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New Lil Nas X music is around the corner! The 25-year-old superstar took to social media to tease a release he has in store. “GUESS WHOS FINALLY DROPPING NEW MUSIC NEXT MONTH ?!!” he captioned the self-taped video, in which he’s seen dancing around his bedroom to a bouncy unreleased song. “Hit me with your […]
Taylor Swift is back to her game-day routine with the undefeated Kansas City Chiefs now five games into the 2024-25 season, and she and Brittany Mahomes have the pictures to prove it.
On Wednesday (Oct. 9) — two days after the reigning Super Bowl champions won against the New Orleans Saints — Mahomes shared a game-day snap showing the friends re-creating one of their favorite poses from last season. In the photo, the pop star sips her drink while resting a hand on the former college soccer player’s baby bump, as Mahomes smiles into the camera with Lyndsay Bell standing on her other side.
“Same girls, new bump,” wrote the Kansas City Current co-owner, who is married to Patrick Mahomes and expecting her third baby with the quarterback.
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The picture is a callback to one the three ladies snapped in early January, which found them standing in the same position but with Lyndsay — who is married to tight end Blake Bell and was pregnant at the time — standing in the middle instead of Brittany. When the Chiefs won the AFC Championship later that month, the trio took another picture in the same position.
In all three photos, Swift sips on a drink — but in the latest iteration, her cup is decorated with a bedazzled “87” patch in honor of Travis Kelce’s jersey number. It wasn’t the only sparkly thing about the “Anti-Hero” singer Monday, though; looking chic in a plaid dress and knee-high platform boots, Swift arrived at Arrowhead Stadium with glittery faux freckles on her cheeks.
Brittany first revealed that she was pregnant with her third baby in July, sharing an adorable video with her husband and their two kids — 3-year-old daughter Sterling and almost-2-year-old Bronze — showing off No. 3’s sonogram. “Round three, here we come,” the onetime Sports Illustrated model captioned the post, which Swift and Kelce both “liked.”
This football season, Swift also recreated another one of her iconic photos from last year with Chariah Gordon, who is engaged to wide receiver Mecole Hardman Jr. In October 2023, Gordon shared a photo of herself cuddling up to Hardman while the 14-time Grammy winner planted a kiss on Kelce’s cheek. Almost a year later, Gordon posted a new picture of the foursome striking the same poses, this time on the first Chiefs game of fall 2024.
The 2024 BET Hip Hop Awards took place Tuesday night (Oct. 8) at Drai’s Beach Club in Las Vegas. The awards show will air Oct. 15 on BET at 8 p.m. ET. Fat Joe steered the show for the third consecutive year as the host.There was plenty of star power taking over Sin City. Soulja Boy, 2 Chainz, 41, Big Boogie, Skilla Baby, Lola Brooke, E-40, Lightskinkeisha, Odumodublvck and more had the red carpet going up on a Tuesday.
“Joe Crack is back for the three-peat, night night baby,” Fat Joe said in a statement. “It’s been a dream to host the BET Hip Hop Awards the past few years, and I’m looking forward to taking things to the next level in Las Vegas. We’re going to be in a new city and location, but the excitement and entertainment at the awards will be even bigger than ever.”
Travis Scott was honored with the 2024 I Am Hip Hop Award. He follows recent I Am Hip Hop Award winners like Marley Marl, Trina and Nelly. La Flame earned six nominations in total.
“Travis Scott is a visionary artist who continues to push the boundaries of music, culture, and live performance,” Connie Orlando, EVP, specials, music programming and music strategy said in a statement. “With his unmatched creativity and relentless passion, he has redefined what it means to be a captivating, inspiring entertainer within the hip hop genre. We look forward to celebrating him at BET Hip Hop Awards 2024.”
Megan Thee Stallion led all artists with 12 nominations to her name, including hip hop artist of the year and three separate noms in the best collaboration category. This is only the fourth time that the BET Hip Hop Awards have taken place outside Atlanta since 2006.
Tune in on Tuesday, Oct. 15, at 8 p.m. ET to watch the 2024 BET Hip Hop Awards on BET, and find photos from the red carpet below.
It’s a harsh fact of life for songwriters that the bulk of their creative output is consigned to a shelf, never to be heard outside a small group of friends and co-workers.
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By contrast, nearly every story a reporter turns in typically gets printed. And the vast majority of broadcasters’ voiceovers make it onto the airwaves.
