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Despite rumors of beef between Young Thug and Gunna, Thug’s father, Jeffery Williams Sr., continues to publicly support Gunna while his son is embroiled in a RICO trial.
During Gunna’s Bittersweet Tour stop at Atlanta’s State Farm Arena on Tuesday (June 11), Thug’s dad could be seen in the VIP pit in front of the stage enjoying the Atlanta rapper’s performance of his and Thugger’s song “Ski” from the YSL compilation album Slime Language 2.
With a big smile on his face, Thug Sr. raps along with the song’s chorus while doing the #SkiChallenge as the crowd around him goes crazy.
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Back in December 2022, Gunna agreed to a so-called Alford plea, which allows a defendant in a trial to enter a formal admission of guilt while still maintaining their innocence. He was released from jail with time served and probation conditions that include 500 hours of community service.
“While I have agreed to always be truthful, I want to make it perfectly clear that I have NOT made any statements, have NOT been interviewed, have NOT cooperated, have NOT agreed to testify or be a witness for or against any party in the case and have absolutely NO intention of being involved in the trial process in any way,” the rapper said in a statement the day of his release in 2022.
Thug’s father has confirmed on multiple occasions that he still supports Gunna. Last December, during an interview with Infamous Sylvia, Williams Sr. adamantly defended the rapper, saying, “I love Gunna… Let me try to help the attorney clarify that a little simpler. Gunna hasn’t done anything whatsoever that can hurt us on this case, period.”
When asked about Lil Baby telling a DJ to stop playing his “Drip Too Hard” collab with Gunna during a concert and saying, “F—k the rats, turn this s—t off,” he reiterated his position on the matter. “He need to shut the f—k up ’cause he don’t know what’s going on,” he told Infamous Sylvia in another interview. “Ask Lil Baby has he ever came to a court date?”
Recently, one of Thug’s lawyers in the ongoing RICO trial was held in contempt and sentenced to 20 days in jail. However, the Georgia Supreme Court granted an emergency motion, pausing the jail sentence until they review the controversial decision. Prior to that, a witness called by the prosecution went viral for referring to Young Thug’s song “Lifestyle” as a “banger.”
Watch the clip of Young Thug’s father dancing at Gunna’s Atlanta show below:
In the sixth episode of Billboard Unfiltered, Billboard staffers Damien Scott, Trevor Anderson and Kyle Denis dive into whether or not Kendrick Lamar will perform “Not Like Us” live at his one-day event, The Pop Out — Ken and Friends, on Juneteenth. They also talk about Rihanna’s continuous tease of R9, whether she’ll ever release it and why it’s taken so long. They break down Summer Jam’s cultural significance, how younger and older artists need to perform at music festivals and more!
Kyle Dennis:We got to keep the older guys on these stages because by and large, for the male side at least, they’re still better performers.
Damien Scott:I’m excited to see him, but I’m more excited to see him perform “Not Like Us,” and then see, like, a bunch of West Coast artists just go crazy.
Trevor Anderson:She said she’s coming back with R9. Are we foolish enough to hope that it’s coming anytime soon? Welcome back to a new episode of Billboard Unfiltered. Of course, I’m Trevor Anderson. Got a new face over here. Want to introduce Kyle Denis to y’all.
Damien Scott:Young shooter out here.
Trevor Anderson:He is one of the great wonder kids of his generation.
Trevor Anderson:Of course we got the goat, Damien Scott, here as well.
Damien Scott: D–n. Wonder kid. That’s a lot. Wow.
Trevor Anderson:Yo, yo, yo, Kyle’s got a name here. I’m telling you. He’s, you know, he’s got following. We know he’s got plenty of opinions, thoughts.
Kyle Denis:The price going up a little bit.
Trevor Anderson: I’m telling you, I’m telling you. So obviously a big week for us. Let’s dive right into it. Firstly, want to talk about something that happened a couple of days ago. Method Man out here talking after the Summer Jam performance, had a little bit to say on Instagram after that, saying that it wasn’t really his crowd at all.
Keep watching to learn more!
Tyla joined popular streamer Kai Cenat for a livestream in March surrounding the release of her eponymous debut album, and when Cenat asked to go on a date with the South African singer, she curved him.
