Lady Gaga debuted new ARTPOP tracks during her recent performance at the iTunes Festival, including the rap-heavy number "Jewels and Drugs." Not only did Gaga take a chance spitting bars on the song, but she also brought Too $hort and Twista to rap along with her.

T.I. couldn't make it to the U.K. to deliver his verse on the track, but Twista was primed and ready for the occasion, even admitting to MTV News that he got butterflies before the performance.

"Surprisingly, she listens to my music and she's been a fan for a while, so she reached out and we started chopping it up," Twista said of linking up with Gaga on the track. "Ironically her DJ — DJ Shadow — is from Chicago also, so Shadow broke it down to us about how she wanted me on the record."

"I got on the phone with her, we talked it out and got in the studio and banged it out. It was a jam," he said.

Twist explained that hearing what was laid down on the beat inspired him to go hard. "When I heard it, it was phenomenal," he said. "The beat was crazy. It switched up three times — first for T.I., then it switched up for Too $hort and again on my part so I was driven as soon as I heard it."

Mother Monster's only requirements were that the rappers not stray too far from their own unique styles on the track. "What she wanted us to do was actually be the true essence of ourselves ...

In 2012, Katy Perry closed the book on her Teenage Dream era with the video that literally took her through the looking glass, turning the most successful span of her career into a Lewis Carroll-ian dystopia, complete with a cheating Prince Charming, some forbidden fruit, and, uh, minotaurs.

It was a decidedly dark take of the pitfalls of fame (for her, at least), though the message at the end was clear: Sure, Katy got knocked down a few times, but she always managed to get back on her feet, and now, she was on top of the world. And if that wasn't a happy ending, well, then I don't know what is.

Of course, now it's time for the next chapter: a brand-new album and a much-anticipated video for first single "Roar." And as if the song's self-empowered sentiments (or her pugilistic performance of the track at the VMAs) didn't already serve notice of the fact, well, its video most certainly does: Katy's no longer interested in playing the victim.

Though perhaps that's too serious a reading of "Roar." Because, like all of Katy's best videos, this one's less about conflict or conquest as it is camp. Her main inspiration seems to be Sheena, Queen of the Jungle who thrilled a generation of Post-War boys by swinging through the jungle in a leopard-skin bikini, and it's a perfect fit for Perry (tbh, it's kind of amazing she hasn't played the role already). Katy crash lands in a jungle with her square-jawed beau, who makes her hold ...

Tupac is coming to Broadway.

You heard it correctly — Kenny Leon, the theater director responsible for versions of "A Raisin in the Sun," "Gem of the Ocean," "The Mountaintop" and "Stick Fly," is preparing his first musical, dubbed "Holler If Ya Hear Me."

Although the musical won't be biographical, the director tells the Wall Street Journal that it's an anti-violence, "unconditional love story" featuring Shakur's music. It's based on the book by Todd Kreidler.

"When you look at the lyrics of his music, he was always talking about universal things like honor, betrayal, family," Leon told WSJ about the rapper, who was fatally shot in 1996 at 25 years old. "[Tupac] was just trying to talk about life and say something about the country and being an American and raising a family here."

First news of the musical broke in June, but since then, Leon says he has gained a full cast of 24 actors. Leon says the musical has already been workshopped three times.

"We had to have a group of actors that could sing, that could rap, that could dance — that could do hip-hop dance as well as straightforward Broadway musical dance. We had to have a good mix of 24 people who could do it all, but above all we needed actors who could tell the story," he said.

Leon has gotten permission from the late rapper's mother, Afeni Shakur, who is producing the musical with Eric Gold, to use the music. Earlier this year, she announced she would be releasing his full body of work, saying, ...

Ariana Grande promised that her video for "Baby I" would "make you smile." And a new 28-second tease from the forthcoming clip is sure to have Arianators grinning from ear to ear.

In the sunny tease, Grande dances in the street, wearing short shorts and a belly-baring top. The video then cuts to Grande doing a Running Man-type dance with her backup dancers.

"Baby I" is the next single off the singer's debut album, Yours Truly, which she released this week. The video's release date hasn't been confirmed, but it comes on the heels of the success of her breakthrough lead single, Grande also released her duet with the Wanted's Nathan Sykes, featured on her album and "The Mortal Instruments: The City of Bones" soundtrack.

In a video message she posted on Thursday, the "Sam & Cat" star thanked her fans for all their support. "I want to thank my fans who have been following me on my YouTube channel since the longest time," she told her fans in the clip, where she was joined by Jones Crow, who worked with her on the album artwork and shot her video for "The Way."

"I feel like some of the most important years of my life have been captured in this album and some of my most important experiences like relationship-wise," Grande told MTV News last month before taking the stage at the 2013 VMA pre-show. "So many things I've learned I'll remember when I listen back to these songs. It's just such a special thing ...

Earlier this year, Paris Hilton inked a deal with Cash Money Records, much to the amazement of everyone not named Birdman and Lil Wayne, who praised the heiress/musician's hustle ... and, more importantly, her music.

"She got a record we're about to come out with and she's very talented. You know she's already somethin' special as an entrepreneur and everything that she do," Birdman told MTV News. "But on the music side, I'm super excited. We all — me, Wayne, everybody — we listened to her music and she got some hits."

And now, after wrapping a month-long DJ residency at Ibiza hotspot Amnesia, Hilton is getting ready to show us her hits ... as she took to Twitter to announce the release date for her first Cash Money single: "Good Time," which features Weezy and is due on October 1.

And, as Hilton explained to MTV News, though it's been a while — more than seven years, to be exact — since she released an album, she's more than ready to prove the naysayers wrong ... not to mention make her Cash Money family proud. And "Good Time" is the just the beginning.

"Music has always been a big passion of mine, but I've just been so busy with everything else. But I've recorded some incredible songs, EDM-influenced, electro-pop, and working with very talented producers," Hilton said. "The first single is called 'Good Time,' I recorded that with Lil Wayne. I'm so excited to be signed with Cash Money ... Working with Birdman and Slim, they're amazing guys, and ...

Watch out John Mayer: if you and Katy Perry were to get marooned on desert island — your life promptly taken by a ravenous tiger — Perry would probably just trade you in for a monkey. At least, that is, if life were anything like Perry's new video for "Roar," off of her upcoming album Prism.

As we wait for Perry's official "Roar" video to drop Thursday (September 5), the singer and her team have been releasing a ton of behind-the-scenes videos of the shoot. In one, Perry explains her budding relationship in the vid with Ripley the monkey.

"We are just kind of becoming friends," she said. "I've met him along the way on my journey, because unfortunately I was in a bit of a plane crash and my boyfriend got eaten by the tiger who I'll have to face off with at the very end of the music video."

After suffering this "Lost"-like turn of events, Perry finds herself with only a hairbrush and her phone, which naturally she uses to take a selfie with Ripley — despite low battery power. "I do want to get this selfie of me and the monkey, because I've never had a monkey on me," she said. The hairbrush, likely, came in handy when fixing her hair with tropical flowers for what we can only assume is an attempt a camouflage.

Judging from the behind-the-scenes video, we can expect a lot of jungle antics when Perry's video drops, including some very Tarzan and Jane outfits. The better to the fool the tiger with, ...