Madonna, Shakira and BTS will perform during halftime of the World Cup final game, Global Citizen announced first thing Thursday (May 14).

The Sunday, July 19, match at MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey, will mark the first time the FIFA World Cup final has ever featured a halftime show. Billboard understands that the show will clock in at 11 minutes.

The news was announced in a social video starring Coldplay’s Chris Martin alongside Sesame Street‘s Elmo and Cookie Monster, as well as Kermit, Miss Piggie and more from The Muppets. The unlikely crew even calls up BTS on FaceTime in the video — watch below.

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Shakira’s name had already been linked to this year’s World Cup – hosted in North America, with tournament games across the United States, Canada and Mexico – with the announcement of “Dai Dai,” her official 2026 World Cup song with Burna Boy. It will be Shak’s second official FIFA World Cup song following “Waka, Waka (This Time for Africa)” recorded for the 2010 World Cup in South Africa. The Colombian superstar kicks off her Las Mujeres Ya No Lloran World Tour 2026 dates in June, with July 14 and July 20 in New Jersey and New York, respectively, surrounding the World Cup final at MetLife.

Madonna is also gearing up for a busy July, with the Queen of Pop’s Confessions II album – the sequel to her 2005 classic Confessions on a Dance Floor – arriving July 3. She’s so far released lead single “Bring Your Love,” her duet with Sabrina Carpenter, which they live-debuted during weekend 2 of Coachella last month, as well as “I Feel So Free.”

BTS made a major return to music earlier this year with the March 20 release of their sixth studio album ARIRANG, the South Korean group’s first project since they went on hiatus for each member to complete their military service. The album debuted atop the Billboard 200 and stayed there for three straight weeks – their first multi-week No. 1 on the chart. Last month, they kicked off their ARIRANG WORLD TOUR in Goyang, South Korea, before bringing the trek to the U.S. on April 25. They have international dates scheduled through next March.

The 2026 FIFA World Cup final halftime show is being curated by Global Citizen along with Coldplay’s Martin, with plans to raise money for the FIFA Global Citizen Education Fund, which is working to raise $100 million to expand access to education and football for children worldwide. The fund has already raised more than $30 million, with $1 from every ticket sold to World Cup matches being donated throughout the tournament. The advocacy organization and Martin similarly teamed up for last year’s Club World Cup final halftime show, which was headlined by Doja Cat, J Balvin and Tems.

Last week, FIFA announced that Katy Perry, Future, Tyla, LISA and Anitta are slated to perform during the 2026 World Cup opening ceremonies set for the U.S., Canada and Mexico. Perry will headline the opening ceremony in Los Angeles ahead of the U.S. men’s national team’s first game against Paraguay on June 12. Future will also take the SoFi Stadium stage for a performance along with DJ Sanjoy.

While this marks the first time the World Cup final has had a halftime show, two of the July performers have previously headlined the Super Bowl halftime show; Madonna took center field at the 2012 Super Bowl, while Shakira co-headlined with Jennifer Lopez in 2020.

The highly anticipated return of the Irish band U2 to Mexico City this week to film the music video for their single “Street of Dreams” has resulted in an official invitation from the capital’s head of government, Clara Brugada, for the group to perform at the iconic Zócalo, the country’s main public square.

On Tuesday (May 13), Brugada met with the members of the famous quartet during the filming of their music video in the streets of the city’s Historic Center. There, the official handed the band a document, as shown in a video posted on her social media. The letter was received by Bono, vocalist and leader of the renowned group.

“This is an invitation for you to play in our wonderful square, which is the Zócalo,” Brugada said in Spanish, as shown in the video. “You are welcome, and we would love it very much.”

Previously, Bono had expressed to Brugada his desire to kick off their next world tour in Mexico City, a place that holds a special place in the hearts of the quartet, which also includes The Edge, Adam Clayton and Larry Mullen Jr.

“We’re working on that,” the singer said in English. “In our dreams, we could begin our tour here.”

He added: “We love the city.”

