Karol G has revealed the full tracklist to her fifth studio album, Tropicoqueta, out this Friday (June 20).

“Intense chapters, unexpected twists, endearing characters. This is the official Track Listing for this new story of my life!” the Colombian star captioned her post revealing her new tunes. “Each song has its own story. Each collaboration has its own reason.”

The 20-set album kicks off with “La Reina Presenta” (“The Queen Presents”) and wraps with the title track. The previously released “Si Antes Te Hubiera Conocido” and “Latina Foreva” are part of the set. The former, a sweet merengue that Karol dropped last summer, reached No. 1 on the Billboard Hot Latin Songs, Latin Airplay and Tropical Airplay charts.

The tracklist reveals she reeled in key collaborators for Tropicoqueta, including Panamanian reggae plena artist Eddy Lover on “Dile Luna”; Mexican crooner Marco Antonio Solís on “Coleccionando Heridas”; Colombian pop star Greeicy on “Amiga Mía”; French-Spanish reggae star Manu Chao on “Viajando Por El Mundo”; and for a second collaborative effort, Mariah Angeliq on “FKN Movie.”

Notably, track No. 13 is empty, but if fans search for “Karol G” on Google, they will be led to a clue that hints it could be another collaboration with Feid, following their 2021 “FRIKI.” (Spoiler alert: The screen reads “canción 13 feat. ????” accompanied by a green heart.)

Tropicoqueta is set to be a nostalgic and personal project on which La Bichota recently said she’s “going back to the roots, to the songs I grew up listening to, to the sounds that made me fall in love with music.”

See the complete tracklist below:

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Independent music platform Create Music Group (CMG) has formed a joint venture with Star Trak Entertainment and its co-founder Rob Walker, Billboard can exclusively report. Under the terms of the new partnership, CMG will provide worldwide distribution, technology and marketing services to Star Trak.

As noted in the press release announcing the agreement, the joint venture also doubles as the “official relaunch of one of music’s most iconic imprints.” Star Trak was established by The Neptunes, the production duo comprised of Pharrell Williams and Chad Hugo, and Walker in 2001. Initially an imprint under Arista Records, Star Trak shifted to Virgin Records and then Interscope Geffen A&M Records before ending operations in 2015. The Star Trak roster included Clipse, N.E.R.D., Snoop Dogg, Kelis, Robin Thicke and Teyana Taylor. Among the hits the label released were Snoop Dogg and Williams’ “Drop It Like It’s Hot,” Clipse’s “Grindin” by Clipse and N.E.R.D.’s “She Wants to Move.”

Beyond co-founding Star Trak, Walker also managed The Neptunes. His resumé  includes a tenure as a talent agent at UTA. He also co-founded the Billionaire Boys Club and its Ice Cream clothing line with Williams and Japanese fashion designer Nigo.

About the new joint venture, Walker said in a statement, “This isn’t just about bringing Star Trak back,” said Walker in a statement. “it’s about building a new chapter rooted in where we’ve been and built for where we’re headed. The energy and vision that helped shape a generation is entering a new era. With Create as our partner, we’re giving artists the space to move differently, think bigger and tap into an ecosystem of brands and collaborators that Star Trak has cultivated over the years.”

“We are honored to partner with Rob as he kicks off the next chapter of Star Trak,” added Kyle Bartelman, director of global corporate development and M&A at Create Music Group. “Rob’s creative vision and industry experience will uniquely position our artists for success with their music and beyond. We’re excited to have Star Trak join the CMG family, and we can’t wait to support Rob and the next wave of Star Trak talent.”

CMG also recently announced the launch of another joint venture with Ty Dolla $ign’s EZMNY Records, whose roster includes R&B artist Leon Thomas.

Nezza took a big risk when she sang the national anthem in Spanish at a recent Los Angeles Dodgers game, despite being instructed not to — and as a result, the musician says she is no longer “welcome” at the stadium. 

