Country songwriter Marty Brown shared the spotlight with his son during a touching audition on Monday night’s episode of American Idol.

The Kentucky-born singer and songwriter, best known for co-writing Tracy Byrd’s 1994 hit “I’m From the Country,” appeared alongside his 22-year-old son Christian during the Feb. 9 episode of the ABC competition series.

Christian, a delivery driver from Franklin, Kentucky, described his father as “a great songwriter, a great singer and a great dad” ahead of their performance.

The father-son duo began their audition together, performing Brown’s song “Wildest Dreams” for judges Luke Bryan, Lionel Richie and Carrie Underwood. What started as a duet quickly turned into an emotional moment when Bryan briefly joined in, harmonising with the pair from the judges’ table.

After the performance, Christian explained that choosing one of his father’s songs was deeply personal.

“It’s my way of telling him I love him,” he said on the show. “I would not be where I am today without him.” As Christian sang, Brown stood nearby, visibly emotional, watching his son take centre stage.

When the final notes ended, Brown proudly exclaimed, “That’s my boy,” drawing applause from the judges and audience.

All three judges voted to send Christian through to Hollywood Week, though they encouraged him to continue developing his vocal confidence and stage presence. Richie told him he wanted to hear more from his vocals moving forward, while Bryan added that he was looking forward to seeing Christian grow throughout the competition.

Marty Brown is no stranger to televised talent competitions. He previously appeared on America’s Got Talent in 2013, where he advanced to the semifinals during Season 8. His songwriting career spans decades, with “I’m From the Country” becoming a staple of ’90s country radio after its release by Byrd.

American Idol, now in its 24th season, has increasingly leaned into personal storytelling during its audition rounds, spotlighting family connections alongside vocal performances. Brown and his son’s appearance marked one of the most emotional moments of the season so far.

American Idol airs Mondays at 8 p.m. ET/PT on ABC, with episodes available to stream the following day on Hulu.

50 Cent added fuel to post–Super Bowl chatter on Monday (Feb. 9), mocking Stefon Diggs following the New England Patriots’ Super Bowl LX loss — and amid renewed speculation surrounding Diggs’ relationship with Cardi B.

On Monday (Feb. 9), the Queens rapper shared an image of the pair via Instagram that appeared to reference Diggs’ difficult weekend. In the caption, 50 Cent wrote, “Can you imagine waking up this morning and you done lost this b—h and the Super Bowl. I would tell everybody get away from me, have a drink and go back to sleep. LOL.”

Fans first noticed the mutual unfollow between Cardi B and Diggs on Feb. 9, one day after the Patriots’ Super Bowl loss, during which Cardi B attended the game at Levi’s Stadium and appeared during Bad Bunny’s halftime performance.

The two had gone public with their relationship in 2025, making their first official appearance together at a New York Knicks playoff game in May of that year. Cardi later confirmed the relationship via Instagram, sharing photos of the couple aboard a yacht. In November, the pair welcomed their first child together. Neither party has confirmed the split at the time of writing.

Meanwhile, 50 Cent’s Instagram jab was not his only Super Bowl-related shot.

The rapper appeared in a DoorDash commercial, which was released on Thursday (Feb. 5), promoting the food delivery company’s Big Beef initiative, leaning heavily into his long-running feud with Sean “Diddy” Combs. In the ad, 50 pulled various items from a DoorDash delivery bag, including Cheese Puffs and a pack of hair combs — a reference widely interpreted as a dig at Combs, who is currently incarcerated.

“Delivering quality beef, it’s more of an art than a science,” 50 said in the commercial. After discovering the combs, he added, “They sell combs. What a coincidence.”

The trolling continued into the early hours of Monday morning, when 50 posted a 15-second follow-up video to his Instagram Story addressing Patriots fans. Sitting in front of a large orange DoorDash logo, he said, “Hey, sorry New England, I know it’s tough to lose.”

He then paused before adding with a grin, “Well, actually I don’t. But just because you lost the game doesn’t mean you have to lose the beef.”

The professional breakup between Dina LaPolt and a former mentee at her law firm has intensified with new racial discrimination claims against the powerhouse music attorney.

Two months after LaPolt sued lawyer Mariah Comer for defamation and breach of contract, Comer hit back with her own lawsuit alleging she was subjected to “egregious racial discrimination” during her time at LaPolt Law. Comer is Black and Mexican.

“Throughout plaintiff’s employment, defendant LaPolt held Black employees, including plaintiff, to different and higher standards than white employees, while simultaneously paying them less and providing them fewer opportunities,” reads Comer’s Friday (Feb. 6) complaint, first obtained and reported by Billboard.

LaPolt maintains that she never engaged in any racial discrimination. Rather, she alleges that Comer fabricated the defamatory claims after she left the firm and started her own practice due to “pride, ego and an overblown sense of her own importance.”

Comer first joined LaPolt Law as an intern in 2019, and she was promoted to partner in 2022. Comer claims she was paid less than white employees at the same level while also allegedly facing racism, such as one incident in which LaPolt allegedly commented during a client meeting that Comer only got into Cornell Law School because of affirmative action.  

According to the lawsuit, LaPolt treated Comer as the “diversity face of the firm,” expecting her to regularly meet with and court Black prospective clients. Comer also alleges LaPolt required only the Black employees come into the office, while white employees were allowed to work remotely.

