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Justin Bieber made a rare onstage appearance with SZA during her concert at SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, Calif., on May 23.
The surprise collaboration took place during the second Los Angeles stop of SZA and Kendrick Lamar’s co-headlining Grand National Tour, which launched in April.
Bieber, who is currently working on new music, stunned the packed crowd as he joined the five-time Grammy nominee for a flirty rendition of “Snooze.” The pop superstar previously featured on the acoustic remix of the track, originally released on SZA’s 2022 sophomore album, SOS.
Wearing an all-black ensemble topped with a Balenciaga jacket, Bieber traded verses with SZA, kissed her hand multiple times, and danced with her throughout the sultry performance.
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The singer’s wife, Hailey Bieber, showed her support by sharing a clip of the moment on her Instagram Story, captioning it, “My 2 favorite artists.”
“Snooze” earned SZA her second No. 1 on Billboard’s R&B/Hip-Hop Airplay chart in July 2023, and also topped the Mainstream R&B/Hip-Hop Airplay tally.
The unplugged version of the track featuring Bieber dropped in September 2023. The music video also stars Young Mazino, Woody McClain and Benny Blanco.
This isn’t Bieber’s first time performing “Snooze” live. In February 2024, he attempted a solo rendition during a surprise appearance at the NHL All-Star Draft in Toronto, according to Rolling Stone. Friday’s performance at SoFi Stadium marked the first time Bieber and SZA have performed the song live together.
Bieber has made several surprise appearances at concerts in recent years, including a performance of “Private Landing” at Don Toliver’s L.A. show in October 2024, and a cameo during Tems and Wizkid’s Coachella 2024 set to perform the “Essence” remix. He hasn’t played a full solo concert since September 2022.
During the first night of the Grand National Tour’s Los Angeles stop on Wednesday (May 21), SZA brought out surprise guest Lizzo for a live performance of their “Special” remix. SZA and Lamar are set to play one final show at SoFi Stadium on Saturday.
From career milestones to new music releases to major announcements and those little important moments, Billboard editors highlight uplifting moments in Latin music. Here’s what happened in the Latin music world this week.
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Los Tigres del Norte Honored in New York
Los Tigres del Norte Way is officially a street in New York, named after the legendary norteño group. “As of today, a street in Brooklyn bears the name of Los Tigres del Norte. Thank you for walking with us, today and always,” the group posted on Instagram. See the photos from the street naming presentation here.
During their stop in New York — where they are set to perform at Madison Square Garden today (May 24) — Los Tigres also honored the fallen Mexican Navy cadets, América Yamilet Sánchez and Adal Jair Marcos, who died after crashing into the Brooklyn Bridge on May 17. “Honor and eternal memory,” the Mexican band posted with a video from the vigil alongside New York’s Mayor Eric Adams.
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Rauw Alejandro & Dad
During one of his Cosa Nuestra shows in New York, Rauw Alejandro and his father shared a special moment onstage. “I want to introduce you to my dad, Raul Ocasio on the guitar,” he told the crowd. The moment was particularly special given that his father was born in Brooklyn and the Cosa Nuestra tour concept pays homage to the Nuyorican diaspora.
See the sweet moment onstage below:
Billboard Latin Music Week Dates Unveiled
Billboard Latin Music Week will return to Miami from Monday, Oct. 20 to Friday, Oct. 24, with the Billboard Latin Music Awards set for Thursday, Oct. 23.
Set once again at the historic Fillmore Miami Beach, ticket and lineup information for Billboard Latin Music Week 2025 will be announced in the coming weeks. Pre-register now for the latest information at billboardlatinmusicweek.com.
More than 10,000 people attended Latin Music Week last year, including the live shows by Fuerza Regida with Majo Aguilar; a reggaeton night with Omar Courtz, Dei V, and Saiko; and LMW’s 35th anniversary party with Young Miko, Tito Double P, Belinda, Elvis Crespo and more, among other events.
Myke Towers’ New Soccer Initiative
Myke Towers’ Young Kingz Foundation and soccer star David Villa’s DV7 Academy officially kicked off their global partnership earlier this weekend. The event, held in Madrid, marked the start of a series of joint initiatives with projects underway in Puerto Rico, Colombia and Spain that include free sports clinics, exchange programs, urban space revitalization and educational support for vulnerable youth.
