Pride

22 Sep 2023

Queer Jams of the Week: New Music from Troye Sivan, 070 Shake, Chappell Roan & More

TK. 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 Troye Sivan’s stunning new single to Kim Petras’ surprise-release new album, check out just a few of our favorite releases from this week below:

Troye Sivan, “Got Me Started”

After coming down from the “Rush,” Troye Sivan kicks things right back into gear on his latest pop banger “Got Me Started.” This glittering, laid-back jam teems with sexuality and good vibes, as well as a sample of Bag Raiders’ viral hit “Shooting Stars” all throughout the track. It’s a fitting entry into Sivan’s latest era, as he croons to his lover “Boy, can I be honest?/ Kinda miss usin’ my body/ F–k it up just like this party did tonight.”

070 Shake, “Black Dress”

Hip-hop star 070 Shake is in mourning — but damn, she knows how to make it sound good. On “Black Dress,” the latest ethereal ode to lost love from Shake, the rapper-singer-songwriter finds herself in the wreckage of a relationship at its end, questioning what’s supposed to happen now. As a relentless guitar accompanies her delicate vocal, punctuated by some gothic ’80s synths to amp up the atmosphere, Shake embraces the darkness, singing that “Even when it’s dark out/ I still can see your bone structure.”

Chappell Roan, The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess

After spending years building a dedicated, feverish fanbase, DIY pop star Chappell Roan is ready to take her throne. The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess, the rising star’s debut album, makes good on the promise of Roan’s chaotic singles. Throughout this whimsical joyride, Roan injects her songs with pop adrenaline (“Super Graphic Ultra Modern Girl”) and disco fervor (“After Midnight”), all while delving deep into her own emotional worldview (“Picture You”). With this album’s release, we’re happy to witness this Midwest princess’ rise — but we certainly don’t see a fall in sight.

Kim Petras, Problématique

Feeling a bit on ennui? Wanting to bid your troubles adieu? Kim Petras has an album for you that will make you say “C’est bon!” Problématique — Petras’ once-lost, now-revived French-pop album — is a headfirst dive into delicious pop ecstasy. Petras revels in her brattiest tendencies (the titular funk track), while partying her way through gay Paris (“All She Wants), and she does it with a signature sound that her fans have come to love. In a word, the latest Kim Petras LP is magnifique.

Doechii, “Pacer”

If you finish listening to Doja Cat’s scarlet and are feeling in the mood for some more horror-adjacent rap, we strongly recommend Doechii’s spine-tingling new single “Pacer.” Throughout this furious, chaotic anthem from the Florida rapper, Doechii rages against her detractors and boasts her own glory. Transforming her signature flow into screaming “fits” with each verse, the rapper earns her anger with this thrilling new single.

Slayyyter, Starf–ker

With her sophomore release, Slayyyter would like to reintroduce herself as the bonafide diva that she knows she is. Starf–ker delights in its own narrative, as Slayyyter embraces the chase of fame, the loss of love, and the wild, sexy, drug-fueled journey to the top. Whether she’s lampooning L.A. (“I Love Hollywood!”) or falling down a K-hole (“Purrr”), Slayyyter keeps this character-driven LP as delightfully chaotic as possible for all 35 minutes.

Dua Saleh, “Daylight Falls”

Capturing a personal crisis in the form of a song can be a uniquely difficult process — but Dua Saleh makes it look easy. On their mesmerizing new song “Daylight Falls,” the multi-hyphenate performer ushers listeners through their own panic with top-shelf songwriting and their most emotive performance to date. The gorgeous but unyielding guitar backing only adds to the mounting tension, before Saleh explodes on the chorus; “I’m freaking out in the dead of the night,” they wail. Figure it out/ ‘Cause I’m gonna cry/ F–king me up in the dead of the night.”

Morgxn, “My Revival”

Rebirth is a recurring theme for Morgxn — so it’s only fitting that he dedicate his latest single to reinvention. “My Revival,” the latest single off their forthcoming album BEACON, sees the rising star reflect on his journey thus far as an independent artist; embracing the famous “Hero’s Journey” by Joseph Campbell, Morgxn claims his own story for himself, promising that “I don’t plan on stopping/ My spirit’s never dropping.” Add in the fact that Morgxn’s voice has never sounded better, and you’ve got a winning new track on your hands.

Check out all of our picks on Billboard’s Queer Jams of the Week playlist below:

21 Sep 2023

Kylie Minogue Cranks up the ‘Tension’: Stream It Now

While Madonna and the late David Bowie deservedly enjoyed plaudits for their chameleonic reinventions, spare a thought for Kylie Minogue.

