Music
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From Charli XCX’s momentum-shifting “Kamala is brat” post to Beyoncé and Kendrick Lamar’s “Freedom” serving as her official campaign song, music was integral to Vice President Kamala Harris’ 2024 bid for the U.S. presidency.
On Election Day (Nov. 5), Vice President Harris returned to her beloved alma mater, Howard University, to observe the election results and spend the historic night at the place where she first ran for office. Though former President Donald Trump would ultimately win the election, Harris still chose to concede and end her campaign with dignity and grace on her undergraduate campus.
To soundtrack both Election Night and the hours leading up to the VP’s concession speech, the Harris campaign selected DJ Chubb E. Swag (born Terrell D. Williams) – another Cali-bred Howard student who has played gigs ranging from Nipsey Hussle tours to the wedding of Vanessa Bell Calloway’s daughter. “I used to be Nipsey Hussle‘s tour DJ years ago, back in 2012 and part of 2013,” he tells Billboard. “We did some important work together and I did one of his last shows before he transitioned into the Crenshaw situation.”
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Though his DJ career has brought him to stages around the world, very few gigs can compare to preparing the stage for a sitting Vice President – let alone in the context of one of the most mind-boggling election cycles in U.S. history. Tasked with keeping hope alive during Election Night and curating the mood for a concession speech sure to break the hearts of millions of listeners, DJ Chubb E. Swag turned to the healing power of Black music to tell his own story and Vice President Harris formally ended her campaign. From The Isley Brothers’ “Shout” and Chaka Khan’s “What Cha’ Gonna Do For Me” to Beyoncé’s “America Has a Problem” and Lamar’s “Alright,” DJ Chubb E. Swagg curated a setlist brimming with hope and resistance in the face of complete and utter despair.
In an illuminating conversation with Billboard, DJ Chubb E. Swagg details how he rose to the occasion of emceeing Election Night and the following day, the legacy of Howard DJs and breaking “Swag Surfin” on the storied campus.
What’s your history with Howard?
I went to Howard University from 2008 until around 2013. 2012 was when I started going on tour with Nipsey, after which I had ceased to go to school for a second. I came back for a little when I was done [with the tour] to try and finish, but business started moving so quickly that it was more advantageous for me to start worrying about that instead. In addition, I started building a little DJ family there and teaching kids how to DJ for free. We got a nice little legacy and history of DJs from Howard University, especially over the last 15 years.
When did you find out who won the election? When were you confirmed to DJ these events?
People had an idea of [the loss], as the event was going along, but we knew before we left. I was confirmed that morning to do the event, or the day before honestly. We had been in conversation for a second, but it wasn’t a guaranteed thing. I asked as soon as I found out [about where Vice President Harris would be spending election night]. It had to go through a couple of channels. I got lucky because I was invited to the Vice President’s mansion earlier this year for a celebration of HBCU leaders, and we got a picture together. I’m not gonna say we were on a first-name basis, but she had a nice reference for me just in case somebody asked her about [potential DJs].
The day before the Election, one of the higher-ups got in contact with me and said, “Hey, we heard you’ve been chosen to DJ the event. Can you come set up the day before because they have to do several different sweeps?”
In addition, there was also a completely different watch party that was supposed to be happening at the same time in the gymnasium and they sent all those kids to the yard. The DJ from the gymnasium, DJ K.Dimes, came up to me during the Election Night event and told me that they shut down the stadium. [The Harris team] wanted everybody to get the experience. As soon as he told me that, I made sure he got to get a picture and play a song or two; now he was part of history as well. We try to lift as we climb.
I got confirmed to DJ before her concession speech at 2:00 a.m. on Wednesday. They said they enjoyed my energy and what was going on at the rally, and they wanted me back for the next day. Before they even got any words out, I told them, “Instead of trying to force dancing on this day, can we keep things a little more mellow and can we look to tell more of a story?” They were okay with it, and I had to send in a playlist the day before.
I put about 150 extra songs on the playlist. I sent over nearly 500 songs in total — you’re potentially playing for a seven-hour period. As a DJ, there is no “travel light,” you gotta pack everything.
How much did the decision of the election influence the kind of set you created going into the concession speech yesterday?
We had an idea that things were not right when they started playing the CNN video and she was already down like 80 points. There were seeds of doubt being sown at that moment. People were still hopeful and resolute because they knew what happened in 2020 with a lot of states [going] blue later on, but it really felt like an uphill battle.
I wanted to go in and tell a story about perseverance with the music. I wanted to tell a story about making a way out of no way. My Election Night set was a little more energetic due to the circumstances, and the following day had to be a bit more mellow. I still got some energetic records in there, but it was definitely different.
How did you understand your role and responsibility as the literal master of ceremonies preparing the crowd for an emotional and historic concession speech?
Have you ever buried a relative? It’s honor and it’s duty, but at the same time, it’s extreme sadness, heartbreak, gut-wrenching, all the superlatives you hear in the movies.
I have so much respect for Kamala [Harris], because she said, “Win or lose, I’m going down with the gang. I’m coming back home. Win or lose, I’m talking to my people and I’m talking to them at the place where everything first started.” I more than empathize with that. I wanted to make sure her transition, whether it was in or out, was met with nothing but love.
This Howard thing… people talk about it abstractly, but it’s real. She and I are both Howard students from California. We had to come from a long way to get where we are. We’re doubly connected. Outside of the exposure, I wanted to be there to make sure my sister was good. I wanted to make sure she was okay. She fought her life out for the last 100 or so days for us. When everybody else was telling her what to do and when she was doing everything in her power to make something shake, nobody had her back. So, I had to make sure we had her back.
On X, you wrote, “We use music to tell a story. Glad I could include mine.” What were the parts of your specific story that you were plugging into the setlist?
