Power 100
The wait is over. In 2025, Billboard U.K. will be hosting its inaugural Power Players list, also known as the Power 100, for the U.K. and Ireland’s world-beating music industry professionals.
While Billboard’s Power 100 ranks the music industry’s most influential executives globally, this list will celebrate and recognise the executives and members that are at the forefront of the U.K. and Ireland’s music scene, and boosting the region’s hugely talented artists on a global scale
Billboard U.K.’s Power Players list will be published in June 2025, and will be celebrated with an exclusive event at the upcoming inaugural SXSW London.
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Further details will be shared in the coming months.
“The U.K. and Ireland has long been home to some of the most influential figures in global music, shaping the industry and driving artists to new heights,” says Mo Ghoneim, president of Billboard U.K. “We look forward to spotlighting the executives leading this charge with Billboard U.K.’s Power Players, from labels to live, streaming to rights, and beyond.”
The news follows a period of success for British and Irish artists in recent years. In 2024, there were appearances for Hozier, Dua Lipa, Charli XCX, Coldplay and Ed Sheeran on Billboard’s Year-End Top Artists charts. Rising stars, meanwhile, like Lola Young, Aretmas, Myles Smith and more are growing their audiences domestically and internationally.
2025 will also be a bumper year for concert-goers with the U.K. hosting some of the most in-demand tours and live experiences: Oasis will kick off their reunion tour in Wales before heading around the globe, and superstars like Lana Del Rey, Billie Eilish, Olivia Rodrigo, Sabrina Carpenter, Usher and more come into market for huge shows.
There are challenges to be met, too: Grassroots music venues face decimation without urgent action; legislation on artificial intelligence is paramount to the government’s agenda on growth; artists are finding touring a loss-making endeavour; the live and festival landscape continues to evolve and bring new obstacles. These themes will shape the inaugural U.K. Power Players, but the doors are wide open.
The Power Players list will be peer-nominated and selected by the Billboard U.K. team. Nominations open Feb. 4 and will close in two weeks on Feb. 17. Interested parties can fill in the nominations form here. For any queries, please contact power100@uk.billboard.com or tsmith@uk.billboard.com.
01/29/2025
With 2025 in full swing, 18 top executives from across the music business share predictions for the year.
01/29/2025
In the summer of 2006, Madonna touched down in New York for a run of shows at Madison Square Garden in support of her album Confessions on a Dance Floor. One young attendee was Val Blavatnik. “It was my first live-music experience and I was just so blown away,” he recalls. “I knew from then, even before our family acquired Warner, this was an industry I wanted to be involved in.”
Blavatnik’s father, Len, founder of Access Industries, subsequently bought Warner Music Group in 2011. A dozen years later, Val made good on his childhood dream, starting as senior director of business development at Warner Chappell Music. In April 2023, he was elected to WMG’s board of directors.
Val currently attends Harvard Business School, but he has been in close conversation with the company’s executive leaders, including his friend Elliot Grainge, the new chief executive of Atlantic Music Group. “Elliot and I got very close” during the negotiations that preceded WMG’s purchase of 51% of Grainge’s 10K Projects label in 2023, Val explains. “I advocated for the original 10K acquisition and for Elliot in his new role at Atlantic.” He clarifies, however, “As a board member, I am proud of my role, but it was [WMG CEO] Robert [Kyncl’s] decision.”
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You spent a few years at Warner Chappell and investment bank LionTree before joining the WMG board. Why was it the right time to make that move?
Well, I was very honored to be invited, and I take the responsibility extremely seriously. There are a wide range of perspectives on our board. It’s a very collaborative room to be in. Being the youngest person on the board, I’ve tried to make my role about bringing a different perspective to the conversation. I’m also one of the people on the board who has worked directly with artists, managing them, being in the studio, helping to sign them. That on-the-ground, in-the-room experience is vital.
How closely do you work with leadership?
Robert is always open-minded, and we have some fascinating and productive discussions. Learning about publishing from Guy [Moot] and Carianne [Marshall] was invaluable, and I’ve been very fortunate to work with Tom [Corson] and Aaron [Bay-Schuck] on signing two young acts we’re very passionate about. [Blavatnik declined to name the acts.]
