Interview
Page: 5
When Katie Gavin announced that she would be releasing a solo project, she expected the backlash to be worse. Seated in the living room of her grandmother’s house on a September afternoon, the 31-year-old singer chuckles nervously as she looks back at the announcement. “I thought they might get mad at me,” she says of her fans.
As one-third of the self-described “greatest band in the world” MUNA, it makes sense that Gavin would be nervous. Over the course of the last decade, she and her friends Naomi McPherson and Josette Maskin have built the kind of impassioned fan base that most indie acts only dream of. Between sold out shows at iconic venues like Los Angeles’ Greek Theater and headlining slots at beloved alt-rock festival All Things Go, MUNA has grown to fit the legend its members created around it — meaning any perceived threat to its existence could be met with vocal opposition.
With the benefit of hindsight, Gavin says that fear is a nice problem to have. “It’s a good thing, ultimately, to have a project where people are invested in what you’re going to create next,” she says.
Trending on Billboard
That anger from her fans never quite materialized — in fact, they overwhelmingly expressed enthusiasm for What a Relief, Gavin’s debut solo LP due out Friday (Oct. 25) via Saddest Factory. Described by Gavin as “Lilith Fair-core,” the album is interested less the genres of its songs, and more in their emotional lyrics — tracks charting the cyclical concept of motherhood (“The Baton”), emotionally inauthentic romance (“Sanitized”) and the grief of losing a pet (“Sweet Abby Girl”) all bear Gavin’s stamp of remarkably poetic-yet-lucid songwriting.
As MUNA’s in-house lyricist, Gavin found herself in 2019 with a backlog of what she refers to as “MUNA castoffs” — songs she wrote and presented to her bandmates, but that ultimately didn’t fit within the trio’s creative vision for themselves. “There is a tonal difference that speaks to the scale of things — MUNA has become so ambitious, so the songs have to be scalable to a certain size,” she explains. “A lot of these songs feel like they live in a much smaller world.”
But when she shared a selection of those songs with her friends Eric Radloff (known on-stage as Okudaxij) and Scott Heiner (MUNA’s original drummer), they both told her how much they loved them. “They were the first fans of this solo project,” she says. “I wasn’t really thinking about doing anything with them until that started happening, where I started to realize, ‘Oh, there’s enough of these songs that it’s become something else.’”
Radloff invited Gavin to play a “secret set” at a February 2020 show of his, allowing her the space to learn “what it would feel like to play these songs as just me,” she recalls. By the time she was done, she knew that she had something special. When COVID-19 shut the world down the following month, Gavin got to work with Radloff and Heiner arranging the songs for a potential solo release.
The spirit of sharing songs she wrote with her friends suffuses the finished product of What a Relief, making the case for Gavin as one of the most talented songwriters working today. It’s a strong case to be made — outside of writing all of MUNA’s songs, Gavin has garnered a number of co-writes with artists like Maren Morris and The Japanese House, which she says has only contributed to a “shift in my confidence” that allowed her solo LP to exist.
“One of the things that’s interesting about co-writing is, if I’m in a room with someone else, I naturally attune more to what they want. I can lose my own sense of what I want,” she says. “I have had to both develop that and try to practice that, while also simultaneously accept who I am and be honest about it when I’m working so that I can navigate and find a way that works for me. It’s kind of about self-advocacy.”
Part of that practice means knowing when she is not the best fit for a job — when it came to fine tuning the sound of her album, Gavin says that she offered her input, but gave producer Tony Berg and his team of engineers and mixers like Will Maclellan the space they needed to make What a Relief soar. “I wish that this wasn’t true, but my instinct was to say that I am a pillow princess in the studio — I don’t care what microphone we use, I just want to be able to tell you if I like it!” she exclaims. “I think part of getting older and developing as a creative is understanding delegation, and not trying to be in control of something if that’s not your passion.”
While the project spans a wide variety of genres, Gavin acknowledges that much of the record settles somewhere within the range of folk music, in the vein of her heroes like Joni Mitchell, the Indigo Girls and Tracy Chapman. Violins, mandolins and guitars pepper the album’s various backdrops, as Gavin sings directly to the human condition of looking to change. As she says: “I’m gonna fiddle.”