Australia’s own “princess of pop” has changed her sound and skin countless times over the decades, and, along the way, became a household name in her homeland and the United Kingdom.

From an auspicious start in showbiz as the loveable Charlene in “Neighbours,” to the Stock Aitken Waterman-produced ‘80s pop numbers, she’s nailed it with indie, dance, made murder ballads with Nick Cave, survived cancer, had us spinning around, we couldn’t get her out of her head, she played heroes and villains on the big screen, tasted country, and had hit after hit.

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Need more proof?

When Disco topped the Official U.K. Albums Chart in November 2020, for her eighth leader, Kylie became the first female artist – and second artist overall – to claim a U.K. No. 1 album in five consecutive decades.

Also, thanks to the recent success of the catchier-than-a-cold hit “Padam Padam,” she’s one of only four female artists to score U.K. top 10 hit singles in five consecutive decades, joining Cher, Diana Ross and Lulu.

“Padam Padam” is, of course, the first single and lead track from Minogue’s 16th and latest album Tension, which dropped at the stroke of midnight.

On Tension, Kylie strides ahead on a full-blown electro pop mission, its title track bouncing to an old-school Italian house piano refrain. There’s pop to eat your breakfast to, pop for heaving house parties in the wee hours.

Across her career, Kylie has clocked sales of over 80 million records, 5 billion streams, landed seven U.K. No 1 singles, won 17 ARIA Awards, three Brit Awards, two MTV Awards and a Grammy. Her “national treasure” status never quite traveled to the United States, where Kylie has cracked the top 10 on the Billboard Hot 100 on just two occasions. She’ll hope to change all that when she cranks up the tension for her first residency at the Venetian Resort Las Vegas’ Voltaire, slated to kick off on Nov. 3.

Stream Tension in full below.

21 Sep 2023

Country Artist Adam Mac Removes Himself From Kentucky’s Tobacco Festival After Questions of ‘Promoting Homosexuality’

Queer country artist Adam Mac took to TikTok on Thursday (Sept. 21) to reveal that he removed himself from his upcoming headlining slot at Kentucky’s Tobacco Festival due to questions surrounding his sexuality.

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“The last 24 hours have been a bit of a whirlwind,” he began his video. “As some of you may know, the Chamber or Commerce for Russellville, Kentucky, where I’m from, announced earlier this week that I would be headlining the annual Tobacco Festival.”

Mac explained that he received a phone call from someone on the festival’s board who told him that “there were some board members and some people in town who had some questions about what kind of performance I would be putting on at the Tobacco Festival. She wanted to ensure that I would not be promoting homosexuality or sexuality in a family friendly environment.”

He continued, “I don’t really know what they expected I was going to do other than come and put on a hell of a show like we do. It was made aware to me that there were people in the town that were very upset that they would have a gay person headline the festival. To know that there are people who are angry that they asked me to come and perform in a town that I was raised in for 21 years of my life. Sure, they have the right to not listen to my music. They have the right to not come to my show. But what’s happening now is they are protesting, they’re showing up at the chamber, they made comments online and to the chamber that they will be holding protests at the show, which is just so disheartening.”

Mac, who is sporting a Maren Morris “lunatic country music person” t-shirt in the clip, revealed that he debated whether or not to perform at the festival, before ultimately deciding to “cancel” his performance. “I’m really sad about it,” he said. “I really, really wanted to be there.”

See his full TikTok below.

21 Sep 2023

Kim Petras Says She Got Locked Out of Her X Account for Her NSFW Profile Photo

When Kim Petras sang that “she’s so problématique” on one of her latest songs, X — the social media platform formerly known as Twitter — took it literally.

In a post to her Instagram Stories on Wednesday (Sept. 20), the pop singer revealed that she had been locked out of her X account for sharing “adult content” in her now-deleted profile picture of her bare breasts. The message from X that she shared said that Petras was not permitted to “include graphic violence or adult content in your profile photo or profile header image,” and said she needed to delete her profile image in order to regain access to her account.

While Petras’ profile picture has since been removed from her account, she made her feelings on the matter abundantly clear. Super-imposed over the screenshot of X’s message, Kim simply added three middle finger emojis to her Stories.

X’s media policy includes a ban on “adult nudity and sexual behavior,” part of which the platform describes as “full or partial nudity, including close-ups of genitals, buttocks or breasts.” Notably, X’s policy leaves the door open to exceptions in cases of “artistic, medical, health or educational content.”

The news comes days after Petras surprise-dropped her once-shelved album Problématique on Monday (Sept. 18). Serving up 10 French-pop anthems, the album was originally shelved due to leaks in August 2022, which led to a string of since-deleted tweets from Petras in which she said that she “didn’t get approval to release anything,” and that the album was stuck in “limbo.”

Petras is also set to head out on her latest world tour in support of her other album released in 2023, Feed the Beast. Beginning Sept. 27 in Austin, the tour will take the pop star across North America and Europe for 34 dates, ending on March 5 in Milan, Italy.

20 Sep 2023

Watch Troye Sivan Experience a Euphoric Night Out in ‘Got Me Started’ Video

If you’re just coming down from the “Rush” of Troye Sivan’s last single, don’t fret — he’s ready to get you started all over again

On Wednesday (Sept. 20), Sivan gave fans yet another new song in the form of “Got Me Started,” a sweltering R&B-pop jam that sees the singer connect on a deeper level with his lover. Sampling Australian duo Bag Raiders’ viral hit “Shooting Stars,” Sivan urges his lover to take him to the edge. “Boy, can I be honest? Kinda miss usin’ my body,” he sings in a pitch-shifted chorus. “F–k it up just like this party did tonight.”

Alongside the new single, the Australian pop star shared a dazzling music video for the track. Shot in Bangkok, the clip shows a series of vignettes of couples around the city sharing tender moments, as Sivan breaks out his best choreography for the song’s chorus. As the tune progresses, so does Sivan’s night out in Bangkok: The star visits a drag club, where he tries on a few looks himself, dances through the streets and eventually winds up on a rooftop as the sun rises, still dancing the night away.

A teaser for the clip, posted to Sivan’s Instagram on Tuesday, showed clips from the lush video with the singer narrating a soliloquy over an entrancing beat. “After the last couple of years, I really thought that I, like, was incapable of feeling anything for a long time,” Sivan’s voice says. “Just even to feel a little bit of butterflies, or f–king … just feeling. I don’t know what you did, or how you did it. You said to me, ‘This is one of life’s greatest pleasures.’ And you know what? You were right.”

In an interview with Apple Music 1′s Zane Lowe, Sivan described the song as “the euphoric moment of total freedom, realizing that you’re completely fine on your own and that also this is not a moment of sadness, but a moment of endless possibilities.”

“Got Me Started” is the second single off of Sivan’s upcoming third studio album, Something to Give Each Other, due out Oct. 13 via Capitol Records. Watch the full music video above.

20 Sep 2023

Maren Morris Will Donate Proceeds From Her Upcoming Show to GLAAD

Singer-songwriter Maren Morris is putting her money where her mouth is when it comes to standing up for the LGBTQ community.

On Wednesday (Sept. 20), Morris announced a special show to celebrate the release of her new EP The Bridge, featuring singles “The Tree” and “Get the Hell Out of Here.” Taking to the first stage she ever played in Chicago at Joe’s On Weed Street on Oct. 5, the singer is donating $5 from every ticket sale to LGTBQ advocacy group GLAAD.

This won’t be the first time Morris has worked with the organization; in 2022, when the singer teamed up with GLAAD to raise money through the release of multiple pieces of merch. Her “Lunatic Country Music Person” T-shirt — referencing a jab toward her made by former Fox News host Tucker Carlson — helped raise more than $150,000 for LGBTQ charities, including GLAAD’s Transgender Media Program. This year, the GLAAD Media Awards honored Morris with their Excellence in Media award for her outspoken allyship.

Tickets to the show are available exclusively to the Lunatics, the new name of Morris’ fan club. (She announced the name change in a Sept. 18 Instagram post, saying that she was embracing Tucker’s “silly little insult.”) Starting Wednesday and through Thursday (Sept. 21) at 11:59 p.m. CST, Lunatics can sign up for an on-sale code, which they will receive at 10 a.m. CST on Friday (Sept. 22). Sign up to Morris’ fan club for a chance to get tickets here.

With her new EP The Bridge, Morris announced that she would be leaving country music behind in an interview with The Los Angeles Times, stating that she couldn’t be a part of the political direction the genre was heading. “[The Trump years] revealed who people really were and that they were proud to be misogynistic and racist and homophobic and transphobic. All these things were being celebrated, and it was weirdly dovetailing with this hyper-masculine branch of country music. I call it butt rock,” she said. “I thought I’d like to burn it to the ground and start over. But it’s burning itself down without my help.”

