State Champ Radio Hip-Hop
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It was a blockbuster year for hip-hop in 2022, as we witnessed a handful of returns — led by pgLang commando Kendrick Lamar. After a five-year drought, Lamar reawakened with spirited raps and elite storytelling on his newest release, Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers. Meanwhile, Future’s reign remained supreme after notching the highest opening week of his career with the success of his ninth studio album, I NEVER LIKED YOU. We also received a fistful of collaborative albums, with Drake and 21 Savage’s unexpected collision Her Loss leading the pack, while women MCs strengthened their grip on the genre with the rise of GloRilla and Latto.
Despite his late-minute push, Metro Boomin squeaked his way into rap contention with his third Billboard 200 chart-topper HEROES & VILLAINS this December, just before the buzzer sounded. With his starry hip-hop alliance including Future, Travis Scott, 21 Savage, Young Thug, and plenty more marquee names ready for combat, the Atlanta savant maximized his efforts to bring us a cinematic thriller. Meanwhile, Nas and Hit-Boy continued to prove why they are hip-hop’s fiercest one-two punch, with the release of their Billboard 200 top-ten debut King Disease’s III. The trifecta extends Nas’ lyrical streak while elevating Hit-Boy’s status to legendary territory on the production side.
Now, the biggest question looking forward is whether 2023 will have enough juice to contend after this year’s stellar campaign. Only time will tell, but, until then, let’s remember the year that was and take a look at Billboard’s 20 best hip-hop albums of 2022 below.
Druski is on the verge of revolutionizing what it means to be a comedian in the era of social media. What started as a dream of becoming a star turned into reality for the Atlanta, Georgia native, and it only took him five years to reach the highest point in his field.
So many people have tried their hand at making others laugh on Twitter and Instagram, and those who succeeded — like Druski — were tasked with figuring out what to do next.
In Druski’s world, the answer to that question lies in his upcoming Coulda Woulda Shoulda stand-up comedy tour, which he announced last week. The 30-venue trek has Druski bringing the laughs to New York, Miami, Chicago, Atlanta and more cities, and it’s something he knew had to happen if he was going to level up his craft.
“I think the idea started to cement itself in my mind when I was hosting shows on music tours for J. Cole and Chris Brown and Lil Baby,” Druski tells Billboard. “It’s like this is my time to shine and finally step into that spotlight. I could continue doing stuff on social media forever, or I could jump somewhere else and prove I’m more than just an Internet star.”
Stand-up comedy is a different beast than social media videos, and Druski is fully equipped for it. As the comedian explains, he got his first taste of the big stage as an opener on J. Cole’s 2021 The Off-Season Tour, with the same thing happening a year later on Chris Brown and Lil Baby’s One of Them Ones Tour this past summer.
Both of those events were eye-opening, in that Druski knew what people wanted to see and that only fueled the creation of his own major show. Of course, not every joke was a hit, and he bombed in a few cities — but he needed that to happen, since part of the process of stand-up comedy is audience interaction. Druski has millions of people tuning into his content on social media, but that’s nothing compared to being with those same people in person.
“You have to put in the work, and you can’t really go outside of what that work is,” he says. “You have to go to all these comedy clubs and theaters and bomb. You have to go do what the greats did in order to get to that level. You can’t really skip that step — and I think a lot of people now get so much so early. Like, you get your fan base before you even get to a live show.
He continues: “The biggest question is always, ‘Can he make us laugh in person?’ I want to show the world that I can do that, and I’m gonna have people come to these shows and have them die laughing in real-time.”
Everyone in Druski’s family had comedic potential: His grandfather is a prankster, his mother is funny all-around, and his father lives and breathes dark humor. Once it began to click in his mind that he was a naturally funny person himself, Druski knew comedy would be a part of his life forever — so it made perfect sense that he embraced it head-on.
At first, the comedian’s goal was to find a way to get on television, and he believed he needed a lane in sports broadcasting. That didn’t go far, especially because people kept telling him how funny he was all the time. After some self-reflection, and studying interviews of stars like JAY-Z, Will Smith, Kevin Hart and Steve Harvey, Druski realized these people found success by focusing on what they’re good at and locked in on getting better.
“I was skipping class at Georgia Southern just to watch all those interviews in my crappy apartment, and I paid attention to every little thing they said and applied it to my life,” he adds. “I think that played a big role in me dropping out of college and taking a chance at going down a path that I knew felt right to me.”
Druski obviously chose the right one. In 2017, he began releasing comedy skits on his old Druski2funny Instagram page, and before long, opportunities began to present themselves. Fans started seeing Druski all over, from starring in hip-hop music videos with Lil Yachty, Drake and Jack Harlow (Druski is friends with all three) to landing on various cameos in television commercials for brands like Bud Light Seltzer, Beats By Dre, AT&T and Mountain Dew.
And though Druski values his relationships, everything has come from a pure and genuine place, especially his friendships with Drake and Harlow. The BFF bond between Druski and the latter hitmaker includes Thanksgiving dinners at the rapper’s house, to even a shared Complex cover story from last year. “We’re working on a movie together right now behind the scenes,” says the comedian. As for his bond with Drizzy, Druski compares their initial link-up to “meeting the president.”
“I’m sitting in a room, and they’re like, ‘Drake will come and talk to you.’ People are coming in and checking on me and I’m like, ‘Alright. Where’s he at?’ He comes in with like a fleet of security — but you smell this dude before he even walks in the room. So I’m like, ‘What the hell is that smell? Like, the whole room has this heavenly smell to it. Cologne don’t even smell like that. I’m like, ‘What the hell? Did they spray something in this whole room?’”
Druski’s affinity for music will continue to inform his expansive nation-wide tour. Fans can expect an event full of laughs, and longer segments of his popular Coulda Been Records Instagram Live show, where local people can get on stage with him and get their “15 minutes of fame” with whatever talent they have.
If that weren’t enough, Druski also reveals Coulda Been Records will be turning into an actual label very soon, where he’ll actually sign artists to a deal. The hilarious platform is also in the process of receiving its own TV show.
“I knew that if I kept working, my time was coming,” Druski says with confidence. “I won’t stop until I’m the biggest star in the world — like the ones I looked up too, like Eddie Murphy and Kevin Hart. I want a long-standing career in stand-up, movies, TV, everything. This is just the beginning.”
Jay-Z shared his year-end playlist of favorite songs on Tidal this week, which featured appearances from such usual suspects as Drake and 21 Savage, Kendrick Lamar, Nas, Lil Baby, Quavo and Takeoff, and, of course, Beyoncé. And, because he’s a devoted husband, he actually included three songs from Bey’s acclaimed Renaissance album: “America Has a Problem,” “I’m That Girl” and “Plastic Off the Sofa.”
