State Champ Radio

by DJ Frosty

Current track

Title

Artist

Current show
blank

State Champ Radio Mix

12:00 am 12:00 pm

Current show
blank

State Champ Radio Mix

12:00 am 12:00 pm


News

Page: 285

A few weeks after revealing his plans to sell a custom 2022 Lamborghini Urus won from its previous owner, superstar Shakira, in a giveaway, Colombian-American artist Michael Mejía was involved in a car accident while driving the luxury vehicle on Thursday (March 6).
“I was simply hit. It wasn’t me who crashed,” Mejía told Billboard on Tuesday (March 11). “I was about to cross a street when a car came speeding, and the driver was probably distracted. It was quite a scary moment. Fortunately, I wasn’t injured, but it was a very [tough] moment. The car is being restored. Thankfully, I had good insurance, so the car will be as good as new.”

An Instagram video posted on Sunday (March 9) by Spanish-language reality series ¡Siéntese Quien Pueda! showed the purple Lamborghini damaged in Miami.

Trending on Billboard

In February, during an interview with El Gordo y la Flaca, the contest winner talked about receiving the car from Shakira and his intention to sell the car — worth $280,000 — for potentially $1 million because of the steep maintenance costs. Shakira had provided him with an extra $90,000 to cover various expenses such as taxes, the car’s title transfer, legal fees and six months of insurance payments.

He previously explained the financial challenges involved, facing about $95,000 in federal taxes at the end of the year, monthly insurance costs exceeding $2,000 and more expenses related to the luxury vehicle. And now, he tells Billboard, he’s also facing backlash from the pop superstar’s fans for needing to sell the Lamborghini.

“The reality of all this is that I am an artist — I earned this car with my art,” he tells Billboard. “I’ve had a super lovely experience receiving that recognition from Shakira. What’s happening now is that all of Shakira’s fans — who initially supported me — are hating me because I decided to sell the car, since it is very costly. So, to them, it’s like, ‘This man is an opportunist. How can he take advantage and sell the prize?’ They see it as potentially disrespectful towards Shakira. I mean, the reality is that the car is very expensive. All the monthly costs are too much, and I just can’t keep up with them.”

The artist — known for his work in fine art, murals and body painting — won the prize based on the merit of his artistic contributions. He adds to Billboard: “A car doesn’t define an artist; let [fans] not forget why I won that car.”

This is The Legal Beat, a weekly newsletter about music law from Billboard Pro, offering you a one-stop cheat sheet of big new cases, important rulings and all the fun stuff in between.
This week: Daddy Yankee sues his ex-wife for $250 million; Jay-Z’s dispute with his former accuser and her lawyer goes on; prosecutors say Taylor Swift tickets were stolen and resold by hackers; and much more.

THE BIG STORY: Daddy Yankee Goes Back To Court

Daddy Yankee’s legal war with ex-wife Mireddys González isn’t over yet.

The pair finalized their divorce last month, but in a lawsuit filed last week in Puerto Rico, the reggaetón superstar (Ramón Luis Ayala Rodríguez) accused her and her sister Ayeicha González Castellanos of mismanaging two of his companies to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars.

Trending on Billboard

“Mireddys and Ayeicha … proceeded to concentrate in themselves a greater power than authorized and, together, made negligent and selfish decisions that were detrimental to both the companies and [Daddy Yankee] in his personal capacity and as an artist,” the star’s lawyers wrote.

The lawsuit follows, and often echoes, the allegations Yankee made in December when he sought an injunction against González – namely that the two women had withdrawn $100 million from his companies’ bank accounts without authorization. Now, Yankee claims that after regaining control of the companies, his team discovered many new irregularities, including the “disappearance” of key records.

For all the details, go read the full story from Billboard’s Griselda Flores.

Other top stories this week…

FIGHT GOES ON – Jay-Z’s rape accuser is standing by her story, according to court documents filed last week — directly contradicting a recent lawsuit in which the superstar claimed the woman had admitted to fabricating the allegations. Later in the week, the star’s lawyers filed sworn statements from private investigators to whom the accuser allegedly recanted, and suggested that she and her lawyer should sit for depositions.

HACKED TICKETS – Members of a “cybercrime crew” stole more than 900 tickets to the Taylor Swift Eras Tour and other events and then resold them for more $635,000 in illegal profit, according to charges handed down by New York prosecutors. The tour, which wrapped in December with a record-shattering haul of more than $2 billion in face-value ticket sales over a two-year run, spawned an infamously pricy resale market – something the accused fraudsters were allegedly able to exploit.

“FLOWERS” UPDATE – Miley Cyrus seems unlikely to immediately escape a copyright lawsuit filed over allegations that her Grammy-winning “Flowers” infringed the Bruno Mars song “When I Was Your Man.” At a court hearing, a Los Angeles federal judge indicated that would likely deny a motion to dismiss the case filed last year by attorneys for Cyrus.

SHEERAN CASE AT SCOTUS – The legal battle over whether Ed Sheeran’s “Thinking Out Loud” infringed Marvin Gaye‘s “Let’s Get It On” has reached the U.S. Supreme Court. In a petition for certiorari filed last week, a company that owns a stake in the rights to Gaye’s 1973 song urged the justices to overturn a November ruling by a lower appeals court that rejected the lawsuit, arguing that “the rights of thousands of legacy musical composers and artists” were at stake in the case.

ANTITRUST SHOWDOWN – A lyrics service called LyricFind filed an antitrust lawsuit against Musixmatch, claiming that the larger rival has reached an exclusive licensing deal with Warner Music Group (WMG) that’s “unprecedented in the music industry” and is aimed at securing an illegal monopoly for providing lyrics to streamers like Spotify.

All products and services featured are independently chosen by editors. However, Billboard may receive a commission on orders placed through its retail links, and the retailer may receive certain auditable data for accounting purposes.
We’re getting closer to the 2025 March Madness tournament, but first, some of the country’s best basketball schools will have to go through the Big Ten Conference Tournament, taking place this week in Indianapolis.

Explore

Explore

See latest videos, charts and news

See latest videos, charts and news

The 2025 TIAA Big Ten Men’s Basketball Tournament takes place March 12-16 at Gainbridge Fieldhouse in Indianapolis. Tickets to the NCAA event are still available on sites like Stubhub and Vivid Seats (bonus: use our exclusive promo code BB30 to take $30 off your purchase at VividSeats.com).

How to Watch 2025 Big Ten Basketball Tournament

All 14 games of this year’s Big Ten Tournament will be broadcast live, through a mix of network television and streaming services.

The Big Ten tournament first round is streaming live on Peacock and you’ll be able to watch the basketball games online by logging into your Peacock account. Don’t have Peacock? You can sign up right now for just $7.99 and get instant access to a college basketball livestream as well as thousands of hours of TV shows, movies, specials and more live sports.

The second and quarterfinal round games will air on the Big Ten Network, while the semifinals and championship game air live on CBS. If you want to watch the Big Ten Championship on TV, you can do so with a basic digital antenna or any cable package that includes a local CBS feed. Otherwise, you can stream the games online through Fubo, which includes Big Ten Network and CBS as part of its channel offerings.

Fubo lets you watch Big Ten basketball live online through your phone, computer, tablet or smart TV, and you can stream the games without needing cable. Fubo currently has a seven-day free trial that you can use to livestream the Big Ten tournament online free.

The Big Ten Tournament semifinal and championship games will also be available to stream online through Paramount+. Try it out with a free trial here.

Michigan State is the number-one seed in this year’s Big Ten Basketball Tournament, taking the top spot for the first time since 2019. Maryland is number two, with Michigan and UCLA rounding out the top four teams. All four seeds have earned double-byes and don’t open play until Friday’s quarterfinal round.

Michigan State is once again favored to take home the championship. The school’s 17 Big Ten wins are the most in program history.

New York University (NYU) and Sony Corporation have announced the launch of a new institute at the school through which students will have access to Sony audio technology, be given real-world opportunities and more.
Formally dubbed the Sony Audio Institute for Music Business and Technology, the institute will be based within NYU’s Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development, whose leadership and faculty co-created it alongside Sony’s personal entertainment business. Through the partnership, students enrolled in Steinhardt’s music business and music technology degree programs will have access to Sony audio technology, including 360 Reality Audio and the 360 Virtual Mixing Environment — both of which will be outfitted in the newly-named Sony Audio Institute Studio at NYU’s Brooklyn campus.

