be any resentment toward what people think that shadow is. I’ll be honest—Allie is a bigger shadow to herself than her dad is. We all are. I compete against Allie every day; I’ve never even had to compete against Garth, not one time. I hope the listener finds resilience from this song and I hope they recognize what their own mountains are.”
At the time of the interview, Colleen noted that Brooks hadn’t heard the entire project, though she had sent him “Oklahoma Mountains” and “Household Name.”
“We did have that vetting process moment where I want to reflect well on my family,” Colleen. “So, I do send him songs that could ever possibly have anything to do with him. And he’s been nothing but encouraging towards me, and has never been controlling of any narratives at all… he’s excited for me, as well as for this project to come out.”
The EP ends with the ballad ‘Nicotine,’ a co-write with Barker and Bar that likens a tendency to fall hard into relationships to the insatiable pull of nicotine.
“Cigarettes are quick fixes, even if you do 17 a day,” she says. “For me, my quick fix is relationships. That is something that I lean into. So, this was just something I wanted to tuck away in this beautiful little project of sincerity of what my world looks like, between being the daughter that I am, the partner that I am and all of these things that Allie is. I do think ‘Nicotine’ is one of the more commercial songs on the album. The verse itself is literally that eerie time and space where you’re kind of holding your breath, because you got a cig between your lips and you’re about to light your lighter, and then your chorus strikes that, and then the second verse comes in and there’s your exhale.”
Since the beginning of her career, Colleen has had a view toward building her artistry and brand on her own. She studied songwriting at Nashville’s Belmont University and began making connections with fellow writers early on, wading into the Nashville’s co-writing circles — something she says has been an immense blessing, but also a challenge.
“I came to this town as a solo writer, and I’m so happy in my co-writing world, but I would be lying to say that Nashville didn’t discourage individual writing for me,” she relates. “I was going to publishing meetings and they were saying, ‘Can you write well in other rooms with our people?’ And I think that was because I was so young. I think it made sense, honestly, at the time for my age, but I think 28-year-old Allie is still holding on to, ‘Was I a good enough writer by myself?’”
Her next project will aim to answer that question, with Colleen setting out to write every song on the album alone.
“I’m hoping I’m brave enough to write the whole thing by myself, and again, just show up for Allie as a writer and prove that I’m the same writer that showed up in this town,” she says, “just better, because of my co-writers — but also because of the work that I’ve done on my own this last year of writing by myself again. I’m excited, but also a little scared because I don’t have anybody to blame for that project. Every creative decision is on you when it’s an all-solo thing.”
Still, that challenge falls squarely in line with her overall mission, which is to unravel the layers of her own perspectives, whether she’s co-writing songs or crafting them by herself — in short, to make sure she’s creating music that she is proud of, regardless of others’ opinions.
“Praise for anything other than authenticity doesn’t matter,” Colleen says.
New Music Latin is a compilation of the best new Latin songs and albums recommended by Billboard Latin and Billboard Español editors. Check out this week’s picks below.
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Christian Alicea, “Hello, What’s Up” (Therapist Music/Rimas Entertainment)
Christian Alicea kicks off new career chapter with a saucy salsa track called “Hello, What’s Up,” produced by DJ Buddha and Elliot. Marking his debut single under his new signing with Rimas Entertainment, the Puerto Rican artist delivers an infectious tropical tune with percussion, trombones, trumpets, and more, while his flirty vocals sing about a guy who’s trying to impress a girl with his English-speaking skills. “The girl I’m getting to know has me in love/ But she only speaks English and that’s the bad thing/ I became friends with the translator, but he’s tired/ Because every time I talk to her, I both him,” Alicea chants in the bilingual tune that perfectly captures his playful personality. — JESSICA ROIZ
Arthur Hanlon & Ángela Aguilar, “Bala Perdida” (Sony Music Latin)
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Arthur Hanlon and Ángela Aguilar gave us a taste of the magic they create together when they joined forces at the 2024 Billboard Latin Women in Music, where Aguilar sang her father’s “Me Vas a Extrañar” with Hanlon on piano. Now, the two team up once again for “Bala Perdida,” a heart-wrenching huapango full of soul and intensity, further powered by Aguilar’s ethereal vocals and Hanlon’s poignant piano. “From the moment I wrote this song, I could only hear it in Ángela’s voice,” Hanlon said in a statement. “No one else could bring it to life the way she does.” “Bala Perdida” — which Aguilar and Hanlon debuted on television during Premio Lo Nuestro 2025 on Feb. 20 — is the third single from the pianist’s upcoming album, a collection of original collaborations set for release in April. — GRISELDA FLORES
