Top Dawg Entertainment has reason to celebrate. The label’s only female rapper, Doechii, has scored her first entry into the Billboard Hot 100 with “What It Is (Block Boy),” which secured the 98th spot on the chart.
“We got our first Billboard Entry yall,” Doechii wrote on her Instagram Monday. With both a solo rendition and a version featuring Kodak Black available, the rapper, Billboard‘s Women in Music Rising Star, then encouraged fans to stream any version of the track.
Also worthy of celebrating is Kendrick Lamar‘s yearlong run on the Billboard 200 list. Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers, his last album with TDE, has officially spent 52 weeks on the music chart, now placing at #117. Kendrick’s projects good kid, m.A.A.d city and DAMN, also released under the label, remain on the list, as well, sitting at #45 and #46, respectively. good kid has spent 550 weeks on the chart, while DAMN has had a 317-week run.
SZA‘s previously reported “Kill Bill” accomplishment also marks another win for TDE. The track has officially spent 20 weeks on the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs, tying with Lil Nas X‘s “Old Town Road” for the song with the longest run at #1.
Rick Wakeman is teasing a return to the U.S., and it sounds like fans may not want to miss the chance to see him live.
The Yes keyboardist shared on his website that he’s in the midst of planning a second leg of his piano and keyboard one-man show. But he notes that “this is likely to be the last one man show there, so miss ‘The Final Grump Tour’ at your peril as there will not be any more!”
Wakeman explains that arthritis is making it harder and harder for him to do the show. “I can still get through okay but back in the dressing room at the end, the hands are plunged into an ice bucket of ice and ice-cold water in order to get some relief,” he says.
Wakeman isn’t giving up touring all together, though. He says in the future he’ll tour with either the English Rock Ensemble or other band members, sharing, “I will still continue to do the odd one man show, but these will be one offs and mainly for the charities I support.”
And speaking of touring with a band, Wakeman just announced a new U.K. leg of his The Return Of The Caped Crusader tour, which will feature the English Rock Ensemble. The tour kicks off February 15, 2024, in Glasgow, Scotland, and wraps February 28 in Bristol, England. The tour will have him playing new arrangements of classic Yes tunes, along with his 1974 album, Journey to the Centre of the Earth. A complete list of dates can be found at rwcc.com.
Prepare to journey through Middle-earth in an epic new multiplayer adventure. Amazon Games announced Monday that they’re delving into the realm of J.R.R. Tolkien‘s The Lord of the Rings with a brand-new massively multiplayer online game.
Drawing inspiration from the beloved literary trilogy and The Hobbit, this MMO extravaganza will transport players into the magical world of the fantasy series. The development of the as-yet-untitled game is being led by Amazon Games Orange County and will be disturbed globally for PCs and consoles by Amazon Games.
“We’re committed to bringing players high-quality games, whether through original IPs or long-beloved ones like The Lord of the Rings,” said Christoph Hartmann, VP, Amazon Games. “Bringing players a fresh take on The Lord of the Rings has long been an aspiration for our team, and we’re honored and grateful that Middle-earth Enterprises is entrusting us with this iconic world. We’re also pleased to be expanding our relationship with Embracer Group following our Tomb Raider deal last year, as they’ve proven to be excellent collaborators.”
News of the new game comes years after Amazon attempted to build a Lord of the Rings MMO in 2019.
Pink, Billie Eilish and Niall Horan are among the big names performing at Atlanta’s Music Midtown festival, which will take place in the city’s Piedmont Park from September 15 to September 17.
Pink is performing on the 15th, as are Pitbull and Leah Kate. On the 16th, Billie and Niall perform, along with Yung Gravy and Lizzy McAlpine. The 1975 are also playing, if you want to get a look at Taylor Swift‘s alleged new boyfriend. The final day of the festival brings performances from hard rock legends Guns N’ Roses, plus Lil Baby, Tove Lo and JP Saxe.
A limited number of one-day tickets, as well as three-day tickets, are available for a presale on Thursday, May 18, at 10 a.m. ET at MusicMidtown.com. There will be a general sale if any tickets are left. For the first time, all fees and taxes are included in the ticket prices.
(WASHINGTON) — With time running short, President Joe Biden and congressional leaders will meet Tuesday afternoon to discuss the debt ceiling as Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen stressed a default could trigger a recession.
Biden, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell will meet at the White House at 3 p.m.
“We don’t have that much time left. We want to make sure we avoid a default but they’ve got to get serious and they haven’t been serious about any of these negotiations,” McCarthy told ABC News Senior Congressional Correspondent Rachel Scott on Tuesday.
Hours ahead of the summit, Yellen said the economic shock that would result from an unprecedented default “could lead to a recession.”
