Music

08 Sep 2023

The King Is Back: Beenie Man Talks New ‘Simma’ Album, Dancehall’s Generational Shifts & His Career Longevity 

Simma down: The King of the Dancehall has returned.  

Seven years after his last studio album — 2016’s Unstoppable — Beenie Man is back with Simma, his latest star-studded, genre-bending opus. Featuring collaborations with a plethora of artists ranging from Shenseea and Shaggy to Giggs and Stonebwoy, Simma effortlessly traverses the intersections of dancehall, roots reggae, drill, hip-hop, and Afrobeats. 

The album arrives amid something of a revival for the Grammy winner. This year, his classic 1997 hit single “Who Am I,” became the soundtrack for one of social media’s most popular music trends — in essence, people sing the first two words of the chorus (“sim simma”) and wait in anticipation for their chosen subject to finish the rest of the lyrics. La La Anthony recently used the challenge, aptly named #SimSimmaChallenge, to quiz famous friends like Kelly Rowland, Ciara and Kim Kardashian on their Beenie Man lyric knowledge. 

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The trend is a natural extension of the timelessness of Beenie Man’s music. Dating back to 1983’s The Invincible Beany Man — which arrived when he was just 10 years old — Beenie Man has been reigning over the dancehall. Although the title of his latest album doesn’t have anything to do with “Who Am I” or the #SimSimmaChallenge, the record still houses a few career throughlines, including reunions with Mýa (“Docta”) and Sean Paul (“Supa Star”), who he previously worked with in the early ‘00s and ‘10s. 

Simma, originally completed in 2021, suffered a lengthy delay after Beenie’s mother passed in 2020 following complications from a stroke earlier that year. “At that time when the album fit for release, I was in bare depression, mourning, all of these things,” he reflects. The album also serves as his first LP since his instantly iconic 2020 Verzuz battle with Bounty Killer. In this way, Simma is an unbridled celebration of life, longevity and resilience. 

Beenie Man has earned six entries on the Billboard Hot 100, reaching as high as No. 26 with “Dude” (with Ms. Thing), the lead single from 2004’s Back to Basics. On the Billboard 200, the dancehall legend has racked up five entries to date, peaking at No. 18 with 2002’s Tropical Storm. On Reggae Albums, Beenie Man has notched six No. 1 titles from 13 overall top 10 projects. 

In a conversation with Billboard, Beenie Man goes behind the scenes of the creation of Simma, recounts that improptu mid-flight performance, reflects on his storied career and gives advice to the rising generation of dancehall artists.

Simma has been in the works for some years now. Did anything about the album change between its original release date and Sep. 1, 2023? 

There’s a lot of things that change about the album, because we mek an album before and then my moms drop out by the time when the album fi release. So at that time when the album fit for release, I was in bare depression, mourning, all of these things. I was in it for two years until my brudda Blue decide to say, “Alright, we need to get into this thing now. Get out di depression, get out all di things you going through.” 

So, my natural instinct is to go into the studio and beat up some riddim. So we got some from Fanatix from England – them send first – and then we got some from Busy Signal, and then we start from there suh. Then we went to England and get some more riddims and different type of beats. I never know seh di album turn out di weh it turn out, but when it finish, the job was great. No disrespect. We make over 60 song for di album. 

There’s a host of genres on Simma — from roots reggae to drill — what was your vision in terms of exploring different styles on the record? 

We’re just making music. We do Afrobeats, we do everything. Just make some music. Because people love good music and good music lasts forever. Regardless. Good music outlives you. Trust me.  

You mentioned that there’s some Afrobeats on this album. Recently, there have been conversations around Afrobeats “replacing” dancehall on the global stage, and here you are merging the two styles on Simma. What do you think about the two genres’ ability to coexist? 

There’s no music that can replace dancehall. Dancehall will never go nowhere. Dancehall will always be here. Because if there was no dancehall, there would be no Afrobeats. That don’t make no sense. People haffi stop, because they don’t understand the lifespan of music. You have enough music that come and last 5, 6, 7 years, but dancehall have been here from before hip-hop! If hip-hop a 50-years-old, dancehall almost 100-years-old! [Laughs.]

We have been through Shabba Ranks, we have been through Ninjaman, we have been through the greatest – Super Cat, all of them. So, dancehall is not going nowhere. Not at all. 

There are many collaborations on Simma. Was there any thought of making this a straight collaborative album? Why did you decide to keep the solo tracks on there? 

Every album I’ve been listening to is a million collaborations. You listen to Jay-Z last album, collaboration. You listen to Drake album, collaboration. So, why should not I? So you have a Busy Signal, Jamaican. You have a Shaggy, Jamaican. You have Sean Paul, Jamaican. These are superstars. So why don’t you use your own Jamaican superstars? In Africa, you have a pack of superstars. You have Stonebwoy, superstar. You have Giggs from England. We have all the superstars we can use. It’s my time. So, why not? [The King] has all his subjects. 

We mek this album this way because the first part of the album was all me. Then I said, “Nah, get some people.” I’m still gonna be there. It’s not like somebody guh sing a song pon mi album which I’m not on. I am going to be inside that music. People sometimes dem like listen to other style or other version or other pattern, so mix up di ting. 

Talk to me about the song with Tina (Hoodcelebrityy), “Let Go.” There’s this really dope conversational, back-and-forth vibe going on there. How did that song come about? 

She even surprised me, because she never DJ my lyrics — she just get into the studio just like how mi know she a guh do. But mi nuh wan leave nothing to chance. So when she jump pon di record now and start do her ting, I say, “Oh, wow, murda.” She kill it. And the song wicked. 

You and Teddy Riley have been friends for years. What was it like finally working together in a musical capacity on this album? 

Teddy is a musician, and I’m a musician. Regardless of how long mi know him, it’s a matter of him a have time, because him always busy. The man spend six months a make a riddim for me. Six months. Every time I make di riddim, I finish the song, him send back fi di song and play a next riddim around it, and play a next riddim around it, and put on some other ting and mix the song different and send back di song inna different format and then mi haffi tell him “Stop!” [Laughs.]  

And him say, “Hear this last mix, please listen to this last mix.” So, di man play di last mix fi me and mi seh, “Jesus Christ! Di brudda has a great mind. Just please gimme di last mix, don’t mek mi a beg.” And he gimme di mix. Cause mi nuh wan him fi touch di song again! But every time him touch it, the song get better.

You’ve spoken before about modern dancehall shifting away from the tradition of riddims, who do you think shoulders the responsibility of maintaining that tradition? 

It’s on us [as the older generation]. We are the artists that have been here before. We responsible, because it’s all music. Alright, say you’re having a dancehall stage show anywhere in the world, and you bring one million dancehall artists. You have dancehall artists from Africa, you have dancehall artists from Mexico, you have dancehall artists from America, you have dancehall artists from everywhere in the world! 

But an artist like Ninjaman — none of these artists a bad like Ninjaman. They could never, because Ninjaman walk pon di stage — him don’t have to have a hit song today, him just need to present. Him just walk pon di stage, di people dem get crazy. Shabba Ranks. Him don’t have to have a new song today, all him haffi do is be present. So, imagine me now. I come after them, present, and get a response. Imagine a Buju Banton or a Sean Paul. Imagine a Shaggy, you get where I’m coming from? We will always be here. We nah going nowhere.  

Music is not until death do us part. We dead and music still alive. So, this is what we are here for: longevity, to last, to be that person that people can always depend on. And this is why the album is called Simma, because the King is still here. 

When it comes to the younger, rising generation of dancehall artists, who do you think are the emerging leaders? 

Wow. Alright. I listen to Skeng. I listen to Skillibeng — sometimes I listen to him and laugh because I find him really hilarious. Valiant. Popcaan and dem are still my young artists dem still. They’re who I really listen to. You see, artists with substance and artists that make sense and take my brain somewhere. I don’t really listen to much new dancehall. I don’t — like, seriously. I’ll put in a Lauryn Hill CD and listen to that. 

When did you first see the #SimmaChallenge online? 

Well, somebody showed me, yuh know, because mi nuh pon di phone. [Laughs.] And then mi see a next person do it, and mi see another person doing it, and mi see dem still doing it. Then the challenge getting bigger and bigger. So, that’s the reason why I talk about songs with substance. The song outlasts you. 

Alright, suppose I never have the courage fi still doing music, I would never have a new album. But the songs that I did from before gimme di courage fi know I can still do what I’m doing. You have to make songs with substance. Songs [where] we can hear inspiration, songs that can inspire you. You inspire your own self!

And I think that was really reflected at the West Indian Day Parade in Brooklyn over Labor Day Weekend. I heard different songs of yours all the time while I was out there. 

Exactly. Alright, Bob Marley sing reggae. Mi sing dancehall. Bob Marley the King of Reggae, I’m the King of Dancehall. 

I want to know the story behind that plane performance! They weren’t lit enough for you! 

It’s not a story behind it! Mi leave out mi seat, mi wan look fuh mi band members. So, I went down there and everybody was sleeping. So mi wake up alla di band members dem and everything. But by waking them up, mi a wake up everybody. By the time we reach through di place fi go through the door for first class, everybody a seh, “You have to give something!” So, mi a seh, “What??” Because myself, I was sleeping. So, I said, “Give me something.” So, I’m just standing around and start [singing the opening of “Who Am I”] and the plane start sing.  

It never plan. It’s just something that happened.

Were you able to attend to Caribbean Music Awards the other week (Aug. 31)? 

No, mi never able to see it. But I can remember the first time I win one of those. 1995. It’s been going on for a long time. I went up against Capleton, [starts singing Capleton’s “Tour”]. It was live on TV in America in New York, a matter of fact. 

For those awards shows, I really feel appreciative of them — because they’re giving us the opportunity so we can work harder to become the people that we are today. People appreciate your work, so all yuh haffi do is just give thanks and appreciate what they’re doing. So, I do respect the Caribbean Music Awards and all the years it’s been going. Sorry I don’t have a visa to be there! 

In light of the Bob Marley biopic hitting theaters soon, what are your thoughts on who gets to tell the stories of our Caribbean icons and legends, and how those stories get told? 

Bob Marley have over five sons that coulda play Bob Marley, cause alla dem look like him. But dem decide fi use somebody else. Really don’t make no sense. Well, it’s a Bob Marley movie. Mi wait till mi can get it inna my circle. But, I think dem shoulda use Skip Marley, who is the last Marley. Or use Stephen Marley or Ziggy Marley or Julian Marley. But Bob Marley a Bob Marley. If you make a movie about Bob Marley, everybody wan see it. 

Since you have reached the highest heights that dancehall, and music in general, has to offer, do you have any advice for younger dancehall artists who are looking to follow in your footsteps? 

Two: Work hard in the studio and work harder onstage. Because onstage, people remember you the person, and in the studio, people remember the songs. But if you don’t work harder onstage people will not remember you as an individual, but people will always remember your songs. 

Michael Jackson mek an album every two years, but people still remember him for his performance. I nuh care how many hits Michael Jackson sing, it’s never greater than that Moonwalk. Never greater than that backslide. Yuh see Michael Jackson with spandex? Nobody remember dat. They remember di performance! [Laughs.]  

Elvis Presley was the greatest entertainer before Michael Jackson. Dem still remember Elvis as in performance, not in song. When yuh go in Las Vegas, yuh find 10 Elvis Presley shows, because of his performance. That is my only advice to any artist. 

08 Sep 2023

‘It’s All About the Message’: Cody Johnson Finds the Right Vocal Shade for ‘The Painter’

The first time Cody Johnson heard “The Painter,” it took him home emotionally.

After the first line, “She talks about the future like she’s flipping through a magazine,” it seemed familiar.
“I’m like, ‘Well, there’s Brandi,’” he says, referring to his wife.

After each of the remaining five lines in the opening verse, he had the same thought: “There’s Brandi.” And when the chorus hit – “I don’t remember/ Life before she came into the picture” – he was pretty much gone.

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“Tears started welling up in my eyes,” he recalls.

It was no question after that moment that Johnson would record “The Painter.” But what particularly makes the song work is that his sentiment about his wife is not entirely unique. The words also apply to the marriage of Red Street Country singer/songwriter Ryan Larkins, who conceived the basic idea – that a woman brought meaning and color to a man’s life – with his wife, Chauntay, in mind.

“I was getting to go and do what I love every day, and I was just talking about how I wouldn’t be here without her,” he says of the original co-writing session. “I just had a few words, like ‘masterpiece,’ ‘colors,’ ‘canvas,’ and I kind of had this thing: ‘She made a masterpiece/ Yeah, she’s the painter.’”

Larkins introduced the concept during a writing appointment with Kat Higgins (“Knowing You”) and Benjy Davis (“Made For You”) in the front room at Nashville’s THiS Music on June 26, 2019, the month before the company’s co-founder, Rusty Gaston, left to head Sony Music Publishing Nashville.

“It was basically like, ‘This is my wife and our life, she’s the painter, she’s the color, she’s making everything come to life,’” Higgins notes. “We were just smiling. It was such a fun song to write because we all love the character.”

Davis started in with a rolling guitar figure and casually dropped the poetic opening line about “flipping through a magazine,” though the rest of “The Painter” wasn’t quite so effortless. They wanted to sell the painting theme in the lyrics but were very specific about not overdoing it. The second line suggested a non-painting artist, and the end of verse two intentionally avoided rhyming. They moved around between stanzas, placing images where they seemed appropriate. The enthusiasm increased when the chorus honored her patience: “With every wall I built, she saw a canvas.”

“I don’t remember who said that, or remember when it was said, but that’s when we knew we were on the right path,” Davis recalls.

In the third verse, the woman gives her approval to her man’s blue periods, a sort of recognition that rough patches offer value of their own. The writers talked a bit about writing a bridge for “The Painter” – they might have even tried one or two versions of a bridge – but ultimately dropped that plan and inserted a four-bar space for a solo.

“When we left that day, we knew we had something special,” Larkins notes. “And so we kind of talked about it a little bit through text. And we’re like, ‘You know, we probably need to revisit this because it just doesn’t quite land.’ So we got back together and worked on it.”

They had determined that “masterpiece” was a little over the top, so when they reassembled a few weeks later, that line became the primary focus of the day. “’My life’s a masterpiece and she’s the painter,’ we felt like that was a little too grand,” Davis says. “We had to kind of strip that away and be like, ‘No, it’s not a masterpiece. I see it this way, and she sees it that way.’”

Within a couple hours, they changed it to “My world was black and white, but she’s the painter.”

