Dance
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Back in 2020, three-ish months into the pandemic, Jayda Guy, who DJs and produces as Jayda G, put out a single titled “Both of Us” — walloping yet tender piano house, bruising but more than a little bruised. In the world of underground house music, there’s no guarantee that an irresistible track will travel; many of the finest producers barely earn streams. But “Both of Us” became a minor hit, earning close to 50 million plays on Spotify, critical enthusiasm, and a Grammy nomination. It also brought a new set of expectations to Guy’s DJ gigs: A lot of people showed up to hear that single.
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“I come from this crate-digging kind of scene, where I would be just playing things that I love, finding these random tracks and exposing them to people,” she tells Billboard. Post-“Both of Us,” “I’m just trying to always get creative with it, whether that’s trying to play it at a high point within the set, leaving it to the very end, or playing different versions of the track,” Guy continues. “How do you build up to that? It’s a great challenge to have.”
Friday brings Guy, her first new album since that trajectory-altering release. (She released an enjoyable installment of the DJ-Kicks mix series in 2021 that included one new production, the bouncy throwback “All I Need.”) And while there are club-pop moments — notably “Blue Lights,” which chugs like a late-night drive on an open highway, and “Scars,” with its ’90s house tones — Guy is not going out of her way to cater to the euphoria-seeking fans who fell hard for “Both of Us.” Instead, she turns inward, penning a searching, at times solemn album, based on the experiences of her father William, who died when she was 10.
“I had the idea for the album for a long time,” Guy says. But until the pandemic hit, grounding a DJ used to a relentless gigging schedule, she “really didn’t have the time, energy and space to tackle what that would look like emotionally.”
The source material for Guy is more than 11 hours of archival videotapes that William made before his death. These cover growing up in Kansas, enlisting in the Vietnam War, riots in Washington D.C. in 1968, moving to Canada, the failure of his roofing business, and his eventual pivot into social work. “He had recorded him talking about his life because he knew he was going to pass [away], so he was able to take the time and kind of relay all this information and stories to me and my family,” Guy explains. “When the pandemic hit, I could really sit with the tapes, watch them, dive into his world.”
Theme in hand, Guy also made two notable changes to her writing and recording process. As a producer known for house music, she typically built a musical bed first, leaving lyrics for the end. “But because I wanted to be very intentional with the lyrics, I started with those,” she says. She calls writing this way — words first, rhythm later — “difficult and challenging and really interesting all at the same time.”
Guy also threw herself into the role of lead vocalist, which she had only embraced for the first time on “Both of Us” — it made little sense for another singer to deliver lines as personal as these. “Leading up to this album, I started taking vocal coaching lessons,” Guy says. “Before that, I didn’t really know how to carry a tune. I still have so far to go, but it’s really fun to learn.”
Guy strikes two balancing acts simultaneously. The first is emotional. Guy “shares her grief and her loss, there’s a core of pain” in the lyrics, says Jack Peñate, who co-produced the album. “But she does it with acceptance and jubilance” and flickers of dancefloor momentum.
“I thought this could have a real darkness around it,” Peñate adds. “But what happened was the opposite — we seemed to be able to run with the idea of celebrating Jayda’s father and her relationship with him.”
Musically, Guy and Peñate walked another tightrope: Some musical references were pegged to William’s stories from the ’60s and ’70s and some to Guy’s youthful memories of her father. “That was very nerdy, working out what synthesizers would be best to tie it to a timeline,” Peñate says. But “we never went pastiche with it,” he continues. The goal was to make sure “this sits in a place that you can drive around London and listen and it feels fresh.” (Guy was based in Berlin for a while before moving to London, where she feels far more at home — “house music is really more in the mainstream [there] in a very different way,” she says.)
The decade-hopping blend is realized most effectively in tracks like “When She Dance,” a disco stomp with a handsome, snapping mid-section full of volleyed vocal harmonies, and “Meant to Be,” which folds the impeccably slick guitar of ‘80s R&B into a more modern thump. The latter is based on a period of tumult for William: He was forced to shut down his business and work at the local lumber mill, which Guy calls “a real low point.” But he ended up returning to school and becoming a social worker, finding a vocation that she says “gave him so much purpose within his life.”
The song alludes to those events. “But it’s also about me reflecting on the fact that I don’t get to hear the stories directly,” Guy continues. “It’s bittersweet, learning the kind of man my father was — but having to learn it from these tapes, versus in person.”
Writing and recording Guy was full of similar moments. “It was truly cathartic in a way that you rarely get,” Peñate adds. “Someone’s actually kind of processing grief through the creative process. It’s a cliché, but: For music to in any way be a part of healing? That’s why we do it.”
In February, when Kaytranada’s stage manager, Tamir Schlanger, texted him to ask if he had a vision for his Coachella performance, the artist responded with screenshots of the giant metallic head from The Wiz, the 1978 musical film featuring Michael Jackson and Diana Ross. He wondered: Could Schlanger replicate it, but with his own head?
Out of context, the images were menacing — the almighty wizard, spewing smoke and lasers — but funny, too; one featured Richard Pryor’s character, a failed politician from New Jersey named Herman Smith, peeping up sheepishly through the hole in The Wiz’s eye. All smoke and mirrors. Was the 30-year-old producer-DJ commenting on the steely facade of celebrity? Was the production meant to highlight the dichotomy between Louis Kevin Celestin, the shy kid born to Haitian immigrants who grew up in a quiet Montreal suburb, and the Grammy-winning musical wiz better known as Kaytranada?
“There really was no thought process at all, honestly,” Kaytranada admits about a month after his performance, emphasizing that the decision was purely aesthetic: He was just a fan of the movie and noticed his own physical resemblance to The Wiz’s face. “I just wanted to make something iconic,” he says.
Prior to his Coachella performance, there was little disputing Kaytranada’s accomplishments behind the scenes, where he had cultivated a reputation as a personally reserved but musically boisterous tastemaker. Over the course of two albums, 2016’s 99.9% and 2019’s Grammy-winning Bubba, he established himself as a go-to producer and deft collaborator, a singular artist able to adapt his sound to the strengths of everyone from hip-hop stars like Chance the Rapper to experimental R&B singers like Kelela while still maintaining his distinct style: a feel-good blend of dance, R&B, Afrobeats, disco and hip-hop. In the process, he also became one of the biggest gay Black artists in a genre of increasingly influential music founded by gay Black artists.
Kaytranada has jokingly called his music “Black tropical house” and “futuristic disco,” though today, speaking to Billboard, he describes it as “a new era of new jack swing.” And there is a definitive swing that distinguishes his production style, which borrows from elements of the Haitian dance genre compas, including the slightly off drum placements that imprint his otherwise sleek productions with a soulful, human touch. What has become known as the “Kaytranada sound” — a term he feels sometimes boxes him into the past — lies in the tension between the comfort of nostalgia and the excitement of the future, and has earned him collaborations with artists he aspired to be like growing up, like Pharrell Williams.
“He has a refreshing energy and approach to music,” Williams says. “And we’re all so blessed that dance music is at the center of what he does — which is, make us dance in color.”
Marni top, pants, and blazer.
Joelle Grace Taylor
Since he caught the internet’s attention with early SoundCloud remixes of Missy Elliott and TLC, along with a freewheeling, widely memed 2013 Boiler Room set filmed in Montreal that has amassed 19 million YouTube views (Top comment: “This party should have its own Wikipedia page”), Kaytranada’s vibrant dance music has captivated audiences across the world. But there was something different about the Kaytranada who DJ’d in front of a giant sculpture of his own head during a prime-time slot at Coachella’s massive Outdoor Theatre.
It wasn’t just that lasers shot out of that head as he danced playfully to hits spanning his discography or how he hyped up the crowd while premiering his remix of Beyoncé’s 2022 disco-funk banger, “CUFF IT.” Nor was it the guest appearances from Kali Uchis and Aminé the first weekend or H.E.R., Tinashe and Anderson .Paak the second — all Kaytranada collaborators whose relationships with the producer extend beyond the studio. Instead, it was the unmistakable confidence fueling his showmanship, which finally mirrored the assured and sprightly pulse of his music.
As someone who came up DJ’ing in Montreal’s experimental hip-hop scene, Kaytranada says he used to judge other DJs for “overdoing it” onstage. “I was like, ‘I want my ones and twos, and that’s it,’ ” he says. “I have the music, and I understand it. I just didn’t want to go extra.” Looking back on his reservations, “it was probably my confidence,” he admits, noting that having a stage manager like Schlanger who is able to bring his “random ideas” to life has also been a tremendous help. “I just didn’t think I deserved to go that far. But now that I have accepted myself, I’m like, ‘OK, I’ll perform with a big crowd. I’ll perform at a stadium.’ That kind of inspired me to do a larger-than-life show.”
“That show is really a visual representation of a decade of hard work,” says William Robillard Cole, Kaytranada’s manager since 2013. The Coachella set, he says, proved to be a “pivotal moment” in not only solidifying trust with the team at RCA, which Kaytranada signed to in 2018, but in establishing the artist as a “true major hard-ticket act,” noting that offers from bookers started pouring in almost immediately. “People are like, ‘Bring the head! Let’s do a tour with the head!’ ”
Robillard Cole attributes Kaytranada’s newfound confidence onstage in part to opening for The Weeknd on his 2022 After Hours Til Dawn stadium tour but also cites two pivotal things that happened long before: Kaytranada coming out publicly in 2016 and moving from Montreal to Los Angeles shortly after, where he has bounced among a series of long-term Airbnbs when he’s not on the road. “As he has gotten older and more comfortable with himself, he has really been able to develop a performance attitude,” says Robillard Cole. “Kay is an entertainer. It’s true to his soul. That dude loves to dance, he loves to entertain people, he loves to DJ, and to see the progression as a performer over the last few years, it has just been incredible to watch.”
Marni suit, Dries Van Noten top, Martine Ali jewelry. Dog Model: Angel Hernandez.
Joelle Grace Taylor
In 2023, that progression promises to continue as Kaytranada heads to Europe in June to support another leg of The Weeknd’s tour. Later this year, he plans to release his third album, though he says it’s too early to discuss particulars beyond the heavier influence of new wave and industrial. And in May, he released a breezy collaborative record with rapper Aminé called Kaytraminé (get it?) that evokes that first sip of a frozen piña colada. Aminé says they selected album guests such as Williams, Big Sean, Amaarae, Freddie Gibbs and Snoop Dogg out of “pure fandom” and connected with each organically, with texts and phone calls rather than working through A&R — a testament, he adds, to Kaytranada’s likability. (The producer says his collaborations are now 60% people who approach him and 40% him reaching out to artists.)
