Gunna is the latest hip-hop artist to be open to the idea of using AI to make music.
The Atlanta rapper was the recent cover star of for UPROXX, where he talked with Will.i.am about his career so far and what he has planned when the topic of AI got brought up. “I f—k with it, but I’m not hands-on with it. I’m not against it,” he said. “I’m gonna for sure tap in to it, but I’m taking my time.”
The Black Eyed Peas frontman responded by predicting that artists will be competing with AI as early as 2030. “This sh—t is next level. You gotta tap in deep real soon,” he told Gunna. “‘Cause like 2030? Bro. This next five years is gonna be so transformational. We compete with humans right now. In 2030, it’s gonna be full-on Al artists that produce it, write it, and star in the videos.”
Gunna then responded by saying that he wants to sign an AI artist soon. “I gotta sign me an Al artist, fast. Get with ’em, you can’t beat ’em,” he concluded.
Artists using AI has become a hot-button issue, especially after legendary producer Timbaland announced that he launched an AI entertainment company and signed his first AI artist. Last week, he found himself in some trouble after he shared a song that he put into AI software without the artist’s consent and issued an apology on Instagram.
“I’d like to formally apologize to KFresh,” the statement read. “I should have done my due diligence before using it. Regardless of the intent, I recognize that not everyone involved was aware or onboard, and I take full responsibility for that oversight.”
Watch Gunna and Will.i.am’s full conversation below.
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You can now watch the fun-loving baseball crew the Savannah Bananas from the comfort of your own home through Hulu + Live TV.
Through their Banana Ball World Tour, you can see the traveling baseball sensation face off against the Firefighters in Washington D.C starting June 27 through June 28 with Hulu + Live TV. The show began back in Feb. in Mesa, Ariz. and will run until September with its final stop in Houston, Texas.
Thus far, the show has made stops in major cities across the country from Savannah to Miami. Each game is known for its theatrical atmosphere; players will break into choreographed dances, lip synch during games and engage in unusual antics that focus heavily on fan entertainment. If you’re attending in person, games start at 7 p.m. local time excluding Sunday games, which begin at 1 p.m. — though Sunday games hosted in MLB stadiums begin at 3:30 p.m.
How to Watch Banana Ball World Tour
You can catch the baseball special on Hulu + Live TV. A subscription will run you $82.99 per month, a steal considering you get access to both live TV and streaming all in one place. With this bundle, you have access to Disney+, ESPN+ ESPN2, MLB Network, FS1, FS2, Fox, NBC, CBS, ABC, Hallmark Channel, BET, CMT, Disney Channel and Discovery Channel, among others. Not just for baseball, this subscription also allows you access to all of Hulu’s available programming, meaning you can stream hit shows like Pose, The Handmaid’s Tale or The Bear with ease.
To simplify this concept, Banana Ball is a modified version of baseball created by the Savannah Bananas baseball team. Banana Ball games are usually qucik-paced and thrive on fan interactions. The specialized game of baseball includes 11 unique rules. Games usually span for two hours. The most notorious rule is that if a fan catches a foul ball, it counts as an out.
The team is constantly turning the sport on its head, putting the fun back into it the with wacky traditions like running bases in kilts or wrapping up babies in a wacky banana outfit. You can often find the Savanah Banana’s bringing in major views on their social media. Their TikTok in particular is a real crowd pleaser. Athletes will lipsync to popular sounds, dance to viral dances or make complete fools out of themselves with silly skits. Whether you’re catching a game in person, or with Hulu + Live TV, we can see this experience being fun for the whole family.
https://i0.wp.com/neztelinc.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/station.nez_png.png?fit=943%2C511&ssl=1511943Yvetohttps://neztelinc.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/nez_png.pngYveto2025-06-26 20:32:302025-06-26 20:32:30Party With the Savannah Bananas During the Banana Ball World Tour on Hulu + Live TV
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Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and the Oklahoma City Thunder are the 2025 NBA Final Champions. After a grueling 7-game series against the Indiana Pacers, OKC have finally taken home their first title since switching from the Seattle Supersonics in 2007. If you’re a fan of Shai, Jay Williams, and the Thunder squad, Nike launched a collection of championship merch to celebrate the new champs all postseason.
