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      Toni Braxton, Whoopi Goldberg Fan, Watches ‘The View’ in Her Pajamas

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      “I love a good debate,” said the R&B singer and actress, who can be seen alongside her sisters in the TV series “The Braxtons.” “It doesn’t always make you smile, but it always provokes thought.”Toni Braxton wasn’t initially enthusiastic about rebooting “Braxton Family Values,” the reality show in which she starred for seven seasons with her sisters, Traci, Towanda, Trina and Tamar.“Not that I don’t love hanging out with my sisters — I’m just not comfortable with people being in my space like that,” she said. “I’m old school. I’m a bit aloof.”She ultimately did it for Traci, who died of esophageal cancer in 2022 and who had been adamant that her sisters continue with the show.Grief and healing are the main themes in the all-new series “The Braxtons,” which airs on We TV and is available on the streaming service ALLBLK.It isn’t the same without Traci, Toni Braxton said. “Part of our DNA is missing. Everyone is trying figure out how to live in this heartache.”Besides “Braxton Family Values,” Braxton is known for her roles on Broadway (“Beauty and the Beast,” “Aida,” “After Midnight”) and for her many R&B hits, including “Breathe Again,” “Another Sad Love Song” and “Un-Break My Heart” — which she performs in “Love & Laughter,” her joint Las Vegas residency with Cedric the Entertainer.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Beyoncé Rumors Briefly Took Center Stage. Kamala Harris Grabbed It Back.

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      Unsubstantiated rumors that the star would appear at the Democratic National Convention, perhaps alongside Taylor Swift, created a daylong frenzy. Then the headliner took control.The report was published around 7 p.m. on Thursday, in all caps. TMZ announced that Beyoncé would be “PERFORMING AT DNC’S FINAL NIGHT!!!” After days of increasingly frenzied rumors that she would make an appearance at the Democratic National Convention, this report set the United Center in Chicago abuzz. But TMZ was wrong. So was Mitt Romney. So were the betting markets. So was basically all of social media.Instead, Vice President Kamala Harris ended the convention by advising attendees to take seriously the task of preserving democracy and not to celebrate prematurely.It was a sobering end to a day of celebrity-centered anticipation. Since the Harris campaign chose Beyoncé’s “Freedom” as its campaign theme song, I had heard intense speculation that the singer would be a special guest on the night of Harris’s acceptance speech to become the party’s presidential nominee. On the convention’s first day, Harris released her new campaign ad, featuring “Freedom.” There was the precedent set by past conventions, with Stevie Wonder performing in 2008 for Barack Obama, and Katy Perry in 2016 for Hillary Clinton. There was the footage of a marching band rehearsing Beyoncé’s songs in the arena.As I entered the United Center, I heard the rumor that Beyoncé and Jay-Z had been in Chicago for several days. Before I settled in at the arena, she had been “sighted” at O’Hare airport. Similar stories were ricocheting across the arena.There was the national anthem sung by the Chicks, with whom Beyoncé performed at the Country Music Association Awards in 2016. Their presence seemed only to reinforce the inevitability of her grand entrance. By 9 p.m., things had reached a fever pitch: I was told by a friend of a friend I was sitting next to that Beyoncé and Taylor Swift were expected to appear onstage together in a mark of feminist solidarity, and stand with the thousands of delegates dressed in suffragist white clothing. The specificity of the rumor was astounding.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Sabrina Carpenter Slices Up Her Sunny Image, and 7 More New Songs

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      Hear tracks by Yaeji, Amythyst Kiah featuring Billy Strings, Broadcast and more.Every Friday, pop critics for The New York Times weigh in on the week’s most notable new tracks. Listen to the Playlist on Spotify here (or find our profile: nytimes) and at Apple Music here, and sign up for The Amplifier, a twice-weekly guide to new and old songs.Sabrina Carpenter, ‘Taste’Sabrina Carpenter’s winning streak of singles continues on “Taste,” the lilting, deceptively chirpy opening track from her hook-filled new album, “Short ’n’ Sweet.” A bright, buoyantly delivered blend of ’80s pop gloss and ’90s country sass, Carpenter lets a paramour’s on-again-off-again ex know exactly whose bed his boots have been under lately: “I heard you’re back together, and if that’s true,” Carpenter taunts, “you’ll just have to taste me when he’s kissing you.” The music video, which stars the “Wednesday” actress Jenna Ortega, makes the lyrics’ queer subtext clear as day, while also indulging in some surprisingly gory Tarantino-esque violence that subverts Carpenter’s sunshiny image. Not that she’s taking any of it too seriously. “Singin’ ’bout it don’t mean I care,” she coos on the bridge, issuing another giggling wink at that image: “Yeah, I know I’ve been known to share.” LINDSAY ZOLADZAmythyst Kiah featuring Billy Strings, ‘I Will Not Go Down’“I’m the only one to ease my soul/I’m the only one that’s in control,” Amythyst Kiah vows in “I Will Not Go Down.” It’s a fierce, foot-stomping song laced with backup vocals and bluegrass virtuosity — on multiple instruments — from Billy Strings. The song’s stark declarations arrive fully armored in musicianship. JON PARELESGeordie Greep, ‘Holy, Holy’We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      8 Correct Answers to ‘What Was the Song of the Summer?’

