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Selena Gomez and Benny Blanco are teaming up for their new musical era, and the engaged couple dropped their newest song, a collaboration with Gracie Abrams titled “Call Me When You Break Up,” on Thursday (Feb. 20).
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Gomez, Blanco and Abrams joined Zane Lowe on Apple Music 1 this week to discuss the team-up, where the “That’s So True” singer opened up about how natural the song’s creation was. “For as long as I’ve cared about music, both of their work has been in my life,” Abrams said of Gomez and Blanco. “So anything that they want from me is a yes forever. And I just felt really grateful for the opportunity. And also just the song was immediately so stuck in my head as soon as I heard it for the first time. And of course, the opportunity to write my verse on it just happened so quickly, which I think is such a testament to how addicting the song is I think.”
“Call Me When You Break Up” is set to be featured on Gomez and Blanco’s upcoming joint album, I Said I Love You First, which is scheduled to arrive on March 21. The newly engaged duo announced the project last week, while also dropping its lead single, “Scared of Loving You.”
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Gomez discussed working with her fiancé in the interview with Lowe, sharing, “It just felt like it was a little taste of what we are and how we made this together, and how much we loved it and how much we love each other. And it just felt like it was meant to be.”
Blanco then gushed over Gomez, noting, “She’s had such a journey in life, both personally, medically, so many other things. She makes you just believe it. She’s like, ‘I’m not scared of dying young or anyone,’ but she’s scared of the fact of losing someone that she’s finally created a bond with where she feels comfortable enough. And somehow by God’s grace, I happen to be that person. I have no idea why, but I am.”
Watch the “Call Me When You Break Up” music video here.
Since releasing her first project, 2021’s Stones, country singer-songwriter Allie Colleen has been focused on building her own career and putting her own musical talents and vision at the forefront. She’s toured with Jelly Roll and Lee Brice and issued songs like “Halos and Horns” and “Tattoos.”
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But on her new five-song EP, Sincerely, Rolling Stone, she’s pulling back the curtain, revealing every facet of her life and personality.
She crafted Sincerely, Rolling Stone by turning to a close-knit group of friends and fellow songwriters, including Lockwood Bar, Megan Barker, Eric Dodd, Stephen Hunley, John Kraft and Craig Wilson.
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She wrote “Rolling Stone (Sincerely),” the first song written for the project, with Hunley, Dodd and Connor Sweet after coming off the road in 2021. The song sheds light on how having a fanbase who intimately knows an artist can bring immense joy for the act, but also carry with it an emotional weight for artists who are always on the move.
“It’s like Allie Colleen’s ‘Turn the Page.’ It’s my road song,” Colleen says, referencing Bob Seger’s classic about fame and life on the road. “It’s just saying, ‘I wish so badly that I could give you guys everything on the planet and be that, because you put artists on a pedestal, but I can’t.’ I champion Ashley McBryde, and to Ashley, that’s probably a little heavy — because I know I’m not the only person who has put this artist on a pedestal, whose music has saved me in seasons of my life. I’m very lucky to get that as an artist from certain people in my audience as well. So ‘Rolling Stone’ lands on [the lyric], ‘I want to be your rock, and I’m sorry that I’m not — sincerely your Rolling Stone.’ It’s my little sincerity message to my audience and to anyone who’s cared, especially the people who have followed me throughout the last couple of years.”
Sincerely, Rolling Stone also marks the first time Colleen has released a song inspired by her relationship with her father, Garth Brooks.
“Household Name,” which she wrote with Hunley and Dodd, opens with a roll of thunder, which may have some music fans instantly drawing ties to Brooks’ own 1991 two-week Country Airplay hit “The Thunder Rolls.” (“I listened to 47 minutes of consecutive thunder pre-roll to pick that out, and I think it’s perfect,” Colleen says).
“I write about my mamas all the time,” Colleen says, referring to her mother Sandy Mahl and her stepmother, Trisha Yearwood. “I have so many mama songs out there for both of my moms, and that always poses this silly question in the back of people’s brains — ‘What do you feel about your dad?’ And I’m like, ‘You guys can’t hear a song about my dad and just hear a song about Allie’s dad. You already have such a narrative of that.’ So I’ve never done a dad song.”
Colleen continues, “I’ve always kept those really personal, and just a between-him-and-I kind of thing. This was the first time I felt I could recognize my dad for who he was to me as an artist, and the way that I have never even second-guessed myself as an artist, because I saw it every day. I saw just a crystal-clear example of this is feasible. Someone can work their tail off and do this for a living. My dad has worked his tail off his whole life for everything he has — and that’s why I’m the way that I am, because I want to be just like my dad. I feel like so many people separate us because I don’t involve my family in my career in a commercial way, but I couldn’t be more clear that I am just like my dad, and I’m approaching my career like he did, which is working my tail off. I think ‘Household Name’ gave me an opportunity to say that.”
