After sparking widespread discourse with her controversial Man’s Best Friend album cover, Sabrina Carpenter has unveiled another version of the LP’s artwork for an exclusive vinyl — and it’s only available for a limited time. Premiering the alternate cover Tuesday […]
Country singer-songwriter Pat Green and his family are among those who have been personally impacted by the Texas floods that took place over the July 4 holiday weekend.
Green, who resides in Forth Worth, Texas, wrote in a social media post on Monday (July 7) that his family had “suffered a heartbreaking and deeply personal loss” due to the floods.
On Tuesday (July 8). Green’s wife, Kori, revealed on Instagram that the singer-songwriter’s younger brother John was swept away in the Kerrville flood, along with John’s wife, Julia, and two of their children. “We are so thankful for the outpouring of love and concern,” Kori wrote on Instagram. “We are heartbroken and anxiously waiting for all of them to be found,” Kori wrote. “Thank you for your prayers.”
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In his post, Green wrote, “We are grieving alongside countless Texans whose lives have been upended by this tragedy. Right now, we kindly ask for privacy and space as we mourn, support each other, and begin to process what comes next for our family. Thank you for your love, prayers and compassion.”
According to NBC News, the death toll from the flooding in Central Texas has surpassed 100 across six counties, including 30 children and 57 adults in Kerr County. Among the deceased are 27 campers and counselors from Camp Mystic, a Christian girls’ camp located on the banks of the Guadalupe River in Hunt, Texas, which flooded in the early morning hours of July 5.
Several country artists have offered condolences and aid for those impacted by the floods. Kerrville, Texas, native Robert Earl Keen said on social media that he is creating a benefit concert to help raise money for aid efforts, and that funds from merchandise sales on his current tour will go to The Community Foundation to help those impacted by the floods. Keen also noted that his two daughters attended camp at Camp Mystic as children.
Fellow Texas native Miranda Lambert also announced the launch of a fundraiser through her MuttNation Foundation, which will help animals that have been impacted by the flooding.
In a video on social media, Lambert said, “I just wanna jump on here and say how devastated we are to hear about the floods in South and Central Texas. I can’t even come up with any words for the loss that everybody’s suffering.” She added that MuttNation is working with Kerrville Pets Alive to support the pet community and pet owners in the area.
Green is known for songs including “Wave on Wave,” (which reached No. 3 on Billboard‘s Country Airplay chart in 2003), “Let Me” and “Feels Just Like It Should,” and has earned three Grammy nominations.
For the first time ever, KATSEYE is hitting the road. On Tuesday (July 8), the girl group announced that members Daniela, Lara, Manon, Megan, Sophia and Yoonchae will embark on their first-ever tour. Named the Beautiful Chaos Tour after their […]
“I’m quite a coward,” Rahma Riad admitted with a laugh. “I mean, I like taking risks in general, but I avoid reckless ones when it comes to my music career.” It’s a surprisingly candid confession from a star who, despite reaching stardom back in her twenties, still feels the weight of each artistic decision. With so many directions to choose from, the pressure to make the right move has caused her to pause. As she contemplates her next release, a quiet tension lingers: will she stay rooted in the identity she’s carefully crafted for her audience – or take a calculated leap into something new?
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Billboard Arabia sat down with Rahma Riad, its June 2025 cover star, on a breathtaking hilltop in the village of Arnaoon in the north of Lebanon, where the mountains open their arms to the sky and sea. The venue seemed surreal, like it had emerged from an old movie: the faded rustic sofas and accessories belonged to another era, and the depth of the Lebanese mountains took us away from the fast-paced rhythm of modern life. It was to this background that Rahma Riad entered wearing a brown outfit and discreet makeup, as if she didn’t want to create a scene, but to become part of the one surrounding us.
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The first words she uttered were spontaneous, as usual: “I love everything vintage.” This short sentence she said contemplating the details of the place around her seemed to sum up her artistic philosophy. Rahma, as we later discovered, is not pursuing the latest hit or trend, but rather hopes to make art that stands the test of time.
