Bruce Springsteen released one of the most politically charged tracks of his career on Wednesday (Jan. 28) with the surprise drop of the smoldering protest song “Streets of Minneapolis.” In a statement, the Rock and Roll Hall of Famer said the song was written on Saturday (Jan. 24) and recorded on Tuesday (Jan. 27) in response to “the state terror being visited on the city of Minneapolis.”

In the tradition of one of his icons, folk legend Woody Guthrie, the song’s lyrics plainly and powerfully tell the story of the pitched battles being fought on the streets of the city as citizens stand up and push back on the sometimes violent immigration raids being carried out by the Trump administration. Specifically, he pays tribute to the violent actions by border and ICE agents that so far this month have resulted in the killings of two American citizens: 37-year-old mother of three Renée Good and 37-year-old intensive care nurse Alex Pretti.

Springsteen dedicated the song to the people of Minneapolis, as well as “our innocent immigrant neighbors,” and to the memories of Good and Pretti.

The Nebraska-like urgent rocker opens with just Springsteen and spare instrumentation as he seethes, “Through the winter’s ice and cold/ Down Nicollet Avenue/ A city aflame fought fire and ice/ ‘Neath an occupier’s boots/ King Trump’s private army from the DHS/ Guns belted to their coats/ Came to Minneapolis to enforce the law/ Or so their story goes.”

The song, which is a callback to Springsteen’s Oscar and Grammy-winning 1994 soundtrack anthem “Streets of Philadelphia” from director Ted Demme’s 1993 AIDS drama Philadelphia, bursts into a full band roar by the second verse. Springsteen praises the brave push-back from residents of Minneapolis against the masked ICE and other border patrol enlistees who have descended on the city by the thousands this month to carry out Trump’s immigration agenda.

“Against smoke and rubber bullets/ By the dawn’s early light/ Citizens stood for justice/ Their voices ringing through the night,” he sings over chiming guitars and a steady drum beat. “And there were bloody footprints/ Where mercy should have stood/ And two dead left to die on snow-filled streets/ Alex Pretti and Renee Good.”

Springsteen joins a rising chorus of American citizens, a handful of Republican legislators and fellow artists including Billie Eilish and Finneas, Dave Matthews, Moby, Olivia Rodrigo, the Chicks as well as a raft of Hollywood stars decrying the aggressive tactics employed by Trump’s immigration enforcers. They’ve spoken out after the Jan. 7 killing of Good, who was shot to death by ICE agent Jonathan Ross amid Trump administration claims that she “weaponized” her car against Ross, despite video of the incident that appears to show her turning her car away from him and attempting to leave the scene of an ICE enforcement action.

Similarly, after Trump and several members of his administration rushed to label Pretti a “domestic terrorist” and “assassin” in the hours after his killing by an unidentified U.S. Border Patrol agent on Friday (Jan. 24), multiple video angles of his slaying appear to show him attempting to help a woman who had been thrown violently to the ground by agents amid a protest against their actions. Pretti, a licensed gun owner who video appeared to show had his holstered gun taken away from him just seconds into the confrontation, was shot 10 times while laying prone and pinned to the ground by half a dozen masked officers.

Springsteen’s plainspoken lyrics call out the people of Minneapolis, whose voices he says he hears “through the bloody mist,” vowing to take a stand “for this land/ And the stranger in our midst” and remember the names of those who died on their city’s streets.

The song is also a call-back to one of the Boss’ most intense protest anthems, 2001’s “American Skin (41 Shots),” his passionate response to the 1999 NYPD killing of unarmed Amadou Diallo. Along with the serially misunderstood anti-Vietnam War anthem”Born in the U.S.A.” and his John Steinbeck-inspired paean to the disenfranchised and trampled upon, “The Ghost of Tom Joad,” Springsteen’s latest is in keeping with his tradition of powerfully responding to the tenor of the times. And in keeping with his disdain for former reality TV star Trump, during the first Trump administration, he released “That’s What Makes Us Great,” a gritty song that spun the president’s “Make America Great Again” slogan in defense of immigrants who come to America in search of a dream and freedom.

“Trump’s federal thugs beat up on/ His face and his chest/ Then we heard the gunshots/ And Alex Pretti lay in the snow, dead,” Springsteen sings on the new song of Pretti, who was a nurse on an intensive care unit at the Department of Veterans Affairs.

“Their claim was self defense, sir/ Just don’t believe your eyes,” he continues. “It’s our blood and bones/ And these whistles and phones/ Against Miller and Noem’s dirty lies,” the latter a call out to White House deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller — who was the one who referred to Pretti as an “assassin” — and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, who also issued what appear to be misleading and inflammatory statements in the moments after the killing claiming that Pretti intended to “massacre” agents.

The song ends with Springsteen lamenting the trampling of rights by officers eager to question or deport anyone with Black or brown skin, while amplifying the frequently shouted cries of “ICE out now” heard at protests around the nation over the past few months.

