Natanael Cano knocks himself out of the No. 1 spot on Billboard’s Regional Mexican Albums chart as A Mis 20 debuts at No. 1, replacing Corridos Tumbados on the June 12-dated ranking. The latter spent 31 nonconsecutive weeks at No. 1 since it bowed atop the list dated Nov. 16, 2019.

Cano’s sixth studio album starts with 5,000 equivalent album units earned in the U.S. in the week ending June 3, according to MRC Data, mostly stemming from streaming activity. It registered 6.9 million on-demand streams of the album’s tracks in its first tracking week.

The Regional Mexican Albums chart ranks the most popular regional Mexican albums of the week in the U.S. based on multi-metric consumption as measured in equivalent album units. Units comprise album sales, track equivalent albums (TEA) and streaming equivalent albums (SEA). Each unit equals one album sale, or 10 individual tracks sold from an album, or 3,750 ad-supported or 1,250 paid/subscription on-demand official audio and video streams generated by songs from an album.

The 11-track A Mis 20 was released May 28 via JHRH/Warner Latina and earns Cano his second No. 1 on the tally. The 20-year-old becomes the first act to oust himself from the top since Christian Nodal’s Ahora pushed Me Dejé Llevar from the lead in May 2019.

Corridos Tumbados’ 31 weeks at No. 1 remains the third-most on the chart following only Selena’s 97-week reign with Amor Prohibido and Nodal’s Me Dejé Llevar (73 weeks at No. 1).

A Mis 20 concurrently debuts at No. 9 on Top Latin Albums, Cano’s highest start since Corridos debuted at No. 5 (No. 4 peak). The latter is in the list’s top 30 in its 83rd week.

Back on Regional Mexican Albums, A Mis 20 becomes just the third album to debut at the summit in 2021. It trails Eslabon Armado’s Corta Venas (Jan 2-dated tally) and Cano’s labelmate Junior H’s $ad Boyz 4 Life (Feb. 27-dated list).

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The Rolling Stones, Tom Jones, Barry Gibb and 71 other prominent British musicians joined a campaign by artists and songwriters pushing for a larger share of streaming royalties from platforms like Spotify and YouTube — and closer scrutiny on the major labels’ hold on the market.

The call by the 74 musicians comes two months after a group of more than 150 artists — including Paul McCartney, Annie Lennox and Chris Martin — sent the same letter to U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson calling for the British leader to change U.K. copyright law so that streaming revenues would be treated more like radio revenue.

The new push by British artists to show solidarity in their quest for fairer compensation also comes as a Parliamentary body — the Digital, Culture, Media, and Sport (DCMS) Committee — is set to release recommendations after an inquiry into the music streaming economy that concluded in March.

The letter’s signatories are calling for a government referral of the multinational corporations that wield “extraordinary power” over the music business to the U.K. competition enforcer, the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA), which can act against businesses engaging in anti-competitive behavior.

The U.K. Parliamentary probe has seen major labels’ dominance of the market emerge as a central issue. The first stage of the inquiry concluded with government minister Caroline Dinenage saying she would support a referral of the three biggest music companies — Universal Music, Sony Music and Warner Music — to the CMA.

The committee expects to publish their report next month before Parliament breaks for its summer recess, although a date has not been announced. Ministers will then have eight weeks to respond, and although they aren’t obliged to enact its recommendations, they are expected to engage with them.

During the inquiry, bosses from all three major labels faced hostile questioning from DCMS committee members over how labels pay out streaming royalties to creators. Senior execs from Spotify, Amazon Music, Apple Music and YouTube also appeared before members.

The musicians are pressing for a change in the U.K.’s 1988 Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, which would see music streaming classified in the same way as radio and TV broadcasting. Songwriters earn on average 50% of radio revenues, but only 15% of streaming receipts, the signatories say in their letter to Johnson. If a re-classification were to happen, streaming would be subject to the principle of equitable remuneration, which guarantees royalties to performers on recordings.

Currently, music streams are covered in most international markets by a “making available right,” meaning that only copyright owners receive payments, which they then share with featured artists according to the terms of their contract. Unlike royalties for U.K. television and radio, session musicians do not typically receive a share of streaming royalties.

The major labels strongly oppose any change to copyright law around how streaming is classified. The labels have said that a move towards equitable remuneration would result in a substantial loss of earnings, reducing their ability to invest in new acts. It could also hamper the ability of rights holders to negotiate licensee agreements with streaming services, they say, by making it harder for them to walk away from negotiations.

The renewed call from British artists also comes after the World Intellectual Property Organization said in a report last week (June 1) that streaming should start to pay more like radio.

The WIPO reported noted that global recorded music revenues have grown six consecutive years to a total of $21.6 billion in 2020, even growing substantially during the COVID-19 pandemic. “This streaming-fueled success has not trickled down to performers, especially non-featured performers,” the report said. “The more global revenues surge, the harder it is for performers to understand why the imbalance is fair—because it is not.”

