Courtesy of Rolling Loud/Respective Collective
Kevin Murrugarra
Perched about 100 feet in the sky without a harness, Playboi Carti dangles atop a gothic staircase in front of over 60,000 fans locked in on his every move.
Rocking a Michael Jackson-esque outfit with a white dress shirt, leather pants and a YSL black suit jacket with tassels, which is accessorized in Carti fashion with star diamond earrings, piercings, a glistening chain, sunglasses and a du-rag, King Vamp is at home.
Carti returned to Rolling Loud Orlando to perform on Saturday night (May 9) for his record-breaking sixth headlining set. He took the stage around 10 p.m. ET as temperatures cooled off at the festival to “HBA,” which sent the Opium-favoring crowd into a frenzy.
Carti came out swinging with fan-favorites to kick off the set like “Pop Out,” “Evil J0rdan,” “Stop Breathing” and “Sky,” which led into the moshpits and chaos of “FE!N,” as plenty of pyrotechnics lit up the Under Armour Stage.
MUSIC topped the Billboard 200 upon its arrival in March of last year, and Carti’s album has remained on the album chart for all 59 weeks since being released.
It’s all about Opium this weekend at Rolling Loud, as Destroy Lonely and HXG performed ahead of Playboi Carti’s set, while Ken Carson is filling in for NBA YoungBoy as Sunday’s (May 10) headliner.
The Opium family reunited on stage as Carti stood alongside his mentees, which made for a heartwarming moment and a snapshot of who’s dominating rap when it comes to crews in 2026.
Carson actually premiered a rage-filled unreleased track, which could be a taste of what’s to come on the Lord of Chaos’ The Xperiment album. Carti got back in the driver’s seat while running through “Rockstar Made,” “OPM BABI,” “K Pop” and “Like Weezy.”
A standout moment came when Carti took it back to the intro of his 2017 self-titled mixtape with “Location” and there would’ve been tremors that registered on the Richter scale if Lil Uzi Vert popped out for “Shoota.” At one point, Carti even took off his belt and began whipping the railing in between screeches.
While he never went to college, graduation was weighing heavily on the Atlanta rap titan’s mind throughout the set, as he shouted out those who graduated during this academic year a few times. “Congratulations, you made it, b—h,” he said while performing “Long Time.” “Congratulations to the class of 2026. Congratulations to everyone who graduated. You made it.”
As the 11 p.m. ET curfew neared, Carti insisted he would blow past that and deal with whatever financial consequences would come after. “I got too many songs, just do it. F—k the budget,” he relayed to DJ Swamp Izzo before leading into “Rather Lie.”
There weren’t many surprises in the 30-year-old’s set, but he shocked fans when performing the Vory-assisted “24 Songs.” The vulnerable track has traces to the top of the 2020s and leaked in full back in 2023.
Down the stretch, the set lost a bit of steam, as unpredictability can be a bit of a gift and a curse for King Vamp. He mustered up the energy needed to close out with “Crank” and stamp his king of Rolling Loud title, but it was DJ Swamp Izzo who had the last word and had fans’ ears perked up. “Baby Boi on the way,” he teased of Carti’s rumored upcoming project.
Carti vanished into the darkness around 11:15 p.m. ET.
Courtesy of Rolling Loud/Respective Collective
6ix9ine is stirring up controversy once again, this time over comments about his girlfriend’s pregnancy.
The 30-year-old rapper (real name Daniel Hernandez, formerly known as Tekashi 6ix9ine) made the remarks during an unborn child’s gender reveal party, telling a group of streamers that the pregnancy would be terminated if the baby is a girl.
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“If it’s not a boy, it’s an a-bor-tion,” 6ix9ine says in a clip from a livestream at the event, shared by TMZ.
The streamers — Adin Ross, Clavicular and N3ON — appear noticeably caught off guard, awkwardly laughing off the comment before 6ix9ine leads them over to his girlfriend, Aliday Alter. The streamers then ask Alter what gender she thinks the baby is, and she laughs, saying it’s a girl. 6ix9ine then doubles down on his abortion claims, saying she is in agreement.
“She’s down,” the rapper says. “She’s open-minded.”
Luckily, it was later revealed during the party that the couple is expecting a baby boy.
Alter first shared news of her pregnancy in April, posting a photo of herself on the beach in a cheetah print dress that showed off her baby bump. She and 6ix9ine have been dating for about a year, according to TMZ.
“My world is about to change,” she wrote on Instagram.
6ix9ine is already reportedly a father to a 12-year-old daughter with ex-girlfriend Sara Molina, as well as another daughter, 7, with Marlayna M.
