A group of Miami residents are suing the Ultra Music Festival over accusations that the yearly electronic dance music event violated earlier promises to limit sound levels, inflicting “psychological torture” on neighbors every spring.

Five years after a legal settlement over noise complaints, the Downtown Neighbors Alliance (DNA) says in a Wednesday (April 22) lawsuit that Ultra has “brazenly obliterated” that deal by carrying out a “relentless sonic assault” on residents near the city’s Bayfront Park, including at this year’s festival, which took place last month.

“The ensuing acoustic bombardment is nothing short of psychological torture, turning downtown Miami into an inescapable warzone of low-frequency bass that violently shakes the foundations of residential towers and actively endangers human sanity,” lawyers for the neighbors write in their complaint, which was obtained by Billboard.

The settlement, reached in 2021 to end an earlier lawsuit, required Ultra to cap noise levels at 95 decibels and monitor sound at the “most vulnerable” locations, the neighbors claim. But the festival has “materially breached” that contract by consistently exceeding those limits, the suit claims, resulting in a “severe degradation of the residents’ quality of life.”

“The apocalyptic noise levels generated by [Ultra] are offensive, annoying, and intolerable to any reasonable person of ordinary sensibilities, creating a severe life-safety hazard and inflicting emotional distress,” the residents’ lawyers write.

The new case was filed a day before Miami’s city commissioners granted Ultra a 20-year approval to continue holding the festival at Bayfront Park. In a response statement to Miami’s WPLG-10, Ultra’s chief administrative officer Ray Martinez said the festival had “complied with all applicable requirements governing sound level” and would “vigorously defend against the lawsuit.”

Ultra did not immediately respond to Billboard‘s request for comment.

“Ultra will continue to act as a responsible neighbor, independent of any formal agreement or arrangement with the DNA or any other resident group, and irrespective of this lawsuit,” Martinez said.

Ultra, launched in 1999 and expanded to a three-day event in 2011, is one of world’s top yearly electronic dance music festivals. The 2026 event last month featured performances by Major Lazer, Swedish House Mafia’s Sebastian Ingrosso and Steve Angello, John Summit, Martin Garrix and Alesso.

But the event spent years battling with DNA, which represents a large group of condominium towers in downtown Miami. The group repeatedly sought to get city commissioners to refuse renewal of Ultra’s approvals to use Bayfront Park, briefly succeeding in 2019 and forcing the festival to relocate to Miami’s Virginia Key before returning the next year. In 2020, the group filed its earlier case over the noise, raising similar complaints.

In 2021, amid a two-year hiatus for the COVID-19 pandemic, Ultra and DNA reached a wide-ranging settlement to resolve their disputes. At the time, a leader of the community group said the deal would “allow Ultra and its neighbors to coexist.”

According to the new lawsuit, that’s not what came to pass. DNA says that at the 2024, 2025 and 2026 editions, Ultra consistently breached the agreement, both by allowing noise levels to exceed the limits and failing to properly monitor sound as required. The group says it has retained acoustic engineers who have issued their own reports showing such violations.

“Defendant’s breaches went beyond mere passive failure to contain the sound,” the group writes. “[Ultra] actively blasted the residents of downtown Miami with an apocalyptic, ear-shattering, and relentless sonic assault.”

In technical legal terms, the lawsuit accuses Ultra of both breach of contract and of common law nuisance — a form of legal wrongdoing in which someone’s conduct causes problems for neighbors or the general public.

Billie Eilish fans who went to a Hit Me Hard and Soft Tour show know just how full of adrenaline and anticipation the first two minutes of the concert were — and now, the pop star is letting fans relive that experience by releasing the intro music on streaming services.

On Friday (April 24), Eilish unveiled “Intro (Hit Me Hard and Soft Tour),” the intense, cinematic instrumental that played in arenas all over the world in the moments that led up to her arrival on stage every night. Created by the singer and her brother/longtime collaborator Finneas, the radioactive piece quotes fragments of “The Greatest,” one of the standout tracks on Eilish’s 2024 Billboard 200 No. 2 album, Hit Me Hard and Soft.

The release comes ahead of her upcoming 3D concert film co-directed by James Cameron (Avatar: Fire and Ash) and Eilish capturing the spectacle of the Hit Me Hard and Soft trek. Hitting theaters May 8, the highly anticipated movie will feature both show footage and behind-the-scenes content, with Eilish telling Fandango earlier in April, “If you go see this movie, it’s like the equivalent of going to the show.”

The nine-time Grammy winner’s tour spanned 106 shows in 2024 and 2025, supporting her third studio album of the same name. She first teased that she had a concert film in the works at a show in Manchester in July last year. “You may have noticed there’s more cameras than usual here,” she told the crowd at the time. “I can’t say much about it, but what I can say is I’m working on something very, very special with somebody named James Cameron, and it’s gonna be in 3D.”

Relive the hype of the opening minutes of Eilish’s show by listening to “Intro (Hit Me Hard and Soft Tour)” below.

To be clear, there is no R.E.M. biopic in the works. But if there were to be one, the retired band’s singer, Michael Stipe, has a predictably unpredictable choice of who might play the young version of him in such a movie were it to get greenlit. “Maybe Billie Eilish could do it,” Stipe, 66, told Stephen Colbert on The Late Show on Thursday night (April 23).

“She’d be good, kinda got similar eyes,” Colbert responded. “She’s amazing,” Stipe said of the 24-year-old “Birds of a Feather” singer. When Colbert asked if the veteran rocker had ever met Eilish, Stipe recalled that she once held a door open for him at a restaurant in Manhattan. “I don’t know if she knew who I was, she’s incredibly polite and sweet,” Stipe said, admitting that he didn’t know who Eilish was at the time either until she was already down the street a ways.

When Colbert offered to introduce them, Stipe said he’d love to meet Eilish and her brother/collaborator Finneas.

The Eilish suggestion came after Stipe had earlier said he’d definitely want someone “hot” to play him, at which point Colbert suggested fellow amply bearded man of a certain age comedian David Cross, which brought a bemused smile to the singer’s face. Colbert followed with suggestions ranging from Timothée Chalamet to J.K. Simmons.

Stipe was ostensibly on hand to talk about putting the finished touches on some of the lyrics on his long-awaited debut solo album, which would mark his first full album release since the band called it quits in 2011. “One of the songs is the sound of a tree hearing itself for the first time,” he said cryptically, explaining that a friend of his recorded the sound of a tree in his backyard in Georgia and then played it back to said tree for a song he described as Daft Punk-like.

He added that he’s also including his version of the standard sea chanty “Drunken Sailor” on the unnamed LP, which he then harmonized on with Colbert, before noting that he wrote a “very special lyric” after mishearing some words in the original. “Tie him to the mast and shave his belly/ Tie him to the mast and shave his belly/ Duct tape donkey ears, jelly wellies, early in the morning,” Stipe sang.

In honor of the clock winding down on Colbert’s late night run, Stipe said as a gift to the show he came on to perform the debut of one of the tracks from the album due out later this year, “The Rest of Ever,” a plaintive, smoldering ballad in which he sings, “I love you, oh I love you madly/ I love you more than I can say/ I need you, oh I need you badly/ I need you more and more each day.”

Watch Stipe talk biopic dream casting and see him perform “The Rest of Ever” below.

After kicking off the year with a 73-day stint in a U.S. immigration detention center, Jamaican dancehall artist Chronic Law is finally free — and he’s telling his story on his own terms.

