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Straight up? Paula Abdul feels absolutely terrible about having to cancel her entire upcoming Straight Up! to Canada 2024 fall tour. The 62-year-old singer/dancer announced to fans on Wednesday night (Sept. 4) that she has been forced to call off the entire tour due to unspecified injuries that will require two months of recovery time.
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“It’s with an incredibly heavy heart that I need to share with you an update regarding some injuries I’ve recently sustained. In an effort to keep going, I’ve received targeted injections that will allow me temporary relief, but the demands of an entire tour is a different story,” Abdul wrote in a post.
“After multiple consultations with my doctors and exploring all available options, I’ve been advised that one of my injuries requires a minor procedure followed by a 6-8 week recovery time, therefore it will prohibit me from proceeding with the Straight Up! To Canada Tour as well as the dates in Alaska and North Dakota,” she added.
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The monthlong outing was slated to kick off on Sept. 25 with a show at the Save on Foods Memorial Arena in Victoria, B.C. and wind its way across 20 markets in Canada before wrapping up on Oct. 26 at the Centre 200 in Sydney, Nova Scotia.
“I want to extend my deepest apologies to all my amazing fans in Canada and the U.S., you mean the world to me and this truly breaks my heart,” Abdul concluded. “I’ve been looking forward to the energy, love, and connection we always share when we’re together. I promise I’ll be back, stronger and better, dancing my heart out and performing for all of you very soon, to give you the show you deserve.” Refunds for the shows are available at point of purchase.
Abdul’s tour was also scheduled to hit the Alaska Airlines Arena in Anchorage, Alaska on Sept. 21 before the Canadian tour kicked off and pop into the Scheels Arena in Fargo, N.D. on Oct. 12 on the tour that was slated to feature opening acts Taylor Dayne and Tiffany. Abdul’s busy 2024 also included her just-wrapped joint tour with New Kids on the Block and DJ Jazzy Jeff, which wound down on August 25.
See Abdul’s post below.
Start your engines Little Monsters because we now know when Lady Gaga‘s seventh album will descend from pop heaven. According to a new Vogue cover feature, LG7 — as yet untitled officially — is due out in February, with the untitled first single due out in October.
“There’s a lot of pain associated with this adventure,” the singer told the magazine about the album. “And when I start to explore that pain it can bring out another side to my artistry. When I’m here at this studio [Rick Rubin’s Shangri-La], I’m relaxed and I am able to face my demons and what’s remarkable is… that’s the music. I’m able to hear it back.”
The profile opens at Rubin’s famed studio in Malibu — just down the road from Gaga’s home — where Gaga recorded 2016’s Joanne, as well as some of the music for the 2018 soundtrack to her feature film debut, A Star Is Born. It reveals that Gaga has spent “the better part of 2024 here” working on both her new pop record and a second “surprise project” whose details have not yet been revealed.
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Additionally, the very public enigma of a star reveals that her fiancé, Michael Polansky — to whom she got engaged in April after a day of rock climbing — was the one who pushed her to return to her pop roots. “Michael is the person who told me to make a new pop record. He was like, ‘Babe. I love you. You need to make pop music,’” she said, with Polansky adding, “Like anyone would do for the person they love, I encouraged her to lean in to the joy of it. On the Chromatica tour, I saw a fire in her; I wanted to help her keep that alive all the time and just start making music that made her happy.”
The writer then describes hearing a new, untitled, song from the upcoming album, writing that it is an “intense and ominous… old-school Gaga banger, unsettling but also buoyant.”
Earlier in the piece, Gaga noted that she’s feeling “so happy” and healthy these days, unlike during her Chromatica era. “That album was about an absolutely horrible time for me with my mental health,” she said. “I was in a really dark place. I struggled for, like, many years before that.” The album came out in Mary 2020, just months into the COVID-19 pandemic, when Little Monsters had to dance at home alone to the singles “Stupid Love” and “Rain on Me.”
After fracturing her hip during the Born This Way Ball tour ten years earlier — setting off years of muscle pain due to fibromyalgia — the pain-free Chromatica outing was a revelation. “Michael and I did that tour together,” she said. “I did it pain-free! I haven’t smoked pot in years. I’ve, like, changed. A lot. I feel like this new album, in a lot of ways, is about that time but from a place of happiness instead of misery. And now, Michael and I are really excited to organize our lives — and our marriage — around our creative output as a couple.”
Which, she said in an allusion to the music industry, was “really different than, like, doing what other people want you to do.”
