“Are you all still with me … are you sure?”

There was no need to ask. H.E.R.’s query was met with a hail of shouts, screams and applause as she closed the first of a two-night stand at the Hollywood Bowl on Friday evening (Aug. 13). From the first moment H.E.R. stepped out onstage for the sold-out gig with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, she winningly showed just what a consummate performer she’s become at the tender age of 24.

Before H.E.R.’s concert, conductor Gustavo Dudamel and the L.A. Phil warmed up the audience with performances of two symphonic compositions, including Duke Ellington’s lush and moving “Three Black Kings.” Then from offstage, H.E.R. earned her first thunderous applause of the evening as she sang a verse a capella from Marvin Gaye’s classic “What’s Going On.” Walking onstage in a shimmering gold pantsuit and red platform shoes accenting the red lenses of her sunglasses, H.E.R. and the L.A. Phil segued smoothly into Gaye’s “Inner City Blues” — and it was full steam ahead.

Over the next 40 minutes, she and the Phil teamed up on eight more songs drawn from her prior compilation albums and this year’s debut full-length album, Back of My Mind. Crowd-pleasers included “Bloody Waters” (with the multi-ethnic and multi-generation audience screaming as she picked up her trusty guitar for the first time), the Academy Award-winning “Fight for You,” “Focus,” and Grammy-winning song of the year “I Can’t Breathe” (with George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and names of other murdered African Americans emblazoned across the stage’s backing video screen). The performance of H.E.R.’s hit with Daniel Caesar, “Best Part,” featured a commanding performance of Caesar’s part by one of her four background singers — a 16-year-old named Miles.

“I need to take all of this in,” a smiling H.E.R. said at one point. “I feel so blessed to be here. “I had some anxiety because this is my first official show back outside, and I never thought I’d be playing with such musicians as the L.A. Phil. And it’s sold-out, which is crazy.”

After a 20-minute intermission, H.E.R. — alongside her talented band and backing vocalists — jumpstarted the proceedings with a rollicking version of DJ Khaled’s “We Going Crazy,” which features the singer and Migos. Over the next hour, H.E.R. showcased her skillset as a versatile singer (full-bodied vocals that can also soar at will), emotionally searing instrumentalist (acoustic guitar, electric guitar, keyboards, upright piano, drums) and engaging performer (dancing and interacting with fans on walkway between the pit-seated audience and the Bowl’s main arena).

Reaching into her growing catalog, H.E.R. delivered a dozen more songs ranging from “Slide” featuring YG and her featured role on Jhené Aiko’s “BS” to “Damage,” “I’m Not OK,” a cover of Goapele’s “Closer” and “Cheat Codes.” After singing “Damage,” H.E.R. acknowledged, “You know what? I just love R&B music … just love it.”

All throughout this portion of the evening, the Bowl audience was singing along, dancing and cheering among several standing ovations. Before closing the evening with “We Made It,” H.E.R. reciprocated, thanking the audience for “being with me on this journey.”

H.E.R. and the Los Angeles Philharmonic with conductor Gustavo Dudamel perform again Saturday (Aug. 14) at the Hollywood Bowl.

The Aretha Franklin biopic Respect, starring Jennifer Hudson, opens this weekend — following weeks of buildup. Much of Franklin’s life played out at awards shows, where she was a frequent nominee, winner and performer and even an occasional host.

Franklin died in 2018, but her presence has continued to be felt at awards shows. Aretha! A Grammy Celebration for the Queen of Soul, which aired in 2019, was nominated for two Emmys (winning one). Cynthia Erivo is a current Emmy nominee for playing Franklin in the limited series Genius: Aretha. Hudson, the star of Respect, has a good chance of becoming an Oscar nominee for best actress.

Here are 11 times the Queen of Soul made awards show history.

Feb. 29, 1968 – Won the first Grammy ever awarded for best rhythm & blues solo vocal performance, female for the immortal “Respect.”  The classic hit brought Franklin  a second award that year: best rhythm & blues recording.