The collection features two celebratory locker room tops that are simple in design but effective. Both the t-shirt and hoodie features a big bold “NBA Champions” graphics alongside the iconic Larry O’Brien championship trophy on a black t-shirt. The t-shirt is available for $40, while the sweatshirt is running for $75.
Oklahoma City Thunder x Nike NBA Locker Room T-Shirt
On Tuesday, Oklahoma City Thunder fans were stacked six rows deep near NW 10th and Harvey at the start of the championship parade. If you weren’t lucky enough to make it out to OKC for the celebration, Nike is giving fans a way to join in on the action with a limited-edition parade tee. On the front, the tee features a simple OKC Thunder graphic, but the back displays the entire Thunder roster alongside the Larry O’Brien championship trophy. Celebrate the historic NBA Finals victory with the parade top for $50 on Nike.com. Shop the shirt below.
If that isn’t enough OKC gear for you, here are some must-have Nike Thunder apparel to get you ready for next season. Shop authentic NBA jerseys and City Edition jersey’s for Jay Williams and Chet Holmgren, as well as “Essential City” long-sleeve shirts, hoodies, and tees.
Chet Holmgren Oklahoma City Thunder 2024/25 City Edition
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With the release of F1: The Movie in theaters this weekend, Formula 1 racing is traveling to “The Land of Beauty and Music” for the 2025 Austrian Grand Prix at Red Bull Ring in Spielberg, Austria. The racing event kicks off Friday (June 27) with practice sessions until race day on Sunday (June 29), at 9 a.m. ET/6 a.m. PT.
ESPN and its networks livestream F1 Austrian Grand Prix for you to watch at home. And the easiest way to tune-in to the motorsport event online without cable is with Hulu + Live TV.
Hulu + Live TV offers the most streaming options with access to more than 95 live channels including ESPN, as well as Hulu’s entire library. It starts at $82.99 per month, while Hulu + Live TV comes bundled with Disney+ and ESPN+ for no added cost.
Although it’s unclear if there are any musical performances during the motorsport event, film composer Brian Tyler wrote the F1 main theme that’s played at every grand prix.
While practice sessions and qualifiers start on Friday (June 27), you can livestream F1 Austrian Grand Prix race day on Sunday (June 29), which airs in the U.S. beginning at 9 a.m. ET/6 a.m. PT. The best way to watch is on Hulu + Live TV with the streamer’s three-day free trial.
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Grahame Lesh is celebrating the 60th anniversary of his father Phil Lesh’s iconic rock outfit the Grateful Dead with the Heart of the Town, a concert series organized by the San Francisco Giants, Peter Shapiro’s Relix magazine and Jonathan Shank’s Terrapin Station Entertainment. The Heart of the Town will take place from July 31 to Aug. 2 at Pier 48 in San Francisco.
Performing alongside Lesh are more than 20 artists in the Dead’s orbit, including brothers Taylor and Griffin Goldsmith from the group Dawes, Black Crowes contributor Jackie Greene and American jazz keyboard player and composer John Medeski. Other contributing artists include Melvin Seals, Eric Krasno, Karina Rykman, Tommy Hamilton, Karl Denson, Neal Francis, Duane Betts and Jake Peavy.
The series will open July 31 show with doors at 7 p.m. and showtime at 8 p.m. Shows on Friday and Saturday (Aug. 1-2) will follow larger concerts by Dead & Company at Golden Gate Park, serving as an unofficial after-party with doors opening at 10 p.m. and showtime at 11 p.m.
