Cultures and traditions around the globe and throughout history share a similar concept of axis mundi, the center of the world.

“To the Maya it was the Ceiba tree, to the Norse Ygdrassil, to the Celts the Crann Bethadh,” Burning Man’s announcement on the theme of the 2026 event reads.

“The ancient Greeks called it the cosmic pillar, and the Slavs knew it as the Great Oak. Siddharta’s Bodhi tree, the sacred cottonwood of the Lakota, and the Iroku of the Yoruba can all be seen as manifestations of the same deeply rooted idea that there is a centerpoint of existence that connects us with powers greater than ourselves.”

This concept of axis mundi is the official theme for Burning Man 2026, which will happen Aug. 30-Sept. 6 in the Black Rock Desert of northern Nevada. Drawing tens of thousands of people, the event itself is literally and figuratively centered around its namesake wooden man, which is ultimately burned to the ground each year.

“The Burning Man can be seen as our version of the cosmic tree, a Jacob’s Ladder connecting us to the unseen and unknowable,” reads Burning Man Project’s statement announcing the theme. “It functions as the axis mundi of our far-flung world, around which we all spin at 1,000 miles an hour, clinging to each other to keep from flying off into space. Each summer it rises from the ancient lakebed of the Black Rock Desert, and throughout the year its sibling effigies are planted at regional gatherings around the world.”

Axis mundi joins the long list of themes that have helped define the annual desert gathering since its 1996 edition. Previous themes have included “the wheel of time” in 1999, “vault of heaven” in 2004, “fertility 2.0” in 2012 (the first “fertility” happened in 1997), “metamorphosis” in 2019 and “animalia” in 2023.

These themes are less mandates for how to dress or decorate a camp, but instead, says Burning Man Project Director of the organization’s Philosophical Center, Stuart Mangrum, who designs of each year’s theme, operate on three levels. They provide, Mangrum says, “fertile ground” for artists to take inspiration from for the many art small and large-scale art projects created each year. They must also be a concept that’s accessible to Burners and also somehow reflect or react to the general zeitgeist of the global Burning Man community.

“Recent themes have tended to favor the third leg of that triangle,” Mangrum tells Billboard. “For instance, after COVID we didn’t want a theme that was too cerebral or introspective, so we went for a vibe that was more silly and playful” with “animalia.” 

Mangrum is primarily responsible for choosing each year’s theme, having lead this project since 2019 and prior to that collaborating on the task with Burning Man founder Larry Harvey, who died in 2018.

“When Larry Harvey first proposed that the event should have an annual theme back in 1995, I thought he was joking,” Mangrum says. “‘Like the junior prom?’ I said. ‘Like, ‘Romance Under the Sea?’ Now here I am 30 years later, stringing up paper seashells in the gym.”

Mangrum’s theme selection process starts each spring, when he takes time to think about how the prior year’s event went, what’s on the horizon “and where the community vibe seems to be heading,” he says. “I talk to a lot of people about their hopes and dreams for the coming year. Then when I’m out in Black Rock City I start writing, putting up sticky notes all over my trailer and shopping my ideas around to colleagues and participants to see what resonates the most.”

Mangrum came up with most of 2026’s “axis mundi” theme, along with his deeply considered essay on it, while still on site at the 2025 event. But he only figured out how all the ideas worked together in the last week or so.

“In adjoining branches of the multiverse, the 2026 Burning Man theme might be the ‘World Tree,’ the ‘Cosmic Tree,’ ‘Jacob’s Ladder,’ or the ‘Tree of Life.’ Or maybe even ‘Stairway to Heaven,” Mangrum continues. “But in any case, the reason [axis mundi] feels right is that in our increasingly divided and divisive world, Burning Man is a powerful unifying force, bringing people together. I wanted a theme that reflects that convening force, and celebrates the ways we are creating a separate reality fueled by values we believe in: creativity, generosity, inclusivity and everything else that’s implicit in our Principles.”

(Burning Man abides by its 10 Principles, which serve as a guide for how to be and take part in the event. These Principles include radical self-reliance, radical inclusion, decommodification and leaving no trace.)

Mangrum’s essay on the theme emphasizes the connection between all living things, noting that “the world tree is also the tree of life, with every species on Earth related to every other species in the tangled bank of evolution’s roots and limbs… And yet, through the magical constructs of social reality, we imagine ourselves as standing apart from the natural world, and increasingly apart from each other as well. Divided by borders, and further fragmented by custom and belief into tribelets of ideology, each suspicious and distrustful of the other. And further still, divided into content feeds in a social network, one human to a screen, connected only by dubious proxy.”

Given this writing, it’s natural to consider the 2026 theme through the lens of not just the challenges Burnign Man 2025 experienced with freak weather events and a homicide that happened during the week, but the the general state of politics, geopolitics and the terrible and relentless violence, division, anger, fear and isolation permeating our culture at large. Mangrum says the political and cultural climate is certainly part of the 2026 theme’s consideration, in that they’re things that Burning Man is designed to help elevate.

