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It was 1982, and Rafe Gomez wasn’t supposed to be on the roof.
Then in his early 20s, Gomez had taken the elevator to the top of the building at 30 West 21st Street in Manhattan. When the doors slid open — “there were no guardrails or anything was so dangerous,” he recalls — he was in the mix at a private party Madonna was hosting for her debut single, “Everybody.”
For her performance of the song, a trio of backup dancers point oversized flashlights at the future Material Girl, then a fixture of New York’s mega-dynamic club scene. Gomez had the sense he was witnessing history as he watched her sing and dance as the lights of the city twinkled beyond.
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“That’s what the energy was like there,” Gomez recalls of Danceteria. “You never knew what you were going to experience that was going to eventually become the thing.”
Certainly Danceteria left big impressions on those who partied there. The January announcement of Madonna’s intensely anticipated Celebrations Tour revealed that the GA pit section will be called “Danceteria” in honor of the club. Meanwhile Gomez launched a Twitch channel, Danceteria Rewind, on which he plays songs and artists heard at the club each Thursday evening from 8-10 p.m. ET, from the comfort of his home in New Jersey.
Launched as a passion project during the pandemic, Danceteria Rewind has since amassed more than 27,000 subscribers who tune in each week to hear music by artists like dance-punk group Liquid Liquid, indie-funk trio ESG and hip-hop pioneer Kidd Creole. Debbie Harry was at Danceteria. And Basquiat. Actress and Madonna associate Debi Mazar worked the elevator, as did LL Cool J. Sade tended bar. The Beastie Boys and Keith Haring were busboys. Then-emerging acts like New Order, R.E.M., Run-DMC, Nick Cave and Depeche Mode all came through for performances. Resident DJs included Mark Kamins, who helped get Madonna signed to Sire Records in 1982, and also dated her during this period.
“It was where influencers went before there were influencers,” says Gomez. It was an especially significant refuge for Gomez, who grew up in northern New Jersey and at Danceteria found a world of art, music, hedonism, style and fun that had escaped him in his hometown.
“They referred to us as bridge-and-tunnel people because we’re from outside of Manhattan,” he says, “but we went into a place like this and saw what we’d been missing this and just embraced it. We paid full price at the door, we paid for all our drinks, and we were there all night long.”
Gomez’s goal with Danceteria Rewind is to recreate the club’s vibe for people who attended, and to give a sense of the place for streamers who were too young or too far away to ever dance there. “My goal was taking all of these superstars, taking the best of everything they did and combining them every week into a two-hour journey.”
Since launching the channel in 2021 after three months of research, Gomez — whose day job is sales consulting — spends hours each week researching Danceteria and the artists who played there, recreating sets as faithfully as possible, often by digitally converting vinyl tracks that don’t already exist as purchasable digital files and remastering eight-track recordings. Tim Lawrence’s 2016 book Life and Death on the New York Dancefloor has been particularly valuable, with Gomez poring over the text for clues about what to play. While Danceteria only existed for a few years, he says the music options for his program are endless.
The channel is resonating with listeners, with upwards of 20,000 people tuning in to the stream during its biggest broadcasts. During shows Gomez is both playing music and chatting with listeners, a mix of people who were there “and are like, ‘Oh my god, haven’t heard this for 30 years,’” to younger people hearing the origins of many recognizable samples for the first time.
This pandemic project, which Gomez says does not yet turn a profit, started as a way for him to escape his house, if only mentally, during the dark days of the pandemic. Through it, he returned to an especially dynamic period of New York City club history, when, he says, “You could come in as an a creative person from across the country and find an apartment with some friends for $50 a month.”
Venue operators also capitalized on the situation, opening thousands of clubs throughout the city in the late ’70s and early ’80s, with Mudd Club, Paradise Garage, Limelight, Tunnel and others all becoming thriving destinations. But amidst this scene, everyone knew Danceteria was different.
“Unlike Studio 54 and some of these other clubs uptown, which were all about money and cachet and the guest list,” Gomez says, “at Danceteria it was almost as if they were saying, ‘If you get what we’re doing here, come on in.’ It was a refuge for people.”
Danceteria was opened by the German-born Rudolf Piper, a wealthy former stockbroker who was embedded in the downtown club circuit. (“That place had an un-fucking-believable magic, and, as you were part of it, I need to explain no longer,” Piper said of Danceteria in 2010.) After his first Danceteria location closed because it didn’t have a liquor license, Piper moved it to West 21st Street, then, Gomez says, “a s–tty part of town.”
Piper rented the first several floors of the building, forging what he called a “supermarket of style.” For the next five years Danceteria became a destination for the artsy crowd, entertaining crowds with multiple rooms of music, art performances and other sundry creative fun, until the landlord raised the rent and Piper had to shut down. Danceteria later opened at a location in The Hamptons, but, Gomez attests “it wasn’t the same.”
Forty years later, the location at West 21st Street is now occupied by luxury condos, but you can still get close to the spirit of Danceteria through Gomez’s show, a recent episode of which featured Billy Squier‘s 1980 scorcher “The Big Beat” and UTFO’s 1984 classic “Roxanne, Roxanne” — seemingly disparate tracks that illustrate how eclectic the club actually was.
And given that Danceteria Rewind is not publicly archived due to licensing issues, each show has the same special and rare quality that Gomez felt in the brick and mortar venue 40 years ago.
“You’ve just got to be there each week,” he says.
Ever since Rihanna was announced as the headliner of the Super Bowl LVII halftime show over four months ago, part of the fun for longtime fans has been trying to guess which of her many, many hits her setlist will include. Typically, Super Bowl halftime performers are given between 12 and 15 minutes to play on the world’s biggest stage — so even if Rihanna opts to perform an ultra-efficient mega-mix at State Farm Stadium in Glendale, Ariz. on Sunday night (Feb. 12), she probably won’t be able to squeeze in anywhere close to her 14 career Hot 100 chart-toppers, let alone all of her 31 career top 10 singles.
So which hits are making the Super Bowl, and which ones are being left outside the stadium? Although Rihanna’s setlist is being kept tightly under wraps, it’s safe to assume that some of her defining smashes (“Umbrella,” “We Found Love,” “Diamonds,” “Rude Boy,” “Work,” “SOS”) will be featured alongside a combination of notable hits that work in a Super Bowl context (“Only Girl (in the World),” “Where Have You Been,” “Pon de Replay,” “Disturbia,” “Don’t Stop the Music,” “This is What You Came For”).
Toss in a ballad or two, and save some time for recent single “Lift Me Up” (which is nominated for the best original song Oscar — Rihanna would be smart to appeal to Academy voters on the largest platform possible!), and you’re looking at a robust setlist, full of hits and stuffed to the brim. But the truth is, Rihanna could create a memorable Super Bowl show using none of those aforementioned songs — that’s how many career hits she’s accrued. And while there’s a good sense of which Rihanna hits won’t be performed at the Super Bowl, a fair amount of them deserve to be hoisted back up for the world to see.
Here are 10 Rihanna songs that, in all likelihood, won’t be played during the Super Bowl halftime show… but if we’re being honest, they really should be.
“That’s the only place where I can relax,” 50 Cent says, his pearly whites glistening as they’ve done all day. He’s not talking about the recording studio or the performance stage — he’s talking about his Hollywood work. “When I’m chilling,” he continues, “there will be some sort of film and TV involved.”
Once considered rap’s top villain during the days of promoting his explosive 2003 debut, Get Rich or Die Tryin’, 50, at 47, is now a consummate professional. He’s punctual, debunking the theory that hip-hop stars always arrive on “rapper time.” He’s well-mannered and respectful, saying, “Please,” and “Thank you,” after each request. He’s also a great listener, allowing the staff to complete their directives during the photo shoot without stiff-arming his way into the conversation. It’s all in keeping with Curtis Jackson III’s drive to achieve a loftier ambition no one could have predicted 20 years ago: to become the biggest mogul in the TV industry.
“50 is one of the smartest guys in the rap game,” says Tony Yayo, 50’s childhood friend and co-founder of their hip-hop group G-Unit. Yayo recalls that, as kids, the South Jamaica, Queens, artist was more interested in selling pills for profit than playing with G.I. Joes. “When you look at guys like Jay-Z, Diddy and 50, those guys are geniuses,” explains Yayo. “They come from the same place we come from and made something out of nothing.”
It’s that same hustler ethos that landed 50 his deal with Interscope Records in 2002, after surviving being shot nine times outside of his grandmother’s house in Queens just two years prior. By signing under two Interscope imprints — Eminem’s Shady Records and Dr. Dre’s Aftermath Entertainment — 50 became the final piece in what would become one of hip-hop’s strongest triumvirates.
From his first day in the spotlight, 50 was a brawny, gun-toting MC that imposed fear upon rivaling East Coast rappers. He decimated the mixtape scene by remixing popular hit records and peppering them with his street flair. No instrumental was safe, and once 50 got his hands on Dr. Dre’s bombastic production, his rise was imminent. He rocketed into mainstream acclaim with “Wanksta,” followed by the multiplatinum No. 1 smash “In Da Club.” His thunderous reign continued with 2003’s Get Rich or Die Tryin’ and 2005’s The Massacre, two gargantuan Billboard 200 chart-toppers that sold a combined 14 million records in the United States, according to Luminate. And his various feuds with hip-hop figures, from Murda Inc. to Kanye West, kept him in the news as he kept collecting hits.
Although 50 enjoyed the competition, his attention began to wander from music. He launched his own video game with 2005’s Bulletproof, got a sneaker deal with Reebok in 2004 and invested in vitaminwater, receiving a 10% stake in the company that same year. Within three years, vitaminwater sales grew to $700 million, and parent company Glaceau was sold to Coca-Cola, which earned 50 Cent a whopping $100 million in profits.
His wins on the business front crossed over to Hollywood. After revamping his production company G-Unit Films (now G-Unit Films and Television) in 2010, 50 began developing various network projects; his first success was Power, a crime drama intertwining the glamorous club scene with the murderous drug world. He and TV writer Courtney Kemp Agbor teamed up for the series’ pilot script, which was pitched to then-Starz CEO Chris Albrecht. Thanks to the pair’s authentic storytelling and creative chemistry, Power became a hit and later earned them a $150 million deal in 2018 that included a three-series commitment and allowed G-Unit Film & Television access to all the Starz and Lionsgate platforms.
“He was in this for real,” Albrecht says of 50. “This wasn’t something he was doing for amusement. This was something he was taking as seriously as he ever took his music.”
Tom Ford jacket and sweater, Saint Laurent jeans, Too Boot shoes, Fratelli Orsini gloves.
Jai Lennard
As Power’s executive producer, 50 watched the show garner praise for six seasons and spawn multiple hit spinoffs such as Power Book II: Ghost, Power Book III: Raising Kanan and Power Book IV: Force. His show BMF, which followed the rise of infamous Detroit drug dealers the Black Mafia Family, launched on Starz in 2021 and is now in its second season. He has tapped several of his peers for cameos: Kendrick Lamar on Power, Eminem and Snoop Dogg on BMF, Joey Bada$$ for Raising Kanan, Mary J. Blige for Ghost. “I’ve seen him act, produce, direct and write,” says Blige. “I’m so impressed by his transition from rapper to amazing producer.”
50 has also negotiated deals with other networks: In November, he partnered with WeTV to launch the investigative series Hip-Hop Homicides. Hosted by Van Lathan, it examines the shocking deaths of rising stars in the genre like XXXTentacion and King Von. Last fall, 50 also inked a three-project partnership with Lusid Media for an unscripted crime series slated to debut later this year on Peacock. Plus, he and mentor Eminem are working on a TV adaptation of the latter’s 2002 semi-autobiographical film, 8 Mile. “He’s got scripted and unscripted shows,” Albrecht says. “He’s a force.”
And just as he has remade himself as a TV mogul, 50’s love for music is resurfacing. Eight years after selling his radio income stream to Kobalt Music Group in 2015 (worth $6 million), he is now working on a studio album with Dr. Dre, Eminem has sent him new songs to collaborate on, and Nas has tapped him for a feature on his forthcoming King’s Disease 4. And after a string of one-off shows and a subsequent international run last year, 50 is also planning to tour domestically for the first time in 13 years. He is already set to perform at Las Vegas’ Lovers & Friends Festival in May. One recent performance, as a surprise guest during 2021’s Super Bowl LVII Halftime Show, even earned him an Emmy.
“The guy’s a machine; he always been like that from the block to now,” says Yayo of 50’s work ethic. “That’s the meaning of Get Rich or Die Tryin’. We got rich — and we still tryin’ to get more money.”
In his first solo cover story for Billboard, 50 talks expansively about his legacy in hip-hop, his long-term relationships with Dr. Dre and Eminem, and his seemingly bulletproof climb up the TV industry ladder.
With hip-hop turning 50 this year, how do you view your legacy within it?
My run was so uncomfortable that everyone would like to forget that it happened. That’s just the way it is with the artist community. I didn’t come in being friendly because I had to find a way into it — not find a way to be good enough to work in the community. The biggest compliment in the early stages was that artists felt like they’d made it when they got the deal. You had to earn the right to have the deal.
Get Rich or Die Tryin’ came out 20 years ago. Now that you’re working with Dr. Dre again, is the creative process different?
I’ll go in and start to record the best music that I can come up with from everybody else. Then I’ll find some pieces, and when I accumulate stuff that I feel like is good enough, I’ll bring it to impress Dre and [his team] to get cooler stuff from [him]. At that point, they’ll go, “I see where you headed.” They already know musically what I’m thinking is the right direction at that point. When I start projects with Dre, I would write to the first song that came on. I don’t care what it was, even if the beat wasn’t finished. I would write the record to break the ice, and we’d have something playing like [Dre] just got here even if he’s been here two or three hours and we got a record playing. He will change the drums and everything that you got there until you got something that’s a hit record.
The difference now is, with a lot of the stuff I would send, I’m looking at the angles of it happening from different perspectives instead of putting myself in the middle of actually doing something to someone. I wrote a lot of the material like that [before], but there are a million other approaches to use. So I’ll do those other things so I can still capture what goes on in the environment now. But it’s through the lens of not being in the game — it’s the perception of the game, from my perspective.
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Jai Lennard
Eminem has been another longtime mentor. What has it been like working with him throughout your career?
Em’s not going to say the s–t the way I say it because it just is what it is. There’s his humble nature — he’d call me and ask to do him a favor and rap with him on a song. Like, “You know I’m on your label, right? Yeah, whatever you need me to do.” He would always ask me, “Could you do me a favor? I always thought it would be dope if we did this together.” I’m like, “All right.”
He’s never been part of any of the confusion, because there’s going to be confusion in your career. You’ve got to do maintenance on people. The imperfections of the music business are the people in it. You’ll see artists miss [with a project] and still stay in good graces because they’re still being prioritized and the system is working to keep them in place. Then you’ll see amazing artists [who are not prioritized]. You’ll listen and think, “What happened to them?” It’s because the business was done with them.
You’ve been a mentor yourself to artists like Pop Smoke and DaBaby. What are your thoughts on this generation’s rising hip-hop artists?
I only like the ones that I see myself in. A lot of the other s–t, I be like, “Yeah, what the f–k is this, man?” I’ve got to believe them and the s–t they’re saying to be into the artist.
They [also] have to want to be mentored. I’ll talk to them and touch base with them because I see that in them. You go, “Yo, you have to focus on what you came for and what’s important to you, and get those things together versus just riding it out.” The way I had competitive energy: Hip-hop culture makes you battle. I love Nicki Minaj, but the funny s–t is, I like watching her when she’s upset. I like that because she has something that comes from the experience of living in South Jamaica. I’m looking at it like, “Yo, I know they think she’s nuts, but they only think that because they don’t understand.” I get it. She thinks you’re trying to play her.
When Cardi B came, I thought she was dope. She’s from the bottom. She was in Club Lust in Brooklyn. [Going] from that and actually making a hit record and turning into who she did? I don’t know why anybody wouldn’t like to see that. It felt like she got everything — married, the baby — it came really fast. That’s the American dream right there.
When her and Nicki clash, I go, “Oh, s–t, it’s going to be interesting to watch how it plays out.” Lyrically, I won’t say anything competitively about the two of them, but I love Nicki. I don’t have anything against Cardi. I think anyone who comes now, she is going to check their temperature. Nicki is going to check if this b-tch is friendly or looking to take over the s–t.
In addition to your musical beefs, you were part of a notable TV feud, when Power was pitted against Fox’s series Empire. Do you have any regrets?
Nah. In regard to Empire, that was about Fox having more marketing dollars than Starz. Starz didn’t have the money. So when we hit the bull’s-eye with Power — it’s very rare to get an entire audience excited — I’m looking at Fox hitting the bull’s-eye behind us with Empire. On Fox, they were offering the PG-13 version of the story because it’s network television. Because I can be R-rated and portray a more graphic experience, I knew that Power would eventually prevail.
[Fox] stole my idea because they said in the [show’s promo tagline], “Empires are built on power.” That’s good marketing. Because I’m at a disadvantage in not being able to market at the same level, we’re going to have a problem. That’s where the beef comes from. [But] I love [Empire star] Taraji P. Henson. I think she’s amazing. Terrence Howard was my co-star in the first film I worked on. Of course I wanted to see their show be successful.
French Montana has called you a genius marketer. Some of your beefs were personal, but how many of them were strategic?
They were [all] strategic — [the industry set them up] in response to what I was doing. I kept saying, “They dead, get rid of them,” and [the industry] would come in and resuscitate them to bring them back. Now I just have to f–k you up a little bit so you don’t go near [that artist] again when I get him back into that position again. I tap the artist for doing that, like, “Move! Why you keep trying to do that?” They’re using their energy and fan base to resuscitate the artist I just put to bed. That was why I was doing that.
It’s the same mentality of the street. When you get into business, you can’t bring that with you. They’ll split the culture in half.
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Jai Lennard
Did you miss writing and recording music?
I get the attention that I want from music when I want it. I just went out and toured 45 countries, and everywhere was sold out. That made me want to offer new music that I could integrate into everything now. I’ve done what I wanted to do in the [sales] capacity. I’ve sold over 35 million records. Not singles — albums. With Em, it’s different because he’s never going to stop [recording]. It bugs him out that I can do TV production.
Before Get Rich made you huge, Master P was booking you for shows. What was your rate then versus how much you command internationally today?
I think he gave me like $80,000, and now I’m getting like $900,000, $1 million. The coolest thing we create in America is celebrities. If you see LeBron [James’] fan base internationally, you’ll argue, “Why is he staying here?” He’s that big internationally. For the most part, I can’t speak for everybody, but the international side of the game is different.
Do you feel like prime 50 Cent could break through and do the same commercial damage in today’s climate?
It would be a lot different. I look at the new artists that embody the streets like they’re the new 50 Cent. What’s going to be difficult and important for them to do is figure out how to navigate themselves. If you ask them if they’re afraid of anything, it’s going to be tough because they’ve been facing those obstacles the entire time, so they’re not scared. But they can f–k it up for themselves, like with whom they bring around them and the energy they carry. It can destroy a force.
That’s the obstacle they’ve got to get around themselves. I think if they get that information fast enough and can look at it the right way, they’ll be able to do [music] longer. If not, they’re going to crash right in front of you.
In early 2022, charlieonnafriday had just finished recording the last song for his first project and was about to drive away from the studio. Then his producer Tyler Dopps called. “He was like, ‘Wait, there’s one more thing that we have to do before you leave,’” the 19-year-old artist recalls. Dopps played him a languid loop, and the singer-rapper wrote down the lyrics that ultimately became the hook to his pop-leaning breakup track, “Enough.”
The song wasn’t ready at the time to make the project, so he stashed it away in his phone. But months later, ready or not, “Enough” took off on social media. While driving to Los Angeles from his native Seattle with a friend last June, charlieonnafriday (born Charlie Finch) played the song and belted along to the chorus — which his friend filmed and posted on TikTok. The clip not only went viral but became charlieonnafriday’s breakthrough hit — two things he’d been building toward since childhood.
He started uploading vlogs to YouTube at eight years old and continued creating content on TikTok with his friends throughout high school. Inspired by his hometown hero Macklemore, he developed an interest in music, and in the eighth grade, after seeing his friend’s older brother producing in a home studio, started making his own. Over the next few years, the two stockpiled “hundreds of songs” as charlieonnafriday honed his rap skills during their daily sessions. “Every time I made a song, I felt like I was getting better slowly,” he says. “That’s what really interested me. I wanted to see how far I could take it and how good I could get.”
After taking a break to focus on school and football, he was motivated by the pandemic lockdown to pick the craft back up — this time on his own. Charlieonafriday started recording with Logic Pro and leaned heavily on YouTube tutorials to show him the ropes, admitting the hardest part was learning how to mix his own vocals. On the production side, he decided to trade in the trap drums that grounded his early music for more melodic beats, creating a pop-rap hybrid. “The artist always has that vision in their head,” he says, “but if you know how to do it, then it’s seamless.”
Charlieonnafriday photographed on January 23, 2023 in Los Angeles.
Michelle Genevieve Gonzales
He then “started flooding TikTok” with snippets of new songs — advising viewers to “live every day like it’s Friday,” inspiring his moniker — in hopes of building a fan base outside of Seattle. At the start of 2021, he made his first significant splash when he teased the intoxicating “After Hours.” Months later, the song caught the attention of Geoff Ogunlesi, CEO of The Ogunlesi Group, who signed on to co-manage charlieonnafriday (along with the company’s Sam Weiss, charlieonnafriday’s day-to-day manager, as well as Anthony and Ameer Brown, CEO and president, respectively, of digital marketing company Breakr). By the end of the year, “After Hours” surged to a new level of virality, with two live performance clips that have collected more than 13 million views.
Record labels were calling, but Ogunlesi was intent on waiting for the rising artist to release a body of work before committing to a deal. “It was risky because in this music landscape, moments are fleeting,” he admits. “You’re rolling the dice where, if and when ‘After Hours’ dies down, do the labels disappear? Do you lose an opportunity? [But] we felt really strong with our strategy.”
The artist’s debut project, the eight-track Onnafriday, arrived in April 2022 and soon after, he started taking meetings with the labels competing for him. He was immediately sold on Island, saying he was swayed by the label’s “family vibe,” and signed a record deal that summer. “A lot of the labels I met with two or three people, but with Island, I met everybody,” he says. “I knew that Island would put in a lot of effort. Labels are amazing for dumping gas on a flame.”
But “Enough” still didn’t have more than a refrain at that point — and as it began to take off online, he started feeling the pressure. He recalls with a laugh his team’s mentality: “Get [co-writer] Club 97, Tyler [Dopps] and Charlie in a room and finish it, [because] there are videos with five million views on a song that’s not done.”
“Enough” was finally released in August, and soon crossed over from social media to streaming services to radio airwaves — which Ogunlesi refers to as “icing on the cake” — fueled by a promotional run set up by the label. “At the end of the day, a lot of life is built on relationships,” says Ogunlesi. “Nothing really beats meeting people, winning them over [and] having programmers that are fans.” By November, charlieonnafriday made his debut on Billboard’s Pop Airplay chart, where “Enough” has since reached a No. 22 high on charts dated Jan. 28.
Having recently moved to Los Angeles — where he lives in a house “full of the same homies I started with” — charlieonnafriday kicked the year off with his new single “That’s What I Get,” amid a 10-date college tour across the country that wraps in February. He’ll then head overseas, playing to some of the biggest crowds of his career and opening for an artist he calls “one of the greatest performers ever”: Macklemore. And though hesitant on announcing a release date, he’s planning to drop a deluxe version of Onnafriday later this year.
“We’re not just trying to build a song, we’re trying to build an artist,” says Ogunlesi. “It has to extend beyond just one moment.”
Charlieonnafriday and Geoff Ogunlesi photographed on January 23, 2023 in Los Angeles.
Michelle Genevieve Gonzales
A version of this story originally appeared in the Feb. 4, 2023, issue of Billboard.
For the first time in three years, Clive Davis’ pre-Grammy gala brought together some of the biggest names in the music industry for a night of special performances, timely tributes and moving speeches. As always, the star power at the Beverly Hilton soiree was mind-boggling, with everyone from Tom Hanks to Cardi B to Max Martin to Joni Mitchell in attendance on Saturday night (Feb. 4).
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“You come back each year, bonded by the love of music,” Davis declared to the capacity crowd while kicking off the ceremony. The party had not taken place since 2020 due to the pandemic; although the 2022 Grammys were held in Las Vegas last April, Davis had opted not to move the gala from its Beverly Hills home.
As such, the 2023 gathering was the first to take place since the 10th anniversary of Whitney Houston’s shocking death in 2012, just hours before that year’s pre-Grammy party. Houston received multiple tributes on Saturday night: Jennifer Hudson performed a show-stopping rendition of “Greatest Love of All,” while actor Kevin Costner kicked off the evening by introducing Davis and regaling the audience with stories of their professional and personal bond with Houston thanks to The Bodyguard.
“We were both struck by Whitney the first time we ever saw her. …. Whitney would be our common ground,” said Costner, who co-starred in The Bodyguard with Houston as Davis was helping guide her music career. The Yellowstone star’s tribute to both Davis and Houston turned emotional: “Neither one of us, in the end, could protect your beloved Whitney,” a choked-up Costner said. “You were a miracle in her life. Thank you for being her bodyguard, Clive.”
Later, Sheryl Crow took the stage to perform “Songbird” and “Say You Love Me” as a tribute to Christine McVie, the Fleetwood Mac legend who passed away last year. And as a toast to the 50th anniversary of the birth of hip-hop, Lil Baby and Lil Wayne were giving back-to-back sets that included the former MC waxing poetic on “California Breeze” and the latter bouncing around the stage with Swizz Beatz on “Uproar.”
Long-running Atlantic Records leaders Julie Greenwald and Craig Kallman were honored as part of the Recording Academy’s Salute to Industry Icons, and before each of their acceptance speeches, Lauren Daigle, the contemporary Christian music star and recent Atlantic signee, performed the label classic “Son of a Preacher Man.” And Cardi, one of the biggest superstars on Atlantic’s roster, introduced Greenwald and Kallman by discussing how instrumental they had been to her success.
“I’m here tonight because I want thank them for believing in me,” Cardi told the audience. “Julie, as a woman who has a family and a career, you’re such an inspiration. When I was crying, you told me it would be okay, and that we were gonna get things done. You’re such a boss-ass bitch and such a wonderful mother. You’re the one who told me I could have it all, and for that, I truly thank you.”
As always, Davis’ gala served as a platform for both emerging talent and established stars, with performances from Lizzo and Elvis Costello and the Imposters (with special guest Juanes) taking place in between sets from Grammy best new artist nominees Latto and Måneskin. After Måneskin barreled through their smash cover of the Four Seasons’ “Beggin’,” Frankie Valli took the stage to play “Can’t Take My Eyes Off You,” resulting in the evening’s biggest audience sing-along. And Myles Frost, the star of MJ the Musical on Broadway, closed out the performances with spot-on renditions of Michael Jackson’s “Billie Jean” and “Rock With You.”
Also back for the pre-Grammy party were Davis’ shout-outs to the music superstars in attendance — Janelle Monae, Olivia Rodrigo, Luke Combs, Machine Gun Kelly, Demi Lovato and Chance The Rapper were among those to be mentioned from the stage and receive rounds of applause. Yet the biggest ovation of the night came for both Nancy Pelosi, the former Speaker of the House and perennial Davis party guest, as well as her husband Paul, who was the victim of a home invasion attack in October but received roars of support on Saturday night.
Check out the setlist for Clive Davis’ 2023 pre-Grammy party:
Måneskin – “I Wanna Be Tour Slave,” ” Beggin’”Frankie Valli – “Can’t Take My Eyes Off You”Lizzo – “Break Up Twice”Sheryl Crow – Christine McVie tribute “Songbird,” “Say You Love Me”Jennifer Hudson – “Greatest Love of All”Elvis Costello and The Imposters with Juanes – “Pump it Up,” “Peace, Love & Understanding”Lauren Daigle – “Son of a Preacher Man”Latto – “Sunshine,” “Big Energy”Lil Baby – “Forever,” “California Breeze”Lil Wayne – “John,” “Lollipop,” “Steady Mobbin,” “Uproar,” “A Mill”Myles Frost – “Billie Jean,” “Rock With You”
One of the ways in which the Grammy Awards are distinct from most other awards shows: There’s more than one top prize. The album of the year trophy has long been viewed as the most prestigious award of the yearly ceremony, yet artists have dominated the Grammys in past years by taking home both record and song of the year, like Silk Sonic did at the 2022 Grammys with “Leave the Door Open.” In other years — like in 2020, when Billie Eilish swept the Big Four — multiple major wins, including album of the year, helped define how that year’s ceremony was remembered.
Ahead of the 2023 Grammy Awards on Sunday night, it’s worth asking: Which artists could dominate the Grammys narrative this year, and what would it mean if they did? Nine artists have the chance to take home multiple Big Four awards, with generous overlap between the nominees for album of the year, record of the year and song of the year (the 10 best new artist nominees, strangely, do not have any other Big Four nods this year). Meanwhile, a 10th artist only has one Big Four nod… but a win would be groundbreaking enough that it’s worth including them into the list of artists who could shape how this year’s Grammys are remembered.
Those artists range from rising pop stars with brash hit singles to music industry institutions who have been earning acclaim for decades. And all of their legacies could be altered come Grammy night — some via an early coronation, others through long-awaited wins. There’s a lot at stake in every Grammy category, but the Big Four carry the most eyeballs and the greatest weight, with lasting impacts more than possible.
With that in mind, here are the 10 artists who could dominate the narrative of the 2023 Grammys, what they would need to win in order to do so, and what those dominant performances would mean.
“ ‘Love is the bridge between you and everything,’ ” Terius Nash reads aloud, gesturing to the words scrawled in the corner of an art piece. “Ah!” he claps. “I love it. These quotes are completely amazing.”
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The 45-year-old hit songwriter and artist, better known as The-Dream, sighs wistfully as he plops down on a peach-colored velvet love seat, which sits just beneath the artwork. Hung in an ornate gold frame, the piece depicts a group of people intertwined in collective embrace — a painting style reminiscent of Renaissance-era masterpieces — juxtaposed in front of an urban brick wall that’s splattered with various phrases written in technicolor graffiti. The artwork consumes an entire wall of the sitting room in The-Dream’s so-called “creative house” in the upscale Buckhead area of Atlanta. Otherwise, the room is completely bare — nothing but tall ceilings and crisp marble floors.
The-Dream adjusts his powder blue bucket hat and peers around his shoulder, back at the phrase. “I like how the longer you think about it,” he says, “the more you realize you don’t fully know what it means.” Its significance is determined by an individual’s perspective and understanding — just like the artwork itself, which he purchased three years ago at Eden Art Gallery in New York. With its hologram surface, its phrases are obscured when entering the room from the left… but from where The-Dream sits on the far right, the portrait shifts, its words clearly revealed.
The-Dream himself has unlocked some of the defining phrases in 21st century popular music, helping to craft smashes like Beyoncé’s “Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It),” Rihanna’s “Umbrella,” Justin Bieber’s “Baby” and Mariah Carey’s “Obsessed,” among many others. He has been present for studio sessions where the meaning of a word has expanded, then permeated popular culture in a different shape. He laughs when reminiscing about Beyoncé’s 2013 self-love anthem “Flawless,” and how he didn’t realize the full impact those eight letters could carry until he saw them needlepointed in scrolling cursive on a throw pillow following its release. “You don’t realize how many people wanted to capture that [feeling] until you see your lyrics on a pillow!” he says.
“This guy just writes a title that, when you read it, you know you have to listen to the song out of curiosity alone,” explains Christopher “Tricky” Stewart, The-Dream’s longtime writing and production partner. “I think he has an unmatched ability to figure out a unique lyrical perspective that can make an artist not only have a hit song, but a song that defines culture and the artist’s career. Something they can build on for the rest of their lives.”
Though The-Dream has been a behind-the-scenes force for the past two decades, he speaks to Billboard on the precipice of a career pinnacle, as evidenced by his presence at the 2023 Grammy Awards. He’s nominated in three of the Big Four categories — record, song and album of the year — for his work on Beyoncé’s seventh solo full-length, Renaissance, and its smash lead single, “Break My Soul.” The acclaimed album, along with his contributions to Pusha T’s It’s Almost Dry and Brent Faiyaz’s Wasteland, also earned The-Dream a nod in the inaugural songwriter of the year, non-classical category, where he will compete against Amy Allen, Nija Charles, Tobias Jesso Jr. and Laura Veltz.
Pusha T (left) and The-Dream attend The-Dream Listening Party at Gold Bar on December 18, 2018 in New York City.
Johnny Nunez/WireImage
“This means everything,” says Steven Victor — who manages The-Dream in addition to Pusha T, Nigo and others — of the new Grammy category, which he says The-Dream has advocated for for years. To Victor, a great songwriter can embody the points of view of many different types of artists — rap greats like Jay-Z and Pusha T, vocal powerhouses like Carey and Mary J. Blige, pop headliners like Bieber and Britney Spears, four-quadrant superstars like Beyoncé and Rihanna — and shape-shift into them regardless of their genre or personal identity. The-Dream, he vouches, is the best at this in the whole business.
“No one is going to think through these songs more than me,” The-Dream declares. Musical ideas often haunt him through the night, he explains, as more concepts, words and melodies flood his consciousness hours after a studio session ends. His creativity gnaws at him: He recently began attending fashion design classes at the Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD) and pulls out a collection of expert drawings — a sketch of a clementine, another of a skull.
“I drew a lot as a kid,” The-Dream says with a smile. When asked what he likes to draw most, he shrugs and thinks back to his overall creative approach: “I feel like I’m better when I have an assignment.”
“We had no idea what was happening at the time,” The-Dream says of growing up during the popularization of Atlanta’s music scene in the 1990s, when Southern rap reached the mainstream and acts like TLC and Usher took over pop. “It makes more sense to look back and understand it now.” He recalls watching the success of his neighbor and elementary school classmate T.I. and attending night classes with his pal André 3000 as a teen. “I don’t know what he did or why he was there,” he says with a laugh of the OutKast icon, “but I sure know I was flunking!”
Shortly after some of his acquaintances found musical success in Atlanta, The-Dream signed a publishing deal in 2001 with local mogul Laney Stewart, older brother of Tricky, and scored a writing credit on the B2K song “Everything.” Two years later, The-Dream linked up with Tricky — already producing hits for Mya and Blu Cantrell — and helped create the 2003 Britney Spears-Madonna team-up “Me Against the Music.” “It was explosive to write with him from the very beginning,” says Tricky. The pair complemented each other: Tricky was the perfectionist producer, and The-Dream was the emotive songwriter.
The pair’s brand of rhythmic pop took off in the second half of the decade, with “Umbrella” and “Single Ladies” reaching the top of the Billboard Hot 100 in 2007 and 2008, respectively, and “Baby” making Bieber a teen superstar in 2010. Meanwhile, The-Dream launched his career as an artist, signing with Def Jam and releasing a trio of R&B albums between 2007 and 2010: Love/Hate, Love vs. Money and Love King have earned a combined 2.25 million equivalent album units, according to Luminate.
Tricky Stewart (left) and The-Dream onstage during the 22nd annual ASCAP Rhythm and Soul Awards held at The Beverly Hilton Hotel on June 26, 2009 in Beverly Hills, California.
Lester Cohen/WireImage
His recording career has been sporadic since then, his focus constantly pulled back to creating hits for other artists. The-Dream says it’s difficult to define why he’s able to write so clearly about the experiences of others, “but really it’s my job to understand what the artist is going through, even if they don’t understand it yet,” he explains. “ ‘Umbrella’ is a love story, but for some reason, it feels like there is some misery in there too. Like, why do you need to assure this person they can count on you? Maybe, underneath, you know you haven’t had anyone to count on in your life, so you know what it means to be in that place.”
By 2018, the songwriter had turned that approach into one of the most bankable blueprints in popular music: over 70 Hot 100 entries as a songwriter, including 14 top 10 hits and five No. 1s, with 21 career Grammy nominations and five wins. That year, he sold 75% of his catalog, including his writing credits and solo releases, to Merck Mercuriadis’ Hipgnosis for a reported $23 million. It was the song fund’s first-ever catalog purchase.
“I wanted him to be the Dr. Dre to my Jimmy Iovine, if you like,” says Mercuriadis with a grin. “When we look back on the first 25 years of this millennium, I know his songs are going to be the ones people talk about.”
Throughout the 2010s, The-Dream shared the studio with all kinds of artists, but working with women vocalists was always his penchant. In the past, he has spoken about how the early death of his mother, who died of cancer when he was 15, gave him a “soft spot” when interacting with women. “There’s no such thing as a day with no grieving,” he says now, his eyes softening as he looks down at his sneakers.
After his mother’s death, he was put under the watchful eye of his grandfather, a hardscrabble cement mason who grew up in the Jim Crow South. The-Dream fondly recalls the days of listening to his grandfather talking “actively about how to make things well, looking at [them] from all different angles,” over games of pinochle with fellow masons. There’s an invisible throughline, he explains, between the ethos of a master builder, that of an artistic genius like da Vinci, and that of a songwriter like himself.
“When thinking about an artist like Beyoncé, I want to try to consider all the different ways this could reach people,” he says. “I want the song to matter to Beyoncé standing onstage, the person in the front row of the show and that person who’s in the rafters, who barely made it in, got a ticket from a friend last minute. I have to write for each one of them.”
The-Dream performs at the 2017 BET Experience on June 24, 2017 in Los Angeles, California.
Harmony Gerber/WireImage
“Single Ladies,” from Beyoncé’s 2008 album, I Am… Sasha Fierce, was the start of a long-term creative partnership and friendship between The-Dream and the superstar, who has tapped the songwriter to help craft at least one song from each of her subsequent albums — “Love on Top” from 2011’s 4, “Partition” from 2013’s Beyoncé and “6 Inch” from 2016’s Lemonade. (“Both Bey and I are Virgos,” The-Dream jokes, alluding to the astrological sign’s association with perfectionism.) For her latest release, Renaissance, The-Dream is one of the architects behind all but two of the album’s 16 tracks.
“Bey wanted to bring everyone together — that was the first thing on the board,” explains The-Dream of Beyoncé’s mission for her first solo album in six years. Following a tumultuous global period, he says, “It doesn’t matter who you are, we all know we were hurting,” and that the bounce, funk, house and all-around maximalist dance of Renaissance was intended as collective therapy.
For the album’s focal point, “Break My Soul,” The-Dream and Tricky teamed up to sketch out the single and then took it to Beyoncé, who “transformed it” into a No. 1 hit, says Tricky. “Dream and Bey’s closeness and attention to detail got us to a place with that song that we couldn’t have gotten [to] without that bond.”
Of course, many other collaborators also helped to finalize each Renaissance track — which songwriter Diane Warren questioned following the album’s July release. She took to Twitter to write, “How can there be 24 writers on a song?… This isn’t meant as shade, I’m just curious.” The-Dream replied in defense, schooling Warren with an explanation of sampling, its ties to Black culture and the lack of economic resources for Black musicians.
“By the way, I think she’s one of the greatest,” says The-Dream of Warren a few months after the exchange. “Sometimes [songwriters] lose that feeling, that connection to what art was all about in the first place. Really, it’s whatever it takes to give the world something good, so if that takes a whole gang of people… so be it.”
The way The-Dream speaks about collectively creating Renaissance mirrors his views on the role of the church as the birthplace of generations of talented Atlanta musicians, some known, many more unknown. “For us Southern Black folks… everybody was musical, everyone singing those hymns from back then,” he says with the fervor of a preacher at the pulpit. “I love hearing the gathering of people, huddled together, humming a song. No time signature. No industry. No three minutes and 30 seconds.”
Incorporating Southern culture’s sense of collectivism is not new for The-Dream and Houston-born Beyoncé, but Renaissance stands as their wholehearted embrace of the principle. “We learned to not be too big to call,” he says, reflecting on the process of inviting others to collaborate on the album. “If you think Grace Jones would sound great on something? Call. Nile Rodgers would be cool on this? Call.”
As a songwriter, The-Dream doesn’t control when artists release the songs he has helped pen — the timing is serendipitous, or “like lightning in a bottle,” as he puts it. So it’s a bit of kismet that, after his years spent fighting for a songwriting category, one of the biggest projects of his career is nominated in the award’s inaugural year.
“I keep thinking, ‘How is this happening?’ ” he asks. Win or lose, The-Dream is basking in the recognition. “It feels good,” he says. “Too good.”
This story will appear in the Feb. 4, 2023, issue of Billboard.
Up a winding mountain road on the edge of Salt Lake City, past snow-dusted pines and freshly shoveled driveways, through a wrought iron gate that opens at the command of an armed guard yawning in a pickup truck, sits a handful of mansions designed like rustic ski resorts — and one that looks like a modernist mall. Another security guard idles at the end of the outlier’s heated driveway, which slopes past a garage where Maybachs and McLarens sit alongside muddy, toddler-sized four-wheelers and a terrarium housing a sleeping bearded dragon. At the front door, an inflatable Santa stands sentry, holding a sign that warns, “Nine Days Until Christmas!”