“His master collaborator effect to me is because he’s so nonchalant about everything,” says Aminé, who met Kaytranada through SoundCloud in 2014 when he rapped over the producer’s early breakout, “At All.” “He’ll play the craziest beat and just be like, ‘Yeah, that was pretty cool.’ It’s so funny. I feel like a lot of artists go into sessions with producers who have big names or whatever, and the producers are really f–king intimidating sometimes. They’re like, ‘This is going to be a hit record, man! This is going to get you to the top!’ Corny sh-t that doesn’t really feel like yourself, and I think Kay is really good at giving artists room and just letting them flourish.”
His last album, Bubba, which showcased artists like Estelle, Masego and GoldLink, earned Kaytranada three nominations at the 2021 Grammys, including for best new artist, and a landmark pair of wins: best dance recording for “10%,” his funk-tinged, pay-me-now collaboration with Uchis, and the other for best dance/electronic album. The latter put Kaytranada in the record books as the first Black producer and first openly gay artist to win the category since it was created in 2004.
They’re notable distinctions, considering the foundational role gay Black men have played in dance music for the last 50 years. In places like Chicago, the birthplace of house, dance music was forged out of resistance, with underground clubs functioning as spaces of relative safety and freedom from the racist and homophobic status quo. While smaller clubs, festivals and labels across America center queer Black DJs, that history is rarely acknowledged at today’s typical major dance festivals, where straight white men overwhelmingly dominate lineups. As Chicago DJ Derrick Carter put it in 2014: “Something that started as gay Black/Latino club music is now sold, shuffled and packaged as having very little to do with either.”
“Being a queer artist, being from Canada and of Haitian descent — he’s an outsider in every respect,” explains Def Jam Records CEO Tunji Balogun, who says it was a “no-brainer” to sign Kaytranada to RCA when he was vp there. “But he’s still redefining what an electronic DJ is supposed to look and sound like.”
There’s a dexterity to Kaytranada’s interdisciplinary output that offers multiple points of entry into his work. “I always tell people Kay has three parts to his career: He’s a DJ, he’s a producer and he’s an artist,” says Robillard Cole. “Obviously, that’s not something that’s super common in the music business, and to run a career that has three parts, we’ve had to put in just as much work on the producer side as the DJ side and as much work on the artist side as the producer side. It’s all about strategic partnerships and relationships.”
Those different but connected roles have singularly situated Kaytranada in the dance world. He’s the rare artist who can release a hip-hop record on Friday, then DJ Electric Daisy Carnival on Saturday, as he did in May; someone who’s big enough to headline dance festivals but still eager to work with niche and emerging artists. “He’s either the biggest pop star in the underground or the best-kept secret in the pop world,” Balogun says. “He has dual citizenship. I think he’s becoming that go-to DJ that a pop star will call to freshen up a song, but he’s also still in the trap.”
When Balogun began following Kaytranada online after the latter released his sample-heavy 2013 mixtape, Kaytra Todo, on Jakarta Records, he at first didn’t even register him as a dance artist because he was “on some futuristic hip-hop sh-t. He definitely reminded me of a J Dilla descendant.” Today, he sees Kaytranada as a bridge, someone whose intersections connect music lovers across genres, cultures and generations, like introducing younger listeners to influences such as Madlib and J Dilla — legendary producers who themselves sat at the intersection of hip-hop and dance music and informed Kaytranada’s approach for Kaytraminé — or collaborators like Teedra Moses. (His remix of her 2004 song “Be Your Girl” has far surpassed the original in streams.)
While Kaytranada has intentionally operated “on the outer realm of the industry,” as Robillard Cole puts it, going forward, “the goal is to be the biggest dance artist in the world,” he says, “but [while] staying true to himself. Never compromising. It’s not a monetary goal for us. It’s more respect and critical acclaim than anything. I always tell people that cream rises to the top. It’s the same with good music.” He’s trying to help Kaytranada build a legacy, and paints the image of 25-year-olds flipping through a vinyl shop in the year 2080, geeking out over a Kaytranada record. “That’s what legacy is,” he says.
Marni top, pants, and blazer, Adieu shoes.
Joelle Grace Taylor
No matter his accolades, some professional moments still send Kaytranada spiraling into self-doubt — he’s a Virgo after all, and identifies with the sign’s perfectionist tendencies. But he has increasingly come to understand his value. When I ask him if the remix of “CUFF IT” he premiered at Coachella will ever be released, he shrugs. Parkwood Entertainment, he explains, approached his team about the remix and sent him the vocal stems, but he disagreed with the terms of the proposed contract. (Negotiations are still pending; Parkwood did not respond to requests for comment.) He looks visibly disappointed. He worked hard on the remix and knows it would mean a lot to release it, both to the culture — when Beyoncé’s 2022 album, Renaissance, deeply indebted to house and disco trailblazers, won the Grammy for best dance/electronic album, she thanked “the queer community for your love and for inventing the genre” in her acceptance speech — and to his own career. But he also seems resolute.
“I know my worth. I know they reached out to me to do the remix for a reason, and then to be treated back like I wasn’t all that, it’s kind of weird,” he says. “I’m going to keep it at that. I know my worth.”
A different remix jump-started Kaytranada’s career over 10 years ago: his high-octane club rework of Janet Jackson’s “If,” which sounded like the singer had fallen into a vortex. He worked on the song all night in his bedroom after attending a Flying Lotus show in Montreal, inspired by the producer’s ability to fuse electronic elements with hip-hop. Under the moniker Kaytradamus, he uploaded the remix to SoundCloud at 5 a.m. before passing out.
This was in 2012, when SoundCloud was an influential hub for experimental dance music, and Kaytranada woke up that afternoon to an avalanche of notifications. He recalls peering at his phone and thinking, “What the hell is this?” before going back to sleep, too frazzled to comprehend the attention.
Offers to DJ started trickling in, including an invitation from Robillard Cole to play in Halifax, Nova Scotia, where he was a business student at Saint Mary’s University, in January 2013. (It was the first time Kaytranada flew on an airplane since immigrating to Canada from Haiti as a child.) “I just never heard music like his before — ever,” he says. “The way he puts synths together, his basslines; everything was slightly offbeat.” After the gig, Robillard Cole asked Kaytranada if he had a manager, promising that he could double his rate at the time to $300 a set. He started organizing Kaytranada’s first tour from his accounting class.
Because touring in America required visas, they went to Europe instead. Their budget was $7,000 Canadian, which meant sharing hotel rooms and traveling by bus. The venues were small; Robillard Cole recalls Kaytranada DJ’ing in a jerk chicken restaurant in Manchester, England. But the risks — which included Kaytranada and Robillard Cole eventually dropping out of high school and business school, respectively — paid off. The tour got Kaytranada in front of influential people in the music industry, which led to his 2014 signing with XL Records, the storied British label that has been home to Radiohead, M.I.A. and Arca.
The deal let Kaytranada expand his clout in Europe, which at the time was more receptive to his music. (The United States is currently his biggest market.) It also helped connect him with bigger collaborators for his debut album, 99.9%, which features artists like Vic Mensa, AlunaGeorge and Craig David. “It was a super-big blessing to be signed with XL back then,” says Robillard Cole, “and we just did it as a one-off, which to this day is one of the best decisions [we’ve] ever made because it allowed us to come over to America and sign with RCA Records next and really grow commercially.”
Dries Van Noten suit, Ferragamo shoes, Acne Studios eyewear.
Joelle Grace Taylor
Kaytranada came out in The Fader in 2016, shortly before the release of 99.9%. To his surprise, he found that as his career started to grow, so did his unhappiness, and he recalls thinking, “I’ve got to come out, or I’m going to go crazy.” “At the time, it was just to confirm to myself and to my brain and to the world that I am indeed gay, because I was gay all my life but I definitely suppressed it,” he says. “Growing up with a lot of kids who are just like, ‘Being gay is hell naw.’ In Haiti, hell naw. You cannot be gay.”
Though his anxiety spiked pre-publication, “his whole mentality and energy changed as soon as that article came out,” says his brother, rapper Lou Phelps. “Like he felt more free. He would be less reserved, less shy with the family.”
Though his success has played an important part in realigning mainstream dance music with its gay Black roots, Kaytranada doesn’t necessarily frame his impact in those terms. He recalls learning about dance music’s history in his early 20s through Maestro, the 2003 documentary about DJ culture featuring luminaries like Frankie Knuckles and Larry Levan, and thinking, “Duh — because [house music] sounded very Black,” he says. At the same time, it helped him to better trace his influences; as someone who grew up feeling like “a little weird Black dude” for listening obsessively to acts like Justice and Daft Punk, Kaytranada came to realize that those French electronic artists were themselves borrowing from Black musical genres.
Although he was bullied at his mostly white high school for being small, Black and quiet, kids also regarded him as a tastemaker, someone they approached in the hallways about what they should be listening to — which included everything from Kenyan rock to Linkin Park and the Black Eyed Peas. “I always thought I knew music better than anybody at my school,” he says.
When I ask Kaytranada if he thinks people who come to his shows or participate in dance culture should know about the music’s history, he seems ambivalent. “If you’re into house music, you definitely need to get educated,” he says. “But if you just love the music, that’s cool, too. I don’t really judge when it comes to that.” It’s the kind of noncommittal answer that he tends to give for questions about identity in general, a reticence that suggests he would rather let his work speak for itself. Later, when I ask if he has been able to find gay community in Los Angeles since coming out, he says, “Yes,” then pauses haltingly before acknowledging that he sometimes feels overlooked by the gay community at large for not “proving” that he’s gay enough.
“I thought it was going to be fun,” he says. “[But] it’s like, ‘Oh, you’re not the gay man I thought you was going to be. Oh, your taste is not like my taste. You need to be more gay.’ And that would affect me — but not anymore, because I know I’m really unique at this point. I’m just onto different things.”
Kaytranada photographed on May 11, 2023 at Garibaldina Society in Los Angeles. Commission tank and polo top, Amiri shoes, Martine Ali jewelry, FRED eyewear.
Joelle Grace Taylor
It’s a charge he still seems sensitive about — not being as visibly queer as some other artists — though he insists he’s just being himself, the role model he felt he needed before he came out. Growing up as a hip-hop head, he recalls listening to Mobb Deep’s homophobic lyrics and questioning how he could ever be accepted in the industry. (It might be one reason he always listened to the beats of his favorite rap songs before he delved into the lyrics: “I was always looking at the credits,” he says.)
“Like, how are you going to accept a gay producer?” he recalls thinking. “That was not seen at the time. It seemed impossible.” Mainstream representations of gay men sent him into an identity crisis. “I couldn’t relate to that. I just couldn’t, and I was like, ‘I cannot be gay,’ because I was not into those things,” he says. “That was really a confusing period of my life.”
He points to Frank Ocean coming out on Tumblr in 2012 as a significant turning point in his own self-acceptance. “It kind of made things more possible,” he says, particularly in the world of R&B and hip-hop. And he knows, at this point, that he has become that person for others, too. “When I came out, a lot of musicians secretly came out to me, saying, ‘The [Fader] article moved me.’ And I was like, ‘Word.’ ”
In person, Kaytranada expresses himself with an ease that’s neither flashy nor restrained. Sitting outside of a restaurant on Melrose Avenue, he’s soft-spoken and reserved, burying his hands in his brown Martine Rose track jacket. But over the course of a couple of hours, he grows looser and more expressive, calling the finger sandwiches he orders “cute” (they are cute) and making casual reference to his boyfriend, a photographer he visited Universal Studios with the day before. (Kaytranada’s still a little shaken up from riding Revenge of the Mummy.) They were friends for a year before they started dating in January, and though he’s trying to implement lessons he learned from his last relationship, namely about boundaries, he says they’re together all the time.
At Billboard’s cover shoot the next day, he lies on the floor in a bright orange crop top, balancing against a fallen chair before ending up on his back in the yogic plow pose, his legs flipped over his head. (He started working out two years ago with the help of a trainer and considers himself a “gym rat” now.) Later, he struts out of the dressing room wearing a black suit with a pink wrap around his waist, steps up onto a table and poses like John Travolta in Saturday Night Fever, his right pointer finger directed skyward. He breaks into a grin as the camera flashes.
Kaytranada’s hands are studded with rings, including the two he bought the night before he won two Grammys. He’s still kicking himself for not superstitiously buying another one before this year’s ceremony, when he was nominated for best dance/electronic recording for “Intimidated,” his silky-smooth collaboration with H.E.R. (He lost — to Beyoncé.) “I bought chains instead,” he says. “I ended up f–king up.”
Kaytranada photographed on May 11, 2023 at Garibaldina Society in Los Angeles.
Joelle Grace Taylor
Recognition from the Recording Academy, he explains, was never the goal. “My idols, the people I looked up to, they never really had Grammys, so it was whatever. But being nominated, it’s a whole different thing. It kind of alters what you’re aiming for.” Now, he says, he’s “trying to make Grammy-winning albums.”
He gave his two trophies to his mother. They are on display in his childhood home, on top of the piano he grew up playing. The awards feel symbolic, not only of his success as an artist, but as a son. Dropping out of high school was a sore spot for his mother, who didn’t see how music could be a viable career. “When I won a Grammy, it really felt like I graduated or something. Like, I have something that means a lot,” he says. “Your name is in history forever.”
In the beginning, when his parents failed to understand what he did, Kaytranada would show them a documentary about The Neptunes to help demonstrate. But “they understood the Grammys — we had a compilation Grammy CD,” he says, grinning. There was no explanation needed.
“I just want to be remembered as one of the greats in terms of producing, not only dance and electronic but also just production in general,” Kaytranada says. He has his wish list of artists he would still love to work with, but says his dream collaboration would be to produce an entire album for a pop star looking to rebrand his or her sound, similar to how Timbaland reoriented Justin Timberlake’s style when he produced 2006’s FutureSex/LoveSounds. He throws out Justin Bieber’s name as an example. “It’s a matter of longevity, too — and, you know, just happiness. Like, as long as you’re comfortable and you’re happy with your life, that’s a form of success — but don’t forget the money part.”
I ask him if he’s happy, and his voice goes up an octave. “Yes, I’m happy!” he says somewhat apprehensively, as if to acknowledge the corniness of the question, or maybe its impossibility, before dropping back down to his normal register. “I’m saying that looking away, but naw, I’m really happy.” He laughs, then tries one more time: “I’m definitely the happiest I’ve been.”
This story will appear in the June 10, 2023, issue of Billboard.
In February, when Kaytranada’s stage manager, Tamir Schlanger, texted him to ask if he had a vision for his Coachella performance, the artist responded with screenshots of the giant metallic head from The Wiz, the 1978 musical film featuring Michael Jackson and Diana Ross. He wondered: Could Schlanger replicate it, but with his own head? […]
Kylie Minogue achieves her first top 10 on Billboard’s multimetric Hot Dance/Electronic Songs chart, which began in 2013, as “Padam Padam” rises from No. 12 to No. 10 on the tally dated June 10.
The track, which introduces Minogue’s album Tension, due Sept. 22, earned 1.6 million official streams (up 15%) and sold 1,000 downloads in the United States in the May 26-June 1 tracking week, according to Luminate.
Previously, Minogue hit the chart’s top 20 with three hits, among 15 appearances, since Hot Dance/Electronic Songs originated: “Real Groove,” with Dua Lipa (No. 15, 2021), “Magic” (No. 17, 2020) and “Say Something” (No. 18, 2020).
Minogue first entered Billboard’s charts in 1988 and has tallied two top 10s on the Billboard Hot 100: “The Loco-Motion” (No. 3 peak that year) and “Can’t Get You Out of My Head” (No. 7, 2002).
A week ago, “Padam” became Minogue’s first No. 1 on the Dance/Electronic Digital Song Sales chart.
Additionally on Hot Dance/Electronic Songs, fellow genre cornerstone Swedish House Mafia debuts with “See the Light,” featuring rapper Fridayy (No. 22). The track, premiered during the Ultra Music Festival in Miami March 26 but not released commercially until May 26, starts with 709,000 streams. It’s the 15th appearance for the trio of Steve Angello, Axwell and Sebastian Ingrosso, and Fridayy’s first.
