It’s the battle of the Wu-Tang Clan on Saturday, as Raekwon and Ghostface Killah face off in the latest Verzuz event.

We’ve seen a lot of battles between peers and friends over this first year of Verzuz, but this will be the first time two members of the same group have faced off. The dynamic duo have been making tracks together for more than 25 years, beginning on 1995’s solo debut from Raekwon, Only Built 4 Cuban Linx, which was followed by the 1996 Ghostface album Ironman.

The showdown will find the men following in the steps of their Wu-Tang cohorts RZA, who faced off against DJ Premier in May, and Method Man, who joined D’Angelo & Friends last month for “Left & Right” and “Breakups 2 Makeups.”

Co-created by Timbaland and Swizz Beatz as a form of socially distanced entertainment in the midst of COVID-19, Verzuz is now in its second season. In recent months, we’ve seen the aforementioned D’Angelo set, preceded by Ashanti vs. Keyshia Cole, Jeezy vs. Gucci Mane, and E-40 vs. Too Short. A Verzuz spokesperson confirmed to Billboard that co-founders Swizz Beatz and Timbaland will be doing a battle of their own for the series’ one-year anniversary coming up.

Speaking of Tim and Swizz, they made industry headlines earlier this month when news broke that Verzuz had been acquired by the Triller Network, parent company of the Triller app. While Saturday night’s Verzuz will still be watchable on Instagram Live — as every battle has been since the start — fans can also check it out on Triller for the very first time.

You can watch it all go down Saturday night, March 20, at 8 p.m. ET/5 p.m. PT on VerzuzTV’s Instagram Live or you can sign up with Triller to watch on its new home.

Universal Music Group will have to wait until next year for newly recruited co-heads of Island Records, Justin Eshak and Imran Majid, to bring their talents to the label.

Although multiple sources confirmed that Eshak and Majid — co-heads of Columbia Records’ A&R department — will take on the top job vacated by Darcus Beese in early February, the duo is not expected to start their jobs until their contracts with Columbia are up next year.

Eshak and Majid, who have run Columbia’s A&R department as a team since 2018, worked closely with Hozier, Leon Bridges, Lil Tjay, Powfu and Kina. In recent weeks, the label has turned heads by luring Miley Cyrus away from RCA and signing Grimes, although those efforts were led by Columbia’s chairman and CEO, Ron Perry

Since 2018, when Perry took reigns of Columbia, the label’s market share has grown steadily. After dropping to 3.31% market share on current releases that year not including distributor RED (down from 4.89% the year before), it grew to 4.76% in 2019 and 5.68% in 2020 — a four-year high. So far in 2021, the label’s market share is down to 4.86%. (Current releases are defined as released in last 18 months or if the music is still current at radio or in the top half of Billboard 200 chart.)

Eshak and Majid will have their work cut out for them running Island. A much smaller label, whose leading acts include Demi Lovato, Nick Jonas and Shawn Mendes. The past five years, the label’s market share has hovered under 2%, decreasing since 2018. Island currently holds a 1.72% market share so far in 2021.

Despite its breakout hits in 2020 — including Harry Styles’ “Watermelon Sugar,” BTS’ “Dynamite” (part of a co-venture with Big Hit Entertainment) and “Savage Love (Laxed – Siren Beat)” by Jawsh 685 and Jason Derulo — Columbia’s A&R department has recently seen some changes. A&R star Shawn Holiday — who served in the dual role of co-head, urban music at Columbia and head of urban music at music publisher Sony/ATV — partnered with Full Stop Management’s Irving and Jeffrey Azoff to launch a new record label and music publishing company. A rep for Columbia Records said, however, that Holiday “is still very much a part of the A&R staff and will continue to work with Polo G. and Chloe X Halle, among other artists. She declined to comment further for this story.

Last week’s announcement that Def Jam Recordings had partnered with Emmy-winning TV producer and actor Lena Waithe (The Chi) to launch Hillman Grad Records, included the news that Tebs Maqubela had joined the label from Columbia. Maqubela had previously worked in A&R for Lost Rings, the gaming and music imprint that Columbia established in the summer of 2019.

Sources also say that Columbia A&R director Wes Donehower has exited the label for Republic Records.

The Blues Foundation has rescinded Kenny Wayne Shepherd’s 2021 Blues Music Awards nomination for best blues/rock artist based on what it calls “continuing revelations of representations of the Confederate flag on Shepherd’s ‘General Lee’ car, guitars and elsewhere.”

The Blues Foundation has also asked the performer’s father, Ken Shepherd, to step down as a member of its board of directors.

The move echoes the Academy of Country Music’s decision to not allow Morgan Wallen to compete for this year’s awards after a video surfaced of him using the N-word. The Blues Foundation’s need to disassociate itself from racist imagery is especially vital because the blues genre is unimaginable without Black artists and composers.

The foundation said its decision to rescind the nomination is in keeping with its statement against racism, posted March 15, which asserts “The Blues Foundation unequivocally condemns all forms and expressions of racism, including all symbols associated with white supremacy and the degradation of people of color. We will hold ourselves as well as all blues musicians, fans, organizations, and members of the music industry accountable for racist actions and encourage concrete commitments to acknowledge and redress the resulting pain.”

Shepherd’s name has already been removed from the foundation’s list of nominees in the category. The four remaining nominees are Tinsley Ellis, Reverend Peyton, Ana Popovic and Mike Zito.

Shepherd has responded to the move in a statement on his website: “I have just learned that the executive committee of the Blues Foundation board of directors has made the decision to rescind my nomination for the 2021 blues rock artist of the year award.

“We have been told this decision has been made because, in recent days, concerns have been raised regarding one of the cars in my muscle car collection. The car was built 17 years ago as a replica and homage to the iconic car in the television series, The Dukes of Hazzard. That CBS show was one of the highest rated and most popular programs of its era and like millions of others, I watched it every week. In the show, one of the central ‘characters’ was a muscle car which displayed a confederate flag on its roof. Years ago I put that car in permanent storage and some time ago, I made the decision to permanently cover the flag on my car because it was completely against my values and offensive to the African American community which created the music I love so much and I apologize to anyone that I have unintentionally hurt because of it.

“I want to make something very clear and unequivocal; I condemn and stand in complete opposition to all forms of racism and oppression and always have.”

Shepherd is correct that The Dukes of Hazzard, a comedy/adventure series that ran from 1979 to 1985, was a smash hit. Its ratings peaked in the 1980-81 season, when it was second only to Dallas in the Nielsen ratings. Shepherd was 8 years old when the show ended its run on CBS.

The current controversy was flamed by Mercy Morganfield, daughter of legendary bluesman Muddy Waters, who wrote a long social media post (originally on her Facebook and reposted via Reddit) titled “The Way My Daddy Looks At a White Man Winning a Blues Foundation Music Award While Waving A F*****g Confederate Flag.”

Shepherd has received two Blues Music Awards, the Blues Foundation’s Keeping The Blues Alive award, two Billboard Music Awards and a pair of Orville H. Gibson awards. He received five Grammy nominations between 1998 and 2010 but has yet to win.

The decisions regarding Shepherd and Wallen underscore how much times have changed in recent decades. Alabama, the hottest country act of the 1980s, had Confederate flag imagery prominently featured on the covers of three albums — My Home’s in Alabama (1980), Mountain Music (1982) and Roll On (1984) — in the same time frame that The Dukes of Hazzard was a smash TV show. The album covers caused little controversy at the time. Now, no act would dream of doing such a thing.

Current country superstar Luke Combs spoke last month about his previous use of Confederate flag imagery, saying there’s “no excuse” for it in this day and age. “I think as a younger man, that was an image I associated to mean something else, and as I’ve grown in my time as an artist and as the world has changed drastically in the last five to seven years, you know, I’m now aware of how painful that image can be to someone else.”

The 42nd Blues Awards will be livestreamed on the foundation’s Facebook and YouTube channels. The awards will be presented June 6 at 4 p.m. CT.

Japanese rockers [Alexandros] dropped their first greatest hits album Where’s My History?, a collection of key tracks that represent the band’s history as it wraps up its 10th anniversary year. The project includes the band’s representative track “Wataridori” and concert staples from their indie days, as well as a new number called “Kaze ni natte.”

The four-man band also faces a major turning point in its career as drummer Satoyasu Shomura, who officially joined in April 2010, will be departing after the two shows set for Mar. 20 and 21. As the countdown begins for [Alexandros] to exist as the current quartet, interviewer Chinami Hachisuka chatted with the members — Shomura, Hiroyuki Isobe (bass & chorus), Yoohei Kawakami (vocals & guitar), and Masaki Shirai (guitar) — on behalf of Billboard Japan and asked about their ten years together and what’s in store for the future of the band.

You all strike me as guys who don’t dwell on the past as a matter of principle, so your greatest hits album came as a surprise. Why did you decided to release it?

Kawakami: Since we’ve released seven albums over the course of ten years, we thought that perhaps new fans would find themselves at a loss as to which one they should listen to first when they feel like checking out our catalog before coming to a show. We’ve selected some good gateway songs, so it’d be great if people like them and then decide to delve further into our other works from there.

What did you feel while you were producing the album, or when you actually listened to its lineup?

Shomura: Each track reminded me that I enjoyed life so much back then and that I lived so earnestly. And that was what led to today. Though I’ll continue on outside the band in the future, when I listen to this album, I get excited thinking about what the band will do next. I’m really proud of all the songs.

Shirai: We mixed some of the tracks over again. On one of them, “For Freedom,” our previous drummer Hiroki Ishikawa is playing on the recording, so it was fun looking back, like, “Oh yeah, Isshi used to sound like this, remember?”

Isobe: I felt that a lot of these songs now thrive as live renditions. “Kill Me If You Can” has that little twang in the end, which I’d forgotten all about because I’ve played it so many times in concert. [Laughs] I was able to enjoy it from a listener’s point of view.

Kawakami: Regarding the lyrics, I felt that what I say basically hasn’t changed. [Kawakami is the band’s principal songwriter.] The first song we included in the set, “Ondosa,” is one we had since before our debut, but the way I feel and think really hasn’t changed. I think that’s a good thing. It was an opportunity to acknowledge that I probably won’t change from now on, either, and that the essence of what I want to say exist in these songs.

If there was a turning point for the band, which song captures that moment best?

Isobe: My choice would be “For Freedom,” because it kicked off our debut. There were multiple turning points during these past ten years, but “For Freedom” is the song that I really feel like, “If we hadn’t had that one, what would have happened?”

Shirai: “For Freedom” was the moment our direction was set, and it felt like a breath of fresh air. I’d just joined the band, and switched from bass to guitar at that timing, so I was still trying to find my style as a guitarist. I think that the reason why my style gradually became so rock-tinged is because the riff in “For Freedom” leaves such a strong impression.

Kawakami: Before we made our debut, we used to busk in Yoyogi Park [in Shibuya, Tokyo] every week. There were some good songs among the ones we used to perform on the street, but none of them felt most essential for the band. One day, I was playing the guitar cooped up in my room after coming home from work, and wrote a chorus for “For Freedom” fairly quickly. It felt like I’d aired out something from inside of me and thought, “I feel much better now.”

Isobe: All four of us were living together at the time, and we each had jobs so that we could keep performing. We were in the band because we had confidence, but couldn’t debut for a long time and were at the end of our ropes. So it was like that disappointment of, “Why won’t anybody acknowledge us?” and all the pent-up frustration were loaded on top of “For Freedom.”

Shomura: When we wrote “Starrrrrrr,” we were trying to figure out how to play a song that has a kind of unifying force. That track was born by blending the things we’d cultivated until that point, and also adding what was lacking by squeezing it out through our sessions in the studio. It was tough while we were producing it, but I have a special place in my heart for that one because so much love went into it.

Kawakami: If I were to choose another one, it’d be “Mosquito Bite.” We spent some time outside of Japan [in New York to record Sleepless in Brooklyn] because we needed some time to become nobodies. For the first time in a while, it felt like something significant had popped out when this song was born. We don’t have a producer, and write songs that we want to perform at that point in time, and even choose our own outfits. Still, we have our moments when we become lost, like, “What is it we want to do right now?” At the time, our way of finding the answer to that was to write songs in New York. “Mosquito Bite” might have been my biggest turning point in a personal sense, in that it taught me the importance not being caught up in anything and sort of popping songs out like that.

How are you feeling now as you kick off the next ten years of your career?

Kawakami: We want to destroy all the common sense that we’ve built up over the years. We have to use the past ten years as a springboard for the future or we won’t be able to grow. We still haven’t reached the place we dreamed about ten years ago. Right now, we’re taking a good hard look at ourselves once again in order to continue pursuing what we want to do, and we’re exploring what needs to be done for us to do so.

Your last show as a member of [Alexandros] is coming up soon, Mr. Shomura. How do you feel? [The Interview took place in mid-December.]

Shomura: It’s really hard to describe, but… One thing I can say with certainty is that I’ll get on that stage with my heart brimming with gratitude. I see my current situation in a positive light, and I like myself for being able to feel that way. I also love everybody who values my decision [to leave the band], so I guess in the words of Yoohei, “I love you all!” is how I feel now.

This article by Chinami Hachisuka first appeared on Billboard Japan.

In a video for the title track of his new album Spaceman, Nick Jonas beams in from outer space. Now, he’s beaming in from heaven.

The brand-new music video for “This Is Heaven,” released Wednesday afternoon (March 17), shows Jonas performing in church, backed by a choir, as the sun streaks in through stained-glass windows. In another scene, he’s in front of a giant control panel, seemingly back to his lonely “Spaceman” character. Then he truly finds happiness not up in that space observation deck, but outdoors, as he’s seen running through the woods, surrounded by sky-high trees, and he can finally breathe.

The visual, directed by Daniel Broadley, was shot in England, and Jonas is joined by the London Community Gospel Choir, led by Anthony Williams, in St. John’s Church in London’s Hyde Park for the gorgeous performance scenes.

Jonas released his most recent solo album, Spaceman, on Friday. Over the weekend, he unleashed a deluxe edition that includes a new song featuring the Jonas Brothers.

Watch the “This Is Heaven” video below: