There is something wholesome and delightful about the friendship between Selena Gomez and her Only Murders in the Building co-stars Steve Martin and Martin Short. But to hear Short tell it, that camaraderie was nearly shattered in September when the veteran comedian committed what might be the ultimate wedding faux pas at the nuptials of Gomez and music producer Benny Blanco.
During an appearance on Jimmy Kimmel Live! on Wednesday night (Jan. 21), Martin, 75, said the couple’s wedding was “perfect, it was beautiful… Everything was perfect, except, the night of the reception. it was a big, big party, imagine a stage, dance floor, musicians.”
At the back of the tent Short was seated at a table with a group of 12 Only Murders cast and crew when he noticed a “small” wedding cake by their section. “I just assumed there was a wedding cake for each section in the back. So, after a few hours, they haven’t cut their wedding cake yet, Steve [Martin] said he’s gonna leave,” Short explained. “I was like, ‘Oh, wait.’ Maybe I’d had a cocktail, I don’t know. I had a fork in my hand. I said, ‘Steve, you can’t leave yet without a piece of wedding cake!’ and I cut the wedding cake one side, cut it the other, and then all the people in our group screamed, ‘Marty!’ It was the wedding cake. I tried to fix it with a fork.”
Kimmel then posted a photo of the prematurely cut cake, including the hack job Short did while trying to do some frosting surgery to cover up his misdeed.
Short said the premature cake cut left Martin, “stunned,” as he turned to fellow guest and former Murders co-star Paul Rudd and wondered, “‘So, do we just leave?’”
The good news is that the couple’s wedding coordinator and chef rushed over and “did surgery” on the cake, joking that they made the dessert a true “Hollywood wedding cake in that it was beautiful, but now it had a little work done.” And while Short and Martin agreed to not keep the cake catastrophe a secret to allow Gomez to enjoy her big night, she found out and gave as good as she gets from the rarely serious duo.
“I kept saying, ‘No, guys, we can’t let Selena know,’” Short said. “And Steve said, ‘Yeah, maybe we tell her in a month or something.’ And then as I was leaving, Selena came by [and said], ‘Hey Marty, I heard you tried to eat my cake.’”
Short had nothing but high praise for the couple, saying it is “such a great thing” to attend a wedding where you “just know that these people are perfect for each other. You know, Selena is like an extra child of mine. I adore her so much. And she found this guy, and he’s the greatest guy, and they have the greatest hang, and they’re wildly in love.”
Watch Short describe his cake mistake on Kimmel below.
What does it really take to cover, analyze and predict the biggest moves in the music industry at Billboard? Dan Rys, executive editor of business, Elizabeth Dilts Marshall, senior finance correspondent and Bill Donahue, senior legal correspondent, sit down with Kristin Robinson on Billboard On The Record to give listeners a peek inside the newsroom that tracks the stories shaping music today. They share their biggest coverage moments of 2025, from Taylor Swift reclaiming her catalog and Shaboozey tying the Hot 100 record to Diddy’s legal battles and leadership changes at Island Records. The team also weighs in on what’s next for the industry, including AI’s role in songwriting, major catalog sales, evolving marketing strategies and predictions for lawsuits, acquisitions and chart-topping hits. Listeners get a behind-the-scenes look at how Billboard decides what matters, what’s trending and how the team interprets the moves that will define music in 2026.
Love what you hear? Follow Billboard On The Record on Instagram, Apple Podcasts, Spotify and Youtube @billboard so you never miss an episode.
Billboard On The Record is a podcast in partnership with SickBird Productions.
Kristin Robinson:
2026 is here y’all and I have a lot of questions about where the music industry is going to go. Will an AI song crack the Hot 100? What record label will dominate this year? And can Spotify and the music industry ever figure out how to get along? We’re here to talk about all of that and more on our first episode back for the new year. Welcome back to On the Record, a music business podcast from Billboard and SickBird Productions. Liz, Dan and Bill, welcome to On the Record. So to kick off, I feel like we need to explain one thing that’s very important, which is what Dan decided to wear today. I’m sure there’s some people who are just listening to this and can’t see it.
Bill Donahue:
I don’t know what you’re talking about.
