Month: March 2023

After reuniting on their new collaboration “Don’t Text, Don’t Call,” Snoop Dogg and Wiz Khalifa join forces for their forthcoming High School Reunion Tour. Slated to kick off July 7, the multi-city jaunt will feature West Coast staples Warren G, Too $hort and Berner with special guest DJ Drama. 

The 33-city tour will span the nation and touchdown in various cities including Brooklyn, St. Louis, Atlanta and Houston Tickets are available now for Citi card members through Thursday, March 9, 10 p.m. ET. The general on-sale will begin Friday, March 10, at 9 am ET on ticketmaster.com.

Snoop and Wiz’s storied friendship dates back to their 2011 smash hit “Young, Wild, and Free” featuring a then-burgeoning Bruno Mars. The song peaked at No. 7 on the Billboard Hot 100 and resided on the duo’s Mac and Devin Go to High School soundtrack. In February, the pair teased a possible sequel for the stoner comedy with a photo posted on social media by Snoop. “High school reunion comin summer 23 @wizkhalifa,” he captioned the pic. 

As for Wiz, he will be a busy man on the road this year. Aside from his upcoming tour with Snoop, he’ll also lead the way for his headlining effort, The Good Trip Tour. The seven-date venture will feature acts such as Joey Bada$$, Smoke DZA, Berner and Chevy Woods. It’ll begin next month. 

Check out the dates for the High School Reunion Tour below. 

2023 High School Reunion tour dates: 

The Weeknd and Ariana Grande’s “Die for You” bounds from No. 6 to No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100, after Grande joined for its remix. The song reigns after it was originally released on The Weeknd’s album Starboy in 2016, before it was revived in recent months thanks in part to interaction on TikTok, which helped spark new promotion to radio and streaming services.

The team-up marks each artist’s seventh Hot 100 No. 1 – and their second together, after “Save Your Tears” led in 2021, for two weeks, also after Grande was added on a remixed version.

Plus, Karol G and Shakira’s “TQG” soars onto the Hot 100 at No. 7, marking the former’s first top 10 and the latter’s sixth – and second this year, following a nearly 16-year break from the region. The collaboration is from Karol G’s new album Mañana Será Bonito, which debuts at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 albums chart, becoming the first all-Spanish-language leader by a woman in the list’s history.

The Hot 100 blends all-genre U.S. streaming (official audio and official video), radio airplay and sales data. All charts (dated March 11, 2023) will update on Billboard.com tomorrow (March 7). For all chart news, you can follow @billboard and @billboardcharts on both Twitter and Instagram.

Here’s a look at the coronation for “Die for You,” which becomes the 1,146th No. 1 since the Hot 100 began in August 1958.

Airplay, streams & sales: “Die for You,” released on XO/Republic Records, drew 81.1 million radio airplay audience impressions (up less than 1%) and 32.4 million streams (up 181%) and sold 14,000 (up 1,170%) Feb. 24-March 2, according to Luminate. It doubles up with the Hot 100’s top Streaming Gainer and Sales Gainer weekly awards.

The track blasts from No. 22 to No. 1 on the Streaming Songs chart (where it becomes Grande’s fourth leader and The Weeknd’s third); debuts at No. 3 on Digital Song Sales; and holds at No. 3 on Radio Songs, after two weeks on top.

The song was originally released by The Weeknd solo in 2016 on his album Starboy, with its recent resurgence sparked by interaction on TikTok (which does not presently contribute directly to Billboard’s charts). That buzz helped lead to the song’s current promotion to radio and streaming services. On Feb. 24, the song’s remix with Grande was released, with that version and an instrumental mix, both billed as by the tandem, discounted to 69 cents through March 2. Late on March 1, an a cappella version by the pair arrived, also for 69 cents. Those versions joined The Weeknd’s original solo version and its sped-up and instrumental mixes, also priced at 69 cents during the tracking week. (The instrumental versions, one billed as by The Weeknd and the other by The Weeknd and Grande, share audio and differ only in digital artwork; they were available during the tracking week only in the acts’ webstores.)

“Die” wouldn’t: As Starboy opened atop the Billboard 200 dated Dec. 17, 2016, “Die for You” concurrently debuted at No. 43 on the Hot 100. The song spent three weeks on the chart that month (and, promoted as a single to R&B/hip-hop and rhythmic radio, reached the Mainstream R&B/Hip-Hop Airplay, Adult R&B Airplay and Rhythmic Airplay charts in 2017-18). It returned to the Hot 100 dated Sept. 3, 2022. In October, it reached the Hot 100’s top 40 and this January it hit the top 10. It also topped the Pop Airplay chart for two weeks and reached a new No. 2 best on Rhythmic Airplay in January-February.

The song completes the second-longest trip to No. 1 on the Hot 100 in terms of time from a debut to scaling the summit – and the longest among non-holiday songs. Notably, The Weeknd and Grande claim two of the six longest such journeys.

Most Time to No. 1 on Hot 100, from Chart Debut:
19 years, 11 months, 2 weeks, “All I Want for Christmas Is You,” Mariah Carey (2000-19; originally released in 1994, the carol ultimately first led 25 years after its release)
6 years, 2 months, 3 weeks, “Die for You,” The Weeknd & Ariana Grande (2016-23)
5 years, 8 months, 2 weeks, “When I’m With You,” Sheriff (1983-89)
4 years, 8 months, 2 weeks, “Red Red Wine,” UB40 (1984-88; the pop/reggae classic and Sheriff’s love song above were revived, in part, by adventurous radio exec Guy Zapoleon)
1 year, 2 months, “Heat Waves,” Glass Animals (2021-22)
1 year, 1 month, “Save Your Tears,” The Weeknd & Ariana Grande (2020-21)
(Additional research by Billboard senior charts and social manager Xander Zellner)

Meanwhile, “Die for You” tops the Hot 100 in its 31st total week on the tally, the fourth-longest such climb. “Heat Waves” reigned when it wrapped a record 59-week ascent.

The Weeknd & Grande’s No. 1s: The Weeknd and Grande earn a seventh Hot 100 No. 1 each. Here’s a recap of their leaders.

The Weeknd’s Hot 100 No. 1s:
“Can’t Feel My Face,” three weeks at No. 1, beginning Aug. 22, 2015
“The Hills,” six weeks, Oct. 3, 2015
“Starboy,” feat. Daft Punk, one week, Jan. 7, 2017
“Heartless,” one week, Dec. 14, 2019
“Blinding Lights,” four weeks, April 4, 2020
“Save Your Tears,” with Ariana Grande, two weeks, May 8, 2021
“Die for You,” with Grande, one week to-date, March 11, 2023

Notably, Starboy now boasts two Hot 100 leaders, as “Die for You” joins the set’s title cut after over six years – a record for the longest time between No. 1 songs both originally released on a single album.

Ariana Grande’s Hot 100 No. 1s:
“Thank U Next,” seven weeks at No. 1, beginning Nov. 17, 2018
“7 Rings,” eight weeks, Feb. 2, 2019
“Stuck With U,” with Justin Bieber, one week, May 23, 2020
“Rain on Me,” with Lady Gaga, one week, June 6, 2020
“Positions,” one week, Nov. 7, 2020
“Save Your Tears,” with The Weeknd, two weeks, May 8, 2021
“Die for You,” with The Weeknd, one week to-date, March 11, 2023

Grande simultaneously adds her milestone 20th Hot 100 top 10. “Die for You” became The Weeknd’s 16th top 10 – his first such hit was also with Grande, as their “Love Me Harder” reached No. 7 in November 2014.