Being a celebrity comes with tons of perks — free stuff, fancy awards, fame, fortune, etc. — but it also comes with an unending scrutiny and prying into your private life, often in the form of totally made-up, fake tabloid headlines.
Adele, known for her cheeky wit, figured she’d have some fun with the spotlight the tabs often focus on her during her limited run of shows at a custom venue in Munich by cooking up her own phony gossip rag called the Saturn Times. On Thursday (Sept. 5), the singer posted some of the highlights from her dip into the scandal sheet biz by sharing some of the silly headlines from her bogus broadsheet after wrapping up the 10-show run during which she previously said she’d had “the time of my life.”
“After years of putting up with the tabloids, I decided to join in on the fun and create my own for the Munich shows,” she explained. “When I tell you it was a highlight of my week to write and create these every Sunday after the shows…I think I missed my true calling! A friendly piss take on myself and the real ones! Truly, it is so much fun writing absolute nonsense! 🪐”
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Unlike the sometimes hurtful, totally ridiculous headlines in the real tabs, the Saturn Times is just silly fun, including one from week one in early August that screamed “It’s One Adele of a Ride!” accompanied by a pic of the “Easy On Me” star tooling around on a bike in the empty stadium along with a short story about her ride-around.
“Days before opening night, Adele was seen gallivanting around the grounds of Adele World on a bike, as she prepares to kick off her run of shows in Munich,” it read. “Dressed in all black with white trainers, the London born songstress was sure to stay safe and responsibly wore a helmet.” Another one, under the screaming headline “Saturn Satire!” chronicled her meeting with the Munich’s chief of police, while one from week two yelled “STORM ADELE” in a report on foul weather that almost scotched he shows.
Further down the page, an editor’s note from Adele paid tribute to her fans. “Hello… it’s me. This show is yours and yours only,” it read. “I want you to experience it in any way you want. Standing, sitting, crouching, jumping or even hopping on one leg for all I care!” But, she warned, please don’t stand on chairs, because it’s dangerous and not fair to the fans behind you. “Also, a gentle nudge to remember to be kind to each other, we’re all here to have a great time.”
Other headlines poked fun at the almost weekly false reports about her alleged engagement to longtime boyfriend sports agent Rich Paul. “After sending fans into a meltdown by seemingly announcing she’s engaged for the 100th time this year,” it teased. “The blonde singer, 36, spotted the precious moments in the crowd. One newly engaged couple had flow all the way from Venezuela.”
Later editions joked about more bad weather, which allegedly forced the singer to match her custom gown with New Balance sneakers (“ADELE’S BALANCING ACT”) as well as bragging about the alleged Guinness world record set by the massive screen erected in the custom venue for the residency shows. “Oh ma gawd, I can’t believe it!” Adele crowed in the cover story. “Out of all the screens in the world! What is the likelihood of this one being a new record held?”
Adele recently revealed that after she finishes her upcoming Weekend With Adele residency in Las Vegas at the Colosseum at Caesars Palace on Nov. 23 she will “not see you for an incredibly long time.”
Check out some headlines from the Saturn Times below.
The musician has worked with Sabrina Carpenter, Selena Gomez and more.
Chappell Roan fans in Tennessee just got a little bit of good luck, babe.
After realizing that resellers had torn through a chunk of the tickets to her upcoming concert in Franklin, Tennessee, making it difficult for actual fans to nab seats, the 26-year-old pop star took matters into her own hands. “Scalpers and bots bought up all the tickets, so we went through and canceled all the scalper tickets we could,” Roan explained in a pair of videos via Instagram Stories on Wednesday (Sept. 4).
The “Hot to Go!” artist went on to announce that she’d be selling those same tickets back to fans in a limited quantity, directing followers to an online Ticketmaster form where they can request spots at Firstbank Amphitheater on Oct. 1.
“I want to make sure that tickets go to people who actually want to come and are fans,” she continued. “This is the best solution that makes sense to me and my team. I know it’s confusing and it’s so annoying, but I’m genuinely so pissed about the scalper situation and think that people actually deserve to get to my show. This is a larger issue, and we’re dealing with it.”
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“I can’t wait to see people who actually deserve to be here,” Roan added. “It means everything to me.”
Roan is far from the first artist to speak out against ticket scalping, a problem that’s reached a fever pitch in the past few years post-pandemic. Many stars — including Taylor Swift ahead of her Eras Tour — have tried out systems of vetting customers before conducting ticket sales, but one of the only proven ways of preventing bots from buying tickets and reselling them at inflated prices has been dynamic pricing, which poses issues of its own.
