Unfortunately, today (May 23), the “Piano Man” singer has cancelled all his remaining shows for the year after being diagnosed with Normal Pressure Hydrocephalus (NPH). According to the Alzheimer’s Association, NPH is “a brain disorder in which excess cerebrospinal fluid accumulates in the brain’s ventricles.”
Over on Instagram, Joel shared a note (viewable here) about his condition and refund information for ticketholders.
“Billy Joel has announced that he will be cancelling all scheduled concerts follow a recent diagnosis of Normal Pressure Hydrocephalus.” read the opening line. “This condition has been exacerbated by recent concert performances, leading to problems with hearing, vision, and balance.”
The statement continued: “Under his doctor’s instructions, Billy is undergoing specific physical therapy and has been advised to refrain from performing during this recovery period. He is grateful for the excellent care he is receiving and is fully committed to prioritizing his health.”
Joel added a touching message to fans. “I’m sincerely sorry to disappoint our audience, and thank you for understanding,” he remarked.
Ticketholders will be refunded at the original point of purchase. For more information, ticketholders are encouraged to check their email.
YFN Lucci was finally released from jail earlier this year after pleading guilty to racketeering charges last January, and the Atlanta staple has made it a point to take some time off to enjoy his freedom before releasing his first new music in four years.
That music has arrived, in the form of “Jan 31st,” a moody recollection of his time inside and his release. “Aye, they was tryna give me 200 years, they was tryna hide me / How you get 200 years without a body?” he questions the authorities who indicted him on racketeering charges in 2021.
In the press release, Lucci said, “This new single is just me — raw and in the moment, making music the only way I know how; straight from how I feel. The hook is a headline of my truth, down to the artwork. It says it all. We did a fly family shoot when I came home and those photos are visuals of my heartbeats. It had to be the artwork. It represents my love for my kids and how much I missed them. When you see me stepping back into the spotlight, you’re seeing what matters most standing right beside me. The business is locked in, the vault is ready to open and I’m beyond ready to get back in motion and let the people hear me. The comeback is just the beginning.”
You can watch YFN Lucci’s “Jan 31st” lyric video above.
On the scale of “rap” to “pop punk,” MGK‘s new song “Cliché” falls closer to the Blink-182 side of things — with a lot of boy band dancing thrown in there, too. Think: a more earnest “All The Small Things” music video, minus the fake teeth. “Tell me, would you wait for me? / Baby, I’m a rolling stone,” he sings on the track, “I got a lotta right in me / But I don’t wanna say this wrong.”
Speaking of being like “a rolling stone,” MGK has crossed paths with one of his heroes, Bob Dylan. “i met and had a conversation with someone last night that i never thought i’d get the honor to meet all because of a video of me rapping in a music store 10 years ago. i love music,” he wrote on X.
MGK is referring to a video that Dylan shared earlier this year of the “My Ex’s Best Friend” singer performing at Orlando, Florida, record store Park Ave CDs in 2016. Why? No one knows! But it seemingly led to them meeting during the Hollywood Bowl stop of Dylan and Willie Nelson’s Outlaw Music Festival Tour (MGK played the maracas). I wonder what they talked about? Maybe Bob shared his “white rapper Mount Rushmore.”
Be honest, Justified diehards. After that Justified: City Primeval season finale, you perhaps thought too long about how that unanswered (?) phone call teed up a second season in the most enticing manner. Raylan Givens could easily allow himself to get sucked back into his lawman lifestyle (because let’s get real, that’s what he loves to do) after learning that Boyd Crowder was on the loose. Clearly, Boyd had the ability and the connections to go international, and that could make for an exciting followup that might satisfy those who missed Crowder too much during Raylan’s Detroit travels.
Not too long after that finale episode, Timothy Olyphant and Walton Goggins reunited in Thailand (while they were both filming, for Alien: Earth and The White Lotus, respectively) and Instagrammed the proof with Goggins writing, “Talk about comforts from home…Just what I needed. What a good man. The road we’ve walked.” Not even a faux-feud involving Olyphant acknowledging on-set friction could dampen resulting enthusiasm, and in fact, that might have heightened the curiosity about seeing that chemistry onscreen again.
Is Justified: City Primeval Season 2 Ever Happening?
Probably not? But “never say never.” For about a year after the first season concluded, both Olyphant and Goggins expressed that they were down with more City Primeval with co-showrunner Michael Dinner also welcoming the challenge but relating how FX must decide whether to return.