In an interview with Variety published Tuesday (June 17) — two days after Nezza performed the anthem in Spanish out of solidarity with the immigrant families who have been targeted by recent ICE raids in L.A. — the singer said that she was asked not to return before she even “set foot out of” Dodger Stadium.  

“As I was walking back out, we received a call, and they were like, ‘Don’t ever email us again,’” she told the publication. “‘Don’t ever call us again. Your clients are never welcome here ever again.’”  

The anecdote directly contrasts with a statement previously shared by the team, according to Variety. “There were no consequences or hard feelings from the Dodgers regarding her performance,” a spokesperson for the Dodgers said. “She was not asked to leave. We would be happy to have her back.” 

In response to the team’s statement, Nezza says she was “confused.” “I don’t know who’s not communicating over there, or if they don’t know that she said that to us, and they’re now learning that,” she told the publication. “But yeah, no one’s reached out directly to us yet.” 

Billboard has reached out to a rep for the L.A. Dodgers for comment. 

Nezza was left in tears Sunday after a team official asked her to refrain from singing in Spanish, a video of which the Latin pop musician shared with followers on TikTok. “We are gonna do the song in English today,” an off-camera woman tells a visibly disappointed Nezza in the clip, which has garnered millions of views. “I’m not sure if that wasn’t relayed.” 

The California native would go on to perform in Spanish anyway, later telling followers that she’d done so with respect to the struggles much of L.A.’s Latin population is facing amid the Donald Trump administration’s immigration crackdowns and explaining that the version she sang was commissioned by the U.S. government in 1945. To Variety, Nezza said that she’d originally offered to sing the anthem in both English and Spanish, but was never given a clear answer, up until the official captured in her TikTok told her that she could do it only in English. 

“It truly felt so … I don’t want to say personal,” she recalled of being told “no.” “It just hit me harder than anything has in my entire life. And that’s what fueled me at the end of the day — and seeing everybody in the stands … And then she made me do it again in English, and sat there and watched me to make sure that I did it in English.” 

“I wasn’t being like, ‘Oh, this is gonna make headlines,’” Nezza added. “I truly just did it from the bottom of my heart, to inspire everyone. Because when I looked up at the stadium, 90% of the people in the stands were Latino. So I was like, ‘How am I not gonna do this today — on today of all days?’ So I looked around and I was like, ‘I have to. I have to.’” 

Academy Award-winning director Christopher Nolan inspired a generation of filmmakers in the 21st century, but who would’ve expected his impact to reach a 20-year-old fashion student-turned-rapper?

Enter Molly Santana. In an era where Gen-Z rappers seem to have a disregard for album rollouts, Santana wanted to invite fans to be a part of something bigger. After discovering Nolan had made his first feature film, Following, with a frugal $6,000 budget, Santana felt there was no excuse not to bring her directorial dreams to life.

Santana starred in a week-long series of trailers making up a short film leading into her Molly & Her Week of Wonders album. Pulling on the dreamy horrors of 1971’s Valerie & Her Week of Wonders and Nolan’s Momento as inspiration, Santana settled on an eerie art film that has drawn comparisons to rap’s Midsommar.

“You can leave so much more up for interpretation,” she tells Billboard of her dialogue-less plot. “I wanted to make sure people were talking about the album and try my best to make sure people felt like they were in it. I wanted you to feel like you’re in the world. That was my main goal.”

Prior to the short film’s origins, at the top of 2025, Santana traded the bright lights of Los Angeles for the plains of Wyoming, where there was nothing to do but make music. Molly & Her Week of Wonders began to take shape as she escaped the creative shackles and pressures of L.A. for the stillness of Wyoming.

“I think it really helped me be able to let everything come out,” Santana says of her Wyoming trip. “If I would’ve recorded everything in L.A., it would’ve been manufactured. We would’ve been way less creative and I would’ve had way less control over it.”