I’m probably most involved with Atlantic. The team and I have a fantastic, ongoing open dialogue. I’m fortunate to be able to help in any capacity which benefits the business — from strategizing about the future, to helping close an artist signing, all the way through giving my two cents on a song.
Why is Grainge the right pick to lead AMG?
Elliot is an incredibly talented leader. It’s been an absolute pleasure to work and collaborate with him. Most importantly, artists love him, his team is unbelievably passionate and committed. He has brilliant creative instincts, he’s fantastic at creating huge cultural moments, and he has a deep grasp of business. That makes him a triple threat.
Do you think the music business needs a generational changing of the guard?
The music business should constantly evolve and innovate, like any other successful business. It’s not so much about a generational shift, but more about having executives with bold, fresh ideas and the ambition to deliver outstanding results.
This story appears in the Jan. 25, 2025, issue of Billboard.
Kai Cenat — the eternally upbeat streamer whose profile has exploded in recent years to make him the most popular personality on the Amazon-owned Twitch platform — is taking a moment to think.
In the five years or so since he’s become a full-time content creator, Cenat has had some of the most famous hip-hop artists, athletes and actors come to his house to drop in and join the “chat,” the affectionate word he uses for any of the 700,000-plus people who subscribe to his channel. He’s thinking over whether he can recall a favorite moment among so many, but it’s tough. It wasn’t when SZA and Lizzo stopped by together in the fall, nor when NBA All-Star Kyrie Irving taught Cenat’s friends and family how to play basketball. It would be reasonable to think it might be one of the many times Kevin Hart, one of his idols, swung by to kick it during the holidays.
Sitting in the basement room of his mountainside Georgia mansion, the 23-year-old needs a beat or two to consider the options. The room is a temple of adolescence, with pictures of his favorite basketball players, vintage arcade machines like Pac-Man and a gaming racing wheel. He has a huge walk-in closet and a king-size bed, both of which are being used by his three-person styling team. The only part of the room that hints at some sort of professional living there is the desk at one end that contains the computer and camera setup that power his streaming empire. Dressed in a BAPE hoodie and stonewashed denim that make him look like he’s straddling sartorial eras, Cenat finally settles on an answer: The May weekend last year when Drake and Kendrick Lamar dropped a total of four songs, three of them back to back.
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“That was the most fun experience I’ve had,” he says with a smile bright enough to power a Tesla. “I’m not going to lie.” It’s tough to tell if he’s actually super excited or just trying to manage his constant and unbridled childlike energy.
“We never experienced something like that,” he explains. “It was a good week. Everybody had their opinions. I was literally hopping on stream and had like 60,000 viewers. As soon as they dropped, my s–t was spiked to like 100,000.”
When it came to the beef that ended up taking over hip-hop for the better part of 2024, most popular streamers took sides or called winners, and Cenat was no different. “I’m cool with Drake,” he says. “So people would expect me to be on Drake’s side.
“But I’m not going to lie,” he continues. “Kendrick won that battle. It was good. I loved every second of it. I was just appreciating the moment. Like, bro, we got bangers right now that’s dropping back to back and everybody’s talking about them. It was definitely fire.”
Kody Phillips top, Louis Vuitton pants, AMIRI hat, Jacob & Co. watch.
Andrew Hetherington
For a person who makes a living by staring straight into a camera for hours on end and connecting with strangers, appearing truthful and genuine is crucial — and it’s one of Cenat’s superpowers. It’s what has allowed him to not only become the most popular streamer on Twitch, but also the most popular streamer in hip-hop and, arguably, one of the most powerful people in all music. No other streamer has been able to corral as many artists to be a part of their online world as Cenat has — and very few have earned the cultural respect from fans and artists that he has. His words hold so much weight that he’s able to materially affect the careers of the superstars his fans care about. That’s why during that weekend in May, Drake told Cenat to “stay on stream” before dropping his “Family Matters” dis track — he knew a good review from the jovial streamer would bode well for him not only in his sales, but in his battle with Lamar. But it’s also why, after the streamer said Drake’s “The Heart Part 6” was weak, Drake allegedly blocked him.
