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When Sabrina Carpenter set up shop in Los Angeles for three dates of her Short n’ Sweet Tour, she brought out the big guns. There was Christina Aguilera. There was Jack Antonoff. And then there was Domingo. On the new Pop Shop Podcast, we welcome Billboard deputy editor Lyndsey Havens so she and Katie can […]
These celebrities have the right to remain silent! Sabrina Carpenter wrapped up the U.S. leg of her popular Short n’ Sweet tour in support of her recent her Billboard 200-topping sixth studio album in Los Angeles on Monday night (Nov. 18), and amid the hilarious bits she sprinkles throughout the show is a viral one that […]
Before Hanumankind started making waves on the Billboard Hot 100 with his Kalmi-assisted “Big Dawgs” (No. 23), Jay Sean was making history for South Asian artists on Billboard’s marquee singles chart.
In 2009, Jay Sean (born Kamaljit Singh Jhooti) topped the Hot 100 with “Down,” his Lil Wayne-assisted debut single. The achievement helped Sean become the very first South Asian artist to top the Hot 100 and helped kick off a fruitful pop career that includes Hot 100 hits like “Do You Remember” (No. 10, with Sean Paul and Lil Jon), “2012” (No. 31, with Nicki Minaj) and “Hit the Lights” (No. 18, with Lil Wayne).
15 years later, Jay Sean is back with a new album and an exciting new venture that he detailed for Billboard staff writer Kyle Denis on the latest edition of Billboard News.
“First of all, I’m South Asian. A lot of people still don’t know that. When I came here from England, people were speaking to me in Spanish a lot because they thought I was Puerto Rican or Dominican — I had the shaved head then,” Sean quips. “[They didn’t realize I was] South Asian, and the first-ever South Asian in history to have had a No. 1 Billboard record.”
The genre-melding singer continues, “When I was coming up and telling people I wanted to do music, they were like ‘Are you stupid? Look around you bro, do you see anyone like you onstage with Justin Timberlake and Usher? There’s no brown dude.’ So, I took it upon myself to create a platform for brown people. We’re the largest demographic [on] planet Earth, why aren’t we taking the scene over? That’s why I set up 3AM, so I can provide that structure for us.”
Co-founded by Sean, The Heavy Group’s Jeremy Skaller and Range Media’s Jared Cotter, 3AM Entertainment aims to support artists from the South Asian diaspora as they work to break through global music markets. The record label will operate under Virginia Media, with big releases from both Sean and Bridgerton star Nicola Coughlan already available.
Over the summer (June 28), the actress dropped “Shoes… More Shoes,” a campy novelty track produced by New York DJ Ellis Miah. Proceeds for the song were donated to two LGBTQIA+ charities: Not A Phase and the Trevor Project.
Sean has already launched two singles under 3AM previewing his forthcoming new album. “Heartless,” which features Punjabi hitmaker Ikky, is a guitar-inflected trap&B banger, while the Jai Dhir-featuring “Piche Piche” effortlessly blends Punjabi, Hindi and English into a smoldering R&B groove. The latter track also features a team of A-listers behind the scenes; it was co-written by two-time Grammy-nominated R&B maestro Eric Bellinger and co-produced by Sean Cook, one of the minds behind Shaboozey‘s historic smash “A Bar Song (Tipsy).” Both “Heartless” and “Piche Piche” will appear on Last Call, Sean’s forthcoming new album, which is due in 2025.
“When I did songs like ‘Piche Piche’ and ‘Heartless,’ it was very easy for me to do that because I live and breathe that,” he explains. “I speak Punjabi, I can sing in Punjabi, I can also rap and sing in English, it’s all very natural to me. To work with Eric TKTK — who’s obviously such an OG in the game — I’ve got so much respect and love for him. It was just great to work with an R&B legend like that. And Sean Cook is my boy. The whole album is basically me and Sean.”
Although he’s putting out a major project of his own next year, Sean remains focused on uplifting and highlighting rising South Asian artists and making sure that the door he cracked ajar with “Down” remains open.
“I hope that I can look back and say all the years that I dreamt of this happening have finally come true,” he muses.
