R&B/Hip-Hop
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Smino released his fourth studio album Maybe in Nirvana on Friday (Dec. 6) via his independent label Zero Fatigue. “I actually just said ‘maybe in nirvana’ in one of the songs — but honestly, it was an album I was being indecisive about putting out. And I was just like … when I’m in a […]
Stephen A. Smith has a message for Drake. During his YouTube series The Stephen A. Smith Show, the sports media personality revealed that the Toronto rapper may be upset with him about previous comments he made about his battle with Kendrick Lamar and that Drake should answer “Not Like Us” with a song instead of […]
Cam’ron has a new interview series entitled Talk With Flee and his first guest was his old foe 50 Cent and, of course, the conversation was entertaining. One of the topics they broached was that of an old friend of theirs in Jay-Z. Both have had hot and cold relationships with the Brooklyn rapper and […]
Fresh off an exciting NBA season that saw him lead the Boston Celtics to their 18th championship, Jaylen Brown is embracing new creative heights. The Finals MVP has been making waves both on and off the court, proving he’s more than just a basketball star. Known for his powerhouse presence on the hardwood, Brown recently showcased his versatility by dropping his debut single, “Just Do It,” featuring A$AP Ferg this past August. The track, he says, was born out of post-championship celebrations. “We were just vibing after the parade, freestyling, and decided to hit the studio,” Brown shared with Billboard. “It was celebration mode, and the song came naturally.”
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Though music might seem like a detour, Brown sees it as another way to express himself. “Basketball is poetry in motion, and music is just another form of that,” he continued, while drawing parallels between his passions. His laid-back yet poetic sound reflects a deep love for creativity that extends to his other ventures, including 741, his self-funded sneaker brand that began after Brown turned down over $50 million in endorsements from major sneaker companies.
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Brown also revealed to Billboard that this venture marks a deeper exploration into his creative side. Despite the complexities of the music industry, he’s open to future collaborations, naming artists like Burna Boy and Kanye West as inspirations.
But perhaps his most impactful work lies in his 7uice Foundation, where he addresses educational inequities in underrepresented communities. By introducing kids to STEM and STEAM opportunities, Brown aims to create lasting change. In a time when many athletes are diversifying their brands, Brown’s journey stands out for its depth and purpose. Whether through music, design, or philanthropy, he’s crafting a legacy that goes far beyond the hardwood.
In this exclusive interview with Billboard, Brown reflects on his journey, balancing basketball with his creative pursuits, and the driving mission behind his work: using his platform to inspire change while staying true to himself.
Your new song, “Just Do It,” with A$AP Ferg is a vibe. How did you guys link up for the track?
We were at dinner, just vibing after the parade. Ferg came down, and there was a Chris Brown concert that week. After dinner, we went straight to the studio and started freestyling. It just happened naturally.
Is this your entry into music and do you see yourself doing more?Part of me wants to say one and done. I’ve got tremendous respect for people in music, but learning about streaming, licensing, and samples—it’s a lot. The industry gave me a headache, but music allows me to express myself differently than basketball.
Why did you title it “Just Do It?”
It just fit. We’d just won a championship — that’s what we did. It’s my way of telling the haters I’m having a great time.
If you had to describe your sound in a few words, how would you define it?
Laid-back, chill, a little poetic. I grew up writing poetry, and that influences my sound. My voice has a deep tone, but it’s calm and reflective.
Who were some of your musical influences growing up?
Kanye, Lil Wayne, 50 Cent, Kendrick, and Future are my top five. From an OG perspective, Tupac, Biggie, and OutKast were big for me too.
Did you ever see yourself making music as a career, or was your heart always set on basketball?
Never thought I’d make music, but I love it. It’s a good hobby — keeps you out of trouble. Winning the championship made me say, “Why not?”
Would you be open to more collaborations if the right opportunities came up? If you had more free time, I think people would love to hear more music from you.
