A Washington, D.C., man who was detained after playing the Evil Empire music from Star Wars to protest National Guard troops is suing the government for violating his constitutional rights.

In a lawsuit filed Thursday (Oct. 23), Sam O’Hara claims that he was wrongfully handcuffed and detained for playing “The Imperial March” — John Williams’ iconic villain music from the sci-fi franchise — as he recorded videos of the troops that he later posted to TikTok.

The case, filed by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), claims the brief detention violated O’Hara’s right to peacefully protest under the U.S. Constitution’s First Amendment.

“The law might have tolerated government conduct of this sort a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away,” the ACLU wrote, playing on the famed opening text from Star Wars. “But in the here and now, the First Amendment bars government officials from shutting down peaceful protests.”

“The Imperial March (Darth Vader’s Theme),” written by Williams, first appeared in The Empire Strikes Back, the 1980 sequel to the original Star Wars. The famed composer’s score for the film reached the No. 4 spot on the Billboard 200 in July 1980, eventually spending 28 weeks on the chart.

“In the Star Wars franchise, The Imperial March is the music that plays when Darth Vader or other dark forces enter a scene or succeed in their dastardly plans,” O’Hara’s lawyers write. “It is also the soundtrack of Sam O’Hara’s protest against the National Guard deployment in D.C.”

President Donald Trump declared a “crime emergency” in Washington, D.C., in August and ordered the takeover of law enforcement in the city, with National Guard troops arriving in the capital shortly thereafter. The move, along with other military deployments to American cities, has been deeply controversial and led to widespread protests.

O’Hara, who was “deeply concerned about the normalization of troops patrolling D.C. neighborhoods,” began protesting their presence in his city by walking behind them as they marched through the streets — and by playing a score recognized globally as a theme for tyranny.

“Using his phone and sometimes a small speaker, he played The Imperial March as he walked, keeping the music at a volume that was audible but not blaring,” the ACLU’s lawyers write. “Mr. O’Hara recorded the encounters and posted the videos on his TikTok account, where millions of people have viewed them.”

According to O’Hara, most National Guardsmen “ignored Mr. O’Hara, and a few smiled or laughed,” but one was “not amused by this satire.” The trooper, Sgt. Devon Beck, allegedly turned around and threatened to call in local police to “handle” him if he kept playing the song. When O’Hara kept going, he says Metropolitan Police Department officers quickly arrived and put him in cuffs, shutting down his protest.

O’Hara says the cuffs were placed so tightly that they left marks on his wrists, and were not loosened after he complained. He also says his detention was “needlessly” prolonged before he was eventually released 15 to 20 minutes later.

In technical terms, the lawsuit names Beck, four D.C. police officers, and the D.C. District Attorney as defendants. It accuses them of violating both the First Amendment and the Fourth Amendment, which guards against unreasonable searches and seizures.

Iron Maiden have announced the dates for the North American leg of their Run For Your Lives World Tour, and they’re bringing Megadeth and Anthrax along for the ride.

Starting on Aug. 29, 2026, Iron Maiden will kick off their North American leg at Toronto’s Scotiabank Arena. For all of September the band will then head to a slew of massive arenas including Boston’s TD Garden, Los Angeles’ BMO Stadium and Louisville’s Louder Than Life Festival.

In a statement shared with Billboard, Iron Maiden’s bassist Steve Harris said: “We are greatly looking forward to bringing this Run For Your Lives World Tour to North America and hope the fans enjoy seeing the show and hearing the set list as much as we do playing it. It’s an added bonus to have a few of our good friends on the tour with us.”

He continued, “Megadeth are playing all the shows and it’s an honour to have them join us on their last ever tour. We also have Anthrax with us on the bigger shows, we had a great time with them when they came out with us on Ed Force One around the world in 2016. We’re delighted to have both bands with us for this tour and know our fans will enjoy seeing them.”

Bruce Dickinson added in his own statement: “This whole tour has been such great fun. I really enjoy belting out all these great old songs, and the whole band are loving playing them too! We’ve got all the big ones from that early period including Hallowed, Run To The Hills, Trooper, Number Of The Beast, Killers, Powerslave, 2 Minutes… and some of them we haven’t played in the US for over 20 years!! Plus there’s some real epics including my particular favourite ‘Rime of the Ancient Mariner’ and Seventh Son… We are doing them all and more. I mean, who wouldn’t for a 50th birthday party!”

