Next up on the radar for Billboard News’ Trending Up, presented by Sonesta International Hotels, is the world of indie pop and we have the latest acts you should have on your radar. 

In our new installment of Trending Up, we’re diving into the indie pop/rock music space and the stars making a buzz in the genre. If you’re a fan of anthemic indie pop/rock, then you must keep The Aces and Beach Bunny on your radar. The former is taking their show to Austin, Texas on June 22. While you’re in Texas, you can make your visit much more than a concert with a stay at Sonesta Bee Cave Austin Hill Country. This modern hotel features over 195 spacious rooms and suites with a resort-style swimming pool, rooftop restaurant and bar and easy access to Austin’s live music scene.

Later in the summer, Beach Bunny will touch down for a show in St. Louis, Missouri on July 27. Fans can make it more than a concert by staying at The Royal Sonesta Chase Park Plaza St. Louis. This historic 398-room hotel is located in the midst of the Central West End. Not only does it boast a Mediterranean-style swimming pool and on-site dining, but there’s even a movie theater if fans want to cool down amid the heat.  

Stay tuned for more artists to keep on your radar in upcoming installments of Billboard News’ Trending Up, presented by Sonesta.   

Sabrina Carpenter turned 27 on Monday (May 11), which means it’s the perfect time to decide: Which of her Billboard hits is the best?

To date, the pop star has notched six top 10 smashes on the Billboard Hot 100. After frequenting the chart just a few times prior — including with Emails I Can’t Send singles “Feather” and “Nonsense” — Carpenter exploded into the mainstream with her Short n’ Sweet era in 2024, which kicked off with the pre-album release of single “Espresso” and its peak at No. 3 on the chart. Soon after, she scored her first and second No. 1s on the chart with “Please Please Please” and “Tears,” respectively.

The next year, Carpenter climbed right back to the top of the Hot 100 with “Manchild,” the lead single from her seventh studio album, Man’s Best Friend. And while the odds are certainly high that she’ll continue adding to her top 10 tally as her career continues to bloom, her last track to reach the milestone so far was “The Life of a Showgirl.” After the Grammy winner served as an opener on the Eras Tour, Taylor Swift tapped her to appear as a guest vocalist on the Life of a Showgirl title track, which peaked at No. 8.

But which of those hits is Carpenter’s best to date? As she celebrates another year around the sun and enjoys her first day as a 27-year-old, vote for your favorite of the singer-actress’ biggest songs in the poll below.

Kevin Hart knew he was going to take some big hits during Sunday night’s (May 10) Netflix The Roast of Kevin Hart. The Kia Forum capper to the final night of this year’s Netflix is a Joke festival was hosted by comedian Shane Gillis and featured comedic tranquilizer darts from the likes of Pete Davidson, Chelsea Handler, Jeff Ross, Big Jay Oakerson, Regina Hall, NFL great Tom Brady, Lizzo and The Rock.

It’s always expected that your fellow joke-tellers will light you up, but when Hart caught an unexpected barrage from his pal Usher, that one really stung. Dressed in a double-breasted white jacket over a brown shirt and slacks, Usher opened the show by flipping the lyrics to his 2004 Confessions classic “Burn” to scorch the victim of the hour (three hours, actually).

As Usher began singing, a confused Hart asked, “the f–k are you doing?” Undeterred, Ush unleashed his hail of falsetto word bombs on KH, singing, “Tell me why I should stay in this fake friendship/ ‘Cause we ain’t laughin’, Kevin/ It keeps happenin’, Kevin/ Plus, you’re probably somewhere filming some bulls–t/ I think that you should/ Watching Kevin ain’t the same for nobody/ When they go to commercial/ Had to do a roast, ’cause them jokes ain’t/ Crackin’ like they used to/ Look at what money does to you.”

With an equally star-studded audience looking on — including MGK, Jennifer Lopez, Tiffany Haddish, Jay Pharoah, Hasan Minaj, Bert Kreisher, John Stamos and others — Davidson engaged in the time-honored roast tradition of launching (not-so) friendly fire at some of the other roasters on the dais, honing his joke cannons on controversial comedian Tony Hinchcliffe, with rapper Ye catching a stray as well.

“Tony reminds me of Charlie Kirk, in that’s he’s definitely been on camera letting a guy unload in his throat,” Davidson said of late Turning Point leader Kirk, who was killed in September during a rally in Utah. “Oh you don’t know me? yeah Kill Tony. Please someone f–king ‘Kill Tony.’ Tony nothing you say tonight will hurt my feelings. I was in a beef with Kanye so I’ve taken shots from better gay Nazis.”

