Singapore singer wins Best Stage Performance Award in Hong Kong

Home-grown singer Alfred Sim, 35, won the Best Stage Performance Award at last Friday's Hong Kong Asian-Pop Music Festival. Sim, who represented Singapore at the festival, also finished in the final top three alongside Taiwanese singer Yeh Bing Ham and South Korean singer Lydia Lee, said a statement from Cross Ratio Entertainment.

Chance the Rapper got $700,000 to host digital mixtape

In a rare disclosure about a music deal, Chance the Rapper said Apple paid him US$500,000 (S$700,000) to host his digital mixtape, Coloring Book, exclusively on its streaming service for two weeks last year.

The rapper, who has long flaunted his independence from the record label system and his decision to not charge for music, said his burst of financial transparency was because critics were questioning the veracity of his do-it-yourself ethos.

"I feel like if I didn't clear it up, people would keep trying to discredit all the work we did to make Coloring Book what it became," he wrote on Twitter last Friday.