Music

Latin hip-hop found its footing in the bicoastal stomping grounds of the East and West Coasts where Spanglish-speaking communities were influenced and surrounded by urban rap and trap. Today that reach is much more global with booming subgenres extending beyond the United States, into Mexico, Puerto Rico and all the way down to Argentina. Amazon

Luminate, the entertainment industry data company, has launched the beta version of their new platform. The new design gives users better insight into entertainment consumption and audience outreach across music, film and television industries. For the last three decades, Luminate has been the resource behind Billboard Charts, providing access to music sales, streaming and airplay.

Today, Empire, the independent record label, distributor, and publisher, has named Jennifer Cabalquinto to the post of chief financial officer. Cabalquinto will oversee all day-to-day and long-term financial planning and accounting operations for the music powerhouse, and strategize Empire’s reach beyond music into the sports, videogame, tv/film and live entertainment sectors.  Cabalquinto arrives at Empire

There was almost some bad blood between Taylor Swift and stadium security at the singer’s show in Philadelphia on Saturday, as she took a pause in singing “Bad Blood” to repeatedly ask a guard or guards to lay off a fan as a confrontation developed. As usual with anything at a Swift show, there were

Perhaps you saw the gossip-site reports coming out of the Lovers & Friends Festival in Las Vegas last weekend: Allegedly, Chris Brown and Usher had gotten into some kind of tiff backstage during Missy Elliott’s set. The two singers went on to… Wait a minute. There was a Missy Elliott show? Stop the presses …

Indie trio Muna isn’t yet a household name, but judging from a roaring reception at the first of two sold-out shows at New York City’s Terminal 5, they’re already a must-see live band on the rise. The group — consisting of singer Katie Gavin, lead guitarist Josette Maskin and multi-instrumentalist Naomi McPherson, as well as

Variety garnered a record 96 nominations for the SoCal Journalism awards sponsored by the Los Angeles Press Club, with nods across magazine and entertainment journalism, art and photography, video, audio, online content and social media during the 2022 calendar year. Among the nominations announced Friday were Tim Gray for print journalist of the year and

At his Hollywood Walk of Fame star ceremony Friday, Blake Shelton was both celebrated and shamed by three guest speakers that have loomed large in his life over the last dozen years, as “The Voice” host Carson Daly thoroughly roasted him, wife Gwen Stefani waxed lovestruck (still), and former fellow judge Adam Levine split the

On May 21, 2003, 38.1 million viewers watched Ruben Studdard and Clay Aiken battle it out to become the winner of season two of “American Idol.” When Ryan Seacrest opened the envelope, he proclaimed, “After 24 million votes, the winner of ‘American Idol’ 2003 is… Ruben Studdard!” Aiken was not surprised — he saw the

The past few weeks, Labrinth has been riding a high. Last month, the artist, producer and Emmy-winning “Euphoria” composer delivered the biggest performances of his career at Coachella. One of the most talked about sets of the festival, Labrinth surprised fans with special guests both weekends: Billie Eilish came out during Weekend 1 to sing

Grammy-nominated, multiplatinum country star Jimmie Allen has been suspended by his agency UTA, following a sexual assault and battery lawsuit lodged against him. “We have suspended our representation of Jimmie Allen due to the recent allegations against him, which we take seriously,” a spokesperson for UTA told Variety. Allen has been accused of rape, sexual

If you purchase an independently reviewed product or service through a link on our website, Variety may receive an affiliate commission. A long-awaited oral history about BTS is finally here — and like all announcements made in relation to the mega-popular K-pop group, it comes after days of speculation from the group’s most ardent fans.

Kylie Minogue’s new album “Tension” will be out Sept. 22 via BMG, the pop singer revealed on Friday. The album, her first since 2020’s “Disco,” is described as a blend of “personal reflection, club abandon and melancholic high” by the Australian pop singer who also shared the artwork and tracklist. “I started this album with

As Blake Shelton prepares to exit “The Voice” after a dozen years and 23 seasons, the impact of the country singer’s enduring, anchoring presence as the NBC music competition series’ longest-running coach is already being keenly felt by his creative colleagues. “From the start, Blake was kind, down to earth and funny,” says the series’

Blake Shelton stays busy with his music career, a bit of acting and a lot of career coaching on “The Voice.” He’s been on the series since the beginning, and his picks have won nine times and counting over the show’s 22 seasons. But despite his busy schedule, he returns to his Oklahoma roots time

How did writer-director Jim Strouse get Celine Dion to play herself and write five new songs for his film “Love Again?”  “It took months, maybe even a full year,” Strouse tells Variety. “There was a lot of thought, eating, letters and lookbooks.”  The Sony feature-length stars Priyanka Chopra Jonas (Mira) and Sam Heughan (Rob) as depressed singles that meet in a

For every new star on the recording scene, there is at least one unheralded industry drone without whom that star might never have shone. In the case of Blake Shelton, who is about to receive his well-deserved Hollywood Walk of Fame star after more than two decades as one of country music’s best, there are

In the end, with Blake Shelton, it’s all about the voice … and without any need to punctuate that phrase with quote marks or italics or a capital T and V. The first and last reason he arrived on America’s doorstep was that baritone, which resonates with an authority that seems handed down from a

When Daft Punk launched its fourth and presumably final mission statement, “Random Access Memories,” into the atmosphere 10 long years ago, it was greeted with the kind of genre- and generation-spanning adulation that’s rare in any genre. At the time of its release, the supernova of cool around Daft Punk was so pervasive — and

At the 58th annual Academy of Country Music Awards, the top prize, entertainer of the year, was handed out to Chris Stapleton, even as Lainey Wilson and Hardy won in the the greatest number of categories, with four each — two of which they shared for the duet “Wait in the Truck.” Technically, Hardy walked

One of country music’s biggest nights is here. The 58th annual Academy of Country Music Awards is airing Thursday night, and you can watch it from the comfort of your own home. The Official ACM Awards Red Carpet Show – hosted by Amber Anderson, Priscilla Block, BRELAND, Elaina Smith and Kelly Sutton – is streaming live

Country star Jimmie Allen’s label, BBR Music Group, has suspended him, following a lawsuit from an ex-manager alleging that he sexually assaulted her over a period of a year and a half working with him, and an investigative story in Variety expanding on the woman’s allegations. “In light of today’s allegations against Jimmie Allen, BBR

In May 2021, Grammy-nominated, multiplatinum country star Jimmie Allen visited “The Ellen DeGeneres Show” to promote his latest project, a children’s book titled, “My Voice Is a Trumpet.” Images flashed across the screen of Allen with his wife and kids, as he spoke about his recent wedding and gushed about his new baby girl. “When

Janelle Monáe has revealed her new album “The Age of Pleasure,” her first full-length effort in five years, and the follow-up to 2018’s “Dirty Computer,” will arrive on June 9 via Wondaland Arts Society/Atlantic Records. The news came attached to a new single, “Lipstick Lover,” and its matching music video — where the singer-songwriter and

The FOMO of having missed Joni Mitchell’s appearance at the Newport Folk Festival last summer no longer needs to be so strong. Most of that comeback set, which as augmented by an all-star cast, is being released as a live album in July, “At Newport,” produced by Mitchell and Brandi Carlile. The album will be

Seeker Music has acquired the masters and publishing catalog of Charlotte Caffey, lead guitarist and a primary songwriter of pioneering all-female group and Rock and Roll Hall of Fame members the Go-Go’s. Caffey co-wrote some of the group’s biggest hits and was the sole songwriter of its signature song, “We Got the Beat.” Since its

Paris, France will host the MTV Europe Music Awards (EMAs) for the first time since 1995. The event promises to feature “performances from the industry’s biggest artists” and celebrate “music from around the world,” according to MTV. “The MTV EMAs is one of the biggest nights in music globally, and this year we’ll continue its

Garth Brooks and Dolly Parton have friends in host places: each other, as they prepare to co-helm the 58th annual Academy of Country Music Awards show Thursday night. Parton has done the hosting thing for the ACM Awards or CMAs a bare handful of times over the years (including taking on the role for last

Johan Lenox, Variety’s Hitmaker of the Month, is known for the supple grandeur he brings to different projects as a producer, arranger and/or composer. These range from the sublime, stringed swell of “Creepin’,” Metro Boomin’s current top 10 smash with the Weeknd and 21 Savage, to the epic orchestral and choral arrangements of Travis Scott’s

Until now, global success for K-pop acts has mostly come through massive conglomerates like YG Entertainment and HYBE. That all changed when indie label Attrakt (stylized as ATTRAKT) rolled out an innovative campaign for their nascent girl group Fifty Fifty (stylized FIFTY FIFTY) centered on highlighting the members’ individual talents and reaching as many fans