That’s just one of many major moments Cenat has driven for music’s biggest stars over the past few years. He’s had spats with Nicki Minaj, Blueface and Ye, though he eventually made up with all of them. (Minaj even gifted him a pink throne that he proudly keeps in his bedroom and doesn’t let anyone sit on.) Most recently, while on a stream in early January, he panned Lil Baby’s highly anticipated fourth album, WHAM, even questioning why certain songs were added to it. WHAM trended on X — mainly due to jokes about Lil Baby being washed. While it’s unfair to attribute to Cenat the initial negative reaction Baby’s album received on social media, he had a significant hand in spreading the sentiment that it wasn’t Baby’s best work. That’s just the power Cenat holds in 2025: He’s a self-made institution. Like EF Hutton, when Cenat talks, people listen.
All of that has made him, for all intents and purposes, the closest thing Gen Z has to 106th & Park or TRL, the erstwhile midday live-music shows that used to air on BET and MTV and were appointment viewing for any fans wanting updates on their favorite artists. Cenat’s stream is now the main place to tune in to see artists having fun and feeling comfortable enough to let loose and relax. “Yeah, people will be saying that,” he says with an impish grin. “For everyone to come to play music or just have a fun interaction, it means a lot to me, honestly, because I didn’t think, out of everybody, they would want to come over to my house. I still haven’t got to like really let it sit in and really let it digest, but it does mean a lot to me, and I’m just having fun as I go on.”
Building a platform to rival the biggest cable music stations of the 1990s and early 2000s should take at least a decade — but it’s important to understand how quickly all this has happened. Cenat, who first started posting on YouTube in 2019, is not an overnight success. But considering how integral he’s become to the cultural fabric, you could be forgiven for thinking he’s been ingrained in the hip-hop internet landscape forever.
Before first appearing on the platform, the Bronx-born creator had moved to Georgia at a young age with his mother and siblings, living in a homeless shelter while his mother worked multiple jobs to create a better life for them. It was tough, but Cenat says with his trademark positivity that he doesn’t remember those times as rough or bad. The family eventually made its way back to New York, and Cenat enrolled at SUNY Morrisville to study business administration. In search of a creative outlet, he started posting funny skits on YouTube. For Cenat, the decision was a no-brainer: “I watched YouTubers growing up — that’s why I understand it so well.”
Andrew Hetherington
Andrew Hetherington
Mainly filmed in his dorm room and around campus, Cenat’s skits were low-rent affairs with minimal costumes or production where he came off as a slapstick comedian in the tradition of Martin Lawrence. His most viewed videos were his challenges, like the popular “Try Not To Laugh Challenge” that he still does to this day and clips like the Extreme Ding Dong Ditch series, which sounds crazy but was just Cenat and his friends playing the childhood game in different locations. They didn’t get massive traction, but they caught the eye of fellow Bronx-bred creator Fanum, who invited Cenat to join the AMP (Any Means Possible) collective of YouTube creators. Soon, Cenat was posting videos at an increasingly rapid pace, as well as appearing in clips by other AMP members.
By 2021, Cenat was ready to branch out from YouTube and grow his audience another way. He decided to try livestreaming and landed on Twitch, the platform Amazon acquired in 2014, as his new home. At the time, it was being used mainly by gamers to livestream gameplay while avid fans watched like a professional sport. Cenat enjoyed playing video games, but his first foray onto Twitch was through what are known as “just chatting” streams, where he’d sit down with a camera on his desk and, yep, just talk with his audience. By the end of his first day on Twitch, he had 5,000 followers. By the end of his first month, he had 70,000. The next month, 140,000 people tuned in.
Despite Cenat’s brand now being so closely associated with hip-hop, he didn’t start producing music content, really, until he started streaming. “When I started streaming, most of my content was blowing up based off me just reacting to different songs and listening to albums when they drop and just enjoying it for what it was and just saying, like, my opinions on it,” he remembers. “And then, like, people just loved it.”
