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Whenever Ed Sheeran has toured Australia and New Zealand, he has partnered with Frontier Touring, the live division of the dominant independent music company, Mushroom Group. And he breaks records with almost monotonous regularity.
He did it with his Divide tour in 2018, which sold more than 1 million tickets in the market, according to Frontier, breaking Dire Straits’ record that had stood since the 1980s. And Sheeran did it again with his most recent trek, The Mathematics Tour, which filled stadiums across the country earlier this year, smashing the all-time ticket sales record on consecutive nights (March 2-3) at the Melbourne Cricket Ground, according to Frontier.
But this year’s tour was different. Mushroom Group’s legendary founder, Michael Gudinski, was not waiting at the airport to greet Sheeran. No Michael to see him off, either, or run amok on the adventures for which the good friends were famous.
“The reason I’m here right now,” Sheeran told the 105,000-strong Melbourne audience on March 2, “is because of an idea that he formed about eight years ago, and said, ‘Ed, you need to play in the round, in the MCG, with a band.’ I’d only started playing stadiums at this point, and I was like, ‘That place is really big. I’ve never played with a band.’ ” But Gudinski “convinced” him, he says, after his Divide tour ended. “I really wish he was here tonight,” Sheeran added.
Michael, the larger-than-life chairman and founder of Mushroom Group, which includes Frontier Touring and more than 20 music company brands, died March 2, 2021, at age 68.
The Mushroom Group and its staff was a family under Michael, and it remains so under his son, Matt, who now helms the company as chairman/CEO.
Michael (left) and Matt Gudinski in 2019.
Mushroom Creative House
Matt, 38, steered the business and its 300 staffers through the pandemic that crushed the live industry. Now Mushroom’s touring and agency activities have bounced back, and business is booming. As the company celebrates its 50th anniversary, Matt has taken the opportunity to look ahead and to remember the company’s achievements and challenges.
Matt had little time to grieve the death of his father. With his appointment to the top job confirmed in April 2021, he hit the ground running. He was at the helm when Mushroom announced its new talent management division, Mushroom Management; a multilayered international pipeline deal with Universal Music’s Virgin Music; the realignment of Frontier Touring; the launch of new booking agency MBA and events/touring company MG Live; and a partnership with hip-hop specialist Valve Sounds.
In 2021, he navigated Mushroom’s break with Harbour Agency, following claims from former staff of past management misbehavior at the agency.
On Nov. 26, dozens of Australia’s leading artists performed at Mushroom’s 50th-anniversary concert at Melbourne’s Rod Laver Arena — a venue where a statue of Michael, holding aloft his finger in the familiar No. 1 gesture, stands outside the entrance. Such Mushroom family acts as Jimmy Barnes, The Teskey Brothers, Amy Shark, The Temper Trap, Vika & Linda, DMA’S, Paul Kelly, Ross Wilson, Kate Ceberano and Missy Higgins joined the event that aired on the Seven Network, performing a mix of originals and classics from across the Mushroom catalog, including “Working Class Man,” “Holy Grail,” “Sweet Disposition,” “Riptide,” “It’s Only the Beginning,” “Before Too Long” and “Living in the 70s.”
The countdown to the concert included the Nov. 24 release of an all-star covers collection, Mushroom: 50 Years of Making Noise, and the theatrical release in August of Ego, The Michael Gudinski Story, a documentary on the executive whose death was mourned by many of the superstars he worked with, from Paul McCartney and Bruce Springsteen to Dave Grohl and Sheeran.
Veteran Mushroom artist Paul Kelly was among those on the bill of a Nov. 26 televised concert to mark the company’s anniversary.
Tim Lambert/Mushroom Creative House
In 1972, when Michael was just 20, he launched Mushroom Records, which soon became Australia’s indie music juggernaut. The company has shaped the country’s music culture like no other brand. Today, Mushroom Group embraces touring, booking agencies, publishing, merchandising/marketing services, venues, exhibition/events production, neighboring rights, branding, labels, talent management and more. (Warner Music acquired and absorbed the Mushroom Records label in Australia over a decade ago.)
“To survive 50 years as an independent music entertainment company is something we’re extremely proud of,” Matt says. “And throughout this year, we’ve tried to celebrate not only the history of the company, but the future.”
What were the first business challenges you took on when your father died?
We were still deep within the pandemic. And there were a lot of unknowns about how the music industry and the wider entertainment industry would move forward and recover from that. Without live music, it was an extremely challenging time for Mushroom Group and its survival. I’m really proud to be sitting here two-and-a-half years on from that, and I can confidently say that the Mushroom Group as a whole is in its best shape it has ever been.
What is your earliest memory of your father at work at Mushroom?
I’d always come into the office from a very young age, after school or even on holiday. We’d be going on tours together, whether it be Jimmy Barnes or Billy Joel. Before I’d even hit double [digits], I had a real passion for it. I was a budding concert promoter and entrepreneur, similar to my dad at a young age.
What was your first job in the music business?
When I was around 12 years old, I started trying to run some different events at different town halls, mostly for [those] under 18 and promoting bands. The first event I did wasn’t that successful; thenI started to hit my stride and was pretty much hooked. When I was about 16, I started getting involved with managing some upcoming artists and began to have influence in the A&R side of the group.
Your father was such a boisterous individual. What’s your management style?
It’s always an open-door policy and very collaborative. My dad was obviously a larger-than-life figure, and maybe some people out there thought that Mushroom was all about him, a one-man band. It was never that, never will be. Now there’s an opportunity for so many great people who’ve been part of the Mushroom Group for a long period of time to build up their profiles and really make a mark on this company and its future. Bringing their vision to life is something I’m very passionate about.
A U.S. No. 1 hit was high on your father’s wish list. What’s on yours?
At the time he had that dream, Australian artists having success [in] the biggest music market, the U.S. — outside of a very select few — was a foreign concept. Now there are so many artists that are making noise, having success globally. International success is a big priority, a big goal of mine. We have some artists who are doing really well, but we’d like them to go even further.
Michael Gudinski in 1979.
Mushroom Group Archive
You’ve recently had Robbie Williams, Paul McCartney, Sam Smith and Paramore tour Australia with Frontier Touring. Foo Fighters are next up. How would you describe the live business right now?
We’ve definitely had the biggest touring period in our history since the return to live. More artists are wanting to come here than ever before, and so many artists are selling more tickets than ever. But there’s still so many challenges to deliver these tours, whether it’s rising costs, economic challenges or just the competitiveness in the market. Everyone’s selling more tickets, but it’s more competitive than ever.
Your father was very proud of you for landing a Drake tour. How did that come about?
Drake was an artist that I was following from quite early and had been trying to get to come to Australia for many years before we finally landed his tour in 2015. It was a coup to get such a global superstar like Drake to tour Australia when we did. And we’ve had a few successful tours with him since then. Bruno Mars was another artist I brought to Australia very early.
Taylor Swift’s last tour in Australia was with Live Nation. Now Frontier Touring is producing her tour, which is scheduled for February.
We’ve worked with Taylor many times before. She loves Australia. And we’re looking forward to hosting her again. To get her back working with Frontier is something that we’re really excited about. I know it would have meant a lot to my dad, who had a great relationship with Taylor. I don’t think we’ve ever seen that demand for a tour like this, not just for Frontier, but for any promoters. For every one person who has bought a ticket to her tour, there are probably another 20 in Australia who want a ticket.
Your father was a relentless traveler and loved it. Is that something you enjoy?
My dad loved getting out there and building relationships, showing up anywhere in the world to see an artist that we worked with or that we wanted to work with. I definitely do the same. Travel in our industry coming out of the pandemic has probably changed a little bit, and the technology has evolved, but that’s how you create, maintain and grow great relationships.
How has Mushroom survived as an independent while so many other indies have gone belly up or been absorbed by multinationals?
The core of Mushroom is to invest in supporting Australian talent and to take it to the world. My dad was big on the saying of being a leader, not a follower. We’ve continued to evolve and adapt; it’s why we sit here with so many different business arms to the Mushroom Group, because we’re not reliant on one. If we were just a record label, we would have struggled to survive to this point. [We’ve been] able to continually evolve and ensure that we’re looking for the next thing, not the current thing. And investing in great people and other great entrepreneurs has really allowed us to stay successful over such a long period of time. Part of what makes us unique is the fact that it is a family affair. So many people at Mushroom have been there a long time. And we’re really an extension of our family. That’s what else has made us survive.
How did your father prepare you to take the reins at Mushroom?
It’s all about reputation in our business. He just instilled into me those key fundamentals: how to ensure that the business moves forward and all the foundations that he’d laid go on for a long time. Mushroom’s success is really down to amazing people, great artists, loyalty and strong overall values. I was lucky enough that for a number of years my dad and I were working closely together, and the Mushroom Group expanded so much over the past 10 years. A lot of the areas we moved into were things that not only were we driving together, but that I was driving and really taking the reins on. I was well prepared to take on the greater responsibility. I’ll always say it: My dad and I love what we did so much because we did it together. It’ll never be the same doing it without him.
Overcoming the Tyranny of Distance
A restructured Frontier touring continues to bring superstars to Australia.
Dion Brant was named CEO of Frontier in 2022.
Ian Laidlaw
Australian promoter Frontier Touring has come roaring back from the 2021 death of founder Michael Gudinski and a pandemic that hobbled the live industry.
“We’ve completed around 160 tours since the restart of touring in mid-2022,” Frontier CEO Dion Brant says. “It has been a strong 18 months,” he adds, noting the company had 44 tours on sale as of early November. According to year-end Billboard Boxscore data, Frontier ranks as the No. 7 promoter worldwide for 2023.
Founded by Gudinski in 1979, Frontier was established on the core value of prioritizing artists and fans. The company has continued to channel this ethos since touring restarted following the health crisis.
In recent months, Ed Sheeran, Paul McCartney, Billie Eilish, Sam Smith and Luke Combs have played stadiums and arenas across Australia as part of Frontier-produced tours. Sheeran’s Mathematics Tour sold over 830,000 tickets across 12 shows in Australia and New Zealand and left excess demand, Brant says.
The heat isn’t dissipating from the market anytime soon.
Throughout the Southern Hemisphere summer, Frontier will promote treks for Robbie Williams, Foo Fighters and Taylor Swift, whose Eras Tour has sold out seven 2024 stadium shows across Sydney and Melbourne, Australia’s most populous cities.
The so-called “tyranny of distance” — a phrase coined in 1966 by Australian historian Geoffrey Blainey — makes the country a challenging touring market. “It is more expensive” post-COVID-19, Brant says. The cost to “move people and freight is much higher than pre-COVID. An already marginal business is even more marginal.”
Even the price of replacement turf has soared. “Artists and their agents are working harder than ever to make touring viable, to get their artists in front of audiences in a way that still stacks up financially,” Brant continues. “We all play our part in that.”
Brant was promoted in March 2022, heading up a new leadership team, part of wider restructuring designed to help the “legacy, mission and culture” of Frontier to flourish following Gudinski’s death in March 2021.
Brant reports to the Frontier board, which includes Michael’s son, Mushroom Group chairman/CEO Matt Gudinski; Jay Marciano, chairman/CEO of AEG Presents, which has a joint venture with Frontier; and AEG Presents Asia Pacific president/CEO Adam Wilkes, who was appointed Frontier chairman as part of the restructuring.
Legendary Australian concert promoter Michael Chugg, executive chairman of Chugg Entertainment, reunited with former business partner Michael Gudinski to form a joint venture in 2019. More recently, Chugg joined the Frontier leadership team alongside Matt, Frontier senior promoter Gerard Schlaghecke and others.
As live entertainment returned, Frontier has welcomed a new golden age of stadium shows, promoting gigs by Billy Joel, Foo Fighters and Elton John. In years past, Australia would host “two to three stadium tours a summer for all promoters, if we had a big summer,” Brant says. “That seems to have changed.”
“Twenty years ago, people were lamenting what would happen to the business when The Rolling Stones, Eagles and Neil Diamond-type acts stopped filling stadiums,” he says. Not anymore. Brant points to the evolution in stage production and the quality of new artists now making their mark.
Adds Brant: “To be in stadiums eight times over a couple of summers is big for Frontier.”
This story originally appeared in the Dec. 9, 2023, issue of Billboard.
In February, Fred again.., Skrillex and Four Tet turned New York’s Madison Square Garden into a sweaty rave, performing a body-rattling five-hour show that had sold out in two minutes and, in some ways, set the tone for dance music in 2023. The demand proved the trio to be a perfect replacement for Frank Ocean as Coachella’s Sunday night headliner on its second weekend. And by October, Fred again.. had sold 42,300 tickets and grossed $2.9 million across a three-night residency in New York, according to Billboard Boxscore, later playing an eight-night run in Los Angeles.
“We been practising for monthssss to try n make this show a level up and to like really push ourselves to make it as musical and dynamic and LIVE as possible,” Fred again.. posted on Instagram.
