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Summertime may be in full swing, but it’s never too late to find your song of the summer. Billboard Pride is here to help with 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 Sam Smith’s new collaboration with Calvin Harris to Anne-Marie’s new album, check out just a few of our favorite releases from this week below:
Calvin Harris feat. Sam Smith, “Desire”
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Each time Calvin Harris and Sam Smith have teamed up to make music, the results have been blissful — whether it was the cooled-down stylings of 2018’s “Promises,” or the disco euphoria of this year’s “I’m Not Here to Make Friends.” Their latest collaboration “Desire” follows in those same footsteps; a thundering trance beat and a set of stuttering synth lines perfectly match with Smith’s delicate vocal, as they declare that just “the thought of you is keeping me awake.”
Anne-Marie, Unhealthy
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Trying to encapsulate what Anne-Marie’s Unhealthy is all about is like trying to grab a fish with your bare hands — just when you think you have a good grasp, it manages to wriggle away. But that’s part and parcel of the accomplishment in the pop singer’s latest LP; Unhealthy is about embracing chaos and learning to accept what can’t be fully understood. The sonics match that theme — Anne-Marie oscillates between gorgeously-sung ballads (like “You & I” featuring Khalid), angsty pop-rock anthems (“Haunt You”), and pure pop anthems (“Trainwreck”), the British phenom refuses to just be one thing, when she can be everything.
CHIKA, Samson
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Much like the titular Bible character, Chika is ready to find strength in what makes her vulnerable. On her full-length debut Samson, the rapper goes beyond proving why she deserves recognition for her pen game, and acknowledges the emotional turmoil that has plagued her life for the last few years. Embracing blatant honesty to devastating effect, Chika burns bridges (“Mad”), flexes her skills (“Prodigy”), and weaves a compelling narrative web of an artist rejecting her position as an overlooked superstar. Chika didn’t mince her words, so we won’t either; Samson is a masterpiece.
Shamir, “The Beginning”
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Looking for a throwback to the late ’90s? Shamir has got you covered with “The Beginning,” a scrumptious pop-rock jam that’s ready to transport you straight back to the age of Savage Garden and Third Eye Blind. It’s fitting, then, that the lyrics to the delectable new song are all about looking back on the good old days of a relationship, and realizing that maybe they weren’t as “good” as you thought they were. “The Beginning” is just another reason why Shamir remains a vital voice in the indie pop-rock scene.
Kidd Kenn, “Coming”
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That’s Mr. Kenn, if you’re nasty — and “Coming” will certainly encourage you to access your nasty side. With his latest single, rising rap star Kidd Kenn is happy to go full “WAP,” but this time for the gays, flexing all of the various way that he can get his lover hot over an entrancing melody and booming beat. Yes, “Coming” is exactly what it sounds like — a hip-hop banger for you to press play on immediately.
MAY-A, “Something Familiar”
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When Hamlet said that we would all “rather bear those ills we have than fly to others that we know not of,” MAY-A felt that. On her latest single “Something Familiar,” MAY-A gives into comfort over consistency, basking in knowing the person she’s with well, even if she doesn’t really like them all that much. Add in her updated, rocked out sound to give the song a boost of adrenaline, and you’ve got yet another jam from the rising star.
Jaboukie, “not_me_tho”
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If you want to work yourself to the bone to get ahead, that’s just fine — just don’t expect Jaboukie Young-White to join you. On his latest single off of his upcoming new album, the comedian-turned-writer-turned-actor-turned-musician is skewering hustle culture with a carefree, shrugged-off anthem. Throwing up a middle finger to late-stage capitalism, “not_me_tho” is Jaboukie at his most effortless, laughing at the social climbers sweating their way to the top as he casually waves at them from his self-made pedestal.
Check out all of our picks on Billboard’s Queer Jams of the Week playlist below:
Troye Sivan would like to set the record straight — well, not straight per se — about some rumors that have pervaded the internet for the last few years.
On a recent episode of Emily Ratajkowski’s High Low podcast, Sivan declared once and for all that he is not a bottom. “This is actually something I want to clear up,” he told the model-actress. “I wrote this one song called ‘Bloom,’ right? It’s about bottoming. And the lyric is ‘I bloom just for you.’ And people took that and ran.”
Continuing, the Australian pop star said that the queer community online thinks that he is “some crazy power bottom,” when that is simply not true. When asked by EmRata if it was “annoying to have to clarify that,” Sivan said it was not. “I think sometimes people are just surprised, maybe if they go on a date with me, and I’m like, ‘Oh, by the way, I’m not a bottom,’” he said.
Fans expressed their varying levels of shock in the comments section of a TikTok clip, with one saying “I did NOT have ‘Troye Sivan is a strict top’ on my 2023 bingo card.” Some fans, though, felt that Sivan had been pretty clear through his lyrics. “I’ve always understood that. Like he’s saying ‘I bloom JUST for YOU,’” one commenter wrote.
The new clip comes during a big week for Sivan — his latest single “Rush” recently debuted across 12 different Billboard charts, including a No. 77 debut on the Billboard Hot 100, marking his first entry on the chart since 2021’s “You” with Regard and Tate McRae, and his highest debut on the chart to date.
In an interview with Billboard shortly after the song was released, Sivan said that he was already thrown off by the extremely warm reception it received. “I know that I’m really super happy about it, and I also think I am a little bit intimidated,” he said. “It’s a good intimidation, because it just makes me think, ‘Damn, we’ve got to make a great video for the second single.’”
Check out the clip of Sivan on EmRata’s High Low below:
Since publicly coming out back in 2021, internet star JoJo Siwa has made a point of being as outspoken as possible for her community — and apparently, some organizations did not appreciate that. During her appearance on Thursday’s episode of The Viall Files (July 27), Siwa said that amidst the “overwhelming” attention she received after […]
In the months since internet star JoJo Siwa publicly called out Full House actress Candace Cameron Bure, she’s had a lot of time to reflect. Now, she’s ready to talk about why she doesn’t regret her statements.
During her appearance on the Thursday (July 27) episode of The Viall Files, Siwa looked back on her public spat with the actress and said that in hindsight, she stands by her statements. “It gave me a sense of, ‘OK, you and her are never going to agree, you and her are never going to be friends’ … I am never going to be able to change her,” she told host Nick Viall. “I wish she was able to be a little more open, a little more accepting. I’m OK with calling her out in the way that I did.”
The controversy began when Siwa posted a TikTok in July 2022 in which she quietly referred to Bure as the “rudest” celebrity she’d ever met. When fans pressed her for the story, Siwa shared that Bure refused to take a photo with her at the premiere of Fuller House when she was 11 years old, which hurt her feelings.
Eventually, Bure and Siwa talked and patched things up, with the YouTube star deciding that she would just not speak about the actress publicly anymore. “I actually had a little bit of [a thought] like, ‘Ah I shouldn’t have posted that,’” she told Viall. “She didn’t need that, I didn’t need that, so let’s learn the lesson for next time.”
Then in November, Bure did an interview with The Wall Street Journal, during which she said that her new slate of Christmas films on Great American Family would “keep traditional marriage at the core” by not including LGBTQ storylines. Siwa, at the time, responded to the news by calling her statement “rude and hurtful” to queer people everywhere. “Honestly, I can’t believe after everything that went down just a few months ago, that she would not only create a movie with intention of excluding LGBTQIA+ [people], but then also talk about it in the press,” Siwa wrote at the time.
Talking to Viall, Siwa said that the intention behind Bure’s exclusion is what got her particularly angry. “She wanted to do a movie about that to put down LGBTQIA [people], and that she was specifically going to make movies that had no representation of LGBTQIA [people],” she said. “When you’re doing it out of spite to say that, ‘Too much is about LGBTQIA [people] and you guys suck and I want to make a movie about traditional marriage and you’re not traditional,’ that got to me a little bit.”
While Siwa said that she once felt bad about her criticism of Bure, she’s since decided that she doesn’t need to apologize for disagreeing with someone who doesn’t support her community. “That’s my people,” she told Viall. “I gotta stand up for my people.”
Check out Siwa’s full interview on The Viall Files above.
J-pop idol Shinjiro Atae is ready to open up to the world about his sexuality.
During a free fan event at Line Cube Shibuya in Tokyo on Wednesday (July 26), the Kyoto-born singer officially came out to his fans as a gay man. Speaking to a crowd of approximately 2,000 fans according to a press release, Atae spoke at length about his decision to come out and what he hoped it meant for fans struggling with a similar process.
Atae then took to his Instagram to announce the news to the rest of his fans who were unable to attend the event. “To all my fans, today was a very special day for me,” he wrote. “For years, I struggled to accept a part of myself … but now, after all I have been through, I finally have the courage to open up to you about something. I am a gay man.”
Acknowledging that for a long time he “could not even say it” to himself, the J-pop singer said that he eventually accepted who he was and decided to share his truth with the world. “I’ve come to realize it is better, both for me, and for the people I care about, including my fans, to live life authentically than to live a life never accepting who I truly am,” he wrote.
Atae first debuted as a founding member of the popular J-pop group AAA, which debuted in 2005 and went on hiatus in 2021. Since joining the group, Atae also began his own solo music career, which has garnered him over 11,000 monthly listeners on Spotify.
To celebrate his coming out, Atae released a new song and music video titled “Into the Light.” Throughout the English track, Atae details living life as different versions of himself before stepping into the titular light, telling his fans that “You opened the door/ So I could open my heart.”
Along with revealing that he would be releasing the full footage of his speech from the fan event on Thursday (July 27), Atae closed his Instagram post by thanking his fans for their unwavering support throughout his career. “When I think of my work in the entertainment industry and the many things for which I am grateful, it is my relationship with my fans that first comes to mind,” he wrote. I thank you guys from the bottom of my heart for standing beside me over the years. I’d also like to thank my family, friends, staff members and my fellow AAA members for providing me their full support throughout this process.”
Check out Shinjiro Atae’s full Instagram post, as well as his music video for “Into the Light,” below:
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Troye Sivan was having some fun last month when he made a playful plea to his followers to help him track down his celebrity crush. While teasing his thumping new single, “Rush,” Sivan posted a thirst trap fan edit of Stray Kids singer Hyunjin in which the 23-year-old pop star was depicted dancing in slow […]
The 1975 are canceling shows in Indonesia and Taiwan after the band’s set was cut at a Malaysia music festival following frontman Matty Healy‘s comments about the country’s anti-gay laws and kissing his bandmate on stage.
The British pop-rock group was scheduled to perform at Jakarta’s We the Fest on Sunday (July 23) and at the Taipei Music Center on Tuesday (July 25) as part of their 2023 Asia tour. The band announced in a statement on Sunday that both performances have been called off.
“The 1975 regret to announce that their forthcoming shows in Jakarta and Taipei will no longer be going ahead as planned,” the 1975 wrote in a statement posted on We the Fest’s Twitter page.
“The band never takes the decision to cancel a show lightly and had been eagerly looking forward to playing for fans in Jakarta and Taipei but unfortunately, due to current circumstances, it is impossible to proceed with the scheduled shows.”
The cancellations come after Healy slammed Malaysia’s LGBTQ laws as “f–king ridiculous” before sharing a prolonged kiss with bassist Ross MacDonald at the country’s Good Vibes Festival in Kuala Lumpur on Friday (July 21). The following day, event organizer Future Sounds Asia announced that the remainder of the three-day fest had been canceled.
Homosexuality is illegal in Malaysia, and those convicted face up to 20 years behind bars.
The 1975’s Good Vibes set was cut short after Healy, who has long been outspoken about LGBTQ rights, ranted about Malaysia’s restrictive laws banning homosexuality.
“Because you are young people, and I’m sure a lot of you are gay and progressive and cool,” he told the crowd in video circulating on social media, noting that he had pulled the show Thursday in protest before deciding not to let fans down. “But, I’ve done this before. I’ve gone to a country where it’s — I don’t know what it f–king is. Ridiculous. F–king ridiculous to tell people what they can do with that and that. If you want to invite me here to do a show, you can f–k off. I’ll take your money, you can ban me, but I’ve done this before and it doesn’t feel good, and I’m f–ked off.”
The set ended early shortly after Healy kissed MacDonald, with the frontman telling festival-goers, “All right, we just got banned from Kuala Lumpur. See you later.”
See the 1975’s Asian tour cancellation announcement below via We the Fest’s Twitter page.
The 1975 regret to announce that their forthcoming shows in Jakarta and Taipei will no longer be going ahead as planned.Please see the official statement from the band. pic.twitter.com/XpZskFnyeD— We The Fest (@WeTheFest) July 23, 2023
The 1975 took the stage at Good Vibes Festival in Malaysia on Friday (July 21), but the set came to an abrupt end after the band’s frontman Matty Healy spoke out against the country’s stances on LGBTQ+ rights.
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“I’m f–ing furious, and that’s not fair on you because you’re not representative of your government,” the 34-year-old singer-songwriter is heard telling the crowd in videos circulating social media. “Because you are young people, and I’m sure a lot of you are gay and progressive and cool. So, I pulled the show yesterday, I pulled the show yesterday, and we had a conversation and we said, ‘You know what, we can’t let the kids down because they’re not the government.’ But, I’ve done this before. I’ve gone to a country where it’s — I don’t know what it f—ing is. Ridiculous. F—ing ridiculous to tell people what they can do with that and that. If you want to invite me here to do a show, you can f— off. I’ll take your money, you can ban me, but I’ve done this before and it doesn’t feel good, and I’m f—ed off.”
After the rant, Healy challenged the anti-LGBTQ+ laws even further, kissing bandmate Ross MacDonald for an extended period of time. The set then ended half an hour early, with Healy telling the audience before leaving the stage: “Alright, we just got banned from Kuala Lumpur, see you later.”
A source tells Billboard, “Matty has a long-time record of advocating for the LGBTQ+ community and the band wanted to stand up for their LGBTQ+ fans and community.” Back in 2019, the musician broke an anti-LGBTQ law in United Arab Emirates by going into the crowd during their show in Dubai and kissing a male concertgoer.
While there hasn’t been an official statement confirming The 1975’s band from Malaysia, Billboard has reached out to reps from the festival for more information.
According to Outright International, same-sex relationships are illegal in Malaysia, and in states imposing Islamic Sharia law, gender non-conformity is also criminalized. “Due to these laws, LGBTIQ Malaysians are subject to arbitrary arrests, assault, extortion and privacy violations by police and public officials,” according to the site.
See Healy’s speech as well as the kiss and end of the set via social media below.
OMFG they just got banned from Kuala Lumpur and had to leave the show because they stood up for basic human right. good for them. MAKE THE 1975 POLITICAL AGAINpic.twitter.com/u9RcKjnJZS— tina ⎕ 🥀 (@hazyheadbigcity) July 21, 2023
07/19/2023
Backflips! Splits! Slices of lunch meat thrown like frisbees! The lip syncs of All Stars 8 truly had everything.
07/19/2023
After receiving some online criticism for his latest music video, Australian pop star Troye Sivan is responding in kind. In a new interview with Billboard on Tuesday (July 18), Sivan talked about his new single “Rush” and its subsequent music video, which garnered some significant criticism online for not showcasing a diverse array of body […]