Taylor Swift‘s surprise performance at Travis Kelce‘s Tight End University event was truly that: a surprise.

According to the Kansas City Chiefs star, the 14-time Grammy winner’s live showcase of Billboard Hot 100-topper “Shake It Off” with Kane Brown’s band June 24 in Nashville was so last minute, she didn’t even practice beforehand. Speaking to brother and co-host Jason Kelce on their New Heights podcast episode posted Wednesday (July 2), Travis shed some light on how the performance came about, raving, “Tay Tay showed up!”

“We’re in Nashville, she grew up in Nashville — she moved there when she was younger,” the Grotesquerie star explained. “We had this plan for a while that we were going to have some fun with the tight ends.”

“I won’t say when the idea came up, but when we were there at Tight End and Friends, and we knew there was a professional like Kane Brown, who can just, he can figure it out,” Travis continued. “He’s a pro. Tay just kind of went up to him and the band and went, ‘Hey, if you guys are down, I’ll go up there, play a song and see if we can pop the roof off this place.’”

The athlete went on to share that moments before the viral performance, Swift jotted down accompaniment notes for Brown’s band members so that they could perform with her without missing a beat. “She was like in the back doing musical notes,” Travis said with awe. “Sheets of music, she was writing out — I think the high hats, maybe? I don’t know, I’m not a musician. But she was, like, making sure the band and everybody knew.”

“And then just went out there without practicing, and it was pitch-perfect,” Travis added. “[She] just killed it.”

The knockout performance in question happened at the Tight Ends and Friends concert at Music City’s Brooklyn Bowl, with Swift getting the crowd hyped up as she took the stage in a black dress and matching heeled boots. As she strummed her guitar, Brown danced along on stage and added extra percussion by shaking a stick of bells.

The pop star was also present throughout the three-day Tight End University summit, appearing alongside Travis on the red carpet during opening ceremonies and later attending the welcome party with him that night. The Are You Smarter Than a Celebrity? host founded TEU in 2021 with George Kittle and Greg Olsen to foster community among the NFL’s tight ends and help them prepare for the football season ahead.

“She’s so good with just everybody — people and making people feel comfortable,” Travis praised Swift. “Absolutely rocked the stage yet again. It was awesome.”

Watch Travis reflect on Swift’s surprise Tight End University performance below.

The Foo Fighters‘ ongoing celebration of three decades of rocking continued on Wednesday morning (July 2) with the release of the soaring new single “Today’s Song.” The first bit of new music from the band since 2023’s But Here We Are album is a classic uplifting Foos anthem with lyrics a release describes as touching on “personal evolution and perseverance in the face of life’s uncertainty and the passage of time.”

“I woke today screaming for change, I knew that I must/ So here lies a shadow, ashes to ashes, dust into dust/ You know that nothing can prepare you, oh no/ Don’t let this cruel world compare you, oh no,” band leader Dave Grohl sings in a melancholy tone over spare organ backing in the song’s first verse. “Waiting for someone to repair you,” he adds before the track explodes into a classic Foos rave up. The song’s chorus hints at a crossroads of change and turbulence, with Grohl singing, “Two sides to a river/ Too troubled to cross/ It might take you under/ Today’s song/ We’ll drown in the middle/ Which side are you on/ One way or another/ Today’s song.”

In a note to fans written by singer/guitarist Grohl recounting his Thanksgiving 1994 first meal with bassist Nate Mendel and the band’s subsequent formation and early years on the road, he writes, “Over the years, we’ve had moments of unbridled joy, and moments of devastating heartbreak. Moments of beautiful victory, and moments of painful defeat. We have mended broken bones and broken hearts. But we have followed this road together, with each other, for each other, no matter what. Because in life, you just can’t go it alone.”

It continued, “It should go without saying that without the boundless energy of [original drummer] William Goldsmith, the seasoned wisdom of [former guitarist] Franz Stahl, and the thunderous wizardry of [recently departed drummer] Josh Freese, this story would be incomplete, so we extend our heartfelt gratitude for the time, music, and memories that we shared with each of them over the years. Thank you, gentlemen.”

The note includes with a special shout-out to beloved late drummer Taylor Hawkins, who took over from Goldsmith in 1997 and kept the beat for the band until his death at 50 in March 2022 while on tour with the Foos in Colombia. “And… Taylor. Your name is spoken every day, sometimes with tears, sometimes with a smile, but you are still in everything we do, everywhere we go, forever. The enormity of your beautiful soul is only rivaled by the infinite longing we feel in your absence. We all miss you beyond words. Foo Fighters will forever include Taylor Hawkins in every note that we play, until we do finally reach our destination.”

The missive ends with a scene from a recent long international flight Grohl took during which someone stuck a Post-It note to his seat with a mysterious message to “watch the lobster and the Rabbi.” Unsure what it meant, Grohl says his research revealed the cryptic phrase was tied to a story of growth.

“A lobster is a small, fleshy animal that lives within a hard, rigid shell, and as its body grows too large for its shell, it begins to feel discomfort. Once this happens, the lobster instinctively retreats to a safe place, sheds the smaller shell, grows a new one, and resurfaces,” he writes. “But eventually that new shell becomes uncomfortable as its body continues to grow, so it retreats again. New shell, new growth, over and over again. The point being that life’s challenges have a way of signaling the need for change and growth, so when that time comes, you retreat, rebuild, and resurface stronger than before. Something I’m sure that we all can relate to as human beings. And if you’re lucky, you share this process with the ones that you love the most, be they onstage or off.”

The single’s cover image of a white bird in flight with a single wing extended to the side was drawn by Grohl’s 15-year-old daughter, Harper Grohl. On Tuesday (July 1), the band also posted a series of dark, moody studio pics, featuring shots of equipment and what look like images of some members performing in the studio alongside a “2025 #FF30” caption.

The Foo Fighters’ self-titled 1995 debut just turned 30 and the band has been celebrating it with a series of throwback posts and a deep-dive Substack with notes, photos and items tied to the band’s 11 studio albums. Earlier this week, they also dropped a surprise cover of early influence Minor Threat’s 1981 hardcore classic “I Don’t Wanna Hear It,” with an instrumental track from 1995 and vocals recorded sometime this year.

The Foos are gearing up for a run of shows later this year, beginning with an October 2 gig in Jakarta at Carnaval Ancol, followed by an appearance at an F1 event in Singapore on Oct. 4 and shows in Tokyo and Osaka that month, as well as a slot at the Corona Capital festival in Mexico City on Nov. 14; at press time no information was available on who will play drums for those gigs.

Listen to “Today’s Song” and check out Grohl’s full note here (and listen to him read it below).

When Kapo released “Ohnana” in summer 2024, his only expectation was to “create music for a niche.” He didn’t hope for much, other than to have a certain number of loyal fans and play shows across a few cities in Colombia.

“My vision was that, but when the song came out, it entered the commercial side in an incredible way,” he tells Billboard. “That’s why I wanted to give my new album a sensible name like ‘in case anyone is listening to us.’”

If “Ohnana’s” success is any indication (the song earned Kapo his first Billboard No. 1 on the Latin Rhythm Airplay last fall), a lot of people are listening.

On July 3, Kapo (real name: Juan David Loaiza Sepúlveda) will release his sophomore studio album Por Si Alguien Nos Escucha, home to “Ohnana” and its follow-up hit “UWAIE,” which entered the Hot Latin Songs, Global 200 and Global Excl. U.S. last year.

The 15-track set — all composed of the Afrobeat, dancehall, reggae sounds and feel-good lyrics that made Kapo a household name — is a contrast to his debut album Tu OG Favorito (2023) that is more reggaeton-heavy. 

“For a long time, I’d been doing Afrobeat, but I didn’t dare,” the Colombian artist explains. “I had a lot of ideas and colors stored away. On the first album, I explored what I thought might work. … However, the songs that always worked for me were the ones that were very special, like ‘Pelinegra.’ The most personal songs are the ones that work for me. I began giving my music more meaning and to what truly made me feel most unique. This [new] album is a step forward, but more than that, it’s accepting and having the certainty that with my sounds I could achieve great things.” 

Por Si Alguien Nos Escucha includes notable collaborations with Myke Towers, Yandel, Manuel Turizo, Ryan Castro, Rels B, Lion Fiah and Feid on the focus track “X Ti.” 

“I feel like it’s a song that, besides being a great track, is a collaboration we’ve been working on for a long time,” he shares. “Feid is very passionate about music and has been giving us good vibes for a while. I told him a long time ago that I wanted to record a song with him. After ‘Ohnana,’ we managed to connect and get closer. He went into the studio and we created it. It’s a song that I feel will give a twist to what’s happening to me, and it’s one of those dream collaborations.”

Kapo is confirmed for the 2025 Billboard Latin Music Week taking place from Oct. 20 to 24, 2025 at the historic Fillmore Miami Beach. Spanning over 30 years, and recognized as the most influential week in Latin music, the event will once again celebrate the heartbeat of Latin music and culture with four days of panels, marquee conversations, roundtables, showcases, networking and activations.

“I really enjoy these spaces to meet with my colleagues, share cultures, experiences, and what’s happening to us. To talk about music and what we like. We’re going to enjoy that week, it’s going to be really cool,” he expresses.

Tickets are on sale now at BillboardLatinMusicWeek.com. The full schedule and lineup will be revealed in the coming weeks.

In spring 1980, a makeshift group of students at what was then Nashville’s Belmont College performed a version of Boz Scaggs‘ driving “Breakdown Dead Ahead,” with the 19-year-old guitarist ripping through Steve Lukather‘s original solo like he did it in his sleep.

That 19-year-old was Dann Huff, who — before the decade was over — would become a significant Los Angeles session player, working on recordings by Michael Jackson, Whitney Houston and Mariah Carey. He would also become the frontman for rock band Giant, but ultimately returned to his native Nashville, where he emerged as one of the most significant country producers of the last 25 years, playing a key role in the careers of Keith Urban, Rascal Flatts, Thomas Rhett and Kane Brown, to name just a few.

On May 30, Huff quietly released an independent guitar album, When Words Aren’t Enough, that returned him to his musical foundations. But the album —stripped entirely of any lyrical content — also provides an insightful guide into the skill set and core principles that vaulted him to his role in the country world, where he has been nominated 41 times for Country Music Association Awards, winning three musician of the year trophies and two as producer of the single of the year, Rhett’s “Die a Happy Man” and Urban’s “Blue Ain’t Your Color.”

“I heard this great statement the other day,” Huff says, looking back on the germination of Words. “In essence, the phrase was, ‘You’re trying to recognize your own soul through your art.’ And I just thought, ‘Oh, man.’ I was trying to recognize myself again, to see if I could recognize myself again.”

When Words Aren’t Enough reconnected Huff to the spirit in a string of instrumental (or mostly instrumental) albums that spun regularly on his turntable during his teen years. There was George Benson‘s Breezin’, received as a Christmas gift; projects by Nashville-based Barefoot Jerry and Georgia fusion band The Dixie Dregs; and guitar albums by Larry Carlton, Al DiMeola, Lee Ritenour and Jeff Beck, whose mid-’70s releases Blow by Blow and Wired were must-haves for many guitar wannabes in the era. Huff, of course, was the real deal, and he picked up a valuable lesson from Beck.

“What inspired me about him was that he wasn’t writing music or recording music that basically was an excuse to play a solo,” Huff explains. “It was predicated on melody. The melody was everything. It wasn’t an excuse to show off.”

Huff launched into Words while testing an amp at his home studio in early 2024. He grabbed some grooves he had created on his computer and began playing to them. Over the course of a couple of hours, he would end up with a fully formed song that he would label No. 1, No. 2, etc.,  until he had a full album’s worth of material. Initially, he planned to record them with a large cadre of session musicians he works with regularly, but drummer Jerry Roe and bassist Mark Hill connected with the material so deeply that they knocked out the core tracks in just a few days. 

Huff renamed those files before their release, titling them with descriptors that fit the mood, such as “Colorado Creepin’,” “Indefatigable Strut,” “Giant Free Fall” or “Southern Synchronicity.”

“Who the hell knows what you’re ever really trying to say in music,” he says rhetorically. “Especially with instrumental music.”

That points to one of the key tenets in Huff’s productions that’s detectable in When Words Aren’t Enough. He’s a “music first” guy in a genre where lyrics often dominate. But because he picks up on the sound of a song before the story hits home, he’s frequently connecting beneath the surface, recognizing the implicit feelings underneath the piece’s verbal cues.

“That’s the beauty of working with Dann,” Ashley Cooke says. “He’s such a ‘feel’ guy.”

Some other basic Huff traits are also evident in his new project. Even when the songs become adventurous, he’s careful to establish the basic melodic structure in the beginning, giving the listener a home base even as the music stretches out. The musicians are always working together as a unit — even though it’s a guitar album, the instrument doesn’t hog the spotlight. Additionally, there’s always an element of surprise: an unexpected chord, a change in instrumental textures or even a whole new melodic section. 

He is, as an instrumental soloist, the same guy who has overseen bundles of country hits and graced some old-school pop tracks.

“You can’t get away from yourself,” he says. “That’s the thing. I’m the same person in the derivations of all this stuff.”

When Words Aren’t Enough comes at a time when Huff, 64, is contemplating how he wants to spend the rest of his life. He intends to keep producing as long as there’s a market for his services, but returning to the spotlight is intriguing. At the urging of his musical peers, he expects to do some Nashville shows in the coming months, and he’s open to touring, too, if the interest is there. 

Ultimately, he seems intent on digging into music that connects at the soul level in whatever format makes sense. The future is wide open since he doesn’t have much left to prove. But he does have a better understanding of what his 19-year-old self was intuiting from those Beck albums: His technique is only a tool to help convey something deeper, even if he lacks the words to explain it.

“I used to play 12 hours a day,” he recalls. “That was it for decades, you know. For the last quarter of a century, I play guitar, but only in brief moments. I still know how to ride the bike.”