Yung Miami recently sat down with former NFL star Cam Newton for his YouTube show Funky Fridays and told a funny story of the time she tried to get Drake on a song while he was in the middle of his beef with Kendrick Lamar and Metro Boomin back in 2024.

“I got a song called ‘Take Me to Chanel’ and I was trying to get him on the song,” she recalled. “I remember DM’ing him, but that was at the time when he was going through all his sh–. And when people going through they sh–, like, I get it, I understand. … But I DM’d him like, ‘Drake, I think you’ll sound good on ‘Take Me to Chanel.’ He just liked the message like come on, now, don’t do that! Drake, don’t do that now ’cause when you called me I was there! But, nah, I f— with Drake, I understand.”

She then added that she’s hyped for ICEMAN and Drake’s return to rap’s forefront. “I’m excited. I love Drake, she began before explaining why. “He’s so special that it’s like his music is like, ‘You gotta know to know.’ He’ll say some sh– and it’s like what made him … he’s clever. And I just love how he does his interludes. He’ll go and get a soundbite and blow it up, and he’s gonna show you love. It just be little things like that. And he just always got one. You can play Drake at a graduation, any function and you’re gonna feel good.”

Yung Miami and her former City Girls bandmate JT lent their vocals to the Toronto rapper’s 2018 smash hit “In My Feelings” — a 10-week No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 — and she also talked about how it helped launch their careers. “That was the breakthrough for the City Girls,” she said. “I would never forget that phone call that we got like, ‘Drake wants y’all on his album.’ And it was like April Fool’s Day. This gotta be a joke and it was like, ‘Nah, y’all gotta come to the studio, we gotta play the record.’ And we press play and it’s like Drake saying our names.”

You can watch the full interview below.

Jalen Brunson and the New York Knicks sit three wins away from the immortality of clinching the franchise’s first championship in 53 years after a Game 1 victory in the NBA Finals over the San Antonio Spurs on Wednesday night.

With Knicks fever at an all-time high in NYC, prices for the cheapest seats at Madison Square Garden are going for a staggering $7,500 each on resale markets for Game 3, when the NBA Finals returns to the Big Apple for the first time this century next week.

Brunson was asked during his media availability on Thursday (June 4) if there was any artist he’d pay that astronomical amount of cash to see perform in concert. For JB, there’s one artist: none other than the King of Pop. “That’s a good question. A live Michael Jackson performance,” Brunson told The Associated Press.

Obviously, that wouldn’t be possible for Brunson, as Michael Jackson died in June 2009. MJ has been back in the news in a major way in recent months, as the King of Pop’s Michael biopic has been a smash hit at the box office since being released on April 24.

According to The Numbers via ScreenRant, the blockbuster has grossed a staggering $856.5 million globally as of June 2. Jackson is played by his nephew, Jaafar Jackson, who stars in the role as the legendary musician.

Brunson led the Knicks with 30 points to steal Game 1 105-95 against the Spurs on the road. Plenty of NYC celebrities made the trip to support the blue and orange, including Fat Joe, Spike Lee, Tracy Morgan, Ben Stiller and Timothée Chalamet.

Game 2 is slated for Friday night at 8:30 p.m. ET on ABC. Watch the clip of Brunson below.

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As the boundary-smashing, beyond over-the-top talent behind Adult Swim’s long-running The Eric Andre Show, comedian and actor Eric André has presided over some of the more bizarre, surreal pranks, stunts and hilariously cringe moments to ever be aired on television.  

But André’s latest project might just manage to stun his audience even further. Under the not-so-serious name of BLARF, André has just released a surprisingly serious album of classical music, Film Scores for Films That Don’t Exist (out now on Stones Throw Records). A collaboration with composer Prateek Rajagopal, the album features eight pieces for full orchestra, ranging from the silly (“1869 Overture,” essentially a very out-of-tune take on Tchaikovsky’s “1812 Overture”) to the quite beautiful (“Stars Without Light”), which riff on both film score archetypes and the composers who write them.

André is, in fact, no goofy novice: Before he pivoted to comedy, he was a serious upright bass player who attended the prestigious Berklee College of Music (where he also studied conducting — a skill he recently put to use in front of an orchestra at the only concert of this music thus far, at Los Angeles’ Zipper Hall in late April). 

“This is like a big wish fulfillment thing for me,” André says of making Film Scores. “I’m just happy that it came together, and I have so much gratitude towards Prateek for pushing it along all the way.” He spoke to Billboard about his conservatory past, conducting an orchestra in Hungary, and what’s next for BLARF.

