Last month, Kendrick Lamar and SZA embarked on their Grand National Tour, giving live debuts to songs from GNX and Lana. Now, their GNX collab “Luther” is breaking records with 12 weeks atop the Billboard Hot 100.

Indianapolis 500 goes down next Sunday (May 25), and this year the race features a Creed-themed car in collaboration with SiriusXM’s Turbo. Members of the band will also be attending the event.

The last time we checked in on Madonna, even she seemed unsure about the fate of her long-delayed biopic. After a highly competitive (and highly publicized) audition process that eventually landed on Julia Garner as its star, the film was scrapped in 2023, though the Queen Of Pop maintained some interest in adapting her life story to a screen. Last fall, she asked fans on Instagram: “Should I make the story of my life into a series or a feature film?” At least for now, she’s going with the former option.

The Goldenvoice-run, dance-focused Portola music festival will be back at San Francisco’s PIER 80 this Sept. 20 and 21. Headlining this year’s festivities are LCD Soundsystem and Dom Dolla, with some other intriguing big names including Christina Aguilera(!), Underworld, Peggy Gou, the Prodigy, Moby, Anti Up (the duo of Chris Lake and Chris Lorenzo), a Chemical Brothers DJ set, Blood Orange, Caribou, Magdalena Bay, the Dare, the Rapture (their first show in over five years), Arca, Rico Nasty, Boy Harsher, Kelly Lee Owens, Duke Dumont, Nick Leon, Kreayshawn, the Blessed Madonna, Bolis Pupil, and more.

Tory Lanez has been hospitalized for stab wounds he suffered in prison, TMZ reports. The rapper, who’s currently serving a 10-year prison sentence for shooting Megan Thee Stallion in the foot in the summer of 2020, was reportedly in the yard of California Correctional Institution at Tehachapi Monday morning when a fellow inmate attacked him. The injuries are non-threatening, according to TMZ’s sources. The attacker hasn’t publicly stated their motivation behind the attack.

Last week, people began noticing an update in the most recent version of SoundCloud’s terms of service: A provision giving the platform permission to use uploaded content to “inform, train, develop or serve as input” to AI. It’s unclear whether or not that includes generative AI, and it appears they haven’t done a very good job of notifying users of the change, with the Wayback Machine indicating this provision was added in February 2024. But now, folks are noticing and are understandably upset, given the extensive backlash against AI in music. SoundCloud has now issued a new statement in response. It reads:

At some point in the past couple of years, Usher has started hand-feeding cherries to female fans in the crowd at his shows. It’s a simple enough gag, but it’s made multiple headlines: Last month, rumors spread that one cherry recipient was leaving her husband due to her spicy public moment with Usher, but she later cleared the air by saying she hadn’t spoken to the singer since the show and she wasn’t even married anyway. A few shows later, Usher apologized to the crowd at his Abu Dhabi show, saying he couldn’t feed cherries due to the UAE’s strict public decency laws. Many awkward moments have occurred due to Usher’s cherry-feeding frenzy.

Like their fellow Irishmen Kneecap, post-punk band the Murder Capital have been facing some pushback over their public advocacy for Palestine and their condemnation of the Israeli government’s ongoing genocide. During recent shows, they’ve been waving a Palestinian flag onstage, and that’s apparently been getting them into some hot water with certain venues. After the Gretchen Club in Berlin said the Murder Capital couldn’t mention Palestine during their scheduled show last night, the band gave a statement outside the venue about their choice to not perform there. Here’s what James McGovern said:

Since they began touring their latest album Only God Was Above Us, Vampire Weekend have been enjoying doing multiple shortened covers toward the end of their sets. Those are usually audience requests, performed unpracticed with various degrees of success. Last night they headlined Just Like Heaven at Pasadena’s Brookside Park, a festival known for booking 2000s/2010s indie hitmakers. And so instead of taking requests, Vampire Weekend did a “salute to indie,” covering their blog-rock peers in Phoenix (“Lisztomania”), Tame Impala (“The Less I Know the Better”), Beach House (“Space Song”), Grizzly Bear (“Two Weeks”), and TV On The Radio (“Wolf Like Me”).

Turnstile’s new album Never Enough is arriving next month. Before it’s out, the Baltimore hardcore band has a few of US shows planned, including stops in Los Angeles, Oxnard, and Brooklyn. Last night they did live debuts of some of the LP singles during an epic free hometown show at the Wyman Park Dell, where there was apparently no barricades, no security, free water, and ample opportunities to donate to Healthcare For The Homeless.