Ahead of the season 51 premiere of Saturday Night Live on Oct. 4, Lorne Michaels confirmed in an interview that a few familiar faces will not return to the cast this fall — and those exits are starting to be announced one by one.
When asked by Puck in an interview published Aug. 22 if he planned to “shake things up” for the 2025-26 season, the SNL creator and producer replied, “Yes,” adding that he was feeling the “pressure to reinvent this season” after mostly keeping the cast intact from season 49 into the show’s landmark 50th year.
“I wanted people coming back and being part of [the 50th season],” Michaels told Puck. “So when Kate [McKinnon] hosted, Kristen [Wiig] and Maya [Rudolph] came back for it. And that meant there couldn’t be those kind of disruptions or anything that was going to take the focus off [the 50th season].”
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The 2024-25 season 50 cast included 17 people in total: 14 full-time cast members and three featured players. The longest-running cast members currently on Saturday Night Live are led by Kenan Thompson, who started on the show in 2003 and holds the record for the longest-tenured SNL castmate of all time. Other vets in the mix: Weekend Update co-anchors Colin Jost and Michael Che, who both joined the cast in 2014; Mikey Day (2016); Heidi Gardner (2017); Ego Nwodim (2018); and Chloe Fineman and Bowen Yang (both 2019).
But who won’t be back when the sketch comedy show returns to Studio 8H in October? Below, find the full list of cast members exiting Saturday Night Live ahead of season 51.
In October of 1971, Godfather of Soul James Brown clocked another entry in his generational run on the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart with “Super Bad Part 1 & 2” — a confidence anthem commonly known simply as “Super Bad,” which hit No. 1 on the chart and ultimately became one of the many defining anthems of Brown’s immeasurably influential catalog.
It was obviously a song you could dance to, but it wasn’t technically a dance song — until now.
Via a collaboration with James Brown’s grandson Jason Brown, Brown estate stakeholders Universal Music and Primary Wave and Dutch legend Laidback Luke, “Super Bad” has gotten an official rework called “I Got Soul (Super Bad)”.
Out today (Aug. 28) via Dim Mak Records, the project finds Luke ramping up the song’s BPM and urgency, outfitting his electro production with Brown’s declarations to, among other things, “watch me!” Done in a style bloghouse fans will know and appreciate, the song bumps along deliciously, although as the producer tells it, putting it together was initially quite daunting.
“When I got those stems and opened them up, I was scared,” Luke tells Billboard. “It’s sacred material; I didn’t want to touch it.” This intimidation factor lead Luke to circle back with Jason, who “just gave me complete freedom that made me feel like I could just run with this.”
Jason Brown, who is himself a Los Angeles-based DJ/producer who’s remixed many of his grandfather’s hits and cites a mission to “revamp my gramps music to the next generation,” initially reached out to Luke via DM earlier this year to gauge his interest in being part of the project. He’d seen Luke play many times back in the day while he was a student at SCAD, a creative college in Washington D.C. and loved his classic Dirty Dutch sound. Luke read the DM and was, at first, incredulous.
“It was a little bit creepy,” says Luke, “because I didn’t know who he was and he just started talking about his granddaddy and that he had all the stems and rights to the music. I was like, ‘Wait James Brown is his granddaddy? Like, is this guy for real?”
He was for real, and after the pair had a conversation, Luke received the “Super Bad” stems from Jason and Universal Music, which owns Brown’s recorded masters. “They just saw the vision,” Jason says of the label. The project — which is being framed as an official collaboration rather than a remix — is also a product of Primary Wave, which acquired a stake in Brown’s publishing, master royalty income, name and likeness rights in a 2021 deal valued at approximately $90 million.
“It’s a bit of a melting pot and a real estate situation when it comes down to the business of it,” Jason Brown says of the project’s multiple stakeholders. “But that’s how you get it all across the board, you put everybody at the table. You get everybody on the email. And then you’ve got to know what sounds good, and the result has got to be good, and the names attached have to be somebody. It’s literally all about relevance.”
Luke says the song has been hitting hard during recent sets, with audience going a bit wilder when they realize who the song features. Having previously done official remixes for artists including Madonna, Depeche Mode, Daft Punk and Donna Summer, Luke still cites this project as “the biggest thing I’ve I’ve ever done in my whole career… Like, the only [bigger you can go] is Elvis or Michael Jackson.”
Knowing how much this project means to his career and how much James Brown means to countless people around the world, Luke was a little shy about playing Jason his finished track. “I actually ghosted him for a little bit because I didn’t know if I wanted him to hear it, because I really did my own thing with it,” Luke says.
But the inevitable listening session eventually took place in person in the Dam Mak office in Los Angeles, where Luke and Jason met for the first time and Luke recognized that “Jason is very much the real deal. He’s one of those American kids of huge legends who are just roaming around and have access to this legacy.”
Luke played Jason the track, and Jason says he while he was surprised by Luke taking an electro approach rather than going Dirty Dutch, the final product achieves what he’d hoped it might. “It kind of puts [my grandfather] into the future,” he says. “And that’s the goal. This supersedes the goal.”
Mariah Carey revealed all the songs that will be featured on her upcoming 16th studio album Here for It All on Wednesday (Aug. 27).
The 11-track project includes two collaborations: “Play This Song” with Anderson .Paak and “Jesus I Do” with The Clark Sisters. .Paak also co-wrote the LP’s first single, “Type Dangerous,” and performed it alongside the elusive chanteuse and Rakim at the 2025 BET Awards in June, when MC won her first BET Award: the Ultimate Icon Award.
“It was awesome to be able to work on her project. She’s amazing to work with, a great writer, great producer. So much fun. We had a lot of fun,” .Paak told Billboard‘s Tetris Kelly. “That was one of the last records we did in the studio, and it came together like so quick. She’s a big hip-hop head, so I wanted to try to find something that we could continue the lineage of her mixing the old with the new. And I think we got it with this one.”
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Carey is set to receive the Video Vanguard Award at the 2025 MTV Video Music Awards on Sept. 7, when she’ll also perform a career-spanning medley of hits on the show.
Here for It All is due Sept. 26 via gamma. Following “Type Dangerous,” Carey released “Sugar Sweet,” featuring Shenseea and Kehlani, as the second single. It reached the top 20 of Hot R&B Songs. Both singles have gained traction on radio, with Mimi earning her first No. 1 on Adult R&B Airplay in almost 19 years with “Type Dangerous” and “Sugar Sweet” hitting No. 31 on R&B/Hip-Hop Airplay.
According to meteorologist Adam Krueger’s professional opinion, love is definitely in the air following Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce‘s engagement.
Ahead of his latest viral forecast, the Los Angeles weatherman received a bombardment of requests from Swifties that he incorporate the pop star’s 2008 smash “Love Story” into his next report. Considering the fact that Swift announced her engagement to the Kansas City Chiefs tight end on Tuesday, it’s not hard to guess why.
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Rising to the challenge, Krueger — who is known for paying tribute to various hit songs in his forecast — snuck several different “Love Story” lyrics into his on-air appearance, clips of which he posted to Instagram on Wednesday (Aug. 27). “I close my eyes and the flashback starts, I’m standing there on a balcony in summer air — sweaty,” he said when giving an update on the area’s heat. “That’s how hot it was.”
“With heavy rain and strong winds — like Romeo, who was throwing pebbles — with a little bit of small hail coming down,” he continued, gesturing to a storm pattern on his screen. “All there’s left to do is run through the temperatures now.”
It was kismet that Krueger also had tropical storm “Juliette” to report on. Playing on the lyric, “And my daddy said, ‘Stay away from Juliet,’” he warned that those who are nearby the dangerous weather event should “Stay away” from Juliette as much as possible.
It’s not the first time the anchor — whose other recent weather-report themes have included KATSEYE, Kendrick Lamar and Eminem — has paid tribute to Swift. In January 2024, he devoted a forecast to her hit single “Karma,” similar to a Welsh meteorologist who gave a Swift-themed forecast that June to celebrate the Eras Tour coming to Wales.
What makes Krueger’s latest address particularly impressive, though, is how quickly he turned it around. The presenter posted his video just one day after Swift and Kelce shared their big news by posting photos of the athlete down on one knee and the 14-time Grammy winner showing off her massive diamond ring, writing, “Your English teacher and your gym teacher are getting married.”
Suge Knight believes Drake has been showing off a fake Death Row Records chain, which was never in 2Pac’s possession.
On Tuesday, The Art of Dialogue podcast made a call to Knight, who remains behind bars in California serving a 28-year prison sentence. The Death Row founder says it was his idea to create a label chain, and claims he gave the first pendant to Snoop Dogg, who eventually switched it out for a dog paw.
“When I came up with the idea to make the Death Row chain, one, it had never been done before,” he said. “Two, it was like wearing a, you know, it was like having your flag, your rag. You can’t tuck it, It means something.”
After bailing 2Pac out of jail in 1995, Knight promised the late rapper would be getting his own Death Row Records chain. However, Pac wanted the original that Suge rocked around his burly neck.
“He’s like, ‘Sh–, you my big bro. Let me wear yours, that’s more important. I don’t want a first one, I want to wear the one you got,’” he recalled.
Knight went on to call out Drake for wearing what he says is a “fake” chain and instructed him to go after whatever jeweler ripped him off for selling him what he thought was Pac’s chain.
“That’s not 2Pac’s chain. It’s not a Death Row chain,” he claimed. “Whoever sold you that chain, Drake, you need to go beat his motherf—ing a–.”
Over the weekend, Drake posted a photo of 2Pac’s All Eyez on Me cover art and then a photo of the blinged-out Death Row Records pendant, which people assumed was the one Pac had on for the album cover photo shoot. The back of the pendant is inscribed with: “All Eyez on YOU 1996.”
Back in 2023, Drake became the owner of a gold, ruby and diamond crown ring previously owned by 2Pac and worn to the 1996 MTV Video Music Awards. Sotheby’s later confirmed that Drizzy purchased the ring for $1.1 million.
Eden Muñoz notches his fifth consecutive No. 1 on Billboard’s Regional Mexican Airplay chart, and ninth overall, as “Lejos Estamos Mejor” lifts 2-1 on the ranking dated Aug. 30. It marks the singer-songwriter’s third straight No. 1 in 2025.
“A No. 1 on Billboard, along with this great song, is definitely a big career achievement,” Muñoz tells Billboard. “I’m happy because we can say that ‘Lejos Estamos Mejor’ has come to stay in the hearts of our people. Grateful to God, the team, and all those who connected with the song.”
“Lejos Estamos Mejor” is the title track and second song from Muñoz’s Lejos Estamos Mejor EP (released via Sony Music Latin), after “Mi Primer Día Sin Ti” crowned Regional Mexican Airplay for one week in May. “Lejos” rises to No. 1 with 8.1 million audience impressions earned in the United States in the tracking week of Aug. 15-21, according to Luminate. For its coronation, the song surged 17% in impressions compared the prior week.
With his new success, Muñoz secures a place among the most successful soloists of the 2020s, matching El Fantasma with nine crowns each. Here is that list of standout solo singers with the most No. 1s on Regional Mexican Airplay this decade:
14, Alejandro Fernández 10, Christian Nodal 9, Carin León 9, Eden Munoz 9, El Fantasma
Elsewhere, Muñoz inches closer to the summit of the overall Latin Airplay chart, as the song rockets 7-2. Along with his 2024 duet with Yuridia, “Mi Eterno Amor Secreto,” this marks his highest position to date.