Elsewhere, “Oklahoma Mountains” touches on the grind any artist faces in building a career, but also includes the lyric, “If there ain’t no mountains in Oklahoma, then why have I always had to climb/ Carrying a shadow on my shoulder” — a line Colleen says she struggled with including.
“’Carrying this shadow on my shoulder’ is one of the lines I fought for a long time on, like, maybe it should just be ‘saddle,’” she explains. “[If someone] sees ‘saddle,’ you’re just going to see that she’s just a hard worker. I don’t want there to be any resentment toward what people think that shadow is. I’ll be honest—Allie is a bigger shadow to herself than her dad is. We all are. I compete against Allie every day; I’ve never even had to compete against Garth, not one time. I hope the listener finds resilience from this song and I hope they recognize what their own mountains are.”
At the time of the interview, Colleen noted that Brooks hadn’t heard the entire project, though she had sent him “Oklahoma Mountains” and “Household Name.”
“We did have that vetting process moment where I want to reflect well on my family,” Colleen. “So, I do send him songs that could ever possibly have anything to do with him. And he’s been nothing but encouraging towards me, and has never been controlling of any narratives at all… he’s excited for me, as well as for this project to come out.”
The EP ends with the ballad ‘Nicotine,’ a co-write with Barker and Bar that likens a tendency to fall hard into relationships to the insatiable pull of nicotine.
“Cigarettes are quick fixes, even if you do 17 a day,” she says. “For me, my quick fix is relationships. That is something that I lean into. So, this was just something I wanted to tuck away in this beautiful little project of sincerity of what my world looks like, between being the daughter that I am, the partner that I am and all of these things that Allie is. I do think ‘Nicotine’ is one of the more commercial songs on the album. The verse itself is literally that eerie time and space where you’re kind of holding your breath, because you got a cig between your lips and you’re about to light your lighter, and then your chorus strikes that, and then the second verse comes in and there’s your exhale.”
Since the beginning of her career, Colleen has had a view toward building her artistry and brand on her own. She studied songwriting at Nashville’s Belmont University and began making connections with fellow writers early on, wading into the Nashville’s co-writing circles — something she says has been an immense blessing, but also a challenge.
“I came to this town as a solo writer, and I’m so happy in my co-writing world, but I would be lying to say that Nashville didn’t discourage individual writing for me,” she relates. “I was going to publishing meetings and they were saying, ‘Can you write well in other rooms with our people?’ And I think that was because I was so young. I think it made sense, honestly, at the time for my age, but I think 28-year-old Allie is still holding on to, ‘Was I a good enough writer by myself?’”
Her next project will aim to answer that question, with Colleen setting out to write every song on the album alone.
“I’m hoping I’m brave enough to write the whole thing by myself, and again, just show up for Allie as a writer and prove that I’m the same writer that showed up in this town,” she says, “just better, because of my co-writers — but also because of the work that I’ve done on my own this last year of writing by myself again. I’m excited, but also a little scared because I don’t have anybody to blame for that project. Every creative decision is on you when it’s an all-solo thing.”
Still, that challenge falls squarely in line with her overall mission, which is to unravel the layers of her own perspectives, whether she’s co-writing songs or crafting them by herself — in short, to make sure she’s creating music that she is proud of, regardless of others’ opinions.
“Praise for anything other than authenticity doesn’t matter,” Colleen says.
Pisces season has officially begun! If you’re looking to celebrate the season by relaxing and staring listlessly into the distance, then why not do it to a soundtrack? Billboard Pride is proud to present the latest edition of Queer Jams of the Week, our roundup of some of the best new music releases from LGBTQ+ artists.
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From Dove Cameron’s highly-anticipated return to Doechii’s teamup with JENNIE, check out just a few of our favorite releases from this week below:
Dove Cameron, “Too Much”
This one is for all the girls, gays and theys that were ever told by an ex that they were just a bit “extra.” Dove Cameron excoriates a former flame that just couldn’t handle her on the electro-pop jam “Too Much,” making sure that they understand who the real problem was. A relentless beat and Cameron’s crystal clear voice make this campy kiss-off a must-listen, as she proudly declares “If you say I’m too much, baby, go find less.”
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JENNIE feat. Doechii, “ExtraL”
What happens when you take the leading rapper from one of the most successful K-pop acts ever and team her up with one of the hottest names in contemporary hip-hop? Well, you get something like “ExtraL,” a thrilling, bossed-up anthem courtesy of BLACKPINK’s JENNIE and Doechii. The duo trade verses flexing their inherent worth on this A-list banger, encouraging the ladies listening to take charge. JENNIE gets more than a few bars in (“Said ‘f–k your rules’ is the mood, damn right” hits hard in the pre-chorus), but Doechii really elevates the song to new levels with her motormouthed appearance (“In the boardroom looking bored ’cause I’m not here for pleasin’ the men,” she spits.)
Perfume Genius ft. Aldous Harding, “No Front Teeth”
Don’t go into “No Front Teeth” trying to predict what Perfume Genius and Aldous Harding are going to deliver, because you’ll simply never be right. On this stunning, chaotic new single, the duo start things off in a soft, indie-rock atmosphere that fits both of them perfectly. Within the first two minutes, the song has become a raucous rock track with both stars reveling in their respective universes of clashing sounds. If you want to see things get even weirder, pop on their excellent music video and watch this excellent pairing bring even more havoc to this thrilling new track.
Durand Bernarr, Bloom
R&B star Durand Bernarr has a lot to say about love — the good, the bad, and the ugly of it all. Bloom, Bernarr’s excellent new LP, carefully examines love (both romantic and not) in all of its facets, whether that comes in the form of frustration (“Overqualified”), initimacy dynamics (“Impact”) or even just the simple act of matching someone’s energy (“Jump”). Throughout each of these funk-infused songs, Bernarr’s acrobatic voice shines the brightest, as he effortlessly shows off why he is one of the most talented vocalists in the game.
Chloe Moriondo, “Hate It”
The worlds that rising pop singer Chloe Moriondo has created are colliding, and we couldn’t be happier to see it. Taking the unhinged lyricism of a project like Blood Bunny and blending it with the pop soundscape of one like Suckerpunch, Moriondo’s new single “Hate It” provides the best of both worlds for this artist as she crafts an immediate pop earworm while also singing about wearing someone else’s face over their own. In short, “Hate It” is the exact kind of unhinged energy we’re looking for in 2025.
Blondshell, “Two Times”
Blondshell seems to keep getting bigger, which makes her sparing new single “Two Times” that much more fascinating to listen to. On her latest single off her forthcoming sophomore album, Sabrina Teitelbaum removes any artifice surrounding her to sing a simple love song about the simplicity of her relationship. Leaning heavily into a rich acoustic sound, Teitelbaum tells it exactly how it is on this phenomenal new song: “You’re not bad, you’re not mean/ You lie about my hair ’cause you love me.”
Hurray for the Riff Raff, “Pyramid Scheme”
We all, collectively, probably spend too much time on the internet — and Hurray for the Riff Raff would like to talk about that. On their new single “Pyramid Scheme,” Alynda Segarra rails against the system that has been built to divide peoples’ attention and empathy into simple bits of information and code, all while wondering aloud what those systems are doing to the perception of art in the modern age. It’s the kind of modern folk anthem that gives you the shivers when you first hear it, because you know looking back in a few years, it’s going to feel even more prescient than it does now.
Check out all of our picks below on Billboard’s Queer Jams of the Week playlist:
Wale Davies first met Nigerian singer Tems in 2018, shortly after she released her first single, the stirringly plaintive “Mr. Rebel.”
“Initially it was informal; I just liked her song, I was just helping her put it on sradio and connecting her with people in the industry in Nigeria,” says the artist-turned-manager. “I’m always attracted to music that makes me feel something, so when I heard the first single, what I felt was somebody singing for their life — she meant every word she was singing in that song.”
Davies, who co-manages Tems with Muyiwa Awoniyi, has been with the singer ever since — and has watched her grow into one of the biggest African artists on the planet. To name just some of her accolades: She’s landed 28 songs on the Billboard U.S. Afrobeats chart, including 10 top 10s and two No. 1s; she’s collaborated with the likes of Drake, Beyoncé and Future and covered Bob Marley’s classic “No Woman, No Cry” on the Black Panther: Wakanda Forever soundtrack; she reached the top 10 of the Billboard Hot 100 in 2021 with a feature on Wizkid‘s inescapable hit “Essence,” which got a remix from Justin Bieber; she’s earned eight Grammy nominations, and became the first Nigerian to ever win two Grammys after taking home best African music performance for her single “Love Me JeJe” earlier this month; and this week, she became the first African female artist to hit 1 billion Spotify streams for her feature on the Future and Drake song “Wait 4 U,” which samples her 2020 single “Higher.” That’s to name just a few of her accomplishments.
It’s been a rapid-fire rise in just a few years for the singer, and one she’s had to handle in the public eye. “Just seeing her grow as a human being, first, has been the most remarkable thing,” Davies says. “She’s had a lot of fame thrust on her super early, and her adjusting to those changes and how everything came, and now working with the record label and getting global attention and big artists reaching out to you, and social media and all these different platforms and people, seeing her adjust to that and learn and grow and work on herself has been the most impressive thing.”
