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R&B set the tone for 2024 as Usher took center stage at the Super Bowl — kicking the genre’s renaissance into full swing. So this year we decided R&B needed its own special celebration. On Sunday night (Sept. 8) in New York, we’re honoring five artists topping the R&B charts, pushing the genre forward and moving the culture.
Entertainer of the Year: Usher
“Good Good” became his sweet 16th No. 1 on the R&B/Hip-Hop Airplay chart, extending his record for the most among all singers.
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Three decades into his career, Usher is still achieving new levels of success — and breaking records. His single “Good Good,” with Summer Walker and 21 Savage, topped the R&B/Hip-Hop Airplay chart last November, giving the superstar his 16th No. 1. In addition to expanding his span of radio No. 1s to 26 years, dating to “You Make Me Wanna” in 1997, it further cemented his reign as the singer with the most leaders in the chart’s 32-year history.
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As Usher reinforced his radio might, he also enjoyed a boost from his My Way residency in Las Vegas. Named after his 1997 breakthrough album, the show became one of the most buzzed-about residencies in town, sparking viral social media moments and celebrity attendees, all to the tune of $95.9 million (through its wrap in December 2023), according to figures reported to Billboard Boxscore.
The crown jewel of Usher’s past year, of course, was headlining the Super Bowl LVIII halftime show in February to a record-shattering 129.3 million viewers, according to Nielsen. The career-spanning energetic set closed with signature hit “Yeah!” Thanks to the record viewership and enduring love for the classic 2004 smash, “Yeah!” rocketed in streams and returned to the Billboard Hot 100 at No. 20 the following week.
Hitmaker: Victoria Monét
Her cross-format smash “On My Mama” was one of only two songs to top the Adult R&B Airplay, Mainstream R&B/Hip-Hop Airplay and R&B/Hip-Hop Airplay charts in the last year.
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While Victoria Monét had been no stranger to hits — putting her pen to work in co-writing chart-toppers such as Ariana Grande’s “Thank U Next” and “7 Rings” — her own performing career skyrocketed in the last year, led by the mighty success of her single “On My Mama.”
The track, which samples Chalie Boy’s 2009 Southern rap staple “I Look Good,” started as a fan-favorite on social media platforms, but found its best results on airwaves. “On My Mama” hit No. 1 on three radio charts — Adult R&B Airplay, Mainstream R&B/Hip-Hop Airplay and R&B/Hip-Hop Airplay — and became only one of two songs in the past year to lead all three lists. Capturing the lattermost crown was perhaps the most impressive feat, as it interrupted a months-long domination for SZA’s “Snooze.” The “On My Mama” appeal expanded to other formats, with strong results on Rhythmic Airplay (No. 2) and Pop Airplay (No. 16).
Industry peers noticed the breakthrough and showered Monét with seven Grammy Award nominations, with a record of the year nod for “On My Mama” in the mix. At the ceremony in February, she converted three nods into wins, including a triumph for best new artist.
Global Force: Tyla
Her global smash “Water” sank the competition on the Billboard U.S. Afrobeats Songs chart, with 44 weeks at No. 1.
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While Tyla first appeared on the Billboard charts in February 2023 with “Been Thinking,” it was her next single, the bouncy, suggestive “Water,” that carried her to chart-topping success and helped expand the richness of African musical tastes to stateside audiences.
Bubbling onto its first Billboard lists in September 2023, “Water” got hotter week after week, shooting to a No. 7 peak on the Hot 100 in early January. Reflecting its blend of genres, the song appealed to various audiences — topping the Mainstream R&B/Hip-Hop Airplay and Rhythmic Airplay charts and reaching No. 6 on Pop Airplay. The track also pushed to No. 17 on the Streaming Songs chart and saved its greatest feat for the Billboard U.S. Afrobeats Songs chart, where it dominated for an astounding 44 weeks. The success story wasn’t lost on Tyla’s music industry peers, who awarded her the inaugural Grammy for best African music performance in February.
The next month, the 22-year-old released her self-titled debut album, which opened at No. 2 on the Top R&B Albums chart. The album’s “Truth or Dare,” “Art” and the Tems-assisted “No. 1” generated attention, while “Jump,” with Gunna and Skillibeng, is now in the top 15 on Mainstream R&B/Hip-Hop Airplay.
Torchbearer: Lucky Daye
The Grammy winner earned his first No. 1 in a lead role on any Billboard chart when “That’s You” topped Adult R&B Airplay.
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July 13 was Lucky Daye’s… well, lucky day, when he checked off a career milestone — his first No. 1 as a lead artist on any Billboard chart as “That’s You” crowned Adult R&B Airplay. The single, which Bruno Mars co-wrote and co-produced, continued Grammy Award winner Daye’s string of radio successes, including the dual-format hit “Over” and collaborations with Alicia Keys and Khalid (“Come for Me [Unlocked]”) and Earth, Wind & Fire (“You Want My Love”).
“That’s You” set the stage for the singer-songwriter’s new album, Algorithm. In addition to its hit lead single, the set’s “HERicane” also leapt onto the Hot R&B Songs chart in June. The next month, Lucky Daye embarked on the Algorithm tour, which wrapped Aug. 28. With fellow R&B rising star Fana Hues as the opening act, the 33-date nationwide trek visited landmark venues, including Nashville’s Ryman Auditorium and New York’s Radio City Music Hall.
Icon: Luther Vandross
The late legend’s first six albums all reached No. 1 on Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums, out of eight total career leaders.
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A master of his craft, Vandross captivated audiences with a velvet, honeyed tone and technical precision that made him one of the most formidable performers to ever step up to a microphone. The connection was instant — debut single “Never Too Much” became an R&B No. 1 in 1981, as did its parent album of the same name. The top spot became a familiar destination, with Vandross’ next five albums also hitting No. 1. In all, the legend counted eight No. 1s on Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums, through 2003’s Grammy-winning Dance With My Father, and seven on Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs, including classics such as “Here and Now” and “Power of Love/Love Power.”
Let’s not forget his other contributions to the canon. The jubilant closing number to The Wiz, “Everybody Rejoice/A Brand New Day”? Vandross wrote it. Aretha Franklin’s Jump to It, a seven-week No. 1 R&B album for the Queen of Soul in 1982? He co-produced it. The full scope of his iconic career will reach audiences with the documentary Luther: Never Too Much, set to air on CNN, OWN and Max in 2025.
A version of this story appears in the Aug. 31, 2024, issue of Billboard.
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 night at Lil Yachty’s house” inspired his mic setup, Teezo says today as he periodically munches on a raw orange carrot that matches the couch he’s lounging on. Teezo and Yachty were marathoning Morrissey music videos, and the way the former Smiths frontman nonchalantly swung a bouquet of flowers in the “This Charming Man” video “really influenced” Teezo — so much so that the avant-garde 31-year-old rapper-meets-rock star eventually made it his own.
He has now whirled that microphone onstage at the country’s biggest arenas and stadiums, thanks to opening gigs for Tyler, The Creator in 2022 (after featuring on Tyler’s “RunItUp”) and Travis Scott in 2023 (after appearing on Scott’s UTOPIA track “Modern Jam”). “Being an opener is so hard,” Teezo admits — but he gained valuable perspective playing for early arrivers interested in the main act.
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“I’m like the doorman welcoming you into Tyler’s crib, Travis’ crib: ‘Can I grab you anything? He’ll be down shortly. But while you here, let me entertain you,’ ” he explains. That attitude has also informed Teezo’s recent guest appearances on tracks by artists including Drake, Doja Cat and Don Toliver — A-list collaborations that launched him onto the Billboard Hot 100 with “Amen,” from Drake’s 2023 album, For All the Dogs, marking Teezo’s highest-charting entry, at No. 15.
“Teezo is your favorite artist’s favorite artist,” says his manager, Amal Noor, who has worked with him since 2019. “He respects these artists’ careers, and to know that they love him creatively is an amazing feeling.”
Jean Paul Gaultier top, Diesel jeans, Athanasiou bracelet.
Ariel Fisher
Teezo Touchdown photographed on July 18, 2024 in Los Angeles. Vintage Jean Paul Gaultier top, Louis Vuitton belt and jeans, Prada shoes.
Ariel Fisher
Following his own first headlining tour last spring, which came on the heels of his 2023 debut album, How Do You Sleep at Night?, Billboard’s 2024 R&B/Hip-Hop Rookie of the Year is still coming to terms with his current level of stardom. “I can still go to Whole Foods and grab my six hard-boiled eggs or go to Paris and walk the streets, and no one bats an eye,” he says. “But on the other end, I’m on the biggest albums in the world, biggest tours.”
Long before he became Teezo Touchdown, the artist born Aaron Lashane Thomas followed in the footsteps of his father, a DJ and avid music collector, and started DJ’ing in the second grade, performing at friends’ parties, weddings and graduations in his hometown of Beaumont, Texas. “Every year, I would get something music-related for Christmas, but in seventh grade, I got this small box. There was a key inside to the studio that my dad had built for me upstairs,” he says. Teezo made his first song ever that day — and he still plays the piano riff at studios he visits “to call back to that kid on Christmas, like, ‘Look where you at right now.’ ”
Tragedy affected his trajectory early on. After his girlfriend was fatally shot in 2016, Teezo channeled his grief into his art, and in February 2019, he dropped the somber single “100 Drums,” which decried gun violence over a sample of Panic! at the Disco’s emo smash “I Write Sins Not Tragedies.” Chance the Rapper and Trippie Redd both noticed, and the latter flew him out to L.A. for the first time the following month. Noor noticed, too: After seeing a clip of the “100 Drums” music video on a meme page, she also reached out to Teezo.
While spending time at his childhood home afterward, Teezo stumbled upon his father’s toolbox. “Punks are usually spiky. My dad had nails around the crib, and I was like, ‘This is going to be my spike,’ ” he says. In March 2020, Teezo asked his best friend to braid the nails into his hair for the first time, for his “Strong Friend” music video. “I think I was meant to find [the nails],” Teezo says, adding that he has comfortably slept with them in his hair multiple times.
Ariel Fisher
His unorthodox image complemented his developing sound, which he now describes as “R&B with the boom of rock.” He didn’t think he could meld those genres until he saw the Afropunk festival’s Instagram post about Black rock band Living Colour and his producers, Brendan Grieve and Hoskins, played him a mashup of Craig David and metalcore band Killswitch Engage.
How Do You Sleep at Night? (released last September on Not Fit for Society/RCA Records) showcases Teezo’s genre-defying talents — from the garage punk-meets-R&B anthem “Too Easy” to the guitar-driven indie-rock jam “Impossible.” It failed to crack the Billboard 200, but Teezo only cares about the numbers for one reason: “I’m so obsessed with numbers because I just want to make my team proud. I’m proud because I’m making music and one person knows who I am.”
Drake called How Do You Sleep at Night? “some of the best music ever” when Teezo played it for him a month early. But ironically, Teezo’s profile expanded even further when Kendrick Lamar name-dropped him in the opening lines of his Hot 100 No. 1 Drake dis track, “Not Like Us” (“Nail a n—a to the cross/He walk around like Teezo”). Having just started his own tour (a “little bubble” filled with “loving fans”) at the time, “I made a decision that I wasn’t going to listen to any of the back-and-forth,” says Teezo, who claims to have somehow avoided listening to the inescapable “Not Like Us” in its entirety. “I’m seeing a mob mentality, and I don’t like division. Sorry I’m so kumbaya, but it’s all love over here.” The simple fact that both Drake and Lamar “know who I am… it’s still one of those moments where you have to pinch yourself. The kid in Beaumont, I’m pretty sure he’s jumping through the roof right now.”
Vintage Jean Paul Gaultier top, Louis Vuitton belt and jeans, Prada shoes.
Ariel Fisher
Vintage Jean Paul Gaultier top.
Ariel Fisher
Come October, Teezo will hit the road again on Don Toliver’s North American arena tour — an opportunity he initially hesitated to take because he wanted to focus on making his next album. But “[Don] was like, ‘Teezy, I’m telling you. If you know you got a tour coming up, it’s going to make you lock in.’ I needed a fire under me, and that was the fire.”
And it’s working: Teezo has already started on his next project. “The word that [we] keep bringing up is ‘undeniable.’ Everything that we’re making, is it undeniable?” he says. “If it’s not, put a red mark on it and let’s move on to the next.”
This story appears in the Aug. 31, 2024, issue of Billboard.
Rachelle Jean-Louis always knew the power of songwriting. As a preteen growing up in New Jersey, “When I finished my homework, I’d be listening to CDs and trying to unpack the albums,” she recalls. “Seeing who wrote and produced the songs, reading the liner notes and lyrics.” She idolized singer-songwriter Keri Hilson, who in the aughts “was writing really cool R&B songs” with collaborators like Timbaland, Kanye West and Lil Wayne.
“I wanted to be a songwriter just like her,” Jean-Louis adds. “Music was everything to me. There was no plan B.”
Jean-Louis, now 34, didn’t become a songwriter herself — but she is now the force behind one of today’s fastest-rising songwriting talents, Victoria Monét. When Monét stepped onstage to accept best new artist at the Grammy Awards earlier this year, she brought Jean-Louis, her manager, with her. “There was a binder that I made to take to this really important meeting at a label,” Monét said in her tearful televised speech. “I was an independent artist with no team, and I just thought, ‘Maybe my music would stand for itself.’ But that binder [was] left collecting dust … Rachelle found that binder, and she decided to take a chance, leave that label and be my manager. Thank you so much for seeing me.”
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“Her pulling me up onstage for best new artist … I honestly didn’t think she was going to do that,” Jean-Louis says. “But I’m really proud of her for everything that she’s accomplished against all odds. It’s a testament not just to her but the whole team.” And it’s for her transformative past year with Monét that Billboard honors Jean-Louis as its 2024 R&B/Hip-Hop Power Players Executive of the Year.
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The label Monét referenced at the Grammys was former RCA imprint Keep Cool, which Jean-Louis joined in 2017 as an A&R executive — one of several industry gigs (including stints as a music supervisor and a journalist) that helped her channel her fervent music fandom into the skills she would need as a savvy, intuitive artist manager and, eventually, CEO. In 2021, Jean-Louis co-founded management firm Tell Your Friends with business partner Austin Thomas; in addition to Monét, the company’s roster includes rising viral sensation Saint Harison.
Born in New York to Haitian immigrants — her father was a family lawyer, her mother a nurse — Jean-Louis says music was always “at the forefront” of her upbringing; her dad played guitar and piano, and she herself played classical piano as a child. While studying communications at the University of North Carolina, Jean-Louis interned at places including XXL magazine. After graduating, she wrote for the blog Earmilk, landed her first management gig — at the request of then-emerging rapper Doley, whom she had previously covered in XXL — and did a PR stint for an artist at Roc Nation. During a visit to Los Angeles, Jean-Louis followed up on an earlier email she had sent to music supervisor Scott Vener (Entourage) about a show he was working on; though it fell through, he invited Jean-Louis to work with him on HBO’s Ballers, which she did for two seasons.
Then, in 2017, Jean-Louis got the call that changed her career. Her friend Tunji Balogun (now chairman/CEO of Def Jam Recordings) was launching Keep Cool, a joint venture with RCA Records, and he wanted her on his team. Once there, with her music supervisor connections, Jean-Louis placed “Little More Time” — a then-unreleased song by Keep Cool/RCA artist Lucky Daye featuring Monét — on HBO’s Insecure in 2018.
After initially meeting Monét at the song’s video shoot, Jean-Louis later found her aforementioned binder during an office cleaning, and the genesis of Monét’s breakthrough began. With Balogun’s blessing, Jean-Louis exited Keep Cool with Monét and became her manager. In the past six years, with Jean-Louis guiding her, Monét has evolved from go-to songwriter (most famously for Ariana Grande, including her Billboard Hot 100 No. 1s “7 Rings” and “Thank U, Next”) and Platoon-distributed indie artist to full-fledged solo star in her own right on RCA, with her 2023 debut album, Jaguar II (and its hit single “On My Mama”), netting three 2024 Grammy wins.
“It’s been a learning curve for sure,” Jean-Louis says. “Especially when you’ve been used to doing everything yourself, fostering your own internal team and creating a business that’s self-sustaining. But it was all the right steps because Victoria needed to be in the same conversations as some of her peers and be recognized in the same way for her talent.”
Munachi Osegbu
What was it about Victoria’s binder that caught your eye and prompted you to leave Keep Cool?
I still have the binder to this day. (Laughs.) It had “Victoria Monét” across the top and, inside it, her short-term and long-term goals, her team at the time and their contact information, press photos: It just showed somebody that actually cared about every aspect of her artistry and wanted to be better. And for me, it also felt like the answer to the frustration I was having in terms of wanting to wrap my arms around an exciting project. A&R was my dream job and I hadn’t signed anyone yet. And I thought, “Here’s an artist with a clear vision. She has talent as a singer-songwriter, with ’70s-influenced music that’s fresh, not dated, and [she’s] a dancer. You just need to give her the room to do it with the right people that are invested.”
As an artist manager, what’s your personal ratio of gut instinct versus research?
For me, it’s like 70/30. Passion leads, then you look at the numbers and use them as a road map to help guide you. But if you’re only focused on the numbers, you’re losing the soul of it. Music is subjective. Something that’s not reacting right now could react in six months, a year or two years. Where’s the fun if you’re just going to read a chart that everybody has access to, right?
Now more than ever, many companies are very focused on numbers, numbers, numbers. However, there’s still something to be said about having a feeling, a gut instinct. And maybe it’s naive, but I like to believe that if you start with that, the data catches up. There are a lot of people that would have looked at Victoria and said, “Ah, her numbers,” and they would have missed out. A lot of people would have looked at Chappell Roan two years ago and said, “The data doesn’t suggest…,” but how wrong would they be? These are really talented artists that make great music. Don’t let data rule every decision that you make.
Whether signed to a major or an independent, why do artists still need managers?
