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      Tory Lanez Is Attacked by Another Inmate in Prison

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      The rapper was hospitalized after being stabbed 14 times, his Instagram account said. He is serving a 10-year sentence for shooting the hip-hop star Megan Thee Stallion. The Canadian rapper Tory Lanez was hospitalized on Monday after being attacked in the California prison where he is serving a 10-year sentence for shooting the hip-hop star Megan Thee Stallion, the authorities said.Mr. Lanez, 32, whose real name is Daystar Peterson, was attacked by another prisoner on Monday morning at a prison in Tehachapi, near Bakersfield, the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation said in a statement.Mr. Lanez was transported to a medical facility outside the prison, the department said. It did not provide further details about Mr. Lanez’s condition, but a statement posted on his Instagram account late Monday said that he had been stabbed 14 times.“Both of his lungs collapsed, and he was placed on a breathing apparatus,” the statement said. “He is now breathing on his own.” A representative for Mr. Lanez said on Monday night that he had no updates beyond the statement.In August 2023, a Los Angeles judge sentenced Mr. Lanez to 10 years in prison after a jury found him guilty of shooting Megan Thee Stallion in both her feet following an argument three years earlier. He was convicted on three felony counts, including assault with a semiautomatic handgun.At the time of the shooting, Megan Thee Stallion had been on a steep trajectory to stardom, thanks in large part to blockbuster collaborations with Beyoncé and Cardi B.Last year, Megan Thee Stallion asked for a restraining order against Mr. Lanez. In court filings, her lawyers accused him of waging a “campaign of harassment” against her from prison, including by employing bloggers to spread defamatory statements about her.A judge granted a restraining order against Mr. Lanez until 2030, The Associated Press reported.Neil Vigdor More

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      Kendrick Lamar and SZA Bring Storms and Celebrations to the Stadium Stage

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      The rapper and R&B star are taking victory laps for smash hits and albums. But their co-headlining tour is still threaded with angst and reflection.A little over a year ago, Kendrick Lamar had a comfortable perch as one of hip-hop’s most popular performers, and also the most pious. Then came his monthslong quarrel with Drake, which turned into a referendum on ethics in hip-hop (and life). That led to the emergence of Lamar as a maker of tsk-tsking anthems, which turned into his leanest and meanest album to date. Then came a valedictory performance at one of the biggest stages in the world: the Super Bowl halftime show in February.The outlier song on that album, “GNX,” is the SZA duet “Luther,” which has reigned atop the Billboard Hot 100 for 11 weeks. It’s both sweet and dour, a love song that somehow romanticizes the obstacles that get in the way as much as the affection itself.Despite the success of “Luther,” Lamar and SZA aren’t necessarily natural duet partners; they’re two complementary but not overlapping styles of sentimentalist. Lamar treats remembrance as if it’s a moral act, and SZA expresses a kind of agitation about looking backward. They’ve shared a record label and collaborated several times over the past decade — some good songs, some great ones, all of them in slight tug of war with themselves.That added a layer of complexity to their current outing, the Grand National Tour, which came to MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, N.J., on Thursday night for the first of two performances. Even if the overall song count tilted a bit in Lamar’s favor, it was in essence a co-headlining event: Lamar, his popularity at its peak, touring stadiums for the first time, while SZA takes a victory lap for “S.O.S.,” her beloved 2022 album.Lamar’s set list right-sized the role of the Drake beef in his career arc — important and perspective shifting, but not dominant.Graham Dickie/The New York TimesFor almost three hours, Lamar and SZA traded control of the stage, a few songs at a time, a conceit that gave the performance quickness and unpredictability. Sometimes they’d hand off the spotlight with a tender duet, little dollops of warmth amid the high-energy, boldly produced presentation. (Others have taken this trade-off approach before: Beyoncé and Jay-Z, Charli XCX and Troye Sivan.)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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      Fiona Apple’s Statement About Jailed Mothers, and 8 More New Songs

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      Hear tracks by Kali Uchis, Moses Sumney and Hayley Williams, I’m With Her 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.Fiona Apple, ‘Pretrial (Let Her Go Home)’Fiona Apple’s first solo single in five years is topical, focused on poor women who are imprisoned before trial and drawing on Apple’s time spent as a court watcher. Over a percussive track built on hand drumming, Apple sings about a single mother who can’t afford to post bail; by the time her case is dropped, she has lost her home and her family. Her voice is bitterly sympathetic; the video adds stark statistics.Moses Sumney and Hayley Williams, ‘I Like It I Like It’Hayley Williams of Paramore joins Mosey Sumney for a song he wrote with a co-producer, Graham Jonson (a.k.a. quickly, quickly) about desire thwarted by its own intensity. “I turn cactus when we touch,” Sumney moans; “My lips clutch when you open up,” Williams admits. Deep, loping, stop-start synthesizer lines and a lumpy beat underline both their hesitancy and their obsession; all they can agree on is, “I like it too much.”Billy Woods and Preservation, ‘Waterproof Mascara’The most harrowing track on “Golliwog,” the new album by the rapper Billy Woods, is “Waterproof Mascara.” A sobbing woman and an elegiac melody share the foreground of the production, by Preservation, as Woods recalls domestic abuse and suicidal thoughts and tries to numb himself with weed. Like the rest of the album, it’s bleak and uncompromising.Kali Uchis, ‘Lose My Cool,’“Sincerely,” the new album by Kali Uchis, is one long, languorous sigh of relief at finding true love, then basking in it. The production luxuriates in relaxed tempos and reverbed guitars in songs like “Lose My Cool,” a two-part song — slow and slower — that shows off her jazzy side with melodic leaps and airborne crooning. She revels in clinginess: “Whenever I’m without you babe, it don’t feel right,” she coos.Hxppier, ‘Aller’Hxppier — the 20-year-old Nigerian songwriter Ukpabi Favor Oru — lets smoldering irritation boil over in “Aller,” singing, “I can’t right now with your wishes / You try but you lie.” The bass-loving production, by ValNtino, is grounded in an earthy low drumbeat and keeps expanding — with call-and-response voices, ululations, shouts, horns, strings, organ, even a crying baby — as if Hxppier is mustering allies from all sides.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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      Judge Delays Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs Jury Selection, Concerned About ‘Cold Feet’

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      Judge Arun Subramanian said he feared jurors might grow uneasy over the weekend and drop off the panel before the trial begins on Monday.Jury selection for Sean Combs’s racketeering and sex-trafficking trial was delayed on Friday over worries that some jurors might get “cold feet” before the start of the high-profile case.Judge Arun Subramanian, who is overseeing the case, expressed concern that if jurors were selected before the weekend, they could grow uneasy and drop off the panel before the trial begins on Monday. The decision came after one potential juror sent an email to the court asking to be left off the panel for “issues of personal well-being,” the defense said.Twelve jurors and six alternates will be selected and sworn in on Monday at Federal District Court in Manhattan, ahead of opening statements in the case.The jury will be tasked with deciding whether the music mogul was a “swinger” with unorthodox sexual proclivities, or a predator who used his power to abuse victims in drug-dazed encounters. If convicted, Mr. Combs, who was once a roundly celebrated figure in the music industry, could spend the rest of his life in prison.The jurors will be anonymous, meaning their names will not be disclosed in public court. They will not be sequestered, however, so it is up to them to shield themselves from the media coverage and other chatter about the case.Over three days, dozens of New Yorkers took the witness stand inside the courtroom, where they were asked to describe in detail what they had seen and heard about the case against the artist and executive, who has been the subject of swirling allegations of sexual abuse over the past year and a half.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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      What to Know as Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs’s Sex Trafficking Trial Begins in NYC

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      The music mogul known as Puffy and Diddy is facing federal charges of racketeering conspiracy and sex trafficking. He has pleaded not guilty.Jury selection for Sean Combs’s federal criminal trial began this week, and opening statements from prosecutors and Mr. Combs’s lawyers are slated for Monday.The trial is being held at the Federal District Court in Lower Manhattan and is expected to last eight weeks. Here’s a primer on the charges and what’s at stake for the music mogul.Who is Sean Combs?Mr. Combs, 55, is one of the most successful producers and entrepreneurs in the history of hip-hop, who helped make artists like the Notorious B.I.G. and Mary J. Blige into household names. Under the name Puff Daddy, he had a No. 1 smash of his own in 1997 with “I’ll Be Missing You,” a tribute to B.I.G. that sampled the 1980s band the Police. He dated Jennifer Lopez, threw glittery parties in the Hamptons and was a gossip-column fixture for decades.Music was just one part of what became a multifaceted empire for Mr. Combs. He entered the fashion business in 1998 with his Sean John line, which remained hugely popular for years. His MTV reality show “Making the Band” made him a regular TV presence in the 2000s. Later, he founded a media company, Revolt, and promoted the popular vodka brand Ciroq through a deal with the spirits giant Diageo. At one point, his net worth was estimated as high as $1 billion.Mr. Combs has long been accused of violence or serious misconduct, but largely avoided serious consequences as his career ascended. Among those incidents: a charity basketball game in 1991, where nine young people were crushed to death in a stampede (Mr. Combs paid about $750,000 in private settlements). The beating of a rival music executive in his office in 1999 (Mr. Combs attended a one-day anger management course). The threatening of a choreographer on “Making the Band” in 2007 (the two reconciled, and no criminal charges were brought).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’s Sex Trafficking Trial Begins Jury Selection

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      Mr. Combs has pleaded not guilty to charges of racketeering and sex trafficking. Potential jurors were asked about their exposure to details of the accusations.Jury selection started on Monday in the federal trial of Sean Combs, which is expected to last well into the summer.The judge overseeing the case, Arun Subramanian, questioned potential jurors gathered at Federal District Court in Manhattan about what they have seen and read about the accusations against the high-profile defendant, whose alleged misdeeds have been nearly inescapable in the news and on social media for the past year and a half. He has pleaded not guilty to charges of racketeering and sex trafficking.Many of the potential jurors said they had been exposed to the case: on a television at the gym, through “water-cooler talk” among co-workers, via a comedian making jokes on Instagram. That exposure was not necessarily disqualifying as long as the potential jurors — who are not being identified by name — said they could decide the case based only on the evidence they saw in court.“You understand that Mr. Combs is presumed innocent?” Judge Subramanian asked one potential juror, who said she had heard about the case on the radio and had been aware of Mr. Combs’s music and celebrity since the 1990s.“Absolutely,” she replied.Mr. Combs has been accused by the government of running a criminal enterprise that is responsible for facilitating a pattern of crimes over two decades, including sex trafficking, kidnapping, arson and drug violations. Prosecutors have accused Mr. Combs of coercing four women into sex, including his former girlfriend Casandra Ventura, who is expected to be a star witness in the trial.The music mogul’s lawyers have said that the sex at the center of the government’s case was consensual.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’s Path From Harlem to Stardom, and Now Federal Court

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      Jason Swain was on his way home to the Bronx when friends told him that something had happened to his brother at a charity basketball game in Harlem. Nine young people at a City College of New York gymnasium were crushed to death in an overcrowded stairwell. Dirk Swain, 21, was lying on the gym floor with a sheet draped over his body.The promoter of the December 1991 event was a 22-year-old novice music producer named Sean Combs.For more than six years, the Swains and other families pursued wrongful death suits, saying Mr. Combs had oversold the game, and that bad planning and inadequate security had led to the tragedy. By the time their cases were settled, Mr. Combs had skyrocketed from a junior record label employee to global superstardom; the $750,000 that he contributed to the $3.8 million in settlements represented a fraction of his wealth as hip-hop’s newest, flashiest mogul.Mr. Combs never accepted full responsibility for the deaths and, for many people, the stampede faded into history. But not for the families who lost their loved ones.“Every one of those nine people was doing something positive in their life,” Mr. Swain said in an interview.The City College incident was Mr. Combs’s first moment of notoriety, but far from his last. In the ensuing three decades, he has repeatedly faced allegations of violence or serious misconduct. The beating of a rival music executive. Gunshots fired in a nightclub. The threatening of a reality-TV cast member. An assault of a college football coach.If found guilty of all charges, Sean Combs, who has spent the last seven months in a Brooklyn jail, could spend the rest of his life in prison.Willy Sanjuan/Invision, via Associated PressWe 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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      6 (Genre-Smashing) New Songs You Should Hear Now

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      Hit play on Sleep Token, Cortisa Star, Bon Iver and more.Sleep TokenAndy FordDear listeners,This is Joe Coscarelli, a music reporter at The New York Times and Lindsay’s colleague on the Culture desk, filling in for this Amplifier. Luckily, I’ve had playlists on my mind recently, because I had the pleasure of hosting a workshop called “How to Make the Perfect Playlist” at The Times’s annual Take Our Kids to Work Day celebration last week.As a group, we talked about the importance of mood, flow, genre and discovery when it comes to making a good mix, but I (mostly!) followed the kids’ lead when it came to actually choosing what was on our perfect, themed playlists. (You can check out the results of our two sessions here and here; they’re pleasantly deranged.) The truth is, despite having spent a decade in this music-intensive job and the previous decade as an obsessive fan and collector, I’m not super into making a bunch of playlists to suit my every vibe or situational need.Instead, I tend to just keep a quarterly depository of all the songs I find myself returning to throughout a given season, so I can easily time-travel back to any chunk of my recent life and have the relevant and transporting — if disjointed — soundtrack all in one place.Now that the weather is finally turning for good in New York (… right?), I have a new one going for spring that trends loosely toward a spirit of renewal and release. Here are some new songs that are original, addictive and hopeful enough to fit.xoxo,JoeListen along while you read.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