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Now, all that success helps Davies earn the title of Billboard’s Executive of the Week. Here, he discusses Tems’ rise as an artist, the work that went into her 2024 debut album Born In the Wild, the record-breaking success of “Wait 4 U” and the rise of African music in the U.S. “I’ve worked in the music space in Nigeria for quite a long time, and I’ve never seen anybody grow and accelerate that quickly,” Davies says. “Seeing the change of where she was to where she is now, and the confidence and how she’s grown as a person, is as close to a miracle as I’ve ever seen.”
This week, with “Wait 4 U,” Tems became the first African woman to hit 1 billion streams on Spotify. What key decisions did you make to help make that happen?
For Tems, her music is very personal to her and comes from a very personal place. So initially when we got the call [about the song sample], the first thing she said was, “What do you think?” And I said, hearing what they’ve done with the song, they honored it in a good way and it would appeal to a whole bunch of different, new people, and if the goal is to have people feel something from your music, as long as the music still represents that, and it opens the door to new people to hear it, I think it’s a great idea to do it. And she loved Future as well, she just wanted to see how that marriage would work, and it turned out beautifully. And with all the structure and all the business behind the scenes with the song, my job is to make sure that everything is done for the benefit of my artist, and making sure that, yes, we are coming from Africa, and yes, these are big global superstars, but that we’re well represented at the table as well.
You mentioned the sample is “Higher,” which is off her first EP For Broken Ears, which came out five years ago now. What is it about that song and that EP that has given it such staying power?
One of the things I noticed very early on in Tems’ music is, each time I listened to her songs, I found new things and loved them even more. And that’s very rare with records, because after a while you can hear a record too many times. And even going on tour with her, having been in the studio with her working on these records for years, and then hearing them live, they still sound fresh and new, and I still feel something every time. I think people are trying to tap into their emotions and tap into things, and when music allows you a safe space to do that, it has a quality that’s timeless and lasts. The best music, you remember the first time you heard that song, and that’s timeless music. And that’s what it does — it evokes emotions, it helps you place it. So for me, “Higher” does that as well. It’s such a beautiful song. I heard it from voice note to this version to “Wait 4 U,” and each iteration of the song has been great.
“Wait 4 U” won her a Grammy, and then she just won another with “Love Me JeJe” a few weeks ago. That makes her the first Nigerian to have ever won two Grammys. What’s the significance of that for you?
We never really started out with the intention of global stardom or anything, she just really wanted to sing. She would joke at the beginning, “If I didn’t meet you guys, I would just be happy to sing in hotel lounges, just for people to hear my music.” But the way it’s gone and the way it’s grown and the way it’s resonated with people, what the Grammys do is they solidify the fact that you can still make music that is true to yourself and have it recognized globally.
“Love Me JeJe” was a strong choice for us to be the lead single from the project because it referenced something nostalgic to us, because the original “Love Me JeJe” song was one that we all grew up with in Nigeria, our parents loved the song, and so for us to be able to pay homage to that song was really special. We spoke afterwards — the original guy who sang the song, Seyi Sodimu, is also now a Grammy winner, 21 years after. So it was also giving him his flowers for doing something remarkable at a time when there wasn’t that much light being shown on our music and where we’re from. It just gives people the opportunity to dream — yes, you can get this global acclaim. And for us, it being the first song that she’s done herself by herself to win a Grammy, it just shows that the work is being seen and felt.
This song is off Born In the Wild, her official debut album. How did you want to roll that out and market it? And did you feel like you needed to introduce her with this project?
She had her first two EPs, she had “Wait 4 U,” she had “Free Mind,” “Essence” was a big song as well; all of this was without actually putting out a debut album. The phrase we would laugh about while we were recording was just trying to figure out a way to dance like you’re still in your little studio by yourself. Now we’re in bigger studios and there’s more opinions and more people. So it was trying to, first of all, block out all that noise and allow the artist to just be themselves, and then helping sometimes when they have internal noise telling them to do this or that. So it was trying to do something that felt really true to Tems. She listens to loads of different music, she creates loads of different music, and I think with the EPs you got certain glimpses of what types of music she makes, and with the album she wanted to lay it all out: Here are the different influences I have, some of them might be reggae, some of them might be Nigerian songs, some of them might be Sade Adu. So in all those different worlds, how do you connect that seamlessly?
And it was also important for us that we started the project back home. For us, we feel like there’s a lens through which people are able to look at Africa, look at an African woman and look at what a modern African looks like through Tems, whether through the way she portrays herself or carries herself, or through her music as well. So it was important that the first look we gave from the album was “Love Me JeJe.” We shot the video in Lagos, she was on a flatbed going through Lagos, which was surreal in itself because of the traffic in Lagos. It was a crazy moment.
Starting with “Essence,” she’s really been at the forefront of African music’s rise in the United States in the past couple years. How do you feel that’s progressing?
