Dance
Page: 9
There’s a certain feeling Nimino has always been looking for in the music he listened to and then eventually made.
“You know when you listen to a song and there’s a moment that like, a chord strikes and you can’t explain why, but it just pulls a tear from your eye?” he asks rhetorically while speaking to Billboard over Zoom. “And no matter how many times you listen, you’ll get that moment in that song and be like, ‘Oh, f–k.’”
It’s a wave of emotion the London-based artist born Milo Evans loved experiencing, one he’s worked to create since he started producing music at age 13 and one he identified when he first heard “I Only Smoke When I Drink,” a brassy soul song by American outfit Rebecca Jade and the Cold Fact, from the group’s 2019 album Running Out of Time.
“I would listen to that song and as soon as it would get past [the title line] I’d lose interest,” Nimino says. “It’s a great tune, but I would just listen to that one bit over and over, because it’s such a crazy little line.”
Enjoying the feeling it gave him and sensing he could do something with it, he grabbed the acapella of the Rebecca Jade vocal “but couldn’t find anything it would fit with, so I had it sitting on my computer for ages.” He was later working on another that song “that was quite dark and felt quite melancholic and definitely had this clubby vibe to it, but I don’t know what needed to be put in it.”
Trending on Billboard
Eventually, in December of 2023, he thought to pair the pieces “so it was like a call and response between the synth playing and the vocals chatting. Once those were together, it was just like, ‘This is obviously a very exciting song.’”
The internet agreed. Before its August 22, 2024 release on Ninja Tune’s Counter Records imprint (where Nimino signed in the spring of 2024), clips featuring the single generated more than 15 million views, two million likes and 313,000 saves across TikTok and Instagram. He previewed the song online only after a lengthy sample clearing process, as he knew audiences would want to know the release date immediately upon hearing it.
“I was kind of careful with it,” he says, “then as soon as we had the thumbs up, I teased it. It went crazy literally the first night.” While the song went wild online, Nimino celebrated its release in very IRL fashion. The night before the song came out, “a guy hit me up online and was like, ‘Yo man, we’re throwing a house party in London. I’d love for you to come DJ and play that new song. I was like, ‘Yeah, f– it. Why not?’”
Celebrating was appropriate. Since August, “I Only Smoke When I Drink” has generated 17.9 million official on-demand U.S. streams and 87.2 million official on-demand global streams, according to Luminate. The song is in its 21st week on Hot Dance/Electronic Songs and currently sits at No. 15, its highest position thus far.
But this success “hasn’t changed the strategy so much as it expedited things,” says Gon Carpel, the founder of Noted Management who co-manages Nimino alongside Eli Bieber. “The focus remains building a long-lasting artist career by focusing on the fundamentals and making strategic decisions for the long term.” (On the agent side, Nimino is represented by UTA’s Jamie Waldman.)
“But of course, Carpel adds, “the success of the song has allowed him to reach more people in more places much faster, and that discovery is expediting his growth across the board – opening up new opportunities in touring, publishing, sync, etc. The biggest strategy change has probably been in having to be even more considerate with where and when to spend his time and energy, as the whole globe has opened up to him.”
When we speak Nimino is in New Orleans for a show at Republic NOLA. While he’s been touring in the U.S. for the last few years (he says his shows do especially well in New York, Los Angeles and Denver), sets are now selling out much faster. “And I mean, even just selling out is a big jump from last year,” he says. He’s got shows in Nashville, Austin and Orlando this weekend (Jan. 24-26) and says while he can’t reveal much yet, there are big festival plays on the summer calendar.
Warm, funny and generally fairly calm seeming, Nimino doesn’t seem too preoccupied with his virality or with trying to top it. “I’ve had a few viral moments before,” he says. “Never to this level, but I’m relatively well versed in how it feels.” (How does it feel? “Very overwhelming. It’s hard to get off your phone.”)
With single and EP releases dating back to 2018, Nimino is more than a one-trick TikTok artist. His catalog has 56.5 million official on-demand U.S. streams and 179.5 million official on-demand global streams, according to Luminate. He calls 2023’s “No Sympathy” and 2022’s “Opening Credits” and “Save a Soul” pillars of his sets, which “for my listeners have always been very special moments.”
While “I Only Smoke When I Drink” is putting a lot more eyes and ears on him — earning him new followers, a turn making an Essential Mix for BBC Radio 1 and a remix package featuring edits of the song by Claptone, Felix Cartel and more — he’s in a position to demonstrate staying power. “Virality helps, but virality is not a strategy,” Carpel says. “It still comes down to really great music from an artist with a strong voice and brand who connects with an audience, coupled with the right team and strategy around them.”
Tomorrow (Jan. 24), Nimino will release “Shaking Things Up.” Made from a ’60s soul sample and bouncy piano, the song is bright, but also laced with Nimino’s signature emotiveness. “It was very much a case of having done a song in one style, then saying, ‘F–k it. Let’s shake things up.’ ‘I Only Smoke’ was quite dark, quite clubby. ‘Shaking Things Up’ is so bright, so fun and such an outdoor festival kind of vibe.”
But whether one is a longtime fan or just now hearing his name, Nimino assures he’s got something for you.
“My favorite song of mine is genuinely always the one that’s about to come out, or the one I made yesterday,” he says. “So even if you can’t be bothered to check out the songs I’ve released, just follow the ride.”
The lineup for Tomorrowland 2025 is here. The organizers of the Belgian mega-festival released a bill with more than 600 dance acts spanning the genre’s sound spectrum on Thursday (Jan. 23).
The bill includes a load of Tomorrowland regulars including Martin Garrix, Steve Aoki, Armin van Buuren, Charlotte de Witte, David Guetta, Hardwell, Nervo, Nicky Romero and many others. The bill also includes John Summit, Fisher, Amelie Lens, Alok, Agents of Time, Miss Monique, The Blessed Madonna and other artists making mainstage, house, techno, trance, bass and more.
The gentlemen of Swedish House Mafia will perform twice, once as Swedish House Mafia and once as a b2b2b featuring the trio’s members — Axwell, Steve Angello and Sebastian Ingrosso — doing a house set on one of the event’s more intimate stages. Solomun will perform not once but thrice with a weekend one set on the mainstage, a weekend two b2b with Anyma and a third set on the festival’s Freedom Stage.
Trending on Billboard
Tomorrowland will also offer a flurry of b2b sets from Dimitri Vegas b2b Fantasm, DJ Boring b2b Haai, Kevin de Vries b2b Cassian, Kölsch b2b Artbat and many more.
The festival’s 19th edition happens across two weekends — July 18-20 and July 25-27 in Boom, Belgium. The event typically draws more than 400,000 people over its back-to-back weekends. Tickets for Tomorrowland 2025 go on sale Feb. 1.
Before the festival’s flagship summer edition, Tomorrowland Winter happens March 15-22 at Alpe d’Huez, a ski resort in the French Alps roughly two and a half hours southeast of Lyon. 2025 marks the fifth edition of the event, which will host a crowd of roughly 22,000.
See the full lineup for Tomorrowland Belgium below:
Tomorrowland
Courtesy of Tomorrowland
01/23/2025
Of the 4,717 tracks identified at the 2024 season, 50 were played more than all the rest.
01/23/2025
The clubs are currently dark in Ibiza, but months before the 2025 season gets underway, we’ve got tabs on the 50 most played artists at island institution Ushuaïa in 2024. These 50 artists rank highest on a list of 3,001 unique acts whose music was identified at the club in 2024. The top five slots […]
Rüfüs Du Sol will play a show benefitting Los Angeles wildfire relief efforts on March 6 at the Hollywood Palladium. The one night only performance will feature a DJ set by the Australia-born, U.S.-based group.
100% of the ticket proceeds from the Live Nation produced event will be donated to California Community Foundation Wildfire Recovery Fund, which is focused on directing resources with people most in need. Tickets go on sale via Ticketmaster this Thursday (Jan. 23) at 10 a.m. PT.
The show will happen six days before the launch of the trio’s previously announced world tour in support of their fifth studio album. The trek kicks off starts in Guadalajara, Mexico on March 12, extends through November and includes a sold out show at the Rose Bowl in Los Angeles. Los Angeles was home to Rüfüs Du Sol when they first moved to the U.S. from their native Australia, with the trio writing “Los Angeles we love you,” on their social media post announcing the show.
