With Kendrick Lamar and SZA’s 13-week Billboard Hot 100 No. 1 “Luther” falling off the Hot 100 dated Oct. 25, 2025, there were officially no rap songs in the chart’s top 40 last week. 

The highest-ranking rap song — defined as a song deemed eligible for charting on Billboard’s Hot Rap Songs listing — on the Oct. 25 Hot 100 was YoungBoy Never Broke Again’s “Shot Callin,” at No. 44. Cardi B’s “Safe” (featuring Kehlani) and BigXthaPlug’s “Hell at Night” (featuring Ella Langley) also ranked in the 40s, at Nos. 48 and 49, respectively. 

The last time before that when there were zero rap songs in the top 40 of the Hot 100? You have to go back all the way back to Feb. 2, 1990, when the top-ranking rap song was Biz Markie’s eventual top 10 hit “Just a Friend,” which had just climbed to No. 41 on the chart. The next week, “Just a Friend” jumped to 29, starting a Hot 100 streak of rap songs in the top 40 that would last for the next 35 years, eight months and three weeks. 

Recent rule changes to Billboard’s Hot 100 methodology did play a part in the streak coming to an end. For the chart dated Oct. 25, descending songs were deemed recurrent and removed from the chart if they had exceeded certain durations on the chart while also falling below certain updated chart thresholds — for instance, if they had fallen below No. 25 after spending over 26 weeks on the chart. That particular change resulted in the departure of “Luther,” which had fallen to No. 38 on the previous week’s Hot 100 in its 46th week on the listing.

However, with “Luther” and seven other songs in the Hot 100’s top 40 going recurrent on the Oct. 25 chart following the rule change, there was also extra opportunity for songs below them on the chart to rebound into the top 40, or to reach it for the first time. No rap songs were close enough to the threshold to be able to make that jump. (Also in the way: all 12 songs from Taylor Swift’s new album, The Life of a Showgirl, have been lodged in the top 40 the past three weeks, further limiting room for rap hits in the region.)

The lack of rap songs in the Hot 100’s top 40 is the latest sign of a recent dip in rap’s commercial dominance. Hip-hop’s overall market share reached a peak in 2020, when it neared 30%. That had slipped to just over 25% in 2023, and has been at 24% so far in 2025, through the week of Oct. 23. In the Hot 100 chart for the equivalent chart week five years ago (dated Oct. 24, 2020), a whopping 16 of the top 40 were rap songs, while in the equivalent chart two years ago (Oct. 28, 2023) there were eight rap songs in the top 40. 

It is worth noting that the rap world is currently in a bit of an in-between moment with some of its biggest names. Drake, the biggest chart mainstay of the past 15 years (and the artist with the most Hot 100 hits of all time), has not yet released his much-anticipated Iceman album, while his 2024 foe Lamar is finally somewhat dormant following an 18-month period of cultural and commercial domination. However, the last few months have not been totally without big rap releases: both Cardi B and BigXthaPlug (two of the rappers currently closest to the top 40) have released new albums since August, and even without a new album, Drake has released a steady stream of new singles since announcing the album in July. 

“Luther” is also the most recent rap song to appear in the Hot 100’s top 10, last doing so on the chart dated Aug. 2, when it ranked at No. 9, before falling to No. 12 the next week. In the two months and three weeks following that chart, the closest another rap song got to the Hot 100’s top 10 was BigXthaPlug’s “All the Way” (featuring Bailey Zimmerman), which ranked at No. 22 for the Hot 100 dated Sept. 6, after peaking at No. 4 in April.

On this week’s Hot 100 (dated Nov. 1, 2025), the rap song-less streak is extended to a second week, as once again no rap songs rate in the chart’s top 40. However, “Shot Callin” does get one spot closer to ending the drought by breaking into the region, climbing No. 44-43 this week. 

Additional reporting by Dan Rys.

Nobody is saying there is a direct connection, but it sure seems like whenever Brad Paisley performs the national anthem before a World Series game things tend to go long. The “When I Get Where I’m Going” singer sang the “Star-Spangled Banner” at Dodger Stadium on Monday (Oct. 27) in game three of the World Series between the Los Angeles Dodgers and the Toronto Blue Jays, there was no way to know that the contest would stretch into a record-tying 18 innings over more than six-and-a-half hours, with the Dodgers ending up with a 6-5 victory.

Well, unless you’ve been paying attention and clocked that it was the fourth time Paisley had done the honors, with each one of those games going into extra innings: 11 innings for game 2 in 2017, 18 innings for game 3 in 2018 and 10 innings in game one in 2024.

Speaking to the Associated Press on Tuesday (Oct. 28), Paisley revealed whether, given his track record, he suspected Monday’s game would go long. “No, I fully, I fully expected this to actually be over in nine for maybe the first time in a while, you know,” he said, adding, “I am cursed. No, I don’t think so. … It’s wild. It’s fun. I think it’s a really fun thing.”

Paisley said that actually, instead of being a curse, he considers his extra inning run as one of those “weird fun facts that baseball excels in… It’s what Brad Pitt says in Moneyball. It’s like, ‘How can you not be romantic about baseball?’”

In fact, Paisley is so into his unique status as baseball’s extra inning man that he’s given himself a new nickname: “Mr. More Baseball.”

“It’s kind of cool to know that I sang the anthem at a couple, at the two of the four total Dodger walk-off games that ever happened. The other two were before my time anyway. … And especially the one that was 18 innings,” Paisley said, noting that around the 16th inning on Monday he thought, “‘There’s no way this is happening again.’” The day after, the singer said he saw a couple of statisticians note that he’s never performed at a World Series game that didn’t go into extra innings. “I’m available for football games, too,” he joked. “If anybody wants, you know, another quarter or two out of their team.”

Though Paisley is a West Virginia native, he said marrying wife actress Kimberly-Williams Paisley in 2003 and having a home in the Los Angeles area has made him a de facto Dodgers die-hard. “I would take the kids to these games. I got to know so many people there. … It was just an easy transition into that. I grew up going to Pirates games. My dad liked the Indians,” he said of his other go-to teams.

He noted that he’s also become friendly with a few Dodgers players, including pitcher Clayton Kershaw and infielder Justin Turner, as well as team manager Dave Roberts. “We’ve had adventures together,” Paisley said. “It’s a slow progress to where you’re addicted to something. And I got there pretty quick a while back.”

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With the 2025-26 NBA season in full swing, the league is already seeing a lot of buzz and excitement for what’s to come throughout the schedule. The first big event is the NBA Cup, a six-week in-season knockout tournament where each team has a chance to win it all.

What is the NBA In-Season Tournament?

The NBA Cup is an annual competition for all 30 teams matched up in three groups in both east and west conferences (six groups, in total) that runs concurrent with the NBA season. The NBA debuted three seasons ago with the Los Angeles Lakers and Milwaukee Bucks winning in 2023 and 2024, respectively.

NBA Cup games take place on Fridays, Wednesdays and Tuesdays until the final in Las Vegas, Nevada on Tuesday, Dec. 16. Check out a complete schedule for the NBA Cup here.

Read on for details, plus ways to watch and stream NBA Cup games live online.

How to Watch the 2025 NBA Cup Online

The 2025 NBA Cup begins on Friday, Oct. 31 with group play. Games livestream on Prime Video, ESPN, NBC and Peacock, and NBA League Pass. Basketball fans who don’t have access to live TV through cable, streaming or a digital antenna, can livestream on DirecTV, Sling TV and Hulu + Live TV, as well as Prime Video, ESPN Unlimited, Peacock and NBA League Pass.

Can you watch NBA games live online for free? Yes! Streaming services, like DirecTV and Hulu + Live TV offer free trials for up to five days of use.

Prime Video

Prime Video is the home for the NBA Cup games throughout the tournament. To watch NBA Cup games, you’ll need to be a Prime member. Signing up will grant you access to Prime Video to watch the basketball games as well as a whole suite of benefits, including fast two-day (or less) free shipping; discounts at Whole Foods Market, access to exclusive shopping events — like Prime Day and Black Friday — and other perks.

Meanwhile, Amazon is offering a 30-day free trial for new subscribers who want to try out the service. When the trial is finished, you can either cancel the streaming service altogether, or you can keep watching starting at $8.99 per month. However, if you want all the perks that come with Amazon Prime, it goes for $14.99 per month (or $139 per year) — a nearly 25% savings.

DirecTV

A subscription to DirecTV — which comes with NBC and ESPN for the NBA Cup — gets you access to live TV, local and cable channels, starting at $49.99 for the first month of service ($84.99 per month afterwards). The service even offers a five-day free trial to watch for free, if you sign up now.

You can watch local networks such as ABC, CBS and PBS, while you can also watch many cable networks, including FS1, Lifetime, FX, AMC, A&E, Bravo, BET, MTV, Paramount Network, Cartoon Network, VH1, Fuse, CNN, Food Network, CNBC and many others.