“It’s essential Congress act as soon as possible,” she said as she delivered remarks in downtown Washington, stating they’re already seeing “the impacts of brinkmanship” and “default would generate an economic catastrophe.”
Yellen has repeatedly warned the U.S. could default in early June, possibly as soon as June 1, though the exact date remains uncertain.
Yellen wrote Monday in a letter to McCarthy the Treasury was already seeing adverse impacts on the economy as negotiations continue — including increased borrowing costs — and more harm could come if lawmakers wait until the final hour to strike a deal.
Schumer also laid out possible consequences of a default.
“If you want to own a home, default would take that dream and run it through the shredder. If you want to protect your 401(k), default would rob you of your livelihood,” Schumer said.
Adding pressure to Tuesday’s debt ceiling sitdown is Biden’s upcoming trip abroad to meet with allies in Japan, Papua New Guinea and Australia. The president is set to depart Wednesday and is expected to be away for approximately a week.
McCarthy on Tuesday appeared to criticize Biden’s schedule, telling ABC he believes “the American public wants to have an American president focused on American problems and solutions.”
Biden said last week skipping the G-7 summit is “possible but not likely” based on debt ceiling negotiations.
“I’m still committed,” he said of the trip. “But obviously this is the single most important thing that is on the agenda.”
White House spokesperson John Kirby said Monday Biden was “still planning to leave as scheduled” for his Indo-Pacific trip.
Biden’s schedule isn’t the only issue as the House is set to be out of town starting May 26 and will return on June 5, while the Senate will be away from May 22 to May 29, according to tentative schedules.
The so-called “Big Five” last met a week ago to talk debt ceiling, a meeting that ended with no movement toward a deal. Staff-level conversations have continued since then between the administration and congressional leaders.
Biden and Democrats have insisted Republicans take default off the table, and separate the debt ceiling from the 2024 budget. Republicans, on the other hand, have said they’ve done their job by passing the Limit, Save, Grow Act last month to raise the debt ceiling and enact deep spending cuts.
Possible areas of agreement on budget talks include clawing back billions of dollars in unspent COVID-19 relief and reforming the permitting process for energy projects, sources familiar with the talks told ABC News.
Schumer said Tuesday the fiscal talks “are separate but simultaneous to our responsibility to avoid default.”
“Democrats will not use the threat of default to get what we want,” Schumer said on the Senate floor. “Nobody should use default as a hostage.”
McConnell, meanwhile, said it’s up to Biden to “pretend the last election didn’t happen or sit down with the speaker and deal responsibly with out nation’s test.”
“Time is of the essence, of the essence. So for the second time, i’ll be glad to sit in at the white house to support speaker McCarthy and to urge President Biden to start operating in reality,” McConnell continued.
Biden said over the weekend he remained “optimistic” both sides be able to come to a solution.
“I really believe there is a desire on their part as well as ours to reach an agreement” he said during a bike ride in Delaware. “I think we’ll be able to do it.”
But McCarthy on Monday downplayed any signs of progress, telling ABC News both sides were “nowhere near coming to a conclusion.”
“I don’t think we’re in a good place,” McCarthy later said during a pro-police press conference. “I know we’re not.”
ABC News’ John Parkinson contributed to this report.
Ludacris has been keeping busy, simultaneously promoting Fast X while touring with Janet Jackson. The latter sees him tap into rapping as he performs classic hits from his discography and is likely a tease for the new music he has on the way.
“We’re definitely gonna get some music before the end of this year,” Luda revealed on Tuesday’s episode of the Tamron Hall Show. “I would say an album, probably next year, but music starting this year.” He then jokingly blamed the Fast & Furious franchise for the wait, noting, “They keep shooting more movies. What am I supposed to do?”
Ludacris last released an album, Ludaversal, in 2015, but in recent years has started blessing fans with sporadic freestyles shared to his Instagram. He says the point is to remind fans of his lyrical ability and hunger for music despite his pursuit of other endeavors.
“When I was young, I feel like some of my favorite rappers, once they get to a certain point, it’s almost like you wish that they were still kind of hungry and you feel like they don’t have it necessarily like they used to. I never wanted to be that,” Luda explained. “So it’s extremely important for me to prove to people that even though I’m doing all this other stuff, make no mistake, I still got it, and I’m still as hungry.”
Guns N’ Roses fans have another chance to see them perform in the U.S this year. The rockers are set to headline the annual Music Midtown festival at Atlanta’s Piedmont Park.
The festival is happening Friday, September 15, to Sunday, September 17, with Guns closing the festival on Sunday night. Music Midtown’s other headliners include Pink, Flume, Billie Eilish, The 1975 and Lil Baby, with Incubus, Thirty Seconds To Mars, Pitbull and others on the bill.
