It’s Kendrick Lamar Week for Billboard Unfiltered following the Thanksgiving break. Lamar unleashed his GNX album without any sort of warning on Nov. 22, and the LP debuted atop the Billboard 200 with 319,000 equivalent units earned.

Dot also took up a ton of real estate on this week’s Billboard Hot 100, with seven out of the top 10 and the entire top five. He even announced an accompanying 2025 North American stadium trek called the Grand National Tour, on which his “Luther” collaborator and former Top Dawg Entertainment running mate SZA will be joining him.

There was a clean sweep of approval from the quartet of co-hosts, with GNX launching Lamar into the album of the year conversation and stamping his banner year of rap domination.

Deputy Director of R&B/Hip-Hop Carl Lamarre believes K. Dot’s ’24 rivals some of the great years rap’s seen in the last 25 years. “Him being able to land three No. 1s this year on the Hot 100 … Him announcing this tour, him having a No. 1 album,” he said. “I think his run this year is probably comparable to what we’ve seen from an ’08 [Lil] Wayne, an ’03 50 [Cent], a 2018 Drake with what he’s been able to do.”

Editorial Director Damien Scott credited Lamar with “blanketing the culture” and compared GNX to Jay-Z’s The Blueprint with how direct and to the point the project is while releasing digestible hit records. “To me, this album feels like a Jay-Z album. It feels like The Blueprint. It’s very direct, it’s very to the point. Here’s Jay at the height of his powers being like, ‘I run this s–t. F–k all of you.’ Just like Kendrick is on the opening track,” Scott opined. “First it was f–k this one guy, now it’s f–k all of you … It’s an amazing rap record.”

The Debbie Deb-sampling “Squabble Up” launched at No. 1 on the Hot 100, and Senior Charts Analyst Trevor Anderson didn’t expect to hear a hit record like that. “Coming off ‘Squabble Up,’ I was up there looking like Jonathan Majors in my apartment doing the little civil rights dance,” he joked. “One thing we missed with Mr. Morale was a clean Kendrick hit.”

Elsewhere during Billboard Unfiltered, the staff discussed Drake making a pair of legal filings against Universal Music Group in November, alleging that his record label artificially inflated the popularity of Lamar’s “Not Like Us.”

Staff Writer Kyle Denis was confused initially by the 6 God’s legal actions, but believes the first pre-filing has a chance to be a landmark case if it indeed heads to trial and there’s a ruling in Drake’s favor that shakes up streaming’s landscape. “If this does end up going to trial and we get a decision that actually impacts the very model of streaming, this would be an important case,” he stated. “All of that is still colored by the timing of it all, and this arriving during GNX week. It’s a little bit pathetic … It just feels a little bit ‘Let me do what I can to muddy up this guy’s release week any way that I can.’”

Watch the full episode above.

This week in dance music: Lightning In a Bottle announced its 2025 lineup featuring John Summit, Jamie xx and Khruangbin, and Electric Forest dropped a 2025 lineup featuring Justice, Sara Landry and Tiësto. Meanwhile, we spoke with jungle boss Nia Archives, EMPIRE signed Palestinian American DJ Habibeats, Depeche Mode said they’re not currently focused on making new music, we went backstage at Portola to see the festival’s hybrid battery system that saved the use of a whopping 6,053 gallons of diesel fuel.

But that’s not all: Charli XCX revealed that she’s frequently in “a lot of pain” due to nerve damage, we spoke with Charli’s Club Sweat tour partner Troye Sivan, electronic pioneers Kraftwerk announced a 2025 North American tour, and Burning Man art car Titanic’s End announced the launch of a new record label, Titanic’s End Records.

And as we see the end of the year in the headlights, these are the best new tracks of the third-from-last Friday of 2024. (And watch this space for our best of the year dance lists, unrolling right here next week.)