That’s where the issue has remained, and in the aftermath of his The White Lotus season, Goggins fielded the issue again and admitted to Vulture that he’s not holding his breath:
“I would be surprised if that happens. I really believe we’ve said everything we need to say, but I never say never to anything in life. I’m just so grateful that I got to say words in Boyd’s voice, and use his delivery again. I don’t know the answer to that question, but that would probably have to be down the road, and we’d be too old to do it anyway.”
He seems fairly convinced that the second season ship has sailed, and that’s fair enough. Goggins’ career has reached new heights with more time-consuming Fallout in the works, and Olyphant has been swaggering along at his usual frenetic pace with the upcoming Stick and Alien: Earth arriving this summer. They both have a lot going on, but there’s always the possibility that Goggins is pulling wool over eyes again. Remember how adept he was at keeping that season finale cameo a secret? Exactly.
In YG’s last video, “2004” featuring Buddy, he and his fellow Comptonite got dressed up to share a confessional tale. While the overall vibe of his new single, “Hollywood,” is more celebratory than its predecessor, the video continues the aesthetic commitment to classy fashion, hinting at a “Gentleman’s Club” vibe for his next project.
“Hollywood” features the recently reunited Shoreline Mafia, with OhGeesy and Fenix Flexin stepping out of a black limo with YG in matching black suits. The video is shot in old Hollywood black-and-white, and features pouring champagne, lingerie-clad dancers, and a Soul Train line of the rappers’ entourage, all similarly suited up. Ty Dolla Sign also makes a cameo, tapping out the post-G-Funk beat on a drum pad.
The grown-and-sexy vibe is a bit of a swerve for YG, who was always best known for making hardcore street stompers, but it isn’t wholly a departure from his day-to-day looks, which have included pairing shiny black Oxfords with ‘fits otherwise associated with sneakers or work boots. His last project, Just Re’d Up 3, was released in July 2024, and given his usual release schedule, his next one could be out just in time for summer.
Watch YG’s “Hollywood” video featuring Shoreline Mafia above.
When it comes to marijuana connoisseurs in rap music, atop the list is Snoop Dogg. Most hip-hop heads would argue the second spot belongs to Lil Wayne. 2 Chainz could comfortably round out the top three. But the “Sista Wives” rapper’s love for Mary Jane (both as an indulger and cannabis entrepreneur) could have derailed a collaboration.
Yesterday (May 22), during an appearance on Club Shay Shay, 2 Chainz revealed that he banned from smoking weed around Eminem by his team. Although the ban was eventually overturned by Eminem himself, 2 Chainz spoke to host Shannon Sharpe the ‘funny’ in-studio moment that led to the temporary decision.
“When I did work with Eminem, I couldn’t smoke in there,” he said while discussing his smoke breaks to spark creativity. “It was kinda funny. It was his people, not Eminem. Eminem was somewhere writing but his people are just so concerned with him, they put the speakers outside so I could listen to the beat.”
He continued: “It’s a beautiful day in Malibu, I’m just smoking. I come back in to do my verse and the door’s closed and I’m in the booth smoking and I see Em out there and I’m like ‘he in there while I’m recording, that’s hard’. He’s about to come in and say something but his people are like ‘no, don’t go in there, he’s smoking’. “Em looks like ‘sit the f*ck down, what do you think I’m about to do?’ I remember them tripping on him and he was not tripping at all.”
Eminem has been about about his fight to remain sober. So, his team was likely trying to support him in the battle.
Watch 2 Chainz’s full appearance on Club Shay Shay above.
Back on May 13, Shakira even treated the Bank Of America Stadium crowd in Charlotte, North to a surprise onstage reunion with Alejandro Sanz.
Today (May 23) the pair revealed the performance was not a one off link up. Now that Sanz’s new EP ¿Y Ahora Qué? has dropped supporters were given another musical collaboration. On the romantic new song, “Bésame,” Alejandro Sanz and Shakira will make you fall in love with love once again thanks to the record’s luscious harmonies and deeply poetic lyrics.
“Don’t think about it so much and kiss me / Let the mysteries / Kiss me at once / No fear, let’s go seriously forward/ Whoever it hurts, hold on / You don’t have to go back anymorе / Better come on, gеt behind the wheel / Don’t think about it so much and kiss me / Let the mysteries end / Kiss me at once / Zero fear, let’s go seriously, get ahead / Whoever it hurts, hold on,” the pair delicately sings across the chorus.
“Bésame” follows the duo’s 2005 song “La Tortura” and 2006’s “Te Lo Agradezco, Pero No.”
¿Y Ahora Qué? is out now via Sony. Find more information here.
Benson Boone loves his mother, which he makes abundantly clear on the new single “Momma Song” and its accompanying video.