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The Zócalo is considered an emblematic location of great significance — a plaza filled with symbolism where politics, social movements, culture and religion converge. It is the second-largest public square in the world, only behind Tiananmen Square in Beijing. In March, Colombian superstar Shakira set a new record for the largest audience ever gathered for a free concert at the Plaza de la Constitución (the Zócalo’s official name), drawing 400,000 attendees.

The meeting between Brugada and U2 took place at the Casino Metropolitano in the Historic Center of the capital, a spokesperson for the city government confirmed to Billboard Español. During the meeting, the official presented each member of the band with a figure of an axolotl, an amphibian species native to central Mexico, as seen in the video.

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Later, Brugada shared a message on her social media accounts with photos alongside the band. “Welcoming U2 to our capital is a celebration of music, connection and the excitement that is felt in every corner of this city,” she wrote in her post. “We are a city open to the world, vibrant and full of stories that are shared from the stage to the streets.”

The band participated on Wednesday in the second day of filming for the “Street of Dreams” music video, a song that will be part of their upcoming album, set to be released later this year.

The day before, performing atop the roof of a school bus decorated with graffiti by artist Chavis Mármol, the quartet played their new song — featuring choruses in Spanish — surrounded by a large crowd in the city’s Historic Center. The occasion also marked the first appearance of drummer Larry Mullen Jr. alongside his bandmates after years offstage recovering from neck and back surgeries.

Mexico holds a special place in the hearts of U2’s members, as it’s where they’ve delivered some of their most celebrated performances, including the concert captured in the video Popmart: Live From Mexico City, recorded in 1997 during the Popmart Tour.

The last time U2 performed in Mexico City was during the 30th-anniversary tour of their iconic album The Joshua Tree in October 2017, just three weeks after the powerful earthquake that struck central Mexico.

Young Thug knows what it’s like to be sitting behind bars awaiting your day in court. Thugger took to X on Wednesday (May 13) with a message in support of Lil Durk, calling for the Chicago rapper’s freedom.

“Free smurk please god,” he wrote.

Free smurk please god

— Young Thug ひ (@youngthug) May 13, 2026

Fittingly, Brian Steel, the powerhouse attorney who represented Young Thug in his YSL RICO case, filed to join Lil Durk’s legal team in March and represent him in his federal murder-for-hire case.

Steel facilitated a plea deal for 15 years of probation and time served to get Thugger out of jail in October 2024 after the YSL rapper spent over two years behind bars.

“I get very close to my clients. I meet their families,” Steel told Billboard in an interview in March. “Because if I’m going to defend somebody, I gotta be invested. I gotta believe in the person. I gotta make it where if I lose this case, it’s going to ruin my life.”

He continued: “I just want to help people, ethically and zealously. And I don’t want to hurt anybody, and God willing, something good will come out.”

Steel was also part of Diddy’s defense team in April, which saw the embattled Bad Boy mogul sentenced to 50 months in prison for violating federal prostitution laws.

Lil Durk was arrested in October 2024 on murder-for-hire charges, as federal agents apprehended the OTF rapper before they believed he was headed to catch a private flight to Italy.

Durk’s trial was set for April, but has once again been delayed to Aug. 20. Prosecutors allege that Durk plotted to have rival rapper Quando Rondo killed during a Los Angeles shooting in 2022. However, Rondo’s cousin, Lul Pap (Saviay’a Robinson), was killed during the crossfire.

Prosecutors believe that Durk ordered the hit to have Rondo taken out in retaliation for the 2020 killing of rapper King Von (Dayvon Bennett), who was the rapper’s frequent collaborator.

As for Young Thug, the Atlanta native spent last weekend at Rolling Loud Orlando, where Thugger popped out at multiple sets, including Ken Carson’s headlining set to close out the festival.

A Los Angeles psychiatry clinic that prescribed Xanax to Aaron Carter has settled with the late singer’s family over his 2022 overdose death.

