Though The Weeknd for the most part, he has been a vocal supporter of Black Lives Matter over the years. He’s donated money in the past and last night, he revealed he donated a total of $500K to a few organizations that are supporting the protesters. “Keep supporting our brothers and sisters out there risking everything to push for actual change for our black lives. Urging everyone with big pockets to give and give big and if you have less please give what you can even if it’s a small amount,” he wrote on an Instagram post along with his own receipts of donations he’s made.

But today marks Blackout Tuesday, a day for the music industry to stand in solidarity with the Black community in the wake of the recent protests across the country. And though many members of the music industry did participate, Abel made a clear call on the labels and streaming services who’ve heavily profited off of Black culture.

“To my fellow respected industry partners and execs- no one profits off of black music more than the labels and streaming services. I gave yesterday and I urge you to go big and public with yours this week. It would mean the world to me and the community if you can join us on this,” he wrote.

If you’re looking to donate, we’ve compiled a list of petitions and funds to donate to. 

Peep the post below.

Universal Music Group has confirmed that master recordings of Sonic Youth, Nirvana, Elton John, Beck, Soundgarden, Sheryl Crow, R.E.M and more were destroyed in the 2008 fire at Universal Studios Hollywood, as reported by Pitchfork.

David McNew / Getty Images

In June 2019, The New York Times reported that an extensive number of master recordings were destroyed in 2008, but not initially reported by UMG. Now, as a part of a new filing in the artists’ class action suit against UMG, the company has acknowledged that masters of the aforementioned artists, as well as Bryan Adams, …And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead, David Baerwald, Jimmy Eat World, Les Paul, Peter Frampton, Michael McDonald, Slayer, Suzanne Vega, Surfaris, White Zombie, and Y&T were destroyed.

UMG sent the following response to Pitchfork: 

The plaintiffs’ lawyers have already been informed that none of the masters for four of their five clients were affected by the fire — and the one other client was alerted years earlier and UMG and the artist, working together, were still able to locate a high-quality source for a reissue project. Recognizing the lack of merit of their original claims, plaintiffs’ attorneys are now willfully and irresponsibly conflating lost assets (everything from safeties and videos to artwork) with original album masters, in a desperate attempt to inject substance into their meritless legal case. Over the last eight months, UMG’s archive team has diligently and transparently responded to artist inquiries, and we will not be distracted from completing our work, even as the plaintiffs’ attorneys pursue these baseless claims.

Howard King, who represents the artists, released a statement saying, “Universal claimed 17,000 artists were affected by the fire when they were suing for damages. Now that they face a lawsuit by their artists, they claim a mere 19 artists were affected. This discrepancy is inexplicable.” 

Apparently, Drake has an unlimited budget because he’s “the greatest.”

HipHopDX ran into Universal Music Group CEO Sir Lucian Grainge and asked him about Drake’s budget by referring to a bar on the classic track “Stay Schemin,” where Drake raps, “Tell Lucian I said ‘fuck it,’ I’m tearin’ holes in my budget.”

“If ever Drake or whenever Drake calls up and says he needs something for his project, I give it to him,” Grainge says with a smile. “Because he’s the greatest.”

Strong praise from the boss himself. Drake most recently released a pair of singles with frequent collaborator Future titled “Desires” and “Life is Good.” Fans expect a follow-up to What A Time To Be Alive could be one the way soon.

RadRadar’s Brian “B. Dot” Miller recently appeared on Genius’ For The Record and discussed what he’s heard from Drake’s upcoming music: “Prior to the interview, Drake sent me a record. He just said he wanted to set the tone of the interview. It’s incredible. It sounds like one of those timestamp joints… It’s just one of those kinda flamboyant kind of records. It has a great sample to it, everyone’s going to love it. It’s called ‘Say When.’ I think Elliot talked about that in that. He’s talkin’ that — He be talkin’ that sh*t.”