Dominant duet partners: The Weeknd and Grande become the latest pair of solo acts that have teamed up for multiple Hot 100 No. 1s. Here’s a look at the acts that might want to consider making their collaborations more frequent, given their repeat success rates. (Drake and Rihanna have achieved the feat thanks to two pairings apiece.)

Acts That Have Teamed for Multiple Hot 100 No. 1s:
The Weeknd & Ariana Grande: “Save Your Tears,” 2021; “Die for You,” 2023
Drake & Future: “Way 2 Sexy” (Drake feat. Future & Young Thug), 2021; “Wait for U” (Future feat. Drake & Tems), 2022
Rihanna feat. Drake: “What’s My Name?,” 2010; “Work,” 2016
Eminem feat. Rihanna: “Love the Way You Lie,” 2010; “The Monster,” 2013-14
Nelly Furtado & Timbaland: “Promiscuous” (Furtado feat. Timbaland), 2006; “Give It to Me” (Timbaland feat. Furtado & Justin Timberlake), 2007
Jennifer Lopez feat. Ja Rule: “I’m Real,” 2001; “Ain’t It Funny,” 2002

‘Die for You’ deconstructed: Hit Songs Deconstructed, which analyzes the compositional traits of Hot 100 top 10s, notes that despite the 2016 arrival of “Die for You,” the song “fits in with the recent uptick of synth-heavy top 10s, which doubled between 2020 and 2022 to nearly one-quarter of such songs, and the continued popularity of R&B, which has held steady in half of all top 10s over the past two years.”

Speaking of R&B …

No. 1 R&B/hip-hop: “Die for You” concurrently hits No. 1 on Billboard’s Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs and Hot R&B Songs charts, which use the same methodology as the Hot 100. On Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs, The Weeknd adds his eighth leader and Grande achieves her first. On Hot R&B Songs, The Weeknd claims his record-extending 11th No. 1 (dating to the chart’s 2012 start) and Grande notches her first.

Miley Cyrus’ “Flowers” descends to No. 2 after spending its first six weeks on the Hot 100 at No. 1. Still, it tops Radio Songs for a third week, up 7% to 102.1 million in audience. It’s the first song to draw over 100 million in reach since Adele’s “Easy on Me” (101.2 million; Jan. 22, 2022) and logs the highest sum since The Weeknd’s “Blinding Lights” posted six such weeks (reaching a high of 114.6 million) in April-May 2020.

SZA’s “Kill Bill” slips to No. 3 on the Hot 100 after seven weeks at its No. 2 high – although it takes top Airplay Gainer honors, up 13% to 81 million in audience.

PinkPantheress and Ice Spice’s “Boy’s a Liar, Pt. 2” retreats to No. 4 on the Hot 100 from its No. 3 best; Morgan Wallen’s “Last Night” holds at No. 5, after reaching No. 3, as it leads the multi-metric Hot Country Songs chart for a fourth week; and Metro Boomin, The Weeknd and 21 Savage’s “Creepin’” backtracks 4-6, after hitting No. 3.

Karol G and Shakira’s “TQG” charges onto the Hot 100 at No. 7, with 29 million streams, 4.6 million in airplay audience and 7,000 sold. The song is from Karol G’s album Mañana Será Bonito, which debuts at No. 1 on the Billboard 200, making history as the first all-Spanish-language leader by a woman.

The track is Karol G’s first Hot 100 top 10 and Shakira’s sixth – and second this year, after her and Bizarrap’s “Bzrp Music Sessions, Vol. 53” debuted at its No. 9 peak in January, following her nearly 16-year absence from the region, since “Beautiful Liar,” with Beyoncé, rose to No. 3 in April 2007.

