Kesha is going independent. Today, the Grammy-winning artist announced a new deal with the independent label and artist services of Warner Music Group, ADA, via her newly launched label Kesha Records.

“I am proud to announce this partnership for the distribution of my music through Kesha Records. My name has become synonymous with transparency, integrity, and safety, and I want to ensure that these values are upheld for myself and any future artists signed to my label,” Kesha said in a release. “Music has the power to connect the world, and I aspire for my work to be a beacon of light and goodness. I am excited to take control of my narrative and rewrite my story in the music business.”

The partnership will see ADA cover global distribution for Kesha’s future releases including her upcoming album due out in 2025, as well as the project’s current single, “Joyride,” which nabbed a top 10 spot on Billboard’s Hot Dance/Electronic Songs chart. ADA will also work in tandem with Crush Music, which manages Kesha, overseeing marketing and promotion for Kesha’s forthcoming album. This marks Kesha’s first distribution deal and gives her full creative control and ownership of her work.

“Since the start of her career, Kesha’s authenticity has distinguished her as a true artist whose vibrant self-expression resonates strongly with her fans,” said ADA president Cat Kreidich in a release. “We believe ADA is the ideal home for her, and we’re honored and committed to supporting Kesha as an independent artist while maintaining her creative integrity and unapologetic bold-spirit.”

Kesha’s latest hit, “Joyride,” recently surpassed 50 million streams across all platforms and landed on the Spotify U.S. and Global Viral charts upon release, according to ADA. The star also recently hit major milestones with updated RIAA certifications. “TiK ToK” is now 12x platinum and “Timber” has become her second Diamond-certified single in the U.S. Other hits like “Die Young,” “We R Who We R” and “Praying” have reached 6x and 5x platinum. These achievements push her total U.S. sales over 75 million, according to ADA.

Kesha’s discography also encompasses two No. 1 albums on the Billboard 200 and 10 top 10 singles on the Billboard Hot 100. Kesha’s third studio album Rainbow debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 and went on to land a Grammy nomination for best pop solo album in 2017. The album’s lead single “Praying” spent 21 weeks on the Billboard Hot 100 and also earned a Grammy nomination for best pop solo performance. Since then, she’s released two critically-acclaimed projects, High Road and Gag Order.

No, ma’am. The stars of The View shared their thoughts about Janet Jackson‘s recent comments about Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris being “not Black” on the the Monday (Sept. 23) episode of the talk show, and they didn’t hold back.

“I think Janet Jackson, like every other American — whether you’re a celebrity or not — has a right to endorse, support or not support whomever they want. She’s got every right to not like Kamala Harris if she doesn’t want to,” Ana Navarro began. “What she did was spread misinformation, and I think it’s very irresponsible when you have a platform the way Janet Jackson does to use that platform carelessly to spread misinformation based on a racist allegation by Donald Trump. It was Donald Trump who tried to say, ‘Kamala Harris just turned Black.’”

The political strategist and commentator then explained to viewers that the vice president’s parents are immigrants — Harris’ mom is South Asian from India, while her dad is a Black man from Jamaica. “Here’s a picture for all of you who need … for Miss Jackson, if you’re nasty,” Navarro said, holding up a photo of the VP as a toddler in her dad’s arms. “Here’s the damn picture!”

Alyssa Farah Griffin — who was the press secretory for former VP Mike Pence and served as White House communications director under Trump — then noted that nowadays, people tend to live in “information silos,” with social media algorithms often feeding users what they want to see rather than facts from a range of sources. “My guess is she’s not looking at great sources of media,” she said of the pop icon.

Journalist Sara Haines chimed in with a big concern as well in regards to sourcing facts. “This is the No. 1 most severe warning in the short term we have globally — misinformation and disinformation — the World Economic Forum said this is our greatest risk in the next few years, and it’s not just this country, it’s everywhere. You never single source a story,” she noted. “The other part of the story that bothers me is the whole identity issue. The fastest growing group in this country is multiracial individuals, not bi, multiracial individuals! So asking people ‘What are you?” — we need to be more open about people’s identity and what they identify as and have some grace.”

That was the perfect transition for Sunny Hostin, who identifies as biracial, pointing out that the best way to handle this is the way the VP has, which is to ignore it. Instead, Hostin said, it’s better to focus on what Harris has accomplished. “I think Kamala is breaking barriers just by being in the room regardless of whether Janet Jackson thinks she’s black or white or Indian,” said the lawyer and journalist, who also said she didn’t know whether the star got got what she said from misinformation or lack of information. “The very fact that [Harris] is in the room, deconstructs in my view, the societal norms that we’ve seen in the nearly 250 years of this country of what a presidential candidate looks like.”

While some of the stars of The View had some tough words for Jackson, moderator Whoopi Goldberg offered the superstar some grace. “Janet Jackson is not a political animal. She’s a musician … and she’s mourning her brother,” the actress said, noting that the singer’s brother Tito died recently. “I sometimes have said stuff and I was wrong! … So sometimes, people get it wrong, and they’re WRONG. They made a mistake. It happens. … We all do it, so a little grace for the girl, all right?”

Jackson made her repeated the right-wing conspiracy theory about Harris being “not Black” during an interview with The Guardian published Sept. 21. “Her father’s white, that’s what I was told,” she said to the publication. “I mean, I haven’t watched the news in a few days. I was told that they discovered her father was white.”

Watch The View panel discusses Janet Jackson’s comments about Kamala Harris’ racial identity below.

Method Man may have a different point of view, but the past week in hip-hop and R&B was utterly dominated by the latest news in the federal indictment against embattled music mogul Sean “Diddy” Combs.

On Tuesday (Sept. 17), less than a day after his arrest in New York, federal prosecutors unsealed a criminal indictment against Combs, revealing sweeping allegations of sexual abuse and running a racketeering conspiracy that included forced labor, sex trafficking, kidnapping, arson and bribery. The new development in Comb’s case comes months after both Cassie Ventura‘s bombshell November 2023 lawsuit and a reported raid of Combs’ Miami and Los Angeles Homes on March 25. As a vile hurricane of gossip, misinformation, and victim-blaming continues to surround this case, it was nearly impossible to think about the worlds of hip-hop and R&B without landing on this culture-rocking indictment.

Nonetheless, a few musicians were able to stake a small claim for themselves in the news cycle — including Future, who dropped off a new mixtape called Mixtape Pluto, marking his third full-length project of the year so far. Grammy-winning rapper Eve also found herself back in the news as she promoted her new memoir, which included heartfelt memories of working with Nicki Minaj on the set of 2016’s Barbershop: The Next Cut and conversing with Jay-Z amid the release of her Billboard 200-topping 1999 debut album, Let There Be Eve…Ruff Ryders’ First Lady.

With Fresh Picks, Billboard aims to highlight some of the best and most interesting new sounds across R&B and hip-hop — from Jae Stephens’ new Y2K fantasia to 4batz and Lil Baby’s smooth new duet. Be sure to check out this week’s Fresh Picks in our Spotify playlist below.

Freshest Find: Jae Stephens, “PDA”

After cutting her teeth as a songwriter and signing a deal with Raedio, in partnership with Def Jam, Jae Stephens is ready to fully step into her spotlight as the world’s favorite new pop girl. Cheekily titled Sellout, Stephens’ new EP runs a tight six tracks, all of which hone in on her funky, R&B-steeped take on the percussive pop fantasies of the late ’90s and early ’00s. While recent singles “Wet,” “Girls Don’t Cheat” and “Body Favors” have made the rounds on socials, it’s “PDA” that stands as the project’s crown jewel. “Does anybody in here have a problem with us acting up?/ Ain’t you ever seen a baddie and her baby bad in love?” she questions at the song’s onset. She’s not really asking us for permission to love on her baby, but it’s that combination of devil-may-care swagger and tongue-in-cheek cockiness that makes “PDA” such a nifty encapsulation of Sellout’s vibe and sound. From sultry electric guitar licks to sneaky trips to her fluttery falsetto and spunky spoken word breakdowns, “PDA” is a surefire song of the fall.

Jean Dawson, “Houston”

For the latest taste of his forthcoming Glimmer of God LP (due Oct. 18), Jean Dawson turns up the heat on his flirtations with pop and dance for an atmospheric new joint titled “Houston.” Over a beat that sounds like a distant cousin of the soundscape The Weeknd curated with 2020’s After Hours, Dawson picks up where the Canadian pop icon left off by localizing his balance of life’s most epic highs and lows in an American city with its own lore and mythology. For The Weeknd, that city is normally Los Angeles, but Dawson opts for Houston as he croons, “Ima lose my soul tonight/ Only for the moment right I/ Sink into the lonely night/ Dancing with my own desire higher.” He tempers the song’s synth-pop skeleton with a vocal delivery that exposes the melancholy that courses through his desire to get “higher,” making for a worthy lesson in lyrical and melodic tension.

Jaz Karis, “Talk About It”

Last week (Sept. 20), South London R&B singer-songwriter Jaz Karis dropped her debut full-length album, Safe Flight, and “Talk About It” is one of the project’s most impressive cuts. Produced by contemporary R&B architect Camper, “Talk About It” finds Karis trying her best to convince her partner of the merits of talking through issues rather than shutting down when conflict arises. “Know these ain’t the goals you see online/ It ain’t picture perfect, it’s real-life/ We don’t stand a chance, if we don’t fight/ I don’t wanna give up, not this time,” she coos in the second verse, over a twinkling arrangement equally supported by lush R&B chords and gorgeous vocal stacks. In her embrace of sonic signifiers of past eras of R&B, Karis can root her explorations of the feasibility of Internet Age “relationship goals” in a different context, making for some truly effective songwriting despite the tried-and-true nature of the song’s concept.

4batz & Lil Baby, “Roll Da Dice”

4batz adds another superstar collaborator to his decorated resume that already includes tracks with Usher, Drake and Kanye West. Lil Baby brings the Atlanta trap to the Dallas crooner’s doorstep for the woozy “Roll Da Dice.” As a gambler, Baby is always down to test his luck and take another spin at the wheel. 4batz brings that same mentality to romance while doing whatever it takes to win over a woman so he’s not left love sick. “I roll the dice, make sure there’s no babies,” 4batz reveals of his unguarded nature. But when it comes to intoxicating love-drunk anthems, the elusive R&B singer-songwriter already is impossible to defeat like he was dealt ace-king on the blackjack table. 

TiaCorine, “Different Color Stones”

Imposter Syndrome can be an exhausting battle for artists when it comes to releasing music. Luckily for TiaCorine, her friends and team reportedly pushed her to deliver “Different Color Stones.” The bubbly tune finds Tia collecting infinity stones in the form of different flows as she plays hopscotch mixing in speedy 100 MPH rhymes with a slower-paced hypnotic pocket. “Listen baby/ If you got some money goin act up/ Shawty throw yo ass up/ We ballin’ baby,” she raps while saluting the self-made women winning across the globe. FreakyT’s elevation continues while moving into the post-Almost There era. 

Ray Vaughn & NLE Choppa, “FNBM”

With Cuffing Season just around the corner, don’t expect Ray Vaughn or NLE Choppa to get involved. The TDE rapper and Memphis native connect for the explicit “FNBM” as they’re going to be outside for quarter four. The brash duo doesn’t care about women’s ties to previous partners to complicate their own love lives. “Excuse me, I’m from Los Angeles/ Just f–k the homie, b—h, cause I’m scandalous/ Afterwards she puttin’ chips on my sandwiches,” Vaughn raps. Choppa takes the baton and brings his raunchiness and “SLUT SZN” energy to the track. The visual is worth a watch as well, where an ex pulls up to Vaughn and Choppa’s estate and he’s met face-to-face with an assault rifle. 

Range Music Publishing, a division of Range Media Partners, has finalized an exclusive global administration deal with Universal Music Publishing Group. This marks a major expansion of Range’s existing partnership with Universal, which includes a deal with Capitol Music Group and Virgin Music Group on the recorded music side.

News of the administration deal with UMPG comes just after Range Music Publishing announced the signing of Sean Cook, one of the collaborators for Shaboozey‘s breakout hit “A Bar Song (Tipsy).” The Range Music Publishing roster includes Grant Averill, Tyler Dopps, Two Fresh, Luke Niccoli, Simon Oscroft and Rudey who are included in this new deal. Range clients Warburton, Luke Grimes and Dylan Gossett are not part of the new agreement.

Established in 2023, Range Music Publishing is helmed by Casey Robison, who previously led Big Deal Music Group as its co-president and partner. Its parent organization, Range Media Partners, is a multi-faceted company, representing businesses and talent in all areas of entertainment — including music, film, tv, production, comedy and sports.

On the music management side, Range Music represents some of the music industry’s biggest talents including Jack Harlow, Shaboozey, Tanya Tucker, Cordae, Pentatonix, Saweetie, Midland, Murda Beatz, PARTYNEXTDOOR, Lauv, Alec Benjamin, Gossett, MAX, Bazzi, Sean Douglas, Paul Russell, Wondagurl, Russell Dickerson and more.  

“We’re thrilled to be partnering with our friends at UMPG as we build Range Music Publishing and grow our global footprint,” says Robison. “UMPG’s impressive team will help us maximize creative opportunities while providing first class administration for our growing roster of artists and songwriters. We couldn’t be more proud to call UMPG our partners.”

Range Media Partners co-founder and managing partner Matt Graham continues: “On behalf of our partnership we are thrilled to be formalizing our longstanding relationship with UMPG. The collaboration ensures greater creative support and administration for our writers, producers and artists. Together, we are committed to connecting the dots across our myriad of talent as well as the varying facets of our film, tv, sports and gaming relationships.”

Jennifer Knoepfle, UMPG executive vp and co-head of A&R, said: “In the short time Range has focused on publishing, they have already made a strong impact in the marketplace. Casey, Sam, Matt and team have a great ethos and vision and we are happy to be their admin partner on current and future endeavors.”