Ana Tijoux, “Serpiente de Madera” (Victoria Producciones SpA)
As the Chinese lunar calendar turned to the Year of the Serpent on Jan. 29, Ana Tijoux’s “Serpiente de Madera” unfolds with zodiacal symbolism intertwined with her origins — bringing to mind her breakout hit “1977,” also the year she was born under. The track — one of two from her new EP of the same name — illustrates her connection to the snake sign through the spoken word-like elegance over subtle panflute melodies and understated synths, by producers Eduardo Herrera and Tony Ramírez. Elegantly orating about universal vastness and human connection, the Chilean/French rapper’s delivery melds poetic prose with grace. She articulates, “Mirando galaxias con ojos pequeños, un telescopio en el cuerpo/ ese abrazo que eleva, ese que tiene magia,” finding potent expression in renewal. It captivates with its lyrical depth and fluidity, resulting in a piece that’s not just heard but felt. — ISABELA RAYGOZA
Morat, “Cuarto de Hotel” (Universal Music Spain)
With a piano tune reminiscent of the rock ballads of the ’80s and ’90s, Morat’s “Cuarto de Hotel” is an evocative song about a love that is difficult to forget. “Who put you under my pillow? Who kept you under my skin? You always arrive out of nowhere if I’m alone in a hotel,” the band sings in part of the lyrics. Driven by synthesizers, sweeping guitars and timbales-laden drums, the tempo of the song accelerates after the first chorus to offer the characteristic pop sound of the Colombian group, before returning to the piano that we hear in the beginning in a full-circle moment. “Cuarto de Hotel” is the main single of the Spanish film El Secreto del Orfebre (The Goldsmith’s Secret), an adaptation of the novel of the same name by Elia Barceló directed by Olga Osorio that premieres Feb. 28 in Spain. — SIGAL RATNER-ARIAS
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“Basically, I disappeared from the industry for almost two years,” Dove Cameron tells Billboard over a Zoom call, half-laughing. For patient fans of the singer-actor (as well as the less-than-patient ones clamoring for new music in the comments section of her Instagram), the wait is finally over.
Cameron unleashes “Too Much” on Friday (Feb. 21), a danceable kiss-off to a less-than-supportive lover. “If you say I’m too much/ Baby, go find less,” Cameron scoffs over throbbing synths and a dark, pounding beat, evoking the camp-drenched classics of Lady Gaga’s early years. “I’m sending warm regards/ And a box of your things in a black car.”
Though sonically divergent from her Billboard Hot 100 top 20 hit “Boyfriend,” “Too Much” is similarly inspired by a real-life incident of a guy being a dick. Several years ago, after a “beautiful night” out with a bunch of friends, Cameron and her then-partner got into a car. “I was like, ‘Wasn’t that such a nice night?’ And he said, ‘You know, people like you better when you talk less.’” At the time, Cameron panicked, thinking “Oh my God, did I totally read that wrong? Maybe everybody hates me.”
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In that sense, “Too Much” is a bit of a retcon re-do for Cameron, giving her the chance to say today what she wishes she could have told him at the time. “I had a realization one day that it’s not my job to make myself smaller to fit into a shape that you’re more comfortable holding,” she muses. “I just hope that anyone who’s young and struggling with feeling like they are too huge, too big wherever they go, they would hear this.”
The singer-actor says her break from the industry “churn,” during which she took the time for therapy and some serious “digging and excavation” into her personal pain and depression, helped give her the needed perspective to craft her next musical chapter — which will not be a sequel to 2023’s Alchemical: Volume 1. “I’m in such a different place in my life,” Cameron explains. “At this point in my life, I feel so, so seen and so loved, especially by my all my friends and my current partner.”
Cameron and Måneskin frontman Damiano David have been dating since at least Feb. 2024, and she says the relationship helped reorient her life. “We met, and it was just like, ‘This is exactly the path, and this makes sense. This person is going to be very important in my life in some way.’ And I started to find new sort of inspiration and step into myself in a way that I had never really done before,” Cameron says. David, who is currently promoting his own solo music apart from the Italian rock band, even inspired one of the songs she recorded during her recent “nine-to-five, five-days-a-week” studio sessions.
