Music

Mt. Westmore — the rap supergroup featuring Ice Cube, Snoop Dogg, Too $hort and E-40 — made their live debut Saturday during the Triller Fight Club event at Atlanta’s Mercedes-Benz Stadium. The California rap legends — Ice Cube and Snoop Dogg from Los Angeles area, Too $hort and E-40 from Oakland — delivered a 20-minute performance that boasted each rappers’ solo hits  — like “It Was a Good Day” and “Gin & Juice” — and concluded with the debut of Mt. Westmore’s upcoming first single together, “Big Subwoofer.” The Mt....

Maren Morris and Chris Stapleton are the most-nominated artists at the 2021 ACM Awards -- but will they take home the most trophies on Sunday night (April 18)?Carly Pearce and Lee Brice, Kane Brown, Gabby Barrett and Jimmie Allen are already ACM winners this year, but there are still a number of categories to be announced live on CBS. Morris and Stapleton each received six ACM Awards nominations in 2021, while Miranda Lambert extended her record as the most-nominated woman in ACMs history with five new nominations.The full list of 2021 ACM Awards...

Ahead of Sunday’s Academy of Country Music Awards, Ashley McBryde visited The Late Show Friday to perform “Sparrow” from her album Never Will, released a year ago this month in April 2020. As Stephen Colbert noted in his introduction of McBryde — who virtually performed from the stage at Nashville’s Basement East venue — the country singer is the first artist to be nominated for Best Country Album by the ACMs, County Music Association Awards and the Grammy Awards in the same award season; Chris Stapleton’s Traveler and Kacey Musgraves’...

As the Academy of Country Music gears up for the 2021 ACM Awards on Sunday night (April 18), fans and media members alike have questions: What will COVID-19 protocols look like? How will the three-venue setup, plus a few remote performances, work this year? What will everyone be wearing?But the biggest question for the ACM, according to CEO Damon Whiteside, is: How can the Academy shift the country music genre into one that is representative of this country as a whole?The 56th annual ACMs bring a number of firsts: Kane...

A public memorial for DMX will be held at Brooklyn’s Barclays Center on Saturday, April 24th, the rapper’s manager confirmed to TMZ. The specifics of the public memorial have yet to be determined, as the Covid-19 protocols and attendance limitations will keep the event more intimate than its arena setting. Indoor venues like Barclays are currently allowed 10% of their capacity. Details regarding who will appear and how tickets can be purchased have also not been announced yet. A private funeral service for the rapper will take place at a...

Fifteen years ago today (April 17, 2006) was an exhausting day for Jo Dee Messina. It was on that date that the singer ran the Boston Marathon, in five hours and 47 minutes; her time was about an hour longer than she had anticipated because she injured her knee about halfway through the course.“I don’t know how I did it, but I spent a good deal of time in the first aid tents trying to get them to patch me up enough to get to the next first aid tent —...

Angel Olsen took to Instagram on Friday to announce that she’s gay, posting a photo of her partner on the site. The post featured several pictures of her partner, including their loafers and tattoos. Olsen also posted a photo of herself on her Instagram story, writing “I’m gay!!!!!” View this post on Instagram A post shared by Angel Olsen (@angelolsenmusic) Olsen recently announced the box set Song of the Lark and Other Far Memories, which contains 2019’s All Mirrors, 2020’s Whole New Mess, and Far Memory, a new LP of bonus tracks. It...

Elle King is ready to make her home in country music, she says — in part because the awards shows are just so dang fun.King's solo music leans rootsy, but she's yet to release a country radio single on her own. Still, she's a 2020 ACM Awards winner ("Fooled Around and Fell in Love" with Miranda Lambert and the rest of her 2019 Roadside Bars and Pink Guitars tourmates), a 2016 CMA Awards winner ("Different for Girls" with Dierks Bentley) and a previous Grammy Awards nominee in a country category."It's a...

Secretly Canadian will celebrate its 25th anniversary this summer with a series of reissues, singles, and more — raising money to fight homelessness in Bloomington, Indiana. The label kicked off their year-long SC25 project with reissues of the War on Drugs’ Wagonwheel Blues, Jens Lekman’s When I Said I Wanted to Be Your Dog, Tig Notaro’s Live, and Whitney’s Light Upon the Lake, all out June 4th. They also announced a singles series — featuring covers, rarities, and more — starting with Stella Donnelly tackling Lekman’s “If I Could Cry...

Alan Jackson's "You'll Always Be My Baby" finds the father of three nostalgic, but happily so. A twangy guitar and upbeat, midtempo melody keep this perfect father-daughter dance song from being sad.Throughout the song, Jackson reflects on his baby girl's childhood milestones, from her "first steps, first words" to her first broken heart. He's been there through it all, and, as he promises in the final verse, he'll be there for whatever comes next, too."You're a woman on your own / All in love and nearly gone / But you'll always...

Eric Church hasn’t been shy about asking country music fans to schedule their Covid vaccinations. As he recently said in the Rolling Stone Interview: Special Edition, it’s the fastest way for live concerts to resume. “I would encourage anyone who can, to get the vaccine,” he says. “It’s common sense to me. The fastest way for me to strap on a guitar and have people there that I can shake a hand with and jump in a pit with is a vaccination. Period.” On Sunday night, Church will join Darius...

Chris Stapleton turned 43 on Thursday (April 15), but it was his fans who got the gifts, courtesy of his wife. Morgane Stapleton opened up the country superstar's old photo albums and shared her findings in honor of his big day.Baby-faced Chris ready for a day of hunting? Check. Teenage Chris in a suit? Check (multiple times over). Sports team portraits from his days playing baseball, basketball and more? Check, check and check.What's perhaps most incredible about Morgane's treasure trove of photos is that we (gasp!) can actually see Stapleton's chin...

Last summer, Beck was at loose ends in Los Angeles. “My whole year was canceled, with the shutdowns and everything,” says the singer. “My engineer’s wife was having a baby, so he wasn’t available. I really hadn’t been making much music. My studio had been dark for a year.” Then came word that Paul McCartney had a new solo album in the works — and that he’d asked for Beck to remix one of its songs. “‘OK, McCartney’s calling, let’s get in there and figure out how everything works!’” Beck...

When Dierks Bentley had a big question for the War and Treaty — would they perform at the 2021 ACM Awards with him? — he kept it casual: He sent them a text.Husband and wife Michael Trotter Jr. and Tanya Blount Trotter first met Bentley in 2018, at that year's Country Music Hall of Fame induction ceremony. He invited the couple to play his Seven Peaks Festival in 2019 — and then, the COVID-19 pandemic hit."We kept in touch with one another, not as artists, but as Americans going through the...