Speaking of Swedes, on the Dance/Mix Show Airplay chart, production duo NOTD and singer Maia Wright, with all three performers from Sweden, each notch a third top 10 with “AM:PM” (13-10). The track is collecting core-dance airplay on Music Choice’s Dance/EDM channel, iHeartRadio’s Pride Radio and iHeartRadio’s Evolution network, among other outlets. (The Dance/Mix Show Airplay chart measures radio airplay on a select group of full-time dance stations, along with plays during mix shows on around 60 top 40-formatted reporters.)
Bebe Rexha has now claimed a pair of records reflecting her success in both the dance/electronic and country genres on Billboard’s charts.
Rexha’s EDM collab with David Guetta, “I’m Good (Blue),” rules Billboard’s multimetric Hot Dance/Electronic Songs chart for a 37th week, granting her the longest leading No. 1 by a woman dating to the survey’s 2013 inception, as it passes Elton John and Dua Lipa’s “Cold Heart (Pnau Remix)” (36 weeks at No. 1, 2021-22). Overall, it now trails only Marshmello and Bastille’s “Happier” for the most weeks on top (69, 2018-20).
Rexha already achieved the longest leading No. 1 among all acts on the Hot Country Songs chart (since the list became an-encompassing genre ranking in 1958), as her Florida Georgia Line duet “Meant to Be” dominated there for 50 weeks in 2017-18.
Rexha also sports songwriting credit on both songs. Along with original composition “Meant to Be,” “I’m Good” is a reimagination of Eiffel 65’s early 2000s classic “Blue (Da Ba Dee).”
“Songwriting is my passion, no matter the style of music,” Rexha tells Billboard. “I’ve been blessed to have hit songs in different genres throughout my career. Finding this kind of success within both the dance/electronic and country charts is something I’m really proud of! To have my music resonate with so many people and top charts across multiple genres is amazing and means a lot to me, as I’ve never wanted to be put in a box.”
Select other artists have received warm welcomes in both dance/electronic and country, including Maren Morris, whose collab with Zedd and Grey, “The Middle,” logged 33 weeks atop Hot Dance/Electronic Songs in 2018. She also ruled Hot Country Songs for 19 weeks in 2020 with “The Bones.”
Florida Georgia Line, meanwhile, has notched six No. 1s on Hot Country Songs and hit a No. 2 high in 2018 on Hot Dance/Electronic Songs as featured, with Watt, on Hailee Steinfeld and Alesso’s “Let Me Go.”
Such core country stars as Dolly Parton, LeAnn Rimes and Wynonna Judd have also scaled both country and dance/electronic charts — with Rexha’s new album, Bebe, released in April, including a duet with Parton, “Seasons.”
“I’m Good” drew 39.2 million radio airplay audience impressions and 7.4 million official streams and sold 2,000 downloads in the United States May 26-June 1, according to Luminate.
The track adds a 33rd week at No. 1 on the Dance/Electronic Streaming Songs chart, also passing John and Lipa’s “Cold Heart” for the most weeks at the summit for a song by a woman. On the Dance/Electronic Digital Song Sales survey, “I’m Good” rebounds for a 28th week at No. 1.
Afterlife, the house and techno label from longstanding Italian electronic duo Tale Of Us, has entered a partnership with Interscope Records.
Per the terms of the deal, Interscope will distribute all Afterlife releases, including all past and future recordings. This includes the duo’s 2017 album, Endless, and singles dating back to 2011. The Afterlife catalog also includes releases from a fleet of house and techno artists including Argy, ANNA, CamelPhat, Cassian, Colyn, Kevin de Vries, Mathame, and Stephan Bodzin.
The first new release encompassed by the partnership is a collaborative track by Anyma — the solo project from the duo’s Matteo Milleri — and Grimes. This darkly spatial melodic house track, “Welcome To The Opera,” is out today (June 8.) Listen to it below.
As melodic house and techno has risen in popularity in the dance world over the past several years, so too has Tale Of Us’ profile risen into increasingly visible realms. The pair’s Afterlife show has been a huge draw in Ibiza since 2016, with the Afterlife residency launching again at the island’s mega-club Hï this month. Afterlife shows have happened in London, Berlin, Tulum and beyond, with three shows happening at The Brooklyn Mirage this September selling out in 30 minutes. The pair — Milleri and Carmine Conte — have been making music together since 2008 and are now based in Berlin. They signed with CAA last year.
“Interscope Records is a natural partner to help continue our vision and journey,” Milleri says in a statement.
“Over their tremendous careers as artists and label owners, Carmine and Matteo have helped shape dance music culture for an entire generation,” adds John Janick, chairman and CEO of Interscope Geffen A&M. “We are excited to collaborate with them to bring their music to an even larger global audience.”
“Carmine and Matteo have made their distinctive mark in music both as artists and as label owners,” says A&R executive Ryan Roy, who helped bring the duo to Interscope. “Working with them on all of their future recordings as well as with the amazing artists on Afterlife is a massive honor for us.”
Interscope is also home to fellow electronic artists including Zedd, DJ Snake, Prospa and Louis The Child. Upcoming Tale Of Us dates include the Hï residency, Italy’s Kappa Future Festival, Tomorrowland in Belgium and ARC Music Festival in Chicago.
