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“That was a wild 36 hours in Santa Barbara,” singer-songwriter and Contemporary Christian Music hitmaker Blessing Offor tells Billboard, recalling how a meeting with five-time Grammy winner Jon Batiste in November 2022 at the Google Zeitgeist Conference led to an impromptu writing session.
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“It felt like meeting an old friend kind of thing, just immediately cool,” Offor says. “He asked what we were doing that afternoon, and if we wanted to do a session in L.A. My flight was supposed to leave that afternoon, but I was like, ‘Absolutely.’ I immediately called my travel guy and was like, ‘Do whatever you have to do to move my flight,’” he says, laughing. “It was just a great creative synergy. I’m not sure what will come of it, but I would love to collaborate again.”
Collaboration has played a key role in Offor’s career to date.
Offor, who earned a GMA Dove Awards nomination for new artist of the year in 2022, also registered a three-week No. 1 Christian Airplay hit in 2022 with his TobyMac collaboration “The Goodness” and has been featured on albums from Chris Tomlin and Lee Brice. He’s also co-written songs with Dallas Davidson, Breland, Tyler Hubbard and Corey Crowder, among others. Offor’s own “Brighter Days,” the title track from his February 2022 EP, peaked at No. 2 on Christian Airplay.
On Friday, the Nigerian-born, Connecticut-raised artist will release his new full-length set, My Tribe, on Bowyer & Bow/Capitol CMG.
Offor, who co-wrote 14 of My Tribe’s 16 tracks, begins the album with a spoken-word intro that thanks his family still living in Nigeria for their support. Later in the album, he includes “What a World (Akwa Uwa),” which incorporates a song he learned as a child.
“Towards the end of the album-making process, we had all the tracks done, but it felt like something was missing,” Offor says. “What was missing was a little fingerprint of Nigeria, of my own journey. When I said I wanted to put that on my record, my team was very supportive, though I think we joked about how hard it would be to find whoever owns publishing on a song recorded in Nigeria in the ‘70s.”
Offor was surprised by the success of “Brighter Days,” which he also includes on his new full-length project.
“We didn’t send ‘Brighter Days’ to radio thinking we have a massive song on our hands, because it doesn’t even say ‘Jesus,’” Offor says. “In this industry, it’s easier to market things that are crystal clear, I guess. I’ve gotten many a Facebook message, Instagram message from people asking, ‘How dare you call yourself a Christian artist? You didn’t say “Jesus” one time in this song.’ It’s been super interesting. I’m a theological nerd, so could I argue about it? Yes. But is it worth it? No, probably not. But because it didn’t fit neatly in one particular box, it’s gotten to a lot of places in the world where most songs that fit so tightly into that box probably don’t get.”
Alongside uptempo, retro-pop bops like “Feel Good” and “My Tribe” are soulful piano ballads like “Grace” and “Won’t Be Long Now,” which Offor calls “a mantra.”
“I love songs like that, that massive groups can sing, songs that we need to get through specific moments — songs like, ‘Don’t Worry, Be Happy,’” he says of “Won’t Be Long Now,” which he wrote with Hank Bentley and Jessie Early. “During the ‘60s, in the Civil Rights movement, people would say, ‘How long?’ and the answer was ‘Not long.’ That didn’t mean literally two seconds from right now, but the fact that the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice. The song is just a mantra to hold on through whatever someone might be going through.”
A Journey From Nigeria to Nashville
The album is filled with a blend of pop and soul and a constant uplifting message flowing throughout it — a testament to his own hard-fought journey.
Offor, who is legally blind, immigrated to the United States from Nigeria at age 6. He was born with glaucoma resulting in almost complete blindness in his left eye. and his parents sent him to live with his uncle in America to receive treatment. Then at age 11, a water gun accident damaged his retina, taking the sight from his right eye.
Growing up in Connecticut, Offor, the youngest of six siblings, listened to a range of music, including pop, Motown and jazz, and began playing piano at age 9. Still, he says it took commitment and passion to stick with his unconventional career path in music, especially when his family expected him to take a more professional path.
“For me, to be a singer-songwriter was not cool, you know? My uncle has a law firm and for me, going to law school would have been a glide path and then I could be a lawyer and that would really be the immigrant dream there,” he says. “Nobody would have been mad if I quit to do some white-collar career, but I didn’t give myself permission to quit.”
He attended Nashville’s Belmont University and then spent five years in New York’s eclectic music scene around 2011, “just writing music and meeting people, working with the Snarky Puppy guys before they became Snarky Puppy,” he says. He made his way to Los Angeles and was briefly a contestant on The Voice, before returning to Nashville in 2015, where he continued to showcase for labels and write songs.
After writing a song titled “Tin Roof” with Natalie Hemby, Offor saw the song recorded by a few artists and hoped it would lead to a publishing deal. The song did more than that — soon after, CCM luminary Chris Tomlin heard the song and recorded it for his 2020 Chris Tomlin & Friends album, featuring Offor’s vocals on the recording. Offor also signed a recording deal with CCM luminary Chris Tomlin’s Bowyer & Bow imprint, in partnership with Universal’s Capitol Christian Music Group.
“After the song came out, there was the conversation of a longer-term relationship with Chris and Capitol CMG. I said, ‘You know being a worship leader is not my goal, per se. I’m a Christian who is an artist, but I always write music my own way.’ Chris said, ‘All you have to do is be yourself,’ and I said, ‘Well, I can do that.’ [Capitol CMG co-president] Brad O’Donnell and all the guys at Capitol felt there can be a place for my music in the faith market, but also in the faith-adjacent markets and mainstream markets. And so far, it’s been as good as it sounded from the beginning, which is a really rare thing.”
For Offor, finding his label home meant heeding the advice he was once given by a Nashville music executive.
“It’s funny because I would do showcases in Los Angeles and they would be like, ‘Cool, you can be the next John Legend.’ But John Legend’s still doing his thing; we don’t need a next John Legend. I’d showcase for country labels and it’s like, ‘OK, we can do a soul-country thing,’ so there was always this idea of doing a hybrid.” Former Universal Music exec Joe Fisher gave advice that resonated with Offor: “He gave me the example of Chris Stapleton — when he first came to town, he was too soulful for country and too blues for soul. Joe said, ‘You want to get a deal where people are comfortable letting you find who you are. It might take a minute, but once you build your own genre, no one can kick you out of it.’”
Although the 2023 edition of the Coachella Valley Music & Arts Festival is still a few months away, kicking off on Apr. 14 in Indio, Calif., we should know which artists will be headed to the desert this year imminently. The Coachella lineup is typically unveiled in early-to-mid January, which means it’s just about time to submit final guesses for the artists who’ll headline this year’s edition of the three-day festival.
Which superstars will top the 2023 lineup? After Coachella boasted Harry Styles, Billie Eilish and a combo of Swedish House Mafia and The Weeknd as headliners last year — their first year holding the fest this decade, after having to cancel both the 2020 and 2021 incarnations due to pandemic-related concerns — speculation for who’ll follow in their footsteps has reached a fever pitch on social media.
Some artists who have the star power of a Coachella headliner are out of the running for this year, due simply to logistics: Taylor Swift and Paramore, for instance, both have tour dates on their respective 2023 itineraries that conflict with the Coachella dates, and are thus not viewed as potential performers. And a couple of these predictions may be a little far-fetched, since some have not announced themselves as active in 2023. That’s why we’ve separated these guesses into categories, from strong possibilities to pie-in-the-sky wishes. Once the full lineup drops, we’ll see how close we came to calling our shot.
Here are our best educated guesses as to who will lead the Coachella 2023 bill:
Love was an overriding theme in R&B in 2022 — and given what people have been enduring over the last several years, between the pandemic, incessant social and political issues as well as economic uncertainty, it’s not surprising. The various iterations of the emotion were rhythmically and lyrically dissected: from new love, spiritual love, toxic love and love lost to, above all, self-love.
Established and emerging stars alike embraced the oftentimes complicated subject in refreshing and illuminating ways. Songwriter Muni Long staked her claim to a solo career with “Hrs and Hrs,” her sensuous, no-time-limit take on lovemaking. On the other side of the clock — against an infectious two-step track — The Weeknd grappled with being out of time when his lover calls quits on their relationship.
Beyoncé took fans on a liberating course to self-love via the anthem “Break My Soul,” then extolled the exhilarating feeling of falling in love and enjoying life with abandon on “Cuff It.” Rihanna, also marking her long-anticipated musical return, addressed the spiritual power of enduring love on “Lift Me Up.”
Here are R&B’s most memorable songs of 2022:
Over the course of Ab-Soul’s sprawling 12-year career, the California rapper has examined numerous theologies in his quest for what he calls “the truth, if there is such.” The “Black Lipped Pastor,” as his devout followers call him, has long served as a beacon of hope for those unfulfilled with mainstream America, and it all started with his sophomore album, 2012’s Control System.
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With its intriguing mix of bravado and philosophical parables, the album has remained so beloved among alternative rap fans that at this point it’s practically scripture for Soul’s supporters. Control System took on an identity of its own; so did Ab-Soul, who leaned further into the murky waters of conspiracy with his subsequent releases, 2014’s These Days… and 2016’s Do What Thou Wilt. The latter being so bogged down in far-flung teachings that it was hard to pinpoint where one thought ended and another began.
Then, Soulo seemed to vanish. One year off turned into six, as he disappeared down what he called a conspiracy theory “rabbit hole” that ultimately separated him from his family and friends. The immense popularity of Control System was partially to blame.
“I’ve been trying to beat Control System, and I think that’s a big part of the reason why the [new] album is called Herbert – it’s about getting back to self,” the rapper born Herbert Anthony Stevens IV tells Billboard as he chews on a Starburst inside his New York hotel room. “I was riding with one of the big homies once and he said, ‘Man you’re always playing this character like you’re Batman or something. You’re from the hood bro. Why can’t you just talk about some of that sh-t?’”
Herbert, which released on Friday (Dec. 16), is by far the most personal project Soul has ever made. Throughout the album’s 18 tracks, Soul ruminates on his family, a past suicide attempt, as well as the state of rap and his place in it. As a rapper known for having answers, he spends the majority of Herbert asking a lot of questions – on “Moonstruck,” he plainly raps, “I don’t know what to think.”
As his search for a definitive truth morphed into an addiction, Soul says that he had to come to a place of acceptance surrounding the unknown. To do this, he offered himself up as more of “an instrument” for others. DJ Premier, Sounwave, James Blake, DJ Dahi, Hit-Boy and Boi-1da all flooded him with beats, and he asked his close friends and family for help in constructing the record. He allowed the people he loved to be the foundation for what Herbert would ultimately become.
“I was asking my guys, ‘What do you want to hear me on?’ I was challenging myself in that regard,” Soul says. The process not only birthed some of Soul’s best music in a decade, it helped him let go of the steering wheel, and not get so caught up in the “absolute truth” idea.
“Look, I’m in God’s hands now. God is good all the time,” Soul says. “I’ m just keeping it like that. I’m keeping the faith.”
When I was listening back to Do What Thou Wilt versus Herbert, the first thing that struck me was how transparent and clear your songwriting has become. How did your approach to songwriting change with this album?
For me, it’s more difficult to be simple than it is to be complex. It was challenging to simplify, and I wanted it to be an easy listen, because my last album in particular was very dense and very dark also. I almost even confused myself with that one. That wasn’t an album that was an algorithm. So this time around I just wanted it to feel good first, and I just wanted to be an instrument versus have it be about what I’m saying.
