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Hidden up a wooded hill in the sprawling backyard of his suburban Los Angeles estate, Dijon “Mustard” McFarlane is on the tennis court, perfecting his forehand.
“I’m an extremist,” the 34-year-old producer explains as he warms up his top spin. “I play every day, sometimes two times a day.” The L.A.-born musician, who shot to prominence at 21 when he produced Tyga’s 2011 hit “Rack City,” beckons his coach to serve again. After some rallying, Mustard slices a ball that nearly hits the Billboard cameraman kneeling beneath him, trying to get a close-up shot. “Oh, sorry! Man, you’re brave for sitting there,” Mustard says.
“I play, too; it’s cool,” the photographer replies, unfazed.
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“Aight, you’re one of us,” Mustard says with a grin, pointing at the man with his racket. For a second, it feels like the sportier version of a knighting ceremony.
He may still be polishing his tennis game, but after more than a decade of making hip-hop hits, Mustard scored an indisputable ace this year, reaching his highest career peak to date as the beat-maker behind Kendrick Lamar’s Billboard Hot 100 No. 1 “Not Like Us” — the biggest hit in Lamar’s spring beef with Drake. On the track, which cemented Lamar’s victory in the court of public opinion, the Pulitzer Prize winner is at his most venomous, using Mustard’s pop earworm of an instrumental as a Trojan horse for accusing Drake of being an Atlanta “colonizer” who steals sounds from local rappers and to resurface the serious allegations of Drake’s supposed predilection for underage girls.
But for such a hate-fueled anthem, “Not Like Us” also proved to be a uniting force for the world of West Coast hip-hop — unity by way of a common enemy. “When I was growing up, I watched 2Pac, ‘California Love,’ Dr. Dre, Snoop, the Death Row days,” says Mustard, who was born and raised in L.A.’s Crenshaw neighborhood. “It’s like being a part of that again, but in this day and age.”
The release of “Not Like Us” did plenty to galvanize the West Coast scene on its own, but Lamar further cemented its place in hip-hop history when he hosted The Pop Out — Ken & Friends, a Juneteenth concert at the L.A.-area Kia Forum. It was a show that was so sacred to L.A. natives that rival gangsters danced and sang to “Not Like Us” practically hand in hand onstage. To warm everyone up, Lamar enlisted Mustard to DJ a bevy of hits. But before literally popping out from under the stage, Mustard, a lifelong DJ typically confident in front of crowds, found himself on the verge of a panic attack. “I was nervous as s–t,” he confesses. “It just didn’t feel real.”
Aaron Sinclair
It was a full-circle moment for the producer, whose wide-ranging résumé — encompassing rap, R&B, EDM and pop — also includes hits like 2 Chainz’ “I’m Different,” Jeremih and YG’s “Don’t Tell ’Em,” Tinashe’s “2 On,” Ella Mai’s “Boo’d Up,” Lil Dicky and Chris Brown’s “Freaky Friday” and Rihanna’s “Needed Me.” “When I was a teenager, I’d write with YG in Inglewood [Calif.]. He used to live right across the street [from The Forum]. I made ‘Rack City’ across the street from there,” says Mustard, shaking his head in disbelief.
To start his set, Mustard walked up to his turntables, appearing calm and collected, even though he secretly wasn’t. After he fiddled with the knobs, the audio of a viral TikTok began: “The real takeaway from the Drake and Kendrick beef,” the voice of TikToker @lolaokola said, “is that it’s time for a DJ Mustard renaissance.” The crowd began to roar as the audio continued: “When every song on the radio was on a Mustard beat, we were a proper country. It was happier times. The closest we have ever been to true unity.”
After “Rack City” became a smash in 2012, the artist-producer then known as DJ Mustard seemed unstoppable. There was something about his simple formula of “a bassline, clap and it’s over… maybe an 808,” as he puts it, plus that catchy producer tag “Mustard on the beat, hoe!” that attracted pop purists and hip-hop heads alike, making his work go off both at the club and on the radio.
“Being a DJ, being in front of people and parties, I know what makes people move,” Mustard tells me between volleys with his coach. Every element of a Mustard track is done with clear intention to propel the song, not to clutter it. “I always used to tell Ty [Dolla $ign], ‘Man, you’re so musical, bro, but that s–t does not matter if they can’t hear what’s going on,’ ” Mustard recalls. “Simplicity is key for me and bridging the gap between that and the real musical s–t — but it still needs to be ratchet enough to be fun, too.”
Aaron Sinclair
He learned to use turntables from one of the best: his uncle and father figure, Tyrei “DJ Tee” Lacy, an L.A. DJ who frequently soundtracked parties for Dr. Dre, Snoop Dogg and other local legends. Later in the day, I follow Mustard to Lacy’s restaurant, the District by GS on Crenshaw Boulevard. “This is where they got into it in Boyz n the Hood!” exclaims Mustard, gesturing to the street in front of the restaurant.
As he walks through the staff entrance and the kitchen, he daps up each person, his diamond-encrusted chain with a Jesus Christ pendant swinging as he moves. He sits down in a corner booth, and Lacy comes to join him. Mustard orders the usual: fried catfish. “Mustard as a child is the same as Mustard as an adult,” Lacy says. “He always cared about his craft — always.”
When Mustard was growing up, Lacy would often bring him along to his DJ gigs. One time, when he brought his nephew to a party in the Pacific Palisades, he had an ulterior motive. “I actually had [intentionally] double-booked myself,” Lacy says. “ ‘Don’t leave me,’ Mustard said. But I was like, ‘Oh, you’ll be all right. Just play that and play this, and you got it.’ ” Three hours later, he got a call from Mustard: “Come get me! The party was so cracking, they busted all the windows!”
From then on, music always paid the bills for Mustard, and he became the hottest DJ at Dorsey High School in Crenshaw. Within a few years, he would be one of the hottest producers in the world.
Amid the height of his early success, Mustard remembers a conversation he had with another radio-defining producer: Timbaland. “We were talking about the music industry,” he recalls. “He’s just like, ‘I want you to know, man, you’re not going to always be hot.’ ” Even though Mustard says he never let his ego get out of hand during those first years of success — his mother made sure of that — the caveat felt unfathomable at the time.
By the end of 2014, just two years after the peak of “Rack City,” Mustard seemingly had it all: 23 Hot 100 producer credits already, a new mansion on a hill outside the city, beautiful jewelry, even his own line of DJ Mustard mustard bottles. (Actually, he regrets that last one: “That was not an ‘I made it’ moment; that was a dumbass moment.”) Still, Timbaland warned him, “There’s going to be a time when nobody picks up your [calls] — soak this all in, and when that time comes, save your money… don’t panic,’ ” Mustard recalls. “And then it became a thing. And I was just like, ‘Ah, this is what [Tim] was talking about,’ and thank God I was ready for it.”
Mustard photographed September 16, 2024 at Johnnie’s Pastrami in Culver City, Calif.
Aaron Sinclair
As the decade wore on, his number of Hot 100-charting songs each year declined, from notching 14 in 2014 alone to between one and five each subsequent year. Still, a colder period for Mustard was better than what most musicians can ever dream of. And as time wore on, Mustard made the conscious choice to evolve. He focused on developing himself as not just a producer, but an artist in his own right. He started his own record label, 10 Summers, which launched the career of Grammy-winning R&B singer Ella Mai.
“I think with any producer, the ultimate goal is to break an artist. I believe that’s the hardest thing for a producer to do… I’m always for the challenge,” he says. It’s certainly something he has proved an aptitude for time and again, producing career-breakthrough tracks for artists like Mai, Tinashe, YG, Tyga and Roddy Ricch.
“You can’t be hot forever,” Mustard explains. “Even the best in the game… You have to reinvent yourself. And that’s what I did.”
Every hip-hop fan remembers where they were when “Not Like Us” dropped. Released the day after two other Lamar dis tracks, “6:16 in LA” and “Meet the Grahams,” no one saw it coming — not even the beat’s producers.
Mustard, for his part, was “on [my] way to a baby shower. Somebody sent me a message, and I was just like, ‘Oh, s–t,’ and then I hung up in their face, and I was just playing it over and over.” When he arrived at the baby shower, he could already hear the neighbors blasting it from over the fence.
Fellow “Not Like Us” beat-maker Sean Momberger was getting his car towed by AAA after a flat tire. “My friend texted me that Kendrick had dropped again,” he says. “I clicked on the link and heard our beat, and I was just shocked. I FaceTimed Mustard, and we were yelling and laughing.”
Mustard and Momberger were never in the studio with Lamar (or Sounwave, the song’s third credited producer and a longtime collaborator of the rapper) to make “Not Like Us.” The song started with Momberger sending Mustard some sample ideas and Mustard doing what he does best — “infectious” and “catchy” production with “a simplistic beauty driven by bouncy drums and West Coast undertone,” as Momberger describes it. But while the track stays true to the Mustard sound everyone knows, it also embodies how he has iterated it over the years to be fuller and more sample-driven.
Mustard texted it, along with about six other beats, to Lamar — who said nothing but reacted with a “heart.” Though he wasn’t in the room with Lamar this time, he had been in the studio with him before, years ago. Once, he says, Terrace Martin, a core musician on Lamar’s 2015 album, To Pimp a Butterfly, took him to one of that project’s sessions. “I remember seeing that s–t and being like, ‘Whoa, that’s a lot going on.’ With me and YG [Mustard’s most frequent collaborator], we didn’t have that many musicians around. That was my first time seeing s–t like that. Thundercat was there, Sounwave was there. Terrace was there… I knew [that album] was going to be some crazy s–t, but I didn’t know it would be like that.”
Though he couldn’t have predicted the impact To Pimp a Butterfly would have on culture, Mustard says he has a good intuition for hit records. “I don’t want to say I’m always right, but I’m pretty much on the money,” he notes. Mai agrees: “Mustard’s greatest strength is his ear.”
Aaron Sinclair
For all his success producing radio-ready singles, however, one-off collaborations don’t move Mustard like they used to. “I can do stuff like ‘Not Like Us’ every day,” he says. “I can do that with my eyes closed… In my next phase, I’m not doing singles,” he insists, though he does admit he would do “Not Like Us” again “100,000 times” without hesitation. “I’ll do [a single for an artist] if I can have the whole album or the majority of the album, but other than that, I don’t get anything out of that.”
