Pride
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In between sips of that me espresso, pop star Sabrina Carpenter is wishing all of her exes the best with a cover of fellow singer Chappell Roan‘s latest single. Taking the stage at BBC Radio 1’s Live Lounge on Tuesday (June 18), Carpenter performed her own take on Roan’s breakout hit “Good Luck, Babe!” Swapping […]
More than a year after his farewell tour officially wrapped, Sir Elton John would like to give fans an inside look at his life on the road. On Tuesday (June 18), the Toronto International Film Festival announced its first slate of film premieres, including the world debut of Elton John: Never Too Late. Directed by […]
St. Vincent still isn’t over how impressive the fan love is surrounding Taylor Swift‘s “Cruel Summer.”
Eight months after the song hit No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 — where it reigned for four weeks, a full four years after it was originally released on 2019’s Lover — the singer-songwriter born Annie Clark opened up about its delayed success in her Billboard digital cover story published Monday (June 17).
“I remain blown away by ‘Cruel Summer’ being the phenomenon that is it,” she said. “Not because it isn’t a great song. It’s indicative of the time we’re in, where a song from many albums ago, that wasn’t even a single at the time, the fans go, ‘No, this one — we pick this one.’ And then they march it up the charts.”
Clark added, “That’s completely a testament to her fan base being so powerful.”
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Shortly after “Cruel Summer” reached the summit, Swift and the track’s other co-writer, Jack Antonoff, celebrated the unexpected feat on social media. “The song that we said was the best song, but we thought, ‘Oh, you know what? This will be our secret best song.’ That’s what we thought,” the producer said in an Instagram video at the time, before the pop star chimed in. “We just wanted to say thank you so much for making ‘Cruel Summer’ a Hot 100 No. 1, and it’s not even summer anymore,” Swift said at the time. “It’s deep fall, I’m wearing a sweater.”
Now fresh off the release of her own seventh studio album All Born Screaming, St. Vincent also spoke to Billboard about her identity as a queer artist in the Pride Month issue. “Every record I’ve ever made has been so personal about what’s going on in my life at any given time,” she said. “I’m queer. I know how to code-switch. The idea of identity as performance has been very clear to me since I was a child.”
“I’m queer, I’m living in multitudes,” she added. “But this record in particular is not about persona or deconstruction.”
Read the full cover story here.
Did you come in when I was dressed like a sperm?”
Despite her wry tone, Annie Clark — the artist better known as St. Vincent — isn’t joking. Not quite an hour earlier, Clark was posing for her Billboard photo shoot in a hooded, ruffled cream mini-dress in front of a billowing blush-pink backdrop meant to evoke a different bit of human anatomy. (Let’s just say the setup was a spiritual descendant of Georgia O’Keeffe’s work.)
As St. Vincent, Clark conjures an enigmatic, opaque aura. But today, she’s in a frank, funny and freewheeling mood. She jests about the suggestive pictures of female models plastered on the walls around us (“Boner patrol, look out!”) and swerves easily from topics highbrow (abstract Russian painter Kazimir Malevich) to low (an off-and-on gamer, she was briefly obsessed with The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild). Clark chose to soundtrack her shoot with David Bowie’s coke-fueled 1976 classic, Station to Station, and as we gush over it, the singer-songwriter gives her beige Prada jacket a little shake. “I do like to think this trench coat is giving ‘Dancing in the Street,’ ” she says, referencing the outrageously ’80s music video for Bowie and Mick Jagger’s hit cover. “Minus the cocaine.”
Much like Clark herself, St. Vincent’s Grammy Award-winning output — which has run the gamut from twee indie to ass-kicking art-rock to conceptual electropop — is an arresting mix of the intellect and the id. Her latest album, All Born Screaming, can be experienced as an atavistic staring contest with existence — or simply as a rippin’ alt-rock record.
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“It’s about life and death and love,” she explains. “And that’s it.” For the 41-year-old Clark, at least two of those topics are intrinsically linked to her own identity as a queer artist. “Every record I’ve ever made has been so personal about what’s going on in my life at any given time. I’m queer. I know how to code-switch. The idea of identity as performance has been very clear to me since I was a child.” Even so, Clark shuts down the suggestion that she adopted a mask or performative identity for the album: “I’m queer, I’m living in multitudes, but this record in particular is not about persona or deconstruction.”
Shushu/Tong dress and headpiece, Zhilyova gloves, BY FAR shoes.
Lenne Chai
Code-switching — changing one’s behavior to suit an uncomfortable environment — is nothing new for LGBTQ+ people. Even in the generally progressive-minded music community, Clark says the world queer musicians currently inhabit is “very different” than when she kicked off her recording career in 2006 with the three-song EP Paris Is Burning. “Which is one of those things which gives me a lot of hope,” she notes. “I know there are certain things in the world trending in a scary direction, but all in all, I’d rather live right now than any other time in history. We wouldn’t be having this conversation 60 years ago. I would be a nurse, I would be a secretary, or I would be a mother.”
When I suggest that 60 years ago, I would have been pushed into a heterosexual union and having same-sex dalliances on the down-low, she laughs and perks up. “Exactly! You would have a beautiful wife at home and would be getting your d–k sucked at the whatever. And you’d never know if it was a cop [trying to entrap you].”
