After a mindboggling sweep of awards in the back half of 2025, Ninajirachi is recharged and ready for action.

Speaking on the first episode of Odyssey TV, which dropped this week, the Australian EDM producer, singer and songwriter is clearly ready to take on the world.

Ninajirachi (real name: Nina Wilson) has come off a freakishly fruitful awards season in which almost everything she was nominated for, turned to glory.

Consider, in the space of several months, she collected multiple ARIA Awards, J Awards, the Australian Music Prize and the NSW Music Prize for breakthrough artist, all off the back of her debut album, I Love My Computer. And just this week, she added second prize in the 2025 Vanda & Young Global Songwriting Competition for “iPod Touch.”

“I just had a little break over New Year and had a chance to think about it. I found that I was reflecting on and processing things from July, August that I hadn’t even had a chance to think about because everything was happening for the first time and so quickly. I feel awesome,” she tells host Roxy Lola.

“I feel like I’ve had a lot of practice and I’m ready to play a million more shows.” She’s on he way. The rising Aussie star is currently in the United States for a weeks-long run of dates, followed by shows in Asia, the U.K. and Europe, and a lap of the festivals circuit, including her first-ever spot at Coachella.  

For her Odyssey TV exclusive, Ninajirachi opened up on her “proudest” songwriting achievement (“’F—My Computer.’ It was so quick. It took about 20 minutes”), her favorite games (Pokemon Mystery Dungeon, especially Explorers of Time and Darkness) and overcoming earlier insecurities with her singing voice.

“I just wanna keep doing it,” she tells Roxy of her career, performing and making music. “It’s so exciting, I’m having the best time ever, honestly.”

Odyssey TV is an initiative of Odyssey Sound Space, the podcast and curated playlist platform helmed by Lola, the music curator, editor and DJ. The new video interview series, or “time capsules,” as Lola describes them, will release new episodes every two weeks, spotlighting six of the most exciting Australian artists right now.

“I was excited to talk to today’s rising musicians in this candid way, so I tracked down different artists I love and met them in spaces where they felt completely themselves in,” she explains. “From there, we had natural, free-flowing conversations about the music they’ve been making and where they’re at on their journey.”  

Originally launched in 2022 as a curated playlist project spotlighting rising artists, Odyssey Sound Space expanded in 2023 into the podcast Odyssey Sound Sessions.

Watch the Ninajirachi special in full below.

Major music artists are among nearly 800 creators signing onto a new publicity campaign that protests the unlicensed use of copyrighted work to train generative artificial intelligence models.

The campaign, dubbed “Stealing Isn’t Innovation,” has support from Bonnie Raitt, Chaka Kahn, Colbie Caillat, Common, Cyndi Lauper, Gavin DeGraw, Jason Aldean, Jason Isbell, Jennifer Hudson, LeAnn Rimes, Martina McBride, OneRepublic, Questlove, R.E.M., Rascal Flatts, Rob Thomas, The Roots and The Zombies. A-list actors like Scarlett Johansson and best-selling authors such as Jodi Picoult have also signed on.

The effort is being led by the Human Artistry Campaign, a coalition founded in 2023 by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), National Music Publishers’ Association (NMPA) and other entertainment industry groups. This coalition is a vocal supporter of AI regulation and a fierce critic of AI products that train on human-made music, text and images without compensating creators.

“Profit-hungry technology companies, including those among the richest in the world as well as private equity-backed ventures, have copied a massive amount of creative content online without authorization or payment to those who created it,” reads a Thursday (Jan. 22) press release from the Human Artistry Campaign. “American creators are being sidelined and soon won’t be able to afford to continue producing original works if AI developers are permitted to continue stealing them without authorization to produce AI-made copies that compete directly with the original.”

The coalition’s new publicity drive is aimed at encouraging AI companies to make licensing deals with creators. The music industry began moving in that direction this fall, when AI music platform Udio entered into novel licensing agreements with Universal Music Group (UMG) and Warner Music Group (WMG), and AI service Suno signed a deal to pay WMG for its music.

These deals resolved some of the claims brought in landmark copyright infringement litigation by the big three label groups against Suno and Udio in 2024. But the fight isn’t over; UMG still has active claims against Suno, and Sony has yet to settle with either AI company.

The future of AI music training is, therefore, still somewhat uncertain. Unless more settlements are reached, a judge will soon decide whether the principle of “fair use” allows Suno and Udio to conduct “transformative” training using unlicensed works. This is a legal quandary at the core of dozens of AI copyright cases across the country, and, as of now, there’s no controlling court precedent providing clear guidance.

SPOILER ALERT: The following story contains details about the singer eliminated on Wednesday night’s (Jan. 21) episode of The Masked Singer.

There are typically two kinds of celebrities who get revealed on The Masked Singer: ones who the judges and studio audience simply can’t pinpoint because they’ve adjusted their vocals and mannerisms just enough to go incognito and ones with such an unmistakable, signature tone to their voice that it’s pretty obvious from jump who they are.

