Music

Kehlani‘s latest song, “Folded,” has inspired the launch of a charitable function. The singer has teamed with the Laundry Project for Nini’s Fluff & Fold, an event offering free laundry services to single mothers. It’s named after the fictional dry cleaners featured in the music video for the song.

“growing up i knew how hard it was for all the single mamas in my family to get the tasks done on top of it all,” she wrote in an Instagram announcement. “clean clothes is a basic necessity. i got yall.”

“thank you @engagecurrent for sponsoring this initiative, and my brother @city.james for such an incredible idea,” she continued. “AS A THANK YOU FOR SENDING THIS SONG OVER THE MOON! i love you mommy’s. you deserve the world.”

Nini’s Fluff & Fold is a first come, first served event taking place Saturday from 10 a.m. to 12 p.m. local time in LA, Chicago, New York, Atlanta and other cities. Kehlani will not be present. More information is available on the Laundry Project’s website.

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Lady Gaga‘s upcoming song “Dead Dance,” which she recorded for the soundtrack of the new season of Wednesday, will also have a video. That’s according to The Hollywood Reporter, which cites a source as saying that Wednesday director Tim Burton helmed the clip, which was shot in Mexico. 

Citing multiple sources, People reports the reason Kelly Clarkson was absent from her talk show earlier this year was indeed due to the illness of her late ex-husband, Brandon Blackstock. Prior to the announcement of Blackstock’s death from cancer at age 48, Kelly had told fans she was canceling her August Las Vegas residency shows to be with her kids through their father’s illness. It’s not known if Blackstock’s death will affect Kelly’s upcoming plans, which include a return to The Voice, more Las Vegas shows and an NBC interview series set to premiere Aug. 19.

After teaming up at Lollapalooza to perform “Ordinary,” Alex Warren and Luke Combs have now officially released their live duet to streaming services.

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Charles Kelley stopped by CBS Mornings on Thursday to promote his new album, Songs for a New Moon. You can check out his appearance online now.

Brett Young will bring his Back to Basics World Tour to the SSE Arena in Belfast, Ireland, on Oct. 31. Tickets are on sale now.

Recorded by the late Charley Pride in the ’80s, Endlessly: A Tribute to Brook Benton will be released on Sept. 19. 

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Kid Cudi has discussed his struggle with mental health over the years, and that continues in his upcoming book, Cudi: The Memoir. In an excerpt obtained by GQ, he opens up about nearly overdosing while working on his album Man on the Moon II.

“I was at peace with dying,” Cudi began, recalling a night in his New York City apartment where he’d been “crying for hours” and had just done “more coke than I ever had in my life.”

“I tried to get up off the bed, but my legs wouldn’t work, so I collapsed to the floor and started to crawl,” he wrote. “Eventually, I gave in and just laid on the ground. My heart was racing. It felt like it was going to burst any minute.”

“‘You made great music that people loved,’ I thought,” Cudi continued. “‘But this is the end.’”

In the memoir, Cudi described how he started using cocaine as a way to grapple with fame and gradually increased his consumption. He said he believed that being Kid Cudi would “transform my life in all the best ways,” but would later realized it was “not like anything I had imagined.”

By the time he started working on Speedin’ Bullet 2 Heaven, Cudi admitted he had thoughts about dying by suicide.

“After we’d finished a session, I’d be alone Googling exit bags. I was thinking about a way I could actually do it. I was plotting it. There’s a song at the end of Speedin’ Bullet where I say good-bye, and that was meant to be my final album,” he writes. “I was going to kill myself at the end of that album, or before it came out, or during that cycle. I was not planning to live that year. Not many people around me expected me to either.”

Cudi: The Memoir comes out on Aug. 12.

If you are in crisis or know someone in crisis, contact the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline by dialing 988, by calling 1-800-273-TALK (8255), or by visiting 988lifeline.org. You can also contact the Crisis Text Line by texting HOME to 741741.

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Another track has just been released from the upcoming album Beat Live, which captures a performance from the 2024 BEAT tour featuring former King Crimson members Adrian Belew and Tony Levin, guitar great Steve Vai and Tool drummer Danny Carey.

The tour had the four artists celebrating the ’80s-era music of King Crimson, reinterpreting three of the band’s albums – 1981’s Discipline, 1982’s Beat and 1984’s Three of a Perfect Pair – which were also the first three to feature Belew and Levin.

The latest preview of the live album is a performance of the track “Frame By Frame,” which appeared on Three of a Perfect Pair. 

“This is a miraculous piece of music,” Vai says of the song. “It contains unique, death-defying poly-metric intertwined guitar parts that seamlessly and elegantly support a most gorgeous lyric and vocal melody line. It’s a joy to perform every time. Did I mention that the guitar parts are death-defying?”

The Beat tour hit 65 North American cities in 2024 and Beat Live captures their performance at the United Theater on Broadway in Los Angeles. The album will be released in various formats on Sept. 26 and is available for preorder now.

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Mgk‘s new album, Lost Americana, features a song called “dont wait run fast,” which ESPN has announced will serve as its 2025 college football anthem. But it turns out the song was inspired by pro football, Travis Kelce and Taylor Swift.

