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In April, Pras (real name Prakazrel Michel) was found guilty of 10 counts related to his money laundering case (which included conspiracy to defraud the U.S., witness tampering and acting as an unregistered agent of a foreign government). The Fugees member accused of making a false statements and records after surrounding contributions to Barack Obama’s 2012 re-election campaign (allegedly on behalf of Malaysian businessman Jho Low.)

Despite the conviction, Pras hasn’t given up hope. Given that he could face up to 20 years in prison, the producer held out hope for a legal Hail Mary. Pras supposedly filed a motion to have a new trial, stating inadequate representation. However, according HipHopDX, the judge has denied Pras’ request.

On August 30, Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly requested the motion (viewable here) citing insufficient prejudice.

“Because [Pras] Michel has not shown sufficient prejudice resulting from the defense team’s use of the AI program (and the subsequent inclusion of Puff Daddy lyrics),” read the response. “The Court concludes that Michel has not demonstrated ineffective assistance of counsel on this basis.”

In Pras’ paperwork, he argued that his former attorney’s use of generative AI during closing statements or as the paperwork referred to as “the single most important portion” of his defense failed to wrap up their case neatly.

According to reports, Pras’ former defensive attorney David Kenner has pled guilty to leaking evidence of the case to the media.

Over the past few weeks, several singers including Jennifer Lopez and Muni Long have announced their divorce. But just as their unions are sadly coming to an end, other musicians (Doja Cat and Olivia Rodrigo) have teased their budding relationships. Based on whispers Maren Morris’ name can be added to the list.

The “Cut!” singer is reportedly back on the prowl and dating a reality TV star nonetheless. Continue below for more information.

Are Maren Morris And Justin Assada Dating?

According to People, Maren Morris and Perfect Match star Justin Assada are an item. But things are still fairly new. On August 28, seemingly soft launched their relationship off posting a photo of him on a date with Morris.

In October 2023, Morris split from her ex-husband Ryan Hurd. Last month, Morris opened up to the outlet about their split before confessing that she was “enjoying dating for the first time.”

“This part of myself is the most confident and just not taking herself too seriously,” she said. “So it is the perfect moment to be dating,” she said. “My rules are just you have to be really spectacular to push me over.”

Neither Maren Morris nor Justin Assada have addressed the rumor. But a source close to their pair confirmed they are indeed seeing each out.

In the rap space, Megan Thee Stallion‘s Hot Girl Summer and Saweetie‘s Icy Girl Winter were adapted as seasonal staples. Charli XCX‘s Brat Summer has been the fixture for the pop girlies.

Even though fall doesn’t arrive for a few more weeks, the “Guess” singer is ready to move on. Today (September 2), Charli XCX announced the era’s death. On X (formerly Twitter), Charli XCX eulogized the beloved trend, writing: “Goodbye forever Brat summer.”

Although Charli XCX seems to be down with Brat Summer, her supporters have other thoughts. “I’M IN DENIAL, brat summer is forever,” wrote one user.

“Goodbye, BRAT summer Guess we’ll have to wait until next year to unleash our inner brat again. Time to dust off the tiaras and get serious… or at least pretend to,” penned another.

“She also said lying is brat, so she’s lying it’s not over,” chimed another referring to Charli XCX’s mischievous confession.

“Brat summer is over? Guess it’s time for ‘Mature Fall’… or ‘Responsible Winter,’ maybe,” asked one user.

However, others were fine with killing off the viral movement that has crossed over into politics. “Thank Jesus it’s over,” wrote one user.

Supporters shouldn’t fret as Charli XCX did tell Vulture during their sit down that she has another “full-length other project” ready to go, and “it’s definitely in the bratosphere.”

On August 27, hell official froze over. After years of fan begging and pleading, Oasis announced their long-awaited reunion shows. By August 31, supporters eagerly lined up virtually to snag tickets on Ticketmaster.

Unfortunately, users claimed things didn’t move smoothly. When they were able to bypass the queue, folks say they were at the mercy of the platform’s dynamic pricing model, which spiked. Now, UK’s Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer have reportedly threatened to launch a formal investigation into the pricing model. According to BBC, during Starmer’s appearance on BBC Radio 5 Live, he echoed the concerns expressed by patrons.

“There are a number of things that we can and should do,” he said. “Because otherwise you get to the situation where families simply can’t go or are absolutely spending a fortune on tickets.”

Starmer went on to suggest that moving forward, the government would be further involved in the “future of the law.”

“There are a number of techniques going on here where people are buying a lot of tickets, reselling them at a huge price,” he said. “And that’s just not fair – it’s just pricing people out of the market.”

The Prime Minister isn’t the only elected officially speaking up against Ticketmaster. Yesterday (September 1), Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy also expressed her disappointment over “rip-off resales.” Nandy wants to fight to guarantee that tickets are available for residents “at fair prices.”

Ticketmaster has faced legal backlash from multiple countries including the US, Canada, and Mexico.

