Watch Latin American Music Awards Even before the release of Beyoncé’s Billboard 200-topping album Cowboy Carter, Ryan Beatty was having a banner 2024. His name is in the liner notes to Bleachers’ self-titled fourth album as a co-writer, and he’ll open for Noah Kahan this summer and Maggie Rogers in the fall — all in support of his own acclaimed 2023 third album, Calico, which earned praise from Elton John, who hosted Beatty on his Apple Music Radio show Rocket Hour last year, saying his songwriting is “beautiful, intense and meaningful.” But his contributions to Cowboy Carter have been quietly in the works throughout his wins, extending across the past four years. Beatty, a California native and teen pop prodigy turned tender singer-songwriter, is credited with co-writing four songs on the blockbuster, including standouts “Bodyguard” and “II Hands II Heaven.” A closely guarded secret he has kept since 2020 (Beatty, 28, says he “worked on this pretty much from beginning to end”), his collaboration proved to be an inspirational boost. “It gave me this silent confidence for years,” he says. “I think when you’re patient through the process, you almost feel ready for all the things that happen.” Below, he explains how he scored such major co-writes and what’s up next for his solo career. Ryan Beatty Ashlan Grey Even though Calico came out a year ago, do the past couple months feel like a milestone for you? I think when you’re patient through the process, you feel ready for all the things that happen. I don’t mean to sound jaded, because it’s unreal all of the things that I’ve done and am getting to do. When I put my record out, I knew what I made and I knew how special it was to me. I’d hoped that it’d feel just as special to the people listening to it. I also know what I was willing to do and not willing to do. And I’m very adamant about staying authentic in every single decision I make when it comes to my music. And I think because I’ve been so protective of it, it’s been such a nice slow burn that the discovery of the record has been happening so naturally and effortlessly.  I didn’t realize how much this record affected people until I started touring it. Seeing people really show up and really be there with me was really special. It’s nice to know that staying true to yourself pays off, because it’s so easy for you to bite the apple and try things that don’t feel right for you and you think, “Oh, this worked for somebody else so maybe it will work for me.” But I think every artist has that feeling in their gut when they know something is right for them or not, you just have to listen closely. You were working on Cowboy Carter and Calico simultaneously. What was it like deciding which ideas and lyrics should be for which albums? There was never a moment where I thought, “Should this go here or there?” Anytime I went in to work on music, it was very intentional to focus on where things existed. At the end of the day, my writing is going to be my writing. But it never blended too much; it was always “I’m making this song for Calico,” or “I’m making this song for Cowboy Carter.” I felt really propelled in my artistry and could feel myself growing as an artist, so working on something of such magnitude at that time also helped hone in on my album. I always call Calico a small record because it’s so close to the chest, and it’s really interesting being in both those worlds. Knowing that [Cowboy Carter] will be heard by every person on Earth, whereas on my record I’m whispering into the mic, I kind of enjoyed that. How did you keep Cowboy Carter a secret for so long? It was hard, but I also sort of enjoyed it. There were people in my life who didn’t know until the day it came out. I got phone calls and texts all day, like, “What are you talking about?” The entire time I wanted to honor what was being made, and I really believe in letting the work speak for itself. Not having expectations is the best move. Your work is usually autobiographical. How does that affect your writing for other artists? I put my own perspective into these songs. Even on a song like “Just for Fun,” [Beyoncé] sings about Clovis, which is the town I grew up in [in California]. So if you really look into the details of it, you can hear my perspective in there, I think. [embedded content] How easy was it deciding whether or not to reflect your own queerness in your work? It was instant for me. What excites me about making music is talking about my own life. So it wasn’t about should I or shouldn’t I. It was like, this is what excites me, let me be very forward about it. What did you learn from working with Beyoncé and her team? She makes things with so much intention, and I’ve always tried to do the same thing. Just seeing the work that goes into it definitely reminded me, “Oh, this is how you make greatness.” That was incredible to be around, and I felt highly respected through the entire process. What can you share about “BODYGUARD,” which seems to be a fan favorite? The line “Sometimes I hold you closer just to know you’re real” is one of my favorite lines I wrote for the whole record. Melody and lyric together can make something feel so much more beautiful. I think that melody, the way she sings it, and the line itself feels cute and intimate. I love that part of the song. What can you reveal about collaborating on the Bleachers album? You are credited as a co-writer on “Call Me After Midnight.” For that record, it’s one we started working on in 2017. It’s a song I wrote a long time ago. Jack [Antonoff, Bleachers frontman] was working on Kevin Abstract’s record, and I think they pulled that one up to revisit and Jack loved it and asked us if he could rework it and we were like, “Yeah, go for it.” To my surprise, it was on the latest Bleachers record and I’m really happy it went on there. It’s such a fun, beautiful record and I’ve been a fan of Jack’s for a really long time since way before I knew him, so that was a full circle moment at the same time, too.  [embedded content] It was just announced that you’ll be opening up for Maggie Rogers on her upcoming tour. Do you ever spitball ideas with her?  Maggie is one of the smartest people I’ve ever met. She’s just fun to talk to and she wears her heart on her sleeve. I think that I do the same, so I enjoy our conversations.  Are your recent experiences influencing how you’ll write your next album? Probably, but I wouldn’t know yet. I’d say, I’m grateful to know that the best way for me to write a record is for me to just live life. That sounds really simple, but I try not to go in “record-making mode” and to be honest, I don’t even know what that means. Calico was made over a time where I was like, “Okay, ‘I’m ready to write” and then I’d stop for six weeks. Then I’d go back and work on it a little more. I just want to live a beautiful life, make beautiful things and what comes of it, comes from it. That sounds really simple, but I think if you grip it too hard it ends up being over thought. There has to be ease and intention at the same time. This story will appear in the April 27, 2024, issue of Billboard.

Over the past week, the feud between Kendrick Lamar and Drake has entered into a new, more modern realm than any rap beef before it: AI. As the back and forth has escalated, and fans wait to see what each of the hip-hop heavyweights will say next, a number of fan-fabricated diss tracks began circulating on social media using AI voices to mimic the emcees. And while some were obviously not real — and, thankfully, were voluntarily labeled AI by their authors — others were more convincing, leading to widespread confusion. People questioned if Drake’s “Push Ups” was real (it was), and if Lamar’s supposed reply, “1 Shot 1 Kill” was real, too (it wasn’t). YouTube is rife with more AI replications, and some are amassing big audiences, including one called “To Kill A Butterfly,” which has amassed 508,000 views to date. To make matters even more convoluted, Drake himself took part in the trend, employing AI to replicate the voices of West Coast legends Tupac Shakur and Snoop Dogg on his diss “Taylor Made,” released on X and Instagram on Friday without their permission, prompting Shakur’s estate to send Drake a cease-and-desist letter. The phenomenon has illustrated the sizable impact that AI has already had on modern fandom, as impatient fans use generative AI tools to fill in gaps in the conversation and imagine further storylines with a type of uncanny accuracy that was never before possible. And for better or for worse, it has become the most prominent use-case of generative AI in the music industry to date. Trending on Billboard This trend in AI use has its origins with Ghostwriter, the controversial TikTok user who deepfaked Drake and The Weeknd’s voices on his song “Heart On My Sleeve” one year ago, in April 2023. In a cover story for Billboard, Ghostwriter and his manager first compared AI voice filters to a form of “fan fiction — a fan-generated genre of music,” as the manager put it. Traditional, written fan fiction has been a way for fans to engage with their favorite media for decades — whether that’s franchises like Star Wars, Marvel or Twilight, or the music of stars like Drake and Lamar. In it, fans can expand on details that were never fully fleshed out in the original work and write their own storylines and endings. AI fan creations inspired by Drake and Lamar’s beef are doing something similar, letting music fans imagine the artist’s next move and picture collaborations that haven’t happened yet. Historically, fan fiction is great for the original artist from a marketing point of view. It is one of many forms of user-generated content (UGC) on the internet today that can engage superfans further with the original project without its author having to lift a finger. But with traditional fan fiction, fans could easily tell where the official canon started and ended, and the writing was often relegated to superfan hot spots like Watt Pad, Discord, Reddit or fan zines. This new form of ‘AI fan fiction’ makes this distinction a lot less obvious and spreads it much wider. For now, trained ears can still tell when AI voices are used like this today, given the slight glitchiness still found in the audio quality, but soon these models will be so good that discerning AI from reality will be virtually impossible. There is still not a good way to confidently figure out which songs use AI and which do not, and to make matters worse, these fan-made songs are more commonly posted to general social media platforms than written fan-fiction. In a search about this rap beef on X or YouTube, listeners are likely to run into a few AI fan tracks along the way, and many lack the expertise of a superfan to sniff out and differentiate what’s real and what’s fake. In a time when fans demand nonstop connection to and content from their favorite talents, it is especially common for fans of elusive artists to take matters into their own hands with AI tools — including voices as well as other generative works like images, videos and text. In the absence of a Kendrick response to Drake last week, for example, “1 Shot 1 Kill” was produced by a 23-year-old fan who goes by Sy The Rapper. In an interview with Complex, Sy said he used the tool Voicify to imagine Lamar on the track. (Notably, the RIAA recently reported Voicify to the U.S. government’s piracy watch list). Followers of famously elusive artist Frank Ocean also had fun with generative AI in the last year, with one fan, @tannerchauct, showing others on X how to create their own alternative forms of Ocean’s album artwork using DALLE-2, an image generator. A Cardi B fan, @iYagamiLight, even dreamed up the creative direction for an entirely fictional Cardi B project with AI, earning them thousands of retweets in October. The user’s cover art rendered Cardi B in a bedazzled corset and posing in a clawfoot bathtub, peacock feathers fanning out around her. They also created a fake tracklist and release date. The downside of fan-made works has always been the same: they have the tendency to infringe on the artist’s copyrights, to use an artist’s name, image, voice or likeness without permission, or to generally profit from the artist’s work without sharing the spoils. This new age of AI fan fiction and UGC makes all of these pre-existing problems exponentially harder to police. The Cardi B fan, for example, did not disclose that their work was AI-generated or fictional, and instead paired their creative direction with the misleading caption “Cardi B just announced her long awaited sophomore album “Mayura” coming out Friday 12th January 2024!” In a recent music law conference at Vanderbilt University, Colin Rushing, general counsel of the Digital Media Association (DiMA) downplayed the commercial impact of AI in music so far, saying that, since Ghostwriter, “one of the things we really haven’t seen in the [last] year is an epidemic of ‘fake-Drakes’ climbing the charts. We’re not seeing popular examples of this in the commercial marketplace.” Rushing is right — that hasn’t happened yet. Even Drake’s own AI-assisted song is not on streaming services, and thus is not eligible for the charts. (and if the lawyer for Tupac’s estate has his way, it will soon be removed from the internet entirely.) But this rap feud has revealed that while it hasn’t impacted the charts or the “commercial marketplace” all that much, it has impacted something possibly even more important to an artist today: fandoms.