“I’m not doing this expecting it to blow up like a song,” Towers told Billboard Español then. “It’s more about leaving a legacy. Creating a habit. Inspiring those who can help to do so, in their own way.”
Get more details on the partnership here.
Roger Nichols, best-known for co-writing such Carpenters hits as “We’ve Only Just Begun,” “Rainy Days and Mondays” and “I Won’t Last a Day Without You” with lyricist Paul Williams, died on May 17. He was 84.
Williams confirmed Nichols’ death in an extended, and deeply affectionate, post on Instagram. Williams didn’t list a cause of death, though he reported the basic circumstances of the death. “Roger Nichols passed away peacefully four days ago, at home with his beautiful family …his wife Terry and the daughters he was so proud of, Claire and Caitlin at his side.” (See full text of Williams Instagram post below.)
Nichols signed as an artist to A&M Records in 1968, a year before Karen and Richard Carpenter were signed to the Los Angeles-based label. His debut album Roger Nichols and the Small Circle of Friends was produced by Tommy LiPuma, engineered by Bruce Botnick, and featured session contributions from Van Dyke Parks, Randy Newman and Lenny Waronker. Although the album failed to crack the Billboard 200, A&M co-founder Herb Alpert thought there was something there and recommended that Nichols be hired by A&M’s publishing company as a staff songwriter. It was during this period that he was introduced to Williams.
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That was a characteristically astute call on Alpert’s part. Williams and Nichols were one of the hottest pop songwriting teams of the early 1970s.
Williams and Nichols took off as songwriters in the fall of 1970, when they had two songs in the top 15 on the Billboard Hot 100 at the same time. On the charts dated Oct. 17 and 24, Carpenters’ version of “We’ve Only Just Begun,” a ballad which had originated as “soft-sell” commercial for Crocker-Citizens National Bank, was in the top five (on its way to a No. 2 peak). Three Dog Night’s “Out in the Country” was holding at its No. 15 peak.
The Carpenters smash, an instant standard, was lushly romantic. The Three Dog Night hit was a fresh-sounding mix of pop, rock and folk. Having two simultaneous hits by two different acts in two different styles caught the industry’s attention. “We’ve Only Just Begun” went on to receive two Grammy nominations – for song of the year and best contemporary song — at the first live Grammy telecast in March 1971. (It lost both awards to Paul Simon’s “Bridge Over Troubled Water.”)
Williams and Nichols continued writing songs for the Carpenters, including “Rainy Days and Mondays,” a superb and remarkably adult ballad which reached No. 2 (it took Carole King’s letter-perfect “It’s Too Late” to keep it out of the top spot), “Let Me Be the One” (another first-rate ballad that the duo never got around to releasing as a single), and “I Won’t Last a Day Without You,” a 1972 album track that was finally released as a single in 1974, when it climbed to No. 11.
Barbra Streisand covered “I Won’t Last a Day Without You” on her ButterFly album later in 1974. On her following album, Lazy Afternoon, she recorded another Williams-Nichols song, “I Never Had It So Good.” Both of those albums went gold.
Art Garfunkel recorded a tender Williams-Nichols song, “Traveling Boy,” for his first solo album, 1973’s Angel Clare, which made the top 10 on the Billboard 200. The song was released as the third single from the album, and bubbled under the Hot 100.
Nichols also had some successes with other collaborators. He teamed with William Lane to write “Times of Your Life,” which Paul Anka recorded in 1975. Like “We’ve Only Just Begun,” this song was also adapted from a popular TV commercial – for Kodak. Anka’s recording reached No 7 on the Hot 100 in February 1976.
Nichols retired soon afterwards, but his songs live on. R.E.M. covered “Out in the Country” as a B-side for their 2003 single “Bad Day.” Rumer covered “Traveling Boy” on her 2012 album Boys Don’t Cry.
Nichols was honored during Florida Chapter Presents The Recording Academy Honors 2006 at Loews Miami Beach Hotel in Miami.
He was nominated for the Songwriters Hall of Fame on Nov. 12, for the class that will be inducted on June 12. He wasn’t elected (the competition is fierce every year), but the ballot listed the five songs that are probably his most famous and enduring: “We’ve Only Just Begun,” “Rainy Days and Mondays,” “I Won’t Last a Day Without You,” “Out in the Country,” “Times of Your Life”
In a comment on Williams’ Instagram post, Nichols’ daughter Claire wrote, “My mom, Terri, and my sisters, Caroline and Caitlin, are all so proud of the man he was, and are in awe of the legacy he leaves.”
Here’s the full text of Williams’ Instagram post announcing Nichols’ death.
“The first song, Roger Nichols and I wrote was called “it’s hard to say goodbye. “… Sadly, we hit the nail on the head. Roger Nichols passed away peacefully four days ago, at home with his beautiful family …his wife Terry and the daughters he was so proud of, Claire and Caitlin at his side. They were his dream come true. His greatest joy“Roger was my writing partner and my music school… a collaboratorfor years and a friend for life. I was an out of work actor looking for a career in music when I was signed by A&M records publishing. They were looking for a lyricist for Roger Nichols. An industrial strength, lucky break that changed my life.“We wrote almost every day for several years. He was as disciplined as he was talented. I had the attention span of a sea otter… I was ready for a break after three hours and Roger would plunge ahead for another four or five. The words were born of the beauty in his completed melodies.I wrote what I heard, note for note…word for word. The lyrics waiting in the emotion already in his music. He made it easy.“After many wonderful productive years, I wanted us to write songs for movies. He had another dream. He said I wanna go fishing … wanna go back to Montana. He smiled and said something about having a family and maybe making a home by a nice little river… it was clear that he was already gone. A few years ago, I visited him and met Terry and the girls at the house by the river …and I knew he found his dream.“One last story. Roger was really excited when his daughter Caitlin was getting married last September. He chuckled and asked, “can you picture me wheeling down the aisle in my wheelchair, holding my daughter’s hand?”“Of course, I said yes then …. and right now Roger, I can picture thousands of proud dads and their beautiful daughters that walked down the aisle to your gorgeous music or danced their father and daughter dance to We’ve only just begun… picture them standing and applauding what you brought to their lives and to mine. You brought love and beauty into this world, and we will never forget you.In gratitude with much love… Paul”
Alejandro Sanz is on the cover of Billboard, and the Spanish singer shares how his new song with Shakira, “Bésame,” came to life. Read the full story here. Narrator: How do Alejandro Sanz and Shakira write a song? Alejandro Sanz, the Spanish idol, reunited with his friend Shakira to write “Bésame,” the lead single from […]
CRT FRSH, Hip-Hop Wired’s playlist where we showcase music that we believe is “Certified Fresh,” is back with the newness! With our latest update this week, we’re gonna focus on Joey BadA$$ and his feud with what seems like the entire West Coast before sharing new heat.
I want to explain how I approach curating the CRT FRSH playlist. Most importantly, I don’t segregate my Hip-Hop. Every form of music from the main cultural tree deserves a listen and a look. When I construct the playlist, I want to include all regions across the States and, when applicable, across the globe. I also want to entertain every fan of Hip-Hop, not just those who enjoy one segment of it. Now that we’ve got that out of the way, let’s get to it.
The CRT FRSH playlist is a labor of love. We don’t take payments, nor do we do favors. We only add joints to our playlist that fit the theme and vision we’re going for and don’t seek to waste the listener’s time. Further, we don’t stick to one lane of Hip-Hop. We believe that all aspects of the music should get some light, whether it’s young lions in the trenches or those hoping for that one shot to blow up to grizzled veterans puffing out their chests with lots more to say. — D.L. Chandler, Lead Curator, CRT FRSH
Like I said, I’m opening up this week’s update with all the joints I could find from Joey BadA$$, Ray Vaughn, Daylyt, and anyone else who hopped in the ring, including some of Badmon’s Pro Era team like CJ Fly. Not every song is on DSPs, so what we’ve amassed here is all we got unless folks can clear samples and production to get it up on streamers.
I’m not picking any sides in the battle. I’m just enjoying good rapping, and that it’s all being kept to recordings and not spilling into nonsense in real life. If rapping is a sport, then battling is one of the ways to show and prove one’s mettle. One super impressive thing is that in the back and forth between coasts, folks are working quickly and addressing bars head-on instead of ducking from any smoke.
If I missed a joint you feel like should’ve been added, let me know and I’ll adjust. This playlist is live for two weeks, so we’ll probably have plenty of time to update this. And, from what I’m hearing online, there are over 90 songs recorded by several artists since Joey took the first swipe at the West Coast on his Conductor Williams-produced track, “The Ruler’s Back.”
I’m not going to break down every joint. Instead, check out the collection of songs we did find, search out the rest online, and just enjoy the collection of new heat I tacked on at the end of the disses.
Salute to Joey BadA$$, Daylyt, Ray Vaughn, AZ Chike, REASON, CJ Fly, Kai Ca$h, Hitta J3, YG, Shoreline Mafia, IDK, Joey Valence, Brae, DRAM, Ellis Quinn, Chance The Rapper, Erick The Architect, Joyce Wrice, Smoke DZA, Dave East, Mike & Keys, Niontay, Sideshow, MAVI, Troy Ave, Boldy James, Your Boy Posca, Mike Shabb, CRIMEAPPLE, DJ Skizz, Estee Nack, ETO, Grafh, Benny The Butcher, NYC Rap Star, Ransom, Jay Electronica, Numbz, Larrin, Defcee, Paralell Thought, Lukah, Statik Selektah, Larry June, Cardo Got Wings.
We’ll be back with an update in two more weeks. Check out the CRT FRSH update below.
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Photo: Peter Carruthers / Getty
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Mexican star Julión Álvarez has postponed his Saturday show at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas, after not being able to enter the United States, according to the artist’s team.
Álvarez — alongside the show’s promoter CMN and his management/booking company Copar Music — issued a statement Friday (May 23) explaining that, “Due to unforeseen circumstances,” he was “unable to enter the United States in time for the event.”
Adding, “With nearly 50,000 tickets sold, this sold-out show was set to be an unforgettable night for fans. Both CMN and Copar Music, along with Julión’s team, are actively working to reschedule the performance as soon as possible. Julión Álvarez extends his heartfelt thanks for your patience and continued support, and he looks forward to reuniting with his Texas fans very soon.”
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In April, the regional Mexican star, known for hits like “Póngamonos de Acuerdo” and “Te Hubieras Ido Antes,” made his grand return to the United States with three historic sold-out shows at SoFi Stadium in Los Angeles.
The shows in L.A. saw Álvarez perform in the U.S. again, eight years after a legal process that began Aug. 10, 2017, when the U.S. Treasury Department singled out the singer for alleged money laundering and links to drug trafficking. This caused the closure of his social media accounts and the rejection of U.S. companies to work with the Chiapas-born singer, and kept him away from stages in this country.
In May 2022, the charges were dropped and Alvarez announced in a press conference that everything had been “cleared up.” The three shows in L.A. and the one in Texas this year were setting him up for his upcoming 4218 Tour in the U.S., although the tour dates had yet to be announced.
While it’s unclear why Álvarez was not able to enter the U.S., the news comes at a time when international artists have faced a visa situation that has impacted a handful of regional Mexican acts and events. Earlier this month, Michelada Fest in Chicago was canceled over artists’ visa uncertainty.
Today’s press statement mentions that previously purchased tickets “will be honored for the new date,” but if unable to attend the rescheduled concert, “refund details will be provided.”
Every year, over half a million music fans flock to the Las Vegas Motor Speedway for three nights to dance under neon lights to tunes spanning almost every imaginable dance music subgenre. While Electric Daisy Carnival just wrapped its 29th year, it somehow still finds ways to reinvent itself and grow — not just grow in crowd size, but in cultural and physical reach.
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Just before opening the gates to the festival on May 16, the event’s producer Insomniac invited select guests to Hotel EDC at the Virgin Hotel to celebrate their latest international expansion. Partygoers celebrated with Gorgon City to highlight Insomniac’s next international destination, Medellín, where EDC Colombia will launch in October 2026.
Inside the festival, we saw more representation on the lineup via the Ubutu stage, which created a dedicated space for Afro-house for the first time in the festival’s 29-year run. This year the fest also added a dinner theater activation where guests were treated to a cocktail hour with an acrobatic showcase, followed by dinner featuring a dance troupe and ending with dessert and live singing.
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With the festival approaching its 30th year, Billboard spoke to a handful of DJs, from legendary headliners to this year’s first-timers, to hear from their perspective on how EDC continues to grow and how they personally make each year better than the last.
Here are seven takeaways from their words of wisdom.
