Magazine Feature

20 Mar 2025

aespa: Photos From the Billboard Women in Music Group of the Year Shoot

Hours into their Billboard Women in Music photo shoot, the members of aespa are goofing off. High-pitched giggles reverberate through the studio as Winter, Karina, Ningning and Giselle tickle one another’s sides, talk in silly voices and play with the straps on their leathery stage outfits. It’s mesmerizing to watch the four early-20-somethings be so, well, real, not just because they’re one of K-pop’s most polished acts — which they demonstrate by immediately snapping back into place once the photographer is ready again — but also because ­aespa has a particular penchant for the surreal. The SM Entertainment group debuted in 2020 with K-pop’s first lineup to feature both human and virtual members, pairing each girl with an artificial intelligence (AI) avatar as part of a cyberpunk musical metaverse marked by dark, 808-laced hyperpop and edgy-chic outfits.

Ever since, the act has leveraged its niche into unprecedented crossover success — in November, mini-album Whiplash made it the first K-pop girl group to have six projects reach the Billboard 200 top 50, and it just wrapped its second global arena tour — and a reputation for being one of the genre’s “most adventurous and contemporary” groups, as its “Over You” collaborator Jacob Collier put it to Billboard in January.

But going forward, 2025’s Billboard Women in Music Group of the Year also wants to focus on something potentially even more subversive: showing that beneath the personas, its members are just those real-life girls blowing off steam between camera flashes. “We’re not actual AI; we do have days where we don’t feel the best,” Giselle says once the foursome has squeezed together on a couch. “Our storyline can be fun to keep up with, but I want fans to look up to aespa for our human traits, too.”

Read the full Billboard aespa story here. Join us at Billboard Women in Music 2025 — get tickets here.

06 Mar 2025

John Summit: Photos From the Billboard Cover Shoot

The show was, unequivocally, going off.

In time with the beat, columns of fire blasted from a complicated and expensive-looking stage setup as a litany of dance hits blasted through the speakers of Los Angeles’ Kia Forum, where more than 15,000 people and their approximately 30,000 ears were gathered to hear the music.

Drunk girls traded compliments in line for the bathroom while staffers trying to prevent fire hazards cajoled people to dance in their seats instead of the aisles. It was a proper arena rager, a de facto badge of success for any artist, but particularly so in the world of dance music.

At the center of it all, John Summit — tanned, smiling, his shirt unbuttoned to a chest level that suggested a regular workout routine — threw up heart hands while manning the cockpit of CDJs before him. It was Nov. 16, 2024, the final evening of the producer’s sold-out three-night run at the Forum, shows executed by a 130-person team working overtime. It was just one of the very big moments of Summit’s biggest year to date, and while the set wasn’t even done yet, in his mind it was already over.

“I got too comfortable by the end,” he reflects three months later, “and I was like, ‘This show is done. This is the last one.’ And not because it wasn’t great. I think it was excellent. But I don’t want to write the same movie twice.”

Read the full John Summit Billboard cover story here.

John Summit performs at Billboard Presents THE STAGE at SXSW at Moody Amphitheater at Waterloo Park in Austin on March 15. Get your tickets here.

05 Mar 2025

Grupo Frontera: Photos From the Billboard Cover Shoot

On an overcast winter afternoon in McAllen, Texas, all six members of Grupo Frontera are huddled around an oversize white box, staring gleefully at its contents. They peel back the tissue paper wrapping to reveal a present their stylist has gifted them just a few days shy of Christmas — a mound of plush Polo Ralph Lauren bathrobes, one for each member, with a brassy statement stitched onto the back: “B–ch, I got a Grammy!”

The members of the norteño and cumbia band — which won the Latin Grammy for best norteño album in 2024 — are standing inside their palatial Frontera HQ in McAllen, a home that they purchased last year. Built in the mid-2000s, the sprawling estate is a very particular vision of turn-of-the-21st-century luxury (see: the Tuscan kitchen replete with dark wood cabinetry). A minimalist home recording studio, where the band has laid down several tracks, sits just past the outdoor path wending around the pool and hot tub, in a yard expansive enough to park their fleet of tour buses.

Privacy and practicality alike spurred the band to centralize its operations here. When its star began rising about three years ago, after its cover of Colombian pop-rockers Morat’s “No Se Va” surged to life-altering virality on TikTok, Grupo Frontera would frequently record music in this South Texas enclave of the Rio Grande Valley where its members grew up and still reside — until some locals figured out where the group was recording and started showing up to the studio unannounced. “People would deadass just open the door, walk in and listen to whatever we were recording,” says frontman Adelaido “Payo” Solís in between sips of a briny michelada. “They would just wait for us to finish. Then we came out, we saw people, and we were like, ‘Hi?’ ”

Read the full Grupo Frontera cover story here.

Grupo Frontera will perform at Billboard Presents THE STAGE at SXSW at Moody Ampitheater at Waterloo Park in Austin on March 14. Get your tickets here.

04 Mar 2025

Koe Wetzel: Photos From the Billboard Cover Shoot

On the brick wall facing the Pittsburg Hot Links parking lot, a mural memorializes the small East Texas town’s most famous citizens, including Mean Gene the Hot Link King and Homer Jones, the New York Giants receiver who invented spiking the football after a touchdown. Soon enough, Pittsburg native Koe Wetzel could be right up there with them. “Maybe [after] a couple more No. 1s,” Wetzel muses as he looks up at those faces. He sounds dubious that he has earned his spot quite yet, but the 32-year-old singer-songwriter is well on his way. His breakthrough hit about a volatile relationship, “High Road” with Jessie Murph, spent five weeks at No. 1 on Billboard’s Country Airplay chart in December and January. “I know the folks who own the place,” he adds with a laugh. “I might go buy some watercolors and paint it myself.”

Koe Wetzel performs at Billboard Presents THE STAGE at SXSW at Moody Amphitheater at Waterloo Park in Austin on March 13. Get your tickets here.

Wetzel may not believe he’s a local legend yet, but it’s clear that here in his hometown, his star status is confirmed. As he strides across the crosswalk Abbey Road-style in historic Downtown Pittsburg at 8:30 a.m., a fan sticks his head out of a store door and yells “My hero!” his way. Wetzel left Pittsburg (population: 4,335) when he was 18 to attend Tarleton State University in Stephensville, Texas, on a football scholarship as a linebacker. He now lives outside Fort Worth, but his roots run through his gritty brand of country rock, which he delivers in a powerful twang that draws on the long tradition of Texas outlaw country and confessional storytellers like Townes Van Zandt and Guy Clark.

Read the full Koe Wetzel cover story here.

05 Feb 2025

Clive Davis’ 2025 Pre-Grammy Gala: See the Best Photos

The 2025 edition of Clive Davis’ annual Pre-Grammy Gala — held Feb. 1 at The Beverly Hilton — had special meaning this year. The star-studded soiree transitioned into a fundraiser while celebrating a special milestone. “This year marks the 50th anniversary of this incredible night, but this one is a little different,” said Harvey Mason jr., CEO of the Recording Academy, which co-hosts the event.

While many questioned whether the Grammys should be held given Los Angeles’ recent and historic wildfires, he explained why the Academy ultimately decided to move forward. “It was not an easy decision, but we knew we could raise awareness and celebrate resiliency.” He told the crowd that MusiCares had already raised and distributed almost $500 million of aid, with Davis noting that he personally had made a six-figure donation to the cause. Jimmy Kimmel spoke next, joking that everyone had gathered for “Clive Davis’ bar mitzvah.”

What followed was a welcome blend of first-person storytelling from Davis’ legendary career, plus performances from icons and new chart-topping talents, including Joni Mitchell, Yolanda Adams, Post Malone, Shaboozey, Benson Boone, Doechii and Teddy Swims. Davis also made a point to shout out some of the night’s many noteworthy attendees, such as Berry Gordy, Jennifer Lopez, Alicia Keys and Swizz Beatz, Gladys Knight, Jack Antonoff and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. Universal Music Group Chairman/CEO Lucian Grainge lauded this year’s recipient of the gala’s Industry Icon award, Universal Music Publishing Group chairman/CEO Jody Gerson, who ended her own speech with a full-circle message: “Music can brighten even our darkest days,” she said, “and we surely need artists to bring light into the world now more than ever.”