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“We friends, though,” she replied when attempting to let him down easy. However, the friend-zoning took on a life of us its own in the last few months and has continued to pop up around Kai.
Kevin Hart even made a “we friends tho” sign for Kai Cenat when he showed up at his house for their sleepover stream with Druski earlier this week.
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Tyla made her debut on The Breakfast Club on Thursday (June 13), where Charlamagne Tha God asked her about the viral curving of the streamer.
“Guys, the thing stretched,” she said, which drew a laugh from CTG. “Don’t put me on the spot, guys. I’ll embarrass [myself].”
Envy hopped in to see if Tyla and Kai joke about the viral exchange, but that doesn’t seem to be the case.
“We don’t really talk about it,” she replied with a chuckle. “We met in New York for the first time around New Year’s. Then I went on the stream, and it actually was really fun.”
Elsewhere in the interview, Charlamagne asked her about the debates regarding Tyla being a “colored person” from South Africa. She refused to answer, looking for help from her team, and her publicist stepped in to have them move on to another question.
Tyla exploded onto the music scene last year with her “Water” single. The amapiano track won best African music performance at the 2024 Grammys, and reached No. 7 on the Billboard Hot 100.
“Once it was booming on TikTok, I was in shock. I was in a different country for something else,” she told the radio show of seeing “Water” blow up.
Watch Tyla’s Breakfast Club interview below. Talk of the Kai Cenat interaction starts just shy of the 16-minute mark.
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Eminem’s “Houdini” launches at No. 1 on Billboard’s Streaming Songs chart dated June 15, the rapper’s first ruler since 2018. “Houdini” debuts with 48.8 million official U.S. streams earned in the week ending June 6, according to Luminate. It gives Eminem his first No. 1 on Streaming Songs, which began in 2013, since “Lucky You,” […]
Dallas Mavericks guard Luka Dončić has a history of complaining to the refs, and apparently, Brian Windhorst has had enough.
On Wednesday (June 12), after Game 3 of the NBA Finals, the basketball journalist made an appearance on SportsCenter With Scott Van Pelt.
After he was asked to respond to Dončić fouling out with four minutes left in the fourth quarter, Windy eviscerated the Slovenian superstar for his decision to not only draw a foul in that moment, but to also complain about the call.
His rant was so epic and so out of character for the usually subdued reporter, fans decided to make a meme out of it by setting the “Meet the Grahams” and “Not Like Us” beats behind his vocals. Watch:
Here’s Windhorst’s full rant:
I thought it was perfect that Luka fell onto the ground there in an unacceptable position to put himself in with four minutes left with five fouls and then immediately looks at the bench and says, ‘You better bleeping challenge it,’ as if it’s the bench’s fault that he just made a terrible play. I’m standing here in the Mavericks’ tunnel. Over there is the Celtics’ tunnel. That’s where the winners are.
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If Luka’s ever gonna be a winner coming out of this tunnel here, he is gonna have to use what’s happened in this Finals as a learning experience. His defensive performance is unacceptable. He is a hole on the court. The Celtics are attacking him. They are ahead in this series because they have attacked him defensively; and you’ve got a situation here where Luka’s complaining about the officiating. They have begged him; they have talked with him; they have pleaded with him. He is costing his team because of how he treats the officials.
He’s a brilliant player, he does so many things well. They are here because of how he did. His performance in this game is unacceptable and the reason why the Mavericks are not gonna win. He’s got to get over this, and the fact that he came out after the game and blamed the officials showed me he’s nowhere close yet.
So maybe over the summer, somebody will get to him because nobody with the Mavericks or anybody else in his life has, and that’s where the Mavericks are at this point. They’re never gonna get to this tunnel with the trophy if he doesn’t improve those aspects of his game.
Luka — who’s only 25 years old and playing in the Finals for the first time — had 27 points, six boards and six dimes, but it wasn’t enough as his team is now starting down the barrel of a 3-0 deficit to the Boston Celtics.
No team in NBA history has yet to come back from being down three games to none in the playoffs.
Here’s a bonus fancam of Windy with 50’s “Many Men” as the soundtrack.
It’s a beautiful thing when NBA and Rap Twitter connect like this.