“My family has recently talked about the Grateful Dead’s legacy as a grand old tree, still growing after 60 years,” Lesh said in a statement provided to Billboard. “Its roots are deep in the earth of America’s musical history. Its trunk is the original members of the band, and its branches and leaves are all the musical offshoots and musicians who were and continue to be inspired by the music of the Grateful Dead.”
Lesh described The Heart of the Town as a celebration of the Dead’s 60-year legacy, adding “I am honored to host this all-star celebration at Pier 48 in Mission Rock with all of these beautiful musicians” and “I know that San Francisco will be filled with that music all weekend.”
We’re proud to stand with our partners to present The Heart of Town at Pier 48,”
Giants President and CEO Larry Baer said The Heart of Town “embodies San Francisco’s enduring spirit while producer Shank borrowed a line from “Ripple” declaring “let there be songs to fill the air!”
Presales will begin Friday, June 27 at 10 am Pacific with tickets officially going on sale to the general public on Monday, June 30 at 10 am Pacific. All passes can be purchased at the Giants’ website with a portion of the proceeds benefitting the Grateful Dead’s own Rex Foundation to support creative endeavors in the arts, sciences, and education.
https://i0.wp.com/neztelinc.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/station.nez_png.png?fit=943%2C511&ssl=1511943Yvetohttps://neztelinc.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/nez_png.pngYveto2025-06-26 20:16:142025-06-26 20:16:14Grahame Lesh Announces Three-Day Grateful Dead Tribute Series With San Francisco Giants
To most music companies, AI is just a practical issue — a problem to be solved, an opportunity to be seized, or some combination of the two. With the right combination of legislation, litigation and consternation, the same generative AI technology that now threatens to dilute streaming royalties could allow another set of rights to be licensed to another group of technology startups. This will not be easy — witness the industry’s efforts to stop the UK from loosening its copyright laws — but at least it’s relatively straightforward.
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To songwriters and the organizations that represent them, this is all more complicated. Control over works is often shared (both among writers and between writers and publishers) and rights are often divided (among publishers and various collecting societies that represent public performance rights, mechanical rights, or some combination of the two). In Continental Europe, where copyright is more akin to a fundamental right than an economic one, the threat of AI also cuts deeper. It “raises fundamental questions about the nature of authorship and creativity,” wrote Björn Ulvaeus, frontman of ABBA and President of CISAC, the global trade organization of collecting societies, in his introduction to CISAC’s 2025 annual report. Ulvaeus sees potential in AI, properly regulated, but “this is about upholding the entire system of copyright and authors’ rights.”
CISAC, which had its annual general assembly meeting in Sofia, Bulgaria, on May 28 — as part of several days worth of meetings — not only advocates for the rights of creators (defined in the music business as songwriters) but maintains the interlocking technology and financial infrastructure that makes it possible for collective rights management organizations to remit money to one another. To say that most of this happens behind the scenes is putting it mildly: One of the major topics was the modernization of CIS-Net, which manages the way the various collective management organizations exchange data.
“You may think you see here a famous musician and songwriter,” Ulvaeus said during a speech delivered over video. “But I have a confession to make: what really fires me up these days is… data.” He’s serious: “Data is about money in the pockets of creators.”
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The big concern was AI, though. To CISAC, the technology presents a series of interlocking problems: How to license it legally, which is the same issue other rightsholders face now that the major labels are talking to Suno and Udio. This is complicated enough. And labels can potentially license rights to all of the recordings in their catalogs. Licensing songs is more complicated, because different societies have different rights for different uses in different jurisdictions. Plus, the European tradition in which most societies have roots focuses more on the inherent rights of creators. It is possible, although not especially likely, that a creator could argue that the use of his or her song in an AI-generated work is a violation of their moral right to their work. More likely, European societies will find themselves at odds with publishers over who can license mechanical rights to copy songs for the purposes of training generative AI algorithms.
Before then, countries need to agree on some basic regulations for copyright and AI — and much of the conversation in Sofia focused on how to get there. In his speech, Ulvaeus identified “three key priorities that are the anchor of our position”: That AI training be subject to transparency rules; that creators can license their own works; and that creators be guaranteed remuneration.
The first is the big one: Now that it seems clear that at least some generative AI companies have already trained their algorithms on massive number of works, how will anyone figure out who to compensate when that AI creates new works? Any working AI economy has to be transparent. The other two might cause some disagreement within the music business, though. Different countries have different practices about who licenses mechanical rights, and a right to remuneration is a European idea, since it has some potential to operate around existing business contracts.
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5 Reasons Why AI Licensing Deals Between Major Labels and Suno and Udio Will Be Hard to…
CISAC Director General Gadi Oron also gave a speech about the practical side of the organization’s lobbying work. Right now, the most important AI regulation is in the EU, which no one regards as close to perfect but most people seem to think is pretty good. It is already coming under pressure, though, as technology companies push back against some of its permission requirements. This is legislation that was passed already, mind you, and it just shows how big a fight this is going to be. On most of the important issues, labels and other rightsholders are aligned — but they disagree significantly on others. This, too, is likely to involve litigation, legislation and, probably most of all, consternation.
The fear is that the publishing side of the business will come in to arrange deals after labels already have theirs, which limits their negotiating leverage. Maybe. But CISAC’s members have the weight to assert themselves, even though most of them answer to both publishers and songwriters, who don’t always see eye to eye, either. All of the current negotiations to legalize AI are just the beginning.
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Drake and Playboi Carti have another collaboration in the stash. DJ Swamp Izzo premiered the unreleased track at an After Hours Til Dawn Tour afterparty at Zouk nightclub in Los Angeles on Wednesday night (June 25).
While Izzo gave fans a taste of the collaboration, neither Drake nor Carti’s teams have announced plans to release the track as of press time.
The Carti-Drizzy track features a sample of Luther Vandross’ cover of Dionne Warwick’s “A House is Not a Home,” which was sped up by Kanye West and used on “Slow Jamz.” Ye’s “chipmunk soul” version is the one heard on the new link-up.
Akademiks appears to have spoken about the track in question during a recent live stream, which saw him claim that he talked to Drake about it, who said it was originally slated to land on For All the Dogs, but didn’t end up making the cut.
Playboi Carti and Drake joined forces for the Pi’erre Bourne-produced “Pain 1993,” which landed on Drizzy’s Dark Lane Demo Tapes in 2020. There’s also a version of the 6 God’s “No Face” with a Carti verse, but the Atlanta rapper was removed from the official streaming edition.
Drake is said to be hard at work on his anticipated new solo album, while Carti has continued to tease his Baby Boi project, which Cardo confirmed is a “real thing,” but wasn’t sure if the effort was finished. So there is still a sliver of hope that the unreleased collab will find its way to streaming services in the future.
Seeing your favorite artist on tour can be transcendent. Seeing two of your favorite artists on the same night? Even better.
Over Billboard Boxscore’s four decades, like-minded artists have paired together to combine forces as co-headliners. Here, we’re looking at the biggest team-ups ever with a list of the 40 biggest co-headline tours in Boxscore history.
To qualify for this list, the tour must run for at least 10 shows. That excludes brief collaborations by Post Malone and Red Hot Chili Peppers in 2023 in Australia, and Billy Joel with Sting in 2024-25. But no need to fret, as both Joel and Sting make the list with separate co-headliners.
Per the case of The Trilogy Tour (Iglesias, Martin & Pitbull), the list also includes tours with three equally billed artists. There’s one other trio on the ranking – a trifecta of cross-generational rock bands that used their combined powers to level up from arenas to stadiums.
Two tours in the top 40 are ongoing. Tina Fey & Amy Poehler launched The Restless Leg Tour in 2022, playing theaters and then arenas, mixing stand-up, improv and Q&A amid a sea of pop and rock stars. And Kendrick Lamar and SZA kicked off the Grand National Tour in April, and will hop the pond next month for a leg of shows in Europe.
Scroll for a detailed breakdown of the highest-grossing co-headline tours of all time, by the numbers. All data is according to figures reported to Billboard Boxscore.
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The Meta Quest 3S is giving music fans a concert-going experience unlike anything they’ve experienced before.
Summer is here, which means your favorite artists are likely going out on tour to cities all across the United States, all the while it’s about 100 degrees. If you aren’t willing to make the pilgrimage to concert venues or upcoming festivals this year, the Meta Quest 3S VR headset is giving music fans a concert-going experience unlike anything they’ve experienced before from the comfort of their own home. The headset will currently run you $299.99 on Meta.
Users can access concerts through platforms like AmazeVR Concerts and Meta Horizon Worlds’ Music Valley. These platforms allow users to experience concerts from a front-row perspective virtually thanks to aspects like 360-degree views, close-ups of artists and interactive elements. Each venue is 3D rendered, built right before your eyes in crisp quality.
AmazeVR offers an 8K screening of top artists. You can now attend VR concerts for top acts like TOMORROW X TOGETHER, Avenged Sevenfold, T-Pain, Megan Thee Stallion, Zara Larsson and UPSAHL. You’ll be able to view up-close and personal performances that look and sound so crisp and clear, that you’ll never want to take the headset off.
Meta Horizon Worlds’ Music Valley is similar in that it offers immersive and quality concert experiences from top stars. With your headset, you can currently see stars like Victoria Monét, Omar Apollo, Beabadoobee and Girl In Red. Within the VR space, you can attend concerts, play mini-games and hang out with up to 18 friends in multiplayer environments. In the past, the VR space has held artists like Sabrina Carpenter, Doja Cat and The Kid LAROI.
The best part? Most if not all VR concerts on Meta platforms like Horizon Worlds are free for Meta Quest headset owners. No ticket is necessary. Unlike its predecessor, the Meta Quest 3S boasts visuals that are crisper, loading times that are faster and performance that’s smoother thanks to the Snapdragon XR2 Gen 2 chipset.
As of press time, your Meta Quest 3S will come with the VR game Batman: Arkham Shadow, a one-year limited warranty and a Meta Horizon+ subscription that allows users access to VR games and two curated titles each month. In the box, you get accessories for the headset including a power adapter with a 1-meter USB-C charging and data cable and 2 Touch Plus Controllers with wrist straps and 2 AA batteries.
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Luke Combs has been in the studio working on his next project, and he is already giving fans an early listen of some of the new music he and his musical cohorts have been concocting.
“Couldn’t wait to show y’all this one,” he captioned a video posted to X on Wednesday (June 25), previewing a song called “Back in the Saddle” written with songwriters Jonathan Singleton and The Brothers Hunt.
In the video, Combs is crafting the song with his co-writers. Over a swampy acoustic guitar tone, he sings, “I’ve been gone for a little too long/ I’ve been waitin’ on a drummer to kick off a comeback song/ I’ve been waitin’ in the wings like a dog on a chain.” Later, he croons, “‘Cause I’m back in the saddle like some old cowboy who dug his way out of his grave.”
After spearheading his massive Growin’ Up and Gettin’ Old Tour across the United States last year, Combs has spent the majority of 2025 so far away from the road, though he has played top-shelf festivals including Stagecoach and Bonnaroo. Back in March, he told fans on X, “I’ve been spending the last couple of weeks working on what my next record looks like, and as it begins to take shape I can honestly say I’ve never felt better about one at this stage. It’s early on but I really do think it could wind up being the best record I’ve ever made.”
Combs has steadily been teasing new music on his socials, including the song “My Kinda Saturday Night.” He also recently teamed with Jon Bellion for the song “Why,” which reached No. 8 on the Country Digital Song Sales chart. Meanwhile, Combs’s collaboration with Bailey Zimmerman, “Backup Plan,” is currently at No. 12 on Billboard‘s Country Airplay chart.
See the video of Combs’ sneak peek into his new music below:
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