Chris Brown And Usher’s Stadium Run Gives R&B Its Box-Office Rebuttal

Chris Brown, left, and Usher are shown in artwork for “The R&B Tour.” The co-headlining stadium run has topped $100 million in reported grosses from its first eight stadiums, according to Pollstar. (Courtesy photo)

Usher said R&B belonged in stadiums.

Eight reported stadiums into the co-headlining run, the box office is doing the talking.

Chris Brown and Usher have already topped $100 million in reported grosses on “The R&B Tour,” according to Pollstar, giving the Live Nation-produced run the kind of early number that turns a genre argument into a business story.

Pollstar reported Monday that the tour has grossed $101.9 million from its first eight stadiums, based on 566,043 tickets sold across the first 13 sold-out concerts. The tour opened June 26 at Empower Field at Mile High in Denver and has moved through stadiums in Minneapolis; Detroit; Cleveland; Landover, Maryland; Charlotte, North Carolina; St. Louis; and Nashville, Tennessee.

That is not R&B asking to be taken seriously after years of “R&B is dead” talk.

That is R&B counting the money.

The numbers land a month after Usher framed the tour as something bigger than two stars sharing a stage. Speaking to The Associated Press before the opener, he said R&B has spent years feeding popular music without always getting equal respect from the live business.

“It deserves to be in a stadium,” Usher told AP. “It is not just for theaters. It is not just for arenas. We do this … too. We are major too. R&B is major too.”

He was right.

Pollstar said Brown and Usher averaged $7.8 million per concert, enough to debut at No. 1 on the trade publication’s Global Concert Pulse chart. The tour also ranked No. 2 on LIVE75 by average tickets sold per show among concerts counted in the chart’s eligibility window, behind Bad Bunny.

That makes “The R&B Tour” one of the clearest live-music stories of the summer: R&B, especially the 2000s version built on choreography, club records, slow jams and heavy radio memory, still moves at stadium scale.

That should not surprise anyone who has been watching the receipts.

Usher is coming off a run that included the Super Bowl halftime show, a major Las Vegas residency and the “Past, Present, Future” tour, which Live Nation said sold more than 1.1 million tickets in North America. Brown entered the tour after “Breezy Bowl XX,” which Live Nation said grossed nearly $300 million and drew 2 million fans across stadiums in North America, Europe and the United Kingdom.

Put together, they are not proving that either man has fans.

They are proving how many of those fans are still willing to gather in the same building.

That matters for a genre that has too often been treated like mood music when it was really infrastructure. R&B helped build the sound of pop radio, hip-hop hooks, dance floors, wedding receptions, BET countdowns, car rides, cookouts and the private emotional lives of people who may not call themselves R&B heads until the right record comes on.

The tour is turning that memory into stadium math, despite some heavy baggage.

Brown’s commercial power has never erased the record that follows him. He pleaded guilty in 2009 to felony assault for attacking then-girlfriend Rihanna. AP also reported that he pleaded not guilty in 2025 in London to charges tied to an alleged 2023 nightclub assault.

Usher told AP that Brown’s criticism and legal troubles did not factor into his decision to tour with him.

“Absolutely not,” Usher said. “He’s my brother, and he’s amazing as a performer. That’s who I see. He works hard for his fans, and his fans support him.”

“The R&B Tour” is a win for the genre’s live-business case. It is also a reminder that the live business does not always move on the same clock as the public conversation. Fans buy tickets for songs, memories, dancing, vocals, choreography and the feeling that a certain era of music still belongs to them. Promoters count demand. Venues count nights. The rest of the argument follows the crowd into the parking lot.

None of that makes the number less real.

Pollstar said the tour is scheduled to continue through Dec. 12 in Tampa, Florida, with 51 shows at 26 stadiums in the United States and Canada. Sixteen venues are booked for more than one show. Atlanta’s Mercedes-Benz Stadium is scheduled for four.

If the early average holds, Pollstar said the tour could finish in the $400 million range, with more than 2 million tickets sold.

That would not just be a big R&B tour.

It would be one of the year’s biggest tours, period.

The genre did not suddenly get bigger.

The rooms finally did.

Too $hort Tests Hip-Hop’s Age Limit With New Lil Jon-Produced Album

Too $hort performs at iThink Financial Amphitheater in West Palm Beach, Fla., on Aug. 13, 2023. The Oakland rap pioneer is releasing “Sir Too $hort Vol. 2: Drink & Smoke,” his 23rd studio album, with Lil Jon producing the project 20 years after “Blow the Whistle.” (Rick Munroe/Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0)

Too $hort has reached the age where other genres would already call him an elder, hand him a lifetime achievement award and let him keep working.


