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A diamond’s gotta shine! Taylor Swift took to social media following her three-night stint at Chicago’s Soldier Field to share a series of stunning photos from the Eras tour stop. Explore Explore See latest videos, charts and news See latest videos, charts and news “Chicago that was sooooo epic. Playing 3 nights at Soldier Field […]
P!nk loves summer activities, as she’s often taking to social media to show fun family bonding moments with her husband Carey Hart and their two children, Willow and Jameson, as they enjoy time together by the water. The “Trustfall” singer also never shies away from rocking a cool outfit, even when it comes to her […]
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Being besties with Taylor Swift definitely has its perks. According to Emma Stone, her pop star friend was able to hook her up with hard-to-come-by tickets to one of her Eras Tour shows in Glendale, Ariz. — about which the La La Land actress recently gushed about to Vanity Fair. “The concert was pretty amazing,” […]
There can’t always be room for forgiveness. And when the time for revenge comes knocking at your door, Billboard‘s got your soundtrack covered. There’s been a longstanding tradition in music of using songs to get even, whether by airing out private details in tell-all lyrics or fantasizing about everything from property damage to murder. In […]
Taylor Swift and Matty Healy are no more, according to multiple reports. And whether fans are absolutely heartbroken or have been waiting eagerly for this day since the romance rumors first swirled in May, they have a lot to say about it online. Word of the apparent split first came Monday (June 5), with TMZ […]
David Kushner realized he might have a hit on his hands in March, when he performed “Daylight” to a packed London venue while opening for Dean Lewis. He’d been teasing the then-unreleased single on TikTok and Instagram for weeks, and “everybody knew the words,” he tells Billboard. Fan recordings of Kushner performing the song in concert only fed into the hype: “There’s one video [on TikTok] with like 30 million views and 7 million likes.”
Riding a wave of social media-fueled anticipation, “Daylight” arrived through Virgin Music on Apr. 14 and quickly became Kushner’s commercial breakthrough, debuting at No. 48 on the Billboard Hot 100 on the chart dated April 29 as well as cracking the top 10 of the Billboard Global Excl. U.S. chart. Characterized by Kushner’s bellowing vocals and a haunting piano melody, the song’s lyrics deal with the self-destructive potential of fulfilling the less savory end of one’s desires: “There’s darkness in the distance/From the way that I’ve been livin’,” he sings. “But I know I can’t resist it.”
Kushner, 22, grew up in the Chicago suburb of Barrington, the youngest of five musical siblings, with four sisters that played piano and a brother who played in a prominent local band. Though he always enjoyed singing and took guitar lessons in the fourth grade, it wasn’t until he finished high school — and realized that college didn’t interest him — that he decided to pursue music as a career. He began taking vocal lessons and learning the guitar again, but he initially struggled to find his voice.
In September 2020, after co-writing with a high school friend and recording with producers he met through social media, he self-distributed a crop of “way more poppy” tracks sung in a higher vocal range — a far cry from the baritone he’s become known for since. In fact, it was only when a vocal coach encouraged him to experiment with a lower range that he found his artistic footing. “I entered a new creative dimension in a way,” says Kushner, who has since removed those earlier songs from streaming services. “It felt like I stepped from one world into another.”
David Kushner photographed May 10, 2023 at Cricket Ranch in Los Angeles.
Austin Hargrave
His new singing style was promptly validated: Kushner partnered with Virgin Music in December 2021 after a meeting with President Jacqueline Saturn and other executives, who suggested that a distributor, rather than a traditional label, was the best route, given his TikTok following. He then released his 2022 EP, Footprints I Found, through the company, with lead single “Miserable Man” performed in that self-described “lower octave.” The austere, acoustic guitar-driven ballad reached No. 23 on Billboard‘s Bubbling Under Hot 100 chart.
Soon after, Kushner met his manager, Altar MGMT’s Brent Shows, through an artist friend he met on TikTok and previously wrote with in Los Angeles, where he moved earlier this year. Kushner originally hired Shows — who also owned a video production company — to create content for his social channels. Before long, Shows was managing Kushner on a part-time basis before making it his full-time gig last fall.
“I was in the room when ‘Daylight’ was written and watched the entire process from the first melody that was sung to the last submission to [Virgin],” says Shows of working with Kushner. “Just seeing that whole process, you realize the talent the kid has.”
From left: Brent Shows and David Kushner photographed May 10, 2023 at Cricket Ranch in Los Angeles.
Austin Hargrave
Kushner began writing the hit this January while taking a break from a session for another, as-of-yet unreleased track. “I first sang [the melody] in my falsetto voice … it was just a vomit vocal that came out,” he says. After writing the chorus (“Oh, I love it and I hate it at the same time/You and I drink the poison from the same vine”), he went home and played it for his girlfriend, who was instantly “stoked,” he says. He finished writing the song on his landlord’s piano, then recorded a rough demo at home.
