Interview
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Sarcastically noting that answering questions is “my favorite thing to do,” Cher answered a few from the press backstage at the 2024 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony on Saturday (Oct. 19).
After taking the Rock Hall to task during her speech for waiting 35 years to induct her after she became eligible, Cher acknowledges that, “I have a kind love hate relationship [with the Rock Hall], because I thought, ‘What do I have to f–king do , y’know, to be inducted into this place? What do you have to do to be a part of it?’”
Though tempted to tell David Geffen, who she said wrote a letter to the Hall of Fame Foundation on her behalf, to “please take it back,” Cher said that in the end she was happy with the way things turned out. “I felt good. I can say that I’m happy that I’m in,” she says. “If I didn’t [think] it, I wouldn’t be here.”
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Reflecting on a 60-year career dating back to work with her late ex-husband Sonny Bono and sessions with Phil Spector’s Wrecking Crew, the singer said that she struggles with thoughts of legacy. “I [didn’t] have perspective, exactly — I just was busy living my life, so I wasn’t like thinking about it at all,” she says. “I was thinking about it from minute to minute, thing to thing. I thought of myself as a bumper car and when I hit a road I would just back up and turn in a different direction, because I wasn’t going to stop doing what I loved.”
And what about Sonny & Cher making it to the Rock Hall one day? “I think that we deserve it, ” Cher tells Billboard. “Even if we weren’t exactly rock ‘n roll, we represented music. I know it’s not like … we were corny, but we were very avant garde for what was happening at the time, so, I don’t know. I didn’t expect to get in. I just thought, ‘They’re never gonna let you in, b–ch.’”
During her speech, Cher made sure to send a message to all of the women watching around the world: “The one thing I have never done, is I never give up,” she explained. “And I am talking to the women, okay … we have been down and out, but we keep striving, and we keep going and we are somebody. We are special.”
From Beyoncé’s Billboard 200-topping Cowboy Carter LP to Shaboozey’s Billboard Hot 100-topping “A Bar Song (Tipsy),” 2024 has been a watershed year for Black artists in the country music space – and BRELAND is looking to close out the year with a bold new agenda of his own.
Titled Project 2024, the six-song EP is rooted in the country star’s experience visiting Selma, Alabama, the historically significant city from which his mother’s side of the family hails. The duality of Selma’s impact on the Civil Rights Movement and its current state inspired BRELAND to put together a project that speaks to the unshakeable freedom of creativity. He infuses the set’s country foundation with notes of gospel and disco, while also finding time to collaborate with other Black country acts like the Grammy-nominated husband and wife duo The War and Treaty, who appear on the EP’s moving closer, “Same Work.”
“The music is not political and obviously it’s an eye-catching title,” BRELAND tells Billboard of the new EP, out today (Oct. 18) — whose title nods to The Heritage Foundation’s controversial Project 2025 political initiative. “But I think what I’ve really done in the songs here is create a body of work that is as inclusive as possible.”
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Already a Billboard chart-topping artist – he hit No. 1 on Country Airplay with Dierks Bentley’s “Beers on Me,” which also featured HARDY – BRELAND also boasts hits of his own like 2019’s “My Truck” and 2022’s Thomas Rhett-assisted “Praise the Lord,” which hit Nos. 24 and 21 on Hot Country Songs, respectively. He also sports a unique perspective as a Black country artist who broke through before 2024 flipped the genre on its head. It’s that perspective that grounds his sonic amalgamation of American history, his family’s lineage and his vision for country music’s boundless future.
Project 2024 serves as BRELAND’s first studio project since 2020’s Rage and Sorrow EP, which was written and recorded in response to the fallout of the murder of George Floyd. Last year, he won the inaugural Lift Every Voice Award from the Academy of Country Music (ACMs) for his role in elevating underrepresented voices in country music.
In a candid conversation with Billboard, BRELAND gets real about navigating country music as a Black artist, the making of Project 2024, his upcoming project with NBA star Jimmy Butler and not being featured on Cowboy Carter.
Project 2024 is obviously a very loaded title. Walk me through the thought process that brought you to that title.
Yeah, definitely a loaded title in some ways — but literally, this is a project that I am putting out in 2024. You don’t really have to look any further than that. This is a project that was largely inspired by a trip that I took down to Selma, Alabama, which is the land of my ancestors. I had never been, and seeing that rich history of what it means to be Black in America — seeing a lot of the issues that they were fighting for in the ‘60s back on the docket — I feel that this is a project that is really born out of creative freedom, in a world where we can’t always take certain freedoms for granted.
I wanted to put this out, not as a political agenda, but as a creative one — to say, “I’m going to continue to push the boundaries of what country music can mean.”
The EP ends with a really touching collaboration between you and The War and Treaty. Why were they the right choice to be the only feature on the project?
Since I’m only doing six songs, and I haven’t really put much music out this year at all, I wanted to make sure that I could actually tell some stories on my own. But this is one that felt like it really deserved an additional vocal and an additional storyteller. “Same Work” is based on a true story.
After one of my shows [at CMA Fest], an older gentleman, who was a veteran, came over and told me how much he appreciated what I do and told me a little bit about himself. He served for a number of years and has since been working as a freelance nurse, and he’s been giving free healthcare to veterans [who] need it in the Memphis area. And he was like, “Well, you and me do the same work.”
I [got] what he was trying to say, but let’s be clear: First responders are [very different] from musicians. He was like, “No, we do the same work. At the heart of my work is helping and serving people and to my knowledge, that’s what you do as well. If you keep that at your center, then we will always do the same work.” I just thought it was such a beautiful interaction and a reminder of why what I do is so special and why I’m so grateful to be able to do it — because I get to have interactions like that. [I can] impact people on that level, but then have people impact and influence me on that level [too.]
So, I ended up writing the song with Tenille Townes. We were doing this holiday train tour. I told her about the interaction, and we ended up writing the song right then and there. When I was gearing up for this project, it felt like one that fit the overall tone and would be a nice closer. I really didn’t want people to think that I was equating being a musician to serving in the military or being a healthcare professional. I wanted to make sure that I could have someone singing with me on this song that understood the message from a different perspective. Michael [Trotter Jr.] being a vet himself definitely understood it and I felt like him being able to help tell this story with me would alleviate some of those concerns that I was having.
You move through genres so freely and that’s always been a big part of your artistic ethos. What inspired the poppy, almost post-disco bent of “What You’ve Been Through”?
I come from a very matriarchal family, and it’s my mom’s side of the family that hails from Selma. [All the women in my family] have overcome a lot. I wanted to have a song that speaks to that resilience, but I didn’t want it to be this sad, melancholy type of record. I wanted to do it in the form of a celebration because I feel like these women need to be celebrated.
You might see a woman on the street and think, “Oh, wow, she’s got it all together.” But you don’t know exactly what it is that she’s been through. I have a lot of women in my life for whom that is true. We’re putting this project out in October, which is breast cancer awareness month and domestic violence awareness month. I have women in my family [who] have been affected by both. I felt it would be a fun approach to a concept that could be done in a very different way.
You say Project 2024 isn’t political. What do you say to people who might argue that invoking the concept of Project 2025 must come along with some kind of substantive commentary on it, given the gravity of the situation and how close we are to the election?
We are in very challenging times. We’re seeing a lot of families and friendships being broken along political and ideological boundaries. While my music has never been political, my existence in this space as an outspoken young Black country artist is. If you listen to this music and listen to the heart of the music, I care about people. I care about people being able to have rights, freedom of expression, freedom to love and freedom to live — and that’s something that I stand on. I want to remind people that there are certain freedoms that people can never take from us. To me, that’s where the music comes in.
Hopefully, [this project inspires] people to do their own research about some of the different issues that I touched on in this project — and some of the issues that I don’t touch on in this project, but may exist in the larger political landscape that we live in. When they think about things like Project 2025, I want people to be able to come to informed conclusions about their own opinions.
How important is it to you that you speak truth to power in your music as a Black artist in country music?
I don’t think that my race is at the forefront of the music that I’m making, but I do also recognize the ways in which representation in this space is ever important and why me being a Black artist in this space comes with an additional level of responsibility. I always want to make sure that I rise to the occasion.
These are songs that I hope Black people like, I hope white people like — I hope every culture and every community of people can relate to it because all of these songs are really about universal human experiences. That, to me, is more of the focus here. I think that representation in this space matters and trying to navigate how much I want to engage with that or even talk about that… these are things that a lot of my white peers don’t really ever have to consider. I also feel like I have to be additionally prepared to respond to certain types of questions or be able to guide conversations in a certain way. I think that I’m uniquely equipped and capable [of having] those conversations as they arise, and I’ve never really shied away from that in my art.
It can be a challenge at times to have to bear that burden, but at the same time, I also feel like it’s a blessing for me to be able to do that, and pressure is a privilege. I’m definitely grateful to be in a position where I can have conversations along the lines of racial discourse and contribute with my art in a meaningful way.
You mentioned earlier that your existence in country music has always been political. Was there a moment or a series of moments that truly crystallized that for you as an artist in this space?
I [remember I had] just put out my first ever EP, which was the Breland EP, and then literally a week and a half [later], you’ve got the George Floyd murder and subsequent protests. In country music, in particular, there was a lot of finger-pointing of, like, “Well, you didn’t post a black square and this person did.”
There was a lot of having to remind people that freedom and equality are not political. These are human rights and basic human liberties that we should have as human beings in general, and as citizens of America — which is a country that, in theory, should be able to help, support, maintain and establish that for its citizens. I don’t think that recognizing that racism still exists in America and trying to figure out ways to combat that is a political conversation. It has been politicized.
As a completely new artist, I ended up putting out Rage and Sorrow, a short little EP that talks about the rage of that situation — but also the deep and very real sorrow that I think a lot of people were experiencing, myself included.
I’ve also had situations like when I sang the National Anthem at the Daytona 500. When it was announced, it was met with a lot of criticism, and hate online from people who were like, “Here we go, they’re trying to make a political statement.” I’m like, “Hey, just so you know, I’m not kneeling when I do the anthem. I’m not putting up a Black Power fist. I’m not singing the third stanza of the National Anthem. I’m not making a political statement here. I’m singing the National Anthem just as adequately, and if not more competently, than some of your favorite white artists.” So, I sang it, did a great job and those same people were like, “Wow, that was actually very good.” And I’m like, “Why did we have to go through this in the first place?”
I have [also] had some really amazing triumphs as a Black artist in this space, but I’ve also faced some pushback and resistance from specific people who maybe aren’t on the same page as me as far as those things are concerned. I recognize that simply being here, putting out music and being successful in this space helps change the conversation.
2024 has obviously been a banner historic year for Black country artists, both in terms of commercial success and the critical and cultural conversation around it. What’s your biggest takeaway from this year, especially as a Black artist who was able to have a breakthrough before this particular moment?
It feels like a long time coming. I think back on some of the artists that never really got their moment. I mean, obviously you have the Charley Prides of the world who experienced tremendous commercial success. But you also have artists like Linda Martell, who experienced some success, but probably would have experienced significantly more had certain doors not been closed to her. I think about artists like Rissi Palmer or Frankie Staton, or even Mickey Guyton, who were a bit ahead of their time, and really shouldn’t have been ahead of their time — because they’re talented artists who have stories to tell that are just as valid and creative and valuable as everyone else’s.
For me, being in this space and having been able to have some success, all of that is great. But until we are no longer having this conversation, none of it is going to be enough, so we continue to fight forward. I definitely think that this has been a landmark year, and I love seeing more and more Black people engaging with country music — not just as consumers but as creators, and seeing people [who] are coming over and wanting to engage with this because this is a genre that wouldn’t exist without the contributions and influences of Black people from day one. It’s really cool to see Black people driving around town listening to country music, pulling up to honky tonks and coming to concerts. I can visibly see a shift just since I’ve come out five years ago.
What do you think the country music industry, and Nashville in particular, can do to keep this energy going beyond moments like Cowboy Carter and “A Bar Song (Tipsy)?”
Country music is a genre that is really built on community in a way that other genres aren’t. I think it is going to require other artists in this space to continue to collaborate with Black artists and begin to bring Black artists out on the road as openers. Country radio stations also need to play more diverse artists, because if you’re not Kane Brown — or I guess now Shaboozey with this one song — Black artists don’t really get played on country radio at all. You can have these songs that make big splashes online, but [it doesn’t matter as much] if you don’t have the same push at country radio or the same push to get in front of people and play these shows and festivals. You need all of those things for this to be sustainable.
So, I’m hoping that “A Bar Song” and the Beyoncé album and the cultural conversation that we are now having changes things.
Were you asked to be a part of Cowboy Carter?
I was not asked to be a part of Cowboy Carter. It would have been great to be a part of that. There was a moment when the track listing first came out and I was getting tagged in a lot of things with people being like, “Why wasn’t BRELAND a part of this project?” And I definitely asked myself some of those questions as well. It’s challenging sometimes to feel like, “Okay, I have relationships with all of these artists, right? I’ve written with Shaboozey [and] Willie Jones, I’ve got music out with Tiera Kennedy and Brittney Spencer, and I’ve brought Tanner Adell and Reyna Roberts out to sing with me. Not being a part of it was kind of hard for me to wrap my head around.
At the same time, I also had to remember that, maybe with the exception of Brittney Spencer, all of these artists were independent or signed to independent labels. None of them had been played in any capacity at country radio. So, looking at what Beyoncé was trying to do — I think she was really trying to amplify the voices of people [who] maybe had not been as ingratiated or welcomed into the country music landscape the way that I had been. In a lot of ways, I think those artists really deserved that platform even more than I did. I was really happy for them all, and excited for their success. I listened to all of those records that all of them are featured on in particular, because I want to see them all win, and it’s bigger than just me.
You were part of another major country music moment this year with “Boots Don’t” from Twisters: The Album, which marks your second collab with Shania Twain. What was your experience landing a song on such a blockbuster soundtrack?
It was great! Shania was one of my favorite artists coming up. She’s one of the people [who] turned me on to country music with some of her hits from the 90s and early 2000s. When I got a chance to finally tour with her and to be a part of the deluxe [version] of her Queen of Me album, I thought that was already fantastic. But we did have this song in the tuck, and we were looking for an opportunity to put it out and the Twisters soundtrack came along, and it ended up being a good fit. Hopefully, we can get some sort of Grammy acknowledgment on that one.
Shania opened up a lot of doors for me when she really didn’t have to. For her, being a Canadian woman breaking into country music at the time that she came in is very similar to my experience as a New Jersey Black dude coming in back in 2019. She understands what it is that I’m trying to do. I appreciate her friendship and her mentorship, and anytime we get an opportunity to sing together or perform together, it’s one that I definitely take with a great deal of gratitude.
What’s up next for you?
I definitely want to get back out on the road, but that’s probably more of a top of [next] year. I’ve got a couple of potential collabs that are coming, so I will have some more music in the next few months between this project and whatever I end up doing next as a solo artist. I’m working on a project with Jimmy Butler right now, which will be a compilation album featuring a bunch of artists both inside and outside of country music. I think it’ll be a really great cultural moment, and we’ve been working on [that] most of this year.
I’m just now starting to properly work on the sophomore full-length album. I think that Project 2024 is a really great way to get back into the marketplace and give people some new music.
The last time Audrey Nuna released an album – 2021’s A Liquid Breakfast – the world was still largely in the shadow of the COVID-19 pandemic, Olivia Rodrigo had just launched her Sour LP and Taylor Swift was the very beginning of her Taylor’s Versions campaign. Three years later, Nuna returns with a darker, grittier companion to A Liquid Breakfast titled Trench.
Featuring a collaboration with Teezo Touchdown and an interpolation of Brandy and Monica’s timeless “The Boy Is Mine,” Trench showcases the marvelous sonic evolution Nuna has undergone since first signing to Arista half a decade ago. Foreboding synths anchor apocalyptic anthems like “Dance Dance Dance,” while forlorn acoustic guitar serves as the backbone for quieter, more jaded moments like the evocative “Joke’s on Me.” In the years between her debut and sophomore albums, Nuna moved to Los Angeles and experienced an unmistakable darkness rooted in the city’s synthetic nature around the same time her frontal lobe started to fully develop.
Trench is born out of the tumult of those years, and throughout the record’s double-disc journey, Nuna comes out on the other side with a greater understanding of how to streamline her idiosyncrasies into a concise project. She raps and sings across the record’s moody, glitchy trap and R&B-informed soundscape, while still leaving room to incorporate notes of rock, folk and dance-pop. All of those styles were on full display at her electric album release show at Brooklyn’s Sultan Room on Oct. 15, which was packed wall to wall with adoring fans who perfectly matched Nuna’s thrilling stage show.
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“I would say the tagline for this project is ‘soft skin, hard feelings,’” Nuna tells Billboard. “I think that really encapsulates the duality my whole shit is based on… this idea of blending things that don’t normally go together. I love beautiful chords and R&B, but I also love harsh sounds and really raw synths. The whole sound is a blend of our tastes – me and [my producer] Anwar [Sawyer,] and that whole first project really helped me carve out the sound naturally.”
A Jersey kid and Clive Davis Institute of Recorded Music dropout turned rising cross-genre star, Audrey Nuna is ready to enter the next phase of her career with Trench. In a heartfelt conversation with Billboard, Nuna details the making of Trench, how she understands herself as a Korean-American navigating hip-hop and R&B and how the ‘90s informed much of her approach to her art.
You signed to Arista in 2019. How do you feel that your relationship with them has evolved over time — especially going into this new project?
I think it’s like any relationship where we’ve been building a lot of trust. They signed me when I was pretty young, and it’s been five years. When they signed me, they were all super excited — and we have an unusual, unique artist-label relationship where we’re building it all together from the ground up. I’m grateful for the freedom to do what I want to do. I’m pretty blessed in the fact that I’ve never felt like I had to do things. I’ve always been able to maintain a sense of independence, which is a f—king blessing.
Why is the album called Trench? How did you land on that title?
I really love words. I just love that word, [“trench.”] First and foremost, I love that it’s double consonants in the back and front. I love that it sounds kind of harsh, but there’s also a bit of balance to it. There’s also this analogy of war and defense mechanisms and the hard, brutal reality of that. I think it’s really interesting that when you zero in on something so harsh, you will always see this warm flesh underneath. It’s that concept: we’re all human, but we go through all these hard things that kind of push us against our nature, which is warm. It was just really ironic to me, and that duality was something I wanted to present throughout the album.
Why did you choose to present Trench as a double-disc album?
I just felt it would be a great way to showcase the two sides of this character in this world. At the end of the day, while I was organizing the tracklist, I realized that they’re very much one and the same, but almost inverses of each other. I think that this idea of showcasing those. They’re inverse, but they’re also parallel.
Talk to me about “Mine,” in which you interpolate Brandy and Monica’s “The Boy Is Mine.” How did that one come together?
I had the idea for that song because I love the romance of ‘90s R&B. The producer I worked with, Myles William, had the idea to reference such an iconic song, and I loved the idea because it was still so current sonically with the Jersey club in there. I think combining those two things was very fascinating to me. Even flipping the original meaning of the song where two characters are fighting over one guy into me making the guy cry instead – it’s more of that harshness that Trench is about.
Being that you’re a Jersey kid, did you hear Jersey club a lot growing up?
Actually, yeah! It’s so funny because in high school, and even before then, Jersey club was always circulating. Not as much on the radio or anything like that, but more on people’s phones on YouTube or if you were in the car with your friends. It was so specific in what it was that to now see it be such a big part of the mainstream is really mindblowing.
You teamed up with Teezo Touchdown on “Starving.” How did that come together?
I had that song starting with the demo. We were thinking about a feature that was. In the beginning, we were thinking of Steve Lacy or Fousheé. I think my A&R suggested Teezo because he’s been working with him, and it just made sense. “Starving” is also a very pop record, and kind of out of my comfort zone — which is interesting, because for most people a track like that is very left-field. I think having an artist [who] understands what it’s like to stay in a pocket of the most pop song on your record actually feeling like the B-side is really cool.
It was just really cool to see him do his thing on there because he just brought a fresh energy that you wouldn’t normally expect someone to rap or sing with. He almost reminds me of André 3000, because of the way he makes anything sound good by how he wears his energy. Same with his fashion — the way he wears the clothes is what makes it work.
What was on the mood board while you were creating Trench?
The movie Akira. When I made “Nothing Feels the Same,” Akira was definitely in my head as this villain coming into herself – in the movie’s case, himself. It just felt like a soundtrack for a darker transformation for me. On the other side of that, I was also weirdly inspired by more bubblegum-esque aesthetics, and combing those two things. You can hear it on a song like “Sucking Up.” I’m really inspired by the ‘90s, like KRS-One, but also PinkPantheress and jazz influences like Chick Corea or Hudson Mohawke on the dance side and even Korean 90’s alternative artists. There’s a lot of different stuff.
What was the entry point to hip-hop?
I grew up pretty musically sheltered. My parents are immigrants, so they put me on to some Korean older folk music. Knowing popular music came very late. I specifically remember listening to [Ye’s] Yeezus sophomore year of high school for the first time. At that point in my household, cursing was bad. To hear something so vulgar and raw and different from anything I’ve ever heard before, that was a bit of an entry point for me. [I found a] space and form of expression where you can truly say what’s in your heart and not necessarily care about the world. I think that was very enticing to me.
Meeting Anwar and listening to everything he put me onto and obsessing over Sade together [was also formative.] Sometimes, I feel like when you don’t know what your lineage is because of immigration and you don’t see a lot of people doing what you’re trying to do, you have more freedom because it’s a blank canvas.
How do you navigate conversations where your race is emphasized in relation to the kind of music you make? How do you understand yourself as a Korean-American operating in traditionally Black spaces like hip-hop and R&B?
Being boxed into “Korean-American” is definitely a thing. In my case, I learned to acknowledge that I am who I am, and being an American is part of my identity, but it’s not necessarily the only thing that you want to be attached to your identity. At the end of the day, we’re human. Yes, I grew up eating kimchi jjigae, my parents spoke Korean to me, I was exposed to all of these other Korean things – that’s gonna bleed into everything I do, whether I want it to or not.
At the beginning of my career, seeing the hyper-emphasis on [my race] was very interesting because growing up I never felt Korean-American, I never felt Korean enough. And now it’s like you have to be “very” Korean. It’s very extreme. At this point, I’m all about paying respect to where the genre comes from and understanding that I am a visitor and a guest. It’s about respecting the craft and studying it and not viewing it as anything other than what it is – something that is worthy of all of the respect in the world. Also keeping the conversation going and asking questions, I’m not gonna understand every last reference.
I honestly feel it’s been an evolution. All these cultures are merging, and I think that’s a beautiful thing. Ultimately, I pray that that would give us more empathy and understanding as a human race. My biggest thing is encouraging people to educate me constantly and keeping the conversation open. On both sides, you can get boxed into a narrative, but at the same time, it’s all very gray. Generally, just do what inspires you in a conscientious way. Just do shit.
You’re trying to break through in the wake of the Stateside K-pop boom. Has that phenomenon impacted the ways the market sees you and your music at all?
The sentiment towards Asian culture in general has changed in the past three years. Growing up, it wasn’t “cool” to be Asian. But it’s like this hot commodity now, Korean culture especially is at the forefront right now. Sometimes, you do get boxed into this “everything Korean is K-pop” [mentality.] I’ve been listed in random articles as one of “10 K-Pop acts to know.” Even labels that approached me earlier in my career were like, “Well, we have all these K-Pop acts, so you would be very welcome here.” At the same time, my music is worlds away from K-Pop.
It’s gray and it’s nuanced, but at the end of the day, I’m really proud to be Korean and proud that Koreans are being recognized for their excellence in music and visuals and fashion. When I see people who genuinely love the culture push and try to understand it outside of just the aesthetic, that brings me a lot of joy.
What was your time in Fort Lee like?
Fort Lee is like the K-Town of Jersey. It was kind of like a retreat. After I went to school for a year and then I dropped out and moved to Fort Lee. I stayed by all these Korean families, almost in the suburbs — but it was right outside the city, so there was a little bit more going on. That place is so warm and nostalgic in my heart because it’s the place where I really found my sound. It’s the most romantic place in my heart because all I did all day was make music. That was before I had a career; it was when I was doing it, not knowing if I was going to be able to do it.
There’s something so special about that; I realized you really never get it back once that period is over. You can spend your whole life emulating that, but it will never be as pure. I always look up to my 19-year-old self and the fearlessness that came out of true naïveté.
How do you view Trench in relation to A Liquid Breakfast? Is there a symbiotic relationship between the two records?
I think they’re very symbiotic, and I love that word. They follow the same character, [she’s] just gone through a bit more shit. The first project is Fort Lee; it’s romantic, it’s curious, it’s pink and blue and springtime. In between [A Liquid Breakfast and Trench,] I moved to LA and as sunny as that city is, there’s a level of syntheticness and darkness that I experienced. [By Trench,] this character went underground for two years and didn’t see sunlight for a long time.
And who knows, maybe this is a “part two” and there’s one more part that ends this story. I definitely think [Trench] is the darker counterpart, sonically, lyrically and conceptually. It’s a bit more complex and experimental. At its core, it follows the same character as the last album. Since the last project, so much has changed and so much has stayed the same.
I see a lot of the ‘90s in your approach to music videos. How did you develop your visual language, and did that intersect with and or influence your stage show at all?
I’m very ‘90s-inspired for sure. One of the first videos I remember being very inspired by was the Jamiroquai video, “Virtual Insanity.” And then obviously Missy Elliott, and anything directed by Hype Williams. I don’t know what was going on. I just think it was a golden age of music videos. People put so much value into music videos, but they were also so new to the point where people were just trying anything. I think that balance of having the resources and also having an innocence, in a way, towards the craft was so special.
And Thank God for the internet. I saw the shit that I had never seen before just browsing YouTube; seeing Spike Jonze’s work and the Beastie Boys’ “Intergalactic.” Finding all of those different things and combining them kind of exploded my DNA. Also, my dad used to own a clothing factory in the Garment District. I was mostly around fashion, and I think that was very formative for me.
Are you planning to tour behind Trench?
Yes, next year. I’m still figuring out certain things, but I think that it’s essential for me to do this album live. I came up during the COVID era, and I haven’t had an opportunity to just perform for people as a headliner. I’m just very spiritually ready to present an album in that space.
What song from the album are you most excited to perform live for the first time?
I’d say, “Baby OG.” I just love it; it never gets old. I sampled my 19-year-old self on that song. There’s a demo from 2019 called “Need You,” and that never got put out. But we just sampled it one day and it ended up becoming “Baby OG.” The meanings of the songs were so parallel. I didn’t realize that until after I finished the song. It’s kind of a meeting of past and future self.
Do you plan to return to Clive at any point or are you full steam ahead with your career?
I can’t afford it. [Laughs.] I can’t afford that s–t! I think if I were to go back to school, I would not go to school for music. I’d want to study history or fashion design.
In a past interview, you named Chihiro from Spirited Away as the fictional character you relate to the most. Is that still true, and have you heard the Billie Eilish song inspired by that character?
I think that will always be true. I love Miyazaki’s protagonists because most of the time, they’re kids who are just so courageous and wise. I think that was super empowering to see as a kid. That was one of my earliest memories of digital cinema and animation. I have heard “Chihiro” from the new Billie album. She’s so sick. It’s so awesome to see her sonic progression.
There’s a question Joy Oladokun often finds herself asking when thinking about her career: “If Nina Simone had the internet, what would she do with that?” she ponders. “Like, what sort of Mavis Staples-meets-Azealia Banks tweets would we have gotten from her?”
The High Priestess of Soul is far from the only artist the folk–pop artists finds herself ruminating on: throughout her conversation with Billboard, Oladokun drops names ranging from Big Mama Thornton to Paul McCartney to Big Freedia. But the artists she often finds herself thinking about, she says, are the ones whose names she doesn’t know.
“I think a lot of my music comes from a place of knowing that not all Black queer people got to live this long or get this far,” she explains. “It feels like I’m fighting with both the idea of progress, the reality of progress and the cost of it.”
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A career’s worth of those feelings come roaring out on Oladokun’s stunning new album Observations From a Crowded Room (out today via Amigo Records). Written and produced by Oladokun in the 15 months since her 2023 LP Proof of Life, the new record sees the singer-songwriter wrestling with her current place in the music industry and the world at large. Employing electronic flourishes to accentuate her pointed songwriting, Oladokun examines why it seems that social advancement in the music industry is always two steps forward, one step back.
The idea for the record started after a whirlwind of touring in 2023 — after running through the summer festival circuit and performing as an opening act for John Mayer and Noah Kahan’s tours, Oladokun found herself at the end of a grueling schedule, sitting by a river with her guitar somewhere in Oregon.
“I was on mushrooms,” she giggles. “I was having an emotionally hard time, then. And when the shrooms hit, I saw this moose — and right there, I just wrote the first song on the album.”
That song, “Letter From a Blackbird,” provides the central argument for the album within its first minute. “These days I sure regret how much of me that I have given/ I feel my patience running out, I hear the water sing to me,” she sings, accompanied only by a vocoder chorus of her own vocals. “Blackbird: what did you think you’d run into out here in the wild?”
Throughout the record, Oladokun contends with managing the expectations of her community (the hip hop-infused”Hollywood”), examining the history of marginalized artists (the pop-leaning “Strong Ones”) and her own desire for recognition from the industry (the fiery folk ballad “Flowers”). Punctuating those songs are brief “observations,” interludes scattered around the project that see Joy speaking directly to her audience and telling them, point blank, how she’s feeling.
While she’s become known in industry circles for her tell-all lyricism, Oladokun acknowledges that Observations is something entirely different that her past albums. “In a sort of unhinged way, Proof of Life was a democracy, and this was more of a dictatorship,” she says. “When you’re working with [other songwriters], sometimes you have to sacrifice a feeling or pull a punch just to get something through. The benefit of making this alone was just that, for 40 minutes, I could just be unfiltered. I’ll give you the choruses and hooks you can hold on to, but I also want to be as honest as possible.”
While Oladokun serves as the sole songwriter and producer on the vast majority of the album’s records, a few other songwriters appear in the liner notes — including Maren Morris (“No Country”), Brian Brown (“Hollywood”), Edwin Bocage and Theresa Terry (“Strong Ones”). As she puts it, Observations wouldn’t have been possible had she not made early connections with songwriters throughout her growing career.
“This album is the fruit of so many lessons learned, and people like Dan Wilson and Ian Fitchuk or Mike Elizando, or even like contemporary great songwriters like INK,” she says. “These were people who took time to really pour into me, and said, ‘Here’s what’s great about what you do, and here’s how we can elevate it.’”
The songs where Oladokun gets the most raw see the singer calling out Nashville, and the industry system therein that she says failed her. “Letter” opens with the thought that, if she drowned in a river, the city wouldn’t cry for her, but rather “breathe sighs of relief.” Penultimate track “I’d Miss the Birds” sees Oladokun calling out the town by name, decrying its willful ignorance of her and people like her, while “Proud Boys and their women” continue to thrive.
In the year since she wrote those songs, Oladokun’s feelings on Nashville have only calcified. “Put it in ink, Nashville should be ashamed of itself. I’ll say it as long as they don’t gun me down; this town is so full of s–t,” she says, staring directly into her Zoom camera. “It’s not even because Nazis can walk around freely — that’s a problem, but Nazis are gathering all over the states. My genuine issue is the people who only want to do enough to appear good, but will never lift a finger to actually help.”
In the eight years she’s spent living in the country music capital of the world, Oladokun says she’s watched firsthand as artists and executives praise the “progress” that the city has made socially while Black queer artists like her continue to be ignored. “I am the Ghost of Christmas f–king Past for this city. I am where I am at in my career in spite of this city. In spite the utter lack of support,” she says. “For all the f–king country girls in glitter shorts dancing around with drag queens, how many of them have offered me features or responded to even one of my f–king DMs?”
As she goes on, Oladokun catches herself and clarifies her point. “I want to separate the part of it that can seem personal, the part where it’s just, ‘Oh, people aren’t paying attention or being fair to me,’” she explains, addressing Nashville directly. “I’m not the only Black and gay talent in your city. I am one of a huge, growing faction of artists in your backyard who you don’t support, because you know what it will cost you.”
Her desire to take a breath and zoom out also happens during Observations. On the stirring soul anthem “No Country,” Oladokun looks to the various genocides occurring throughout the world — in an Instagram post, the singer named Palestine, Congo, Sudan and Nigeria as direct inspirations — and yearns for a moral imperative to protect people from harm our increasingly fractured world.
On an album that deals so much with her own personal struggles, Oladokun felt it was important to put her grievances into a larger context. “My job just isn’t that important. Like, my job is hard — but everyone’s job is hard,” she says. “It’s important for me to remember, because I as a human being never want to let this job stop me from being the best version of myself. I can’t let my tunnel vision of what my day-to-day is like distract from what I think the purpose of sharing my music is, which is to give people something to listen to in a weird world.”
That’s also, in part, why Oladokun never tries to offer big-picture answers to the problems she presents on Observations. Not only does she not have all the answers, but she points out that we all have to agree on what the problems are before we can talk about solutions. “It’s so important to name things, and I think a lot of the problems we have as a society comes from our refusal to name things,” she says. “The goal of this record was never to give an answer, but to say, ‘Ow. This hurts.’”
