Interview
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Zara Larsson has come a long way since her debut 2014 studio album, 1 — not only personally, but also artistically.
That’s why her upcoming album Venus feels like a re-introduction. “This is a very solid body of work that I’m very proud of,” she tells Billboard, noting that she isn’t confined by the idea of remaining in one genre. “I find it really hard to stay sonically in one kind of genre. Even though the album is still pop, it sounds a bit more R&B-leaning and also has more just classic pop jams. There are drum patterns and drum beats on some songs and there are also some beautiful strings on most of the songs. So, while there are definitely elements which tie it together, overall, I would just say the real thread throughout the album is just my voice and me telling a story depending on what I’m feeling right now.”
In fact, vulnerability is also a common thread she’s exploring throughout the project, stepping confidently into her own inner goddess by reflecting on who she truly is — hence Venus being her first album release under her own Sommer House label.
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Take her musical reunion with David Guetta, “Oh My Love,” for example. “Into the dark, into the light, baby, I go / Whether it’s wrong, whether it’s right, I will follow / I’ll pay the price, I’ll sacrifice / That’s on my love,” she belts in the chorus, which represents a promise to her younger sister Hanna Larsson that she’ll do anything for her. “Sometimes you’re super happy and no one can stop you, and then other times you’re like, I feel so sad and I feel so broken. You just go through all the emotions,” she says of being human, which is a main theme of the album.
As for reuniting with Guetta seven years after their 2016 collaboration “This One’s For You,” Larsson says being in the studio with the beloved DJ and producer is like spending time with an “old friend.” “I do really love him,” she gushes. “He’s one of the most positive and amazing people that I’ve met in the industry, and he’s always so excited for the stuff that he likes. I just love the song. I think he’s so cool and I’m super happy. It feels like a full circle moment.”
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Guetta is not the only industry veteran Larsson looks up to, mentioning Tinashe, Victoria Monet and Troye Sivan as some of her current inspirations. “They’ve never been cooler, and with every video and every song, the image they’re creating for themselves is getting clearer,” she says. “I just love it. So hopefully, with this album too, I’ll continue to create more of a world with my music.”
She plans to do so not only with her upcoming album, but also with her UK and European tour, which is set to kick off February 16 in Manchester, England, and stretch across Europe before wrapping up on March 16 in Reyjavik, Iceland.
“She’s definitely more dynamic than Poster Girl,” Larsson concludes of Venus. “She is more brave in the sense that she dares to be more personal and emotional, but she’s also just a bit more personal in the sassy, fun way. Like she would say some s—, you know? She’s more playful, but at the same time, more honest.”
Venus is out on February 9. Pre-order the album here.
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Travis Scott has spoken out about the Astroworld tragedy in times past and is doing so once more in a recent interview. The Texas star explained in the chat that he was “devasted” by the aftermath of the event, which left 10 people dead and hundreds injured.
Travis Scott was profiled in a new GQ spread for its Men Of The Year, discussing his current Circus Maximus tour, his fourth studio album UTOPIA, and other topics. Of course, the Astroworld tragedy was an unavoidable topic but Cactus Jack gamely spoke to the matter at hand.
“I always think about it,” Scott said of the incident that took place in 2021. “Those fans were like my family. You know, I love my fans to the utmost.”
He added, “It has its moments where it gets rough and… yeah. You just feel for those people. And their families.”
Of the 10 victims, one was just nine years of age, and the news of the deaths sparked outrage and anger towards Scott. In his initial responses to the event, Scott showed remorse during a past interview and said he wasn’t aware of what was happening in the crowd during the performance alongside Drake.
Further, the crowd was way over capacity, and there was not enough logistical support in place to help control the situation. While Travis Scott was not charged, he is still named in a series of civil lawsuits, numbering over 1,500.
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As someone who has carefully built a steady career in the music industry over the last decade, Stephen Wrabel always makes sure he’s speaking with consideration. Even over Zoom, the 34-year-old approaches conversations the same way he does songwriting — with candor, humor and a lot of self-editing.
“Maybe this sounds cliché,” he tells Billboard, before trailing off for a moment and revisiting his last thought. “Actually, I think most things in music sound cliché when you explain them. So that’s just what it is.”
The cliché Wrabel is referring to is the title of his sophomore album, Based on a True Story (out Friday, Nov. 17 via Big Gay Records). Across 13 artfully penned songs, Wrabel tackles his own demons — including sobriety, anxiety and heartbreak — while simultaneously trying to provide space for those listening to insert their own daily struggles into his diaphanous lyrics.
It’s a delicate balance, Wrabel says — writing songs that allow for personal catharsis over painful memories, and also offer some uplifting thesis of hope for listeners. Specificity often opens the door for ubiquity: “When I hear a song and there are those details — like saying ‘It was cold outside,’ or ‘I was wearing a red sweatshirt’ — my brain changes those details to what my details would be,” he explains. “I never want a song to feel overly broad, because I feel like you lose the truth in it.”
Details come in spades throughout Based on a True Story. On “One Drink Away,” Wrabel recalls dark memories of “getting blacked out in the sun” and “a place I won’t go and it’s on my way home,” before arriving at the heart-shattering claim that, despite his progress with sobriety, “I’m just one drink away from who I was.”
It’s a skill the artist has honed through writing for other artists. Along with managing his own solo career, Wrabel spent over a decade building a career as a sought-after songwriter, working alongside artists like Kesha, P!nk, Celeste, Adam Lambert and dozens more. In writing songs for others, Wrabel saw firsthand how his brand of exacting lyrics could impact others.
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Take “Lost Cause,” for instance. A B-side, Wrabel-written ballad off of P!nk’s latest album, the song details the various red flags arriving at a relationship’s dramatic ending, with the singer declaring that they’re “tired of thinking that tragic’s romantic, it’s bad hope.”
Wrabel originally wrote the song “years ago” while in a dark place, intentionally using “pointed” lyrics to cope with a breakup. While on the road with P!nk for her 2019 European tour, he mustered up the courage to play the song for her — and as she later told Billboard, it became one of the first two songs to form what would become Trustfall.
It wasn’t until he was prepping True Story that Wrabel decided to listen back to his original demo of the track. “The more I listened to it, the more it started taking on such deep meaning for me,” he says. “I think that I just started feeling the weight of it, and it ultimately took on this other meaning where I was telling myself, ‘Whatever anyone thinks of me, like, leave room for.’” He ultimately re-recorded his own version of the song, which appears as the penultimate track of his latest project.
While Wrabel speaks with confidence about his skill as a songwriter, he hesitates when it comes to the strategic side of being a solo artist. “I feel like the landscape [of the music industry] right now is like the Wild West — just this chaotic, oversaturated mess,” he says with an exasperated sigh. “For example, my song ‘Love is Not a Simple Thing to Lose,’ the closer for my first album, is probably my favorite song that I’ve ever written, and there are a lot of times where I find myself thinking, ‘Damn, I do kind of wish that that had its moment.’”
So when it came time to release a new solo project, Wrabel relied on the prevailing business minds around him. His management team proposed an idea to release the album in three parts — first with two standalone EPs called Chapter of Me and Chapter of You, with True Story tying the two together with a set of new tracks. Wrabel immediately understood the idea’s potential.
“The positives of that Wild West mentality is it allows me to really take advantage of the fact that I am independent, and I can do literally whatever I want,” he says. “Normally, a song like ‘Beautiful Day’ would be buried as track number nine on the album, where it wouldn’t get its day to shine. This felt like a natural, easy way to give these great songs a moment of their own.”
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Wrabel speaks from experience about songs getting their moment. His signature song “The Village,” an emotional ode to society’s cruel treatment of the LGBTQ community, went viral for a second time earlier this year, after dance troupe Unity delivered a stirring performance to the track on Britain’s Got Talent. The performance and song quickly picked up attention on TikTok, much to the singer’s delight.
“I think maybe four days after I saw their performance, I was on a plane flying to Liverpool to go meet them, because I had to,” Wrabel says. “One of the most beautiful moments of my career was getting to talk with them about their experiences growing up queer, with this internal dread and discomfort that so many of us have felt. To know that there were so many kids sitting with their family, turning on the TV and seeing themselves in this performance just gave me goosebumps. They were just so brave.”
The singer-songwriter is also quick to point out that, despite being released six years ago, “The Village” still sounds as poignant today as it did back in 2017. With right-wing legislatures around the U.S. taking aim at the rights of transgender people — the very community who served as the inspiration for the song — Wrabel can’t help but feel a bit demoralized that there is still something very much wrong in the village.
“This song is six years old, and I don’t know that we’re in a better place,” he says. After a beat, his face lights back up. “But it does give me hope that I get messages from people every day who are hearing it for the first time and relating to it. I’ll never not be talking about ‘The Village’ for as long as I will be making music, and that’s a good thing — it has sort of become a lighthouse in my career.”
That sense of responsibility and care for his fan base is what informs Wrabel’s identity as an artist; even when examining his own idiosyncrasies through music, he maintains a steadfast objective to put out work that provides solace in a world that can feel cruel. “I’m always trying to make something helpful,” he offers with a smile.
When Richard Bravo attends the Latin Grammy Awards in Seville, Spain on Thursday (Nov. 16), the ceremony will be a somewhat bittersweet moment. Nominated for the first time for his own work with his dear friend Camilo Valencia, for their instrumental album Made In Miami, the Venezuelan drummer and percussionist — a three-time-Latin Grammy winner — couldn’t be more proud. But he will have to travel without the composer and main architect of the album: After undergoing a third heart transplant, Valencia died on Sept. 6, just a few days before the nominations were announced.
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“It made me very happy” to receive the nomination, Bravo tells Billboard Español, saying that he found out from friends who sent him screenshots in which his and Valencia’s names appeared. “I was in Europe and I was like, ‘Oh my God, I can’t believe this!’
“The first person I thought of was Camilo,” adds the artist, who is currently on tour with Juanes and will also perform with the Latin Grammys band at the awards show. “I said, ‘Wow, all the effort on this record and all the sacrifice, the time, the energy, the money, everything, and it happened.’”
Valencia, an award-winning Miami-based multi-instrumentalist, arranger and producer born in Cuba, worked throughout his career with stars like Carlos Santana, Ricky Martin, Shakira, José Feliciano and many others. He was also the musical director of TV shows such as La Voz Kids, A Oscuras Pero Encendidos and Viva El Sueño, and created countless jingles for commercials with Bravo and Carlos Oliva.
“Here in Miami, not a day goes by that I turn on the radio or the TV and something that he did doesn’t come out,” says his brother, bassist Rafael Valencia, also an experienced musician who worked on the album and received a nomination for best arrangement for “Songo Bop,” his only song on Made In Miami.
He says that, before he was hospitalized, Camilo went to his house for lunch and told him that they had submitted Made In Miami for the Latin Grammy nomination for best instrumental album, and that they also sent his song for the best arrangement category. “I thought, ‘Why!?’ I liked his arrangements better,” he recalls with a laugh, before adding with emotion: “That was a gift that Camilo gave me before he left.”
Nominations were announced on Sept. 19, 13 days after his death due to unexpected complications. He was about to turn 64.
Camilo Valencia and Richard Bravo.
Made In Miami is the only album of his own that Camilo Valencia got to record. Comprised of 11 songs, the project pays tribute to the cultural diversity of his adoptive Miami, fusing elements of pop, jazz, funk, R&B, bebop, songo, salsa, samba and Afro-Cuban. Renowned musicians from Arturo Sandoval and Ed Calle, to Milton Salcedo, Philip Lassiter and Luis Enrique, participated in the album. All of the songs, except for “Songo Bop,” were written by Valencia over the course of two decades.
It all started with the first heart transplant, says Bravo, his friend for over 30 years: “I told him, ‘Camilo — because he always had music in his head — why don’t you make use of your time in the hospital, while you recover, and start writing songs?’ The first one he wrote was called ‘CCU,’ which is the hospital’s cardio unit, and that’s how it started. Little by little he wrote the songs, and in recent years we started recording the entire album.”
In addition to “CCU (Coronary Care Unit),” which opens Made In Miami, there are songs like “Hurricane Jiménez,” dedicated to his cardiologist, and “One Heart at a Time,” dedicated to his second donor, “a teenager from Puerto Rico who was murdered by robbers to steal his car,” says his brother Rafael. But there are also titles that pay tribute to the family, such as “Café Union,” which is named after the restaurant his father owned in Cuba, and “Papadin,” a song in honor of Bravo’s father, with whom Valencia was also close.
Family is an important element that’s also very present musically on the album. “It’s very special, because not only are all the Valencias, but all the Bravos here,” explains Bravo. “There’s my brother, my son and my nephew, who recorded the same song [‘Papadin’],” as well as Rafael and his son Ralfy.
When talking about his feelings the day of the nomination, Bravo recalls that he always thought that he and Valencia would travel to Seville together. “I thought he was going to leave the hospital,” he says. “He did it three times [before], and I thought it was going to happen.”
Valencia is survived by his son Eric, his brother Rafael, his sisters Barbara and Maria, and a large extended family. In his honor, many of them will attend the Latin Grammy Awards ceremony.
Stream Made In Miami below:
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Jeezy, who recently ended a nearly two-decade run with Def Jam, is moving into new roles after releasing a book and other massive life changes. Sitting down with Nia Long for a revealing chat in support of his new double album, the rapper born Jay Jenkins bares it all with the veteran actress, and the pair share jewels of their journey along the way.
