Music

Meghan Trainor, Jordin Sparks, Maren Morris, Black Eyed Peas and more will salute the holidays in the newest installment of The Wonderful World of Disney: Magical Holiday Celebration.

The annual celebration, hosted by siblings Derek and Julianne Hough, returns Sunday, November 27, at 8 p.m. ET. Singers will dazzle with festive performances from California’s Disneyland and Florida’s Disney World.  

BEP will perform “I Gotta Feeling” and “A Cold Christmas,” while Meghan will perform a medley of “Made You Look” and “Here Comes Santa Claus.” Jordin will sing “Trapmas Medley,” Maren will belt out “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree” and Ne-Yo will perform “The Christmas Song (Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire),” as well as “What Christmas Means to Me” with Chloe Flower and Becky G.

Run-DMC will also be in house to perform their holiday staple “Christmas in Hollis.”

During the holiday special we’ll get a couple of sneak peeks into the wonderful world of Disney, including a glimpse at the newest Disney Cruise Line ship.

The show will also feature a teaser of the new film Avatar: The Way of Water, which is coming to theaters on December 16.

Then, on December 25, most of these singers will return for the Disney Parks Magical Christmas Day Parade. Performances include Meghan singing “My Kind of Present,” Maren performing “When You Wish Upon a Star” and Ne-Yo singing “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.” BEP will also be on hand to sing “Carol of the Bells.”

The Hough siblings will co-host the parade with Good Trouble‘s Sherry Cola and grown-ish’s Marcus Scribner. The parade steps off 10 a.m. ET on Christmas Day.

Both specials will be available to stream on Hulu and Disney+ the following day.

Disney is the parent company of ABC News.

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GloRilla‘s year has been filled with accomplishments, including a new record deal, Billboard Hot 100 entry, collaborations with Cardi B and Ciara, and most recently, her first Grammy nomination. From the looks of things, her 2023 will also be off to a great start.

In January, the Memphis rapper will kick off her first headlining tour, a 16-city outing making stops in major cities like Atlanta, Houston, Detroit, Philadelphia and New York. The date for her hometown show has yet to be announced. Tickets go on sale Friday, November 18, at 10 a.m. local time.

The Anyways, Life’s Great tour is in support of GloRilla’s recently released EP of the same name. The project features the Cardi B-assisted “Tomorrow 2” and her breakthrough hit “F.N.F. (Let’s Go),” which is up for Best Rap Performance at the 2023 Grammys.

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Billy Ray Cyrus announced via People that he is engaged to singer-songwriter Firerose. The couple have collaborated musically, too; their latest song together is called “Time.”

The Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum has announced a partnership with the University of Illinois to release books on country music. The first release, a companion book to a current Hall of Fame exhibit called Western Edge, is available now.

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The Notorious B.I.G.‘s estate is partnering with Meta, Willingie and Gunpowder & Sky for a virtual concert that will be the culmination of the late rapper’s 50th birthday celebration.

Set for December 16, The Notorious B.I.G. Sky’s The Limit: A VR Concert Experience will take see Biggie, born Christopher Wallace, hit the stage in avatar form to perform some of his classic hits alongside Diddy, The Lox, Latto, Lil’ Cease, Nardo Wick and DJ Clark Kent. In addition, the late rapper will take fans via Meta Horizon Worlds through a day of his life in The Brook, a virtual recreation of his Brooklyn neighborhood in the ’90s. Journalist Touré will write and voice Biggie in the narration.

Biggie was killed in a drive-by shooting on March 9, 1997. He would have turned 50 on May 21, 2022. Voletta Wallace says her son being brought to life virtually is sometimes a hard concept to grasp.

“Having the ability to create a variance of new opportunity to showcase my son Christopher’s music through the advancement of technology is hard for me to grasp at times, however, I’ve found so much excitement in the process of developing his avatar, understanding the value added for fans to experience him in ways unattainable till now,” she says in a statement. “Thank you to all who have contributed to bringing this project to fruition.”