The Missouri native is currently on tour in support of her debut album The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess, which recently reached a new peak at No. 2 on the Billboard 200. Ahead of her concert in Franklin, she’ll perform overseas in Manchester, Glasgow, Dublin, London and Berlin, as well as New York and Maryland back in the U.S.
Amid her rise to stardom this year, Roan has been open about feeling overwhelmed at the speed of her own ascent and recently had to set some boundaries with fans. “I’ve been in too many nonconsensual physical and social interactions and I just need to lay it out and remind you, women don’t owe you sh–,” she wrote in a statement on social media in August. “I chose this career path because because I love music and art and honoring my inner child, I do not accept harassment of any kind because I chose this path, nor do I deserve it.”
“I am specifically talking about predatory behavior (disguised as ‘superfan’ behavior) that has become normalized because of the way women who are well-known have been treated in the past,” she added at the time. “Please do not assume you know a lot about someone’s life, personality, and boundaries because you are familiar with them or their work online.”
With the first quarter of the 21st century coming to a close, Billboard is spending the next few months counting down our staff picks for the 25 greatest pop stars of the last 25 years. We’ve already named our Honorable Mentions and our No. 25, No. 24, No. 23 and No. 22 stars, and now we remember the century in Lil Wayne — who turned popular music into Wayne’s World for much of the late ’00s, and helped raise an empire that would rule pop and hip-hop for the entire 2010s.
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Even 25 years after notching his first Billboard Hot 100 entry, Lil Wayne remains a fixture in the rap scene, and unquestionable as one of the most influential hip-hop artists of all-time. Take a snapshot of rap when Wayne entered the game and then survey today’s landscape and it’s easy to see: Just look at all the “Lil’s” running around, rappers with grills and face tattoos while sporting dreadlocks and it all can be traced back to the New Orleans rap deity – even if the neophyte MCs can’t mimic his AutoTune-drenched rhymes and genius punchlines. Or let Wayne himself tell it: “Before I stepped into music, everyone looked a certain way and everyone did a certain thing. Look at me. Now look at music. They all look like me,” he said in 2020. “I love it.”
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Once Wayne invaded the “Best Rapper Alive” discussion in the mid-’00s, he began cementing his status as a commercial titan even beyond hip-hop. Everyone from Enrique Iglesias to Shakira wanted a piece of Weezy, whose grill-bearing smile became unavoidable in pop culture and led to him defining an era of hip-hop during a time where rap essentially became interchangeable with pop, on its way to emerging as music’s most-consumed genre. Oh, and he introduced the world to Drake and Nicki Minaj under his Young Money imprint, who would go on to be even more dominant than him within pop music in the decade to follow.
Long before his mixtape supremacy, lighter flicks and Bape camouflage, Weezy got his feet wet establishing himself as a prodigy in the Cash Money Records army and the youngest member of the Hot Boys. Wayne finished the 20th century on a high note — and proved ready to take over for the 2000s as just a 16-year-old — with appearances on a pair of lexicon-expanding classics, when he had the country hollering “Bling Bling” on B.G.’s diamond-inspired hit, and dropped it like it’s hot on Juvenile’s “Back That Azz Up” anthem.
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It was Lil Wayne’s turn to step into the solo spotlight with his raw Tha Block Is Hot debut in late ‘99, which peaked at No. 3 on the Billboard 200 and spawned a Hot 100 hit with the title track, assisted by the aforementioned Hot Boys, B.G. and Juvenile. After his next two albums delivered middling commercial performance, Lil Wayne went back to the drawing board – and threw his notepad in the trash after learning Jay-Z was freestyling, which led to the birth of the series that defined Weezy’s career.
It was actually Cash Money sonic savant Mannie Fresh who possessed the foresight to predict that Tha Carter series would go on to live in rap lore as one of the paramount series in the genre’s history. “I’m like, ‘Tha Carter is going to define rap for a while.’ Wayne was like, ‘You really think?’ I’m like, ‘I really do. It’s got to be something incredible,” Mannie Fresh recalled to Complex.
MF broke out the Roland TR-808 drum machine and got Weezy high on his supply. Inspired by ‘90s Cash Money Records group U.N.L.V.’s shout-out to the in-house producer, Wayne carried the baton with “Go DJ.” The spacey track cracked the Hot 100’s top 15, proving he could carry a major hit on his own. The pop world also began to take notice of Weezy’s shooting stardom, as Destiny’s Child enlisted Lil Wayne and then-consensus King of the South T.I. to mobilize for top five Hot 100 hit “Soldier,” which was nominated for best rap/sung collaboration at the 2005 Grammys.
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He kept building momentum into Tha Carter II, which arrived in late 2005. Wayne certainly never lacked confidence, but C2 saw him crowning himself the “Best Rapper Alive” with a song named just that – and following the album’s release, the rest of the world was starting to believe it, too. Weezy had refined his rapping style and extended his production barriers outside of the Mannie Fresh and Cash Money Records nest, which led to an album that many consider the crown jewel of his discography. The set netted Wayne another top 40 Hot 100 hit with “Fireman,” but the only flame that couldn’t be contained in the coming years was his own.
There wasn’t a minute to be wasted in the time between Tha Carter II to C3, with Wayne climbing higher into rap’s pantheon. Weezy became a machine, churning out cheeky punchlines and Auto-Tune-laced rhymes and seemingly never running out of fuel. He painted vivid pictures of heartbreaking love stories and grimy street tales like a chameleon, disappearing into his songs’ canvases.
Lil Wayne
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Lil Wayne
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During this time, he proved himself in the mixtape circuit – unleashing fan-favorite classics like the DJ Drama-hosted Dedication 2 and Da Drought 3, which fortified his legend among the underground hip-hop heads. The cultural impact of Wayne’s mixtapes run is essentially incalculable, since the Billboard charts didn’t account for DatPiff downloads and circulating Limewire files, but many of the tracks live on in iTunes libraries and the hearts of fans as holy grails of that Weezy period.
Meanwhile, if an artist needed a guest verse in the second half of the ‘00s, there was only one rapper to call. Wayne sprinkled his syrupy flows onto myriad top 40 Hot 100 hits from ‘06 to C3’s arrival in June ‘08, like Chris Brown’s “Gimme That,” Lloyd’s “You,” Fat Joe’s “Make It Rain,” DJ Khaled’s “We Takin Over,” Wyclef Jean’s “Sweetest Girl,” Playaz Circle’s “Duffle Bag Boy,” Birdman’s “Pop Bottles” and Usher’s “Love in This Club Part II.” In the midst of his run, Weezy also teamed up with his mentor Birdman for their Like Father, Like Son joint project, as he became totally unavoidable both on radio and on video networks MTV and BET.
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Even with Wayne’s vociferous output, there was still ample appetite for more music. It got to the point that songs were being leaked online, which forced Weezy to continue reshaping his vision for Tha Carter III. He even quick-released a five-track EP of songs that had already circulated on the internet, with 2007’s aptly titled The Leak.
Coming off his “I’ve arrived” moment with the debut performance of “Gossip” at the ‘07 BET Hip-Hop Awards, expectations couldn’t have been higher for C3 – and Wayne nonetheless calmly pole vaulted over the clouds to etch his name into the hip-hop history books. Tha Carter III arrived on June 10, 2008, as the soundtrack to the summer, while debuting atop the Billboard 200 with over one million records sold in the first week – his first No. 1 LP. It’s the last hip-hop album to hit the seven-digit sales mark in a weekly period, outside of Drake’s Views in 2016.
The album, which would also go on to win the Grammy for best rap album, was Wayne’s sonically richest yet, resisting any easy regional pigeonholing, as Wayne served up something for everyone. The ambitious C3 produced three major Hot 100 hits, as the extraterrestrial double-entendre of “Lollipop” featuring the late Static Major topped the Hot 100 for five nonconsecutive weeks, while the T-Pain-assisted strip club anthem “Got Money” and the blazing-though-hookless “A Milli” also cracked the top 10. (Who could forget Wayne’s day in the life on set for the “A Milli” visual?) Even the cover art, featuring Wayne as a baby with face tattoos, has lived on as iconic.
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Tha Carter III encapsulated everything Wayne had to offer from his versatile repertoire. Whether he was barring up against Jay-Z on “Mr. Carter” or playing rapper-doctor on “Dr. Carter,” he jumped around with ease. Weezy even offered social commentary on political topics like President Bush’s inaction when it came to Hurricane Katrina relief in his hometown (on “Tie My Hands”) or condemning the criminal justice system and reverend Al Sharpton (on “Don’t Get It”). Lil Uzi Vert would later say of Weezy: “When I heard Tha Carter III, I knew Wayne was the greatest rapper alive.”
