AEG Presents has announced a major new festival is set to join the U.K.’s festival scene in summer 2026.

American Express Presents Roundhay Festival will take place from next year at Roundhay Park in Leeds, England, with the first headlining artist set to be announced imminently. The dates of the festival have not been confirmed at this time.

The festival will join AEG Presents’ existing footprint on the scene alongside BST Hyde Park and All Points East, both of which take place in London. Headliners at this year’s BST Hyde Park include Sabrina Carpenter, Olivia Rodrigo, Neil Young and Stevie Wonder, while RAYE and Chase & Status were among the headliners at All Points East.

Roundhay Park is one of Europe’s largest city parks and spans over 700 acres of woodlands, lakes and fields in the north-east of the city. The venue has form for hosting large-scale music events with shows over the years by The Rolling Stones (1982), Genesis (1987), Madonna (1987), Michael Jackson (1988), U2 (1997). Ed Sheeran was the most recent artist to perform at the venue in 2019.

The Yorkshire city currently hosts a number of large-scale music events including Festival Republic’s Leeds Festival (sister event of Reading Festivals), new music-focused event Live at Leeds, and the city centre boasts the indoor 12,000-capacity First Direct Arena.

The programming of the festival will include headline performances as well as free midweek activities for the local community. Both BST Hyde Park and All Points East are held over multiple weekends throughout the summer. It is not yet confirmed on how many nights Roundhay Festival will be held.

Jim King, chief executive of AEG Presents U.K. and European Festivals, said: “Everyone at AEG is thrilled to announce the launch of the Roundhay Festival in Leeds. This landmark event gives us the opportunity to bring world-class artists and world-leading production to even more fans, while building on the park’s incredible musical legacy.

“Roundhay Park already holds an extraordinary place in music history, having hosted concerts from some of the biggest artists of all time and we cannot wait to add to that story.

“As with all our events, we are committed to delivering the very best in every aspect, from welcoming some of the greatest artists in the world, to creating an unforgettable fan experience, and upholding industry-leading sustainability standards. We are determined to bring value to the park, the city, and the wider region. By working closely with local people and businesses, we aim to create a festival that everyone in Leeds can be proud of.”

Mark David Chapman, the man shot shot and killed music icon John Lennon, has been denied parole for a 14th time.

In an update to the New York Department of Corrections and Community Supervision’s digital records, it was revealed that Chapman appeared before a parole board on Aug. 27, where the convicted murderer was denied parole. Chapman will continue serving his 20 yea`r-to-life sentence at least until his next parole hearing, which is set to take place in Feb. 2027.

During a 2020 appeal for parole, Chapman expressed deep regret for shooting Lennon, telling officers that he deserved the death penalty for the “despicable” act he committed. ““I assassinated him … because he was very, very, very famous and that’s the only reason and I was very, very, very, very much seeking self-glory. Very selfish,” he said in a 2020 parole hearing. In 2022, Chapman reiterated his point, saying that he had a “selfish disregard for human life” in murdering Lennon.

John Lennon was famously shot by Chapman on Dec. 8, 1980, as the Beatles member was returning to his New York apartment building The Dakota, alongside his wife Yoko Ono. Chapman was arrested shortly after shooting Lennon, when he was found on 72nd Street reading a copy of J.D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye.

Meanwhile, fans of the Beatles are gearing up to listen to the re-release of the band’s iconic Anthology collection, which is due to be released this fall. The new collection, which will also feature a refurbish of the original Anthology book, will include a re-release of the original 1995 TV series on Disney+.

Beef isn’t on the menu for DJ Khaled. The We The Best mogul joined Joe & Jada for an episode on Thursday (Sept. 11), where he explained why he didn’t step in when Drake was feuding with Future and Rick Ross last year.

“I love Drake, I love [Rick] Ross, I love Future,” Khaled responded to Fat Joe’s questioning. “What it feel like I didn’t get in that energy. There’s two energies I’m not gonna get in: hate.”

Joe followed up: “How do you deal with hate, brother?” Khaled fired back as if it was a rhetorical question: “I don’t.”

Khaled continued: “And then when you speak about all those great legends you just talked about… Those are my brothers. You can’t question my friendship. How? Ain’t nobody like DJ motherf—ing Khaled. Joe, you know that.”

DJ Khaled chalked much of the feuding up to a “misunderstanding” and a lack of communication, but he ultimately would “love” to be the common thread between the parties and squash the beef.

“A lot of this sh– is a misunderstanding and a lot of not [communicating]. And that’s what it be about. When it comes down to DJ Khaled, I’m gonna be the one that tries to fix it,” he added. “I love my brothers and my brothers know that. I would love to squash it.”

Khaled has an extensive collaborative history with Drake, Future and Rick Ross, and it remains to be seen if any of the trio will make an appearance on his Aalam of God album.

Back in February, Drake seemed to play dumb when Khaled revealed he had a pair of Drizzy tracks slated to land on his album. “Must be Drake Bell,” the 6 God wrote on social media.

Khaled has kicked off his Aalam of God rollout with a pair of singles. The first being “Brother” featuring a clash from Post Malone and NBA Young Boy, and a dance hall-tinged track titled “You Remind Me,” which features a line-up of Bounty Killer, Buju Banton, Kaylan Arnold, Mavado, Rorystonelove and Vybz Kartel.

Watch the full clip below.

To get a sense of how complicated it is to grant an AI company a license to train its algorithm on copyrighted work, imagine for a moment that you run a European collecting society that distributes royalties to songwriters and publishers. For the sake of this example, let’s say that this organization is called COMPLEX (the Cooperative for Original Music Publishing Licensing Excellence) and that it represents public performance and mechanical rights for the fictional country of Freedonia, which it licenses for revenue of about $200 million a year.

Many AI companies are already scanning the work you control — I’m skipping the usual “allegedly,” since this is hypothetical — and you want to make them pay to do so. Then, one day, another AI company comes to you and says it wants to do just that — scan all of your works and use them to train its algorithms. In return, it’s willing to give you a one-time payment of $300 million, with no further obligations on either side. All you have to do is sign the deal, take the money and… then what?

Would you take the deal? The question takes on new urgency now that STIM, the Swedish collecting society, announced on Sept. 9 that it had set up the first collective licensing deal for AI training. That followed an early-August deal between ElevenLabs and Kobalt and Merlin. It is still unclear in the U.S. whether the copying of works to train an AI algorithm even requires a license, so these deals should probably be seen as experiments.

I’d argue that you shouldn’t take the deal — if you even could, based on what rights you controlled for which territories. Analyzing a work requires ingesting it, which in turn requires making a copy. That involves copyright law, under which this would be considered a mechanical reproduction. It is not settled as to whether using an AI algorithm involves making a copy, but it’s obvious that training one does. So it’s possible — not definite, but possible — that each AI company only needs to copy a work once.

So that $300 million payment could be the only one you’d ever get. And once you get it, your songwriters will have to compete with an algorithm that can use their works to churn out an enormous volume of similar music. And that assumes you could even sign such a deal without the permission of rightsholders — both the STIM and Kobalt deals are opt-in — plus figure out where the deal would apply. But the big issue is that rightsholders essentially need to find a way to control the horse after it has left the barn.

The 4 billion Euro question — based on CISAC’s estimate of the value of generative AI music in 2028 — is how rightsholders can use the rights they can license as a lever to exercise some control over the rights they can’t. Some of this is just practical — they need to have some sense of how much algorithms rely on different works in order to pay out royalties from whatever agreements they make. (In the example of the $300 million offer, how would COMPLEX deal with that revenue?) But some of it is strategic: As AI uses copyrighted songs to create new ones, rightsholders deserve an ongoing revenue stream, both because these new creations are built on their work and because those creations will inevitably compete with theirs.

GEMA’s licensing model, presented a year ago, in September 2024, says that “a one-off lump sum payment for training data is not nearly sufficient to compensate authors in view of the revenues that can be generated.” The idea is that songwriters get paid based on how often their works are used to generate new ones. STIM’s license, really a pilot project, takes this a step further, compensating rightsholders with a share of revenue when their works are used by generative AI algorithms and potentially then again when AI music based on their work is used.

That’s one hell of a lever. Not only does this agreement impose an obligation on AI companies that license works for training purposes, it puts that obligation on the work they create. It’s especially interesting because in most countries, music created by AI is not covered by copyright, so it can be used freely. This would potentially give rightsholders the ability to benefit from that work under contractual rules. If it works, of course. It’s hard to know if it will — and it’s hard to imagine that the AI licenses that will be used in 2035 will look anything like these. But we are seeing the first moves to shape a new business, and they could be quite influential. Next week I will write about how they will be influential in ways that aren’t immediately obvious.