Amazon Music Launches ‘50 & Forever’ Hip-Hop Anniversary Campaign With Queen Latifah Film, J. Cole Exhibit, Dreamville Fest and Mary J. Blige Livestreams

McKinley Franklin editor Today, AMC Networks’ WE tv announced greenlights for two brand-new series, “Toya & Reginae” and “Bev is Boss.” “Toya & Reginae,” the network’s new, unscripted reality TV show, will spotlight the ex-wife and daughter of hip hop legend Lil Wayne, Toya Johnson-Rushing and Reginae Carter. The series comes as an extension of WE tv’s successful “Growing Up Hip Hop” franchise as both Johnson-Rushing and Carter have appeared in the series. “I’m so excited to let viewers back into our lives to see what my family has been up to since you’ve seen us last,” said Johnson-Rushing.

WE tv has commissioned two new music-centric series.

Jem Aswad Senior Music Editor In an unusual move that seems intended to eliminate age-discrimination in music releases, BMG, one of the world’s largest music companies, announced Tuesday that it has become the first global music company to abandon the “outdated” industry distinction between “frontline” — a.k.a. new releases — and older catalog recordings. The company, which notes that older catalog recordings account for up to three quarters of revenue in the streaming era, will fully integrate its new release and catalog recordings businesses. CEO Hartwig Masuch, who has led the company since its 2008 relaunch, said, “Music fans demonstrate on a daily basis that they reject the music industry’s outdated privileging of new music over older music. Music is music regardless of its age. Great artists and great music have no expiry date and we believe it is time for the music industry to reflect that.”

Jem Aswad Senior Music Editor The Coachella festival probably has more top-shelf musical talent in one place at one time than any other event in the world, and 2023’s day one was no exception: All three Boygeniuses — Julien Baker, Phoebe Bridgers and Lucy Dacus — joined Muna for an afternoon finale, the two surviving members of De La Soul united with Gorillaz for their 2005 joint hit “Feel Good Inc.,” and Metro Boomin’s hour-long set featured more guests than a DJ Khaled album, with the Weeknd taking the stage for six songs and features from Future, 21 Savage, Diddy, Don Toliver, Mike Dean and more. Less successful was a hotly rumored team-up of main-stage headliner Bad Bunny with Post Malone, which was hobbled by major sound problems — “Something happened to el cabron cable!” Bunny fumed — but his duets with Jowell & Randy and Nengo Flow and Jhay Cortez were more successful (hey, there’s always next weekend). Elsewhere, Kaytranada brought out Kali Uchis and Amine, and the National’s Aaron Dessner joined Taylor Swift at — wait, that was a different concert…

EXCLUSIVE: MGM’s extensive film & TV catalogue, built over the past century, was the main driver behind Amazon’s $8.5B acquisition of the storied Hollywood studio. For the past year, since the deal closed in March 2022, Amazon Studios has been sifting through MGM’s library, identifying about a dozen initial titles for film and/or TV development, including Robocop, Stargate, Legally Blonde, Fame, Barbershop, The Magnificent Seven, Pink Panther and The Thomas Crown Affair.

Marcelo Cajueiro Wondery, Amazon’s premium podcast studio, announced April 13 at Rio de Janeiro’s Rio2C, Latin America’s largest creativity and innovation event, a slate of upcoming Portuguese-language titles with Brazilian podcasters for Amazon Music. “Historias da Firma,” a spin-off of storyteller Deia Freitas’ “Nao Inviabilize,” will be exclusive on Amazon Music. Freitas’ new podcast will feature weekly episodes of 10-15 minutes with funny, absurd anonymous stories that happened to employees in Brazilian companies. Chico Felitti, creator of podcasts “A Mulher da Casa Abandonada” and “Ateliê,” is developing a new true crime podcast with Wondery, which will be first available on Amazon Music.

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic Amazon has come on board this month’s Stagecoach Festival in California to provide a livestream of the country music gathering. Live action from the April 28-30 festival in Indio will be streamed on both Prime Video and Amazon Music’s Twitch channel. It marks the second year that the festival will be extensively streamed, albeit the first involving Amazon. In 2022, Stagecoach livestreamed most of the main attractions on its own YouTube channel. In some years prior to that, Yahoo had had exclusive rights to stream select artists’ sets. Coverage from the festival will begin at 3 p.m. each of the festival’s three days. Stagecoach and Amazon did not immediately reveal how many or which sets will be streamed from the festival; a press release promised that performances from the Mane Stage will be seen.