Higgins oversaw the demo, with a resonator guitar delivering the rolling effect while a kick drum kept the pace moving by hitting every beat once the first chorus came in. Larkins sang it like he meant it, and Higgins provided a vocal countermelody in the chorus. The version that Johnson would hear was almost master-quality, and his interest affirmed the writers’ diligence. “The fact that he wanted to cut this,” Higgins says, pausing. “It’s sort of like a knighting to get chosen by Cody.”

Johnson recorded “The Painter” with producer Trent Willmon (Granger Smith, Zane Williams) at Starstruck, where Johnson had the best chance of connecting with the studio band.

“There’s this magical spot where the singer is in the little vocal booth,” Willmon says. “In the corner, and through the glass, you can see both the entire band and the control booth. There’s not a lot of tracking rooms like that, where the singer can see everything that’s going on. The musicians get so much inspiration from Cody and this just brutal energy that he sends out, and he can see them, they can see him, and they just thrive off of him.”

Tim Gallaway took on the key resonator part, and Jerry Roe handled the drums, starting the kick at the very beginning to emphasize the pace a little more, with shaker creating additional motion in several sections. They recorded it at 98 beats per minute, the same deceptively brisk tempo as the demo. Later, Willmon brought fiddler Jenee Fleenor in to overdub additional parts, some of them inspired by the vocal backgrounds Higgins had sung on the demo. Fleenor also built the solo section, developing an elegant string quartet one instrument at a time.

“That part blows me away,” Larkins says. “It moves me almost to tears, like as much as the chorus or the very first verse. It’s such a huge part of that song now.” Willmon worked with Fleenor in-person on that section. The decision to cut it that way, instead of just emailing her the files, was one of his favorite parts of the process.

“If I sent [the tracks] to her it would be like giving up tickets on the 50 yard line to the Super Bowl,” he says. “It is about as creatively musical as it can get watching her do her magic.”

The mix of strings, resonator and Travis Toy’s steel guitar imbued the “The Painter” with a whole pallet of sound, supporting the storyline in an appropriate fashion. “We’re not reinventing the wheel here,” Johnson says. “But all those different nuances, it paints a beautiful picture and it has all those different colors in it.”

Johnson’s relaxed, emotional vocals – delivered with Brandi in mind – were captured on a newly purchased $10,000 Brauner microphone, with Johnson changing “my world was black and white” to “my life was black and white.”

“The Painter” became a unanimous choice for the first single from a forthcoming album. Warner Music Nashville released it to country radio via PlayMPE on Aug. 10. It debuted at No. 12 on the multi-metric Hot Country Songs chart dated Aug. 26 and started at No. 33 on Country Airplay. It’s at No. 40 on the Sept. 9 Airplay chart.

“I don’t sing ‘The Painter’ any harder than I’m talking right now,” he says. “That is rare for a Cody Johnson song. But it’s not, ‘Hey, look at me. Look how good I can sing.’ It’s all about the message.”

08 Sep 2023

Why James Blake Says His New Album Is a Return To Form: ‘It’s Picking Up Where I Left Off’

“I know this sounds weird, but this album was easy to make,” says artist, producer and DJ James Blake about his sixth studio album Playing Robots Into Heaven, out today (Sept. 8). “It’s like I’m picking up where I left off years ago.”

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The album is indeed a return to Blake’s roots, back when he was the prodigious polymath of London’s dance scene in the late aughts and early ’10s. Known then for crafting music that amalgamated early dubstep, soul samples and snippets of his own eerie vibrato, Blake quickly ascended as an underground sensation. “That was probably the last time I was DJing in one place regularly,” says Blake, who soon enough was touring Europe.

All the while, he was honing his skills as a songwriter, looking to the greats like Joni Mitchell as a North Star for writing songs with clearer hooks and more conventional structures, but still in-keeping with his signature style. From his first album James Blake (2011) to his fifth Friends That Break Your Heart (2021), Blake slid further away from the avant-garde sound that he once made in his bedroom to songs that drew more inspiration from pop and rap music. His later records — accompanied by collaborations with Beyonce, Travis Scott and Frank Ocean — made Blake a more mainstream star. 

With 2021’s Friends That Break Your Heart, Blake says that he reached “the pinnacle of my songwriting” on standout track “Say What You Will.” “Once I wrote that song I said to myself, ‘I’m done. I don’t have to do this anymore.’ I felt like I’d written a song that finally filtered my influences and created my own version of what an ideal song would be.” It was one of the last tracks written for the project, and one that allowed him the space to make Playing Robots Into Heaven as the atypical follow-up album it was shaping out to be. 

Blake says much of Playing Robots was written at the same time as his last album. But at the start, the songs that would become the new album’s linchpins, like “Fall Back” and “Big Hammer,” were just “modular jams” he says — ideas he would mess around with when playing his impressive collection of synthesizers. “Because this wasn’t my main focus at the time, I wasn’t sure if I’d ever put any of it out. It felt like this was definitely a left turn,” he adds. 

He credits his longtime partner — actress, host and musical collaborator Jameela Jamil — as one of the main reasons why he decided to take the more eclectic, dance-based works he was toying with more seriously. “When she came to my shows, she always would tell me her favorite moments were songs like ‘Voyeur’ [from 2013’s Overgrown] or ‘Stop What You’re Doing’ [a 2009 one-off],” he says, both of which veer more electronic. “She encouraged me to let loose a little, saying that a lot of my longtime fans might like to hear that side of me again.” 

And yet, he was well aware that this so-called left turn — even if it is a return to what launched his career in the first place — could be jarring for his newer fans who discovered him from more recent hits like the Grammy-winning “King’s Dead” with Kendrick Lamar, Future and Jay Rock or “Forward” with Beyonce. “I don’t know when it became a risk for me [to make a dance record,] but I guess it is sort of a risk,” he says.

But more importantly, his new album allowed him to just have fun. “I spent so much time trying to learn how to write songs over the years, but here I didn’t need to do that,” he says. “I didn’t need to learn anything. I just went out and made music I knew would be cool in a club.”

One defining distinction of Playing Robots Into Heaven is the sparing deployment of Blake’s trademark voice, which is less of a focal point and more of an instrument for him to tinker with as a producer. He says that his “minimal approach to lyrics” and voice on the record is a part of the way the project is distinguished as a true dance music. “I think the way vocals are used in dance music is different from how they are used in pop, but the intersection of those styles is repetition,” he says. “The more cerebral the lyrics are, the further from dance music it gets. When you’re actually on the dance floor, you don’t want to have to unpack something. You want one refrain that feels good.” 

Still, listeners can find profound lyrical moments in Playing Robots Into Heaven. Take “Loading,” the album’s second single, which repeats the phrase “wherever I go / I’m only as good as my mind / which is only good if you’re mine.” It’s then chopped and reassembled throughout the track, making it feel akin to a Buddhist meditation as much as it is a dance floor anthem. 

For months, Blake has been testing his new material through a series of small club shows hosted in Los Angeles called CMYK (a call back to his 2011 track of the same name) at which Blake recreates the atmosphere of his early days — and sheds the stardom he has earned in the years since. “This album was mostly A&Red by the crowds at CMYK,” he says. “I really road tested this material.” It’s something he hasn’t done before, but a process he felt would befit his first true dance album in about a decade. 

“When you’re part of a regular scene, it is very easy to visualize where and who you are making music for,” says Blake. “That’s what CMYK is about, bringing that spirit of dance floor from all of my influences back in the day to crowds now.” 

“I don’t think the rules have changed that much when it comes to dance music,” he continues. “It’s pretty universal: what makes people move? That’s what I want to make.”

08 Sep 2023

BTS’ V Spends the Day at the Beach With Friends in ‘Slow Dancing’ Video: Watch

V‘s solo album, Layover, has arrived, and along with the release, the BTS vocalist dropped a serene music video to accompany the track “Slow Dancing” on Friday (Sept. 8).

The video sees the K-pop star heading on a road trip with his friends to the beach. As the cars wind and weave through the mountains, V takes the opportunity to soak up as much sunshine as possible and sticks his head out of the window to catch additional breeze before going back into the car for some fun Polaroid photos with his buddies in the passenger seats.

The group then makes it to the beach and immediately jumps into the water, bringing watermelon and bananas into the saltwater for a snack. After cooling off, they go for a picnic on the sand, except one person packs a coded computer. It’s later revealed that V, in separate scenes, controls the the weather and additional scenery he experiences from a separate location.

“Maybe we/ Could be/ Slow dancing/ Until the morning/ We could be romancing/ The night away,” V peacefully sings on the chorus as he marvels at what he’s created in the video.

“Slow Dancing” was released as the third single from Layover on the album’s Sept. 8 release date. Other tracks on the BTS singer’s debut solo album include its first two singles, “Love Me Again” and “Rainy Days,” as well as “Blue,” “For Us” and a piano version of “Slow Dancing.”

Watch the visual for “Slow Dancing” in the video above.

08 Sep 2023

Vice President Kamala Harris to Celebrate 50th Anniversary of Hip-Hop at the Naval Observatory

On Saturday (Sept. 9), Vice President of the United States Kamala Harris will have Common, Jeezy, MC Lyte, Roxanne Shante and more to celebrate at her home as a part of a Hip-Hop 50 celebration, honoring the genre and its impact on American culture. 

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Harris, along with The Recording Academy’s Black Music Collective and Live Nation, will highlight the importance of the genre by holding a commemoration with more than 400 guests in attendance at the Naval Observatory in Washington, D.C. Serving as the first event of its kind, this hip-hop event will look to reinforce the Biden-Harris Administration’s commitment to celebrating the arts.

“The Recording Academy and the Black Music Collective have had a tremendous year paying tribute to and honoring the legacy of hip-hop in its milestone 50th year,” said Harvey Mason Jr., CEO of the Recording Academy, in a statement. “Taking the celebration to our nation’s capital alongside Vice President Harris is truly something special and I look forward to a historic day.” 

The White House paid homage to hip-hop during its Juneteenth event in June, where Method Man spoke at the inaugural concert. “This concert is a fitting way to recognize Juneteenth and express this part of our shared American history,” he said at the time. “For it is through music that African-Americans found community and sought solace. Music has the power to uplift us, to enrich our minds and nourish our souls.”

He added: “From spirituals to gospel, R&B, jazz, rock, soul, and yes y’all, 50 years of Hip Hop, ya heard?! Each generation of Black musicians, artists and thought leaders have channeled the struggles of their lifetime into the American soundtrack.”

08 Sep 2023

Friday Music Guide: New Music From Olivia Rodrigo, Cardi B & Megan Thee Stallion, Tyler Childers and More

Billboard’s Friday Music Guide serves as a handy guide to this Friday’s most essential releases — the key music that everyone will be talking about today, and that will be dominating playlists this weekend and beyond.

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This week (July 28), Olivia Rodrigo shows listeners she’s got the Guts with her sophomore LP, Cardi B and Megan Thee Stallion team up again to recapture that old “WAP” magic, Tyler Childers and d4vd keep it brief and more.

Olivia Rodrigo, Guts

There might not be a more anticipated sophomore LP released in 2023 than Olivia Rodrigo’s Guts, follow-up to her game-changing Sour release two years earlier. While the album was preceded by a pair of top 10 hits in the bloody ballad “Vampire” and the winking new-waver “Bad Idea Right?” Guts shows those songs to be just two of many new career highlights, including the shuffling, double-meaning pop-rock singalong “Get Him Back!” and the heartbroken (but responsibility-splitting) “Logical.” Read our list of every track ranked here, and look forward to spending a lot of time with these songs in your life over the rest of the year.

Cardi B feat. Megan Thee Stallion, “Bongos”



They made magic once before with the Hot 100-topping “WAP,” and now rap titans Cardi B and Megan Thee Stallion have reunited for another club-killing collab with the appropriately hard-hitting “Bongos.” It’s another fun, frisky teamup with another colorful, choreo-heavy video — hopefully with less ridiculous controversy surrounding it this time — that should extend the summer for at least another week or two past labor day on its own. Make sure you stick around for Cardi’s late-song callback to Pitbull and Lil Jon’s underrated 2005 hit “Toma.”

Tyler Childers, Rustin’ in the Rain EP

The timing could not be better for a full-length Tyler Childers release, coming off not only the good reception for his own Hot 100-debuting new single “In Your Love,” but the massive, chart-topping success of fellow Americana purveyors Zach Bryan and Oliver Anthony Music. You could maybe argue the true “full-length” qualifications of Rustin’ in the Rain — it’s seven tracks and 28 minutes, which is just barely out of EP territory — but what’s here should still be plenty to keep the singer-songwriter’s ever-growing fanbase satisfied, including “Love,” the rollicking title track, and a powerful cover of the Kris Kristofferson-penned country staple “Help Me Make It Through the Night.”

D4vd, The Lost Petals

Teenage singer-songwriter D4vd became both a viral phenomenon and a Hot 100-charting artist in late 2022 and early 2023 with his gauzy breakthrough hits “Romantic Homicide” and “Here With Me.” With his two EP releases this year — the previously released Petals to Thorns and this week’s bonus follow-up Lost Petals — he’s showing that those singles were really just the beginning, with both his songwriting and his sonics continuing to develop at a rapid rate. Try the fragile, Joji-like piano balladry of “Poetic Vulgarity” from this one, or the Mac DeMarco-worthy wooziness of closing groover “Once More.”

Marshmello & Dove Cameron, “Other Boys”



Shout out to Australian house duo Flight Facilities and singer-songwriter Giselle, whose sublimely longing 2010 collaboration “Crave You” was one of great understated pop gems of its era. Outside of the Land Down Under, the song was hardly a huge mainstream hit — but two artists evidently still familiar with its charms are DJ/producer Marshmello and breakout singer-songwriter Dove Cameron, who refashion the song’s chorus into the backbone of the hook to their new joint single “Other Boys.” There’s not a ton to the song once they get past the lift — at a scant 2:17, there’s not a whole lot of song here, period — but it’s a fun flashback for those of us still craving more floor-fillers like “Crave You.”

The Rolling Stones, “Angry”



One of the greatest rock and roll bands of all time — and probably the longest-enduring — is back. Hackney Diamonds, due in late October, will be the Rolling Stones’ first album since 2016’s covers set Blue and Lonesome, and their first since the death of longtime drummer Charlie Watts. The LP is led by the ripping new single “Angry,” showcasing the group still in fine form sixty years after their debut album — and still plenty vital for the younger generation(s). Of course, it never hurts to have one of the biggest young actresses in your music video, as the Stones show with their casting of Euphoria and White Lotus star Sydney Sweeney in the “Angry” visual.

08 Sep 2023

Watch Olivia Rodrigo Perform Songs From ‘Guts’ & ‘Sour,’ Talk ‘Cathartic’ Album Release on ‘TODAY’ Show

Olivia Rodrigo kicked off her long awaited Guts release day with a special live performance on TODAY, singing a handful of tracks new and old for fans on the show’s plaza in New York City — an experience she professed was “cathartic.”

Taking the stage just hours after Guts‘ midnight release on Friday (Sept. 8), the 20-year-old pop star performed two songs from the new record: No. 1 lead single “Vampire” and brand new track “Get Him Back!” She also revisited two of her biggest hits from Sour, with fans in the crowd practically screaming along to the lyrics of “Drivers License” and “Good 4 U.”

Rodrigo also took a moment to chat onstage with hosts Hoda Kotb and Savannah Guthrie, sharing how she’s feeling now that she’s beaten the pressure of living up to the success of her blockbuster debut. “I’m so excited,” she gushed. “I’ve been working on [Guts] for so long and living with it for so long. Today’s just so cathartic.”

She also touched on the poetry class she took last year at USC, after which a photo of her taking notes went viral online. “I took a college class last year ’cause I was homeschooled my whole life, so I really wanted to have that experience,” she shared. “It definitely aided my songwriting a lot. I love learning and I love writing — it’s my favorite thing.”

Hours before the release of Guts, Rodrigo surprised fans at her pop-up event for the album in New York City. While there, she answered questions in a quick Q&A and gave attendees a sneak peek of four of her new songs: “All-American Bitch,” “Logical,” “Get Him Back!” and “Teenage Dream.”

Following the record’s release, fans were quick to notice what looks to be a clue in Rodrigo’s lyric video for “Making The Bed”: that the singer may be planning on embarking on a Guts World Tour.

Check out clips from her TODAY show performance below:

08 Sep 2023

Cardi B Teases More Offset Collaborations: ‘We Do So Much Rough Songs’

Fresh off the heels of “Bongos” with Megan Thee Stallion, Cardi B is deep in her freaky bag. In fact, the Grammy winner told SirirusXM’s Hip-Hop Nation that she’s been itching to get into her freak bag on record with her husband, Offset.

“I do wanna do like more songs with him. I do wanna explore. I feel like we do so much rough songs and it’s like, let’s talk about f–king,” she said on Friday (Sep. 8). “We always talk about the music. Let’s talk about f–king because I feel like we always like on attack mode when we do songs together.”

In a way, Cardi is right. Of the pair’s songs together, none of them are particularly freaky, but they sure are bangers. Two of their collaborations as soloists have hit the Billboard Hot 100: the Grammy-nominated “Clout” (No. 39) and “Jealousy” (No. 55). A further three collaborations between Cardi and Migos have landed on the ranking: “Type Shit” (No. 71), “Drip” (No. 21) and the Nicki Minaj-assisted “MotorSport” (No. 6). Cardi and Offset first joined forces on 2017’s “Lick” remix, a cut from Cardi’s Gangsta Bitch Music, Vol. 2 mixtape.

The “Bodak Yellow” rapper also opened up about the intricacies of her and her husband’s recording process. “He usually just have a song and I be like, ‘I like this song. I want to get on this song because I like this song.’ But like, even with like, ‘Jealousy’ and everything, when I first did it, I was like, ‘I feel like I don’t sound too strong,’” she recounted. “He’s like, ‘Yeah, your voice is a little bit like, why you putting that girly sound on it?’ because I change my voice when I rap … We critique each other a lot, a lot, a lot.”

Cardi’s relationship with Offset and Migos began almost a decade ago. “I got introduced to Migos in the club,” she remembered in a separate interview that aired on SiriusXM’s The Morning Mash Up. “[DJ Spanking] stopped the music and he was like, ‘This is the hottest song right now in Atlanta. I’m telling you right now that this is gonna take over’ and then he started playing ‘Versace.’”

“Versace,” which got a remix from Drake, was the first single from the rap trio’s breakthrough Y.R.N. (Young Rich N—as) mixtape. The song peaked at No. 99 on the Hot 100, their very first entry on the chart.

Offset and Cardi started dating in early 2017. By June 2018, Cardi confirmed that she and Offset got married the September prior, one month before the Migos star publicly proposed to her. A few months before that confirmation, however, Cardi debuted her pregnancy during a memorable Saturday Night Live performance. She gave birth to her first child together, daughter Kulture Kiari Cephus, on July 10, 2018. A second child, a son named Wave Set Cephus, followed on Sep. 4, 2021. After a nearly six-year marriage that has included separations and divorce filings, Cardi hinted at an official wedding via X last year.

“We’re very different from each other, but I think that’s what make us work,” she mused on The Morning Mash Up. “Yin and yang for real. But one thing that we, like, both love: We both love family. That’s one thing, and we both love what we do, like we both, we are each other’s support system. I know that he backs me up a hundred percent and I back him up a hundred percent. I don’t care.”

Watch her chats below with SiriusXM:

08 Sep 2023

Maren Morris Appears Ready to Tangle With Jason Aldean Again in Video Tease: ‘Welcome to Our Perfect Small Town’

Maren Morris isn’t nearly ready to make nice with Jason Aldean. Or so it seems in what looks like a tease from a new video posted by Morris on Thursday (Sept. 7). Morris posted images on Instagram from what appeared to be a visual for a new song that could take aim at Aldean’s divisive track “Try That in a Small Town.”

The caption to the post reads, “I’m done filling a cup with a hole in the bottom,” alongside a silent clip of a bucolic town with a billboard that reads: “Welcome to Our Perfect Small Town: From Sunrise to Sundown.” The post also included a shot of Morris, dressed in a gauzy black shoulder-less top, staring up into the distance at an unseen object. US magazine noted that the picture seems to be of the outfit that Morris wore at the 2016 CMAs, where she won new artist of the year at the event where Aldean was blanked on nominations, lamenting at the time to reporters, “I’ve gone out and done everything I can do to put ourselves in a position to be there, and people either vote for you or they don’t.”

The enigmatic post got an enthusiastic thumbs up from Brandi Carlile, who commented, “Oh it is ON [fire emoji].” Carlile supported Morris when the singer took issue with anti-trans comments made by Aldean’s wife, Brittany, in August 2022, when the latter wrote on Instagram, “I’d really like to thank my parents for not changing my gender when I went through my tomboy phase. I love this girly life.”

Those comments drew a sharp rebuke at the time from Morris, who called Brittany “Insurrection Barbie,” a comment that drew a “MY Barbie” comment from husband Aldean. The spat ended with Morris raising more than $100,000 for GLAAD’s Transgender Media Program and Trans Lifeline with a line of merch mocking fired Fox News personality Tucker Carlson’s attempted diss line calling Maren a “lunatic country music person.”

Morris’ apparent video tease also drew comments from Cassade Pope, who added a series of side eye emoji, while Julia Michaels wrote “WOW WOW” and Natalie Hemby posted four heart emoji. At press time a spokesperson for Morris said they had no additional comment about the post.

What appears to be the latest salvo in the Morris-Aldean skirmish seems to be keyed to Aldean’s controversial “Try That in a Small Town” single, whose video was pulled from CMT in July amid critics’ claims that it contained pro-gun and pro-lynching messages; the clip was filmed in front of the Maury County Courthouse in Columbia, TN, the site of a 1927 mob lynching of an 18-year-old Black teenager named Henry Choate and the 1946 Columbia race riot.

The song challenged those who “pull a gun on the owner of a liquor store” or “cuss out a cop” to, as the title suggests, try those actions in a small town and “see how far ya make it down the road.” The song’s video featured footage of an American flag burning, protesters having confrontations with police, looters breaking a display case and thieves robbing a convenience store.

At the time, Aldean said the claims that the song was “pro-lynching” and that it intimated he was “not too please” with the nationwide 2021 Black Lives Matter protests were “not only meritless, but dangerous“; footage of the BLM protests were later edited out of the video.

Check out Morris’ tease below.

08 Sep 2023

Olivia Rodrigo Appears to Tease Guts World Tour in Lyric Video: Fans React

It looks like Olivia Rodrigo may be getting ready to spill her guts all across the globe. Shortly after the release of her sophomore album Guts, fans noticed what looks to be a teaser for an accompanying world tour — and it’s hidden right in plain sight in one of the album’s new lyric videos.

The visual in question is for “Making the Bed,” the sixth track on Guts. On the song, Rodrigo sings about feeling like her life is out of control following her seemingly overnight rise to fame with 2021’s “Drivers License,” followed by debut album Sour. “I got the things I wanted, it’s just not what I imagined,” she sings.

In the video, the lyrics appear on a sheet of notebook paper lying on a purple backdrop. To the side sits a general admission concert ticket labeled the “Guts World Tour.”

“OLIVIA RODRIGO: GUTS THE WORLD TOUR,” theorized one ecstatic fan, posting a close-up screenshot of the faux ticket on X (formerly known as Twitter).

“DOES OLIVIA THINK I DONT SEE THE GUTS WORLD TOUR TICKET ON THE SIDE OF THE MAKING THE BED LYRIC VIDEO ????? GIRL SPILL,” added another fan, posting a similar screenshot.

Billboard has reached out to the singer’s rep for comment.

In real life, Rodrigo hasn’t yet announced any actual touring plans for Guts, which dropped midnight Friday (Sept. 8). She did say in a recent interview, however, that she wrote the songs on the project with an accompanying tour “in mind.”

“I think there’s a lot of fun songs,” she told Capital FM in England last month. “I wrote the album with a tour in mind, so I think they’re all songs I wanted people to be able to scream in a crowd. Hopefully that’s what’s achieved.”

In the hours before Guts‘ release, the 20-year-old pop star surprised fans gathered at her pop-up event in New York City, sitting for a quick Q&A and giving a sneak peak at four of the album’s songs: “All-American Bitch,” “Logical,” “Get Him Back!” and “Teenage Dream.” Bright and early Friday morning, she performed some of her new songs, as well as a few older favorites, on the TODAY show.

See fan reactions to Olivia Rodrigo’s possible tour teaser below, and check out the video above: