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Rapper Boosie Badazz shared an encouraging health update this week, revealing that his recent heart test results came back negative.
This news comes as a relief to fans after Boosie revealed in April that he was dealing with a “left atrial enlargement,” a condition that can signal heart-related complications. Thankfully, the latest results show no ongoing issues, and Boosie seems to be in good spirits as he continues to focus on his health and career.
Despite the health scare, Boosie has remained active both online and in music, though he recently made headlines for a heated exchange with Kanye West. The two artists found themselves in a back-and-forth after Kanye claimed that Boosie “smells poor” during an online rant. Boosie didn’t waste time responding, clapping back with a sharp warning that Kanye “better chill out.” Known for his outspoken personality, Boosie wasn’t about to let the disrespect slide.
While Boosie is often seen as a lively and positive figure who supports his community and speaks candidly on various issues, he made it clear that he’s not one to be played with. His response to Kanye was a reminder that even the most positive people have their limits when it comes to disrespect.
Westside Gunn has dropped off a surprise remix of “Egypt” featuring some fiery bars from Doechii. On Friday (May 2), Gunn unleashed the unexpected collaboration on the world, which made sense considering Doechii was technically on the original “Egypt” — or at least, her voice was. In the version of the track that appeared on […]
Morgan Wallen’s “I’m the Problem” dominates Billboard’s Country Airplay chart for a third total and consecutive week. The track tops the chart dated May 10 with 30.5 million in audience (up 3%) April 25-May 1, according to Luminate.
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The song became Wallen’s third Country Airplay No. 1 from his album of the same name — prior to its May 16 release. “Love Somebody” ruled for three weeks in February, after “Lies Lies Lies” led for a week in November. His latest single being promoted to country radio, “Just in Case,” climbs 22-19 (9.1 million, up 16%).
Wallen’s new 37-track LP contains one more song than his 2023 LP, One Thing at a Time. That set has ruled Top Country Albums for 84 weeks, the second most in the chart’s history, after only his own Dangerous: The Double Album, which ran up a record 97 weeks at No. 1 beginning in January 2021.
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Meanwhile, “I’m the Problem” marks Wallen’s ninth Country Airplay No. 1 to dominate for three or more frames. His longest-leading hit, “You Proof,” reigned for 10 weeks beginning in October 2022. It’s tied for the longest command in the chart’s 35-year history with Nate Smith’s “World on Fire,” which started its rule in December 2023.
Country Lake
Brandon Lake’s “Hard Fought Hallelujah,” featuring Jelly Roll, lifts 56-54 on Country Airplay (979,000, up 15%). Lake’s first entry on the chart has commanded Hot Christian Songs for 20 weeks running and hit the Billboard Hot 100’s top 40. A remix was released Feb. 7 adding Jelly Roll, while the twosome performed the song on ABC’s American Idol on April 20.
Lake is the first core Christian music artist to reach Country Airplay since Chris Tomlin, who, as featured on Thomas Rhett’s “Be a Light,” alongside Reba McEntire, Hillary Scott and Keith Urban, hit No. 2 in September 2020. (Speaking of Rhett, his duet with Forrest Frank, “Nothing Else,” ranked at No. 8 on the May 3 Hot Christian Songs chart.)
BigXThaPlug has teamed up with Amazon Music for an acoustic rendition of his song “Holy Ground” featuring Jessie Murph. On Friday (May 2), Amazon Music dropped off the acoustic version of the track, which was originally included on the deluxe edition of BigX’s sophomore effort, Take Care. The acoustic version was released as part of […]
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Ever since unapologetically stomping for Donald Trump during the 2024 presidential race and taking shots at Kamala Harris, Hulk Hogan’s popularity in the WWE universe plummeted with the wrestling legend constantly getting booed whenever making an appearance at WWE events.
Seeing the writing on the wall, Hulk Hogan has decided to launch his own pro wrestling league banking on MAGA country to support his new venture and is calling on none other than the orange overlord, Donald Trump, to help him jumpstart his new wrestling league. According to TMZ, Hulk Hogan has linked up with fellow wrestling legend Eric Bischoff and famous coach Israel Martinez to start Real American Freestyle with the inaugural show kicking off in Cleveland, Ohio, on Aug. 30.
