Liam Payne, the former One Direction star who eventually blossomed into a successful solo career, has died, according to CNN. He was 31 years old.

According to police, he died after falling from a third-floor hotel room in Buenos Aires, Argentina.

This story is developing.

Last year, Zach Bryan saw two of his songs spend weeks atop Billboard‘s Hot Country Songs chart, including the 20-week chart-topper “I Remember Everything” with Kacey Musgraves and the six-week No. 1 “Something in the Orange” (which also reached the top 20 on the Country Airplay chart). Earlier this year, he also won his first Grammy, in the best country duo/group performance category for the Musgraves collaboration.

But during a recent interview with one of his musical heroes, Rock & Roll Hall of Famer Bruce Springsteen, Bryan opened up about why he doesn’t want to be considered “a country musician.”

“Everyone calls me it,” Bryan told Springsteen as part of Rolling Stone‘s Musicians on Musicians series. “I want to be a songwriter, and you’re quintessentially a songwriter. No one calls Bruce Springsteen — hate to use your name in front of you — but no one calls Bruce Springsteen a freaking rock musician, which you are one, but you’re also an indie musician, you’re also a country musician. You’re all these things encapsulated in one man. And that’s what songwriting is.”

Springsteen said that Bryan has been “connected to the country genre,” but also noted that after attending one of Bryan’s shows, he saw “so much — and I don’t want to call it rock — just energy in your performance. You bust all those different genre boundaries down.”

“That’s why you’re a hero to me, because no one’s ever come up to you and said you were in any sort of lane,” Bryan responded. “When I first started making music, I told Stefan and Danny, my managers, I was like, ‘I want to be in a lane where, when people look back, they can listen to my music and it’s supremely whatever you were doing.’ You were the only person in my head that has ever done that.”

Elsewhere in the interview, Bryan opened up about his own battle with imposter syndrome. Springsteen asked Bryan when he first considered himself “a serious songwriter.”

“I still don’t!” Bryan responded, saying, “To this day I have really bad impostor syndrome. But I had a lot of friends in the Navy, and we’d go out to the bars and we’d always have these times, and I’d go back to my barracks room and I’d sing about it. I never had anything else to express myself. You work so much you never really have time to talk about these things. So I’d go home and I would write, and I never in a million years thought I would become a songwriter because I never thought I had the talent. And that’s not a humble thing, it’s just I never in a million years thought I would be sitting here with you. Because we would hear your songs, and they’re beautiful and poetic and genius. When I play [my songs], I’m like, ‘There’s no way people enjoy these like they would enjoy a Dylan song or a Springsteen song or anything like that.’”

Springsteen also spoke candidly of his own feelings about songwriting, saying, “Songwriting’s hard. And I don’t think I felt really comfortable with the idea that I was writing good songs till I was about 22 or 23, when I was coming up with the songs for my first record, a record called Greetings From Asbury Park, N.J., which came out in 1973.”

Springsteen also complimented several of Bryan’s songs, particularly “Revival” and “Open the Gate,” noting that they are “songs you’re gonna be singing till you are as old as me.”

Springsteen released his latest album, Only the Strong Survive, in 2022, while Bryan released his latest project, The Great American Bar Scene, in July.

In 2016, the conservative-leaning New York Post outed Kaseem Ryan‘s career as a New York City firefighter, in which he was a 9/11 first responder and rose to the rank of captain. You see, the Post took umbrage with the “anti-cop” rhetoric in his raps and felt the need to lift the veil of the rapper known as Ka, one of the genre’s most mysterious figures.

Ka approached rap music differently than his peers. He produced most of his songs and music videos, often during his off time from saving lives as a fireman. His words came across as brutal, humble, calm, and wise all at once. His beats evoked a cold winter night when the only people outside were the hustlers and the late-night stragglers looking for that last fix before the sun comes up and the block gets hot again. He would host pop-ups to sell his latest albums and meet his fans. Most of the time the only way to hear his music was to go to his website and buy it directly from him. And he would handle every online order himself. He was truly a man of and for the people, and he believed in the sanctity of hip-hop to his core.

In 2012, while sitting down with Out Da Box TV, Ka explained his creative process and how he felt about the state of hip-hop at the time. “I’m a purist. To me hip-hop is a beautiful artform that I feel isn’t being respected as such now,” he said before going on a minor rant about the trend of not writing rhymes popularized by acts Jay-Z and Lil Wayne. “I was taking offense to all that shit,” he added. “Ayo, B, it takes time to sculpt. [The] Sistine Chapel wasn’t done [on] how fast you could do it; the shit was done over years. David wasn’t sculpted in, you know, ‘Yo, I did that in a day.’ There’s no time on art. When I’m doing a verse, it takes me a long time to do the verse, and as far as doing the verse, I’m speaking from a lifetime of experiences. It took a lifetime to write that.”

His approach was just as profound as his music. There are lines from his work that stick to you. On the song “I’m Ready” from his 2013 album The Knight’s Gambit, towards the end of the chorus he raps, “If judged by a scale I pray my righteousness is heavy/ I’m ready, I’m ready” in his raspy voice as if he was already grappling with the prospect of what awaits him beyond this life. I would say that his righteousness was indeed heavy, judging by the outpouring of kind words from his peers and fans alike. Frequent collaborator and one half of their group Metal Clergy, Roc Marciano called Ka his “big brother” and “guardian angel.” The Alchemist called him “a living prophet.” Fans posted pictures of themselves with him at his pop-ups and mentioned how accessible and friendly he was.

