In 2009, hip-hop was at an inflection point. Veterans like Eminem and Jay-Z scored Billboard Hot 100 No. 1s, Kanye West and Lil Wayne enjoyed their imperial phases, a new generation of talent began to rise through blogs — and Clipse, the Virginia-bred rap duo of brothers Pusha T and Malice, released its third album, Til the Casket Drops.

Sixteen years passed — an ­eternity by rap’s standards — as Pusha T became a successful solo artist and label executive while Malice took a hiatus from rapping to pursue his faith. But in July, Clipse reunited and finally dropped another album: Let God Sort Em Out.

Already a blockbuster hip-hop release, the project wouldn’t have been a true reunion without fellow Virginian Pharrell Williams in the mix as producer. As one-half of The Neptunes, he lent his cosmic sonic canvas to Pusha T and Malice’s coke-laced raps, poignant storytelling and opulent flexes on their three 2000s-era albums — and in the years following Til the Casket Drops, he became a household name thanks to his work in music, film, TV and fashion. This time around, Pharrell invited Clipse to Louis Vuitton headquarters in Paris, where he serves as men’s creative director, to meticulously craft their cinematic reintroduction over sessions that spanned two years. With a No. 4 bow on the Billboard 200 — Clipse’s highest mark since its 2002 debut, Lord Willin’ — the project arrived to critical acclaim and album of the year chatter. And, in the process, the trio of ’70s babies punctured the myth that rap is a young man’s sport.

“I’ve always looked at rap and other genres, rock specifically, and I’ve never liked how rap always had the age ceiling where everyone else didn’t,” Pusha T, 48, tells Billboard during a call with Malice and Pharrell as Clipse’s tour bus heads to Detroit. “I’ve personally always wanted to make it my business to crack that ceiling, and I think the Clipse album 1,000% [did it].”

“Martin Scorsese made The Irishman not too long ago,” adds Pharrell, 52, referencing the 2019 film by the now-82-year-old filmmaking legend. “You don’t stop being great. You might decide not to continue to share your gift with the world. But great is great.”

After paying seven figures in June to exit its deal with Def Jam (the act refused the label’s request to censor Kendrick Lamar’s featured verse on Let God Sort Em Out), Clipse seamlessly transitioned to Roc Nation for distribution and went on to deliver one of the more memorable rollouts in recent rap history, with KAWS-designed cover art, a Carhartt merchandise collaboration and even a runway appearance at a Louis Vuitton fashion show with Jay-Z and Beyoncé in the front row.

Amid it all, this summer, Clipse embarked on its first tour in over 15 years — and then flew to Rome to become the first hip-hop artists to perform at the Vatican, playing to a crowd of a quarter-million as part of Grace for the World, a concert co-directed by Pharrell. Next April, the act will make its Coachella debut. “This is something that you couldn’t plan for by no stretch of the imagination,” says Malice, 53.

But despite all these wins, ­Pusha T, Malice and Pharrell have their sights set on another accolade: a Grammy Award in 2026. While the decorated Pharrell has earned 13 of them, Clipse never has; the duo’s lone nomination is for featuring on Justin Timberlake’s “Like I Love You” in 2003, and Pusha T has five solo noms. Pharrell hopes Clipse can perform the tearful Let God Sort Em Out opener “The Birds Don’t Sing” at the awards and that they can honor their parents with a Grammy win. “You got people who get them and pee on them, and we ain’t doing none of that,” Pharrell jokes. “We want them for our parents.”

What’s it like hearing all the album of the year talk surrounding Let God Sort Em Out?

Malice: I like it because it’s unanimous; it’s the consensus. Everywhere we go, people keep saying it. Just that it hits everybody in that way. With that being the case, that just can’t be denied. It didn’t come from us saying it; it comes from the listener.

Pusha T: I fully agree with that. It speaks to the testament of what we put into the music. This is still art class for us, man. I was never in band or anything, but I feel like we attacked this music in such a way that it comes with that level of precision. There’s a level of expertise that is shown in the creation and displayed in the creation of this music. I’m glad that it comes across and hits people in that way. People are using “sophisticated” and “high-taste level” and all these adjectives to explain the music.

Pharrell Williams: The precision and the discipline that was exercised, I thought we would get our flowers for. But I think we got more than that. I think people are really reacting. This is what’s been so surprising to me: People are reacting to more than just the sounds, the ideas, like lyrically and song concept-wise. They responded to what the Clipse and myself put into our respective jobs. Beats and the musicality that I contributed to it and their ideas, concepts and lyrics; it’s more than that. What I see people responding to is when you wipe away all of our work, at the core of what we did that I think is different than what you get elsewhere is that we were painting not with sounds and lyrics — we were painting with feelings.

That’s where we all met up. The intersection of what I think this music is is feelings. I was playing with feelings. They were writing with feelings. And I’m not saying other people don’t feel — I’m just saying, like, you could really feel this. When these guys get into “Birds Don’t Sing,” it’s the symbolism as much as it is the lyrical acrobatics that happened there. Malice used that word earlier, “unanimous”; that’s an art form to be able to achieve that, with many people walking away feeling the same things. For me, the testament is seeing people walk away feeling s–t.

When you talk about creating with a feeling, is that different from the early years working with Clipse?

Pharrell: When we were kids, we just did the s–t because it was fun. And what we ended up doing was based on taste. Now we know we’re students. We know that we’re blessed. This was ordained. We’ve been led to this place. That’s the distinct difference between being young and arrogant, making “Momma I’m So Sorry” [from 2006’s Hell Hath No Fury] and being students and real artists who paint with emotions to make a “Birds Don’t Sing.”

They say rap’s a young man’s game, but you guys have never aged out of it, and this project felt fresh. Touch on that.

Pusha T: You started the question with the phrasing of a young man’s sport — we kind of cracked the ceiling on that. Looking at just competing in music, I’ve never felt like it was a young man’s sport. I always felt like it was a competitor’s sport. As long as you’re competing and you’re living through the times, you should be in it. You have to be in it. You can’t passively be in it. Nah, man, this is about who can compete and who can’t. Being able to compete through different eras and trends, to be able to A and B your music versus whatever’s popular. Let God Sort Em Out speaks volumes when it comes to that.

Malice: I don’t think we should slight ourselves because it is a young man’s sport until proven otherwise. I think we’ve yet to see that happen at this level. I think when making [Let God Sort Em Out], and with all the Clipse albums, you know what you’re about to release. You can also tell if you’re being mediocre. It’s good that people have seen it be achieved, and I still think people are gonna have a tough time doing it.

P, did you feel at all like, “Hey, I can make a statement here. Don’t sleep on me. I can still make a classic album”?

Pharrell: Oh, nah, I never thought that way. The thing most people forget, we are human beings. “Human” meaning flesh and “being” meaning spirit. I’m saying being is a verb. I am always being. If I stopped being, I would have been. I don’t got to be the greatest of all time. I don’t got to be none of that s–t.

Malice: But you are, though!

Pharrell: We don’t have those “still” conversations, we just are what we are. We are who we are, but we are who we are because we know what we are. We always going to be different. We’re from Virginia. We ain’t New York, we ain’t Atlanta. I love Miami, [but] we ain’t Florida, we ain’t the West Coast. We the East Coast of Virginia. When you seeing us doing what we doing, we showing you what the East Coast feel like. Not what it sound like. I’ll leave that to the really great producers. I play with feelings and emotions. If you listen to a Clipse record and you don’t feel like going to buy a coupe, we failed you.

I can’t go buy an Audi now.

Pharrell: It make you want to get your money up, don’t it?

Malice: Listen, don’t feel bad. When Jay-Z said, “We don’t drive X5s, we give ’em to baby mommas,” I had just got the X5 and I had to hang my head after that. I know the feeling.

Pharrell: We got all kinds of consumers with Clipse. We don’t begrudge nobody that can’t ride how we ride. My whole thing is, “Run at your own speed. If Audi is your speed, that’s your pace, but run it.”

Let God Sort Em Out felt like a cultural reset — even the rollout was ­incredible.

Pharrell: You know why? Because you have to sit and be honest. You have to be prepared for honesty. Honesty ain’t just what you hear and see. It’s not just an aesthetic or a sound thing. It’s also a kinesthetic and tactile emotion thing.

I’m gonna say something that’s very real right now: We grew up in an area where the coolest guy, the guy that the rappers emulated, was the pharmacist, and now we’re in the era where the coolest guy is the patient. The patient has a point of view. They want emotions, but that’s not what they’re gonna give you. They supplement when they listen to that music. And not everybody, but it’s just a very different thing. We play on the other side of the emotion. We make music that we want you to feel. Not music you listen to and you have to go supplement to feel. The music is the drug.

What do you think flipped it?

Pharrell: That’s the way it’s always been. It was like that in the ’60s when people were experimenting. It was more psychedelic, but then in the ’70s, it got real heavy, and they started getting into the heavier things. Then in the ’80s, it just goes through all these different phases. And I just think the phase that we in right now, there’s a lot of emo music and I love a lot of it, but it’s different. A lot of times, when you listen to tracks, they’re not compositions, necessarily. They’re vibes. And a lot of times they are devoid of stimulation for feelings.

Pusha T: We chose to execute the rollout how we did because we miss the nostalgia of running to a magazine and seeing who said what. Looking at an album and seeing a rating or disagreeing with everybody else — what did said magazine say? We miss that. That’s just part of that passionate purist I feel like we talk to in crafting Let God Sort Em Out. The Clipse have always been open books and open to criticism and letting people hear the music. We encourage the feedback.

Malice: I think the internet allowed anybody and everything to be a rapper, if that’s what you label yourself. I think it allotted for laziness. I think it speaks to the condition of the world. If people want to get high, you could turn on a beat and there’s so many people that can do that. I think that’s the state of the world revealing itself, and it took on a laziness. We come from that time where you had to fight to be heard and among the best. We still carry that. That’s very important.

How do you guys feel rap’s relationship with the Grammys has evolved over the years?

Pharrell: As long as they do “Birds Don’t Sing” on that stage and whatever else they want to do, that’s all I care about.

Pusha T: I’ve watched the Grammys evolve tremendously. I think that there’s been a lot of thought and efforts to at least get it right in the hip-hop space. I remember when hip-hop wasn’t televised on the Grammys. It’s evolved in a lot of different ways. To be [potentially] nominated and in the mix of that company — you want the hardware, my man, trust me. We all want the hardware. It’s nothing to even play with. I think it’s the credibility of the Grammys and the thought put into the categories and the committees. I think the Grammys been getting it right.

Pharrell: Let’s get it all the way right.

What would a Grammy win mean to you guys?

Pusha T: A well-deserved full-circle moment. That’s a Grammy win for just brotherhood.

Malice: The Grammys is definitely the high-water mark for musical achievement. And this is what you do it for. You don’t play the game just to get a participation trophy. So like, it would definitely mean a lot, for sure.

Pharrell: Our parents remember us making music. Our parents remember being confused at what we were doing in Virginia Beach, Virginia. Not New York City or L.A., where you have these huge generational artists and genres. Our parents were confused; this is for them. You have moments when it’s your time. And all I’m saying is, I’ve been knowing these guys since high school, and I’m really sorry — like, with love — I think the category would agree that this is our brothers’ time. I think their parents in heaven agree this is their time. I think my parents agree this is their time. Like I said, we ain’t gonna drink out of it, right? We just gon’ bring it home for our parents.

What’s next musically for Clipse? Could we run it back?

Pusha T: Plenty to come, man.

This story appears in the Oct. 4, 2025, issue of Billboard.

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Beats taps NFL stars Saquon Barkley, Justin Jefferson and Jayden Daniels for the latest campaign for the Powerbeats Fit earbuds. The brand’s latest audio device are an evolution of the popular Beats Fit Pro model and a smaller, but powerful addition to their signature Powerbeats family.

The most notable upgrade is a redesigned wing tip that the brand says is 20 percent more flexible, improving comfort while also keeping the earbuds more securely anchored in your ear. The earbuds also feature active noise cancellation, a more compact charging case and an IPX4 rating for the sweatiest of workouts. The Powerbeats Fit are available in jet black, gravel gray, power pink and a viral spark orange color option.

Alongside these modest upgrades, the Powerbeats Fit retains much of what made the Beats Fit Pro for those who are fans of the previous model. Apple’s H1 chip powers the device once again (sorry, Android users), including Personalized Spatial Audio with dynamic head tracking, Find My and FaceTime with Dolby Atmos spatial audio, Adaptive EQ, Audio Sharing, Siri integration and automatic switching between devices. Alongside ANC, transparency mode is also built in.

To complement the launch of their new fitness earbuds, Beats has enlisted three NFL stars and brand ambassadors—Saquon Barkley, Justin Jefferson and Jayden Daniels—for a global campaign highlighting its signature features. In the three-minute spot titled “They Stay in Your Ears,” Barkley and Jefferson go head-to-head in a hilarious audition process for the starring role in a Powerbeats Fit commercial only to be intercepted by Daniels.