One of the first songs I got off that day was “Changes” by 2Pac, and one of the verses starts off with “I see no changes, all I see is racist faces/ Misplaced hate makes disgrace to races.” I started off preaching. Then, I played Chaka Khan’s “What Cha’ Gonna Do For Me?” and Hall & Oates’ “I Can’t Go for That.” A lot of those are self-explanatory, like, personally, I’m not going for no Trump presidency. You gotta ask Trump what he’s gonna do for me! And that can go both ways because what are we gonna do for Kamala now that the chips are down?
I actually wanted to play The Isley Brothers’ “Shout” the day prior, but it was too old for the crowd. We had a really young crowd on Election Night. There were a lot of older people there, but the young folks showed up for Kamala in droves. I played Victoria Monét’s “On My Mama,” because they call her “Momala” or “Big Mala” sometimes, so I wanted to make sure she was comforted. You could hear it in her voice – not saying that she couldn’t handle that moment, but if you could be anywhere in the world other than this specific place right now, I’m sure you’d want to be there.
I added a few extra songs that I played that weren’t on the approved list. I remember one of the DJs that I brought up was trying to play Soulja Boy and I was like, “Ay, turn that s—t off!” [Laughs.] I love you to death, but if the [artist] ever said anything stupid in public, we gon have to drain the swamp on that one! No Soulja, no Chris Brown… Bobby Brown didn’t even make it through testing.
Who made that call?
I don’t make those decisions. I don’t have that type of power. I spent seven or eight hours on the initial list making sure it was curated perfectly without any abusers, fascists, etc. When [her team] sent the list back, they only took off one name and it was Bobby Brown. I was able to play Chaka Khan and even Janet Jackson if I wanted to – I didn’t because [Jackson] had said something kinda goofy about Kamala.
What did you see on the crowd’s faces from your vantage point?
It was like a third homecoming. The energy out there was electric. It was even more hilarious with the random rally-goers and people who had never been around HBCU folks or Black people because they were like “What the hell is going on?! Why are they playing this song?”
There were even staff members asking me, “Can you play a dancing song?” And I’ll tell them, “This is the dancing song! This very slow Tamia song is the dancing song.” Women of all ages are moving to this one, and they will not get tired; they’ll do the song for nine minutes if they need to.
I played so much s—t on Election Night. We went around the world. I was playing calypso, soca, go-go, East Coast, West Coast, Midwest, Dirty South – I did a lot of Afrobeats on both days. For the concession speech, I played Asake’s “Organize,” and I thought it was really important for the movement moving forward. In order for us to do what we need to do, we need to get organized quickly.
On Election Night, people came in excited, and they got their hearts broken. Before the concession speech, people came in with their hearts already broken. You could see it on their faces. It was like trying to lift somebody out of despair, and they don’t wanna leave that [emotional] space just yet.
I almost felt like I lost the election, like I let y’all down. I was in the middle of it. When s—t really started getting bad — after 11:30 p.m., around midnight — they was asking me to play hype, dance, rally stuff. I was like, “As much as I can do that, I don’t think it’s gonna do what you think it’s gonna do right now.” Having to tell the truth is really more difficult than people give it credit for being. Don’t nobody wanna hear that s—t! They don’t wanna swag surf right now.
Speaking of, you’re also the DJ who broke “Swag Surfin” at Howard, right?
I am! And I was upset because they did a whole ESPN thing on this s—t and they got somebody on there who was on a whole different radio station at the time and damn near 50-60 years old – n—a, you wasn’t playing no “Swag Surf!”
We had to bring that record up from the South. N—as didn’t even put that shit in a promo email at first! Students were the n—as that put us on to it at first. I guess they went back for vacation and when they came back [Fast Life Yungstaz’s] “Swag Surf” was a big thing – and I wanted to make sure I was on top of it. I was breaking all the s—t. Everybody wanted to go more mainstream, and I was really trying to break that underground.
If I remember correctly, Obama was already president, and his brother-in-law, Michelle’s brother, is the head coach at Morgan State University. They devised this plan where Morgan ended up playing Howard every year at Howard, and Obama started coming to campus once a year just for a basketball game. I DJ’d the very first game that he came to; I played Jeezy and Jay-Z‘s “My President Is Black” and “Swag Surfin.” He gave me the head nod from about 1000 feet away.
I had hands in all that s—t, I was at Howard during what we call the “Golden Era” of those HBCU anthems. There were some songs I broke at Howard and some songs that I was the first to play in general. Like “Country S—t” by Big K.R.I.T. — we was beating down his DJ’s email because we wanted to play it, and it wasn’t in any record pool. He emailed us the studio version and the clean version, and I was one of the first people to ever play that record. Dom Kennedy wasn’t even trying to get on the radio, and he sent me a clean version of “1997.” That Howard legacy runs deep!
When Sting was first approached about being a mega mentor on this season of The Voice, he had his doubts.
“I was reticent, to be honest,” he says on the Universal Studios set of the NBC series. “The premise of the show is frightening to me, this sort of competition. I think art and music aren’t really competitions. If you win the U.S. Open, you are the best player at that particular time. But singing is different. Everybody’s voice is unique.”
It turns out he was very glad he said yes. Sting, who serves as a mega mentor for Gwen Stefani and Snoop Dogg’s teams during the Knockout rounds airing Monday (Nov. 11), found the experience to be a wonderful one.
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The former schoolteacher found the contestants needed very little instruction. “I’m still a student of music, but I’ve been doing it for a long time, so I can give them a tiny hint,” he says, “but the standard of singing is so high, there’s nothing you can say. They know how to sing. There’s little bits of presentation or posture or the way that you present yourself I can probably help, but technically, they’re great singers.”
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Still, the experience was rewarding. “It was very nourishing to see a small piece advice that you’re given and then their next run through, they put that into action and the whole thing is raised,” he says.
As far as the best advice he ever got from a mentor came from his dad and he clearly took it to heart. “He said go to sea. See the world. Make something of yourself,” he says. “Basically, take a risk.”
Sting was already friends with Stefani and Snoop Dogg before the taping. He and Stefani first met when she was 13 and she approached him as a fan. They then met again when her group No Doubt and Sting (both as a solo act and as a member of The Police) were on A&M Records, including playing the Super Bowl halftime together in 2003.
“I’ve been so impressed by how succinct she is in her comments about the artists, how compassionate she is and her wisdom,” he says of Stefani’s coaching technique. “She’s very clever lady, and, also, she’s not hard to look at!”
As far as his other coaching partner, Sting appears on Missionary, Snoop Dogg’s first new solo album since 2022 out in December. Snoop and Dr. Dre, who produced the set, asked Sting to play on a song from his past.
“Dre and Snoop sent me a version of [the Police’s 1979 hit] ‘Message in a Bottle,’ and I was very impressed by it. Frankly, it was great,” he says. “It’s a rebirth of the song, if you like. I played the guitar on it. I sang a verse, but in order to sing a verse that would match what they’d done, I had to raise my game, sing in a way that I don’t normally sing in a rhythmic way. It was challenging, but very, very satisfying. It’s a great version of the song.”
Reba McEntire, who is in her second year as a coach, started as a mentor, but Sting quickly denies advancing to that status is his endgame. (Jennifer Hudson serves as McEntire and fourth coach Michael Bublé’s mega mentor.) “I’m not a judge, I’m still a student,” he says. Plus, as he notes, “I have another job and that other job seems to be going very, very well.” Indeed, the day after Sting appears on The Voice, his stripped-down Sting 3.0 tour will start a five-date run in Los Angeles. The outing wraps in Sweden in July.
Rome Streetz and Daringer have been Griselda Records’ secret weapons.
Rome, who reps Brooklyn signed to Westside Gunn’s imprint back in July of 2021 and released the impressive album Kiss the Ring. On that project, is a song entitled “Tyson Beckford” where he and the label’s in-house producer Daringer first linked up. They then began working closely together because the Buffalo producer’s Queens studio is a hop, skip, and a jump from Rome’s Brooklyn apartment.
“When I ain’t doing s–t, I go to the studio,” Rome told me in a Billboard conference room. “I was literally there everyday for months just cookin’ up, just vibin’, listening to beats.” Daringer would already be working and he would play Rome beats until one of them caught his attention. “By the time he pulled up, I would have either something started or I would have part of a beat and then I would just be throwing records on until something something landed,” the Griselda beatmaker added.
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What resulted from those sessions is their first collab album Hatton Garden Holdup named after London’s diamond district. Rome spent some of his high school years across the pond and would come back to NYC during school breaks. But it wasn’t until they were out in London doing show’s with Griselda mainstay Conway the Machine that they got the idea for the short film which then turned into them naming the album, and interjecting London-based skits and samples into the final product to bring everything full circle. “It was easy to make that the theme once the movie was part of it,” Daringer said. “I felt like we had to even down to the name.”
The duo came by the Billboard office in midtown Manhattan to talk about the making of the album and the film which included some of Rome’s childhood London friends that he has continued to keep in touch with.
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Check out our talk below.
We might as well start with the short film you guys recently released. How did that idea come about? Like, what made you guys want to do a movie?Where in the process of the album. Did the in the did the idea come about to do it, to do a movie?
Rome Streetz: We were pretty much around 80 percent done with the album once we shot the movie. And it just hit me, like, ‘Yo, we should do a movie. Because [Coach] always wants the videos to be like little movies. Most of the videos Coach directs have kind of like a movie-esque vibe to them. We did “Chrome Magnum,” we did “Shake and Bake.” So, we’re like, ‘You know what? Let’s just do it, I’m saying. And because it’s not a Griselda album or something Westside Gunn is spearheading, we just wanted to do more than you would get from a Griselda album.
That’s what it really was: How can we just turn this sh—t up another level? How can we do something that most motherf—kers in this realm are not doing? Everybody drops the album, one or two music videos, do a couple interviews, drop a tape, CD, vinyl, and then it’s on to the next sh—t. Who’s actually doing a movie?
Hatton Garden is essentially London’s diamond district, there’s British samples from movies and interviews. When did the London theme come about?
R.S.: The London theme honestly, came from the movie. You know, I’m saying, like, once we did the movie. Then we started adding the London sh—t.Daringer: It was easy to make that the theme once the movie was part of it. I felt like we had to even down to the name.
Were you guys out there to perform or were you there specific all to shoot the movie?
R.S.: Earlier in the year, I was out there performing with Conway, and then it just kind of came about like that. And also because I used to live in London when I was a teenager for a couple years, so that was like a throwback to that time.
You were born in London, right?
R.S.: I was born in London, but I came to New York when I was like one. Then I went back to London from like 14 to like 17. It wasn’t for the whole year, I would go to school out there, and when school was done, I’d come back to New York.
You still have family and friends out there?
R.S.: Yeah, I got family, I got friends out there. A lot of my friends are into the same sh—t that we into. I communicate with them all the time: Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp. So, I was like, how canI incorporate that into what I’m doing? How can we mix this London sh—t. A lot of my homeboys were in the movie. The part when we were in the alleyway talking? None of them were actors, they were all my homeboys.
Daringer, your name is synonymous when it comes to Griselda, so it was cool to see you, be more visible now. Is that something that you want to do moving forward?
D.: Absolutely, especially with me, just like, kind of flourishing more as an artist now too. It was always just me producing behind the scenes for all these years. Now is the time where I need to start moving as an artist. I feel like this was the perfect time to really start being outside and actually being seen. I felt like this was a perfect opportunity for that, for sure.
You guys have been working together since Rome has been with Griselda, but what made you want to do a tape together?
R.S.: We did that one song on Kiss the Ring, “Tyson Beckford.”D: Then he pulled up to my apartment.R.S.: The first song we did was the joint with Cormega.D: Right.R.S.: But Mega wasn’t on it at first. We did that joint, like, ‘This sh—t is hard.’ And what we gonna do? We just kept cooking up. His studio is right by my crib. We kept making stuff and was like, “We got a lot of songs we might is well do an album.”
And you live in Queens now. I guess it made it easier for you guys to kind of connect for this album. Or did that matter?
R.S.: His studio is on the border of Queens and Brooklyn and I live like 5-10 minutes away. When I ain’t doing s—t, I go to the studio, I was literally there everyday for months just cookin’ up, just vibin’, listening to beats.
So, you guys worked on most of the album together? Did you already have a pack of beats or were you making them on the spot as you guys were cookin’ up?
D: I made the majority of them on the spot. Maybe I’d have some drums started by the time he got there, or a sample idea, and I was kind of just trying to figure it out. By the time he pulled up, I would have either something started or I would have part of a beat, and then I would just be throwing records on until something something landed.
You living in Queens makes sense now because one of your first tapes outside of Griselda was with Meyhem Lauren.
D: Yeah, I traveled with Action when I first moved there, worked with Meyhem, getting tight with them, and being able to actually stay in New York now because I’m doing enough things, and then that was when the Shady deal happened. So, luckily I was able to stay in New York, but it’s funny because I didn’t have a studio when we “Tyson Beckford,” I was still just making beats out of my apartment. We made the first song in my apartment, and my goal was to always eventually just get a studio in New York, so it just happened to work out that it was close to where he was living. I feel like that definitely helped out with the whole process, it made things a lot easier.
What I found interesting about this tape was that some of it sounds different from the usual Griselda stuff, especially the track with ScHoolboy Q. I wasn’t expecting that beat to sound like that. Was that on purpose?
R.S.: Honestly, it was just energy. Whatever he was throwing at me. I wasn’t being picky. Daringer is Daringer, so it’s all gonna hit. We’re just gonna make sh—t until we feel like we got what we need. You know, we still got a lot more songs left over. And then the ScHoolboy Q record was so different and he wasn’t on it at first. He happened to tap me on Twitter. I was in the studio with Q, and he heard it, and wanted to get on it. The song that Daringer made for Q was the one that Conway was on. He heard that first, like “Yo, this is fire.”
But then he went to the bathroom, and then the engineer was just like, “Yo, play me some s—t.” So, then I just started playing him songs, and when I played him that one, Q just so happened to walk in the room and was like, “What the f—k is that? This is it. This is the one I wanna get on.” I had a second verse on it, so I had to call Daringer, like, “Oh s—t, yo, I need you to f—king send me this s—t right now without the verse on it. Luckily, I had to beat in my phone. That’s what saved it.
So, you and Q just happened to be in the same studio, or you linked up specifically to chill and record?
R.S.: I did an interview in Portugal when I was on tour and the interviewer asked me who is somebody I would like to work with. think I named, like, three other people, but then I named ScHoolboy Q, so then eventually the interview just ended up on Twitter, and then he seen it, and then he quote tweeted it, like, “Yo, send it.” I hit me back and he was like I could either send him the record or just pull up to the lab. So, I pulled up and went to L.A. That’s how it happened.
I’m always fascinated by this, especially since you guys worked on this together. Today, nobody does that anymore. They send a pack and then you send verses back. Can you tell us the difference between collabing over email versus being in the studio with each other?
R.S.: With me? At one point, I used to feel like I work better on my own time. Sometimes when you in the studio, you get boxed into the time constraints. I used to feel like I’d rather not put my creativity in a time constraint box, like I feel like I work better when I just have my own time. So, a lot of my other s—t was more so just like, you could send me a beat, I’ll cook it up. But this one was more of a challenge. How much can I write on the spot? I hear the beat, I’m going in right there.
I used to think that I write better rhymes outside of the studio, but this pretty much proved to me that it don’t matter, you got the glow. I like this process because it’s more of a stream of consciousness. It’s more of just your energy right then and there. When somebody sends you a pack, you probably write half a verse today and then finish it two days later, and you may not have the same energy.
I like working on the spot because it makes me better, it’s like a challenge. You’re capturing the energy right there. Your creativity dies when you’re too comfortable, you start leaning on s—t. I just feel like I need to challenge myself.D: That was the goal of me getting the studio to begin with. I don’t have control over what happens after I send the beat a lot of times. What helped with this album is that we got to revisit and work on the songs more, I guess, post production, or whatever you like to call it. It’s got to spend more time on the songs and structure them and drops, you know, and just the skits and outros, intros. All that extra stuff that maybe a lot of times I don’t add that when I’m just making.
The bells and whistles, just to make it perfect.
D: The email stuff is always like an unfinished idea that ends up becoming a song. That was definitely the goal of me getting the studio and wanting to make a record like that, and being able to spend the extra time for sure. We got to do the s—t the right way. I’m happy with my investment, just because of that.
Yeah, them all habits die hard. Rome, do you punch in?
R.S.: Nope, at least I try not to. I’m not gonna say I don’t, sometimes you have to for continuity. But the reason why I don’t like to punch in is because if I can’t spit the rhyme straight through, I can’t perform it. If I’m punching in every bar, how’s that gonna translate on the stage? I gotta be able to say the rhyme straight through. I gotta be able to record it in one whole take, if I can perform it.
Yeah, because that’s like the norm now, especially with the younger rappers.
R.S: When you see them on stage, they’re not even f—king rapping. They just let the song play, and they just jumping up and down, ad-libing their own vocals, because they can’t even say the sh—t in one breath because of the fact that they had to punch it.
Was this the first project that you recorded in full there?
D: Yup, it’s personal space. I’m not sharing it with anybody and no one is going in and out besides me. We probably wouldn’t even have that ScHoolboy record had we not been in the studio. Because it was a beat that started with just drums, and me listening to records and not overthinking. It was literally just like the first thing that landed that just sounded good with the drums and then we kind of just built on it. We did a bunch of the records like that.R.S.: Sometimes it’d be better that way. If I wasn’t there, that’ll probably be one he made that he didn’t like. But I heard it and was like, “Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, what the f—k is that? Sometimes you might just overthink it and be like, “Nah, this ain’t it.” The producer might want to do something, but then the rapper might hear something that the producer don’t hear. It’s like, “Nah, the rhyme could go crazy, right here. Don’t even add nothing. Keep it just like…” You know what I mean? That on the spot, energy is good.
Rome Streetz and Daringer
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How much input did you have on the beats?
R.S.: A lot, but I let Daringer do his thing. As far as the samples, it wasn’t like, “Pick this,” because he’s got 1000s of records. I don’t know what the s—t sounds like until he puts it together. Like, I don’t imagine you.
You work with The Alchemist closely too. He be digging obscure s—t. I’d imagine you do the same.
D: I’ve been on the same wave too. way. So, of course, when we got together, we could share ideas. I never felt like he thought I was gonna come in and just take his ideas either. So we always, somehow didn’t really run into the lot of the same things. We like a lot of the same music, a lot of the same records. But luckily, we didn’t run into too many instances where it was, like, we’re using the same sh—t. Yeah, the approach is a little different.
So, how’s that been for you, man? Now that you moved from Buffalo essentially into the industry for lack of a better term.
D: Not too many producers ever came out of Buffalo. I could only think of one off top that really flourished. Emile Haynie. And he took a different approach. He was doing Lana Del Rey and Mark Ronson. He’s worked on pop records, He did stuff with Ghostface and D.I.T.C. early on. He was around, but he definitely chose the pop route. So for me to be able to come up and stick with this style of rap, it feels dope. I always had the vision, but to actually come out of Buffalo and be able to move to New York City and be able to make a living from it? That was a big accomplishment.
How did you get affiliated with Griselda?
D: It’s crazy, we were bringing up Twitter before. There’s a small underground network that was going on in Buffalo at the time, so if you’re into that scene, we’re all going to run into each other at some point. I was a DJ at the time and I was trying to make beats on the side eventually. I was doing the DJ thing, playing showcases and playing rap records at a spot on Thursdays. I was a little bit younger, so I came in a little late, but I ended up meeting Gunn and Benny, and Gunn ended up just disappearing and then hit me on Twitter years later.
It was pretty much like, “Remember me, I’m about to put out an album. You got any beats?” And I was like, what Do you remember what year it was? 2014? HWH1. And that was the only original record on that tape.The rest of it was just like beats that he got, that he picked, that were already produced songs. That was the first one that we did, “Mess Hall Talk.” It was a little bit faster than a lot of the stuff that we would do down the line too.
He had the idea to start slowing the s—t down. Naturally, when we start pitching the music down, everything gets slower. I didn’t have Ableton and certain things at the time to maintain the tempo. That’s kind how the records and beats started getting slower, like 70 bpm, 60 bpm, type stuff. And he was coming from Atlanta at the time too, so you could tell there was some influence there. He kind of wanted to blend in the A with this type of rap, but with these tempos, with the samples pitched down, and it sounds like some chopped and screwed s—t.
Man, that makes sense. I never put those things together.
D: At least, I feel that way. That maybe was part of the reason why we were pitching it down to a certain speed. Also him still living there. Conway spent a bunch of time there. Benny spent a bunch of time there, so really Atlanta had a big influence on the whole s—t, surprisingly. The fact that he would travel all the way from Atlanta to Buffalo, he would drive a lot of times too. That’s not an easy drive. They would come to my apartment at the time, we recorded everything in my living room. Eventually, Conway stayed with and we started working on Reject 2. We ended up making two full records because he was staying with me the whole time. Looking back, making all that in my living room at the time was crazy, and the fact that Gunn was taking all these trips back and forth from the A to lock in made it even more special.
What else you got going on or planned. Anything you could talk about?
R.S.: I got an album with Conductor — probably two albums worth of music. I got sh—t with V Don. I got s—t with Muggs, Futurewave. I did a mixtape with Real Bad Man. I got a lot of sh—t.D: I want to do a compilation featuring a bunch of different artists on it. That’s always been a thing that I wanted to do. I think I’m going to end up doing a couple of them and make a series out of it. I got music with Meyhem still, so we’re probably gonna do a follow up. Maybe one day me and Bronson will do a full length. I did a handful of the records on that last album. So hopefully one day we could tap in and do a full length. Reject 2 is turning 10, so maybe Reject 3 with Conway in the next year or two. I’m really just focusing on me as an artist.
I’m sure you want to show off your versatility, because I think you kind of did that with this tape.
R.S.: One thing I can say, when it comes to picking the beats, I was purposely steering away from certain type of beats only because fans are used to hearing that. it’s like one No, rather than being a whole album, I kind of knew what to expect, but then the project was still about to surprise me.D: We definitely worked on the sequence for a while and put that puzzle together. I feel like, once we got the songs in a specific order, we were able to start adding the skits and gluing it all together.R.S.: That’s the one benefit of working with one producer. You’re able to make all the songs flow into each other. I’m not saying you can’t do it with multiple producers, but it’s a little bit more difficult. You would literally have to get all of them people in the room at the same time to orchestrate that.
Why do you like working with one producer?
R.S.: I like to do one producer because it’s just cohesive. Sometimes when you have a bunch of different producers on one tape, you can’t really get a lot of the post production. I’m a fan of post production. Sometimes when I get beat and rap over it, when I play the song back, it sounds totally different. It’s easier to make intros and outros. If I’m getting packs all day, it’s harder to get 10 different producers to agree on the overall sound. One producer might like the mix on it, but then the other three might not like it, so then you gonna have to re-mix that song to go with that song.It could get crazy. I like working with one producer because you can kind of maximize the sound. You can get the most out of it, the producer can sit with it.
You should’ve did a British accent on one of the songs.
R.S.: [Laughs.] I probably have to go back to London for a couple years to get that sh—t down pat.
Were there any British movies or TV shows that inspired the samples and skits? I know the short was inspired by Snatch.
R.S.: Probably that that interview with the road man, that s—t funny as hell.D: I watched things like Layer Cake to get the gist of it which sent me into a rabbit hole. There was a few joints from the ’70s that I was hoping to sample, but basically just ended up watching them to catch a vibe. We used something on “Starbvxkz” that we added at the last minute, pretty much when we were doing the video. Definitely some influence there.