One of the album’s most beloved singles, “Inconsolable,” even dips into bluegrass, featuring the vocals of Sean and Sara Watkins of string-band Nickel Creek. But Gavin reveals that, had it not been for her friend and label boss Phoebe Bridgers, the song may not have existed in its current form.
“We had kind of done this, like, Ben Folds, Regina Spektor-esque piano version of it, and it just wasn’t hitting the same way. We only had a few days left in the studio, and Phoebe was like, ‘I liked it when it was bluegrass,’” she says. Once they had the Sean and Sara in the room, the song finally clicked. “We ended up recording the song in about 10 minutes, I think we did a total of two takes.”
The song doesn’t come as a complete shift for fans of MUNA — on 2022’s affirming anthem “Kind of Girl,” the pop trio leaned into the stylings of country ballads to better convey the emotional heart of the song. But Gavin explains that there is a potent lyrical difference between a song like “Kind of Girl” and one like “Inconsolable.” “It sounds weird — I think there is this difference between singing ‘work in the garden’ (on ‘Kind of Girl’) and singing ‘baby lizards’ (on ‘Inconsolable’),” she quips.
Early in the process of creating her album, Gavin went to McPherson and Maskin, telling them that she wanted to release the LP as a solo project. Despite some jokes shared on an episode of their podcast Gayotic (“What was the reason you wanted to do this without Naomi and I?” Maskin pointedly asked), both of Gavin’s bandmates supported the idea, with Maskin even playing a series of backing instruments on the final version of the album.
“I’m so grateful that they’ve been super, super supportive,” Gavin beams. “The only thing that they’ve ever expressed concern about is my own workaholism, because this just means that I took on a second job — they would both check in, like, ‘Cool, are you okay?’”
The individual band members’ work ethic, though, is what has helped MUNA become a cult favorite in pop spaces. With the trio’s oft-cited status as the leading “queer heroes” of pop music, Gavin has noticed the outsized rise of queer artists over the last year, with pop stars like Chappell Roan, Reneé Rapp and others breaking through to mainstream audiences in a way that once felt impossible.
“It makes me really emotional, I see these young people that are coming up as actual superheroes,” Gavin says. The singer is hesitant to take too much credit for the current state of queerness in pop music (“There’s a loud voice in my head saying, ‘This would have happened regardless, b—h,’” she laughs). But she eventually admits that she is watching, in real time, as she and her two best friends at least help in making lasting change.
“If you keep your head down and work and believe that what you’re doing with your friends is cool, you can eventually, in ten years, shift f–king culture,” she says. “It’s wild how far your impact can go if you’re consistently trying to ground [yourself] in the world that you want to be in.”
But there are aspects of the current ascent of LGBTQ+ artists that Gavin is wary about — especially when it comes to how non-straight and non-cisgender identities are already being viewed as trends for the music industry to capitalize on.
“That’s how the current stage of capitalism that we are in functions,” she says with a sigh. “Every time the structure realizes that it can profit off of a new identity, there is a choice presented to people of that identity — do I want to assimilate and take on those privileges?”
Gavin validates many artists’ choice to accept those benefits — after all, “everyone’s in such desperate financial situations that it makes sense.” But she makes it clear, when it comes to both MUNA and her solo career, that she’s more interested in building a sustainable future for herself and artists like her.
“There are so many people that I see as siblings in my community who are not safe in this moment, and I want to be with them. I don’t want to be with the straights,” she says. “So we’re going to continue pushing the envelope and making it clear that we’re not happy to be ‘part of the club.’”
Riding a wave of indie success, Chicagoʼs Friko — led by vocalist/guitarist and principal lyric writer Niko Kapetan and drummer Bailey Minzenberger — will embark on a 40-date headlining tour beginning Nov. 2 in Amsterdam (with U.S. dates beginning Dec. 27) and on Nov. 22 release an expanded version of their 2024 debut album, Where we’ve been, Where we go from here — with 11 bonus studio and live tracks, and a cover of My Bloody Valentine’s “When You Sleep.”
Explore
Explore
See latest videos, charts and news
See latest videos, charts and news
The first track from the expanded album, “If I Am” — which Kapetan says was among the first songs the band played at its initial club shows in the Windy City — drops on Oct. 23.
Trending on Billboard
This past summer, Friko brought its fiery full-on sound — powered by Kapetan’s turbo guitar-playing and quavering emo vocals, and Minzenberger’s high-energy drumming — to their first festival performances at Lollapalooza, Newport Folk Festival and Fuji Rock, and they recently finished a tour opening for Royel Otis. The group’s November European dates will be their first and include an appearance at Pitchfork Festival London. Tickets are on sale this Friday at 10am local time.
Before one of Friko’s last summer dates, as the band’s van chased Royel Otis’ buses and semi. Kapetan spoke to Billboard about the the evolution of the group, its album Where we’ve been, Where we go from here, the rigors of touring and plans for the future.
For a band that released its debut album in February, Friko has really blown up on the indie scene. How did you arrive at this point?
I had a cover band with friends beginning in sixth grade, and we would play local shops or block parties or whatever. Friko started in 2019, and that’s when we just started doing lives. We played a ton of Chicago shows and in Milwaukee, Minneapolis. By the time we got through making this debut record, we had a lot of live time in our back pocket. We were releasing stuff independently and in the Chicago scene but releasing with ATO introduced us to most of the people that know us now. We’re figuring out our live show at an exponential rate, especially now that we’ve been on a tour with big, sold-out rooms with Royel Otis over the past couple of weeks. Even now, this is the first time it feels like we’re a true band, band. We felt that with the record, too, and we just keep pushing that.
You’ve said that Where we’ve been, Where we go from here was completed before you signed with ATO.
Yeah, pretty much, because we recorded it – Scott Tallarida, a friend who has an event space in Chicago with a studio in the back of it, let us record there for free as long as we were out of the way of events. It could get booked at any time ,so that’s why it took a while, but we were able to do it basically free.
Is that what you hear when you play the album now, or did you sweeten it after signing to ATO?
After we recorded at Scott’s place and then also Palisade Studios in Chicago, we basically mixed it ourselves for months as well. We mixed it with our friend Jack Henry, and it was a learning process for us. This whole first record was just us pretty much doing everything ourselves and learning how to do it. It was a good learning experience, but we’re excited to expand from that. We probably had it done at the end of 2023 — maybe November-ish. We signed to ATO before we were done mixing it, but it was all recorded and half mixed.
Did ATO come to you?
We were playing Chicago clubs, and Erik Salz from Arrival Artists — who’s now our booking agent — came to some of them. Then once we got a small team together, they were pitching labels. It got down to a final few labels, and ATO was very passionate about working with us, not just for a record, but to start our career. It seemed like the right choice.
Were you able to keep your masters?
We definitely did.
The album has a kind of do-or-die urgency to it. It almost demands that you listen to it. Where does that come from?
It’s just a natural thing. Every show feels like that for us, and we play it that way. When you’re opening for another band, and everybody’s there to see them, you need to give them a reason to listen. You need to have the songs, but then you also need to have something for people to look at. I think Mitski said that people are paying to see people go out there and believe in themselves. There’s a bunch of bands coming up now — bands we grew up loving — that just give everything they can, and when that happens, I feel like I can get lost in the music.
I read that you love Nirvana’s “All Apologies.” What other artists do you like?
I don’t listen to The Beatles as I did growing up, but they definitely informed my melodic and cord progressions and learning the basics. I love The Replacements. I like a lot of the more melodic punk stuff that just has all the attitude but also the melody. There’s a lot of cool, new bands I love. Black Country, New Road definitely blew my mind in 2020. We just hung out with English Teacher in New York. They’re super cool. We want play shows with them. Them and Stellar, East. I like the local scene in Chicago, and I like Horsegirl, Genome. There’s a lot of exciting new bands out there.
You do put on a riveting live show, and I think that’s super-important for a band’s longevity. A number of bedroom acts that were signed around the time of the pandemic have faded because they’re not compelling onstage.
I don’t want to speak to TikTok bands. We just want to do the real thing, and we want to feel like we’re doing that every night. The goal is for the show to feel as cathartic as possible. The other day, at one of our shows, I accidentally broke my guitar from going too hard. My head was bleeding. There’s a beauty to that.
What was the inspiration for “Get Numb to It”?