In court papers filed on Tuesday (May 12) and obtained by Billboard, lawyers say Amen Clinics will pay a “confidential sum” as a “full and final resolution” of the wrongful death claims against both the clinic and one of its psychiatrists, Dr. John Faber. The document says the settlement value is “within the ballpark” of the damages Carter’s family could have won from Amen Clinics at trial, which was less than $325,000.

Carter drowned in a bathtub at the age of 34 with drugs in his system. His former fiancée later sued on behalf of their four-year-old son, alleging two doctors overprescribed Xanax to the 2000s teen pop sensation, and that two pharmacies wrongly filled the prescriptions without checking to see if Carter was abusing the drug.

Amen Clinics and Faber have not admitted to any wrongdoing as part of the settlement. In Tuesday’s court filing, their lawyers maintain that the clinic complied with all standards of care and that Carter’s death was caused not by Xanax, but by the gas he inhaled from canisters of compressed air (known as difluoroethane).

The other doctor and pharmacies sued in the case — dentist Jason Mirabile, Walgreens and a Santa Monica Medical Plaza Pharmacy — have similarly argued that the amount of Xanax in Carter’s system was not enough to make him lose consciousness. These three defendants have not settled and are set to go to trial in October.

Mirabile’s attorney declined to comment on the case on Wednesday (May 13). Lawyers for the Carter family, Amen Clinics, Walgreens and Santa Monica Medical Plaza Pharmacy did not immediately return requests for comment.

Carter got his start opening for the Backstreet Boys, of which his older brother Nick Carter was a member, in the late 1990s. He later became a teen heartthrob in his own right, and his 2000 album Aaron’s Party (Come and Get It) peaked at No. 4 on the Billboard 200. His next two albums, 2001’s Oh Aaron and 2002’s Another Earthquake, hit No. 7 and No. 18 on the chart, respectively.

Later in life, Carter was open about struggling with substance abuse. The singer did multiple stints in rehab, and he had been attending outpatient therapy in the months leading up to his death.

DaBaby scores his first No. 1 on Billboard’s Hot Rap Songs chart in nearly six years as “Pop Dat Thang” tops the list dated May 16. The single rises from No. 2 with a gain in all three chart-contributing metrics and a boost from a high-profile remix with GloRilla, Yung Miami and YKNIECE.

“Pop Dat Thang,” released on SouthCoast/Interscope/Interscope Capitol, dethrones Don Toliver’s “E85” from the summit. The former champ, which led for 11 consecutive weeks, slides to No. 2.

With his new leader, DaBaby achieves his second Hot Rap Songs No. 1, after “Rockstar,” featuring Roddy Ricch, dominated for nine weeks in June – August 2020.

For its coronation week on the multi-metric Hot Rap Songs chart, “Pop Dat Thang” registered 8 million official streams, 20.1 million in radio airplay audience impressions and a negligible amount of track sales in the United States for the tracking week of May 1-7, according to Luminate. The tallies in each count were improvements over the last week, of 24%, 7%, and 19%, respectively. Streaming gains, particularly, trace to a boost from the first week impact of a high-profile remix that added featured verses from GloRilla, Yung Miami and YKNIECE. (While they aided the song’s stats, the new acts were added to the track’s billing as the original version contributed the majority of activity.)

In addition to its chart-topping move on Hot Rap Songs, “Pop Dat Thang” also crowns Rap Airplay for the first time, up from No. 2. DaBaby secures his fifth No. 1 on the radio ranking; he previously ruled with “Suge” (15 weeks in 2019); “BOP” (one week, 2020); “Rockstar” (10 weeks, 2020) and via he and Lil Baby’s features on Pop Smoke’s “For the Night” (eight weeks, 2021).

Elsewhere, “Pot Dat Thang” rises 6-5 on the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart and drives 43-26 on the all-genre Billboard Hot 100. In the radio sphere, it advances 7-3 on Rhythmic Airplay and holds in third place on Mainstream R&B/Hip-Hop Airplay for a third straight week. Thanks to the radio backing, the single lifts 30-29 on the all-genre Radio Songs chart.

“Pop Dat Thang” is from DaBaby’s Be More Grateful album, released in January. The set debuted at No. 6 on Top Rap Albums, becoming the rapper’s fifth top 10 project on the chart.

These days, Nick Cannon‘s name is pretty much synonymous with fathering a dozen kids. And now, the entertainer will further cement that reputation by starring in a new docuseries capturing how he juggles his unorthodox life as a dad that’s coming soon to Netflix.

The streamer announced Wednesday (May 13) that the project — the title of which is still under wraps — will arrive this winter, offering “an intimate look” at Cannon’s “wildly unconventional life, as he raises 12 children and co-parents with six different moms,” according to a description.

“Prepare to meet the Cannon the world has yet to see: heartfelt, complicated, and genuinely committed to showing up for the people he loves — with his trademark comedy, of course,” it continues. “From million-dollar meetings to midnight diaper runs, the global entertainer navigates the complete chaos that can only come from his uniquely blended family, all while managing his booming career and headline-making drama.”

The Masked Singer host first became a dad in 2011, when he welcomed twins Moroccan and Monroe with his superstar ex-wife, Mariah Carey. After separating from the Grammy winner in 2014, Cannon and podcaster Brittany Bell welcomed a son named Golden Sagon in 2017, followed by a daughter named Powerful Queen in 2020 and another son named Rise Messiah in 2022. He welcomed twins Zion and Zillion in 2021 with radio personality Abby De La Rosa, with whom he also shares 3-year-old daughter Beautiful Zeppelin. With Selling Sunset star Bre Tiesi, he shares 3-year-old son Legendary Love, and with LaNisha Cole, he welcomed daughter Onyx Ice in 2022.

Cannon is also Dad to a son with model Alyssa Scott named Zen, who died of brain cancer at just a few months old in 2021. The following year, he and Scott welcomed another child together, daughter Halo.

Because of the size of his brood, the Wild n’ Out comedian has endured his fair share of jokes at his expense over the past few years, both at the hands of friends in the industry and the general public. Though he’s always been a good sport about the teasing, Cannon has also always emphasized how much time and energy he puts into being a good father to all of his children, something he now gets to showcase in his Netflix series.

This past September, the Drumline star also acknowledged that his past trauma may have led to him pursuing a lifestyle that enabled him to have so many children. “It was more of being careless, being frivolous with my process, because I could do it, because I had the money, because I had the access to whoever and however I wanted to move,” he said on The Breakfast Club. “Opposed to doing a mature thing and saying, ‘Hey, well, it probably makes more sense to do this.’ And then, obviously, life happens as well. So it wasn’t like, ‘Well, I’m gonna go have 12 kids.’ It was more about, like, ‘Yo, I’mma just live life and have fun and whatever happens, happens, I can handle it.’”

Real Madrid says it has won the dismissal of a criminal investigation into alleged noise pollution from concerts at Bernabéu Stadium, which has hosted major shows from artists like Taylor Swift and Karol G.

On Wednesday (May 13), the soccer club announced that the Provincial Court of Madrid had issued a ruling “definitively ending the criminal process” that began in 2024 with a legal complaint from local residents in the city’s affluent Chamartín neighborhood.

“The aforementioned judicial resolution clearly and categorically concludes that neither José Ángel Sánchez Periáñez, the club’s general director and member of its Board of Directors, nor Real Madrid Estadio S. L. are responsible for any criminal offense in relation to the concerts held at the Santiago Bernabéu Stadium,” reads the Wednesday announcement. “Real Madrid expresses its satisfaction with this judicial resolution, which confirms the absolutely unfounded and instrumental nature of the complaint.”

Bernabéu Stadium, which has been home to Real Madrid for decades, underwent an extensive renovation in recent years, with plans to become a major new epicenter for live music. The stadium hosted a series of massive shows in the summer of 2024, including Swift’s Eras Tour and Karol G’s Mañana Será Bonito Tour.