March 16, 1971 – Performed her gospel-imbued cover version of Simon & Garfunkel’s “Bridge Over Troubled Water” on the first live Grammy telecast. Franklin’s single, newly released at the time, would go on to win best R&B vocal performance, female the following year. (The Temptations presented her with the award.)

March 1, 1975 – Won the Grammy for best R&B vocal performance, female for the eighth consecutive year for her cover version of the Marvin Gaye/Tammi Terrell hit “Ain’t Nothing Like the Real Thing.” That eight-year streak is, to this day, the longest Grammy winning streak by any artist in any category. The award was presented by another icon, David Bowie, who Franklin excitedly kissed when she got to the stage. Franklin blurted out, “Wow, this is so good, I could kiss David Bowie.” Realizing some might interpret that as a dis at the gender-bending star, Franklin interrupted herself mid-sentence and said: “I mean that in a beautiful way, because we did.” The fact that she felt compelled to correct such a relatively minor gaffe says a lot about her.

Jan. 27, 1986 — Won favorite soul/R&B female vocalist at the American Music Awards for a record fourth time. She stood alone as the category leader until Mariah Carey tied her in 2005. (The current category champ is Rihanna, with seven wins.) Franklin also co-hosted the AMAs in 1976 and 1983. Franklin accepted the 1986 award, one of two she won that night, live via satellite from Detroit. The most striking thing about her 1986 acceptance speech is that she choked up when she accepted the award in memory of her father, the Rev. C.L. Franklin, who had died 18 months previously.

Jan. 21, 1987 – Became first female artist to be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Keith Richards did the honors. Franklin was coming off a big hit with a cover version of The Rolling Stones’ “Jumpin’ Jack Flash.” Richards had produced and played lead guitar on Franklin’s recording.

Feb. 22, 1989 – Became the first female artist to amass 15 Grammys in competition when she won best soul gospel performance, female for One Lord, One Faith, One Baptism. Franklin went on to win three more Grammys in competition. Her tally of 18 awards currently puts her in third place among female artists, behind Beyoncé (28) and Alison Krauss (27).

Dec. 3, 1994 – Received the Kennedy Center Honors at age 52, making her the youngest recipient to that point. Stevie Wonder, LL Cool J and violinist Midori currently share that distinction (as individual honorees); they were all honored at age 49. Franklin was also one of the first artists primarily known for R&B to receive the honor. (Ray Charles had received the award in 1986.)

Feb. 25, 1998 – Filled in for an ailing Luciano Pavarotti to sing “Nessun Dorma” from the Puccini opera Turandot at the 40th annual Grammy Awards. Franklin had sung the piece at the MusiCares person of the year gala two nights earlier, but until Pavarotti’s throat problems caused him to cancel, she had no idea she’d be performing it on TV. Her performance, on a night she also sang “Respect,” doubtless prompted millions of TV viewers to say, “That woman can sing anything.”

Feb. 8, 2008 – Honored as MusiCares’ person of the year, having already received a Grammy legend award and a lifetime achievement award from the Recording Academy. Franklin and Streisand are the only artists to have received all three of these honors. (Quincy Jones received a Grammy legend award, the person of the year honor and a trustees award, which is equivalent to a lifetime achievement award for people whose contributions are primarily behind-the-scenes.)

Feb. 14, 2008 – Six days later, while out in California, Franklin receives the rarely given vanguard award at the 39th annual NAACP Image Awards, which was held at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles. The Sounds of Blackness and reigning American Idol champ Jordin Sparks performed her songs in tribute. (Franklin had received their Hall of Fame award in 1997.)

Dec. 6, 2015 – Franklin, 73, made President Obama teary-eyed and honoree Carole King ecstatic when she performed her 1967 classic “(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman” (which King co-wrote) at the Kennedy Center Honors.