JoJo Siwa and Dakayla Wilson have broken up, three months after confirming their relationship in August. “We have gone our separate ways, but she is an amazing girl,” Siwa told People. “And I got my own fun holiday plans, and I know she’s got her family that she’s spent the holidays with.” Siwa and Wilson met […]
It’s been less than a week since Lil Nas X came back with his latest track “Light Again,” and he’s already teasing yet another new song out this week. In a post to his Instagram on Tuesday (Nov. 19), Lil Nas shared the artwork and release date for his newest single. Titled “Need Dat Boy,” […]
When Lola Young is on stage, all eyes in the room drift toward her like iron filings to a magnet. Look closely at online footage from the south Londoner’s recent North American tour, and you’ll notice hundreds of people crying, headbanging, screaming – enjoying moments of release, letting go of inhibitions with abandon. Young matches their energy, growling and belting her lyrics as though she’s feeling the pain of her songs for the very first time.
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Each time the 23-year-old performs live – she’s completed two stateside treks this year, and has dates in the U.K., Europe and Australia booked through early 2025 – she shares an emotional exchange with the crowd. After coming off the road last month, having played dozens of headline shows plus festivals such as Austin City Limits and Lollapalooza Chicago, the first thing Young did was “cry a lot,” as she told her 620,000 TikTok followers in a recent post.
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“I know you’re not my therapist,” she jokes to Billboard over a video call, “but it’s important to be honest and say that I’ve felt quite low. Leaving tour is like a big comedown. After being so active by performing my heart out every night and receiving so much love, it’s quite hard to adjust to reality again. It’s been difficult, but I am getting there – I’m on my way up.”
Young’s smoky voice and catalog of witty, elastic pop songs speak to something deep within her fanbase. There are the devotees who mimic her blush-heavy makeup, as well as the more casual listeners who have created so many clips featuring the glorious single “Messy” that her Spotify streams have increased tenfold in recent weeks, which, at the time of writing, currently stands at 12.7 million monthly listeners. Her debut LP This Wasn’t Meant for You Anyway, released in June via Island Records, was characterized by its brutal honesty: “I can dance in the mirror and feel seen without being watched by someone / Especially not no ugly man, or woman,” so goes its spoken-word outro.
Even with her camera off, Young stays true to form throughout our conversation. She laughs a lot. She swears a lot. She says “f–k” in nearly every sentence, eager to emphasize that she’s still coming to terms with how dizzying the past few months have been. Having chased her dreams since she started writing songs at 11, she’s now moved beyond ravenous early career ambition and is eyeing a new level of global superstardom.
“What I’m realizing about myself as an artist is that I’m not about the glitz and the glam — I don’t scream ‘Hollywood’,” she says. “For a long time, I wanted to represent this ideal of Westernized beauty – but then I realized I’m not that. I now choose to give realness and truth. I’ve got a bit of a belly out, I f–cking swear a bunch and I have fun. And that’s what people are resonating with.”
Young is dialing in from Paris, where she is in the studio already working on her next project. She has leveraged a tireless, laser-focused work ethic into an ascendant career: Beginning with 2023’s My Mind Wanders and Sometimes Leaves project, in the past 18 months she has drip-fed a slew of extended releases and one-off singles (from “Flicker of Light” to recent Lil Yachty team-up “Charlie”). This Wasn’t Meant for You Anyway comprised entirely new material, while her unique, wildly popular live performance clips have introduced her to a global audience via social media. With a vintage mic to hand, she has done everything from getting kicked out of a London Underground station to dancing gleefully in front of the Golden Gate bridge.
It’s this industrious spirit that has caught the attention of some of contemporary music’s most revered names. In the summer, Young briefly hit the studio and shared egg rolls with SZA, who regularly leaves flame emojis on her Instagram posts. “This is insane and I live for it,” commented the “Kill Bill” singer when Young shared the news of “Like Him,” her stunning feature on Tyler, the Creator’s recent Billboard 200-topping LP Chromakopia.
The rapper had previously praised Young via DM, and when he messaged asking if she would contribute vocals to his song, her response was an immediate, resounding yes. “When I first heard [Tyler’s] ‘Yonkers’, it totally changed the way I viewed music,” she adds.
Young’s gorgeously subtle, stirring delivery during the chorus heightens the song’s poignant mood, a meditation on complex familial bonds. “Like Him” peaked at No. 29 on the Billboard 100, further cementing Young’s fast-growing stature in the U.S: in October, she performed at L.A.’s 1,600-capacity Bellwether concert hall, twice the size of her April gig at the city’s Echoplex venue.
Young’s journey is a lesson in how, for newer artists, being given the space and time to find their footing can result in truly fresh, singular music. Yet her transatlantic success hasn’t come without its qualms. To an extent, she remains unfairly associated in some listeners’ minds with the commercial balladry of her early days, as well as the cover of Philip Oakley and Giorgio Moroder’s “Together in Electric Dreams” she recorded for the British retailer John Lewis’ 2021 Christmas advert. At age 16, she was a shy but ambitious finalist on the now-defunct reality television competition Got What It Takes.
“A lot of strings were being pulled when I was starting out. It all felt fake. It felt forced,” she says. Notably, in her live sets, she doesn’t perform any material from her 2019 EP Intro or its follow-up, Renaissance. “This isn’t about blaming anybody, but nothing was really clicking at the time. Now, I have creative control alongside an understanding of who I am and where I want to go.”
Young has survived her own trials in selfhood. Her anxieties, frustrations and pride now fuel her music. She says the light-bulb moment arrived when she started rocking a mullet two years ago, a look that has boosted her confidence “massively”. She has since explored themes of identity and self-destruction in her work, recovered from an operation on her vocal cords and spoken about her schizoaffective disorder diagnosis on Instagram.
When she talks about these experiences, Young affirms that she abides by the old adage that small actions can lead to big changes in one’s life. “I kept holding faith in the fact that if I cut my hair, the music would follow” she says, evidently thrilled that her own prophecy came true.
FLO has shared a mini-deluxe edition of the group’s recently released debut LP, featuring four new collaborations.
Access All Areas, the first full-length release from the British girl group, arrived Nov. 15 via Island Records and is currently standing at No. 3 in the latest midweeks of the U.K’s Official Albums Chart. FLO has now teamed up with some of R&B’s leading names to reimagine songs from the record.
Titled Access All Areas: Unlocked, the updated version sees sister duo Chlöe x Halle contribute vocals to “Soft,” Kehlani featuring on “IWH2BMX,” Bree Runway on “Nocturnal” and Dixson on “Bending My Rules.” Actress and Wicked star Cynthia Erivo, meanwhile, narrates the album’s intro. “Our girls found each other / And meticulously prepared a feast for our ears,” she says on the track.
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“Access All Areas: Unlocked is finally out and we can’t wait for everyone to listen,” FLO said in a press release. “We really admire these artists and couldn’t be happier to have them feature on our new music. From the lyricism, to the harmonies to the sweet melodies and flows they all delivered! This is only a mini deluxe, so stay seated for more.”
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The band has also shared the music video for single “In My Bag” featuring GloRilla, who landed a top 10-charting effort on Billboard’s Top Album Sales chart Oct. 26 with her Glorious project. Describing their experience of working with the Memphis rapper, FLO said jointly, “In My Bag is such a special song to us. It’s a manifestation … singing it live for our fans has been incredible because everyone in the room feels empowered and seen!”
They continued: “Glo is such a deserving, incredibly talented and sweet artist who we really admire. When she said she’d love to do a verse on In My Bag we were so happy because we knew she would kill it! We’ve loved working with her and are looking forward to everyone watching the video we shot together in Atlanta.”
Comprised of vocalists Jorja Douglas, Stella Quaresma and Renée Downer, FLO first emerged in May 2022 with the release of single “Cardboard Box,” which landed high-profile co-signs from SZA and Victoria Monét. The group has since gone on to win the BRITs Rising Star award, feature on a remix of Stormzy’s “Hide and Seek” and top the BBC Sound Of poll. In March 2023, FLO’s Missy Elliott collaboration “Fly Girl” reached the Top 40 of the Official U.K. Singles Chart.
In March 2025, FLO will tour the U.K. and Europe in support of Access All Areas. Along the way, they perform at London’s O2 Academy Brixton, as well as sold-out shows in Paris and Cologne. Tickets can be found the group’s website.