The 41-song playlist of 2022 favorites has Jigga’s go-to tracks from the past 11 months, including SZA’s “Shirt” and “SOS,” Drake and Savage’s “Jimmy Cooks,” Vince Staples and Mustard’s “Magic,” Lil Baby’s “In a Minute,” Kendrick’s “Rich Spirit,” 42 Dugg and Est Gee’s “Thump S–t,” Kodak Black’s “Purple Stamp” and Sno Aalegra’s “Do 4 Love.”
Jigga also paid tribute to late Migos member Takeoff by including the MC’s track with his uncle and Unc and Phew bandmate Quavo, “Hotel Lobby,” and he nodded to rising star GloRilla via her collab with Cardi B on “Tomorrow 2,” while shouting to his friend and former rival Nas with the inclusion of “Thun.” He also threw in a few singles he appeared on, such as DJ Khaled’s “God Did,” where he ripped alongside Rick Ross, Lil Wayne, John Legend and Fridayy, as well as Pusha T’s “Neck & Wrist,” which also featured Pharrell.
Among the other songs making the list: two more Kendrick tracks, “N95” and “Savior,” two more Drake and 21 Savage songs, “Rich Flex” and “Major Distribution,” Rosalia’s “Bizcochito,” Burna Boy’s “Last Last,” Bad Bunny’s smash “Tití Me Preguntó,” Benny The Butcher and J. Cole’s “Johnny P’s Caddy,” Metro Boomin, 21 Savage and Young Nudy’s “Umbrella,” Lil Yachty’s “Poland,” Babyface Ray’s “A1 Since Day 1,” Ab Soul and Zacari’s “Do Better” and Lil Uzi Vert’s “Just Wanna Rock.”
Check out a snapshot of Jay’s list below.
The city of Virginia Beach will pay $3 million to settle a lawsuit from the family of a Black man who was shot by police during a chaotic night of violence on the city’s oceanfront last year. The city and the family of Donovon Lynch — a cousin of musician and Virginia Beach native Pharrell Williams — announced the agreement late Tuesday (Dec. 13).
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Wayne Lynch, Dononvon’s father, filed a $50 million wrongful death lawsuit in June 2021 against the city and police officer Solomon D. Simmons, who is also Black.
Lynch’s shooting occurred on a warm March night near the city’s crowded boardwalk, which is lined with restaurants and hotels. The evening dissolved into chaos after separate outbreaks of gunfire. At least eight people were wounded and one woman, who was believed to be a bystander, was killed.
Lynch, 25, a former college football player, was at a nightclub with his friend when a shooting occurred outside, the lawsuit stated. The men left and walked toward their cars when they encountered Simmons. “Immediately, unlawfully and without warning, officer Simmons fired his police-issued firearm at Mr. Lynch, shooting him twice and killing him,” the lawsuit states.
In November 2021, a special grand jury found that Simmons was justified. Authorities said Lynch had a gun and racked a round into the chamber before pointing his weapon toward a parking lot filled with people and police. Tuesday’s joint statement said more has been learned “about the facts of that fateful night and encounter.”
“(W)e have come to understand that a series of unfortunate occurrences led to Donovon’s death that night — which in hindsight should never have occurred as it was later determined that neither Donovon nor the officer set in motion the events that transpired,” the statement said.
The statement didn’t elaborate.
The settlement comes more than a month after Williams announced that his music festival, Something in the Water, would return to Virginia Beach. When the festival pulled out of Virginia Beach in 2021, the Grammy-winning musician had said “toxic energy” had run the city for too long and that he wished it had taken a more proactive stance after police shot Lynch. Last month, Williams said demand for the festival in Virginia Beach has “never wavered. If anything it has only intensified.”
The man accused of fatally shooting rapper Takeoff last month outside a Houston bowling alley sought information about using fake plane tickets to obtain an expedited passport in his efforts to flee the country, and repeatedly made online searches about whether he was a suspect in the case, prosecutors alleged during a court hearing Wednesday (Dec. 15).
But attorneys for Patrick Xavier Clark, 33, say their client never had any intention of leaving Houston and he will likely pursue self-defense in the case, as he has asserted his innocence.
“We feel comfortable that when the time is right that Mr. Clark will have a valid and meritorious claim for self-defense,” Letitia Quinones, one of Clark’s attorneys, said after the hearing. She declined to provide additional details on this to reporters, but during the hearing, she suggested that Clark only fired after someone shot at him first. Police say Clark fired the first shot.
Takeoff was shot in the head and back as more than 30 people were leaving a private party at the bowling alley around 2:30 a.m. on Nov. 1. Houston police have said the gunfire followed a disagreement over a “lucrative” game of dice outside the bowling alley, but that the 28-year-old rapper was not involved and was “an innocent bystander.”
Clark was arrested on Dec. 1 on a murder charge.
During Wednesday’s hearing, Clark’s attorneys had sought to have his bond reduced from $2 million to $100,000. But state District Judge Josh Hill was initially hesitant to reduce his bond, believing he could be a flight risk and that Clark’s “Google searches for fake tickets cause me a great deal of concern.”
During the hearing, Houston police Sgt. Michael Burrow testified that a review of Clark’s cell phone after his arrest found he had made online searches for fake plane tickets. Prosecutors suggested these searches were tied to Clark’s efforts to get an expedited passport. Investigators also found multiple searches on his cell phone in which Clark looked at news articles about the shooting and whether he was named as a suspect, he said.
“It was my belief he was preparing to flee the country,” Burrow said.
Surveillance video showed Clark was holding a wine bottle in one hand when he fired his gun, Burrow said. Clark left the bottle near the scene of the shooting and fingerprints found on the bottle were later used to identify him. FBI sources had also pointed to Clark as being at the shooting.
Quinones denied Clark was trying to leave the country after the shooting, saying that before his arrest he had canceled a previously scheduled trip to Mexico and that on the day of his arrest he had been looking for an apartment to rent in the city.
Hill agreed to reduce Clark’s bond to $1 million if additional security requirements could be met and he agreed to consider next week additional information from Clark’s lawyers about possibly lowering it more, possibly to $300,000. Quinones said she hopes Hill lowers the bond to $300,000 as anything higher cannot be afforded by Clark’s family.
Clark’s father, Joseph, testified that his son works as a DJ and also promotes night clubs but that he has never been financially stable, still lives at home, borrows his truck to get around and wouldn’t have the resources to flee to another country.
During the hearing, prosecutors played a recording of a call Clark made on Dec. 6 from jail to his family in which he could he heard saying that the $2 million bond “can be made right now.” Prosecutors suggested Clark has had access to large amounts of cash in his work as a DJ and with night clubs. But Quinones said Clark indicating he could pay the $2 million was just boastful claims from “a young man talking and talking too much.”
Police have said that during the shooting, another man and a woman suffered non-life-threatening gunshot injuries, and that at least two people opened fired. Police said investigators are still trying to track down witnesses. The gun used to kill Takeoff has not been recovered, Burrow said.
Born Kirsnick Khari Ball, Takeoff was the youngest member of Migos, the Grammy-nominated rap trio from suburban Atlanta that also featured his uncle Quavo and cousin Offset.
Migos first broke through with the massive hit “Versace” in 2013. They had four Top 10 hits on the Billboard Hot 100, though Takeoff was not on their multi-week No. 1 hit “Bad and Boujee,” featuring Lil Uzi Vert. They put out a trilogy of albums called Culture, Culture II and Culture III, with the first two hitting No. 1 on the Billboard 200 album chart.
For this year’s update of our ongoing Greatest Pop Star by Year project, Billboard is counting down our staff picks for the top 10 pop stars of 2022 all this week. At No. 5, we remember the year in Drake — who dominated headlines and made even more chart history with two very different new albums.
A warm embrace between Kanye West (now Ye) and Drake – two hip-hop titans who had been swapping diss verses and petty social media exchanges for months up until music executive J. Prince mediated a truce – cut through the brisk December night during last year’s sold-out “Free Larry Hoover” benefit concert at the Los Angeles Coliseum. While Ye ran through his greatest hits catalog, Drake completed his victory lap with Certified Lover Boy, his 10th Billboard 200-topping album (though one met with middling reviews), with its first-ever live performance. The concert, and reconciliation, wasn’t just monumental for either rapper or even the millions of fans who witnessed it in person or via livestream; it was monumental for hip-hop.
Billboard’s Greatest Pop Stars of 2022:Introduction & Honorable Mentions | Rookie of the Year: Steve Lacy | Comeback of the Year: Sam Smith | No. 10: Nicki Minaj | No. 9: Future | No. 8: Jack Harlow | No. 7: Doja Cat | No. 6: Lizzo
Going into 2022, the 6 God still couldn’t be knocked from his pedestal, and he couldn’t be blamed for mostly just cruising at his high altitude through the year’s first few months. Guest spots on Gunna’s “P power” in January, which arrived a week later than its parent album DS4Ever, and Jack Harlow’s “Churchill Downs” in May helped elevate both Southern rap princes, which comes with the territory of a Drizzy co-sign. But it was the Louisville-bred charmer who was matching Drake’s “flows and the hoes and the packed out shows,” and seemingly coming for his title of rap’s heartthrob. Yet even without the heart etched into his hairline, Drake was still the same old lovelorn Lothario – and it showed on his verse from Future’s “Wait For U,” also featuring Tems, which became Future’s biggest-ever hit as a lead artist and Drake’s 10th No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 in May.
By the year’s midway point, Drake eased off on the team efforts so he could focus on his own craft. On a random afternoon in the middle of June, Drake posted a shadowy graphic on Instagram with chrome, technicolor lettering that read “Honestly, Nevermind” – the title of his out-of-nowhere seventh studio album he was delivering the next day. Another surprise awaited its listeners once midnight rolled around: Drake had made a full-on dance album, alongside veteran house music producers like Black Coffee, Gordo (formerly known as DJ Carnage), Ry X and GOVI.
The set spurred mixed reactions from critics who weren’t convinced he pulled off house music, Drake purists who didn’t care for anything he did outside of rap, and those in between who found his stylistic departure refreshing. Regardless, Honestly, Nevermind became his 11th No. 1 album (though with an underwhelming-for-Drake 204,000 equivalent album units in its first week), and “Jimmy Cooks” with 21 Savage –- the only conventional rap song from the project -– became his 11th No. 1 Hot 100 hit (and record-extending seventh No. 1 debut), making him the first solo male artist to debut at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 and Billboard Hot 100 simultaneously twice, following his dual feat with CLB and “Way 2 Sexy” just the year before.
Statistically, Drake still proved he couldn’t miss – and that even if artistically his efforts weren’t to everyone’s taste, he still had his fingers on the pulse of what’s hot, given who followed suit just one month later. In July, Beyoncé ushered a proper dance Renaissance with her own studio effort, one that was more celebrated by critics for its due diligence to the genre – and one that surprisingly featured a writing credit from one Aubrey Drake Graham on the track “Heated.” The Queen’s triumphant return outperformed Drake’s Honestly, Nevermind as Renaissance launched atop the Billboard 200 with 332,000 units – but with Drizzy’s imprint on her album, and his own dance album’s release a month prior, he clearly knew to get ahead of the curve.
Yet considering Honestly, Nevermind’s relative commercial disappointment, it didn’t come as a surprise when Drake went back to what he knew best and reconnected with two of his favorite collaborators. DJ Khaled tapped him and Lil Baby for “Staying Alive,” the lead single from his then-forthcoming album God Did with a questionable, semi-catchy interpolation of the Bee Gees’ 1977 smash by the same name. With “Staying Alive” debuting at No. 5 on the Hot 100, Drake racked up yet another Billboard chart record: He now held the most top 5 hits (30) on the chart, beating The Beatles’ mark previously held for 55 years. And only he could make such an impressive feat sound totally ordinary by writing “Ok I broke my records for the month now” over a screenshot of his latest accomplishment on Instagram.
While Drake was effortlessly rewriting Billboard’s record books, he wasn’t having that same kind of historic run with his live performances. In July, he announced October World Weekend – a precursor to his OVO Fest that he promised to bring “around the world in 2023 to mark its 10th anniversary” – which featured a Young Money reunion with Nicki Minaj and Lil Wayne on the lineup. But the announcement of his COVID-19 diagnosis just hours before the YM trinity was set to take the stage postponed the concert by a week. And once the show did actually happen, it didn’t sustain the recovery he might’ve expected. He resumed the hype by announcing a solo SiriusXM concert at Harlem’s Apollo Theater in November, but Takeoff’s untimely shooting death on the first of the month dampened the mood and led to Drizzy pushing back the shows to the top of 2023.
But he came in strong during the fourth quarter of 2022 – taking a cue from the fact that “Jimmy Cooks” was the only real breakout hit from his Honestly, Nevermind set, and recording an entire album with his collaborator on that chart-topper, 21 Savage. The treacherous twosome embarked on the ultimate faux press run ahead of their collab project, Her Loss: a counterfeit Vogue cover that sparked a real-life lawsuit from Condé Nast; a Tiny Desk teaser NPR invited them to perform “forreal;” a deepfake interview on The Howard Stern Show; a Saturday Night Live performance of “On BS” that was, in fact, B.S.; and a COLORS performance that was too good to be true (because it wasn’t). Even though another COVID diagnosis (this time from his right-hand producer Noah “40” Shebib) hit Drizzy with another delay, he offset it with an explosive impact.
The release of Her Loss in early November was met with mixed reviews from critics and crowds, considering his controversial bars about Megan Thee Stallion and ex-girlfriend Serena Williams’ husband Alexis Ohanian – but regardless, Drake’s diehards were relieved to hear him rapping again following his dance album detour. Her Loss ended up becoming Drake’s gain, earning him his 12th No. 1 album (and 21 Savage’s 3rd) with the year’s biggest week for an R&B/hip-hop set and the fourth-largest streaming week ever for any album, with 513.56 million total on-demand official streams in its debut week. Despite Taylor Swift maintaining her Hot 100 reign with “Anti-Hero” – much to Drake’s emoji-filled dismay – he still controlled eight spots out of the top 10, making him the only artist to have logged at least eight songs in the Hot 100’s top 10 twice, following his nine-spot takeover in September 2021 during CLB’s debut chart week.
Drake ended 2022 by consistently putting numbers up on the board and persisting as the most statistically untouchable rapper, proving that even his not-so-massive year is still bigger than nearly anyone else’s. He extended his reign on Billboard’s year-end Top R&B/Hip-Hop Artist chart for a seventh year (in large part due to CLB’s staying power), and even earned a new title when he also topped Billboard’s year-end Top Dance/Electronic Artist chart, thanks to the surprising-yet-not-surprising success of Honestly, Nevermind.
And even if he remained adamant in maintaining his grudge against the Recording Academy by not submitting any of his own music, his high-profile assists ensured he was still accounted for — as his verses on “Wait For U” and “Churchill Downs” earned him two Grammy nominations for best rap song, with the former also receiving a nod for best melodic rap performance, and his writing on Bey’s Renaissance secured him an album of the year nod. Even when you think he misses, The Boy still scores.
Raised in the Philly hood, Meek Mill never attended an Eagles game growing up, much less tossed footballs inside the team’s practice facility.
Given the chance to show off his arm, the 35-year-old rapper and philanthropist lined up some area kids and had them go deep on the same field where the best team in the NFL trains. Meek Mill short-armed a wobbly pass that sailed about 20 yards and was hauled in by a kid to resounding cheers.
Let’s just say Jalen Hurts’ job is safe.
“He’s almost as unathletic as I am,” Fanatics CEO Michael Rubin teased Meek.
Meek Mill and Rubin shared laughs Tuesday (Dec. 13) at an outing arranged to brighten the day for children from families caught in the criminal justice system. Rubin, who recently sold his stake in the Philadelphia 76ers, co-founded the Reform Alliance, a non-profit organization dedicated to probation, parole and sentencing reform in the United States. Meek Mill, whose well-publicized prison sentence for minor probation violations became a lightning rod for the issue, is co-chairman of the organization.
His case grabbed the attention of criminal justice reform advocates after a judge in Pennsylvania sentenced him to two to four years in prison for violations of his probation conditions in a decade-old gun and drug possession case. He was incarcerated for months before a court ordered him released in 2018. Meek Mill successfully resumed his recording career and recently held a 10-year anniversary concert that celebrated his debut album Dreams And Nightmares. He’s been a big opening act of late, performing the title track and underdog anthem before Eagles games and at the World Series.
“I’ve got purpose on top of everything I’m doing,” Meek Mill said. “Before I went to prison, of course I was famous, of course I was making money feeding my family, but the purpose I have now, it actually started from the way people supported me.”
Meek Mill formed a friendship with Rubin and the billionaire became an ally in freeing him from prison. While Meek Mill was in prison, activists, celebrities and demonstrators rallied in 2017 for his release. “When I seen that with my own eyes, that type of support, which I never had in my life, I wanted to make sure I give that same support back to the world,” Meek Mill said in an interview with The Associated Press.
Born Robert Rihmeek Williams, he is now free of the court supervision he’s been under most of his adult life.
To their credit, years after Meek Mill’s release, the rapper and the mogul have remained steadfast in advocating for criminal justice reform. The Reform Alliance said the group has been responsible for 16 bills passed in 10 states that resulted in changes to probation and parole laws. Meek Mill was even honored in 2019 in his hometown of Philadelphia for his work as a criminal justice reform advocate and as a musician.
“We’ve actually created a pathway for 650,000 people to get out of the system already,” Rubin said. “And we’re just getting started. It’s hard to make change.”
Meek Mill and members of the Eagles including Darius Slay, Jordan Mailata, coach Nick Sirianni and general manager Howie Roseman mingled with 35 kids, took photos and ran combine drills. The kids signed honorary one-day contracts with the team.
“You’re all 12-1 for the day,” Sirianni said.
The kids moved across the street to the Wells Fargo Center and quizzed Philadelphia 76ers coach Doc Rivers on the usual hoops-themed topics. Allen Iverson or Steph Curry? Who’s your favorite player? But there were more serious inquiries about how to land internships and how to push through in a life that can be littered with hardships.
“You have the right to happiness and to smile and do everything you want in life,” Rivers told the kids. “These people here, Meek, Michael and everybody back here are here to tell you that there’s people in your corner. We’re going to fight for you. Fight for your families to make sure that one of you may be sitting here some day giving the same speech. Or one of you can be a doctor, a lawyer, an athlete. Whatever you want.”
Megan Parke spent almost three years in prison and gave birth to her son, Amir, while in jail. She was freed when he was 2½ years old and the family has settled in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. Parke was on probation and hit with a technical violation, which in Pennsylvania means she had specifically violated one of the terms of her probation plan. Parke, who still has two years left on probation, said she was lucky the judge didn’t send her back to prison. She said Reform has offered her resources that could aid her and her case should problems arise in the future.
“That’s him right there,” she said, pointing at the 5-year-old boy running around the NFL complex. “He’s just so excited. These days just really mean a lot.”
Those memories are part of what it’s all about for Meek Mill. He missed Eagles games as a kid but once attended on a school trip a taping of The Randall Cunningham Show. “That was a highlight I’ll remember forever,” Meek Mill said. “With kids, I’m always doubling back, make sure I touch back to the people just like myself.”
December can be a tough month for any big artist to get attention for their new release, let alone for a producer still best known for his behind-the-scenes work. But that doesn’t appear to be a problem for Metro Boomin, who scores his second No. 1 on the Billboard 200 albums chart this week (following Savage Mode II, his 2020 teamup with 21 Savage) with his star-studded Heroes & Villains set.
