More than four years after their last outing and with their touring future in doubt, Bon Jovi will return to the road starting in July. A seven-date run that hits three international cities will kick off July 7.

The legendary rock n’ roll band’s ability to tour again had been in doubt, as lead singer and namesake Jon Bon Jovi dealt with vocal cord issues. Following the conclusion of the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame band’s 2022 tour, he underwent reconstructive surgery on his vocal cords and then a yearslong rehabilitative process.

“There is a lot of joy in this announcement — joy that we can share these nights together with our amazing fans and joy that the band can be together,” Jon Bon Jovi said in a statement. “I am lucky enough to be able to hold a light out to the audience each night and stand in their reflection for a tremendous collective experience — I get to stand in the WE of our concerts.”

He continued: “And I’ve spoken extensively on my gratitude, but I will say it again: I’m deeply grateful that the fans and the brotherhood of this band have been patient and allowed me the time needed to get healthy and prepare for touring. I’m ready and excited!”

The Live Nation tour starts with four shows at New York’s Madison Square Garden before traveling to Edinburgh, Scotland; Dublin and London to close at Wembley Stadium. The general onsale starts Oct. 31, with presales beginning Oct. 27.

Jon Bovi has been candid about his recovery, saying the band got together every month to rehearse to gauge his progress, but that until he felt he could confidently sing through a two-and-a-half-hour show, they weren’t hitting the road. “Day to day, I’m working hard on it,” he told Entertainment Tonight in 2024. “Nothing else matters until I work on getting better. It’s up to God at this point. I’ve done everything I can do. I won’t fake it … the legacy matters too much.”

Promoting the band’s 2024 four-part Hulu documentary, Thank You, Goodnight: The Bon Jovi Story, which documented the surgery, he said during the Television Critics Association’s winter press tour panel in February that year, “One of my cords was literally atrophied. So, my vocal cords, they’re supposed to look parallel. So, let’s pretend one of them looks as thick as my thumb and the other one is as thick as a pinky. So the strong one was pushing the weak one aside. And I wasn’t singing well, so my craft was being taken from me.”

There were positive indications along the way that his voice was on the mend, including in February 2024, when he was honored as MusiCares Person of the Year and sang robust versions of “Legendary” and (with Bruce Springsteen), “Who Says You Can’t Go Home” and “Promised Land.”

The band’s latest release, Forever (Legendary Edition) comes out Friday (Oct. 24) and is a reimagining of its 2024 album recreated as duets with such artists as Springsteen, Lainey Wilson, Jelly Roll, Jason Isbell, Joe Elliott and Robbie Williams.

“This album is more than just a collection of collaborations, it is an album borne out of necessity,” Jon Bon Jovi said in a statement when announcing the album. “My vocal cord surgery and subsequent rehab was a well-documented journey that played out while releasing Forever in June 2024. I was singing well enough in the studio for the recording, but the vocal demands and rigors of touring were still out of reach for me. Without the ability to tour or promote an album we were all very proud of, I decided to call on some friends to help me in my time of need. All are great singers, artists, and also just great people. The result is an album with a new viewpoint and new spirit — a collaboration album that proves we all get by in this world with a little help from our friends.  I feel tremendous joy and gratitude releasing this album and I think it shows in the music.”

Billboard’s Live Music Summit will be held in Los Angeles on Nov. 3. For tickets and more information, visit the event’s website.

Danny Ocean sat down with Billboard’s Leila Cobo at Billboard Latin Music Week 2025 for “The Sony Music Publishing Iconic Songwriter Q&A” panel to discuss how he’s crafted his biggest hits, including “Me Rehuso,” and the power of his songs to transform society.

Presented by Sony Music Publishing, the Venezuelan singer-songwriter — whose artistic name is a nod to George Clooney’s character in the Ocean‘s trilogy — spoke candidly about looking inward and trusting his intuition when crafting songs. It’s what was key for “Me Rehuso” (“I Refuse”), Danny’s breakout hit, a love song he wrote for a girlfriend as a Valentine’s Day gift that also captures his migration journey from Venezuela to Miami.

“I had no way of getting something to my girlfriend back in Venezuela, so I wrote her a song — not knowing when I would see her again,” Danny said. “I didn’t overthink things, it was what I was living at the moment. ‘Me Rehuso’ was also a feeling of having to leave Venezuela.”

The track was released while he was working at a pizzeria in Kendall, Fla., but he eventually doubled-down on songwriting, taking inspiration from personal relationships, including the one with his beloved Venezuela.

“Having to migrate had a huge impact on my life and made me question things, such as how we can make Venezuela have that outlet like other countries,” he explained. “I see Venezuela as my partner, [my songs] are a direct, personal conversation with Venezuela. But I also don’t want to romanticize it, it’s my relationship with Venezuela, and everyone has their own relationship with their own country. I don’t see it as a manifesto or something political.”

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For “Caracas en el 2000,” Danny collaborated with fellow Venezuelans Elena Rose and Jerry Di. “Putting Venezuela on the radar started out as something very personal between us,” he said. “We’d go out for a beer, talk about how we were feeling, and those conversations would end up in the studio, then in a song. It’s been very natural.”

When asked by an audience member what he’d do when he returns to Venezuela, Danny Ocean said, “Everything I didn’t do when I was there, and hang out with people, find out what they think, what they’re up to. I want to spend some time at home, hang out with my family, connect with the streets. And visit Los Roques, I’ve never been.”

Spanning more than 30 years, Latin Music Week is the single-most important and largest gathering of Latin artists and industry executives in the world. This year’s event once again hosts panels, marquee conversations, roundtables, networking and activations, in addition to its celebrated Billboard En Vivo showcases. 

