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Nearly a decade after indie R&B tastemakers and college students across the country first swooned over her self-released EPs and early collaborations with Monte Booker and Smino, Ravyn Lenae has earned her first Billboard Hot 100 hit with “Love Me Not” (chart dated April 12).
Lenae, who signed to Atlantic Records in 2016, originally released the bouncy, soulful, rock-inflected song in early May 2024 as the lead single from her sophomore studio album, Bird’s Eye. Thanks to a wave of TikTok momentum — one that’s also benefitted Janet Jackson’s “Someone to Call My Lover,” a kind of foremother to “Love Me Not” — the single steadily grew throughout the late winter and early spring and now reaches a No. 70 on this week’s Hot 100 (dated April 26). The Dahi-produced track also became the landmark 25th production credit for the Grammy-winning hip-hop/R&B producer.
With “Love Me Not” securing Lenae her long-awaited breakout moment, the song’s success also previews what’s shaping up to be the biggest year of her career. In April, the Chicago-bred singer-songwriter bewitched both weekends of Coachella-goers, perfectly priming both in-person and virtual audiences for her forthcoming stint as an opener on Sabrina Carpenter’s Short n’ Sweet tour. She’ll also visit her hometown for Lollapallooza (July 31-Aug. 3), where she’ll continuing playing sets built around Bird’s Eye, which Billboard staff named the No. 3 Best R&B Album of 2024.
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“I’m just happy for all artists who have been in this 10-plus years and are feeling the love and the benefits of so much time and effort and hard work,” she gushes to Billboard the day before her Coachella debut. “It’s a lot of that happening right now at the 10-year mark. The 10-year thing is real!”
In a conversation with Billboard, Ravyn Lenae talks her slow-burning success, drawing inspiration from Janet Jackson, gracing the Hot 100 for the first time with “Love Me Not,” and witnessing the power of TikTok firsthand.
Where were you when you found out “Love Me Not” hit the Hot 100?
I was at home watching TV, and my manager called me and told me that it was a real thing. I had a great day that day. I had great tacos, I called my mom, everything was going right. The weather was beautiful. I had a really emotional talk with Dahi and thanked him for being such an important person in my life and doing this with me and believing in me and challenging me.
Was there a specific moment in which you decided that you wanted to pursue music professionally?
I would say when I was in high school and I started putting music out on SoundCloud and I saw how much of a response I got. That made me feel like, “Oh, this is something that not just resonates with me, but people actually like this and they’re looking forward to the next thing that I do.” I think that gave me an inkling. Once Noname took me on tour [in 2017], that’s when I realized it was a possibility to do something I love every single day and be able to pay my bills too.
What was the inspiration behind “Love Me Not?”
That song was one of the first ones that we landed on for Bird’s Eye. I remember when Dahi played me the beat, I was like, “This is something I feel like I haven’t heard in such a long time.” For some reason, it reminded me of when I heard “Hey Ya!” [by OutKast] for the first time. That mix of soulfulness with pop sensibility that anybody could sing and dance to and feels like it could have came out in any era — that’s my favorite type of song.
Lyrically, I like to play with relationships and the push and pull of knowing you love somebody even though you know it can’t work. That really elementary approach to writing is one of my favorite things. I love when the lyrics feel a little sad, but the music feels upbeat, or even the inverse. [“Love Me Not”] has all the qualities of a really timeless song to me, so I knew that one had to be on [the album] and be the first [single].
Why did you decide to release “Love Me Not” alongside “Love Is Blind”?
“Love Me Not” was something that I really, really loved and I was excited for my fans to hear. But I also knew that it was a branch-out from the type of colors I dabbled in on [2022 album] Hypnos. I thought to support that, I should have something that felt like the most “Ravyn Lenae” song ever. “Love Is Blind” was a good pairing for people to see where I was going with [Bird’s Eye while] still rooted in my R&B bag, my sensuality and my yearning lyrics. I wanted people to understand where I was going, but also where I am and where I’ve been at the same time.
How did the how did the Rex Orange County remix come together? When did you know that you wanted to do a remix?
I knew I wanted a remix for the song a few months after I dropped it. I remember us talking about a feature on the song originally, so it was always in my head that I thought I heard another perspective on the song, especially a male perspective, almost like a duet type of feel. But I couldn’t think of who it was going to be, and I don’t like to decide things quickly.
My manager [John Bogaard] sugested Rex [Orange County], and I thought he was the perfect voice and perspective to add to the song and introduce it to a whole other audience.
The success of “Love Me Not” has been a real slow burn, not unlike your career in general. Are there times you wish everything would just click or are you content with the journey of it all?
I am constantly on a journey of balancing both of those extremes because it feels like two sides of my brain. One that’s like, “Get on the train!,” and the other part of me — like when I talk to my mom and my manager — [understands] that timing is everything. I have to trust that. I have to believe that. I have to stay patient and diligent and focused, and things will start to turn over for me. We’ve seen it over and over again.
I just saw Doechii [with whom she collaborated for 2022’s “Xtasy” remix] a few days ago in San Antonio. I hadn’t seen her since this major shift [in her career], so it’s been a while since I’ve been able to catch up with her. I was like, “Girl, when you won your Grammy, I started bawling!” I didn’t expect that [emotional response] to happen, but whenever I see those glimpses of hard work paying off, it reassures me that I’m on the right path. That’s what I’m holding on to right now; I’m trying not to get ahead of myself and stay right where I’m at and be happy about that.
I’m just happy for all artists who have been in this 10-plus years and are feeling the love and the benefits of so much time and effort and hard work. It’s a lot of that happening right now at the 10-year mark. The 10-year thing is real!
What else do you have planned for “Love Me Not?” You’ve been showing fellow Bird’s Eye track “Genius” a lot of love on TikTok recently.
I hope that I’m able to keep getting “Love Me Not” in new ears. I want that song to keep growing and reach as many people as possible. “Genius” is another one that I think has really strong potential to reach those super-large audiences. I’m just gonna keep pushing, working, performing, meeting people and being a good person. Beyond that, I’m working on new music that I’m so excited about.
What was your experience on the artist side watching TikTok help blow “Love Me Not” up?
Before it happened, I would have really negative thoughts like, “Maybe that type of viral moment isn’t in the cards for me.” You’re making TikToks and you feel like [they’re] not reaching anybody and you’re just putting stuff out into the void.
This was an exercise of me stepping outside of my comfort zone in a good way. Seeing people discover me and this song and then dive into my whole discography has really [shown that TikTok is] such a beautiful tool. Even beyond me, just seeing how accessible it is for people’s lives to change overnight.
I can’t help but draw similarities between “Love Me Not” popping off right now and also Janet Jackson’s “Someone to Call My Lover” having a revival. What do you think it is about these songs that are pulling in listeners right now?
I literally asked myself this the other day. I’m like, “This is too much of a coincidence!” First of all, “Someone to Call My Lover” is one of my favorite songs, so when I saw that happening it really felt like a shift. Janet is one of my biggest inspirations; she’s been able to blend R&B, alternative, rock and pop in the most beautiful, seamless way. I aspire my career to be like that too. I think people are just open to a mishmash of sounds and don’t care really who it’s coming from. Even the fact that [TikTok users] mixed “Love Me Not” with [Solange’s] “Losing You,” there’s definitely a shift happening. I think people want that soulful pop back.
What can you tell us about the new music right now?
Tricking my listeners into liking things that they probably wouldn’t have liked otherwise is something I’m really into. I’m always finding new ways to push and find new colors in my voice, get a little uncomfortable and get a little more raw. Pulling back those layers is something that I try to do with each song and each album.
A version of this story appears in the April 19, 2025, issue of Billboard.
Anjula Acharia remembers when the one person who had set her up for success told her she was going to fail. And Jay-Z was there, too.
