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    Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs Incarcerated: Bed Checks, Monotony and Jailhouse Lasagna

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    Sean Combs’s hair and beard, once jet black, are gray now. Hair dye is not allowed at the Metropolitan Detention Center.Breakfast is at 7 a.m. The exercise room has yoga mats and a small basketball hoop. The communal space in the dorm-style housing he’s been assigned has pingpong and television. There is phone access that has allowed him to speak to the rapper Ye and also to his children who, on his 55th birthday, serenaded him on speakerphone.“Thank y’all for being strong and thank y’all for being by my side,” Mr. Combs said in a video released by his family.The Brooklyn jail has drawn complaints over the years as a place filled with mold, vermin and neglect, which the Federal Bureau of Prisons has pledged to address. For nearly seven months, its most famous tenant has been Mr. Combs, who is awaiting trial in circumstances far removed from the life of personal chefs and enormous mansions he once enjoyed.He is facing years in prison if convicted on the racketeering and sex trafficking charges he faces when his trial begins next month. His lawyers argued strenuously after his arrest last September that Mr. Combs should be free until trial.Motion after motion, and three hearings, were devoted to arguments over whether he posed too much of a threat to the community — and of witness tampering — to be released on bail.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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      Soulja Boy Is Ordered to Pay $4 Million in Sexual Assault Case

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      The rapper, known for songs like “Crank That (Soulja Boy),” was found liable of assaulting a woman who said she was his assistant over two years.A jury in Los Angeles found the rapper Soulja Boy liable for sexual battery and assault, ordering him to pay $4 million to a woman who said that he became violent toward her as their once-professional relationship turned romantic, the woman’s lawyer said.The decision on Thursday, which was also reported by The Associated Press, came after a nearly monthlong trial, in which the woman said that she had started as the rapper’s assistant.She accused him of physically and sexually assaulting her over two years. Soulja Boy — known for songs like “Crank That (Soulja Boy),” “Kiss Me Thru the Phone” and “Pretty Boy Swag” — denied the claims during the trial.“Our client is pleased with and vindicated by the verdict,” Neama Rahmani, a lawyer for the woman, whose name was not revealed in the proceedings, said in a statement. “Yesterday’s verdict is just the beginning of justice for Soulja Boy’s victims and a reckoning for the entire music industry.”Reading a statement on his phone, Soulja Boy, whose real name is DeAndre Cortez Way, criticized the verdict outside the Superior Court in Los Angeles County after the verdict.“I believe this entire process has been tainted by a system that is not designed to protect the rights of the accused,” Mr. Way said. “I want to make it clear that I am innocent.”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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      Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs Faces New Sex-Trafficking Charge Ahead of Trial

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      Weeks before the music mogul is scheduled to stand trial, prosecutors added a more serious charge involving a woman they refer to as “Victim-2.”Federal prosecutors have amended the indictment against Sean Combs, who is scheduled to stand trial next month, to include a second major sex-trafficking charge, according to a grand jury indictment unsealed on Friday.The new charge relates to a woman described by prosecutors as “Victim-2.” They allege that she is one of three female victims whom Mr. Combs coerced into sex.Before, Mr. Combs had been charged only with sex trafficking “Victim-2” under a less serious charge that makes it illegal to transport a person “with intent that such individual engage in prostitution.” The new indictment adds a second count of a more serious sex-trafficking charge that carries a mandatory minimum sentence of 15 years in prison.Mr. Combs, 55, has pleaded not guilty to the charges against him, which include a count of racketeering conspiracy, and has vehemently denied sex trafficking anyone. His lawyers have argued that the conduct the prosecutors are targeting involves consensual sex.In a statement released on Friday in response to the new charges, the Combs defense team said: “These are not new allegations or new accusers. These are the same individuals, former long-term girlfriends, who were involved in consensual relationships. This was their private sex life, defined by consent, not coercion.”Jury selection in the trial, which will be held at Federal District Court in Manhattan, is scheduled to start in late April. Opening statements are scheduled to start on May 12.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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      Miley Cyrus’s Apocalyptic Pop, and 9 More New Songs