Filled with 19 tracks, Santana’s sophomore LP arrived on May 30, expanding on her maximalism of rage rap. At times, her timbre is reminiscent of Rihanna with a flow that could make her the First Lady of Playboi Carti’s Opium crew.

Dive into our interview with Molly Santana as she dishes on her Hollywood aspirations, Project X-inspired 21st birthday plans and hopes to work with Dej Loaf and Hayley Williams.

What was the creative process for the album?

I recorded it in Wyoming. It was in January to February. We did a few more sessions in L.A. after. I had met up with a few more producers. I met up with WondaGurl — we made music too. I feel like my next album is gonna be different, but this one was very heartfelt and personal. The more I move into different phases of my career, it’s gonna get a little less personal. This one, I was super vulnerable. We were so far away from everybody. There was nothing to do. There was not a single Black person. I don’t know what I got myself into.

I enjoyed the roll-out with the short film. What was your intention there?

My marketing only goes so far putting my face on stuff and being like, “Listen to this song.” I’m just a girl. When I finally decided on the album name, I just randomly was like, “I should do a week of trailer.” The fact that it was based off a movie was a big part of me doing it. First, Valerie & Her Week of Wonders, and Momento. He always be talking about Christopher Nolan and how he did his first movie for $6,000. Then we got no excuses if he could do it for $6,000. I met this director who shoots 35mm. Talking to a director helped me realize if I wanna make something about me or my art, then I’m gonna have to steer the whole thing. He was like, “You have to tell me exact ways of how you want me to help you write this out.”

I was like, “I’m gonna go write [it] myself.” I wanted to make every day related to the planet that rules the day. That was the foundation. I had no idea what I wanted the story to be like. The idea was first to make it of me and a little version of me following me throughout the whole week. I was like, “We need a director and a child actor and it needs to have dialogue.” Then I thought to make an art film then because it’s so much easier.

I saw a bunch of chatter about it and someone called it rap’s Midsommar. A lot of artists don’t take rollouts seriously anymore. It’s just, “Here’s the music.”

I would do that, but it’s so sad that way. It’s like birthing a child and no baby shower. Nobody gets to come celebrate it. 

Do you want to do movies in the future or acting?

For sure. We be talking about how we want to be directors so bad. We want to be a director trio and the next movie is gonna be us in the director’s chair. I would love to do that. It was so fun. There’s so many different things you can do in film. I like to put my hand in everything and paint in different ways. Nothing was more fun than that. 

You enjoyed the short film more than making the album?

No, but I think the result of it was way more refreshing to watch than listening to the album. I love listening to the album and I was so happy when I was done with it, but there’s something about the film. You can put music in it, style everybody, have people you care about in it and it was fun to watch. It was a new thing for me. It’s like a new toy. 

Do any tracks have a cool backstory tied to them from the album?

There was supposed to be a Don Toliver song on this album. S–t just be changing last minute. Yeah, we only did one song, though. I’m trying to get something soon. 

I saw people asking, “Where is ‘Backstabber?’”

It’s just hard to clear. It’s a Kesha sample. I don’t even know if she can do it for us. Kesha literally said she likes my music. She said she really likes “Chain Swangin.” I was on the phone with her at the end of the Don Toliver tour. I was randomly on FaceTime with her. I need to try a little bit harder, like, “Girly, please!” I think she heard my music on her own. My old A&R [at Capitol Records] saw Kesha in the airport and ran up on her and put her on FaceTime. That s–t was so funny. I was getting an IV for the first time in my life. They’re nice, but they’re not that effective when you’re sick. I was still sick when I used it. I definitely had way more energy. I think that’s how you’re supposed to feel as a human with all those nutrients. I felt alive after it. 

How has the reception to the album been?

I haven’t seen anyone say nothing too crazy. I see people say these songs are misses and I’m like, “How?” They all say different stuff so I know it’s opinion-based. I haven’t watched any reviews yet. I love watching people’s reviews so I can hear what they actually say in depth. I wanna see the person behind it and what else they review. 