The undisputed key inflection point in LaPolt and Comer’s relationship was a 2024 licensing matter for an unnamed artist who was releasing a cover of an existing song. LaPolt claims Comer botched this project, while Comer’s lawsuit alleges it was LaPolt who gave the wrong guidance and then blamed her for the mistake.

After it became clear in fall 2025 that this song had not been properly cleared, LaPolt assigned a senior partner to oversee Comer and decreased her commissions as a result. Comer claims this decision was “motivated by racial animus and stereotypes about Black employees” and that it sent her into a “mental health crisis,” ultimately leading her to resign and open up her own practice instead.

Comer is now bringing a slew of racial discrimination claims, and she alleges that LaPolt’s December defamation lawsuit was an unlawful act of retaliation for her complaints of bias. Comer also claims she is entitled to past-due commissions from LaPolt Law, including for a “significant catalogue sale transaction” that she negotiated.

“As a direct and proximate result of defendants’ extreme and outrageous conduct, plaintiff suffered severe emotional distress, including severe anxiety, depression, humiliation, and mental anguish requiring ongoing therapy sessions, psychiatric care and prescription medication,” reads the lawsuit.

In a statement to Billboard on Monday (Feb. 9), Comer’s attorney Rodney Diggs said, “This lawsuit seeks accountability and sends a clear message that discrimination and retaliation cannot be ignored, regardless of the setting or the stature of those involved.”

“Ms. Comer’s case exposes a disturbing reality: even in 2025, even for a Cornell Law School graduate, and even at the partner level, Black attorneys can still face blatant racial discrimination in elite professional settings,” said Diggs.

Meanwhile, LaPolt’s attorney Christopher Frost told Billboard in a statement Monday that LaPolt “believed in Ms. Comer’s potential” and provided her with “considerable support.”

“Ms. LaPolt’s complaint outlines that Ms. Comer faced consequences for her lack of judgment and questionable professional behavior,” added Frost. “She then added insult to injury by choosing to leave her job, start a competing law firm, try to extract a severance, and defame and disparage Ms. LaPolt — her longtime professional supporter and a career-long advocate for artists and songwriters, women, the LGBTQ community, and racial diversity and equality. Ms. LaPolt sincerely hopes that Ms. Comer will learn to refocus her energy on her wellness and moving forward.”

Catalog company AKBCO says its recent court victory over unlicensed music in classic rock documentaries provides key clarity on the limits of “fair use,” a hot-button issue in the AI-focused copyright conversation of 2026.

On Wednesday (Feb. 4), a New York federal judge held filmmaker Robert Carruthers and his company Coda Publishing liable for infringing 80 songs owned by ABKCO and Universal Music Group (UMG) in documentaries about The Rolling Stones, ABBA, U2, Elton John, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Nirvana and the Red Hot Chili Peppers.

Carruthers had argued that the critical commentary included in the documentaries renders them fair use — a tenet of copyright law that allows unlicensed works to repurposed for “transformative” creations. But Judge Katherine Polk Failla said simply getting a few critics to juxtapose “hot takes” next to reproduced videos does not “in any way transform the songs about which they are speaking.”

In a statement shared exclusively with Billboard on Monday (Feb. 9), ABKCO general counsel William A. Pittenger said, “We applaud the court’s finding of willful copyright infringement by Coda and the individuals involved in exploiting the unauthorized ‘documentary’ films. The decision further clarifies the limits of ‘fair use’ and protects artists, songwriters and copyright holders from those who would attempt to use ‘fair use’ as a cloak for their infringing acts.”

Fair use is a big deal in copyright law right now because of artificial intelligence. Across dozens of lawsuits across the country, technology developers have argued that the “transformative” nature of AI makes it fair use for them to train models on existing work without paying for licenses.

ABKCO and UMG’s publishing arm, Universal Music Publishing Group (UMPG), are currently fighting this AI fair use theory in copyright litigation against Anthropic, the maker of the chatbot Claude. UMG and the other major record labels also teamed up in 2024 to sue AI music services Suno and Udio over unlicensed training, and that litigation remains pending even as the AI firms have reached settlements with some of the major labels.

The rock documentary case, meanwhile, dates back to 2020. ABKCO owns songs from The Rolling Stones’ catalog, while UMG controls various rights to the music of ABBA, U2, Elton John, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Nirvana and the Red Hot Chili Peppers.

ABKCO and UMG alleged in the lawsuit that the audio heard in ten of Carruthers’ classic rock documentaries infringed their rights to valuable music, including chart-toppers like “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction,” “Dancing Queen” and “Crocodile Rock.”

Judge Failla agreed that this argument was correct for all but one of the songs named in the lawsuit: the Red Hot Chili Peppers’ cover of the Stevie Wonder song “Higher Ground,” which is only heard in a live performance in Carruthers’ documentary and therefore does not affect UMG’s master recording rights.

Now that the judge has rejected Carruthers’ fair use defense and granted judgment in favor of ABKCO and UMG, further litigation will ensue to determine what kind of financial damages are owed. Judge Failla has ruled that Carruthers’ infringement was willful, which could entitle the music companies to enhanced damages.

Carruthers, who is no longer represented by a lawyer, did not return a request for comment.