In January, 6ix9ine turned himself in to begin a three-month sentence for violating the terms of his supervised release tied to his racketeering case. The Brooklyn native was found with cocaine and MDMA and also admitted to assaulting a man who allegedly taunted him about cooperating with authorities during a trip to a Florida mall.
Charli xcx can’t get her mind off of someone, and even humors the thought “maybe I could be gay,” on “I Keep On Thinking Bout You Every Single Day and Night,” a song added as the B-side of “Rock Music” on vinyl.
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“I’m probably not,” she sings while cheekily pondering her sexuality on the new track, but adds, “I’ve always wondered if you were actually gay/ Or if that’s somеthing you just say for your career.”
Maybe Charli doesn’t want her unnamed muse, but wants to be her? “I Keep On Thinking Bout You Every Single Day and Night,” set to minimalist production and a fleeting 1:32 runtime — and a black-and-white video shot in Kyoto, Japan, on one handheld camera acting as voyeur to Charli sensually ascending a stairwell and rolling around a dance studio floor — opens with a lyric referencing experimental art of the mid-century French New Wave movement: “Maybe we could become each other/ Like somethin’ out of a Jacques Rivette movie or somethin’.”
Hazy as the root (and object) of her obsession is, Charli — who in her current real life is married to George Daniel of The 1975 — gets direct to the point, on repeat, by the chorus: “I keep thinkin’ ’bout you, every single day/ I keep thinkin’ ’bout you, еvery single night.”
The track was announced on Instagram on Saturday (May 8), the day after Charli debuted new single “Rock Music.” The artist posted it on @b.sides, her side account where she puts behind-the-scenes bits that don’t make it to main.
“i keep on thinking bout you every single day and night’ the b side to rock music. i went to kyoto for six weeks to shoot a film. while we were there, i made this video with aidan. only available on vinyl & here on b.sides. so rip the audio if you want it xx,” Charli wrote to fans via @b.sides on Saturday.
At press time, the just-listed “Rock Music” 7″ is sold out on Charli’s official webstore. The product page does offer the names of record stores in the U.S., U.K. and France receiving limited quantities of the vinyl release.
As it’s not available on any music streaming services, right now Charli’s “I Keep On Thinking Bout You Every Single Day and Night” can only officially be heard by watching her video on Instragram below.
Five years after touching the Rolling Loud stage, Don Toliver returned as the headliner for night one of Rolling Loud Orlando on Friday (May 8).
Toliver used Rolling Loud as the launchpad for his anticipated Octane Tour, which will invade North American arenas into the summer.
A torrential downpour drenched Camping World Stadium’s fields about an hour before the Cactus Jack artist took the stage around 9:45 p.m. ET, which saw Toliver emerge from the smoke, tree foliage and plants that replaced EsDeeKid’s castle for a more Rainforest Cafe-themed set-up.
Courtesy of Rolling Loud/Respective Collective
Rocking his usual dove white jacket with matching pants courtesy of designer Dingyun Zhang, Toliver debuted a new mask to open his set, which he ditched along with the jacket for an Octane Mountain T-shirt.
Sixty-thousand fans in Orlando were sent directly into a frenzy when the snappy synths of “E85” blared through the festival stage’s speakers to kick off the set. The Octane opener has remained inside the Billboard Hot 100’s top 40 (currently No. 35) since the album’s arrival in late January.
“Open that s—t up!” Toliver instructed the crowd ahead of “Opposite.” He turned the energy up a few notches as drinks flew through the air, while millennial and Gen-Z bodies collided in sweaty moshpits.
Octane cuts “Call Back,” “Gemstone,” “ATM” and “Body” followed as fans belted lyrics back at Toliver. It’s a testament to the rap album of the year candidate’s staying power, which has remained inside the Billboard 200’s top 10 since January, while A-listers J. Cole and A$AP Rocky’s 2026 projects have departed from the top 100.
The Houston native took it back to fan-favorite cuts like “Cardigan” and his breakout assist on Astroworld‘s “Can’t Say” before delivering the surprise of the night when YEAT joined Toliver on stage. The frequent collaborators performed Octane‘s starry “Rendezvous” and YEAT enjoyed a solo moment with 2025’s “Comë n Go.”
The slow burn of “No Pole” has turned into a catalog hit for Toliver, while he leaned into the Dr. Nefario memes that spawned from his 2024 Rolling Loud performance of “Too Many Nights,” as Don hit dance moves on stage that look more like Fortnite emotes.
