The Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency’s Financial Crime Investigation Unit on Tuesday (April 21) sought an arrest warrant for HYBE chairman Bang Si-hyuk, submitting the request to the Seoul Southern District Prosecutors’ Office on suspicion of fraudulent unfair trading under South Korea’s Capital Markets Act.

The investigation centers on share transactions carried out ahead of HYBE’s IPO. Police allege that in 2019, Bang misled existing investors about the company’s listing plans, inducing them to sell their stakes into a private-equity-linked structure before the company went public. Investigators believe Bang later benefited from a prior undisclosed agreement tied to that arrangement.

Authorities suspect Bang received about 30% of the post-listing gains, with the alleged profit widely reported at around 190 billion won, or roughly $129 million. Bang has denied wrongdoing.

The legal exposure is substantial. Under the Capital Markets Act, any individual found to have generated 5 billion won ($3.4 million) or more through false representations about a financial product faces a minimum five-year prison term, with life imprisonment as the upper bound.

HYBE shares reversed course on the news, closing down 2.4% on Tuesday, while South Korea’s benchmark KOSPI rose 2.7% to a fresh intraday high. Bang has been barred from leaving South Korea since August 2025 and has been questioned five times during the investigation. Police also searched HYBE headquarters and the Korea Exchange as part of the probe.

The case has also drawn diplomatic attention. Korea’s National Police Agency confirmed that the U.S. Embassy in Seoul recently sent a letter seeking permission for Bang to travel to the United States despite the travel ban. According to police, the request sought a temporary suspension so Bang and other senior HYBE executives could attend an event tied to U.S. Independence Day and hold meetings related to BTS’ ongoing global tour. HYBE has denied requesting the embassy’s intervention, according to The Korea Herald. The embassy said it had nothing further to add.

Bang’s legal counsel said Tuesday: “We regret that a detention warrant has been sought despite our full and consistent cooperation with the investigation over an extended period. We will continue to cooperate with all legal procedures and make every effort to clearly explain our position.”

Kendrick Lamar & SZA’s “Luther” won the 2026 Webby Award for music video, it was announced on Tuesday (April 21), while Sabrina Carpenter’s “Tears” won the People’s Voice Award in the same category.

Webby Awards are voted on by members of The International Academy of Digital Arts & Sciences (IADAS). People’s Voice Awards are fan-voted.

In some cases, experts and fans agreed. Projects that won both awards in their respective categories include Good Hang With Amy Poehler (best host, features); Heated Rivalry social (best social campaign); KATSEYE and GAP’s “Better in Denim” (fashion, beauty & lifestyle, branded entertainment); “Lady Gaga Monster Press Conference” (events & livestreams, social campaigns); “NikeSKIMS Spring ’26 Campaign” featuring Blackpink’s LISA (launch or drop, advertising campaigns); “NPR Music Tiny Desk Concerts” (entertainment & music, series & channels); “Smirnoff x Troye Sivan: Go Off!” (digital campaign, advertising campaigns); SNL50: The Anniversary Special (events & live, limited-series & specials); “Take a Moment With Elmo and Jonathan Bailey” (health & wellness, social video short form); The Don Lemon Show (best video podcast host, features); and The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon (entertainment, general social).

“This 30th Anniversary class of Webby winners is a reflection of the Internet at its best: vibrant, diverse, and continuously innovative,” Jesse Feister, executive director, Webby Media Group, said in a statement. “From global superstars, viral online personalities, and culture-defining entertainment, to AI platforms like Google Gemini and Claude Code, these honorees are the voices setting the standard for digital excellence. We are proud to champion their creativity and celebrate the extraordinary ways they are shaping the future of the online world.”

Winners will be celebrated at a ceremony hosted by The Daily Show writer and correspondent Josh Johnson, a four-time Primetime Emmy nominee,  on Monday, May 11 in New York City. Fans can watch special moments and the show’s signature five-word speeches by following @TheWebbyAwards across Instagram, LinkedIn, TikTok, X and Facebook.

The Webby Awards will award Google with the brand of the year achievement with 13 Webby wins, 18 People’s Voice wins, 22 nominees, and 11 honorees.

iHeart Media will receive the Webby podcast company of the Year achievement, with two Webby wins and four People’s Voice wins, 17 nominees, and 10 honorees.

Additionally, the Academy announced PBS as the Webby media company of the year for earning the most honors across all Webby categories with seven Webby wins, 10 People’s Voice wins, 22 nominees, and seven honorees.

