MTV and TelevisaUnivision will partner for the second consecutive year with a live, hosted simulcast of the 2024 VMAs on Wednesday, Sept. 11 at 8 p.m. ET/PT on Univision, the most-watched network among U.S. Hispanics. An encore presentation of the awards show will air on UniMás at 11:30 p.m. ET/PT.

This is a reversal of what transpired last year, when the live simulcast aired on UniMás at 8 p.m. ET and the encore presentation aired on Univision at 11:30 p.m. ET. This platform flip portends a much bigger live audience this year, given Univision’s greater reach.

Univision will bring exclusive show access to its audience, with original, in-show commentary from entertainment host and reporter Alejandra Espinoza throughout the three-hour broadcast, live from New York’s UBS Arena.

“We’re excited to build on last year’s unique and enormously successful partnership with TelevisaUnivision,” Bruce Gillmer, president of music, music talent, programming & events, Paramount and chief content officer, Music, Paramount+, said in a statement. “Together, we were able to reach the largest live Spanish-speaking audience in VMAs history and deliver +29% [year-over-year] ratings growth. We look forward to celebrating the world’s top artists, including some of the biggest Latin superstars, with our fans around the globe.”

“TelevisaUnivision is excited to partner with Paramount for the second consecutive year to bring the VMAs to our audience,” said Ignacio Meyer, president of U.S. Networks at TelevisaUnivision. “Latin music’s rising influence on mainstream culture is undeniable. We’re proud to be the exclusive Spanish-language home in the U.S. for this year’s award show, offering viewers an in-language, front-row seat to this celebration.”

MTV calls this year’s show the “most global VMAs in show history.” The show will have three Latin performers — Anitta, Karol G and Rauw Alejandro, plus Camila Cabello, who has Latin roots. (The show has also booked K-Pop star LISA.)

Latin and Latin pop crossover music has been an important part of the performance mix on VMA broadcasts since 2018. Last year, four Latin artists performed on the show – Shakira (as part of her Video Vanguard award presentation), Karol G, Peso Pluma and Anitta (the latter both solo and in tandem with K-pop stars TOMORROW X TOGETHER).

Prior to that, in 2022, J Balvin (with Ryan Castro), Anitta and Bad Bunny performed. In 2021, Ozuna, Cabello and Tainy (in tandem with Mendes) represented Latin music. In 2020, Maluma, CNCO and Nicky Jam (in tandem with Black Eyed Peas and Tyga) did the honors. In 2019, CNCO (in the pre-show), Cabello (with Mendes), Rosalía and Ozuna (in a joint performance) and J Balvin and Bad Bunny (also in a joint performance) all performed. In 2018, Jennifer Lopez (receiving a Video Vanguard award) and Maluma performed.

Anitta is this year’s top Latin nominee, with three nods – best Latin and best editing for “Mil Veces” and another nod for best Latin for “BELLAKEO.” Bad Bunny and Alejandro each have two nods. Bad Bunny is nominated for artist of the year and best Latin for “MONACO” Alejandro is nominated for best Latin and best cinematography for “Touching the Sky.” Karol G, Shakira, Cardi B and Myke Towers each have one nod.

Bruce Gillmer and Den of Thieves co-founder Jesse Ignjatovic are executive producers of the 2024 VMAs. Barb Bialkowski is co-executive producer. Alicia Portugal and Jackie Barba are executives in charge of production. Wendy Plaut is executive in charge of celebrity talent. Lisa Lauricella is music talent executive.

Warner Chappell Music has renewed their partnership with the Mon Laferte, signing a worldwide administration deal.

“I’m really excited for what’s ahead. They were the first ones to have faith in me,” said the Chilean-Mexican singer-songwriter in a press release.

This reunion marks a significant homecoming for the artist, who previously collaborated with Warner Chappell in the early 2010s when her early albums like Desechable (2011), Tornasol (2013), Mon Laferte, Vol. 1 (2015), and La Trenza (2017) were released.

“It’s great to have Mon back at WCM,” added Gustavo Menéndez, president or U.S. Latin & Latin America at Warner Chappell Music. “We initially signed her back in 2013 when she had just moved to Mexico, and it was perfect timing — an opportunity to understand her dreams and aspirations from the start. I admire her for the incredible artist, songwriter and performer that she is and am personally very happy to have her back – this return signifies a beautiful full-circle moment for us.”

The announcement of this deal follows the release of a Netflix documentary about her life, titled Mon Laferte, Te Amo, which premiered earlier this month. The Latin Grammy-winning artist is currently on her Autopoiética World Tour, produced by Live Nation, in support of her latest 2023 album of the same name. The tour has taken her through Europe, North, Central and South America.