At what point did Herbert and those ideas really start to come together?
So I took a year and a half off from my last album, and I went in saying, “I’m not gonna have a concept this time, I’m just gonna be pure, be open and just try to speak from within.” It was fuzzy at first, to be vulnerable, organic, but I tell everybody that once I made “Fallacy,” I felt like I was on the verge of something and that I had a direction.
“Moonshooter” also feels like a pivotal moment on the album, because you seem to come clean and say “I don’t know what to think.” This unease feels like uncharted territory for Ab-Soul. When did that start to creep in, and have you been able to come to a place of acceptance around it?
I honestly feel like it’s liberating. “A wise man knows he knows nothing.” But anyways, I found myself becoming a critic of the new artists coming in. So I kind of came to this place of, “I ain’t got no gavel, who am I to judge?” Plus just being older now, we got a lot of new young artists that are amazingly talented and skilled and are bringing new flavor to the table. It’s inspirational. I really love Kembe X, and Doechii, Reason, to name a few. Those are my guys.
Was there a moment in particular where you caught yourself being a critic?
There was literally a moment with Lil Uzi Vert early, early on. He said something about passing on a Preemo beat. I think Preemo wanted to work with him or something, and I felt a need to speak up. I obviously cleared the air with him, but that was a moment where I was like: “Hold on. He has his own sound. Who am I to speak up on any young man out there trying to make something of himself?”
Jackson Pollack was just throwing paint and he was f–king Jackson Pollack. Some thought that was ridiculous. Others thought it was genius. Like, who am I? Let me just focus and make sure I’m creating the best product I can create.
Interestingly enough, you ended up working with Preemo on “Gotta Rap.”
That was a dream come true. I always wanted that and he made me work for it. I had to do it about five or six times before he felt the frequency. I respect his craft and what he’s brought to the culture. It was an honor. Even before Ab-Soul was my name I wanted a Preemo beat. It was a milestone.
On that note, we have to talk about “Do Better.” What do you hope that record will do for the legacy of Ab-Soul?
That’s one of the most organic songs I’ve ever made. Sounwave brought me the record and I immediately was drawn to it. Like I said I was just taking production, and I wanted it to motivate. I want us to try to be better at all things. To be your best self, and that was me talking to myself. I was trying to motivate me to be better. It was a conversation with myself.
Another record that stuck out to me in that regard was “Be Like That.” The song feels like you’re experiencing rock bottom, but also seeing the light simultaneously.
Absolutely. “When it feels like hell, heaven’s around the corner.” That was the hardest record to make, and it’s so important because that’s probably the most simplified [I’ve been]. I was like, “I don’t want no metaphors in this. I don’t want no punchline. Not one simile, I just want to speak,” and that was so hard for me to do. I don’t believe in forcing anything either, so I had to get into the spirit of it.
You’ve been working extensively with Jhené Aiko for years now. Tell me about the creative dynamic you two share and what you feel she brings to your music.
I saw one time somebody asked her if she was a rapper who she’d be and she said Ab-Soul. Jhené was with us in the trenches, in the beginning. She was with us early. A beautiful voice, beautiful writer, beautiful spirit and we just clicked. Also, you know she’s a Pisces, and we have that Pisces thing. Our collaborations are so effortless.
What your relationship is to the “Black-Lipped Pastor” nickname at this point in your career?
I’m still the Pastor! I feel like it’s more suitable now and that it’s tailor-made for me. It was a little baggier back then, but I feel like I’ve grown into it now. At the time I got that nickname I was heavy into theology and getting into the root of things, and it came from asking questions and trying to get to the truth, if there is such.
Tell me more about how being labeled the “third eye guy” impacted you.
Like I said I’m trying to climb out of the rabbit hole man. Let’s stay here. Let’s stay in this realm. Let’s stay on the ground. I was focusing on the unknown and the conspiracy and listen: Learn all you can while you’re here. Knowledge is power, but stay on the ground. Stay here. I felt myself becoming disconnected from my close friends and family in a sense. My way of thinking started to become extra terrestrial. The big homies are just trying to party.
Do you still consider yourself the “Third Eye Guy?”
I’ll always be the third eye guy, and I still believe those things but now it’s a faith. You heard my thoughts on them. I’m not trying to shove these theories down your throat. Once I felt the disconnect between the people that mattered to me most, the people that I trust the most, when I started feeling a disconnect between that and my relationships, I realized something is obviously wrong with me.
You gotta keep your foundation, man. I’m big on family and love and those things. I just started to feel like I was isolating myself. I didn’t wanna hang out as much because I wasn’t interested in what was going on. They’re like, “Yo bro, where you at? Pop out!” And I was, you know, staying inside.
How has Herbert helped your process of climbing out from that rabbit hole?
Oh, I’m back outside, baby! Listen man, I live in the now. I’m living right now. I’m in the now heavy.
As a professor, Method Man isn’t calling attendance, he doesn’t care who shows up late, and he damn sure isn’t going through bullet points on a syllabus. Wearing glasses, a baby blue Versace t-shirt and a navy baseball cap with the rim to the back, Meth is sitting down, carefully but effortlessly rolling a blunt as he prepares to address the student body.
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No, this isn’t some scene from How High. This is real life, and Method Man is the instructor tonight on a class held via Zoom called “Rhymecology.”
“The anxiety in the studio bruh, because Doc is incredible,” Meth says, giving props to his How High co-star and longtime friend Redman, when questioned by a student about collaborating. “I give credit where credit is due. That dude, he is music… The reason I said ‘anxiety’ is because you want to be at your best…. This n—a is going in the booth spitting straight ether every f—in’ day. And you gotta keep up, son. Even outside the studio, onstage. He helped my creative process so much. Big bruh molded me into the MC I am today.”
