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After spending much of his young life in and out of detention centers, Jelly Roll is giving back.
While on his Big Ass Stadium Tour with Post Malone, the country star recently stopped by the Adult Detention Center at Hennepin County Sheriff’s Office in Minnesota for a surprise visit. While there, he interacted with the officers and spoke to some of the inmates, sharing with them, “I have no lies to tell.”
Jelly also reflected on his own experiences behind bars, sharing that he was eventually motivated to get his act together so that he could go home and to “be the dad I didn’t have.” “I knew that if I squeaked out of this one, there was no chance with my history that I caught another case,” said the “Son of a Sinner” singer, who completed his GED while in jail. “Even now I’m petrified of it.”
In photos posted by HCSO on Facebook, Jelly shakes hands and poses with the staff and holds up an honorary key to the jail, which Sheriff Dawanna Witt presented to him in front of the detainees. “Jail time shouldn’t be wasted time,” Witt said, according to the post. “Jelly Roll is a great example of how jail programs can change lives.”
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Jelly has long been open about his criminal history. At one point, he served over a year with seven months of probation for an aggravated robbery he committed when he was 16, years after which he was incarcerated again for drug dealing at age 23. While he was locked up for the latter charge, he learned from a guard that his now-17-year-old daughter, Bailee, had been born, and the Tennessee native vowed to turn his life around.
“I’ve never had nothing in life that urged me in the moment to know that I had to do something different,” he told Billboard of the epiphany in 2023. “I have to figure this out right now.”
After initially having to work toward a relationship with his daughter after his sentence was up, Jelly and his wife, podcaster Bunnie XO, now share full custody of Bailee. The musician is also Dad to 8-year-old Noah from a prior relationship.
Following stops in Minneapolis and Chicago, Jelly and Posty will next take their trek to Toronto, Miami, San Francisco and more cities. It follows the “Need a Favor” musician’s album Beautifully Broken, which reached No. 1 on the Billboard 200 in October.
The instrumentation of the song “Tiempos Violentos” reminds the listener of the James Bond saga. But when the unmistakable voice of the Chilean-Mexican alternative star Mon Laferte appears in it — adding melancholic nuances and a dramatic air, and then merging with the soft and powerful singing of the American St. Vincent — this new bilingual version of the song “Violent Times” reinvents itself.
Released Friday (May 23) on digital platforms under the Virgin Music Group label, the new collaboration between St. Vincent and Mon Laferte not only translates into the language of Cervantes one of the most outstanding tracks from this year’s Grammy winner for best alternative music album, All Born Screaming (2004), but also transforms it into something new through two languages and two visions that connect in a masterful piece.
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“Collaborating with Mon gave the song new shape, new blood, new depth,” St. Vincent told Billboard Español on Thursday in a video call. “Like a dream falling into another dream.”
“Tiempos Violentos”, the Spanish-language adaptation of “Violent Times,” was originally included in the translated edition of All Born Screaming, titled Todos Nacen Gritando, which singer/songwriter and guitarist Annie Clark, better known as St. Vincent, released last November as a “humble tribute” to her Hispanic-American fans who go to her concerts and sing her songs in perfect English without it being their native language.
“I just think she’s so powerful and incredible and I thought that her voice would be so well suited to this song because she has all of that jazz standards in her body, but also an edge to her voice,” Clark explains. “So yeah, I initially reached out seeing if she might want to cover the song or reinterpret it and then she made her own translation of it and then we made it this duet really between us, which I think has ended up being just interesting and beautiful.”
Meanwhile, Mon Laferte says that when she first heard the Spanish version of “Violent Times,” she felt “a deep pull.”
“It was beautiful and haunting. I wanted to give it my own voice, to make it mine too — and to do it alongside an artist I’ve long admired,” recalls Mon Laferte, according to a statement from Virgin Music Group shared with Billboard Español.
And that is precisely what she did. On “Tiempos Violentos,” the Chilean-Mexican singer/songwriter delivers a poignant and intimate verse in Spanish that reframes the emotional meaning of the song, while St. Vincent’s English refrains resonate like distant memories, creating a raw, cinematic version.
“Tiempos Violentos” was recorded in a studio in Bogota at the end of last March, when both artists were in the Colombian capital to participate in the Estéreo Picnic music festival, where the friendship blossomed.
“Her voice is just fire,” St. Vincent notes about the Chilean-Mexican artist. “It’s emotional. It’s pure. It has an edge. And I’m just very honored to get to be on the same track with.”
Part of the experience of learning and improving her Spanish also includes listening to music in that language, and in Portuguese, so St. Vincent’s Ibero-American playlist naturally includes Mon Laferte, but also artists such as Bomba Estéreo, Caetano Veloso and Rosalía, according to the artist.
Regarding the relationship between Latin America and Spain, St. Vincent points out that it has become closer. She confesses that Mexico is one of her favorite places to perform, but she also feels a great affection for her fans in South America, where next week she will play concerts in Chile, Argentina and Brazil, with former Sonic Youth bassist Kim Gordon as opening act.
“I just think what’s so incredible is just the way that people love music,” says Clark of her Latin followers. “It just feels so authentic and true. It just feels like music isn’t some other extra commodity. It’s like it is life itself. It is as essential as like food and air.”
Camila Cabello took to social media on Friday (May 23) to mark her hit single “Never Be the Same” joining the Spotify Billions Club. “Never be the same is my 4th song to hit a BILLION STREAMS !!!!!!!,” she wrote on Instagram alongside a video of her performing the opening track from 2018’s Camila on […]
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Jennifer Lopez is set to host the 2025 American Music Awards, kicking off on Memorial Day, May 26. The show will feature a star-studded list of performers, including Benson Boone, Gloria Estefan, Gwen Stefani and more.
Taking place at the Fontainebleau in Las Vegas, here’s everything you need to know about the annual fan-voted awards show, including how to stream, who’s performing, and where to buy last-minute tickets. Keeping scrolling for more info.
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When Are the 2025 AMAs?
The American Music Awards will air live starting at 8 p.m. ET/5 p.m. PT on Monday, May 26, on CBS. You can stream the event live on Paramount+ With Showtime, DirecTV or fuboTV.
How to Watch the AMAs
The annual music awards show will be airing on CBS. Don’t have cable? There are plenty of streaming options to catch the show, including Paramount+ With Showtime. The current service plan costs $12.99/month or $119.99/year, while the Paramount+ Essential Plan currently costs $7.99/month or $59.99/year. However, the awards show will only be available to watch live with Paramount+ With Showtime. The streaming service does offer a seven-day free trial, which new users can activate once signing up.
Want to watch the AMAs online for free? FuboTV offers a seven-day free trial when you sign up for one of its plans. You’ll gain access to more than 200 live TV channels, so you can watch the AMAs live for free. After your free trial is over, you’ll be charged the subscription price based on the plan you choose or you can cancel at any time.
DirecTV also offers a five-day free trial and the live TV streaming service also includes CBS as part of its channel lineup. Use the free trial to stream the AMAs online free from your phone, tablet, computer or smart TV.
Who’s Performing at the AMAs?
Janet Jackson will receive the prestigious ICON Award and deliver her first live TV performance in seven years. Rod Stewart will also be honored with the Lifetime Achievement Award and perform on the AMAs stage for the first time in over two decades. Other performers include: Jennifer Lopez, Gloria Estefan, Benson Boone, Gwen Stefani, Blake Shelton, Lainey Wilson, Reneé Rapp and more. See more of this year’s performers here.
How to Get Tickets to the American Music Awards
Want to attend the AMAs this year? You’re in luck. Fans can still score last-minute 2025 American Music Awards tickets through a variety of ticket sites, including Ticketmaster, StubHub and Vivid Seats, ahead of Monday night’s ceremony. It’s not too late to spend the long weekend in Vegas.
The American Music Awards are produced by Dick Clark Productions, which is owned by Penske Media Eldridge, a joint venture between Eldridge Industries and Billboard parent company Penske Media.
Can house music on an opulent vessel for a private members club cut through the noise at the Cannes Film Festival?
This week, Billboard boarded a superyacht with Kismi, a new nightlife venture that bills itself as “a sonic sanctuary for music lovers,” and spoke with the event’s performers, Haitian producer Francis Mercier and German artist Marten Lou, to find out.
Amid its namesake film festival, Cannes attracts individuals of high net worth and influence and, with it, a host of splashy parties. Artists, celebrities, tastemakers and more tee up a tight schedule of appearances at exclusive premieres, gatherings, clubs and more, seduced by the spotlight and invitations to the hottest events. Among them was Kismi, a private, members-only experience soundtracked by the scene’s most current iterations of house music.
When guests exited their black cars at Port de Cannes on Wednesday (May 21), they were greeted with a stunning sight: the distant view of the city, with its lights breaking up the darkness, and the waves of the Mediterranean lapping against the spotless sides of Cannes’ famous lineup of yachts.
Just days before, this same ship saw a slew of celebrities who boarded for the afterparty of the premiere for A$AP Rocky’s new film Highest 2 Lowest, but this night was set to be far more discreet. “We’re not targeting everyone,” said Kismi chairman Paul Martino, a longtime tech entrepreneur who is also the managing general partner and co-founder of Bullpen Capital, a San Francisco-based venture capital fund. “Our members are stylists, founders, artists, collectors, tastemakers who care deeply about the details: the sound, the setting, the crowd. They’ve already seen what traditional nightlife looks like. They want something quieter, more elevated, and rooted in great music.”
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A general view of the “This Is It Yacht” during KISMI founder Christine Becker’s brand’s international debut aboard “This Is It Yacht” during the Cannes Film Festival, with special performances by Marten Lou and Francis Mercier on May 21, 2025 in Cannes, France.
Hoda Davaine/Getty Images for Kismi
To wit, the lineup for the evening featured headliner Francis Mercier, the steadily rising Afro house producer who’s been making his name on the global circuit from Coachella to Burning Man to Ibiza, where he’s launching a residency this summer at Club Chinois. The night’s opener was Marten Lou, who is German-born but residing in Paris and who shared his Euro-forward interpretation of the genre, along with German favorite Jan Blomqvist, who appeared for a surprise set and skillfully layered his vocals over his moody and melodic signature sound.
Mercier shared his excitement for bringing his set to a smaller crowd than he normally plays for. “You get a bit of every culture closer to you. You get a sense of the wider European energy, in the sense that during Cannes Film Festival, there’s a lot of internationals from Italy, a lot of internationals from East Europe, a lot of internationals from France, from the U.S. and whatnot,” he told Billboard, motioning to the surroundings. “So at the end of the day, it gives me the capacity to really connect with people on a closer level.”
Mercier also commented on the current Afro house boom, which he’s a part of alongside a host of other acts who’ve made their name on the sound, turning it into a global trend and massive draw.
“I think right now, Afro house has become quite mainstream, where I would say a lot of artists have used the genre and its popularity to kind of infiltrate and kind of like commercialize it and Westernize it,” says Mercier. “But I think the authentic Afro house is gonna grow some more. I think the original Afro house artists are yet to gain stardom. I think it’s still underway.”
While Kismi keeps trends and individual talent in mind for bookings, founder Christine Becker insists that intuition is key. “Some of the artists we’ve booked happen to be at the edge of something bigger, but that’s not the reason I chose them. It’s usually instinct, when something feels honest and precise, I know it fits.” Previous Kismi event bookings by Becker include Hugel, Moojo and Keinemusik’s &ME.
As Lou, Blomqvist and Mercier went back-to-back, they gave a heartbeat to the event. Their rhythms swayed the partygoers on a dance floor that was small, but never packed to the point of discomfort. The guestlist included actors Ian Bohen (Yellowstone) and Tyler Hoechlin (Superman); reality TV personalities including Jason Oppenheim (Selling Sunset), Lenny Hochstein (The Real Housewives of Miami), and Porsha Williams (The Real Housewives of Atlanta); contemporary artists, directors, photographers, models and more; but the crowd felt both present and surprisingly egalitarian – especially when, with limited options, everyone waited together for the few available bathrooms.
Kismi’s Cannes party painted a picture of what’s to come – but what does the future hold for the event? “Growth for Kismi won’t look like expansion in the traditional sense. We’re focused on deepening the brand, not widening it,” Martino explained. “That means three to four core events a year in culturally significant locations, two off-calendar pop-ups, and a set of very specific brand and artist partnerships.”
The price tag to get into these parties run the gamut from $1,000 member’s guest tickets to $50,000 member tables, with Kismi also offering $100,000-plus membership tiers, which Martino calls “a way to be part of shaping that energy from the inside.”
As Kismi sets its eyes on a future of electronic music parties for the elite, the genre itself continues its own perpetual forward march. “Many people talk about, ‘Oh, now [House] is getting burned or it’s too commercial, it’s too big.’ I think that’s just natural development, you know?” Lou reflects. “I think that’s a great development and everyone has to adapt, develop new things, try to find new sounds.”
Source: John Lamparski / Getty
Sacha Jenkins, a writer, director, producer and co-founder of the beloved Hip-Hop magazine ego trip, has passed away.
For Generation X and Millennial-aged Hip-Hop fans—and particularly Hip-Hop journalists—Jenkins was a titan. Born in Philadelphia, but raised in Queens, he was a co-founder of ego trip magazine along with fellow rap journalist Elliott Wilson in 1994. Although it only published 13 issues in four years, it spawned an influential brand that would feature books, ego trip’s Book of Rap Lists, and even a TV show, ego trip’s The White Rapper Show, on VH1.
As a journalist, his byline hit all the magazines of importance (XXL, The Source, Rolling Stone, Spin, et. al), interviewing a who’s who of subjects (he co-wrote Eminem’s biography, The Way I Am (2009)). Jenkins would go on to hold down a plethora of gigs that included Music Editor of Vibe magazine and creative director of Mass Appeal. A former graffiti writer, he launched the Piecebook series of titles that highlight graf from worldwide.
If you’ve watched many Hip-Hop documentaries, you inevitably would see his name pop up in the credits. He directed the doc series Wu-Tang Clan: Of Mics and Men, (2019) which ran on Showtime (as did his Biz Markie doc All Up in the Biz), as well as Louis Armstrong’s Black & Blues (2022) and Fresh Dressed (2015). And that’s only a small sampling of an indelible, culturally important body of work that Jenkins managed to leave behind before his untimely death.
Jenkins is survived by his wife, Raquel Cepeda, and their two children. A cause of death has not been shared at this time and the family asks for privacy.
As soon as word of Jenkins’ passing became public, many Hip-Hop figures (including some iconic graf artists) took to social media to pay homage to the legend. We’ve compiled some below.
Hip-Hop Wired sends its deepest condolences to Sascha Jenkins’ family and friends. Rest powerfully in peace.
This story is developing.
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50 Cent trolls Diddy over allegedly traumatizing Kid Cudi‘s dog and lighting his car on fire. On Thursday, Kid Cudi arrived in Manhattan to testify against Diddy in the disgraced mogul’s ongoing criminal trial. As part of his testimony, Cudi said Diddy allegedly threw a molotov cocktail into his car because he was dating Puff’s […]
Private equity firm Providence Equity Partners has made a majority investment in logistics company GCL, the companies announced Wednesday (May 21). Previous majority owner ATL Partners will retain a minority stake in GCL. Terms of the deal were not announced, but The Wall Street Journal reported the investment values GCL at more than $1 billion. […]
Forget twinks, bears and otters — are you a Nickelodeon gay or a Disney gay?
