A little over halfway through the Juneteenth celebration at the Hollywood Bowl on Wednesday night (June 19), an emotional T-Pain thanked the audience for being there.

“We rehearsed once,” prefaced the artist, who did double duty as headline performer and the concert’s co-curator. “This is nuts that this is going so well, right? This is the dream of so many people and for y’all to make this happen … this is far beyond anything. I’ll be so pissed off if I wake up right now.”

Indeed, the evening did go well, as a very appreciative Bowl audience — in keeping with the cultural significance of the Juneteenth holiday — was treated to the many facets of Black music by both established and emerging artists. Segueing from gospel to R&B, hip-hop and points in-between, the two-and-a-half-hour show under the stars was packed with memorable moments, beginning with Mary Mary’s Tina Campbell delivering a riveting performance of the Black national anthem, “Lift Every Voice and Sing.” 

Setting the Tone: Hosting something of this magnitude isn’t for the faint of heart. But comedian Affion Crockett proved he was up to the challenge as the crowd laughed right along. Skillfully keeping things moving throughout the evening, he set the tone early on with his opening comments, humorously acknowledging the makeup of the audience. “We love the bougies; I see the tablecloths and champagne [on the tables in the Bowl’s front rows]. “And at the top,” referencing those seated way further back, “you’re the ones that matter. You’re the ones whose bosses wouldn’t give you the day off. And I didn’t know I’d see so many white people in the audience. We’ve got company — and they come in peace.”

Sisters with Voices: In addition to Campbell (who roused the audience with her latest, “Pray for Me”), Ledisi and Lalah Hathaway also showed out. Ledisi’s full-bodied voice and colorful riffs on her Grammy-winning song “Anything for You” commanded the audience’s attention. And after putting her own distinctive stamp on the Anita Baker signature song “Angel,” Hathaway and her sonorous vocals segued into father Donny’s 1973 classic anthem “Someday We’ll All Be Free” — a fitting exclamation point for the Juneteenth holiday celebration. Providing instrumental accompaniment throughout the evening was the Color of Noize Orchestra led by conductor Derrick Hodge. 

Ones to Watch: Among the rising stars and newcomers also making their presence felt was D Smoke, who fired up the audience with tracks such as “No Commas,” “Black Habits” and “Common Sense” (even subbing for his brother SIR’s part on the song). Emerging female duo Flyana Boss also left a strong impression with their spirited performance of “You Wish” as did energetic Bay Area rapper LaRussell, who had the audience up on their feet after he jumped off stage and proceeded to walk up and down several aisles to high-five fans. 

Blasts from the Past: Rounding out the evening were performances by fan faves from the ‘90s into the 2000s. David Banner, wearing shades and sporting a white goatee, rocked the venue with “Get Like Me.” Jordin Sparks stunningly reprised her hit “No Air,” while Lloyd pumped up the proceedings with his “Get It Shawty.” Then Tevin Campbell sparked a  singalong to his enduring hit “Can We Talk.”

The Man of the Hour: T-Pain made his first appearance onstage after Ledisi’s performance. Wearing a raspberry-colored suit, the Grammy winner launched into a passionate interpretation of Sam Cooke’s “A Change Is Gonna Come.” After wrapping the song to vigorous applause, he said, “This evening is special for me, for all of us and the culture. We’ve got to show respect for everything that came before us.” And that’s how the rest of the evening progressed: with T-Pain striding back onstage between performances by the other acts on the bill. And each time he did, he had the audience cheering, dancing and rapping/singing along to everything from “I’m Sprung,” “Up Down” and “Freeze” to “Buy U a Drank,” his rendition of Cee-Lo’s “Crazy” and Chris Brown’s “Kiss Kiss” on which he was featured. 

Becoming emotional after Banner saluted him, T-Pain said in part to even more cheers, “In 2018, I decided I didn’t want a manager anymore, I didn’t want a label anymore. I’m doing everything independent. The only time I’ve seen this place [Hollywood Bowl} is in Tom & Jerry cartoons. So to be an independent artist and putting on a show like this is the wildest dream. So my No. 1 rule for everyone is believe in yourself; believe in that crazy thing. The only people that end up changing the world are the people crazy enough to think that they can.”