Throughout the night, Meth shares revelations, advice, tutelage and insights on everything from the genius of rap battle MCs (“The most brilliant rappers in the world — these muthaf—-s is driving the culture right now”), to being “miserable” for eight straight years making music, to constructing hooks, to his goal for his legendary hip-hop family, Wu-Tang Clan. And that is the Wu making it into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
“I want that for my crew,” Meth declares. “We have a very strong stake in that.”
Rhymecology, dedicated to the mental health aspect in hip-hop, is just one of the courses laid out as part of the curriculum at the virtual school, Pendulum Ink Academy. At Pen Ink, one of the prime goals is “nurturing creativity through lyricism.”
Pendulum was conceived, developed and co-cultivated by Bronx wordsmith Mickey Factz, who ascended in rap during the rise of the blog era in the mid 2000s. He quickly became adept at multimedia marketing skills (Mickey’s marketing firm and indie label GFC New York had Nipsey Hussle on their roster of clients looking for help with branding), and showcased his wordplay through his freestyles, mixtapes and song collaborations, which helped him landed on the cover of XXL’s coveted Freshman Issue in 2009.
Along with his cover stars Wale, Kid Cudi, and Curren$y, Mickey was tapped to be a leader of the new school. Fast forward to 2019: Mickey was 10 years removed from being up next, and contemplating what was going to be next in his life.
“It was an epiphany moment,” Factz, sitting in his Atlanta high rise office, recalls. After a decade in the game, he felt he has reached his ceiling. “I was like, ‘I kind of feel like this a dead-end job for me right now. I’m working album to album. This doesn’t make sense to me. What am I gonna do when it’s time to retire?’ I started thinking about retirement a lot. So I was like, ‘You know what? I need to retire into teaching.’”
Mickey began researching how he could actually teach without a degree, and came to the conclusion that, sans the credentials, it was almost impossible. The rapper (born Mark Williams) had attended NYU and was a paralegal at a law firm before dropping out of school and quitting his job to focus solely on his rap career in 2007. Even if he had graduated NYU and became a lawyer like he was tracking to do, Mickey says there weren’t too many schools willing to make hip-hop an actual course in 2019 anyway.
Then the pandemic hit, and while so many of us were sequestered at home, Mickey locked his focus on MasterClass. Hip-hop icons such as Nas and Timbaland were lecturing virtually for a fee. Factz felt he found his pathway to rap retirement.
“I DMed them, ‘Yo, I would love to work with you guys,’” Factz recalls. “They hit me back a couple hours later like, ‘Yo man, don’t call us. We’ll call you.’ That was January 2021.
“I’m from the Bronx, man,” Mickey continues with a light chuckle, before revealing his found extra motivation in the wake of MasterClass’ rejection. “I said, ‘Aight. I’m gonna make my own MasterClass.’”
On Dec. 1, 2021, Mickey lectured an online class of 10 people — he was hired for $250 to speak for an hour. Factz realized that not only could he teach students, but he knew his dream could grow. “You can’t do a MasterClass of hip-hop in one class,” he explained. “It’s impossible in terms of writing.”
Factz reached out to his friend, battle rapper Chilla Jones, for help. Jones began to contact some of his associates, and soon a five-man team was formed. Together they came up with an eight-month curriculum, and Pendulum Ink Academy was created.
Along with the core brain trust of the Academy (all of whom teach classes), Pendulum boasts certified college professors on their staff, and courses like Rap Theory, where the students learn cadence and how to rhyme on beat. Rap Theory is taught by jazz musician Comikbook Cam. Meanwhile, Chilla teaches Advanced Technique: Pendulum Ink has 35 rap techniques copyrighted, and put names to skills that MCs have been displaying their entire careers.
“Some of these courses were rejected at universities,” Factz says. “Criminology in Hip-Hop was rejected by three universities. So I said to our professor Ahmariah Jackson, ’Listen, come here. I’ll pay you. Teach it once a month.’”
Pendum Ink launched last February, and Factz recalls not knowing exactly what to expect. “February 24th, we had our first person sign up,” he says. “They paid the full tuition, $2,000. Then every day after the 24th, for about 45 days, people were paying. I was like, ‘Alright, we got something here.’ And mind you, this is the beta [stage], just six courses: Rap Theory, Advanced Rap Techniques, Rhymecology, Mickey Money Class, Battle Rap, Content Creation Class.”
Soon after, Mickey signed up some of his close friends and peers to be guest teachers for these classes. “I told them I had a school and then I walked them through it, and then I asked them if they want to teach or give a lecture,” he remembers. “They said ‘Yes.’ I said, ‘Good, because I pay.’ I find it easier for them to do this than to do a record.”
Phonte from Little Brother, Masta Ace and Cory Gunz were all among his first phone calls. Fittingly, Inspectah Deck was Pendulum’s very first guest lecturer: Wu-Tang Clan’s Enter The Wu-Tang (36 Chambers) was the first album Mickey bought with his own money as a kid. “Its essential to bring back the art form, and Pendulum Ink does that,” Deck says.
“It’s a gift to receive instruction from a living legend,” says Pendulum student, Al Billups. He signed up and participated in the recent Rhymecology class with Method Man. “The opportunity to peel back the layers of a composition with the actual creator is a treat for any fan of the culture. Participating in a Pendulum Ink session exposed me to an incredible instructional ecosystem that is designed to help MC’s gain a better understanding around the nuances of lyricism.”
Pendulum Ink’s graduation is set for February 26, 2023; Bun B is confirmed as commencement speaker. Veteran hip-hop journalist Sway has also been tapped to participate in the ceremony along with Big K.R.I.T., Stalley and Skyzoo.
Pendulum Ink also just started a nonprofit organization called Pen Pals, where kids from 7 to 17 can learn how to MC. Pen Pals will also serve as space for known MCs to learn how to teach. Factz says his hope is that some of those MCs could be professors at universities one day.
“I want them to have a crash course in our lexicon,” he notes. “You can do it your own way, but structure is very important.”
One of Pen Ink’s students has been hired at Fredrick Pilot Middle School in Boston, and is teaching some of the Academy’s programs to kids ranging from 11 to 14 years old. Meanwhile, Factz himself has accepted an offer to teach at the University of Hawaii, and will teach one month at a time for the whole of March, July and November.
Pendulum Ink has also delved into the actual ink game with their very own textbook coming next year, featuring a foreword written by Big Daddy Kane. The roster of new professors coming to teach in year two of the academy is shaping up to be impressive: Big Boi, Pharoahe Monch, Rah Digga, K.R.I.T., Lord Finesse, AZ and DMC are all locked in to give lectures, while Black Thought has agreed to be the 2024 commencement speaker at the graduation.
“Ten years from now, I’ll be 50,” says Factz, “and God willing, I’ll have three [physical] schools across the country. I’ll have one in the Bronx by 2027, then one here in Atlanta and one in L.A.” The former Freshman still performs shows and puts out his music independently, but says, “I want to have schools for hip-hop and lyricism. I want to be able to create jobs and opportunities for younger students and older people to be able to make money from. It’s important that the culture remains within with us. Because let me tell you something, if I didn’t do this, somebody else not of the culture would’ve done it.”
When two of the most singular voices in music history first came together 15 years ago, it’s not surprising that alchemized harmonies and pure, uncut vibe came as a result. Upon melding their vocals on the 2007 collaborative album Raising Sand, Robert Plant and Alison Krauss translated traditional Americana into mainstream consciousness by force of personality, expanding on Krauss’ extensive repertoire within the genre and furthering the work in the sound for Plant, whose own predilection for Americana had been a benchmark of popular music since he first lamented, “I can’t quit you baby,” 53 years ago on Led Zeppelin‘s cover of Willie Dixon’s Delta blues scorcher.
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But in a testament to Krauss and Plant’s respective popularity, as well as the delicate yet tantalizing sound they’d created, Raising Sand transcended well beyond fans of folk, bluegrass and blues, becoming a sort of blazing anomoly across popular music at large. The LP hit No. 2 on the Billboard 200 (where it spent 72 weeks), secured the pair a headlining spot at Bonnaroo, and earned them the 2009 Grammy for album of the year. “In the old days, we would have called this selling out,” Plant said in his acceptance speech, “but it’s a good way to spend a Sunday.”
Then the project went dark, disappearing in a puff of smoke as quickly as it had arrived, as Krauss returned to her longtime band Union Station and Plant worked in the studio and on the road as a solo act and with his own outfits, Band Of Joy and Sensational Shapeshifters. But just like the many listeners who considered Raising Sand a new classic, Krauss and Planet were aware the project was special, with considerations of a reunion occupying their minds during the long hiatus.
“I really wanted to get back to it. I love it,” Plant, 74, tells Billboard, calling from the United Kingdom, where he can be heard puttering around his house during what is there late afternoon.
“Harmony singing is my favorite thing to do,” Krauss, 51, dialing in from mid-morning Nashville, adds of what she and Plant do so especially well together.
So get back to it they did, with the stars realigning last year year for Raise The Roof, another collection of covers by acts as disparate as Calexico, Allen Toussaint and The Everly Brothers, all rendered in a twangy, incandescent style built around the union of Krauss and Plant’s voices. The album — which, like its predecessor, was produced by T Bone Burnett — debuted at No. 1 on the Top Rock Albums, Americana/Folk Albums and Bluegrass Albums charts, and at No. 7 on the Billboard 200. This past summer, an attendant tour included a main stage show at Glastonbury and a performance in London’s Hyde Park (“Basically we were just passing time until the Eagles came on stage,” Plant says of that opening gig), along with three dozen other dates in the U.S. and Europe.
And now, as a surprise to precisely no one, Raise The Roof has garnered some Grammy nominations — three total, for best country duo/group performance (for “Going Where The Lonely Go”), best American roots song (for “High And Lonesome”) and best Americana album. The nods add to Krauss’ mythology as the second-most-awarded woman in Grammys history (after Beyoncé) with 27 wins and 45 nominations. Meanwhile, Plant has eight wins and 18 nominations, the first of which came in 1969 when Zeppelin was up for best new artist. (They lost to Crosby, Stills and Nash.)
“The very fact that it’s has been recognized that we’ve had a good time,” Plant says of this latest round of nominations, “is more than I could imagine.”
Plant: Hello. Good afternoon.
Krauss : Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa!
Plant: Hello Alison! How are ya?
Krauss: Hey, I’m fine! How are you doing?
Plant: Okay, I think we may actually be getting into a place now here on the Welsh borders where it’s starting to get chilly. We had the longest, longest, longest beginning of an autumn, but it’s beautiful. The weather’s good. Things are good. I’m looking forward to going to have a look at this little puppy dog next week, and I’m actually living a normal life, finally.
Krauss: Wow.
Plant: I hate it.
I’m curious about this puppy!
Plant: Well, you know, when I was a kid, my mom was allergic to dog hair and stuff. We never had a fluffy pet or anything like that. So over the last so many years, I’ve always prized these beautiful running dogs. They’re a combination of Greyhound and a terrier.
And the traveling folk, the gypsies and the travelers — you always see them with them; they’re just really beautiful — they’re this kind of dog you see on all those medieval paintings and stuff. There’s always somebody standing behind the blinds with a beautiful animal.
