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It’s been a decade since Zayn Malik left One Direction and on Tuesday night (March 25) during the singer’s show in Mexico City he did something he hasn’t done since then: he performed one of the group’s most beloved hits during a solo show. At his gig at Palacio De Los Deportes on the Stairway […]
Keyshia Cole, Monica and SWV are the performing stars enlisted to headline Femme It Forward’s first-ever cruise, Billboard can exclusively reveal. Presented in association with Sixthman and Vibee, Femmeland at Sea will sail from Miami to Nassau, Bahamas between Feb. 20-23, 2026.
Femme It Forward’s voyage aboard the Norwegian Pearl also marks the female-led music and entertainment firm’s transition into a 100% woman- and Black-owned company after a five-year partnership with Live Nation.
Femme It Forward president/CEO Heather Lowery, who founded the firm in 2019, tells Billboard, “I’ve always fought to have more equity in a company I’ve worked so hard to build. Now Femme It Forward is 100% woman-owned and Black- owned. I’m so excited! It feels like the beginning again, but this time I’m starting from a different place.
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“Live Nation was a great partner that allowed for a lot of business as well as personal growth,” continues Lowery, a Billboard Women in Music 2025 honoree. “They’ve provided me with a lot of resources for me to continue building Femme It Forward independent of the partnership. I’m super grateful for it all. We’re celebrating our five-year anniversary and there’s a lot of symbolism in the number five representing freedom, change, adventure and adaptability. I’m stepping into this next phase with open arms.”
In addition to the aforementioned live performances, Femmeland at Sea will also offer uniquely curated activities, live podcast recordings, parties, workshops/panels, mentorship labs, wine tastings and karaoke. The popular podcasts being featured include Keep It Positive Sweetie, hosted by Crystal Renee Hayslett, and Let’s Try This Again with B. Simone. Among the cruise’s additional activities will be wellness sessions helmed by WalkGood LA, Pretty Vee, Pretty Girls Sweat and Morning Mindset with Tai. Femme It Forward will also present its own branded activities such as Femme Salon and Femme Mentorship, with the latter hosted by mentors from the company’s Next Gem Femme and MUSE initiatives. Also on the schedule: Kirk Franklin’s Sunday School and #MusicSermon LIVE.
In the press release announcing the inaugural sailing, Lowery states in part that the cruise is “a vision I’ve had since our launch in 2020. I have always been bold about what Femme It Forward stands for and the experiences we create with women at the center. And despite the current optics and everything around us demanding we shrink, we will continue to do more — create more opportunities, make space for more representation and curate more experiences that amplify the voices of women everywhere.”
In turn, Femme It Forward will continue to present its various other events inaugurated over the last five years such as the annual Give Her FlowHERS Gala, the Femme It Forward High Tea and the My Sister’s Keeper Summit honoring artists and executives in music and entertainment. Future plans for its mentorship program include launching global chapters in South Africa and Europe.
Femmeland at Sea’s first round pre-sale sign-ups are available now through April 1 at 11:59 pm (ET). Final round pre-sale sign-ups will conclude on April 9 at 11:59 pm (ET). Public on-sales begin April 11 at 2:00 pm (ET), exclusively here.
Lucy Dacus has some mixed feelings about her newly minted public profile. “My dream is that I could play huge shows where [the crowd] knows every word,” she says, “we can connect after the show — and then I can wipe everyone’s mind of myself once they leave.”
The lack of Men in Black-esque technology notwithstanding, it’s easy to see why Dacus may feel that way. After spending the majority of her career as a cult artist with a tight-knit fan base in the indie scene, the singer-songwriter broke big alongside her friends Phoebe Bridgers and Julien Baker with The Record in 2023. Their supergroup, boygenius, sold out arenas, led Billboard’s Top Rock Albums chart while also earning a top 10 debut on the Billboard 200 and dominated the rock categories at the 2024 Grammys, winning three awards.
As she prepares her first solo release since the band’s breakthrough, Dacus, 29, still struggles with her shift from underground phenom to rock headliner. “Honestly, I don’t like being culturally relevant,” she says with a giggle. “I don’t like being somebody where people think they need to have a ‘take,’ in either direction.”