Yeah, I’d love to work with people who inspire me — like Burna Boy, Chris Brown, Kanye. We’ll see. If we win another championship, I’ll definitely drop something.
Your 7uice Foundation is making a real impact. What’s its mission, and what kind of work are you most proud of?
We’re focused on education inequalities. I grew up in a household where education was non-negotiable—my mom and her family were all teachers. We expose kids from underrepresented communities to STEM and STEAM, helping them explore new opportunities.
You launched 741 as a self-funded, self-designed brand. Why bet on yourself instead of taking those $50 million endorsement deals?
I’ve been on a creative journey, from designing with Yeezy to starting my own brand. I wanted full control and to create solutions for athletes who face challenges in this space. It’s more than sneakers; it’s a platform for innovation.
What’s been the biggest challenge so far of designing your own brand?
Delays. From switching factories to fixing minor details, it’s been a learning curve. But every day, my team focuses on incremental growth.
You’ve also invested in Hapbee, a wellness tech company. What drew you to that space?
Wellness is essential as an athlete. Hapbee uses frequency technology to improve focus, sleep, and recovery without putting anything in your body. It’s cutting-edge, and it works. I use it all the time—it’s been a game changer for me.
With everything — basketball, music, 741, and tech — how do you balance it all?
Discipline. I stay focused, avoid distractions, and prioritize what matters. Getting good sleep, limiting accessibility, and remembering the legacy I want to leave keeps me grounded.
Ice-T is a multi-hyphenate already, but the gangsta rap legend might want to consider adding diplomat to his extensive resumé. On The Tonight Show on Wednesday (Dec. 4), Ice sat down with Jimmy Fallon to explain how he managed to get two of the most bitterly divided men in rock to finally agree on something.
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Falllon noted that the new Body Count album features a cover of Pink Floyd’s iconic 1979 song “Comfortably Numb,” which Ice-T somehow got clearance to record despite the rock band never granting such clearance due to the long-running animosity between former singer/lyricist/bassist Roger Waters and singer/guitarist David Gilmour.
“Not only David Gilmour, but David Gilmour and Roger Waters,” Ice-T confirmed. “Who haven’t agreed on anything in 20 years!” Explaining that rappers are always listening to old tracks to find something they can sample or rap over, Ice-T said he always loved Waters’ rumbling bass part on the original, so he wrote new lyrics to rap over the song from the landmark The Wall album.
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“We lay it out and then I just don’t think about the politics. So they go, ‘Okay, you gotta send this to Pink Floyd to get it approved,’ and everybody’s like, ‘That’s not gonna happen,’” he said. So, he sent it to the band’s publishers, who immediately said no, explaining that Pink Floyd doesn’t allow samples or covers. “So it was dead in the water, I was ready to trash the song,” he said of the update that features his new narrative about his fears for humanity’s future amid perpetual war and strife.
But then his manager found a way to reach Gilmour’s manager, who sent it along to his client, who was “blown away” by the new lyrics. “He said, ‘I totally approve it’” Ice-T told Fallon of the unexpected thumbs-up. Then, they had to get Waters’ approval, with Ice-T admitting that he had no idea what the origin is of the decades long beef between the two men.
So, Waters listened and asked who was singing on the track, and when he heard it was the rapper, he approved it as well. “So now you’ve got two people on opposites sides that approved the song, which made me feel really good, ’cause that means that the song is honest and real,” Ice-T said. Then came the cherry on top: Gilmour said he wanted to perform on the cover and appear in the video as well.
“Body Count’s version of ‘Comfortably Numb’ is quite radical, but the words really struck me,” said Gilmour, 78, in a statement about the new version featuring his guitar work when the single was released in September. “It astonishes me that a tune I wrote almost 50 years ago is back with this great new approach. They’ve made it relevant again. The initial contact from Ice-T was for permission to use the song, but I thought I might offer to play on it as well. I like the new lyrics, they’re talking about the world we’re living in now, which is quite scary.”