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      Hear tracks by Bruce Springsteen, Elton John and Brandi Carlile, Wet Leg and others.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.Miley Cyrus, ‘End of the World’Miley Cyrus has announced that her album “Something Beautiful,” due May 30, will be a “pop opera” and a “visual experience,” with a film to follow in June. One of its early singles, “End of the World,” is a luxurious pop extravaganza with songwriting collaborators including Jonathan Rado from Foxygen and Molly Rankin and Alec O’Hanley from the group Alvvays. A pumping beat, stacked-up guitars, orchestral underpinnings and a platoon of backup vocals abet Cyrus as she calls for one last, desperate chance at pleasure. “Let’s pretend it’s not the end of the world,” she urges. She probably didn’t know she’d be singing through an economic crisis. JON PARELESBruce Springsteen, ‘Rain in the River’Bruce Springsteen was hoarse and howling when he recorded “Rain in the River,” now released as a preview of “Tracks II: The Lost Albums,” an 83-song collection from his archives that will be released in June. It’s a booming, arena-scale cry of anguish with Springsteen’s guitars pealing, droning and spinning gnarled leads. His character gets spurned, told that “Your love means no more to me than rain in the river.” What happens next is ambiguous — and possibly fatal. PARELESElton John and Brandi Carlile, ‘Little Richard’s Bible’Layers of fandom inform “Who Believes in Angels?,” the new duet album by Elton John and Brandi Carlile. Carlile grew up as an ardent fan of John’s songwriting and flamboyant gay identity, while the producer Andrew Watt, who collaborated on the songwriting (along with John’s longtime lyricist, Bernie Taupin), spurs longtime musicians to rediscover their youthful spark. The album’s two opening tracks pay tribute to songwriters that John admired: Laura Nyro and, in this song, Little Richard. John, now 78, sings about Little Richard’s swings between carnality and faith, with high harmonies from Carlile, and he pounds out piano chords as a lifetime rock ’n’ roll believer. PARELESWet Leg, ‘Catch These Fists’A deadpan near-spoken vocal, bristling bass and guitar riffs and a beat that stomps its way into the chorus: those were the ingredients of the English indie-rock band Wet Leg’s 2021 smash, “Chaise Longue.” The group deploys similar elements in “Catch These Fists,” but trades the drolleries of “Chaise Longue” to contend with a more fraught situation: an unwanted pickup attempt at a club. “I know all too well just what you’re like,” Rhian Teasdale tells the suitor. “I don’t want your love — I just wanna fight.” PARELESThe Hives, ‘Enough Is Enough’The swaggering Swedish punks the Hives are back — so soon! — with the first single from an album due Aug. 29 called “Play It Again Sam.” The quintet paused after its 2012 LP “Lex Hives” until 2023, when it returned with “The Death of Randy Fitzsimmons.” (“It was like a slow, 10-year-long panic,” the frontman Howlin’ Pelle Almqvist joked then. “It was never an outright panic because we continued to be so immensely popular worldwide.”) “Enough Is Enough” rides four chords and a wave of frustration to a delightfully tuneful bridge. In the video, Almqvist is the king of the ring — until he takes a punch that lands him in the hospital. Like his powder keg of a band, he rallies. CARYN GANZWe 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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      Judge Declines to Revoke Young Thug’s Probation After Social Media Post

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      The district attorney’s office in Fulton County, Ga., had cited a post in which the rapper referred to a gang investigator as the “Biggest liar in the DA office.”A judge declined on Thursday to revoke the probation of the Atlanta rapper Young Thug, born Jeffery Williams, after prosecutors moved to have him punished for a post on social media in which Mr. Williams referred to a local gang investigator as the “Biggest liar in the DA office.”In a brief ruling on Thursday, Fulton County Judge Paige Reese Whitaker declined the motion from the district attorney’s office of Fani T. Willis without explanation.Atlanta prosecutors had filed a motion on Wednesday arguing that Mr. Williams had violated the terms of his probation, writing that he “has engaged in conduct that directly threatens the safety of witnesses and prosecutors, compromises ongoing legal proceedings, and warrants immediate revocation of probation.”Mr. Williams, 33, pleaded guilty late last year to participation in criminal street gang activity, in addition to drug and weapons charges, ending his role in a sprawling racketeering trial that became the longest criminal proceeding in Georgia history. (The two of the six original defendants in the trial who refused plea deals were found not guilty of murder and conspiracy to violate the RICO act.)At the judge’s discretion, Mr. Williams, who had faced up to 120 years in prison if convicted, was sentenced to time served and 15 years of probation, with an additional 20 years of prison time possible if he violated the agreement. The strict terms of the probation barred Mr. Williams from metro Atlanta for 10 years; required him to undergo random searches and drug tests; and instructed him to refrain from promoting any gangs or associating with known members, potentially complicating his career as a touring rapper.In response to the filing by prosecutors on Wednesday, a lawyer for Mr. Williams, Brian Steel, said in a statement: “This motion is baseless. While intimidation and threats of violence are never appropriate, Jeffery Williams has done nothing wrong. We look forward to seeking a dismissal of this petition.”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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      Sean Kingston and His Mother Are Convicted in $1 Million Fraud Scheme

