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Lizzo‘s break didn’t last long. While participating in a panel at the Fortune Most Powerful Women Summit Monday (Oct. 14), the star shared that she’s not really taking a gap year as she works hard on her Yitty business and new music.
“‘Gap year’? Girl, who said ‘gap year’?” Lizzo began, laughing. (Spoiler alert: She did!) “I launched my company Yitty in 2022 at the same time as my album, Special … As soon as I stepped down home from tour — I may not be as public-facing — but I went straight to Yitty headquarters, and I’ve just been working, working, working. You may not see me, but I’ve been working.”
“It ain’t a gap year, it’s a grind year,” the “About Damn Time” musician noted.
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The panel comes less than two months after Lizzo shared footage of her trip to Bali and wrote, “I’m taking a gap year & protecting my peace.” The Grammy winner has been open about how her mental health has suffered in the aftermath of her ex-dancers filing a lawsuit against her over claims of sexual misconduct and hostile work conditions, all of which Lizzo has emphatically denied. While speaking at the Fortune event, she declined to speak on the matter twice: “This isn’t the space for it, we’re celebrating CEOs and powerful women.”
Lizzo has also been open about how she’s taken refuge in making music and working out, both of which she touched on during the summit. Of the former, she teased that she’s “very close” to being done with her fifth studio album — “I’m really really proud of the music I’ve written,” Lizzo added — and of the latter, explained that she’s leaning into body neutrality instead of body positivity.
“One inevitability we all have to face is that our bodies will change … it’s a beautiful thing,” she said of her recent fitness journey. “My body is nobody’s business, other than me, my doctor, my trainer and my man.”
Plus, the businesswoman joined numerous other artists in praising one of 2024’s biggest breakout stars: Chappell Roan. “I see a lot of parallels … we had the same kind of rise, and it was so quick,” Lizzo said of the “Good Luck, Babe!” musician. “I watch how she handles her relationship to public and fame. If I had one thing to say to her: Call your therapist. I wore my therapist out when I was becoming famous. I respect her a lot for how she handles herself.”
There was no better way to kick off the second day of the 2024 Billboard Latin Music Week on Tuesday (Oct. 15) than with Grupo Frontera‘s Making the Hit Live!, during which the group from Texas worked its magic to create a brand new song.
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As is tradition, during Making the Hit Live!, an artist will take the entire panel time to write and produce a song from scratch. But instead, this year, Grupo Frontera — who shot to stardom in 2022 thanks to ots cover of “No Se Va” — received lyrics from the band’s go-to producer and songwriter Edgar Barrera ahead of time, and added ots signature cumbia sound to the lyrics during the panel. Unofficially titled “Ya No,” the irresistible, hip-swiveling song was indeed created in a span of 40 minutes.
“Before we met Edgar Barrera, I would write songs for the group,” Payo, the band’s frontman, said enthusiastically. “We released, like, two songs that were penned by me, and I wrote four other ones, but those didn’t come out because that’s when we met Edgar and were like, ‘OK, we’re good,’” he added with a laugh.
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Now, when they’re in the studio with Barrera, Frontera’s Juan, Payo and Beto will contribute to the songwriting process, but Payo pokes fun at his bandmates. “They just say one word hoping it sticks,” he shared. “One time, they were obsessed with the word ‘gafas’ and they just kept repeating it, like, chill bro.”
When it comes to production, that’s where all six of them contribute with their respective instruments.
Part of the process of creating a song also includes setting time to think about content for social media to complement the song’s essence. The group’s presence online, whether it’s recording a dance or acting out a scene using part of a song’s lyrics, has made Grupo Frontera go viral more than once on TikTok. “We don’t create a song thinking it will be a hit on TikTok,” Juan explained. Payo added, “When we record a song, we always think the chorus will go viral, but we always get it wrong, so we have to record all of our social media content all over again.”
While setting the cumbia rhythm for “Ya No,” Frontera shared the story of when the members recorded “No Se Va.”
“We didn’t have money to rent a studio to record, well we didn’t have money, period,” said Beto. “So when we did record, we’d have to do everything in one take — even if we made a mistake, we’d leave that in there. We recorded ‘No Se Ve’ at a friend’s apartment building and every resident there was fine with us using the space — except for this one lady who complained.”
That song scored Frontera the group’s first ever Billboard chart entry. The song peaked at No. 3 on the Hot Latin Songs chart. While they’re not sure yet if they’ll release “Ya No,” the song they created during the panel, the track has hit potential. Check out a sneak peek below:
The 2024 Billboard Latin Music Week coincides with the 2024 Billboard Latin Music Awards set to air at 9 p.m. ET on Sunday, Oct. 20, on Telemundo. It will simultaneously be available on Universo, Peacock and the Telemundo app, and in Latin America and the Caribbean through Telemundo Internacional.
Little Simz, Elyanna and Tini each earn their first career entry on the Billboard Hot 100 (dated Oct. 19), thanks to their collaboration with Coldplay, “We Pray.”
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Released Aug. 23 as the second single from the band’s album Moon Music, the song (which also features Burna Boy) debuts at No. 87 with 8 million in airplay audience (up 11%), 3.3 million U.S. streams (up 103%) and 3,000 downloads sold (up 109%) in the Oct. 4-10 tracking week, according to Luminate.
Radio-wise, the song concurrently rises 16-15 on Adult Pop Airplay and 24-23 on Pop Airplay.
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The song’s gains are tied to the album’s release on Oct. 4, with Moon Music debuting at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 with 120,000 equivalent album units earned. The band earns its fifth No. 1 and first since Ghost Stories in 2014.
TikTok has also been a factor in the song’s growing profile. Multiple snippets of the track highlighting the artists featured on the song have broken through on the platform. There’s the “We Pray (Elyanna Version)” and “We Pray (Tini Version),” plus a “Blank Verse Version” that allows users to add their own verses (with all three posted to Coldplay’s official account).
Little Simz, from Islington, London, first appeared on Billboard’s charts in November 2017 via her feature on the Gorillaz song “Garage Palace.” The track debuted and peaked at No. 37 on the Hot Dance/Electronic Songs chart. She earned her first solo appearance in 2021 with her fourth studio album, Sometimes I Might Be Introvert. The set reached No. 33 on the Top Album Sales chart, plus No. 22 on Vinyl Albums. Across the pond, it peaked at No. 4 the Official U.K. Albums chart.
Little Simz has released four other albums: A Curious Tale of Trials + Persons (2015), Stillness In Wonderland (2016), Grey Area (2019) and No Thank You (2022). Outside of music, she starred in the Netflix drama series Top Boy.
Elyanna, a Palestinian-Chilean singer-songwriter from Nazareth, also reaches the Hot 100 for the first time thanks to “We Pray.” The song marks her first appearance on Billboard’s charts. Elyanna has been releasing music since 2019 and dropped her first full-length, Woledto, in April, via Universal Arabic Music. In February, she appeared on the cover of Billboard Arabia. “I’m on a Billboard cover, and we have a sold-out tour, and I have an album coming,” she told Billboard Arabia at the time. “It feels insane to me. I’m doing things I dreamt of my whole life.”
Elyanna also performed at Coachella in April, making history as the first artist at the festival to perform in Arabic.
Argentinian singer-actress-dancer Tini also arrives on the Hot 100 for the first time via “We Pray.” Tini (full name Tini Stoessel) is already a household name in Argentina, having begun her career as a child actress in the Disney Channel Latin American telenovela Violetta. She reprised the role for the series’ sequel film Tini: The Movie in 2016. She became the first Argentine act to sign with Hollywood Records in 2015. Since then, she’s released five studio albums: Tini (Martina Stoessel) (2016), Quiero Volver (2018), Tini Tini Tini (2020), Cupido (2023) and Un Mechón de Pelo in April.
Cupido reached No. 45 on Billboard’s Top Latin Albums chart. Tini has charted 41 songs on the Billboard Argentina Hot 100, including five No. 1s: “Miénteme,” with Maria Becerra; “Bar,” with L-Gante; “La Triple T”; “La_Original.mp3,” with Emilia; and “Pa.”
Elanna and Tini both performed “We Pray” with Coldplay on NBC’s Saturday Night Live on Oct. 5 when the band was the musical guest.
The Voice season 26 contestant Camryn Brooks provided living proof on Monday night (Oct. 14) that you should never give up on your dreams. Three years after washing out of season 21 after getting no chair turns, the California native made a triumphant return that elicited four chair turns.
After impressing the judges with her soaring cover of Maggie Rogers’ “Light On,” Brooks, 24, brought down the house and got Gwen Stefani out of her chair, inspiring the solo star and No Doubt singer to brag, “I was first!”
“I’m literally crying right now because this is like, absolutely unreal. I was a contestant on season 21 and I didn’t get any chair turns,” Brooks told coaches Snoop Dogg, Reba McEntire and Micael Bublé after her performance. “I didn’t ever envision I was going to get four so this is literally a dream come true.”
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McEntire, who praised Brooks’ “beautiful” voice, was elated by the redemption story, reminding viewers that the show’s judges often tell singers who don’t get a chair turn to “please come back.” Bublé also had high praise, adding that he hit his button because of FOMO, with Snoop giving the Mt. Shasta native props for her tone, composure and stage presence.
She and Bublé also bonded over their early gigs singing the National Anthem, though the Canadian crooner couldn’t get Brooks to join him on a chorus of his native “Oh Canada” as Snoop repeatedly trolled him for singing the “wrong” anthem. He got his own redemption, though, when Brooks noted that when she attended a performing arts school the only song she sang to earn money in competitions was Bublé’s rendition of Nina Simone’s “Feeling Good.”
Despite the mutual admiration, Brooks ended up going with Stefani, who said her new team member’s voice reminded was pleasantly reminiscent of her favorite 1970s singers. “There are so many singers that are good, but there’s certain ones that just like touch you because of their tone or just little taste things that they do,” Stefani said. “That’s what I was feeling from you. I would listen to that voice on a record. It’s round, it’s soothing, it would be really fun to work with you ‘cause I feel like we could pick some really cool songs and define who you are.”
Not for nothing, Brooks’ story was even wilder because after her no-turn 2021 audition she noted that her plans to finish school and start performing professionally were derailed when she was diagnosed with myocarditis, an inflammation of the heart muscle. “It was really scary because I couldn’t get out more than three words at a time,” she said. “The first thought that came to my mind was, ‘Am I going to be able to sing again?’ In that moment, you just think, ‘Am I gonna die? I’m too young to have this happen.’”
Though frightening, Brooks said the ailment really put into perspective what mattered to her and made her fight harder for her dreams. “I’m just so blessed to even be here,” she said.
New episodes of The Voice air Monday and Tuesday night at 8 p.m. ET/PT on NBC, and then stream on-demand via Peacock the next day.
Watch Brooks perform “Light On” below.
Drake and Dennis Graham enjoyed a father-son outing over the weekend for a night out at a Toronto jazz club. The duo even hit the Reservoir Lounge at one point after being invited to join Shane Philips’ set. Explore Explore See latest videos, charts and news See latest videos, charts and news With the Band of […]
Japanese dance & vocal group BE:FIRST spoke with Billboard Japan for its Monthly Feature interview series highlighting today’s leading artists and works. The hugely popular boy band released their second album, 2:BE, on August 28.
Ever since its formation three years ago through an audition by BMSG, the record label headed by SKY-HI, the group has created countless hits and appeared on numerous music TV shows and festival stages. In 2024, they performed two solo shows at Tokyo Dome and two solo shows in Kyocera Dome Osaka. The seven members of SOTA, SHUNTO, MANATO, RYUHEI, JUNON, RYOKI, and LEO are shaping up to be an undeniable juggernaut of a group. Their fandom and the scope of their activities is constantly growing, but since their debut, they have shown a consistent dedication to their singing, rapping, and dancing, and they’ve been actively and enthusiastically involved in songwriting, lyric-crafting, and choreography.
Their musical journey is reflected in their second album, 2:BE. Billboard Japan spoke to all seven members of the group about what went into the creation of the new album.
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In the three years since your debut, what kind of group do you feel that BE:FIRST has become?
LEO: We’ve always been a group that really enjoys the music. We don’t think of music as work, it’s more like we’re just doing what we want. Personally, none of it has ever felt like a burden for me. I’ve never once thought “I don’t really feel like doing this now.” I think that’s because of the kind of team we are.
