R&B/Hip-Hop
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Coco Jones could be enjoying a very special Friday once 2024 Grammy nominations are announced, but she and her fans can kick off their celebrations a little bit earlier: Billboard can exclusively reveal that Coco Jones will be MTV‘s Global PUSH Artist for November.
The announcement comes less than a week after Jones marked the one-year anniversary of What I Didn’t Tell You, her debut EP with Def Jam. That project and its accompanying North American headlining tour helped the powerhouse vocalist transition from Disney star to award-winning R&B dynamo. In the past year, Jones has picked up best new artist honors from both the BET Awards and the NAACP Image Awards, as well as a whopping six nominations at the upcoming Soul Train Music Awards (Nov. 26), including album, song and video of the year.
What I Didn’t Tell You houses Jones’ very first Billboard Hot 100 hit, “ICU.” The DJ Camper-helmed ballad spent 20 weeks on the ranking, peaking at No. 62. The track, which also received a remix from fellow Disney alum Justin Timberlake, topped both Mainstream R&B/Hip-Hop Airplay and R&B Digital Song Sales.
“‘ICU’ really fell into my lap, I feel, because I was so surprised… what I ended up doing that day in the studio… I heard this track by Camper, and I could not skip it,” Jones says in a press release announcing the PUSH news. “Then I had to get really vulnerable and tell this story that I feel like people can relate to: when you love someone and they didn’t do anything wrong to you but you guys are just wrong for each other.”
“ICU” marked a new frontier for Jones’ career, becoming her first RIAA Platinum single and introducing her to scores of new listeners. The song’s success also gave way to the deluxe edition of What I Didn’t Tell You, which arrived earlier this year (Jan. 20) and featured three new songs in addition to the previously released “Simple” (with Babyface).
“I think my favorite line is the first line ‘something about your hands on my body’ because I just feel like it snaps people’s attention… I feel like it gives me a southern twang,” Jones says. “It reminds me where I’m from and it surprised people that I could go that low. It is just a really good line to me. It’s really solid.”
As MTV’s featured Global PUSH Artist for the month of November, Jones will partner with the entertainment iconoclast all month to discuss her roots, the stories and memories behind her music and the artists and eras that inspire her. For Jones, The Cheetah Girls were a formative part of her childhood, specifically the song “Cinderella,” which she hails as a “girl power anthem.” “I was the biggest Cheetah Girls fan,” she gushes. “That was my first concert ever actually and I thought they asked me to come up on stage, but my mom said no.”
Jones is also set to debut two exclusive performance videos for “ICU” and “Double Back,” the latter of which she credits to the “Brandys, Aaliyahs and Destiny’s Childs” of the ’90s and describes as “one of the best songs to get [her] makeup done to or to do [her] makeup to.”
The MTV PUSH initiative aims to connect fans across the globe with a new music artist every month through live performances, exclusive broadcast premieres of music videos, interviews and video content. Previous MTV PUSH artists include Lizzo, Doja Cat, Billie Eilish, SZA, Chloe X Halle, H.E.R., Jack Harlow, Jorja Smith, BROCKHAMPTON and more.
Watch an exclusive clip of Coco Jones performing and talking about “ICU” above.
Jack Harlow has earned a lot of flowers in his career, but on Tuesday night (Nov. 7) the “Churchill Downs” MC got a surprise shout-out from an unexpected collaborator. “Tonight Kentucky made a choice. A choice not to move to the right or to the left, but a choice to move forward for every single […]
If you’ve ever gotten sideways with the Barbz in comments, you know how hard the Nicki Minaj fan army will go in support of their queen. But over the weekend, Minaj took to her Instagram Story to ask her most ardent supporters to tap the brakes when it comes to defending her honor. “Dear Barbz, […]
It’s Sunday night, backstage ahead of the second Los Angeles show of Lauryn Hill and the Fugees’ anniversary tour. It will be a few hours yet before Hill opens the concert with a solo set of The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill, 25 years after its release. The seats in the arena are slowly starting to fill.