Even Legends Can Reach New Heights
Courtesy of Insomniac Events
Tiësto is without a doubt one of the biggest names in dance music. He’s played EDC every year since the festival moved from California to Las Vegas in 2011. You would think he’s turned every possible stone the fest has to offer, but this year, the legend was excited to play Circuit Grounds, a fan-favorite stage, for the first time. Circuit Grounds offers more screens to visually bring the audience into new and unexpected tracks like Tiësto’s upcoming collaboration with Sexyy Red on the F1 soundtrack, “OMG!” Backstage the artist rhetorically asked us “Who would have thought Tiësto would have collabed with Sexyy Red?… No one. Absolutely no one. And it’s an amazing track.”
Also bringing the unexpected this year was EDM titan Kaskade. He brought his b2b act with Alison Wonderland to the Cosmic Meadow stage after the artists debuted as a duo at EDC Orlando last year. This time around, they expanded their sound to include some of Wonderland’s signature trap tunes. “For me, it’s just about playing stuff we love and trying to figure out that bridge in between,” Kaskade told us. “We’ve only played a handful of shows so we’re still discovering that as we play out more together.”
Everything Old Can Be New
Koen Ten Holter
When you’ve played EDC for as long as Tiësto and Kaskade, who’s performed at the festival for two decades, you have to continue making changes to your solo sets. Tiësto reserved a special set for the mainstage, closing out the three-day festival with a set that saw a return to his trance roots. Rising German producer Marlon Hoffstadt introduced “The Godfather of Trance” before his In Search of Sunrise Set, named after his legendary 1999 compilation album.
Tiësto told us the time was finally right for such a moment, saying “I reconnected with the sound I started with back in the day, and I feel like it’s a full circle moment. When [Insomniac Events founder] Pasquale [Rotella] asked me ‘Will you do a sunrise set?’ and I thought ‘Yeah, the time is right now.’”
For Kaskade, his solo set was sprinkled with pieces of his decades-old hits. Many DJs’ styles evolve over time, and Kaskade says he still struggles trying to resurface his former fan-favorites but admits, “People online will like this. There’s sometimes when there’s somebody hitting me up like ‘You haven’t played this song in 10 years!’ and I’m like ‘Oh yeah. That is a good song. I should remember to bring that out.’” So, if you’re waiting for more tracks from his 2008 album Strobelite Seduction to make it into his next set, like us, keep posting.
The Bright Lights Never Dull
The electric sky still shines just as bright, if not brighter, almost 30 years later. Alison Wonderland is still amazed at the impact that EDC has had on her and her friends after playing the festival 10 years later. She reflected on her first time playing at the Las Vegas Motor Speedway and crying, telling the audience “I started in my bedroom and now I’m here.”
A decade later, she’s still humbled by her EDC experience saying that she can’t believe she is sharing the stage with Kaskade. But there’s nothing that could prevent her from taking the stage at the Electric Daisy Carnival. “In fact, I actually love EDC so much that at 9 months pregnant I played main stage,” she said of this set that happened in 2023.
The Power of Planning
With over 500,000 people attending the festival every year, it’s the perfect opportunity for an artist to not only reach their fans but also expose themselves to a group of people who have potentially never heard their sound. Just ask Ben Nicky.
We caught up with the British producer 10 minutes after his first set at Kinetic Field on Saturday night before he made his way to Neon Garden for a b2b set with Maddix. Walking into his trailer, he was already on his computer working on a track because he’s aware of how every set offers its own opportunities.
“I’m like a DJ’s DJ,” he said. “I’m always changing something. Mainstage you’ve got your big fanbase there, but you’ve got another fifty to sixty thousand people who might not know you or be more into commercial stuff. So, you have to tailor and play more well-known vocals. Whereas in the trance tent, I can get away with more dark and underground stuff.”
Koen Ten Holter
Ben meticulously tweaks every element to fit the crowd he’s trying to appeal to, and the crowd at EDC is some of the most knowledgeable when it comes to dance music. Brazilian star Alok told Billboard that means you can’t phone it in.
“I feel like people here each year are more and more educated,” he said, “so, it’s not easy to please them. So you really have to bring stuff that makes sense and not obvious.” He knows a thing or two about keeping an audience on their toes. He just had a buzzed-about Coachella performance, for which he hired dancers with two-tone arms to create eye-catching live visuals.
Don’t Forget to Live in the Moment
While some DJs meticulously plan their sets, others prefer to “just rip it” in the words of Tape B. He started playing EDC in Orlando while doing his undergrad in Florida. Now that he’s worked his way up to EDC Las Vegas, he attended a programming meeting for the first time ahead of his solo set on Friday. When it came to his joint set with dubstep super DJ, Crankdat, they planned to start their set with their unreleased collab but keep it loose otherwise.
He told Billboard about the planning that went into the set saying, “Met up with Crankdat. Worked on our back-to-back for a little bit. Got songs kinda together. We’re mainly freestyling it tonight. So, it’s going to be very interesting, but very fun.”
Koen Ten Holter
Unreleased Tracks Make Everyone Happy
One of the most exciting aspects of attending EDC Las Vegas is the massive amount of unreleased music you’ll hear. REZZ said she was most excited to give fans a taste of what direction she’s taking her project next. “I’m super excited for this year. I’m playing like, seven new songs, more than half of which I’ve never played before.” Check TikTok to see fans’ live reactions to some of this new music.
Julian Bajsel
It’s become customary for DJs to head to Las Vegas with a ton of unreleased music. Riot Ten used it as a chance to treat his most dedicated fans to an early listen of his new album, Requiem For a Riot, before it drops in a week. Other artists may opt to test out some tracks they’re workshopping to see how the crowd reacts, like DJ Snake who played his upcoming song “Paradise” for the audience at AYU dayclub, not once, but twice, to make sure it went off every time.
There Are No Small Opportunities
With this year’s addition of the Ubutu stage, Afro-house had a major presence at the festival for the first time. Francis Mercier noted that EDC is “the home to different types of music from hip-hop to dubstep to house to now Afro house. It’s a place where you can hear all different types of music.” This new stage opened the door for artists like Karaba, who hails from Montreal, Canada, to play a stage at EDC Las Vegas for the first time.
Making the most of these opportunities is key, according to Morten. His first time playing the fest was in 2016 when he thought no one would see him spinning at one of the art cars. When he took the stage he was surprised by the energy. “It doesn’t matter what stage you’re at, the party and the crowd is incredible.” Since then, he’s played solo sets, b2b with David Guetta and this year played Kinetic Field with Artbat.
If you really want to see how quickly you can ascend to greatness, you just have to look at Cloonee’s trajectory. He admitted that EDC wasn’t really a festival you thought about as someone who grew up in England. After living in the States for a few months, he found himself nervously playing the Stereo Bloom festival back in 2022. This year he played Circuit Grounds right after Tiësto,z who said he wasn’t going to play Cloonee’s hit song “Stephanie” with InntRaw and Young M.A because it would be this year’s most played song and you don’t play the most played song before its creator takes the stage.
Meanwhile, the advice Cloonee would give himself before playing Stereo Bloom in 2022 is, “Calm down because you’ve got bigger ones to do.”
Catch more of Billboard’s EDC Las Vegas coverage on Billboard’s Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube Channels.
With stock markets slipping and tariff concerns rising, music stocks from South Korea and China were the best performers for the week ended May 23.
K-pop company SM Entertainment, home to aespa and RIIZE, led music stocks with a 10.6% gain. Two Chinese music streamers, Netease Cloud Music and Tencent Music Entertainment (TME), followed with gains of 7.0% and 5.4%, respectively. HYBE, home to BTS and its members’ solo projects, was close behind with a 4.0% gain.
Driven by the gains in Asian stocks, the 20-company Billboard Global Music (BGMI) rose 0.2% to a record 2,800.92. The small gain marked the seventh consecutive weekly gain after a two-week loss centered around President Trump’s April 1 tariffs announcement. Proving that music performs well in times of economic uncertainty, the BGMI has gained 31.8% year to date, far exceeding both the Nasdaq (down 4.5%) and S&P 500 (down 2.4%).
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U.S.-listed stocks performed especially poorly this week. Only one music stock traded on a U.S. exchange, TME, posted a gain this week. (TME is dual listed and also trades on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. Its American Depository Receipts trade on the New York Stock Exchange.) Of the 12 stocks on the BGMI that lost value this week, only German concert promoter CTS Eventim trades outside of the U.S.
U.S. stocks finished the week on a sour note after President Trump recommended a 50% tariff on the European Union after trade negotiations stalled. The S&P 500 dropped 2.6% and the Nasdaq fell 2.5% amidst a battery of warning signs for the U.S. economy: Moody’s downgrade of the U.S. debt rating, the resulting concerns about the U.S. debt and a drop in the Leading Economic Index, among other factors. The U.S. is experiencing “death by a thousand cuts” and suffering from “the drip, drip, drip of poor fiscal news,” Deutsche Bank’s Jim Reid wrote this week.
CTS Eventim, which fell 4.7% to 106.60 euros ($121.21), was the only music company to announce quarterly results this week. While the 2024 acquisition of See Tickets helped revenue jump 22%, adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) improved just 8.9% and the company missed some analysts’ expectations. After Thursday’s announcement, the company’s share price fell as much as 14.7% before ending the day down 6.2% to 105.60 euros ($111.09).
Among multi-sector companies in the label and publishing business, Universal Music Group fared well, gaining 1.8% to 27.77 euros ($31.57). Warner Music Group fell 5.3% to $26.22 despite a lack of market-moving news or analyst comments. Reservoir Media, which reports earnings on May 28, dipped 1.2% to $7.23.
Streaming services were a mixed bag. Spotify fell 0.4% to $653.82. Deezer rose 0.8% to 1.31 euros ($1.49). Anghami sank 5.1% to $0.56. LiveOne was one of the week’s biggest losers after dropping 20.8% to $0.76. On Thursday (May 22), LiveOne announced it secured $27.8 million of convertible notes financing and drew down $16.8 million on May 19. The notes convert into shares of LiveOne common stock at $2.10 per share.
Live Nation fell 1.8% to $145.01. Macquarie increased its price target to $175 from $165 and maintained its “outperform” rating. On Tuesday, Live Nation named Richard Grenell, an appointee during President Trump’s first term, to its board of directors.
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Jamie Foxx suffered a serious medical emergency in 2023, which he later confirmed to be a stroke. During the time of uncertainty surrounding the mystery illness, plenty of rumors swirled on social media, including Diddy’s alleged involvement.
Foxx shut down the rumors that Diddy tried to have him killed during an interview earlier this week for The Hollywood Reporter with Hasan Minhaj, Chelsea Handler, Roy Wood Jr., Seth Meyers and Sarah Silverman.
“I’m in f—ing perfect shape. [I saw things like,] ‘Puffy tried to kill me.’ No, Puffy didn’t try to kill me. When they said I was a clone, that made me flip,” he said. “I’m sitting in the hospital bed, like, ‘These b—h-a– motherf—ers are trying to clone me.’”
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The 57-year-old admitted he was heavily sedated with drugs during his hospital stay — and he says he doesn’t recall weeks of it — and he snuck in a cell phone, which saw him indulging in the salacious rumors around his health.
“I was doing so many jokes in the hospital,” he continued. “That’s the only way I could get through it. I’m a comic, so even when I was heavily sedated, and they gave me OxyContin, Dilantin and morphine at the same time.”
Foxx previously addressed the rumors of Diddy having him killed and his friendship with the Bad Boy mogul during his What Had Happened Was Netflix special in December.
“The internet said Puffy was trying to kill me, that’s what the internet was saying,” he said. “I know what you thinking, ‘Diddy?’ Hell no, I left them parties early.”
Combs’ reps dispelled the rumors of Diddy having any involvement in Foxx’s health crisis in October, which they said were “outlandish, ridiculous and baseless.”
In April 2023, Foxx’s daughter revealed that her father was hospitalized for a “medical complication” while filming the Netflix movie Back in Action in Atlanta with Cameron Diaz.
Jamie Foxx eventually explained that a “brain bleed” led to him having a stroke after only saying he had a “bad headache.” A nurse said he only had a five percent chance of surviving the medical crisis.
The Oscar-winning actor spent nearly a month in the hospital as doctors ran a myriad of tests and watched his condition closely. He told the audience at his Netflix special that he came “within an inch of his life” while battling the health scare.
As for Diddy, Combs is currently on trial for his sex trafficking and racketeering case, which is expected to last into July. He potentially faces life in prison if convicted on all charges.
Chris Brown was arrested in the U.K. for “inflicting grievous bodily harm” at a nightclub in London in February 2023, and he has since been released on bail for $6.7 million. Keep watching for the full story. What do you think of Chris Brown’s release? Let us know in the comments. Narrator: Chris Brown is […]