In an open letter published with Billboard’s Pride cover story in June, Morris hinted at her departure from the genre. “I’m getting out of the sort of game of being the hall monitor of country music, even if I’m probably setting myself up for failure,” she said. “I cannot look at the bad apples anymore. I’m done giving into what they want, which is attention.”

See her show announcement below:

18 Sep 2023

Surprise! Kim Petras Is Dropping Her Long-Lost French Pop Album ‘Problematique’

Surprendre, Bunheads! Pop superstar Kim Petras is here to say “bonjour” to her fans with a special surprise project.

On Monday (Sept. 18), Petras is set to surprise drop her French-pop album Problématique via Repbulic / Amigo Records. Across 10 tracks, Petras delves into ecstatic pop sounds, ranging from funk (“Born Again”), to R&B-pop (“Deeper”) to bratty, materialistic pop jams (“All She Wants” featuring Paris Hilton). As she sings on the titular track, “I’m a little bit dramatic, little real, a little plastic/ I just keep on wreaking havoc.”

Some fans have already heard the tracks off of Problematique, thanks to a major leak of the album back in early August 2022. While most singers would encourage fans not to listen to pirated songs, Petras took a very different approach on X (formerly known as Twitter). Writing candidly in a series of since-deleted tweets, Petras told fans that they may as well give the album a listen, since it was unlikely they would get to hear it otherwise.

“It’s ok if u wanna listen to the leaks … I’m not getting to put out any music anyways I’m f—ed. I’m devastated idk how all of this happened and I just wanna quit,” she wrote at the time. “Nothing is scrapped I didn’t get approval to release anything. It’s limbo.” A press release for the album confirms that Problématique was originally shelved “after partially leaking and leaving fans clamoring for more.”

The new album is Petras’ second of 2023 — in June, she unveiled Feed the Beast, her long-awaited Republic debut. Her latest album drop comes just a week before Petras is set to head on her headlining world tour in support of Feed the Beast, kicking off the 34-date run in Austin, TX on September 27. Tickets are available at Petras’ website.

Listen to Problématique below:

15 Sep 2023

Queer Jams of the Week: New Music From Demi Lovato, K.Flay, Vagabon & More

The weekend is here, which means it’s time to get some new tunes to jam out to 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 Demi Lovato’s reimagined pop-turned-rock songs, to K.Flay’s raging new LP, check out just a few of our favorite new releases below:

Demi Lovato, Revamped

While re-recording past work has become something of a trend as of late, no one is doing it quite like Demi Lovato. On Revamped, Lovato takes a look back through some of their biggest pop hits and reimagines them as bonafide rock bangers, whether it’s soulful ballads (“Tell Me You Love Me”), monster pop smashes (“Heart Attack”) or already rock-adjacent singles (“La La Land”). Revamped is the work of an artist taking the narrative back from her years of pop stardom, and it’s a raucous delight to listen to.

K.Flay, MONO

If you’re still wanting to rage after hearing Lovato’s new album, might we suggest K.Flay’s excellent new LP MONO? Throughout this dynamic new project, K.Flay goes for the jugular over and over again by turning her songwriting inward and learning that her experience is just that — hers. Whether she’s delicately singing about a toxic ex (“Hustler”) or self-flaggulating alongside some gnarly production (the excellent “Punisher”), K.Flay goes all in on every song, making MONO a must-listen.

Vagabon, Sorry I Haven’t Called

On Sorry I Haven’t Called, Vagabon offers to bring listeners on a journey of sorts — with a flourish of house beats and slick pop sounds, the singer-songwriter is ready to whisk you off into a brand new reality, built for the sole purpose of keeping the vibes pure. It’s a smartly-produced, lyrically-rich album that promises to capture your attention for all 35 minutes. As Vagabon told Billboard, “The ethos of what I wanted on this album was just to tell the audience, ‘We’re fine, at least for now.’”

Big Thief, “Born For Loving You”

Anyone who’s attended a Big Thief show in the last few years likely already knows “Born For Loving You” — but if you haven’t attended, now’s your chance to hear it. The studio rendition of the song maintains the joyful, heart-melting energy of the band’s live performance, bringing a pure injection of dopamine into your day. “Doesn’t matter what dreams come true,” Adiranne Lenker sings on the song’s buttery chorus. “I was born for loving you.”