You guys planning on going on tour? London definitely has to be a stop, right?
R.S.: They’re not going to let me live if I don’t. That’s the main place that I have to do a show.
Everyone gets a little nervous meeting super famous people, even if they’re equally famous. Oscar-nominated actress Saoirse Ronan stopped by The Tonight Show on Thursday (Nov. 7) and revealed that when she finally met her celebrity doppelgänger this summer she was totally star-struck. Fallon held up a picture of a post in which someone online […]
The official tour dates for the Descendants/Zombies: Worlds Collide Tour — an interactive live concert experience coming to arenas across North America next summer — have arrived, and Billboard can exclusively reveal them below.
Featured on the three-month run are Kylie Cantrall, Joshua Colley, Malia Baker and Dara Reneé from Descendants: The Rise of Red, and Freya Skye, Malachi Barton and Mekonnen Knife from Zombies 4: Dawn of the Vampires. According to Disney Concerts, Disney Branded Television and AEG Presents, the shows will celebrate the music from the two franchises, inspiring attendees to dance, sing and engage with the stars.
The tour kicks off July 17, 2025, at Pechanga Arena in San Diego, Calif., before hitting cities across the continent, including Los Angeles, Las Vegas, St. Louis, Toronto, Detroit, Philadelphia, New York, Boston, Atlanta, Nashville, New Orleans and more before wrapping up Sept. 16 in Fort Worth, Texas.
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An exclusive presale for Disney+ subscribers in the U.S. and Canada, as well as a limited number of exclusive VIP packages, will be available starting Tuesday (Nov. 12) at noon local time until Nov. 14 at 10 p.m. local time. Tickets go on sale to the general public on Friday (Nov. 15) at 10 a.m. local time here.
See the full list of tour dates for the Descendants/Zombies: Worlds Collide Tour below.
July 17 – San Diego, CA – Pechanga Arena San DiegoJuly 19 – San Jose, CA – SAP Center at San JoseJuly 20 – Sacramento, CA – Golden 1 CenterJuly 22 – Anaheim, CA – Honda CenterJuly 23 – Los Angeles, CA – Crypto.com ArenaJuly 25 – Phoenix, AZ – Footprint CenterJuly 26 – Las Vegas, NV – T-Mobile ArenaJuly 28 – Denver, CO – Ball ArenaJuly 30 – Oklahoma City, OK – Paycom CenterAugust 1 – Kansas City, MO – T-Mobile CenterAugust 2 – St. Louis, MO – Enterprise CenterAugust 4 – Minneapolis, MN – Target CenterAugust 5 – Milwaukee, WI – Fiserv ForumAugust 6 – Rosemont, IL – Allstate ArenaAugust 8 – Indianapolis, IN – Gainbridge FieldhouseAugust 9 – Louisville, KY – KFC Yum! CenterAugust 10 – Cincinnati, OH – Heritage Bank CenterAugust 12 – Columbus, OH – Schottenstein CenterAugust 13 – Cleveland, OH – Rocket Mortgage FieldHouseAugust 14 – Pittsburgh, PA – PPG Paints ArenaAugust 16 – Toronto, ONT – Scotiabank ArenaAugust 17 – Detroit, MI – Little Caesars ArenaAugust 19 – Buffalo, NY – KeyBank CenterAugust 20 – Philadelphia, PA – Wells Fargo CenterAugust 21 – New York, NY – Madison Square GardenAugust 23 – Belmont Park, NY – UBS ArenaAugust 24 – Newark, NJ – Prudential CenterAugust 25 – Boston, MA – TD GardenAugust 27 – Baltimore, MD – CFG Bank ArenaAugust 29 – Charlottesville, VA – John Paul Jones ArenaAugust 30 – Greensboro, NC – First Horizon ColiseumAugust 31 – Raleigh, NC – Lenovo CenterSeptember 2 – Atlanta, GA – State Farm ArenaSeptember 3 – Nashville, TN – Bridgestone ArenaSeptember 5 – Tampa, FL – Amalie ArenaSeptember 6 – Sunrise, FL – Amerant Bank ArenaSeptember 7 – Orlando, FL – Kia CenterSeptember 9 – Jacksonville, FL – Vystar Veterans Memorial ArenaSeptember 11 – Birmingham, AL – Legacy Arena at the BJCCSeptember 12 – New Orleans, LA – Smoothie King CenterSeptember 14 – Houston, TX – Toyota CenterSeptember 15 – Austin, TX – Moody CenterSeptember 16 – Fort Worth, TX – Dickies Aren
Chappell Roan is over-the-top. The “Hot To Go” singer who has established a reputation for elaborate costumes and aesthetics inspired by drag queens can often seem like a character from a camp movie. And, as it turns out, there’s a good reason for that.
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During a conversation at the Grammy Museum in Los Angeles moderated by Brandi Carlile on Thursday night (Nov. 7), Roan talked about making her breakthrough album, The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess, and how the woman born Kayleigh Rose Amstutz transformed into megawatt pop star Chappell Roan.
“Chappell is a character,” Roan, 26, told Carlile, according to The Hollywood Reporter. “I just can’t be here all the time. It’s just too much.”
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Roan explained that it took “a lot of years” to convince people that her debut album was worth releasing. Recorded with producer Dan Nigro (Olivia Rodrigo), the LP which has logged 32 weeks on the Billboard 200 chart was released in 2023 after five years of work. “I had no money. I had no numbers backing me up,” she said. “I had an EP [2017’s School Nights] that did not do well by the music standards. I had toured, but no headlines. There was nothing backing me up.”
The star said that one of the early songs she worked on with Nigro, signature banger “Pink Pony Club” — which she performed during her Saturday Night Live musical debut last weekend — was released at the “worst time” for a club anthem, April 2020, during the early peak of the COVID-19 pandemic.
It was, however, the track that helped her pull off a “complete 180” from how she dressed and performed at the time, which consisted of wearing “only black on stage. It was very serious.” But, she noted, as soon as she stopped taking herself so seriously “things started working.”
Roan has been open about how her rocket ride to fame has been disorienting. In addition to recently being being diagnosed with severe depression amid her Midwest Princess tour, she was previously diagnosed with bipolar II disorder. The singer canceled two shows on her tour in September just days before they were set to take place after saying she needed a break after feeling overwhelmed.
Asked by Carlile to describe her mental health routine, Roan said it is evolving in the wake of her sudden success this year. “My life is completely different now. Everything is out of whack right now,” she said. “This type of year does something to people. Every big thing that happens in someone’s career happened in five months for me. It’s so crazy that things I never thought would happen happened times 10. I think that that just really rocked my system. I don’t know what a good mental health routine looks like for me right now.”
Roan debuted a new song, the country pop tune “The Giver,” on SNL, just weeks after appearing to tease her next music era in an Instagram post in which she shared selfies and hinted at the follow-up to her debut breakthrough LP. “Album kinda popped off imo but it is time to welcome a hot new bombshell into the villa,” she captioned the pics, in a reference to the Love Island catchphrase welcoming new contestants, which led fans to speculate that she’s working on her second LP. In addition, Nigro has teased that Roan’s next album will be a “new version” of her.
A press release from the National Criminal and Correctional Prosecutor’s office No. 14 in Argentina has revealed the final results of toxicology tests taken in the wake of Liam Payne‘s death. According to a translated copy of the report, in the 72 hours before the former One Direction singer and solo star died after falling from a three-story hotel balcony in Buenos Aires, Argentina, he had “alcohol, cocaine and prescription antidepressants” in his system.
The report said that the toxicology report findings have already been shared with Payne’s family, and that they found that he had “only traces of polydrug use” based on “the complete toxicology tests on urine, blood and vitreous humour, carried out in a very short time.”
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The officials who carried out the autopsy concluded that the 31-year-old star’s death was caused by “‘multiple trauma’ and ‘internal and external hemorrhage,’ the result of the fall the musician suffered from the balcony of the third-floor room of the hotel in the Palermo neighborhood where he was staying.”
Three additional reports on requested by a prosecutor also confirmed that the injures Payne sustained were caused by a fall at the Casa Sur Palermo Hotel from a height and that “self-harm of any kind and/or physical intervention by third parties were ruled out.” In addition, authorities reported that Payne did not adopt a “reflex posture” to protect himself from the fall, which led to the conclusion that he “may have fallen in a state of semi- or total unconsciousness.”
Specifically, “the lack of defense or self-preservation reflex in the fall, together with other relevant data from his consumption, allow us to conclude that Liam Payne was not fully conscious or was experiencing a state of noticeable decrease or loss of consciousness at the time of the fall.” The prosecution said that, as such, they were able to rule out the “possibility of a conscious or voluntary act on the part of the victim, since, in the state he was in, he did not know what he was doing nor could he understand it.”
A frantic 911 call placed by staff shortly before Payne’s death included a description of a guest who was “overwhelmed with drugs and alcohol” and “destroying [their] entire room.” By the time police arrived, Payne had already fallen and died at the scene due to his injuries
Prior to the release of the results, investigators reportedly found a number of illicit substances in Payne’s body at the time of death, including a recreational drug called “pink cocaine,” a mixture of substances that often contains ketamine combined with MDMA, methamphetamine, cocaine, opioids and/or psychoactive substances.
Payne had been candid in the past about his struggles with addiction. In May 2023, he celebrated 100 days of sobriety, saying at the time, “I feel really, really good, and support from the fans and everything has been really, really good. So, I’m super happy.” In 2021, Payne also discussed his substance use issues on the podcast Diary of a CEO podcast, detailing a struggle with depression and substances during the chaotic 1D years.
Police raided the hotel last month and reportedly seized a number of items, including computer hard drives and CCTV footage from hotel cameras.
In addition to the news on the autopsy results, the Thursday press release revealed that three people have been arrested and charged in Argentina in connection with Payne’s death after “illicit conduct was discovered,” leading to the charges of abandonment of a person followed by death, supply and facilitation of narcotics.”
The three were described — but not named — as a person who “accompanied the artist on a daily basis during his stay in the city of Buenos Aires,” who was charged with abandonment of a person followed by death, which carries a potential sentence of 5 to 15 years in prison. A second person was described as a hotel employee who “must answer for two proven supplies of cocaine to Liam Payne during the period he was at the hotel” while a third, also a “drug supplier,” has also been charged with supplying narcotics.
The probe into Payne’s death included the analysis of more than 800 hours of video footage from security cameras in the hotel and on adjacent public roads, as well as a forensic extraction and analysis of the contents of the singer’s cellphone, including calls, messages, chats and social network data. Investigators also looked over a record of Payne’s orders at the hotel bar/restaurant to determine who had visited him and their food/drink “consumption habits.”
Police also extracted several gigabytes of data from cell phones belonging to hotel reception and other witnesses who voluntarily offered to corroborate their statements.
The new SUNSET BLVD: The Album musical cast recording, led by Nicole Scherzinger, debuts at No. 1 on Billboard’s Cast Albums chart dated Nov. 9. The Cast Albums chart ranks the top-selling cast recordings of the week in the United States, based on traditional album sales, according to data tracking firm Luminate. The Nov. 9-dated […]
Country star Zach Bryan is now at the center of serious allegations from his former girlfriend, Barstool podcast host and internet personality Brianna “Chickenfry” LaPaglia.
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In a Nov. 8 episode of the BFFs Podcast LaPaglia co-hosts with Dave Portnoy and Josh Richards, she made a series of bombshell claims, including accusing Bryan of “emotional abuse” during their relationship and claiming she was offered $12 million and a New York apartment to sign a non-disclosure agreement (NDA), which she refused.
“The last year of my life has been like the hardest year of my life dealing with the abuse from this dude,” LaPaglia said on the podcast episode. “I’m still scared right now because I’m scared of him. My brain’s rewired, and I’m scared to make him mad.”
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LaPaglia alleges the pair shared a tumultuous relationship marked by fear and control. “There was always another excuse as to why he was treating me so poorly and why I’m crying myself to sleep every night, why he’s screaming at me,” she recounted. “And then you wake up, it’s the apology, it’s the ‘I’m going to be better, I need you in my life.’”
She alleged that Bryan made his previous girlfriends sign NDAs to prevent them from discussing their experiences publicly. “He made the women before me believe that they had no other choice than to take money from you, sign their experiences away, sign what they went through away,” she claimed.
According to LaPaglia, after their breakup, she was approached by Bryan’s team with a significant financial offer in exchange for her silence.
“I was offered a lot of money, like a big lump sum of money and a few options,” she explained. “Basically, I would have gotten the money over the course of three years. I would have had to sign all of my experiences, everything that I am, away to this person. They would have been monitoring everything that I do.”
She firmly rejected the offer, stating, “I did not accept any money. I will not accept any money. I think that’s beneath me. I don’t think you can pay people off that you hurt for them to protect you. I think that in itself, offering millions of dollars to this apparent beautiful relationship to keep it a secret, speaks volumes.”
LaPaglia explained her desire to support others who may be facing similar situations. “This isn’t about drama for me,” she said. “This is for anyone else that’s been emotionally abused and for people right now being emotionally abused. It’s for people that don’t have a support system that I luckily had going through this.”
She recounted specific incidents during their relationship, including one at the Golden Globes. LaPaglia claimed Bryan “ruined” her experience because he disapproved of her dress. “That was f—– crazy. That was the first time he had really tried to control what I wore and what I posted,” she recalled. “So I went to the Golden Globes and I posted like a carousel of pictures, and he didn’t like my dress.”
“He said he didn’t want to date someone that presents themselves that way. And he unfollowed me, he unfollowed everyone, and I… when I flew home — I flew home after the Golden Globes. He ruined my night,” continued LaPaglia.
“Everything good, anything good I did for me, he made sure to ruin it for me. He ruined my birthday, he ruined my tour, he ruined the Golden Globes. Anything Brianna did for Brianna, he had to ruin it.”
LaPaglia also described an alleged incident on her birthday, where Bryan reportedly berated her friends after she had gone to bed. “I look outside and I have my aunt trying to control Zach — there’s a recording of all of this that can never be out — basically Zach stood up at the fire and he just starts screaming at my friends.”
“He stood up at the fire and just starts screaming at my friends, ‘You’re not going to be anything, you’re a [expletive] loser.’ Just the most horrible [expletive],” she explained, adding that Bryan smashed glass. “It was just crazy, completely out of nowhere, and I’m like, ‘What the [expletive]?’ But when Zach gets in that zone, there’s no containing it.”
In another instance, LaPaglia claimed Bryan had smashed her phone, saying to her co-hosts, “Oh, Look at my phone, it’s smashed from him, he’s always smashed my phone,” adding that he “will whip it at a wall.”
She also alleged that Bryan attempted to control her professional life. “He offered to double what [Barstool Sports] offered me so that I would quit,” she said. “He just didn’t want me to do it and he always made it—he twisted it in my head where he would make me be like, ‘You’re better than this, you’re better than Barstool, you’re destined for so much more.’”
LaPaglia shared that she felt isolated and lost during the relationship, which was made public in July 2023. They dated for over a year before he confirmed their split in October.
“I lost myself throughout this whole relationship,” she admitted. “I don’t even recognize myself anymore. I lost 15 pounds I didn’t have to lose in the relationship. I didn’t sleep. I was completely isolated from my family, from my friends, from work.”
Billboard has reached out to Zach Bryan’s representatives for comment but has not received a response as of publication.
It comes after co-hosts Dave Portnoy and Josh Richards released a diss track aimed at Zach Bryan. The track, which mocked Bryan and referenced the allegations, reportedly faced multiple takedown attempts.
“We knew it was a hit the second we laid it down,” Richards said on the podcast. Portnoy added, “We got crybaby Bryan and the spineless PR team running around deleting [expletive] off the internet, and guess what, it’s still getting millions of views.”
Portnoy claimed that Bryan’s team attempted to suppress the diss track through legal means. “They’re trying to squeeze Bri because of Josh and me,” he said. “We have nothing to do with it. Either pay her or shut the [expletive] up. I’m losing patience.”
The diss track was eventually removed from several platforms, allegedly due to takedown requests from Bryan’s team. “Their crisis management—why he cares so much—is, I guess, what we’ll get into now,” Portnoy commented.
LaPaglia expressed that sharing her story was important not just for herself but for others in similar situations: “That’s why I didn’t take the money. The message I want to put out there is that so many people go through this, feeling trapped or thinking they’ll never be able to leave.”
She added later, “I hope people can understand what I went through this past year and see why I lost myself and wasn’t who I was before him. But I’m back now, and I’m so happy to just be myself again. No more dictatorship here.”
Just a day before the allegations emerged, Bryan shared his latest single, “This World’s a Giant,” with a a candid Instagram post, where he revealed his plans to pause touring to pursue a master’s degree in Paris.
“After not being home for a year and a half, I drove out to my mother’s gravestone in the dead of night… and I came to realize just like in the past, that she never would call me again,” he wrote, sharing a series of images of his late mother, Annette, and his bandmates.
Bryan continued, “I told her I quit touring because I got accepted to get my masters in Paris next year… I told her about all my best friends in New York and all the nights we howled with the moon… [and] about making it on The Rolling Stone.”
He expressed gratitude to fans, adding, “Thank you guys for listening to ‘This World’s a Giant’ last night, and thank you to all the people who love me; who have truly carried the weight with me… I’m home now and I’ll hold you through the pain.”
You can watch the full episode here.
Charlie Puth is in the festive mood, and to celebrate, he dropped a new holiday song, “December 25th,” on Thursday (Nov. 7). “December 25th is the day I always miss you the most/ ‘Cause the music and the lights, it reminds me of a night/ That you told me you had to go/ December 25th […]