It’s definitely important. That person is your advocate. They are supposed to be with you in every conversation, making sure to represent your interests and also protect you from anything that may not be aligned with your vision and goals. With everything that has changed in today’s climate, with artist development not really being a priority at labels, that honestly really does fall on the artist manager. And not a lot of people do it. Different managers have different strengths, but I think the common denominator is that they’re passionate about who they work with. It’s a partnership, and they also make sure that they’re aligned. They fix anything: If it’s not going to work with a label or a publisher, if that artist doesn’t feel like he or she is being heard or seen, it’s [the manager’s] job to say, “Let me go fix this, let me figure out how to make this better.”
How challenging has it been to receive equal respect as a woman in management and the industry overall?
There is a fine line being a woman, let alone a Black woman. If you challenge somebody, you could be called aggressive or deemed threatening, depending on your approach. On the other side, if you feel too strongly about something, then you’re being emotional. It’s isolating, too, because you really wish that you could call somebody else and say, “Hey, how’s your experience been?” When you look at the executives of major companies, the majority of them are men, right? And while I’ve heard of other female managers — and recently met Lainey Wilson’s manager [Mandelyn Monchick], who’s great — there are definitely a ton of male managers. So this does come with its own struggles of trying to navigate, trying to earn the same respect that may immediately be given to a male.
Despite all of that, I think this year, more than ever, there’s been more respect because of the success [with Monét] that people really can’t take away from us. We’ve earned it, we’ve worked, we’ve gone the long road. So now anytime somebody comes at me with any of that, it’s “Well, I earned my spot here. I didn’t just end up here. I didn’t inherit this spot.”
We have a lot of women on [Monét’s] team. They’re all empathic, very detail-oriented. There’s a strength to it. That’s why I really do wish there were more of us; there’s a huge area for growth in management.
Munachi Osegbu
Did you have any mentors guiding you through your industry journey?
I didn’t have a mentor, unfortunately. In all honesty, a lot of the mentorship that I got was just truly about watching. I would watch documentaries about and interviews with people like David Geffen and Scooter Braun, trying to understand their thinking so I could emulate that. I watched Beyoncé documentaries because I wanted to understand how this woman, who is running her own business, is still having issues with being heard. Those things made me feel seen. I always yearned for a person I could call about what’s going on, knowing that they’ve been there before.
I do have an amazing support system, for sure, in terms of friends and colleagues that I can call. And others have also extended their hands to me more recently, saying, “Hey, if there’s anything you need or any questions that you have, [reach out].”
Right now, what do you see as the biggest issue facing R&B and hip-hop?
The lack of resources that are allotted to R&B and hip-hop, based on the resources that are given to pop, are very different. I would also say the obsession with data. R&B is a slow-growing but also long-lasting genre. R&B fans are die-hard fans. So when they’re with you, they’re with you for life. It’s not always the same across other genres.
There’s a disconnect when it comes to recognizing R&B as a popular genre. However, R&B is pop. It’s so interesting to me when you think about the music that we grew up on, like Motown — that was pop music. The big ballads of Whitney Houston — that wasn’t R&B music? Somewhere along the way, we’ve become so obsessed with immediacy, like, “What’s the big TikTok song right now?” But what about the long road of these artists in building legacy? That’s the disconnect. R&B is a legacy genre with songs about everything that will stand the test of time. It’s both influential and timeless.
What advice do you have for others aspiring to music industry careers?
I’ve never told this story before, but I needed to figure out how to self-sustain and pay for things like internships in New York and other opportunities that my parents didn’t feel would lead to a real job. So for four years through college, beginning the first summer out of high school, I started working for Cutco. I became one of the top three reps in our district at the knife company; they actually made me a manager. (Laughs.) That was also my first time getting comfortable with the word “no.” Whenever people ask me for advice, I tell them you can’t be afraid of that word. You just have to find a different route to get to what you really want to do. You just need to put up enough shots, and hopefully one of them will go in. So I wasn’t afraid of cold-calling, cold-emailing. It was just what I had to do. Even now when choosing a rollout strategy, songs or any of that, if I really believe in something, I want to fight for it. And the same thing goes for artists.
After the tremendous success you have achieved thus far, how do you define power?
Having unwavering, unapologetic faith in your gut and your vision — and then moving on that.
This story appears in the Aug. 31, 2024, issue of Billboard.
For the second year, Billboard is presenting the peer-voted R&B/Hip-Hop Power Players’ Choice Award, an accolade chosen by Billboard Pro members to honor the executive they believe has made the greatest impact across the hip-hop and R&B music business over the past year. After three rounds of voting, Billboard Pro members have chosen WME partner […]
It’s the first night of July’s Broccoli City Festival in Washington, D.C., and actor-writer-producer Issa Rae has some exciting news to share with the 30,000 fans in attendance: She’s releasing her first rap album. Although moments later she clarifies that it was a joke, the Hollywood polymath reveals what might deter her if she was really angling to become music’s top female rapper. “Megan Thee Stallion has bars and body,” Rae says as she introduces Megan’s headlining set. “She’s actually intimidating. I can’t look into her eyes for too long.”
It’s easy to see why Megan Thee Stallion would give anyone pause. Standing at 5 foot 10 inches, she’s bold, bright and bodacious — an awe-inspiring trifecta. When I meet Megan at D.C.’s Four Seasons Hotel the next morning, her larger-than-life persona is in full force: Clutching a Louis Vuitton Murakami bag, she walks into the plush hotel suite with model-like precision as if it were her personal runway. But her imposing aura quickly melts away to reveal her signature wit. When we last spoke two years ago, Megan gave me a hard time when she learned I’d never had Flamin’ Hot Cheetos — and neither of us has forgotten it. “So, you really never tried Hot Cheetos?” she asks before giving me a quizzical look. “What kind of childhood did you have?”
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In 2020, Megan’s two Billboard Hot 100 No. 1s — her “Savage (Remix),” featuring Beyoncé, and her Cardi B collaboration, “WAP” — helped her become one of pop culture’s biggest names, and her three Grammy Award wins in early 2021 cemented her critical bona fides. Since then, she’s been omnipresent, becoming one of just 40 artists to pull double duty as both host and musical guest on Saturday Night Live (and on Sept. 11 she will host the MTV Video Music Awards), guest-starring in the Disney+ Marvel series She-Hulk and later appearing in 2022’s campy Dicks: The Musical as well as 2024’s big-budget musical remake of Mean Girls. She expanded beyond entertainment through savvy brand partnerships with Nike (her sneaker collection The Hot Girl Systems) and Popeyes (her signature Hottie sauce), and she even has her own tequila coming, Chicas Divertidas, which was inspired by a conversation with Beyoncé. “ ‘You better have your own s–t,’ ” Megan quips, imitating her fellow Houstonian. “You better know the next time she saw me, I said, ‘Hey, Beyoncé. Look what I got.’
“I’m proud of all my business deals because everything I do is personal to me,” she continues. “I put 100% into my partnerships, and I’m always so grateful when people want to step into my world. When I see a brand I f–k with and they want to come into the Hot Girl World, I’m like, ‘Thank you, this makes sense. I love that you’re recognizing me as much as I was already recognizing you.’ ” She’s stepping into worlds outside her immediate orbit, too: In July, Megan performed at Vice President Kamala Harris’ presidential campaign rally in Atlanta, using her Hot 100 top 20 hit “Body” as a vehicle to speak up for reproductive rights.
But while the 29-year-old enjoys wearing multiple hats — college graduate, philanthropist, actress, mogul — she’s always happiest when she’s rapping, and her extra-musical pursuits have made her a wiser businesswoman as she pursues her passion. Following a yearslong legal dispute, Megan and her label, 1501 Certified Entertainment, amicably parted ways in 2023, making her an independent artist. In February, she partnered with Warner Music Group for distribution, gaining complete ownership of her masters and publishing — an unprecedented move for a female rapper. Her third album, Megan, is her first under this new arrangement.
Released in June, Megan debuted at No. 3 on the Billboard 200 with 64,000 equivalent album units in the United States, according to Luminate, making it the biggest debut for any rap album released by a woman in 2024. Megan also topped Billboard’s Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums chart for the second time in her career — the sixth female rapper to do so.
On Megan, the Houston MC’s world of bruising Southern rap and rump-shaking anthems is alive and well, as is her deep and abiding love for Japanese culture. “Otaku Hot Girl” samples the popular anime series Jujutsu Kaisen, while she performs alongside Japanese rapper Yuki Chiba on “Mamushi.” After the latter track broke out on TikTok — bolstered by Megan creating and demonstrating the song’s dance in a Sailor Moon-inspired outfit — she shot its video in her second home: Japan.
“When I’m out there, I always feel happy,” she says with a smile. “The air is clear, the people are polite, the food is good. The culture is so interesting to me. I learn something every time I go out there. I learn a little bit of Japanese every time I go. The shopping is good. It just feels super positive every time I’m there. I really like being there because I’m big on energy. As soon as I touch down, I always feel like I can take a breath. Everybody good.”
House of JMC dress, Anabela Chan earrings.