During the pandemic, I dropped out after one year of college and started working in a warehouse. I did that for a few years, and after one particularly bad day there, I was in the car listening to a broadcast song. I started singing along to the song with lyrics that ended up in “Get Numb to It.” The demo came together through that, but then the band started playing it and it took on even more energy.
Is it true you released “Get Numb to It” on your own before it became a Friko tune?
I started off Friko as a solo thing at the start of the pandemic. I was just releasing demos and that was one of them. I remember showing it to everybody in the band one day on my laptop, and then it came together. It was the first song that people started singing along to at the Chicago shows, so it took on a real life with the fans.
How do you and Bailey collaborate. Is it just you two or are more band members involved now?
We probably would be considered a four-piece now. Especially with the live show, we’re writing new stuff, and it has been much more of a band effort from the start of the writing process. Also, Bailey plays guitar too, so there are a bunch of guitar parts. All four of us are the best at guitar in some way, so it has been a realy useful thing.
I love “Crimson to Chrome,” particularly the lyric, “Caught on the wrong side of the shoe” — nice turn of phrase. What are your favorite lyrics on the album?
“Where We’ve Been,” the first song on the record, is definitely one of them. That song came in like an hour or so. All the lyrics just flowed out and felt so natural. It’s what you want to go for with songwriting — where something just spills out and there’s no thought in it. That feels like the magic of it.
Now that you’re about to embark on a headlining tour, will your live show change?
It’s going to be kind of what we’ve been doing on the last tour, although we’ll be playing our new music. We’re playing larger venues — sweet spots that we’re excited to play. On the last tour, we started thinking more about stage design and lighting. For Thalia Hall, which will be a homecoming show at the end of the year, we’re definitely going all out. We’re touring with just five people — the band and our tour manager — so there’s only so much we can do on the road, evening with a headlining tour. We’re going to give it our all until we can have more people along.
When you say you’re playing new songs at your shows, are these slated for the next album?
Yeah, we’re in the talks about whatever the next thing is, whether it’s an EP or an album. For us, an album needs to be a full statement. We love the classic album format. So, we’ll see, but at this point we’re trying to keep writing and see what comes.
Have you started talking about when this new release will drop?
We want it to be fall 2025.
You’re also releasing a deluxe version of the current album. What’s new on that?
There are five songs that we were working on right before the album songs started coming along, and then we kind of pivoted. We were like, these are what we need to work on right now. We’ve always been fans of B-sides, so we’re excited that they’ll see the light of day. We are also including some demos that we released before Friko was playing shows, and some live mixes from our album release show.
What are the best and worst parts of touring?
The best is definitely when the shows are great and then you can — in New York, we went out with friends both nights. That feels like the adventurous part when you’re younger and you dream of going on tour. But sometimes that results in not getting much sleep and, like today, we’re bus-chasing Royel Otis for the first time. They have like a 20-person team — very nice, good people— two buses and a semi. We’re in a van and a trailer; just the band and two managers. So, we’re all driving, we’re setting up everything and we’re selling merch. So, it’s just a different team, amount of people on the road. It’s a lot of driving, which is not the worst thing, but when it’s two 10-hour days of just driving, you get kind of braindead.
Yeah. Do you have any advice for up-and-coming artists? Any survival tips?
Yeah, you have to love the people you’re touring with. Especially when it’s small scale. That’s the biggest thing by far, and just a s–t ton of caffeine. It’s sugar free herbal lattes because it’s the healthiest that you can do. There’s no other way around it.
This fall, two months after Venezuela’s disputed presidential election plunged the country into crisis — with Nicolás Maduro claiming victory despite overwhelming evidence he’d lost — six of the country’s most influential figures convened in Miami for what some of them considered a historic conversation.
Despite the travel challenges posed by Hurricane Helene, Danny Ocean managed to arrive from Mexico, Elena Rose made it from Italy, and the rest — Nacho, Mau y Ricky and Lele Pons — met them at a studio in Coconut Grove.
All of these artists are part of a growing wave of Venezuelan musicians who are succeeding at levels perhaps not seen since the 1980s, when stars like Oscar D’Leon, “El Puma” José Luis Rodríguez or Ricardo Montaner had successful careers outside of their home country.
