Author: Rap Hooks

Lil Baby has been teasing a second album on the way for 2025, essentially since the minutes after his WHAM LP arrived in January.

Baby had fans’ minds churning once again on Tuesday (Aug. 5) when he captioned an Instagram post with “8.15.25,” which is next Friday (Aug. 15).

He fanned the flames surrounding his album talk with a follow-up post of a blurry photo to his Instagram Story featuring a whiteboard hinting at a project seemingly titled THE LEAK$. The picture also includes a list of 17 songs and possible appearances from Playboi Carti, Skooly, Veeze and Rylo Rodriguez.

Fans were hyped at the influx of Atlanta rap this summer, as Metro Boomin dropped last week while JID, Gunna, Young Nudy and now Lil Baby are on the way.

“Gunna this week Lil baby next week Can thug drop on the 22nd,” one person wrote to X.

Baby set off the year with WHAM, which brought Young Thug back into the rap universe with the Future-assisted “Dum, Dumb and Dumber.” The project, which debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 with 140,000 album-equivalent units, also featured Travis Scott, 21 Savage and GloRilla.

In an interview with Complex in January, Lil Baby teased the follow-up to WHAM being Dominique, an emotional project giving fans an unprecedented look behind the curtain of who he is.

“Well, I’m dropping two projects back to back: WHAM, then I’m coming with Dominique, my self-titled album,” he said at the time. “WHAM is more like my young nigga street shit. Then I show the transition I’m taking in Dominique, the more emotional and more vulnerable side I never really gave my fans.”

Justin Bieber spends sweet family time with his wife Hailey and their 11-month-old son, Jack Blues, in the “Yukon” music video he released Tuesday (Aug. 5).

In the black-and-white Cole Bennett-directed clip, the Biebers bask in the sun while laying out in a yacht that resembles the logo of his new apparel brand Skylrk, caressing their toddler and kissing his toes while painting an adorable family portrait. And of course, JB hit a little one-two when it came to his infamous “Slide City” lyric.

“We shot this a couple weeks back over the course of a few days in Spain & Italy. Shot on FX3 & GoPro, printed on 16mm film. I’ll remember these memories for the rest of my life. Thank you for everything,” Bennett wrote on Instagram while tagging Justin and Hailey.

This video marks Jack Blues’ music video debut, while Hailey has made cameos in a handful of other videos alongside her husband, including DJ Khaled and Drake’s “Popstar,” Dan + Shay and Justin’s “10,000 Hours” and Ariana Grande and Bieber’s “Stuck with U.”

“Yukon” was featured on Bieber’s latest album Swag, which debuted at No. 2 on the Billboard 200 last month. The standout track debuted at No. 17 on the Billboard Hot 100, making it the second-highest-charting track from the LP after “Daisies” sprouted at No. 2. Billboard placed “Yukon” at No. 11 while ranking all 21 tracks on Swag, with senior editor Lyndsey Havens writing, “‘Yukon’ serves a similar purpose to ‘405,’ both of which seem like real-time ruminations that often occupy Bieber’s mind.”

Watch the “Yukon” music video below.

DEJA VU ALL OVER AGAIN: Decades after lawsuits from record labels killed Napster, Sony Music says the descendant of the industry-shaking file-sharing service is still ignoring copyright law.

Shortly after Shawn Fanning and Sean Parker’s creation took the country by storm in 1999, it was facing infringement lawsuits, including from Metallica and the major labels. Those cases were quickly successful: A federal judge issued an injunction in 2001, effectively forcing Napster to shut down.

But the Napster name never really died. In the years since, it’s been purchased by a series of owners who wanted to capitalize on the name recognition for a fully-licensed music service — first by Roxio, then by Best Buy, and finally in 2011 by Rhapsody, an early music streaming service, which rebranded itself under the Napster banner in 2016.

According to Sony Music, Napster’s pirate spirit never died, either. In a lawsuit filed last week, the music giant claimed that the company owes millions in unpaid royalties after refusing to pay its licensing bills for more than a year. And Sony says Napster has continued to illegally play songs even after the record company terminated the deal.

For more details on the new Napster case — including access to the actual lawsuit filed in court — go read the full story here.

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Other top stories this week…

TURNING THE PAGE – Led Zeppelin‘s Jimmy Page reached a settlement with songwriter Jake Holmes to resolve the latest lawsuit over the disputed credits to the band’s iconic song “Dazed and Confused.” Holmes has claimed for years that he actually wrote the song in 1967 and that Page simply reworked it into the famed 1969 Zeppelin track without credit or permission.

CLEARANCE COMPLEXITIES – Beyoncé’s company, Parkwood Entertainment, was hit with a copyright lawsuit over a sample used as the introduction to her hit 2022 Renaissance track “Alien Superstar.” The case, filed by the owner of indie house music label Soundmen on Wax Records, claims that Bey cleared the sample — but did so with the wrong party.

NO BAIL FOR DIDDY – A month after his stunning acquittal on sex-trafficking and racketeering charges, Diddy was denied bail again, meaning he’ll remain in jail until his October sentencing for interstate prostitution. The star’s lawyers argued it was extremely unusual for a mere customer of prostitution to be denied bail, and got unexpected support from one of his alleged victims. But the judge was unswayed, ruling that the argument might work if the case “didn’t involve evidence of violence, coercion or subjugation in connection with the acts of prostitution at issue, but the record here contains evidence of all three.”

BOOSIE PLEA DEAL – Rapper Boosie Badazz took a plea deal in his federal gun possession case, more than two years after he was first charged. Prosecutors charged the rapper in 2023 after authorities spotted a handgun tucked into his waistband in an Instagram video — a crime because Boosie was previously convicted on drug charges back in 2011. The rapper announced the deal on social media, telling fans he was “tired of fighting” and had made “the right decision.”

UGLY ALLEGATIONS – Kate Bowman, the wife of former Maroon 5 member Mickey Madden, made shocking allegations in court filings seeking a restraining order, claiming the bassist repeatedly physically assaulted her after she confronted him about “sexting with teenage girls.” The filings said that the texts were sent to “at least two high school girls” and included “fantasies” about “raping one of the girls.”

TUPAC MURDER CASE – Duane “Keffe D” Davis, the man facing a looming murder trial over the 1996 killing of Tupac Shakur, filed a petition asking the Nevada Supreme Court to dismiss the charges. Attorneys for Davis say prosecutors lack any hard evidence tying him to the crime and are instead improperly relying solely on statements he’s made about the killing, including a seeming confession in a 2019 tell-all memoir.

SOLO SETTLEMENT – Ty Dolla $ign reached a settlement to escape a copyright lawsuit over an allegedly uncleared sample on Vultures 1. But the case, filed by a group of Memphis rappers, will move ahead against Ye (formerly known as Kanye West), who was not involved in the settlement.

DIVORCE DRAMA – Tyrese’s ex-wife Samantha asked to have the singer thrown in jail over accusations that he still owes almost $500,000 in fees to her attorneys in their never-ending divorce case. The filing claims that the Fast & Furious star has “made no effort whatsoever” to pay the fine and should be held in criminal contempt for his “blatant disregard for this court’s order on fees.”

BRING IN BIGLAW – The organizers of FireAid, the all-star benefit concerts for Los Angeles wildfire relief in January, hired the BigLaw firm of Latham & Watkins to review its grantmaking process amid a growing furor about the distribution of $100 million raised by the events. The blowback has been fueled by allegations from Republican congressman Kevin Kiley, who claims donations were diverted to undeserving non-profits; FireAid has called those claims “misinformation.”

CARDI IN COURT – Cardi B won a key ruling in a civil lawsuit that claims she assaulted a security guard at her OBGYN’s office in 2018. With the trial looming, a judge ruled that the plaintiff’s lawyers cannot dig up dirt from Cardi’s past in front of the jury, including her past work as a stripper or her misdemeanor assault conviction for throwing a bottle at a New York strip club.

