R&B/Hip-Hop
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Sexyy Red released her third project In Sexyy We Trust on Friday (May 24) via Open Shift/gamma. Her frequent collaborator Tay Keith — who has produced her biggest hits like “Pound Town,” which earned both artists their first Billboard Hot 100 entry with the Nicki Minaj-assisted “Pound Town 2” remix, and Sexyy’s first Hot 100 […]
Vince Staples released his Dark Times album on Thursday night (May 23) via Blacksmith Recordings and Def Jam Recordings. Dark Times is Staples’ seventh and final project on Def Jam. “Eleven years ago, a young, uncertain version of myself was given an opportunity with Def Jam Recordings. I released my first project under their banner, […]
Three weeks after the cancellation of the Lovers & Friends Festival in Las Vegas, the prayers of Usher fans are being answered. Billboard can exclusively report that the eight-time Grammy Award winner will now perform his classic album Confessions during a special one-night-only performance at the 2024 Essence Festival of Culture. Presented by Coca-Cola, the annual four-day event will take place July 4-7 in New Orleans at Caesars Superdome.
Confessions’ 20th birthday isn’t the only anniversary being saluted that weekend. Under the theme of celebrating 30 years of “We Love Us,” Essence itself is marking the festival’s own milestone birthday with a star-studded lineup that includes R&B/pop icon Janet Jackson, a special performance by Birdman & Friends Presents 30 Years of Cash Money Millionaires, three-time Grammy winner Victoria Monét and eight-time Essence Festival veteran Charlie Wilson. Tank and the Bangas will also be part of a New Orleans takeover with a curated performance alongside special guests and fellow New Orleans natives Teedra Moses, HaSizzle and Dawn Richard.
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Another highlight will be a tribute to Frankie Beverly & Maze, who reigned as the festival’s closing act during its first 15 years. “As we commemorate this year’s festival, Essence will give flowers to the entertainers who started the all-white Sunday-night tradition,” states the press release of the tribute that will also include a “passing of the torch moment” curated by Grammy-winning songwriter/producer Bryan-Michael Cox. The series of evening concerts will be hosted by Keke Palmer, Pretty Vee, Big Tigger, Punkie Johnson and Kenny Burns with special DJ sets from Raj Smoove, DJ Clark Kent and DJ Beverly Bond.
DJ D-Nice will bring his popular Club Quarantine to the Superdome as well. That multi-genre lineup will feature Method Man, Sheila E., Big Boi, Donell Jones, Tweet, Machel Montano and Lloyd. Each night will also showcase specially curated performances that include Grammy-winning band The Roots & Friends featuring Ari Lennox, Mickey Guyton, special guest T-Pain and the reunion of R&B supergroup TGT (Tyrese, Ginuwine and Tank). Rounding out the list of evening performers: Ayra Starr, SWV, Busta Rhymes and Jacquees. More talent will be announced in the coming weeks.
“For three decades, the Essence Festival of Culture has blossomed into a pillar of our culture,” said festival vp Hakeem Holmes in a statement. He continued in part, “As the festival approaches its 30-year milestone, we are excited to welcome and celebrate with all of our closest family and friends around the world. It promises to be an enriching four days of daytime and evening experiences. Last year, we proudly generated $316 million for New Orleans and Louisiana, and we look forward to another year of new memories. This is your formal invitation to join us … for a celebration of unparalleled Black joy.”
Major partners in the 2024 Essence Festival of Culture include AT&T, L’Oréal Groupe, McDonald’s USA and Target Corporation. For more information and updates, visit ESSENCEFestival.com.
For the first time in the league’s history, the WNBA will be expanding outside the United States by adding a team in Toronto starting with the 2026 season. So naturally, the Global Ambassador for the Toronto Raptors was in attendance. Drake — spotted out in public for the first time since his ugly feud with […]
In the third episode of ‘Billboard Unfiltered,’ Billboard staffers Damien Scott, Carl Lamarre and Trevor Anderson discuss the aftermath of the 2016 video of Diddy physically assaulting ex-girlfriend Cassie Ventura as well as new sexual assault allegations against him and how this will forever tarnish his legacy. They also debate whether Lauryn Hill’s singular album […]
Metro Boomin has already unleashed two albums with Future and teased a third unknown project, but the grind doesn’t stop there for the St. Louis native.
While in Egypt for a concert at the Great Pyramids of Giza in April, Spotify caught up with Young Metro where he divulged his plans for the year, which include more collaborations with The Weeknd, who’s working on his Dawn FM follow up.
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“The songs we did with The Weeknd, frequent collaborator of mine, ‘Low Life’ I feel like that was the beginning of our journey to now,” he said while thinking back to their first collab alongside Future that appeared on Pluto’s 2106 EVOL album (“Low Life” reached No. 16 on the Hot 100). “Which was with Future so I feel like it was just a full-circle moment.”
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He continued: “For him to appear between the two albums like four times. That’s big. You know, that’s family. Me and him working on a lot of stuff. You know, we cooking up for his new album. I know a lot of people are gonna be real pleased and even more happy.”
The Weeknd’s signature falsetto was sprinkled throughout Metro and Future’s We Don’t Trust You and We Still Don’t Trust You albums, both of which topped the Billboard 200.