Fred again.., now nominated for a best new artist Grammy, became a bigger star in 2023, but he was far from the only one cashing in on the post-pandemic return to live events. In June, future bass star Illenium played Denver’s Mile High Stadium, selling 47,300 tickets and grossing $3.9 million. Meanwhile, Beyoncé toured the globe on her dance album, Renaissance, selling 2.8 million tickets worldwide. And live electronic maestros ODESZA led the festival circuit, headlining Bonnaroo, Governors Ball and Outside Lands.
“There have been all these moments where I realized that electronic music from a live standpoint is in an incredibly healthy place,” says Lee Anderson, executive vp/managing executive at Wasserman, who represents electronic acts including Skrillex, Zedd and Disclosure. “It might be bigger than it has ever been, including the EDM boom.”
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This surge has origins in the pandemic, when dancefloors were vacant. Prior to 2020, dance shows had declined “from the late 2010s from a ticket-buying standpoint and on the live side,” Anderson says. This was the same era in which house music was replacing EDM as the mainstream dance genre of choice in the United States.
But as artists turned to livestreaming during lockdown, dance music became particularly accessible, given the ease of streaming DJ sets. The sound proliferated on Twitch and other platforms at the same time that a new generation of fans were coming of age — and when live events returned, they wanted to dance. “You had a whole new generation of kids that were like, ‘Oh, my God. What is this? I want to get out of the house and go,’ ” says Anderson.
The pent-up demand drove ticket sales at dance shows across the United States, and by 2022, Anderson says, “I was talking to people at Live Nation and AEG like, ‘The electronic stuff is selling really well.’ We looked at the data and realized this genre was heating back up.”
Contributing to the rise was the general expansion of the U.S. dance market. While there used to be roughly a dozen cities in which techno artists could play, Anderson says there are now 30. Beyond major markets like Miami, New York and Los Angeles, there are now thriving U.S. hubs for bass, commercial dance, trap, house and other styles in cities including Denver and Phoenix. (Anderson says that artists’ social engagement is the best indicator of where they’ll be able to sell tickets.) Meanwhile, festivals that were formerly booking three or four dance acts are now booking four times that many.
While the current dominance of house music has delivered greater levels of live success to veteran artists — Anderson cites Chicago legend Green Velvet as a prime example, saying he is “probably bigger than he has ever been” — fresh acts are also rising. After playing their first major shows earlier this year, San Diego bass producers ISOxo and Knock2 performed four sold-out shows at The Shrine in L.A. in November.
“Between the two of them, the highest-streamed song has about 13 million plays,” Anderson says. “These are not huge numbers, but they sold out 20,000 tickets in L.A. as fast as the cart could process transactions — and we had enough people in the queue that if the venue was available, we could have done another four [nights].”
Such residencies and one-offs are also indicative of the newly preferred style of touring for dance acts, with teams often putting on a small number of shows that feel special — and which fans are more likely to travel for — rather than grinding it out on the road. Illenium’s stadium show demonstrated the viability of this model (the act will play two more at SoFi Stadium in L.A. in February 2024), as did a set by FISHER and Chris Lake in October, when they shut down a stretch of Hollywood Boulevard and drew 12,000 fans. (Anderson calls the show “one of the biggest stories in dance music this year.”) Pretty Lights’ comeback tour featured a series of short residencies, with 27 shows across nine venues. And on Dec. 16, John Summit will headline the 22,000-capacity BMO Stadium in L.A. — a type of show that Kx5 proved viable last December, when it played for 46,000 people at the L.A. Coliseum.
“When you had the [EDM bubble] era of, ‘Can it ever be that big again?,’ did you see electronic artists selling out stadiums as headline acts?” Anderson asks. “Because that’s happening today, and you’re going to see that continue happening. And that has never happened before. That’s new.”
This story originally appeared in the Dec. 9, 2023, issue of Billboard.
Hidden behind a white sheet and sunglasses, an anonymous music-maker called Ghostwriter logged on to TikTok in April to post his first video. In it, he announced his debut single, “Heart on My Sleeve” — and signaled a seismic shift in the music business. Using an artificial intelligence voice filter that disguised Ghostwriter’s own timbre behind that of Drake and The Weeknd, “Heart on My Sleeve” was the first song to show just how far AI music had come already and what novel challenges and opportunities it would present to artists.
The song also proved that artists would struggle to control how their voice and likeness are used in the age of AI — even superstars like Drake and The Weeknd who have the resources to fight back. Universal Music Group (UMG) issued a strongly worded statement soon after the song’s posting, condemning “infringing content created with generative AI,” and the song was quickly taken down from most platforms. But fans continued to post it to TikTok and YouTube every time it was removed. As Ghostwriter later put it in his Billboard cover story: “The genie can’t be put back in the bottle.”
“Heart on My Sleeve” forced the industry to reckon with the limitations of existing “right of publicity” laws that protect artists from having their voices and likenesses commercially exploited without their authorization. The strength of this right varies from state to state, and at the time the song was released, there wasn’t a precedent for issuing takedown notices for these types of violations, like there is for copyright infringement claims.
Likely as a result of the song and other AI concerns, UMG general counsel/executive vp of business and legal affairs Jeffrey Harleston went to Capitol Hill to talk to the Senate Judiciary Committee in July, asking for a “federal right of publicity” to be created to help protect artists. Streaming services also voluntarily entered talks with the major labels to form a system so that labels can request takedowns for right of publicity concerns.
Still, some artists consider Ghostwriter to be a revolutionary. Artist-producer Grimes took to X (formerly Twitter) after the release of “Heart on My Sleeve” to write, “I think it’s cool to be fused w a machine, and I like the idea of open sourcing all art.” Shortly after, she launched GrimesAI, a voice model trained on her recordings that lets fans shape-shift their voice into hers at the click of a button. She also collaborated with TuneCore to allow fans to distribute their resulting songs to streaming services under the tag “GrimesAI” to distinguish it from her own catalog.
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YouTube recently built on this same idea with the experimental program Dream Track. It lets fans use voice models of Charlie Puth, John Legend, Sia, T-Pain, Demi Lovato, Troye Sivan, Charli XCX, Alec Benjamin and Papoose with the approval of partners UMG and Warner Music Group (WMG).
Songwriters and publishers have also started using AI voice technology. This summer, Billboard reported that AI voice models were used to help writers pitch song ideas to artists. The AI-altered pitch records had been used as an internal reference for the writers to gauge if the track sounded appropriate for a particular singer while composing, and sometimes the records with the AI voice applied were also sent to the artist’s team in hopes that they would increase their chance of landing the song.
In a recent interview with Billboard, pop artist Lauv said he has seen that usage firsthand with one of his songwriter friends who was pitching a track to Nicki Minaj using AI. Lauv himself is also leaning into the new technology: In November, he partnered with AI voice startup Hooky — one of many startups in the space — to translate his new single, “Love U Like That,” into Korean. After getting Korean American songwriter Kevin Woo to translate the lyrics and sing a Korean version, Hooky applied Lauv’s AI voice model to map Lauv’s signature sound over Woo’s.
Ghostwriter’s manager previously said he also believes that artist estates and catalog owners could use AI voice models to market their music. WMG is now experimenting with the catalog of late French singer Édith Piaf. The company is creating AI models to resurrect her voice and likeness for a controversial new biopic called EDITH to “further enhance the authenticity and emotional impact of the story,” according to a press release.
“Heart on My Sleeve” represents just one of many burgeoning areas of AI that can transform the music business in the future. Concurrently, as startups like Kits.AI, mayk.it, Hooky, Voice-Swap, Supertone and Lingyin Engine hope to capture the AI voice model market, AI-generated beats and loops promise to upend production music libraries and the overall creation process. AI “functional music,” soundscapes designed to fit user needs for sleep, focus or relaxation, also promise an evolution in wellness and ambient music. And as AI stem separation unlocks possibilities for remixing, synch licensing and restoring old audio files (the new Beatles song, “Now and Then,” used the technology to restore John Lennon vocal recordings), there are surely even more use cases for AI that are yet to be discovered.
While legal and logistical questions remain with the technology, Ghostwriter’s team is pressing on. He has teased a second single (“Whiplash” featuring the AI voices of Travis Scott and 21 Savage) while expressing his desire to collaborate with other artists. As such, Ghostwriter’s manager believes it is of the utmost importance for the music business to band together to “define an equitable arrangement for all stakeholders” when using AI. As he previously told Billboard, “We had an opportunity [with “Heart on My Sleeve”] to show people the value in AI and music … I like to say that everything starts somewhere.”
This story originally appeared in the Dec. 9, 2023, issue of Billboard.
In a September interview with The New York Times, Rolling Stone founder Jann Wenner was asked why The Masters: Conversations With Dylan, Lennon, Jagger, Townshend, Garcia, Bono, and Springsteen, his book interviewing rock icons, didn’t include the perspectives of women or people of color. The media mogul responded bluntly: “None of them were as articulate enough on this intellectual level.” Condemnation came swiftly, even from the publication that Wenner had founded. Critics pointed to his comments as yet another example of the strident gatekeeping that has held rock music back, making it harder for anyone but straight white men to succeed.
Yet one of the biggest rock albums of 2023 has served as an antithesis to Wenner’s claim, as the indie-rock supergroup boygenius dominated the space this year. Formed by Julien Baker, Phoebe Bridgers and Lucy Dacus, the trio’s cult-favorite 2018 self-titled EP made an impact on the artists’ respective fans, leading to bigger gains for their subsequent solo albums and building even more anticipation for their long-awaited reunion this year.
Aptly titled The Record, the band’s first full-length debuted at No. 4 on the Billboard 200 and scored top spots on the Top Rock Albums and Adult Alternative Airplay charts. A sold-out arena tour, prominent Coachella slot, Saturday Night Live performance and six Grammy nominations followed. As Bridgers told Billboard earlier this year, “Sh-t keeps happening to us where you are then confronted with each other or other people being like, ‘How sick is that?!’ ”
The band’s big year stands in stark contrast to its introduction: While its debut EP earned rave reviews and a fervent fandom, the project never broke onto the Billboard 200 and peaked at No. 24 on the Top Alternative Albums chart. Yet for Jeff Regan, senior director of music programming at SiriusXM and host of Alt Nation’s Advanced Placement, The Record was always destined to dominate the rock scene. “When you hear that this amazing [group] is getting ready to present new music, your ears perk up immediately,” he says. “With boygenius, you have three authentic artists who are bringing not just three fan bases together, but three distinct styles and bodies of work together.”
Regan is quick to point out that the band’s achievements in 2023 cannot simply be qualified as three previously successful artists uniting their fans. While Bridgers’ profile has exponentially grown since the group formed in 2018 — her 2020 album, Punisher, helped her earn a best new artist Grammy nomination and even secured her an opening slot on Taylor Swift’s The Eras Tour — Regan says it’s the quality of boygenius’ output, and its fans’ appreciation for it, that made The Record such a standout hit. “A lot of the boygenius fans understand that we had to carve out the time for this,” Dacus told Billboard earlier this year. “People know this is a rarity and that there’s no guarantee that it’ll continue. Like, we will continue to be boygenius and be friends, but we also will get back to our own things.”
Focal single “Not Strong Enough” ruled the Adult Alternative Airplay chart for seven weeks. The song has since earned a Grammy nomination for record of the year — boygenius is the only band, and only rock artist, in the running this year.
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Regan credits its success to the band’s eagerness to be vulnerable with its audience; throughout The Record, the three members of boygenius share a holistic view of their internal life, processing every emotion from grief to anger to joy.
“We all love a catchy song that grabs your ear and rattles around in there for a while, and those things come and go and that’s great,” Regan says. “With boygenius, there is this connection point with their fans and just a genuine approach to the music itself. They’re not doing this because they need to. They’re doing this because they found something in each other — and that is a very healthy thing for music.”
Boygenius is directly playing to a historically underserved market in the music business: the LGBTQ+ community. As Billboard reported in a 2022 study with Luminate, LGBTQ+ audiences regularly outspend their straight-identifying counterparts on music, including merchandise, live shows and especially physical sales. Of The Record’s first-week sales, a whopping 67% were vinyl purchases, helping score the group a No. 1 debut on Billboard’s Vinyl Albums chart. Beyond boygenius, Demi Lovato’s Revamped (which reimagined her biggest hits as rock epics) made a top 10 entry on the Top Rock Albums and Top Alternative Albums charts, while queer-fronted rock group Greta Van Fleet notched its third No. 1 on Top Rock Albums with Starcatcher.
As Regan says, it’s about time that queer artists and queer fans begin taking up space in the genre. “I mean, shame on us, the alternative rock space, for taking so long to come around,” he says. “We’re supposed to be the ones on the cutting edge — we’re supposed to be the ones taking the sounds, the culture that historically would be on the fringe and bring them into the middle of the dancefloor. It sucks that it took all this time to do it, but when it’s done by artists like this, they get to hold up a mirror to the audience and say, ‘It’s safe. You can be yourself with us because we’re being ourselves with you.’ ”
Despite what self-proclaimed sentinels like Wenner might say, boygenius spent 2023 definitively showing that women and queer artists can be just as “articulate” and “intellectual” as any other straight, white, male master of rock music — and in this case, they can open the door for even more articulate, intellectual rock stars to come.
This story originally appeared in the Dec. 9, 2023, issue of Billboard.
Noah Kahan has had a nonstop year — and as a result, the artist has enjoyed a never-ending string of successes. Below, we chart the milestones that propelled the singer-songwriter through a breakout 2023.
Jan. 6: Kahan’s Stick Season summer tour sells out.
March 31: Kahan begins an 11-night opening run on the U.K. dates of Dermot Kennedy’s Sonder tour.
May 25: Kahan announces The Busyhead Project, which supports and funds mental health organizations that provide care to underserved communities.
June 9: Kahan releases Stick Season (We’ll All be Here Forever), the deluxe edition of his 2022 third album.
June 24: Stick Season hits a new peak of No. 3 on the Billboard 200 (after debuting at No. 14); Kahan makes his Billboard Hot 100 debut with “Dial Drunk,” which enters the list at No. 43.
July 8: Kahan teams with Ranger Station on a Stick Season candle.
July 17: Kahan releases the “Dial Drunk” remix featuring Post Malone, which they later live debut during one of Post’s tour stops.
Sept. 9: Kahan earns his first No. 1 on a Billboard airplay chart as “Dial Drunk” climbs to the top of Adult Alternative Airplay.
Sept. 13: Kahan hits 1 million followers on Instagram.
Sept. 15: Kahan releases a new version of “Call Your Mom” featuring Lizzy McAlpine.
Sept. 20: Kahan announces his We’ll All be Here Forever World Tour, including stops at the Hollywood Bowl, Madison Square Garden and Fenway Park.
Sept. 22: Kahan features on Zach Bryan’s Boys of Faith EP, guesting on the track “Sarah’s Place.”
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Oct. 2: Olivia Rodrigo covers Kahan’s hit “Stick Season” on BBC Radio 1 Live Lounge.
Oct. 6: Kahan teams with Kacey Musgraves for a new duet rendition of “She Calls Me Back.”
Oct. 10: The Busyhead Project announces it has raised $1.9 million for mental health services.
Nov. 10: Kahan earns his first Grammy nomination, for best new artist; a “Northern Attitude” remix with Hozier arrives.
Dec. 1: Kahan and Gracie Abrams team up for a new version of the former’s “Everywhere, Everything.”
Dec. 2: Kahan makes his musical guest debut on Saturday Night Live.
This story originally appeared in the Dec. 9, 2023, issue of Billboard.
Something unusual happened at the 2023 Country Music Association (CMA) Awards: A song written over three decades ago won the award for song of the year.
While Tracy Chapman’s “Fast Car” first became a pop hit in 1988 — when it reached No. 6 on the Billboard Hot 100 — the song experienced a renaissance over the past year thanks to country singer Luke Combs’ faithful cover. Combs released his rendition to pop radio in April and country radio in June, helping it became a juggernaut that ultimately reached No. 2 on the Hot 100 and spent five weeks atop the Country Airplay chart.
“The success of ‘Fast Car’ is mind-blowing. But should it be?” asks Combs’ manager, Chris Kappy. He calls Combs’ connection to the song (the artist has said that it reminds him of his father) and his ability to deliver it to a new generation of fans “the perfect chemistry to create this moment.”
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The fact that Combs scored one of the biggest hits of his career with a cover is illustrative of the unconventional success stories that defined country music in 2023 — all of which helped propel the genre to one of its most prominent years in Billboard chart history. Jason Aldean’s politically charged “Try That in a Small Town”; outlier Oliver Anthony’s out-of-nowhere hit, “Rich Men North of Richmond”; and Zach Bryan and Kacey Musgraves’ somber duet, “I Remember Everything” all ruled the Hot 100. Along with Morgan Wallen’s “Last Night,” which spent 16 nonconsecutive weeks at No. 1, 2023 marked just the second time in Hot 100 history that four country songs reached the chart’s summit in a calendar year. And for the first time since the chart launched in 1958, country hits occupied the top three spots (“Small Town” at No. 1, “Last Night” at No. 2 and “Fast Car” at No. 3) in a single week on the Hot 100.
Yet in the same way that a decades-old single winning the song of the year CMA Award (a feat that also made Chapman the first Black songwriter to win that honor) marked an uncommon achievement, the biggest wins of country’s huge year all contained atypical wrinkles in their narratives. The success of “Try That in a Small Town” — and in particular, the song’s accompanying music video — was mired in controversy. Footage of Black Lives Matter protests was seemingly edited out of the original clip, while critics noted the performance itself was filmed in front of the site of a 1927 lynching. CMT ultimately pulled the video from its rotation — a move that led many to view the clip on YouTube and stream the song, some out of curiosity alone, which helped push it to No. 1 on the all-genre Hot 100.
In late August, independent artist Anthony broke through with one of the year’s most unexpected hits, the polarizing “Rich Men North of Richmond.” The song — with lyrics centering on greedy politicians, inflation, rising taxes and welfare abuse — was uploaded to YouTube out of the blue. And a little more than 10 days later, it debuted atop the Hot 100, making him the first artist to enter at No. 1 without any prior Billboard chart history. The video has been viewed over 98 million times on YouTube.
“Rich Men North of Richmond” stayed atop the Hot 100 for two weeks, during which time it became a lightning rod of controversy for political pundits on both the right and left. “The most special thing about it being on the chart at all is that it made it [there] without some big, corporate schmucky schmuck somewhere pumping a bunch of money into making it get there,” Anthony recently told Billboard. “It actually got to the top of the [Hot 100] because people genuinely wanted to listen to it and support it.”
As Country’s Radio Coach owner/CEO John Shomby says, “Now he’s going on a 40-plus-city tour next year. That tells you a lot.”
Then there’s the alternative, genre-fluid Bryan, who prior to signing with Warner Music in 2021 built a fan base with his independent releases and constant touring, and has a history of shucking industry expectations. He capped 2022 with a live album titled All My Homies Hate Ticketmaster and throughout his breakout 2023 has largely avoided press. In September, he and Musgraves each earned their first Hot 100 No. 1 with “I Remember Everything” off his self-titled album. The duet became the first song to simultaneously debut atop the Hot 100, Hot Country Songs and Hot Rock & Alternative Songs charts — proving Bryan’s wide appeal.
A surplus of country artists have experienced similar crossover success, with hits that have both topped country charts and entered the upper echelon of the Hot 100. Jelly Roll’s “Need a Favor” hit No. 13 on the Hot 100, Bailey Zimmerman’s “Rock and A Hard Place” entered the chart’s top 10, and Lainey Wilson’s “Watermelon Moonshine” reached No. 21 — and all three songs were Country Airplay No. 1s. Meanwhile, a few Hot 100 first-timers included rising stars like Hailey Whitters and Warren Zeiders along with Americana stalwart Tyler Childers.
“This year has shown us that the genre is not as painted into a corner as it was years ago,” says Shomby, who credits a younger generation of programmers moving into decision-making roles at radio stations as a driving factor in the span of country music sounds dominating charts in 2023. “The bigger companies, it’s going to take a little while, but some of these smaller organizations, you can see it already, with people taking chances on songs like the Zach Bryan and Kacey Musgraves duet, or Tyler Childers or the Post Malone song [titled “Pickup Man,” off HARDY’s HIXTAPE and featuring the late Joe Diffie, which debuted on Country Airplay in November]. They look at it as, ‘It sounds good, so I’m going to play it.’
“I come from the generation where we couldn’t care less whether it was rock or pop or country,” Shomby adds. “Then we started putting people into lanes. Thankfully, it’s starting to open up a little more. I’m not saying we’re there, but it’s the beginning of it.”
This story originally appeared in the Dec. 9, 2023, issue of Billboard.
In the five years that followed the release of SZA’s groundbreaking debut album, Ctrl, the acclaimed artist teased fans with the occasional one-off or collaboration — as the wait for the official follow-up continued to grow. So when she finally did return at the end of 2022 with her much-anticipated second album, SOS, the stakes were high. And throughout 2023, her record-breaking chart wins exceeded expectations.
With SOS, SZA ventured outside R&B’s boundaries by diving into gospel, grunge, pop-punk and rap; meanwhile, as her producer-engineer, Rob Bisel, previously told Billboard, “Her pen got sharper and more personal.” SOS debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 and spent 10 nonconsecutive weeks there, the most of any R&B/hip-hop album by a woman since Mariah Carey’s self-titled debut spent 11 weeks at the top in 1991. Instead of its impact being limited to the final weeks of 2022, SOS became one of this year’s biggest releases.
It started with the groovy yet gruesome “Kill Bill,” which arrived as a single in January and eventually became SZA’s first No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100; it also made history with an unprecedented 21-week siege atop the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart. The following month, she embarked on the SOS tour, telling Billboard at the time that she was “deeply excited to pop ass and cry and give theater” during her first-ever arena headlining stint, compared with her more intimate, stripped-down shows in the past. “When I finally saw the tour and how insane she was going with her choreography, range and stamina … it really hit me,” her producer Carter Lang previously told Billboard. “The transformation was super apparent.”
SZA found ways to keep SOS in rotation while on the road. In April, “Snooze” was released as the album’s sixth single and slowly grew into its next smash. It was serviced to (and succeeded at) rhythmic, R&B/hip-hop and pop radio, all of which culminated in a star-studded music video that arrived in August and featured Justin Bieber. Soon after its release, she recruited him for the song’s acoustic version. “Snooze” ultimately peaked at No. 2 on the Hot 100 and dethroned “Kill Bill” on Hot R&B Songs, where the former had ruled for 16 nonconsecutive weeks.
By September, SOS became the longest-running No. 1 title on Top R&B Albums, logging 50 weeks and counting at the summit. And to top it all off, SZA finished at No. 1 on four major Billboard year-end R&B/hip-hop rankings: Top R&B/Hip-Hop Artists, Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songwriters, Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums (SOS) and Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs (“Kill Bill”). SZA was also crowned the No. 2 Hot 100 artist of the year and No. 5 Hot 100 songwriter of the year, while SOS landed at No. 3 on the year-end Billboard 200 recap.
“We had a lot of really big moments in R&B this year, obviously SZA being one of those,” says Alaysia Sierra, head of R&B at Spotify. “She’s pop, alternative, R&B. She doesn’t want to be put in a box, but she can’t deny her foundation.”
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But SZA wasn’t the only R&B artist earning rave reviews following a prolonged album break. Janelle Monáe returned with The Age of Pleasure, which is Grammy-nominated for album of the year and blends more Afrobeats, reggae, funk and soul sounds compared with her 2017 left-of-center pop album, Dirty Computer. Jorja Smith released the kaleidoscopic Falling or Flying five years after her critically acclaimed debut, Lost & Found. And Kelela dropped the rapturous Raven, the follow-up to her first full-length album, Take Me Apart, from 2017. Taking their time to further develop their sound — regardless of expectations to make a specific type of music — wasn’t just better for their peace of mind but also for their artistry.
“It’s hard making music as a Black woman [because] we don’t get the luxury to try something and have it be something that’s genuinely part of us,” SZA previously told Billboard. “You have to allow people to get to know different parts of it.”
She’s following the trajectory laid out by artists like Beyoncé and Usher, who have R&B roots but later crossed over and found mainstream pop superstardom. Decades into their careers, they are dominating the world’s biggest stages: Beyoncé’s Renaissance world tour grossed $579.8 million, according to Billboard Boxscore — making it the highest-grossing tour by a woman, a Black artist and any American soloist — while Usher will headline the Apple Music Super Bowl LVIII Halftime Show next year in Las Vegas, the home of his two residencies that combined are expected to exceed $100 million in earnings by early December, according to Billboard’s estimate.
SZA is well on her way. She is the most nominated artist at the 2024 Grammys, with SOS up for album of the year and six different songs nominated in various genre categories. More Black women R&B artists are present in the Big Four categories: Victoria Monét is the second-most nominated, with seven nods, while Coco Jones has five.
Sierra believes that R&B artists like Monét and Jones, both of whom are up for best new artist, have the best shot at elevating to pop music’s upper echelon. “Our next superstars are R&B artists,” Sierra says. “When you think about a pop star, they’re going to be making R&B music.”
This story originally appeared in the Dec. 9, 2023, issue of Billboard.
There’s no agreed upon birthdate of the term “rock’n’roll.” Ohio DJ Alan Freed is widely credited with popularizing it in the early 1950s to describe a new upbeat version of R&B music that was gaining traction with young audiences throughout America. Almost 70 years later, in 2017, it was R&B/hip-hop that surpassed rock as the country’s dominant music. And unlike rock, hip-hop does have an agreed upon birthdate, resulting in the current 50th-anniversary celebration.
Despite chatter to the contrary, a large segment of rap sounds very similar to what it was like at 30, 25 or even 15 years old. A clear line can be drawn between Big Daddy Kane or Rakim and the deliveries of Jay-Z, Nas, Drake, Kendrick Lamar and J. Cole. The aesthetics may have changed a bit, as well as the effectiveness of the techniques, but the artistic values shared by the first group of MCs are also shared by the latter.
And yet, until this September, hip-hop had gone an entire calendar year without a song topping the Billboard Hot 100, for the first time since 1993. The concern was understandable, but when it’s considered that the artist who broke the streak isn’t even a traditional rapper — Doja Cat, whose “Paint the Town Red,” the Dionne Warwick-sampling single from her most recent rap-flavored project, Scarlet, did the honors — the genre seems to be just fine. And to be fair, when the genre’s most consistent hit-makers did return — Drake and Cole’s collaboration “First Person Shooter” debuted at No. 1 in October — things more or less went back to normal.
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And that’s what has been so remarkable about this yearlong celebration of hip-hop’s anniversary. The palpable sense of doom and gloom between the innumerable star-studded events — the pop-up performances, special segments on airings of the BET Awards and the MTV Video Music Awards and a multigenerational gathering at Yankee Stadium that capped off the festivities — all just proved that the principles that catapulted the genre into the mainstream are alive and well. Some aspects of the music’s past have even miraculously returned to the forefront — like a strong contingent of women rappers.
For years, fans and critics alike have decried the fact that hip-hop didn’t make enough space for women artists to thrive. It may have taken a few years, but that’s what they’re getting today. As a matter of fact, outside of “The Big Three” (Drake, Cole and Lamar) it’s the women — rappers like GloRilla, Cardi B, Ice Spice, Nicki Minaj and Latto — who seem to be carrying on the tradition the most. They’re the artists rapping as if they’re standing 10 toes down in the middle of a cypher. And their fixation on bars has netted them great success.
Minaj is already one of the most successful artists of her generation and Cardi B can’t seem to make a song that doesn’t turn into a hit, while Latto and GloRilla, two relative newcomers, have both managed to land top 10 hits and sell out their own shows. Even Doja Cat, an already successful pop artist, has released a rap album to critical acclaim and commercial success. To top it off, she took arguably the hottest new female rapper in the game, Ice Spice, on tour with her.
Meanwhile, a new generation of rap stars like Lil Uzi Vert and Playboi Carti have taken the music in a different direction that eschews its traditional form and most resembles a new brand of punk. They don’t focus on crafting 16-bar verses or making sure to stay within the pocket of the beat. Hell, fellow newcomer Yeat doesn’t even use real words at times. But it seems to be working. Uzi’s Jersey club-influenced “Just Wanna Rock” dominated radio, and their Pink Tape album went No. 1 earlier this year. Carti’s last full-length, 2020’s Whole Lotta Red, debuted at No. 1, and Yeat has notched two top 10 entries on the Billboard 200, while hitting No. 1 on the Hot 100 with his recent collaboration with Drake, “IDGAF.” Traditional rap fans may feel that, if this is the future, then hip-hop won’t last another 50 years.
But hip-hop has always been this way — a fearless cultural and artistic lab that works to push itself forward. If anything, it’s the world that has changed the most. “Rap has always come in waves,” says Maurice Slade, SoundCloud’s head of marketing, artist relations. “Similar to a garden, rap needs rain for things to grow. And whenever it gets real rainy — which I think is the time we’re in right now — shortly after that there’s fertile soil and sunshine, and then you see the fruit after.”
According to Slade, the state of the world is responsible for the type of music new hip-hop artists are creating. “The rain right now is post-pandemic — these kids went through some crazy shit with that. You got a recession, you got high interest rates, you got wars going on. The world is f–ked up. When the world is really f–ked up, right after that is when we get some of the best sh-t when it comes to rap and hip-hop.”
This story originally appeared in the Dec. 9, 2023, issue of Billboard.
The sound that dominated popular Spanish-language music in 2023 wasn’t represented at all on the Billboard Hot 100 until two years ago, when Gera MX and Christian Nodal’s country-tinged “Botella Tras Botella” debuted at No. 60 and made history as the first regional Mexican song on the chart. Since then, the genre’s presence on the ranking has exploded as a new crop of stars has evolved the music’s sound and look, borrowing from hip-hop, trap and rap to build on its traditional instruments of guitar, accordion and more. As a result, these artists have nurtured a new generation of fans for a genre with foundations that date back over a century.
This year, more than 35 regional Mexican tracks have entered the Hot 100, highlighted by Eslabon Armado and Peso Pluma’s blockbuster smash, “Ella Baila Sola,” which also made history when it reached the chart’s top five. This record year for regional Mexican music, or música Mexicana, has been powered by not only superstar collaborations — like Grupo Frontera’s team-up with Bad Bunny and Fuerza Regida pairing with Marshmello — but also support from major labels eager to partner with the independents that have long dominated the genre. In the first half of 2023 alone, overall consumption of regional Mexican music jumped 42.1%, topping all other genres but K-pop, according to Luminate.
“For decades, Mexican music has played a significant role in Latin music, leaving a profound impact on the global musical landscape,” says Manny Prado, vp of marketing and A&R at Interscope Records. “Finally, it has gained the acknowledgment it deserves.” This year in particular, international collaborations have propelled the sound into uncharted territories, and no other Latin genre has gained the traction of regional Mexican.
Its newfound popularity is rooted in many things, but particularly in its indie support, followed by multinational distribution partnerships with major labels. In June, Fuerza Regida frontman Jesús Ortiz Paz signed a worldwide deal with Cinq Music to distribute his own label, Street Mob Records, which he launched in 2018. The move followed a deal that Fuerza Regida signed with Sony Music Latin last year through a partnership with its indie label, Rancho Humilde. The strategy also worked for Washington state-based sibling trio Yahritza y Su Esencia, which signed to Columbia Records in partnership with Sony Music Latin and its indie Lumbre Music (which had discovered and signed the act eight months prior).
While indies have historically dominated the genre — and continue to do so — such partnerships indicate that alliances will be key to the music’s continued growth in 2024.
“We saw Mexican music grow because artists started to collaborate, and it’s the same thing when companies start joining forces,” says Maria Inés Sánchez, Sony Music Latin’s new vp of West Coast operations. “Major labels like Sony can reach a broader spectrum of the business in general. We have eyes where indies perhaps don’t with offices internationally.”