Dan Rys:
We did discuss briefly wearing matching T-shirts, but we just kind of couldn’t pull it together in time. So I decided to wear this, which is from my understanding, the oldest known map of the contiguous United States, focusing on the Rohan and Gondor regions.
Kristin Robinson:
Oh, okay, of course.
Bill Donahue:
I did explain to Dan that all my Lord of the Rings apparel was at the dry cleaner, but just tough timing, really, you know, yeah, when it came down to it.
Kristin Robinson:
Were you going to come as like Gandalf himself?
Bill Donahue:
Yeah, are you reading my text? I had the whole beard. It was great.
Kristin Robinson:
Okay, well, to get started here today, so this is going to be a conversation all about predictions and questions that we have for 2026, but I thought we’d start by just talking about 2025 a little bit since that just ended, and I’m still thinking about a lot of the stuff that we were working on then, and a lot of that stuff is going to carry on into 2026. Liz, I’ll start with you. Can you tell me about one of the biggest stories that you worked on in 2025?
https://i0.wp.com/neztelinc.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/station.nez_png.png?fit=943%2C511&ssl=1511943Yvetohttps://neztelinc.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/nez_png.pngYveto2026-01-22 14:00:432026-01-22 14:00:43Billboard’s Crystal Ball: What’s Next in the Music Industry for 2026? | Billboard On The Record
There’s nothing funny about Donald Trump’s threats to forcibly acquire Greenland or the terrifying scenes of immigration agents detaining a five-year-old child in Minnesota this week as “bait” to draw members of his family out of their home.
But on Wednesday (Jan. 21), Jack White found time to lighten the mood (a bit) with a lengthy Instagram post in which he mocked the president’s 81-minute rambling press conference on Tuesday (Jan. 20), during which Trump weaved around more than usual as he touted what he considers to be his administration’s first-year achievements.
“Me do accomplishments! Trump smart. Good boy deserve Nobel Peace Prize! Dementia? What is? NO! Trump smart, pass brain test, name giraffe. Me President of Venezuela and Canada. Me want Greenland too for fun,” White wrote in a Hulk-channeling post alongside a picture of Trump holding up a thick sheaf of papers titled, “The White House: President Donald J. Trump ACCOMPLISHMENTS AS OF JANUARY 20, 2026.”
The Rock and Roll Hall of Famer took satirical aim at a number of headline-worthy items, from Trumps repeated claims that he’s repeatedly “aced” the MoCA test aimed at assessing mild cognitive impairment from early demetia, his relentless lobbying for the Nobel Peace Prize over his inflated claims of ending 8 wars, as well as the administration’s recent arrest of Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro and steady drumbeat of threats to take over both Canada and Greenland.
White had more jokes as well.
“Mom said Trump could have been great baseball player but also big building with bars on windows. Building for very sick people. Trump not sick. Trump smart. MAGA. Very smart people made Trump President,” White wrote in Hulk’s stilted syntax, adding in a jab at the bizarre scene last week of Trump accepting Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Corina Machado’s 2025 Nobel Peace Prize medal in lieu of earning his own honor. “Very smart people keep Trump President. Take nap now. Use fake, I mean real Peace Prizes for pillows. Trump accomplishment. Nighty night.”
A few hours later, White was back at it, pre-butting any calls for him to “shut up and play” and leave the politics to politicians. “Anyone who comments ‘stick to music’ or words to that effect gets blocked,” White warned in a bit that ended with a mock repetition of Trump’s signature social media sign-off. “Anyone who likes said comment gets blocked too. i leave a couple up so everyone knows why they were blocked. This is my house, not town square. ted nugent and kid rock i’m sure are looking for more MAGA supporters so i suggest you head over to their houses. thank you for your attention to this matter!”
White got props from a number of fellow musicians for his missive, including producer Butch Walker (“I love you”), Garbage (fist pound emoji) and Margo Price (“Nailed it”).