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      Mr. Kingston, who is best known for his 2007 hit single “Beautiful Girls,” and his mother were charged with defrauding sellers of high-end vehicles, jewelry and other goods, prosecutors said.A jury in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., convicted the rapper Sean Kingston and his mother on Friday in a scheme involving more than $1 million worth of fraud, according to prosecutors.Mr. Kingston, 35, whose real name is Kisean Anderson, and his mother, Janice Turner, 62, both of Southwest Ranches, Fla., had been charged with five counts of wire fraud.They essentially took possession of high-end vehicles, jewelry and other goods by pretending to have paid for them through the use of fraudulent documents, according to the U.S. attorney’s office for the Southern District of Florida.Each faces a maximum of 20 years in prison on each count, prosecutors said. The defendants are scheduled to be sentenced in July.Ms. Turner, who testified during the trial, was taken into federal custody on Friday. Her lawyer, Humberto Dominguez, said on Saturday morning that they will appeal the verdict.Mr. Kingston, who did not testify, was allowed to post bond of a home valued at $500,000 and $200,000 in cash, but will remain in home detention with electronic monitoring. His lawyer, Zeljka Bozanic, said on Saturday that she was thankful that Mr. Kingston was allowed to remain out on bond but added that they will also file an appeal.As a 17-year-old, Mr. Kingston became known for his debut single, “Beautiful Girls,” which used a sample from Ben E. King’s “Stand By Me.” It was ranked at No. 1 for four weeks on the Billboard Hot 100 chart in 2007.“He spent his childhood in Jamaica, which gave him his stage name and his command of patois,” the critic Kelefa Sanneh wrote in The New York Times in 2007, “but his version of thug love (‘Girl, I know it’s rough, but come with me/We can take a trip to the ’hood’) makes it sound as if he’s trying too hard, or not hard enough.”Mr. Kingston’s home in Southwest Ranches, Fla., west of Fort Lauderdale.Amy Beth Bennett/The South Florida Sun Sentinel, via Associated PressAccording to prosecutors, Mr. Kingston and Ms. Turner “unjustly enriched themselves” by falsely claiming that they had executed bank wire or other monetary transfers as payment for vehicles, jewelry and other high-end items when no such transfers had taken place.It added up to a property haul of more than $1 million, prosecutors said.Mr. Kingston and Ms. Turner were accused of an “organized scheme to defraud” establishments, including a car dealership and a jeweler, of more than $50,000, according to arrest warrants for them.Mr. Kingston and Ms. Turner were also accused of stealing a Cadillac Escalade from the dealership and $480,000 in jewelry from an individual, according to the warrants.Ms. Turner pleaded guilty in 2006 to charges of bank fraud and filing fraudulent loan applications and was sentenced to 16 months in prison, according to court records. She was released in March 2007. More

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      6 (Up-tempo) New Songs You Should Hear Now

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      Get your blood pumping with the latest tracks from Chappell Roan, J Noa, Illuminati Hotties and more.Chappell RoanMario Anzuoni/ReutersDear listeners,It’s Lindsay’s editor, Caryn, here to kick off a round of guest newsletters with around 19 minutes of upbeat music from March. (If you missed Friday’s newsletter celebrating The Amplifier’s second birthday, a reminder that Lindsay will be taking a few months away to work on a book. The Amp will still arrive every Tuesday.)I’ve probably mentioned this before, but I sequence the Friday Playlists that provide the raw material for these monthly entries spotlighting new music, and one of my big challenges is tempo: With the critics Jon Pareles and Lindsay picking so many different types of tracks, folding them into a coherent mix is not always a cinch.So I’m cheating a little today, choosing a selection of songs at what I’ll call “walking in Manhattan” pace. (Whatever the Google Maps estimate is, I can beat it.) This rundown could provide some rapid strolling music, or maybe soundtrack a cycle on the treadmill accompanied by some spirited air guitar-ing. Either way, trust that this six-pack of songs is a worthy addition to your 2025 collection.Work it,CarynListen along while you read.1. J Noa and Lowlight: “Traficando Rap”The Dominican rapper J Noa spits at breakneck speed in Spanish, and it’s a lot of fun trying to keep up with her. This track, on which she pairs with her producer Lowlight, contains boasts comparing her rhymes to other addictive substances over horn blasts that, as Jon Pareles wrote, “hark back to Sugar Hill Gang’s ‘Apache’ and its source, the Incredible Bongo Band’s version of ‘Apache.’” The 19-year-old sounds bold and gleeful, “la-la-la”ing along to a head-spinner of a beat.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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      Japanese Breakfast’s Shimmering Sadness, and 8 More New Songs