On Friday (April 24), the Caribbean Music Award-winning deejay released I.C.E. (Inside, Cold & Empty), an aptly titled nine-track project that traces his faith journey during his detainment. Arriving via Collect Di Bred, 1Law & Notnice Records, and primarily produced by Notnice — who helmed Vybz Kartel & Spice’s 2009 crossover hit “Romping Shop” — I.C.E. infuses Law’s signature trap-dancehall soundscape with ample doses of brass-laden roots reggae and choir-anchored gospel.

“Mi mek this EP fi give Jah thanks,” Law tells Billboard. “Me’s a man that believe inna God, but mi never really take the time fi read my Bible. Mi nuh take di time fi even give Jah thanks for nothing at all, just a live life and move fast. But when things slowed down, mi start reading my Bible and talk to Jah. And some things, only Father God alone can do.”

Born Ackeme Jermaine Campbell in St. Thomas, Chronic Law has emerged as one of the defining voices of contemporary dancehall. Boasting hits such as “Don’t Fall,” and last year’s “NY Girls,” and “Badness Upgrade 2.0” (his take on the viral “WYFL” riddim), Law has quickly differentiated himself from his peers through his versatility and vulnerability. Never afraid to get introspective and truly survey the depths of his emotions on wax, fans commonly refer to Law as their collective “therapist.” According to Luminate, Chronic Law collected over 86.1 million official on-demand U.S. streams in 2025, and he’s already garnered over 25.4 million official streams this year (through April 16).

On Jan. 12, Law was arrested by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents, and three days later (Jan. 15), he was transported to South Florida Detention Facility, nicknamed Alligator Alcatraz. “For di first week [of detainment] mi nuh think pon mi music, mi just think of come out,” he says. “But after the first week and three days, mi a seh, ‘I want a pen and paper.’ I needed to exercise my mind, rather than just sit down and think about outside.”

Keeping in tradition with artists forced to transform their recording processes while under state surveillance, Chronic Law wrote his entire I.C.E. project over the phone. During pre- and post-breakfast down periods, Law would have his manager, Bashy, play Notnice’s riddims over the phone. Since those calls were limited to 15 minutes per session, the collaborators moved quickly, sifting through riddims for Law to handwrite his lyrics to. As a freestyler, Law rarely wrote out his lyrics — but this disruption in his routine gave way to a new understanding of that particular approach to songcraft.

“A long time mi nuh write, a good while,” he reflects. “Mi a man that just go inna studio, play the riddim and f—k har out [get it done]. But when I sing off top, I don’t have time to fix things. Yuh nuh get time fi look at [your lyrics] and correct them. When I write, I can change lines and give [myself] more time to process.”

That extra processing time resulted in lyrics that house some of Law’s most thematically consistent and visually arresting bars yet. “Couple dog turn fraud, is a catty mek e call/ And me no short suh mi affi stand tall/ Everglades, this a cage inna alligator yard,” he sing-raps in the first verse of “Like Samson,” the set’s resilient lead single, which arrived on April 17. Law’s vocal performance is also noticeably more wistful, especially on cuts like “Prayer Work,” which was the first song he recorded the same day he was released from ICE custody. From the Bonnie & Clyde-nodding “Ride or Die” to the rapturous closer “If a Neva God,” I.C.E. is relentlessly honest in its recounting of how Law’s faith — and overall psyche — evolved during his detainment.

On March 26, Chronic Law shared an Instagram post captioned, “God bless,” seemingly confirming his release from I.C.E. custody without charge. There remains no publicly disclosed explanation for his arrest, with the dancehall star simply telling Billboard, “Dem have dem reason.” Regardless, he hasn’t let this experience deter him from expressing his truth and life story in his music, stressing, “Yuh cyan judge me through my music.”

Although I.C.E. is a heavier project, Chronic Law promises a variety of new projects to come in 2026, including a reggae compilation and something “fi di gyal dem.” Above all, he hopes peers and fans alike are inspired to “get closer to God” instead of “putting [their] trust” in people after listening to his soul-baring new EP.

“Some tougher songs are coming,” he says, “The time I’m putting in… it’s a different type of thing I found.”