The upcoming Run for Your Lives World Tour will be Iron Maiden’s first performances since wrapping their The Future Past Tour in São Paulo, Brazil last December. That tour was the last to feature drummer Nicko McBrain, who announced his “decision to take a step back from the grind of the extensive touring lifestyle.” This new tour will see the debut of drummer Simon Dawson.

Check out the full list of dates below.

Mike Weiss and David Melhado like to tell the story of when they first met. It was 2019, and UnitedMasters artist NLE Choppa had just released “Shotta Flow,” which would eventually become a top 40 hit on the Billboard Hot 100, and Weiss, UM’s head of A&R, was interviewing Melhado for the company’s head of artist marketing position.

For the meeting, Melhado “had put together a web chart that had ‘artist’s vision’ at the center, and then webbed out A&R, PR, marketing, digital and brands that started from the basis of understanding who the artist is, what their objectives are, what their core audience is and then [how] everything has to tie back to that,” Weiss recalls in a listening room at UM’s Brooklyn offices. “That was my playbook, and I had not seen anybody else draw it in the exact same way.”

Weiss, 34, and Melhado, 41, come from different backgrounds: Weiss is third-generation music business, after his father Barry and his grandfather Hy, and was effectively raised in the industry; Melhado got his start working for Jermaine Dupri‘s dad Michael Mauldin, building out the mid-2000s staple Scream Tour with artists like Bow Wow and Omarion. But they share a professional background in artist management — Weiss with Noah Cyrus and Labrinth; Melhado with Verse Simmonds and the producer Sak Pase — that has given them both a 360 worldview when it comes to artists’ careers, emphasizing building a brand and a catalog over chasing hits.

And at UnitedMasters — founded by veteran exec Steve Stoute, who runs the brand agency Translation, was an artist manager himself with Nas in the 1990s, and wrote the industry tome The Tanning of America in 2011 — the two are dedicated to doing just that. “We never made decisions based off, ‘This has to be a top 10 record, or we have to go to radio because we look to market share,’” Melhado says. “Because we’ve been consistent in our approach and made decisions that were best for the artists’ business, we’ve been able to see success and growth. We build brick by brick.”

UnitedMasters launched in 2017, in the midst of the distribution craze that exploded to serve the vast pipeline of artists that emerged in the DIY artistry world made possible by the streaming era and bedroom production tools. Many of those companies focused on scale and technology, mimicking the one-size-fits-all model developed by companies like TuneCore and Distrokid, which allowed anyone to upload and distribute an album for a set fee per year. Weiss and Melhado wanted to do something different.

“There hasn’t been a lot of [artist] development over the past 5-10 years,” Weiss says. “So we said, if everyone is going to be focused heavily on the A&R research teams, we’re going to find artists that we believe in and can develop. That was going to be our competitive edge.”

Now, that focus is paying off, particularly after the two built a label business as the peak of a pyramid that encompasses DIY distribution at the base and a premium services tier in between, which has become the blueprint for the modern record company. Texas rapper BigXThaPlug‘s foray into country music was a massive success this year, yielding a top 5 Hot 100 single (“All The Way” feat. Bailey Zimmerman) and a top 10 Billboard 200 album; Floyymenor‘s “Gata Only” feat. Cris MJ won a Billboard Music Award for Top Latin Song of the Year in 2024; and partnerships with African super-producer Sarz and indie R&B singer and songwriter Brent Faiyaz have expanded their purview.

And now, as newly-minted co-heads of music at the company, Weiss and Melhado are leading the charge for all of it, staying ahead of the competition as the industry shifts towards their model. “It’s our job to always be changing and evolving,” says Weiss. “If the broader industry is doing what we set out to do, then that’s just validation that we’re on the right path.”

What was Steve Stoute doing at UnitedMasters that drew you to the company?

David Melhado: For me, it was new and he was bridging the gap between the brand world. When we came here it was very much a startup and the idea of being able to support artists at scale was attractive, but we knew it was going to be a challenge. He’s given us the space to fail fast and then pivot and try and take shots.

Mike Weiss: I was looking to be entrepreneurial and go somewhere where I could really help shape a business and touch everything. At that time, there were a number of key executives that were rolling out of the major systems and starting their own businesses that were having some early success. Making that bet on Steve that he was one of those people was a no brainer. But it also was the tech side of things I found really interesting as well, building a future of independence.