At the center of the regional Mexican revolution is Peso Pluma, whose raw and raspy vocals and signature sound of punctuated trombones and charchetas — along with a quirky haircut — made him the unwitting face of the genre. After a few collaborations with fellow corrido artists at the beginning of the year, he struck gold when he teamed with Eslabon Armado for “Ella Baila Sola.” Arguably this year’s biggest Latin hit, with 617.3 million on-demand official streams in the United States, it proves how a powerful song can propel a local genre to global recognition, as well as the importance of catering to a broader audience. The two indie artists are stylistically opposites; Peso Pluma is known for his swaggy, attitude-heavy corridos and Eslabon Armado for its romantic sierreño ballads. “Ella Baila Sola” became the first regional Mexican song to dominate the Billboard Global 200 (holding the top slot for six weeks) and is No. 1 on the year-end Hot Latin Songs chart.
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Another head-turning team-up arrived in April, when Bad Bunny joined Tejano act Grupo Frontera for “un x100to,” a cumbia/norteña song that scored a top 10 debut on the Hot 100. It was perhaps a catalyst for other unorthodox collaborations that followed, including Peso Pluma and El Alfa, Grupo Frontera and Manuel Turizo, and Banda MS and Ice Cube.
“The [Mexican] movement is now taking advantage just as reggaetón did” in the early 2000s, says Sergio Lizárraga, founder of indie label Lizos Music and manager of Banda MS. “But in the end, the root is the same, the themes they address are the same — just sung differently.”
Uriel Waizel, the editorial lead for Mexico at Spotify, compares this wave of success to another genre entirely: Afrobeats. “The biggest lesson regional Mexican music has taught is that the ‘traditional’ format had to make concessions to impact the U.S. and global charts,” Waizel says. “Which is what we saw happen with Rema and Selena Gomez [with “Calm Down”]. It’s a great example of music that becomes more digestible for global audiences.”
He cites recent Latin hits like “Qlona” by Karol G and Peso Pluma and “Harley Quinn” by Fuerza Regida and Marshmello as further proof. “After several iterations that have been happening evolutionarily over the past five years,” he says, “música Mexicana has finally found its way into the global market.”
This story originally appeared in the Dec. 9, 2023, issue of Billboard.
Tega Oghenejobo could see it coming — but didn’t realize just how big it would be.
In March 2022, Nigerian record label Mavin Records and its subsidiary Jonzing World released Rave & Roses, the debut album by budding Nigerian star Rema, who had already achieved success in his home country and was steadily making inroads internationally. The album was well-received, but it was its second single, the bouncy earworm “Calm Down,” that was really making noise. “Its initial growth in Europe, particularly in France, where it dominated the radio charts for months, hinted at its potential,” says Oghenejobo, Mavin’s COO. “Then breaking records in regions like India and the Middle East, becoming the first No. 1 song on the MENA [Middle East and North Africa] charts showcased its global appeal even before it hit the U.S.”
The song began picking up traction on TikTok and across social media, followed by marketing support from Mavin and distributor Virgin Music, all while Rema toured Europe and Africa to help “Calm Down” gain steam. Then, in August 2022, Mavin and Interscope Records released a remix with Selena Gomez, and the song began to catch on stateside, both on streaming services and at radio. It would take another 10 months, but “Calm Down” would ultimately reach No. 3 on the Billboard Hot 100 and No. 1 on the all-genre Radio Songs chart, both history-making feats for a song by an African lead artist.
“The success of ‘Calm Down’ highlighted several crucial lessons: Solid partnerships, a competent team and an artist aligned with the vision are indispensable for global success, while the ability to adapt and capitalize on every opportunity, as well as maintaining momentum, emerged as key strategies,” Oghenejobo says. “And collaborations, exemplified by Rema and Selena Gomez, underscore the potential for unexpected pairings to achieve remarkable results.”
The coronation of “Calm Down” across the charts — it also reached No. 1 on the Global Excl. U.S., Pop Airplay and U.S. Afrobeats charts, ultimately spending 58 weeks atop the lattermost list — didn’t happen in a vacuum. For the past seven years — since Wizkid became the first Nigerian act to reach No. 1 on the Hot 100, as a featured artist on Drake’s 2016 smash “One Dance” — African artists and African music, for which “Afrobeats” serves as a sort of catchall term, have been steadily making headway on the U.S. charts, radio station playlists and arena headlining slots. Wizkid, Burna Boy and Davido have been at the forefront leading the charge, but the past two years have also heralded breakthroughs for a number of younger artists, such as Rema, Tems, Libianca, Asake and Tyla. The Grammys acknowledged that growth by introducing the best African music performance category; the award will be given out for the first time next year.
“For the past 30 to 40 years, American culture influenced the world,” says Tunde Balogun, president of LVRN, which co-manages Davido and Nigerian DJ-producer Spinall. “Now, through Africa and Latin in particular, we’re seeing the world influence American music. We’re seeing the industry’s institutions change, and we’re seeing it on the top 40 radio charts as well as the Hot 100. It’s a really exciting time.”
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Some of that is due to the success of collaborators like Rema and Gomez. For example, “Essence,” Wizkid’s breezy breakout hit with Tems, took off in 2021, then exploded after Justin Bieber hopped on the remix, while Tems herself won a Grammy for a guest feature on Future’s “Wait for U.” And this year, Becky G remixed Libianca’s “People” to reach a broader audience. But it’s also a reflection of a growing appetite for music from beyond the borders of the United States — and labels are following consumer tastes.
“Most labels right now are essentially looking at the world’s music population — they’re no longer just looking at what’s happening in Ohio or Portland or wherever, they’re looking at what is actually being consumed in the world,” says RCA COO John Fleckenstein, whose roster includes Wizkid, Davido, Tems and Libianca. “That, to me, shows that we’re starting to recognize that the whole world is full of fans and artists and those borders are coming down, the economic ones and the political ones. It’s just about fans and artists. Perhaps most excitingly, the stage is already set for a true global superstar to emerge in the genre.”
And that superstar might already be here. For all the excitement around the music itself, there is more groundwork to do for the artists and the business — work that is already well underway. “The numerous wins, valuable lessons learned and opportunities for growth have been incredibly rewarding, and the validation through successful tours, enthusiastic audiences, awards and accolades motivates us to aim higher and work harder,” Oghenejobo says. “With determination and respect for the craft, there’s limitless potential for what African music can accomplish. The future looks incredibly promising.”
This story originally appeared in the Dec. 9, 2023, issue of Billboard.