Miley Cyrus has signed with CAA, re-joining the agency more than four years after moving to WME, it was announced Thursday (June 20).

The signing comes roughly a year and a half after Cyrus enjoyed her biggest hit to date, “Flowers,” which spent eight weeks atop the Billboard Hot 100. In February, the song also netted Cyrus two Grammys: record of the year and best pop solo performance. Earlier this year, she dueted with Beyoncé on the Cowboy Carter track “II MOST WANTED.”

Cyrus has been a household name for nearly two decades, ever since breaking through as the star of Hannah Montana, the Disney Channel sitcom that skyrocketed her to fame as both an actress and a singer. As Hannah Montana, she racked up 20 Billboard Hot 100 hits, including one top 10 (“He Could Be The One”), and scored three No. 1 albums on the Billboard 200 (Hannah Montana, Hannah Montana 2/Meet Miley Cyrus and Hannah Montana: The Movie).

After Hannah Montana concluded in 2011, Cyrus enjoyed success under her own name, notching 61 entries on the Hot 100, including 13 top 10 hits and two that topped the chart: “Flowers” and 2013’s “Wrecking Ball.” She also scored two more No. 1 albums on the Billboard 200: 2008’s Breakout and 2013’s Bangerz.

In recent years, Cyrus appeared on a 2019 episode of Netflix’s Black Mirror and brought Miley’s New Year’s Eve Party to NBC in 2022 with executive producer Lorne Michaels, hosting the show alongside her godmother, Dolly Parton.

Cyrus’ philanthropic endeavors include the launch of her Happy Hippie Foundation, which has raised millions to support youth suffering from homelessness, especially those identifying as LGBTQ+. This year, she announced the launch of the Miley Cyrus Foundation, an extension of her philanthropic work that focuses on supporting mothers.

Cyrus continues to be represented by Crush Management and attorney Bill Sobel at Laird and Sobel. 

Is Lana Del Rey and Quavo‘s “Tough” almost here? The pair unexpectedly teased the new track Wednesday night (June 19), leaving fans of both artists shaking in the comments on Instagram.

Quavo unveiled a clip of “Tough” that will be, well, tough to get out of your head once you’ve hit play. He tagged Lana on the post.

Together, they sing: “Tough like the scarf on a pair of old leather boots/ Like the blue-collar, red-dirt attitude/ Like a .38 made out of brass/ Tough like the stuff in my grandpa’s glass/ Life’s gonna do what it does/ Sure as the good lord’s up above/ Cut like a diamond shining in the rough, tough.”

A release date for “Tough” has not been announced. Billboard reached out to reps for comment.

Though details at press time are scarce, fans appreciated the new song sneak Tuesday night.

“The way you can seamlessly mix genres and not make it seem like a gimmick is TALENT!! This sounds so goodddddddddddd,” one follower praised, while another complimented, “No, like this sounds insane.” Someone compared it to the kind of top-tier pairing you get “when the teacher picks for the group project.”

“oh my lust for life roots are SHAKING,” a Lana fan wrote, referencing the singer-songwriter’s 2017 album that had features with A$AP Rocky and Playboi Carti, among others.

Quavo uploaded a brief bit of “Tough” on Instagram last month, but Lana’s vocal hook on the track hadn’t been shared until now. In that first clip of the song, posted on May 9, the Migos star talks over a Western-guitar-and-trap-beat outro, with Lana in the background. He tells her, “I’ll show you around … Come take a ride with me. Whenever. Whenever you ready, call on me.”

“If u come from where u come then u were born….Tough!” he captioned the post, which pictured a Polaroid of the two hanging out on the front porch of a house.

Lana — who’s recently spoken of an upcoming country album, Lasso, the follow-up to 2023’s Did You Know That There’s a Tunnel Under Ocean Blvd, which reached No. 3 on the Billboard 200 — is scheduled to perform at Boston’s Fenway Park on Thursday (June 20). She’s been on the spring/summer festival circuit, having played this year’s Coachella, Hangout, I-Days and Primavera Sound, with Reading, Leeds and Rock en Seine to come; the one-night-only, sold-out show at Fenway will mark her first U.S. stadium headlining concert.