What’s the plan for the 21st birthday this year?

I don’t know. I wanna have the craziest Project X party. I wanna set a whole neighborhood on fire, secretly, in my wildest dreams. I wanna go somewhere where there’s crazy animals or something I haven’t done that my child self would wanna do. 

What made Victor Victor Worldwide the right place for you?

When I signed there, everybody I talked to was personal. Labels are corporate and working a job for real. Don’t really care about you outside of it. The people I met at Victor Victor have real personalities. That’s why I gravitated [towards signing there], because it’s real humans and not just an office. 

What’s the biggest difference as an artist from when you weren’t signed to now?

You really do lose a little bit of freedom since you’re not independent. I don’t feel like much has changed, but I learned more. Learned how to work a team and lead better. If I never signed, it would’ve taken me three years to understand what I do now. I think I learned too much sometimes and I want to go back. Take me back before the red pill. When I see artists that don’t know what the f–k is going on, I’m like, “Damn, stay over there. Don’t come to the label systems.” It’s fun over there. The meme of Squidward looking outside his window. I’m like the Squidward — you kids go have fun. 

What’s been the toughest part being a woman in rap and being that young? Has it been tough to get taken seriously?

For sure. I feel like I battle it every day. I be wishing I was a guy. I wish I could roll up outside and have my hair like I just woke up and my t-shirt has a stain on it and girls will still be like, “Oh my God.” I wish, bro. Men got it real good. There’s some guys I’m looking at like, the uglier they get, the more the women like them. The dirtier they look, the women are like, “Oh, I like this guy.” I’m like, “Why?” Looking chopped and they love it. I wish I was a man sometimes. I be holding myself at gunpoint for real, figuratively. 

What fashion trends are you messing with now?

Women are dressing super fire recently. There’s a new surge of women, it’s like Yeezy coming back, but [for] women. The first few seasons — season four and before. The way how women can dress right now and they’re making it look cool, I f—k with. Even Billie Eilish and the big-ass [clothes] I f —k with. 

How was it growing up between Cali and Japan?

I would visit Japan in the summer. Growing up in California is interesting. [New Yorkers] are way more smart than Southern California. Southern California people are very slow and talk like this. We’re really laid back. Life is like a joke out there almost. They’re like demons out there. You have something on that looks cool, “Who are you? Where do you work? What car are you driving?” It’s so weird. It’s Instagram in real life. I love California. Good food and great weather, but lame socialization and partying. 

You have so many different looks and one of my co-workers asked if they were all the same person. Does your driver’s license picture look different to the point that you get stopped?

The only time I be looking crazy different is if I know I’m gonna be on camera or take photos. My license right now is funny and the lady at TSA asked if I drew on it with a Sharpie because I have black grills in it. I was like, “Girl, this is not a yearbook photo. I’m not gonna draw on my license like a five-year-old.” Someone was calling me a shape-shifter the other day. It was my first time doing a beauty shoot and they had my photo hung up with black hair and black grills and I showed up with blonde hair and blonde eyebrows. They were like, “That doesn’t even look like you, you’re a shape-shifter.” One day I’ma get like a chameleon and walk around and be twins. 

How was Paris Fashion Week?

So great. I felt like a little girl. I never been to Europe or nothing. It was my first time being in Paris and my first big Fashion Week. I never been to any shows. I had just quit going to school for fashion a few months before adjusting to music. I got to Fashion Week quicker doing music. How does that work?

Who would we find on your playlist right now? Do you listen to yourself?

I’m not gonna lie, I be streaming myself. I been listening to this one song by Future, “Incredible.” It’s on HNDRXX. I just listened to the new Rico [Nasty] album. I listened to some of the Plaqueboymax. 

I’ve been listening to the PinkPantheress tape a lot.

She’s so fire. One day I really want to link up with her. 

What do you want to get into outside of music?