The posts were just the latest salvos in White’s recent string of public statements against the Trump administration. Back in August, the former upholsterer and design nerd trashed Trump’s gold-plated White House makeover, calling it “vulgar, gold-leafed and gaudy,” comparing it to a “professional wrestler’s dressing room.” Following a typically snarky response from White House communications director Steven Cheung, who called White a “washed-up, has-been loser,” White doubled-down and dubbed Trump a “danger to not just America but the entire world,” calling the former reality TV star a “low-life fascist” and “orange grifter.”
Then, in December, White slammed Trump as a “disgusting, vile, egomaniac loser, child” for the president’s insulting post marking the killing of beloved director Rob Reiner and his wife producer Michele Singer Reiner. “Neither he nor any one of his followers can defend this vile, horrible insult to a beautiful artist who gave the world so much,” White added of the director of such classic films as Spinal Tap and The Princess Bride. “To use someone’s tragic death to promote your own vanity and fascist authoritarian agenda is a corrupt and narcissistic sin. Shame on you trump and anyone who defends this.”
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Jelly Roll feels like a new man after losing nearly 300 pounds over the past three years. The “Save Me” singer who once tipped the scales at more than 500 pounds hit the red carpet on Wednesday night (Jan. 21) to celebrate the premiere of Netflix’s Star Search reboot — on which he serves as a judge — and spoke to Extra about how he’s feeling and tout one very exciting benefit of his slimmed-down profile.
“I feel incredible, dude,” Jelly said, adding that wife Bunnie XO “put me on her Instagram allegedly as her hall pass. Said, ‘Hey, alright.’ The new hall pass, dude. This is big.”
He wasn’t kidding. In a post cued to the Marvelettes 1961 Billboard Hot 100 No. 1 girl group classic “Please Mr. Postman” podcaster Bunnie is seen staring in stunned, lusty silence at her hubby doing his thing on the show with the on-screen caption “Ummmm I just saw my new hall pass on TV [heart eye emoji].” She doubled-down in the post’s caption, adding, “Don’t tell my husband [looking away emoji].
Jelly also ticked off the other ways his weight loss has changed him both physically and mentally. “Every way… Spiritually, I’ve gotten closer to God. I’ve gotten closer to myself,” he said. “I’m a better father. I’m more present with my children. You should see it, dude. I mean, I’m coaching my son’s basketball team this year… I just feel physically better and I feel like I can physically do it.”
He added that when you weigh 550 pounds “you definitely don’t think about trying to coach a team, you wonder if there’s a bench you can sit on, you know? So, it’s like for God to just even make that big of a difference to have the weigh off… literally the weight, 300 lbs. I’m a whole different human.”
The singer also noted that Bunnie will be appearing on a future Star Search episode and that they plan to attend the 2026 Grammy Awards on Feb. 1 at the Crypto.com Arena in Los Angeles. Jelly is nominated for three Grammys at the 68th annual awards, best contemporary Christian music performance/song for “Hard Fought Hallelujah,” best country duo/group performance for “Amen” and best contemporary country album for his 10th studio album, 2024’s Beautifully Broken.
Star Search airs live on Tuesdays and Wednesdays on Netflix.
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Men at Work’s “Down Under” is Australia’s unofficial anthem, a classic tune played at sporting events, pubs, and celebrations around the world whenever Aussies gather. It’s not, however, a siren’s call for the far right.
That’s the word according to Colin Hay, the Scotland-born frontman and songwriter with Men at Work, which had a global hit with “Down Under” in the early ‘80s.
Hay has drawn a virtual line in the sand, telling “March For Australia” organizers to find another song to play at their rallies.
“Let me say that I most strenuously disapprove of any unauthorized, unlicensed use of Down Under, for any ‘March For Australia’ events,” he writes. “’Down Under,’ a song I co-wrote, does not belong to those who attempt to sow xenophobia within the fabric of our great land, our great people,” he continues.
“’Down Under’ is ultimately a song of celebration. It’s for pluralism and inclusion; unity, not division. Go write your own song, leave mine alone.”
He signs off his message, “Colin Hay (immigrant).”
Men at Work enjoyed a dream breakthrough with their debut album Business As Usual, and its standout single “Down Under,” which reigned for four weeks on the Billboard Hot 100, and has sold more than two million copies in the United States.
With Business As Usual and “Down Under,” the band had the unusual distinction of simultaneously topping the singles and albums charts in the United States and the United Kingdom.
