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WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump said Friday (Feb. 7) that he is firing members of the board of trustees for the Kennedy Center and naming himself chairman.
He also indicated that he would be dictating programming at one of the nation’s premier cultural institutions, specifically declaring that he’d put an end to events featuring performers in drag.
Trump’s announcement came as the new president has bulldozed his way across official Washington during the first weeks of his second term, trying to shutter federal agencies, freeze spending and ending diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives across the government.
“At my direction, we are going to make the Kennedy Center in Washington D.C., GREAT AGAIN. I have decided to immediately terminate multiple individuals from the Board of Trustees, including the Chairman, who do not share our Vision for a Golden Age in Arts and Culture,” Trump wrote.
“We will soon announce a new Board, with an amazing Chairman, DONALD J. TRUMP!”
Unlike former President Joe Biden and other commanders in chief through the decades, Trump did not attend the annual Kennedy Center Honors ceremonies during his first term, held at the performing arts venue in Washington’s Foggy Bottom neighborhood that opened in 1971.
Shortly after Trump’s post, the Kennedy Center website began experiencing technical difficulties. Visitors got a message reading “We are experiencing high traffic” and were redirected to a “waiting room” that listed how many hundreds of people were trying to access the site ahead of them.
Trump suggested in his post that he would be implementing some changes to the center’s performance schedule, noting that last year “the Kennedy Center featured Drag Shows specifically targeting our youth — THIS WILL STOP.”
According to its website, the center in July hosted a preshow titled “A Drag Salute to Divas” and a November “Drag Brunch.”
In his post, Trump did not clarify which board of trustee members he would be terminating besides the current chairman, philanthropist David Rubenstein. The board often features political powerbrokers and major donors, and is currently made up of members from both sides of the aisle.
Rubenstein was first elected to the post in 2010 and reelected each year since that time. Also, the principal owner of the Baltimore Orioles, Rubenstein was originally appointed to the Kennedy Center board by President George W. Bush and subsequently reappointed by President Barack Obama and Biden.
The current board features Biden’s White House press secretary, Karine Jean-Pierre, as well as Mike Donilon, Biden’s longtime ally, and Stephanie Cutter, a former Obama adviser. The treasurer of the center’s board of trustees is television producer Shonda Rhimes, who hosted fundraisers for Biden before he abandoned his reelection bid last summer.
But the current board also features Trump allies, including Pam Bondi, the new president’s recently confirmed attorney general, and Lee Greenwood, whose song “God Bless the USA,” was the unofficial anthem of Trump’s presidential campaign.
During his first term in 2019, Trump announced that he was tapping actor Jon Voight, a longtime supporter, to the board, along with former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, who he’s picked as U.S. ambassador to Israel this time.
2025 might not be so bad after all. Roc Marciano and DJ Premier surprised rap fans with a new single in “Armani Exchange” and have announced that they’ll be releasing a collaborative EP later this year. Ironically enough, this all came together by a chance meeting at Macy’s flagship Herald Square store in New York […]
Rick Ross and 50 Cent are at it again. This time the veteran rappers and businessmen have been going back and forth over a picture. Demetrius “Big Meech” Flenory, who was recently released to a halfway house and has been visited by various celebrities including 50 Cent, linked up with Rick Ross — which has […]
Spotify led all music stocks this week with a 13.6% gain after its fourth-quarter earnings results on Tuesday (Feb. 4) showed that the company posted its first-ever net profit. The streamer’s share price reached an all-time high of $632.41 on Friday (Feb. 7) before closing at $622.99, slightly lower than its closing prices on Wednesday ($626.00) and Thursday ($625.87). Fewer than six weeks into 2025, the Swedish streaming company’s stock has risen 39.3%.
With 203.8 million shares outstanding, according to its 2024 annual report released this week, Spotify’s market capitalization briefly reached $128.9 billion. A week ago, Spotify was worth nearly as much as the three major music groups. As of Friday, after gaining another 13.6%, Spotify is worth more than Universal Music Group (UMG), Sony Music and Warner Music Group (WMG) combined.
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Guggenheim was among a host of analysts to increase its Spotify price target, raising the streaming company’s shares to $675 from $520 and increasing its forecast for 2025 operating income to 2.61 billion euros ($2.7 billion) from 2.46 billion euros ($2.54 billion). Others that raised their price targets for Spotify were Evercore ISI (to $700 from $500), Morgan Stanley (to $670 from $550), DA Davidson (to $680 from $350) and Deutsche Bank (to $700 from $550).
