A$AP Rocky says his mother always wanted him with Rihanna

A$AP Rocky says his mother always wanted him with Rihanna
A$AP Rocky says his mother always wanted him with Rihanna
Rihanna and A$AP Rocky attend the 2025 CFDA Awards at The American Museum of Natural History on November 03, 2025, in New York City. (Photo by Jamie McCarthy/WireImage)

“Mother knows best,” according to the common saying, and A$AP Rocky seems to agree. During an upcoming episode of The New York Times’ Popcast, he revealed that his mother had hoped he would end up with Rihanna,  even when the two were just friends.

“My mother used to say s*** like, ‘I know you like this girl that you [are] with right now’ — I ain’t gon’ say no names — ‘but I want you with RiRi,” he said in a teaser clip. “It’s like, ‘Ma, why you keep saying that? That girl don’t even want me like that.’” He later added, “Mothers know best.”

Reflecting on his relationship with Rihanna, Rocky said he’s grateful for the timing. “I’m thankful that she was put in my life at that time, because I think any time prior to that, I don’t think I was ready for something like that,” he said. “I don’t think she was either.”

Rocky also reflected on how Rihanna has been a positive influence in his life, saying, “Before I had my children, it was like being with my girl [would take] a blindfold off. As soon as you get with a girl, she’ll tell you, like, ‘That’s not your friend. That’s — that’s your friend. But that one? Nah.’”

Rocky acknowledged that he “got with a very special woman” and went on to describe their deep connection. “We were on the same page. Born the same year. My dad is from her country,” he said. “When I go back, I get to see both sides of my family. It’s so many similarities, it’s just funny. We laugh about it a lot.”

“She was always my boo, you know what I’m saying?” he added. “Like, I always f***** with her.”

The full Popcast episode comes out Thursday.

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Pink celebrates 2 billion views of ‘Just Give Me a Reason’

Pink celebrates 2 billion views of ‘Just Give Me a Reason’
Pink celebrates 2 billion views of ‘Just Give Me a Reason’
Nate Ruess and Pink perform onstage during the 56th GRAMMY Awards, Jan. 26, 2014 in Los Angeles, California. (Michael Tran/FilmMagic)

Pink celebrated her hit “Try” hitting 1 billion streams on Spotify in early January. Now she’s celebrating an even more impressive milestone.

The video for “Just Give Me a Reason,” her duet with Nate Ruess of Fun., has just reached 2 billion views on YouTube. “I can’t quite wrap my head around how big that number is,” she wrote on Instagram.

“When you write a song, you hope it finds its way into people’s lives, year after year,” she added. “Thank you for giving this song a place, and making it yours as much as it is mine.” 

“Just Give Me a Reason,” released in 2013, became Pink’s fourth #1 hit on the Billboard Hot 100. It earned her and Nate two Grammy nominations.

The post also included behind-the-scenes footage of the making of the video, which showed Pink and her husband, Carey Hart, lying together on a mattress floating in the water, and then together in the water, making out. In the footage, Pink is seen in the pool where they filmed the clip, looking upset.

“Carey’s a really, really, really great man. He’s not even complaining and this isn’t even his shoot,” she says of her husband. “I’m complaining. This is s*** 20-year-olds do. I’m a grown-a** woman.”

Carey, in the pool next to her, teases, “Having fun yet, baby?” “I wanna be mad at you, but I can’t!” she replies. “I want this somehow to be your fault.” Carey laughs, “Not today.”

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Gorillaz shares two new ’The Mountain’ tracks, ‘The Hardest Thing’ & ‘Orange County’

Gorillaz shares two new ’The Mountain’ tracks, ‘The Hardest Thing’ & ‘Orange County’
Gorillaz shares two new ’The Mountain’ tracks, ‘The Hardest Thing’ & ‘Orange County’
‘The Mountain’ album artwork. (Kong)

Gorillaz has shared two new songs off the band’s upcoming album, The Mountain.

The tracks are called “The Hardest Thing” and “Orange County.” “The Hardest Thing” features late drummer Tony Allen, while “Orange County” features poet and U.S. National Youth Poet Laureate Kara Jackson, Argentine producer Bizarrap and sitar player Anoushka Shankar.