The rapper also told Fallon about celebrating daughter Chanel’s ninth birthday on Thanksgiving and described how his wife Coco “does all” the planning for the Christmas holiday. “If it wasn’t for her there wouldn’t be no holidays as far as Ice-T is concerned,” he said. Ice then dropped a stone cold fact that might get him in trouble with the Recording Academy.
“I won a Grammy recently and I’m like, ‘It didn’t come with no money, right? It’s just a Grammy,” he said of his 2021 best metal performance award for “Bum-Rush” from Body Count’s Carnivore album. “And then all my boys were like, ‘I want a Grammy!’ So I had to actually go make duplicate Grammys — I don’t even know if that’s okay, but I did it — and it cost me money to win the Grammy!”
The long-running Law & Order: Special Victims Unit co-star later returned for a performance of Body Count’s metal-edged cover of “Comfortably Numb,” filling the Tonight Show studio with the strains of their ominous take on the Pink Floyd classic. Bathed in green light, his eyes obscured behind black wrap-around shades, Ice sang/spoke the iconic “hello, hello, is anybody out there/ can anybody hear me?” over pealing guitars and down-tuned, rumbling bass.
Body Count’s cover appears on their eighth studio album, Merciless, which features collaborations with death metal howler Corpsegrinder, Light the Torch singer Howard Jones and Soulfly vocalist/guitarist Max Cavalera.
Watch Ice-T talk “Comfortably Numb” and perform on The Tonight Show below.
It looks like Drake has given Kendrick Lamar‘s GNX a listen.
Two weeks after the Compton rapper surprise-dropped his new album — and amid an ongoing feud that recently culminated in two legal filings by Drizzy — the “God’s Plan” artist poked fun at one of the LP’s most viral lyrics. On “TV Off,” Lamar barrels onto the track with a loud “MUSTARRRRRD!” battle cry to honor producer Mustard, and while watching a recent Los Pollos TV livestream, Drake put his own spin on it.
After commenting “We need a donut emoji in the chat,” according to XXL and multiple other outlets, the Canadian hip-hop star wrote, “CUSTAAAARRRRRD.”
The trolling comes amid Lamar’s reign over the Billboard charts in GNX‘s opening week, with the album debuting at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 and launching seven of its tracks to the top 10 of the Billboard Hot 100. With “Squabble Up” at the top, “TV Off” occupies the No. 2 spot, while “Luther” featuring SZA, “Wacced Out Murals” and “Hey Now” sit at Nos. 3-5, respectively.
The LP dropped Nov. 22. Three days later, Drizzy’s Frozen Moments LLC filed a legal action against his and Lamar’s shared publisher, Universal Music Group, and Spotify over allegations that the two companies conspired to artificially boost the popularity of K-Dot’s Drake diss track “Not Like Us” through bots, payola and other methods. UMG quickly denied the accusations, calling them “offensive and untrue” in a statement to Billboard, adding, “No amount of contrived and absurd legal arguments in this pre-action submission can mask the fact that fans choose the music they want to hear.”
The next day, Drake initiated a second action, this time alleging iHeartRadio accepted payments from UMG to promote Lamar’s song on air. The second filing also accused UMG of defamation for allowing the release of “Not Like Us,” despite its lyrics “falsely” branding Drake a “certified pedophile” and “predator.”
The filings mark an unprecedented escalation of the two musicians’ ongoing beef, which exploded into the court of public opinion in the spring when Drake and Lamar began lobbing rapid-fire diss and response tracks at one another. The former kicked things off with “Push Ups” and “Taylor Made Freestyle,” to which Dot fired back with “Euphoria,” “Meet the Grahams,” “Not Like Us” and more.
As for the Mustard of it all, the producer is celebrating his successes on the charts this week. “I’m just getting started,” he wrote on Instagram Dec. 2 while highlighting the high positions of “TV Off” and “Hey Now” on the Hot 100.
Stepz’s “Rock” lifts a spot to No. 1 on the TikTok Billboard Top 50 chart dated Dec. 7, becoming the rapper’s first leader on a Billboard ranking.
The TikTok Billboard Top 50 is a weekly ranking of the most popular songs on TikTok in the United States based on creations, video views and user engagement. The latest chart reflects activity from Nov. 25-Dec. 1. Activity on TikTok is not included in Billboard charts except for the TikTok Billboard Top 50.
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“Rock” bowed on the TikTok Billboard Top 50 dated Nov. 9 at No. 29 before spiking to No. 2 on the Nov. 30 survey. It lifts to No. 1 on the continued strength of a dance challenge.
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Stepz himself has contributed to usages of “Rock,” though his participation extends to other songs within the chart’s top 10; earlier in the week, he also contributed a dance to the trend for Adele’s “Send My Love (To Your New Lover),” which concurrently blasts 22-8 for its first week in the ranking’s top 10. Adele returns to the top 10 of the chart for the first time since January, when “When We Were Young” reached No. 8.
“Rock” concurrently jumps to 1.3 million official Billboard U.S. chart-eligible streams in the week ending Nov. 28, up 18%, according to Luminate. “Send My Love,” which peaked at No. 8 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 2016, rises 17% to 1.8 million streams.
Gia Margaret’s “Hinoki Wood” lifts 3-2 on the TikTok Billboard Top 50, while GloRilla and Sexyy Red’s “Whatchu Kno About Me,” the previous No. 1, drops to No. 3. “Hinoki Wood” is tied to the chill guy meme/trend, with creators using the song to upload content showcasing how much of a chill person they are, either using their own likenesses or the cartoon dog itself.
“Hinoki Wood” sports a 132% leap in streams to 720,000. It’s her second appearance on a Billboard chart, after the album Romantic Piano spent six weeks on the Classical Crossover Albums list in 2023.
“Bound 2” by Ye (formerly Kanye West) re-enters the TikTok Billboard Top 50 at No. 4 – its highest rank yet, following an appearance at No. 10 last December. Its return at the same time as last year (Dec. 2) is no coincidence; yet again, creators highlight the 2013 song’s “We made it to Thanksgiving/ So maybe we can make it to Christmas” lyric” (the chart’s latest tracking week includes the Nov. 28 Thanksgiving holiday in the U.S.).
Ole 60’s “Thoughts of You” soars into the chart’s top 10 for the first time, vaulting 41-6 in its second week. The country band’s recently released tune (it came out in September) surges via a timely lyric “Oh, eyes in line and hands together/ We almost made it through the weather/ Looked up, laughed and said, ‘Where’d November go?’” The trend then features users comparing their November 2023 to their November 2024. Some have begun applying the trend to December as well.
“Thoughts of You” rises to 2 million streams in the week ending Nov. 28, up 40%. The song represents the first country entry in the top 10 of the TikTok Billboard Top 50 since Johnny Cash’s “Folsom Prison Blues” in October.
One other song reaches the top 10 for the first time, and it’s also the week’s top debut: Silento’s “Watch Me,” which bows at No. 9. Released in 2015, the song fits TikTok perfectly, as the track had a corresponding series of dances instructed by the rapper in its lyrics. The latest trend includes the original dance, albeit with some additional flourishes when it features more than one person.
See the full TikTok Billboard Top 50 here. You can also tune in each Friday to SiriusXM’s TikTok Radio (channel 4) to hear the premiere of the chart’s top 10 countdown at 3 p.m. ET, with reruns heard throughout the week.
For the first time in 14 years, Ice Cube has a solo album in the top on Billboard’s Top Rap Albums as Man Down debuts at No. 8 on the chart dated Dec. 7. The set was released Nov. 22 through Lench Mob/Hitmaker Records and earned 20,000 equivalent album units in the U.S. in the tracking week ending Nov. 28, according to Luminate.