Rebecca Black, “Sugar Water Cyanide”

After a buzzy Boiler Room set in October and standout performances at Portola in September, Rebecca Black is further establishing herself as our new favorite Brat-lite club queen with “Sugar Water Cyanide.” The track is pop on its face via Black’s silken-voiced verses, but ultimately it’s club-coded in its pitched-up vocals laid over a hyper-pop-tinged house production. Coming from Black’s album Salvation, out January 17, the song is one Black says is “like if my drug of choice were a person. This is one of those songs that feels as though it’s been inside of me my whole life and was waiting for the right day and time to be ready for it to pour out. I wanted to make THAT song you could only really hear on 100% volume in your car or busting through the bass in the club.”

RL Grime & Knock2, “Come Aliv3”

Hitting hard with waves of 2012-era mainstage nostalgia, the latest collab from San Diego wunderkind Knock2 and bass icon RL Grime hits as hard as you want it to, with the pair shifting from a throwback progressive sound to oversized, ride-that-rail trap fare that is both their specialities. “come aliv3” is third single from Knock2’s forthcoming debut album, nolimit, coming on 88rising, on a date that’s yet to be announced. The 25-year-old producer will tour behind on the album on a run of more than two dozens dates that starts in February and wraps in April all the way over in Australia. This release comes after a three-show residency from Knock2 and his pal ISOxo (performing as ISOknock) at the Bill Graham Auditorium in San Francisco, where special guests included genre titans Hudson Mohawke, Baauer and 100 gecs’ Dylan Brady.

Tokimonsta, “For You”

After pushing the release date for her forthcoming album back in September due to a personal matter, Tokimonsta is back with a new single and a revised schedule. A collaboration with multi-instrumentalist and producer Kaelin Ellis, album single “For You” is a softly gorgeous and soothing but still swiftly moving production that puts crisp, complex polyrhythms at the fore and layers it up with bass and other instruments that create something with genuine soul. “After taking necessary time off to prioritize caring for a loved one, I’ve realized that creating and sharing my art remains my deepest purpose,” the Los Angeles-based producer says. “‘For You’ is a reflection of my journey forward, embracing joy and connection through music. It’s a gift from my heart to the world, and I hope it resonates with everyone who listens.” Tokimonsta’s seventh album, Eternal Reverie, is now coming in 2025 via her own Young Art label. The project will feature collaborations with Cakes da Killa, Anderson .Paak and more.

Bubble Love, “Original Mix”

Bubble Love is a side project from longstanding U.K. producer Ross From Friends, with the artist saying that this alter-ego gives him the ability to harness the wilder and more experimental energy of his clubs sets without feeling pressure to change his de facto sound. It’s a welcome addition to his oeuvre, with the fusion of rap and two-step on his Cameo Lush colla “Close Your Eyes” giving a good indication of the overall sound and spirit of the 10-track eponymous LP.

Storken, “Totoish”

Swedish producer Storken absolutely outdoes himself on the seven-and-a-half-minute nu-disco opus “Totoish.” Weaving in bits of Moroder, Vangelis, Todd Terje and ’80s power pop, this multi-movement production — made in collaboration with fellow Swedish producer Gusteau — melds piano, hand drums and a shimmering, chord-changing synth at the center. “Enjoy this Swedish baked assemblance of the rock n roll hall of fame legacies, a try to unite a lot of bands that never saw daylight,” Storken says of the independently released single.

A new documentary series chronicling the rise and fall of Ace of Base, one of the biggest Swedish pop band exports of all time, following in the tradition of fellow Billboard Hot 100 chart-toppers ABBA and Roxette, has arrived.

Featuring unseen home movie footage and new interviews with members of the band, their business team, music executives, artists and cultural critics, Ace of Base: All That She Wants is now available to stream in full on Viaplay, a streaming service that hosts Nordic and European TV series and films. You can subscribe to Viaplay via Amazon here.

The Swedish quartet — Ulf Ekberg and the siblings Jonas, Jenny and Malin Berggren — first saw success in America with “All That She Wants,” a No. 2 Hot 100 hit and Pop Airplay No. 1, but follow-up single “The Sign” rocketed them to the top of the Hot 100. It was a ubiquitous, era-defining, reggae-flavored dance-pop smash in the mid ‘90s, and remains the longest-leading No. 1 ever on the Pop Airplay chart (it dominated for 14 weeks in 1994).