Slow Burning Songs
Talking about her latest releases such as “Tfareqina” (You Leave Us), “Safha Jadeeda” (A New Page) and “Kalam El Hob” (Words of Love), describing them as “Shi Helou” (something nice), she simply said: “The style is different from what I’ve done before.” She seemed to be apprehensive of change; not out of a fear of change itself, but due to a devotion to an artistic identity that she had carefully crafted. She described her latest song, “Shi Helou” (Something Nice), as belonging to the Arabic Maqsoum rhythm, with lyrics in Iraqi dialect, but with a light spirit that encourages you to dance. She added: “I was reluctant to sing it, because it is not similar to the classical or dramatic style I’m known for.”
She didn’t try to hide her hesitation, but rather kept talking honestly, as though she was continuing a conversation she had started with herself a while ago. “This musical style was present in old Iraqi songs… maybe people have forgotten it.” The past seemed to provide a gateway to the present, and traditional culture seemed to add legitimacy to her next musical step.
Her honesty about the hesitation she was feeling challenges most stereotypes people usually associate with pop artist’s personality. Many stars usually try to give the impression that they have everything “under control.” They avoid painting an image of themselves that is confused or filled with doubt, asserting that their successes were the result of planning and vision, and will remain this way in the future.
But Rahma Riad doesn’t care to convey this perfect image of herself. In her imagination lies a very unique and mature dream, and she talks about it with great determination, which was another surprise for us. Rahma is ultimately one of the most prominent figures in contemporary Iraqi music today. She has managed, in a remarkably short time, to join the ranks of not only Iraqi but also pan-Arab music stars – thanks to a career filled with significant milestones.
Rahma Riad
Lara Zankoul/Billboard Arabia
From a young age, Rahma nurtured her natural talent under the guidance of her father, the late Iraqi singer Riyadh Ahmed. This early support gave her ample time to develop her artistic identity. At 17, she participated in Super Star, followed by the Najm Al Khaleej competition. However, it was her appearance on Star Academy that marked a true turning point. There, she built a strong fan base, performed with major Arab artists, and advanced to the finals alongside Nassif Zeytoun, who won the seventh season in 2010.
Rahma’s major breakthrough came in 2018 with Waed Menni (A Promise from Me), written by Rami Al Obaidi and composed by Ali Saber – marking the start of a lasting creative partnership. The song quickly went viral, despite its simple video featuring family photos and lyrics.
Their collaboration continued in 2020 with Mako Menni, showcasing Iraqi rhythms under the direction of Risha Sarkis. In 2021, Rahma explored a new style with Atahadakom (I Dare You), moving away from her usual melancholic tone. That same year, she released Al-Kawkab (The Planet), which became an instant success.
Rahma also joined Iraq Idol in 2021, not as a contestant, but as a judge, winning praise for her style and charisma. In 2022, she released the romantic song “As’ad Lel Kamar” (I Ascend to the Moon), widely seen as a tribute to her husband, Alexander Uloom, and a hit on TikTok.
She also made her mark at major sports events, performing Aash Al Iraq at the Gulf Cup’s opening and singing in English for the first time in “Light the Sky,” an official FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022 song alongside Balqees, Manal and Nora Fatehi. She performed again at the World Cup’s closing ceremony, sharing the stage with global stars.
With her playful and spontaneous personality, she fills the room with laughter and jokes wherever she goes. Perhaps it would have been expected of her, over the past few years, to meet the expectations of the general public by keeping up with the trends in the market. However, time showed that she was firmly defining her own artistic direction. “I don’t give up my musical style to meet the demands of the audience,” she said.