Why did you want to build a label on top of the distribution business?

Melhado: We were doing these premium distribution deals, but labels were cherry picking all our acts. Lil Tecca, NLE Choppa, J.I. the Prince — as soon as they started to have a little bit of momentum the labels would come in because we didn’t have long term rights or a team that could really support them. So, that was the part of the argument to Steve: we have to change the way that we’re doing our deals. We have to really invest in the artists, and you’ve got to give us the ability to build the team. That was the turning point for us.

Weiss: We got to a point where we were saying, “We can identify talent and be successful with that talent, but what’s going to differentiate us from the majors if we don’t have the staff to really support that and take it to the next level?” A lot of companies in those early days of distribution were coming across that same problem — what’s the value of finding an amazing artist that’s going to develop into a superstar if you can’t be there when they’re a superstar? We said, Let’s build a label business and a team that can be competitive in terms of resources with the majors, but with the artist friendly deals of the distros. It was never a question of being the best distributor. It was, “Let’s be competitive with majors, and do it in a way that’s fair to artists.”

You guys had an advantage in being able to build a record label for this new era from scratch. How did you do it differently than what you would have seen at a traditional major?

Weiss: We said, what does development look like in the 2020s? Development is public, development is in the perspective of the fans. It’s similar in many ways to building a startup, which we have experience with now. You want to pivot quickly, you want to see what people are reacting to, you want to fail fast. You want to know what people are going to respond to and you want to start raw and authentic. And so we built A&R teams that could really get in the mix with artists. There are no longer gatekeepers that are going to press a button and all of a sudden your music is going to be everywhere and you’re going to be a breakout star. So we needed to put a team together that was wholly committed towards building something brick by brick from the ground up. And with that came the focus of constant progress, of being better today than we were yesterday, and making sure that whatever steps were taken were not in the pursuit of a hit record, but the pursuit of building an artist that has a foundation, a fan base, an audience that everything else can live within.

One of your big success stories has been BigXThaPlug. How have you developed him through the years?

Melhado: When we first partnered with BigX in October 2021 he had 500 monthly listeners on Spotify. We took a really regional approach, working records in the clubs and trying to create an early groundswell, and did that same thing from a digital vantage point as well. We would release singles and then package them as an EP. Release more singles and then package it as an album. And we kept replicating that same process.

Weiss: The whole approach was consistency. The content mixed with the consistency just brought more and more eyeballs. You paired that with the localized approach to it and building a groundswell first that everything could rely on. For us, first week sales is not the barometer for anything. We’re not looking at the biggest moment and impact that we can possibly have week one that will jeopardize week 20. We’re focused on building an artist holistically and building that catalog.

Artists also need global reach. How did you guys approach that?

Weiss: The majors have companies in every territory. We’ve seen over the past two years that shift from a positive to a negative for the labels and a negative to a positive for us in that we have the ability to bring on whichever partner we want in whatever region. The team we would use in Germany for an Ekkstacy record would not be the same team that we should use for BigXThaPlug or FloyyMenor. So, we’re able to just bring in the independent partners within those specific regions that work directly for that specific artist. The approach has allowed us to have flexibility and bring in the right partners wherever it is internationally. Then as it came to finding international artists, the approach was similar — we just followed the talent. FloyyMenor, he was not a huge success at that point, but he was just buzzing in the scene. We saw a community being built around him and that real groundswell, which played into the way in which we already see and focus on developing acts.

The culture of the business in Nashville is different than everywhere else. How did you guys move into the Nashville world for the BigXThaPlug album?

Weiss: The Red Sea parted for us on that. When we put out the “Texas” record, because it’s a country/hip-hop record already, we started hearing that Luke Combs and Morgan Wallen and Post Malone were fans. When he was still relatively unknown, the country community was actually the one community that was behind him. They welcomed him in with open arms. Dave and I went and sat with Charlie Handsome and talked about this idea of doing a country collaboration EP and he was down to give it a try. Then BigX posted an Instagram clip of “All The Way” with Bailey — people just went crazy. So the team went down to Nashville and met with every writer and producer. They all loved BigX because the artists loved BigX.

You share an office with Translation. How does that give you an advantage?

Melhado: Working with brands has been embedded in the DNA of UnitedMasters from the beginning. The early partnerships with the NBA and NBA 2K soundtrack; sync has been a part of the ways that we work with brands from day one. For an artist like BigX that has been very much a part of his story. One of the early brand deals that he got was creating the theme song for the XFL. I think it’s safe to say that we’re the only creative solutions company and creative agency that has a full blown music company and record label. That’s an important ingredient in the artist development story for us.

What does success look like for you guys?

Weiss: Success is when you see an artist that’s continuing to grow week over week, month over month, year over year. And the best way to do that is by building catalog rather than having peaks and spikes that are here today and gone tomorrow and then don’t really last the test of time in the digital era. Everyone talks nowadays about how catalog is the thing that is keeping the majors afloat. We don’t have a catalog to rely on and our goal is to build that.

Dion DiMucci considers his new album, The Rock ‘N’ Roll Philosopher, to be “like a concert” experience.  

“I thought I would just let it run like a concert,” the Rock and Roll Hall of Famer and proud son of the Bronx tells Billboard via Zoom, sporting a New York Yankees baseball cap shortly after the team was eliminated from the playoffs. “That was my vision; if I had to do a set with a band, I’m gonna do these 16 songs, in this order. It’s the perfect concert.”

The Rock ‘N’ Roll Philosopher — Dion’s fourth album released within the last five years with Joe Bonamassa’s Keeping The Blues Alive (KTBA) Records label — is not simply a compilation, however. As Dion notes, “some of (the songs) are new, some of them are redos that I felt I could do better versions of.” Based on his January book of the same name, it includes six fresh recordings — some of older favorites such as Tom Waits’ “Serenade” and his own “Abraham, Martin and John,” for which Dion recently released a video — along with previously released collaborations with Bonamassa, Eric Clapton (who wrote a foreword in the liner notes), Mark Knopfler and Sonny Landreth, plus signature Billboard Hot 100 hits “Runaround Sue” (No. 1), “The Wanderer” and “Ruby Baby” (both No. 2).

Dion penned the brand-new songs — “New York Minute,” released in January, and “Mother and Son,” inspired by Michelangelo’s Pietà — with good friend Mike Aquilina, an author who specializes in Catholic Church history and has been writing with Dion since Tank Full of Blues in 2012; he co-wrote Dion’s 2023 book, Dion: The Wanderer Talks Truth (Stories, Humor & Music). Dion also salutes his late Little Kings bandmate Scott Kempner, also of the Dictators and Del-Lords, via new recordings of “New York Is My Home” and “In a Heartbeat of Time,” which Kempner co-wrote; the former, from the 2016 album of the same name, is a version of the track before Paul Simon added his guest vocal to the recording.

“When I get down into it, I really love that blues thing,” Dion, 86, explains. “That John Lee Hooker thing, just that groan. I love expressing myself with those three chords, even two chords; it doesn’t have to be very fancy. I just love the thing grooving. The beauty of rock ‘n’ roll is repetition, the beauty of repetition and the groan and the groove and the communication of the words. It’s very simple.”

The Rock ‘N’ Roll Philosopher album is an outgrowth of the book project, Dion’s third. Co-authored with Adam Jablin and sub-titled Conversations on Life, Recovery, Faith and Music, it’s a loose collection of stories and concepts, housing high-minded concepts, anecdotes and lists of favorite books and performers.

“The book was events in my life that I’m reflecting on, all these little stories I have, and it comes with a life lesson,” says Dion, whose first memoir,  The Wanderer: Dion’s Story, was published in 1988. “So then Bonamassa and (KTBA) co-founder Roy Weisman said, ‘Let’s get an album, something compatible with the book.’ At the time I was doing the audiobook, and I just had a ball doing that ’cause you could have songs (play) in the stories, just coloring or complementing. (The album) developed out of that.”

One of the most striking inclusions is “Abraham, Martin and John,” an elegy written by Dick Holler about the legacies of Abraham Lincoln, Martin Luther King Jr., John F. Kennedy and Robert F. Kennedy during 1968. Dion’s recording reached No. 4 on the Billboard Hot 100 that year and was certified gold. It went on to be covered by a number of other performers, including Smokey Robinson & the Miracles, Marvin Gaye, Ray Charles and Bob Dylan.