It’s not the first time Hay has had to fight for his signature song. Hay and his Men at Work co-songwriter Ron Strykert were involved in a bruising court battle, which began in 2009 and centered on the flute riff and whether it was lifted from the children’s campfire song “Kookaburra Sits in the Old Gum Tree.” To settle the case, a court ordered Men at Work to pay just 5% of royalties in the song.
Hay told Billboard in 2023 that “Down Under” is “very dear to me. When I wrote the song, I had a lot of fear and trepidation about Australia becoming overdeveloped, like you know, Florida or something, and on the other side of the coin, there was this beautiful uniqueness and incredible — a kind of awesomeness — of the country which I thought, ‘we don’t want to lose that’. We have to nurture, it’s a precious thing we have.”
“Down Under” has passed more than one billion streams across all platforms, and enjoyed a second life when it was reworked as a drum ‘n’ bass cut by Australian producer Luude, over Hay’s vocals. The new version crashed the top 10 on the Official U.K. Singles Chart, peaking at No. 5 in 2021.
Men at Work was inducted into the ARIA Hall of Fame in 1994, and Hay received the Ted Albert Award for Outstanding Services to Australian Music at the 2023 APRA Music Awards.
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After a mindboggling sweep of awards in the back half of 2025, Ninajirachi is recharged and ready for action.
Speaking on the first episode of Odyssey TV, which dropped this week, the Australian EDM producer, singer and songwriter is clearly ready to take on the world.
Ninajirachi (real name: Nina Wilson) has come off a freakishly fruitful awards season in which almost everything she was nominated for, turned to glory.
Consider, in the space of several months, she collected multiple ARIA Awards, J Awards, the Australian Music Prize and the NSW Music Prize for breakthrough artist, all off the back of her debut album, I Love My Computer. And just this week, she added second prize in the 2025 Vanda & Young Global Songwriting Competition for “iPod Touch.”
“I just had a little break over New Year and had a chance to think about it. I found that I was reflecting on and processing things from July, August that I hadn’t even had a chance to think about because everything was happening for the first time and so quickly. I feel awesome,” she tells host Roxy Lola.
“I feel like I’ve had a lot of practice and I’m ready to play a million more shows.” She’s on he way. The rising Aussie star is currently in the United States for a weeks-long run of dates, followed by shows in Asia, the U.K. and Europe, and a lap of the festivals circuit, including her first-ever spot at Coachella.
For her Odyssey TV exclusive, Ninajirachi opened up on her “proudest” songwriting achievement (“’F—My Computer.’ It was so quick. It took about 20 minutes”), her favorite games (Pokemon Mystery Dungeon, especially Explorers of Time and Darkness) and overcoming earlier insecurities with her singing voice.
“I just wanna keep doing it,” she tells Roxy of her career, performing and making music. “It’s so exciting, I’m having the best time ever, honestly.”
Odyssey TV is an initiative of Odyssey Sound Space, the podcast and curated playlist platform helmed by Lola, the music curator, editor and DJ. The new video interview series, or “time capsules,” as Lola describes them, will release new episodes every two weeks, spotlighting six of the most exciting Australian artists right now.
“I was excited to talk to today’s rising musicians in this candid way, so I tracked down different artists I love and met them in spaces where they felt completely themselves in,” she explains. “From there, we had natural, free-flowing conversations about the music they’ve been making and where they’re at on their journey.”
Originally launched in 2022 as a curated playlist project spotlighting rising artists, Odyssey Sound Space expanded in 2023 into the podcast Odyssey Sound Sessions.
https://i0.wp.com/neztelinc.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/station.nez_png.png?fit=943%2C511&ssl=1511943Yvetohttps://neztelinc.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/nez_png.pngYveto2026-01-22 07:56:312026-01-22 07:56:31Ninajirachi Is Ready to ‘Play a Million More Shows’
MELBOURNE, Australia — The year 2025 was a record-breaking one for Untitled Group, which posted more than 800,000 tickets sold, a new high on its 10th anniversary.
That’s up from a then-record 630,000 tickets shifted across its events and tours in 2024, and 500,000 tickets sold in 2023.