Sling TV

Sling TV offers the Orange + Blue plan, which comes with ESPN and NBC (in some markets). Orange + Blue goes for half off for your first month of service, while it gets you access to all channels offered from Sling in their base plans and the ability to stream on up to three devices at once. Please note: Pricing and channel availability varies from market-to-market.

Hulu + Live TV

For the most content offerings, you can sign up for Hulu + Live TV and get access to the Hulu library in addition to more then 95 live TV channels (including ESPN and NBC). The streaming platform starts at $64.99 per month for the first three months of service ($82.99 per month afterwards).

And, for even more programming, Hulu + Live TV now comes bundled with Disney+ and ESPN Unlimited, which will give you everything within the Hulu library in addition to exclusive content on ESPN for even more sports coverage.

Peacock

The simplest way to get instant access to NBA on NBC is through NBCUniversal’s official streaming platform, Peacock. While there is no free trial for new users, the platform offers cheap plans starting at just $10.99 per month, or you can get an annual plan for $109.99 per year (which gets you 12 months of streaming for the price of 10).

Outside of the 2025 NBA Cup, you can look forward to streaming TV shows, includes Poker Face, The Traitors, Couple to Throuple, The Best Man: The Final Chapters, Love Island, Yellowstone, Suits, The Office, Modern Family and Parks & Recreation.

The streaming service is also the home to exclusive music programming, such as Girl You Know It’s True, Toby Keith: American Icon, When Metal Ruled the World, America’s Got Talent and others.

ESPN Unlimited

ESPN Unlimited is the official streaming platform for ESPN, and a subscription includes instant access to games and more exclusive content for $29.99 per month. You can save almost 17% off by purchasing an annual subscription for $299.99 per year.

Want to watch the NBA Cup internationally? Use ExpressVPN to access various streaming platforms from outside the U.S.

Want more? For more product recommendations, check out our roundups of the best Xbox deals, studio headphones and Nintendo Switch accessories.

When Marshall Betts and Avery McTaggart first began sketching ideas for what would become TBA Agency, live music had all but vanished. The touring world was at a standstill, and hundreds of agents—including the pair and their future partners—had just been laid off from the now-shuttered Paradigm Talent Agency in March 2020 as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. What began as a few late-night phone calls between friends became a bold bet on the future of live music at a time when there was no live music at all.

Both Betts and McTaggart had followed parallel paths through the agency world. After early stints at The Windish Agency, they joined Paradigm when Windish was acquired, helping to expand the company into one of the dominant forces in touring. “Paradigm was acquiring half a dozen agents every quarter,” Betts recalled. “It was rapid expansion—and then, in March 2020, everything stopped.” The demands of social distancing and stay-at-home notices paused the live music world for more than a year. Within weeks, entire departments at agencies like Paradigm were laid off or suspended. “No one even knew what the next week would look like,” he said.

By that Friday, Betts and McTaggart were on the phone. “We thought, let’s get the group together on Monday,” Betts said. “Everyone was just trying to figure out what was happening, calling clients to ask if they’d stick with them even though none of us had jobs. Luckily, most of them said yes.”

Those conversations quickly turned into strategy sessions. “We asked ourselves: what worked at Paradigm, what didn’t, what worked at Windish—and how could we build something better?” Betts said. Within three and a half months, TBA was born.

Launching a live-touring agency during a global shutdown was an audacious move, but the partners saw opportunity amid chaos. “We were pitching a live touring business in the middle of a pandemic,” Betts said. “But there was a real appetite for something independent. People understood that artists didn’t need a thousand-person corporate structure to succeed.”

For McTaggart, who had long envisioned a more personal and flexible model of representation, the pandemic was the catalyst. “I’d always thought there was room for a new kind of independent agency,” he said. “The business had become so consolidated—independents being absorbed by larger firms. There hadn’t been a major new agency launch in over a decade. I felt there would always be an appetite for something that operated differently, that treated both artists and employees like humans, not cogs.”

Between May and August 2020, the founding team worked nonstop to build the company from scratch. They handled everything from corporate structure and health insurance to web design and branding. “The pandemic forced us to slow down and think through every detail,” McTaggart said. “We weren’t booking tours, so we had the bandwidth to really build the foundation.”

The final phase of planning took place on the road. “Marshall and I rented an RV with our partners and spent a month driving around the country, finalizing the business plan,” McTaggart said. “We’d work during the day, park at campgrounds, and sleep under the stars. Honestly, it was one of the best months of my life.”

The First Call Sheet

When TBA officially launched on September 1, 2020, the industry was still largely dormant. Yet the agency started strong—with a roster of roughly 200 artists, including Unknown Mortal Orchestra, Jungle, Bob Moses, Hot Chip and Mura Masa, most of whom had followed McTaggart and his partners from Paradigm.

“I basically told my clients, ‘I’m building something new. Give me time, and I’ll show you who’s involved,’” McTaggart said. “It would’ve been the easiest time in the world for them to drop me—but they didn’t. Every single one of them came along for the ride.”

TBA launched fully staffed—with agents, assistants, coordinators, tour marketing, and brand partnership departments already in place. “We wanted to do it properly,” McTaggart said. “Even with no touring revenue, we made sure our employees had health insurance. We believed that if we treated our people right, everything else would follow.”

From the start, Betts said, TBA prioritized experience and personal connection over rapid expansion. “We wanted people who could have meaningful conversations with artists—not just about booking, but about their careers,” he said. “It was always quality over quantity. We built a strong foundation, and that’s paid off. We’ve tripled in size since day one, and most of our staff are still here.”

That foundation also created a culture of collaboration and transparency among other independents. “In the early pandemic, with NITO and NIVA forming, there was this sense of unity,” Betts said. “Independent agencies started talking and helping each other. It was a period of peace and cooperation we’d never seen before. Now it’s more competitive again, but those walls have come down a bit. It’s healthier.”

Five years later, the bet on independence has paid off — not only for TBA but for the entire ecosystem of agencies launched in that same window. “The success of independent companies isn’t a threat to the big agencies,” McTaggart said. “It’s good for the business. There’s more choice for artists, for agents, for employees. Healthy competition means a healthier live industry overall.”

He points to sectors like ticketing as a cautionary tale: “The parts of the music business that are least healthy are the ones with no competition. On the live side, the rise of independent agencies has made things stronger.”

Both Betts and McTaggart believe the model has lasting power. “Artists have learned they don’t need the biggest name or biggest Rolodex to reach their goals,” Betts said. “Sometimes, it’s actually better not to have that. What they do need is people who care, who move quickly, and who understand their vision.”

As the agency marks its fifth anniversary, its founders are mindful of the challenges ahead — rising touring costs, economic uncertainty, and the pressures facing both artists and promoters. “Every side of the business is grappling with higher costs and more unpredictability,” McTaggart said. “We’re more involved than ever in tour budgeting, in understanding what things really cost. You can’t just book a tour and walk away anymore. You have to build sustainable growth.”

For Betts, the past five years are proof that independent doesn’t mean small — it means intentional. “We didn’t need a thousand-person payroll to make an impact,” he said. “We just needed the right people, the right artists, and the right values.”

For all the meticulous planning that mothers and fathers do before the big day arrives, things have a tendency to go sideways while babies are being born. Just ask Justin Bieber, who earlier this week fessed up to kind of losing his cool in the delivery room when wife Hailey Bieber was giving birth to their son, Jack Blues Bieber, last August.

During one of his now-daily Twitch streams, Bieber described to some friends what it felt like when things got tense between him and the couple’s doula, a non-medical professional who is on hand to provide emotional and physical support during birth. In a grab of the chat from a fan, Bieber says, “I remember dealing with, like… there was tension with… ’cause we had a doula and then we had a nurse as well, and the nurse and the doula were really kind of butting heads.”

Adding to the tension, Bieber said, “then I was butting heads with the doula, and it was just like this… and I was hella emotional because it’s like, this is like one of the most important times of your life, and I remember just like, I think I was being really strong with the doula.” Bieber said his advocacy made wife Hailey feel anxious. “So she’s like, ‘you need to apologize to the doula,’” he said she told him. “Just clear the air.”

So, the “Sorry” singer said he apologized, explaining that his emotions were running high at that moment. “‘I don’t want you to take away from my moment either as the dad,’” he said he told the doula. “‘I got this too.’ There’s times when I need to console Hailey and I felt like she was pushing me to the side so that she could do [her job],” said the singer, who noted that he felt he had “good instincts too” as a first-time dad.

While baby Jack has seemingly not shown up to hang out in the playpen Bieber set up in the middle of the giant studio where he is streaming on Twitch, the singer has been busy since launching the feed last week. So far, he has played a lot of basketball with his crew, sung what sounded like the beginnings of a new song on Monday and, on Wednesday (Oct. 29), did an intense trainer-led group workout with his boys.