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Central Cee has shared his love of Billie Eilish’s “Birds of a Feather” in a new interview.
On the west London rapper’s four-part CRG Radio show, which is available via Apple Music 1, Cench — born Oakley Neil Caesar-Su — discussed his all-time favorite artists, past and present. In addition to praising Lil Durk, Drake, Damian Marley, Amy Winehouse and dancehall artist Vybz Kartel, he spoke about playing Eilish’s music on repeat.
“You see me, I don’t know lyrics. I was saying I know ‘Juicy’ by Biggie Smalls just about off by heart and that’s the only song,” he began. “And then, after listening to it maybe a thousand times, I know Billie Eilish’s ‘Birds of a Feather.’”
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“I need to listen to something for time to hear [song] lyrics,” he continued, before describing his attraction to Eilish in the “Birds of a Feather” music video. “I think I fancied her first. I was looking at her, I was just watching the video to look at her and then I started thinking, ‘Yeah, no, this [song is] actually cold. And now I don’t know if it’s ‘mind games’; I’ve just heard it so much, but I love it. I just love the music now. It’s not even about [Eilish] anymore.”
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He added: “I’ve just been told that [‘Birds of a Feather’] was one of the biggest songs of last year, and it kind of makes me think that when something’s so popular — I know people do it with my music — that I’m not actually as unique as I think I am for liking that song. But I am in my circle!”
The latest episode of CRG Radio will also be the last. Previous installments of the series have seen the 26-year-old speak with U.K. rappers Headie One, Blade Brown and Nemzzz, while there has also been an appearance from England midfielder Cole Palmer.
On Jan. 31, meanwhile, Cench beat competition from Teddy Swims to top the Official U.K. Albums Chart with his debut LP, Can’t Rush Greatness. He will support the record with a 39-date world arena tour through the spring, kicking off in Oslo on April 1.
Cench also recently scooped a trio of nominations for the 2025 BRIT Awards; the ceremony will be held March 1. He is up for best U.K. artist, best song (“Band4Band”) and best hip-hop and grime.
After investing several hundred million dollars in labels and management companies, Firebird Music has entered into its first partnership with an artist — the U.K. rocker Yungblud — on a new company, YB Inc.
For Yungblud, this alliance offers an opportunity to expand his pursuits outside of recorded music, which already include Bludfest, a festival, and Beautifully Romanticized, Accidentally Traumatized, a fashion brand. “This is a new type of venture for both of us, which is very exciting,” the artist says via email. “Building and scaling a music festival, a 360 lifestyle business — including physical stores and a music venue — and starting a clothing brand all need resources.” And Firebird has a large war chest — Nat Zilkha, the company’s co-founder and executive chairman, told Billboard in 2023 that it has access to over $1 billion in equity.
For Firebird, teaming up with Yungblud furthers the company’s goal of “support[ing] any entrepreneur who has vision and aspirations, but needs capital, expertise, infrastructure and support,” according to Zilkha. “Through his recorded music and touring, merchandise, fashion line, brand deals and festival,” Zilkha adds, “Yungblud has built one of the largest and most successful businesses in the world.”
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Zilkha launched Firebird in 2022 with Nathan Hubbard, who previously served as CEO of Ticketmaster. Initially, the company focused on investing in labels (including Defected Records and Transgressive Records), management companies (including Red Light and Mick Management) and publishers (Tape Room, One Two Many Music), often acquiring majority stakes, according to Zilkha.
For Defected, a dance music label, “Firebird’s investment provides capital that allows us to scale — whether that be through A&R expansion, catalogue acquisitions, technological advancements, or other efforts,” says CEO Wez Saunders. “The partnership removes financial constraints that independent labels often face when competing with major label-backed entities.”
On top of that, Saunders continues, “Firebird is known for leveraging technology, analytics and audience engagement strategies. This allows Defected to enhance its data-driven approach to artist development and fan engagement — areas where major labels often hold a competitive advantage.” (“For any of these individual companies to spend the kind of money that we’re spending on our data analytics team would be cost prohibitive,” Zilkha said previously. “But we can spread that cost across all of the different companies.”)
Firebird has also wanted to work directly with acts. “There’s an opportunity to create a new kind of partner for artists, one that is fully aligned across everything they do,” Zilkha told Billboard in 2023. The music industry “is stuck in silos” — most labels take a cut of an artist’s streaming and sales income, for example, but not their touring income. That means the record company has little incentive to help build an act’s touring operation, which “under-optimizes the investment behind an artist,” according to Zilkha.
By partnering with stars across all their various revenue streams, Firebird is theoretically freed up to take a different approach to career building. “It might be that we lose money on the distribution or recorded music, but that’s okay, because we’re partnering with the artist in a lot of other places where she or he may be reaching their fans,” Zilkha explained.
Yungblud is signed to Interscope Capitol Labels Group, but he will funnel his earnings into YB Inc, which he owns jointly with Firebird, according to Bloomberg. This strategy “allows me to manage the risk, but enables my projects to breathe and grow,” Yungblud says. “My managers and I can focus on getting the proposition and execution just right, while keeping our fundamental values in place, and without rushing or skipping important steps.”
Zilkha hopes to strike more similar partnerships soon. “As Firebird continues to scale and bring on more artists,” he says, “the diversity across artists will be paired with that added benefit of also being diversified across revenue streams.”
Everyone has an opinion on how Drake should maneuver with his next venture to turn the page to 2025. Coming off of his appearance during Kendrick Lamar’s Super Bowl Halftime Show over the weekend, Mustard stopped by Big Boy’s Neighborhood on Monday (Feb. 10) to share his thoughts on just that. Big Boy asked what […]
When WWE Superstar Damian Priest learned that one of the biggest matches of his career would be held in Puerto Rico, he was overjoyed. For Priest, who was raised in Vega Baja, a small town just 26 miles from San Juan, it was more than a match — it was a long-awaited homecoming. But for this no-holds-barred San Juan Street Fight, the former World Heavyweight Champion would be lacing up his boots to face an unusual opponent: one of music’s brightest stars and arguably Puerto Rico’s favorite son, Bad Bunny.
“Here he is doing all these moves and being able to take them,” Priest recalls of the May 6, 2023, barn burner, where he lost by pinfall. “The fact that he could take all these hits and get back up — and I know he was in a lot of pain — that drive to succeed and entertain, he has it, like we all do.”
Bad Bunny actually made his WWE debut in January 2021, at the Royal Rumble in St. Petersburg, Fla., where he faced off against former WWE and UFC heavyweight champion Brock Lesnar. That April, he showcased more daredevil moves and aerial tactics — and turned skeptics into believers — at WrestleMania. And since then, he has continued to solidify his heavyweight status in the wrestling world with his unwavering passion for the craft.
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“Music and WWE have always run parallel,” Priest says. “When I describe how to make it in this business through the grind and the struggle, it’s always easier to explain it to musicians because they get it. It’s the same grind. You start performing in front of little to nobody in these greasy clubs, try to get noticed and then build up a reputation and a bit of a following. Hopefully, you get noticed by a record label or an artist who puts you on a tour, [and] it’s the same thing here.”
Bad Bunny and Damian Priest wrestle during the WWE Backlash at Coliseo de Puerto Rico José Miguel Agrelot on May 6, 2023 in San Juan, Puerto Rico.
Gladys Vega/ Getty Images
Though the WWE has been around for 70 years, the wrestling conglomerate is enjoying a renaissance — and the music industry has played a significant role in its post-pandemic resurgence. WWE president Nick Khan, who joined the company in 2020, has been at the forefront, connecting the dots between music and the WWE by bringing artists like Bad Bunny, Travis Scott, Metro Boomin, Cardi B, Meek Mill, Jelly Roll and Sexyy Red to collaborate with the company. Whether through actual matches, live TV segments or commercials for future premium live events, the strategic pairing has brought a fresh and diverse audience to WWE while elevating these artists’ status in the wrestling world.
In early January, WWE officially partnered with Netflix to present Monday Night Raw, its 34-year-old flagship show and the longest-running weekly episodic program without reruns in TV history. (The show most recently aired on USA Network from 2005 through the end of 2024.) The three-hour star-packed extravaganza featured wrestling immortals The Rock, John Cena and Hulk Hogan, and celebrities from Vanessa Hudgens and Tiffany Haddish to Travis Scott, Wale and Blxst attended. But unlike his peers, Scott wasn’t just a spectator — he escorted WWE Superstar Jey Uso ahead of his match. Scott — whom WWE chief content officer Paul Levesque (aka wrestler Triple H) gifted a Hardcore Championship belt during the rapper’s ComplexCon performance last November — wore the title draped around his shoulders and fed off the crowd’s electric energy as his own “Fein” reverberated throughout Los Angeles’ Intuit Dome. Sunglasses on and joint in hand, Scott sauntered out alongside Uso with the aura of a ’90s wrestler — a picture-perfect moment for both stars.
“The energy out there was crazy,” Scott tells Billboard. “I was talking to Triple H and was like, ‘Yo. This s–t is wild.’ In my shows, I try to create that maximum energy level and have the people feel they can reach the highest level of ecstasy as far as being happy and free. And in those environments — things like wrestling, and even in sports where the characters can be so free and create this livelihood for kids, adults and families — it’s dope.”
“When I found out I was coming out with Travis, I asked him, ‘Are you ready? Because this s–t is about to pop off,’ ” Uso adds. “I just didn’t expect that the brother was about to light one up before we walked out. He can do what he wants to do.”
This wasn’t the first time Uso had rubbed shoulders with a hip-hop superstar. Last April, at WrestleMania 40, he and Lil Wayne walked down the entranceway together at Philadelphia’s Lincoln Financial Field before a roaring crowd as the rapper’s “A Milli” and Uso’s entrance theme, “Main Event Ish,” played. It was a surreal moment for Uso: Before his WWE debut in 2007, he’d wrestled on the independent circuit alongside his twin brother, Jimmy, and they’d chosen Wayne’s 2004 hit “Go DJ” as their entrance music.
“We all grew up on Wayne in the late ’90s and early 2000s,” Uso says. “I’m talking about when he was with Hot Boyz and all that. It’s crazy how life comes full circle.” Before they walked out, Uso even cajoled Wayne into wearing some Uso merchandise: “He was real dope and cool with everything. He asked if I needed anything from him, and I said, ‘S–t, brother. Can you wear these “YEET” glasses for me? Here, put these on.’ ”
As artists rush to step inside the squared circle, wrestlers are moving with similar intention toward recording studios. Compelling entrance songs are vital in developing their characters, and since the ’90s, revered WWE Superstars like “Stone Cold” Steve Austin, The Rock and The Undertaker have placed fans in a choke hold with not only their iconic visual presentation but also their magnetic theme music. At the heart of those entrance songs is former WWE composer Jim Johnston, who used popular ’90s genres like hip-hop and rock to create songs based on the wrestlers’ characters.
For Austin, famously known as “The Texas Rattlesnake,” his hard-rocking entrance song, “I Won’t Do What You Tell Me,” became known for its glass-shattering sound effects. Austin didn’t record vocals for it, but Cena, whose earlier wrestling persona was a punchline-driven rapper, stepped inside the booth and rapped his “The Time Is Now.” That bold move paved the way for future superstars like Uso and Priest to infuse their entrances with their own personalities, adding a fun new element for fans to enjoy.
“It helps to have someone like [Slayer’s] Kerry King play guitar on my track,” says Priest, whose character has a darker, goth-like personality. “It’s pretty cool. While doing my own vocals on my song is pretty simple, it’s cool because it comes from me and what I wanted to say and feel during certain moments. People can bop their heads to it, and it adds to that aura.”
Bad Bunny, representing Latino World Order, takes the ring as he prepares to wrestle Dominik Mysterio during the WWE SmackDown at Coliseo de Puerto Rico José Miguel Agrelot on May 5, 2023 in San Juan, Puerto Rico.
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Uso’s hip-hop-influenced “Main Event Ish” is arguably the WWE’s most popular entrance song, with a simple but fiery hook (“It’s just me, Uce”), his unbridled energy and sharp ad-libs. His signature wave — now a staple at all WWE shows where he’s competing, in which he climbs the top rope and waves his hands up and down, controlling the crowd like a hip-hop maestro — accompanies the song.
“I flew to New York one day, sat [down with the writing team], put it together, knocked it out and it was on TV the next week,” Uso says of the track. “I knew I wanted to get on there and bring the energy. We always been musical, my whole family. We got hidden talents the world don’t know about.”
And as WWE enters WrestleMania season — with arguably its deepest roster since the ’90s — more musicians are looking to walk down the entrance ramp and pose a challenge, just like Bad Bunny first did four years ago. Fortunately for Bad Bunny, he had a great teacher in Priest, who, prior to their one-on-one showdown in Puerto Rico, served as his in-ring mentor and tag-team partner at WrestleMania 37, where they were victorious.
“A good match with another good wrestler is expected,” Priest says. “What I did with Bad Bunny was magic because nobody expected it. That’s not something you get to do all the time. I don’t know if I’ll ever get that chance again.”
This story appears in the Feb. 8, 2025, issue of Billboard.
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A new photo of rapper Blueface has emerged and it’s safe to say he has made a change in his appearance. In the image, he is seen with even more tattoos across his face, which adds to his already extensive body art collection. The rapper, known for his unorthodox flow on his song “Thotiana,” has always been a controversial figure, but this new addition to his appearance only deepens that persona.
Blueface’s life has been far from smooth in recent years. He was sentenced to four years in jail after violating his probation, a consequence of an assault on a security guard at a North Hollywood lounge in 2021. His legal troubles have been widely covered, adding to the rapper’s growing frustration list of controversies. Since he’s been locked up, there has been a noticeable silence around his career and personal life, especially when it comes to his tumultuous relationship with Chrisean Rock. The two became infamous for their toxic relationship, which played out publicly on social media.
Since rapper Blueface has been in jail, his chaotic, on-and-off relationship with Chrisean Rock has taken a deep pause. The couple’s toxic dynamic was the focus of their show, Chrisean & Blueface: Crazy In Love, where viewers watched nonstop arguments and drama. However, before the turn of events, Chrisean Rock made major strides in her career.
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