It’s tough to believe if you didn’t live through it, but Lil Wayne had possibly the greatest peak of any rapper ever circa Tha Carter III. While rap titans Kanye West, Jay-Z and Eminem were dominating, Weezy had perhaps the highest level of respect and general approval rating of his peers, fans and critics at that point. Ye himself called Wayne his “fiercest competition” while on stage at the ‘08 BET Awards. “You scare me, man, every time you spit,” West said.
Lil Wayne
Kevin Mazur/WireImage
This was Wayne’s MVP Award and championship run, like 2012 LeBron James or ‘92 Michael Jordan. The New Orleans dignitary was a player that was automatically on fire anytime he stepped into the booth. Seriously, everything he touched seemingly turned to gold. Established as the millennials’ rap superhero, Lil Wayne led from the top of the food chain – even when clashing with his superstar peers on supercharged posse cuts like “Swagga Like Us” (No. 5 Hot 100).
With Weezy at the peak of his powers, he was essentially minting new hitmakers on radio seemingly on a weekly basis, spamming the airwaves with appearances on smashes by artists like Kevin Rudolf (“I Made It,” “Let It Rock”) and Jay Sean (“Down”). The latter topped the Hot 100, and Wayne’s memorable verse – and thoughts on the economy – remain a staple in rotation for DJ sets at bars across the country. All artists wanted a piece of Lil Wayne at this point, as his Wayfarer sunglasses, tattoos and purple Bape jacket became imagery ingrained in American pop culture.
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At the top of the game, Wayne tested the depths of his artistry with his newfound guitar skills when he zagged into the rock-leaning Rebirth. He was probably a few years too early on the rock star wave that came to the hip-hop mainstream with the next generation of rhymers like XXXTENTACION, Lil Uzi Vert, Trippie Redd and Playboi Carti. Nonetheless, the album debuted at No. 2 on the Billboard 200, while Weezy’s six-string lessons on the pummeling shout-along “Prom Queen” still made it to the Hot 100’s top 15.
In the midst of the commercial peak of his career, Lil Wayne was also thinking about the next generation of rappers. By the end of the 2000s, he’d sign two artists who would take what he’d built with Young Money to the next level in the following decade — Drake and Nicki Minaj — as well as fellow up-and-comers like Tyga and Jae Millz. The We Are Young Money compilation album arrived in Dec. 2009 to assist in spotlighting some of the talented artists running behind Wayne. The project ended up spawning hits like the raunchy polyamorous posse cut “Every Girl” and the Lloyd-assisted crowd-pleaser “Bedrock,” which hit No. 2 and provided early memorable solo moments for both Drake and Nicki.
An eight-month jail stint on Rikers Island in NYC for a gun charge forced the always-moving Lil Wayne to sit down for much of 2010, as he pressed pause for the first time in a long time and temporarily took off the “Best Rapper Alive” crown. Still, the motivational horns of “Right Above It” with Drake managed to invade the Hot 100’s top 10 from behind bars, following a premiere from Hot 97’s Funkmaster Flex. High school football players across the U.S. made the Kane Beatz-produced beat the soundtrack to their highlight tapes while the girls walking the hallways updated their Facebook statuses in unison to Wayne’s feel-good, “Life’s a beach, I’m just playing in the sand” bar.
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It didn’t take long for Wayne to get back on track following his release from Rikers. Tha Carter IV’s lead single “6 Foot 7 Foot” – which felt like the cousin to C3’s “A Milli” – gave him another top 10 entry on the Hot 100, and earned his seat back at the rap council. Teaming up with friend DJ Khaled has long been a fruitful formula for Wayne, and they also scored another hit heading into the summer of 2011 with “I’m on One” alongside Drake and Rick Ross. Meanwhile, a pair of C4 advance singles – the smoky, bar-heavy “She Will” and the acoustic ballad “How to Love” – showcased the duality of Wayne’s artistry, and both reached the Hot 100’s top five.
After several delays, Tha Carter IV finally arrived to close out the summer on Aug. 28, 2011, and the fourth installment in the decorated series nearly missed out on being Wayne’s second release to reach the million mark – moving 964,000 total album units in its first week while debuting at No. 1. While the project wasn’t as acclaimed or beloved as C3, it showed that even Wayne’s B-game could still surpass most hitmakers on their best day.
Much of the 2010s resulted in creative frustration for Lil Wayne, who was entrenched in a nasty $51 million lawsuit with his mentor Birdman and Cash Money Records over financial compensation. The two parties would end up settling in June 2018 after three years of litigation, which finally cleared the way for the much-delayed Tha Carter V. But even during that in-between period, Wayne was still active, making ways on the feature front by reuniting with Chris Brown on “Loyal” – which reached the top 10 and spent nine months on the Hot 100 in 2014 – and earning assist wins on DJ Khaled’s No. 1 hit “I’m the One,” French Montana’s “Pop That” and Chance The Rapper’s “No Problem,” and scoring another top 10 hit of his own with the Drake- and Future-assisted “Love Me.”
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At the same time, Wayne poured time and energy into building his proteges Drake and Nicki into stars in their own right, as he popped up on their albums for guest verses and remixes whenever needed. While Drizzy and Minaj took the baton and ultimately surpassed Weezy’s pop stardom in their own wildly successful crossover careers, they still always pay homage to Wayne as the GOAT, and continue shouting him out for giving them a chance and helping them achieve their rap dreams.
As Wayne’s hot streak began to cool down in the mid-2010s, so did his commercial visibility. However, another chapter of Tha Carter was still enough to push the rap world’s hype into overdrive once again.
The seven-year build-up leading into C5 was going to be nearly impossible for Wayne to match, as the project hit streaming services on his 36th birthday in 2018. Though the LP didn’t live up to the quality of previous installments, Tha Carter V was still a major commercial success – debuting at No. 1 with 480,000 units moved and netting Wayne the second-most first-week streams ever (behind Drake’s Scorpion), while also making him the first artist to launch a pair of debuts in the Hot 100’s top five (“Mona Lisa” featuring Kendrick Lamar and “Don’t Cry” with XXXTENTACION).
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Funeral scored Weezy another No. 1 album to start the 2020s off on the right foot, but none of the tracks stuck on the charts, as his days as a leading hitmaker appeared to be behind him. Nonetheless, in an era where remixes feel formulaic and hollow, Wayne shined bright on Jack Harlow’s “WHATS POPPIN (Remix)” with Tory Lanez and DaBaby, as Weezy’s co-sign on the fiery remix helped elevate Harlow to mainstream stardom and spent 51 weeks on the Hot 100 (while peaking at No. 2) during the COVID-19 pandemic. These days, Lil Wayne’s phone is still buzzing as one of the most in-demand feature artists in all of hip-hop – including for the next generation, with younger rap stars like Polo G, Cordae, Trippie Redd, YoungBoy Never Broke Again and J.I.D. tapping Wayne for verses this decade – but instead of his Sidekick, it’s just an iPhone.
Three decades since the self-inflicted gunshot wound at home that nearly took his life, Wayne has scored 186 Hot 100 hits – fifth most of any artist in chart history – and won five Grammys. Weezy’s timelessness and wordplay wizardry has him serving up razor-sharp verses with eccentricities that are often imitated but could never truly be duplicated. Maybe he really was an alien all along.
Read more about the Greatest Pop Stars of the 21st Century here and check back on Friday when our No. 20 artist is revealed!
It’s been three years since Justin Bieber’s last album, and he’s finally back in the studio. In a new interview with The New York Times, indie singer-songwriter Mk.gee revealed that he’s been in studio sessions with the “Love Yourself” singer. “He’s searching,” he said. “Anything that comes out of his mouth: That’s pop music. You can […]
Reclusive pop chanteuse Sade‘s first new song in more than six years will be released in November when her track “Young Lion” appears on the TRAИƧA benefit album from the Red Hot organization. The 46-track concept LP is due out on Nov. 22 and features collaborations between more than 100 artists including: Sam Smith, Laura Jane Grace, Devendra Banhart, Wilco’s Jeff Tweedy, Bartees Strange, Faye Webster, Julien Baker, Moses Sumney, Hunter Schafer, André 3000, Arthur Baker, Fleet Foxes, Teddy Geiger and many more.
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Sade has not put out a full-length album since 2010’s Soldier of Love and her most recent singles are a pair of songs from 2018, “Flower of the Universe” from the A Wrinkle in Time movie soundtrack and “The Big Unknown” from the soundtrack to the Steve McQueen-directed drama Widows.
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The New York Times described the vibe of the song featuring a soft piano riff and Sade’s iconic soothing vocals, pointing to lyrics “steeped in empathy and regret.” On it, Sade sings, “Young man, it’s been so heavy for you/ You must have felt so alone… I should have known/ Shine like a sun/ You have everything you need.”