Jem Aswad Senior Music Editor The legendary New York outdoor venue Forest Hills Stadium has unveiled its 2023 season, marking the 100th anniversary of the stadium and the ten-year anniversary of its renovation. The new season will feature around 30 music and comedy acts including Boygenius, the Strokes, Duran Duran, Dave Matthews Band, LCD Soundsystem, Fall Out Boy, Zach Bryan, Kevin Hart, Maggie Rogers, Weezer, Lane 8, The Smile, Arctic Monkeys, Jungle, plus the inaugural Head In The Clouds New York Music & Arts Festival and the return of Rock the Bells Festival, celebrating the 50th year of hip hop. Additionally, The New York Pops – the 78-musician independent pop orchestra will perform with Jason Mraz. The full lineup to date appears below; more shows will be announced in the coming weeks.

Easter will be bittersweet for the royals this year - for more reasons than one.

King Charles III is keeping up with tradition this Easter holiday. On Sunday, the monarch and his family will celebrate the first Easter holiday withoutQueen Elizabeth II, who died in September at the age of 96.Like years prior, Charles will be joined by the immediate members of the royal family for church service at St.

Mary J. Blige is turning her negatives into positives in the best way possible.

Marc Malkin Senior Film Awards, Events & Lifestyle Editor Queen Latifah has signed on to host the 29th amfAR Gala Cannes. Considered one of the hottest tickets during the Cannes Film Festival, the HIV/AIDS research organization’s event takes place May 25 at Hôtel du Cap-Eden-Roc. Previously announced performers include Halsey, Gladys Knight, Adam Lambert and Bebe Rexha. Longtime amfAR supporter Carine Roitfeld returns to curate the annual fashion show. The theme of this year’s runway extravaganza will be “Icons” and will feature looks by iconic designers and worn by some of the world’s top models. 

Canadian singer Amanda Marshall is back.

JAY-Z once rapped, «Oh what a feeling. F**k it, I want a billion.» Well, now he's got at least billion.The «Holy Grail» rapper has officially been named the wealthiest person in hip hop with a $2.5 billion net worth, according to, which recently updated its ranking.

EXCLUSIVE: Actor, professional dancer and content creator Woody McClain has signed with M88 for representation. M88 will create and develop opportunities for McClain in the entertainment and strategic partnership spaces.

Jem Aswad Senior Music Editor Jesse Rutherford, singer-songwriter-producer of the Neighbourhood, has signed a new solo deal with Atlantic Records. Operating under the name Jesse®, returns with two new songs, “Joker” and “Rainbow,” that will be live at 12 p.m. ET on Tuesday. The new songs are the first releases from the musician’s new solo chapter with Atlantic Records. “It’s been a minute since I’ve shared anything,” Jesse® said. “It feels like I moved away from home & got a new phone number. This is my message letting you know I’m back in town & trying to get together.” “Joker” arrives with a companion visual directed by Ramez Silyan; the songs will be followed by another, “Me & Universe,” on April 28, with a full-length album due out later this year.

Latto heats up the stage and the red carpet at the 2023 iHeartRadio Music Awards on Monday night (March 27).

Jem Aswad Senior Music Editor Warner Chappell Music has renewed its global publishing deal with producer Marco “MAG” Borrero. A frequent Bad Bunny collaborator, MAG produced 15 of the 23 tracks on the blockbuster album “Un Verano Sin Ti,” which led to his 2022 Variety Hitmakers honor and his No. 1 position on Billboard’s Year-End Hot Latin Song Producers chart. “Un Verano Sin Ti” became the first all-Spanish album to top the year-end Billboard 200 chart as well as earn a nomination for Album of the Year Grammy award. The Brooklyn-born, Puerto Rican-Dominican producer was mentored by Max Martin — the most successful songwriter-producer of the past 25 years — and over the course of his career has also collaborated with Rauw Alejandro, Arcángel, Bebe Rexha, Imagine Dragons, Selena Gomez, and Demi Lovato.

Jem Aswad Senior Music Editor Sony Music has dissolved the long-running Arista Nashville imprint, a rep for the company confirms to Variety. The news was first reported in Country Aircheck‘s newsletter. Most of the artists will be absorbed into Sony Music Nashville, with Nate Smith is going to RCA Nashville and Old Dominion and Megan Moroney moving over to Columbia Nashville. Brooks & Dunn is the most famous artist on the label, having been one of its cornerstone acts since 1991, but the duo is not a going concern on the recording front. Apart from a retrospective/duets project three years ago, they have not issued an album of new material since 2007.

EXCLUSIVE: Mary J. Blige is back at Lifetime to executive produce two new original movies inspired by her biggest hits — Mary J. Blige’s Real Love and Mary J. Blige’s Strength of a Woman. The flicks will premiere on back-to-back Saturdays, beginning June 10 at 8 p.m.