It’s why he dropped his own album, Faith of a Mustard Seed, this summer, which features Ricch, Travis Scott (whose “Parking Lot” with Mustard went to No. 17 on the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart), Ty Dolla $ign, Future, Young Thug and more hip-hop heavyweights. Mustard reckons the album (named after a suggestion by his late friend Nipsey Hussle) took him five years to perfect — the equivalent of a lifetime in popular music, especially hip-hop. During that time, rap went from being constantly atop the Hot 100 to weeks, months and even a whole year passing without a rap No. 1. Top players like Thug and Gunna went to jail; Nipsey, Young Dolph and Takeoff died; Ye went rogue. New faces like Yeat and 4batz popularized new styles; Afrobeats and reggaetón seeped into the American rap mainstream.
Still, Mustard believes Faith of a Mustard Seed warranted the wait. “There’s nothing on that album that I feel like in 10 years I’ll say, ‘Damn, I wish I did that better,’ ” he says. “I hope it teaches kids that you can take your time and do the right thing. You don’t have to rush it out. I think [the industry] today is just so fast-paced.”
Mustard hopes the perfectionism that drove both Faith of a Mustard Seed and “Not Like Us,” including Lamar’s own multifaceted bars, will encourage artists to “really rap now… I think now it’s opened the door for … the real rappers that love rap music and lyrics and the double, triple, quadruple entendres and all that s–t cool again.”
Aaron Sinclair
And he’s hoping — or rather, manifesting, sometime between waking up and hitting the tennis court — that this dedication to his craft will yield a Grammy next year. “I definitely speak it into existence every morning,” he says with a laugh. “The highest reward we can get as musicians is a Grammy. I know that people talk like it’s not a thing, but it actually is. It’s like Jayson Tatum right now saying, ‘I don’t want to win the NBA Finals.’ Like, if that’s the case, then go play at Venice Beach.”
Regardless of whether he takes home a trophy on Feb. 2, he knows he has something monumental to look forward to precisely a week later, when Lamar headlines the Super Bowl halftime show — where “Not Like Us” will no doubt get its biggest showcase yet. “Of course I’m going,” he says. “I’m going to go and be in a box and watch… I just can’t wait… I might shed a tear!”
Yet despite surreal moments like that, Mustard says his life is “still the same” as it always was. “I don’t take no for an answer. I’m persistent. Every day, I’m doing something that has to do with the journey of trying to get to where I’m trying to go. At this point, I don’t know how far I can go. I don’t think there’s a limit. I’ve always been like that. That’s how I got ‘Rack City’ — just waking up every day, making beats… and hoping.”
This story also appears in the Oct. 5, 2024, issue of Billboard.
Hidden up a wooded hill in the sprawling backyard of his suburban Los Angeles estate, Dijon “Mustard” McFarlane is on the tennis court, perfecting his forehand. “I’m an extremist,” the 34-year-old producer explains as he warms up his top spin. “I play every day, sometimes two times a day.” The L.A.-born musician, who shot to […]
On a balmy recent August evening, Gustavo Dudamel strode onto the stage of the Hollywood Bowl wearing a huge golden gauntlet on his left hand.
He wouldn’t get to use it. Dudamel is dramatic, but he’s no comic book villain; he’s the music director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, and he was there to conduct the orchestra for the world premiere of Marvel Studios’ Infinity Saga Concert Experience. So instead of wielding the power of assorted Infinity Stones to change the world, Dudamel accepted the “vibranium baton” presented to him by Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige (a reference to the fictional metal of the Marvel universe) and performed some magic of his own, conducting two-plus hours of raucous music from 25 different Marvel movies, backed by gigantic video screens with 3D projections, dancers, fireworks and thousands of screaming fans.
The whole thing looked more like a rock show than a symphony concert. Then again, Dudamel is the closest thing to a rock star the classical music world has.
After nearly two decades in Los Angeles, Dudamel hobnobs with the likes of Chris Martin and John Williams, is close friends with Frank Gehry (who designed the stunning Walt Disney Concert Hall, the L.A. Phil’s home that opened a little over 20 years ago) and counts Billie Eilish, Gwen Stefani, Ricky Martin and Carlos Vives among the dozens of pop world luminaries who’ve guested under his (non-vibranium) baton. He has won five Grammy Awards (including, this year, best orchestral performance for the L.A. Phil’s recording of composer Thomas Adès’ Dante) and placed nine albums at No. 1 on Billboard’s Traditional Classical Albums chart. His life is the subject of the documentary Viva Maestro! And, though never officially confirmed, he was clearly the inspiration behind the character of the free-thinking, mercurial Latin maestro played by Gael García Bernal in the Amazon Prime series Mozart in the Jungle, in which he had a small role as a stage manager.
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In the span of just two weeks from the end of August to mid-September, Dudamel conducted Strauss with the Vienna Philharmonic in Salzburg, Austria, and then flew to Los Angeles where, including the two Marvel shows, he led the L.A. Phil in nine concerts, conducting Tchaikovsky’s Fifth Symphony and Beethoven’s Ninth; dances by living Puerto Rican composer Roberto Sierra; Saint-Saëns’ Carnival of the Animals and scenes from Bizet’s Carmen; plus two evenings of contemporary Latin music with Mexican pop/folk singer Natalia Lafourcade. It’s a staggering musical offering. All told, more than 100,000 people attended Dudamel’s nine summer concerts at the Hollywood Bowl with the L.A. Phil, which he will again conduct on Oct. 8 at the opening night of Carnegie Hall’s 2024-25 season in New York.
“He is unique in the classical music world because not only does he lead the orchestra and elevate the work of the L.A. Phil in terms of excellence, but he also connects the orchestra with different kinds of music, collaborating with artists [in other genres] with which we wouldn’t typically perform,” L.A. Phil president/CEO Kim Noltemy says. “The result is he brings orchestra music to so many different people. That is one unbelievably unique piece that makes Gustavo special.”
Joe Pugliese
For Dudamel, it’s part of a deep-rooted belief that music as an art, with purpose, supersedes specific forms and genres. “As an orchestral musician, you value the work of these pop artists, and likewise, pop acts have the opportunity to see that the academicism of the other side isn’t overwhelming, but rather, it’s the same thing in a different style,” he says. “Yes, there’s a fascinating technical complexity [to classical music]. But in the end, what matters is what you feel and what people perceive. We have to erase people’s fears regarding classical music. It may be intellectual in execution, but music’s power is spiritual.”
Not since Leonard Bernstein has a conductor done as much as Dudamel to make classical music accessible — or so thoroughly captured the public imagination. The two maestros share a not just persuasive but borderline evangelical approach to relentlessly promoting music as a “fundamental human right,” not just by broadening what qualifies as “classical” repertoire but also broadening the concept of the orchestra itself. Bernstein’s televised Young People’s Concerts were central to his efforts to expand classical music’s audience; Dudamel has worked to create youth orchestras worldwide. And then, of course, there’s the hair: Bernstein’s silky pompadour flung about wildly as he conducted, and while Dudamel’s signature curly brown mop is perhaps a little less springy than when he made his U.S. conducting debut with the L.A. Phil in 2005 and is now peppered with gray, it still pops and sways with the music.
It’s a visible reminder of the personal stamp he continues to leave in a world of relatively staid personalities, and undoubtedly a factor in his broad recognizability. Dudamel is one of the few faces in classical music known far beyond the space, no doubt one of many reasons the L.A. Phil will miss him when his last season as music and artistic director ends and he officially takes over the New York Philharmonic in its 2026-27 season as music and artistic director.
When he does, Dudamel will become the first Latino to helm the oldest symphony orchestra in the United States, joining a pantheon of giants that includes Arturo Toscanini, Gustav Mahler and Bernstein himself. Expectations for his arrival are so heightened, says N.Y. Phil executive advisor and interim CEO Deborah Borda, that even though Dudamel will not formally join for another season, “we saw a record surge in subscription sales, as patrons are concerned they won’t be able to secure tickets once he starts.”
For Dudamel, being the first Latino to lead the N.Y. Phil long term is a matter of “immense pride. But I feel it doesn’t have to do with a race or a culture,” he says. Historically, he notes, the great symphony orchestras in the United States and beyond have been led mostly by European men who not only represented the music they performed, but also the European migration to this country and Latin America.
Dudamel’s story is completely different. The real triumph “is about where I come from,” he says. “I don’t come from a traditional music conservatory. I come from El Sistema de Orquestas, a program where you grow up playing music with your friends.”
It’s the morning after he has conducted Carnival of the Animals and Carmen, and Dudamel has joined me for coffee in an empty Hollywood Bowl meeting room. He has traded the formal white dinner jacket of the Marvel show for offstage casual — track pants, short-sleeved T-shirt and sneakers — and his trademark mix of impish humor (accentuated by his still-boyish dimples) and deep thoughtfulness. Born and raised in Venezuela, Dudamel learned English as an adult, and though it’s grammatically perfect — albeit with a clipped, precise accent — he prefers his native Spanish, which he speaks very quickly (as most Venezuelans do) and with the erudite lingo of an intellectual, often citing the likes of Spanish writer Miguel de Unamuno or Mexican writer Octavio Paz.
Today, we’re talking not just about his new appointment and the legacy he’ll leave behind in L.A. as he begins to build another in New York, but also the legacy he grew up with — one that still defines him.
At 43, Dudamel is almost as old as El Sistema Nacional de Orquestas y Coros Juveniles e Infantiles de Venezuela (The National System of Venezuelan Youth and Children’s Choruses and Orchestras). Known simply as El Sistema, it was founded in 1975 by musician-economist José Antonio Abreu, who held several government appointments and built El Sistema as part of the government structure, guaranteeing its existence and funding regardless of who was in power.
El Sistema was created more than 20 years before the Hugo Chávez regime, built on the premise that music education should be free and accessible to all children, everywhere in the country. For Abreu, who died in 2018, the power of music was transformative, spiritual and lasting, particularly in a developing country rife with poverty. What started with a first rehearsal attended by 11 children eventually grew to 443 schools (each called a “nucleus” in Sistema terminology) and 1,700 satellite centers that teach over 1 million children in Venezuela’s 24 states, according to El Sistema’s official webpage.
Abreu’s philosophy — famously, he said that “a child who plays an instrument with a teacher is no longer poor; he is a child on the rise” — is one Dudamel not only espouses but assumes as his identity. He’s still the music director of the Simón Bolívar Symphony Orchestra of Venezuela and will tour Europe with it next year for El Sistema’s 50th anniversary. (The tour stops are connected to cities with which Dudamel has a personal history.) He has no plans to change his commitment to it. “I would give my life for the orchestra,” he states bluntly. “It gave me everything I’m living now, and that’s why I share it as much as I can.”
Gustavo Dudamel photographed September 3, 2024 at the Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles.
Joe Pugliese
But in the last few years, throughout Venezuela’s many political government crises and now, after the contested July reelection of President Nicolás Maduro — who has been in power since 2013 and whose latest reelection has been widely disclaimed both domestically and internationally as rigged — Dudamel has sometimes been criticized by other Venezuelans abroad for not speaking out more against the government.
Some critics have suggested that Maduro has used Venezuela’s youth orchestra to his political advantage. Renowned Venezuelan pianist Gabriela Montero has long called it a propaganda tool; when Dudamel conducted the ensemble at Carnegie Hall days after Maduro’s reelection, Human Rights Foundation parked a truck outside the venue displaying the message “Maduro Stole The Election” and asking Dudamel, “How long will you continue to serve as Maduro’s puppet and henchman?” The organization explained on social media that it wanted “to remind the world of Maduro’s fraud and to call out Dudamel for engaging in shameless propaganda and providing cover for the Venezuelan dictator.”
But, Dudamel points out, he has not been silent. He has written New York Times and Los Angeles Times op-eds calling for an end to repression in Venezuela and speaking against the government’s plans to rewrite the nation’s constitution. In 2017, after Venezuelan government forces killed a young violinist during a protest, Dudamel published an open letter, writing, “Nothing justifies bloodshed. We must stop ignoring the just cry of the people suffocated by an intolerable crisis. I urgently call on the President of the Republic and the national government to rectify and listen to the voice of the Venezuelan people.”
“I am one voice,” he says today. “People think if I speak out everything is going to change, but that’s not the case. There needs to be radical change, and that will take a lot of time.
“We live in a world of immediacy, where there’s always pressure to say something,” he adds when I ask why he hasn’t spoken out more in the wake of July’s contested election. “When do people actually reflect before speaking? You have to consider the entire situation. El Sistema de Orquestas represents all Venezuela, not just a part of it… El Sistema is focused on the neediest communities. That’s the truth. Isn’t that a way to change the country, far more than shouting? So you have to be prudent because you’re part of that. I’m not an individual speaking as an individual because that’s not how I grew up. I grew up in an orchestra.”
Joe Pugliese
This was Dudamel’s mindset during his own first El Sistema experience. He started music lessons at a school in his native Barquisimeto, a quaint city of under 1 million people in northwestern Venezuela. This was the mid-’80s, still years before Chávez took power, but a decade into the existence of El Sistema, which by then was thriving.
“I was only 5 years old, but I remember it perfectly,” Dudamel recalls. “It was the home of Doña Doralisa de Medina. It was a tiny colonial house where Maestro Abreu studied as a child. Doralisa was no longer alive, but El Sistema was there. The house had a red gate with musical notes. I walked in down a passageway and then to a patio, and I heard Chopin on the piano, a trumpet, violins. I fell in love with that cacophony.”
El Sistema didn’t pluck Dudamel out of abject poverty. His father is a working salsa trombonist; his mother, a voice teacher. His uncle, a doctor, was also a gifted cuatro player who taught Dudamel how to play popular Venezuelan music: waltzes, tangos, boleros — what Dudamel calls his very essence.
Perhaps because music flowed through his family, Dudamel’s own studies were encouraged but never imposed. He started conducting by accident, when his youth orchestra’s conductor arrived late for rehearsal and Dudamel took the podium, almost as if it was a game.
While no one ever told him he would make it big, his talent would have been impossible to miss. Abreu took an early interest in him, becoming a mentor and moral compass. He’s still very much alive in Dudamel’s head — he constantly begins sentences with “El Maestro Abreu…” — as are his teachings: to think long term, to learn from mistakes, to see music as a social instrument. It was Abreu, after all, who urged Dudamel, then in his early 20s, to enter Germany’s prestigious Mahler Competition, for conducting works by the vaunted composer, in 2004. When he won, it changed his life, catapulting him from local star to global wunderkind.
Among the jurors was Esa-Pekka Salonen, the Finnish composer and current San Francisco Symphony music director who was, at the time, music director of the L.A. Phil. “I was deeply impressed by the talent of this guy, but also, I felt he was such a good guy,” Salonen recalls. “I told him I wanted to invite him to L.A.” As he got to know Dudamel, he continues, “I became so convinced about him being my favorite person to take over in L.A. and become my successor, taking [the orchestra] in a different direction but keeping his curiosity and openness.” A mere three years later, Salonen’s wishes came true: the L.A. Phil — where Deborah Borda was then executive director — appointed Dudamel music director, effective with the 2009-10 season.
Dudamel’s personable demeanor and charismatic conducting style immediately enchanted L.A. audiences and the ensemble’s players alike — he is, after all, affectionately known as “The Dude” to both cohorts. But from the jump, his mission went far beyond the podium. “I was very young, and evidently there was a human and artistic connection with the orchestra and the administration,” he says. “But my first order of business was creating El Sistema here. That’s how YOLA began.”
YOLA is Youth Orchestra Los Angeles, the L.A. Phil’s music education program, that Dudamel created in 2007. It currently serves close to 1,700 young musicians across five sites in the city, providing them free instruments, intensive music instruction (up to 18 hours per week), academic support and leadership training. The program has inspired hundreds of versions around the world; in the United States alone, El Sistema USA serves 140 member programs, 6,000 teaching artists and 25,000 students. Dudamel also launched a mentorship program for young conductors in 2009 and now brings four each season to assist the L.A. Phil’s guest conductors.
But education and training are just part of the equation to “create identity and have people see themselves reflected in the [L.A.] Philharmonic,” Dudamel says. “Right or wrong, cultural artistic institutions are seen as elitist for many, especially those who don’t have resources. The adventure was to make of the [L.A.] Philharmonic an institution people could identify with.”
Dudamel began doing this gradually by being more experimental in his programming, adding more pop and jazz guest artists, bringing Hollywood into the mix (he has famously played multiple concerts of John Williams’ music, with Williams in attendance) and opening up the repertoire to new works and unexpected juxtapositions. A ticket buyer who might not want to hear a world-premiere commission might be lured in by Beethoven; one allergic to the idea of Beethoven might reconsider after seeing an orchestra perform with Ricky Martin.
“For me, it wasn’t only about building a good orchestra,” Dudamel says. “That already existed. But now we have one of the top orchestras in the world, respected as much for its technical level as for its proud acceptance of the repertoire and the way they perform it. This wasn’t ‘Oh, Gustavo, come in and do whatever you want.’ It was figuring out how to build it.” Dudamel had the Hollywood Bowl, Disney Hall and the orchestra. “All the elements were there,” he continues. “We just had to get the best out of them. And there’s still a lot to do.”
Gustavo Dudamel photographed September 3, 2024 at the Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles.
Joe Pugliese
Dudamel conducted the L.A. Phil at the 2011 Latin Grammys and the 2019 Academy Awards. He led the orchestra alongside Billie Eilish and FINNEAS as part of the concert film experience Happier Than Ever: A Love Letter to Los Angeles, released on Disney+. And he performed at the 2016 Super Bowl halftime show with members of YOLA, alongside Coldplay, Beyoncé and Bruno Mars.
“His authentic, warm connection with audiences really changes how people feel when watching a concert. Audiences are so excited to see him, and there’s a buzz around him,” Noltemy says, noting that pandemic era aside, attendance and audience diversity at the L.A. Phil have increased while the average age of concertgoers has decreased. “He’s certainly not the only conductor who has increased attendance and brought diversity, but he did so in L.A., a city that is so spread out. His concerts at Disney Hall tend to be sold out.”
Those results have occurred even as Dudamel has made a huge effort to foster contemporary composition (typically not an old-school orchestra subscriber’s favorite programming), commissioning music from composers around the world. During his tenure at the L.A. Phil, the orchestra has premiered “at least 300 new works” written specifically for the ensemble, he says, including many from Latin America.
“Latin American repertoire has to stop being [perceived as] exotic,” he says. “It’s not about ‘Wow, we’re playing Latin American music!’ No. It’s the fair thing to do. And the only way to include it in the repertoire is playing it but at the level it deserves, making it part of the regular repertoire of any orchestra.” Case in point: Mexican composer Gabriela Ortiz, a Dudamel mentee who was just named Carnegie Hall’s composer-in-residence for the coming season. In July, Platoon released her first full album of orchestral works, Revolución Diamantina (performed by the L.A. Phil and conducted by Dudamel), which is being submitted for Grammy consideration.
Just how much of his approach with the L.A. Phil Dudamel will be able to replicate in New York remains to be seen; as he says, he has yet to formally arrive and experience the orchestra. But in recent months, he has been working with both orchestras to forge a connection between the two.
In April, when Dudamel conducted the N.Y. Phil’s Spring Gala at Lincoln Center’s David Geffen Hall, he featured rapper Common, former New York Yankee and classically trained guitarist Bernie Williams and student musicians from several New York music schools, performing a program that also included classical works by Villa-Lobos and Strauss, as well as a premiere commissioned by the N.Y. Phil and Bravo! Vail Music Festival.
It was the kind of bold, cross-genre programming that Dudamel delights in doing in L.A. and clearly wants to emphasize in New York. “It was something completely new and wonderful. For me, that’s the kind of thing that makes the music transcend beyond the sometimes strict academic and intellectual isolation that classical music represents,” he says. “We can develop a lot in terms of repertoire and go beyond Lincoln Center and connect more with the entire community.”
Gustavo Dudamel photographed September 3, 2024 at the Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles.
Joe Pugliese
The N.Y. Phil, for example, is known for its massive annual free outdoor concert on the Great Lawn in Central Park, which is always attended by no less than 50,000, and it also performs in all five boroughs during its annual Concerts in the Parks. But the L.A. Phil has the Hollywood Bowl, an outdoor venue that seats 18,000 and is the orchestra’s home for the entire summer. It’s a big difference that Dudamel would like to somehow bridge.
He also joins the N.Y. Phil after the 2022 reopening of Geffen Hall following a $550 million renovation that drastically improved its acoustics. He says the new venue did not factor into his decision to go to New York, “but it was very important, especially for the orchestra. It’s been a plus to elevate the morale. Now the orchestra is in the process of building its sound with the ‘instrument’ [that is the new hall].” Optimism is also high following the Sept. 20 finalization of a new labor contract that ensured 30% raises for the orchestra’s musicians over the next three years, bringing their base salary to $205,000.
Dudamel is also taking the reins of an institution that lately has had its share of highly publicized troubles. After just one year on the job, N.Y. Phil CEO Gary Ginstling stepped down in July amid rising tensions with the orchestra’s board, according to a New York Times report. And the orchestra’s public image has been tarnished after reports earlier this year resurfaced a 2010 sexual misconduct charge made against two of its musicians. Although charges were never filed against the two men, the controversy led to the musicians being put on leave; they then sued the N.Y. Phil for doing so.