Prakazrel “Pras” Michel, a founding member of the Fugees, is sitting in his dressing room at the Kia Forum, watching the Buffalo Bills play the Cincinnati Bengals. Tonight is a celebration — of his landmark group, of all of the generations who have loved their music — and of his freedom, however much remains.
In April, the rapper accused in multimillion-dollar political conspiracies spanning two presidencies was convicted of 10 counts, including conspiracy and acting as an unregistered agent of a foreign government, after a trial in Washington, D.C., federal court that saw testimony from the likes of Leonardo DiCaprio.
“Some of the lyrics, this art, is imitating my life right now,” he reflects on Fugees’ legacy and this tour, taking place 27 years after the release of the Grammy-award winning The Score, his rap trio’s second, final, and culture-shaping album. “Especially when I talk about feds and this and that.”
The “Ms. Lauryn Hill & Fugees: Miseducation of Lauryn Hill 25th Anniversary Tour” has dates scheduled through mid-December. Michel, who faces up to 20 years in prison on the top counts, doesn’t have a sentencing date yet. But, he says, he was never concerned about being able to do the tour.
“I trust the process,” Michel explains. He has a new attorney, Peter Zeidenberg, and is optimistic.
Last month, Michel argued in a motion for a new trial that, among other errors, his previous defense attorney used an “experimental” generative AI program to help write closing statements. In the closings, the attorney appeared to confuse key elements of the case and misattributed lyrics — “Every single day, every time I pray, I will be missing you” — to the Fugees instead of Diddy, according to the motion for a new trial.
“Obviously there’s been a little bit of progress, so we’ll see what happens,” Michel says.
Despite that run-in with artificial intelligence, though, he hasn’t soured on the concept: The world needs to recognize the technology is in “its infancy stage,” Michel says, and there’s a long way to go. “It’s the future.”
Outside his dressing room, the narrow hallways of the famed Inglewood venue are full of excited spectators made up of friends, family, fans — including an ecstatic Tiffany Haddish. Wyclef Jean’s room quickly becomes the center of the party, with Drake’s “Started from the Bottom” playing over a loudspeaker as he shows off his performing fit.
Far too often, reunions feel like cheap plays at nostalgia — not so much a celebration of the great work that came a couple decades prior, but an attempt at capitalizing on collective memory. There is no such sentiment here. When Jean, the third member of the Fugees, thinks about the way these performances affect him, it’s a homecoming — and the result of many years of hard work.
“If you ever created a band like in high school the first year of college, that’s what it feels like. So, like the Beatles, for example. It’s almost like you rehearse all your life through high school so you never have to rehearse again,” he says. “And tonight is monumental, because the arena we’re playing here, this is (where) the early Lakers (played). And so that’s how I always explain the Fugees. You know, I said, it’s like Showtime Lakers.”
The Fugees’ message is prescient, too — Michel points out a song like “Mask,” and its resonance with members of a younger generation who have gone through the coronavirus pandemic.
“It’s almost like we prophesized a lot of things,” he says.
So how does a group know when they’ve got some magic? That a reunion tour is truly special? Jean compares it to a mountain — people don’t see the “combustions” that formed it over years — only “the end result, which is beautiful,” he says.
“And that’s sort of like how music is made,” Jean says. “So, when you make music that’s vulnerable, whether it is Stevie Wonder, Earth, Wind & Fire, the Fugees, Nas’ Illmatic, 50 Cent’s Get Rich or Die Tryin’, it’s going to always last forever.”
Close to 10 p.m., Hill emerges. She is awarded a plaque for The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill receiving diamond RIAA status; quotes from bell hooks appear on the screen behind her. In the first of many surprises, Nas appears on stage to perform “If I Ruled the World (Imagine That).”
Hill is joined by Jean and Michel, and it is as if no time had passed. Then Cypress Hill’s B-Real comes out, as does Lil Wayne for “Ready or Not” and “A Milli.”
Afterward, fans pour out into the night. Nearby, rapper Travis Scott’s show is wrapping up at SoFi Stadium. The two audiences weave into one in the street; here are the past, present, and future of hip-hop, intertwined.
As we await both the fate of Kanye West’s long-teased comeback and Friday’s Grammy nominations announcement, the biggest names and fastest-rising stars across hip-hop and R&B have maintained a steady stream of new music for our listening pleasure. As per usual, last Friday (Nov. 3) flooded DSPs with a host of new tracks — including some fun takes on contemporary holiday music — to usher us into the final two months of the calendar year.
With Fresh Picks, Billboard aims to highlight some of the best and most interesting new sounds across R&B and hip-hop — from Destin Conrad and Masego’s blistering duet to Azealia Banks’ long-teased drill anthem. Be sure to check out this week’s Fresh Picks in our Spotify playlist below.
Freshest Find: Rapsody, “Asteroids”
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“My insecurity is the fear of being rejected / When you this raw they listen with an erection / Niggas pull the Drac’ before they rap about affection / There I go, hard to rap without a message,” Rapsody spits in the first verse of “Asteroids,” her new Hit-Boy-helmed single. With jazzy, percussive production, Hit-Boy provides Rapsody with ample room to lob some “asteroids” at the rest of the rap game. These aren’t direct, petty shots, but astute observations as to where the rap game is in relation to where it could and should be. Rapsody’s flow continues to be virtually peerless; she effortlessly switches between different pockets in the beat without ever making her transitions feel clunky or sloppy. From her slick punchlines to Hit-Boy’s wailing guitar, “Asteroids” is a winner.
UMI, “Why Don’t We Go”
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Over a breezy, dream-pop-inflected instrumental, UMI delivers a summery song about escaping into a physical and emotional space of intimacy with her special partner. “Why don’t we go somewhere we only know / Climb into me, into my waterfalls / Up in the clouds, yeah, we’ve been there before,” she croons. She opts for a no-frills vocal delivery, which allows for a greater focus on the heartwarming simplicity of her songwriting and the track’s overarching concept — it doesn’t actually matter where UMI and her lover are going, as long as they’re going together.
Ye Ali feat. RyFy & Dcmbr, “Zodiac”
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Joining a long line of horoscope-minded R&B joints, this new link-up between Ye Ali, RyFy and Dcmbr is a worthy addition to the lexicon. Steeped in neo-soul with a dash of alternative rock, “Zodiac” finds the three artists not-so-radically flipping the script on the star sign concept. Instead of whittling down the different signs and eventually landing on one that is inherently incompatible with them — they land on them all. “Virgos in LA, Capricorns make me stay / Leos can’t be tamed, but I like it that way / Taurus what I want, Scorpio’s what I need / Every damn day I need a zodiac freak,” Ye sings over the slinky arrangement, just barely reaching the deepest points of his breathy lower register in the process.
Doeboy, “Ain’t Bout Nun”
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For the latest taste of his forthcoming Ignorant EP, Doeboy joins forces with Tay Keith for a blistering warning to all his ops with “Ain’t Bout Nun.” Over skittering snares, Doeboy balances a carefully ambivalent main vocal, with ad-libs that add flashes of character dynamism, for a rap performance that captures every emotional shade of the taunting process. The hook is direct, but it’s that just-shy-of-monotone delivery that makes it feel all the more menacing. “You want war, b–ch, I want duck, it ain’t ’bout none / My ice on, you ain’t gon’ touch, it ain’t ’bout none / If I want her, then I’m f–kin’, ain’t ’bout none / What you want? Ain’t got no budget, ain’t ’bout nothin,’” he spits.