27 Jan 2025

Kai Cenat: Photos From the Billboard Cover Shoot

Kai Cenat — the eternally upbeat streamer whose profile has exploded in recent years to make him the most popular personality on the Amazon-owned Twitch platform — is taking a moment to think.

In the five years or so since he’s become a full-time content creator, Cenat has had some of the most famous hip-hop artists, athletes and actors come to his house to drop in and join the “chat,” the affectionate word he uses for any of the 700,000-plus people who subscribe to his channel. He’s thinking over whether he can recall a favorite moment among so many, but it’s tough. It wasn’t when SZA and Lizzo stopped by together in the fall, nor when NBA All-Star Kyrie Irving taught Cenat’s friends and family how to play basketball. It would be reasonable to think it might be one of the many times Kevin Hart, one of his idols, swung by to kick it during the holidays.

Sitting in the basement room of his mountainside Georgia mansion, the 23-year-old needs a beat or two to consider the options. The room is a temple of adolescence, with pictures of his favorite basketball players, vintage arcade machines like Pac-Man and a gaming racing wheel. He has a huge walk-in closet and a king-size bed, both of which are being used by his three-person styling team. The only part of the room that hints at some sort of professional living there is the desk at one end that contains the computer and camera setup that power his streaming empire. Dressed in a BAPE hoodie and stonewashed denim that make him look like he’s straddling sartorial eras, Cenat finally settles on an answer: The May weekend last year when Drake and Kendrick Lamar dropped a total of four songs, three of them back to back.

“That was the most fun experience I’ve had,” he says with a smile bright enough to power a Tesla. “I’m not going to lie.” It’s tough to tell if he’s actually super excited or just trying to manage his constant and unbridled childlike energy.

Check out Kai Cenat’s Billboard cover story here.

11 Dec 2024

Tyler, The Creator: Photos From the Billboard Cover Shoot

“Bro, everything I thought I knew was gone. I thought I had a grasp on s–t. The songs that’s been out three weeks went up more than the classic records.”

It’s an early Tuesday afternoon in mid-¬November and Tyler, The Creator is still in disbelief. Just a few weeks earlier, he’d released his new album, Chromakopia, and the response was unlike any in his entire career. “It’s been a f–king crack in my reality, for this album where I’m just crying about being 33 like a b–ch.”

Three days before our conversation, he’d performed a set largely dedicated to the album at Camp Flog Gnaw Carnival, a two-day music festival in Los Angeles that he started in 2012 and continues to curate. This year was the 10th edition, a triumphant moment for an event that began with seven acts and now feels like a smaller, more walkable Coachella for locals — complete with music and food and rides and merch and fashionable selections from Tyler’s line GOLF — in the Dodger Stadium parking lot.

At Flog Gnaw, Tyler took the stage atop a shipping container, wearing a green suit fit for a bellhop in a slightly bizarro Emerald City, a bust-like mask with cutout holes for his eyes and an Afro with two peaks and a valley between them — an ensemble with hints of Janet Jackson circa Rhythm Nation (at least from the neck down), and which Tyler described to me as both “Captain Crunch” and “a gay dictator.” It’s the uniform of the character he takes on for his new album, both haunting and militant, the latest alter ego the Hawthorne, Calif., native has assumed. After performing the first four tracks, he paused to thank those in the audience for their love — and let them know that Chromakopia was No. 1 on the Billboard 200 for a third straight week. Only Taylor Swift and Sabrina Carpenter did three straight weeks in 2024. “To do that, at my 10th carnival, in my f–king city, what are we talking about?” The crowd cheered for him and themselves: Together, they did it.

Read the full Tyler, the Creator Billboard cover story here.

12 Nov 2024

KATSEYE: Photos From the Billboard Shoot

When rumors of a lingering rift between two of KATSEYE’s six members reached the girl group this summer, they quickly turned the chatter into a viral moment. “We’re literally fine lol,” read the caption on a photo of Lara and Manon holding hands and posing on a backdrop of dolphins and rainbows, playing into a then-current TikTok trend around Clean Bandit and Zara Larsson’s “Symphony.”

“One thing I love about this group is how Gen Z we are,” says Manon. “We saw all of that and were like, ‘Okay, funny. Let’s do this TikTok and put an end to this.’” The 11-second post has since compiled more than 5.4 million views.

The savvy social media approach is just one of the effective strategies that the rising group and their team at HxG (HYBE x Geffen Records, which represents a joint venture between the Korean-entertainment conglomerate and Universal Music Group) employ to hook new fans. Another, naturally, has been with the music: KATSEYE’s latest single, “Touch,” packs crisp drum-and-bass production, twinkling electro-pop flourishes and a swirl of pop-R&B harmonies into two minutes and ten seconds. Co-produced by Cashmere Cat (Ariana Grande, The Weeknd, Charli XCX), the hit has latched onto U.S. radio and helped to build the group’s following stateside.

Read the full Billboard story here.

04 Oct 2024

Gustavo Dudamel: Photos From the Billboard Cover Shoot

On a balmy recent August evening, Gustavo Dudamel strode onto the stage of the Hollywood Bowl wearing a huge golden gauntlet on his left hand.

He wouldn’t get to use it. Dudamel is dramatic, but he’s no comic book villain; he’s the music director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, and he was there to conduct the orchestra for the world premiere of Marvel Studios’ Infinity Saga Concert Experience. So instead of wielding the power of assorted Infinity Stones to change the world, Dudamel accepted the “vibranium baton” presented to him by Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige (a reference to the fictional metal of the Marvel universe) and performed some magic of his own, conducting two-plus hours of raucous music from 25 different Marvel movies, backed by gigantic video screens with 3D projections, dancers, fireworks and thousands of screaming fans.

The whole thing looked more like a rock show than a symphony concert. Then again, Dudamel is the closest thing to a rock star the classical music world has.

After nearly two decades in Los Angeles, Dudamel hobnobs with the likes of Chris Martin and John Williams, is close friends with Frank Gehry (who designed the stunning Walt Disney Concert Hall, the L.A. Phil’s home that opened a little over 20 years ago) and counts Billie Eilish, Gwen Stefani, Ricky Martin and Carlos Vives among the dozens of pop world luminaries who’ve guested under his (non-vibranium) baton. He has won five Grammy Awards (including, this year, best orchestral performance for the L.A. Phil’s recording of composer Thomas Adès’ Dante) and placed nine albums at No. 1 on Billboard’s Traditional Classical Albums chart. His life is the subject of the documentary Viva Maestro!

Read the full Billboard cover story here.

03 Oct 2024

Shaboozey: Photos From the Billboard Cover Shoot

Check out pics of the “A Bar Song (Tipsy)” hitmaker.

Shaboozey photographed September 12, 2024 at Seret Studios in Brooklyn.

Shaboozey photographed September 12, 2024 at Seret Studios in Brooklyn. RRL leather jacket, Huey Lewis denim jacket, Wales Bonner pants.

Eric Ryan Anderson

How do you think my life has been these past few months?” Shaboozey asks with a wry smile.

The 29-year-old multihyphenate artist — one of 2024’s biggest breakout acts — has twisted my question and flipped it back on me, his measured poker face masking the tornado of emotions he’s feeling. There’s no hiding that he’s tired; we’re speaking the day after September’s MTV Video Music Awards, where he snagged two nods (including best new artist), and its star-studded afterparty, where he mingled with the likes of Taylor Swift and Sabrina Carpenter. Some hours later, he went to Brooklyn for his Billboard cover shoot, soundtracked by Zach Bryan and Chris Stapleton. Now we’re grabbing lunch in a hotel restaurant, where Shaboozey has finally settled down with a half-dozen Prince Edward Island oysters and some fries.

The VMAs were just the latest marquee moment in a year full of the kind of highlights most artists dream of achieving over their entire careers. A year in which his appearances on Beyoncé’s culture-shifting Cowboy Carter (on “Spaghettii” and “Sweet * Honey * Buckiin’ ”) were just the beginning of his string of feats. A year when Shaboozey went from a supporting stint on a Jessie Murph tour to his own headlining North American tour. A year when his own “A Bar Song (Tipsy)” notched a historic 12 weeks atop the Billboard Hot 100. And a year that could still get even bigger if “A Bar Song” gets likely-looking Grammy nominations for record and song of the year; or if the album it’s on, the Billboard chart-topping Where I’ve Been, Isn’t Where I’m Going, gets album of the year and best country album nods; or if Shaboozey himself contends for best new artist.

Read the full Billboard cover story here.