NYU’s Music and Audio Research Lab (MARL) will also receive input from Sony researchers and engineers in conducting its research on music and audio technologies. Current areas of focus at MARL include music and auditory perception and cognition; machine listening and music information retrieval; spatial and immersive audio; and music in the health and rehabilitation sciences.

Trending on Billboard

The institute will additionally offer workshops, internships and special events to students, while NYU venues “will present student-driven programming that bridges the gap between academic learning and real-world industry experiences,” offering students “a platform for hands-on innovation and collaboration,” according to a press release.

Through the institute, NYU will also establish a scholarship program to assist undergraduate, graduate and doctoral students at NYU Steinhardt “who demonstrate financial need and academic merit with a preference for students who have an interest in pursuing research or careers in the audio industry,” the release adds.

The institute, which has been established for an initial 10-year term, is set to open this spring, with NYU Steinhardt clinical professor and music industry veteran Larry S. Miller serving as inaugural director. Miller will also continue serving as the director of the music business program at NYU Steinhardt until fall 2025.

“It is an honor to establish this collaboration with New York University, one of the world’s premier music schools, renowned for its long-standing legacy of producing some of the audio industry’s top talent,” said Kimio Maki, president/CEO at Sony Corporation, in a statement. “Through this collaboration, we look forward to inspiring creativity for the next generation of music creators and witness how their artistry will influence the music industry for years to come.”

NYU president Linda G. Mills added, “We are excited and grateful that Sony has chosen NYU Steinhardt to collaborate on this important initiative, which will create new opportunities for our amazingly talented students through scholarships, internships, research fellowships, and other unrivaled experiences. This forward-looking initiative will not only create new opportunities for creative expression, it will give our students a competitive advantage in a rapidly changing industry. I’d like to thank the team at Sony and everyone at NYU who worked tirelessly to make this dream a reality.”

HipHopWired Featured Video

Drake is back to blazing the charts despite the overall consensus pointing to the fact that he seemingly lost the battle with Kendrick Lamar. In a new Instagram post, Drake vaguely suggests that he’s got more artistic moves on the way and teased his “next chapter.”
Taking to his preferred social media platform of Instagram, Drake captioned a series of photos with the following:
U know I grew up non confrontational and always treated this game as a sport where my pen won gold, but my these days the podium has been hard for all of us to ignore. I understand that this next chapter may leave you feeling uneasy, but I hope you see my honesty as clarity not charity that answers some questions especially about the unanswered texts you’ve been sending me.

Given that the OVO Sound honcho can be cryptic via social media, it isn’t known who this message is for or what it truly means. It could be assumed he’s ready to address all the chatter about his assumed downfall despite charting big with his latest collaborative album with PARTYNEXTDOOR, $ome $exy $ongs 4 U, which is currently the No. 2 selling album on the Billboard 200.
With the Anita Max Win tour in New Zealand and Australia put on pause, fans will certainly be awaiting new music and whatever the next moves are from Drake.


Photo: Getty

Billy Joel has postponed his current tour for four months due to an undisclosed medical condition, it was announced on Tuesday (March 11). The Rock & Roll Hall of Fame inductee underwent surgery recently, and will use the time to recover and undergo physical therapy.

Explore

Explore

See latest videos, charts and news

See latest videos, charts and news

Joel, 75, is expected to make a full recovery, with the tour resuming at Acrisure Stadium in Pittsburgh on July 5.  “While I regret postponing any shows, my health must come first,” Joel said in a statement posted to Instagram. “I look forward to getting back on stage and sharing the joy of live music with our amazing fans. Thank you for your understanding.”

The stadium tour, which includes Joel often pairing with fellow legends Stevie Nicks, Sting or Rod Stewart, was slated to start March 15 in Toronto.

Trending on Billboard

It is unknown if the surgery was related to the spill Joel took on stage Feb. 22 during a show at the Mohegan Sun Casino in Uncasville, Conn., while tossing his microphone during  “It’s Still Rock and Roll to Me.” Joel quickly recovered from the fall, seemingly uninjured, and finished the show.