Kehlani revealed to fans on Thursday (June 13) that sales of shirts promoting their “Next 2 U” single raised more than $555,000 for the Palestinian people, as well as the people of war-torn Sudan and the Democratic Republic of Congo. “This song is about protection, something that institutions have failed to do for the people of Palestine, Congo, and Sudan,” she wrote in an Instagram post on Wednesday.
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“No one got us the way we got each other,” they added. “Me & my team feel overwhelmed with gratitude for yall showing out for this fundraiser. We’re blessed to say we supported artists in the West Bank while raising money for families in Gaza, Sudan and Congo. We’re blessed to say that we are supported by a community standing on business together. We’re blessed to play a small part in a growing tide towards the truth about Palestine.”
The singer concluded the note by saying, “we’re invincible together and I feel ever so inspired by y’all. THANK you for showing out on the streets of DC, with your dollars, with your labor and organizing, with your bodies blocking business as usual.” The note also featured the phrase “I believe that we will win” and a watermelon emoji, which has become a symbol showing support for the Palestinian people.
The $65 T-shirts for the singer’s latest single were made in Bethlehem and printed in Ramallah, cities that are both in the West Bank. The fundraiser comes as the war between Israel and the militant group Hamas drags into its ninth month following Hamas’ surprise Oct. 7 attack on Israel in which officials said more than 1,200 women, children and men were killed and 250 citizens were taken hostage. Israel’s retaliatory strikes have killed more than 36,000 Palestinians to date according to authorities, while displacing more than one million people and causing what aid groups have called the worst famine in recent history.
In the video for “Next 2 U,” Kehlani placed her solidarity with the Palestinian people front-and-center, with an opening message featuring a poem from Palestinian-American writer Hala Alyan and the message “Long Live the Intifada” — a reference to the two violent uprisings in the West Bank and Gaza Strip aimed at ending Israel’s occupation of those territories. The clip also features the singer and their background dancers waving Palestinian flags and wearing suits accented with keffiyeh scarves. It ends with a message saying that her team included a link to the list of the names of the “thousands of deceased children” killed in Israel’s attack on Gaza provided by Al Jazeera in the video’s description because it was too long to include in the clip.
Over the past few months, Kehlani is among the artists who’ve been speaking out in support of the Palestinian people, posting an Insta video in May — which has since been removed — in which she called out her “highly f–king platformed” peers for not commenting on the war, saying “You can’t speak? Disgusting… It’s f–k Israel. It’s f–k Zionism. And it’s f–k a lot of ya’ll too.” Her comments have been supported by rapper Macklemore, who recently released his pro-Palestinian protest song “Hind’s Hall,” named for the Hamilton Hall building at Columbia University that students occupied in April and renamed in honor of a six-year-old Palestinian girl, Hind Rajab, who was killed by Israeli forces in Gaza.
Check out Kehlani’s post below.
Jelly Roll is a huge Eminem fan, and prior to his duet with the rapper on NBC’s Live From Detroit: The Concert at Michigan Central special, he learned that the feeling is mutual.
In an interview on The Howard Stern Show Wednesday (June 12), the country star revealed that Em’s manager personally approached him for the collaboration at one of Jelly’s concerts in Detroit last year. “We’re all hanging out backstage, and I’m just like, ‘Hey, does Marshall even know who I am?’” the “Son of a Sinner” singer recalled. “He’s like, ‘Yeah, that’s why I’m here, man. Marshall loves you. I wanna get y’all together.’”
Months later, when the “Houdini” artist’s team was putting his performance together for the special, they specifically requested that Jelly be the one to belt out the Aerosmith “Dream On” sample in Em’s “Sing for the Moment.” “They called back and was like, ‘Eminem wants to know if you would sing a song with him,’” he told Stern. “I get goosebumps up my body. I was like, ‘Dude, I’m so in.’”
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“I was so nervous,” Jelly continued. “It definitely wasn’t my best performance — you could see the nerves on my face. This song did a lot for me in dark moments of my life, too. I’m a lifelong fan. There’s not a white kid in the world who didn’t listen to Eminem rapping.”
“There’s not enough praises for him,” the ACM Award-winner added. “He’s inarguably the greatest rapper that ever lived, ever. You’re literally meeting the greatest at his craft.”