41, Kyle Richh & Jenn Carter, “Stomp Stomp (feat. TaTa & Dee Billz)”
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Having already scored some of the year’s defining regional hits in “Bent” and “Jenn Jenn Jenn,” 41 — the fiery Brooklyn drill collective comprised of TaTa, Kyle Richh and Jenn Carter — continue their real-time documentation of hip-hop’s evolution with “Stomp Stomp.” Drawing on elements of Soulja Boy’s eternal “Crank That,” 41 combines the brash, no-holds-barred delivery of DMX with the quick-based bullet point flow of contemporary New York drill stars like Fivio Foreign, for a track that sits at the center of sample drill’s danceability and genuinely impressive bars — an area in which Jenn Carter routinely shines brightest.
Lucky Daye, “That’s You”
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The D’Mile Musical Universe just keeps getting more intertwined: “That’s You” — the new single from Grammy-winning R&B star Lucky Daye — finally marks the union of two D’Mile disciples, Daye and Bruno Mars. With the “Leave the Door Open” singer on co-production and co-writing credits, Lucky dives headfirst into ’70s-informed R&B songcraft — a notable departure from the more contemporary stylings of Candydrip, his most recent LP. “I been numb, so numb / Spendin’ every dime to gеt everything I want / Therе’s only one thing missing in life / That’s you,” he croons, positioning himself squarely in the “sing-pleading in the rain” era of male R&B.
Shenseea feat. Lola Brooke, “Beama”
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Just as rap is a child of rock-n-roll, it’s also a child of reggae, as Shenseaa reminds us with her new Lola Brooke team-up, “Beama.” It’s a smart collaboration, considering that Brooke already has some West Indian-adjacent inflections in her voice thanks to her hometown of Brooklyn’s position as a major Caribbean immigration hub. With production contributions from London On Da Track, Dready and Philip Cornish, “Beama” finds Shenseea and Brooke getting serious. While both artists have dropped party tracks this year, “Beama” — with its hard-hitting drill-inflected beat — is all about putting the opps on notice. “VVS so cold, straight out of my freezer / Me nuh play, like the dealers, top shottas and squeezes / Me nuh talk to bum bitch bottom feeders / Hot head fever, top model diva,” the Jamaican dancehall artist spits.
Next year, New Edition will take their show on the road again, but this time, they will hit Las Vegas for their forthcoming 2024 residency. Beginning Feb. 28 through March 9, the iconic R&B group will hold six performances at the Encore Theater at the Wynn Las Vegas. The start time will be 8 p.m., […]
“I thought we were going to utopia?” “What makes you say this isn’t utopia?” “I mean, I don’t know, isn’t it supposed to be some perfect destination?” SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, Calif., was the perfect destination for Travis Scott to make history Sunday (Nov. 5) during his latest Utopia – Circus Maximus Tour stop. But […]
Ms. Lauryn Hill has developed a reputation for hitting the stage after her appointed time. She was tardy again on Saturday night for her show in Los Angeles at the Kia Forum celebrating the 25th anniversary of her landmark The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill solo album and according to video by fans, she had something […]
“F— Kenny G!” Action Bronson playfully exclaimed halfway through his performance at New Balance‘s TCA New York City Marathon Kick-Off Party on Friday night (Nov. 3). The Queens rapper wasn’t really throwing shots at the Grammy-winning smooth jazz saxophonist, he was simply singing the praises of Matt Carrillo (aka Young Mexico), the incredibly impressive saxophonist and keyboardist that served as one of the main anchors of the band’s whimsical set.
At New Balance’s TCA New York City Marathon Kick-Off Party, sports and hip-hop continued their decades-long convergence as Action Bronson helped celebrate the imminent 26.2-mile race, as well as the latest evolution in his partnership with sports footwear giant New Balance.
