Happy birthday, Lizzo! The Grammy-winning superstar turned 35 years old on Thursday (April 27), and to celebrate, we’re looking through some of her biggest Billboard hits.
“About Damn Time” gave Lizzo her second Hot 100 chart topper, as the TikTok-viral hit made its way to the top of the tally dated July 30, 2022. Her first leader was “Truth Hurts,” which dominated the chart for seven weeks beginning in September 2019.
In total, Lizzo has eight tracks that have made the Hot 100, including jams like “Good As Hell,” “Juice” and her Cardi B collaboration, “Rumors.” Most recently, her “Special” collaboration with SZA, “2 Be Loved (Am I Ready) and her holiday hit “Someday at Christmas” all appeared the tally.
To celebrate Lizzo’s birthday, we want to know which of her Hot 100 hits is your favorite. Let us know by voting below!
Nicki Minaj and Kim Petras have joined forces yet again — this time, for a new episode of Queen Radio.
On Wednesday, the singer appeared as a guest on Minaj’s AMP show and shared what it’s been like to see her star ascend in light of their recent collaboration “Alone” and her first Billboard Hot 100 hit “Unholy” with Sam Smith last year.
“Does it feel like overnight you came in and then you had all this huge success?” Minaj asked her collaborator. “Does it feel like you weren’t prepared for it, or do you feel like you were mentally and emotionally prepared for it all?”
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“I feel like I spent so many years being a writer first,” Petras said. “When I was a kid in Germany, how I got my first pub[lishing] deal was by writing jingles. I wrote a laundry detergent jingle in German, and then when I moved here, it was kind of like living on studio couches and writing songs every single day and just knocking on doors trying to get into studios. It’s definitely been 10-plus years of working on this, so I definitely kind of always hoped I could get Nicki Minaj on a song. That’s about the biggest thing in the world that could ever happen to anyone, so thank you so much for that.”
The pop star shared her feelings about being on a song with one of her idols while speaking with Zane Lowe earlier in the month as well.
“It doesn’t feel real still,” the star told Lowe on Apple Music 1. “Her singing, ‘It’s Barbie and it’s Kim Petras,’ I cried, I was on the floor, and then she calls me Kim Petty in it, which all my friends are like, ‘How did we not come up with that our entire lives?’ So she just changed my life in so many ways with that verse, and that verse rips. I love her and I’m so inspired by her always, it’s crazy to me. I don’t know how she does it, but she’s just the greatest ever.”
Listen to Minaj and Petras’ conversation on Queen Radio below.
Lizzo turned another year older on Thursday (April 27) and celebrated by, well, wishing herself a happy birthday on social media.
“HAPPY BIRTHDAY LIZZO,” the singer wrote on Instagram alongside a video of herself blowing out the candles on a marbled birthday cake featuring a portrait of her face framed by thick gold icing. She went even harder on TikTok by cheekily demanding, “IF 26.9 MILLION PEOPLE DONT WISH ME HAPPY BIRTHDAY IM QUITTING.”
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While Lizzo posted the same celebratory video from her Instagram, the star also played her own 2022 song “Birthday Girl” over the clip on TikTok, her voice gleefully singing, “Is it your birthday, girl?/ ‘Cause you lookin’ like a present.” (Turns out the track is a reliable perennial for the hitmaker, considering she also used it to mark her birthday — and the official start of Taurus season — in 2022.)
Plenty of the “Grrrls” singer’s famous friends hopped into the comments to help celebrate her day. Chlöe Bailey wrote, “happy birthday beautiful,” while her younger sister Halle Bailey echoed her sentiments with birthday wishes of her own. Meanwhile, Lil Nas X, Saucy Santana, Yara Shahidi and others also filled Lizzo’s comments section with love.
This year, the Yitty designer is marking her birthday from the road as she’s in the middle of another trek across North America in support of her 2022 album Special. So far, she’s used the tour to protest anti-LGBTQ+ laws in Tennessee with help from several queens from RuPaul’s Drag Race, design a custom tattoo for a fan mid-show, dance in a bikini in front of the famous St. Louis Arch and more.
Watch Lizzo revel in her birthday festivities below.
Priyanka Chopra opened up about the start of her relationship with Nick Jonas in a new interview on Thursday (April 27), and revealed it was a relationship that almost wasn’t!
