The Grand Ole Opry’s Opry 100 Honors is set to honor the life, career and legacy of the late Charley Pride on Sept. 22.

The event, held at Nashville’s Grand Ole Opry House, will feature performances from Opry members Darius Rucker and Pam Tillis, as well as Neal McCoy and Pride’s son, Dion Pride.

Mississippi native Pride, country music’s first Black superstar, was known for hits including “Kiss an Angel Good Mornin’,” “Is Anybody Goin’ to San Antone,” “Roll On Mississippi” and “All I Have to Offer You (Is Me).” Pride landed 29 No. 1 Billboard Hot Country Songs chart hits during his decades-long career and earned three Grammy Awards.

He signed with RCA Records in the 1960s and earned a career breakthrough with “Just Between You and Me.” In 1971, he was named the CMA’s entertainer of the year and earned two consecutive male vocalist of the year honors (1971-1972). Pride was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 2000. Among his other accolades are the ACM’s pioneer award and the Recording Academy’s lifetime achievement award.

Pride made his Opry debut in 1967 and became an Opry member in 1993, when he was inducted by Jimmy C. Newman.

“The Grand Ole Opry held a very special place in my father’s heart, and our family is deeply grateful to see his music and legacy celebrated on the stage he loved so much,” Dion Pride said in a statement. “It will be an honor to perform alongside artists who admired him and to share his songs with the fans who have kept them alive for generations.”

“Every single night Charley Pride came home to the Opry was an event,” added Opry executive producer Dan Rogers. “His performances were amazing. The crowd response was like no other. And the backstage area was always, always buzzing. Charley’s spirit and songs live on, and we’re so looking forward to celebrating both on the Opry stage in September.”

$5 from each ticket sold for Opry 100 Honors shows will directly impact the Opry Trust Fund, which has supported country music professionals with assistance for emergencies, medical bills and other hardships for over 60 years. Since the launch of the Opry 100 Honors series in 2025, the shows have honored other country music legends including Loretta Lynn, Johnny Cash and June Carter Cash, Charlie Daniels, Porter Wagoner, Bill Monroe, Minnie Pearl, Roy Acuff, Hank Williams, Little Jimmy Dickens and Don Williams.

Desiigner (born Sidney Selby III) was arrested on a second-degree domestic violence charge in South Carolina on Wednesday (July 15), according to Horry County Sheriff’s Office records viewed by Billboard.

Records show that the “Panda” rapper was booked on Wednesday at 2:21 p.m. ET. He remains behind bars without bail as of press time.

In addition to the domestic violence charge, Desiigner is facing three charges of malicious injury to animals and personal property valued at between $2,000 and $10,000. Each of the latter three charges comes with a maximum sentence of five years in prison.

According to a police report viewed by Complex, Desiigner got into an argument with his girlfriend and mother of his child over TVs assembled on the wall inside a home. The rapper allegedly smashed both of her phones with a hammer.

The victim allegedly fled the situation to a neighbor’s house with their child and locked herself in the bathroom, while Desiigner damaged the neighbor’s car and home windows as he looked for a way to breach the residence. She also claimed that Desiigner physically pushed her and tossed her purse over a fence.

This is far from Desiigner’s first run-in with the law. The Brooklyn-bred rapper was previously arrested on March 23 on a third-degree charge of domestic violence in South Carolina; the following day, he posted a $1,500 bond and was released. Before that, he was arrested in April 2023 on indecent exposure charges, with authorities alleging he was masturbating while aboard a Delta Airlines flight from Tokyo to Minneapolis.

Desiigner broke out in 2016 with “Panda,” which spent two weeks at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100. He also earned a pair of top 40 Hot 100 hits with “Timmy Turner” (No. 34 peak) and as a guest on BTS’ “Mic Drop” (No. 28). More recently, Desiigner released his ii deluxe project in April and his “Outside” single in May via LOD Entertainment.

Desiigner’s reps did not immediately respond to Billboard‘s request for comment.

In 2025, the Polaris Music Prize celebrated its 20th anniversary. Entering its third decade, the award is undergoing what might be its biggest period of change. From funding to voting process, the organization is continuing to evolve.

The cultural not-for-profit organization has spent the better part of two decades creating a space in the industry for Canadian acts to be recognized based solely on artistic merit, rather than sales, genre or support from a record label. Founded in the 2000s as Canada’s answer to the Mercury Prize, the organization became a registered Canadian charity in 2017.

Over its two-decade run, the Polaris Music Prize has awarded many notable acts, including Kaytranada, Haviah Mighty, Jeremy Dutcher (Twice), Caribou, Feist and more. It’s also recognized greats like Alanis Morissette, Leonard Cohen, Beverly Glenn-Copeland and Neil Young through the Slaight Family Polaris Heritage Prize.

To commemorate its anniversary, Polaris introduced the SOCAN Polaris Song Prize and launched Polaris Festival, a multi-day event across Toronto, showcasing a range of Canadian talent.

But while new initiatives were introduced during its 2025 prize cycle, the longstanding album prize winnings dwindled from $50,000 to $30,000, while the 10 short-listed artists would no longer be awarded $3,000 — potentially indicating funding issues.

As it enters its 21st year, the Polaris Music Prize is finding new ways to persevere, experimenting with new initiatives without abandoning its guiding principles.

Last week, the Polaris Prize unveiled its 2026 short list of 10 albums competing to be named the best in Canada. It includes acts like Charlotte Cornfield, Peaches, Tanya Tagaq and Canada’s hottest band, Angine de Poitrine.

The winner, though, will be decided in a whole new way.

When the organization announced the long list at NXNE, it subtly revealed that the final album winner will be decided by a 205-person voting pool. That represents the first major process change in two decades. In previous years, that 200-plus jury voted to determine the long and short list, but an annually chosen 11-person grand jury made the winning album decision each year.

“It’s something that we’ve been thinking about for a while,” Amber Still, executive director at Polaris Music Prize, tells Billboard Canada.

Still joined the organization’s board in 2021, assuming the role from Claire Dagenais, who took over the position in March 2020 following the departure of Polaris Prize founder Steve Jordan.

“Since I’ve come on the board, we’ve been looking at everything that Polaris has been doing and seeing if there’s any way that we can improve it or find opportunity within it,” Still says, pointing to the award gala and ceremony’s move to Massey Hall back in 2023.

Still explains that the expanded jury is a part of a one-year “pilot program” to ensure that it’s successful and satisfies the existing members. “We will evaluate it at the end and then see if it will be permanent.”

Read more on the Polaris Prize’s updates here. — Heather Taylor-Singh

Angine de Poitrine Make Their Much-Anticipated Toronto Debut

The rise of Angine de Poitrine has happened so quickly, it’s hard to remember they’ve never played Canada’s biggest concert market. That changed Tuesday night (July 14) as they made their debut in Toronto twice in one night: first opening for Jack White at RBC Amphitheatre, then for their own headlining show at Mod Club.

As with many of White’s concerts, this was a no-phones show, so footage of that opening concert is already rare. However, White posted his own photo with the polka-dotted black-and-white alien duo after the show.

But fans were ready with their cameras out at Mod Club.

There are some concerts that you know will be “I saw them when” moments: The Weeknd’s debut at Mod Club in 2011, a young Adele playing The Rivoli in 2008, even Nirvana at Lee’s Palace in 1990. Leading up to this concert, it felt like Angine de Poitrine could join those ranks.

The Saguenay, Quebec, duo have already shown they can command crowds of nearly 100,000, but they kept their first headlining Toronto show nice and intimate at about 600 people. (They returned to play there again two more times this week, will play Guelph, Ontario’s Hillside Festival on Sunday (July 19), then will return to Toronto to play the much bigger History on November 5.) You could feel the anticipation in the air for the Billboard Canada Global Breakthrough Award winners.

The crowd was ready to erupt, even cheering for the band’s crew (also dressed in black-and-white) erecting their DIY polka-dot sheet backdrop.

When the band finally took the stage, it was a minute before they started playing. Instead, they stood and turned to the crowd, soaking up their cheers, Khn raised his hands to the triangle on his signature hat igniting a light within it, and the two members spoke a few words in their made-up language (somewhere between a sci-fi B-movie robot, a hawk and WWE wrestler Kane), and then began the simple stop-start drum and bass loop that begins Vol. II closer “Angor.” Khn signalled the crowd to clap along by clapping on the side of his helmet, which again timed to the triangle light inside.

Much has been made of the unusualness of their music — the odd time signatures, polyrhythms and microtones (the notes between the notes) — but seeing them live, you can tell why this music is so crowd-pleasing. Their instrumental grooves have a weight to them you can see in their viral online performances but you can feel live in the room. The heavy riffs and build-ups create a visceral tension and release that adds drama that doesn’t need vocals. After the recent wide release of their vinyl albums, Angine de Poitrine charted on multiple Billboard charts, including the Top Dance Albums chart. That felt like a weird fit at the time, but you could see people moving to the off-kilter grooves and clapping along to the non-4/4 time signatures.

It was hot and sweaty in the Mod Club, and it wasn’t long before Klek’s arm makeup wore off — by now its own in-joke. Angine de Poitrine played eight songs in just over an hour, and it felt like an athletic feat, especially right after playing at RBC Amphitheatre with Jack White during a Toronto heat wave. Still, it felt like a taste of things to come as the band continue their extraterrestrial ascent.

Head here for the full recap. — Richard Trapunski

Kneecap to Sue Indigenous Leader for Defamation After Being Denied Entry Into Canada

Kneecap are reportedly filing another defamation lawsuit after being denied entry into Canada. The Irish trio’s counsel Tom Hogan has been granted permission by the high court of Dublin to serve papers for a defamation lawsuit to Harvey Yesno, an Indigenous leader of the Eabametoong First Nation in Canada.

Last year, the group was blocked from entering Canada after Yesno and several other Indigenous leaders signed a statement published by Indigenous Embassy Jerusalem, in partnership with Allied Voices for Israel and the Canadian Antisemitism Education Foundation, which denounced the group for their “history of promoting violence, intimidation and discrimination.

“Kneecap has outwardly supported antisemitism, genocide, and the indiscriminate murder of civilians. Allowing them to play in Canada would be a stain on our country’s reputation,” read the statement, which urged that Live Nation cancel the group’s shows in Oct. 2025 at Toronto’s History (Oct. 14-15) and Vancouver’s Vogue Theatre (Oct. 22-23).

Kneecap are suing for damages, claiming the statement harmed their reputations as professional artists and public figures after being picked up, spread and republished by various media outlets, as reported by the Irish Times.

Later, Liberal MP Vince Gasparro, who the group is already suing for defamation, announced on behalf of the federal government that the group was deemed ineligible to enter the country, explaining in a video posted to X that the band “have amplified political violence and publicly displayed support for terrorist organizations such as Hezbollah and Hamas.” The group responded, calling his remarks “wholly untrue and deeply malicious” and adding that they had received no formal notice about any official ban.

The new lawsuit against Yesno was approved in Ireland as the group had an arguable case that they had been defamed in their home country, with their personal and professional relationships “bound up” in the jurisdiction.

Read more here. — Stefano Rebuli

After Beyoncé’s “Morning Dew” surprise drop lit up last week’s roundup, Gracie Abrams leads this week’s New Music Friday Guide with Daughter From Hell, her moody third studio album. Introduced by the singles “Hit the Wall” and “Look At My Life,” Daughter From Hell finds the Grammy-nominated singer-songwriter reuniting with longtime collaborator Aaron Dessner, while also adding Dan Nigro to the mix.

Between new releases from Grammy-winning reggae and dancehall legend Buju Banton (Too Too Bad), Teflon Don aka Rick Ross (Set in Stone), Afro-house artist Francis Mercier (Lakay), Mexican singer Oscar Maydon (Música en mi Jetski) and The Internet alums Steve Lacy (Oh Yeah?) and Syd (Beard), it’s a particularly packed week for new albums,

Other notable projects arriving this New Music Friday include Mariah Carey (Daydream – 30th Anniversary Edition), Masego (Fix Your Face), Foreigner (In the Eye of the Storm), Waylon Wyatt (Dustpiles), Niko Moon (ROOTS), Mudbaby Ru (Out the Mood), Mike Posner (Crazy Rainbow – EP), Daughtry (There And Back Again), BackRoad Gee (Live in the Flesh), Icewear Vezzo (Rich Off Pints 4), Rome Streetz (Sock It 2 My Pocket) and Nao Yoshioka (self).

Over on the singles side, pop music fave Carly Rae Jepsen leads the way with “After All,” a scintillating taste of the Night side of her forthcoming Day and Night double album. “Iloveitiloveitiloveit” breakout star Bella Kay also shared “I Deserve Better,” a poignant cut from her excellent debut album My Reckless Abandon, which dropped on July 12.

Berlin’s Marlon Hoffstadt dropped his kickdrum-anchored “Get Buck,” Carly Pearce joined forces with Molly Tuttle and Dan Tyminski for “What If You Loved Me,” ascendant Texas rockers Dexter and The Moonrocks shared “If You Could Talk” and country singer-songwriter Wyatt McCubbin released his harmonica-laced “Andy Griffith.”

This New Music Friday also features new tracks from Saucy Santana (“Quiet on the Creek”), Tinashe (“Crash Out”), Kelly Clarkson (“I’d Be Lyin”), Lil Baby (“Dead Fresh”), Pentatonix (“Sacrifice”), Meshell Ndegeocello & Cynthia Erivo (“I Knew You Were Waiting”), Leon Bridges (“Light the Way”), Lauren Alaina & Kane Brown (“Never Been In Love”), Roy Woods (“Brunch”) and Armanii (“World Class”).

Which new release this week is your favorite? Vote — or share your own pick — in Billboard‘s New Music Friday poll below.

Lil Wayne is entering the podcast space. Weezy will be teaming up with WFAN radio host Craig Carton for The Joint Venture, which will air weekly episodes starting on July 22.

The New Orleans rap legend and Carton are set to record the first episode with a live podcast taping at Fanatics Fest NYC on Sunday (July 19) featuring guests like former New York Jets star Darrelle Revis, ex-New York Knicks forward Amar’e Stoudemire and New York Giants Super Bowl-winning quarterback Eli Manning.

“The best podcasts feel like you just kicking it with your people, talking the same way you do when nobody’s listening,” Wayne, who previously hosted Young Money Radio on Apple Music, said in a statement. “I’ma light one up with the homie Craig and we gonna talk our sh-t about whatever the day brings. You never know who’s gonna pull up or where the conversation’s gonna go.”

Wayne and Carton seem like an unlikely duo, but the pair have been friends for years. As a massive fan of the Green Bay Packers and Los Angeles Lakers, Weezy can talk sports just as easily as he can spit a verse.

Craig Carton actually had Lil Wayne on his WFAN radio show in March, where Carton called him the “biggest sports fan” he knows.

“There’s nothing better than swapping takes with Wayne on sports, pop culture and a whole host of other topics,” Carton added in a statement. “The Joint Venture show gives us a great excuse to keep doing what we’ve been doing for years, while also having some famous friends stop by and chop it up with us. There’s no better job in the world.”

Before heading to Fanatics Fest NYC, Lil Wayne will continue his tour celebrating 20 years of Tha Carter on Friday (July 17) with a show in Chicago. Weezy’s last album, Tha Carter VI, arrived in June 2025 and debuted at No. 2 on the Billboard 200.

Icons only! The Rolling Stones cover the latest issue of Billboard, talking about the special guests on their new album Foreign Tongues, thoughts about AI in music, their studio dynamic and more.

For the cover story, I sat down with Mick Jagger at a poolside garden in London and Keith Richards at the Django Jazz Club in Manhattan some 48 hours later. The interviews covered a lot of ground, and there’s only so much room in a magazine cover story – there were a lot of great things they talked about that we just didn’t have space to run in print.

Below, check out a few newsy, fascinating and distinctly Stonesy bits that didn’t make the cover story: you can watch some of these exchanges on YouTube, but a couple of them don’t appear anywhere else but here.

Keeping It Analog

Before the cameras started rolling, Jagger pointed to our film crew and three-camera setup and commented, “Lots of people on set. God, I remember when Billboard was an interview with a notepad.” That prompted me to hold aloft my little red notepad, which I’d actually picked up from London’s Design Museum the previous day. (I wanted to check out an exhibit devoted to Wes Anderson, a filmmaker who coincidentally has done a few Stones needle drops throughout his oeuvre.) “You do have the notepad!” Mick beamed. “So you’re a traditionalist.”

Speaking of traditionalists, Richards, in his interview, revealed he doesn’t even own a cellphone and doesn’t appreciate “the idea of being permanently available for everybody to call up when they feel like it. Nobody thinks, ‘You know, that’s damn rude — he might be writing a song, doing something else.’” I put forth a pretty believable hypothetical: “You got your manager sitting over there [off camera]. Jane [Rose] wants to get in touch with you, how does that happen?” His sly reply: “Well, it doesn’t.” After the interview, Rose took me aside and told me one word: “Landline.”

Covering Amy Winehouse

Talking about their surprisingly effective cover of Amy Winehouse’s “You Know I’m No Good” on Foreign Tongues, Jagger said, “We were looking for a good song to cover from a female vocalist, and we were thinking of early people, and then we said, ‘Let’s do something a bit more recent.’ We alighted on that song. I always liked that song. I could have written it, you know what I mean? Almost. I felt that I could have written that song, because it’s like a minor-key harmonica lead. I just copied the horn lead and played it on harmonica, so it felt very organic.”

“Loved the song. Always thought that Amy was a sad story in many ways, but she was one of the best to come out of England, and probably had so much more potential,” said Richards of Winehouse, whom the Stones shared the stage with at Isle of Wight Festival in 2007 for a cover of the Temptations’ “Ain’t Too Proud to Beg” (which the Stones recorded on their 1974 album It’s Only Rock ‘n Roll). “I’m not sure who kicked the idea off, whether it was Mick or Andrew [Watt, producer], but we said, ‘Well, you know, we used to, we started off, we were a cover band, basically, so if there’s one you wanted to cover now, what would it be?’ And Amy came out on top.”

Prejudices Against Singers in Hollywood

While interviewing Jagger, I ran something by him that Werner Herzog told Playboy in 2012. For context: Jagger was initially attached to the legendary director’s 1982 masterpiece Fitzcarraldo — in fact, Herzog began filming Fitzcarraldo with Jason Robards as the lead character and Mick Jagger playing his assistant, but Robards became so ill during the famously troubled Peruvian production that he had to drop out of the film. By the time the film was set to résumé with a new star (the mercurial Klaus Kinski), Jagger had to leave for a tour with the Stones; Herzog wrote his character, Wilbur, out of the script. (Herzog’s 1999 documentary My Best Fiend includes footage of Jagger acting with Robards.)

“Jagger is a tragic gap in the history of film,” Herzog told Playboy. “He hasn’t been praised enough as someone who could have been a great actor.”

“Could have been,” noted the ever-alert Jagger, laughing. I asked him if he wished he had more time to pursue acting back in the day.

“Yeah,” Jagger replied. “The thing is, I think if it was now, in this time frame, I would have been able to act a lot more, because there’s not the prejudice against singers. In fact, they take advantage of using the fame of someone in a film. Whereas in the days when I started acting, all the people in film hated you, and it was impossible to get a role — it just wasn’t the thing. Also, they didn’t use music in films either, hardly at all. Now we take it for granted; there’s music almost all the time. So now it’s much easier for singers to get acting parts, but in those days it was impossible. Yeah, it would have been nice to have done more,” he concluded, adding, “Thanks, Werner.”

When I mentioned his phenomenal performance in the 1970 film Performance, he noted, “It was such a long time ago. But I just did a cameo in a silent, black-and-white movie, The Three Incestuous Sisters with three famous actresses [Dakota Johnson, Saoirse Ronan and Jessie Buckley]. It was fun. I was playing a lighthouse keeper. I didn’t have any lines, because it’s a silent film — I didn’t have to worry about the lines.”

What’s Next, Musically — Maybe

“Yes, there’s loads,” Richards said when I asked him if there were songs left over from Foreign Tongues, an album that grew out of leftovers from Hackney Diamonds. “With every record it seems to spawn more than you actually want. All in different states of readiness. You say, ‘This one’s going to take a lot of work, put it on the back burner.’ Others that have just been lying around for ages as a basic idea, and it’s never quite clicked. And then you turn a corner, and there you are — suddenly that other piece you’ve been looking for, and you go, ‘That’s where you are. That’s why I waited.’”

Right before we wrapped, I asked Richards if he might ever do another solo effort, a follow-up to 2015’s acclaimed Crosseyed Heart. “Talking to [drummer] Steve Jordan about that the other day,” he shared. “Not a bad idea.”