With breakout songs such as “Wanna Be,” “TGIF,” and “F.N.F,” GloRilla has quickly become a national force in hip-hop. Although her global fan base continues to blossom, no one has more admiration for GloRilla than her hometown, Memphis, Tennessee.

Yesterday (September 1), local officials commemorated GloRilla’s success by awarding her the key to the city. During Memphis’ 901 Day celebration, Mayor Paul Young presented GloRilla with the prestigious honor while surrounded by friends and family. Over on Instagram (viewable here), GloRilla gushed about the touching distinction.

“Memphis made me Frayser raised me,” she wrote. “I got da key to my cityyyyy ahhhhh Happy 901 day MEMPHIS!!!!!!”

GloRilla has been extremely vocal about her upbringing in Frayser, Memphis’ north side. As part of a chat with Complex, GloRilla implied that her love for Memphis might have played a role in her decision to sign with Yo Gotti’s CMG The Label.

“You know, it just felt right,” she says. “Gotti is a hometown hero because he reached back and signed a lot of artists from Memphis, myself included. We’ve been getting the notoriety, because Memphis is known for music too.”

Unlike when Drake was given the same honor in June 2023, natives were in full support of GloRilla’s recognition.

In June, it was announced that Rihanna is now the new face of Dior J’Adore, a classic scent. Charlize Theron was previously the face of J’Adore campaigns for 20 years, and now she’s the brand’s style and jewelry ambassador. Now, Rihanna has officially taken over Theron’s old post, unveiling her first J’Adore ad yesterday (September 1).

The minute-long video (watch it here) checks all the classic perfume ad boxes: luxurious environments, sexy poses, surreal environments, bold looks down the barrel of the camera, and so on, all with Rihanna’s signature confidence.

Rihanna previously said in a statement, “Being the new face of J’Adore is both an honor and a mission. This scent that I have known and loved for so long means so much to women. I am especially looking forward to joining this adventure and contributing to it through my world, my story, my roots, as well as my creativity and my own femininity.”

Véronique Courtois, CEO of Parfums Christian Dior, also said, “The unusual talent, audacity, and captivating beauty of this absolute star are the ideal embodiment of dazzling, powerful Dior femininity that transcends generations. Her golden dream promises to be unique, reflecting a fragrance that is present for women and retains its radiance.”

A month ago, Cardi B announced she was pregnant, and over the weekend, she offered an update on her journey by sharing an ultrasound photo of her unborn child. That arrived alongside some maternity photos of Cardi baring her belly as she sits on a motorcycle.

“I wanna meet my little boo boo soo bad already,” Cardi wrote.

Fans are having fun with this, by re-sharing the ultrasound and giving Cardi’s baby some thematically appropriate names, given that one of her other children is named Wave.

“Cardi shared an ultrasound pic of baby tsunami,” one fan wrote on X (formerly Twitter). Cardi responded, “Y’all and these names [laughing emojis].

Another fan wrote, “Cardi shares ultra sound pic of baby ‘Hurricane,’” to which Cardi replied, “Who???.”

Cardi previously wrote when announcing her pregnancy, “With every ending comes a new beginning! I am so grateful to have shared this season with you, you have brought me more love, more life and most of all renewed my power! Reminded me that I can have it all! You’ve reminded me that I never have to choose between life, love, and my passion! I love you so much and can not wait for you to witness what you helped me accomplish, what you pushed me to do! It’s so much easier taking life’s twists, turns and test laying down, but you, your brother and your sister have shown me why it’s worth it to push through!”

Big Sean had one of last week’s big releases with Better Me Than You. New albums are always prone to sharp-eared listeners looking for disses, and they think they found one here.

Did Big Sean Diss Lil Yachty On Better Me Than You?

As HipHopDX notes, On the Pressure Edition bonus track “Wire Me,” Sean raps, “I mean, I might have to even throw ’em a lil’ boat — pff / I’m seein’ n****s gettin’ drowned out ’cause they can’t switch up the flow / Just give ’em a year or two, and they gettin’ exposed.”

But, Sean says he didn’t diss Yachty despite the “lil boat’ reference. In fact, Yachty actually appears on the album. Sean told Complex:

“I wasn’t talking about [Yachty]. Yachty is on the album as well. On ‘Yes,’ he’s doing ad libs with me. I’m glad you said that, no I’m not taking a jab at Yachty. It was like a whole double entendre. [If I was referencing him] that would have been a whole other entendre [laughs]. He was in the studio with me while I was making the album. He actually has a verse on [‘Yes’], too. I might throw it on there later.”

He also said of the “n****s gettin’ drowned out” line, “To be real with you, when I thought of the bar, I just thought it was clever. I just see a lot of times where people get bored with people’s flows. Sometimes it’s the same flow. I’ve seen that in a lot of artists.”