This year’s star-studded lineup includes Aitana, Alofoke, Anuel AA, Bebeshito, Carlos Vives, Carín León, Danny Ocean, DJ Khaled, Daddy Yankee (DY), Emilia Mernes, Ivy Queen, Gloria Estefan, Grupo 5, Kapo, Laura Pausini, Luck Ra, Netón Vega, Olga Tañón, Óscar Maydon, Ozuna, Pablo Alborán, Rawayana, Suzette Quintanilla, Tokischa, Xavi and Yailin La Más Viral, to name a few.

Latin Music Week also coincides with the 2025 Billboard Latin Music Awards, set to air Thursday, Oct. 23, on Telemundo and Peacock, where Bad Bunny will be honored as Top Latin Artist of the 21st Century.

Ed Sheeran is used to playing for tens of thousands of rabid fans in stadiums around the world. But how does his emotional music play in a New York classroom of third graders? Check out the latest episode of the heart-warming series Celebrity Substitute, in which Sheeran pops into PS20 in Brooklyn to teach students how to transform everyday sounds into fully fledged songs.

Host Julian Shapiro-Barnum sits down with Sheeran in the Clinton Hills classroom’s small chairs to observe as the singer teaches his young charges about rhythm and sound using his trusty loop rig, even as Ed laments that perhaps he’s “not the best substitute teacher.” Or, he offers, maybe he is just that because, he recalled (before the students arrived), sometimes when a sub comes in you feel like, “‘f–k, you’re not my real teacher… don’t tell me what to do!’”

Well aware that he doesn’t command authority and is basically a big Pokemon-loving adult kid himself, Sheeran recalled the nasty names he got called in school, helping to prove Shapiro-Barnum’s credo that “weirdos make the coolest adults.” (See the full video below.)

After getting affixed with his official “Mr. Ed” sub name tag — and getting warned by teachers Mr. Chung and Mr. Hampton that his lesson plan was “ambitious” at best — Sheeran dug into his curriculum of teaching the importance of rhythm, finding your own sound and, most importantly, rehearsing.

Sheeran got right to work, playing his 2015 Billboard Hot 100 No. 15 hit “Photograph,” which was met with mixed reviews from kids who were fans, some who were not so much, and one girl who recalled seeing him in a book about Taylor Swift once, but having no idea why he was in it. “I like the music… a lot,” said one young man named Theo, who admitted that he wasn’t familiar with Sheeran’s ouvre, but does love soccer and had a friend who was the fastest player on his team before he moved to England.

After teaching the kids the basics of the waltz and 4/4 rhythms by noting that pal Swift’s “Style” is in 4/4 by clapping his hands in time, Sheeran set about making sure the kids were picking up what he was laying down by asking them to clap their hands and stomp their feet at the same time in rhythm.

One-by-one the students came up to the mic to say silly phrases that Sheeran looped together to form a rhythm, earning praise from the teachers for his pedagogical skills. Busting out a box of instruments that turned the room into a riot of noise, Sheeran then encourage each student to share their unique sound into the mic, from saxophone bleats to fart sounds.

The 15-minute clip ends with a command Show & Tell performance of “The PS20 Kids and the Morning Routine” original song about brushing your teeth which is guaranteed to be the cutest thing you see all day.

Watch Sheeran on Celebrity Substitute below.

Shakira is ready for Bad Bunny to headline the 2026 Super Bowl Halftime Show — but she says the Puerto Rican superstar should have been tapped for the gig a long time ago.

When asked about the news that Benito will perform at the big game in February during a Variety interview published Tuesday (Oct. 21), Shakira replied, “It’s about time!”

“I’m so proud that Bad Bunny, who represents not only Latin culture, but also how important Spanish language music has become on a global scale and how universal it has become, is getting to perform on the biggest stage in the world,” she continued. “It’s the perfect moment for a performance like this. I can’t wait to watch it.”

Benito previously performed on the Super Bowl stage as a guest artist alongside joint headliners Shakira and Jennifer Lopez. They performed part of their set in Spanish, which Shak told the publication was a “bold move” at the time.

“Acceptance of Spanish-language music as part of the mainstream has come so far from when I started,” she added. “I hope and like to think that all the times my music was met with resistance or puzzlement from the English-speaking world before it was embraced, helped forge the path to where we are now.”

It’s true that millions of fans are excited to see Bad Bunny perform at Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara, Calif., next year, but his appointment as Super Bowl Halftime Show headliner has also received backlash — primarily from political conservatives, who take issue with the fact that the singer-rapper’s music is all in Spanish. President Donald Trump called the choice “absolutely ridiculous,” White House advisor Corey Lewandowski claimed Benito “hates America” — despite the fact that the musician is an American citizen — and Turning Point USA announced plans to host an alternate, MAGA-approved halftime program.

But, as Billboard‘s chief content officer of Latin/Español Leila Cabo pointed out, there is nothing inherently political about the selection of Bad Bunny for halftime. “As those of us who speak Spanish daily can attest, many still look down on Spanish as a language, and definitely on the people who speak it,” she wrote in a recent op-ed. “Let’s acknowledge that having Bad Bunny headline the Super Bowl is a bold choice — but let’s also be real about the reasons.”

Shakira’s latest interview comes amid her 30th anniversary celebrations of her album Pies Descalzos, as well as the 20th anniversary of Oral Fixation, Vol. 1. Elsewhere in her conversation with Variety, she shared which Gen-Z star she’d love to collaborate with on a reimagined version of one of her Oral Fixation tracks.

“I would love to hear Chappell Roan on ‘La Pared,’” she said. “I think she would do an incredible rendition. Her voice and her artistry are incredible.”

Billboard’s Live Music Summit will be held in Los Angeles on Nov. 3. For tickets and more information, visit the event’s website.