When Oladokun began writing Observations From a Crowded Room, she was considering quitting the music business altogether. When asked where she’s at with that internal conversation today, she shrugs. “My relationship with my job right now … there’s sort of an agnostic quality to it,” she explains. “I believe my career has a future, but it’s so rarely demonstrated in front of me of what it’s like for someone like me to do so. This is the beginning of a conversation — it’s me saying, ‘This is what it’s been like.’ And it’s a little bit up to other people to say, ‘That is what it’s like.’ I can’t be the only one trying to change the culture.”
A wry smile appears on her face: “Ask me again in a year.”
Anyone who has been involved, even tangentially, in pop duo Tegan and Sara‘s fanbase over the course of the last two decades can attest to just how tight-knit the Canadian performers are with their followers. Seen as a community of like-minded (and largely queer) individuals keen on making safe, inclusive spaces for one another, the Tegan and Sara fan community is commonly lauded as a good example of what pop fandom can look like.
Seated at a desk in her hotel room, Tegan Quin describes to Billboard a very different feeling she’s developed about her fans. “If we’re being truthful and honest, then I have to say that I’m afraid of our audience,” she offers, grimacing as she says it.
It may sound like an odd statement coming from Tegan — that is, until you’ve watched the new documentary Fanatical: The Catfishing of Tegan and Sara (debuting Friday, Oct. 18 on Hulu). Over the course of an hour and a half, Tegan, Sara and documentarian Erin Lee Carr (Britney vs. Spears, Mommy Dead and Dearest) walk audiences through an elaborate scheme that began around 2008, in which an anonymous individual posed as Tegan online and proceeded to exploit, manipulate and harass both the duo and their fans for over a decade.
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Throughout the course of the film, the Quin sisters and Carr detail how Fake Tegan (often referred to in the doc as “Fegan”) hacked the singer’s personal files in 2011, giving them access to everything from unreleased demo recordings to photos of her real passport — much of which they used to convince fans and friends alike that they were the real Tegan. As they try to uncover the culprit, Tegan and Carr simultaneously interview a number of the fans who found themselves on the receiving end of Fegan’s scheme, examining how these scams work, and the emotional toll they take on their victims.
It’s a story that Tegan originally never intended to tell the public — the doc details the band’s efforts to protect themselves and their fans by not giving more voice to the online imposter. But after listening to the hit podcast Sweet Bobby, which details a similar true story of a woman caught in an intricate web of internet deception, she felt the urge to finally speak about her own experience.
“I ended up telling the Fake Tegan story to a friend, and he said, ‘You should write that down,’” Tegan tells Billboard. After writing out everything she could remember from her experience with her catfisher, Tegan approached podcaster and Rolling Stone contributing editor Jenny Eliscu to ask for advice on what to do with it. Eliscu introduced Tegan to Carr, who urged her to tell the story on camera.
“Obviously, I wrote the story, so I was ready to tell the story. Was I ready to hand it off to somebody? Was I ready to have a full film made about this? No,” Tegan says, still squirming in her seat. “I was projecting fear — fear that we’d alienate our audience, fear we would agitate Fake Tegan, fear that people would be like, ‘Who cares?’”
Even before Fake Tegan began terrorizing their community, Sara describes how she and her sister had begun to grow slightly wary about the reality of fame. Where the early days of their career saw the duo regularly interacting with their fans after shows, continued success and more frenzied interactions with fans forced the pair to reconsider their approach.
“It was such a part of indie and punk culture to bro down with the people in the audience, to go sell merch and have a beer with your fans after the show,” Sara says. “To then say at some point that you don’t want to stand outside in the dark with strangers after we’ve played a show and done press all day … those were such small changes we made, but they had such a big cultural punch within our community.”
Enter Fegan; after successfully hacking an iDisk for the pair’s management, the catfish began posing on early message boards and social media sites like Facebook and LiveJournal as Tegan, creating connections, friendships and occasionally even romantic relationships with fans. They would send through unreleased recordings and unposted, personal photos of both Tegan and Sara, using them as supposed proof that they were who they said they were to the fans they were scamming.
In detailing multiple fans’ conversations with Fegan, Fanatical does not aim to criticize or mock people who fell for this scheme — it often does the opposite, taking great lengths to show that, given the right set of circumstances, anyone could be entrapped by a scammer.
Tegan even explains that earlier cuts of the documentary featured an FBI investigator hired by Carr to talk the band and their team through just how complex Fegan’s operation was — and how they created multiple accounts using a variety of different IP addresses to fool everyone. “Witnessing that forensic investigation removed any part of me still thinking, ‘Why would people fall for this?’ This took time and money and sophistication, and yet we so often just go, ‘Well, that person clicked on a link, what an idiot,’” she says. “You can’t watch this film and think that our fans fell for an easy-to-figure-out ruse — Erin was so clear that she wanted people to watch this film and actually feel compassion and empathy for these fans.”
As the documentary goes on, Carr and the Quin sisters begin to examine how fan behavior can turn toxic. The film shows how, as time went on and the band’s fan base grew, online interactions with fans began to grow scarier, where addresses and phone numbers for the band’s family members and significant others would getting posted on message boards, leading to the kind of harassment that’s become all too common for celebrities in the modern day.
“This happens to almost every celebrity [who reaches that level of fame] — actors, politicians, athletes. musicians, you name it,” Sara tells Billboard. “And I think we, as a culture, have to look at the way that we treat people in positions of power and celebrities.”
It’s a refrain with renewed significance in 2024, as artists like Chappell Roan begin to confront the harsh reality of what bad behavior from fans looks like. But Sara points out that this kind of behavior was perpetuated long before Roan asked her fans to leave her alone, and yet we only find ourselves at the beginning of this conversation today.
“What’s the real problem that causes this? Why is it a story right now, and why wasn’t it a story when other people asked to be left alone?” she posits. “This is a product of the culture we’ve created. If we don’t like the behavior — and it seems that most of us don’t like it — then what does that say about the culture we’ve built around art?”
That culture, Tegan notes, was largely built by one specific group of people. “The billionaires that own the record labels and the streamers and the people working for them are guilty,” she says. “They are driving artists to build obsessive, parasocial, frantic fanbases on social media platforms where we basically have to pay to access our mailing lists. So many artists are walking around, millions of dollars in debt so that our fans can listen to music for free on streaming services but spend $5k to go see a show, which only builds even more frantic competitiveness among the fans. Every part of our industry is broken, so I understand why people in the industry say ‘I don’t know how to fix bad fan behavior,’ and then run away.”
In one particularly wrenching scene of the doc, Tegan participates in a tense phone call with a fan (referred to anonymously in the film as “Tara”) who fell victim to Fegan’s scam. In earlier scenes, it’s revealed that this fan also actively fought with and bullied other fans, and even wrote and published a fan-fiction story about Tegan and Sara involving incest.
When Tegan called out this behavior and asked Tara to explain why they would do that, she’s immediately met with a stunning response: “You weren’t affected in that capacity,” Tara said, claiming her actions had no impact on the pop singer’s life. “It barely skimmed the surface.”
As shocking as the scene is, Tegan says that it’s a refrain she heard from multiple victims of Fake Tegan. “[There were] multiple victims who didn’t think that I would care about what was happening to me. That I was rich and famous and didn’t give a s–t,” she explains. “I was like, ‘Oh no! We’re f–ked if we think that just because someone is in a band, they are somehow impervious to judgement and vulnerability and sadness!’”
It’s why, as Sara points out, so many artists feel fear when it comes to their fans. “We seem like we have all the power, and in a lot of cases we do — we have security, and barricades in place [at concerts]. But that security and those barricades are there because we are vulnerable to the mass of people who are coming to see us perform,” she explains. “We don’t say to our audience, ‘Hello, Cleveland! We’re super afraid of all of you, because there are 5,000 of you, and if you decided to, you could overrun Bill, John and Mark here up at the barricade and tear us limb from limb!’ The power structure is weird.”
At the film’s screening at the Toronto International Film Festival, both Tegan and Sara say they found themselves surprised when the audience began laughing during a section of the film that showed social media messages from other fandoms threatening to dox their favorite artists’ critics. While Tegan says they likely laughed because “this is the first time in the film that it’s not about us, and they’re trying to get that nervous energy out,” she couldn’t help but feel a little concerned.
“They were also laughing because that’s just what we do now — we laugh at each other. We watch videos of each other failing and doing stupid s–t and saying dumb s–t, and we take glee and pleasure from that,” she says, sighing. “It’s why I hope people just experience some compassion watching this movie.”
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Lupe Fiasco has one of the more storied journeys in Hip-Hop, starting off in Chicago as an upstart MC to becoming one of the genre’s most respected lyricists. In a new interview, Lupe Fiasco shared why the Child Rebel Soldier, or CRS, supergroup with Kanye West and Pharrell Williams never took off.
Sitting down with Donwill of Tanya Morgan fame for his The Almanac of Rap series with Okayplayer, Lupe Fiasco shared details of his early days in Chicago, his travels in the music industry, and who he is as an artist today.
The CRS supergroup was one of many announced groups that caught the attention of Hip-Hop fans considering the acts involved. At the time of their forming in 2010, Kanye West and Pharrell Williams were buzzing acts and Lupe was still signed to Atlantic Records at the time.
In the chat, Lupe said that the idea for CRS started with him rapping over samples of songs made by the Radiohead band and recording a song with Skateboard P. Ye happened to hear the work and added that he wanted in on the track, prompting Williams to suggest they get together as a group.
Lupe says that Pharrell named him the “Child” of the group while Ye was the “Rebel” with the Virginia producer giving himself the “Soldier” tag. The trio did record the track “Don’t! Stop!” and the remix to N.E.R.D.’s “Everybody Nose” but that would be the end of it.
As the interview went on, Lupe, without naming names, said that one of the members, presumably Ye, “got rich and crazy” before trailing off into laughter.
The clip in question with Lupe Fiasco can be viewed below. Also, we’ve got the full The Almanac of Rap video as well.
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Photo: ANGELA WEISS / Getty
Tim Heidecker sees a continuum between comedy and music.
“They’re just different modes of expression and communication,” he says. “All I’ve ever done in my creative life is when an idea comes — it could be a funny idea, a sad idea or a musical idea — the goal is to convey that to as many people clearly and in the most interesting way possible. People ask me, do I like comedy or music better, and I’m like, I wish I could exist in a place where I just make stuff,” he continues. “This year it’s the record, next year hopefully it’ll be a show or a movie. I’m just trying to put out interesting things that are coming from my weird brain.”
Heidecker’s latest project is not particularly weird — or funny. It’s a thoughtful, semi-autobiographical album in the classic-rock vein that tackles existential anxieties about growing older and losing one’s mojo: Slipping Away, which Bloodshot Records will release on 18.
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For those who know Heidecker solely from his surreal comedy, such as the Adult Swim series Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job!, his acting (Bridesmaids, Ant-Man and The Wasp) or his Office Hours Live With Tim Heidecker podcast, Slipping Away is actually already the sixth solo studio music album the Glendale, Calif.-based multi-hyphenate has released under his name. He spoke to Billboard about his inspiration for the songs, his song “Trump’s Private Pilot” (which Father John Misty has covered) and the 2025 North American headlining tour he will embark on with his Very Good Band.
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You first became prominent through comedy but when I was researching you, I learned that music was your first passion.
They were concurrent, but music definitely felt more attainable, and it was something you could actually do as a teenager. I remember feeling a great love of comedy but not having any understanding of how to actually do it. I mean, the world doesn’t really want to hear what funny ideas 16-year-olds have. But you could get together with your friends and some practice amps and go in the basement and make sounds and music. I started writing songs at that age.
In college, things kind of shifted towards film — and not even comedy, really. Comedy was a dirty word for us in the ‘90s. It represented something very lame and mainstream. We were just making stuff that we thought was funny and made us laugh, but it wasn’t comedy. That is where we put all our energy, and I stopped focusing on music. But even in making all those shows, there was always music running through it. It was always a big part of the way I express myself.
Who were your musical heroes when you were 16?
The Beatles, Dylan, Pavement, Cat Stevens, Van Morrison, Velvet Underground. I loved my parents’ music. And then, very reluctantly, I started accepting the modern bands, Nirvana and Pavement — that Matador Records prime era.
You didn’t mention Eric Clapton, but listening to the new album your vocals remind me of him.
It’s so weird. You know who told me that? Randy Newman. We had him on my podcast, which was a great honor because he’s one of my heroes. He was like, “Yeah, I listened to your music and you kind of sound like Eric Clapton.” I had never heard that before, and now you are saying it. I’m not emulating him. It may be more of a J.J. Cale influence.
If you were going to draw a Venn diagram of your comedy fans and music fans, how much of those two circles would overlap?
There’s a fair amount of comedy fans that don’t fall into the music category. And I’m just starting now to find the people who are maybe finding the music first. I’ve been doing opening tours with Waxahatchee, and it has been interesting to see people that really don’t know me warming up to my music. She attracts a slightly older, norm-y audience. And I was like, “Oh yeah, I’m kind of making classic-rock genre-sounding music — that’s in their wheelhouse.” I think I’m winning that crowd over. Meanwhile, there’s plenty of younger Tim & Eric younger fans who, well, it’s just not the kind of music they like. It’s taken a little bit of time to warm up my crowd to what I’m doing here.
Tim Heidecker, “Slipping Away”
Bloodshot Records
On Slipping Away, you described the album’s arc as “before the fall and after.” A number of the songs are about losing one’s mojo. Did those feelings originate with you or from observations of others?
I’m 48 years old, and I have the perspective of being a creative adult for 20 years now. I’m past the stage of wondering how this is all going to go. Not that there are no surprises ahead and hopefully, a long career, but the mystery of this business and of this world is not as dark. It’s a little more like, “OK, I’ve actually lived a life for a while.” So when I’m writing, I’m accessing dark, quiet, often unsaid emotions and thoughts, writing them down and then moving on with my life. It’s like the songs are expunging fears, anxieties and questions.
It’s cathartic.
It’s cathartic, yeah. I think all those questions that are in the record are hopefully, like you said earlier, observations or questions or fears that the audience might not know they have. The lesson I’ve learned lately, not only about the music but comedy, too, is we enter these dark or uncomfortable areas, and the benefit of that is getting them out into the sunlight and talking about them. It’s healthy to have these thoughts.
I understand a lot of people have approached you to say, essentially, you are singing about my life. Do you think there’s a lot of anxiety in the world today over the subjects you’re expressing on the album?
A hundred and ten percent. A lot of these songs were written a couple of years ago — closer to the pandemic — and everybody I know was feeling versions of this, while also fantasizing or imagining how they would deal if things got worse. Post-apocalyptic media is fairly popular and that reflects what’s on our minds.
How many cities are you going to play on the tour?
Like 30 or something like that. I’ve done it a couple of summers now and this will be a winter tour, but it’s the most fun thing ever. I’ve done it with my standup character, and this time I’m doing without, but I’m bringing along some friends who are going to open that I hope people are excited to see – Neil Hamburger and DJ Douggpound. I’m trying to be serious about this. We put an album out, we need to hit the road.
You do look like you are having fun onstage. Do you feel like you’ve achieved that dream of really being seen as a musician now?
No, I’m just getting started in a way. On the Waxahatchee tour, I was definitely like, oh, this is paying my dues a little bit. I’ve ridden the coattails of my Tim & Eric fanbase, but I can’t settle for that. We all have huge ambitions and mine are going to be bigger than reality, I guess, but my ambition is to be up there like Phish or Goose. But also when I’m up there with my band, and we’re really cooking and having a good time, I’m like, “This should appeal to a lot of people.”
My career has oftentimes been confrontational, and clearly not for everybody. I don’t think this is for everybody either — but on this tour, I felt a real interesting urge to just put on a good show and not be a d–k. Not that I’m a d–k, but not actively engaged in turning people off for the sake of humor. For example, we did an Asbury Park SummerStage show, and in the middle of the show, somebody passed out. It was a medical emergency, and in the past, it would have been hard to resist goofing on that. I just said, “I’m just going to hang back.” It’s an act of self-control just to be like a proper, professional entertainer, instead of [being] a firestarter all the time.
At Central Park SummerStage, you played a song that you said you’d never recorded. I thought it was fantastic, and the crowd loved it. So why haven’t you recorded it?
It’s called “Why Am I Like This.” It’s a self-examination of, “Why am I like this?” There are a lot of answers for that. Is it my parents? Is it… whatever? It’s just another anxiety song really — but it hasn’t been recorded, because I wrote it right before our last tour and hadn’t gotten into the studio with anything else.
I threw it into the set because it feels like a good live number. We have some recordings of it from that tour, but it loses something when you listen to it at home. It really feels like it’s meant to be a shared communal experience. In the live version we get everybody to sing it. I had people that never saw me before on this tour all standing up and singing it. That’s just a great feeling. I joke that if I release it, it would be a Billboard No. 1 hit. I’m not putting it out. I love having a song out there that people only can really experience in the room.
My goal is to have that kind of career where there’s bootlegs and s–t out there. I’m glad you got to see the show live, because it’s something I’m very proud of. For years, I’ve made music and would go out and play a set in L.A. for fun or to promote something, and it would just be a nightmare the whole time, because you’re nervous and not rehearsed. And to be able to do it every night is such a joy, and I feel like I can just have fun.
Your bassist is also Waxahatchee’s bassist?
Eliana Athayde. She’s been with the band since 2022, when we did our first Very Good band tour. She’s a very important part of my musical career of late. She’s a big key to it, and I’m very grateful. She’s a big part of the record, of course, singing a lot with me and co-producing a lot of it. You know, my career is filled with partners. Comedy and music are collaborative things, and she’s become a true partner.
You’ve said that making the album was outside your comfort zone. Can you elaborate?
Making the album was very fun and very much in my comfort zone. I’ve worked with great people in the past, but it never felt truly collaborative. This album did with everyone there for the majority of the sessions, everyone chiming in, adding their own flavor to it. But the more records I make, the more I’m going into absolute vulnerable, sincere territory which is when I land outside my comfort zone. And there are certain songs — the inclusion of my daughter Amelia at the end of the record felt like I might as well be like John and Yoko nude on the cover of their Two Virgins record.
How did that song “Bells Are Ringing” come about?
We finished the record, and I thought, “This is kind of a copout to end the record on such a downer.” It ended on just, Oh, it’s over. The party’s over. The band is breaking up. And I was like, “Now is the opportunity to really decide if that’s the statement I want to make.” You have an opportunity to say whatever you want on your little record that you’re putting out, and I decided, “No, I don’t want to end on that note.” Meli and I often make little songs in my garage together and I just had this little line and I thought it would be lame for me to say it. It kind of wrote itself in a way.
At the show you did a funny J.D. Vance imitation that was based on his stilted visit to a donut shop. Are you keeping close track of the presidential campaign?
Yes, I’m monitoring it hourly. How can you resist the show? It’s an incredible thing to watch and think about. It’s very stressful and hilarious in a lot of ways. I mean the dogs and the cats and the concepts of plans. It’s all stuff that feels like we wrote seven years ago, and it’s now happening in the world in real time. At the same time, it’s incredibly serious and vital and important to the future of me and my children.
I played a song at the last show of the Waxahatchee tour called “Trump’s Private Pilot.” It’s about the pilot who flies Trump around deciding to crash the plane into a field in Pennsylvania — a very important state or commonwealth in the election — as an act of patriotism. It’s a very emotional song that had the audience cheer, in sort of a bloodlust way. At the end, I said, “Please help keep that motherf–ker away from my kids.” That’s where it comes down to.
Pennsylvania is also where the passengers on United Flight 93 rose up against the hijackers on 9/11 and crashed the plane into a field.
Yeah, I know. It’s a song I rightfully get s–t for, but it also feels really good sometimes to go to that dark place.
The month of October calls for a new October London album – and the South Bend, Ind. crooner was more than happy to oblige. The Billboard chart-topping singer unleashed October Nights, his soulful sophomore album, on Friday (Oct. 11).
In an era rife with discourse regarding the state of traditional R&B and soul, October London mounted an unlikely – but incredibly welcome – breakthrough. At the top of last year (Feb. 10, 2023), he released The Rebirth of Marvin, a lush 11-song set steeped in the influence of Gaye himself. The LP launched a pair of Adult R&B No. 1 hits — “Back to Your Place and “Mulholland Drive” (with Snoop Dogg and LaToiya Williams) — which helped him earn four nominations at the 2023 Soul Train Music Awards.
Just a year and a half later, London (born Jared Samuel Erskine) is back with a stellar sophomore LP that infuses his last album’s Gaye-informed aesthetic with the vocal dexterity of Frankie Beverly, the raunchy hip-hop roots of Death Row and star-studded collaborations with artists like Grammy nominees Ledisi, Tyrese and Boney James. The new album also features the singles “She Keeps Calling” and “A Beautiful Woman.”
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As the new flagship artist for Snoop Dogg’s revitalized Death Row Records – which the legendary rapper acquired in February 2022 – October London simultaneously symbolizes a new era for the label and a potential path forward for traditional R&B in a music landscape that continues to deprioritize that scene. In London’s music, everything begins and ends with his voice; he effortlessly balances sensual warmth, starry-eyed self-reflection and a vibrant steak of ‘70s R&B-steeped vocal affects throughout the record’s exploration of the various women and relationships that decorate his October Nights. The new LP is an insular listening experience that accurately reflects the record’s intimate creation, but London’s cinematic sequencing keeps his themes accessible – and his grounded lyricism keeps things relatable, too.
“A lot of times, I just do a lot of stuff by myself,” London tells Billboard. “I mix, I master, I produce, and I write, so to speak, on my own. That’s where I gained [the] peace to write the records. I don’t even write records anymore, really. It all comes off the top, from my head to the microphone.”
Released during the final stretch of his supporting stint (alongside Jazmine Sullivan) for Maxwell’s Serenade tour, October Nights promises to introduce fans and casual listeners to the man, singer and songwriter beyond The Rebirth of Marvin. In a sprawling conversation with Billboard, October London breaks down the making of October Nights, his vocal health routine and his plans to fully realize his destiny as a “multi-genre” artist.
You kicked off this new era with “She Keeps Calling.” Why did that song feel like the right choice to herald a new album from October London?
It felt good to put out because we don’t have that “big voice” sound out right now. So that first part in the song [sings opening note] came from Frankie Beverly and Maze. Obviously, we just lost Frankie Beverly, rest in peace, and I had also just met him. He gave me that inspiration to do that. It was a very weird connection the way that happened. I was going to say — that song is kind of old, but it’s really not. I made it right on time, it just felt right.
Tell me about meeting the legend himself. What was that like?
That was actually really, really amazing. [I met him at a] BET event in Atlanta where he was being honored. He was very cool. I think he knew a couple of [my] songs; I don’t want to say he knew the whole album, but I think he knew of me, and he just welcomed me with open arms.
When did you start working on October Nights and when did you decide on the title?
The title came from Snoop [Dogg]. I had a couple other titles in mind, and we were just hanging out in the studio, and he was like “Yeah, it’s an October night… I think that should be the album title.” And I was like, “That sounds like a great album title!” We have some good October nights ahead of us, so [laughs]. The album didn’t take long. Just like Rebirth of Marvin took one week, October Nights took about two weeks to make. I can’t recall what time I started to make it, but I know it went pretty fast.
It took two weeks for the first version of the album and then I sent it to the legendary producer Soopafly, and he wanted to add little bells and whistles to it.
You’ve spoken before about the different styles and genres that you like to play with, and there are tastes of that sprinkled throughout October Nights. Overall, why did you choose to remain in that straight R&B crooner lane?
With this album, I wanted to do something different, but I also wanted to kind of give a sequel to the last album. When you’re listening to October Nights, you’re getting a little bit of Rebirth of Marvin. October Nights blends a little bit of Rebirth, and then it turns into a whole other movie and changes throughout the middle.
There’s the record I did with Jeff Gitty called “3rd Shift,” there’s “Kill Shot,” and then you have me and Snoop doing “Put You On.” This is really a transitional album for me. By the time you get to the end, you have “Time” and then you have this song called “Momma.” You’re getting into how I feel and you’re getting more of me with a few slices of other artists – just like any artist. You don’t wanna swagger-jack, but we’re all influenced by so many artists.
“3rd Shift” is a vocal feast. You go from this sexy, buttery falsetto to these gritty growls so effortlessly. What’s your vocal health routine like?
Greasy food, man. I’m not one of the ones that are doing vocal exercises every day and night. I’ve never done that ever. I’ve never had vocal lessons, nothing like that, it just kind of came naturally. But when I get ready to go out on stage, I always have at least something to eat, whether it’s chicken or something with cheese. Other singers are like, “Oh my God, you need tea!” I don’t need tea; I get some coffee! I’m totally polar opposite when it comes to vocal training. I refuse to sing until I get some grease or coffee or something.
And you’re like that even on tour?
Absolutely.
What song on the album did you find the most difficult to record – whether that’s vocally or emotionally?
“3rd Shift,” I recorded it in 30 minutes because I had 30 minutes left in the session. “Killshot” was the one that really gave me the most trouble though. I don’t know why; it was just a lot going on. There were other people coming into the studio, so I was kind of rushing through it. That’s one of my favorite records and I was creating a movie in my head for it, so that’s why it took me a little longer. Instead of taking me an hour, it took maybe two hours. That one was a little tougher to write, but when we do the music video, we already have the treatment and everything.
How does that “Kill Shot” movie fit in the larger context of the story of October Nights?
October Nights is filled with the fun of an October night. The hanging out, the glasses of wine, the people, the family, the friends and all that kind of stuff. But it’s also geared towards my love for beautiful women. I have a song [on there] called “A Beautiful Woman.”
This album is wrapped around love, pain, and the overall beauty of a woman. “Kill Shot” is me messing with multiple women at a certain time period, but there’s one that’s still stuck on me, and she will not let go. She’s coming after me. [Laughs.] She won’t stop calling!
Talk to me about “Momma.” Did you bring anything from your own relationship with your mother into that track?
Well, “Momma” was actually made when Snoop’s mother passed. A day after that [happened,] he was sitting in the studio and I was like, “I’m gonna go in here and make something real quick.” That was really more for him. It’s an ode to my mother as well, and an ode to a lot of people’s mothers too. But the main reason why I did it was because Snoop was going through this time in his life, and I wanted to be there as a little bro or as a nephew and make him a song he [could] listen to. And I knew the kind of relationship that he had with her as well.
How hands-on is Snoop at this point in your career? How has your relationship grown since you two first crossed paths?
We have a great relationship. We’re both Libras, so that helps. For this album, he’s the executive producer, so he’s very hands-on, but he doesn’t hover over my shoulder. He’s like, “Go in the studio. Call me when you’re done with the album. Once you’re done with the album, we’ll all listen to it, gather the right people around, and figure out what’s missing.” “Touch on Me” didn’t have horns until Snoop said it needed a little bit more flavor. It’s like macaroni and cheese. You got to put several kinds of cheese in there to make it thick. Our relationship is really great. We’re both creatives and we both give each other space in the music realm.
You’ve spoken before about how great your contract is and how much you love Death Row. Walk me through what makes your contract so impressive and how you felt your relationship with Death Row has evolved during this album cycle. 
With this contract, I have creative control — which is big for artists. I talked to a lot of artists [who] are very disappointed in their team or in the staff that works at their labels. They’re not getting their fair share or it’s money issues… it’s several things. I always have to say that I’m actually a happy artist. I like where I’m at and I love where I’m at. Nobody’s twisting my arm to say that. If I wasn’t happy, I’d just leave. But having the creative space to be embraced as a multi-genre artist means a lot. Snoop embraces me and because he does, I can be a creator. I can say, “After this album, I want to go ‘80s pop” and he’s like, “Okay, cool. I’ll talk to you in a couple of weeks and see what you got.”
I was in the room when he was finishing up the call [to acquire Death Row], and I congratulated him and was about to walk out the door. He was like, “You got to celebrate man, you’re going to be the King of Death Row. You’re the flagship artist.” And that didn’t even make sense to me! [Laughs.] This is a gangsta rap label and it’s called Death Row, not Heaven’s Gate! How was this going to work? Snoop was like, “Let me worry about that. You just do what you came to.”
Did you start working on October Nights before or after Rebirth started to take off?
“Mulholland Drive” hadn’t [come] out yet. I will say that “Back to Your Place” was out and it was moving, but we hadn’t put “Mulholland Drive” out as a single yet.
What lessons did you bring from that first album into the second album?
For me, it was just more about the presentation of the album and how you listen to it. I think I could have added a few more pieces to Rebirth of Marvin — like horns or some more drums. I could have made [certain things] a little tighter. I’m perfectionist, although I get things done really quickly. Listening back to the last record, I’m like “Damn, I wonder where I could have put this song or that song.” There are songs that I wanted to put on Rebirth that are sitting in my hard drive. I wanted to make sure that with this album, I put exactly what I wanted on it. I’m excited for this album because it’s exactly what I wanted. Rebirth was close to it, but instrumentation-wise, it was missing a few things.
There are a couple of cool collaborations on October Nights. Which one was most pivotal for you in terms of building out the final tracklist?
Probably “Time.” Me and Mike Letter did “Time,” and we recorded that 15 or 16 years ago. That’s how old that song is. It was kind of working backwards a little bit. I want people to know where I’m going and who I am, but I know what people have been listening to. You have to find an even playing ground because if you don’t then you’re going to either take it too far that way or too far the other way. Let me get you ready right here at the beginning. That way, you still get the Marvin influence and all that stuff, but I don’t want to stay in that lane. I don’t want to stick to that because I don’t want people to think that I’m going to continuously do that. I don’t want to fill his shoes. I don’t want to be the new Marvin. I’m a creative. In the next three months, I might make a reggaetón album or jazz album on some Miles Davis s—t.
What was the goal behind initially marketing yourself as the “rebirth” of Marvin Gaye? How has that helped or hindered your momentum as a rising new artist?
I thought it was going to hinder me, but it didn’t. I really thought people were going to pigeonhole me. Like I said, I didn’t even plan on putting out that album, so I was very afraid of what it was going to do. Then I was like, “I don’t want them to not like it. I want them to love it.” If they love it, you got to give them more of it. And if they don’t love it, you’re a flop. It helped me more than hindered, because people love the fact that I’m bringing back music that people used to listen to and still love. We still bump Luther Vandross. We still bump The Isley Brothers. That’s still good music.
This music now is just… quick. Some of it is junk, you know? Doing the Marvin stuff helped because now I have a fan base. I can go out in front of 20,000 people every night with Maxwell and Jazmine Sullivan and say, “Alright, here I am. Here’s me. Here are the songs. But let me also let you know I’m not a robot.” I poke fun of the Android users when I tell the crowd to put their lights up. [Laughs.]
What’s one word you would use to describe your sound and why?
Eclectic. My sound varies depending on the mood I’m in. I can’t put myself in one category because I just. I’m all over the board. But I also pay attention to what’s going on, what people are putting out and what lanes are open right now. That ‘70s lane is wide open. It was wide open when I did Rebirth and it’s still wide open. The ‘80s market’s wide open, ‘90s has been wide open for a while, so now I’m trying to just figure out what’s next after October Nights. I really feel like we have over five singles on there, so we’re going to be on October Nights for a minute.
How do you feel about certain songs living on multiple projects? Do you ever feel like it takes away from the narrative of your own project at all?
I think it helps because Boney James, for example, has been around for years. I’ve been listening to him since I was a kid in the back of the car. They don’t know me in the jazz world. Now, I have some of his fans coming to me, and some of my fans — because they’re a little bit younger — are getting introduced to him. It really helps when you just collaborate and have it on multiple projects because everybody has different fans. I look forward to creating songs with other artists. I’ve been working with Robin Thicke, me and Muni Long just did a record, etc.
It’s Grammy season and “She Keeps Calling” is eligible for this cycle. What do the Grammys mean to you?
I would love to win a Grammy, that would be great. Am I doing music to win a Grammy? No, not at all. It’d be great, though. I didn’t think of a Grammy while doing this album at all. Obviously, Rebirth didn’t get [any nominations], but “She Keeps Calling” is eligible and so is “Bedroom Bully” and the Boney James record. I think I have 13 submissions for this cycle. We’re hoping and praying for something. I just want to bring a win to Death Row.
What’s your take on state of R&B, especially when it comes to male crooners? There’s so much talent out there, but it feels like industry support is wildly inconsistent.
R&B is lacking. There was that time when everybody wanted to be Migos, even R&B artists. They wanted to change their whole thing and rap. The state of R&B is just lacking a lot of love. It’s lacking feel-good music. Nothing makes you feel good more than Frankie Beverly coming on. We don’t have that anymore, but we do have R&B artists out there. We still have Tank, TGT’s on the road right now. Even 112 is still on the road. I think R&B artists need that push. Somebody should be in their corner to be like, “It’s okay to be you.” Like I said, I was going to do a whole different thing. I was going to be on some Bryson Tiller/dvsn/Drake s–t. Snoop had to just be like, “It’s okay. Don’t worry about it. Just put it out there.” If I didn’t have him do that, you would have never gotten Rebirth or October Nights.
I think artists are afraid to do R&B because they don’t see a lot of people in love anymore. They’re going after the bag. It’s like they don’t have time to do love songs. They want to be in the club, or they want to be in their Hellcats. But hopefully, that’s changing now, and R&B can finally come back and just take over for a little bit. I’m going to try to do as much as possible, but I also bounce around other genres. That way, I don’t get bored during the journey.
What’s been your favorite moment while on tour with Maxwell and Jazmine Sullivan? Have they given you any advice as you continue to navigate the R&B space?