The 31-year-old closed out with a strong run of greatest hits that included Internet Money’s “Lemonade,” “BANDIT” and Heaven or Hell‘s “After Party.” “I want you to sing this s—t with me. This the drive,” Toliver said, as he couldn’t leave without running back “E85,” which opened the high-energy set.
Footage emerged earlier on Friday of Toliver being detained, and he closed the loop on that speculation by previewing the “E85” music video on the jumbotrons, which finds him getting arrested following a high-speed chase in his Porsche and in an interrogation room. The clip should receive an official release soon.
Rap’s A-list will need to make room for one more, as Don Toliver’s stellar first half of 2026 has cemented him as part of the crew. Toliver’s unique blend of psychedelic trap can’t be duplicated by anyone in hip-hop or R&B at the moment, and he might find even more peers he once looked up to in his rear-view mirrors.
Courtesy of Rolling Loud/Respective Collective
The Octane Tour continues next week in Tulsa on May 12 and Toliver has a homecoming show in Houston on May 14.
Don Toliver’s complete Rolling Loud Orlando setlist:
“E85”
“OPPOSITE”
“CALL BACK”
“GEMSTONE”
“ATM”
“BODY”
“WHAT TO DO?”
“CARDIGAN”
“CAN’T SAY”
“SMOKE”
“TORE UP”
“RENDEZVOUS” (feat. YEAT)
“COME N GO” (YEAT solo)
“3AM”
“TIRAMISU”
“NO POLE”
“TOO MANY NIGHTS”
“LEMONADE”
“BANDIT”
“NEW DROP”
“FWU”
“AFTER PARTY”
“E85”
Joey Valence & Brae delivered a chaotic, synth-heavy take on Amyl and the Sniffers’ “Security” during their appearance on triple j’s Like A Version, transforming the 2021 punk track into a bass-driven dance-rap performance.
The duo — currently touring behind their second album HYPERYOUTH — stripped back the original’s pub-rock guitars and rebuilt the song around electronic production, booming low-end and rapid-fire vocal exchanges, while still preserving the raw intensity of Amy Taylor’s original delivery.
Speaking during the session, Brae said the pair chose “Security” because of its immediacy and energy.
“Just has so much energy. As soon as you hear it, you want to bounce off the wall,” he said. “So we knew we had to cover that one.”
The duo also praised Taylor’s performance style and the loose, unpolished feel of the recording — qualities that helped make Comfort To Me one of Amyl and The Sniffers’ breakthrough releases internationally.
Released in 2021, “Security” appeared on the band’s second album Comfort To Me, which reached the top 25 on the Australian albums chart and significantly expanded the Melbourne group’s global profile. The album later helped propel Amyl and The Sniffers onto international festival bills and major touring circuits, with Taylor emerging as one of modern punk’s most recognizable frontpeople.
Joey Valence & Brae’s version pushes the song into entirely different territory sonically, drawing from dance music, early Beastie Boys-style rap cadences and hyperactive electronic textures — all trademarks of the duo’s own catalog.
The pair released HYPERYOUTH last year, collaborating with artists including JPEGMAFIA, Rebecca Black and TiaCorine across the project. The album was produced, mixed and mastered entirely by Valence in his Pennsylvania bedroom studio.
Their Like A Version appearance arrived during the Australian leg of the HYPERYOUTH World Tour, which recently included stops in Auckland, Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane and Perth.
A few weeks back, it was the Game. Now we can add DJ Whoo Kid to the list of people saying that the rap game is missing Drake on the charts.
Whoo Kid sat down with Diverse Mentality recently, and was asked about the Toronto rapper using his drop for the Kendrick Lamar diss track “Push Ups,” revealing that Drake hit him up randomly for permission while he was on a cruise with a significant other. He also said the moment helped younger fans become familiar with his mixtape days before equating it to the battle between the two rap titans. “You know, the thing I’ve learned when you do stuff like that? It’s just a moment, man. Everything is a moment. Kendrick had his moment,” Whoo Kid said. “Six months, he’s the man. Then the Super Bowl, he’s the man.”
However, according to him, the genre is in dire need of Drake making his return to chart dominance.
“But the thing about Drake, he uses patience as a way of getting back,” he explained. “As you can see, I mean, where has hip-hop been? There’s no Billboard charts, there’s nothing. I think French Montana and Max B barely is like in the 80s and thank God they there in the Hot 100, but I don’t know. I think Sexyy Red is back up now because she just dropped, but there’s not really nobody like…I don’t know. You tell me. I’m not an expert in this, but I know when he’s here, we’re on the charts. If you wanna talk numbers and facts, whether it’s inflated or whatever ’cause labels been inflating sh– for years.”
The wait is almost over, though, as Drake’s ninth solo album Iceman is set to drop next week, on May 15.
You can watch the clip below.
Punch, Top Dawg Entertainment’s president, stopped by The Joe Budden Podcast recently and was asked directly about “the bot allegations” that have been levied by fans online in a Patreon clip that has surfaced online.
“I don’t got nothing to say about it,” he answered. “We don’t bot.”
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Budden then peppered him with a series of questions where he asked if he ever purchased bots, if he knows where to purchase bots, and if he’s aware of people in the industry using bots to their advantage, with Punch answering “no” to every question except the last one, to which he added that juicing numbers has been an industry practice since the days of Myspace. “But our whole thing was like, if we do that, how are we going to know who the actual fan is?” he continued. “Like, we do a show, don’t nobody show up because it was all fake. So we purposely chose not to do that back then.”
The conversation then went into how something like bots could benefit an artist if they were in a close race to No. 1 on the charts, to which Punch replied, “If that’s your aim, then yeah, I could see that, but we never been based on actual numbers. Our true metric is seeing people in them seats at the show.”
In another clip, Punch was asked why Kendrick Lamar‘s decision to move on from the label that helped become a superstar happened so seamlessly. “It goes back to what you were saying earlier about being principled,” he answered. “We all cut from similar cloth. We understand. Kendrick fulfilled all his contractual obligations and he wanted to expand what he was doing. So, yeah, let’s do it.” He added that they still consider themselves family and pointed out that SZA was featured on “Luther,” made an appearance at the Super Bowl, and co-headlined a stadium tour.
If you want to watch the full episode, head over to The JBP Patreon.
There are the get-ready videos you and your friends make, and then there’s the GRWM clip Rihanna posted on Thursday (May 7) of the intense prep it took for her and partner A$AP Rocky to (just barely) make it to the Met Gala on Monday night.
You can see now why the perennially fashionably-late-to-the-party “This Is What You Came For” singer was one of the last A-listers to walk the carpet at the annual fashion Super Bowl earlier this week in the 45-second clip chronicling her prep. It opens with the 11-time Met veteran exclaiming, “I can’t believe we’re going to the Met!” as she travels in a sprinter van in her stunning custom sculptural gown by Glenn Martens for Maison Margiela.
The eye-popping outfit hand-sculpted, bronze and silver creation inspired by medieval architecture took nearly 1,400 hours to embroider according to Vogue, and from the first seconds of the recap, RihRih is already locked in and ready to show it off with a series of icy Blue Steel-like carpet poses, with and without the equally turned-out-in-style Rocky.
We see the couple posing and walking together as flashbulbs illuminate their outfits and commenters opine on their looks, with Rihanna stopping at one point to sassily exclaim, “excuse me!” With good reason, since her dress required a second, of fifth look, thanks to a corseted bodice with more than 115,000 crystal beads, jewels and chains, while Rocky looked dapper in a custom Chanel by Mattieu Blazy wool pink robe with black satin lapels, accented by a silk and feather brooch and two hand- and ear-fulls of Chanel jewelry.
With a soundtrack provided by Arya Starr and Rema’s “Who’s Dat Girl,” we see Rihanna putting her own makeup on, choosing from a series of trays filled with high-end rings, earrings, necklaces and thick bangles and then having metallic jewels painted onto her face, with two diamond teardrops under her right eye and her hair filled with curlicue metal swirls.
At one point a reporter asks, “who’s allowed to show up late for a Met Gala red carpet?” while Rihanna fans her makeup dry and enjoys a smoke as another woman’s voice says, “Rihanna?” and the video cuts to a vintage clip of the singer cheekily winking at an interviewer with a smile.
The camera then lingers on Rihanna’s imposing-looking dress hanging on a rack, zooming in on the metallic details before and after she slips into it and revealing that, as Rocky told Variety, she was, indeed, “shining like a diamond … she’s shining.”
“We going to the Met!!!” Rihanna yelps as the party heats up during the ride over and Rocky astutely directs the camera away from him and over to RihRih as she does last-minute touch-ups in the van while he enjoys a pre-celebration beverage to the strains of N.E.R.D.’s 2008 party anthem “Everyone Nose.” Rocky also leans in to show off his neck full of custom bling, including a green skull with diamond eyes and a bejeweled crucifix.
The clip ends with Rihanna looking in a mirror and seemingly getting misty as she says, “I feel so pretty! Oh my God!” while gazing at her glittery ensemble.
Vote for your favorite look from the 2026 Gala here.