Tickets for the festival go on sale Thursday, May 18, at 10 a.m. ET. A complete lineup can be found at musicmidtown.com.
The show is just the latest addition to Guns N’ Roses’ packed summer schedule. They kick off their latest tour on June 9 in Abu Dhabi, then hit Europe before returning to North America August 5 in Moncton, Canada, with the first U.S. date happening August 11 in Hershey, Pennsylvania. A complete list of tour dates can be found at gunnroses.com.
(NEW YORK) — Shortly before the 2022 midterms, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ campaign released an ad touting him as a fighter chosen by God. The clip invoked God’s name 10 times in 96 seconds and cast DeSantis as the chosen “fighter” five times.
The Florida Republican’s efforts to cast himself as a fighter — against everything from “woke elites” to Disney (ABC News’ parent company) — appeared to work, defeating his Democratic opponent by almost 20 points in November.
Now, DeSantis’ brand faces a new challenge as he gears up for a presidential run against one of the most aggressive bare-knuckle brawlers in all of politics: former President Donald Trump.
DeSantis continues to lambast his Democratic foes and steamrolled the state legislature into churning out laws he can tout on the campaign trail. But when it comes to Trump, he’s declined to respond with little more than a glancing blow to an avalanche of attacks over everything from his policy on entitlements to his eating habits, leaning on outside groups to throw haymakers in response.
DeSantis threw his most direct punch to date Tuesday, saying at a press conference that Trump in a recent interview did not answer whether he’d sign a six-week abortion ban that Florida recently enacted.
Overall, though, the above-the-fray playbook has sparked plaudits that he won’t get down in the mud with Trump — but also fueled worries from allies that Trump is defining him in voters’ minds.
“He can’t get into this and ignore Trump. That’s just not going to work,” said Dan Eberhart, a prominent GOP donor backing DeSantis.
“Trump is throwing unanswered punches. And so, people are saying, ‘Hey, look, is DeSantis weak? Why isn’t he responding? When is he gonna respond?’ DeSantis can’t be in this to win and not punch back,” Eberhart told ABC News.
Trump, who formally launched his campaign in November, has sought to make DeSantis Public Enemy No. 1 for his hardcore base.
Trump has dubbed him “Ron DeSanctimonious” and “Ron DeSanctus” and was reportedly weighing calling him “Meatball Ron.”
Trump has also upbraided DeSantis for support for legislation when he was in Congress to alter Social Security and Medicare, a third-rail political issue on which Trump has transformed Republicans’ position (once for entitlement reforms, Republicans are now largely opposed to changes).
When DeSantis described the war in Ukraine as a “territorial dispute,” Trump seized on those comments voicing skepticism on aid to the country, accusing him of merely copying his policies.
And Trump has accused DeSantis of losing a growing fight with Disney that Disney alleges began over its criticism of a law prohibiting classroom discussion of sexual orientation and gender identity in Florida schools.
The barbs, which have been a feature of Trump’s speeches and ad campaign, have dovetailed with aggressive outreach by the former president that have won him endorsements from several members of Florida’s congressional delegation.
All the while, DeSantis is largely staying mum over the attacks, saying he has thick enough skin to withstand attacks and pointing to his overwhelming 19-point reelection margin in 2022.
“Call me whatever you want, just as long as you also call me a winner because that’s what we’ve been able to do in Florida,” he told Piers Morgan when asked about Trump’s attacks in a March interview.
It’s a familiar dilemma for DeSantis. Recordings obtained by ABC News of DeSantis’ debate prep during his first gubernatorial run in 2018 reveal strategy discussions then over how to explain positions he took while in Congress against the Trump administration “in a way that’s not going to piss off all his voters.”
The closest DeSantis recently got to knocking Trump is after the former president was indicted in a case centered around hush money payments to porn actress Stormy Daniels, when he accused the prosecutor of harboring political bias while also telling reporters “I don’t know what goes into paying hush money to a porn star to secure silence over some type of alleged affair, I can’t speak to that.”
DeSantis threw another indirect jab at Trump during a visit to a barbecue joint in Des Moines, Iowa, last weekend — the city where Trump postponed a rally there due to weather concerns, followed up Monday by lamenting a recent GOP “culture of losing,” an apparent reference to Republicans’ electoral struggles since Trump won the White House in 2016.
But while DeSantis has frequently declined to go toe-to-toe with the former president, Trump’s polling lead has swelled since earlier this year, leading even allies wondering if the protracted waiting game over the Florida governor’s future ambitions are hurting his chances before he even formally gets off the ground.