I’ve been talking to Maxwell a lot and he’s just so kind, man. He’s always been in my corner the whole tour making sure I was good. He said the same thing Snoop said: “Just continue to keep doing you and be yourself. Don’t try to be anybody else. Go out there, get on that stage, kill it and be exactly who you want to be in your mind.”
Recently, he shouted me out and it kind of blew my mind. He shouts me out every show — which I never knew — but he really gave me my flowers the other night. I was just like, “Holy shit… this dude’s in my top 10 greatest R&B artists of all time and I’m on tour with him!” That was a big moment.
Are there plans to give October Nights its own tour?
Absolutely. I can’t say the date right now, but we are announcing it after this tour.
Have there been talks of any collabs between yourself and Maxwell or yourself and Jazmine? Or all three of you together?
Absolutely. Me and Maxwell are getting in the studio after we get done with tour. I gotta send him some records so we can do that together. Me and Jazmine haven’t talked about doing a record yet, but I do have a couple of records for her, so we’ll see. But the Maxwell joint is coming quick.
If you had to make a four song EP with two tracks from October Nights and Rebirth each, what would that look like?
“Central Conversations” will go first. I gotta put “3rd Shift” on there. “Mulholland Drive” and “Momma.”
All artists bare their hearts, but none quite like Dana Margolin. Whether she’s rocking out or inward, the frontwoman and lyricist of Porridge Radio sings with an arresting, visceral intensity that never comes across as performative.
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So, it’s surprising — and heartening — to find an upbeat, almost breezy Margolin in pajamas at her London home once the Zoom cameras are turned on. The close-cropped, blond Joan of Arc hairstyle she wore in previous years is now shoulder length and brown, and she punctuates her comments with an easy laugh.
This may have something to do with Porridge Radio’s fourth album, Clouds in the Sky They Will Always Be There for Me, which Secretly Canadian will release on Oct. 18. It’s a breakthrough record for Margolin and the band, and a cathartic sequence of songs in which the former anthropology major reclaims her identity after losing her way in what she describes as the “fog” of an intense breakup, after months of touring and promotion behind the British band’s excellent last album, 2022’s Waterslide, Diving Board, Ladder To The Sky, its first to hit the top 40 in the United Kingdom. “I have let go of my needs to be perfect and to be pure,” Margolin says. “I just want to have a nice life. I want to be with the people I love.”
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Clouds in the Sky finds Porridge Radio putting the hype of its 2020 Mercury Prize nomination well behind it and achieving a new level of artistry and sound. The poetry of Margolin’s lyrics has also evolved. Her songs have become more sophisticated without sacrificing the emotional wallop of her earlier work — a conscious effort on her part, and one of the subjects she discusses below with Billboard, along with the visual art she also creates and her tendency to fall in love easily.
You look very chill in pajamas right now, but on Porridge Radio’s records and at your concerts, you perform with an intensity that most humans cannot or will not approach. Do you live life outside of music like that?
You know I never really realized that not everybody experiences the world as I do until a few years ago. And it was quite shocking to me to find out that most people don’t have this kind of constant experience of their emotions.
What are the pros and cons of living with that kind of sensitivity?
It’s often very painful and exhausting to always feel like that. It’s a lot — but also, I feel that I have very strong connections with the people in my life, and I get to make music and share it, and people come towards me because of it. I always had this fear that it would push people away. It took having a really bad relationship that made me feel like I was too much. Suddenly, I was like wait, other people aren’t like this. They don’t have this intensity and why am I so weird? I’m always experiencing all the feelings of everything past and the future. Now, I’m okay with it. I think some people would kill to feel as much. Sometimes it’s incredibly difficult and painful but it’s given me a lot of love and connection and beauty, Also, I get to be in a band and go travel the world with my friends. I feel lucky even though sometimes I’m despairing.
It’s like in “God of Everything Else,” where you sing, “You always said that I’m too intense/ It’s not that I’m too much/ You just don’t have the guts.”
[Laughs.] That one is kind of cheesy. It’s so on the nose, but in a way, I was just like, right.
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These songs all started as poetry, right?
Yeah, in a way. They all started from me writing with more focus on the words. I was challenging myself to be a better writer. My songs always started as poetry in some way. With these especially, I felt that.
You refer to a swallow in some songs and in one, a sparrow. Did you have specific symbolism in mind in using this bird imagery?
I was looking for a symbol for a particular relationship that I was describing, and I was drawn to birds and the symbolism around birds. Especially with swallows, it was this idea of somebody who goes away and comes back, or somebody who is there and then they just disappear. I was thinking of migrating birds, and this idea of somebody who needs to travel because it’s in their heart. They need to go away. They need to be far away from you, but they always come back. Then I think by the time it turned into a sparrow, the idea of, I thought you were one thing — and you were something else.
You sing about you having to be someone that you aren’t.
Yeah. That’s me.
“God of Everything Else” reminds me of the Porridge Radio song “7 Seconds” in terms of the emotions that it evokes. “7 Seconds” is about a self-destructive relationship as well. Was that the same person, or do you fall in love easily because you’re so vulnerable?
You know, I do fall in love so easily, unfortunately. But no, there are multiple relationships. They’re from different periods of my life and very different people.
Dreams figure a lot into your songs. Is that a literary device for you, or do you remember and record your dreams?
I’ve always had very intense dreams. It’s not even a practice of writing down my dreams. It’s just that I have so many. I enjoy leaning into this idea of a dreamlike state, where the dreams I’m having whilst I’m awake and the dreams I’m having whilst I’m asleep are blending into each other. And I’m not sure which is which. What I like about poem or song is that something can be presented as real life, and you can’t necessarily tell if it’s a dream, something that really happened, a fantasy or a daydream.
Where was your head at when you wrote these songs?
I spent a long time when I was writing these songs feeling incredibly depressed and having this extreme sense of burnout. This feeling of fog that is enveloping me as I go around my life — of being unable to distinguish myself and my surroundings from these fantasies and imagined versions of what’s happening. I really wanted to bring that feeling into the songs which I think is what I almost do. The main one that really does that is “In a Dream I’m a Painting,” which was maybe the most literal version of that.
Was the burnout you were experiencing from a heavy touring schedule and making up dates postponed during the pandemic?
Yeah, definitely. We played over a hundred shows in a year. That doesn’t include the six months before that year that we were touring. We just didn’t stop. We were touring two albums and releasing one of them in the middle of that tour, and I was so tired. I felt like I had to do everything, but this is the first time I have had this opportunity to do this. I really wanted to — had to — prove myself, and I had to do it justice. The end result of that was I said yes to everything. We were playing loads and loads of shows. I was also doing interviews all the time and doing promos, doing sessions. And we were traveling. It took everything out of me.
Then towards the end of that year, I fell in love with someone and all these feelings of intense burnout, sadness and exhaustion were tying into this excitement and potential, and it was quite confusing. Then we got home, and I suddenly had nothing to do. I was just functioning and like, who am I? I didn’t know how to do anything, like go and have a coffee or see my friends. I hadn’t been home for so long, I was like, “Hey, can you ask me to hang out?”
And traveling the world on a tour has to change you as a person?
Yeah, you become a version of yourself that is constantly in motion, that has not quite caught up with yourself.
The covers of previous Porridge Radio albums have been your artwork. The cover of Clouds in the Sky They Will Always Be There for Me, is a photograph of you looking at a birdlike sculpture. How did that come about?
I made this sculpture of a swallow, and I made it whilst I was writing these songs because I was really focused on this idea of the swallow. I’d also been doing lyric paintings that reflected the songs either in their states as poems before they became songs, or after they’d been put into songs. I had all these different images. When we were recording the album, at that point we didn’t know what it was going to be called. I remember talking to Georgie [Stott], who plays keys, about what it should be. And somehow, we both secretly arrived at this idea that it should be a photo.
I was thinking that it should be a photo of the swallow sculpture. I hadn’t finished making it, but I knew that I wanted it to be a mobile which fit into this [Centre] Pompidou show we did in April 2024, which was this huge live show my sister directed which had all these shadows and puppets. Somehow, we realized that I should be in the photo, but then because of that, I needed to find somebody who could take the photo that I had in my head.
A friend sent me the work of about 20 photographers. I saw Steve Gullick’s work, and I thought he could capture this image that I had in my head. Luckily, he followed us on Instagram. I sent him a message that just said would you be interested in doing this. He said, “Yeah, let’s have a phone call.” I described it to him and did a sketch of the album cover and showed it to him. Then we spent a whole day in my art studio playing around with the swallow. My sister was there as well giving movement direction. He managed to capture the image that I had in my head. He really brought it to life. I love this picture.
Weren’t you inspired after seeing some of Alexander Calder’s mobiles and sculptures?
It was around the release of the last record. I was in New York and went to the Whitney [Museum of American Art]. They had this video playing of Alexander Calder’s Circus, and I fell in love. It was so whimsical in such a serious way —and so beautiful. I spent a long time watching documentaries about him and thinking about mobiles and shadows. I’ve always enjoyed the way that sculpture exists and interacts with the space, the world it’s in. I think the swallow mobile I made is very close to his work.
I love your word paintings. Have you gotten a proper gallery exhibit?
Not a proper one, no. I would love to have one, actually. Very fun. I have a lot of paintings from this album that I don’t quite know what to do with.
I first heard “Sick of the Blues” as a single before I heard the album. I loved it then, but where it falls at the end of the album makes it all the more powerful. It functions as both culmination of a journey and the start of a new one. Was that what you were trying to accomplish with the track list?
Yeah, exactly. We were all kind of amused because we didn’t know the first single was going be “Sick of the Blues,” which, for us, was the closing piece that ties the album all together. If you start with [the album’s first track,] “Anybody,” it’s this intense introduction that takes you through everything else that you’re going to experience across the album. Then you end with “Sick of the Blues,” which is just like oh, f–k it.
“I’m going to make it. I’m going to get through this.”
Exactly. It’s like — “I don’t believe this yet, but I will at some point. I’m just going to hope for the best and go for it.” And that was why it came at the end.
In “Sick of the Blues,” you sing, “I’m sick of the blues, I’m in love with my life again/ I’m sick of the blues, I love you more than anything.” It makes the listener think, “What do you love more than anything? Life or the person you lost?” You’ve done that with other songs, like “7 Seconds” — the lyrics are open to interpretation.
I think it is important that people come to the songs with what they have and what they need from them.
Based on the song credits, it looks like you work collaboratively with your bandmates.
This was the first time that I really felt comfortable having those credits with everyone. Even though the process was very similar in that I wrote these songs on my own, I showed them to the others, and over months and months, we arranged them together. We also did the preproduction together, and we were all in the studio together recording. It was all mixed with us together.
It felt like everyone was more a part of it than they ever had been. Their input was what made the making of this album feel fresh, even though we have been a band for years. Me and Georgie and Sam have made music together and been close friends for about ten years now, but this felt like the first time in a lot of ways that it was ours, and that I was really relying on them.
When I was researching this story, a lot of the press was about Porridge Radio’s nomination for the Mercury Prize. Now that you’ve come so far from that, with this album, where do you see Porridge Radio as a unit, a group of artists?
It’s funny. We’d already been a band for about five years, and then suddenly, the industry said, “Oh, this is a hot new band.” We weren’t. It was chaotic at the beginning, with us figuring out where we were in relation to each other. And it was me kind of figuring out I had all this emotional outburst to give and found the space to do it. I was like, “Oh, no one cares about this, but this is for us.”
