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Toosii talks about his hit song ‘Favorite Song’ getting onto the Hot 100, the difference between working with Future and Khalid on the remixes, his love and how he’s been influenced by pop and country music, and more.
Toosii:
So I like to call myself Arnold Palmer. I’m like a mix of sweet tea and lemonade. Yeah.
Rania Aniftos:
A little bit of lemonade, a little bit of sweet tea.
Toosii:
Yo, what’s going on? It’s Toosii and you’re watching Billboard News.
Rania Aniftos:
Hi everybody. Its Rania Aniftos with Billboard News and we’re here with the hottest rapper of 2023, Toosii.
Rania Aniftos:
We have to talk about, of course, the hot 100. And you broke into the top five for the first time. How does it feel?
Toosii:
It’s a good feeling. It’s a blessing. It’s something that I’ve prayed for something that I’ve been working for. So just to be here, it’s crazy.
Rania Aniftos:
It must be crazy to see how ‘Favorite Song’ took off in general it has what 280 million global streams
Toosii:
Just to see the overall interaction you just from everyone and the support you know it’s been crazy. So you know, I appreciate everybody
Rania Aniftos:
When you wrote that song. Did you have that feeling? You knew you knew it was gonna be the one
Toosii:
It’s kind of hard to like sit here and be like, Nah, I didn’t know I just put it out there. Now those was like it was like one of those ones where like I knew.
Watch the full video above!
Niall Horan earns his third straight No. 1 on Billboard’s Top Album Sales chart (dated June 24) – the entirety of his solo studio releases – as The Show debuts atop the tally. The set bows with just over 68,000 copies sold in the United States in the week ending June 15, according to Luminate.
Horan’s first two albums, Heartbreak Weather (in 2020) and Flicker (in 2018) both debuted at No. 1.
The Show was released on June 9 via Neon Haze/Capitol Records.
Also in the top 10 of the new Top Album Sales chart, Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit, Noah Kahan, P1Harmony, Janelle Monae and Extreme all make waves with their latest releases.
Billboard’s Top Album Sales chart ranks the top-selling albums of the week based only on traditional album sales. The chart’s history dates back to May 25, 1991, the first week Billboard began tabulating charts with electronically monitored piece count information from SoundScan, now Luminate. Pure album sales were the sole measurement utilized by the Billboard 200 albums chart through the list dated Dec. 6, 2014, after which that chart switched to a methodology that blends album sales with track equivalent album units and streaming equivalent album units. The new June 24, 2023-dated chart will be posted in full on Billboard‘s website on June 21, one day later than usual, owed to the Juneteenth holiday in the United States on June 19. For all chart news, follow @billboard and @billboardcharts on both Twitter and Instagram.
Of The Show’s 68,000 copies sold in its first week, physical sales comprise 62,000 (33,700 on vinyl; 22,900 on CD and 500 on cassette) and digital album sales comprise 6,000. That nearly-34,000 sum on vinyl represents Horan’s biggest week on wax, and the largest sales week for any vinyl album released by Capitol Records in the modern era (since Luminate began tracking data in 1991). Unsurprisingly, The Show debuts at No. 1 on Billboard’s Vinyl Albums chart – Horan’s first No. 1 on the list.
The Show’s sturdy sales start was bolstered by an array of available physical editions: eight deluxe boxed sets containing a CD and branded merch, a signed CD sold through Horan’s webstore, a Target-exclusive CD with an alternative cover and a poster packaged inside, a zine CD package sold through his webstore, six vinyl variants (including color variants for Target, Spotify, Urban Outfitters and his webstore) and a cassette.
Notably, Horan equals the No. 1 count of his One Direction bandmate Harry Styles, who also saw his first three solo studio efforts all debut at No. 1 on Top Album Sales (his self-titled release in 2017, Fine Line in 2019 and Harry’s House in 2022). One further member of One Direction has topped the tally: Zayn, with his debut set Mind of Mine in 2016. (One Direction itself notched four No. 1s on Top Album Sales.)
Stray Kids’ 5-STAR falls to No. 2 in its second week on Top Album Sales, with 46,000 copies sold (down 81%).
Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit’s latest release, Weathervanes, bows at No. 3 on Top Album Sales with 28,000 sold. It’s the sixth top 10-charting title for Isbell on the tally.
Noah Kahan’s Stick Season re-enters Top Album Sales at No. 3 following its deluxe reissue with seven bonus tracks, and its first pressing on vinyl, on June 9. The set sold 23,000 copies in the week ending June 15 – up 3,080%. The album originally debuted and peaked at No. 57 on the list dated Oct. 29, 2022. Vinyl comprises most of Stick Season’s sales for the week – 20,500. It bows at No. 2 on the Vinyl Albums chart. It had a relatively slim vinyl release – just three vinyl variants were issued for the set.
Korean pop group P1Harmony makes its debut on Top Album Sales with Harmony: All In, 6th Mini Album, bowing at No. 5 with 20,500 sold. Effectively all of that figure is CD album sales, thanks to the six-track set’s availability across 21 different collectible versions of the album, including some that were signed by the act. All of the iterations contain a standard set of branded merchandise items, along with randomized merch (photo cards and post cards).
ENHYPEN’s Dark Blood falls 2-6 on Top Album Sales in its second week on the list, selling 19,000 (down 78%).
Janelle Monae returns to the top 10 of Top Album Sales for the first time in over five years, as her new studio release The Age of Pleasure premieres at No. 7. The album sold 19,000 copies. She last debuted on the chart in May of 2018 with Dirty Computer, which bowed and peaked at No. 3. In total, Pleasure is her third top 10-charting set on Top Album Sales.
Taylor Swift’s chart-topping Midnights dips 6-8 on Top Album Sales with 17,000 sold (down 29%) while Foo Fighters’ But Here We Are falls 4-9 in its second week with 13,000 (down 77%).
Closing out the top 10 on Top Album Sales is a band that’s been absent from the top 10 for over 30 years – Extreme. The rock group’s new album Six bows at No. 10 with 12,500 copies sold. The set marks the band’s first studio album since 2008. The act was last in the top 10 with III Sides to Every Story, which debuted and peaked at No. 10 on the Oct. 10, 1992-dated chart.
In the week ending June 15, there were 1.924 million albums sold in the U.S. (down 8.5% compared to the previous week). Of that sum, physical albums (CDs, vinyl LPs, cassettes, etc.) comprised 1.587 million (down 8.4%) and digital albums comprised 337,000 (down 8.9%).
There were 711,000 CD albums sold in the week ending June 15 (down 25.9% week-over-week) and 865,000 vinyl albums sold (up 13.5%). Year-to-date CD album sales stand at 16.192 million (up 4.5% compared to the same time frame a year ago) and year-to-date vinyl album sales total 21.963 million (up 24.5%).
Overall year-to-date album sales total 46.956 million (up 9.2% compared to the same year-to-date time frame a year ago). Year-to-date physical album sales stand at 38.403 million (up 15.1%) and digital album sales total 8.553 million (down 11.1%).
Celebrities and friends are uniting in support for Bebe Rexha in the comments section of her latest Instagram post, a closeup of a painful-looking face injury.
The singer-songwriter suffered the injury when someone hurled a cell phone at her on stage this weekend. Rexha was rushed to the hospital Sunday night (June 18) from New York City’s The Rooftop at Pier 17. Videos circulating across social media show Rexha falling to her knees after being hit by the device.
“Im good,” Rexha, recovering from her injury, captioned two selfies on Instagram of her injury on Monday (June 19). Actors and singers including Demi Lovato, John Stamos and more were quick to leave kind words for Rexha upon seeing the photos and hearing the news.
“Love you girly.. I’m so sorry this happened to you,” Lovato commented, along with a sad face emoji.
“This is 100 percent f—ed up! I hope you’re okay BeBe xo,” Stamos said.
“Literally wtf nobody should be throwing s— that makes me so upset. We love you @beberexha glad you are ‘ok,’” Hayley Kiyoko added in a comment.
“Dude what the f—?!? I’m so sorry babe,” wrote Lauren Jauregui. “So f—ed up.”
Leona Lewis wrote, “Sending love,” and actor Lukas Gage also expressed the same message.
The New York Police Department responded to the scene and arrested 27-year-old Nicolas Malvagna, charging him with a felony because the phone was used as a weapon, according to reports.
Electronic artists are responding after a shooting that took place this past Saturday night (June 17) at Beyond Wonderland at The Gorge Amphitheatre in George, Wash., leaving two dead and three others injured.
The incident happened on the first day of the two day event, around 8:30 p.m. local time when a gunman opened fire in the festival’s camping area. Two people were killed and three others were injured before the gunman was apprehended by authorities.
On Monday (June 19), Pasquale Rotella — the founder and CEO of Beyond Wonderland producer Insomniac Events — added further details about the shooting, writing that “it is our understanding that the incident stemmed from an isolated situation that escalated, leading the assailant to flee the area. An officer involved-shooting then occurred to neutralize the event.”
Rotella also noted that the festival was kept going during and after the incident at the request of law enforcement “to ensure the majority of attendees stayed away from the campground area where the incident took place. Our staff worked in close coordination with local authorities to secure the area, while also preserving it for investigators to conduct their work in a smaller, isolated section.”
The second day of the festival was canceled following the shooting. The weekend’s lineup included Kaskade and deadmau5 performing as Kx5, Marshmello, Afrojack and other electronic music artists.
Related
Several artists who were performing or were meant to perform over the weekend — including Marshmello, Afrojack, Kaleena Zanders, Dillon Francis, Hannah Wants, Ray Volpe, Malaa and Subtronics — have made statements regarding the shooting on social media, along with other figures and brands from the global dance music community. See these statements below.
Mass Shooting Tracker lists the Beyond Wonderland shooting as the 358th mass shooting to happen in the United States in 2023. A GoFundMe has been set up for one of the survivors of the shooting.
The Soul Rebels with Big Freedia. Butcher Brown, Digable Planets, Ledisi and the West Coast Get Down featuring Leon Bridges and Raphael Saadiq. Shoutouts to Father’s Day, Juneteenth, hip-hop’s 50thanniversary, Black Music Month and Pride Month. There was something for everyone during the second day of the annual Hollywood Bowl Jazz Festival (June 18).
“You love music like I do; you want every dribbling drop of it,” said festival host Arsenio Hall in his welcome remarks. “I will be the ringmaster of the circle of jazz artists today … And there’s just one rule. Leave all of your troubles behind and have a musical picnic like no other.”
And the Bowl’s full house did just that, beginning with youth act the LAUSD (Los Angeles Unified School District) Beyond the Bell All District Jazz Big Band with special guest Charlie Young. Then giving inspirational music a different twist was Andrew Gouché and Prayze Connection. Nicknamed “the godfather of gospel bass,” Grammy winner Gouché — who has played for Mary Mary, Michael Jackson and Aretha Franklin — first led the band in a mellow, moving take on “The Lord’s Prayer.” Then the group, which included Gouché’s nephew Davion Farris, segued into several other songs, including the Clark Sisters’ classic “You Brought the Sunshine” and covers of two songs recorded by gospel star Fred Hammond, “Let the Praise Begin” and “Blessed,” featuring special guests Eric Dawkins (with a dance assist from the Cardinal Divas of the SC Drum Line) and another Gouché nephew, D Smoke, respectively.
During the late afternoon phase of the festival, jazz and world music aficionados were treated to invigorating sets by Richmond, Virginia, quintet Butcher Brown and Boukman Eksperyans. The latter held court with their fresh, percolating fusion of jazz, hip-hop, soul, funk and R&B on songs like “Frontline” and “It Was Me.” Among the eight selections performed by Grammy-nominated Haitian group Boukman Eksperyans during its crowd-pleasing set were “Jou Nou Revolte Granbwa Ile,” “Kalfou O!” and “Tan Bou.”
New Orleans brass band The Soul Rebels then took the crowd to the next level with its unique brand of soul, funk, R&B, rock, pop and jazz. Raising the high-energy bar with the raucous “Turn It Up” and “Rebel Rock,” the ensemble turned the volume all the way up when bounce music master Big Freedia hit the stage — and got her twerk on — for a noteworthy three-song set: “I Heard,” “N. O. Bounce” and “Gin in My System.”
Thirty years have elapsed since Digable Planets released its gold-certified debut album Reachin’ (A New Refutation of Time and Space). But the warm Bowl reception given to the rap trio made it seem like it was only yesterday when the album’s first single, “Rebirth of Slick (Cool Like Dat)” became a Billboard Hot 100 top 15 hit and won the group a Grammy for best rap performance. Before closing their appearance with that song and a standing ovation, Digable Planets worked their way through other first-album tracks “Where I’m From,” “Escapism (Getting’ Free)” and “Nickel Bags,” plus “It’s Good to Be Here,” “Cool Breezes” and “Graffiti” — and proved it has lost none of its enduring magic.
Ledisi and her versatile four-octave soprano kept the captivated audience in constant cheer-and-applaud mode during her 45-minute appearance. Performance standouts included “Add to Me,” the colorful scat-accented “Alright” (“It’s a jazz fest so you’ve got to have some scatting”), the autobiographical “Pieces of Me,” latest single “I Need to Know” and the searing ballad “Anything for You,” which won the singer-songwriter a Grammy for best traditional R&B performance in 2021.
The collective West Coast Get Down, with founder and jazz saxophonist Kamasi Washington, closed the festival along with Grammy-winning special guests Leon Bridges and Raphael Saadiq. Bridges’ set with the band featured a well-received three-song medley: “Born Again,” “Bad Bad News” and “Kings and Queens.” An effervescent Saadiq rocked the stage with his bass guitar on “You’re the One That I Like,” “The Sun” and “Skyy, Can You Feel Me.”
The 2023 Hollywood Bowl Jazz Festival was curated by Washington and jazz icon Herbie Hancock. On opening day (June 17), host Hall welcomed performers St. Paul and The Broken Bones, Poncho Sanchez, Bell Biv DeVoe, Herbie Hancock Institute of Jazz Performance Ensemble at UCLA, Washington and Samara Joy, a double Grammy winner this year for best jazz vocal album and best new artist.
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