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06/13/2023
The band celebrates its ten-year anniversary June 13, 2023.
06/13/2023
When Catie Offerman performed for programmers during Country Radio Seminar on March 14, she provided the Ryman Auditorium audience a mystery worth unwrapping.
Offerman announced her first radio single would be “I Just Killed a Man,” then launched into a slowly unfolding storyline full of dark imagery and phrases: Cops, chalk outlines, a getaway car and a guy begging for mercy in the driveway. The story was spellbinding; Offerman delivered it with a clear, inviting tone; and it was easy to ponder even as she performed it: “Really? Her first radio single is going to be a murder ballad?”
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But after two full verses and two choruses, the bridge shook up the plot: “Just because it ain’t a crime/Don’t mean I won’t be doing time.” More pondering: “How can a murder not be a crime? Oh, it’s not a murder. This song is awesome!”
That’s generally the way people react to “I Just Killed a Man,” though not everybody needs two minutes or so to figure out that the song isn’t quite what the title implies. “I say the name of it, all the women think it’s about killing their ex-boyfriend — I think they get all giddy about it for a second,” Offerman says. “It ain’t about murder, but I’ve never heard heartbreak talked about this way before.”
Circumstances lined up nicely for “I Just Killed a Man,” a title that emerged before the final day of a songwriting camp in Nashville last August that had a handful of composers focused specifically on material for Offerman. At the end of the day’s work on Aug. 9, two of the writers — Ryan Beaver (“Party Mode”) and Joe Clemmons (“Rose Needs a Jack”) — hung out at Beaver’s place to brainstorm for the next day. They flipped on the TV, and the Netflix menu fortuitously promoted a series that debuted that same day: I Just Killed My Dad. A couple of word changes and “I Just Killed a Man” led them down a creative road that compares a breakup to a murder.
“We just started throwing lines back and forth, not co-writing, but just nonchalant,” recalls Clemmons. “You know — ‘They won’t lock me up for this one’ – playing with the metaphor.”
Beaver called his neighbor — songwriter Jessie Jo Dillon (“Memory Lane,” “Break Up in the End”), who was also part of the Offerman camp – and clued her in. And when they arrived the next morning, it wasn’t long before they shared the concept with Offerman and songwriter Benjy Davis (“Made for You”). Clemmons broke into a progression on guitar with and came up with a signature instrumental lick at the same time, and everyone pitched in.
“Catie started singing the chorus melody,” Beaver remembers. “It was such a collaborative effort. Benjy was such a great editor and writer that day; Joe was great. I mean, it’s really rare to feel that way because you sort of feel like you need a leader, or somebody has a better vision, and then the others are helping fulfill that. But not that day. This was a day where everybody was firing.”
“It was one of those days,” adds Dillon, “where you feel like you’re almost getting it from somewhere else.”
They wrote it in 6/8, an alternative to the typical 4/4 time signature. While it’s not the usual framework, it has undergirded such stalwart titles as Keith Urban’s “Blue Ain’t Your Color,” Chris Stapleton’s “Tennessee Whiskey” and Jason Aldean’s “You Make It Easy.”
“I Just Killed a Man” “reminds me of [Little Big Town’s] ‘Girl Crush’ in a way,” Offerman says, citing another 6/8 predecessor. “The subject matter, you’re kind of like, ‘Whoa, what’s going on here?’ And then you just can’t help but being soaked up in the feeling of the tune.”
The metaphor in “I Just Killed a Man” works in great part because songs typically treat the person who ended a relationship as a villain. But verse two cast both people in the breakup as victims of the situation. Still, it’s easy to picture the stanza as a confession in an interrogation room. “Jessie pretty much wrote the whole second verse by herself,” says Clemmons. “Obviously we’re all helping and everything, but she had that line, ‘Tonight it’s just whiskey and guilt on the rocks.’ And that is such a Jessie Jo Dillon line. I’m pretty sure she spit that whole thing out.”
As fluid as the writing session was, “I Just Killed a Man” ended up running long. Davis was key in trimming the excess. “At some point, we were messing with some kind of pre-chorus, and I remember really liking what it said,” Dillon notes. “But it was one of those things that I think happens in songs sometimes where you kind of have to — no pun intended — kill off your favorite character, because it just felt so good to go into the chorus as quick as we did.”
Beaver and Clemmons wasted no time working up a demo that night at Beaver’s home. The recording laid out a strong map for the final product, kept musically lean. “I’m in a two-bedroom, two-bath, little condo, and one of the rooms is just set up for music gear and recording,” says Beaver. “Joe and I kept it really simple. I was like, ‘Man, this just needs to be about this story. It needs to be about this vocal.’ ”
That made it a difficult piece to get right when Offerman and producer Dann Huff (Kane Brown, Brantley Gilbert) cut it at Nashville’s Blackbird Studios. Two electric guitars played the instrumental signature lick in unison an octave apart, but even as they tried to minimize distractions from the melody and plot, the track was still too busy. “This kind of song, you can screw it up just because it’s a whisper,” Huff says. “There’s no grandstanding.”
They later went through a couple rounds of cuts in the production, muting instruments to give space for the story to fully resonate. Offerman recorded her final vocal at Huff’s home studio, singing it several days in a row among a batch of songs. Each day, she became a little more relaxed with the process and a little more in touch with the piece’s emotional subtleties.
“Some singers try to over-emote, overtell a story, overact,” says Huff. “In this one, I vaguely remember us speaking about the fact that there needs to be an air of desperation, a quiet desperation. Not overly dramatic — that spoils the story. It’s just that ache and the resolve to the emotional part of the lyric.”
Offerman and her creative associates were all pleasantly surprised when MCA Nashville chose the 6/8 ballad with murderous allusions as her first radio single, releasing it via PlayMPE on May 8. Based on the reaction she received at the Country Radio Seminar show, she’s bound at the very least to grab programmers’ attention.
“When you send them a text, or a message in their inbox, that says ‘I Just Killed a Man,’ you know at least they’re going to listen,” she reasons. “That is a cool thing about this title. I think it intrigues people, and I think it makes them want to listen because what other song have you ever heard called, ‘I Just Killed a Man’?”
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.
Maren Morris downs a shot of tequila with a wince. “I love that we’re taking shots and then saying, ‘OK, so let’s talk about Ron DeSantis,’ ” Morris says with a chuckle.
The four drag luminaries she’s toasting with today — Eureka O’Hara, Landon Cider, Sasha Colby and Symone — grimace through their own post-shot puckers at the mention of the Florida governor’s (and now, presidential hopeful’s) name. It’s an otherwise cheerful weekday in Los Angeles: Pop jams ranging from ABBA to Doja Cat play in the background as the quintet gabs gleefully about everything from Three’s Company to O’Hara’s adorable dachshund puppy, Princess Pink, who makes occasional appearances nearby.
But the shadow of the world outside can’t stay beyond this room for long. The mention of DeSantis — who recently signed a batch of anti-LGBTQ+ bills into law that collectively amount to a full attack on the civil rights of queer and trans people in Florida — is just one reminder that in 2023 alone, over 450 bills targeting LGBTQ+ rights have been introduced by right-wing politicians into state legislatures across the country, according to the American Civil Liberties Union. That’s more than double the amount of anti-LGBTQ+ legislation introduced in the same legislative session in 2022.
The five assembled today frequently, and fervently, use their respective individual platforms to speak against such attacks on the LGBTQ+ community. O’Hara, Cider, Colby and Symone are alums (and, in a few cases, winners) of some of TV’s most beloved drag reality shows, like RuPaul’s Drag Race and The Boulet Brothers’ Dragula. Morris, who’s moderating today’s discussion, has made a name for herself not only as one of country music’s brightest stars, but as an outspoken advocate — both onstage and off — for queer and trans people, calling out their mistreatment in the music industry and beyond.
The legislation leveled against those communities spans a wide range of issues — censoring discussions of gender and sexuality in public schools, banning best-practice medical care for transgender youth (and in some instances for adults, too), eliminating nondiscrimination protections for the LGBTQ+ community. And another type of legislation has quickly captured national attention: so-called “drag bans.” In March, Tennessee became the first state to pass a bill into law prohibiting “adult cabaret” performances (the definition of which includes “male or female impersonators”) in public or in the presence of minors.