Ramona Rosales
On Megan, the Houston Hottie lives up to her nickname, returning to her hometown roots — including her pairing with hip-hop duo UGK on album standout “Paper Together.” Megan grew up a fan of UGK’s Chad “Pimp C” Butler and received a gift from his widow, Chinara Butler, during the recording process: unreleased vocals by the late legend that she sent Megan to use. “From the first time I met Meg, I knew she was meant to work with Chad,” Butler tells Billboard. “She’s an extremely talented MC, and I’ve always appreciated her genuine love for my husband’s music. She’s helped introduce Chad to a new generation of hip-hop fans.”
Though Megan can be an aggressive rhymer, she knows how to calm things down and keep it sexy, too — like on the Magic City-ready anthem “Spin,” featuring Victoria Monét. “She’s a very confident and strong woman,” Monét says. “Megan knows exactly who she is. She doesn’t let people push her off her dot. There’s a lot of respect there. Also, she makes great music that brings people together and makes them dance. You want to watch her shake something and learn to shake something because of her. She’s inspiring.”
But at her core, Megan is still an MC — and like a coiled snake, this fierce iteration of her strikes on album opener “Hiss,” released in January. Aimed at collaborator-turned-detractor Nicki Minaj, “Hiss” ignited the year of competitive rap — in which Kendrick Lamar and Drake have also feuded, as well as Latto and Ice Spice — as Megan delivered a searing diatribe at Minaj, following the Pink Friday star’s slights against her on 2023’s “FTCU,” when Minaj rapped: “Stay in your Tory Lanez, bitch, I’m not Iggy,” referencing the rapper found guilty of shooting Megan in 2020 who was sentenced to 10 years in 2023. A year later, Megan lashed back: “These hoes don’t be mad at Megan, these hoes mad at Megan’s Law,” she raps on “Hiss,” referring to the federal law mandating that law enforcement make information about registered sex offenders public. (Minaj’s husband, Kenneth Petty, is a registered sex offender who was convicted of rape in 1995 for assaulting a 16-year-old.) The song debuted at No. 1 on the Hot 100 — Megan’s third chart-topper on the list.
“I’m going to keep doing what I’m doing,” Megan says. “If people feel like I’m somebody to aim at, then I must be pretty high up if you’re reaching up at me. I must be some kind of competition. That makes me feel good. That makes me feel like I could rap because if I wasn’t the s–t, y’all wouldn’t be worried about me.”
Though Megan relishes competitive battles, she prefers championing her peers. Following the success of her first-ever headlining tour, this year’s Hot Girl Summer, she reconnected with the run’s opener and her new bestie, GloRilla, on “Accent.” Earlier this year, she’d scored a top 15 Hot 100 song with Glo’s “Wanna Be,” and the sold-out arena tour created a rock-solid bond between the female MCs that sharpened their studio chemistry; now, they want to release a joint project together.
“Megan is a real rapper, and I’m also a real rapper,” GloRilla says. “We actually be talking and coming with bars on some down South gangsta s–t. [It would be] some down South, real turnt, real rap [s–t].” (“I think that would be very fire,” Megan says. “I ain’t gon’ say too much, but it feels like it’s going to get done.”)
While being the face of female rap may sound enticing, it doesn’t move Megan, who, during her three-month tour, happily shared the spotlight with not only GloRilla but also Cardi B and Latto, who made guest appearances at the tour’s New York and Atlanta stops, respectively.
“I got a lot of people trying to critique me and tell me what I am and what I’m not. I feel like I’ve proved myself over and over again,” she says. “If there’s a question if Megan Thee Stallion can’t rap, you need to go ahead and quit asking that question. We know I could rap.”
Ramona Rosales
You began your career playing the Texas circuit and now you’re an arena-caliber superstar. How did your beginnings prepare you for this?
It definitely taught me how to be the performer that I am. It made me understand, “OK, all you got to do is get out here and have fun.” So every time I get onstage, I’m not thinking too hard. I’m thinking like, “I’m partying with my people.” Going around my home state definitely set me up to be prepared to be comfortable with people everywhere else.
Because of the pandemic, Hot Girl Summer was the first time you hit the road since 2019. Was the extended layoff a blessing in disguise?
It wasn’t a blessing in disguise — it was a blessing outright. I was so happy to see that so many people came out and sold out a bunch of these dates. People were genuinely excited to see me, genuinely excited to see [GloRilla]. You had people like, “Oh, we don’t know if she can [sell out arenas].” Bitch, it ain’t no question about it now.
Take me back to your concert at Madison Square Garden, where you, Cardi B and GloRilla shared that stage. It was a powerful moment.
It was a little East Coast-Southern sandwich we had going on. I was very happy. I genuinely love Cardi. I genuinely love Glo. In the industry, you really don’t meet a lot of girls who want to see you be successful. You meet people, and I’m not just going to say girls, but you don’t meet a lot of artists that want you to have success because they’re scared sometimes it’s going to take away from their success. Music is competition, rap is a competition, but those two ladies, I feel like we all like to see each other do good things. We like to see each other win. Sharing the stage with people that want to see you do good and you want to see them do good, it felt very uplifting. I felt like we were feeding off each other. I felt like we helped each other. Being onstage with them made me feel good because I knew we were proud of each other.
In 2022, I spoke to Q-Tip about you, and he said, “People still haven’t even seen her full artistry yet.” Is Megan the peak of that artistry?
I still feel like I have more to give. With this album, I wanted to show people my personal interests and thoughts. I wanted to touch on my love for all things anime, all things Southern, how much I like to have fun, and I wanted to be myself. I feel like I did that. A lot of people were expecting me to come on this album talking one way and I wanted to introduce myself — this version of myself that I am right now. Sometimes, people listen to me with ears of “I don’t like her, so I don’t want to like it.” The more people sit with the album, the more and more they’re like, “OK, you know what? This s–t is banging.”
Ramona Rosales
On “BOA,” there’s a bar where you say: “Y’all do this s–t for TikTok/Bitch I’m really hip-hop.”
Nothing wrong with TikTok. TikTok is fun. It’s for people to get on there and have fun. Show me what you’re eating, show me how you’re dancing, show me what you’re doing. I feel like TikTok is happy.
I say that because you’re one of the biggest stars in the world. How do you still maintain that hip-hop essence?
Because I really like to rap. Where I come from, people are really freestyling. What I come from is hardcore rap, Southern rap. The one thing in my life that I knew I was really good at was rapping. I don’t ever want to get away from that. I don’t ever want to play with it. I don’t ever want people to think I don’t take it seriously. I’ll be the rapper that is good for a bunch of verses and freestyles because that’s what I like to do.
Your mother, Holly-Wood, was a rapper. What did you learn from her, skillwise?
Just that attitude. My mama was so feisty. She had a lot of aggression in her rap voice, and because in her nature she was naturally an aggressive woman, she sold it. I feel like the main thing for me is always selling it. Making sure who I am comes through in my voice when I’m rapping. You’re not going to believe what I’m saying if I don’t deliver it strong. My delivery lets people know that I’m strong.
What was it like when you received Pimp C’s verse, which you used on “Paper Together,” while in the studio with your producer, LilJuMadeDaBeat?
We both cried. Like, “Oh, my God. I can’t believe we got this verse.” I love Pimp and Ju love Pimp, and we share that same love of Southern rap. Pimp C made me feel so gangster, he made me feel so cool. To have my voice on a song with my favorite rapper ever, an unreleased verse? Motherf–kers ain’t walking around with Pimp C verses. And I got blessed with one.
I heard you’re sitting on more unreleased Pimp C verses.
I mean, we might [have] some more stuff. It’s more stuff in the chamber, but I want to keep Pimp C alive. Not saying it’s not alive; [his wife] Chinara keeping it alive, his children keeping it alive, people in Texas keeping it alive. I really want people to know who the f–k Pimp C is. As much as I get to put his voice on wax, I will.
House of JMC corset, Jimmy Choo shoes, Anabela Chan earrings.
Ramona Rosales
You’ve said that your relationship with Warner Music Group is based on trust. How has the label proved its trustworthiness?
They ain’t told me “no” yet. They did exactly what they said they was gon’ do. Everybody that I work with there, we’re on calls together all the time talking about how we feel like we could make the partnership better. Everybody’s been so cool, and they’re so easy to work with. Everybody’s been super nice, and I like nice people. They’re just nice at Warner.
Very few artists can say they got their masters before they turned 30. Why was that a priority for you?
I’ve been fighting for my freedom my whole rap career. I just couldn’t take no for an answer. I don’t ever want to be in a situation where somebody got their foot on my neck ever again. You got to do things to make yourself be your own boss.
How has it been navigating that road as an independent artist?
Being independent is hard. When you got a label that does everything for you, all you got to do is wake up and be the celebrity. That’s a very easy life. I have to do s–t other people aren’t doing. I do work as my own label. I do fund a lot of my own things. There’s a lot of things I’m still learning as I go. The s–t is not just handed to me in my lap — I really got to go figure out, “OK, now I’m doing it by myself.” Not that I’m doing it only by myself, but I’m in a position to be my own boss, so I got to figure out how to be the boss and how to be the employee. It’s tough, but I like figuring it out. I like doing things on my own. I like working. I’m not going to stop. The more I know, the better I’ll get.
