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An attack took place Saturday, Oct. 7, at the psytrance festival Universo Paralello near the Gaza Strip amid fighting between Hamas and Israel. Tetris Kelly:An attack on an electronic music festival in Israel and the country as a whole has left the region in chaos. At least 260 people are dead after a Hamas attack […]
The AI genie is out of the bottle. It’s not going back, so buckle in and get on board.
Artificial intelligence was a hot button topic as music professionals gathered in Singapore last month for the All That Matters conference to learn, meet, greet and get business done.
Music Matters is one of seven streams under the All That Matters banner. Singapore, the dynamic, constantly-evolving city state, once again hosted the event, its music component recognized as the most important of its kind in Asia.
At 18 years of age, ATM is all grown up. This time, almost 2,000 attendees gathered from across the music, sports, gaming, media and entertainment industries, its conclusion the starting point for the Singapore Formula 1 Grand Prix.
Guest speakers at the Sept. 11-13 confab included Jonathan Dworkin, Universal Music Group’s executive VP, digital business development & strategy; Troy Carter, CEO and founder Venice Music; Hazel Savage, VP music intelligence, SoundCloud; Meng Ru Kuok, CEO & co-founder of BandLab; Denis Ladegaillerie, founder & CEO of Believe; Spotify’s Kossy Ng (head of music, Asia) and Joe Hadley (global head of artists and audience partnerships); and Pieter van Rijn, president Downtown Music.
Billboard selected five notable takeaways from this year’s program:
Glocalisation is the way forward
Glocalisation is more than a buzzword. It’s a growing, measurable business as more local language music gains traction on DSPs. Building a business to support that doesn’t happen by accident. “At some point you have a certain ambition,” explained Pieter van Rijn, president Downtown Music, during a day one presentation. “It’s very important for us to be close to our clients,” noted the New York-based Dutchman, whose company has label services staff across the region, including South Korea, Philippines and Japan and elsewhere. Glocalisation is “to think local but act global, the success that we’re seeing there is a trend of local artist having local success and not just English language content driving the charts. You can see that in many countries, it’s another great symptom of how the industry has evolved itself.”
Luminate’s Music 360 research reinforces it, with data showing that 40% of U.S. listeners were found to tune-into music in a non-English language in the second quarter of 2023. At the same time, the share of English-language content is down.
Peter van Rijn photographed on October 19, 2022 at Downtown Music in New York City.
Wesley Mann
Moving forward with AI, and a plan
Believe this year celebrates its 10th anniversary in APAC, a business that started in Indonesia, was built from the ground up, and now represents over 10,000 labels and artist. Some €700 million has been generated in revenue to labels and artists in that decade. Believe is a big believer on Glocalisation, and its future includes the adoption of AI.
“It’s going to come very quickly,” explained Believe CEO Denis Ladegaillerie, during a day-three morning session which also included Sylvain Delange, Believe managing director for APAC. “We expect some products to come into the market very soon, in the next three to six months.” The response needs to be a responsible one. That includes Believe’s own set of principles, drawn up with YouTube, around the four pillars of consent, control, compensation and transparency. A new survey by Believe and TuneCore of 1,558 found that 50% of musicians are willing to make their music available for machine learning while also believing in a responsible approach.
Believe founder and CEO Denis Ladegaillerie
Anis Martin
Streaming fraud is a $500 million problem. At least
For artists, cutting through the noise in the streaming world is a major challenge, and it’s not getting any easier. In the U.S., streams have grown 400% over the last four years, UMG’s Dworkin explained during his keynote presentation, while at the same time, on-platform new music discovery has fallen by 45% (with on-platform music discovery representing just 15% of how fans discover music). If you think that’s bad, streaming fraud takes the cake. Fraud, at the low end of estimations, is a $500 million problem.