Although it’s hardly lighthearted, frothy pop, Cameron’s new material finds her dipping a toe into dance music, a genre she previously thought would be “incongruous” with her personality. “I didn’t think I could make happy music as a previously unhappy person, and this record was really healing for me in that way,” she says. “I just granted myself permission to remove all the judgments that I had around pop music and dance music,” she says, citing artists like Lady Gaga, Marina and Robyn as touchstones for her. “I’m having more fun than ever.”
Cameron also branched out and cleared another creative hurdle on the set of her latest acting project, an upcoming psychosexual thriller for Amazon Prime. “[Any acting project] has to have a challenge, and it sent me into a little bit of an anxiety crash because there’s nudity involved. I had always known that was something I wanted to tackle,” she explains. “If there’s anything I feel like I can’t do, then I feel like I have to do it in order to get to the next level of my own evolution. I was excited to prove myself wrong…. I basically just went into it blindly, super terrified, but knowing that it was the right thing to do, and very excited.”
While the project, based on the book 56 Days by Catherine Ryan Howard, doesn’t have a release date yet, Cameron is eager for people to see it. “Oh girl, I’m begging. I’m banging down the Amazon door,” she laughs. “I say ‘yes’ to very few acting projects lately, simply because it takes so long to get an album done and off the ground and mixed and mastered and all that, but this was very different and special to me. The script was so strong; I love a concept based on a novel because there’s so much source material to look at; and the character, Ciara, is incredible. She’s a dream character to play.”
Voletta Wallace, mother to rap icon The Notorious B.I.G., is dead at 78. Billboard confirmed Wallace’s death with Monroe County Coroner’s Office in Pennsylvania on Friday (Feb. 21).
“Voletta has died, on hospice care, at her residence in Stroudsburg, Penn.,” Monroe County Coroner Thomas Yanac tells Billboard. “Voletta died of natural causes.”
TMZ was the first to report that Wallace had passed away.
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A Jamaican immigrant, Wallace gave birth to The Notorious B.I.G. (born Christopher Wallace) on May 21, 1972, in Brooklyn, where she worked as a preschool teacher and raised Biggie as a single mother.
He went on to reach superstar status in a short time as a rapper while signed to Diddy’s Bad Boy Records, where he released a pair of albums, Ready to Die and Life After Death, the latter of which debuted atop the Billboard 200 and arrived just weeks after he was gunned down in Los Angeles on March 9, 1997, at just 24 years old.
Much of the the Brooklyn rap icon’s catalog is etched in rap lore as one of the pillars of East Coast hip-hop during the ’90s “golden era,” including hits such as “Juicy,” “Hypnotize,” “Ten Crack Commandments,” “Going Back to Cali,” “Mo Money Mo Problems” and many more.
Wallace launched the Christopher Wallace Memorial Foundation in her son’s memory and did whatever she could to uphold his legacy and protect his estate while building on the foundation he laid prior to his passing in 1997. She also served as a producer on the Notorious biopic, which brought her son’s life story to the silver screen in 2009. She was portrayed by Angela Bassett in the film.
The Notorious B.I.G. was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2020, and Voletta was present to accept the honor in her son’s place. “Today, I’m feeling great,” she told Billboard at the time. “As a mother, I’m extremely proud of his accomplishments. You know, I still see such a young man at a young age, and sadly, he’s not here to witness all this. But it’s an astute honor, and as a mother, I’m just elated for that.”
In recent months, Wallace’s Instagram account made posts celebrating her son’s rap achievements, which included 992 million Spotify streams in 2024 and eclipsing 2.5 billion all-time streams on Apple Music.
Voletta Wallace is survived by her grandchildren C.J. Wallace and T’yanna Wallace, who are Biggies kids.
Jerry Butler, the beloved Chicago soul singer, producer and, later, politician who began his career in the late 1950 singing alongside childhood friend Curtis Mayfield in the Impressions, has died at 85. According to the Chicago Sun-Times, Butler died on Thursday night (Feb. 20) of undisclosed causes after a long battle with Parkinson’s disease.
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Motown legend Smokey Robinson told the Sun-Times that Butler was “one of the great voices of our time,” lauding the singer who the Miracles vocalist had admired since he was a young man listening to the Impressions’ 1958 Billboard Hot 100 No. 11 hit “For Your Precious Love.”