In September 2024, however, Real Madrid announced that it would suspend all concerts amid concerns about sound levels from the stadium. Around the same time, a Madrid judge accepted a criminal noise complaint that had been filed by a local residents’ organization called Asociación Perjudicados por el Bernabéu (Neighborhood Association of Those Affected by the Bernabéu), according to the New York Times.

This led to a lengthy judicial investigation, which included court testimony from Real Madrid’s director, Sánchez. Per the Times, Sánchez testified in October 2024 that any noise issues at the stadium were the fault of concert promoters, not the stadium.

This past January, Judge Monica Aguirre de la Cuesta completed her investigation and determined that a trial should be held on evidence of a possible “crime against the environment, in its form of noise pollution,” the Times reported. But Real Madrid appealed that ruling and, according to the soccer club, won a decision from the higher Provincial Court throwing out the criminal case entirely on Wednesday.  

According to Real Madrid, the Provincial Court found that this sort of environmental code issue did not warrant a criminal proceeding. Also according to the club, the court agreed with Real Madrid that concert promoters are the ones who hold responsibility “for ensuring compliance with the decibel limits for ambient sound transmission.”

A representative for the court did not immediately return an inquiry seeking a copy of the ruling. Asociación Perjudicados por el Bernabéu also did not return Billboard’s request for comment.

It is not yet clear if and when Bernabéu Stadium will begin hosting concerts again. The stadium has been undergoing additional construction, including soundproofing, and Real Madrid announced last year that it expected this work to be completed in 2026.

Welcome to Billboard Pro’s Trending Up newsletter, where we take a closer look at the songs, artists, curiosities and trends that have caught the music industry’s attention. Some have come out of nowhere, others have taken months to catch on, and all of them could become ubiquitous in the blink of a TikTok clip. 
 
This week: Three weeks into the Michael biopic and its subject’s catalog is still growing, while even his missing-in-film-action sister is feeling the benefits, and a couple very different acts see new gains for 2010s hits.

Jackson Rewrites Personal Weekly Streaming Record

For the third consecutive week, Michael Jackson obliterates his personal-best weekly streaming count as impact from Michael biopic continues to spell massive streaming returns and more chart placements for many of his best-known songs.

For the May 1-7 tracking week, Jackson’s solo catalog registered 181.6 million official on-demand song streams in the United States, according to Luminate. The new seven-day sum is a 32% increase from what was his previous best, last week’s haul of 137.6 million, itself a 146% improvement over a then-high of 55.9 million clicks in a week.

“Billie Jean” repeated its standing atop the songs’ pack, with 14.8 million official on-demand streams, up 31.7% from last week (11.3 million). That streaming swell translates to the Billboard Hot 100, where the seven-week former champ rockets 38-17. Fellow Thriller singles “Beat It” and “Human Nature” finished second and third in Jackson’s catalog, respectively, 11.4 million plays and 10.8 million clicks.

Early signs indicate Jackson gliding to another nine-digit streaming sum next week. According to initial reports submitted to Luminate, the King of Pop’s solo catalog has already crossed 86 million official on-demand streams from May 8-10 alone. Should it maintain its pace in the high 20 million-plus range per day, it’s possible that Jackson’s catalog could once again set a new personal benchmark, and while a longer shot, make a play for a 200 million+ week.

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Janet’s Up a Decent Amount in Streams, Too

Much has been made of the absence of Janet Jackson from the Michael biopic, with the baby of the Jackson family — a pop legend in her own right, of course — not only not portrayed in the movie, but not mentioned at any point. (Janet “kindly declined” to be depicted in Michael, according to sister La Toya.) But despite her total lack of representation in the box office smash, Ms. Jackson has been seeing streaming gains of her own over the past couple weeks. 

The catalog bump isn’t nearly on the level of the one her older brother’s discography is currently enjoying, of course. But for the week ending May 7, Janet amassed over 9.4 million official on-demand U.S. streams — easily her best weekly total for 2026, and a 31% gain from the 6.9 million streams she totaled two weeks earlier (Apr. 17-23), according to Luminate. 

