R&B star Leon Thomas will serve as the artist ambassador for the Recording Academy’s 11th annual Music Advocacy Day, helping to mobilize musicians nationwide in support of music creators’ rights. In an email to Recording Academy members sent Wednesday (Aug. 27), Thomas emphasized the importance of the movement and urged participation in this year’s effort:

“Some of my favorite moments in life have happened because of music…not just creating it, but connecting with people through it,” Thomas wrote. “Music has given me community, purpose, and a way to tell my story. That’s why I said yes when I was asked to be this year’s Music Advocacy Day Artist Ambassador. On Thursday, September 25, I’ll be standing alongside other Recording Academy members across the country for the 11th annual Music Advocacy Day, talking to lawmakers about the issues that really matter to us as creators.”

As the nation’s largest grassroots music advocacy effort, Music Advocacy Day brings together approximately 2,000 musicians each year for face-to-face meetings with their congressional representatives to address issues of concern to the music community.

This year, music-makers will focus on two topics in their conversations with lawmakers:

Recording Academy members must register by Sept. 2 to take part. Music Advocacy Day meetings will take place on Sept. 25 in cities nationwide, bringing the annual rally for music creators’ rights directly to members of Congress across the country.

Thomas’ soulful ballad “Mutt” moved up to No. 1 on Billboard’s Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Singles chart last week, dethroning Kendrick Lamar & SZA’s “Luther.” “Mutt” has climbed as high as No. 12 on the Billboard Hot 100.

Thomas, 32, won a Grammy two years ago as a co-writer of SZA’s hit “Snooze,” which was voted best R&B song. He is thought to have a good chance of being nominated for best new artist when this year’s nominations are announced on Nov. 7 (though the screening committee will make the final ruling on his eligibility, given his previous win).

Read Thomas’ letter to Recording Academy members in full:

Dear Recording Academy Members,

Some of my favorite moments in life have happened because of music…not just creating it, but connecting with people through it. Music has given me community, purpose, and a way to tell my story.

That’s why I said yes when I was asked to be this year’s Music Advocacy Day Artist Ambassador. On Thursday, September 25, I’ll be standing alongside other Recording Academy members across the country for the 11th annual Music Advocacy Day, talking to lawmakers about the issues that really matter to us as creators.

Back in 2024, I went to Washington, D.C. for GRAMMYs on the Hill. I sat down with members of Congress and shared what music means to me, and I saw how their faces changed when they really understood our side of the story. It reminded me that if we don’t speak up, decisions will be made without us.

This year, we’re focusing on two things close to my heart:

🎵 Making sure AI works with us, not against us. The NO FAKES Act would protect everyone from having their voice, image, or likeness exploited by AI. And tech companies must respect copyright law when building their AI models. New technology can be amazing, but only if it respects human creativity.

🎵 Keeping the arts alive in every community. Federal arts programs support performances, concerts, and programs that millions of people enjoy each year. That kind of access changes lives, and we can’t let it fade away.

I’m not asking you to be a policy expert — just to show up, share your story, and let lawmakers see the people behind the music. The Recording Academy will make sure you have everything you need to feel ready.

If you haven’t signed up yet, now’s the time. Registration closes on September 2 at 11:59 p.m. PT, and I’d love for you to be part of this with me. It’s one day, but the impact we can make together will last far longer.

I hope you’ll join me on September 25. Let’s protect the future of music — together.

With respect, Leon Thomas III

Jason Kelce could not be more psyched for his future sister-in-law. The voluble ex NFL great hopped on his socials on Tuesday night (Aug. 26) — just hours after Taylor Swift announced that she was engaged to his younger brother Travis Kelce — to enthusiastically congratulate the couple and share some special news about this week’s New Heights podcast.

“Welcome back to another episode of New Heights,” Jason said in the video in which he appeared alone in his home studio. “Unfortunately, it probably won’t be as good as the last episode of New Heights, where we set our own records, we set podcasting records, we set a Guinness Book of World Records,” he gushed about Swift’s record-shattering appearance on the previous episode of the sports podcast he co-hosts with Travis that increased the show’s female viewership by more than 600%.

“Thanks to the one and only Taylor Swift for hopping on and deciding to talk with two complete idiots that don’t know anything about the music industry,” he added about Swift’s two-hour chat, in which she discussed her love story with Travis, announced her 12th studio album, The Life of a Showgirl and described the emotional moment she found out she’d gotten her masters back.

Self-deprecatingly promising that the bar will be “much lower” this week, Jason had to address the “one piece of gigantic” news that broke after they recorded the new episode on Monday, which is Travis’ one day off as he prepares to start his 13th NFL season. “So he is not here to address this himself, but we felt necessary as a team here at New Heights to get together and send Travis and a giant congratulations for being engaged!!!,” Jason shouted as he and the show’s staff whooped it up in celebration. “The proposal heard ’round the world!!! F–k yeah!”

But that’s not all. Jason also revealed that Wednesday’s new episode will be a “behind-the-scenes look at how our episode with @taylorswift13 came together.” The BTS episode will post at 9:30 a.m. ET on Wednesday.

Watch Jason Kelce celebrate the engagement below.

After Sean “Diddy” Combs’ partial acquittal on sex trafficking charges in a bombshell criminal trial earlier this summer, the music mogul’s legal team has been public about their efforts to secure a presidential pardon. But is that even possible? What would the process look like? And how might Combs’ reps try to win over President Donald Trump? 

Combs was acquitted on July 2 of racketeering and sex-trafficking, the most serious counts he faced in a trial over his drug-fueled, marathon sex-parties known as “freak-offs.” The rapper was convicted only of hiring sex workers for the orgies, significantly reducing his potential prison sentence from decades to likely just a few years.   

Though Combs’ team of lawyers celebrated the verdict as a major win, they’re not done fighting and will likely appeal Combs’ counts of conviction after his October sentencing hearing. And then there’s the possibility of a pardon; one member of Combs’ defense squad told CNN earlier this month that they have approached Trump about clemency.

There are actually two ways that Trump could free Combs: a pardon, which wipes a conviction from someone’s criminal record; or a commutation, which just erases a prison sentence while leaving the record intact. Trump has not said publicly yet whether he’d consider granting either type of clemency to Combs.

So what does the process look like for Combs’ attorneys to pursue a pardon? According to Mark Osler, a leading clemency attorney and law professor at the University of St. Thomas, there really isn’t any process under Trump’s presidency.

Osler says that in the past, clemency lawyers filed form applications to the Department of Justice’s Pardon Attorney, and these petitions would then go through several levels of review before making it to the White House. But Trump broke with tradition at the end of his first term by granting several pardons that hadn’t gone through this process, and then-President Joe Biden did the same this past December and January. Now, with Trump back in the White House, pardons are coming straight from his desk without review in large numbers — including a blanket grant of clemency to over 1,000 January 6 insurrection defendants.

“The mechanism is falling apart,” Osler tells Billboard. “It’s fair to say many people are confused about what the process is now. Some people are filling out the form, some people are trying to appeal directly to [Trump’s so-called pardon czar] Alice Marie Johnson, some people are trying to talk to Trump at Mar-a-Lago, some people are trying to get on Fox News to pitch their case. It’s hard to tell what will work and for who.”

With Trump now making so many pardon decisions on his own, it’s likely that Combs’ reps are trying to make their case directly to the president’s inner circle. This is no small feat: as Osler puts it, “People are spending a lot of money trying to get in front of the right people to be considered.”

This begs another question: if Combs’ team does go through the trouble to get in front of Trump’s advisers, what pitch will they make? Osler says it’s common to appeal to a president’s personal values — which for Trump, he says, are “loyalty and celebrity.” 

Celebrities do make up a sizable chunk of Trump’s pardon history. If Combs ends up getting clemency, he’ll join the ranks of other musicians like Lil Wayne, Kodak Black and YoungBoy Never Broke Again — all of whom were pardoned of weapons charges by Trump.  
 
Combs’ lawyers also could try to pitch Trump that the rapper’s conviction is unjust or even racist. The music mogul was found guilty of prostitution under the Mann Act, a 1910 statute that has a sordid history of being used to target Black men and interracial couples. (It was originally known as the “White-Slave Traffic Act.”)  

