State Champ Radio News
Page: 579
Slim Thug has reacted to Megan Thee Stallion turning down his romantic advances, and says he’s not giving up that easily. Slim Thug hopped on Instagram Live Wednesday (April 23) to once again share his thoughts on Megan Thee Stallion, who turned down his previous romantic advances during her performance at Coachella last weekend. Slim […]
HipHopWired Featured Video
Source: handout / Republic Records
On Tuesday (April 22), Lil Wayne gave his fans some great news as he revealed the cover for The Carter VI, along with the news that he will be headlining a concert at Madison Square Garden in New York City for the first time ever. The rapper shared the artwork in a post on X, formerly Twitter, which features him as a smiling toddler with his signature tattoos.
The caption to the post read, “June 6. We C6. Tha Carter Six. Captain Carter C6,” ending with a link to his website. He followed that up with another post announcing his concert at Madison Square Garden, which will occur the same day as the album’s release. Fans can obtain tickets through a special pre-order sale happening on Wednesday (April 23), with a general sale taking place on Friday (April 25).
The Louisiana native has been hinting at releasing the album for the last seven years, even releasing another project in 2023, which was the follow-up to The Carter V, Tha Fix Before Tha VI. It’s a definite change from his recent mentions at the beginning of the year when his name was mentioned concerning the Super Bowl held in the Caesars Superdome in New Orleans. He declared that he was no longer interested in being considered to perform at a future halftime show after Birdman and others objected to Kendrick Lamar being the halftime performer in February.
As far as what fans can expect on The Carter VI, the “A Milli” rapper shared his process in making the album during a Rolling Stone interview released earlier this month. “If there’s one thing about this album that’s different, it’s me approaching it like, ‘Man, what would I sound like on something with such and such?’” he said. Artists confirmed on the album include Miley Cyrus, U2 frontman Bono, and Wyclef Jean along with Lil Wayne’s son, Kameron.
Source: handout / Live Nation
Shane Boose says that, if a piece of music can be described as “alternative” or “indie,” he’s probably going to enjoy it. “My favorite band of all time is Radiohead,” Boose, who records as Sombr, tells Billboard. “And I’m a big fan of Jeff Buckley, Phoebe Bridgers, The 1975. I listen to a ton of alternative music — it’s my genre.”
Explore
Explore
See latest videos, charts and news
See latest videos, charts and news
Those influences help explain why Sombr’s two fast-rising hit singles, “Back to Friends” and “Undressed,” have not only exploded on streaming services as crossover pop hits, but have also minted the 19-year-old singer-songwriter at rock and alternative platforms that have been starving for fresh new talent. On this week’s Hot 100, “Back to Friends” leaps up 14 spots to a new peak of No. 56, while “Undressed” jumps 12 spots to No. 84; meanwhile, “Back to Friends” hits the top 10 of the Hot Rock & Alternative Songs chart for the first time, bumping up to No. 9 with “Undressed” close behind at No. 13.
Sombr has been on the road over the past few weeks opening for Daniel Seavey in the U.S. — watching each day as his streaming totals grow (through Apr. 17, “Back to Friends” had earned 40.7 million official on-demand streams, while “Undressed” had earned 19.5 million streams, according to Luminate) and his crowd sizes swell.
Trending on Billboard
“They 100 percent break my brain,” he says of the streaming totals. As for the crowds, “You don’t usually get to see it happening in real time, increasing every show, but being able to see that has just put it into perspective. When I’ve had moments in previous years, they’ve never been like this. And I’ve never gotten to visualize it while it was happening in real time.”
Boose grew up on the Lower East Side and attended the prestigious LaGuardia High School, where he studied vocals while tinkering with GarageBand and Logic in his bedroom. “I made the first few songs in a more shoegaze vein, and most of those songs aren’t even out,” he says. “And then I made the song ‘Caroline’ after listening to Bon Iver’s For Emma, Forever Ago album, and I’d like to think that’s the first good song I ever made.”
Released in mid-2022, “Caroline” is indeed a sparse, wrenched folk song that Boose posted to TikTok before going to bed one night, and woke up the next morning to find thousands of reactions. He dropped out of high school, signed a deal with Warner Records in early 2023, then spent roughly two years trying to get lightning to strike for a second time with a string of singles, to little avail.
Sombr, who still writes and produces all of his songs, says that he never got impatient while awaiting his breakthrough following his major label signing. “I was just making music,” he says, “and I’m a really hard worker. I like to think that, if you really put in the hours and manifest what you want, it will happen.” On the day that he made “Back to Friends” in his bedroom, he played the finished chorus back, and felt that, with this song, it was finally going to happen for him.