The show announcement comes on the heels of a new fire in the Los Angeles area, with the Hughes Fire forcing evacuations in Castaic, an area just north of Los Angeles, after starting on the morning of Jan. 22. Red flag warnings, which indicate an increased risk of fire danger, remain in effect for Los Angeles and Ventura counties until Thursday (Jan. 23.)
With the show announcement, Rüfüs Du Sol joins a long list of artists getting involved in wildfire relief efforts. The FireAid concert is set to take place on Jan. 30 at the Kia Forum and the Intuit Dome with a star-studded lineup including Billie Eilish, Dave Matthews & John Mayer, Earth, Wind & Fire, Green Day, Katy Perry, Lady Gaga, Lil Baby, Peso Pluma, Stevie Nicks, Sting and more. The 2025 Grammys and its attendant MusiCare event has also announced a focus on wildfire relief efforts.
After starting on Jan. 7, the Eaton and Palisades fires have decimated entire neighborhoods in Los Angeles, killing at least 28 people, displacing thousands and damaging or destroying at least 15,000 structures.
In the earlier days of his career, touring wasn’t necessarily Kygo‘s favorite thing to do.
“It was like every show was life or death,” says the Norwegian producer. “I was always very nervous. It was like, ‘This is the most important [thing ever], and if I mess up tonight, my career is over.’”
With this extreme self-imposed pressure, the artist “wasn’t really able to enjoy the shows that much. At one point I was like, ‘I’m probably never going to tour again,’ because it was just so exhausting.”
Flash forward to the present moment and Kygo — whose real name is Kyrre Gørvell-Dahll — has a fresh approach and attendant attitude, calling his current world tour “definitely my favorite that I’ve done so far.”
Starting last September, the 35-date tour has hit arenas and amphitheaters in North America, Europe and Central America, averaging slightly over 10,000 tickets and $838,000 in revenue per show, according to numbers reported to Billboard Boxscore. The run is continuing into 2025, with shows in Asia and Australia. Additionally, the producer plays this Thursday (Jan. 23) in Toronto and Saturday (Jan. 25) in Mexico City, where Kygo will play what he calls “the biggest show of the tour by far.” See exclusive behind the scenes footage of this tour below.
Trending on Billboard
Despite this success, Shear acknowledges that the run hasn’t made the same headlines as other recent marquee dance tours, such as Charli XCX and Troye Sivan’s 2024 Sweat Tour. “We’ve quietly been doing this unbelievable tour that’s sold over a half a million tickets,” he says. “There are a lot of tours out there. There’s a lot of stuff going on, and there’s a lot of new artists. But we’re going out there and doing the business. Kygo is just quietly winning in the dance music world.”
This current run is behind Kygo’s 2024 eponymous album, the artist’s fifth studio project that hit No. 97 on the Billboard 200 after its release last June. The tour is also his first in six years, since the run behind 2017’s Kids in Love. (Golden Hour and Thrill of the Chase came out in 2020 and 2022, respectively, although Kygo wasn’t able to tour behind them because of the pandemic.)
While the Kids in Love tour required 12 trucks to move it from city to city, this current tour requires 17 trucks and a crew of 58. When brainstorming the production, Kygo and Shear decided the music and visuals would lean into the fact that Kygo has been making music for a decade, with this kind of looking back approach inspired, Shear says, by Dead & Co.’s nostalgia-laced run at Sphere in Las Vegas last summer. As such, set lists featured visuals that nod to entirety of Kygo’s career thus far, while the setlist spans albums and hits. Vocalists including Justin Jesso, Zak Abel and Parson James are on the tour to sing their parts on “Firestone,” “Freedom” and “Stole the Show,” respectively.
“Kyrre told me that doing a tour was extremely important to him,” says Shear. “It’s not like every dance artist goes out there like a rock band or a pop star and does hard tickets in arenas or stadiums. “He was like, ‘The fact that I’m able to do it, I want to do whatever it takes to make this tour happen.’”
Kygo himself credits his ability to tour such big rooms — an option available to only a handful of dance acts including Illenium and Odesza — is a function of he and his team “not skipping any steps” while he was building his career. (Kygo is represented by Rob Markus at WME.) His earliest U.S. tour had him playing 200-700 capacity rooms, with each run getting progressively larger.
“We were living with my parents at the time, and Kyrre was staying in my brother’s room,” Shear says of these early days. “I went in my brother’s room, and was like, ‘Hey man, we found this guy who used to work with Disclosure and other big artists. He knows how to build live shows, and I think we should build one. We emptied the bank account making that show.”
This groundwork and investment has paid off, with Shear citing “the most tickets we’ve ever sold” on this current run. “I know so many people focusing on streams or on this or that, but the fans follow you as long as you do them right, take care of them and keep bringing an elevated show.”
Sometimes, this elevation requires some extra effort. The Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles doesn’t have the space to erect a B stage where Kygo typically performs his encore. As such, the team improvised for the Oct. 17 show, setting up a riser in the middle of the amphitheater amid the seats. Getting there from the stage just meant, Kygo says, “that we just had to run a little bit.”
Kygo
Johannes Lovund
Outside the tour, Kygo and Shear’s multi-faceted Palm Tree Crew brand continues expanding. Its first brick and mortar space, the 115-room hotel and restaurant Palm Tree Club Miami, opened last December. Meanwhile, Palm Tree Festival has happened in Aspen, The Hamptons, Southern California and beyond over the last several years. Some of these festivals feature Kygo on the lineup, and some don’t.
“I was with him in Paris a few weeks ago when he was playing Accor Arena, one of the biggest shows on tour,” says Shear. “At the same time, we opened a restaurant and club in Miami the night before and we were also throwing a music festival in Australia with 30,000 people and The Chainsmokers, and Kyrre isn’t even at either of them. I think that’s a true testament to a great brand we’ve brought to the world, and one that just sort of feeds off his demeanor.”
This demeanor is one that’s also changed as Kygo has become more experienced, and over time more relaxed, about touring.
“There’s definitely been some f–k-ups on the on the road and some songs where I’m like, ‘Oh, that did not sound good at all,’” he says with a laugh. “But I think that’s just part of it being live. Knowing that, I’m more confident and better able to enjoy myself on stage and not always just nervous about everything that could go wrong.”
01/21/2025
The list reflects data collected at the Ibiza club, where a total of 8,251 unique tracks were identified by KUVO Powered by DJ Monitor during the 2024 season.
01/21/2025
During the 2024 season, tracks by 4,680 unique artists were played at the Ibiza clubbing institution Hï. Of that dizzying number, 50 artists were played more than all the others, and now we know who. Leading the list of the top 50 artists whose music was played most during last year’s Hï season is David […]
This week in dance music: Tom Rowlands of the Chemical Brothers scored a new series about Benito Mussolini, a woman who accused Diplo of disseminating revenge porn dropped the lawsuit (for now) after a judge ruled she must use her real name, Tate McRae’s “It’s OK, I’m OK” topped Billboard‘s inaugural Hot Dance/Pop Songs chart, Boiler Room was acquired by Superstruct Entertainment, L.A. Gives Back announced a show benefitting victims of the Los Angeles wildfires, Brunch Electronik cancelled their L.A. event scheduled for Jan. 18 amid the ongoing fires, the family of late Crazy P vocalist Danielle Moore revealed her cause of death and Skrillex was added to the 2025 Ultra Music Festival lineup.
Explore
See latest videos, charts and news
See latest videos, charts and news
And yes, there’s more. These are the best new dance tracks of the week.
Trending on Billboard
John Summit feat. Cloves, “Focus”
It’s boilerplate dance world jargon to say a DJ “shows no signs of slowing down” — but in the case of John Summit the statement appears factually sound. Fresh off shows in Central and South America, Summit today (Jan. 17) released “Focus” with Australian singer-songwriter Cloves, with the pair together creating a lush, urgently emotive anthem that melts house and tech house into a real 21st century banger. The track is out on Experts Only/Darkroom and comes ahead of a looong list of upcoming Summit shows in Europe, North America, India and beyond.
Jungle, “Keep Me Satisfied”
Does anything brighten a day like a fresh Jungle track? The U.K. trio drop their first song of the year with “Keep Me Satisfied,” which essentially argues “why fix what ain’t broken?” by extending the group’s signature brightly lo-fi and stoney throwback live electronic sound. The video, of course, is one of Jungle’s signature single-take dance clips, with this one (like the rest of them) directed by the masterful J Lloyd and filmmaker Charlie Di Placido. Out on Caiola Records, “Keep Me Satisfied” comes ahead of Jungle shows in the U.S. and Europe this spring.
