Cardi B shared some exciting news on CBS Mornings on Wednesday (Sept. 17): she’s expecting a baby with boyfriend Stefon Diggs. The “WAP” rapper revealed to co-host Gayle King that she and the New England Patriots wide receiver are gearing up to welcome their little one before she is slated to kick off her just-announced Little Miss Drama tour in February.

“Yes, I am [pregnant]. I’m having a baby with my boyfriend, Stefon Diggs,” Cardi, 32, said with a smile. “I’m excited. I’m happy. I feel like I’m in a good space. I feel very strong. I feel very powerful that I’m doing all this work. But I’m doing all this work while I’m creating a baby, and me and my man, we’re very supportive of each other.” The baby news comes just as Cardi — already a mother of three young ones with ex-husband rapper Offset — is gearing up for the release of her long-awaited sophomore studio LP, Am I the Drama?, which drops on Friday (Sept. 19).

Cardi said she and Diggs, 31, are in the “same space” in their careers, with both arguably “great” at what they respectively do. “Yeah, we’re one of the greatest, but what’s next? What are we doing again?” she said of their mutual ambition. “We’re never comfortable, we just want to keep doing it.”

King asked about the new album track “Safe” and if Diggs makes Cardi feel that way. “Very safe, in both ways, physically — I mean, like you see how big he is — and he just makes me feel safe and very confident and very, like, strong.” She described having a panic attack a few weeks ago, during which she was “crying and crying and crying” over her nerves surrounding the LP’s release.

“People were coming at me very hard. You know, sometimes people love you, people hate you. And people was just saying very mean things about me,” she said. “And I’m like, see, this is why I don’t put music out, because it’s like, this is my art and this is something that I put a lotta love and time to. And it’s just like, sometimes, when people just rip it apart it just hurts you and it crushes you.”

But, she added, Diggs’ support has made her feel “very confident” and like she can take on the world.

She then sent a direct message to all the haters and talkers who’ve been speculating about her for the past few weeks. “Ya’ll wanted to know, right? Now y’all know. Now y’all could buy my album so I could buy Pampers and diapers and all that type of stuff,” she said with a sassy head finger shake. “Now go support my album because I’m a mother of four now.”

Cardi has been in full promo mode this week, interrupting Jimmy Fallon’s Tonight Show monologue on Tuesday night (Sept. 16) to plug the album and dipping into TODAY With Jenna & Friends earlier in the day to announce her 30-date Little Miss Drama tour, slated to kick off on Feb. 11.

She also told host Jenna Bush Hager that despite her testy split with Migos rapper Offset she’s a “hopeless romantic” who would definitely get married again. “I believe in love,” she said.

Am I the Drama? will feature eight guest artists: Cash Cobain, Janet Jackson, Kehlani, Lizzo, Megan Thee Stallion, Selena Gomez, Summer Walker and Tyla. So far, Cardi’s released two singles from the collection, the Hot 100 top 10 “Outside” and the Jay Z-sampling “Imaginary Playerz.

Watch Cardi on CBS Mornings below.

Attendees of the Americana Music Conference who might have expected a heated debate during a fitting conversation on political activism instead encountered an impressive calm on Sept. 11, as a decidedly progressive panel called for a respectful response to the assassination of a controversial conservative personality.

America was dazed, confused and angry following the Sept. 10 shooting of Charlie Kirk, with people on both sides of the political aisle engaging in familiar verbal attacks online.

But Americana artists Allison Russell and Margo Price avoided outrage, as Russell expressed empathy for Kirk and other members of the conservative movement responsible for taking rights away from women and immigrants.

“The news was devastating,” Russell said. “The reaction I found, in some ways, even more devastating. When we lose our moral compass — out of anger, out of vengeance, out of grief — we become that which we repudiate. We become it. So when people say things like, ‘He deserved it,’ that’s not it. We can forgive… We cannot operate from a place of vengeance, of violence, of shame and blame. It just doesn’t work.”