Tastes Don’t Change
Even when talking about her upcoming album, her answers were decisive yet calm: “There are no surprises.” It was as if she wanted to set a clear line between art that is created to grab your attention for a moment, and art that is built to last. Rather than talking about the behind-the-scenes of her new album, such as the composers she is cooperating with, and the themes of the songs, Rahma expressed her desires and dreams: “Ever since I started performing, or had a dream of becoming a singer, I have wanted to be like the great artists of the past. Whenever you listen to their songs, which may be 50 years old, you have the impression that they were released recently and everyone still appreciates them.”
Rahma Riad
Lara Zankoul/Billboard Arabia
As soon as the conversation approached the idea of changing public tastes, Rahma became affirmative: “Tastes don’t change.” She said, as if she was anticipating the question. Rahma added: “People today listen to Fairouz, Umm Kulthum and Abdul Halim songs on TikTok.” The new generation, in her opinion, has not lost its sense of beauty, but finds itself in the middle of an accelerated musical rhythm that does not allow them to breath or contemplate. “This generation loves to hear eclectic music,” Rahma said: “But at the same time, they revisit songs that are 50 years old and make them trendy again.”
Her clear commitment to the path she set for herself has not stopped her from achieving multiple successes. She has many hit songs under her belt, with more than 100 million listeners on multiple social media platforms, including “Waad Menni,” “Mako Mani” and “Al Kawkab.” Her duet with Nassif Zeytoun last year, “Ma Fi Leil,” topped the Billboard Arabia charts for weeks and got her and Nassif their first nomination in the Billboard Arabia Music Awards 2024, for the best duo song.
Family, Motherhood and the Challenges of Being an Artist
Rahma Riad is indeed facing many challenges today that are not only related to her career and artistic choices. Years ago, her audience witnessed her love story with Iraqi-American actor, Alexander Uloom, which culminated in marriage and the birth of their first daughter, Alia. Today, motherhood imposes additional pressure on Rahma. Her artistic activities, split between the studio and live concerts, and the need to be constantly on the move and traveling, have made her feel guilty sometimes. When asked about the things she loves to do when not performing, she replied instantly: “I love to be with my daughter.”
Her daughter holds a special place in her artistic journey – not as a challenge, but as a guiding compass. “Even my daughter, when she grows up, I want her to listen to music,” she said. “Even my daughter, when she grows up, I want her to listen to music… But not trendy songs that die two weeks later.” Perhaps she sings not just for the present, but for the generation to come – for ears not yet born, who will one day listen to her songs and find meaning in them.
This article was written by Omar Bakbouk for Billboard Arabia.
Rahma Riad
Lara Zankoul/Billboard Arabia
Owen Wilson and Travis Scott are unlikely co-stars in the upcoming Rolling Loud movie. As part of one of the comedy’s scenes, Wilson hit the stage in character during La Flame’s Rolling Loud Miami set last year.
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The Wedding Crashers actor joined Apple Music 1’s The Zane Lowe Show on Tuesday (July 8), where he went in depth about joining Travis Scott at RL Miami, which caused him to have an “out-of-body experience” in the chaos of “FE!N.”
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“My two boys were there, and I think it helped having them there because I knew I couldn’t back out of it,” recalled the actor, who is dad to Ford (with ex Jade Duell) and Finn (with trainer Caroline Lindqvist); he also has a daughter from a third relationship. “It was scary going up there, and I was talking to Travis’ kind of hype man before I went on, and I just wanted to make sure that I wasn’t expected to dance because I’m not a dancer.”
Wilson continued: “He gave me a shot and then it seemed like right in the next second, I turned and there’s Travis Scott walking back towards me. And then I was out there and it was an out-of-body experience and I found myself just, you know, yeah, the adrenaline.”
Footage from the performance found Wilson pleading with the crowd: “I’m feigning for more!”
The actor and Scott filmed a separate scene for the movie in the rapper’s hometown of Houston, and the duo got to bond while learning they had a mutual Hollywood friend in filmmaker Wes Anderson.
“It was nice when I met him because then we did a scene and he’s from Houston and he said that he loves Wes Anderson and I spoke with Wes and Wes said, ‘Yeah, Travis Scott sent me some of those shoes that he has.’ It would be funny to see Wes wearing those,” he joked to Lowe.
Rolling Loud is an upcoming R-rated comedy that also stars comedian Matt Rife, Sexyy Red, Ty Dolla $ign, Ski Mask The Slump God and Russ.
The film follows an overprotective father (played by Wilson) who attends Rolling Loud with his 13-year-old son, according to Deadline. The movie is written and directed by Jeremy Garelick.
Listen to Owen Wilson’s full interview below. Talk about Travis Scott starts just shy of the 1:30 mark.
When Oasis announced their first round of reunion tour dates last August, there were a lot of questions about whether the warring Gallagher brothers would even make it to opening night on speaking terms. Well, the first two shows of […]
The bond between sisters is unbreakable. Even if they just played sisters on TV, you should know better than to try to come between female siblings. Just ask Beverley Mitchell, who played Lucy Camden, younger sister to Jessica Biel’s Mary Camden on the first six seasons of beloved TV drama 7th Heaven about her fierce warning to Biel’s future mother-in-law about her “Sexyback” son.
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In a new chat on the Pod Meets World rewatch podcast with Danielle Fishel, Rider Strong and Will Friedle, Mitchell reminisced about her time on the show with Biel, as well as her days as a young star running around with the guys in boy band *NSYNC.
In addition to describing running around the Las Vegas Strip with “NSYNC like hooligans” during one of the group’s “Challenge for the Children” charity events back in the day — as well as in Miami with Cameron Diaz and Gabrielle Union — Mitchell noted that she’s still very good friends with the guys from the band. “And it’s funny that one of them ended up marrying my best friend,” she said.
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That “one of them” is, of course, Justin Timberlake, who has been married to Biel for more than 13 years and shares two boys with the singer, Silas, 10, and Phineas, 4. “I gave Jessie so much crap because she used to make fun of me. She would be like, ‘You’re hanging out with the NSYNC boys,’ and I’m like, ‘Dude, they’re fun, we have fun.’ And she used to think I was so silly and lame and now you’re married to one,” Mitchell said.
It wasn’t always fun and games, though. Mitchell noted that when Biel — whom she refers to as “my sister” — and Timberlake first started dating, JT’s mother, Lynn Bomar Harless, asked, “‘Okay, Bev, tell me about her [Biel].’ And I was like, ‘if he hurts her, I’ll kill him.’”
Listen to the full episode here.
Kesha‘s “Tik Tok” may have defined the early 2010s, but that doesn’t mean she wants the song to define her as an artist.
While guesting on Monica Lewinsky’s Reclaiming podcast, the singer-songwriter recalled how her 2009 hedonistic smash hit about embracing party sleaze caused people to make assumptions about what she was like in real life. “It’s interesting,” she said on the episode posted Tuesday (July 8). “When you’re an artist and you’re a songwriter, you can write one song, and that defines you for so long.”
“I love ‘Tik Tok’ and I love that first album [2010’s Animal], like, these are my babies,” she continued. “But I will say, to be put into a particular box was challenging. I felt like, ‘Oh, people aren’t seeing me.’”
Released in 2009 as Kesha’s debut single, “Tik Tok” spent nine weeks at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100. Because of its subject matter — and its lyrics about getting “crunk,” partying until sunrise and using whiskey as toothpaste — the musician quickly developed a party-girl image that totally contradicted her real-life persona.
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For instance, Kesha still recalls when tabloids reported that she had been drunk on stage during a performance in Dubai when, in reality, she had been playing through the pain of a freshly torn ACL. And, with the sole exception of her 2009 Lollapalooza set, she says she’s never had anything to drink before a show.
“Things like that have hurt me, and that people think … I don’t know, that hurt my feelings,” Kesha told Lewinsky. “Contrary to my entire public image, I’m actually quite terrified of substances. Like, I had my whiskey moment in my 20s, for sure, but anything else is pretty scary to me.”