“And it could be triple that,” he says. “Security should be a basic matter of hygiene for platforms and for distributors.” Music and artists that connect with consumers should be rewarded in the streaming game. “If a piece of content is riding along on a platform and not connecting with consumers, it will simply be downgraded,” he says, citing Deezer’s novel formulation. “We at Universal are ready for everyone to be held to the same standard. Including us. Let us all compete on the basis of the value created for fans. And not by counting streams as they sleep.“ It’s time to “change the model so the business can be more resilient for the next stage of growth.” He concludes, “there’s a lot more work to do, and the solutions are going to continue to evolve.”
Robbie Williams is coming to entertain you
Thanks to Rocketman and Bohemian Rhapsody, rockumentaries have been a box office boom in recent years. Robbie Williams sings when he’s winning, and he might be singing a lot in the near future with his very own projects.
Before Williams’ headline performance at the F1 Grand Prix, the Brit’s manager Stephen O’Reilly, managing director at ie: ventures and a director of ie: music, sat for a chat about Robbie’s busy schedule.
The former Take That star is the subject of a four-part documentary series, set to air from early November on Netflix. Robbie Williams is a project of Ridley Scott Associates and director Joe Pearlman (Lewis Capaldi: How I’m Feeling Now) and executive produced by Asif Kapadia (Amy). Also, filming is completed on the previously-announced Better Man, which should arrive at cinemas next year.
The context was to “go out of our comfort zones to do things we’ve never done before,” say O’Reilly of Better Man, which has been described as a satirical musical based on the singer’s own life. It’s helmed by Australian filmmaker Michael Gracy whose debut film The Greatest Showman grossed more than $425 million worldwide. New Zealand’s Weta Digital is creating the visual effects for what O’Reilly describes as a “groundbreaking” film, which opens up a new “world of immersive entertainment, with great music and great story.” Robbie’s solo career is now 25 years deep, and has taken him to the very top of the tree in the U.K. (where he has 14 solo No. 1 albums), Europe and Australia. The U.S., however, has stubbornly resisted his cheeky-chappy charms. Will the new projects change that? Wait and see.
Robbie Williams performs at Hits Radio Live 2019 at Manchester Arena on Nov. 17, 2019 in Manchester, England.
Carla Speight/Getty Images for Bauer Media
Russell Simmons talks Hip-Hop, Drugs and Donald Trump
Russell Simmons had the last word at All That Matters, with a free-flowing final session which covered all the topics you’d hoped for, and some you didn’t expect. The Def Jam co-founder regaled with tales on Will Smith, the 50-year history of hip-hop, the epicenter of art that was, and still is, New York City, Run-DMC, drugs and Donald Trump. Simmons and Trump used to hang in the 1990s and they traveled the world together. “I don’t dislike Donald,” he remarked. “We had a lot in common, a lot we didn’t have in common. We laughed about a lot of s—.” Becoming the POTUS, well that’s another thing. “When he became president,” he remarked, “it was obviously not a good thing for America.”
Earlier this year, the Singapore subsidiary of Nodwin acquired a 51% stake in Branded, bringing the confab and showcase event into the Nodwin Gaming family.
BTS star Jung Kook bags the top debut on the U.K. singles chart, and with it, a piece of history.
Jung Kook’s “3D” (via BigHit Entertainment) with Jack Harlow bows at No. 5 on the Official U.K. Singles Chart, published Friday, Oct. 6, behind the weeks-long leader, Doja Cat‘s “Paint The Town Red” (Ministry of Sound).
With that strong start for “3D,” Jung Kook becomes the first Korean solo act to score two top 5 singles in the U.K.; his debut solo single, “Seven,” featuring Latto, debuted at No. 3 earlier this year, setting a chart record.
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Both tracks will appear on the K-pop artist’s first solo album GOLDEN, due out Nov. 3.
As a group, BTS has landed four singles in the U.K. top 10, including three No. 3s — for 2020’s “Dynamite,” “Butter” and Coldplay collaboration “My Universe” (both from 2021). All seven members of the K-pop phenomenon – Jin, Jimin, Suga, Jung Kook, RM, V and J-Hope – have shared solo material, with Jimin setting the bar with a first top 10 for “Like Crazy” (peaking at No. 8) in March; he separately secured a top 40 appearance with “Set Me Free Pt. 2,” hitting No. 30.
J-Hope was the first member of BTS to bag a U.K. top 40 single, thanks to his J. Cole collaboration “On The Street” peaking at No. 37.
Historically, the only other Korean solo artist to have bagged two U.K. top 10 singles is PSY, with 2012’s “Gangnam Style” (No. 1) and 2013’s “Gentleman” (No. 10).
Meanwhile, Doja Cat checks in for a fifth straight week at No. 1 with “Paint The Town Red,” which holds off a feisty challenge from Kenya Grace’s “Strangers” (FFRR), unchanged at No. 2, and Tate McCrae’s “Greedy” (Ministry of Sound), up 5-3 for a new peak position.
South African singer Tyla enjoys her first U.K. top 10 as “Water” (RCA) rises 16-10, while Nigeria-born Afrobeats star Burna Boy is moving on up with “City Boys” (Atlantic), his 13th top 40. “City Boy” improves 17-14.
U.S. singer and songwriter Mitski is close behind and climbing fast with “My Love Mine All Mine” (Dead Oceans), rocketing 34-15 for a new peak.
Finally, Ed Sheeran has his 62nd U.K. top 40 hit with “American Town” (Gingerbread Man), new at No. 27. It’s lifted from his seventh and latest studio album Autumn Variations, the current U.K. No. 1 LP.
Ed Sheeran extends his perfect U.K. albums chart record as Autumn Variations (via Gingerbread Man) debuts at No. 1.
Produced with the National’s Aaron Dessner, Autumn Variations bows at the summit of the Official U.K. Albums Chart, published Friday, Oct. 6, for the Brit’s seventh straight leader.
The leader at the halfway stage, when it dominated its nearest competitor by more than two-combined-sales-to-one, Autumn Variations is Sheeran’s second leader this year. It finishes the U.K. chart week as the best-seller on wax, and follows national No. 1s with his 2011 debut + (plus), 2014’s x (multiply), 2017’s ÷ (divide), 2019’s No. 6 Collaborations Project, 2021’s = (equals) and 2023’s – (subtract).
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Olivia Rodrigo’s sophomore LP Guts (Geffen) holds at No. 2 for a third consecutive week, while Jorja Smith enjoys a podium finish with her second studio album Falling Or Flying (FAMM), new at No. 3. Smith, the 2018 BRITs Critics Choice award winner, has now landed three titles in the U.K. top 10, a tally that includes her 2018 debut Lost & Found (No. 3) and 2021 EP Be Right Back (No. 9).
Also new to the top tier is The Harmony Codex (SW Records), the third solo album from Porcupine Tree‘s Steven Wilson. It’s new at No. 4 on the U.K. chart, matching the peak of his previous effort, 2021’s The Future Bites (2017’s To the Bone reached No. 3).
Meanwhile, U.S. rock act Black Stone Cherry nabs a fourth U.K. top 10 album with Screamin’ at the Sky (Mascot), new at No. 6.
Further down the list, British synth-wave outfit Gunship rides to a new career peak position with Unicorn (Horsie In The Hedge), bowing at No. 26; U.K. Eurovision 2023 rep Mae Muller scores her first U.K. top 40 album with Sorry I’m Late (Capitol), arriving at No. 33, and British soul veteran Beverley Knight nabs an eighth with The Fifth Chapter (Tag8), starting at No. 39.
An artist manager who had several acts scheduled to play the Paralello Universo festival in Re’im, Israel, near the Gaza Strip, and who was there during the attack on the festival, describes a scene of chaos and terror.
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Raz Gaster had multiple artists playing the electronic music festival, where at least 260 people were killed and others were abducted amid an attack by Hamas operatives Saturday (Oct. 7).
Gaster arrived on site at the festival event at approximately 5:30 a.m. on Saturday, with the party — which had started the night prior — meant to go until approximately 5 p.m. Saturday evening. An offshoot of the Paralello Universo festival brand started in Brazil nearly 20 years ago; the Israel event was called Supernova Sukkot Gathering after the Jewish holiday and was hosting several thousand attendees in a rural location near the Gaza Strip, with a lineup focused on the electronic psytrance genre.
Everything changed, though, when rockets and missiles launched from the Gaza Strip by Hamas starting landing on the site an hour later, part of a widespread attack on Israel.
“Around 6:30 in the morning we started hearing explosions,” Gaster says. “We went out of the backstage and we saw a full bombardment everywhere. It was hundreds of rockets and mortars flying from everywhere and explosions all around us.”
Gaster says that at this point, festival security advised everyone to get down on the floor and put their hands above their heads for protection. But after 5-10 minutes, Gaster says, “the policemen shouted in the microphones, ‘Okay, get in your cars and go.’”
“The moment the policemen said ‘go now,’ I ran,” Gaster recalls. “I didn’t wait, because we know it’s a rocket attack. You need to act quick.”
Because his car was parked near the stage very close to where he was standing, Gaster and three other men — including Universo Paralello co-founder Juarez Petrillo — were able to immediately get in Gaster’s car and drive out minutes later, after Gaster made sure the artists he works with were also in vehicles fleeing the site.
Gaster says he was “driving super fast, not stopping for anything, even when missiles are coming down. My instinct told me don’t stop for shelter, just drive… We drove so fast we didn’t even know what was happening.”
By the time Gaster and the others made it to a villa rented by the production team, located approximately 30 kilometers away from the festival, they had started getting texts and phone calls telling them that minutes after they drove away from the site, Hamas fighters had arrived “with machine guns, with RPGs, with grenades, and just slaughtered whoever they could.”
He says that these attackers arrived by motorcycles, quads and trucks approximately 20 minutes after missiles started landing.
Gaster and those he was with turned the villa into a command center, contacting IDF, other Israeli security services and “all of our friends that we know personally that have firearms that have connections that can go there.”
During this time he and the others were receiving messages from friends and colleagues still on site, who reported that the attackers were shooting attendees in their cars as they attempted to drive away. A friend of Gaster’s messaged to say that the driver of her car had been shot and that she and another friend were pretending to be dead to avoid being killed. He says these women ultimately played dead for five hours before being rescued. As of Sunday (Oct. 8), Israeli rescue service Zaka has reported at least 260 bodies at the site.
“People were hiding in ditches, hiding in bushes, hiding in the woods, hiding wherever you can think of,” says Gaster. “We were getting horrible messages from friends saying, ‘Please help us, they are shooting people next to us.’”
Gaster says it took IDF and special forces a few hours to arrive on site, with those who were there attempting to defend themselves in the meantime.
“At the party there was already a police force, like any licensed party,” Gaster says, “and they were the first ones to try to give assistance by fighting… We are Israelites, so most of us have military experience, and a few from the production managed to kill some terrorists with their bare hands and their weapons.”
Gaster says that the owner of the production company behind the festival, Nova Tribe, killed two of the attackers after taking their guns. Gaster says he and the team at the production villa were being sent on-site locations from various attendees and then sending these locations to the owner, who then went to help these attendees.
“It was 24 hours of working to find as many people as we could and get as many signs of life as we could,” says Gaster.
Universo Paralello was not origintally intended to take place at the Re’im site, with organizers moving it to this location only two days before it started, when another site in southern Israel fell through. The new site at Re’im featured a pair of stages, with the Israeli producer Artifex playing the mainstage when the attack started. Gaster was told that the attackers closed the road into the festival from both sides so attendees could not escape.
Other festival attendees have been abducted by Hamas. As a group of between 15-20 people gathered at the production villa, they, says Gaster, “started seeing videos on social media of hostages and people we know that are kidnapped and bodies we could recognize [as] our friends. Many friends are still missing, and we still don’t know where they are.”
He approximates that there are still 600-700 people missing from the party. All but one artist on the festival lineup has left Israel, with Gaster and others putting artists on any available flight into Europe as airlines canceled flights amid the attacks.
While Gaster had just arrived to his home in the north of Israel when Billboard spoke with him at around 1 a.m. local Israeli time (he says the IDF controls most of the area between where he was and where he lives, so he felt safe to drive home), he says that amid the chaos they are all “still trying to find any signs of life.”
“We are a peaceful community, we are a musical community, we do it for the creation of fun,” says Gaster. “We only wanted to dance and have a good time and enjoy music together, and it turned into a nightmare.”
At least 260 people are dead after a Hamas attack at an outdoor electronic music festival in Israel near the Gaza Strip, according to CNN. An unknown number of attendees also seem to have been abducted by Hamas operatives.
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The attack happened on Saturday (Oct. 7) at the Universo Paralello Festival in Re’im, Israel, a rural area located near the border of the Gaza Strip. CNN says the Israeli rescue service Zaka has reported at least 260 bodies at the site.
The rocket attacks began at 6:30 a.m. Saturday morning, with Hamas operatives attacking festivalgoers roughly 30 minutes later. CNN reports that several attendees were taken hostage, with those reports corroborated in a statement by the festival itself. There has been intense fighting throughout Israel since Saturday morning, when Hamas began firing rockets into the country and an invasion followed.
Universo Paralello, which took place Oct. 6-7, is a festival that originated in the Brazilian state of Bahia and is focused on psytrance, a high-BPM form of trance music that has long been one of the most popular forms of electronic music in Israel.
The Israeli version of Paralello Universo, called Supernova Sukkot Gathering after the Jewish holiday, released this statement on Instagram earlier on Sunday (Oct. 8): “The Nova tribe is shocked and pained. We support and participate in the grief of the families of the missing and murdered. We are doing everything we can to assist the security forces, standing by. They are in continuous contact and are located in the field during scans and searches in order to locate the missing.”
The statement says that festival organizers will pass information about missing people to relevant parties, including the IDF.
“We are full of hope and pray that good news will come to us and to you soon,” continues the statement, which was written in Hebrew. “In moments like these, it is important that we be strong and united, full faith, we will support each other and be there for anyone who needs it.” The event has since made its Instagram page private and did not immediately respond to Billboard‘s request for comment.
The lineup featured psytrance producers from countries including Brazil, Spain, Japan and Mexico, with performers Aladin, Artifex, Astral Projection, Flare Jackalon, Jumpstreet, Kido, LIbra, Man With No Name, Noface, Protanica, Rocky Tilbor, Shove, Spectra Sonics, Swarup, Wegha. Billboard reached out for comment from multiple DJs on the lineup but did not immediately receive responses.
Universo Paralello has been happening in Brazil for nearly two decades. The festival was co-founded by Juarez Petrillo, a longstanding producer and promoter and the father of the globally known producer Alok.
Earlier on Sunday, Alok released a statement regarding his father’s presence at the Israeli event. Petrillo was on the lineup performing under his DJ name, Swarup.
“As many of you know, my father was in one of the invaded locations, and concerning his involvement in the event, he is not the organizer,” Alok’s statement reads. “My father was HIRED to perform at an event that licensed the rights to use the festival’s name, as has happened in several other countries before. The Israeli producer licensed the use of the brand and independently organized the event, with my father being one of the attractions.”
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Austin City Limits Music Festival launches its three-night broadcast event tonight (Oct. 6) on Hulu. This year’s festival will take place over two weekends: Oct. 6-8 and Oct. 13-15 at Zilker Park in Austin, Texas.
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Headliners include Kendrick Lamar, Foo Fighters, Odesza, Mumford & Sons, The Lumineers, Shania Twain, Alanis Morissette, The 1975 and Hozier. Hulu’s ACL Fest coverage starts at 2:05 ET, 1:05 p.m. CT on Oct. 6, 7 and 8. Headlining performances take place at night.
If you’re not a Hulu subscriber, click below to launch your free 30-day trial to stream ACL Fest for free. The festival streams at no additional charge to subscribers and you can watch from anywhere (TV, computer, smart phone, etc). Hulu offers live access to stream music festivals such as ACL Fest, Bonnaroo and Lollapalooza.
Opening night of ACL Fest will be headlined by Lamar and The Lumineers, the latter of which will stream on Hulu at 10:30 p.m. ET/9:30 p.m. CT. Lamar’s name is not currently listed on the Hulu streaming schedule, but his name appears on the official ACL Festival Lineup and festival schedule (he’s scheduled to perform at the same time as The Lumineers but on a different stage).
Also included on Friday’s streaming schedule: Lil Yachty, Breland, Major Lazers, Portugal the Man and The Revivalists. Foo Fighters and Shania Twain are scheduled to headline on Saturday (streaming at 9:00 p.m. ET/8 p.m. CT). Moriseette, Tove Lo and Thirty Seconds to Mars will perform on Saturday as well. Sunday’s lineup includes Suki Waterhouse, the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Mumford & Sonos, Labrinth and Hozier. (Click here to learn how to stream ACL Fest internationally.)
Other performers expected to take the stage at ACL Fest 2023 include Noah Kahan, Mt. Joy, Death Grips, M83, Rina Sawayama, Coi Leray, GloRilla, Little Simz, Chromeo, Ivan Cornejo, Becky Hill, Tanya Tucker, Asleep at the Wheel, Morgan Wade, and Jessie Ware.
Catch all the fun live on Hulu here, or, if you want to be there in person, last-minute tickets are available on StubHub, Vivid Seats and other ticketing sites. Pricing ranges from approximately $375 and above, passes for tonight are selling out fast but you can find cheaper tickets for next weekend. Purchase tickets below.
As he watched from a suite while Karol G performed at New Jersey’s MetLife Stadium on Sept. 8, Ovy on the Drums was nostalgic and teary-eyed. Over 70,000 fans were chanting the Colombian reggaetón star’s biggest hits at the top of their lungs — the majority produced by him.
“I cried that day because there were no words,” he recalls, slouched on a couch in his Miami-area home a few days later. “One day, we are working with the hopes of making it big, that our music will go around the world, and life itself makes sure things happen. God himself has given us these blessings, and it’s because we have worked with love, with dedication, without stopping. We are dreamers and unstoppable.”
After accompanying Karol G on most of her shows during her Mañana Será Bonito summer stadium tour, Ovy (real name: Daniel Echavarría Oviedo) is finally back at his three-story corner house in Doral, Fla., where he resides with his personal manager, Alejandro Muñoz, and his aunt Gloria. He’s relaxed, wearing a neon-green Nigeria soccer jersey and black Nike shorts, and his signature spiky, blond dreadlocks are tamed. It’s a typically hot summer Florida day, but inside, the 32-year-old’s aunt is cooking lunch while he catches up on laundry and sips homemade hibiscus tea. “This is amazing for your health. I drink it every day to stay hydrated,” he says, offering a glass.
As Karol’s longtime producer, Ovy is behind her biggest hits, including “Tusa,” with Nicki Minaj; “Provenza”; “TQG,” with Shakira; “Mi Ex Tenía Razón”; and the Peso Pluma-assisted “QLONA” — which all hit No. 1 on Billboard’s Hot Latin Songs chart. But his road to success has not been, as he puts it, “llegué y pegué” (“I came, and I conquered”). In fact, Ovy says he never knew music would be his calling.
Fifteen years ago, Ovy, then 17, was working at a plaza in Medellín carrying bags of chicken and selling disposable party supplies when he realized he had to find a passion if he wanted to succeed in life. His first taste of music production came a few years later, in 2012, when a cousin’s friend offered to install the digital audio workstation FL Studio on his laptop and give Ovy a beat-making crash course.
“From that moment, my life changed. Look, I even have the [company’s] fruity logo tattooed,” he says, flaunting the mango-strawberry ink on his right forearm. “I didn’t know what a melody was, I didn’t know anything [about making music], but when he showed me that program, that was where I, Daniel Echavarría Oviedo, discovered a new planet.”
