State Champ Radio Magazine Feature
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Young Miko is sitting, legs crisscrossed, atop her purple bed, surrounded by bookshelves, a boombox and a big Tamagotchi. A microphone clutched to her chest, she’s visibly emotional, almost teary-eyed. But she’s not alone in what appears to be her bedroom. On this September evening, she’s onstage at Miami’s Hard Rock Live, and a crowd […]
J Balvin and I have a date at Tiffany’s. Admittedly, even I don’t realize this until I reach the storied display windows on Fifth Avenue, where I’m led to a private elevator manned by a uniformed attendant who silently takes me up, up, up. The doors open to a stunning private room with unfettered views […]
In late May, Teezo Touchdown — clad in all-black leather, spiky silver nails piercing his shoulder pads — leaped across the stage of Los Angeles’ Fonda Theatre. As he performed his groovy 2023 song “Mood Swings,” he screeched helium-pitched “Wee!” ad-libs mid-air, and a vibrant flower bouquet encasing his microphone swung along with him. “A […]
“I’m like a dirty s–thead raver. I come from throwing illegal parties — and not that long ago.”
So says The Blessed Madonna over Zoom one evening from her home in London — roughly 4,000 miles from the Chicago club scene where she made her name, and just as far from her native Kentucky, where she grew up “poor as hell” and first immersed herself in the scene. “Then when you’re talking to people who work in offices about what they think about your music, and suddenly there’s actual money involved,” she continues, “that just seems crazy.”
Weeks away from the release of her debut album, Godspeed, the 46-year-old artist born Marea Stamper is in the midst of such madness. After years of releasing remixes and singles on independent labels, including her own We Still Believe imprint, The Blessed Madonna signed with Major Recordings/Warner Records during the pandemic. The move placed an artist with subversive tendencies — sharing political opinions on social media, still frequenting illegal parties — squarely within the industry.
“Somebody has to get inside,” she says. “And if I’m to be put inside this system that has all these levers of power, my job is to be a little shard of glass in somebody’s foot.”
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Out Oct. 11, Godspeed — 24 tracks long, culled down from more than 100 hours of music — started during the pandemic. During this time, The Blessed Madonna would diagram songs she considered perfect, breaking down Fleetwood Mac’s “Landslide” and Bruce Springsteen’s “Born To Run” to their essential elements to better understand their power.
This self-taught music theory continued during what the producer calls “super-lockdown,” when she was confined to her London home due to her virally triggered asthma. During that time, she had been tasked with transforming Dua Lipa’s 2020 album, Future Nostalgia, into the Club Future Nostalgia “megamix” — a project in which she welcomed everyone from dance legend Moodymann to Madonna herself.
Unable to work with a studio engineer, The Blessed Madonna handled all of the technical aspects of the megamix herself, poring over YouTube tutorials and getting instructions from friends over the phone. Then, sadly in the midst of it all, her father died of COVID-19. She had to ID his body over email. “It was f–king awful,” she recalls. The ordeal not only elevated her ability to “get the thing out of my head that I wanted to say,” but reinforced her goal of making a dance record that wasn’t just excellent, but personal.
On Godspeed, The Blessed Madonna and a gaggle of collaborators she calls “the God squad” deliver fresh, soulful, often joyous and occasionally challenging takes on club music. Kylie Minogue sings about being “six deep in the bathroom stall” on the piano-laced party anthem “Edge of Saturday Night.” (RAYE was originally set to feature but had to drop out as her own career blew up.) Chicago house royalty Jamie Principle purrs about nights in the city’s mythical Warehouse on “We Still Believe.” And her late dad expresses how her success “fills my heart up with joy” in a voice message sampled on “Somebody’s Daughter.” In interludes, she and her collaborators giggle through unscripted silliness caught on hot mics.
“I feel like most dance records have nothing of the maker in them,” The Blessed Madonna says. “They’re kind of, like, engineered in a lab … But somebody has to make a decision.”
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So she decided to make the antithesis to what she often hears while moving through the world as a heavily touring DJ. “There are songs I only hear in the Uber and I can’t tell them apart, and I don’t know who any of the girls are, and they’re all Auto-Tuned into the f–king grave,” she says. “That is bad for art, and bad art is bad for culture and for thinking.”
Writing sessions happened across London, Chicago, Los Angeles and at Imogen Heap’s home in Essex, England. There, The Blessed Madonna and her husband, along with a group that included electronic duo Joy (Anonymous), gathered over the 2021 holidays. The pair appears on “Carry Me Higher.”
She is also friends with Fred again.., with whom she collaborated in 2021 on “Marea (We’ve Lost Dancing),” a hit that reached No. 33 on Billboard’s Hot Dance/Electronic Songs chart and soundtracked the final scene in 2022’s Academy Award-nominated Triangle of Sadness. The Blessed Madonna says witnessing “the Beatlemania that exploded around Fred” (whom she calls “so smart, so good at what he does and also so nice that it sort of makes you want to kill him, because it’s all real”) made her question her own goals. “I thought, ‘Am I supposed to want that?’ And I had a little breakdown,” she recalls. “I was like, ‘Is this record going where I want it to go? Am I reinforcing the status quo in dance music or am I pushing back against it?’
“We’re all just supposed to get rich and go to Ibiza and stop caring about politics and saying things that will upset people,” she continues. But for a self-described “s–thead raver,” that fate is unlikely.
This story appears in the Aug. 24, 2024, issue of Billboard.
“Aht, aht, you not finna embarrass me!” Latto jokingly warns her pet shih-poo, Coca. The fluffy little pup — the first of several in her brood, soon, if Latto has her way — is deciding whether to use a grassy area outside a North Hollywood rehearsal studio as the bathroom. Fresh off a delayed flight […]
“Now I swear this green is just everywhere,” Charli xcx jokes. The British pop star is sitting in a crisp leather seat within a black Mercedes-Benz van, a few minutes into the long journey across London from her home to Wembley Arena. Tonight, Charli will be making a surprise appearance at her friend, collaborator and […]
At just 10 years old, Christopher Brent Wood’s metamorphosis into indie disruptor Brent Faiyaz began. As he collected CDs by D’Angelo, Lauryn Hill and Joe, among other R&B/hip-hop artists, the youngster would steadily pore over album liner notes, absorbing the behind-the-scenes details of how his favorite albums were made. By middle school, he had set […]
When Lainey Wilson played Australia for the first time in March, she made sure to meet the country’s animal ambassadors: She held a koala; she pet a kangaroo. But it wasn’t all furry fun. “I got crapped on by a bird twice,” Wilson says in her thick Louisiana drawl, shaking her head in bemused disbelief. […]
“I had my own vision for what I wanted to hear in K-pop,” says Paul Thompson, an Italian American who 11 years ago moved to South Korea from California to teach English, but has since become better known as chart-topping K-pop producer MCMZ and founder of MCMZ Inc., an entertainment group based in Seoul. “I […]
In addition to our Steve Aoki cover story, check out this Q&A with Jessica Chou, who photographed Aoki for Billboard‘s AAPI issue.Tell us a little about your own background.
I’m from the San Gabriel Valley – a suburb in Los Angeles. Interesting fact: the city I grew up in was the first city in the U.S. to reach a majority-Asian population according to the 1990 U.S. Census. I feel like growing up in a suburb with a majority-minority population has informed my views and experience on American life.
I’ve been working as a freelance photographer for 13 years, focusing on portraiture, photographing everyday people and high-profile public figures alike. I come from a photojournalism/documentary background and I think those observational qualities of storytelling have definitely informed how I approach my portraiture.
You’ve worked with Billboard for a long time – you shot Steve for us 10 years ago, spending 36 hours with him, playing on your background in reportage. What are your standout memories from that shoot?
Gosh, 10 years. Yikes! It was such a whirlwind experience. I remember flying into Vegas and from the second I got to Steve, it was non-stop action for the next 36 hours, going from his residency in Vegas to his headlining performance at Tomorrowland in Bethel Woods, New York. I don’t think I had ever seen this kind of mix of business and play on such a high level at that point. There was such a huge intensity/euphoria that came from his fans both in Vegas and at Tomorrowland – I mean, people were begging to get caked in the face – and then there was the other side of being an artist with producing music and creating business collaborations. And Steve seemed to have this limitless amount of energy – I remember at some point thinking, “Omigosh, can we just like not do something for just a little bit? I can’t keep up.” [Laughs] But it was exhilarating. It’s still an experience I carry with me as a photographer.
What was your impression of Steve before the shoot? And what stood out to you most about him once you met?
I had some impressions of Steve before the shoot, mostly from the Cobrasnake era of the early 2000s, and him being a staple of the parties of those days. When I photographed Steve in 2014, it was at the height of EDM music in the U.S. and his show antics were such a part of that time. I just remember Steve being a very high-sensation seeker and he had a way of provoking and creating that experience. I think it’s what sets him apart as an artist and an individual. And so much of house and techno music is about freeing your mind for new experiences, but there are only so many personalities that can follow through on that mantra while still being put together.
How did that experience influence how you came up with the creative for this new cover and feature with Steve? Can you talk a little about that concept?
I think Steve’s level of energy with this laid-back attitude has always been an interesting hook for me and I was wondering what would be a good way to show this. This one afternoon, when I was driving out of another photoshoot in Los Angeles, I saw the billboard for the new Guy Ritchie series on Netflix (The Gentlemen) and thought, “Oh, that’s the right amount of polish and intensity” — but I needed that to feel less English and a little more Californian flair. This then led me to think of The Dude of The Big Lebowski. So it turned into The Dude meets Guy Ritchie’s energy with Steve Aoki’s signature. Something about this mixture just felt like the right balance for Steve’s style of fun, irreverence and action.
Last year, Billboard also had its first-ever K-pop issue, for which you shot Chairman Bang of HYBE for the cover. Tell us a little what he was like a subject and what the shoot was like.
Chairman Bang was probably the opposite of Steve Aoki – in the sense that Chairman Bang is a very behind-the-scenes guy. Creative yet controlled. And he was a more than gracious sitter – I remember that he wasn’t feeling very well that day, yet he still showed up and was game to try anything.
This is Billboard‘s first AAPI issue – what does it mean to you to be part of it?
I couldn’t be more honored to be a part of this and to be a part of highlighting contributions of AAPI community to the culture at large. I grew up not feeling very seen, represented or proud of what was represented in the mainstream media. Being able to find and see paths of “what could be for you” is an important part of self-actualization. When I got older, I started learning more about the contributions of the Asian community to culture at large – particularly in the arts and entertainment. I started realizing how much has been done before me and how those stories were readily available. Culture and celebration is informed by the stories we tell. I’m proud to be part of an issue that is blazing this path in one of the world’s most important music magazines.