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Yet even in that discomfort, Dacus exudes a confidence that feels new for her. Forever Is a Feeling, her fourth studio album (out March 28 on Geffen Records), takes the sound that Dacus has painstakingly crafted over the last decade and broadens it as her most lush collection to date.
Going into the creation of Forever Is a Feeling, Dacus says she “knew the scope was going to be different” for this album. That process included honing what she wanted to sing about. Whereas her past albums confronted loss and childhood trauma, the new set focuses almost entirely on romance. The first proper track off the album, “Big Deal,” finds Dacus reminding a doomed lover just how important they are; “Talk” traces the shifting dynamics of a relationship to its near end; and album closer “Lost Time” is one of the boldest love songs of her career, on which she declares, “I notice everything about you.”
Meredith Jenks
That line also encapsulates a key part of the singer’s songwriting process: Since she broke onto the scene with 2016’s No Burden, Dacus has always thrived at transforming specificity into universal lyrics. “Once you focus on one thing and one person, it actually recontextualizes everything else, and you realize that every detail is its own universe,” says Dacus, who recently revealed that she and her boygenius bandmate Julien Baker are in a relationship. She then quotes a line she read in one of Susan Sontag’s journals: “Love is noticing.”
With Forever Is a Feeling marking Dacus’ major-label debut on Geffen, the singer’s new music is striking a chord with mainstream listeners. “Ankles,” the project’s exhilarating lead single, earned Dacus her first solo entries on the Adult Alternative Airplay and Rock & Alternative Airplay charts. “She writes songs that are potent and timely but will endure for years to come,” says Matt Morris, executive vp of A&R at Interscope Geffen A&M. “The success of ‘Ankles’ at radio is a very deserved accomplishment for an artist who has already been so influential and continues to break new ground with this album.”
The set also finds Dacus continuing to evolve as a producer, after she recently helmed singer-songwriter Jasmine.4.t’s debut, You Are the Morning, alongside her boygenius bandmates. “A lot of [producing Jasmine’s album] was about advocating when it comes to being less experienced in the studio,” she explains. “It’s about helping develop a language and asking folks, ‘What do you want? Here’s how to say it.’ I want to continue to help hold the emotional space of saying, ‘Do us the favor of being a control freak.’ ”
Meredith Jenks
That experience speaks to Dacus’ larger goal of late: using her newfound platform to create good. Shortly after the Trump administration began rolling out its anti-trans policy agenda, Dacus took to her social media and called for any of her trans fans hosting fundraisers for gender-affirming surgeries to share their campaigns so that she could donate $10,000 in $500 increments to those in need of help.
There’s a reason Dacus made that pledge in public. “Ten thousand dollars is not that much in the grand scheme of things,” she says. “But I wanted there to be a list of links on my profile so that if anybody else wanted to do what I was doing, then they could scroll through and donate as well. If other people are jumping in, then that can really matter.”
It’s that sense of renewed purpose that shows how far Dacus has come as a leading voice in rock — even if, as she points out, she is the “guinea pig” of the boygenius bandmates as the first of the trio to release a solo project since The Record.
“I feel really gratified when putting my albums out means something to someone else,” she says with a warm smile. “I wouldn’t do this if it didn’t matter to some people.”
Lucy Dacus photographed on March 5, 2025 in New York.
Meredith Jenks
This story appears in the March 22, 2025, issue of Billboard.
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Trick Daddy, the Miami rapper known for speaking his mind, recently went on a rant that had people talking and not in a good way.
During an interview, he straight-up said dating women his age was “the hardest sh*t in the world,” claiming they’re “stuck in their ways” and can’t keep a man. He went as far as to say that older women need to “lower their standards” if they want to keep a man around.
Trick Daddy reveals why he prefers dating women ages 22 to 35 and says, “Them old h*es need to lower their standards.”
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— The Art Of Dialogue (@ArtOfDialogue_) March 25, 2025
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The Miami misogynist, who’s in his 40s, made it clear he prefers younger women, saying, “I want a b*tch I can raise, someone that would appreciate me.” Essentially, Trick Daddy is saying he likes women who are more impressionable, ones he can mold to his liking.
Trick’s comments didn’t sit well with a lot of people, especially on social media, where he got dragged for being misogynistic and disrespectful. Many pointed out how out-of-pocket it was to reduce women, especially older women, to their age and “standards,” implying they’re the problem in relationships. A lot of folks said his remarks were straight-up objectifying and showed a lack of respect for women as equals in a relationship.
These comments are just another example of how certain figures in hip-hop, especially older ones, can still push outdated, toxic views about women and relationships.
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According to reports, Hamdan Ballal, the Palestinian co-director of the Academy Award-winning documentary film No Other Land was assaulted by Israeli settlers near his home village in the West Bank on Monday (March 24). In a post on X, formerly Twitter, his co-director Yuval Abraham detailed what happened: “A group of settlers just lynched Hamdan Ballal, co-director of our film No Other Land. They beat him and he has injuries in his head and stomach, bleeding. Soldiers invaded the ambulance he called and took him. No sign of him since.”
https://twitter.com/yuval_abraham/status/1904235552620339365
According to AP News, Palestinian residents of the village of Susya confronted a settler who approached their homes during the breaking of their Ramadan fast and asked them to leave. More settlers arrived, smashing car windows and damaging infrastructure on top of attacking villagers. Soldiers then detained Ballal after a settler beat him in front of his home, according to his wife, Lamia. According to Abraham, the same setter threatened Ballal in April, which was captured on video. “This is my land, I was given it by God,” the settler says in the video, shouting profanity and goading Ballal into trying to fight him. “Next time it won’t be nice,” the settler says.
Ballal was released Tuesday (March 25) from a police station in the Kiryat Arba settlement. “All my body is pain,” he said to the Associated Press. “I heard the voices of the soldiers, they were laughing about me … I heard ‘Oscar’ but I didn’t speak Hebrew.” He revealed he was held at an army base and forced to sleep under an ongoing air conditioner while blindfolded.
Ballal is one of four directors of the documentary along with Abraham, who is Israeli. No Other Land covers the struggles of Palestinians living in Israel under daily oppression. Another one of the directors, Palestinian activist Basel Adra, confirmed that since the Oscar win, settlers and Israeli soldiers have increased their attacks. “We’re living in dark days here, in Gaza, and all of the West Bank,” Adra said, adding, “Nobody’s stopping this.” No Other Land has been under attack since its win at the 97th Academy Awards, with Miami Beach Mayor Steven Meiner voicing intent to end the lease of a cinema planning to show the film claiming it wasn’t a balanced view. Local opposition forced him to back off from the move.
Tamela Mann earns her 12th No. 1 on Billboard’s Gospel Airplay chart, breaking out of a tie with fellow gospel music icon Kirk Franklin for the most leaders in the list’s 20-year history. Mann achieves the honor as “Deserve To Win” ascends a spot to the top of the chart dated March 29. Explore See […]
The trend has been clear in recent years: Listeners are less enthralled with new songs. Current music’s share of ear-time has fallen from 27.8% in 2022 to 27.3% in 2023 to 26.7% last year, according to Luminate. In 2024, listening to catalog albums — releases more than 18 months old — increased by 6.5%, more than twice as fast as consumption of current albums.
Much of the music cued up on streaming services is still relatively recent: Luminate found that tracks released in the last five years account for roughly 50% of on-demand streams in the U.S. Even so, SoundCloud users are much more keenly attuned to the newest releases than the average listener — current music has accounted for more than 46% of plays on the platform in each of the last three years, according to SoundCloud’s latest Music Intelligence Report, an annual run-down of listener behavior which the company is making public for the first time.
The document “highlights some of our unique positions in the industry,” says Wyatt Marshall, the company’s director of music intelligence. “An artist might start on SoundCloud before they go somewhere else. [As a result], you get people coming to listen to new music on SoundCloud, because that’s where it exists first.”
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For young listeners, new music discovery is increasingly spread across a variety of short-form video platforms and streaming services; TikTok especially has commanded the conversation in recent years. Still, even “in today’s landscape dominated by TikTok and Instagram, SoundCloud remains a critical launchpad for Gen-Z’s emerging cult favorites,” says Corey Goldglit, manager of A&R at the distribution company Too Lost. “While social media fuels trends, and Spotify fuels hits, SoundCloud continues to be where devoted fans first discover raw, innovative talent like Fakemink, OsamaSon, 1oneam, and Nettspend.”
While SoundCloud is best known for nurturing rappers and electronic producers, it’s adding value in other genres as well: Sean Lewow, co-founder of the label Music Soup, has seen the platform introduce listeners to Waylon Wyatt and Vincent Mason, a pair of rising country artists on his roster. (Music Soup is a joint venture with Interscope Records and Darkroom Records.) Uploads of country and folk music on SoundCloud have risen by more than 50% in the last two years, while streams of these styles rose 15% on SoundCloud in 2024.
This mirrors the growing interest in these genres in the U.S. and around the world. “These scenes are attracting people [on SoundCloud] who have always been into it,” Marshall says, “but also engaging a new group of people who are discovering these sounds.”
Since SoundCloud artists and users can interact with music in ways beyond just clicking “play” and “skip” — commenting on songs, for example, or sending direct messages to peers — the platform has additional data to parse when trying to map scenes. “We look at social interaction amongst artists as an indicator of affinity,” Marshall explains. “Zooming out from that gives a feel for what shapes a scene.”
And for how scenes meld borrow from and build off each other. Historically, it’s been difficult for U.K. hip-hop to acquire fans en masse outside of its home country — even with other English-speaking listeners. The Music Intelligence Report, however, singles out two sets of British acts “that are building their sound around the U.S. underground while adding a unique English twist;” in the process, they are “drawing listeners from England and beyond.”
These two groups — the first includes fakemink, Feng, and GhostInnaFurCoat, while the other counts Rico Ace, kwes e, and TeeboFG as members — enjoyed a 71% uptick in streams in the past two years, according to SoundCloud’s data. “In recent months,” the report continues, “tracks from these artists are increasingly showing engagement spikes indicative of future success.”
The Music Intelligence Report identifies other sounds that SoundCloud believes are poised to become more popular in 2025: Vinahouse, which Marshall describes as a “hyper-speed, really energetic” style of club music that’s popular in Vietnam; Brazilian plugg, the latest mutation of a hip-hop sub-genre that has thrived on SoundCloud for several years; and shoegaze, which has also been enjoying a revival on TikTok.
New rappers continue to see success on the platform as well. The third most-played account created on SoundCloud last year belonged to BabyChiefDoIt, who trailed behind only VonOff1700 and Raq Baby. BabyChiefDoIt signed a deal with Artist Partner Group in August, and Izzy Elefant, the label’s head of streaming, calls the platform an “essential” part of the rapper’s rise.
SoundCloud’s features, especially “real-time comments and direct messaging, create an interactive experience that sets it apart from other streaming services,” Elefant continues. “These tools allow BabyChiefDoIt to engage with listeners directly, receive immediate feedback, and foster a sense of community.”
In a splintered landscape for music discovery, Lewow adds, it’s important to “leave no stone unturned.” SoundCloud “has opened our artists up to an audience that they might not have found otherwise.”
Lady Gaga announced the dates for her anticipated summer-fall 2025 Mayhem Ball tour in support of her new Mayhem album on Wednesday morning (March 26). “This is my first arena tour since 2018,” said Gaga in a statement. “There’s something electric about a stadium, and I love every moment of those shows. But with The MAYHEM Ball, I wanted to create a different kind of experience — something more intimate — closer, more connected — that lends itself to the live theatrical art I love to create.”
After a run of previously announced shows in April and May, Gaga’s first North American and European tour since her 2022 Chromatica Ball tour will open in the U.S. with a double-down in Las Vegas on July 16 and 18, two shows in Seattle, three nights at Madison Square Garden in New York and two-night runs in Miami, Toronto and Chicago. She will then play a run of arena dates across Europe from Sept. 29 through Nov. 20.
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Tickets for the North American dates will go on sale on March 31, with an artist pre-sale beginning on April 2 at 12 p.m. local time; sign up for that pre-sale here through 8 a.m. ET on Sunday (March 30). The general on-sale will kick off on April 3 at 12 p.m. local time here. There will also be a Citi pre-sale for North America beginning on Monday (March 31) at 12 p.m. local time through April 2 at 11 a.m. local time here. A Verizon pre-sale will begin on April 1 at 12 p.m. local time through April 2 at 11 a.m. local time here.
Tickets for select shows in Europe will go on sale on March 31 with a Mastercard pre-sale for shows in Sweden, Italy, the Netherlands, France and Belgium beginning at noon local time through April 2 at 10 p.m. local here. Additional pre-sales will run throughout the week before the general on-sale for all of the European/U.K. dates beginning on April 3 at 12 p.m. local time here.
Mother Monster will gear up for the tour by headlining Coachella next month, followed by a pair of previously announced dates (April 26-27) at Estadio GNP Seguros in Mexico City, and some other already announced spring dates, including a free May 3 show on Copacabana Beach in Rio de Janeiro in Brazil and four nights at the National Stadium in Singapore on May 18, 18, 21 and 24.
Check out the dates for the 2025 Mayhem Ball tour below.
July 16 – Las Vegas, NV @ T-Mobile Arena
July 18 – Las Vegas, NV @ T-Mobile Arena
August 6 – Seattle, WA @ Climate Pledge Arena
August 7 – Seattle, WA @ Climate Pledge Arena
August 22 – New York, NY @ Madison Square Garden
August 23 – New York, NY @ Madison Square Garden
August 26 – New York, NY @ Madison Square Garden
August 31 – Miami, FL @ Kaseya Center
Sept. 1 – Miami, FL @ Kaseya Center
Sept. 10 – Toronto, ON @ Scotiabank Arena
Sept. 11 – Toronto, ON @ Scotiabank Arena
Sept. 15 – Chicago, IL @ United Center
Sept. 17 – Chicago, IL @ United Center
Sept. 29 – London, UK @ The O2
Sept. 30 – London, UK @ The O2
Oct. 2 – London, UK @ The O2
Oct. 7 – Manchester, UK @ Co-op Live
Oct. 12 – Stockholm, Sweden @ Avicii Arena
Oct. 13 – Stockholm, Sweden @ Avicii Arena
Oct. 19 – Milan, Italy @ Unipol Forum
Oct. 20 – Milan, Italy @ Unipol Forum
Oct. 28 – Barcelona, Spain @ Palau Sant Jordi
Oct. 29 – Barcelona, Spain @ Palau Sant Jordi
Nov. 4 – Berlin, Germany @ Uber Arena
Nov. 5 – Berlin, Germany @ Uber Arena
Nov. 9 – Amsterdam, Netherlands @ Ziggo Dome
Nov. 11 – Antwerp, Belgium @ Sportpaleis Arena
Nov. 13 – Lyon, France @ LDLC Arena
Nov. 14 – Lyon, France @ LDLC Arena
Nov. 17 – Paris, France @ Accor Arena
Nov. 18 – Paris, France @ Accor Arena
Nov. 20 – Paris, France @ Accor Arena
Selena Gomez isn’t afraid to talk about the double standard when it comes to comments about her appearance. On this week’s episode of Jay Shetty’s On Purpose podcast, Gomez lamented that she gets “a tad bitter” when people mention her weight, noting that those comments are always aimed at women.
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Appearing with fiancé Benny Blanco — who said he never reads too deeply into what people say about him online because he’d rather “free-fall through life” without knowing what anyone else thinks — Gomez said her take is very different. “I was also going to point out that women have it much worse,” she said. “From my perspective, it’s pretty wild, and I think this isn’t news to anybody, that obviously women have a lot more intense feelings from their appearance to what they are wearing to everything.”
The scrutiny is so intense that Gomez said it gets in her head when she’s getting ready for the red carpet. “When I get prepared for an event, 90 percent of the time I’m just like, ‘I just hope I can take the picture and sit down.’” Gomez said, “It’s the character that gets judged, it’s the way I’m not white enough, I’m not Mexican enough. There’s just so many different things that come up in my face that I can’t help but see. But I fall victim to looking at things, and it really doesn’t add to your life, but it’s just so difficult. From the choices of people you date, it’s like nobody cares about those kind of things with men. They’re just like, ‘yeah, the did that, they said that.’”
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Gomez, 32, said the most frequent unsolicited comments she sees are about her weight, with “everyone” online having “something to say” about it. “My weight’s a big one too,” she said. “It’s really making me sad and — not even sad cause, I’m not a victim, I just think it’s made me a tad bitter, and I feel really guilty for saying that, but it’s true.” In the past, Gomez has shared that the medicine she takes to combat the chronic autoimmune disorder lupus can cause weight fluctuations.
In November, Gomez hit back at negative posts about her posture at a red carpet event promoting her Oscar-nominated film Emilia Perez, after some TikTok users suggested she was trying to hide her body with poses in which her hands were positioned across her stomach. “This makes me sick,” Gomez wrote in the comments of the speculation. “I have SEBO [SIBO] in my small intestine. It flares up. I don’t care that I don’t look like a stick figure. I don’t have that body. End of story. No I am NOT a victim. I’m just human.”
As she’s revealed before, the singer also told Shetty that she takes mental health breaks from being online and “most of the time” she ignores the haters, noting again that she doesn’t have social apps on her phone. “So there are ways to combat it,” she said. “I’m not like, ‘I hate it.’ I understand the power of what social media is, it’s just tricky.”
Watch Blanco and Gomez on the Shetty podcast below.
LONDON — Following the controversial ticket sale for Oasis’ reunion dates in the U.K. and Ireland this coming summer, the CMA (Competition and Markets Authority) has said that Ticketmaster may have “misled” fans over pricing for the shows.
In August 2024, the Gallagher brothers announced their reformation for 19 stadium shows, their first since their split in 2009. The tour will begin on July 4 at Cardiff’s Principality Stadium, before heading to North America, Asia, Latin America and Australia in the ensuing months
The ticket sale process drew huge demand, but some fans complained of unclear pricing for tickets after long waits for the opportunity to purchase passes. An update to the CMA’s ongoing investigation highlights that Ticketmaster UK may have breached consumer protection law, by “Labelling certain seated tickets as ‘platinum’ and selling them for near 2.5 times the price of equivalent standard tickets, without sufficiently explaining that they did not offer additional benefits and were often located in the same area of the stadium.”
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The update adds that demand meant that cheaper tickets sold out first, but that the release of more expensive tickets for similar places in the stadiums meant that “many fans waited in a lengthy queue without understanding what they would be paying and then having to decide whether to pay a higher price than they expected.”
More than 900,000 tickets were sold for Oasis’ long-awaited reunion tour, but the pricing strategy proved controversial when standard standing tickets advertised at £135 plus fees ($174) were re-labelled “in demand” and changed on Ticketmaster to £355 plus fees ($458).
Following the furore, Oasis issued a statement saying they had no “awareness that dynamic pricing was going to be used” in the sale of tickets for the initial dates. The CMA launched an investigation in September to examine whether Ticketmaster had used “unfair commercial practices” to pressure fans into paying higher prices for tickets.
Ticketmaster denied the use of the so-called ‘dynamic pricing’ method, with the company’s U.K. director Andrew Parsons telling MPs in February, “We don’t change prices in any automated or algorithmic way.” He added that all prices are determined by artist teams and promoters SJM Concerts, MCD Promotions and DF Concerts, all of which have links to Live Nation, Ticketmaster’s owners.
The report acknowledges that since the opening of the investigation, “Ticketmaster has made changes to some aspects of its ticket sales process,” but that the CMA “does not currently consider these changes are sufficient to address its concerns.” The report does not directly comment on the alleged ‘dynamic pricing’ model, but cites other concerns around clearer sale practises.
The CMA says that, “Following a formal investigation, the CMA is now consulting with the ticketing platform on changes to ensure fans receive the right information, at the right time.”
In a statement to Billboard U.K., Ticketmaster U.K. said, “We strive to provide the best ticketing platform through a simple, transparent and consumer-friendly experience. We welcome the CMA’s input in helping make the industry even better for fans.”
Downing Street responded to the report (via the BBC) by repeating a quote given by culture, media and sport secretary Lisa Nandy following the news that the government announced plans to cap the value of resold tickets for live events like music. “The chance to see your favourite musicians or sports teams live is something that all of us enjoy… But for too long fans have had to endure the misery of touts hoovering up tickets for resale at vastly inflated prices.
“We’ve also seen cases where a lack of transparency has meant customers have been caught unawares by last minute price rises for high demand events.”