Release Date: September 30, 2026

Genre: Hip-Hop

Album: N/A

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Release Date: September 30, 2026

Genre: Hip-Hop

Album: N/A

Quotable Lyrics from Quebec Remix

Fuck this shit, I’m slidin’ every chance that I get
No, I’m not alone, I brought my dogs all in here
All I buy is Rollies, this is not Cartier
Give the lo’ they probably gon’ spin there

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That disconnect has become difficult to wave away as just a few people living under a particularly sturdy rock. CNN’s Audie Cornish said she had brought “Choosin’ Texas” up to multiple people who told her they had never heard it, while another panelist said he only knew the track through news coverage. Doja Cat also went viral after appearing genuinely unfamiliar with Langley, repeatedly saying, “I don’t know what that is,” when asked about the singer. Meanwhile, Rolling Stone spent the summer making almost the opposite case, calling “Choosin’ Texas” unavoidable and arguing that some resistance to crowning it Song of the Summer may be tied to lingering bias against Country music. None of those experiences necessarily cancel out the others. That may be the problem.

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Read More: Drake Previews Remix Of Ella Langley’s “Choosin Texas”

Breaking Carey’s record makes that tension even harder to ignore because Mariah was never merely a chart monster. She belonged to a class of superstars whose music traveled well beyond the people most inclined to buy her albums. A Rock listener could know “Fantasy.” A hardcore Hip Hop head could recognize “Touch My Body.” Someone with little interest in contemporary R&B could still get ambushed by “We Belong Together.” Taste did not provide much protection. Her records existed in a media culture that could make a superstar hard to avoid, and that all-around recognition became part of what enormous chart success was expected to look like.

Langley has now surpassed one of music’s most recognizable figures without “Choosin’ Texas” requiring the same degree of cross-cultural saturation to get there. That doesn’t make its success any less legitimate. Yet, it does make the achievement more interesting. Billboard can quantify consumption and radio exposure, but those numbers cannot tell us whether the same listeners are actually hearing the same music. In an era of personalized streaming ecosystems and increasingly separate cultural lanes, the biggest song in the country may no longer need the entire country in the room.

When Hits Were Impossible To Avoid

The old standard for a smash was never that everybody had to like it. Sometimes being sick of a song was proof that it had done its job. Whitney Houston’s “I Will Always Love You” spent 14 weeks at No. 1 in 1992 and 1993, setting a Hot 100 record at the time. Mariah Carey and Boyz II Men later pushed “One Sweet Day” to 16 weeks, while “We Belong Together” gave Carey another 14-week reign. Those runs were impressive on paper and hard to miss in real life.

Other artists produced the same kind of crossover from completely different corners of music. 50 Cent’s “In Da Club” broke out beyond Hip Hop, while Beyoncé’s “Crazy in Love” traveled outside R&B. Taylor Swift’s “Shake It Off” became familiar even to people with no interest in following her catalog. Country also had its own examples, including Shania Twain’s “You’re Still the One,” which reached No. 2 on the Hot 100. The common thread wasn’t genre or taste, but that the biggest records escaped the audiences most likely to choose them.

Read More: Mariah Carey Shatters Spotify’s Single-Day Streaming Record

The machinery behind that reach was hard to avoid. Radio and music television kept a relatively small group of songs in heavy circulation, while malls and restaurants carried many of the same records into public life. Movies could push a song into an entirely different audience, and award shows put artists in front of viewers who had tuned in for somebody else. None of that distribution system was neutral. Labels had enormous influence over which records programmers embraced, leaving plenty of worthy music without the same push. Still, listeners were routinely exposed to songs they had never selected for themselves. A hit could become part of someone’s memory before it ever became part of their taste.

“Old Town Road” proved that kind of breakthrough did not disappear with streaming. Lil Nas X’s 19-week No. 1 run came with a fight over Country classification and a Billy Ray Cyrus remix. Memes carried the song into spaces traditional promotion never could. It became a story as much as a single, forcing people outside its original audience to encounter it. “Choosin’ Texas” has now surpassed that chart run without needing a comparable national conversation to carry it across pop culture. The modern system can still produce an unavoidable hit. It just doesn’t need a viral moment to make history.

“Inescapable” Depends On Who You Ask

Rolling Stone and the people insisting they have never heard “Choosin’ Texas” may not actually be contradicting each other. In July, Rolling Stone called the track “inescapable, irresistible, and unstoppable,” arguing that Country bias helped keep an obvious frontrunner out of some Song of the Summer conversations. Inside contemporary Country, that assessment may be completely fair. Outside it, plenty of listeners seem to be having a very different year.

Personalized media makes those parallel realities easier to maintain. Spotify builds recommendations around listening behavior, while TikTok says no two For You pages are exactly alike. Add genre-specific radio and increasingly separate media habits, and a record can saturate one audience without ever becoming routine listening for another. “Everywhere” no longer has to mean everywhere. Sometimes it means everywhere you are.

Read More: Beyonce Becomes First Black Woman To Top The Country Charts Thanks To “Texas Hold ‘Em”

Now, Country bias may explain some resistance to Langley, but it does not fully define the recognition gap. Recent Country and Country-adjacent records have still spanned outside their expected audiences, including Shaboozey’s “A Bar Song (Tipsy)” and Beyoncé’s “Texas Hold ’Em.” “Choosin’ Texas” is unique because it has rewritten Hot 100 history without requiring an “Old Town Road”-scale controversy or larger cultural conversation to pull outsiders toward it. Langley doesn’t need that wider audience to have the biggest record on the chart. That possibility is much more revealing than an argument over whether everyone should have heard her by now.

Billboard’s measuring stick has also changed with the business. “All I Want for Christmas Is You” was already a holiday staple before it could build the chart history Langley eventually surpassed. Because it was not commercially available as a single in 1994, the song was ineligible for the Hot 100 under the rules then in place. It didn’t reach No. 1 until 2019, after later rule changes and streaming gave older holiday music more chart power. A stream documents consumption, not how many unrelated listeners recognize the song. Carey once had a cultural footprint larger than her chart résumé suggested. Langley raises the inverse question.

The Hit Is Competing With Everything Now

Still, streaming is only part of the pressure. Music now fights for attention against an entertainment supply that never really shuts off. The older music business concentrated attention through a smaller number of powerful outlets. Those gatekeepers were hardly benevolent, and access to radio or MTV could depend on label muscle or industry relationships—decisions listeners had no control over. Breaking those bottlenecks gave artists more ways to reach audiences and offered listeners far more control over what they consume. It also dismantled some of the spaces where a handful of records could dominate simply because millions of people kept passing through the same channels.

These days, a hit can command an enormous audience without conquering everyone else’s attention along the way. For a song to break outside its core audience, it increasingly helps to become a story, a debate, a meme, or some other event capable of pulling people out of their own corners. “Choosin’ Texas” reached the top without needing that kind of cultural detour, which brings the conversation past Billboard and toward another institution that once helped decide what everybody was talking about: the VMAs.

The VMAs Lost The Shared Room

The 2026 MTV Video Music Awards managed something that should have looked like a comeback on paper. The show drew 8.43 million viewers, up 51 percent from 2025 and its largest same-day audience in 11 years. The number needs some context, though. CBS accounted for 7.61 million viewers after an NFL game, while MTV drew fewer than 700,000 during the main telecast. The football game went over its allotted time, delaying CBS by more than 20 minutes even though the VMAs had already started. By the time some viewers reached Madonna’s opening, clips and photos were already circulating online. Former MTV executive and 2026 producer Van Toffler later described watching that happen on social media as a “moment of terror.”

At its peak, the VMAs didn’t wait for social media to create the next day’s conversation. The show itself did it. Madonna’s 1984 “Like a Virgin” performance helped establish that reputation, while Beyoncé’s 2011 pregnancy reveal generated a burst of Twitter reactions and became part of one of MTV’s most-watched broadcasts. The red carpet mattered because attendance mattered. Viewers didn’t necessarily tune in because they loved every performer. They watched because the VMAs were one of the places where different corners of music were forced into the same room.

Read More: Cardi B & Kehlani Beat Drake, Don Toliver & More At The VMAs

The 2026 ceremony occasionally seemed more interested in creating material that could survive outside the show than in the awards themselves. Only six prizes were handed out during the two-and-a-half-hour telecast. Even Langley’s Best Country win happened off-air, meaning the singer with the longest-running No. 1 in Hot 100 history wasn’t even shown receiving one of the night’s major awards.

What Survives After The Number?

Langley already owns the record, and nothing about this conversation diminishes that achievement. Less certain is what a milestone of this size buys an artist beyond the charts. Mariah Carey’s biggest records helped turn chart success into household recognition. She was familiar even to people who never bought her music. Langley has built a massive audience of her own, but “Choosin’ Texas” raises the possibility that historic consumption no longer guarantees that same kind of familiarity.

Longevity, then, becomes about more than weeks at No. 1. Years from now, the more revealing question may be whether people remember how “Choosin’ Texas” sounded or simply remember that it broke Mariah Carey’s record. If the achievement ultimately becomes more famous than the song that achieved it, that would say far more about how music culture has changed than any argument over whether Ella Langley deserved the top spot.

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Release Date: September 30, 2026

Genre: Hip-Hop

Album: N/A

The post Lil Birdie – Song by Kodak Black appeared first on HotNewHipHop.

The shoe keeps the same low-cut, lifestyle-leaning shape from its original release, now carrying Nike branding instead of the Converse logo. Bright orange covers the entire build, giving it a bold, team-inspired look for his first appearance in the new colorway.

That color choice feels intentional given the setting. Orange ties directly back to Thunder branding, making this an easy pick for a first appearance in front of the home crowd.

Alongside the Shai 001, SGA also showed off a pair of Virgil Abloh’s Off-White x Nike Air Force 1s in a matching orange tone. Both pairs sat together backstage, giving fans a clear look at his footwear rotation heading into the new season.

Given how much buzz surrounded his original signature shoe, seeing it return under the Nike umbrella should draw plenty of early attention from collectors.

Read More: Steph Curry Shows Off His Li-Ning Sneakers For Media Day

Shai Gilgeous-Alexander’s Virgil Abloh Archive x Nike AF1

SGA’s original Converse Shai 001 debuted in February 2025, right in the middle of his first MVP season. He went on to add an NBA Championship, Finals MVP, and a second consecutive MVP while wearing the shoe.

That run of success made him one of Converse’s most valuable athletes almost overnight. Colorways like “Butter” became especially sought-after, regularly reselling for well above retail.

Nike officially confirmed his move to its Basketball signature roster back in June, closing out a six-year run with Converse that began in 2020. Since Nike and Converse operate under the same parent company, carrying the Shai 001 over rather than starting from scratch made sense for both sides.

That decision also gives Nike an easier entry point into his signature line. Rather than introducing a brand-new silhouette right away, leaning on a shoe fans already recognize keeps the transition feeling smooth rather than disruptive.

Pairing that debut with a Virgil Abloh Air Force 1 only added to the moment, tying Shai’s new chapter with Nike back to one of the brand’s most respected design legacies. It’s a small detail, but one that speaks to how much weight his footwear choices tend to carry.

Read More: Megan Thee Stallion Heads To The Victoria’s Secret Runway

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The shoe features a light, marbled pattern running across most of the upper, paired with soft purple accents throughout. A translucent outsole and clean white midsole round out the build, giving the pair a fresh, understated look overall.

That marbled texture stands out as a real departure from the bold, primary-color branding Curry leaned on for years with Under Armour. It’s a subtler design language, and one that fits well with how Li-Ning has approached its other signature athletes.

This marks a clear step forward in Curry’s transition to Li-Ning, following a stretch where he wore a rotation of different brands during his sneaker free agency last season. Seeing him fully branded at media day signals that integration is picking up speed.

Given how much attention surrounded his original signing, expect plenty of eyes on whatever Curry laces up once the regular season actually tips off.

Read More: Megan Thee Stallion Heads To The Victoria’s Secret Runway

Steph Curry Wears Li-Ning

Curry signed a 10-year deal with Li-Ning back in June, ending over a decade with Under Armour. The partnership covers basketball, golf, and lifestyle categories, giving Curry Brand a much wider platform than before.

Since then, Curry has slowly rolled out pieces tied to the new deal. He debuted a signature golf shoe over the summer, followed by limited PE releases built on Li-Ning’s existing Way of Wade and Jimmy Butler models during a September China tour.

Those early releases leaned on existing silhouettes rather than anything built specifically around Curry. That approach makes sense given how much groundwork goes into launching a true signature shoe from scratch.

A true signature basketball shoe under Li-Ning has yet to be revealed. Media day appearances like this one offer an early hint of the direction that model might eventually take, especially in terms of color palette and overall design language.

Read More: Chris Brown Gets $12.9M Dog Attack Judgment Reduced, But Case Isn’t Over

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KATSEYE and Tate McRae are also set to perform, along with Country singer Megan Moroney. This makes Megan one of the major artists who have previously turned the Victoria’s Secret runway into a performance stage, including Rihanna and Taylor Swift. Further, her excitement also has some history behind it. Back in 2011, Megan posted that she swore she would become a Victoria’s Secret model when she grew up.

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Read More: Megan Thee Stallion Details Heartbreak After Klay Thompson Split

The Booking Lands As Megan Preps Act III

Moreover, the runway appearance comes as Megan prepares her next musical era. She recently announced a distribution agreement between Hot Girl Productions and Interscope Records while confirming that Act III is on the way. The project will follow 2024’s Megan as she continues operating through the independent structure she established after leaving 1501 Certified Entertainment.

Keep an eye out for this year’s Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show, which will stream live on YouTube, TikTok, and Instagram.