The independent Melbourne-based concerts, festivals and events promoter delivered 180 live events last year, and hosted upwards of 70 artist tours across Australia.
Its “milestone year” including a sold-out Beyond The Valley, which gathered a record 40,000 attendees; a sold-out RÜFÜS DU SOL national tour; Wildlands festival, and Dom Dolla’s Dec. 20 performance at Sydney’s Allianz Stadium, the first-ever stadium show in these parts by a homegrown DJ.
That’s after Untitled landed for the first time in the top 20 (at No. 12) on Billboard’s 2025 Mid-Year Top Promoters, with US$51.5 million gross, on 542,000 attendance across 87 shows during the six-month reporting period.
RDS’s arena tour of Australia and New Zealand was a blockbuster, and is now recognized as the highest-selling electronic tour of all time in these parts.
As previously reported, the Australasian leg of RDS’s run sold more than 180,000 tickets across dates in Perth, Adelaide, Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane, and Auckland, according to Untitled, setting new attendance marks at Sydney Qudos Bank Arena and Outer Fields at Auckland’s Western Springs.
The new year has started with an ace. Untitled Group curates and programs AO Live, which returns to Melbourne for the Australian Open with performances from The Kid LAROI, Reneé Rapp, The Veronicas, Spacey Jane, Peggy Gou, Sofi Tukker and more,
AO Live is the only music festival in the world staged at a Grand Slam tennis tournament, set for five days from Jan. 28. Upcoming tours include Good Charlotte and Wu-Tang Clan, plus the four-day Pitch Music & Arts fest, which returns for its 9th edition in March 2026.
https://i0.wp.com/neztelinc.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/station.nez_png.png?fit=943%2C511&ssl=1511943Yvetohttps://neztelinc.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/nez_png.pngYveto2026-01-22 05:45:582026-01-22 05:45:58Untitled Group Posts Record-Breaking Sales For 2025
Major music artists are among nearly 800 creators signing onto a new publicity campaign that protests the unlicensed use of copyrighted work to train generative artificial intelligence models.
The campaign, dubbed “Stealing Isn’t Innovation,” has support from Bonnie Raitt, Chaka Kahn, Colbie Caillat, Common, Cyndi Lauper, Gavin DeGraw, Jason Aldean, Jason Isbell, Jennifer Hudson, LeAnn Rimes, Martina McBride, OneRepublic, Questlove, R.E.M., Rascal Flatts, Rob Thomas, The Roots and The Zombies. A-list actors like Scarlett Johansson and best-selling authors such as Jodi Picoult have also signed on.
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The effort is being led by the Human Artistry Campaign, a coalition founded in 2023 by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), National Music Publishers’ Association (NMPA) and other entertainment industry groups. This coalition is a vocal supporter of AI regulation and a fierce critic of AI products that train on human-made music, text and images without compensating creators.
“Profit-hungry technology companies, including those among the richest in the world as well as private equity-backed ventures, have copied a massive amount of creative content online without authorization or payment to those who created it,” reads a Thursday (Jan. 22) press release from the Human Artistry Campaign. “American creators are being sidelined and soon won’t be able to afford to continue producing original works if AI developers are permitted to continue stealing them without authorization to produce AI-made copies that compete directly with the original.”
The coalition’s new publicity drive is aimed at encouraging AI companies to make licensing deals with creators. The music industry began moving in that direction this fall, when AI music platform Udio entered into novel licensing agreements with Universal Music Group (UMG) and Warner Music Group (WMG), and AI service Suno signed a deal to pay WMG for its music.
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These deals resolved some of the claims brought in landmark copyright infringement litigation by the big three label groups against Suno and Udio in 2024. But the fight isn’t over; UMG still has active claims against Suno, and Sony has yet to settle with either AI company.