Hip-hop has not always been that generous.

The Oakland rap pioneer is 60 now, still recording, still performing and still talking like nobody told him he was supposed to disappear. His new album, “Sir Too $hort Vol. 2: Drink & Smoke,” his 23rd studio album, arrives Friday with Lil Jon producing the entire project — a full-circle pairing landing 20 years after “Blow the Whistle” became one of the most durable records in Short Dog’s catalog.

The timing gives the release more weight than another veteran-rapper rollout.

Too $hort is not just promoting an album. He is making a case for rap’s older generation to keep taking up space.

“Who laid the rule down that in hip-hop you gotta stop at 40?” Too $hort told The Associated Press in an interview published Thursday.

That question sits at the center of the story.

For decades, rap treated age differently than jazz, blues, soul or rock. Older singers could tour forever. Blues players could get grayer and more respected. Funk bands could become institutions. But rappers were often expected to either become executives, nostalgia acts or punch lines once they crossed a certain line.

Too $hort never accepted that rule.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Too $hort (@tooshort)

He started moving homemade tapes around the Bay Area as a teenager, built himself into one of Oakland’s defining rap voices and helped make West Coast street rap feel self-contained before the industry fully understood what was happening outside New York. His records could be filthy, funny, blunt, slick and sometimes socially pointed, often in the same stretch of music.

That is part of why his catalog lasted.

“The Ghetto” still carries its quiet weight. “Freaky Tales” remains one of the most infamous long-form talk-your-talk records in rap history. “Blow the Whistle” found another life far beyond radio, turning into an arena chant, a DJ weapon and a song that still cuts through a room before the first verse gets there.

Too $hort told AP he does not know if he could recreate the formula for “Blow the Whistle” if someone handed him the ingredients.

“It had to happen organically,” he said.

He gave Lil Jon credit for that record’s staying power, and the two are back together on “Sir Too $hort Vol. 2: Drink & Smoke.” The album also carries a more personal layer. It features work from Lil Jon’s late son, DJ Young Slade, who died in February after contributing to the project.

Too $hort told AP he was proud to be part of Slade’s legacy.

That detail keeps the project from reading like a simple party-rap victory lap. Yes, the title is “Drink & Smoke.” Yes, Too $hort is still Too $hort. Nobody is coming to this record expecting him to suddenly become careful. But the story around it is about age, grief, work and the kind of continuity hip-hop is only now old enough to fully understand.

He has company.

E-40, Snoop Dogg, Fat Joe, Ice Cube, Busta Rhymes, LL Cool J and others have all helped push rap into its elder-statesman era without fully surrendering to nostalgia. Some tour. Some still record. Some do podcasts, documentaries, brand deals or Vegas-style legacy plays. The important part is that they are still visible enough to challenge the old idea that rap belongs only to the newest voice in the room.

Too $hort and E-40 made that point together during their 2020 Verzuz appearance, which played less like a battle than a Bay Area family reunion. Short told AP he would not want to battle E-40 now, either, calling him his best friend in hip-hop. But he did float a different idea: Too $hort and E-40 against another duo.

That is vintage Too $hort — competitive without pretending the brotherhood is fake.

The larger point is simpler. Hip-hop is old enough now to have 60-year-old rappers who are not curiosities. They are part of the music’s memory bank and, in some cases, still part of its Friday release calendar.

Too $hort has no interest in aging quietly for anyone’s comfort.

The genre that once made middle age look like an exit sign is now learning what older Black music forms already knew: If the voice still works, the stories still matter and the crowd still shows up, nobody has to leave because the calendar said so.

Betye Saar, Black Arts Pioneer Who Reclaimed Racist Images, Dies at 99

Artist Betye Saar, right, and basketball Hall of Famer Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, left, pose with scholar Henry Louis Gates Jr. during Harvard University’s W.E.B. Du Bois Medal ceremony in Cambridge, Mass., in October 2022. Saar and Abdul-Jabbar were among seven honorees recognized for their commitment to social justice. Saar, whose assemblage art confronted racist stereotypes and reclaimed Black imagery, died Sunday at 99, four days before her 100th birthday. (Photo credit: FAH1223, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons)

Betye Saar collected the objects America used to belittle Black people — mammy figurines, pancake advertisements, washboards and cheap souvenirs — then made them tell a different story.

Saar, the pioneering assemblage artist whose landmark “The Liberation of Aunt Jemima” transformed one of America’s most enduring racist caricatures into an armed figure of Black resistance, died in her sleep Sunday at her Los Angeles home. She was 99, four days shy of her 100th birthday.

Her death was announced by Roberts Projects, the Los Angeles gallery that represented her for nearly 20 years.

“Her singular vision transformed the course of contemporary art,” gallery co-founder Julie Roberts said in a statement.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Roberts Projects (@robertsprojects)

For Saar, found objects were never simply old things. They carried the history of who made them, who used them and what America once believed it could sell without shame.

She used racist collectibles, domestic tools, family photographs, clocks, cages, dolls and discarded materials to confront Black identity, sexism, memory, spirituality and liberation. Her work made her a central figure in the Black Arts Movement and one of the most influential assemblage artists of the past century.

Her best-known work, the 1972 assemblage “The Liberation of Aunt Jemima,” was roughly the size of a shoebox.

At its center stood a stereotypical mammy figurine, the smiling domestic servant once used to reassure white consumers and romanticize Black servitude. Saar left the broom in the figure’s hand but also armed her with a rifle and a grenade.

The servant had become a soldier.

Saar created the work for an exhibition devoted to Black heroes at the Rainbow Sign cultural center in Berkeley, California. The assassination of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. four years earlier had pushed her work in a more openly political direction.

King’s death “triggered a rage within me, and the mystic transformed into the warrior,” Saar later said.

Saar understood the danger of putting racist imagery back on display. She worried about how white viewers might interpret it and how such images had shaped Black people’s perceptions of themselves.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Betye Saar (@betyesaar)

“What saved it was that I made Aunt Jemima into a revolutionary figure,” she said.

The work preceded Quaker Oats’ decision to retire the Aunt Jemima brand by nearly five decades. When the company acknowledged in 2020 that the brand’s origins were rooted in a racial stereotype, Saar celebrated the decision but noted how long it had taken.

“The Liberation of Aunt Jemima” became a defining work of Black feminist art. Angela Davis later credited it with helping inspire the Black women’s movement.

Saar did not abandon the stereotype or pretend it had never existed. She forced it to surrender its original meaning.

That question — whether racist images could be reclaimed without repeating their damage — remained central to Saar’s work and later placed her in one of the Black art world’s most contentious arguments.

In 1997, Saar participated in a letter-writing campaign criticizing Kara Walker, who had received a MacArthur Fellowship for her provocative silhouette scenes depicting slavery, sexual violence and the antebellum South.

Walker’s supporters viewed the work as an unsparing confrontation with America’s racist imagination. Saar feared that its imagery reinforced the degradation it sought to expose.

She called Walker’s work “revolting and negative” and said it served the “amusement and the investment of the white art establishment.”

The dispute became an art-world version of a larger argument running through 1990s Black culture: Who controls images of Black suffering, who profits from them and when does exposure become exploitation?

Saar’s position was consistent with the work she had been making for decades. Racist images could be used, she believed, but they had to be stripped of their authority and redirected toward Black liberation.

Born Betye Irene Brown in Los Angeles on July 30, 1926, Saar spent part of her childhood in Watts, where she watched Simon Rodia construct the Watts Towers from broken ceramics, glass, shells, metal and other salvaged materials.

The towers showed her early what discarded objects could become in the hands of an artist.

Saar studied design at UCLA and initially worked in interior design, greeting cards and decorative arts. She later became a printmaker before a 1967 exhibition of Joseph Cornell’s shadow boxes inspired her move toward three-dimensional assemblage.

Her 1969 work “Black Girl’s Window” placed the silhouette of a Black woman behind glass, surrounded by moons, stars, a skeleton, astrological signs and family imagery. The Museum of Modern Art acquired the work in 2019, decades after it was created.

Recognition from major institutions often came late.

Saar received a solo exhibition at the Whitney Museum of American Art in 1975, but large museums showed her work only sporadically for much of the following four decades. In 2019, the Museum of Modern Art and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art mounted concurrent solo exhibitions.

She continued creating well into her 90s from the Laurel Canyon home and studio where she had lived since 1962. Her work moved among politics, family history, mysticism and the spiritual energy she believed objects carried from their earlier lives.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Roberts Projects (@robertsprojects)

Even with her centennial approaching, Saar appeared less interested in assessing her legacy than in making something new.

“That’s what art is,” she told the Los Angeles Times in June. “Making something where there was nothing.”

Her 100th birthday is being commemorated with “Betye Saar’s Black Dolls,” an exhibition at The New York Historical in Manhattan. The exhibition, featuring 26 dolls from a promised collection of 100, continues through Oct. 4. Another exhibition, “Let’s Get It On: The Wearable Art of Betye Saar,” remains on view at Roberts Projects through Aug. 22.

Saar is survived by her daughters, artists Lezley Saar and Alison Saar and writer Tracye Saar-Cavanaugh; six grandchildren; and Rojo, her red-footed tortoise.

For more than six decades, Saar showed that reclamation required more than placing an old stereotype in a new frame.

She gave the figure a weapon, changed who held the power and dared America to look at it again.

25 Years After Debut, B2K Returns With First New Single 'Mileage'

B2K has spent the past year proving its reunion could survive a tour. On Friday, the group faced the harder test: whether it could build something new after audiences came back for the memories.

Omarion, J-Boog, Lil Fizz and Raz-B released “Mileage,” their first newly recorded official single together in more than two decades. The song arrived through BPC Music Group as the lead release from “Eclipse,” a studio album scheduled for this fall.

The timing was deliberate. “Mileage” arrived 25 years to the day after B2K released its debut single, “Uh Huh,” on July 17, 2001.

Produced by Ethos, “Mileage” uses the experiences people carry into relationships as its central metaphor. Rather than treating a partner’s past as automatic disqualification, the song argues for acceptance, growth and the possibility of starting again.

“People lived their lives before they met you,” Omarion told YouKnowIGotSoul while discussing the record.

That message is difficult to separate from the group delivering it.

B2K’s members have spent much of their adult lives trying — and frequently failing — to move beyond old disputes, broken trust and public attacks. “Mileage” does not erase that history, but its title fits four men attempting to make use of everything they traveled through before returning to the same studio.

Bobby Yan directed the accompanying video, which places the group’s synchronized choreography amid an industrial warehouse, a Los Angeles rooftop and automotive imagery built around the song’s title. The presentation allows the members to look and perform like grown men without asking them to imitate the teenagers who helped define early-2000s R&B.

B2K first introduced “Mileage” during its late-June Verzuz battle with Pretty Ricky. Friday’s full release, however, marks the first time the latest reunion has produced an official new single rather than another tour, television appearance or performance of the group’s established hits.

The original lineup previously reunited for the Millennium Tour in 2019 but did not release new music. That comeback eventually gave way to another round of public disagreements and separation.

The current reconciliation became visible in April 2025, when J-Boog, Lil Fizz and Raz-B joined Omarion during the final stop of his Millennium Tour. The full group followed with a surprise performance at the BET Awards that June.

This year, B2K reunited with Bow Wow for the Boys 4 Life Tour, reviving a partnership that helped make the Scream Tour era a defining moment for young R&B and hip-hop audiences.

The reunion did not require anyone to pretend the intervening years had been peaceful.

B2K split amid internal friction, financial disagreements and disputes involving its management. The years that followed included public insults and long periods when the members did not speak to one another.

“It definitely starts with maturity,” Fizz told The Associated Press earlier this year while discussing the reconciliation.

The new recording process also gives the members a degree of control they say they did not have during their original run.

“We picked every record, we’re making all the decisions,” J-Boog told the AP.

B2K has not announced an exact release date or complete track list for “Eclipse.” The group has said the album will address more mature subjects and reflect the members’ lives as adults rather than attempt to recreate the teen records that made them famous.

The members also have returned to the studio with The Underdogs, the production team whose earlier work with B2K included “Gots Ta Be.”

The album would be B2K’s first studio project since “Pandemonium!” and its first full-length group release since the soundtrack to the 2004 film “You Got Served.”

That original run was brief but substantial.

B2K’s self-titled debut reached No. 2 on the Billboard 200 and topped the R&B albums chart. “Bump, Bump, Bump,” featuring Diddy, later reached No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 and became the group’s biggest hit.

Those records ensured that B2K would always have a market for reunions. They do not guarantee an audience for new material from four men now speaking to listeners who grew up alongside them.

Nostalgia got B2K back into arenas. “Mileage” is the first evidence that the reunion intends to go somewhere new.

Young Thug Takes YSL's New Generation on First Headlining Tour Since 2019

A promotional poster outlines the lineup for "The New Generation Tour." The 23-city international tour, beginning Sept. 1 in Rogers, Arkansas, marks Young Thug's first headlining run since 2019 and features special guest NAV alongside emerging Young Stoner Life Records artists.

Young Thug is taking YSL back on the road, and using his return to introduce the artists he expects to
carry the label forward.

The Atlanta rapper announced “The New Generation Tour,” his first headlining run since 2019. The 23-date U.S. and European trek opens Sept. 1 at Walmart AMP in Rogers, Arkansas, and closes Oct. 24 at Adidas Arena in Paris.

NAV will appear on all 19 U.S. dates. The tour also will showcase Young Stoner Life Records signees Tezzus, Diamond*, 1300saint, Iyrus, Yume, Biggs and Unky, placing a new YSL lineup alongside one of the most influential and unconventional rappers to emerge from Atlanta’s 2010s takeover.

The route includes a Sept. 20 homecoming at Lakewood Amphitheatre in Atlanta, followed by three Texas dates: Sept. 27 at 713 Music Hall in Houston, Sept. 29 at The Pavilion at Toyota Music Factory in Irving and Sept. 30 at Moody Amphitheater in Austin.

The U.S. leg ends Oct. 4 at YouTube Theater in Inglewood, California. Young Thug and the YSL lineup then travel to Amsterdam, Düsseldorf, Germany; Łódź, Poland; and Paris.

Young Stoner Life Records presents

“The New Generation Tour”

Young Thug with NAV and the YSL roster

NAV is scheduled to appear on every U.S. date.

U.S. dates

Sept. 1Rogers, Ark.
Walmart AMP

Sept. 3Minneapolis
The Armory

Sept. 5Chicago
Aragon Ballroom

Sept. 8Sterling Heights, Mich.
Michigan Lottery Amphitheatre

Sept. 10Camden, N.J.
Freedom Mortgage Pavilion

Sept. 11Boston
MGM Music Hall at Fenway

Sept. 13New York
SummerStage in Central Park

Sept. 15Washington
The Anthem

Sept. 16Virginia Beach, Va.
The Dome by Rutter Mills

Sept. 18Charlotte, N.C.
Bojangles’ Coliseum

Sept. 19Raleigh, N.C.
Red Hat Amphitheater

Sept. 20Atlanta
Lakewood Amphitheatre

Sept. 23Tampa, Fla.
Yuengling Center

Sept. 25Birmingham, Ala.
Coca-Cola Amphitheater

Sept. 27Houston
713 Music Hall

Sept. 29Irving, Texas
The Pavilion at Toyota Music Factory

Sept. 30Austin, Texas
Moody Amphitheater

Oct. 2Phoenix
Arizona Financial Theatre

Oct. 4Inglewood, Calif.
YouTube Theater

European dates

Oct. 14Amsterdam
AFAS Live

Oct. 17Düsseldorf, Germany
PSD Bank Dome

Oct. 21Łódź, Poland
Atlas Arena

Oct. 24Paris
Adidas Arena

Official dates and tickets

General ticket sales begin Friday at 10 a.m. local time through Live Nation, Ticketmaster and the tour’s official website. Artist and other presales began earlier this week.

The tour represents more than a return to buses, backstage rooms and nightly set lists.

Young Thug’s last headlining trek was the strangely titled Justin Bieber Big Tour, a 2019 co-headlining run with Machine Gun Kelly that did not include Justin Bieber. He has made several major festival appearances since returning to the stage, including Coachella this spring, but “The New Generation Tour” will be his first sustained headlining itinerary in seven years.

His formal return to live performance began at the Summer Smash festival near Chicago in June 2025, where Travis Scott, T.I. and Ken Carson joined him during his first public concert since March 2022.

Young Thug, whose legal name is Jeffery Williams, had spent more than two years in custody before his release in October 2024 ended his part in the sprawling Georgia racketeering case involving YSL.

Williams pleaded guilty to one gang charge, three drug charges and two gun charges. He entered no-contest pleas to another gang count and racketeering conspiracy, meaning he did not admit guilt but accepted punishment as though he had.

A judge imposed a 40-year sentence structured around five years commuted to time served and 15 years of probation. An additional 20-year prison term can be imposed if Williams violates the conditions of his probation.

That case kept the YSL name attached to court testimony, criminal allegations and debates over the use of rap lyrics as evidence for years. The tour places the emphasis back on Young Stoner Life Records — not simply as the company behind Young Thug, but as a label attempting to establish its next class.

Tezzus and Diamond* have already begun attracting some attention as part of Atlanta’s younger underground movement, while the rest of the touring roster gives Young Thug an opportunity to introduce developing artists directly to an audience that may know little about them beyond their YSL affiliation.

That makes “The New Generation Tour” both a comeback and a handoff.

Young Thug has already shown that he can return to a festival stage and command attention. This fall, he will find out whether that return can carry a full international tour, and whether the YSL name can again become known for what happens on records and stages instead of inside a courtroom.

Issa Rae Brings ‘Insecure’ Anniversary Tour to 13 Cities This Fall

“Insecure: The 10th Anniversary Tour,” a 13-date fall run led by Issa Rae and showrunner Prentice Penny, with Yvonne Orji, Jay Ellis and Natasha Rothwell scheduled for select appearances opens Sept. 10 in Philadelphia and closes Oct. 8 in Inglewood, California.

Ten years after Issa Dee first worked through her problems by rapping to herself in a bathroom mirror, Issa Rae is taking the stories, arguments and lingering questions of “Insecure” on the road.

Rae announced “Insecure: The 10th Anniversary Tour” on Tuesday, a 13-city run that will reunite her with showrunner Prentice Penny for live conversations about the HBO comedy that made awkwardness, friendship and the everyday lives of Black millennials worthy of prestige television.

 

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Issa Rae (@issarae)

The tour opens Sept. 10 at The Met in Philadelphia and travels through National Harbor, Maryland; Detroit; Boston; Brooklyn; Montclair, New Jersey; Las Vegas; Oakland; Chicago; Atlanta; Irving, Texas; and Houston. It closes Oct. 8 at YouTube Theater in Inglewood, California — the city whose neighborhoods, businesses and changing identity were central to the series.

Yvonne Orji, who played Molly Carter; Jay Ellis, who played Lawrence Walker; and Natasha Rothwell, who played Kelli Prenny, are scheduled to appear on select dates. Organizers have not announced which cast members will participate in each city, so ticket buyers should not assume the full group will appear at every stop.

The live shows are expected to feature behind-the-scenes stories, candid conversations and reflections on the series’ most memorable moments and cultural impact.

Rae announced the tour with a video built around a reunion of the cast’s group chat. After Rae proposes the idea, Ellis, Orji and Rothwell quickly sign on.

“It’s ‘Insecure,’ but we’re very secure now,” Orji says near the end of the clip.

“Come see us on tour,” Rae adds.

 

Created by Rae and Larry Wilmore, “Insecure” premiered on HBO in October 2016 and ran for five seasons before ending in December 2021. The comedy followed Issa Dee and Molly as they negotiated friendship, relationships, work, ambition and the consequences of decisions that often looked much clearer after they had already made them.

The show’s appeal came partly from what it refused to do. Its Black characters did not exist solely to explain racism, carry a social message or serve as flawless examples of representation. They could be selfish, funny, petty, accomplished, confused, loyal and painfully wrong — sometimes within the same episode.

“Insecure” also treated South Los Angeles as more than a backdrop. Restaurants, apartments, neighborhood businesses, art spaces and community events became part of the story as Issa tried to build a career without abandoning the place that shaped her.

Music was just as important.

The series used contemporary hip-hop and R&B as an extension of its characters’ inner lives, placing established artists alongside records that many viewers were hearing for the first time. Solange consulted on the first season’s music, while longtime music supervisor Kier Lehman helped build later soundtracks that included SZA, Jazmine Sullivan, Miguel, Jorja Smith, Leikeli47, Thundercat, The Internet, Dreezy and others.

Songs did more than fill transitions. They carried scenes after the dialogue stopped, helped define Issa and Molly’s emotional distance and gave each season a musical identity that fans discussed alongside the show’s romances and betrayals.

 

The anniversary tour extends a reunion that began in May with “Blocc Party: An Insecure Podcast.” The weekly rewatch series features Rae and Penny revisiting individual episodes, telling stories from the writers’ room and bringing in members of the cast and crew.

A Citi cardholder presale begins Wednesday at noon local time. General ticket sales begin Thursday at noon local time through Live Nation and Ticketmaster. Most listed performances begin at 8 p.m., and several venues identify the events as restricted to guests 18 and older.

The complete tour schedule:

• Sept. 10 — The Met, Philadelphia
• Sept. 11 — The Theater at MGM National Harbor, National Harbor, Md.
• Sept. 13 — The Fillmore Detroit, Detroit
• Sept. 16 — MGM Music Hall at Fenway, Boston
• Sept. 17 — Brooklyn Paramount, Brooklyn, N.Y.
• Sept. 18 — The Wellmont Theater, Montclair, N.J.
• Sept. 25 — The Palazzo Theatre, Las Vegas
• Sept. 26 — Fox Theater, Oakland, Calif.
• Oct. 1 — The Chicago Theatre, Chicago
• Oct. 2 — Tabernacle, Atlanta
• Oct. 3 — The Pavilion at Toyota Music Factory, Irving, Texas
• Oct. 4 — Bayou Music Center, Houston
• Oct. 8 — YouTube Theater, Inglewood, Calif.

“Insecure” ended with its characters growing into lives that once seemed out of reach. A decade after the premiere, Rae is reopening the group chat.

T.I. Lands One More Billboard Top 10 With ‘Kill the King’

The cover art for T.I.’s “Kill the King,” which the Atlanta rapper has described as his final album. The project debuted at No. 10 on Billboard’s Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums chart, giving him his 13th top-10 entry on the ranking.

T.I. is leaving the album business with one more Billboard top 10.
“Kill the King,” which the Atlanta rapper has repeatedly described as his final album, debuted at No. 10 on Billboard’s Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums chart dated July 11. It marks his 13th career top-10 entry on the chart.

The album earned 22,000 equivalent album units in the United States during the June 26-July 2 tracking period, according to Luminate. It also opened at No. 7 on Billboard’s Top Rap Albums chart and No. 30 on the Billboard 200.

Those numbers fall well short of the blockbuster launches T.I. delivered at his commercial peak, when “King,” “T.I. vs. T.I.P.” and “Paper Trail” each reached No. 1 on the Billboard 200.

But the latest debut carries a different kind of weight.

Released 25 years after “I’m Serious” introduced T.I. nationally, “Kill the King” extends a chart run that survived shifts from CDs to downloads to streaming — and from Atlanta fighting for rap-industry respect to becoming one of the genre’s dominant centers.

The 18-song album arrived June 26 through Grand Hustle and EMPIRE, nearly six years after 2020’s “The L.I.B.R.A.” It includes the Pharrell Williams-produced “Let Em Know,” which reached No. 33 on the Billboard Hot 100 and No. 4 on the Hot Rap Songs chart. The single also topped Billboard’s Mainstream R&B/Hip-Hop Airplay chart in March.

“Let Em Know” became T.I.’s first top-40 Hot 100 entry since 2014, giving his farewell campaign a legitimate current hit rather than leaving it to depend entirely on nostalgia.

T.I., born Clifford Harris Jr., told People that he had already been living a largely retired life since the pandemic. He said he completed one last album because disappearing without formally closing that chapter would have felt unfinished.

“I’ve gotten everything I prayed for from the game,” he said.

The title completes an idea T.I. has carried for years.

After he began publicly calling himself the “King of the South,” Outkast’s Big Boi warned him that claiming the crown would place a target on his back. Big Boi compared the music business to chess, where the objective is to kill the king. T.I. said he knew then that the phrase would eventually become the title of his final album.

The crown once invited arguments that helped fuel T.I.’s ascent. During the 2000s, he helped move Atlanta trap music into the pop mainstream without sanding away its Southern identity. “Whatever You Like” and the Rihanna-assisted “Live Your Life” both reached No. 1 on the Hot 100, while “What You Know” earned him a Grammy Award and became one of the defining records of his career.

“Kill the King” does not recreate the enormous first-week totals of that era, nor does its No. 30 Billboard 200 opening suggest that it has. Its more meaningful achievement is continuity: another R&B/hip-hop top 10 for a rapper whose first album arrived before streaming, social media and Atlanta’s complete takeover of rap’s center of gravity.

T.I. may no longer be interested in defending the title that made him a target. Billboard’s latest chart still gives the King of the South one more number for the résumé.

Jay-Z Caps Three-Night Yankee Stadium Run With Beyoncé, Rihanna, Usher and More

Jay-Z performs Sunday during the “Extra Innings” finale of his three-night run at Yankee Stadium in New York. The show began shortly after midnight following a security breach that temporarily halted entry to the stadium. (Photo/Roc Nation via Instagram)

Jay-Z’s final Yankee Stadium concert began with locked gates and thousands of fans waiting outside. It ended shortly before 3 a.m. Monday with Beyoncé, Rihanna, Usher and collaborators from across his career helping him close a record-setting three-night run.

A security breach outside the Bronx ballpark forced officials to temporarily stop anyone from entering or leaving Sunday night. A police source told WABC that a large group pushed and shoved its way through security checkpoints, prompting a full lockdown while authorities regained control.

Gates began reopening around 10 p.m. under heightened security and what sources described as a slow, methodical screening process. The concert had been scheduled to begin at 8 p.m., but Jay-Z did not take the stage until about 12:20 a.m. No arrests were reported.

Jay-Z apologized after taking the stage and said he chose not to begin while so many people remained outside, fearing that starting the music could cause a dangerous rush toward the entrances.

@abc7ny There was chaos at Jay-Z's third and final Yankee Stadium concert after a security breach delayed the show. #nyc #jayz #jayzyankeestadium #yankeestadium #concert #entertainment #music ♬ original sound - ABC7NY

“I had to make sure everyone was OK,” he told the crowd.

The Yankees, Roc Nation and Live Nation later issued a joint statement thanking the New York Police Department and Yankee Stadium security personnel for putting attendee safety ahead of other considerations.

Once the show finally started, “Extra Innings” became the broadest of Jay-Z’s three Yankee Stadium concerts. Unlike the first two nights, which centered on specific albums, Sunday’s finale moved freely through his catalog and the relationships that have followed him from Brooklyn’s Marcy Projects to the top of the music business.

Teyana Taylor joined him for “Can’t Knock the Hustle,” the opening song from his 1996 debut album, “Reasonable Doubt.” Jermaine Dupri appeared for “Money Ain’t a Thang,” while Jeezy performed “Seen It All” and “Go Crazy.”

🎤The show must go on! Jay-Z explains the delay behind tonights show at Yankee Stadium - says there were 10,000 people outside and had to close the doors pic.twitter.com/eqIhYdoaIr

— HipHopKlipz36 (@hiphopklipz36) July 13, 2026

Usher joined Jay-Z for “Heart of the City (Ain’t No Love),” “Throwback” and “Part II (On the Run).” The-Dream appeared during “No Church in the Wild,” and Swizz Beatz accompanied Jay-Z through a stretch that included “On to the Next One.”

Rihanna delivered one of the night’s loudest moments when she emerged for “Run This Town,” then remained onstage for “Bitch Better Have My Money.” Pharrell Williams returned for a five-song run before Clipse joined them for “Grindin’.”

Beyoncé appeared later during a medley of “Drunk in Love,” “Tom Ford” and “Partition.” Fat Joe and Jadakiss helped bring the marathon show toward its close with “New York.”

The finale completed a weekend organized around two albums that marked different stages of Jay-Z’s rise.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Roc Nation (@rocnation)

Friday’s opening concert celebrated the 30th anniversary of “Reasonable Doubt.” Beyoncé handled Mary J. Blige’s part on “Can’t Knock the Hustle,” Blue Ivy Carter played piano before “Feelin’ It,” and Nas, Jaz-O, Memphis Bleek and Alicia Keys joined Jay-Z during the night.

Saturday belonged to “The Blueprint,” released 25 years ago. Slick Rick joined Jay-Z for “The Ruler’s Back,” Eminem appeared for “Renegade,” and Pharrell performed five songs with him.

The show also established a Yankee Stadium concert record, selling 45,832 tickets and breaking the mark Jay-Z had set one night earlier.

The guests mattered because they were more than famous names added to a stadium bill.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Roc Nation (@rocnation)

Jaz-O represented Jay-Z’s years before “Reasonable Doubt,” when the veteran rapper served as an early mentor. Nas stood beside the man he once battled in one of hip-hop’s most consequential feuds. Eminem’s appearance revived “Renegade,” a performance that has fueled rap arguments since “The Blueprint” arrived in 2001.

Memphis Bleek and Beanie Sigel connected the concerts to Roc-A-Fella’s peak. Dupri, Pharrell, Swizz Beatz and The-Dream represented different phases of Jay-Z’s evolution from street-level New York storyteller to crossover hitmaker. Beyoncé and Blue Ivy placed his family inside the story rather than alongside it.

The staging left room for those connections to carry the shows.

Creative director Willo Perron designed a largely bare stage backed by a massive outfield screen showing archival images from Jay-Z’s life and career. A 10-person band and an 18-piece string section supported the performances without overwhelming them.

“I think the statement piece in a Jay-Z show is Jay-Z,” Perron told Wired.

The Yankee Stadium run was originally announced as two concerts. Organizers added “Extra Innings” after the “Reasonable Doubt” and “Blueprint” shows quickly sold out.

Jay-Z will continue the “Jay-Z 30” anniversary celebration with stadium concerts Sept. 4 in London, Sept. 10 in Paris and Oct. 23 in Inglewood, California. Those shows are tied specifically to the 30th anniversary of “Reasonable Doubt,” not the full three-night New York format.

The final night nearly became a story about a security failure and a four-hour wait. Instead, after the gates reopened and the music finally started, Jay-Z finished a weekend that put his debut, his commercial peak, his family, his former rival and three decades of collaborators in the same ballpark.

The delay lasted four hours. The history took three nights.