“[A]t a certain point, your opponents and the media and the whole process start to get away from you. And the narrative begins to take shape and you need to be the one shaping it and making your dent in the universe of the campaign, not the other way around,” said John Thomas, the chief political strategist at the pro-DeSantis Ron To The Rescue super PAC.
Taking on Trump could be a high-wire act considering that DeSantis would need to win over at least a slice of his diehard base. A prominent Florida GOP strategist who previously advised DeSantis said they were not sure how hard the governor will ever go after Trump but that some people in Tallahassee are privately advocating for him to go more on the attack.
But, the person added, “there’s a part of him that needs to be positive for a while and avoid it,” saying DeSantis’ team has been wrestling with the question of “do you hurt your brand if you get down and wrestle with [Trump]?”
Allies have defended DeSantis, arguing it was appropriate to wait until the end of Florida’s legislative session for him to announce a 2024 campaign and that many of Trump’s coarser attacks don’t merit responses.
“It shows great discipline on the part of the governor,” said Ken Cuccinelli, the founder of Never Back Down, the main pro-DeSantis super PAC. “He doesn’t get into and hasn’t gotten into the pettiness that the president just seems incapable of restraining himself from.”
Cuccinelli added he expects DeSantis to throw elbows “a little bit more” should he formally enter the primary field, “but part of that is a function of being a candidate.”
In the meantime, Never Back Down has stepped into the void, pumping millions into ads casting DeSantis as a winner and Trump as unelectable.
“We have not avoided, to the degree the governor has, exchanging blows in the form of Trump’s own policies. So, we’re doing contrast, primarily, and we do it aggressively,” Cuccinelli said.
Still, other allies are feeling a sense of urgency, warning the governor’s team to take Trump’s threat more seriously.
“DeSantis has never faced a fighter like Trump before,” Eberhart said. “And I think that MAGA world is laying in the weeds waiting for the ambush. I’m a DeSantis guy. I’m worried his team is overconfident.”
DeSantis’ team rebuffed such criticism.
“Folks in the legacy media know full well that Ron DeSantis always does what is right and never backs down from a fight,” said Dave Abrams, a spokesman for DeSantis’ political team.
Trump’s allies, meanwhile, boast that DeSantis’ non-response strategy proves he doesn’t have as strong of a brand as a fighter as he’s sought to cultivate and that he’s stuck in a lose-lose conundrum as he gets ready to run against the former president.
“The reality is, while DeSantis has high name ID and high favorables, our voters do not have deeply held views about him like they do Trump. That’s why Trump can take a sledgehammer to him daily without any blowback from our voters,” one longtime Trump aide said.
“Meanwhile, DeSantis is in an awful position of either not responding and looking weak or attacking Trump and facing the blowback from voters, who have been trained for 6 years to think that any Republican attacking Trump must be an establishment RINO.”
Regardless, DeSantis may not have a choice if Trump keeps wailing on him, said one Florida lawmaker who’s in touch with DeSantis and his team.
“This is Trump. The gloves are gonna have to come way off,” the person said. “You can’t dip your toe in the water.”
Ed Sheeran doesn’t just sing with his pal Luke Combs — he drinks with him, too.
On Instagram, Ed posted video of the country superstar teaching him how to shotgun a beer. In case you’re not familiar, this requires holding the can horizontally, punching a hole in it, putting your mouth over the hole and opening the tab on top so the pressure forces the beer into your mouth.
In the clip, Luke instructs Ed on how to hold the can, then Ed counts them down and they drink together. Luke drinks and drops his can on the ground in about two seconds, while Ed follows soon after.
“That’s really impressive,” Ed laughs, wiping off his mouth.
In the comments, Luke wrote, “Cheers, mate! (Did I do that right? Haha.)” Fellow country star Dan Smyers of Dan + Shay wrote, “Not bad, Ted!”
One fan wrote, “The collab we didn’t know we needed,” but numerous others complained that Luke and Ed dropped their cans before they were empty — apparently that’s a no-no while shotgunning.
Ed and Luke teamed up last week to perform Ed’s song “Life Goes On” at the Academy of Country Music Awards, then Ed released a studio version of their collaboration. The two have been friends since 2018.
Déjà Vu, Crosby, Stills & Nash’s first album with Neil Young, topped the Billboard album chart.
The album featured such classic songs as “Woodstock,” “Teach Your Children,” “Carry On,” and “Our House.”
The album went on to be certified seven-times Platinum by the RIAA and is the best-selling album to date by each of the group’s four members, Young, David Crosby, Stephen Stills and Graham Nash.
In 2023, it was selected for preservation in the Library of Congress’ National Recording Registry.