Snail Mail, “Easy Thing”

On her last album Valentine, Lindsey Jordan — a.k.a. indie star Snail Mail — proved to be a master of yearning bedroom rock. Her latest single, “Easy Thing,” yet again underlines that point. On this doleful guitar ballad, Jordan pines for the love that got away, waxing poetic on their relationship even though her ex is left looking like a “loser” throughout the song. It’s a simple, sweet moment of melancholy that we highly recommend you listen to ASAP.

King Mala, “Never Wanna Know”

Imagine giving a s–t what your ex thinks about your life? That’s the mission statement of King Mala’s delectable new kiss off “Never Wanna Know,” a bubbly, middle-finger single in which she proudly proclaims that she’s not even remotely interested in whatever her former flame is up to nowadays. The grooving bassline confidently brings you from one biting lyric to the next, while Mala styles her voice like an audible shrug as she sings, “I never wanna know / If your past keeps you up at night, cause I never worry about mine.” If you are striving to be unbothered, press play.

Check out all of our picks on Billboard’s Queer Jams of the Week playlist below:

15 Sep 2023

Vagabon Didn’t Like Her Reality, So She Made a New One: ‘We’re Fine, At Least for Now’

Looking back on her last full length album released in 2019, Laetitia Tamko can’t help but feel like it remains in some small part incomplete. Released in October, just five months before a global pandemic shut down the world, Tamko — better known by her stage name Vagabon — sees her self-titled album as an incomplete circuit.

“I never got to play those shows or tour that album — so if you think about it like a cycle, the loop didn’t get too close,” she tells Billboard via Zoom, sitting on the floor of her bedroom. “By the time the lockdown happened, a lot of artists were like, ‘Perfect, I’ll just write new music.’ I spent that first year and a half doing absolutely nothing music-related, because I was mourning the fact that I couldn’t, be out there performing.”

But the pandemic did bring Tamko something she hadn’t expected; a new audience. At the early height of the COVID-19 lockdown, the 30-year-old singer-songwriter watched as a song off of her self-titled album, “Water Me Down,” began to gain significant attention, with fellow quarantined people around the globe finding some solace in her introspective songwriting and experimental alternative sound.

Tamko “wasn’t ready” to make new music, but she knew that she had a new cadre of followers waiting to see what she did next. Now, nearly four years after the release of her self-titled effort, their patience is being rewarded. On Friday (Sept. 15), Vagabon released her highly-anticipated new project Sorry I Haven’t Called, a thrilling, pop-infused album of escapist fantasy, where Tamko fully embraces her potential as a star in the making.



The project was born in a small village in Germany, where Tamko retreated in 2021 to evade the dreariness of her life in lockdown and to privately mourn the loss of a close friend. Yearning for something to distract her from the tedium of her day-to-day existence, Tamko sat down and did what she does best — she wrote.

“A lot of the stuff I was making was music that I used to lift myself out of my grief. And that was confusing for a while — ‘I am in despair, so why am I writing about sex and horniness,’” she recalls. “I started to realize that that’s a valid reaction to grief.”

When it came time for her to start producing the songs she’d written, Tamko decided to run with that feeling and make Sorry I Haven’t Called her first dance-adjacent album. Filled with house beats and dance-pop synths, while still maintaining the bedroom, DIY feel of her previous work, the album enters uncharted territory for the artist.

Specifically, Tamko refers to the genre of her Sorry as “‘Dancing on My Own‘ music,” paying homage to Robyn’s iconic single. “She is the best there is at doing these huge pop songs with crazy emotional depth for sad girls who love to dance — ‘girls’ being gender neutral,” she says. “Like, ‘Do you have mental illness? Do you want to dance? Great, this is for you.’ That is what I wanted the sound to be here.”

The house influences turned out to be incredibly timely — while Tamko was in the middle of finishing and mastering her album, she watched as megastars like Beyoncé and Drake delivered their own new takes on the genre (“I thought to myself, ‘Okay, this is how I wasn’t taking too long,’” Tamko quips). But as she puts it, house music, as a genre, is largely timeless thanks to its origins in underground Black queer spaces.

“In its foundation, there is a richness of creativity, it’s rich in references,” she says. “When genres sprout up from people making do with what they have, that’s part of the reason that the genre won’t go away. People will always want to be inspired and encouraged to move. And it’s fun to be a musician in those instances, because you get to shepherd other people moving and living. It’s a complete privilege.”



