Since their triumphant campaign in the 2019 Southeast Asian (SEA) Games, Filipino muay thai fighters have not returned to full-scale combat in the international scene. Their pent-up energy will be finally released when Team Bagsik—as what the national muay team is also called—goes to battle in the International Federation of Muaythai Associations (IFMA) World Championships […]
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Chot Reyes doesn’t feel the need to expound on strengths and weaknesses ahead of his TNT’s clash with Magnolia in a best-of-seven title series for the PBA Philippine Cup. “That’s not really relevant,” Reyes said. “There are two teams here, and we’re just trying to compete, trying to come out and be better on a […]
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Dave has announced a North American headline tour for 2022 – you can find all the details below.
READ MORE: Dave – ‘We’re All Alone In This Together’ review: stunning sequel lives up to his debut
The London rapper will head stateside in support of his second album ‘We’re All Alone In This Together’, which was released back in July. Tickets go on general sale here this Friday (October 22) at 10am local time.
The dates are set to begin in San Franciso on April 26, with shows then following in Vancouver (April 27), Chicago (April 29), Washington D.C. (May 1), New York (May 5), Boston (May 6), Atlanta (May 8), Montreal (May 10) and Toronto (May 13).
You can see the official tour poster in the tweet below.
NORTH AMERICA TOUR! pic.twitter.com/fMFw0zkbrI
— SANTAN (@Santandave1) October 19, 2021
It comes after Dave announced a UK and Ireland headline tour for next year. He’ll kick off the run of gigs at Nottingham’s Motorpoint Arena on February 15, 2022. Other stop-offs include Birmingham, Leeds, Cardiff, Manchester, Newcastle, Liverpool and Glasgow.
The rapper headlined Parklife 2021 in Manchester last month, where he was joined on stage by surprise guest Stormzy. Together, the pair treated the Heaton Park crowd to a live airing of their collaborative track ‘Clash’.
In a glowing five-star review of Dave’s latest album, NME wrote: “As illustrated throughout the stunning ‘Psychodrama’, Dave has always been the one to rap traditionally, using hip-hop for what it was intended to do: give a voice to the voiceless.
“He has always been able to show the inner-workings of many young Londoners in a clean and universal way that can perhaps help the whole world to better understand the Black British experience, especially that of Black men.”
The post Dave announces North American tour for 2022 appeared first on NME.
Police in Nottingham are investigating multiple reports of needle attacks in some of the city’s nightclubs.
In a new BBC News report, a number of people have claimed they were injected with a needle while on a night out.
Zara Owen, a 19-year-old student, recalled blacking out shortly after arriving at Pryzm nightclub in Nottingham on October 10. She said the next thing she remembers is waking up in her bed with pain in her leg before discovering a pinprick mark.
She has called for security to be bolstered at nightclubs with extra bag and pocket searches.
In another incident, the sister of an unnamed student from Derby said her 19-year-old sibling believes she was injected with a mystery liquid during a night out as she left Stealth nightclub on October 12.
Ellie Simpson said her sister, who does not want to be named, blacked out and was taken to hospital after she felt a “pinch on the back of her arm” as she left the club.
“I don’t think it’s quite yet sunk in what’s happened to her,” Simpson said. “It’s really frightening because I don’t know how you’re meant to prevent it.”
She added: “Obviously you can put your hand over your drink but how do you stop somebody stabbing you with a needle?”
Stealth nightclub confirmed to the BBC that it has received two reports within the past two weeks from customers who thought they may have been spiked by a needle. The nightclub said it takes reports of spiking “very seriously” and will continue to carry out thorough searches and capture CCTV footage to aid police investigations.
A spokesman for Rekom UK, which owns Pryzm, said: “While these incidents are incredibly rare, we take all reports of this nature very seriously and will do all we can to make sure that they don’t happen in our clubs.”
Nottinghamshire Police has confirmed it was looking into multiple reports of people being “spiked physically”.