Watch Latin American Music Awards After five years of success as an artist at EMPIRE, Babyface Ray looks to take the next step and evolve into an executive. Today (April 26), Ray announces the partnership between his label, Wavy Gang, and EMPIRE, allowing him to sign and develop talent. Explore Explore See latest videos, charts and news See latest videos, charts and news Ray’s first two signings are Samuel Shabazz and Rally. “I appreciate the partnership with EMPIRE. We have been partners for the last couple of years, and I’m excited for the next chapter with them and my label Wavy Gang Entertainment,” Ray tells Billboard. “I appreciate the team over there. Ghazi, Nima, Tina, Ari and everyone who has had an impact on my career. It’s time to embark on this chapter.”  Ghazi Shami, CEO and founder of EMPIRE expressed excitement about teaming up again with Ray and watching him leap forward to become an industry executive. “Me and Ray locked in seven years ago. I watched him build his career brick by brick. I’m honored to further our partnership together. His trajectory is limitless. Wavy Gang for life,” he says. Not only is Ray celebrating the newly minted partnership with EMPIRE, but he’s also savoring his newest accolade: a certified RIAA-gold plaque for his song “Ron Artest,” which features 42 Dugg—his first. With momentum on his side, Ray looks to ramp up the intensity with his weekly installment of “Face Fridays.” His newest song, “Glory,” is befitting, highlighting the wins in Ray’s life and his gratitude. “You startin’ your discipline, you’re having your business, you’re stackin’ your chips / I’m writing my goals down, I’m knockin’ them all down, I’m scratchin’ the list,” he raps on the BrentRambo and LulRose produced song.  Check out the “Glory” video below.  [embedded content]

This week, Billboard is publishing a series of lists and articles celebrating the music of 20 years ago. Our 2004 Week wraps here with rap trio Trillville, whose signature 2004 hit “Some Cut” has proved one of the most memorable hip-hop hits of 20 years ago, an incredibly enduring reference point across genres in the years since. In an era when buzzy singles can spend just one week in the top 10 of the Billboard Hot 100 before completely falling off the chart, the lifespan of a single feels especially arbitrary. Songs can stay perched at No. 1 for weeks or be the talk of the town and a distant memory within a three-day period.  Songs like Trillville’s “Some Cut,” however, have proven to boast a gloriously endless shelf life. Twenty years removed from its initial single run, “Some Cut” remains the foundation of not just some of the biggest hits and dance trends of the first half of the 2020s, but also eternal inspiration for the squeaking production motif that has enamored countless styles and genres, from R&B and reggaeton to K-pop and Jersey club. Trending on Billboard “This is the sound,” stresses Jamal “Dirty Mouth” Glaze. “It’s an authentic sound. You can’t deny that sound because that’s the golden era of [Southern hip-hop and crunk], from the ‘90s to the early 2000s.”  In 2004, “Some Cut” climbed to a peak of No. 14 on the Hot 100, earning the crunk trio the biggest chart hit of their career and one of the biggest club hits of the early ’00s. According to Luminate, “Some Cut” has earned over 157.3 million official on-demand U.S. streams to date and sold nearly 500,000 pure copies. Blessed by Lil Jon’s Midas touch, the unabashedly carnal track meticulously balances a gentle piano riff, sultry bass and guitar — and, of course, that iconic squeak loop. With the late Cutty Cartel kicking off the affair by rapping and singing perhaps the greatest series of questions in contemporary music — “What it is ho, what’s up? / Can a n—a get in them guts?” — “Some Cut” is nasty and proud. It’s the effortlessly suave delivery of each Trillville member, alongside Cutty, that allows the track to playfully toe the line between raunch and forbidden fantasy.  [embedded content] The crown jewel of Trillville and Lil Jon’s collaborations, the genesis of “Some Cut” lies in the scrappy can-do attitude of the group’s Donnell “Don P” Prince. As he tells it, Trillville was toiling away in the club circuit for a few years before “Some Cut,” packing out shows in Atlanta — thanks, in part, to group member Lawrence “LA” Edwards, who was a club promoter at the time. Eventually, one of Don P’s friends gave him the number to the CEO of BME Records, Lil Jon’s record label, and he seized the opportunity.  “I was like, ‘Hey, man, we got something here! People keep telling me that our music dope, that they like it!’” recalls Don P. “It was something about the way I said it, because he was like, ‘Usually, people keep telling me that they’re the dopest and the best.’ So, he called me to the office, we developed a relationship from there, and I started going to the office every single day.”  Don P’s persistence paid off tenfold once Lil Jon eventually attended a big warehouse show the group had been hard at work preparing for. Lil Scrappy, another Lil Jon protege-turned-club hitmaker, was also in attendance that night at the “crazy show,” which jumpstarted the professional relationships between all artists involved.  In 2004, Jon launched BME Recordings with The King of Crunk & BME Recordings Present: Trillville & Lil Scrappy as the fledgling label’s first offering. A split album with each side hosting the respective debut albums of Trillville and Lil Scrappy, the LP debuted and peaked at No. 12 on the Billboard 200, spawning several singles, including the seminal “Some Cut,” and ultimately shifting over 1.25 million album-equivalent units. Rooted in the raw, raucous energy of crunk music, the recording sessions for Trillville & Scrappy mirrored the vibe of the music. “It was just a party atmosphere, drinks everywhere,” Dirty Mouth reminisces. “You had the porn playing on the TV, that’s how we got inspired. We was young, wild and we had fun.”  “With us, it was never just a [regular] studio session,” Don P adds. “The song that you hear is the vibe that was happening.”  Of course, that studio session yielded Lil Jon’s magical “squeak” moment, which resulted in the priceless ingredient that made “Some Cut” such an irresistibly catchy and oft-imitated record. As the story goes, the Trillville crew were in the studio working on songs for their debut LP when the playback of “Some Cut” was queued up in the system. “We kept hearing something,” Don P says. “And I was like ‘What the hell are they talking about?’ Well, every time [Lil Jon] was playing the song back, he was [makes rocking motion] and the chair was squeaking. All at the same time, everybody was like, ‘It’s the chair! It’s the chair!’”  In a moment of ingenuity that can only happen when a studio session is directed by the vibe of its artists, they mic’d the chair up, recorded the squeaks and placed them throughout the record — most prominently in the intro. Though those squeaks came from a chair, they recall the sound of a mattress during sex, hence its prominence as a go-to sample across genres in the decades since.  “We was always an innovative and creative and we worked together because Lil Jon is always innovative and creative as well,” reflects Don P. “You could take any other group and I promise you they wouldn’t do that.”  [embedded content] That likely is the case, but even with its infectious composition, “Some Cut” wasn’t even originally planned to be a single from Trillville & Scrappy. “Neva Eva,” which peaked at No. 77 on the Hot 100, arrived on Nov. 4, 2003, as the first single for Trillville, while “Head Bussa” (with Lil Jon) was the first single for Scrappy. With “No Problem” heating up the streets as the second Scrappy single, the original plan was for the Pastor Troy-assisted “Get Some Crunk in Yo System” to serve as the second single from Trillville.  “[The remix version with Snoop Dogg and Pitbull] of ‘Some Cut’ was supposed to be the first single from our new album, Trillville: Reloaded,” notes Don P. “What happened was, the DJs started playing [the original] ‘Some Cut’ on they own, so I called Naim [Ali], who our A&R at the time, after I saw how people were going up for the record in the clubs, and said, ‘Ay, bro, we need to push this record.”  Just like how they self-advocated to originally connect with Lil Jon, having their ear to the streets resulted in the smartest marketing pivot of Trillville’s career. Trillville, BME and Warner Records didn’t just give “Some Cut” a half-hearted push for a late-album cycle single, they cranked out “a clean [version], super clean [version and], a super duper clean radio version,” jokes Don P. “There was so many versions of that song we did, I still don’t know which one to rap when I perform, to this day!”  Given that the crunk music blueprint involves the songs percolating in the streets and clubs before breaking through on radio, Trillville had already heard “Some Cut” outside – but hearing it on the radio confirmed to them that the song had reach a different level of popularity.  “I was driving and I heard [“Some Cut”] on either 107 or V103, I had to pull over!” laughs Dirty Mouth, “That thang was jamming too! I was like, ‘Damn, it’s on now!’”  And on, it was. In just one week, “Some Cut” had eclipsed “Neva Eva” as Trillville’s highest-charting entry on Billboard’s marquee singles chart, and it wouldn’t even hit its peak until 14 weeks later. For Trillville, the biggest signifier that the song was resonating on a higher level than their previous songs was the increased diversification of their crowds.  “I just noticed the crowd went from a bunch of Black people to a bunch of Black and white people to a bunch of Black, white, and Mexican people,” says Don P, with Dirty Mouth chiming in, “It was more women, though! More women than dudes and the dudes came when the women came.”  Crafting records specifically catered to women is a hip-hop practice that is as storied as it is convoluted in the greater context of the misogyny that is intrinsically tied to the genre. With their previous singles erring more on the gangster side than the smooth-talking Lotharios they posture as on “Some Cut,” Trillville knew they needed something for the women.  “We needed a female record,” explains Dirty Mouth. “We came up in the era of pushing and shoving and throwing bows and sweating — now it’s time to get on with the ladies. Give the ladies something that they can gravitate to. So, that’s what we did.”  So, how exactly does a song this crass – made in a studio with porn playing in the background, no less – find a home amongst the ladies? Well, one answer lies in the late Cutty Cartel’s hook. Caked in a seductive Southern drawl and delivered with a swaggering wink that complements the twinkling keys in the production, Cutty’s hook is arguably the most recognizable part of “Some Cut,” at least as far as vocals go. The smoothness of his performance simultaneously masquerades the raunch of his lyrics, and provides a smart juxtaposition to the gruff delivery of each Trillville member.  “Rest in peace, Cutty,” Don P says of the inimitable artist, who passed on Aug. 30, 2019. “He so smooth with it. He’s a rapper and an R&B singer, so he could come with that melodic sound.” Dirty mouth adds: “He’s the Nate Dogg of the South, I always say!”  In addition to Cutty’s suave hook, the “Some Cut” music video also helped the track carve out an eternal place in the hearts of women across the country. In fact, the Fat Cats-helmed clip – which found the Trillville crew renting a mansion for a single day to host a house party – featured appearances from several women who would go on to be major fixtures in entertainment, including reality television star Porsha Williams and prolific video vixen Summer Walker (not to be confused with the future R&B star of the same name). [embedded content] And, in the spirit of a truly timeless record, “Some Cut” is still a source of inspiration for some of today’s biggest artists across R&B and hip-hop, namely TDE rap star Doechii, three-time Grammy-winner Victoria Monét and, of course, Beyoncé, who paid tribute to Cutty’s chorus backing vocals in the third verse of her remix of Megan Thee Stallion’s “Savage.” Before Monét’s “On My Mama,” which samples another beloved ’00s Southern hip-hop smash (Chalie Boy’s “I Look Good”), she had a major viral moment in 2021 with a dance break set to the “Some Cut” intro. Choreographed by Ysabelle Capitulé, who was still a child when “Some Cut” first hit the streets, the dance break spawned hundreds of thousands of recreations across social media.  Last year, just one year shy of the 20th anniversary of “Some Cut,” Doechii interpolated the track on her own Kodak Black-assisted “What It Is (Block Boy).” Opting to flip Cutty’s hook to a woman’s perspective instead of taking a stab at the infamous “squeak” sound, Doechii rode “What It Is” to the biggest hit of her career, peaking at No. 29 on the Hot 100 and earning her her first RIAA Platinum plaque. At the 2023 BET Awards, Trillville joined Doechii onstage to perform a mashup of both tracks.  “My potna, J. White Did It produced [‘What It Is’],” says Don P. “He hit me up and told me he was doing something, but I just didn’t know what it was. Then Warner Brothers hit us up, [played us the record], and I was like, ‘Oh, my God!’ I loved that song from the very first time I heard it. So, of course, we all cleared it. I had no idea it was going to be that huge, but I kinda did because I loved it so much.”  [embedded content] Although “Some Cut” has remained one of the go-to early ’00s hip-hop cuts for contemporary performers, crunk, the defining sound of Trillvile’s catalog, is notably absent from the current mainstream. With a movie based on the Trillville story due early next year (music video director Todd Uno is currently attached to direct) alongside an accompanying soundtrack, Don P, Dirty Mouth and LA hope to reignite the coals of crunk outside of all the callbacks to “Cut.”  “I wrote the script three years ago, and we just started production this year,” reveals Don P. “It’s been fun to cast other actors that look like us going through the experiences that we went through back then. This movie is going to show the young people what it was and give older people that nostalgic feel.”  And as for the soundtrack? “It’s literally going to sound like an updated version of 2004 crunk,” teases Don P. “We’re trendsetters, it’s been such a pleasure to know that people really appreciated what we brought to the table, and the movie and soundtrack reflect that.” 

Ne-Yo is one of the genre-defining R&B singers of the 2000s, and his invite to NPR’s Tiny Desk concert series was long overdue. The long-time bad-boy R&B singer made his Tiny Desk debut on Friday (April 26), which saw him run through a medley of soulful hits from his catalog, in addition to bops he’s […]