Wednesday night’s (Jan. 21) boot-ee was one of the latter. If you’re old enough to have shopped for CDs in the Bush 1.0/Clinton era, then you probably sussed out the identity of Handyman from the second he took the stage last week. While the artist was hidden in a bright yellow, Jack-of-all-trades outfit — complete with hard hat and prominent tool belt — when he got funky with Peaches & Herb’s 1978 Billboard Hot 100 No. 5 disco classic “Shake Your Groove Thing,” a lightbulb likely popped up right away.

And while he was hidden behind a metallic mask as he waved his wrench arms and sang into a screwdriver microphone, the low, throaty growl and laconic delivery was pretty much a dead giveaway. The first clue package was also kind of obvious, with a reference to his “wild guy face” and a crew of past big-screen co-stars including Robert DeNiro (Heat) and Courteney Cox (Ace Ventura: Pet Detective).

Then, on Wednesday night’s Clueless-themed episode, he joined the rest of the cast for a run through Kim Wilde’s 1981 classic “Kids in America” alongside fellow season 14 contestants Pugcasso, Scarab and Snow Cone, with his voice again reading pretty obviously after he described the childhood accident that gave him his signature rasp. His vocals really popped during his run through A Tribe Called Quest’s “Can I Kick It?,” which got both the crowd and the judges on their feet as he showed off his impressive rhyming skills, with the audience enthusiastically chanting “yes you can!”

When it came time to guess, panelist Rita Ora went with Vanilla Ice — based on a clue featuring an ice sculpture of a microphone — though the more “gravelly” voice made her think Ice-T. Always wrong Ken Jeong was all the way off with his pick of A-Team legend Mr. T. He was, naturally, totally in the wrong ballpark, as the real man behind the mask was none other than “Funky Cold Medina” rapper and occasional actor (Poetic Justice, Posse) Tone Lōc.

Billboard caught up with Lōc (born Anthony Terrell Smith), 59, before his elimination to find out why he didn’t even try to disguise his instantly recognizable voice, who convinced him to appear on the show and why the show may have convinced him to get back in the studio for the first time in three decades.

You said your daughter dared you to do the show. What did she say?

She grew up with me and she was like, “There’s no way you would do something like that.” I had never seen it, but she had and now I see what she was talking about. [She said] “You would not put on a mask and costume and dance and sing.” Once I saw it, I said, “Yeah I’ll do it.” Most people who called after the first day [I was on the show] saw me on there and had no idea I was doing it. 

What did they say?

First they said, “‘Shake Your Groove Thing?’ Huh?”

Were they able to figure out it was you right away?

Oh, immediately. “Oh, dude, first voice we heard, we knew.” I didn’t realize [my voice] was that noticeable. It is kind of, a little bit, I think.

C’mon! You have such a distinctive voice, one of the most distinctive in rap, really. Did you even try to switch it up to fool people?

I mean, I think I did try, but I couldn’t change it. It’s basically is what it is. When I try to change it even slightly, it doesn’t matter. It is what it is, it’s who I am.

Sometimes singers will purposely pick a song out of their genre, like you were saying with Peaches & Herb, but then tonight you went with a Tribe song, which kind of made it more obvious who was under the hard hat. Did you do that on purpose?

I didn’t really know. I couldn’t hear it [in the costume] but it was kind of cool. I don’t know how it came out sounding, but I liked it. I didn’t pick Peaches to throw anyone off… they had some songs they wanted me to sing that wouldn’t have worked out well. I think my agent decided, “Let’s try Peaches & Herb.” I don’t know what was on his mind. Tribe was cool, though. 

You’ve been doing the I Love the 90s tour for a couple years, but haven’t really been on the music scene that much. Why this show to come back to singing on a big platform?

I’ve been doing that tour for like six years and I did this, like I said, because of the dare. I’m still doing shows; I have never stopped doing shows. I’ve always tried to keep it pushing, maintain the people who like Tone Lōc, stay in my lane.

The Handyman was a bonkers costume. Why did you pick that one?

They handed it to me. It’s a big costume with a big helmet and head. You have to be committed, because that’s a serious costume. You have to make sure you have everything tight. I like Handyman, that was the most masculine one I’ve seen, that worked out quite well. 

It’s been 35 years since your last album, 1991’s Cool Hand Lōc. Any chance you’re working on a new album now?

Oh man, that long? Man. I wasn’t working on a new album, but I think I will now because of the big song I do have now that is bigger than [my other hits]. It’s called “Hey, What’s Up?” and I haven’t recorded it yet. I do it live on tour and the audience response to that is way higher than “Funky Cold Medina” or “Wild Thing.”

The judges’ guesses were hilarious: Vanilla Ice, Ice-T Mr. T…

The ones who don’t know, who have no idea who Tone Lōc is. Then you have people who know exactly who that is from the first word or two out of that graggily-ass voice. Now I see how my voice sounds to people, I had no idea.

Brandon Lake earned a massive crossover hit with the Jelly Roll collaboration “Hard Fought Hallelujah” and earned his first CMA Award nomination last year when the song was nominated for musical event of the year. He also recently teamed with Cody Johnson for a collaborative rendition of “When a Cowboy Prays.”

