Dance
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After announcing that he’d been diagnosed with a rare form of brain cancer in June, on Tuesday (Dec. 5), Michael Bibi offered a much happier update.
“CANCER FREE!” he wrote on Instagram. “After 6 months of fighting I leave hospital officially in remission with no cancer in my body.
“To every person that sent me the support, energy & strength to fight I thank you from the bottom of my heart & to the staff [at the Royal Marsden hospital in London] for literally saving my life I will forever be in your debt,” Bibi’s post continued. “Thank you so much.. I’m still very tired, I’m on a lot of meds, my body hurts & my hairs all gone….but I’m excited to get home, process, heal & prepare for the future with you all.”
The post is accompanied by photos of Bibi walking out of the hospital with his hands raised, flashing peace signs, images of him with hospital staff, and a short video of him ringing a bell inside the hospital, a hospital tradition for patients finishing treatment. The Royal Marsden specializes in cancer treatment.
The post garnered celebratory comments from many in the electronic music community, including Diplo, who wrote “hero,” John Summit, who wrote “LEGEND,” and Martin Garrix, who wrote “you’re a huge inspiration, so happy & proud of you!!! best f—ing news of 2023.”
In June, Bibi announced that he’d been diagnosed with CNS Lymphona, a rare form of cancer. The U.K. artist, on a hot streak following the pandemic, was forced to cancel all his shows while receiving treatment. His first performance after entering treatment was this past September, when he played a surprise set at DC-10 in Ibiza as part of the closing party for his Solid Grooves label.
The remission announcement follows a bone marrow/stem cell transplant Bibi received last month. In a post from Nov. 1, Bibi wrote that, “After many months of fighting, today I start the last phase of my treatment by having a bone marrow/stem cell transplant. If all goes well this will be the final yet toughest part of my journey. It will hit me hard & could take months of recovery but the end goal is being 100% cancer free… I pray everyday that all goes smoothly & I will be out of hospital with you all again soon. Wish me luck & see you on the other side.”
Jean Michel-Jarre will have a tres merry Christmas and also offer some joy to the world, with the French electronic pioneer set to perform from Versailles on Dec. 25.
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Presented by UNESCO and the French Ministry of Culture, the performance will happen from the Château de Versailles’ Hall of Mirrors, a UNESCO world heritage site, to celebrate the location’s 400th anniversary.
Called VERSAILLES 400, the show will happen in front of a live performance in the Hall of Mirrors, and also in virtual reality. Jarre will play while wearing a mixed reality headset, with the metaverse version of the show happening in a digital Hall of Mirrors. The virtual audience can connect through VR or on tablets and smartphones.
The show is designed as a tribute to French innovation that brings together current artforms and the art of the 17th century. Tickets for the live performance at Versailles start at 60€, or $65.
The show will be filmed at the Château de Versailles and broadcast on French and international television channels, along with Jarre’s YouTube channel and in VR on the French VRROOM platform, all on Dec. 25, Christmas Day.
“Versailles 400 is a hybrid concert and visual creation broadcast live from one of the world’s most beautiful locations, as well as in virtual reality in the metaverse,” Jarre said in a press release. “I hope the event will help promote our creative savoir faire and bring the world of French immersive creation to the forefront of collective culture.”
The 75-year-old genre legend is not a stranger to playing in exotic locations. In 1981, he was the first Western musician to perform in China, landmark shows captured for the double album The Concerts In China. He was invited again, which he accepted in 2004, whereupon he played the Forbidden City and Tiananmen Square, concerts which beamed live on national television. Other shows have incorporated skyscrapers and city landmarks.
In 2020, President Emmanuel Macron awarded him the Commander of the Légion d’Honneur, France’s highest order of merit. Earlier, he released the album Amazonia, a musical tribute to the Amazon rain forest, its inhabitants and the threats they face, and the companion to an exhibition by legendary photographer Sebastião Salgado. Jarre’s most recent album, Oxymore, was released in 2022.
In 1978, Kate Bush became the first solo woman to reach No. 1 in the U.K. with a song she wrote, produced and performed entirely by herself with “Wuthering Heights.” Forty-five years later, in October, dance–pop artist Kenya Grace joined her as the second to pull off the feat with the quietly devastating “Strangers,” her major-label debut single.
