During CMA Fest in 2024, K. Michelle introduced herself to a Nashville stadium full of country fans from a small satellite stage at the far end of the venue with “Jack Daniel’s,” a song that embraced bourbon as if it were a fellow human being.

Her voice was big, her look was bold, the song was clever, and a portion of the 50,000 or so in attendance — largely unfamiliar with K. Michelle and her R&B history — didn’t know quite what to make of her. But she belted out “Jack Daniel’s” with an unrepentant swagger, referencing the city’s honky-tonk district across the river from Nissan Stadium in the process. And she did, in fact, amass some new fans with that first-time exposure.

“It’s a feel record,” she says. “It’s addictive, and those who caught the lyrics, I knew that they would be able to relate with me about ‘Jack Daniel’s.’ So it was really a good moment for me, and just to see people — even after I sang it — in my DMs, to go to Broadway, and people asked about the record. I know that there was something with the record.”

Long before K. Michelle sang about a romantic relationship with Jack Daniel’s, she had a business relationship with the manufacturer. In 2017, she helped develop a Southern peach cocktail brand, including the packaging, which featured a first-ever gold cap for the bottle. In the process, she became the first Black woman named an ambassador for one of the best-known alcohol trademarks.

“I had a great experience with Jack — not only just loving the product,” she says. “They taught me more about business than I’ve ever learned. Like the song says, ‘Something here’s different, something feels right.’ ”

Her background with Jack Daniel’s the company helped fuel “Jack Daniel’s” the song. K. Michelle was a fan of Morgan Wallen’s Dangerous: The Double Album, and as she dug into the credits, she realized the songs she most liked were written by ERNEST. Her manager set her up with a co-write circa 2021, and when ERNEST came to her house, she ended up recounting her “Jack” history.

“I do jam sessions, so I make sure everybody has food — a lot of food — and we all get comfortable,” K. Michelle says. “I was telling this story, and I was saying that I have something I’ve been saying my whole career, and that’s ‘Jack Daniel’s is the only man I trust.’ That’s been with me for years, so we ended up writing about it from that perspective after I said that line.”

They kicked into it sequentially from the opening verse, with ERNEST describing Nashville’s busy Downtown night scene in conjunction with short, choppy phrases in the initial lines. The pre-chorus became more elongated, while No. 7 was introduced into the plot. No. 7 is, of course, a key part of the Jack label, though listeners can be forgiven if — before they become fully familiar with it — they associate the number with NASCAR drivers. 

They segued into a high-energy chorus that starts with stark, descending quarter notes, recognizing in the process how many times the woman has “been let down like a bottle just collecting dust.” Jack offers what she needs — “He keeps me warm, I keep him close” — working its way to the “only man I trust” payoff.

Overall, they pulled together a strong framework for “Jack Daniel’s,” made a simple demo, then let it simmer. Eventually, K. Michelle decided “Jack” was worth finishing, and she called on songwriters Rocky Block (“Cowgirls,” “Man Made a Bar”) and Jordan Dozzi (“Pour Me a Drink”) to bring it home. One of their most important duties was to ensure the listener didn’t know Jack was a whiskey, rather than a guy, in the song’s opening frames.

“We double-checked everything and made sure we didn’t give it away until the chorus,” Dozzi says. “That was definitely intentional.”

K. Michelle was adamant that it needed a bridge — “I just don’t think a record is complete without one,” she says — and they fashioned one around a “shot in the Broadway dark,” pushing the melody to a higher, more challenging peak. “She’s so aware of her voice and not afraid to sing that high and that powerfully,” Dozzi notes. “That’s her just going, ‘Hey, I’m going to sing my ass off here.’ That’s all her.”

Producer Jeff Balding (Megadeth, BeBe Winans) lined up a recording session at Blackbird Studio D, where the goal was to create a track full of intensity. “She wanted it to have a raw feel, to push it,” Balding says, “to really just have some angst to it.”

Guitarist Tom Bukovac developed a 1990s alt-flavored guitar opening with a simple riff that changed the phrasing on the descending melody from the chorus. The rhythm section, bassist Craig Young and drummer Shannon Forrest, borrowed from R&B, with Young playing an active, aerobic part. K. Michelle belted her vocals without restraint.

“The headphones are a huge part of it, making sure we’ve got the right mix,” Balding says. “Once we get that locked in, she doesn’t seem to be shy about just going for it.”

She wanted to give “Jack Daniel’s” every chance to succeed, so she asked Kristian Bush if he had any further production ideas, and they ended up doing more work on it. Guitarist Benji Shanks offered a fiery solo before the bridge and stabbing, descending lines at the end of the chorus.

“We have this awesome little place in Atlanta,” Kristian says. “It’s like a 600-square-foot room with a bathroom in it and a kitchen, and we leave the doors open, and all the high school kids walk by. It’s just a Downtown Atlanta thing, and Benji was in there screaming that lead.”

Brandon Bush also tailored a new Hammond B-3 part to suit K. Michelle’s vocals. “You can control the Hammond in such a way that you figure out where the singer’s actual frequency of their voice is, and you hollow that out on the Hammond so that that frequency doesn’t exist in the instrument,” Kristian says. “Imagine it’s a raft that you can sit in and it buoys you on all sides, but in the middle, you’re down in it. That’s the way you use a Hammond organ for a lot of women’s voices.”

BBR Music Group released “Jack Daniel’s” to digital service providers on Aug. 29, and K. Michelle hopes that her relationship with the song and the manufacturer helps in her efforts to build a relationship with the country fan base.

“I kind of just want to be the bridge,” she says. “Music is the universal language, and I want to bring people together. I always do it through food, music and Jack Daniel’s.” 

THE BIG STORY: Taylor Swift was once again dragged into the never-ending legal war between Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni over the movie It Ends With Us — with a confusing back-and-forth over whether the superstar was going to be deposed.

Baldoni has been claiming for months that Swift’s friendship with Lively makes her a key witness in the ugly case, in which Lively alleges Baldoni sexually harassed her and then orchestrated a retaliatory smear campaign. In June, a judge granted him access to Swift and Lively’s text messages as part of the document discovery process.

Now, Baldoni wants to depose Swift. In a court filing last week, his lawyers claimed the superstar had “agreed to appear for deposition” after her schedule opened up next month. But Swift’s attorneys quickly said that wasn’t what had actually happened.

“My client did not agree to a deposition,” Swift’s attorney wrote. “But if she is forced into a deposition, we advised (after first hearing about the deposition just three days ago) that her schedule would accommodate the time required during the week of October 20.”

As is so often the case in the frenetic Baldoni-Lively spectacle, it was all over quickly: A judge denied Baldoni’s request for special accommodation to depose Swift. To understand why, go read the full story here, featuring access to the judge’s full written ruling.

You’re reading The Legal Beat, a weekly newsletter about music law from Billboard Pro, offering you a one-stop cheat sheet of big new cases, important rulings and all the fun stuff in between. To get the newsletter in your inbox every Tuesday, go subscribe here.

Other top stories this week…

TORT OF GOLD – Neil Young was hit with a lawsuit over the name of his new backing band, called The Chrome Hearts, filed by a fashion brand that has used the same name for decades. The luxury apparel company says the rock legend’s new name — he usually tours and records with another group called Crazy Horse — clearly infringes its trademark rights to the name.

A “MEASLY” DEAL – A class action settlement for songwriters that netted their lawyers a far larger payout is officially history. The 2019 deal, which secured a total of $53,000 for songwriters but paid their lawyers a whopping $1.7 million, was struck down in 2023 by an appeals court that said the ruling left them in “disbelief.” Following that slapdown, a lower judge heeded the warning this week: He awarded the lawyers just $86,022.

DUA LIPA MERCH – Sony merchandise venture Ceremony of Roses sued to stop bootleggers from selling knockoff Dua Lipa merch during her Radical Optimism tour — the latest in a recent spate of anti-counterfeiting lawsuits brought by official merch retailers.

LIL NAS X IN REHAB – Weeks after the star was arrested and hit with felony charges for allegedly attacking police officers and resisting arrest while wandering naked in Los Angeles, a judge said Lil Nas had entered an inpatient treatment program: “We’re not going to get specific about where he is,” the judge said at a court hearing: “It’s private, nobody needs to know where he is, but he is in treatment.”

DURK TRIAL DELAY – Lil Durk’s trial on federal murder-for-hire charges might be postponed from October to January, after prosecutors and several of his co-defendants agreed to the change. Durk himself didn’t consent to the delay, but prosecutors argued that a three-month wait won’t violate his constitutional right to a speedy trial. Stay tuned.

“COMPLETE BOONDOGGLE” – Calvin Harris took legal action against his longtime financial adviser Thomas St. John, claiming that he duped him into investing $22.5 million in a doomed real estate project as a means “to simply steal” funds from the star DJ. The revelations came in court filings that revealed details of a private arbitration case that has been underway since June.

COMEY SUES DOJ – Maurene Comey, the lead prosecutor at Sean “Diddy” Combs’ sex-trafficking trial, filed a lawsuit against the Justice Department claiming her July termination was an “unlawful and unconstitutional” act of political payback by President Donald Trump against her father, former FBI director James B. Comey. Maurene Comey was previously one of the lead prosecutors in the case against Ghislaine Maxwell, a top accomplice of Jeffrey Epstein.

SMOKEY CASE UPDATE – A Los Angeles judge ruled that the former housekeepers accusing Smokey Robinson of rape can stay anonymous at this stage of the lawsuit, which is scheduled to go to trial in 2027. The singer’s lawyers argued it’s unfair that the accusers can remain Jane Does while dragging Robinson through the mud, but the judge was unmoved: “For now, this early on in this case, I don’t think their identities need to be revealed.”

RECORD SETTLEMENT – Universal Music Group, Sony Music Group and Concord reached a settlement to end their lawsuit against the Internet Archive over the “Great 78 Project” — a program to digitize thousands of old vinyl records from Frank Sinatra, Ella Fitzgerald, Bing Crosby and other iconic artists. The Internet Archive claimed it was just trying to preserve the works, but the labels called it “wholesale theft of generations of music.”

DIDDY APPEAL – Making the Band contestant Sara Rivers launched an appeal following the dismissal of her sexual assault lawsuit against Sean “Diddy” Combs. The move will challenge a ruling last month that dismissed the case, which accused Diddy of sexually harassing and groping Rivers during the filming of the 2000s MTV reality show, because Rivers waited too long to sue.

TRIAL AVERTED – Trey Songz reached a settlement to end a lawsuit claiming he sexually assaulted a woman named Jauhara Jeffries at a Miami nightclub on New Year’s Eve in 2018. The pair — and the nightclub itself — had been preparing to go to trial next month when the settlement was reached.

A new court filing claims Damon Dash’s recent bankruptcy petition is a “bad faith” effort to slow down collection of a nearly $5 million debt, comparing the Roc-A-Fella Records co-founder to notorious Infowars host Alex Jones.

Dash declared bankruptcy in Florida on Sept. 4, saying he owes more than $25 million and has just over $4,000 to his name. The record executive filed a so-called Chapter 7 bankruptcy case, in which an individual’s assets are sold off to pay creditors, and remaining debts can be erased.

The bulk of Dash’s debt consists of roughly $19 million in unpaid taxes. But he is also plagued by creditors Joshua Webber and production company Muddy Water Pictures, who once worked with Dash and who now hold more than $4.8 million worth of court judgments against him for copyright infringement and defamation.

Webber and Muddy Waters have had a rough time trying to collect money from Dash over the years, and they said in a Sunday (Sept. 14) letter to the New York federal judge overseeing the litigation that bankruptcy is just Dash’s latest ploy to frustrate the repayment process. The filmmakers compare Dash to Jones, who unsuccessfully tried to use bankruptcy to avoid paying his own $1.3 billion defamation judgment to the families of Sandy Hook victims.

“It is well settled law that Dash cannot discharge the above debt in bankruptcy,” wrote Webber and Muddy Waters’ attorney Christopher Brown. “Dash is simply attempting to slow the plaintiffs’ attempts to collect their judgments. Dash stands in the same legal position as Alex Jones.”

This court filing also claims Dash’s bankruptcy petition is “riddled” with falsehoods, noting that the list of assets in the petition omits multiple LLCs that Dash controls, as well as his “most valuable asset:” his life rights.  

“Dash’s ‘life rights’ is an asset due to his connection to Roc-A-Fella Records Inc. and his former partner Jay-Z,” wrote Brown. “In fact, Dash has been developing a script/movie on his life rights and has publicly addressed the issue. It is no secret that Dash is developing ‘The Roc-A-Fella Movie.’ This asset should have been listed in the Petition for potential liquidation.”

In response, Dash’s attorney, Natraj Bhushan, filed his own letter to the court on Monday (Sept. 15) claiming Webber and Muddy Waters’ filing violates the automatic pause on litigation that comes with declaring bankruptcy.

Dash’s bankruptcy counsel, Brian Zinn, similarly says in a Tuesday (Sept. 16) statement to Billboard that if Webber and Muddy “believe their debts are non-dischargeable, or that Mr. Dash’s bankruptcy petition is deficient, the Bankruptcy Court in the Middle District of Florida has exclusive jurisdiction to determine that.”

“While it may come with a negative societal preconceived notion, bankruptcy is simply a legal tool that many successful people have used to restructure their obligations to make their debts more manageable,” says Zinn. “Through our extensive experience, it is clear that Mr. Dash’s case is no different. Mr. Dash’s bankruptcy filing will stop most lawsuits and other collection activities. It will give him breathing room to organize his finances and rebuild his credit. He may also be able to eliminate some or most of his debts.”

Webber and Muddy Waters have been in a legal war with Dash since 2019, when they filed suit claiming the record executive was trying to illegally claim ownership of their movie Dear Frank. The filmmakers said that while Dash initially signed on to direct the movie, he spent the bulk of the shoot “inebriated on marijuana, belligerent and aggressive.”

That case went to trial in 2022, and Webber and Muddy Waters won a collective $823,000 in damages from Dash. Webber sued Dash again for defamation in 2024, claiming the Roc-A-Fella co-founder was continuing to claim publicly that Webber actually stole the film from him.

A judge ruled this past February that Dash had forfeited his right to defend against those allegations by blowing past case deadlines and ignoring court orders. Dash was hit with a $4 million default judgment — the price of a different movie contract that Webber allegedly lost due to Dash’s public accusations of theft.

Meanwhile, Dash’s one-third stake in Roc-A-Fella was auctioned off last year to help pay off his tax and child support debts. New York state bought the shares for $1 million and has since resold them.

Hooshmand Aghili passed away on Sept. 4, 2025, at 88. We were with him, grateful for a lifetime of music that felt like home to millions.

He was born in Isfahan in 1937, the city of poets and blue tiles. As a teenager, he trained with the great Taj Esfahani, and by his early years, he was already on Radio Isfahan, a voice people would stop to hear.

In Tehran, he kept studying — ever the student — and stepped onto national stages. When Iranian National Television launched, he sang with the National Orchestra and worked alongside master composers and virtuosos, a circle that sharpened his classical phrasing and broadened his reach. 

If you grew up in a Persian household anywhere in the world, there’s a good chance one song unlocked a hundred memories: “Farda To Miayee”. It’s the tune that plays when a living room becomes a dance floor and cousins become a choir. For many in our community — and for our family — its first notes are instantly recognizable.

He carried other favorites with him too — “Cheraghe Khooneh,” “Darya,” “Ghesehgoo” — songs that traveled across oceans, pressed into vinyl and tape and, later, playlists spanning generations.

In 1977, he moved to the United States and built a new life while keeping Iran close. For us — and for so many in the diaspora — his voice became a bridge between places: A few notes and suddenly you were back in your grandparents’ kitchen, or on a moonlit drive down Valiasr. 

That was the artist. Here is the man. He was the life of the party — telling jokes, reciting poems, captivating every room with that easy charisma. He was the kindest, sweetest presence, always giving of himself and, often, his belongings. He was a doting father who did the school drop-offs, taught us how to ride a bike, exposed us to all kinds of wonderful experiences — the daily work of unconditional love. He lives on within us, and in his grandson, who bears Hoosh as his middle name, a quiet echo of his legacy. After losing the love of his life, our mother, Farideh, in 2007, he never remarried. Sometimes the truest performance was in the life he lived offstage.

What did he mean to Persians — and to music — everywhere? He showed how a classical sensibility could meet popular feelings without losing either one. He proved that a song could be both refined and welcoming, both rooted and open-armed. For decades, he gave Iranians an anthem to gather around and a repertoire that could turn a lonely evening into a remembered celebration. That was his gift: to remind people where they come from and who they belong to — together.

To everyone who shared a wedding dance to “Farda To Miayee,” kept “Cheraghe Khooneh” on repeat during long drives or dreamed of the beach while listening to “Darya” — thank you for letting our father’s voice live in your homes and hearts. We’ll keep singing with you.

With love and gratitude,
Mae & Mike

The long-plagued Fyre Festival has been sold to LimeWire, the Austria-based technology company that became famous during the early 2000s for illegal file sharing and music piracy.

LimeWire president Julian Zehetmayr tells Billboard that the company was purchased by a new management team in 2021 and now focuses on digital content sharing through decentralized infrastructure, comparing LimeWire to firms like WeTransfer.

“What could possibly go wrong?” reads the company’s press release announcing the purchase of the beleaguered festival, which famously promised a VIP experience with the help of top influencers and instead left hundreds of fans temporarily trapped on Grand Exuma island in 2017. Billy McFarland masterminded the event, according to the FBI, convincing fans to shell out thousands for luxury accommodations that turned out to be emergency tents and gourmet meals that were little more than cheese sandwiches.

McFarland went to prison after admitting to stealing $26 million from investors for the event and has been working to repay them since being released in 2022 after serving four years of his six-year sentence. While serving in solitary confinement, McFarland came up with the idea for a sequel to Fyre, which he had hoped would repair his image, and bounced around different sites in the Bahamas and Mexico before landing on Playa del Carmen near Cancun. McFarland ultimately hired Mexican firm Lost Nights to produce the event and staged a press conference on March 27 with local officials to highlight it.

However, things went south in April when city leaders from Playa del Carmen announced that no permits for Fyre Festival had been issued in the seaside town. McFarland responded by releasing images of permits that he said proved Fyre was happening, but he later pulled the plug on the event and refunded ticket holders.

In June, McFarland announced that he had licensed the Fyre name to hotel owner Heath Miller to stage a scuba-diving-centric event in Honduras. The following month, he announced he was selling the brand name through an online auction, generating $245,000.

Earlier today, McFarland revealed that LimeWire was the winning bidder, beating out a competing bid from creative agency Maximum Effort, co-founded by Ryan Reynolds. LimeWire did license the name to Maximum Effort for a Visa commercial, which can be seen below.

Reynolds commented in a press release, “Congrats to LimeWire for their winning bid for Fyre Fest. I look forward to attending their first event but will be bringing my own palette of water.”

Zehetmayr didn’t detail LimeWire’s plans for Fyre but said he’s interested in staging some type of in-person event in the future. McFarland will not be involved in Fyre going forward, Zehetmayr says.

“The goal is to host some type of event but not aim too big,” he said, adding, “Like LimeWire, Fyre came from an infamous and notorious past and we look forward to the challenge of turning it around.”

LimeWire was launched in 2000 by technologist Mark Gorton as a peer-to-peer file sharing service that exploded in popularity during that decade. In 2010, a federal judge issued an injunction, effectively shutting down most of the service’s major capabilities following a lawsuit by Arista Records. The Recording Industry Association of America eventually won a $105 million judgment against LimeWire, leading the company to stop updating its software.

“Over the coming months, LimeWire will unveil a reimagined vision for Fyre — one that expands beyond the digital realm and taps into real-world experiences, community, and surprise,” a press release announcing the purchase reads. “While the details are still under wraps, expect the unexpected. Fyre’s revival will be bold, self-aware, and impossible to ignore — staying true to its chaotic legacy, but with a new layer of credibility, creativity, and control.”

Fans can sign up for a waitlist here to receive exclusive updates and early access to Fyre news.