Serena Williams will begin her final Grand Slam tennis tournament on Monday night when she takes on Danka Kovinic in the first round of the U.S. Open at 7:00 p.m. ET on center court at Arthur Ashe Stadium. Williams announced she will retire from tennis after the tournament earlier this summer, citing her desires off the court steadily pulling her away, from motherhood to business.
For arguably the greatest tennis player of all time, it will be quite the send-off at the tournament she has dominated since bursting onto the scene more than 20 years ago. Williams has six U.S. Open titles to her name and will be looking to add a seventh in storybook fashion — while also competing one more time with sister Venus in the doubles competition. But however her career ends, it will be a celebration of one of the great athletes of this generation, with plenty of tributes that figure to pour out in the next week-plus.
Among the first comes from her longtime sponsor Gatorade, which introduced a special S logo replacing their normal G for some U.S. Open gear, and tabbed Beyonce to narrate a video about her friend, celebrating the unapologetic manner in which Williams carried herself — her true self — for the world to see and millions of girls to look up to.
“When the world writes her down in history, we’ll begin where she started,” Beyonce’s narration reads. “At love. It’s a love that we’ll remember through the generations, a love that started a movement, a movement to always love exactly who you are and who you can be. To be so in love with your identity, that your very essence cannot be contained.”
Bad Bunny is HIM. The Un Vernao Sin Ti rapper and megastar hosted the New York stop of his tour at an insanely packed Yankee Stadium. Pulling double duty, Bad Bunny let MTV join his world, bringing the visuals of his stunning live set to the VMAs.
The remote performance was of “TITÍ ME PREGUNTO,” showcasing how much a global icon Bad Bunny is.
In addition to the stunning performance, Bad Bunny won Artist of the Year, becoming the first Latin Artist in history to win the award.
Bad Bunny‘s Un Verano Sin Ti album has made a run of 15 weeks at the top of the Billboard 200 this year. He could extend that run this week, competing against DJ Khaled’s GOD DID, which is set for a 115,000 first week performance.
It’s always fun to trace the histories and evolutions of songs’ serpentine paths through the labyrinth that is the music industry. It’s rare that a song makes it to commercial release in its original form — or even all that quickly after it’s recorded. Thanks to Hit-Boy, we’ve got a prime example from Beyoncé‘s new album Renaissance. As the California producer told Rolling Stone Music Now, he was forced to hold the beat for “Thique” for nearly a decade until Beyoncé herself was ready to release it.
“I had to sit on that beat for eight years!” he said. “That’s the way the game goes sometimes. I’ve had a lot of ups and downs in the game and certain people will perceive like, ‘Oh, where’s Hit-Boy been? What’s Hit-Boy been doing?’ But then I’m sitting on stuff like ‘Thique’ that just hasn’t materialized yet. Y’all don’t even know how ahead I really am… I’ve been holding onto legendary stuff, and there’s plenty more.” I think it’s fair to say that sometimes, the timing of a song’s release is more important than its quality. Perhaps the music business just wasn’t ready for a song like “Thique,” with its blend of four-on-the-floor techno and trap rap, until just now, as interest for EDM-inspired rap and R&B is cresting.
Elsewhere in the episode, Hit-Boy talks about a Beyoncé release that did come out around that time: “Bow Down” from her self-titled album. He also touches on a number of his biggest… ahem… hits. Check out the full episode here.
It’s pretty undeniable that Beyonce is one of the great hitmakers of our generation. But just how great of a hitmaker is she? With “Break My Soul,” the lead single from her latest album, Renaissance, burning up the chart, now might be the perfect time to reflect on all the other times Beyonce has reached No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100. Beyonce’s chart history reveals that she’s had eight No. 1 hits since her making her solo debut in 2003 with Dangerously In Love, starting with that album’s first and second singles.
“Baby Boy”
The second single from Dangerously In Love saw Beyonce collaborating with dancehall artist Sean Paul and taking inspiration from South Asian musical styles. The single also appeared on Seal Paul’s 2002 sophomore album Dutty Rock. It stayed on the charts for nine weeks in total and was Beyonce’s longest-running number-one single until 2007. It was replaced, ironically enough, by “Irreplaceable.”
“Break My Soul”
It might surprise some to learn, what with Beyonce’s pop culture dominance over the past 20 years, that “Break My Soul” is actually Beyonce’s first solo No. 1 single since Billboard made the changes including streams in its charts. The highest-charting Self-Titled song, “Drunk In Love” reached No. 2, while Lemonade’s Formation peaked at No. 10.
“Check On It”
Originally recorded for The Pink Panther, this 2005 collaboration with fellow Houstonian Slim Thug wound up being placed on the 2005 Destiny’s Child’s greatest hits album #1‘s instead (as well as B’Day). Produced by Swizz Beatz, it rose to prominence due to its radio popularity — likely thanks in part to Thug’s presence, as he rode the wave of goodwill from his feature on Mike Jones’ “Still Tippin’.”
“Crazy In Love”
Widely viewed as Beyonce’s “official” debut single (justice for “Work It Out”), the lead single from Dangerously In Love was produced by Rich Harrison and featured Bey’s future husband Jay-Z. It also kicked off a wave of go-go and funk-influenced hits throughout the 2000s pioneered largely by Harrison himself as other stars clamored to repeat Beyonce’s success.
“Irreplaceable”
Penned by Ne-Yo and presaging Beyonce’s interest in country (though it was reworked as a pop-R&B ballad), “Irreplaceable” was the knockout third single from Beyonce’s second album, B’Day. After moderate success for “Déjà Vu” and “Ring the Alarm,” it skyrocketed Bey back to the top of the chart, becoming the twenty-fifth most successful song of the 2000s.
“Perfect”
“Perfect” is one of Beyonce’s two featured appearances at No. 1 on the Hot 100, as she appears on a duet version of Ed Sheeran’s 2017 hit. The third single from ÷ (at least in the United States), the duet version accounted for 18 percent of the song’s sales, pushing it to the top of the chart, becoming Sheeran’s second and Beyonce’s sixth No. 1.
Perhaps one of Bey’s most inescapable anthems, the second single from Beyonce’s 2008 third studio album I Am… Sasha Fierce reigned supreme throughout the year after its release, becoming a meme, winning three Grammy Awards, and spawning imitations, homages, and outright spoofs that made it nearly ubiquitous. It was also the impetus for Kanye’s infamous stage-crashing scene at the 2009 VMAs, arguably indirectly launching the decade’s worth of Taylor Swift-influenced pop music to come.
Some artists covered here are Warner Music artists. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.
The fourteenth week at No. 1 for Bad Bunny‘s Un Verano Sin Ti album means a No. 2 debut for YoungBoy Never Broke Again’s The Last Slimeto.
The Louisiana-bred rapper arrives in second place despite posting an impressive 108,400 album-equivalent units in the first week. The album collected 161 million on-demand streams in the first week of release.
NBA YoungBoy is now the only artist to place three top ten projects on the chart this year. Earlier this year, YoungBoy dropped the collaborative album Better Than You with DaBaby and the solo Colors in February.
Bunny’s album returns to the top spot behind with 108,800 album-equivalent units, eclipsing YounBoy by just 400 units.
At No. 3, Beyoncé’s latest, Renaissance, delivers another 89,000 album equivalent units.
Elsewhere on the Hot 100, it was a big week for Snoop Dogg, whose Benny Blanco and BTS collaboration “Bad Decisions” debuts at No. 10. This makes Snoop just the third artist, after Jay-Z and Mariah Carey, with a top-10 hit in each of the past four decades (’90s, ’00s, ’10s, and ’20s).
Also doing well in the current frame is Drake, whose DJ Khaled and Lil Baby collaboration “Staying Alive” debuts at No. 5. That’s now his 30th top-five song, which surpasses The Beatles for the most ever. It’s also his 59th top-10 song (which extends his record) and his 100th top-20 song, making him the first artist to reach the latter milestone.
.@Drake is the first artist in history to earn 100 top 20 hits on the #Hot100.
Meanwhile, Beyoncé is getting ready to push another Renaissance highlight to the forefront: Last week, she teased an upcoming video for album-opener “I’m That Girl,” although it’s not yet clear when that video is set to drop.
Bad Bunny is on top again thanks to 108,800 equivalent album units earned for the album, up 4 percent from last week. This is the third stint at No. 1 for Un Verano Sin Ti: It debuted on top on the May 21 chart, then left No. 1 for three weeks. Then, it returned to No. 1 again before falling to No. 2 for the next two weeks. After that, it enjoyed its first multi-week run, spending five weeks at No. 1 before being dethroned by Beyoncé and then returning to the top this week. This makes Un Verano Sin Ti the first album with four distinct runs at No. 1 since Olivia Rodrigo’s Sour also had four stays in 2021.
Meanwhile, debuting at No. 2 on this week’s chart is YoungBoy Never Broke Again’s The Last Slimeto, while Eminem’s new best-of compilation, Curtain Call 2, premieres at No. 6.
In one of the first interviews on The Breakfast Club after Angela Yee’s departure, 50 Cent was the guest on the famed syndicated morning show on NYC’s Power 105 and discussed everything from his hunger during Power Of The Dollar to what he insinuated was regret in giving The Game his barrage of hit records that appeared on his solo debut The Documentary. One of the topics, which was brought to the surface by Charlamagne Tha God, will forever be celebrity folklore that can only be verified by Hov himself.
Around the 36 minute mark, Charlamagne casually mentioned that Fif wanted no problems with Bey being that she had “jumped out on him once before. 50 confirmed the confrontation, with much of the storytelling said in jest, adding that Bey “jumped off the ledge” to confront him. Fif even dared that if you asked Mr. Carter, he’d co-sign that Mrs. Carter actually did jump out on 50.