Really just the film. Really want to get into modeling. I want to inspire people and use me as their muse. I don’t want to be the person leading everything. I just want to be more involved in other people’s worlds. Have more artistic connections. I found more people that do stuff that I f—k with like painting and creative direction. I’m realizing I can be friends with these people now because I’ve built myself up to build a portfolio and explain who I am so now they f—k with me. When I was a little kid I wanted to be in a collective of people and now I can start building it. 

Who else is on your dream collaborator list?

I really want to work with Dej Loaf so bad. It don’t even gotta come out. I just wanna meet her and see what she got going on. Future and Chief Keef. We just did a session with Bryson Tiller, but we didn’t do anything. It was intros. I really want to work with him. I want to work with Hayley Williams so bad. 

Where do you see yourself in 10 years? What’s the goal?

2035, oh my gosh. Probably with a kid and a family, hopefully. This country is not looking like there’s many good family contenders. In 10 years, hopefully I’ll have a movie or be part of a movie in some way. Executive producer or something. I gotta have [my own] clothes by then. 

Hotline TNT has become synonymous with the burgeoning music scene in the Queens neighborhood of Ridgewood, New York. But for the indie-rock band’s latest album, Raspberry Moon, it decamped far from the city to Appleton, Wisconsin.

“It was a full circle for a lot of reasons,” frontman and onetime Wisconsinite Will Anderson tells Billboard from his Ridgewood home, his pet chihuahua perched on his bed behind him. “Being back in my home state definitely was part of the appeal.”

For more than a decade, Anderson, 36, has been something of a transcontinental indie-rock journeyman: After one of his former bands, the Vancouver-based Weed, earned some buzz in the mid-’10s, he kept making music as a hobby in Minneapolis – while he pursued a graduate degree to become a guidance counselor – before eventually landing in New York City shortly before the pandemic began.

Anderson had already been releasing music under the Hotline TNT moniker for a couple years, but the project blossomed as live music got back up and running in 2021. Fans quickly gravitated to Hotline TNT’s debut album, 2021’s Nineteen in Love, and Anderson grew his following by picking up coveted support slots for buzzy indie bands like Snail Mail, Momma and Horsegirl.

But when Hotline TNT made its Third Man Records debut with its second album, Cartwheel, in late 2023, it exploded. The set of anthemic shoegaze and power-pop gems earned raves from indie-rock tastemakers and catapulted Hotline TNT to the forefront of the genre – even if Anderson wryly shrugs off the success as “right place, right time.”

Which brings the story back to Appleton. When it came time to make another record, Anderson chased down Amos Pitsch, best known for fronting the punk band Tenement, to record it with him at his studio in the Wisconsin town. And in a first for Hotline TNT, whose studio recordings had previously been the work of Anderson alone, the band’s touring quartet made the record together, across two sessions totaling a week. So while Raspberry Moon mostly sounds like the Hotline TNT fans already know and love, it pulses with the energy that only a full band can bring to the studio – and has a smattering of adornments, courtesy of Pitsch, that differentiate it from Hotline’s previous work.

For Anderson, all these small changes added up. “If you get into a time machine and change one little thing, it could have ripple effects, you know?” he says. “That’s the whole thing. This is very much a snapshot of what happened in this timeline.”

How did coming up with other young bands from the region, like Snail Mail and Momma, help Hotline TNT break out a few years ago?

Early on, when we played with Snail Mail and Momma, that was a pretty important cosign that made other people took notice – and this was kind of before even we were on streaming services.

You initially released Nineteen in Love exclusively on YouTube, as one long track. Why?

It comes up over and over again: “Why did you do that?” I push back against the narrative that it wasn’t accessible – because it was on YouTube. This is, like, the number one most accessible free platform; you don’t have to have an account, anything like that. Yeah, it wasn’t presented in the way that people are used to consuming music – like, “I want my Spotify playlist” or whatever – but it’s still there. You can still listen to it anytime you want, for free. The choice was aesthetic more than anything. I wanted to present the album in a way that I had curated, basically, which was “I want the songs to be listened to in this order.” I kind of liked the idea of making it a little bit harder for people to skip around to their favorite songs.