Listen to Lana Del Rey and Quavo’s latest preview of “Tough” below.

Katy Perry is returning to music, and she’s ready to prove that it’s a “Woman’s World.”

On Monday, Perry announced that the first single from her sixth studio album will arrive on July 11. On the new Billboard Pop Shop Podcast, Katie & Keith are talking what music fans will want from Perry in 2024 — just over 10 years removed from her last Billboard Hot 100 No. 1 hit, “Dark Horse,” which topped the chart in February 2014.

Listen to our full conversation below:

Also on the show, we’ve got chart news on how Charli XCX scores her highest-charting album ever on the Billboard 200, how Bon Jovi becomes only the fifth group with newly charting top 10s on the Billboard 200 in each of the past five decades, how Sabrina Carpenter has two songs in the top three of the Billboard Hot 100, and how Chappell Roan rises to the top 10 on the Billboard 200 albums chart for the first time with her buzzy album The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess.

The Billboard Pop Shop Podcast is your one-stop shop for all things pop on Billboard‘s weekly charts. You can always count on a lively discussion about the latest pop news, fun chart stats and stories, new music, and guest interviews with music stars and folks from the world of pop. Casual pop fans and chart junkies can hear Billboard‘s executive digital director, West Coast, Katie Atkinson and Billboard’s managing director, charts and data operations, Keith Caulfield every week on the podcast, which can be streamed on Billboard.com or downloaded in Apple Podcasts or your favorite podcast provider. (Click here to listen to the previous edition of the show on Billboard.com.)

In early June, when Taylor Swift’s The Tortured Poets Department was enjoying its seventh week atop the Billboard 200, her friend and collaborator Lana Del Rey offered a simple explanation of Swift’s stardom to BBC News. “She’s told me so many times that she wants it more than anyone,” Del Rey said. “And how amazing — she’s getting exactly what she wants.” 

This week, Swift secured her eighth consecutive week at No. 1 on the Billboard 200, tying Folklore and coming behind only 1989 and Fearless (11 weeks each) for the most weeks at No. 1 of any of her 14 career chart-toppers. TTPD is also the first album in a year, since Morgan Wallen’s One Thing At a Time, to have spent at least two months atop the list and is the first album by a woman to spend its first eight weeks at No. 1 since Whitney Houston‘s Whitney spent its first 11 weeks at the top in 1987. It also extends Swift’s record of weeks spent at the apex of the Billboard 200 to 77 — 10 weeks more than the solo artist with the second-most, Elvis Presley (67).

While Swift is adept at rolling out record-breaking albums, what’s different this time is not how she has done it but for how long — and when. While she — and most artists across genres — often boosts first-week sales with multiple vinyl variants, signed CD copies and deluxe digital exclusives, Swift has expanded on that rollout plan well beyond the initial release of The Tortured Poets Department.

It’s a strategy that’s relatively novel. Then again, rarely does an artist have such a massive and faithful fan base ready and willing to activate as needed. And while Swift’s record-breaking Eras Tour and initial deluxe release, The Anthology — which arrived mere hours after the 16-track original, and which has continued to stream well — have surely helped sustain TTPD, the strategic drops of bonus versions available for a limited time, from acoustic renditions to first-draft phone memos, have kept her physical and digital sales high.

In its first tracking week, TTPD raked in 1.914 million total album sales in the United States (physical configurations and digital downloads), according to Luminate. That figure alone translates to an estimated $38.3 million — without taking into account the 891.37 million on-demand official streams, which accounted for an additional 683,000 streaming equivalent album units. The album continued to stream well for its next three weeks, even as sales naturally died down — until its fifth week, when Swift supercharged the album by releasing six digital album bonuses and one new CD variant on her webstore, including first draft phone memo versions, “Live From Paris” recordings and an acoustic version of “But Daddy I Love Him,” all available for a limited time in the United States. Plus, a variety of five CD offerings — either signed or a deluxe version — had shipped after being replenished. Fans were quick to snatch the new versions up, generating an estimated $2.4 million in sales revenue — a huge bump from the prior week’s total of nearly $801,000, and helping keep the album at No. 1.

