After getting in a spicy altercation at McDonald’s in April, Ice Spice is showing her allegiance to another fast-food chain. The Bronx native starred in a new Wendy’s ad promoting the company’s sizzling chicken sandwich on Friday (May 1).
“I heard Wendy’s upgraded their OG spicy chicken sandwich,” she says in the clip. “New spicy?!”
The 26-year-old drops her Ice Spice moniker to become “Ice Spicy,” and she’s got an icy chain to match the new alias. The “Deli” rapper even got some fresh ink to commemorate the branding makeover, while the thumping production of her “Thootie” single provides the soundtrack.
“New upgraded spicy chicken, only at Wendy’s,” she continues to close the clip. “Spice recognize spice.”
Members of the “Spice Cabinet” seemed to approve of the partnership. “The collab we needed, now you see how McDonald’s don’t got anybody? Wendy’s is the best to ever do it,” one fan wrote to X.
Last month, Ice Spice had some fun with her viral altercation at McDonald’s, which saw her joke that “this wouldn’t happen at Wendy’s” on X.
The Bronx rapper was involved in a physical confrontation in mid-April at a Hollywood McDonald’s when she was slapped in an “unprovoked attack” without security present, according to her attorney Bradford Cohen.
Footage of the incident, which was first posted by TMZ on April 17, found Ice Spice and a friend being approached by a patron and the situation escalated after Ice rejected her advances. The rapper was then slapped and a melee broke out, which continued outside the restaurant.
Ice ended up getting into a separate argument with a male patron outside, which got physical and ended up with the rapper on the ground.
Ice Spice’s attorney told Billboard that they will be looking to “hold the perpetrators responsible for their actions.”
“The unprovoked attack on my client has been reported to the LAPD and we will be pursuing any and all criminal and civil avenues to hold the perpetrators responsible for their actions,” Cohen stated. “We are also exploring holding the location responsible for their apparent lack of appropriate security.”
Spice’s attorney continued: “Not to mention that the individuals involved obviously did not realize that we would get the video from inside the McDonald’s where the unprovoked attack occurred. They then turned their cameras on after the initial attack as if to set our client up, and as they say on the video to ‘go viral.’ The only thing that will be going viral for them is their mugshots.”
Watch Ice Spice’s Wendy’s ad below.
Olivia Rodrigo is headed to Spain to rep Barça — and perform a one-night-only show for her most devoted fans.
The singer-songwriter is the latest artist to team up with FC Barcelona and Spotify, kicking off the partnership with the unveiling of her own blue and red striped jersey featuring Rodrigo’s logo on the front in place of Spotify’s. The announcement comes a little over a week before the the fútbol club’s El Clásico match at the newly-renovated Spotify Camp Nou, where the team will play against their rival, Real Madrid and feature Rodrigo’s jersey on the pitch.
The Blaugrana wear is also available to purchase via the Barça Official Stores in Spain and online in limited quantities as part of the Olivia Rodrigo Collection, which also includes a “Força Barça” t-shirt, hoodie, bucket hat, stickers and more.
Rodrigo and Spotify will also treat fans to an intimate, one-off concert in the Spanish city on May 8 celebrating “the fandom unique to Livies and the connected spirit which flows through the community,” according to a press release. The show will be invite-only for Rodrigo’s top fans — who will have the opportunity to attend based on their Spotify listening — and arrives a little over a month before Rodrigo drops her third studio album, you seem pretty sad for a girl so in love on June 12. Its lead single, “drop dead,” debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 this week and is set to be performed by Rodrigo during her Saturday Night Live debut double-duty stint on May 2.
“Seeing ‘OR’ on a FC Barcelona jersey for El Clásico, I don’t even know how to process that. It’s been so fun seeing the jersey come to life and creating a full collection with Spotify and Barca,” Rodrigo said in the release. “On top of that, getting to perform for the fans who’ve been listening since day one, in a city like Barcelona, is going to be so special. That’s everything to me. I cannot wait to see them.”
While FC Barcelona will don Rodrigo’s jersey on the May 10 match, FC Barcelona Femení will be wearing the jersey in their Liga F match against Levante on May 6.
Over the past four years, Spotify has teamed up with FC Barcelona to create artist jerseys for Travis Scott, Coldplay, Karol G, Drake and more. So far, Rodrigo is the youngest artist to takeover the uniform. Watch the trailer above.
Dame Dash sat down with Art of Dialogue recently to talked about a variety of topics, one being the discographies of his former business partner Jay-Z (two co-founded Roc-A-Fella with Kareem Burke in 1994) and Ye (formerly known as Kanye West.)
When asked who has the better catalog, the Harlem businessman answered without hesitation that he would take Ye.
“Kanye destroys Jay,” he continued. “It’s not even the same class. You know what I mean? As far as artistry goes and being creative and all the verticals that are stimulated, and the people — no one wants to dress like — Jay can’t do a clothing line. Kanye has a movement, he’s unstoppable. Kanye don’t need nobody to fill an arena. You know, homeboy needs friends. This n—a just stands up there and just, he don’t even have to rap. He just does listening sessions in a stadium.”
Adding, “Kanye is different and he’s bipolar…He’s pure art. The world should be so grateful for Kanye’s presence because he keeps things so interesting. The world would be so boring without Kanye. It’s like Van Gogh. Like any minute he could cut his ear off while he’s painting, but it’s always art. Kanye is an artist. Jay’s not an artist…I would say Jay’s just more of a — he’s cunning, and he doesn’t mind playing with the devil.”
When asked to elaborate on what he meant by “cunning,” Dame continued by saying “[Jay-Z] will make you believe he’s your brother when he really hates you. That’s cunning to me.”
Later on in the clip he also claims that nobody cares about Jay’s debut album. “Reasonable Doubt doesn’t sell sh-t. Why you think I gave it away,” he said referring to New York State auctioning off Dash’s Roc-A-Fella Inc. shares to collect on his back taxes. “That sh-t barely went gold. Nobody gives a f—k about Reasonable Doubt other than people that were there.”
You can watch the clip below.
As if having Kid Cudi as a dad wasn’t cool enough, Cudder pulled a couple of strings so his daughter and her friends could see Taylor Swift in style on the Eras Tour.
Cudi had actor Adam Scott on as a guest of his Big Bro With Kid Cudi show earlier this week, which saw the Ohio native recall making a few calls to hook his teenage daughter, Vada Wamwene Mescudi, and her friends up to see Taylor Swift on tour.
The pop supernova came through in a major way, as Swift’s team rolled out the red carpet for Vada and her friends, who got the VIP treatment for an Eras Tour stop.
“My daughter’s a Swiftie,” Cudi explained. “She texted me one day, ‘Daddy, is it possible for you to get tickets for me and my friends to see Taylor Swift?’ I was just like, ‘Let me see what I can do.’ Taylor Swift had me looking like the coolest dad ever.”
He continued: “I hit up Taylor’s team. We were like, ‘Do you have any extra tickets?’ They gave us the friends-and-family tickets, so it was a good location in the stadium. I remember my daughter texted me back like, ‘Dad, you’re the best.’ I was just like, ‘Yeah, man!’ Thank you, Taylor Swift.”
Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour was one of the hottest tour tickets of the century. Across 149 shows spanning 2023 and 2024, Swift’s record-breaking trek grossed over $2 billion and sold more than 10 million tickets, according to Billboard Boxscore.
Perhaps Cudi could return the favor for Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce, with the “Pursuit of Happiness” rapper currently on the road for his 33-date Rebel Ragers Tour, which will make stops in Austin and Dallas this weekend.
Watch the clip of Kid Cudi talking about getting his daughter Taylor Swift tickets below.
Hilary Duff‘s “What Dreams Are Made Of” is a graduation staple — now, she can add commencement speaker to her lengthy resume.
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On Wednesday (April 29), Duff addressed Northeastern University’s graduating class of 2026 at Fenway Park in Boston, delivering an inspiring speech that pulled nuggets of wisdom from her pop culture journey. She began her speech joking that she was “envious” of the graduates because her “formal education ended around third grade” due to her blossoming career as a child actor and then-teen superstar. From there, the “Roommates” singer reflected on some of the key lessons she learned as she navigated her career in entertainment.
“Just because something is a good opportunity or a good paycheck doesn’t mean it’s right,” she reminded the graduates. “By simply accepting what the world was offering to me, I was losing my own voice; I was reacting, instead of asking myself what I really wanted. That realization was a paradigm shift for me.”
“I knew I had to change my pattern of saying ‘yes,’ so I took a break from making music,” she continued. “Not because I didn’t know exactly what kind of album I wanted to make or what kind of stories I wanted to tell through my music, because I knew precisely what I wanted. But I somehow knew that I couldn’t authentically make it, yet.”
After reaching No. 3 on the Billboard 200 with Dignity in 2007, Duff took a hiatus from her music career, shifting her focus to acting, production and penning her New York Times bestseller Elixir trilogy. She returned to the music scene with Breathe In. Breathe Out. in 2015, which reached No. 5 on the Billboard 200 and spawned the Billboard Hot 100 hit “Sparks” (No. 93).
“So I made a choice, and I took a step back. I pivoted. I rebuilt myself, I refilled my tank, I put effort into my relationships, into building my family and building a business,” Duff explained. “I waited until I was ready to meet the moment. I realized that saying ‘no’ wasn’t rejection, it was redirection… I took back control of what I was building, and I reclaimed my story. And I realized my own agency. I’m grateful I had the ability to take that pause… the key is that I was choosing where my energy went instead of letting others choose for me. Don’t forget to pause and appreciate how far you’ve come.”
If the stadium’s thunderous applause was anything to go by, Duff’s speech was a hit, adding another win to her collection this year. At the top of the year, Duff returned to the road on her Small Rooms, Big Nevers Tour, which led to the release of her latest album, Luck… Or Something. Co-written and co-produced with husband Matthew Koma, Luck hit No. 3 on the Billboard 200 and landed a radio hit in “Roommates,” which reached No. 25 on Pop Airplay.
Next month, Duff will kick off her Lucky Me Tour with two shows at iTHINK Financial Amphitheatre in West Palm Beach, Fla. (June 21-22). The trek will take her to amphitheaters and arenas in major cities across North America, Australia and the U.K., including New York City, Toronto and London, before concluding with two shows at Mexico City’s Palacio de los Deportes next year (Feb. 12-13, 2027).
Check out Hilary Duff’s complete commencement speech for Northeastern University’s graduating class of 2026 below.
KATSEYE isn’t coming all the way to Australia just to talk; the two-time Grammy nominated global girl group will also deliver a one-off performance next Friday, May 8, at Melbourne’s Festival Hall.
As previously reported, KATSEYE will make its first trip to these parts for a trip that, until now, was anchored on an exclusive fan Q&A experience in Sydney on May 6. The winner of the competition receives flights, accommodation and a double pass to the Q&A, while 29 runners-up will receive a double pass for the session.
The pop act’s itinerary just got bigger, with a one-off Australia show presented by Visit Victoria’s “Melbourne. Every bit different” campaign in collaboration with American Express, Live Nation, HYBE and Geffen.
Universal Music Australia is behind the contest and the concert, a 30-minute pop-up performance. American Express Centurion and Platinum Card Members can access a select number of priority tickets for the show via the Amex Experiences App from Wednesday, May 6.
KATSEYE is hot right now, thanks to the release of their Billboard Hot 100 hit single “Pinky Up,” and their eye-catching performances at Coachella. Since then, the group has been added to the line-up of performers for the 52nd American Music Awards, on a night where they have nominations in three categories — new artist of the year, best music video for “Gnarly” and breakthrough pop artist. The AMAs are set for Monday, May 25 in Las Vegas.
A new KATSEYE EP, WILD, is due out Aug. 14 via HYBE x Geffen Records. It’s the followup to 2025’s Beautiful Chaos, which reached No. 4 on the Billboard 200 and features Billboard Hot 100 hits “Gnarly” and “Gabriela.” In Australia, “Gabriela,” “Touch” and “Gnarly” are all certified platinum, while “Debut” and “Gameboy” are certified gold.
The girl group is currently a five-piece (Daniela, Lara, Megan, Sophia and Yoonchae) while bandmate Manon is on a temporary hiatus.
If you thought Olivia Rodrigo‘s next album would be stacked with love songs, wrapped in emotions raked from both ends of the spectrum, some of which are inspired by HBO’s Sex And The City, then you’d be right.
The pop phenomenon stopped by NBC’s The Tonight Show on Thursday night, May 30, where she spilled the beans on her forthcoming album, tour and Saturday Night Live gig.
“I knew that I wanted this record to be about romantic love in more of a positive sense,” she says of You Seem Pretty Sad for a Girl So in Love, due out June 12 via Geffen Records. That’s considering her last two were “heartbroken and angsty,” in her own words. Expected love songs, “injected with a little bit of sadness and longing. And melancholy, because all my favorite love songs have that.” Those faves, she tells Jimmy Kimmel, include “Love Song” by the Cure, and “Video Games” by Lana Del Rey.
“Multiple songs” from her forthcoming album, she also reveals, are inspired by the complex relationship of lawyer Miranda Hobbes and former bartender Steve Brady, two central characters from Sex And The City. “It’s my favorite show,” she enthuses. “I think I watched every single episode maybe three times.”
It’s worth pointing out that Sex and the City concluded after six seasons on Feb. 22, 2004, a year to the month after Rodrigo was born.
Rodrigo’s new album is led by “Drop Dead,” which opened at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100, marking her fourth title to debut in the top spot. “The song is basically about an awesome first date,” she explains. “It’s the first step in the journey of You Seem Pretty Sad For A Girl. The journey definitely like ebbs and flows. It goes in lots of different places from here, but this is the first chapter.”
Rodrigo will sing “Drop Dead” and a brand new one, when she appears on Saturday Night Live this weekend as both host and musical guest.
“It’s always been a huge dream of mine,” to pull double duty on SNL, she insists. If she has nerves, she’s not showing it. And she does have a lucky charm, a gift from Jack White, which he planted in her dressing room.
The 23-year-old pop star will support her next release with the Unraveled Tour, which currently stands at 65 arena date across North America, Europe and the U.K. this fall and winter beginning with a Sept. 25 show at PeoplesBank Arena in Hartford, Conn. “I’ve been working so hard on it,” she says during her latest late-night interview. “I’m so stoked to play these songs live.”
With You Seem Pretty Sad for a Girl So in Love, she resisted the temptation of going with another four letter word after Sour (from 2021) and Guts (2023), both of which logged time at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 chart. “I always knew if wasn’t going to be four letters.” She wanted to “break out,” and “didn’t want to be stuck in it,” she tells Fallon.
Watch Rodrigo’s appearance on late-night TV below.
Summer is never truly over — just ask Zara Larsson.
On the heels of her breakthrough artist win at the 2026 Billboard Women in Music Awards on Wednesday (April 29), the Swedish pop star kept the celebrations going with a special listening party for her remix album Midnight Sun: Girls Trip, on Thursday (April 30). Hosted by iHeartRadio and aired live on TikTok and radio stations around the country from the 450-seat iHeartRadio Theater in Los Angeles, the Girls Trip album preview gave Larsson’s biggest fans the opportunity to hear a sneak peek of the remix album hours before its release.
Larsson opened the night with an acoustic performance of her Hot 100 hit “Midnight Sun” before sitting down for a Q&A with iHeartRadio host EJ. The singer shared why she decided to expand what she called the “Midnight Sun universe.”
“I think music and culture in this day and age, it moves quickly, but I’m definitely not ready to move on from Midnight Sun, for a little while at least,” Larsson said. “And I just thought, have fun. It’ll be so fun.”
The singer also shared who inspired her to take on this venture.
“People have been doing it for a long time, but I was really inspired by [Charli xcx]. I was really inspired by [PinkPantheress],” she shared. “Even though a song is out, you can still have so many different worlds and sounds around the song. If a song is good enough, it can kind of be anything.”
Girls Trip features ten remixed versions of songs from the original Midnight Sun, with features from an incredible slate of women artists. Fans in attendance at the preview, watching live on TikTok or listening from the iHeartRadio app got to hear five of the songs in full.
Before each track, Larsson spoke about how the remix came to be, its sound and the person she tapped for the feature.
The first remix of the night was “Crush” featuring Eli. Larsson then played “Blue Moon” featuring Kehlani, an artist who she shared she was a fan of for a long time. Next up was “Hot & Sexy” with Tyla, the second of the duo’s collaborations following “She Did It Again” which came out earlier this month. “Hot & Sexy” was followed by “Pretty Ugly” with JT and Margo XS, a remix Larsson admitted she preferred over the original. Then came “Eurosummer” with Shakira, who Larsson shared she has loved since childhood.
“This is legendary status going on right here because [Girls Trip] was like a little bit the talk of the town — I mean at least in the small industry of music that I’m in,” Larsson said. “And one day I got a call, it was my A&R, and he was like, ‘Shakira heard about this project and she really likes ‘Eurosummer.” And I was like, ‘let’s go.’”
The final remix fans got to hear was a crossing of Swedish pop icons: “Puss Puss” with compatriot Robyn.
“This is my Swedish icon, legend Robyn. Who else would be on this song?” Larsson said as the track began.
In between songs, Larsson also took time to answer fan questions from the audience, viewers on TikTok and radio listeners. Many of the questions were appropriately trip-themed and the singer shared her preferred ways to take a girls trip, including being both driver and DJ.
“I think the music is quite important,” Larsson said of what makes for a perfect girls trip. “The girls trip starts when you get in the car, or on the train, or on the way to the airport.”
The Girls Trip experience ended with a celebration of Larsson’s 2015 Hot 100 track “Lush Life,” which has been gifted new life online thanks to a viral dance trend. The singer invited those fans who knew the choreography to join her on stage as they danced the evening to a close.
Midnight Sun: Girls Trip is out now. Stream it below.
The Black Keys peel back the lid on Peaches!, the Grammy Award-winning rock duo’s fresh dose of blues.
Dropping at the stroke of midnight, Peaches! (via Easy Eye Sound/Warner Records) is the Akron, OH natives’ 14th studio album, and third in as many years.
The 10-track project emerged following frontman Dan Auerbach’s late father’s battle with esophageal cancer, which was diagnosed while he was staying at Dan’s Nashville pad. Bandmate and bestie Patrick Carney had the bright idea “that it would be good for Dan to have something to do,” something to lift his spirits while Dan’s dad’s health spiraled.
The studio beckoned, and Peaches grew. Its songs are said to reflect Dan and Patrick’s obsessive record-collecting habit, which they flaunt at their intimate Record Hang, all-vinyl parties. “I’d look for 45s specifically to play at the record hangs,” Auerbach explains, “but sometimes I’d find a song and think, ‘This might be fun for Pat and me to play live.’”
In support of the new collection, Auerbach and Carney share the official music video for album track “She Does It Right,” featuring a performance outside of Memphis’s Hernando’s Hideaway, directed by EJ McLeavey-Fisher and celebrated animator Kyle McCarthy.
The Black Keys are currently road-testing new material on their Peaches ‘N Kream World Tour ‘26, along with renditions of early favorites “Busted” and “Do The Romp,” plus classic hits “Gold On the Ceiling,” “Lonely Boy,” and “Howlin’ For You.”
The tour continues through October with stops along the way in New York, Chicago, Nashville, Paris, Milan and London, where the band has added a third headline show “due to demand,” on Sept. 2, reps say. The support acts for the ongoing tour are all signed to Dan Auerbach’s own Easy Eye Sound record label.
Peaches! is the followup to 2025’s No Rain, No Flowers, which peaked at No. 52 on the Billboard 200, their 14th appearance on the all-genres albums chart, a tally that includes a No. 1 with 2014’s Turn Blue.
Stream Peaches! below.
Billboard’s Friday Music Guide serves as a handy guide to New Music Friday’s most essential releases each week — the key music that everyone will be talking about today, and that will be dominating playlists this weekend and beyond.
Last week, we featured Noah Kahan, Kehlani and Suki Waterhouse.
This week, Madonna and Sabrina Carpenter release “Bring Your Love,” which the pair previewed at Coachella weekend two; Kacey Musgraves releases her anticipated album Middle of Nowhere; and Sienna Spiro appears on the star-studded Devil Wears Prada 2 soundtrack, which is out now… plus much more. Check out all of this week’s picks below:
Madonna and Sabrina Carpenter, “Bring Your Love”
After live-debuting this alluring and hypnotic dance-pop track during Sabrina’s weekend two Coachella headlining set — during which Madonna was a surprise guest, treating the audience to a bonus 10-minute set that also included “Vogue” and “Like a Prayer” — their collaboration “Bring Your Love” is finally out. The song is sure to is start summer early, as it’s essentially sonic bait to lure listeners out of the house and onto the nearest dance floor. And this is just the beginning; Madonna’s upcoming album, Confessions II, is out July 3.
Kacey Musgraves, Middle of Nowhere
Kacey Musgraves has said her new album was largely inspired by the Mexican community, which you can hear across its tracks — including the buzzy “Horses and Divorces.” The duet made headlines long before it arrived thanks to its unexpected feature from country icon Miranda Lambert. As Musgraves told NPR earlier this year: “We’d lost touch for years and wouldn’t consider each other friends. I saw her on Instagram one day, riding one of her horses, and I was like, ‘Well, we ain’t friends, but I guess we have two things in common, horses and divorces, that’s for sure…I just randomly reached out to her…We aired out any of the old laundry. We had some laughs and wrote the song in a matter of a few hours.”
Sienna Spiro, “Material Lover”
The Devil Wears Prada 2 soundtrack features just a few original songs, including one from Sienna Spiro — which puts her in the company of superstars like Lady Gaga, Doechii. And while “Material Lover” (produced by Omer Fedi) is a title tailor-made for the film, the track stands entirely on its own as Spiro delivers her now signature warmth while singing about wanting the “real thing.”
Zara Larsson, Midnight Sun: Girls Trip
Zara Larsson’s collaborations album, Girls Trip, has arrived — and it delivers on that title. Released as a disc two to her 2025 album Midnight Sun, this girl-powered new edition features 10 fresh takes on the original 10 tracks. With a roster of guests including PinkPantheress, Shakira, Robyn and more, Girls Trip takes an already poptastic album to the next level.
Bella Poarch, “Ribcage”
Opening with a gorgeous string section, “Ribcage” quickly takes a turn toward alternative pop as Bella Poarch sings of watching her thoughts “turn to dust and decompose.” As Poarch said in a statement, “Ribcage” is about “the parts of yourself you try to protect and the parts that still feel everything. Writing this song helped me process a lot of emotions I didn’t fully understand before. It’s a very honest piece of me, and it felt like the right way to begin this new chapter.” The haunting track previews more new music to come.