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Kendrick Lamar’s “Not Like Us” has soared to the top of the U.K.’s Official Singles Chart (Feb. 21).
The Drake diss track track, first released in May 2024, marks the Compton rapper’s maiden No. 1 hit in the U.K., thanks to exposure from his Super Bowl LIX Halftime Show earlier this month. His explosive performance has already become the most-watched halftime show in history, according to the NFL and Apple Music, surpassing 130 million viewers.
A recent U.K tour announcement with SZA has also continued to bolster Lamar’s current chart success. Two of the pair’s collabs, “Luther” and “All The Stars,” appear at No. 4 and No. 5 this week. He is also leading the pack in the U.S., too, as “Not Like Us” has returned to the summit of the BillboardHot 100 this week for the first time since last July.
Across an illustrious career, Lamar has notched up 11 top 10 singles in the U.K., from Taylor Swift team-up “Bad Blood” through to “Humble,” the lead single from his 2017 Pulitzer Prize-winning LP Damn.
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Following acclaimed performances on late-night chat programs including The Graham Norton Show and The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, Lola Young’s “Messy” comes in at No. 2, breaking her four-week run atop the charts. The track appears on her studio album This Wasn’t Meant for You Anyway, which was released in May 2024 via Island Records.
After taking to the stage at The BRIT Awards on March 1, Young will kick off her U.K. headlining tour the following week on March 3 at London’s O2 Forum Kentish Town. In April, she will perform at Coachella, ahead of a stacked festival season including major events such as Manchester’s Parklife and Reading & Leeds.
There’s also further chart dominance incoming from Sabrina Carpenter. Having recently released a deluxe edition of last year’s Short n’ Sweet LP, its focus track “Busy Woman” comes in at 10, while “Please Please Please” re-enters the top 10 for the first time in four months thanks to a remix with Dolly Parton (No. 9).
Elsewhere, Chappell Roan’s “Pink Pony Club” shimmies on up to No. 3. Further down the chart, AJ Tracey and Jorja Smith’s buzzy new collab “Crush” debuts at No. 23, while Sam Fender’s “People Watching” hops up five places to No. 26, coinciding with the release of his album of the same name.
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Ja Rule recently chopped it up on HipHopWired’s ‘I Got Questions’ with Juvenile, and he gave a real shoutout to DMX’s crazy stage presence. The NYC rapper said, “The Dog had a different emotional connection to his audience,” and it’s clear DMX wasn’t just performing — he was living every moment with his fans.
His energy was unmatched. When X hit the stage, it wasn’t just about rapping; it was about making you feel every word, every verse, every bar. DMX had the power to make you connect with him on a whole different level. It wasn’t just entertainment; it was an experience. DMX’s impact on hip-hop is legendary. From the rough and rugged sound of tracks like *“Ruff Ryders’ Anthem”* to the club banger ‘Party Up (Up In Here),’ X changed the game with his gritty delivery, raw emotion, and realness. He wasn’t just another rapper — he was a voice for the underdog, speaking to the struggle, the pain, and the triumphs.
DMX’s music was more than just fire bars; it was a reflection of the real-life many were living. Ja Rule’s tribute shows that DMX wasn’t just a rapper; he was a force in the culture. His connection to the people, his authenticity, and his ability to move crowds set him apart as one of the most influential figures in hip-hop. Even after his passing, his legacy still reigns, and his impact continues to inspire the game.
Check out HipHopWired’s latest episode of ‘I Got Questions’ featuring Juvenile & Ja Rule:
J. Cole is back with his first new song of 2025, and used the track to express some fears about AI.
Cole returned with the song “Clouds” via his Inevitable blog on Thursday (Feb. 20). While the Dreamville leader used the track to ruminate on multiple topics, he also used DZL and Omen’s lush beat to speak on the power of artificial intelligence.
“Don’t buy, subscribe so you can just stream your content/ Like rent, you won’t own a thing/ Before long, all the songs the whole world sings’ll be generated by latest of AI regimes/ As all of our favorite artists erased by it scream/ From the wayside, ‘Aye, whatever happened to human beings?’” Cole spits.
The North Carolina rapper didn’t clarify much in his blog post about “Clouds,” but did detail his motivation behind dropping new music.