“Mon’s artistry is unforgettable in every sense of the word,” said Carlos Ruíz, managing director of Warner Chappell Music México. “She’s a passionate songwriter, an incredible performer, and an even more remarkable human being. With a fearless approach, she has stayed true to her art while constantly evolving, surpassing labels. Our entire team is really looking forward to supporting her in this next phase of her career.”

For the time being, Universal — whom she was previously with — will still administer her albums Norma (2018), 1940 Carmen (2021), Seis (2021) and Autopoiética. In May, Mon Laferte signed a record deal with Sony Music Latin. In October and November, she is poised to perform a few more dates in Mexico City and Ciudad Juárez as well as Chile’s Viña Del Mar.

Victoria Monét and Usher deliver slinky ’90s R&B vibes on her new single “S.O.S.,” which arrived Tuesday (Aug. 27).

“SOS,” which stands for “Sex on Sight,” marks Monét and Usher’s first official collaboration. It arrives two months after she and Teyana Taylor paid homage to his and Beyoncé‘s 2004 “Bad Girl” performance at the 2024 BET Awards in June.

Monét’s new single arrives shortly after the one-year anniversary of her debut album Jaguar II, which dropped on Aug. 25, 2023, via Lovett Music and RCA Records. The 11-track project included the hit single “On My Mama,” which hit No. 1 on R&B/Hip-Hop Airplay (two weeks) and became her first solo entry on the Billboard Hot 100, peaking at No. 33.

“From this song just being the affirmation I needed to get through postpartum, to the visual being a timeless celebration of our culture, I’m so grateful for the process and how it was received,” she wrote on Instagram celebrating the music video’s one-year anniversary earlier this month. It won video of the year and best dance performance at the 2023 Soul Train Music Awards.

The 35-year-old singer-songwriter-producer earned seven nominations at the 2023 Grammy Awards and won best new artist, best R&B album and best engineered album, non-classical.

Usher was also recently featured on 4batz‘s “act iv: fckin u again (18+).” He’s currently on his Past Present Future Tour, where he’s performing his classics from his 30-year career as well as tracks from his most recent album, Coming Home, which he coincided with his Super Bowl Halftime Show performance.

Listen to “SOS” below.

With the first quarter of the 21st century coming to a close, Billboard is spending the next few months counting down our staff picks for the 25 greatest pop stars of the last 25 years. We’ve already named our Honorable Mentions and our No. 25 and No. 24 stars, and now we remember the century in Bad Bunny — who grew from Latin trap phenom to globe-conquering superpower and transformed what it means to be a pop star in the U.S. and beyond.

It’s easy to forget in 2024 how unusual the concept of a foreign-language U.S. pop star was as recently as last decade. Even as Latin pop enjoyed a massive crossover moment at the turn of the century, and reggaetón became a global force in the mid-’00s, the only artists able to regularly dominate the U.S. mainstream were those who performed in English (or collaborated with English-language hitmakers). Daddy Yankee was as legendary a 21st century reggaetón artist as they come – his 2022 sendoff album was called Legendaddy – but his signature hit, the all-Spanish  “Gasolina,” still topped out at No. 32 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 2005. Even his historic, chart-conquering Luis Fonsi teamup “Despacito” needed a Justin Bieber remix to get over the Hot 100’s top in 2017, and neither Fonsi nor Yankee has made the chart’s top 20 again since. 

And then came Bad Bunny. The Puerto Rican artist born Benito Antonio Martinez Ocasio didn’t transform global pop music overnight, but over the course of his six-year rise to dominance, he infiltrated the mainstream in a way no other Spanish-language artist – no foreign-language artist of any kind, really – ever quite has. That’s because not only did Bad Bunny establish himself as one of the most reliable hitmakers on the planet (and in the U.S. specifically) while also becoming one of the most recognizable faces and personalities in pop culture at large, but he did it all while seemingly making no artistic concessions to anyone – not to radio, not to trends, and certainly not to the English-speaking world.

Bad Bunny first made his presence known in 2016, after his single “Diles” – released on SoundCloud, while Ocasio was still working as a supermarket bagger – attracted enough viral attention to both get him a label deal with Hear This Music and Rimas Entertainment and earn a remix featuring established reggaetón hitmakers Farruko, Arcángel and Ñengo Flow (and a fellow rising star in Ozuna). The song didn’t make much chart impact, but became a slow-burning streaming success – and later that year, Bad Bunny released “Soy Peor,” which would become his first entirely solo hit when it peaked at No. 19 on the Hot Latin Songs chart in September 2017, establishing him as a leading voice in the burgeoning Latin trap scene. 

Over the next year, Bad Bunny would also become a fixture on the Hot 100, appearing on hits alongside Becky G (“Mayores”) and Enrique Iglesias (“El Bano”), while also contributing his growing star power to All-Star cuts like “Krippy Kush” and “Te Boté,” the latter his first top 40 entry on the chart. While Bad Bunny was just one artist of many on the latter two songs – with a combined 10 total credited names between them – he stood out for both his distinctive voice, a congested-but-buttery croon which also made his trademark artist tag (“Bad Bunny bay-beh!!”) instantly unforgettable, and for his impeccable fashion style, an unconventional mix of the flamboyant and the basic that always seemed to land within the realm of timeless cool.

