Karol G has much to revel in this week as her fifth studio album, Tropicoqueta, storms in atop Billboard’s Top Latin Albums chart (dated July 5). The set as also enters at No. 3 on the overall Billboard 200. Plus, she shatters her own record among female artists, landing 20 simultaneous songs on the Hot Latin Songs chart (18 debuts among those).

Tropicoqueta was released June 20 via Bichota/Interscope/ICLG. It debuts at No. 1 on the Top Latin Albums chart with 57,000 equivalent album units earned in the United States in the tracking week ending June 26, according to Luminate.

Biggest Latin Album Streaming Week by a Woman in 2025: Of Tropicoqueta’s first week-sum, streaming activity contributes 54,500 units, which translates to 74.64 million official on-demand audio and video streams of its songs. That’s the largest streaming week this year for a Latin album by a woman. Only one other Latin album overall has had bigger streaming weeks this year — Bad Bunny’s DebÍ Tirar Más Fotos, with eight weeks larger than Karol’s opening streaming number.

Tropicoqueta’s sales also contribute another 2,000 units, while track-equivalent album activity brings in the remaining 500 units. (On Top Latin Albums, one unit equals one album sale, 10 individual tracks sold from an album, or 3,750 ad-supported or 1,250 paid/subscription on-demand official audio and video streams for a song on the album.)

Thanks to Tropicoqueta bursting in at No. 1, Karol G collects her fourth consecutive chart-topper on Top Latin Albums. She enters an elite group of female artists who have achieved at least four No. 1 albums or more, after Jenni Rivera, Selena and Shakira who each boasts seven No. 1 albums, and matches Ednita Nazario, Gloria Trevi, Thalia, with four No. 1 sets each.

Here is Karol G’s activity on the Top Latin Albums chart dating back to her first entry in 2017:

Debut & Peak, Title, Debut Date, Weeks at No. 1
No. 2, Unstoppable, Nov. 18, 2017
No. 2, Ocean, May 18, 2019
No. 1, KG0516, April 10, 2021, one
No. 1, Mañana Será Bonito, March 11, 2023, five
No. 1, Mañana Será Bonito (Bichota Season), Aug 26, 2023, one
No. 1, Tropicoqueta, July 5

Elsewhere, Tropicoqueta launches as Karol’s third top 10 overall among six career entries on the overall Billboard 200, at No. 3, behind two English-language albums: Morgan Wallen’s I’m The Problem (in its sixth week at No. 1) and Benson Boone’s American Heart (No. 2 debut).

Breaks Own Record Among Women on Hot Latin Songs Chart: Building on her new chart-topping debut album, Karol G beats herself and sets a new record among women, landing 20 simultaneous songs on the multi-metric Hot Latin Songs chart, after she placed 16 concurrent songs in March 2023. 18 songs from Tropicoqueta debut on the chart that mixes airplay, streams and digital sales into its formula. Those join “Latina Foreva,” the highest-ranked song from the album, which rises 8-4. Plus, stand-alone single “Milagros,” at No. 45.

Here’s a recap of Karol G’s takeover on Hot Latin Songs this week:

No. 4, “Latina Foreva”
No. 5, “Papasito”
No. 9, “Verano Rosa,” with Feid
No. 11, “Coleccionando Heridas,” with Marco Antonio Solis
No. 13, “Ivonny Bonita”
No. 17, “Dile Luna,” with Eddy Lover
No. 18, “Amiga Mía,” with Greeicy
No. 20, “Un Gatito Me Llamó”
No. 21, “Cuando Me Muera Te Olvido”
No. 24, “Tu Perfume”
No. 28, “Ese Hombre Es Malo”
No. 29, “Bandida Entrenada”
No. 31, “No Puedo Vivir Sin Él”
No. 32, “FKN Movie,” with Mariah Angeliq
No. 37, “Tropicoqueta”
No. 38, “Viajando Por El Mundo,” with Manu Chao
No. 44, “Se Puso Linda”
No. 45, “Milagros”
No. 46, “A Su Boca La Amo (Interlude)”
No. 48, “La Reina Presenta”

All charts (dated July 5, 2025) will update on Billboard.com tomorrow, July 1. For all chart news, you can follow @billboard and @billboardcharts on both X, formerly known as Twitter, and Instagram.

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Not your average shades! Maluma is seeing things differently thanks to Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses.  

These glasses aren’t as they appear. The style is packed with futuristic capabilities that offer users a hands-free way to capture, share and livestream the moments that matter most. Our favorites of the moment, and Maluma’s too, are the Wayfarer and Skyler styles in glossy black. Both styles are currently available on Ray-Ban.com starting from $316.00.

The Skyler is a cat eye sunglass style that comes in three unique colorways with a slew of lens choices, also in different hues. The Wayfarer is a square-shaped traditional glasses style with blue light-filtering lenses. No matter the style, these Ray-Ban and Meta smart glasses let you take 12MP photos, 1040p videos, answer phone calls and engage with AI. You can snap photos, record videos and livestream on Facebook and Instagram with the glasses to share in real-time.

These bad boys will last for up to four hours, however, if they do die, they come in a chargeable case. You can mix and match lenses and frame colors on Ray-Ban’s website to create your perfect frames. For further customization options, you can get both styles’ prescriptions, adding a practical element to these futuristic spectacles.

The “Según Quién” singer, who starred in a campaign for Meta back in 2024, likes wearing them because they allow him to share his “unique point of view” with fans.

“They’re super simple to use and feel like the average pair of sunglasses, except now I am more present,” the 29-year-old singer explained in an email interview with Billboard before heading back home to Colombia for the holidays.

“My favorite thing about the glasses is that I can share my unique point of view while living my life, enjoying moments with family and friends and even while on stage.” Ray-Ban and Meta tapped Maluma, Erykah Badu, Coi Leray and Coco Gauff for the campaign. Each celeb was styled in either the Meta Wayfarer and Meta Headliner smart glasses.

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“I wear glasses all the time, so I like to match the glasses with my outfit but also the vibes of the day,” he explained of his favorite style of glasses. “Sometimes I wear a classic Wayfarer and other moments I go bold and bright. I even wore the Ray-Ban Meta Wayfarer during my Latin Grammys performance [last November].”

All products and services featured are independently chosen by editors. However, Billboard may receive a commission on orders placed through its retail links, and the retailer may receive certain auditable data for accounting purposes.

Celebrating its fifth year in the Hamptons, Palm Tree Music Festival kicked off summer with a sun-soaked, Don Julio-filled party at Southampton’s Shinnecock Reservation on June 21. Crowds of revelers came out to get sweaty, dance and party to vibrant sets from a jam-packed DJ lineup, including Fisher, Kygo, Mau P, Coco & Breezy, Tinx & Lucas, Benjamin Lloyd, Beau Cruz and Blond:ish.

Taking a quick break from Ibiza, Blond:ish brought the Mediterranean energy to the Hamptons, giving festivalgoers a taste of her historic Abracadabra residency show, performing hit songs like “Never Walk Alone” and blending a wide array of house sounds for a set full of good vibrations. The producer/DJ/label owner/philanthropist began her 11-week residency at clubbing institution Pacha last month, becoming the first female-led headlining residency at the venue and breaking the attendance record shortly after. With a new album out earlier this year, a record-breaking residency show, and a precious newborn turning 1 soon, 2025 has become a year of milestones for the Canadian artist.

Billboard caught up with the “Never Walk Alone” producer before her set at Palm Tree Music Festival to discuss her historic female-led headlining residency, favorite pre-show rituals, and memorable crowd interactions. Check out the interview below.

How does it feel to have your first residency in Ibiza?

I went to Ibiza for the first time 15 years ago. I was 18, a really little chicken, and I understood the hustle there because back then I didn’t have any money, and I was hustling. So, just getting around was a hustle, and getting into all the parties, the villa parties, and just learning how it works. It’s obviously amazing, but every single day of my life in the past six months has just been about, “How do we make this a success?” And we’re killing it.

There’s so many marketing levers. Everyone does business in a different way, so you gotta navigate so many layers of sh–. But then you have this incredible thing on the surface that looks amazing. You can feel that people were ready for something like this in Ibiza, because you always get a similar offering, but this is different. This is more intentional, more of a feminine energy, but gangster.

Did your first headlining Ibiza show feel different from any other set you’ve done?

Yes, because it’s ours and the beautiful thing is that it’s not just one week, it’s 11 weeks! So every week you can iterate. We have this blackout moment where we just fake that all the power goes out, and then that creates a moment of connection. Because that’s what we try to do with abracadabras. Bring more connection in little, tiny ways that aren’t obvious. Like, “Hey, guys connect now.” People start talking and you might meet someone. I’m on the dance floor hugging people all around, I acknowledge people, you know. That’s what the audience wants.

Any fun pre-show rituals before getting onstage?

There’s thousands of people out there, and everyone comes with a different mood, different energy. Everyone’s going through different sh–. I have to put on a little protection bubble out there because everything I do is energy. Everything is energy. So, I just make a little protective bubble around me. Do some Qigong, a five-minute little ritual where I could just reset and get grounded, so that the energy I put out is pure and is optimized and efficient as possible. And then I have a tiny sip of tequila, like a tiny kiss.

Which type of Don Julio tequila do you like best: Blanco, Reposado, Anejo?

The brown bottle. [Points at a bottle of Don Julio 1942 tequila.]

What’s your preferred way to drink tequila: neat, on the rocks, or a cocktail? If a cocktail, what kind?

I used to drink a lot of Mezcal because I lived in Tulum for a few years. That’s just the culture there, and then as I started touring more internationally, like Mexico, I switched to tequila. I love spicy margaritas. I like to feel like I’m in the deep jungles of Tulum at the best restaurant ever.

What’s a song that instantly transports you into a good mood?

There’s this NYPD mashup of Temper Trap that is really “housey” and has these big strings, and it goes down a fifth, and it just creates this crazy energy. I’ll play it today. I saw that it makes everyone else happy, so it makes me happy when everyone else is happy. I’m always doing music, so it’s more of a utility now for me. I have to get prepared for a show, I have to go dig for music, and then I have to play the music. So, when I’m not DJing, like, in the car, I’m not really listening to music. I appreciate the silence and listening to the sounds around me.

The word “energy” seems to be a really important term for you. How would you describe your energy?

Every single word we say has energy. You’re an energy, whatever those guys are doing over there, every decision we make, every single thing, every song, is a resident frequency. That’s kind of what I found to be the key to life. If you frame everything as energy, and you always ask yourself, “Does it take my energy? Is it giving me energy?” Then life starts to flow more. So that’s why I mentioned energy a lot, and that’s why I double down on it. So when you say, how would you describe your music? Yeah, I would just say it’s energetic, you feel an energy. I don’t want to overuse that word, but that’s exactly what it is.

When it comes to great energy, there’s always this close connection between you and the crowd. Sometimes they’ve asked for hugs or brought you a whole pizza during your set. What’s the most fun/memorable crowd interaction that you’ve experienced while DJing?

We had a bunch of people come to a show with tinfoil hats!

Tinfoil hats? Is there a meaning behind it?

There’s a lot of meanings, like people who are anti-system, people who don’t go with the norm of society but for this, it’s more about protecting yourself from magnetic energy.

How has your onstage presence evolved throughout your career?

It’s all inspired by the feedback I get in my comments and the DMs. Honestly, that’s where we create all the culture. I noticed when I reply to people in my DMs, I see how appreciative they are. I understood, oh, okay, people want to be acknowledged, even if I’m just making eye contact with them, copying their dance moves when I’m DJing. We try to understand these little moments of connection. They really appreciate the hugs.

What do you want fans to take away after experiencing your set?

I have a baby now. He’s almost 1, and to see his pure face, like pure happiness, makes me question, “Why do we lose that going through life?” So my goal is to bring us as close as we can back to that pure happiness. I just want people to live their best life. Through Abracadabra and my performances, all these seeds that we’re planting, and also through the music, I hope that everyone can open the road to living their best life.

Lorde‘s new album Virgin is chock-full of the rawest, most vulnerable songs she’s ever written. And in a post celebrating the project three days after its release, the pop star revealed which of those tracks was by far the most difficult to create (while also appearing to tease a deluxe version of the album).

Sharing the Virgin album cover via Instagram on Monday (June 30), Lorde asked fans to comment their favorite songs on the track list before sharing “some L4 facts” in list form. For instance, the singer writes that “David” was the first song she started but one of the last ones she finished, while the last song she started was “Clearblue.”

The track that challenged her most, however, was “Favourite Daughter,” according to the post. “Hardest song was FD, to write, to produce, to sing,” Lorde shared in her caption. “Kicked my a–.”

It’s easy to see why “Favourite Daughter” might have given Lorde a run for her money. Placed fifth on the Virgin tracklist, it cuts right to the heart of the Grammy winner’s complicated relationship with her mother, poet Sonja Yelich.

“Panic attack just to be your favorite daughter,” Lorde sings on the Jim-E Stack-produced anthem. “Everywhere I run, I’m always running to ya/ Breaking my back to carry the weight of your heart.”

Also in her post, the musician talked about sampling Dexta Daps’ “Morning Love” in “Current Affairs” after dreaming about doing so for eight years — “It’s so sexy and murky to me, and I loved the contrast w the really organic fragile guitar stuff,” she wrote — and opened up about experiencing “constant insomnia” while making Virgin. “I wrote most of the [“Favourite Daughter”] lyrics, [“Current Affairs”] first verse, “Clearblue” and “David” second verse right before dawn,” Lorde revealed.

But one fact that will be sure to catch fans’ eyes in particular is that, according to Lorde, she scrapped a song from the tracklist “last minute” — but it might just surface someday. “I thought it diluted the vision!” the New Zealand native wrote of the cut track. “One of my absolute favs that I wrote with Fabi.”

She then hinted, “Couple really good B sides knocking around actually.”

Released June 27, Virgin marks Lorde’s first full-length in four years. Despite debuting more than a decade ago, the star had only released three albums prior to the new LP: Pure Heroine (2013), Melodrama (2017) and Solar Power (2021). All three of those projects reached the top 10 of the Billboard 200.

Lorde is now gearing up to embark on her Ultrasound World Tour in support of Virgin, kicking off Sept. 17 in Texas. In her post, the musician teased: “Love u, thank u so much for listening. Got a show to cook now.”

See Lorde’s post below.

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Ja Rule clowned his longtime foe 50 Cent after a video circulated allegedly showing a low concert turnout for the G-Unit leader.

On Monday (June 30), Ja hopped on X to respond to a fan who had antagonized the rapper by showing that one of 50 Cent’s UK tour dates is entirely sold out. The Final Lap tour date was part of a special 2-for-1 offer the G-Unit leader offered in London. Ja clowned him for even having such an offer, which prompted the fan to post a screenshot of the sold-out date.

“You sure bout that???” Ja wrote alongside a video of a crowd that didn’t fill the whole floor. “Ain’t nobody coming to see you Otis… I mean Curtis.”

This should come as no surprise considering 50 Cent and Ja Rule have been at odds for years. Most recently, 50 claimed that he bought tickets to one of Ja’s shows to make sure seats would be left empty.

“I did [buy Ja Rule’s tickets]. They were cheap tickets,” he told Big Boy back in December. “The tickets were very affordable. They were on StubHub. I bought the first four rows.”

He added: “I looked at it and said, ‘I just want you to feel like you gotta reach the people, four or five rows back…It wasn’t that big of a sacrifice. I’ve bought things that mean less to me. That was fun, watching the show and seeing the spaces are empty because they were reserved for someone else.”

Check out the clip below.

You sure bout that??? Ain’t nobody coming to see you Otis…. I mean Curtis 👀🤣 https://t.co/W9YE5poUJe pic.twitter.com/Pq5ex5SoPh

— Ja Rule (@jarule) June 29, 2025