With the drop of YoungBoy Never Broke Again's The Last Slimeto, the prolific rapper—who is, pound for pound, a Top 5 most-streamed artist in the U.S.—becomes one of the hottest free agents in the biz. Thanks to heightened interest in his next chapter, the set is expected to debut with...

As the biz showers love on Mo Ostin, who kept Warner/Reprise on top during rock’s golden age, modern-day dynasties Live Nation and Sony Music rack up ginormous quarterly numbers, Beyoncé dances back to #1, NBA YoungBoy gets ready to ball for a new team and Ryan Tedder’s OneRepublic takes off from the flight deck of the Top Gun: Maverick ST.

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The class of Q3 2022 includes such beguiling artists as Steve Lacy, Doechii, Bailey Zimmerman, Benson Boone, Nate Smith, Jagwar Twin and Yung Gravy, among other buzzing newcomers. Which of these will be tearing up the charts in the near future?

Part one of this in-depth conversation began with Mo Ostin’s Brooklyn childhood and the family’s move to L.A. and concluded with the development of Warner/Reprise, with stories about Sinatra, the Kennedys, Carl Sandburg and other luminaries enriching the narrative. The second half begins in 1966 with the arrival of the guy who’d be ampersand-close to Mo for the next four decades.

Here are some names we might see on the nominations list this fall.

Parkwood/Columbia's Beyoncé scores her first #1 on the HITS Top 50 since 2016 as RENAISSANCE opens with 335k+—the second-biggest bow of the year. She's also the first female artist to top the album chart in 2022. 

Prince’s signing, nurturing and incremental rise to superstardom stands as a classic example of what made Warner/Reprise such an extraordinary record company. Mo Ostin’s 2016 recounting of this fascinating story provides us with an object lesson in artist development at its most inspired.

Live Nation has shattered previous financial records as every key operating metric is at an all-time high for the concert-promotion giant.

Mo Ostin, who rarely granted interviews in recent years, chose to break his silence following the death of Prince in 2016. He proceeded to share his recollections with HITS’ Bud Scoppa during a series of extensive conversations. These would turn out to be his final words on the record...