“F— Kenny G!” Action Bronson playfully exclaimed halfway through his performance at New Balance’s TCA New York City Marathon Kick-Off Party on Friday night (Nov. 3). The Queens rapper wasn’t really throwing shots at the Grammy-winning smooth jazz saxophonist, he was simply singing the praises of Matt Carrillo (aka Young Mexico), the incredibly impressive saxophonist and keyboardist that served as one of the main anchors of the band’s whimsical set.

At New Balance’s TCA New York City Marathon Kick-Off Party, sports and hip-hop continued their decades-long convergence as Action Bronson helped celebrate the imminent 26.2-mile race, as well as the latest evolution in his partnership with sports footwear giant New Balance.

After Adidas unexpectedly canceled his UltraBOOST collaboration back in 2019, Bronson teamed up with New Balance, officially announcing a new multi-item collaborative capsule with the brand back in March. Among the items in the capsule were the New Balance 990v6 “Baklava” sneaker. A few months later, a second 990v6 sneaker — named “Lapis Lazuli” — arrived exclusively on Bronson’s specializinginlife.com website (Jun. 22), receiving a global release on Jun. 30.

“I’m just enchanted by nature,” Bronson mused backstage before his performance. “Nature’s beauty. It’s natural beauty. It’s whimsical. It’s like stranger than fiction.”

Given the forest green hues and deep blues that appear across his different colorways, Bronson’s relationship with all of nature’s gifts truly inspired the design of his New Balance collaborations. Finding a home with New Balance was a special journey after the less-than-favorable way his Adidas partnership dissolved, but “I’ve been a New Balance guy for years, way before any of this other s—,” Bronson explains. “I’ve come from a family of f—ing chubby feet, flat feet, where you need a good walking shoe and something with stability and comfort as well as performance. This provides all three for my type.” To further explain, Bronson likened his foot type to “a triangle slice of pizza.”

During his set, Bronson tore through lively renditions of “Latin Grammys,” “DMTri,” and “Baby Blue,” allowing his five-member band to riff to both their heart’s desire and the audience’s pleasure. Embodying the whimsy he attributed to nature, Bronson delivered a characteristically charismatic stage show that even featured him literally touching his toes onstage and adding idiosyncratic percussion flourishes.

Cocodrillo Turbo, Bronson’s last studio effort, arrived last year, but the Billboard Hot 100 hitmaker is already formulating his next LP, although he’s purposely keeping his plans lowkey. “Lots of things [are] coming in the new year,” he teased. “Exciting things if you can’t tell how excited I am. I’m just stoned!”

The TCS NYC Marathon launches on Sunday (Nov. 5) at 8:00 a.m. EST.

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Family fun for the holidays. Alanis Morissette is used to being center stage but the Canadian singer stepped outside the box in a “heartwarming” new holiday campaign for Gap.

Morissette, who previously appeared in a 2005 Gap commercial with John Legend, Keith Urban and Jason Mraz, stars in the brand’s latest holiday campaign alongside her husband, Mario “Souleye” Treadway, and their three kids.

“Integrating my family into the campaign made it all the more heartwarming for me,” Morissette told Billboard in an email interview earlier this week.

“I gently warned everyone that the shoot might be an exercise in organized chaos,” she said of working with her family. “I have a pretty clear boundary between work and personal life. This was an example of us stepping outside of the more private approach we take and allowed for us to express how important relationships are in each of our lives.”

Gap commissioned a group of “gifted individuals” for the campaign, which celebrates the “holiday season as a gift.” Besides Morissette and her family, the campaign features podcaster, author and purpose coach Jay Shetty with his wife, cookbook author Radhi Devlukia; Grammy-winning composer/songwriter and folk artist Diana Gordon; model, singer and actress Rola; Lester Walker, Pierre Serrao and Jon Gray founders of the chef collective Ghetto Gastro; model Florence Huntington-Whiteley; model and designer Elsa Hosk with her daughter Tuuli; and body-positive model Sabina Karlsson with her family.

Staying true to her personal style, Morissette sports loose-fitting, comfortable clothing in the Gap campaign, including men’s ’90s Loose Denim Jeans ($79.95) paired with Gap’s Velvet Boyfriend Shirt ($34). The look matches Morissette’s “androgynous approach” to styling herself.

“I love the idea of combining glam with casual. Haute with leisure, dirty with fancy. This was a perfect example of care combined with mellow, classic pieces. Perfectly set up for personalizing with jewelry pieces or accessories.”

In music news, Morissette released a cover of George Michael’s “Last Christmas” from her holiday EP on Friday (Nov. 3). The four-song EP also includes covers of John Lennon and Yoko Ono’s “Happy Xmas (War is Over)” and Christmas carols “Little Drummer Boy” and “What Child is This?”

“I have been obsessed with George Michael my entire life and had the pleasure of meeting him backstage at one of my shows. WHAM! was a favorite band when I was younger,” she explained. “George’s voice (velvet and dreamy) was super inspiring to me,” she explained. “Covering ‘Last Christmas’ is a way to mark the holiday time as well as bow down to George himself.”

The holidays are a great time to catch up on festive music and musicals like Jagged Little Pill. The musical, based off Morissette’s pivotal 1995 album, will be at Toronto’s Princess of Wales Theater from Oct. 24-Nov. 26 and Knoxville, Tenn. from Dec. 5-10.

Jagged Little Pill the musical will head to Sacramento next year along with St. Louis, Orlando, Fla., Kalamazoo, Mich., Charleston S.C., Dallas, Texas and other cities.

“I love that this musical touches on topics that I care about so deeply,” said Morissette. “The emphasis is on healing, connection, the pain of rupture or the loneliness of a sense of disconnection.  And how to remain connected in the face of conflict or challenge or loss. Such a celebration of how we define ourselves as we go along. The musical has the delicate combination of super vulnerable, activism, self-expression and the healing power of showing up with empathy.”