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Nothing pairs better with football than fried chicken and tequila. That’s why Popeyes is teaming up with Tequila Don Julio to curate a special Championship Lineup menu for the Super Bowl.
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The Popeyes x Tequila Don Julio Reposado Flavored Concha Chicken Sandwich includes a chicken breast fillet marinated in reposado tequila then fried in Popeyes crunchy buttermilk breading, topped with a tequila lime slaw, spicy spread, a barrel cured pickle and sandwiched between a concha roll. Additional items featured on the specialty menu include Popeyes x Tequila Don Julio Reposado Flavored Louisiana Garlic 3-Piece Wings with a specialty sauce and a Spicy Strawberry Hibiscus Flavored Lemonade Mocktail.
For one day only, on January 31, select Popeyes restaurants in New York City, Miami and New Orleans, as well as the hometowns of the teams headed to the Super Bowl — Philadelphia and Kansas City — will feature the collaboration for customers over 21 years of age. In New Orleans, where the Big Game will take place this year, the items will be available at the flagship restaurant on Canal Street for an extended period from January 31 through February 9, while supplies last.
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To celebrate the collaboration, Tinashe will head down to New Orleans to perform at the Popeyes x Tequila Don Julio bash on Feb. 7. “It’s two things I’m a fan of coming together,” she tells Billboard of the collaboration. “It’s fried chicken and tequila. What more could you ask for?”
While drinking tequila, the “Nasty” keeps it simple. “I’m usually taking shots,” she says with a laugh.
It’s also the second Super Bowl she’s attending. “The Super Bowl was always a huge day in my family. We have a ton of big sports fans in the house,” she shares. “The halftime performance is something I always look forward to every year. I’m just so excited to be back and part of the Super Bowl energy. It’s always so much fun.”
Her performance at the Popeyes x Tequila Don Julio bash will be equally as fun. “I always have a lot of high energy in my performances,” she says. “It’s going to be dancing, going to be on your feet. It’s going to be a real fun, high energy vibe and a celebration.”
If you’re unable to get your hands on the Championship Lineup menu, you can still redeem a buy one get one free chicken sandwich when purchasing Popeyes on UberEats, as well as a $5 code to redeem on Tequila Don Julio until Feb. 9.
Flavor Flav has Selena Gomez’s back. The Public Enemy rapper came to Gomez’s defense on X earlier this week in the wake of the backlash she faced following her emotional reaction opposing the mass deportations taking place around the U.S. with Donald Trump in office.
“Team Selena Gomez. Again. That woman is always so brave to share her truth,,, and so many are quick to bully her,” he wrote.
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There was a mixed reaction in Flav’s replies representing both sides. “She is so real and honest! Love her,” one person wrote.
Team Selena Gomez. Again. That woman is always so brave to share her truth,,, and so many are quick to bully her.— FLAVOR FLAV (@FlavorFlav) January 28, 2025
Another fired back: “Nobody loves defending illegals like she does!”
Over the weekend, a shaken-up Gomez posted an Instagram Story crying over the ICE arrests and mass deportations of undocumented immigrants in the United States. “I’m sorry,” she captioned the since-deleted clip with a Mexican flag (Gomez is half-Mexican from her father’s side).
“All my people are getting attacked, the children,” she said while sobbing. “I don’t understand. I’m so sorry, I wish I could do something, but I can’t. I don’t know what to do. I’ll try everything, I promise.”
After deleting the clip, she posted a follow-up addressing the backlash. “Apparently it’s not ok to show empathy for people,” Gomez added in a follow-up IG Story.
Republican politician Sam Parker even called for the Texas-bred star to be deported in a post on social media. However, Gomez was unfazed by the threat. “Oh, Mr. Parker, Mr. Parker,” she responded, per People. “Thanks for the laugh and the threat.”
Selena Gomez previously served as a producer on Netflix’s Living Undocumented documentary in 2019, which showcased the state of undocumented immigrant families in the United States.
The Emilia Pérez star also penned a Time essay in 2019 addressing immigration issues. “Undocumented immigration is an issue I think about every day, and I never forget how blessed I am to have been born in this country thanks to my family and the grace of circumstance,” she wrote.
It’s far from the first time Flavor Flav has shown love to Gomez. Back in November, he praised her for opening up about her mental health.
“I don’t know her personally,,, but Selena Gomez is one of the STRONGEST and MOST BEAUTIFUL people inside and out,” he gushed. “I applaud her for being so open about her health and mental health. And I applaud her even more for clapping back at haterz,,, but she shouldn’t have to.”
With a handful of exceptions, the era of rap’s six-figure super producer – when Scott Storch, Just Blaze, and Timbaland instrumentals effectively guaranteed radio hits – is over. The internet has made beat making more accessible than ever, and that diffusion means a Dutch teenager could craft one of the biggest records in music history for an unknown internet-savvy rapper dabbling in country tropes, or that a Romanian musician could become one of the go-to producers for Atlanta ragers Playboi Carti and Ken Carson.
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But even these seismic developments pale in comparison to what we’re seeing now: the beginning of generative AI in production and songwriting.
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Given its technical nature, production has always been a component of music-making ripe for new developments, from the introduction of DAWs (Digital Audio Workstations) in the late 1970s by Soundstream to the advent of the MIDI digital composition format all the way to the rise of downloadable sample packs and eventually, the integration of AI. A July 2024 survey conducted by Tracklib found that 25 percent of producers were using AI in some capacity. The majority of those AI adopters were using it for either splitting stems or mastering, but more than 20 percent of them were also incorporating it into their records.
That 25 percent isn’t just beginners – it includes some of the genre’s most successful producers. In October, Timbaland was announced as a strategic advisor for Suno AI, a generative musical tool with some controversy around its use of copyrighted material to train its model. He even told Rolling Stone he spent 10 hours a day experimenting with the platform and writing text prompts to recreate some of his own legendary records.
But the star producer who has most emphatically embraced AI is probably Illmind, a Grammy winner with credits for J. Cole, Beyoncé, and Jay-Z. Illmind has always been particularly ambitious when it comes to emerging technologies. He launched Blap Kits, his own sound sample platform, back in 2010, and started the AI-based LoopMagic earlier in 2024. With LoopMagic, musicians enter prompts into the interface for what sounds they want, and those are downloadable. (Subscriptions range from $25 a month up to $250.) They then own those sounds fully, per Illmind, though those in the lower-membership tier cannot package generated sounds as part of their own purchasable sample packs.
Illmind says that he was first introduced to AI as a musical tool back in 2016, when he experimented with a VST (virtual studio technology) plug-in that created MIDI chords and melodies. “I realized how powerful that was, because it was generating ideas from scratch that I musically wouldn’t normally think of,” he says.
While AI’s depiction in the media could lead some to believe it is entirely autonomous, these programs need to be trained on something, and that’s one of the biggest ethical concerns in its widespread musical implementation. In September, a bill in California passed necessitating transparency with generative AI, and the Federal Trade Commission has targeted “unfair or deceptive practices” in the medium through its Operation AI Comply. Suno and another company called Udio have been sued by the three major labels, alleging “mass infringement of copyrighted sound recordings,” igniting a debate around whether AI model training should fall under the category of “fair use.”
Illmind’s LoopMagic was “only trained with permissioned data,” per its website, which includes Illmind’s sprawling catalog. The company Musical AI lists its manifesto as “Ethical Attribution in Generative AI Music Models,” and founders Sean Power and Matt Adell say that they’re taking their extensive history in music and tech and applying it towards creating a fairer world of generative AI. (Adell, the company’s COO, was an executive at Napster, so he’s certainly familiar with disruptive technology in the musical world.)
“Very quickly things balloon into needing a tremendous amount of data and we care for that a lot – because that data to be able to train on that vastness of information requires inputs, requires objects that you can’t possibly do without including copyrighted content,” Power says.
Musical AI is trying to bridge the gap between existing musical creators and rights holders and AI companies, creating an ecosystem where artists are aware of any time their music is used to train AI and be financially compensated in those instances. Having worked through the period of illegal online downloads moving to paid downloads and eventually streaming, Adell says he thinks that the powers that be are comparatively responding much more quickly to the rise of AI, recognizing its urgency and transformational power for the music world.
“I actually think that industry agreements and government regulation are moving quite quickly compared to as they have in the past,” says Musical AI’s Adell. “When Sean and I started, we thought it could be five[-plus] years before all these mechanics get worked out – it [seems to] us now they’re going to get worked out in the next 18 months.”
Opinions on using generative AI to assist in music-making are decidedly split. Many defenders of the technology stress their belief that there will always be some human involvement in production and songwriting. Some artists, like Bay Area producer-vocalist Warren Long (a.k.a. Larrenwong) have embraced it, using programs like ChatGPT to help with lyrical ideas as well as the occasional musical program to aid in production, though he says the latter is often underwhelming and hasn’t frequently made it into his finished work. Still, he talks about AI in music creation with an emphatic pragmatism.
“I’m the first person to tell somebody to use AI for anything,” Long says. “I’m a proponent of it. We always read back and hear the case studies of people, they don’t take advantage of [emerging technology] and then they get left behind.”
Long says he has minimal “ethical qualms” around the use of AI in his own music. “At this point? If it sounds good, f–k it,” Long explains – though he says he’d be unlikely to use an AI program that took a percentage of his rights and royalties. So much of tech innovation has been driven by financial shrewdness, and in this brutal creative economy, the allure of a cheap tool for production or songwriting is similar to the appeal many industries are navigating with AI-led automation.
All of this connects to a kind of existential question in production and songwriting: how much conventional musical work should a music-maker be doing? Rap producers have always faced criticism on this front, from those who derided sampling, to critiques of using premade loops, to now this discussion around AI. A rap producer who advocates for AI could easily make the argument that critical resistance to generative AI is the modern equivalent of traditionalist listeners balking at Grandmaster Flash or the Beastie Boys building now-iconic records through sampling.
The difference here is that human artists were flipping those samples into new songs themselves, whereas these AI platforms are algorithmically combing through musical data with the only real input typically being a written prompt. Cam O’bi, best known as a producer for Chance the Rapper and Noname, addresses the question of whether software that’s trained on existing music without the ephemeral secret ingredient of human creativity can ever create anything truly new or innovative. His skepticism comes in part from a belief that the generative AI software can’t truly innovate, and will instead come up with simplistic regurgitations of the music that it intakes, not unlike how a green musician often struggles to create novel sounds and styles from what they’ve learned.
“When a person is learning how to make music or play guitar and they just keep f–king sounding like Jimi Hendrix, that just means that they still have learning to do,” says O’bi, who also has a budding solo career. “They have to get better, so that they can figure out how to incorporate Jimi Hendrix into their playing without just becoming a cheap imitation of him.”
O’bi explains that he has tried out different AI tools in his work, specifically for stem separation and to craft character voices that would appear on skits throughout one of his albums. (Attempting to combine his own voice with a pirate voice from the video game League of Legends, he found the results “unusable” due to poor audio quality, and the inability to direct the line reading. O’bi says he’s experimented with using ChatGPT like a rhyming dictionary to help move ideas forward, but has been consistently underwhelmed.
“ChatGPT is not a great writer,” O’bi says simply.
Illmind has used his LoopMagic AI program in sessions with other producers, including a widely circulated clip of himself and producer Dunk Rock (Gunna’s “fukumean” and “Cooler Than a Bitch”) generating a “Mysterious sample in F minor.” Even in that video, he does clarify that the software “was ethically trained by me,” and seems a little sheepish about the whole process, though perhaps just for comedic effect. Where it counts though, he’s all-in on the generative AI musical revolution, saying his goal is for LoopMagic to be the “ultimate co-producer.”
“There’s this quote that I read recently and it said, ‘AI won’t replace your job. The human beings that use AI will,’” Illmind says.
It’s not hard to picture a world where stem splitting and other rote, tedious tasks a producer must do for themselves are outsourced almost entirely to AI. Stem splitting, the act of separating the individual audio tracks of a song, typically to isolate vocals or a single instrument part, doesn’t fall under generative AI, but the more conventional use of the technology. It’s an important part of hip-hop production, but it has a different level of sacredness than the process of taking your blank screen and turning it into a track. Being able to use a generative AI tool is absolutely a skill, but it doesn’t seem like one that will make its way into every producer’s toolbox.
Obi says that he’d rather hire another co-producer to help with the workload – like a Dr. Dre or Kanye West has in the past – than to outsource key elements of his production work to AI technology: “Creating the music is really the most rewarding part. And the most fun part.”
Nominees: Take It Easy (Collie Buddz); Party With Me (Vybz Kartel); Never Gets Late Here (Shenseea); Bob Marley: One Love – Music Inspired By The Film (Deluxe) (Various Artists); Evolution (The Wailers)
Technically, there are only two original reggae albums nominated here this year. Incredible.
Vybz Kartel and Shenseea scored their first career nominations for their own music this year with Party With Me and Never Gets Late Here, respectively, both dancehall records. Reggae legend Bob Marley is represented through the One Love soundtrack, which features covers of Marley classics from several artists, including Grammy winners Kacey Musgraves, Daniel Caesar, Leon Bridges and Wizkid.
Collie Buddz’s Take It Easy and The Wailers’ Evolution are the remaining nominees. This is Buddz’s second nod in this category in as many years, while Take It Easy features contributions from Caribbean music giants such as Bounty Killer, B-Real and Demarco. The Wailers — formed by former members of Bob Marley’s backing band — are nominated with Evolution, which hit No. 5 on Reggae Albums.
As previous nominees, Shenseea and The Wailers are likely the frontrunners here, but keep an eye out for Vybz Kartel. Last summer (July 31, 2024), the King of Dancehall walked out of prison a free man after serving 13 years of a now-overturned life sentence for the murder of Clive “Lizard” Williams. By New Year’s Eve, the legendary deejay mounted Freedom Street — his first performance since his release, and the biggest concert the country had seen in nearly 50 years. Though Party With Me lacks an all-out smash à la “Fever” and “Clarks,” Kartel’s narrative may prove too irresistible for any of his competitors to put up a fight. The Freedom Street concert dominated social media, but it happened near the very end of the voting period (Jan. 3), when many voters had presumably cast their ballots already.
Shenseea is probably his stiffest competition here. Never Gets Late Here reached No. 4 on Reggae Albums and incorporates notes of pop-dancehall, R&B, rap, Afrobeats and, most importantly, reggae. With Grammy-approved producers like Di Genius, Tricky Stewart, Ilya, Stargate and London On Da Track in tow, Never Gets Late Here could muster up enough support to pull ahead of Worl’ Boss.
Nonetheless, there’s also a scenario in which Marley’s legend and the film’s box office success lifts the One Love soundtrack to a victory — even if the more exciting win would be Buddz’s project. Traditional reggae projects tend to triumph here anyway, which counts against Kartel and Shenyeng despite their strengths elsewhere.
Prediction: Vybz Kartel, Party With Me
Look Out For: The Wailers, Evolution
Carín León has officially addressed the recent rumors on social media regarding his sexuality.
In a five-part video posted on his Instagram stories on Monday (Jan. 27), the Hermosillo-born singer-songwriter expressed that it was time to give an explanation to fans. “I woke up three days ago being gay, because people forced it on me,” he said. “Since people have the power to cancel, to say what each person is, if I am this, if I am that, since you decide everything that happens in my life, I woke up being gay three days ago, because people wanted it that way.”
Rumors about the artist being gay sparked on social media over the weekend after a video, created with Artificial Intelligence, depicted him and Mexican artist Espinoza Paz sharing a kiss. As a result of the fake clip, his song “De Compas,” part of his 2024 album Palabra de To’s, began making the rounds, showing people of the same sex enjoying each other’s company. The popular sound on TikTok has generated more than 40K video creations on the app.
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“I haven’t developed any symptoms, I don’t think, I haven’t developed any kind of attraction to people of my own sex yet, so I still have heterosexual behaviors,” he said in Spanish, joking about the situation in a lighthearted manner. “I want people who suffer from homosexuality to tell me when the first symptoms appear, so that they don’t catch me off guard and catch me out of the blue with makeup, do you understand?”
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León, who also joked about his “relationship” with Paz being ruined, sent a more heartfelt message to his LGBTQ fans. “Long live the community. You know that I love you very much,” he noted, concluding: “I think that the sexual orientation of any person is now secondary. We see so many people with very varied and very different sexual preferences who are super-mega-hyper-successful.”
León and Paz first collaborated four years ago on “Como Duele Equivocarse.” León is a first-time nominee at the 2025 Grammys taking place Sunday (Feb. 2) in the best música Mexicana album category for Boca Chueca, Vol. 1. He also leads the 2025 Premio Lo Nuestro nominations, alongside Becky G, with 10 nods each.
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Source: Getty / @bigyba_ / Getty / @bigyba_Big YBA’s song “Miss It” is quickly going viral on social media, striking a chord with lovers everywhere who are missing that special someone they haven’t been intimate with in a while. The song’s raw and relatable lyrics have caught the attention of fans, particularly the catchy, standout line at the beginning: “Dam I miss my little sh*t we ain’t f**ked in a minute, ugh, when I’m in it tell me you miss it.”* Sampling the legendary infidelity anthem by Keyshia Cole, ‘I Should Have Cheated’
The blunt and passionate line has sparked countless reactions across social platforms, with many people sharing their own stories of longing and reminiscing about past relationships. While the song was already making waves, it gained even more momentum when Megan Thee Stallion, the undisputed leader of the Hot Girls, gave it her stamp of approval. Megan posted a video of herself vibing to “Miss It” and twerking to the track, sending it into overdrive on platforms like TikTok and Instagram.
Fans were hyped to see the Hot Girl energy backing Big YBA’s track, and the video further fueled the song’s rise in popularity. The song’s catchy beat and the way it taps into feelings of desire and longing have made it a favorite among both “lover boys” and “lover girls.” With Megan’s co-sign and the song’s growing presence online, it’s clear that Big YBA’s “Miss It” is a track destined to be a major anthem for anyone missing that connection.
Cynthia Erivo defied the laws of vocal gravity at the end of Wicked, when her character Elphaba lets out a passionate riff to conclude the “Defying Gravity” number. Explore Explore See latest videos, charts and news See latest videos, charts and news The riff has since gone viral, with fans constantly attempting the difficult belt […]
A Detroit rapper is suing Lyft for discrimination over allegations that one of the company’s drivers told her she was too large to fit inside his car.
In a lawsuit filed in Michigan court Monday (Jan. 27), Dank Demoss (Dajua Blanding) says the driver of a black Mercedes sedan told her during the Jan. 18 incident that she was “too big” for the backseat of his car and that “his tires were not capable of supporting plaintiff’s weight.”
“Defendant Lyft … unlawfully discriminated against plaintiff based on her weight,” Blanding’s attorneys write in the lawsuit, which was obtained by Billboard. Blanding, who has described herself as a “Big Beautiful Woman” on social media, says she was embarrassed, humiliated and suffered “mental anguish.”
The lawsuit comes after Blanding posted an alleged video of the incident to TikTok and other platforms, showing her arguing with the driver over his seeming refusal to take her.
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In the video, she can be heard telling the driver, “I can fit in this car,” after which he quickly responds, “Believe me, you can’t.” After telling Blanding that he’s “been in this situation before,” the driver can be heard saying that she needs to order a pricier “Uber XL” to accommodate her size.
Blanding’s post on TikTok has been viewed more than 345,000 times; another clip on Instagram has been liked more than 7,000 times.
In her complaint filed Monday, Blanding says the driver’s refusal violates Michigan’s civil rights laws, which prohibit any discrimination for public accommodations based on a variety of factors, including a person’s weight.
“Plaintiff’s weight was at least one factor that made a difference in defendants’ treatment of plaintiff and subjected her to a hostile environment,” her lawyers write.
In a statement to Billboard, a Lyft spokesperson declined to comment on the specifics of a pending legal action, but stressed that its driver regulations “explicitly prohibit harassment or discrimination.”
“Lyft unequivocally condemns all forms of discrimination — we believe in a community where everyone is treated with equal respect and mutual kindness,” the company said.
The Japan Culture and Entertainment Industry Promotion Association (CEIPA) has announced matsuri ’25: Japanese Music Experience LOS ANGELES, a concert featuring performances by Ado, ATARASHII GAKKO! and YOASOBI, which aims to introduce world-class Japanese music to the global stage. Explore See latest videos, charts and news See latest videos, charts and news Scheduled to take […]
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It’s been a long time since we’ve updated our Baes & Baddies segment but we promise to ramp up our efforts here as the year rolls on. In today’s update, we’re introducing Marie Assi, a curvy model of Ghanaian and Spanish descent currently residing in Spain.
From what we gathered online regarding Marie Assi, we can share that she was born in 2002 in Marbella in the South of Spain, a town that boasts famous residents over the years from both the sports and entertainment worlds.
Considering Ms. Assi’s prominent physical attributes, she has worked as an ambassador for the Fashion Nova Curve brand and can be seen on Instagram in various lavish locales showing off her stunning looks and alluring figure. And yes, she has one of “those pages” too if you inquire deeper.
For now, check out our latest Baes & Baddies starlet, Marie Assi, in the gallery below.
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Photo: Marie Assi / @missassi_