A healthy chunk of that is attributable to the increased streaming presence for “Scream,” the lone song co-credited to the two superstar Jacksons — which amassed nearly 1.2 million plays on its own in the most recent tracking week. But even removing that MJ duet from the equation, Janet’s catalog is still up a full 20% in streams from two weeks earlier, a difference of nearly 1.4 million streams.

Could a Janet biopic of her own be in the cards for the not-too-distant future? It feels like only a matter of time. — ANDREW UNTERBERGER

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Apex Sync Spurs Huge Gains for Chemical Brothers’ “Go”

Apex, a new Netflix survival thriller, is the latest hit movie for actors Charlize Theron and Taron Egerton — and it’s also reviving a 2015 track from The Chemical Brothers.

The Grammy-nominated track plays in the film’s official trailer, which arrived on March 25, setting the stage for its key sync in the full movie, which hit Netflix a month later on April 24. As viewers watched Apex and word of mouth spread, people have recreating Taron Egerton’s unnerving, villainous dance scene set to “Go,” launching a new meme challenge for the Q Tip-assisted song. On TikTok, the official “Go” sound now boasts over 68,000 clips, with most spoofing the “I thought you liked danger” line from the film. “Go” also plays in nearly 60,000 Instagram Reels, with solo runners and gym buffs gravitating towards the song.

According to Luminate, “Go” earned over 91,000 official on-demand U.S. streams the week before Apex hit Netflix (April 17-23). During the film’s debut week (April 24-30), “Go” soared over 431% to over 487,000 official streams. By the following week (May 1-7), that number jumped a further 167% to a whopping 1.3 million official on-demand U.S. streams. Over the past two weeks, “Go” has exploded by over 1,319% in streaming activity.

Notably, thanks to these gains, “Go” is now The Chemical Brothers’ highest-charting hit on Dance/Electronic Songs (No. 9). Perhaps more chart feats are in store should “Go” continue its resurgence. — KYLE DENIS

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Katy Perry’s ‘The One That Got Away’ Spins a Streaming Resurgence Out of Fictional Romance Fancams & Real-Life Testimonials

Katy Perry is a mainstay in the headlines — and this time, all the buzz is around a 15-year-old song! “The One That Got Away” was a massive hit during its initial 2011 run, peaking at No. 3 and helping extend Perry’s enormous Teenage Dream era as the sixth single from its standard edition.

Over the better part of the past 12 months, the song has experienced a relatively slow but steady surge across streaming and social media. This winter, many fans gravitated towards the song to bid farewell to their favorite fictional romances, spurred by the final season of Stranger Things, which aired last November-December. By the spring, social media users started using “The One That Got Away” in two different ways. Some used the ballad’s wistful chorus to soundtrack escapes from domestic violence or epic defenses of loved ones, while others used the song to mourn fictional romances from Euphoria, their perceived real-life friendship between Rihanna and Perry herself and Manon’s hiatus from KATSEYE. Other users have also leaned into the nostalgia of it all, remarking how the song still has an intense emotional impact on them 15 years later.

During the week of March 6-12, “Got Away” logged over 2.8 million official on-demand U.S. streams, with that number leaping nearly 40% the following month to over 3.9 million official streams (April 3-9), according to Luminate. By the week of May 1-7, “Got Away” leapt a further 56% to over 6.2 million official streams, marking a 118% surge in streaming activity for the song over the past two months.

Katy Perry has also seized the moment in several ways. She shared a “director’s cut” of the music video (narrated by Steve Nicks, no less) on April 21, used an acoustic version to soundtrack clips of her MET Gala glam sessions, and trolled her ex-boyfriend Josh Groban’s engagement announcement by playing “Got Away” over a screenshot of the news. On May 13, Perry dropped a new compilation album titled The One That Got the Plays, with “Got Away” slotted first on the tracklist.

Thanks to all of this motion, “The One That Got Away” now stands as Perry’s highest-charting entry on the Billboard Global 200 since the chart’s inception in September 2020 (No. 37). — KD