But where the reporters and air personalities are tasked with turning in new content on a daily basis, a great song gets played repeatedly for weeks, months or years. So songwriters keep churning out new material on a regular basis, only to send it into a landscape where a fraction of the industry’s output ever gets significant attention. Under those conditions, ERNEST’s new single, “Would If I Could,” is an outright miracle, a song composed in the 1990s that spent most of the last 30 years collecting figurative dust on a digital shelf.
“There’s a thousand songs coming in today,” ERNEST speculates. “You can imagine, between now and 1993, how many songs are just sitting there.”
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Only one of those songs, though, was penned by Dean Dillon (“Tennessee Whiskey,” “Ocean Front Property”) and artist-writer Skip Ewing (“You Had Me From Hello,” “Love, Me”). They were two of country’s most significant writers during the ’90s, but they only collaborated once. Ewing brought in the hook, they worked through it in short order — and never tackled another song.
“I had that little idea, ‘I would if I could,’ and when I knew I was going to write with him, I thought, ‘Well, that could be right in his wheelhouse,’” Ewing remembers. “We didn’t spend very much time together, and I’ve never talked to him since. It’s the only song we’ve ever written.”
The title, “I Would If I Could,” is a phrase that stands on its own, but it’s also part of a larger meme, “I would if I could, but I can’t, so I shan’t,” that has been in circulation for decades. It appears, in fact, in the dialogue of Jim Parsons’ nerdy Big Bang Theory character, Sheldon Cooper.
Funny enough, neither Ewing nor Dillon had ever heard it. But when they chipped away at the chorus, they ended up chasing a more colloquial version of the same sentiment: “I would if I could, but I can’t, so I won’t.” And then they tagged it with an extension: “But I want to.”
The chorus became an intricate word puzzle. “Want,” “like” and “love” are weaved into the text — along with “I’d love to say, ‘Yes’ ” and “I’m tellin’ you, ‘No.’ ” That maze is attached to a spiraling melody that sounds, as ERNEST notes, a bit like the George Strait hit “The Chair,” written by Dillon.
The first verse — cast in a lower range with a different, but compatible, phrasing — established the story of a former partner asking for a second chance. The singer is respectfully skeptical, though tempted, and the melancholy tone and winding melody add heartbreaking tension to the encounter. “He’s trying to say no,” Ewing observes. “If he was sure, the ‘I want to’ wouldn’t be there, so I still don’t know which one wins.”
Strait, who famously recorded dozens of Dillon’s compositions, got the first crack at “I Would If I Could.” “Every Monday of the week George recorded, I’d go to his office at 10 a.m. in the morning over at [manager] Erv [Woolsey’s] place,” Dillon says. “The stuff he’d like, he’d keep, and then when he cut the session, if I got something, it was all good. And most of the times I did.”
Strait apparently liked “I Would If I Could,” because it got considered during a session. Producer Joey Moi (Morgan Wallen, Florida Georgia Line) notes that when they worked on ERNEST’s recording, fiddler Larry Franklin recognized the song from that earlier Strait date. Strait had toyed with it during that session, but had other songs that were just as good and passed on “I Would If I Could.” Dillon was unaware that Strait had come that close to cutting it. “That’s one more thing I can b–ch to him about,” Dillon deadpans.
The song languished in the Sony/ATV vault for years until July 2023 when Ewing’s demo was issued on numerous platforms. Lainey Wilson cut a version with a fair amount of minor chords for Apple Music’s Lost & Found series, appearing in November 2023. And Dillon’s daughter, Jessie Jo Dillon (“Messed Up As Me,” “Am I Okay?”), brought it to ERNEST’s attention. He loved it.
“All of it,” he clarifies. “The way it felt; I thought the lyric was awesome. Skip’s performance on the demo is very inspiring as well. I mean, Dean Dillon guitar chords and melodies are just as much of a signature as a Banksy painting.”
ERNEST cut his own version of “I Would If I Could,” mixing a few old-school session players — including Franklin and guitarist Brent Mason — with other musicians who have joined the A-list ranks in more recent years. They developed a starkly spacious arrangement, with Bryan Sutton’s acoustic guitar leading the opening verse. Jerry Roe doesn’t start his drum part until the second line of the chorus, and much of the band — including Franklin, Mason, Sutton and steel guitarist Dan Dugmore — operated in unison on many of the key instrumental turnarounds, mimicking a signature Strait element.
“It has to sound like an old classic George Strait song,” Moi says. “We all heard it and barely had to talk about it in the room. It was so obvious how it had to be cut. Every musician walked away and knew the assignment.”
The sparseness of the track let the nuances of ERNEST’s vocals shine. He enunciates the consonants crisply, his breaths are detectable, and those touches enhance the fragility in his performance. “It had to be intimate, but it also had to hurt at the same time,” Moi says. “That’s a hard thing for certain singers to do. Some singers, they kind of have one gear and they sing one way, and they don’t emote the best. But ERN, I feel like he nailed it.”
Wilson added her voice to ERNEST’s version, and their collaboration appeared in April. But she had her own album in the works, and Big Loud released his solo version of “Would If I Could” (the first “I” is shaved off the title) to country radio via PlayMPE on Aug. 21. “Lainey is one of the busiest women in country music, rightfully so,” ERNEST says. “I can’t burden her with another thing to do, but I still want this song on country radio.”
Its official impact date is Oct. 7. Two previous hits, “Flower Shops” and “Cowboys,” teamed him with Wallen; surprisingly, “Would If I Could” — after sitting ignored for three decades — is ERNEST’s first solo release to radio.
“I’m super thankful for the features I’ve had at radio,” he says, “but I’m excited to go do the work it’s going to take to run this song as far as it can go.”
The 2024 Billboard Latin Music Week is returning to Miami from Oct. 14 to 18 at the Fillmore Miami Beach with more than 70 artists confirmed.
This year, the week-long event celebrates its 35th anniversary as the one, steady foundation of Latin music in this country, becoming the single most important — and biggest — gathering of Latin artists and industry executives in the world.
The industry event will feature Superstar Q&A’s with artists such as Alejandro Sanz, Gloria Estefan, J Balvin, Pepe Aguilar, and Young Miko, as well as intimate and educational discussions including Thalía and Maria Becerra on mental health; Eslabon Armado and Yahritza y Su Esencia on family in the biz; and Feid’s touring success from clubs to stadiums.
Other artists confirmed to speak at Latin Music Week: Peso Pluma, Chiquis, Yandel, Belinda, Junior H, Fuerza Regida’s JOP, Pipe Bueno, NMIXX and many more.
The conference will also include various artist showcases throughout the week that pass holders will be able to enjoy. To purchase your ticket, visit here.
Among the most notable are “Billboard En Vivo” featuring Grupo Frontera and Majo Aguilar and “Next Gen Reggaeton Curated by J Balvin,” both events taking place at the Wynwood Marketplace on Tuesday and Wednesday nights, respectively. Additionally, the week will wrap with the “35th Anniversary Concert,” featuring performances by Young Miko, Tito Double P, Elvis Crespo, Ana Mena, Belinda, Elvis Crespo and FloyyMenor.
Latin Music Week coincides with the 2024 Billboard Latin Music Awards set to air Sunday, Oct. 20, on Telemundo. See the full schedule of Latin Music Week-related showcases below:
Artist Showcase: New Originals – Golden
Welcome to Billboard Pro’s Trending Up newsletter, where we take a closer look at the songs, artists, curiosities and trends that have caught the music industry’s attention. Some have come out of nowhere, others have taken months to catch on, and all of them could become ubiquitous in the blink of a TikTok clip. This week: Netflix has a new hit series on its hands and many alt-pop artists are benefiting from it, an ’00s indie rock classic proves timeless once again, it’s Girl in Red season again and much more.
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‘Nobody Wants This,’ But Lots of People Want the Soundtrack
The new Netflix series Nobody Wants This is one of the breakout hits of this late-2024 TV season, with good reviews and word-of-mouth buzz spreading the Kristen Bell and Adam Brody co-starring series – about the romantic relationship between a podcaster and a rabbi, and the reactions of their respective families and communities – all over social media and pop culture. That of course extends to the series’ soundtrack, which is stacked with synchs from some of the most popular and acclaimed alt-pop artists of the past decade-plus, as well as some exciting new up-and-comers.
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Perhaps the biggest beneficiary so far has been Francis and the Lights’ “See Her Out (That’s Just Life),” which plays in multiple key scenes in the season, including during the first kiss between Bell’s and Brody’s characters. The song racked up 432,000 official on-demand streams in the U.S. last week (ending Oct. 3) following the show’s Sept. 26 debut, up from just 13,000 streams the prior frame – an eye-popping gain of 3,157%, according to Luminate. Multiple songs from star sister trio HAIM are also featured, with the group’s “Now I’m in It” jumping 120% to 177,000 streams over the same period, while “You & I” from veteran Swedish pop singer-songwriter LÉON is also up 245% to 196,000.
The series has also had a big impact on the catalog of newer singer-songwriter Anna Graves, who has a couple songs featured in the series. Her “Fly” is up 304% to 63,000 streams over this period, while her “When the Love Is Gone” spikes 615% to 41,000 streams. – ANDREW UNTERBERGER
Wait, They Don’t TikTok Like I TikTok: Yeah Yeah Yeahs’ ‘Maps’ Gets a Viral Trend
Yeah Yeah Yeahs’ “Maps”: early-00’s classic, timeless alt-rock love song, iconic music video, the anthem that unwittingly launched Karen O and co. towards indie stardom. And now, more than 20 years after the 2003 single’s release, “Maps” is getting the viral treatment on TikTok thanks to the “Maps Dance,” in which a remixed version of the song soundtracks users shaking their hips and hitting them with their hands, then pausing (or moving in slow motion) when Karen O declares, “Wait!,” as in, “Wait! They don’t love you like I love you!”
The TikTok trend has helped “Maps” nearly double in U.S. on-demand weekly streams over a two-week period: the YYYs track earned 1.49 million streams during the week ending on Oct. 3, according to Luminate, up from 766,000 streams for the week ending Sept. 19. “Maps” crept onto the Billboard Hot 100 at No. 87 in 2004; depending on how this trend grows, maybe the Yeah Yeah Yeahs can hip-shake back onto the chart two decades later. – JASON LIPSHUTZ
‘Joker’ Sequel & Harlequin LP Lift Lady Gaga’s Jazz Catalog
Although Joker: Folie à Deux has suffered from dismal reviews and a disastrous box office performance, there is a silver lining for the film’s leading lady. Lady Gaga, who portrays Harley Quinn in the new film, injects the Joker sequel with her love for jazz standards, which spilled over into both Harlequin, her new Billboard chart-topping companion album featuring both covers and original cuts, and even to a couple her older jazz collections.
According to Luminate, combined official on-demand U.S. streams for Cheek to Cheek and Love for Sale – Gaga’s two Grammy-winning duets albums with the late Tony Bennett – have risen 30% since the release of Harlequin (Sept. 27). During the period of Sept. 20-26, the two LPs earned about 380,000 combined official on-demand U.S. streams. That figure ballooned to over 490,000 combined streams in the week following Harlequin’s release (Sept. 27-Oct. 3). It’s unlikely – but not completely out of the question – that Harlequin will launch a Hot 100 hit, but its arrival has spurred some gains for Gaga’s non-pop catalog. A win is a win!
Latto Squeezes Another Streaming Hit Out of ‘Sugar Honey Iced Tea’
Latto’s Billboard chart-topping Sugar Honey Iced Tea already boasts streaming hits like “Big Mama” and “Brokey,” and it looks like “Georgia Peach,” the record’s intro, could join those ranks.
Bolstered by a rise in social media adoration for the song – alongside the album and Latto in general – official on-demand U.S. streams for “Georgia Peach” have risen over 83% from Sept. 27-20 to Oct. 4-7, according to Luminate. During the period of Sept. 27-30, the Southern hip-hop banger collected over 588,000 streams, which rose to over 1.07 million streams during the period of Oct. 4-7. On TikTok, the official “Georgia Peach” sound boasts nearly 30,000 clips, while an unofficial upload soundtracks a further 13,000 videos.
Although “Georgia Peach” does have an official music video, it’s rise in popularity isn’t tied to that clip, a dance trend or anything else. Should its streams continue to rise, “Georgia Peach” could become the fourth Hot 100 entry from Sugar Honey Iced Tea. — KD
Q&A: Sarah Patellos, Head of Spotify Music Studios, on What’s Trending Up in Her World
How did the Spotify Anniversaries series idea form?
This concept was born as a result of a few creative inspirations from our team. We wanted to find a way to celebrate iconic catalog music, especially as we’ve seen listeners engage positively in that space over the past few years. Our Los Angeles Spotify Studio is an incredible space that has always birthed creativity, so the idea of bringing artists into the space to revisit their classics as a series felt like it had a lot of potential. It would give existing fans something new to experience, while engaging new fans in discovering the music for the first time.
From that initial internal excitement, we started to build out what the series would be. On that would exist through music and video. Knowing that every project’s lifespan is unique, our thought was to allow for a flexible anniversary window that made sense for each album and artists’ milestones. That gave us a wide canvas to find the right projects to bring back to life.
How did you decide on the artists and projects that made sense for the series, and what goes into each one?