As she references the hankie code (as early as the ’70s, gay men used different-colored bandannas to signify sexual preferences) and Hal Fischer’s 1977 photo book, Gay Semiotics: A Photographic Study of Visual Coding Among Homosexual Men, it’s clear Clark knows her queer history. “People the world was hostile to developed these secret languages, secret codes, in order to communicate. I find that fascinating,” she says. “You’re very aware there’s a subterranean, subtext layer to everything that’s going on — and you have your antennae up at all times. That is erotic to me. But I’m glad that [I live in this era].”
As for the downside to LGBTQ+ culture going mainstream? “Well, if you’re safe for the TV screen, you also invite an aspect of grift [from the outside world],” she muses. “Which… I raise an eyebrow at.” To emphasize her point, she cocks her left brow; for a moment, she could pass for a hyperlogical Vulcan on Star Trek. “But there have been plenty of queer people in music. Even if the culture was saying no, there were always queer people in the arts. Please. We have built this.”
For a college dropout, Clark has done pretty well for herself. Born in Tulsa, Okla., she relocated to Texas as a child when her mother moved her and two older sisters to Dallas following her parents’ divorce. (Clark now has four brothers and four sisters from the combined families.) Her childhood obsession with the guitar, ignited by the 1987 Ritchie Valens biopic La Bamba starring Lou Diamond Phillips, became serious as she entered her teen years, and a stint as a roadie for her uncle’s jazz-folk duo, Tuck & Patti, gave Clark her first taste of the touring business.
Clark attended Boston’s prestigious Berklee College of Music but left after three years (though her parents didn’t find out until several years later, when they read it in the press). “Other people have real educations,” she says. “I had philosophy teachers who were like, ‘How is Kierkegaard like Bob Marley?’ ” She shakes her head, almost tenderly. “It’s not. It’s not and that’s fine.” (When I ask how a music school dropout seems to have an endless fount of cultural, historical and artistic references at her disposal, she laughs and asks, “Is that your way of saying, ‘It’s OK you never went to real college’?”)
After cutting herself loose from Berklee, Clark spent 2005 and 2006 on the road with the robe-rocking, symphonic indie outfit Polyphonic Spree, joining Sufjan Stevens’ touring band for a spell shortly thereafter. Her solo debut album, Marry Me, released in 2007 on Beggars Banquet, was a chamber-pop cauldron with notes of Stevens and Spree, but had a playful, wry sense of humor that indicated it was just the tip of the St. Vincent iceberg. (For one thing, the album takes its title from a running joke on Arrested Development — a fact that today causes Clark to rest her head on her fingertips in faux embarrassment before concluding, “It is a great show.”)
On her next release, Actor, Clark’s music developed a jagged, sardonic bite that brought her to the Billboard 200 for the first time (at No. 90). Her top 20 follow-up, the 2011 art-rock statement Strange Mercy, was tinged with pain, fury, self-doubt and confusion — and dispelled any lingering misconceptions that she was a holdover from the demure, precious indie pop of the ’00s. While Clark had always seemed like an artist with something to say, on Strange Mercy, she sounded like an artist who needed to say something.
“In order to get good, you have to go through a series of humbling and humiliating experiences,” she reflects. “On the other hand, you have to have this psychotic belief — an unreasonable belief, truly — that you are going to write songs and make music that is going to matter. And that’s a really crazy thought.” She pauses. “I have that thought — with plenty of self-loathing and self-laceration — but I also have this [feeling], ‘If I don’t do this, I’m going to die.’ ”
Camilla and Marc shirt, Nour Hammour coat, Zhilyova gloves.
Lenne Chai
Among those who took notice of Clark’s creativity and drive was Talking Heads legend and fellow rock eccentric David Byrne. Their 2012 collaborative album, the funky, brass-heavy Love This Giant, netted Byrne his first top 40 entry outside Talking Heads on the Billboard 200.
“Annie is so many things all at once,” Byrne tells Billboard. “Beautiful, inventive, inscrutable — in the best way possible. I know her as someone warm and friendly, but as anyone listening to her music can hear, she’s got a dark side that as far as I know just has an outlet in her music. Would that all of us could do that.”
After a lengthy tour with Byrne — “I love playing shows. I’m up there, and truly, something else kicks in,” Clark emphasizes — she solidified her reputation as an art-rock auteur on her self-titled fourth album, the first of three on Loma Vista, in 2014. With a chromatic purple-blue-pink palette and a gray ’do teased to the heavens, Clark delivered the most stylistically cohesive St. Vincent album yet — and for the first time on wax, she sounded like she was having a blast. St. Vincent won Clark a Grammy for best alternative music album, kicking off an active streak of her collecting at least one Grammy per proper studio release since. In 2014, Clark also spoke publicly about her queerness for the first time, telling Rolling Stone, “I believe in gender fluidity and sexual fluidity.”
With 2017’s Masseduction, Clark pivoted to electropop and paired it with neon-drenched, latex-heavy visuals, as well as some of her most personal songs yet. Co-produced by Jack Antonoff, the album (her first top 10 entry on the Billboard 200) expanded her creative circle to include a range of musicians such as Sounwave, Kamasi Washington, Jenny Lewis, Mike Elizondo, Pino Palladino and Cara Delevingne (the latter of whom Clark dated for a year and a half, briefly putting her in the tabloid spotlight). Masseduction singles “New York” and “Los Ageless” hit the Adult Alternative Airplay and Hot Rock & Alternative Songs charts, and the title track won her the Grammy for best rock song. Not that she’s in it for the accolades: “I’m a musician because I’m obsessed with making music,” Clark states. “If I wasn’t, God knows, I don’t think it would be pretty.”
As her profile grew, Clark earned her first GLAAD Media Award nomination for outstanding music artist in 2018; that June, she unleashed “Fast Slow Disco,” a dancefloor remix of one of Masseduction’s tracks, along with a music video where she cavorted with a throng of leather-clad men making out with one another. “Happy Pride,” she tweeted. “It was sweet of these boys to let me crash their party.”
Fittingly, the tune’s title was inspired by a text message exchange with Wendy Melvoin, whose romantic relationship with Lisa Coleman in Prince’s backing band The Revolution provided sorely needed representation in the ’80s. “Annie’s a real artist. It’s always satisfying to be friends and compatriots with people that you have respect for,” Melvoin says. “She’s extremely talented,” Coleman agrees. “[She’s] a real musician that was so influenced by what we did, and she had a reverence for us. It was easy to return that because she is so good.”
St. Vincent wearing Ultra Open Earbuds by @Bose and Maggi Simpkins.
Lenne Chai
By 2021’s Daddy’s Home, Clark had nothing left to prove, which might explain why the album — partially inspired by her father’s 2019 release from prison after he served time for a stock manipulation scheme — was her first where she looked backward for inspiration. (Then again, maybe she meant it literally when she titled her 2017-18 tour Fear the Future.) Steeped in ’70s rock, AM pop and queer camp, the album netted her another Grammy for best alternative music album and another GLAAD nomination for outstanding music artist. As a victory lap and era-appropriate tie-in, she supplemented her own headlining trek for the record with a stint opening for Roxy Music’s farewell tour.
Beyond Roxy Music and Byrne, Clark has amassed an enviable Rolodex of rock royalty. She performed alongside the surviving members of Nirvana at their 2014 Rock & Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony; produced Sleater-Kinney’s 2019 album, The Center Won’t Hold, and co-starred with the band’s Carrie Brownstein in the trippy 2020 mockumentary The Nowhere Inn; contributed to the 2021 remix album McCartney III Imagined (even getting a phone call from the Beatle himself); and feted Eurythmics at the duo’s 2022 Songwriters Hall of Fame induction, performing “Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This).” Having worked with so many of her own musical heroes, she has also paid that forward, contributing to tracks by next-gen fans like Willow and Olivia Rodrigo.
“I’ve been a huge St. Vincent fan since I was a teenager. I think she’s such an inspiring artist and a wonderful person. I was so excited to bring her in to work on this song,” Rodrigo tells Billboard of co-writing “Obsessed” with Clark for the deluxe version of GUTS. “She added so many unique textures and sounds that I could’ve never thought of.”
Those inventive, meticulous methods stuck out to Willow when Clark guested on “Pain for Fun” from the former’s 2024 album, empathogen. “St. Vincent’s prodigious attention to detail is something that I have admired since hearing her for the first time at 12 years old,” Willow says. “To have had the opportunity to be in the same room with her, to witness and observe her process, is something that I will always hold close to my heart and something I will always refer back to for inspiration.”
“She’s an inspiration to me, but I can see [she is] to a lot of other singers and songwriters as well,” Byrne says. “And a somewhat underrated guitar goddess.” (Clark even has her own signature axe, a collaboration with Ernie Ball Music Man, which Jack White played on Saturday Night Live in 2018 and Rodrigo trotted out on her tour this year.)
Another one of those singer-songwriters is, of course, Taylor Swift. Alongside Antonoff and Swift, Clark wrote (and played guitar on) “Cruel Summer” from 2019’s Lover. After years of fan campaigns and three subsequent studio albums, Swift finally released “Cruel Summer” as a single in 2023; it topped the Billboard Hot 100 for four weeks and has spent more time on the chart than any of her other hits, earning an astounding 1 billion official on-demand U.S. streams, according to Luminate.
“I remain blown away by ‘Cruel Summer’ being the phenomenon that is it,” Clark says. “Not because it isn’t a great song. It’s indicative of the time we’re in, where a song from many albums ago, that wasn’t even a single at the time, the fans go, ‘No, this one — we pick this one.’ And then they march it up the charts. That’s completely a testament to her fan base being so powerful.”
While some critics and fans have described the rock-heavy, emotionally raw All Born Screaming as a return to form, the album also marks a few notable firsts for Clark. Though distributed by Virgin Music Group, it’s the inaugural release on her own label, Total Pleasure Records, which she calls “just a little cozy place for me.” She’s excited about plenty of young artists but shrugs off any label boss ambitions. “I never want to be the person who is like, ‘I’m so sorry, we can’t afford to pay for your video unless you shill for cat laxatives,’ ” she deadpans. “I’m not trying to be The Man to any talent that I love. It just means autonomy.”
Clark insists that “DIY till you die” is her guiding mantra on all fronts, from making music to mounting tours on a scalable level. “I more enjoy the creative side, but you have to be across all of it. It’s your career. You can’t just let someone tell you where you are going. And putting all those pieces together is fun for me.”
St. Vincent wearing Ultra Open Earbuds by @Bose and Maggi Simpkins.
Lenne Chai
Perhaps more significantly, All Born Screaming is also the first of her own albums on which she is credited as sole producer (though she has co-produced more than half of her discography).
“I don’t think I could have made this record any other way. I don’t think I would have written these songs or explored this stuff without the solitude,” she says. “Around 2019 [I thought], ‘OK, I eventually just want to produce my own work.’ When I was making Daddy’s Home, I started making a plan for my engineer, Cian Riordan, to make my studio proper — to get more into the engineering side, hone my chops and build a playground for myself. But if I’m honest, the seed was planted earlier, because by the time I was 14 or 15 I was recording myself in my bedroom.” (Clark’s studio is in Los Angeles; she splits her time among New York, L.A. and Texas.)
A 2023 study of popular songs by the Annenberg Inclusion Initiative found that just 3.4% of hits were produced by women in 2022, and Clark is still one of very few female producers finding success in the music business — with plenty more, she notes, deserving attention. “There are lots of women making their music DIY-style, and that is production,” she says. “My friend Cate Le Bon [who guests on All Born Screaming’s title track] is a great example of someone who produces herself and other people.” (The album also features drumming from Dave Grohl, Josh Freese and Warpaint’s Stella Mozgawa.)
When it comes to ways to increase LGBTQ+ inclusion in the industry, Clark is reluctant to provide any glib or easy answers. “The answer is, ‘Of course,’ but I can’t go, ‘If we only changed this policy.’ ” The Texas-raised Clark does not, however, hold back when asked about Republican Gov. Greg Abbott, who she says is waging “an absolute war on women and reproductive rights. That dude sucks. He sucks. I hate that dude.” For a brief moment, she sounds like an exasperated teenager ranting about her high school principal, but soon regains her poise. “What I love about Texas is the toughness and the grit. You can’t be too highfalutin. With love, they’ll knock you down a peg.” She looks thoughtful. “I did run away when I was 18, but at the same time, if you asked me to name parts of my identity, ‘Texan’ would be up there.”
St. Vincent wearing Ultra Open Earbuds by @Bose and Maggi Simpkins. CAMILLA AND MARC shirt, Nour Hammour coat, Zhilyova gloves, JW PEI shoes.
Lenne Chai
As an artist who has explored both identity and technology deeply, Clark is cautiously intrigued by the musical potential of artificial intelligence in the hands of artists. “The tool is as interesting as its holder,” she says, then flashes a mischievous half-smile. “In some ways, I’m more concerned about artists sounding like AI than I am [about] AI sounding like artists.”
Clark is far more troubled by a more established technology in the digital music era. “If you are a big pop artist, streaming is fine. But there is some music that reaches you very deeply but isn’t music that you put on every single day. I’m not going to listen to John Coltrane’s A Love Supreme every day. It’s one of the most pivotal records of my life, but I’m not going to stream it over and over,” she says. “Streaming incentivizes songs to be consumable over and over again. Now, certainly there’s great music you want to consume like that — but there’s a lot of music that’s excellent and doesn’t fall into that category. And those artists, because of streaming, are wilting on the vine.” (St. Vincent’s catalog has accumulated a respectable 394.6 million official on-demand U.S. streams.)
Aside from friends like Le Bon, there are plenty of modern artists who keep Clark jazzed about music’s future. “I love Rosalía,” she says, leaning forward in her chair. “I saw her show last year. It was just art. It was so thoughtfully done. Post-modern choreography, flamenco. Just excellent.” All Born Screaming includes “Sweetest Fruit,” a tribute to the late trans artist SOPHIE, whom Clark deeply admired (though fan reaction to its literal lyrics was mixed). British rapper Little Simz is another favorite, and she lights up when talking about Willow. “She’s unbelievable. Her knowledge base and depth of reference is deep and varied. She’s pulling all these things together and making them her own, which is exactly what an artist should do.”
Whether speaking about her fellow artists, the music industry or her queer identity, Clark is animated and engaged; the only time she seems at a loss is when talking about how she fills her time that isn’t spent making music.
“I listen to a lot of audiobooks. Which is so boring,” she murmurs. “I work out. So boring.” Does she cook for herself? “Girl, no. Even playing Zelda, I would make dubious food.” Watch TV? “I will maybe watch something to fall asleep. I rewatched 30 Rock recently. I am obsessed with Girls5eva. It’s all the sensibility of 30 Rock, but with deep musical references. It makes me so happy.” Foster any unusual hobbies? “I walked into this bar across from Electric Lady [Studios in New York], but it was the wrong place — it was a coffee shop that turns into a knitting hour. I got the f–k out of there.”
After nearly two decades of making music professionally, Clark doesn’t seem fatigued or disenchanted by a business that often frustrates uncompromising creatives. If anything, she’s finding it easier to “trust in the process” with seven albums under her beloved trench’s belt. “There’s going to be speed bumps, and there’s going to be days when you don’t want to get out of bed. ‘Ugh, I can’t even face myself.’ And other days where you’re like, ‘Yeah, I am crushing it, wow!’ ”
Calling those polar mood swings “cancers to excise,” Clark says “it’s a miracle” she gets anything done. “The whole thing is chasing this feeling of being lit up and confused but excited at the same time,” she says. “It’s a bunch of people blowing into the same thing to make a balloon and, eventually, it rises. I don’t know how anything happens. I really don’t. The whole thing is mysterious. But I know if I focus on this little thing that I love, it will be OK.”
This story will appear in the June 22, 2024, issue of Billboard.
“Did you come in when I was dressed like a sperm?” Despite her wry tone, Annie Clark — the artist better known as St. Vincent — isn’t joking. Not quite an hour earlier, Clark was posing for her Billboard photo shoot in a hooded, ruffled cream mini-dress in front of a billowing blush-pink backdrop meant to […]
Attention, Lambily: The Elusive Chanteuse herself has a special gift for you this Pride Month. On Friday (June 14), Mariah Carey dropped an expanded edition of her beloved album Rainbow in honor of its 25th anniversary. Alongside a series of new remixes of some of the superstar’s mega hits like “Heartbreaker” and “Thank God I […]
For most of rap music’s history, homophobic language – whether in lyrics or interviews, coming from artists or executives – was completely acceptable. (On more than one occasion in the ‘90s, I left a sitdown with a major rapper feeling an implied f-slur in my direction). Of course, it wasn’t only rap – offhand queerphobia was ubiquitous in mainstream culture.
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Major progress has been made since then, yet (as with culture at large) recent years have seen a palpable backslide in the discourse, even as we’ve enjoyed increase visibility for trans and gender-nonconforming persons. High-profile people engage in nonchalant trans erasure, misuse pronouns, promote stereotypes and freely drop the f- and t-slurs – and defend their right to do so.
So for an artist previously seen as male to announce they identify as nonbinary, and begin presenting in a genderfluid way, it’s a big deal. That’s what Tyler Brooks — the 23-year-old rapper, singer and producer who records as skaiwater — did early last year in an understated, matter-of-fact post. It was something they needed to do, and they received massive support from fans – clearing the way for skai to move forward and get back to making music with as few boundaries as possible. On Friday (June 14), the result arrives: gigi, a thrilling mashup of flavors and styles that is sweet, raw, open, funny and soulful. It’s the sound of musical and personal liberation.
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Since they first began posting music in their late teens, as a kid of Jamaican heritage living in Nottingham, England, skai has been a work-in-progress. During their early years (which produced nearly 30 singles and EPs), they created melodic trap with an emo bent. But 2022 proved to be both a commercial breakout, with the TikTok-fueled success of “#miles” followed by “eyes” and the full-length rave — as well as a pivot from rap toward more club-ready sounds.
gigi doubles down on that move. An exploration of “different pockets of Black dance music” is how skaiwater has described the inspiration for gigi. While the LP is certainly danceable, it might also be described as future soul. That’s especially true of the opening track, “real feel,” and sparkling recent single “wna torture me tn?” on which skai’s Auto-Tuned vocals are nearly blown-out and married to classic ‘70s soul. “Play” is a sugary standout recalling the PC Music collective; “richest girl alive” feels primed for half a dozen remixes; and “choke” offers dancehall vibes and a lyric about “the dark side.” The album even features a verse by Lil Nas X, a longtime friend and champion, on “light!”
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“Back in 2018 skai was the first artist to work with me,” Montero posted when the track came out. “So this a real full circle moment. And i’m so excited to watch her grow as a musician and a person!”
But unlike Lil Nas X, skaiwater is not spoiling for a crusade. “gigi is not a coming out,” clearly states the bio for the new album. skai is simply living their life honestly in Los Angeles, their home since April 2023. And for the last year, they’ve been accompanied by Biggi, an adorable caramel-colored cockapoo who’s featured on eight single covers and gets a cameo in the ”light!” video.
While Biggi dozed by their side, skai opened up to Billboard about their influences, musical pivots, online commentors who have a problem with nonbinary individuals, Lil Nas X and more.
Congratulations on this beautiful record. I liked rave a lot too, but I feel like you’ve made another step forward. Unlike rave, where you had to be back in England for months after its release and maybe you weren’t able to support it in the way you would have liked, gigi seems different.
It definitely feels different. Honestly, I feel like the past couple of weeks I’ve started to feel like it’s the first time where I’ve woke up and learned what I was supposed to be doing as an artist, every day. Not just creating, but also getting the music heard. It definitely feels completely different than when rave came out. Rave was me letting the world have its way with what I was doing. [laughs] So I definitely wanted to be intentional and strategic about how I was putting out music this year.
That last album also marked a real musical shift for you into more dance-oriented music, with “#miles” and “eyes.” Do you feel like gigi is yet another change?
I honestly don’t feel like gigi is as much of a pivot as I took with rave. Rave was really my first time experimenting with a full project of something outside of rap. I was trying to make a dance album. But I think with gigi it was just taking restrictions off of myself and just opening the doors more to what I can create as an artist.
In a statement you said gigi was “inspired by different pockets of Black dance music, asking myself how I could elevate the genre in my own way.” Can you expand on that?
When I was younger, at least, I grew up around a lot of garage music, bassline music, drum & bass, that’s what I was around when I was super young, when it came to Black dance. At least in that space, in Nottingham. And then when I started traveling out here, I saw like the Philly scene, like house; the New Orleans bounce scene; and the Chicago house scene too, and just how Chicago paved the way for house music. And I felt like there was a connection and community when it comes to a lot of those scenes. It showed me how similar things can be even when they’re so far away.
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It’s funny you should mention Philly because while it is a club record, there are places, like “wna torture me tn?” and “princess” and the opener “real feel,” where it reminds me of a space-age take on old Philly Soul, like 1970s O’Jays, Stylistics type of thing. Those artists weren’t on your radar of influences were they?
The O’Jays were, for sure. When I first started the project we were going through a lot of different soul references, R&B influences. Even from before, when I started rave, I started honing into that side of my sh-t, because that’s what I always really wanted to do. I have always been a melody person, a writing person.
You’ve many times cited Kanye West as being a musical influence, and that is still apparent. What hasn’t gotten as much attention is that going back a few years you’ve also mentioned Mary J. Blige, Alicia Keys, Beyoncé, SZA…
Mm-hmm.
And that’s interesting to me that people didn’t pick up on that because honestly, it’s not every day that a young – I’m gonna use the word “male,” because I think that’s how you were perceived at the time —
It’s okay. Yeah, I mean, socialized as a male, growing up, for sure.
But for a young male artist to cite women in R&B as influential. In 2019, you even had an EP called After God Fear Eve. I mean, hello? If the idea of you saying you were nonbinary made some people’s jaws drop, I don’t know – maybe they weren’t paying attention, a little bit?
At all, bruh! [laughs] And that’s one thing that’s maybe been a shock for the past year and a half, people really just must not have been paying attention. It shouldn’t be that much of a surprise. But honestly, I think you’re right – maybe you pick on it more, but I’ve definitely got a lot of that early soul and R&B influence from my mother, and her side of the family. And, I think maybe me, not knowing the verbiage, but me identifying as a nonbinary person from very young – I think a lot of men just feel like it’s feminine to like R&B.
And regarding the feminine, or nonbinary, energy embodied in gigi. As I understand it, that name refers to the goddess Gaia?
So, when I started the project, I was starting a project called Gaia. And just my initial reason for it, before I started on any of the music, just a balance between masculine and feminine energy. Being a male-presenting artist in rap, but also playing on that line, I was naming the project after Gaia, which is a goddess of earth [in Greek mythology]. So, as it evolved into whatever it is, we now just kind of ended up with gigi. “Gigi” is kind of a nickname for that, and I just kind of for the era of the music that I am making and putting out.
While the melodic, emo trap of your early years has given way to much more of a dance orientation, one thing that hasn’t changed is that Auto-Tune remains your friend.
[laughs] Yes.
But here on gigi it’s to the max, almost like your vocals are willfully buzzy and blown-out at times. It’s really striking, and cool.
I feel like I had to go back to a lot of my early influences. And I think a part of that was punk, maybe not punk music, but the punk sentiment. The way I’ve been mixing recently, I am trying to make sure that I am staying on my own pivot. I feel a punk sentiment is important just to art in general, but also just to keep it running through my music. I mean, as you say, Auto-Tune is my friend, but it’s definitely a creative choice. I feel like I could hold my own without it.
You new bio makes a point of saying “gigi isn’t a coming out” but rather an opening up to new artistic possibilities.
Yes.
And lyrically, in fact, it’s more these images of fraught relationships, with you on either end. The specificity of some lines – “I put that bitch through hell, I put that b-tch through college” or “F–k would you burn my sh-t for no reason?” or “Take my money, send me to my f–king grave” – sound like you have one person in mind.
Relationships definitely mean a lot to me. They’re a big part of my life. I think I can be on the good and bad end of the stick, but I’m definitely overly self-aware and emotional, so I will definitely put whatever I’m going through into the music. And yeah, I feel like all my music refers to an individual, for sure.
So, one individual? Was there a muse for this record?
Well…no I wouldn’t say every song on the new record is. I wouldn’t say that. But there is definitely an individual in mind for every song.
You told Rolling Stone that operating as a nonbinary artist in a more alternative space, things are freer but also leaves open the possibility for the “mishandling of messages”?
Yeah. I feel like just things can be misconstrued, or taken the wrong way, very easily these days.
Misconstrued in terms of image? Like you put out a picture or video of yourself looking more feminine and everyone has an opinion on it?
Yes, and that’s what I’ve had to realize, bruh. It’s that you kind of have to just let things fly. You can’t control how people feel. But my identity, at least from a public perspective, very much just comes from my everyday life. I don’t feel like I’ve ever had to amplify it or do too much. I feel like if anything, two years ago I was at my home, feeling like, “People don’t know just straight-up who I am!” kind of thing. A lot of the moments that have helped me grow the most have just been me documenting me, being myself.
So you don’t ever feel the need to correct people or be like, “No, this is what ‘nonbinary’ is…”?
No, because I can’t control it. I mean there’s eight billion people on earth, the majority all have internet, we all have opinions. We all grew up different ways, learning different things, around different people, seeing different things that we’re never all gonna feel the same. But no – I just don’t have the energy. Nobody in the world has the energy to convince eight billion people of who they are. They can just be themselves. I feel like that’s the best you can do.
Recently I actually think there’s been a been backsliding from the progress that had made over time. Fans might get pressed because Carti appears to be wearing a thong, or people going after Dwyane Wade for supporting his trans daughter. How does a nonbinary artist navigate that world?
You know what, bro? I mean, it’s definitely something that is prominent in the space. But I’ve never been one to care about how people feel about me. You know what I mean? At least from an ignorant perspective, ‘cause I can recognize ignorance. If someone is just ignorant and that is why they don’t f–k with me, well then, just stay over there, kind of thing.
You seem able to let that sh-t roll off of you, a lot.
Yeah ’cause there’s more to me than – I don’t know bruh, it can seem serious, or it can seem very silly, you know, ’cause it’s the internet — and life and humans and opinions. People always are going to feel something. For me it just feels like it’s an easy thing for people to be upset about. People are always going to feel some way, and find some reason to like or dislike something. And yes, it’s wrong. But I think we as humans are to blame for our miseducation. And I feel like a lot of issues we have come from a fear of the unknown, and just miseducation, or not seeing, meeting or knowing. And that’s speaking to all different types of people. Whether it’s a race thing, a gender thing, a sex thing.
You’ve known Lil Nas X for a long time now – he features on “light!” and he’s obviously one of the most entertaining, no-f–ks artists on the planet. Not to conflate being nonbinary with being gay, but has Montero’s approach and attitude in any way offered a blueprint for you? Or – maybe there is no blueprint?
Yeah, I wouldn’t say “blueprint,” ‘cause I feel like we do think differently, but the journey I’ve watched him go on, I definitely have learned from him. I don’t know if there is a “blueprint” kind of thing. I’m just trying to create.
Different artists seem to have different ways of dealing with their own journeys.
A hundred percent. We’re all human beings. I think what you were saying about the back step in progress – I think progress takes longer than we think it does. And I think seeing different types of queer artists – especially in this space – I think it helps people understand we’re not just one group. We’re all just – everybody is just literally people.
As Pride Month reaches a fever pitch, make sure you’re staying up to date on all the latest new tracks from your favorite queer artists. Billboard Pride is proud to present the latest edition of Queer Jams of the Week, our roundup of some of the best new music releases from LGBTQ artists.
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From Victoria Monét’s hypnotic new song to Tayla Parx’s brand new era, check out just a few of our favorite releases from this week below:
Victoria Monét, “Power of Two”
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As Darth Vader so eloquently said, the Force is strong with this one. In her new single “Power of Two” for Disney+’s series Star Wars: The Acolyte, R&B superstar Victoria Monét pulls off an entrancing new song that works naturally outside of the show’s context. A moody melody accompanies hypnotic beats as Monét sings to someone she feels cosmically entangled with, for better or worse. “I feel the shame when they call me your name,” she intones. “And you feel the same when they say you’re to blame.”
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Tayla Parx feat. Tkay Maidza, “Era”
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In a time when pop stars love to constantly reinvent themselves — to varying degrees of success — it’s refreshing to see bonafide hitmaker Tayla Parx firmly enter her “f–k it era.” With her new single “Era” featuring hip-hop star Tkay Maidza, Parx announces that she’s done plenty of growing over the last few years and is ready to reap her rewards. Over a bone-shaking beat, Parx touts her personal achievements and declares that the time for her raucous comeback into the cultural spotlight has arrived — and we couldn’t be happier to see it.
Orion Sun, “Already Gone”
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She may have been gone for two years, but Orion Sun has been hard at work honing her craft — a fact that is readily apparent on her phenomenal new song, “Already Gone.” Elevating her esoteric sound, Sun sings about facing a life without her partner by her side. As arpeggiating synths flutter around the edges of the song, Sun’s voice grows slowly more confident as she lets her former lover know what kind of wreckage they left behind: “I feel weak and ugly,” she whispers. “It still feels hard to imagine life without you.”
Remi Wolf, “Motorcycle”
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Who says you can’t have it all? Remi Wolf’s latest track “Motorcycle” envisions a world where the singer can embrace all the reckless, fast-paced aspects of life in the spotlight, while still enjoying the quiet comforts of domesticity, all over a smooth, sultry R&B track. Wolf’s voice sounds more controlled and calm than ever, as she gleefully has her cake and eats it, too, on this delectable new entry in her discography.
Pale Waves, “Perfume”
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What if ’80s alt-rock had been even queerer? That’s a question Pale Waves handily answers on their new single “Perfume,” a glossy, romantic anthem fueled by the female gaze. Frontwoman Heather Baron-Gracie lends her voice to the sapphic sport of endless yearning, while guitarist Hugo Silvani lays down layered, echoing riffs throughout the airy new song. If you’ve been waiting for another queer-focused jam in the style of MUNA’s “Silk Chiffon,” then allow this “Perfume” to linger just a little bit longer.
Michaela Jaé, “I Am”
Get ready to hear Michaela Jaé’s thrilling new song “I Am” for the rest of Pride Month, because we’ve got an anthem on our hands, folks. Amping up the sound from her 2022 debut single “Something to Say,” the former Pose star dives deep into an instantly catchy house groove, providing everything from a spoken-word, ball-style opening, to a delirious beat breakdown that will have you dancing the moment you hear it. “If you feel like a misfit, this song encourages people to be confident and to live out loud,” Jaé says of the new track in a statement. “It encourages them to always re-create and rebuild themselves when they feel down and to let the world know that it’s not going to stop and that we are going to continue to exist.”
JORDY, Sex With Myself
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Some might call it cockiness, but there’s no denying — JORDY is at his most confident with his boisterous new LP, Sex With Myself. Throughout the dance-fueled new project, the rising singer embraces his own self-love with reckless abandon, getting real with his audience about f–kboys (“Nice Things”), hookups (“I Don’t Want a Boyfriend”) and the evolving art of utter self-determination (the album’s excellent titular track). Call it whatever you want, but one thing’s for certain — JORDY’s new album is an instant highlight in his musical career.
Bronze Avery, Heatwave
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Ready to dance this summer? Because Bronze Avery is here with an album designed to help you do just that. Heatwave, the pop singer’s sophomore LP, is a scintillating mirage of sweat-soaked ecstacy, as Avery lets his inimitable voice soar over delirious production that melds deep house, hyperpop and a sprinkle of R&B for good measure. If you’re looking to turn up the temperature this Pride Month, then embrace the Heatwave on this stunning new album.
Check out all of our picks in Billboard’s Queer Jams of the Week playlist below:
At Greenwich Village’s much-beloved gay bar Julius’, a humble crowd of patrons milled around the decades-old establishment, enjoying refreshments and song stylings ranging from late ’70s disco hits to Lizzo and Dua Lipa. Phone numbers were exchanged, flirtations made, jokes laughed at. All in all, it’s a fairly typical night at the local pub.
That is, until Sam Smith strutted through the bar.
Dressed in a Julius’ T-shirt with a studded belt, plaid skirt and a pair of platform heels, Smith graciously greeted their guests on Thursday evening (June 13), thanking them for joining in on this special occasion — a celebration of their debut studio album, In the Lonely Hour.
Released in late May 2014, Lonely Hour became a cultural phenomenon, boosting Smith from relative obscurity to near-instant star status in a matter of months. The album dominated the Billboard 200 (it debuted at No. 2 and remained on the listing for 372 weeks), spawned three Hot 100 top 10 singles (“Stay With Me,” “I’m Not the Only One” and “Lay Me Down”) and earned Smith four Grammys (for best new artist, record of the year, song of the year and best pop vocal album).
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To commemorate their breakthrough’s latest milestone, Smith threw a full-blown karaoke party at Julius’ in honor of their inaugural LP. With performances ranging from Gloria Gaynor’s “I Will Survive” to Carrie Underwood’s “Before He Cheats,” to Beyoncé’s “Texas Hold ‘Em,” participants worked the front of the bar, while drag icon Lady Bunny served as the evening’s emcee. “So far we’ve only got one entrant, and I know y’all don’t want me to get up there and sing,” Bunny chastised early on in the evening. “I don’t sing in the same room where Sam Smith sings!”
Bunny also served as the evening’s DJ, though she underestimated her own abilities after a patron’s rendition of “Unwritten” by Natasha Bedingfield. “I’m about as good at DJing as they are at singing,” she cracked with a laugh. But the New York icon proved herself wrong throughout a wide-ranging set, seamlessly weaving between modern hits and classic disco gems, carefully curating her performance to keep spirits high.
“I am obsessed with Lady Bunny,” Smith gushed to a party-goer at one point as they danced along to TLC’s “No Scrubs.”
By 11 p.m., Julius’ was jam-packed with just over a hundred fabulously dressed patrons. Stars such as Dylan Mulvaney and Kim Petras were spotted entering the bar and gleefully greeting Smith, while other patrons sipped on specialty cocktails such as the “Life Support” margarita or the “Good Thing” cosmopolitan.
Then, Bunny announced the evening’s performer, as Sam Smith made their way onto a makeshift stage at the back of the bar alongside R&B icon Alicia Keys. As the crowd screamed for the pair, Smith humbly thanked them for attending before turning to his duet partner. “Thank you to Alicia Keys. This is a dream come true,” they said.
“This is amazing,” she said back, smiling. “Can you believe we never did this before? Except for right now? That’s crazy!”
Launching into Smith’s heartbreak anthem “I’m Not the Only One,” the pair traded verses back in forth as the eager crowd chanted along to the song’s soulful chorus. By the time they reached the track’s tender finale, the two had combined forces with some otherworldly harmonization on the final “and I know, and I know, and I know, and I know” run, much to the audience’s delight.
Bunny put it best as the performance came to a close. “Look at this, the queens of New York,” she declared. “Give it up for them both!”
Watch a clip of Sam Smith and Alicia Keys performing “I’m Not the Only One” below:
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