As Dudamel is not yet officially the N.Y. Phil’s music director (for the 2025-26 season, he is music director designate), he won’t comment on administrative matters other than to acknowledge that “those are problems that need to be resolved.” And although the administration of the orchestra ultimately is not his purview, “Obviously the morale of the orchestra is my responsibility, and you have to keep that morale high, taking the best decisions and advocating for justice for everyone,” he says. “That’s essential. We’re not isolated from what happens around us.”
Whatever may have occurred before his tenure begins, Dudamel is without a doubt joining an orchestra that respects him as a conductor, whose musicians have a history and rapport with him. “There was an undeniable spontaneous connection between our musicians and Gustavo, so much so that he was literally their only choice to be our next music director,” Borda says. “Selling tickets is important, but we believe this is best accomplished when you have the right artistic leader.”
Dudamel is acutely aware of the expectations now surrounding him. “It’s a challenge, but life without challenge… it’s nothing!” he says with some relish. “But I’m not a savior here. I have nothing to save. What we have to do is build, and that’s not just up to me. We have a great team.” And after all, he’s Dudamel — and by now, he understands it comes with the territory.
“People want you to scream what they scream, but no. To me, change isn’t about screaming but about building things that last, as I learned from Maestro Abreu,” he says. “I sincerely believe artists should be symbols of unity … They must guarantee that cathartic, unifying space we all need — not just here or in Venezuela, but everywhere.”
Joe Pugliese
This fall, for example, Dudamel will lead the L.A. Phil in Mendelssohn’s music from A Midsummer’s Night Dream with his wife, Spanish actress María Valverde, providing narration — music by a German composer, written for the work of a British playwright who derived it from a Nordic story, now narrated in Spanish, conducted by a Venezuelan and performed by an American orchestra. Plus, the evening will feature the premiere of Ortiz’s new cello concerto.
“It’s the kind of thing you don’t even remark upon because it feels natural. But it’s a true reflection of diversity,” Dudamel says. “When you see all these elements come together, you realize, ‘Wow, this is powerful.’ ”
He speaks about this blend of so many seemingly disparate elements as if it’s destiny, or magic. But a moment like that — much like a career such as Dudamel’s — doesn’t occur by happenstance or without purpose.
“One thing about Gustavo I think needs to be said is that for someone who had a lot of success from very early on, he’s remarkable in that he never lost his center,” Salonen says. “He has never lost his ideals. He believes in music as a social cause, and he believes in music and the arts as a very central thing in keeping the fabric of society strong. And despite all the success and fame, he’s still the same guy I met all those years ago.”
This story appears in the Oct. 5, 2024, issue of Billboard.
On a balmy recent August evening, Gustavo Dudamel strode onto the stage of the Hollywood Bowl wearing a huge golden gauntlet on his left hand. He wouldn’t get to use it. Dudamel is dramatic, but he’s no comic book villain; he’s the music director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, and he was there to conduct […]
How do you think my life has been these past few months?” Shaboozey asks with a wry smile.
The 29-year-old multihyphenate artist — one of 2024’s biggest breakout acts — has twisted my question and flipped it back on me, his measured poker face masking the tornado of emotions he’s feeling. There’s no hiding that he’s tired; we’re speaking the day after September’s MTV Video Music Awards, where he snagged two nods (including best new artist), and its star-studded afterparty, where he mingled with the likes of Taylor Swift and Sabrina Carpenter. Some hours later, he went to Brooklyn for his Billboard cover shoot, soundtracked by Zach Bryan and Chris Stapleton. Now we’re grabbing lunch in a hotel restaurant, where Shaboozey has finally settled down with a half-dozen Prince Edward Island oysters and some fries.
The VMAs were just the latest marquee moment in a year full of the kind of highlights most artists dream of achieving over their entire careers. A year in which his appearances on Beyoncé’s culture-shifting Cowboy Carter (on “Spaghettii” and “Sweet * Honey * Buckiin’ ”) were just the beginning of his string of feats. A year when Shaboozey went from a supporting stint on a Jessie Murph tour to his own headlining North American tour. A year when his own “A Bar Song (Tipsy)” notched a historic 12 weeks atop the Billboard Hot 100. And a year that could still get even bigger if “A Bar Song” gets likely-looking Grammy nominations for record and song of the year; or if the album it’s on, the Billboard chart-topping Where I’ve Been, Isn’t Where I’m Going, gets album of the year and best country album nods; or if Shaboozey himself contends for best new artist.
At his core, Shaboozey (or Boozey, to his friends) exudes the calm cool of a rebel who always knew his outside-the-lines plan would lead him to glory. Still, America’s favorite new cowboy admits that he doesn’t always “feel prepared for this stuff. You just kind of get thrown in it.”
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With “A Bar Song” — which has racked up over 771 million official on-demand U.S. streams, according to Luminate — Shaboozey became the first bona fide Black outlaw country star, a status he has been working toward achieving for a decade. The son of Nigerian immigrants, the artist born Collins Obinna Chibueze grew up just outside Woodbridge, Va., the second of four children. Though he spent two years at boarding school in Nigeria, Shaboozey spent most of his childhood in Virginia, including his high school years, when his football coach’s misspelling of his surname evolved into his nickname and now-stage name.
“It could be a little confusing at times,” he says of growing up Nigerian American in Woodbridge, a Washington, D.C., exurb that was markedly more rural in his youth than it is today. “Hearing your name [mispronounced] during attendance was always a thing; you felt like you had to make it easier for everyone else to understand.” Most Black children of immigrants know such experiences (microaggressions, really) well, and some are also familiar with another phenomenon that marked Shaboozey’s childhood: the endless words of support from parents who understood the importance of reminding their children of their power in a society actively trying to strip them of it. “If I’m going to do anything,” Shaboozey — whose surname means “God is king” in Igbo — pledges today, “I’m going to make sure I’m damn good at it.”
Vintage t-shirt, Wales Bonner pants.
Eric Ryan Anderson
Growing up in Virginia — the home of all-time greats like Patsy Cline and Missy Elliott — also meant that Shaboozey was always aware of the intersections between diverse music genres and styles. But first and foremost, he rooted himself in his father’s playlists, where he encountered country legends Don Williams and Kenny Rogers. As a kid, “outside of MTV and BET, I wasn’t getting the specific names of the artists my parents played around the house and spoke about,” Shaboozey says. “It was all just music to me.”
He didn’t just latch on to the music his father played — he was also enamored with the aesthetic of his pop’s old photos. “Every time I saw a picture of him, he was always in Wranglers. He always gave ‘young country guy,’ ” Shaboozey recalls. From Wrestlemania to Westerns, American culture and its archetypes are exported to, and emulated in, nearly every corner of the globe. Still, most media about cowboys disproportionately features white men, which can feel incongruous to those who feel connected to cowboy culture’s actually multicultural history — and it’s for those people whom Shaboozey wanted to create a unique soundtrack.
At 19, Shaboozey moved to Los Angeles — his first time truly living beyond Virginia — with the goal of writing scripts, making movies and recording music. Shortly after, in 2014, he scored his first quasi-viral moment with his piano-trap banger “Jeff Gordon.” (Shaboozey is a big NASCAR fan.) Around that time, he was also delving into the catalogs of rock icons like AC/DC and The Rolling Stones, indoctrinating himself into the school of Prince and studying the folk roots of Bob Dylan and John Prine.
“In that [period of] discovery, I found country music to be the thing that resonated with me in a really strong way,” he says. “Me being from Virginia, me loving the style and the way of life and the things they talked about. It all seemed very peaceful. It seemed like I could be real.” Even more importantly, Shaboozey began to realize that Lil Wayne and Rogers could be complementary, not opposing, influences. Finally, he understood: “This is who I am.”
When Shaboozey first tried to launch a country album, the project bricked. Two years before the release of his 2018 debut album, Lady Wrangler, he had joined forces with writer-producer Nevin Sastry for Wrangler — which remains shelved to this day.
Shaboozey and Sastry met in 2016, and their connection was so strong and immediate that within a month, Shaboozey moved into Sastry’s apartment. Before completing the “more rap-adjacent” Lady Wrangler, Shaboozey decided to put Wrangler to the side because “something in my head told me, ‘The world ain’t ready for this,’ ” he says. In a sense, he was right. Lady Wrangler (released on Republic Records) arrived in the aftermath of “Daddy Lessons,” Beyoncé’s first country music foray that was rejected by the Recording Academy’s country music committee for the 2017 Grammys and that she performed with The Chicks at the 50th annual Country Music Association (CMA) Awards, one of the most controversial moments in the event’s history; and a few months before Lil Nas X and Billy Ray Cyrus rewrote the rules of country, pop and hip-hop with 2019’s “Old Town Road.”
“The rap we looked at on TV was always glamorized,” Shaboozey recalls. “That wasn’t the reality for everybody. No matter how much I tried, I couldn’t write music in that world. I found country music could teach people that the little things in life are where the value is. Just having a working truck that you can take your girl in to ride to a cliff and watch the sunset is enough.”
RRL leather jacket, Huey Lewis denim jacket, Wales Bonner pants and shoes.
Eric Ryan Anderson
Sastry and Shaboozey have now collaborated on all three of the star’s full-length projects, but it was 2017’s “Winning Streak,” a woozy trap fantasia gilded in Western aesthetics, that helped Shaboozey land a deal with Republic and release Lady Wrangler. The label dropped Shaboozey following that album’s release (Shaboozey is tight-lipped as to why; Republic did not respond to a request for comment by press time), and soon after, the coronavirus pandemic changed the path of his life. In 2020, Shaboozey met Abas Pauti while playing basketball with mutual friends; after the two got to know each other, Pauti immediately offered to move across the country once Shaboozey told him that Virginia was the place he “needs to be in order to be the artist he wants to be” — a display of commitment that inspired the then-budding star to make Pauti his manager.
They remained in L.A., and by the following year, Shaboozey signed to indie label EMPIRE — which had previously worked with Black country artists like Billboard chart-topper Kane Brown — after a successful pitch from Eric Hurt, vp of A&R publishing, Nashville, at the company. “We understood what he was trying to do and we loved it, but obviously, it wasn’t anything that was out at the moment,” EMPIRE president Tina Davis says of her first impression of Shaboozey and his music. “It’s a feeling you get when artists on a [certain] level come into your presence. It’s kind of like the air goes out of the room. His presence was so full and prominent, I knew he was going to go somewhere.”
Standing at around 6 feet 4 with broad shoulders and lengthy wicks, Shaboozey is a dark-skinned Black man who wears his racial identity with pride. He’s a magnetic presence in any room he enters, though not in a domineering way. But his often stoic face can conceal the “manic, creative energy,” as Sastry puts it, that lies behind it — which he harnessed to finesse his sound and style going into his second and third albums.
On Cowboys Live Forever, Shaboozey joined forces with rising producer Sean Cook (one of the talents behind Paul Russell’s “Lil Boo Thang”), with whom he wrote three songs in three days. “In the studio, he likes to ride on music,” explains Cook, who later co-produced “A Bar Song.” “Sometimes he’ll get on the mic and I’ll loop the guitar, and he’ll freestyle melodies and conceptualize lyrics. Other times, he’ll sit in the booth and write the song as he goes; on the newest album, he actually brought in some guitar ideas himself.” With Cowboys Live Forever, Shaboozey intensified his country bent and enhanced his narrative-driven, cinematic soundscapes that straddle hip-hop and Americana-steeped country.
That genre-agnostic approach culminated with “A Bar Song (Tipsy),” 2024’s longest-running Hot 100 No. 1. Written and recorded in November 2023, near the end of the Where I’ve Been sessions, “A Bar Song” — which interpolates J-Kwon’s 2004 smash, “Tipsy,” and was borne out of Shaboozey’s desire to flip an aughts song — didn’t even need a final mix for those who heard it to recognize it as a hit. Pauti, who was in the studio the night Shaboozey recorded the song, immediately texted Jared Cotter, a Range Music partner who joined Team Shaboozey as co-manager in 2022: “We got one.”
For her part, EMPIRE’s Davis was so instantly enthralled by the track that she shifted her attention from getting the album to the finish line to clearing the “Tipsy” interpolation. J-Kwon, whose “Tipsy” reached No. 2 on the Hot 100, was so thrilled with Shaboozey’s country flip of his track that “he was listening to the record for three weeks straight, not clearing it because he thought the song was already out,” as Shaboozey tells it with a glimmer of childlike glee in his eye. Once J-Kwon eventually cleared the track, it primed the path for “A Bar Song” to become the first song by a Black man to simultaneously top Hot Country Songs and Country Airplay — and the longest-running No. 1 debut country single since Carrie Underwood’s “Jesus, Take the Wheel” in 2006.
Although “A Bar Song” dropped after Shaboozey’s dual appearances on Beyoncé’s historic Cowboy Carter, the whistling track was instrumental in helping him secure those coveted features. When Shaboozey performed the then-unreleased song at Range Showcase Night at Winston House in Venice, Calif., in early 2024, the crowd loved it so much that he played it again. According to Cotter and Pauti, in that crowd was one of Beyoncé’s A&R executives, Ricky Lawson, who instantly knew Shaboozey would be perfect for the record Beyoncé was then working on. Shaboozey says he was initially invited only to write on Cowboy Carter; then, Beyoncé asked him to record some verses, one of which included his freestyled outro on “Spaghettii” (with Linda Martell, which peaked at No. 31 on the Hot 100), and he appeared as well on “Sweet * Honey * Buckiin’ ” (No. 61).
The “Beyoncé bump,” as Cotter calls it, spurred Shaboozey’s team to advance the release date of “A Bar Song” a couple of weeks to April 12. “In this world of virality and quick hits, we wanted to be closer [to Cowboy Carter’s release] and be able to capitalize [on the exposure] with what we thought was a hit,” Cotter says. Early in its gargantuan run, “A Bar Song” usurped Beyoncé’s “Texas Hold ’Em” atop Hot Country Songs, making the collaborators the first Black artists to earn back-to-back No. 1s in the chart’s nearly 70-year history.
“It just feels great to see a true talent like Shaboozey win,” a representative from Beyoncé’s Parkwood Entertainment tells Billboard. “He has a clear sense of the artist he always was, and now the world knows it. To see him dominate the country space is a win for all those Black artists who have been authentically honing their craft for a long time now.”
Gucci sweater, Helmut Lang archive top, Levi’s jeans, Birkenstock shoes.
Eric Ryan Anderson
As “A Bar Song” came to dominate the summer, it continued to help Shaboozey notch major milestones. When he played the BET Awards for the first time in June, J-Kwon joined him for a whimsical, saloon-set mashup of “A Bar Song” and “Tipsy.”
“Traditionally, I feel like country music wasn’t really accepted in that space as much,” says Shaboozey, who became just the second Black male solo country artist to play the BET Awards (after Brown in 2020). “I even felt — whether that’s my own insecurity or [self-judgment] — ‘Is this thing really connecting with people?’ as I’m performing the song. That’s my biggest fear… when I’m feeling out of place in this space. But that’s what I want to do with my music: be disruptive and show people that music is progressing.”
Shaboozey and J-Kwon’s performance was well-received — including by rappers such as Skilla Baby, French Montana and Quavo, all of whom gave him words of support at the show or hit him up in the days following. “I love hip-hop; I’m a part of their community, too,” Shaboozey reiterates — and he’s right.
Shaboozey is as country as he is hip-hop, as evidenced by the featured artists he tapped for Where I’ve Been. While Texas country-rocker Paul Cauthen helps bring the house down on “Last of My Kind” — ESPN’s new Atlantic Coast Conference college football anthem — Dallas rapper BigXthaPlug appears on the fiery hip-hop party track “Drink Don’t Need No Mix.” But while Shaboozey could promote songs from this album that don’t cater to country audiences, he doesn’t currently plan to. “Shaboozey is a country artist — that’s what he’s passionate about,” Cotter stresses. “What we’re seeing across all genres is artists don’t need to be in one box. Shaboozey is the first one that’s genuinely both in hip-hop and country music; he can rap as well as he can sing. We’re definitely going to promote that because it’s who he is. It’s not a new thing that we’re trying.”
“[Shaboozey] is a little bit of everything,” Davis adds. “That’s what separates him from everyone else. I think Taylor Swift shows that you don’t have to stick with one genre — you can try them all and push them all.”
Vintage t-shirt, Huey Lewis denim jacket, Wales Bonner pants and shoes.
Eric Ryan Anderson
But Nashville and its leading industry players have not been so uniformly open-minded regarding Shaboozey’s generally genreless approach, or his appearance. “They kept wondering if other songs were country on his album or if it was just going to be one song and then all of a sudden, he’s a street thug,” Davis recalls. “I think it’s both [his sound and appearance]. Obviously, if you looked at him walking by and he didn’t have a belt buckle and cowboy boots, you’d swear he was doing something different. I think it’s just the stereotype of what people see, but having those conversations and sharing the whole album made things a little bit easier.” While Shaboozey is acutely aware that he’s “definitely a new artist in [the country] space,” he says he now feels embraced by Nashville — and vows that his “next project is going to be even more country, even more dialed in.”
And Shaboozey has made inroads with the country establishment, including at a pair of country music awards shows. He scored 12 nods at the People’s Choice Country Awards and two nominations — new artist and single of the year — at the CMA Awards. At the latter ceremony, Shaboozey is just one of three Black performers to be nominated, alongside Michael Trotter Jr. and Tanya Trotter of The War and Treaty. “There’s a weight that comes with it,” Shaboozey acknowledges, adding that Michael personally called to congratulate him — and also to recognize that “Man, it’s just us.” (Significantly, Beyoncé and Cowboy Carter didn’t receive any CMA nominations. “All I know is that she made a great body of work and I know she’s proud of that,” Shaboozey says of the snubs.)
The crossover success of “A Bar Song” has conjured comparisons to “Old Town Road,” another country-rap joint that ruffled more than a few feathers back in 2019 — and Shaboozey has found kinship with Lil Nas X. “That’s the homie,” says Shaboozey, who connected with Lil Nas at the previous night’s VMAs. “We haven’t had deep conversations, but I can tell what’s happening to me now is probably very similar to what he experienced.”
For Shaboozey, the VMAs were a “fishbowl” experience, where he was aware of outsiders looking at Lil Nas and him, waiting for the two to interact and acknowledge how their stories intersect. “It’s like everyone is like, ‘Do they know?’ ” he quips. And while the VMAs are technically genre-agnostic, Shaboozey did feel a bit of a disconnect with the audience. “Love the VMAs, but sometimes it felt like they weren’t there for me, to be honest,” he says with a droll chuckle, noting how some audience members seemed almost embarrassed to cheer for him after screaming for more top 40-facing pop stars. “But there were more Black folks and people working the event that were showing me love, and that’s what it’s about.”
Givenchy sweater, Helmut Lang archive top, Object From Nothing jeans, Birkenstock shoes, Cartier, Sydney Evan, and Spinelli Kilcollin jewelry.
Eric Ryan Anderson
He knows, however, that these awards shows are all a prelude to February’s Grammys. In addition to best new artist and record and song of the year for “A Bar Song,” Shaboozey will likely contend for best country song and best country solo performance. Should he take home a trophy in the country field, he would become just the fifth Black act to do so, joining Charley Pride, The Pointer Sisters, Aaron Neville and Darius Rucker, who tells Billboard, “We’re fortunate to have Shaboozey in country music.” Shaboozey’s team confirms that it will submit Where I’m From and its songs in the country field, and the campaign includes stops at “the right looks,” according to Pauti, including The Late Show With Stephen Colbert (where he recently performed his new single, “Highway”), a sit-down interview with Gayle King, an intimate L.A. showcase and meeting Recording Academy CEO Harvey Mason Jr.
“I think it’s something for me to bring home to everybody,” Shaboozey muses about his potential first Grammy wins. “This is the peak of the mountain as far as recognition comes. This is a long-standing ceremony, it’s history and tradition, and hopefully we’re able to take it home. That childhood fear of never winning anything is still there. It would mean the world to win one of these things, but if not, the year we had was crazy. If not now, it’ll come. We in the club now.”
“The Grammys are always going to matter to me,” says EMPIRE founder Ghazi, whose commitment to a genreless future brought him out to Nashville years before he crossed paths with Shaboozey. “From being a 14-year-old making my first records to now being a seasoned executive, I never lost sight of that journey, and the Grammys never [lose their] luster.”
As Shaboozey picks at his final few French fries, I take in the man sitting across the table from me, who, though he’s currently relaxed in the booth of a Brooklyn eatery, has more than a little of a classic gunslinger’s gleam in his eyes. When he picks up his final oyster, it feels nothing short of poetic. A few years ago, it would have been borderline unimaginable to see someone like him at the zenith of country music, yet here he is — reshaping signifiers of so-called authenticity and injecting them with the street-smart swagger of the contemporary hip-hop gangster. A distinctly 21st-century manifestation of the spirit of Marty Robbins, channeled through a voice and persona equally steeped in Stanley Kubrick, Garth Brooks and Juvenile, Shaboozey is a lone star — a true outlaw who has effectively rewritten the rules of a land that’s actually his to reclaim.