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Working alongside singer/guitarist Mayfield — whom he’d met as a teenager singing in a church choir — Butler began his career in the Northern Jubilee Gospel Singers group before joining the Roosters, who in short order became known as The Impressions. The group struck gold off the bat with the Butler co-written “For Your Precious Love,” a slow-burning, yearning song inspired by a poem Butler wrote in high school — credited to Jerry Butler & the Impressions — that melded the friends’ church-based gospel roots with a stirring soul sound.
The single, released by Vee-Jay Records and ranked in 2003 as the No. 335 on Rolling Stone magazine’s 500 Greatest Songs of All Time list, would be one of only two Butler recorded with the group, followed up by that same year’s No. 29 Billboard R&B chart hit “Come Back My Love.” Tensions in the group over Butler’s first-billing status led to the singer going out on his own, though his first solo hit was a reunion with Mayfield on the 1960 Vee-Jay co-write “He Will Break Your Heart.” That song peaked at No. 7 on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart.
While Mayfield soon became a star in his own right thanks to his funky soul soundtrack to the 1972 blaxploitation film Superfly and such civil rights anthems as “People Get Ready,” Butler embarked on run of hits in the 1960s and 70s that included 38 career Hot 100 entries — including three top 10s — as well as 53 songs on the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs charts.
In 1961, Butler’s impressive vocal range and always fresh attire earned him the career-long nickname “The Iceman” from WDAS Philadelphia DJ George Woods, bestowed on the singer after he kept his cool and continued to sing after the PA system burned out on him at a Philly show.
He scored another top 10 hit in 1964 with the hopelessly-in-love ballad “Let It Be Me,” a collaboration with singer Betty Everett on the Everly Brothers-written song that appeared on their joint Delicious Together album and peaked at No. 5 on the Hot 100. Butler’s third top 10 song came in 1969 with the inspirational soul stirrer “Only the Strong Survive,” one of the singer’s collaborations with the hit songwriting team of Kenny Gamble and Leon Huff. The song appeared on his The Ice Man Cometh album and served as his highest-ever charting single after reaching No. 4 on the Hot 100, as well as spending two weeks at the top of the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart (then called the Billboard Black Singles Chart).
One of his most enduring hits, the song would later be covered by, among others, Elvis, Rod Stewart and Bruce Springsteen, who also made it the title of his 2022 R&B/soul covers solo album.
Gamble and Huff released a joint statement honoring their friend on Friday, saying, “We deeply and sincerely mourn the loss of our dear and longtime friend the great Jerry Butler, aka ‘The Iceman,’ for his cool, smooth vocals and demeanor,” they wrote. “Our friendship with Jerry goes back for more than 60 years both as an iconic artist and music collaborator with hit songs such as ‘Only the Strong Survive,’ ‘Western Union Man,’ ‘Never Gonna Give You Up’ and many more. We will really miss Jerry. He was a one of a kind music legend!”
Butler, whose vocals often climbed from a deep baritone to a crystal falsetto, would land Hot 100 hits in the 1950s, 60s and 70s, last charting on the singles tally in 1977 with “I Wanna Do It To You,” which peaked at No. 51.
His 53 career entries on the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop songs chart included 18 top 10s and four No. 1s, including “He Will Break Your Heart,” “Let It Be Me,” 1968’s “Hey, Western Union Man” and “Only the Strong Survive.” He last appeared on that chart in 1982 with the No. 83 hit “No Love Without Changes.” The singer also co-write a 1965 hit for then climbing soul singer Otis Redding, “I’ve Been Loving You Too Long,” one of Redding’s most beloved songs, which has been covered over the years by everyone from the Rolling Stones to Aretha Franklin, Ike & Tina Turner and country singer Barbara Mandrell.
In addition, Butler had 15 career entires on the Billboard 200 album chart, with The Ice Man Cometh representing his peak at No. 29, followed by 1969’s Ice On Ice (No. 41) and 1977’s Thelma & Jerry with Thelma Houston topping out at No. 53.
Butler was born in Sunflower, MS on Dec. 8, 1939 and moved to Chicago at age three, where he grew up in the since-demolished Cabrini-Green housing projects. With is biggest music years behind him by the early 1980s, Butler — who had earlier set up his own short-lived record label, Memphis Records and production company — pivoted to running a Chicago beer distributorship. He entered politics a few years later after being inspired by the city’s first Black Mayor, Harold Washington. Former Black Panther and longtime Chicago alderman Bobby Rush encouraged Butler to run for the Cook County Board of Commissioners in 1985, where the singer served three four-year terms before his retirement from public office in 2018.