You told Pitchfork of your first BLARF album, 2019’s Cease and Desist, “I dare you to get through six minutes of it, it’s f—in’ unlistenable.” I wouldn’t say the same of this one!

I think I always wanted to make a completely different album each time. I’ve only made two [BLARF] albums, so you won’t notice that that agenda until, like, I have three, four or five albums. Comedy is a full-time job, so this is just passion project stuff and I don’t have time to crank out that much, but I always wanted to. I started doing comedy when I was 20 years old, like halfway through college, and then I just pivoted to it, but I always wanted to continue to make music, not for any kind of commercial success attempt, more just for my own creative gratification. 

How do you know when it’s time to do a new BLARF project?

I’m constantly doing it in the background between gigs — they just take a while to complete, and then I release them upon completion. I’m still making new music now; I’m trying to make new hip-hop loops on Ableton, I’m trying to get into Detroit house and ghetto tech and some more jazz stuff. Prateek, who I made the album with, just scored a Bollywood movie, and I was like, “Whoa!” I was frustrated we didn’t put any Bollywood stuff or Indian instrumentation on the album, and we didn’t put any really jazz stuff on the album. So I’ve already been thinking about jazz composition, and then going back more to electronic stuff, because it’s just way easier to produce than dealing with orchestras. [Laughs]

How did you and Prateek first link up? 

So, originally Ludwig Göransson was gonna do the score for [André’s 2021 Netflix film] Bad Trip. Ludwig got very busy because he’s like, on his third Oscar, and his [creative] partner at the time, Joseph Shirley, kind of took over on Bad Trip; then Joseph worked on the Trolls movie, and I worked on the Trolls movie, and he’s a very lovely, very talented guy. And I love film scores; I love Ennio Morricone, film music is very emotional, it’s like a neglected part of the record section. [I told him how] I always get these ideas for compositions, and asked, could he help me? And he’s also incredibly successful and busy and has kids, so he’s like, “I would love to, but I can’t even keep up with the actual work that I need to get done, but I have this like protege Prateek who’s like a musical wizard.” 

Prateek was just very young and hungry and incredibly talented and just knows every genre of music so well — there’s no task insurmountable for him, he thrives under pressure and stress and loves a challenge, so he was very invested early on, and very enthusiastic. I wouldn’t have finished the project if it wasn’t for Prateek.  

What was your collaboration like? 

I started out with voice notes and ideas for compositions, and then I’d go to Prateek’s office and studio, and he would put out like a mini demo version of what I would kind of sing to him through these voice memos, and the suggested orchestration, and then we’d sit in his studio and just figure out where the song wants to go, where it wants to be. Sometimes we were stumped: “What’s For Dinner” ends on this death metal stuff just because we couldn’t figure out an ending to it. So, as a joke, we were like, “I don’t know, let’s do a death metal ending!” And then I found out in real time that Prateek was into metal and in an Indian death metal band. His band is amazing, I had no idea. That kind of metal is very technical. Jazz, classical and metal people are gluttons for punishment.  

He wasn’t just a co-composer who helped me flesh out these wisps of ideas that I had, but he was also kind of like a showrunner, a producer, making sure, like, we found an orchestra in Budapest, Hungary.  He was constantly pushing everybody to do this the right way, not necessarily the cheap way. 

Were you stepping up and conducting the orchestra in Hungary? 

Most of the orchestra, while we were recording, was conducted by their conductor, but I stepped in a little bit, and then when we did the live show [in Los Angeles], I conducted.  Conducting is not as hard as playing upright bass — that was more nerve-wracking for me. 

What was that whole dynamic like? What did the orchestra players make of you? 

I think it was a combination of intrigue and confusion from the top to bottom of the process. But I love conducting. I love Fantasia, Mickey Mouse and Bugs Bunny were my first, like, conductor idols. I took conducting class in school, and I loved my teacher, Francisco Noya — he was very like, spiritual about his conducting, he was just a total character, a very memorable professor. He’d be very intense when he taught class, but he was actually very soft and sweet.  

I love having an orchestra at [my] disposal. I was very high on it. It was like those astronauts that go out into space and they’re in such a trance, like, “When am I ever going to get to do this again?” and they’re just like taking in the glory of the universe. It was a total dream come true.  

Did you think of all these pieces as being one big score for a film or more individual things? 