“It’s just now becoming public knowledge how horrible it is there,” says O’Hara, who grew up in Tennessee, her voice quivering. “It’s scary to be trans today and to be a drag queen.” Colby puts it simply: “It’s about controlling queer kids.”
After the state’s ban sparked a legal battle with Memphis-based theater company Friends of George’s, a federal judge temporarily blocked the law. Then, on June 2, U.S. District Judge Thomas Parker ruled that the law violates performers’ First Amendment rights and deemed it unconstitutional. The ruling prevents the law from taking effect in Tennessee’s Shelby County and creates potential for further legal challenges elsewhere in the state. Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti has already said that he plans to appeal the ruling to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit.
“This ruling is a turning point, and we will not go back,” said GLAAD president/CEO Sarah Kate Ellis in a statement. “Every anti-LGBTQ elected official is on notice that these baseless laws will not stand and that our constitutional freedom of speech and expression protects everyone and propels our culture forward.”
But LGBTQ+ advocates in Tennessee point out that, overturned or not, the law’s initial passage still accomplished one goal: creating a culture of confusion and fear surrounding self-expression in the state. Due to the intentional vagueness of the law, its enforcement would come down to individual interpretation, sparking hypothetical questions like, “If Harry Styles comes and does a concert at Bridgestone Arena in Nashville and has on a frilly shirt or a skirt or a dress…” posits Morris. “What do we do then? In a place like Tennessee, it’s obviously really meant to fearmonger.”
Maren Morris in drag as Willie Nelson photographed on May 9, 2023 in Los Angeles. Hair by Laura Polko at PRTNRS. Makeup by Diane Buzzetta at Blended Strategy. Drag Makeup Consulting by Landon Cider. Manicure by Queenie Nguyen at Nailing Hollywood. Styling by Dani Michelle at The Only Agency. Vintage shirt and bolo tie, Our Legacy jeans, Nick Fouquet hat.
Munachi Osegbu
At least 15 other states, including Arizona, Arkansas, Florida, Missouri, North Carolina and Texas, are either considering or have already passed legislation similar to Tennessee’s drag ban — and that’s creating an impending sense of dread that keeps the drag stars and Morris fired up. “If you don’t want to go to a drag show, don’t go to a drag show. If you don’t want to have your kids at a drag show, don’t take your kids to a drag show. But don’t put that on us!” Symone exclaims. Cider nods in agreement. “The only part of ‘grooming’ that I’m doing,” he says, “is grooming kids to find joy in their authentic selves.”
Maren Morris: How have you been coming to terms with the number of anti-LGBTQ+ bills passing through the state legislatures around the country? I live in Tennessee, and I feel like that’s unfortunately at the forefront for a lot of them.
Symone: I don’t think I’ve come to terms with it; I think I’ve just realized that I am in a rage about it. Growing up, it wasn’t like it is now, and it’s frustrating to see all this hate, this vitriol for people who just spread love and only want to be seen and accepted. I cannot believe in 2023 we’re here. Especially after doing the respective [TV] shows that we’ve done and being embraced over all these years, for it to feel like such a backlash is insane to me. I won’t come to terms with it because we deserve everything that you think that we don’t deserve.
Morris: Have you seen it affect your own bookings or your friends’ bookings?
Sasha Colby: Right now, being in gigs with the other season 15 [Drag Race] girls, I feel like in our group chats we’re all very much on high alert and asking our friends, like Aura [Mayari] who’s in Tennessee, “How is it?” I think everyone’s just being very cautious.
Drag is so popular right now [because] it’s hitting a nerve with people, both good and bad. The bad is that they see how good we’re doing and how happy we’re making people and how out of the matrix we are. Kids are coming! It’s not grooming, it’s just making space for them to be themselves.
Landon Cider: When we were hiding and forced to create secret spaces, we found community. We were bonding and forging these relationships in this underground culture. Now that it’s celebrated in the mainstream, it backfired. It’s thrown in our face. We didn’t force it to be mainstream! They did!
Colby: We weren’t allowed in cis spaces. We weren’t allowed to be anything but outcasts. And then we share it with the world, and they just want to colonize our thoughts as well as everything else.
Symone: I think it does scare them because of the kids. The kids are seeing us, and they grow up saying, “Well, why would I need to be anything other than this?” That is scary for people who are not of this generation and who grew up a different way.
Sasha Colby photographed on May 9, 2023 in Los Angeles. Hair by Jazlyn Simons. Makeup by James Michael Perez. Michael Ngo custom bodysuit, gloves, and boots.
Munachi Osegbu
Morris: There is not a “one size fits all” conveyor belt of parenting; everyone has a different thing. Saying that this is all “adult” — some drag is, absolutely! But I’ve seen the Mrs. Doubtfire reference made a lot, where it’s hilarious if it’s a cis [straight] male in drag. Then it’s OK for the kids to see, but God forbid you see someone truly expressing themselves, entertaining and just being free.
Eureka O’Hara: It’s OK if it’s a joke. But we take this seriously — this gives us inspiration and life. I come from East Tennessee, and I went through all of this times 10 living there. It makes me so mad — I have a trans Black sister who just moved in with me a few months ago, and she’s finally doing OK after 19 years of being abused. And that’s what this is.
You all know it’s not about drag. Let’s be real. These [are] scare tactics, and it just gets me so emotional. It’s about how we express ourselves, and it’s about the youth — because we have the queerest youth we’ve ever had right now. And that’s what they’re mad about. These kids are learning about who they are before they’re 18, 25, 30 years old and still have to deal with abuse like this.
Colby: The whole thing with being trans is they sexualize us. It’s funny when it’s a joke, but as soon as they sexualize us, then they’re going to want to control, like how they do with cisgender women, how they do with kids.
Cider: They’re projecting their own hatred and fear of their own community and their own small “safe” spaces.
Morris: What’s that saying? “Every threat from them is an actual admission.”
Colby: Exactly. It’s always them showing their cards.
Symone: I also just want to put out there that people may think now that it’s just the drag queens, it’s just trans people. But if they can do it to them, then they can do it to anybody else. Don’t think that just because they’re attacking us right now that y’all are going to be somehow exempt from it. We’re just the easiest targets. Just look at history.
That’s another thing that I cannot stand — the misinformation. Know what you’re speaking about, know what you’re saying before you speak. You don’t have to like a trans person. But don’t say things that you don’t know anything about. Educate yourself. Don’t put your stuff on somebody else. What did Madonna say? “Don’t hang your sh-t on me.”
Cider: Don’t push your legislature to take control and tell other people what they can or cannot do [with their bodies]. Usually, it is religious reasons why they’re doing all of this because their beliefs are binary. When we have this particular religious control, they want to put fearmongering into what has been celebrated because they don’t understand it.
Eureka O’Hara photographed on May 9, 2023 in Los Angeles. Hair by Jaymes Mansfield. Makeup by Loris Volkle. Marco Marco custom dress.
Munachi Osegbu
Morris: The fact is, they don’t have solutions for actual problems — this is their niche thing that they get to go off on. I’m from Texas, I live in Tennessee, and I do love the community I have there, but these bills almost incentivize us to turn on one another. They’re rewarding us to turn each other in, which feels kind of like a Nazi Germany thing where we turn on our own communities.
Colby: And they call it “patriotism.”
Morris: With drag being more popular than ever right now, how do you think it ultimately influences pop culture?
Colby: We used to be a mirror — like in the ’70s, ’80s and ’90s, we would mirror pop culture. Now we get to be pop culture. We are who celebrities, designers, artists want to work with or are inspired by.
O’Hara: Obviously, there’s so much bad that comes from the hatred and the discrimination. But to have it be publicly talked about and having these discussions — like, how many celebrities have stood up for drag lately?
Cider: It’s interesting because it’s kind of the flip for me. As a drag king, I don’t see myself and my version of my art form celebrated the way that the art of drag queens is. So it’s bittersweet because I see my sisters being catapulted into this stardom, and I’m so excited and happy for all of them. But when are we going to understand that kings have been around for just as long, if not longer, in some cultures? Sexism and misogyny take over a lot, and that’s why trans women have been hidden in secret, too; it’s that same misogyny, the same sexism.
I am not trans, but when I see my trans siblings getting attacked… If you attack one of us, you attack all of us. And it’s the same when I see my siblings being celebrated — you celebrate one of us, you celebrate all of us. So I’m celebrating them, but I’m still waiting for us to be recognized and fully embraced. We see masculinity celebrated on the runway on RuPaul’s Drag Race all the time — in the Snatch Game or Victoria [Scone] and Mo Heart doing these very masculine looks — but we still don’t see kings.
O’Hara: You talked about the sexism and misogyny — it’s also the heteronormative culture of “Men are men, women are women,” and seeing a drag king is probably even harder for them to see.
Colby: Because they don’t know how to sexualize and objectify you.
O’Hara: Tea!
Morris: Piggybacking on that, these bills are so vague in their language that it’s intentionally hard to know where the line is between what is drag and what is not, and it’s obviously really meant to eradicate the existence of trans people. I mean, even a lot of these [male] country artists wear tighter jeans than I do.
Colby: And have bigger highlights! But that’s the thing: All the beauty in country music is always so good.
Landon Cider photographed on May 9, 2023 in Los Angeles. Hair by Wigs By Vanity. Makeup by Landon Cider. Fontasia L’Amour suit, ORTTU shirt.
Munachi Osegbu
Morris: It’s elevated, right? Dolly Parton famously said that if she wasn’t Dolly, she would be a drag queen. Especially when I’m going into glam for an event, I’m looking at a lot of y’all’s photos. Like, talk about culture and impact — it affects me, too! I want to sit and be beat for the gods! Even that language — I just said something that was totally born out of this community. I exist in this space of country music, where you don’t have to do much to be seen as a brave voice, unfortunately.
Symone: And that’s why it’s so important for you to be here, because country music — and I’ll also add in rap and hip-hop here — those genres need people to come out and say something more than any other [genre] because those are the ones that are the most heteronormative.
Colby: And they have a lot of people’s ears in America. They are two of the most listened-to genres in the country.
Symone: For you to be here and say those things is so important — we need all our divas. We need you to love us now.
Morris: Are there any specific examples of good, helpful allyship that you’ve seen from artists in the last few years?
Cider: Aside from you, I look at somebody like Lizzo and the show she did in Nashville recently [with drag performers].
Symone: Yes, completely. If you’re going to Tennessee this summer for touring, get the girls up there. Get some kings up there, too!
Colby: The local girls, too, because the local performers are the ones in danger here, especially in these small towns with a lot of drag. I’ve noticed that a lot of small Southern towns have these safe spaces for queer people, and they are the ones who are going to feel the impact of all this legislation first. We get to be the face and the voice and try to do our best, but it’s these small towns that we really have to be concerned about.
Symone photographed on May 9, 2023 in Los Angeles. Hair by Gigi Goode. Makeup by RYLIE. Marko Monroe custom dress.
Munachi Osegbu
Morris: For anyone who may be reading this, what can people do to help?
Symone: Vote. That’s first and foremost.
O’Hara: Go to these organizations that work with lobbyists to watch out for the progression of these bills. Because it’s not just at a state and national level that we’re being harmed. It’s the small community governments, it’s the city governments, it’s these local places. We have organizations like ACLU and places of that nature, every state has those lobbyists — the Tennessee Transgender Political Coalition would be a great one for anyone to donate to. Of course you have to vote, but we scream that all day every day. It’s not just about voting for the president.
A lot of times, I think the most important thing is to take care of the people around you who aren’t being looked after. Talk to the quiet queer kids that look scared, that aren’t being social. Go befriend the people that don’t look happy. Stop being mean girls, and that goes for gay people, too. Step up and be there for each other, for someone other than yourself and the people who make you feel cool.
Cider: Be an active ally when it matters. If you’ve shared a smile, a laugh, a memory with a queer person, don’t let that memory hide in the closet. Take that memory where it counts — to your pulpits, to your family reunions, to the locker rooms, to the places where you know you’re going to get sh-t on for speaking out for us. That’s where it matters the most because maybe it’ll open some eyes.
Colby: I always tell my cis-het friends who have children, “You don’t have to go to every protest and stand on your soapbox. What you do have control over is the kids you created. All you can do is leave this world a little better than you left it. Make those kids allies.”
Morris: Is there anything y’all want to ask me?
Cider: You’re using your platform beautifully already, and we appreciate you, we thank you for everything. But it’s also not a hard thing to do, to be an ally and to use your platform in the way that you do. How would you encourage your peers to do the same?
Morris: I have heard the term “Shut up and sing” more times than I can count — that’s always the cutesy little threat that they like to make. So I would say to my peers who are artists and to record-label heads, publishers, songwriters: I don’t think any of us got into this art form to be an activist, but that’s ultimately thrust upon you to exist in this space and to feel like you can sleep at night. You’re going to lose fans along the way — that is just part and parcel of being public-facing. But there is a lane that you’re widening; I see it year over year at my shows, the crowd feels so diverse and so safe. I know everyone likes money, but is it worth your biography saying that you never picked a side because both sides pay money to buy a T-shirt?
This story will appear in the June 10, 2023, issue of Billboard.
I grew up being a huge country music fan, especially of people like The Chicks. Watching their career spiral in such a ridiculous, unfair way was always in my mind — it doesn’t leave your brain once you witness these idols of yours being so unfairly criticized and their careers, at least at the time, ending just for exercising their rights. There is this pressure to stay silent in country music, I think, because of what happened to The Chicks. Artists just look at it like, “It’s good for business to shut the f–k up.” And that just never really sat well with me.
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I think that’s why I’ve become a little bit of a rebellious adolescent in country. In some ways, there’s good in that; you want things to be better, you want everyone to be on the same page, you want everyone to be equally treated. There’s this passion there. But there’s also that sort of insanity and delusion of thinking you can do it all yourself. It’s ridiculous and kind of an almost white savior complex way of thinking: “I’m going to change it all from the inside — me, myself and I.” I’ve had to really take a step back and realize how to not center myself in this conversation every f–king time.
There’s always going to be this nugget of ego in all of us, but I think particularly for someone that looks like me, the education of the last few years has been to shut up and listen to those who are living these horrors every day. I’m shutting up to listen to people that are smarter than me. I am not some torch-carrying savior of country music.
I have not been pulled from the radio — at least not as a reaction to my actions. I’ve certainly lost fans along the way. But I think that’s sort of like spring cleaning. I don’t want to make three albums and go away forever; this is it for me. I don’t love anything else as much as I love performing and writing songs. So, with the effects of the “punishment phase” of speaking out, I couldn’t give a sh-t because I’m going to be doing this for the long haul. You lose some people along the way, but you solidify those that you had from the get-go.
The way the country music industry has treated LGBTQ people has been awful — there’s been almost no representation. There are people like Ty Herndon, who wasn’t able to come out until he was basically not in the industry anymore. But there is progress being made: T.J. Osborne, one of my closest friends, came out a couple years ago, and there’s such support behind him because it’s like, “Yeah, it doesn’t matter.”
In my career, I have been pretty clear with my values and putting my money where my mouth is, and over time, I’ve achieved a larger audience. So to anyone who’s a juggernaut of the industry or to new artists just trying to break right into this: I have worked bit by bit to build my business to where it is. When you speak out or you show up to a rally, you’re going to gain fans and you’re going to lose fans. Even if it’s for a piece of legislation that’s going to affect people’s bodily autonomy, or their way of making a living, or who they can marry, it is going to be political to the other side. You’re going to lose some people, but you’ll also gain some that never looked in your direction before. On a moral level, as a fan, wouldn’t it be so nice to know that you’re paying for a ticket or a T-shirt of somebody that isn’t a sh–ty person? Being inclusive is good for business because you open yourself up to the world.
When I was a guest judge on Drag Race, I did feel like I just wanted to speak from my heart and apologize [for country music’s treatment of the LGBTQ community] as an artist that comes from the genre. I felt like country music in some ways gets overlooked in that community because they rightfully assume it’s not a welcoming community. No “sorry” is going to undo the decades of harm that the country music industry has done to LGBTQ people in terms of representation. I was trying to say that there’s a lot of good people in this genre, and I hope that you don’t write it off forever because of what some artists said on their stage.
We live really close to the Covenant School [where a mass shooting took place in March], and that feeling of being swallowed by this grief, as a mother, has been really tough. My heart is just broken every day, having to pass the entrance of that school. But weirdly, I have never felt more connected to this town than in the last two months. When I went to one of the protests after the shooting, I saw mothers that I’ve had wine and disagreements with, and everyone was so emotionally raw at that moment. It’s awful that it took something so horrible to make that happen, but something in me switched, and I felt like, “I’m really lucky to live here right now.” Community like that is happening on the battlegrounds of these protests. It all comes back to the community that you’ve got to go out and build for yourself. It’s not going to come to you.
And there really is no community like here in Nashville. I’ve heard other songwriters from other places say they’ve been to L.A., they’ve been to New York, they’ve done writing trips abroad, but there’s just something different about Nashville. My heart is country music, and it’s writing songs that are stories, and it’s the collaboration of Nashville writing. It’s a lot harder to try and start over in some other way. I’ve just decided that you have to till the soil you’re on. Don’t get into the greener pastures complex.
For myself, I’m getting out of the sort of game of being the hall monitor of country music, even if I’m probably setting myself up for failure. Everything I’ve done has not been in vain; I’ve been so bowled over by the acceptance and positivity from the LGBTQ community. But I feel like I cannot look at the bad apples anymore. I’m done giving into what they want, which is attention. I think the whole “When they go low, we go high” thing is applicable here. Sometimes I fall into that trap of saying, “No, beat them at their own game. Sink to their level because they don’t operate on the high road.” There’s absolutely truth to that, and sometimes, yeah, you need to ruffle some feathers and not do this whole “Kumbaya” hand-holding thing. But clapping back on Twitter and expecting a different result doesn’t work for me anymore. I’m going to look to where the people are helping and just Mister Rogers this b-tch. —AS TOLD TO STEPHEN DAW
This story will appear in the June 10, 2023, issue of Billboard.
David Kushner realized he might have a hit on his hands in March, when he performed “Daylight” to a packed London venue while opening for Dean Lewis. He’d been teasing the then-unreleased single on TikTok and Instagram for weeks, and “everybody knew the words,” he tells Billboard. Fan recordings of Kushner performing the song in concert only fed into the hype: “There’s one video [on TikTok] with like 30 million views and 7 million likes.”
Riding a wave of social media-fueled anticipation, “Daylight” arrived through Virgin Music on Apr. 14 and quickly became Kushner’s commercial breakthrough, debuting at No. 48 on the Billboard Hot 100 on the chart dated April 29 as well as cracking the top 10 of the Billboard Global Excl. U.S. chart. Characterized by Kushner’s bellowing vocals and a haunting piano melody, the song’s lyrics deal with the self-destructive potential of fulfilling the less savory end of one’s desires: “There’s darkness in the distance/From the way that I’ve been livin’,” he sings. “But I know I can’t resist it.”
Kushner, 22, grew up in the Chicago suburb of Barrington, the youngest of five musical siblings, with four sisters that played piano and a brother who played in a prominent local band. Though he always enjoyed singing and took guitar lessons in the fourth grade, it wasn’t until he finished high school — and realized that college didn’t interest him — that he decided to pursue music as a career. He began taking vocal lessons and learning the guitar again, but he initially struggled to find his voice.
In September 2020, after co-writing with a high school friend and recording with producers he met through social media, he self-distributed a crop of “way more poppy” tracks sung in a higher vocal range — a far cry from the baritone he’s become known for since. In fact, it was only when a vocal coach encouraged him to experiment with a lower range that he found his artistic footing. “I entered a new creative dimension in a way,” says Kushner, who has since removed those earlier songs from streaming services. “It felt like I stepped from one world into another.”
David Kushner photographed May 10, 2023 at Cricket Ranch in Los Angeles.
Austin Hargrave
His new singing style was promptly validated: Kushner partnered with Virgin Music in December 2021 after a meeting with President Jacqueline Saturn and other executives, who suggested that a distributor, rather than a traditional label, was the best route, given his TikTok following. He then released his 2022 EP, Footprints I Found, through the company, with lead single “Miserable Man” performed in that self-described “lower octave.” The austere, acoustic guitar-driven ballad reached No. 23 on Billboard‘s Bubbling Under Hot 100 chart.
Soon after, Kushner met his manager, Altar MGMT’s Brent Shows, through an artist friend he met on TikTok and previously wrote with in Los Angeles, where he moved earlier this year. Kushner originally hired Shows — who also owned a video production company — to create content for his social channels. Before long, Shows was managing Kushner on a part-time basis before making it his full-time gig last fall.
“I was in the room when ‘Daylight’ was written and watched the entire process from the first melody that was sung to the last submission to [Virgin],” says Shows of working with Kushner. “Just seeing that whole process, you realize the talent the kid has.”
From left: Brent Shows and David Kushner photographed May 10, 2023 at Cricket Ranch in Los Angeles.
Austin Hargrave
Kushner began writing the hit this January while taking a break from a session for another, as-of-yet unreleased track. “I first sang [the melody] in my falsetto voice … it was just a vomit vocal that came out,” he says. After writing the chorus (“Oh, I love it and I hate it at the same time/You and I drink the poison from the same vine”), he went home and played it for his girlfriend, who was instantly “stoked,” he says. He finished writing the song on his landlord’s piano, then recorded a rough demo at home.
Kushner started teasing the “Daylight” chorus online later that month. “It took off a little bit, not anything crazy,” he says. It wasn’t until he began tagging Hozier in his social media posts about the song — encouraged, in part, by comparisons from fans — that it started to go viral. “Fans were blowing up all my videos because they were agreeing with me,” he says. “They were like…’We need this to happen.’”
Though Hozier declined a collaboration, Shows reached out to another key player in the Irish singer-songwriter’s rise: Rob Kirwan, who produced Hozier’s breakthrough 2014 self-titled album. After hearing the “Daylight” demo, Kirwan agreed to produce it, not yet aware of the song’s TikTok virality. “Rob truly just liked the song, and wanted to be a part of the project,” says Shows.
Despite an initial release date slated for May 5, the momentum surrounding the song prompted Kushner to push for an earlier release — and Shows, trusting Kushner’s instincts, moved the release up to Apr. 14. Its music video arrived the same day, and has since garnered more than 26 million YouTube views.
Shows says they’re now focused on breaking the song at radio, with promo tours scheduled for the U.S. and Europe. There have also been talks about putting out an acoustic version, while discussions are progressing with some “pretty large names” for dance remixes of the song, says Shows.
Soon, Kushner will play a few sold-out headlining shows in the U.S. and U.K., followed by an opening slot for Lewis Capaldi, an artist that Kushner says has influenced him in more ways than one. “He’s been such an inspiration [to] my songwriting.” But he looks to the chart-topper on a more personal level too: “I also have tic disorder,” he adds — a diagnosis of Tourette Syndrome, which Capaldi has long addressed, including in a recent Netflix documentary. “A lot of people don’t know [that] about me, but I want to be more open about it.” Kushner says it first started with a vocal tic when he was a child and has since “progressed” — though when he’s focused on music, whether during the recording process or playing a show, his symptoms nearly disappear.
Fans can expect continued openness from Kushner on his debut album — on which he’s collaborating with several producers and songwriters, including Kirwan — that he hopes to release later this year. Both Kushner and Shows are content with remaining independent for the moment: “We just love the team that we have… and [Virgin] operates as a full services label for David,” says Shows.
“This is just the beginning. This is the floor,” he continues. “A ceiling? You can’t even see it.”
David Kushner photographed May 10, 2023 at Cricket Ranch in Los Angeles.
Austin Hargrave
A version of this story originally appeared in the June 3, 2023, issue of Billboard.
At the start of 2022, Yahritza y Su Esencia emerged as the buzzy regional Mexican music act every label wanted to sign. In a matter of months, the Washington state-based Martinez sibling trio went from a local band that sang at family parties to the future of regional Mexican with its sad, catchy sierreño songs, powered by Yahritza’s emotional vocals, Mando’s requinto and Jairo’s bajoloche.
By March 2022, after signing a deal with independent label Lumbre Music, Yahritza y Su Esencia released their official debut single, “Soy el Único.” It entered the Billboard Hot 100 at No. 20 and made Yahritza the youngest Latin performer to debut on the chart at just 15 years old. The act subsequently notched its first No. 1 on Regional Mexican Albums with its Obsessed EP, scored a Latin Grammy Award nod for best new artist and, by November, signed with Columbia Records in a partnership with Lumbre Music and Sony Music Latin. A worldwide deal with SESAC Latina soon followed.