His art resonated with people because they felt the effort he put in and the pain he was holding inside. Sure, he was a captain for the FDNY, but he grew up in Brownsville during the crack era, and seemed to be working through survivor’s remorse in his music. “I wanted them to know this is personal what I’m giving you,” he said in that same Out Da Box interview. “This is blood I’m giving you. I’m not spittin’ this s–t, this is blood. I needed them to know that, to appreciate it, that if you don’t hear a lot from me, it’s because I’m pulling a lot from me and I’m actually expending a lot of energy to give you these songs. So, I just want you to appreciate it.”

And we did.

An artist like Ka wasn’t defined by numbers or trophies — he was defined by the art, by the culture, by the people. In an interview with Passion of the Weiss, he spoke on living two lives and what he wanted his legacy to be. “I’m living two lives, man. I’m trying to be who I am in the day and then trying to feed my soul at night with being the artist that I want to be,” he told the outlet. “I want to respect the culture and give back what it gave to me. The reason I’m alive right now is because of hip-hop.

He continued about the music that saved his life: “It made me want to be a smarter person. It made me want to read, so I would write better rhymes. It was that important to me. It gave me drive; I wanted to be the best MC there ever was. Hip-hop don’t have a museum like this yet but if we have, I want to be a wing. I want to be my own f–king room, the Ka chamber right here. ‘At the time he was doing it, there wasn’t a lot of light on it, but yo, we went back and checked it, that s–t was incredible’ — that’s what I want. Van Gogh, he wasn’t revered, he cut his ear off and killed himself later on. That man wasn’t known until years after his death – he needed to have known what he was during the time he was alive.”

Ka leaves this life behind as being one of the best rappers of his era and as an even better man. It’s our duty now to continue to tell his story and put people on to his music, so that he can live forever.

Mexican music star Pepe Aguilar took the spotlight at the 2024 Billboard Latin Music Week for an Icon Q&A, in conversation with Billlboard‘s Leila Cobo.

The “Por Mujeres Como Tú” singer spoke at length about his iconic career, legacy, his family dynasty — he is the son of regional Mexican royalty Antonio Aguilar and Flor Silvestre — and why, after being signed to major labels at the beginning of his career — he decided to go and stay indie.

Below, the 8 best quotes from Pepe Aguilar’s Icon Q&A:

On being a workaholic: “I’m a workaholic, what can I say. But the last 20 years of my life, I had dedicated myself 100% to guide and focus on my kids’ careers. I thought I was still doing my thing but I was very focused on them. Now that they are on their own, I will return to focus on my career. I believe in discipline, I believe in work and gratitude in the work culture.

What his new single “Cuídamela Bien” is really about: “It was not dedicated to my son in law (Christian Nodal), but I think it is about a moment in my life. Of course it has to do with my daughter and her wedding. It is something totally new for me, I had never experienced that. After 20 years of being with your child, suddenly bye, it is a life experience that had not touched my life, what better than to express it through music, you already fulfilled as a father now it’s her turn to live her life.”

Ángela Aguilar & Nodal being a power couple: “I love it and I told Christian, if you get to be together, who else is there like you two in Spanish-language music. Christian never ceases to amaze me, for good, I can see the love he has for my daughter.”

His passion for music and business, and passing it on to his children Ángela and Leonardo Aguilar: “I eat, I dream of music, the spectacle and I don’t plan on doing anything else. I don’t know if I’ve been doing this the right or wrong way but I’ve always been involved in everything. In fact the cover art of ‘Cuídamela Bien,’ I did it on chat GPT. I produce my records, I design my shows, I pay for my jaripeo shows, that’s how I taught my children too and now with me, they are the same. They’ll say, ‘Dad this is my idea, whether you like it or not.’ They are doing their life according to how I educated them.”

Going and staying indie: “I once got out of a record deal through a lawsuit, I beat them, owing them 12 albums, and I got out. People would say, ‘He’s ungrateful’ but there’s more context to that case. They did not do a good job for me. Now I sign different deals but none with exclusivity, only licenses.”

His bucket list: “To take my jaripeo-style show to Europe, and not only to Spain, is a goal that seemed unattainable, and also to take it to Asia. Mexicanidad has no borders, the folklore of each country has no borders. I am going to do cumbia, tango, vallenato, flamenco, albums and visualizers, with different artists. It may be one of the most important projects but my jaripeo-style show is one of my greatest achievements, my father would have been happy and proud.”

On his family dynasty: “My father taught us that everyone had their own story. I follow Mexican music because I believe in Mexican folklore, not because my father taught me to. Having that last name was a blessing and a curse because the common denominator was Antonio Aguilar and Flor silvestre, it was always a tremendous pride to be their son. For me it was normal to grow up in the family of two famous people, normal to get to the Madison Square Garden often. I never felt it was a competition with my dad, especially when my dad was 87 years old and I was in my prime, it’s not about comparisons. With my children it’s the same. Even if they have the same last name, people don’t do favors, people will consume what they actually like, whatever your name is, they will support you.”

What’s coming up: “I have a new album coming out, and ‘Cuídamela Bien’ was the first single of this album. There’s a lot of music coming, a lot of touring with stops in South America as well.”

The 2024 Billboard Latin Music Week coincides with the 2024 Billboard Latin Music Awards set to air at 9 p.m. ET on Sunday, Oct. 20, on Telemundo. It will simultaneously be available on Universo, Peacock and the Telemundo app, and in Latin America and the Caribbean through Telemundo Internacional.