That same week, Billie Eilish released her third album, Hit Me Hard and Soft. It arrived with a handful of physical offerings including nine vinyl variants and four CD editions, plus three deluxe digital editions: a standard digital album with 10 bonus isolated vocal tracks of the album’s 10 songs, a version with 10 bonus sped-up versions and a version with 10 bonus “slowed and reverb” versions. Hit Me ultimately debuted at No. 2 but scored Eilish the best first-week number of her career with 339,000 units.

The competition resulted in a major coup for both artists: For the first time in eight years, two albums had earned over 300,000 equivalent album units in a single week in the United States, according to Luminate. (Drake’s Views and Beyoncé’s Lemonade both cleared 300,000 units in one week on the chart dated May 21, 2016).

Swift continued her extended rollout strategy this past week as her Eras Tour hit the United Kingdom. In TTPD’s eighth week of availability, she made her “Live From Paris” bonus tracks and first draft phone memos available once more for a limited time, gated to the U.K. market, which once again led to a weekly sales spike — and helped keep TTPD atop the charts in that country.

Swift’s dominance has certainly been felt by her peers, who themselves released deluxe editions and additional versions of their albums in their respective first weeks of availability, hoping to boost their own first-week numbers. Fans of those artists felt it, too; Billie Eilish fans, for example, noted that Swift’s fifth week — when she released the first batch of additional versions — coincided with the release of Eilish’s Hit Me Hard And Soft. And Charli XCX fans, hoping to see the pop star get her second U.K. No. 1 album with Brat this past week, expressed frustration that Swift happened to release the second wave of additional releases the week Charli’s album hit the market. (In the United States, Brat debuted on the Billboard 200 at No. 3, earning Charli the highest debut of her career.) As one user wrote on X: “I didn’t wanna believe it but… Taylor could actually be chart obsessed…”.

Some industry sources across sectors of the business feel similarly, lamenting to Billboard that Swift’s flood of releases is not just feeding superfans, but boxing others out of the spotlight — and the type of acclaim and prestige that a No. 1 album can provide. Charli hinted at the online chatter when she said to a sold-out crowd at Los Angeles venue The Shrine on May 15: “I just feel like artistry shines through, you know what I’m saying? I’m really appreciative of the people who have been there from the jump and understood my vision… What’s the next song? Oh, it’s ‘Sympathy Is a Knife.’ Interesting.”

After the fact, fans pointed to the themes of Brat — particularly a song like “Rewind,” on which Charli questions her relationship to fame and her own artistry, even calling out the Billboard charts by name. One fan wrote on X: “There is of course an irony that an album full of meditations on the push-pull relationship of the artist and their art to success was beaten to the #1 spot by an artist peddling the 304th edition of their album for another week atop the charts…”. Yet, as Clint Robinson, on-air talent for Audacy Orlando, said in a TikTok clip, “The problem is, Taylor Swift has amassed a literal army of fans that buy her variations, that want to stream her albums, that want to see her be No. 1. They care about that because she does too. And you want to know why? Because she is an incredible businesswoman.”

Given its success, Swift’s extended-rollout strategy could become a blueprint for others to follow to maintain momentum on the charts. Meanwhile, some industry insiders are wondering when it will end, with one industry source comparing the ongoing TTPD releases to fast fashion.

Ahead, fans are eyeing Sabrina Carpenter’s current chart reign as she occupies the Nos. 2 and 3 spots on the Billboard Hot 100 with “Please Please Please” and “Espresso,” respectively. Carpenter — a close friend of Swift’s who opened for the star on a handful of Eras Tour dates — will release her new album, Short n’ Sweet, on August 23. Though the pair are openly supportive of one another, and despite Carpenter’s album being nearly two months away, her fans aren’t resting easy just yet. As one posted on X: “Taylor Swift got a mega deluxe acoustic version ready for her ass.”