Fireworks lit the stage and the audience roared as pop star Nicki Minaj walked out hand-in-hand with Erika Kirk Sunday in a surprise appearance at Turning Point USA’s annual convention in Phoenix.
“I love this woman; she is an amazing woman,” said Kirk, the widow of Charlie Kirk, who headed the right-wing student organization until he was killed in September. “Words are words, but I know her heart.”
Minaj, who has surprised some fans in recent months by embracing the MAGA movement, praised President Trump and mocked California Gov. Gavin Newsom.
“I have the utmost respect and admiration for our president,” Minaj said. “I don’t know if he even knows this but he has given so many people hope that there is a chance to beat the bad guys and to win and to do it with your head held high.”
Minaj then read some of her former social media posts mocking Newsom, calling him “Newscum” and “Gavie-poo.”
“Imagine being the guy running on wanting to see trans kids, haha, not even a trans adult would run on that,” she said. “Normal adults wake up and think they want to see healthy, safe, happy kids — not Gav.”
Minaj then urged boys to “be boys.”
“There is nothing wrong with being a boy,” she said. “How about that? How powerful is that? How profound is that? Boys will be boys and there is nothing wrong with that.”
Minaj praised Turning Point USA, saying the organization is encouraging youth to connect with God.
“There has been a lack of that in our media, in our everyday conversations,” she said. “Christians have been being persecuted right here in our country in different ways.”
Minaj drew attention from the Trump administration in November, when she publicly backed the president’s assertions that Christians face persecution in Nigeria, a claim the Nigerian government has disputed.
BUCHAREST, Romania — American rapper Wiz Khalifa was sentenced by a court in Romania on Thursday to nine months in jail for drug possession, more than a year after he took part in a music festival in the Eastern European country.
Khalifa was stopped by Romanian police in July 2024 after allegedly smoking cannabis on stage at the Beach, Please! Festival in Costinesti, a coastal resort in Constanta County. Prosecutors said the rapper, whose real name is Cameron Jibril Thomaz, was found in possession of more than 18 grams of cannabis, and that he consumed some on stage.
The Constanta Court of Appeal handed down the sentence after Khalifa was convicted of “possession of dangerous drugs, without right, for personal consumption,” according to Romania’s national news agency, Agerpres. The decision is final.
The decision came after a lower court in Constanta County in April issued Khalifa a criminal fine of 3,600 lei ($830) for “illegal possession of dangerous drugs,” but prosecutors appealed the court’s decision and sought a higher sentence.
Romania has some of the harsher drugs laws in Europe. Possession of cannabis for personal use is criminalized and can result in a prison sentence of between three months and two years, or a fine.
It isn’t clear whether Romanian authorities will seek to file an extradition request, since Khalifa is a U.S. citizen and doesn’t reside in Romania.
The 38-year-old Pittsburgh rapper rose to prominence with his breakout mixtape “Kush + Orange Juice.” On stage in Romania last summer, the popular rapper smoked a large, hand-rolled cigarette while singing his hit “Young, Wild & Free.”
Leon Thomas recently dyed the tips of his signature locs dark green. His new hair color — a stark contrast from the vibrant red he’d been rocking for the last four years — is the first thing that stands out about him when he strolls into the Los Angeles Times building on an unusually rainy day in October.
When asked about his hair, which peeks out from underneath a black beret-style hat, a wide grin stretches across his face.
“I had a vision,” the 32-year-old singer says, leaning in. “In [this] vision, I had more tats, a six pack and I had green dreads. And I was like, ‘You know what, let’s work on it.’” He’s been working out more consistently and he has his eyes set on a couple of tattoo artists in L.A. and Europe, but the new hair kicked everything off.
“That’s how the rest of my life has worked: I’ve seen something in my head, I’ve seen a version of myself that’s not there yet and then you work hard to get there.”
This instinct has carried Thomas throughout his 20-plus-year career in the entertainment industry, and has cleared a path for him to emerge as a leading force in modern R&B music. After years of dedicating his skill to acting, writing and producing chart-topping bangers for artists like Drake, Ariana Grande and SZA (he won his first Grammy for her record “Snooze”), for the first time Thomas is up for six Grammy nominations including album of the year and best new artist for his own work.
“I feel like this is a byproduct of me finally having a machine that works,” Thomas says about his team. He signed to EZMNY, a record label co-founded by Grammy-nominated artist Ty Dolla $ign and A&R executive Shawn Barron, in 2021. He takes an audible breath before continuing, “Not to sound cocky or anything, but I just always felt in my heart of hearts that once people could finally hear what I had to offer, it would be a different story. I’m glad that God gave me the foresight to see that.”
He has good reason to be feeling himself these days. “Mutt,” his breakout 2024 single, quietly simmered for months before it was pushed into ubiquity. The track’s metaphorical meaning — comparing his own flawed behavior in relationships to a “mutt” or a dog with good intentions — along with a sensual bassline and knocking drums eventually became a sleeper hit. It also became a favorite for Tems, SZA, Keke Palmer and Issa Rae, who shouted out the song in interviews.
“That’s how the rest of my life has worked: I’ve seen something in my head, I’ve seen a version of myself that’s not there yet and then you work hard to get there,” said Leon Thomas.
(Jason Armond/Los Angeles Times)
By early this year, the song, which is the title track from his sophomore album, had cracked the Hot 100 Billboard charts, recently climbing to No. 1 on Billboard’s radio songs chart, earning double platinum status.
The success of the album and the deluxe edition that followed launched Thomas into a whirlwind of promo: radio and podcast stops, interviews galore and after-party appearances. Meanwhile, he’s still made time to make records with other artists like Wale, Disclosure, Odeal and Sasha Keable. He kicked off his “Mutts Don’t Heel” tour in October, and this year alone, he’s had more than 70 performances, including the Hollywood Bowl with Inglewood-born singer SiR, “Jimmy Kimmel Live” and the BET Awards (where he won best new artist). Earlier this year, Thomas stopped by NPR’s Tiny Desk, a live set that has more than 4 million views and has since been turned into an EP. (His Tiny Desk performance also received a Grammy nod for best R&B performance.)
“It’s been nonstop like something great happening every single week,” says Barron, co-founder of EZMNY.
Long before fans were belting out the lyrics “I’m a doggggg / I’m a mutt,” Thomas was getting his first taste of what it takes to be a musician from his family. Thomas’ late grandfather, John Anthony, was an opera singer who starred in the 1976 Broadway production of “Porgy & Bess.” His mother — a singer — and his stepfather — who played guitar for B.B. King — were part of New York’s Black Rock Coalition and “didn’t believe in babysitters,” says the Brooklyn native who now resides in L.A. He has fond memories of doing his homework while his parents were performing and hopping on stage at times to hit a dance move for a packed crowd.
At just 10 years old, Thomas booked the role of Young Simba on Broadway after a family friend encouraged him to audition. He went on to star in more productions, including “Caroline, or Change” and “The Color Purple,” before booking his first film, “August Rush” (starring late actor Robin Williams), which required him to learn to play the guitar. As a result, he began writing his own songs, one of which impressed his parents so much that they booked studio time and a session bass player to help him to lay down the track. “It definitely influenced my perspective on if I could actually make professional music or not,” recalls Thomas, who plays five instruments, including drums (his first love), guitar, bass, piano and saxophone.
“Not to sound cocky or anything, but I just always felt in my heart of hearts that once people could finally hear what I had to offer, it would be a different story. I’m glad that God gave me the foresight to see that,” said Leon Thomas.
(Jason Armond/Los Angeles Times)
By age 13, Thomas had signed a development deal with Nickelodeon that came with a Columbia Records recording contract. After appearing in various shows like “The Backyardigans” and “iCarly,” he snagged the role of André Harris, a high-school-age singer and multi-instrumentalist, on the tween sitcom “Victorious” alongside star-in-the-making Grande.
When the show ended in 2013, Thomas began working with one of modern music’s most decorated architects, Babyface, who introduced him to producer and songwriter Khris Riddick-Tynes. Together, Thomas and Riddick-Tynes formed the Rascals and began producing records like Rick Ross’ “Gold Roses” featuring Drake (which received a Grammy nomination), “I’d Rather Be Broke” by Toni Braxton and SZA’s “Snooze,” which won best R&B song at the Grammys in 2024.