The compilation of new songs, covers and exclusive tracks aims to support trans awareness and features trans, non-binary, genderqueer and cisgender acts and is dedicated to Sade’s son, Izaak, who identifies as a trans man. According to a release, the project began to come together in 2021 and marks one of the most ambitious projects ever from the Red Hot non-profit that has raised more than $15 million since 1989 to benefit HIV/AIDS relief and awareness. It is described as “a spiritual journey across 8 chapters and 46 songs, spotlighting the gifts of many of the most daring, imaginative trans and non-binary artists working today alongside contributions and collaborations from allies such as Sade, Sam Smith, André 3000, Clairo, Moses Sumney and many more. It softens the edges of the world we know, and invokes powerful dreams of the futures that might one day thunder from its cracks.”
It continues, “Trans people have always existed, with many different names across time and culture, often as spiritual healers and leaders. As global systems continue to fail humanity and all life on Earth, the journey taken by trans people – and all peoples who have been oppressed – is a blueprint of possibility. May this be a glimpse of our collective liberation, and the light inside all of us.” With more than three-and-a-half hours of music, the project is broken into eight chapters in a reference to the eight stripes on the rainbow pride flag.
Speaking to Variety, Red Hot executive director Dust Reid — who compiled the album with Massima Bell — said the idea was to celebrate all the “gifts that trans artists have been giving to the world… We hoped to create a narrative that positions trans and non-binary people as leaders in our society insofar as the deep inner work they do to affirm who they are in our current climate. We felt this is something everybody should do. Whether you identify as trans or non-binary or otherwise, if you took the time to explore your gender, get in touch with the feeling side of yourself, maybe we would have a future oriented around values of community, collaboration, care, and healing.”
Bell, a model and activist who is transgender, told the Times that Sade’s song was a revelation. “It’s amazing to hear a legendary musician like Sade sing about her heartfelt experience as the parent of a trans child,” Bell told the paper. “It’s incredibly powerful.” Reid added that the project was partly inspired by the death of beloved electronicmusician/producer Sophie in 2021. “Sophie was a boundary-pushing, generation-defining musician and one of the most important trans artists we’ve ever had,” said Reid.
The collection’s first single, a cover of Prince’s “I Would Die 4 U” from Lauren Auder and former Prince & the Revolution members Wendy & Lisa, is out now; listen to the song below and see the album announcement and full tracklist).
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TRAИƧA tracklist:
1. “Midnight Moon Pool” – Mary Lattimore, Laraaji, MIZU and Jamal Shakeri
2. “You Don’t Know Me” – Devendra Banhart, Blake Mills and Beverly Glenn-Copeland
3. “How Sweet I Roamed” – Jeff Tweedy, claire rousay
4. “Same Train” – Heart Shaped and Christian Lee Hutson
5. “STAR” – Ana Roxanne and Nsámbu Za Suékama
6. “Please Tell Me” – Lightning Bug
7. “Make ’em Laugh” – Benét, Faye Webster
8. “Get Me Away From Here, I’m Dying” – Julien Baker and Calvin Lauber feat. SOAK and Quinn Christopherson
9. “Rumblin’” – Soft Rōnin feat. Frankie Cosmos
10. “Deeper Understanding” – Hand Habits feat. Bill Callahan
11. “Under the Shadow of Another Moon” – Hunter Schafer and Cole Pulice
12. “Blush” – Grouper and Lucy Liyou
13. “Is It Cold In The Water?” – Moses Sumney
14. “Know Who You Are At Every Age” – Anajah and Gary Gunn
15. “Is It Over Now?” – Niecy Blues feat. Joy Guidry)
16. “Something Is Happening And I May Not Fully Understand But I’m Happy To Stand For The Understanding” – André 3000
17. “Come Back Different” – Nina Keith feat. Julie Byrne and Taryn Blake Miller
18. “Song To The Siren” – Rachika Nayar feat. Julianna Barwick and Cassandra Croft
19. “Love Hymn” – Arthur Baker feat. Pharoah Sanders
20. “People Are Small / Rapture” – L’Rain feat. Voices from the NYC Trans Oral History Project
21. “We’ve Been Through So Much” – Jlin and Moor Mother
22. “My Name” – Kara Jackson, Ahya Simone and Dave Longstreth
23. “Point of Disgust” – Perfume Genius and Low’s Alan Sparhawk