Though Donald Trump hasn’t committed to appearing at the event to show support to the man whose career he ruined by having him publicly support him during the 2024 presidential race, the Hulkster is hoping that the most hated man in the world repays a little of that debt by popping up at his Real American Freestyle wrestling event later this summer.
Per TMZ:
In fact, Hulk — who was one of Trump’s biggest supporters during his run for president in 2024 — said he plans to make a phone call to the White House soon to personally extend the invite.
With or without Trump, though, Hogan made it clear he’s expecting big things from the league — which will have a bit of a different feel than most of the wrestling promotions he used to dominate.
The RAF will feature real, unscripted freestyle wrestling … with both men’s and women’s divisions. He said in a teaser for the league that athletes “are going to get paid to beat people up” — before telling us they could make dollar amounts in the seven-figure range.
Hulk promised it’ll have “The Voice”-like elements too … saying wrestlers’ backgrounds will be given to fans prior to their matches.
Sounds like fans will know which “woke” wrestlers to boo and which “MAGA” wrestlers to cheer for. Just sayin’.
That being said, we feel like a Cheeto Jesus appearance depends on just how good or bad Trump will be looking come Aug. 30. If we’re in a deep recession by then (which seems likely), Trump might show up just to get cheered on by his MAGA cult and make himself feel better.
What do y’all think about Hulk Hogan’s new wrestling league? Do you see DOA or potential in the project? Let us know in the comments section below.
Alex Warren’s “Ordinary” continues to dominate the U.K. Singles Chart as it notches a seventh consecutive week at No. 1 on May 2. The hot streak makes “Ordinary” the longest running chart-topper in the U.K. since Sabrina Carpenter’s nine-week reign with “Taste” in 2024. The news also coincides with continued success on the Billboard Hot […]
Welsh rock group Stereophonics has earned its ninth U.K. No. 1 album with 13th studio LP, Make ‘em Laugh, Make ‘em Cry, Make ‘em Wait, on May 2.
The band earned its first chart-topper in 1999 with Performance and Cocktails, and has appeared at the summit a further eight times with Just Enough Education to Perform (2001), You Gotta Go There to Come Back (2003), Language.Sex.Violence.Other? (2005), Pull the Pin (2007), Keep the Village Alive (2015), Kind (2019) and Oochya! (2022).
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The ninth No. 1 sees the four-piece leapfrog Oasis, Ed Sheeran and Led Zeppelin — all of whom have eight — and pulls them level with Bob Dylan and Take That on the all-time leaders list. The Beatles and The Rolling Stones are the only British rock bands to have landed more No. 1s with 15 and 14, respectively.
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The group will headline a number of massive outdoor and stadium shows in the U.K. this summer, including at Cardiff’s Principality Stadium and London’s Finsbury Park.
Swedish band Ghost has equaled its career high at No. 2 with its sixth album, Skeletá. The theatrical rockers, led by Tobias Forge under the Papa Emeritus persona, has hit the top 10 several times previously: 2018’s Prequelle (10), 2023’s Phantomime (8) and 2024’s Rite Here Rite Now (10).
Former X Factor winner James Arthur has netted a sixth top 10 with his new LP PISCES; he scored the top spot three times previously with 2016’s Back From the Edge, 2021’s It’ll All Make Sense In the End and 2024’s Bitter Sweet Love.
Sabrina Carpenter’s Short n’ Sweet nets another week in top five (No. 4) and Self Esteem hits a new peak with her third album, A Complicated Woman (No. 5). The new release saw the Rotherham-born artist sign to Polydor after years on indie labels with her previous band The Slow Club and earlier Self Esteem LPs. Speaking to Billboard U.K., she said, “This whole journey has taught me that what’s important is people and community. That’s what the music means to me.”