U.K. producer Michael Bibi‘s managers at Prime Culture announced earlier this week that the producer and Solid Grooves label head has been diagnosed with a rare form of cancer called CNS Lymphoma. They said that Bibi is currently undergoing treatment and will not be playing any live shows “for the foreseeable future.”What is CNS Lymphoma?
According to Cancer.gov, primary central nervous system (CNS) lymphoma is “a disease in which malignant (cancer) cells form in the lymph tissue of the brain and/or spinal cord.” The lymph system is part of the immune system, which is made up of lymph, lymph vessels, lymph nodes, the spleen, thymus, tonsils and bone marrow.
“Lymphocytes (carried in the lymph) travel in and out of the central nervous system (CNS). It is thought that some of these lymphocytes become malignant and cause lymphoma to form in the CNS,” according to the government agency. “Primary CNS lymphoma can start in the brain, spinal cord, the or meninges (the layers that form the outer covering of the brain).”
Signs of CNS Lymphoma can include nausea, vomiting, headaches, confusion, double vision, hearing loss or seizures, with tests of the eyes, brain and spinal cord used to diagnose the disorder. It is a rare disease, with around 1,500 new cases in the U.S. each year, according to the Cleveland Clinic.
After a diagnosis of CNS Lymphoma, tests are typically done to find out if the cancer has spread within the brain and spinal cord or to the eyes. According to Cancer.gov, typical treatments include radiation therapy, chemotherapy, steroid therapy, targeted therapy, high-dose chemo with stem cell transplant and immunotherapy, though surgery is not typically done to treat primary CNS. The historic prognosis of CNS Lymphoma has overall survival rate of 1.5 months when untreated and a five-year survival rate of 30% for people under 70.
“We are deeply sorry to share the bad news that a week ago Michael Bibi has been diagnosed with CNS Lymphoma, a rare cancer of the brain,” the statement from Bibi’s management read. “Michael is currently undergoing cancer treatment in hospital, supported by his close friends and family. While he is in treatment, he will be unavailable for any shows for the foreseeable future as he takes time away to recover.”
Bibi, 33, has been in the midst of the Solid Grooves residency at DC10 in Ibiza, with the popular DJ scratched from the upcoming scheduled show on Thursday (June 8); he was also scheduled to play upcoming festivals, including the U.K.’s Parklife and Glastonbury and EXIT Festival in Serbia.
GRiZ‘s upcoming summer shows will be the last time to see the producer for the foreseeable future.
Tuesday (June 6) on social media, the Michigan-born, Colorado-based artist announced that starting in October, he’s taking “a good amount of time off from touring and the GRiZ project.”
“Life is really good and I often make myself too busy to see where I am or how far this project has come,” he wrote. “I’m following my gut instincts so for now, I’m not going to put a hard time limit length on the break.” Read the complete statement below.
GRiZ is currently scheduled to play upward of 15 shows between now and late September, including festival sets at Bonnaroo, Shambhala, Breakaway, Moonrise, Secret Dreams, Bass Canyon and Vortex.
On Tuesday, he also announced that his annual Christmas charity event in Detroit, GRiZMAS, will not take place this year or next year, with the future of the event to be determined. The same goes for his annual Space Camp and New Year’s Eve shows. The post notes that the last GRiZ headlining show and curated event will be announced this week.
“Feels like yesterday that i was DJing to a room of no one at 9 p.m. for a free PBR or two,” the statement continues. “I dropped out of college at 21 and moved to Colorado where I’ve been living now for 10+ years working nonstop…so I’m going to make more time to nurture relationship with myself and to my fam and friends that far too often I’ve ignored in place of my relationship with work. I’m excited to take time to travel, find fresh inspiration, write music and to be in a new headspace. I also got myself a spot in Michigan which I’m excited to, in time, move back to for parts of the year.”
GRiZ, born Grant Kwiecinski, has become a titan of the electronic bass/funk scene over the last 10 years, rising out of Michigan to become a headliner at marquee events and venues including Electric Forest and Red Rocks. His GRiZMAS event has raised more than $400,000 for Detroit charities focused on music education for children.
A last minute location pivot couldn’t hinder Desert Hearts 2023. The SoCal festival was meant to take place 90 minutes outside of Los Angeles in May, but announced a location change five weeks in advance that brought the festival to the concrete jungle of downtown L.A. on May 5-6. No bother. Taking place at the […]
Nelly Furtado was already kind of an electronic music star.
The Canadian pop legend’s early aughts mega-hits had been remixed into countless DJ sets. But when a mashup of Furtado’s 2006 classic “Say It Right” and U.K. duo Bicep‘s 2017 dance world staple “Glue” made its way into the scene circa 2020, getting rinsed extensively at clubs and festivals and garnering upwards of seven million streams, the unofficial edit put Furtado on the map for a new generation of electronic fans.
Furtado had never heard it. That changed when the singer saw her name near that of Dom Dolla’s on the lineup for Beyond The Valley 2023, an annual festival in Dolla’s hometown of Melbourne, Australia. Intrigued by the moniker and having wanted to work with a DJ on new music ideas, Furtado’s team got in contact with Dolla’s.
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“I woke up one day to a message from a manager, saying, ‘Were you a fan of Nelly Furtado when you were young?’” recounts Dolla. “I was like, ‘Of course. Who wasn’t? Me and my sister were obsessed.’”
Excited, Dolla gathered beats into a Dropbox, also adding a little something special.
“When producers send a Dropbox folder, usually it’s just music,” says Furtado, “but Dom went out of his way to record a video of himself. He went, ‘Hello legend, Dom Dolla here!’ He kind of had me at that.”
The pair began passing music — including the “Say It Right” edit — back and forth over the internet, finding creative chemistry. They met IRL this past January at Beyond the Valley, where Furtado performed her first official show in five years and appeared during Dolla’s set to perform the “Say It Right” mashup live for the first time ever. It was a moment that extended into an artistic friendship that delivered the pair’s first official release, “Eat Your Man,” a club track produced by Dolla and sung by Furtado that dropped this past Friday (June 2). It marks Furtado’s first release since her 2017 LP The Ride, and puts her back into the spotlight via the strobes of clubland.
The idea for the song first came to life when the pair and their respective teams were in a studio outside of Philadelphia working on music ideas for Furtado. “We were in the car on the way to the studio one day,” says Dolla, “and she turns around to me and goes, ‘I’d really like to feature on a Dom Dolla club record.’”
Dolla was slightly dumbstruck by the ask — but collected himself, and during that same drive, played Furtado instrumentals he’d been tinkering on. “I felt like her sound, especially her sort of upbeat, chest voice rap tone from ‘Promiscuous’ and ‘Maneater’ would work really well on a house record on the club,” he says.
He was right, with “Eat Your Man” evoking these classics both tonally and lyrically as Furtado spits, “I’ll eat your man, devour him whole … fly like a bird, I’m taking it home, moving my body like a nympho,” over the propulsive, darkly thumping production.
The track was made during a few extended studio sessions in Philly, where roll call included Jim Beanz, the vocal producer who worked with Furtado on tracks like “Maneater,” “Say It Right” and “Promiscuous.” (Beanz also did backing vocals on these tracks, which were famously produced by Timbaland.)
‘I said, ‘I love the way that you perform the rap part on ‘Promiscuous Girl’ and the vocal parts on ‘Maneater,’” says Dolla, “and Jim goes, ‘Oh, I remember the settings for exactly how I did that.” The crew spent the better part of a day recording and layering Furtado’s voice to get it to sound as close to this old stuff as possible, ultimately piling on six layers of vocals for “Eat Your Man.”
“I think I was 16 when I was first set foot in a vocal booth,” says Furtado. “I remember enjoying the sound of my own voice in there, and I actually forgot that feeling until I worked with Dom. I was like, ‘Holy s–t. It’s so simple. You just have to enjoy the sound of your own f—ing voice and melt into it.’”
For Dolla, the experience also had novelty, with the group collaboration providing starkly different creative process from the lone wolf nature of dance music production. (Dolla typically produces tracks on his headphones while sitting on the couch of whatever given Airbnb he’s staying at on tour.) Dolla has become increasingly visible in the dance world leader over the past few years, playing high profile gigs including a headlining show and Red Rocks and, along with artists like John Summit and Chris Lake, propelling a hard-hitting but also totally fun and palatable strain of house/tech house that’s become the mainstream scene’s prevailing sound in the last half decade. (Dolla has had four tracks hit Hot Dance/Electronic Songs since 2019, with his biggest song, the MK collab “Rhyme Dust,” debuting at No. 9 on the chart this past March and currently sitting at No. 24. This summer he’s performing dates including Lollapalooza, Tomorrlwand and club Space in Miami.)
But unlike the EDM it supplanted, this type of house hasn’t experienced the type of crossover success that hits of the EDM era seemed to score so easily. That era’s A-list crossover collabs — Calvin Harris and Rihanna’s “We Found Love,” Jack Ü and Justin Bieber’s “Where Are U Now” — helped give dance music a Hot 100 and top 40 presence. While those types of hits now happen infrequently, “Eat Your Man” demonstrates both a prevailing sound of modern dance music and a moment where big time pop stars are once again entering the club.
Incredibly, none of this might have happened if not for Drake.
“We had some really cool conversations about music and life and art, and he kind of just blew up my head and was like, ‘You know, you really need to make new music, and these are all the reasons why,’” Furtado recalls of meeting the rapper and fellow Toronto native. “He was like, ‘You need to boss up when it comes to your career.’ I got really inspired and I started hitting it a lot harder. It was like added fuel to the flame, you know?”
Drake even helped Furtado boss up when he invited her to perform at OVO festival in July of 2022. “I was literally at the zoo with my three and four year old [kids], and didn’t even know if I was going to [play] until like, 7:00 p.m.,” Furtado says. “Then I did it, and it was like, ‘Oh s–t, I forgot what I do for a living. This is what I do.”
(“This next person’s music changed my life so much. I love her with all my heart, so when she comes out here you better show her some f–king love too,” Drake said while presenting Furtado during the show — as the opening beats of “Promiscuous” played and the crowd went wild and proceeded to scream along to every word.)
This Furtado fervor is also something Dolla has experienced, with “Eat Your Man” having generated a major response from the dance music community. “It was really fun seeing the comments of people going, ‘DJs have been remixing her for the last 15 years and Dom’s managed to get her in the studio.’ I was like, ‘I don’t know how the hell that’s happened either.’”
The pair — who are both on the lineup for San Francisco’s Portola festival this fall — agree that there’s some sort of cyclical kismet involved, with Dolla attesting that listening to Furtado’s music when he was a kid likely rubbed off on him, subconsciously influenced his music and has now “come full circle where she kind of hears herself in it.”
“I was like, ‘That’s really trippy,’” says Furtado. “It’s very meta. That’s the wave we’re on.”