I feel like that’s one of the notable features of BE:FIRST, because all of you are actively involved in the group’s creative process. But that usually involves growing pains, right? I’m sure you’ve had slumps.
LEO: Of course, there are times when I’ve found myself butting up against an obstacle, or I’ve felt anxious. But those never made me dislike what we’re doing. After all, I’m here because I love music, and I want to become a better artist. No matter how scared I might feel, it’s fun to hold that mic up on stage, and I feel full of joy when I’m listening to music. That’s always true, no matter what the situation.
SOTA: Our agency also puts music first, so we’re never given work that would interfere with our ability to focus on music. We keep on doing what we want to do. Our work environment is stress-free, and the more songs we create, the more our musical appetite grows, so it’s a lot more common for us to find ourselves struggling to choose between lots of different options than for us to be hitting a wall. I think all of our struggles are positive struggles. I feel very grateful to be able to work in this kind of environment.
That’s truly one of BE:FIRST’s strengths.
SOTA: When we released “Mainstream,” there was a time when we were trying to figure out how to best showcase ourselves as a group. But our agency let us make the kind of music we wanted to make, and all seven of us are united in giving 100% to whatever we want to do. These will continue to be our strengths, and I truly feel that over the past three years we’ve become a group that’s completely focused on music.
MANATO: THE FIRST was an audition focused on each person’s abilities and individuality, so everyone came to the group with their own personal strengths. Over the past three years, we’ve evolved into a group where each of these strengths passes through the filters of our individuality to produce our group’s output. Initially, Hidaka (Mitsuhiro Hidaka/SKY-HI) defined our group’s approach, but from around 2023, we started to think about what we ourselves wanted to do. We became more involved in the creative side, and as soon as we finished a song, we were like “okay, now what should we do next?” I think that was a big transformation.
How do you think that you, as individual artists or as a group, have evolved since your last album, BE:1?
RYUHEI: Our new album, 2:BE, has a mixture of songs that Hidaka wanted BE:FIRST to perform and songs that we wanted to perform. We tried a lot of new things, and I think we’ve become a lot better at reproducing what’s in the recordings. I feel like, through the process of everyone working on their own singing, we’ve taken things to a higher level.
JUNON: Compared to our first album, on this second album, there’s a much smaller difference between the way we sound live and the way the album sounds. Also, we did a lot in the recording process to reflect aspects of our performances in the music, which you can hear even now (before we tour), so I think it’s the kind of album that will make people look forward to seeing our live shows. That’s one way we’ve evolved since our first album.
So you feel you’ve made solid progress.
RYOKI: We’ve already got songs done by sub-units of the group, there are lyrics that we’re finally in a position to write, and the album has a raw feel to it. That’s because BE:FIRST has always lived in the moment—we’re always in an environment where we can do what we want. I think 2:BE reaffirms that sense of freedom to live in the moment. “Blissful” personifies it. When we debuted, it was all we could do just to take care of whatever was right in front of us, but lately we’ve been able to relax a bit, in a good sense.
So you’ve been able to express yourselves more naturally?
RYOKI: Yes, I think so. That’s true musically, and I think also in our day-to-day lives, we’ve now got some breathing space. Thanks to that, we can focus on our music, which I think has created a positive feedback loop. Being in an environment that provides us with freedom also creates responsibilities, but then all you need to do is make an environment in which living up to your responsibilities is itself also enjoyable. I think BE:FIRST can do that.
SHUNTO: A lot of the songs on the new album have a strong message. It’s an album in which these can also serve as our strengths. The new album is really packed with what it means to be BE:FIRST. I think it’s a well-balanced, highly listenable album.
“Hush-Hush” is a collaboration between yourselves and ATEEZ, right?
SOTA: A long time ago, Hidaka talked about how there was a K-pop group that he particularly liked. It was shortly after our debut, but he was saying “there’s an artist I’d like you to collaborate with one day.” There are certain ways in which we’re alike, so I guess he realized that we’d be a good match.
What did you feel like you had in common?
SOTA: How well we all get along, and the mood within our teams. We feel like hometown friends.
RYOKI: We both have a very down-to-earth feel. ATEEZ has a really warm vibe. That’s something that BE:FIRST also places a lot of importance on.
SOTA: Right. That focus sets ATEEZ apart from a lot of other K-pop groups. As far as music, another similarity is that we both write our own lyrics and take part in the creative process. I feel like there’s a lot of overlap in the core parts of what we focus on.
In closing, then, could you share your vision for the group in the future?
RYOKI: The musical direction we want to go in is always changing. But, no matter what, I want to keep this “Avengers” feel.
SHUNTO: But you can’t really produce that Avengers feeling on purpose. That variety in the way that we shine comes from us all combining our varied strengths.
RYOKI: Everyone’s so impressive. I love everyone in our group.
SOTA: But if we stopped enjoying creating music together, all seven of us working as one, then we wouldn’t need to keep that seven-person approach. Our strength isn’t really a group-focused approach in which, for example, we’re using synchronized choreography or we’re separating singing parts to give songs different feels. Instead, for us, it’s more important that we’re enjoying the vibes together. When we’re doing anything, whether it’s hip-hop or funk, it’s like all seven of us are jamming. One of the things that makes a group so fun—one of its qualities—is the feeling of bouncing the music off of each other. I think the best thing would keep on making the kind of music we want to make, all seven of us.
So it has to be the seven of you.
SOTA: That’s right. If we just did synchronized dancing, it wouldn’t make a difference if one person left.
Everyone: (Laughs)
SOTA: I think it’s when we’re having fun ourselves that it becomes fun for other people to watch. That’s our greatest point of appeal, the way we spread the enjoyment of our music.
—This interview by Takuto Ueda first appeared on Billboard Japan
It’s a good day to be a Taylor Swift fan. On Tuesday (Oct. 15), the pop star announced on Good Morning America that her official self-published Taylor Swift | The Eras Tour Book as well as The Tortured Poets Department: The Anthology on CD and vinyl would be hitting Target shelves this holiday season, sending Swifties into […]
Attention, passengers: Billie Eilish is speaking. Ahead of her upcoming concerts at Madison Square Garden, the 22-year-old pop star has partnered with New York City’s Metropolitan Transportation Authority to promote taking public transportation.
As announced Tuesday (Oct. 15) on social media, Eilish is working with the MTA to encourage fans to use eco-friendly methods of transportation on their way to her Hit Me Hard and Soft Tour showings at the famed NYC venue Oct. 16-18. “If you’re planning to see my concert this week, ditch the car and help the planet by riding the MTA to Madison Square Garden,” reads a message from the “Birds of a Feather” musician in a clip posted by the corporation, which Eilish retweeted.
“You can take the subway or LIRR to @TheGarden—it’s the easiest, most eco-friendly way to get there,” the MTA added in its caption before teasing, “You might even hear Billie’s announcements in stations along the way.”
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Eilish kicked off her latest trek Sept. 29 in Quebec, Canada, and has been steadily making her way through the East Coast in the U.S. in the two weeks since. The two-time Oscar winner is already a MSG veteran, having performed two nights at the arena in 2022 on her Happier Than Ever Tour.
The musician is also a longtime advocate for the fight against climate change, partnering with environmental organization REVERB and Support + Feed — which was founded by Eilish’s mother, Maggie Baird — on the Hit Me Hard and Soft trek. In March, Baird and the “Bad Guy” singer spoke to Billboard about their sustainability work, with Eilish calling it a “never-ending f–king fight.”
“As we all know, it’s pretty impossible to force someone to care,” she continued at the time. “All you can do is express and explain your beliefs, but a lot of people don’t really understand the severity of the climate [crisis]. And if they do, they’re like, ‘Well, what’s the point? We’re all going to die anyway.’ Believe me, I feel that way too. But ‘what’s the point’ goes both ways: ‘What’s the point? I can do whatever I want. We’re all going to die anyway.’ Or, ‘What’s the point? I might as well do the right thing while I’m here.’ That’s my view.”
See the MTA and Eilish’s announcement below.
The old ways are dying. That was the message Spotify CEO Daniel Ek delivered during a headline-generating 2020 interview with Music Ally. “Some artists that used to do well in the past may not do well in this future landscape,” Ek said. “You can’t record music once every three to four years and think that’s going to be enough. The artists that are making it [today] realize that it’s about creating continuous engagement with their fans.”
Perhaps no artist exemplifies this ethos better than the Brazilian rapper Mc Gw. He makes his vocals widely available for sample-happy producers, and as a result, he has already appeared on over 3,700 releases so far this year. That’s more than 10 times as many as any other artist in Spotify’s top 500, according to the analytics company Chartmetric.
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Mc Gw’s jaw-droppingly prolific release schedule, the growing popularity of his chanting vocals, and the rapid rise and mutation of the internet sub-genre known as phonk have combined to fuel remarkable growth on Spotify. He now has around 20 million monthly listeners, up from 3.7 million two years ago. He has become the 11th most popular artist in Brazil, according to Chartmetric.
“Before streaming, if you saw that [an artist with a ton of releases], you would think, ‘This super popular guy spends all his time running around different studios in São Paulo and everybody knows him,’” says Glenn McDonald, a former Spotify employee and the author of You Have Not Yet Heard Your Favorite Song: How Streaming Changes Music. “The fact that you can now take a shortcut to that by having your samples run around instead of you is pretty effective.”
“If everybody did it,” McDonald continues, “it wouldn’t be as effective. But the first person who does it can temporarily get very successful that way.”
And that appears to be what’s happening to Mc Gw. He’s now collaborating with Ana Costa, a revered samba artist, and the producer DENNIS, whose “Ta OK” was a hit in Brazil last year. “It’s just scaling from there,” says Jake Houstle, co-owner of the label Black 17 Media, which has distributed a number of songs featuring Mc Gw. “All these opportunities are coming in, and they’re all based on the fact that people use his vocals on everything.”
Mc Gw grew up in Rio de Janeiro, listening first to more traditional musical styles — samba and pagode — before turning to Brazilian funk, also known as baile funk, in 2011. Baile funk is a home-grown descendent of Miami bass, typically characterized by a distinctive up-tempo rhythm and severely streamlined production that focuses the ear on the boisterous rapping. “My main influences are MCs from Rio: MC Didoo, Mc Frank, Mc Tikão, Mc Vuk Vuk, and Mc Smith,” Mc Gw says. (He responded to email questions with help from a translator.)
Mc Gw is an adaptable performer: 2017’s “Ritmo Mexicano,” which has over more than 260 million views on YouTube, nods to commercial reggaetón. And it’s actually a different genre that has played a crucial role in his rise in the last two years. Confusingly, this style is known as phonk, leading to a nomenclature nightmare — while Brazilian funk is different from American funk, and phonk is another thing altogether, all three share the same pronunciation.
Phonk has been around for more than a decade, one of several styles gobbled up by extremely online listeners. When the genre started to reach a wider audience in 2019 and 2020, it was bleak, militant music, with freeze-dried synthesizers and drums so grimy listeners reflexively reached for the Windex. Samples of Memphis hip-hop legends added a human jolt to the unforgiving tracks.
Most of phonk’s biggest artists — like Kordhell, who has a platinum single in the U.S., and DVRST, whose song “Close Eyes” was synced in a commercial that played during the NBA playoffs — are faceless producers. The music thrives on TikTok pages devoted to weightlifting, careening cars, video game highlights, and anime edits, not on the live circuit. “It’s like a substance: Just keep pouring the phonk over my ears,” McDonald says.
The genre’s commercially popular wing often follows a specific formula, at least for a time. Phonk’s initial streaming hits sampled the likes of DJ Paul, a founding member of the group Three 6 Mafia, and Kingpin Skinny Pimp, a rapper who contributed to Three 6’s debut album and maintained a regional following. Other producers hoping for a phonk hit of their own also lifted vocals from the same sources.
More recently though, Memphis rap textures are out of vogue, and Brazilian vocals are in favor. This has been a boon for Mc Gw. “Nowadays many phonk producers are using [my voice],” he acknowledges.
Mc Gw makes it easy for them to do so by creating packs of a cappellas that samplers can sift through on YouTube, SoundCloud and elsewhere. (They’re initially free, but producers may pay a price — in the form of a fee, a cut of publishing income, or both — for the sample after release, especially if the song is successful.) “He is essentially the Kingpin Skinny Pimp of this movement,” says Houstle, who estimates that close to a third of the phonk records that borrow Brazilian vocals lean on Mc Gw.
The rapper enjoyed more name recognition as he was sampled more frequently. And to an extent, this fire fed itself: “As his notoriety grew, he started being placed on more and more songs,” Houstle explains. That helps increase his notoriety further, and the cycle continues.
Just as TikTok creators use a trending sound in the belief that it will make them more likely to get eyeballs, phonk producers thought an Mc Gw sample would make their song more likely to attract listeners. “If I want to go find new songs that are popping in Brazil, I just scroll through his most recent releases,” Houstle continues.
One snippet of Mc Gw’s vocals found its way to the Argentinian producer S3ZBS, who dropped it into “Montagem – PR Funk” in 2023. This strident, 61-second anxiety attack of a song has nearly 400 million plays on Spotify alone.
Mc Gw calls “Montagem – PR Funk” a new door that opened for me.” But that doesn’t mean walking through it was easy.
Online music communities often operate without regard for music industry convention. Producers tend to sample first and ask questions later, obtaining official clearances after a release — rather than beforehand — if they clear them at all. “Montagem – PR Funk” was no different.
Black 17, which owes much of its recent success to embracing phonk, signed “Montagem – PR Funk” once it started to perform well on TikTok. The label almost immediately found itself in dispute with the owners of uncleared samples, according to Houstle. One was Mc Gw.
Black 17 and Mc Gw’s team negotiated a deal — he was eventually added to “Montagem – PR Funk” as a primary artist — and they now work together regularly. Black 17 previously forged similar business relationships with DJ Paul and Kingpin Skinny Pimp when the phonk community started sampling them.
Mc Gw now employs several staff members whose primary job is to track down uncleared samples of him and negotiate deals with the producers behind the songs. This is a business necessity, the rapper says, since “currently almost 100 songs are released per week with my voice.”
It’s impossible to catch them all, but if Mc Gw puts agreements in place at least with the songs that are earning noticeable streams, this continues to expand his reach, and ensures that he gets paid for the use of his voice. It’s an odd system, but for now it’s working.
The rapper doesn’t only want to rely on the favor of sample-based producers; he is also hard at work on his own album, tentatively titled Phonk Nation. “Every day I’m in the studio,” Mc Gw says. “Thank God the phonk appeared — the work is being rewarded.”
Coldplay jumps from No. 37 to No. 1 on the Billboard Artist 100 (dated Oct. 19), becoming the top musical act in the U.S. for the first time in the chart’s 10-year history, thanks to the group’s new album, Moon Music.
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The Artist 100 measures artists’ activity across key metrics of music consumption: album sales, track sales, radio airplay and streaming. Using a methodology comprising those metrics, the chart provides a weekly multi-dimensional ranking of artist popularity.
Released Oct. 4 on Parlophone/Atlantic Records, Moon Music launches at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 with 120,000 equivalent album units earned in its opening week, according to Luminate. The group earns its fifth leader, following Ghost Stories (2014), Mylo Xyloto (2011), Viva la Vida or Death and All His Friends (2008) and X&Y (2005).
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Coldplay also debuts a song from the set on the Billboard Hot 100: “We Pray” featuring Little Simz, Burna Boy, Elyanna and Tini at No. 87. The band adds its 25th career entry on the chart, and second this year, after the new LP’s lead single, “feelslikeimfallinginlove,” hit No. 81.
Coldplay is the third group to top the Artist 100 chart this year, after TOMORROW X TOGETHER in April and Stray Kids in August. The last non-K-pop group to hit No. 1 was Slipknot in October 2022.
Rounding out the Artist 100’s top five, Sabrina Carpenter dips to No. 2, following four weeks on top; Taylor Swift holds at No. 3; Chappell Roan drops 2-4; and Morgan Wallen falls 4-5.
Also on the chart, Milli Vanilli debuts at No. 88 thanks to renewed interest in the duo’s catalog as three of the pair’s songs appear in Ryan Murphy’s new Netflix anthology series, Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story. Their EP 4, which comprises four of the act’s four seminal hits, including three Hot 100 No. 1s, concurrently debuts at No. 197 on the Billboard 200, marking their first appearance on the chart since 1990.