Month: October 2022

For a group who first made waves in the 1950s, the energy for The Isley Brothers inside Harbor New York City’s Rooftop surpasses palpable. With close to 70 years of experience under the group’s belts, fans zealously received the electricity commanded by the legendary R&B outfit, who were on hand to celebrate the release of their new album, Make Me Say It Again, Girl, this past Friday (Sept. 30).

“It’s God’s blessing, and we’re trying to take advantage of being able to do what we do and love what we do, and we know what we’re doing by now,” Ronald Isley tells Billboard.

The self-proclaimed “Love Kings” veered in a different direction on their latest outing, as they sought after rappers to fulfill their romantic quest. According to Ronald, the group has been sampled over 900 times, with most lifts coming from the hip-hop side. Make Me Say It Again, Girl is the group’s way of appreciating a genre that showed them constant love and adoration.

“It’s very important to work with the new generation,” says Ronald. “That’s what keeps you up with the music and what’s going on and what they’re feeling, and you’re writing about feelings, people, and actual things that are happening. It keeps us young and in the business and know where we are going with the business. We’re here to show them the room. Follow the yellow brick road or The Isley Brothers road.”

And though they enlisted a sturdy crew of rap all-stars, including 2 Chainz, Quavo, Takeoff, Snoop Dogg, and Rick Ross, the Isleys didn’t totally change course. They recruited surefire hall of famers in Earth, Wind, and Fire and the venerable Beyoncé to add a pinch of R&B flavor to complete their journey.

“I called Tina Knowles and said, ‘Hey, you think Beyoncé would do this song with us?’” recalls Ernie Isley. “She called back in five minutes, and she said ‘Yes.’ She don’t do a song with just nobody. She was remembering when we did BET one time, and I predicted that [her and her husband] would be the next group — and when I say next group, [I meant] her and Jay-Z would make history. And that’s what they did.”

The pairing of Beyoncé and The Isleys proved fruitful, as they reimagined the group’s 1975 slow-burning single “Make Me Say It Again, Girl.” Last month, the collaboration rocketed to No. 1 on Billboard‘s Adult R&B Airplay chart, becoming their first chart-topper since the group’s 2001 “Contagious.” The song also silenced skeptics, like Puff Daddy, who admonished the genre when he recently called it “dead.”

“I think Puffy was sleepy when he woke up and said that,” he said. “That’s crazy. Music is music, man, and it will always be here… That type of statement doesn’t mean anything. That’s like me saying rap is dead. It’s always going to be there.”

With a career spanning back to 1959’s seminal hit “Shout,” The Isley Brothers’ latest feat is the proverbial cherry on top for their decorated career. Along with celebrating their newly-minted No. 1 single and freshly released album, the RIAA was on-hand at Harbor’s Rooftop to gift the group lifetime achievement awards.

“A lot of artists, especially when you start out, it’s doing that first record, and that’s the breakthrough — but the trick is, what are you going to do the second time or the third time and so on?” offers Ernie Isley. “Some people run out of gas. But fortunately for us, we’ve been able to go the next rounds.”

Adds chairman and CEO of RIAA Mitch Glazier, who presented the group the awards at their album release party: “The Isley Brothers started making music in 1959 when the Gold & Platinum Awards were launched… They’ve been making music for 65 years and still making music. It’s not like their latest album is some sort of swan song. Their latest album is an incredible [one], and features Beyoncé on a remake that is remaking R&B. They’re just as relevant today as they were with Shout in 1959.”

He continued: “They keep punching through barriers and reaching new audiences, and they’re intergenerational, and they just don’t stop. I can’t think of another group that keeps innovating as much as they do, especially after 65 years. It’s incredible when you think about it. For me to be there and present them personally with a lifetime achievement award was unreal. It was incredible.”

As for The Isleys, all praise goes to their parents, who inspired them to tap into every musical genre they could, as there were no limits to creativity.

“We have to give credit to our family. Our mother and father taught us in the beginning to sing everything,” says Ronald. “Gospel, country, rhythm and blues, pop, sing, everything that the people want to hear, and that’s how you last this long. We’re the Kings of Love Songs. We don’t want to brag, but you can check us out.”

Lizzo often makes it look like it’s easy to constantly break down barriers for plus-size women and people of color, but in a new interview, she’s reminding everyone just how hurtful some of the racist and fatphobic comments she receives on a daily basis can be.