Devin Christopher
As he practiced each day and sold his first beats for only $5 each, Ovy made headway in the Colombian music scene, working with artists such as Landa Freak, Lorduy and DVX. He also connected with producers Ronald El Killa and La Compañía (the production group of Mr. Pomps, DJ Maff, Migueman and Gotex), whom he credits as the first people to give him an opportunity in the music industry. The latter, which produced Karol G’s 2013 Nicky Jam collaboration, “Amor de Dos,” ultimately connected Ovy with Karol.
“The first day we met, I overheard her talking to her father about needing a DJ for a presentation, and I respectfully offered myself,” he remembers. “At first, she didn’t take me seriously. But about a month later, my friends at La Compañía called me to share the news that Karol wanted me as her DJ.”
After a successful debut performance together at a local university, the duo embarked on a “school tour” across the country while also promoting themselves on local TV and radio. Along the way, Ovy decided to play Karol some of his beats, and they immediately began creating music. The first song they worked on together was “Ricos Besos,” a flirtatious reggaetón track released in summer 2014.
“She was happy because I was the only person who understood what she wanted to express with her sound,” he says. “I remember that we were on a balcony one day when I proposed that we become a team — just like The Rudeboyz with Maluma, Sky Rompiendo with J Balvin — and she told me, ‘Let’s do it!’ ”
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Since then, Ovy — whose style is characterized by minimalist urban-fusion beats backed by edgy keyboards, dramatic violins and hard-hitting drums — has produced a handful of Karol’s bangers, such as “Tusa,” which earned him his first No. 1 as a producer on the Hot Latin Songs chart, and the EDM-fueled “Cairo,” which marked his first Billboard Hot 100 entry.
His work on Karol’s studio albums Unstoppable (2017), Ocean (2019), KG0516 (2021) and the historic Mañana Será Bonito (2023) — the first all-Spanish-language album by a female artist to top the Billboard 200 — ultimately has kept him at No. 1 on the Latin Producers chart for 25 nonconsecutive weeks since February 2020, the third-longest reign atop that chart, following Tainy and MAG. He was less involved on Karol’s latest, Mañana Será Bonito (Bichota Season), released in August, but still produced three of its 10 songs: “S91,” “QLONA” and “Dispo.”
“I’m taking time for myself,” he says as Gloria serves warm picadillo (ground beef), rice, salad and noodle soup. “It hurts me because I want to be making new music with Karol like the old days. But it’s not a bad thing — it’s just that now I want to focus on my project.”
Inspired by the multihyphenate Dr. Dre, Ovy wears many hats: he produces; he composes; he develops artists under his record label, Big Ligas; and at one point, he even had a singing career — though after releasing music with Mike Bahía, TINI and Danny Ocean, he decided to quit because “Ovy on the Drums has respect as a producer, not as a singer.”
At the dining table, where Muñoz and Gloria join him, Ovy says that moving to Miami in 2020 was the best decision of his life, mainly because it allowed him to grow as a producer. “I got to a point where I asked myself, ‘What am I doing in Medellín?’ I felt like there was nothing more to do. Other than enjoying my country, my family and relaxing, I wasn’t being productive,” he explains. “Once I moved to Miami, I started creating and creating more, and establishing more relationships.”
Ovy on the Drums photographed on September 12, 2023 in Miami.
Devin Christopher
And while he’s best known for his work with Karol G, he has now worked with numerous other artists, including Enrique Iglesias, Zion y Lennox, Camilo, Ozuna, Prince Royce and Peso Pluma. When he hits the studio with those other acts, he prepares thoroughly, studying them, observing their musical styles and making sure to arrive with the best energy.
“He is a master of his craft,” says Leslie Ahrens, senior vp of creative, Latin America at Kobalt Music, where Ovy signed in December 2018. “He can create an entire song by himself — production, lyrics and melody — and 99% of the time, they are hits! Beyond that, when you meet him, you want to be his best friend and confidant. He also has a great sense of humor, and all that is a part of his magic.”
