If Cher could turn back time, it sounds like she wouldn’t change much. After the icon made a surprise appearance to accept the lifetime achievement award at the 2026 Grammys on Sunday (Feb. 1) at Los Angeles’ Crypto.com Arena, she was supposed to present the record of the year award, but apparently forgot and started to leave, telling the audience, “Thank you! I’m supposed to walk off the stage now …”

Now, Grammy Awards executive producer Ben Winston is speaking out about the moment, which also included the Grammy winner announcing the late “Luther Vandross” rather than Kendrick Lamar and SZA’s “Luther” as the winner. He told Rolling Stone‘s Music Now podcast about the preparations for that presentation, and shared that the star wasn’t upset by the snafu.

As Winston recalled, as soon as Cher started walking off the stage, he relayed a message into host Trevor Noah’s earpiece, telling him to bring the “Believe” singer back. The comedian did just that as the musician took leave of the stage and music played, saying into his mic, “Before you go, Cher … could we get you to announce the nominees?”

According to the executive producer, Cher knew she was supposed to present the award for record of the year. “She did know what she was there to do! I  promise you, we had briefed her, and I promise you, it was in the prompter, what she had to do!” Winston shared with Rolling Stone, noting that they had been trying to get her on the Grammys for a long time. “She did her acceptance speech, which was really beautiful, but then sort of forgot it was actually leading into record of the year.”

“I do think that is like, some of the things that you want from great music awards shows. I think if that happened at the Oscars, it’d be like, ‘[gasps] Oh my goodness! It was a disaster!’” he said. “But on our show, I loved it. If I could go back in time, I’d want that to happen again. ‘Cause she’s happy with it. She had a great time! So I just thought it was a really lovely moment. And you want a bit of anarchy, and you don’t know what’s going to happen. Everything is so rehearsed these days.”

However, Winston admitted that perhaps he had inadvertently put a hex on the show. “I do think I cursed it. We were going into [Cher’s] part, and we have never ever in the six years I’ve been doing it, been on time,” he shared. “We were one minute behind where we should be, which has never happened. … And then Cher happens!”

Billboard previously reached out to Cher for comment about her Oscars moment.

Listen to Ben Winston discuss Cher’s viral moment on the 2026 Grammys below:

Martin Shkreli is suing Wu-Tang Clan’s RZA over the group’s one-of-a-kind album Once Upon a Time in Shaolin, accusing the rapper of wrongfully double-selling the rights to the famous record.

The move will pull RZA (Robert Diggs) into a long-running lawsuit filed against Shkreli by PleasrDAO, a digital art collective that paid $4 million to buy the album from prosecutors after the pharma exec forfeited it following his securities fraud convictions.

In a countersuit filed Monday (Feb. 2), Shkreli sought to pin some of the blame for that dispute on RZA, claiming that the rapper, along with Wu-Tang producer Cilvaringz (Tarik Azzougarh), had improperly sold part of the copyrights for Shaolin to Pleasr, even though those same rights were already contractually promised to him.

“An immediate, real and justiciable controversy exists between Shkreli, PleasrDAO, and the Wu-Tang defendants with respect to the ownership of this future interest,” Shkreli’s lawyers write, calling it a “duplicate sale.”

A spokesman for RZA did not immediately return a request for comment.

In a statement, Pleasr’s attorney, Steven Cooper, sharply criticized the latest filing: “Mr. Shkreli’s approach throughout has been to distract and delay with actions that the Court has consistently and strenuously rejected. These Counterclaims will meet the same fate.”

One of hip-hop’s most legendary secrets, Shaolin was published just once, on a CD secured in an engraved nickel and silver box. It came with bizarre legal stipulations, including that it couldn’t be released to the general public until 2103.

Shkreli bought the album at auction in 2015, shortly before he became the infamous “Pharma Bro” who spiked the price of AIDS drugs. But after he was convicted of securities fraud in 2017, he forfeited it to prosecutors to help pay a huge restitution sentence.

Pleasr bought Shaolin from the government in 2021 for $4 million, while in 2024, the group says, it acquired copyrights and other rights for another $750,000. The group has spent the last few years trying to monetize it, playing it at private events and selling extremely limited access via blockchain offerings.