The Black Keys top Billboard’s Alternative Airplay chart for the eighth time as “The Night Before” lifts a place to No. 1 on the May 10-dated tally. The duo notches its first leader since “Beautiful People (Stay High)” led for two weeks in March 2024. In between its latest No. 1s, the act hit No. […]
Rebecca and Megan Lovell, otherwise known as the musical duo Larkin Poe, are the first to say they aren’t breaking new musical ground. “We’re all derivative,” Rebecca says to Billboard’s Behind the Setlist podcast from a tour stop in Boise, Idaho. “There are very few original ideas.”
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Take “Easy Love Pt. 1,” an upbeat, Bonnie Raitt-styled number from the group’s new album, Bloom. “That’s not reinventing the wheel. It’s a song that is built upon basically the changes [of Lynyrd Skynyrd’s] ‘Sweet Home Alabama,’” says Rebecca.
Then again, the Georgia-raised, Nashville-based sisters are taking the blues and Southern rock to unlikely places. In January, the sisters visited Jimmy Kimmel Live! to perform “Easy Love Pt. 1.” Not many blues-based artists get a national television audience these days. And few women are winning a Grammy award for best contemporary blues album, which Larkin Poe did in 2024 for its 2022 set, Blood Harmony.
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Guitar-playing Rebecca and lap steel guitar-playing Megan deserve credit for crafting an accessible, modern spin on traditional music. The sisters have succeeded in honoring the histories of some great American musical genres without being afraid to finding their own approach to a familiar sound.
Over the years, the Lovell sisters, who began Larkin Poe in 2010, incorporated beats to their music and occasionally changed the lyric of a cover song. “I do think that there is this temptation at times for — and I hear it a lot in the blues, specifically on a lot of the festival touring circuit that we’ve done — you speak with the same metaphor. You are honoring the past, and you’re putting this whole genre of music kind of behind glass. And it’s a little museum. And we look at it, but we don’t engage, we don’t tweak it. And so I think, very respectfully, Megan and I, over the years, have done our best to get in there, and if we’re going to do a blues cover and there’s a lyric in there that we don’t agree with, we’ll change it. And and we do so with utmost respect, because we respect the songs, and we believe that art and genres of music, specifically traditional American music, needs to evolve.”
Bloom “is a little bit of a departure,” says Rebecca. “It embraces a lot of different types of Southern music that we previously were maybe limiting ourselves [to] a little bit in order to be a blues-fronted outfit. Because I do think [Bloom is] more driven by melody, whereas previous records were more driven by riffs.”
Following the release of Bloom, Larkin Poe reached No. 11 on the Top Album Sales chart, No. 16 on the Americana/Folk Albums chart, No. 20 on the Vinyl Albums chart and No. 66 on Billboard’s Artist 100 chart. Larkin Poe arguably has a stronger presence on the road, though, and has spent 2025 performing at mid-sized clubs and theaters across the U.S. In March, the band set sail on Joe Bonamassa’s Keeping the Blues Alive at Sea cruise.
The sisters, who began their career in music as folk trio The Lovell Sisters with older sister Jessica, began their appreciation of blues music in their late teens. “We unbraided some of the hillbilly jazz influence of our bluegrass upbringing in order to allow more soul into the music,” says Rebecca. “And I do have to shout out Son House and Skip James, those two artists specifically as really capturing our imagination for turn of the century blues and showing us the possibility of a human voice and an acoustic or electric guitar.”
They were prompted to dig deeper into the blues when on tour with Elvis Costello, who Rebecca calls “a fount of knowledge.” Since Rebecca and Megan were listening to the Allman Brothers, Costello encouraged them to follow the group’s history and research its musical predecessors. “That definitely influenced us to go back and do our research about where these songs were coming from,” says Rebecca.
Listen to the entire interview with Rebecca and Megan Lovell using the embedded Spotify player below or go to Spotify, Apple Podcasts, iHeart, Amazon Music, Podbean or Everand.
Neil Young is ready to roll again, but not if Elon Musk‘s company logo is on the hood. On his new song “Let’s Roll Again” released Friday (May 2), the rock star briefly takes aim at the billionaire’s electric car company amid lyrics imploring auto manufacturers such as Ford, General Motors and Chrysler to build […]
