00:00 Meghan makes a major announcement to miss Nikki B.
00:03 Britney praises Justin while he gives NSYNC fans hope.
00:07 I talk to Grammy nominated hit boy.
00:09 And Lionel Richie and Sheila E. take us down memory lane.
00:13 Welcome back to Billboard News, I'm Tetris Kelly.
00:18 It's Tuesday, January 30th.
00:20 And if you thought we were done talking about Meg and Nikki,
00:23 well, you thought wrong because they keep making news.
00:26 Like I'm trying to keep the hotties happy.
00:28 They fussing at me right now. They're like, "Where's the music?"
00:31 Meghan Thee Stallion hit "Good Morning America" to bring all sorts of good news
00:34 and avoided any of the controversy surrounding Nikki Minaj's reaction to her song "Kiss."
00:39 Can you believe just a few short years ago,
00:45 Meghan Thee Stallion and Nikki Minaj were collaborators on "Hot Girl Summer."
00:49 And though their recent beef is dominating the news cycle,
00:55 Meg is keeping her head up and returning to "Hot Girl Summer."
00:58 Oh, we're having the tour this year.
01:01 The "Hot Girl Summer" tour is going to be 2024 summertime.
01:04 I feel like I've never been able to be outside doing my own thing during the summer.
01:08 Like, since like 2019.
01:10 The rapper gave a full interview on "Good Morning America" promoting multiple projects
01:14 like her "Mean Girls" track and "Planet Fitness" collab.
01:17 But did she discuss Nikki's diss track "Big Foot?"
01:20 No, but promised her new album is coming.
01:23 This is going to be the first time that I drop an album on time for the summer.
01:28 I do want to give the hotties the Meghan Thee Stallion experience.
01:31 It's going to be a busy summer for Thee Stallion.
01:33 For more on the story, hit Billboard.com.
01:36 We love some friendly exes and you know I love some early 2000s pop.
01:41 So this next story is hitting that sweet spot.
01:44 Hold up, Britney Spears is not mad at Justin Timberlake or is she?
01:49 As the NSYNC-er says new music from the group is coming
01:52 while talking to THE American Idol.
01:54 Welcome back to the year 2000 everybody and I got your news.
01:58 Yeah, we've been in the studio so there may be a little something in the picture too.
02:05 Yeah, that's what I'm saying.
02:08 Thank you JT.
02:09 He hit the Kelly Clarkson show to tease that he and NSYNC worked on more music than their troll song "Better Place."
02:19 And when it comes to his new single "Selfish"
02:22 I want every bit of you, I guess I'm selfish.
02:26 Britney Spears fans tried to steal the thunder.
02:29 They purchased and streamed "Selfish" from Britney's 2011 femme fatale album enough
02:34 that for a while its placement was higher than JT's new song on iTunes.
02:38 But Brit said not so fast, posting on IG.
02:41 I want to apologize for some of the things I wrote about in my book.
02:45 If I offended any of the people I genuinely care about, I'm deeply sorry.
02:49 I also wanted to say I am in love with Justin Timberlake's new song "Selfish."
02:54 It's so good.
02:55 The post has since been deleted.
02:58 This was all after she said some not great things about him in her book that Spotify just updated us on saying.
03:04 Britney Spears' memoir "The Woman in Me" is the number one listened to title on Spotify.
03:09 Streams of Britney's music on Spotify increased by nearly a third in the week following her book's release.
03:15 I'd say streaming needs some Brit.
03:17 What are your thoughts on this saga?
03:20 Last night Billboard's own Melinda Newman hit the red carpet to talk to Lionel Richie and Sheila E
03:25 to get their first hand account of making "We Are The World."
03:28 What a moment. Take a look.
03:30 We are the world.
03:33 We are the children.
03:36 "We Are The World" is one of the greatest music moments of all time and Netflix's new documentary "The Greatest Night In Pop"
03:43 dives into it with first hand accounts from the artists themselves.
03:47 Lionel Richie says he was brought on because the project started off as white folks saving black folks.
03:52 And Harry Belafonte asked for his help in finding black folks to save black folks.
03:57 So I made a phone call that evening to Quincy.
04:01 I call it Mr. Connected to Everything.
04:04 And he said, "Well, let's call, who are you going to call?"
04:08 I said, "I'm going to reach out to Stevie. We'll figure out what we're going to do."
04:11 So he said, "I'll see Michael on Monday. I'll run it by him."
04:16 And we didn't really know what it was going to be.
04:19 We just knew that Stevie, Michael, Lionel, Quincy.
04:23 That was going to be it. And we didn't think of anything else.
04:26 Of course the song brought together legend after legend, including Sheila E,
04:30 although she discovered that they brought her in for her connection to Prince.
04:34 And everyone's, "Quincy or Lionel, is Prince coming?"
04:38 I was like, "Let me call him again."
04:40 And we had already talked about it before. He said, "I'll see."
04:43 So I talked to him throughout the night while we were singing and getting things together.
04:48 And then it was getting later and later because I was promised I was going to sing one of the solos.
04:52 And it got later and later and it just never happened.
04:56 And that's when I felt like, "Okay, well we're already done."
04:59 I was just sitting around for hours waiting.
05:02 And I just thought, "I can't even keep my eyes open anymore."
05:05 And I felt very hurt and disrespected. And I left.
05:09 So it was already a done deal.
05:11 When you look back now, are you glad you were part of it? Or did that color it?
05:16 No, no, no. That didn't--no. There was no hurt.
05:20 I mean, it hurt at the end of it, you know.
05:22 And I got over it and I moved on and just moved forward with my life and my career.
05:28 You know, Lionel and I are still talking crazy and hanging out.
05:31 And so it didn't change anything.
05:34 The director and producer of "The Greatest Night in Pop" don't know if we'll ever get a music moment like "We Are The World" again.
05:41 I mean, I would hope that maybe artists would see the movie and be like, "Oh wow, what if I did something that was without my manager, without live streaming?"
05:50 So maybe this will be the inspiration artists need to do something like this.
05:54 Yeah, I mean, I think it was certainly a very unique moment that it would be hard to replicate exactly the same way.
06:00 But I think the sentiment, the hope of that time can be inspiring for this new generation.
06:07 But there is a chance we may get something great.
06:09 When you hear Michael Jackson singing the demo, is that version ever going to come out? Because he sounds so beautiful.
06:15 What about just a version of only him singing the demo of the song?
06:18 You know, you might have given me the greatest concept ever.
06:24 Alright, we'll give you complete credit for that. Give her credit for that. Make sure she gets that.
06:28 Now let's get to my interview with Grammy nominated artist Hit-Boy. I had so much fun chatting with the Hit-Maker.
06:36 Talk about this Grammy nomination. Your 11th nomination, Producer of the Year, non-classical.
06:42 Does the hit any different on your 11th time?
06:45 Oh man, it's crazy because I didn't expect to... I mean, I don't have no expectations when it comes to like awards and stuff like that.
06:52 But just even being in the nominations, it just hit me this year.
06:56 Just because this whole year I've been kind of focusing on things that I can control, which was my own projects, working with my dad.
07:03 Put out a project with music Soul Child.
07:06 So everything that, you know, was under me being nominated was mostly stuff that, you know, I really put my heart and soul into.
07:13 I mean, you've worked on so many projects this year, like you said.
07:16 How do you feel you stack up when you're like looking at, I'm going up against Jack Antonoff, you know, my homie from Georgia, Metro Boomin'.
07:22 Like, what do you feel sets you apart as a producer?
07:26 A lot, you know what I mean? I just like, I didn't have no label budget.
07:29 Like, everything is funded by me, music by me, engineered by me, studio time by me, like literally coming out of my pocket.
07:36 So it's just like, I feel like I already won for real, you know.
07:39 I don't have no big powerful manager like the rest of the producers. I'm like thugging this shit by myself with a couple of my homies.
07:46 This is, to me, I got nominated purely off of music. I didn't have the clout to go along with it.
07:52 For the full interview, head to Billboard.com.
07:55 That's today's show. Make sure you come back tomorrow to find out who's on the next cover of Billboard.
08:00 And we'll have another interview with a Grammy-nominated artist.
08:03 I'm Tetris Kelly and this is Billboard News.
08:06 [MUSIC PLAYING]
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