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NEW YORK — American banking giant Citigroup sees Zimbabwe breaking with the past as a poster child of triple-digit inflation and fiscal indiscipline, flagging an economic turnaround that could mark a decisive shift in the country’s long-running cycle of monetary instability and economic crisis.

The assessment places Zimbabwe among a group of emerging markets where improving macroeconomic management is beginning to change the investment narrative, after years in which the country was synonymous with currency collapses, runaway inflation, fiscal deficits and exclusion from international capital markets.

The change is being reinforced by a combination of tighter monetary policy, improved fiscal management, stronger commodity exports and a more stable foreign-exchange market. Zimbabwe’s recent economic performance has been sufficiently strong for the International Monetary Fund to describe the country as having made “much-needed stability” gains, with inflation falling into single digits and growth accelerating.

Citi’s broader 2026 outlook has identified resilience, moderating inflation and improving macroeconomic conditions as important features of the global economy, while stressing that emerging-market opportunities are increasingly differentiated by the quality of individual countries’ fundamentals and policy frameworks.

For Zimbabwe, that distinction is significant.

The country spent more than two decades effectively shut out of international capital markets and most official financing, while successive episodes of monetary instability eroded domestic savings and undermined confidence in the local currency. The IMF says Zimbabwe is now attempting to establish a credible policy track record as part of a broader strategy to resolve its external arrears, restructure its debt and re-engage with international creditors.

The turnaround is being supported by a combination of strong mining activity, an agricultural recovery and favourable commodity prices. The IMF estimates that the economy grew 8.3% in 2025 and expects growth of about 5% this year, while inflation is projected to remain in single digits.

Fiscal policy has also begun to move in a direction that would have been difficult to imagine during Zimbabwe’s worst years of monetary instability. According to the IMF, fiscal performance through March was stronger than expected, supported by robust revenue collection and conservative budget execution, while the authorities met all quantitative targets under the first review of the 2026 Staff-Monitored Program.

The significance of that shift extends beyond headline economic statistics.

For investors, the central question is whether Zimbabwe can convert temporary stabilisation into institutional credibility.

The government is seeking to demonstrate that expenditure can be contained within approved budgets, monetary expansion can be controlled, foreign-exchange markets can function with fewer distortions and fiscal risks from state-owned enterprises and other public entities can be brought under tighter management.

The IMF has explicitly warned that maintaining policy discipline, strengthening public financial management, improving governance and advancing monetary and exchange-rate reforms will be critical if recent gains are to become durable.

That leaves Zimbabwe at an important inflection point.

The country is no longer simply trying to stop an economic crisis. It is attempting to establish the credibility required to attract capital back into an economy that has spent years operating largely outside conventional international financial markets.

A sustained improvement in macroeconomic stability could therefore have implications well beyond inflation. It could lower the risk premium attached to Zimbabwean assets, improve domestic investment conditions, support the development of local capital markets and eventually make the country more investible for international institutions.

But the transformation remains incomplete.

Zimbabwe still carries a substantial external debt burden, remains in arrears to international creditors and faces structural weaknesses ranging from limited domestic financial intermediation to infrastructure constraints and persistent confidence problems around the currency.

The IMF’s latest assessment makes clear that debt resolution and arrears clearance remain central to the country’s re-engagement agenda.

For Citi and other international investors watching emerging markets, however, the important development may be that Zimbabwe’s economic story is beginning to acquire a different vocabulary.

Instead of hyperinflation, the discussion is increasingly about disinflation.

Instead of uncontrolled fiscal expansion, the emphasis is on expenditure discipline.

Instead of persistent foreign-exchange instability, policymakers are talking about rebuilding reserves and creating a more market-based currency regime.

And instead of economic collapse, the debate is increasingly about whether stabilisation can be converted into sustained growth.

That does not mean Zimbabwe has escaped its past. It means the country may finally be demonstrating that its past does not have to determine its economic future.

For a country once defined in global financial circles by monetary disorder, that change in perception could prove almost as important as the economic numbers themselves.

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LOS ANGELES — Dr. Dre has thrown his weight behind artificial intelligence in music, arguing that artists who view the technology as an existential threat may simply be struggling to adapt to a rapidly changing creative landscape.

The legendary producer has emerged as one of hip-hop’s most prominent advocates for experimenting with AI in music production, taking a markedly different position from artists who fear the technology could undermine human creativity, copyright and artistic identity.

According to AllHipHop.com, Dre is not merely commenting from the sidelines. The veteran producer has been actively experimenting with AI and sees the technology as another tool that can expand the creative possibilities available to musicians.

In comments reported by The New York Times, Dre rejected the idea that AI represents an inherent threat to music.

“I don’t see it as a threat. I think the only people that see it as a threat are the people who have trouble creating,” Dre said.

His argument places AI in the same historical continuum as technologies that initially unsettled the music industry but eventually became essential to modern production.

Dre and longtime business partner Jimmy Iovine have compared the current resistance to AI with earlier opposition to drum machines, synthesisers and other technologies that fundamentally altered the way music was produced.

Iovine has also described himself as strongly supportive of AI-assisted music creation, arguing that the technology should be incorporated into production rather than automatically treated as an enemy.

A growing divide in hip-hop

Dre’s position places him on the opposite side of an increasingly contentious debate involving some of the industry’s biggest artists.

SZA, in particular, has been outspoken about the risks posed by AI after discovering that hundreds of her songs had reportedly been used to train AI models without her consent.

The singer has criticised AI-generated music that draws heavily from Black musical traditions while reproducing what she sees as stereotypical interpretations of Black artists and their struggles.

Her concerns reflect a broader anxiety within the music industry: that artificial intelligence could be trained on artists’ work without permission and subsequently generate competing music that imitates their voices, styles or creative identities.

The dispute is therefore no longer simply about whether AI can make music. It is increasingly about who owns the underlying creative material, who controls an artist’s likeness and voice, and who gets paid when artificial intelligence learns from existing music.

Timbaland takes the plunge

Interestingly, Timbaland — one of the producers cited by Iovine as actively experimenting with AI — has gone considerably further than simply using the technology as a production aid.

He has launched Stage Zero, an AI-focused entertainment company, and introduced an AI artist known as TaTa Taktumi.

The move illustrates the radically different approaches emerging within hip-hop. While some artists regard AI as a potential threat to human creativity, others are attempting to become early participants in what they believe could become a new entertainment industry.

T.I. has also shifted his position on the technology. After initially describing AI as dangerous, he reportedly reconsidered his stance following a conversation with Dre.

The music industry’s uneasy embrace

The debate has also forced the major record companies to reconsider their relationship with AI.

Universal Music Group, Warner Music Group and Sony Music initially pursued legal action against AI music companies Suno and Udio over alleged copyright infringement. But the industry’s strategy subsequently began shifting towards licensing and commercial partnerships.

Rather than attempting to stop AI music altogether, the major labels increasingly appear to be seeking ways to control, license and monetise the technology.

That change reflects the growing scale of AI-generated music.

According to data cited by AllHipHop.com, Deezer estimates that approximately 50,000 fully AI-generated tracks are uploaded to streaming platforms every day, while research suggests that most listeners struggle to reliably distinguish AI-generated music from human-created recordings.

That development presents an enormous challenge for streaming services, artists and chart compilers.

If listeners cannot reliably determine whether a song was created by a human or generated substantially by AI, questions inevitably arise over royalties, chart eligibility and the value attached to human creativity.

The battle over the charts

The issue has already reached the music industry’s most visible institutions.

Major record labels have proposed principles requiring songs to contain substantial human involvement to qualify for major music charts. Yet AI-generated artists have continued to make their way onto the charts, demonstrating how quickly the technology is moving beyond experimentation.

For Dre, however, the answer appears to be adaptation rather than resistance.

His position is particularly significant because few figures in hip-hop possess his combination of creative credibility, production expertise and commercial influence. From his work with N.W.A. and his solo career to his production partnerships and Beats empire, Dre has repeatedly demonstrated an ability to recognise technological and cultural shifts before they become mainstream.

The AI debate may therefore represent another defining technological transition for music.

The central question is no longer whether artificial intelligence will enter the studio. It already has.

The battle now is over whether artists will use it as another creative instrument, whether corporations will control its commercial infrastructure, and whether the music industry can establish rules that protect human creators without shutting down technological innovation.

Dre’s message is unmistakable: embrace the technology, learn how to use it and create with it — rather than fear what it might become.

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NASHVILLE, Tennessee — Dolly Parton, the country music icon whose soaring vibrato vocals, poignant songwriting and sparkling costumes defined her rise from a log cabin in the Tennessee mountains to the height of stardom and acclaim, has died. She was 80 years old.

Parton died peacefully Tuesday in Nashville, Tennessee, her publicist said in a statement.

Known for her curvy physique, massive blonde wigs and skin-tight outfits that served her self-deprecating wit, she was among the most beloved personalities in music and beyond — the rare celebrity whose appeal transcended generations, geography and politics.

She wrote hundreds of songs, including classics like “Jolene,” “Coat of Many Colours,” and “I Will Always Love You,” that totalled more than 100 million worldwide sales and more than 1 billion online streams. Parton, who plucked bejewelled banjos, guitar and dulcimers with her long fingernails during performances, was a generous philanthropist and successful businesswoman whose projects included a theme park in the Smoky Mountain foothills near her birthplace.

Her career was forever influenced by her upbringing as one of 12 children born into what she called a “dirt poor” Tennessee family. She started her education nonprofit, Imagination Library, to send free books to children in Tennessee because her father, who quit school to work on the farm, struggled to learn to read.

Parton’s first musical performances were in church, where her grandfather was a preacher. By age 10, she was learning guitar and singing on local television shows. At 13, she appeared on the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville, where Johnny Cash introduced her as “a little girl here from up in East Tennessee.”

With a suitcase of songs, she followed her uncle, Bill Owens, also a songwriter, to Nashville after graduating high school in 1964. Fred Foster, who produced Roy Orbison, Willie Nelson and more, saw her potential and got her songs cut by other artists, as well as recording and releasing Parton singing her own material. By the mid-1970s, Parton was a Nashville queen.

Wagoner, a pencil-thin pompadoured star with flashy rhinestone outfits, was key to her career. She honed her acting skills on his syndicated TV show and he advocated for her to get a record deal at RCA. Their first duet, “The Last Thing On My Mind,” was released in 1967, the same year she started her own publishing company.

While their duets were often big radio hits, Parton’s solo singles didn’t chart as high at first. With Wagoner as a co-producer, she began to adjust her country warble to a more polished, pop-leaning style.

She got her first No. 1 solo single with “Joshua,” and reached the Top 5 with the ballad “Coat of Many Colors,” about how her mother sewed together scraps of clothes to make a coat Parton wore “so proudly” even as her peers mocked her for being poor. The song, with its Biblical references and ode to maternal love, was later made into a children’s book and a TV movie.

In 1973, she had the hit that made her career — “Jolene,” a country music standard with its steady, churning rhythm and Parton’s repeated delivery of the title as she pleads for the woman not to steal her man.

The song topped the country charts, crossing over to pop and later being released internationally, opening up new audiences for Parton. “Jolene” is one of her most covered compositions, including by Miley Cyrus (Parton’s goddaughter), Olivia Newton-John and The White Stripes.

She left Wagoner’s show in 1974, amid reports of squabbling between the two, although they continued to record together and Wagoner stayed her producer for years after that. But the relationship turned litigious when Wagoner sued her in 1979 for millions in management fees and royalties.

She followed “Jolene” with a huge hit in 1974, “I Will Always Love You,” an ode and farewell to Wagoner that helped her win the Country Music Association’s female vocalist of the year back-to-back in 1975 and 1976. She famously turned down Elvis Presley, who wanted to record it, because she would not share publishing rights.

Decades later, Whitney Houston’s version of “I Will Always Love You” became a smash for the soundtrack of her 1992 film “The Bodyguard,” and broke sales records. Houston won a Grammy for her performance in 1994, presented to her by Parton.

“Here You Come Again,” a pop crossover hit and one of the few she didn’t write, further established Parton as a multi-genre entertainer and brought her first Grammy Award in 1979.

“A lot of people thought I had totally lost my mind,” she told The Associated Press in 1979 of changing her singing style. “But I had no fear of change. I expected success, but I was braced for failure. I didn’t care if people thought I was wrong. In my own heart, I knew I was doing the right thing.”

Parton’s other crossover hits included the title song from “9 to 5,” the 1980 comedy starring Parton, Jane Fonda and Lily Tomlin; and her duet with longtime friend Kenny Rogers, “Islands in the Stream,” written by brothers Barry, Maurice and Robin Gibb of the Bee Gees. In 1987, she collaborated with Linda Ronstadt and Emmylou Harris on the million-selling “Trio” album.

For millions of fans, she was simply “Dolly,” a mixture of Southern charm, humor and glamour. But she was also considered a feminist role model for holding the reins of her own career, writing her own songs, owning her content and looking after her finances in an entertainment world dominated by men.

Parton was open to making fun of herself; when she hosted “Saturday Night Live” in 1989 she told the writers that her only restrictions were she wouldn’t curse and she wouldn’t make fun of Jesus. She regularly joked about her breasts or her dumb blonde appearance, but with a wink that she was the one controlling the laughs. In the memoir “My Life So Far,” Fonda remembered Parton’s way with a wisecrack, “usually high raunch,” and a laugh that was “somewhere between a girl’s giggle, an explosive shriek, and a cascade of little bells.”

After her gown split down the front when she won CMA’s entertainer of the year in 1978, Parton quipped: “My Daddy said that’s what I got for putting 50 pounds of mud in a five-pound bag.”

Throughout her career, she embraced her glamorous style, often wearing custom curve-hugging rhinestone dresses and bodysuits even if they drew tsk-tsks from others in the industry. Her look was always a part of her larger musical business plan.

“I knew my songs were good even if I had been ugly as sin,” she told the AP in 2014. “So I thought, ‘Well, I would have probably chose to look this way even if I had been a waitress.’ I mean, this is my look. I mean, I like a lot of makeup. I like a lot of hair. I like flashy clothes. I like to show it off. But that’s just who I am.”

She married Carl Dean, an asphalt paving contractor, in the mid-1960s; they were together until his death in 2025 at the age of 82. Though rarely seen in public, he was an influence on her career. She told NPR that she wrote “Jolene” about a flirty bank teller who seemed to take an interest in Dean.

In her first major film role, Parton played alongside Fonda and Tomlin as office workers who rebel against their tyrannical boss in “9 to 5.” Critic Roger Ebert called her a “natural-born movie star” and the title song earned her two Grammy Awards and a ranking of 78 on the American Film Institute’s list of top 100 movie songs. Starring roles in “The Best Little Whorehouse In Texas” and “Steel Magnolias” followed.

“I never thought of myself as a movie star,” she told AP’s Bob Thomas in 1979. “I knew I’d be a star, but as a singer or as a writer of songs or books or poetry. I wanted to be a famous performer and wear flashy clothes, but singing in movies was not one of my ambitions. My family lived in the mountains and we didn’t see movies.”

Her love affair with TV and film continued for decades, with appearances alongside Cyrus on “Hannah Montana” and adaptations of her music for Christmas specials, films and streaming series. She also became an author, her books ranging from the memoir “Dolly” to a bestselling novel co-authored by James Patterson, “Run, Rose, Run.”

The stage adaptation “9 to 5: The Musical” debuted in 2009, and “DOLLY: A True Original Musical” had been set to open in December 2026.

Beyond her music, Parton’s most lasting legacy might be her generosity and broad appeal.

When a deadly wildfire swept through the Smokies in 2016, she held an all-star telethon and set up a foundation that sent monthly checks to residents whose homes were damaged or destroyed.

She opened up her Dollywood theme park in East Tennessee, a major economic driver in Appalachia that draws tourists from around the country, and established the Dollywood Foundation. She wrote books and memoirs, was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame and was given a lifetime achievement award by the Recording Academy. She was selected for the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in 2025.

With 55 Grammy nominations and 10 wins, Parton is the third-most nominated woman in Grammy history, only behind Beyoncé and Taylor Swift.

Parton spanned social and political divides, through multiple generations of fans, urban and rural and in between. In tumultuous election years, it wasn’t uncommon to see “Dolly for President” shirts. But she was strict in not voicing her own political beliefs, often turning aside questions about presidents, candidates, policies and other controversies.

“I don’t do politics,” Parton told host Jad Abumrad on his hit podcast “Dolly Parton’s America.”

“I have too many fans on both sides of the fence. Of course, I have my opinion about everything, but I learned years ago to keep your mouth shut about things.”

When the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Foundation sent out a ballot in 2022 with her name on it, though she said she felt she hadn’t earned it, the voters answered with a “Hello, Dolly.” Parton showed up to the induction ceremony, performed and then put out a rock album. – AP

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50 Cent is celebrating a major commercial win after his G-Unit G6 Reebok sneakers reportedly sold out within just two hours — and he wasted little time using the moment to take another swipe at longtime rival Rick Ross.

The rapper and entrepreneur’s latest sneaker release arrived on Thursday, reviving one of the most recognisable footwear collaborations of his career. The retro G6, inspired by the original 2003 design, reportedly moved all available stock through Reebok, JD Sports and Finish Line within 120 minutes.

The reported sellout was particularly satisfying for 50 Cent because it came after Rick Ross publicly questioned whether anyone would actually buy the sneakers.

Following the rapid sellout, 50 Cent took to social media to remind his rival of his earlier prediction, posting a taunt aimed directly at Ross.

The exchange added another chapter to one of hip-hop’s longest-running rivalries, with 50 once again turning a business achievement into ammunition for their ongoing feud.

The latest G6 release is a recreation of the original white, red and blue colourway associated with the sneaker’s 2003 launch. Priced at around $130, the shoe taps into the nostalgia surrounding the early years of 50 Cent’s career and his hugely successful partnership with Reebok.

The original G6 arrived around the same period as 50 Cent’s landmark debut album, Get Rich or Die Tryin’, and became closely associated with the rapper’s cultural dominance during the early 2000s.

The collaboration was reportedly a huge commercial success, with millions of pairs sold and tens of millions of dollars generated for 50 Cent.

More than two decades later, the rapid sellout suggests that the G6 still carries considerable nostalgic and commercial appeal.

50 Cent also credited the strong response from New York, suggesting that the city’s support played an important role in the release’s success.

For the rapper, however, the sneaker launch was about more than simply selling shoes. It provided another opportunity to demonstrate his ability to turn his celebrity, catalogue and cultural influence into commercially successful ventures.

And, naturally, it gave him another opportunity to troll Rick Ross.

The latest confrontation is only the newest instalment in their long-running war of words. The two have repeatedly exchanged insults over music, business and their respective careers, with neither showing much interest in calling a truce.

50 Cent has also recently taken aim at Ross over the performance of his album Set In Stone, which reportedly opened at No. 39 on the Billboard 200 with about 19,000 equivalent album units in its first week.

The sneaker victory therefore arrived at an opportune moment for 50, giving him fresh evidence — at least commercially — with which to needle his rival.

For now, the G6 has delivered its answer at the checkout: the sneakers sold out, and 50 Cent was more than happy to make sure Rick Ross heard about it.

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Zimbabwe has begun preparing for a potentially severe drought by urging livestock farmers to keep enough feed to sustain their animals for at least two years, as weather forecasts point to a heightened risk of El Niño during the 2026/27 farming season. The warning was delivered by Dr Dumisani Kutywayo, Chief Director of the Directorate […]

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