The singer kept performing live into the early 2000s and hosted oldies R&B specials (Doo Wop 50, Rock Rhythm and Doo Wop) for PBS, as well as serving as the chairman of the board for the Rhythm and Blues Foundation. He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1991 as a member of the Impressions.
Over the years, his songs were sampled by a number of hip-hop acts, including Method Man on his 1994 Tical single “Bring the Pain” (which used bits of 1974’s “I’m Your Mechanical Man”), as well as Missy Elliott’s song of the same name from 2002. Snoop Dogg tapped Butler’s 1972 song “I Need You” for his 2006 Blue Carpet Treatment song “Think About It.”
Butler published his autobiography, Only the Strong Survive: Memoirs of a Soul Survivor, in 2000.
Check out some of Butler’s classics below.
The stratospheric success of Sabrina Carpenter’s Short n’ Sweet continues. The pop star’s sixth LP, which came out last August, has returned to the summit of the Official U.K. Albums Chart following the recent release of a deluxe version (Feb. 21).
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The new edition includes a remix of “Please Please Please” featuring Dolly Parton, plus bonus tracks “15 Minutes,” “Couldn’t Make It Any Harder,” “Busy Woman” and “Bad Reviews.”
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Upon arrival, the Short n’ Sweet saw Carpenter become the first female in history to score both the U.K.’s No. 1 album and single (“Taste”) simultaneously. It landed the second-biggest opening week of 2024 – only Taylor Swift’s The Tortured Poets Department outperformed it. The LP has now racked up three non-consecutive weeks at the top.
Earlier this week, meanwhile, the 25-year-old shared details of another huge outdoor London gig for the summer. On July 6, she’ll headline BST Hyde Park for the second time, following her previously sold-out show on July 5.
Tickets for Carpenter’s new date will go on sale at 10 a.m. GMT on Feb. 24 from the festival’s official website. She will be supported by Clairo and British star Olivia Dean on the day, with a full lineup expected to arrive soon.
Manic Street Preachers follow at No. 2 with their Critical Thinking, the Welsh rockers’ 15th LP. Over the course of four decades, the band has stacked up a further 14 top 10 U.K. albums, including two chart-toppers: 1998’s This Is My Truth Tell Me Yours and The Ultra Vivid Lament, released three years ago.
PartyNextDoor and Drake’s collaborative effort $ome $exy $ongs 4 U finishes at No. 3, while indie outfit The Wombats come in at No. 4 with Oh! The Ocean, their fifth U.K. top 10 album to date. Central Cee rounds out the top five with Can’t Rush Greatness, a chart mainstay since its release last month.North London singer-songwriter Louis Dunford, meanwhile, is celebrating his first top 10 appearance with Be Lucky finishing at No. 8.
Kendrick Lamar’s “Not Like Us” has soared to the top of the U.K.’s Official Singles Chart (Feb. 21).
The Drake diss track track, first released in May 2024, marks the Compton rapper’s maiden No. 1 hit in the U.K., thanks to exposure from his Super Bowl LIX Halftime Show earlier this month. His explosive performance has already become the most-watched halftime show in history, according to the NFL and Apple Music, surpassing 130 million viewers.
A recent U.K tour announcement with SZA has also continued to bolster Lamar’s current chart success. Two of the pair’s collabs, “Luther” and “All The Stars,” appear at No. 4 and No. 5 this week. He is also leading the pack in the U.S., too, as “Not Like Us” has returned to the summit of the BillboardHot 100 this week for the first time since last July.
Across an illustrious career, Lamar has notched up 11 top 10 singles in the U.K., from Taylor Swift team-up “Bad Blood” through to “Humble,” the lead single from his 2017 Pulitzer Prize-winning LP Damn.
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Following acclaimed performances on late-night chat programs including The Graham Norton Show and The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, Lola Young’s “Messy” comes in at No. 2, breaking her four-week run atop the charts. The track appears on her studio album This Wasn’t Meant for You Anyway, which was released in May 2024 via Island Records.
After taking to the stage at The BRIT Awards on March 1, Young will kick off her U.K. headlining tour the following week on March 3 at London’s O2 Forum Kentish Town. In April, she will perform at Coachella, ahead of a stacked festival season including major events such as Manchester’s Parklife and Reading & Leeds.