Getting candid in a Vanity Fair cover story published Tuesday (Oct. 11), Lizzo specifically addressed a video she made in August of last year, shortly after the release of her “Rumors” collaboration with Cardi B. In the 13-minute, since-deleted video, she tearfully called out a specific comment she’d received shaming her based on her race and weight. She never disclosed exactly what was said by the commenter, though, and one year later, she says she never will.

“Then people will know what really hurt me,” she told the magazine. “People have been calling me fat my entire life, but that was the first time seeing an insult of how I looked, who I am, and my music wrapped into one, and it really hurt me. And if one person says it, then another person says it, it multiplies like a f–king virus. If enough people on the internet start echoing sentiments about you, it becomes part of your public persona and it’s out of your control.”

As painful as it can be, the “About Damn Time” singer — who also spoke to the publication about her relationship with boyfriend Myke Wright — said the idea of making others in similar situations feel seen inspires her to rise above the prejudice.

“I went to the bathroom to cry about it, then I went online, because once I learn how to express myself, I need to tell that person how I really feel,” she recalled. “I know I’m not the only person who experiences extreme negativity thrown at them from the internet — there are people in high school right now who have a whole high school talking about them, and they don’t know how they’re going to get through it.”

“So if they can see me get through it on the level and the scale I’m experiencing it, maybe they’ll think they can get through it too,” she continued. “Hell yeah, it made me feel better. F–k them!”

Lizzo went on to address comments she receives specifically about her weight, inadvertently coinciding with renewed public fixation about her body initiated by comments recently made about her by Kanye West on Tucker Carlson’s Fox News show. “Is my music and my weight so intrinsically connected that if I were to lose weight, I’d lose fans or lose validity?” she said to the publication, which interviewed her a couple months before West spoke to Carlson. “I don’t care!”

“I lead a very healthy lifestyle — mentally, spiritually, I try to keep everything I put in my body super clean,” she continued. “Health is something I prioritize, wherever that leads me physically. Like veganism, people were like, ‘You’re a vegan? What, are you deep frying the lettuce?’ I’m not a vegan to lose weight, I just feel better when I eat plants.”

“It sucks that we associate weight gain with the negative thing that causes it,” she added. “It’s mixing this beautiful thing that’s food — and nourishing ourselves with it, but it’s the stress that’s the bad thing, not the 20 pounds.

“I feel very lucky because I don’t feel that weight gain is bad anymore. Nor is weight loss — it’s neutral.”

The Kanye West Twitter saga continues. On Monday (Oct. 10), Elon Musk said on the social media platform that he’d had a private, offline conversation with the rapper about his controversial posting as of late.

Over the weekend, Ye announced his return to Twitter by taking a swipe at Meta exec Mark Zuckerberg in the wake of his Instagram account being locked for making an anti-Semitic post.

“Look at this Mark…How you gone kick me off instagram…You used to be my n—-,” the Yeezy designer tweeted along with a throwback pic of himself and Zuckerberg seemingly doing karaoke. Within hours, Musk replied directly to West’s tweet, writing, “Welcome back to Twitter, my friend!”

However, it wasn’t until two days later that the Tesla CEO (and would-be owner of Twitter) returned to the post to let the public know he’d had a chat with Kanye off the timeline. “Talked to ye today & expressed my concerns about his recent tweet, which I think he took to heart,” he wrote in a reply to his own welcome back tweet.

While it’s unclear what exactly the pair’s conversation entailed — or whether it actually had any impact on Ye — his recent anti-Semitic posts about going “death con 3 On JEWISH PEOPLE” have also been decried and called out by the likes of Jamie Lee Curtis, Ariana Grande, Jack Antonoff, Meghan McCain and more.

However, in an interview with Fox News personality Tucker Carlson just one day before his tweet, Ye also took shots at ex-wife Kim Kardashian, fat-shamed Lizzo and quadrupled down on his decision to include and wear a “White Lives Matter” shirt for his Yeezy Season 9 show at Paris Fashion Week.

Check out Musk’s responses to Kanye on Twitter below.

Jaime Camil did not hesitate to play the ranchera legend Vicente Fernández in Netflix’s bio-series El Rey, Vicente Fernández. The Mexican actor and singer, best known for his comedic roles in shows like Jane the Virgin and Qué pobres tan ricos, tackled the portrayal of the late cultural icon the same way he would do with any other project.

“If you let the weight and magnitude of Vicente Fernández sit on your shoulders — we who live from our emotions and from connect with the public with our emotions — imagine if the first emotion I register for a role is fear or uncertainty, well, I’d be setting myself up for failure,” Camil tells Billboard Español in a phone interview from Los Angeles.

“I’ve been doing this for 27 years, and […] although the butterflies in your stomach never go away, you process them in a different way, with desire, with impetus, with the eagerness to do things, to be on the set,” he says. “Instead of getting stage fright and running away, you process it as, ‘Wow, what a thrill, how cool it’s going to be to do this.’” 

Produced by Caracol TV in Colombia, where it premiered on August 3 before arriving to Netflix on September 14 for broadcast worldwide, El Rey, Vicente Fernández was in development for over two years — with the blessing of the late singer and his family. Fernández, in fact, appeared in a brief promo for the series in April 2021, saying, “My story, my songs, my feelings, and how much I love you, very soon on Netflix,” eight months before he passed away in December at the age of 81.

Camil, who told Billboard that he is a “very good friend” of two of Fernández’s sons, Alejandro and Gerardo, has stressed in the past that the wishes of the family were respected with his performance.

The 36-episode drama is currently among the top 10 most-watched productions on Netflix in the U.S. and various Latin American countries. It also reached No. 1 worldwide for non-English-language content soon after its debut. It follows the artist over several decades, in a non-linear fashion, from his humble origins in his hometown of Huentitán El Alto, in Jalisco, Mexico, to his rise to stardom. Fernández is played by four actors in the different stages of his life: Kaled Acab as a child, Sebastián García as a teenager, Sebastian Dante as a young man, and Camil as an adult.

To do so, Camil not only had to gain a little weight and grow his sideburns and a mustache, but also “watch hours and hours and hours of unlimited footage of Vicente in interviews” in search of Fernández’s essence, he recalls. “Then we did a lot of emotional connection and energetic connection exercises with the other three Vicentes, with our acting coaches. That’s how we were able to give it a homogeneity… [so] that people would eventually see not four different actors, but the same person at different ages”.

Likewise, the Mexican actor — who in the early 2000s released the albums Para Estar Contigo and Una Vez Más (the latter with two songs that made Billboard‘s Hot Latin Songs chart), had to learn to sing as close as possible to Fernández, whose anthems he performs in the series, including “Volver, Volver,” “Por Tu Maldito Amor” and, of course, “El Rey.” The series’ soundtrack — released by Caracol TV and Sony Music on August 3 in Colombia, and September 14 worldwide — includes 20 titles, 14 of them performed by Camil. 

“Singing the songs was a very important challenge, because I took on the task of singing them in the original key in which Vicente recorded them,” the actor says — explaining that in the 1970s and ‘80s, artists used to record two keys higher “so that they would shine more, as they say,” and then they would perform them in a more comfortable key at concerts. “That was a very nice challenge in the recording studio. The challenge was to find certain gestures or certain ways he had of speaking. That ended up being just the brushstrokes of the character, or the icing on the cake, because the mixture was to connect emotionally with the audience and portray a human character.”

When asked which is his favorite song by the man known as “El Charro de Huentitán,” Camil says that answering that question is now “impossible” for him. “If I hadn’t been on this project and I was just another fan you asked, I’d probably say ‘Volver, Volver’ or ‘El Rey,’ the classics,” he says, admitting that Fernández’s was more the music of his parents than his own. “But having been part of such an intimate process that connected me in such a special, magical and profound way with Vicente Fernández, I can’t answer that.” 

Over the course of his career, Fernández recorded more than 100 albums and had 40 entries on Billboard’s Top Latin Albums chart, 26 of them in the Top 10 and six No. 1. On Hot Latin Songs he had 65 total entries, including 20 Top 10 and one No. 1 (“El Último Beso” from 2009, which led for a week). He also holds the records for most entries in Hot Latin Songs for a regional Mexican solo artist, with 65; most entries on Regional Mexican Albums for a solo artist with 54, and most No. 1 for a Regional Mexican solo artist in that same list, with 17.

Regarding the legacy of “Chente” and what his preparation for this series left him, Camil emphasizes that Fernández “single-handedly put charro or mariachi music on the global map, because of his persistence, his perseverance, his stubbornness,” says Camil.

“He was very decisive, very honorable. When he gave you his word, he wasn’t at peace until he fulfilled it,” the actor adds. “There are traits of his personality that I admire and identify with a lot. Just imagine! Vicente Fernández was to mariachi music what Elvis Presley was to rock ‘n’ roll.”

Kanye West‘s recent string of anti-Semitic remarks has drawn near-universal condemnation and, on Monday night (Oct. 10), a new cold open rap parody from the team at The Late Show with Stephen Colbert skewering the artist’s latest controversy.

The bit opened with a news reports about Twitter locking West (who goes by Ye) out of his account after the rapper/entrepreneur posted hate-filled remarks, before pivoting to the outrage spawned when Kanye, who is Black, wore a “White Lives Matter” shirt at his Paris Fashion Week show last week. It also included a scene from his interview with Fox News commentator Tucker Carlson in which West bizarrely claimed that he believed executives at his former retail partner, The Gap, knew about a Texas high school shooting “before it even happened.”

Cued to Ye’s 2007 Graduation hit “Stronger,” the parody posted one of his anti-Semitic tweets before re-tooling the lyrics to better represent his current tenuous social media standing. “Tweet it, share it, scream it, wear it, post it,” the video opened over images of the MC in his “White Lives” shirt, modeling his red MAGA hat and revisiting a 2016 tweet in which he proclaimed “BILL COSBY INNOCENT!!!!!!!!!!”

“‘Gram it, banned/ Oh damn it!,” the song continued as the screen filled with a photo of red hat Ye awkwardly hugging former president Donald Trump in the White House. “Pro-Trump chatter/ White Lives Matter/ Rave reviews from MAGA voters/ Fresh hell tonight/ I’m about to go full Mel [Gibson] tonight/ Lots of wild stuff gettin’ yelled tonight/ And all these tees about to sell to whites/ Bow in the presence of wackness/ Cuz right here I’m free of fact-checks/ My claims don’t hold water like a cactus.”

While the light-hearted video included joking references to private school founder Ye’s recent claim that he’s never “read any book,” then slipped in a mention of embattled conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, whom Kanye compared himself to during the Carlson interview. “I heard Rabbis are intergalactic,” it continued. “And Jewish stoplights are causing traffic/ New t-shirts, you can have six/ Promocode: bats–t.”

The bit wrapped with fake Kanye lamenting that now that he’s been banned on socials his only way of sharing his thoughts is by going on Tucker’s show. On Monday, Ye was invited to visit the Holocaust Museum LA to learn about the deadly consequences of hate speech just days after Twitter removed West’s tweet on Saturday for violating the platform’s rules after the rapper wrote that he was going to go, “death con 3 On JEWISH PEOPLE… The funny thing is I actually can’t be Anti Semitic because black people are actually Jew also You guys have toyed with me and tried to black ball anyone whoever opposes your agenda.”

The comment followed Meta’s removal of Instagram posts by West for violating that platform’s policies after he posted text messages between him and fellow rapper P. Diddy claiming he would “show the Jews that told you to call me that no one can threaten or influence me.” In April, the Anti-Defamation League, which tracks anti-Semitic behavior nationwide, reported a 34% rise in anti-Semitic incidents in 2021 (to 2,717), which averaged out to more than seven such incidents per day.

A spokesperson for West had not returned multiple requests for comment at press time.

Watch the Late Show bit below.

Morgan Wallen notches his seventh No. 1 on Billboard‘s Country Airplay chart as “You Proof” rises 2-1 on the Oct. 15-dated survey. In the week ending Oct. 9, it gained by 5% to 30.8 million impressions, according to Luminate.

Wallen wrote the song with ERNEST, Ashley Gorley, Keith Smith and Charlie Handsome, the latter of whom also produced it with Joey Moi.

“You Proof” hits No. 1 in just its 17th week on Country Airplay, completing the Sneedville, Tenn.-born singer-songwriter’s quickest trip to the top. It surpasses “Wasted on You,” which became his sixth No. 1 when it began a three-week domination in its 21st frame in July.

Wallen’s first of 11 Country Airplay entries, “The Way I Talk,” hit No. 30 in May 2017 and he followed with four straight leaders: “Up Down,” featuring Florida Georgia Line (for one week in June 2018); “Whiskey Glasses” (three weeks, starting in June 2019); “Chasin’ You” (one, May 2020); and “More Than My Hometown” (one, November 2020).

Wallen’s “7 Summers” reached No. 15 on Country Airplay in February 2021, the same month that he was caught on video using a racial slur. His next single, “Sand in My Boots,” led for a week this February.

Wallen has also reached Country Airplay with “Don’t Think Jesus,” which (not promoted as a radio single) hit No. 46 in May, and as featured on ERNEST’s “Flower Shops” (No. 18, June).

On the streaming-, airplay- and sales-based Hot Country Songs chart, “You Proof,” a standalone single, reigns for an eighth week, as it drew 13.5 million official streams and sold 4,000 downloads in the United States from Sept. 30 through Oct. 6.

