Welcome to Billboard Pro’s Trending Up newsletter, where we take a closer look at the songs, artists, curiosities and trends that have caught the music industry’s attention. Some have come out of nowhere, others have taken months to catch on, and all of them could become ubiquitous in the blink of a TikTok clip.

This week: Afroman turns a headline-capturing legal victory into newfound streaming popularity, while Nothing But Thieves gets a huge look from an Amazon Prime superhero show and 3OH!3 benefits from an animated dance challenge.

Afroman Turns Legal Victory into Streaming Triumphs, Led by “Lemon Pound Cake”

“Because I Got High” rapper Afroman found himself back in the zeitgeist after winning a jury verdict last week (Mar. 18). The jurors sided with the Cali rapper in a lawsuit filed by seven Ohio cops, who claimed the MC defamed them by releasing music videos mocking them after a failed, guns-drawn raid on his home in 2022. Naturally, the quirky lawsuit caught the public’s attention, as did Afroman’s testimony that the music videos fell with his First Amendment rights — a hot-button topic across the States right now. As a result, the rapper’s catalog exploded over 500% in streaming activity in the week following the jury’s decision, according to Luminate.

During the week of his the four-day period leading up to his trial (Mar. 13-16), Afroman’s discography earned 1.12 million official on-demand U.S. streams and just over 100 U.S. digital downloads. In the four-day period following the verdict (Mar. 20-23), those figures jumped 511% to 6.8 million official streams, and 2,113% to over 2,500 paid digital downloads. The buzziest track is “Lemon Pound Cake,” in which Afroman jeers at one deputy for apparently eyeing a cake on his counter. That song jumped 9,353% to 2.12 million official on-demand U.S. streams following the verdict (Mar. 20-23), and leapt a whopping 126,300% to over 1,200 U.S. digital downloads.

The streaming love isn’t exclusive to Afroman’s raid-related joints. His signature hit, the Grammy-nominated “High,” earned over 600,000 official on-demand U.S. streams on the Friday following the verdict (Mar. 20), up 133%.

Lemon Pound Cake, the album that compiles Afroman’s police disses, has already hit No. 8 on Billboard‘s Comedy Albums chart (dated Mar. 28), and bigger gains could very well be in store. — KYLE DENIS

‘Invincible’ Season Premiere Revives Decade-Old Nothing But Thieves Single

English alt-rock band Nothing But Thieves has never totally crossed over on the Billboard charts, but it’s been a fixture on various rock charts for a decade now, since the release of its 2015 self-titled debut album. That set generated multiple hits on the Rock & Alternative Songs chart, and also led to a Billboard Hot 100 hit in 2024 when country superstar Morgan Wallen put his spin on the Nothing But Thieves deep cut “Graveyard Whistling.” But now, it’s one of the less-known singles on the debut that’s getting its moment in the spotlight: “If I Die Tonight.”

The power ballad, which never reached a Billboard airplay, sales or streaming chart during its initial mid-2010s release, got its biggest look yet this month with its inclusion in the latest season of Amazon Prime’s hit animated superhero series Invincible. In the season four premiere, “If I Die Tonight” plays over an opening montage showing the fallout from the previous season’s finale — and plays for over three minutes, giving viewers plenty of opportunity to make it one of the most Shazamed songs in the country the past week.

Plenty of those viewers went on to check out the song on DSPs, as well. After totaling under 17,000 streams during the first four days of the previous tracking week (Mar. 13-16), that number was up to 345,000 for the same period this week (Mar. 20-23) — a gain of 1,942%, according to early data provided by Luminate. It could lead to a big moment for Nothing But Thieves, and to even bigger musical moments on Invincible, now that it’s been confirmed as one of the more valuable shows for synch placements in 2026. – AU

Animation-Inspired Dance Trend Revives 3OH!3’s “Richman”

On Feb. 4, user @/hymnuslop shared an original animation featuring two My Little Pony-inspired characters dancing to Denver electro-pop duo 3OH!3’s “Richman,” setting into motion a streaming resurgence for the 18-year-old deep cut. The clip finds one character lip-syncing in the foreground while the other dances in the background — and the trend has now transferred to real people. 

User @/janabananathings was the human to kick the trend into high gear with her March 2 post, which has since garnered nearly four million views and over 540,000 likes. The accompanying sound, which originates from user @/hymnuslop’s clip, boasts over 52,000 TikTok posts. The official 3OH!3 TikTok account got in on the fun, sharing several clips of the EDM duo performing the song throughout the years. 

The week user @/janabananathings shared her video (Feb. 27-Mar. 5), “Richman” logged 429,000 official on-demand U.S. streams, up 193% from the week prior. The following week (Mar. 6-12), which accounts for a full week of the trend truly taking off, that figure leapt a further 133% to a little over one million official on-demand U.S. streams. Continuing its ascent, “Richman” jumped another 44% to 1.44 million official streams the next week (March 13-19). 

Over the past four weeks, “Richman” has exploded over 1,800% in streaming activity, bringing 3OH!3 back into the center of the pop conversation — with a song that was never even an official single. — K.D.

FKA Twigs is reigniting her legal battle with Shia LaBeouf, claiming the actor is trying to silence her by enforcing a non-disclosure agreement that she says is illegal.

Her new accusations come less than a year after the Grammy-winning singer (Tahliah Barnett) and LaBeouf reached a settlement to resolve her long-running sexual battery lawsuit, in which she accused him of “relentless abuse” while they dated in the late 2010s.

According to a new lawsuit submitted in court Wednesday (March 25), that settlement included an NDA — and in December, LaBeouf filed an arbitration case claiming the singer had violated it by giving press statements that she did not “feel safe” and wanted to “help survivors.”

Represented by prominent litigator Mathew Rosengart, Barnett’s new lawsuit claims that NDA is illegal under California state law and that LaBeouf’s efforts to enforce it are “frivolous” and “preposterous.”

“Shia LaBeouf has tried to control Tahliah Barnett for the better part of a decade,” Rosengart writes in the lawsuit, reviewed on the court’s website by Billboard. “LaBeouf’s campaign of intimidation and abuse of the legal system denigrates not just Ms. Barnett but every other survivor of sexual abuse in this state.”

An attorney for LaBeouf did not immediately return a request for comment.

The new case comes shortly after LaBeouf was arrested twice in New Orleans last month over alleged violent altercations; the star was charged with several misdemeanor counts and released on bond.

Barnett’s lawsuit is premised on the STAND Act, a 2019 California statute passed in the wake of the #MeToo movement that banned the use of non-disclosure agreements to cover up sexual assault, discrimination and sexual harassment cases.

Her lawyers say the deal she signed with LaBeouf last year clearly violates that law, since it not only prohibits her from discussing her own allegations of sexual abuse against LaBeouf, but also from even discussing the issue of abuse in a general sense.

“She files this action to right a wrong, and also on behalf of other women [who] are the victims of sexual and domestic violence who do not have the resources to speak out and defend themselves from predators,” Rosengart writes. “She seeks to ensure that survivors … are not bullied or silenced like she was by agreements that violate California law.”

LaBeouf’s alleged efforts to enforce the contract started after Barnett gave a statement to The Hollywood Reporter in October, in response to being asked if she felt safe after settling with LaBeouf. “No, I wouldn’t say I feel safe,” she said, before adding that she supports abuse victim advocacy groups and wants to “help survivors in any way that I can.”

After giving that “benign and unoffensive statement,” Barnett says, LaBeouf’s lawyers then filed a “secret arbitration” case against her in December, alleging that she had violated the NDA. The arbitration case, filed by prominent celebrity litigator Shawn Holley, allegedly demanded “exorbitant monies” from the singer for the supposed breach.

Barnett then retained Rosengart — a former federal prosecutor known as an aggressive advocate — who argued the case was void under the STAND Act. LaBeouf’s lawyers allegedly responded by arguing that law did not apply because her abuse case against the actor had alleged only battery, not assault.

“LaBeouf’s preposterous argument should offend every citizen of California,” Barnett’s lawyers write in this week’s lawsuit.

Following more back-and-forth between the lawyers — and after LaBeouf’s criminal troubles in Louisiana — the actor allegedly agreed to drop the arbitration case earlier this month. But Barnett and Rosengart say they need a judge to declare the NDA void so that LaBeouf cannot wield it over the singer in the future.

“Ms. Barnett must be freed from the above-referenced unlawful restrictions,” Rosengart writes. “This lawsuit will determine whether a celebrity abuser’s fame and money can override the important rights enacted by the legislature.”