After Adidas unexpectedly canceled his UltraBOOST collaboration back in 2019, Bronson teamed up with New Balance, officially announcing a new multi-item collaborative capsule with the brand back in March. Among the items in the capsule were the New Balance 990v6 “Baklava” sneaker. A few months later, a second 990v6 sneaker — named “Lapis Lazuli” — arrived exclusively on Bronson’s specializinginlife.com website (Jun. 22), receiving a global release on Jun. 30.
“I’m just enchanted by nature,” Bronson mused backstage before his performance. “Nature’s beauty. It’s natural beauty. It’s whimsical. It’s like stranger than fiction.”
Given the forest green hues and deep blues that appear across his different colorways, Bronson’s relationship with all of nature’s gifts truly inspired the design of his New Balance collaborations. Finding a home with New Balance was a special journey after the less-than-favorable way his Adidas partnership dissolved, but “I’ve been a New Balance guy for years, way before any of this other s—,” Bronson explains. “I’ve come from a family of f—ing chubby feet, flat feet, where you need a good walking shoe and something with stability and comfort as well as performance. This provides all three for my type.” To further explain, Bronson likened his foot type to “a triangle slice of pizza.”
During his set, Bronson tore through lively renditions of “Latin Grammys,” “DMTri,” and “Baby Blue,” allowing his five-member band to riff to both their heart’s desire and the audience’s pleasure. Embodying the whimsy he attributed to nature, Bronson delivered a characteristically charismatic stage show that even featured him literally touching his toes onstage and adding idiosyncratic percussion flourishes.
Cocodrillo Turbo, Bronson’s last studio effort, arrived last year, but the Billboard Hot 100 hitmaker is already formulating his next LP, although he’s purposely keeping his plans lowkey. “Lots of things [are] coming in the new year,” he teased. “Exciting things if you can’t tell how excited I am. I’m just stoned!”
The TCS NYC Marathon launches on Sunday (Nov. 5) at 8:00 a.m. EST.
A stretch of street in Oakland, California, was renamed Friday (Nov. 3) for Tupac Shakur, 27 years after the killing of the hip-hop luminary.
A section of MacArthur Boulevard near where he lived in the 1990s became Tupac Shakur Way, following a ceremony that included his family members and Oakland native MC Hammer.
“Let his spirit live on the rest of these years in these streets and in your hearts,” Shakur’s sister Sekyiwa “Set” Shakur told the crowd, wiping away tears at the end of a nearly two-hour ceremony. The sign for Tupac Shakur Way was unveiled moments later.
MC Hammer, the “U Can’t Touch This” rapper who spent many of Shakur’s final months with him before his 1996 shooting death at age 25, said in his remarks that Shakur was, “hands down, the greatest rapper ever, there’s not even a question of that.”
Shakur collaborator Money-B and Oakland hip-hop legend Too Short also spoke at the ceremony.
Tupac Shakur’s music career began in Oakland, Calif. with the group Digital Underground — and now the city has named a street after the rap star, who died in 1996. Sway Calloway led the ceremony. pic.twitter.com/PJlDrW2aHZ— AP Entertainment (@APEntertainment) November 3, 2023
Shakur was born in New York and was raised there and in Baltimore, but he moved with his mother to the San Francisco Bay Area in the late 1980s. He would live in Oakland in the early 1990s and embraced it as an adopted hometown.
“He claimed Oakland,” said City Councilwoman Carroll Fife, who led the effort to rename the street. “He said Oakland gave him his game.”
The ceremony came the day after a former Southern California street gang leader pleaded not guilty to murder in the Las Vegas shooting death of Shakur.
Duane Keith “Keffe D” Davis is charged with orchestrating the shooting. He is the only person still alive who was in the vehicle from which the fatal shots were fired and in September, 27 years after the killing, became the only person ever charged with a crime in the case.
Shakur’s relatives have kept their distance from the prosecution and made only passing reference to it Friday. Sekyiwa Shakur said her brother “died at 25 years old in gang violence, by the hands of another Black man, by the planning of another Black man, whoever that man may be.”