“But I’m also very lucky that [‘Tik Tok’] hit, and I think I tapped into a part of people’s brains that they needed,” she added. “It was a recession, I was giving them unadulterated joy and silliness and goofiness and ‘F–k it, we’re having fun, I don’t care what anybody thinks.’ I do stand by it. That’s an important thing to feel.”
In the 15-plus years since its release, “Tik Tok” has remained a beloved party anthem among fans. Its cultural relevance also spiked once again in late 2023 when Kesha pointedly changed the track’s iconic opening lyric — “Wake up in the morning feeling like P. Diddy” — to omit the disgraced hip-hop titan’s name entirely, a show of support for Cassie Ventura in light of her domestic abuse allegations against Sean “Diddy” Combs.
As allegations of sexual assault, sex-trafficking and racketeering piled up against Combs throughout 2024 and 2025 — resulting in a seven-week criminal trial that finally ended with the Bad Boy Records founder, who consistently denied all of the accusations, securing a partial acquittal earlier in July — Kesha continued to omit the original lyric during live performances. At Coachella 2024, for instance, she sang “F–k P. Diddy” instead.
And on Reclaiming, Kesha recalled how she didn’t hesitate for a second to change the line after learning of the accusations against Combs.
“I was doing the Gag Order Tour,” she told Lewinsky. “I don’t even remember where I was. And I was like, ‘I’m changing it tonight.’ Everyone was like, ‘You’re insane. You’re going to change the opening line of your biggest song?’ I’m like, ‘100 f–king-percent I am.’”
Watch Kesha’s full interview with Lewinsky above.
Kodak Black and YoungBoy Never Broke Again have feuded and been on good terms throughout their careers. However, things appear to be sour once again after Kodak dissed YB’s upcoming Make America Slime Again project over the weekend. While YoungBoy […]
Bruce Springsteen’s Tracks II: The Lost Albums debuts on Billboard’s charts dated July 12, including in the top 10 on both Top Album Sales and Americana/Folk Albums, launching at No. 7 on each list.
Released June 27, the collection boasts 83 songs via seven previously unreleased Springsteen albums, with 74 of the songs available in any form for the first time. “The Lost Albums were full records, some of them even to the point of being mixed and not released,” Springsteen notes per promotion by Columbia Records/Legacy Recordings. “I’ve played this music to myself and often close friends for years now. I’m glad you’ll get a chance to finally hear them.”
Tracks II: The Lost Albums starts with 14,000 equivalent album units earned in the United States in the week ending July 3, according to Luminate, led by 10,000 in album sales.
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The album was released in nine-LP and seven-CD physical editions. They sold for $349.98 and $299.99, respectively, on Springsteen’s website.
Additionally, Springsteen’s Lost and Found: Selections From the Lost Albums debuts at No. 22 on Americana/Folk Albums (5,000 units). The release contains 20 songs from Tracks II: The Lost Albums.
The seven distinct albums on Tracks II: The Lost Albums, recorded between 1983 and 2018, are LA Garage Sessions ’83, Streets of Philadelphia Sessions, Faithless, Somewhere North of Nashville, Inyo, Twilight Hours and Perfect World.
Erik Flannigan, essayist for Tracks II: The Lost Albums, describes the album’s content in an in-depth behind-the-scenes video as “what for someone else would be their entire career.”
Tracks II: The Lost Albums follows Springsteen’s 1998 project Tracks, which contains 66 songs, most of which were previously unreleased. As with Lost and Found: Selections From the Lost Albums, the abridged 18 Tracks accompanied Tracks (with 15 of its songs from the latter set).
Tracks II: The Lost Albums enters the all-genre Billboard 200 at No. 68, marking Springsteen’s 44th career entry. He expands his history on the chart to two weeks shy of 50 years — his first two studio LPs, Greetings From Asbury Park, N.J. and The Wild, The Innocent and the E Street Shuffle, each released in 1973, marked his first appearances on the chart, or any Billboard ranking, in the issue dated July 26, 1975.
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