In fact, he didn’t even listen to rap until he was a teenager. Growing up, “I did straight Michael Jackson up until high school” — which is when Cenat became a fan of a hometown hero who was then dominating the charts: A Boogie Wit Da Hoodie. “That was my real transition,” he says. “I went from Michael Jackson to A Boogie, and I explored from then on.”
His musical exploration has fueled his Twitch channel’s growth: Thanks to his Mafiathons — monthlong 24-hour streaming marathons that he’s held with some of the most famous names in music, sports and entertainment — Cenat now has the most subscribers on Twitch (728,535 at press time) and holds its record for the most concurrent streamers at 720,000. He’s now also one of the richest streamers in the world, according to Forbes, which estimates his 2024 earnings at around $8.5 million. (Cenat declined to comment on his earnings.)
Andrew Hetherington
His manager, John Nelson, credits these streaming marathons with cementing the Kai Cenat brand. “His first 24-hour stream [in January 2023] is really when his trajectory went off,” Nelson says. “And it’s interesting — I believe it was that one that ended with Ice Spice [on camera]. Funny, because both of them took off at that same time. Two New York kids. And, you know, they were both very popular then, but they weren’t the megastars that they are today.” Each of Cenat’s Mafiathons has helped him not only grow his audience but also break Twitch records; the most recent, in November, featured a who’s who of pop culture that included Serena Williams, GloRilla, Sexyy Red and Druski that helped him break the record for most subscribers, with more than 340,000 new people paying $5.99 to join Club Cenat.
Yes, more than 720,000 people pay money to watch a 23-year-old talk about whatever comes to mind and prank his best friends. But why, exactly?
“I just think it’s the creativity,” Cenat says. “This is just the vibe I give off, like on my stream. I try to make it as fun as possible. And being able to, like, break ice with anybody who comes on.”
It’s the creativity, sure. But it’s the combination of that creativity with his comparatively radical sincerity that has endeared him to Fortune 500 companies like McDonald’s, T-Mobile and Nike. It’s also what drew the likes of Snoop Dogg, the veritable hip-hop pitchman who’s able to move between disparate worlds, to tap the young star to work together. And it’s the reason Hart, the blockbuster comedian who has mastered the art of multimodal content more than perhaps any other superstar, took a liking to him over any other streamer of the moment.
Cenat, much like Snoop and Hart, has built a brand on being genuinely unproblematic, which, combined with his affable demeanor, has appealed to an unusually large swath of people. Unlike several other popular streamers, he hasn’t delved into the incel echo chamber side of streaming culture that has, in part, been popularized by Twitch competitor Kick. The Australian-based streaming platform reportedly offered Cenat $60 million to switch to Kick, but he turned it down.
When asked why, Cenat struggles to articulate a clear metaphor. “Say, for example, you go to Steph [Curry] and you’re like, ‘Hey, man, we want you to be a running back [in] the NFL. You’re so good at basketball, but we want you to just leave everything behind right now and go to NFL football and be a running back,’ ” he says. “It doesn’t make sense! I’ve been on Twitch. I’ve built a core community. Kick is not my home. My home is definitely Twitch. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. That’s what I live by.”
Andrew Hetherington
Andrew Hetherington
And, unlike a number of popular streamers, he’s managed to stay clear of the political discourse that dominated the conversation in 2024. “It’s just because I don’t understand it. Some people say I should just do some research on it and, like, inform myself,” Cenat explains. “Now, I’m living in America, so it’s good to know what’s going on in politics. But like, I’m just not educated enough to speak on that.”
On the early January day I sit down with Cenat, Adin Ross, the superstar Kick streamer who famously interviewed President Donald Trump and gifted him a Tesla Cybertruck, made a statement apologizing for “raising a toxic community” on the platform and vowed to do better. “I want to rebuild,” Ross said. “I want to actually completely revamp and reset everything. I want to go back to stuff that matters. With that being said, every stream that I do, especially at this point, until I say something else, is going to be something that’s heartwarming and something that’s meaningful.”
