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Adding to a difficult weekend for the music world, legendary R&B singer Betty Wright has died at the age of 66. Tracking back to the late 1960s, Wright began her career at the age of 14 when she released her first album, My First Time Around, where she earned her first top-40 hit, “Girls Can’t Do What the Guys Do.”

Throughout her career, she delivered a number of R&B hits including “Let Me Be Your Lovermaker,” “Shoorah Shoorah,” “Tonight is the Night,” and “Where is the Love.” With her niece Chaka Khan confirming her death to TMZ, a cause of death has yet to be revealed.

Khan first alluded to a possible health concern with Wright on May 2 after she tweeted, “Calling all my #PrayWarriors. My beloved sister, Betty Wright @MsBettyWright, is now in need of all your prayers.”

After her success in the 1980s, Wright would go on to start her own music label, Mrs. B Records, becoming the first female artist to do so. It was there where she recorded “No Pain (No Gain)” and “Mother Wit,” with the latter attaining a gold certification and making her the first female African American singer to go gold on their own label. Throughout her career, Wright earned six Grammy nominations and won the award once in 1975 for “Where Is The Love” under the Best Rhythm & Blues Song category.

Sharing nearly five decades of albums with the world, Wright became an influence to so many in music as names like Mary J. Blige, Beyonce, SWV, Tupac, Aaliyah, and Chance The Rapper sampling her work in their music.

Your own Wilson will be quaking on his subpar patio.

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This weekend won.

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From Midnight Sun to X Æ A-12, the jokes just keep coming.

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Saturday night, Jill Scott and Erykah Badu graced us with their presence for the latest Instagram battle on Timbaland and Swizz Beatz’s Versuz platform. Sharing their 20 best songs in a peaceful and enlightening battle, fans were overjoyed by the overall experience as it proved to be much smoother and problem-free than previous battles. Following their battle, Timbaland and Swizz Beatz hopped on Instagram Live to announce who would take part in the next ‘Versuz’ battle, and to say the least, fans are very excited.

Nelly and Ludacris will go head-to-head in a battle of their own this Saturday, May 16. Making the proud announcement, Swizz said “We’re not done, we’re just getting started. ATL! St. Louis! Country Grammar vs. Southern Hospitality. I hope you ready.”

While Nelly and Ludacris have stayed out of the music lane in recent years, minus Ludacris’ contribution to Usher’s “SexBeat,” both artists are legends in the hip-hop scene and have plenty of music to showcase all to make for an entertaining battle.

Upon hearing the news, fans took to Twitter to showcase their excitement, many of which found them heading back to the 2000s to emulate the clothing and style in order to appropriately prepare themselves for the battle. Others shared who they believed would come out as the winner at the battle’s conclusion.

Check about the video above to hear Timbaland and Swizz Beatz’s announcement.

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A month removed from the first At Home edition, Saturday Night Live continues to bring entertaining content to viewers from the comfort of each cast members’ homes. Serving as the third episode of SNL At Home, the late-night show concluded its 45th season with one final separate-but-together episode. With help from Kristen Wiig, Alec Baldwin, and Tiny Fey, SNL closed the chapter on a far-from-normal season, but not with a special Mother’s Day performance.

Taking from their 1997 album Evolution, Boyz II Men delivered an at-home performance of “A Song For Mama” with none other than Babyface, who joined the trio with additional vocals while he playing the guitar. Transitioning from full-screen captures of Babyface and each member of Boyz II Men, the performance also included pictures of some of the SNL cast members, including Pete Davidson, Michael Che, and Kenan Thompson, with their mothers as a warm way to honor the matriarchs in their family on Mother’s Day.

In addition to the performance from Boyz II Men and Babyface, SNL also honored rock’n’roll great, Little Richard, who passed away Saturday morning due to bone cancer. The performance also arrived after Miley Cyrus covered Pink Floyd’s “Wish You Were Here” by a campfire with Andrew Watt by her side as he played the guitar for performance.

In an interview given several weeks ago but published this week, The Walking Dead executive producer, special effects supervisor, and director Greg Nicotero suggested that the production delay on the series would allow the writers the time to line their ducks up in a row and perhaps even better prepare for the Rick Grimes movie. The delay at this point, however, has extended into its third month, and there is no sign yet of production ramping up again. Meanwhile, the season finale of The Walking Dead is not likely to debut until the fall, along with the spin-off series The World Beyond.

In the meantime, AMC viewers can console themselves with Nicotero’s Creepshow reboot, which launched on Shudder but is currently re-airing on AMC. In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, Nicotero also spoke about the challenges that The Walking Dead, as well as other productions, will confront in a post-pandemic environment. Nicotero says that the changes on season 11 of The Walking Dead — production of which has been delayed indefinitely — will be “dramatic.”

“It’s going to be very interesting in terms of seeing how productions work and how things that we are so accustomed to doing on sets will change, and will change pretty dramatically,” Nicotero said. “The number of people you have on set will probably diminish, which might mean it will take a little bit longer, where instead of having 60 people on set you may have 35 or 40 people on set. I know the industry is working towards some sort of industry-wide guideline in terms of are we going to do box lunches and nobody takes a break and you shoot for 10 hours and that’s it.”

“No one’s really going to know,” he continued, “so it’s going to be a unique situation and definitely a brand-new world.”

Some restrictions have been lifted in Georgia, where The Walking Dead films, but more work obviously needs to be done to protect the cast and crew of a massive show like the AMC series. The Walking Dead will face even more challenges given the nature of the story, which often features literal hordes of zombies, which would complicate social distancing. Thankfully, the next chapter of The Walking Dead will move away from The Whisperers — and their zombie hordes — and toward The Commonwealth, which will feature its own host of problems, since it is meant to be a community with 50,000 people with its own sports stadium and live concerts, two things that are not allowed in our current environment.

Indeed, it’ll be interesting to see how The Walking Dead handles the next arc, or if the writers come up with a different storyline, a bridge until The Commonwealth arc that would be easier to manage under the current restrictions. The writers, after all, do have plenty of time to come up with alternate storylines, and the series has never had a problem separating characters for long stretches of time. Hell, season 11 could simply follow Connie trying to navigate her way out of the caves.

(Via EW)