In 2024, Pleasr sued Shkreli in federal court after he made threats to release the album on the internet, warning such a leak would destroy the asset it had purchased. And last month, a federal judge said Pleasr’s case could move ahead toward trial, ruling that the rare album might qualify as a “trade secret” that Shkreli had essentially stolen.

But in his counterclaims on Monday, Shkreli pushed back on those trade secret allegations, pointing out that the company itself had shared parts of Shaolin with the public, including via a sale of NFTs: “PleasrDAO did not buy and has never owned a ‘secret’ musical work,” the complaint reads.

Skreli also leveled the new accusations at RZA and Cilvaringz, from whom he purchased the album in the first place. Shkreli says that 2015 deal gave him 50 percent of the copyright to the album immediately and promised him the other 50 percent later — 88 years later, to be precise. Instead, Wu-Tang sold “a total of 150%” of the rights to the album, he claims.

“On a date 88 years after its execution, the Wu-Tang Defendants are obligated to transfer the remaining 50% of the copyrights to Shkreli,” his lawyers write. “Now, PleasrDAO has alleged that it purchased this same interest from the Wu-Tang defendants.”

In his statement to Billboard, Pleasr’s attorney Cooper called those claims “untimely and “non-cognizable.” He said that Shkreli could not have retained those contractual rights “when he was under a court order to forfeit all of his rights in his criminal prosecution.” 

Brent Faiyaz is back. The R&B powerhouse announced on Tuesday (Feb. 3) that his highly anticipated third studio album, Icon, will arrive just ahead of Valentine’s Day on Feb. 13.

Faiyaz’s new set will be released via his own imprint, ISO Supremacy, in partnership with UnitedMasters, marking his first full-length offering since 2022’s Wasteland, which reached No. 2 on the Billboard 200 and topped R&B/Hip-Hop Albums. Executive produced by Grammy-winning multihyphenate Raphael Saadiq, Icon is currently available for pre-order, along with exclusive merchandise and a plethora of physical album formats.

To announce his forthcoming album, the Maryland singer shared a trio of posts on his Instagram page, including a cinematic trailer that followed several ordinary human beings going about their day in the DMV area. In the caption of both the YouTube upload and a separate Instagram post debuting the official album artwork, Faiyaz wrote the word “icon” in 17 different languages, ranging from English to Chinese. Icon is expected to explore Faiyaz’s journey in balancing authenticity with how the world perceives, and its executive producer is currently nominated for the 2026 best original song Oscar (“I Lied to You” from Sinners).

The “All Mine” singer has kept busing since Wasteland, launching ISO Supremacy in 2023, which coincided with the release of his Larger Than Life mixtape. That project reached No. 11 on the Billboard 200 and spawned a pair of minor hits in “WY@” and the Coco Jones-assisted “Moment of Your Life.” The following year, Tommy Richmann, whom Faiayaz signed to ISO the year prior, scored a breakthrough smash in the Billboard Hot 100 No. 2 hit “Million Dollar Baby.” In 2025, Faiyaz released several singles, including “Peter Pan,” “Have To” and “Tony Soprano.” After lending Summer Walker an assist on “Number One” from her album Finally Over It in November, he guested on “Stay Here 4 Life” from A$AP Rocky’s Billboard 200-topping Don’t Be Dumb in January.

Brent Faiyaz has landed 15 Hot 100 entries over the course of his career, including 2016’s “Crew” (No. 45, with GoldLink and Shy Glizzy), 2022’s “Rolling Stone” (No. 84) and 2024’s “For Me” (No. 78, with Loe Shimmy).

Check out Brent Faiyaz’s Icon album trailer below.

HARDY secures a third total and consecutive week at No. 1 on Billboard’s Country Airplay chart (dated Feb. 7), as “Favorite Country Song” drew 31.6 million audience impressions Jan. 23-29, according to Luminate.

The track marks HARDY’s fourth Country Airplay No. 1 as a recording artist and his first to reign for multiple weeks. It’s also his longest-leading hit overall, encompassing both leaders as a performer and those as a cowriter for other artists, surpassing the two-week chart-toppers “Single Saturday Night” by Cole Swindell (2021) and “God’s Country” by Blake Shelton (2019). In total, “Favorite Country Song” is the Mississippi native’s 15th No. 1 as an author. Kenny Chesney, Florida Georgia Line and Morgan Wallen, among others, have also led with HARDY cowrites.

With Country Airplay No. 1s both as an artist and a songwriter, HARDY tells Billboard that stepping further into the artist role has clarified how broadcast radio responds to his material. “I appreciate when I can give radio a very delicate subject, or a very touchy subject, or a dark subject and a station is like, ‘Dude, this song is amazing — we love that you go for it,’” he notes. “You just don’t hear that as a songwriter but I get to hear it more directly as an artist.”

As for the three-week Country Airplay command for “Favorite Country Song,” “I don’t [track] all the ‘inside baseball’ on purpose,” HARDY says. “I’d drive myself crazy if I was talking to my radio team and label every day. They worked really hard; I just did everything I could to maintain those relationships and it turned into a hit.”

Fan response was the clearest signal that the song might behave differently. “Realizing how quickly the fans were singing it back to me was the change,” HARDY adds. “Seeing them pick up on it so fast, I knew it was going to be different.”

Meanwhile, reigns of three weeks or more on Country Airplay remain in the minority. Of the 166 No. 1s from 2020 to the present, just 31 have held the summit for at least three weeks. Five did so in 2024, following seven in 2023, five each in 2022 and 2021 and two in 2020. Two record-setting titles in that span stretched their runs to double digits: Nate Smith’s “World on Fire” (2023-24) and Wallen’s “You Proof” (2022-23).

That’s ‘Better’

Max McNown lands his first Country Airplay top 10 with “Better Me for You (Brown Eyes),” rising 13-10 with 15.5 million in audience (up 8%). The song reached No. 10 on Adult Pop Airplay in December.

‘Gary’ Gets It Done

Stephen Wilson Jr. makes his Country Airplay debut with “Gary” at No. 55 (829,000, up 32%). Inspired, in part, by his blue-collar upbringing in Indiana (in the town of Seymour, about 200 miles southeast of Gary), the self-penned song traces back to a church marquee Wilson spotted while driving, listing memorial details for a man named Gary. The name stuck, becoming a vessel for an imagined life shaped by the working-class figures Wilson observed growing up.

A former Mars Inc. research and development scientist — he helmed the launch of dog chew Dentastix — Wilson has a history of building things designed to stick around.

Fifteen years after being folded into RCA Records, the influential hip-hop, R&B and pop label JIVE Records is being relaunched as a standalone frontline imprint under Sony Music’s RCA, with former UnitedMasters executives Mike Weiss and David Melhado named co-presidents.

According to a press release, the revived JIVE aims to honor the label’s storied legacy while reimagining its role for today’s music landscape. The new iteration will focus on signing and developing artists across genres, guided by what the company describes as a bold, artist-first creative approach.

Weiss, the son of longtime Jive leader Barry Weiss, and Melhado arrive after successful tenures at UnitedMasters, where they helped drive what’s described as a “holistic artist development model.” During their time at the company, they worked with artists including Brent Faiyaz, NLE Choppa, BigXthaPlug, FloyyMenor and Ekkstacy, among others.

“JIVE Records is deeply personal to me—it shaped entire generations and the way I learned this business,” said Weiss in a statement. “Relaunching this iconic label allows us to carry forward JIVE’s legacy of creative and operational excellence while proving that major labels can deliver both innovation and fairness for artists.”

Melhado added that the relaunch reflects his career-long focus on building artists from the ground up, “which has shaped my perspective on this business and what artists need to build lasting careers.” He called working with Weiss to relaunch the imprint an “opportunity to honor JIVE’s independent spirit and double down on developing artists while shaping culture.”

Founded in 1981 by Clive Calder as part of the Zomba Group, Jive rose to prominence in the 1980s and 1990s through its key role in hip-hop, R&B and pop. The label released bangers by DJ Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince, A Tribe Called Quest and Too Short, later expanding into major pop successes with the Backstreet Boys, *NSYNC and Britney Spears. Following Sony’s acquisition of BMG, Jive was folded into RCA during a 2011 restructuring.

JIVE Records will operate out of Sony Music’s New York headquarters, with Weiss and Melhado reporting to RCA Records Chairman and CEO Peter Edge and COO John Fleckenstein. Edge called the relaunch “a natural evolution—and a poetic way to revive a label that has been at the forefront of hip-hop and pop.”