My theory is that we’re in a world now where we’re constantly looking for new things, consciously and subconsciously. I feel like with music you were hearing a lot of versions of the same thing you’ve heard before, and I think it came to a point, to me, where people started looking outwardly. Initially, I felt like the U.S. was very insular: U.S. music, U.S. charts. But once they started listening to new things, what people found was that there’s similarity and threads in everything. It’s called Afrobeats, but a lot of the songs Tems does are R&B songs. All of us grew up on American music, but also on Nigerian music and Jamaican music. Our music is more or less like a melting pot of all of our influences growing up, and I think there’s definitely a part of that that people will relate to because they’re mostly global references, and then you’re hearing Nigerian sounds that you may have never heard before which sounds new. So I think the rise of African music is extremely needed, and what people will realize is that they will find there are more artists in different genres playing in different spaces and different lanes, and it’s really a beautiful thing.
What’s next for you guys?
Tems has different ways she wants to express and showcase the music, so we’re finding different ways of how to push out the music. The project is already out, but what does it sound like reimagined, with different musical elements added to it or stripped back from it? She’s interested in exploring that more. At the same time, she’s always recording and working on new music. She’s got an interest in film, so that’s something we’re exploring.
And then on the business side, we’re trying to figure out, how do we utilize this position we’re in to create more opportunities back home? Our vision is in a lot of ways very global, but also very Africa-focused. Right now, we’re putting together an initiative to support young women producers on the continent, what that will look like, and that will be rolled out very soon. We just got involved in the sports world as well; that’s mainly to see how we can bring opportunities in sports back home to young people because we come from a place where we have to create opportunities for the younger generation ourselves. So that’s where our head’s at, and Tems is always recording. So there will be new music and new recordings and new versions of Born In the Wild out soon.
New Music Latin is a compilation of the best new Latin songs and albums recommended by Billboard Latin and Billboard Español editors. Check out this week’s picks below.
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Christian Alicea, “Hello, What’s Up” (Therapist Music/Rimas Entertainment)
Christian Alicea kicks off new career chapter with a saucy salsa track called “Hello, What’s Up,” produced by DJ Buddha and Elliot. Marking his debut single under his new signing with Rimas Entertainment, the Puerto Rican artist delivers an infectious tropical tune with percussion, trombones, trumpets, and more, while his flirty vocals sing about a guy who’s trying to impress a girl with his English-speaking skills. “The girl I’m getting to know has me in love/ But she only speaks English and that’s the bad thing/ I became friends with the translator, but he’s tired/ Because every time I talk to her, I both him,” Alicea chants in the bilingual tune that perfectly captures his playful personality. — JESSICA ROIZ
Arthur Hanlon & Ángela Aguilar, “Bala Perdida” (Sony Music Latin)
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Arthur Hanlon and Ángela Aguilar gave us a taste of the magic they create together when they joined forces at the 2024 Billboard Latin Women in Music, where Aguilar sang her father’s “Me Vas a Extrañar” with Hanlon on piano. Now, the two team up once again for “Bala Perdida,” a heart-wrenching huapango full of soul and intensity, further powered by Aguilar’s ethereal vocals and Hanlon’s poignant piano. “From the moment I wrote this song, I could only hear it in Ángela’s voice,” Hanlon said in a statement. “No one else could bring it to life the way she does.” “Bala Perdida” — which Aguilar and Hanlon debuted on television during Premio Lo Nuestro 2025 on Feb. 20 — is the third single from the pianist’s upcoming album, a collection of original collaborations set for release in April. — GRISELDA FLORES
Ana Tijoux, “Serpiente de Madera” (Victoria Producciones SpA)
As the Chinese lunar calendar turned to the Year of the Serpent on Jan. 29, Ana Tijoux’s “Serpiente de Madera” unfolds with zodiacal symbolism intertwined with her origins — bringing to mind her breakout hit “1977,” also the year she was born under. The track — one of two from her new EP of the same name — illustrates her connection to the snake sign through the spoken word-like elegance over subtle panflute melodies and understated synths, by producers Eduardo Herrera and Tony Ramírez. Elegantly orating about universal vastness and human connection, the Chilean/French rapper’s delivery melds poetic prose with grace. She articulates, “Mirando galaxias con ojos pequeños, un telescopio en el cuerpo/ ese abrazo que eleva, ese que tiene magia,” finding potent expression in renewal. It captivates with its lyrical depth and fluidity, resulting in a piece that’s not just heard but felt. — ISABELA RAYGOZA
Morat, “Cuarto de Hotel” (Universal Music Spain)
With a piano tune reminiscent of the rock ballads of the ’80s and ’90s, Morat’s “Cuarto de Hotel” is an evocative song about a love that is difficult to forget. “Who put you under my pillow? Who kept you under my skin? You always arrive out of nowhere if I’m alone in a hotel,” the band sings in part of the lyrics. Driven by synthesizers, sweeping guitars and timbales-laden drums, the tempo of the song accelerates after the first chorus to offer the characteristic pop sound of the Colombian group, before returning to the piano that we hear in the beginning in a full-circle moment. “Cuarto de Hotel” is the main single of the Spanish film El Secreto del Orfebre (The Goldsmith’s Secret), an adaptation of the novel of the same name by Elia Barceló directed by Olga Osorio that premieres Feb. 28 in Spain. — SIGAL RATNER-ARIAS
Check out more Latin recommendations this week below:
“Basically, I disappeared from the industry for almost two years,” Dove Cameron tells Billboard over a Zoom call, half-laughing. For patient fans of the singer-actor (as well as the less-than-patient ones clamoring for new music in the comments section of her Instagram), the wait is finally over.
Cameron unleashes “Too Much” on Friday (Feb. 21), a danceable kiss-off to a less-than-supportive lover. “If you say I’m too much/ Baby, go find less,” Cameron scoffs over throbbing synths and a dark, pounding beat, evoking the camp-drenched classics of Lady Gaga’s early years. “I’m sending warm regards/ And a box of your things in a black car.”
Though sonically divergent from her Billboard Hot 100 top 20 hit “Boyfriend,” “Too Much” is similarly inspired by a real-life incident of a guy being a dick. Several years ago, after a “beautiful night” out with a bunch of friends, Cameron and her then-partner got into a car. “I was like, ‘Wasn’t that such a nice night?’ And he said, ‘You know, people like you better when you talk less.’” At the time, Cameron panicked, thinking “Oh my God, did I totally read that wrong? Maybe everybody hates me.”
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In that sense, “Too Much” is a bit of a retcon re-do for Cameron, giving her the chance to say today what she wishes she could have told him at the time. “I had a realization one day that it’s not my job to make myself smaller to fit into a shape that you’re more comfortable holding,” she muses. “I just hope that anyone who’s young and struggling with feeling like they are too huge, too big wherever they go, they would hear this.”
The singer-actor says her break from the industry “churn,” during which she took the time for therapy and some serious “digging and excavation” into her personal pain and depression, helped give her the needed perspective to craft her next musical chapter — which will not be a sequel to 2023’s Alchemical: Volume 1. “I’m in such a different place in my life,” Cameron explains. “At this point in my life, I feel so, so seen and so loved, especially by my all my friends and my current partner.”
Cameron and Måneskin frontman Damiano David have been dating since at least Feb. 2024, and she says the relationship helped reorient her life. “We met, and it was just like, ‘This is exactly the path, and this makes sense. This person is going to be very important in my life in some way.’ And I started to find new sort of inspiration and step into myself in a way that I had never really done before,” Cameron says. David, who is currently promoting his own solo music apart from the Italian rock band, even inspired one of the songs she recorded during her recent “nine-to-five, five-days-a-week” studio sessions.
Although it’s hardly lighthearted, frothy pop, Cameron’s new material finds her dipping a toe into dance music, a genre she previously thought would be “incongruous” with her personality. “I didn’t think I could make happy music as a previously unhappy person, and this record was really healing for me in that way,” she says. “I just granted myself permission to remove all the judgments that I had around pop music and dance music,” she says, citing artists like Lady Gaga, Marina and Robyn as touchstones for her. “I’m having more fun than ever.”
Cameron also branched out and cleared another creative hurdle on the set of her latest acting project, an upcoming psychosexual thriller for Amazon Prime. “[Any acting project] has to have a challenge, and it sent me into a little bit of an anxiety crash because there’s nudity involved. I had always known that was something I wanted to tackle,” she explains. “If there’s anything I feel like I can’t do, then I feel like I have to do it in order to get to the next level of my own evolution. I was excited to prove myself wrong…. I basically just went into it blindly, super terrified, but knowing that it was the right thing to do, and very excited.”
While the project, based on the book 56 Days by Catherine Ryan Howard, doesn’t have a release date yet, Cameron is eager for people to see it. “Oh girl, I’m begging. I’m banging down the Amazon door,” she laughs. “I say ‘yes’ to very few acting projects lately, simply because it takes so long to get an album done and off the ground and mixed and mastered and all that, but this was very different and special to me. The script was so strong; I love a concept based on a novel because there’s so much source material to look at; and the character, Ciara, is incredible. She’s a dream character to play.”
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Voletta Wallace, mother to rap icon The Notorious B.I.G., is dead at 78. Billboard confirmed Wallace’s death with Monroe County Coroner’s Office in Pennsylvania on Friday (Feb. 21).
“Voletta has died, on hospice care, at her residence in Stroudsburg, Penn.,” Monroe County Coroner Thomas Yanac tells Billboard. “Voletta died of natural causes.”
TMZ was the first to report that Wallace had passed away.