On a clear day like today, you can look out the living room’s floor-to-ceiling windows, over the icy swimming pool and presently invisible dirt bike track below, and the entirety of the Salt Lake Valley spreads out before you like an overturned snow globe. Inside, the space is all white and sparsely furnished, decorated with a pair of spindly Christmas trees, a half-dozen painted portraits — in one, a smiling young man feeds his daughter a cheeseburger — and an enormous plaque that glints in the sunlight and reads, “100 RIAA Gold/Platinum Certifications,” and, in larger letters, “YoungBoy Never Broke Again.” Its recipient, who introduces himself as Kentrell, sits quietly beneath it as a motherly woman named Quintina, who is not his mother but his financial adviser, paints his fingernails black.
The neighbors have yet to figure out who exactly it is that moved in just over a year ago: a rail-thin 23-year-old with faded face tattoos and a stable of luxury vehicles that never leave the garage. Should they learn that he is signed to Motown Records and makes music as YoungBoy Never Broke Again, it’s likely they would still draw a blank. (A middle-aged blonde from the mansion next door cranes her neck from the window of her SUV to gawk at the camera crew unloading outside for today’s cover shoot.) And it’s true that the artist born Kentrell DeSean Gaulden, whom fans call YoungBoy or simply YB, has practically zero mainstream presence: He’s not on the radio, scarcely performs live, regularly deactivates his social media accounts and shies away from the press.
Yet in an extreme and emblematic case of streaming-era stardom, YoungBoy is one of the most popular and prolific rappers on the planet. Since breaking out from his hometown of Baton Rouge, La., at age 15 — already sounding like a world-weary veteran who had absorbed a lifetime of pain — he has landed 96 entries on the Billboard Hot 100 and 26 projects on the Billboard 200. (Of the latter, 12 charted in the top 10, and four went to No. 1.) Of the whopping eight full-length projects he released in 2022 alone, five reached the top 10; his latest, January’s I Rest My Case, debuted at No. 9. YoungBoy was the third most-streamed artist in the United States last year (according to Luminate), behind Drake and Taylor Swift, and currently sits at No. 1 on YouTube’s Top Artists page, where he has charted for the last 309 weeks. After deducting a presumed 10% management fee, Billboard estimates YoungBoy’s take-home pay from artist and publishing streaming royalties averaged between $8.7 million and $13.4 million annually over the last three years, depending on the structure of his publishing contract and level of artist royalty his recording contract pays out. The NBA’s coolest young team, the Memphis Grizzlies, warms up to his music almost exclusively.
YoungBoy Never Broke Again photographed on December 16, 2022 in Utah.
Diwang Valdez
He’s known for churning out releases with machine-like efficiency and for the legal battles that have haunted his career from day one, to the extent that both feel like essential components of the art itself. As a public figure, he’s inscrutable, but in song, he comes alive — equal parts outlaw and confidant, commiserating with listeners’ struggles and declaring vendettas in the same breath. And though his path may strike some as counterintuitive, YoungBoy’s perpetual underdog status only galvanizes his die-hard supporters, for whom aggrievement has become a calling card, regularly spamming comment sections in frantic defense of their favorite.
Since moving to Utah, YoungBoy has left his house exactly zero times; an ankle monitor will trigger if he so much as crosses the end of his driveway. After fleeing police, who had stopped him in Los Angeles with a federal warrant stemming from a 2020 arrest — where he was one of 16 people picked up on felony drug and weapons charges at a video shoot — he spent most of 2021 in a Louisiana jail. In October 2021, a judge granted him permission to serve house arrest in Salt Lake City at the request of his lawyers. (Hence the security team, whose presence is to enforce the terms of his incarceration as much as for his protection. Those terms include a limit of three preapproved visitors at a time, turning today’s shoot into an elaborate exercise in consolidation.) The 2020 arrest was the latest in a string of allegations that began when YoungBoy was 15. Last year, he was found not guilty in one of his two federal gun trials; the other is ongoing.
YoungBoy lives here with Jazlyn Mychelle, whom he quietly married in the first week of 2023, and their two children: a 17-month-old named Alice (after his grandmother) and a newborn boy, Klemenza (named for a character in The Godfather whose loyalty the rapper admires). They are the youngest of the 23-year-old YoungBoy’s 10 children. The other eight live with their seven respective mothers. Most people in his position would be counting down the days until freedom, but besides the fact that his “purposeless” car collection is steadily depreciating in value, YoungBoy is in no rush to return to the world. “This is the best thing that ever happened to me,” he says with an expensive-looking smile, having traded his diamond grill for pearly veneers, as his nail polish dries in the sunlight.
Even inside, YoungBoy rarely hangs out upstairs. He usually stays up until dawn in the basement, playing Xbox or recording songs all night, never touching pen to paper — instead, he freestyles line by line according to what’s weighing on his mind. By his estimate, over 1,000 unreleased tracks currently sit in the vaults. His nocturnal tendencies are a “protection thing,” he explains. “It has been like that since I was 15: I’ve got to be somewhere where I actually know no one is inside the room,” he says in a voice I have to lean in to hear, a near whisper that feels worlds away from the fearless squawk that booms out in his songs, hurling threats at a seemingly endless number of enemies. “I like to just stay in one small space where I don’t have to worry about anything that’s not safe.”
For a while, he had a habit of sleeping in the garage — in the Tesla, where he could turn on the heat without fear of death by carbon monoxide poisoning, and where he and his engineer, XO, would sometimes record. Lately, he stays up smoking cigars in the basement — his last remaining vice, he says. “Nighttime, when everybody’s asleep — it’s the most peaceful time ever inside of life to me,” he whispers. “Nighttime, when it’s dark and nothing’s moving but the wildlife and the crooks.” He has seen his share of deer and rabbits scurrying around the property, and though he has yet to spy a bobcat, the security guards have. He watches for intruders, too, a matter of routine. What he likes best is that it’s peaceful here, and that “it’s very far from home.”
Kentrell Gaulden wrote his first song in fourth grade, and he still remembers how it started. He giggles as he launches in: “It goes, ‘P—y n—s always in my face/Bang, bang, bang, there go the murder case.’ And I keep saying it.” Growing up in north Baton Rouge, his mother, an amateur rapper herself under the name Ms. Sherhonda, would bring Kentrell and his older sister to watch her record in a neighbor’s home studio. His father was sentenced to 55 years for armed robbery when he was 8. Years later, when a teenage Gaulden was locked up himself for a 2014 robbery charge, he received a letter from another jail — from his father, telling his son about his own musical dabblings. “I never had a Plan B. This is what I was set on becoming,” YoungBoy says, his narrow frame engulfed in a skull-patterned puffer jacket, a tangle of diamonds flashing underneath. His early songs inspired a school friend to write his own, and YoungBoy smiles remembering the two giddily trading rhymes before class. “But he died,” he adds, barely breaking his gaze. “If I’m not mistaken, they was robbing someone, and as he took off, he met his consequence.”
The Baton Rouge in YoungBoy’s raps is rife with mortal danger, a place where death is an old acquaintance and betrayal lurks around every corner. On 2016’s “38 Baby,” around the time the rapper’s local buzz was going national, YoungBoy half-sang, half-rapped that he “got the law up on my ass, demons up in my dreams,” claiming to not even step in the recording booth unarmed. It was startling to see who was behind such a nihilistic worldview: a gangly teen whose baby face was marked three times across the forehead with scars from a halo brace he wore after breaking his neck as a toddler. Artist Partner Group CEO Mike Caren (who worked for years with YoungBoy’s former label, Atlantic, and the artist’s own Never Broke Again imprint, and remains his publisher), remembers his first time seeing the “38 Baby” video.
“The intensity was so powerful,” Caren recalls. “He was youthful and seasoned at the same time. He had presence, a natural sense of melody, and he painted an entire picture of his world.” A bitter brand of authenticity emerged from the contrast of YoungBoy’s boyishness and the obvious trauma that hovered over him like a black cloud. To hear one of his songs was to listen in on the shockingly intimate confessions of someone forced into adulthood against his will, and to witness his expression catch up to his experience in real time.
You could cherry-pick the history of Louisiana hip-hop and cobble together something like a precedent for YoungBoy: the swampy street tales and prolific output of the labels No Limit and Cash Money; the embrace of balladry, bounce and traumatized blues; the pure indifference to industry protocols. YoungBoy’s early releases gestured to 20-odd years of Baton Rouge rap, from Trill Entertainment’s dark-sided club jams to Kevin Gates’ warbled bloodletting — music that was sometimes about women or money but mostly, and most profoundly, about pain. In recent years, YoungBoy’s rapping has matured into a style that stands apart from his predecessors, veering off into complicated rhythms and electrifying spoken-word diatribes, as on last year’s eight-minute missive “This Not a Song (This for My Supporters),” where he warns listeners not to be fooled by the glamour of gangster rap. Still, the old pain sears through nearly every freestyled verse.
It was his “pain music” in particular that first drew the attention of Kyle “Montana” Claiborne, a wisecracking 36-year-old Baton Rouge native. YoungBoy’s songs were only available on YouTube in 2016 when the two met, and though Montana was twice YoungBoy’s age, the music hit him hard. “I wasn’t a rapper, but I wanted to live like a rapper,” he says, and with no real industry experience, he became the 16-year-old’s right-hand man, driving him hours to play shows for $500 a pop. YoungBoy’s buzz was steadily building on YouTube and Instagram “back when followers was real and organic,” Montana stresses. Meanwhile, he was recording enough music to drop an album per week, propelled by a private urgency.
The Never Broke Again label was created in Montana’s name since YoungBoy was a minor; today, they share ownership of the company, which partnered with Motown in 2021, a year ahead of YoungBoy’s solo deal with the label. In late 2016, the pair traveled to New Orleans to meet in a parking lot with Fee Banks, who had helped Lil Wayne launch his Young Money label and managed Gates into stardom. Banks saw in YoungBoy a similar greatness and immediately took over as his manager.
“YoungBoy was moving fast, but he had a lot of drama attached to him,” Banks recalls. “Soon as I got in touch with him, he went to jail. Anything he got into, we got him out, and every time he got out of jail, he’d gotten bigger. Throughout all the trials and tribulations, we kept it moving, kept recording, kept shooting videos and stayed down.”
YoungBoy’s buzz had caught the ear of another Louisiana native: Bryan “Birdman” Williams, who co-founded Cash Money Records and mentored a young Lil Wayne, among many others. In his signature twang, Williams recalls flying a teenage YoungBoy to Miami, where they recorded daily for two weeks, working on what eventually became their 2021 collaborative album, From the Bayou. “Watching how fast he do music and the value of the music, I saw a lot of similarities between him and Wayne,” he says. “I seen stardom in him, but I knew it was a process.”
Williams made it a mission to impress upon the teenager that he had a choice: the life he was raised in or the music. “I once was somebody like him and had to gamble my life. I wanted to show him that he could really survive off his talent,” he continues. “You could go to jail, or you could die, or you could try to be somebody.” As he does with Wayne, he refers to YoungBoy as a son.
Diwang Valdez
By the time labels had entered a bidding war, YoungBoy was a cult hero with eight mixtapes under his belt. He was also a teenage father of three being tried as an adult for attempted murder, facing a life sentence without parole. He had been apprehended before a show in Austin, accused of a nonfatal Baton Rouge shooting that occurred hours after a friend’s murder; after six months awaiting trial in a Louisiana prison, he ultimately took a plea deal. At his 2017 sentencing — by which point he had committed to a $2 million deal with Atlantic Records — the judge cited his music as a means of “normalizing violence,” one of many recent instances of rap lyrics being used as evidence in criminal proceedings. With your talent, she lectured, comes responsibility. He received a suspended 10-year prison term with three years of probation. More disturbing allegations emerged in the years to follow, including kidnapping, assault and weapons charges tied to a 2018 incident recorded in a hotel hallway showing the rapper attacking his girlfriend.
One night in prison while YoungBoy was on lockdown (“For no disciplinary reason — it was because of who I was”), he prayed to see his late grandmother one last time. He had lived in her home for much of his childhood, crying on the occasions when he had to return to his mom’s house. Her name, Alice Gaulden, frequently appears in his lyrics, and her massive painted portrait hangs by the fireplace; after our interview, I catch him smiling beneath it in silence, one hand resting on the image of her face. “And I remember, I ain’t crazy — she hugged me. I felt her,” he recalls softly, and despite his serene expression, his legs begin to tremble, at first subtly, then unignorably. “After that, I didn’t want to go back to sleep. I didn’t even care about the situation I was in. I felt like I was secure.”
His grandmother died in 2010, and YoungBoy was sent to a group home. “I used to get beat up inside the group home for no reason,” he continues as the shaking intensifies, though his quiet voice never falters. “The other boys would put their hands on me, and I would look up like, ‘Why are you hitting me, bro? What’d I do?’ It made me discover another side of me that I never glorified or liked. I found out how to be the person that you don’t want to do that with. [Before then], I never understood all the evilness or wrong because I was showered by so much love from this one person.”
By now, YoungBoy is shaking from head to toe with alarming intensity, his jewelry audibly rattling. “It’s not going to stop,” he calmly replies when I suggest we take a break. Quintina, who began as his accountant and now appears to also function as a surrogate mother, kneels beside his chair to hold his hand. “I’m OK,” YoungBoy assures her. Composing himself, though the trembling continues, he focuses his gaze.
“I’m very scared right now,” he confesses. “It’s just natural. I’m not big on people.” For most of his life, expressing or explaining himself has taken place behind a microphone, alone. “I never knew why once I walked on the stage, I could get it done and leave — but I am terrified of people. People are cruel. This is a cruel place.” He swivels in his seat toward the blue and white panorama behind him. “You’ve got to be thankful for it. It’s very beautiful, you know? There’s so much you can experience inside of it. But it is a very cruel place. And it’s not my home.” The smile he cracks has a strange effect — sweetness embedded in a wince.
“I don’t want to know what it means to die — but do we actually die, or do we go on to the real life? What if we’re all just asleep right now?” he wonders aloud as the shaking dies down. “It’s all a big test, I think.”
Diwang Valdez
Perhaps you’re wondering how a Baton Rouge rapper on house arrest finds himself deep in the heart of Mormon country. Those listening closely may have noticed YoungBoy name-dropping Utah’s capital from the beginning: “Take a trip to Salt Lake City, cross the mountain, ’cause that’s called living,” he chirped on “Kickin Sh-t” seven years ago. He first came here as a boy, he explains, as part of a youth outreach group initiative, and became very close with one of its leaders, a Utah native he declines to name, though he mentions she was married at the time to a professional baseball player. Today, he refers to the woman as his mom. “She’s a wonderful person. She’s just there when I need her,” he says softly. “She christened me, if I’m not mistaken, and then she brought me back here to meet her family. When I got here, it was always my goal: I’m going to move here. I’m going to have a home here. This is where my family is going to be.” Courtroom testimony from his 2021 hearing shows his attorneys reasoning that a permanent move to Utah would keep their client away from trouble; after some initial skepticism, the judge agreed.
The past few months of YoungBoy songs are full of curious Utah-isms, like the Book of Mormon passage that opens his video for “Hi Haters” — “Now, as my mind caught hold upon this thought, I cried within my heart: O Jesus, thou Son of God, have mercy on me, who am in the gall of bitterness, and am encircled about by the everlasting chains of death” — or a recent line mentioning missionaries visiting his home. “I’m surprised they didn’t come in the process of this [interview],” he says when I ask about the latter reference. The first time the Mormon missionaries appeared on his doorstep, weeks ago, YoungBoy instinctively sent them away. Then he had second thoughts: “I wanted help very badly. I needed a friend. And it hit me.”
When they returned, he invited them in, explaining the things about himself he was desperate to change. “It was just cool to see someone with a different mindset that had nothing to do with business or money — just these wonderful souls,” he recounts. He has come to look forward to their daily visits, during which they discuss the Book of Mormon and “make sure my heart is in the right space” for his official baptism into the Church of Jesus Christ the Latter-day Saints, a rite that forgives past sins through repentance, according to Mormon theology. He’s saving the ceremony for after his ankle monitor is removed. “Even when my negative thoughts come back, when I do want to tell them, ‘Not today,’ I just don’t let nothing stop it,” he says. (Later I learn that during our talk, two carloads of chipper, clean-cut missionaries in their early 20s did, in fact, appear at the property’s gate and were turned away only due to the visitor limit.)
Diwang Valdez
As for whether the missionaries know who he is, YoungBoy doesn’t ask; frankly, it could go either way. He epitomizes “invisible music stardom,” the streaming-era phenomenon in which artists have massive fan bases but relatively minor pop culture footprints, illustrating a disjunction between what’s promoted and what is truly resonating. His particular success is often attributed to his relentless productivity, in some ways more like that of a “content creator” than a traditional musician. “I have never heard of a fan saying that their favorite artist is putting out too much music unless the quality goes down,” says Caren, noting YoungBoy’s impressive consistency.
As for his lack of a ubiquitous hit — for all of his chart-topping full-lengths and 96 Hot 100 entries, the highest YoungBoy has charted as a sole lead artist has been No. 28, for 2020’s “Lil Top” and 2021’s “Bad Morning” — Caren argues he has had them, just not in the places you’d expect. “He moved too fast for the radio. He was always on to the next thing. You can’t stick around and promote the same song for five months when you’re making multiple albums in that time period.” And though his numbers are mighty across all streaming platforms (on Spotify, he has over 17 million monthly listeners), his popularity is most closely associated with YouTube, where his fans first found him, and where he can upload new music directly to his 12.1 million subscribers, bypassing the mainstream industry apparatus entirely.
It was YoungBoy’s peerless work ethic that first grabbed the attention of Motown vp of A&R Kenoe Jordan. The Grammy-nominated producer and fellow Baton Rouge native had monitored the rapper’s career from the jump, impressed by what the teenager and his Never Broke Again label had accomplished with limited resources. “In Louisiana, we have the most talented musicians in the world, but the window of opportunity is very small,” Jordan says from the work-in-progress Never Broke Again headquarters in Houston: half office building, half giant garage full of lethal-looking ATVs and bench press racks. After signing a global joint venture with the Never Broke Again label, Jordan was determined to sign YoungBoy himself, who had voiced frustration with Atlantic in some since-deleted online comments that had some fans petitioning Atlantic to release him from his deal. Jordan announced YoungBoy’s signing with Motown in October 2022, following the completion of his contract with Atlantic.
Jordan calls YoungBoy and company some of the hardest-working people in the industry, known to spring an impromptu album on the label without warning. “His formula is already there,” Jordan adds. “He knows what he wants. You just have to make sure you’re able to deliver on the things that he asks you to do.” YoungBoy’s partners have simply learned to trust him whether or not they see the vision. Montana laughs remembering nights spent driving to undisclosed locations: “He do some of the oddest things, and nobody knows why he’s doing it but him.”
Diwang Valdez
As strategies go, YoungBoy’s makes sense — flood the market, circumvent the system, keep the fans and the algorithms satiated — but it doesn’t entirely explain why he puts out as much music as he does. What analysts would credit to a master plan, YoungBoy describes as a compulsion. “It’s a disease,” he says starkly. “Literally, I cannot help myself. I tell myself sometimes, ‘I’m not going to drop until months from now,’ but it’s addictive. I wish I knew when I was younger how unhealthy this was for me. Whatever type of energy I had inside me, I would’ve pushed it toward something else.” From someone whose music seems like his truest form of release, it’s an astonishing claim. “The music is therapy, but I can’t stop it when I want,” he goes on, sounding almost ashamed. “And the lifestyle is just a big distraction from your real purpose.”
As if some private dam has broken, YoungBoy’s words now spill out urgently. “I’m at a point now in my life where I just know hurting people is not the way, and I feel very manipulated, even at this moment,” he says, his brown eyes flashing. “I was set on being the greatest at what I did and what I spoke about. Man, I was flooded with millions of dollars from the time I was 16 all the way to this point, and I woke up one morning like, ‘Damn. They got me. They made me do their dirty work.’ Man, look at the sh-t I put in these people’s ears.” By “they,” he’s alluding to the rappers he once looked up to as examples of how to live and those who bankroll them. His voice wavers, then steadies. “I think about how many lives I actually am responsible for when it comes to my music. How many girls I got feeling like if you don’t go about a situation that your boyfriend’s bringing on you in his way, you’re wrong? How many people have put this sh-t in their ears and actually went and hurt someone? Or how many kids felt like they needed to tote a gun and walked out the house and toted it the wrong way? Now he’s fixing to sit there and do years of his life that he can’t get back.”
A shiver streaks through him again, rattling his knees. “I was brought up around a lot of f–ked-up sh-t — that’s what I knew, and that’s what I gave back to the world,” YoungBoy continues, spitting out his words like they’re sour. “I was like, ‘F–k the world before they f–k you.’ I was a child, you know? And now I know better, so it ain’t no excuse at all for how I carry on today.” His gaze doesn’t flinch. “It took lots of time to make my music strong enough to get it to where I could captivate you. I promise to clean whatever I can clean, but it’s going to take time, just like it took time for me to get it to that point.” He takes a sharp breath, then whispers: “I was wrong. And I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”
YoungBoy’s music is commonly understood as brooding, ruthless and retaliatory. A running meme shows his fans moving through life with comic aggression: belligerently whipping clean laundry into the basket, holding up a rubber duck at gunpoint in the bath. That’s an oversimplification of the range of his subject matter — family, betrayal, loyalty, loss — but it isn’t entirely off the mark, either; on YouTube, listeners have compiled extensive playlists with titles like “1 Hour of Violent NBA YoungBoy Music (Part 4).” It’s a specter that looms over the bulk of his catalog, from early videos where his teenage friends wave Glocks at the camera to songs like last year’s “I Hate YoungBoy,” where he fires warning shots at half the industry and drops ominous bars like “I’m gon’ be rich inside my casket once my time gone.” It’s tough to imagine what a pacifist YoungBoy song might sound like, much less an entire album of it, and recent attempts at anti-violence messaging haven’t landed the way he intended: “As I start to promote the peace and say, ‘Stop the violence,’ I think I’m inciting a riot,” he rapped on “This Not a Song (This for My Supporters)” last year.
“Pacifist YoungBoy” isn’t fully realized on his latest record, I Rest My Case — his first for Motown, which he dropped with almost no promotion on Jan. 6. (It was the day before his private wedding to Mychelle, a 20-year-old beauty YouTuber who quietly tends to the babies in between posing for a few photos, at his insistence, during the cover shoot.) But it is a step in that direction, an album that mostly traffics in extravagant stunting over buzz-saw synths associated with the EDM/trap hybrid known as rage music. To celebrate its release, YoungBoy invited around 50 giddy fans over for a snowball fight and video shoot, jumping atop his Bentley truck to blast album opener “Black” from the court-approved safety of the driveway. The noisy crowd dispersed only when a couple emerged from next door to request they keep it down. “It’s a lot of old people here, really,” a poncho-clad blonde — the same one who had driven curiously past the house weeks before — cheerfully tells a TikTok reporter. “If he comes and asks, would you spare him a cup of flour?” the TikToker asks. “Of course we would!” she replies.
YoungBoy Never Broke Again photographed on December 16, 2022 in Utah.
Diwang Valdez
I Rest My Case is an obvious departure, lyrically and aesthetically, from what YoungBoy’s fans are used to, and across the internet, early reactions were mixed: Some praised their favorite rapper’s innovation, others longed for the old days. YoungBoy’s previous album, The Last Slimeto, debuted last August at No. 2 on the Billboard 200 with 108,000 equivalent album units, according to Luminate; just five months later, I Rest My Case debuted at No. 9 with 29,000 equivalent album units. “Be completely honest: Do you want YB back on drugs toting guns if it means we gon get that old YB back?” read one Reddit post.
YoungBoy expected this. “I’m very curious to see how the world goes about me now,” he contemplated weeks before in his living room, adding that he tried to avoid the usual mentions of guns, though there are still a few. He has thought a lot about what attracted people to his music until now: “They listened because of who I supposedly was or showed I was and what I rapped about. Now it’s nail polish and face paint, and the music is not the same.” (Lately, alongside the black nails, he and Mychelle like to paint their faces like goth Jokers and skulk around the property at night.) “What if they don’t like me now?” he wonders, fiddling with a diamond pinky ring. “You can’t be on top forever, you know? Because I’m not changing. I will not be provoked, I will not be broken, and I’m not going back to who I used to be. Accept it or not — I ain’t going back.” YoungBoy breaks into a smile. “I’m only going to get more groovy from here.” He’s already preparing his next album, which he’s calling Don’t Try This at Home.
Only once does YoungBoy remember it snowing in Baton Rouge; here in the mountains this time of year, it sits at least two feet deep daily. After checking briefly on the babies, he lights a cigar and beckons me through the garage and down toward the wooded dirt bike track, yelping for XO to join us. Out here, it’s a postcard: white trees, white mountains, ice blue sky. Everyone’s up to their knees in snow, and no one’s more excited about it than YoungBoy, whose ripped white jeans and jacket have now become camouflage. He points animatedly to where the bike path goes, a clearing where you can do doughnuts. “Five K for a snow angel!” he dares XO, who came hardly prepared in a hoodie and slides. “Just fall back! But at least put your hood on.” XO topples backward into a puff of powder and sweeps out an angel silhouette to YoungBoy’s delight, and the two laugh as they tramp back uphill.
As for what will happen when his ankle monitor is removed, YoungBoy would rather not think about it. No date is currently scheduled for his remaining federal trial, according to an email from his lawyer, because “the government is appealing the court’s ruling on our motion to suppress evidence, and that matter is pending before the United States Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals.” They declined to comment on his bail conditions. “The day I walk out this door and am free to do what I want, it’s going to be a lot of doing, or it will be done to me,” YoungBoy says. “So I’m not rushing back to that. I have a family.” He doesn’t plan to leave Utah anytime soon, though eventually, he would like to buy a place with even more land “where no one knows what’s going on on it.” He has spoken previously about his disinterest in touring but might reconsider if the shows were overseas where he could see some new places — he has always wanted to visit the Eiffel Tower, especially since watching Ratatouille. Asked what he looks forward to most, YoungBoy hesitates for a moment. “Change,” he replies softly. “I am very curious of the person who I shall become.”
This story will appear in the Feb. 4, 2023, issue of Billboard.
THE ALBUM
Heavy Heavy, out Friday (Feb. 3) on Ninja Tune
THE ORIGIN
Alloysious Massaquoi, Kayus Bankole and Graham ‘G’ Hastings formed Young Fathers in a nightclub in Scotland, and after a series of false starts, including a stint as a “psychedelic boy band,” they honed in their sound on Tape One and Tape Two, a pair of mixtapes recorded with producer Tim London that established them as the kind of band to rap over the “Be My Baby” beat. After winning the Scottish Album of the Year award with Tape Two, they released their debut album, DEAD, in 2014. That year, the album beat out projects from critically beloved acts like FKA Twigs and Damon Albarn to win the Mercury Prize.
From there, the band just kept working, putting out the lower-fi but even more ambitious pop record White Men Are Black Men Too in 2015. After the release of 2018’s relatively streamlined Cocoa Sugar, the pandemic forced a break from touring and recording, but the downtime proved invigorating for the band.
THE SOUND
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Ask Young Fathers what they sound like, and they’re happy to call what they make pop music. There are soaring hooks and efficient song structures. It feels organic while listening, but try describing their sound and it gets a lot more complicated: it’s too intricate to be lo-fi, too raw to be hi-fi, too poppy to be “alternative hip-hop,” too harsh for easy listening. The most frequent comparison is TV on the Radio, but that doesn’t quite work, because Young Fathers aren’t really a rock band, either.
Whatever their sound is, it’s dense – taking elements from various musical genres and cultures, less as a manner of pastiche than what the band members are thinking and feeling at that particular time. While Heavy Heavy is some of their most purely joyful work to date, Hastings doesn’t view that as a deliberate decision.
“We’re not trying to make concept albums,” he explains. “We’re not trying to make anything other than what’s based on the spontaneity that happens when we’re together.”
THE RECORD
Heavy Heavy was named for that aforementioned density: as with previous records, it’s still fairly minimal, but this time what’s there is blown out. The project finds the trio, this time working without their mentor Tim London, honing even further on their sound, which is a mood of simultaneous celebration and paranoia.
On “Drum,” lyrics like “Feel the beat of the drum and go numb/have fun,” co-exist with the lines “They’re gonna get you either way/whether you cry about today or die another day.” Even the sequencing of the album feels like you’re with the band in the studio as they dart between ideas: “Tell Somebody” gradually builds into a sense of euphoric, heavily saturated desperation, right before the unexpected jazz piano on “Geronimo” provides a serene comedown. Meanwhile, there’s a gospel rave-up on “Sink or Swim,” a 6/8 stomp on “I Saw” and the delightfully bizarre, bouzouki-led “Ululation,” where Bankole’s sister, Tapiwa Mambo, takes the lead and vents in Shona.
The last song, “Be Your Lady,” is everything that makes Young Fathers unique in one three-minute blast, alternating between a soulful piano ballad and erratic drum breaks (created by a literal drum machine accident while recording), as the band members take turns shouting, “Can I take 10 pounds worth of loving out of the bank, please?” in different accents. It’s almost zany in its audaciousness, but winds up a loving tribute to Bankole’s different identities as a Black Scottish man. “I switch back and forth in different accents [in conversation] because ] I’ve been able to spend time in Nigeria and the United States. So it’s all a mishmash of that and being born in Scotland.”
THE FUTURE
Bankole admits that “Be Your Lady” is the most challenging new song to pull off in rehearsals: “The drum machine is not really syncopated or in time, and you can’t really catch it!” The trio is planning on bringing their intense live show across Europe in April, including the Roundhouse in London. There are also several songs from the sessions that didn’t make the record – not due to their quality, but because they didn’t fit in the sequencing – so there might even be more music in the pipeline.
THEIR FAVORITE PIECE OF GEAR
Hastings: “EMS Vocoder 2000 are transcendent keyboards.” When asked about real-life synthesizers versus software synths, he continues: “I have them, but usually the whole thing has already been made by things that you can touch. The whole premise is anybody can hit anything in the studio and for soft synths it’s not really the same because it’s more fiddly.”
THE ARTIST THAT THEY THINK NEEDS MORE ATTENTION
Hastings: “I’ve heard the new music that Law Holt has done that’s not out yet, and it’s one of the most radical-sounding things I’ve heard ever. Callum Easter is also a great musician and has great pop albums that have this dark side to it, but they’re still these beautiful pop songs.”
THE THING THAT THEY THINK NEEDS TO CHANGE IN THE MUSIC INDUSTRY
Hastings: “There should be more creatives. People who are not artists should wake up every morning, look in the f–king mirror, and say ‘I am not an artist’ a hundred times.”
Bankole: “If you work with creative people, it doesn’t automatically make you a creative [person].”
Hastings: “And if you’re not an artist, don’t try to be the artist, and f–king listen to them.”
THE PIECE OF ADVICE THEY BELIEVE EVERY NEW INDIE ARTIST NEEDS TO HEAR:
Hastings: “Being able to describe yourself. ‘Cause the industry is not about to understand you in any f–king way. You have to be able to be precise and even when you are that precise, it still won’t f–king connect. But at least it can convey something.”
Bankole: “I think it’s important to be match-ready, but there is a real thing of over-rehearsing, to the point where you are blocking yourself from being spontaneous, and having room to wiggle about within the moments in the different environment every time.”
It’s August 20, 2020 and the Dogg Days of Summer are still here — the Snoop Dogg Days. While many of us remain in the house waiting out the global pandemic, Snoop Dogg is on the go. The laid-back MC is boarding a private jet en route from Los Angeles to Atlanta, and just as the metallic bird carrying the forever-hustling superstar ascends into the stratosphere, former President Barack Obama sits down with his staff a few thousand miles away. Obama and company go over notes and meeting agenda, then the beloved 44th Head of State puts out the mandate, “Get Snoop Dogg.”
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In a few hours, Obama will be speaking at the virtual Democratic National Convention and he wants Snoop to introduce him to the audience tuning in to watch on the Twitch channel Behind the Rhyme TV.
When Snoop lands late in the afternoon in ATL, he gladly accepts Obama’s invitation (the collaboration at the DNC was abuzz with CNN writers). Later, the Dogg settles in his hotel room, he fires up some smoke and listens to a few selections from his new group on a portable speaker.
“We ain’t announce it yet, but me, Ice Cube, E-40 and Too $hort just made a group cuz,” Snoop says with a grin. “We already started on the album and that s–t is jammin.’ We’re having a ball making it. It’s gonna be big.”
And historic. The teaming up of Mount Westmore is the first time a collective of this magnitude has officially come together in rap. All four MCs have over been dropping hits for at least four decades. This year marks Too $hort’s 40th anniversary in rap, while last April Snoop celebrated the 30th anniversary since he debuted on Dr. Dre’s “Deep Cover.” Cube and 40 came out the Wild Wild West in the ‘80s. Everybody in the group is over the age of 50, and still exudes double energy that is beloved by the culture. Most importantly, they’ve all been friends for years.
Northern California natives 40 and $hort have been Bay Area fixtures both individually and together, ranging from collaborative albums to their mutual affinity for the championship-winning Golden State Warriors. The ties between the Southern Californian half of Mount Westmore run deep too: After all, Snoop took part in the N.W.A reunion in the early 2000s, standing in for the late great Eazy-E alongside Cube and Dre. All four have collaborated as solo acts and performed on the same concert bills throughout the years, too many times in total to count.
The four are so close, assembling Mount Westmore was as easy as making a few phone calls. A few months before Snoop got the call from Obama — when COVID-19 first put the world in lockdown — E-40 needed a distraction from making frequent trips to the kitchen. Ask 40 himself, and he’ll joke that he was eating so much, his refrigerator told him it needed a breather. The legendary rapper’s culinary break would come in the form of making music. His manger put the battery in his back to take advantage of his downtime by teaming up with his iconic brethren.
“That sounds groovy like a drive-in movie,” 40 recalls thinking when the idea of supergroup came up. The Vallejo King of Lingo hit up Ice Cube first. “‘What you think about putting a group together, man?” 40 asked Cube who was “doing a lot of nothin’” himself at home. “Who you talking about?” Cube retorted, thinking 40 was joking around. “Me, you, Too Short and Snoopy,” 40 replied. After a few seconds of processing, Cube responded with two words: “Hell yeah!” “What we gonna call it then?” 40, getting excited, questioned in his signature high pitch. Cube dropped another two words on him: “Mount Westmore.”
The group name was inspired by the great hip-hop debates by media and fans of who belongs on hip-hop’s Mount Rushmore. Two and a half years removed from the pandemic (or as E-40 calls it, “the Plan-Demic”), Too $hort’s compound in LA is serving as headquarters for three quarters of Mount Westmore. While Snoop has been back in the ATL shooting a film and traveling the states on tour, the other group members have been holding down the publicity run duties. It was only four days until the collaborative project Snoop Cube 40 $hort hit streaming services and showcased the West Coast legend’s rap prowess.
Today though, while Cube and Short are waiting on 40 to arrive, the powerful South Central LA street narrator gives some great stories about his Oakland counterpart’s younger days on the come up. Cube relays making calls from the road while they were on tour, playfully teasing him and Dr. Dre because they “were still at home” and weren’t popular enough to perform concerts in different cities yet. Cube also reveals that “A Gangsta’s Fairytale,” off his classic solo debut AmeriKKKa’s Most Wanted, was originally written for Eazy. Cube then further delves into the construction of Mount Westmore.
“When I see his name come across [my phone], I always know he’s gonna say something slick,” the rap hyphenate says about 40. “I always look forward to talking to him, ‘cause you gonna hear some new s–t you ain’t heard before.”
Almost on cue, you can hear 40’s signature squeaky voice in the adjacent room getting closer. In walks 40 Water with a smile and joke to greet everyone. “He has on a Raiders shirt and 49ers pants,” Cube says about 40’s plain black tee and red jeans when seeing his friend. The three laugh simultaneously. “I’m mixing it up!” 40 retorts with a smile.
Although they share a brotherhood, football is one thing the foursome don’t agree upon. A big debate takes over the room when they talk about the New Year’s Eve NFL matchup between the visiting Niners and the Las Vegas Raiders, which 40, Cube and $hort will be attending. E-40’s allegiance is to the Niners, while Cube and Short give him a million reasons why they are going to lose to their team, the Raiders.
When the impromptu hip-hop version of ESPN’s First Take is done, the three peel back some of the layers of their new album. Even though the Mount Westmore members were separated during the COVID outbreak, every MC had a studio in their home, so recording the LP was relatively easy.
“We all got track records for making really good, classic, timeless music,” $hort surmises. “So you gotta trust the process of each individual that they know what they like.”
They all called upon familiar producers that they used throughout their careers, such as Ant Banks, FredWreck, Rick Rock and 40’s son Droop E.
“You gotta find X amount of songs that all four people like at the same time,” $hort explains. “That’s the magic. So it couldn’t be just one producer. We put the word out, the floodgates opened up.”
Every time each member of Westmore got a beat they liked, they sent it to a group text. If none of the three other MCs responded, then the collective knew that track wasn’t it. The songs began to take shape when one or two of the other MCs responded to the group text by sending back the tracks with a verse on it. $hort took charge of keeping track of all the song files.
“I think the process was dope, because when you layer it like that, the next person is actually building on what the last one said,” $hort says. “As opposed to we all sitting in the studio and we’re gonna make this song one day while we’re here. This was different. You had a little moment to sit at home. I’ll listen to what 40 did or listen to what Snoop did. ‘All right, so he said all that, I’m gonna come with this.’”
The spirit of the Mount Westmore project lies in its versatility. The four members weren’t afraid to rhyme on soundscapes that may have been out of their wheelhouses. There was just one agreed upon mandate: Each MC had to bring their signature style to the table.
“It’s fun to be in a group,” Cube certifies. “This is my third group; N.W.A, Westside Connection and now Mount Westmore. It’s always fun, because you’re not carrying the whole load. You got f–kin’ Hall of Famers you can pass it to. That could be a point where you relax — but with us, we don’t relax. We know we’re all going to be on point and show each other why we’re here. We don’t take each other for granted. We all know we gotta shine.”
Snoop Cube 40 $hort has slappers throughout. The supergroup goes anthemic right out the gate with “California,” they touch the clubs with “Too Big” (with Dr. Dre speaking on the intro) and “Lace You Up” gives unapologetic real talk advice to the younger generation. “How Many” broaches the subject of snitching, and on “Nice Day,” Ice Cube discusses how people tried to cancel him for being in contact with the Trump administration.
“In 2020 they was trying to cancel me,” Cube describes of the song that was made right after the controversy. “So to me, it was to get it off my chest on how I was feeling. A lot of people got their political team, or people they want to be down with. I ain’t got no team politically. I don’t care about Democrats or the Republicans. All I care about is, are we winning as Black people? Are they breaking bread or are they helping us make our lives better?”
Cube came under fire because he presented his “Contract With Black America,” an economic plan for financial reform for Black Americans to the Democrats as well as the Republicans. Some people blew it out of proportion and accused Cube of working with Donald Trump, which he clarified as being untrue. He simply wanted Black people to get a higher percentage of the wealth in America and wanted to get information to see what both parties were going to do for the Black community.
“It was cool to have a record to be able to get s–t off like that, ‘cause everything I said in that record is true,” Cube continues. “Look at the type of people trying to cancel [you]. That’ll let you know what you’re dealing with. It is a lot of gatekeepers out here who want to push the status quo cause somehow, some way, they get paid off of it. Those are the ones that want to cancel you. Not the ones that are going through it and want a different way. Not the ones trying to figure out how to break [the destructive] mental and political cycle that we’re under.”
Mount Westmore look to do just that, whether it be overtly or subtly. Bigger than any statement they could make artistically, the aligning of Snoop, Cube, 40 and $hort shows the entire Black community that four kings can come together, put egos and politics to the side, build on friendships and form a business. Mount Westmore isn’t just a group name: The four have officially started a LLC with the same name, making them an actual corporation. They all promise big deals between their crew, as well as tours and more music, of course.
The collection of legends made in excess of 50 songs for their current project, and only 16 were chosen for the final tracklist. While a few of the remaining records will be rationed out for their various solo efforts, $hort promises at least one follow-up Rushmore LP, more than likely two.
“If I sat here right now and said, ‘Let’s go in the studio’ and I played you 20 songs that didn’t make the album, you would be like, ‘What the f–k? Why the f–k that ain’t on there?’” $hort details. “You would be mad. We got some s–t. The next level, it’s going to continue. It’s gotta be no less than two albums. Easily three.”
“We’re the most fun group in hip-hop right now,” Cube attests. “Ain’t nobody having more fun than us. It’s a good story for hip-hop in the sea of tragedy [going on right now]. This is a feel-good story in a lot of ways. Hearing our record, the sh-t is fun. It feels fun and we’re showing the youngsters, this is how you can do it. It’s important. This ain’t a record. This is a movement.”
Cheers to that. Before everyone leaves out, 40 pulls out two bottles of his Earl Stevens Sweet Red Wine and makes everyone repeat after him as he gives his “traditional toast.”
“I ain’t above you,” Cube and $hort say following their partner’s lead. “I ain’t below you. But I’m right beside you.”