The delay will not affect Joel’s three New York City-area summer shows, which will lead the Piano Man to setting a record. Joel will play Yankee Stadium in the Bronx on July 18; Metlife Stadium in East Rutherford, N.J., home to the New York Giants and New York Jets, on Aug. 8; and Citi Field, home to the New York Mets, in Queens, N.Y., on Aug. 21, making him the first artist to play all three NYC-area stadiums in one summer. Stewart will join him July 18, Nicks on Aug. 8 and Sting on Aug. 21.  

“I’m looking forward to playing these iconic stadiums this summer – each holds personal significance to me,” Joel told Billboard in early February. “There’s nothing like the energy of the crowds in New York, and sharing a stage with my friends Rod Stewart, Sting and Stevie Nicks, whose music always inspires me, is extremely rewarding.”

See below for the rescheduled dates:

Beyoncé has starred in a number of films, but according to Tina Knowles, the 35-time Grammy winner’s big screen days are behind her. 
The businesswoman revealed on Instagram March 7 that her superstar daughter has no plans to return to the big screen. Sharing a clip of Bey singing “I’d Rather Go Blind” while portraying Etta James in 2008’s Cadillac Records, Ms. Knowles wrote, “This is still one of my favorite movies, and it makes me miss the fact that my child decided not to continue with movies.” 

“She killed it in this movie,” the designer added. “And she so unselfishly donated her salary to the Phoenix house.” 

Phoenix House is a nonprofit that offers recovery treatment for individuals struggling with substance abuse. Bey reportedly gave $4 million in earnings from Cadillac Records to the foundation. 

Trending on Billboard

The Darnell Martin-directed musical biography is just one of several films the “Texas Hold ‘Em” singer has starred in, though it’s been many years since she last appeared on screen. She made her acting debut in the 2001 TV film Carmen: A Hip Hopera, after which she had roles in 2002’s Austin Powers in Goldmember, 2003’s The Fighting Temptations, 2006’s The Pink Panther and Dreamgirls, and 2009’s Obsessed.  

Since then, Bey has stuck to voice roles in animated projects. In 2013, she voiced Queen Tara in Epic, and she also played Nala in 2019’s The Lion King remake and 2024’s Mufasa: The Lion King.  

But while fans may miss seeing her on the big screen, the Ivy Park founder definitely has a lot of other projects on her plate. She’s currently gearing up to embark on her Cowboy Carter Tour supporting her Billboard 200-topping LP of the same name, which won best country album and album of the year at the 2025 Grammys. Last year, she also launched a new haircare brand called Cécred. 

The musician still took time to honor one of her former costars, though, after Angie Stone — whom she appeared alongside in The Fighting Temptations — died in a car crash earlier this month. “Thank you for your voice, your strength and your artistry,” read a message dedicated to the R&B icon on Bey’s website. “Your incredible legacy will live on forever.” 

Miley Cyrus seems unlikely to immediately escape a copyright lawsuit filed over allegations that her Grammy-winning “Flowers” infringed the Bruno Mars song “When I Was Your Man.”
A Los Angeles federal judge “repeatedly indicated” at a live court hearing Monday that he would likely deny a motion to dismiss the case filed last year by attorneys for Cyrus, according to a report by Rolling Stone.

In that motion, the singer had argued that the plaintiff in the case – not Mars himself, but an financial entity called Tempo Music Investments that bought out the rights of one of his co-writers – lacked the necessary legal “standing” to pursue its claims.

Trending on Billboard

But at the hearing, Judge Dean D. Pregerson appeared skeptical, according to RS – at times seeming to endorse arguments from Tempo’s lawyers that granting the motion would gut longstanding music industry practices. He reportedly asked Cyrus’ lawyer why anyone would buy partial shares in songs “knowing they could never enforce it” without the consent of all the other songwriters.

The judge did not immediately decide the motion at Monday’s hearing and will instead issue a written ruling in the weeks or months ahead.