24. “In Another Life” – Lomelda and More Eaze
25. “Pink Ponies” – Teddy Geiger and Yaeji
26. “A Survivor’s Guilt” – Yaya Bey
27. “Just Last Night” – Helado Negro and Eileen Myles
28. “Feel So Different” – Ezra Furman and Sharon Van Etten
29. “Mourning Dove” – Gia Margaret
30. “Feel Better” – Adrianne Lenker
31. “Any Other Way” – Allison Russell and Ahya Simone
32. “Down Where The Valleys Are Low” – Asher White, Eli Winter and Caroline Rose
33. “TM” – Fleet Foxes, Cole Pulice and Lynn Avery
34. “Querube” – AV María, SKY and Belina Rose
35. “Within Without” – Green-House and Kelela
36. “Aaron” – Cassandra Jenkins, Bloomsday and Babehoven
37. “Young Lion” – Sade Adu
38. “You Make Me Feel (Mighty Real)” – Moses Sumney, Lyra Pramuk and Sam Smith
39. “Many Ways” – CLARITY feat. Clairo
40. “I Feel Free” – Sparkle Division feat. Pepper MaShay
41. “Get Free” – Nico Georis, KB Brookins
42. “Wolf Like Me” – Bartees Strange, Anjimile, Kara Jackson
43. “Surrender Your Gender” – Laura Jane Grace feat. Lee Ranaldo, Jayne County, Kathi Wilcox, Jay Dee Daugherty and Am Taylor
44. “I Would Die 4 U” – Lauren Auder and Wendy & Lisa of the Revolution
45. “Always” – Time Wharp, Elizabeth and Beverly Glenn-Copeland
46. “Ever New” – Sam Smith and Beverly Glenn-Copeland
Halsey has dropped the curtain on new album The Great Impersonator‘s release date and main album cover after sending fans on a scavenger hunt across the world. The 29-year-old singer shared the details on X Wednesday (Sept. 4), revealing that the project — which marks her fifth studio LP — is set to arrive Oct. […]
Katy Perry is finally talking about it. After going months without addressing her controversial decision to work with Dr. Luke on her comeback single “Woman’s World,” which dropped in July, the 39-year-old pop star opened up about her reasons for working with the producer Kesha accused of sexual assault in 2014 on the latest episode of Call Her Daddy.
In the podcast episode posted Wednesday (Sept 4), Perry acknowledged that the collaboration “started a lot of conversations.”
“He was one of many collaborators that I collaborated with,” she continued of Dr. Luke, who helped craft “California Gurls,” “Teenage Dream” and several more of her biggest hits over the years. “But the reality is, it comes from me. The truth is, I wrote these songs from my experience of my whole life going through this metamorphosis, and he was one of the people to help facilitate all that. One of the writers, one of the producers.”
“I am speaking from my own experience,” Perry added. “When I speak about ‘Woman’s World,’ I speak about feeling so empowered now as a mother, as a woman, giving birth, creating life … I’m still a matriarch and feeling really grounded in that. That’s where I’m speaking from. So I created all of this with several different collaborators, people that I’ve collaborated with from the past, from the Teenage Dream era, all of that.”
Word that the “Roar” singer had enlisted Dr. Luke for “Woman’s World” emerged shortly before the singer dropped, leading many to criticize Perry for doing so in spite of the producer’s nine-year legal battle with Kesha. After the “Tik Tok” artist accused the Kemosabe Records founder of drugging and raping her at a 2005 party, which he strongly denied, he countered with a defamation lawsuit that the two parties eventually settled in 2023.
Other critics also pointed out the irony of “Woman’s World” — which Perry branded as an ode to female empowerment — being produced and written by a team of mostly men, with a male director helming its music video. Luke also worked on the singer’s followup single “Lifetimes,” which dropped Aug. 8.
The interview comes a few weeks ahead of Perry’s new album, 143, which is set to arrive Sept. 20. Her conversation with Cooper also spanned the American Idol alum’s relationship with husband Orlando Bloom and how they’re raising their 4-year-old daughter, Daisy. At one point, Perry apologized to parents of kids who innocently sang along to her cheeky track “Peacock” in 2010 — because now she’s going through the same thing with her own child.
“Even now my daughter sings the song ‘Peacock’ — dancing around the house — that I wrote as a double-entendre, funny song about dicks,” Perry said, laughing. “And I’m like, ‘Don’t sing that song!’ My karma has now served me.”
Listen to Perry’s episode of Call Her Daddy below.