“Burning Man is a global community with participants in over 100 countries around the world, some of which are at war with each other, and others seemingly at war with their own citizens,” he says. “Shooting wars, culture wars, the forces of division are everywhere. Burning Man culture is the opposite of that, it brings people together in authentic ways, in real life, to create experiences together.”

But of course the theme is always just a suggestion. Some attendees go all in on it, designing their experiences their experiences around it, and some don’t consider it at all. Mangrum acknowledges that even to him, the theme’s designer, it’s never quite clear even to him how it will manifest out there in the desert.

“Part of the fun of having this job is that I absolutely don’t know what’s going to happen,” he says. “We just send it out into the world like a little paper boat in a stream and see what people do with it.” 

The world has changed significantly since 2018: the COVID pandemic upended daily life, TikTok took over social media, and AI is the acronym everyone’s talking about, to name a few things. But one thing hasn’t changed: Cardi B is making some of the best rap music in the game.

Cardi proved that again with the release of her second album — and first in seven years — Am I The Drama? and fans responded in kind: this week, Cardi’s new album debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 with 200,000 equivalent album units, the biggest week for an R&B/hip-hop album by a woman this year so far, making her two-for-two with chart-topping albums. And while things may not have changed too much for Cardi on the charts, seven years is an interminably long time in the music business, meaning she largely had to reintroduce herself to fans in a world that has changed so much. And helping her do that has been Darrale Jones, the A&R and executive producer for Am I the Drama? who originally signed her to Atlantic Records in 2016 — and now earns the title of Billboard’s Executive of the Week.

Here, Jones discusses the process of crafting Cardi’s second album, how they were able to capture fans’ imaginations and attention after so long between full length projects, the state of hip-hop in 2025 and honesty in storytelling. “The thought was: if she’s gone through it, someone else out there has, too,” Jones says about Cardi’s songwriting process here. “So we wanted to create something honest and relatable, something that connects on a human level.”

This week, Cardi B’s Am I The Drama? debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 with 200,000 equivalent album units. What key decision did you make to help make that happen?

The goal from the beginning was to create incredible music. We weren’t focused on chart positions; our mindset was about making a hit project and a classic album. That’s what drove every decision we made throughout the process.

What was your approach to making a full album this time around, and what was your role in creating it?

I’m the A&R and executive producer on both Invasion of Privacy and Am I the Drama?. My role is really about bringing hot producers to the table that align with her vision. Cardi has lived, experienced, and gone through a lot, so there was no shortage of topics to explore.The approach this time was to tap into all of that and make sure the music reflected exactly where she is in her life right now.

After such a long time since her first album — albeit with a handful of big singles in between — how did you want to reintroduce her, in a way, to her audience?

Cardi wanted to approach this project from a real, human perspective. It was important to her that the music reflect her actual life — the highs, the lows, everything she experienced in the time since Invasion of Privacy. So the process started with sitting down and really talking through what she wanted to say, what she’d been through, how she’d grown. The thought was: if she’s gone through it, someone else out there has, too. So we wanted to create something honest and relatable, something that connects on a human level.

What was behind the decision to put both “Up” and “WAP” — two No. 1 singles, but from four and five years ago, respectively — on the album, and how did that help its first week?

I honestly wasn’t thinking about whether it would help the first week or not. The decision came from a creative place. With this body of work, both “Up” and “WAP” fit the overall messaging Cardi wanted to express. So it wasn’t about any kind of monetary or chart gain — it was about making sure the album told the full story she wanted to tell.

How has Cardi evolved as an artist since you first signed her to Atlantic?

Cardi has always been able to speak from the heart, but over time she’s come to really understand the value of truth-telling in her music and how powerful that can be. She’s lived a lot of life since her first album, and that growth shows. When it comes to marketing and promoting her music, it’s not about strategy or personal gain — it’s about sharing her truth. That authenticity has always been there, but now it’s more intentional and grounded in experience.

Hip-hop has always done well on streaming services, but its share of the market has been slipping lately. How do you assess the health of the genre in the marketplace right now?

I believe the genre is still healthy, the foundation is there. The issue isn’t with hip-hop itself, it’s with the quality of the output. There just isn’t enough great music being made right now. I think the entire genre needs to raise the bar and bring back the competitive spirit that hip-hop was built on — without the violence. That energy, that hunger to push boundaries and outdo each other creatively, is what made hip-hop so impactful in the first place.

Taylor Swift was feeling grateful and energized on Friday morning (Oct. 3) as she unleashed her 12th studio album, The Life of a Showgirl. In an early morning Instagram post featuring a carousel of the dramatic images of Swift in various dancer outfits, Swift shared how she was feeling about the 12-track album finally being out in the world.

“Tonight all these lives converge here. The mosaics of laughter and cocktails of tears. Where fraternal souls sing identical things. And it’s beautiful. It’s rapturous. It is frightening,” Swift wrote. “I can’t tell you how proud I am to share this with you, an album that just feels so right. A forever thank you goes out to my mentors and friends Max [Martin] and Shellback for helping me paint this self portrait,” she added of the pop producer superstar duo with whom she re-teamed on the album after previously collaborating on such hits as “We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together,” “Shake It Off” and “Blank Space” and many others.

“If you thought the big show was wild, perhaps you should come and take a look behind the curtain…,” she added.

The album is a return to pop form for Swift, who co-produced it alongside Martin and Shellback, with the singer weighing in on her relationship with fiancé Travis Kelce on wax for the first time on songs including “Opalite,” a reference to the NFL star’s October birthstone. The album also features the George Michael-interpolating “Father Figure,” as well as the title track collab with Sabrina Carpenter and first single, “The Fate of Ophelia.”

Swift will celebrate the album’s release this weekend with a film event, the 89-minute Taylor Swift: The Official Release Party of a Showgirl, which reportedly features the music video for the album’s opener and lead single, along with lyric videos for the other tracks and Swift’s insight on the new songs. “I hereby invite you to a dazzling soirée,” Swift wrote when sharing the news on Instagram. “Dancing is optional but very much encouraged.”

The film will run during the release weekend, from Friday (Oct. 3) through Sunday (Oct. 5), with tickets available on the event’s website.

Billboard’s Friday Music Guide serves as a handy guide to this Friday’s most essential releases — the key music that everyone will be talking about today, and that will be dominating playlists this weekend and beyond. 

This week, Luke Combs is feeling wistful, Leon Thomas is feeling vindictive, and of course, the most anticipated pop release of the entire year is finally upon us. Check out all of this week’s picks below:

Taylor Swift, The Life of a Showgirl

Yes, Taylor Swift‘s finally back doing big pop, and yes she’s got Max Martin and Shellback in tow again — but 1989, Pt. 2 this ain’t. The Life of a Showgirl has some of the big drums and plenty of the big hooks of this trio’s extended collaboration a decade earlier, but the songwriting and sonic palette are both updated for the mid-2020s, with many tracks based around an organic-skewing pop-rock sound more reminiscent of Fleetwood Mac than Forever Your Girl. Plenty of its songs seem destined to impact on a similar scale though: “Actually Romantic” and “Wood” will be the headline-grabbers for their provocative subject matters, but “Ruin the Friendship” and “Eldest Daughter” may end up the fan favorites for their personal lyrics and wistful melodies.

Luke Combs, “Days Like These”

“When the sky is blue/ And the grass is green/ How much better can it be?” Luke Combs has always had a knack for expressing simple lyrical sentiments as profound truths — particularly when he relies on the power of his voice to carry the song, rather than dulling it with radio-ready overproduction. “Days Like These” features just Combs and an acoustic guitar singing this ode to the core pleasures that make up life — and you can bet country radio will still find it absolutely undeniable.

Leon Thomas, “Just How You Are”

Despite the title’s similarity to classic pop love songs from Billy Joel and Bruno Mars, don’t expect Leon Thomas in a sentimental mood on his new single. “I wrote all these songs about you/ And you never even said a word/ Not even just to say you heard/ I guess ‘congrats’ is your least favorite word,” the R&B singer-songwriter seethes over an airtight soul-funk groove. The wedding ballads can wait; this nasty jam should still get the dancefloor packed in the meantime.

Louis Tomlinson, “Lemonade”

We haven’t heard much from Louis Tomlinson since 2022’s Fate in the Future, but in September he announced he’d be back with the full-length How Did I Get Here? in January 2026. The first taste of that record was delivered this week with lead single “Lemonade,” in which Tomlinson does his best Adam Lambert strut over a muscular disco-rock bounce. No one’s going to be bringing the chorus (“She’s so bitter/ She’s so sweet/ Lemonade”) into Language Arts class anytime soon, but there’s never been a song called “Lemonade” that wasn’t mostly irresistible, and this one is no exception.

Kali Uchis feat. Mariah the Scientist, “Pretty Promises”

After teaming up for one of the year’s most sublime collabs with “Is It a Crime?” from Mariah the Scientist‘s Hearts Sold Separately album, it’s time for Kali Uchis to play host on the deluxe edition of her 2024 LP Sincerely, entitled Sincerely: P.S. The two reconvene for the equally lovely “Pretty Promises,” as the two swear that their word is bond over an underwater groove that they swim around like mermaids. If these are gonna be the results every time this duo teams up, they should really start thinking about doing a full album together.

Fred again.. & Amyl and the Sniffers, “You’re a Star”

Of all the artists you might expect producer phenomenon Fred again.. to team up with for one of his overwhelmingly emotional dancefloor anthems, Australian indie-punk band Amyl and the Sniffers would probably be fairly low on the list, if it made the cut at all. But sure enough, the artist born Frederick John Philip Gibson enlisted Amy Taylor and company for his drum n’ bass-inflected latest single, harnessing the group’s energy and then exploding it with Gesaffelstein-like sirens and typically all-over-the-place vocal triggers. Unexpected but effective — and that’s why he’s a star.