Released last December, “Back to Friends” is a swirl of shakers, dramatic piano chords, fuzzed-out vocals full of post-hookup anxieties and harmonies that lob out rhetorical questions on the chorus. Along with March’s “Undressed,” a ghostly warble-along with an equally outsized chorus, Sombr has reinvented his sound over the course of two songs, moving on from the hushed singles released post-“Caroline” and toward slick, slightly swaggering alt-pop.
“I think they gave me a platform to make more upbeat music,” he says of the two tracks. “Before ‘Back to Friends,’ all my music was very ballad-y — there was nothing with a beat. I was so tired of that. I feel like this is a lot more free, as far as the music I want to create. And I wanted my show to be more exciting. I didn’t want to just do ballads forever.”
After wrapping up his tour with Seavey last week, Sombr will next hit the road with Nessa Barrett, joining for a month-long European run that kicks off on May 26 in Dublin. Earlier this week, however, Sombr announced a fall headlining tour across North America that will start on Sept. 30 — and thanks to the surging momentum from “Back to Friends” and “Undressed,” pre-sale tickets apparently sold out within seconds. (“The response has been insane,” Sombr posted on Instagram. “I hear you all. I am working on upgrades and new dates. Stay posted.”)
And while Sombr says that a proper debut album is “definitely on the horizon,” he’s trying to savor this singular moment. “The last show in New York, it was the loudest it’s ever been, and I got it in the pit,” he says before letting out a quick laugh. “It’s getting wild, and I love it. It’s all I’ve ever wanted.”
HipHopWired Featured Video
Rev. Jamal Bryant made waves after announcing a 40-day “fast” of sorts from shopping at Target, and now the clergyman wants to extend the boycott. After assessing Target’s response to demands made by organizers to restore their rolled-back DEI initiatives, Rev. Bryant feels that the corporation hasn’t felt enough pressure.
Rev. Jamal Bryant, the lead pastor of New Birth Missionary Baptist Church in the Atlanta metropolitan area, shared an announcement on his Target Fast website thanking supporters of the Lent-inspired fast and shopping at the major retailer. He then shared his renewed focus on moving past the fast and continuing to cease all shopping until changes to DEI at the company are implemented.
From Target Fast:
We are entering a new phase of this movement. What began as the Target FAST — a moral witness and urgent call for justice — now evolves into a full Target BOYCOTT. This shift marks not an end, but a deepening of our commitment to justice and accountability.
Until Target comes to the table with serious, concrete proposals to meet our four demands, we will remain in this posture. Silence and delay are no longer acceptable. Our communities deserve action, not platitudes. Our demands are not radical — they are righteous, reasonable, and long overdue.
It is vital to remember: this boycott is a coalition effort. It is not about any single individual, personality, or public figure. It is about people. It is about power. It is about principle. We stand shoulder to shoulder — workers, organizers, elders, youth, people of faith, people of conscience — in a collective refusal to support a corporation that refuses to hear us.
According to several reports, Target appears to be feeling the brunt of the boycotts with declining shopper numbers since the company did away with DEI, seemingly in response to President Donald Trump’s administration essentially scaling down the practice.
To learn more about Rev. Jamal Bryant’s boycott efforts, click here.
—
Photo: Paras Griffin / Getty
HipHopWired Featured Video
Source: Michelle Farsi / Getty
Look out Nike, it seems like Action Bronson done learned a thing or two about your restocking ways and is preparing to bring back every single sneaker he and New Balance have collaborated on.
Taking to Instagram to break the news, the Queens rapper confirmed that his fans will have another chance to cop some of his highly coveted collaborations at his pop up shop, Baklava Megastore, in SoHo this weekend. From the “Baklava,” to the “Lapis Lazuli” to his 1906R “Rosewater,” every single New Balance collaboration that he’s dropped and sold out will be up for grabs at his pop up at 131 Greene St. from April 25 to April 27.
In the caption for the post Bronson wrote, “EVERY BAKLAVA RELEASE EVER WILL BE AVAILABLE AT THE MEGASTORE. APPAREL, VINYL, EXTRA VIRGIN OLIVE OIL, BRAND NEW WORLD PREMIERE *BAKLAVA* STUDIO SLIDE, #FUCKTHATSDELICIOUS NEW YORK CITY ONLY HOODIE, EAGLES DON’T CRY AND -CHUMBEH- THAI ICED TEA KETTLE COOKED CHIPS CHINESE LAMB BBQ CHIPS, RUSS’S WARM CHOCOLATE CHIP BUTTERSCOTCH COOKIES. LISTEN IM GOING ALL OUT.”
Yeah, it’s gonna be lit.
Don’t forget you have to RSVP at Shopifyxbaklava.com for a chance to get in on the restock craze this weekend.
