Music Showbiz and Celebrity Breaking News

Saturday Night Live is setting up the schedule for their next few episodes!

HyunA is back!

Prince‘s Minneapolis house, which featured in Purple Rain, will be available to rent as an AirBnB for a year.Offered as part of AirBnB’s new experience – Icons. As per a press release, Icons is “a new category of extraordinary experiences hosted by the greatest names in music, film, television, art, sports, and more.” The vacation rental site has released the first 11 experiences to be released with Prince’s Purple Rain home listed as one of them.“In celebration of the 40th Anniversary of the legendary album and film, the newly restored home– located in Minneapolis, Minnesota, his hometown – will be open to the public for the first time, only on AirBnB,” read’s the listing for the legendary musician’s home.It continued: “Guests will get to explore the home and go crazy for rare and special tracks from Prince’s world in an exclusive studio session.”“Icons take you inside worlds that only existed in your imagination—until now,” said Brian Chesky, AirBnB co-founder and CEO.

Lexi Carson Disney’s “Launchpad,” the anthology series of American independent short films will return for its third season. Submissions for the new season are now open through June 2.

Clayton Davis Senior Awards Editor Songwriters Benj Pasek and Justin Paul are one step away from achieving EGOT status, needing only an Emmy to complete the prestigious quartet of entertainment honors. The duo has submitted “Which of the Pickwick Triplets Did It?” from Hulu‘s “Only Murders in the Building” for outstanding music and lyrics at this year’s Emmys.

Saturday Night Live is closing out Season 49 with two three-peats.

Charlotte Day Wilson can make her words hit like a ton of feathers, soft in their presentation yet undeniable in their cumulative impact. “I went to a funeral today just so I could feel something,” the Toronto artist sang on “Funeral,” a morbid highlight from her 2018 EP Stone Woman. Across that breakout project and its follow-up, her 2021 debut album Alpha, Day Wilson toiled over break-ups and the accompanying anxiety, self-doubt, and pain.

Anitta reflected on growing up in the Brazilian favelas and breaking the “rules” to achieve her dreams at Variety’s Power of Women Presented by Lifetime event on Thursday, held at New York’s Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum. The Brazilian superstar accepted her award from Bruna Marquezine, who celebrated Anitta’s “authenticity and fiery passion for music.” “You are an agent of change — a true ambassador of our culture around the world,” Marquezine said.

Selome Hailu “Saturday Night Live” has set Maya Rudolph to host its May 11 episode alongside Vampire Weekend as musical guest, while the May 18 episode will by headlined by Jake Gyllenhaal with performances from Sabrina Carpenter. Rudolph was an “SNL” cast member for seven seasons from 2000 to 2007 and returns to the late-night sketch show for her third time as host, having previously hosted in 2012 with musical guest Sleigh Bells and in 2021 alongside Jack Harlow.

Naman Ramachandran Some of the Sony Music Group‘s top European artists are backing a voter participation campaign. Sony has launched what it describes as a “non-partisan campaign,” titled Your Voice, Your Power, Your Vote, to encourage voting in the June European Union elections, with a focus on young people and underrepresented groups.

EXCLUSIVE: Paul Rudd (Ant-Man) and Nick Jonas (Jumanji: Welcome To The Jungle) are set to star in musical comedy Power Ballad from Once and Sing Street director John Carney, we can reveal.

Daniel Zirilli, a prolific director, producer and writer of action films and more than 200 music videos including the Rolling Stones’ “Voodoo Lounge,” died April 28. He was 58.

Alex Ritman Anthony Hopkins is taking on yet another iconic figure, this time from the world of music. The stage and screen legend — a two-time Academy Award winner — is attached to star as George Frideric Handel in “The King of Covent Garden,” set during the period the famed opera composer worked on his choral masterpiece “Messiah.” Embankment Films has launched global pre-sales on the project, which is scheduled for a late fall 2025 release.