The two songs are sequenced next to each other on The Mountain. You can hear them together as what a press release calls a “full two track 8-minute piece as intended” via an accompanying visualizer on YouTube.

The Mountain is due out Feb. 27. It also includes the single “The Happy Dictator.”

Gorillaz will be playing The Mountain in full during two shows in Los Angeles taking place Feb. 22 and 23. The band’s House of Kong exhibition will also be open in LA between Feb. 26 and March 19.

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Chris Stapleton expands the 2026 All-American Road Show

Chris Stapleton expands the 2026 All-American Road Show
Chris Stapleton expands the 2026 All-American Road Show
Chris Stapleton’s All-American Roadshow (Live Nation)

Chris Stapleton is adding four new concerts to his 2026 All-American Road Show. 

Thanks to demand, the ACM male vocalist of the year is adding second shows June 27 in North Charleston, South Carolina; July 11 in Chula Vista, California; July 25 in George, Washington; and July 30 in Shakopee, Minnesota.

Tickets for the new stops go on sale Friday. 

Currently, Chris has a top-20 hit with “A Song to Sing” with Miranda Lambert, just as his breakthrough, “Tennessee Whiskey,” became the only country song in history to be certified Double Diamond, moving 20 million units. 

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J. Cole releases ‘Disc 2 Track 2’ following ‘The Fall-Off’ announcement

J. Cole releases ‘Disc 2 Track 2’ following ‘The Fall-Off’ announcement
J. Cole releases ‘Disc 2 Track 2’ following ‘The Fall-Off’ announcement
‘The Fall-Off’ cover art (Dreamville Records)

Hours after announcing the release date for his long-awaited album, The Fall-Off, J. Cole surprised fans with what appears to be a music video for its lead single. Titled “Disc 2 Track 2,” the video opens with a note in which he reflects on the decadelong process of making the album.

“For the past 10 years, this album has been hand crafted with one intention: a personal challenge to myself to create my best work. To do on my last what I was unable to do on my first,” Cole wrote. “I had no way of knowing how much time, focus and energy it would eventually take to achieve this, but despite the countless challenges along the way, I knew in my heart I would one day get to the finish line. I owed it first and foremost to myself. And secondly, I owed it to hip hop.”

The video then cuts to Cole seated in a room and holding a notepad, struggling to write as he rips out pages and tosses them aside. The lyrics find him charting his life in reverse, much like Nas did on his 2001 song “Rewind.”

The Fall-Off release date was revealed Wednesday alongside the album artwork and a video of Cole engaging in his daily activities. The clip was soundtracked by comedian Dan Harumi’s video “How Long Is America Supposed to Last?” in which he explores the natural cycle of success and decline of most things in the U.S.

The Fall-Off arrives Feb. 6, with Cole’s new song title leading to speculation that it will be a double project.

(Video contains uncensored profanity.)

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Birthday boy Pitbull announces North American tour

Birthday boy Pitbull announces North American tour
Birthday boy Pitbull announces North American tour
Pitbull, I’m Back Tour (Live Nation)

Pitbull celebrates his 45th birthday Thursday, and he’s given fans a gift: a tour announcement.

The rapper’s I’m Back Tour kicks off May 14 in West Palm Beach, Florida, with special guest Lil Jon. It’s set to wrap up Sept. 26 in Shakopee, Minnesota.

An artist presale starts Jan. 28 at 10 a.m. local time — you can sign up for it at livemu.sc/pitbull. The tickets go on sale Jan. 30 at 10 a.m. via LiveNation.com. VIP packages are also available via VIPNation.com.

Pitbull will warm up for the tour Jan. 19 when he performs at the Allstate Championship Tailgate before the 2026 College Football Playoff National Championship in Miami Gardens. 

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Bad Omens, Limp Bizkit, Disturbed headlining 2026 Inkcarceration

Bad Omens, Limp Bizkit, Disturbed headlining 2026 Inkcarceration
Bad Omens, Limp Bizkit, Disturbed headlining 2026 Inkcarceration
Inkcarceration 2026 lineup. (Danny Wimmer Presents)

Bad Omens, Limp Bizkit and Disturbed are headlining Inkcarceration 2026, taking place July 17-19 in Mansfield, Ohio. 

As always, the music and tattoo festival will be held on the grounds of the Ohio State Reformatory, the historic prison where The Shawshank Redemption was filmed.

The bill also includes Papa Roach, Gojira, A Day to Remember, The Used, Motionless in White, Ice Nine Kills, Sleeping with Sirens, Poppy, Hollywood Undead and Starset, among many others.

Tickets are on sale now. For the full lineup and all ticket info, visit Inkcarceration.com.

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See Rod Stewart lead a pub sing-along in Scotland

See Rod Stewart lead a pub sing-along in Scotland
See Rod Stewart lead a pub sing-along in Scotland
Rod Stewart before the Premier Sports Cup Semi-final match at Hampden Park, Glasgow. Picture date: Sunday November 2, 2025. (Jane Barlow/PA Images via Getty Images)

Rod Stewart will sing anywhere — even in a Scottish pub on a weeknight.

The Glasgow Times reports that Rod was in the Scottish city of Falkirk on Wednesday to watch his favorite soccer team, Celtic, play. In video shared on the Instagram Story of his Wolfie’s whisky brand, Rod can be seen doing karaoke to the song “Have You Ever Seen the Rain” by Creedence Clearwater Revival, accompanied by his son Alastair Stewart and others.

According to the paper, as he left the pub Rod hugged one of the customers and said, “Cheers everybody, God bless.”

Rod released his version of “Have You Ever Seen the Rain” as the first single from his 2006 album, Still the Same… Great Rock Classics of Our Time, which debuted at #1 on the Billboard 200 chart.

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‘Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere’ sets Hulu debut

‘Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere’ sets Hulu debut
‘Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere’ sets Hulu debut
Artwork for ‘Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere’ Hulu debut (Courtesy of Walt Disney Home Entertainment))

The Bruce Springsteen biopic Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere is set for its streaming debut.

The film, starring The Bear’s Jeremy Allen White as The Boss and Jeremy Strong as his manager, Jon Landau, will debut on Hulu and Hulu on Disney+ Jan. 23. It also stars Stephen Graham, Paul Walter Hauser and Gaby Hoffmann.

Directed by Scott Cooper, the movie follows Springsteen’s efforts to make his 1982 solo album, Nebraska. The album featured 10 acoustic songs Springsteen originally recorded as demos on a four-track recorder. He’d planned to rerecord them with the E Street Band but instead released them as a solo acoustic record.

As previously announced, Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere will also be released on 4K Blu-ray on Jan. 20, with the release including the four-act documentary Making Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere.

The documentary’s four parts cover the process of adapting Warren Zanes’ 2023 book, Deliver Me from Nowhere: The Making of Bruce Springsteen’s Nebraska, for the big screen; a look at the album Nebraska; a deep dive into actor White’s process of becoming Springsteen for the film; and what it took to capture Springsteen’s New Jersey during the era of the movie.

Disney is the parent company of ABC News and Hulu.

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Black Stone Cherry releases ‘Don’t You (Forget About Me)’ cover with Theory’s Tyler Connolly

Black Stone Cherry releases ‘Don’t You (Forget About Me)’ cover with Theory’s Tyler Connolly
Black Stone Cherry releases ‘Don’t You (Forget About Me)’ cover with Theory’s Tyler Connolly
‘Celebrate’ EP artwork. (Mascot Records)

Won’t you come see about Black Stone Cherry covering “Don’t You (Forget About Me)?”

The Kentucky rockers have released their version of the ’80s classic, which Simple Minds originally recorded for the film The Breakfast Club. The cover also features Theory of a Deadman frontman Tyler Connolly.

“We’ve been excited for y’all to hear this one, so turn it up and let us know what you think!” Black Stone Cherry says in a Facebook post.

The cover will appear on the upcoming Black Stone Cherry EP Celebrate, due out March 6.

Black Stone Cherry’s most recent album is 2023’s Screamin’ at the Sky.

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