Concurrently, Wallen’s Dangerous: The Double Album rules Top Country Albums for a record-extending 77th week, with 46,000 equivalent album units earned in the tracking week.

‘Hounds’ Howls

Tyler Childers secures his fourth top 10 on Top Country Albums as Can I Take My Hounds to Heaven arrives at No. 3. Released Sept. 30, the 24-song set starts with 27,000 units, with 16,000 from album sales.

The Lawrence County, Ky., native previously charted on Top Country Albums with Long Violent History, which opened at its No. 6 peak in October 2020; Country Squire, which flew in at the apex in August 2019; and Purgatory, which bowed in August 2017 and hit a No. 9 best this February.

Hounds simultaneously begins at No. 2 on Americana/Folk Albums, marking Childers’ fourth top five title, and No. 8 on the all-genre Billboard 200, where it’s his first top 10.

New Airplay Top 10s

Bailey Zimmerman’s rookie Country Airplay entry “Fall in Love” becomes his first top 10 as it lifts 11-8 (15.7 million, up 6%). The single, which Zimmerman co-wrote, also ranks at No. 8 on Hot Country Songs, after reaching No. 6 in July, with 12.3 clicks and 3,000 sold in the latest tracking week. Zimmerman boasts two tracks in the Hot Country Songs chart’s upper tier, as “Rock and a Hard Place” holds at No. 7 after it entered at its No. 2 high in June.

Zimmerman has so far achieved three Hot Country Songs top 10s overall, as “Where It Ends” arrived at its No. 7 best on the Sept. 3 chart, when he became the first artist to place three career-opening entries in the top 10 simultaneously since the survey began as an all-encompassing genre ranking in October 1958.

Luke Bryan banks his 34th Country Airplay top 10 as “Country On” pushes 12-9 (14.5 million, up 9%). Bryan has tallied the 13th-most top 10s since the chart began in 1990, a recap headed by George Strait (61).

Plus, Jelly Roll’s freshman Country Airplay hit “Son of a Sinner” rises 13-10 (14.2 million, up 17%). Before his dive into country, Jelly Roll (real name Jason DeFord) scored traction in genres including rock and R&B/hip-hop.

Ariana Grande is joining a growing list of celebrities in publicly denouncing Kanye West‘s recent anti-Semitic comments. After the rapper was suspended from Twitter and Instagram over his statements, Grande shared two posts on Instagram condemning his hate speech, one of which was a video of Jamie Lee Curtis’ reaction.

Without adding any words of her own, Grande chose to let the two posts — reposted from other accounts onto her Story Tuesday morning (Oct. 11) — speak for themselves. The first featured a video from the day prior of Jamie Lee Curtis‘ interview with the TODAY show, during which the actress, whose father and paternal grandparents were Jewish, became visibly emotional.

“I woke up and burst into tears,” Curtis says of Kanye’s remarks. “DEFCON 3 on Jewish people? What are you doing? It’s bad enough that fascism is on the rise around the world, but on Twitter? As if Jewish people haven’t had it hard enough? I woke up and thought, my grandparents — it’s abhorrent. I hope he gets help, I hope his children get help.”

The second thing Grande shared to her 334 million followers was a post discussing the differences between mental health symptoms, free speech and hate speech on Saint Hoax’s Instagram. “It is possible to both recognize Kanye’s mental health challenges and vehemently condemn his foul and dangerous anti-Semitism,” reads a screen shot of a comment included in the post.

“As someone who also has mental health issues, one of my top priorities in treatment is working to make sure my s–t doesn’t negatively affect people around me,” says another. “Kanye has unlimited resources for care & treatment. Resources almost no one else has.”

Kim Kardashian, who filed to divorce Ye in February 2021, previously spoke out on the rapper’s battle with bipolar disorder.

By taking a public stance against Kanye’s extremism, the “Positions” singer is following the lead of fellow musicians such as John Legend, who remarked on Twitter that it’s “Weird how all these ‘free, independent thinkers’ always land at the same old anti blackness and anti semitism.” Other stars including Jack Antonoff and Sarah Silverman have also weighed in.

Ye’s latest controversy comes on the heels of public outrage over his Paris Fashion Week show earlier this month, after he and some of the models walking the runway in his designs wore “White Lives Matter” shirts. Though the phrase is classified by the Southern Poverty Law Center as a “racist response to the civil rights movement Black Lives Matter,” West sat for an interview with Fox News’ Tucker Carlson, and posted targeted Instagram posts defending his statement.

See the two videos Ariana shared about Kanye’s anti-Semitic remarks on her Instagram story below: