Pride
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Coming out can be a strange experience for queer folks — but as Noah Schnapp can now attest, Stranger Things have happened.
In a TikTok posted Thursday (Jan. 5), the Stranger Things actor revealed that he identifies as gay. Lip-syncing along with another creator’s sound saying “You know what it never was? That serious,” Schnapp wrote a message over the video saying, “When I finally told my friends and family that I was gay after being scared in the closet for 18 years, and all they said was ‘we know.’”
In a caption for his post, the actor kept the mood light, writing “I guess I’m more similar to Will than I thought.” The comment references a scene from season 4 of Stranger Things, in which it appeared that Schnapp’s character, Will Byers, was admitting his love for his best friend, Mike Wheeler. Following fan speculation from the scene, Schnapp told Variety that there was no question about Will’s sexuality: “It’s 100% clear that he is gay and he does love Mike.”
The actor made headlines in 2022 when he revealed an online exchange he had with Doja Cat, wherein the “Woman” singer asked him to set her up with co-star Joseph Quinn. Doja would later go on to call Schnapp posting their conversation “borderline snake sh–,” before Schnapp later revealed that he had spoken with and apologized to the rapper. “Everything is all good I apologized and I still follow her and love her music,” he wrote on TikTok.
Check out Schnapp’s coming-out video below:
Ariana Grande is set to make her return to the Werk Room on the season 15 premiere of RuPaul’s Drag Race this Friday (Jan. 6), which provides ample opportunity for one of her songs to be used in a lip sync smackdown to eliminate the first queen of the season.
The pop star’s music has already provided epic moments throughout the show’s 15 seasons, spin-offs and international iterations (“I’d like to keep it on, please,” anyone?), and she even served as a guest judge back in season 7. Now Billboard wants to know: Which of Grande’s song do you want to hear in a Lip Sync for Your Life next?
So far, Grande’s discography has been mined a total of eight times on the main stage, including iconic lip syncs set to “Break Free,” “Into You,” “No Tears Left to Cry” and, yes, “Greedy.” But there are still more than a few gems and powerhouse cuts left yet untapped by RuPaul.
One of the most obvious choices is “7 Rings” — its swaggering beat, braggadocious lyrics and delectable connection to The Sound of Music (a.k.a. canon for theater gays!) would provide the perfect backdrop for two desperate queens to outflex each other.
Both “Positions” and “Thank U, Next” are equally strong contenders for the lip sync treatment, with the former’s teasing, sexually charged lyrics sure to inspire some rather NSFW moves on the stage and the latter giving queens a chance to live out their First Wives Club fantasies for the judges. (I mean, just imagine it after a runway filled with white power suits, am I right?)
Other fan favorites perfect for a Lip Sync for Your Life include her Lady Gaga duet “Rain on Me,” “Dangerous Woman,” “God Is a Woman” and “Break Up With Your Girlfriend, I’m Bored.” Also, how has “Side to Side” (featuring Nicki Minaj) not been used already?
Vote for the Ariana song you want to see used as a Lip Sync for Your Life in Billboard‘s poll below.
With the return of RuPaul’s Drag Race, the time has come for us to consider an important question asked throughout ages long past — what song do you think they’re going to lip synch to in the premiere?
With a Drag Race premiere, it’s not even a foregone conclusion that we will definitely get a Lip Sync For Your Life — back in season 9, for example, when guest judge Lady Gaga oversaw the queens’ first challenges, there was no elimination or winner lip sync. Then again, when season 13 rolled around, we got six lip syncs in the premiere episode as every queen faced off in pairs.
Assuming we’re getting at least one lip sync battle — be it For Your Life of For The Win — in season 15’s two-episode MTV premiere, we can also assume whose song we will be hearing. With Ariana Grande stepping in for her second stint as a guest judge, it’s safe to say that we will likely get a new rendition to one of her tracks.
It’s a position that Grande is very familiar with; the singer once held the record for most songs lip-synced on the show (other than Ru, of course). Today, she’s tied with Whitney Houston for second place, both having eight of their songs performed on the show and its All Stars seasons, while Britney Spears has had nine tracks earn their place on the main stage in 11 different lip syncs.
