Music
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Tiësto and Sexyy Red are revving their engines with the just-released collab “OMG!”
The slinky song, in which Sexyy Red opines about maxing out credit cards, breaking the rules and being “too high to be cool” over the Dutch producer’s woozy beat, comes from the forthcoming soundtrack to the Brad Pitt-starring racing film F1.
“Who would have thought that Tiësto would have a collab with Sexyy Red?” the producer recently told Billboard backstage at EDC Las Vegas. “No one, absolutely no one, but here it is, and it’s an amazing track. I think people will really like it. It’s super dance.”
“OMG!” has been in the works for awhile, with Tiësto playing it during a huge performance in October at the annual dance gathering ADE. The track comes from the F1 the Album soundtrack, with the corresponding film hitting theaters on June 27, the same day the soundtrack will be released.
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This soundtrack brings together a collection of musical titans including music by Dom Dolla (who’s slick contribution “No Room For a Saint” came out last month), Doja Cat, ROSÉ, Peggy Gou, Chris Stapleton, Ed Sheeran, Raye, Burna Boy, Roddy Rich, Madison Beer, Tate McRae, Don Toliver and Myke Towers.
Tiësto, a known racing fan, also makes a cameo in the film, which stars Pitt as an aging F1 driver who returns to the sport after a long absence, along with Damson Idris, Kerry Condon and Javier Bardem. F1 The Movie was directed by Joseph Kosinski, who also directed the global blockbuster Top Gun: Maverick.
Listen to “OMG!” below:
Lorde revealed in a new interview that she has multiple favorite songs from her upcoming album, Virgin. But on the other side of the coin, there’s one that she can’t even listen to because of how raw it is — and it’s about a pretty NSFW topic.
Speaking to Jake Shane on an episode of his Therapuss podcast posted Wednesday (June 4), the New Zealand native shared that track seven — which is named after a popular pregnancy test brand — is particularly emotional for her. “There’s a song that I love so much called ‘Clearblue’ that is about unprotected sex,” she began, laughing.
“And just the experience of taking a pregnancy test, and like, this flood of emotions that goes through your body,” she continued, noting that the track is one of several “slammers” on the album. “Whatever you want to say — it’s such a moment.”
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“That whole song just destroys me,” Lorde added. “I can’t even really listen to it.”
According to the pop star, “Clearblue” is one of several songs on Virgin that features sexual content, despite the album’s contradicting name. She explained to Shane of the title, “It speaks to a sort of purity, but the album is quite sexual, so it wasn’t sexual purity … virgin steel, virgin hair, all of these things that denote purity, but I’m also kind of always trying to take me to my teen self.”
Arriving June 27, Virgin will mark Lorde’s first album in four years. In the weeks leading up to its release, she’s been open about how the confluence of stopping birth control, recovering from disordered eating habits and embracing her gender fluidity have shaped the project’s direction.
The album’s subject matter and percussive, electric sound are expected to mark a distinct shift from the Grammy winner’s last project, Solar Power, which peaked at No. 5 on the Billboard 200. That LP found Lorde singing about her gravitation toward a more peaceful, unplugged lifestyle after years of living the pop-star life following the successes of 2013 debut album Pure Heroine and 2017 follow-up Melodrama. But on Therapuss, she revealed that the concept of Solar Power doesn’t really resonate with who she is today.
“I love Solar Power so much, and I truly needed to make it,” she told Shane. “I wouldn’t be here with another album if I hadn’t made Solar Power, but I think it showed me that you sort of just have no choice but to be what you’re supposed to be. Me sort of disappearing and being all wafty and on the beach, I was just like, ‘Actually, I don’t think this is me.’ I just am this person that’s meant to make bangers that f–k us all up … I love to vibe out. That is me to my core.”
Watch Lorde’s full Therapuss interview above.
