It was likely only a matter of time until Drake’s lawyers added Kendrick Lamar’s Super Bowl Halftime Show performance to the aggrieved Canadian rapper’s defamation lawsuit against their shared label, Universal Music Group. Today, Billboard confirmed that the inevitable has indeed happened. Although we’ve already argued that K. Dot’s show was probably about way more than Drake, the man who made Take Care and Certified Lover Boy was never NOT going to make it about himself.
Basically, here’s the gist: UMG wants to delay litigation, probably presuming that the longer this thing takes to go to court, the more likely it’ll be that cooler heads will prevail (read: Drake will realize how goofy this whole thing looks and call it off). Unfortunately for UMG’s legal team, Drake’s attorneys argued that delays are damaging their client’s career the longer it takes for the case to go to court (not, y’know… the fact that he lost a rap battle and sued his label over it). This is what they wrote:
Delaying discovery would unfairly prejudice plaintiff, who is continuing to suffer the consequences of UMG’s defamatory campaign. At the same time UMG has been delaying here, UMG launched new campaigns to further spread the defamatory content, including at the 2025 Super Bowl halftime show, which had over 133.5 million viewers.
For those who haven’t been keeping up, Drake sued UMG (which distributes both rapper’s music under joint ventures with their respective imprints) in January, claiming that it had unfairly and illicitly promoted Kendrick Lamar’s hit song “Not Like Us,” at the height of the two rappers’ feud last year. As “Not Like Us” includes a reference to online rumors about Drake’s supposed proclivity for women who are far too young for him (“Certified Lover Boy? Certified pedophiles!”), Drake considered this a defamatory attack by the label, which he says promoted the song to lower his standing in the public eye and give UMG more leverage in upcoming contract renewal negotiations.
Of course, the outcome of the recent filing amounts to this: Judge Jeannette Vargas denied UMG’s request to postpone an initial hearing, which is scheduled for April. If UMG does wish to continue to put off litigation, its team can make the request then. I suppose this could count as a win for Drake, who has, admittedly, been in desperate need of one. But on the other hand, much of the ridicule he’s received (the part that isn’t a direct reference to the “Say, Drake” meme that’s cropped up on the internet after the Super Bowl) has been about the fact that losing a battle and suing just ain’t hip-hop.
The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live brought Rick Grimes back from offscreen obscurity, albeit for only six episodes. In the end, he stayed sassy and Michonne returned home to Alexandria and received a life-affirming welcome from Judith and RJ, and that could have been all that they wrote. However, happy endings are rarely that in this universe (can a lady even get some nice toothpaste with mint without Jesus screwing things up? I don’t think so), and it kind of seems like a waste to have Rick living as a free man again without showing him again onscreen. Maybe?
Perhaps that’s a reason why fans cannot resist wondering whether a second season will eventually be announced. One possible clue did arrive when the AMC spin off’s first season arrived on Netflix in January. Such arrivals are occasionally a precursor to an announcement, but a month later, sadly, no news of more has surfaced, so it’s time to check for clues again.
Will There Be A The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live Season 2?
The Direct recently spoke with universe architect Scott Gimple, who admitted that the original “plan was to keep it limited” but “[n]ot necessarily never to see those characters again.” He then elaborated:
“There’s so many… I’ve been very careful to not say, ‘Oh, that’ll never happen,’ because it does. So you know, there are possibilities. And there’s possibilities of all sorts of strange iterations of shows with those characters and with other characters. So you know I think it’s entirely possible.”
Obviously, this suggests (and perhaps cruelly teases) that Rick that could pop up on one of the other currently running spin offs without ruining the thought that he and Michonne might currently be “moaning” in Alexandria. But which spin off? Realistically speaking, a smart man seems equally unlikely to pop up in either Manhattan (for Dead City‘s upcoming second season) or in Europe (for Daryl Dixon‘s third outing) in a post-apocalyptic, zombie-ridden world. However, Rick has notoriously wandered into a city and got labelled a “dumbass” as a result, so don’t count him out from doing it again. Also, would people complain if Rick somehow showed up as a reinforcement for Maggie in Dead City? Probably not.