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“Just wanted to share,” he wrote. “Made this a few days ago, then I added a second verse and was like, ‘Man I got a blog now, I can put whatever I want up there.’ I didn’t have a title 20 minutes ago when I decided to really put this up. But now I got one…”
Elsewhere in the song, Cole also spit some bars about the attempted assassination of Donald Trump at a Philadelphia rally in June.
“I’m that bass in your trunk, the bullet that missed Trump/ The gun that jammed ’cause it seemed God had other plans,” Cole raps in the second verse.
The new track comes after J. Cole promised in a previous blog post he’d be more communicative with his fans.
“I knowwww mannnn. I’m off to a bad start with the consistency, but I’ma do better! Watch,” he wrote in part. “I been locked in on the music while also balancing family life. It’s a juggling act that a blog post wouldn’t do justice in explaining. But with that said, I’m back tending to this garden.”
“Clouds” is Cole’s first new song to emerge since he dropped the YouTube loosie “Port Antonio” last October. On the latter track, Cole addressed his divisive decision to apologize for dissing Kendrick Lamar and step away from a brewing rap battle with the GNX rapper.
Listen to “Clouds” here.
ATEEZ has emerged as one of the most popular K-pop groups in the U.S., achieving milestones that defy industry norms. They became the first group unaffiliated with the “Big Four” entertainment companies, such as SM, JYP, YG, and HYBE, to top the Billboard 200 chart. In 2024, they became the first K-pop boy group to perform at Coachella and claimed their second Billboard 200 No. 1 with their 11th mini album, Golden Hour: Part 2. Yet, their name remains curiously absent from Korea’s domestic music scene.
Album sales paint a striking picture. Their 11th mini album sold over one million copies in its first week. However, their Korea streaming performance tells a different story. ATEEZ is nowhere to be found on Korea’s YouTube Music Hot 100 chart or the charts of local platforms like Melon, Genie, Bugs, and FLO. Spotify data reveals their most streamed cities are Jakarta, Bangkok, Tokyo, Kuala Lumpur, and Singapore, notably excluding Seoul.
Stray Kids, under JYP Entertainment, face a similar paradox. Their album HOP made history in 2024 as the first to achieve six consecutive Billboard 200 No. 1 albums by a group. This record-breaking achievement prompted the announcement of a 20-stop global stadium tour in 2025, solidifying their global appeal. Yet in Korea, their title track “Chk Chk Boom” failed to claim the top spot on major streaming charts. Like ATEEZ, their strongest Spotify numbers come from Indonesia, Japan, Chile, Brazil, and Malaysia.
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K-pop thrives globally, driven by its fiercely loyal fanbase. According to IFPI’s Global Music Report, SEVENTEEN’s FML and Stray Kids’ 5-STAR ranked first and second, respectively, in global album sales for 2023. In IFPI’s Global Artist Chart, SEVENTEEN, Stray Kids, Tomorrow X Together, and NewJeans all placed in the Top 10. However, this global success highlights a surprising shift: K-pop’s domestic market no longer mirrors its international dominance.
Data from the Korea Culture and Tourism Institute (KCTI) illustrates this disparity. In 2023, K-pop’s overseas revenue reached 1.2377 trillion KRW (approximately $950 million USD), while HYBE reported 63.3% of its earnings from international markets in the first half of 2023. JYP followed with 52.2% and YG at 48.6%. Luminate’s Mapping Out K-pop’s Global Dominance report placed Korea as the fourth largest consumer of K-pop, trailing Japan, the U.S., and Indonesia.
Then why is K-pop less visible in its home country?
To better understand this, one must revisit the mid-2010’s, a period when K-pop began its meteoric rise in the U.S., spearheaded by BTS’s success at the Billboard Music Awards and their domination of Western charts. Back home, K-pop reigned supreme in Korea’s music scene, led by heavyweights like BLACKPINK, TWICE, EXO and SEVENTEEN, while audition programs such as Produce 101 captivated audiences and amplified K-pop’s domestic appeal.
Ironically, as K-pop’s global footprint grew, its local presence waned. The absence of a trusted official chart to represent Korea’s music industry dealt a major blow. Once reliable indicators of popularity, real-time charts on platforms like Melon and Genie fell into disrepute after controversies surrounding chart manipulation and ballot rigging in audition programs. These incidents eroded public trust in K-pop as a genre.
By 2018, the industry shifted its focus from broad audience appeal to catering to core fandoms. Fanbases, in turn drove album sales to record-breaking heights, pushing physical sales to over 116 million units in 2023, a tenfold increase over the past decade. Billboard 200 chart topping acts, which were once a rarity, have now expanded to include a slew of K-pop groups like SuperM, Tomorrow x Together, and NewJeans.