“There wasn’t too much pressure on that song, to be honest,” Grace says. “I didn’t really have some mad goal in mind — I just wrote it one random night.”
For Grace, 25, that kind of writing experience is the result of skills she’s been honing her entire life: she began creating and performing songs for friends and family at age four, inspired by Norah Jones tracks that her mother would play around the house. By 16, the South Africa-born, Southampton-raised singer was frequenting drum’n’bass parties, baptizing herself in the energy of the U.K. dance music scene that would soon characterize the sound of her own music. “When I start writing something at 120 BPM, I’m like, ‘No, it’s way too slow,’” she quips.
She graduated from London’s Academy of Contemporary Music in 2019 — an institution she likens to a massive networking event — and spent the next few years building an audience on TikTok. Even from her initial videos, Grace displayed a deft understanding of how to present her music, including one clip in which she crafted a beat by using her music production controller to source sound waves from oranges.
The post caught the attention of Day One Music’s Nick Huggett and Nick Shymansky, who have signed and developed British music icons including Amy Winehouse and Adele. By November 2022, two months after she self-released the aptly titled “Oranges,” the two were managing Grace. “We’re seeing someone with a craft [who] knows how to sing and command an audience,” Shymansky says. “We’ve got someone that has earned their stripes and is ready to take on the world.”
They prioritized growing her fan base on an international level, and by July, the two helped her sign a deal with Major Recordings, an electronic dance music label launched by Warner Records. “We knew early on that more than half of her audience was in America; it’s not a coincidence the deal was signed there,” Shymansky says. “We had offers for shows in Los Angeles prior to ‘Strangers’ — that’s not typical for a British artist at such an early stage.”
Kenya Grace photographed on November 20, 2023 at SOUTH56 studio in London.
Bex Day
The partnership quickly paid huge dividends in “Strangers” — though a different song nearly took its spot. “I signed my deal about two weeks before I posted [a snippet of] ‘Strangers’ online,” Grace recalls. “The month before that, we were lining up a different song,” which ultimately became its follow-up single, “Only In My Mind.”
Nonetheless, when a teaser of “Strangers” connected with listeners on a musical and lyrical level, the label pivoted, with Grace still meticulously poring over the song’s final mix. “I was rewriting the lyrics to make it rhyme,” she says. “I’m always really funny and picky about vocal production. I spend the longest on the vocals.”
Sonically, the song is steeped in drum’n’bass and aligns with the current U.K. dance music revival in the U.S. led by artists like Fred Again.. and PinkPantheress. The song’s vulnerable lyrical bent (“And then one random night when everything changes/You won’t reply and we’ll go back to strangers”) plays to Gen Z’s penchant for unflinchingly honest pop songwriting.
Though Grace admits feeling pressure ahead of its release, “Strangers” officially arrived through Warner Records/Major Recordings on Sept. 1. By the end of the month, it became her first entry on the Hot 100 (since reaching a No. 52 high). The track has also climbed to No. 1 in the U.K.; reached the top 5 on the Billboard Global 200; and spent five weeks atop Hot Dance/Electronic Songs, marking the first time in the ranking’s decade-long history that a track solely written, produced and sung by a woman has reached the summit.
Says Huggett: “We had no expectations other than, ‘Wouldn’t it be great if this did better than the last release, which was really nowhere near there?’ That was the benchmark. Every time we put out some music, we want to improve on it incrementally.”
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While social media helped buoy “Strangers,” the resources of a traditional label drove the song at radio and helped place it on editorial playlists on digital service providers. The song has earned 773.7 million on-demand streams through Nov. 23, according to Luminate. “The label used this explosive moment to make sure there’s a proper campaign globally,” says Huggett. “We’ve been blown away with how brilliantly the label has worked the record with their understanding of the complexity of radio and traditional media.”
In October, Grace released the trance-driven “Only In My Mind,” and three weeks later, followed it with a “sad acoustic version” of “Strangers” as the song continues to chart. At the top of December, she detailed a biting take on modern love with “Paris” and, come 2024, she expects to release her “dark, moody [and] dance-inspired” debut album.