“We are currently investigating reports of individuals suspecting that their drinks have been spiked,” Supt Kathryn Craner told the BBC. “Linked to this a small number of victims have said that they may have felt a scratching sensation as if someone may have spiked them physically.”
She added: “We do not believe that these are targeted incidents. They are distinctly different from anything we have seen previously as victims have disclosed a physical scratch type sensation before feeling very unwell.
“This is subtly different from feelings of intoxication through alcohol according to some victims.”
Police said a 20-year-old man had been arrested “on suspicion of possession of class A and class B and cause [to] administer poison or noxious thing with intent to injure, aggrieve and annoy” following an incident in Lower Parliament Street on October 16. He has since been released on bail.
The post Police investigate multiple reports of needle attacks in Nottingham nightclubs appeared first on NME.
Since joining Reebok in an official capacity, Kerby Jean-Raymond has taken a step back from his own collaborative works, choosing to instead craft Pyer Moss‘ first standalone shoe. But soon, after almost a year-long hiatus, the two are jumpstarting their partnership with the new Experiment 4 “Emergency.”
As its namesake implies, the colorway ostensibly draws inspiration from the utilitarian — specifically, what’s found amongst the gear of rescue teams. Robust orange leathers are applied atop the shoe, dressing the eye stays, lace shield, and the toggle that dangles adjacent. Elsewhere, the construction is far more subdued, opting instead for a full grey coloring. This neutral runs throughout both the mesh inserts, midsole, tread, and heel, encasing a blacked out lining.
Enjoy a close-up look below and expect to find them on PyerMoss.com come October 23rd.
In other news, the Jordan 6 UNC is releasing next year.
Pyer Moss x Reebok Experiment 4 “Emergency”
Release Date: October 23rd, 2021
Make sure to follow @kicksfinder for live tweets during the release date.
Where to Buy
Pyer Moss12pm ET
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After debuting at the 2021 Olympics in the “Rawdacious” and Team USA colorways, the Zoom GT Run is positioned to be a common sight throughout the 2021-2022 NBA season among Nike athletes. Already surfacing in various PE colorways, the Zoom GT Run is exploring its lifestyle-friendly side as we’ve seen some uncharacteristic colorways such as a “Tie Dye” pattern. This upcoming drop, which clearly reminds us of the iconic ACG Air Mowabb, is yet another flex from Nike Basketball’s color team as it employs that Rattan, blue, and orange combination to achieve that timeless All Conditions Gear aesthetic.
Adding to the mix is a light green accent around the uppermost eyelet, forefoot Swoosh, and lettering at the heel-tabs, and a light yellow barrier above the midsole. So while these aren’t a true Mowabb homage, it’s hard to ignore its presence in this colorway that takes us back to 1991.
A release date is currently unknown, but expect these at Nike.com and Nike Basketball retailers soon for $175.
Where to Buy
Make sure to follow @kicksfinder for live tweets during the release date.
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After becoming a fan favorite contestant on Matt James’ season of The Bachelor, Michelle Young is ready to find love.
The 28-year-old teacher and former college basketball star is the newest Bachelorette, and 30 men will try to win her heart on season 18, which premieres Tuesday night (Oct. 19).
Young’s season follows Katie Thurston’s Bachelorette season, which ended in a romantic engagement to Blake Moynes. And like Katie’s season, Michelle’s run as The Bachelorette will be hosted by former Bachelorettes Tayshia Adams and Kaitlyn Bristowe.
See below for how to watch Michelle’s season of The Bachelorette.
The latest season of The Bachelorette premieres on Tuesday (Oct. 19) at 8 p.m. ET/PT on ABC. If you have cable (or a digital TV antenna like this one from Amazon), you can watch Bachelorette on TV through your local ABC affiliate.
For those without cable, ABC can be streamed online via ABC.com. Signing up for free trials of fuboTV or SlingTV will give you access to ABC as well, as both services include ABC, to let you watch Michelle’s season of Bachelorette live on TV or stream Bachelorette from your laptop, tablet or phone.
Fans can also watch Bachelorette online, as the show is available to stream free with a Hulu subscription. Don’t want to sign-up for Hulu? The streaming service is currently offering a 30-day free trial which you can use to watch Bachelorette online free.
All seasons of The Bachelor and The Bachelorette, including Katie Thurston, Matt James, Peter Weber and Clare Crawley/Tayshia Adams’ seasons, are available to purchase on Amazon Prime Video here. You can stream some previous seasons of The Bachelor and The Bachelorette with your Hulu subscription or free trial.
Billboard celebrated its 2021 Latin Power Players event in Miami on Monday night with more than 65 executives representing top music companies.
Hosted by Billboard president Julian Holguin; editorial director Hannah Karp; and VP/Latin industry lead Leila Cobo at the Nobu Restaurant in the Nobu Hotel, the event also honored Latin executive of the year Noah Assad, the co-founder and CEO of Rimas Entertainment.
“The reason Noah is exec of the year is not because of Bad Bunny but because of his body of work,” Cobo said to guests ahead of a private dinner.
Assad, who also manages Karol G and Eladio Carrion, among others, had a stellar year with his clients, including Bad Bunny, who became the first artist in Billboard history to place an all-Spanish album at No. 1 on the Billboard 200.
At 31, he’s also the youngest executive ever to be honored as a Billboard executive of the year.
“Thank you. There are many familiar faces here that supported my career and in one way or another put their two cents in to help me get to where I am now,” he said, crediting 2021 Latin Power Players honorees such as Camille Soto and Vicente Saavedra. “Without realizing it, they lent me their knowledge.”
Everyone in attendance was included on the 2021 list of Billboard’s Latin Power Players, including top executives from Spotify, Universal, Warner, Sony and more.
Liberty Media ended its brief entrée into broadcast radio on Oct. 5 by selling its entire stake in iHeartMedia, the largest radio broadcaster in the United States. According to an iHeartMedia SEC filing, Liberty Media sold its total holdings of Class A common stock (5.94 million shares) at $25.25 per share in an open market block trade.
By most measures, the Oct. 5 sale was a financial home run for Liberty that was worth $150 million — not including the proceeds from an additional 1 million shares sold for unknown amounts “from time to time,” according to the filing. Liberty had purchased $600 million worth of iHeartMedia debt between November 2017 and February 2018 for $490 million. Then, after iHeartMedia reached a bankruptcy settlement with its bond holders to reduce its debt load, those bonds turned into 6.54 million shares and 435,000 special warrants for an equal number of Class A common stock — a total of roughly 6.9 million shares.
Liberty Media, headed by John Malone, holds 78% of satellite broadcaster SiriusXM, which owns music streaming service Pandora outright, as well as 32% of Live Nation, the world’s largest concert promoter. It groups the three investments, and its former stake in iHeartMedia, into Liberty SiriusXM Group, which trades as a tracking stock on the Nasdaq. Its other group of businesses include 100% ownership in Formula 1 and the Atlanta Braves baseball team, as well as a minority stake in Kroenke Arena Company, the owner of Ball Arena in Denver.
Quietly unloading its iHeartMedia investment ends Liberty’s attempt to build a market-spanning media conglomerate. iHeartMedia reaches over 90% of Americans each month with roughly 860 AM and FM stations, plus online platforms and a growing podcast business. Its digital audio businesses are among the largest in the country: SiriusXM has over 30 million satellite radio subscribers and Pandora averaged 51.7 million monthly listeners in the second quarter of 2021. In concerts, Live Nation’s U.S. attendance was 62.7 million in 2019, the latest year to be unaffected by the pandemic. In total, the four companies account for roughly $22 billion to $23 billion in consumer and brand spending annually, based on pre-pandemic earnings.
“We appreciate Liberty’s support for iHeartMedia, originally as a holder of debt which then converted into a meaningful equity stake, and we are delighted that they received a good return on their investment,” said a iHeartMedia spokesperson in a statement.
Liberty Media declined to comment.
Any number of reasons could be behind Liberty’s decision to sell its iHeartMedia stake. Liberty could have sold for tax purposes before Biden administration changes take effect in 2022 — the company excels at complex financial wizardry to reduce its tax obligations. It could have anticipated regulatory roadblocks from Biden’s Department of Justice ahead of buying a larger stake in either iHeartMedia or SiriusXM. Given Liberty Media’s penchant for investing in distressed companies at low prices, its exit from iHeartMedia could have simply been motivated by the promise of a big payday: Radio companies’ stock prices have rebounded from their sharp declines in the pandemic’s earliest days. iHeartMedia went public at $17 in June 2019 and fell to $4.31 on April 3, 2020. Its share have traded above $20 since May 7, 2020 and closed at $21.66 on Monday (Oct. 18).
Whatever is behind Liberty’s decision, “it is rarely a good thing when the most intelligent folks in the room — and one their largest shareholders — are selling,” Jeff Wlodarczak of Pivotal Research Group told Billboard in an email.
iHeartMedia’s financial struggles provided Liberty with a buying opportunity. Formerly Clear Channel Communications, iHeartMedia is the parent company of iHeartRadio, the largest radio broadcaster in the United States, and was acquired by two private equity firms — Bain Capital Partners and Thomas H. Lee Partners — in a leveraged buyout in 2008. The transaction saddled the company with large interest payments that ate into earnings.
“Liberty is patient and opportunist — maybe to an extreme,” says an investor. During iHeartMedia’s prolonged negotiations with debtors, Liberty Media snared $600 million of the company’s nearly $20 billion of long-term debt at a discount.
When it finds a distressed asset, Liberty makes an offer that appears one-sided but involves risk. In 2009, it kept SiriusXM out of bankruptcy with a $530 million loan that converted to a 40% stake that’s worth roughly $8.5 billion today. In 2019, when iHeartMedia was negotiating with bond holders to stave off bankruptcy, Liberty offered to buy a 40% stake for $1.16 billion and provide financial support once it filed for bankruptcy; iHeartMedia’s lenders and note holders rejected the offer. iHeartMedia filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in March 2018 and, after a settlement with holders of more than $10 billion of its $20 billion of long-term debt, exited bankruptcy reorganization in 2019. Liberty Media’s notes converted into Class B shares and warrants, which it later converted into the Class A shares it sold on Oct. 5.
But iHeartMedia is no longer the kind of high-risk, inexpensive investment that Liberty often chases. With the economy recovering from its pandemic lows, iHeartMedia’s share price increased about 200% since Liberty Media received DOJ approval to acquire up to 50% of iHeartMedia’s debt (amounting to roughly $2.8 billion at the time) or common stock in July 2020. And iHeartMedia could get more expensive: Eight equity analysts tracked by Refinitiv have an average price target for iHeartMedia of $32.50 — 50% higher than Monday’s closing price of $21.66.
By selling its stake in iHeartMedia, Liberty effectively cancels any hopes of creating a “full stack” media company. The combination of broadcasting and live events has obvious promotional opportunities for both companies. It had been tried before, in fact: Clear Channel, iHeartMedia’s predecessor, spun off its live events business, rebranded to Live Nation, in 2005. A clearer benefit would have come from Liberty providing connective tissue across AM/FM broadcasters, satellite radio and online streaming companies. By owning or having a stake in these companies, Liberty Media could have become a major influencer in how nearly all Americans listen to music and attend concerts.
UPDATE: This article was updated Oct. 19 at 4:10 p.m. EST to include iHeartMedia’s statement.
The Grammy screening committees’ recent decision to declare Kacey Musgraves’ Star-Crossed a pop album and take it out of best country album contention will have no bearing on the album’s eligibility for next year’s Academy of Country Music Awards or Country Music Association Awards.
The two biggest country awards shows have no such formal screening committees — and are, obviously, only dealing with one genre. Their written guidelines suggest the album will have no trouble meeting any eligibility requirements and representatives for both organizations confirm that Star-Crossed will be eligible in all appropriate categories.
Two weeks ago, the country screening committee for the 2022 Grammy Awards voted to remove Star-Crossed from the best country album category because the majority of voters on the committee felt it belonged in pop based on its musical and lyrical content. The pop screening committee accepted the album. After an appeal by Interscope, the label that released Star-Crossed with Universal Music Group Nashville, the larger core screening committee, which settles disputes between genre committees, also voted that the album belonged in the pop field.
Released Sept. 10, Star-Crossed – which debuted at No. 1 on Billboard’s Top Country Albums chart — came out too late for this year’s Nov. 10 CMA Awards but will be eligible in 2022.
According to the CMA’s written criteria for album of the year, the appearance on the Top Country Album’s chart is one of the main qualifiers: “The album must have charted on Billboard’s Top Country Albums chart for the first time during the eligibility period. However, if the album charted on Billboard’s Top Country Albums chart prior to the eligibility period, but achieved its highest chart position for the first time during the eligibility period, it is eligible unless it has previously appeared on a Final Ballot in this category.”
The criteria also gives further guidelines for consideration by voters but says nothing about specific sound, unlike the guidelines for the country Grammy categories, which declare that the Grammys’ country field “recognizes excellence in country music recordings that utilize a stylistic intention, song structure, lyrical content and/or musical presentation to create a sensibility that reflects the broad spectrum of country music style and culture. The intent is to recognize country music that remains reminiscent of its culture’s legacy while also engaging contemporary forms that ‘push the boundaries’ but still are relevant in the collective country music culture. The Field includes recordings and songs that are country in content as opposed to those that may have a ‘country flavor,’ but are aimed at the contemporary or pop audience.”
The CMA criteria states only: “The Award is for a Country album as a whole unit as defined by the Billboard Album charts. The album should be judged on all aspects including, but not limited to, artist’s performance, musical background, engineering, packaging, design, art, layout and liner notes. At least 75% of the recordings on the album must have achieved peak national prominence during the eligibility period. Greatest hits albums or compilation albums consisting of previously released recordings are not eligible for this award.”
For the ACM Awards, the criteria also focuses more on time of release and chart position rather than content: “An album is defined as a unified, released body of work with a minimum of either seven (7) full-length musical works and/or thirty (30) minutes in length. The nominees shall be determined by a nomination ballot(s) and are subject to the approval of the Board. The winner shall be determined by a vote of the ACM professional membership.
“An album is considered released on the first available date that the material can be possessed by a consumer via a purchase in its entirety and/or streamed legally in its entirety by a royalty-generating service,” the rules continue. “If the album was released during the two (2) prior eligibility periods but achieved its highest charting position on the Billboard Top Country Albums Chart during the eligibility period, it is eligible unless it has appeared on a final ACM ballot in this category. To be eligible, a minimum of 51% of the standard edition of the album must contain recordings that have not been previously released by the artist prior to thirty (30) days from the album’s release date.”
The loophole for both organizations is that the board of directors may intervene, but there are no known cases where an album has been removed because of musical or lyrical content.
This year, in an extremely rare move, the ACM board of directors declared that Morgan Wallen was ineligible for April’s 56th ACM Awards cycle following the release of a February video that showed the country singer using a racial slur. The CMA Awards took a less drastic step and allowed Wallen’s work with his collaborators to be eligible, but that he was not allowed for any solo awards. Dangerous: The Double Album is up for album of the year at November’s awards.
Musgraves has won four ACM Awards, including for best album for Same Trailer Different Park in 2014 and for Golden Hour in 2019. She has earned seven CMA Awards, including album of the year for Golden Hour in 2018.
Miley Cyrus has joked that she and Machine Gun Kelly are “the same person”.
The ‘Plastic Hearts’ pop star referenced MGK’s bizarre “I am weed” comment from his joint British GQ cover story with partner Megan Fox, which was published last week.
During the interview, the couple recalled how they met. “I looked up and I was like, ‘You smell like weed’,” Fox said. “He looked down at me and he was like, ‘I am weed’. Then, I swear to God, he disappeared like a ninja in a smoke bomb.”