DANCE COPYRIGHTS – Fefe Burgos, a dancer who’s worked with Usher, Jennifer Lopez and Selena Gomez, filed a lawsuit against Fortnite maker Epic Games, claiming it stole his copyrighted choreography from a recent Rauw Alejandro music video and then sold it as an add-on within the popular online video game.

BREEZY BRAND BATTLE – Chris Brown and Live Nation were hit with a lawsuit from a Miami-based retailer called Breezy Swim over his Breezy Bowl XX tour — a name that the company claims infringes its trademark rights.

LEGAL BILLS REPAID – An ex-staffer suing Ye (formerly Kanye West) for antisemitism asked a judge to order the rapper to repay nearly $100,000 incurred by her legal team in fending off a “frivolous and absurd” motion he unsuccessfully filed in the case. Ye’s lawyers argued that his offensive outbursts were part of a “provocative performance” protected by the First Amendment, but the judge flatly rejected that argument in June.

STIFF PUNISHMENT – Federal prosecutors urged a judge to sentence Latin music executive Ángel Del Villar to more than six years in prison following his conviction in March on felony charges of doing business with a concert promoter linked to Mexican drug cartels. The feds said the sanctions Del Villar violated were imposed on “one of the world’s most brutal criminal organizations.”

BATTLE OF THE BAND – Chris Beattie, the founding bassist for hardcore band Hatebreed, filed a lawsuit alleging that the group’s frontman, Jamey Jasta, had unceremoniously kicked him out after 30 years so he could get a larger cut of the band’s profits. Beattie claims Jasta used a “false narrative” — that the bassist had harassed a Live Nation security guard at a concert — as a pretext to oust him.

Gabito Ballesteros is one of the young stars to emerge from the corridos tumbados movement. Collaborations with peers such as Peso Pluma (“Lady Gaga”), Natanael Cano (“Perlas Negras”), Luis R Conriquez (“Presidente”) and Netón Vega (“Wiscachos”) have made him a key figure in the new wave of regional Mexican music. But the genre has recently faced restrictions and bans in several Mexican states for songs that glorify violence.

Beyond the narcocorrido bans in 10 out of Mexico’s 32 states, a few months ago the federal government of Mexico encouraged young artists to promote positive messages through their lyrics and even launched the México Canta contest, whose finalists will be revealed in the coming days.

“No one is censoring us; there are rules, and we must follow them,” Ballesteros tells Billboard Español in an exclusive interview, referring to the shift in the themes of his songs. “We’ve stopped glorifying certain things, but no one is censoring us.”

“We just changed the way we say things,” he adds. “This has been an opportunity to explore new paths. Now we’ll be doing a bit of everything, even experimenting with new genres like hip-hop, rap, and other surprises. That way, we can reach more places and continue growing our fanbase.”

In his latest album Ya No Se Llevan Serenatas, released this past May, the Sonora native showed a more romantic, softer side, appearing on the cover with an enormous bouquet of red roses. “Sometimes you fall in love, and sometimes you stumble — that’s life,” he says. “I like giving flowers. I do it at my concerts as a rule for some of my fans — unfortunately, not all of them. I like taking the time to give back a little of what they give to us. Thanks to them, our career keeps rising.”

The 26-year-old artist, who has spent much of 2025 touring across Mexico, is now set to perform at some of the most important palenques to close out the year, including one in Guadalajara, where he will appear on Nov. 1 in what represents a major milestone in his career.

“The palenques are my favorite stages because you have so much interaction with the audience, having them so close. You feel the intense vibe when they sing your songs,” he explains, referring to the circular format used in Mexico’s fairs, typically for traditional regional Mexicano music — a style Ballesteros deeply admires. Especially mariachi and banda, genres he grew up listening to at home.

“The traditional will always be present,” he assures, naming Joan Sebastian as one of his idols. “I grew up with that music, and you can’t forget it. It has to stay forever.”

In a few weeks, Gabito Ballesteros will release a deluxe version of Ya No Se Llevan Serenatas. Additionally, he is preparing music specifically for the Colombian market, which he plans to visit later this year. As for new collaborations, he reveals that he has already recorded songs with Danna and Belinda, which will be released as soon as their schedules allow.

The crowd at the Baltimore stop of Jeezy‘s TM: 101 Live Tour has an Uber driver named Tanner to thank for the show not being canceled.

Jeezy posted a clip on Instagram of himself on stage this past Friday updating the audience of the journey he took after flights out of Atlanta were cancelled due to severe weather, telling them that he decided to drive up but ended up stuck in the middle of South Carolina after the car broke down. He then brought out the Uber driver, so the people could show him some love.

The “Seen It All” rapper went into further detail with a lengthy caption and explained that Tanner only needed a little bit of convincing.

“I woke up to my team informing me that all flights to Baltimore and D.C. had been canceled,” he began. They then told me that my driver was on his way to pick me up, so we could drive to Baltimore for the next stop on the tour. Two hours into our drive, we hit an object on the highway, puncturing the gas tank and causing fuel to leak everywhere. We pulled over to a small gas station to regroup in SC. My team tried to arrange a jet from South Carolina to Baltimore, but with the flights canceled do to weather, we weren’t sure if the jet would get us there on time, risking another cancellation.”

Adding, “Next, we called an Uber to take us to a rental car location at the airport. When the Uber driver arrived, he quickly loaded our bags and sped off. Eight minutes into the ride, I turned to him and said, ‘Hey, we need to go to Baltimore.’ I asked how much he’d charge to take us there, and after a moment of consideration, he replied, ‘Let me think about it.’ I assured him that whatever it was, he’d have it. Like real one, he didn’t hesitate and just kept driving.”

Jeezy then ended his caption by saying Tanner received VIP treatment at the show and he even included a picture of them backstage with Tanner rocking the iconic “Snowman” t-shirt.

“Ten hours later, we arrived in Baltimore just ten minutes before showtime,” he said. “I told him he made a lot of people happy tonight! Gave him a Snowman Tee and told him he was my guest for the show tonight! Shout out to the real MVP, my Uber driver Tanner! Not all heroes wear capes!”

On July 25, Jeezy released TM:101 (Live) featuring the Color of Noize Orchestra to commemorate the 20th Anniversary of his influential commercial debut Let’s Get It: Thug Motivation 101 which dropped on July 26, 2005.

Ed Sheeran fans are seeing double once again. Fourteen years after the pop star first tapped Rupert Grint to play his stalker/doppelgänger in the “Lego House” music video, the two ginger gents have teamed up once again for a new music video, coming soon.

Arriving Thursday alongside a new song titled “A Little More,” the video will feature the Harry Potter star seemingly reprising his role from the 2011 “Lego House” visual. In a clip posted by Sheeran on Monday (Aug. 4), Grint steps out of a prison — where he appears to have spent the past decade and a half in custody — and starts walking as the memories of his past crimes flash through his mind. The montage that plays features clips from “Lego House,” showing Grint getting tackled after he sneaks into a concert venue and pretends to be the Grammy winner onstage.

“14 years later me and @rupertgrint are reunited,” Sheeran captioned the clip. “I had this wild idea after writing the song, and thankfully rupert was up for it. It’s an utterly bonkers video for a very upbeat, fun, but angry song.”

The musician also confirmed that “A Little More” will appear on his upcoming album Play, noting that he thinks it’ll be “a lot of people’s fav song” on the September-slated project. Shortly prior to the official song announcement, Sheeran posted a funny clip of himself and Grint singing along to the lyrics.

The two men have been poking fun at their similarities as fellow red-headed English stars for years. After Grint played Sheeran’s obsessive fan in “Lego House,” the Knock at the Cabin actor joked on an MTV News comedy skit that Sheeran was never a real person, but instead a character he made up.

“After Potter, all I wanted to do was stretch myself, create some real magic, so I created a character,” he said in the sketch. “He’d have the voice of an angel, impossibly wispy facial hair. So I bought a guitar and a bunch of flannel, and I called him Ed — Ed Sheeran.”

See Sheeran’s announcement featuring Grint below.