“Here in our home they killed and roamed/ In the winter of ’26/ We’ll take our stand for this land/ And the stranger in our midst/ We’ll remember the names of those who died/ On the streets of Minneapolis,” he sings in the final, urgent refrain.

Listen to “Streets of Minneapolis” below.

At weekend one of Coachella 2024, during her main stage sunset slot, Sabrina Carpenter gave her then-new single, “Espresso,” its live debut — and by the festival’s second weekend, “we knew things had shifted,” recalls her manager, Janelle Lopez Genzink.

“It was obviously really exciting,” the Volara Management founder ­continues, “but it was also slightly nerve-wracking, because we knew we were stepping into a meaningful cultural moment that was going to ­continue to grow.”

“Espresso” went on to become Billboard’s No. 1 global song of the ­summer for 2024 and introduced Carpenter’s Grammy-winning, chart-­topping sixth album, Short n’ Sweet, released that August; two subsequent singles from the set, “Please Please Please” and “Taste,” hit Nos. 1 and 2 on the Billboard Hot 100, respectively. Meanwhile, behind the scenes, Volara was ­growing, too. By mid-2024, Lopez Genzink signed pop singer MARINA — who says Lopez Genzink “is one of the few who puts human beings first and commerce second” — and hired a new day-to-day manager, Bianca Nour, to join Volara’s tight team, which then consisted of early hires Amy Davidson and Merce Jessor.

By the start of 2025, Volara added another act to its roster: HAIM. “They’re my favorite rock band out there,” says Lopez Genzink, who was introduced to the trio through its attorney.

“Working with Janelle has been the greatest partnership,” the band’s Alana Haim says. “From the very beginning, her focus was always on supporting our vision and bringing our dreams to life. No idea is too crazy or too big — she makes you feel like anything is possible, and with her, it truly is.”

In 2025, Volara’s entire roster was on-cycle. “You should have seen our shared Google calendar,” Lopez Genzink says with a laugh. “There were a lot of colors.” In early June, MARINA released her sixth album, Princess of Power, and she embarked on a world tour in September that included her first Australian dates in 15 years. In late June, HAIM released its fourth album, I Quit, and it headed out on a tour of arenas and amphitheaters in September and October; by November, I Quit had scored the band its first best rock album Grammy nomination, making HAIM the first all-woman act to receive a nod in the category. (June was a particularly “crazy month,” with Lopez Genzink flying from New York for MARINA’s album promotion, then to Barcelona for Primavera Sound with HAIM and Carpenter, then to Los Angeles for her daughter’s tap recital — then back to London later that day. “I don’t ever want to do that again,” she says with an exasperated laugh.)

As for Carpenter, she followed Short n’ Sweet with yet another Grammy-nominated, chart-topping album, Man’s Best Friend, released in August. She added its songs — including Hot 100 No. 1 hit “Manchild” — to her hugely successful arena tour that wrapped in November and grossed $126.6 million over 72 shows, according to Billboard Boxscore (the trek ran from Sept. 23, 2024, to Nov. 23, 2025). Along the way, Carpenter became a bona fide festival headliner, topping the bills of Lollapalooza Chicago, Austin City Limits and Primavera. And come April, she’ll return to the desert to headline Coachella 2026. (At Coachella 2024, her weekend two outro predicted her quick return to the fest: “Coachella, see you back here when I headline.”)

For Lopez Genzink, her rosterwide success is proof of concept — and why she sees results no matter how long she has had to build with an artist (a decade with Carpenter, dating back to her time at Faculty Management, compared with just one year with MARINA and six months with HAIM before each released their 2025 albums). “I work best with artists who have a really clear vision and a really, really strong work ethic,” she says. “I don’t think that anybody in music from the artist side or the executive side succeeds at a really high level unless you’re able to have the stamina to carry you when things are maybe not quite working yet. And then when things are working… when the largest opportunities are presented to you at one time, to have the energy to keep going.”

And yet, she says it’s equally important to know how — and when — to recover. She likens her team, and what she looks for in new hires, to athletes: “Someone who will work and work and work, but at the same time know how to take care of themselves so that we can always be like the best versions of ourselves for the artists, too.”

That mindset drove Lopez Genzink to found Volara in the first place. By 2021, she had 17 years of experience in artist management, including early roles with The Firm, Azoff Music Management and Faculty Management. (While interning at a major label, she recalls asking her boss, “What’s the job where you could be close to the artist all the time?”) She says her first management job at The Firm affirmed her path: “I don’t feel like I spent too many years trying to figure out what I wanted to do,” she says. “Obviously, the job of an artist manager isn’t super straightforward, but I had such a passion for it.”

Her main client across both Azoff and Faculty was a childhood favorite: New Kids on the Block. She spent over 15 years working as the band’s day-to-day manager, an opportunity that allowed her to travel the world on the group’s tours and even take part in the full arc of an album cycle, from A&R to rollout campaigns. “It really gave me the chance to grow as a manager,” she says, “and speaks to what I’m able to do now.”