The Beats Powerbeats Fit earbuds are available to buy online on Amazon, Best Buy and Apple’s website for $199.99. Which color will you be picking up?

Watch the “They Stay in Your Ears” campaign video below.

Is there enough room behind The Tonight Show desk for two hosts? On Wednesday night’s (Oct. 1) episode, Jimmy Fallon makes room for Doja Cat to join him as co-host, and Billboard has exclusive photos from her appearance.

And it looks like a fun one: In addition to two pics of the duo behind the famous late-night desk — one of which has each co-host holding up a vinyl copy of Doja’s just-released fifth studio album Vie — we also have a pic of the pop star teaching Fallon how to dance. (It looks like she might be giving him step-by-step moves to New Kids on the Block’s “The Right Stuff” dance here.) Doja’s ’80s-inspired ‘fit for the episode is a shimmering silver tunic paired with metallic tights and matching silver pumps, finished with lavender leather gloves.

Elsewhere during her co-hosting gig — her debut behind the desk — Billboard is told that Doja does a dramatic Real Housewives re-enactment alongside Tarik Trotter of The Roots.

But Doja isn’t the only special guest visiting Studio 6B on Wednesday night: Social superstar Druski will sit down for an interview and Blood Orange is the night’s performer.

Doja joins an elite group of stars who have co-hosted The Tonight Show, also including fellow musicians Ed Sheeran, Megan Thee Stallion, Cardi B and Shawn Mendes.

The Tonight Show airs at 11:35 p.m. ET/PT on NBC and streams next day on Peacock, but you can check out our exclusive photos right now.

David Kaefer, the Spotify executive in charge of the company’s music and audio businesses, will leave the company at the end of October. The announcement was made on Wednesday (Oct. 1) through both an internal memo and a LinkedIn post by Kaefer.

Named to Billboard‘s 2025 Power Players list, Kaefer spent seven years at Spotify, most recently as global head of music and audiobook business. In that role, he led the company’s music licensing and partnerships and its growing audiobook business that launched in 2022. According to Kaefer’s LinkedIn post, after leaving Spotify, he plans to be an advisor and invest in tech, media and sustainability. 

Charlie Hellman, currently Spotify’s vp/global head of music product, will succeed Kaefer as senior vp and global head of music. Hellman joined Spotify in 2011 and helped build some of the company’s first recommendation and social features. 

Separately, on Tuesday (Sept. 30), Spotify CEO Daniel Ek announced he would step down on Jan. 1, 2026, to be replaced by two co-CEOs: co-president/chief business officer Alex Norström and co-president/chief product and technology officer Gustav Söderström. The pair will report to Ek, who will transition to the role of executive chairman. They are expected to be named to the company’s board of directors.

Below, you can read the internal memo obtained by Billboard that was written by Norström about Kaefer’s departure.

Team,

I would like to take a moment to share some thoughts on the future of our Music team and its leadership.

It has been a pleasure to work with and learn from David Kaefer, particularly in his leadership of key music functions, including Editorial, Partnerships, and GTM, as well as his extensive experience navigating innovative industry deals. On a personal note, I’ve always valued his strategic saviness and unique blend of toughness and humor. From the moment that he shared his plans for a new, ideally West Coast-based adventure a few months ago, I’ve felt a deep sense of gratitude for his incredible run. David will remain with us until October 24th.

This brings me to our new head of Music vertical, Charlie Hellman. Charlie’s fifteen-year journey here is legendary; in addition to hiring and serving as a mentor to more successful Spotifers than I can count, he drove the creation of the US R&D team, Spotify for Artists, and so many of our music experiences from our very first radio feature to our expansion into music video. As we enter our next era of scale, we are centralizing all music functions under his leadership. Charlie’s proven ability to think strategically, advocate for both artists and Spotify’s role in growing Music, and collaborate effectively across the company and our industry make him the ideal leader for the Music organization of tomorrow.

Finally, this is about all of you. Music is and always will be the beating heart of Spotify. We are still in the early chapters of our story, and we’re setting our sights higher than ever. Our success rests on your work to deliver for artists, songwriters, and fans. Charlie joined when we were celebrating a then massive one million subscribers, and I can’t wait for the day when you’re telling a new hire that you remember when we hit our first billion.

Best,

Alex