The latest signatories to the letter to Johnson include well-known British music acts such as the Pet Shop Boys, Alison Moyet, Emeli Sandé, Van Morrison, and the Estates of John Lennon and Joe Strummer.

“This letter is fundamentally about preserving a professional class of music-maker into the future,” Tom Gray, founder of the #BrokenRecord Campaign, one of the U.K. organizers, says in a statement. “Most musicians don’t expect to be rich and famous or even be particularly comfortable, they just want to earn a crust.”

The Kennedy Center Honors are among the most prestigious awards in arts and entertainment, but the annual TV show long ago became formulaic and staid. The show desperately needed a makeover. This year, the COVID-19 pandemic forced the producers to make some changes.

Because of COVID regulations and best practices, parts of the show were shot outdoors, parts were shot in a semi-covered pavilion, parts were shot indoors. The result, which aired Sunday on CBS, was the most enjoyable installment in years, much fresher and less static. The changes provided more than just a change of scenery. They reinvigorated the show, now in its 43rd year. (At least something good came out of this long ordeal!)

Here are the 10 best musical moments from this year’s Kennedy Center Honors.

10. Yo-Yo Ma, a 2011 honoree, performed J.S. Bach’s “Prelude from Cello Suite No. 1″ in tribute to current honoree Midori. Yo-Yo Ma was one of two past honorees who were enlisted this year as performers. The other was James Taylor, a 2016 honoree, who performed Garth Brooks’ 1992 hit “The River” as part of the show-closing tribute to the country superstar.

9. Grammy winner Sturgill Simpson performed “House of the Rising Sun” in tribute to Joan Baez, who covered the traditional folk song on her 1960 debut album.

8. Current Tony nominee Aaron Tveit (Moulin Rouge! The Musical) and three-time Grammy winners Pentatonix teamed to perform “Step in Time” from Mary Poppins and “Chitty Chitty Bang Bang” from the 1968 film of the same name. This was part of the tribute to the ageless Dick Van Dyke, who starred in both films.

7. Grammy winner Rhiannon Giddens with fellow fiddler and banjo player Dirk Powell paid tribute to Baez by performing “Silver Dagger,” the opening track from her 1960 debut album.

6. Tony winner Anika Noni Rose performed “Out Here on My Own,” the plaintive, Oscar-nominated ballad from Fame. This was part of the tribute to Debbie Allen, who portrayed dance teacher Lydia Grant in the 1980 film and went on to play the same role on the 1982-87 TV series and serve as the series’ principal choreographer.

5. Vanessa Hudgens performed the Oscar-winning title song from Fame, also part of the tribute to Allen. The rousing Dean Pitchford/Michael Gore song was inspired by the hits of the era by Donna Summer. This number would simply not have been as effective if Hudgens and company were confined to a stage. The song was made to be performed outside (as it was in the original film). Hudgens was joined in her performance by the rest of the company from the Allen segment: Rose, Ariana DeBose, Vivian Nixon, Tiler Peck, Demond Richardson and the Debbie Allen Dance Academy.

4. Jimmie Allen excelled on two of Brooks’ early hits: “The Thunder Rolls” and “Friends in Low Places.” It’s never easy to cover another artist’s signature song, and “Friends in Low Places” has been that for Brooks pretty much since he released it in 1990. The Dewayne Blackwell/Earl Bud Lee song was letter-perfect for Brooks’ persona. Turns out, it suited Allen pretty well too.

3. Emmylou Harris and Mary Chapin Carpenter paid tribute to Baez by performing three songs long associated with the singer, including the civil rights anthem “We Shall Overcome” (from Joan Baez in Concert, Part 2, 1963). Harris and Carpenter also performed the title song (which Baez wrote) from her 1975 album Diamonds & Rust and Steve Earle’s “God Is God” (the opening track from Day After Tomorrow, 2008). Harris is overdue to be a Kennedy Center Honoree. In a rarity, the Baez segment did not include her biggest hit, a 1971 cover version of Robbie Robertson’s “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down.”

2. Kelly Clarkson performed “The Dance,” the standout ballad from Brooks’ 1989 debut album. It’s a given, after a couple of years of “Kellyoke” segments, that Clarkson can sing anything. But she can really soar when she tackles a superb song like this Tony Arata ballad. The first minute or so of her performance was a cappella, before a pianist joined to provide still-spare accompaniment. She’s good.

1. Gladys Knight closed the show by performing “We Shall Be Free,” which Brooks co-wrote with Stephanie Davis and released in 1992, when its live-and-let-live stance regarding gay rights was considered much more controversial than it is today. Knight excelled on the song. She has long bridged the gap between soul and country, having a hit with Kris Kristofferson’s “Help Me Make It Through the Night” in 1972 and teaming with Vince Gill on the opening track on the Rhythm, Country & Blues album in 1994. Memo to the Kennedy Center Honors selection committee: Knight, a star since 1961, really deserves to be an honoree. They don’t call her the Empress of Soul for nothing.