What feels more satisfying, though, is for Rick and Daryl have a bromantic reunion when Daryl finally returns stateside. That could take a few more seasons before it happens, but the important thing to note is that both Gimple and Lincoln have been talking about more Rick on The Walking Dead shows, so discussions have been happening at some point. And if Rick does surface onscreen again, you know that Michonne probably won’t like the idea of him being out there unprotected, so they should be a package deal.
Certified good tipper Post Malone’s The Big Ass Stadium Tour with Jelly Roll kicks off next month. Select dates along the trek will feature a “Travelin’ Tailgate,” a stadium parking lot party featuring live music, food, exclusive merch, carnival games, tattoos by Malone’s personal tattoo artists from Oxford Circle Tattoos, and, of course, lots of Bud Light.
Per a press release, the event is free and open to the public and is being billed as “a larger-than-life parking lot party for everyone to enjoy ahead of select Big Ass Stadium tour dates.” It continued, “From the moment gates open, a DJ will set the tone before transitioning into performances by local artists, keeping the energy high all day long. The parking lot will absolutely turn into a full-scale party.”
The event is open to the public from noon to 6 p.m. at each stop. You can find more information here.
Check out which shows will have the “Travelin’ Tailgate” below.
Post Malone’s Travelin’ Tailgate Dates
05/03 — Las Vegas, NV @ Allegiant Stadium
05/09 — Arlington, TX @ AT&T Stadium
05/11 — Atlanta, GA @ Mercedes Benz Stadium
05/18 — Detroit, MI @ Ford Field
05/24 — Philadelphia, PA @ Citizens Bank Park
05/31 — Boston, MA @ Gillette Stadium
06/08 — Miami, FL @ Hard Rock Stadium
06/13 — Ridgedale, MO @ Thunder Ridge Nature Arena
06/15 — Denver, CO @ Empower Field at Mile High
06/21 — Glendale, AZ @ State Farm Stadium
Last year marked the start of what Las Vegas-area fans of ’90s and 2000s indie and emo hope is a long tradition: The inaugural edition of the Best Friends Forever festival was hosted at the Downtown Las Vegas Events Center with a lineup headlined by Bright Eyes, Sunny Day Real Estate, and Cap’n Jazz.
Well, good news: The 2025 edition was announced today, and it’s set for October 10 to 12 at the same venue.
This is a big one for reunions, as this fest will mark the first performances in at least a few years from Minus The Bear (playing Menos El Oso), Texas Is The Reason, Knapsack, Marietta, Empire! Empire! (I Was A Lonely Estate), These Arms Are Snakes, Elliott, and Snowing. That’s also true of Rilo Kiley and Kind Of Like Spitting, who recently announced other reunion appearances. Inversely, the festival will mark the farewell of Mineral.
Aside from them, the lineup also includes Jawbreaker, Cursive, Pedro The Lion, Bear Vs. Shark, Superchunk, Pretty Girls Make Graves, Tigers Jaw, Wednesday, Rival Schools, Narrow Head, The Appleseed Cast, Hey Mercedes, Mates Of State, J. Robbins, Pity Sex, Oakwood, Speedy Ortiz, Ozma, Midrift, February, Knumears, Prize Horse, Awakebutstillinbed, Crochet, and Tiger Bike.
Tickets go on sale starting March 5 at 10 a.m. PT, and more information is available on the festival website.
This past Sunday, Red Rocketdirector Sean Baker became the only person to win four Oscars in one ceremony for a single movie (in doing so, he beat Walt Disney, who did the same but with four separate movies) with Anora. The Mikey Madison-starring movie scooped up not only Best Picture and Best Actress but also the Director, Editing, and Original Screenplay statuettes, and the movie will soon hit Hulu for streaming. Meanwhile, it’s only natural to wonder what Baker and Madison will choose for their next projects.
That’s been a question that been circling for months, actually, since Madison’s IMDb page has offered no clues, and backstage on Sunday night, Madison didn’t drop any hints either, only that she has “been really trying to remind myself to stay as present as possible throughout all of this, so I don’t know.” The Once Upon A Time In Hollywood actress added, “I just want to keep making movies … tonight I’s going to go home to my new puppies and probably clean up their mess, and it’s gonna bring me right down to earth.”
As for Baker, he has also remained mysterious, but previously, he told Gold Derby that he will start scouting locations next month:
As for what’s next, Baker says he has plans to start traveling in April after the Oscars to figure out his next location. “Because location is very much involved with the development of these movies and these screenplays,” he says. “I do feel that we will continue with the comedy and lean towards what we’ve been doing already. And all I can say is this: it might have a Jonathan Demme feel.”