No, I thought they each go with their own movie. The first one [“The Final Shootout”] is like a spaghetti Western. “Mercury Dripping Down My Spine” goes over like, an Ari Aster or Panos Cosmatos [horror] movie. The other challenge was like, how do I find comedic value in instrumental music — like without words, how do you achieve a comedic effect?

Some of the pieces do feel outright funny, but the majority start out sounding like they’ll go in one direction and by the end definitely become something more unexpected — for instance on “Piano Concerto No. 0,” it sounds like you’re literally murdering the piano at the end. 

I’d get so frustrated practicing piano when I was little that I would throw my piano books on the ground if I would get to like, a Mozart passage that would stump me. When I got older, one of my professors, Whip Browne, would always say, “Practice slow, learn fast; practice fast, learn slow,” and that’s the greatest piece of advice for any temporal art… I have to remind myself of that every day. [But] I used to have these dark fantasies about destroying my instruments all the time, and once you’re playing stringed instruments, the better you get the more expensive they get. So it felt so carthartic just like, taking an axe to a piano and setting it on a fire. 

Wait — so you are literally destroying a piano?  

Yeah, I really destroyed a piano, a cheap upright we found through like a free curb alert on Craigslist. I love John Cage and how he would tamper with the piano strings, so I wanted to hear how it would sound taking an ax to the strings. There was one time on The Eric Andre Show that I think I stomped on a few cellos, and I remember the art department was like, “Did you feel good doing that? These are works of art!” I was like, I feel great doing it! We got like, cheap Sam Ash cellos. I wasn’t like, stomping on a Stradivarius.  

I saw the video of you walking around asking people to listen to the music and say what kind of film they think it’s for. What’s the strangest story anyone’s told you?   

I don’t even think most people get that far. People are like, you compose classical music?! At the front door, they’re like, what?! So I have to go into basically everything I’ve been saying to you for the past 45 minutes. They can’t even get past level one [laughs]. You saw the best answers! Closest friends are like, you play music? You compose music? I’m talking not even comedians or people in the public eye, just like drinking buddies who are like, you didn’t bring that up? I dunno, you didn’t ask!  

So we’ve established that there’s a lot of film footage that you need to get on, but other than that, what is next for this iteration of BLARF? Do you want to do more concerts? 

Yeah, I’d love to do more concerts. We’re going to edit together the concert that we did do and hopefully we can sell it to a streaming service or put it on YouTube. When that comes out, I actually think that the album will almost be supplemental to the special. My Netflix special is a stand-up comedy special, my HBO special is an Eric Andre Show live special, and then this special, whatever platform it’s on, it’s going to be like an orchestral music special, so I like having that evolution of changing the medium for each of my specials. So that’s kind of next up on my musical agenda.  
  
 

Jim Jones has an interesting theory when it comes to Jay-Z‘s “Roots Picnic Freestyle” that has set the rap world on fire.

During a recent episode of his YouTube show IFC News, the former Roc-A-Fella affiliate (he never had a solo deal with the imprint) stated that he thinks that Jay-Z “spared” those affected and that it’s just a warm-up in preparation of Jigga’s upcoming run of shows at Yankee Stadium in July.

“I will say this,” the Harlem rapper began. “Outta everything I’ve heard — from my experiences and seeing him engaged throughout the years — he spared them a little bit. He didn’t even hit them with too much. … He still managed to obliterate a lot of people. But let’s see what happens. A callout is a callout. You say somebody’s name, it goes on forever, no matter who starts it.”

He then added that he expects a freestyle when he kicks off his three-show run in the Bronx next month. “I wanna see the Yankee Stadium freestyle,” he said. “I think that’s when he’s gonna turn up. The Roots Picnic was cool, but I do believe the Yankee Stadium freestyle will be something like the Martin Luther King ‘I Have a Dream’ speech.”

Jim has first-hand experience battling Jay-Z and he’s been on both sides. He and his fellow Diplomat members Cam’ron and Juelz Santana were signed to Roc-A-Fella during the Nas beef where they obviously sided with their label boss. However, he also found himself going up against Jay after he criticized his Def Jam presidency during an episode of BET’s Rap City, which then led to Jigga jacking the “We Fly High” beat to respond.

You can watch the entire episode below.

Five years ago, the idea of Olivia Rodrigo and Sabrina Carpenter linking up in the studio would’ve been outrageous — but you never know what the future holds.

In her new Dazed cover story interview, Rodrigo was asked about whether she’d ever work on a song with her fellow Gen-Z pop star, and she didn’t shoot it down. “Oh, gosh,” she said with a laugh. “I mean, I’m open … I’m open to all types of collaboration.”

