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16 May 2023

Hot 100 First-Timers: DJ Luian & Mambo Kingz Score First Entry With Anuel AA Collab

DJ Luian and Mambo Kingz make their first appearances as billed recording artists on the Billboard Hot 100, as their new collaboration with Anuel AA, “Mejor Que Yo,” debuts at No. 83 on the chart dated May 20.

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The song, released May 4 via Hear This Music/GLAD Empire/Real Hasta La Muerte, enters with 7.6 million official streams in the United States May 5-11, according to Luminate. It also starts at No. 17 on Hot Latin Songs (which uses the same multi-metric methodology as the Hot 100).

The track additionally debuts at No. 72 on the Billboard Global 200 – with 26.2 million streams worldwide – and No. 92 on the Billboard Global Excl. U.S. ranking.

DJ Luian (real name: Luian Malave Nieves) and Mambo Kingz (brothers Edgar and Xavier Semper) are frequent collaborators, as well as seasoned hitmakers on Billboard’s charts as both billed recording artists and producers.

While “Mejor Que Yo” becomes the acts’ first Hot 100 entry as recording artists, they’ve teamed up to produce three prior hits on the chart: Bad Bunny’s “MIA,” featuring Drake (No. 5 peak in 2018); Ozuna, Daddy Yankee, J Balvin, Farruko and Anuel AA’s “Baila Baila Baila” (No. 69, 2019); and Ozuna’s “Amor Genuino” (No. 92, 2019). Mambo Kingz also produced RKM and Ken-Y’s “Down,” which peaked at No. 90 in 2006.

Both “Down” and “MIA” also hit No. 1 on Hot Latin Songs.

As a billed artist, DJ Luian has tallied 11 career entries on Hot Latin Songs, 10 which are collabs with Mambo Kingz. One has reached the top 10: “Sensualidad,” billed as by DJ Luian & Mambo Kingz Presentan: Bad Bunny, J Balvin & Prince Royce, hit No. 8 in 2017.

DJ Luian has additionally sent one album onto Billboard’s charts: Los Favoritos, with Arcangel, reached No. 2 on Top Latin Albums and No. 11 on Top Rap Albums in 2016.

“Mejor Que Yo” isn’t the first collaboration among Anuel AA, DJ Luian and Mambo Kingz. Earlier this year, they combined on “Mas Rica Que Ayer,” which reached No. 16 on Hot Latin Songs and No. 24 on Latin Airplay. Previously, all three were also billed on the tracks “Tú No Amas” (along with Arcangel and Karol G); “Verte Ir” (with Darell, Nicky Jam and Brytiago); and “Bubalu” (with Becky G and Prince Royce).

Luian and Mambo Kingz co-founded Hear This Music, an independent record label distributed by Sony Music Latin, in 2015.

16 May 2023

Here Are the Lyrics to Shakira’s ‘Acróstico’ Translated in English

Shakira gifted moms a new anthem for Mother’s Day. “Acróstico,” released May 12, is a powerful open letter to her children, Milan and Sasha.

The song is a poetic composition constructed so that the initial letter of each line of lyrics, taken consecutively, spells out the names of her two sons. Co-written by Shakira, Keityn, Lexuz and other contributions at La Creme, “Acróstico” is about a mother who can turn her pain into strength through the love of her kids.

On Monday (May 15), the Colombian star — who was crowned Woman of the Year the first-ever Billboard Latin Women in Music on May 6 — released the ballad’s official music video, which features Milan and Sasha singing and playing the piano alongside their mother.

Read the full “Acróstico” lyrics translated into English below:

You taught me that love is not a scam, and that when it’s real it doesn’t end
I tried to stop you from seeing me cry, that you didn’t see my fragility
But things are not always as we dream
Sometimes we run, but we never reach our destination
Never doubt that I will be here
Talk to me and I’ll listen to you

And even though life treated me like this
I will be strong just for you

All I want is your happiness
And to be with you
Your smile is my weakness
Loving you serves as anesthesia for the pain
It makes me feel better
I’m here for whatever you need
You came to complete what I am

Only one plate broke, not the entire set
Although I don’t know how to turn the other cheek
Learning to forgive is wise, only love should come out of those lips
If things are damaged, don’t throw them away, repair them
Face your problems head on
You have to laugh at life
Even though the wounds hurt

You have to give people your whole heart
Even if they hurt it for no reason

All I want is your happiness
And to be with you
Your smile is my weakness
Loving you serves as anesthesia for the pain
It makes me feel better
I’m here for whatever you need
You came to complete what I am

It serves as anesthesia for the pain
It makes me feel better
I’m here for whatever you need
You came to complete what I am

16 May 2023

Elena Rose Reveals Her Favorite Miami Slang | Billboard

Elena Rose chatted with Billboard and talked about some of her favorite Miami slang!

ELENA ROSE: Hi, I’m Elena Rose and this is my three top favorite Miami slang. El primero is “Pero Like”. Pero like, I think is when you’re trying to explain something, you know, and also like when you have to think in English but you really speak Spanish. A veces se mete, sometimes it gets in, you know, so it’s like, I want to do this, pero like, we start here and then we start there. You know, the second one could be, “You Know.” ¿Tú sabes? I just said, “You Know”, ¿verdad? I just said you know? Okay, so that’s, you know, es como like an affirmation. It doesn’t really mean you know, because you know. You know. El tercero es “Papi”. Everything is “Papi. Mi amor. Mami.” Eso es bien Miami. This is my favorite Miami slang.

16 May 2023

ENHYPEN Unveils the Tracklist for 4th Mini Album ‘Dark Blood’

ENHYPEN‘s Dark Blood album rollout continues! On Tuesday (May 16), the K-pop group treated devoted ENGENEs to the full track list for its fourth mini album, which is scheduled to arrive later this month.

The group — which consists of Heeseung, Jay, Jake, Sunghoon, Sunoo, Jungwon and Ni-ki — shared the track list in a stylish typography poster to Twitter. Dark Blood will contain a total of six tracks: “Fate,” “Bite Me,” “Sacrifice (Eat Me Up),” “Chaconne,” “Bills” and “Karma.” The tracklist reveal follows an album announcement and respective teaser released in late April, and concept trailers, films, photos and mood boards for the mini album earlier in the month.

Fans in the comments section were naturally excited for the album’s release. “Looking so dark and mystical. I feel like I can already hear the songs,” one user wrote. Another remarked, “Excited for all the songs, esp the track no. 5 ‘Bills’ since the members recommended and loved it.”

The tracklist is just one of many treats fans have to look forward to ahead of Dark Blood‘s arrival. An album preview is set to follow on May 18, while the video teasers for the yet-to-be revealed lead single precede the album’s release on May 19 and May 21; the album and full music video will arrive one day later. ENHYPEN will also perform a special showcase for DARK BLOOD on May 22.

See the tracklist reveal for Dark Blood below.

16 May 2023

Hot 100 First-Timers: Doechii Debuts With Kodak Black Collab ‘What It Is (Block Boy)’

Doechii makes her Billboard Hot 100 debut as her new collaboration with Kodak Black, “What It Is (Block Boy),” enters at No. 98 on the latest, May 20-dated chart.

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The song, released March 17 via Top Dawg Entertainment/Capitol Records, debuts with 12.3 million radio airplay audience impressions (up 11%), 3.5 million official streams (up 14%) and 1,000 downloads sold in the United States in the May 5-11 tracking week, according to Luminate. It also holds at its No. 11 high on Hot R&B Songs and rises 31-29 on Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs.

Radio-wise, the track rises 12-10 on Rhythmic Airplay — becoming Doechii’s first top 10 on a Billboard airplay chart — as well as 25-22 on Mainstream R&B/Hip-Hop Airplay and 26-25 on R&B/Hip-Hop Airplay.

The song is available via six versions: original, sped-up and slowed-down versions with Kodak Black, and original-speed, sped-up and slowed-down ones without the rapper.

Notably, the track samples TLC’s classic “No Scrubs,” which crowned the Hot 100 for four weeks in 1999.

TikTok has been instrumental in the song’s growing profile, as a portion of Doechii’s solo version has been used in over 138,000 clips on the platform to-date. (TikTok itself does not contribute directly to Billboard’s charts.)

Doechii (real name Jaylah Ji’mya Hickmon), 24, scored her first chart entry in March 2022, when “Trampoline” with David Guetta, AfroJack, Missy Elliott and BIA reached No. 26 on Hot Dance/Electronic Songs. Her team-up with SZA, “Persuasive,” reached No. 33 on Mainstream R&B/Hip-Hop Airplay in October. The latter is from her EP She / Her / Black Bitch, which hit No. 23 on the Heatseekers Albums chart last August.

The Tampa, Fla., native has released four EPs: Coven Music Session, Vol. 1, in 2019, Oh the Places You’ll Go (2020), Bra-Less (2021) and She / Her / Black Bitch. Along with Kodak Black and SZA, she has collaborated with Babyface, Ravyn Lenae, Isaiah Rashad and Smino, among others.

On March 1, Doechii was honored as Billboard’s 2023 Women in Music Rising Star, at the YouTube Theater in Los Angeles. Her mother, Celesia Moore, presented the award, and Doechii performed “Persuasive” as well as her track “Crazy” at the ceremony.

Doechii signed to Top Dawg in March 2022, becoming the label’s first female rapper. This February, she told Billboard that 2023 is going to be her biggest year yet. “I’m in year three of my five-year plan,” she mused. “By year five I want to be at my peak. I want to be in my Sasha Fierce era, the top of my game with still a long way to go — but I want to reach my prime and never leave it.”

16 May 2023

Taylor Swift Reflects on ‘Magical’ & ‘Emotional’ Eras Tour Hometown Shows

Taylor Swift‘s trio of Eras Tour shows in Philadelphia couldn’t have been more nostalgic if she tried. In a Tuesday (May 16) post about her weekend spent at the city’s Lincoln Financial Field, the singer reflected on the full-circle feeling of performing at her hometown venue, celebrating Mother’s Day, family memories and more.

“Philly was a dream, honestly,” the pop star began, tweeting out four mesmerizing photos taken at her most recent shows. “Playing three nights in the stadium I used to see on tv when my dad watched Eagles games every Sunday. The most magical 3 hometown shows a girl could hope for.”

Speaking of the Eagles, Swift played Evermore deep cut “Gold Rush” as one of her surprise songs at the Friday (May 12) show and clarified that one of the lyrics — “Eagles T-shirt hanging from the door” — definitely refers to the Philly football team, not the band. “I love the band the Eagles, but guys, like, come on, I’m from Philly,” she quipped.

Then, two nights later, the “Anti-Hero” singer got to celebrate her mom, Andrea, with a sentimental surprise song performance of her 2008 Fearless track “The Best Day,” which she wrote as a teenager about their close bond. “Plus I got to emotionally hobble my way through singing The Best Day for my mom on Mother’s Day,” she added in her tweet. “I love you all so much.”

The 12-time Grammy winner had also confessed to feeling emotional about the performance while onstage Sunday night. She told the crowd about how she once surprised a tearful Andrea by secretly recording “The Best Day” all those years ago, and warned that, even a decade and a half later, she’d likely get choked up while performing it live.

Swift’s next stop on the Eras Tour will be Foxborough, Mass., about which she wrote she’s “counting down the hours” ’til she gets to play three consecutive shows at Gillette Stadium starting Friday (May 19). The week after, she’ll hit MetLife Stadium just outside New York City before heading over to Soldier Field in Chicago.

16 May 2023

Liz Phair Is Celebrating ‘Exile in Guyville’s 30th Anniversary With a Tour

Liz Phair is coming to a city near you this fall to celebrate the 30th anniversary of her critically acclaimed album Exile in Guyville.

The 18-date trek — appropriately dubbed the Guyville Tour — will see Phair heading across the country starting on Nov. 7, beginning with a stop at The Magnolia in El Cajon, Calif. The Guyville Tour features support from Blondshell and will make stops in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Seattle, Boston, New York City and more before concluding on Dec. 3 at Majestic Theatre in Dallas.

“Liz embarks on the GUYVILLE TOUR this fall, celebrating 30 years of the acclaimed EXILE IN GUYVILLE, performing the record in its entirety, along with fan favorites,” the musician’s official Instagram account shared, alongside the tour’s poster. Tickets go on sale Friday, May 19, at 10 a.m. local time. Presale kicks off May 17 at 10 a.m. local time with code GUYVILLE. There will also be limited VIP packages.

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Released in 1993, Exile in Guyville was Phair’s debut studio album. The set, which spawned singles “Never Said” and “Stratford-on-Guy,” peaked at No. 196 on the Billboard 200 chart, and at No. 12 on the Heatseekers Albums.

See Phair’s tour announcement — and the full list of dates — in the Instagram post below.

16 May 2023

The Weeknd Was Pretty Sure ‘Blinding Lights’ Was ‘Gonna Be a Flop’

Despite what appears to be the kind of supreme self-confidence that has taken him to the top of the charts, as well as the 2021 Super Bowl halftime show and, soon, his acting debut in the HBO series The Idol, The Weeknd (who now goes by his birth name, Abel Tesfaye), still assumes his next project could be a total failure.

“I thought ‘Blinding Lights’ was gonna be a flop,” he told Vanity Fair in a new profile that chronicles both the stratospheric highs — such as his the $69 million L.A. mansion he barely lived in — and his ever-present lows, like when he was sure the propulsive Max Martin/Oscar Holter single from his diamond-selling 2020 After Hours album would tank.

Instead, a combination of the song’s grabby hook and a silly TikTok dance challenge pushed the song into Billboard chart history after it spent four weeks at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 and then logged the most weeks in the top five and top 10 on its way to being the charts No. 1 song of all-time.

At best, Abel figured the song would be a good way for younger fans to dive deeper into his turbulent earlier catalog. “It’s a new generation of angsty teens discovering all the dark music like when I was 14. Kurt Cobain, Wu-Tang, and all these songs that as a kid I probably shouldn’t be listening to, and 50 Cent,” he said. “This f–king dark and amazing escape.”

Even as The Weeknd’s songs have trafficked in endless tales of an easily bruised heart and what sounds like a sure-footedness on stage and in the studio, the singer told the magazine that when it comes to believing in his talents he learned a crucial lesson early on.

“I’ve always had to bet on myself. Even before I was The Weeknd, just in life,” he said. “As soon as I got out of my mother’s womb, it’s been, ‘Bet on yourself. It’s not gonna be easy, you know?’ And I’m fine with that.” That said, this new phase of his career, which he just announced will be conducted under his birth name, is definitely “nerve-racking.”

And, despite his many successes, his firm spot in the pop universe as an instantly recognizable one-named superstar and the Dawn FM album’s narrative arc that bloodily sent up the very notion of global superstardom, Tesfaye seems still not totally ready to fully embrace his spot in the pop firmament. “I don’t blame people,” he said when talk turned to comparisons to other icons. “Because if I was them, I’d be betting on Beyoncé too. I’m not gonna bet on me.”

Check out the VF cover below.

16 May 2023

Jamie & Corinne Foxx Teaming Up To Host A New Game Show “We Are Family” Coming To FOX

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Jamie Foxx & His Daughter Hosting New Game Show In 2024

Source: Variety / Getty / Jamie Foxx

We know Jamie Foxx is recovering and is actively playing pickleball. We also know he will continue to secure the bag alongside his daughter Corinne Foxx.

Spotted on Deadline, Jamie Foxx will be hosting another game show. The actor/musician is on the mend after suffering what his daughter described as a mystery “medical complication” and will be teaming up with his seed to host the new game show We Are Family on FOX.

Foxx will have plenty of time to get back to 100% health because the show is set to premiere on the network in 2024. Foxx already works alongside his daughter on Beat Shazam. Nick Cannon is currently handling guest hosting duties while he recovers.

“We are thrilled to be developing We Are Family with Jeff Apploff and our friends at Fox Entertainment after so much success with six seasons of Beat Shazam,” Jamie and Corinne Foxx said in a statement. “We hope this show brings as much fun to audiences at home as we’ve had creating it when it premieres next year.”

“Jamie and Corinne are important partners to the Fox family,” Allison Wallach, President of Unscripted Programming of Fox Entertainment, added. “Their boundless energy and charming interplay with contestants are irresistible, which make them the perfect hosts of We Are Family. This series joins Fox’s fast-growing list of premium music-centric competition series.

We Are Family Will Have An Interesting Family Twist

The website reports that We Are Family highlights non-famous relatives of celebrities teaming up with their hidden celebrity family members. At the same time, the contestants try and figure out which celebrity the performer is related to.

Per Deadline:

Showcasing non-famous relatives of celebrities performing duets with their hidden famous family member, We Are Family will feature a studio audience entirely comprised of 100 contestants playing through multiple rounds of clues and gameplay to win up to $100,000 each by correctly guessing which celebrity the performer is related to before they are revealed.

Sounds interesting.

Foxx will also serve as an executive producer on the game show. We can’t wait to see him and his daughter back on our television screens.

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Photo: Variety / Getty

16 May 2023

Elon Musk Calls George Soros Magneto After Billionaire Sold Off Tesla Stock

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George Soros, the target of several conspiracy theories from right-wing critics and pundits, finds himself at the opposite end of Elon Musk‘s wrath this week. After the investment firm owned by George Soros sold off its Tesla stock holdings, Musk seemingly went on the offensive and referred to the billionaire businessman as Magneto of X-Men fame.

On Monday, Soros Management Fund sold off its Tesla stock holding after the company reported a high rally of its stock position in the first quarter. In what was probably a savvy business move in contrast to a personal preference, it was expected that the Soros family business would enjoy hefty gains as a result.

While it isn’t known what Musk meant by referring to Soros as Magneto via Twitter, Musk was quickly schooled about Magneto by Twitter users who explained that the conflicted supervillain believed in the liberation of mutants due to his experiences as a Holocaust survivor, similar to Soros.

Journalist Brian Krassenstein attempted to give a lesson in a tweet but was met with a muted response from Musk.

“Fun fact: Magneto’s experiences during the Holocaust as a survivor shaped his perspective as well as his depth and empathy. Soro, also a Holocaust survivor, get’s attacked nonstop for his good intentions which some Americans think are bad merely because they disagree with this political affiliations,” Krassenstein tweeted.

Musk responded, “You assume they are good intentions. They are not. He wants to erode the very fabric of civilization. Soros hates humanity.”

As it stands, what Musk said in response to the tweet mirrors many talking points from conspiracy theorists who believe Soros is behind a number of left-leaning organizations and funnels money into groups to stamp out conservative ideals and the like. Further, the jab reads as an antisemitic dog whistle to some

On Twitter, the reaction to Elon Musk’s jab at George Soros is ongoing. We’ve got the reactions listed below.

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Photo: BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI / Getty