Read More: Tina Tuesday Freestyle – Song by Megan Thee Stallion

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The ruling gives Brown part of what his legal team sought after challenging the June verdict, but the judge rejected his attempt to undo the case. Cotton found that Brown received a fair trial and was not improperly prejudiced by jurors hearing a reference to his past assault of Rihanna. He instead focused on the size of Avila’s award, finding insufficient evidence to support the extent of permanent nerve damage presented at trial while still recognizing her persistent pain and emotional distress.

Read More: Chris Brown Dog-Mauling Accuser’s $12.9M Award Might Be Reduced Significantly

The $9.5M Decision Keeps The Case Alive

Avila was working at Brown’s Tarzana home in December 2020 when his Caucasian shepherd, Hades, attacked her. She testified that the mauling left her with severe injuries and lasting facial disfigurement, while Brown argued that he had warned her not to go outside alone because of the dog. A jury ultimately awarded Avila $12.9 million following the June trial.

Cotton’s new order does not disturb the separate $855,000 award given to Avila’s sister, who was also working at the home when the attack occurred. Brown’s attorneys have already taken steps to appeal the verdict, while Avila’s legal team has separately pursued his income to collect the judgment. A judge previously allowed money from Brown’s tour earnings to be directed toward satisfying what he owed.

The next move now belongs to Avila. Accepting $9.5 million would bring the damages fight closer to an end, while rejecting the reduction would send that portion of the case before another jury.

Read More: Chris Brown Wants A New Trial After Losing Dog Attack Case

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The rapper said being a father has given him “a new reason” behind what he does and admitted that his daughter brings out a side of him fans rarely see. “That’s my soft part,” he said. Quavo also spoke about the small moments he enjoys most, including hearing his daughter call him Dad and seeing how much she resembles him. He joked that saying no to her has already become a challenge.

The confirmation arrives shortly after Quavo gave fans their first public glimpse of his daughter in a short film tied to his upcoming album, QRÖMELIFE. The visual places family at the center of a reflection on how his life has changed since losing Takeoff. Quavo is shown holding the little girl near the end of the film before closing with a message about doing everything for family.

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Read More: Quavo Fans Debate Whether Or Not He Has A Baby

Quavo’s Daughter Was Rumored Long Before His Confirmation

Questions about Quavo possibly becoming a father surfaced back in 2024. At the time, fans speculated that he and former collegiate gymnast Erica Fontaine had quietly welcomed a baby after a now-deleted video appeared to show a child crying in the background while Quavo boarded a private jet.

Fontaine added to the speculation this week when she shared an Instagram Story holding a little girl shortly after Quavo’s short film arrived. However, neither she nor Quavo has publicly confirmed that they share the child.

The revelation also adds to the themes surrounding QRÖMELIFE, which arrives October 2. Quavo has spoken extensively about rebuilding his life after Takeoff’s 2022 death, and his latest comments suggest fatherhood has become part of that recovery. Rather than simply introducing fans to his daughter, he is presenting her as one of the reasons his outlook has changed.

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Read More: Quavo & Offset Share Snippet Of Their First Collab In Five Years

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Drake reached Jones before the Toronto rapper had fully transformed from Degrassi actor into music superstar. Jones remembered recognizing his ability but struggling to understand how Drake fit the image he knew how to market at the time. His Canadian background only added to that disconnect. Jones eventually heard Drake working with Lil Wayne and realized just how badly he had misread what was coming.

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Read More: Jim Jones Declares Drake Is The GOAT, Praises His Pen Game

J. Cole Became Another Expensive What-If

J. Cole presented a different opportunity. Jones recalled Cole regularly recording at his studio while he was signed to Sony, but the young rapper reminded him too much of Drake. According to Jones, he told Cole, “You sound like Drake, and you look like Drake,” before passing on the opportunity. Both artists would eventually build careers large enough to turn those decisions into permanent Hip Hop what-ifs.

These are not new regrets for Jones. He previously explained that Drake’s acting background made the rapper hard for him to envision as a viable signing, even though he immediately recognized that he could rap. In a 2022 interview, Jones admitted he simply could not see beyond the version of Drake standing in front of him. He has since said similar things about missing opportunities with Cole and even The Weeknd.

Jones has enough perspective now to laugh at the misses, but the careers that followed make the lesson difficult to ignore. Drake and Cole didn’t just become successful rappers after leaving his orbit. They became two of their generation’s defining stars, making Jones’ latest reflection less about one bad decision than the price of failing to recognize what Hip Hop was about to become.

Read More: Jim Jones Thinks Max B Could’ve Been As Successful As Drake

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