In 2008, Acharia and Interscope Geffen A&M’s then chairman, Jimmy Iovine, were sharing breakfast at a New York hotel. Iovine — who had partnered with Acharia’s South Asian music/news hub, Desi Hits, to develop a Universal Music Group-backed imprint — remembered her previously telling him how much “Beware of the Boys,” Jay-Z’s 2003 remix of Panjabi MC’s bhangra single, had meant to her as the kind of cross-continental exchange that she hoped Desi Hits would foster. So when Acharia stood up to leave the breakfast, Iovine asked her to stick around for a few more minutes… at which point Jay made his surprise entrance.
Acharia, who was in her 30s at the time, geeked out, gushing about her love of “Beware of the Boys” and asking the rap superstar about how the remix had come together. Then Iovine pulled the rug out from under her. “While I was sitting with him and Jay-Z, Jimmy told me that Desi Hits was going to fail,” she recalls. “His words were, ‘I know pop culture, I know a visionary, and this is just way too early. This would be right in 10 to 15 years.’ ”
Anjula Acharia. Styling by Kristina Askerova. Hair and Makeup by Shayli Nayak. Versace dress and jewelry, Paris Texas shoes.
Harsh Jani
A Punjabi kid and die-hard music fan born to South Asian immigrants, Acharia grew up in Buckinghamshire, England, devouring music that fused styles from around the world and dreaming of creating a platform that spoke to both Eastern and Western demographics. She was a senior partner at a London-based executive search firm who co-founded Desi Hits Radio as a popular early podcast in the mid-2000s; then Iovine backed Desi Hits in 2007 as a stateside label for South Asian artists after she moved to New York. The pair helped engineer a crossover hit in 2009 with “Jai Ho,” A.R. Rahman’s Academy Award-winning Slumdog Millionaire theme that was remade for U.S. listeners with The Pussycat Dolls added to it.
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“She was so talented and passionate about the music,” Iovine reflects today, “but sometimes things just don’t come together.” And by the early 2010s, Acharia admitted her mentor had been correct: The world wasn’t ready. “We didn’t have streaming platforms, social sharing or an ecosystem to support the industry,” she explains. “It was just very segmented back then and really hard for things to travel.” She wondered aloud why Iovine had invested in Desi Hits if he had doubted the idea. “And he says, ‘Because you’re an album, not a single.’ ”
On roughly the timeline Iovine predicted, the industry has changed drastically — and Acharia, who spent that intervening time outside of music, is returning to it with an entirely new album, so to speak. She and Warner Music Group exclusively tell Billboard that they have launched 5 Junction Records, a joint-venture label under WMG, as a pipeline for South Asian artists to reach North American listeners, much like a modern Desi Hits but with significantly more established talent and infrastructure. That talent includes its flagship pair of artists: Bollywood mainstay and pop triple-threat Nora Fatehi and ascendant Indian singer-rapper King. Both already have multiple hits and millions of streams overseas, giving them the ideal foundation to take the first crack at establishing North American footholds.
“It’s always been in our mind to promote this music to the world,” King says. “That has always been the fight, but now, I feel like we are at the right time and right spot. The next five years are looking bright.”
King. Styling by Nikita Jaisinghani. Hair by Javed Sheikh and Makeup by Swapnil Haldankar. Versace jacket and shirt, Brune & Bareskin shoes, Amrapali necklace.
Harsh Jani
Nora Fatehi. Styling by Meagan Concessio. Hair and Makeup by Marianna Mukuchyan. David Koma dress, tights and shoes.
Harsh Jani
Acharia believes that a cultural wave is about to crash down on the U.S. mainstream, similar to how Korean pop, Latin music and Afrobeats all made an impact on top 40 radio beginning in the late 2010s. Based on the South Asian market boom over the past decade — by the end of 2023, India had become the second-largest on-demand streaming market in the world, behind only the United States — and the English-language artists who have made overtures in the hemisphere through touring and studio team-ups, she’s not alone in that prediction.
“The best way to think about it is, what are your next billion-user markets?” WMG CEO Robert Kyncl says. He notes that the South Asian industry has been top of mind for him for over a decade: As vp of content at Netflix in the early 2000s, Kyncl saw firsthand the scope of demand for Hindi shows, and as YouTube’s chief business officer in the 2010s, he spent every year in the region, developing partnerships that he believes are paying off today. “You have to invest,” he says. “If you don’t, you’ll wake up five, 10 years from now and realize you just missed this whole new growth era.”
Kyncl has been friends with Acharia since his Netflix days (when he first discovered Desi Hits in the course of researching Hindi shows) and has followed her career closely. After leaving Desi Hits in 2014, Acharia stayed in the entertainment space by managing Priyanka Chopra Jonas, whom she originally signed as a Bollywood star trying to kick-start a music career and now helps steer as a global superstar. Acharia also joined the venture capital company Trinity Ventures before launching her own fund, A-Series Management and Investments, where she was an early investor in companies like ClassPass and Bumble.
Yet unfinished business gnawed at her. “Music is a place that makes me feel like I’m home, and fusion music makes me feel like I’m being seen,” she says. Acharia spoke to other labels last year about the idea for 5 Junction, but Kyncl personally convinced her to bring the project to WMG. She will work closely with Warner Records CEO Aaron Bay-Schuck and COO Tom Corson, as well as GM Jurgen Grebner, who steered international marketing at Interscope for over 20 years, and Alfonso Perez-Soto, who served as WMG’s emerging markets leader before recently becoming executive vp of corporate development.
Although Acharia was removed from the major-label world for years, some of its most prominent executives believe she’s the perfect steward for this ocean-spanning endeavor. Corson describes her as “a powerful force who is extremely well-connected across the world. We hit it off from the jump, and we’re thrilled to be in business with her.” Kyncl says that, if he were to describe the “ideal entrepreneur,” that person would resemble Acharia. “You have a vision, you’re strategic about it and you won’t stop until you win,” he says. “She has it. It makes absolute sense for us to partner with her, and she’ll make us better by pushing us.”
From left: Fatehi, Acharia and King.
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Her ties to Kyncl aside, Acharia says that WMG made the most sense as a home for 5 Junction because the label group is “way ahead” in the scene. Since WMG created Warner Music India five years ago, the label has partnered with Diljit Dosanjh, a Bollywood superstar with 25 million Instagram followers who has headlined North American arenas; Karan Aujla, a former songwriter turned singer/rapper/YouTube behemoth; and Kushagra, a 20-year-old indie-pop newcomer whose single “Finding Her” is currently one of India’s biggest streaming hits.
When Jay Mehta became managing director of Warner Music India in April 2020, he was a team of one; now, the label has 34 employees. Part of that growth had to do with timing, as the market quickly expanded globally. Last decade, “India was dominated by Indian streaming services, which did not have a global footprint,” Mehta explains. “Spotify launched in India in 2018, and it took until 2021, 2022 for them to become the leaders [in the country]. We needed Spotify and YouTube to have massive presences in India in order to take artists global.”
Acharia also points out that subtle cultural shifts in North America helped fuel opportunities. “Think about all the foreign-language content on Netflix and other streaming platforms that people have watched — especially during COVID, where people were stuck at home,” she says. “And then, with vertical video, people are watching things with subtitles all the time … Everything affects each other. We’re more used to hearing foreign languages, so we’re more OK to listen to it in our music.”
Harsh Jani
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At 5 Junction, Acharia will work closely with Mehta’s Warner Music India team, which has utilized streaming data to identify artists who can transcend international borders and songwriting camps to supply them with global hits. Fatehi, a Toronto native of Moroccan descent who moved to India and became a marquee Bollywood act, signed a deal with WMG in early 2024 to help her level up as a singer, dancer and actor. “The larger goal was always to go global, to let the whole world know my story,” she says. When she met Acharia, Fatehi told her that she wanted to become a cross-cultural entertainer along the lines of Jennifer Lopez, and Acharia told her, “Yes, let’s do it together.”
Fatehi says she has never met anyone more persuasive than Acharia. “I feel like our hungers align,” she says. “It’s hard to take a vision and sell it to someone else, because most people don’t have an attention span to listen to you for more than five minutes. But when [Anjula] opens her mouth and starts her pitch, you somehow have FOMO — you feel like you’re going to miss out if you’re not paying attention.”
In January, Fatehi released the Jason Derulo collaboration “Snake,” a thumping dance track built around East Asian melodies. It has earned 18.5 million official on-demand streams globally, according to Luminate; one month after its release, Aujla was featured on “Tell Me,” a OneRepublic collaboration that has earned 28.8 million global streams.
More than two decades after Jay-Z and Panjabi MC linked up, Acharia still believes these types of collaborations are key for breaking South Asian artists in North America. “The strategy that I had 15 years ago was cross-pollination, but we didn’t have the infrastructure to support that,” she says. Now creative borders are easier to cross. For instance, Fatehi and Derulo met up in Morocco to film a music video for “Snake” that combined hip-hop and Bollywood choreography. And after King recruited Nick Jonas for a new version of the former’s smash “Maan Meri Jaan” in 2023, King made a surprise appearance during the Jonas Brothers’ performance at Lollapalooza India in 2024 to perform it, a “cinematic” moment that he says he still can’t believe actually happened.
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At the same time that Western artists are paying more attention to India as a touring market — Coldplay performed in the country for the first time in January, grossing $30.5 million across five shows in Mumbai and Ahmedabad, according to Billboard Boxscore — South Asian artists are more clearly identifying North American territories where thousands of fans will show up to their shows. Acharia name-checks New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Austin, but also says that Canadian cities have demonstrated “huge” ticket demand. After Dosanjh scored his first top 10 album in Canada with 2023’s Ghost, his Dil-Luminati tour last year became the highest-grossing North American tour by a Punjabi music artist in history, thanks in part to sold-out stadium shows at Vancouver’s BC Place and Toronto’s Rogers Centre.
Perez-Soto sees Toronto, where the metro area had a South Asian population of more than 1.1 million as of 2021, as a crucial gateway for the rest of North America. “South Asian music through Toronto, like Latin music was through Miami, has established an important bridge between the local origin of the music and the second generation,” he says. “They have this hybrid vision of culture, where things are getting mixed up and mutually enriched.”
Kyncl has kept WMG focused on these macro-trends for years. “It’s not like we’re just starting,” he says. “It’s just that Anjula is adding an additional element, which is bringing talent here.” Under her guidance, Fatehi is spending most of April in the recording studio and will issue the follow-up to “Snake” by the end of the month, with a mix of releases aimed at Eastern and Western markets throughout the year. Meanwhile, King says he is “working on an EP and some collaborations” to follow his January single “Stay,” in addition to multiple Bollywood projects.
Mehta believes that an Indian artist will make an impact on the U.S. mainstream charts in 2025. “We saw it with Hanumankind, on the back of a viral moment,” he says, referencing the Indian rapper’s 2024 track “Big Dawgs,” which exploded on TikTok and peaked at No. 23 on the Billboard Hot 100. “But we want to make a consistent way of bringing a lot of these artists onto the charts. The U.S. is extremely competitive, but if we get the right sound representing the culture and the right artist, with Anjula’s strengths, we should be able to make something big happen.”
Acharia knows this will take time, but for her, the personal stakes are worth the investment. She was once told that Desi Hits wouldn’t last; now, 5 Junction could define her legacy. “It’s something that I started, and I want to finish it,” she says. And for his part, Iovine is proud that the world has finally caught up to her vision.
“I’m not surprised at all at any of her success,” Iovine says, “and I’m glad she’s doing this now.”
This story appears in the April 19, 2025, issue of Billboard.
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“My family lived in an American Idol household,” says Amanda Ibanez, who goes by Kiddo A.I.; specifically, Adam Lambert was the contestant who inspired her to pursue music. “I would get in front of the TV and sing and my brothers would make fun of me.” But her mother believed in her and encouraged her to get involved with a local church youth group, in which she would write songs and perform. The Miami native, now 28, began self-releasing her music as a teenager, but calls her career a “really slow climb.” A decade in, after meeting hit-maker JKash (Charlie Puth, Morgan Wallen), she started connecting with Los Angeles-based songwriters — and even crossed paths with Max Martin at one point.
Kiddo’s “zero to 100” moment came three years ago, when she worked with Selena Gomez on Rema’s “Calm Down” remix, which hit No. 3 on the Billboard Hot 100. “I used to watch her as a kid on Wizards of Waverly Place, so it was very full circle,” she says. That moment encouraged Kiddo to home in on songwriting for other artists instead of herself — “It’s less invasive,” she says with a laugh. Since then, she has worked on a number of pop hits, including several songs on Gomez and Benny Blanco’s collaborative album, I Said I Love You First, Le Sserafim’s “Crazy” and Tyla’s “Back to You.”
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Benny Blanco and Selena Gomez, “Sunset Blvd”
“It really came out of nowhere. I think Benny or [songwriter] Michael Pollack was playing the keys, and we all just started singing this hook melody,” Kiddo recalls of one of the standout songs on I Said I Love You First, which debuted at No. 1 on Top Album Sales. “I don’t remember who said ‘Sunset Blvd,’ but it just made so much sense because then Benny and Selena were like, ‘Wait, that’s where we had our first date.’ It was great to be able to help them say what they wanted to say. We wrote it in, I think, an hour. It basically wrote itself.”
Jennie, “Like Jennie”
“That was such a crazy day,” Kiddo says of working on one of the fiercer tracks from Blackpink member Jennie’s solo debut album, Ruby. “I went to Diplo’s house and he lives deep in Malibu, so it was an hour drive. I was working with [him and] Tayla Parx for the first time, so I was very nervous because I was such a fan of both of them. When we got there, we went through a couple of different tracks, but nothing made sense. Then Tayla and I were like, ‘We need something hard and just so in-your-face. This is Jennie’s song, right? So let’s make a song called “Like Jennie.” ’ Jennie freaked out. She loved it.”
Lisa, “Chill”
Kiddo worked on another Blackpink member’s solo debut album as well: Lisa’s Alter Ego. As she recalls, “I wrote [this one] with Ali Tamposi and John Byron. We actually came up with the hook before the session, and it just came so naturally.” She says that while Tamposi devised the title, they worked together on a couple of hook ideas before Kiddo had to go out of town. “Ali worked with Lisa to finish it, and it came out great. It’s one of my favorites on the album.”
This story appears in the April 19, 2025, issue of Billboard.
I’m not trying to force my truth on anyone,” Little Simz says firmly. “But I do need to talk about it, for me.”
She’s referring to the shocking dissolution of one of her dearest friendships, which has played out publicly throughout the year. Four months after filing a lawsuit against longtime studio collaborator Dean “Inflo” Cover for allegedly failing to repay a 1.7 million pound loan (roughly $2.2 million), Simz is ready to lift the veil on her side of the implosion. Lotus, out June 6, is her reclamation manifesto — a sonic rendering about ownership of her story, music and confidence.
In the two-and-a-half years since No Thank You, Simz’ fifth studio album and follow-up to 2021’s career-changing Sometimes I Might Be Introvert — which won the 2022 Mercury Prize and scored Simz her first top five entry on the Official U.K. Albums chart — she comfortably settled in among U.K. hip-hop heavyweights, performing at the BAFTA Awards and the Glastonbury festival.
Since launching her career in 2015, Simz had worked closely with Grammy Award-nominated producer Inflo and his wife, acclaimed R&B singer Cleo Sol, frequently joining the couple for collaborations under their Sault moniker. Simz and Inflo met at St. Mary’s Youth Club as children, and the two went on to conquer the U.K. music industry in the years that followed, with Inflo producing three of her albums.
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But in December 2023, according to legal filings, Simz allegedly fronted over $1 million to launch Sault’s first and only live show, during which Inflo and Sol were joined by Simz and Grammy-nominated artist Michael Kiwanuka. But when the debt left her unable to pay her tax liability the next month, according to her filing, something broke inside the rapper.
“I got to a point where I lost my sense of purpose,” she says, carefully choosing her words. “I’m quite an introspective person, especially when it comes to my music. But this time around, it felt harder. Making this album felt like a real breakthrough. I was led by God, my inner child and the Simz that was coming up and had this fire in her belly.”
Lotus — which Simz introduced with the Miles Clinton James-helmed track “Flood” in February — peruses the full spectrum of her emotions throughout her journey to rebuild after one of her closest relationships ended. And on the rambunctious, bluesy album opener, which has yet to be released, she spits: “I’m lucky that I got out now, it’s a shame I really feel sorry for your wife … This person I’ve known my whole life, coming like a devil in disguise.” The song is downright irate — her intonation has rarely been this ferocious — and Simz understood that it was a gamble. “I was really frustrated and hurt, and I wanted to scream,” she says. “But it’s tricky starting off on that foot sometimes.”
To temper the album’s unrelenting moments, Simz explores other relationship dynamics. On one conversational track that feels like a leaked private phone call, she weighs the impact of work and celebrity on family; on a more uptempo cut, she lists the ways her understanding of love has evolved. With more guest stars than any of her previous projects, none of whom she’s ready to reveal, there are a lot of voices on the album, but Simz undoubtedly remains at the center.
Lotus, which she says sources its title from “one of the only flowers that thrive in muddy waters,” prioritizes Simz’ catharsis, but that’s not the only reason it’s such a hard-fought achievement. She tried to complete four other albums since the 2022 release of No Thank You, all to no avail.
“They were great, but it’s more the situation of who I made them with,” she says somewhat wistfully. “In letting go of that relationship, I had to let go of that music… It’s like having a kid with someone; you might split with the person, but you don’t just stop loving the kid.”
Even if those albums are never released, Simz has plenty on the horizon. She will curate London’s Meltdown Festival, taking place June 12-22, which will include her first orchestra-backed live performance. The 11-day undertaking will further cement Simz’ U.K. superstardom, while her U.S. crossover is still taking hold. (Last year, she made her Billboard Hot 100 debut thanks to her feature on Coldplay’s “We Pray,” which hit No. 87.)
Could Lotus be the album to land that jump? Now that Simz has finally regained the confidence to narrate her own story, it very well could be. “I feel like it’s growing slowly but surely,” she says, “and I feel really honored to be a voice from the U.K. that people are taking to.”
This story appears in the April 19, 2025, issue of Billboard.
Last month, Billboard was invited to the Spotify offices in Downtown Los Angeles to meet its top editors and curators and get an inside look at how Spotify’s playlists come together, genre-by-genre. And leading that team is Sulinna Ong, global head of editorial at Spotify. Over time, Ong has held a variety of roles at companies like Live Nation, Sony BMG Music and French streaming service Deezer, before joining Spotify in 2019. After coming aboard, she served as its Head of Music (UK) and Head of Artist and Label Services (UK) before taking the helm of editorial.
In her role, Ong has worked to evolve what playlists can be — from launching the ephemeral and personalized options like Daylist and AI DJ, to further building out the worlds of longstanding flagship playlists RapCaviar and Today’s Top Hits. These days, most of all, Ong is interested in adding more context to the playlists, as she senses Spotify users becoming increasingly interested in having more of a human touch to those listening experiences.
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To explain her strategy with Spotify’s editorial in 2025, Ong sat down with Billboard for an extended interview to explain her stance on AI music in playlists, changing user behavior, future growth markets and why she wants to bring her team of editors into the spotlight more than ever.
What are some of your goals for Spotify’s editorial team in 2025?
We’re thinking about how to make the playlists more engaging, and we think it’s a combination of short-form video and editorial. We refer to our roles as editorial, but they also involve curation. Editorial is the storytelling, the context: “Why is this important? Why is it culturally relevant?” The curation is, “What song? What artist?” There’s an art to combining both. As we look to the future, the editorial side is becoming even more critical. We are doubling down as human music editors in music discovery and trend forecasting in 2025.
What will this editorial short-form look like? And is it something that’s interactive, allowing for comments, likes, etc.?
We format this in what we call editorial Watchfeeds. That will include written track commentary, editor videos and more. We’ve been thinking about how do we incorporate social and community elements? Whether that’s commenting, liking — it’s a combination of all those things.
Spotify used to have more social-like features, like the direct message feature, which has since been removed. Do you see this move towards more social elements as a way to retain users in-app?
We want to broaden the ecosystem. We want to have our users spend as much [time] as possible and interact with one another as well. One of the editorial Watchfeeds that we did, as an early example to test the hypothesis, was Carl Chery [head of urban editorial] during the Drake–Kendrick battle. We kept getting asked, especially Carl, about what was happening. It was all coming so fast. So we did an editorial Watchfeed where we explained it in sequence. That did really well. Some of the feedback from users was, “I didn’t have to go elsewhere to find this information.” That was really interesting for me.
Why did you decide that short-form video was the right way to editorialize these playlists?
In a world where people’s attention spans are short, it made sense. Are users really going to sit and watch a 30 minute diatribe monologue before getting into the playlist? That’s not realistic.
TikTok, Reels and Shorts have been in the short-form video space for years now. Is Spotify getting on this trend too late?
We’re not a social media platform. This is a tool to expand the storytelling experience of the music and the recommendations, which is why it’s not all short-form video. It’s just one part of our toolkit. Text and track commentary is also something we want to do, so it’s not all short-form video content.
For a long time, it was Daniel Ek’s goal to make Spotify the destination for audio. More recently, that goal has expanded to video. The Watchfeed is not the first time Spotify has experimented with video. What have you learned from previous successes and failures with video on Spotify?
We experimented with longer-form video a few years ago, and it didn’t really connect. I think actually podcasts were something that were really interesting for us to watch. It was interesting to see how core video actually ended up being to the podcast experience and the podcast audience. Yes, podcasts are longer-form, but might that be interesting for a playlist experience to try some kind of video for editorializing? I come back to editorializing because that’s what podcasts do — they provide context on a topic. We thought the next step is to do that for music. It’s not exactly the same experience, it’s not like for like, but there are components of that technology that became Watchfeed.
Until now, Spotify’s curators have largely worked anonymously. Why change that?
A lot of thought went into it. When you think about the era that we’re in in terms of AI and machine learning, people want to know — is this AI or human? What’s your point of view? AI doesn’t have a point of view. We found that people actually are interested about the people behind the playlist.
Over the couple of years, Spotify has leaned into cutting edge tech-driven features like Daylist or AI DJ. In 2025, though you’re leaning into editorializing playlists. How do you see the balance between human and algorithmic aspects of playlisting today?
They live together. I’ve never seen it as an either/or situation. I think you need both and both have unique strengths. Over time the editorial role has grown. But we are still focused on the strengths of each and combining the two.
AI has played a key role in some of your newer features, like AI DJ, but how does the editorial team treat generative AI music that ends up on Spotify? Do you have any rules against playlisting it?
We are focused on human artists and the music they create. That is what we feel is really important. We did curate, though, Kito’s track [“Cold Touch”] that used Grimes’ AI voice on it. But Kito is a bonafide artist that had the blessing of another artist to use her AI likeness and voice. That is different to us. But we think very thoughtfully about our focus on supporting real, human artists. To this point so far, I have not seen a generative AI artist or track take off. That’s not to say that it won’t happen in the future, but right now, that’s not what we’re seeing.
What markets do you think will grow significantly in the next few years?
India will only be a more important player. Same with Southeast Asia. It’s interesting to look at Southeast Asia because we see Western artists actually getting their foothold in countries like the Philippines. In general, local-language content continues to grow.
I’ve been asking all of your editors the same question: What is the most common misconception about the role of a Spotify curator?
There are two. There’s that we are in service to labels and we curate what we’re told; that can’t be further from the truth. There’s an editorial independence that the editorial team has. The second misconception is that you can pay to get on an editorial playlist. I still see people claiming that they can get you on one for a price. It’s a scam. We have a code of ethics for our editors.
What are some things that are part of your code of ethics, and has your code of ethics evolved over time?
We have strict rules to protect our editorial independence, like if we get invited to a gig or a festival, and there’s an offer to cover our flights or travel, we’re not allowed to accept. If there is a reason, a business reason, for us to be there, Spotify will cover our travel. We don’t want to be beholden to anyone. And we are constantly reviewing [our code of ethics]. It’s a yearly process of, like, “Do we have the right guidelines and guardrails in place?”
There are reports that there is a super-premium tier on the way for Spotify users willing to pay an extra subscription cost. In return, they will receive new features. Are there any extra editorial offerings in the upcoming new tier?
I don’t have any info to share with you other than what you already know. We are obviously always thinking about what superfans want and what would entice them to go onto that super premium tier, but I’ve got no details to share.
Dating back to a Music Business Worldwide story in 2016, there have been reports that Spotify has used company-owned music or so-called “fake artists” or “ghost artists” in its playlists, like Peaceful Piano or Ambient Chill. Those allegations resurfaced this year in the book Mood Machine. Can you provide any comment or clarification on those allegations?
My team curates purely editorial lists. We curate playlist music from artists. Our team doesn’t touch that.
How much creative freedom do editors actually have? How often do they get the ability to go with their gut?
They’ve got a lot of freedom to do that, but you do need to critically explain why you believe in something. There’s a balance between our personal tastes and what we think will resonate with a listener. You need to understand the shift between the two. As an editor, it’s important to understand what your biases are and make sure you are not curating with bias. What I mean by that is overdoing it because I really love this artist, or [underdoing it] because I don’t. That’s why we also curate in groups, so we challenge each other. “Why is that there? Why is that not there?” It’s actually part of our training.
It sounds like the playlists operate in a tier structure. Like, an artist can get on Fresh Finds, and if it does well, then maybe the artists get onto All New Indie next. Is that right?
Yes, we have a playlist pyramid. It’s like working an artist up through the ecosystem. You can’t slam an artist into a big flagship. There needs to be a strategic approach as to how you introduce someone to a new audience.
When Spotify’s social media accounts started posting about the editorial team’s song of the summer predictions in 2024, global head of editorial Sulinna Ong noticed a lot of commenters asking the same question: Is this artificial intelligence? “I actually went in and said, ‘I can assure you we’re not AI,’ ” she says, adding that she then found herself wondering, “Do people care whether it is [AI]?” The answer was a resounding yes. Ong recalls commenters were overjoyed to be able to identify her as a warm-blooded source of the faceless predictions. The reaction amounted to a collective “This is great. You’re human!”
Having focused on high-tech improvements to playlisting over the last few years, such as the AI DJ that subscribers can utilize and improved personalized Daily Mixes, Daylist and other features, Ong says she realized listeners value human input and connection more than ever and decided to recalibrate the “equilibrium” between AI and Spotify’s flesh-and-blood tastemakers.
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“A big tenet of editorial is this idea of reflecting culture and also being able to propel culture forward,” says J.J. Italiano, head of global music curation and discovery.
As a result, Spotify’s editorial team is leaning further into its top playlists with new “Watchfeeds” — written and video content that contextualizes its choices. There’s also more freestyling involved, such as the throwback songs that Spotify head of urban music, editorial Carl Chery slips into RapCaviar on Thursdays, or the newsletter that head of indie/alternative Lizzy Szabo writes for Lorem. Ong says interactive elements such as likes and comments may be added in the future.
To further individualize their work, Spotify’s editorial team came together for a photo and spoke to Billboard about their backgrounds, their work and their favorite music. “We know that cultural knowledge is really important. AI and machine learning excel in passing large data sets and scaling, but when it comes to cultural understanding, that’s where human editors really excel,” Ong says. “But we are still focused on the strengths of both [tech and human features] and combining the two.”
Sulinna OngGlobal head of editorial
Sulinna Ong
Yuri Hasegawa
Raised in the United Kingdom, Iran and Australia, Ong caught the music bug when she heard Kim Gordon singing Sonic Youth’s “Kool Thing” as a 13-year-old. She worked in a wide array of roles for Live Nation, Sony BMG Music and French streaming service Deezer before joining Spotify in 2019. Prior to assuming her current position in 2021, Ong served as the streaming platform’s U.K. head of music and U.K. head of artist and label services.
Favorite Spotify playlists?
Misfits 2.0, Liminal.
What are your 2025 goals for the editorial team?
We’re thinking about how to make the playlists more engaging, and we think it’s a combination of short-form video and editorial. We refer to our roles as editorial, but they also involve curation. Editorial is the storytelling, the context: “Why is this important? Why is it culturally relevant?” The curation is, “What song? What artist?” There’s an art to combining both. As we look to the future, the editorial side is becoming even more critical. We are doubling down as human music editors in music discovery and trend forecasting in 2025.
Until now, Spotify’s curators have largely worked anonymously. Why change that?
AI doesn’t have a point of view. We found that people actually are interested about the people behind the playlists.
Read Ong’s full interview here.
Carl CheryHead of urban music, editorial
Carl Chery
Rebecca Sapp
After working at hip-hop magazine XXL, Chery joined Beats Music in 2012, which was folded into Apple Music in 2014. He oversaw hip-hop and R&B at both streaming services before moving to Spotify in 2018, where he leads curation for its urban music playlists, including RapCaviar.
Favorite Spotify playlists?
Locked In, Gold School.
What trends are you spotting?
I’m interested in seeing what happens with sexy drill. Drill’s been around for a long time, and it keeps morphing. If you go back five years, that’s when it really broke through with Pop Smoke and Fivio [Foreign] and the Brooklyn drill scene. Part of the conversation around drill is that its subject matter is so hardcore it’s potentially [limiting the style]. But sexy drill has a lot of appeal. I’m keeping an eye on whether this is going to finally break through as the sound du jour in hip-hop.
What are some common misconceptions about Spotify editors?
Some people think playlisting is based on favors. They don’t pitch songs based on their merits or performance. They think building a relationship with editors enhances their chance of getting playlisted. That’s never been the case. [Others] think that playlisting is based on personal taste. Technically, it doesn’t matter if we like it. One of the most important qualities for editors is to be objective, [though] this doesn’t mean that personal taste doesn’t come into play. The sweet spot is when you get to support something that is at the intersection of your taste and what the audience likes.
Ronny HoHead of dance & electronic, editorial
Ronny Ho
Yuri Hasegawa
Though Ho booked concerts and hosted radio shows in college, she first worked in investment banking, and her initial job at Spotify was in business development. During her first years at the company, she got to know the members of the editorial team because she sat next to them. After moving to Spotify’s music team as a business manager, a role opened up in editorial, and she was given a tryout despite her unorthodox résumé.
Favorite Spotify playlists?
Tech House Operator, Marrow.
Given the global popularity of dance, how do you coordinate with curators around the world to make the best playlists?
We have global curation groups. Dance was one of the first ones that started. It happened naturally with us just reaching out to curators in other markets to see what they’re seeing. We talk now on a weekly basis about new music coming out, trends that are popping off, local subgenres or communities we find interesting.
How are you discovering music for your playlists?
It’s a mix. We get inbound pitches from the Spotify for Artists pitch tool, but I am also going to shows all the time. A lot of DJs are rinsing tracks that aren’t released yet live. I’ll watch and see what the reaction is. If there’s something that really hits with a fan base, I’ll make note of it. Also, I look on the internet.
J.J. ItalianoHead of global music curation and discovery
JJ Italiano
Yuri Hasegawa
Italiano entered the music industry as an artist manager, then shifted his focus when he took a job as head of streaming at talent agency YMU in 2016. He joined Spotify’s editorial team the following year.
Favorite Spotify playlist?
Lorem.
How do you curate New Music Friday?
New Music Friday is a bit like the newspaper. We’re trying to create opportunities for people to discover new stuff that we think they will like so, yes, there’s going to be a handful of high-profile releases that you would expect. Then everyone from their respective genres comes together and brings the tracks they think are most relevant, as well as their favorite songs. Through a process of democracy and a little bit of chaos, we get it out the door.
How do you compile Spotify’s biggest playlist, Today’s Top Hits?
One of the core tenets is that it is not a chart. Yes, we want them to be 50 of the biggest songs that week, but we’re also looking at user behavior. We look at all other playlists — how songs perform with different audiences. It’s more of a science than an art, but it is still both.
Does anyone listen to songs submitted through the pitch tool?
We get pretty decent coverage by humans. There’s over 100 people at Spotify whose job it is to listen to music. We use a combination of the tools we’ve built to sort through it and hiring the right people. Also, we pay attention to songs over time and can identify things that are trending upward or being saved a lot post-release.
Alaysia SierraHead of R&B, editorial
Alaysia Sierra
Yuri Hasegawa
After cutting their teeth as a playlist curator for Apple Music, Sierra was recruited by former Apple Music colleague Carl Chery to spearhead R&B curation.
Favorite Spotify playlist?
Riffs and Runs.
What’s the process of making a playlist?
A few years ago, I noticed there was a sound that emerged out of trap-soul, like Bryson Tiller, PartyNextDoor, Brent Faiyaz. Mostly, when people think of R&B they think of women, but this subgenre of R&B caters to men. I thought, “How do I create a space for them to lean into their R&B-loving?” So we created DND, or Do Not Disturb, to feature that laid-back, masculine feel. I wrote up my ideas, what artists would make sense in the space, what it would look like and presented it.
What changes have you brought to R&B playlists?
When I came in here, I felt like there could be a fresher perspective to R&B that can cater to the TikTok era. There’s a romanticization of ’90s and pre-’90s R&B, but there are all these kids coming up who love and are inspired by the genre. I wanted to evolve R&B at Spotify to showcase that the genre can be so many things today.
Any emerging trends you are particularly excited about?
I’m really excited about U.K. R&B right now. Streaming has globalized music, and I think it’s given a lot of opportunity to that scene. We show that scene on Riffs and Runs.
John SteinHead of North America, editorial
John Stein
Yuri Hasegawa
With almost 12 years at Spotify under his belt, Stein has been involved with playlisting from the beginning. He joined Spotify when the streaming platform acquired his previous employer, the now-defunct curation app Tunigo. Stein and his team became the curators of Spotify’s Browse page, and he worked his way up to his current position.
Favorite Spotify playlist?
Fresh Finds.
How has Spotify’s editorial playlisting evolved?
Back in those early days, we were very broad — much more moods- and moments-focused. There was a real emphasis on being an alternative to terrestrial radio. We wanted to introduce some new options: “Let’s think about activities and curate for those in addition to genres.” Over time, we created strong flagship genre playlists to be anchors, but we’ve also wanted to build out spaces that hit other moments in people’s lives — hopefully pushing forward the idea of blending genres.
What’s the balance of data and human curation in playlists today?
We’re coming to a point where the algorithmic side and the human side are coming together in a really balanced, beautiful way. As a company, we’re trying to embrace the fact that AI is really good at scale and serving you what we know you already like. But [identifying] moments of surprise and serendipity and cultural awareness is really difficult for it. You need a human editor to contextualize it in a way that brings emotion to it.
Lizzy SzaboEditorial lead, indie/alternative
Lizzy Szabo
Yuri Hasegawa
Szabo got her start in music as an agent’s assistant before becoming the executive assistant for former Spotify global head of creator services Troy Carter. She wrote an essay asking to move to the editorial team and detailing what she could do to expand the company’s playlists. It worked: Szabo became an editorial coordinator and worked her way up to helm the service’s indie and alternative coverage.
Favorite Spotify playlists?
All New Indie, Wine Bar.
How do you define the term “indie”?
More and more the question is, “What even is genre?” So we try to think in terms of audiences. With All New Indie, Lorem and those playlists, we are really fluid. Some weeks we question, “Is Caroline Polachek pop or indie?” You can make the case for either, but [we conclude] she would likely work best in indie.
With smaller artists, how do you balance human curation and metrics?
It is a challenge because it feels like there’s a new breakthrough every week in indie. It’s hard to predict. When we’re looking at priority releases for the year, the truth is you might not know. Someone could come along in two months that’s going to change the game. What’s incredible about something like the Fresh Finds program is that it encourages us to go with our guts on the really tiny stuff and have somewhere to put it [for] an audience craving music discovery.
Antonio VasquezHead of U.S. Latin, editorial
Antonio Vazquez
Courtesy of Spotify
A 15-year music business vet, Vasquez began his career doing digital marketing for legacy musicians in Mexico City as social media and Facebook advertisements began to take off. Spotify then hired him as its first editor on the Mexico team. After a year, he moved to New York to start a U.S. Latin team. He’s now based in Miami.
Favorite Spotify playlists?
Fuego, Hanging Out and Relaxing.
How does the Latin editorial team work?
On the U.S. Latin team, we have a small but mighty team of three people. We have balanced our skill sets and music expertise to make sure we are covering the most Latin genres as possible. Antonella [Bocaranda] handles pop and tropical music. DC [Daniel Calderon] has his ear to the ground in Los Angeles with all things música mexicana. We always make sure that everyone has a bit of say in editorial decisions so we don’t fall [victim to] bias. Almost all priority markets in [Latin America] have their own editors locally. We work closely with them almost every day to exchange music and create a strategy.
What’s a Latin trend you’re tracking?
We’re starting to see stronger local scenes. So we need to be communicating even more across countries to make sure we are aware of what’s happening.
What’s a common misconception about Spotify editors?
That everything is data-driven. That really takes away from the heart and soul we put into our playlists every day.
Cecelia WinterEditorial lead, pop
Cecelia Winter
Yuri Hasegawa
Winter got her start in the music curation business with Spring, an app founded by elite runners that gave music fans song recommendations based on how fast they wanted to work out. After working as YouTube’s pop editor, she joined Spotify’s editorial team in 2023.
Favorite Spotify playlist?
Pop Sauce.
How do you define “pop” music?
Pop, by its traditional definition, wouldn’t allow space for smaller artists, so we are really working to create spaces where artists who are making music that sounds pop — hook-driven and following a certain structure — can grow and find their audience. It’s hard to define, but you know it when you hear it. Pop music is not as tied to commercial success as it once was either. There’s top 40, which skews pop, but those metrics of success are not accessible to the vast majority of pop musicians. [With playlists] there is now an emerging mid-tier.
What is a market that tends to lead to pop trends that later emerge in the United States?
There’s a lot of interesting music coming out of the Nordics, and there are a lot of interesting stories where American or British artists who have trouble [breaking through] in their home market really explode in the Nordics first. We saw that with Benson Boone. Our editor in the Nordics flagged him really early on.
This story appears in the April 19, 2025, issue of Billboard.
When they relocated to New York in 2023, Pierre and Henry Beasley of alt-pop duo Balu Brigada certainly didn’t expect they’d end up sounding like a Big Apple band from 20 years earlier.
“I used to be kind of cynical of that idea,” Henry says of the notion of a band’s music sounding like the place where it’s made. But as the brothers — originally from Auckland, New Zealand — started to record their new album in Harlem, they had to acknowledge that it didn’t sound like the music they had been making seven time zones over.
“You can hear the difference between [how the] aggression and tension and grit comes out in New York — and then New Zealand’s rolling hills kind of giving you a little more space to breathe,” Henry explains. (“More beachy vibes,” Pierre adds.)
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Ashley Markle
It is one of those more aggressive, tense and gritty songs that has taken Balu Brigada from a cult act trying to find its major-label footing stateside — the brothers signed to both Warner Music Australasia and Atlantic Records simultaneously in 2022 — to chart-topping radio hitmakers. “So Cold,” a spiky, slinky and above all Strokes-y single the duo released in June 2024, reached No. 1 on Billboard’s Alternative Airplay chart in March — a ranking more often dominated by legacy acts than a breakout outfit like Balu Brigada.
“So Cold” slotting in so easily in retro-dominated alt-rock radio playlists hardly happened by accident. Pierre recalls he and Henry (both multi-instrumentalists who share singing duties) loading up their YouTube accounts with videos of bands like The Strokes and Franz Ferdinand for inspiration while creating the song, which Pierre says originally had more of a The Police feel. “[We were watching] those guys playing big festivals, and having these big guitar riffs that people chant,” he recalls. “We leaned into that.”
Still, it took more than the spirits of such frontmen as Julian Casablancas and Alex Kapranos to turn the song into a No. 1 hit. First, the band posted an Instagram reel of “So Cold” in spring 2024, with a red jumpsuit-clad Pierre playing the bass while sitting in his Auckland bedroom. The clip caught fire on social media and attracted a ton of industry attention.
“We got so many crazy calls just from this one reel,” says Goldie Management’s Amy Goldsmith, who’s been with the band since seeing them play at a New Zealand barbecue in the late 2010s. “[Recording Academy CEO] Harvey Mason jr even rung [about] the boys and was like, ‘What is this band? I’m so excited about them.’ ”
Henry (left) and Pierre Beasley of Balu Brigada photographed March 19, 2025 in New York.
Ashley Markle
The reel also soon got the attention of Chris Woltman, longtime manager of alt-pop superstars Twenty One Pilots. “It was pretty obvious that [‘So Cold’ was] a smash,” he says of his first impression. That inspired him to dig deeper into the band’s streaming catalog — which includes a steady run of singles dating back to 2016, along with 2019’s Almost Feel Good Mixtape and EPs I Should Be Home (2021) and Find a Way (2013).
“I quickly found out over the next couple of days that it wasn’t just one song — they’d been writing these amazing tracks,” recalls Woltman. “It raised this question of, ‘This is an amazing song, and there’s all these other amazing songs. How can this band not be getting noticed?’ ”
From there, Woltman not only signed the band to his and Twenty One Pilots frontman Tyler Joseph’s newly launched ARRO label, but hitched Balu Brigada to the Pilots’ then-upcoming Clancy worldwide arena tour. (ARRO has an artist venture with Atlantic for Balu Brigada, but Woltman says the label is otherwise independent.)
“We all came together and said, “There is something really compelling going on: They’re making great music. They have a vision that we think can be driven with discovery with our fanbase; they have a song in ‘So Cold’ that is the tip of the spear. If we come in and are their greatest advocate [and introduce] them to the Twenty One Pilots fanbase… we thought, ‘You know what, let’s give this a shot.’ ”
Despite the risk of attaching a relatively unproven band to such a major tour, they quickly demonstrated themselves to Woltman as highly capable: “I think what they just needed is a little bit of time on the field,” he says.
They got that playing time in the form of 66 shows, taking them all over North America, Latin America, Oceania and Europe, and putting them in front of over a million total Twenty One Pilots fans — known as Clikkies — who quickly took to the junior alt-pop duo. “There’s something special about the way that the fanbase has adopted Henry and Pierre,” Goldsmith says. “I think with the passion that the Clikkies have, they’ve [taken to Balu Brigada as] kind of like, ‘These are our new baby-band boys.’”
In the meantime, “So Cold” was starting to catch on at streaming services — helped by a music video with some winkingly White Stripes-influenced fashion and camera zooms, and a September synch in soccer video game EA Sports FC 25, after which the song’s weekly streams doubled. (To date, it has 12.2 million on-demand official U.S. streams through April 3, according to Luminate.) And Woltman and the team started pushing the song to alternative radio, sensing an opportunity to expand its success there. “In the alternative mix today, I think that radio still plays a role,” he says. “ ‘So Cold’ felt like it could be a big alternative radio track.”
Ashley Markle
A few weeks after Balu Brigada brought “So Cold” to Jimmy Kimmel Live! — the duo’s first appearance on American television — the song topped the Alternative Airplay chart dated March 29, in its 24th week on the listing. Woltman sees its success as validation of a long-term strategy that was nearly a year in the making.
“None of this is about an overnight moment,” he says, “as is always the case when you’re trying to build a legitimate alternative rock band. It’s not about a song; it’s not about a TikTok moment; it’s not about an influencer moment — it’s about the everything else.”
Currently, Pierre and Henry are putting the finishing touches on their debut album, expected later this year, which takes the band to new territory — including “some real emotional sensitive jams” and “some real obnoxious like pseudo-EDM stompers,” Henry says. But even though they’re nearly a year removed from the release of “So Cold,” and getting a step closer to their Strokes and White Stripes fantasies with their own upcoming headlining U.S. tour, they’re still enjoying following their breakout hit on its way up.
“Every day, it’s hitting a new peak,” Pierre says. “We’re both proud to watch our baby continue to be recognized.”
A version of this story appears in the April 19, 2025, issue of Billboard.
On May 16, The Weeknd will bring his album Hurry Up Tomorrow, which topped the Billboard 200, to the big screen as a suspense thriller. Tomorrow has precedents in many yesterdays: Artists have been making movies out of albums, partly to boost their sales, for decades. March 19 marked the 50th anniversary of the premiere of The Who’s Tommy. But The Who wasn’t first — and it certainly wasn’t the last.
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Anything You Want
“Arlo Guthrie is about to become The Thing to talk and write about,” trumpeted an ad in the Aug. 23, 1968, Billboard for the just-released Alice’s Restaurant movie based on his 1967 album of the same name. Soon, Guthrie’s name was littering the pages of Billboard, and a piece in the Oct. 18 issue said the film “sparked sales for the Reprise album … racking up $1 million sales.” A month later, the Nov. 15 issue showed the set at a new chart peak of No. 17 on the Billboard 200, two years after its release.
See It, Feel It, Buy It
Six years after The Who released Tommy, the British rockers followed it with a 1975 film starring Roger Daltrey as the titular pinball wizard. The Ken Russell movie was divisive: The March 29, 1975, Billboard ran two reviews. One praised it as a “gripping fantasmagoria,” while another panned it as a “travesty of worn-out symbolism and general tackiness.” The same issue also reported on “the record war between the original rock opera and the movie soundtrack,” which were on MCA and Polydor, respectively. Buyers bought in, pushing the soundtrack to No. 2 on the Billboard 200, above the original album’s No. 4 peak.
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Band From the ‘Club’
When the Bee Gees’ 1978 jukebox musical Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band hit theaters, expectations were as high as Lucy in the sky. The July 29, 1978, Billboard reported that the soundtrack of Beatles covers was “taxing virtually every record presser, jacket printing facility and freight company contracted to get the initial order of four million units in the hands of consumers.” A report from an advance screening told a different story: “A movie where the audience laughs at all the wrong moments is in trouble, no matter what its advertising budget.” It was a boon for The Beatles, at least: “Sales of Capitol’s Beatles catalog are surging,” according to the Aug. 26 issue.
Hitting a ‘Wall’
Pink Floyd’s The Wall, Billboard’s No. 1 album of 1980, famously inspired an animated film of the same name. Unfortunately, critics wanted to run like hell. “The $10 million movie adaptation of Pink Floyd’s international double-album bestseller was demolished” at a London premiere, reported the Aug. 7, 1982, issue. Despite an end-credits promise of a forthcoming soundtrack, one never appeared. “We intended to make a soundtrack album,” David Gilmour told the Sept. 18 Billboard. “But we just didn’t have enough new music to reasonably justify putting one out.”
This story originally appeared in the March 22, 2025 issue of Billboard.
Lucy Dacus has some mixed feelings about her newly minted public profile. “My dream is that I could play huge shows where [the crowd] knows every word,” she says, “we can connect after the show — and then I can wipe everyone’s mind of myself once they leave.”