While Shakira’s lengthy break from the Hot 100’s top 10 only to return with two such hits in relatively quick succession is rare, it’s not unprecedented: Elton John went over 24 years after 1998 before revisiting the tier with “Cold Heart (Pnau Remix),” with Dua Lipa (No. 7, 2021), and “Hold Me Closer,” with Britney Spears (No. 6, 2022). Plus, Billboard deputy editor Andrew Unterberger shouts out Santana’s wait of over 28 years after 1971 before bounding back with two No. 1s in 1999-2000 – “Smooth,” featuring Rob Thomas, and “Maria Maria,” featuring The Product G&B – along with two more top 10s in 2002-03. (All such examples reflect acts teaming with artists who followed in their footsteps, capitalizing on multi-generational appeal.)

“TQG” concurrently launches at No. 1 on the multi-metric Hot Latin Songs chart, where it’s Karol G’s sixth leader, all since 2018, and fellow Colombian Shakira’s 13th, with her run having begun in 1998.

Elsewhere in the Hot 100’s top 10, Sam Smith and Kim Petras’ “Unholy” falls 7-8, after it ruled for a week in October; Taylor Swift’s “Anti-Hero” dips 8-9, following a personal-best eight weeks at No. 1 in November-December; and Beyoncé’s “Cuff It” falls 9-10, after hitting No. 6.

Again, for all chart news, you can follow @billboard and @billboardcharts on both Twitter and Instagram and all charts (dated March 11), including the Hot 100 in its entirety, will refresh on Billboard.com tomorrow (March 7).

Luminate, the independent data provider to the Billboard charts, completes a thorough review of all data submissions used in compiling the weekly chart rankings. Luminate reviews and authenticates data. In partnership with Billboard, data deemed suspicious or unverifiable is removed, using established criteria, before final chart calculations are made and published.

There he is! Jin returned to social media over the weekend to document a visit from two of his BTS bandmates while serving his mandatory time in the South Korean military.

In the photo shared on Saturday (March 4), the K-pop idol is flanked by none other than J-Hope and Jimin as he flashes the camera a peace sign in his camouflage military fatigues. “어서와,” he captioned the snap, which translates to “Welcome” in English. While the comments were turned off on the post, J-Hope did manage to leave a number of red hearts and heart eyes emojis beneath the photo with his pals.

Jin began his military enlistment at the close of 2022 with a sweet send-off from all six of his bandmates. Since then, he’s completed basic training, and has kept ARMY updated on his time in service.

In January, he shared an uplifting video that was filmed before he left, promising he’d “be back soon,” as well as a first look at himself in uniform. (“I’m having a good time,” he captioned the slideshow, making clear he was posting with permission from the military.) Jin also surprised ARMY with a special pre-recorded video for Valentine’s Day, macarons included.

Meanwhile, J-Hope and Jimin have both kept busy with new music as the start of their own military service looms. The former enlisted J. Cole — long known as one of his favorite artists — for their new collaborative single “On the Street” in the wake of releasing his new documentary J-Hope IN THE BOX. The latter, on the other hand, scored his first hit on the Hot 100 thanks to “Vibe,” his electric team-up with TAEYANG, and is currently prepping the release of his debut solo album FACE.

See Jin’s reunion with J-Hope and Jimin below.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Jin of BTS (@jin)

Like many stans of music’s superstars, Dre’s devotion to Ni’Jah is boundless. She’ll battle internet trolls and haters. She’ll max out credit cards for stage-side concert tickets. She lives and breathes her adoration. And, as it turns out, she’ll kill for it, too.

Dre is a fictional character (Ni’Jah is as well — though the latter bears a more than passing resemblance to Beyoncé). But as portrayed by the captivating Dominique Fishback on Swarm – the much-awaited Amazon Prime series from co-creators Donald Glover and Janine Nabers, debuting March 17 on Prime Video – Dre feels all-too unsettlingly real. And the world of Swarm, like much of Glover’s distinctive creative catalog, is a just-this-side-of-reality genre-mash of eerie, unexpected, and playful thrills.