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      Revisit contenders from Sabrina Carpenter, Kendrick Lamar and Billie Eilish.Sabrina Carpenter has the top contender for song of the summer.Amy Harris/Invision, via Associated PressDear listeners,I’m sorry to be the one to break it to you, but the end of the summer is approaching. Every year around this time, music fans’ favorite unwinnable debate reaches an apex: What was the song of the summer?At the risk of breaking even more bad news, I’ll say that for the most part, the Song of the Summer is a fictitious and even pointless construction, generally immeasurable and usually difficult to agree on unanimously. Sure, every so often a single tune becomes so ubiquitous during those sweltering, school’s out months that it rightfully earns the title. Think of Lil Nas X’s chart-dominant “Old Town Road” in 2019; the viral glee of Carly Rae Jepsen’s “Call Me Maybe” in 2012; or, if you can remember that far back, the Bayside Boys remix of Los Del Rio’s “Macarena” in 1996 (Ay!).But more often than not, the Song of the Summer is up for debate. And given that I believe a true S.o.t.S. must be monocultural and undeniable, most contenders do not truly reach that status.Around Memorial Day, it did seem like we had a prime candidate: the rising pop star Sabrina Carpenter’s fun, flirty “Espresso.” It had all the makings of a summer smash, including a well-timed release date, a beach-themed music video and several goofy, endlessly quotable lyrics that just begged to be printed on novelty boardwalk T-shirts. Case closed, right?But as the summer continued, “Espresso” faced some formidable challengers. The Drake-vs.-Kendrick Lamar beef produced a bona fide anthem in “Not Like Us,” by most measures the biggest hit of Lamar’s career. The rise of the Midwest princess Chappell Roan became one of the year’s most captivating narratives, and her wrenching synth-pop single “Good Luck, Babe!” climbed the Hot 100 accordingly. Even Carpenter herself gave “Espresso” a run for its money with its irresistible follow-up single, “Please Please Please,” which achieved a feat that her previous hit did not: It went to No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100.So, which was the Song of the Summer? Today’s playlist contains 8 different and entirely acceptable answers to the question. If I had to pick just one, I’d still go with “Espresso,” but I’d argue this summer contained too many unexpected plot twists for there to be a unanimous winner. Maybe it’s just one of those years where you need a collection of different tunes to tell the full story of the season. So let this playlist be a time capsule that you can return to in subsequent years when you want to conjure up the sound of summer ’24 — or in a couple of months, when the autumn chill makes you long for these endless sunny days.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      The Meaning Behind Beyoncé’s ‘Freedom,’ the Harris Campaign Anthem

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      Since Kamala’s Harris’s first appearance at campaign headquarters a month ago, the rousing strains of Beyoncé’s “Freedom” have been the candidate’s spirited anthem, blaring under the campaign ads and ahead of Harris’s speeches. The song, from the 2016 visual album “Lemonade,” builds momentum with each verse and features a chorus that is a striking call: “I break chains all by myself/Won’t let my freedom rot in hell/Hey! I’ma keep running/’Cause a winner don’t quit on themselves.”It served as the driving force behind the latest campaign ad that debuted during Night 1 of the Democratic National Convention, which has itself been buoyed by energetic music throughout. It has also provided a sonic shift in messaging, offering Democrats a muscular keyword with widespread appeal to voters across partisan lines.But the song’s origins and supporting videos, and Beyoncé’s live performances of it, offer a deeper meaning for a candidate hoping to make history as the first Black and South Asian woman president.At the time of its initial release in spring 2016, “Freedom” appeared on what was, to that point, Beyoncé’s most politically explicit record to date. Its video paid clear tribute to Sybrina Fulton, Gwen Carr, Lezley McSpadden and Wanda Johnson, Black women whose sons — Trayvon Martin, Eric Garner, Michael Brown and Oscar Grant III — had been recently killed in racially charged incidents. In the video, the women sit next to each other as Beyoncé, dressed in a tiered white dress, belts the song in a visual performance that heightened the intensity and cathartic potential of the music. It features a verse from Kendrick Lamar, who raps, “But mama don’t cry for me, ride for me/Try for me, live for me.”Along with Lamar’s 2015 single, “Alright,” the two artists released arguably the most enduring protest anthems of the Black Lives Matter movement within a span of months.The song’s success is already resonating with the many and riling up others. Just yesterday, Beyoncé sent a cease-and-desist to Donald Trump’s campaign for its use of the song without permission on a social music video. More

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      Cash Cobain Is Changing the Sound of Drill

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      Drill music hasn’t always been this fun. The subgenre’s ominous beats and menacing lyrics infiltrated mainstream hip-hop over a decade ago, but its ascendant stars have been stalled by violence, police surveillance and the flattening effect of at-home copycats. Cash Cobain, the 26-year-old breakout rapper and producer from the Bronx, is helping to raise its trajectory. With lusty rhymes and unorthodox samples, he’s become a central figure of “sexy drill,” a more lascivious offshoot, and one that has tilted the sound of rap nationally.En route to a Coney Island performance in early August, sitting in the passenger seat of a new Mercedes sedan, Cobain rapped along to “Rump Punch,” a song from his upcoming album, as it oozed through the speakers. In between doo-wop-esque lines of flattery for a paramour (“When it comes to pretty, you the pinnacle”), the track sandwiches a hilariously profane offer of oral sex between dreamy keys and a simple repeated drumstick clack.When people hear his music, he explained, “everyone should feel that, feel like they can’t control their body. Their body just gotta dance because the music is so sexy.”It’s a sound that has caught the ears of the melodically inclined hornballs that constitute rap’s upper reaches, perhaps best defined by the 2022 moment when Frank Ocean debuted a gold and diamond-studded sex toy for his jewelry line and used a Cobain track to soundtrack the introductory Instagram post. But the lusty stamp that counts most came when Lil Yachty passed along several Cobain beats to Drake, who barely tweaked one for “Calling for You,” a single that reached No. 5 on the Billboard Hot 100. In the past year, Cobain has rapped on tracks he produced for PinkPantheress and Central Cee, Don Toliver and J. Cole.The 26-year-old Cash Cobain has released six projects since 2021, including his breakthrough mixtape, “2 Slizzy 2 Sexy.”Andre D. Wagner for The New York TimesBy the time Cobain was set for a New York City victory lap, a show in April called Slizzy Fest, demand was such that police preemptively shut it down for overcrowding. (Fans got wind that Drake might attend.) Cobain led fans to Union Square and held an open-air show, rapping along to music boosted by a Bluetooth speaker. Born Cashmere Small (yes, his stage name nods to the late Nirvana frontman), Cobain is now on a national tour supporting Ice Spice, the reigning queen of “pop drill” and his collaborator on the remix of “Fisherrr,” a single that has steadily crept East to West across airwaves since its release in February. The song and the tour are a conjoining of drill’s sonic offspring, each taking the sound past its hyperlocal roots. His new album, “Play Cash Cobain,” is set to arrive Friday with cover art by Drake, and it both trades in Cobain’s usual tropes and offers a bunch of groovable swerves.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Taylor Swift Says She Felt ‘Fear’ and ‘Guilt’ After Canceled Vienna Shows

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      The three stops in Austria on the pop star’s Eras Tour were canceled after the authorities discovered a terrorist plot targeting the concerts.Taylor Swift said Wednesday that she was devastated by the cancellation of her Eras Tour concerts in Vienna, adding that the terrorist plot that had targeted her shows there had filled her “with a new sense of fear, and a tremendous amount of guilt because so many people had planned on coming.”In an Instagram post celebrating the end of the European leg of her tour, Ms. Swift offered her first public comments about the three derailed shows, which were called off after officials in Austria said they had arrested two men accused of plotting a terrorist attack. One of the men, they said, had recently pledged allegiance to the Islamic State online and had focused on the Eras Tour as a potential target.Nearly 200,000 people had been expected to attend the Vienna concerts, which were to start on Aug. 8.In her social media post published on Wednesday, Ms. Swift said she was grateful to the authorities, “because thanks to them, we were grieving concerts and not lives.”“I decided that all of my energy had to go toward helping to protect the nearly half a million people I had coming to see the shows in London,” she said of the next stop on her tour. “My team and I worked hand in hand with stadium staff and British authorities every day in pursuit of that goal, and I want to thank them for everything they did for us.”“Let me be very clear: I am not going to speak about something publicly if I think doing so might provoke those who would want to harm the fans who come to my shows,” she continued. “In cases like this one, ‘silence’ is actually showing restraint, and waiting to express yourself at a time when it’s right to. My priority was finishing our European tour safely, and it is with great relief that I can say we did that.”Thousands of fans who had been eager to spend a few hours with Ms. Swift in Vienna — including many who traveled great distances to see her — shed tears over the canceled concerts. Many others who had planned to see her the following week in London endured anxious days, worrying both about their personal safety and about whether the highlight of their summer would also be called off.But Ms. Swift’s shows went on as planned, a fact that she celebrated in her Instagram post.“All five crowds at Wembley Stadium were bursting with passion, joy, and exuberance,” she said. “The energy in that stadium was like the most giant bear hug from 92,000 people each night, and it brought me back to a place of carefree calm up there.” More