And it looks like there could be plenty more country collabs where that came from. On Wednesday (Jan. 21), Lake recently posted a Reel on social media, which showed him writing new music alongside country music luminaries including Lainey Wilson, Thomas Rhett, HARDY, Russell Dickerson, Dan+Shay and Bailey Zimmerman. In the video’s caption, Lake revealed that he had assembled 25 country music artists and songwriters, along with many of Lake’s friends in faith-based music, for a five-day stretch of writing sessions, which yielded nearly 50 songs. On Instagram, he also tagged artists and/or songwriters including Benjamin William Hastings, Micah Nichols, Hank Bentley, Trannie Anderson and Jacob Sooter.

“God put a dream in my heart to start loving on and encouraging those leading in the country music space, and shortly after He just started flinging wide the doors,” Lake wrote. ‘So the other week my team and I had the honor of hosting over 25 of the best Country Music artists and songwriters along with some of my closest friends in the faith based music space. I knew we’d get something special but I never would’ve thought we’d get over 43+ songs in 5 days.

He added, “IDK what this next chapter looks like BUT I know it’s gonna be special cause it was birthed from genuine love and friendship. Praying God continues to allow me to love this community that’s blessed me so much and if He’s willing allow me to contribute a lil something of my own. Thank you to everyone who poured out your heart and poured into me over those special 5 days. God bless Country & Christian Music!”

This is isn’t the first time Lake has signaled his intention for more CCM and country collaborations. During the ASCAP Christian Music Awards in November, Lake said, “This is what’s on my heart. The collision of Christian and country. Revival and redneck-ness, if you will.” Lake took home honors including Christian music songwriter of the year, while “Praise,” written by Lake and Pat Barrett, was named Christian music song of the year.

Whatever path the music will ultimately take, the new songs will follow his 2025 album King of Hearts, which debuted at No. 7 on the all-genre Billboard 200 chart.

A$AP Rocky appeared to take shots at Drake on Don’t Be Dumb‘s “Stole Ya Flow,” and he addressed his simmering feud with the 6 God during an interview with Apple Music’s Ebro Darden on Wednesday (Jan. 21).

Rocky explained that despite the icy nature of their frayed relationship, there’s no “real smoke” between him and Drake, but things went wrong “over females.”

“This thing between us it’s not real smoke, but I just don’t f— with him,” he candidly said. “We was once friends. I feel like it’s over females. I feel like he wasn’t happy and he expressed that.”

The Harlem rapper also labeled Drake as “soft” for sending repeated shots at Rihanna in recent years, and Rocky thinks it’s time for Drizzy to get over whatever happened in the past between them.

“I think at some certain point and everyone getting older and you supposed to be moving on. For you to be picking at a female, that’s soft to me,” he continued. “I didn’t put out music for me to say something back and I finally did say something back to a few people. I do think that sh– is petty. It’s enough money, fame, women, spotlights to go around. We not really tripping off nothing. Is it real smoke? It could never be. That ain’t real smoke.”

There were plenty of bars on “Stole Ya Flow” connected to Drake from Rocky. “Stole my flow, so I stole yo’ bi—/ If you stole my style, I need at least like 10 percent,” he raps, before adding. “First you was my bro, pussy n—a switched/ Turned into a opp, f— his block, he a bi—, boy.”

In 2024, Rocky also seemed to take more swipes at Drake during guest appearances on We Still Don’t Trust You‘s “Show of Hands,” and then on J. Cole’s “Ruby Rosary.”

That pair of shots followed Drake sniping at the Mob frontman on his “Family Matters” Kendrick Lamar diss track in May 2024. “Rakim talkin’ sh– again/ Gassed ’cause you hit my BM first, n—a, do the math, who I was hittin’ then/ I ain’t even know you rapped still ’cause they only talkin’ ’bout your ‘fit again/ Probably gotta have a kid again ‘fore you think of droppin’ any sh– again/ Even when you do drop, they gon’ say you should’ve modeled ’cause it’s mid again,” Drake raps.

Drake and Rocky had a closer relationship in the 2010s when Drizzy appeared on Rocky’s “F—in’ Problems” hit in 2012. The OVO rapper also brought Rocky on his Club Paradise Tour in the same year.

Rocky and Rihanna are currently dating and have three kids together, while Drake was romantically linked to RiRi throughout the first half of the 2010s. Many fans believed that Drake dissed Rihanna on For All the Dogs‘ “Fear of Heights.”

“Why they make it sound like I’m still hung up on you/ That could never be,” he sings. “Gyal can’t ruin me/ Better him than me, better it’s not me/ I’m anti, I’m anti/ Yeah, and the sex was average with you/ Yeah, I’m anti ’cause I had it with you/ OK, I’m auntie like your daddy sister/ Auntie like a family picture/ And I had way badder bi—es than you, TBH/ Yeah, that man, he still with you, he can’t leave you/ Y’all go on vacation, I bet it’s Antilles.”

Listen to Rocky’s full interview below and check out the clip of him addressing Drake here.