The Kansas City Chiefs were already an emerging dynasty coming into the 2023 season, with some immensely popular players among football fans, headlined by Patrick Mahomes and Travis Kelce. However, once Kelce started dating Taylor Swift, they saw a whole new group of fans flooding in, as Swift’s extremely loyal (and massive) fan base became heavily invested in the Chiefs as they went on another Super Bowl winning run.

As the 2024 season gets set to start in Kansas City on Thursday night, with the Chiefs facing one of their top challengers in the AFC, the Baltimore Ravens, all eyes are on Mahomes, Kelce, and how Kansas City will begin another title defense. Among those watching will be Swift, as she and Kelce have become a serious couple, with Kelce a fixture at Swift’s Eras Tour shows in Europe, and even showing up on stage in London. When that happened, plenty of people (including myself) made the joke that Kelce has to return the favor and get Swift some snaps for the Chiefs, and while that won’t happen, it might not be all that far-fetched that Swift will have an impact on the field this season.

Patrick Mahomes recently sat down with NBC’s Chris Simms and, naturally, the conversation shifted to Swift towards the end, where Mahomes talked about how “genuine and cool” Swift has been, despite being the most famous person in the world. He also noted she’s gotten very into football, going so far as to start drawing plays in her spare time (~22:50 of the below video).

“And then meeting Taylor and realizing how genuine and cool she is,” Mahomes said. “I mean, that’s been special to me, because she is, like you said, the most famous person in the world, she could not be. And she’s really interested in football and she asks a lot of great questions. She’s started drawing up plays, so we might have to put one in.”

The Chiefs offense is willing to try just about anything if they think it can work, so I don’t think this is just lip service by Mahomes about possibly putting in a Taylor play. We’ve seen the Chiefs try all kinds of wild designs, from spinning huddles to behind the back passes and more, so don’t be surprised if we learn after a game that a redzone TD came off of something drawn up by the biggest pop star in the world.

Grimes is one of the more tech-forward musicians working today, so it’s not surprising that she has spend some time considering the relationship between music and the emerging field of generative AI. Over the weekend, she shared some of her thoughts on the subject, writing at length.

In response to a tweet about claims that artificial intelligence cannot make art, Grimes wrote a post that starts, “I think we should fight for the specialness of humans, but I think there’s a lot of room for ai in art.”

From there, she wrote about her specific use case: Instead of using AI to generate full songs (“I haven’t ever heard an ai music generation that is good on its own,” she said), she uses it as “basically a sample generator,” using AI to generate components of songs.

Read Grimes’ full post below.

“I think we should fight for the specialness of humans, but I think there’s a lot of room for ai in art.

I haven’t ever heard an ai music generation that is good on its own, but what I have found is that the ai stemming tech is SO good that I can use the ai music apps as basically a sample generator where I have way more control- then I stem separate and have rly cool samples I was able to curate to an extent rather than just going to splice or smthn which is limited to what genres are popular that they think producers will want to sample

It also works way better if u actually make music. Like it’s so good if you write ur own lyrics and then make it generate melodies on lyrics that would usually be considered too wordy to fit into a pop context.

I think overall the music generation at least rewards genuine collaboration, talent and effort. Obviously this can change

I do think there’s fair arguments that art is a sacred thing that works best when it teaches us how to be more human, connect to each other. Someone said to me once that music is sex, and when I write to seduce myself or others I make better stuff. There’s something rly human about art and I think ai making art is the hardest argument for ai that will upset the most ppl cuz art might be the most human thing.

I’ve noticed that No matter what amazing job ppl have, friends who design rockets or robots like… all secretely have an art hobby. So there’s smthn that feels a bit dark abt ai art specifically

At the same time I think the art high is also the best feeling in the world (hence everyone kinda wanting to be an artist) and I’ve made midjourney accounts for so many friends who felt they’re totally un creative and it’s so beautiful to see like a tired mom friend get the art high for the first time and open part of her soul she’s never had access too.

If u look at the data, the vast vast majority of ai artists are hobbyists not professionals, the majority of ai art doesn’t get published, and the anger at ai art has caused most professionals to avoid it – at least around me. And maybe that’s for the best?

Like being an artist is winning the lottery of life, and while the moral outrage feels a bit uninformed I think it is serving the purpose of keeping ai art as mostly a mental health thing for people who aren’t profiting off it.

The few ppl who are deeply innovating like claire silver and kngmkr are actually all professional non ai artists and tech experts first and foremost and are still using a lot of traditional skill in their output.

Overall I feel like it’s more that it’s sad that the outrage economy hurts everybody mentally but we’re moving towards an ethical balance with how ai art is used that seems best for everyone.

And the truly profound ai art that has hit me hardest has been stuff like @repligate that is basically a new medium. It’s not replacing anything, it’s almost like a new branch of philosophy if anything- and part of why it also feels genuine is there’s at least an illusion (if not a reality) of the ai mind actually caring about what it’s making.

Seems like all of this rly is teaching us that honesty, genuine care, talent, practice and intentionality in art rly does matter to us after all, and I think it’s pretty beautiful that this whole saga is reminding the whole world that art matters.”