Now, as he shifts his focus to his personal musical projects, Ovy is also planning his next move: expanding to work with mainstream artists.
“I’ve had opportunities. Producers like London on Da Track who has worked with Drake have written to me, but nothing has happened yet because I feel that I need to learn to speak English first,” he says. “If I speak the language very well, I will get along with the mainstream producers and artists and even create a solid friendship like the one I have with artists in the Latin music world. I’m on it right now.”
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In the meantime, he’s preparing his debut album as artist-producer, titled Dr. Drums, which will include features from Karol G, Quevedo, Sech, Ryan Castro and Blessd.
As we finish lunch, he reminds me that his trajectory hasn’t been “llegué y pegué” but rather working hard for his dreams with the hope of one day inspiring others.
“Tomorrow, when I’m not in this industry or in this world anymore, people will simply remember me because I created different music from everything that has ever existed, and hopefully, they will be inspired by the music I made. That’s my goal,” he says with a smile. “Every day I wake up with that hope — with the purpose of leaving a legacy.”
This story will appear in the Oct. 7, 2023, issue of Billboard.
When the clock struck 6am on Friday, Oct. 6, Drake’s eighth studio album, For All The Dogs, hit streaming services after weeks of delays. Marking his first solo album since 2022’s Honestly Nevermind, For All The Dogs spawned his Hot 100 No. 1 single “Slime You Out” featuring SZA. The song marked Drake’s 12th No. 1 single on […]
Ron Haffkine, a Grammy-winning record producer and manager known for his work with Dr. Hook & the Medicine Show, has died. He was 84.Haffkine died Sunday at his home in Mexico after a brief bout with leukemia and kidney failure, his friend of 50 years, music executive Joel Diamond, told The Hollywood Reporter.“Ron always had an uncanny knack of hearing a hit song in its rawest stage and the rare talent to couple it with the best musicians and then top it off with a meticulous performance by the artist,” Diamond noted.Haffkine was instrumental in getting Dr. Hook signed by Clive Davis at Columbia Records in the 1970s, and the band led by Dennis Locorriere, George Cummings, the eyepatch-wearing Ray Sawyer and Billy Francis would compile a string of hits that included “Sylvia’s Mother,” “Cover of the Rolling Stone,” “Sharing the Night Together,” “When You’re in Love With a Beautiful Woman,” “Sexy Eyes,” “Baby Makes Her Blue Jeans Talk” and “A Little Bit More.”Haffkine produced 10 Dr. Hook studio albums and two live albums and worked with the likes of Waylon Jennings, Lou Rawls, Mac Davis and Helen Reddy, too.Haffkine also often collaborated with singer, songwriter and poet Shel Silverstein. He won a Grammy Award in 1985 for producing Silverstein’s “Where the Sidewalk Ends” and received another Grammy nom two years later for his work on another Silverstein children’s album, “A Light in the Attic.”Born in New York on Dec. 13, 1938, Haffkine contracted polio when he was 12, leaving him paralyzed for two years. Later, he and Silverstein became friends in Greenwich Village.Silverstein asked him to produce music he had written for the films Ned Kelly (1970), starring Mick Jagger, and Who Is Harry Kellerman and Why Is He Saying Those Terrible Things About Me? (1971), starring Dustin Hoffman and Barbara Harris.Haffkine recommended that Dr. Hook be used in Harry Kellerman, but for that to happen, the New Jersey band had to have a record deal. After the musicians did an impromptu live showcase in Davis’ office and were signed, Dr. Hook performed the Silverstein-written songs “Bunky and Lucille” and “Last Morning” in the movie.Haffkine also produced Silverstein’s 1972 music comedy album Freakin’ at the Freakers’ Ball, with Dr. Hook handling the title track, and recorded the quirky Silverstein song “Do You Want to Boogie or Do You Don’t” that year as well.Haffkine and his wife of 37 years, Sydney, moved to Mexico several years ago. She survives him.
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This article originally appeared in THR.com.