On the chorus, Boone sings, “Take me down your old street / Tell me your memories of when you were young and when you fell in love / Drive me through the country / Tell me your story and you can play all of your favorite songs / ‘Cause I’m gonna need this / When I’m holding pictures of you and that’s all that I’ve got left / All that I’ve got left / All that I’ve got left.”
The video goes back and forth between Boone performing the song and vintage home video footage, making for a visual that surely brought a tear to Mrs. Boone’s eye.
Watch the “Momma Song” video above and find Boone’s upcoming tour dates below.
Benson Boone’s 2025 Tour Dates: American Heart Tour
05/24 — Napa, CA @ BottleRock Music Festival
06/05 — Canandaigua, NY @ CMAC
06/06 — New York, NY @ The Governors Ball Music Festival
07/03 — Milwaukee, WI @ Summerfest
07/05 — Québec City, Canada @ FEQ Festival
07/10 — Algés, Portugal @ Nos Alive Festival
07/11 — Madrid, Spain @ Mad Cool Festival
07/13 — Berlin, Germany @ Lollapalooza Berlin
07/15 — Montreux, Switzerland @ Montreux Jazz Festival
07/16 — Monaco, France @ Monte-Carlo Summer Festival
07/18 — Paris, France @ Lollapalooza Paris
08/22 — St. Paul, MN @ Xcel Energy Center
08/23 — Chicago, IL @ United Center
08/25 — Columbus, OH @ Nationwide Arena
08/26 — Cleveland, OH @ Rocket Arena
08/27 — Detroit, MI @ Little Caesars Arena
08/29 — Toronto, ON @ Scotiabank Arena
08/30 — Montreal, QC @ Bell Centre
09/02 — Boston, MA @ TD Garden
09/03 — Philadelphia, PA @ Wells Fargo Center
09/05 — New York, NY @ Madison Square Garden
09/06 — Baltimore, MD @ CFG Bank Arena
09/07 — Raleigh, NC @ Lenovo Center
09/09 — Nashville, TN @ Bridgestone Arena
09/10 — Atlanta, GA @ State Farm Arena
09/11 — Louisville, KY @ Bourbon & Beyond Music Festival
09/13 — Tampa, FL @ Amalie Arena
09/14 — Miami, FL @ Kaseya Center
09/16 — Orlando, FL @ Kia Center
09/18 — Houston, TX @ Toyota Center
09/19 — Austin, TX @ Moody Center
09/20 — Fort Worth, TX @ Dickies Arena
09/22 — Denver, CO @ Ball Arena
09/24 — Glendale, AZ @ Desert Diamond Arena
09/26 — Las Vegas, NV @ T-Mobile Arena
09/27 — San Diego, CA @ Pechanga Arena San Diego
09/30 — Los Angeles, CA @ Crypto.com Arena
10/03 — Portland, OR @ Moda Center
10/04 — Vancouver, BC @ Rogers Arena
10/05 — Seattle, WA @ Climate Pledge Arena
10/08 — Salt Lake City, UT @ Delta Center
12/04 — Abu Dhabi, UAE @ Abu Dhabi Grand Prix
American Heart is out 6/20 via Night Street Records/Warner Records. Find more information here.
When attention turns to the Favorite Male Hip-Hop Artist category at this year’s American Music Awards, two names will stand out among the nominees like luminous beacons: Kendrick Lamar and Drake, bitterest of enemies, combatants in the most ubiquitous rap beef the culture has seen in a generation.
To be clear, there should be no attempt to pitch the award as the next skirmish in Kendrick and Drake’s long-time conflict that escalated so rapidly last year. (Also nominated, it’s worth noting, are Eminem, Future, and Tyler, the Creator.) It’s plain to see that Kendrick sealed the win when he so viciously stunted on Drake during his Super Bowl halftime show in February. But Drake’s presence in the category does act as a reminder that he is still active, still releasing music, and still a tier-one genre draw. As the pummelled star defiantly told an Australian crowd in February, “My name is Drake. I started in 2008, I came all the way from Toronto, Canada. The year is now 2025, and Drizzy Drake is very much still alive.”
His heartbeat may be strong, but this is a new reality for Drake. Though he’s previously suffered a bad loss to Pusha T, the thrashing he’s experienced at the hands of the merciless Kendrick has been on another level. It has undeniably, perhaps unalterably, chipped away at his aura and skewered his career into a potentially hazardous new phase. Drizzy Drake is still alive, sure, but what is such an existence going to look like?
With remarkably poor timing, Some Sexy Songs 4 U, Drake’s joint album with fellow melodious Canadian PartyNextDoor, was released on Valentine’s Day — just five days after the Super Bowl humiliation. Living up to the title, there were no war cries or insults. For 73 minutes, fans could easily shut off their minds, listen to the hushed melodies and shadowy beats, and forget the Kendrick-Drake beef had happened at all. “Fuck a rap beef, I’m tryna get the party lit,” Drake raps on a song titled “Gimme a Hug.”
Some Sexy Songs 4 U duly went to the top of the Billboard charts, a sign that, for now, Drake’s commercial cachet remains strong. Evaluations of the music, however, were sniffy. For me, the project feels both disposable and inconsequential; at times, Drake barely feels present on it. The two headline artists don’t even appear together on every song, giving the sense the album was fleshed out with loosies pulled from various hard drives. If Drake was hoping to cleanse himself of the stench of defeat, this was no light rain. That said, the relatively low profile he’s kept while ostensibly in the middle of an album cycle indicates that his strategy might not be to blow people away with the quality of his work, but rather to let things blow over.
If we want to predict Drake’s fate, there aren’t many analogs from rap history to look to, because so few feuds have felt this one-sided. Jay-Z and Nas came out of their early 2000s beef both reinvigorated and inspired; Ice Cube and Common’s sharp battle in the mid-nineties ended at the behest of Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan without too much collateral damage. Perhaps the most obvious comparison to Drake’s situation is the plight of Ja Rule, who, after his loss to Eminem and 50 Cent, favored a business-as-usual approach.
Having released an awkward attempt at tough guy posturing titled Blood in My Eye in 2002, his next album, R.U.L.E., included a healthy serving of pop-rap numbers he’d previously favored. It performed respectfully, cracking the Billboard top 10, but never again would Ja regain the popularity he had before the beef (I continue to argue that his music has aged finely). The next time Rule found himself in the cultural zeitgeist was due to his association with Fyre Fest.
If Drake is strategizing a reset that would draw a line under the clash with Kendrick, he might be well advised to abandon the lawsuit he’s launched in its wake against Universal Music Group (UMG) for its role in the release of Kendrick’s omnipresent diss track “Not Like Us.” The target of the suit is not Kendrick himself, but nevertheless, going down a legal avenue is so against the spirit of rap competition that it’s opened Drake up to further ridicule. Would any vindication he might feel with a legal victory be worth the continuing reputational cost?
Keeping the suit going also makes reconciliation more difficult. Rap beefs are frequently squashed, and often in a very public way. In this case, resolution might suit both parties, allowing them to move onto other projects and move through their careers without the feud taking up any oxygen or causing distractions. But even if such a move benefits Drake’s career, might it be too much for him to clink glasses with the man who has been shouting, “Certified lover boy? Certified pedophile” to sold out crowds?
Perhaps, instead, Drake’s villain season is coming, with the artist emerging like an emotionally scarred super villain, vowing revenge on a world that has spurned him. This appears unlikely, particularly because there’s still reason to believe that Drake’s fanbase, uncaring whether he’s a triumphant battle rapper or not, are still willing to be serviced with songs about popping bottles in Toronto clubs and being ghosted in the DMs. I’ve always felt Drake’s courting of street credibility while also trading on sensitivity has been an awkward combination. Perhaps he’ll finally commit to what he’s best suited for.
Really, though, the most likely outcome is Drake will do what he’s done with previous humiliations: carry on. And why not when we live in a post-shame world? Public standards are dead; street cred doesn’t mean what it used to. Win or lose at the AMAs or in this new post-beef world, Drake is still a draw and one of the biggest stories in town. And hip-hop will no doubt stay curious about how this next chapter is going to go.
Miley Cyrus has been out and about lately as she builds anticipation for her upcoming album, Something Beautiful. As part of the promo cycle, she stopped by Jimmy Kimmel Live! last night (May 22), where she explained the difference between “Nickelodeon gays” and “Disney gays.”
Kimmel asked Cyrus when was the last time she watched an episode of her old Disney Channel hit Hannah Montana, and she answered:
“I’m surrounded by gays. There’s a big difference… there’s Nickelodeon gays and Disney gays. Nickelodeon gays, and Nickelodeon… no offense, but in general, they do, like, boogers and like, you know, bro jokes. And Disney I would like to think is a little bit more, you know, fabulous, especially if it’s about a teenage pop star wearing a wig, like being the most famous drag queen for kids, ever. And I’m like, ‘You’re gay and you don’t live for Hannah Montana? What’s wrong with you? So I introduced them to Hannah and obviously, they were gagged. They’re obsessed with her. I was offended.”
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