Check out the announcement below and let us know if you’ll be heading out to SoHo to get in on the sale in the comments section below.
HipHopWired Featured Video
CLOSE
Source: Anadolu / Getty
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is overseeing a plan to collect data on autistic people nationwide, which has drawn backlash from the public.
According to reports, the National Institute of Health is creating a database of Americans’ private health records in line with Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s controversial plan to find a cause and cure for autism. The plan will cull data from pharmacy chains and private laboratories as well as from government agencies such as the Department of Veteran Affairs and potentially from Medicaid and Medicare.
NIH Director Dr. Jay Bhattacharya detailed the plan in a meeting with a panel at the agency, according to NPR. “The idea of the platform is that the existing data resources are often fragmented and difficult to obtain. The NIH itself will often pay multiple times for the same data resource,” he said while emphasizing that the data collected would be subject to “state of the art protections” for confidentiality purposes.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has been persistent in promoting his incorrect views on autism, having recently stated at a press conference that those diagnosed have “regressed … into autism when they were 2 years old. And these are kids who will never pay taxes, they’ll never hold a job, they’ll never play baseball, they’ll never write a poem, they’ll never go out on a date. Many of them will never use a toilet unassisted.” He also falsely claimed that vaccinations and environmental factors are the causes.
“Even among those with an intellectual disability, there’s huge variability,” Penn Center for Mental Health David Mandell said, refuting RFK’s autism claims. “People with Down’s Syndrome have an intellectual disability, but often are quite capable and can do all the things RFK points to.”
The plan has alarmed many who call it an “autism registry” and liken it to eugenics. “This idea is dangerous, unethical, and a serious threat to privacy. People with autism deserve dignity and respect—not surveillance by their own government,” New York State Assemblyman Angelo Santabarbara wrote in a post on X, formerly Twitter, adding: “I stand with advocates across the country in strongly opposing this proposal.” Santabarbara has a young child diagnosed with autism.
Senior counsel at the Electronic Privacy Information Center Sara Geoghagan touched on the breach of privacy involved. “The collection and processing of personal information, especially health-related information that can reveal health conditions in this way, is out of context and inappropriate,” she said in an interview.
The 2026 Golden Globes have a date — Sunday, Jan. 11. That’s a bit later in the calendar year than the 2025 show, which aired on Jan. 5. The 2026 show will air live on both coasts (8-11 p.m. ET/5-8 p.m.PT) on CBS, and will stream on Paramount+ in the U.S. The show will again […]
Telemundo and HYBE Latin America are set to debut Pase a la Fama, a music competition series focused on discovering the next great Regional Mexican band. Launching on June 8, the show will feature contestants vying for a $100,000 prize and a record deal with HYBE Latin America. Explore See latest videos, charts and news […]
Step by step, New Kids on the Block are taking their fans 35 years backward in time. On Thursday (April 24), the boy band announced that an anniversary reissue of Billboard 200-topping 1990 album Step By Step is arriving this summer, celebrating 35 years since the quintet’s fourth studio LP. Featuring bonus material, unreleased tracks […]
HipHopWired Featured Video
Source: Gie Knaeps / Getty
Rhymefest dropped a wild story on the It’s Just My Opinion podcast recently, claiming that Eminem called him the n-word during a rap battle back in 1998.
According to Rhymefest, the two clashed at Scribble Jam in Cincinnati, one of the biggest underground rap battles in the country at the time, where legends from all over came to prove themselves. According to Rhymefest, the two clashed at Scribble Jam in Cincinnati, one of the biggest underground rap battles in the country at the time, where legends from all over came to prove themselves.
The Chicago rapper said, “I battled Eminem in ’98 at this competition called Scribble Jam in Cincinnati,” Rhymefest said. “It was the biggest battle in the Midwest, and a lot of famous rappers, DJs, and breakdancers came outta there.”But the real shocker came when Rhymefest recalled one of Em’s bars during their battle. “That was the first time a white dude ever called me a n-gga,” he said. “He spit, ‘I’ll let my razor split you, ’til they have to staple stitch you, this n-gga took my facial tissue, turned it to a racial issue.’”
The real shocker came when Rhymefest recalled one of Em’s bars during their battle. “That was the first time a white dude ever called me a n-gga,” he said. “He spit, ‘I’ll let my razor split you, ’til they have to staple stitch you, this n-gga took my facial tissue, turned it to a racial issue.’” Instead of getting mad, Rhymefest said he was actually impressed. “You couldn’t even be mad,” he laughed, acknowledging how hard the line hit. “I realized something about racism that day, it’s why Family Guy works.”
Em hasn’t said anything about the claim yet, but if this is true, it’s another complex layer in his already controversial career.