If you’re filming a video for a song called “The Karate Kid” it just makes sense to cast the OG Daniel LaRusso in it. On Tuesday morning (Nov. 19), Coldplay revealed the visual for their song named in honor of actor Ralph Macchio’s most beloved character, which appears on the expanded Full Moon edition of the band’s recent Billboard 200 No. 1 album, Moon Music.
The Chris Candy-directed clip was filmed in Melbourne, Australia during Coldplay’s recent run of stadium shows. According to a release announcing the video, the band reached out to Cobra Kai star Macchio after he said he thought “The Karate Kid” was a “beautiful track” when it was released last month.
“When Chris Martin pops up on your FaceTime asking you to help create a video to accompany what I found to be a beautifully emotional and poignant song – one inspired by a film I made over 40 years ago – there was only one answer,” said Macchio, 63, about filming the clip in which he plays a down-and-out busker. “Having the opportunity to join Coldplay in Australia at one of their legendary live shows to collaborate on this music video was nothing short of a career highlight. The synergy with Chris, the band and our director Chris Candy was as pure as any I’ve experienced. I’m excited to share this with the world.”
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The video opens with Macchio schlepping his busking gear to a park, where he sets up a perky “Shine On” sign and some dancing stuffed animals as he sits down at his keyboard to croon the earnest ballad. “As much as I could, as much as I tried/ I just couldn’t seem to find the light/ The trees for the wood, the wars left and right/ Umbrellas with the rain in,” the actor lip synchs as everyone around him either ignores his playing or laughs as they walk by.
Dejected, Macchio decides to try a different approach, shifting to tap dancing for his dinner as Coldplay singer Chris Martin croons, “Maybe we could share the rain/ Maybe we could dance again/ Maybe we could make the sky turn blue/ Oh Daniel knows how to make a dream/ How to make a dream come true/ Oh Daniel/ Could I be the one for you?”
When he chances into a ticket for a Coldplay show, Macchio hoists up a sign that says “Let Me Help” when Martin is suddenly hit with vocal issues. The actor triumphantly takes center stage in front of the massive crowd for his moment in the sun to end the uplifting clip.
Fans were losing their minds during the Oct. 31 show at Melbourne’s Marvel Stadium, where Martin did a fine acting job pretending to lose his voice as he welcomed surprise guest Macchio to the stage. Macchio first played karate newbie LaRusso in the original Karate Kid movie in 1986, as well as in the 1986 and 1989 sequels and returned to his signature role in 2018 for the Cobra Kai series, now in its sixth season; he is also slated to star in the upcoming Karate Kid: Legends film due out next year.
Coldplay is on a break from their nearly three-year Music of the Spheres stadium tour, with the group slated to hit the road again on Jan. 9 with the first of four shows at Zayed Sports City Stadium in Abu Dhabi. After stops in India, Hong Kong and Seoul, the tour will return to the U.S. for the final run of summer 2025 North American dates beginning on May 31 at Stanford Stadium in Stanford, CA. The billion-dollar outing will conclude next August/Sept. with a 10-show run at Wembley Stadium in London.
Watch “The Karate Kid” video below.
Robbie Williams has penned an open letter to former Take That manager Nigel Martin-Smith, following claims he made regarding Williams’ past drug use in new BBC docuseries Boybands Forever.
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Both the British pop icon and Martin-Smith appeared as talking heads in the first installment of the three-part series, which aired on Saturday (Nov. 16). The episode focused on the mental and financial struggles that members of Take That, East 17, A1 and Damage dealt with at the height of their popularity.
Martin-Smith managed Take That in the 1990s when Williams was a member of the group, before the latter quit in 1995 and went on to launch an enduring, successful career as a solo act. Across three decades, he has gone on to earn 13 No. 1s on the U.K Albums Chart and 18 BRIT Awards, including the prestigious BRITs Icon accolade in 2017.
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In the documentary, Williams addresses his history of drug use, saying that at one point he was made out to be “evil.” Martin-Smith goes on to say that the singer was “smart and quite clever” to blame his issues on being “in this band where he couldn’t have girlfriends or couldn’t go out.”
Williams also responded to these assertions via a lengthy statement posted to Instagram on Nov. 17. “I was equal parts terrified and excited to be sharing a screen with you again,” he said, addressing Martin-Smith. “Excited to see where we both are on this journey and terrified in case old emotions would be triggered and I’d still be in a place of anger, hurt of fear.