Jem Aswad Executive Editor, Music In the wee hours of Thursday — 2:35 a.m, ET, to be precise — Universal Music Group and TikTok announced the settlement of their three-month standoff over royalties, AI policies and other issues. The battle was significantly disruptive to the industry but most of all to artists, thousands of whom suddenly found their music muted on the world’s most powerful platform for discovering and promoting music.

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic One of the buzziest — or should that be tipsiest? — performances at this past weekend’s Stagecoach came from an artist who wasn’t even listed on the poster art. Late-breaking sensation Shaboozey was squeezed into the festival as a performer in the Bud Light Backyard tent, where there was other squeezing going on as Sunday’s festivalgoers stood in line to get a glimpse of the artist whose “A Bar Song (Tipsy)” has proven to be a straight-out-of-the-box smash among both country and hip-hop fans. Shaboozey isn’t coming to stardom himself in any kind of overnight way; the 28-year-old, Virginia-born singer-rapper put out his first single 10 years ago, and he’s about to release his third major-label album.

Feid is giving fans the opportunity of a lifetime. The Colombian singer, who recently won big at the Latin American Music Awards, is partnering with Airbnb during their latest summer release, featuring a series of extraordinary experiences; including a stay inside the Ferrari Museum, a living room session with Doja Cat, a re-creation of the X-Men mansion, and so much more.Did Karol G confirm engagement with Feid during her latest concert?Feid and Karol G are the biggest winners at the Latin American Music Awards: The full list of winnerThis time Feid is opening the doors of his tour bus during his summer world tour FERXXOCALIPSIS.

TransPennine Express is offering full refunds to customers impacted by cancellations due to delays with the opening of the Co-op Live Arena.

Take That fans have been sharing their frustration and concerns ahead of the band’s series of shows planned for Co-op Live next week.

Elsa Keslassy International Correspondent Music Box Films has acquired U.S. distribution rights to “Daaaaaalí!,” the latest film by Quentin Dupieux whose upcoming movie “The Second Act” will world premiere on opening night at this year’s Cannes Film Festival.

A support network run by survivors of the Manchester Arena attack have urged Co-op Live bosses to postpone concerts until the building is fully ready.

The Idea Of You is now streaming on Prime Video, and you may be seeing a lot of comparisons to Harry Styles.

In 2022, Ukraine’s Kalush Orchestra won the Eurovision Song Contest and promptly sold their winners’ trophy for $900,000 to raise money to help with the war effort. The distinctive crystal microphone was auctioned on Facebook and funds were used to buy drones for Ukraine’s military.

NME, dubbing the situation “just a joke at this point”.Yesterday (May 1) thousands of people made their way, again, to Manchester’s new Co-Op Live, the recently-built “largest in-door arena” in the UK. With a grand opening that’s been marred by pushbacks, reschedules, controversial comments about grassroots venues being “poorly run”, and the executive director resigning: the new gig space has been beleaguered by a series of chaotic issues.Aside from a test event featuring Rick Astley for which some tickets were cancelled, reducing the audience to 11,000, the venue has yet to run a show successfully on the day it was originally scheduled.It was supposed to open with performances from Peter Kay on April 23 and 24, but the shows were moved to April 29 and 30 due to the venue’s power testing falling “a few days” behind schedule.

Songs from popular artists like Taylor Swift, Olivia Rodrigo and Drake will be back on TikTok months after they were suddenly pulled from the platform. Major record label Universal Music Group (UMG) has signed a licensing deal with the social media platform that addresses concerns of pay and the use of A.I.

