A rumor has spread that Lil Durk paid J. Cole nearly $1,000,000 to be on “All My Life,” but Cole’s longtime manager says it’s not true.
On Monday, Raphousetv alleged on Twitter that Cole charges $2,000 per word for a feature. With a reported 489 words on “All My Life,” Durk was said to have paid a total of $978,000. Responding to the post, Ibrahim “Ib” Hamad simply used the cap emoji, which is another way of saying the information is a lie. Ib failed to mention the actual cost to Durkio.
“All My Life” is on Durk’s 21-song album, Almost Healed, which debuted at #3 on the Billboard 200 and was his biggest sales week to date. The project dropped just days before the second anniversary of the death of his brother OTF DThang, who was fatally shot outside a Chicago strip club.
“Thang way I miss you bloody,” Durk wrote alongside a photo of DThang. “I got you smiling from up there I got you.”
The song rose to the top of the chart last week, with Morgan’s concurrent single, “One Thing at a Time,” sitting in the top 10. The latter track is number six this week.
“Last Night” is also a 17-week and nine-week chart-topper on Billboard’s Hot Country Songs and all-genre Hot 100 charts, respectively.
Jackson Browne is the latest artist setting up shop in Las Vegas. The Rock & Roll Hall of Famer just announced a limited engagement at The Venetian Theatre inside The Venetian Resort Las Vegas.
The limited residency consists of five shows: October 6, 7, 11, 13 and 14.
Presale tickets go on sale Wednesday, June 7, at 10 a.m. PT, with the general on-sale set for Friday, June 9, at 10 a.m. PT.
The new shows are just the latest additions to Browne’s North American tour. He’s set to play Akron, Ohio, on June 6, with dates confirmed through October 20 and 21 in Los Angeles. A complete list of dates can be found at jacksonbrowne.com.
(NEW YORK) — Wildfires burning in Canada are continuing to create poor air quality conditions in the U.S. as the smoke makes its way south.
Hazy skies, low visibility and poor air quality will be present in most of the Northeast and the Midwest and even as far south as the Carolinas.
Air quality alerts have been issued in 17 states from Kansas to Vermont. Large cities with the lowest air quality include New York City, Albany, New York, and Cincinnati, a map by AirNow, a website that publishes air quality data, shows.
Cities with unhealthy air quality for sensitive groups include Philadelphia, Columbus and Washington, D.C.
At-risk populations, such as young children, the elderly or those with lung and heart disease, should especially avoid the outdoors, according to the advisories.
The smoke originated from wildfires in Quebec, where more than 160 forest fires are currently active. Some of the fires in the region were ignited by lightning strikes, according to NASA. Unusually dry and warm weather has fueled the fires.
The intensity of the fires has exceeded the capacity of water bombers, Quebec’s wildfire prevention agency announced on Monday, CTV reported.
Firefighters are currently unable to get the wildfires under control, François Legault, a member of the Canadian parliament serving Quebec, told reporters during a news conference on Monday. Firefighters in other provinces are unable to assist because they are battling their own fires but an additional 200 firefighters are traveling from France and the U.S., Legault said.
The number of wildfires in the country had grown past 400, officials said.
Northern U.S. states have been bogged under the haze of the migrating smoke from Canada since May after early-season wildfires began to spark.
Air quality alerts were issued for all of Montana and parts of Idaho, Colorado and Arizona due to wildfires in Alberta, in Western Canada.
Wildfires burning last week near Halifax, Nova Scotia, created hazardous air quality ratings in many of the regions affected by the wildfires currently burning in Quebec.
Avenged Sevenfold has a single called “Almost Easy,” and the band almost collaborated with “Easy” singer Lionel Richie on their new album, Life Is But a Dream… .
Speaking with the Nik Nocturnal Podcast, frontman M. Shadows reveals that A7X reached out to Richie to sing on the track “Beautiful Morning.”
“We were talking to Lionel Richie about doing the vocal part there, forever,” Shadows shares. “At the end of the day, he got too busy with America’s Got Talent or whatever.”
We assume Shadows means ABC’s American Idol, for which Richie has been a judge since 2018.
“It would’ve been so good,” Shadows says of the missed collaboration. “Everybody would’ve been, like, ‘What?'”
Life Is But a Dream…, the follow-up to 2016’s The Stage, dropped last Friday. It includes the single “Nobody.”
(WASHINGTON) — Unlawful entries along the southern border have decreased 70% from their record highs since the end of Title 42 on May 11, according the Department of Homeland Security.
U.S. Customs and Border Patrol has averaged 3,400 encounters in between ports of entry per day and fewer than 300 non-CBP One Office of Field Operations (OFO) encounters at ports of entry per day, for a total of approximately 3,700 unscheduled encounters per day, according to statistics released by DHS Tuesday morning.
From May 12 to June 2, DHS repatriated over 38,400 noncitizens under Title 8 authorities, including single adults and families, to more than 80 countries. This includes over 1,400 noncitizens from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela who were returned to Mexico under Title 8 authorities — the first time in our bilateral history that the Mexican government has allowed the repatriation of non-Mexican nationals at the border under Title 8 authorities. The top three nationalities encountered during that time period were Mexican, Honduran and Venezuelan, which collectively accounted for 70% of the encounters per day, according to DHS.