Here’s an curated list of 2026 Webby Award winners, with a focus on categories of most interest to the music community. To view the full list of winners, visit the Webby Awards site.

For the second year in a row, the Webbys have partnered with Adobe, the company behind Adobe Firefly, to present the Webby Awards’ Special Achievement in Creative AI Award. This award recognizes groundbreaking creatives redefining artistic expression through emerging technologies. This year’s recipient, James Gerde, is being recognized for his innovative work as an AI-native filmmaker and creator redefining visual storytelling.

The Webby Awards will also honor a group of individuals with special achievement awards for their contributions to Internet culture.

Eminem marked a very special milestone on Monday (April 20) when he celebrated his 18th year of sobriety. The 53-year-old MC posted an image on Instagram in which he held up his gold 18-year coin, which reads “to thing own self be true” across the top in black letters, with “unity, service and recovery” inscribed around a golden triangle with the number 18 etched inside in Roman numerals.

He captioned the post: “XVIII🏅.”

The Detroit-bred rapper born Marshall Bruce Mathers III, wore a special vintage T-shirt to mark the special day, paying tribute to fellow rhymer D-Nice’s 1991 To Tha Rescue album, the former Boogie Down Productions member’s second and final solo studio LP.

Em got plenty of love from friends and fans on the milestone day, including podcaster/comedian Theo Von, who commented, “Amen,” half brother Nathan “Nate” Mathers, who posted a pair of prayer hands and the message “proud of you big bro” and Roots drummer and director Questlove, who added “Awesome. Keep Goin [clapping hands emoji].”

Back in 2022, Eminem told his longtime manager Paul Rosenberg that it “took a long time for my brain to start working again” after a near-fatal overdose in 2007. “Didn’t you ask the doctors when I first started rapping again and sent it to you, didn’t you say, ‘I just wanna make sure he doesn’t have brain damage’?” Shady asked Rosenberg, who said he was definitely concerned at the time about Em’s ability to rap again. At the peak of his addiction, Em said he was taking 75-80 Valium a night, a potentially lethal amount.

Marshall has had a lot to celebrate lately, including becoming a grandpa recently when his eldest daughter, Alaina Scott — whom he adopted in the early 2000s — gave birth to a baby girl last week. Scott and husband Matt Moeller revealed that they welcomed a baby girl, Scottie Marie Moeller, on April 14. The child’s first name is a tribute to the last name of her birth mother, Dawn Scott, the sister of Eminem’s ex-wife, Kim Scott. It was the second time the rapper reached grand status, after his biological daughter, Hailie Jade, gave birth to a baby boy last March.

If you or someone you know is struggling with substance abuse or addiction, the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) National Helpline at 800-662-HELP (4357) is available 24/7.

Check out Eminem’s post below.

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Lil Tjay is in a moving car somewhere with bad signal, and he has a lot on his mind that he’s not allowed to say.

Two weeks ago, he walked out of Broward County Jail in Hollywood, Florida — arrested the night before on disorderly conduct charges in connection with the shooting of Offset outside the Seminole Hard Rock Hotel & Casino — and gave reporters an interview that lit up every music blog within the hour.

He called Offset a “rat.” He recounted the scene. He threatened the Atlanta native with the kind of language that doesn’t leave a lot of room for interpretation.

Today, he’s considerably more composed.

“I’m just as confused as everyone else about that,” he says, when the situation comes up. “My lawyer told me not to touch on it too much. What I can say is the album will really hit home for my fans.”

One sentence. Door shut. On to the album.

The short version: a $10,000 casino debt, months of public beef, and then on April 6, Offset was shot outside the Seminole Hard Rock in Hollywood, Florida. Tjay was arrested that night on disorderly conduct charges. His lawyer called the reports linking him to the shooting “false rumors.”

Authorities never named him as the triggerman. He was out on bond by morning.

Two weeks later, he’s on the phone to talk about new music. The chaos is still there, humming in the background. But Tjay seems genuinely uninterested in feeding it.

“My week’s been active,” he says. “I’ve been putting everything together for my album, keeping content rolling so fans have things to watch.”

The album is They Just Ain’t You, due May 1 via his own imprint TrenchKid Records/ADA. It is, structurally and sonically, the most deliberate thing he’s put his name to — and the most personal, in ways that go beyond the music itself. This is his first fully independent project, built without major label infrastructure behind it. That shift is not incidental. It’s the whole point.

“The main thing — it’s completely me,” he says. “It’s an in-house project, no major label backing this time, unlike before. But the body of work should be just as strong.”

