Music

Amaarae has kicked off her Black Star era with a new song, “S.M.O.” It’s an acronym for “slut me out,” an indication of the grown women vibes fans will hear on her forthcoming album.

“Black Star to me is the genesis of me feeling sure and confident in myself as a grown woman, number one, and knowing exactly what my message is, how I want to tell it to the world,” she says om an interview with Rolling Stone.

The title is a triple entendre referencing her (a Black woman), the Black origins of dance music and her Ghanaian culture.

“I’m taking my culture and I’m synthesizing it in a way that feels unique and fresh to me … I wanted to take a genre that needs to go back home to its roots and merge that with my African roots and hip-hop and create a new world,” she tells Rolling Stone.

Her hope with Black Star is to show people all over the world where she’s from.

“With this album, I want to stamp it as ‘I’m from Ghana, I love being Ghanaian.’ I want to be a global symbol,” she says. “My soul can’t rest until I feel like I’ve made a project that resonates in a really huge way globally. The last frontier is to make both a commercial and critical success.”

Black Star arrives on Aug. 8.

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Rihanna unleashed a torrent of slime and Sabrina Carpenter was the big winner in the music categories at the Nickelodeon Kids’ Choice Awards, held Saturday in Santa Monica, California.

Sabrina, who wasn’t present, won three Blimps, including favorite female breakout artist, favorite album for Short n’ Sweet and favorite song for “Taste.” Bruno Mars and SZA were named favorite male and female artist, respectively, while Benson Boone was favorite male breakout artist.

Favorite music collaboration went to “luther” by SZA and Kendrick Lamar, and “Defying Gravity” from Wicked was named favorite song from a movie. Favorite viral song went to “Bluest Flame,” by Selena Gomez and Benny Blanco, and Tyla, who hosted the show, was named favorite global music star.

Rihanna was honored with the first-ever Icon Silver Blimp Award for her contributions to entertainment, beauty and activism. She accepted the award via video from inside Smurf Village — promoting her role as Smurfette in the upcoming Smurfs movie — and then the entire audience got drenched with waves of blue slime, as opposed to the usual green. 

“Yes!” Rihanna laughed. “I knew you were gonna get slimed, but I did not know it was gonna be blue.”

Green slime was flying everywhere during the show: mgk performed his song “cliché” after being introduced by his daughter Casie Baker and then got slimed, and KATSEYE was slimed after performing “Gnarly.” Jack Black and Alex Warren also got covered in the green goo, while host Tyla closed out the show by getting completely drenched in slime.

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REO Speedwagon’s Kevin Cronin is feeling nostalgic about Live Aid, which will be celebrating its 40th anniversary in July.

Cronin reveals in a Facebook post that he was just interviewed about the concerts for the anniversary. He writes, “It was an incredible, monumental, and unifying day – a global effort from Philadelphia and London to fight famine in Africa through music.”

And the interview prompted Cronin to take a step to continue that fight.

“To honor that powerful legacy, the Kevin Cronin Band is proud to say that we will be donating a portion of the proceeds from our show closest to the anniversary – July 12th at Jiffy Lube Live in VA – towards ongoing efforts to address food insecurity,” he says. “Wouldn’t it be amazing if many of the other Live Aid performers would join in and consider a similar gesture? Every little bit helps, as the need is still there.”

He then tagged several other artists who performed at Live Aid, including Eric Clapton, Bob Dylan, Simple Minds, Neil Young, Bryan Adams and Carlos Santana.

Live Aid, organized by Bob Geldof and Midge Ure, took place July 13, 1985, at London’s Wembley Stadium and Philly’s John F. Kennedy Stadium. The benefit concerts, which raised more than $150 million for Ethiopian famine relief, were watched by about 2 billion people in more than 100 countries.

Cronin and his band are currently on tour with Styx. They next play Kansas City, Missouri, on July 2. A complete list of dates can be found at KevinCronin.com.

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When you watch Ed Sheeran‘s new video for “Drive,” take note of the red electric guitar that he plays in the clip: He designed the PRS-brand instrument as a one-off model, specifically to go with the song and video. “I wanted to create a bespoke guitar with PRS for the F1 movie,” he tells Guitar World. He notes that he wanted it to be “striking and bright,” as well as have a suitable sound for playing the song live. “It’s a fantastic guitar, I’ve done a few shows with it now and it knocks,” he adds.

After joining American Idol as the show’s artist in residence, Jelly Roll is now joining another ABC show — temporarily. He’ll be one of the guest hosts this summer on Jimmy Kimmel Live!, which will feature celebrities filling in for Jimmy Kimmel starting Monday. So far, Jelly’s the only musician who’ll be stepping in. Other guests hosts include Anthony Anderson, Alan Cumming, Chris Distefano and Diego Luna.

Post Malone will headline the Esports World Cup opening ceremony on July 10 in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Post is an avid gamer himself, often streams his play on Twitch and is even a part owner of Optic Gaming, an esports and entertainment organization.

Ariana Grande has shared more photos of her late nonna, Marjorie Grande, to her Instagram Story. The black-and-white photos show Marjorie, with her hair in curlers, sitting on a bed with Ariana, Ariana’s dog Toulouse and another dog. On Tuesday, Ari’s family announced Marjorie’s passing at age 99. In 2024, Marjorie became the oldest living person to appear on the Billboard Hot 100 chart, thanks to her feature on Ariana’s song “ordinary things” from her album eternal sunshine.

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Offset has released new music just in time for the summer. “Bodies” features J.I.D. and samples Drowning Pool‘s 2001 song of the same name.

“’Bodies’ is one of them ones I had to really take my time with. It’s about standing on who you are, coming out the mud, and being confident in the face of adversity. I’m always evolving, and I don’t fit in a box as an artist,” Offset says in a statement. “I’ve been cooking this up for a minute and I’m just getting started. J.I.D. is my guy and had the perfect energy to match ‘Bodies.’ Stay tuned because we going up.”

The song is accompanied by a new music video filmed in LA and directed by Offset. It finds him performing by a desert runway as models strut their stuff down a red carpet, in front of a choir holding candles. He’s then seen sitting on a throne, where he receives his crown from his devotees. The video is available to watch on YouTube.

(Video contains uncensored profanity.)

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It was clear from the teasers that Benson Boone‘s new video for his song “Mr. Electric Blue” would poke fun at him — but now that it’s out, you can see just how far Benson is going to prove that he’s in on the joke when it comes to everything people hate about him.

In the clip, Benson’s record label guy tells him he owes the label $10 million, so he takes a bunch of odd jobs — dog walker, car washer, pool cleaner, ice cream truck driver, landscaper — to raise the funds.

Each scene has some kind of diss built in: While he walks dogs, he wears a tee that says “Inauthentic.” When he mows the grass, his tee reads, “Auto-Tune Trimmers.” When he works as a sign flipper, he holds a sign that reads, “100% artificial.”

When he washes cars, he’s topless, showing off his famous abs and trying to look sexy, but he’s rejected by a female customer with a bumper sticker on her car that reads “Mustaches are lame.” As he cleans pools, he gets on the diving board, only to spot a sign that says, “No backflips.”

When he sells ice cream, a little girl says, “Hey, you’re that guy who sings ‘Beautiful Things.'” When Benson smiles and says, “I sure am. Thank you very much,” the girl replies, “Your music is terrible.”

Finally, Benson returns to the record company and begs for more time, only to be informed that the label guy has sold his catalog to “retail chains, fast-food chains and movie theaters.”

“You’ll be the most overplayed artist in the world,” he tells Benson.

“That’s all I’ve ever wanted,” says a grateful Benson. “Yes!”

“Mr. Electric Blue,” inspired by Benson’s dad, is on his new album, American Heart, out now.

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Anne Murray will release her 33rd album, Here You Are, on Sept. 5. It’s made up of 11 rediscovered tracks recorded at the height of the country/pop legend’s career, including the new single “Rest Easy (in My Love).”

Ashley McBryde duets with Jenna Paulette on a new version of “The Prophet (Grandaddy’s Song).” Written by Ashley with noted songwriters Matraca Berg and Lori McKenna, the original version appeared on Jenna’s Horseback album.

“Funny Seeing You Here” is the latest preview of Hudson Westbrook‘s debut album, Texas Forever, which comes out July 25.

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