And like any genuine outlaw, he never breaks eye contact while making plain his message: “I’m just making music I love,” Shaboozey says. “It’s cool being recognized, but I’m making music for a group of people that are usually underrepresented. I’m going to keep doing that. It’s good to be that guy — those are the people who are remembered.”
This story appears in the Oct. 5, 2024, issue of Billboard.
Check out pics of the “A Bar Song (Tipsy)” hitmaker.
Young Miko is sitting, legs criss-crossed, atop her purple bed, surrounded by bookshelves, a boombox and a big Tamagotchi. A microphone clutched to her chest, she’s visibly emotional, almost teary-eyed.
But she’s not alone in what appears to be her bedroom. On this September evening, she’s onstage at Miami’s Hard Rock Live, and a crowd of 7,000 is chanting the 26-year-old urbano star’s name — even though she hasn’t yet said a word. The bed, the centerpiece of her set, is a reference to the cover art for her latest album, this year’s att. And the satisfaction on her face is a reaction to an anything but private moment. She’s gazing in awe at the crowd of mainly Gen Z girls whose effortlessly chic looks mirror her own Y2K aesthetic — oversize T-shirts, baggy pants, ultra-pink girly ensembles with shimmery makeup and pigtails. Young Miko — clad in a sparkly baby blue checkered two-piece and pristine white sneakers, her hair in her signature slicked-back half ponytail — soaks it all in.
Ruven Afanador
Onstage, Young Miko is graceful and charming, or “very demure, very mindful, very cutesy,” as she jokes in English with her zealous fans, who roar as she flashes them shy, flirtatious smiles. Tonight, she runs through her early hits, like the trap anthem “Lisa,” as well as newer ones, like att.’s “Rookie of the Year,” a song that perfectly captures Young Miko’s rapid rise to fame. She even brings out Colombian star Feid, one of her earliest supporters, to join her for two songs, including their first collaboration, “Classy 101,” with which she made her Billboard Hot 100 debut last year. “Thank you for the love you guys have given me,” she tells the audience at one point, speaking in a mix of English and Spanish. “Today, I’m very emotional and I don’t have the words to describe just how much your support means to me.”
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It’s the final show of Miko’s 24-date XOXO U.S. tour, her biggest trek yet, swiftly following her 2023 Trap Kitty world tour. Last year, “we played 40 minutes,” Miko explains backstage hours before her performance. “Now I’m onstage for two hours. Our crew was like 10 people; now it’s more than 50 of us,” she adds, her eyes growing wider. “Everything has multiplied.” Her mixture of excitement and incredulity is understandable. The gifted singer-rapper born María Victoria Ramírez de Arellano in the northwestern Puerto Rican town of Añasco has had a meteoric rise, becoming one of the most promising global artists of her generation on the strength of her attitude-heavy trap songs and refreshing songwriting, which draws inspiration from her queer identity.
In the past year, Miko, who uploaded her first songs to SoundCloud in 2019 and signed with Puerto Rican indie label The Wave Music Group two years later, opened for Karol G’s stadium tour; collaborated with Bad Bunny on his track “Fina”; made her Coachella debut; and delivered her genre-bending debut album, att., which became her first Billboard 200 entry (short for atentamente, the title translates to “sincerely”). To date, she has had six entries on the Billboard Global 200 and Global Excl. U.S. charts, and 319.9 million on-demand official streams in the United States, according to Luminate.
“I take everything one day at a time,” says Miko, who was a tattoo artist before she committed to music full time. “Opening for Karol in stadiums, that helped me loosen up. Seeing her up close and personal and how she connected with her fans, that was huge. It helped me grow onstage, as a person and as an artist. It’s been a process, and I’ve learned to embrace every stage of my career.”
Ruven Afanador
Supporting Karol G’s tour was a “turning point” for Miko, says Hans Schafer, senior vp of global touring at Live Nation, which produced both Karol’s and Miko’s recent tours. “It solidified her presence in the Latin market and expanded her reach globally. Miko can potentially be one of her generation’s defining artists. She’s already proven she can headline [a] tour, and her ability to evolve musically while staying true to her roots is a critical factor in long-term success in the touring space.”
Miko’s achievements on the touring front and beyond reflect the slow but steady diversification of Latin music — and more specifically urbano music, which has been ruled by male artists for the past 20 years — and have made her rise feel even more momentous. The significance isn’t lost on her.
“Our generation is much more receptive and inclusive — what a time to be alive,” Miko says. “People just don’t give a f–k anymore; they care that you’re a good person. I remember how refreshing it was to hear Ivy Queen doing reggaetón and now you can name so many women in the genre; the change is here and you can’t deny it. It doesn’t mean we can now just lay back either. I’m excited to be part of a movement and a moment in history when people look back and say, ‘I remember Karol and Young Miko, and this one, and the other one.’ ”
Ruven Afanador
That turning tide inspired Young Miko and her team, which includes her manager (and best friend), Mariana López Crespo, and her longtime producer, Mauro (who is also López Crespo’s brother), to launch 1K, a company they describe as a creative collective comprising 20 individuals who are all also part of Miko’s team. “I don’t want to eat alone at the table,” Miko explains. “We’re very passionate about growing 1K into an empire — think Death Row Records — by signing and investing in new artists and content creators. We’re all in it to learn, grow and help others.”
She and López Crespo, who is also a queer woman, first met when they were teen soccer players. Together, they learned a valuable lesson. “The goalkeeper can’t save the game, the midfielder supports the defender, the defender is nothing without the forward, the midfield is nothing without the bench, and the bench is nothing without the coach,” Miko says. “We apply that mentality to everything we do today.”
López Crespo and Young Miko first met in 2012, when they were both trying out for the Puerto Rican women’s national soccer team. They both made the team — and instantly became best friends. Besides sharing a love for fútbol, the teenagers discovered they had the same taste in music, from Puerto Rican reggae band Cultura Profética to Lauryn Hill to Gwen Stefani. “She was the one on the team who was always blasting music on the speakers — she knew all the verses, she was charismatic, you could tell she really enjoyed performing,” López Crespo recalls of Miko.
After four years of playing together on the national football team (Miko as midfielder and López Crespo as forward), the two went their separate ways. Both were attending the University of Puerto Rico’s Río Piedras campus, but then Miko transferred to Inter American University and López Crespo moved to Costa Rica to play soccer, though she eventually returned to Puerto Rico after an injury. Around 2018, she reconnected with Young Miko — or Vicky, as López Crespo still calls her — who showed her some of the music she had recorded using her iPhone and the built-in microphone on her Apple headphones. “I told her that she had to take this seriously because there was something there — her songs had personality,” López Crespo recalls. “I said, ‘Maybe you don’t have the resources now, but you have the discipline. Don’t stop.’ ” Miko’s response? “I’ll pursue this only if you are my manager.” “Fine,” López Crespo remembers thinking. “I’ve never done this, but I like a challenge, so vamos pa’ encima [let’s do it].”
Entire Studios top, Tiffany & Co. necklace and bracelet.
Ruven Afanador
Trained to be on an attack’s front line as a forward, López Crespo hit the ground running and started assembling a team that would help develop the plan for Young Miko’s career. One of the first people she approached was her brother Mauro, a trained musician who was also just starting his career as a producer.
“My sister told me that Vicky was making music and showed me two songs she had on SoundCloud,” Mauro remembers. “I immediately told Mariana, ‘There’s something here — she has the look, the swag, the voice, the bars. It’s raw, but it’s all there.’ ” A saxophonist who graduated from the University of Puerto Rico, Río Piedras with a bachelor’s degree in music, Mauro had taught himself to produce after being mesmerized when he saw one of his peers create a beat on a laptop. With the help of YouTube videos and patient producer friends, by 2020, he had posted some of his beats to Instagram.
“Things are always meant to be, they’re already written in our destiny,” Miko says. “When I was starting in music, Mauro was also starting to produce, so we grew together. I would give him that space to explore with me and he would give me space to explore as a songwriter, a singer. He forces me to open up, and I do the same with him. It’s been that way from the beginning.” She adds, categorically: “There would be no Young Miko without Mauro.”
Just as Miko and her team were getting going, the pandemic hit — but they used the COVID-19 shutdown to their advantage. López Crespo and Miko rented a mountaintop Airbnb in Rincón to host their inaugural songwriting camp. It was the first time that Miko’s “core” team, including producers and creatives, “locked ourselves in,” López Crespo says. “Not for the purpose of needing to get something out there, but rather to explore, get to know each other and build trust. I remember saying we’d give this process two years, and if we didn’t see anything happening, we’d reconsider. But it was clear that there was a special feeling in that camp. There was uncertainty, yes, but a lot of desire to grow.”
Ruven Afanador
Although the songs created during the camp were never officially released, Miko’s older material on SoundCloud still managed to catch Angelo Torres’ attention. The executive came across Miko’s SoundCloud link while scrolling through X. “I was instantly captivated when I heard her tracks,” he told Billboard when Miko was named Latin Rookie of the Year in 2023. “There was something undeniably intriguing about her sound. [I thought], ‘I really need to meet this person.’ ” He not only met her but signed her to The Wave Music Group in 2021, which he had recently launched alongside producer Caleb Calloway, who has since co-produced some of Miko’s biggest hits. Last year, Capitol Music Group locked in a long-term distribution deal with the label.
Torres was also one of the first people with whom López Crespo talked business. “He’s someone I’m grateful for because it’s people like him that really encourage you and want you to grow,” she says. “They may be veterans and you are the new one, but they see that hunger in you.”
Young Miko’s eyes light up when she talks about having her closest friends as part of her team, knowing she’s surrounded by people who believed in her from day one — especially the person she has won championships with on — and now off, in a sense — the field. “Mariana has been my sister for as long as I can remember and I’m so proud of her. We’ve always been a dynamic duo. It gives me great pride to know that when we are no longer here, they will mention a name as great as Mariana López Crespo and I will be next to that name. Damn, I got so gay today, bro,” she says as she walks over to hug López Crespo, who is crouched in a corner of the Hard Rock Live green room, hands covering her face. “Don’t cry, it’s what I feel. And I don’t tell you often, but sometimes we need to stop and smell the roses.”
As Young Miko sees it, the foundation of her life hasn’t really changed even as she has catapulted to stardom. “It doesn’t have to,” she says before inadvertently evoking an anthem by one of her favorite ’90s acts: “I’m just a girl,” she adds with a sweet smile.
She still lives in Puerto Rico and hangs out with the same group of friends she did before she became a global star. “I feel like we hustle just how we used to hustle back then,” she adds. “We enjoy the feeling of being an underdog. Having bets against you and responding with ‘No, we’ve got this’? Best feeling.”
It’s her parents’ lives that she says she has changed. “I take my parents everywhere with me. They are my biggest fans. They are just super grateful and excited. The other day they told me, ‘We feel like we just started living and we’re 60-something,’ ” she says, pausing and taking a deep breath. “I get emotional.”
Young Miko photographed August 29, 2024 at Seret Studios in Brooklyn.
Ruven Afanador
And while she’s no longer on the soccer pitch, she has a new squad cheering her on. “I think [Bad Bunny] and Karol saw something of themselves in me. It came from their hearts to want to support or contribute to my career. It also gives me a lot of motivation because they are artists that I admire and are examples I want to follow. When I have people like them telling me, ‘You can 100% do this,’ then I have to,” she says. “Karol would take me to her sound check, show me things she did to warm up; she didn’t have to do any of that stuff.”
Earlier this year, Karol released the music video for “Contigo,” in which Young Miko plays her romantic interest. Especially for an urban artist, it felt like a big statement in support of the LGBTQ+ community — though Miko says the genre is more accepting of queer artists today than it has ever been. “I used to do things that were so innocent to a certain extent that I didn’t even realize I was causing a shift in the pendulum,” she explains. “Now looking back, I understand how shocking these things can be. I’m already thinking of new ways to grow a bigger space for everyone and keep changing things.”
To that end, Miko is also working to get people registered to vote ahead of the U.S. November election. A few weeks ago, she encouraged her Instagram followers — all 7 million of them — to make sure they’re registered, adding that she’ll be voting early because she won’t physically be in Puerto Rico on Nov. 5. “It’s something I’m very passionate about — my whole team is,” she says of joining the significant number of Latin and non-Latin acts alike who’ve used their platforms to engage their fans in civic action. (She hasn’t yet supported a specific candidate.) “It is very important for the future of my island, the future of my people. I was very excited when I saw [Bad Bunny] posting; I saw myself in him as a person who lives in Puerto Rico. I think it is important to bring at least a little bit of awareness — like, ‘Hey, educate yourself on what you believe is right for you and your country.’ ”
It all feels intrinsically connected to another topic that makes Miko perk up: her vision for her future, which feels limitless. “It can look scary, but I know I’m capable of doing everything I set my mind to. I tell Mariana that I want to be in movies, that I want us to grow together as businesswomen — whether opportunities come to us or we go out and get them ourselves,” she says with determination. “I want to look back and be able to say that I did everything I wanted and squeezed everything I could out of this life.”
This story appears in the Sept. 28, 2024, issue of Billboard.
Young Miko is sitting, legs crisscrossed, atop her purple bed, surrounded by bookshelves, a boombox and a big Tamagotchi. A microphone clutched to her chest, she’s visibly emotional, almost teary-eyed. But she’s not alone in what appears to be her bedroom. On this September evening, she’s onstage at Miami’s Hard Rock Live, and a crowd […]
J Balvin and I have a date at Tiffany’s.
Admittedly, even I don’t realize this until I reach the storied display windows on Fifth Avenue, where I’m led to a private elevator manned by a uniformed attendant who silently takes me up, up, up. The doors open to a stunning private room with unfettered views of the Manhattan skyline and Central Park — where I also find José Álvaro Osorio Balvin himself. He looks every bit the lord of the manor, in a casually elegant short-sleeved white T-shirt tucked into sleek black Prada cargo pants. His beard is trimmed and his hair is pulled back in neat cornrows, exposing the matching diamond studs in his earlobes. On his wrist is a Patek Philippe watch.
It’s a rare oasis of calm for an artist who lately seems to have been moving nonstop in multiple directions at once. Since the beginning of the year, Balvin has appeared in the cinematic teaser for Usher’s Super Bowl halftime show; released a new shoe in collaboration with Air Jordan; been the face of Cheetos’ new “Deja tu Huella” campaign; performed a major Coachella set (the second-highest billed artist of the day, behind Doja Cat), featuring a surprise appearance by Will Smith; toured Europe and then Australia and New Zealand; and in August, released Rayo, his first album since 2021. He’s currently preparing a collaboration with G-SHOCK watches. Before the year is over, Peacock will broadcast a new interview series he’ll host. And he’s already gearing up for his first feature film lead role, in the drug drama Little Lorraine, helmed by Grammy Award-winning director Andy Hines and planned for a 2025 release.
It’s a remarkably fruitful time — both creatively and commercially — for the Colombian star who three years ago, during the pandemic and at the height of his popularity, saw public opinion in some quarters turn sharply against him after a rapid-fire series of unfortunate, almost surreal incidents.
In 2021, following the birth of his son Rio (with his longtime girlfriend, model Valentina Ferrer), Balvin found himself in the crosshairs of rapper Residente, who took umbrage with Balvin’s call to boycott the Latin Grammys due to the absence of reggaetón in the main categories and who posted several scathing videos chastising him on social media.
Not long after, Balvin was criticized for his portrayal of women in the video for his 2021 song “Perra,” an edgy collaboration with Tokischa. Directed by Raymi Paulus, Tokischa’s collaborator, it showed Tokischa, who identifies as a queer woman, eating from a dog bowl and Balvin walking two Black women dressed as dogs on leashes, prompting Colombia’s then-vice president, Marta Lucía Ramírez, to call out the song’s “misogynist lyrics that violate women’s rights, comparing them to animals.” Days later, Balvin apologized publicly and removed the video from YouTube.
Mere weeks after that, confused fans questioned why the 2021 African Entertainment Awards named Balvin Afro-Latino artist of the year. “I am not Afro-Latino,” Balvin posted to his Instagram story in Spanish. “But thank you for giving me a place in the contribution to Afrobeat music and its movement.”
Then, in March 2022, Residente, whom Balvin had considered a friend, resurfaced with “Residente: Bzrp Music Sessions, Vol. 49,” a no-holds-barred, nine-minute opus made with Argentine DJ Bizarrap that torpedoed reggaetón in general but zeroed in on Balvin, criticizing him for, among other things, “using mental health to sell a documentary” and for the “Perra” video.
And through it all, Balvin’s mother was in and out of intensive care in the singer’s native Medellín. (She is now better but still has health struggles.)
While Balvin kept up with social media posts and appearances, privately he was taken aback. “In my entire career, I had never been a person who had scandals,” notes the 39-year-old, who says he hasn’t spoken to Residente since. “I used to say, ‘Why do all these artists have things happen to them, and nothing happens to me!’ You’re looking at it from up there, and then, suddenly you’re in the middle of it.”
Musically, Balvin went quiet — mostly — for nearly three years. An extraordinarily prolific artist, between 2014 and 2021 he had released six albums, all top 10s on Billboard’s Top Latin Albums chart, including four No. 1s, and charted 96 singles on Hot Latin Songs (including nine No. 1s) and 18 on the Billboard Hot 100, including the chart-topper “I Like It,” with Cardi B and Bad Bunny. (Balvin also holds the record for most No. 1s on Latin Airplay, 36.) After March 2022, he put out only a handful of singles and no albums.
But Balvin, a relentless hustler at heart, regrouped with his family; parted ways with Scooter Braun, who had managed him during this turbulent period; and took stock of his friendships. During this dark hour, he sought advice from Maluma, a colleague who had never been a close friend, but who had experienced similar public excoriation in 2016 when he released his controversial song “Cuatro Babys.”
“I was always very willing to help José when all this happened because I went through that,” Maluma says. “At end of the day, even if you pretend it doesn’t matter, it hurts when people have the wrong idea about you, and defending yourself against the entire world is very difficult. Plus, we’re both Colombian, we’ve both had beautiful careers, and we’ve elevated our country and our genre. José is one of the most important pillars of Latin and urban music. He takes his career very seriously. It was the least I could do.”
Entire Studios top.
David Needleman
Balvin began to formulate a plan for returning to the spotlight. He approached Roc Nation co-founder and longtime CEO Jay Brown, and two years ago, signed with Roc Nation to manage all aspects of his career. “He was being very thoughtful about what he wanted. He was looking for insights on how to grow his brands, how to expand on what he wanted to do with his career, outside his music,” Brown says, noting that he and Balvin communicate almost daily. “It’s about managing his enthusiasm, his inspiration. He loves what he does, he loves touching people, he loves being out there. I think that’s refreshing. And he’s a good guy. It’s hard to say no to something like that.”
In 2022, Balvin launched his education-focused foundation, Vibra en Alta, in Colombia. Earlier this year, he also switched labels, moving within the Universal family from Universal Music Latino to Capitol under Capitol Music Group chairman/CEO Tom March and Interscope Capitol Labels Group executive vp Nir Seroussi, a good friend. At the same time, he returned to the studio, working with longtime producers like Jeremy Ayala (Daddy Yankee’s son) and Luis Ángel O’Neill, while also trying out new material with young, rising artists like Saiko, Dei V and Feid.
In short order, he cut more than 40 tracks, which he then narrowed down to 15 spunky reggaetón bangers for an album he named Rayo, which translates to “lightning.” The name and the sleek, silver car on the cover pay homage to Balvin’s first car, a beat-up red Volkswagen Golf that he drove to gigs — a hopeful symbol of all the possibilities before him.
“I wanted to focus on the clear comeback of a Balvin focused on music, his career and his legacy,” Seroussi says. “When I sat down with him to see where he was spiritually, I saw a José that is going to win. He wakes up in the morning as if he were a new artist.”
Four months ago, Balvin wrote me on WhatsApp. He was ready to talk, he said, about everything. And so, here I am high above Tiffany & Co. for a private afternoon of coffee and macarons — just the two of us. As we chat, his openness surprises me. But then again, as Seroussi says, “He’s an artist who has nothing else to prove, but wants to keep doing music. Every [Latin] artist today who has something to do with urban music at a global scale can in some way trace back to what José opened for them.”
Balvin will sit down for a live one on one interview during Billboard Latin Music Week. You can purchase your tickets here.
Luar jacket and pants, Vetements shoes.
David Needleman
Your son Rio was born at a hectic point in your life. What did his arrival mean to you at the time?
His arrival was perfection because having Rio at that moment allowed me to really focus my energy on a person who came to bring me light. It was as if God was saying, “OK, I sent you a trial, but here’s a gift.” And I say that because since Rio’s birth, my — how do I say this — my emotional intelligence has grown very much. I don’t remember losing control since my son’s birth. I’ve had complicated moments, but I’ve never lost control. He brought me strength, a lot of patience, but yes, a lot of light. In fact, I made the Jordan Rios — which are black but have a sunset in the sole — based on the fact that in a moment of darkness, my son came and brought me light.
Let’s talk about this moment of darkness. It became really complicated for you on many fronts, particularly your dispute with Residente.