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“I didn’t give it much of a chance because, I was like, ‘He’s 25 years old, he’s a rockstar. I want to get married, I want to settle down, I want to have a baby,’” the Citadel star explained in TODAY‘s first-ever cover story. “I was 35 at the time. I wanted stability, and I didn’t give Nick enough credit until I went out with him on our first date. We spent the whole evening together, and I realized my husband is just like an old soul. He’s stability in human form.”
The Jonas Brothers singer persevered, and they were eventually married in two separate, lavish ceremonies in Jodhpur, India — one Hindu and one Christian — back in 2019. Nowadays, they’re parents to baby Malti Marie, and Chopra reflected in her conversation with Hoda Kotb about the tot’s scary, premature arrival.
Priyanka Chopra
“I remember he just held me by my shoulders,” she said of Jonas, “and I said, ‘Just tell me what to do, because I don’t know what to do.’ And he’s like, ‘Just get into the car with me.’ And we drove to the hospital. She was born, and from the moment she took her first breath to now, she’s never been without one of us, ever.” (The newborn spent 100 days in the newborn intensive care unit following her 2022 birth.)
While Citadel, Chopra’s new action series on Amazon’s Prime Video, premieres Friday (April 28), her husband’s new album with his fellow JoBros, The Album, is set to be released May 12.
Gayle used to have trouble dealing with hate, but recently, she’s learned how to shake it off. That’s thanks to some advice given to her by idol-turned-confidante Taylor Swift, whom the 18-year-old Nashville musician credits with helping her put backlash into perspective when it comes to her success or her polarizing smash hit “abcdefu.”
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Gayle revealed in an interview with Teen Vogue published Thursday (April 27) that, in touring with Swift and sitting next to her at award shows, she has gleaned some well-earned wisdom from the 33-year-old pop star about tuning out negativity. “She’s like, ‘Baby child. Come on. What controversy could you have had for the five minutes you’ve been making music?’” Gayle recalled Swift telling her.
“And that’s true,” the “Everybody Hates Me” singer continued. “That’s fair. It was really, really nice for her to say, when I’ve told her my biggest, deepest worries, she’s like, ‘You’re right. And it’s fine.’”
Gayle’s career skyrocketed after her angsty breakup chart-topper blew up on TikTok in 2021. There was already some people who openly scorned the trendiness and success of “abcdefu” before the 2023 Grammy nominations were announced last year, but when Gayle earned a nod for song of the year alongside Swift’s “All Too Well (10 Minute Version),” her critics got even louder. (Both she and Swift lost the category to Bonnie Raitt’s “Just Like That.”)
According to Teen Vogue, though, Swift’s advice was simple, that Gayle had to make the music she wanted and grow as a musician, and learn how to deal with people’s responses.
“[I had to decide] if I won’t take advice from you, I won’t take criticism from you,” Gayle added. “I can’t not give it all I got just because I’m scared of the possibility of people not liking it. … My music, at the very least, is supposed to make you feel something. If it’s hatred, you’re still feeling something. I’m still winning a little bit. I’ll take it.”
The young star also recounted the story of how Swift asked her to be one of the Eras Tour openers, an invitation that essentially went down the very first time Gayle met her hero at the Nashville Songwriter Association International awards ceremony last year. “She was like, ‘Oh my God, are you touring? Do you tour?’ I’m like, ‘Oh my God. Yeah, I do tour,’” she said.
“She’s like, ‘Oh my God, are you touring next year?’ I’m like, ‘Yeah, I am.’ She’s like, “That’s amazing. Do you open up for people?’ I don’t know why my dumb a– said this, but I was like, ‘I open up for people who ask me to open up for them.’ She was like, ‘I’ll call you.’ I was like, oh my God, I’m going to die.”
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During the event, attendees were treated to the first footage of the newest Trolls movie, Trolls Band Together. Timberlake and Kendrick will return in the movie as Branch and Poppy respectively, and according to the actress, the “weirder and wilder” third installment of the franchise will see their characters “out of the friend zone at last.”
Poppy additionally learns that Branch used to be a part of boy band BroZone. “That’s something you know a thing or two about, JT. It feels a little ‘in sync’ with your life,” Kendrick said, referencing Timberlake’s *NSYNC past. Trolls Band Together will hit theaters on Nov. 17.
Jack Black, meanwhile, revealed that Kung Fu Panda 4 is also in the works. Black — who most recently starred as Bowser in The Super Mario Bros. Movie and earned his first Billboard Hot 100 charting song with the film’s ballad “Peaches” — will return as main character Po.
The School of Rock actor revealed that Po is gearing up to become the spiritual leader of his Valley of Peace, but also needs someone to take his place as Dragon Warrior. As such, he will train a new kung fu practitioner for the spot and will encounter a villain called the Chameleon who conjures villains from the past. “Po has to defeat every one of them,” Black shared.
Kung Fu Panda 4 is scheduled to arrive in theaters on March 8, 2024. Revisit the first trailer for Trolls Band Together in the video above.
LL COOL J has shown flashes of brilliance in the last few years whenever he gripped the same microphone that birthed his legendary career back in 1985. After sips of nostalgia — delivering a blistering medley at the 2022 IHeart Music Awards and contributing to this year’s Hip-Hop 50 tribute at the Grammys — Uncle L looks to quench his thirst for performing with his upcoming F.O.R.C.E. Live arena tour this summer.
Announced earlier this week, the Queens lyricist will tackle 20-plus arenas alongside his majestic crew of superfriends, including The Roots, Queen Latifah, Salt-N-Pepa, Rakim, Common, MC Lyte, Big Boi, Bone Thugs-N-Harmony, Ice T, Juvenile, Doug E. Fresh, Slick Rick, De La Soul, Goodie Mob, Jadakiss, Rick Ross, Method Man and Redman. With this serving as his first arena tour in 30 years, LL tells Billboard that he’s already physically and mentally preparing for the two-month-long trek.
“I gotta get on that treadmill, baby, and just do it,” he says with a chuckle over Zoom. “I gotta give it up for the people. I gotta stay on that treadmill, watch that diet, be right, and be the best version of myself at this point of my life that I can be. That’s all I can do. I can’t do no more and don’t wanna do no less.”
Along with his star-studded tour, LL also looks to release his long-awaited album with Q-Tip later this year, after experiencing numerous delays. He also plans to bring back the second annual Rock The Bells Festival this August alongside Queen Latifah, De La Soul and more.
Billboard exclusively spoke to LL about his forthcoming F.O.R.C.E. Live tour, putting out his long-awaited album with Q-Tip, and what he hopes to achieve on the 50th anniversary of hip-hop.
We’ve graduated from a festival last year to full-fledged arena tour. Why now?
Well, you know, so many people over the years have been requesting and asking me, “Yo. Are you get on the road? Are you gonna do another record? Are you really going to get into music full-fledged, give us a run and really go at it?” I said, you know what? With it being the 50th year of hip-hop and the Grammy celebration working with Quest and The Roots, it just felt like the natural next step was to take this thing on the road.
We’ll do about 20 cities, and the lineup will switch from city to city depending on where we’ll go. That’ll keep it fresh — and I really wanted to give people something creative. It’ll be one continuous set. Non-stop beats and rhymes. Kinda like Grammy-style, versus stopping and going. Once you come in, fasten your seatbelts. We’re off to the races.
The one name that stuck to me was Queen Latifah. She doesn’t come outside for just anybody.
I’m really honored to have her. I love working with her. Interestingly enough, even though we both come from music, we’ve only worked together in film and the Grammys together. So it’ll be dope to have her out there, spittin’, rhymin’ and just bringing that energy. This is going to be really a creative, exciting journey into hip-hop. Whether you were there since day one or you wanna experience that authentic feeling of day one golden era-type vibes, then this is the show for you. If you really wanna get to it and be about it, this is gonna be a lot of fun.
What can fans expect from you catalog-wise? Because you have both the pure-bred hip-hop songs, and of course, the hits.
I think it’s gonna be just about the art. There’ll be hits, and there’ll be just rhymes and beats happening. I’ll be digging in the crates. It won’t only be the top ten songs you’re familiar with. We’ll also be digging in the crates in a special way, and give those hip-hop heads what they really want, which is an opportunity to see me perform something like “Ill Bomb” or “You’ll Rock.”
We’ll get the hits in there, of course, because people want to enjoy those. But I’m not just gonna stick to that. I wanna mix it up and have some fun. And I think the whole overall show will be mixed up and blended in a really cool way.
Any surprises for your set on the guest side of things?
People should know that the names you see there aren’t the only names. There’ll be special guests. There’ll be other announcements coming. There’ll be other people added. The bill will get better and bigger and different. Just come. If you a hip-hop fan and you love the culture and you really wanna celebrate 50 years of hip-hop, come to that F.O.R.C.E. Live. Come check us out. Because myself, Quest, [Black] Thought, like all of us, we’re bringing it. It’s gonna be a lot of fun. It’s gonna be a lot of hip-hop. Lot of beats. Lot of surprises. Musical changes. I mean, the goal is to come out there and have fun. It’s not really about me, it’s about the culture.
The purpose of the tour is to elevate the culture and to show people what’s possible — because not many people have taken 30 years off from arena tours in hip-hop and say, “You know what, let’s do one now.” I wanna show people it’s possible to break creative grounds as an artist in hip-hop — and you could mature gracefully, have fun and embrace it. You don’t have to shy away from your artistic aspirations as your career progresses. You can still take things to the highest heights.
I was with Swizz Beatz the other day and he told me how he felt the music side of his career was incomplete. I say that to ask if one, your project with Q-Tip is actually coming — because you joked about how it wasn’t last year. Then, secondly, whether it drops or not, do you feel like the musical side of your career is complete?
To answer the first part of the question, yes, the project is coming this year. It’s definitely coming. I’ll be announcing the date soon. We have a firm date. The record has been turned in. It’s complete and it’s in the can.
In terms of incomplete, I think an artist will always be incomplete, because you’re gonna always have to follow that inspiration. And for an artist, that inspiration is gonna last a lifetime. So the only thing you can do as an artist is do as much out of you as you can, and do as many inspired pieces as you can. Whether it’s live piece like The F.O.R.C.E. that we’re coming with, or it’s this new record I’m doing with Tip, they’re inspired pieces. So as an artist, your work is never really done, you just create.
So I agree with Swizz. There’s a lot of room. Or, it’s the opposite. It’s always complete. You can look at it like that. At every stage it’s complete, and you just add to that completion. You open it up and complete it, because each piece of work adds to the body. So in a way, it’s always complete and incomplete. It’s like the ultimate artistic dichotomy.
As superstar acts took the stage during this year’s Coachella Music Festival, a group of philanthropists traveled to Indio, Calif., with a different mission: overcoming climate-induced global hunger.
On April 15, representatives from the United Nations and the Sean Penn co-founded emergency relief non-profit CORE hosted an event during Coachella’s first weekend to speak with artists about their role in promoting efforts to fight famine across the globe.
“Music is a building block to humanity. It shapes culture, it moves us physically, emotionally, mentally. It is food for our soul — and therefore the best way to help feed the world,” said Ann Lee, CEO of CORE.
An array of countries were represented, with musicians from the U.S., Democratic Republic of Congo, Pakistan, India, Ghana, Haiti and Nigeria attending the gathering, including Coachella performers Jupiter Bokondji of Jupiter & Okwess and Pakistani singer and songwriter Ali Sethi, Harry Styles’ musical director Pauli The PSM, Grammy-nominated producer Nabeyin (Drake, Nas, The Game) and Nigerian star DJ Sydney Love.
Grace Ramirez
The event also included a sustainable food experience from Chef Grace Ramirez, ambassador of the UN’s Chefs’ Manifesto, a network of chefs in 92 countries, with a mission inspired by the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.
CORE & the @unitednations are teaming up to combat global hunger. We joined forces with artists during @coachella to collaborate on how we can create impactful & sustainable solutions for the growing food crisis, which has been exacerbated by climate change. pic.twitter.com/Q0v5LaW5uG
According to the World Food Programme, 345 million people are projected to be food insecure in 2023, while 45 million people are currently on the brink of starvation. “Musicians and artists are central to the culture of our times. They have the power to move people and evoke change,” said Reena Ghelani, United Nations Famine Prevention and Response Coordinator. “We need their powerful voice to galvanize the world to act.”
While the exact profits of the Coachella Music Festival are unknown, projections exceed one billion worldwide. In the city of Coachella, under-resourced schools and poverty are widespread, despite the hundreds of thousands of dollars coming in by way of festival parking alone. “All of our schools surround the festival grounds, and they’re all Title 1 schools, the poorest of the poor schools,” a local substitute teacher told Refinery29. “We have all these issues and the school board just says they don’t have the budget to help us put in metal detectors when we have gun scares. They don’t have the money to get us clean water.”
Local residents hope the festival and its surrounding events will help bring attention to the city’s farm-working community in order to improve the quality of living for those who provide food for the nation.
For CORE and the UN, artists play a pivotal role in inspiring positive change within and beyond local communities. Tania Goossens-Allen from the UN’s World Food Programme noted, “It is crucial that we all do our part, that we create new partnerships and involve young audiences to reach our objective of ‘zero hunger.’”