Suddenly we’re this hype band and I’m getting the Mercury nomination. I was like, “This is amazing, because this means that I’m going to be able to do this as a job at some point.” I also remember being almost cynical about it. Like, the music industry chooses you for a minute, and then it spits you back out again.
And then came the endless touring.
We ended up touring a really long time, and I got so completely jaded by the whole industry — by the way you’re expected to tour and live. It feels like everyone is expecting you to do everything, you’re not really making much money, and you’re supposed to be so grateful for this thing that you have that is extremely painful and physical. I’ve seen so many friends go through this kind of whirlwind and come out exhausted, disappointed and alienated.
And now with this album I think we’ve made the best thing we’ve ever made. It’s so exciting to me. I loved writing and recording these songs. I’m excited to release it and tour it. I’m like, “That’s enough, right?” My goal is to enjoy my life; to just be in it and not worry too much if anyone cares — because sometimes people care and sometimes, they don’t. I’m letting go. I’m releasing my expectations of myself.
You feel like that’s finally happening.
I think this record has allowed me to do that, and even in the process of recording it’s the first time that I felt like I could be anything that I needed to be whilst recording. I mean, I was crying for about a week of making this, and I made it. Maybe what I’ve learned from this is that I’m allowed to be intense, and I’m allowed to have peace.
David Bowie said it best, “all clichés are true.” So, in the spirit of Mr. Stardust, here’s another: Bilal Sayeed Oliver is on some other s–t. The Philly native, who sharpened his skills in NYC with the help of the Soulquarians, first blitzed the R&B world in 2001 with his seminal, star-packed debut 1st Born Second. It was a critical darling that helped usher in what became known as neo-soul: a genre deeply indebted to past greatness that could only exist in a world in which hip-hop was lingua franca. Singles like “Soul Sista,” “Love It,” and “Reminisce” had his name set alongside contemporary greats likes D’Angelo and Maxwell, and positioned him as one of the future faces of the genre. But that’s not what Bilal wanted.
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In his head, he was a jazz artist who made, among other things, soul music. His subsequent projects would prove that out with him releasing albums that replaced the slick boom-bap of his debut with untamed jam sessions and improvised vocal experiments. His last full-length offering, 2015’s In Another Life was perhaps his most idiosyncratic. He and executive producer Adrian Younge pulled from Black music’s past to imagine a future where funk, soul, jazz, and R&B all collided into one beautifully contumacious genre of music. It was no surprise that Kendrick Lamar tapped Bilal that year to lend his uniquely resonant and limber vocal talents to his hip-hop and jazz fusion watershed work To Pimp a Butterfly.
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Now, nearly a decade removed from that impactful year, Bilal is back with a new album, Adjust Brightness, that he hopes is able to reach more listeners where they are but doesn’t give up an inch of the restless experimental energy that has informed the best of his past works. “I just wanted to make a vibe record,” Bilal says of the project that was created over a number years spanning all the way back to the Covid-19 lockdown.
But it’s much more than that: With just 11 tracks, the album swings from bright and boisterous at times to tender and hopeful at others. Adjust Brightness is simply Bilal at his best. Billboard caught up with Bilal right before the release of his sixth album to discuss his approach to creativity, painting as his new hobby, and the seances he attended in Morocco.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
The last time most people heard from you was around the time of In Another Life when you were all over one of Kendrick’s biggest albums. It all left people wanting more. What have you been up to?
I’ve just been making music, living life. The pandemic happened. I moved to Africa for a while. I came back and was able to get a nice recording space and I got into painting.
Where in Africa did you move?
Morocco.
What was the impetus to go there?
Family. My wife has family over there. So I went over there and it just turned into whole trip for me. A spiritual journey. It’s funny when you’re in a land where you know not many people speak your language. There’s such a different landscape in front of you that you kind of go on a mental journey in your own head. For me, [it was] my own adventure into myself and learning myself. And then it was Corona.
Were you over there for [Covid-19 outbreak]? Or were you back in the States by the time that happened?
It was like before that — and then during that and after that. But when it hit, [I thought,] “I’m just going to stay here.” And it’s crazy, ‘cause I couldn’t make any music, so that’s when I got into painting.
Why couldn’t you make music?
I always can make music, because I always have like a piano or my little laptop situation. But I don’t know, I wasn’t around my buddies. What I did was — a friend of mine, Tariq [Khan], he has a studio, HighBreed over in Brooklyn, where he found this way where you could link your setup to another person’s setup that’s somewhere else in the world and y’all could work together live. We did a project like that [and] it kind of sparked me into making music with my buds. But then I couldn’t anymore. So I went into a world of painting.
Interesting.
I mean, [there] was a lot to paint around me. You know, being in a different environment. So, I started to do that and it kind of got me into creating in a different way than I created before. Fast forward to where I am now, I was able to get a lot more visual in my music, in creating it, than I had before.
Right. And that goes with the title of the album, Adjust Brightness. Did you paint the album cover?
The album cover is a combination of a painting I did and an image of me standing in front of a light and it’s kind of pixelated and chopped up. It kind of phases into, if you look far back, a sunrise. But on one of the [singles’ cover art] was taken from a painting that I did in Morocco.
“Sunshine”?
Yeah, that’s taken from one of my paintings.
What is going on in that painting? It looks like a UFO abducting people.
Uh huh.
Am I far off or am I close?
It was a painting of a UFO inducting a Gnawa seance session, from when I was in Morocco. My cousin out there, I call him Simo, he loves to go to these seances, they’re called Gnawa sessions. Voodoo is to Christianity what Gnawa is to Islam. It’s like, you know, a lot of people don’t know that the Islamic slave trade is older than the sub-Saharan slave trade. Things that happen where you would bunch a lot of different civilizations and take their culture away from them and give them a new religion. The people would create saints out of their ancestors and venerate them under the disguise of religion. So, that’s kind of what the Gnawa is, and it almost felt like going to a Pentecostal church.
Word.
It was based off of this beat that they would make out of the throat of a goat. And when I tell you — this bass sound just like a combination of like, reggae mixed with some transient thing, and the men would just sing at the top of their lungs. And they’re playing this bass and it’s grooving. I don’t know what the hell nobody saying, but I am zoning out.
It’s all based off of these colors. And in these colors, people will come. The bass player would play a song and you would get entranced by one of the ancestors, and each ancestor had a color. So certain people would come with one of the colors that they thought that ancestor [would speak to them through]. And my cousin would come with all the colors on. Because he felt like they all talked to him. So I wound up staying the whole time at these seances. [Laughs.] And the bass sounds like Delta blues, dude. Because it only has three notes. It can only play like a blues scale, kind of. But the way they would groove that shit? Wooo!
Wow.
It starts at like 5:00 in the afternoon and it’s over 5:00 in the morning. And people are catching the Holy Ghost, passing out, freaking burning themselves. I saw somebody start stabbing his face and then they put rose water on it and it disappeared, like nothing ever happened. I was saying, magic happened. I felt like I was like a little boy again in a Pentecostal church. I was just zoning out, man, I felt like I kinda remembered again, you know? It was great. I was having a great time over there and I came back invigorated, you know? Inspired.
But that’s what that painting was. ‘Cause after one of them, I came back so, like, zoned out — I just started painting that scene that I was just at, and how I felt, ’cause if I felt like we was being taken up to another planet. It was amazing.
That is one of the most fascinating cover art stories I’ve ever heard, if not the most fascinating cover art story I’ve ever heard. Did you leave there with a song or a sound in your head that you had to get out?
No, like — I still haven’t digested it. You know, I’ve digested it through the paintings, but I don’t know. When I make music it’s not really intentional. I like to be possessed, and what happens when I come to — I’m like, “Oh s–t that was awesome!” I like to feel like a complete vessel. So when it comes through, it’ll come through, you know. But I just create. I definitely came back like, “Oh man — I wanna make some s–t.”
That reminds me of an interview Ed Bradley did with Bob Dylan, where asked him how he made some of his old songs and Dylan basically says he didn’t and likens their creation to magic.
Yeah, that’s it. That’s the whole point for me.
At this point in time, if you are a vessel, what do you think is flowing through you?
I make so much music now that I just curate what I want to put out because I want to be very intentional now. I’m doing it for the art form. Of course, it’s my Intention to reach the world and become extremely successful at this, but there’s also this charge to do it at a high level but also make it palatable in some way. And I think that’s what I’ve tried to do on this project. I tried to challenge myself to do dope shit I like to do but then also kind of do songs that I felt would be a meeting in the middle almost.
You don’t feel like you’ve have songs like that? I believe you have songs in the past that have accomplished that. Like “Soul Sistah”.
Oh, yeah. That’s always the challenge for me. Because I’m a jazz musician at heart, you know? I would love to just make a hodgepodge of everything going on. I’m not saying I’m doing anything where I’m crossing over or anything like that [Laughs]. When I say Adjust Brightness, I was like, “Man, I’m really gonna make a vibe this time.” This was my intention, just creating a feeling. So this was like a feeling of, for me, Adjust Brightness is warm and soulful.
How do you feel your music fits into the larger market these days? How do you see yourself in the land of playlists?
I don’t know. I hope it makes it to all the cool ones where I can hit like minded individuals on this same mission as me.
We see artists craft songs to cater to streaming and playlisting. This album, like most of your music, doesn’t seem to do that.
Pretty much. The only intentional thing that I did on the record was I wanted to be 11-11. So I was like, we gotta make it 38 minutes and 38 seconds and have 11 songs. That’s the type of intent I be having!
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It looks like there’s no executive producer / creative partner-type for this album in the way that the last album had Adrian Younge.
I think that was me this time. I was kind of just trudging myself along and because of the whole corona thing, it was like — the songs that I did at Tariq’s spot were just pieces. They were like half ideas, shapes, and jams that I liked but they weren’t finished. And then when I started to work with Simon and Tom, and we were doing songs like “Tell Me” and “Sunshine,” those other pieces started to make sense more and they kind of revitalized my ideas on those songs, lyrically and everything.
It’s funny — with this record, a lot of stuff almost ended up coming out as just mumble tracks, and I was thinking: Could there be R&B mumble like would that go over like mumble rap? My manager was like, “Do it. You can do it. There’s been rock groups where their whole shtick is there’s no lyrics.” And I was like, “No, in the soul world.”
On Black Messiah, there are songs where I know he’s saying words, but I can’t fully understand what D’Angelo’s saying. Sometimes it comes out of a feeling more so than a word. I think you could have done it, I think people would excuse it because your voice is so good.
Yeah, I mean, that’s what I wanted up doing on this record. For the first time I was letting go of a lot of stuff. I see myself as very meticulous at times but there was a lot of letting go where I was just like, “Oh, man, you’re right. Just let the s–t be mumbled. It feels good!” We came up with this saying, “Feels good, sounds wrong.” [Laughs.] And I was just like, “Man, it kind of goes with the thing of just making this record of vibe for me.”
What’s the one song from the album you want to make sure people listen to?
“Micro Macro,” because that’s the last song, and then immediately the album comes on again. It’s funny. I find myself like stuck in different places of the record.
How do you mean?
Well, I get to different places where I’m like, “I like that sequence.” I don’t play [the album] one song at a time. I tried to craft it in a way where another song would sneak up on you. In that way, I go into different labyrinths putting together the album in a way where it’s transformative, where you can always start at one point and go around.