Have you ever had a friend turn on you? I considered him a friend, and I spoke with him as if he were a friend. Very openly. Con mucha confianza. That’s what surprised me and hurt and opened my eyes. I still believe I can make new friends, but it’s a little more complicated finding them these days. Because some of the people I thought were my friends ended up not being that. Obviously, this happened, it’s done, I’ve matured and I’m not holding a grudge or anything like that. I had to forgive myself for being so naive and opening my heart so easily to some people. The toughest part was to encounter a dark side of humanity in a moment of darkness. And I’m not saying I’m the most illuminated person either; I’ve made mistakes, and maybe I’ve made friends feel bad. But I’ve never betrayed a friend.
Personally, I never found you offensive. How do you think you made people feel bad?
I’ve been very honest. But as a paisa, we’re jokesters and we can get out of hand, and not everyone understands. We’re very open, and other cultures sometimes don’t understand that and take it the wrong way.
Feuds are common in rap and reggaetón. But this felt more like an attack than a feud. You never replied to Residente’s dis track, did you?
Never. First of all, you need to know what court to play in, right? When all this happened, it was the most complicated moment for my mom’s health. She was in intensive care. She told me, “Promise me you won’t reply and you won’t say anything. Do it for me. I know you, I know your essence, and this isn’t for you.” And the weight of a mother’s word is everything.
Is she aware of these things that happened to you?
Of course. And my mom suffered a lot. Now that I’m a father, I understand. It’s crossing a powerful line. A line that’s family, it’s sacred. The pain caused to a mother, a family, a sister, to the people who love you, was complicated. And it was complex for me because, following my mother’s advice, I never spoke out about this and I never defended myself. But I’m very clear on who I am. I’m not going to go out there and explain who I am to the world because clearly, people who know me know my essence and those are the people I want to be in good standing with.
I think not replying was wise…
As one of the leaders of Colombia’s movement I can’t set a bad example, no matter what people would like to see. I’ve always strived to be a better person and a gentleman in life. Being a decent person is a much harder task than being an “artist,” [which is] easier in the sense that if you have a talent and patience, you’ll get there. But being a better person is a daily task.
J Balvin photographed August 20, 2024 in New York. Entire Studios shirt.
David Needleman
You also had an issue surrounding the video for “Perra,” your single with Tokischa.
I’ve always been known for supporting new talent, and in Tokischa, I saw a woman who was very empowered and daring and who spoke positively about her sexuality in a way I had never seen before [in the Latin world], like Nicki Minaj or Cardi B do here in the U.S. If men in reggaetón can speak about their sexuality this way, I was struck to see a woman doing it. My mission was simply to do what I could to elevate and promote Tokischa and her art to a wider audience. I respect the way each person wants to conceptualize their vision, and this was her vision and her creation. I went there to support her vision, and I paid dearly for it.
In this case, after many people criticized the video, you not only took it down from your YouTube channel, but you spoke out and gave a public apology. Why?
I spoke out because this was a much deeper issue in that it went into topics like race, masculinity and machismo. However, if people had listened to the song, they would have realized it’s a story that has nothing to do with going against a race or gender. It was totally the opposite. Tokischa is an Afro Latina woman, and she was representing her race, her culture and the idiosyncrasies of her world. And obviously, my lyrics, I always approach them in a very commercial way and I’m very careful about what I say. But when things happen, they happen all at once.
I know you went to Maluma for advice. What did he say?
Maluma and I weren’t really friends. We were colleagues, but we also competed with each other. But I wrote him, and then I sat down with him. We’ve become very close. I’ve come to appreciate him and respect him more than ever, and now I can say he’s like a younger brother to me. I imagine it must have been tough when things happened to him, but then you grow an armor. That’s what happened to me. I became very cold; I didn’t want to open my heart to anyone. When I went back on social media, I didn’t want to go back to the old José who’s always making jokes and teasing, because I had a mental block. Until Rayo came around and I started to make music again for the love of music 100% and stopped thinking about the business.
How was your approach different?
I began to make music with a sense of security that came down to: I don’t have to prove myself in this business. It would have been complicated if I hadn’t achieved anything [before] and I had to prove myself. But we’ve achieved so many changes and evolutions. I remember you interviewed me years ago with Nicky Jam and you asked: Do you think a song in Spanish will make it to No. 1 on the Hot 100? And I said yes.
I remember that conversation well. And it happened.
We unlocked that. We unlocked performing at the Super Bowl. We unlocked having the most streamed artist in the world, we unlocked the first stadium played by a solo reggaetón artist, we unlocked sneaker culture, fashion, Guinness Records, so many things that hadn’t happened before. So I kind of look back and say, “Prove what? I need to regain my confidence after all these blows and enjoy the process.”
Luar jacket and pants.
David Needleman
You didn’t release an album for three years. For you, that’s an eternity…
And during those three years, I never left the top 50 of the most streamed artists in the world [on Spotify, where Balvin ranked No. 31 at press time]. It’s a beautiful thing to see that in a business where so few artists have the luxury of even saying, “I’m taking a year off.” Obviously, I questioned myself a lot when I came back. “Why the f–k did I leave?” Although I never stopped working. I kept playing festivals in Europe and all that. But I think my official return was when I played Coachella.
I have to imagine that setting foot on that Coachella stage was a little nerve-racking.
Of course! Plus, that show was planned for a year because Coachella had never allowed something to be hung from the roof, because of the wind in the desert. So we took the risk of hanging the [giant inflatable] UFO, and the investment was very high. But it was finally spectacular, and having Will Smith [make a guest appearance to perform “Men in Black”] was very cool. I saw myself in him, in the sense that both of us went through a dark period — and I know that mistakes don’t define a person and can’t detract from the greatness of what he’s achieved. I was so happy to share his return because after the Oscars incident, this was his first public appearance, and a week later, Bad Boys [for Life] came out. And it wasn’t planned!
Were you two friends?
No, we had never met. I [felt] I needed something else to really make a statement in the show. And Will Smith came to mind, because what’s better than Men in Black? [Balvin reached out to Smith’s team and ultimately FaceTimed him.] I told him my mission, with my passion. He said, “Give me a week.” [While I waited] like a good, hardworking paisa, I sent him a photo of the Virgin [Mary] praying. Then I sent him a votive candle, as if I were praying; then a voodoo doll. And exactly a week later, he called and said, “Let’s do it.”
Following Coachella, you took your tour to Europe, Australia and New Zealand to play for big and very receptive crowds despite these regions not being your core markets. Was that gratifying for you after a traumatic period?
When I did that tour, [and when] I went to Medellín to release the album and I saw the euphoria among the fans, I thought, “It was all in my head.”
Entire Studios top and pants, Air Jordan 3 x J Balvin shoes.
David Needleman
You’ve achieved global domination in many spheres. Most recently, you became the artist with the most titles, 15, in YouTube’s Billion Views Club. What drives you today?
What’s most important is a super reconnection and a super service to my Latinos, 100%. They’re the foundation of everything. The reason I’m a global artist is because Latins gave me that power. And I want a super reconnection with new generations and Gen Z. It’s never been a problem for me to connect with new generations because I like new artists and I enjoy collaborating with them. From there, I’d like to do a grand tour of the U.S. and Latin America. And I want to unlock India. Unlock it completely.
You were perhaps the first major Latin artist to talk frankly about mental health and your struggles with it. I know this has been a journey for you and you’ve taken medication for anxiety at times.
I still do. Always. Some people can do without meds. In my case, they’ve been lowering the dosage and I haven’t had any issues since my son was born. None. That’s why I said before, in the darkest moments, I didn’t lose control. But I take my pills daily. It’s perfectly normal, as if someone had an issue with high [blood] pressure. But there’s also meditation — I’ve been meditating since I was 19 years old — daily exercise, eating habits and the people you surround yourself with. The fact that I don’t do drugs or anything like that has also been part of having that mental, spiritual balance.
What role has Colombia’s music scene played in exposing the country to the world?
Music has been a path of light for Colombia at a global scale. I think it saved an entire generation. Now, all these Gen Zers want to be artists instead of drug dealers or killers for hire. When I started in music, there wasn’t a map for urban music in Colombia. There was Shakira and Carlos Vives and Juanes, but they were completely different genres. [Daddy] Yankee inspired me, but he’s Puerto Rican. No one had globalized urban music from Colombia. We literally took a pick and an axe and paved the way. I don’t know how we did it, but we did. And now I see this whole new generation of artists, like Ryan Castro, Blessd.
Karol G has also been steadfastly by your side. In fact, she invited you to perform at one of her shows at MetLife Stadium in New Jersey last year…
Karol is a friend who’s also become a teacher. That was a beautiful moment here at [MetLife] to come together again in a stadium full of people who came to see her. I told her, “You used to look up at me, and now, I’m your biggest fan.” It’s a beautiful cycle and I’m so proud of Colombia. We’re a small country but so strong in our music.
Luar jacket and pants, Vetements shoes.
David Needleman
How do you see yourself today?
I value what I’ve achieved, without a doubt. The insecurity I felt has gone, and I feel like a brand-new artist. If you listen to Rayo, you hear a refreshed J Balvin who had a good time. I didn’t make this album thinking I was going to make an album. I went to make music and remembered how I felt when I was 19 years old and I just wanted to show every song I made to my mom, my sister, my girlfriend, my friends. That’s why, when I finished the album, I wanted to name it for that moment in time, when my only ambitions were artistic, when I really knew nothing about the business.
You really feel like a new artist?
One hundred percent. And I’m working like a new artist. I mean, most artists of my level don’t go to Mexico and sit down for 200 interviews. I do, and also, it’s been three years! I’m ready to be overexposed. Whatever I need to do, it’s Balvin time. And I say that with certainty and because I know what I have and what I can give. Something positive always happens when I give it my all. I went through the dark times, and now, the sun is out and it’s shining on my face.
At 39 years old, how do you feel about longevity?
I’ll perform and record as long as I’m happy and people connect with me. We have yet to see the first elder reggaetón artist. We have the OGs — Yandel, Wisin — who look great. Yankee looks younger than when he started. But honestly, we haven’t had the example of seeing how long a reggaetón artist can go for. I see myself super gangster in the future. Not evil gangster, but as someone who’s done well, who’s been strategic in his movements and has done something well for society and culture. Like a Latin Jay-Z.
This story appears in the Oct. 5, 2024, issue of Billboard.
J Balvin and I have a date at Tiffany’s. Admittedly, even I don’t realize this until I reach the storied display windows on Fifth Avenue, where I’m led to a private elevator manned by a uniformed attendant who silently takes me up, up, up. The doors open to a stunning private room with unfettered views […]