Nothing is simple when it comes to Jon Batiste, the pianist, television personality, New Orleans musical scion and jazz-R&B-classical savant.He spent seven years as the smiling, melodica-toting TV bandleader on “The Late Show With Stephen Colbert,” yet found some of his widest acclaim for solemn protest performances in Brooklyn after the murder of George Floyd.He beat Olivia Rodrigo, Taylor Swift and Billie Eilish for album of the year at the Grammys in 2022, despite his “We Are” having just a fraction of their sales — and then presented “American Symphony,” a Whitmanesque canvas of funk, Dixieland jazz, operatic vocals and Native American drums at Carnegie Hall.Now comes Batiste’s most commercial project yet: “World Music Radio,” an album with guest appearances by Lana Del Rey, Lil Wayne and the K-pop girl group NewJeans, made with a team of producers behind hits for artists like Justin Bieber and Drake, with tightly woven hooks that were engineered to fit on any Top 40-style streaming playlist.But of course “World Music Radio,” which comes out Aug. 18, is no standard pop release. It’s also a fantastical concept album that challenges music’s provincial genre borders, with a message of open-armed inclusivity for a fractured political era. The album’s central character, a timeless interstellar being named Billy Bob Bo Bob, curates a potpourri of the far-flung musical languages of Earth and transmits it to the cosmos with chuckling, Daddy-O commentary, like Doctor Who crossed with Wolfman Jack.“He’s a D.J., he’s a griot, he’s a storyteller, he’s a unifier, he’s a rebel,” Batiste told me, describing the character of Billy Bob Bo Bob. “He’s a disrupter.”That’s also as good an encapsulation as any of the 36-year-old Batiste himself, who can’t easily be pinned down to any single role, or genre, or corner of the music market.Batiste wrote most of the album in Rick Rubin’s beachside studio in Malibu, Calif., generating kernels of upward of 125 songs.Andre D. Wagner for The New York TimesIn his own eccentric way, “World Music Radio” is Batiste’s interpretation of what mainstream pop is or should be, in which high-energy electronic dance beats coexist with reggae, Afropop and old-fashioned piano torch ballads. “Be Who You Are,” the first single, has lyrics in English, Spanish and Korean, and its high-tech, partially animated music video, produced through a brand deal with Coke, features Batiste, the Latin pop star Camilo, the rapper JID and the members of NewJeans all vibing alongside each other.Yet in discussing the album, Batiste was almost totally cerebral, speaking in long, eloquent, practically unsummarizable paragraphs about his mental and creative processes. The album’s origin, he said, was partly philosophical, as he mused on the connections and divergences between “the horrendous idea of what we call ‘world music’” — local traditions viewed through a condescending Western lens — “and the narrow diameter of what’s considered popular music.”“So then, world music,” Batiste added, shifting professorially on the living room sofa of his airy and immaculate Brooklyn brownstone. “What if we could reimagine that term? What if we could reinvent? What if we could use it as a prompt to expand the diameter of popular music?”In conversation, he mentioned influences that included some of the most popular cultural productions of modern times, like Pink Floyd’s “The Dark Side of the Moon” and the “Godfather” films. Jamie Krents, the president of his label, Verve, said that Batiste had cited Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” as another reference point.“He wanted to make music that was approachable to the largest possible audience without compromising,” Krents said.Still, it is hard to imagine Jackson summarizing his goals for “Billie Jean” or “Beat It” in quite the same way that Batiste does for “World Music Radio”: “By listening to it and experiencing it,” he explained, “you have a realization about self, about community, about humanism, that leaves you in a state of bliss and a hyper-consciousness.”AS BATISTE SEES IT, “World Music Radio” is the culmination of a career that has long snaked through supposedly disparate traditions and audiences.Batiste grew up in Kenner, La., part of a family with deep musical roots in New Orleans, and he spent his teenage years playing late-night gigs in the French Quarter with his friend Trombone Shorty, then rushing to high school classes in the morning. He earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Juilliard and became a fixture around New York with his band Stay Human, especially for what he called “love riots”: spontaneous, Pied Piper-like performances of “You Are My Sunshine” or Lady Gaga songs that took place on the street or in the subway, interrupting the daily grind with flashes of joy.At the same time, with his 2013 album “Social Music,” he began to develop a brand of activism that emphasized music’s power to find common ground amid ever-widening political polarization.