Conan Gray has signed with Brandon Creed‘s Good World Management.

The pop singer joins a superstar roster that includes Charli xcx, Troye Sivan, Ariana Grande, Demi Lovato, Mark Ronson and most recently Role Model. The news was first reported by HITS.

Gray was previously managed by Colette Patnaude Nelson and Eddie Wintle of Expand Entertainment. The pair discovered Gray as a high schooler on YouTube. He signed a record deal with Republic in 2018.

Since then, he has grown into a chart-topping pop artist. He released his debut album, Kid Krow, in 2020, which spawned breakout hits “Heather” and “Maniac.” He worked on the project with super producer Dan Nigro (also known for collaborating with Conan’s close friend Olivia Rodrigo) who remains the go-to songwriter and producer partner for Gray today.

More music followed in 2022 (Superache) and 2024 (Found Heaven), but it was Gray’s 2025 album, Wishbone, that catapulted to the top of the charts. The album debuted at No. 1 on Billboard’s Top Album Sales chart and No. 3 on the Billboard 200, becoming his highest-charting entry on the latter list. Gray told Billboard he was “smiling ear to ear” while writing lyrics for the album, saying he felt “so happy to get things off my chest…I felt immense freedom.”

Wishbone included the hit “Vodka Cranberry,” which became Gray’s highest-charting entry on Billboard‘s Pop Airplay chart, reaching No. 19.

Come February, Gray will embark on his Wishbone world tour.

Creed founded Good World in August 2023. At the top of 2025, he was named Billboard‘s Manager of the Year. He told Billboard at the time: “The goal is to continue doing what we’re doing.”

Jeff Buckley earns his first appearance on the Billboard Hot 100 (dated Jan. 31), nearly three decades after his death, as “Lover, You Should’ve Come Over” debuts at No. 97.

The song — a deep cut from Buckley’s lone studio album, Grace, in 1994 — arrives on the chart almost entirely from its streaming sum: 3.8 million official U.S. streams during the Jan. 16-22 tracking week, according to Luminate. Though never released as an official single, the song has experienced a major resurgence over the past year, fueled by viral traction on short-form video platforms such TikTok, where fans have used clips of it to soundtrack emotional and introspective videos.

That online momentum first translated to the Billboard charts in April 2025, when “Lover, You Should’ve Come Over” debuted at No. 22 on the Hot Rock & Alternative Songs chart, marking the song’s first-ever chart appearance. After dropping off the following week, it returned in July ahead of the August release of the documentary It’s Never Over, Jeff Buckley, which chronicles the late musician’s life and career. Since its return, it has remained on the Hot Rock & Alternative Songs chart every week, bounding 17 spots this week (30-13, just one spot shy of its No. 12 peak).

The song’s renewed popularity has also boosted Buckley’s Grace album. Originally peaking at No. 149 on the Billboard 200 in June 1995, the LP reached a new high at No. 82 in December amid the song’s resurgence. This week, Grace jumps 200-156.

Buckley died in May 1997 at age 30 in an accidental drowning, three years after releasing Grace. Despite leaving behind a modest catalog, his influence has endured for decades and continued to resonate with new generations of listeners.

This isn’t the first time Buckley’s music has grown following his passing. His rendition of Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah” — one of the most critically acclaimed covers — first reached Billboard’s charts in 2008, topping the Digital Song Sales chart after Jason Castro performed the song on American Idol. Following Cohen’s death in November 2016, Buckley’s version reentered the charts, climbing to No. 10 on Hot Rock & Alternative Songs, while Cohen’s original reached the Hot 100 for the first time.

Buckley’s “Hallelujah” has also become a pop-culture staple, featured in numerous film and TV shows, including episodes of The O.C. and The West Wing.

Much of Buckley’s commercial success arrived after his death. During his lifetime, he charted on Alternative Airplay with “Last Goodbye” — which became his first overall chart appearance and only entry on the survey, peaking at No. 19 in May 1995 — and with Grace on the Billboard 200. Posthumously, four additional titles of his have hit the Billboard 200: Sketches for My Sweetheart the Drunk (No. 64, 1998), Mystery White Boy: Live ’95-’96 (No. 133, 2000), Grace Around the World (No. 129, 2009) and You and I (No. 58, 2016).

50 Cent’s ex-girlfriend is firing back at his lawsuit claiming he owns her life rights, claiming she only signed that deal because she was “fearing for my life.”