It wasn’t all good-hearted ego destruction, though. Oscar nominee Teyana Taylor and Venus and Serena Williams got up to read a heartfelt letter of appreciation for Hart, which made way for one of the evening’s shock closers: Katt Williams. “I’m surprised they invited. That’s how little star power you have, they had to start inviting your enemies,” Williams cracked of his famous comedy rival before unleashing the expected barrage of finely tuned insults.

Williams also roped imprisoned hip-hop mogul Sean “Diddy” Combs into his net, ribbing Hart, “Just because Kevin went to Diddy parties does not mean he did something wrong,” of the disgraced rapper’s reportedly hedonistic sex soirees. “The fact he gets all quiet when you bring it up, that means he did something wrong!”

Watch Usher roast Hart below.

The run-up to Madonna‘s much-anticipated Confessions II album just got another glitzy element, with the queen of pop announcing Monday (May 11) that she’ll release a Peggy Gou remix of the lead Confessions II single “I Feel So Free” this Friday, May 15.

Gou previewed the remix, titled “I Feel So Free Energy Remix,” via her Instagram Stories, sharing a 13-second preview in which she reveals her addition of some thickness and bounce to the track’s bassline, with a vocal sample declaring, “It all started like this” opening the clip.

This edit will mark the first ever collab between Madonna and the South Korean electronic world star. It is of course far from the first time Madonna has turned to the electronic world for a remix, with artists including Above & Beyond, Tracy Young, Shep Pettibone, David Morales and many more all remixing Madonna tracks over the years.

A follow-up to Madonna’s 2005 all time classic Confessions On a Dance Floor, Confessions II will arrive July 3 on Warner Records. Thus far from the new album, Madonna has released “I Feel So Free,” along with the Sabrina Carpenter collab “Bring Your Love.”

Madonna has re-teamed with the original Confessions On a Dance Floor producer Stuart Price for the new album, with the pair releasing a manifesto for the project in tandem with the release date announcement.

“We must dance, celebrate and pray with our bodies,” it read. “These are things that we’ve been doing for thousands of years — they really are spiritual practices. After all, the dance floor is a ritualistic space. It’s a place where you connect — with your wounds, with your fragility. To rave is an art. It’s about pushing your limits and connecting to a community of like-minded people. Sound, light and vibration Reshape our perceptions Pulling us into a trancelike state. The repetition of the bass, we don’t just hear it but we feel it. Altering our consciousness and dissolving ego and time.“

See Madonna and Peggy Gou’s remix announcement below:

Years before Eliseo Tapia founded Christian music company Heaven Music, Spanish-language Christian music stars Marcos Vidal and Marcos Witt sought his expertise. Tapia met both musicians in a small village in the state of Oaxaca, Mexico, where Tapia was often singing and playing drums in the church where his father served as pastor.

Around 2009, “both asked for my help to join their team and organize concerts — initially in Mexico, and very quickly thereafter, throughout Latin America,” Tapia says.

He had already worked on two creative projects with Vidal: 2011’s Tu Nombre and 2013’s Sigo Esperándote, which landed the singer his first two Latin Grammy Award nominations. “When Marcos Vidal’s 25th-anniversary commemoration came around,” he says, “I selected the songs, chose the music producer and defined the overall sound [for his 25 Años album], which went on to win the Latin Grammy in 2016” for best Christian album (Spanish language), his first.

That same year, with his expertise of working with both Vidal and Witt, Tapia launched the label Heaven Music. Now, as it marks its 10th anniversary, Heaven Music is not only one of the most prominent labels in Spanish-­language Christian music but also plays a major role in artist development, production, distribution and more.

In 2019, Heaven Music — based in Houston with a strong presence throughout North America, Spain and several Latin American countries — formed a strategic partnership with Witt’s CanZion, then the largest Spanish-language Christian music label.

Their combined roster includes pivotal figures such as Vidal, Marco Barrientos and Alex Campos; established bands Rojo and Un Corazón; and contemporary voices including Sarai Rivera and Kike Pavón. While artists release music through their respective labels, the operational teams are fully integrated and both labels benefit from a variety of services including live entertainment.

The first year of their partnership, Heaven Music and CanZion staged a one-time festival at the Arena Ciudad de México in Mexico City called the Heaven Music Fest, which featured nearly 20 artists from both companies. They haven’t looked back. Now, the combined company promotes the majority of their artists’ live shows.

“When we started [CanZion] 40 years ago, there was very little infrastructure to support a Christian music industry. The little that did exist was highly regionalized and lacked commercial connections,” says Witt, who decided to take advantage of the fact that he was consistently traveling across the American continent. “During those trips, I made a concerted effort to learn everything I could about our musical genre, as well as its singers, songwriters and producers. Little by little, an international network began to take shape, strengthening our musical expression.”

By the time CanZion began working with Heaven Music, the company possessed a substantial catalog of Christian music, along with a solid track record within the industry. “We lacked presence and expertise in the realm of digital distribution,” Witt says, adding that Heaven Music was a pioneer in that space. “We transitioned from being two medium-­size music companies into a single large entity, which has enabled us to continue expanding and investing in new artists, musical projects, tours and concerts — allowing us to better fulfill our vision of sharing the love of God through the production and dissemination of excellent music.”

Tapia didn’t set out to become a music pioneer. His first foray into the music business was putting together a Christian music concert to support Casa Hogar CHIRIA, an organization in Oaxaca dedicated to the care of children in vulnerable situations. That experience, along with working at an audio company where he “gained a perfect understanding of how it all worked,” led Tapia to doing larger shows. By the time he conceived of Heaven Music, he knew enough about the business to include music recording and distribution, publishing, live-event production and audience growth strategies.

Heaven Music’s distribution model features direct agreements with leading digital platforms and functions without intermediaries. In publishing, it has established a direct rights management structure, backed by agreements with key local collecting societies across various territories — a model that Tapia says enables the maximization of international revenue collection and guarantees that creators receive the true value of their work in every market.

The company’s live division handles both booking and concert production for large-scale tours, producing more than 150 concerts across the Americas in the last year alone. Those shows gathered thousands of fans at iconic venues including Auditorio Nacional in Mexico City; Gran Rex in Buenos Aires, Argentina; Movistar Arena in Bogota, Colombia; and James L. Knight Center in Miami.

Concurrently, Heaven Music is investing in a new era for the label through emerging artists such as Dariana, Enoc Parra and Factor de Cambio, who are bringing creative momentum to the genre. The company has also launched a division specializing in music and content for children focused on education, values and family audiences called Heaven Kids.

The digital era has been a game-changer for Spanish-language Christian music, which has a rich history but did not reach prominence until the early 2000s, when it began to appear on the Billboard charts. The effects of the format have been exponential. According to Luminate’s 2025 reports, last year, Christian music in general experienced a significant growth, with an 18.5% increase in on-­demand audio streams compared with 2024.

“The shift to digital was the pivotal change, because Christian music used to operate in a very different way — through a highly informal, even underground, distribution network centered around Christian bookstores,” Tapia says. “Christian music was unavailable in any record stores back when those still existed. The shift to digital — which arrived very slowly within the Christian music sphere — opened tremendous opportunities.”

He adds, “Part of the reason Heaven Music exists is that, as of 2016, a great deal of [Spanish-language Christian] music had not yet been digitized. Several other artists whom we don’t currently have signed, but to whom we provided distribution services at the time, saw their exposure grow by at least twentyfold.”

Tapia also recognizes the role that Grammy and Latin Grammy winner Juan Luis Guerra has played in the genre’s success. In 2004, Guerra released Para Ti, his first full album of Christian music following his conversion in the mid-1990s. “It led people in general to view Christian music as regular music, not pigeonholing it strictly within the religion of Christians, Catholics or Evangelicals, but rather seeing it as something rooted in faith,” Tapia says.

The set debuted at No. 1 on Billboard’s Top Tropical Albums chart (where it stayed for seven weeks) and peaked at No. 2 on Top Latin Albums. Para Ti also allowed for more Latin artists to release faith-based music, including Ricardo Montaner (2021’s Fe), Farruko (2024’s CVRBON VRMOR, which debuted at No. 28 on Top Christian Albums) and Daddy Yankee (2025’s Lamento En Baile, which reached No. 15 on Top Christian Albums).

Looking ahead, Tapia is working with three genre icons — Vidal, Barrientos and Marcos Witt — on an album that will feature a mix of hymns and original songs. The future of Heaven Music also lies in keeping the past alive and helping established artists like Witt connect with a new generation.

“Our strength at this moment lies in creating, in being able to understand the creative process, understand Christian music, understand why it’s made and what people are looking for,” Tapia says.

There is still a long way to go for Christian music to be treated equal to secular music, Tapia believes. “The idea is for Christian music to be able to reach whatever platforms it needs to reach without running into that mindset of, ‘OK, since you don’t feature alcohol, none of the brands are going to get involved,’ ” he says, noting that it is rare for brands to collaborate with the genre. “It’s true that there are different markets where ‘this fits here, but that doesn’t fit there.’ Everyone who consumes Christian music — or almost everyone — drinks coffee.”

The goal, Tapia says, is to become the first Christian music major label by 2030. The “objective is for Christian music to be completely on equal footing, to achieve the same level of listenership as any other genre.”

This story appears in the May 9, 2026, issue of Billboard.