“I really took it personally, in the past couple years, seeing different outlets and people sh—ing on hip-hop, saying ‘hip-hop is dying, hip-hop is this, it’s been this long since there was a hip-hop No. 1,’” Metro told Billboard Arabia earlier in May. “Just trying to spin that whole hip-hop is dying narrative, at the same time trying to celebrate 50 years of hip-hop. I felt they were trying to wash our genre and culture away. I’m still in the game and I take it personal. Those kind of things disturbed me, at the same time, it was the kind of fuel I needed.”
Metro Boomin headed to the Middle East to rock the Kundalini Grand Pyramids with a two-hour set for quite possibly the most unique concert he’s ever put on and it all went down in Egypt on April 30.
“I’ve always wanted to see this [the pyramids] with my own eyes, but I could never even fathom doing a show and performing in front of something as crazy and legendary and history as this,” Metro said. “I’m grateful for everyone, for the whole country.”
It’s been over two years since The Weeknd’s Dawn FM album — which reached No. 2 on the Billboard 200 — and it sounds like he’s back in album mode, and there could be more heat in the stash from Abel and Metro.
Watch the clip below.
What if we told you one of the greatest clips on the Internet involved Safaree doing the robot? We’ll get to that in a few, but first lets talk about what Safaree recently posted on X. Nicki Minaj’s ex-boyfriend and former collaborator took to the social network and questioned what he was doing in Nicki’s […]
05/23/2024
Rappers have been going too far for a long time.
05/23/2024
Yasiin Bey hopped on Instagram Live a few days back and kicked a freestyle over Metro Boomin’s “Like That” beat. The socially conscience rapper did his variations of what he called the “Petty Big 3” rapping, “Greedy, seedy, and creepy/ Corny, horny and boring/Bougie, goofy and moody/Foolish, ruthless and clueless/Variations on a petty Big 3/ […]
Tommy Richman’s “Million Dollar Baby” is the No. 1 song on the TikTok Billboard Top 50 chart for a second straight week, while Kendrick Lamar hits the top five, and a pair of Future and Metro Boomin tracks debut within the top 10 of the May 25-dated tally.
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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 May 13-19. Activity on TikTok is not included in Billboard charts except for the TikTok Billboard Top 50.
A flurry of trends and viral usages continues to contribute to the success of “Million Dollar Baby” on TikTok, as previously reported, after its virality was initially kicked off thanks to a tease of the tune on the app on April 13.
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“Million Dollar Baby” concurrently falls 2-3 on the multimetric Billboard Hot 100, albeit with a rise in consumption; it’s the chart’s greatest gainer in both streams and sales, racking up 66.3 million official U.S. streams (up 14%) and 7,000 downloads (up 17%) in the May 10-16 tracking period, according to Luminate.
It reigns over Lay Bankz’s “Tell Ur Girlfriend,” No. 2 on the TikTok Billboard Top 50 for a second week after a previous three-week reign, and Shaboozey’s “A Bar Song (Tipsy),” which lifts one spot to a new peak of No. 3.
Laila!’s “Like That!” rounds out the top five, but one position ahead of it at No. 4 is Lamar’s “Not Like Us,” which in its second week on the list jumps 9-4. One of the more viral uploads featuring the Drake diss in recent days shows Billie Eilish rapping along to the song’s “they not like us” refrain, and the majority of the top-performing creations either express surprise at the lyrical content or show users dancing along to the track.
Like “Million Dollar Baby,” “Not Like Us” is also up in overall consumption despite dropping 1-2 on the Hot 100, landing a 2% boost in streams to 72 million.
A pair of songs from Future and Metro Boomin’s joint album We Don’t Trust You debut in the TikTok Billboard Top 50’s top 10 after becoming available on TikTok following Universal Music Group’s new deal with the app. “Type Shit,” featuring the rapper and producer plus Travis Scott and Playboi Carti, starts at No. 6, while “Fried (She a Vibe)” bows at No. 9.
The lead trend for “Type Shit” is one in which a creator responds to the prompt “You was ugly anyway” with a CapCut of themselves since, while “Fried” largely includes a lip-synch motif to the “I’m fried, yes, fried/ I’m f–ked up” lyric.
There’s one other song in the top 10 of the TikTok Billboard Top 50 for the first time: Adrianne Lenker‘s “Not a Lot, Just Forever” leaps 30-7 in its second week on the survey. It’s the second top 10 for Lenker, whose “Anything” reached No. 8 in April (her band Big Thief has an additional top 20 with “Vampire Empire” in January).
Like “Anything,” “Not a Lot, Just Forever” is featured on Lenker’s 2020 album Songs. Its current prevailing trend utilizes the “Not a lot, just forever/ Intertwined, sewn together” lyric to show off bracelets and other jewelry users created, as well as one where an app shows what their pets’ “bouquets” would be.
“Not a Lot, Just Forever” sports a 21% jump in streams to 946,000 in the latest tracking week.
A pair of songs just outside the top 10 that could soon challenge for that region debut at Nos. 12 and 13, respectively, in Tinashe’s “Nasty” and Eilish’s “Blue.” “Nasty,” originally released April 12, has become viral on TiKTok via a dance trend, and “Blue,” premiered May 17 on Eilish’s new album Hit Me Hard and Soft, benefits from a lip-synch video from Eilish herself to usher in the LP’s premiere, while others either do their own lip-synch clips to the song or talk about how the tune was initially an unreleased track called “True Blue” before being reworked for the new album.
“Nasty” bursts 56% in streams to 1.6 million, while the full impact of “Blue” will be known on the June 1-dated Billboard charts.
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.