The controversial rapper has relocated to Tel Aviv, after years of criticizing the country and vowing she would never go back.

Billy Eff is the Content Director for Rolling Stone Canada. An award-winning journalist and columnist, he has previously contributed to outlets including VICE and Urbania. A passionate advocate for underground music and a musician himself, he has conducted several hundred interviews with artists and industry professionals across a wide range of styles and genres over the past 15 years. He is based in Montréal, Québec.

It's been a while since we had a new, unhinged update from everyone's favourite uncancelleable entertainer, Azealia Banks. After years of criticizing Israel, to the point where her comments have their own section on her Wikipedia page (which is a fascinating read), the 212 rapper has moved to Tel Aviv.

"If you would have told me years ago id end up moving to Tel Aviv and liking it, I would have said youre crazy 🤪🇮🇱," she shared on X on Tuesday, October 6. She has also said she is working on new music with Israeli producer Yinon Yahel and has found the country’s music scene unusually welcoming.

In 2018, Banks performed in Tel Aviv and subsequently said she would never return to Israel after describing experiences she characterized as racist. She even told her followers that her Israeli fans would have to travel to see her because she would not be coming back.

In 2025, Banks returned to Tel Aviv and performed while wearing an Israeli flag and Star of David necklace. Around the same period, she became an outspoken supporter of Israel and identified herself as a Zionist, while attacking the Palestinian-led Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement as antisemitic. She also argued against the idea of a Palestinian state and said Palestinian territory should instead be part of Israel.

Then, in March 2026, amid the war involving Israel and Iran, Banks publicly turned on Israel again, writing that she hoped Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was dead and declaring, "F*** ISRAEL." She criticized Israel's actions and said she no longer supported the country.Azealia Banks is scheduled to perform her first concert in her new hometown tomorrow, October 8, at at the Tel Aviv Amphitheater.

Singer FKA Twigs

FKA Twigs has been freed from an “unlawful” NDA that her ex-boyfriend Shia LaBeouf tried to secretly enforce after claiming the singer violated the terms of their 2025 settlement agreement, according to court papers obtained by Rolling Stone.

In court documents filed in the Superior Court of Los Angeles on Tuesday, the Grammy-winning singer, born Tahliah Barnett, notified the court that she’d be withdrawing her March complaint against LaBeouf after he agreed to terminate and void the NDA.

In a statement to Rolling Stone, the singer’s attorney, Mathew Rosengart, praised her bravery in fighting the agreement that would have barred her from speaking about her experience and her work with domestic violence groups. “Twigs stood up for something larger than herself: female survivors of sexual abuse,” Rosengart said. “This victory frees her to discuss her experience, advocate for other women who might be less privileged, and support the charitable causes of her choice.”

Barnett first sued LaBeouf in 2020, accusing him of sexual battery, assault, and mental abuse that played out over the course of their one-year relationship between 2018 and 2019. The two settled in July 2025, but months later LaBeouf allegedly tried to extract an “exorbitant” sum of money in a “secret arbitration complaint” over an interview Barnett gave to The Hollywood Reporter that October.

Responding to a question about whether she felt “a sense of safety” by settling her lawsuit and putting the LaBeouf chapter behind her, Barnett answered candidly. “No, I wouldn’t say I feel safe,” she said. “I feel really passionate about being involved with organizations such as Sistah Space and No More, to help survivors in any way that I can. I think it’s less about me at this point and more about looking forward. Just, you know, moving on with my life.”

LaBeouf then turned around and used that “laudable, generic, and benign” statement to claim that Barnett had violated the settlement agreement’s NDA provisions, Barnett’s lawsuit claimed.

Under California’s Stand Together Against Non-Disclosure Act (“STAND Act”), NDAs that “attempt to prevent and chill victims of sexual abuse from speaking about the facts related to their suffering” are forbidden.

“This resolution, together with Mr. LaBeouf’s dismissal of the arbitration he commenced against Ms. Barnett on December 19, 2025, seeking money from her based on her statements to The Hollywood Reporter, means that Ms. Barnett is now free to discuss her own experience and to speak about and support the charitable and other causes of her choosing without fear of reprisal,” according to the court filing.

Justin Timberlake performing in 2002, during the era of peak beatbox.

Over the past few years, Justin Timberlake has done a lot of apologizing and taking accountability. The pop star hasn’t had the smoothest mid-career run, whether he’s solemnly copping to new indiscretions, or confronting old ones. Social media, after all, has a way of resurfacing old, embarrassing incidents just when you think everyone’s forgotten. Like the content creator Hannah Young, who shed fresh light on one of the more problematic patterns from the early days of Timberlake’s career: incessant beatboxing.

On Monday, Young shared a video about Timberlake’s penchant for spitting “boots and cats,” and the audience’s questionable willingness to just go along with it. “Nobody said, ‘Justin, you know, we have drums? This is a professional recording studio. There are instruments available to you,’” Young deadpanned. “But, no. Justin Timberlake wanted to make space noises with his mouth.”

Well, it turns out Timberlake himself was listening and learning. In the comments to Young’s post, he admitted, “I often look back on that time as well. I still haven’t come up with any answers. I don’t know how to apologize enough for whatever those ambitions were. Too many boots. Too many cats.”

Timberlake even went so far as to seek forgiveness. But not without reminding everyone that humans are flawed, complicated creatures who, despite best intentions, sometimes act against their own self-interest and the well-being of others.

“I can’t promise I won’t do it again,” Timberlake solemnly wrote. “God help us all.”

Beatboxing was indeed a huge part of Timberlake’s shtick during the final days of ‘NSync and the beginning of his blockbuster solo career. (And it goes without saying this is very much part of a larger discussion about the pop star’s long, complicated relationship with, use of, and profiting off of Black culture and music.) Timberlake’s beatboxing featured on ’NSync’s 2001 single “Pop,” and he and producer Timbaland incorporated it liberally on solo songs like “Cry Me a River.”

But if you really want the full unhinged, uncut Timberlake beatboxing experience, check out the “Justin’s Beat Box” segment from ’NSync’s 2000 concert film, Live from Madison Square Garden. Harrowing stuff. And that’s before we even talk about the outfit.

While it’s great to see Timberlake reckoning with this distressing period, credit to Young for not letting everyone else off the hook so easy. “We liked it,” she pointedly notes. “That’s what I need us to sit with. We were watching that man make drum noises with his mouth. Like, ‘Oh my god, what can’t he do?’”

Montréal pop-punk veterans Simple Plan have announced a 15-date Canadian tour for early 2027, marking their first coast-to-coast Canadian run in more than a decade. The tour will run from January 25 through February 16 and will feature Bowling for Soup throughout, with Yellowcard joining the lineup across most dates and Marianas Trench appearing on the British Columbia shows.

The tour opens in Victoria on January 25 before moving through Vancouver, Edmonton, Calgary, Saskatoon and Winnipeg. The band will then hit Toronto on February 5, followed by Kitchener, London, Kingston, Ottawa and Montréal on February 12. The run wraps with dates in Moncton, Sydney and Halifax.

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Simple Plan will also be celebrating the 25th anniversary of their debut album, No Pads, No Helmets...Just Balls. Released in 2002, the record produced enduring hits including "I'm Just a Kid," "I'd Do Anything," "Addicted" and "Perfect."

A children's book inspired by "I'm Just a Kid" is also scheduled for publication in March 2027, with proceeds supporting the Simple Plan Foundation and its work with youth-focused organizations.

Presale tickets are available, with general public sales scheduled for October 9 at 10 a.m. local time.

Only a nor’easter could have stopped Boston hardcore band Haywire from performing the dates leading up to the release of their new album, I Don’t Want to Say Goodbye. They were booked to play a string of gigs late last month, including a high-profile slot at New York’s CBGB Festival, until they were all wiped out by that East Coast storm.

“It takes a miracle for us to cancel,” says frontman Austin Sparkman. That’s not hyperbole for Haywire, who have played more than 400 shows since forming in 2023. In fact, they played 96 gigs in 101 days across all 50 states in the summer of 2024. “I just try to do everything to the extreme,” Sparkman adds.

He’s been like that since he was a kid. He dealt with familial drug abuse before moving in with an adoptive family in the tiny village of Barnesville, Ohio, when he was a child. His new family provided for him, but he still brought his books to school in a grocery bag. Before he moved to Barnesville, Sparkman was into hip-hop, but his new brother taught him about heavy music. He went to his first show at age 13 and started playing music at 15. Eventually, he began booking shows in his adopted parents’ basement, a.k.a. the Lakeview House, and driving hours to hardcore and emo gigs in neighboring cities.

The young musician moved to Boston in 2013 with no cellphone and two duffel bags of clothes. “I was a child with a pizza shop job,” he says. “I couldn’t afford anything but T-shirts.” Once he got to South Station, he called a friend on what he thinks must be the last payphone in existence. “I was met with, like, 30 people that were awesome and kind of adopted me,” he says. “I immediately had a friend group and started going to shows, started playing in bands, and one thing led to another.”

In just three years, Haywire has played more shows than most bands ever will, including tons of DIY gigs and a tour with the Dropkick Murphys earlier this year. They dropped their debut album, Conditioned for Demolition, in 2024, before signing with Roadrunner Records for I Wanna Say Goodbye, which came out on Oct. 2. That record runs the gamut from straight-ahead, anthemic ragers to more tongue-in-cheek ruminations on life’s bumps and skips.

Take the opening track, “That’s Life,” a breakup song that kicks off with a pitch-perfect Frank Sinatra impression courtesy of Jesse Wagner of the Aggrolites (who also performed the backing music). “Anytime something severely bad would happen, my friends would just yell the words ‘That’s life!’ super loud, and it almost made a dark moment comical,” Sparkman says.

He came up with the riff for that song while playing a show under a bridge in London. That’s not so unusual: Haywire are partial to a bridge show. “It feels like you’re living outside of society’s rules, and you can do whatever you want with all the people that are the same as you,” Sparkman says. “All these missing puzzle pieces from under the couch all link up under a bridge and light shit on fire.”

The album features even more guests, including Nothing on the title track, which is about a friend-hangout you never want to end; designer Cheyenne Snider (daughter of Dee) on couple’s spat “Trouble in Paradise”; singer Mat Kerekes on the bittersweet “Sincerely Yours”; and hardcore musicians Aaron Butkus and Bruce Lepage on “Forever Alone,” about overcoming addiction. The title is a reference that works on a few levels: Lepage’s former band 100 Demons has a song about the same subject called “So Alone,” featuring Butkus. Butkus’ band Death Threat then did a song called “Still Alone,” featuring Lepage. So it’s a full-circle moment.

Songs like “Interstate Love Affair” capture a feeling that Sparkman cherished as a kid: hitting the road with pals. “That song is straight-up about getting into the van with your friends and driving to a show,” he says. “Sometimes the show wasn’t even worth going to, but some of the best memories I have are those car rides to different states to go to shows.”

Other tracks, like “Perfect Strangers” and that Snider duet, deal with lost love — the feeling of someone you once knew so well becoming a stranger again. “The nuances, like how they hold a fork or what their fucking coffee order is,” Sparkman says.

Closer “Sincerely Yours” delves into the harder parts of Sparkman’s life. “The song reflects the relationships that you have with your parents when they should be your parents, but as you get older, you realize that some parents are just kids,” he says. “It’s about moving forward past that, and dealing with that, and moving on with your life, and realizing that you never needed them — you can become your own person without letting that define you. I feel like I have made a lot out of nothing from where I came from.”

And Sparkman isn’t wasting a minute. Those East Coast fall tours may be toast, but they have 250 more shows planned in 2027 and miles to go before they tap out. “I always refer back to this video I saw that said: ‘How lucky I am to be tired of the dream, of the life I once dreamed to have,’” he says. “I’m living my life. I don’t want it to stop. I gotta strike while the iron’s hot. Eventually there will be another shiny toy, and I want to do as much as I can in the least amount of time I can do it.”

Hayley Williams performs on Dec. 15, 2025 in New York City.

Hayley Williams has drawn the ire of President Donald Trump’s Department of Homeland Security.

When performing her Ego Death at a Bachelorette Party track “Ice in My OJ,” the singer shouted “Fuck ICE” and “Free Palestine” during her stop in Chula Vista, California, over the weekend. The declarations have become a staple at her concerts since the launch of the Hayley Williams Show in September, which includes her pre-”True Believer” onstage statement that “the greatest threat to American democracy is Christian nationalism.”

Fox News reached out to a DHS spokesperson for comment on Williams’ ICE remarks following her show. “America is grateful all the time for our federal law enforcement officers who keep us safe,” the spokesperson said in a statement. “We suggest Ms. Williams to thank them for their service, not belittle their sacrifice.”

On Monday, Williams took to her Instagram Stories, posting a screenshot of DHS’ statement alongside her own suggestion: “And may I suggest all Nazi bitches suck on my fat dick.”

A DHS rep did not immediately respond to Rolling Stone‘s request for comment.

The Paramore frontwoman is among the stacked headliners slated for the 2027 edition of Primavera Sound Barcelona in Spain. It takes place at Barcelona’s Parc del Fòrum from June 3 through June 5 and includes Doechii, Phoebe Bridgers, Fontaines D.C., FKA twigs, Turnstile, Massive Attack, Robyn, and more artists on the top of the roster.

Williams released her most recent solo album, Ego Death at a Bachelorette Party, last year. In August, six months after Williams and producer Daniel James launched their new band, Power Snatch, with EP1, the duo dropped EP2 on Bandcamp.