Swarm premieres mere months after the conclusion of Glover’s widely beloved Atlanta — but he and Nabers, who is the series’ showrunner, began work on it much earlier. “He called me and was like, ‘I really want this to be the first show that has my name on it with yours after Atlanta,” says Nabers, a writer, producer and collaborator of Glover’s on seasons 3 and 4 (she is also a playwright).

A character-study at its core, Swarm feels like a darker sister to Atlanta. As in all Glover’s work, every detail of Swarm is purposefully chosen — from the years in which it’s set (2016-2018, when social media platforms like Twitter and Instagram were firmly established as central to the pop culture conversation) to its tongue-in-cheek references to real world events (stripper altercations, high-profile infidelity, trespassing fans) and people (Ni’jah’s fanbase, the titular swarm, is a Beyhive by any other name).

The casting choices, too, are intentional. Actors including Chloe Bailey, Paris Jackson, and Damson Idris were selected in part because they, as Nabers puts it, “have their own swarm of people around them.” The most important casting choice of all, of course, was who would play Dre herself.

“Presence was really important,” says Fishback of her approach. “If I tried to map out Dre, I wouldn’t be able to play an authentic character because she isn’t that. It became a thing where I would do something really weird and I would try to get a reaction out of Donald. If I could get him to be like, ‘Huh, that was strange,” then I was doing something.”

That odd, off-putting otherness is key to Fishback’s performance. “We didn’t really go into the psychology of the character, Janine, Donald and I,” she continues. “It was really just trust.” Dre is unpredictable and erratic — a split moment observation in an elevator shifts her focus, sparing a would-be victim; the fluidity and speed with which she concocts false-but-believable tales is terrifying — and Fishback, who’s accustomed to psychologically delving into her characters (often through journaling), dialed into that strange.

“I really wanted to stretch myself as an actor,” says Fishback, who says she’s always been inspired by transformative performances like Charlize Theron’s in Monster. She relished the opportunity to embody a likely-to-be-misunderstood character.

Dre is crafted to be quite singular both within the show’s world and as a protagonist on television now. Nabers likens the pilot to “the origin story of a villain,” and considers Dre “very much an alien in any situation she’s put in.” Nonetheless, the show also hinges on Dre’s existence as one member of a giant whole: The Hive, Ni’Jah’s aptly named fanbase. And Dre’s relationship to music is what’s meant to most resonate most with audiences. As Nabers notes, “Every person in the world has some sort of connection to music. So that was a very strong way in which we wanted to lead the audience into this character. The language she speaks is this star’s mythology.”

That music is stitched into the show with a deft hand by Glover, who created fictional Ni’Jah songs that sounded believable as a pop star’s repertoire. Ni’Jah’s lyrics become the words through which Dre’s world is expressed. As Dre grapples with grief, following a pivotal loss in the first episode, the audience sees that world grow more and more chaotic — and is forced to confront questions about how art, and music in particular, can function as both healer and trigger, swaying our own emotional navigation.

“Music has saved my life,” says Bailey, who plays Marissa, Dre’s sister, roommate, and best friend. “If you’re going through pain and you don’t know how to articulate that or share it with anyone around you, you can find a song that articulates exactly how you’re feeling. The sonics match the frequency of what you’re feeling. Even when you’re happy, it’s the heartbeat.”

Ni’Jah’s superstar presence enraptures and haunts Dre through diegetic music, but also through trending topics and the resulting Twitter wars we see onscreen. We only get glimpses of the icon herself — another intentional choice, Nabers explains, though she stops short of calling the character a Beyoncé stand-in.

“For us, it was really about finding the feeling that someone gives to Black women in America,” she says. “If you ask [Black women] who is the representation of them in the words of music and song and unapologetic Black girl realness, everyone’s gonna have different answers. It’s really about allowing us to see that Ni’Jah is that person for Dre. We can understand that the feeling is something like” — she pauses, letting my mind fill in the blank— “who we’re familiar with. We’re putting ‘I feel that for this person’ onto that face. That’s what we’re really trying to do with this story.”