Hmm. Clear as mud, but at least a few prominent Anora actors’s plans have been shared with the world. Mark Eydelshteyn (Ivan) will appear in the second season of Prime Video/Amazon’s Mr. & Mrs. Smith and Best Supporting actor nominee Yura Borisov’s schedule is jam packed, to say the least.
Look for Anora to surface on Hulu starting March 17.
Gomez shared the list in the form of a photo on social media, in which she holds up a photo of a Polaroid of the song titles written on a blackboard. “benny & I are so excited to reveal the official tracklist for our album,” she wrote in the caption. You can see the full list below.
Blanco and Gomez are well-aware of the reputation that such projects can have. In an interview, Blanco said, “We said at the beginning, ‘If this ever is weird, we cancel it f*cking immediately,’ because we knew what we had was so important.” Gomez echoed that sentiment, but stressed that “I definitely didn’t feel any sort of pressure. I was maybe just nervous with jitters in the beginning, and then slowly but surely it was happening and it sort of fell into place with a lot of hard work and love.”
I Said I Love You First is out 3/21 via SMG Music/Friends Keep Secrets/Interscope Records. Find more information here.
01. “I Said I Love You First”
02. “Younger And Hotter Than Me”
03. “Call Me When You Break U”
04. “Ojos Tristes”
05. “Don’t Wanna Cry”
06. “Sunset Blvd.”
07. “Cowboy”
08. “Bluest Flame”
09. “How Does It Feel To Be Forgotten”
10. “Do You Wanna Be Perfect”
11. “You Said You Were Sorry”
12. “I Can’t Get Enough”
13. “Don’t Take It Personally”
14. “Scared Of Loving You”
In 2020, AEG, the global entertainment company, sued Atlanta rapper Young Thug for $5 million, claiming he’d breached a contract with the company by promoting and performing at live events without AEG’s approval. Today, Billboard reports that the two parties have filed documents ending the dispute after coming to an undisclosed settlement.
The initial deal, signed in 2017, gave AEG exclusive rights to promote Thug’s concerts in exchange for a $5.3 million advance. However, AEG claimed that Thug immediately breached the agreement, performing at outside shows, and never paid back the $5 million. The lawsuit, filed in 2020, was delayed during Young Thug’s racketeering trial, in which he was accused of being the leader of a criminal organization by the Fulton County District Attorney.
Now that the lawsuit is settled, both parties can turn to a more recent legal dispute between them. In 2024, AEG sued Thug again, after he allegedly sold off the rights to 400 songs to Kobalt Publishing, despite using the rights to his recordings as collateral against the previous $5 million loan. He earned $16 million from the transaction, which AEG argues should be invalid as a result of their previous agreement.
The second lawsuit was also put on pause throughout Thug’s criminal trial, but after he reached a plea deal with Fulton prosecutors, AEG pushed to renew litigation. While there has been little movement on that case since, it’s possible that their new settlement could mean that the second lawsuit can move forward. In any event, it turns out Thug is set to begin performing again, setting his first show since prison at a Belgian festival.
The Scholars is a self-described rock opera that’s set at a fictional college campus, Parnassus University, and follows the “students and staff whose travails illuminate a loose narrative of life, death, and rebirth.”
The rest of the logline reads:
Rosa studies at the medical school of Parnassus University. After an experience bringing a medically deceased patient back to life, she begins to regain powers suppressed since childhood, of healing others by absorbing their pain. Each night, instead of dreams, she encounters the raw pain and stories of the souls she touches throughout the day. Reality blurs, and she finds herself taken deep into secret facilities buried beneath the medical school, where ancient beings that covertly reign over the college bring forth their dark plans.
Car Seat Headrest — which consists of singer Will Toledo, lead guitarist Ethan Ives, drummer Andrew Katz, and bassist Seth Dalby — have also shared the album’s epic first single, the nearly 11-minutes-long “Gethsemane.” Above, you can watch the track’s cinematic video, directed by Andrew Wonder.
Also check out The Scholars‘ album cover and tracklist, as well as Car Seat Headrest’s upcoming tour dates, below.
Car Seat Headrest’s The Scholars Album Cover Artwork
Car Seat Headrest’s 2025 Tour Dates: The Scholars Tour
05/16 — Salt Lake City, UT @ Kilby Block Party
06/07 — New York, NY @ Governors Ball
06/28 — Washington, DC @ The Anthem
07/12 — Denver, CO @ Mission Ballroom
07/26 — Chicago, IL @ Salt Shed (Fairgrounds)
08/08 — Los Angeles, CA @ The Greek
09/12 — Philadelphia, PA @ Highmark Skyline at the Mann Center
09/27 — Boston, MA @ MGM Music Hall
11/01 — Oakland, CA @ The Fox
The Scholars is out May 2 via Matador. Find more information here.
Indie music has grown to include so much. It’s not just music that is released on independent labels, but speaks to an aesthetic that deviates from the norm and follows its own weirdo heart. It can come in the form of rock music, pop, or folk. In a sense, it says as much about the people that are drawn to it as it does about the people that make it.
While we’re at it, sign up for our newsletter to get the best new indie music delivered directly to your inbox, every Monday.
Model/Actriz – “Cinderella”
When Cole Haden was a kid, he briefly entertained the idea of dressing up like Cinderella for his birthday party. Although he soon dismissed the thought for fear of judgment, Haden finally gets the party he wanted so long ago on Model/Actriz’s latest song, “Cinderella.” The lead single for their sophomore album, Pirouette, functions perfectly as the soundtrack for the noise-rock band’s ball. A syncopated dance beat, rumbling bass, and rhythmic guitar harmonics accompany Haden’s spoken-word erotica: “The way you speak it makes me want to cry / Velvet jacket lined with satin resting on your thigh.” It’s by no means a conventional party, but Model/Actriz is by no means a conventional band.
Jenny Hval – “To Be A Rose”
Even the faintest scents can conjure the most powerful memories. On “To Be A Rose,” Jenny Hval recalls all the cigarettes her mother smoked. Invoking Gertrude Stein, the Norwegian artist sings “a rose is a rose is a rose is a rose is a cigarette.” In Hval’s world, natural, floral smells turn into chemical vapor. As the lead single for her ninth album, Iris Silver Mist, it’s a potent reminder that nothing is what it seems in her surrealist universe. It’s a construction of her own making, where anything can be anything, where olfactory stimulation induces self-reflection.
Panda Bear – Sinister Grift
Noah Lennox cannot be stopped. Following a renaissance with his band Animal Collective and several collaborative records with Sonic Boom, Lennox has shared the first Panda Bear solo album in six years. Sinister Grift plays like an amalgamation of his variegated career, such as the dub-inflected “50mg” and the Beach Boys-channeling opener “Praise.” It hammers home the notion that Panda Bear is as far from a monolith as you can possibly get.
Cloakroom – Last Leg Of The Human Table
Cloakroom’s last album, 2022’s Dissolution Wave, was a concept record centered on an asteroid miner lost in the vast nothingness of space. It may not come packaged with a sci-fi narrative, but Last Leg Of The Human Table, the Indiana trio’s new record, conjures similarly gloomy visions of a society on the brink of total collapse. Concise, dreamy, and noisy, Last Leg Of The Human Table is the group’s best work yet. Their varied influences, from shoegaze and doom metal to new wave and dream-pop, come together on an adventurous record that both expands and crystallizes their core sound.
Deafheaven – “Heathen”
2021’s shoegaze exercise Infinite Granite marked a first for Deafheaven: clean vocals. Although the black metal band has gone back to their heavier, punishing sounds for the forthcoming Lonely People With Power, its latest single, “Heathen,” shows that Deafheaven haven’t completely done away with melodic singing. The song opens with George Clarke’s soft voice in the verse, but by the time that first chorus comes, he unleashes his signature curdling screams. Wielding ugliness and beauty in tandem is one of the band’s most compelling tricks, and Deafheaven pull it off with aplomb on “Heathen.”
Momma – “Bottle Blonde”
Momma’s next album, Welcome To My Blue Sky, is just a month away from release. But the Brooklyn band, led by songwriting duo Etta Friedman and Allegra Weingarten, have given us another glimpse of what’s to come. “Bottle Blonde” concerns itself with the sometimes arduous, sometimes fun lifestyle of a touring musician. When 2022’s Household Name garnered Momma a significantly larger fan base, they traveled from city to city, again and again, to play show after show. Despite the manifold demands of touring, Momma perseveres and comes out the other side, reinvigorated.
Jane Remover – “Dancing With Your Eyes Closed”
The last time we heard from Jane Remover, it was through their sprawling post-rock side project, Venturing. Now they’re fully back in Jane mode with “Dancing With Your Eyes Closed,” a digicore anthem for the ages. Their dizzying production, from aggressive sidechaining and beat switch-ups to glitchy chiptune synths and noisy drum machines, remains one of the best qualities of their music. Taken from the forthcoming Revengeseekerz, “Dancing With Your Eyes Closed” hints at a record guaranteed to be among the best of the year.
Jim Legxacy – “Father”
On 2023’s Homeless N**** Pop Music, Jim Legxacy invoked his father on “Call Ur Dad,” in which he chastised him and asked in a pleading falsetto: “Why would you leave me in this house to burn down? We were a team and you abandoned all our dreams.” On his latest single, “Father,” he revisits the difficulties of growing up without a dad, and he meets a woman with a similar story of abandonment. “She said she grew up all alone, had no father / She’s independent, wanna spend my money on her,” he sings in the chorus. Incorporating a sample of George Smallwood’s “I Love My Father,” Jim Legxacy flips the source material on its head to present his own contextualization.
Julien Baker & Torres – “Tuesday”
Indie rockers Julien Baker and Torres (AKA Mackenzie Scott) are diving headfirst into country with the forthcoming Send A Prayer My Way. It’s something of a reclamation, a reminder of women’s contributions to country music and how they have gone long overlooked by larger institutions like Nashville and commercial radio. On “Tuesday,” its latest single, Scott takes the lead, regaling us with a tale of sapphic love and a homophobic mother. Although the relationship eventually turns sour, Scott does get the last word, appropriately at the track’s end: “If you hear this song, tell your mama she can go suck an egg.” End of discussion!
Mdou Moctar – Tears Of Injustice
Mdou Moctar’s Funeral For Justice was the sound of a ferocious revolution, one that railed against settler colonialism and upheld the virtues of the Tuareg people. Whereas the Nigerian quartet’s 2024 record was a forthright condemnation and call to arms, its re-recorded acoustic version, Tears Of Injustice, wrestles with the sorrow inherent in cultural erasure. “Sousoume Tamacheq,” for instance, takes on new shades of meaning; on the original album, Moctar sounded angry at how French has usurped Tamasheq as Niger’s predominant tongue, but here, he sounds lamentful. The penultimate “Oh France” transmutes its fury for the titular country’s “lethal games” into grief for Niger’s denizens. Similar to its source material, however, Tears Of Injustice shows that sadness and rage are often closely linked.
The Dallas Mavericks’ nightmare season continued on Tuesday when imaging on Kyrie Irving’s knee revealed a torn ACL that will end his season and likely cause him to miss much of the 2025-26 campaign. Irving suffered the injury just nine minutes into Dallas’ loss to the Kings on Monday night.
Since mid-January, Irving had led the league in minutes played per game (38.7 minutes average in 18 games since January 16) as the absence of Luka Doncic, first with injury and then being traded, shifted a tremendous burden onto Irving’s shoulders. It is an unfortunate end to a disastrous season for the Mavericks, and hopefully Irving will be able to make a full recovery and return some time next season.
After a spectacular Finals run a year ago, the Mavs have had horrible injury luck and compounded matters with one of the most bizarre trades the league’s ever seen. Doncic missed more than a month with a calf strain before they traded him for Anthony Davis, who got hurt in his Mavs debut and has been out since alongside the rest of the Mavs center rotation of Dereck Lively II and Daniel Gafford. It’s hard to imagine a way for a season to go worse for the Mavericks, and looking ahead to next year they figure to be without Irving for at least some of next season. ACL recoveries are each unique, so it’s impossible to pinpoint when Kyrie will be back, but for a team that made clear its goal was to win right now by trading Doncic for Davis, their already shortened window just got even smaller.
It also complicates the Mavs plans this summer. Irving has a player option for next year (worth just over $42 million) and figured to have talks this offseason about a new long-term deal, but injuries can throw a wrench in those conversations. The Mavs will also now have to shift from just trying to find some upgrades alongside Irving in the backcourt to also finding a short-term replacement at the point guard spot until he can return.
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