Then you signed with Third Man Records. How have they supported you, with Cartwheel and now Raspberry Moon?

Well, that was the end of the YouTube strategy. [Laughs.] No, they’ve been great. As you can probably guess, I was pretty hesitant to have anyone besides myself handling the release strategy – or, I mean, there wasn’t really a strategy [before], it was just like, I’m doing things the way I want to do it. Getting involved with, for lack of a better word, music industry people, has been a growing process for me. But, overall, they’ve made it pretty painless. They let me handle the creative side of things: “Cool, here’s a budget. Go do your thing.” I think it’s gone pretty well. I love working with them. I hope we can keep doing it for a long time.

You’re managed by Rusty Sutton and Libby Webster of The Glow Management, which also represents Wednesday and MJ Lenderman – and in Raspberry Moon’s liner notes, you thank “everybody in the Wendesday and Lenderman extended universe.” When did you start working with Rusty?

Right before Cartwheel came out. We met him through playing with Jake [Lenderman] and [Wednesday’s] Karly [Hartzman]. We’re definitely a different lane than those guys, but hopefully we can carve our own path. When I need Rusty’s help, he’s there for me. He’s guided me through a lot of difficult situations, and I appreciate him a lot.

You did a big tour supporting Wednesday in early 2024, right after Cartwheel dropped. How did you adjust to playing bigger rooms?

That’s been easy for me. Not to toot my own horn, but every time we play a big show, I feel like I thrive in those moments. Especially if we’re a support band, I feel like I’m like, “You guys don’t know who we are. I’m about to blow your minds. I’m gonna change your night. We’re gonna be way louder than the headliner.” If there’s heads to convert, that’s kind of my favorite setting. I want us to be the headliner, don’t get me wrong. But in the meantime, this is how we’re gonna play in front of 1,000 people – I have a bit of an antagonist in me that’s like, “You don’t think we’re gonna be capable, but we are. So, check this out.”

Tell me about the decision to record Raspberry Moon as a full band, rather than on your own.

It was just a matter of circumstance, really. It’s harder than one might think to find people who are down to tour as much as we do; these four people, including me, were down to do it. They deserve to be a part of every aspect of the band, whether it’s recording or songwriting or touring. It’s not fair to be like “Alright, guys, thanks for your work. Now I’m gonna do all the creative stuff with the record.”

What do Amos and Tenement mean to you, and what did he add to this record?

I met Amos [when he was] playing in a different band, Technicolor Teeth. They were kind of my favorite live band that I had ever seen. I saw them twice, and they blew my mind both times. Tenement I didn’t come to till later, but I love all the Tenement records and everything Amos has done. He’s got the Midas touch, in my opinion.

I wanted to see what happened when he got involved. After we finished tracking everything, I told Amos, “I want you to go through the whole album and add whatever you hear, on your own.” So a lot of the stuff you hear on this album, we weren’t even in the studio. We obviously wrote all the songs and recorded all the guitars and drums and everything, but then, any piano you hear, vibraphone, there’s some soaring vocal harmonies – that’s all Amos. I kind of wanted him to be like a fifth member of the band for this recording project, and I think he delivered.

What’s next for Hotline TNT?

A lot of touring. Just started demoing for the new album. I know it sounds like, “Oh, you’re already back in the studio?” Like, yeah. I mean, what else are we gonna do? That’s the job. It’ll take a while for us to have another album, for sure, but I’m already thinking about it and excited about it – but I’m excited to see how this one goes.

What’s been on Hotline TNT’s playlist?

Currently, we’re all really hooked on this band The Tubs. Really obsessed with both their albums, but the new one [2025’s Cotton Crown] especially captured our attention in a major way. We listen to a lot of ML Buch, a lot of Daryl Johns. And then all the classics: Red House Painters, Teenage Fanclub, early My Bloody Valentine.