The Rock ‘N’ Roll Philosopher re-recording of it is a more intimate treatment with just Dion, a guitar and strings along with atmospheric backing vocals arranged and performed by Robert Florczak. “I wanted it in the set,” Dion explains, referring to the album’s setlist concept. “If I do a set, then ‘Abraham, Martin, and John’ has to be there, so I did it for that reason. And when I gave it to Roy Weisman he said it really struck a chord in him; he said, ‘Dion, this song is 57 years old. There are people who never heard it. I would like to release it as a single.’ And we had David Niles do the video, which is my favorite video I’ve ever done. Now, I tell ya, it seems almost timely for this song, ’cause it’s troubled times. But I didn’t even think of that when we were putting it together. It was never meant to be a political song…. It’s about a state of love and it plays so much into that speech Bobby Kennedy gave back then; he was saying love conquers all if we could understand rather than be understood, or if we could love rather than be loved, all that high-minded stuff. You can’t have cable news thinking like that, because then there’d be no shows.”

He’s also pleased that The Rock ‘N’ Roll Philosopher gives him a chance to revisit guitarist collaborations, which appeared on previous albums.

“I did ‘Cryin’ Shame’ with Sonny Landreth,” Dion says, “and that guy, man, kills me every time. He’s ridiculous. It’s just thrilling. ‘Dancing Girl’ with Mark Knopfler, I love his sound; he just hurls me into a higher reality, another dimension, and it’s just all in his hands. And ‘If You Wanna Rock and Roll’ I did with Eric Clapton. I was totally surprised when I called him to play on his; he wrote me emails telling me how he grew up with my music, and I was like, ‘Wow.’ We became friends and he did this and it was so great; I called him and said, ‘Eric, you sound like you’re 19 on this song.’ He said, ‘I stood up. I wanted to do a good job in the studio.’”

In the meantime, Dion is looking at a proposed documentary that he says might involve a couple of performances back in New York, and he’s keeping tabs on The Wanderer jukebox stage musical, which debuted during 2022 and is now working on further financing to take it to Broadway.

As for another album, Dion says, “I’m always working on something. Like I said, I do like the blues thing; it’s in my head that it grooves and it has a mantra to it. I like that. But when I get my guitar and get in there, whether it’s a Phil Spector or Michael Omartian production, or Wayne Hood or myself, it’s all Dion music. When I did gospel music, it’s all Dion music. If it’s just me and the guitar, without the window trimmings, it’s just Dion music. So whatever I do, that’s what it’ll be — Dion music.”

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Although it might be hard to believe, there is one place where you can get deals on streaming, prescriptions, home goods, fashion and even food. That place is Walmart+.

Yes, the retailer’s membership includes a whole host of impressive benefits for just $98 a year, or $12.95 a month (plus applicable taxes). The app provides a one-stop shop for pretty much all your needs from giving your wardrobe a seasonal refresh to filling your car’s gas tank. At a glance, when you sign up, you’ll have access perks like free delivery¹, free shipping², fuel discounts³, returns from home, and in-store features like Scan & Go which expedites your shopping process tenfold. You will also gain access to early deals, pet care, and savings with partners like Burger King.

Our favorite perk of the bunch, besides the Burger King savings, is that members will be able to enjoy Paramount+ Essential or Peacock Premium with ads at no additional cost⁴. You’ll pick from one of the two services available to you through your membership by linking your account through your Walmart+ Benefits Hub. If you’re not happy with your selected service, you will have the option to change or switch after 90 days. In summary, this gives members access to a wide range of movies and TV shows previously hidden behind a paywall.

Through Peacock and Paramount+, you’ll gain access to acclaimed TV series along with buzzed-about movies. Whichever streaming service you choose, both provide streaming opportunities that you won’t want to miss out on.

Walmart’s Burger King savings can be accessed via the Walmart app or website. Once you activate or link your account, you’ll be given a percentage off all orders so you can order in or grab takeout without breaking the bank⁵. As previously mentioned, members will also have access to a Scan & Go feature in store, making shopping a lot easier.

Using the Walmart app, you’ll scan items as you shop, grabbing a few fall fashion staples and home décor along the way before paying for your cart in the app. You’ll then show a QR code at the self-checkout kiosk to complete the process and show your receipt to an associate.

1. $35 order min. Restrictions apply. ↩︎
2. Excludes most marketplace items. Freight & location surcharges may apply. ↩︎
3. 5¢ savings in AL & OK only. Subject to change. ↩︎
4. One service (w/ ads) every 90 days: Peacock Premium or Paramount+ Essential. Add’l registration req’d. T&Cs apply. 
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5. Valid at part. U.S. BK’s, in the BK App or BK.com for members only. Terms apply. ↩︎