Thankfully, Miley Cyrus stopped by Jimmy Kimmel Live! on Thursday night (May 22) to break down the age-old queer tribal descriptors.
The topic came up when host Jimmy Kimmel asked the superstar about the last time she’d watched an episode of her iconic Disney Channel series Hannah Montana, which ran for four seasons from 2006 to 2011.
“I’m surrounded by gays,” Cyrus quipped. “And there’s a big difference in…there’s Nickelodeon gays and Disney gays.”
As Kimmel pressed her for the contrast between the two types, the singer continued, “Nickelodeon gays and Nickelodeon, no offense, but in general, they do like boogers and, you know, bro jokes. And Disney, I would like to think is a little bit more fabulous, especially if it’s about a teenage pop star wearing a wig, like being the most famous drag queen for kids ever.”
However, it seems that some of the unnamed gays in Miley’s orbit these days somehow weren’t familiar enough with her “Best of Both Worlds”-belting alter ego that first made her a household name. “I’m like, you’re gay and you don’t live for Hannah Montana? What’s wrong with you?” she joked. “So I introduced them to Hannah, and obviously they were gagged. They were obsessed with her. I was offended.”
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Throughout the 2000s, blossoming Disney gays were also blessed with plenty of other small-screen idols to look up to, including High School Musical‘s Sharpay Evans, London Tipton from The Suite Life of Zack and Cody and, of course, Zac Efron as iconic heartthrob Troy Bolton — all of whom hit the Disney Channel in roughly the same era as Hannah Montana.
And speaking of eras, Cyrus is ready to usher in her latest musical one with the release of her ninth studio album, Something Beautiful, which is set for May 30 via Columbia Records. To promote the LP, the pop star also debuted her new ballad “More to Lose” live for the first time during her Kimmel appearance and spilled some rather stomach-turning tea from the set of the cinematic visual album.
Watch Miley explain the Nickelodeon gays vs. Disney gays conundrum below.
It may have been months since their concurrent Wicked and Emilia Pérez awards cycles ended, but Selena Gomez is still in Ariana Grande‘s corner.
In a sweet post to Instagram Stories on Friday (May 23), the Rare Beauty founder reshared a video from February’s Santa Barbara International Film Festival — featuring Gomez hugging the “Yes, And?” singer from behind and giving her a kiss on the shoulder by the red carpet — and shared some kind words for her friend. “I’m reminded that women can always be supportive of each other,” the Only Murders in the Building actress wrote.
Gomez also added, “I love you Ari.”
The two former child actresses bonded this past year as both of their onscreen projects — Grande played Glinda in Wicked while Gomez starred as Jessi in Emilia Pérez — were nominated in many of the same awards categories in 2025. At the Academy Women’s Luncheon in December, the pair sat next to each other and gushed about their blossoming friendship.
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“I really love watching this moment happen for Selena,” the Victorious alum told Variety at the time of Gomez’s then-recent Golden Globes nomination. “I know how hard she’s worked and how long she’s waited. I recognize that, because it resonates with me, so I know that feeling. So when you can reach out to your friends in the industry and say, ‘Great work, congratulations,’ why not do it? I don’t know Selena as well as I wish I did, so I’m excited to sit next to her today.”
“Ariana texted me and it was the sweetest note and it was about six in the morning,” Gomez added, noting that Grande was one of the first people to congratulate her. “We sent each other voice messages. It was very exciting.”
The “We Can’t Be Friends (Wait for Your Love)” musician is currently gearing up to do the Wicked promo and awards cycle all over again, with the November premiere of Part 2 getting closer and closer each day. Earlier in May, Universal shared For Good‘s first official poster as well as a release date for the sequel’s trailer: June 4, when the first film will return to theaters for one night only in the United States and Canada.
For Gomez, the focus shifted to music after the Emilia Pérez fanfare wrapped, with the star releasing a joint album with fiancé Benny Blanco. Titled I Said I Love You First, the project reached No. 2 on the Billboard 200.