Ace of Base scored seven top 40 Hot 100 hits throughout the decade, including “Don’t Turn Around” (another Pop Airplay topper) from their U.S. debut album, The Sign, a repackaging of their European debut Happy Nation that topped the Billboard 200 when released by Arista. Naturally, Arista founder and industry legend Clive Davis is one of the interviewees in this docu-series, which also features sit-downs with Wyclef Jean, Nigerian-Swedish singer Dr. Alban (“It’s My Life”), the group’s manager, lawyer, A&R, bodyguard and one of their backup dancers to provide the full picture of their “warts-and-all” story. Ace of Base: All That She Wants also includes an interview with Billboard executive digital director Joe Lynch, i.e., the person writing this article.

In addition to their own hits, Ace of Base helped crack open the door for Swedish artists such as Robyn and The Cardigans to make inroads in the States — not to mention pop producers Denniz Pop and Max Martin, who would permanently shift the direction of commercial pop in America via their work with Britney Spears, Backstreet Boys and *NSYNC.

You can check out the trailer below and the full three-part documentary on Viaplay now.

Angela Alvarez, the Cuban singer-songwriter who made history in 2022 by winning the Latin Grammy for best new artist as a nonagenarian, died Thursday night (Dec. 5), her grandson, composer and producer Carlos José Alvarez, informed Billboard Español. She was 97.

She passed away peacefully in Baton Rouge, La., surrounded by her family and loved ones, added the musician, who produced her 15-track self-titled debut album, released independently (via Nana Album LLC) in June 2021. A cause of death was not provided.

“I feel so lucky to have shared our grandmother with the world. She was a gift to me,” Carlos José said. “What we accomplished together was extraordinary. She is an example of courage, love and the importance of keeping dreams alive. She taught us how art can heal in times of adversity.”

He added: “Being able to work with her changed my life. The gift I thought I was giving her, was actually a gift she gave to me and in turn the world. She always said, ‘I want to leave this world knowing my music would live on,’ and it will. Her life was full and her legacy shines on.”

Born on June 13, 1927, in Camagüey, Cuba, Angela Alvarez learned to sing and play the piano early on, and later took on the guitar and started writing her own songs. “I loved music very much,” she told Billboard Español in November 2022 from Baton Rouge, where the work of her husband, a mechanical engineer in the sugar industry, took her decades ago. “When I was a child, I had two aunts that played the piano and taught me how to sing. Whenever there was a family gathering, I was the artist; they made dresses for me and I always liked to perform.”

She came to consider music as a profession after finishing high school, but neither her father — nor her husband, years later — found that kind of life suitable for her. So she moved on with her life. Music, nevertheless, was always there for her, as it helped her cope with the ups and downs of life: from love and motherhood to a near-two-year separation from her children after the Cuban Revolution triumph, when she was supposed to travel to the U.S. with them but was not allowed to board the plane; to her relentless efforts to reunite her family and the eventual loss of her beloved husband and, years later, of her only daughter — both to cancer.

“I think that music is the language of the soul,” Alvarez said in the same interview with Billboard, estimating at the time that she had written around 50 songs, including “Romper el Yugo” (“Break the Chains”), “Añoranzas” (“Yearnings”), “Mi Gran Amor” (“My Great Love”) and “Camino Sin Rumbo” (“I Wonder Aimlessly”), all included in that first and only album that led to her improbable nomination for best new artist and her eventual victory — in a tie with Silvana Estrada, who was 70 years younger.

Angela not only impressed the Latin Recording Academy and its voting members. During the album’s recording process, her grandson invited Andy García to listen to her songs, and the Cuban-American actor and musician not only ended up executive producing and narrating a documentary about her titled Miss Angela, but also invited her to appear in his remake of Father of the Bride as Tía Pili and sing “Quiéreme Mucho” as part of the soundtrack.

Angela Alvarez is survived by three children (her only daughter died years ago), nine grandchildren and 15 great-grandchildren.