“Flowers,” which spent eight weeks atop the Hot 100, has been linked to “Your Man” since it was released in January 2023. Many fans immediately saw it as an “answer song,” with lyrics that clearly referenced Mars’ song. The reason, according to internet sleuths, was that “Your Man” was a favorite of Cyrus’ ex-husband Liam Hemsworth – and her allusions were a nod to their divorce.

When “Flowers” was first released, legal experts told Billboard that Cyrus was likely not violating copyrights simply by using similar lyrics to fire back at the earlier song – a time-honored music industry tradition utilized by songs ranging from Lynyrd Skynyrd’s “Sweet Home Alabama” to countless rap diss records.

But Tempo sued in September, claiming “Flowers” had lifted numerous elements beyond the clap-back lyrics, including “melodic and harmonic material,” “pitch ending pattern,” and “bass-line structure.” Tempo, which had purchased a fractional share in the song from co-writer Philip Lawrence, argued it was “undeniable” that Cyrus’ hit “would not exist” if not for “Your Man.”

In her first response in November, attorneys for Miley said that the total lack of involvement from Mars and the song’s two other co-writers was not some procedural quirk in the case, but rather a “fatal flaw” that required the outright dismissal of the lawsuit.

“Plaintiff unambiguously [says] that it obtained its claimed rights in the ‘When I Was Your Man’ copyright from only one of that musical composition’s four co-authors,” wrote Peter Anderson, the star’s lead attorney. “That is a fatal and incurable defect in plaintiff’s claim.”

In a statement at the time, Tempo Music lead counsel Alex Weingarten told Billboard that the argument from Cyrus was “intellectually dishonest” and that the group clearly had standing to pursue the lawsuit: “They’re seeking to make bogus technical arguments because they don’t have an actual substantive defense to the case.”

If the motion is denied, lawyers for Cyrus will likely shift focus to those substantive arguments. In previous filings, they have argued that the two songs have “striking differences” and that any similarities are not covered by copyright law: “The songwriter defendants categorically deny copying, and the allegedly copied elements are random, scattered, unprotected ideas and musical building blocks.”

HipHopWired Featured Video

Source: Paul Natkin / Getty
The legendary Roberta Flack was laid to rest on Monday (March 10) in New York during a public memorial service that featured words from the Rev. Al Sharpton and other notable figures. Stevie Wonder was on hand for a moving tribute, along with a surprise appearance from Ms. Lauryn Hill and Wyclef Jean.

Roberta Flack passed away on Feb. 24, sparking several responses from entertainers and music lovers from around the world on social media. Flack’s influence and towering legacy were mentioned several times throughout the service, and Rev. Sharpton artfully illustrated the vocalist’s significance in Black music culture, as reported by the Associated Press.

The outlet added in its reporting that Stevie Wonder was a scheduled performer, and other performers, such as Valerie Simpson of Ashford & Simpson fame, took to the stage. Phylicia Rashad, who shared that she first encountered Flack as a young vocalist while attending Howard University, remarked how arresting the singer’s voice was then.
There were also video tributes delivered by Clive Davis, Dionne Warwick, India.Arie, and Alicia Keys, along with remarks delivered by many in attendance in honor of Flack and her lasting legacy.
The appearance of Lauryn Hill and Wyclef Jean was not on the docket, and Hill delivered a speech citing Flack’s influence on her life.
“I adore Ms. Roberta Flack,” Hill said during a speech. “Roberta Flack is legend.”
Hill performed a rendition of “The First Time I Ever Saw Your Face” and then launched into the Fugees’ award-winning cover of “Killing Me Softly With His Song,” with Wonder joining on harmonica and Jean on guitar. Wonder then took to the stage and performed “If It’s Magic” alongside a harpist. Wonder then went to the piano and performed “I Can See the Sun in Late December,” a song he wrote for Flack.
Roberta Flack was 88 at the time of her passing.
Watch the memorial service in full below.


Photo: Getty

When Luke Combs’ team won road crew of the year at the CMA Touring Awards on March 3, it marked a passing of the baton — or, more accurately, a passing of the road case — as Combs’ crew took control of a trophy that Chris Stapleton had carted around the country and across the Atlantic during 2024.
Last year marked the first time that the Country Music Association honored an entire crew, and Team Stapleton decided during a post-awards celebration to take the award out where it had been won: on the stages, on the highways and in the back of semi-trucks that took the All-American Road Show from Nashville to the people.

The trophy was unloaded at every venue and placed somewhere on, or near, the stage as a reminder to all of Stapleton’s employees of the reputation they had created. The crew of the year hardware visited the Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles, Bridgestone Arena in Nashville, The O2 in London and the set of NBC’s Saturday Night Live in New York, just to pick out a few spots on its itinerary.

Trending on Billboard

“They can never change that,” tour manager Jason Hecht says. “We’re always the first name on the trophy. For us, that’s a very cool thing, and to get to carry it around, and hopefully set a little bit of a precedent, that was definitely a really big sense of pride for us.”

Stapleton’s team had pride in the gig before there was ever a trophy to recognize it. The team had to have been working hard to get that first crew award in a line of work that’s grueling at its very foundation.

“A lot of these people are up at 6 a.m., 7 a.m. — first people in the door, and they’re not walking out until you’ve got doors closing, sometimes in the morning with trucks rolling away,” says Stapleton’s manager, Red Light Management’s Clay Hunt. “There’s ebbs and flows throughout the day, but this is really long, hard work.”

If they do that work correctly, most of the concertgoers won’t give a thought to the quasi-miracle that took place in the venue, as a stage was constructed and complicated sound and lighting was installed all on the day of that particular show.

“I always kind of look at it like a sports official, a referee,” Hecht says. “If somebody’s saying your name, then something’s gone wrong. By definition, your job is to be in the shadows and to stay out of the way.”

The work is likely appreciated most by Stapleton who, along with his wife/band member, Morgane Stapleton, makes it a point to look after their team. She insisted on having a women’s bus for the female members of the crew, they remember employees’ birthdays with gifts and celebrations, and when several on the team came down with an illness during their recent Australian tour, they didn’t even ask about what kind of expenses might be involved in their recovery. They made sure the employees got medical attention, a place to recuperate and plane tickets to catch up to the tour once they had rebounded.

That kind of attentiveness is not surprising for Stapleton. When he left the 2023 Academy of Country Music Awards in Frisco, Texas, he saw the roadies hard at work and picked up a blower to help clean up confetti. He is known, according to his team, to greet the local crew at the end of a show and recognize their role in his success as they prepare to tear it all down.

“I like to play music,” Stapleton said when his team won the crew of the year honor. “Everybody [involved] helps me do that every night in ways that would not be possible in any way, shape or form if everybody wasn’t at the top of their game.”

The CMA rules around the crew of the year trophy don’t allow consecutive wins, though individual members of a team can still collect honors. Two Stapleton employees — tour videographer/photographer of the year Andy Barron and backline technician of the year Derek Benitez — were with Stapleton in Australia and unable to claim their awards in person this year. But the team watched a CMA livestream of the event from Down Under and saw the owner of Stapleton’s PR firm, Sacks & Co.’s Carla Sacks (who also reps Combs), win publicist of the year. Sacks was visibly emotional.

“I really was very overcome in a way I didn’t expect in that room,” she allows. “To look out at that community of people that rarely wants, or gets, the spotlight, and then to be recognized by those peers, hit me in a way I wasn’t really prepared for.”

In the days after his win, Barron kept at the job in Australia and New Zealand, a camera in his hands every day, constantly looking for new angles on the same songs and the same people as he documents Stapleton’s work for social media and for posterity. Even as he moves about the arenas and amphitheaters, he’s cognizant that after the artist and crew head for the next city, they leave an impression behind them.

“We want every person who’s working at the venue — the promoter, everyone involved at the place that is opening their doors up to us — we want them to be excited when we’re coming back,” Barron says. “We’ve just always treated every show like that, and everyone on our team has the same mentality.”

Mirroring the one-nighters that it represents, the crew of the year trophy moves on after one year to its next recipient, though it will still carry a plaque with Stapleton’s name — and the names of each of his team members — as Combs takes it back on the road. In some cases, the award will revisit concert halls where Stapleton carted it in 2024. But it’s certain to expand its travels with Combs’ entourage.

“We’re excited for the Luke Combs team and for them to continue on,” Hunt says. “It sounds like they’re going to try to carry on the tradition.”