NEWS
Lil Wayne has revealed he’ll never play a Super Bowl Halftime Show and says the NFL “fucked up”.
When it was announced that the 2025 Halftime Show would be hosted in New Orleans, several prominent rappers like Nicki Minaj and Birdman argued Wayne should have played his hometown show over Kendrick Lamar, who went on to headline instead.
However, in an interview with Rolling Stone, Wayne has revealed that despite campaigning for the spot, the NFL “fucked up”. He told the magazine that “to perform, it’s a bunch of things they’re going to tell you to do and not do, asses to kiss and not kiss.
“If you notice, I was a part of things I’ve never been a part of,” he continued. “Like [Michael] Rubin’s all-white parties. I’m doing shit with Tom Brady. That was all for that. You ain’t never seen me in them types of venues. I ain’t Drake. I ain’t out there smiling like that everywhere. I’m in the stu’, smokin’ and recording.”
However, when Wayne was snubbed in favour of Lamar, he claimed that NFL apologised to him as the league “ain’t in charge” of the Halftime Show: “All of a sudden, according to them, they got curved. So, I’m going to have to just settle with whatever they say.”
As a result, the rapper told Rolling Stone he didn’t watch Kendrick Lamar’s performance, saying: “Every time I looked, it was nothing that made me want to go inside and see what was going on.” He also added that after the debacle, he would never play a Halftime Show if offered the chance: “They stole that feeling. I don’t want to do it. It was perfect.”
When the news broke that Lamar would play the Halftime Show over Wayne, he initially responded to the snub by admitting that it “hurt a lot”: “I blamed myself for not being mentally prepared for a let down which is automatically mentally putting myself in that position like somebody told me that was my position. So I blamed myself for that.”
Lamar would go on to reference the snub when he surprise-dropped his new album, ‘GNX’ in November last year: “Used to bump Tha Carter III, I held my Rollie chain proud / Irony, I think my hard work let Lil Wayne down”.
Wayne took to social media to respond to the namecheck, writing: “Man wtf I do?! I just be chillin & dey still kome 4 my head. Let’s not take kindness for weakness. Let this giant sleep. I beg u all. No one really wants destruction, not even me but I shall destroy if disturbed. On me. Love.”
However, Wayne eventually said he and Lamar made up over a phone call, adding: “I’ve spoken to him, and I wish him all the best and I told him he better kill it. He gotta kill it.”
In other news, Lil Wayne has announced the release date for ‘The Carter VI’.
Just days after landing her fourth No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 with “Drop Dead,” Olivia Rodrigo is now getting major recognition from Niall Horan.
In a recent conversation with Rolling Stone published April 30, the former One Direction member shared insight into how he approaches songwriting, highlighting the comeback of bridges in pop and pointing to Rodrigo as a key influence behind it.
“It’s great to hear [bridges]. I feel like Olivia Rodrigo has been a big influence on that for pop writers,” the Irish artist said, before singing part of the “Drivers License” bridge. “What I like about Olivia’s music is [that] you feel like you’re getting one song and then you get a completely different song. It completely flips on its head musically, goes somewhere different, brings you to a bridge, brings you to some weird musical breakdown thing. Whatever [she] and Dan Nigro are up to is a good little team they’ve got going there. It’s definitely influencing people, including myself.”
Horan also spoke at length about his upcoming project Dinner Party, set to arrive June 5 through Capitol Records. He has already released two tracks from the record, including the title cut and “Little More Time,” both produced alongside Afterhrs, John Ryan and Julian Bunetta. The album rollout will be paired with an extensive 22-date tour across Europe, Ireland and the U.K. The Irish singer’s new release follows 2023’s The Show, which debuted at No. 2 on the Billboard 200. During the interview, Horan also mentioned that his next era leans more into rock elements, something he connects back to his long-standing love for bands like Blink-182.
“That drum sound is something that we were trying to chase, and that comes from that late-’90s, early-2000s punk-rock era,” he said. “Rock’s been a big influence in my life since I was a child. I write pop songs, but dressing them up in a different way sometimes is quite cool. And now, the way my career is going, I’m completely thinking about live shows all the time. I learned so much from being on the road and being out there every night. There’s only so much sitting on Spotify you can do and reading comments before you actually get an idea of what people actually think. You can see it in the room. The rockier stuff really goes off at the shows.”
The “Slow Hands” hitmaker also has two U.S. stadium dates lined up for this year. Joining longtime friend and Grammy-nominated country artist Thomas Rhett, Horan is set to perform at GEODIS Park in Nashville on July 9 and Hersheypark Stadium in Hershey, Pennsylvania on July 19, with Live Nation handling promotion for both shows. Kashus Culpepper and Emily Ann Roberts will open the concerts. With such a packed touring schedule, all four remaining members of One Direction are expected to be on the road with new music this year. When asked about attending his former bandmates’ shows, Horan gave praise to Harry Styles and Louis Tomlinson.
“I went to Harry’s show a couple of years ago, and that was just wild. Madness going on there,” he said. “It reminded me of the 1D stadium shows where it was just seas of people jumping up and down. Watching the things going on on the floor, all the fans dancing around, I love that. You feel a sense of pride watching the boys doing what they love to do, and the communities that they’re able to create. I’m going to try and get to a Louis show of some capacity in the next few weeks.”
Horan is now the fourth One Direction member to drop a new album this year. Tomlinson released How Did I Get Here? in January, Styles hit No. 1 on the Billboard 200 with Kiss All the Time. Disco, Occasionally in March, and ZAYN followed with Konnakol earlier this month on April 17.
