State Champ Radio News
Page: 133
Trending on Billboard Bruce Springsteen’s Nebraska, first released in 1982, returns to Billboard’s charts following its expanded reissue. The set, which peaked at No. 3 on the overall Billboard 200 in its release year, re-enters that list (dated Nov. 8) at No. 26 for its first week on the chart since 1985 and its highest […]
Trending on Billboard Is this what dreams are made of? At long last, Hilary Duff is back with new music, dropping new song “Mature” after taking several years off to focus on acting. Arriving Friday (Nov. 7), the bright pop track finds the performer reckoning her past and present self. “‘Mature’ is a little conversation […]
Trending on Billboard
If you have questions about the unique spelling of sombr‘s stage name, this week’s Saturday Night Live promos are for you.
The pop singer/songwriter is joined by host Nikki Glaser and cast member Chloe Fineman in the new promos, in which Fineman says, “sombr — it’s such a cool name.” “It is!” Glaser agrees. “It’s like if i called myself ‘Glasr.’”
“What?” sombr replies. “You know, because it’s usually spelled S-O-M-B-E-R — you took the E out,” Glaser explains.
“It is? I’ve been spelling it wrong this whole time and NOBODY TOLD ME?” the pop star explodes, even letting out a primal scream off camera.
This has Glaser giving him a brand-new name: “More like ‘angr.’”
Elsewhere in the promos, Fineman asks, “I’ve always wanted to know: Where does the name sombr come from?” The artist born Shane Michael Boose then says, “Well, my initials are S.M.B.”
“Ohhh!” Glaser says, adding, “My initials are N.R.G. — like energy.” When she turns to Fineman to ask, “What are yours?,” the comedian simply responds, “Cherf” — her creative interpretation of C.R.F., for Chloe Rose Fineman.
Both Glaser and sombr are making their Saturday Night Live debuts this weekend – Glaser as host and sombr as musical guest.
sombr is having a breakout year, with his debut album, I Barely Know Her, arriving in August. The project spun off his first trio of Billboard Hot 100 appearances: the top 20 hits “Back to Friends” (No. 12) and “Undressed” (No. 16), as well as the No. 41-peaking “12 to 12.”
Glaser is set to return as the host of the Golden Globes when the awards show is presented on Jan. 11.
Saturday Night Live airs at 11:30 p.m. ET/8:30 p.m. PT on NBC and streams on Peacock. (See all the options to watch SNL here.)
Trending on Billboard Leonardo DiCaprio starred in the One Battle After Another movie, but Katy Perry lived that title to the fullest in her “Bandaids” music video, which arrived on Thursday night (Nov. 6). “Bandaids” serves as Perry’s first solo single of 2025, as she displays emotional vulnerability while looking back on her journey in […]
Trending on Billboard
Echoing disagreements between YouTube and music rights holders, Alphabet-owned YouTube TV is currently in fraught negotiations with Disney over the amounts the pay TV streaming platform is willing to pay for the company’s TV channels, which were pulled from YouTube TV on Oct. 30 after the two sides failed to agree on the terms of a licensing renewal.
The fracas is part of a larger pattern, artist manager and businessman Irving Azoff wrote in a Nov. 5 op-ed at Billboard. Azoff, a longtime YouTube critic, called the company “a behemoth bully” that uses its vast market power to coerce content owners. “The playbook is always the same: if you refuse to accept YouTube’s below-market terms, YouTube threatens to go dark until you capitulate.”
Related
Similar disagreements have plagued the music industry’s relationship with YouTube over the decades. (YouTube TV is run separately from YouTube, which generates most of its income from advertising.) Most notably, Warner Music Group pulled its catalog off YouTube in 2008 after licensing negotiations broke down. Over the years, rights owners have frequently — and publicly — complained about YouTube’s relatively low royalty payouts and a business model that allows for user-generated content that often includes copyright-protected music.
The pay TV dispute pits one of the world’s largest tech companies against the owner of some of America’s most popular TV channels. Disney owns more than 20 TV channels that span sports (ESPN, ACC Network, SEC Network), entertainment (FX, Freeform, Localish), family (Disney Channel), National Geographic and ABC and its local affiliates. Disney CEO Bob Iger has called these broadcast TV brands an “asset” that operate alongside its growing streaming platforms, Disney+ and Hulu.
News reports say that Disney offered YouTube TV terms commensurate with its latest deals with the largest pay TV providers, Comcast and Charter, while YouTube insists it has “been working in good faith” on a deal “that pays them fairly” for their content. However, Disney has cited YouTube TV’s “repeated refusal to negotiate in good faith” and demand for preferential treatment.
Related
Disputes over carriage — the agreements in which a multi-channel video distributor includes a TV network’s channels — are not uncommon. YouTube also removed Televisa/Univision channels in October and narrowly averted a blackout with Fox in August. As for Disney, carriage disputes caused its channels to briefly go missing from DirecTV in 2024, Charter in 2023 and Dish in 2022.