DJ Koze feat. Ada “Unbelievable”
Fresh DJ Koze output is always coze for celebration, so today we dance (or like, stand and nod with our eyes closed) upon the release of the German’s producer’s latest, “Unbelievable.” The track — which comes with a video directed by Koze himself, and features vocals from Ada, whose own 2011 album Meine zarten Pfoten was released Koze’s Pampa Records — is psychedelic electronica laced with doo-wop, and comes from his forthcoming album Music Can Hear Us, the follow-up to 2018’s beloved Knock Knock. “For some time now, I have been working on the idea of revolutionising aerospace tourism in specific: traveling without moving,” the producer writes of the album. “This is the closest I’ve ever come to it.” Consider us enticed.
Ela Minus, DÍA
The mighty Colombian producer today releases her second album, DÍA, the followup to 2020’s acts of rebellion. The album is an altogether excellent, no-skips project that further demonstrates Minus’ ability to fuse futuristic and in moments headspinningly complex IDM with deep (and deeply personal) lyrics about love, life on earth, the expectations has one’s for one’s self and what it’s like when they’re not met. (“I want to be better, I thought I was better” she sings on “I Want to Be Better,” “but I just seem to keep acting like a little kid.”) The project is out on Domino and comes ahead of an expansive world tour this spring.
Butcher Brown, “Ibiza”
The sound of modern day Ibiza is a lot of oontz oontz and womp womp and there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that. But a new song named for the Spanish isle by Virginia outfit Butcher Brown also serves to remind us all that the island’s soundtrack is also a wavelength of groovy jazz laced with sex appeal and the exact right amount of sax. “Ibiza” comes from the group’s forthcoming Letters From The Atlantic, out March 28 via Concord Jazz, and due to dose up our earholes with a fusion of jazz, rock, funk, R&B, soul, bossa nova and more.
Skrillex is joining the lineup for Ultra Music Festival 2025. The festival confirmed the news Friday (Jan. 17) by adding the artist’s name to the festival lineup poster on its website.
This news follows Skrillex and Ultra teasing the appearance on X this past Wednesday (Jan. 15), when the producer responded to a tweet from the festival’s account reading “Happy birthday Skrillex, we miss [hands raised emoji]” with a message on the platform of his own reading, “See you in March.”
The performance will mark the first time the artist, who turned 37 on Jan. 15, has played the festival as a solo act since 2015. He last appeared at Ultra Music Festival Miami in 2019 as part of Dog Blood, for which he plays alongside Boys Noize. Skrillex also played Ultra’s debut festival in Abu Dhabi in March of 2023.
Trending on Billboard
Ultra Music Festival is happening at Miami’s Bayfront Park March 28-30. The previously announced lineup includes Four Tet, Gesaffelstein, Armin van Buuren, Carl Cox, Afrojck, Tiësto, Martin Garrix and Hardwell, along with pairings including John Summit and Dom Dolla playing as Everything Always, Anyma b2b Solomun and Knife Party playing both solo and b2b with Deadmau5, with the latter artist also performing his first ever career-spanning “retro5pective” set, which will see the producer playing his classic hits.
On Jan. 15, Skrillex also posted a note to his social accounts reading, “If you like my music leave me your email at Skrillex.com/FUS and I’ll send you some things.” The note was signed with the producer’s real name, Sonny Moore. An email submission to this address on Jan. 15 has not yet yielded a response.
Skrillex first teased new music last fall, writing on X in November that “I’ve never felt more inspired and in lockstep with my intentions as an artist. As I’m nearing completion of my next work and my final project for Atlantic Records I can’t help but feel very existential about it all… I’m thrilled to get this out and focus on more release[s] in 25 as an ‘independent’ artist. But ‘independent’ is such a strange term because I still depend on my team as well as all the other creatives and executives to do what I do.
“But now I’m able to rethink/relook at how the structures are designed,” his posts continued. “I want to find ways to simplify [disseminating] music and art.” The producer’s last albums, Quest for Fire and Don’t Get Too Close, came out within days of each other in February of 2023.
The artist, who’s originally from Los Angeles, also recently used X to respond to the ongoing fires in L.A., writing on on Jan. 10: “We’ve been devastated here in Los Angeles. My phone has been unmanageable so to all my friends, I’m safe and bless you for checking in. So many close ones have lost their homes so being there for each other has never been this critical.”