Billboard Korea: Predicting K-pop Companies’ Strategies for 2025
Meanwhile, K-pop’s evolution into a fandom centric business model has redefined its strategy. Entertainment companies prioritize retaining and strengthening existing fanbases over attracting casual listeners and songs are designed to reinforce a group’s identity rather than to appeal to the masses. Global promotions, such as BTS’s and BLACKPINK’s massive stadium tours in the U.S. and Japan, underscore this trend, with groups like Stray Kids and ATEEZ leading the charge in self-produced artistry.
In Korea, K-pop activities increasingly resemble fan service. Despite low domestic ratings, programs like Music Bank, M Countdown, and Inkigayo remain important platforms for launching new songs and generating live performance clips for social media platforms such as YouTube. This demonstrates that while K-pop may no longer be music for everyone, its transformation into a niche-driven, global phenomenon is undeniable.
However, not all groups face this disconnect. Acts like aspea, IVE, SEVENTEEN and NewJeans continue to dominate Korean media and achieve commercial success domestically. Across the board, K-pop’s overall revenues keep climbing, driven largely by its international market.
As K-pop popularity continues to grow around the global, its strategy continues to evolve. English lyrics, international artist collaborations, and streamlined promotional cycles reflect its shift toward the global stage. Circle Chart data shows that the percentage of English lyrics in girl group releases reached 41.3% in 2023, up nearly 19% from 2018. For boy groups, the figure stood at 24.3%. Major comebacks are now followed by world tours, with U.S. talk shows often serving as debut platforms for new releases.
As K-pop increasingly focuses on global markets, can it find a balance between domestic recognition and international acclaim? Will it achieve a universal appeal similar to Latin music, fostering sustainable support both at home and abroad? The dual identity of K-pop, its paradoxical success offers both challenges and opportunities for the industry’s future.
This article is courtesy of Billboard Korea.
ROSÉ is showing some extra large love to JENNIE‘s new solo single, “ExtraL” featuring Doechii.
Shortly after “ExtraL” dropped Friday (Feb. 21), the New Zealand-born K-pop star shared a screenshot on her Instagram Story of her BLACKPINK bandmate’s new music video for the track and wrote, “this girlll,” with two heart emojis.
“ExtraL out now!!!,” ROSÉ added supportively.
On “ExtraL,” JENNIE and the Swamp Princess take turns on different verses before uniting on the track’s confidence-boosting chorus, speaking directly to their “ladies.” “Riding ’round, foreign cars/ Top down, staring at the stars/ Attitude, so don’t start,” they boast.
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The track will be featured on JENNIE’s upcoming album Ruby, which drops March 7; it will include previous singles “Mantra” and “Love Hangover,” featuring Dominic Fike. Four months after the project arrives, she’ll finally reunite with her BLACKPINK counterparts for a world tour, dates for which the band unveiled just three days prior to “ExtraL.”
The reunion — which will also come with new music, as ROSÉ recently confirmed — will put an end to more than a year of the foursome spending time apart to focus on solo projects. The “Number One Girl” singer’s debut album, rosie — led by Billboard Global 200-topper “APT.” featuring Bruno Mars — arrived in December, while bandmate JISOO’s EP Amortage dropped on Valentine’s Day ahead of LISA’s Feb. 28-slated album Alter Ego.
Throughout their time apart, however, the ladies have continued to support one another from afar — something JENNIE opened up about in her January Billboard cover story. “We are all so caught up with life,” she said at the time. “Obviously, we can’t be calling each other every day.”
“Even though we know we can’t see each other so much, it doesn’t really feel any different than all the other years because we know we’re here for each other,” she continued. “They’re literally a phone call away. And at this point, we respect each other’s space so much. So if there’s anything to be happy for, to celebrate, we’re all in it together.”
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Voletta Wallace, the mother of the late Christopher “The Notorious B.I.G.” Wallace, has died. According to still-developing reports, Voletta Wallace passed from natural causes.
TMZ was the first to report the news of Voletta Wallace’s passing, noting that the retired schoolteacher passed away in Stroudsburg, Penn. The outlet adds that Wallace was in hospice care in the Pennsylvania town according to Monroe County Coroner Thomas Yanac.
