Eminem and Dolly Parton never met, but they shared a mutual admiration for each other’s craft. Following Parton’s death on Tuesday (Aug. 25), Slim Shady shared a heartfelt note that the country icon sent him after he was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2022.

“I’m sorry we never got a chance to meet, but getting this note from Dolly really had a an impact on me,” Em captioned the post on social media. “She definitely didn’t have to take the time to do it. Even for a kid who mostly listened to rap music, she was an icon. A superstar in every sense. Rest easy Dolly. And thank you for the kind words.”

In her letter, Parton revealed how, while she wasn’t very knowledgeable when it comes to hip-hop, she’s long felt an “unexplained connection” to Eminem.

“Congratulations on your induction into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame,” she wrote. “Your performance was amazing and everybody said so. Even though I don’t know a lot about rap music, I’ve come to know that you are the very best at it. Aside from that I hope what I have to say will not seem weird or strange to you but I have always felt some unexplained connection to you like I know you somehow.”

The versatile singer/songwriter continued: “I had hoped to meet you at the show but you know how nuts those things are, personally I hate ’em and I missed my chance but maybe someday we’ll meet. In the meantime, keep doing what you’re doing because you do it so well and no matter how complex your world may be just know you are very special and touch people in ways you don’t even know.”

Parton left an indelible mark on country and pop music with a career that spanned more than half a century. Parton died Tuesday in Nashville at 80 years old.

She spent the last year dealing with unspecified health issues, which led to her canceling numerous public appearances, including her 2025 Las Vegas residency. On Tuesday, her reps revealed that Parton died “after bravely facing a brief battle with cancer.”

Paul McCartney, Billy Ray Cyrus, George Strait and Elton John were among the outpouring of moving tributes to the “9 to 5” singer spanning music and all facets of entertainment since Parton’s death became public knowledge.

Find Parton’s letter to Eminem below.

Lil Nas X is trying to keep a positive attitude since getting out of rehab.

The rapper and singer posted an Instagram Reel telling fans that everyone has been treating him very well since he came from a recent rehab stint.

“Ever since I got out of rehab, like, everybody’s, like, OD nice to me,” he said jokingly. “I can be like, ‘Hey!’ Everybody’s gonna be like, ‘Oh my God, you’re so brave.’ I can try to post a thirst trap on my Instagram Story, and then it’s gonna be somebody like, ‘Keep fighting, King.’”

In keeping with his newfound positivity, he posted an Instagram Story holding a cake to celebrate his 10,000th day on planet Earth and poked fun at the people that may not make it to day 10,000. “So, tomorrow is my 10,000th day alive and I made it,” he said. “A lot of you won’t make it, but I made it.”

Back in June, Nas posted an IG Reel to give his fans and followers an update of where he’s been.

“I’ve been in rehab for a few months,” he said. “Since then I’ve been back home, whether its in Atlanta with my family or in Los Angeles with myself, friends, and what not. And trying to ground myself down to Earth and get out of my head. I have a therapist now and a psychiatrist which is really helpful.”

He added that he originally was in denial about being bipolar. “When I got my bipolar disorder diagnosis,” he began. “I feel like I had known for like the past few year but I didn’t want to admit to it ’cause I didn’t want to have to take medication and I don’t know, have people think different of me. I mean, I’m already Black and gay, like damn, God, come on. Black. gay, bipolar, I’mm like living life on like extreme hard mode.”

Lil Nas X found himself in legal trouble when he was charged with four felonies after allegedly attacking police while walking the streets of L.A. naked. According to Variety, he’ll have his charges dismissed if he continues mental health treatment.

Lauren London is set to play Snoop Dogg’s mother, Beverly Tate, in the upcoming Snoop biopic, according to Deadline. The Universal Pictures film is coming to U.S. theaters on Aug. 6, 2027.

It wouldn’t be Snoop Dogg’s complete rap story without 2Pac, and The Hollywood Reporter revealed on Tuesday (Aug. 25) that Panic actor Camron Jones is slated to play Snoop’s Death Row running mate.

Hustle & Flow‘s Craig Brewer is directing the biopic, which has cast Outerbanks star Jonathan Daviss as Snoop Dogg and BMF‘s Myle Bullock Be in the role of Dr. Dre.

Beverly Tate had a profound impact on Snoop’s career. In addition to being his mother, she worked as a director in the local church choir and began calling her son Snoopy, based on the dog from the TV show Peanuts.

Snoop Dogg and 2Pac’s careers crossed paths while dominating rap as superstars leading Suge Knight’s Death Row Records in the mid-’90s. They teamed up for hits like “2 of Amerikaz Most Wanted.” Snoop also had the honor of inducting Pac into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2017.

Lauren London and Snoop have history as well, as the West Coast rap legend previously enlisted the ATL actress to appear in his and Pharrell’s “Drop It Like It’s Hot” music video, which topped the Billboard Hot 100 in 2004.

London’s partner, the late Nipsey Hussle, was actually offered to play Snoop Dogg in 2015’s N.W.A. biopic, but Hussle ultimately turned Straight Outta Compton down and the role went to LaKeith Stanfield.

As far as her recent work, Lauren London starred in You People in 2023 and made an appearance in Tyler, The Creator’s “Darling, I” music video last year.

Find Snoop Dogg and Death Row Pictures’ post confirming Lauren London’s role below.

The Game reveals that there are multiple versions of the song “No Brakes” which features Drake.

During a recent appearance on Real 92.3 LA’s The Cruz Show, The Game alluded to there being a verse that he decided to take off after host J. Cruz asked if Drake originally had a verse on the Documentary III single. “I don’t know. Maybe,” The Game replied before suggesting he decided not use the Toronto rapper’s verse for the sake of peace.

He added: “Maybe I pulled it off, ‘cause I didn’t need it. That is not the first version of that song. There’s about three versions, and some other versions, they weren’t really too kind. I pulled certain things off the album. I altered the album a lot to make sure the focus would be more on music and less on B.S.”

Cruz then hit him with a rebuttal and asked if the decision was made “to protect certain individuals,” to which the Compton rapper responded with, “Maybe it was just to protect the [West] Coast as a whole. I think it was better to deliver an album full of music, with no beefs. I don’t think I’m dissing anyone on the album.”

Since he dropped The Documentary III last week, he’s been fighting off allegations that he dissed Kendrick Lamar and is siding with Drake. He even hopped in IG comments saying that he didn’t diss anybody on “No Brakes” in response to a news page reposting a rant from a fan.

You can watch the full interview between The Game and J. Cruz below.

Nearly 20 years after the original, Busta Rhymes has posthumously collaborated with the late J Dilla to release their joint Dillagence II project. The anticipated sequel arrived on streaming services on Tuesday (Aug. 25).

The project boasts 19 tracks and is loaded with a range of features, including Dilla’s mother, Ma Dukes, R&B legend D’Angelo, Big Sean, Ludacris, Lil Wayne, Common, Talib Kweli, Anderson .Paak and upstarts like La Reezy and Honey Bxby.

D’Angelo, who passed away from pancreatic cancer in 2025, appears on “This Woman” and Busta revealed that the track came from an unfinished collab between the Voodoo singer and J Dilla over 20 years ago.

“I was gifted with something that they did that they didn’t finish when the word started to spread about this project. I didn’t know that it existed because it was done 20-something years ago,” Busta told New York Times’ Popcast. “They started something and it just never got finished. I love both of them, so I wanted to do whatever justice I could do and continue to uphold the legacies of these brothers.”

Busta also teased a music video for “This Woman” on social media directed by Hype Williams, who has an extensive history working with both the New York rapper and D’Angelo.

Bus-a-Bus has been sitting on nearly 300 J Dilla beats, a portion of which he polished to make up Dillagence II. “In my experience with Dilla, he was a man of few words. I heard him talk more when he was rhyming than in actual conversation,” the 54-year-old explained on Popcast.

Dilla and Busta originally joined forces for Dillagence in 2007, which came just over a year after J Dilla’s death in February 2006.

Even at 54, Busta Rhymes has stayed in the studio. Busta’s Dragon Season… Equinox project arrived last year and he released his BLOCKBUSTA album in 2023.

Stream Dillagence II below.

Taylor Swift has made a name for herself as a singer/songwriter for the past two decades exploring different genres of music, including pop, indie, country and other styles. But she says her country roots have only become more meaningful to her over time.

During a conversation at the Grammy Museum presented by the Recording Academy’s Songwriters & Composers Wing on Aug. 18 (which was just released in full on YouTube), Swift fondly reflected on the songwriter she was when she released her debut single, “Tim McGraw,” and the artist she has become nearly two decades later. When asked by Recording Academy CEO Harvey Mason jr. what has remained the same and what has changed between herself then and now, Swift pointed to the country foundation that assisted in the launching of her career.

“I’ve loved — and I think this can happen as you grow up — my country roots more and more,” Swift said. “The further along this path I get, I want to honor them more and more, and I feel more and more tied and more loyal to them — the people that shaped who I am as an artist and as a writer.”

Those roots, Swift noted, trace back to Nashville, where she developed her identity as a songwriter. Earlier in the conversation, she recalled becoming fascinated with the city at around age 10 after learning that Faith Hill had been discovered at the Bluebird Cafe. Swift made it a personal goal to perform at the famed Nashville venue, while also teaching herself instruments and writing songs by studying the structures of the music she loved.

That early immersion in country music did influence the picturesque storytelling that would become one of the distinctive and beloved attributes of Swift’s songwriting. Looking back at “Tim McGraw,” she pointed to elements of the song that seemingly foreshadowed the kind of writer she would eventually become, including character work, vivid detailing and the way the song moves through time.

“I was 16 putting out an album in country music that was all about my life as a kid in high school,” Swift explained during the conversation, recalling how some people around her questioned whether a teenager writing about her own life would connect with country’s music presumed audience. She decided to trust her instincts rather than conforming to those expectations.

Swift famously pushed far beyond the country genre once her debut album ignited. Audiences first saw her experimenting with her 2012 album Red, straying away from traditional collaborators and sounds before she made her official pop pivot with 2014’s 1989, both of which debuted atop the Billboard 200. Even as her music evolved, however, the songwriting principles she refined in Nashville remained part of her creative groundwork.

She pointed to “Mean,” from 2010’s Speak Now, as one example of how her country background directly influenced her approach. At the time, one criticism she was hearing was that she wasn’t “country enough,” so she responded by leaning into the genre’s sonic characteristics, joking that she put “just as much banjo on this as we can possibly put.”

That willingness to experiment did lead her to some of the more unexpected genre combinations of her career. Swift spoke about bringing the earworm hit “I Knew You Were Trouble.” to Max Martin and Shellback as a sad piano ballad, only for the producers to suggest turning it into somewhat of a dubstep-influenced track. She agreed to try it, and the result become the biggest turning point of her moving away from the country genre.

Nearly 20 years after “Tim McGraw,” Swift seems to be looking back at her country beginnings with renewed appreciation.

Watch the full conversation with The Recording Academy below.

In addition to the Q&A with Mason, Swift also threw things back to her Eras Tour days by mashing up her Toy Story 5 song “I Knew It, I Knew You,” “August” and “All Too Well” on the very piano she brought out for the acoustic section of that show. Watch the full mash-up below:

Rick Ross predictably has a message for his fellow troll-in-arms 50 Cent.

The Miami rapper took to social media to respond to 50’s recent comments about still putting out rap albums and wanting to be the hottest rapper after a certain age during an appearance on Apple Music’s Rap Life Review.

“I saw Curtis Jackson say he ain’t doing no music and it makes sense for the music he make,” he said in a video posted to his Instagram Stories before bringing up Bun B, who’s still actively rapping in his early 50s. “But Bun B just hit the stage, the South won’t let Bun B stop rappin’. If Pimp C was alive we wouldn’t let Pimp C stop rappin’, they could put out albums til they’re 85 years old, n—a. That’s how it go. When the streets love you and the culture needs you and you bring something that can’t be duplicated. F— what your age is.”

Last week, 50 gave Apple Music host Ebro the reason why he doesn’t release much music these days unless said music is attached to one of his film projects. “I’m not trying to be in the way,” the Queens rapper and filmmaker explained. “Hip-hop culture is connected to youth culture. You are not supposed to be the hottest in nothin’ at 60. F— that, man.”

He then added that he still has love for music, but if it doesn’t make dollars, then it doesn’t make sense. “I still got love for music. I’m never going to lose that. I’ma always want to do something,” 50 continued. “And those are like entries. It’s me putting a little piece or tap something in there for them to hear that I still do it, that I still got it. If it doesn’t sell, you keep it to your motherf—king self. Motherf—ker’ll tell you, ‘This is a personal album. I made this for this and that.’ Then why do I hear it, b—h?”

Both Ross and 50 have been busy in between trolling each other. Rozay dropped his 12th solo album Set in Stone last month and is currently on tour celebrating the 20th anniversary of his debut Port of Miami while 50 had a cameo during the Verzuz between Donnell Jones and Joe, and is in the live-action Street Fighter film that’s set to hit theaters in October.

The Comedy Bang! Bang! podcast and multiple festivals appear to be distancing themselves from Reggie Watts following a disturbing Rolling Stone report that detailed his allegedly toxic, controlling and at times abusive behavior toward ex-girlfriend Katherine McCollough, who died by suicide this spring after developing an addiction to drugs over the course of their relationship.

The outlet reported Monday (Aug. 24) — four days after the initial investigation was published — that the Watts-composed Comedy Bang! Bang! theme song had been notably absent from the latest episode, despite serving as the intro music since 2011. Instead, Rolling Stone writes that the installment was preceded by “a generic British woman’s voice” that simply stated the episode’s number.

Also in the aftermath of the publication’s shocking report on Watts, the 2026 lineups for Greenbelt Festival, Shambala Festival and Electric Picnic no longer display his name. As previously announced, Watts had been scheduled to perform at all three events over the course of the weekend of Aug. 27-30.

Billboard has reached out to Watts’ reps for comment.

The developments come after the musical comedian faced lengthy accusations from numerous people interviewed by Rolling Stone of him pressuring his former partner, McCollough, into using heavy amounts of dangerous substances such as ketamine in order to remain emotionally close with him throughout their romance, which lasted from approximately May 2024 to October 2025. A few months after their breakup, McCollough — a Cornell law student and eventual producer for some of Watts’ comedy endeavors — traveled to Peru to obtain a euthanasia agent and end her life.

Watts’ lawyer, Andrew Brettler, vehemently denied all claims that the former Late Late Show With James Corden bandleader was ever “abusive” toward any of his romantic partners, adding that it’s “dangerously false” to link McCollough’s suicide to her relationship with Watts. “Ms. McCollough did not need any so-called ‘encouragement’ from him [to take drugs],” the attorney told Rolling Stone, calling McCollough an already “experienced” drug user prior to meeting Watts.

Numerous people close to McCollough, however, told the publication that the South Carolina native had only previously taken drugs in small quantities before dating Watts, a vocal advocate of using ketamine as a means of spiritual enlightenment who would allegedly goad his then-girlfriend into taking drugs in large amounts. One source who remained anonymous claimed in the report that Watts is “incredibly reckless” with how he “administers” dosages of ketamine to other people, including but not limited to McCollough.

“I’m confident if she never met Reggie, she’d be alive,” an anonymous former classmate of McCollough’s told Rolling Stone.

Sources alleged plenty of other alarming behaviors exhibited by Watts, accusing him of withholding payment for McCollough’s part in producing and financing one of his comedy specials and his improv talk show Watch Watts Happen Live. Five other women who previously dated Watts told Rolling Stone that they, too, had experienced Watts being allegedly emotionally and psychologically abusive toward them during their relationships with him, which his attorney denied and called “false.” The attorney also denied one woman’s accusation that Watts had knowingly exposed her to an STD, while providing no response to a different claim that Watts had allegedly filmed a sexual encounter with a partner without her knowledge.

If you or someone you know is currently struggling with depression, suicidal thoughts or substance abuse issues, call or text the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline by dialing 988 or contact the Substance Abuse & Mental Health Services Administration at 1-800-662-4357. 

Hilary Duff didn’t just stumble into the world of pop stardom after becoming a Disney Channel star. She says she actively pursued music as a way to move beyond her beloved television persona.

During a conversation with Drew Barrymore on The Drew Barrymore Show, Duff ruminated on the complicated experience of growing up in the public eye and being forever associated with Lizzie McGuire, the titular character she played on the Disney Channel series from 2001 to 2004.

Barrymore asked Duff whether she ever consciously tried to prove herself or others that she was no longer Lizzie McGuire, particularly as she began to grow up.

“I think that was why I became — I wanted to be a pop star,” Duff said. “You know, the second I finished filming Lizzie, I was like, ‘Cool. I don’t want to be called that anymore.’ And I’m going to be — I’m going to make music and I’m going to get a record deal and I’m going to be a pop star.”

“And you did,” Barrymore replied.

“I did,” Duff said.

Duff’s transition from Disney star to recording artist quickly became one of the defining chapters of her early career. Her 2003 album Metamorphosis peaked at No. 1 on the Billboard 200, making Duff a chart-topping pop artist while she was still in her teens. Her 2005 compilation Most Wanted also reached No. 1, and to this day, she’s had seven songs hit the Billboard Hot 100.

Duff says the transition wasn’t necessarily as simple emotionally as it might have looked from the outside. During her conversation with Barrymore, she explained that it took her about a decade to make peace with the fact that Lizzy McGuire would remain frozen in time for audiences while she continued growing up.

“It’s weird to play a character that people fall so in love with that doesn’t grow up,” Duff said. “She stays that age, and then I grew up.”

Duff added that she eventually became “obsessed” with Lizzie and learned to appreciate the character alongside the fans, but said there was a period when it was difficult to change and evolve while constantly being identified with her Disney alter ego.

Barrymore, who also grew up in the spotlight, connected Duff’s experience to her own childhood roles. The two discussed how audience can attach themselves to the younger versions of actors they grew up watching, even as those performers continue to age and establish identities of their own.

For Duff, music became part of that evolution.

She went on to release Metamorphosis in 2003, followed by albums including Hilary Duff, Dignity and Breathe In. Breathe Out. Her latest album, luck… or something, arrived in February 2026 after more than a decade between studio albums. Billboard previously reported that the 11-track project excitedly signaled Duff’s return to music through Atlantic Records.

More than two decades after Lizzie McGuire premiered, Duff is starting to embrace both sides of her legacy. Her latest era incorporates her latest hits while introducing audiences to the adult artist she has become. In the Barrymore interview, she said performing now has allowed her to reconnect with the audience that grew up alongside her while also sharing new music that showcases their lives as adults.

“It’s like I get to have these pillars of my old music, which feels so nostalgic and makes people find that kid in them again,” Duff said. “But then also [I can] share my new music, which is like, introducing all of us as adults.”

Watch the full interview with Duff and Barrymore below.