Towards the end of her writing and producing process, Tamko had a chance meeting with Rostam Batmanglij, the former member of Vampire Weekend-turned-solo artist and producer to the stars. Seeing that Rostam had sent her a DM saying that he loved her music and wanted her to stop by his studio, Tamko took the opportunity and brought him all the music she had been working on for Sorry.

According to Tamko, she knew almost immediately that she wanted to work with him on the album. “He has such a deep musical understanding and knowledge — even just hearing compliment the things that I’ve done was like a badge of honor,” she says. “I just knew I wanted any help he could provide.”

The feeling was mutual. After hearing a handful of tracks, Rostam offered to help produce the rest of the album, bring a “cohesiveness” that Tamko says was not nearly as present before he joined. But of all the many contributions Rostam made to the album, the singer says that his greatest skill came was his malleability.

“He knows how to be in service of the art and who that art is coming from,” she says. “I think that’s why we got along so well — that and the fact that he has great taste and also a very scientific brain when it comes to music.”

Throughout Sorry I Haven’t Called, Tamko still offers the kind of heart-wrenching, introspective lyricism that made “Water Me Down” such a potent pandemic listen. Album closer “Anti-F–k,” for example, sees Vagabon reeling from a relationship that cannot work, as she asks herself “Am I wrong to decide? The last thing I want is unknown/ Am I wrong to reply? The last thing I felt was alone.”

But the feeling of introspection is different this time around — it’s rendered through the lens of a fantasy world generated inside of her own swirling emotional interior. The same way Tamko fled to Germany as a means of managing the emotional fallout of her real life, Sorry I Haven’t Called offers listeners just over 30 minutes of time where they don’t have to actively deal with the myriad struggles of modern existence, but rather let their feelings rush up and out.

“I’ve always looked to music that is the opposite of whatever I am experiencing,” Tamko says. “The ethos of what I wanted on this album was just to tell the audience, ‘We’re fine, at least for now.’ For the duration of this album, you’re being held in this world. There’s still yearning and some heartbreak, because for it to be a world, it needs to have like the valleys so you can better feel the euphoria. You have to embrace the lows before you can reach the highs.”

That very concept in and of itself — the ability for Tamko to conjure up her own universe via songwriting — is a testament to where she has arrived in her own journey. No longer questioning or doubting her own abilities, Tamko says she is finally ready to command the attention she deserves.

“I think I’ve had enough time with the internal,” she offers, bluntly. “It all comes down to confidence, and I have found a profound sense confidence in myself, in my voice, and in my ability to say things and I was maybe too scared to say before. I found a way to take up more space.”

14 Sep 2023

Kelsea Ballerini Wants to Make Country Music More Inclusive: ‘I Want to Hear All the Voices’

For years, Kelsea Ballerini has been advocating for greater diversity in country music — look no further than her headline-making CMTs performance from earlier this year for proof. Now, in a new interview, Ballerini spelled out exactly what she means by that.

In an interview as a 2023 TIME100 Next honoree, Ballerini said that she wanted to see country music become a platform where all kinds of artists could find massive success. “It’s a process, and we’re undoing a way that, specifically, country music has done things forever,” she said. “It’s making sure that we’re giving a voice to new artists; we’re giving a voice to unsigned artists who represent underrepresented groups in Nashville because they’re not getting a chance to be signed.”

Continuing, Ballerini got more specific, pointing out that the communities finding themselves the least represented in country music deserve to be given a fair shot at stardom. “Nobody says people don’t want to jam out to guys on the radio. I do. I also want to hear from women. Just as much, maybe more,” she said. “I also want to hear from people of color, from the LGBTQ+ community. I want to hear all the voices we hear on pop radio on country radio.”

Elsewhere in the interview, Ballerini said that she was not comfortable speaking as the representative for all country artists. “One person cannot speak for everyone. That is true for country music,” she said. “I am in control of standing in what I believe in — and being a kind, good person who works towards making the world a more heard, safe, and inclusive place in whatever capacity I can do.”

Part of that aim to make the world better and more inclusive came during her aforementioned CMTs performance, when Ballerini brought a group of drag queens on stage with her to perform her song “If You Go Down,” and to protest ongoing legislative attacks against drag artists around the country. Speaking about it now, Ballerini said that if she had the opportunity, she would go back and do it again.

“I was not only hosting the CMT Awards, but I had a performance for a song of mine that is all about friendship and standing up for people that you love, and being ride-or-die for your people,” she said. “I realized that that would be a really good, important, loud, big stage to make that statement on, and CMT was all for it.”