Trending on Billboard
This year, there are more than 20 Latin Grammy Award nominees from Venezuela — including Elena Rose, Danny Ocean and Mau y Ricky, with multiple nods each — and a greater presence of Venezuelans on the Billboard charts. But the artists who are here today have not only stood out globally with their music — or in Lele Pons’ case, as a social media content creator — but also use their voices to speak out about the political strife in their home country, a cause close to their hearts.
Until the July election, the concert business had been a rare bright spot for Venezuela’s economy: Luis Miguel and Karol G filled stadiums in Caracas with their spectacular tours in February and March, respectively, and there were others scheduled. But an artist like Nacho, who until recently lived part time in Venezuela, has not been able to sing in public in his country since 2016, presumably for criticizing the government.
In Miami, Mau y Ricky chat animatedly with Nacho, reminiscing about better times in Venezuela. Elena Rose and Lele Pons give each other a sisterly hug. A rugged Danny Ocean arrives straight from the airport and greets everyone with a wide smile.
At 41, Nacho is the oldest of the group by a decade. He paved the way for them as a Venezuelan musician — first as part of his popular duo with Chino Miranda and later with a successful solo career — and the respect they have for him is evident. “You made us understand that it is possible to make it when things are difficult,” Danny Ocean tells him about Chino y Nacho, who achieved international fame in 2010, when there were practically no singers coming out of Venezuela.
Unlike superstars from Mexico, Colombia or Puerto Rico, who started in their countries with the support of a local industry and then went international, all, with the exception of Nacho, have built their careers outside of Venezuela, having left as children or teenagers, as in the case of Mau y Ricky, Elena Rose and Lele Pons, or right before his first release, like Danny Ocean with “Me Rehúso,” the song that put him on the map in 2016, in which he already sang about pain of emigrating leaving behind a loved one.
Today, multinational record companies practically don’t have a presence in the country, and most local artists are independently produced. “There is no industry as such, really, with a solid base in Venezuela,” Elena Rose will later explain. Gone was the boom of the ’80s, when great talents like Yordano, Frank Quintero, Karina, Kiara and more flourished nationally with the support of labels like SonoRodven and Sonográfica, as well as a law that forced radio stations to play a song by a Venezuelan artist for every song by a non-native act.
At the time of this interview, two months have passed since the consequential presidential elections of July 28, when the Venezuelan electoral authority declared Maduro the winner with 51.2% of the votes (although it has not shown proper documentation that support the results) and the opposition denounced irregularities in the count and stated that its candidate, Edmundo González, had obtained almost 70% of the votes. The demonstrations that followed turned violent due to the repression of the Armed Forces and police, with dozens of deaths and more than 2,000 detained. An arrest warrant against González has led him to seek asylum in Spain, and opposition leader María Corina Machado has been forced to take shelter.
Today, this group has gathered to speak openly about the roles they play as musicians in the context of Venezuela’s politics and society. Just before starting, Elena Rose says, “We have not prayed today.” We all hold hands and Mau does the honors, finishing with gratitude: “Thank you for allowing us and giving us this platform to talk a little more about who we are and where we come from.”
From left: Mau Montaner, Ricky Montaner, Lele Pons, Danny Ocean, Elena Rose, Nacho and Sigal Ratner-Arias photographed on Sept. 26, 2024 at Grove Studio in Miami.
Ingrid Fajardo
Nacho, since you’ve been doing this the longest, what do you feel when you see this kind of renaissance of Venezuelan musicians?
Nacho: Pride. I feel very proud when I hear from everyone wherever I am in the world, because we Venezuelans have gone through many difficulties. But something that these difficulties have left is the fact that we all feel part of the same family. Like when we met this morning, right? We felt like we were cousins or family in some way. We use the same lexicon; we almost always have stories in common with Venezuela and we feel close.
What do you think has unleashed this new wave of talent?
Nacho: The desire, the drive, the disposition, the responsibility that characterizes us as Venezuelans. And of course, I suppose that social media has played an important role and has been sort of an escape door for us in the face of the difficulties that Venezuelan talents face to be able to export their music. Because there is a need for a lot of music industry culture in Venezuela, and I believe that talent cannot be covered with a finger. When I talk about Venezuelan talents, you realize that everyone plays an instrument, everyone writes, everyone has a lot to say through their songs.
That is something that has also caught my attention, how the lyrics of Venezuelan artists tend to be very deep. They say that art is often a response to sublimation and repression.
Elena Rose: I dare say that, in this particular group of people here, what stands out is sensitivity and humanity. I feel that if we were born again, we would choose things to happen in the same way that we have experienced them. But at the same time, I think it goes much further. I think that when we make music, we do it in such an intentional way, really, so from our soul, so wanting to leave something behind, that all the sacrifices we’ve made are worth it.
Elena Rose
Mary Beth Koeth
Danny Ocean: Yes, I think that we all write based on our angle and our perspectives of the things that we have all experienced. I think art is about that, about each person writing through their eyes and sensations. I make music because I love music, I need to write.
Everyone here has publicly expressed their frustration and feelings about what a long list of organizations and governments have pointed out as electoral fraud in Venezuela, and the repression that followed the elections. Most of the comments on your social media are positive, but some have written that artists should dedicate themselves to being artists and not get involved in politics. Do you feel that artists have a duty to speak out?
Lele Pons: If it’s not us pushing people, who is going to do it? Because many times people are afraid, and because we do it or people you admire do it — if you admire Elena or Danny or Nacho and they do it and they speak for you, it also pushes you to speak. That is our power, communication, so that everyone knows what is happening, not just us [Venezuelans].
Mau: Beyond me thinking that it can generate a change or not, for me the important thing is that people … feel that Ricky and I have their backs and that we are with them. Many times, when you are going through something, what you need, beyond a voice, [is] people to hold on to so you can say, “I’m not in this alone.”
Mau Montaner
Mary Beth Koeth
Lele, you also used your enormous social media platform for an Instagram Live with Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado for which Maduro later mentioned you in a speech. What did you think when all this happened?
Lele Pons: Well, I think it’s the most important thing I’ve done in my career. Because being an influencer is helping. It’s a way to be a leader. And if I can help another leader to talk to people who don’t know what is happening, because I have an audience that [is not all Venezuelans] … When I made a video [about the situation in Venezuela], I did it in Italian, I did it in English and I did it in Spanish so that everyone knows what’s happening, so that they can share, repost and use my platform, so that [María Corina Machado] would have a voice. I listen and I see what people are saying, what they tell me: “Please help me. This is going on.” And I go, “Jeez! I’m here, what can I do?” I use everything I have to help, so that people know and the world knows too.
Danny, Nacho, after the July 28 elections, you two called on the Armed Forces and police to avoid the use of violence against demonstrators. Nacho, you even said, “I promised my family, for everyone’s safety, that I would not do this again, but I can’t see what is going on in the country and stay silent.” Have you feared for your life while in Venezuela?
Nacho: The truth is, no, but not because something bad can’t happen, but because for some reason — I don’t know if it’s because I’ve had a closer encounter with God — death is something that doesn’t mortify me as much … But definitely there are people around you who may tell you, “The actions you have taken have had an impact on my stability, on my tranquility, on my integrity.” Then you start to feel guilty, because these are people that you love, that you have around. Or “Look, they took my job away because they found out I’m your cousin.” Or “They don’t want to do anything with me anymore because they know I’m your friend.” Or “They shut down my business because they saw me in a photo with you or hanging out with you.” So, more than fearing for myself, those were actually the repercussions that worried me when it came to expressing myself. But there are bigger purposes than that.
Danny Ocean
Mary Beth Koeth
Danny, you released an EP dedicated to Venezuela days before the elections, venequia., and you called on your fans who had relatives in the Armed Forces or the police to talk to them to make them see reason to avoid the use of violence. What is your message to them today?
Danny Ocean: For me, the issue of Venezuela stopped being political a long time ago. For me, it is already a humanitarian issue. We are surely in the top three countries with the most displaced people in the world … We have [almost 8] million people who have had to leave our country, leave everything, leave a life to look for a better future, and that is not right. So, why did I do venequia.? Because … eight years after having to leave Venezuela, I am still seeing the numbers [of emigrants] increasing and saying, “But nothing is happening.” And the video I made calling the families of the military, because it’s true. I mean, we need a change.
Elena Rose: And something that happens to us a lot, for example, when we arrive in another country, when a Venezuelan sees us, it is as if they see fresh water and they’re hot. It’s happened to me that someone hugs me and tells me, “I haven’t seen my dad in years, I have been separated from my children for years.” Those are the kind of things [they say that go] beyond the limit of what we can accept … What do you say to that person? Something I always do; I like to pray with them at that moment, and my message has always been to nourish faith. I really don’t want any Venezuelan to surrender without seeing their country free.
Lele Pons: Knowing that you are on the right side of history, that you go to sleep and say, “I did something good today, I am proud of my friends, of my family, of what is happening,” gives you peace. Even if you can often lose friends or followers or whatever, you don’t have to care … It’s not political. It’s for the people.
Lele Pons
Mary Beth Koeth
Elena Rose: (To Danny Ocean.) The night before [venequia.] came out, I remember that you called me, and we talked for about an hour about how you felt at the moment. And these are the things that people don’t see and don’t know…
How did you feel, Danny?
Danny Ocean: Distraught.
Elena Rose: We both did! We were like, “OK, this is going to happen, and after we cross this line, it’s going to be OK.” But at the same time, I remember telling you, “This has been in your heart for a long time and you have to say that now.” … It is a love letter to Venezuela, as is your album [Hotel Caracas] too, [Mau y Ricky], as is [our song] “Caracas en el 2000,” which at the end of the day was also what we always talked about: I want this to be a hug for Venezuelans and for Venezuela.
Mau and Ricky, speaking of Hotel Caracas, you traveled to Venezuela for the first time in many years to shoot all the videos for the album, as well as a documentary which is nominated for a Latin Grammy. You were able to reunite with Venezuela and really get to know the country.
Ricky: It was like a personal need of knowing who the f–k I am … I was 10 when I left Venezuela, and my reality of Venezuela and Caracas was different. My father [singer Ricardo Montaner] was kidnapped when I was 6, so my relationship [with Venezuela] was almost toxic. There were 20 years of fears of thinking that I was going to get there and get killed or something… So, when we started making Hotel Caracas, which is an album where we are returning to our creative beginnings as well, we realized that we needed go back to where we are from … Being able to stand up in a stadium in Argentina and say, “¡Viva Venezuela!,” and not feel that the people there would say, “Oh, how cute, they say they are from Venezuela, but they haven’t gone.” I felt imposter syndrome; I didn’t want to feel that anymore. And I got there and felt their pride in saying, “I’m so proud of what you’ve accomplished out there and how you’re representing us.” That, for us, became our motivation. So, making Hotel Caracas was literally, “How can we carry this communication on another side as well?” And our way was going back to Venezuela, making a movie, employing 200 people there, investing an absurd amount of money in the country for hope and for telling people, “Hey, what we are fighting for is worth it. Look at the people of this country. Look at the talent and that we can make an entire movie in Venezuela.”
Ricky Montaner
Mary Beth Koeth
A year ago, international artists were returning to Venezuela to play massive shows, something that had not been done in many years. You have not had the chance to do that. Do you hope that will happen for you one day?
Ricky: My biggest dream is imagining us returning to Venezuela with our people singing. Obviously now it can become very uncomfortable for us … because we have clear opinions of where we stand, so stepping on a stage and not communicating a truth is very complicated. There are real threats, there are things happening that are serious.
Danny Ocean: Look, I’m going to be very frank and excuse me, I’m going to try to choose the best words. I’m not thinking about concerts … All I want is for this to end and for us to be calm and be able to walk in peace … I’m not saying that Venezuela is not suitable for concerts; I believe that people deserve joy, I believe that people deserve to be able to enjoy [concerts]. But personally, I can’t think right now about a show in Venezuela knowing the critical situation we are in. With electricity problems, with water problems, with basic needs.
Elena Rose: There are many things that are missing in Venezuela [also] regarding the music industry. The concert is like the last thing that in theory should happen. There is no industry as such, really, with a solid base in Venezuela. There are many things that are happening with artists who are there, who have other needs than ours, who have fewer opportunities to say no, to put it that way. Unfortunately, there has not been a good education for the artists to explain to them the value of their art, that it is not OK to give away what is truly priceless, that no one should be able to say to you, “Give me [your song] and take this.” I have seen cases that hurt me a lot.
Can you give an example?
Elena Rose: Yes. There are wonderful, super talented songwriters there, and they tell them, “Look, I’ll give you 500 dollars for your song and you no longer have any power over it.” And the person who is really struggling says yes.
In Colombia, music has caused a tangible change in how the country is perceived. Do you think the same thing could happen with Venezuela?
Nacho: I think it can happen, but we need to count on the resources that Colombia has. For example, consumer platforms that generate dividends for artists through streams, through views. You see a Venezuelan artist succeeding abroad, and perhaps Venezuela does not appear as the country that consumes their music the most. If you check which are the countries that consume me the most, Mexico is No. 1 and Venezuela is 17, and it’s not that there are not more Venezuelans who follow my career than Mexicans, but that there is no industry. That’s the problem. And for there to be an industry we need to change the reality of the country, start to see what is best for us in terms of the economy so that things begin to move the way they are moving in Colombia … In our country, we are survivors, really.
Nacho
Mary Beth Koeth
Ricky: To give you an idea, on Spotify Mexico, a No.1 can be 2 million streams in a day, while in Venezuela it can be 8,000. I mean…
Everything is relative…
Danny Ocean: The numbers aren’t condensed into one place. Our numbers are scattered. So, since there is no industry to be able to concentrate the numbers in one place, in the end we are not attractive … There is great work to do.
Nacho: The thing is that our main market is not our main market … Because you say, [if] a Venezuelan is achieving this level of consumption, it is because he is conquering the world around Venezuela. So, it is not a fair fight for us. And obviously — without detracting from the wonderful talents and numbers that artists from Colombia are achieving, or our colleagues who we love and adore and follow and admire — for us it is definitely a little more difficult.
Mau: And I’ll tell you something that I find very interesting. Listening to you speak, Nacho, heals many things in me … It is beautiful to know that there are other people living the same thing as you. You know? It’s very nice to know that, damn, I’m not alone and that maybe I, a little bit foolishly, should have taken refuge with my Venezuelan colleagues before. Why do I think that is happening what’s happening with Venezuelan artists in the world right now? Precisely because we are more united than ever. I think that is the difference and that is why it is happening, because I think we are realizing something what Colombia realized a while ago. And Puerto Rico, of course. They understood that to be able to carry and take out and make people on the outside talk too — “Wow, you’re from Colombia! From where J Balvin is!” You know, that wasn’t just J Balvin, that was them grabbing each other and saying, “Hey, let’s go into this together.”
Nacho: But that’s this generation. We come from generation that was quite separated, where egos won all the time and the competition was between who is going to achieve the most things without understanding. And that is why I bring up technology, because now you can see with numbers what you can achieve through unity … Now the new generations are being trained with knowledge and education about the music industry. And it is not only motivated by unity, by knowing that together we are more, but also knowing that we are enhancing what we are doing.
Music and the arts in general have the power to help us deal with hardship. How do you feel it has helped you as artists and as people?
Ricky: Music is my great love. Music is everything to me. I don’t remember a time in my life where there was a plan B.
Elena Rose: I always say that music dedicated so many songs to me, that I can only dedicate my life to music. Through music I feel like I got to know God more, because I can’t put God into words, and I can’t put into words what I feel when I listen to music.
Lele Pons: You all are so talented, and you write music. But for me, since I was little, I used music as therapy, as a way to communicate because I didn’t talk much. I don’t talk that much in my videos either, so I put on music so that it speaks for me in my videos.
Music can change lives. Music can change hearts. Do you feel that it can help change the course of history?
Elena Rose: Wherever there is music, and someone who wants to listen to it, there is love.
Danny Ocean: Sigmund Freud said that music is to the soul what gymnastics is to the body. I very much agree with that.
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.”
Trending on Billboard
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.”
Trending on Billboard
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.
Trending on Billboard
“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.”
Trending on Billboard
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.
Trending on Billboard
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.”
HipHopWired Featured Video
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.
—
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.
Explore
See latest videos, charts and news
See latest videos, charts and news
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.
Trending on Billboard
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.