Kushner started teasing the “Daylight” chorus online later that month. “It took off a little bit, not anything crazy,” he says. It wasn’t until he began tagging Hozier in his social media posts about the song — encouraged, in part, by comparisons from fans — that it started to go viral. “Fans were blowing up all my videos because they were agreeing with me,” he says. “They were like…’We need this to happen.’”
Though Hozier declined a collaboration, Shows reached out to another key player in the Irish singer-songwriter’s rise: Rob Kirwan, who produced Hozier’s breakthrough 2014 self-titled album. After hearing the “Daylight” demo, Kirwan agreed to produce it, not yet aware of the song’s TikTok virality. “Rob truly just liked the song, and wanted to be a part of the project,” says Shows.
Despite an initial release date slated for May 5, the momentum surrounding the song prompted Kushner to push for an earlier release — and Shows, trusting Kushner’s instincts, moved the release up to Apr. 14. Its music video arrived the same day, and has since garnered more than 26 million YouTube views.
Shows says they’re now focused on breaking the song at radio, with promo tours scheduled for the U.S. and Europe. There have also been talks about putting out an acoustic version, while discussions are progressing with some “pretty large names” for dance remixes of the song, says Shows.
Soon, Kushner will play a few sold-out headlining shows in the U.S. and U.K., followed by an opening slot for Lewis Capaldi, an artist that Kushner says has influenced him in more ways than one. “He’s been such an inspiration [to] my songwriting.” But he looks to the chart-topper on a more personal level too: “I also have tic disorder,” he adds — a diagnosis of Tourette Syndrome, which Capaldi has long addressed, including in a recent Netflix documentary. “A lot of people don’t know [that] about me, but I want to be more open about it.” Kushner says it first started with a vocal tic when he was a child and has since “progressed” — though when he’s focused on music, whether during the recording process or playing a show, his symptoms nearly disappear.
Fans can expect continued openness from Kushner on his debut album — on which he’s collaborating with several producers and songwriters, including Kirwan — that he hopes to release later this year. Both Kushner and Shows are content with remaining independent for the moment: “We just love the team that we have… and [Virgin] operates as a full services label for David,” says Shows.
“This is just the beginning. This is the floor,” he continues. “A ceiling? You can’t even see it.”
David Kushner photographed May 10, 2023 at Cricket Ranch in Los Angeles.
Austin Hargrave
A version of this story originally appeared in the June 3, 2023, issue of Billboard.
Nelly Furtado was already kind of an electronic music star.
The Canadian pop legend’s early aughts mega-hits had been remixed into countless DJ sets. But when a mashup of Furtado’s 2006 classic “Say It Right” and U.K. duo Bicep‘s 2017 dance world staple “Glue” made its way into the scene circa 2020, getting rinsed extensively at clubs and festivals and garnering upwards of seven million streams, the unofficial edit put Furtado on the map for a new generation of electronic fans.
Furtado had never heard it. That changed when the singer saw her name near that of Dom Dolla’s on the lineup for Beyond The Valley 2023, an annual festival in Dolla’s hometown of Melbourne, Australia. Intrigued by the moniker and having wanted to work with a DJ on new music ideas, Furtado’s team got in contact with Dolla’s.
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“I woke up one day to a message from a manager, saying, ‘Were you a fan of Nelly Furtado when you were young?’” recounts Dolla. “I was like, ‘Of course. Who wasn’t? Me and my sister were obsessed.’”
Excited, Dolla gathered beats into a Dropbox, also adding a little something special.
“When producers send a Dropbox folder, usually it’s just music,” says Furtado, “but Dom went out of his way to record a video of himself. He went, ‘Hello legend, Dom Dolla here!’ He kind of had me at that.”
The pair began passing music — including the “Say It Right” edit — back and forth over the internet, finding creative chemistry. They met IRL this past January at Beyond the Valley, where Furtado performed her first official show in five years and appeared during Dolla’s set to perform the “Say It Right” mashup live for the first time ever. It was a moment that extended into an artistic friendship that delivered the pair’s first official release, “Eat Your Man,” a club track produced by Dolla and sung by Furtado that dropped this past Friday (June 2). It marks Furtado’s first release since her 2017 LP The Ride, and puts her back into the spotlight via the strobes of clubland.
The idea for the song first came to life when the pair and their respective teams were in a studio outside of Philadelphia working on music ideas for Furtado. “We were in the car on the way to the studio one day,” says Dolla, “and she turns around to me and goes, ‘I’d really like to feature on a Dom Dolla club record.’”
