State Champ Radio News
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Happy Halloween, Arianators. Ryan Murphy has announced the main cast of the upcoming 13th season of American Horror Story, which will feature Ariana Grande making her debut on the show alongside series regulars such as Evan Peters and Emma Roberts.
The news was revealed Friday (Oct. 31), with the Glee creator’s production company sharing a video on Instagram unveiling the stars on next season’s billing set to Vera Lynn’s cover of “I’ll Be Seeing You.” The Wicked leading lady’s name was revealed fifth in the lineup, following Peters, Sarah Paulson, Angela Bassett and Kathy Bates — each of whom are beloved members of the AHS universe.
Also returning to the show is Jessica Lange, who hasn’t participated in a season since 2018. Billie Lourd, Gabourey Sidibe and Leslie Grossman will also share the screen for season 13.
AHS isn’t the first Murphy project Grande will have starred in, with the Grammy winner playing Sonya Herfmann — aka “Chanel No. 2” — on Scream Queens in 2015. The next season of AHS will be a Scream Queens reunion of sorts, as both Roberts and Lourd costarred with Grande in the latter project.
The Victorious alum has also previously worked with Peters, who played her love interest in the music video for Billboard Hot 100-topper “We Can’t Be Friends (Wait for Your Love).”
Grande has been actively filling up her resume with more acting projects since starring in Wicked, for which she earned an Oscar nomination for best supporting actress. In July, it was announced that she will voice a character in Jon M. Chu’s film adaptation of Dr. Seuss’ Oh, the Places You’ll Go!
On the same day the AHS casting news dropped, Grande also wrapped filming on Focker in-Law, the next installment of the Meet the Parents franchise premiering in 2026. On Instagram, the vocalist celebrated the conclusion of the project by sharing photos of herself on set with her castmates and writing, “these past few months have been so, so unimaginably special. i love my Fockers, and i love my Byrnes… so, so very much. i will miss this bunch terribly.”
See the AHS season 13 casting announcement below.
Brad Vest / JD Vance / Erika Kirk
Social media thinks something weird is going on between JD Vance and Charlie Kirk’s widow, Erika Kirk.
Vice President JD Vance took time out of his “busy schedule” to speak at Turning Point USA’s event held at the University of Mississippi, honoring its deceased founder, Charlie Kirk.
Before Vance opened his mouth to say something that surely would come off strange, it was Erika Kirk’s weird introduction that had gone viral.
“I am tremendously blessed and honored tonight to be able to introduce to you a very, very dear friend and his wife. They are incredible,” Kirk began.
“No one will ever replace my husband, no, but I do see some similarities of my husband in JD,” she continued, which also had a lot of folks saying Huh?
After calling him an “amazing man,” Kirk left the stage to let a montage of Vance play before returning to the stage for a very interesting, to say the least, embrace.
Rocking leather pants and a white t-shirt, the two friends hugged, but it’s Kirk’s hands on Vance’s head that is garnering a lot of attention on social media.
“This man made the worst move of his life. I tried to excuse it for pure denial but if I was married to him he would be walking the golden streets with Charlie,” one post read.
Another post read, “If a broad hugs my man like this whilst gingerly cupping the back of his head with her hand, she’s getting TOUCHED.”
As we mentioned above, all of this happened before Vance opened his mouth and said he wished his wife would convert to Christianity.
Yikes.
You can see more reactions below.
Trending on Billboard
On Wednesday night (Oct. 29), Universal Music Group (UMG) and AI music company Udio announced they had reached a strategic agreement. Importantly, this agreement not only settled UMG’s involvement in the massive copyright infringement litigation the major labels brought against Udio and another AI music company, Suno, last summer, but also paved the way for the two companies to “collaborate on an innovative, new commercial music creation, consumption and streaming experience,” according to the announcement.
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The newly revamped version of Udio is set to debut in 2026, and it will feature fully-licensed UMG sound recordings and publishing assets that are totally controlled by UMG — but only those from artists that choose to participate.
Here, Billboard looks at the deal more deeply and answers some questions that have arisen in the wake of the first-of-its-kind agreement.
Why did UMG and Udio decide to come together and settle this week?
It’s hard to know exactly what happened behind closed doors, but reports that the major music companies had been in talks to settle with Udio — and Suno, which was also sued in a nearly identical lawsuit by the majors — have been circulating since this summer, making it relatively unsurprising to hear that at least one deal has been finalized.
One clue as to why there was incentive to settle here comes from a recent Barclays Research report on the majors’ lawsuits against the AI music firms, which stated that it could be “prohibitively expensive to lose” for Udio, much more than Suno, given the two firms had raised $10 million and $125 million, respectively, at the time the report was published on Tuesday (Oct. 28). Even a tough settlement, the report states, “would likely only mean the disappearance of Udio.”
The timing of the press release about the UMG-Udio deal also arrived the night before UMG’s Q3 earnings call, which took place yesterday (Oct. 30). The company has a history of announcing big news just before earnings calls in general, including one instance when UMG reached an agreement with TikTok the night before earnings in 2024 after a three-month standoff.
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What exactly will this 2026 version of Udio entail?
The new version of Udio will feature a number of tools to allow users to remix, mash up and riff on the songs of participating UMG artists. Users will also be able to create songs in the style of participating artists and use some artists’ voices on songs.
According to Udio CEO Andrew Sanchez, who spoke to Billboard just after the deal was announced, “[Udio is] going to involve all kinds of AI models, like a base model… The best way to explain it, [is it] will have sort of like flavors of the model that will be specific to particular styles or artists or genres. And this, again, provides an enormous amount of control.”
How can UMG artists and songwriters participate, and can they get paid for that?
Yes, UMG artists and songwriters will be remunerated for participating in Udio. According to a source close to the deal, this will include financial rewards for both the training process of the AI model and for its outputs. The details of exactly how that payment will work beyond this are unclear. Sanchez declined to answer a question about whether the model uses attribution (tracing back which songs in a training dataset influenced the outputs of a model) or digital proxies (a selected benchmark, like streaming performance, used to determine the popularity of songs in a dataset against others overall) as a way to determine payment — two of the most often proposed methods of AI licensing remuneration.
This answer is also made more complicated when considering the breadth of AI tools Udio plans to offer on its service. Importantly, artists can pick and choose exactly which Udio tools they “opt-in” to: “We’re going to launch with a set of features that has a spectrum of freedom that the artist can control,” Sanchez said. “There are some features that will be available to users that will be more restrictive in what they can do with their artists or their songs. And then there will be others that are more permissive. The whole point of it is not only education but just meeting artists at the levels they’re comfortable with.”
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Who is the target audience for the newly revamped Udio?
According to Sanchez, it’s fans: “We want to build a community of superfans around creation. As we say internally, it’s connection through creation — whether that’s with artists or that connection with other music fans. We want to lean into that. I think it’s going to be a huge asset for artists and fandoms.”
Are Sony and Warner still pursuing their lawsuits against Udio?
Yes, for now. UMG’s settlement and deal with Udio does not impact Sony Music and Warner Music Group’s lawsuit against Udio for widespread copyright infringement. While some industry onlookers posit that Sony and Warner are more encouraged to settle now that UMG is no longer pursuing litigation against Udio, there’s no indication that these companies are definitely planning to do so yet.
Why are some Udio users upset about this deal?
By doing this deal with UMG, Udio has agreed to a major pivot in its offering to users. Currently, the site is known for helping users make songs from simple text prompts, which they can then export and upload to streaming services, share on social media — or whatever they want to do.
Users are particularly upset because, as part of this deal with UMG, Udio immediately removed its users’ ability to download their work from the service. Angry subscribers gathered on a subreddit to complain. “This feels lie an absolute betrayal,” wrote one user. “I’ve spent hundreds of $$$ and countless hours building tracks with this tool,” wrote another. “No one warned us that one day, we wouldn’t even be able to access our own music. You can’t just pull the plug and call that a ‘transition.’”
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In a statement to Billboard on Thursday (Oct. 30), an Udio spokesperson said that disabling exports on the platform is “a difficult but necessary step to support the next phase of the platform and the new experiences ahead.” On Friday (Oct. 31), Udio relented slightly, writing on Reddit that starting Monday (Nov. 3), the platform will give users a 48-hour window to download their existing songs — and that any songs downloaded during that time will be covered by the terms of service that existed before the UMG deal was signed.
The move to restrict downloads in the long term may prove to be more than just an inconvenience for users — Udio could also be hit with legal claims over it. There could be arguments made that disabling downloads was a breach of the subscription contract that Udio signed with users, or that Udio falsely advertised its services in violation of consumer protection laws. It wouldn’t be the first time this has happened in recent memory: Just last year, Amazon Prime users brought claims like this over changes to the cost of ad-free movie and TV streaming for subscribers.
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Riley Green and featured artist Ella Langley enter the top 10 on Billboard’s Country Airplay chart dated Nov. 8 with “Don’t Mind If I Do.” The collaboration climbs 12-10, up 20% to 17.8 million in audience Oct. 24-30, according to Luminate. It’s Green’s seventh visit to the tier and Langley’s third — and their second as a tandem, after Langley’s “You Look Like You Love Me,” featuring Green, led for one week last December.
Langley and Green make for the first pair of soloists with multiple shared Country Airplay top 10s in five years: In 2020, Blake Shelton and Gwen Stefani teamed up for two No. 1s: “Nobody But You” that May, and “Happy Anywhere” that December.
Elsewhere, Langley’s current solo chart entry, “Choosin’ Texas,” bounds 59-41 (2.5 million, up 203%).
Megan 2.0
Megan Moroney continues her career ascent with two tracks due on her upcoming third studio album. Ballad “Beautiful Things,” released Oct. 24, debuts at No. 37 on Country Airplay (3.7 million), marking her highest entrance on her own; overall, she has started at a No. 23 best with “You Had to Be There” with Kenny Chesney in May.
Plus, Moroney’s fellow current single, “6 Months Later,” rises 14-12 on Country Airplay (15.9 million, up 20%).
Shaboozey ‘News’
Also notably, Shaboozey’s “Good News” departs Country Airplay following a standout stretch, including two weeks at No. 1 in September. He has logged 49 total weeks in the top 10, the fourth-most of any artist since his crossover breakout, “A Bar Song (Tipsy)” reached the region and became a juggernaut — it holds the all-time record for the most weeks in the top 10 (33), seven of those at No. 1.
Additionally, the singer-songwriter’s latest single, “Amen” with Jelly Roll, surges 37-29 on Country Airplay (5.3 million, up 55%). For an artist who entered as an outlier, Shaboozey has quickly become a fixture.
If Zohran Mamdani were to assemble a soundtrack for his race to become New York City’s next mayor, it would feature tracks by Taylor Swift, Lil Wayne, Drake and more.
While speaking to Pop Base at a recent voter event, the mayoral candidate was all smiles when asked which three songs he’d choose to represent his ongoing campaign. “OK,” he began in a video posted Thursday (Oct. 30), preparing himself to give the best answer possible.
The Queens, N.Y., representative went on to name “Hate It or Love It” by The Game featuring 50 Cent — “gotta put that one in there,” he emphasized — as well as “Right Above It” by Lil Wayne featuring Drake.
Lastly, Mamdani said, “Shout-out to Taylor Swift, ‘Only the Young.’”
The latter choice premiered in the pop superstar’s 2020 Netflix documentary, Miss Americana, which chronicled Swift’s decision to begin speaking out about politics following several years of silence on the matter. The song’s lyrics describe the power of young people to make positive political change with the hook, “Only the young can run.”
Mamdani’s music picks come with just a few days left to go in the NYC mayoral race, which will conclude on Election Day on Nov. 4. The democratic socialist as been the face of one of the largest grassroots campaigns in history, running on a platform of decreasing the cost of living for New Yorkers through lowered rent prices, free public transit and affordable groceries and childcare.
One of his biggest supporters has been Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who also attended the voter event with Pop Base. When asked for her holy trinity of pop albums, AOC — at first declaring, “This is sooo hard!” — named The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill, Britney Spears’ Blackout and Beyoncé’s Renaissance.
Watch Zohran Mamdani share his campaign soundtrack below.
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About three decades later, Common is thanking Fat Joe for saving his life. The Chicago rapper joined Joe & Jada earlier this week, where he recalled shooting a commercial in the mid-’90s on the West Coast when an altercation nearly broke out amid his feud with Ice Cube and Mack 10.
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“That man really saved my life. I was out on the West Coast with one of my guys I knew and he just wasn’t happy with the whole Mack 10 [and] Ice Cube beef that we had,” he said.
Essentially, one of Common’s friends escalated a situation, and before it crossed the line, Fat Joe stepped in to smooth things over — at least for Common.
