Magazine Feature
Page: 5
In 2011, Ebonie Ward was preparing for the grand opening of her boutique, Fly Kix ATL, a men’s clothing store in Atlanta’s Castleberry Hill district that would soon become a stomping ground for high-fashion sneaker heads and up-and-coming rappers such as Kendrick Lamar and Nipsey Hussle. She knew she needed the perfect artist for the launch, so she reached out to a close friend of a rapper she had recently seen at a local showcase. The burgeoning artist, Future, had no Billboard Hot 100 hits to his name — just a commanding, charismatic presence that pierced her core the first time she saw him onstage.
Future accepted the offer and performed at the grand opening, where he also met Ward for the first time and was immediately intrigued by her determination. “She had a different kind of drive,” says Future, who hired her to be his assistant shortly after. “[She] had a will just to get everything done by any means necessary. She always sees ahead of the curve.”
“I think he is the most talented individual on the planet,” says Ward, who began managing Future alongside his longtime manager, Anthony Saleh, in 2017. “When you see somebody who’s so passionate, diligent and hardworking, it just ignites something inside of you that you don’t even understand that you possess. You meet somebody who’s constantly able to help you evolve on every level of your life, just with his level of dedication. It’s really a beautiful thing.”
Read Billboard’s full Future cover story, part of the R&B/Hip-Hop Power Players issue, here.
A trampoline park in Austin isn’t the first place you’d expect to see hundreds of SZA fans. Yet on a Friday night in October, there they were — lined up, excitedly chanting the lyrics to “The Weekend” from the singer-songwriter’s 2017 debut album, Ctrl. And in fact, it wasn’t a completely unexpected sight: SZA had just wrapped her headlining set at the Austin City Limits festival and sent an open invite on Twitter to “randomly jump w me” till 2 a.m. The former competitive gymnast flipped into the foam pit with the utmost joy, just like her fans.
Altitude Trampoline Park, which bills itself as the “world’s best trampoline park,” also might not be where you’d expect to hear a preview of what RCA Records chairman/CEO Peter Edge calls “one of the most important albums of the year.” But on this particular evening, for any attendees listening closely, it was. Terrence “Punch” Henderson, SZA’s manager and president of her label, Top Dawg Entertainment (TDE), played “at least 4 songs off the new album on the loud speakers,” she tweeted the following morning. Unlike this night in Austin, though, getting that album out has been far from all fun and games.
When SZA released Ctrl on June 9, 2017, on RCA and TDE, she immediately established herself as alternative R&B’s girl next door and one of the most exciting new voices in music. Sonically, it was the kind of music SZA had always wanted to hear growing up but never quite found outside of herself — an abstract form of R&B influenced by indie and trap music and shaped by lo-fi beats. And lyrically, it was the kind of ultra-relatable songwriting that young people from all walks of life needed: SZA chronicled familiar coming-of-age quandaries, like wondering if your significant other believes you’re enough, or debating if being normal would benefit your relationships, or, well, questioning everything else life throws at you in your 20s.
Read SZA’s full Billboard cover story, part of our R&B/Hip-Hop Power Players issue, here.