Dolla was slightly dumbstruck by the ask — but collected himself, and during that same drive, played Furtado instrumentals he’d been tinkering on. “I felt like her sound, especially her sort of upbeat, chest voice rap tone from ‘Promiscuous’ and ‘Maneater’ would work really well on a house record on the club,” he says.
He was right, with “Eat Your Man” evoking these classics both tonally and lyrically as Furtado spits, “I’ll eat your man, devour him whole … fly like a bird, I’m taking it home, moving my body like a nympho,” over the propulsive, darkly thumping production.
The track was made during a few extended studio sessions in Philly, where roll call included Jim Beanz, the vocal producer who worked with Furtado on tracks like “Maneater,” “Say It Right” and “Promiscuous.” (Beanz also did backing vocals on these tracks, which were famously produced by Timbaland.)
‘I said, ‘I love the way that you perform the rap part on ‘Promiscuous Girl’ and the vocal parts on ‘Maneater,’” says Dolla, “and Jim goes, ‘Oh, I remember the settings for exactly how I did that.” The crew spent the better part of a day recording and layering Furtado’s voice to get it to sound as close to this old stuff as possible, ultimately piling on six layers of vocals for “Eat Your Man.”
“I think I was 16 when I was first set foot in a vocal booth,” says Furtado. “I remember enjoying the sound of my own voice in there, and I actually forgot that feeling until I worked with Dom. I was like, ‘Holy s–t. It’s so simple. You just have to enjoy the sound of your own f—ing voice and melt into it.’”
For Dolla, the experience also had novelty, with the group collaboration providing starkly different creative process from the lone wolf nature of dance music production. (Dolla typically produces tracks on his headphones while sitting on the couch of whatever given Airbnb he’s staying at on tour.) Dolla has become increasingly visible in the dance world leader over the past few years, playing high profile gigs including a headlining show and Red Rocks and, along with artists like John Summit and Chris Lake, propelling a hard-hitting but also totally fun and palatable strain of house/tech house that’s become the mainstream scene’s prevailing sound in the last half decade. (Dolla has had four tracks hit Hot Dance/Electronic Songs since 2019, with his biggest song, the MK collab “Rhyme Dust,” debuting at No. 9 on the chart this past March and currently sitting at No. 24. This summer he’s performing dates including Lollapalooza, Tomorrlwand and club Space in Miami.)
But unlike the EDM it supplanted, this type of house hasn’t experienced the type of crossover success that hits of the EDM era seemed to score so easily. That era’s A-list crossover collabs — Calvin Harris and Rihanna’s “We Found Love,” Jack Ü and Justin Bieber’s “Where Are U Now” — helped give dance music a Hot 100 and top 40 presence. While those types of hits now happen infrequently, “Eat Your Man” demonstrates both a prevailing sound of modern dance music and a moment where big time pop stars are once again entering the club.
Incredibly, none of this might have happened if not for Drake.
“We had some really cool conversations about music and life and art, and he kind of just blew up my head and was like, ‘You know, you really need to make new music, and these are all the reasons why,’” Furtado recalls of meeting the rapper and fellow Toronto native. “He was like, ‘You need to boss up when it comes to your career.’ I got really inspired and I started hitting it a lot harder. It was like added fuel to the flame, you know?”
Drake even helped Furtado boss up when he invited her to perform at OVO festival in July of 2022. “I was literally at the zoo with my three and four year old [kids], and didn’t even know if I was going to [play] until like, 7:00 p.m.,” Furtado says. “Then I did it, and it was like, ‘Oh s–t, I forgot what I do for a living. This is what I do.”
(“This next person’s music changed my life so much. I love her with all my heart, so when she comes out here you better show her some f–king love too,” Drake said while presenting Furtado during the show — as the opening beats of “Promiscuous” played and the crowd went wild and proceeded to scream along to every word.)
This Furtado fervor is also something Dolla has experienced, with “Eat Your Man” having generated a major response from the dance music community. “It was really fun seeing the comments of people going, ‘DJs have been remixing her for the last 15 years and Dom’s managed to get her in the studio.’ I was like, ‘I don’t know how the hell that’s happened either.’”
The pair — who are both on the lineup for San Francisco’s Portola festival this fall — agree that there’s some sort of cyclical kismet involved, with Dolla attesting that listening to Furtado’s music when he was a kid likely rubbed off on him, subconsciously influenced his music and has now “come full circle where she kind of hears herself in it.”
“I was like, ‘That’s really trippy,’” says Furtado. “It’s very meta. That’s the wave we’re on.”
Britney Spears paid tribute to her eldest son, Sean Preston, in a sweet Instagram post on Monday (June 5) in which she referred to her 17-year-old first born as “my first love!!!” In the snap, Sean is standing in a neutral-colored room and smiling slightly while wearing a white button-down shirt. Britney Spears Will Let […]