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A Jamaican immigrant, Wallace gave birth to The Notorious B.I.G. (born Christopher Wallace) on May 21, 1972, in Brooklyn, where she worked as a preschool teacher and raised Biggie as a single mother.
He went on to reach superstar status in a short time as a rapper while signed to Diddy’s Bad Boy Records, where he released a pair of albums, Ready to Die and Life After Death, the latter of which debuted atop the Billboard 200 and arrived just weeks after he was gunned down in Los Angeles on March 9, 1997, at just 24 years old.
Much of the the Brooklyn rap icon’s catalog is etched in rap lore as one of the pillars of East Coast hip-hop during the ’90s “golden era,” including hits such as “Juicy,” “Hypnotize,” “Ten Crack Commandments,” “Going Back to Cali,” “Mo Money Mo Problems” and many more.
Wallace launched the Christopher Wallace Memorial Foundation in her son’s memory and did whatever she could to uphold his legacy and protect his estate while building on the foundation he laid prior to his passing in 1997. She also served as a producer on the Notorious biopic, which brought her son’s life story to the silver screen in 2009. She was portrayed by Angela Bassett in the film.
The Notorious B.I.G. was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2020, and Voletta was present to accept the honor in her son’s place. “Today, I’m feeling great,” she told Billboard at the time. “As a mother, I’m extremely proud of his accomplishments. You know, I still see such a young man at a young age, and sadly, he’s not here to witness all this. But it’s an astute honor, and as a mother, I’m just elated for that.”
In recent months, Wallace’s Instagram account made posts celebrating her son’s rap achievements, which included 992 million Spotify streams in 2024 and eclipsing 2.5 billion all-time streams on Apple Music.
Voletta Wallace is survived by her grandchildren C.J. Wallace and T’yanna Wallace, who are Biggies kids.
Jerry Butler, the beloved Chicago soul singer, producer and, later, politician who began his career in the late 1950 singing alongside childhood friend Curtis Mayfield in the Impressions, has died at 85. According to the Chicago Sun-Times, Butler died on Thursday night (Feb. 20) of undisclosed causes after a long battle with Parkinson’s disease.
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Motown legend Smokey Robinson told the Sun-Times that Butler was “one of the great voices of our time,” lauding the singer who the Miracles vocalist had admired since he was a young man listening to the Impressions’ 1958 Billboard Hot 100 No. 11 hit “For Your Precious Love.”
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Working alongside singer/guitarist Mayfield — whom he’d met as a teenager singing in a church choir — Butler began his career in the Northern Jubilee Gospel Singers group before joining the Roosters, who in short order became known as The Impressions. The group struck gold off the bat with the Butler co-written “For Your Precious Love,” a slow-burning, yearning song inspired by a poem Butler wrote in high school — credited to Jerry Butler & the Impressions — that melded the friends’ church-based gospel roots with a stirring soul sound.
The single, released by Vee-Jay Records and ranked in 2003 as the No. 335 on Rolling Stone magazine’s 500 Greatest Songs of All Time list, would be one of only two Butler recorded with the group, followed up by that same year’s No. 29 Billboard R&B chart hit “Come Back My Love.” Tensions in the group over Butler’s first-billing status led to the singer going out on his own, though his first solo hit was a reunion with Mayfield on the 1960 Vee-Jay co-write “He Will Break Your Heart.” That song peaked at No. 7 on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart.
While Mayfield soon became a star in his own right thanks to his funky soul soundtrack to the 1972 blaxploitation film Superfly and such civil rights anthems as “People Get Ready,” Butler embarked on run of hits in the 1960s and 70s that included 38 career Hot 100 entries — including three top 10s — as well as 53 songs on the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs charts.
In 1961, Butler’s impressive vocal range and always fresh attire earned him the career-long nickname “The Iceman” from WDAS Philadelphia DJ George Woods, bestowed on the singer after he kept his cool and continued to sing after the PA system burned out on him at a Philly show.
He scored another top 10 hit in 1964 with the hopelessly-in-love ballad “Let It Be Me,” a collaboration with singer Betty Everett on the Everly Brothers-written song that appeared on their joint Delicious Together album and peaked at No. 5 on the Hot 100. Butler’s third top 10 song came in 1969 with the inspirational soul stirrer “Only the Strong Survive,” one of the singer’s collaborations with the hit songwriting team of Kenny Gamble and Leon Huff. The song appeared on his The Ice Man Cometh album and served as his highest-ever charting single after reaching No. 4 on the Hot 100, as well as spending two weeks at the top of the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart (then called the Billboard Black Singles Chart).
One of his most enduring hits, the song would later be covered by, among others, Elvis, Rod Stewart and Bruce Springsteen, who also made it the title of his 2022 R&B/soul covers solo album.
Gamble and Huff released a joint statement honoring their friend on Friday, saying, “We deeply and sincerely mourn the loss of our dear and longtime friend the great Jerry Butler, aka ‘The Iceman,’ for his cool, smooth vocals and demeanor,” they wrote. “Our friendship with Jerry goes back for more than 60 years both as an iconic artist and music collaborator with hit songs such as ‘Only the Strong Survive,’ ‘Western Union Man,’ ‘Never Gonna Give You Up’ and many more. We will really miss Jerry. He was a one of a kind music legend!”
Butler, whose vocals often climbed from a deep baritone to a crystal falsetto, would land Hot 100 hits in the 1950s, 60s and 70s, last charting on the singles tally in 1977 with “I Wanna Do It To You,” which peaked at No. 51.
His 53 career entries on the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop songs chart included 18 top 10s and four No. 1s, including “He Will Break Your Heart,” “Let It Be Me,” 1968’s “Hey, Western Union Man” and “Only the Strong Survive.” He last appeared on that chart in 1982 with the No. 83 hit “No Love Without Changes.” The singer also co-write a 1965 hit for then climbing soul singer Otis Redding, “I’ve Been Loving You Too Long,” one of Redding’s most beloved songs, which has been covered over the years by everyone from the Rolling Stones to Aretha Franklin, Ike & Tina Turner and country singer Barbara Mandrell.
In addition, Butler had 15 career entires on the Billboard 200 album chart, with The Ice Man Cometh representing his peak at No. 29, followed by 1969’s Ice On Ice (No. 41) and 1977’s Thelma & Jerry with Thelma Houston topping out at No. 53.
Butler was born in Sunflower, MS on Dec. 8, 1939 and moved to Chicago at age three, where he grew up in the since-demolished Cabrini-Green housing projects. With is biggest music years behind him by the early 1980s, Butler — who had earlier set up his own short-lived record label, Memphis Records and production company — pivoted to running a Chicago beer distributorship. He entered politics a few years later after being inspired by the city’s first Black Mayor, Harold Washington. Former Black Panther and longtime Chicago alderman Bobby Rush encouraged Butler to run for the Cook County Board of Commissioners in 1985, where the singer served three four-year terms before his retirement from public office in 2018.
The singer kept performing live into the early 2000s and hosted oldies R&B specials (Doo Wop 50, Rock Rhythm and Doo Wop) for PBS, as well as serving as the chairman of the board for the Rhythm and Blues Foundation. He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1991 as a member of the Impressions.
Over the years, his songs were sampled by a number of hip-hop acts, including Method Man on his 1994 Tical single “Bring the Pain” (which used bits of 1974’s “I’m Your Mechanical Man”), as well as Missy Elliott’s song of the same name from 2002. Snoop Dogg tapped Butler’s 1972 song “I Need You” for his 2006 Blue Carpet Treatment song “Think About It.”
Butler published his autobiography, Only the Strong Survive: Memoirs of a Soul Survivor, in 2000.
Check out some of Butler’s classics below.
The stratospheric success of Sabrina Carpenter’s Short n’ Sweet continues. The pop star’s sixth LP, which came out last August, has returned to the summit of the Official U.K. Albums Chart following the recent release of a deluxe version (Feb. 21).
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The new edition includes a remix of “Please Please Please” featuring Dolly Parton, plus bonus tracks “15 Minutes,” “Couldn’t Make It Any Harder,” “Busy Woman” and “Bad Reviews.”
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Upon arrival, the Short n’ Sweet saw Carpenter become the first female in history to score both the U.K.’s No. 1 album and single (“Taste”) simultaneously. It landed the second-biggest opening week of 2024 – only Taylor Swift’s The Tortured Poets Department outperformed it. The LP has now racked up three non-consecutive weeks at the top.
Earlier this week, meanwhile, the 25-year-old shared details of another huge outdoor London gig for the summer. On July 6, she’ll headline BST Hyde Park for the second time, following her previously sold-out show on July 5.
Tickets for Carpenter’s new date will go on sale at 10 a.m. GMT on Feb. 24 from the festival’s official website. She will be supported by Clairo and British star Olivia Dean on the day, with a full lineup expected to arrive soon.
Manic Street Preachers follow at No. 2 with their Critical Thinking, the Welsh rockers’ 15th LP. Over the course of four decades, the band has stacked up a further 14 top 10 U.K. albums, including two chart-toppers: 1998’s This Is My Truth Tell Me Yours and The Ultra Vivid Lament, released three years ago.
PartyNextDoor and Drake’s collaborative effort $ome $exy $ongs 4 U finishes at No. 3, while indie outfit The Wombats come in at No. 4 with Oh! The Ocean, their fifth U.K. top 10 album to date. Central Cee rounds out the top five with Can’t Rush Greatness, a chart mainstay since its release last month.North London singer-songwriter Louis Dunford, meanwhile, is celebrating his first top 10 appearance with Be Lucky finishing at No. 8.