Speaking to ABC News Live, mgk said, “It was cool ’cause I wrote that song after I left the Chiefs’ losing party that I had to perform at at the Super Bowl.”

Earlier this year, the Chiefs lost to the Eagles at Super Bowl 59.

Asked what it was like to play a “losing party,” mgk laughed, “Just let me be the only one that can say I’ve done it. Don’t ever sign yourself up for that. Wait to sign the paper … until third quarter or something.”

He added that he “rocks with” the Chiefs and felt “honored” that he was asked to do it.

“I was in Travis’ suite [during the game] and at the beginning of it, Taylor was like, ‘Hell yeah, we’re gonna come watch you perform. It’s gonna be crazy tonight.’ And internally, I was stoked. I was like, ‘Oh, what a legendary night this is gonna be.'”

“By the third quarter, dude, I was looking at that score — I went up to Taylor, I was like, ‘Y’all aren’t coming tonight, huh?’ She was like, ‘I don’t think so, man. I’ll see if I can get him to get out.’”

In other mgk sports-related news, MGK Day will be celebrated in his hometown of Cleveland, Ohio, Aug. 8-10. Events include a free concert by the singer and a celebrity shootout, where stars including former NFL players, streetball legends, UFC champions, snowboarders, actors and WWE stars will play a half-court, streetball-style basketball game.

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If you still think of Scotty McCreery as the teen who won American Idol in 2011, the new cover of Cigar & Spirits may just change all that. 

McCreery casts a steely gaze in a dark suit and tie for the summer 2025 issue of the lifestyle magazine, along with an article titled “Country Music Star Scotty McCreery Goes Deep” and an “exclusive bonus pictorial.”

Meanwhile, his hit with Hootie & the Blowfish, “Bottle Rockets,” has made it into the top 10 on Billboard‘s Country Airplay chart in only a dozen weeks. It’s the band’s first country top 10, following nine solo number ones for lead singer Darius Rucker. 

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YoungBoy Never Broke Again‘s latest album, MASA, debuted at #6 on the Billboard 200, helping him make Billboard history. It’s his 34th album to make its way onto the chart, according to Billboard, giving him the most career entries in the genre of rap. He is now followed by previous chart-topper E-40, who previously held the record with 33 career entries.

YoungBoy debuted on the Billboard 200 in 2017 with AI YoungBoy and has since had eight studio albums, 20 mixtapes, three compilations and three EPs secure positions on the chart. His busiest years were in 2018 and 2022, when eight of his projects entered the chart each year.

YoungBoy previously spoke to Billboard about his consistent releases, which he, at the time, described as a “disease.”

“Literally, I cannot help myself. I tell myself sometimes, ‘I’m not going to drop until months from now,’ but it’s addictive,” he said. “I wish I knew when I was younger how unhealthy this was for me. Whatever type of energy I had inside me, I would’ve pushed it toward something else.”

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Songs by artists including Foo Fighters, Linkin Park and Green Day are featured on the soundtrack for Madden NFL 26, the latest edition in the long-running football video game series.

Among the included tracks are the Foos’ “The Pretender,” LP’s “The Emptiness Machine” and Green Day’s “Basket Case,” as well songs by Twenty One Pilots, Rage Against the Machine, 311, Beastie Boys, Bush, Blur, Franz Ferdinand, Judas Priest, Korn, Limp Bizkit, Mammoth, Megadeth, Shinedown, The Killers, The Warning, Weezer and Wolfmother.

Additionally, you’ll be able to hear snippets of such songs as The White Stripes‘ “Seven Nation Army,” Red Hot Chili Peppers‘ “Give It Away” and Metallica‘s “For Whom the Bell Tolls” in the virtual football stadiums while playing games.

Madden NFL 26 will be released Aug. 14.

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Not long after Kelly Clarkson announced that she was canceling her August residency shows in Las Vegas due to her ex-husband’s health comes the news that he has passed away. He was 48.

A statement from his rep reads, “It is with great sadness that we share the news that Brandon Blackstock has passed away. Brandon bravely battled cancer for more than three years. He passed away peacefully and was surrounded by family.”

“We thank you for your thoughts and prayers and ask everyone to respect the family’s privacy during this very difficult time,” the statement concludes.

Blackstock, a music manager who worked with Blake Shelton, among others, was married to Kelly from 2013 to 2022. He was Reba McEntire‘s stepson, as his father, music manager Narvel Blackstock, was married to McEntire from 1989 to 2015.

Blackstock had two children from his previous marriage to Melissa Ashworth: Seth Blackstock and Savannah Blackstock. With Kelly, he had daughter River, 10, and son Remy, 8.

When Kelly missed several episodes of her talk show earlier this year, there were unconfirmed reports that she was absent due to Brandon’s illness.

Kelly and Brandon’s split was messy, with Kelly suing and eventually winning more than $2.6 million from him in commissions, which the California Labor Commission ruled that he had received from unlawfully handling certain business deals for her. They also fought in court over their Montana ranch.

As part of their split, Kelly was ordered to pay Brandon over $100,000 per month in spousal support and more than $45,000 a month in child support until January 2024.

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