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Not many high-school reunions boast a Grammy-winning superstar, but Lauryn Hill popped out at her Columbia High School reunion in Maplewood, N.J., earlier in August.
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But according to videos shared by her former classmates, not only did Hill show up, she even picked up the mic and delivered an impromptu performance, during which the New Jersey native ran through classic hits from her discography.
She performed anthems such as The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill‘s “Ex-Factor” as well as the Fugees’ “Ready or Not,” which saw her tweak lyrics with a salute to her old stomping grounds on campus. “CHS taking over/ Buffalo soldier/ Dreadlock Rasta,” she raps.
“God bless y’all. I love you so much,” she concluded.
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Hill’s classmates shared their excitement on social media about seeing the superstar show up and show out for them in such an intimate setting. One of her classmates said she was even left “speechless,” while another thought she was “dreaming.”
“People traveled from out of state to love up on their village. It was simply amazing. Still speechless from @mslaurynhill giving us an impromptu performance,” one person wrote to Instagram. “This reunion was SO good for the soul.”
Another classmate added: “I’m just waking up from last Saturday night….. Was I dreaming orrrrrrr????Did this really happen???? Ms. Hill is undoubtedly a gift from the heavens.”
Lauryn Hill and the Fugees were slated to head out on tour this summer, but quietly canceled the trek just prior to it lifting off earlier in August. Hill blamed a “narrative” that impacted ticket sales, but the tour’s U.K. and European shows are moving forward as planned.
“Last year, I faced an injury that necessitated the rescheduling of some of my shows. Regrettably, some media outlet’s penchant for sensationalism and clickbait headlines have seemingly created a narrative that has affected ticket sales for the North American portion of the tour,” she wrote in a statement posted to Instagram. “The trust and faith I have in my intentions and my commitment to my art seem to have been overshadowed by this unfortunate portrayal.”
Watch Lauryn Hill’s performance at the high school reunion below.
Taeil is no longer part of NCT, with SM Entertainment announcing Wednesday (Aug. 28) that the 30-year-old K-pop idol has left the group following an accusation of an unspecified sex crime. According to the Associated Press‘ English translation of a Korean statement posted to SM’s X, the label wrote, “We recognized the seriousness of the […]
Smashing Pumpkins frontman Billy Corgan and his wife, Chloé Mendel Corgan, are expecting their third child. The couple, who already share son Augustus, 8 and Philomena, 5, announced the news to People magazine on Wednesday (August 28). Explore See latest videos, charts and news See latest videos, charts and news “We are overjoyed to announce […]
BigXthaPlug’s 2024 campaign just added another Texas-sized accolade to the mix of what’s been a banner year for the breakout rapper: BigX was named Amazon Music’s next Breakthrough Artist on Wednesday (Aug. 28).
Amazon Music looks to amplify emerging artists with its Breakthrough Artist program, which will allow BigXthaPlug to receive more visibility across Amazon’s playlists, livestream features, as well as marketing and social campaigns.
Working in collaboration with BigX, the United Masters signee will further connect with fans through Amazon’s properties and unique opportunities in the coming months as 2024 comes to a close.
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“BigXthaPlug has been one of the most exciting new voices in hip-hop, with an outsized sound that’s as big as his personality,” Alexis Cueva, artist relations for Amazon Music, tells Billboard. “We’ve already seen our customers respond to his incredible music on Amazon Music, and as our next Breakthrough Artist, we’re excited to help BigX connect with even more fans.”
BigXthaPlug has also been added to Billboard‘s Hip-Hop Live concert slated for Sept. 6. The show will be a celebration of the Hip-Hop/R&B Power Players event, which will take over the Xanadu roller rink in Brooklyn.
The 26-year-old joins an already loaded Hip-Hop Live lineup that boasts sets from DJ Miss Milan, the inspiring Mr. Pot Scraper himself BossMan Dlow, and headliner Teezo Touchdown. Tickets are still on sale and can be purchased here for $32.
BigXthaPlug made his Billboard Hot 100 debut in October when his “Mmhmm” hit the chart at No. 93, and eventually reached a peak of No. 63.
He continued his ascension in August with the braggadocios “The Largest,” on which he teases his anticipated sophomore album. “Album done, finna drop me another one,” he raps.
BigX’s co-manager Brandon Farmer raved about the rapper’s ability to connect with his fans while on stage. “Stage presence, you just don’t really see that,” Farmer told Billboard earlier this year. “You can tell when somebody is a star. X is a star.”
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Adam Sandler and his family are enchanted by Travis Kelce and Taylor Swift‘s love story. While serving as a special guest on the Kansas City Chiefs tight end’s New Heights podcast, the Happy Gilmore star couldn’t help but gush over the pop star and her romance with Travis — to the point that the athlete started sweating, the NFL star admitted.
The topic of Swift first came up when Travis mentioned how Sandler brought his daughters to the Eras Tour concert film premiere in October. “What a girl,” the comedian said in the episode posted Wednesday (Aug. 28), to which the football player replied, “You know it, man. Best performer out here.”
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“Dude, she means so much to our house,” Sandler continued to Travis and his brother/cohost Jason Kelce. “The kids were little, and we were listening to Taylor Swift. It was one of the first times that [they] listened to every song on the record. When I was a kid, The Beatles you did that with, maybe Elton John — you knew every tune. Taylor, in our house, every tune, they knew every word.”
“I love what she had to say … what she meant to young girls, what she means to women, what she means to guys doing the right thing in life,” gushed the Grown Ups star, adding that Swift once “took her time” interacting with his daughters on the set of Saturday Night Live. “She just floors my family.”
“I do get nervous around Taylor Swift, because I don’t want to f–king blow it for my kids and say something stupid,” Sandler added, leading Travis to say that his superstar girlfriend was “so grateful” the actor and his kids attended the Eras premiere.
The episode comes about a week after Sandler confirmed that the tight end will appear in his upcoming Happy Gilmore sequel. It also marks the first New Heights episode in nearly two months following the Kelce brothers’ hiatus, which Travis spent traveling the world with Swift as a plus-one on her Eras Tour before heading back to Kansas City for Chiefs training camp in July.
Before moving on from the subject of Swift, though, Sandler also took a moment to rave about Travis’ high-profile romance, which began in late summer 2023. “When you guys first started dating, my god, was my family like, ‘Yes! Look how good they are together! He’s a gentleman! And she’s having so much fun with him!’” the Click star raved. “Any time Taylor’s laughing with you, my whole f–king family is high-fiving.”
At that, Travis admitted: “You got me sweating over here.”
Watch Sandler and Travis sing Swift’s praises on New Heights above.
There are typically two ways to pull off a perfect cover: by either channeling the original as closely as possible in your own voice, or by completely re-imagining it. Bruce Springsteen found a new, third way on his cover of Jesse Malin‘s “She Don’t Love Me Now.”
The song from punk stalwart Malin’s 2015 album New York Before the War originally had a strolling blues rock vibe spiked by horn stabs and pointedly down-strummed electric guitars. In The Boss’ hands, the latest single from the upcoming Malin benefit album Silver Patron Saints: The Songs of Jesse Malin (Sept. 20) sounds like it could have easily fit on Springsteen’s 2022 R&B/soul covers LP, Only the Strong Survive.
“Bruce gave it that Stax-soul-thing that we were dreaming of when we recorded the original. It’s so surreal to me,” said Malin in a statement. Indeed, in Springsteen’s hands — and with the backing of Malin’s band — the song sounds like a lost soul classic, complete with tasty Hammond organ and a perfectly placed saxophone solo from the E Street band’s Jake Clemons.
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“Oh, you don’t love me when you say/ Oh, all I got is lost/ I’m hanging on that cross/ All I got and all I wanna and all I got is/ Oh, she don’t love me now, she don’t love me now,” Springsteen croons on the song that will appear on the all-star album whose proceeds will benefit Malin’s Sweet Relief artist fund as the beloved punk troubadour continues his recovery from a spinal stroke he suffered last year that left him partially paralyzed.
In addition to Springsteen, the album will feature covers of Malin’s songs by Green Day’s Billie Joe Armstrong, Lucinda Williams and Elvis Costello, Butch Walker, Dinosaur Jr, The Hold Steady, Rage Against the Machine guitarist Tom Morello with late MC5 guitarist Wayne Kramer, the Kills’ Alison Mosshart and the E Street Band’s Steven Van Zandt, Alejandro Escovedo, Spoon, Graham Parker, Ian Hunter, Low Cut Connie, Rancid, Agnostic Front, Murphy’s Law and more (see full track list below).
“Bruce’s generosity, honesty and support are equally as powerful as his songwriting and performing,” Malin added of the rock icon who in 2007 recorded a duet on a song Malin wrote for his later mother, “Broken Radio.” “Bruce is one of the guys. He walks it like he talks it. You spend some time with him, and it feels like you’ve known him for years. He’s like my friends in Queens, sitting around talking about Sinatra, the Clash, and the Pogues. He has that passion and excitement for life.”
The 57-year-old former D Generation lead singer and solo artist said that while he was working on his recovery from the stroke in Argentina last year he had no idea his friends and the album’s producers were reaching out to so many A-list artists for cover versions of his songs. “When I heard these versions, especially ‘She Don’t Love Me Now,’ it took me out of a dark time. I felt excited about life again, in a way that only music can do,” Malin said.
Previously released singles include Armstrong’s take on “Black Haired Girl” and “Prisoners of Paradise” by Bleachers.
After a long break during his recovery, Malin will return to the stage at the Beacon Theatre in New York for one of the biggest hometown shows of his career on Dec. 1 and 2, with tickets still available for the second night. After a full set from Malin and his band, special guests at each show will perform their versions, including Lucinda Williams, Jakob Dylan, Butch Walker, J Mascis, Adam Duritz and David Immergluck of Counting Crows, The Hold Steady, and Alejandro Escovedo and more guests to be announced.
Watch the lyric video for “She Don’t Love Me Now” below.
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Silver Patron Saints: The Songs of Jesse Malin track listing:1. Prisoners of Paradise (feat. Bleachers) 2. Oh Sheena (feat. Counting Crows) 3. She Don’t Love Me Now (feat. Bruce Springsteen)4. Black Haired Girl (feat. Billie Joe Armstrong)5. Brooklyn (feat. Dinosaur Jr.)6. About You (feat. Frank Turner) 7. Turn Up the Mains (feat. Alison Mosshart, Wayne Kramer, Tom Morello, Steven Van Zandt, Mike Watt & Joey C.)8. Room 13 (feat. Lucinda Williams and Elvis Costello)9. Don’t Let Them Take You Down (Beautiful Day) (feat. The Wallflowers)10. The Way We Used to Roll (feat. Spoon) 11. Shane (feat. Rocky O’Riordan) 12. In the Modern World (feat. Butch Walker) 13. High Lonesome (feat. Susanna Hoffs) 14. Greener Pastures (feat. Graham Parker) 15. Meet Me At The End of the World (feat. Alejandro Escovedo) 16. Death Star (feat. The Hold Steady) 17. Riding on the Subway (feat. Tommy Stinson and Ruby Stinson)18. St. Mark’s Sunset (feat. The Walker Roaders)19. Dead On (feat. Ian Hunter) 20. Almost Grown (feat. Danny Clinch and Christopher Thorn with Daniel Donato’s Cosmic Country)21. Shining Down (feat. Aaron Lee Tasjan) 22. When You’re Young (feat. Low Cut Connie) 23. All The Way From Moscow (feat. Willie Nile) 24. No Way Out (feat. Rancid) 25. You Know It’s Dark When Atheists Start to Pray (feat. Gogol Bordello)26. God Is Dead (feat. Agnostic Front) 27. Frankie (feat. Murphy’s Law)
Spotify is bringing its homegrown playlist to life as it launches the homegrown presents concert series with Dylan Gossett and Wyatt Flores.
Gossett kicks off the series with a Sept. 8 concert in his hometown of Austin, Texas, while Flores follows with an Oct. 7 show in Stillwater, Oklahoma. More concerts will take place in the coming months. Free tickets will be dispersed via email through Spotify’s Top Listeners program.
The homegrown playlist caters to the next generation of country listeners, featuring acoustic-oriented artists like Gossett, Flores, Zach Bryan, Ella Langley, Lainey Wilson and Noah Kahan. The artists share an authenticity, according to Spotify, but aren’t limited to traditional country genre lines.
“homegrown is all about authentic connections to music, celebrating your roots, and never forgetting where you came from,” says Claire Heinichen, Spotify’s editor of country music. “Tying these songs and artists to the places that made them felt like the perfect way to bring fans in to experience the playlist in real life. We’re so excited to celebrate the official launch of homegrown with Dylan & Wyatt and can’t wait for fans to see all we have in store!”
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“As an Austin native, it feels special to be able to bring my fans together in a place that’s had such a deep impact on my songwriting,” Gossett tells Billboard. “I’m thankful to Spotify homegrown for making it possible.”
Gossett is signed to Big Loud Texas, Miranda Lambert and Jon Randall’s Big Loud imprint, and Mercury Records. His breakthrough song “Coal” has been certified gold by the Recording Industry Association of America.
Flores, who is signed to Island Records and made his Grand Ole Opry debut earlier this year, added, “Stillwater is where it all started for me. It’s the home of Red Dirt. To be releasing my debut album, Welcome to the Plains, about my search for home and who I am in the much larger world I’ve found myself in; I can’t think of a better time to go back to Stillwater. It means the world to me to have Spotify’s homegrown presents help me tell that story.”
When Maren Morris began working on music for The Wild Robot, the animated adaptation of the beloved best-selling middle-school-aimed book by Peter Brown, all she had to do was put on her mom hat.
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“I was so emotionally moved by this story as a mother. Writing the songs for this film was such an honor because it made me feel even closer to my son, especially when I’m touring and sometimes have to be far away from him,” she tells Billboard. “The entire Wild Robot team has been so supportive of the creation of these songs and I’m so excited for the world to see this film.”
The movie tells of a shipwrecked robot, Roz, who lands on an uninhabited island and learns how to build relationships with the animals there, including an orphaned gosling, Brightbill, whom Roz adopts and watches become independent.
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Morris, who is mom to 4-year old Hayes, sings and co-wrote “Kiss the Sky,” which plays over a pivotal scene in the film. The uplifting song and video premiere below and show Roz helping Brightbill fulfill his destiny by teaching him to fly. DreamWorks Animation will release the film Sept. 27, while Back Lot Music will put out the soundtrack, which features a score by Kris Bowers, the same day.
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“When we were approached to write the song for the flight scene in The Wild Robot we understood how pivotal the moment was in the film,” says co-writer Michael Pollack, who penned “Kiss the Sky” with Morris, Ali Tamposi, Delacey, Stefan Johnson and Jordan K. Johnson. “The scene is literally Brightbill learning how to fly and eventually taking flight, but also metaphorically felt like a lifting off point to the back half of the movie. It was important for the song itself to feel uplifting and have triumphant elements but at the same time it had to evoke the struggles Brightbill was enduring at this point in the story. In a way the melodic arc of the song mirrors the actions of a bird taking flight, as it rises from section to section, ultimately soaring in the post-chorus.”
Morris also penned the end-title song, “Even When I’m Not,” with the same co-writer (with additional writing by Isaiah Tejada). Both songs were produced by The Monsters & Strangerz production team and Tejada. Kris Bowers handled orchestration and served as the movie’s composer.
The Wild Robot stars Academy Award winner Lupita Nyong’o as Roz; Emmy and Golden Globe nominee Pedro Pascal) as fox Fink; Emmy winner Catherine O’Hara as opossum Pinktail; Oscar nominee Bill Nighy as goose Longneck; Kit Connor as Brightbill and Oscar nominee Stephanie Hsu as robot Vontra.
With seven singles on the Billboard Hot 100 and her debut album occupying the No. 2 slot on the Billboard 200, Chappell Roan‘s music has never been more relevant. Now, fans are finding out when they might expect to hear new music from the singer.
In an interview with Music Business Worldwide, Roan’s manager Nick Bobetsky revealed that the singer is currently “busy writing” new songs, and talked about when fans might be able to hear some of the star’s new work. “I do think that we’re likely going to embrace a very similar plan that we did for this album, which is that when she finishes a song she loves, we put our heads together and quickly work to get that music out,” he said. “That’s what we did with ‘Good Luck, Babe!’”
Describing Roan as an “album artist,” Bobetsky said that high demand from fans doesn’t necessarily mean a full album is coming soon. “It’s partly a question of when the fans are asking for an album, and we have a lot of insight into that sort of thing,” he said. “I think right now Chappell wants to feel free to put music out when it’s ready and when she’s excited about letting people hear it. And I think that’s what the fans want as well.”
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Fans got their first tease of a new Chappell Roan song during the star’s head-turning set at Governors Ball 2024. Performing an unreleased track titled “Subway,” Roan changed into a taxi cab-inspired outfit and delivered the heartbroken ballad to an audience of screaming fans.
Recently, Roan has spoken out about inappropriate, “predatory” interactions she’s had with people in public, asking her fans not to harass her when she’s not performing. “When I’m on stage, when I’m performing, when I’m in drag, when I’m at a work event, when I’m doing press … I am at work. Any other circumstance, I am not in work mode,” she wrote in a note posted to her Instagram. “I don’t agree with the notion that I owe a mutual exchange of energy, time, or attention to people I do not know, do not trust, or who creep me out — just because they’re expressing admiration.”