You’ve been so open about your love for Japanese culture, especially anime. As a Black creative, how influential has it been on you?
I really like the storytelling in anime. The thing that resonates with me while watching a lot of the anime I like is watching the character development — seeing the character go from nothing to everything. When I feel like I’m getting beat up in life, I remember some of my favorite characters. I see that they had to go from literally zero and getting their ass whooped in their training. Even when they start popping and getting their muscles — because you know they be skinny as hell, then they start getting a little ripped — even when you start seeing the character getting a little swole, you like, “All right, he’s going to defeat all you motherf–kers. It’s over with.” Then he still getting his ass whooped and it’s like, “Man, I feel bad for my boy.”
Even after getting his ass whooped, because you got to fall down a few times, the character doesn’t ever get discouraged. They always like, “All right, I may have got my ass whooped but Imma get back up, and watch how I come back 20 times stronger.” I resonate with that. No matter how many times I get knocked down, I never feel like, “F–k it, Imma quit.” I just need to get better. I need to get back, try again, train harder and go harder so I can keep evolving into my best self.
When you did “Pressurelicious” with Future in 2022, you paid him $250,000 for a verse and said you treat your features like a business. Why, and how?
When you cool with somebody, you should support their business. You shouldn’t ask them to do nothing for free because you cool with them. I feel like that’s a lot of people’s problem with their homies. Just because your homie got a clothing line, that don’t mean he got to give you clothes for free — like, support your friend. Don’t expect anyone to give you something just because we cool. That’s how I treat my artist friends. I’m not asking you to do nothing for free. I wouldn’t come in your house and take all your food out your house and I invite you to my house and it’s like, “Oh, what?” Just as much as I give, I can receive. I just feel like it’s a back-and-forth thing. I just want them to know I really respect what they do. I go all out for myself. I splurge on myself, I love myself, I love what I do, and I want everything to look right. I want everything to be right. I feel like you’re going to take me seriously once I let you know: This is not a favor; I’m asking for this.
Natalia Fedner dress, Alexis Bittar earrings, XIV Karats rings.
Ramona Rosales
I think you started this competitive rap energy we’ve seen in 2024 when you released “Hiss.” Do you feel you’re the reason MCs are rapping competitively again?
I would like to think that I start things. I don’t know; I just knew what I had to do and what I had to say. If it opened up the door for everyone else to get s–t off their chest, well, I’m glad.
You took shots at Nicki Minaj. Is there a chance for a reconciliation or even another collaboration one day?
I still to this day don’t know what the problem is. I don’t even know what could be reconciled because I, to this day, don’t know what the problem is.
Does being the face of female rap for the next 10 years drive you? Is that something that you want?
I just want to rap. I want to be Megan Thee Stallion. I want to rap for as long as I can.
After he made some inappropriate comments about you last November, Shannon Sharpe apologized. Do you feel you’ve been getting more support from Black men over the last few years, or is that something you’re still looking for more of?
At this point in life, I really don’t care. Maybe if you would’ve asked me this last year or two years ago, I would’ve wished I had more Black people in general in my corner. It would’ve felt nice to be protected by some Black men in this instance, but the more I wasn’t getting it, the more and more I realized I wasn’t going to get it. Who should feel safe and important at the end of the day is me, and I was going to have to make myself feel that way. I wasn’t going to find it in people I don’t know at all. Now I don’t care. As long as I make myself feel happy, then that’s what matters to me.
I’ve seen a lot of Black men rapping your lyrics at your shows. That must be a dope feeling.
Because we actually are going the hardest right now. The women are killing it right now. We are the hardest MCs right now. We going harder than the boys, for sure.
Ramona Rosales
How do you maintain personal peace while living a good chunk of your life as Megan Thee Stallion?
I feel like Megan and Megan Thee Stallion are the same person. When I’m Megan Thee Stallion, I’m having to wear armor. I definitely got to go onstage and get in that mode, but I’m still the same person. Just when I’m not in public, I can really decompress and slouch, and I could watch anime all I want. I can play with my puppies, I can talk on the phone with my cousin, I could be with my best friends in peace. I don’t have to worry about being too strong. I could just be me.
You’ve been extremely vulnerable on songs like “Cobra” and “Moody Girl.” How therapeutic were those to make?
It felt really good to make them because it used to be hard for me to be vulnerable on songs. I could be upset and make a song like “Freak Nasty.” [I’ll be] pissed and I’ll go make that. I’ll be sad and make something like “Body.” I’ve always wanted to open up and not make it too preachy or too sad. I still want to ride the beat. Now I’m getting in a space where I can figure out how to express myself over beats that still allow me to be hard. It’s tough, but I use it like a diary now. I really do it because I know there are other Hotties that like to listen to those songs, and they resonate with the lyrics. I feel like it makes them understand, “OK, this my girl and she might appear to be Superwoman, but she going through it just like me.” I don’t want everyone to think I’m a goddamn robot, because I’m not a robot. I want them to know it’s OK to be human, to feel anxiety, depression and to feel low. You’re not going to feel like that all the time.
How inspiring is it for you to see Kamala Harris running for president, especially as a young Black woman?
To be alive in a lifetime where a Black woman or a woman at all could be the president, I feel so blessed. This is what the future is about. We really about to get a strong, Black female in there. I feel like America needed a woman to come in here and put a woman’s touch on it. It’s been going a little crazy lately, and we need somebody to put their foot down. I feel like Kamala, she gon’ do that.
I never thought we’d be in a situation where we could have two Black presidents…
Yeah, in the same lifetime. We are really doing the damn thing. I’m proud of us. Now we just got to get out there and go vote. I don’t like it when I see people saying, “I’m not voting. F–k it.” What the f–k are you talking about? You’re going to complain about what you don’t like but you’re not going to help the cause? I think that’s very irresponsible because if you don’t like what Trump has going on, why even aid in him being the president again?
You’ve said this is your “selfish era.” Do you feel like you’ve been able to reclaim some of your power?
Yeah. I used to really care how I made a lot of people feel before how I made myself feel, before how they made me feel. Somebody could make me feel like complete s–t, but I still never wanted to do anything to make anybody else feel like s–t. I still don’t want to make people feel like s–t. At least now I know, “Let me put up my boundary.” As soon as you make me feel a way that I don’t like, I just don’t want to deal with you anymore. You don’t got to fight evil with evil, but I don’t have to deal with this at all. I don’t have to do things to make other people smile. What am I going to do to make me smile? What you going to do to make me smile? Everything was about making other people smile and other people happy. Now I’m in a space where I want to be happy. I’m not going to take away [from] being happy so I can put other people’s life and happiness as a priority over mine.
This story appears in the Aug. 31, 2024, issue of Billboard.
“The way this song was born is probably contrary to what everyone thinks,” Muni Long says with a laugh of her R&B hit “Made for Me.” That’s because the compassionate ballad — which arrived in 2023 before catching fire on TikTok, followed by a Mariah Carey remix this year — was inspired by a different kind of love story.
As Muni Long recalls, it was November 2022 and she had given birth to her son two months prior (all of which she kept private until this August, when she performed with him on her hip during her opening set touring with Chris Brown). She says she was “getting the itch to write,” so she had a studio put in her house. One day, the Grammy Award winner began listening again to a piano chord progression she had sent a while back to her friend, producer Jordan XL. “I just started literally doing what the song says,” Muni Long adds, “looking around this room, seeing baby toys. And I write this song about my baby because he’s right next door.”
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Still not satisfied with the track after performing it live a couple of times, Muni Long questioned what was missing — “Does it need drums?” she wondered. At her A&R executive’s suggestion, she booked a session with producers Jermaine Dupri and Bryan-Michael Cox. While working on other songs with the pair, she played the track she had become obsessed with. “They were polite, but nobody had a crazy reaction,” she recalls. Two weeks later, they sent her a new version — complete with drums.
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Yet Muni Long was still unsure: “ ‘Maybe it is just a piano vocal,’ ” she thought. “I toyed with it for a couple of months, asking others, ‘Is this good? Am I tripping?’ Then Tunji [Balogun, Def Jam Recordings chairman/CEO] said, ‘This is the song we’re going with.’ I’m like, ‘If you’re willing to stand behind this, then do it.’ ”
In January, the catchy track with its emotional chorus gained traction on TikTok thanks to a challenge tied to a lyric: “Twin, where have you been?” The boost helped “Made for Me” hit a No. 8 peak on Billboard’s Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart and No. 20 on the Hot 100 in March. In May, Muni Long sustained momentum with her Carey remix. And now, her hot streak continues with “Make Me Forget,” her first No. 1 on Adult R&B Airplay. Both hits appear on her newly released second album, Revenge.
This story appears in the Aug. 31, 2024, issue of Billboard.
With 90 minutes to go before he takes the stage at Lyrical Lemonade’s Summer Smash festival, Playboi Carti is already involved in a performance — just outside of his trailer.
Sprayed on the trailer’s side in red graffiti art is the word “OPIUM,” the name of Carti’s creative agency and partnership with Interscope Records, along with an eye that looks like something an eighth grader might say is an Illuminati symbol; the trailer’s window, in a massive font, bears the number “666.” Carti’s trailer is stuck between several others, plus the big SUV that transported the 28-year-old rapper from his hotel to the Chicago-area festival. An entourage of about a dozen people — including rising artists and Opium signees Ken Carson and Destroy Lonely — swarms around him. Marijuana smoke hangs over the area, a smell so perfectly foul that it reminds you why one of the drug’s nicknames is “loud.” At one point, members of the entourage light something on fire with what looks to be a butane torch, cackling like hyenas.
Jagger Harvey custom leather sling and Pelle Pelle pants, in collaboration with Rose Marie Johansen; Arena Embroidery custom hat, in collaboration with Rose Marie Johansen and Dawid Dinh; VAIN tank top and leather gloves.
Matthew Salacuse
If you’re going to get to know Carti, you might as well start here, as he prepares to do the thing he currently does better than any rapper on earth: perform. Though his albums are rapturously jolting — and wildly popular — Carti is most in his element onstage, and right now, the vibe is something like a pregame warmup meets secret society gathering. His entourage embodies the punk attitude that Carti celebrates in his aesthetics, music and concerts. It’s a diverse crew, from heavily pierced Nyree Morrison, a skater and artist known for reworking shoes and clothing with spikes, jewels and all manner of scribblings; to Carti’s barber, wearing a chain with a barbershop pole on it that Carti gifted him; to a white kid with hair fashioned into giant black-and-white spikes who looks like a Degrassi extra (and is actually skater-model Burberry Erry); to Carti’s manager and Opium COO, Erin Larsen, a white woman whom the rapper affectionately calls “Mom.” Soon, Lyrical Lemonade founder Cole Bennett shows up with the rapper BabyTron. The gang’s all here to watch hip-hop’s most innovative artist of the 2020s headline Summer Smash for the third straight year. “Every year, he is the one person that people really look forward to,” Bennett says. “It’s tradition at this point.”
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In the seven years since Carti burst into the public eye with his self-titled 2017 mixtape — now platinum-certified — his music has developed from the trembling trap that he took from Atlanta forebears like Future into the peerless rage he debuted on his most recent album, 2020’s Whole Lotta Red. Behind the leaks, the album delays and the general secrecy surrounding his existence is an undeniable talent — someone whose voice could make a retirement community resident perk up in an instant. Performing live is a key part of his artistic package and how he delights fans — he and Larsen, a former CAA agent, first paired up after she saw him pop out at a Brooklyn show around 2015 and sought to meet him backstage — not to mention how he winks at his biggest skeptics as they realize they can’t deny his volcanic presence.
His talent has also propelled him on the charts, where Carti has been a force for nearly a decade. Since his first Billboard Hot 100 top 40 hit, 2017’s breakout single “Magnolia,” he has scored four top 10s on the chart (all as a featured artist), including this year on Ye and Ty Dolla $ign’s “Carnival” and Future and Metro Boomin’s “Type S–t,” which peaked at Nos. 1 and 2, respectively. Whole Lotta Red, released on Christmas Day in 2020, debuted and peaked at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 in January 2021 and has spent 147 total weeks on the chart. Carti isn’t just culturally significant — he’s one of the most commercially successful hip-hop artists of the last decade.
VAIN full outfit, custom embroidered durag.
Matthew Salacuse
In person today, without the prosthetics or startling makeup he often wears on his face, he’s surprisingly good-looking — classically handsome and tall, with a jawline that would make a TikTok girlie swoon. Wearing the ensemble he has chosen for his Summer Smash set, he could pass for a runway-bound Rick Owens model. Several chains wrap around his neck, some seemingly crosses — startling for a man who, at times, calls himself a vampire. He’s draped in a Pelle Pelle leather jacket with a strap attached that hangs so far down his body it’s almost like a kilt. This is fashion as war paint — one way Carti makes himself seem larger than life.
If success was merely about an artist’s ability to perform, Carti would be as famous as Axl Rose or Jimmy Page. Lights — and sometimes, actual fire — blaze around him onstage. His sets disseminate an entire worldview through sound and atmosphere: Carti knows that fans see him as a hero, as someone who can help them exorcise their demons simply by moving around the stage with gusto, screaming lyrics that could function as cryptic Instagram DMs with his serrated vocals. “We want to continue championing him as a festival headliner,” says Ryan Thomson, his booking agent at CAA. “If we can achieve that success, and also do arena tour shows, we are in a good position in perpetuity.”
Outside of his guest performance with Travis Scott on the 2024 Grammy Awards stage in February, Summer Smash marks the first time Carti has performed all year, but if he’s nervous, he’s not showing it. For Carti, who started truly focusing on hip-hop when his high school basketball coach kicked him off the team, this never gets old. “I want to make the people feel like they don’t know what is about to happen,” Carti tells me after the show once he has come down from his intense set. “I get ready for a show like a boxer gets ready for a match.”
Matthew Salacuse
Like many rap superstars of the recent past, Playboi Carti — born Jordan Terrell Carter, his last name inspired his stage name — hails from Atlanta. Though he moved to New York shortly before making his first commercial mixtape, 2017’s Playboi Carti (following a few he had made under the name Sir Cartier), it’s still home to him, and he wears his pride for the city of fearless creativity — the place with a hip-hop lineage including OutKast, Gucci Mane, Young Thug and, now, Carti himself — like a badge of honor.
Just nine years ago, the king of rage rap was working at H&M. But when Carti moved to New York in 2015, it catapulted his career. After meeting A$AP Bari, Carti began rolling with the Harlem rap collective A$AP Mob — and especially its leader, A$AP Rocky. In Carti, A$AP Mob saw an ambitious, talented kid, and it helped him navigate the city and make connections; through Rocky, Carti met rapper Maxo Kream, producer Harry Fraud and more. For fashion guys who could rap at the time, Rocky was the biggest blueprint, and he mentored Carti, signing him by 2016 to his AWGE creative collective.
Even then, Carti’s music was distinctive. He took a more minimal approach than peers like Lil Uzi Vert and Young Thug, relaxing listeners with cloudy, euphoric production. Take “Location,” which opens his 2017 mixtape: Produced by Fraud, the song revolves around a beat that sounds like a lost Lil B file, with Carti’s spacey vocals drifting above it. “He had told me that he was a big fan of Curren$y,” Fraud says. “We were messing around and we started to knock them [songs] out.”
VAIN full outfit, custom embroidered durag.
Matthew Salacuse
Having recorded on his own for a few years, Carti was remarkably confident in the studio from the jump. He knew how to create soundscapes for songs, and as he spent more time with the A$AP crew, his intuitiveness and discipline in the studio made his records highly cohesive. But Carti’s also a perfectionist, and his frequent collaborator Cardo — who produced the December 2023 loosie “H00DBYAIR” — says he gets threats from impatient fans because the rapper’s releases can take a while. “It’s cool, but they got to stop threatening me,” Cardo jokes. “He’s putting it together! He isn’t rushing it.” That ability to take his time creatively and keep new music under wraps — even Fritz Owens, Carti’s mixing engineer, purposefully stays mysterious, Cardo says — is another way Carti cultivates his mythos and ensures it grows as big as the crowds he performs for.
Fraud says that when he started working with Carti, he knew that the young artist was on the cusp of greatness. “I could feel it,” Fraud recalls. “This kid is going to turn the corner; he has the personality. He is not the loudest guy in the room but he has a certain energy about him.” Carti knows what he wants to do when recording, and his catalog is proof. Released in 2018, his debut album, Die Lit, largely produced by Pi’erre Bourne, turned up the volume from his self-titled mixtape a few notches and became a smash, debuting and peaking at No. 2 on the Billboard 200. According to Carti, they spent time in Miami while recording it, performing throughout the city, and the energy of those shows bled into the album. “I’m always thinking about performing, even when I am making the music,” he says.
It all built toward Whole Lotta Red — the album Carti had been waiting to make his entire career and, so far at least, his masterpiece. He still has more boundaries to push, more biting vocals to spit, but that swaggering, urgent album — some of the crudest, most raging rap music since Yeezus — forced Carti’s peers back into the laboratory, like any real masterpiece does. Production played a huge role in that: The guttural beats from F1lthy (who has also worked with Lil Yachty and Yeat) were engrossing. “It’s all based on confidence. I believe in myself,” Carti tells me. “The moment I started recording, someone came to me and said that they like my songs. I stay in the studio every day.”
Friends love to tell stories about Carti’s infamous nightly sessions — and by the time he was crafting Whole Lotta Red, Carti had fully bloomed into a studio madman with a rigorous process, somewhere between George Martin and Ye. Cardo remembers one time they pulled a recording all-nighter; he finally crashed around 6 a.m. — and only got two hours of sleep before Carti woke him up and exclaimed, “You ready, twin?” “I was up for a whole damn near 48 hours with Carti — straight up working,” Cardo gleefully recalls today. Carti sometimes calls himself a vampire and plays with the aesthetics of being one, and the description isn’t entirely off base. “Vamp Anthem” might be a song on Whole Lotta Red, but it’s also a way of life — music has consumed Carti.
