Residente (born René Pérez Joglar) will make his feature film directorial debut with Porto Rico, a historical drama starring Bad Bunny in his first leading role, it was announced on Wednesday (Feb. 18).

Described in a press release as an “epic Caribbean western,” the film will also feature performances by Oscar winner Javier Bardem (No Country for Old Men) and Academy Award nominees Viggo Mortensen (Eastern Promises) and Edward Norton (American History X, A Complete Unknown), with more cast members to be announced.

“I’ve dreamed of making a film about my country since I was a child. The true story of Puerto Rico has always been surrounded by controversy,” Residente said in a statement. “This film is a reaffirmation of who we are, told with the intensity and honesty that our history deserves.”

Cowritten by Residente and Oscar-winning screenwriter Alexander Dinelaris (Birdman), Porto Rico “combines a large-scale historical narrative with a visceral and lyrical approach, in a powerful story inspired by true events,” according to the press release.

Residente and Erick Douât are producing through 1868 Studios. Norton and Bill Migliore, along with Michael Bederman, are producing for Class 5 Films. The film is backed by Live Nation Studios, Class 5 Films and strategic partners, including the Kwanza Jones & José E. Feliciano Initiative, Mike and Sukey Novogratz, and Noah Assad. Mexican Oscar-winning director Alejandro G. Iñárritu serves as executive producer along with Scott Budnick and his label 1Community, Mike Novogratz, Sukey Novogratz, José E. Feliciano, Kwanza Jones, Henry R. Muñoz III, and Noah Assad. UTA Independent Film Group is representing international sales.

Regarding his decision to produce the project, Norton said in a statement: “This film falls within a tradition of movies we deeply love, from The Godfather to Gangs of New York, that impact us with visceral drama and iconic characters and eras, but also force us to confront the shadow history underlying the American narrative of idealism. Everyone knows René as a poet of language and rhythm. Now they will also see the visual visionary he is. And bringing him together with Bad Bunny to tell the true story of Puerto Rico’s roots will be like a flame meeting the dynamite cartridge that’s been waiting for it.”

Throughout his career, Residente — winner of 29 Latin Grammys and four Grammys as part of the duo Calle 13 and as a solo artist — has directed most of his music videos, including the award-winning “Atrévete-te-te,” “La Perla,” “Calma Pueblo,” “This Is Not America” and “313,” as well as short films such as Quiero Ser Baladista and Bajo y Batería, and his self-titled documentary Residente. Porto Rico will be his first fiction feature film.

In 2024, the artist made his acting debut in the independent film In the Summers, by Alessandra Lacorazza, which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival and won the grand jury prize.

Bad Bunny, meanwhile, has appeared in Hollywood productions such as Bullet Train (2022), Happy Gilmore 2 (2025) and Caught Stealing (2025), as well as Cassandro (2023). He has also made multiple guest appearances on Saturday Night Live.

Professor Kehlani is here to serve up an R&B history lesson. The musician stars in the Wednesday (Feb. 18) episode of Celebrity Substitute, as the Grammy-winning singer pulled up to P.S. 33 in New York City to teach the elementary school kids a thing or two about rhythm and blues.

Kehlani is a strong believer that more children need to be listening to R&B growing up because “it helps you express big feelings.” They added, “It taught me that I can be vulnerable and in a lot of cases, it teaches certain people that aren’t always offered the space to be vulnerable to be vulnerable.”

The two-time Grammy winner met the students, who peppered her with questions about fame, life as a celebrity and whether they knew Michael Jackson. One student even tried to pry the name of the former lover that Kehlani wrote “Out the Window” about, but she wouldn’t spill the tea.

The singer harped on the importance of three areas of R&B: groove and sound, soul and motion, as well as the difference between riffs and runs.

The kids also got suited up in neon threads — giving off the vibes of a ’90s R&B video — and brought their rambunctious energy to film an alternate edition of the “Out the Window” visual alongside Kehlani. As a mother, the star expressed plenty of patience working with the children.

“Out the Window” arrived in November and reached No. 61 on the Billboard Hot 100, while cracking the top 10 of the Rhythmic Airplay and Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs charts.

After picking up their first two Grammy wins thanks to “Folded,” Kehlani looks to parlay her momentum into the Oakland native’s highly anticipated album, which is set to be released in late March.

Watch the full episode of Celebrity Substitute below.

Raye says she was just as blindsided as 65 of her fans after they were turned away from her concert in Paris despite having tickets to the event.

In a post on her Instagram Story on Tuesday (Feb. 17), the British singer-songwriter explained that she was “completely devastated” for the more than five dozen concertgoers who were apparently barred from entering her Accor Arena show two days prior. “This is completely unacceptable and wrong,” she wrote.

“I have been told this was a system error at Ticketmaster, meaning 65 tickets were not fully validated when they were purchased,” she continued. “This was outside of anything I could control and I feel saddened and let down.”

Raye went on to announce how she’d personally be making it up to the fans who were turned away, despite Ticketmaster already doling out refunds and vouchers to those affected.

“I’d like to offer all of these 65 people who didn’t get in to the show complimentary tickets to any Raye future show of their choice and a signed vinyl, you will be contacted shortly about this,” she wrote. “I know this doesn’t even remotely make up for this mess, but it’s all I can think of in this moment to soften the blow.”

It’s unclear what exactly happened on the ticketing site that led to the snafu, but Ticketmaster told People in a statement, “A small number of fans experienced a technical issue when entering the show. While we know it doesn’t replace the show, we have fully refunded those affected and provided a gift card.”

Billboard has also reached out to Ticketmaster for comment.

The musician has been on her This Tour May Contain New Music trek since late January, playing a series of dates across Europe. In March, she’ll head overseas for a North American run lasting through mid-May.

The tour comes ahead of Raye’s new album, This Music May Contain Hope, which is set to drop March 27. It’ll feature her hit single “Where Is My Husband!,” which reached No. 13 on the Billboard Hot 100 in January — her highest peak on the chart to date.

G.O.D. is the G.O.A.T.

In an era of texting shorthand, most people can probably agree with that statement, featuring a now-familiar acronym and another that a songwriter made up. God was the starting point for “I’ll Take You,” a song that Stone Country artist Ben Gallaher reimagined, turning the original ballad into a pulsing, good-natured take on commitment.

“A great song can be transformed at different tempos or feels and still be a great song,” Gallaher says. “That’s what makes it great, if you can take it and do it in different forms, and it still conveys that emotion.”

“I’ll Take You,” started out with a title, “G.O.D.,” that felt much heavier than the final, gravel-voiced version. Songwriter Wendell Mobley (“Fast Cars and Freedom,” “Tattoos on This Town”) supplied that “G.O.D.” idea as an acronym for “God over the Devil,” and when co-writers Neil Thrasher (“Fly Over States,” “There Goes My Life”) and Tony Martin (“Just to See You Smile,” “You Look Good in My Shirt”) got a hold of it in 2022, “I’ll take God over the Devil” became the opening line and established the device at the center of the song. At its heart, it’s a series of choices – I’ll take one thing over another – that sets up the chorus’ promise: “I’ll take you over anybody any day.”

“It’s a foxhole song: I’ll be in a foxhole with you,” Martin says. “If the elevator is going to get stuck, I would want it to be with you.”

The opening items establish the tone. The guy prefers “whiskey over wine” and takes “Hotel California over The Long Run every time.” That latter pairing is a classic-rock reference that isn’t necessarily a knock on The Long Run.

“There’s not really a bad Eagles album, I don’t think,” says Mobley, “but we all have our favorites.”

After using the this-over-that lyrical device throughout the first verse, they continued it into the chorus with the opening line, “I’ll take you over anybody.” But even though it’s the same basic approach, it changes the focus of the song. “It’s just got to make it all about her,” Thrasher says. “You ultimately got to what the song was really about. The chorus is all about her.”

Writing on guitars, the song took on a slower pace initially after the opening “God” phrase put them in a contemplative mood. “I used to joke all the time,” Martin deadpans. “Why does it sound like a ballad? Because I can’t write that fast.”

Verse two infused more “over”-tures – “home grown over store-bought,” “down home over downtown” – but the singer got a little wobbly with the next pairing, “huntin’ over fishin’,” confessing that he might flip his preference on some days. So when he maintains he’s “set in his ways,” the singer actually seems more flexible than he recognizes.

“It’s hard to dog huntin’ and fishin’ in a country song,” Mobley says. “You got to give them both their space.”

As they finished writing, they dropped in a two-line bridge, breaking the this-over-that device in the first “ride-or-die” line, while underscoring the core sentiment. Mobley produced the demo with Thrasher singing lead, and turned it in that November. Nothing really happened with it, and the writers – truth be told – didn’t fully feel as if it was finished. They couldn’t even settle on a title – was it “You Over Anybody” or “I’ll Take You”? But Gallaher kept coming back to the demo.

“There’s just something about that song,” he says, adding that he’d “listened to it 100 times” in its original ballad form. As he collected songs for his forthcoming album, Gallaher and Thrasher, his producer, wanted more uptempo titles, but instead of trying to write them, Thrasher leafed through some of his ballads, looking for lyrics that might adapt well to a faster cadence. When he suggested speeding up “I’ll Take You,” it resonated with Gallaher immediately.

“I started playing this guitar riff – that intro riff – and it happened so fast and organic,” Gallaher says. “It’s like that riff was made to be melded into that song.” “It was,” Thrasher adds, “totally a God thing.”