He’s not bitter about the label years. Good people, sometimes useful opinions — but a system that has its own gravitational pull. “You can get tied up in the business and people get too passionate,” he says. The outcome, for him, is simple: “Now I’m able to be my own boss.”

The lead single “Life On Edge,” out today, sounds like what that independence feels like from the inside — stripped back, a little isolated, pressure coiled underneath calm production. “

The more the struggle, the better the shine,” he delivers. “My life is a puzzle, but I’ve been hustling and juggling with times.” It doesn’t sound like a victory lap. It sounds like a man still in the middle of something, working it out in real time.

The album’s short film — a three-part visual series rolling out alongside the release — pulls from his Bronx upbringing in ways his earlier work touched on but never fully excavated. Going back to that material, he says, does something specific to him.

“It feels unrealistic sometimes,” he says. “The Bronx is different from anywhere else. When I go back it gives me a sense of accomplishment — reminds me what I’ve done.”

He acknowledges the gap between now and his last album plainly, without excuses. His 2023 release 222 was critically well-received — anchored by “June 22nd,” a raw account of the near-fatal shooting that nearly ended his career before this chapter could begin. But the label transition created a silence he knows cost him momentum.

“I fell short transitioning off the label and haven’t dropped an album since,” he says. “Now I plan to keep my foot on the gas and not take long breaks again.”

When asked about his musical inspirations, he brings up Justin Bieber — the recent Coachella moment, what it stirred up for him. Growing up in the Bronx, certain things were and weren’t acceptable to admit to. Liking the Canadian pop star was firmly in the second category. Tjay didn’t care then. He’s not apologising for it now.

“Where I’m from it wasn’t cool to be a Bieber fan, but I always rocked with him,” he says. “Honestly, if it wasn’t for him, I might not be an artist today.”

It lands quietly, but it lands hard. Because it explains something — about the melodic instinct that runs through Tjay’s catalogue, the emotional directness that helped him accumulate more than 18 billion global streams and a string of platinum certifications going back to his 2019 debut True 2 Myself. That sound didn’t come from nowhere. It came from a kid in the Bronx paying attention to whoever actually moved him, regardless of whether that was the approved choice.

That same instinct is what’s driving They Just Ain’t You. Not the noise. Not the drama. Not the version of Lil Tjay that walks out of a Florida jail and says what he says to the cameras. The version that gets back in the car, turns the phone on, and tries to make something true.

Asked what he wants fans to take from this era, he keeps it short.

“Stay on your own mission,” he says. “Rainy days come, but keep moving forward.”

From someone who has survived a near-fatal shooting, a public feud that ended in a casino parking lot, and more industry turbulence than most artists twice his age — it doesn’t read like a platitude. It reads like the only logical conclusion a person could reach after all of that.

They Just Ain’t You is out May 1.

The estate of Prince has released a previously unheard recording of “With This Tear,” a song the late artist originally wrote and later gave to Celine Dion in the early 1990s.

The newly unveiled version, issued via NPG Records and Legacy Recordings, features Prince’s original recording of the piano-led ballad, which he wrote, produced and performed himself. The track was first recorded at Paisley Park in November 1991, but had remained unreleased until now.

Dion’s version of “With This Tear” appeared on her 1992 self-titled album, marking one of several instances in which Prince contributed material to other artists while keeping his own recordings in the vault. His original take offers a more stripped-back interpretation of the song, foregrounding his vocal and piano arrangement.

The newly released recording has been updated with a fresh mix by Grammy-nominated producer Chris James, who has previously worked on multiple Prince-related projects. The release forms part of a broader effort by the Prince Estate to continue opening the artist’s extensive archive of unreleased material.

The timing of the track’s arrival is notable, coming just ahead of the 10th anniversary of Prince’s death. Since his passing in 2016, a steady stream of archival releases — including deluxe editions, vault recordings and previously unheard collaborations — has helped maintain his presence within contemporary music conversations while offering deeper insight into his prolific output.

“With This Tear” also reflects Prince’s long-standing role as a songwriter for other artists. Over the course of his career, he wrote and produced songs that were recorded by a wide range of performers, often delivering compositions that took on new forms outside of his own catalog.

The release follows renewed interest in Prince’s archive in recent years. In 2024, a demo of “Baby Doll,” a previously unheard collaboration between Prince and Kylie Minogue, surfaced online, highlighting the depth of material still contained within the vault.

While details about a potential larger vault project have not been formally confirmed, reports have suggested that additional archival releases may be forthcoming.