Led by Spotify, the 20-company Billboard Global Music Index (BGMI) rose 7.7% to a record 2,635.41, bringing its year-to-date gain to 24.0%. The index’s most valuable companies were among the 13 gainers while the seven companies that lost ground have relatively small market capitalizations. In contrast to music stocks’ gains, major indexes were muted this week. In the U.S., the Nasdaq composite index and S&P 500 fell 0.5% and 0.2%, respectively. In the U.K., the FTSE 100 rose 0.3%. South Korea’s KOSPI composite index gained 3.0%. China’s SSE Composite Index was up 1.6%.
Chinese music streamer Cloud Music had the week’s second-best performance, rising 6.6% to 130.30 HKD ($16.73). SiriusXM was third-best after rising 6.0% to $25.44. Another Chinese music streaming company, Tencent Music Entertainment, improved 4.7% to $12.54. And K-pop companies all fared well: SM Entertainment was up 4.9%, HYBE improved 4.2% and JYP Entertainment rose 3.6%.
While record labels and publishers have benefitted from Spotify’s price increases, their stock prices haven’t followed the same trajectory. WMG gained 2.9% to $32.72 following its quarterly earnings report on Thursday (Feb. 6) and is up 5.5% year to date. Reservoir Media, which released earnings on Wednesday (Feb. 5) and raised its full-year guidance, closed the week down 4.2% to $7.96 and has lost 12.0% in 2025. UMG, which will announce its fourth-quarter earnings on March 6, rose 0.1% to $26.98 and is up 9.1% year-to-date.
MSG Entertainment gained 1.1% to $36.73. On Thursday (Feb. 6), the concert promoter reported that revenue increased 1% to $407.4 million and adjusted operating income improved 2% to $164 million in the fiscal second quarter ended December 31, 2024. Event-related revenue fell $22.5 million due to lower revenue from concerts and a drop in other live entertainment at the company’s venues.
LiveOne had the largest decline of the week, falling 19.3% to $1.17. The music streaming company will announce earnings on Feb. 14.

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In the early and mid 90’s, Smif-N-Wessun and the Boot Camp Click had the Brooklyn streets on smash with some gritty cuts and head boppin’ beats and though they never went on to become multiplatinum rappers, real heads know and appreciate what they brought to the game and to their playlists.
Now in 2025 Smif-N-Wessun return with some new work and in their clip to “Elephant In The Room,” Tek and Steele take to the streets of Bucktown, USA and spit their bars into a hanging microphone on the street and show they can still go toe-to-toe with your favorite street rapper today. We need a BCC reunion (R.I.P Sean Price).
From beasts of the East to some of the best from the West, a few other triple OG’s from the game are still doing their thing and in the clip to “Had To,” P-Lo, E-40 and Too $hort enjoy a fancy meal at an exclusive restaurant as they spit that ish that while sippin’ on some wine and dining on some exquisite dishes. Boss style forreal.
Check out the rest of today’s drops including work from Killah Prist, Richie Rich, and more.
SMIF-N-WESSUN – “ELEPHANT IN THE ROOM”
P-LO, E-40 & TOO $HORT – “HAD TO”
KILLAH PRIEST – “NAG HAMMADI”
RICHIE RICH – “WIRES AND VOGUES”
PHILTHY RICH – “KNOW MY NAME”
BIG HOMIIE G – “WELCOME TO THE YAMI”
LUHH DYL – “BE FOREAL”
YBS SKOLA – “SLOW IT DOWN”
KENNY MUNEY – “MY $EASON”
Cardi B and Pardison Fontaine dropped “Toot It Up,” but are fans hitting her with backlash from this match-up? Cardi tells you why there isn’t any drama and when her new album is coming.
What do you think of the new track? Let us know in the comments!
Tetris Kelly:
New music from Cardi is here, but is there drama that it includes Megan Thee Stallion’s ex Pardison Fontaine?
Cardi B:
None of that is my ******* business. So stop ******* harassing me. Stop calling a *****.
Tetris Kelly:
And Cardi, when is the album coming?
