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Killer Mike Accepts First-Ever Billboard Change Maker Award With Message To Youth
For the first time in Billboard Music Award history, an artist has been honored with the Billboard Change Maker Award. The iconic moment was bestowed upon Run The Jewels rapper Killer Mike who has dedicated his life to not only making stream-worthy hits, but for his actions outside of the studio. Killer Mike has actively involved himself in local and national politics, helped to launch and support initiatives that benefit underprivileged or marginalized communities, and has spoken candidly about alternative options to political policies that only seem to be benefiting an elite few.
During Wednesday’s Billboard Music Awards ceremony, Killer Mike accepted his nod virtually with his wife by his side. The rapper said the award belongs to him and his wife and promised her he wouldn’t become a “martyr” to the cause. “Kids out there that sing and dance: What you do is worthy,” Killer Mike said. “You are artists and your goal should be to express the very reality around you in the very most beautiful or ugliest of ways you see fit. Kids who run and dance and sing and jump and all that, all the things they tell you don’t matter — you matter more than you know.”
On Twitter, Billboard‘s official account wrote, “Throughout his 20-year music career, @KillerMike has been instrumental in social justice and civil rights movements and that is why he is our Billboard Change Maker! Congrats!” Check out a clip below.
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Kyle Ashen’s sun-drenched recollection with new release “That Local Girl”
Kyle Ashen’s latest release, “That Local Girl,” is a gorgeous trip down memory lane, a country single that explores that golden glow of memory, like flipping through old photographs touched by salt air and summer sunlight. It’s warm, cinematic, and deeply relatable, a song about the kind of love story that never quite goes away, even as time moves on.
“That Local Girl” is filled with imagery that quickly takes the listener into a world they can walk right into. You got a blonde-haired, blue-eyed girl on a boardwalk street by the ocean, a souped-up truck driving through town, neon lights reflecting off the ocean breeze, and the electric innocence of young love burning in the background.
But under all that cutesy trapping is something more than that, longing. Some people, some places that leave permanent marks on Kyle Ashen and us know that. What’s so brilliant about this song is that it marries those two ideas, making love and hometown memory feel beautifully inseparable. Sometimes you miss a person. And with that person, you miss an entire version of life. “That Local Girl” is more than a country love song from Kyle Ashen. He is a living postcard from the past, sun-faded, bittersweet, and glowing with feeling. A reminder that summers pass by, but some memories stay with us forever.
Connect with Kyle Ashen on Spotify || Instagram || Facebook || Youtube
Artist Spotlight
ECHOFLIP inspires faith and fire with triumphant anthem on “Kingdom Rise”
ECHOFLIP marches forward with commanding purpose on “Kingdom Rise,” a single that not only demands attention but also commands it. Driven by pounding drums, soaring melodic textures, and full-conviction lyricism, the song arrives like a battle cry with the heart of worship. Bold and energized and spiritually charged from beginning to end.
“Kingdom Rise” is street realism meets kingdom vision at its heart. It’s got grit in its pulse but grace in its message as well. Each bar rings with resilience with ECHOFLIP, a record that embodies struggle, perseverance, and steadfast faith in the face of adversity. The result is music that is rooted in reality while reaching for something much larger.
What makes the single particularly compelling is how seamlessly it combines high-energy Christian trap with uplifting spiritual themes. The hard-hitting production has edge and urgency, and its faith-centered focus gives it soul. It’s motivational without being pushy. Worshipful without momentum loss, without losing authenticity. Ideal for trap gospel, inspirational rap, and urban playlists that aim to uplift as much as energize, “Kingdom Rise” delivers on all fronts. It moves the body, it sharpens the mind, it stirs the soul.
Connect with ECHOFLIP on Spotify
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