Sounds a lot like Cenat, doesn’t it? He brushes off the idea. Cenat believes a fan base is a reflection of the creator. “So if you feed it nonsense, you’ll get nonsense. [Ross] realized what happened and now he’s trying to make a big change.”
But regardless of how he frames it, Cenat still has major clout. On Aug. 4, 2023, a full-on riot ensued in New York’s Union Square when he announced to his massive audience that, to celebrate his first streaming marathon, he would be giving away PlayStation 5 consoles and gift cards there. But he didn’t have a permit. Around 3 p.m., large crowds started to form in Union Square, and police took notice when people began to destroy public and private property. The New York Police Department called in 1,000 officers to the scene — and then all hell broke loose. Cars were destroyed, store windows were broken, and seven people were injured, including three NYPD officers. Over 60 people were arrested, half of them minors. It was a rare dark day for Cenat — but it proved just how big his brand and celebrity had gotten.
In 2023, Cenat and his small team — his assistant/production partner Brianna Lewis, his videographers and manager Nelson — traveled to Nigeria. And when they stopped by Makoko, a small, impoverished waterfront settlement on the outskirts of Lagos, they realized they were out of their depth.
The village didn’t have broadly available internet like the city itself, so Cenat couldn’t stream. But what really caught him off guard was the state of the Makoko Children Development Foundation School and Orphanage. “I went over [to Nigeria] just to go visit it, see how it is, and I went out where I just seen things that I was like, damn,” he says. He decided then and there to at least try to help improve the town. “I stumbled across this school that they had in this very small school building. These small classes and the kids were so eager to learn even in the condition that they were in. Don’t get me wrong: When I went to Nigeria, I seen beautiful parts. They got great big houses, fire cars — like, Nigeria is beautiful. [But] the place where I went to was Makoko.”
His first plan was to just fund some renovations to the school, but soon that didn’t feel like enough. So he decided to give 20% of his earnings from his November Mafiathon 2 to build a brand-new school in Makoko. “Hopefully it comes out exactly like what I’m imagining,” he says. “They said it’s going to be done this year probably, and I want to go back to Nigeria and see how it is and [have] like a grand opening. I want to be able to stream that.”
Andrew Hetherington
Cenat’s work in Makoko offers a window into how he envisions his future. He has dreams of doing more with the streaming format, but also, maybe, leaving it all together. Though he loves streaming, he wants to act in and direct movies. (Not TV, though: In his words, “No one watches TV anymore.”) Hart, whom he now calls a friend, has been helping him prepare for that next stage of his career; Cenat won’t share specifics, but says Hart has given him certain movies to watch and has been advising him. “I would love to be in movies and stuff; he definitely pushes me,” Cenat says. “He tries to connect me to the right people that direct and write movies and produce them.”
Would he leave streaming behind for Hollywood? Perhaps — but not right now. “Our good friend, [YouTube superstar] Mr. Beast, was like, ‘Why would you use something that you’re so good at to catapult you into another category? Just be completely dominant in the category that you’re in right now and just take over that.’ And I’m like, ‘Damn, he does make a good point.’ ”
His current solution to the conundrum: eschew Hollywood entirely and produce a movie on his own. “I want to be able to, like, put it out to the world,” he says. “I’m going to take a hit financially. But like, I want to be able to put it out to the world and just see if a company will pick it up.”
For the moment, Cenat remains laser focused on streaming. After all, his is one of the only streams that can genuinely help (or hurt) an artist’s career, at least in his mind. When Cenat panned GloRilla’s 2023 single “Cha Cha Cha” with Fivio Foreign, the Memphis MC blocked him on social media. He felt he was just being honest. “If there’s some bad music, I’m going to let you know it’s bad,” he says. However, according to Cenat, after their dustup, Glo glowed up. “We’re good friends now. And ever since I told her that one song was bad, she’s been making hits!” He’s not wrong. Ever since that spat, Glo has notched five songs in the top 40 on the Billboard Hot 100.
And when the biggest names in entertainment are DM’ing and texting you to ask to visit your crib and hop on your stream, what could possibly measure up next? Going bigger — even bigger than the movies. “I want to go to space!” Cenat exclaims. “I want to be the first human in space to float around, [stream] and talk my talk to my chat and then come back down to Earth.”