Of the first-week figure, album sales contribute 15,000 units, making Man Down the second-highest-selling rap album of the week, behind only Kendrick Lamar’s GNX (32,000). The project also debuts at No. 9 on the all-genre Top Album Sales chart. Five thousand units derive from the streaming sector, representing 13.9 million official on-demand U.S. audio and video streams of the album’s tracks, with a negligible amount of track-equivalent activity. (One unit equals the following levels of consumption: one album sale, 10 individual tracks sold from an album, or 3,750 ad-supported or 1,250 paid/subscription on-demand official audio and video streams for a song on the album.)
Thanks to Man Down, Ice Cube earns his fourth solo top 10 on the Top Rap Albums chart, which launched in 2004. It joins 2006’s Laugh Now, Cry Later (No. 2), 2008’s one-week No. 1 Raw Footage and 2010’s I Am the West (No. 6). Plus, N.W.A., the legendary West Coast hip-hop group whose best known lineup consists of Ice Cube, Dr. Dre, Eazy-E, MC Ren and DJ Yella, had The Best of N.W.A.: The Strength of Street Knowledge peak at No. 25 in 2007.
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Elsewhere, Man Down opens at No. 12 on the Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums chart, Ice Cube’s best start since I Am the West began at No. 7 in 2010. Its arrival gives the rapper his 17th solo appearance on the list, a count that includes five No. 1s. Notably, N.W.A. has charted six titles on the list, with 1991’s Efil4zaggin the highest peaking, at No. 2.
Man Down includes Ice Cube’s current single “It’s My Ego,” which repeats at its No. 28 high on the Rhythmic Airplay chart. Despite no position movement, the song added 39% more plays in the latest tracking week.
The Compton MC has created one of the best catalogs in rap history.
Flavor Flav did not have a holly jolly time at Wednesday night’s (Dec. 4) Rockefeller Center Christmas tree lighting ceremony. The legendary Public Enemy hype man was on hand for the annual holiday tradition and in a since-deleted tweet he said that he was inexplicably booted from the Backstreet Boys’ dressing room by NBC security.
“I feel weird … I was invited to the Rockefeller Tree Lighting tonite and I was escorted to see my boys … THE BACKSTREET BOYS … and we were backstage in their dressing room … security came up to me and says @nbc does not want me in this area and I need to leave,” he wrote.
The 65-year-old rapper said things got even weirder after that. “At the same time,,, their social media woman came up and asked to capture social content,” he wrote. “What did I ever do to NBC or anyone,,?? all I ever do is try to spread joy and love,,, and I think I did that for NBC at the Olympics.”
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That latter comment was especially pointed in light of how ubiquitous Flav was at this summer’s Olympic games in Paris, which were broadcast by NBC. The network gave the PE MC lots of airtime, covering his pledge of cash and gifts to the U.S. Women’s Water Polo team and pick up rent for discus thrower Veronica Fraley, as well as chronicling his hop around from venue-to-venue cheering on the U.S. teams; Flav said afterwards that he wanted to throw his clock in the ring to be an official torchbearer at the 2028 L.A. games.
At press time a spokesperson for NBC had not returned Billboard‘s request for comment and it did not appear as if the BSB had commented on the alleged incident.
Though he removed the initial post, a dejected Flav later returned to X to add, “I deleted the tweet … but my spirit is broken.” A fan replied that they were sorry that happened to him and said NBC was wrong in reportedly asking him to leave, adding that the BSB “should have spoken up” about the incident. Flav assured them that “they spoke up for me,,, they sure did.” The New York native also later shared a video in which he was seen having a good time at the tree lighting, counting down to the big moment, writing, “Christmas in the city … ain’t nothing like the Rockefeller tree lighting.”
See Flav’s tweets below.
I deleted the tweet,,, but my spirit is broken.— FLAVOR FLAV (@FlavorFlav) December 5, 2024
They spoke up for me,,, they sure did.— FLAVOR FLAV (@FlavorFlav) December 5, 2024