“The Mann Act is rarely used today,” says JaneAnne Murray, a clemency lawyer and professor at University of Minnesota Law School. “It comes out of a puritanical era, and its enforcement was driven by sexist and racist assumptions.” 

The fact that these Mann Act counts were the lowest-level charges in an indictment that accused Combs of the far splashier and more serious crimes of sex-trafficking and racketeering could also be key to a pardon argument. 

Since Combs was acquitted of racketeering and sex-trafficking, his lawyers have a strong case to argue that he never should have been charged with these higher-level crimes in the first place. And Murray says that if Combs had been charged only with prostitution under the Mann Act, “It’s almost inconceivable that any resolution of the case would have involved a custodial sentence.” 

“One of the arguments I make for my clients is, ‘Look, they went to trial and were acquitted of the first-degree [murder charge]. They got convicted of the second degree— but had they been properly charged in the beginning, we would have negotiated from that lower baseline, and they would have received a much more lenient sentence,’” Murray tells Billboard. 

All that said, Combs still faces an uphill climb in securing a pardon from Trump. According to Osler, presidents tend to think seriously about the potential political ramifications of their pardoning decisions. Trump’s White House may not want to be associated with the sordid details and admitted abuse that came out during Combs’ trial — especially in light of the public relations firestorm ignited in recent months by renewed interest in Trump’s past associations with Jeffrey Epstein. 

“Historically, sex crimes have kind of been the third rail of clemency,” says Osler. “Almost never have you seen grants for them.” 

Just like some people remember where they were during the moon landing, or when they got their first smart phone, the moment when Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce announced their engagement will forever be seared into the memories of millions.

That goes double for CBS White House correspondent Olivia Rinaldi, who found out just moments before going live on air that the world’s biggest pop star had announced her engagement to boyfriend of two years Kansas City Chiefs tight end Kelce on Tuesday (Aug. 26). Her jaw literally dropping open in awe, Rinaldi grabbed her phone and read a note from her producer, saying “Taylor Swift is engaged?”

A second after the news actually sunk in, Rinaldi looked up from her screen and pointed to the phone, excitedly repeating, “Taylor Swift is engaged!” over and over again as an on-screen graphic showing the flower bedecked Instagram proposal post popped up on screen. “Come back to me… she just posted it,” a flustered Rinaldi sputtered as she covered her mouth in awe and repeated “Oh my God” several times, her eyes glued to the perfectly curated photo.

“Oh it’s huge! The ring is ginormous! This is so exciting!” Rinaldi gushed, the joy plain to see on her face as she continued to be gobsmacked, changing from her work phone to what seemed like her personal phone to check out the Instagram post. “Oh my God, it’s on her Instagram! It’s on her Instagram! Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God! I feel like Paul Revere right now,” Rinaldi gushed about her chance to be among the first to spread the news of the pop culture mega-merger, her hands making circles in the air as she gleefully struggled to process the information.

But instead of warning the minutemen that the British were coming, Rinaldi simply got to share with CBS viewers that one of the world’s most high-profile couples were making it official after two years of dating.

A short time later, Rinaldi was on air, sharing what she called a “very exciting” moment for her in her professional career, “because I get to announce that Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce are engaged!” She explained how she had been chatting with her producer when another staffer sent her the alert, with Rinaldi holding up her phone to show the engagement post to the camera, reading out the now-iconic “Your English teacher and your gym teacher are getting married” caption.

“Very exiting here that we get to break that and tell you that,” Rinaldi said with a satisfied, sweet smile on her face as she noted, for the record, that she would totally volunteer to cover the wedding for CBS if needed.

She was just one of many musicians, actors and public figures who took time on Tuesday to congratulate the happy couple who first began dating in 2023. At press time Swift and Kelce have not shared any information about when, or where, their wedding will take place as Kelce gears up to begin his 13th NFL season and Swift ramps up to the Oct. 3 release of her 12th studio album, The Life of a Showgirl.

Check out Rinaldi’s report below.