Cardi B:
It’s coming. I’m just waiting on everything to be ready.
Tetris Kelly:
We have it all in this week’s Music You Should Know: “Toot It Up.” It’s Cardi and Pardi on an explosive new track “Toot It Up” and the music video has us doing just that. Now, Pardison Fontaine has worked with Cardi B on her ‘Invasion of Privacy’ album in the past, but he also dated Megan Thee Stallion. And some of her fans think Cardi is doing her friend and collaborator dirty, still working with her ex. She had this to say on X.
Cardi B:
I want to make this very clear, when I **** two people and I like two people, I stay away from **** because when it comes to relationship, some **** will always happen. And one thing about me, I’m gonna stay neutral, and I’m gonna stay the **** out of it.
Tetris Kelly:
Now will this track be a part of Cardi’s long-awaited sophomore album? And when is it coming out?
Cardi B:
It’s coming. I’m just waiting on everything to be ready. So when it’s time to order, everybody can have everything on deck for the pre-order.
Tetris Kelly:
Okay, okay, when it’s time to order, we gonna get it. We gonna get all the sides, the toppings?
Cardi B:
Everything, all the bells and whistles!
Tetris Kelly:
Oh, Cardi. Well, we will be ready when it comes.
Things are only looking up for Heidi Montag and Spencer Pratt, who are taking the former’s music career to new heights following the heartbreaking loss of their home in the Los Angeles wildfires — and one unexpected benefit of the situation, they tell Billboard in a new video special with the couple, has been finally breaking the “stigma” they felt followed them after The Hills.
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While spending the day with Billboard, Montag and Pratt touched on their reality show beginnings, from which the former says they’ve “been trying to move forward” for “a long time.” “We’re thankful for where we started,” she said, standing next to her husband by the beach. “It definitely has been a bittersweet experience for us. Obviously we had a different experience than a lot of the cast from it.”
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“For us to be able to feel people really come together and support us and our family, and to kind of burn off, literally, that shell and that stigma that we had for so many years, it’s nice that people can finally see through that and see that there was always a love story,” Montag continued of the support they’ve been seeing from fans online since announcing in January that their house had completely burned down in the Pacific Palisades blazes.
The couple’s Billboard special comes just a couple weeks after Montag dropped Superficial 2, a followup to her 2010 album Superficial that featured 12 new songs. The original album has been receiving a surge in streams as fans have rallied around the singer and her family after the fires, with Superficial debuting on the Billboard 200 in January thanks to the extra love.
“It’s been really refreshing to have this new generation listen to the music for the music, and not with the stigmas attached, and the hate and the negativity,” Montag, who shares two sons with Pratt, told Billboard later in the day while at a restaurant. “Just to have it be purely listened to has been a blessing.”
One particularly famous person who’s also come to their aid has been Pitbull, who jumped on a remix of Montag’s “I’ll Do It” that was released Thursday (Feb. 6). “We were in touch with Pitbull, and he got on the phone with me,” Montag gushed.
“That was one of the most heartfelt, sincere, kind moments of my life,” she added. “A superstar taking time out of his day to be like, ‘Mamacita, I got you.’”
The same week he made his Billboard Hot 100 debut as a recording artist, Grammy-winning producer, actor and R&B star Leon Thomas made his live television debut on The Late Show With Stephen Colbert on Thursday (Feb. 6). Surrounded by his band on a red-lit stage with a projection of his Mutt album cover behind […]
Megan Thee Stallion can proceed with a defamation lawsuit accusing social media personality Milagro Gramz of waging a “campaign of harassment” against the star on behalf of Tory Lanez, a federal judge says.
The rapper sued Gramz (Milagro Cooper) last year, claiming the YouTuber had been “churning out falsehoods” about the high-profile criminal case against Lanez, in which he was convicted of shooting Megan in the foot during a 2020 dispute in the Hollywood Hills.
In a 25-page decision on Friday (Feb. 7), Judge Cecilia Altonaga denied a request by Gramz to dismiss the case, saying Megan had made a “compelling case” that the blogger had defamed her by claiming the star lied during Lanez’s trial and that she was “mentally retarded.”
“Plaintiff’s claims extend far beyond mere negligence — they paint a picture of an intentional campaign to destroy her reputation,” the judge wrote. “That is more than enough to [deny the motion to dismiss].”
The judge also refused to dismiss Megan’s other claims against Gramz, including that Gramz had violated a Florida state law by sharing a pornographic “deepfake” of the rapper. Defense attorneys had argued that Gramz had not actually shared the clip merely by “liking” it on X, but Judge Altonaga noted Friday that she’d allegedly done more than that.
“By ‘liking’ an X.com post that featured the deepfake video, the video was exhibited on defendant’s X.com account’s ‘Likes’ page,” the judge wrote. “Defendant also brought the video ‘before the public’ when she allegedly directed viewers of her post to click on her ‘Likes’ page where the video had been archived.”
The judge did dismiss one claim — Megan’s accusation of cyberstalking — but allowed her to refile the case this month to try to fix the error.
In a statement to Billboard, Gramz’s attorney Michael A. Pancier stressed that the decision was an early-stage ruling subject only to a “more lenient legal standard” and that “many of these issues will be revisited at a later stage following the completion of the discovery process.”
“This decision does not reflect a determination on the merits of the case,” Pancier said. “The plaintiff must now substantiate her claims with credible and admissible evidence.”
A rep for Megan declined to comment on the ruling.
Lanez (Daystar Peterson) was convicted in December 2022 on three felony counts over the violent 2020 incident, in which he shot at the feet of Megan during an argument following a pool party at Kylie Jenner’s house in the Hollywood Hills. In August 2023, he was sentenced to 10 years in prison. He has filed an appeal, which remains pending.
In an October lawsuit, Megan’s attorneys accused Gramz of repeatedly spreading falsehoods about that criminal case, including questioning whether Megan was even shot and claiming she was “caught trying to deceive the courts.” More recently, they said Gramz had pushed the “outlandish claim” that the gun Lanez used in the shooting had gone missing from evidence.
The lawsuit claimed the blogger made those claims because she was serving as a “mouthpiece and puppet” for Lanez as the singer sat behind bars. In an updated version of the lawsuit filed in December, Megan’s attorneys said prison call logs suggested that Lanez and his father had arranged to pay Gramz.
In seeking to dismiss the case, defense attorneys argued that Megan could not meet the difficult requirement of showing that Gramz had acted with “actual malice” — that she had either intentionally lied about Megan or had acted with a reckless disregard for the truth.
But in Friday’s ruling, Judge Altonaga said that the rapper’s claims, if later proven with evidence, would likely be enough to win a defamation case.
“The [lawsuit] makes a compelling case that defendant acted with reckless disregard for the truth,” the judge wrote. “Plaintiff asserts that readily available information contradicted defendant’s statements at the time of publication [and that] defendant knowingly spread these falsehoods at Peterson’s direction, fully aware they were fabricated to harm plaintiff.”
“Finally, defendant seemingly profited from the defamation — gaining a larger social media following, online notoriety, and lucrative sponsorship opportunities,” the judge added.
Rob49 opened up his new restaurant, The Nest NOLA, in New Orleans just in time for the Super Bowl, and the rapper is sharing how he was inspired to open a restaurant, what it was like to work with Lil Wayne, his upcoming music releases and more!
Catrise Johnson:
Hey everyone. It’s your girl Catrice J, we are in New Orleans with Rob49 at his new restaurant The Nest NOLA. How you feeling?
Rob49:
I’m good, good, good. It’s like a lounge type, restaurant type vibe.
Tell me about it.
That’s what it is. I just always wanted somewhere like for me and my partners to come instead of going like to these… all these spots that we not comfortable at.
What does it mean to you to have this restaurant in New Orleans, your home city?
It feels good just because New Orleans food is everything I ain’t- I wouldn’t even feel comfortable building nowhere else.
New Orleans has one of the richest food cultures in the world. How do you think the flavors of the city are going to represent in this restaurant?
It’s the one like, I think if they come here, they’re gonna know, like, New Orleans got the best food in the United States. Like, for sure. And I know it sounds crazy, 50 states, 49 of them like, but this the one.
I feel like it too. I’ll be honest.
You feel like that?
I feel like you have the best food in New Orleans.
Nah, swear to God bro.
And obviously your restaurant, or lounge-
Today’s gonna do it for you.
Oh, I’m excited!
So we’re here for Super Bowl weekend. How does it feel to have the Super Bowl in your city?
Keep watching for more!