The lack of Men in Black-esque technology notwithstanding, it’s easy to see why Dacus may feel that way. After spending the majority of her career as a cult artist with a tight-knit fan base in the indie scene, the singer-songwriter broke big alongside her friends Phoebe Bridgers and Julien Baker with The Record in 2023. Their supergroup, boygenius, sold out arenas, led Billboard’s Top Rock Albums chart while also earning a top 10 debut on the Billboard 200 and dominated the rock categories at the 2024 Grammys, winning three awards.
As she prepares her first solo release since the band’s breakthrough, Dacus, 29, still struggles with her shift from underground phenom to rock headliner. “Honestly, I don’t like being culturally relevant,” she says with a giggle. “I don’t like being somebody where people think they need to have a ‘take,’ in either direction.”
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Yet even in that discomfort, Dacus exudes a confidence that feels new for her. Forever Is a Feeling, her fourth studio album (out March 28 on Geffen Records), takes the sound that Dacus has painstakingly crafted over the last decade and broadens it as her most lush collection to date.
Going into the creation of Forever Is a Feeling, Dacus says she “knew the scope was going to be different” for this album. That process included honing what she wanted to sing about. Whereas her past albums confronted loss and childhood trauma, the new set focuses almost entirely on romance. The first proper track off the album, “Big Deal,” finds Dacus reminding a doomed lover just how important they are; “Talk” traces the shifting dynamics of a relationship to its near end; and album closer “Lost Time” is one of the boldest love songs of her career, on which she declares, “I notice everything about you.”
Meredith Jenks
That line also encapsulates a key part of the singer’s songwriting process: Since she broke onto the scene with 2016’s No Burden, Dacus has always thrived at transforming specificity into universal lyrics. “Once you focus on one thing and one person, it actually recontextualizes everything else, and you realize that every detail is its own universe,” says Dacus, who recently revealed that she and her boygenius bandmate Julien Baker are in a relationship. She then quotes a line she read in one of Susan Sontag’s journals: “Love is noticing.”
With Forever Is a Feeling marking Dacus’ major-label debut on Geffen, the singer’s new music is striking a chord with mainstream listeners. “Ankles,” the project’s exhilarating lead single, earned Dacus her first solo entries on the Adult Alternative Airplay and Rock & Alternative Airplay charts. “She writes songs that are potent and timely but will endure for years to come,” says Matt Morris, executive vp of A&R at Interscope Geffen A&M. “The success of ‘Ankles’ at radio is a very deserved accomplishment for an artist who has already been so influential and continues to break new ground with this album.”
The set also finds Dacus continuing to evolve as a producer, after she recently helmed singer-songwriter Jasmine.4.t’s debut, You Are the Morning, alongside her boygenius bandmates. “A lot of [producing Jasmine’s album] was about advocating when it comes to being less experienced in the studio,” she explains. “It’s about helping develop a language and asking folks, ‘What do you want? Here’s how to say it.’ I want to continue to help hold the emotional space of saying, ‘Do us the favor of being a control freak.’ ”
Meredith Jenks
That experience speaks to Dacus’ larger goal of late: using her newfound platform to create good. Shortly after the Trump administration began rolling out its anti-trans policy agenda, Dacus took to her social media and called for any of her trans fans hosting fundraisers for gender-affirming surgeries to share their campaigns so that she could donate $10,000 in $500 increments to those in need of help.
There’s a reason Dacus made that pledge in public. “Ten thousand dollars is not that much in the grand scheme of things,” she says. “But I wanted there to be a list of links on my profile so that if anybody else wanted to do what I was doing, then they could scroll through and donate as well. If other people are jumping in, then that can really matter.”
It’s that sense of renewed purpose that shows how far Dacus has come as a leading voice in rock — even if, as she points out, she is the “guinea pig” of the boygenius bandmates as the first of the trio to release a solo project since The Record.
“I feel really gratified when putting my albums out means something to someone else,” she says with a warm smile. “I wouldn’t do this if it didn’t matter to some people.”
Lucy Dacus photographed on March 5, 2025 in New York.
Meredith Jenks
This story appears in the March 22, 2025, issue of Billboard.
“I consider a hit song one that my 3-year-old knows,” Meghan Trainor says. The 31-year-old pop star and mother of two sons, Riley and Barry, says that her first-born has been jamming to Lady Gaga’s “Abracadabra” lately and also loves Billie Eilish and Miley Cyrus. When her own breakout single, “All About That Bass,” reached the top of the Billboard Hot 100 in 2014, she noticed that the song connected with both young children and adults. “So if I get kids involved in my songs as well as adults, I’m like, ‘Oh, that’s a hit,’ ” she says.
A decade removed from “All About That Bass,” a body-positive doo-wop riff that went viral years before TikTok, the former best new artist Grammy Award winner has fashioned a career as a chart stalwart with all-ages appeal. After her first two albums, 2015’s Title and 2016’s Thank You, produced six top 20 hits on the Hot 100 combined, Trainor spent the rest of the decade releasing one-off singles and collaborations, dabbling in film and TV projects and starting a family with her husband, actor Daryl Sabara. She returned to the Hot 100 in 2022 with “Made You Look,” which spawned a widespread dance trend online and peaked at No. 11, and “Criminals,” from her 2024 album, Timeless, reached the chart last year after serving as the theme song to the hit Netflix drama The Perfect Couple.
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Next on the to-do list for Billboard‘s 2025 Women in Music Hitmaker? Two more kids (“There’s so many dudes here — I want a baby girl”) and, maybe, leveraging her music career into a big-screen debut. “I want to be in a rom-com and then write the song for it,” she says. “Who do I have to talk to?”
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Which of your own hits sticks with you the most?
I love the reactions I get from the audience. There’s nothing harder than when you’re onstage and you’re a songwriter and you’re like, “You don’t know this one?!” And when they do, you see me call out people who know every word. I know “Me Too” is always going to be fun. I know “Lips Are Movin’ ” is always going to be a blast.
BUNDÏ top and bra.
Munachi Osegbu
When you’re in the studio, do you think about what the potential hits will be?
Usually when I’m writing an album, I’ll have one song that’s my favorite and I’ll say, “This is the top girl. This is how I want the entire album to sound like and we need to beat her.” For [the 2022 album] Takin’ It Back, I had “Don’t I Make It Look Easy.” “Made You Look” came after, and every day we just tried to beat it.
Why do you think the TikTok audience loves you so much?
My songs are really hooky. My main thing when I’m trying to write a song is I want you to be able to sing the melody by the second chorus. I think my stuff was just catchy enough that [TikTok users] could use the sound or make a simple dance to it or have fun and show something. I’ve noticed “Made You Look” still being used to sell products. I’m like, “That’s my song!” I still freak out.
Annakiki top, Michael Ngo skirt, Silent Opus jewelry.
Munachi Osegbu
Hearing new artists like Chappell Roan and Sabrina Carpenter, what do you think a hit sounds like now?
I need you to answer this for me, Sir Billboard, because I’m literally about to start my next album. There’s so many open lanes. Chappell and Sabrina are bringing instruments in and beautiful melodies and taking risks. What Doechii is doing — she’s just changing the world through art and [her] talent is thriving. Going into my next album, I’m nervous but also excited because there’s no more rules.
Is there something to be said about writing for yourself versus working with others?
I love learning from others. I always [say], “Please put me in a room with a better tennis player than me so I can learn more about tennis.” And sometimes going into a session with new people is scary. It’s like blind dating. And then you have to go, “Let’s try to create magic together.” My goal on this album is to find as many writers I love that I can collaborate with. I love Daniel Nigro. I want to work with him so bad. If you’re reading this, that’s my dream. And Andrew Watt. Andrew, pick me, choose me, love me. We would do something magical.
Munachi Osegbu
This story appears in the March 22, 2025, issue of Billboard.