Doechii performs at Osheaga 2025 in Montreal.
Charlotte Rainville @jailli
Billboard Canada Power Players is returning in 2025, and it’s moving to Toronto’s NXNE.
The authoritative ranking of the music business’s most powerful executives — an official extension of Billboard’s Power 100 list — expanded to Canada in 2024. The event brought a who’s-who of industry leaders to a packed celebration at Toronto’s tallest building, the CN Tower. This year, the event will grow even bigger at its new home at NXNE, the beloved music festival celebrating its 30th anniversary amidst a new strategic partnership with Billboard Canada.
Nominations officially opened this week and will close on March 7, 2025.
“We’re thrilled to bring Power Players to the country’s most vibrant music conference and festival,” says Mo Ghoneim, president of Billboard Canada. “Power Players is a crucial spotlight of the executives leading the charge in Canada on a global scale, and we can’t wait to bring it to new heights in 2025.”
Canada is home to some of the most impactful people in music, both at home and internationally. In 2024, Billboard Canada celebrated Arthur Fogel, Live Nation’s CEO of global touring, at No. 1. The Canadian industry icon who shaped the modern global touring market attended the event and spoke about the impact Canada’s live music scene had on his career.
As Canada’s market for stadium concerts and festivals continues to expand and Canadian Content regulations continue to be debated, there are many factors and stories that could play a role in this year’s Power Players list.
Billboard Canada Power Players celebrates people across the industry, including record labels, publishing, legal, streaming and radio, creative media, and more. The extremely competitive honour reflects market share, industry impact, achievements and other metrics.
The Power Players list is peer-nominated and selected by the Billboard Canada team.
Find the submissions form here. It’s also available in French here. – Richard Trapunski
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One of the top showcase opportunities for Canadian musicians at SXSW will not take place this year.
The Canadian Independent Music Association (CIMA) has canceled its Canada House event at the upcoming Austin music festival amidst rising political and economic tensions between Canada and the United States.
Andrew Cash, CIMA’s president and CEO, describes the decision as a confluence of various factors, mostly related to the relationship between the two countries since Donald Trump began his second term as U.S. President.
That includes the 25% tariffs placed on goods from Canada set to kick in on March 12, which falls during the dates of this year’s SXSW (which runs from March 7-15), as well as Trump’s repeated threats to annex the country.
“The growing instability of everything in the United States right now, plus the high cost [of putting on events in the United States] and the low [Canadian] dollar — all of these things combined made it so we couldn’t feel confident or good about what we were getting ourselves into at this particular moment,” Cash tells Billboard Canada.
“The timing is not great,” he continues. “We would be going down there just after the 30-day tariff pause has expired. We’re going to have a new Prime Minister [in Canada, following the resignation of Justin Trudeau]. I just didn’t feel comfortable putting CIMA out there in that context of instability.”
For more than a decade, Canada House has been a pivotal exporting opportunity for Canadian bands and artists at the influential American music festival. Taking over the Swan Dive music venue, it offers opportunities for Canadian musicians and entrepreneurs to network and showcase at an event well-attended by members of the local and international music industry. CIMA had planned to host a one-day daytime music showcase on March 12.
CIMA made the decision to pull out of SXSW on Feb. 13, sending emails to partners and invited artists informing them that they would not be producing the event this year.
Applications opened last fall, and four Canadian and Indigenous acts had been sent offers to play CIMA’s Canada House showcase. They learned of the cancellation last week.
“We don’t know what the climate is going to be,” Cash says. “It felt potentially dissonant to be going down to Texas and hosting an event called Canada House while the President of that country is essentially stating his intent to annex our country…We made the decision based on what we could control, because there’s so much about this situation that we can’t.”
CIMA is still offering Canadian bands spots at networking events with other international music offices and export partners from Australia, England, New Zealand and other markets. And though the Canada House showcase is on pause for 2025, they could still bring it back in future years depending on the geopolitical situation.
In the meantime, Cash says CIMA will focus its resources and investments on other international markets and opportunities within Canada. This will not affect the organization’s other Canada House activations at the German festival Reeperbahn, British festival The Great Escape or SXSW Australia.
Cash says he hopes the situation in the U.S. is resolved soon, as the country is Canada’s biggest export market — not just for music but many sectors of the economy.
“I think everyone understands that we’re in unprecedented times,” says Cash. “And I think everyone is unsure exactly how to react.”
For more on the cancellation, and how it affected artists who were invited to play, head here. – Richard Trapunski
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Kendrick Lamar‘s “Not Like Us” is the No. 1 song in Canada this week — for the first time.
The diss track never managed to claim the top spot on the charts in Drake‘s home country like it did in the U.S. last year during the height of the stars’ heated rap beef. But after a Super Bowl halftime performance that saw record viewership, Canadians have pushed the controversial single to a new peak on the Billboard Canadian Hot 100 for the chart dated Feb. 22, 2025.
Going into the Super Bowl, it wasn’t clear if Lamar was even legally allowed to perform the track, as Drake is suing Universal Music Group, the label that released it. But after teasing it throughout the night, Lamar not only played the song, he included the lines that name-drop Drake and accuse him of predatory behaviour. Serena Williams, Drake’s ex, danced alongside Lamar on the field.
Following the success of “Not Like Us” last year, Lamar dropped a surprise album, GNX, which is at No. 2 on the Billboard Canadian Albums chart this week. Lamar is also all over the Canadian Hot 100, with 11 of his tracks charting there.
He performed his SZA collab from that album, “Luther,” at the halftime show as well, with the R&B star joining for the duet. That track also got a post-show boost, rising 18-2 on the Canadian Hot 100, as did SZA’s 2017 album Ctrl, which re-enters the Canadian Albums chart at No. 91. SZA’s SOS, meanwhile, drops from 2-3 behind GNX.
The two will perform together on the Grand National tour this summer, which stops in Toronto on June 12 and 13. – Rosie Long Decter
Osheaga has a knack for booking budding superstars right as they blow up. Last year, it was Chappell Roan. This year, it was Doechii.
The Grammy-winning, Florida-born rapper took the stage on the first night of the Montreal music festival on Friday (Aug. 1), and it felt like a star-making performance. The Killers headlined the mainstage, but unlike Chappell Roan, who played for 40,000 people at 3:30 in the afternoon last year, Doechii did have the honor of closing out the festival on the secondary Forest Stage.
Her set was pushed back slightly to start at 10:10 p.m., meaning she was the final performer of the night before the noise curfew at 11 p.m. And for those who wanted to catch both acts, The Killers made it easy by playing their belt-along favorite “Mr. Brightside” as their first song and packing the first hour of their two-hour, 9:10 p.m. set with hits.
Doechii’s stage set was decked out to fit her Swamp Princess persona, covered in greenery and a large, elevated swampy platform for her to stand on. The crowd was packed in, so the fans stuck at the back still had a visual feast. “I look good from the nosebleeds,” she rapped from her 2025 hit “Nosebleeds,” and this show proved it.
Doechii performs at Osheaga 2025 in Montreal.
Charlotte Rainville @jailli
For a full hour, Doechii kept the energy up. She rapped a mile a minute, all live with almost no reliance on a backing track. She showed off her full skill set, from pure hip-hop to sung R&B/pop hooks, and comedic banter to thought-out stagecraft. She brought unbridled charisma, taking time to dance and twerk and show off some vogue moves as well. She showed off a reverence for classic hip-hop, rapping over Wu-Tang’s “C.R.E.A.M.,” and later screaming over a distorted guitar sample — almost veering towards nu-metal. She showed she can do it all.
The audience stayed captivated, rapping along and matching her energy throughout. It was Doechii’s first time in Canada, and you could tell she was impressed by the reaction. “As an artist, you can get so much hate and negativity,” she said. “Then you go out in real life and see your real fans.”
She took some time to thank her gay fans, her female fans, and the fans who brought their boyfriends. “If your boyfriend hates female rappers, then leave him immediately,” she said.
Seeing all the phones out, she seized her moment. “Ya’ll can’t be scared to stand up for what you believe in, you can’t be scared to say what matters,” she said. “Free Palestine.”
Doechii performs at Osheaga 2025 in Montreal.
Charlotte Rainville @jailli
Doechii broke out her biggest hit, the Billboard Hot 100 top-10 charting “Anxiety,” and thanked all her fans for streaming it. The “Somebody That I Used To Know” sampling song is a bit of an outlier in her catalogue, but it’s a viral TikTok favourite, and she’s found a way to fit it perfectly into her set. After playing the song, she thanked Gotye for approving the sample.
The true highlight of the set was “Denial Is a River.” The song, which features Doechii rapping with her internal monologue, took on a whole new call-and-response dimension with fans chanting along to every word.
It felt like she was still just getting started when, midway through the next song, the beat cut out. “F— that, they cut me off!” she yelled. She put her thumbs down, inciting the crowd to boo, then threw her hands up. “Whatever,” she said, walking off the stage.
Unfortunately, Osheaga has a hard 11 p.m. noise curfew. It’s clear the next time she’s back, she’ll have to have a longer headliner-length set.
Doechii performs tonight (Aug. 2) at Lollapalooza in Chicago, where she’s teased a special guest. If Osheaga was anything to go by, her set will likely be all over social media soon.
This article originally appeared on Billboard Canada.
Olivia Rodrigo was joined by surprise guest Weezer during her headlining set at Lollapalooza 2025.
On Friday (Aug. 1), the 22-year-old pop superstar made her debut on the second day of the Chicago music festival at Grant Park. Toward the end of her evening set, she surprised the crowd by inviting Weezer to join her on stage.
In a fan-captured video on TikTok, Rodrigo shared with the crowd that Weezer was the first band she ever saw live.
“You always remember your first concert. It’s a very, very special moment,” the “Drivers License” singer said. “I remember my first concert. It was a very memorable night. I watched this incredible band and I am so over the moon, because that incredible band is actually here tonight to play a few songs. Will you please say hello to Weezer?”
Weezer then joined Rodrigo for performances of their classic hits “Buddy Holly” and “Say It Ain’t So,” both from the group’s 1994 self-titled album. She played guitar and harmonized alongside frontman Rivers Cuomo during the collaboration. Check out clips from the performances here and here on X.
This marked Weezer’s first Lollapalooza performance since they headlined alongside Widespread Panic in 2005.
This isn’t the first time Rodrigo has brought out surprise guests during her recent festival appearances. She recently invited David Byrne onstage at New York’s Governors Ball to perform Talking Heads’ 1983 hit “Burning Down the House,” and welcomed The Cure’s Robert Smith at this year’s Glastonbury Festival to perform “Friday I’m In Love” and “Just Like Heaven.”
During her Lolla set on Saturday, Rodrigo opened with “Obsessed” and “Ballad of a Homeschooled Girl,” and also performed hits including “Driver’s License,” “Traitor,” “Bad Idea, Right?” and “Love Is Embarrassing.”
The Chicago festival continues Saturday (Aug. 2) with headliners Rüfüs Du Sol and TWICE, followed by closers Sabrina Carpenter and A$AP Rocky on Sunday.
Kelly Osbourne is paying tribute to her father, Ozzy Osbourne, just days after his funeral.
On Friday (Aug. 1), the 40-year-old TV personality shared an NSFW photo on her Instagram Story in memory of the rock legend, who passed away on July 22 at the age of 76.
The outdoor image featured a beautiful display of purple flowers arranged to spell out “Ozzy F—ing Osbourne,” set beside a serene pond surrounded by a rolling hill and trees.
In a second post, Kelly shared a heartfelt clip from The Osbournes, the MTV reality series that aired from 2002 to 2005. The snippet shows Ozzy lying in bed with his wife, Sharon Osbourne, offering words of wisdom.
“Listen, all you got to worry about is getting through today,” the Black Sabbath frontman says. “That’s all you got to worry about.”
Just days earlier, Kelly attended her father’s funeral procession in his hometown of Birmingham, England, where fans flooded the streets to pay their respects. Sharon, along with Ozzy’s other children — Aimeé and Jack — laid flowers at the Black Sabbath Bridge, which had been covered with tributes from mourners.
Shortly after Ozzy’s passing, Kelly posted another emotional tribute to her Instagram Story on July 24. “I feel unhappy I am so sad,” she wrote. “I lost the best friend I ever had,” the Fashion Police alum added, along with a heartbroken emoji. Her words echoed lyrics from Black Sabbath’s ballad “Changes,” which she and her father released as a duet in 2003.
Ozzy Osbourne died at age 76, just weeks after performing his final concert. His family confirmed the news in a joint statement. “It is with more sadness than mere words can convey that we have to report that our beloved Ozzy Osbourne has passed away this morning,” they wrote. “He was with his family and surrounded by love. We ask everyone to respect our family privacy at this time.”
Just a month before his death, Kelly had honored her dad on Father’s Day with an Instagram post that included a slideshow of Ozzy spending time with her young son, Sidney, whom she shares with fiancé Sid Wilson.
“Happy Father’s Day daddy,” she wrote at the time. “I love you more than anyone or anything in the world! I am so proud to be your daughter and Beyond honored to watch you be the best #Papa in the world to my son!”
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