The interview comes about a week after the special was taped in Michigan June 6. Bunnie XO, who is married to Jelly, posted a sweet video of her husband meeting his idol for the first time at a rehearsal for their performance. “When the goat meets the GOAT,” she captioned the clip.
A few days later, Jelly gushed about the experience in an interview with Entertainment Tonight. “When I think about coolest moments of my career, right now at the top, there has to be this thing that I got to go sing with Eminem in Detroit,” he told the outlet. “It was unreal.”
Watch Jelly recall how his Eminem duet went down above.
Megan Thee Stallion continues to stack up the wins as she heads into her anticipated MEGAN album later this month. Though busy on her tour, Meg took a minute to breath and reflect on her recent run while thanking her Hotties and GloRilla for their support in a heartfelt Instagram post on Wednesday (June 12). […]
Tommy Richman’s “Million Dollar Baby” becomes the first song to lead the TikTok Billboard Top 50 chart for at least five straight weeks, linking together its fifth frame in a row on the June 15 survey.
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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 June 3-9. Activity on TikTok is not included in Billboard charts except for the TikTok Billboard Top 50.
With five weeks at No. 1, “Million Dollar Baby” now sits one week from the reign of Mitski’s “My Love Mine All Mine,” which tallied six weeks atop the tally in late 2023. Mitski’s rule was split into two three-week segments at No. 1.
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“Million Dollar Baby” initially broke out on TikTok after Richman’s uploaded what eventually became a viral clip on the platform containing the then-unreleased song on April 13 (the video now has nearly 13 million views as of June 13).
Since its official release April 26, the song has been featured in a dance trend that has dominated its uploads since the end of April.
“Million Dollar Baby” has reached No. 2 on the multimetric Billboard Hot 100 so far; it ranks at No. 3 on the latest list via 45.2 million official U.S. streams, 35.2 million radio audience impressions and 7,000 downloads in the week ending June 6, according to Luminate.
Sexyy Red and Drake’s “U My Everything” lifts to No. 2 on the TikTok Billboard Top 50 in its second week. It continues to benefit from a trend where the user asks their significant other how many likes on TikTok they need for something to happen (to buy them something, to get back together, etc.)
The song falls to No. 49 after debuting at No. 44 on the Hot 100, accruing 9.5 million streams, 1.8 million audience impressions and 1,000 downloads.
Lay Bankz’s “Tell Ur Girlfriend” falls to No. 4, while Billie Eilish’s “Birds of a Feather” rises to No. 3. The latter remains a runaway hit from Eilish’s new album, Hit Me Hard and Soft, sporting a continued rise on charts weeks after the LP’s May 17 release. Its “Birds of a feather/ we should stick together” refrain is used to soundtrack creators’ uploads featuring friends, family and pets.
“Birds of a Feather” earned 28.4 million streams, 985,000 audience impressions and 3,000 downloads. The former metric is enough for the song to rise to No. 1 on the Alternative Streaming Songs chart, Eilish’s ninth ruler.
Kendrick Lamar’s “Not Like Us” ranks at No. 5 on the TikTok Billboard Top 50, while 310babii, OhGeesy and BlueBucksClan’s “Rock Your Hips” debuts at No. 6. Originally released May 3, “Rock Your Hips” has vaulted in TikTok activity thanks to a dance trend.
“Rock Your Hips” is 310babii’s second song to chart, following “Soak City,” which peaked at No. 17 last November. The tune accrued 883,000 streams in the week ending June 6.
One other song debuts in the top 10: Sabrina Carpenter’s “Please Please Please,” which saw its official release on June 7. The track was initially teased on TikTok on June 5, garnering 2.8 million views to date, while a post-performance video after Carpenter played Governors Ball in New York has more than 12 million watches so far.
As for uploads not from Carpenter herself, many of the top-performing uploads featuring “Please Please Please” include makeup tutorials, lip synchs and more.
The full impact of “Please Please Please” will be represented on the Billboard charts dated June 22.
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.
Chris Brown is a professional on stage. C. Breezy brought his 2024 11:11 Tour to New Jersey’s Prudential Center on Wednesday night (June 12) and experienced a set malfunction that he powered through. Explore Explore See latest videos, charts and news See latest videos, charts and news Brown thought it would be a typical performance […]