All the while, Yahritza’s 25-year-old big brother, Mando — who had been living stateside as an undocumented person — and his team were working behind the scenes to sort out his immigration status in the United States. In need of an O-1 visa, Mando had to go to Mexico City and follow protocols to prove his eligibility. After spending most of his life living with his parents (who are originally from Michoacán, Mexico) and four siblings in Washington’s agricultural region of Yakima Valley, he was suddenly alone in an unfamiliar city, waiting for approval.
“It was a sacrifice, especially when I’m one of the main components of the band,” says Mando, who returned to the United States in April shortly after getting approved for a special visa reserved for individuals with extraordinary ability and achievement in their field. “We had to learn to record separately, something we had never done. It has always been all of us together in a studio.”
“I would write my music and wouldn’t know who to share it with,” says Yahritza, now 16. “He was a call away, but it wasn’t the same.” Adds 18-year-old Jairo: “We couldn’t do the things we used to do, which was practicing every day. That changed everything for us.”
The band members — managed by their oldest sister, Adriana Martinez — were influenced by their father and uncles’ own musical act, which Mando joined as a kid. Yahritza and Jairo later learned how to play instruments and would upload covers on TikTok, including their viral take on Ivan Cornejo’s “Está Dañada.” Yahritza then began writing her own songs — the first being the emotionally charged heartbreak track “Soy el Único,” which ultimately led to the formation of Yahritza y Su Esencia.
Ramón Ruiz, CEO of Lumbre Music, signed the trio soon after discovering the group last year on TikTok. He says his team’s top priority was to not let Mando’s visa application affect the band. “We were always working on what’s coming next,” he says. “It was hard because Mando is a big part of the production and Yahritza and Jairo depend a lot on Mando. I would try to help however I could, but they needed their big brother. He’s their role model; they look up to him so much.”
From left: Mando, Yahritza and Jario Martinez of Yahritza y Su Esencia
David Cabrera
Mando’s status remained uncertain for nearly seven months. “I would remind [my siblings] that we needed to take things one day at a time,” Adriana says. “We’ve always believed God’s timing is perfect, so it was important to never lose faith and remember nothing can break the bond we have as a family, not even being separated.”
Now, with the O-1 secured, Mando is able to record and promote music in the United States, which Yahritza y Su Esencia have remained consistent with — as Yahritza and Jairo often traveled to Mexico to record. In the past few months alone, the act released “Inseparables” (with Cornejo), “Cambiaste,” “Nuestra Canción,” “No Se Puede Decir Adiós” and “Frágil” — a norteña, cumbia-tinged collaboration with Grupo Frontera produced by hit-maker Edgar Barrera.
“Regardless of the situation, we had to be releasing music for our fans,” says Mando. “We’d jump on FaceTime a lot, and that’s how we would make the song’s arrangements.” Yahritza would write in her room and then send music to Mando for his feedback. But when it came to recording the harmonies, she had to call him directly. “I needed him to show me because I still don’t know how to do that,” she says. “He would help me when he was home.”
“Them being together is what makes this so special,” says Julian Swirsky, senior vp of A&R at Columbia Records. “It was always about getting Mando home first and foremost, but the group was fired up. We had a Zoom call on New Year’s Eve to talk about new music because they wanted to get set up for the new year.”
From left: Yahritza, Mando and Jario Martinez of Yahritza y Su Esencia
David Cabrera
The first thing Mando did once his visa was approved at the end of April was travel home to Washington, where he surprised his parents at a family gathering by popping up behind them as they were taking a photo. “My mom yelled when she saw me and started to touch my face to see if I was real,” Mando says. “That’s when it hit me.”
With a new album in the works and a long-awaited U.S. tour slated for the second half of the year, Yahritza y Su Esencia are finally poised to reach their full potential — just when Mexican music continues to grow exponentially, with the act helping usher in a new era for the legacy genre. In May, “Frágil” cracked the Hot 100. And on the Billboard Global 200, it is among a handful of regional Mexican songs that are surging, as the genre now makes up nearly 10% of the entire chart.
“What happened to us had to happen,” says Jairo, “and it changed us.” Adds Yahritza: “Before, we would fight and disagree on small things. We shouldn’t even be caring about that; all we should care about is that we’re back together.”
This story originally appeared in the June 3, 2023, issue of Billboard.
Jelly Roll will perform at Billboard‘s inaugural Billboard Country Live in Concert event in Nashville on June 6.
In January 1999, one month after he turned 14, Jason DeFord was baptized by full immersion at Whitsitt Chapel Baptist Church in Antioch, Tenn. By the end of that year, he was incarcerated for the first, but not the last, time. For the next decade, DeFord cycled in and out of juvenile and then adult correctional facilities for crimes ranging from aggravated robbery to drug dealing.
“I got baptized in here some 20 years ago and have since done nothing but go to prison, treat a bunch of people wrong, make a lot of mistakes in life, turn it around, [then] go on to be a f–king multimillionaire and help as many people as I possibly can,” says DeFord today, a hint of awe in his voice as he sits in a red upholstered pew at Whitsitt Chapel. The 38-year-old — now better known as the inspirational, tattoo-covered artist Jelly Roll — recently returned to the church for the first time in decades. “It’s the f–king wildest story ever to me — maybe because I’m the one f–king in the middle of it — but that sh-t’s crazy.”
Jelly (whose mother christened him with the nickname when he was little) has risen from the streets of Antioch to the upper reaches of Billboard’s rap, rock and now country charts, and even played the revered Grand Ole Opry. But he still struggles to reconcile that hopeless past with his prosperous present and seemingly limitless future. On the gut-wrenchingly raw Whitsitt Chapel, out June 2 on Bailee & Buddy/Stoney Creek Records/BMG, Jelly relives his search for refuge and redemption in a world where sinners outnumber saints and hell often feels closer than heaven. As he sings on “Save Me”: “I’m a lost cause/Baby don’t waste your time on me/I’m so damaged beyond repair/Life has shattered my hopes and dreams.”
“That’s what country is, anyway, right? Three chords and the solid truth,” says Jelly, paraphrasing legendary songwriter Howard Harlan’s oft-quoted description of a good country song.
Much of Jelly’s own truth is written in ink on his face. There’s a heart with a lock, a rose, three crosses and a tear drop. There’s his 7-year-old son Noah’s name. His hair has grown over his 15-year-old daughter Bailee’s name, but it’s there, too. On his left cheek, there’s an apple core, an homage to some of his die-hard fans who called themselves the Bad Apples. Emblazoned across his forehead, Jelly’s latest tattoo describes who he is now: “Music Man.”
Music was his way out — it just took him decades to get here. He wrote his first rap when he was 9 or 10, and by the time he was in eighth grade, he was passing out mixtapes of his music in the high school parking lot. “There was a place in Antioch that would let us cut demos for like 30 bucks an hour,” he says. “We had a dude who had a rolling keyboard and he’d make beats.”
Nahmias jacket, RCSLA t-shirt, Rolex watch.
Eric Ryan Anderson
But his love of music couldn’t keep him out of trouble. Everyone around him had a hustle — even his father, who ran a wholesale meat business, was a bookie on the side — and he wanted one of his own. “As f–ked up as this may sound, there were drug dealers and drug users,” he says. “I wanted to be the guy getting money, not the guy losing it.”
Jelly has three older half-siblings, but he’s the only child from his parents’ union, which he says was his father’s fifth or sixth. His parents divorced when he was 13, and Jelly felt responsible for his mother, who suffered from mental health and substance abuse issues. “I told my dad before he died [in 2019], ‘I wonder, if I’d have moved in with you when you divorced, if I’d have went to Vanderbilt [University] or something.’ But I felt this need to take care of my mother back then. I think that’s what really did it, too,” he adds, in terms of why he turned to crime. “When he left, I was like, ‘Somebody’s got to do what he was doing, at least trying to figure out some money.’ ”
Still, he never abandoned music entirely. Customers who bought quarter ounces of cocaine also got a free mixtape of his raps. “I always knew that the music was my only chance because I knew [from] the way that people in the community responded to it that it could be big,” he says.
