U.S. music publishing revenue rose 17% to $7.04 billion in 2024, the National Music Publishers’ Association (NMPA) revealed at its annual meeting on Wednesday (June 11). Last year, the trade organization reported total revenue at $6.2 billion, which was up 10.71% from the previous year.

The event, held at Alice Tulley Hall at New York’s Lincoln Center, is considered a state-of-the-union for U.S. music publishers, and this year, its CEO/president, David Israelite, and general counsel, Danielle Aguirre, focused their presentation on both celebrating hitmakers — like award recipients Kacey Musgraves, Rhett Akins, Gracie Abrams and Aaron Dessner — and on talking about ways to grow revenue even more.

There was also a strong focus on calling on the industry, from executives to songwriters and artists, to stand together. As Israelite said, “We should all stand behind [songwriters]…There has never been a greater need to stand up for the value of songwriters.”

Aguirre and Israelite pointed to three key battlegrounds where remuneration can improve if the industry sticks together: general licensing (licensing for bars, restaurants, venues, etc.); social media; and interactive streaming. As Aguirre noted, 72% of publishing income is under “burdensome regulations” in the U.S. — whether by consent decree or compulsory license — but there are still ways to improve that within the current system.

Interactive Streaming

For interactive streaming, Aguirre reminded the crowd that Phonorecords V proceedings at the Copyright Royalty Board (CRB), which will determine the rate that songwriters and publishers will be paid for U.S. mechanical royalties from 2028-2032, are “fast approaching” in the next six months.

“One of the biggest challenges [for interactive streaming income] continues to come from Spotify’s mischaracterization of its music service into bundles, which forced the conversion of over 44 million subscribers into bundled platforms that those subscribers did not request,” Aguirre said. (Earlier this year, the Mechanical Licensing Collective’s lawsuit against Spotify, which claimed the company’s bundling of premium tiers and resultant cutting of payments to songwriters and publishers was unlawful, was dismissed by a judge who said the rules were “unambiguous.” However, the NMPA continues to attack the platform through various means, including sending mass takedown notices for podcasts and videos on Spotify that do not properly license music.)

Aguirre revealed that in the first year of Spotify’s new bundling change alone, publishers and writers have lost over “$230 million…and these losses will continue if we can’t reverse or correct Spotify actions,” she said. “In fact, if we don’t stop them, we are projected to lose over $3.1 billion through the next CRB period [which ends in 2032].”

Perhaps taking a cue from Spotify, Amazon has also bundled its music service with other offerings, allowing it to cut royalty rates for songwriters and publishers in the U.S. — another change Aguirre hit on in her remarks. “In just the last three months, we’ve seen a 40% decrease in music revenue from Amazon, which has hit the PROs particularly hard,” she said. Notably, the NMPA had a much more hopeful outlook on the Amazon bundle when it was announced; at the time, the organization released a statement saying it was “optimistic” about Amazon’s new offering and had “engaged” with the company in a “respectful and productive way” to find a compensation model for publishers that “will not decrease revenue for songwriters.”

Social Media

Social media is one of the rare areas of publishing where publishers and songwriters can negotiate without any government interference — and the NMPA is hopeful about capitalizing on that. To date, the income stream is still small: Aguirre reported that social sites like TikTok, Instagram, X and others only make up 2% of income for publishers in the U.S.

However, Israelite believes songwriters have the power to say no to this level of compensation and force the companies to treat them better.

“It’s important for songwriters to understand they already have the power to strike,” he said, despite the fact that songwriters do not qualify for a traditional union. “They do so when the people they entrust to license their songs, the music publishers and collecting societies, say no. There are key industries, such as social media, user-generated content, artificial intelligence training and lyric rights, where songwriters have the power to say no. But too often, when a music publisher or a PRO stands up to licensees who don’t want to pay fair rates, we run into a unique problem that plagues the songwriting industry: Songwriters don’t stick together. This is a tough conversation.”

Case in point: Just last year, Universal Music Group removed its catalog from TikTok in an effort to fight for its “fair value.” However, as Billboard reported at the time, a number of artists, including Ariana Grande, Beyonce and Olivia Rodrigo, found ways around the ban to continue using the platform for marketing purposes.

General Licensing

The final area of focus the NMPA addressed at the meeting was general licensing, or the performance license required to play music in public spaces like restaurants, bars, venues and clubs. While Aguirre noted that this only made up for 5% of total revenue last year, she said that “there is a substantial opportunity for growth.”

“One concern is the lack of licensing from many of these venues. For the first time, we have insight into just how much money is being lost to unlicensed mid-sized venues,” said Aguirre. In a recent study, she said the NMPA found that 80% of “venues that have 50 or fewer locations but are large enough to require performance licenses…misuse consumer streaming services to provide that music.” Others, she added, are using business-to-business (B2B) music services that “are not obtaining all of the necessary rights for the services that they are offering. Some provide features like offline listening, interactive music experiences and on-demand streaming without securing appropriate mechanical licenses.”

To remedy this issue, the NMPA announced it’s sending six cease and desist letters to B2B music services that are allegedly not properly paying for music. The organization did not specify the names of these B2B vendors.

The NMPA’s attack on B2B music suppliers comes on the heels of the U.S. Copyright Office’s Notice of Inquiry regarding U.S. PROs, wrapping up its first comment period. While bars, restaurants, clubs and other public spaces license music from PROs to use in their venues, some recently complained about the PROs’ alleged “lack of transparency” and the fact that there’s been a so-called “proliferation” of new PROs in the market, complicating (and perhaps increasing the cost of) the licensing process. While most countries have just one, maybe two, PRO options for writers and publishers to join, the U.S. now has six: ASCAP, BMI, SESAC, GMR, AllTrack and PMR.

Overall Breakdown of Publishing Income Streams

As reported by the NMPA, the breakdown of income streams for U.S. publishers and songwriters is as follows:

Songwriters

It wasn’t all just business talk — this year’s meeting also celebrated songwriters. The honorees included Musgraves, who received the Songwriter Icon Award accompanied by a tribute from her friend, Leon Bridges, who performed the Musgraves-written song “Lonely Millionaire.” Musgraves also took the stage to perform “Architect” from her latest album, Deeper Well.

Akins received the Non-Performing Songwriter award this year, and the ceremony featured a special tribute from his son, country artist Thomas Rhett, who performed “I Lived It” (released by Blake Shelton) and “What’s Your Country Song,” which he wrote with his father.

Lastly, the NMPA showcased the winners of the Billboard Songwriter Awards. Those honors were originally set to be handed out at a separate NMPA/Billboard Grammy week event that was canceled due to the Los Angeles wildfires and rescheduled for the NMPA’s annual meeting. Abrams and Dessner, who received Breakthrough Songwriter of the Year and the Triple Threat Award, respectively, took the stage on Wednesday to perform “I Love You, I’m Sorry,” which they wrote together.

English progressive rock icons Yes have announced a new fall tour which will see them play their 1971 album Fragile in full.

Officially dubbed The Fragile Tour 2025, The Album Series, the newly-announced run of shows will launch on Oct. 1 and sees the band performing a total of 31 dates until Nov. 16. Per a press release, the tour setlist will include Fragile full along with a number of other “classic cuts.”

Released in November 1971, Fragile was the fourth album from the group, and their third to be released in a 16-month span. It also became their most successful release up to that point. Expanding upon the initial chart success that The Yes Album brought earlier in the year (reaching No. 40 on the Billboard 200), Fragile would peak at No. 4, only being bested by one position thanks to Close to the Edge the following year.

The album’s lone single, “Roundabout,” would be issued in January 1972 and would reach No. 13 on the Hot 100. It remained their highest-charting single until “Owner of a Lonely Heart” hit No. 1 in 1983.

Fragile would also be supported by a 115-date album tour, with the group returning to the U.S. in November 1971 – mere months after wrapping up their debut visit to the country. As a press release for the new run of dates explains, the record’s initial tour was a vital part of the band’s history, and marked the moment when Yes “became a headline act in the US.”

“All the band’s albums had a unique feel and approach,” explained guitarist Steve Howe. “After The Yes Album, so many things came together, with [co-producer] Eddie Offord steering the proceedings. 

“While the band focused on only four main songs with full arrangements, each of us wrote and designed a solo piece, which was Bill [Bruford]’s great idea. It’s fairly ‘odd-ball,’ but we were at the height of our creativity, determined for success.

“It gave us confidence, further than our own in-stock belief, we’d crafted this unusual but noticeable musical twist to rock and what later became prog,” he added.

Of the original lineup which recorded Fragile in 1971, only Howe remains an active member. Drummer Bill Bruford would depart the group in 1992, while both vocalist Jon Anderson and keyboardist Rick Wakeman would depart in 2004. Bassist Chris Squire would remain with the band through all iterations until his passing in 2015.

Yes – The Fragile Tour 2025, The Album Series

Oct. 1 – Toyota Oakdale Theatre, Wallingford, CT
Oct. 2 – Mayo Performing Arts Center, Morristown, NJ
Oct. 4 – Hard Rock Live at Etess Arena, Atlantic City, NJ
Oct. 5 – The Capitol Theatre, Port Chester, NY
Oct. 7 – The Paramount, Huntington, NY
Oct. 8 – Keswick Theatre, Glenside, PA
Oct. 9 – Keswick Theatre, Glenside, PA
Oct. 11 – Appell Center for the Performing Arts, York, PA
Oct. 12 – Penn’s Peak, Jim Thorpe, PA
Oct. 14 – Warner Theatre, Washington, D.C.
Oct. 16 – Carolina Theatre, Durham, NC
Oct. 18 – Ruth Eckerd Hall, Clearwater, FL
Oct. 19 – Broward Center, Au-Rene Theater, Ft Lauderdale, FL
Oct. 21 – Sharon L. Morse Performing Arts Center, The Villages, FL
Oct. 22 – Charleston Music Hall, Charleston, SC
Oct. 24 – Coca-Cola Roxy, Atlanta, GA
Oct. 25 – Graceland Soundstage, Memphis, TN
Oct. 27 – The Louisville Palace, Louisville, KY
Oct. 28 – Taft Theatre, Cincinnati, OH
Oct. 30 – Murat Theatre at Old National Centre, Indianapolis, IN
Oct. 31 – Des Plaines Theatre, Des Plaines, IL
Nov. 1 – The Arcada Theatre, St. Charles, IL
Nov. 3  – The Orpheum Theater, Madison, WI
Nov. 4  – The Riverside Theater, Milwaukee, WI
Nov. 6  – Stifel Theatre, St. Louis, MO
Nov. 7  – Steelhouse Omaha, Omaha, NE
Nov. 9  – Paramount Theatre, Denver, CO
Nov. 11 – Mesa Arts Center, Mesa, AZ
Nov. 13 – YouTube Theater, Inglewood, CA
Nov. 14 – Viejas Casino, Alpine, CA
Nov. 16 – Grand Theatre at The Grand Sierra Resort, Reno, NV

It’s a Young Money reunion and the remix, baby. After Nicki Minaj was noticeably absent from Tha Carter VI, the Queen reunited with Lil Wayne for the “Banned From NO (Remix)” on Wednesday (June 11).

Fans were disappointed after a rumored C6 collaboration didn’t come to fruition, but the latest chapter in the Nicki-Wayne lyrical marriage arrived less than a week later, while Minaj emptied the clip with a fiery verse on “Banned From NO (Remix).”

Nicki crafts a delectable chorus with short-stopping bars, using NBA teams as double entendres for the Indiana Pacers, New York Knicks, and Los Angeles Lakers.

The Queens icon then dives head-first into her bristling verse, which finds her sniping at NFL player-turned-podcast host Shannon Sharpe, who has been critical of Minaj in the past.

“If I send a pic of Shannon you ain’t that Sharpe/ Cause you still can’t spell Prague and that’s horrible,” she raps.

Minaj then salutes a classic Wayne bar from the Pharrell-produced “Yes.” “Weezy F Baby and the F is for Phenomenal,” she mimics.

Before leaving the burning booth, Nicki wasn’t done and she sent a shot at the NFL about their choices for the Super Bowl Halftime Show, which overlooked Wayne in his hometown earlier this year. “NFL, fire some n—s and then call us,” she spews in defense of the Young Money boss.

Tha Carter VI arrived on Friday (June 6) filled with 19 tracks and features from Kodak Black, MGK, Bono, BigXthaPlug, Jelly Roll and Big Sean. The “Banned From NO (Remix)” marks the first Weezy-Minaj collaboration since 2023’s “RNB” from Pink Friday 2.

Listen to the “Banned From NO (Remix)” below.

R. Kelly is asking to cut short his 30-plus-year sentence for racketeering, sexual abuse and child pornography based on strange new claims that jail officials tried to solicit a fellow inmate to kill him.

The disgraced R&B star made the eyebrow-raising allegations in a Tuesday (June 10) court filing asking to be released from the Federal Correctional Institution in Butner, N.C., where he’s serving multiple decades after being convicted in two separate criminal cases.

Kelly claims he’s no longer safe behind bars because prison officials are trying to have him killed to keep from revealing prosecutorial misconduct he recently uncovered — namely, that his pre-trial cellmate stole his attorney-client communications and shared these private messages with prosecutors.

According to the motion, prison officials tried to stop this damaging information from getting out by soliciting fellow inmate Mikeal Glenn Stine, a member of the Aryan Brotherhood prison gang, to kill Kelly. Kelly’s lawyers say that while Stine ultimately did not go through with the alleged assignment, the threat still lingers.

“More A.B. members are accumulating at his facility,” reads the filing. “More than one has already been approached about carrying out his murder. One of them will surely do what Mr. Stine has not, thereby burying the truth about what happened in this case along with Robert Kelly.”

The motion includes signed declarations from both Stine and Kelly’s former cellmate. In a statement shared with Billboard, Kelly’s attorney, Beau Brindley, said, “The evidence we have before us demonstrates the weaponization of the D.O.J. to pursue a public figure through corrupt and criminal means.”

Brindley added that Kelly’s legal team is seeking clemency from President Donald Trump, saying Trump “is the only one with both the power and the courage” to curb such alleged prosecutorial corruption.

Prosecutors did not immediately return a request for comment on the motion, but they quickly filed papers of their own asking Judge Martha M. Pacold to strike Kelly’s filing, which contained the name of a child victim who was anonymized during his trial.

“Robert Kelly is a serial sexual predator,” wrote prosecutors. “He even documented his sexual abuse of children on film — creating child pornography — such that the abuse would live on in perpetuity. That abuse and harassment continues with defendant’s latest filing.”

Judge Pacold struck the motion as requested and ordered Kelly’s team to refile it with the victim’s name properly redacted. The judge set a hearing on the matter for Wednesday (June 11) in Chicago.

Kelly was convicted of a slew of sex crimes at two separate federal trials. A New York jury found him guilty of racketeering and sex trafficking in 2021, and he was convicted of child pornography and enticing minors for sex in Chicago in 2022.

The former R&B star was sentenced to 30 years in prison for the New York conviction and 20 years in the Chicago case, although the vast majority of the second sentence will overlap with the first. Both convictions have been upheld on appeal.