
Beyoncé's unreleased music is stolen from her choreographer's car
Footage, show plans and concert set lists were also taken from the Jeep Wagoneer, which was parked at a food hall at Krog Street Market in Atlanta on Tuesday July 8, two days before Beyoncé's four-day residency at the city's Mercedes-Benz Stadium. Police are investigating the theft of the materials, stored on five USB sticks, and have secured an arrest warrant for a suspect whose identity was withheld in the report.
The developments emerge as Beyoncé, 43, took to the stage on Monday night at Mercedes-Benz Stadium, which can hold around 73,000. Her tour ends at the end of July with two performances in Las Vegas.
And the superstar, who has won 35 Grammy Awards since 2001, stoically continued to impress her fans last night despite the news. In addition to the music, two MacBook laptops, Apple headphones, luxury clothing and accessories, and "sensitive material" belonging to the star were stolen, police say.
The mum of three, born in Houston, Texas, is yet to publicly address the bombshell. It remains unclear what "sensitive material" she lost and no information about the music has been disclosed.
But Atlanta Police Department's news release does state the choreographer, Christopher Grant, and dancer Diandre Blue - both named in the document - told officers they parked their rental car, a 2024 Jeep Wagoneer, by the food hall at around 8.10pm on Tuesday July 8. The pair returned to the car just after 9pm to discover the boot window had been damaged and two suitcases had been taken.
The report identifies a possible suspect vehicle as a 2025 red Hyundai Elantra. Responding officers were able to identify "light prints" at the scene, and security cameras in the parking lot captured the incident, according to the report. Officers canvassed an area where the stolen laptop and headphones were tracked by using the devices' location services, the report stated.
Beyoncé's epic tour hasn't gone without incident already as, last month, she told how she almost fell out of a car, which was propelled into the air at a concert in her home city.
While performing in Houston during her flying car stint, the cables appeared to be uneven and left Beyoncé tilting over the edge until she was brought back down. In videos taken by fans, the singer kept it professional and was cool, calm and collected while the incident was resolved.
The star since addressed the situation with humour on Instagram. She shared a video montage of her show, including her car malfunction, along with the caption: "Sittin' Sidewayz". The tour, which began in late April, has taken Queen Bey to several large stadiums across Europe and the US.
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The Independent
2 hours ago
- The Independent
Someone stole unreleased Beyoncé music from a car in Atlanta. What to know about the investigation
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Scotsman
4 hours ago
- Scotsman
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Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad Fives ways we used to download music before Spotify existed Long before Spotify gave you the world of music at your fingertips, music fans used some 'less-than-legitimate' ways to download music back at the turn of the millennium. | Canva/Getty Images Napster We start with where most of us all began - launched in 1999 by Shawn Fanning, Napster was the original revolutionary. It was a centralized P2P file-sharing service primarily focused on MP3 music files. Its genius was in its simplicity: users could search a central server for songs, and the software would then connect them directly to other users' computers to download the files. At its peak in early 2001, Napster had nearly 80 million registered users. Napster became the poster child for copyright infringement . 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Despite its attempts to implement filtering mechanisms (which users often circumvented), the pressure was immense. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad In June 2002, AudioGalaxy reached an out-of-court settlement with the RIAA. As part of the agreement, it was required to implement a "filter-in" system, meaning only music with explicit consent from rights holders could be shared. This effectively ended its P2P file-sharing operations. It then licensed and rebranded itself as a promotional website for the Rhapsody music subscription service for many years. Kazaa Kazaa was the talk of schoolyards around the world back in the early '00s - part due to the ease of finding music and videos, part due to how much damage it caused to numerous PCs that lacked anti-virus software. | Reddit The second sure-fire way to end up infecting your computer with viruses - launched in 2001 by Dutch company Consumer Empowerment (later sold to Sharman Networks), Kazaa became one of the dominant P2P networks after the fall of Napster. It used the FastTrack protocol (which was also the basis for Skype) and allowed users to share not just music, but also videos, software, and documents. It was notorious for bundling adware and spyware, leading to many users opting for Kazaa Lite . Kazaa faced intense legal pressure globally. In 2001, a Dutch court ordered its owners to prevent copyright violations. In the US, the RIAA and MPAA (Motion Picture Association of America) filed suit, leading to the landmark MGM Studios, Inc. v. Grokster, Ltd. Supreme Court case (though Grokster was the named defendant, Kazaa's FastTrack protocol was central to the broader issue). Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad In Australia, the Australian Record Industry Association (ARIA) also sued, culminating in a 2005 ruling that Sharman Networks had "authorized" illegal file sharing by its users. The RIAA also pursued thousands of individual users for infringement, including the high-profile case against Jammie Thomas-Rasset. Kazaa's legal issues ended with a $100 million settlement paid to the four major music companies. Sharman Networks agreed to convert Kazaa into a legal music download service, but this venture ultimately failed. The original Kazaa file-sharing application effectively shut down around 2006. Like Napster, the brand was later licensed and briefly relaunched as a legitimate music subscription service, but it too failed to gain significant traction and is now defunct as a music service. Soulseek Soulseek was considered a more 'niche' community which mainly focused on rarer releases and bootlegs compared to other clients who focused on the more mainstream and popular. | Wikimedia Commons The music connoisseur's method of downloading; created by Nir Arbel around 2000, Soulseek was distinct from the outset. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad While it was a P2P file-sharing network, it was less about mainstream hits and more about fostering a community of music enthusiasts, particularly for underground, independent, and niche electronic music, rare tracks, and live sets. It emphasized sharing and community, with users often having specific rules for who could download from them. Unlike the other major players, Soulseek has largely avoided direct, high-profile lawsuits that led to its shutdown. 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