The year isn’t half over, but Shaboozey’s already had a great 2024: After collaborating on two tracks for Beyoncé’s Cowboy Carter, the Nigerian-American singer-songwriter-producer has a hit of his own with “A Bar Song (Tipsy),” currently hovering in the Top Five of the pop charts. On Friday, May 17, Shaboozey stopped by Brooklyn’s intimate Baby’s All Right for a raucous yet intimate show. Check out these exclusive photos.
Oliver Tree
Oliver Tree was remembered by friends and family Saturday at a “Celebration of Life” in the late singer’s native Santa Cruz, California
The public memorial, held six weeks after Tree died in a helicopter crash in Rio de Janeiro, featured guests like Diplo, Logan Paul, Aaron Mercury, Ethan Klein, and Tree’s own parents, who addressed the crowd.
“I think Oliver would say trust yourself, get off the couch, produce art, and it’s really important to get in there and get your hands dirty,” Tree’s parents said. “He was a doer. It was like, ‘Get off the couch and do that.’ That was his message.”
“Oliver Tree never dies, jokes aside guys, Oliver was everyone’s best friend. He was an adventurer with an incomparable zest for life and the ultimate ability to make anyone feel seen and heard,” Logan Paul said during the Celebration of Life.
“Oliver is a generational artist whose legacy and music will last forever, and he’d be proud of all of us for keeping our heads up high by celebrating the impact of his time here on Earth, because at the end of the day, life goes on.”
All proceeds from the Celebration of Life benefitted Dr. Oliver Tree’s Extremely Epic Art Grant for Baby Geniuses, a recently launched foundation by Tree’s estate that, as per the late singer’s wishes, will provide grants to young artists.
Sick Of It All lead singer Lou Koller
“We have our mics, but this is your mic.” When I saw Sick of It All play a gig in Denver in 2001, a couple of years before I moved to New York, it seemed like a revelation that a professional band would place a microphone on the Ogden Theatre’s stage for anyone to climb up and sing along with them before diving back into the pit. He also asked for everyone to look out for each other in the mosh pit. I was a metalhead, a few years into college, and still relatively fresh to New York hardcore. Metal bands didn’t do things like that. Little did I know that sense of community had been a staple of hardcore shows in New York for decades at that point.
One guy at that show kept requesting “Rat Pack,” a 47-second frenzy about sticking with your friends off the band’s classic debut, Blood, Sweat, and No Tears, and when frontman Lou Koller gave him the crowd’s mic, the guy completely forgot the lyrics. Koller laughed and said something like, “Eh, eh, not so fast. You have to know the lyrics if you’re going to do that.” Then he smiled that impish grin he made famous to show all was forgiven. Even if you publicly embarrassed yourself, he still wanted you here.
Sick of It All were NYHC’s most welcoming emissaries, and their mouthpiece was Lou Koller, whose death was announced Friday. Gifted with a golden growl, Koller could both belt the ear-piercing chorus of “Scratch the Surface” and make its message, about striving to live a meaningful life, coherent. Onstage, he wasn’t like other heavy-music frontmen. He was kind of dorky. No matter where he was, he treated every show like a CBGB matinee, where everybody was welcome, and that was the point.
“We wanted to show the world what we loved,” Koller told Kerrang! in 2018. “That’s why we didn’t just play with hardcore bands. On our first run down the East Coast in 1988, Exodus asked us to open up for them for five shows. It was a shock to the audience when we walked out: Kids with short hair! As we got more popular some people referred to us as ‘The Kings of New York hardcore,’ and we were always, ‘No, no. We’re the ambassadors.'”
Since forming Sick of It All in Queens, New York with his brother, guitarist Pete Koller, in 1986, the band’s best songs were always about togetherness. When I wrote about Blood, Sweat, and No Tears for Rolling Stone’s list of the Greatest Punk Albums of All Time earlier this year, it occurred to me that Koller’s central message was always, “We’re in this together.” “Pushed Too Far” was about fighting back against bullies. So was “Friends Like You.” They kept that message going on their next album with “Just Look Around,” a song warning against racism dividing society while rich politicians prosper, a message that still resounds nearly 40 years later. They were a band for hard-working people just trying to get through the day.
The image of New York hardcore, at least in the mold Agnostic Front and the Cro-Mags cast in the early Eighties, has always been something like puffed-chest tough guys screaming about their rage. Sick of It All defied that. In 1999, when I first saw group, which included bassist Craig “Ahead” Setari on bass and drummer Armand Majidi, it was their pure energy and inclusivity that blew me away. They were on a bill between Slayer and Meshuggah, and while I’m a well-documented huge Slayer fan, it was the way Sick of It All that left the biggest impression on me. They seemed to come tumbling onstage with Pete flipping his guitar over his shoulder and, unlike the frontmen of the other bands on the bill, Lou was smiling. This was an everyman’s band. “We’re all black sheep and we know it,” he’d sing on “Hello Pricks” in 2000, and that’s what made them special.
“Our music was written [for] total crowd participation” Koller says in an interview from the Live in NYC ’91 VHS that featured footage of Sick of It All playing the Ritz with Agnostic Front and Gorilla Biscuits. “‘Cause that’s how we grew up. Early hardcore was total crowd participation. You know, pile on, sing along, all that stuff. That’s your outlet. It kind of dulls the energy when you have a six-foot barricade from the stage to the audience.”
My newfound love of Sick of It All led me to dig deeper into New York hardcore and find likeminded bands, but my understanding of the scene was still limited for a few years to the bands that toured through Colorado, and there weren’t many in the early 2000s. Fortuitously, two groups that came through frequently were Indecision and Most Precious Blood, which shared the same guitarist, Justin Brannan.
He later brought NYHC ideals to NYC politics as a council member, and he captured Koller’s legacy well in a social media post addressed to Koller on Saturday. “You brought hope and positivity to places other bands would never dare go,” he wrote. “You made outcast kids all over the world feel seen, accepted, and a little less alone. Thank you for the music, the friendship, and the example you set — especially these last few years. Your impact will be felt.”
I moved to New York in 2003 and saw Sick of It All several times on their home turf, including a rare set at CBGB in ’04. It was there, seeing how everybody packed into this famously dank East Village shithole to have a good time together, that I understood the sense of community that drove the band. There wasn’t much room for anybody to fall in the pit, but if they did, someone would’ve picked them up. The fact that Sick of It All could bring this same ethos to stages in Colorado and around the world is a miracle. They played for any audience, including one time before Wu-Tang Clan at a festival, and were still playing more than 100 gigs a year around the world as recent as 2019.
When a friend texted me yesterday that Koller had died, the first song that popped into my head was “Good Lookin’ Out,” a song from their fourth album, 1997’s Built to Last. “You’re not in this all alone/Just look around, and you’ll see,” he sang. “The answer’s right before your eyes: I’m here for you, and you for me.” The chorus culminates with Koller singing, “True friends will always be there.”
When Koller revealed he was battling cancer in 2024 and launched a GoFundMe campaign, his many friends showed up. The Dropkick Murphys, Rancid, AFI, and Hot Water Music were among the first to donate. That’s because Lou Koller was New York hardcore’s big brother. He didn’t invent telling audiences to look out for one another in the mosh pit, but the way he preached the unity of New York hardcore all around the world will live on when the many bands Sick of It All inspired carry his spirit forward at their own gigs around the world, and that’s a special legacy. Just look around, and you’ll see.
Sean "Diddy" Combs
Shareif Ziyadat/Getty Images
Sean Combs was involved in a fight with another inmate at Fort Dix earlier this week, resulting in the Bad Boy founder being sent to solitary confinement, a source familiar with the incident confirmed to Rolling Stone.
A fellow inmate at the low-security federal prison in New Jersey allegedly taunted Combs, who reportedly lashed out at the man, TMZ first reported. The pair are said to have exchanged shoves and throws, before prison guards were able to separate them. Afterwards, Combs was reportedly put in solitary confinement. It is not clear if the other inmate was also reprimanded for his part in the scuffle.
A representative for Combs said they were “unable to confirm this [report] at the moment” when asked for comment.
A spokesperson for Fort Dix declined to comment when approached by Rolling Stone. “We are not at liberty to disclose or provide internal information pertaining to any inmate in our custody,” said a prison representative. “Such information would not be available for the public domain.”
Combs is currently serving a 50-month sentence after his conviction on transportation to engage in prostitution charges last July. It followed a high-profile, eight-week long federal criminal trial in New York where Combs was acquitted of more serious charges of racketeering conspiracy and sex trafficking.
The 56-year-old’s notorious temper and his propensity for physical violence played a dominant role in his trial last year. Combs was accused of routinely beating his then-girlfriend, the singer Casandra “Cassie” Ventura throughout their decade-long relationship, which ended in 2018. Former staffers alleged they also were subjected to violence at the hands of their boss.
Combs is currently scheduled for release in February 2028, according to the Bureau of Prisons website.
This is reportedly not Combs’ first hiccup behind bars. Last November, both TMZ and CBS News reported alleged infractions, including being caught with homemade alcohol and trying to make a forbidden three-way phone call. His team vehementl
y denied both claims.
For more than a decade, Charli XCX was a secret weapon, a brazen experimentalist, a raw diarist, and (apologies to Chappell Roan) your favorite artist’s favorite artist. But she was not, exactly, a pop star — the kind that fills arenas,covers magazines,performs at the Grammys, and has the masses hanging on her every word. The British musician’s culture-shifting 2024 electro-pop confessionalBrat changed all that, lifting her name from “also starring” to above the title. Who better to churn out a 30-minute treatise on the art of image-making?
Charli is well on her way to mastering all three mediums spelled out in the title of her new LP, Music, Fashion, Film. But the story of her seventh studio album has been its seeming swerve, as announced by its first single, “Rock Music.” The track — with its croaking guitar, cymbal smashes, and stuttering vocals — sounds nothing like Brat’s gleaming, clubby gems (or the bouncy pop-punk of her 2014 LP Sucker, for that matter). But it doesn’t define an aesthetic as much as an ethos: hanging around and making stuff with your friends. As another hitmaking iconoclast once said, it’s still rock & roll to me.
Over 10 succinct songs (and a comparatively sprawling closer), Charli and her writing and producing partners A.G. Cook and Finn Keane dissect the stardom she hates to love and loves to hate. The breezy “SS26” toys with the idea of having a bad-girl image when everything in the world is bad. “Card Declined” starts as a comically simple clanger about being defined by one’s possessions, then blooms into a brief reverie before closing with a minute of perky, love-struck indie pop. “I keep thinking ’bout you, every single day,” Charli sings, ostensibly to the handbag of her dreams.
There’s room for human affection on the album, too. “I’m Afraid,” which bristles like an outtake from Nirvana’s MTV Unplugged, plunks a guitar’s low notes as Charli reveals her anxieties about marrying the 1975’s drummer, George Daniel. On “Magic Metal Montana,” she gushes about her other great relationship — with her longtime collaborator, Cook — in a giddy run-on that praises his haircut, his dancing, and his ability to read her musical mind.
But the majority of the album is focused on the machinery that brings stars to life, with nods to the Velvet Underground, a band that was famously nurtured by a man who knew a little something about that. “Camera” glimpses the future Charli could build in the movie industry, turning a few quick-strummed notes into an ode to the thrill of a new ambition. The following track, “2007,” gazes back to the very beginning, when she was first in “heaven,” creating her own image in her bedroom and blasting it into the world with no outside intervention. Seduced by that beautiful simplicity, Charli’s digitally clipped voice cuts through the noise: “You’re the way I wanna feel/Wanna feel it really bad.”
The album’s standout is “Wink Wink,” the song most clearly bobbing on the line between authenticity and artifice. Playing with the way her public persona has been boiled down to tropes — as well as her own well-established tendency to troll — Charli’s hilarious speak-sung verses explode into a super-catchy chorus consisting almost entirely of a single note. Adding harmonies, she builds herself a double as she engages in some doublespeak: “Here’s the truth, and I gotta be honest/I’m not a bad girl anymore, I promise.” For those who missed the point, she adds the obvious: “Wink wink wink wink.”
Charli tackles a similar topic in a starkly different way on the closer, “No One Lasts Forever.” She sings again about being perceived as an impolite party girl, only this time there is no snarky twist, just a vow to live in the moment without fear. As the music turns spacey, she hands over the mic to director David Cronenberg, who’s known for delighting in the grotesque. For a few moments, he speaks about how art may be immortal, but the artists who created it are not.
Charli and her team loop his voice intoning “They are dead, they are gone, no one lasts forever” 27 full times (anotorious number in rock history) before it cuts out, his voice twisting into a mesmerizing yet slightly disturbing coil. Where does that leave the ever-evolving Charli XCX? Like a maestro whose true medium is the moment, she’s given us nothing to do but wait and find out.
U2 and Martin Garrix
U2 and Martin Garrix released a joint single, “Fireflies.” Garrix premiered the track live during his headlining set at Tomorrowland last Friday, which feature a surprise appearance from The Edge.
The soaring track marks the first time all four members of U2 have appeared on a song with Garrix, although the band members have a long history of working with the producer. Most recently, Garrix produced “Scars,” featured on U2’s latest EP, Easter Lily. In 2019, Martin collaborated with Bono and The Edge on “We Are the People,” written for the UEFA European Football Championship. He also produced the U2 track “Your Song Saved My Life” that appeared on the Sing 2 soundtrack. Bono has also co-written Garrix singles like “Angels for Each Other,” Catherina,” and “Weightless.”
“We go back a long way with Martin, and there’s always a sense of adventure whenever we get together,” The Edge shared in a statement. “Playing ‘Fireflies’ for the first time at Tomorrowland, in front of one of the most passionate festival crowds anywhere, was such a rush… in fact I might have enjoyed it a bit too much. It reminded me of why I love playing outdoors. I like it better when there’s no ceiling.”
Garrix added, “‘Fireflies’ has a very unique mood and it’s a special song we started working on six summers ago. It felt electrifying and very surreal to finally debut it at Tomorrowland with The Edge. I’ve worked with Bono and Edge before, but working with the whole band I got to get a glimpse of their chemistry and why U2 are who they are. They are incredible friends and collaborators, and it has been an absolute honor to work with them again.”
U2 released EP Days Of Ash in February. They shared EP, Easter Lily, on Good Friday. Their latest single, “Street of Dreams,” is the first song off the band’s next studio album, due for release later this year. U2’s next album, timed to their 50th anniversary, will mark the band’s first LP since 2023’s Songs of Surrender.
Earlier the summer, Garrix collaborated with Madonna on “Bizarre” for her new album, Confessions II. In May, he teamed up with Ed Sheeran for “Repeat It.”