I lost my best dog after 14 years about two or three months ago, and I said I would never have another dog, but life without a dog is difficult for me. But it’s got nothing to do with “Stairway To Heaven,” thank god!
I mean, if you don’t see a connection, there isn’t one.
Plant: No, there isn’t one there. I just had to stop talking about dogs.
Okay, let’s talk about your album then. November 19 marked the year anniversary of the release of Raise The Roof. I’m curious if your relationship to the music changed in any way over the last year, particularly as you’ve been touring it.
Plant: I think that Alison and I became — I mean, we’re partners in every sense, professionally. And we’ve shared every single element and every single part of the creation of the record from the get-go, from the song selections to creating the atmosphere, and we take it into the studio together; we use it when we’re coming up with artwork. I think we’ve just grown a lot tighter and a lot closer, and we share a lot of lighthearted humor, but at the same time I think we’re pretty, professional about how good we want it to be. Would you say so, Alison?
Krauss: I don’t think that there’s a different relationship to it. I mean, you’re always looking for things that speak to you in a truthful way, whether you’re telling someone else’s story, or you’re relaying a message or telling your own story. I don’t think that that’s changed. The fun thing was to pick this up again — like, to have something be so fun and be a total surprise, then get to come back and and get to do it again. To me, when we went back in the studio together, it was like no time had gone by, especially with T Bone. It was a lot of fun. We had some new faces in there, but the energy was very generous, which it always was. So I don’t know if there’s a different relationship to it, just happy to revisit.
Plant: We had no idea how it was going to pan out, and going back together after such a long time was, well — there was a lot riding on it. Were we still able and amenable to exchanging ideas? With material and song choices, a lot runs on how we can perform within these old songs. So yeah, it was interesting to get the ball rolling again and to blow away the cobwebs. But as I said, in that kind of oblique answer, we grew closer, if you like. We were able to take the actual songs and embellish them and develop them for a live show, which made them, I think, quite tantalizing, and there was another energy to them as well.
I saw you guys in Chicago this past June, and it seemed like the vibe onstage was often mellow, and sometimes almost contemplative. What does it feel like to perform these songs live? What mood are you in?
Plant: Well, contemplative, I don’t think so — I think it’s just the nature of the song. You weave in and out of the original form of the music as you heard it, even before you recorded it. The songs have a personality. I just think that we’re very adaptable — we just go into character and we just sing the best that we can within those character settings.
Krauss: I also think this wouldn’t be appealing to us if it wasn’t natural. So I don’t feel like there’s any headspace we have to get into. It just kind of fell into place. It was a natural friendship, and it just translated — we both have a love of history and traditional music, and all the people in the band are the same kind of historians. So it was a natural thing. It didn’t feel like we had to pump ourselves up for it, if that makes sense.
Plant: No, exactly. And I think there’s a kind of melding, a kind of a great coming together on stage, especially with the way the musicians have developed the songs with us. It’s quite a liberation. We’ve been through quite a bit in the last 12 months, with working through the United States and then into Europe. We became real rolling musicians. It was something to behold, because the group personality got more and more, I suppose, charming. And also there was sort of a little bit of a warrior feel, going from country to country to country, through Scandinavia and down into Western Europe and across even into Poland. I do believe we grew more and more into the gig.
Were you able to do things at the end of the tour that weren’t happening in the beginning?
Plant: Sure, yeah. You find a groove that works, and it’s genuine.
How do you maintain the stamina required for such a massive and far-flung tour?
Plant: I think it’s just the will, isn’t it? To want to do it.
Krauss: It helps to be fun!
Plant: Yeah. We do laugh a lot. I mean, it’s not a competitive thing. It’s just such a magnificent and unexpected surprise, to be able to be from such different worlds initially and find that we have our own world. We’ve got our own place.
I read a relatively recent article that described you two as an “odd couple,” and didn’t feel like that description was entirely accurate. How do you feel like you two fit together at this point, after this long collaboration?
Plant: I just think that we’re really, really firm friends. And we confer and listen to each other when we have options. It’s really good, because we don’t tangle. Obviously life off the road is — we’re so far away from each other that these moments of hanging out or telephone conversations, or we’ll be coming back to Nashville in April — all those sort of things is all stuff to look forward to. So we’re never around each other long enough to get tired of anything. It’s just a growing condition, really.
Krauss: Yeah, I mean, it’s a really nice cast of characters in that band, and we enjoy them, and it’s a pleasure. We were happy to get to do it and happy to be going back. It’s something we talked about putting back together for years. It was a really nice idea, and sometimes those things are just a nice idea, but this one [did some back together]. I just feel really grateful. It was a surprise, from start to finish.
Why was last year the right time to come back to the project, after releasing your first album together in 2007?
Plant: I’m not in control of my own time, I just find the momentum in a project and go with it. There’s only a particular lifespan from record to record. In the old days, that was how it worked — if you’re really buying into this as a life, which we are — then as it used to be that there was a cycle of events where you would write or create a record, and you’d follow it through with the usual rigmarole of touring and stuff like that. It always used to be something like a three-and-a-half or four-year thing, from start to finish.
So when we left Raising Sand and said a tearful farewell, we went on to do other projects. And if I’d finish something and I was really looking forward to doing something fresh, maybe Alison was in the middle of one of her projects, and that’s how it was. It was no negotiation except for with the calendar and with time. I also had been on the road a lot with with my friends Sensational Spaceshifters, and this [project with Alison] was just promising to be — offering to be — a totally different experience, or a different feel. I really wanted to get back to it. I love it.
And every night when we sing, two or three of the songs where Alison takes the lead, I always find it such an adventure to join and contribute to her personality as a lead singer. I love that. I didn’t have that for several years. So once the opportunity arose, and we were both free and ready — and free to fail actually, I think would be the term — it’s quite tenuous really to go back in after such a long time, but it worked. These are different days as far as the music biz is concerned, but they’re not different days for us. We’ve got it down, and we know what we’re doing, and we like it.