“As it happens, it would appear that time has done its thing and I guess the wisdom it brings has taken its mop to a few nooks and crannies here and there. I guess not every nook has been bleached, though.”
He then highlighted Martin-Smith’s comments about his drug use at the time. “My response to the warped world that surrounded me is solely my own. How I chose to self-medicate is and was something that I will be monitoring and dealing with for the whole of my life,” Williams wrote. “It’s part of my makeup and I would have the same malady had I been a taxi driver. I just got there quicker due to having the finances while trying in vain to counteract the turbulence of pop stardom’s matrix-bending washing machine.”
Encouraging Martin-Smith to take accountability for some of the struggles Take That faced behind the scenes, Williams continued: “Everyone will understand and appreciate that level of self-reflection. It’s OK to admit your shortcomings. No one is going to sue you for not knowing or understand[ing] the psychological effects everything was having on everyone.”
Martin-Smith has not yet responded to Williams’ open letter.
Williams’ comments follows a similar post he made about the late Liam Payne, remarking that boy bands need sufficient emotional support and that there needs to be a push for something to be “done in his name to make things better.” The One Direction star died after falling from the third floor of a hotel in Buenos Aires, Argentina, on Oct. 16.
Shortly after Payne’s death, a petition was launched calling for a new law to safeguard the mental well-being of young artists. It has currently received more than 149,000 signatures.
Elsewhere, the compilation soundtrack to Williams’ biopic Better Man will be released on Dec. 26 in the U.K. and Ireland, and on Jan. 17 in the U.S. and Canada. Featuring his greatest hits, Better Man will tell the story of Williams’ life from his childhood in Stoke-on-Trent, England, through to his fame with Take That and subsequent solo career. Williams will be played by a CGI monkey throughout the film directed by Michael Gracey (The Greatest Showman).
Through summer 2025, Williams will embark on a lengthy tour across the U.K. and Europe, including a night at London’s 60,000-capacity Emirates Stadium. Support will come from Warrington rock band The Lottery Winners, as well as Rag ‘N’ Bone Man on select dates.
Sabrina Carpenter might’ve let Jack Antonoff make Short n’ Sweet with her, but she’d rather Margaret Qualley make her “Juno.”
At the final U.S. stop of the 25-year-old pop star’s Short n’ Sweet Tour at the Kia Forum in Los Angeles Monday (Nov. 18), the producer — who collaborated with Carpenter on much of her Billboard 200-topping sixth studio album — made a surprise appearance. During one of the “Espresso” artist’s nightly gimmicks of “arresting” a guest for being “too hot,” Antonoff came on the big screens and shrugged.
“This is super awkward,” Carpenter joked from on stage as the Bleachers frontman shook his head inconspicuously, as captured by fan videos. “I’m sure you’re probably really good at [producing]. In fact, I’m so confident you could produce someone even hotter than you.”
That’s when the cameras panned over to the Maid actress, who is married to the former Fun band member. “This right there, ladies and gentlemen, this is a hottie with substance,” said Carpenter, referencing Qualley’s critically acclaimed new movie, The Substance. “Whoever made you, God bless them. God bless your genetics.”
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After Qualley blew a kiss at Carpenter, the singer passed a pair of kinky handcuffs to the couple before performing her NSFW Short n’ Sweet fan-favorite “Juno.” The scene is one that’s played out at many of the Girl Meets World alum’s shows this year, with Carpenter previously arresting Saturday Night Live‘s Marcello Hernandez — who arrived dressed as his viral Domingo character — and Stranger Things‘ Millie Bobby Brown.
With the U.S. leg of her trek in the books, Carpenter will next hit the road in March for a European leg of Short n’ Sweet dates. The tour kicked off in March following the “Feather” artist’s stint on Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour.
Carpenter and Antonoff collaborated on a number of Short n’ Sweet tracks together, including Billboard Hot 100-topper “Please Please Please,” “Sharpest Tool” and “Slim Pickins.” The LP went on to become the former’s first-ever No. 1 album, about which the producer recently told Billboard, “No one deserves it more.”
“Sabrina’s been quietly growing, and her albums have been getting more awesome, and she’s been honing her sound and performances,” he added in the October interview. “It’s not like she just popped onto the scene — this has been a decade of grinding toward it.”