The Americana Music Association announced the panel “Art & Activism” weeks before the convention’s start. Even if Kirk had not been shot, the discussion would still have been appropriate. It was moderated by Tennessee state Rep. Justin Jones, D-District 52, who gained national attention as a member of the so-called Tennessee Three, legislators who were punished by the Republican majority for their animated demonstrations in favor of gun regulation following a shooting at Nashville’s Covenant School in 2023. Lawmakers declined to enact any meaningful reform at the time.

Jones has modeled his efforts as an activist and reformer on the work of Civil Rights leaders such as Martin Luther King Jr. and John Lewis, who was among the demonstrators at Nashville lunch counters when sit-ins broke out across the South in 1960.

The city now boasts the National Museum of African-American Music, located on the same block where Lewis boarded a bus for Alabama in 1961 to join the Freedom Rides, employing nonviolent strategies in a key milestone of the movement. While much of mainstream country’s audience, and many of its artists — most of them based in Nashville — are squarely conservative, a good portion of the industry’s executives are determined to expand the genre’s reach among minority populations, including Blacks, Hispanics and the LGBTQ+ community.

“Being in this country music space has been so challenging for me,” Price said. “People tell me that I can’t say things or to tone it down. [But] I think that we are at such a crucial time in the loss of our democracy. You’ve got to be able to sing truth to power. Let’s dream of a better world.”

Russell, an openly gay Black artist adopted by a white supremacist family in Montreal, recalled a visit with extended relatives in Edmonton, Alberta, when she heard Tracy Chapman’s a cappella “Behind the Wall,” a song about domestic abuse featured on the same album as breakthrough hit “Fast Car.” It was the first time that Russell realized she could change the trajectory of her life, and it informed her passion for songs that make a difference in the world.

“Anytime you’re singing a message, it’s kind of like that ‘spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down,’ ” she said, referencing a song from Mary Poppins. “It opens people up to receive, maybe, news that they would not otherwise take into their system.”

Russell referenced Bloody Sunday — a moment in 1965 when Lewis and others were beaten by state troopers while peacefully marching for civil rights in Selma, Ala. — and mentioned meeting an activist from that era who talked about extending forgiveness to his oppressors. Russell said that same spirit is required while progressive forces fight against the erosion of rights that’s taken place in America over the past decade.

“We have to learn to forgive the unforgivable in order to liberate ourselves from these endless cycles of harm and violence,” she said. “It’s the only way.”

Joan Baez, Bob Dylan, John Lennon, Woody Guthrie and folk singer Odetta — artists who opposed the Vietnam War, racism and fascists in previous eras — were among those mentioned as inspirations for Price and Russell. Their support of blue-collar communities set an example that the “Art & Activism” panel encouraged today’s musicmakers to follow.

“These are very difficult times,” Jones said. “The saying that ‘democracy dies in darkness’ — I say that creativity dies in isolation, and fascism thrives in both. We are connected for a reason, and I know that we shall overcome.”

MGK has conquered the worlds of hip-hop, emo punk and pop, not to mention building a budding acting resumé. But this week the multi-hyphenate landed a new notch on his experience belt that no one saw coming: he lectured at Harvard Business School.

Colson Baker chronicled the unexpected visit on his Instagram, where he posted a series of pictures of his visit to the venerated Boston university, including a shot of him standing next to the school’s sign wearing his version of professor chic: baggy grey dress pants, a brown bomber jacket, a button down shirt, two different ties (one tied, the other loose around his neck) and, of course, a white baseball hat promoting his Lost Americana album.

“Harvard has a new professor,” he captioned the series, which also featured a snap of him poring over a thick textbook on a train, seemingly in preparation for the visit, standing on steps with a group of students (and not-so-subtly flipping the bird), chilling on the quad and posing in a classroom with more students.

A close-up showed off his official Harvard crimson tie with the school’s motto “Veritas” (truth) and a short video of MGK at a chalkboard writing the words “Water Fire Air Earth” ended with him breaking the chalk and feigning frustration to the laughs of students.

In an Instagram Story, Kelly captioned the snap in front of the biz school sign with “hi class, my name is mr. machine,” followed by a short video of him taking off his college tie drag, writing “class dismissed” underneath as Fisher and AATIG’s “Take It Off” played in the background.

It was quite a trip for the rapper, who in a 2011 interview said he graduated from high school in Cleveland, but had “not a damn” plan to attend college. “But I always plan on being educated… college particularly, do I believe in it?,” said MGK, who was 21 at the time. “For certain people, yes… does a degree make you or break you to be viewed as an intelligent American citizen? Not at all.”

At press time spokespeople for MGK and Harvard Business School had not returned Billboard‘s request for comment on the visit or the details of the lecture.

Last week, Kelly was dressed up for a different reason. He received the Style Icon award at the 12th Fashion Media Awards, where he was accompanied by his teenage daughter Casie and BFF comedian Pete Davidson, with the latter presenting him with the prize. “Pound-for-pound I think he’s maybe the most talented person I’ve ever met,”Davidson said. “He can rap, he can play guitar, he can rock, he can act. He’s a great dad. He always leads by example for me, I look up to him.”

MGK released his seventh studio album, Lost Americana, in August, which featured his No. 62 Billboard Hot 100 single “Cliché.”

The Tonight Show is Jimmy Fallon’s vehicle, sure. But only when Cardi B doesn’t stop by.

The “Bodak Yellow” rapper made a classic entrance on Fallon’s late night show Tuesday, Sept. 16, as he was delivering his monologue.

First, Cardi Facetimed the talkshow host. Then — voila! — she strolled onto the set, to share some important information.

Carrying the vinyl of her forthcoming album Am I The Drama?, Cardi showed off the artwork, announced a tour, and urged viewers to get off their armchairs and buy a copy of her long-awaited collection.

“Tell people on your show to get my album. Thank you.” She quipped, “tell your audience or I’m gonna be homeless.”

As previously reported, Cardi B’s second album, Am I The Drama?, is due out this Friday, Sept. 19, and is the followup to her 2018 debut, Invasion of Privacy.

Her Miss Drama Tour will play 30 arenas up and down North America and will go on sale the following Friday, Sept. 25, Fallon announced. Those dates will get underway Feb. 11, 2026 at Palm Desert, CA and will wrap up April 17 in Atlanta, GA.

Earlier this week, Cardi revealed that the new LP will feature eight guest artists: Cash Cobain, Janet Jackson, Kehlani, Lizzo, Megan Thee Stallion, Selena Gomez, Summer Walker and Tyla. So far, she’s released two singles from the collection, the Hot 100 top 10 “Outside” and the Jay Z-sampling “Imaginary Playerz.

Watch Cardi’s Tonight Show spot below.

Foo Fighters ’ smattering of confirmed live dates should be just the beginning of another massive tour.

The Rock Hall-inducted stadium fillers have been off the road since September 2024 and is set to return to the stage with upcoming shows in Indonesia (Oct. 2), Singapore (Oct. 4), Japan (Oct. 7, 8, 10) and Mexico (Nov. 12, 14).

“Stay tuned,” reads a new message from the band, posted late Tuesday, Sept. 16. “There’s more to come.”

Dave Grohl and Co. dropped the cryptic clue in a goofy “Keeping It Real” video, which sees the bandmates delivering their lines with all the gusto of cartoon robots, and generative AI hogging the visuals.

A separate message from the band leaves little doubt about their plans to mount another monster trek. “Thank You!!!,” it reads. “Where Will We See You Next???”

The rockers released their 11th and latest studio album, But Here We Are, in 2023, marking their first new music following the death of longtime drummer Taylor Hawkins.

The band celebrated its 30th anniversary in July with the release of a new track titled “Today’s Song,” and made a surprise performance on Saturday (Sept. 13) for an all-ages show at the Fremont Theater in San Luis Obispo, California.

That show served as a coming out party for the Foos new drummer Ilan Rubin, who appears in the new social video with, count them, 10 arms. “Wait ‘till you meet our new drummer,” quips Grohl.