It all led up to his 2018 feature appearance on American rap superstar Cardi B’s “I Like It,” one of pop’s great star-making moments of the 21st century. While Bad Bunny did not yet have the household name recognition of either Cardi or fellow guest reggaetonero J Balvin – who’d recently scored a massive U.S. crossover moment of his own with the Willy William collab “Mi Gente,” even landing Beyoncé for the song’s remix – his verse still kinda stole the show, from its opening “chambea, chambea” chant. Wearing cat-eye sunglasses and a Puerto Rico World Baseball Classic jersey in the song’s hugely popular music video, Ocasio already looked like an icon in the making. The song reached No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100, and ensured that all eyes everywhere were now on Bad Bunny. 

The heat from “I Like It” did not take long to translate to Bad Bunny’s career as a leading man. Just a few months later, he returned with “MIA,” which landed a guest verse from perhaps the only hitmaker with even more juice than Cardi B in 2018: Drake, in the midst of a year where he’d spend a combined 29 weeks atop the Hot 100 with Scorpion singles “God’s Plan,” “Nice for What” and “In My Feelings.” Not only did the Canadian-born superstar play the hook man for Bad Bunny’s new single, he actually sang in Spanish for it – showing that this early in his rise, Benito already had the clout to get the English-speaking pop world to come to his turf. “MIA” was another enormous success for Bad Bunny, reaching No. 5 on the Hot 100 and enduring for long enough to end up the No. 1 year-end single on the 2019 Year-End Hot Latin Songs chart.

Amazingly, Bad Bunny’s entire rise to stardom transpired before he even released his debut album. That came at the tail end of 2018, however, with X 100pre. Rather than cash in on his two years of hits and big-name collabs to that point, Bad Bunny’s debut album featured only a couple of his previously released singles and just a few guests, with “MIA” stuck at the end like a bonus track. The album drew rave reviews and reached No. 11 on the Billboard 200, hanging around the chart well into the next decade and ultimately spending 177 weeks on the listing, confirming that Bad Bunny was already much more than just a singles artist. 

In June 2019, while Bad Bunny was still spinning off X 100pre hits, having further success with singles alongside hitmakers Tainy (“Callaíta”), Lunay (“Soltera”) and Jhayco (“No Me Conoces”) and taking a break in between legs of his first arena tour, Bad Bunny would further electrify his now-global audience by reteaming with his “I Like It” collaborator J Balvin for the Oasis EP. Despite having just eight tracks, the set made both the top 10 on the Billboard 200 and the top 10 of Billboard’s year-end staff albums list for 2019. Perhaps most importantly, while Bad Bunny was unquestionably the little brother of the two from a star perspective on “I Like It” just a year earlier, by the time of Oasis he and Balvin were clearly on even footing as the two leading hitmakers in reggaetón and Latin trap. 

But while Balvin’s stateside star would fade somewhat as the decade turned to the 2020s, Bad Bunny’s would only get brighter. In 2020 alone he would release a trio of albums – YHLQMDLG (short for Yo Hago Lo Que Me Da La Gana, “I Do Whatever I Want” in English) in February, castoffs compilation Las Que No Iban a Salir (The Ones That Were Not Coming Out) in May and El Último Tour del Mundo (The Last Tour in the World) in November – that continued to expand his sound and his global profile, attracting rave reviews (even from many listeners and publications who had not traditionally shown interest in Latin pop or reggaetón). His albums became event releases – doubly so because he started scheduling them around major calendar events (X 100pre on Christmas Eve, YHLQMDLG on Leap Day, El Último on Thanksgiving, etc.) What’s more, in December, Último made history by debuting at No. 1 on the Billboard 200, marking not only Bad Bunny’s first appearance atop the chart, but the first entirely Spanish-language No. 1 album in the chart’s near-60-year existence.

In 2021, Bad Bunny made the jump from pop hitmaker to unavoidable celebrity. He scored a brief cameo in F9, the latest installment of the blockbuster Fast & Furious franchise, and started appearing in commercials for Cheetos and Corona, the latter featuring his bilingual bantering with American rap icon Snoop Dogg. More unexpectedly, he launched a wrestling career – at first just performing his wrestling-themed “Booker T” at the Royal Rumble, then getting in the ring himself, both on his own and as part of a tag team with fellow Puerto Rican Damien Priest. He also used his newfound industry influence to help facilitate comeback moments for some of his hitmaking favorites of yore – enlisting Aventura for his hit “Volvi” and both co-writing and co-producing El Playlist de Anoche with Tommy Torres, giving each their biggest spotlight moment in years, if not decades. 

But as much as Bad Bunny accomplished in the first five years of his career, it turned out to all be the prelude to 2022. That May, he dropped Un Verano Sin Ti (A Summer Without You) – 23 tracks, again entirely in Spanish, with no major English-language guests, and with only closer “Callaíta” having been previously released. Like Último, it debuted atop the Billboard 200 – but unlike Último, it stayed there, spending 13 weeks at No. 1 on the listing, with at least 8-10 of its tracks also populating the Hot 100 during any given week that summer. Though no one single from it was really big enough to bring Verano to larger consciousness on its own, the album was so varied in sound –  with tracks ranging from the sublime “Neverita” to the booming “Titi Me Pregunto” to the party-starting “Después de la Playa” – but so coherent in overall feeling, that different songs from it popped off at different times (and with different audiences). It ended 2022 as the No. 1 album on both the Year-End Billboard 200 and the Billboard staff’s Albums of the Year list, and also earned Bad Bunny his first Grammy nomination for album of the year.

Between 2022 and 2023, his stateside visibility took yet another step up, as he co-starred (and had a big fight scene) with Brad Pitt in the action flick Bullet Train, pulled double duty hosting and performing on Saturday Night Live, and dominated the 2022 VMAs remotely from his headlining gig at Yankee Stadium – part of his globetrotting World’s Hottest Tour – where he won the artist of the year moonperson. (He also made headlines for kissing a male backup dancer during that performance, further demonstrating an allyship that has made him an icon for the LGBTQ community, a rarity for trap or reggaetón artists.) He also began dating American superinfluencer Kendall Jenner, news of which was met with some trepidation from his core fanbase, but which cemented him as a tabloid fixture, and half of one of pop culture’s preeminent 2020s power couples. Before 2023’s end, he even released another album: Nadie Saber Lo Que Va a Pasar Mañana, which also debuted atop the Billboard 200, albeit without quite the rapturous acclaim or staying power of Verano. 

In 2024, Bad Bunny stands as simply one of the biggest culture-movers in music. The list of accolades and accomplishments he’s racked up in his career to this point is staggering, but his truest legacy may simply be proving that you can be the greatest pop star in the world – and he was ours for 2022 – without compromising your music, your image or your language for the American market. When Bad Bunny gets up at an award show this decade and accepts entirely in Spanish, he does it without apology or hesitation, and nobody even blinks at it. Now, it’s easy to see an artist like Karol G or Peso Pluma following their way through some of the doors he’s opened. And that’s the power of Bad Bunny: to be such an obvious, all-encompassing superstar that you forget just how long – and until how recently – those doors had been closed in the first place. 

Read more about the Greatest Pop Stars of the 21st Century here and check back on Thursday when our No. 22 artist is revealed!

​​These four memoirs from artists across genres and generations are among the most anticipated music books to arrive this fall.

Over the Influence: A Memoir
By Joanna “JoJo” Levesque

After breaking through in the mid-2000s with rhythmic pop hits like “Leave (Get Out)” and “Too Little Too Late” — which hit the Billboard Hot 100 at Nos. 12 and 3, respectively — JoJo retreated from the spotlight. Years later, she detailed an extended lawsuit with her record label, along with her own personal challenges. Now, with her memoir due Sept. 17, she discloses what happened during those years, illuminating exactly what kept her away — and what brought her back.

Life in the Key of G
By Kenny G and Philip Lerman

Grammy-winning saxophonist Kenny G has long been a jazz icon — known just as much for his skillful playing as his tight curls — but he has never let fans into his life like this before. Out Sept. 24 and written with author Philip Lerman (co-producer of America’s Most Wanted and co-author of host John Walsh’s memoir), the artist born Kenneth Gorelick details how he went from a bullied, skinny kid in Seattle to a teenage backing musician for everyone from Barry White to Liberace.

From Here to the Great Unknown: A Memoir
By Lisa Marie Presley and Riley Keough

Two years ago, Presley asked her daughter Keough to help her finish an important, though daunting, task: her memoir. One month later, Presley died — and Keough was left with a mission to deliver her mother’s story, which is out Oct. 8. Keough gathered the tapes recorded for the book and listened in bed as Lisa Marie recounted her relationship with her famous parents: Elvis and Priscilla Presley.

Cher: The Memoir, Part One
By Cher

As Grammy-winning, chart-topping icon Cher approaches 80, she will share the story of her extraordinary life in her own words — and two parts. In Part One, out Nov. 19, the artist born Cherilyn Sarkisian recounts her childhood and career beginnings up through her marriage to Sonny Bono, revealing more about the pair’s complicated relationship. There is no publishing date yet for Part Two, but as Part One’s bio teases, “It is a life too immense for only one book.”

This story appears in the Aug. 24, 2024, issue of Billboard.