In our hyperconnected world, the breadcrumbs such a star leaves for their fans in their art — hinting at intimate details of their “real” lives — can set a superfan’s mind into overdrive, and Dre’s story is an uncanny consideration of the emotional and mental toll that can take, especially amid the hyper-aggressive realm of fan armies on the internet. “I guess in the normal world it would be considered hatred,” Glover has said of that behavior, “but on the internet it’s just talk.” In Swarm, he imagines what might happen if those armies stepped into the real world, like the packs of gangs in cult-classic The Warriors. Or even just one troubled superfan, desperate to be seen by the deified artist at whose altar she worships.

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“I try to be a clear vessel,” says Fishback. “Dre really dips into her wounded masculine, her wounded feminine, her dark feminine energy.”

Fishback is known as a chameleon onscreen. In roles on shows like The Deuce and Show Me a Hero, as well as in films like Judas and the Black Messiah, her magnetic presence has long made her a standout in ensemble casts. “She’s incredible. She is vulnerable, and fierce, and willing to jump into it all,” says Amazon Studios’ head of television, Vernon Sanders. “She was the only choice.” As Dre, Fishback showcases both her range and her masterful ability to get under the audience’s skin — she’s a presence tangible beyond the screen.

“A lot of times we don’t get to express that rage or that hurt or that pain, especially on camera — and I got to express it through Dre,” Fishback says. “I got to be raging and scream. When you’re taught TV work in school they’re like, ‘Don’t move from the camera. Make sure the camera can see you.’ You get so trapped by the frame.”

Playing Dre wasn’t all dark side of the mind, Fishback allows. “There are heavy things but she’s a lot of fun too!” she says. “I learned a great deal from Dre. How to march to the beat of my own drum — period. Her drum’s got a different rhythm from mine. However, I can understand what it’s like to decide that this is me, this is how I move through the world, this is what I care about. And I’m passionate about what I care about. As an artist, she gave me even more freedom. I had to just trust my instrument and trust the process.”

As a producer on the show, Fishback (who is also a writer in her own right) was also able to advocate for both Dre’s character and the cast and crew. She requested a therapist on set, watched dailies to track the evolution of the project as a whole, and insisted on reinstating cut scenes that she felt were essential to character development. And she had present allies in both Glover and Nabers.

“I was the only Black female [executive] producer on the show,” says Nabers. “We were very much a united front in that to create a safe space. Anytime we needed Donald, or any producer, they would show up. It took a village to make this show safe and to keep it moving, and that’s what we did. I’m really proud of that.” Sanders mentions that “part of the sell for [Amazon] was having Janine’s voice with [Glover’s],” considering the explicitly Black female lens through which Swarm’s story is told.

That lens is new territory for Glover, who has been criticized before for appearing hostile to Black women’s perspectives in particular. In April of last year, he came under public scrutiny when — as part of an Interview profile in which he interviewed….himself — he asked, “Are you afraid of Black women?” and then danced around his imagined interviewer-self not to answer.

At the time, Swarm was in the midst of shooting — begging the question of whether Glover was perhaps, in some way, teeing up the subject for discussion around this project, with its two central female characters embodying powerful archetypes: Ni’Jah, an icon of ethereal, otherworldly proportion, and Dre, an outcast wielding frightful agency.

Glover and Nabers poke and prod at similarly layered questions through Swarm — including the many potential meanings the title itself can take on. Whether or not you feel empathy for Dre, her perspective is overwhelmingly the one the audience must take, and Fishback’s grounded performance — not in reality or Dre’s mind, but her heart — is all-consuming. “You can have [a] swarm in any kind of way. Swarming thoughts that get into your mind…” Fishback muses. “Yes, it’s about this girl who is part of this ‘swarm’. But we also hope that people watch it and swarm to the project, because we can dialogue. It can be about the human condition.”