K-Pop boy band ENHYPEN dropped their sixth mini album, DESIRE: UNLEASH, on Thursday (June 5), an 8-track collection of upbeat dance pop tunes produced by Grammy-winner Cirkut (Katy Perry, Lady Gaga). Explore Explore See latest videos, charts and news See latest videos, charts and news The EP opens with the midtempo tune “Flashover” and features […]
Chappell Roan’s “Pink Pony Club” has become an anthem for the Edmonton Oilers, and the hit played throughout Rogers Place arena after the Oilers won game one of the Stanley Cup against the Florida Panthers in overtime on Wednesday night (June 4). NHL icon and former Edmonton Oiler Wayne Gretzky was in the building as […]
This May, only a handful of pop stars made major movement on the charts — including one with a historically huge Hot 100 album bomb, and one with a rare runaway breakout smash for 2025 — but we still saw some big names making big waves, with massive new tours and game-changing news announcements. And […]
Madonna is giving the people what they want. The singer announced on Thursday morning (June 5) that she will release the long-rumored Veronica Electronica collection, an album featuring rare and unreleased remixes of songs from her beloved 1998 Ray of Light album. The eight-track LP will be released digitally and on silver vinyl on July […]
True to her name, Mariah the Scientist’s songs are often the result of several months, and sometimes years, spent combining different elements of choruses and verses until finding the right mixture. But when it came time for the 27-year-old to unveil her latest single, the sultry “Burning Blue,” the R&B singer-songwriter was at a crossroads. So, she experimented with her promotional strategy, too — and achieved the desired momentum.
“Mariah felt she was in a space between treating [music] like a hobby and this being her career,” recalls Morgan Buckles, the artist’s sister and manager. And so, they crafted a curated, monthlong rollout — filled with snippets, TikTok posts encouraging fan interaction and various live performances — that helped the song go viral even before its early May arrival. Upon its release, Mariah the Scientist scored her first solo Billboard Hot 100 entry and breakthrough hit.
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Mariah Amani Buckles grew up in Atlanta, singing from an early age. She attended St. John’s University in New York and studied biology, but ultimately dropped out to pursue music. Her self-released debut EP, To Die For, arrived in 2018, after which she signed to RCA Records and Tory Lanez’s One Umbrella label. She stayed in those deals until 2022 — releasing albums Master and Ry Ry World in 2019 and 2021, respectively — before leaving to continue as an independent artist.
“Over time, you start realizing [people] want you to change things,” Mariah says of her start in the industry. “Everybody wants to control your art. I don’t want to argue with you about what I want, because if we don’t want the same things, I’ll just go find somebody who does.”
Mariah the Scientist
Carl Chisolm
In 2023, after six months as an independent artist, Mariah signed a joint venture deal with Epic Records and released her third album, To Be Eaten Alive, which became her first to reach the Billboard 200. She then made two Hot 100 appearances as a featured artist in early 2024, on “IDGAF” with Tee Grizzley and Chris Brown and “Dark Days” with 21 Savage.
“Burning Blue” marks Mariah’s first release of 2025 — and first new music since boyfriend Young Thug’s release from jail following his bombshell YSL RICO trial. The song takes inspiration from Purple Rain-era Prince balladry with booming drums and warbling bass — and Mariah admits that the Jetski Purp-produced beat on YouTube (originally titled “Blue Flame”) likely influenced some lyrics, too. She initially recorded part of the track over an unofficial MP3 rip, but after Purp caught wind of it and learned his girlfriend was a fan, he gave Mariah the beat. Mariah then looped in Nineteen85 (Drake, Nicki Minaj, Khalid) to flesh out the production.
“I [recorded the first part of ‘Burning Blue’] in the first room I recorded in when I first started making music in Atlanta,” Mariah says. “I don’t want to say it was a throwaway, but it was casual. I wrote some of it, and then I put it to the side.”
Once Epic A&R executive Jennifer Raymond heard the in-progress track, she insisted on its completion enough that Mariah and her collaborators convened in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico, in February to finish the song. By that point, they sensed something special. Mariah shared a low-quality snippet on Instagram, but Morgan — who joined as a tour manager in 2022 — knew a more polished presentation was needed to reach its full potential.
Morgan Buckles (left) and Mariah the Scientist photographed May 20, 2025 in New York.
Carl Chisolm
Morgan eyed Billboard’s Women in Music event in late March as the launchpad for the “Burning Blue” campaign. Though Mariah wasn’t performing or presenting at the event, Morgan wanted to take advantage of her already being in glam to shoot a flashier teaser than Mariah’s initial IG story, which didn’t even show her face.
The two decided on a behind-the-scenes, pre-red carpet clip soundtracked by a studio-quality snippet of “Burning Blue.” Posted on April 1, that clip showcased its downtempo chorus and Mariah’s silky vocal and has since amassed more than two million views, with designer Jean Paul Gaultier’s official TikTok account sharing the video to its feed. Ten days later, Morgan advised Mariah to share another TikTok, this time with an explicit call to action encouraging fans to use the song in their own posts and teasing that she “might have a surprise” for fans with enough interaction.
Mariah then debuted the song live on April 19 during a set at Howard University — a smart exclusive for her core audience — as anticipation for the song continued to build. Two weeks later, “Burning Blue” hit digital service providers on May 2, further fueled by a Claire Bishara-helmed video on May 8 that has over 7 million YouTube views.
“We’re at the point where opportunity meets preparation,” Morgan reflects of the concerted but not overbearing promotional approach. “[To Be Eaten Alive] happened so fast, I didn’t even know what ‘working’ a project meant. This time, I studied other artists’ rollouts to figure out how to make this campaign personal to her.”
“Burning Blue” debuted at No. 25 on the Billboard Hot 100 dated May 17, marking Mariah’s first time in the top 40. Following its TikTok-fueled debut, the song has shown legs at radio too, entering Rhythmic Airplay, R&B/Hip-Hop Airplay and Mainstream R&B/Hip-Hop Airplay — to which Morgan credits Epic’s radio team, spearheaded by Traci Adams and Dontay Thompson. “[The song] ended up going to radio a week earlier [than scheduled] because Dontay was like, ‘If y’all like this song so much, then play it!,’ and they did,” Morgan jokes.
With “Burning Blue” proving to be a robust start to an exciting new chapter, Mariah has a bona fide hit to start the summer as she prepares to unleash her new project, due before the fall. She recently performed the track on Jimmy Kimmel Live! and will have the opportunity to fan the song’s flames in front of festival audiences including Governors Ball in June and Lollapalooza in August. But as her following continues to heat up, Mariah’s mindset is as cool as ever.
“I’ll take what I can get,” Mariah says. “As long as I can use my platform to help people feel included or understood, I’m good.”
Mariah the Scientist
Carl Chisolm
A version of this story appears in the June 7, 2025, issue of Billboard.
When Faye Webster is back home in Atlanta, she likes to visit Oakland Cemetery. “I always go there when I’m home from a tour and just walk around by myself,” she says.
It’s not that the cemetery is the final resting place of any of her loved ones, or that Webster enjoys checking out the tombstones of Atlanta’s rich and famous, like musician Kenny Rogers or golfer Bobby Jones, who are both buried there. She just sees it as “a peaceful, safe space” to find silence amid her increasingly chaotic life.
Last year, Webster, 27, released her fifth album, Underdressed at the Symphony, and played 77 shows to support it — a lot by anyone’s measure, but a touring itinerary that was particularly challenging for Webster. Despite her fast-growing success, the soft-spoken homebody has never loved the spotlight. “Navigating it is tough, but I had a friend give me the advice to call someone I love after the show every day to remind myself of what’s real,” she says. “So I asked my mom, ‘Hey, can I call you at 10:10 every night?’ Now we always do it.”
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She has other ways of making the road feel like home — like the added comfort of having her older brother Jack as her guitar tech; her best friend, Noor Kahn, on bass; and her bandmates of many years by her side. (Her other elder brother, Luke, handles her merchandise and graphic design.) She also has a go-to warmup routine for shows. “I always get everyone together and we recite the battle of the bands prayer from School of Rock: ‘Let’s rock, let’s rock today!’ Then we go onstage,” she says.
Originally, Webster had asked to meet at the cemetery for this interview, but with heavy rain projected in the forecast, we decide to talk over matcha and baked goods at a nearby café instead. Between bites of a guava pastry, Webster says that when she gets the rare opportunity to be at home, she spends time with friends and family or tends to her many hobbies, which include — but are not limited to — yo-yo, tennis, Pokémon, the Atlanta Braves and Animal Crossing. And, she says with a laugh, “I have so many collections of so many different things. So many dumb things.” Her house is littered with it all. “I was collecting alarm clocks for a while, then I filled a full shelf and I was like, ‘OK, there’s no more space.’ I did my yo-yo shelf, too. I have tons of vinyl. Now I need something new to collect, so I’m buying CDs,” she explains. Her latest purchase? A copy of Alison Krauss and Robert Plant’s Raising Sand from Criminal Records in Atlanta.
“I remember the first time I heard her sing when I was a kid. I thought, ‘I didn’t know people could sing like this,’ ” Webster recalls of Krauss. “She has this very soft, angelic, pristine voice. When I first heard her sing I thought, ‘I want to be her.’ ”
Faye Webster
Christian Cody
Webster self-released her debut, Run and Tell, an earnest and straightforward Americana record, in 2013 when she was just 16. Back then, her voice was still developing and didn’t yet have the bell-like clarity and melancholic whine that she is beloved for now. Soon after, Webster’s path crossed with the Atlanta hip-hop scene when she started photographing and hanging out with the young rappers signed to tastemaking indie label Awful Records. Around this time, she also grew closer to another emerging local rapper, Lil Yachty — whom she ultimately collaborated with on Underdressed single “Lego Ring.” With Awful, “It started as just a friendship for months, and then it grew to me signing there,” says Webster, who was an oddball addition to the label as its first non-rap artist.
But for Webster, it didn’t feel strange at all — she was just putting out music with help from her friends. “I loved my experience with Awful. I think, to this day, what I learned there was about creating this sense of family and community. I still hold those values today,” she says.
After releasing 2017’s Faye Webster with Awful, she moved to indie powerhouse Secretly Group and its Secretly Canadian label. There, she steadily accumulated millions of fans as she released 2019’s Atlanta Millionaires Club, 2022’s I Know I’m Funny haha and Underdressed. (Secretly also now distributes her self-titled album.)
Her career hit hyper-speed about two years ago when she scored surprise TikTok hits with “I Know You” and “Kingston” — which were about 7 and 5 years old, respectively, when they took off. Those viral moments shifted her audience away from indie-loving Pitchfork dudes and toward a younger, more female crowd; her recent shows have been marked by throngs of adoring fangirls. Ironically, Webster isn’t even on TikTok — and she barely posts on social media in general.
“Faye is amazing — and somewhat of a contradiction as an artist,” says Secretly Group vp of A&R Jon Coombs, who, with his team, signed Webster to Secretly. “She bucks industry trends by not being online that much, but she still has great social media success. She’s someone who is so impossibly cool, yet she likes traditionally uncool things like yo-yoing and gaming. All of these things combined make her a really compelling and singular artist.”
To connect her whimsical hobbies to her much more serious music career, Webster introduced custom yo-yos as merch in collaboration with Brain Dead Studios, which is run by her friend and creative director Kyle Ng. (“Individuality and being her own character adds so much to her as a musician,” he says.) She also incorporated Bob Baker Marionettes into the Ng-directed “But Not Kiss” music video; founded an annual yo-yo invitational in Berkeley, Calif.; started an active Discord server with a dedicated channel to all things Minions; and has repeatedly covered the Animal Crossing theme at her gigs.
“I look out at shows now and see people dressed up like Minions and having fun and singing and I think, ‘This is so beautiful. This is why I do it,’ ” Webster says. “I really appreciate that my music can resonate with anybody. That’s all I’ve ever wanted — for somebody to feel they can relate to my work.”
Faye Webster
Christian Cody
Her hobbies also seep into her songs, like Underdressed’s “eBay Purchase History” or Funny’s “A Dream With a Baseball Player,” which is about her lasting crush on Atlanta Braves star Ronald Acuña Jr.
“She has this ability to pack a short story into a single line,” Coombs says of her lyricism. From “The day that I met you I started dreaming” (“Kingston”) to “You make me want to cry in a good way” (“In a Good Way”) and “Are you doing the same things? I doubt it” (“Underdressed at the Symphony”), Webster’s economical songwriting often repeats phrases on a loop, each refrain cutting to a deeper emotional core. Her expertly crafted productions — Wurlitzer keys, smooth Southern-rock guitar and plenty of pedal steel — seal the deal.
For Webster, “initial reactions” and “gut feelings” are the anchors of the songwriting and recording process. “To me, I’m just like, ‘Oh, that sounded good! Let me say it again…’ However the song plays out is sometimes just the way it’s supposed to happen,” she says.
As part of that instinctive approach, Webster has historically recorded songs soon after writing them. “I just like to do things in the moment,” she says. “When writing a song, I’ve often texted my friends, my band, and tried to get everyone together while it’s still fresh.” She typically self-records her vocals at home and the rest in nearby Athens. Most recently, however, she tried recording Underdressed at famed West Texas studio Sonic Ranch.
“That was our first experience going somewhere new,” she says. “My producer [Drew Vandenberg] was like, ‘What if we go somewhere else?’ And I was like, ‘OK, if it’s you and it’s me and it’s Pistol [pedal steel player Matt Stoessel] and all the band, it shouldn’t matter where we go.’ ”
Now, as she works on her next album, Webster is taking another leap of faith: signing her first major-label deal with Columbia Records, where she’ll join a roster that includes Beyoncé, Vampire Weekend and Tyler, The Creator (whose Camp Flog Gnaw festival she performed at last year). When asked why she signed there, she pauses, taking a sip of matcha as she thinks. “It comes back to that initial gut, that initial intuition,” she finally answers. “[Columbia] feels like where I belong right now and that’s where I’m supposed to exist.”
Faye Webster
Christian Cody
Perhaps it’s thanks to the flexibility her time on indie labels offered, or the support system it allowed her to build — but so far, Webster has deftly navigated the music business without sacrificing her personality, her community or her privacy, and she doesn’t see that changing under Columbia. “I think throughout this process [of signing the new deal], I’ve been very up front and honest. I was like, ‘Don’t be surprised if I say no to a lot of things.’ I think being honest and having an understanding of each other is really important in any relationship.”
“I know it’s a buzzword, but Faye is just so relentlessly authentic,” says her manager, Look Out Kid founder and partner Nick O’Byrne. “Over the years, I’ve seen she’s not interested in doing anything that feels unnatural to her, and from talking to fans, I know that they’re smart and they see that in her, too.”
When I ask Webster if this signing is an indication that she is more comfortable in the spotlight now, she quickly replies “no” with a laugh. “I think I’m just always going to be this way.”
This story appears in the June 7, 2025, issue of Billboard.
On a warm, breezy evening in Kyoto, Japan’s biggest music stars walked a red carpet, performed their most popular hits and thanked their fans as they took the stage to receive ruby-hued awards.The dazzling ceremony, which was televised across Japan May 21-22 and livestreamed on YouTube, felt in many ways similar to the Grammy Awards.
But remarkably, even though Japan is the world’s second-biggest music market, the inaugural Music Awards Japan (MAJ) marked the country’s first major national music awards show.
“We’re honored to have received an award, but I also believe this could become a goal for young people in Japan who are just starting out in music,” said Ayase, producer and member of Japanese duo YOASOBI, after winning the top global hit from Japan award. “I hope that through events like this, people both in Japan and abroad will come to appreciate the greatness of Japanese music even more.”
The glitzy new gala is core to Japan’s mission to turbocharge its export of music to the world. For years, its music industry was able to increase revenue by marketing to fans within its borders thanks to the country’s enormous appetite for physical products like CDs and vinyl, which still account for 62.5% of its overall recorded-music revenue, according to IFPI. But those days have come to an end: Japan’s population has been shrinking for the past 14 years — and has been slow to adopt streaming. The country’s recorded-music revenue fell 2.6% in 2024, even as global recorded-music revenue has grown for the last 10 years, according to IFPI. So, to woo a global audience, Japan’s major music trade groups representing labels, concert promoters, publishers, producers and other enterprises united to form the Japan Culture and Entertainment Industry Promotion Association (CEIPA) and organized the show, inviting guests from 15 countries to attend.
Nominees for most of the awards were selected based on chart data provided by Billboard Japan, and winners were determined by a two-stage voting process involving over 5,000 industry professionals.
Hip-hop sensation Creepy Nuts took home nine awards including song of the year for its viral hit “Bling-Bang-Bang-Born.” Singer-songwriter-pianist Fujii Kaze earned album of the year with his Love All Serve All project. Pop-rock band Mrs. GREEN APPLE racked up a multitude of honors including artist of the year. Kendrick Lamar, Billie Eilish and Ariana Grande won awards for the impact of their hits in Japan, though they weren’t present to accept in person. MAJ executive committee chairman Tatsuya Nomura says that CEIPA plans to host the next show in June 2026 at a bigger venue in Tokyo so fans and more international artists can attend.
One sign of this year’s success: Streams of songs that won top honors have jumped an average of 31% in Japan, with 21 out of the 27 songs that received top honors gaining streams compared with the previous week, according to Luminate.
This story appears in the June 7, 2025, issue of Billboard.
Source: Taylor Hill / Getty
Hip-Hop fans are rejoicing now that the Clipse have reunited and will be returning with a new album in July, Let God Sort Em Out, but interestingly enough the reunion didn’t come without some repercussions as the two-man group was dropped from Def Jam Records after refusing to remove a Kendrick Lamar verse from their project.
Now, we’re learning that not only did Def Jam release Pusha T and Malice from their label, but the two had to cough up seven figures to get their walking papers.
In a new interview with Billboard, the group’s manager, Steven Victor, talked about Def Jam’s demands to have Kendrick Lamar change his verse or have it removed entirely in order for the Clipse album to see the light of day. When that didn’t sit well with the artists who refused to do either, Victor tried to come up with creative ways to release the album that wouldn’t “implicate” Def Jam as being a part of the record. When that didn’t work he revealed that the only way The Clipse would be able to recoup their artistic freedom from Def Jam Records was if they came out of pocket and paid the label a Galactus- sized grip for their walking papers.
Per Billboard:
I went to them and I said, “Let us put the song out somewhere else since you guys have an issue with it. You guys won’t have to stand behind whatever complications come from it. We’ll put the song out somewhere else, and we’ll license it back to you guys when the album comes out.” Their response was, “How about you just find somewhere else to put out Clipse? Just pay something to us and put it out somewhere else.”
So they said, “Find another deal, and let’s figure out a business.” They didn’t drop us. They were like, “Pay us this money” — which was an exorbitant amount of money, a s—t ton of money — “and we’ll let you out the deal.” That’s what happened. We paid them the money, an insane amount of money. It wasn’t, like, $200,000. It was a lot of money for an artist to come up with. They bought themselves out of the deal.
Ultimately, The Clipse became free agents and Victor put in a call to Jay-Z to see if he’d be interested in an opportunity to have The Clipse as part of Roc Nation. And if we know anything about Jay-Z it’s that the man is all about opportunities and paper.
He hit me back right away, like,“You just made my day. Let’s figure it out. What do we need to get it done?” I went back to Pusha, and said, “Listen, Jay’s gonna give us a very artist-friendly deal, we get to own the masters, and they’ll put the marketing power of Roc Nation behind it. You guys are friends. It’s a great outcome.” We worked out the deal in less than 24 hours.
Naturally, Def Jam got a cut of the new Clipse deal as the record industry is shady, but in the end, we’ll be getting a new Clipse album and a Kendrick Lamar-featured cut in “Whips & Chains,” which freaked out Def Jam execs to the point where they were willing to shelf an entire album if they didn’t get them to remove a verse from arguably the biggest rap star in the game today.
Should be interesting.
What do y’all think about The Clipse having to buy their independence from Def Jam Records? Let us know in the comments section below.
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