The new LP, which features appearances from hitmakers like Savage, Travis Scott, The Weeknd, Future and Young Thug and even boasts narration from Oscar winner Morgan Freeman, moves 185,000 equivalent album units in its first week, a tremendous number for a producer-led set. It also scores Billboard Hot 100 debuts for each of its 15 tracks, including two top 10 debuts, with the Weeknd- and 21 Savage-featuring “Creepin’” (a remake of Mario Winans’ 2004 smash “I Don’t Wanna Know”) at No. 5 and the Future- and Chris Brown-assisted “Superhero (Heroes and Villains)” at No. 8.
How did Metro score such a big debut for his new set? And will “Creepin’” be a breakout hit to carries over well into 2023? Billboard staffers discuss these questions and more below.
1. Obviously an album with a guest list the size of Heroes & Villains‘ is going to get attention, but 185k is a pretty staggering first-week number for any producer-led set. Does it speak more to you to the featured names involved, or to Metro Boomin’s reputation as a producer and album artist?
Eric Renner Brown: For listeners who aren’t immersed in music media – so, the bulk of who propelled this album’s first-week success – here’s how I imagine this went down: Devoted fans of one of Heroes & Villains‘ featured artists saw the artist they like had a new track out, followed the streaming service hyperlink to the album, inevitably saw a bunch of other artists they liked, and decided to press play. Metro Boomin’s name probably helped – years of hearing his name on your favorite songs engenders some trust – but I’m picturing many of this album’s listeners already being sold on listening to it, based on the A-list MCs involved.
But! Coming at the question another way, Metro Boomin’s reputation as a producer and album artist were key to the impressive first-week numbers: his reputation helped him land all these big names in the first place, and those names drove the album’s success.
Carl Lamarre: Nayvadius Cash said it best: If Young Metro don’t trust you… but seriously, I think Metro has blossomed into a perennial go-to producer because of his out-of-the-box concoctions. He doesn’t simply copy and paste gaudy features onto a tracklist – he’s a mastermind who skillfully maps out his records from start to finish. That and a genius rollout anchored by his Hollywood BFF Morgan Freeman draws intrigue every time. This blockbuster win is a deserved one for Metro and Co.
Elias Leight: Metro Boomin has always benefitted from star-studded guest lists. Not All Heroes Wear Capes had 11 featured acts, from Drake to Travis Scott; Heroes & Villains added two more to the party. But the producer’s collaborative albums have also seen steady commercial growth. After Not All Heroes Wear Capes debuted at No. 1 behind 99,000 album-equivalent units in 2018, his 21 Savage team-up Savage Mode II repeated at the top of the chart with 171,000 units in 2020. With these numbers in mind, 185,000 units and another Number One for Not All Heroes doesn’t feel surprising.
Neena Rouhani: Star power doesn’t always equal chart-topping success. The performance of the album speaks to both longstanding chemistry and organic marketing. Throughout the last seven-plus years, Metro has released a handful of home-run projects alongside some of the featured acts, like Future’s DS2 and 21’s Savage Mode. We all know what to expect when these guys come together, and it’s top-tier. Which leads me to my second point: it’s a damn good album. The days following its release, I saw a considerable number of people in my circle posting about how great it is, adding screenshots of different tracks to their stories, which will make someone go check it out for themselves. That natural hype matters, and is less concentrated considering the influx of new music every day.
Andrew Unterberger: I think it’s more about Metro Boomin, actually. We’ve seen plenty of producer-led sets from big names like Mustard and Mike Will Made-It debut with respectable, but hardly blockbuster numbers, and they’re usually just as star-packed as Heroes & Villains. Hell, even DJ Khaled’s latest, God Did — which boasts full dozens of the biggest names in the business — only did 107,500 units in its first week earlier this year. Metro has built a rep for both a high degree of quality control and full-album cohesion with efforts released under his name, and I think that matters more than the guest list for getting listeners to play the whole LP front to back, rather than just the 2-3 songs with their favs as features.
2. Metro Boomin has taken to promoting his full-length releases like movies, with accompanying trailers and shorts, a guest list that plays like a cast of characters and even narration from acting great Morgan Freeman. Have the numbers for this set (and 2020’s Savage Mode II) proven this an effective and/or replicable release strategy, or do you think it’s mostly incidental to their success?
Eric Renner Brown: I think this strategy was incidental to H&V‘s success, mostly because I don’t think it was a sales strategy in the first place. For decades, musicians have used concept albums, however vague or focused, as clearinghouses for their cinematic impulses. And as superhero flicks have become the center of gravity for American moviegoers – sorry, filmheads – it tracks for me that musicians would want to mimic some of their hallmarks: stuffed casts, grandiose themes, and yes, hype-driven rollouts. (The name of this specific project really drives this point home.)
But I think the impetus behind that is more about prestige than business, especially for a producer like Metro Boomin, who has more in common with a Hollywood director wrangling stars and a creative vision than a single rapper might. It’s about how Metro sees himself: an auteur helming rap’s equivalent of a Marvel movie. (In this analogy, maybe DJ Khaled is rap’s DC, churning out projects that underwhelm despite their beloved IP and huge stars.) I’m sure some Metro diehards enjoyed this rollout, so I wouldn’t say it was ineffective – I just wouldn’t credit much of the album’s eventual success to it.
Carl Lamarre: While great music trumps any and everything, it’s the storyline that is the measuring stick in today’s climate. Metro is already elusive when speaking to media, so the most we’ll get from him besides that one publication cover look is through his trailers and social media posts. Despite being press-shy, he’s a true gunslinger with storytelling, and building up anticipation for that thrill ride we always yearn for.
Elias Leight: While Morgan Freeman’s narration is an amusingly over-the-top touch, it’s likely that most hip-hop fans would press play on this album simply for all the big names. It also helps that there’s a dearth of new releases this time of year as everyone succumbs to the tyranny of holiday playlists.
Neena Rouhani: I’d say it’s both, but it doesn’t boil down to narrators or characters. I think people appreciate a tight, cohesive set with a distinguishable throughline, rather than a bunch of songs the producer hopes will hit the radio or go viral smacked together haphazardly. With that being said, Metro has a stellar reputation as a producer. Even without the theatrics, the project would’ve still done well for its first week — but the staying power may have faltered.
Andrew Unterberger: I think it matters, especially for artists like Metro Boomin who have proven that their albums do play in a legitimately cinematic fashion. Excitement over the album trailer was certainly how the set first made my radar online, and I’m sure far from the only one whose curiosity was stoked by it. I don’t know how replicable it is for other artists, but I generally think anything that makes your album feel like a fully immersive experience and not just a compilation of tracks is only ever going to help your overall numbers.
3. “Creepin’,” with The Weeknd and 21 Savage — which is essentially a cover of Mario Winans’ ’00s hit “I Don’t Wanna Know” — has shot out to the early lead among the album’s tracks in our chart metrics, debuting at No. 5 on the Hot 100 and ranking as the highest-charting non-holiday release this week. Does it feel like a hit that’ll last well into 2023 to you, or is it a one-week or one-month wonder mostly owing to the star power of its creators and novelty of its source?
Eric Renner Brown: I doubt “Creepin’” will stick around. The dearth of new releases in December makes it an easier playing field to score a minor hit, especially for stars as established as The Weeknd and 21 Savage. And the novelty of the source material probably helped too: “Hey, [insert friend or loved one’s name here], did you hear this new Weeknd and 21 Savage song that redoes Mario Winans? You should check it out!” Then again, this would’ve be the first time I’ve severely underestimated the staying power of a Weeknd single.
Carl Lamarre: The latter. It’s a great song and a replay-worthy record, but the thrill will dissipate after a few weeks. I say that only because we’re dealing with limited attention spans. The record can be a top 20 – top 30 player after a few weeks, but I can’t foresee “Creepin” peaking higher than its debut position, especially if artists begin aggressively attacking that first quarter à la Gunna and Weeknd last year.
Elias Leight: Radio especially is obsessed with songs like this — what amounts to oldies karaoke disguised as a new single — because it allows them to play something that’s already familiar to their audience. Expect this one to get a lot of spins once radio shakes off Christmas-malaise in the new year.
Neena Rouhani: I love that song, I think it was a great flip and a standout moment on the album. But whether or not it endures I think has a lot to do with social media and how it performs on apps like TikTok. If a massive trend takes hold of it, the rest is written. If not, I could see the song fading into the background.
Andrew Unterberger: I dunno if the song will ever reach higher than No. 5 on the Hot 100 — though it’s pretty telling that it would’ve hit No. 1 if not for the holiday rush — but I don’t see it just fading away, either; everything about the past two years in pop music tells us that the novelty of hits borrowing from other hits does not wear off as quickly as we may have once thought. (And this one is both more novel and better executed than most, I’d say.)
4. Though we’ve talked a great deal about samples and interpolations in Five Burning Questions this year, discussion of covers — or perhaps “remakes,” since technically “Creepin’” has both a different title and different rap verse than Winans’ and Diddy’s original — has been relatively scarce. Does the early success of “Creepin’” demonstrate that maybe there’s something more or different to be gained by not just borrowing from large swaths of an established hit song, but actually redoing the whole thing?
Eric Renner Brown: “Creepin’” doesn’t feel too far from Drake and Future’s “Way 2 Sexy” from last year or Nicki Minaj’s “Super Freaky Girl” from August, which sampled massive, nostalgic hits in ways such prominent ways that they were key drivers to the success of those singles. Whatever nomenclature you want to use for “Super Freaky Girl,” anyone of a certain age who listens to it will go, “Oh, yeah, Nicki’s Rick James song!” Which is sort of the point, right?
Now, for an unorthodox comparison, I’m going to liken Metro Boomin to Phish, a band that despite having a deep arsenal of its own material, routinely covered a spectrum of artists it revered, new and old, and used covers to excite audiences – and hint at their creative inspirations and philosophies. Covers can be fun ways to engage and connect with listeners, and if songs like “Creepin’” demonstrate that they’re good for business, too, I bet we’ll see more in the months and years ahead.
Carl Lamarre: I appreciate the educational value that it entails. I remember seeing an Instagram post highlighting the samples and origins beyond Mario Winans’s “I Don’t Wanna Know” — which itself initially sampled the riffs from Enya’s song “Boadicea” and the beat from another ’80s gem in EPMD’s “You’re a Customer.” So for music geeks, it’s cool to do some digging, re-appreciate the story of certain songs and pay homage to the journey there.
Elias Leight: I don’t see all that much difference between “Creepin’” and some of the wildly obvious lifts that have powered other hits this year — the in-your-face nod to Rick Astley on Yung Gravy’s “Betty (Get Money)” or Eiffel 65 on David Guetta and Bebe Rexha’s “I’m Good (Blue).” Building new hits from the bones of old hits has been common since at least the Bad Boy era (which of course spawned Mario Winans’ “I Don’t Wanna Know”). At a time when commercial success seems harder to predict than ever, more and more artists and producers appear to be leaning on this strategy.
Neena Rouhani: The verses and chorus (a.k.a. the most important parts) were entirely pulled from Mario Winans, not to mention that iconic drum pattern. They added to it in a way that felt fresh enough to keep those of us who knew the original interested, while keeping the parts that they knew would hook less-familiar listeners. But I don’t think we should make a habit of this. At that point, it’s going to feel like a bunch of covers rather than a sound expanding and evolving. The way we sample and interpolate has definitely become more overt and we’re using songs from less than 20 years ago. I think that could get old quick.
Andrew Unterberger: The thought behind it is the same as any number of secondhand hits of recent years, but I do think there’s some sort of head-smackingly obvious revelation at play here: If you’re going to take so much of an older song that it basically feels like a cover anyway, why not just make it a (relatively) straight cover? There might be publishing reasons for that, of course, but I doubt any of the three artists involved really are hurting financially enough to squabble much over percentages for this one, and in the meantime they may get the easiest smash of their collective careers out of it.
5. Releasing a big-budget and/or long-anticipated album once the holiday season has already begun to hit: Good idea or bad idea?
Eric Renner Brown: Good idea! For the music media, Thanksgiving heralds a period of reflection – and year-end list season. For the rest of the world, December is just another month – and one where many people have more time off to listen to new music than at any other time of the year. To bring it back to Hollywood blockbusters: There’s a reason so many big movies drop during the holiday season or even on Christmas itself. That said, Metro’s album probably won’t make for quite as good a stocking stuffer for moms as Adele’s 25 did a few years ago.
Carl Lamarre: Bad idea. Let’s put aside the music heavyweights and think about medium-sized artists. Chances are, you’ll probably get snowed in by all of the Christmas releases and have zero chance to make any noise on the Hot 100 until the new year. My suggestion has always been to punch in the clock and start fresh in early January when everything is quiet, and the run for supremacy is on the table. It worked for Gunna last year, who had the best run of his career. Encanto and Olivia Rodrigo recently enjoyed huge wins and launched their shots around the first quarter. I would pack everything in and wait for Jan-Feb to go crazy.
Elias Leight: If your goal is to get a No. 1 album, this is a good time to release music — competition is slim. If you want a No. 1 single, December is ice cold: “Creepin” is stuck behind “All I Want for Christmas Is You,” “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree,” “Jingle Bell Rock,” and “A Holly Jolly Christmas” for at least two more weeks. Last year, the reign of “All I Want for Christmas Is You” lasted into January before contemporary music regained control of the top of the Hot 100 in the form of Adele’s “Easy on Me.” If “Creepin’” can stick around into the new year, it will have to compete with already proven hits that have managed to withstand the holiday onslaught — Taylor Swift’s “Anti-Hero,” Sam Smith and Kim Petras’ “Unholy” — as well as new singles from SZA, especially “Kill Bill,” which is already putting up impressive streaming numbers.
Neena Rouhani: Good idea because fewer artists are releasing new sets, so more attention on you; bad idea because we all know this is really Mariah’s time to shine.
Andrew Unterberger: Good idea, unless you really value your appearances on year-end lists.
For this year’s update of our ongoing Greatest Pop Star by Year project, Billboard is counting down our staff picks for the top 10 pop stars of 2022 all this week. At No. 7, we remember the year in Doja Cat — who dominated pop radio and the charts all year without even releasing a new album.
Since breaking out with her viral hit “Mooo!” Doja Cat has made it evident that she’s not your average pop star. Armed with a penchant for defying genre confines – in addition to being a jane-of-all-trades vocalist, rapper and performer – the 27-year-old supernova continues to prove she’s in a lane all her own.
Billboard’s Greatest Pop Stars of 2022:Introduction & Honorable Mentions | Rookie of the Year: Steve Lacy | Comeback of the Year: Sam Smith | No. 10: Nicki Minaj | No. 9: Future | No. 8: Jack Harlow
The Cali native began the year by continuing to ride the wave of her successful third studio album, the double-platinum Planet Her. Months after the LP’s June 2021 release, songs like “Need to Know” and “You Right” still resonated with listeners, hanging around the Hot 100 well into the new year. The spritely pop-rap bop “Kiss Me More,” the project’s most successful single, nabbed Doja and featured artist SZA their first Grammy Award wins for best pop duo/group performance at the 2022 ceremony – a tear-jerking moment that conveyed the vulnerable side of the quirky figure.
But even before she grabbed her Grammy, it was exceedingly clear that Doja Cat was the name on everybody’s lips. From being the titular figure in songs by $NOT and A$AP Rocky and Central Cee, to Wale dubbing her “one of the best rappers out” after her stand-out Coachella performance, she received flowers from virtually all corners in 2022.
In February, Courtney Love tweeted that the experimental artist should “add rock goddess to [her] resume” after covering Hole’s “Celebrity Skin” for a Taco Bell Super Bowl commercial. Later on, Post Malone praised Doja for her “epic” feature on his Twelve Carat Toothache ditty, “I Like You (A Happier Song)” — which continued her commercial winning streak, hitting No. 3 on the Hot 100 and scoring a 2023 Grammy nod in the best pop duo/group performance category.
Betwixt her spirited cover and standout guest verse, Doja also released the solo single “Vegas” for Baz Luhrmann’s Elvis soundtrack. Interest in the Big Mama Thornton/Shonka Dukureh-interpolating song was slow to start, but in a similar fashion to her first Hot 100-topping single “Say So,” it found its crowd through TikTok virality and radio airplay. It eventually made the top 10 in October in its 19th week on the chart, and garnered a 2023 Grammy nom for best rap performance. (Additionally, the Planet Her singles “Woman” and “Get Into It (Yuh)” continued rising on the Hot 100 this year thanks to TikTok, with the Grammy-nominated “Woman” eventually peaking at No. 7 in May.)
Despite life and career accomplishments, burnout and fatigue are potential worries for any high-achieving, forward-facing individual. Amidst her accolades and growing acclaim, Doja Cat rocked the music world and fans alike by announcing via Twitter in March that she was “quitting music.” This came after being on the receiving end of online vitriol following a canceled headlining festival performance, and a few months after tweeting and deleting that she was overworking herself. However, a few months later, she admitted she wanted to focus on creating new music instead of “doing a bunch of other things.” While Doja didn’t retire from the music scene, she did become less visible, beginning with exiting her opening stint on The Weeknd’s After Hours tour due to tonsil surgery.
During her break from the spotlight, she began sporting a new bald ‘do and experimented with various eye-catching makeup looks, prompting many to speculate that her new style corresponded with new music. Concrete details surrounding her forthcoming era haven’t been pinned down; however, she’s offered various teases of the material, which she says toys with unchartered sounds and shifting trends. She notes that the project will be “mostly rap,” with one of her key inspirations being The Beastie Boys, though she also includes Death Grips and ‘90s German rave as additional sonic influences. (That said, there’s still the considerable chance that many of the hints about the next phase of Doja’s career are said with a wink, as it’s often difficult to discern her serious plans from her often-trolling behavior.)
“I don’t know if what I’m doing is going to be pop, but I want to keep that in mind for when I go into the studio,” she told Dazed in November. “The album will come and it’ll be its own moment on Earth.”
While some celebrity’s URL antics have yielded catastrophic effects on their careers IRL, Doja Cat’s commitment to embracing chaos and reveling in unpredictability has been crucial to her success thus far. The controversy she faced in mid-2020 regarding her past appearances in incel internet chat rooms threatened to derail her budding success, however, it proved to be just a bump in the road. As her mainstream popularity continued to build momentum, she’s ultimately proven that a star doesn’t have to be uber-polished to shine bright.
It also doesn’t hurt that Doja’s music has lasting power, thanks to her ability to keep fans and pop lovers on their toes. She ends 2022 with seven appearances on the Hot 100 this year, the most of any artist (tied with Bad Bunny), showcasing a variety of styles and sounds indicative of her versatility. She’s open about enjoying the ride she’s on as an artist and the learning process that comes with growing as a human. Doja Cat doesn’t have it all figured out, but pop music is much more exciting because of her place in it.
For this year’s update of our ongoing Greatest Pop Star by Year project, Billboard is counting down our staff picks for the top 10 pop stars of 2022 all this week. At No. 8, we remember the year in Jack Harlow — who built on the momentum of his previous couple years and made the leap to full-on pop stardom.
Jack Harlow possesses a disarming self-awareness of his charm, his moment, and his detractors. In his 2020 single “Rendezvous,” the Kentucky rapper unloads on the idea that he hadn’t earned his status: “Kills me when they act like this was overnight/ Like we didn’t do a tour in a tiny van.” The couplet documented life in the short time after the release of “What’s Poppin,” his breakout single that helped propel him into the mainstream consciousness. It basks in stark contrast to an epiphany buried in his “First Class” line, “They say, ‘You a superstar now,’ damn, I guess I am.” Two years after the release of his debut album, That’s What They All Say, Harlow is an undisputed commercial hip-hop force, dictating when and where lightning struck in 2022.
Billboard’s Greatest Pop Stars of 2022:Introduction & Honorable Mentions | Rookie of the Year: Steve Lacy | Comeback of the Year: Sam Smith | No. 10: Nicki Minaj | No. 9: Future
In January, Harlow captioned an Instagram post, “More inspired than I’ve ever been…never had a better pen…never felt truly understood until now….I knew I was a star but I finally got the evidence.” As this year unfolded, it became increasingly clear that the crux of Harlow’s star power isn’t how brightly he beams but his inclination to remain part of a constellation. He clocked his first career No. 1 on Billboard’s Hot 100 chart in October 2021 alongside Lil Nas X for “Industry Baby,” simultaneously nominated for a Grammy and targeted by homophobes. Harlow promptly shot down any notion that he shouldn’t have aligned with an LGBTQ+ artist: Black members of the hip-hop community warmly welcomed him, a white rapper whose fan base is shouldered by Black women, so it was unsurprising to see him wear a Lil Nas X graphic tee to June’s BET Awards to protest his friend’s snub.
February netted Harlow a deal with New Balance, a start in the NBA Celebrity All-Star Game, and the release of “Nail Tech,” his first solo drop since That’s What They All Say. The ostentatious single earned praise from Kanye West, a childhood idol of Harlow’s, and found Harlow again venting about his inbetween position in the first verse, “I love music and stress ‘bout it,” and second, “I’m not on top of this s–t yet, but I’m that guy, though.” The single wasn’t as sticky as the quotable lyrics and TikTok tease promised, however. “Nail Tech” spent one week on the Hot 100 at No. 18, and it was something of a distant memory by the end of March.
Harlow was cast in the remake of White Men Can’t Jump, ambitiously tackling Woody Harrelson’s iconic 1992 role as his film-acting debut – but “First Class” will be remembered as his leading man turn. The TikTok snippet racked up 69.2 million views, the first rock in an avalanche that ended with “First Class” debuting at No. 1 on the Hot 100 chart dated April 23 with the biggest streaming week of the year (54.6 million total). The lavish earworm’s backbone is the sampling of Fergie’s 2007 No. 1 smash “Glamorous” featuring Ludacris. Harlow, as he told Jimmy Fallon while co-hosting The Tonight Show in October, went from wanting to perform “Fergalicious” for his fifth-grade talent show to performing “First Class” with Fergie to open August’s 2022 MTV VMAs, which he also co-hosted with LL Cool J and Nicki Minaj.
Suddenly, it felt as if Harlow had been around forever, but there were endearing reminders that the spotlight was new to him. To start May, he ended a red carpet interview with Emma Chamberlain at May’s Met Gala by awkwardly saying, “Love ya!” Come Home The Kids Miss You was given a lukewarm reception by critics struggling to put a finger on Harlow’s identity. Arguably, the 15-track sophomore offering serves as a transparent portrait of Harlow as he works through that very question.
Come Home made up for that by yielding three 2023 Grammys nominations: best melodic rap performance (“First Class”), best rap song (“Churchill Downs” featuring Drake) and best rap album. This album’s (or any album’s) quantifiable success is not Harlow’s end game, though: As he expressed in his Rolling Stone April cover story, which announced Come Home The Kids Miss You’s impending May 6 arrival, he’s in it to become the best. He even quit drinking to ensure unobstructed clarity as he traded his real estate on the fringes of the mainstream for inescapable fame. Hits didn’t come beyond “First Class” this album cycle, but Harlow bolstered his foundation for the long game.
The rapper also earned co-signs from his formative heroes, such as Justin Timberlake, Lil Wayne, and Pharrell and Drake, via guest appearances on the Come Home tracklist. In particular, Harlow has proved himself Drake’s heir apparent as rap’s resident flirt – an idea illustrated by adoring fans swarming him and Aubrey at the Kentucky Derby, where the “Churchill Downs” video was filmed. Harlow had his whole team in his Churchill Downs box, including his childhood best friend-turned-photographer Urban Wyatt, comedian Druski and sports journalist Taylor Rooks. The aura around “Churchill Downs” solidified him as a main character who doesn’t suffer from main character syndrome. All Harlow ever wanted was to be loved by Louisville and put Kentucky on the map, and it was never more reciprocal than on that May afternoon.
Harlow looked right at home on every stage he commanded through the back half of the year, tangibly executing his much-quoted “Industry Baby” bar, “I didn’t peak in high school, I’m still out here gettin’ cuter.” He didn’t miss a beat during a surprise performance of “First Class” at the 2022 Billboard Music Awards, and then his Generation Now boss DJ Drama welcomed him to the BET Awards stage to deliver “First Class” with Brandy (as well as Come Home deep cut “Poison” with Lil Wayne) in June. His headlining Come Home The Kids Miss You World Tour kicked off in July, upgrading to arenas from the more intimate 2021 Creme De La Creme Tour. Still, he wasn’t too busy to be there for his Louisville day-one EST Gee’s September single “Backstage Passes” and its Lyrical Lemonade video directed by Cole Bennett, who directed Harlow’s seminal 2020 “Whats Poppin” video.
Harlow’s mainstream glow-up hit its apex when he pulled double duty as host and musical guest on the Oct. 29 episode of Saturday Night Live. His magnetism radiated during a monologue aimed to again reclaim criticisms lobbed his way — comparing his signature curly hair and scraggly beard to Narnia’s Mr. Tumnus and joking about people who “have even gone as far as to accuse me of being white.” The vast exposure afforded him more opportunities to be transparent, and people couldn’t help falling in love with Harlow’s authenticity.
Harlow’s dad, Brian, “built houses with his hands,” and Harlow didn’t skip any steps in building his empire. En route to mastering his craft, he also mastered the art of manifestation: In January 2018, he played to an audience of seven in Madison, Wisconsin; next week, he’ll check off a bucket list item by playing Louisville’s KFC Yum! Center on Dec. 18. He named a Come Home track after Dua Lipa, telling The Breakfast Club he “admired her” then got her permission to release it over FaceTime. Seven months later, the Atlantic labelmates are reportedly romantically linked. Maybe Harlow doesn’t dictate how he captures the zeitgeist anymore – the final step of pop stardom initiation is to find your alleged love life in the tabloids, after all – but he’s never subscribed to outside noise.
The people rooting for the lovable underdog are complemented by the inevitable crowd watching for Harlow’s downfall. The relentless pursuit of power that Harlow detailed to Zane Lowe in May doesn’t figure to be his fatal flaw, because he thrives in sharing the wealth with his people — the day-ones, predecessors and peers. Harlow has always understood his place in hip-hop’s sprawling story, and if 2022 taught us anything, he won’t waste his turn with the pen.
