The debut edition of Northern Nights x Dirtybird went down in the woods of NorCal this past July 18-20, and we’ve got sonic proof.

Hear exclusive sets from the festival from Jersey Club titan UNIIQU3, globe-trotting DJ and GM of dance at EMPIRE Moody Jones, soul and R&B-focused house producer Life On Planets and Dirtybird OG J. Phlip. All in, it’s four hours of music from the party weekend. Listen below.

Other performers for Dirtybird x Northern Nights 2025 included headliners Zeds Dead, Jungle, Aluna, Justin Martin, Levity and Walker & Royce. The fest happened along the shore of the Eel River and featured loads of daytime activities along with the music by night.

It marked the first collaborative event from the longstanding Northern Nights festival and the Dirtybird events brand, which launched in 2015 and was acquired by EMPIRE following the San Francisco-based label’s 2022 acquisition of the Dirtybird label.

“As the label was undergoing a leadership change under EMPIRE, it was important for us to take a step back and plan for the next evolution of the brand and the fan experience,” Jones told Billboard upon the festival’s announcement. “We knew we had to bring it back, and we know how much the fans have missed it, so it was a matter of timing it right.”

“From our very first conversation it was clear that we shared a deep connection within the same music community,” added Northern Nights co-founder Andrew Borgelt. “Throughout the process, both teams remained aligned on a shared vision — ensuring that each brand’s voice was authentically represented while seamlessly merging the essence of both festivals.”

UNIIQU3

Moody Jones

Life On Planets

J. Phlip

Suno, a leading generative AI music company, has announced the launch of Suno Studio, its new digital audio workstation (DAW) — or, as the company calls it, a “generative audio workstation.” The product combines all of Suno’s tools for music generation into one product, including generating individual stems, editing in a multi-track timeline and starting with any audio (samples, stems, even a hummed melody) and transforming it into something new, and exporting everything as audio and MIDI.

Ultimately, the product shows that Suno is not just interested in being the engine behind songs made at the click of a button — it’s interested in rivaling longtime professional DAWs like Logic, Ableton and FL Studio as well as newer browser-based options like Bandlab. “The goal is: however you know how to express a musical idea, whether it’s through piano, through humming something, through tapping on the table, through uploading a demo, or through a list of adjectives and genres — however you know how to express a musical idea, we want to let you hear it come to life,” says Suno product manager Henry Phipps in an exclusive interview with Billboard about the new tool.

The beta version of Suno Studio is available on Thursday (Sept. 25) to all users with a Premier Plan.

To introduce and finetune Suno Studio, the company has been quietly working with songwriting camps to get it into the hands of professional musicians, including a recent one at Rick Rubin’s famous Shangri-La studios in Malibu, Calif., hosted by Frank Ocean and Jay-Z producer Om’Mas Keith. “The music creation camp I did with Suno at Shangri-La was a high-profile art meets science experiment,” says Keith.

“We’ve done probably nine or ten [camps] so far,” Paul Sinclair, Suno’s new chief music officer, tells Billboard. “We’ve got five more already lined up. We are going to Asia for the next few weeks, and there’s even more for October and November.” Producers at these camps have also included THURZ of Party in My Living Room, Rance of 1500 or Nothin’, DONUT and more.

“But we’re not running these camps. Someone will come to us and say, ‘I would like to do a writer’s camp and I would like Suno to be part of it,’” says Sinclair.

Phipps adds, “I go to them as tech support… These are people interested in exploring the future, basically. All of these people have no trouble making incredible records on their own, they’re just interested in trying something brand new…It’s been interesting. At each of these camps, the creative in charge always has a very different way of interacting with Suno.”

“We’re witnessing a paradigm shift taking place in studios right now as AI becomes a part of more artists’ creative process,” said Mikey Shulman, co-founder and CEO of Suno, in a statement. “Studio was built to expand the toolkit for musicians; it intentionally does not prescribe workflows so that human talent can remain front and center. What’s been most inspiring for us is putting the technology in the hands of artists and watching them experiment with what’s possible, all with their creativity, knowledge and talent remaining in the driver’s seat.”

This is the latest in a string of announcements from the leading generative AI music company in recent months. In early June, Suno debuted new editing features, like its “creative slider” and stem extraction tools, to give users more control. Later that month, the company announced its acquisition of WavTool, a browser-based DAW. And in July, the company revealed that it had hired former Atlantic Records general manager Sinclair as its first chief music officer to “unlock new experiences between artists and fans.”

The major music companies — including Sinclair’s former employer, Warner Music Group — are still pursuing lawsuits against Suno and its competitor Udio, alleging that the companies have infringed on their copyrighted sound recordings on “an almost unimaginable scale” by using them to train models without a license. In early June, it was reported that the majors were in licensing talks with Suno and Udio to see if private licensing agreements could be reached.

Most recently, on Friday (Sept. 19), the majors updated their lawsuit against Suno to also include claims that Suno scraped their songs from YouTube, taking a cue from Anthropic’s recent $1.5 billion copyright settlement while citing an exclusive Billboard report on mass piracy in AI training.

Billboard is set to launch CLUB Billboard, a livestream DJ series that will feature DJs spinning the hottest Latin music tracks currently on the Billboard charts on Friday (Sept. 26). CLUB Billboard will premiere at 8 p.m. ET. on Billboard Latin’s YouTube channel.

The first DJ who will take part in the series is CC Love, a first-generation Mexican American who spins Latin sets in Los Angeles. She’s also a resident tour DJ for Gasolina Party and Reggaetón Rave.

“Music is my escape! And it’s healing for people that work all day. I want to be a part of that healing experience,” CC Love tells Billboard. “From the first time I went to Coachella in 2014, I fell in love with DJing and have been spinning ever since.”

Offering a sneak peak of what artists will make it into her set, she says: “The artist that always makes it in to my mix is Bad Bunny. Lots of El Alfa, Rauw Alejandro and Young Miko. Old school reggaetón like Daddy Yankee and Ivy Queen, too.”

You can tune in starting 8 p.m. ET for DJ CC Love’s set, and for a chance to win a pair of tickets to Billboard Latin Music Week 2025, which is scheduled for Oct. 20-24 in Miami. No purchase necessary. Winners will be confirmed via email. See Official Rules for details here.

Spanning 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 will once again host panels, marquee conversations, roundtables, networking and activations, in addition to its celebrated Billboard En Vivo showcases.

Nearly a year after Kygo‘s massive October 2024 performance at Los Angeles’ iconic Hollywood Bowl, fans can revisit the experience via a new concert film.

Kygo: Back at the Bowl opens in theaters across the U.S. on Friday, Sept. 26. The hour and 40-minute film captures every moment from the Norwegian producer’s Bowl show, which included appearances from special guests including Zak Abel, Ryan Tedder, Ava Max and Zara Larsson.

The Oct. 17, 2024, headlining performance marked Kygo’s second appearance at the Hollywood Bowl, as he first played the venue during a pair of shows in October of 2016. These earlier nights generated their own documentary, 2017’s Kygo: Live at the Hollywood Bowl.

Last year, Kygo told Billboard that his approach to touring has changed dramatically in the years between these two Hollywood Bowl performances. “It was like every show was life or death,” he said. “I was always very nervous. It was like, ‘This is the most important [thing ever], and if I mess up tonight, my career is over.’”

Given this pressure, the star producer “wasn’t really able to enjoy the shows that much,” he shared at the time. “At one point I was like, ‘I’m probably never going to tour again,’ because it was just so exhausting.”

But with a shift in attitude, Kygo said that the 2024 run that included the Hollywood Bowl set was “definitely my favorite [tour] that I’ve done so far.”

Starting in September of 2024, the 35-date trek moved through arenas and amphitheaters in North America, Europe and Central America, averaging slightly more than 10,000 tickets and $838,000 in revenue per show, according to numbers reported to Billboard Boxscore. The run continued into 2025 with shows in Asia, Australia and North America.

Kygo’s upcoming concerts include plays at his own Palm Tree Crew festivals in Montecito and Napa Valley, Calif., on Oct. 4 and 11, respectively.

Watch Billboard‘s exclusive clip of Abel and Kygo playing 2024’s “For Life” at the Bowl below.