“Inclusive is not even the right word,” Batiste said of his approach. “It’s more, OK, we’re coexisting as human beings on Earth. We’re not a monolith. But underneath it all, we’re the same. That’s not something that can be interpreted in the binary climate that we’re in now.”In 2015, Batiste and Stay Human became the house band on Colbert’s new CBS show, where Batiste performed comedic musical skits but had little outlet to express his broader political or social views. And, with over 200 shows a year, he also couldn’t tour — something that, incredibly, Batiste has never done as a headlining act.“We Are,” which was begun in late 2019 and completed the following year at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic, became Batiste’s vehicle for protest and for communicating the wider social ambitions of his music. Although the album had barely registered in the marketplace, Batiste became the surprise top nominee for the 64th annual Grammy Awards, getting eight nods for “We Are” and three more for the movie soundtrack “Soul.” (The score for “Soul” also won Batiste, Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross an Oscar.)At the same time, Batiste’s longtime partner, Suleika Jaouad, had spent years struggling with cancer and writing about it in The New York Times. The day the Grammy nominations were announced, Jaouad began a round of chemotherapy. “At certain points of her treatment,” Batiste said, “her immune system was so compromised that we couldn’t be in the same room.”Batiste onstage at the Newport Folk Festival in July. Because of other obligations, he has not yet toured as a headlining act.Douglas Mason/Getty ImagesThey married last year, and after a bone-marrow transplant, Jaouad’s health has improved enough that they recently took a vacation in Europe. “A major, major milestone,” Batiste said.When “We Are” took album of the year, Batiste became the latest piñata for critics of the entire Grammy system, who pointed to his victory as a sign of an insider-controlled process out of touch with music’s dominant trends. Yet it also represented a necessary tension between artistic excellence, as judged by fellow musicians, and the pressure to reward commercial success. For another example, just look at the last Black man before Batiste to take the top prize: Herbie Hancock, back in 2008.After his Grammy and Oscar wins, Batiste decided to leave Colbert’s show. Freed of that work, he now describes “World Music Radio” as his return to the concepts he explored a decade ago on “Social Music” — and imagined himself as Odysseus from Homer’s “Odyssey.”“It’s the hero’s journey we always talk about,” Batiste said. “It feels kind of like, wow, I came back to where I was 10 years before, but now everything’s different, even though I’m in the same place that I was. I’m home, so to speak. But everything’s different.”Colbert, in an interview, said that when Batiste approached him about leaving, “he didn’t have to tell me why.”“But I did say I can understand why you would want to take this opportunity at this moment and go full-bore,” Colbert added. “I know that feeling very well: Give me the ball and see how fast I can run.”THE MUSIC ON “World Music Radio” had its genesis, Batiste said, when he crossed paths with the producer Rick Rubin in Italy a few months after the Grammys. Rubin offered him use of Shangri-La, his beachside studio in Malibu, Calif., and Batiste headed there in August 2022 for a month of immersive work with a crew of producers and artists who came and went, generating what Batiste said were the kernels of upward of 125 songs.Among Batiste’s collaborators there was Del Rey, who worked with Batiste on “Candy Necklace,” from her latest album, “Did You Know That There’s a Tunnel Under Ocean Blvd,” and she joins him on “Life Lesson,” a melancholy duet on “World Music Radio.”The producer Rogét Chahayed, who has worked with Doja Cat, Drake and others, said he headed to Shangri-La after getting a surprise invitation from Batiste via Instagram. The sessions, he said, were spontaneous and fruitful, with Batiste sometimes kicking off hours of improvisatory jams after simply being inspired by a synthesizer tone.“It was just like magic in the room,” Chahayed recalled. “It was right around evening time, the sun was setting over the ocean. I was like, this doesn’t happen often, in the kind of sessions that we usually have in these freezing cold studios with no windows.”After those sessions, Jon Bellion, a pop performer and producer who has worked with Maroon 5 and the Jonas Brothers, collaborated with Batiste on a process he dubs “Batistifying” the material — combing through piles of half-finished material and whittling it down to a finished, coherent product.With a deadline from his label looming, Batiste said, he felt that the album was not coming together until he sat in his basement studio in Brooklyn and listened to a vocal track sent by a Spanish singer, Rita Payés. She contributes to “My Heart,” a sepia-toned Latin ballad in waltz time on which Batiste channels Ibrahim Ferrer of the Buena Vista Social Club. Hearing Payés’s voice transmitted over a speaker, Batiste said, instantly suggested the album’s concept.The album’s origin, Batiste said, was partly philosophical, as he mused on the connections and divergences between pop music and “the horrendous idea of what we call ‘world music’.” Andre D. Wagner for The New York Times“It sounds like it’s coming out of a radio that’s sitting on top of the bar at a cafe in Catalonia, Spain,” Batiste said. “The working title up until that point was ‘World Music.’ And it was like, ohhh, ‘World Music Radio.’” He worked through the night to put together a rough version of the album, dreaming up Billy Bob Bo Bob as a narrator who segues between tracks and sometimes chirps in with an approving voice-over.Another collaborator that Batiste pursued was the smooth-jazz saxman Kenny G. Batiste described him with a certain detached curiosity as a fellow artist who has one foot in jazz and another in pop, who has carved out a hugely successful niche but faced unending waves of critical vitriol.“Anybody who’s talked about with that kind of extreme disdain,” Batiste said, “I always want to study.”On the track “Clair de Lune,” which opens with an obscure sample from an old French folk album, Kenny G contributes a minute-long solo that is busier and more harmonically dense than his usual hooks, but with a singing tone that is instantly recognizable.In an interview, Kenny G said that Batiste had asked him about the polarized reactions to his work.“You’ve got to play what sounds good to you, and feels good to you,” Kenny G recalled telling him. “Lucky for you, there’s a big audience that seems to like what you do. Then you really don’t have to apologize for that.”WHEN ASKED ABOUT his commercial hopes for “World Music Radio,” Batiste was typically circuitous and nuanced, saying that on one hand, he wants to compete with stars like Taylor Swift for top chart positions, but he also recognizes that his take on popular culture is more conceptual and abstract. He was most straightforward in saying he couldn’t wait to head out on tour.He seems most prepared for any reaction to his social commentary on the album. “Love Black folks and white folks,” Batiste sings on “Be Who You Are.” “My Asians, my Africans, my Afro-Eurasian, Republican or Democrat.”Even that simple message of openness and acceptance is relatively rare in an era when many pop stars shrink away from any social commentary at all, out of fear of alienating part of their audience and sacrificing clicks. It’s a risk Batiste is determined to take.“To say I love everybody, including Republicans — as a Black guy, I don’t know how that could go,” he said. “That shouldn’t be something that’s frowned upon or looked at in a way that probably to some seems like, ‘Oh, he’s not really clear on what’s important.’”“It’s radical today to love everybody,” he added. “We are in a time that there’s more of a pressure to make people into the other, and to dehumanize them in the process. But the act of removing a certain baseline of humanity in how we approach living amongst each other, that should be radical. That should be the thing that is disruptive.” More

With Joaquina Kalukango’s high notes and Billy Crystal’s lowbrow jokes, the Tonys celebrated Broadway’s return after a tumultuous season.The Tony Awards returned to Radio City Music Hall on Sunday for the first time since June 2019. And after such a roller-coaster ride of a year, the ceremony was a welcome chance to celebrate all those people (from understudies and swings to stage managers and Covid safety officers) who made sure the show went on again (and again). Ariana DeBose, the former theater understudy turned recent Oscar winner, was the host of the three-hour broadcast portion of the ceremony on CBS. But it was Darren Criss and Julianne Hough, hosts of the first hour of the ceremony on Paramount+, who delighted one of our writers with their endearing eagerness to put on a show. As for the awards themselves: There were a few pleasant surprises but voters showed that they were craving the familiar. Here are the highs and lows as our writers saw them. NICOLE HERRINGTONBilly Crystal during a performance from his show, “Mr. Saturday Night.”Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesBest Schtick: Billy Crystal Makes Silly CompellingThe telecast was professional, smooth, well paced and bland. Part of the problem: the generally lugubrious choice of musical material. Another: the overly careful and inoffensively middlebrow tone. Which may be why one of the few moments that broke through the taste and torpor was Billy Crystal’s lowbrow schtick from “Mr. Saturday Night,” the new musical based on his 1992 film. Actually, the “Yiddish scat” he performed — nonsense guttural syllables and spitty consonants sung in the manner of an Ella Fitzgerald improvisation — has been part of his act forever, with good cause: It’s so stupidly funny you can’t help but fall for it. And when he brought it out into the audience, and threw it up to the balcony, he showed how precision delivery and command of a room can make even the oldest, silliest material impossibly compelling. JESSE GREENMichael R. Jackson accepting the award for best book of a musical.Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesBest Mid-Show Relief: A Win for ‘A Strange Loop’For the first half of the ceremony, I was sweating over the fact that “A Strange Loop,” which had been nominated for 11 awards, hadn’t won anything. I was expecting the Pulitzer Prize-winner to make a full sweep, but once the broadcast was underway, it was clear that the Tony voters had been more inclined toward the predictable picks for the winners’ circle. So when “A Strange Loop” won its first award of the night, for best book of a musical, it was thrilling to see Michael R. Jackson take the stage to celebrate his “big, Black and queer-ass American Broadway” show. Jackson’s boundary-pushing, thought-provoking script manages to be both hilarious and devastating, as well as wide-ranging in every sense of the word. MAYA PHILLIPSMallory Maedke, center, as Jane Seymour in “Six: The Musical.” Maedke, the show’s dance captain, replaced Abby Mueller, who tested positive for Covid-19 just hours earlier.Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesBest Shout-Out: Nods to Understudies and SwingsIn the weeks leading up to the Tony Awards, a buzz had been building — on various social media platforms — around demands that the Tonys honor swings, understudies and standbys. In a season often disrupted by Covid-19 transmission, these performers filled in for named players at show after show, sometimes at just a few moment’s notice.As the evening’s host Ariana DeBose noted in her opening monologue: “A show is put on by many people, not just the faces that you know and love.”No understudy could be nominated, but winners and presenters found ways to salute them. During the “Act One” special on Paramount+, the director-choreographer Christopher Wheeldon, a winner for “MJ,” shouted out “all the swings and understudies who kept us onstage this season. I bow to you.”During the main program, Jesse Tyler Ferguson, a winner for “Take Me Out,” thanked his own understudy. Patti LuPone, a winner for “Company,” hailed not only understudies, but also the Covid-19 compliance officers. And in the big production number, DeBose, took another moment, while being hoisted into the air, to thank the swings.Perhaps the greatest tribute came during the production number for the musical “Six.” Playing Jane Seymour was Mallory Maedke, the show’s dance captain, who had subbed in hours earlier after the actress who usually performs the role, Abby Mueller, tested positive for Covid-19. Maedke stepped in. The show went on. ALEXIS SOLOSKIDarren Criss and Julianne Hough during the “Act One” opening number.Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesBest ‘Glee’ Alum: Darren CrissIt’s fitting that Darren Criss was one of the hosts at the 2022 Tony Awards: Before starring on Broadway, he got his big break in “Glee,” a series that was instrumental in bridging pop music and Broadway. He and Julianne Hough — a former “Dancing With the Stars” pro who didn’t miss a step even as her costume was coming off before the scheduled moment — had a sparkly showbiz quality peppered with an adorably enthusiastic nerdiness during their hourlong hosting gig of the “Act One” portion of the Tonys. And their opening number, written by Criss, for the Paramount+ stream, had more zest than Ariana DeBose’s opener in the flagship section hosted by CBS. ELISABETH VINCENTELLIAriana DeBose, this year’s Tonys host, sang directly to audience members.Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesWorst Display: The Evening-Long AmnesiaImagining alternate worlds and stepping right into them is what theater people do. But there was some serious cognitive dissonance on display in the collectively imagined world of the Tony Awards ceremony, a four-hour celebration of a post-shutdown Broadway season that made it through thanks to stringent Covid-safety measures — most visibly, masks strictly required for audience members.Disturbingly, the picture that the industry chose to present to the television cameras at Radio City Music Hall was a sea of bare faces, as if Broadway inhabited a post-Covid world. In the vast orchestra section, where the nominees sat, there was scarcely a mask anywhere.A brass band from “The Music Man” paraded through the aisles; Ariana DeBose, this year’s Tonys host, sang right in audience members’ faces; and three winners from the revival of “Company” — Patti LuPone; her director, Marianne Elliott; and their producer Chris Harper — made mocking reference to a mask-refusing audience member at their show. Funny, sure, but they, too, were now barefaced in a crowd.For all the loving shout-outs that the Tonys and Tony winners gave to understudies, swings and Covid safety teams for their indispensability in allowing so many productions to go on, it was hard not to wonder about Broadway choosing a normal-looking TV visual over caution, knowing how scary it can get when positive test results start rolling in. LAURA COLLINS-HUGHESBilly Porter during the “In Memoriam” performance.Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesVanessa Hudgens’s big, gold abstract planetary earrings.Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesBest Look: Theater Stars Deliver Shine and SparkleThe Tony Awards aren’t exactly known for being a major fashion event, at least compared to the other awards shows that make up the initials of EGOT. But maybe it should be. On Sunday, we saw major stars in major looks, with the biggest trend being found in high shine and sparkle, befitting of theater’s big night.Just look at Joaquina Kalukango, who won the Tony for lead actress in a musical while wearing a golden gown dripping in gems, tied with an electric lime green bow — a dress that was designed, she said in her acceptance speech, by her sister.Then there was Ariana DeBose’s head-to-toe black sequined gown; Kara Young’s metallic two-piece ball gown; Utkarsh Ambudkar’s suit covered in pearly buttons; Vanessa Hudgens’s big, gold abstract planetary earrings; and Billy Porter’s space-age jacquard silver tuxedo. There were women who wore their crystals and beading like armor. There were men who channeled Michael Jackson (with fringed epaulets) and Elvis (in a high-collared, low-cut shirt) — bringing enough glitz, glamour and intricate embroidery to occupy several Broadway costume designers. JESSICA TESTAMyles Frost and ensemble members in a performance from “MJ.”Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesWorst Attempt at Nostalgia: Not So ‘Smooth Criminal’I have numerous grievances about “MJ,” the Michael Jackson jukebox musical, so perhaps it’s no surprise that I found the Tonys performance — the star, Myles Frost, and some of the company performing “Smooth Criminal” — a bit lackluster. The musical is inherently hollow; the opacity of Michael Jackson and his life of traumas and controversies make it difficult to find material compelling and cohesive enough to tell a story onstage. So the name of the game is nostalgia, and the show moonwalks by with the momentum of fans happy to see and hear some of the most iconic performances of Jackson’s career. But everything is an impression, with even the choreography restrained to the tried and true with little nuance and variation. The airless enormity and formality of the Tonys stage drained what little bit of charisma “MJ” might have otherwise had — though by the end of the evening the show was still a big winner, with Frost nabbing the best leading actor in a musical award. MAYA PHILLIPSThe Off Broadway veteran Deirdre O’Connell won best leading actress in a play for “Dana H.”Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesBest Experimental Inspiration: Love for ‘Weird Art’Deirdre O’Connell’s win for “Dana H.”— which earlier in the evening presenters had referred to as both “Donna H.” and “Diana H.” — came as a marvelous surprise. O’Connell, 70, an actress of absolute passion and precision, has made her career Off and Off Off Broadway, enriching the work of two generations of playwrights, in works both traditional and very strange. (She is currently starring in Will Arbery’s “Corsicana” at Playwrights Horizons.)In “Dana H.,” she lip-synced to harrowing audio recorded by the mother of the playwright, Lucas Hnath. And in her acceptance speech, which came midway through a ceremony in which more traditional fare was typically rewarded, O’Connell dedicated her Tony to every artist who has worried if the art they are making would prove too esoteric for Broadway. She insisted that her presence should inspire haunting art, frightening art, art that no one else may understand.“Please let me standing here,” she said, “be a little sign to you from the universe to make the weird art.” So go ahead, writers and directors of Tonys future: Make the weird art. ALEXIS SOLOSKIBen Power accepts the Tony for best new play for “The Lehman Trilogy.”Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesBest Spotlight: A Playwright MedleyOn typical Tony Awards shows, playwrights are about as prominent as animal trainers and child wranglers. (It’s a permanent embarrassment that they seldom get to talk even if their work wins.) This year’s presentation may not have heaped upon them the glory they deserve — they are, after all, at the heart of the entire enterprise — but it gave them a longer-than-usual segment that was also clever and insightful. Each of the five best play nominees answered a few simple questions about themselves and their work; their answers were edited together like a medley. What one word would Tracy Letts, the author of “The Minutes,” use to describe it? “Hilarious,” he said, with a self-serving twinkle. What is Lynn Nottage’s favorite line from “Clyde’s”? “A little salt makes the food taste good. Too much makes it inedible.” And how would Ben Power, the author of “The Lehman Trilogy,” describe a play about his own life? “As long as ‘The Lehman Trilogy,’ but with a happier ending.” JESSE GREENEnsemble members in the gender-flipped “Company” at the Tonys on Sunday night. Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesWorst Trend: Rewarding Marquee NamesThe worst part of the evening was not a single moment but the fact that almost every time the most famous person or show won. It felt as if the voters were craving something familiar for the first full post-Covid Broadway season — even when that familiarity was draped in a seemingly (but not really) edgy concept like a gender-flipped Sondheim show (“Company”) or a fun retread of the Spice Girls (“Six”).There were two major exceptions to that trend: the Off Broadway veteran Deirdre O’Connell winning best actress in a play for “Dana H.” and Michael R. Jackson’s bracing “A Strange Loop” winning for best musical. ELISABETH VINCENTELLIJoaquina Kalukango singing “Let It Burn,” during a performance from “Paradise Square.”Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesBest Heroine: Joaquina Kalukango Lifts ‘Paradise Square’“Paradise Square” is not the best musical. And that makes Joaquina Kalukango’s moving performance, as the show’s tough-broad-heroine Nelly O’Brien, that much more impressive. In an otherwise drab Tonys broadcast, the excerpt from “Paradise Square” brought some much-needed vitality to the stage. Beginning with an ensemble song and dance that showed off the musical’s jaunty choreography, the segment then turned into a solo showcase for Kalukango, who blazed through her character’s big number “Let It Burn.”Thanks to the camera close-ups (something we don’t often get in the world of theater) we got to see the particulars of Kalukango’s performance; her face seems to open up into a dauntless roar, and by the end of the song her whole visage darkens with tears. It’s no surprise that she later won the award for best actress in a musical; watching her perform is like watching the bursting of a Roman candle in a starless night — that kind of powerful, that kind of beautiful. MAYA PHILLIPS More

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The ‘American Pie’ hitmaker will honor the memories of Buddy Holly, Richie Valens and The Big Bopper at Surf Ballroom in Clear Lake, Iowa on the 62nd anniversary of ‘The Day the Music Died’.

Dec 10, 2020
AceShowbiz – Singer Don McLean is preparing to salute the memories of Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, and Then Big Bopper at a special anniversary concert held at the same venue as their last-ever performance.
The “American Pie” hitmaker penned the classic 1971 song about “The Day The Music Died”, the phrase used to describe the 1959 plane crash that cost the three rock ‘n’ roll greats their lives, and on February 3, 2021 – exactly 62 years after the Clear Lake, Iowa tragedy – McLean will take the stage at the city’s Surf Ballroom to perform in their honour.
The show will also serve as the kick off for McLean’s “American Pie” 50th Anniversary World Tour, which will include stops in Australia, New Zealand, and the U.K. and Ireland, among many other countries.
“February 3, 1959 was a tragic day for all of us who lost our heroes in that plane crash. While writing American Pie, I felt it was important to remember this incident that to me, was still fresh,” McLean shares in a statement.

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“Now, we will return to the last venue they performed at on the anniversary of the crash to kick off the 50th Anniversary American Pie World Tour.”

The concert news emerges as a new movie chronicling the events surrounding the tragic loss is in development.
Actor Ruairi O’Connor has been cast as Holly in “Clear Lake”, alongside rapper Nelly as Chuck Berry, Colin Hanks as Holly’s manager Norman Petty, and Diane Guerrero as the “Peggy Sue” singer’s wife, Maria Elena. Bruce Beresford will direct the project.

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The new song called ‘Stuck With U’ is going to be released to raise money to provide scholarships for the children of first responders amid the coronavirus pandemic.
May 2, 2020
AceShowbiz – Justin Bieber and Ariana Grande are releasing a duet to raise money for the children of first responders, who have been affected by the coronavirus.
“Stuck With U” will be released on May 8, 2020 and all net proceeds will benefit the First Responders Children’s Foundation and SB Projects, the organisation founded by the pop stars’ manager, Scooter Braun.
The money raised will help fund grants and scholarships for children of the first responders caught up in the COVID-19 pandemic.
“We’re very excited about this for so many reasons,” Grande writes in a statement. “We hope we make a big difference with this and we hope it uplifts you and makes you feel happy and that you love it as much as we do. We’ve had a really great time working on this and we’re so excited for you to hear it.”
“More than ever we are seeing the selfless, tireless and amazing work that doctors, nurses and healthcare providers give to the world every day,” Bieber adds. “It is our hope we can lend our voices to raise awareness and give much-needed support for them and their families. It’s my honor to come together with my friend Ariana and our SB Projects family to try and do some good.”
Braun also provided a statement, revealing Grande and Bieber wanted to show “our gratitude to the men and women on the front lines who work tirelessly for our health and safety during this crisis.”
The pop stars also shared the announcement on Instagram, along with the song’s cover art.
“Grateful to announce that my friend and i have partnered with @1strcf and @sb_projects on this release,” Grande wrote.
“Very excited because we have finally done it,” Bieber added.

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The Canadian star jumps on Instagram Live during which he teases about an upcoming ‘special’ new song and tour, though he’s going to wait until ‘this all calms down a little bit’ before releasing anything.
Apr 23, 2020
AceShowbiz – It seems that Justin Bieber is spending time during Coronavirus lockdown by working on new music. The Canadian star jumped on Instagram Live on Tuesday, April 21 during which he teased about an upcoming “special” new song.
“We are working on something really special now. Be ready,” the 26-year-old “Despacito” hitmaker told his fans during the broadcast from his home in Canada. “Hopefully when this all calms down a little bit we will be able to release some new stuff. And go on tour eventually, so I’m excited for that.”
Fans were supposed to be enjoying his “Changes Tour”, a 45-date stadium and arena tour which was initially set to start on May 14. That would mark his first live tour in nearly three years. However, the husband of Hailey Baldwin was forced to postpone the much-anticipated tour due to Coronavirus pandemic.
“The health and safety of my fans, team, cast and crew is the most important thing for me. The world is a scary place but we will all figure this out together. We held on to these dates as long as we could and I cannot wait to see all of you in person as soon as I can. Be safe,” so he announced earlier this month.
More than anyone else, Justin was reportedly disappointed by the delay. He “has mentally prepared himself for several weeks that it would be necessary to postpone the tour,” said a source of the “Yummy” singer. “It obviously didn’t come as a shock to him. Yet, he is — of course — very disappointed. He has been rehearsing and preparing for months.”
“Justin wants to do a safe tour so everyone, including his fans, can feel comfortable being in a large crowd again,” the source added. “If this isn’t possible until next year, Justin will accept that.”

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