Nicki Minaj and her husband, Kenneth Petty, are facing a lawsuit by a woman who accused Petty of rape in 1994 in New York.

The woman, Jennifer Hough, filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court in Eastern New York on Friday (Aug. 13) and alleges that Petty “intimidated” and “harassed” “Plaintiff [Hough] not to speak out concerning the rape she experienced at the hands of Defendant Petty,” while claiming Minaj (real name Onika Tanya Maraj) also “threatened” “Plaintiff [Hough] to recant her legitimate claim that Defendant Petty raped her.”

In the filing, Hough also accuses the married couple of “witness intimidation, intentional infliction of emotional distress, negligent infliction of emotional distress, harassment, assault, battery, sexual assault, and sexual harassment.”

The lawsuit, obtained by Billboard, details how on Sept. 16, 1994, when Hough and Petty were both 16 years old living in Jamaica, Queens, in New York, that she ran into him on her way to school when he later held her at knifepoint, led her into a nearby house and raped her. He was arrested that day for first-degree rape and later pleaded guilty to attempted rape. He was sentenced to 18 to 54 months in prison.

He later pleaded guilty in an unrelated case to a manslaughter charge in 2006, spending seven years behind bars out of his 10-year sentence and let out in 2013 on supervised release.

Petty was charged Feb. 25, 2020, for failing to register as a sex offender, which is a requirement under the 2006 Sex Offender Registration and Notification Act (SORNA). He was later added to the California Megan’s Law database, which tracks sex offenders in the state of California, where Petty and Minaj reside with their son, whom the rapper gave birth to last year. The Los Angeles District Attorney’s office announced in March 2020 that the charges were dropped against Petty, but if he were to be convicted of the same felony charge, he would face up to 10 years in prison, which is the statutory maximum.

The New York State department labels Petty as a level-two sex offender, which deems him of having a moderate risk of a repeat offense, all stemming from the 1994 attempted rape conviction.

In the lawsuit, Hough recounts the years after the alleged rape, claiming she felt “mentally and emotionally destroyed” and moved around a lot out of fear of returning to New York. But beginning in 2018, interest in her identity surged following Minaj’s viral comments about the case. Underneath a 2018 Instagram post, Minaj, 38, clapped back at those who continued to criticize Petty’s criminal past. “He was 15, she was 16… in a relationship. But go awf Internet.” In a 2019 episode of Minaj’s Queen Radio show on Apple Music, she told her fans, “You’ve gotta cover your husband in prayer” before saying that he was wrongfully accused of rape by Hough, whom she said wrote a letter recanting her statement, which Hough denies. “But white is right,” Minaj said later on in the episode (The filing states that Hough is biracial.)

In 2020, shortly after Petty was arrested for failing to register as a sex offender, the suit alleges that Hough’s brother told her over the phone that “two people reached out to a family member stating an offer of $500,000.00 from Defendant Minaj if Plaintiff wrote a letter recanting her rape claim against Defendant Petty.” At one point, Hough’s childhood friend, who acted as a liasion between the married couple and Hough, also presented another $20,000 from Minaj, who proposed to “send birthday videos to Plaintiff’s Daughter for her sweet 16 as a bonus” if she would sign a prepared recanted statement.

“Plaintiff has not worked since May of 2020 due to severe depression, paranoia, constant moving, harassment, and threats from the Defendants and their associates. She is currently living in isolation out of fear of retaliation,” the filing states.

After years of empowering female and non-binary songwriters with writing camps around the world, nonprofit She Is the Music (SITM) nabbed its first major recording artist placement last week with the release of Martin Garrix’s new RCA single “Love Runs Out,” featuring G-Eazy and Sasha Alex Sloan.

The beginnings of the song, which was written by Sloan, Alex Hope and Chloe Angelides, were written during a camp organized by SITM and independent publisher Prescription Songs in 2018.

“We were collectively thinking about female powerhouse executives whom we admired, and the team at Prescription Songs came to mind,” says Taylor Testa, Songwriting Committee Co-Chair for SITM, of the collaboration. Helmed by Prescription Songs head of A&R, west coast Rhea Pasricha and A&R manager Marlee Kula, along with SITM’s songwriting committee co-chairs, the team hand selected Sloan, Angelides and Hope, among others, to participate in the Los Angeles-based camp at Spotify’s studios.

Working together on what would become “Love Runs Out” “felt effortless,” says Angelides. “I’m sure a lot of other female artists, writers, and producer can relate to how magical it feels to be surrounded by women and non-binary writers in a creative space.”

For female and nonbinary songwriters, sessions often remain a boys club. “There is still a disparity in the music industry, especially in studio space,” says Hope. In fact, women made up only 12.9% of all songwriters on Billboard’s year-end Hot 100 charts last year, according to a study by USC Annenberg’s Inclusion Initiative, so with the SITM’s women and non-binary-centered camps, many participants found themselves in exclusively non-male writing sessions for the first time in their careers.

“One of the greatest hurdles for young women in songwriting and production is simply meeting each other,” says Hannah Babitt, SITM songwriting committee co-chair. 

Once Babitt and the SITM team heard the results of the “Love Runs Out” session, it was clear that the track was a standout. “Our teams proceeded with pitching the record to artists whom they felt would understand and build upon the vision, and our dream was Martin Garrix and G-Eazy,” says Babitt who also runs the boutique management firm BABZ, Inc.

Luckily, Garrix felt the same way. “Throughout my career, I’ve been lucky enough to work with a lot of amazing women, and I think She Is The Music is a great initiative to create equal opportunities for female creators in our industry,” he tells Billboard in a statement. “Sasha, Chloe, and Alex made the initial demo for ‘Love Runs Out,’ which I loved right away. I started working on the track, adding my sound and production to it. With G-Eazy adding his touch as well, the track has become a collaborative effort where everyone’s talent came together in the best way possible. I’m honored that ‘Love Runs Out’ is the first major release to originate from one of the SITM writing camps, but I’m sure it definitely won’t be the last.”

Kula hopes the RCA release will lead to more high-profile placements. “Having such well-respected artists use their platforms to help promote female creatives is such a wonderful way to shed light on all the talented women working in the biz,” she says.

Babitt agrees: “Successes like this go to show that women can write for any artist, in any situation, in any genre.”

Stevie Wonder and Common will perform together for the seventh Stand Up to Cancer telethon, with Anthony Anderson, Sofia Vergara and husband-and-wife Ken Jeong and Tran Ho as hosts.

Brittany Howard also will perform on the hourlong special on Aug. 21 (8 p.m. ET), with Matthew McConaughey, Chandra Wilson, Kate del Castillo, Jennifer Garner, MJ Rodriquez, Tony Hale, Jaime Camil and Max Greenfield among the celebrities helping to raise money for cancer research.

Reese Witherspoon and her media entrepreneur husband, Jim Toth, are serving as executive producers.

The event, which is held every other year, will be carried simultaneously and commercial-free on 60-plus U.S. and Canadian broadcast, cable and streaming outlets, including ABC, CBS, Fox and NBC. Families who have been affected by the disease, including that of an 11-year-old boy with leukemia, will share their stories.

As prelude to the TV special, the group is holding a weeklong fundraising initiative starting Friday, with celebrities and social media stars “joining forces across social platforms” for the cause, Stand Up to Cancer said.

Since its founding in 2008, Stand Up to Cancer said it has raised more than $600 million for research that has contributed to federal approvals for nine new cancer therapies and 258 clinical trials. In 2017, the organization began developing a health-equity initiative to help underserved communities by increasing the diversity of enrollment in cancer clinical trials and fund research that addresses cancer inequities.

Also known as SU2C, the organization is a division of the charitable Entertainment Industry Foundation. Katie Couric, among its founders, is set to appear on the special.