Soon after Faculty launched in 2015, Lopez Genzink met the firm’s next star client at a charity event. The then-15-year-old Sabrina Carpenter was acting on Disney’s Girl Meets World at the time and looking for artist management; Lopez Genzink was integral in signing her to Faculty. “From the moment that I met her, she had a very clear vision about how she was going to release her music and portray herself, even at that age.” (By 2018, Lopez Genzink rose to GM at Faculty.)

At the same time, Lopez Genzink’s own vision was crystalizing. “I was happy where I was, but I also had so much more in me,” she says. “When I started in management, I was a single female in [L.A.]. Then I got married and my life changed. And then I had one kid and my life changed again. And then I had two kids. I honestly wasn’t sure how I was going to be successful at the level that I wanted to be within the confines of a more traditional management company. I knew that I could build something that allowed me to succeed at a high level without giving up my desire to also have a partner, have kids and be present in their lives. And because management is such a lifestyle job, that’s just hard to do. So I wanted to build a company where that could be possible.”

Lopez Genzink launched Volara in August 2021, taking Carpenter with her seven months after the singer signed with Island Records, marking her departure from Hollywood Records. Carpenter’s Island debut, 2022’s Emails I Can’t Send, peaked at No. 23 on the Billboard 200 and included early breakout hit “Nonsense,” which became infamous for its cheeky outro that Carpenter tailors to each city she performs in.

“Nonsense” was an effective fire-starter — especially on the heels of key opening slots on Taylor Swift’s The Eras Tour — but Carpenter’s one-two punch of 2024’s Short n’ Sweet and 2025’s Man’s Best Friend set her career ablaze. The two albums delivered five top five Hot 100 hits (“Manchild,” “Please Please Please,” “Taste,” “Tears” and “Espresso”) and made Carpenter one of seven artists since 1980 to receive consecutive album of the year Grammy nominations.

As Lopez Genzink puts it, any lasting artist partnership boils down to one key component: trust. “So that before things are crazy, you’ve built a cadence for how you do things that when things shift — and you want them to shift, for any client, whatever success looks like for them — that baseline is already there,” she says. “And that way when you do have days that feel overwhelming, the artist can fall back on you and trust that you have the clarity of mind to support them.”

This story appears in the Jan. 24, 2026, issue of Billboard.

Baton Rouge rapper H3adband has turned his viral hit “Boo” — one of the first new hip-hop songs to reach the Hot 100 in 2026 (No. 90) — into a buzzy new record deal.

Billboard can exclusively announce that H3adband has signed with Tony Bucher’s Hitmaker Music Group, in partnership with Atlantic Records and 10K Projects, through a newly formed joint venture with WatchDatBaby Records, an independent label founded by Louisiana record executive Byron “Bjay” Landingham Jr., concluding a competitive label bidding war.

The new joint venture seeks to combine Hitmaker’s global infrastructure with WatchDatBaby Records’ artist-first deals, which prioritize creative control and long-term growth. H3adband will build on the momentum of “Boo” with an as-yet-untitled project slated for release later this year via Hitmaker.

“I’m ecstatic to welcome H3adband and WatchDatBaby to the Hitmaker family,” Bucher told Billboard. “H3adband is going to be a global superstar, and there’s no hotter label right now than WatchDatBaby.”

Billboard first reported on H3adband’s rising hit in its weekly Trending Up column last December, citing its astronomical streaming increases following its viral dance trend, which attracted celebrities like Savannah James, DaBaby, and Dancing With the Stars pro Valentin Chmerkovskiy.

H3adband’s signing comes amid a larger moment for burgeoning Louisiana rap stars, several of whom WatchDatBaby has been instrumental in their rise. Last fall, 3DCam, who hails from the city of Monroe, dropped “Crack,” which quickly took over TikTok (nearly 400,000 creates) and earned a remix from fellow Louisiana MC Fredo Bang by January. Baton Rouge rapper 42kbrook scored her own slow-burning hit with “Pookie Lean,” which launched a popular dance trend that brought the song to hundreds of thousands of posts across social media.

“We understand the culture, we control the business, and we’re building something that lasts — not just chasing a moment,” says Landingham Jr. “That starts with recognizing the talent coming out of Louisiana that’s often overlooked and giving it the push and resources it deserves. I plan on opening the door and not closing it behind me.”

Hitmaker distributed both “Crack” and “Pookie Lean,” which have joined YoungBoy Never Broke Again’s “Shot Callin” and “What You Is” as recent Louisiana rap hits that have ascended beyond the regional level. YoungBoy scored the No. 7 highest-grossing rap tour of 2025, according to Billboard Boxscore, and his most recent full-length, Slime Cry, became his 17^th Billboard 200 top 10 effort (Jan. 31). It looks like the South will always have something to say.

In addition to the Hot 100, “Boo” has also brought H3adband to Billboard’s Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs (No. 19) and Emerging Artists (No. 8) charts.