In a new interview, Katy Perry said she knew Dua Lipa was the “it girl” early in her career.

“I remember going in to watch her play at the Hollywood Palladium,” Perry tells Rolling Stone. “It’s so funny, I left work early. It was the first season of me doing American Idol. I was like, ‘I really need to get out of here by 7 because I’m going to see this new artist Dua Lipa play at the Palladium,’ and my co-judge Luke Bryan was like, ‘Who’s that?’ I was like, ‘Don’t worry, you’ll know her name.’”

Perry expressed empathizing with the rising star because of her own experience as a woman in the industry coming up. Perry has been very vocal about stan culture pitting women artists against one another.

“I love new female artists,” said Perry. “I know the really intense challenges and the pressure and all that stuff. I just feel for them so much.”

Perry also shared the inspiration behind her campy Las Vegas residency in the new interview. The show, filled with over-the-top costumes and larger-than-life sets, drew upon the fantasy of Alice in Wonderland.

“You don’t have to take mushrooms to feel like you’re on mushrooms when you watch this show. Believe me,” Perry says. “It’s got all the nostalgia factor, but it is wrapped up in this Alice in Wonderland mushroom trip animated story of finding true love and self-love.”

Read Perry’s full interview on Rolling Stone.

TREASURE is welcoming a new era with one of the catchiest K-pop singles of the year.

The boy band’s new EP The Second Step: Chapter Two follows up The Second Step: Chapter One from February that delivered the group’s best showing on Billboard‘s Global charts so far: lead single “JikJin” hit No. 110 on the Global 200, while B-side “Darari” also entered the chart at No. 169 after a surge of viral activity.

Co-written and co-produced by TREASURE members Choi Hyunsuk, Yoshi and Haruto, the latest single “Hello” is crafted around surging synthesizers that follow the guys through moments of jock-jam dance breakdowns to stylish rap sections. The chorus’ repetitious lines (“I’m like, ‘Hello, hello, hello, where you’ve been all my life?’” and “Yeah, I’m looking, I’m looking, I’m looking for you”) give TREASURE a handful of undeniable hooks and make the song an easy earworm.

The accompanying video shows the boy band embracing bright and colorful sets emphasizing the TikTok-ready choreography. At one point, the members hold signs for “hello” in various languages like Japanese, Spanish, Chinese, German and Indonesian, speaking to K-pop’s global audience today.

“Hello” and the new The Second Step: Chapter Two mark the latest release from TREASURE with a slew of unique particulars for the album. The five-track EP includes songs performed by different sub-groups of TREASURE members with the rock-rap joint “VolKno” performed by Hyunsuk, Yoshi and Haruto, while Asahi and Haruto teamed up on the rock track “Thank You.” The Second Step: Chapter Two also marks the first time TREAUSRE is performing as a 10-member outfit as members Bang Yedam and Mashiho are taking time off from the group to pursue their studies and focus on their health, respectively.

Say “Hello” to TREASURE below:

It’s been almost 20 years since the debut of Ice Cube’s Friday After Next, the third film released under the “No Vaseline” rapper’s Friday franchise. As a result, there has been major speculation on when the next movie will be released, and during an episode of the Drink Champs podcast at L.L. Cool J’s Rock The Bells festival, Cube shares the reason behind the hold-up.

“I’m tryna get it out of Warner Bros. They don’t believe in the culture, man,” Ice Cube said to the podcast hosts, N.O.R.E. & D.J. E.F.N.

The 53-year-old Los Angeles native also revealed that Warner Bros. has distribution rights to the Friday films. “Once I take the character’s names, it becomes a property of Friday,” Cube added about people asking him to possibly change the film’s name. “It’s useless. They just need to come off that s—!”

Cube noted that Warner Bros. rejected two of his scripts for the movie. The first script included the characters Craig (Ice Cube) and Da Da (Mike Epps) going to jail for selling marijuana.

“The s— is funny,” Ice Cube said. “After they rejected it, they had all these movies about going to jail. So I was like, ‘Man, see, y’all f— me up.’ The other script was about the youngsters in the hood having beef with the OGs, and Craig has to come back and squash that. Smokey’s [Chris Tucker’s] son is the new Deebo [Tommy Lister Jr.], and he’s wilding.”

Cube added that Warner Bros’ “tripped on it,” in addition to talking about some of Friday’s prominent characters passing away, including John Witherspoon, who played Cube’s father in the films, Lister, who played Deebo, and A.J. Johnson, who played Ezal.

When asked if Tucker would star in another film, Cube said the comedian and actor hasn’t expressed full interest in doing another Friday. “Chris is slippy,” said Cube. “But me and Chris is cool.”

As far as Cube’s other notable projects like the 2002 All About The Benjamins movie and his 1998 hit film The Players Club, Cube said it’s tied up due to Warner Bros. “Once again, another Warner Bros’ f– up,” Cube concluded.

All products and services featured are independently chosen by editors. However, Billboard may receive a commission on orders placed through its retail links, and the retailer may receive certain auditable data for accounting purposes.

Attention, Barbz! Nicki Minaj will be hitting the mic for another episode of Queen Radio on Wednesday (Oct. 5). In August, the rap queen dropped a limited merch collection to coincide with the long-awaited return of her popular Queen Radio show.

Minaj, who headlined Rolling Loud New York and received the Video Vanguard Award at the 2022 MTV Video Music Awards in August, topped the Billboard Hot 100 with her latest single “Super Freak Girl.” The track also went No. 1 on the Rhythmic Airplay charts.

Her unisex merch, available exclusively at Amazon’s Queen Radio storefront, consists of a black T-shirt ($35) and black hoodie ($60) designed with the Queen Radio logo and features a colorful illustration of Minaj on the front sporting pink hair with a pop of turquoise. Both pieces are available in sizes ranging from S to XXL, while supplies last.

Queen Radio made its return on Aug. 11 at 10 p.m. ET via Amazon’s Amp app. The rapper announced her partnership with Amazon and the return of Queen Radio back in March.

“I am very excited to be partners with Amazon on bringing back Queen Radio,” Minaj said on Instagram Live at the time. “Queen Radio is something that is so dear to my heart. Of course, there have been times where I’ve thought about not wanting to do Queen Radio, or any radio for that matter, but why not?”

Minaj released “Super Freaky Girl (Queens Remix)” featuring JT, BIA, Katie Got Bandz, Akbar V and Malibu Mitch last month.

The 39-year-old rapper had a busy summer. In addition to bringing Queen Radio back, Minaj headlined Essence Fest and Wireless Festival in July and linked up with Drake and Lil Wayne for a Young Money reunion at October’s World Weekend in Toronto.

Shop Queen Radio merch below.

.

.