Krauss: Harmony singing is my favorite thing to do. And he is a…
Plant: Steady. Be careful.
Krauss: [laughs] He always changes in those tunes, night to night, and it keeps me on my toes. I was listening to a show we did in Red Rocks, and the differences and changes in the tunes night to night — the show sounds so good, Robert. It’s just fun, because they really evolve, and it’s a much different environment than what I grew up doing, which is very regimented harmony singing where the whole gig is perfecting it. Like, you don’t go to prom because you’re working on your harmony. This is just a totally different animal, and I just love the way the tunes have changed, even throughout this past summer.
Plant: And all I did was go to prom. I still am! Life could be a dream sh-boom! That’s what happened to me. When I used to open the show for people, you know, stars in the early and mid-60s, I used to go, “Wow, this is so exotic. It’s just amazing.” When those big old stage lights came on in the proscenium arch theater, my whole heart leapt. I couldn’t wait to get to the next place to see somebody else do the same thing. And so I didn’t study anything, except for trying to be as good as Terry Reid, or Steve Marriott, or Steve Winwood, or so many people who are extraordinary singers.
Krauss: One big prom! [laughs]
Plant: But I think that’s part of the really big thing about you and I, Alison, is that we’ve leapt into each other, and it’s given me a great departure from finding myself typecast and in being challenged, which, despite its changes from time to time within the shows, just makes for a really good ride, I think.
Krauss: It’s never dull. [laughs]
Plant: I could be sort of far too serious about myself and sit in my dressing room with a star on the door, but that’s not why I do this. I do this because I only work with people who’ve got a big heart, and this is it. So it’s never dull. But if it’s dull, I’m not sticking around anyway.
You both have many previous Grammy wins and nominations. Do these awards matter to you? Does getting nominated enhance the project itself or make it more meaningful in any way?
Plant: I’ll leave that to you, Alison.
Krauss: I just think it’s always unexpected. You don’t figure it’s going to happen, that you get nominated. Like I always say, every record you make is like the only one you’re going to.
Plant: Yeah.
Krauss: And so it’s really nice to get that acknowledgement that people have heard it and like it. It’s always a relief.
Plant: And also the idea of us being considered to be a country duet is fascinating. The thing is, a nomination is a nomination — the very fact that it’s been recognized that we’ve had a good time is more than I could imagine. I didn’t get many Grammys… so to be nominated as a country duet is out of my normal radar. It’s great. I love it, and I also know that we did a pretty good job. I learned a lot, and continue to learn, which is what I want to do. I do think that’s pretty cool.
In 2009, Raising Sand won the Grammy for album of the year. Nominated in that category this year are artists like Lizzo, Beyoncé, Coldplay. Do you feel connected to those kinds of acts, or are you more at home in the country category? What’s your relationship to mainstream pop stars?
Plant: Not a lot. [laughs] It’s different worlds, isn’t it? That’s all it is. It’s just like, do you like this, or do you only appreciate stuff that come out of the Mississippi Delta or New Orleans? We’re all musicians; we all do what we do. You have to appreciate everything from where it stands in its own world.
Is there any chance of a third album from you two?
Plant: I can’t see any reason why not. I suppose if we wait another 14 years it could be a bit dicey for me, to be honest. I might find it a little bit difficult hitting a top C. But we can say it really works well, and we enjoy each other and that’s a great thing — so it seems like a great idea.
In a fun game of “What’s Floating Inside?” Tampa rapper, Doechii’s skills and knowledge are put to the test to answer as many random questions about fashion, music and all in between in under :60 seconds. Watch it here, brought to you by Billboard and Honda.
When Jaylah Hickmon cultivated the moniker “Doechii,” it was formed as a way to protect her from adolescent bullying. Doechii would represent a fearless, bold, and all-around unapologetic version of the explorative sixth grader. It wasn’t like Jayla didn’t exist anymore, nor would Doechii be an alter ego, the artist clarified. Over time, the two simply became one. So, when Hickmon started middle school after the summer break, everyone was to call her Doechii – and it stuck ever since.
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Tapping into her creativity and entrepreneurial spirit, Doechii’s self-made empire started before she found success in rap. In 2016, the passionate visionary launched her clothing line: “Stay Woke, Stay Black.” The brand, described as “a movement promoting racial equity and implementing societal enlightenment,” was a labor of love for the budding activist, who used it as a platform to marry her passion for expressiveness with a social cause important to her. In a YouTube video announcing the release of the collection, a young Doechii lights up with joy describing the threads and their homage to the diverse black community that lay at the heart of the brand. Although her time as a fashion designer wasn’t long, through the trials and tribulations of a small black-owned business, the soon-to-be wordsmith learned the importance of market research, quality control, and product improvement. These hard skills seamlessly translated into her current rising musical career.
“I can’t remember when I decided [to pursue music], but I just knew that I was supposed to be doing this and performing,” she explains. “And when that [the hoodie business] failed, and I had no money, I was like, ‘well, I’m going to make music, and that’s going to be what it is.’”
Before the world got to know Doechii’s artistry, Hickmon was figuring out who she was. Her three integral anchors were her mother, Celesia, Howard W. Blake High School, and her home city of Tampa, Florida.
Growing up in a single-parent household had its pitfalls. Money was tight. Still, Doechii’s mother wouldn’t let financial struggles stop her from fostering her daughter’s creativity. “She spent her last dime on anything I wanted to do and try. She would support me, and I saw her watch me quit so many different things and still support me,” the rapper reflects, knowing now the seeds of her mother’s love would become fruitful.
Fast-forward to 2021, Hickmon was fortunate enough to help relocate her mother from Tampa to Los Angeles, bringing her closer to the magic. And even though her mother spent years being Doechii’s cheerleader on the sidelines, she did not grasp the full complexity of her daughter’s stardom. “Now that she’s moved here, she gets it, and she comes on set and is like, ‘Girl, this is a lot!’”
For Doechii, Howard W. Blake High School was a fortress of imagination, unlocking a world of endless creativity. The rising artist beams when proudly boasting about her alma mater and the various electives and majors the school offered, from nail design to hair and stage production. Doechii always gravitated towards being on stage–taking jazz, musical theater, and vocal training classes to fill her academic schedule. Through this period of her life she developed artistic skills through friendly competition with classmates.
“Everything I know, I learned from Blake,” she explains, “[Blake] was my first exposure to real art and art ethics and what it means to be an artist.” Her fondness for the school is palpable, and she hasn’t been back to visit since graduating. When she speaks about her hypothetical return to the halls, she gleams, “I would probably cry if I went back, but it would be a good cry…I hope I make them proud.”
Undoubtedly, Tampa has left a mark on the emcee. There, she fueled her creativity by competing in talent shows, nurtured her experiences into vulnerable, relatable songwriting, produced her original songs, and even dabbled as a fashion entrepreneur. Over time, Doechii realized that she had ambitions beyond hometown success and left Tampa at 21-years-old to foster her music craft. “In my city in Tampa, there’s this mindset that holds many people back. I read that Florida is four to six years behind in fashion and music and everything because we’re at the bottom of the country.” Eager to learn the music industry and how to put on a show live – skills she found lacking back home, the young artist headed to New York with no solid plan but to be a student of the music game.
After touching down in the concrete jungle, her first order of business was a songwriter’s audition for The Voice – where she didn’t make the cut. Unable to pay for her flight back home, Doechii extends her New York adventure. This fateful turn of events would lead her to her introduction to the city’s underground music scene and ultimately down the road to success.
“I can’t remember his name, but I see his face when I close my eyes,” she recalls of her first East Coast supporter. “It’s this guy and his sister, and he introduced me to a lot of kids in the scene…and also Arty [Furtado].” Through these connections, she booked gigs and built up a budding fan base around her self-released single, “Spooky Coochie.”
Money was low and Doechii was juggling odd jobs and making music, so she couch surfed and, at times, leaned on her unemployment checks to pay for her craft. She was focused on music and refused to prepare a plan B. It was like eat or die, she jokes. “It had to work, and I was going to work. So, I wasn’t worried about it. ‘Oh I need to save for a rainy day. Like, no, it’s raining. You’re already hungry; you’re already poor. So you might as well invest in you and your music.” Her sacrifices and determination would prove to be worth it, and in the next few months, her dedication came to fruition.
Exploring and experimenting with her flow from a young age, Doechii would borrow beats from Youtube to create her first songs before connecting with producers and engineers. Of course, she jokes that this was before she realized it was unethical. Today, she considers her niche alternative hip-hop, pulling influences from Tampa’s trap/hip-hop/club music scene. Ridding herself from the stereotypical arches that define the genre, Doechii convicts, “if hip-hop is going right, I want to go left.”
In 2020, Doechii released All the Places You’ll Go EP. The five-track compilation is a medley of hip-hop, rap, pop, and R&B, and “Yucky Blucky Fruitcake” would become the most popular track. The raw and relatable lyrics about childhood identity exploration: fashion, sexuality, and finance, to name a few, quickly gained buzz on TikTok amongst the Gen Z demographic, who used the audio as a soundtrack for their physical transformation videos. Subsequently, Doechii’s cyber popularity spilled into the halls of record labels, and quickly after, the MC was on the industry’s radars.
After a series of uneventful meetings with labels that didn’t fit her mold, Doechii flew to Los Angeles to meet with Top Dawg Entertainment. “I didn’t want to sign with anybody but was praying for an all-black team in a black-owned business,” she explains. “So it was perfect. Many labels had reached out, but it was TDE for me.”
When thinking of the legacy brand and the immense pressure of being their latest big bet, she reflects, “I have to rap my ass off, and the goal is to do everything to make it easier for the next person. Like Dot, SZA, and Q, whether they know it or not, they made it easier for me. I want to do that same thing, push the limits of creativity even more, and continue to carry the legacy of TDE.”
Since her signing, the rapper has had a tremendous year.
Her TDE induction came with a feature on Isaiah Rashad’s “Wut U Sed,” later appearing alongside her labelmate during his Coachella set. Subsequently, she released “Crazy,” her superhero anthem, and “Persuasive,” a punchy club banger, both of which she performed on The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon in May.
“Persuasive” landed on former President Obama’s Summer 2021 Playlist. “I can’t imagine Obama just jamming my song,” she jokes. “I just don’t believe it, but if he really does – that’s crazy.”
Under her new home, she released her sophomore EP, She / Her/ Black B—h, in August 2022 – with labelmate SZA lending a melodic verse on to the remix of the already punchy “Persuasive.” When talking about the EP’s titular pronouns Doechii explains, “Some days it means something deep, and sometimes it’s just a joke – it’s funny to me. It was just a way of using humor to cope with the past slurs people used against me.”
“Stressed,” her latest buzzworthy release is a push-and-pull relationship with keeping her anxiety and vices at bay, backed by jazz notes and a myriad of percussive patterns. “[The song] is basically me divorcing all my bad habits,” says Doechii, “like alcohol abuse, drug abuse, and just like poor negative behaviors that I recently have quit, which is great.”
With a bright future ahead, Doechii is working hard on her debut studio album. While her audience is growing, the rising star hopes to continue honing in on the vulnerability of her songwriting. “I just feel like I’m making music for like one person, and I’m just meant to be myself so they can feel like it’s easier to be themselves.”