 The writers re-shaped it a bit, dropping a few lines from the original first verse so they could get to the chorus quicker, and – along with Gallaher – they collectively rejiggered the melody a bit, too. Gallaher, at the start of the chorus, inserted a pause that added some subtle drama: “I’ll take… you over anybody any day.”

It wasn’t a complete overhaul. The song felt more joyful, less weighty, but the bridge still sounded like the original. “We were turning an old classic car into a hot rod,” Martin says “We weren’t taking it and trying to turn it into a space shuttle.”

Thrasher produced the final version with his cousin, producer-engineer Patrick Thrasher (Cole Swindell, Metallica), recording the instrumental tracks on June 23, 2025, at Nashville’s Sound Stage. They played the ballad-paced demo for the musicians, then Gallaher and Neil performed it at the new tempo.

The players picked it up right away. “The first pass going down,” Gallaher recalls, “I looked at Neil and Pat, and I was like, ‘That’s it. That’s it right there.’ We just knew.”

Gallaher sang his final vocals at Patrick’s Thrashville Studio with ease under Neil’s direction, and he also layered in the opening guitar riff, a solo and all the fills. With an acoustic guitar and two other electrics already in place from the original tracking session, Gallaher purposely developed a consistent tone for those parts so that listeners could better identify his place in the instrumental mix.

“I spend a lot of time trying to dial in those tones, and I try to keep them pretty consistent, but not so consistent that it’s like, ‘Well, you know, that’s the same exact thing,’” he says. “They’re all in that same world. I definitely used the same guitar for the intro and the solo.”

He also used Neil as a harmony singer as they put the final touches on the song, with Gallaher and his team ultimately settling on “I’ll Take You” as the title. Stone Country released it to country radio via PlayMPE on Jan. 26 with an official add date of March 9. And while Gallaher didn’t write it, he’s deeply involved in its development and feels personally connected to the “I’ll Take You” message.

“For me, it’s my wife and my family, but, you know, ‘I’ll take you over anybody any day’ – that could be a newlywed couple, or they could be married 50 years with grandkids,” Gallaher says. “Maybe it’s a bachelor with his dog. It could even be a career. That’s the coolest part, I feel. The song really can relate to all of that, depending on how the listener correlates it to their life.”

That feels like how an energetic G.O.D. thing ought to work.

I.Y.K.Y.K.

Cardi B brought the stars out in Los Angeles for her pair of sold-out Kia Forum shows. Later, the Grammy-winning rapper thanked Am I the Drama? collaborators Kehlani and Tyla for popping out and always having her back with a heartfelt post to her Instagram Stories on Tuesday night (Feb. 17).

Cardi referred to Kehlani as “one of the baddest b—hes in California” and welcomed her to the stage to perform their “Safe” collaboration at Monday’s show (Feb. 16). The Bronx native then briefly headed backstage to give Kehlani a moment to perform her Grammy-winning “Folded” track solo.

Kehlani later took to IG on Tuesday to give Cardi and her team their flowers for putting on “one of the best shows” she’s ever seen.

“One of the best shows i’ve ever seen in my life, one of the most incredible house hold names of our time,” Kehlani wrote. “BRAVO @iamcardib EVERY SINGLE PART of this show rocked me. @itsbankhead you are absolutely out of your mind, @kollincarter you are absolutely out of your mind.”

She continued to gush: “I’ve been watching this undeniable thing build for years, from Ring to Safe and you will always have me in your corner Big Bardi! you are A SUPER STAR. i was emotional as hell for you. i laughed, i cheered, i lost my voice. there ain’t a day on this earth you gon shine and i wont be cheering! EVERYBODY PLEASE GO SEE THIS SHOW IT WAS 11/10 !!!”

Cardi B returned the favor, showing her appreciation to Kehlani for continuing to show up for her time and time again. “Kehlani!!! You’re such a beautiful soul a talented artist and amazinggg performer!! Your reaction to my show meant the world to me! I can’t thank you enough for always showing up and giving me the most genuine love and support,” Cardi wrote in an IG Story.

Tyla also blessed the Kia Forum with her presence. The Queen of Amapiano performed her “Nice Guy” collaboration with Cardi B, which landed on Bardi’s sophomore album, Am I the Drama?, as well as her 2025 hit “Chanel.”

“Thank u mama @iamcardib,” Tyla captioned her IG photo dump featuring her performing with Cardi and the adventures of NBA All-Star Weekend across Los Angeles.

“Tyla babyyyy!! You bring the perfect energy to any stage thank you so much for bringing it to mine! Soo pretty and soo talented… You deservre all the Chanel and more,” Cardi replied in her own Story.

In addition to Kehlani and Tyla, Cardi also brought Blueface and GloRilla as surprise guests during the L.A. shows. There could be plenty more on the way, with the Little Miss Drama Tour hitting Portland, Ore., on Thursday (Feb. 19) before heading north of the border.