He’s serious, too. He wants to do everything he wanted to do as a kid, living and dreaming in that homeless shelter. “I want to have the whole Avengers on my stream one day,” he says with the enthusiasm of a middle schooler. “I really believe that’s going to happen one day.”
This story appears in the Jan. 25, 2025, issue of Billboard.
Billboard’s peer-voted Power 100 Players’ Choice Award is back for 2025 and asking music industry members from all sectors to honor the executive they believe had the most impact across the music industry in the past year. Voting is open to all Billboard Pro members, both existing and new, with one vote per member per […]
Billboard’s peer-voted Power 100 Players’ Choice Award is back for 2025 and asking music industry members from all sectors to honor the executive they believe had the most impact across the music industry in the past year. Voting is open to all Billboard Pro members, both existing and new, with one vote per member per […]
Grammy week is in full swing! Billboard’s Power 100 party was a celebration of some of the biggest names in music. NMPA and Billboard teamed up to honor some of this year’s most iconic songwriters. Justin Tranter stopped by Billboard News to talk about their Grammy nomination, the importance of recognizing songwriters and working with […]
Clive Davis introduced nine-time 2024 Grammy nominee SZA to present the Clive Davis Visionary Award to her manager and label heads, Top Dawg Entertainment president Terrence “Punch” Henderson and Anthony “Top Dawg” Tiffith, at Billboard’s 2024 Power 100 event last night (Jan. 31).
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The star-studded event bringing together the most influential and powerful figures in music was held at Neuehouse in Hollywood, where the legendary record executive Davis took the time to outline the successes and exploits of Tiffith and Henderson since the launch of TDE in 2004.
“Throughout my career, I’ve always had the great fortune of working with truly remarkable producers who created hits and helped shape the careers of some of the biggest and brightest stars in music,” Davis said. “The executives we are honoring tonight, their names are Anthony Tiffith and Terrence Henderson; you know them as Top Dawg and Punch. They without question share the gift of all those outstanding producers who have made their mark on music history.”
Davis then turned his speech to SZA, whom he called “one of today’s most exciting music artists,” and ran through a number of the accomplishments she has racked up in the past year. “SZA’s latest acclaimed album, we all know, S.O.S., has earned a whopping nine 2024 Grammy nominations, the most of any artist this year, and it includes album of the year, record of the year, song of the year, best progressive R&B album and best R&B song,” he said. “S.O.S. was No. 1 for 10 weeks on the Billboard 200, and — this is amazing — all 23 of the album’s tracks charted on the Billboard Hot 100, with five top 10s.”
He then introduced SZA, who gave a speech that lauded Punch and Top Dawg for their vision in believing in her since the very beginning of her career.
“I was just talking to Punch the other day about how much vision he had to have to see what he saw in me with no credentials,” she said. “I really was looking insane and behaving insane and refused writers and all these things, and he believed in me. People would come to him and tell him he should change how I look, or I should be doing these kind of beats or working with these writers, and he didn’t change a single thing about me. He completely believed and constantly told me that I was the greatest, which I thought was ridiculous, and I was so grateful for his delusion. You know, Top literally also somehow had this belief in me, and I was nothing like any of my family members in TDE, I didn’t come from the same place, I was just a different type of person, and no matter how many times we would have conversations that differed, he would fight to understand me.”
She then introduced Punch and Top Dawg to speak. The latter kept it short — “You know me, I’m behind the scenes all the time; I’m like SZA, I don’t like all these cameras and the limelight,” he said — before turning it over to Punch.
“When you think about a visionary, you have to have foresight. And coming from where we come from — we both come from the Nickerson Garden projects — you have to have vision, you have to have foresight. And usually you don’t; you can’t see past your circumstances, or even see past what’s right in front of you,” he said. “So from there, we went on to be 20 years in in this business. That takes a razor-sharp vision, for sure. Even to help different artists, like a young girl from the suburbs of Maplewood, New Jersey, to reach the top of the pop charts, that’s crazy, and that also takes vision. So to the visionaries, keep seeing things with your eyes closed, and see it through.”