Ronnie Wood is just as excited as the rest of us for the release of The Rolling Stones’ 25th and latest studio album Foreign Tongues.
When the legendary British guitarist proved it when he stopped by The Tonight Show on Thursday night, May 7, demonstrating the bounce of a cat, and the energy of lightning bolt.
Wood, age 78, will turn back time when he sets out on a run of solo shows in the United Kingdom and Continental Europe this summer, his first in 16 years. And in November, an exhibition of his artwork in Germany.
The big drop, of course, is the release of Foreign Tongues on July 10, a 14-track LP led by core members Mick Jagger, Keith Richards and Wood, with starry contributions from Paul McCartney, Steve Winwood, The Cure frontman Robert Smith and others.
The album, Fallon explained, reading from a vinyl copy, includes a cover of Amy Winehouse’s “You Know I’m No Good,” the original of which was housed on the late diva’s Back to Black album from 2006. Winehouse and the Rolling Stones have history. The “Rehab” singer joined the Rock Hall-inducted band on stage in June 2007 at the U.K.’s Isle of Wight Festival, for a rendition of “Ain’t Too Proud to Beg.”
Late night viewers were also treated to a snippet of “Back In Your Life,” which features a “fantastic” Wood solo, according to Fallon, who has enjoyed an early listen to the album. Wood, we learned, drew divine inspiration for the recording. The Englishman cut his solo on the day Brian Wilson died, last June, when he was still reeling from Sly Stone’s passing days earlier. “It came out my guitar, the feeling, you know,” he recounts. “Just one take. I didn’t do that, the guitar played itself.”
For his latest stint on NBC’s The Tonight Show, Wood took a trip down memory lane as he reminisced on how he learned music and art from his older siblings, was gifted his first guitar, being skint before fame, forming The Faces with Jeff Beck and Rod Stewart, and he rounded it out with a harmonica jam with Fallon and the house band.
“It’s inspirational to do” music and art, he says. “You know, I’m lucky enough to do a solo thing with the painting, and then be a part of a band, you know, part of a group, to express musically. It’s such a gift, you know, to be able to do both.”
Ahead of Foreign Tongues, the band has released two tracks from the project: album opener “Rough and Twisted” and lead single “In the Stars.” Wood’s guest spot on NBC’s The Tonight Show came 24 hours after Rolling Stones frontman Mick Jagger stopped by to do his bit in a comedy sketch.
Watch Wood’s interview below.
Charli xcx is living the year of going all-out. With the release today of “Rock Music,” the British singer, songwriter and producer switches gears, cranks up the amps and rocks it with electric guitars.
One of those amps goes out the window at the top of the official music video. Shot in black and white, and directed by Aidan Zamiri, the clip follows Charli as she gets up to rock ‘n’ roll stuff, strutting around central Manhattan wearing fewer clothes than anyone else, smoking up a storm, and unleashing a moshpit.
At its musical core, “Rock Music” has a throwback edge, its guitar riff slotting into what is essentially a mid-paced electronic track in which Charli splices and dices her vocals in the chorus. No, it’s not heavy. “Rock Music” has more in common to Daft Punk than it does to Deep Purple.
Charli first teased her new era, new sound in an April interview with British Vogue, which premiered one of the new song’s lyrics: “I think the dance floor is dead, so now we’re making rock music.”
She told the publication, “if I’d made another album that felt more dance-leaning, it would have felt really hard, really sad. That’s interesting for me is to bend the possibilities of what my perspective on that could be.”
Charli has since clarified that she isn’t necessarily performing an about-face for what would be album No. 8. On Instagram, she recently shared a clip of herself in the studio and wrote, “a video of me making a song called ‘rock music’ that is not actually rock music which is funny because i never said i was making a rock album.”
“Rock Music” is Charli’s first release since the Wuthering Heights companion album arrived in February, and dropped in at No. 8 on the Billboard 200 chart. Before that, her 2024 Brat album peaked at No. 3 on the all-genres chart, peaked at No. 1 on the Official U.K. Albums Chart and ARIA Chart, and caught the zeitgeist.
Charli’s busy year includes a starring role in A24’s The Moment, based on her original idea and the first co-production from her new studio365 venture. Also, she appears in Daniel Goldhaber’s remake of the 1978 cult horror Faces of Death, Greg Araki’s erotic thriller I Want Your Sex, Cathy Yan’s independent film The Gallerist, Julia Jackman’s period fantasy 100 Nights Of Hero, Romain Gavras’ satirical action Sacrifice and Pete Ohs’ intimate drama Erupcja.
Stream “Rock Music” below and watch the official music video.