The future of AI music training is, therefore, still somewhat uncertain. Unless more settlements are reached, a judge will soon decide whether the principle of “fair use” allows Suno and Udio to conduct “transformative” training using unlicensed works. This is a legal quandary at the core of dozens of AI copyright cases across the country, and, as of now, there’s no controlling court precedent providing clear guidance.
https://i0.wp.com/neztelinc.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/station.nez_png.png?fit=943%2C511&ssl=1511943Yvetohttps://neztelinc.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/nez_png.pngYveto2026-01-22 05:01:302026-01-22 05:01:30‘Stealing Isn’t Innovation’: Cyndi Lauper, Questlove & More Artists Sign on to AI Licensing Campaign
It’s been some ride for The Temper Trap. The Australian alternative rock group busted out the gates in the late 2000s with “Sweet Disposition,” powered by its featured spot in (500) Days of Summer and those stunning falsetto notes of frontman Dougy Mandagi.
At home, the band enjoyed ARIA Awards, consecutive chart crowns (with 2012’s The Temper Trap and 2016’s Thick as Thieves), lineup changes (longstanding guitarist Lorenzo Sillitto left in 2013), and stadium performances (they led the halftime show at the 2012 AFL Grand Final).
On Tuesday night, Jan. 20, the Melbourne lads stopped by Jimmy Kimmel Live, a proof-of-life performance for a band that many of us hadn’t heard from in far too long.
Hitting their latest song “Giving Up Air,” here was proof, also, that Mandagi hasn’t lost any of that vocal magic.
The four-piece was backed by vision of a vehicle burning rubber on a winding road, an allegory perhaps of their own career.
“Giving Up Air” is heavier than its title suggests. On it, Mandagi drills into the weight of grief, singing: “Givin’ up air, layin’ it bare / Hoping my dreams will reappear / When everything I know is hanging on a prayer.”
Produced by Grammy Award-nominated Styalz Fuego (Troye Sivan, Charli XCX, The Knocks, Khalid), “Giving Up Air” dropped in 2025, the followup to comeback track “Lucky Dimes” – TTT’s first release after a nine-year hiatus.
It’s “a very important song for me about a life-changing moment and the unimaginable pain of losing a loved one in tragic circumstances,” Mandagi explains in a statement, “from the initial shock to sorrow and then anger, and finding glimmers of hope somewhere in between. Some of you may recognise it. It was written for my solo project Bloodmoon but the boys and I started working on it as The Temper Trap and it felt magical, like it had found its true home.
TTT embarked on a run of headline shows in Australia late last year, followed by North America shows in New York, Los Angeles, and Toronto.
https://i0.wp.com/neztelinc.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/station.nez_png.png?fit=943%2C511&ssl=1511943Yvetohttps://neztelinc.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/nez_png.pngYveto2026-01-22 04:16:522026-01-22 04:16:52The Temper Trap Let it All Out With Late-Night Performance of ‘Giving Up Air’: Watch
SPOILER ALERT: The following story contains details about the singer eliminated on Wednesday night’s (Jan. 21) episode of The Masked Singer.
There are typically two kinds of celebrities who get revealed on The Masked Singer: ones who the judges and studio audience simply can’t pinpoint because they’ve adjusted their vocals and mannerisms just enough to go incognito and ones with such an unmistakable, signature tone to their voice that it’s pretty obvious from jump who they are.
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Wednesday night’s (Jan. 21) boot-ee was one of the latter. If you’re old enough to have shopped for CDs in the Bush 1.0/Clinton era, then you probably sussed out the identity of Handyman from the second he took the stage last week. While the artist was hidden in a bright yellow, Jack-of-all-trades outfit — complete with hard hat and prominent tool belt — when he got funky with Peaches & Herb’s 1978 Billboard Hot 100 No. 5 disco classic “Shake Your Groove Thing,” a lightbulb likely popped up right away.
And while he was hidden behind a metallic mask as he waved his wrench arms and sang into a screwdriver microphone, the low, throaty growl and laconic delivery was pretty much a dead giveaway. The first clue package was also kind of obvious, with a reference to his “wild guy face” and a crew of past big-screen co-stars including Robert DeNiro (Heat) and Courteney Cox (Ace Ventura: Pet Detective).
Then, on Wednesday night’s Clueless-themed episode, he joined the rest of the cast for a run through Kim Wilde’s 1981 classic “Kids in America” alongside fellow season 14 contestants Pugcasso, Scarab and Snow Cone, with his voice again reading pretty obviously after he described the childhood accident that gave him his signature rasp. His vocals really popped during his run through A Tribe Called Quest’s “Can I Kick It?,” which got both the crowd and the judges on their feet as he showed off his impressive rhyming skills, with the audience enthusiastically chanting “yes you can!”