In the meantime, she’s on her first tour, with stops in London, New York and Los Angeles — though Shymansky has his sights set on even brighter lights: a Las Vegas residency 10 years from now. “There’s a long road to get there, but we think she has the goods to do that,” he says. “That’s gotta be the ambition.”
From left: Nick Huggett, Kenya Grace and Nicholas Shymansky photographed on November 20, 2023 at SOUTH56 studio in London.
Bex Day
A version of this story will appear in the Dec. 9, 2023, issue of Billboard.
Rejoice, Forest Fam. Electric Forest announced the lineup for its 2024 event on Tuesday (Dec. 5).
Again melding electronic, jam music with rock, hip-hop, indie and more, the four-day festival will be headlined by Pretty Lights, whose sold-out, 27-date comeback tour wrapped this past weekend, along with tech house phenom John Summit, Subtronics, Excision and resident headliners The String Cheese Incident.
Also getting top billing are techno star Charlotte de Witte, Ludacris, Dom Dolla and Summit performing as Everything Always, Nelly Furtado, The Disco Biscuits, Knock2, Black Tiger Sex Machine, Ben Bohmer, Clozee and LSDream performing as Psyren and many more. More artists will be added to the lineup in the coming months.
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“What I care more about is that attendees walk past a stage where they don’t know the act, but they stop because it’s cool music,” Electric Forest founder Jeremy Stein told Billboard in 2019. “[A diverse lineup] also creates a lot of doors for people from different walks of life to come to the festival. You’ll come because you’re a fan of ten artists on the lineup, and you’ll leave a fan of a lot more.”
The festival returns to Rothbury, Mich., June 20-23, 2024. Festival tickets go on sale Friday (Dec. 8).
Produced by AEG Presents and Insomniac Events, the festival takes place in the tiny town of Rothbury, Mich., (population: roughly 440) on a woodsy 400-acre expanse of land located 10 miles east of Lake Michigan. The event has been taking place at this site since 2008.
See the full lineup below:
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Insomniac’s annual Halloween bash Escape brought the spooky vibes to the dancefloor Oct. 27-28. Taking place at Southern California’s NOS Events Center, festival headliners included Above & Beyond, Afrojack, DJ Snake, Kaskade, Malaa, Rezz, Slander, Tchami, Three 6 Mafia and Zedd, with artists playing across five stages, and tens of thousands of fans turning out in […]
This week in dance music: We broke down the top 25 tracks played at ADE 2023 and caught up with Tiga about the 25 year anniversary of his Turbo Recordings label.
And, as always, here are the best new dance tracks of the week.
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Daft Punk, Random Access Memories (Drumless Edition)
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The Label: Columbia Records
The Spiel: A half year’s worth of 10-year anniversary celebrations for Daft Punk’s 2013 Grammy winning masterpiece Random Access Memories culminates today in what is arguably this anniversary’s greatest achievement — a new version of the album stripped of all percussion.
What sounds like a potential gimmick instead gives new life to the LP by allowing greater focus on everything that was always happening, but which one can now hear better without all the drums. Elements that maybe weren’t thoroughly noticed or appreciated on the original — Panda Bear’s gorgeous, glowing acapella on “Doin It Right,” Nile Rodgers’ rhythm guitar on “Lose Yourself To Dance,” the pulsing bass on “Get Lucky” — all get space to breathe and shine on the Drumless Edition, with the project achieving standalone status in the duo’s lauded catalog, rather than just being a footnote to it.
The Blessed Madonna with JOY (Anonymous) & Danielle Ponder, “Carry Me Higher“
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The Label: Warner Music
The Spiel: At its essence, house music is and always has been church music, with the latest from The Blessed Madonna, U.K. duo JOY (Anonymous) and singer Danielle Ponder delivering a big dose of spirit with the tremendous “Carry Me Higher.” A simmering, slow build multi-movement production is the base for Ponder’s power-lunged vocals, which insist “carry me higher!” — a task this one achieves in that ecstatic manner the best music dance music is capable of achieving.
The Artist Says: “The day we made this in New York it felt like we cracked a code and we’ve often talked about it in those terms since then,” The Blessed Madonna wrote on Instagram. “It felt like a musical breakthrough then and it still does. It’s finally time for us to give you the code.”
Calvin Harris & Eliza Rose, “Body Moving”
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The Label: Ministry of Sound
The Spiel: Calvin Harris and the ever-ascendent Eliza Rose deliver a quick hit of sunshine as the days get darker, with their “Body Moving’ collab — clocking in at two minutes and 34 seconds — amalgamating punchy brass, cooking percussion and Rose’s sinewy, shimmery voice for one last blast of summer as the holiday season gets started.
The Artist Says: “My goal was to create a track that captures the essence of summer while also igniting the dance floors,” says Rose. “The vibe with Calvin has been fabulous. He couldn’t be more down-to-earth. It’s been an honor to work with one of the best producers in the world! It’s something I never thought would be possible. We have created something that I believe has really combined our two identities into something unique and also reflective of our own personal work.”
Shygirl feat. Cosha, “thicc”
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The Label: Because Music
The Spiel: The latest from Shygirl is the stuff peaktime dancefloor bliss is made from, with layers and layers of staccato synths building to an ecstatic climax that’s balanced with pared down moments of kickdrum and vocals from Shygirl and Irish singer Cosha that give the track a sublimely feminine feel.
The Artist Says: “[This was] originally a song we’d made around the same time as some of the album tracks but I decided to hold this one back. I’ve enjoyed teasing this one at festivals and shows while still in demo mode for over a year already with the idea of somehow infusing the energy of the crowd into this final version of the song – ‘thicc’ is fun and carefree and definitely a tease – all the classic traits of club shy infused into one track.”
Vintage Culture, Tube & Berger, Kyle Pearce, “Come Come”
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The Label: Virgin Music
The Spiel: Brazil’s Vintage Culture links with German duo Tube & Berger and vocalist Kyle Pearce for the looming progressive house cut “Come Come,” which demonstrates how the genre, when done right, achieves a balance between human emotion, epic size and machinistic appeal.
As Tyla‘s “Water” hit keeps getting hotter — and climbing higher on the Billboard Hot 100 — some big names in music are jumping on it: Travis Scott and Marshmello came out with two new remixes on Friday (Nov. 17). Explore See latest videos, charts and news See latest videos, charts and news Scott’s wavy […]
Tate McRae has big plans for 2024, so she’s taking cues from one of the world’s biggest pop stars. Shortly after announcing that her new album Think Later will arrive Dec. 8 followed by a world tour next year, the 20-year-old pop prodigy — who’s also Billboard‘s latest cover star — doubled down on her […]
Tiga‘s Turbo Recordings has delivered fresh, inventive music reflecting the darkly alluring world of techno for 25 years, which is a pretty long time.
Today (Nov. 17), the Montreal-based producer and the label are celebrating this quarter century of existence with a 25-track compilation album, composed of music by a globe-spanning collection of artists including Seth Troxler, Spanish producer Adrian Marth, Chilean-German artist Matias Aguayo, Germany-based Biesmans and a 2manyDJs edit of Tiga’s own “Woke.” There’s also a flurry of other productions that exist in a place that’s simultaneously tough, cerebral and transcendent.
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In other words, the compilation is made for the club, which has been the producer’s home away from home since he started releasing music in the late ’90s. Over time, Tiga has become a hero of the electronic realm with smart, consistent releases that hit emotional buttons without ever veering into cheesiness.
The Turbo 25 project comes amid new work from Tiga’s LMZ project, a collaboration with Hudson Mohawke that’s delivered resonant collaborations with Channel Tres and most recently, Jesse Boykins III. Here, Tiga reflects on the compilation, 25 years of Turbo, and how — while he’s occasionally considered throwing in the towel on the label — he’s “never considered quitting” music.
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1. Where are you in the world right now, and what’s the setting like?
Amsterdam. I’ve been staring out my window like a house cat. Looks very alive.
2. What is the first album or piece of music you bought for yourself, and what was the medium?
With my own money: the first Duran Duran album. On cassette, bootleg Indian edition, at a hotel lobby giftshop in Bombay. 1981 or 82.
3. What did your parents do for a living when you were a kid, and what do or did they think of what you do for a living now?
My mother was a full-time mom, she took very good care of me and was always there for me. My dad was a stock trader. They were both extremely supportive from step one, even when I dropped out of school at 18. They knew their son, and knew how serious and passionate I was, and they supported me completely with zero judgment.
4. What’s the first non-gear thing you bought for yourself when you started making money as an artist?
Good question. A pair of Yamamoto boots.
5. If you had to recommend one album for someone looking to get into electronic music, what would you give them?
Aphex Twin, Selected Ambient Works.
6. What’s the last song you listened to?
Leonard Cohen, “It’s Torn.”
7. You spent the early years of your life in Goa, India. What are your strongest memories of that time? Did it set you up to be a producer?
I don’t think it set me up as a producer, but as a person I got used to being around wild people and got used to the idea it was okay to be different and strange. I also grew up around a lot of hippies and weirdos, so I always wanted to work hard to end up “successful.”
8. Goa trance, love it or leave it?
When it’s done well, I like it. But what I really love is just good trance that happens to be played in Goa.
9. How were the 25 tracks on the compilation collected and selected? What was the criteria for what made it on? Is there anyone you’re particularly excited about having on the compilation?
It was a collection of our existing family of artists and new artists that we have had an eye on. We sent out invite letters to everybody and then just had some back and forth with them. It is always quite informal. I was very happy to work with Matias Aguayo, because he’s one of my favorites and he delivered something really special.
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10. What does this compilation say about the past/present/future of Turbo?
That we still do what we do.
11. The compilation’s album’s fine print that it was “made possible in part by the Government of Canada.” What did the Canadian government bestow upon the album?
We get some grant money for certain projects from the Canadian arts endowment. They support Canadian artists. Its tax money well spent.
12. Does Turbo have a brick-and-mortar headquarters? If so, paint us a picture of that space. If not, what’s your fantasy HQ?
We had a gorgeous office from about 2012 to 2018. It had a studio, a giant wall of fame with every single physical release mounted in order. We closed it pre-pandemic, and now it’s all laptops and remote control. But it’s my plan to open a new HQ in the next few years, on a mountain top in the countryside.
13. Twenty-five years is a respectable amount of time for any artistic endeavor. Was there ever a time in your career when you considered quitting? Do you see yourself making music and traveling the world in perpetuity?
I never considered quitting personally. Never. I obviously go in and out of the love affair with travel and touring, but generally it’s still an almost unbeatable occupation. As for the label: Yes. There were a few times over the years when I almost threw in the towel.
14. If you could time travel to any era of dance music, to when would you go and why?
I would have liked to go to a few legit early acid house parties: early 80’s Ibiza, late ’80s U.K. I also would have loved to have been to some serious Belgian industrial/new beat clubs at inception. I would love to have been at a club like the Hacienda the first time Blue Monday played.
15. In the sprawling ecosystem of dance music, what niche does Turbo fill?
I like to think we make dignified bangers.
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16. Dance music is obviously intended to make people… dance, but are there any dance songs that reliably make you cry?
I don’t think I’ve ever actually shed a tear to a dance song. There are a few Aphex tracks like “Polynomial/C” and “Every Day” that make me very emotional, but not actual tears.
17. What’s the proudest moment of your career thus far?
I was proud of the first time I did a live show, in Berlin, in 2015. Singing in front of an audience, etc. Also, my first real shows in Berlin back in 2001.jamb
18. What’s the best business decision you’ve ever made?
Never having a boss.
19. Who’s been your greatest mentor, and what’s the best advice they gave you?
I don’t really have a mentor, and I would love to have one. It’s healthy. But my dad told me when I was about one, “Just find something you love to do, and do it.” And that was great advice.
20. One piece of advice you’d give to your younger self?
Get paid in Bitcoin for a few years, 2015-2016, and be generous with the people around you.
The dance industry’s biggest conference, ADE, happened in Amsterdam Oct. 18-21, with loads of business happening by day and the industry flexing what it does best with even more parties by night. Ranging from intimate shows to stadium-sized spectacles, parties took place in more than 100 clubs and event spaces throughout the city during the […]