The High School Musical: The Musical: The Series alum also named the artists she personally dreams of teaming up with. “I’ve been listening to a lot of PJ Harvey lately. And Fiona Apple,” she told the publication. “I think those two were just doing something so special and raw and unfiltered. I would love to meet and hang with them.”

It’s not the first time someone has asked Rodrigo about Carpenter recently. Half a decade ago, the two ladies were thrown together in the center of public discourse after Rodrigo released 2021 debut single “Drivers License,” which describes how an ex broke up with her to be with “that blonde girl,” whom fans determined to be Carpenter. In response, the Girl Meets World star dropped tracks such as “Skin” and “Because I Liked a Boy.”

But now, Rodrigo says of Carpenter, “I think she’s great,” as told to British Vogue in March. “I’m so happy for all of her success too. I love the album she’s put out … people just get weird and clickbaity. It’s all love, though. I’ve talked to her many times.”

As for whether she’d work with Lorde — someone whom Rodrigo has cited many times as a musical hero — she told Dazed, “Oh yeah, she’s amazing. Pure Heroine definitely informed the way I think about songwriting. I love the new record she put out.”

See Rodrigo on the cover of Dazed below.

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DJ AG took over Billboard’s THE STAGE at SXSW London on Wednesday (June 3) bringing his eclectic taste to the U.K. festival.

The London-based performer was accompanied by a number of musicians artists during his set which spanned genres across garage, hip-hop, r&b, pop and beyond.

AG (real name: Ashley Gordon) has found an ardent following in recent years for his guerilla DJ sets and big name guests. Over the years, Will Smith, Akon, AJ Tracey, Skepta, Ciara and more have appeared during his live sets which are regularly streamed live on AG’s growing social channels.

Hosted in Ely’s Yard in Shoreditch, east London, AG hosted a number of rising artists throughout the showcase. U.S. artist Cameron McCloud, who recently won NPR’s Tiny Desk Contest as a member for Cure for Paranoia, pulled up for a cameo, alongside head-turning performances from Australian act Tikara and London-based Iyamah. 

U.S. group Infinity Song joined AG for a short spot ahead of their showcase event at the nearby Shoreditch Town Hall venue as part of the Mahogany Showcase. House Gospel Choir, who performed with Harry Styles at the 2026 BRIT Awards and his One Night Only show in Manchester, also made an appearance with an uplifting guest spot.

SXSW London is currently in the midst of its second edition, bringing together leading voices in music, film, culture, technology and business for a wide-ranging program of panels, performances and screenings.

THE STAGE is a fixture of SXSW in Austin, Texas, with 2026’s lineup including Billboard 200 chart-topper Don Toliver, Mau P and Junior H. At the inaugural 2025 SXSW London, Tems performed a sold-out show at London’s Troxy as part of THE STAGE.

Elsewhere performances at SXSW London 2026 include Rachel Chinouriri, Tiwa Savage, Shame, ODUMODUBLVCK and more. 

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Violet Grohl really is a chip off the old block. The newcomer with the famous surname made her TV debut Wednesday night (June 3) when she stopped by The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon with a full band.

Want rock? You’ve got it.

Looking cool, calm and dressed right for her late-night premiere in all-black, Grohl performed “Bug in the Cake,” lifted from the grungy rocker’s recently released debut studio album.

It’s been a bright couple months for Violet, who made her official Billboard chart arrival earlier this year as a teenager (aged 19), when “THUM” started at No. 38 on Adult Alternative Airplay. “THUM” marked her first appearance on a Billboard chart as a billed artist, though she did contribute backing vocals to Foo Fighters’ “Show Me How,” which hit No. 21 on Hot Hard Rock Songs in 2023.

Now aged 20, she’s just dropped the 11-track Be Sweet to Me, through Auroura Records/Republic Records, a record that also includes the previously-released “Applefish” and “595.”

Grohl is, of course, the oldest daughter of Dave Grohl, the singer, songwriter and force-of-nature rock star who has been inducted into the Rock And Roll Hall of Fame both with Nirvana (2014) and with Foo Fighters (2021).

According to a release, Be Sweet to Me was recorded from late 2024 into early 2025 at producer Justin Raisen’s Los Angeles home studio with a group of musicians assembled “in the spirit of the Wrecking Crew session players in the ’60s and ’70s,” whose work can be heard on classic recordings by the likes of Sonny & Cher, the Mamas and the Papas, Frank Sinatra and Harry Nilsson, among many others.

“Everything was written in the studio,” Grohl says of her new collection. “I would come in with an inspiration playlist, we would hang and listen for a little while, and then start writing.”

She’s supporting the project with a trans-Atlantic tour, which continues tonight (June 4) with a sold-out performance at New York’s Baby’s All Right.

Watch Violet Grohl’s performance on NBC’s Fallon.

Weezer is in their golden era.

Ahead of a North American tour this fall, the band announced Wednesday (June 3) their latest Weezer album, aka The Gold Album. The project — the seventh in their color-coded series of self-titled albums — comes out Aug. 21, marking the 16th studio album since they dropped their debut Weezer (Blue Album) in 1994.

With a 10-song track list, the project includes the just-released song “We Might as Well Be Strangers” (featuring Wednesday) — a duet between Weezer frontman Rivers Cuomo and Wednesday’s Karly Hartzman — as well as lead single “Shine Again,” which arrived in April. Produced by Klas Åhlund and Kenneth Blume, formerly known as Kenny Beats, the project is meant to be “the most violent Weezer album ever,” according to a press release. With songs written by three of the band’s four members, for the first time since their first album, original members Cuomo and drummer Pat Wilson co-wrote a song together.

Between their Blue Album debut in 1994 and August’s Gold Album, Weezer has released five other colorful self-titleds: The Green Album (2001), The Red Album (2008), The White Album (2016), The Teal Album (2018) and The Black Album (2019). The Gold Album will mark the band’s first full-length since 2021’s Van Weezer.

Earlier this year, the band announced Weezer: The Gathering tour kicking off in September with 32 stops across North America with support from The Shins and Silversun Pickups. Weezer also has one festival date in Halifax, Nova Scotia, later this month, on June 27.

See the track list for Weezer (The Gold Album) below:

Say Yes
Shine Again
Don’t Make It Weird
We Might as Well Be Strangers feat. Wednesday
C.E.O.
Hoops
Nowhere
The Show Must Go On
Up in the Clouds
The LA Sound

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TMZ pulled up on NFL wide receiver and Cardi B‘s ex Stefon Diggs after a workout to ask about a video that recently surfaced of what appears to be the former couple arguing outside a Maryland coffee shop.

“That’s a beautiful…that’s a talented mother, I love her to death, you know what I’m saying?” Diggs said when asked about the video. When asked if they’re still together, he says: “You have to ask her.”

Diggs was then asked about the argument and he again played it cool, telling the outlet, “I don’t even think that was arguing. You didn’t see me, like, saying anything.” He added: “It’s OK, women get like that sometimes,” after it was suggested that he “seemed cool, while she didn’t.” However, when asked if they were good, he replied that they were “great.”

TMZ then moved on to ask Diggs about the apparent paternity test Offset filed that was denied by a judge, and again, the NFL free agent remained coy about the situation. “I mean, I don’t know. I didn’t see anything,” he answered. “I’m not online too much, sorry. I don’t spend too much time online, bro. I just be at the track or at the gym working out. Anything else?”

Well, of course, you know there was, so the convo moved onto if he was going to eventually play for his hometown Washington Commanders. “I don’t know, man. I’m open to everything,” the former New England Patriot said. “We’ll see. Any more questions?”

You bet there was. Stef was then asked if Cardi would be pulling up to his annual Diggs Day free youth football camp, and again he brushed the question off in a respectful manner. “I don’t know, you’ll have to ask her, big guy,” he answered with a smile. “A lot of things that are personal, I keep personal, but I understand where you’re coming from.”

Finally, he was asked if fans can expect him on the field this upcoming season. “That’s why I’m just working out. That’s why I’m getting off the track right now,” the All-Pro receiver replied. “Always gotta stay ready. You have a blessed day, all right?”

Shortly after the video went viral, Cardi took to X and blamed the exchange on simply needing something to eat. “Sometimes I forget I’m a celebrity … damn y’all ain’t never cuss your babydad out when you hungry?”

Billboard reached out to both Stefon and Cardi’s teams for comment.

Cardi B and Diggs were first rumored to be dating in late 2024 following her split from ex-husband Offset. They made their first public outing in May 2025 courtside at a Knicks game and revealed they were expecting a baby in September last year. Their baby boy was born in November, but Cardi seemingly confirmed that they were no longer together as of February this year. The co-parents appear to remain mostly cordial, with Diggs attending Cardi’s Little Miss Drama Tour back in April.