The next Kennedy Center Honors will presumably be staged, and air, in December as the show returns to its normal schedule. (This show was the one that would normally have aired in December 2020.)

At the end of the show, Gloria Estefan, a 2017 honoree who was hosting for the second time, said that next time they would probably be back in the Kennedy Center Opera House. The producers might want to think twice about that. As Sheryl Crow, another likely future honoree, once sang, “A Change Would Do You Good.”

Ari Emanuel has resigned from his position on the Live Nation board of directors nearly 14 years after the founding partner at Endeavor was elected to represent shareholders of the world’s largest concert promoter, according to an SEC filing from Friday.

Emanuel had planned to leave following the launch of Endeavor’s IPO in April, according to a source at Live Nation, After a false start in 2019, Emanuel was able to successfully take the sprawling entertainment company Endeavor — which owns the WME and IMG talent agencies, the Miss Universe Pageant, Ultimate Fighting Championship and ticketing and hospitality company OnLocation — public on the New York Stock Exchange, raising about $511 million at a valuation of a little over $6 billion.

But his timing exiting Live Nation makes sense for another reason: Documents obtained by Billboard suggest Emanuel was waiting until June 3 for the vesting of his final stock award of 4,470 shares issued June 2020 worth nearly $400,000.

In a Live Nation SEC filing announcing Emanuel’s exit, the company said he “withdrew from reelection to the board of directors and will not be standing for reelection at the Company’s annual meeting of stockholders” on June 10. Live Nation officials note that the split was amicable and “not the result of any disagreement.”

Emanuel has enjoyed a long relationship with Live Nation chief executive and president Michael Rapino. Endeavor’s talent agency, WME, is one of the world’s largest music agencies and has booked the company’s clients across Live Nation’s portfolio of venues, festivals and global touring deals, resulting in billions of dollars in tickets sold. Endeavor also holds a partial ownership stake in Lollapalooza with Live Nation, which the promoter acquired in 2014 with the purchase of C3 Presents.

Live Nation’s stock value has grown nearly 350% during Emanuel’s time on the board, trading for approximately $20.30 per share in September 2007, down to a low of less than $5 per share in 2009 during the worst months of the financial crisis before beginning its ascent in 2013 and eventually reaching $75 a share in 2019. That’s a point Emanuel famously reminded Irving Azoff of in June 2013, six months after Irving unexpectedly resigned from his chairman position at Ticketmaster and cashed out his stock.

Emanuel began the fight, with many executives and WME agents on copy, forwarding an article from the Financial Times reporting that Live Nation’s stock price nearly doubled in the first half of the year.

“The article says since you left stock has continued to grow…..interesting,” Emanuel wrote. “How much money you lost by selling. Stupid move.”

Irving Azoff’s wife, Shelli Azoff, disagreed: “I am in the air on my new g450 (private jet),” she replied “We did ok with the LN stock.”

Years later, Emanuel might now be wondering if he sold his own Live Nation stock too early. On March 3, 2020, about 10 days before the company pulled touring shows off the road due to the growing COVID-19 pandemic, Emanuel sold more than 71,000 of his shares in Live Nation — representing 97% of his holdings in the company for approximately $58.26 per share, for a total of $4.8 million. Had he waited 15 months until his other stocks had vested on June 3, 2021, to cash out his holdings, it would have been worth $90 per share, buoyed by investor expectations for a strong recovery after the pandemic, generating $6.4 million.

Singer Shemekia Copeland and guitarist Christone “Kingfish” Ingram are among this year’s top winners at the Blues Music Awards.

Veteran musicians Charlie Musselwhite and Elvin Bishop also won multiple awards for their album 100 Years of Blues during Sunday’s awards show, which was held online due to COVID-19 pandemic precautions.

Winners were chosen by members of The Blues Foundation, based in Memphis. The awards have been held for 42 years.

Copeland won the B.B. King Entertainer of the Year award, the show’s top honor. She also won the contemporary blues female artist and the contemporary blues album awards.

Ingram, who won five times last year, took home the contemporary blues male artist and guitar instrumentalist awards.

The collaboration between Bishop and Musselwhite led to awards for album of the year and traditional blues album of the year.

Mike Zito won in the categories of blues rock artist and blues rock album for Mike Zito and Friends-Rock ‘n’ Roll: A Tribute to Chuck Berry.

Blues Hall of Fame members Bettye LaVette and Bobby Rush also won awards.

Performers in the show included Rush, Ingram, John Németh & the Blue Dreamers, Shaun Murphy, Don Bryant, Watermelon Slim and Southern Avenue.

Find the full list of winners here.