When it came time to guess, panelist Rita Ora went with Vanilla Ice — based on a clue featuring an ice sculpture of a microphone — though the more “gravelly” voice made her think Ice-T. Always wrong Ken Jeong was all the way off with his pick of A-Team legend Mr. T. He was, naturally, totally in the wrong ballpark, as the real man behind the mask was none other than “Funky Cold Medina” rapper and occasional actor (Poetic Justice, Posse) Tone Lōc.
Billboard caught up with Lōc (born Anthony Terrell Smith), 59, before his elimination to find out why he didn’t even try to disguise his instantly recognizable voice, who convinced him to appear on the show and why the show may have convinced him to get back in the studio for the first time in three decades.
You said your daughter dared you to do the show. What did she say?
She grew up with me and she was like, “There’s no way you would do something like that.” I had never seen it, but she had and now I see what she was talking about. [She said] “You would not put on a mask and costume and dance and sing.” Once I saw it, I said, “Yeah I’ll do it.” Most people who called after the first day [I was on the show] saw me on there and had no idea I was doing it.
What did they say?
First they said, “‘Shake Your Groove Thing?’ Huh?”
Were they able to figure out it was you right away?
Oh, immediately. “Oh, dude, first voice we heard, we knew.” I didn’t realize [my voice] was that noticeable. It is kind of, a little bit, I think.
C’mon! You have such a distinctive voice, one of the most distinctive in rap, really. Did you even try to switch it up to fool people?
I mean, I think I did try, but I couldn’t change it. It’s basically is what it is. When I try to change it even slightly, it doesn’t matter. It is what it is, it’s who I am.
Sometimes singers will purposely pick a song out of their genre, like you were saying with Peaches & Herb, but then tonight you went with a Tribe song, which kind of made it more obvious who was under the hard hat. Did you do that on purpose?
I didn’t really know. I couldn’t hear it [in the costume] but it was kind of cool. I don’t know how it came out sounding, but I liked it. I didn’t pick Peaches to throw anyone off… they had some songs they wanted me to sing that wouldn’t have worked out well. I think my agent decided, “Let’s try Peaches & Herb.” I don’t know what was on his mind. Tribe was cool, though.
You’ve been doing the I Love the 90s tour for a couple years, but haven’t really been on the music scene that much. Why this show to come back to singing on a big platform?
I’ve been doing that tour for like six years and I did this, like I said, because of the dare. I’m still doing shows; I have never stopped doing shows. I’ve always tried to keep it pushing, maintain the people who like Tone Lōc, stay in my lane.
The Handyman was a bonkers costume. Why did you pick that one?
They handed it to me. It’s a big costume with a big helmet and head. You have to be committed, because that’s a serious costume. You have to make sure you have everything tight. I like Handyman, that was the most masculine one I’ve seen, that worked out quite well.
It’s been 35 years since your last album, 1991’s Cool Hand Lōc. Any chance you’re working on a new album now?
Oh man, that long? Man. I wasn’t working on a new album, but I think I will now because of the big song I do have now that is bigger than [my other hits]. It’s called “Hey, What’s Up?” and I haven’t recorded it yet. I do it live on tour and the audience response to that is way higher than “Funky Cold Medina” or “Wild Thing.”
The judges’ guesses were hilarious:Vanilla Ice, Ice-T Mr. T…
The ones who don’t know, who have no idea who Tone Lōc is. Then you have people who know exactly who that is from the first word or two out of that graggily-ass voice. Now I see how my voice sounds to people, I had no idea.
https://i0.wp.com/neztelinc.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/station.nez_png.png?fit=943%2C511&ssl=1511943Yvetohttps://neztelinc.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/nez_png.pngYveto2026-01-22 03:01:062026-01-22 03:01:06Handyman Did His Wild Thing on ‘The Masked Singer’ Thinking Nobody Would Recognize His One-of-a-Kind Voice: ‘It’s Who I Am’