Signed: Warner Music Latina Inks Trio of Rising Stars; Of Mice & Men Strike Label Deal for New Music

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Warner Music Latina signed three emerging urban artists who are creating a viral buzz on social media and the Billboard charts: DFZM (Colombia), Jombriel (Ecuador), and Milo Bvgatti (Venezuela). DFZM made his Billboard chart debut last November DFZM with “+57” in collaboration with Karol G, J Balvin, Feid, Ryan Castro, Maluma, and Ovy on the Drums. Jombriel hit No. 1 on the Billboard Argentina Hot 100 chart this March with his “Parte & Choke (Remix)” with Ryan Castro. Meanwhile, Bvgatti has already received stamps of approval from Feid, Jay Wheeler and Dalex. “At Warner Music Latina, we believe in the power of fresh voices from the Andean region to make waves globally,” said Roberto Andrade, MD of Warner Music Latina, in a statement. “We proudly welcome DFZM, Jombriel, and Milo Bvgatti — a new chapter begins, filled with music and momentum.” – Jessica Roiz

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Southern California band Of Mice & Men signed with Century Media Records. The group released the single “Another Miracle” on May 8, marking its first new music since 2023. Of Mice & Men is currently on tour in the U.S., with festival dates including the Summer Daze Festival in Elko, Nev.; Warped Tour in Long Beach, Calif.; and Louder Than Life in Louisville, Ky.

Jutes signed a global record deal with Position Music, which will release his new single, “Left on Dilworth,” on Wednesday (May 21). The singer-songwriter’s singles so far this year include “Red Velvet” with Ari Abdul, “House of Cards” and “SMUT”; previous album releases include Ladybug and Sleepyhead. He’s managed by Mike Maloian at 25/7.

Indonesian dream-pop duo Galdive signed with Mom + Pop Music, which released its new album, Blue, on May 9. The act’s song “Teach Me How to Love” has picked up steam on TikTok, where it has generated more than 16 million views, 1.8 million likes, and over 2,200 UGC posts, according to the label.

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Armada Music struck a joint venture deal with Dutch electronic artist Joris Voorn spanning A&R, distribution, promotion and marketing. The label will work with Voorn on his upcoming album Serotonin, which is set for release in July. It will additionally leverage its publishing arm “to add creative value” to his work via “writing camps and collaboration,” according to a press release. Armada previously released Voorn’s remix of “Transmission” by Eelke Ekleijn.

Scouting for Girls signed a label services deal with Absolute. Next year, the British trio is releasing a new album, which Absolute will support with digital marketing, distribution, project management and a long-term strategic direct-to-consumer campaign.

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Sub Pop signed Brooklyn-based trio Nation of Language and will release the band’s new music globally this year and beyond. The first release under the deal is the new single, “Inept Apollo.” The band will tour North America and Europe this fall.

Virgin Music Latin signed a global agreement with rising Cuban act Wampi for the release of his forthcoming debut studio album, El Rey de la Habana. His first single under the label is “Veni,” an uptempo track that represents the Cuban Reparto music scene. El Rey de la Habana will feature collaborations with Cimafunk, Ibeyi, Los Van Van, Maffio, Michael Brun, and more. – Jessica Roiz

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Mom+Pop Music signed Minneapolis artist Mother Soki, whose single “Rivet Gun” has been growing on TikTok. She is managed by Avalanche in Los Angeles.

Nettwerk signed indie-pop band Joseph, composed of sisters Natalie and Meegan Closner. The first release under the deal is the single “Bye and Bye,” a track from the duo’s forthcoming album (its first without sister Allie). The band is kicking off a round of tour dates on June 13 in Spokane, Wash.

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Singer-songwriter N8NOFACE signed with Stones Throw, which released his new song, “Waiting to Wait for You,” last week. N8NOFACE is touring with Eyedress on the Stoner Tour this summer.

Scout Willis signed with WME for global representation. The singer-songwriter is currently recording her second studio album on the heels of singles “Over and Over” and “Take Me” last year. The album is slated for release this fall.

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Atlanta-based five-piece band Penelope Road signed to Warner Records. The first release under the deal is the single “Out Tonight.” According to a press release, the song has already racked up “millions of views” leading up to its official release. The band, which is set to embark on a summer headlining tour on June 12 in Charleston, S.C., is managed by Lindsay Brandt.

Giant Music, a division of The Azoff Company, signed rock band Riff Wood. The band is independently producing its debut album, Tough Luck, which is set for release this summer. It’s been preceded by singles including “Blur” and “Stay a Little Longer,” the latter serving as its first release on Giant. Riff Wood is embarking on a summer tour starting July 29. The band, which won Utah’s Battle of the Bands last year, is managed by Rob Cavallo‘s Done Deal and Echo Street.

Codex, OpenAI’s New Coding Agent, Wants to Be a World-Killer

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OpenAI is peddling what it calls a "cloud-based software engineering agent," but fails to explain where its getting the data to train it.

Though artificial intelligence is taking the world by storm, it’s still pretty bad at tasks demanding a high-degree of flexibility, like writing computer code.

Earlier this year, ChatGPT maker OpenAI published a white paper taking AI to task for its lackluster performance in a coding scrum. Among other things, it found that even the most advanced AI models are “still unable to solve the majority” of coding tasks.

Later in an interview, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said that these models are “on the precipice of being incredible at software engineering,” adding that “software engineering by the end of 2025 looks very different than software engineering at the beginning of 2025.”

It was a bold prediction without much substance to back it — if anything, generative AI like the kind Altman pedals has only gotten worse at coding as hallucination rates increase with each new iteration.

Now we know what he was playing at.

Early on Friday, OpenAI revealed a preview of Codex, the company’s stab at a specialty coding “agent” — a fluffy industry term that seems to change definitions depending on which company is trying to sell one to you.

“Codex is a cloud-based software engineering agent that can work on many tasks in parallel,” the company’s research preview reads.

The new tool will seemingly help software engineers by writing new features, debugging existing code, and answering questions about source code, among other tasks.

Contrary to ChatGPT’s everything-in-a-box model, which is geared toward the mass market, Codex has been trained to “generate code that closely mirrors human style and PR preferences.” That’s a charitable way to say “steal other people’s code” — an AI training tactic OpenAI has been sued for in the not-too-distant past, when it helped Microsoft’s Copilot go to town on open-source and copyrighted code shared on GitHub.

Thanks in large part to a technicality, OpenAI, GitHub, and Microsoft came out of that legal scuffle pretty much unscathed, giving OpenAI some convenient legal armor should it choose to go it alone with its own in-house model trained on GitHub code.

In the Codex release, OpenAI claims its coding agent operates entirely in the cloud, cut off from the internet, meaning it can’t scour the web for data like ChatGPT. Instead, OpenAI “limits the agent’s interaction solely to the code explicitly provided via GitHub repositories and pre-installed dependencies configured by the user via a setup script.”

Still, the data used to train Codex had to come from somewhere, and judging by the rash of copyright lawsuits that seem to plague the AI industry, it’s only a matter of time before we find out where.

More on OpenAI: ChatGPT Users Are Developing Bizarre Delusions

The post Codex, OpenAI’s New Coding Agent, Wants to Be a World-Killer appeared first on Futurism.

A$AP Rocky Teases New Song at Cannes During ‘Highest 2 Lowest’ Premiere

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A$AP Rocky continues to tease new music ahead of dropping his highly anticipated album Don’t Be Dumb. However, the song that was played as he walked down the red-carpet stairs in the rain with his pregnant partner Rihanna at the Cannes Film Festival on Monday night, when his new movie Highest 2 Lowest premiered, sounds like he’s referencing the “Yung Felon” character he’s playing in the film.

And while it sounds like a standard Rocky record, there’s a point in the song where he’s heard rapping, “Shout-outs to my felons, boy/ We caught another felony.” He also raps something to the effect of “I can’t go to court, my baby mama child support, f— college,” as he’s posing for pictures next to the actual mother of his children.

Highest 2 Lowest, directed by Spike Lee and also starring Denzel Washington, has been receiving rave reviews and got a nearly six-minute standing ovation after its Cannes premiere. Denzel also received the honorary Palme d’Or, which he was presented with by “his brother from another mother,” Spike Lee.

This will be the fifth movie Spike and Denzel have worked on together, and it will likely be their last. “This is the fifth one we’ve done together,” Lee told reporters at the festival. “It has been a blessing, this body of work between us, doing films that people love. And I think this is it. He’s been talking about retirement. But five films together: that’s good, they stand up.”

The film is set to be released in U.S. theaters on Aug. 22 and will hit Apple TV+ on Sept. 5.

50 Cent Posts AI Picture of Himself Wearing ‘Free Diddy’ Shirt

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50 Cent is back at it.

The Queens rapper and filmmaker continues to troll Diddy as the Harlem mogul’s sex trafficking trial heads into its second week. This time, he posted an AI-generated picture of himself on Instagram wearing a white “Free Diddy” shirt in front of a courthouse and followed that up with a screenshot of an article referencing testimony from Cassie‘s mother, Regina Ventura, in which she testified that Diddy requested $20,000 that he spent on her daughter after he found out she was dating Kid Cudi, forcing Cassie’s parents to take out a loan.

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“He only made Cassie’s mom take out a home equity loan to pay 20k for him to not put out sex tapes,” 50 wrote in the caption. “Free itty bitty Diddy! LOL wait is that legal.”

Just over the weekend, 50 Cent joked about people being offered $20 an hour to wear “Free Diddy” shirts in front of Manhattan federal court, writing, “Diddy paying people to wear Free Diddy shirts is diabolical, but $20 a hour ain’t bad. I might go throw that on for a hour tomorrow.”

In another picture he posted, this time wearing a black “Free Diddy” shirt, his caption read: “Ok now where do I send my $20 invoice guys, a deals a deal. If you want I can be there tomorrow from 3 to 4 OK!”

In other Diddy trial news, Kid Cudi is expected to testify sometime this week, according to prosecutors. And it’s pretty safe to assume that the subject of Diddy allegedly blowing up Cudi’s car over his relationship with Cassie will be broached.

Amsterdam to Shut Down Major Highway for Massive Audio Obscura Rave

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As the home of the world’s leading electronic music summit, ADE, and a longstanding seedbed of rave culture, Amsterdam is no stranger to bold ideas. But closing a major highway for a rave? Even for one of the cultural capitals of dance music, it’s an ambitious endeavor.

On June 21st, Audio Obscura will transform a section of the Netherlands’ A10 Zuid motorway into a one-day-only rave venue, welcoming 5,000 fans to celebrate Amsterdam’s 750th anniversary. The landmark event is part of the wider Festival op de Ring, a 17-kilometer spectacle that will see the A10 closed to traffic and repurposed for a celebration of Dutch art, culture and music.

Known for curating events in unconventional venues like the Rijksmuseum bicycle passage and Concertgebouw, Audio Obscura is one of the city’s foremost champions of its globally revered electronic music scene. The team is now taking over the stretch of highway near the RAI Metro Station, promising nine hours of adrenaline-fueled DJ sets from a slew of artists still to be announced.

CUPRA, the event’s lead partner, has helped make the highway rave free to attend. Fans can register via the Audio Obscura website for a chance to score a ticket when they officially drop at 10am CEST on May 21st.

Check out the event’s trailer below.