In Demand
Instead of doing her homework one day after school, the multihyphenate born Atia Boggs used her time for a different assignment. She had just bought Lauryn Hill’s The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill and recalls coming home, sitting down and writing all the lyrics on flash cards. “That’s when I realized how important a good song was and how substance matters,” says Boggs, now 37 and known as the songwriter–producer INK. “And that really inspired me in a whole new way… I learned how to create my own path.”
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She taught herself guitar and started street performing, walking “miles on miles” from downtown Atlanta to the residential Buckhead neighborhood “playing for pennies.” Without any music industry connections, INK sought a mentor online, searching for her favorite songwriters such as James Fauntleroy, with whom she became Facebook friends in the late 2000s. “He was a mentor for me in the very beginning,” she says. “That gave me the confidence to say, ‘I can do this.’ ” Her first big break came in 2019, after she had co-produced and co-written Chris Brown’s song “Don’t Check on Me,” which featured Justin Bieber — and Brown decided it should feature INK, too. “It gave me so much exposure and another boost of confidence to have a superstar say, ‘Hey, we’re going to introduce you to the world.’ That was one of the moments that led to the unstoppable train I’m on now.”
This year has proved to be INK’s biggest, and busiest, yet — but she teases 2025 will be even crazier, as she’s working on her own music and a documentary while continuing to collaborate with music’s upper echelon.
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Beyoncé, Cowboy Carter
“Beyoncé was definitely a catalyst for the freight train to keep going,” says INK, who started working with Bey before COVID-19 hit on Cowboy Carter tracks including “Ameriican Requiem” and “16 Carriages.” INK recalls how, in 2019, they met at Roc Nation’s Grammys week brunch: “We have an inside joke because I went up to her and said, ‘Hey, I just wanted to let you know, I’m going to be writing your next album.’ And she giggled and said, ‘What’s your name?’ We just hit it off.” Soon after, INK was working with producer Ricky Reed, who introduced her to Beyoncé’s A&R executives. “They said, ‘We would love to have you be on this journey with us from the start.’ And five years later, Cowboy Carter was delivered.”
INK was friends with Lopez’s A&R executive long before he had the gig. So when it was time to assemble a team for Lopez’s personal album This Is Me… Now, he told INK, “You’re the first person I thought of for this.” INK most loved how “there’s not a session that happens without [Lopez]… I remember one time, she was like, ‘Hey, pull up today, but I’m going to send you a different address.’ And it’s the movie set [for Atlas]. We’re recording parts from the album in her trailer, and she comes in covered in blood, wet, cuts, bruises all over her body. And then she’s on the mic recording the song that we just wrote in her trailer. I thought that was the coolest thing ever, and it just showed the work ethic.”
Latto, “Look What You Did”
INK has long worked with Latto’s producer, Go Grizzly, another Atlanta native, but she had yet to work with the “Big Energy” rapper herself until this year. As INK recalls, she and Grizzly were working in Paris when they “cooked up the beat” that became “Look What You Did,” off the rapper’s third full-length album, Sugar Honey Iced Tea. “We did a beat in the studio, and then he was like, ‘Yo, you already know we have to get Latto on this.’ She heard it, she loved it and snapped.” INK had previously worked with Mariah the Scientist, who featured on “Look What You Did,” earlier this year when she guested on 21 Savage’s American Dream album. “So the dots connected,” she says.
This story appears in the Oct. 5, 2024, issue of Billboard.
As the daughter of first generation immigrants, stylist Katie Qian recalls her mother regularly sending pre-med requirements and courses all throughout college. But Qian was certain of her path. “In my head, I knew I wanted to pursue styling the whole time,” she says.
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Growing up in San Diego, Qian devoured Fashion Week clips on YouTube and sartorial posts on Tumblr as a teen. “I got into a rabbit hole of watching high fashion runway shows of old McQueen and Dior by [John] Galiano,” she recalls. While volunteering at a hospital gift shop, she would flip through fashion magazines like W and British Vogue, becoming inspired by the editors. Her research paid off; one of her first celebrity gigs was for a local magazine, styling Tori Kelly.
She went on to double major in psychology and business at the University of California Los Angeles, but continued collecting editorial styling credits on top of a full schedule of classes. That intense workflow helped her amass a stable of star clients, and since graduating in 2018 Qian, now 25, has worked full-time as a stylist. Regulars include Conan Gray, Hayley Kiyoko and NIKI, along with most of 88Rising’s roster.
“It’s noticeably harder [to pull clothes] for Asian people,” says Qian of the challenges she has faced so far. “I think [fashion houses] usually have a target list of talent they think is a good fit for their brand … [there’s a perception that] there haven’t been that many Asian artists who fit that profile in America. I don’t think we’re super visible yet.”
Her growing portfolio – which includes a recent magazine cover for Rina Sawayama – is helping change that perception. And while Qian has already dressed many stars on her wishlist, she always has an eye on who could be next: “[I’m most interested in] really cool, alternative artists who are not afraid to do something crazy or funky. To stand out.”
Below, Qian breaks down some favorite moments she styled this year and beyond.
CONAN GRAY
After first meeting through Lauv on the set of their “Fake” music video in Oct. 2020, Qian and Conan Gray teamed up to create the singer’s gender-bending looks. “I remember the first time I put him in a corset when we were fitting in his garage two years ago. His face lit up,” says Qian. “Since then, I kept bringing him riskier and riskier stuff to experiment.”
Case in point: Gray’s monochromatic fuschia fit of custom Valentino trousers, platforms and a wind-catching cape that he wore for his Coachella performance earlier this year. Qian says that particular look proves just how much his style has evolved from the white tank top and jeans combo he often adorned in the beginning of their working relationship. “Conan trusts everything,” she says. “That’s one of my favorite things about him.”
NIKI & 88Rising
Qian says she manifested working with the music label 88Rising. Founded by Sean Miyashiro and known for repping Asian-American artists, “88Rising was a big goal of mine. I love what they stand for, so I was trying to get in touch with them for a while,” she recalls. In 2018, the stylist got her chance when photographer Silas Lee tapped her to style one of the label’s artists, NIKI, for a Guess fashion campaign. “That’s when I first met anyone from 88,” she says. “NIKI liked me and continued reaching out. After that, I started doing Rich Brian, Higher Brothers, Joji. It kind of spread throughout the whole label.”
Near the end of 2022, Qian was preparing to join NIKI on the Asian leg of her Nicole tour. When dressing the Indonesian-born singer for the stage, Qian says Niki will give her a feeling to work with: “‘I wanna feel hot. I wanna look badass.’ I’ll then come up with new ways to portray that.”
SABRINA CLAUDIO
When asked which of her clients excites her the most, Qian blurts out her muse: Sabrina Claudio. “For every stylist, they need to find a client that fits them. You can’t shine until you find a client that lets you create to your fullest capacity.” According to Qian, Claudio’s confidence and embodiment of “divine femininity” is what makes dressing her so fun.
In 2021, Qian enlisted the help of designer Michelle Hébert to create a look that captured that exact ethos. Specializing in ethereal gowns, Hébert made Claudio’s silk butterfly dress for a livestream concert tied to her album About Time. Using ’90s-era Versace as a reference, Hébert hand-stitched silk printed butterflies and sewed it over an asymmetric, orange charmeuse gown featuring strategic cutouts. The look enjoyed a viral moment on the internet, about which Qian says: “It was just magic.”
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