On Sunday (October 17) Cyrus shared two images of herself in a green dress, captioning the tweet with Machine Gun Kelly’s memeable quote. Retweeting the post on Monday (October 18), MGK responded: “See, I’m not the only one.”
Cyrus then replied to the Ohio artist, writing: “We may actually be the same person. Have we ever been seen at the same place @ the same time? & yes that means Megan Fox is my gf too.”
You can see the exchange below:
see, i’m not the only one. https://t.co/YUlK7WHzlZ
— blonde don (@machinegunkelly) October 17, 2021
We may actually be the same person. Have we ever been seen at the same place @ the same time? & yes that means Megan Fox is my gf too. https://t.co/LkNGqX8lMg
— Miley Ray Cyrus (@MileyCyrus) October 18, 2021
As Billboard notes, Cyrus posted the aforementioned new photos to signal her next era. The outlet reported last week that the singer was at work on her next studio album, having signed a new deal with Columbia Records in March.
In a four-star review of ‘Plastic Hearts’, which arrived last November, NME said that the project “finds the pop-star-turned-rock-star going hell for leather – and when Miley Cyrus is at full throttle, it’s an absolute blast. Life has imitated art, and she’s become her very own Ashley O.”
Meanwhile, Machine Gun Kelly recently revealed that his next record ‘Born With Horns’ would be “more guitar-heavy” and lyrically “deeper”. His most recent album, ‘Tickets To My Downfall’, came out in September 2020.
The post Miley Cyrus jokes that she and Machine Gun Kelly are “the same person” appeared first on NME.
The Weeknd and Swedish House Mafia are gearing up to release a new track called ‘Moth To A Flame’.
READ MORE: The Weeknd ushers in his next era with deliciously dark new song ‘Take My Breath’
The new collaboration was first teased by The Weeknd back in September, when he posted two snippets of audio and tagged the recently reunited EDM supergroup.
Today (October 19), both The Weeknd and Swedish House Mafia shared a video clip to social media that sees the former, donning a pair of sunglasses and a beanie, standing in a dimly-lit room as a snippet of the new song plays.
As the clip comes to a close, the artists’ names and the song title flash up. No exact date for the track has been revealed, but both collaborators captioned their posts: “this week”.
this week @swedishousemfia pic.twitter.com/9ubDyGxU5y
— The Weeknd (@theweeknd) October 19, 2021
this week pic.twitter.com/PBGaRWMuWO
— Swedish House Mafia (@swedishousemfia) October 19, 2021
The announcement comes after The Weeknd recently revealed the artists who have inspired his next album on his Apple Music 1 radio show, Memento Mori, with Swedish House Mafia being one of them.
Songs by the likes of Britney Spears’ Nas, Kid Cudi, Kanye West and Tyler, the Creator also featured during the show.
The ‘Blinding Lights’ singer also recently revealed that his fifth studio album wouldbe done by the end of September.
“[W]e’re just kind of figuring out when to put it out. It’s been really cool, because I’m working on this album this summer simultaneously with the writer’s room for the new TV show,” he said.
After The Weeknd’s ‘After Hours’ era concluded earlier this year, the singer shared a new track called ‘Take My Breath’.
Reviewing the song, NME wrote: “As the beginning of The Weeknd’s new era, ‘Take My Breath’ is a strong first step – a song that should become as much of a pop mainstay as any of ‘After Hours’’s smashes.
“What’s most intriguing about it, though, is what it’s not telling us; what is going to come next. For that, we’ll have to wait – but at least Tesfaye’s given us something new to dance to in the meantime.”
Meanwhile, Swedish House Mafia shared two new singles this past summer. The first, ‘It Gets Better’, was the group’s first new material in almost nine years, while the second, ‘Lifetime’, sees them team up with Ty Dolla $ign and 070 Shake.
The post The Weeknd and Swedish House Mafia announce new track ‘Moth To A Flame’ appeared first on NME.