Still, pivoting from wholesome Nickelodeon star to a grown R&B artist didn’t happen overnight. “The biggest thing for me was just taking time away from the artistry in order to really allow people to celebrate the brand that I had built, but give me room to build something else,” he says. “Space and time can be a tough thing because you’re gonna have to reintroduce yourself even though you did a lot of work in the beginning to build what you had before, but I think it’s beautiful to kind of build a brand from scratch.”
That’s one of the reasons why the cover of his reintroduction project, “Genesis,” features a distorted forest instead of his face. “I didn’t want them to connect with what I was saying, what I was talking about, the feelings [and] the sounds,” he says. With every release, he’s slowly revealed more of himself.
Onstage, Thomas channels the intensity of some of his musical heroes — James Brown, Prince, Jimi Hendrix and D’Angelo. His music may sit comfortably under the R&B umbrella, but he bends and flips genres with ease, especially rock and funk. In TikTok recaps from his current tour, he can be seen ripping on the bass and guitar, whipping his body into turns and effortlessly hitting vocal runs, which fans have attempted to imitate. With him, you never have to question if the mic is on.
“Sometimes I go see R&B artists live and it’s very chill,” he says, but “the school I come from is competitive.” He recalls stories that his stepfather has told him about performing at the Village Underground in New York when he was coming up. “They used to do something called cutting heads, so the first guy would go do his solo, then the guy who came out on the second set had to go even further. He’s playing with his teeth, he’s spinning, he’s on the floor, he’s wildin’,” Thomas says excitedly.
“So I’m in that school of thinking when I hit a stage and for this tour where I get to curate things and really put it together like I want to, there’s gotta be that energy of cutting heads,” he adds.
Just days before launching his 27-city tour, Thomas released a cinematic trailer featuring Rae — who played his neighbor and hookup buddy on “Insecure” — to introduce his latest project, “Pholks.” The seven-track release, created in collaboration with musicians Rob “Freaky Rob” Gueringer and David Phelps, a.k.a. “D. Phelps” (who also worked on “Mutt”), is an homage to the funk, rock and soul artists who’ve inspired him. Led by the singles “Just How You Are” and “My Muse,” which could trigger a “Soul Train” line at any moment, the project feels warm and nostalgic, yet anchored in forward-thinking production and playful storytelling that helps push it into the future.
In April, Ty Dolla $ign brought Thomas out to perform during his headlining set at Coachella, a moment that was a no-brainer for Ty, who recently called Thomas “the new king” of R&B.
“I just can’t even believe that I was the one to be able to do this,” Ty says about working with the singer.
“Sometimes I go see R&B artists live and it’s very chill,” Leon Thomas said, but “the school I come from is competitive.”
(Jason Armond/Los Angeles Times)
In the midst of this busy season, Thomas has been more intentional about maintaining his mental health. “I’m doing a lot of grounding meditations,” he says, noting that family and his tight circle of friends have been an essential support system. “I’ve been picking up the Bible a little bit more.”
He also finds steadiness in revisiting wisdom passed down from his late grandfather, who passed away last year, and reflecting on his “why:” bringing a classic, musician-centered energy back to R&B and encouraging young artists to pick up an instrument.
“When a little kid sees me playing guitar on the Grammy stage or if they see me performing on Instagram playing drums, I want them to ask their mom for a guitar or some drum lessons,” he says. With the rise of AI, he says that live musicianship may become less common. “I hope that we can inspire a revolution of intelligence, people who are intelligently making music and coming from a standpoint of history.”
Thomas will close out his whirlwind year with two shows at the Wiltern on Dec. 22 and 23 before embarking on the European leg of his tour in March and heading to Australia in June. In the meantime, he’s trying to avoid thinking about the Grammys in February — though everyone, including myself, is making it impossible for him not to.
Whether he walks away with a golden gramophone or not, Thomas has already created a body of work that has reinvigorated not only R&B but also music in general, and he plans to continue pushing himself creatively. He’s known all along what he’s capable of and the career he’s destined to have because he’s envisioned it. It’s the world that’s had to catch up.
LADY Gaga was forced to stop her Sydney gig mid-show after one of her dancers fell off the stage.
The Poker Face hitmaker, 39, halted the action during her Mayhem Ball concert following heavy rain at the Accor Stadium.
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Lady Gaga was forced to stop her Australian tour mid-gig at the Mayhem BallCredit: GettyThe American called a halt to proceedings after a dancer fell off stage in SydneyCredit: GettyHer dancer Michael tumbled over mid way through the track, Garden of EdenCredit: XShe was performing at the open-air Accor Stadium, where the stage was soaked with rainCredit: X
The Sydney venue is open-air and, two hours after the show kicked off, the painful mishap brought a temporary stop to proceedings.
Lady Gaga kick-started her 31-song setlist with tracks Bloody Mary and Abracadabra.
She belted out the likes of Judas, Poker Face and Aura before the issue struck mid-way through Garden of Eden.
The track is from her 2025 album Mayhem on which the tour is named.
With a soaking wet floor, the dancers charged to the front of the stage.
One, named Michael Dameski, fell down during the choreography and A Star Is Born actress Gaga was quick to wave her arms and call a stop to the show at around 9pm.
The singer and her dancers then retreated inside during a temporary pause, to try to find more suitable footwear.
They then resumed the show, with further tracks including Rain On Me, How Bad Do You Want Me and Always Remember Us This Way playing out.
FAN PRAISE
Fans were quick to praise Gaga’s actions in what was her last Aussie show of the tour.
One took to X to write: “Sending love and well wishes to Gaga’s dancer, Michael, who fell off stage during Garden Of Eden.
“So grateful that Gaga paused the show to check on him. True professionalism and compassion.”
Another put: “She’s so special the way she ran straight over, climbed down and made sure he was okay.”
Singles Abracadabra and Disease broke into the Top Ten, while herBruno Marscollaboration Die With A Smile became one of the biggest hits of the year worldwide.
Speaking toBizarreas Mayhem was released, a source explained that Gaga has finally found inner peace after years of struggling with her pop star persona and the real person behind it, Stefani Germanotta.
The insider explained: “Gaga has never hidden her real self from the world.
“But she’s more comfortable now in her ability to associate herself as the creator instead of the product.
“The person she wakes up as is the same person who hits the stage.”
The singer’s energetic routines showed that she has fully recovered from a hip injury and fibromyalgia, a condition which caused musculoskeletal pain, extreme fatigue and deep anxiety — and resulted in the cancellation of part of her Joanne world tour in 2018.
The chart star continued her show after the mishap, with tracks including Rain On Me and How Bad Do You Want MeCredit: GettyShe kicked off the Mayhem Ball extravaganza in Las Vegas back in JulyCredit: GettyIt was her final Aussie show of the tourCredit: Alamy
Lord Krishna, Hinduism’s compassionate god of divine love, is often portrayed with a flute in hand. Perhaps that has something to do with the story that when he cut a large drum in half, producing two hand drums for rhythmic accompaniment, which is a mythical origin for the tabla, these small hand drums came to be treated like a back-up rhythm section. Melody was the star. In classical Indian music, sitar masters were stars, and tabla players traveled second class and were poorly paid.
A father and son changed that. Alla Rakha was the loyal tabla partner of Ravi Shankar, who created an international rage for raga in the 1960s, holding sway over the likes violinist Yehudi Menuhin, the Beatles and Philip Glass. His son, Zakir Hussain, an equally great tabla guru, expanded tabla allure into jazz, swaths of pop music, film and television. He became one of the most convincing early proponents of the world music movement, readily fitting in tabla with flamenco as well as with African, Indonesian , Afro-Cuban, you-name-it drumming. Hussain and his tabla’s most warmly human sounds have entered the wide world’s soundtrack.
Monday will be the first anniversary of Hussain’s death, at age 73, from a pulmonary illness. His last work was a collaboration with Third Coast Percussion, which commissioned “Murmurs of Time” in celebration of the Chicago ensemble’s 20th anniversary. It was the only work by one of the world’s greatest percussionists for a percussion ensemble. Hussain lived long enough to record “Murmurs” with the group but not hear the final mix, let alone play it in public.
The recording with Hussain, “Standard Stoppages,” along with other percussion works, came out just in time for 2026 Grammy nominations and shows up in — and should be an obvious shoe-in to win in — the category for chamber music/small ensemble performance. In the meantime, Third Coast has been touring “Murmurs” featuring a Hussain disciple, Salar Nader, as soloist. Last weekend Third Coast brought the engaging CD program to a sold-out Nimoy, as part of the CAP UCLA season.
Nader, who was born in Hamburg to a family of Afghani refugees and grew up in California, began studying with Hussain at age 7. He is one of the most prominent of the next generation of tabla players poised to take the next step for their instrument, begging the question of whence tabla.
In retrospect, the path taken by Alla Rakha and Zakir Hussain was a lesson in how to create something new and widespread out of the devotion to a profound, yet arcane, learned, physically demanding and extraordinarily complex tradition.
Rakha may have been a formidable traditionalist, so much so that tabla was his whole education, but he found pleasure (and income) writing songs for Bollywood films in the early 1950s. When he returned full time to classical Hindustani music, working with various soloists, he eventually hooked up with Shankar, with whom he then worked almost exclusively. With their quirky and exciting question-and-answer dialogues, the duo riveted the the Monterey Jazz Festival and San Francisco’s Fillmore Auditorium (where I heard them regularly as a college student), to say nothing of Woodstock. No one wanted one without the other.
Hussain (his name was given him by a wandering holy man who showed up at his parents’ door one morning shortly after he was born) heard tabla in the womb. His father lovingly tapped delicate rhythms on his baby boy as he held him in his arms. By his early teens, Hussain was already a Mumbai sensation.
However strict a teacher, Rakha believed in individuality, carbon copies being for the waste bin. And Hussain grew up not only on Hindustani music but the records by the Doors, the Grateful Dead and Jefferson Airplane his dad brought back from his West Coast appearances with Shankar. It wasn’t long before Hussain found himself on the West Coast as well, heady with its 1960s pop music scene. He became friends with Dead drummer Mickey Hart. He met George Harrison, who convinced him that there were thousands of rock drummers but no one with Hussain’s tabla talent.
Even so, Hussain became a tabla master of all trades. He acted, engagingly, in the 1983 feature “Heat and Dust,” along with contributing to the soundtrack. He became part of world-music-jazz ensemble Shakti, founded by guitarist John McLaughlin. Hussain was the drumming glue for Hart’s percussion revolution begun with “Planet Drum,” the recording that brought world music into the world of pop.
Before long, Hussain became a fixture in jazz (playing with the likes of Herbie Hancock and Charles Lloyd). He showed up on the soundtracks of “Apocalypse Now” and made Ryuichi Sakamoto’s score for “Little Buddha” work. He played bluegrass with Béla Fleck. He counted Michael Tilson Thomas, Barack Obama and Nancy Pelosi among his fans.
But while Hussain put tabla center stage, his real accomplishment was as a collaborator. Indian rhythm is incredibly complex and sophisticated. Its own center is religious practice. Tabla players sing the rhythms as well as playing them, the most difficult and astonishing form of chanting there is. The drums can produce melody and, while mellow, come alive with a speed that dramatically raises the pulse rate.
In “Murmurs of Time,” Hussain created a kind of tabla concerto. The ensemble spends much of its time on mallet instruments, setting the stage, keeping a melodic line or pulse going. The opening is an awakening, with group vocalized rhythms, but that is something only a tabla player can really pull off. “Murmurs” is ultimately through with a rousing tabla and drum set dialogue at the end, reminiscent of his father and Shankar’s gripping finales.
Hussain wrote “Murmurs” for himself, working closely with Third Coast over a year. “Wrote” isn’t quite right. He didn’t write down his own part; he needed room for freedom and improvisation. Nader, very impressively, learned the demanding solo from the recording, and he then, as Hussain would have expected, added his own character.
That is something that will need to grow over time. On recording, we have a deeply moving farewell. In concert, “Murmurs” transitions into something new, while, as yet a work in progress, still honoring the guru.
In a discussion on stage after the concert, Nader, who lives in Los Angeles, emphasized his own interest in what’s next for tabla. He too has worked in film, including participating on the soundtrack for Mira Nair’s “Reluctant Fundamentalist.” He’s had fling with Broadway with “The Kite Runner.” He said he’s ready for almost anything. He’s worked in hip-hop, noting tabla is a natural — and it is, “Planet Drum” having been an early influence.