Jelly says when he was 16, he was arrested for aggravated robbery and charged as an adult. “I never want to overlook the fact that it was a heinous crime,” he says, his voice still filled with remorse. “This is a grown man looking back at a 16-year-old kid that made the worst decision that he could have made in life and people could have got hurt and, by the grace of God, thankfully, nobody did.”
But he’s also bitter that at such a young age the judicial system offered him little chance at rehabilitation. “They were talking about giving me more time than I’d been alive,” he says of a potential 20-year sentence. (He ultimately served over a year for the charge, followed by more than seven years’ probation.) “I hadn’t hit my last growth spurt. I was charged as an adult years before I could buy a beer, lease an apartment, get a pack of cigarettes … I feel like the justice system at that point kind of parked me on my only set path.”
Tennessee has a zero-tolerance policy for violent offenders, so that one charge is still on his record — and has very real repercussions. Jelly, an avid golfer, tried to buy a house in a community with its own course not long ago and was rejected. “Imagine changing your life in such a way that you can afford the kind of house in this community I was looking at,” he says. “My money was welcome, but I wasn’t, all because of something I did [almost] 24 years ago.”
Jelly can’t vote, or volunteer at most nonprofits, or own a firearm. Until recently, he couldn’t get a passport, which limited his ability to tour abroad. “The trick is when America finally says, ‘We’ll let you leave,’ the amount of countries that won’t let you come in … We had to cancel my London debut show.”
That cancellation is one of the few roadblocks that Jelly has faced recently. But after years of struggling, he’s finally knocking down the doors that once seemed closed. He’s writing with Miranda Lambert and Ashley McBryde, the latter of whom will open for him in select cities on his 44-date North American arena tour later this summer. Drake responds to his Instagram posts, and Garth Brooks, the artist he has seen most in concert, greeted him with a massive bear hug when they met in May at the Academy of Country Music Awards. In May 2022, he topped Billboard’s Mainstream Rock Airplay chart with “Dead Man Walking,” only to reach the summit of the Country Airplay chart seven months later with “Son of a Sinner.” Starting in 2022, he spent a record-setting 28 weeks at No. 1 on the Emerging Artists chart, which ranks the most popular developing acts in all genres.
But a difficult truth follows him: As he sings on “Unlive,” a Whitsitt Chapel track featuring rapper Yelawolf and co-written with McBryde, “you can’t unlive where you’re from.”
It’s April 20 — the widely recognized day of celebration for cannabis enthusiasts — and by the smell of it, Jelly Roll has already partaken by the time he arrives at the Grand Ole Opry, where Billboard first meets him. “As I walked in here, my publicist was a little worried about it, and I said, ‘Let me tell you something: I’m as high as I can be every time you’ve ever seen me,’ ” Jelly admits with a shrug. “The day doesn’t change that.”
As it is for so many country artists, the Grand Ole Opry was “holy ground” to Jelly even before he made his debut there in November 2021. After being released from jail in 2009 — while still wearing an ankle bracelet — he scraped together the money to see Craig Morgan there; while in jail, Jelly would play his 2002 hit “Almost Home” endlessly. He cried as Morgan played the song at the Opry, thinking, “’That’s what I want to do. I want to make people feel the way this makes me feel.’”
Several times during the day, Jelly steps outside to smoke a joint. He says it’s “better than Xanax” for his mental health and anxiety (he’s launched his own cannabis line, Bad Apple). He has cut down somewhat on his drinking and stopped taking the other harmful drugs “that really had a hold of my life,” including cocaine, pain pills and codeine. But those substances still have a hold on people from his past. “Unfortunately, my friends in Antioch haven’t quit dying from fentanyl or are getting locked up or still doing time. I’m still accepting collect calls to this day.” He estimates he has been to funerals for 30 friends who have died, mainly from drugs.
At April’s CMT Awards, Jelly won all three categories for which he was nominated. But the week was bittersweet. “I’d just had a friend overdose on fentanyl. I missed his funeral because I was camera blocking [for the awards telecast],” he says.
That’s Jelly’s life now. Though he lives on the other side of Nashville from where he grew up, part of him remains firmly planted in Antioch, while another part has Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson on speed dial, sits courtside at a Los Angeles Lakers playoff game in the same row as Adele and proudly shows off his latest chain, with a pendant that reads “Son of a Sinner” in diamonds. After Jelly’s song of the same title became his first No. 1 on Country Airplay, he went to the Icebox in Atlanta — “Where all the rappers like Lil Baby go,” he says — and had identical chains made for him and his co-writers ERNEST and David Ray Stevens.
“New playground, new playmates,” he says of his life today. “I live in a totally different space. But I’m always conscious of keeping in touch with where I’m from. My heart is to help,” he says of his old Antioch connections, even as he admits he has had to cut off old buddies still living what he calls “a certain life. They know I love them, but I can’t afford to risk being on the phone with you and [it] sounds like I’m involved in something I’m not involved with. I might not talk to you, but I’m still bonding you out.” To make a clean break, Jelly recently got rid of his cellphone for several months. Only a handful of people have his new number.
At 23, while incarcerated for drug dealing, Jelly “all but gave up,” he says. “I was like, ‘I’m going to die in prison or young.’ ” Then he experienced what he calls his “road to Damascus” moment. “May 22, 2008. A guard knocks on my cell door midafternoon during lockdown,” Jelly recalls. “He goes, ‘You had a kid today.’ I’ve never had nothing in life that urged me in the moment to know that I had to do something different. I have to figure this out right now.”
Jelly knew when he went to jail that a woman he had been seeing was pregnant, but he says impending fatherhood had just felt like another mistake in a litany of bad decisions. “I was just irritated by it,” he says. “Like, ‘I’ve really f–ked up now.’ ” But Bailee’s birth inspired him to change. He was granted a transfer from the violent offenders unit to the education unit and started studying for his GED — which, much to his surprise, he passed on his first try. “I spent less than 60 to 70 days in high school. I thought I was a real dumbass. I thought I was learning disabled,” he says. “I walked in there and smacked that b-tch out of the park.”
Once released, he met his daughter on her second birthday. “I grilled hamburgers and hot dogs,” he says. Bailee now lives with him and his wife, Bunnie, whom he married in 2016, and he frequently sees Noah (nicknamed Buddy), who is from another relationship. He calls Bunnie, a former sex worker who now hosts the popular Dumb Blonde podcast, “a beacon of change in my life. You’re talking about a woman that came in and took a child that was soon to be born and a child that [we were] soon to have full custody of,” he says. “I would have never got custody of my daughter without her. I wouldn’t have had the stability or the money.”
After his release, Jelly turned to making rap music his career, independently releasing albums, posting music on YouTube and taking any gig he could. From 2010 to 2015, he lived in an old van, driving wherever there was work. “I’d go to Columbus [Ohio] and do $50 features; I’d sell rap verses for 50 bucks,” he says. “I was so petrified of sitting idle because I was afraid I would resort back to what I felt like I knew.”
Jelly Roll photographed on April 21, 2023 at Warren Studios in Nashville.
Eric Ryan Anderson
Though Jelly’s breakthrough on the country charts is recent, he first appeared on Billboard’s R&B/Hip-Hop Albums chart in 2011 with the independently released Strictly Business, a collaborative album with Nashville rapper Haystak. It peaked at No. 67 — which is news to him today: “That makes me want to call my distributor and get an audit on the money,” he says with a laugh.
Over the next five years, Jelly — who taught himself the ins and outs of the music business through various partnerships with artists and both local and national distributors — charted several more albums, including 2013’s No Filter with Lil Wyte, which reached No. 17 on Top Rap Albums. He collaborated with friend Struggle Jennings on the Waylon & Willie series of four rap albums, released between 2017 and 2020, and named after Jennings’ step-grandfather Waylon Jennings and Willie Nelson. The volumes addressed bleak topics including substance abuse and the inescapable weight of a troubled past (even in the pursuit of love, as on the RIAA gold-certified single “Fall in the Fall”).
On such efforts, Jelly would occasionally sing, though he says he was “petrified” to do so for an entire track. But some liquid courage, karaoke and Bob Seger helped him find his voice. He bursts into “Old Time Rock & Roll”: “Risky Business, baby,” he says, name-checking the 1983 movie that gave Seger’s tune a new life. “Any time that song comes on, I’m single for three minutes. I’m Elvis Presley. I’m singing to women. It just brings it out of me.”
“There are not many artists out there that can rap like he does and then switch over to a soulful, melodic voice that’s instantly recognizable,” says fellow country artist and longtime friend Brantley Gilbert, who co-wrote and sings with Jelly on Whitsitt Chapel’s “Behind Bars.” “He is one of the most genuine people you’ll ever meet. He’s consistently himself and never changes who he is to fit a certain mold. He has had some experiences that not many artists in this genre can say they’ve had, so he’s able to open up a whole new world to folks while making those experiences relatable to everyone.”
“Save Me” — which initially appeared on Jelly’s 2020 independent album, Self-Medicated, and which he remade with Lainey Wilson for Whitsitt Chapel — was one of the first songs Jelly released as a singer with no rapping. “We were all in the darkest place we’d been in a long time when I wrote that song in May 2020. They were still spraying boxes with Lysol,” he says. “We were all living with our own thoughts a little more than we’re used to.”
His ability to capture the truth of the moment earned Wilson’s respect. “Jelly goes against the grain and is 100% himself 100% of the time,” she says. “I love that about him as a human and an artist.” After “Save Me” came out, labels started calling. “My heart was to do country music and be respected on these streets that I grew up on,” says Jelly, who is now managed by John Meneilly. (Jonathan Craig serves as his day-to-day manager.) “And [BMG Nashville president Jon] Loba got it. But he also knew that I wasn’t willing to give up control of my masters or my creativity, so he was open to us working out a deal that could reflect that. It’s a fair partnership.”
After Stoney Creek vp of promotion Adrian Michaels heard Jelly, he brought him to the attention of Loba, who Googled the video for “Save Me” and was sold. “I saw that pain, vulnerability, that tenderness,” Loba says. “I loved his vocal. I just said, ‘That’s a country song.’ I was convinced his storytelling, his heart and his brand would be accepted by our genre.”
Though Whitsitt Chapel, produced primarily by Grammy nominee Zach Crowell, bears the name and likeness of its namesake rural, red brick church, Jelly made the project for people like himself who may not find salvation on Sunday morning. As he professes on current single “Need a Prayer,” “I only pray when I ain’t got a prayer.”
“You’ll never see a man pray harder than as soon as sh-t gets tight,” he says. “I was like, ‘What if worship music is honest? What would my worship song sound like to God?’ ”
History has a funny way of repeating itself. Just as Jelly’s friends took him to church when he was 14, last year, Bailee started attending a small church with her friends and asked Jelly to accompany her — an experience that started him on his path back to Whitsitt Chapel.
“That little back-road church reminded me so much of this little church, and it was just so nostalgic because Bailee’s getting in trouble [and] smoking weed,” he says. “She’s going through what 15-year-olds go through. I went through all that. I know that’s whenever my life turned all the way worse. It started bringing up all these emotions of me being right there on that fence.”
Nahmias jacket, RCSLA t-shirt, Jason of Beverly Hills necklace, Icebox necklace.
Eric Ryan Anderson
After going to church with Bailee, Jelly ditched all but two of the 70 songs he had written for a new project and started on what would become Whitsitt Chapel, which also addresses the hypocrisy he has witnessed from so-called Christians questioning his faith (particularly on songs like “Nail Me”).
“I never thought that I would do something in life that would make people care to hear my story. So equally, I never thought that my story would ever be judged,” he says. “It just hurt my spirit. It was all happening while I’m cooking this album. I had Christian people that were judging my faith based on my use of language or marijuana or drinking references. I just felt really cornered, and it felt really judgy.”
Loba has a message for any Christians who question Jelly’s faith: “I say to them, ‘He will bring more people to God than 95% of the pastors.’ He is touching an audience that has felt invisible [and] dismissed. On the album, there’s hope that you can be redeemed.”
So for Jelly, Whitsitt Chapel is a starting point, not a destination. “Whitsitt Chapel planted the seed of a higher power. We were a very Southern family, so [we did] a lot of praying before dinner and stuff, but it was the first time I feel like I separated from the house and found God by myself,” he says. “So if I was going to make an album that felt so faith-based, I wanted it to reflect where I felt like it started. I think we’re all trying to wash away something.”
Jelly Roll loves Winnie the Pooh. He also loves Jim Croce and James Taylor. And he especially loves the 1993 Disney movie Cool Runnings, loosely based on the story of the 1988 Jamaican Olympic bobsled team. “Because 98% of every problem in my life I caused, but one or two times in my life the most heartbreaking things I dealt with was the stuff I didn’t cause,” he explains. “Cool Runnings made me understand that sometimes you can do everything right and the sled still breaks. I needed that for the sh-t I went through in life.”
To sort through the wreckage of his past, he’s in intensive therapy, including “timelining” his life. He’s up to age 12. Therapy “is one of the first things I splurged real resources on,” he says. “I found [trauma] to be like one of the roots of probably my obesity, right? This isn’t a lack of discipline. I run a multimillion-dollar business. I work 12, 15, 18 hours a day. I’m a disciplined man. It’s got to be something else.”
As he fights to “overcome some of these demons that I’ve had to deal with,” he’s also taking Bailee to therapy. “Her father was in jail when she was born. Her mother ended up hooked on heroin and disappeared,” he says. “I’m watching the cycle still continue. That’s another reason it’s so easy to draw inspiration from my songs: I’m still watching it in real time.”
He looks at his life in two acts now: Act 1 is the Jelly who used to do bad things; Act 2 is the Jelly of today. “I was a less-than-desirable human in that era,” he says of the time before Bailee was born. “I like to separate myself from that guy like two different people now because it’s the way I’ve made peace with that. And that dude wasn’t a good dude, man.”
Asked if he believes God has forgiven him, Jelly goes silent and tears up. After a long pause, he says, “I think God forgave me way faster than I forgave myself.” As for what it will take for him to forgive himself? “Being a man of service. Trying to care about people.”
Nahmias jacket and pants, RCSLA t-shirt, Icebox chain and bracelet, Rolex watch, Kaws x Air Jordan sneakers.
Eric Ryan Anderson
In December, Jelly sold out Nashville’s Bridgestone Arena — an astonishing feat not just because he’s still a developing artist, but because the venue is just a little over a mile from where he turned 15, 16 and 17 as inmate No. 00364950 in Davidson County Juvenile Detention Center. (The run-up to the concert and Jelly’s compelling backstory are captured in the Hulu documentary Jelly Roll: Save Me, which premiered May 30.)
Jelly, who is booked by CAA’s Hunter Williams, donated all his money from the Bridgestone concert (over $400,000) to Impact Youth Outreach and other organizations to, among other things, build studios in that same juvenile detention center, and he has already pledged to help fund a studio in a new building opening at the center in five years.
“More than anything, I just want to try to help these kids” who are now incarcerated, says Jelly. He wants them to understand that he believes in them in the way he wishes someone, anyone, had believed in him when he was younger. He funds programs at the facility to teach kids Pro Tools and offer them classes with visiting producers and engineers. “Who knows where I’d be if they had a real education unit in juvenile at the time,” he says. “If they’d had a studio, if they’d had trade work and I was being inspired every day instead of being reprimanded.”
And his plans go far beyond the detention center. The day before this interview, he bid on a $4 million building in North Nashville that he wants to turn into a community center. Beyond music, helping at-risk kids may be Jelly’s true calling. “Whenever I’m done doing the circus of the music business and I want to leave the carnival and be a normal human, that’s what I’ll do,” he says.
For now, his own honesty and search for redemption are resonating with fans, who comment on his social media that his songs have saved their lives. “Who in life can say they really helped somebody in the darkest moment of their life that was fixing to kill themselves?” he says. “I look at that as something that inspires me to do more.”
He hears the same praise face-to-face. As he leaves Billboard’s photo shoot at an old paint factory, a worker rushes out to tell him that because of Jelly’s music, he’s approaching 18 months of sobriety. Jelly asks the exact date, not once but twice, and tells him he will be thinking of him on that day.
Fans also recognize him and want to party with him — an offer he happily accepts. During a video shoot the day before at Tin Roof, a bar he and his father used to frequent on Lower Broadway, some bros from Pennsylvania recognize him, and filming halts while Jelly joyously glad-hands and buys a round of tequila shots.