Wallace, a native of Jamaica, moved to Brooklyn N.Y. where she and George Latore welcomed their son, Christopher, who would later become known as rapper Biggie Smalls before taking on The Notorious B.I.G. stage name for legal purposes. Wallace raised her son as a single mom while working in education, and as Biggie’s star rose, she was a major fixture in his life.
After the tragic loss of her son, Wallace continued to uphold the legacy of The Notorious B.I.G. and oversaw his estate, including making certain that his daughter, T’yanna Wallace, and son, C.J. Wallace were taken care of. She also released the book Biggie: Voletta Wallace Remembers Her Son, Christopher Wallace, aka Notorious B.I.G in 2005.
Via her Instagram page, several images of her and her son adorn the pages along with a consistent celebration of Biggie’s achievements in the industry and how his name still lives on in the minds of many. Online, fans are showing their respect and mourning the loss.
Rest in peace to Voletta Wallace.
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Photo: Getty
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For a minute there Lavar Ball was all over the place from sports shows to social media and though he’s since fallen back from the public view, he’s once again getting attention, but unfortunately, it’s not for entertainment purposes.
According to TMZ, the father of Lonzo Ball, LaMelo Ball and LiAngelo Ball recently underwent surgery to have his foot amputated after dealing with a serious medical issue. Though the family is remaining mum about why exactly Lavar Ball had his right foot removed, the man himself seems to remain in good spirits (as he’s known to be constantly) and just happy to be surrounded by his family through this difficult time.
Per TMZ:
LaVar made a name for himself with his grandiose plans for his sons — he created the Big Baller Brand, which developed signature shoes for all three hoopers.
LaVar made countless headlines for his bold declarations about his kids, but has received praise following their success — Zo and Melo are stars in the Association, and Gelo’s music career is taking off.
He has distanced himself from the spotlight in recent years … but has continued to be his sons’ biggest fan from afar.
Indeed he has. Some may say to their detriment but still, the man obviously loves his sons to death. Also, Gelo having a music hit on his hands was not on our bingo cards at all, but hey, we ain’t mad at him.
Prayers up for Lavar Ball and his family. Get well soon, sir.
Music festivals are more than just concerts — they’re entire worlds where fans lose themselves in the sound, the energy, and the moment. But what happens when an artist doesn’t just play festivals, but makes music that feels like one? With his latest album Festival Season, SAINt JHN delivers an electrifying experience that blurs the line between live spectacle and studio magic.
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Led by high-energy singles like “Glitching” and the genre-bending “Poppin,” Festival Season arrived on Friday (Feb. 21) as JHN’s most ambitious project yet. The album fuses elements of house, hip-hop, punk and electronic music, capturing the thrill of a headlining set and the intimacy of a late-night afterparty. Inspired by the euphoric highs and unpredictable chaos of real-life festivals, SAINt set out to craft a project that feels just as immersive as the events that shaped it.
“Festivals are like a different universe,” he tells Billboard just a day before the album’s release. “I wanted to make something that sounds like you’re in the middle of one – something that makes you want to move, scream, and lose yourself in the moment.”
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After making waves with While The World Was Burning, SAINt JHN has spent the last few years pushing his sound to new heights. Whether performing on massive stages or collaborating with some of the most forward-thinking artists in music, he’s built a reputation for tearing down genre boundaries and delivering electrifying music. Now, with Festival Season, he’s bringing that same energy straight to the speakers.
Billboard caught up with SAINt JHN to discuss Festival Season, his genre-blurring sound, the electrifying energy of live performances, and how he’s elevating the festival experience on his own terms.Festival Season is your first full project in four years. What inspired the album’s title, and what’s the overarching theme you want listeners to take away?The reason why it’s called Festival Season is because it sounds like you’re at a live SAINt JHN concert.
And if you’ve ever heard any of my music – and even if you haven’t – I’m genre divergent. I’m a bit disrespectful when it comes to genres. I don’t really play to any one particular sport. I just like what I like. I like the sounds of music. So when you hear this collection from top to bottom, from tip to toe, it sounds like you’re in the middle of a festival, and you’re running from stage to stage to hear your favorite artist.
It’s all just me. But the songs change, and the theme changes, and the mood changes. But if you’ve never been to a performance, this sounds like a pocket performance. You can hear crowd interaction, chants. You’re hearing yelling. You’re hearing fans screaming my name.
Because that’s what it’s like to be at a SAINt JHN show. It’s an enormous concert. The mood changes, the theme changes, the sound changes, but the energy never dies. So Festival Season was born from that. I wanted the people who might have been on the other side of the planet, in a place that I’d never been and never visited, to be able to take home a pocket performance from me.
It’s a world where I perform on a stage in front of you. But you get to see some of the things I go through—the emotions, pains, the curiosities, the uncertainties, the doubts—but everything is at a maximum level. Nothing is low. The decibel is on 10-plus the entire time.
With so many different sounds on this project — Afro-fusion, alternative pop, introspective moments — what song do you think will be the breakout hit, and why?I feel like it’d be a stupid response of mine to tell you what I think would be the breakout hit. I don’t know. I’ve never known what people want. I don’t know what people want from me. I don’t know what people want for themselves. I know the way art works in the best format and the best possible thing is you make the thing that you love, and then people decide from that what they love.
It’s like – I was going to say something stupid, like the guy who probably invented the cheeseburger was probably just trying to make a milkshake, and the cheeseburger came out of it, and they were like, “We like that.” So I think maybe some of that will happen. I do have a creeping suspicion. I got a song I think is gonna go crazy.
I think a bunch of them are gonna go crazy. Well, I think for “The Gangsters,” it’s gonna be sort of undeniable, especially when you hear it live—like, when you really see it presented, I think it’d be hard to deny that. But I don’t got no predictions. I don’t want to be the guy at the Super Bowl going, “Yo, this is the team.”
When fans press play on this album, how do you want them to feel? What emotions or experiences do you hope to evoke?I hope when people listen to this collection, I hope they feel bolder than they’ve ever felt. There’s a feeling that you get when you leave a concert, when you leave a festival.
There’s a certain type of energy that you get to take home with you that doesn’t last a long time. For some people, it lasts a couple of days, for some people maybe a couple of weeks, and for some people, it just lasts moments after it. There’s a heightened endorphin, a certain surge of energy, and I want people to get that.
But I want you to be able to press play again and do it again. Usually, you have to venture back to the performance, into a field where you wore an outfit, where you brought a date, where you spent the money on the tickets. Usually, you have to go hunt the thing that you’re looking for. I wanted you to be able to take it home with you so you could restart it every time you felt something that you needed.
Every album has an ideal setting for full immersion. Where do you think Festival Season is best experienced? Is it a car ride, a morning commute, a late-night listen?I think the best place for you to immerse yourself, to hear this, to experience this, is at a tiny rave. That tiny rave could happen in so many different places, right? But your mindset needs to be a “tiny rave.”
It could happen in your bedroom, but you gotta be ready to ruffle up the bedsheets. It could happen in your living room, but you’re gonna have to be ready to spill some coffee, spill some champagne. It could happen in a car ride, but maybe it’d be hard to focus on driving.
It’s an immersive experience, and in order for you to take it in, you gotta be willing to submit to it. This isn’t like a vending machine where you say, “I want Coca-Cola and Sprite.” This isn’t that.This is — show up. I’m gonna make you something really special. This is omakase. This is when you show up, and the chef says, “I’m going to make you something. It’s going to be exceptional. Don’t make any requests. Just be hungry when you get here and be appreciative when you leave here.”
This album also marks a big moment for you—your signing with Roc Nation Distribution. How does this partnership elevate your vision for the next phase of your career?
I think it’s just more freedom. My entire career, my entire purpose in life — the only things I’m looking forward to and the things that I’m hunting, the thing that drives me in the morning and keeps me up at night – is this type of unbridled freedom that only creatives who reach their maximum peak get to feel.
That’s what I look to feel every day. So to be in partnership with people who share a similar vision, who’ve been disruptive from the beginning of their historic run, it just means I’m in league with the right people. I’m just on the right team.
You’ve always pushed boundaries sonically, but Festival Season feels like an expansion of your artistry. How do you think this album reflects your growth since While the World Was Burning?
I always tell a tale from where I’m at at the time. While the World Was Burning, the world was on fire.Collection one was my first collection. So you get to hear the presentation. You get to see exactly where I’m at. I’m centered in the middle of my universe, but I’m telling a story from the seat of the couch, wherever the couch is positioned. Festival Season – you can tell I’m going back on the road. I’m living in my purpose.I’m in my path. My garden has become the stage, and I just want to introduce you to what I’ve been harvesting.
You can hear the maturation in my language. You can hear the maturation in my tone. You can tell I’m not in the same place you left me at, and I think that’s the purpose. That’s an artist’s purpose—to continue growing and evolving.To find new paths. To find new places to venture. To find scarier formats. To find things that are unexplored. It doesn’t seem like I’m tracing myself.
What tends to happen is, when an artist becomes successful, people want them to run the same route—like, “Keep this. Do it again. Do that same lap again. Do it again so I can see it. I didn’t get to see it the way you started the race. Alright, run it again. Alright, cool, cool. We saw it twice. Now do it three times.” But that’s not what artistry is. That’s not what creativity is. Creativity is complex. Creativity wants to continue creating. Creativity designs itself to continue finding new places.
So to be an ultimate, consummate creative, you have to be willing to break through your own glass box that you’ve built. You have to be willing to run the lap backwards, sideways, on your hands. That’s what I’m doing. It might look like the same race, but I’m definitely not sprinting at the same pace.
You chose “Glitching” and “Circles” as your recent singles. Why did you choose those two?
“Circles” is from [my upcoming album] Fake Tears From a Pop Star, and as I was about to roll out Collection Two entirely, I was starting there because Fake Tears From a Pop Star was going to lead.
But I made a pivot. And I think that’s really incredible – when an artist can actually change paths, change course mid-move. I feel like Michael Jordan in the air, about to go for a dunk and turning it into a layup because I saw the block coming. I saw the contender coming, and I was like, “Nope, watch this.”
And the point – the reason why I did that – was because I thought people weren’t ready for it. That’s the truth. “Circles,” for me, is an incredible song. It’s almost like indie rock meets whatever I am naturally. And without me intending to make indie rock music – I’m just doing whatever I feel. I’m just letting my freedom find its own path. But as I was doing that, I was like, “Ah, this isn’t the right timing.”
And I felt this way before. Because I remember how I felt on Collection One, and I trust my own instincts. If you get there before the audience gets there – if you get there long before they get there – your wait to build a foundation is going to be really aggressive. I’d rather build right as they’re showing up.
So I pushed Fake Tears From a Pop Star back a couple months so that I could get the full expression of what needs to happen. As I’m coming back out, running out the gate four years later, I want it to be disruptive. I don’t want it to be harmonious. I don’t want it to be pretty pastels. I want aggressive colors. I want rage. I want dysfunction.
Because I think we need that. I think in the time that we’re in, simple harmony gets overlooked and misunderstood. So we need to fight before we kiss. So that’s why “Circles” led, and that’s why “Glitching” followed “Circles.” Because when I pivoted from Fake Tears, moving on to Festival Season, there was an energy I was looking for. A certain, unfamiliar, progressive energy.
And the strange thing is, my core audience – the people who have been following and loving SAINt JHN since 2018, 2016, 2017 – they want to hear super melodic music. They don’t actually want to hear things that make them dance. The tempo is strange to them. “Glitching” is strange to them. It’s progress that they don’t want. But I know I have to get there before they arrive — because that’s my job.
You’re heading on your Festival Season North American tour next month, and you’re also hitting Coachella. What’s your vision for the live show experience this time around?
Tough question, because I don’t know what my Coachella set is going to be. I don’t know what the stage design is yet. I’m having a thousand conversations. This is my first time really, really collaborating with any degree of people – just considering how else I can see myself.
It almost feels like Alexander McQueen, shifting from creative direction by him – it’s his brand – and someone else stepping in to execute his vision, but with their taste. So I’m considering that. I’m looking at my world in a completely new way. I want to see what somebody else’s perspective on me is.
So I’m entertaining new conversations. I don’t have a complete vision for what that’s going to look like. Because I’ve always satisfied myself on the road by telling my truth. It’s always been loud. But the way I want to present my story now – I’d like it to be theatrical. That’s the truth. I want you to feel a sense of theater with the same sense of journey, passion, commitment, and pride.
Beyond music, you’ve been making moves in fashion with your new clothing line Christian Sex Club and appearing at major fashion weeks. How does your personal style influence your artistry, and vice versa?
I think it’s just another language for me. Style is just language. Sound is just language. Like when you hear a Trinidadian accent, it’s just the melody of the accent that separates it from a Guyanese accent. So style, for me, is just another type of melody.
It’s a visual melody. When the denim hits the leather, and the leather hits the silk, or the fur hits the canvas, and the canvas hits the viscose. By the way, I hate viscose. They inform each other because I get to live in the world that I create.
Like when you see a movie, and you’re listening to the audio from it, you can see the theatrics of it, and you hear the script and the character development. But what really tells you and informs you how to feel is what they look like and what the wardrobe is. So it gives you a different color and dimension.
It’s just another part of it – another part of storytelling for me, another part of the language. Another way to be more dialed in.
You also made your acting debut in The Book of Clarence last year. What was that experience like, and do you see yourself exploring more roles in the future?
Yeah, I’m gonna be doing a lot more acting. I always thought I would. You know what’s funny? I thought I preferred to be behind the camera – and I probably do. But the people who care enough about me are like, “Yo, shut up. Don’t be stupid. Stand in front of the camera. Do the thing that you do incredibly well.”
James Samuels – he is my brother – he directed The Book of Clarence, wrote it, scored it. He did everything you possibly could do. And I’m like, “Yo, I think I want to direct.” He’s like, “Bro, your magic don’t hide.”
So I won’t hide. I intend on doing a lot less hiding. So you’ll see me in more cinematic presentations, even though I just prefer to be the guy that coordinates. Because I think the people who don’t want to be seen, who aren’t looking for attention, can really do their art and execute it at a maximum level. And I think the people who want to dance in front of the lights end up being just performative. And I never wanted to be performative. I really wanted to do the thing I cared about because I really cared about it.
But with all that bulls—t being said – yeah, you are gonna see a lot more acting from me, because it seems to be something that comes naturally to me.
With Festival Season setting the tone for this next chapter, where do you see yourself creatively and personally in the next few years?
Oh, I can see the next 18 months really, really clearly – without giving away anything, My life works best, and my art works best, when I can see 24 months, 36 months – when I can clearly see my vision for the future. And over the course of the last four years, I’ve been building. The next iteration of it is this year.
I really want to put out three collections. That’s the truth. So I’ve been working on the third collection, because Fake Tears from a Pop Star is done. I won’t give away the name of the third collection, but I’m really excited about it – just as excited as I am for Festival Season. And if I can see the third collection this year, that means I can see the first quarter of next year and what touring next summer looks like.
And that gives me an immense amount of clarity. That means I know where I need to be. I feel overconfident that I’m where I need to be. I’m in lockstep.
Drake has been shelling out cash to lucky fans throughout his Anita Max Wynn Tour in Australia, and he even hooked up a member of the OVO faithful who challenged him to a game of rock-paper-scissors earlier this week.
Drizzy scoured the crowd in the midst of his Sydney show on Wednesday night (Feb. 19) and found a fan holding up a sign that read, “Rock-paper-scissors to buy my dad a birthday car.”
“I like this sign right here,” he said when it caught his eye. “You ready? … This my game, boy.” Drake ended up beating the fan in round one, but gave him another shot. “I’ll give you one more. Think about it. 1, 2, 3,” Drake told him.
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After a statement in the next two rounds, Drake ended up winning again in round four, which drew a laugh from the crowd. Luckily for the fan, Drake’s hooked him up with some money anyway. “I’m still gonna give you $20,000 so you can buy your dad a car,” he said while touting his rock-paper-scissors ability. “Don’t ever f–k with me on rock-paper-scissors, though. I will win.”
Drake has been generous while on tour. During the same Sydney show at Qudos Bank Arena, Drake noticed a pregnant fan in the pit holding up a sign reading, “I’m 20 weeks pregnant.”
He immediately gave her a VIP ticket upgrade and $30,000 to ease the financial burden of welcoming a child into the world.
“Are you 20 weeks pregnant? Get out of the pit. Get outta there,” Drake told the fan, later identified as Tiana Henderson. “Give her some VIP tickets immediately and like $30,000 … Who the f— brings a baby to a mosh pit?”
The Anita Max Wynn Tour scene switches to Brisbane on Feb. 24 as the Australia/New Zealand tour leg winds down. Drake delivered his $ome $exy $ongs 4 U joint project with PartyNextDoor on Valentine’s Day (Feb. 14), which could net The Boy his 15th Billboard 200 No. 1 album.
Fans of the show know that getting a job offer related to Severance might be an unsettling proposition, but the gentlemen of Odesza jumped at the opportunity.
“We’re mega-fans,” the duo’s Harrison Mills says of the show, which tracks the bifurcated existences of the employees of Lumon Industries, a mysterious, seemingly nefarious global conglomerate that employs people who’ve chosen to undergo a neural procedure that severs their personal and professional lives, making it so that neither part is aware of the other. After a three-year hiatus, the show’s acclaimed second season launched on Apple TV+ last month.
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Today (Feb. 21), fans of the series are getting a company bonus via a mix of the Severance theme song created by Odesza. The pair — Mills and Clayton Knight — transformed the soundtrack into a 23-minute mix that’s also been looped to form an eight hour piece of music, not coincidentally the same amount of time as a standard 9-5 workday. Hear the 23-minute mix, set to footage from the show, below.
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Upon accepting the remix offer, Mills and Knight were provided with the complete (and then still unreleased) season two episodes, along with the stems of the score created by Teddy Shapiro, who won an Emmy Award for Severance‘s season one soundtrack and returned for season two.
“We wanted to take people on a journey and give a wider breadth of music and play off and reinterpret Teddy’s score in a unique way,” says Mills. “We put different chords under a lot of his melodies, while also trying to stay true to the vibe of the show, which is kind of creepy and subversive. You’re not overtly aware of this dark underbelly.”
Being based in Seattle also helped the duo in the creation process, with the current dark days of winter helping them get in a mental zone that matched the show. Unlike the characters, however, they did not flip the work switch off at the end of the day. “We were literally living and breathing this thing,” says Knight, “going to bed thinking about it, probably too much in the zone.”
Working under a hard deadline — they project had to be completed in just a month — was helpful, as the tight timeline made it so they didn’t overthink decisions or get too in the weeds on what they were doing.
Their final product takes cues from the show — including the signature piano chords from its theme and other sonic moments, like typing — and folds them into a mix that reflects the themes of Severance itself, balancing light and dark moments. Mills describes it as,”lulling you into this false sense of security that it’s all happy and then bringing these darker sounds that creep into it. It’s like beautiful melancholy. There’s sadness, but there’s also surface level joy throughout. We were trying to play with major chords, but then sneak in these weird, kind of dissonant sounds that creep in.”
They agree that the project took inspiration from their own 2020 side project, Bronson, which focused on darker, heavier sounds than the typical Odesza output. The mix was also a natural fit given that, Mill says, “we’ve always been so influenced by film scores and scores in general.” Meetings with Shapiro also instilled confidence, as the composer, Mills continues, “was so open and receptive to us just doing anything… He was such a fun person to bounce our ideas off of and was so receptive to us trying things. It just allowed us to really have fun with it.”
“It’s got Odesza energy, but it tries to capture the tone and motifs of the show,” says Knight. “It’s also the first time we haven’t had a vocal element to work with. It uses zero vocals. So it was us going back to our roots in terms of tempo, slowing everything down to keep it more cinematic and keeping it more instrumental, not relying on a lead top line to carry anything and letting the instrumentation speak for itself. It was definitely a different workflow than we’ve done the past, but really fun and exciting.”
The project also arrived at a synergistic moment for the broader Odesza trajectory. The guys wrapped their massive The Last Goodbye tour last July, with the run (named for their 2022 album) spanning 54 shows at 48 venues throughout North America, including headlining sets at festivals like Governors Ball and Bonnaroo. (In 2022 and 2023, the tour grossed $35.8 million and sold 601,000 tickets, according to numbers reported to Billboard Boxscore.)
The pair have since been on a break and are just now getting back into album writing mode, with the Severance mix helping them get their musical gears once again turning.
“It was a really nice first stepping stone into what will be our next project, the big album project,” says Knight. “It’s a nice way to get the creative juices flowing again and to jump in without having too many avenues.” He adds that for the foreseeable future, “We’re definitely in writing mode. We have some DJ sets sprinkled throughout the year, but [now] it’s really a focus on studio time and making the next chapter of the Odesza project.”
“We’re experimenting,” Mills adds. “We want to build time to find inspiration and to innovate and just not feel too pressured to just be on another cycle again.”
Given the pressure that their jobs can contain, one wonders if Mills and Knight would ever consider severing their personal and professional lives, like Lumon employees. They laugh at the question. Knight says that while they’d maybe want to forget about “some earlier shows where we played in a hotel lobby, to 20 people looking at their phones,” ultimately they’re happy to be integrated.
“We have the best jobs in the world,” says Knight. “We get to make music and hang out with cool people and make fun projects. There’s really no complaining.”