But the Disney-YouTube battle isn’t a battle of equals — or close to it. A relative newcomer to the pay TV business, eight-year-old YouTube TV is the fourth-largest pay TV provider in the U.S. with nearly 10 million subscribers. But YouTube TV is a small fraction of parent company Alphabet’s total business. At $83 per month and 10 million subscribers, YouTube TV generated $7.4 billion in the first nine months of 2025 — just 2.6% of parent company Alphabet’s $289 billion of revenue in that period.
For Disney, the loss of carriage fees works out to approximately $2 billion annually, or 2% of Disney’s revenues, Lightshed Partners’ Rich Greenfield told CNBC on Monday (Nov. 3). That weighs more heavily on Disney, which generated $72 billion of revenue in the first nine months of its fiscal year (the company releases fiscal year results on Nov. 13), than YouTube TV. “When Charter loses ESPN, everybody goes, ‘How can Charter survive?’,” said Greenfield. “There’s not one investor going, ‘God, is Google going to survive this?’”
Failing to reach a resolution could drive consumers to find Disney programming elsewhere. Consumers can access Disney or any other TV content in numerous places. Desired sports content such as Monday Night Football is available through ESPN Unlimited for $29.99 per month or $299.99 per year. Bundling ESPN Unlimited with Hulu — wholly owned by Disney — and Disney+ offers sports and a wider variety of programming that costs $29.99 per month with ads or $38.99 per month without ads.
A new survey from Drive Research found that 24% of YouTube subscribers have already canceled or plan to cancel their YouTube TV subscription as a result of the dispute. Additionally, 30% of subscribers said they have subscribed or intend to subscribe to ESPN Unlimited or Hulu’s live sports plan to maintain access to sporting events. Clearly, the backlash to the Disney fracas is real — but a giant like YouTube TV can afford to shed subscribers in a way other carriers likely couldn’t.
Trending on Billboard
Tems‘ Leading Vibe Initiative and Native Instruments released a mini documentary on Thursday (Nov. 6) that follows three female producers in Lagos, Nigeria.
The 72 Hours in Lagos doc follows Saszy Afroshii, TinyBraz and Gbots around the “chaotic” city (as all three women, plus Tems, individually describe the hub) during the inaugural edition of the Leading Vibe Initiative, which “aims to support, connect and amplify the next generation of women in music,” according to the doc. Native Instruments contributes training, mentorship and industry-leading software and hardware. Tems is also on the Native Instruments artist board, a collective that also includes Alicia Keys, Noah “40” Shebib, Jacob Collier and Ludwig Goransson, among others.
Saszy Afroshii, who’s produced for Fave, Qing Madi and Tiwa Savage, says inspiration strikes anywhere in the midst of Lagos’ hustle and bustle, but opportunities aren’t always that easy to find. “I think it’s very important for females to support each other. This is an industry that is occupied by males and people think, ‘Ok, this is just a man’s world.’ When you walk into a session and they’re like, ‘So where’s the producer?’ And you’re like, ‘Hi! I’m here,’” she said. “It’s just trying to shift the mindset of people. Having to go the extra mile because sometimes they don’t give you as much opportunities. So it’s very, very good when you see a female doing something that people really thought, ‘Oh, maybe she can do it.’”
In her Billboard cover story earlier this year, Tems said she taught herself to produce and engineer her own music through YouTube tutorials while studying economics at IIE MSA in Johannesburg, South Africa. “Learning how to produce definitely made me solidify my sound because usually, you have a producer that gives you a beat and you have to go on the beat. But being a producer myself, it’s more authentic now. The music became more genuine and more true to me and more distinctive,” the Grammy-winning star said in the doc.
Tems launched the Leading Vibe Initiative this past August, which Billboard exclusively announced. She hosted a two-day seminar for approximately 20 women to gain hands-on training, access to world-class tools and connections to industry executives and creatives through a series of workshops, masterclasses and panel discussions. She also launched the Leading Vibe Initiative in Nairobi, Kenya in September.
Singer-songwriter TinyBraz (who’s also a DJ/producer known as Purple Halo) echoed Tems’ sentiments about authenticity, describing it as the core message behind the Leading Vibe Initiative. “That really cut deep to me because as an artist, you can tell I’m kind of androgynous. I’m in between being girly and being masculine. The label I was in really wanted me to be on that girly side. And to be honest, it wasn’t what I was feeling,” she explained. “I just wanted to find myself again because they were basically imposing their idea of what they think a female artist should be on me, and I didn’t want that. Hearing Tems say, ‘You have to double down on what you believe in’ made me realize that it was a good decision for me to say, ‘I don’t want to do this anymore with you guys. I want to go on my own. I want to be independent and find my way.’”
TinyBraz took the cameras from her current makeshift studio to her former apartment, which she called “Purple Island” “because it’s a creative space. It’s a space where I truly found the people that I was meant to align with,” such as dancers, graphic designers, engineers and artists, she explained.
Gbots, who’s worked with Olamide, CKay and P. Prime, described herself as “an outlier” because “I noticed I was one of the fewest female music producers. At that time, I even thought I was the only one making music.” In 2022, she founded the female music community, We Are ProducHERS. “Female music producers and artists and songwriters should just have a place and a safe space where they feel like because you can do it, I can do it,” she added.
Watch 72 Hours in Lagos below.
Trending on Billboard
6ix9ine claims to be the original content creator, suggesting that people dismiss his influence simply because they are haters.
During his appearance on Adin Ross’ Kick channel on Wednesday, the rainbow-haired rapper reflected on his rise to fame, stating that his breakout moments preceded the invention of TikTok. He argued that if the app had existed during his tumultuous ascent in 2018, he would have dominated the platform.
“In 2018, there was no TikTok,” he said at the 40-minute mark. “Let me get this point across, and maybe y’all say I’m reaching, but this is what I truly believe. … I walked, I went to jail, I entertained you guys with real-life crimes. I was out there putting my life on the line so you guys could run. When Vine was a thing, remember? Instagram. I was the original content creator. I know people don’t like me. It’s the right message, wrong messenger. But these is facts.”
The rapper recalled some of his most unforgettable viral stunts during his rise, including running up a hill with an AK-47. He mentioned prominent streamers like Ross, IShowSpeed and Kai Cenat, claiming they owe some of their success to his pioneering style.
“Y’all remember that?” he said. “Y’all was in high school. I walked so y’all could run, so streamers could run. … My Instagram views and numbers were through the roof. I think I was meant to be a streamer because I’m not faking nothing. I’m just charismatic, and when I’m wrong, I’m wrong. I’m human at the end of the day. But I respect what you do.”
He continued to emphasize how his candidness shaped perceptions of him: “People don’t like me because they can’t control my mouth… and they’re like, ‘Damn, he’s too right.’ I’m not right about everything, because I’m human… I fed families. I’ve fed many families. I’ve created a lot of movements. But because I’m 6ix9ine, people are like, ‘Nah, nah, nah.’”
Check out the full stream below.
Trending on Billboard Ye (formerly Kanye West) met with Rabbi Yoshiayao Yosef Pinto on Tuesday to apologize for his antisemitic remarks about the Jewish community. “I feel really blessed to sit here and take accountability,” West began while holding Pinto’s hands. “I was dealing with various issues. I was dealing with bipolar also, so I […]
Trending on Billboard This is partner content. The Billboard Live Music Summit & Awards was full of enlightening panels and the hottest stars. Usher & Rauw Alejandro spoke about their experiences while touring, and Shakira won big. Keep watching for all the details! Usher: Live music and live entertainment is really the source, and I’m […]
Source: Taylor Hill / Getty
In the history of Hip-Hop, we have seen artists tease new music, only for said music to never see the light of day.
From Dr. Dre’s Detox to that long-rumored collab album between Kendrick Lamar & J. Cole, it seems that we’ve had our fair share of these ideas failing to reach fruition. Now, A$AP Rocky may be joining this elite group of rappers who decided to tease a project that may or may not happen.
In a recent clip shared by Maurice Kamara with The People Gallery, the Harlem rapper was asked about the progress of his long-overdue fourth LP, “Don’t Be Dumb.” He answered, “Don’t Be Dumb? Never dropping.” The two then burst out into laughter, with Rocky adding, “They gon’ kill us for that one.”
Love Hip-Hop Wired? Get more! Join the Hip-Hop Wired Newsletter
We care about your data. See our privacy policy.
The project, his follow-up to 2018’s “Testing,” was originally slated to be released in August 2024 before being delayed just days before release. At the time, Rocky explained to X, that it was due to leaks and sample clearances. Since then, several tracks have been released, including “Highjack,” “Tailor Swif,” and the J. Cole-assisted “Ruby Rosary.” His most recent single, “pray4dagang,” was released in July of this year.
In an interview with Numéro Magazine, Rocky admits he’s done sharing release dates for the album, but that it will be worth the wait.
“To be honest, I don’t want to talk about release dates anymore,” he said. “I’d rather let the music speak for itself. One day, you’ll wake up and see what’s coming up. I was a bit foolish giving dates last time… Today, I want to make it clear. You’ll just have to wait and enjoy the record when it’ll come out.”
So, is Flacko planning on a surprise release for the speakers, or will the project go the way of his wifey Rihanna’s “R9” that’s been “in the works” for nearly a decade? The world may never know.