Bunnie calls the public smile that hides the pain so evident in Jelly’s songwriting “the Robin Williams effect,” referring to how the late comedian’s outward exuberance masked inner turmoil. “My wife is like, ‘[People] would never think that this lifetime of pain and carrying caskets and death and drug addiction and all this dark sh-t would come out of you if [they] just met you at a bar,’ ” he says.
But those who have listened to his music already feel a certain kinship with Jelly — and he has a message for them: “I want to be a guidepost of hope for people to know that losers can win. That who you were isn’t who you are.”
It’s a message he still tells himself. And as he moves forward, he wouldn’t mind if his good works brought him a pardon from Tennessee’s governor. “A pardon would change my whole life,” he says, then quickly adds that he would only accept it if it came with a change of policy for currently incarcerated youth. “Maybe we’re disciplining an age group that should be rehabilitated. I just want to have that conversation, and if it can end in a pardon, f–king let’s go.”
A pardon would mean having many of his rights restored — and should it happen, he may have to take a little joyride around a certain ritzy neighborhood that didn’t believe in second chances. “I’d love to move back to that neighborhood and ride around in my golf cart blaring gangster rap music, flipping people off,” he says with a wry chuckle. “I’m joking, but I’m not.”
This story will appear in the June 3, 2023, issue of Billboard.
HipHopWired Featured Video
Source: Leon Bennett / Getty
The greatest thing about Hip-Hop, apart from the culture’s diverse catalog of timeless music, is its ability to encourage thought, conversation and action.
Music aficionados can turn to Hip-Hop no matter the mood or state of mind. There are rap songs that talk about poverty, the drug trade, and education; records that delve into the paradigms of parenthood and family matters. There are tunes that even the romantics and in love can rock to. But no genre does a better job of analyzing the politics of warfare.
For better or worse, these songs are rooted in the military mind. Some advocate strapping on your boots and going to combat (both literally and figuratively), while others recount a tale of battle. In light of Memorial Day, here are 13 military-themed rap songs. These ought to remind us that conflict, off and on home soil, is real.
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Photo: YouTube
[embedded content]
Canibus Ft. Free & Pras – “Patriots”
“Free be the one rocking shit, special operatives/ Specializing in weapons diagnostics/ My survival tactics be drastic like Rambo/ I’m straggling niggas with my bow and arrow elastic”
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In Billboard’s monthly emerging dance artist spotlight we get to know Salute, the Vienna-born, Manchester-based artist making colorful, comfy club tunes.
The Project: Shield EP, released earlier this month on Ninja Tune’s Technicolour imprint.
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The Origin: Salute, born Felix Nyajo, was raised in Vienna, Austria, in what they describe as a traditional working-class suburb. “Pretty chill, not too much happening,” they say. “Summers were super hot and the winds were super cold. It was good.”
Between their parents and older brother, the household playlist rotated American gospel, highlife, R&B, soul and hip-hop — but as far as their dance music influences go, video games were crucial. FIFA Street 2 and SSX brimmed with the exciting, frenetic sounds of jungle, grime and U.K. garage and inspired Salute to learn production.
When they were old enough to get in the mix of Vienna’s small club scene, they quickly hit their ceiling. “I kind of felt a bit suffocated, because I knew nothing was gonna come of me staying there and trying to have a career in music,” they say. To get closer to the industry, they moved to the U.K. in 2014. Going to clubs every weekend served as a crash course in U.K. dance music, from breaks and bass music to house and techno.
Over the next five years they continued releasing music, including the My Heart mixtape and Condition trilogy, based on themes of mourning. Salute’s sonic shift across these early releases is evident, from syrupy post-dubstep instrumentals inspired by Hudson Mohawke and Mount Kimbie to an acutely more clubby vibe. In September of 2021, their track “Joy” launched Atlantic Records U.K.’s dance imprint Signal > > Supply. And in what must be a career milestone for any U.K. artist, “Joy” also appeared on an episode of Love Island U.K.
The Sound: Salute, 27, describes their style as “fast and soulful house music,” a catch-all term encompassing their many influences including U.K. garage, techno, classic house and French house. It’s also incredibly warm, inviting and cozy — it just feels good.
The Record: Shield is Salute’s first EP on Ninja Tune’s Technicolour imprint. To some, the title connotes visions of protection and defense — literal armor. For Salute, “It’s just comfort. Most of these songs just feel very comfortable to me… Obviously a lot of them are very, but at the same time they feel like a blanket.”
The EP’s opening track, “Run Away With You,” sets this tone with a soaring mix of synths, vocal snippets and accents that, like a sunrise, inspire a mood of promise and possibility. Over a brisk rhythm and ballooning bassline, vocalist No Rome sings, “I would run away with you if you would run away with me, too.” Meanwhile, buzzing lead single “Wait For It” anticipates the ecstasy of partying all night. Made around the same time as “Joy,” it sat in Salute’s vault for years, just waiting for the right moment for release. Similarly, “Feels Like My Hands Are On Fire” has existed in several iterations over the past five years. Salute finally finished it with help from The 1975’s George Daniel, whose careful restructuring added a greater pop appeal.
“Peach” with Sammy Virji is the most recently produced of the bunch. A rolling bassline and crooning vocals coated in a silk finish, it rightfully caused a stir when Salute debuted it at their Boiler Room set last December. The song is also a callback to 2012-2013, the years they call “one of the golden eras of dance music … I feel like music back then was just super fun, and I think that’s one thing that kind of got lost over the years, up until recently.”
Managed By: Will Frost and Luke James of London’s House Of Us
Management Strategy: “Broadly, the strategy is always adapting,” says Frost, “but when it comes to Felix’s records, it’s always been having a huge degree of trust which we’ve built up over the years of working so closely together, around ten years now. When they’re putting together a project, I have complete trust in their vision for the body of work whether that’s creatively in the visuals or the music itself, and they’ve always given me space to help them with the right people to either write a vocal or get the right mix engineer or feature on the record and it all shows in Shield, which is some of their best work to date.
“Now with the excellent Luke on the management team, the strategy has very much become building a fanbase who will come to watch Felix play. Felix’s sets are so incredible, and the reception and interaction with the crowd because of their skill and energy is unmatched, so we want to maximize that by putting on amazing shows, capturing the atmosphere of the night and building an audience that will buy tickets to experience it for themselves — we are seeing it grow rapidly over the last few months globally and have some really exciting plans as we also develop it in to a live show that still maintains that energy from their DJ sets.”
First Song That Made Salute Love Dance Music: They cite Lethal Bizzle’s 2005 single “Kickback,” which appeared on the FIFA Street 2 soundtrack, as their introduction to grime. “I was completely blown away by it ’cause it was unlike anything I’ve ever heard,” they say. The moment led them down a YouTube rabbit hole where they discovered artists like Dizzee Rascal and Wiley on the way to dubstep, garage and the wider web of U.K. dance music.
Advice Every New Dance Artist Needs to Hear: “Just make as much music as possible. You can’t really skip that step. There’s no way to like, just overnight, become really good. If you’re starting out, what you’ll naturally tend to do is to imitate an artist that you really like, which is a good way to learn production. I actually encourage it.
“But after a while, you’re gonna have to make a decision about what it is you want to do in music. The only way you can do that is by thinking very intentionally about the space you want to take up. That requires asking yourself questions about what your taste is, what you want to achieve as a DJ or a producer, whether you want to DJ at all, what you want your place to be, why you enjoy making dance music, what it is about dance music that makes you happy. I feel like that allows you to develop a sense of identity, which is something that people who listen to music can latch onto… I think people can really sense when the music comes from somewhere special.”
Why They Make Music: “The most important thing when I make music is I’m having fun doing it, and that makes me really happy. Figuring out how to achieve that has been one of the biggest things for me… putting an idea from your brain into a computer is the funnest part of it all.”
Up Next: Salute is currently on the U.S. leg of their international spring/summer tour, with stops Thursday (May 18) in San Francisco, Friday (May 19) in Los Angeles and their first EDC Las Vegas set this Saturday (May 20.) “I’d hear about [EDC] on podcasts that I was listening to like, ten years ago,” they say. “When I got the offer to play it, I kind of laughed to myself ‘cause like, that’s actually quite crazy.”
After Vegas, it’s non-stop until September: Salute is scheduled to play a full slate of festivals — Parklife, Glastonbury and Defected Croatia among them — while also touring Asia for the first time and later playing Ibiza’s lauded Circoloco.