On Tuesday (November 7), Jeezy released the highly-anticipated hour-long YouTube chat with Nia Long titled after his 13th studio album, I Might Forgive… But I Don’t Forget. Long, serving as the lead interviewer, gets Jeezy to open up about his childhood before getting into his rise as one of the most consistent rappers in the game. However, the questions weren’t one-sided as Sno also asked his series of questions of Long, with the pair sharing intimate details of their upbringing.
Of course, this discussion turned to the topic of Jeezy’s recent split with Jeannie Mai, and while he never says anything negative about Mai, he makes it clear that he tried to save their union. This, in turn, inspired Long to open up about her past relationship with current Houston Rockets head coach Ime Udoka and the explosive scandal that occurred when he coached the Boston Celtics.
After remaining poised and professional, Long appeared to be emotional when speaking about her former relationship and raising the former couple’s son. However, whatever work that Nia Long and Jeezy have done in therapy is apparently paying dividends.
In our opinion, it’s one of the best things you’ll watch today if you’re into seeing a Black man and a Black woman get honest about their struggles with one another. There are still some online that aren’t buying some of the points raised in the conversation, but mostly many of the comments online have remained positive.
Check out the interview below.
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Tori Kelly is fresh off a successful tour and a new EP Tori, and the star sat down with Billboard‘s Rania Aniftos to reflect on her past few months. Thankfully, the 30-year-old singer says she’s “feeling really good” after she was hospitalized back in July for blood clots in her lungs and legs. “It totally […]
In a few days, Laura Pausini will be honored as the Latin Recording Academy’s 2023 Person of the Year — becoming the first artist born outside of Latin America or Spain to receive the accolade, one of the biggest handed out each year as part of the Latin Grammy Awards celebrations. And although the news took her by surprise, she proudly says that she feels Latina.
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“For 30 years I always say that I am the most Mexican, most Argentinian, most Spanish Italian… because I have grown up spending many days of my life with you,” says the Italian pop legend, who has recorded in Spanish since the beginning of her career. “Maybe not my blood, but my soul, my ideas, my ideals, I have made them grow with yours, and I feel Latin.”
On Wednesday, Nov. 15, on the eve of the 24th edition of the Latin Grammys — which for the first time leave the United States to take place in Seville, Spain — Pausini will be celebrated at a gala in which other stars will perform versions of her well-known repertoire. It’s something she has done for other Persons of the Year, from Juan Gabriel in 2009 to Marc Anthony in 2016 to Marco Antonio Solís last year. That means she knows the drill, and won’t know in advance who will sing for her that night, or which songs they will sing.
What she does know is that she will be accompanied by her entire family to cap off a year of great personal and professional achievements, including her March wedding to Paolo Carta after 18 years together; the recent release of Almas Paralelas, her first studio album in five years; her upcoming world tour, which starts in December; and of course, her award as Person of the Year.
“It is the true celebration of a life, of the lives of us Pausinis. I don’t see it only as my career,” says the star. “My family is obviously the one that knows the most about my love for Spanish, for Latin America, and my parents are very excited, my daughter, my husband, my sister will come.”
Born in Faenza, Italy, Pausini started her music career at age 19, rising to fame in 1993 after winning the 43rd Sanremo Music Festival. Her records have sold more than 70 million copies worldwide, she has done nine world tours, and landed three songs in the top 10 on Billboard’s Hot Latin Songs chart: “Las Cosas Que Vives,” “Víveme” and “Como Si No Nos Hubiéramos Amado” — all of them Spanish versions of songs she originally recorded in Italian.
A Latin Grammy and Grammy winner, Pausini also shares a Golden Globe Award with Diane Warren for best original song, for “Io sì (Seen)” from the movie The Life Ahead, which was also nominated to an Oscar. Beyond music, she has been honored with the Starlite Humanitarian Award, the Global Gift Humanitarian Award, and was named Person of the Year by the Diversity Media Awards for her support of the LGBTQ+ community, among other honors.
“Laura Pausini is one of the most talented and beloved artists of her generation whose commitment to advocacy and equal rights is exemplary,” said Manuel Abud, CEO of The Latin Recording Academy, when the award was announced in May. “Throughout her more than three-decade career her extraordinary voice continually breaks down barriers across languages and genres, creating a special bond with audiences around the world.”
You have had a year full of emotions. How do you feel now, just a few days before being honored as Person of the Year?
I feel blessed, I must say, because after 30 years [career] what is happening in my life is not obvious. I realize all that and I feel very grateful. I hope I deserve all that, and that’s why I work so much, especially for the people who are still there, who continue to believe in me, perhaps more than myself, and give me the strength to continue.
What did you think when they told you that you were the Latin Recording Academy’s Person of the Year, being an Italian artist?
They told me that the president [Manuel Abud] wanted to talk to me. Since I had finished co-hosting Latin Grammys a few months earlier with Anitta, Thalia and Luis Fonsi, I thought that something was not good and that he wanted to tell me something about it. So we started this Zoom and he told me: “Laura, on behalf of the Academy, I want to tell you that you are the Person of the Year.”
I mean, very unexpected! Especially because of what you’ve said, I’m Italian, so I didn’t think that was possible for me. I asked him if I could video-call my father, since he was the one who instilled in me the love for music… Each of us was in another city, the three crying with joy. I really started sobbing like crazy, it was very emotional.
I didn’t expect it at all and I am very grateful that I am the first [honoree] who was not born in a Latin American country [or in Spain]. But, for 30 years I always say that I am the most Mexican Italian, the most Argentine, the most Spanish, the most everything, because I have grown up spending many days of my life with you. Maybe not my blood, but my soul, my ideas, my ideals, I have made them grow with yours, and I feel Latin.
Last year, you sang at the Marco Antonio Solís tribute as Person of the Year, and you have also done so at other galas in the past. How do you feel now that you will be the one honored and others will sing your songs for you?
(laughs) That makes me smile. Besides, I’m starting to imagine who will sing, whether it will be my friends I know or new singers. I have no idea because you can’t know, and I know how it works because, as you said, last year I sung for Marco Antonio, but I also sung for Marc Anthony and also for the great Juan Gabriel, so I already had the experience of being on stage as a guest while the Person of the Year did not know. So, this time it’s my turn and I receive it with great pride.
What do you expect from that night?
Well, my whole family will come, and it is the true celebration of a life, of the life of us Pausinis — I don’t see it only as my career. My family is obviously the one that knows the most about my love for Spanish, for Latin America, and my parents are very excited, my daughter, my husband, my sister will come. I don’t know if I can fully make people understand what it means for a person who has always been considered a “foreigner” to feel part of you. For us as a family it is to feel truly loved, as if we were born there. It’s something really very deep that touches a life within a person, more than a career.
You just released your first album in five years, Almas Paralelas. Why did it take so long?
Never before had so much time passed between the previous album and the new one, and I have to say that a lot of things have happened in my life in recent years, some incredible as you also already know, like the Golden Globe, an Oscar nomination, starring in a docu-film about my life… But there have also been moments of great insecurity, fear, doubt, especially thinking about the future as a woman, obviously as a mother, and logically as a singer.
I questioned how I could deserve, for example, the new awards that I won, because with every award that you win comes a new responsibility, and I was afraid of not being able to have new responsibilities. I wondered if I was really capable of accepting a daily challenge with what is happening today, every day, between the wars, imagine in Italy during COVID, but more importantly, with myself. So the truth is that I was blocked for a time. I needed help, and thanks to the people who are by my side, close to me, I regained some of my strength and then I began to challenge myself again, and worked, in a very long search, on new songs. I also worked hard to get to the point where I had the nerve to put my voice and face before everyone’s judgment.
Now I am very happy with what I am singing on my new album, Almas Paralelas. It is a truly conceptual album that covers 16 stories of real people that are different from each other. It is an album that celebrates diversity and the right to individuality, which in my opinion should be respected more as citizens of the same streets, but with different souls, different dreams, different desires. So on this album it’s like we live in a world with shared places, but not necessarily the same ideas. And in this world represented [on the album cover] by the street and its zebra crossing, I’d like there to always be respect and love between the individuals who inhabit it, and I would like for the listener to fall in love with the human beings who live like souls on a parallel path.
What have you learned about yourself in these 30 years of career?
I have learned that my stubbornness has saved me many times. My determination to be very honest with myself, and then with the audience, has allowed me to have no regrets — although it may have happened that some songs work better than others… Sometimes I’ve been suggested to change my style, or adapt more to what worked on the radio. At this point, I am happy to have been determined to listen to my skin in the selections of the songs, obviously trying to have new artists by my side, new producers who will help me maintain my melodic style, but with more contemporary, current sounds. I didn’t want to change.
In reality, I have not changed; I have grown in age and mentality, but I am not a different person. My ideals are the same, so I want my music to continue to be a reflection of my mind.
Travis Scott, Drake, Lizzo… and Jean Dawson. The list of artists that R&B superstar SZA has collaborated with in 2023 is stacked with some of the music industry’s biggest names, but a Gen Z genre-non-conforming auteur from San Diego gifted the “Kill Bill” singer her most poignant duet of the year just in time for fall (Sept. 22).
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“NO SZNS,” a breezy reflection on the all-consuming stupor of California heat, combines both artists’ penchant for introspective songwriting, unflinching examinations of the most incomprehensible of human emotions, and instrumental arrangements that pull from indie rock as readily as they pull from hip-hop and soul. Its music video, a cinematic take on childhood laced with arguments and discord, finds Dawson stepping behind the camera, bringing SZA into his intimate and idiosyncratic visual world.
The new track follows a slew of projects (“side quests,” as Dawson describes them) that are filling the void between 2022’s Chaos Now* — a grungy, ambitious set that featured collaborations with Earl Sweatshirt and production contributions from Isaiah Rashad — and the Mexican-American artist’s forthcoming LP. While he is still unsure of the timeline for his next studio effort, Dawson is certain the album will be “beautiful,” mostly because he has completely rejected the compartmentalization circus that has consumed much of the music business.
“I want to build music without having to focus on everything that I am,” he says. “I want to fractalize myself.”
In paying special care to each facet of his being that makes him an artist who has enraptured a sprawling ever-growing audience across races, ages, and genres, Dawson continues to follow Prince’s uncompromising, do-it-himself blueprint. Whether it’s incorporating his native Spanish tongue into his music at his own pace or touring alongside acts as disparate as Interpol and Lil Yachty, Jean Dawson is currently undergoing yet another metamorphosis – and he’s particularly excited about what lies ahead and how he can continue to subvert everyone’s expectations. “I want you to guess,” he teases.
In an intimate conversation with Billboard, Jean Dawson opens up about his upcoming European headlining tour, his thoughts on the utility of record labels, trying to figure out “what James Blake would sound like if he was Mexican” with his upcoming project, nostalgia and iPad kids.
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Walk me through how “No SZNS” (with SZA) came to be.
In the DMs. That’s how we started talking. She liked the music a whole lot. I think it was maybe a day after she had DMed me — she was working on her album [SOS] at the time — we hung out for several hours and just talked. It was sick. I didn’t realize how alike we were in a lot of different ways, and we worked on some other stuff.
[“No SZNS”] I had been working on prior, just like arrangements and stuff like that. There’s a lot of instrumentation on it, so I think I hit a wall at some point with the song — and then I met SZA. I was like, “Oh, maybe she can finish my sentence.” I showed it to her, and she was like, “Yeah, I’m super down. This is awesome!” So, she wrote her verse, recorded it, and workshopped it for a little bit. It’s not the most intense story of all time, but it’s definitely like, “You had to be there.”
What was your favorite moment shooting the “NO SZNS” music video?
My favorite moment in that video had to be when the two parents were arguing. In the video, SZA’s played by a little girl named Bliss, and I’m played by a little boy named Brave — that’s their actual government names. They’re sitting and coloring and their parents are behind them arguing. Like many people’s childhoods, my childhood was a lot like that. [I went to] the two actors that we had hired and talked to them about their intentionality, how they’re arguing, and what they should argue about. It was really real. They’re arguing about the father needing to be there, and the mom’s, like, “I just need you here.” And the dad’s like, “I’m working, I’m here. I’m here right now, but I need to work to provide.”
I almost cried. I was like Oh, s—t. It got too real for me. Bliss and Brave’s mom and dad are our family friends, so they’re sitting by, and I’m just watching [the kids] be like, Damn, our parents are not like that. That made me really happy. That was one of my favorite moments of shooting it and as being a director on that.
SZA is far from your first high-profile collaborator. How important is it for you to truly understand and know your collaborators on a personal level?
I never collaborate with somebody I don’t know. I have a rule of thumb in music. There’s a lot of people that come from a lot of different traumas and environmental factors that cause them to be a certain kind of way. Sometimes, you get people that have been treated like s—t their entire life, and now they’re in a position of power, so they get their lick back on people who don’t necessarily need it. Sometimes, I’ll look at artists and be like, “Damn, I really don’t like you. I like the music, but I really don’t like you.”
So, spending time with SZA only verified that I was a fan of her as a human being. And the same thing goes for anybody that I work with. I have the capacity to live on my own terms, so I just don’t spend time in places I don’t want to be in. If I already like spending time with you, then making music will probably be automatic. It’s like breathing, you don’t even have to think about it.
But there’s a lot of times where it’s not bad where I’m just like, “You’re cool to me, I never have to see you again.” SZA was not one of those people.
Her career arc has been incredible to watch. Do you want something like that for your career? Or are there bits of it that you’d like to make fit your vision for yourself?
It’s funny because a lot of people that have worked around us say our arcs are similar. I don’t necessarily look at people’s success rate in terms of how popular they are, I look at how great they are because that will stand the test of time. Mad people get popular for a little bit of time, they’re here and then they’re gone. I’ve made it very, very clear to myself that having a job in music is the only thing I want to live for — so I’ve been doing it for 13 years, and now I’m getting considered to be a “new artist,” which is totally fine with me. That just means that my legs are very long.
I got asked yesterday, “How do you feel about possibly becoming very, very famous?” And I don’t feel anything about it — as much as it sounds like a cool answer. Me being dismissive isn’t something for aesthetic. As long as I can make music for the rest of my life, I’m not really worried about much. I think that [SZA’s] getting the praises she deserves — and she’s been deserving of for a long time — and I’m just happy to stand with somebody that believes in me so much. She’s definitely stuck her neck out very, very long for me. If I have the success of SZA, awesome. If I have the success of somebody you never know, awesome too. It’s one and the same for me.
On your Wikipedia page, they describe you as an “experimental pop” artist. What do you make of that phrase?
You know what? I don’t mind. Experimental pop. I feel like that may be the closest thing to what I do. Me and DQ – my big sister, publicist — we’ve talked about this for a long time. We talked about how people perceived me and she understands, and I understand, that I don’t like being perceived. I don’t like my music being perceived in any kind of way, but you can perceive me. I feel like “experimental pop” is fine. I like hooks, and that’s pop. I like songs that people want to sing.
The experimental part… I also don’t want to be bound by any one construct. Early on I decided I’m going to find all the rules and then pick ones not to follow. And that’s kind of how I ended up making music in the first place. That’s why people were like, “But it’s rock, but it’s not rock, but it’s this and it’s that.” One of my favorite artists, Prince –I’ll never compare myself to that man, but what Prince was able to do was make music that was Prince: It wasn’t necessarily rock or pop or R&B. It was Prince.
When people started trying to define me for the sake of utility, like, “Oh, where do we place this?” — place it everywhere. It’ll work.
On the spectrum of visibility, there’s a middle ground where people see one side of you, but not all of you. The concept of the multiplicity of the self… how does that inform the way you incorporate different languages in your music?
As a Black and Mexican person, I’ve learned my entire life how to code-switch, because some language is going to make some people uncomfortable. So, I’m like, “OK, I can’t go up to this white dude and be like, what’s up, my n—a,” it’s not going to work. The reason why I’ll go from Spanish to English to quote-unquote Ebonics to whatever, it’s because the voice is an instrument. It just depends on what I need. I’m not going to use an electric guitar for a part that needs an acoustic guitar, and I’ll rather use a, you know, a f—ing baritone guitar. When I use my different languages, it makes it easier for me to understand myself because I’m not just one thing.
I’m trying to spend my time being more similar to everything than dissimilar. I think a lot of times creatives get in this place where they’re like, “I’m so different,” and I’m tired of being different. Not in the way that I want to assimilate to any idea — I’m tired of being different because it’s not a choice. A lot of people spend their lives separating themselves, and I want to spend more of my life doing what I do in my music. Spanish and English go together because it’s one and the same. Some things I can say better in Spanish than I can in English and some things I can say better in English than I can in Spanish.
My dad was a thug, so a lot of my tongue comes from my father, and then my mother learned English through Black folk. Her English is also proper because Mexican people have the propensity to have to learn English a certain kind of way because they think that they have to. And here, especially when you’re first generation or second generation, you adhere to a status quo of language, or else you’re considered to be “country” or something. And my mom could give two f—ks, but she also was, like, “Y’all going to read these books before you go to bed. A lot of them.”
Y’all wasn’t no iPad kids!
Bro, I’m telling you! You seen iPad Dog?
What?!
There’s an iPad dog. It’s fire. I played the game, and he jumps on the screen, and he taps the screen and s—t.
This is not OK.
I try and spend less amount of time on technology as I possibly can and everybody said, “You need to do this. You need to do that.” I’m like, “You know what? I’m going to take a walk.” I feel like we’re just getting to that age, where we’re turning into old people – because remember how much we were outside?
It’s impossible to talk about contemporary tech without also speaking about algorithms. Has the rise of algorithms in the music industry impacted your ability to create freely, either explicitly or subliminally? How does it impact the way you promote releasing and promoting your music?
In the ‘90s, people hated MTV, because if you didn’t get on TV, you weren’t going to go up. Same thing goes with even before that. In the ‘70s, ’80s, if the disc jockey didn’t f—k with you, you wasn’t going nowhere. You’re gonna end up another vinyl that’s in the thrift store that people don’t listen to.
We’re in a time now where data collection is so important for people to optimize. It’s all about optimization. That optimization has become so clear that you don’t even have to pick your own music anymore. I think there’s a lost love there. It can lead to you not having the sense of discovery.
When I was coming up, I would have to go on YouTube wormholes to try and find new stuff. I’m like, “Oh, there’s this artist, and then there’s this artist. Holy s—t! What is this? This is crazy!” I think now it’s optimized to a point where so many of those steps are gone, which bottlenecks the industry. There’s, I don’t know, 100,000 songs uploaded to Spotify and Apple Music daily. There’s only going to be a few that get past the threshold of playlisting to where more people will listen to them.
Since we have so many people making music, we have lottery winners, which I’m never going to be mad at. We have people that win the TikTok lottery, or it’s like you had a single part of a song that people love, and it’s giving you a career hopefully. A lot of times, it’s probably a scary position, because you haven’t built an infrastructure to support that growth — so you’re going to topple over and people are not going to know who you are in the next following year. I don’t think there’s a good or bad way to do it. I don’t know if it’s necessarily going to decide s—t for us. It’ll just make it easier for us not to have to ever make a decision.
I’m pro-innovation, but I’m also pro-tradition. If you want to go look for music and find a diamond in the rough, do that. I was 17 when I first got found on SoundCloud. I think what’s conducive to me making music is Rick Rubin telling me, “Take your time,” and Jay-Z telling me in my face, “You’re great.” I’ll take that over the algorithm telling me that my s—t is popping.
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I think your attitude towards the power of algorithms plays out in how you structure your releases – you’re not one to tack standalone singles onto a project to play the streaming game, for example. So, walk me through two of your projects from this year: Xcape and Destruction for Dummies.
It’s supposed to be a trilogy, there’s two out now. I’m trying to think when the next one will come out. The last installment is supposed to be called Arcoíris — “Rainbow” in Spanish – but I’ve just been doing a bunch of other stuff.
On ‘Xcape, Pt. 1’ Jean Dawson as “Phoenix,” [Phoenix] is the more aggressive, I have something to say, loudmouth kid. On the next installment, ‘Destruction for Dummies, Pt. 2’ Jean Dawson as “Nightmare,” I had just got out of a relationship, and I was feeling it for real. It was the perfect excuse to find this Eeyore-type personality. Boohoo is the next person for Arcoíris, and he’s the pity party guy, where it’s like: Feel bad for me, and not in the way where I’m going to tell you why to feel bad for me.
I think my headspace when I was making those… I wanted side quests. I wanted to make a chapbook or an anthology series that wasn’t canon. In anime, there’s things that are non-canon events, and that’s kind of what these side quests have been. It’s not like a body of work where my idea from A-Z is complete. It allows you to work out your own ideas without being constrained to the sound of an album, but also not an EP.
So, in that case, what have you settled on as far as the next album is concerned?
I’m trying to think when it will come because I have two plans. Either I’m going to go away for three years and just disappear, or I’m going to put an album out next year, I don’t know. I believe we’ll have a lot of Spanish. I’m also trying to do music in Spanish that hasn’t been done before because some stuff in Spanish — like trap music — has been done. The stuff that’s supe- popular with regional music right now, it’s being done. It’s being done very well. I’m trying to find the space in my brain to figure out what James Blake sound like if he was Mexican. I’m not saying that I’m gonna do that, but I’m just saying that’s my line of thinking.
There’s going to be more Spanish involved, just cause my grandma was like, “Why don’t you make more music In Spanish?” And I was like, “F–k. She called me out.” Honestly, the only reason I hadn’t is because some of the things I have to say, I can’t say in Spanish. Which is kind of a lame reason, and now when she put me on the spot, I’m like, “Damn, I really don’t have that reason, because it’s my first language.” I need to actually do it because I want to do it now. Before, I felt like it was maybe forced or something, and I didn’t want to use it as kudos or a pony trick. It’s like, “No, dude, it’s my language.”
[People] hear me speak Spanish, or when they hear a song in Spanish, they’re like, “No, you don’t understand what that makes me feel.” So, for that full-length project, I’ve been working with some legendary a– people that I’m super excited about. I can’t name them yet, but just as a callback, they’ll know later. I think the next album is going to be beautiful, from what I know right now.
You have a couple of shows towards the end of the month. What can fans expect from those performances?
Yeah, I have a show with Interpol – the legendary band – and we play the Greek in L.A. I have some headline shows as well. I’m excited. The West Coast is my region. Then, I’m supporting Yachty in Europe, which is going to be awesome — I’m a massive Yachty fan. The West Coast gets a lot of me because I live there, so the West Coast and Denver are the two places I’ve performed the most for some reason. I mean, Denver … I love those mountain kids, they’re sick.
I’m approaching the music that I already made differently. The way that it’s structured, the way that it’s played, I have the band learning the songs again — but in a different format, just because I don’t want the perception to be like “Jean Dawson is rock and roll” or Jean Dawson is this or that. No, I want you to guess. And I don’t want it to be spoon-fed to you. I’m just going to make them a little more interesting and just like… What the f—k is going on? I learned that from watching Björk live a few times, where I’m like, “What the f—k is she doing? This is crazy!”
Then when we head over to Europe – it’s my first time — so we’re going to do all of it, starting in Oslo and ending in Vienna. Growing up Mexican, travel is not something that is normalized, because our parents can’t do it — a lot of [our] parents are undocumented. I’m going to make a lot of music out there too. I’m stoked. And I know my European audience and my U.K. audience is stoked because they were like, “Jean’s never gonna come here,” and now they’re going to travel with us! There’s caravans of people that are going to Stockholm, Cologne, Paris, they’re going to see it all.
How does it feel knowing that you’ve built all of this from the ground up?
Grateful above anything else. I got jaded to it a little bit at first, because I was never popular in school, and I was never deemed as cool. So, when it first starts to happen, I kind of have an [aversion] to it because it doesn’t feel real… until I toured the first time. I saw the Black, the brown, the white kids — it felt like I came home from war every time they saw me. They’re like, “Oh my God!” and I’m like, “Oh, s—t!” I got to see their faces and… if it’s not for [them], I really can’t do this.
Anything that they want from me, I’ll stop in the middle of my food and take photos. They find me at the airport now, and it’s f—ing crazy. Y’all just need to relax, but anything you want, you got it. I’ll sit and talk for two hours with some kid that’s telling me about how they want to start making music, and I’m just like, “Do it!” I don’t like giving advice because I don’t know s—t, but here’s what I could tell you I did wrong, and maybe you can circumvent those wrongs. I feel very blessed above anything else and privileged to be able to have my job just be expressing myself and people relate to it. It’s f—ing crazy.
You mentioned that you weren’t considered cool growing up, and now you’re kinda the epitome of cool for a lot of people. Who are your style icons? Who are your film icons?
I was never cool in high school, because the high school I went to wasn’t hip on Tumblr and I was a Tumblr kid, so the s–t that I knew, they had no idea. I was wearing like post-[A$AP] Rocky style — who is definitely an inspiration of mine, amongst a lot of different things, but style specifically.
Post-Rocky Tumblr was crazy as hell, and I was just showing up to school in San Diego, where nobody gave a f—k about what you’re wearing, in some crazy s—t that I got on eBay. That made me a weirdo. Even when I was getting fits off that — if I was in New York, they’re like, “Oh, s—t, he got that s—t on” — where I was from, it was like, “That’s weird. He reads anime. He always has a girlfriend. He don’t talk to nobody.” I smoked cigarettes in the parking lot like, I had no f—ing cool points.
I go to college and it’s still kind of the same thing. It’s like, frats and stuff like that, which is all fine. But I’m not gonna wear no Sperrys. The Internet gave a place for whatever I am to be deemed as cool. Rocky, he’s the best-dressed person, period, I think ever. I don’t have Rocky’s body, nor Rocky’s paycheck, so I’m not necessarily doing what Rocky does, but he definitely is the most well-dressed person taste level-wise. Also, Kurt Cobain — ‘90s grunge is something that lets me be super lazy and people think that it’s tight.
Then in the film world, music for me is a visual language. If you listen to my songs, most of them are metaphorical. Most of the time I’m talking about something that I can see, but I’ve never seen. I’ve been really, really inspired by movies my entire life. I spent a lot of time by myself, meaning that I spent a lot of time in front of the TV because when you don’t have nobody around, the TV’s gonna keep you company. I guess that was my version of my iPad.
Let’s talk about hype. How does the concept of hype register in your mind? Whether it’s industry hype or hype from fans, how do you keep yourself from getting lost in all the different voices trying to define you?
Hype is important when people are excited about you. When people are excited about you, you should feel excited. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with feeling connected to a moment that feels more potent than most. I also idolized people like Earl Sweatshirt, who, in my opinion – he’s someone who since has become a friend and collaborator — Earl was always able to circumvent the current of something. In one of his albums, he said, “trend-dodging,” and that stuck with me. It’s like, “Why do that when I can do the thing that I actually like?” But I also don’t think there’s anything wrong with trends. I feel like some people just need a sense of identity and they need a little help to get there.
I think the idea of hype or your audience being excited about things is cool. Industry hype — it’s hard to get. It’s easy to get disillusioned by industry hype because everybody at one point is going to have their moment where everybody looks at them, and I feel like if you don’t get caught there, you won’t get Medusa’d. And being Medusa’d, it’s like you’re gonna get turned into stone because you’re watching too hard how people are watching you. I think if you acknowledge it and move on, then you’ll never get stuck trying to chase that high. That’s how you end up the oldest n—-a trying to be cool with young kids. You want that same feeling you felt when you were 21 and brand new. It serves its purpose, but as long as you don’t get caught in it, you’ll be fine.
You’ve accomplished an incredible amount while being independent, where do you stand on the utility of record labels?
People have always asked me, “Why don’t you like labels?” It’s not that I don’t like labels, I just have never been signed because the business that I’ve been offered, I’ve never been aligned with. The things that they offer I don’t necessarily need, and the things that I need, they didn’t necessarily offer. So, I’m not pro-label and I’m not anti-label. I’m anti-bad business. I’ve structured my career in a way where the utility of a label wasn’t paramount. It’s totally fine if you want to go buy your house in cash, but I don’t think you should be mad at the bank for giving you a loan. I’m not saying labels are just banks, but one of the biggest things that they’re able to do is give you utility that you might not be able to get or have.
Since I didn’t need that — not because I came up rich, but because I figured out a business strategy early to circumvent the fact that I don’t need to take out the highest-interest loan — I can get it to a place to where I go to a label and we can see eye to eye on what utilities I need and what numbers they want to see back as a return on investment. I wanted to become an artist with a high ROI, and in order to do that, it’s going to take time.
I haven’t necessarily needed a label on my come-up because I’ve had such a strong foundational team from management. We’ve built a little army. We’re small, but we’re scrappy and we get s—t done, and I don’t think it’s because we’re particularly talented. I think it’s because we care a lot. Now, at this point in my career, I’m most likely going to sign this year to somewhere because I think the growing of our infrastructure is super important — just for the growth of our artist project. My entire team is Jean Dawson. It’s not just me. I’m the face and I’m the word, but we need to grow and in order to do that, there’s going to be some things that we need facilitated that are outside of our abilities.
In the beginning, I didn’t want to do that because I wanted to not only own my albums — I own all my albums — I didn’t want the constraints of “this needs to be successful or else somebody loses their job.” And that’s because I care about other human beings outside of myself. I think that doing it indie is noble and I think it serves its purpose, but at a certain point, you’re gonna hit a glass ceiling. And, also, starting off with the label, you’re gonna hit a glass ceiling. I think you need to get your career to a place where it’s stable enough to where you don’t need a label. Then go to a label. Or get your career to a place where, with or without a label, you’re going to be fine, because then you can add fuel to the fire by having stronger arms. You need to know how to allocate your money.
I got offers from my first album to my last album. Offers have always been on the table, but I’m like, “I’m not gonna waste your time and y’all money because I’m not gonna waste my time, and I’m not gonna waste my sanity trying to chase some money that I know I couldn’t get back.” I guess the best advice I can give to anybody that’s thinking about signing or not signing is to really know what you need. If you need money, go do shows, and if you’re not in a position where your shows pay you, then work more and get to a place where doing shows pays you. And then when you get to a place where you need money to expand, then you can go to a label and know why you need it. For anybody that wants to stay indie, do a lot of shows, sell merch, get really comfortable with direct-to-consumer, and having your audience be proud to pay for what you do.
Jess Glynne can’t believe it’s already the five-year anniversary of her most recent album, 2018’s Always In Between. “It really is mad,” the British pop star tells Billboard of Always In Between, which turned 5 on Oct. 12. “So much has happened in my life, personally and in my career. … It was never the plan for that to be so long. But it’s just, life happens, right? And I think I’m now accepting of that.”
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Over that past half-decade, the 34-year-old singer-songwriter — best known in the U.S. for her smash Clean Bandit collaboration “Rather Be,” but with nine solo top 10 hits on the UK’s Official Charts — experienced profound personal loss as an inadvertent professional catalyst. In 2021, one of Glynne’s close friends passed away, causing the pop star to pause her career and “do a lot of self-work,” she says. Glynne re-emerged from mourning with reevaluated priorities and a revamped team, signing with Roc Nation for management last year and with Republic Records as her stateside label.
With that in mind, Glynne has treated 2023 as an opportunity to ramp up to her third studio album, due out next year. “This year has been a foundation for me to get myself back into the world of music and creativity,” she says. “It’s really been a journey, and it’s been experimental, [but] I feel like I have a really strong vision for this album.”
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Last Friday (Oct. 20), Glynne further previewed that vision with “Friend of Mine,” an absorbing pop anthem with production that pulls from drum-n-bass and vocal runs that remind the world why Glynne is considered such a powerhouse. Written with Jin Jin, Ollie Green and DJ Sub Focus, “Friend of Mine” allows Glynne to ruminate on the changing contours of a relationship: “We said some things and we crossed the line, “ she sings, “but will you still be a friend of mine?”
Glynne says that the main hook of “Friend of Mine” came within a 20-minute period during a studio session. “When you break up with someone, you’re mourning the loss of something, but you still want to be able to have that person in your life, because they mean so much to you,” she explains.
“Friend of Mine” is Glynne’s third single of 2023, following the fuzzed-out clap-along “Silly Me” and the thumping dance offering “What Do You Do?,” which were released in April and July, respectively. Those three songs not only suggest a more reflective tone for Glynne’s upcoming album, but also a diversification of sound, with different slants on her soulful pop bedrock.
“With this album, I feel like this chapter has been quite exciting, and refreshing,” says Glynne. “I feel like I’m in a good space.”
It’s safe to say that RuPaul Charles is one of the busiest celebrities currently working in the business. Alongside hosting and executive producing his Emmy-winning reality series RuPaul’s Drag Race, the drag icon has spent 2023 overseeing the show’s growing number of international spinoffs, hosting his own game show and writing a book.
Now, RuPaul is revealing yet another project that’s been on his growing checklist. On Friday (Oct. 20), the star unveiled Essential Christmas, his brand new holiday album compiling personal favorites off of his past three Christmas projects, while also giving fans a taste of something new on “Baby Doll,” a doo-wop jam that’s perfectly tailored for the holiday season.
When speaking to Billboard about his new project, even RuPaul is surprised at his prolific career in releasing Christmas songs. “I never set out to put out any Christmas records, yet somehow it’s happened that way,” he says. “And I really do love it.”
Below, RuPaul chats with Billboard about the making of his latest album, his favorite Christmas memories, the evolution of his writing his revealing new memoir The House of Hidden Meanings, and the continuing legacy of Drag Race.
Essential Christmas is your fourth Christmas album and your second album to be put out this year, along with every other career that you are currently juggling. How are you finding time to put these projects together?
Well, all I really do is work at this point. [Laughs.] And I really enjoy working. So I work a lot — I usually don’t enjoy sitting around, just hanging out.
Let’s start by talking about the new single off of this album, “Baby Doll.” I love this ‘50s doo-wop style that you were tapping into here. How did you and Freddie go about conceiving this track?
Well, Freddie and I both love 50s doo-wop. And when I think of Christmas music, I think of that era as really being the sound of Christmas, especially of dance-y, fun Christmas. So we started there, and then looked at some current songs — well, at least in the past 15 years — that have that same ’50s beat. That’s when we landed on the Beyoncé’s “Single Ladies.” So the drum pattern is similar to “Single Ladies,” but it has all of the elements of that 50s doo-wop style.
Much of the rest of the album serves as a greatest hits-style compilation of reworked past Christmas songs — how did you go about picking out which songs were going to make the cut and which ones weren’t?
Well, in the streaming era, it’s really all about curating — and not just with music, but with everything in life. People have so many choices that my job, in part, becomes that of a cultural curator. So because of streaming, I figured I would to put all of the most significant songs that I’ve done in one place so it makes it easier for people. But also, I love a happy, fun, dance-y Christmas party. “Baby Doll,” when we first started working on it, was initially kind of dark and melancholy. And as beautiful as that was, after we made a demo of it, I said, “You know what, let’s change this, let’s make it more happy.” So we ended up scrapping the first rendition of it, and the only thing we kept of the original song was the title.
Anyways, my point with all of this is I like Happy Christmas; I enjoy a melancholy Christmas song every now and then, I just didn’t want to have that for this collection.
RuPaul
@sanchezzalba
That’s an interesting larger point you made — the streaming era has fundamentally changed the way we consume music, and you have been very conscious of keeping up with new developments in music. How has the sort of shifting focus of the industry at large changed your approach to your music career?
Well yes, there are a lot of changes that have been made, and I’ve adjusted to those changes. There’s a challenge involved there, and I love a challenge. It’s like a puzzle where you think about what the consumer wants, and then you adjust to that without compromising what your artistic vision is. I love the fact that everything is so available to everyone.
The issue then becomes — and this is true with movies, fashion and every form of art — you need a cruise director who’s going to say, “This here is important, go here.” In my case, I’ve been on the planet for a little while, and I have witnessed the history of pop music, the history of movies, and all these things. So it’s my job to pass that on, to mentor and to curate for people who weren’t here decades ago to say, “Hey, that right there, that’s really important.”
That’s part of why I actually appreciate how sampling has become such a staple in modern pop music, because it is allowing newer generations to understand older references that they might not have been there for.
Yes, exactly, as long as they understand the context, as long as they get the full story. When I was a kid, there were four television channels, and I would watch talk shows like Mike Douglas and Johnny Carson. In watching those shows, I was filled in about what happened before I was born. I got to understand who Ella Fitzgerald was, and Sarah Vaughan, and Joe Williams. Those talk shows ended up curating for me what I had missed by not being here.
The concept of the Christmas album itself has become its own staple that many artists put into their repertoire over the last few decades — what do you think it is about holiday music that resonates so much with audiences?
I think people want to conjure up nostalgia and memories of their childhood or memories of joy. There’s so much darkness in the world, and we get this little window of joy and happiness and color and lights and love and gift-giving and happiness. And I think everybody wants a piece of that — I know I do. I never set out to put out any Christmas records. But somehow it’s happened that way. And I really do love it.
Do you have any strong Christmas memories that come up with that nostalgia when hearing Christmas songs?
Well, I have Christmas memories from the past 30 years — in my childhood, we had none because we didn’t have any money and it was pretty sad. But you know, when I met Georges [LeBar, RuPaul’s husband], things changed because he loved Christmas. The fact that we were together made us want to celebrate it. When you have love in your life, and you have something to celebrate, it becomes a joyous thing. So these past 30 years, I have loved Christmas. And we look forward to it, because we get to either have a great Christmas celebration at home, or we get to travel to some fabulous place. Now, Christmas is lovely for me, so I like to pass that joy along through my Christmas music.
I also wanted to chat just a little bit about your upcoming memoir, The House of Hidden Meanings. In your announcement, you made it very clear that this book will see you at your most vulnerable — as someone who has built up a popular persona to protect your private life, what was the experience like deconstructing that persona in writing this book?
It was not easy, because when living a life in public, you have to be very, very careful. But, to do the kind of memoir I wanted to do, I had to be completely open and free to express myself. Now of course, after it’s put on paper, I can pull back and temper some of the more harsh elements of what I said. But it was very cathartic, because I got to go back to the scene of the crime and also celebrate how fortunate I’ve been in my life, and not just in my career.
Part of how I’m able to do all this work is by just steamrolling ahead, and not getting slowed down by past indiscretions. I keep going and juggle a lot of projects going at once; the process of writing this book allowed me to slow down and look through the grocery basket of of my life and excavate these old memories.
That has to be a very healing process, as well, to get to be able to go back through your life like that.
It is! Most of us try to push down some of those memories, but in those memories lies so much hope and strength and courage. When you can walk through the fire, when you can do an inventory like that, you can move yourself forward, you can alleviate some of the baggage. For example, as a kid, a lot of times we think our parents are fighting because of something we did as a child — but as an adult, you can look back and go, ‘Oh, actually that had nothing to do with me.’
It has been wild to see how everything with Drag Race has grown — 27 Emmy wins, multiple spin offs, a dozen or so international versions, hundreds of careers of drag queens launched. Do you often find yourself kind of thinking about your legacy and the legacy of this show?
I certainly was thinking about that while I was writing the book, because the book allowed me to reflect. But usually, I try to be in the moment and deal with what I have to do in order to get through today. It’d be too distracting to always be thinking about that, and you really couldn’t move forward.
As a huge fan of the show and a pop music nerd, I’ve always wanted to ask you about how you kind of go about selecting songs for lip syncs, because the show does a fantastic job of including a good mix of genres, eras, and vibes.
I mean, I worked in nightclubs on stage for over 30 years, so I just kind of know a good lip sync song when I hear one. Not all songs are lip sync songs. But the criteria for the TV show is to find songs that a queen can perform. And really, that’s the only criteria.
With so much evolution over the last 15 years of the show, it often feels like Drag Race has exponential room to grow. Is there anything that you haven’t necessarily been able to accomplish on the show that you’re hoping to achieve in the next couple of years?
Well, it really doesn’t rest in my hands. What makes the show fresh is that each season, we get these fabulous, courageous artists who come on and share their stories with us and the world. As producers, we do what we can to create the infrastructure, but the new blood and energy coming from our contestants is what makes the show what it is.