The rapper sued Shaniqua Tompkins last year, claiming her series of “tell-all” Instagram videos violated an agreement she had signed in 2007. But in her first substantive response to the case, obtained by Billboard, she says she was coerced into signing that deal with threats and intimidation.

“The agreement was presented as a take-it-or-leave-it ultimatum, and I was given no opportunity to seek independent counsel or negotiate any terms,” Tompkins writes in an affidavit filed in Manhattan court on Thursday (Jan. 22). “Fearing for my life and for my children’s lives, I signed the agreement under extreme duress.”

Tompkins says she initially refused to sign the deal, but that 50’s manager and a bodyguard showed up at her hotel room and warned that she would suffer “severe consequences.” She says they didn’t allow her read the entire thing, and made it clear that the star would use his power to “ruin me financially and personally” if she didn’t sign it on the spot.

“I did not sign the life rights agreement because I agree with its terms or believed it was fair. I signed because I felt I had no meaningful choice,” Tompkins writes in the filing. “The agreement was imposed at a moment of a great imbalance of power, when Curtis Jackson … used threats, intimidation, and my fear of retaliation to extract rights that I would never have surrendered freely.”

An attorney for 50 Cent did not immediately return a request for comment on Tuesday.

The star rapper sued last year after Tompkins, the mother of his child Marquise Jackson, went viral with a series of Instagram posts commenting on the criminal trial of Sean “Diddy” Combs. The videos touched on the rapper’s infamous 2000 shooting, as well as his long-running feud with Combs.

In taking Tompkins to court, 50 Cent attorneys said his company had paid Tompkins $80,000 in 2007 in return for “all rights to exploit her life story” — a deal they explicitly say was meant to protect the rapper’s reputation.

“Jackson purchased these rights to preserve them for use in future biographical or autobiographical projects, but also in part because he was concerned that Tompkins would attempt to monetize their history and his name,” the rapper’s lawyers wrote at the time. “His concerns were ultimately proven correct.”

Tompkins’ response to the lawsuit last week is many months delayed. In her filings, she claims she was never properly served with the case, and is seeking an extension of time to formally respond before the judge rules in 50 Cent’s favor by default.

To bolster her argument for such a delay, her lawyers say she would likely win the lawsuit if given the chance to actually litigate it. And to make that point, they cited her sworn statements about the way she signed the deal in the first place.

In addition to the alleged coercion tactics by 50’s reps, she says the deal was signed at a time when she was “entirely financially dependent” on the star. She says he had forced her to give up her job, and she was reliant on a monthly allowance without a set figure.

Tompkins also claims that 50 Cent never actually paid her the full $80,000. She says she received only 35,000, and that she was left in a “vulnerable position” when the payments stopped: “Plaintiff cannot demand that I be bound by an agreement while ignoring its own obligations. By filing to pay me as promised, plaintiff broke the agreement first.”

Work hard, play hard. Ne-Yo and Akon are joining forces to hit the road for a co-headlining global trek later this year, which was announced on Tuesday (Jan. 27). According to the press release, the two hitmakers will be sharing the stage with a “dynamic back-and-forth set throughout the show stacked with era-defining hits, sing-along anthems and club classics.”

The Nights Like This Tour will is slated to kick off across the pond with a show in Dublin on April 17 and will be making European stops in the U.K., Paris, Amsterdam, Stockholm, Prague, Berlin and Vienna before wrapping up the Euro leg in Lodz, Poland, on May 31.

Ne-Yo and Akon will be bringing a heavy dose of nostalgia and their hit-filled catalogs to the U.S. this summer as the North American leg begins north of the border with a show in Vancouver, B.C., on June 17.

The 57-city trek also includes shows in Montreal, Canada; Atlanta; Charlotte, N.C.; Tampa Bay, Fla.; Hartford, Conn.; Toronto; Syracuse and Long Island in New York; Dallas; Kansas City, Mo.; Houston; Las Vegas and Phoenix, and finishes in Los Angeles with an arena date at the Intuit Dome on Aug. 21.

For U.S. fans, Citi card members will have access to presale starting on Wednesday (Jan. 28), and the general public will have their chance on Friday (Jan. 30) starting at 10 a.m. local time. There are various VIP packages available, some of which include options for a meet-and-greet with Akon and an autographed photo.

Find the tour dates below: