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To achieve the bright sound in his famous 1965 solo for The Who‘s “My Generation,” John Entwistle bought a cheap Danelectro bass, removed the strings designed by John D’Addario Sr., and transferred them to his Fender. The plan worked until one of the strings broke — and Entwistle had to buy two more Danelectros just for the strings.
Jim D’Addario, who built a multimillion-dollar guitar-strings empire on the foundation of his late father John’s early innovations, tells this story in a 50th-anniversary video series called Jim’s Corner. D’Addario, which sells drumheads, saxophone reeds, pedalboards, earplugs and other musicians’ gear in addition to its signature guitar strings at 3,300 retail outlets, earned $220 million in global revenue last year and employs 1,100 people, has taken a corporate victory lap throughout, combining history with “When You Know You Know” ads starring younger players like Chris Stapleton, Herman Li of DragonForce and Yvette Young of Covet.
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“Most people are very apathetic about their strings, and they usually listen to their teacher, or an artist that’s endorsing the product, to get them to try our strings,” says D’Addario, now chairman of the board of the company he named after his family in 1974. “The ones that know really know ours are better — and consistent.”
In addition to the video series, the company that started with teenaged Jim accompanying his guitar-playing father to music-business trade conventions in the ’60s launched a beer, Eddie Ate Dynamite (GoodBye Eddie), in early December; held a beer-launch party at the time starring a member of the Infamous Stringdusters; and spent much of 2024 releasing limited-edition merch and packages of strings in retro containers.
D’Addario acknowledges the company faces industry headwinds — the musical-instrument business, he says, is declining 2%-3% per year, which affects a company whose guitar strings make up 45% of its business. “People buy a guitar for their kid, and if he doesn’t play, they don’t put it in the attic or the basement anymore. They put it on eBay,” D’Addario says. “Everything a dealer sells, he’s going to compete with that instrument. That has had a very serious effect on the instruments bought at retail.”
But mostly, D’Addario is upbeat, describing the guitar pedalboards his company has spent two years designing, pedalboard power supplies containing USB batteries and coated strings that resist “moisture, perspiration, skin, debris.” Says D’Addario, “We keep an ideation list for each brand. We’ll have crazy things on there. When we have bandwidth, we’ll throw one on the active-project list.” Here, he discusses the company’s past and present in an hourlong Zoom from his home workshop in Farmingdale, N.Y.
What do you hope people learn about D’Addario from the 50th-anniversary campaign events?
It’s not the 50th anniversary of the family making strings, it’s the 50th anniversary of the brand name D’Addario. My dad and my grandfather were afraid to put their name on products. Italians would be discriminated against and it was a difficult name to pronounce. They felt like, in certain markets, it might not be accepted. In August of ’74, I said, “Nah, we’re going to get credit for making certain stuff, and our name’s going to be on it.”
Can you hear when a guitar player on the radio uses your strings?
No, that’s impossible. There are a lot of good strings out there that sound good. It’s very hard to discern that just from listening to it on the radio.
In the early 1990s, a package of strings had an envelope for each of the six strings — a paper envelope for each one, identified for each note, in a vinyl pouch with a fancy label. So there was a minimum of eight pieces of packaging; sometimes there was a little advertisement as well. My daughter Amy was in high school, and they were studying environmental friendliness and recycling and packaging, and I was changing my strings on the bed and I had all this garbage when I was done. She said, “You should really do something about that, that’s really criminal, you’re putting so much junk in the waste-stream just to change a set of strings.”
So it got me thinking. I came up with a system of color-coding the ball end on the string a different color, then coiling those together in one corrosion-resistant plastic bag and having them color-coded, so the silver one is this note and the brass one is this note. It eliminated 75% of the packaging. Since that time, we’ve saved billions of trees and millions of pounds of carbon not released into the atmosphere. That was one of the things that distinguished our strings. That’s one way we can tell onstage if our strings are being used. Otherwise, it’s very difficult. You can put branding on the package but when they’re playing on stage you can’t see it.
What music stars are your most loyal customers?
A lot of jazz guys, like Pat Metheny, who’s a good buddy, and Julian Loge. But there’s also a whole contingent of new people that I might not know. John McLaughlin, Blake Mills, Molly Tuttle, Billy Strings, Chris Thile of Nickel Creek, Sierra Ferrell, a mandolinist [who’s] going to be a superstar — those are the artists that really gravitate to our brand because they know they’re going to get the very best product.
How has the musical instrument market changed since you started?
It’s quite different. We also make drumheads and drumsticks and snare wires and guitar straps and cables. We make drumheads for acoustic drums and drumsticks and other accessories for drummers. The acoustic-drum market is 40-60% of what it was in 2004. Drums have been digitized. Instead of 20,000 drumheads a day, we’re only making 10,000. The other thing is the guitar was really the solo instrument, but it’s not anymore. You don’t hear a guitar solo in every hit; you hear repetitive rhythms and electronic sounds and synthesized sounds.
How much does this worry you?
We’ve seen this so many times — in the early ’90s, it was video games, and for three or four years, the guitar market didn’t have much growth. But then it came back. The acoustic guitar market was in the tank for the whole decade of the 1980s, and “MTV Unplugged” happened, then bingo, the acoustic guitar took off again. It always comes back.
What are your retirement plans, if any?
We don’t want to sell our business. Our family name is on the product. D’Addario strings are like the Titleist of golf balls, like Scotch Tape. When you walk into a music store, 40% to 50% of the strings on the wall are our brand, and that’s in almost every country around the world. I’d have trouble walking into a store and seeing my packaging screwed up or listening to people complaining about the quality.
Earlier this week, Billboard revealed its year-end Boxscore charts, ranking the top tours, venues, and promoters of 2024. We’re breaking it down further, looking at the biggest live acts, genre by genre. Today, we continue with Latin. Latin music reached unprecedented heights in 2022, when Bad Bunny staged the year’s highest-grossing tour. While no genre […]
When it comes to quintessential covers of traditional holiday songs, arguably one of the best — and definitely most soulful — is The Temptations’ 1980 reinterpretation of the classic “Silent Night.” But during another holiday season 60 years ago, Motown Records released another classic that set the mold for the quintet’s legendary career: “My Girl.”
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Written and produced by fellow Motown legends and Miracles founding members Smokey Robinson and Ronnie White, “My Girl” was released through Motown subsidiary Gordy on Dec. 21, 1964. Three months later, in March 1965, the song had ascended to the top of Billboard’s pop and R&B charts, giving the Temptations their first No. 1 hit. “My Girl” also marked another milestone: the first Temptations single with David Ruffin as lead singer. Succeeding former original member Elbridge “Al” Bryant, Ruffin rounded out what became the group’s storied lineup alongside Melvin Franklin, Eddie Kendricks, Otis Williams and Paul Williams.
Now co-founder and last original member Otis Williams and The Temptations are celebrating the 60th anniversary of their mega-hit, which has now crossed the 1 billion streams mark on Spotify.
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The Temptations
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“I don’t think it gets any greater than that,” Williams tells Billboard on the eve of an anniversary run that kicked off with a performance of “My Girl” on the Today show Monday (Dec. 16) and includes visits to The View Tuesday (Dec. 17), Sherri and ABC News’ Nightline Wednesday (Dec. 18). Back in October during Game 5 of the National League Championship Series between the Los Angeles Dodgers and New York Mets, the group performed the hit, which New York shortstop Francisco Lindor had adopted as his walk-up music. The ensuing stadium-wide singalong at Citi Field is what happens every time The Temptations perform their signature song that’s known worldwide.
And there’s no wiggle room when it comes to not performing “My Girl.” Willams remembers a concert that happened years ago when the group, for whatever reason, didn’t sing the song. “They called us almost every name except child of God,” recalls Williams with a laugh. “And I said, ‘Paul, that’s one song we can never ever take out of our lineup.’ Here it is 2024 and when we perform it, the audience stands up like it’s the national anthem.”
So what is it about “My Girl” that resonates so strongly 60 years after its release? People invariably mention the love ode’s instantly recognizable opening bass notes and romantic sentiments expressed in the lyrics (“I don’t need no money, fortune, or fame/ I’ve got all the riches, baby, one man can claim”) brought to life by Ruffin’s indelible vocals and The Temptations’ sweet harmonies.
For those who may not know, “My Girl” was the follow-up to another Robinson-written and produced hit that’s also celebrating its own 60th anniversary: Mary Wells’ “My Guy.” Reminiscing about “My Girl” during an episode of his SiriusXM show, Motown’s longtime poet laureate said he was inspired to write the song because of the Temptations.
“I wanted to write something sweet for David Ruffin to sing,” recalled Robinson. “David had that great voice. I used to tell him that he demanded the girls to love him because he had that oh, come on, baby kind of voice. But I want him to sing something … that the girls could just swoon over. So I wrote ‘My Girl’ for his voice and for The Temptations to sing. And it has done what I set out to do when I wrote the song or what I set out to do anytime I write a song: it has stood the test of time.”
In the years since its release, “My Girl” was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 1998. Then the Library of Congress chose it for preservation in the National Recording Registry in 2017, calling the song “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant.”
The Temptations
Shahar Azran
During NBC’s holiday special A Motown Christmas, which aired Dec. 11, Williams and The Temptations — whose current lineup also features Ron Tyson, Terry Weeks, Tony Grant and Jawan M. Jackson — performed a three-song set of hits that included “Ain’t Too Proud to Beg,” “Get Ready” and, of course, “My Girl.”
“When we finished putting the vocals down on the song, I said to Smokey in the control room, ‘Man, I don’t know how big a record this is going to be. But this is going to be a record,” remarks Williams, whose own career accolades include an honorary doctorate from Stillman College in Tuscaloosa, Ala. “I still can’t believe that here we are, some 60 years later and we’re still going strong. Most groups don’t get that kind of break. It was God’s timing for Motown to start when it did. And here we are a part of something that will outlive all of us.”
For this year’s update of our ongoing Greatest Pop Star by Year project, Billboard will be counting down our editorial staff picks for the 10 Greatest Pop Stars of 2024 all this week — having already revealed our Honorable Mentions, our Comeback of the Year and our Rookie of the Year artists all last week, and our No. 10 and No. 9 Greatest Pop Star on Monday. Now, at No. 8, we remember the year in Post Malone — who resumed his old winning ways with a turn towards an entirely new genre.
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When Post Malone rang in 2024 with an appropriately 24-song set at a Las Vegas New Year’s Eve concert, he pulled out his biggest hits – the ones that made him a superstar in the late 2010s by crisscrossing genre lines from hip-hop to rock to pop and beyond – including the Hot 100 No. 1s “Circles,” “Sunflower,” “Rockstar” and “Psycho.” But you had to look beyond the setlist for a forecast of what was to come this year. At Fontainebleau’s BleauLive Theater in the early hours of Jan. 1, 2024, the clearest sign of Post’s creative direction was twofold: his outfit choice of jorts, paired with a tank top, and the red Solo cup that rarely left his hand that night. Yes, Post was about to go country.
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The Texas native had flirted with the genre in the past — making his Country Airplay debut on a posthumous duet version of Joe Diffie’s “Pickup Man” last year and performing the song alongside Morgan Wallen and HARDY at the 2023 CMA Awards. At those awards, Access Hollywood asked backstage if he had his own country project in the works and Post answered, “I think so…yes.”
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The first true hint that said project was actually arriving in 2024 came in February, when Post shared a snippet of a Luke Combs collab that would become “Guy for That.” That was followed by a turn on Beyoncé’s own country project Cowboy Carter in March, with the twangy midtempo duet “Levii’s Jeans,” then a surprise Hank Williams cover at a benefit concert at Nashville’s Ryman Auditorium in April. But everything kicked into overdrive later that month at the Stagecoach Music Festival, when – following his own 11-song set of country covers, some including assists from the original artists themselves (Brad Paisley, Dwight Yoakam, Sara Evans) – Post popped back up onstage with headliner Morgan Wallen to debut a brand-new duet called “I Had Some Help.” From fan-shot videos of the Indio, California, performance, it hardly seemed like your typical new-song-at-a-festival response; by the second chorus, the crowd was singing every word as if the track had already been all over country radio.
And then it was. “I Had Some Help” officially arrived on May 10, and that cusp-of-summer release served it well, as the breezy bro duet went on to soundtrack countless pool parties and backyard barbecues, debuting at No. 1 on the Hot 100 in an incredibly crowded pop landscape (Kendrick Lamar’s “Not Like Us,” Shaboozey’s “A Bar Song (Tipsy)” and Sabrina Carpenter’s “Espresso” were all in the top 10 that week) and holding the top spot for a robust six weeks. It also scored seven weeks at No. 1 on Hot Country Songs and four atop Country Airplay, on its way to being crowned Billboard’s 2024 Song of the Summer in September. The month-plus chart-topper ended a bit of a commercial cold spell for Posty, whose solo No. 1s had all come last decade and who hadn’t found a hit of this size since well before the pandemic.
But “Help” was just the start of Post’s country coup. In June, he announced that his first all-country album F-1 Trillion would arrive in mid-August – and released the second single from the project, a sudsy dive-bar duet with Blake Shelton called “Pour Me a Drink” that would become his second Country Airplay No. 1. In July, he unveiled the full track list, which included a who’s who of honky-tonk heavy-hitters. Only three songs on the 18-track standard album didn’t include features, and it appeared that everyone in Nashville – Dolly Parton, Hank Williams Jr., Tim McGraw, Chris Stapleton and (of course) Jelly Roll – was beyond happy to team up with the congenial hitmaker.
F-1 Trillion debuted atop the Billboard 200 following its Aug. 16 release and spent six weeks at No. 1 on Top Country Albums, with Post landing 18 songs on the Hot 100 from the project during release week. One of the many keys to the project’s colossal success appears to be the way Post fully immersed himself in the country world this year, between performing at both the ACM Awards in May and CMA Awards in November; playing Nashville’s vaunted Bluebird Café in June; and making his Grand Ole Opry debut in August, flanked by Vince Gill, John Michael Montgomery, Lainey Wilson and more country all-stars. He’s been utterly enveloped into what can sometimes be an insular space, proving yet again what a genre chameleon he can be when the musicianship, strong songwriting and love for the craft is so clearly there.
And this could have been a massive year for Post Malone even if he hadn’t successfully ingratiated himself into yet another new genre. Back in February, a day after Taylor Swift had surprise-announced a brand-new album called The Tortured Poets Department, she unveiled the project’s track list – including album opener “Fortnight” featuring Post Malone. It ended up not only being the opening track, but also the lead single, arriving alongside the album on April 19 with a cinematic black-and-white music video starring Swift and a tattoo-free Malone as ex-lovers. Post gushed about the experience on Instagram, writing, “It’s once in a lifetime that someone like @taylorswift comes into this world. I am floored by your heart and your mind, and I am beyond honored to have been asked to help you with your journey.” The song spent two weeks atop the Hot 100, and the duo accepted the video of the year prize together for “Fortnight” at September’s 2024 MTV Video Music Awards, where Malone was Swift’s right-hand man for her latest VMAs victory lap.
Malone’s awards journey might just be getting started too, because in November, he earned seven new Grammy nominations – a tie for the second-most this year – that span both his country album and his collabs with Swift and Beyoncé, and have him in good shape to finally take home his first-ever statue in 17 career tries. Next year will also mark Post’s biggest tour yet: After playing a 21-date mini-tour around F-1 Trillion this fall, the star announced the aptly titled Big Ass Stadium Tour in November, set for next April to July.
Oh, and Post accidentally let a couple of other dates slip when he made the announcement, sharing a poster that included April 13 and 20 stops in Indio, California, with Coachella confirming the next day that Post would be back in the desert to headline alongside Lady Gaga, Green Day and Travis Scott next spring. After 2024 headlining slots at Bonnaroo, Rolling Loud, Governors Ball, Global Citizen Festival and Outside Lands that all skewed heavily toward his earlier, non-country material, it will be interesting to see what kind of similarity the Post Malone who shows up at Coachella will bear to the one who showed up at the same grounds for Stagecoach a year before.
Post Malone isn’t just diversifying when it comes to genre, either; he also made inroads in Hollywood this year, including a bloody boxer role in the Jake Gyllenhaal-starring Road House remake in March and a cheeky cameo as himself in the new Jack Black Christmas movie Dear Santa. In other big accomplishments: His 2018 Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse smash “Sunflower” with Swae Lee became the first-ever double-diamond single in RIAA history in February, meaning it’s reached an equivalent of 20 million sales; that same month, he performed “America the Beautiful” ahead of the 2024 Super Bowl, which reached a record 123.7 million viewers; and he came face-to-face with his very own wax figure backstage at Gov Ball in June (even mistaking it for a real person).
As Malone wraps his epic year by dotting 2024 best-of lists (including both our best albums and best songs staff rankings), his country project ends on a high, celebrating platinum certification from the RIAA for F-1 Trillion and five-times platinum status for “I Had Some Help,” as of Dec. 12. It once again seems like everything he touches turns to gold (or, really, platinum), so as Post’s 2024 turns to his 2025, keep your eyes peeled for any wardrobe clues that might signal which part of the top 40 world he has his sights on taking over next.
Check back later today for the reveal of our No. 7 Greatest Pop Star, and stay tuned all week as we roll out our top 10 — leading to the announcement of our top two Greatest Pop Stars of 2024 on Monday, Dec. 23!
Sabrina Carpenter isn’t the only entertainer in her family, but her aunt — Simpsons star Nancy Cartwright — thinks that she will be their first EGOT winner someday. In an interview with Good Morning America posted Monday (Dec. 16), one day ahead of the premiere of the famous cartoon’s 2024 holiday special on Disney+, the […]
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GloRilla and Sexyy Red are on the cover of the winter issue of XXL magazine, and it’s rightfully earned. Both of these rising stars have been making waves in the rap game, and this cover shows how they’ve become some of the hottest names in hip-hop. Females have been running Hip-Hop the last few years with artists like GloRilla, Sexyy Red, Megan Thee Stallion, Latto & more. Big Glo first blew up with her hit song “F.N.F. (Let’s Go)” and quickly became known for her unique voice and tough, yet fun lyrics. Her Memphis sound caught on, and now she’s got fans all over the world. She’s been putting in work and her grind is paying off.
St. Louis native, Sexyy Red, made a huge name instantly in the rap game. Sexyy has been known for her unapologetic, bold lyrics that all the “girlies” can relate to. She’s gained a loyal following with her club smashes like “Pound Town” and has become a voice for women in the rap game who are all about confidence and owning their space.
Both women are making major moves, and the cover of XXL is just another career milestone. These rap queens have been living proof that they’re here to stay and are about to keep taking over the rap scene in 2024 and beyond.
12/17/2024
Billboard offers its takes on the top country songs of 2024, including music from Kacey Musgraves, Lainey Wilson, Riley Green, George Strait & more.
12/17/2024
Gracie Abrams opened 49 Eras Tour shows and to hear her tell it the final day on Taylor Swift’s mega world stadium outing was a lot like the last, weepy hours of a high school year. “Everyone had been crying all day. It felt like the last day of school backstage,” she told Nylon magazine in a new feature about her magical year. “Everyone was walking around with their [Eras Tour] books, signing each other’s books. We were all walking around with Sharpies.”
Abrams spoke to the magazine less than 36 hours after the final Eras Tour show in Vancouver on December 8 and admittedly was struggling with the stages of grief as she put the life-changing experience behind her. “I watched the live streams on shows that I wasn’t at,” she said. “I’m feeling emotional and grateful and in a state of shock that we don’t, as a global community, get to experience that source of light anymore.”
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As she ascends to her own new pop plateaus — including a recent debut Saturday Night Live musical guest spot and a fifth week at No. 1 on the U.K. charts with her “That’s So True” single — Abrams, 25, said the time spent on tour with Swift was like pop star boot camp. “I was just soaking up every moment of her show, too. I’ve basically been studying it for a year-and-a-half,” she said of Swift, who returned the favor by scattered some of her musical pixie dust on Abrams’ The Secret of Us track “Us.” “Every time I’ve opened for her, I watch and learn. I learned from her every time we have a conversation about the weather, even,” Abrams said.
Though she initially got hit with the dreaded “nepo baby” tag thanks to famous parents Star Wars and Star Trek director J.J. Abrams and production exec Katie McGrath, Abrams said the tables are starting to turn. The Nylon writer described a recent New York show where they observed fans approaching director Abrams to take selfies with “Gracies dad.”
“They’re like, ‘What in the world?’” Abrams said of her parents’ take on her rising fame. “But it’s really sweet,” she adds, noting that watching the sweet way her mother interacts with people is the model for how she wants to be. “Her support and encouragement of my writing my whole life is the reason that I’m doing any of this now,” she said.
The one thing she didn’t want to discuss, however, was her rumored relationship with Gladiator II star Paul Mescal, who she’s been photographed with a number of times this year. Asked how she’s dealing with a high-profile relationship amidst her rising fame, Abrams kept things vague. “That has nothing to do with me,” she said. “It doesn’t affect me.”
The singer announced her own 2025 North American headlining tour the day after wrapping her Eras run and told the magazine that she’s re-teamed with The National’s Aaron Dessner at New York’s Electric Lady Studios with an eye toward releasing her third album by late 2025.
“I am inspired by Taylor in a million ways, but especially by the pace with which she puts things out into the world,” Abrams said. “There’s less pressure the more you release — that’s how I consider it for myself. I want to just keep it coming while I’m in this period of writing as frequently as I am. I think it would be a waste to not be open.”
Watch Abrams take the Rorschach Test with Nylon below.
Snoop Dogg returned last week with his Missionary album, which found him reuniting with Dr. Dre for his first full-length project alongside the West Coast legend in more than three decades since 1993’s Doggystyle. But the project wasn’t always going to have that title, as Snoop joked with Complex earlier this week as part of […]
Mexican music is undergoing a revolution, and at the epicenter of this new wave of talent is Luis Ernesto Vega Carvajal, better known as Netón Vega. At just 21 years old, the young musician has achieved global success as a co-writer for tracks such as “La People” by Peso Pluma and Tito Double P, “Rubicon” by Peso, and “Si No Quieres No” by Luis R. Conríquez.
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The latter song, on which he also sings, is one of five that he currently has on the Hot Latin Songs chart as both composer and performer, including “La Patrulla” with Peso Pluma, “Linda” and “Chino” with Tito Double P, and “Presidente” by Gabito Ballesteros, Natanael Cano, and Conríquez.
“The fact that my songs reached Hassan (Peso Pluma) allowed them to reach all these artists, with whom I now share a great friendship,” explains Vega, who is ready to write his own story now as a singer, in an interview with Billboard Español.
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On Friday (Dec. 20), he will release “Loco,” the first single from his debut album, slated for January 24, 2025.
“Now it’s my turn to perform my own songs. I have prepared 18 and I am very excited for everyone to hear all that I can offer because I don’t just do corridos tumbados; I really like rap and even romantic songs,” explains the singer-songwriter, who has more than 20 million monthly listeners on Spotify thanks to his collaborations.
When asked if at this stage he will have the support of those to whom he has given key songs in his career, the answer is blunt: “There is a union with the artists of Mexican music today as never before, we support each other unconditionally, it is a brotherhood. So they will be with me in my first album Peso Pluma, Luis R. Conríquez, Tito Double P, Víctor Mendívil, Oscar Maydón and Alemán, who is from the same place where I was born”.
Vega was born in La Paz, Baja California Sur, but moved to Culiacán, Sinaloa, at a young age. He learned to rap on the streets and later began to write.
“I didn’t write corridos tumbados. I composed romantic songs, reggaetón, everything. I wrote traditional corridos; people from the United States requested them a lot. That’s how I started making money,” he shares, adding that he also grew up listening to music from groups like Intocable and Juan Gabriel. “Then I mixed everything I knew and created my own style,” he continues. “As for the lyrics, I make sure they are not too aggressive.”
Amid so many emerging artists, the competition becomes stronger every day, and this is something he is very aware of. “However, I believe that we can continue our careers if we work and keep doing new things all the time,” he says. “At least that’s what I am willing to do.”
With the release of his debut album, he will also have the opportunity to perform in front of an audience for the first time with three concerts scheduled in Mexico early next year: February 27 at the Escenario GNP Seguros in Monterrey, March 1 at the Pepsi Center in Mexican City, and March 9 at the Auditorio Telmex in Guadalajara.
“This is a very important challenge. I understand that having millions of listeners is not the same as having people come to see me and pay for a ticket,” concludes Vega, undoubtedly an artist to keep an eye on in 2025.