Find the full 2024 Billboard Power 100 list here.
Boygenius received the Universal Music Group x REVERB Amplifier Award at the Billboard Power 100 event in Los Angeles on Wednesday night (Jan. 31).
The group, signed to Interscope, was presented with the honor by Universal Music Group chairman/CEO Lucian Grainge, who began his speech by praising Republic Records megastar Taylor Swift, who dethroned him at the top of the Power 100 list this year.
“Let me say that I’ve never, ever, in my entire career been so thrilled to be No. 2 on a list,” he said at the event, which was held at NeueHouse Hollywood. “I suppose I’m honored as well as a bit relieved to be named No. 2. Many, many, many congratulations, Taylor, on your No. 1 award. You thoroughly deserve it. You are completely unique, and to see the heights that you have gone to worldwide with your voice has given all of us who know you and work with you enormous pleasure and enormous pride.”
During his brief time on stage, Grainge made no direct mention of the elephant in the room: The music giant’s industry-shaking decision to pull its music from TikTok after licensing renewal talks between the two companies collapsed. But he did appear to make a subtle nod to the dispute, which involves, in large part, disagreements over both artist compensation and artificial intelligence.
“I also wanted to be here tonight … to highlight the importance of using this room for collective good,” Grainge said. “There’s an enormous amount of power in this room, that’s why it’s called the Power awards. And I feel extremely strongly and grateful that we’re in an industry that has provided us with such pleasure, such joy and a living. But we have the platform to be able to use it for our artists, to fight for them to be fairly compensated, as well as protected, particularly against unethical A.I.”
While introducing Boygenius — the trio composed of Julien Baker, Phoebe Bridgers and Lucy Dacus, who are up for a whopping five Grammys this year, including album of the year — Grainge said its members “exemplify what it means to use power for good” before ceding the mic.
The first of the trio to speak was Dacus, who opened by shouting out Pass the Mic Foundation, the non-profit organization that organized land acknowledgements at each of the band’s recent tour stops. She proceeded to make a land acknowledgement from the stage, noting that Los Angeles County “occupies land originally and still inhabited and cared for by the Tongva, Tataviam, Serrano, Kizh and Chumash peoples.”
Dacus continued by recognizing Landback — a movement “to get Indigenous Lands back into Indigenous hands,” according to landback.org — as well as three other organizations the band worked with on its 2023 tour: Reverb, the Ally Coalition and Calling All Crows. All of them, she said, helped organize tabling at the group’s tour stops to educate fans “about local and national organizations that work to defend LGBTQ rights, abortion access and environmental concerns.”
When Baker stepped up to the podium, she said of receiving the award, “We realize it’s useful to publicly acknowledge and recommit ourselves to these values … in order to draw attention to causes we care about. But ultimately, this is a community effort. It should be important to everyone, because it’s important for everyone’s individual well-being. This is not a task for those with more power to participate in, that those with less may not participate in. The perceived scale of a person’s impact doesn’t increase or diminish your individual responsibility to act each day in a way that protects and proves or makes more equitable the world we inhabit together.”
Lastly, Bridgers acknowledged all three band members’ history of being “made to feel uncomfortable or unsafe in concerts when we were kids or in work environments later when we started making music ourselves.” She also shouted out Calling All Crows, which she said did “a demonstration for us and our tour about how to spot and stop sexual harassment or sexual violence, whether you see it in a crowd or on your own crew.”
Bridgers also mentioned, as she has previously, that she had an abortion while she was on tour in 2021 before noting that the band worked “with local organizations who make sure that other people get easy, safe access to abortion” on its 2023 tour. She concluded: “We like to create a show environment that we would have benefited from as kids. But hopefully someday, everybody’s doing it, and nobody’s getting awards.”
Republic Records‘ CEO and COO Monte and Avery Lipman accepted the award for the label of the year at Billboard‘s Power 100 event last night (Jan. 31) in Los Angeles. The award was presented by Noah Kahan, who recalled being signed to the label nine years ago when he was, he recalled, “a kid with […]