TikTok and Universal Music Group (UMG) have announced that they have come to a new licensing agreement.Today (May 2), the social media platform and music label issued a press release announcing the new agreement. It comes after TikTok’s and UMG’s previous agreement expired in late January, with the latter withdrawing its artists’ music from the platform as a result of both parties’ inability to work out a new deal.In late January, UMG claimed that “TikTok proposed paying our artists and songwriters at a rate that is a fraction of the rate that similarly situated major social platforms pay”, which it says accounts for one per cent of its revenue.Now, however, UMG’s new agreement with TikTok will reportedly “deliver improved remuneration for UMG’s songwriters and artists, new promotional and engagement opportunities for their recordings and songs and industry-leading protections with respect to generative AI”, per a press release.Lucian Grainge, Chairman and CEO of UMG, said of their new partnership: “This new chapter in our relationship with TikTok focuses on the value of music, the primacy of human artistry and the welfare of the creative community.

Olivia Rodrigo has spoken out about her upcoming shows at Manchester’s Co-Op Live being postponed at the last minute, saying that she is “so disappointed” by the news.The pop star was set to perform at the new arena in Manchester tomorrow night (May 3) and Saturday (4) as part of her ongoing ‘GUTS World Tour’.However, just two days before the shows were set to go ahead, an update was shared from the venue organisers, confirming that the dates had been pushed back due to ongoing technical issues at the arena.It marked the latest in a series of shows that have been delayed due to ongoing issues with the opening week for Co-Op Live. Originally, the 23,500-capacity arena, located opposite the Etihad Stadium, was supposed to open with performances from Peter Kay on April 23 and 24.

Jem Aswad Executive Editor, Music The months-long standoff between Universal Music Group and TikTok over royalty payments and AI policies is finally over, at least for the time being, with the announcement that the two entities have struck a deal to bring the label’s music back on the platform. As part of the agreement, the companies stated that they will “deliver improved remuneration for UMG’s songwriters and artists, new promotional and engagement opportunities for their recordings and songs and industry-leading protections with respect to generative AI.” UMG’s music will return to the platform imminently, and the companies will collaborate on realizing “new monetization opportunities utilizing TikTok’s growing e-commerce capabilities and will work together on campaigns supporting UMG’s artists across genres and territories globally.” “This new chapter in our relationship with TikTok focuses on the value of music, the primacy of human artistry and the welfare of the creative community,” said Lucian Grainge, chairman and CEO of UMG.

Universal Music Group and TikTok have announced a new “multi-dimensional” licensing agreement that will return music from UMG’s family of artists, songwriters and labels to the short video platform.

Kelly Clarkson showed her former stepmother-in-law Reba McEntire some love during a recent episode of her talk show.

Dua Lipa has reflected on the hate she received after winning the Grammy for Best New Artist in 2019 – see what she had to say below.Last night (May 1), Apple Music released Dua Lipa’s near hour-long chat with Zane Lowe to speak of her upcoming third album, ‘Radical Optimism’, which is due for release on Friday, May 3 (pre-order/pre-save here).During her chat with Lowe, Dua Lipa spoke about overcoming criticism over the course of her career, particularly after she won the Grammy for Best New Artist in 2019. Lipa said to Lowe: “I think everything comes in stages and waves. There can be a moment where people really love you and you feel so supported and you’re like, ‘Oh, this is great.’ Especially in the beginning.

Jem Aswad Executive Editor, Music Richard Tandy, the keyboardist and multi-instrumentalist whose tenure with the Electric Light Orchestra (ELO) spanned more than 50 years, has died, according to a statement from Jeff Lynne, the group’s frontman and co-founder. No cause of death was given, although sources said he had been ill for several years; he was 76.

American Idol viewers and gospel music fans alike are still grappling with singer Mandisa‘s tragic and unforeseen death.

Why does Cher date much younger men? Men her age can’t seem to handle her, apparently!

Snapchat parent Snap Inc. made a flurry of announcements during its NewFronts presentation to advertisers, including team-ups with Issa Rae and Live Nation as well as the launch of an in-app sports channel.

The musical adaptation of Death Becomes Her just began performances in Chicago and we have first look photos from the first preview!

Sabrina Carpenter‘s new song “Espresso” is a major contender to be the song of the summer and everyone is falling in love with the hot new track!