Mya caught up with ‘Love Island USA’ Chelley Bissainthe & Billboard’s Kyle Denis on the red carpet at the Caribbean Music Awards 2025.
Problem Child caught up with ‘Love Island USA’ Chelley Bissainthe & Billboard’s Kyle Denis on the red carpet at the Caribbean Music Awards 2025.
Jessie Woo caught up with ‘Love Island USA’ Chelley Bissainthe & Billboard’s Kyle Denis on the red carpet at the Caribbean Music Awards 2025.
Elephant Man caught up with ‘Love Island USA’ Chelley Bissainthe & Billboard’s Kyle Denis on the red carpet at the Caribbean Music Awards 2025.
Serani caught up with ‘Love Island USA’ Chelley Bissainthe & Billboard’s Kyle Denis on the red carpet at the Caribbean Music Awards 2025.
The U.S. division of global entertainment lifestyle platform company HYBE, HYBE AMERICA, has named Jenni Pfaff as the new chief people and transformation officer. Pfaff, who is based in the company’s Los Angeles office, will report directly to HYBE AMERICA CEO and chairman Isaac Lee.
“A strong company culture is a top priority as we continue to build HYBE AMERICA,” said Lee in a release. “Attracting and retaining top talent and providing them with a fulfilling work environment will help us succeed as a company. I believe in a collaborative environment and am always mindful of the impact our business has on various audiences. Given Jenni’s strong background, I’m confident we will be good partners in building a company that is a magnet for artists, employees, and partners.”
In her new role, Pfaff will oversee all human resources functions, including recruiting and hiring, training and development, employee relations, performance management, feedback and coaching, and related initiatives. She will also lead internal corporate communications efforts. In conjunction with Lee, Pfaff will focus on further developing HYBE AMERICA’s creative and collaborative company culture built on trust, transparency, and empowerment, according to the company.
“I’ve always been a builder,” said Pfaff in a release. “Leading through compassion and creating the best possible work environment is a priority for me. One of the things that attracted me to HYBE AMERICA was the chance to be part of one of the most exciting and fastest-growing parts of the music and entertainment business.”
Prior to joining HYBE, Pfaff served as executive vp of strategy, integration and operations at Warner Chappell Music since 2019. She oversaw the Business Intelligence division, enabling data-driven decision-making to better serve the company’s songwriters, and worked closely with Warner Music’s technology department and senior leadership to enhance the company’s technology portfolio.
Earlier in her career, Pfaff held positions at PwC, Activision Blizzard and Northrop Grumman. She holds a Bachelor of Science degree in psychology and a master’s degree in industrial-organizational psychology, and is a certified executive coach.
Rock music from the 1980s doesn’t get a lot of respect, with much of the focus going to such dated style elements as big hair and heavy eyeliner. The curators at Grammy Museum Mississippi have decided, in the immortal words of Twisted Sister, “We’re Not Gonna Take It.”
In their new exhibit “’80s Rock: The Wildest Decade in Music,” Grammy Museum Mississippi tells the story of what it calls “one of the most under-appreciated eras in rock history.” The exhibit will explore how hair metal and glam metal became so popular and why their fans remain loyal to this day.
The exhibit will open to the public on Friday, Sept. 26, and will be on display through 2026. It will feature artifacts and memorabilia from bands who made a huge splash during the ’80s, including Mötley Crüe, Poison, Skid Row, Warrant, Ratt, Guns N’ Roses, Cinderella, Def Leppard, Lita Ford and Vixen.
Fans will also have the opportunity to have their photo taken in front of a large backdrop depicting the exterior of the iconic Sunset Strip venue Whisky a Go Go.
“We couldn’t be more excited to debut our new special exhibit ‘’80s Rock: The Wildest Decade in Music’,” Emily Havens, executive director of Grammy Museum Mississippi, said in a statement. “Not only is this genre of music one of my personal favorites, but the bands who were launching their careers on the Sunset Strip during this decade made an impact on young people that has lasted for generations. We’re here to give the bands of hair metal and glam metal their due credit and tell the story of one of the most under-appreciated genres of music in rock history.”
An exclusive pre-opening event will be held Thursday, Sept. 25, at 6 p.m., featuring a reception and program with stories and conversation from members of Twisted Sister. This event is reserved for exhibit sponsors and Grammy Museum Mississippi members. Tickets for members are available at the museum’s website.
The exhibit will feature artifacts, instruments and memorabilia from bands of the ’80s hair and glam metal scene, and bands from the pre-glam ’70s scene, including:
- Ozzy Osborne stage costume
- Mötley Crüe’s drum kit
- Def Leppard Washburn bass
- Guns N’ Roses smashed bass and Appetite for Destruction lithograph
- Pink bodice worn by Nancy Wilson of Heart
- Lita Ford’s “Black Widow” guitar and outfit
- Poison autographed guitars and signed memorabilia
- Guitar played by Ratt
- Warrant drumhead
- Photographs from the era by Mark Weiss
Grammy Museum Mississippi, in Cleveland, Mississippi, is open Tuesday through Saturday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. and Sunday from noon to 3 p.m. The museum is closed on Mondays. Tickets can be purchased in person at the box office, or by visiting the museum’s website.
Singer Katy Perry has sold 1.1 million tickets on The Lifetimes tour and grossed more than $80 million in sales, according to figures provided by her management.
The Live Nation backed tour officially launched April 23 in Mexico City, and is scheduled to run through Dec. 7, wrapping up in Abu Dhabi. The Lifetimes Tour, which is themed around Perry saving the world by rescuing a motif-heavy kaleidoscope of butterflies meant to represent her various musical eras, is a true world tour making stops in Asia, Australia, Europe, North America and South America across 91 shows.
The U.S. leg of the tour kicked off May 7 in Houston and wrapped up Aug. 23 in Miami, hitting over 20 cities including Chicago, San Francisco, New York, Atlanta and more. In Canada, Perry’s tour played Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver, Ottawa, Edmonton, Winnipeg and Quebec City before heading to Australia with 13 shows from June 9 through 30.
After North America, Perry heads to Latin America for the first time in her career where she will be performing three stadium shows before beginning the European leg of her tour in October, with shows across the U.K. (Glasgow, Manchester and London) as well as Belgium, Germany, Denmark, France, Spain, Italy and more.
So far, she has added additional shows due to demand, with two more concerts added in Paris, five more in Australia and one extra show in China. Perry’s six shows in China – two in Hangzhou, three in Shanghai and one in Haikou — sold out one minute after going on sale, according to Perry’s management.
In October of 1971, Godfather of Soul James Brown clocked another entry in his generational run on the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart with “Super Bad Part 1 & 2” — a confidence anthem commonly known simply as “Super Bad,” which hit No. 1 on the chart and ultimately became one of the many defining anthems of Brown’s immeasurably influential catalog.
It was obviously a song you could dance to, but it wasn’t technically a dance song — until now.
Via a collaboration with James Brown’s grandson Jason Brown, Brown estate stakeholders Universal Music and Primary Wave and Dutch legend Laidback Luke, “Super Bad” has gotten an official rework called “I Got Soul (Super Bad)”.
Out today (Aug. 28) via Dim Mak Records, the project finds Luke ramping up the song’s BPM and urgency, outfitting his electro production with Brown’s declarations to, among other things, “watch me!” Done in a style bloghouse fans will know and appreciate, the song bumps along deliciously, although as the producer tells it, putting it together was initially quite daunting.
“When I got those stems and opened them up, I was scared,” Luke tells Billboard. “It’s sacred material; I didn’t want to touch it.” This intimidation factor lead Luke to circle back with Jason, who “just gave me complete freedom that made me feel like I could just run with this.”
Jason Brown, who is himself a Los Angeles-based DJ/producer who’s remixed many of his grandfather’s hits and cites a mission to “revamp my gramps music to the next generation,” initially reached out to Luke via DM earlier this year to gauge his interest in being part of the project. He’d seen Luke play many times back in the day while he was a student at SCAD, a creative college in Washington D.C. and loved his classic Dirty Dutch sound. Luke read the DM and was, at first, incredulous.
“It was a little bit creepy,” says Luke, “because I didn’t know who he was and he just started talking about his granddaddy and that he had all the stems and rights to the music. I was like, ‘Wait James Brown is his granddaddy? Like, is this guy for real?”
He was for real, and after the pair had a conversation, Luke received the “Super Bad” stems from Jason and Universal Music, which owns Brown’s recorded masters. “They just saw the vision,” Jason says of the label. The project — which is being framed as an official collaboration rather than a remix — is also a product of Primary Wave, which acquired a stake in Brown’s publishing, master royalty income, name and likeness rights in a 2021 deal valued at approximately $90 million.
“It’s a bit of a melting pot and a real estate situation when it comes down to the business of it,” Jason Brown says of the project’s multiple stakeholders. “But that’s how you get it all across the board, you put everybody at the table. You get everybody on the email. And then you’ve got to know what sounds good, and the result has got to be good, and the names attached have to be somebody. It’s literally all about relevance.”
Luke says the song has been hitting hard during recent sets, with audience going a bit wilder when they realize who the song features. Having previously done official remixes for artists including Madonna, Depeche Mode, Daft Punk and Donna Summer, Luke still cites this project as “the biggest thing I’ve I’ve ever done in my whole career… Like, the only [bigger you can go] is Elvis or Michael Jackson.”
Knowing how much this project means to his career and how much James Brown means to countless people around the world, Luke was a little shy about playing Jason his finished track. “I actually ghosted him for a little bit because I didn’t know if I wanted him to hear it, because I really did my own thing with it,” Luke says.
But the inevitable listening session eventually took place in person in the Dam Mak office in Los Angeles, where Luke and Jason met for the first time and Luke recognized that “Jason is very much the real deal. He’s one of those American kids of huge legends who are just roaming around and have access to this legacy.”
Luke played Jason the track, and Jason says he while he was surprised by Luke taking an electro approach rather than going Dirty Dutch, the final product achieves what he’d hoped it might. “It kind of puts [my grandfather] into the future,” he says. “And that’s the goal. This supersedes the goal.”
They say all good things come to an end. After hosting the first hip-hop show ever at Hot 97 in 1992, Funkmaster Flex announced Thursday (Aug. 28) that he’ll be unplugging his turntables for good at the station next week.
Funk Flex will be dropping his signature bombs and hitting the airwaves at 7 p.m. on Labor Day (Sept. 1), which will be his final show with Hot 97.
“THIS MONDAY LABOR DAY SEPTEMBER 1ST WITH BE MY LAST SHOW ON HOT97 AT 7PM,” he wrote to X. “ALL THINGS COME TO AN END! END OF AN ERA THAT I ENJOYED VERY MUCH!”
Flex continued: “I SUPER ENJOYED IT ALL! I WILL MAKE THE LAST SHOW A GREAT ONE! APPRECIATE EVERYONE WHO HAS SUPPORTED ME OVER THE YEARS!”
Fans of the station were stunned about Funk Flex’s departure announcement, wondering what his next move would be. “END OF AN ERA INDEED! We gonna need another classic moment before you go out with a BANG, Flex,” one person wrote.
Another added: “We living in the end of times the mayans were talking about wtf!”
After starting at Hot 97 over three decades ago, the Bronx native is responsible for plenty of classic NYC radio moments, including his premiere of Jay-Z and Ye’s “Otis” in 2011, which he restarted roughly 25 times and dropped 63 bombs on over the course of 22 minutes.
Earlier in August, Flex was presented with a Key to the City by New York City Mayor Eric Adams for “his role in shaping the global reach of NYC’s hip hop scene through his iconic platform.”
“I’m humbled and honored to receive the Key to the City I’ve always called home,” Flex said. “New York made me. Hot 97 gave me the mic and hip-hop gave me a voice. This moment means everything.”