“It’s not cuz Fat Joe is tougher than anyone. I literally begged for your life. I literally got in the middle, ‘He’s my friend, he’s my brother,’” Joe recalled. “They finally saw him on their soil and they was talking crazy and I was like, ‘This is literally my brother and I was begging them.’ It was the serious ones … Basically, I stood in the middle. It was over after that day.”
Common confirmed the beef was squashed from his side from that point forward and compared Joe’s intervention to a scene straight out of a movie.
“You settled that. I’m like, ‘Man, we in California, don’t start nothing.’ They already wanted a piece on me no matter what,” he explained. “My guy out there going off. I knew it was [Joe] that said, ‘This can’t happen.’ … That’s when Fat Joe the gangsta, this n—a here because he was straight up like, ‘You can’t do that to my man.’ It was like one of them movies, Goodfellas.”
Common etched his name in rap history with his acclaimed and scathing diss track “The Bitch in Yoo,” which was released in 1996 and took aim at Ice Cube, raising tensions with the West Coast.
During a 2020 interview with DJ VLAD, Mack 10 rehashed the near-altercation with Common and reiterated that Fat Joe stepped in to smooth things over. “Common is all right. Ain’t nobody got no issues,” Mack said. “Everybody grown. We done seen each other a million times since then.”
Watch the Joe & Jada episode with Common below. Talk about saving Common’s life begins just short of four minutes.
Source: Aaron J. Thornton / Getty
Family Matters actor Darius McCrary has been booked into a Michigan jail after being arrested on the United States-Mexico border.
McCrary, who will forever be known for his portrayal of Eddie Winslow, was issued a felony warrant after he reportedly missed a Michigan court hearing. McCrary allegedly failed to pay nearly $75,000 in past-due child support. The actor was finally captured, almost a month after the warrant was issued, and was booked into a San Diego jail where he stayed until he was sent to Michigan where the warrant was issued, TMZ reports.
During the first court appearance in San Diego, Wednesday (Oct. 15), McCrary appeared to be struggling to understand what was happening.
According to ABC 10News in San Diego, McCrary was arrested for the outstanding warrant on Oct. 5. During his court hearing, McCrary decided to bypass a lawyer and opted to represent himself. At the beginning of the hearing, McCrary wanted to let the San Diego courtroom know that he was “here on special appearance.” In fact, he kept repeating that he was “here on a special appearance.”
The judge then asked, “Sir, who are you specially appearing for?” McCrary responded, “Specially appearing for Darius McCrary. I’m here. I’m here.”
“In fact, after a while, the judge — apparently having had enough — decided to give him a public defender, explaining McCrary ‘is unable to understand and appreciate the legalities of these proceedings,’” TMZ reports.
According to TMZ, McCrary’s bond has been set at $18,968.32. There has been no note of McCrary’s release at the time of this report.
“Darius was picked up at the Border of Mexico because he was partnering with a real estate developer that is building homes for the homeless in Tijuana, Mexico,” McCrary’s representative, Ann Barlow, told Fox 13. “Darius was doing a GOOD DEED when he discovered he had a felony warrant at the Border of Mexico for a missed court appearance.
“The missed court appearance was for an ongoing child support dispute, whereas Oakland County mailed the notice to appear to Darius PO BOX giving him only 3 days to appear in Michigan Court,” she continued. “Unfortunately, Darius had COVID, therefore did not check his PO Box until the day after his court date.”
McCrary is charged with four felony counts of unpaid child support. He faces up to four years in prison if convicted.
Trending on Billboard
While many Billboard radio airplay stories focus, rightly enough, on which artists and songs are topping the charts, this week’s Adult R&B Airplay survey (dated Nov. 1) contains a potentially historic development at the anchor spot, No. 30, thanks to Xania Monet’s “How Was I Supposed to Know?”
What’s the difference between that song and the other 103 titles that have made the chart this year alone? Xania Monet (first name pronounced “zha-NI-ah,” rhyming with Shania, as in Shania Twain) is an AI-driven artist, the product of a poet named Telisha Jones, and her song’s chart arrival marks the first known instance of an AI-based act to earn a spot on a Billboard radio chart. The move also represents another step in the evolving relationship between AI tools and creators and the music industry.
“How Was I Supposed to Know?” begins on the Adult R&B Airplay chart through its plays at panel-contributing adult R&B radio stations in the United States. It improved 28% in plays for the tracking week of Oct. 17-23 compared to its Oct. 10-16 total, according to Luminate. In that window, 15 of the chart-contributing adult R&B radio stations played the song, according to Mediabase, among 57 total reporters.
The song first generated public attention as a viral track on TikTok and other social media platforms. Social growth extended to streaming services and digital retailers, prompting the song’s No. 1 debut on the R&B Digital Song Sales chart dated Sept. 20 and a No. 20 start on the multimetric Hot R&B Songs chart a week later. As awareness spread, the song and its creator ignited a discourse of both supportive and opposing perspectives, with SZA and Kehlani among the most prominent opponents.
Billboard reached out to several stations’ programming and music directors to seek comment on the song, artist and surrounding industry discussions, but none replied to our inquiries.
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For a creative situation only possible thanks to futuristic technology, a focus on radio promotion may seem an old-school approach. The team surrounding Monet, however, views it as a no-brainer. “We look at everything as a complete package,” says Romel Murphy, who manages Monet. “If you had a, let’s say, traditional, artist and were a label and marketing executive, radio would be a piece of the promotion strategy. We’re interested in bringing the music to as many people as possible.” To that end, Murphy says a full radio push is part of the equation. “Our goal is to continue to grow, continue to connect and hopefully get to No. 1.”
While Monet has generated the bulk of discussion, she isn’t the only AI-driven act making an impact on Billboard’s charts. The Emerging Artists chart has become a home for these budding acts, with several landing on various rankings the last few weeks.
Now, those concrete examples indicate the growing likelihood of AI-driven artists as a major industry transformation.
Still, Murphy asks observers to assess from a music-first perspective. “Be it a radio programming director, be it a music fan, be it our peers, colleagues, artists,” he says, “just listen to the songs. Listen to the lyrics. And then make your judgment.”
Trending on Billboard “Golden” from KPop Demon Hunters is back on top of the U.K. Singles Chart on Friday (Oct. 31), and brings Taylor Swift’s No. 1 run with “The Fate of Ophelia” to a close after three weeks. Explore See latest videos, charts and news The song, taken from the Netflix smash film, is […]
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Taylor Swift has been toppled from the summit of the U.K. Albums Chart by British rapper Dave on Friday (Oct. 31) following a massive opening week for his third LP The Boy Who Played the Harp.
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Swift’s The Life of a Showgirl broke numerous records in its opening week on the U.K.’s Official Albums Chart and held the spot for three consecutive weeks following its release on Oct. 3.
Now London-born Dave has secured the top spot for the third time in his career by notching 73,800 U.K. chart units over the past seven days, making it the second biggest opening week for a British album this year, behind Sam Fender’s People Watching (110,000) and ahead of Olivia Dean’s The Art of Loving (53,000). It’s the fourth biggest opening week overall of 2025 so far, placing behind Swift’s The Life of a Showgirl, Fender and Sabrina Carpenter’s Man’s Best Friend.
Dave first hit the No. 1 spot in 2019 with Psychodrama and again in 2021 with We’re All Alone in This Together. His new LP, The Boy Who Played the Harp, was announced just weeks before its release and featured no singles in the rollout. The record features guest appearances from James Blake, Jim Legxacy, Tems and Kano, and will be supported by a U.K. arena tour in 2026.
The Life of a Showgirl falls two places to No. 3, and Swift has also lost the top spot on the U.K. Official Singles Chart with lead single “The Fate of Ophelia” to KPop Demon Hunters’ “Golden.”
As he celebrates his return to touring, Bon Jovi celebrates finishing at No. 2 with a new edition of 2024 LP, Forever. The Legendary Edition features duets with Bruce Springsteen, Robbie Williams, Avril Lavigne and Lainey Wilson. The band will perform a number of stadium shows, including two at London’s Wembley Stadium, next June.
Lily Allen’s searing West End Girl LP has been the talk of the town as she examines the breakup of a marriage, widely assumed to be informed by her separation from Stranger Things star David Harbour. Her first LP in eight years, West End Girl closes the week at No. 4 – her highest placing in more than a decade – and she’ll tour the album in full at a run of U.K. theaters in 2026.
Olivia Dean’s The Art of Loving finishes the week at No. 5 on the U.K. charts, although it remains in the top 10 of the Billboard 200 this week at No. 7.