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      Hear tracks by Marianne Faithfull, the Waterboys featuring Fiona Apple, Debby Friday 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.Japanese Breakfast, ‘Here Is Someone’Plucked string tones from all directions create a magical, shimmering cascade around Michelle Zauner’s voice in “Here Is Someone” from the new album by Japanese Breakfast, “For Melancholy Brunettes (& Sad Women).” The lyrics hint at tensions and anxieties, but the track radiates anticipation: “Life is sad, but here is someone,” Zauner concludes. Jon ParelesMarianne Faithfull, ‘Burning Moonlight’Marianne Faithfull, who died in January at 78, kept recording almost to the end. She brought every bit of her scratchy, ravaged, tenacious voice to “Burning Moonlight,” a song she co-wrote that holds one of her last manifestoes: “Burning moonlight to survive / Walking in fire is my life.” Acoustic guitars and tambourine connect the music to the 1960s, when she got her start; her singing holds all the decades of experience that followed. Jon ParelesThe Waterboys featuring Fiona Apple, ‘Letter From an Unknown Girlfriend’“Letter From an Unknown Girlfriend” is from the Waterboys album due April 4, “Life, Death and Dennis Hopper,” and was written by Mike Scott. But it is sung and played by Fiona Apple, alone at the piano, delivering a remembrance of an abusive boyfriend: “I used to say no man would ever strike me,” it begins, “And no man ever did ’til I met you.” She admits to the charm of the “satyr running wild in you,” but her voice rises to a bitter, primal rasp as she recalls the worst. It’s a stark, harrowing performance.Jon ParelesTamino featuring Mitski, ‘Sanctuary’Diffidence turns into resolve in the course of “Sanctuary,” a waltzing duet from “Every Dawn’s a Mountain,” the new album by the Belgian songwriter Tamino-Amir Moharam Fouad. In separate verses, Tamino and Mitski sound fragile, contemplating uncertainty and loss; “I reside in the ruins of the sanctuary,” Mitski sings. But when they connect — asking “Is it late where you are?” — and harmonize, an orchestra rises behind them to offer hope. Jon ParelesMorgan Wallen, ‘I’m a Little Crazy’“I’m a little crazy, but the world’s insane,” the disturbed narrator of Morgan Wallen’s new single contends. His character is a drug dealer who keeps a loaded gun nearby. He’s sustaining himself “on antidepressants and lukewarm beers” and yelling at his TV, “but the news don’t change.” Over steadfast acoustic guitar picking and lightly brushed drums, Wallen sings with chilling, sociopathic calm. Jon ParelesWe 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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      J.B. Moore, Producer of Seminal Hip-Hop Records, Dies at 81

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      He was a magazine ad salesman when he and a colleague, Robert Ford, teamed with Kurtis Blow and helped break rap music into the mainstream.J.B. Moore, an advertising man from suburban Long Island who wrote the lyrics to one of rap’s first hits — Kurtis Blow’s 1979 novelty song, “Christmas Rappin’” — and with a partner, Robert Ford, produced that rapper’s albums as he became a breakout star in the early 1980s, died on March 13 in Manhattan. He was 81.His friend Seth Glassman said the cause of his death, in a nursing home, was pancreatic cancer.Mr. Moore and Mr. Ford, known as Rocky, were unlikely music impresarios. They met at Billboard magazine in the 1970s, where Mr. Moore was an advertising salesman who wrote occasional jazz reviews, and where Mr. Ford was a reporter and critic and one of the first journalists at a mainstream publication to expose the musical fusion created by DJs and MCs that was then emerging from New York City block parties and Black discos.Mr. Ford “was a Black guy from the middle of Hollis, Queens,” Mr. Moore recalled in a 2001 oral history for the Museum of Pop Culture in Seattle. “I was a white guy from the North Shore of Long Island.” Still, he said, “our record collections were virtually identical.”The two friends’ careers took a turn in the late summer of 1979, when Mr. Ford, who had a child on the way, told Mr. Moore of his idea to try to scrape up money with a Christmas song. He was inspired by a Billboard colleague who had written a holiday tune for Perry Como decades earlier and was still getting paid for it.Mr. Moore and Mr. Ford came up with the idea for “Christmas Rappin’” in 1979, inspired by a colleague who had written a holiday tune for Perry Como decades earlier and was still getting paid for it.Mercury RecordsMr. Moore liked the idea. “Christmas records are perennials, and therefore you get royalties ad infinitum on them,” he said in the oral history.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