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Sapphira Cristál entered the RuPaul’s Drag Race season 16 finale as the clear frontrunner for the top prize. As she tells it, she walked away a winner — even if she wasn’t declared America’s Next Drag Superstar. In the high-octane finale (which aired Friday, Apr. 19), Cristál nearly nabbed the $200,000 cash prize, advancing her way to one final lip sync showdown with Nymphia Wind to Kylie Minogue’s “Padam Padam.” But Wind swept away with the title in the end, despite Cristál’s hilarious, vampiric performance. But all was not lost — before her showdown with Wind, Cristál made Drag Race history when she and Xunami Muse both won Miss Congeniality, a title bestowed on the queen deemed the kindest by her fellow competitors. It also marks the first time that a finalist has won the prize since season one, when Nina Flowers was crowned as the show’s inaugural Miss Congeniality. Trending on Billboard Below, Cristál chats with Billboard about her performance on the show, her love for character shoes, her strange connection to Beyoncé and how she hopes to use her platform to promote unabashed self-love. [embedded content] Congratulations on making it to the final lip sync, and on your Miss Congeniality win! How are you feeling after watching this weekend? I’m feeling great. There were two possible outcomes, and the one that I didn’t wish for was the one that we got. But … as Xunami said [during the finale], “I might not have won the crown, but I have won the crowd.” I did win the hearts of America, and I really love that.  I’m very proud of Nymphia, I’m constantly in awe of her talent. She is really quite a beauty, quite a queen, and I cannot wait to see what she does with this platform. And I know that, as part of the top two, I have a platform, and we are going to do many great things with it. If I’m being honest, it felt like an absolute no-brainer that you would take home Miss Congeniality. With that title being voted on by your fellow competitors, what does it mean to you that they picked you? I feel very seen! Not only to be Miss Congeniality, but to also still be in the top two with that prize, is huge — that hasn’t happened since season one of the American seasons! It feels amazing to know that people knew everything I did was genuine, and that they didn’t think I had some ulterior motive. Honestly, I was just being me, and they could see that. Some people had some things to say about how nice I was being at certain times in the competition, but at thFee end of the day, if someone comes to me asking for help I am going to give it to them. If they don’t ask me for help but I can see that they need help, I’m going to give it!  There really was a running theme of you being the “mother” of the season. Is that a role you’re used to playing outside of the show, or did that come about while you were filming? Oh, I am a mother of quite a few drag children. But I am also the only Libra on this cast, and I do seek balance at all times. If I see that things are imbalanced, or if people are having moments where they’re just not in it to win it, I gotta get them out of there. Because I was not there to compete with people who were stuck in their own way, I wanted to compete with people who were in the game.  Out of the four challenges that you won, which one stands out as your favorite? Definitely the “Power” performance. Not only was that song about inspiring people to vote, but I also just loved getting to sing, and to dance, and live my full blown fantasy! And now I’m getting to do it in real life — I just teased my new single “Enough” and a six song EP, and y’all are not ready for this music! When I think about the kinds of things I want to do as a performer, it always comes back to inspiring people with my music and performances, and helping people know that they are enough — and that’s what we did with the “Power” number.  [embedded content] A really important question I have for you — did your character shoes survive the filming of the show? Yes, they survived, they are alive and well … and I also already had two other pairs! Listen, the thing about the character shoes is, yes, I am going to wear them all the time. I am not 150 pounds — I have to wear something that is going to properly support my weight. I have broken many a shoe, because I am a stunt queen and I do many things that make it so I constantly bust my shoes. Also, I need to make sure I can do all the same stuff I do now when I’m 40 … and I’m 35! [laughs]  You got so creative with all the ways you managed to disguise your shoes throughout the competition, it almost became a fun game for viewers! Exactly! I mean, if you think about it, there are so many girls who wear the same shoe over and over on the show. They’ll paint it one week, they’ll add some glitter another week, they’ll do what needs to be done. I had a lot of shoe covers, because I knew that I was going to wear these shoes many many times. Like, these are $300-$400 shoes. I’m not trying to own 50 different pairs of these!  