Music

This year's already given us the return of the reclusive Kendrick Lamar, and now there are strong signs Frank Ocean is getting set for his own grand return.

The R&B phenom debuted 2 new episodes of his "Blonded RADIO" show Sunday on Apple Music … cryptically discussing psychedelic drugs with Dr. James Fadiman on the episode titled, "Blonded Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds" -- a play on The Beatles' ode to LSD.

The rollout happens to mark the 10th anniversary of his Grammy-winning "Channel Orange" album and he decked out his website with new merch and memorabilia ... which fans treated like $3 gasoline, snapping up ALL of it with the quickness.

During the recent Apple Music broadcast, Frank also hinted he had been working on new music in Malibu … something that has clearly worked for Anderson .Paak in the past.

Of course, he's already been announced as a headliner for Coachella 2023, so some fresh tracks would be well-timed and highly appreciated by fans.

R. Kelly is engaged to be married to one of his alleged victims, Joycelyn Savage ... at least that's what she's saying in a letter to the judge -- and her family says they had no idea.

According to legal docs, obtained by TMZ, Joycelyn revealed the engagement by writing, "I'm Robert Kelly's fiance" ... in her correspondence with the federal judge right before Kelly was sentenced. The letter, which she wrote asking the judge for a lenient sentence, doesn't say when they got engaged.

In the letter, she says ... "I’m not the victim that the government has portrayed me to be."

She goes on to say her relationship with Kelly is "amazing," noting he's the best thing that's ever happened to her. She claims he always made sure her needs were met, as well as "any other women he was with."

Obviously, she wasn't too successful in swaying the judge, who hit Kelly with a 30-year sentence.

Gerald Griggs, an attorney for Savage's parents, tells TMZ ... she never made the engagement known to the family, and they've never even spoken about the possibility beforehand.

Griggs tells us he finds it odd Savage didn't testify about it under oath, and instead slipped it into the letter submitted to the court. Savage's family "strongly doubts" the engagement story ... and are wishing to reconnect with her to get the full story.

Russell Wilson is clearly doing all he can to make sure he ain't the last NFL QB to come out of his household ... revealing Monday he's training Future Zahir to be a signal-caller too!

The Denver Broncos QB posted video of a recent workout sesh he had with Ciara's 8-year-old son ... and you can see, the kid appears to be a natural!

As Russ dictated how he wanted the boy to manipulate the pocket, Future Zahir complied with ease -- and then delivered a dart to the 33-year-old NFL star.

Russ also showed he's giving some quarterbacking lessons to the son of famous choreographer Jamaica Craft as well.

"Post workout work with the young fellas!" Russ said of the drills. "Future & Kingston young legends. Watch out @NFL."

Craft was appreciative of the time Wilson was spending with her son, penning a sweet thank you note to him on her IG.

"Kingston was learning from a living legend!!!!" she said. "Let’s Go God! So appreciative."

FYI, Wilson and Future Zahir -- Ciara's 1st child with rapper Future -- have been dabbling in QB drills for a couple of years now ... and in 2020, the 9x Pro Bowler called him his "best teammate" and a "QB in the making!"

Meek Mill and Jay-Z's Roc Nation are breaking up -- Hov's firm is no longer managing Meek's career after 10 years together.

Meek first linked with Roc Nation management back in 2012, and they nabbed plenty of triumphs and trophies together, collaborating on deals within the music biz.

The bombshell breakup comes shortly after the rapper vented extensively about his label situation with Atlantic Records.

Back in February, Meek lit up Atlantic on Twitter for allegedly dropping the ball on his last album, “Expensive Pain” and apparently ... it’s been downhill ever since.

The Roc unit was instrumental in helping him get out of jail in 2018, naming him a co-head for the social justice non-profit, Reform Alliance and putting him in rooms with tons of important people.

Billboard was first to report Meek's departure from RN.

As for why things soured between the 2 parties -- we're talking to sources on both sides, and we'll update this post as soon as we hear back.

Some tweets live forever -- a tough lesson Soulja Boy and Wizkid are learning the hard way, thanks to some ancient posts from the Afrobeats music star, and they ain't pretty from Soulja's perspective.

This tweet from May 10, 2010 popped up on Soulja's timeline -- “I swear soulja boy is wack!..jeeeezzzzz!”

The now-viral diss originally dropped about 3 years after Soulja's iconic “Crank Dat” hit, and nearly a decade before Wizkid linked with Drake to blow up on the American side with his “Come Closer” collab.

SB later launched an animated 15-minute Instagram Live session explaining “30 minutes or 30 years” still warrants a response ... and added that when you become rich and famous ... you should delete your old tweets that could lead to moments like this.

He’s not mad … just a lil mad. 😬

Kanye West's left his mark on a ton of industries -- shoes, clothing and even stem players -- and now he's laying the groundwork for what could be a retail store for all his wares.

Ye and his legal team recently filed to trademark "YZYSPLY" for retail stores, online ordering services and online retail store services. Fans might already be familiar with Yeezy Supply, a website Kanye has used to sell limited-release shoes or clothing in the past -- but the new trademark suggests he's going bigger ... possibly opening brick-and-mortar stores.

Kanye's latest filing, obtained by TMZ, includes just about every clothing item you can wear -- G-strings, shirts, socks, hats, visors and tennis wear -- and leaves plenty of creative room for "accessories" headwear and footwear.

Of course, he's already got a deal in place with GAP, and they recently dropped their first release of mostly black items ... including his now-famous full-face masks.

Vince Staples left people with a philosophical take on gift-giving that's now resurfacing and making folks think ... yeah, the guy has a point -- it's kinda the opposite of selfless.

The Long Beach rapper was a guest on "360 with Speedy Morman" on Complex back in April to plug his new album, 'Ramona Park Broke My Heart,' and during the discussion ... they landed on the subject of presents, something VS apparently does NOT like to partake in.

Watch ... he tells the host that he doesn't like gifts -- giving or receiving them, apparently. He explains that, in his mind, the act itself is usually more so about the person actually giving the gift than it is about the one getting it ... counterintuitive to the concept itself.

Vince's answer is illuminating when asked why he's not a gift-giver ... "Because gifts aren't selfless. Like, if somebody gives you a gift, right, they want you to like it because it's really about them -- it's not about you. They want to feel like they did something right for you."

He adds ... "If somebody gave you a gift and you were like, 'Alright, fasho, thanks,' they gonna be mad." Vince says the gift-giver is often seeking reassurance they're a good person.

As this clip gets picked up anew this weekend, the jokes are flying ... some at Vince's expense, and some just at the general scenario of reacting negatively to gifts -- which is pretty funny. Vince himself caught wind of all the chatter, and thinks it's not that deep.

Meanwhile, what Vince apparently wants to talk about at length is which R&B female icons were likely the best fighters -- a topic for which he actually hosted a Twitter space convo.

As more overzealous fans get handsy with rappers, the more consequences they face -- just ask this poor guy, who got ejected off stage through the force of Lil Baby's burly bodyguard.

The Atlanta MC was performing in Switzerland this week -- at the Openair Frauenfeld Festival, no less -- when at one point during his set ... some bloke crashed the performance and seemingly tried making contact with LB by rushing him.

You can see Lil Baby bracing for the dude, putting his arm out in what looks to be a deterrent move -- this while he was mid-rap -- but luckily ... security swooped right in the nick of time, and did so with some oomph.

As you can see, a guard bodied the intruder ... and sent him hurdling toward the front row barricade -- which he eventually slammed up against only to be left flailing on the ground.

Unclear what ended up happening to this man ... we imagine he was taken to a hospital, but may have also gotten rung up for the stunt. Interestingly enough, this isn't the first crazy encounter with a brave spectator. Roddy Ricch went through something similar this week.

That's not all ... even Cardi B had to unload on someone from the crowd who made contact during a performance of hers as well. In that instance, she handled the grabber herself.

All this going-up-on-stage-and-attacking-performers has been happening a lot more lately ... or at least we seem to be seeing it a lot more, anyway.

Nicki Minaj says she was just trying to make a funny ... and instead made all her fans believe she's pregnant again. Spoiler alert -- she's not.

Here's how it all went down ... before Nicki got on stage at London's Wireless Festival, she went Live on Instagram for a little pre-show chat with the Barbz. When one of them asked if she and Kenneth Petty were expecting their 2nd baby, she immediately responded, "I'm not fat, guys, I'm pregnant. Sorry" ... and then she rolled her eyes.

Of course, her screen was immediately flooded with congratulations and that's when Nicki realized ... "Oh wait. Did I say it wrong? I'm sorry. I think I said it wrong. I meant to say, I'm not pregnant. I'm fat."