Which of Ariana’s songs can we expect to hear during the premiere? Tom Campbell, an executive producer of the show since its conception, told Billboard last year that RuPaul has final say over what songs make it onto the show, and he takes a lot of aspects into consideration. “He will reject songs because they’re the wrong tempo, they don’t build, there’s all of these factors he’s thinking about,” he said.
Billboard decided to offer up a few suggestions — below, we list out 10 songs by Ariana Grande that we would love to see featured in an upcoming lip sync on RuPaul’s Drag Race season 15:
Wave that checkered flag, Drag Race fans, because the competition is about to begin.
On Friday (Jan. 6), RuPaul’s Drag Race is set to return for its 15th season, with a bigger batch of queens and an even bigger cash prize — the latest season is set to feature a record number of 16 queens competing for $200,000 and the title of America’s Next Drag Superstar.
Along with its new set of queens, the season will also feature a vast array of celebrity guest judges ready to offer their expertise and advice to the competitors on how to get ahead. Ariana Grande will appear in the season’s premiere episode on Friday, with subsequent episodes set to feature stars like Janelle Monáe, Maren Morris, Hayley Kiyoko, Orville Peck, Ali Wong, Amandla Stenberg, Harvey Guillén, Julia Garner and Megan Statler.
Fans used to viewing the show on VH1 will also have some adjustments to make with season 15 — for the first time in the franchise’s history, RuPaul’s Drag Race will now be aired exclusively on MTV. In a statement released with the news back in December, co-CEOs of World of Wonder (the production company behind Drag Race) Randy Barbato and Fenton Bailey said that they were “delighted” to see the show make the move. “Drag Race is about universal themes of love, self expression, and acceptance — and there has never been a more important time than now for these ideas to be expressed internationally,” they said.
With MTV’s storied history as the primary home for the most iconic music videos of all-time, Billboard asked the 16 queens of RuPaul’s Drag Race season 15 to select their favorites. Below, the queens explain their picks, from Lady Gaga to Beyoncé and beyond:
Look! Up in the sky! It’s a bird! It’s a plane! It’s a new cover song by Adam Lambert!
On Friday (Dec. 30), Lambert shared his latest in a new string of covers with “Holding Out for a Hero,” his rendition of Bonnie Tyler‘s 1984 hit. For his version, Lambert brings the tempo down from its frenetic original pace, and replaces the iconic, chunky piano chords with a syncopated, sinister bass and guitar section that permeates the track. When it comes to his voice, though, the singer keeps the pure glam-rock sound alive with his signature growl as a choir joins him for the chorus.
The new cover comes as Lambert preps his next album, High Drama, for release in the new year. The LP will consist entirely of covers, two of which the star has already shared with the world (his renditions of Noël Coward’s “Mad About the Boy” and Duran Duran’s “Ordinary World,” respectively). High Drama will see Lambert taking on a few other classic singles — such as Culture Club’s “Do You Really Want to Hurt Me?” and Ann Peeble’s “I Can’t Stand the Rain” — while also taking on some contemporary favorites including Billie Eilish’s “Getting Older” and Sia’s “Chandelier.”
“Holding Out for a Hero,” along with being a quintessential song of the ’80s, remains as one of Tyler’s biggest chart hits in her career. While “Total Eclipse of the Heart” and “It’s a Heartache” both landed in the top five of the Billboard Hot 100 (No. 1 and No. 3, respectively), “Hero” stands as her only other top 40 hit to date, reaching its peak of No. 34 in April 1984.
High Drama will be released on Feb. 24. Check out Lambert’s rollicking new cover of “Holding Out for a Hero” above.
In a year that felt at times completely chaotic and at others eerily familiar, one thing is for certain: 2022 never allowed you to let your guard down. Around the world, people struggled to cope as they watched the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the stripping of abortion rights in the U.S., inflation rising across the globe and more. They also celebrated as new breakthroughs in energy and medicine provided potential answers to long-looming problems.
Similarly, the music industry experienced plenty of highs and lows throughout 2022. Artists like Taylor Swift, Drake, Glass Animals and Bad Bunny had record-breaking years on the charts, while stars like Kanye West saw their careers practically go up in smoke around them. Music synchs on television shows like Stranger Things and Euphoria saw record gains, Ticketmaster got placed under the microscope for a massive public meltdown, and TikTok extended its reign over the trends dominating the industry.
When it came to living as an LGBTQ person, 2022 was less than stellar — the continued rollback of LGBTQ protections and rights in the U.S. and elsewhere was a major story throughout the year. Whether it was anti-trans initiatives being promoted by government officials, the loss of LGBTQ life at the hands of another homophobic hate crime, or even the World Cup being hosted by a country that has criminalized sexuality, this year was marked by pain for queer and trans people everywhere.
So, what stories in the music industry offered some respite for the LGBTQ people in need of an escape in 2022? Billboard took a look back at the 10 biggest LGBTQ music stories of 2022 to round out the year:
As 2022 draws to a close, Billboard Pride is taking a look back at some of the queer indie artists who saw their stars rise over the last 12 months. Below, U.K. genre-bender Lava La Rue breaks down their big year.
It’s the end of a busy trip to New York for Lava La Rue. The buzzy, much talked-about indie artist from West London has been in and out of studio sessions and supporting their partner’s gigs around the city, but as they log onto a Zoom call from a Brooklyn hotel room, they look mildly bummed.
“It’s super rainy and gross,” they say, swiveling their camera around to show a cloud-choked skyline just outside their window. “Normally I get this very cute view of everything corny, like the Empire State. Now, it’s just kind of looking like Gotham.” But La Rue acknowledges the weather pattern is just a transitional phase. “It’s been lovely all week, just not today,” they say with a shrug. “It’ll pass.”
La Rue would know what a transitional phase looks like, considering they’ve been actively in one for the last year — throughout 2022, La Rue underwent a shift that brought about a new sound, curated a new audience, and even found the singer a new home for their musical universe. “I think because I started in music fairly young, like in my late teens, some people have been like, “Wow, you’ve been around for quite a long time now,’” they say. “No, I literally feel like I was reborn this year. It feels like starting over almost.”
At the outset of their career in 2018, La Rue was known for their chilled-out, bedroom-rap releases, where the then-19-year-old would effortlessly let their bars flow about everything from cheating lovers to self-criticism on songs like “Widdit” and “F–ked it Up.” But as their career progressed, so did their sound — slick rap verses gave way to groovier, dreamier bedroom-pop tracks, until eventually the singer was in their “lo-fi bedroom” funk-pop era with the 2021 EP Butter-Fly.
La Rue is proud of the music they were able to make for the first three years of their career, especially given their limited access to the necessary tools to make projects like Butter-Fly. But the singer-songwriter quickly points out that their limitations in budget meant a limitation to their sound.
“Before, I had to compromise with the kind of music that I made, and when you have to compromise, you become a ‘lo-fi bedroom’ artist because that’s all you have access to,” they say. “I felt pretty boxed into that label … though I really don’t mind, I have nothing against the genre. It just felt really limiting in that approach — I wanted things to sound bigger and more cinematic.”
So, when it came time to craft their next project, it felt fitting to strip that label away with the title. Hi-Fidelity, La Rue’s third and most ambitious EP yet, saw the young artist plugging in — La Rue credits extended time in the studio to hone a cleaner, sharper sound as the key factor in the transformed sound of their latest project. Put simply, “This was the first time I was making music that sounds like the music I want to listen to,” they say.
Part of what makes Hi-Fidelity such a fascinating listen is that much like the rest of La Rue’s discography, it refuses to be pinned to a singular genre. The star’s signature buttery rap bars remain intact, while they also employ elements of funk, disco, pop-punk and R&B all throughout the EP’s five tracks.
La Rue is unsurprised that genre-fluidity has become a defining factor in what their audience looks for from their music. “There is so much cross-pollination of streaming and finding new music online,” they explain. “Now, a song will just have an inescapable viral moment, and you have people who would not normally listen to Steve Lacy suddenly listening to Steve Lacy. Or people who wouldn’t normally listen to pop-punk or Paramore — if one of their songs pops off on TikTok, suddenly they’re listening to a drill remix of a Paramore single.”
But the fluidity is also the point for La Rue — the 23-year-old artist doesn’t want to be labeled by any particular genre, and instead aims to have people search for music that sounds like Lava La Rue. “I think there’s a playlist on Spotify called ‘Planet Rave,’ and it literally just came from PinkPanthress doing a whole jungle/drum-and-bass revival. I started seeing people making music like PinkPanthress to be on that PinkPanthress-inspired playlist,” they explain. “That is the goal; I’ve always strived to have the level of artistry where what I do is recognizable as a person. Like, it is first and foremost Lava. So no matter what genre you apply it on, you recognize the voice and you recognize what I’m trying to say.”
Achieving an artistry on that level requires new audiences — and luckily for La Rue, they got just that this autumn. Following the release of their EP in July, La Rue joined fellow U.K. indie-rock darlings Wet Leg on their European tour, opening for 8 dates in November across the EU.
With a new, fuller sound, and a big spot on a hotly-anticipated tour, La Rue says they got to learn how to perform with a full band in real time while on the road with Wet Leg. “The live performance now is full-on showmanship — we’ve got an acoustic drum kit, big guitar solos, huge bass riffs, two synthesizers, I’m playing guitar as well,” they explain. “When I first did Glastonbury, it was me and a DJ, and I was singing my cute little songs and rapping and jumping into the moshpit, just me being an MC with the track backing me up. I really had to test my musicality when I couldn’t just hide behind the track.”
But the tour also worked for La Rue in a way they didn’t anticipate — it turns out that getting to perform music you’ve been working on for captive audiences of 4,000 people every few nights is excellent market research. “I almost wasn’t going to do the Wet Leg support tour, because in that time, I was supposed to be going into making my new project,” they say. “But seeing how it feels in a room of people has been so inspiring in the creative process for me. It’s changed the levels in my performance style, even in the way I’m recording things in the vocal booth now.”
When it comes to their new project, La Rue is ready for a full-on rebirth. After completing a two-EP deal with Marathon Artists in 2022, the singer says they’ve just signed on as the newest member of the Dirty Hit roster.
“Dirty Hit made so much sense to me — they’re based in West London, they’re an indie, and they’ve got a lot of artists who I grew up listening to and am obsessed with. It all just fit,” they say, a grin crossing their face. “If you look at the artists on their roster, they all lead with so much creativity, whether it’s The 1975 or Rina Sawayama. It’s also ambitious enough to say, ‘No, let’s make this pop off, too.’ It’s nice to feel like you can be ambitious, but still have creative control.”
So, with a new record deal under their belt and a debut album in the works, what comes next for La Rue? The answer, much like their sound, contains multitudes. “I literally feel like I’m at the beginning of my journey, and my whole goal is to just make everything bigger and brighter and more cinematic,” they explain. “It’s gonna be a whole world-building experience — there’s simply so much to be done.”
As 2022 draws to a close, Billboard Pride is taking a look back at some the queer indie artists who saw their stars rise over the last 12 months. Below, NYC rap veteran Cakes Da Killa breaks down his big year.
Last summer, multiple publications declared that “house music was back,” thanks to superstars like Beyoncé and Drake infusing their new music with its chunky synths and four-on-the-floor drum patterns. For Cakes Da Killa, however, the genre never went anywhere. When asked how aware he was of the “revival” taking place, he quips, “Not at all. Too drunk to pay attention.”
Cakes was also too busy, focusing on his own career this year — after almost a decade of underground success, the NYC rap vet used his 2022 to show the world his versatility and preeminent songwriting with Svengali. Released in October through his new label home Young Arts, the long-awaited second LP proved to be a turning point in Cakes’ career — and one he’s eager to keep building on.
But as the rapper tells Billboard over Zoom, Svengali had been in the works since 2018, and got shelved since the outset of the pandemic in 2020. “It didn’t seem like the time [to release it],” Cakes explains. “I knew I wanted to be a creative person through the pandemic, but I didn’t want to drop a full body of work, like an album, during that time. … But then it was a situation where I had been sitting on this project for four years — this s–t was coming out regardless.”
For Cakes (born Rashard Bradshaw), persevering through adverse release conditions had already been the story of his entire career. Coming up during “the SoundCloud generation,” as he calls it, Cakes gained steam across various internet platforms with the release of his Easy Bake Oven mixtape in 2011. Joining the likes of Mykki Blanco and Le1f, Cakes became a point of fascination for media figures around the U.S., as an openly gay rapper leading the way towards greater visibility.
It’s a theme that continued throughout Cakes’ career — no matter what independent label he signed with or what kind of sound he was making, his sexuality had become the inextricable focal point of his public image, which made attempts to seek out the attention of major labels more difficult. “When I was coming out as an artist, the label system was not prepared for queer artists, so there was no option in the first place — it was like, ‘You’re an independent artist because you’re weird,’” he says.
When the pandemic hit, Cakes had a decision to make — he had crafted a new album that would potentially help re-contextualize his artistic contribution to rap, but that album was also rife with sorrowful themes. Ultimately, the world “had enough of all of that,” he says.
Instead, Cakes unveiled his Muvaland mixtape series with producer Proper Villains as he left his home in New York to move to Atlanta. Released in two volumes throughout the pandemic via HE.SHE.THEY, the sweltering club project saw Cakes leaning into his house roots with wild abandon.
Gaining newfound attention thanks to his booming pandemic club single “Don Dada” and still refining the sound of Svengali with producer Sam Katz, Cakes started 2022 with a big change when he signed an album deal with TOKiMONSTA‘s label, Young Arts Records. By working with a label run by a fellow artist, Cakes says he could see the difference from his past label experiences clearly. “She has this different type of perspective on how to run things, which I appreciate — it’s very artist-focused,” he explains. “The record deal was signed because they genuinely loved what I was doing and what I was making.”
With a renewed outlook on his place in the industry, Cakes looked at his second album and decided, as he puts it “‘F–k it, let’s put it out.’” On Oct. 28, the world was introduced to the world of Svengali, a hypnotic, genre-fused project that saw Cakes take a sharp left turn with his sound — the elements of his hip-house roots remained intact, now bolstered by a darker ambient noise around it.
“Sonically, what me and Sam produced was something that combined a lot of the sounds I listen to on the day to day — that’s jazz, neo-soul, R&B and house music — and the product is something that is so deeply me,” he says. “Muvaland is this very sugar-coated, high fructose corn syrup project, while Svengali is much more grown and refined.”
Cakes’ efforts didn’t go unnoticed: Svengali quickly earned critical acclaim, with Pitchfork writing that the album “feels like a milestone he’s been working toward for years,” and calling Cakes ” a bandleader of the jazz era he reveres, putting on for the divas and icons of his time.” While the album didn’t gain any instant success on platforms like YouTube or TikTok, the rapper says he’s watched his streaming numbers steadily rise since the project’s release.
As the topic of internet virality comes up, Cakes quickly becomes uncomfortable. Yes, he has a TikTok account that he posts on sporadically, and yes, he acknowledges that, without platforms like SoundCloud or Tumblr, his career likely wouldn’t exist. But when it comes to the dominance of TikTok in the current music market, Cakes doesn’t feel great about what it means for artists.
“It’s just so performative, to me,” he says with a sigh. “Historically speaking, that performative thing kind of feels like minstrel shows to me, to be real. I don’t think everyone has that intention, nor do I think it’s the intention of the app. But the connotation that it has — leaning choreography and dancing to get people to like you — doesn’t sit well with me.”
Throughout the conversation, Cakes makes it clear that success will happen on his own terms, not because of a viral trend he capitalized on or a major label deal that got him more radio airplay. He’s hustled before, and he’s happy to hustle again. “I’ve always been a hard worker and somebody who was a go getter,” he explains. “But when the pandemic happened, that was like, ‘The time is now, do what you wanna do. And if you’re gonna do it, make a product that you’re completely in love with. If it’s fab, people will like it.’”
That doesn’t mean he can’t dream, though — Cakes hopes to see the songs off of his upcoming summer project on the Billboard dance charts soon. More importantly, he hopes that his artistic renaissance over the last year allows him to finally be seen as a once-in-a-generation artist.
“I’m just over here trying to cement myself as somebody bigger than the ‘queer rap’ label that the media has placed on me,” he explains. “I’m trying to be considered as a dope songwriter and artist first.”
More shots fired! JoJo Siwa made quite the accusation about her recent breakup with Avery Cyrus in a new TikTok on Tuesday.
Using a viral sound taken from the “My Brother My Brother and Me” YouTube channel, the former Dance Moms star revealed what she was really trying to say onscreen. “But I love you Why are you breaking up with me??!!!” she wrote before offering up two different options: “There’s someone else” and, uh, “You told one of my best friends that you were excited to be dating me bc you’re ‘growing your career and wanna get to the top’…”
By the end of the lip-synced clip, Siwa makes it clear that the reason for her split was, well, not a third party. She also added some dramatic context in the video’s caption, writing, “And when I said I just wanted to be friends so I didn’t lead you on after an unplanned hookup you wanted nothing to do with me because there was nothing to gain anymore.”
The TikTok comes just one day after the Nickelodeon star vented about the breakup in an Instagram Story posted by her mother, Jessalynn Siwa, in which she claimed she “got used…For views and for clout” by the TikToker during their three-month relationship. “I got tricked into being told I was loved and I got f—ing played,” she added.
Though she has yet to offer an opinion on the latest TikTok, Cyrus responded to Siwa’s Instagram accusations, saying she was “saddened and confused by the situation” in a statement to E! News.
Watch Siwa’s latest TikTok below.
As 2022 draws to a close, Billboard Pride is taking a look back at some the queer indie artists who saw their stars rise over the last 12 months. Below, pop singer Chappell Roan breaks down her big year.
When Chappell Roan markets herself as a “thrift store pop star,” she means that in its most literal sense. Even as she logs onto her Zoom account for an interview with Billboard, the 24-year-old singer is opening up a package she ordered online. “There is this girl on Etsy who makes rhinestoned disco cowgirl hats,” she says, tearing into the plastic wrapping in front of her. “So, I ordered one, because I’m going on tour and I have to start prep now for the outfits.”
As she finally opens the bag, she reveals a massive, disco ball-inspired cowboy hat covered in reflective panels and glittering gems. Roan’s jaw drops as she inspects it (“This is so sick,” she whispers), before looking slightly concerned as she dons the sparkling Stetson: “Ooh, that is heavy — I don’t think I can wear this on stage for long.”
Refining her tour outfits is just one small part of what Roan has been up to lately — the rising indie-pop singer-songwriter saw her hard work pay dividends in 2022. Releasing four singles throughout the year to increasing acclaim and growing her online following along the way, Roan is currently enjoying new heights of cultural recognition; her last single “Casual,” along with winding up on multiple “best of 2022” lists, boosted her profile online, with TikTok users quickly comparing pre-release teases of the track to Taylor Swift.
Looking back on her banner year, Roan acknowledges that it feels good to finally be recognized (“Last year I was working at a doughnut shop, so I’m doing great now,” she jokes), but she doesn’t feign shock at finally achieving a breakthrough. “It’s validating … but also not surprising to me,” she says, shrugging. “Like, yeah, I’ve been working my ass off for seven years! It’s about time!”
Back then, Roan was an aspiring singer-songwriter from Willard, Missouri who was simply trying to make it through high school while dreaming of a life in the music industry. After posting some of her music online, the singer traveled to New York City in 2015 for a set of showcases, where she ended up signing a deal with Atlantic Records.
Roan spent five years at Atlantic, workshopping her sound and releasing her debut EP School Nights in 2017. But after putting out what would go on to become her most successful song to date, the label decided to terminate their working relationship with the budding star, dropping Roan from their roster in 2020.
When asked about her time with Atlantic, Roan starts with diplomacy: “It was such an incredible learning experience for me, honestly.” Then, the singer gets real: “It was not great … I feel like once I was dropped, it lit such a fire and fury in me, I swear,” she recalls. “I learned that it’s just like, ‘Oh s–t, no one’s going to do anything for you — not your manager, not your label — if you don’t tell them what to do. No one can do this job for you.’ That’s when I started asking myself how much I could get away with.”
Fortunately for Roan, her time at the label did bear some significant fruit — it was at Atlantic that she first met her songwriting partner Dan Nigro, who has co-written each new release with the singer since her departure. Before he was writing generational breakup anthems for Olivia Rodrigo, the pop-rock auteur was working with Roan on her tracks, earning his first official credit with her for her queer-coded ode to stripping, “Pink Pony Club.”
Unencumbered by label expectations, the singer-songwriter finally began bringing her full creative vision to fruition in 2022. The first step, as she tells it, was nailing her presentation: Gone was an attempt at presenting a clean-cut facade, now replaced by a more effortless deconstruction of style. “Once I let go of trying to be this very well-managed, put-together pop girl, it felt like everything just fell into place,” Roan explains. “I leaned into the fact that my looks were tacky, and very obviously using fake diamonds and Gucci knockoffs. I leaned into my queerness for the first time. When I did that, the songs got easier to write, the shows got easier to design, and my aesthetic was finally there.”
While putting together a rapid-fire rollout schedule of singles throughout the year (including “Naked In Manhattan,” “My Kink Is Karma” and “Femininomenon”), Roan quickly began accruing a fiercely loyal following on TikTok. According to Roan, while she was promoting the release of “Naked in Manhattan” in January 2022, she gained over 30,000 followers in one month, with fans anxiously wondering when the song would come out.
Roan doesn’t see herself as a “TikTok artist” — not necessarily due to fears of pigeonholing, but rather out of a healthy dose of skepticism. “I go so back and forth with TikTok,” she says. “I gained a lot of speed at the beginning of the year with TikTok because I wasn’t busy; I had time to post twice a day, go live once a day, repeat. It doesn’t work when you’re busy.”
The singer knows that because she has, in fact, been busy — along with unveiling her new set of singles, Roan filled the latter half of her year with plenty of touring. After opening for Olivia Rodrigo in May at her San Francisco Sour Tour stop, Roan caught the attention of fellow queer singer-songwriter Fletcher, who offered Roan the opening spot on the second half of her Girl of My Dreams Tour. Embarking on 10 dates with Fletcher, Roan honed her live show in real time while her song “Casual” began to pick up steam online.
“I don’t even know what I discovered, besides the fact that this is incredibly hard,” Roan laughs, looking back on her time opening for Fletcher. “If I’ve learned anything, it’s that the live show is where the heartbeat of the project is. Luckily, it’s my favorite part of what I do — I like touring, but a lot of people hate it because it’s horrible and hard.”
The singer likes touring enough that she’s embarking on her own headlining tour in 2023. Spanning 20 dates through February and March, Roan will be traveling coast to coast with an ambitious performance goal — every show, she says, will be themed. “It’s already really hard to do that on an independent budget — but also coming up with that many different themes is insanely hard,” she says. “But, if the live show rocks, then everything else will trickle down.”
It’s also important to her to create a show worthy of the very queer fanbase she’s garnered — that means making tickets affordable (“College kids don’t have money!” she giggles), keeping her concert spaces safe, and donating $1 of every ticket sold to For the Gworls, a Black, trans-led organization dedicated to helping Black trans people pay for their rent and gender-affirming care. “If I can create a space where people can afford to come into a mostly queer space, and dress up and feel good and meet other queer people in a town where maybe there’s not a lot of other places to meet queer people — a.k.a. my hometown — then that is great,” she says. “That’s doing the world good.”
Her plan is working so far — streams for “Casual” are continuing to rise, approaching the 2 million mark before its second month out on DSPs. Meanwhile, the majority of dates for her headline tour have already sold out, with only a small number of tickets remaining at a few venues. “That’s actually crazy,” she says of her sold-out dates. “My numbers are not that big, comparatively, to other artists. So when things started selling out, it was like, ‘Oh, okay, this is pretty real. I did not know that I could sell out in a day.’”
Despite her building success, Roan is still trying to keep one foot firmly in reality — while being independent has its perks, she says, it’s also not sustainable for the kind of artist she wants to become. “I’m not perfectly fine with being indie, if I’m being honest,” she says. “I need money to hire more help, and I just can’t keep doing everything DIY. I cannot keep asking favors from my friends, it’s just not fair to everyone.”
But now, unlike when she was a 16-year-old signing her first record deal, Roan knows who she is and what she wants (opening for Miley Cyrus, for example, is on her to-do list). “I will not sign a deal unless it is the right deal for me, and it must be mutually beneficial,” she says. “I know that I can do it without a label, which gives me such empowerment to walk away there.”
She pauses, and smiles. “That’s the key, I think; this year has been empowering for me.”