Music

Thomas Rhett admits that a picture his five-year-old daughter Willa Gray drew for him has him in tears. 

Thomas shares on Instagram that Willa was instructed at school to draw a picture of a valuable lesson they learned from a friend. The result is a colorful sketch of Willa in a rainbow dress, shoes and hair to match, while her country superstar dad is portrayed in an all-black outfit with a pompadour hairstyle and wife Lauren Akins is merely a head with giant blond hair. 

“I learned from my dad no fear!” Willa writes on the picture. 

“Willa Gray’s teacher had her draw a picture of something they learned from a friend. She chose me and I’m borderline crying,” Thomas captions the photo. 

“This is the sweetest and Lauren Akins’ hair is accurate,” Cassie Kelley, wife of Lady A‘s Charles Kelley, shares in the comment section, while fellow friend Hayley Hubabrd simply writes, “Aww.’

Clearly the couple’s eldest daughter is taking after her father, as Willa also recently wrote her first song. 

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After Kanye West‘s long-awaited album Donda hit streaming services on Sunday, the rapper took to social media to let fans know that the decision to make it available wasn’t his. 

Sharing a text graphic, the Yeezy founder called out his label, writing, “UNIVERSAL PUT MY ALBUM OUT WITHOUT MY APPROVAL.”

“AND THEY BLOCKED JAIL 2 FROM BEING ON THE ALBUM,” he shared, referencing a second version of the track “Jail” that featured fellow rapper DaBaby. The original features a verse from JAY-Z. 

Earlier in the day, Ye shared screenshots of a text conversation revealing that DaBaby hadn’t signed the appropriate paperwork to clear his verse. The post has since been deleted, but it appears things worked themselves out because, by the afternoon, the song was available to stream. 

Donda, which is Ye’s 10th studio effort, hit streaming platforms early Sunday morning after multiple delays. After a year-long delay, it was first scheduled for release on July 23, then August 6, both following packed listening events held at Atlanta’s Mercedes Benz Stadium. A third listening event was held at Chicago’s Soldier field Thursday night, August 26. 

Since the release, artists like Chris Brown and Soulja Boy have taken issue with West after their verses on “New Again” and “Remote Control,” respectively, didn’t make it on the album. 

In a now-deleted Instagram Story, Brown, wrote, “Kanye a whole h**,” followed by “Nah he tweakin’.”

Meanwhile, Soulja posted purported screenshots of his conversation with Ye about collaborating on music and fashion. And, answering a fan who asked what he thought about Donda, he responded, “Idk how to feel, Kanye sent me that song “remote control” and I don’t hear my verse on it… hmm f*** that [man].”

 

 

 

 

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After spending the past few weeks hovering in the top five, Olivia Rodrigo‘s debut album SOUR has once again claimed the top spot on the Billboard 200 chart. 

The singer’s debut album was boosted by its August 20 vinyl LP release: SOUR sold an additional 133,000 units, with 76,000 consisting of vinyl sales alone.  Billboard says that marks the second-highest sales week for any LP since it began tracking vinyl sales data in 1991. Taylor Swift‘s evermore holds the title, with an impressive 102,000 copies of the vinyl version of the LP flying off the shelves in the first week of June.

SOUR was also streamed 69.82 million times in the past week.  

SOUR, which debuted May 21, has been assisted on the chart by Olivia’s trilogy of hits: “Drivers License,” “Deja Vu” and “good 4 u.”  But most of the album’s other tracks are also charting on the Hot 100 as well.

Currently, “good 4 u” leads the pack in the number-three spot.  “Deja Vu” also clings to the top 10 for another week, currently resting at number nine. “Traitor” and “Favorite Crime” are also charting in the top 100.

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Justin Bieber has further cemented his status as the prince of pop — a title given to him by Lizzo on Sunday — by being crowned Spotify’s most listened-to artist.

The music streaming service confirmed that the “Peaches” singer has amassed over 83.3 million monthly listeners, a new all-time record, reports Chart Data.  The milestone isn’t all too surprising, considering “Stay,” Justin’s collab with The Kid LAROI, has dominated the Billboard Hot 100 for three consecutive weeks.

Justin leads the Spotify pack by a wide margin, with The Weeknd earning second place with 74.5 million monthly listeners.  Ed Sheeran rounds out the top three with 72.4 million listeners per month.

Dua Lipa is the service’s most-streamed female artist, boasting 65.5 million monthly listeners.

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Before this summer, the most you’d probably heard about Walker Hayes was with his 2017 top-ten hit, “You Broke Up with Me.” But now, he’s “Fancy Like That.”

If you’ve missed it, “Fancy” is the rap-influenced, country-flavored earworm that extols the virtues of a girl who “wanna dip me like them fries in her Frosty” at Wendy’s, and get the “Bourbon Street steak with the Oreo shake” from “Applebee’s on a date night.”

And it was all fueled by a video Walker made with his 15-year-old daughter.

“Lela and I did the dance on Sunday afternoon,” Walker explains. “She said, ‘Hey Dad, “Fancy Like” doesn’t have a dance. We need to do one.'”

“We kinda created it together,” he continues. “She made up most of the moves. I made sure most of the moves could be done, even if you weren’t a great dancer — like me.”

“We popped it off in two takes… And the rest is history,” he reveals. “We pretty much knew hours later, we had accidentally done something — odd.”

Since then, at least one of the restaurants Walker name-dropped has come calling. 

“Within days, people began to predict ‘song of the summer,’ how viral it would go, things like that,” he tells ABC Audio. “I don’t necessarily say I believed ’em, but here we are.”

“There’s an Applebee’s commercial,” he points out. “The Oreo shake is back on the menu thanks to the power of a song.”

“And millions of people have done this dance,” he marvels. “And the song continues to climb all charts, all genres. It’s mind-blowing. It’s absolutely mind-blowing.”  

Sure enough, “Fancy Like” has already spent six weeks atop Billboard‘s Hot Country Songs ranking, while sitting at #12 on the pop-oriented Hot 100 as well.

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After releasing their album Dreamland over a year ago, Glass Animals is finally getting the chance to tour behind it. Their Dreamland tour kicks off tonight in Lewiston, NY — and frontman Dave Bailey says fans can have fun looking at their “bonkers” stage, and predicts he’ll spend some of the night “crying a little bit.”

Describing what fans can expect visually, Dave tells ABC Audio, “There’s Dreamland visuals, there’s giant palm trees, there’s floating neon signs and cereal bowls, and there’s a giant swimming pool.” He laughs, “It’s quite mad. It’s definitely the most bonkers stage design we’ve ever done!”

Between headlining shows, the “Heat Waves” group will also be playing festivals like Bonnaroo, Life Is Beautiful and Outside Lands, though Dave says those shows, like, their headlining shows, will be all about reading the room.

“We try to keep festival shows fun, but honestly, we really react to the crowd, at any show that we’re doing — be it a headline show or a  festival show, you have to look at the crowd and see how they’re feeling,” Dave explains. “…[I]f it’s like 6:00 in the afternoon and everyone’s pretty chill, then you can play things a bit slower, and maybe turn the ambient stuff up. Or if people are dancing and a dance artist has played before you, turn the drums up…have a total party.”

But Dave says one major highlight of tonight’s opening show will be seeing a live crowd react to “Heat Waves” — which is something he and the band haven’t really gotten to experience since it became a massive hit in the past year.

In fact, Dave admits, “I think I’ll probably end up crying a little bit.” 

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Kanye West’s long-awaited album Donda has finally arrived.

The album hit streaming services Sunday morning following three listening events over the past month — the latest one taking place Thursday in Kanye’s hometown of Chicago.

Donda, named for Kanye’s mother who passed away in 2007, was initially supposed to be released July 23.

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