Matthew Salacuse
That’s why the leaks of Whole Lotta Red bothered him so much. When music from the project prematurely hit SoundCloud and YouTube, Carti tinkered with the album, delaying its official release. (Leaked tracks from the sessions still litter YouTube.) Sure, Carti loses money when his music leaks, but the creative loss bothers him more: Fans hear something that’s not the exact product he wanted to put out, and he has to come up with new songs. “He’s giving people his absolute best, things that he wants to put his stamp on,” Larsen says. “It delays the process. You don’t want to see the Mona Lisa in an art museum before it is a finished piece of work.” Carti seems exhausted by this, and the broader rabidness of his fan base that it demonstrates. Last year, fans managed to send flowers directly to his mother’s house (presumably to thank her for birthing him); when they found out where his own place was, he had to move. “I’m very blessed,” Carti says. “But it is frustrating because [that’s where] we have to lay our heads.”
Now in the midst of making his third studio album, I Am Music (planned for release by year’s end), Carti is still the workaholic who made Whole Lotta Red, and the sessions for the project, at Carti’s Means Street studio in Atlanta, have been predictably long and meticulous. Carti’s style is in constant evolution, and he and Cardo already have a name for the sound they’ve been workshopping for the project: “burnt music.” “We’ll be in the studio, like, ‘This music is burnt,’ ” explains Cardo, describing the sonics of DJ Toomp, DJ Paul, Juicy J, The Legendary Traxster and even the aesthetic of John Carpenter’s movies as influences. When they first started working together four years ago, Cardo wasn’t sure what style of beats Carti would want — whether he would be on the disorienting F1lthy wave or his pugnacious trap Pi’erre Bourne wave. They ended up building their creative relationship off “H00DBYAIR,” which was originally intended for release on the 2021 Candyman soundtrack. (Carti ended up releasing it as a single in late 2023.)
But even as he has earned praise — and become a genre figurehead — for his work in the studio and onstage, Carti has made headlines for other, less admirable reasons. In 2017, he was arrested for domestic battery after grabbing a woman’s backpack and forcing her into an Uber. In December 2022, his then-pregnant girlfriend, Brandi Marion, told police that, amid an argument about a paternity test, Carti had physically attacked and choked her; when police arrived at the scene, they found her with visible injuries on her neck, back and chest. And that’s to say nothing of the nonviolent charges he has faced. In April 2020, he was caught driving with 12 bags of marijuana, three guns, Xanax pills, oxycodone and codeine. Rapper Iggy Azalea, the mother of Carti’s son Onyx, has publicly accused him of being a neglectful father.
When asked about his various legal issues, Carti declines to say much: “I don’t want to answer that, you know? Jail ain’t no fun.” But that’s not entirely out of character for him: Throughout our interview, Carti dodges questions about relatively benign topics, too, including his relationships with Lil Uzi Vert and Lil Yachty, two artists who have been involved in his career since his self-titled mixtape.
Matthew Salacuse
In the moments before Carti takes the stage, the thousands of fans assembled feverishly chant his name in unison at the top of their lungs. A full five minutes before he goes on, their phones are out, ready to capture him on video the moment he appears. When he does, it’s on a mount with windows, a stage over the original stage, and he’s screaming and athletic — the supreme commander of this sea of acolytes.
“He’s always wanted to produce his own concerts, and he has wanted to cultivate a fan base that has become what it has become in terms of its rowdiness,” CAA’s Thomson says. “He’s brought in the guitar element, the heavy rock aspect. It was night and day in terms of performance style once we got out of the pandemic.” Carti has even expanded the conceptual ambition of his shows: Tonight, fire roars above him as if he is Al Pacino in The Devil’s Advocate. Though they’re not performing, the Opium artists who huddled around Carti before the show have accompanied him onstage for the ride; between flame blasts, they emerge from the smoke that billows out of an onstage cannon.
Matthew Salacuse
It’s every bit as electrifying as punk rock, though even that might be an understatement. Over the next hour, Carti cycles through an eclectic range of features, album tracks and unreleased songs, from his collaborations with Future (“Type S–t”) and Travis Scott (“FE!N”) to “Stop Breathing,” a fan favorite from his own catalog. He also tests some unreleased songs on the audience, and while it’s hard to imagine anything he does getting a less-than crazed response, they all absolutely play.
After the concert ends, he’s clearly pumped about how it went. He thanks everyone, then enters a car that will drive him to a club in downtown Chicago. But once inside the vehicle, removed from the high of performing, Carti becomes distant — the vampire retreating into his coffin for the night. As I ask him questions, he seems disengaged, asking me to repeat them often. He’s back to real life, but for Carti, real life is onstage, where he experiences an electricity that will never be matched by normalcy. As we drive steadily on the freeway, his once-burning intensity peters out. But then another car pulls up and a group of white teenagers shout, sure that the dark-tinted windows of his SUV conceal their hero: “That’s Carti! Is that Carti? I know you have Carti in there! That must be Carti!” He hears them and slowly rolls down the window, greeted by their now even-more crazed exclamations: “Carti! Holy s–t, Carti! Carti! F–king Carti!” Their lives are made. “Love y’all!” Carti shouts back. “That’s what we do it for.”
This story appears in the Aug. 31, 2024, issue of Billboard.
When Nico Baran was 10, he discovered the popular digital audio workstation FL Studio during a class presentation and started making dance tracks. “That helped me build up my skills for making loops,” says Baran, who soon transitioned to R&B and trap productions.
Seven years later, in 2020, the Houston-born, Madrid-based producer started DM’ing loops to members of the producer collective and record label Internet Money. One member, oktanner, played the beats for CEO Taz Taylor, who brought Baran onto the team that year. Taylor asked Baran to send him ideas ahead of his session with The Kid LAROI, which led to Baran scoring his first major placement on LAROI’s debut mixtape, F*ck Love, co-writing and co-producing “Tragic” featuring YoungBoy Never Broke Again.
He has since compiled a genre-spanning résumé — and an impressive original loop library, which he often shares as sounds on TikTok — producing songs for rappers like Lil Tecca, A Boogie Wit Da Hoodie and Shy Glizzy, as well as Latin artists like Bad Bunny with Young Miko, Eladio Carrión and Fuerza Regida. In June, when Baran posted a now-viral snippet titled “Love Is Gone” — a moody instrumental that has since amassed 1.8 million TikTok plays and 4.3 million official on-demand global streams, according to Luminate — Drake caught wind of the hype. “He reached out to me through Instagram,” Baran says. “I’m still sending him stuff to this day.”
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Wallace Joseph, SVP of A&R at Warner Chappell Music, calls the producer a “genius,” saying his talent is “purely natural. What he’s doing is next level; whether he’s playing keyboards, producing, or anything else, everything he touches goes viral.”
Ahead, Baran is hoping to make time for his own music as well, saying he “definitely” wants to release an album of his own — “kind of like Metro Boomin and DJ Khaled,” he says, “where I can bring artists into my own sound.”
¥$ (with Lil Wayne), “Lifestyle”
Last November, Baran wrote, “POV: Ty Dolla $ign & Kanye need beats for their next album,” over a TikTok featuring one of his loops. In December, when Ye previewed “Lifestyle” during an Instagram Live filmed at a private Las Vegas party teasing Vultures 2 (despite Vultures 1 not having dropped), Baran noticed a familiar beat: The song sampled “Love Is Gone.” As Baran recalls, “People were sending me screen recordings through Instagram like, ‘Kanye sampled you!’ ” One of the song’s producers, Australian duo FNZ, had sent Ty “Love Is Gone.” Baran says, “He liked it a lot. He showed it to Kanye, and Kanye loved it. It still feels unbelievable.”
Ice Spice & Central Cee, “Did It First”
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In 2023, songwriter-producer Lily Kaplan sent Baran a Dropbox link and asked him to tinker with her vocal tracks. He built a loop around one of them by chopping up the line “Baby, do you understand?” and adding synths before sending it to RIOTUSA, Ice Spice’s go-to producer. RIOT ultimately used it for Ice and Central Cee’s “Did It First,” one of the buzzier singles from her debut album, Y2K!, that dropped in July. “Ice Spice really loved that one loop, and it kind of went crazy,” says Baran of the track, which hit No. 10 on Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs.
The Kid LAROI, TBA
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Four years after “Tragic,” one of LAROI’s producers reached out to Baran about sampling a loop that he had posted on TikTok to use on a track from the Australian artist’s forthcoming second album. (His debut, The First Time, arrived last November.) “That’s mainly what I’m focusing on right now,” Baran reveals. “I’m sending a lot of ideas to LAROI’s producers. Aside from that one song, hopefully more [will] come about.”
A version of this article originally appeared in the August 31, 2024 issue of Billboard.
In August 2022, Allison Crutchfield, an A&R executive at ANTI- Records, traveled to Asheville, N.C., on a mission to sign the rising singer-songwriter known as MJ Lenderman. By year’s end, Crutchfield succeeded — and had also joined his tight-knit circle of friends.
“I’ve never had a meeting with an artist where they’ve been like, ‘Just come over and we’ll have a barbecue, we’ll just drink beer and eat,’ ” recalls Crutchfield, who got to know Lenderman at the property where he was living with several others, including members of the ascendant alt-country group Wednesday.
At the time, Lenderman had just released his breakthrough album, Boat Songs, a collection of detailed vignettes set to fuzzed-out country-rock riffs, on independent label Dear Life Records. And the 25-year-old hasn’t slowed down since: In late 2023, Lenderman made his ANTI- debut with his acclaimed live album Live and Loose!; in early 2024, he hit the road with Wednesday, for which he sings and plays guitar; and in March, Waxahatchee (fronted by Crutchfield’s twin sister, Katie) released her lauded album Tigers Blood, for which she invited Lenderman into her small creative circle. Lenderman made his Billboard chart debut, on Adult Alternative Airplay, with his feature on that set’s aching lead single, “Right Back to It,” and performed it alongside Waxahatchee on The Late Show With Stephen Colbert.
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As Lenderman’s profile grew, he was assembling Manning Fireworks, which is set for release Sept. 6 and his first studio album for ANTI-. “It was kind of strange,” he says when reflecting on the whirlwind that accompanied becoming one of indie rock’s most heralded new artists. “I guess it was more of an obstacle of making the new record — just trying to figure out how to not think about that and make a record like I would before.”
For Lenderman, that wasn’t so long ago. A child of music lovers — “My dad was a Deadhead,” he says, detailing the Derek Trucks and Gov’t Mule shows he saw as a kid growing up in Asheville — Lenderman began playing guitar in early grade school and eventually gravitated toward indie and punk music as a teenager playing in bands around his hometown. Soon he began recording, and the pandemic afforded him more time to complete 2021’s Ghost of Your Guitar Solo and, eventually, Boat Songs.
When Lenderman’s manager, Rusty Sutton, passed along a Boat Songs promo to Crutchfield, she knew she had to sign him “probably 10 seconds” into its opening song. “In a medium like indie rock,” she explains, “where there really is only so much you can do, for someone to do something where they’re honoring the tradition of this type of music but to do it in a way that does totally feel refreshing and like something that we haven’t heard, it’s really exciting.”
Lenderman is heavily influenced by Neil Young — “I can trace back most bands that I like to Neil,” he says, citing the rock legend’s scuzzy mid-’70s phase — and he also counts Drive-By Truckers, Dinosaur Jr. and Will Oldham as key touchstones. But his music has connected with younger audiences thanks to its modern sensibility and the way it careens from absurdist humor to deep, sometimes dark, profundity. (One new song, “Wristwatch,” is an ode to loneliness where the narrator notes that he’s “got a houseboat docked at the Himbo Dome.”)
“Obviously, my real life is going to bleed through a little bit, but I try to keep it more from a third-person perspective,” he says. “I feel like that opens more possibilities — and it’s kind of more fun writing fiction.”
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For Manning Fireworks, recorded whenever he could find time between tours, Lenderman followed a familiar approach, reuniting with producer Alex Farrar at Asheville’s Drop of Sun Studios, where he has recorded tracks several times before. But the album, which expands Lenderman’s country-rock creative palette without losing its signature wit or intimacy, is far from a redux.
“I want my records to be dynamic,” Lenderman says. “For a while, I was trying to maybe take it up a notch and go louder or faster or something — and then that just really wasn’t where I was at. So I decided to go in the opposite direction and make it more acoustic and quieter.”
On Manning Fireworks, Lenderman does a bit of both. The music has never sounded richer, with fiddle and brass bolstering his guitar, but he also explores the flip side, like on album closer “Bark at the Sun,” which ends Manning Fireworks with a multiminute noise outro driven by “bass clarinet abuse drone.” While Lenderman “couldn’t tell you why” he made the creative choice — “it just felt right to me” — it’s indicative of his growth. “There’s a level of confidence coming from [him] at this point that feels different from Boat Songs,” Crutchfield says. “This is a person who is unbelievably talented and now understands how to wield that.”
Not that the eternally nonchalant Lenderman would ever describe his intuitive choices so grandly.
This story appears in the Aug. 24, 2024, issue of Billboard.
When André 3000 released his debut solo album, New Blue Sun, in November, hip-hop die-hards were understandably upset: The set spanned 88 minutes, showcased flute-playing in a new age and jazz paradigm and included zero words.
At 49 now, André 3000 suggested that topics like getting a colonoscopy and checking his eyesight didn’t fit into hip-hop subject matter. “Sometimes it feels inauthentic for me to rap,” he told GQ at the time of the album’s release, “because I don’t have anything to talk about in that way.”
Less than a month later, Lil Wayne, 41, said on Young Money Radio that he was “depressed” to hear 3Stacks’ comments because he has “everything to talk about.” Pusha T, 47, agreed, telling Idea Generation in live-event footage uploaded in December, “It is kind of stifling to the genre to even think like that. As long as you live in hip-hop in all capacities and as long as you’re still sharp with that pen, you got something to say. We want to hear it.”
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Ironically, the chatter about rappers reaching an expiration date occurred at the end of a yearlong celebration of hip-hop’s cultural longevity. In 2023, genre pioneers including DJ Kool Herc, Kurtis Blow and Roxanne Shanté were honored with a celebratory Hip Hop 50 Live event at New York’s Yankee Stadium. Meanwhile, icon-heavy arena tours kicked off, including Masters of the Mic: Hip-Hop 50 Tour (featuring Big Daddy Kane and Doug E. Fresh, among others), and LL COOL J’s F.O.R.C.E. Live outing (featuring Queen Latifah, Rakim and more).
That attitude has continued well into hip-hop’s 51st year, with sold-out shows and buzz-worthy albums released decades into artists’ careers. “It’s been interesting to watch rappers get older and redefine what’s acceptable and possible in hip-hop,” says Carl Chery, creative director and head of urban music at Spotify. “Rap has historically been perceived to be a young man’s game, but we’re now seeing rappers have critical and commercial success [into] their 40s.”
In July, Eminem released his long-teased concept album, The Death of Slim Shady (Coup de Grâce), led by the top 10 Hot 100 hit “Houdini.” Its debut atop the Billboard 200 ended Taylor Swift’s record-breaking streak at No. 1 with The Tortured Poets Department. That same week, Common released his Pete Rock-produced The Auditorium Vol. 1, and in August, Rakim dropped his first album in 15 years with G.O.D.’s Network (Reb7rth) while Killer Mike delivered Songs for Sinners and Saints. Still ahead, LL COOL J will return with his first album in 11 years with The FORCE, due Sept. 6, and Snoop Dogg and Dr. Dre have teased their joint album, Missionary, fresh off a performance at the Summer Olympics’ closing ceremony in Los Angeles. Will Smith has even returned to music with his first Christian/gospel single, “You Can Make It,” featuring Fridayy and Sunday Service Choir, which they debuted at the 2024 BET Awards in June.
How, then, are these rappers staying active while entering their fourth or fifth decades? Common believes it’s a matter of understanding the difference between “legacy” and “veteran.” “Sometimes when I hear ‘legacy,’ it makes me think that people don’t view you as still present in it,” he says, “that you are still creating music that is palatable and viable for the times. To me, it’s an honorable way of saying, ‘Man, you had a good run.’ ”
Meanwhile, being a veteran, he says, not only alludes but gives respect to the length of time an artist has sustained. “They have experience and some time in the art form,” he says — which is something Common felt was missing when he was starting out, as hip-hop was still a relatively new commercial art form. But now, at 52, he believes there is victory in having a passion that burns strong enough to want to keep writing raps.
“When we were coming up, we didn’t have any examples of people in their 40s and 50s making music,” he observes. “In my 20s, I was thinking, ‘Man, how am I going to make it in my 30s? Who is going to listen? I have to hurry up and make this happen.’ And now, in my early 50s, I’m like, ‘Wow, it’s a new life to this.’ ”
Chery says he’s been paying special attention to Eminem and Ye, both of whom have managed to appeal to a Gen Z audience. “Granted, Ye and Em have a unique appeal, but I wonder how many artists will be able to change their audience moving forward,” he says. “I’ve always been envious of how young rock listeners take pride in knowing Black Sabbath or Led Zeppelin. They’re students. A lot of younger rap listeners are dismissive of older music.” (Upon the release of Common’s The Auditorium Vol. 1, Grammy Award-winning producer 9th Wonder proposed on X that “adult contemporary hip-hop needs its own category” at the awards show; during this year’s ceremony, Killer Mike swept the rap categories.)
While Common is less concerned with how the music he makes today is perceived, there is one thing he knows he wants: longevity. He admires the arc of many jazz musicians’ careers, recalling seeing pianist Ahmad Jamal, who died in 2023 at 92, play in Chicago; as Common says, Jamal “played until he left the planet.” He says the same of drummer Roy Haynes, who is 99 — and whom Common saw perform just a few years ago.
“If André 3000 decided to rap about a colonoscopy, he’s going to make it dope as hell,” Common asserts, “because this dude rapped about going to Whole Foods and made a whole story out of that.”
This story will appear in the Aug. 31, 2024, issue of Billboard.