The White House applauded the decrease.
“Political pundits and Republican lawmakers claimed we were unprepared for the end of Title 42. We proved them wrong,” tweeted White House Assistant Press Secretary Abdullah Hasan.
The CBP One app, which was rolled out by DHS as a hub offering a variety of CBP services, saw 1,070 noncitizens presented “in a safe and orderly manner at a port of entry each day to be processed during their scheduled appointment time,” DHS said. CBP has, as of June 1, expanded the number of appointments available to 1,250 each day.
But some Republicans have expressed skepticism of CBP One, saying the app is a vehicle that would allow mass migration.
“Abusing the CBP One App is the Biden admin’s newest tactic to funnel tens of thousands of illegal aliens into the country every month. House Republicans voted to bar DHS from exploiting the app & restore it back to its original intent,” Republicans on the House Committee on Homeland Security tweeted Monday.
The decrease comes as two top immigration officials have announced their departure from DHS. Chief of the Border Patrol Raul Ortiz told employees he was leaving at the end of June, and Acting Director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement Tae Johnson is also retiring, according to DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas.
Total CBP enforcement actions for fiscal year 2023 are 1,246,371 year-to-date, according to CBP.
The Cure, Blur and Arcade Fire are headlining Mexico’s 2023 Corona Capital festival, taking place November 17-19 in Mexico City.
The bill also includes Thirty Seconds to Mars, The Black Keys, Alanis Morissette, The Lumineers, The Hives, Brittany Howard, Phoenix, Fitz and the Tantrums, KennyHoopla, Feist, Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds, The Breeders and Sleater-Kinney, among many more.
Killer Mike‘s collaboration with André 3000 was nearly left off his upcoming album, Michael — until Dre heard the hook from Detroit singer Eryn Allen Kane. Mike shared the story of Three Stacks’ reluctance and subsequent change of mind in a video shared to his Instagram.
“André 3000, he’s in Japan right now as we talk, playing the flute,” Mike explained in what is seemingly a listening session. “He called me, he’s like, ‘Kill, I don’t know about the song, man. We just got a good rap record, man.’”
“And then Cuz [Lightyear] was like, ‘You sent him the final record?’ I’m like, ‘Nah.’ I sent it over with Eryn’s hook and stuff. He hit back with, ‘Yeah, yeah, you got the record. Who is that?!’”
Mike continued, “So thank you, Eryn, I really appreciate you for that.”
Killer Mike tapped Dre and Eryn for “Scientists & Engineers,” set to appear on Michael, due out June 16. Lil Wayne, Young Thug, El-P and Dave Chappelle are also featured on the project, which is executive produced by No I.D.
(NOTE LANGUAGE) Judging from a clip that Madonna has posted on TikTok, her new collaboration with Sam Smith certainly is “Vulgar.”
The song drops on Friday, but the Queen of Pop posted a video on TikTok of herself lip-synching to the track. In the clip, she’s not singing, but rapping — sort of.
“Let’s get into the groove/ you know just what to do/ boy, get down on your needs ’cause I am Madonna,” she speak-sings. “If you f*** with Sam tonight, you’re f****** with me/ so watch what you say or I’ll split your banana.”
She says “banana” with a British accent so it rhymes with “Madonna” — kind of.
“GET DOWN ON YOUR KNEES,” she captioned the TikTok, adding #SAMANDMADONNA and #VULGAR.
Sam, meanwhile, has posted a brief black-and-white clip of what looks like a scene from a video, with the caption, “VULGAR IS BEAUTIFUL.”
As previously reported, Madonna introduced Sam and Kim Petras‘ performance of “Unholy” at the Grammys earlier this year. After the ceremony, Sam shared an Instagram photo of themselves posing with Madonna and wrote, “Overwhelmed, grateful and inspired. Thank you for your love and support @madonna. I’ll never forget your kindness.”
John Mellencamp is currently on his Live and In Person tour of theaters, but if fans go expecting him to play all the hits, they will be disappointed.
Mellencamp tells The New York Times he’s “not a nostalgic person,” noting, “I could do a whole show of hits if I wanted to, but I don’t.” He adds, “That’s one reason I quit playing arenas and playing outdoors. It wasn’t about music — it was about being a human jukebox.”
Of course the show isn’t devoid of Mellencamp classics, and he’s even started playing his first real hit, “Hurt So Good,” again after dropping it from his set for the past 25 years.
He says he’s added it back because “it has a whole new meaning to me.” Regarding the lyric, “When I was a young boy, I said, ‘Put away those young boy ways,'” he shares, “I was a kid when I wrote it, but as an older gentleman, it makes sense.”
And speaking of nostalgia, Mellencamp also talks a little about the early days of his career, which included getting kicked off tours opening for KISS, REO Speedwagon and Rainbow.
“I got kicked off every tour I was on. My band and I were terrible, but we were better than KISS,” he says. “I was a young kid, full of energy, and the reviews said, ‘John Cougar blew the place up last night.’ Gene Simmons would look at me like he wanted to kill me.”
Mellencamp brings his Live and In Person tour to New York’s Beacon Theatre for a three-night stand starting Tuesday, June 6. A complete list of dates can be found at mellencamp.com.