There’s also further chart dominance incoming from Sabrina Carpenter. Having recently released a deluxe edition of last year’s Short n’ Sweet LP, its focus track “Busy Woman” comes in at 10, while “Please Please Please” re-enters the top 10 for the first time in four months thanks to a remix with Dolly Parton (No. 9).
Elsewhere, Chappell Roan’s “Pink Pony Club” shimmies on up to No. 3. Further down the chart, AJ Tracey and Jorja Smith’s buzzy new collab “Crush” debuts at No. 23, while Sam Fender’s “People Watching” hops up five places to No. 26, coinciding with the release of his album of the same name.
J. Cole is back with his first new song of 2025, and used the track to express some fears about AI.
Cole returned with the song “Clouds” via his Inevitable blog on Thursday (Feb. 20). While the Dreamville leader used the track to ruminate on multiple topics, he also used DZL and Omen’s lush beat to speak on the power of artificial intelligence.
“Don’t buy, subscribe so you can just stream your content/ Like rent, you won’t own a thing/ Before long, all the songs the whole world sings’ll be generated by latest of AI regimes/ As all of our favorite artists erased by it scream/ From the wayside, ‘Aye, whatever happened to human beings?’” Cole spits.
The North Carolina rapper didn’t clarify much in his blog post about “Clouds,” but did detail his motivation behind dropping new music.
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“Just wanted to share,” he wrote. “Made this a few days ago, then I added a second verse and was like, ‘Man I got a blog now, I can put whatever I want up there.’ I didn’t have a title 20 minutes ago when I decided to really put this up. But now I got one…”
Elsewhere in the song, Cole also spit some bars about the attempted assassination of Donald Trump at a Philadelphia rally in June.
“I’m that bass in your trunk, the bullet that missed Trump/ The gun that jammed ’cause it seemed God had other plans,” Cole raps in the second verse.
The new track comes after J. Cole promised in a previous blog post he’d be more communicative with his fans.
“I knowwww mannnn. I’m off to a bad start with the consistency, but I’ma do better! Watch,” he wrote in part. “I been locked in on the music while also balancing family life. It’s a juggling act that a blog post wouldn’t do justice in explaining. But with that said, I’m back tending to this garden.”
“Clouds” is Cole’s first new song to emerge since he dropped the YouTube loosie “Port Antonio” last October. On the latter track, Cole addressed his divisive decision to apologize for dissing Kendrick Lamar and step away from a brewing rap battle with the GNX rapper.
Listen to “Clouds” here.
ROSÉ is showing some extra large love to JENNIE‘s new solo single, “ExtraL” featuring Doechii.
Shortly after “ExtraL” dropped Friday (Feb. 21), the New Zealand-born K-pop star shared a screenshot on her Instagram Story of her BLACKPINK bandmate’s new music video for the track and wrote, “this girlll,” with two heart emojis.
“ExtraL out now!!!,” ROSÉ added supportively.
On “ExtraL,” JENNIE and the Swamp Princess take turns on different verses before uniting on the track’s confidence-boosting chorus, speaking directly to their “ladies.” “Riding ’round, foreign cars/ Top down, staring at the stars/ Attitude, so don’t start,” they boast.
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The track will be featured on JENNIE’s upcoming album Ruby, which drops March 7; it will include previous singles “Mantra” and “Love Hangover,” featuring Dominic Fike. Four months after the project arrives, she’ll finally reunite with her BLACKPINK counterparts for a world tour, dates for which the band unveiled just three days prior to “ExtraL.”
The reunion — which will also come with new music, as ROSÉ recently confirmed — will put an end to more than a year of the foursome spending time apart to focus on solo projects. The “Number One Girl” singer’s debut album, rosie — led by Billboard Global 200-topper “APT.” featuring Bruno Mars — arrived in December, while bandmate JISOO’s EP Amortage dropped on Valentine’s Day ahead of LISA’s Feb. 28-slated album Alter Ego.
Throughout their time apart, however, the ladies have continued to support one another from afar — something JENNIE opened up about in her January Billboard cover story. “We are all so caught up with life,” she said at the time. “Obviously, we can’t be calling each other every day.”
“Even though we know we can’t see each other so much, it doesn’t really feel any different than all the other years because we know we’re here for each other,” she continued. “They’re literally a phone call away. And at this point, we respect each other’s space so much. So if there’s anything to be happy for, to celebrate, we’re all in it together.”