The immersive experience will stream exclusively in Venues in Meta Horizon Worlds, Meta Quest TV and The Notorious B.I.G.’s Facebook page at 6 p.m. PT.

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Andrew McMahon in the Wilderness has premiered a new song called “VHS.”

“Sometimes the stories we tell ourselves about where we come from and what we’ve been through are the very things that keep us from truly living in the moment,” McMahon says. “I’m no stranger to this trap. If you’re lucky, as I have been, you have people in your life who remind you that living in the here and now frees you from the past and the future.”

He adds, “‘VHS’ was written to remind myself of that universal truth.”

You can listen to “VHS” now via digital outlets. An accompanying visualizer premiered via Flood Magazine.

“VHS” is the third new Wilderness song of 2022 following “Stars” and “Skywriting.” The outfit’s most recent album is 2018’s Upside Down Flowers.

In between releasing new Wilderness tunes, McMahon has reunited with Something Corporate. The band will play the 2023 When We Were Young festival.

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Thomas Rhett and his family are celebrating a very special birthday this week. The youngest of the singer’s four children, Lillie, is officially a one-year-old.

“Lillie bug…how are you one already?” TR wrote on social media. “It seems like yesterday. For real.”

In his birthday post, the singer shared a snapshot of little Lillie offering the camera a grin with big, purple sunglasses on her face. That sunny demeanor is pretty typical of his baby girl, Thomas says in the rest of his post’s caption.

“Every time I look at you you are smiling!” he goes on to say. “Don’t ever lose that! Happy birthday to you little baby.”

Thomas and his wife, Lauren Akins, share four daughters, whose ages span from 7 to 1. Over on Lauren’s social media, she shared a snapshot of the family’s “hot tub party” celebrating Lillie’s birthday.

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Lizzo granted Georgia author Aurielle Marie‘s wish to wear one of her iconic dresses to a New York ceremony.

The Atlanta-based writer will be honored in the 2022 Out100 ceremony, which will highlight LGBTQ+ literary and publishing stars. The author was previously celebrated for their published collection of poems Gumbo Ya Ya, which they say is about “growing up fat, Black and queer in the south.”

Marie, who is also the 2022 Georgia Author of the Year, took to TikTok to ask Lizzo for a big favor.

Marie said they “can’t find anything to wear… I can’t find anything, anywhere.” The author said finding a bold “red carpet ready” dress for their body type hasn’t only been difficult, but the longer they spend hunting for the dress, the less they want to go to New York for the ceremony.

Marie ended their video by asking Lizzo if they could borrow the dress she wore to the 2022 Emmy Awards.

The singer caught wind of the request and did send off one of her dresses, but it was the custom tulle Dominique Galbraith ball gown she wore to the 2019 American Music Awards that made it to Marie’s doorstep. Not only that, Lizzo ensured it was tailored to fit the author.

Marie made a follow-up TikTok of them modeling the gown and showing off their excitement. They wrote, “I might’ve gotten a few tears on your dress @lizzo, my bad babe!”

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Seether has announced a reissue of the band’s 2002 debut album, Disclaimer.

The expanded package is due out January 20, 2023, and includes the original record accompanied by a previously unreleased full live recording of a 2003 live show, as well as a live acoustic cover of Nirvana‘s “Something in the Way.”

“If there was ever a little engine that could, against all odds, with every possible obstacle thrown at us, this is the record,” says frontman Shaun Morgan in the updated Disclaimer liner notes. “We managed to somehow surmount everything.”

Disclaimer spawned the singles “Fine Again,” “Gasoline” and “Driven Under.” It was followed by 2004’s Disclaimer II, which featured slightly reworked versions of the songs from the first Disclaimer, as well as a new version of the song “Broken” featuring Evanescence‘s Amy Lee.

Seether’s most recent album is 2020’s Si Vis Pacem, Para Bellum.

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