In his MBW interview, Bobetsky also reflected on Roan’s rapid rise to fame, explaining that the singer’s success, in part, comes from the way she works with her fans. “The success hasn’t taken her away from her core fans, she’s taken them with her; they are part of it,” he said. “And it’s part of our core strategy. It’s not ‘Let’s do everything, let’s maximize every ounce of the success that’s currently happening’; that’s not the point.”
Clams Casino doesn’t believe in the age-old adage of having to finish what you start — at least in a single recording session. Born Michael Volpe (no relation to the New York Yankees shortstop and fellow New Jersey native Anthony Volpe), he rose to prominence serving as the sonic architect behind a majority of A$AP Rocky’s seminal 2011 Live. Love. A$AP mixtape, which ushered in a new era of NYC rap and kicked off the A$AP Mob frontman’s Harlem Renaissance.
But nearly 15 years later, Volpe’s atmospheric beats has continue to leave an impact on the next generation of artists. Being a fan of his work with Rocky, Clams Casino was already on The Kid LAROI’s radar when a mutual collaborator, Billy Walsh, connected the producer to the Australian musician when he was just 17 years old. Though nothing came of the initial studio session link-up, a year-and-a-half later, Clams Casino cooked up another intoxicating beat that he felt matched the vibe LAROI was looking for, and he turned out to be right.
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“I hadn’t spoken to LAROI in a long time and I just had a feeling,” he tells Billboard. “I sent him that one and he immediately responded that he loved it and went right in, recorded it on his own and sent it back in like a day.
“He used the MP3 I sent him as-is,” he continues. What came out was pretty much the original demo, which is cool about.” That result is the euphoric “Nights Like This,” which ended up landing on The Kid LAROI‘s debut album, The First Time, last November. And while it didn’t take off immediately, the track would slow-burn to success with the help of TikTok and break through in July on the Billboard Hot 100, where it has remained for the summer and currently sits at No. 67 in its ninth week on the chart.
The 37-year-old producer and LAROI then continued their magic with “Nights Like This Pt 2,” a heart-racing second installment that on The First Time‘s deluxe edition, released in August.
Below, Clams Casino breaks down all things surrounding “Nights Like This,” what stood out to him about The Kid LAROI and working with A$AP Rocky throughout his career.
How did “Nights Like This” come together? How did you originally get onto The Kid LAROI’s radar?
Clams Casino: It was a few years in the making. LAROI first reached out to me online when he was like 17. He was in the studio working with a mutual collaborator, Billy Walsh — I think he played him some of my stuff, and they were brainstorming and brought me out to [Los Angeles]. LAROI knew a lot of the music that I had done. Later on, he told me he was a big fan of the [A$AP] Rocky stuff. I went out to L.A. and we met up in the studio and we talked and played some stuff, but nothing really came out of that first time we met up. I kept it in the back of my mind.
I think it was a year-and-a-half later, and I was at my own studio in New York making beats. That [beat] came up, and I just thought this was the one to send to him. This is kind of what they were talking about what they wanted [during the initial session] and the sound they were referencing. I just sent that one beat. He was excited about it. I had a feeling this was the one and it worked out. Once it happened, it was quick, but the roots were a long time in the making.
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Do you remember actually cooking up that specific beat before getting it into his hands?
I had the melodic stuff sitting around a little bit. I knew it was a special one. I didn’t really know what to do with it. I had half of the beat kind of put away. I was like, “When the time is right, I’ll come back to it.” I don’t do full things in one sitting. A lot of stuff, I’ll come back to it months or years later. I messed around trying to do a different arrangement, and I think he was just stuck on the original demo. There was something about it; he kept going back to that. He was right about it. I tried some other things out, but he just wanted that original version, which is cool looking back on it.
What stands out about his artistry?
What’s exciting for me when I hear his music is that he has a very unique sense of melody — his delivery and his vocals. There’s something melodically that just feels like he’s delivering in the tones of his voice [with] a genuine feeling and it connects with his music because of that.
“Nights Like This” was teased back in 2022 and released in November. What do you think about its slow burn onto the charts?
It spread around very organically and I think that’s the best way it could happen. There was like zero push from the label at the beginning — they thought, like, “This is a little interlude or something.” I don’t think anyone took it seriously. From the beginning, I knew it was a really special thing and he did too. He was really excited about it. We had the freedom to do exactly what me and him wanted to do. People really connected with that.
Was there a moment you realized the record was taking off, and saw the fan reaction really moving?
I started seeing headlines, and all of a sudden, it was getting jumps in streams. I started seeing things online with people saying it was going crazy on TikTok. It just slowly started building. That’s how it really happened. I’m glad everyone’s hearing it now and they got around to it because that’s how I felt about it when it came out. I was happy and really excited and proud of that. Even just for it to come out in the first place I was happy, but I’m glad it got to that point. I always knew it was special. I’m glad it really connected with everybody else.
How did this lead into “Nights Like This Pt 2”?
The beginning of that idea came from something I made for myself. An instrumental solo project — that was the first thing when I was starting on my own new stuff. When I was listening back, I was going to save it for myself, and I was like, “Something about it feels like this should be the part two.” This was in March or earlier this year. So, a few months after the first was released. I sent LAROI not the full beat or anything, but melody stuff and it was a start.
He loved it, and he immediately started teasing it online. Ten minutes after I sent it to him, he was on Twitter saying, “Part two coming!” I was laughing about that — he was real excited about it. There was a little bit of back-and-forth after that. Him and [co-producer] Dopamine recorded it and did some other production and sent it back to me. We sent it back a few times. Dopamine did a lot of work on it and we went back a few times. We got it finished up.
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When did The First Time track “Strangers (Interlude)” come into play?
I actually didn’t know about that. I had no idea about that until the album came out. They had done that on their own. I felt like it set up [“Nights Like This”] really nicely. I love how it sounds sequenced on the album. It’s a clip from “Nights Like This” — just the intro to it and filtered out a little and a little skit on it.
Is there more to come from you guys?
Yeah, it feels like we’re just starting to figure it out. We’re both really excited. I’m like such a fan of his music and I’m happy that I’m able to bring what I bring to it. It just makes sense and it’s a beautiful thing. I’m always working on more that I want to send to him and we got some other stuff that we’re going to keep going [at] hopefully.
Outside of those collabs, what else are you working on?
I’ve been working on different stuff, like getting into scoring things. I worked on some original music for an independent movie that premiered at Cannes a few months ago. [It’s called] It Doesn’t Matter and the director is Josh Mond. I’ll definitely be doing more of that. In the meantime, I really have been having fun getting in with a lot of young producers and young people I’m inspired by. A lot of them have been inspired by me since they were younger, and now they’re coming up doing their own thing. It’s really crazy. I just been having fun getting in with all these new guys and seeing what happens. Producers [like] Evilgiane, who did the Earl Sweatshirt song recently. [I] been working with other guys like Ok. I did some stuff on the JT album with Aire Atlantica. I’m always experimenting and having fun doing stuff I haven’t done before. That’s what keeps me going.
Did you work on A$AP Rocky’s upcoming album?
We did work [on Don’t Be Dumb]. I don’t know what’s going to be used or not. It always seems up in the air until the last minute. We definitely had some things in the works. I don’t know what’s going to be released or not.
Can you speak to Rocky’s influence and his enduring legacy as a 2010s rap titan?
I’m just happy to be part of his story and the ride of his career. Seeing it from the beginning when we first met to where he’s at it now, it’s an amazing story. Remembering where it started and seeing where he’s at now, it’s awesome. I’m just happy to be able to see some of that and some of the behind-the-scenes things.
What do you think makes him special as an artist?
Overall, he has a clear sense of vision for everything. All aspects of it. The music, visuals and everything else. He’s always developing and sharpening that. I don’t really know what it is, but he’s got it.
Do you have a favorite collaboration over the years?
All of the first mixtape stuff [Live. Love. A$AP] is super important to me. That whole time, we weren’t really working in the studio. I was sending stuff, but then I’d come meet up with him every couple weeks and he’d play me what he did, but he was recording it [on his own]. The first song we officially did together was “Wassup.” Then we did “Bass” and “Palace” and all that stuff. It was happening one at a time over the spring and the summer leading up to the mixtape. I didn’t know what was going on, but I knew something good was happening. Those songs are really special. There was an energy there that something was happening. For me, it was exciting and I didn’t know what was going to happen, and we just kept following it.
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For me, I think I gotta go “LVL.”
That was a little bit after the mixtape. That’s another special one doubling down on the sound that we started. That’s when it went from this internet mixtape thing to a major label and we were doubling down on the sound like, “This is what we’re doing.” That’s one of my favorites too.
A version of this story appears in the Aug. 24, 2024, issue of Billboard.