Hmmm ... we're thinking Nicki's too social media savvy for that kinda screw-up. We smell a troll job, but a funny one. Nicki and her husband had their first kid, a baby boy, back in September 2020 -- and they still haven't revealed his name.

As we reported, Kenneth is gonna have a lot of face time with the kid, as he was sentenced to one year of home confinement -- in their luxurious Calabasas mansion -- for failing to register in California as a sex offender.

Johnny Depp's got a lot more to say about Amber Heard, and this time he's doing it in his music ... or so it seems based on some lyrics on his new record with Jeff Beck.

In a clear case of striking while the iron's hot, Johnny and Jeff recorded a full album, "18," and Depp reportedly wrote 2 of the songs on the 13-track collection. It comes out on Friday, but some leaked lyrics include Johnny singing, "I think you've said enough for one motherf***ing night" ... according to The Sunday Times of London.

While Johnny's said little about his ex-wife since defeating her in their defamation trial ... it seems like he's dropping a few references to her on the record. One of the tracks he penned is "Sad Motherf***ing Parade" and in one line he sings, "You're sitting there like a dog with a seven-year itch." Another not-so-subtle lyric ... "If I had a dime, it wouldn't reach your hand."

Doesn't take a genius ... but, it's worth noting Johnny doesn't mention Amber by name in any of the songs, at least according to the report.

As we've reported, Depp and guitar great Beck have been touring around Europe even before the verdict came in the trial. Remember, Johnny wasn't in court when the jury came back because he was playing live shows in the U.K.

Their new album isn't all shots at Amber, in fact, it's mostly cover songs -- including a Velvet Underground track and Brian Wilson's "Caroline, No."

Depp's focused mainly on his music career since the trial, and recently announced his Hollywood Vampires band -- with Alice Cooper and Joe Perry -- would be going back out on tour.

Security guards for Selena Gomez are earning their keep, because some weird stuff's been going down at her house ... including a fan getting on her property early Sunday morning.

LAPD sources tell us officers arrested the guy as he tried to stroll away from her L.A. home, but Selena's security team had already caught him in the act. We're told the suspect jumped a fence around 1 AM, and security called cops.

The guy tried to flee, but we're told responding officers found him wandering around the neighborhood, and he said he just wanted to meet Selena.

That seems low-key compared to an incident a few weeks ago at the "Only Murders in the Building" star's house. Our sources say security also called cops when a man allegedly wrote Selena's name on a mattress, using what appeared to be blood ... and then lit the mattress on fire!

We're told her security says that guy didn't make it onto the property -- it all went down just outside her gate. Selena wasn't home during either incident, but still ... super creepy.

Travis Scott has the antidote for all the controversy surrounding his Coney Island concert -- a simple dinner date with Kylie Jenner ... 'cause no one could fault him for that. Right?

The couple was holding hands Saturday night in WeHo as they left Catch LA -- and while Kylie smiled for cameras, Travis seemed less than thrilled with the attention. He was rocking shades and a knitted cap, and kept his head down with zero facial expression.

As we've reported, Travis has been under fire for what went down at his show with Meek Mill over the 4th of July weekend at Coney Island. He stopped the show when some rowdy fans climbed up on a lighting truss, and made sure they got down safely.

That move set off some of the Astroworld victims ... in particular, attorney Alex Hilliard criticized the rapper, saying it showed he does know when to prioritize fan safety ... but chose not to do that during the tragic festival in Houston.

A rep for Travis fired back, though, saying, "It's beyond disappointing to see that - in a desperate bid to influence potential jurors – plaintiffs' legal team is criticizing Travis for pausing Monday's Coney Island show to ensure that fans can have fun safely. This is exactly the wrong message to send to fans and to artists."

Polo G's lawyer thinks cops in Miami did the rapper dirty by only releasing parts of his 2021 arrest that make him look like the bad guy ... but Miami PD is denying it released the bodycam footage.

Polo's attorney Bradford Cohen tells TMZ this is something he's never experienced in his decades of work ... law enforcement releasing what he calls "heavily redacted" body cam footage, and only "the parts that disparage the defendant."

Cohen says there are crucial moments in his arrest that were left out of the released video -- "They didn't show him getting slammed to the ground or the reason why was pulled over. Of course, they wouldn't show that."

The video does show Polo verbally berating one of the arresting officers, but Cohen says that is "part of being a police officer out in public, people are going to say things you are not going to like."

He thinks Miami PD was embarrassed because it had no probable cause to stop him or arrest him last June, and the case has been largely dismissed after Polo completed anger management classes.

Here's the wild card, though -- we asked Miami PD why it only released portions of the arrest, and a spokesman told us the department did NOT release the footage ... which first popped up Thursday on Twitter.

Want to live rock star adjacent? Now's your chance ... the home of Aerosmith legend Steven Tyler's daughter just hit the market.

Mia Tyler's Hollywood Hills home is listed at just under $2 million -- and the pad's got plenty of charm -- with 3 bedrooms, 4 bathrooms and plenty of room outside to entertain.

The lucky buyer will enjoy a private outdoor space with a fire pit, secluded hot tub and a guest house.

BTW, the home actually used to be a recording studio! So, ya know, a real rock star lifestyle. Tori Horowitz at Compass is representing Mia in the sale.

Of course, the listing comes as the Tyler family celebrates some other good news. Steven recently completed rehab, after a very successful stay.

Steven and Mia have a special bond, he wrote a song named after her on Aerosmith's album "Night in the Ruts" in 1979.

Britney Spears is again bemoaning the fact that she's been the subject of documentaries and TV specials of late -- saying she considers it grade-A bullying by Corporate America.

The pop star posted lengthy thoughts about this on Saturday, which she's addressed before. She writes, in part ... "I feel like America has done a wonderful job at humiliating me," going on to explain that when she was in the conservatorship ... she'd apparently be forced to walk to her car from the airport, on purpose, so that paps could get a ton of shots of her.

Britney's words here are a bit all over the place, but her gripe seems to be with old paparazzi photos -- some of which she thinks are unflattering -- being resurfaced in docs and specials that have aired in the past couple years ... including on Hulu, Netflix and CNN.

On the issue of so much coverage of her now, she adds ... "I've never felt more bullied in my life in this country it's insane ... and come on seriously is it honestly legal to do that many documentaries about someone without their blessing at all??!"

Then, Britney invokes some celebrity names as examples of people who never get this amount of press and analysis without their permission or participation -- including Will Smith, Gwyneth Paltrow, Jennifer Lopez and Halle Berry.

She also says the idea these specials are "helping her" are misguided, suggesting that rehashing this ancient history is embarrassing. BS also appears to believe that most of these docs focus on what led to the conservatorship rather than what she went through while actually in it ... the reality of which she says was far worse than what's been depicted.

The weird thing ... the above-mentioned outlets seem to be the only ones with big docs/specials that have been done about Britney, and the last one came out in fall of last year -- so it's unclear why Brit's talking about this now and what might be triggering her.

What Britney also doesn't seem to understand is this ... her story isn't over, as she and her legal team are continuing to go after her dad, Jamie Spears, and seem dead set on holding him accountable for what they say he put her through during the conservatorship.

Plus, she hasn't done a proper sit-down with anyone yet ... so the intrigue isn't going away anytime soon, especially as she continues to make headlines with her personal life.

Of course, Britney might just be biding her time to fully tell her story in her own words ... probably until she can finish her tell-all book, which she reportedly struck a deal to write to the tune of at least $15 million. In light of that, we're sure she'll speak up eventually.

"Stranger Things" has a way with music -- and this season was no different, especially for Metallica ... whose tunes are in high demand, particularly among guitar hero wannabes.

As you've heard, the band's '80s hit, "Master of Puppets," is featured in a pivotal scene toward the end of the 4th season of the Netflix hit (RIP Eddie Munson) -- and like other songs heavily featured in this year's installment ... Metallica's earworm is surging in real life.

Just like Kate Bush's "Running Up That Hill" got mad love among new listeners, 'MoP' experienced the same -- with a reported 400% boost in streaming among various platforms.

What's different now ... it seems this renewed interest is seeping into the world of musical instruction, specifically through a company called Yousician -- which teaches noobs the basics of how to play certain instruments, including guitar.

Per Billboard, the online school's site reports a massive spike in a certain online lesson they offer -- upwards of 100%, apparently. You see, they actually teamed up with the real Metallica for a virtual master class for their paying customers ... and learning how to play "Master of Puppets" is indeed one of the songs available in their "Metallica x Yousician' course.

Yousician is also said to be adding the song to another internal tool on their site -- a guitar tuning and songwriting one -- as 'MoP' doesn't currently exist there, but will soon.