Your solo performance for the finale, “Dance!,” was so fun — tell me a little bit about how you approached putting the whole number together. Yeah, I loved that number. What happened was we gave them a lot of references from our time on the show, laying out what we wanted to talk about in our numbers. And I wanted to talk about self-love, coming into oneself and accepting who you are, because that is very much my platform. Especially in this world of social media, it’s really hard to compare yourself to others and to not feel less-than. So I wanted to make sure the song was a big self-love anthem, and I was so happy with how it turned out.  [embedded content] It was so good, as was your performance in the final lip sync. When you started thinking about this final battle, how did you come up with this lusty vampire concept? Well, we knew the final song was “Padam” — and let me be very clear, I did not know the song that well, because we were all off filming when the song absolutely blew up! So when they gave us the song, we were like, “Wait, what is this?” Everything is different when you’re a part of the sensation as it’s happening, and we were not part of that sensation. So, coming into it without knowing what’s happening, it gives you a fresh perspective. The more I thought about the line, “I can hear your heart beating,” I was like, “Who really hears and listens to hearts?” Because of that, and because it’s such a seductive song, I started thinking of Blade, of From Dusk Till Dawn, of Interview With a Vampire, all these kind of sexy vampire movies! I was laughing the other day because I saw a meme of my face that said, “The new Nosferatu looks sickening.”  I know you mentioned a few of your upcoming projects, but what else do you have coming up for fans to look forward to? I have been so focused on my new music and my tour coming up. The Cristál Ball Tour is going to be a magical, musical comedy extravaganza touring in July and August — it is really just my everything right now, and I cannot wait for fans to see it.  Anything music in particular you’ve been listening to a lot lately? Cowboy Carter, obviously. So much of my career and my own music has been inspired by Beyoncé — and fun fact, Beyoncé and I went to the same high school! What’s interesting is the song “Caro Mio Ben,” which she sings on the background of “Daughter,” is a song that every single freshman at our high school had to sing. For the first recital, every single freshman would sing “Caro Mio Ben” back-to-back. So I did have this very special connection when I heard her singing it, because I know that when she was a freshman at my high school, she had to sing that song. 

Usher and H.E.R. combine forces to rule Billboard’s Adult R&B Airplay chart as the pair’s “Risk It All” collaboration rises from the runner-up rank to reach No. 1 on the list dated April 27. The new champ adds to both artists’ already-stacked ledger on the chart, where they have each accumulated several No. 1s in recent years. Explore See latest videos, charts and news See latest videos, charts and news “Risk It All” appears on the soundtrack to the 2023 musical film adaptation of The Color Purple. The duet tops Adult R&B Airplay after a 7% increase in plays that made it the most played song on U.S. monitored adult R&B radio stations in the tracking week of April 12-18, according to Luminate. The new leader is also the first soundtrack single to top Adult R&B Airplay since Rihanna’s “Lift Me Up,” which accompanied Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, reigned for four weeks from December 2022 – January 2023. Trending on Billboard With “Risk It All,” Usher achieves his ninth No. 1 Adult R&B Airplay and ties Charlie Wilson for the most among male artists since the chart launched in 1993. The two R&B superstars share third place on the overall leaderboard: Alicia Keys ranks first, with 14 champs, while Toni Braxton is second, with 11. Here’s a review of Usher’s chart-toppers on Adult R&B Airplay: Song Title, Artist (if other than Usher), Weeks at No. 1, Date Reached No. 1 “Here I Stand,” seven, Dec. 6, 2008 “Papers,” three, Jan. 2, 2010 “There Goes My Baby,” one, July 31, 2010 “Climax,” one, July 7, 2012 “Don’t Waste My Time,” featuring Ella Mai, two, June 13, 2020 “Bad Habits,” one, Dec. 5, 2020 “Glu,” two, June 24, 2023 “Good Good,” with Summer Walker & 21 Savage, six, Nov. 18, 2023 “Risk It All,” with H.E.R., one (to date), April 27, 2024 [embedded content] For H.E.R., “Risk It All” becomes the hitmaker’s eighth No. 1 on Adult R&B Airplay. To recap her collection: Song Title, Artist (if other than H.E.R.), Weeks at No. 1, Date Reached No. 1 “Focus,” one, Oct. 6, 2018 “Best Part,” Daniel Caesar featuring H.E.R., four, Oct. 20, 2018 “Slow Down,” with Skip Marley, three, May 23, 2020 “Make the Most,” Lonr. featuring H.E.R., one, Oct. 24, 2020 “Gotta Move On,” Toni Braxton featuring H.E.R., Feb. 20, 2021 “Damage,” eight, June 26, 2021 “Come Through,” featuring Chris Brown, one, Jan. 1, 2022 “Risk It All,” with Usher, one (to date), April 27, 2024 In addition to performing on the single, H.E.R., whose real name is Gabrielle Wilson, produced the track and co-wrote it with Jimmy Napes. Elsewhere, “Risk It All” rises 23-22, after having reached No. 15, on the R&B/Hip-Hop Airplay chart, which ranks songs by combined audience totals from adult R&B and mainstream R&B/hip-hop radio stations. There, the duet improved 12% to 6.2 million audience impressions in the April 12-18 period. While momentum is gaining on the adult R&B side, “Risk It All” has wrapped its stay on the Mainstream R&B/Hip-Hop Airplay chart. It peaked at No. 22 on the list in February, and last appeared on the chart dated March 9. Radio gains help “Risk It All” return to the multimetric Hot R&B Songs chart, which blends airplay results with streaming and sales data for its ranks. The single re-enters at No. 23 for its 17th week on the list, after having claimed a No. 17 high in February.

The cloudy future of Hipgnosis Songs Fund (HSF) became clearer on April 18, when the embattled company’s board of directors publicly supported a $1.4 billion takeover bid by Concord, followed two days later by a $1.5 billion offer by investment giant Blackstone. Regardless of the buyer, an acquisition would mark an end to the 5-year-old London Stock Exchange-listed company and give shareholders an offramp after HSF faced questions about its operational acuity and, most recently, alleged evidence of accounting missteps that overstated both revenue and its portfolio’s valuation. Concord’s offer is a 32.2% premium over HSF’s closing price on April 17, but the board said it would support Blackstone’s offer — which represents a 41.8% premium — if the asset manager makes it official. Trending on Billboard Blackstone’s bid for the publicly traded music rights company wasn’t a surprise: It owns two other entities under the Hipgnosis name. Blackstone is the majority owner of the public fund’s investment adviser, Hipgnosis Song Management (HSM), and it funds Hipgnosis Songs Capital (HSC), a private music rights fund operated with HSM that has its own portfolio of music rights from such stars as Justin Bieber and Kenny Chesney. Sources say Blackstone’s private fund, HSC, is worth upwards of $700 million. HSM has the right to buy HSF’s portfolio if its advisory agreement is terminated — and Blackstone and HSM “will vigorously protect its interests should the company purport to terminate the [investment advisory agreement],” according to a statement issued by HSM on April 22. “We will use all means necessary to defend our contractual position and interests.” Neither HSF nor HSM responded to requests to comment for this story. When investors vote on a proposed acquisition at HSF’s June 10 board meeting, a majority of stock- holders representing at least 75% of voting rights must approve the deal. Before Blackstone’s offer, Concord’s bid had the support of shareholders that own 29.4% of the company’s equity. Any offer would free the fund and its investors from a serious bind. Once a freewheeling darling of the music business that acquired rights to music by Red Hot Chili Peppers, Neil Young and Shakira, the company suffered from a struggling share price, the cancellation of the dividend and — the coup de grace — an unflattering due diligence report by investment bank Shot Tower Capital released March 28 that found the company’s investment adviser, the Merck Mercuriadis-led HSM, committed a series of missteps. Among them: HSM “materially overstated” annual revenue by improperly accounting for revenue and missed growth forecasts on 75% of the fund’s catalogs by an average of 23% annually, and the investment adviser overstated the amount of control that HSF has over the rights it had acquired. The latter conclusion is key to the value of HSF’s portfolio because owning a song’s copyright is more valuable than owning a writer’s or producer’s share of the royalties it generates. As a result of its findings, Shot Tower lowered HSF’s portfolio value by 26%, from $2.62 billion to $1.95 billion. “Shareholders are going to vote for whichever [bid is] the higher,” says Josh Gruss, co-founder and CEO of Round Hill Music, who until last November, ran Round Hill’s rival publicly listed music royalty fund. (Concord bought that public fund last year, and Gruss became a Hipgnosis shareholder a few months later.) “I think investors have been through such a roller coaster most of them just want their money back.” HSM’s response to the Shot Tower report, which was issued the same day, claimed that aspects of it were “factually inaccurate and misleading.” Not surprisingly, several of HSF’s largest and most long-lasting investors were angered by the report’s findings. Investment managers, some of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity because they did not want to comment publicly before the next board meeting, said that the report’s findings presented extraordinary examples of gross incompetence and “myriad” accounting issues. Stifel analyst Sachin Saggar, who raised red flags about the company’s accounting and valuation as far back as 2021, says the Shot Tower report revealed “a catalog of errors” that should have been prevented by the layers of protection — a board of directors, an independent auditor, internal systems and adherence to accounting principles — typically afforded to investors. “If you had a half-decent board at [the initial public offering], you [could] have stopped some of these things happening very easily because they’re quite obvious and they were well-flagged by us three years ago.” Merck Mercuriadis on Feb. 8, 2021 in Los Angeles. Spencer Lowell While the offers could be the answer to HSF’s financial straits, if the Concord bid gets accepted, one question remains: What becomes of Mercuriadis, who is the founder and public face of Hipgnosis, the chairman of HSF’s investment adviser and, until recently, the cocksure self-appointed spokesman for the red-hot song catalog sales market? The Shot Tower report reinforced doubts that the board can continue to work with Mercuriadis and his team — one investor deems the relationship “broken down” — although parting with him is easier said than done. Terminating the investment adviser’s contract without cause would give HSM a termination fee and, more critically, an option to buy the entire portfolio at whichever is highest: fair market value, a third party’s bid or the company’s market capitalization. According to the April 18 announcement, Concord would take over management of HSF’s assets after “a brief transition period” during which Mercuriadis’ HSM remained the investment adviser. The announcement stated that the two sides have not yet begun discussions about terminating the investment advisory agreement. Matt Hose, a London-based equity analyst for Jefferies, says the HSF board “is trying to highlight that Merck was incompetent so they can terminate [the investment adviser] with cause and not pay out the fees.” He adds that this strategy would prevent Mercuriadis from “stopping the board from selling the portfolio in the open market and getting full value.” Removing the investment adviser would be an unusual outcome. Hose says he has never seen an investment manager terminated for cause in the 15 years he has covered investment trusts. HSF’s largest investors support terminating the investment adviser’s contract, but they were reticent to say that the board can prove it has sufficient reason to fire HSM “with cause.” “People are pretty fed up with the [investment adviser] as a result of this [report],” one investment manager says. “There are some quite extraordinary allegations in this report. I don’t think I’ve seen accusations of gross incompetence laid out in this way. I’ve seen accusations of fraud, but not this.” Hose points out that, counterintuitively, HSF’s stock price rose 10% on the day the Shot Tower report was released. “Shareholders want termination for cause because it’s the cleanest exit. Whether they’re going to get it or not — that’s the question.” If the board moves to terminate the investment manager with cause, investors say Mercuriadis and Blackstone may fight it in court. In such a scenario, they say the two sides would probably settle with HSF for a lump sum of money but not the right to buy the portfolio. They note that a prolonged court battle would bring Blackstone the kind of negative headlines it’s known to avoid. Other catalog portfolio managers say, bad press be damned, Blackstone will not give up its right to HSF’s quality assets. “The underlying assets are solid, whether they paid one turn or two turns too much,” says David Schulhof, CEO of music-focused exchange traded fund MUSQ. A Blackstone acquisition, on the other hand, would be the best outcome for Mercuriadis, as HSM would continue to oversee the portfolio. Regardless of how the aftermath plays out, half a dozen HSF investors and analysts said they cannot see Mercuriadis and HSM remaining the investment manager of a publicly traded fund or the fund continuing as a publicly listed entity. “It has to spin into a sale at this point,” Round Hill’s Gruss says. “It’s clear that even before these announcements shareholders were hell bent on removing Blackstone as the investment adviser, through legal means or otherwise. It’s a much more elegant solution for shareholders to just sell.” Despite the enduring value of much of HSF’s portfolio, the board is telling shareholders that a quick sale is their best option. In its April 18 announcement, the board indicated that accepting Concord’s bid would “[mitigate] the risks we see ahead to achieving a material improvement in the share price.” Other than an outright acquisition, it warned, “all alternative options carry significant risks, uncertainties and limitations.” A version of this story will appear in the April 27, 2024, issue of Billboard.

Billie Eilish is coming home to herself. In her new Rolling Stone cover story published Wednesday (April 24), the 22-year-old pop star revealed that her third album, Hit Me Hard and Soft, is a return to the darker sounds and styles she introduced on her debut LP When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go? “I feel like this album is me,” she told the publication of her latest project, which arrives May 17. “It’s not a character. It feels like the When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go? version of me. It feels like my youth and who I was as a kid.” “This whole process has felt like I’m coming back to the girl that I was,” she continued. “I’ve been grieving her. I’ve been looking for her in everything, and it’s almost like she got drowned by the world and the media. I don’t remember when she went away.” Trending on Billboard Released in March 2019, Eilish’s debut album spent three weeks at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 and spawned her first No. 1 single on the Billboard Hot 100, “Bad Guy.” Later, the projects won her song, record and album of the year at the 2020 Grammys, where she also picked up best new artist. Two years later, she followed it up with her sophomore effort, Happier Than Ever, about which she said, “I was with myself so much that I couldn’t see myself objectively anymore … And then I dyed my hair blonde and I immediately was like, ‘Oh, I have no idea who I am.’” Now, she’s working to resurrect what she refers to as “2019 me.” Finneas, Eilish’s older brother and longtime collaborator, corroborates this. “I feel like this album has some real ghosts in it, and I say that with love,” he told the publication. “There’s ideas on this album that are five years old, and there’s a past to it, which I really like. When Billie talks about the era of When We All Fall Asleep, it was this theatricality and this darkness. What’s the thing that no one is as good at as Billie is? This album was an exploration of what we do best.” The two-time Oscar winner first announced Hit Me Hard and Soft earlier this month, sharing its underwater cover art and release date on social media. Later, she unveiled the project’s 10-song tracklist, featuring titles such as “Skinny,” “Lunch,” “L’Amour De Ma Vie,” “Blue” and “Wildflower.” She said from the beginning, however, that she wouldn’t be releasing any singles from the new record, something she touched on again in her new interview. “Every single time an artist I love puts out a single without the context of the album, I’m just already prone to hating on it,” she said. “I really don’t like when things are out of context. This album is like a family: I don’t want one little kid to be in the middle of the room alone.”