Spotify Anniversaries celebrates the staying power of iconic albums. We’ve worked with artists from different genres, but the throughline is the timelessness of the projects we’re celebrating. From Isaiah Rashad’s EP Cilvia Demo to Weezer’s The Blue Album to Christina Aguilera’s debut album Christina Aguilera – we are honored to have the opportunity to help celebrate these anniversaries.
For each episode, we invite the artists to perform 4-6 songs from the project, ideally both the hits and the tracks that embody this milestone for the project. We partner closely with the artist to create an environment in our Spotify Studio that feels aesthetically right for the project and their vision, but keep it really focused on the live performance and the quality of the studio recording.
What have been some highlights thus far?
Our first episode with Isaiah Rashad felt incredibly special – he is such a captivating performer and really set the stage for the vision of this series. For Christina Aguilera, her special guests Ron Fair, Heather Holley, mgk and Sabrina Carpenter brought a unique element to the making of the project, while also reimagining and bringing new life to it.
Weezer was also a highlight. The band chose the direction to perform facing each other, which led to a really natural conversation and allowed the meaning of the project amongst the band to shine beautifully. Not only were the songs being revisited, but watching the band connect face-to-face created a unique experience, and that’s one of the reasons why that episode in particular has been so impactful. It’s a great example how artists can take the series and steer it into their own creative space.
How has Spotify Anniversaries impacted engagement with those projects on the Spotify platform?
The beauty of this project is that is led by music, but supported by video on socials and YouTube. Each Spotify Anniversaries episode has a live EP that lives exclusively on platform. We’ve seen incredible responses to each EP release – the Christina/Sabrina collab was even seen on New Music Friday and Teen Beats. The more this program grows, the more ways we are testing the use of other products to make this even more layered. – JL
Season’s Gainings: Leaves Turning, Pumpkin Spice Lattes Arriving & Girl in Red Rising
If Earth, Wind & Fire’s moment has already passed and you’re not hearing Ray Parker Jr. and Bobby “Boris” Pickett & The Crypt-Kickers everyone just yet, that must mean it’s Girl in Red season. As happens annually around this time of year, the Norwegian singer-songwriter born Marie Ulven Ringheim is rising on streaming with her indie-pop modern classic “We Fell in Love in October” – with the song racking up 3.6 million official on-demand U.S. streams over the first four days of the month, a 73% gain from the 2.1 million combined streams of the prior four-day period. The song even hit a new all-time peak of No. 38 on the Spotify Daily Top Songs USA chart, suggesting that folks are falling even more in love with Girl in Red this October. – AU
It may only be October, but the first Monday in May is already on the mind. Vogue announced on Wednesday (Oct. 9) that the theme for the 2025 Met Gala is “Superfine: Tailoring Black Style,” which draws inspiration from Monica L. Miller’s 2009 book, Slaves to Fashion: Black Dandyism and the Styling of Black Diasporic Identity. […]
JO1’s “WHERE DO WE GO” hits No. 1 on the Billboard Japan Hot 100, dated Oct. 9, tallying the week ending Oct. 6.
The title track of JO1’s ninth single debuted at No. 31 on the chart dated Sept. 18 after being released digitally on Sept. 9. It remained in the Japan Hot 100 since then and soared 73-1 powered by sales with the release of the CD on Oct. 2. The track rules sales this week while coming in at No. 4 for downloads, No. 36 for streaming, No. 2 for radio airplay, and No. 29 for video views. The CD sold 732,009 copies, coming in second to the group’s previous single “HITCHHIKER” (738,776 copies), currently the record-holder for highest first-week sales for the band.
SKE48’s “Kokuhaku Shinpakusu” debuts at No. 2. The group’s 33rd single launched with 319,722 copies to come in at No. 2 for sales, while hitting No. 64 for radio.
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Mrs. GREEN APPLE’s “Lilac” slips a notch to No. 3. The former No. 1 hit continues to rule streaming for the 16th straight week, though showing a slight decrease (94%) from the week before. The track comes in at No. 3 for video, No. 15 for downloads, and No. 5 for karaoke.
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ATEEZ’s “Birthday” bows at No. 4. The title track off the K-pop boy band’s fourth single in Japan sold 154,296 copies in its first week to debut at No. 3 for sales. The track also comes in at No. 93 for downloads and No. 65 for radio. No. 4 on the Japan Hot 100 is tied for the group’s best position so far, previously achieved by “NOT OKAY.”
King & Prince’s “WOW” enters at No. 5. The track off the duo’s sixth album Re:ERA dropped digitally on Sept. 30 and rules downloads and radio, while also coming in at No. 25 for video. This is the second time King & Prince topped downloads, following “halfmoon.”
Official HIGE DANdism’s “Same Blue” debuts at No. 7. The opener for the anime series Blue Box comes in at No. 2 for downloads (11,375 units), No. 4 for radio, No. 20 for video, and No. 27 for streaming.
The Billboard Japan Hot 100 combines physical and digital sales, audio streams, radio airplay, video views and karaoke data.
See the full Billboard Japan Hot 100 chart, tallying the week from Sept. 30 to Oct. 6, here. For more on Japanese music and charts, visit Billboard Japan’s English X account.
HARU NEMURI dropped her collaborative EP with Frost Children called Soul Kiss on Oct. 4, and also shared the new music video accompanying “Burn,” a track off the project. Explore Explore See latest videos, charts and news See latest videos, charts and news Frost Children is a duo based in New York, consisting of siblings […]
By the mid-2000s, Swedish songwriter and producer ILYA — who was then in his late teens — was “grinding, grinding, grinding” without gaining much momentum. It wasn’t until years later, thanks to a fortuitous meeting, that his career finally took off.
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ILYA, now 38, recalls how meeting producer Shellback changed his life, as the latter introduced him to the acclaimed and mysterious Max Martin. Soon after, ILYA scored his first smash hit co-producing and co-writing on Ariana Grande and Iggy Azalea’s 2014 collaboration “Problem,” which hit No. 2 on the Billboard Hot 100. His working relationship with Martin — and Grande — has continued, most recently on the pop star’s sixth No. 1 album on the Billboard 200, Eternal Sunshine.
The album produced two Hot 100 No. 1s: lead single “Yes, And?” and “We Can’t Be Friends (Wait for Your Love),” both of which credit ILYA. But those are from far the only hits he’s had a hand in this year; ILYA’s 2024 credits also include Conan Gray, Coldplay and Tate McRae, the latter of whom ILYA helped score her highest Hot 100 debut to date with “It’s ok I’m ok.”
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“It wasn’t that long after [McRae’s 2023 second album] Think Later that we were in the studio again,” says ILYA, who reveals that they ideated her current smash before Think Later even arrived. “It was just an idea that just popped back into our life and we were like, ‘Actually, let’s finish this thing.’ It’s just been continuous since that.”
You’ve worked with Tate before. What is your metric of, “I want to keep this relationship going?”
Nowadays, it’s just good vibes. I don’t want to be stressed at work because I’ve been doing it for such a long time now. So my main thing is just like, can we just have fun in the studio?
When did sessions start after her 2023 album, Think Later?
It was a little continuous because she loves writing and being in the studio. “It’s ok I’m ok” is one of those records where it was like, “Let’s just have fun; let’s make something weird.” I think it shows a brand-new side to her. The more I’ve worked with her, the more I feel like she knows herself as an artist. This one was [started] before Think Later — she knew that it wasn’t right for that moment, but she picked it back up and we really worked to make it into her vision of what she was seeing the song as. That, to me, is really amazing to see.
Tell me more about how the song came together.
The chorus started as a joke. We were in Sweden writing, and when she’s in the studio and so focused, she doesn’t want to eat or drink anything. She’s just like, “I need to finish this song now.” Me being the way I am, I’m always like, “Do you want something to drink? Do you want something to eat?” And she would be like, “It’s OK, I’m OK,” [always] in the same note. And I was just like, “Wait, that’s actually kind of catchy.” And now it’s a song. I like it because it came from her — that’s how she says it.
Do you have a favorite part of this song?
It’s harder for me to listen in that sense, because I’m a part of the song. But I do love when people pinpoint little details that you’ve put there on purpose. I love that.
You have to let go of analyzing. Once the song is out, depending on how people [react] to it, I’m also affected on how I’m listening. If a song comes out and it doesn’t work or it’s not a big thing, then I’m trying to analyze why it wasn’t instead of just enjoying the song. But nowadays I’m a little bit better at that.
Your credits in 2024 include other notable projects such as Ariana Grande’s Eternal Sunshine. With the Grammys approaching, what are your hopes?
I think next year’s Grammys [ceremony on Feb. 2] is going to be insane. I’m hoping we’re going to get nominated, but it’s going to be such a competitive year. It might be the best Grammys in a long time in the sense of who’s going to be nominated and what potential performances there might be. There was so much good music this year.
This article originally appeared in the Oct. 5 issue of Billboard.