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The arrival of a new Drake song is imminent. On Thursday (April 6), the rapper announced the song “Search & Rescue” in an Instagram post.
“SEARCH & RESCUE OUT AT MIDNIGHT ON ALL PLATFORMS,” the rapper wrote, captioning a photo of him and a girl wearing glossy black motorcycle helmets.
In the photo, Drizzy tagged two producers: BNYX, who has worked with Coi Leray and Yeat on recent tracks, and Sadpony, who produced Drake’s “Jumbotron Sh– Poppin” collaboration with 21 Savage, which appeared on 2022’s Her Loss.
While fans will have to wait just a few more hours to hear the track in full, Drake teased a portion of the song — which was then thought to be titled “Rescue Me” — during The Fry Yiy Show on his SiriusXM Radio station Sound 42 late last week. The track features audio of Kim Kardashian talking about her relationship with ex-husband Kanye West in the E! series finale of Keeping Up With the Kardashians in 2021. “I didn’t come this far, just to come this far and not be happy, remember that,” she says in the sample.
The sample prompted fans to speculate if Drake was taking a shot at West, who now goes by Ye, but the rapper’s father, Dennis Graham, shot down the rumors in the comments section of TMZ‘s Instagram account. “Drake is not trolling anyone, it’s just a song, Why try and create a Kanye and Drake beef again???????????????” he wrote.
Watch Drake’s teaser for “Search & Rescue” in the post below.
Cardi B was looking flawless and fresh-faced on her Instagram Stories on Thursday (April 6), thanks to a little encouragement from her husband Offset.
The “I Like It” rapper took her Stories to share a selfie video, in which she’s seen posing without makeup on, with her jaw tattoo of her son’s name on full display. “My hubby said take a video like this. No makeup, no filter. Period,” she said in the clip.
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Watch her post before it disappears here.
“We’ve been through a lot with each other,” Offset previously told Billboard of keeping his relationship strong with Cardi, whom he’s been married to since 2017. “Some people in Hollywood live through Hollywood, but we live through each other and keep our stuff at home good. We go through ups and downs at home but have a great support system. Everybody listens to each other and have each other’s back. At the end of the day, our mission is to be successful and take care of the family.”
He also added that no matter what he has going on, he will always make time to hang out with his wife and the couple’s two kids, four-year-old daughter Kulture and one-year-old son Wave. “I got to be with my baby. I can’t go too long without her,” the rapper says of Cardi. “If I have to travel and jump on a jet just to get back home, I will. We got the kids at home. That’s why we’re always together. We have to make sure they’re good, because we don’t want to be the parents who are always missing from their kids. We work and come right back home, because it’s really important.”
“I’ve always known that I was supposed to make history,” says poet-author J. Ivy. His natural ability to convey myriad emotions through written and spoken word is why the Chicago native continues to captivate audiences after 30 years. Known to many as a pioneer of hip-hop poetry, he has shared the stage with icons such as Prince and Lauryn Hill and performed at special events for Michael Jordan and Deepak Chopra.
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But perhaps Ivy’s biggest milestone occurred just two months ago at the 65th annual Grammy Awards. That’s when his sixth album, The Poet Who Sat by the Door, won the inaugural gramophone for best spoken word poetry album. Prior to that, poets and spoken word artists were grouped in the same category with audiobooks, storytelling and narration — including Dr. Maya Angelou, who had been the only Grammy-winning poet. However, thanks to Ivy’s lead and a petition supported by 100+ poets, the Recording Academy announced the addition of the best spoken word poetry album category last June.
“To stand in the footsteps of the great Dr. Maya Angelou is something that I’m still processing,” Ivy shares — as April, National Poetry Month, gets underway. “I would say I’ve dropped an ocean of tears. I have the opportunity and the responsibility to represent. To stand in this space and be able to make history … I understand what it is.”
The title of Ivy’s Grammy-winning album was inspired both by his role in establishing the new category and by the 1969 novel/1973 film The Spook Who Sat by the Door. The novel revolves around the exploits of fictional character Dan Freeman, the first Black CIA officer. “I was gathering information and giving it back to the poetry community,” Ivy recalls of creating and recording the album. “I kept cracking this joke, ‘I’m like the poet who sat by the door.’”
Produced primarily by R&B/hip-hop artist Sir the Baptist, Ivy’s latest opus features cogent lyrics about defiance, endurance, love, passion, oppression, faith, healing and redemption. Ivy called on “an amazing cast of creatives” to perform, including John Legend, Ledisi, PJ Morton, BJ The Chicago Kid and Ivy’s singer-songwriter wife Tarry Torae. As the first Black poet from Chicago to appear on Russell Simmons Presents HBO Def Poetry, Ivy remains true to showcasing the value of his craft.
“A lot of times poetry is the butt of the joke — and we’ve never been a joke,” he explains. “Poetry is the seed of every song ever written. Also every movie, every script, every commercial, every literature comes from poetry. It educates, documents history, entertains, changes and shifts lives in a positive way.”
Born James Ivy Richardson II, the artist credits his high school English teacher Paula Argue for pushing him to perform his poetry at the school’s Black History Month talent show. “What I learned is you’re not gon’ argue with somebody named Ms. Argue,” he says. After a surprise standing ovation, his destiny was set.
Ivy also shouts out Beyoncé for another early career milestone. “A very credible source,” he recalls, “told me that she was the one who told Kanye [West] to keep me on ‘Never Let Me Down.’” Ivy was featured along with Jay-Z on the track from 2004’s The College Dropout.
“The same night I recorded ‘Never …’ is the same night I met John Stephens,” Ivy continues. “His music sounded like music my folks used to listen to back in the day. So I was like, ‘You sound like one of the legends.’ Everybody else [in the studio] is shouting him out like ‘John Stephens in the house.’ I was like, ‘John Legend.’ Everybody looked at me and back at him. Then Kanye said, ‘Man, you John Legend from now on.’”
In addition to his Grammy win, Ivy performed on and executive produced The Urban Hymnal by the Tennessee State University marching band. Also known as the Aristocrat of Bands, the group also made Grammy history this year as the first marching band to win the award for best gospel roots album.
“I’m just super grateful to be doing what I love,” says Ivy — who was also the lead writer, voice director and cast member on the 2022 Netflix docuseries, jeen-yuhs: A Kanye Trilogy. “It’s opened up a lot of doors.”
Having recently celebrated J. Ivy Day in Chicago on March 3, his 47th birthday, Ivy has also been tapped as the new spokesperson for Bulleit Bourbon. Future plans include expanding beyond previous roles as writer and narrator of short films and documentaries to full-fledged movie actor. Between acting classes, Ivy will soon release the short film/music video for “Running.” It’s the first single from The Poet Who Sat by the Door and features Legend, Slick Rick and Verse. The video is directed by Ivy’s longtime friends and collaborators Coodie and Chike of jeen-yuhs fame.
“It’s probably the only record in history with Slick Rick doing a poem,” notes Ivy.
Right now, the busy Ivy is on the road with his City Winery tour, named after the album and in celebration of the Grammy win. The multi-city tour kicked off in New York City on March 24. Upcoming dates include Boston (April 11) and Atlanta (4/23), with more to come. Performing poetry from his current album as well as popular pieces from past works, he’s accompanied by his band and Tarrey Torae on vocals.
“People are going to see me just pouring out all my gratitude,” declares Ivy. “I want to give the world an experience that they haven’t quite had with poetry. Poetry has saved my life; it’s carried me through the years. I just want to give all that back onstage.”
Forget “I’ll be watching you,” it’s “I’ll be paying you” when it comes to Diddy and Sting. The rapper shared in a tweet on Wednesday (April 5) that he pays the mighty hefty sum of $5,000 a day to the legendary singer for using a sample of The Police’s classic hit “Every Breath You Take.”
For those doing the math (or are math averse), that comes to an astounding total of $1.825 million per year.
Diddy’s revelatory tweet was in response to a resurfaced clip of Sting’s March 2018 interview on The Breakfast Club in which the singer-songwriter — who penned the lyrics to the song — confirms that the “It’s All about the Benjamins” artist pays him daily for reportedly not getting permission before sampling the hit in Diddy’s on “I’ll Be Missing You.”
“Is it true that Diddy had to pay you two grand a day because he didn’t have permission to sample ‘Every Breath You Take’?” host Charlamagne Tha God asks in the clip. Sting replies with a quick, “Yeah,” but also emphasized, “for the rest of his life.” The 12-time Grammy winner did go on to also confirm that Diddy did finally get clearance for the sample, though after the fact.
In the hip-hop star’s retweet of the resurfaced clip, he corrected to note that it’s $3,000 more than what Sting noted. But no hard feelings between the two music heavy-weights, though. “Love to my brother @OfficialSting!” Diddy noted in his tweet, including a smily, sunglass-wearing face emoji and heart hands.
The feeling appears to be mutual. In the 2018 interview, Sting adds of Diddy, “We’re very good friends now.”
The rapper’s hit “I’ll Be Missing You” was written to honor friend and collaborator Notorious B.I.G after the rapper was fatally shot in March 1997. The song — a collab with Faith Evans and featuring 112 — debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 on June 14, 1997, and stayed atop the chart for 11 weeks. It remained on the all-genre tally for a total of 33 weeks.
“Every Breath You Take,” which debuted on the chart in June 1983, peaked at No. 1 in July that year, and remained at the top for eight weeks.
See Diddy’s tweet and the clip of Sting’s The Breakfast Club interview below.
Chlöe Bailey dished on the negative reaction to her Chris Brown collaboration “How Does It Feel” in a new interview on Wednesday (April 5).
“I always just wanna let the music speak for itself,” the R&B star told Audacy’s V-103 podcast. “And to be honest, no matter what I do, people always find things to say about it, so I’m used to it. I just choose to ignore it. People have every right to their opinions, freedom of speech, and it’s up to me to choose what I give my attention and energy to.”
Most critics of the track took issue with the Chloe x Halle singer working with Brown given his well-documented history of violence against women, dating back to his 2009 assault of then-girlfriend Rihanna.
“Nah it’s just weird seeing Chris Brown collaborate with a black woman artist,” one fan commented on the music video for the song, which was the second single from Chlöe’s just-released debut solo album In Pieces. Since then, she’s also dropped videos for the emotive, piano-driven title track and “Cheatback,” featuring Future.
Later in the same interview, Chlöe also addressed uproar over her sex scene in the new Prime Video series Swarm. “To be honest with you, you just saw a– in a mirror,” she said about some viewers clutching their pearls over the graphic scene. “And all you really heard were noises, and I’m a vocalist. People claim I moan on songs anyways. So it wasn’t anything new. It’s just because it’s me, and I’m a Black woman, and nobody really said anything about the male counterpart in the scene.”
She then dropped the mic about how she views her journey in the spotlight, saying, “Everything I’m doing is ordained by God, and I’m walking in my purpose, and anybody who has a problem with that can kiss my booty.”
Listen to Chlöe’s entire interview on the Audacy podcast here.
Robert Glasper and his Blue Note Jazz Festival are returning with a high-octane lineup set to leave Napa Valley with excitement. The Grammy Award winning polymath locked in Mary J. Blige, Nas and Chance The Rapper as this year’s headliners, with Dave Chapelle returning as the host.
From July 28-30, Glasper, the festival’s artist-in-residence, will have special guests join him, including De La Soul, Bilal, and Lalah Hathaway, along with surprise acts. The weekend will also include performances from the duo NXworries (Anderson .Paak & Knxwledge), Ari Lennox, Cordae, Gary Clark Jr, Parliament Funkadelic featuring George Clinton, Rakim and DJ Jazzy Jeff, Talib Kweli and Madlib, PJ Morton, Smino and more. Last year’s lineup boasted headliners like Chaka Khan, Black Star, and Maxwell.
“This festival represents out-of-the-box things, influencers, trailblazers — people that don’t feel the need to succumb to normality of popular music,” Glasper told Billboard last year. “More and more of those kinds of people are popping up and finding the courage to be the artist that represents that.”
In February, Glasper netted a Grammy win for best R&B album. Black Radio III trumped the competition, defeating Chris Brown (Breezy), Lucky Daye (Candy Drip), Mary J. Blige (Good Morning Gorgeous) and PJ Morton (Watch the Sun). The set also included a slew of musical all-stars, including Q-Tip, Common, Erykah Badu and Jennifer Hudson. The win sparked a social media outburst from Chris Brown, who lambasted the winner. “Who the f–k is Robert Glasper,” he wrote. Brown later apologized, and Glasper turned the insult into an act of altruism as he printed “Who the F**k is Robert Glasper” shirts to benefit a New Orleans music nonprofit.
See the full lineup for the Blue Note Jazz Festival below.
Believe it or not, the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic wasn’t all that long ago. It’s been less than three years since the country went on lockdown, leaving U.S. residents stuck at home in quarantine as they worried about when they’d ever be able to safely walk outside. A lack of live concerts was one of many worries that were impacting the real world.
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Black Thought and Leon Michels were locked inside too — but they began to tap into their artistry to lock into some of the most prolific moments of their respective careers. Each of them was already accomplished. Black Thought is the lead MC of the revered hip-hop band The Roots, known as an unimpeachable lyricist who crafted thoughtful albums such as Things Fall Apart, wrecking the mic on viral moments like a Funk Flex freestyle that clocks in at over 10 minutes, and joining his bandmates every week on The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon. Michels is a founding member of Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings and the founder/bandleader of El Michels Affair, a self-described “cinematic soul group” that has produced for or been sampled by A-list artists like Jay-Z and Beyoncé, Lizzo, Eminem and Lana Del Rey.
Along the way, the two began sending music back and forth to create Glorious Game, an album that finds Thought dropping gems over a dynamic mix of production by Michels. Some songs are live instrumentation all the way through, while others came from Michels crafting original compositions and then sampling his own work. But Black Thought is focused regardless of his partner’s approach: He unloads with in-the-pocket flows, colorful storytelling, and poetic sheen.
The duo’s new album is only the latest in a busy, nonstop stream of productivity from them over the past three years. Black Thought released 2022’s Cheat Codes album with producer Danger Mouse, recorded original programming with the audiobook company Audible, and has the next installment of his Streams of Thought EP series in the can already. El Michels Affair released the album 2021’s Yeti Season, Ekundayo Inversions with Liam Bailey, and also worked on Lady Wray’s Piece of Me, as well as songs with Norah Jones and Mary J. Blige.
Dropping next Friday (April 14), Glorious Game is brilliant in its own right, and neither artist seems to have any intention of slowing down. “I got a chance to experience what it felt like to be almost ahead of time, ahead of myself, in that I’ve had such a full clip of unreleased material,” Michels tells Billboard. “I’ve just been creative in such a high capacity that I don’t want to go back to the way it feels to have to do a deal, sit down with someone to figure out what you’re going to do and then go to take marching orders and fulfill the assignment. This is the way for me.”
In a Zoom call from their respective spaces, Black Thought and Leon Michels speak about sparking their creativity and maintaining their sanity during the pandemic — as well as the honor of helping LL Cool J revisit his ‘80s greatness, and why the Roots frontman sees himself as the greatest rapper of all time.
How did you two first meet?
Leon Michels: I met Dave Guy when I was like 17, and he used to play trumpet with the Dap-Kings. He got a call to join The Roots on the Fallon show, and then Tariq and Dave became friends. Dave would bring Thought by the studio and we would just jam, making music impromptu with no real project in mind. And we used to do these annual concerts for the Baxter Street Art Foundation, these 40-minute sets of music.
Black Thought: I got my hands on a Kenny Dope mixtape back in the day, one of his Soul Trippin series where he would mix up a lot of contemporary and older music. A lot of the stuff that I gravitated towards on this particular tape, come to find out, was stuff that was under the Daptone umbrella. So it was ensembles that were closely related to Leon, many of which he played some instrumentation in some way, shape, or form on. I just remember being amazed at how authentically they were able to capture the way music used to sound. I would come to find out it was probably attributable to them using a lot of the same equipment, and the whole analog-ness of it all in their recording process.
We had a Roots Picnic in New York City, and it happened to have been my birthday weekend. I got my favorite DJs to spin — Stretch Armstrong and Rich Medina — and I got one of the bands that Leon was playing in at that time. I think it was under the Menahan Street Band configuration, but I would come to find out that it’s all the same dudes; they may switch instruments, or call the same group a different name on a different day.
When we were going through our transition from Late Night to The Tonight Show, we were doing one of our last runs through Southeast Asia and Australia during a hiatus. [Television producer] Lorne Michaels suggested, “I think I think we need more horns,” so we had to expand The Roots’ band. We all knew who my favorite guys were, and our manager at the time, Rich Nichols, who his favorites were. We wound up reaching out to Dave Guy, and to Ian [Hendrickson-Smith], who plays saxophone with us now, and they began to transition into our band.
At that point, I started just rolling with Dave to the studio. I was a fan, I just wanted to come and be a fly on the wall to see how what’s made is made. James Poyser started to come through, Questlove — a lot of us sort of started making our way out to the Diamond Mine to soak up the energy and inspiration. I think at that point, we decided that it would make sense to do a thing at some time together.
You guys started to work on this album during the top of the pandemic, in 2020. The album has tones of despair at times that feel specific to that, but these songs also would make sense no matter when they dropped. Where were you two creatively and emotionally during that time?
Black Thought: Emotionally, I was dealing with a lot of the same fears and anxiety as everyone else. But from a creative aspect, I hit a stride and became more productive than I probably had in recent years. The Tonight Show continued, but it had become remote. “Two birds with one stone” doesn’t even begin to cover the amount like the number of items that I had in the fire.
The Roots, we signed our first deal when I was 18 or 19. I was always in a recording studio — so that was like my church, just the whole brick-and-mortar of it all. So it took a long time for me to wrap my head around working from my garage. But once it became a necessity and I had no choice, I dove all the way into it. I would record some of the Danger Mouse stuff, then I would record some Leon stuff, then I would work on my Audible Original. I had full days of work; I would leave the house and go across the driveway into my garage at 8 or 9 in the morning, and be busy until 8 or 9 at night doing back-to-back stuff.
Everything just took on a different level of importance — it almost became, “this might be some of the shit they dig up if we don’t make it to the other side of this. I want them to know that we were writing and recording some beautiful stuff.” It became representative of not only me in this particular moment, but of a generation.
The idea is always to create a thing that’s going to be timeless, because you never know when those planets and stars are going to align [on the business side]. You never want to write anything that’s going to eventually feel dated. So the idea was not to follow any trends — which was perfect, because that’s right on brand with what Leon already does. This is the guy who, I couldn’t tell if this s–t was recorded in the ‘60s or the early 2000s when I first discovered him.
And it brought out a different sort of storytelling. I think my writing came to transcend time on this project. There’s some stuff that creates a visual in the context of imagery from the past, but there’s also Afrofuturism, and there’s also being present in this moment. It’s dope that we were able to bring that out of one another, and at a distance for a good chunk of it. Once we did start having in-person sessions, it was to put the icing on the proverbial cake.
Leon Michels: I already used music as an escape from problems in my life. That’s one of the greatest things about music: It’s like therapy. So when the pandemic hit, my knee-jerk reaction was to just immerse myself in music and work. We all went through it, so we all know how scary it was in the beginning. That was the only way I could get through the day. At the same time as I was doing this record, I was finishing up Yeti Season, and I was recording, like, Turkish fuzz guitar, and just thinking to myself, “In the scope with the world, what am I even doing right now?” But at the same time, it made me feel good.
Thought hit me up and said, “Send me music. I’m trying to stay busy.” The energy coming back was was so much: I sent him three songs, and a week later, I got all three back. Sometimes I’d get them back the next day. So I think there was just this urgency we both had. As soon as we did the first one, we already knew it was dope, so that was incentive to keep going. But also just to keep ourselves busy. I was very productive during the pandemic because it was the only thing keeping my head above water.
For both of you, the live element plays a big part in your creativity. How much did being in quarantine and unable to play for an audience impact your process?
Leon Michels: One of the things I learned that became very clear during quarantine was just the addition of [having] a person in the room — even if you’re not making music with them, but just having a cheerleader. Not having that, you have to make adjustments. You need people to say, “Yo, this is dope, let’s keep going.” So that proved tough. The way I got through that was — I would just tap out when that would happen. I would have these four-hour work days, and then just be done.
But to your other question, in terms of pulling inspiration all the time, I try to look at music as a job. You go to the studio every day from 9 to 5, some days suck and some days you catch a wave and you follow it. You only get those waves when you get them. But if you do it every day, you’re gonna get it more than if you don’t.
Black Thought: I agree. I’d say it was hit or miss, but more peaks than valleys. And not only the audience, but I began to take into account just all of the things and people and relationships that I had taken for granted, for better or worse. Some things you just assume because they’ve always been there, that they’re always going to be there. And when that shit is gone, it hits different. So I definitely missed the audience. And it doesn’t have to be 100,000 people. It could be an audience of one, 10, or 15. After a certain point, it was huge to see the rest of The Roots. We started to come together for those corporate gigs, and it’d just be us in a rehearsal studio with cameras. But still, just being around the rest of the ensemble was huge. And that’s audience enough: the brotherhood, the camaraderie.
But one thing that was spooky that we did during the pandemic was a benefit concert for the Apollo Theater. It was called Save Our Stages. We performed just for cameras, in a completely empty Apollo Theater. It was just us and the ghosts. You can feel a lot of those spirits, just ghosts and the energy, the residual energy of audiences past and so many performers past. They’re in the walls, it’s in the buildings. It was eerie to be in there and to feel that presence. That was a freaky one for me. A lot of venues that shut down during the pandemic still weren’t able to open back up, so it was about saving some of our iconic theaters and amphitheaters.
Thought, you said that your new standard is zoning in with one producer. What do you look for when deciding who that next producer is going to be? Do you try to make each producer different from the others?
Black Thought: It’s not a conscious effort to say, “I’m gonna make sure this guy is nothing like that guy.” It’s more of a like-mindedness, being able to latch onto some part of myself that I see within this other person. Once I’m able to identify that, that’s where we dial in. It’s not like you have to like everything I like, or we have to come from the same place. But any one of thousands of different variables that I’m able to see in someone makes it worthwhile to work with them.
I’ve found myself in quite a few equations where somebody hires me as a ghostwriter, or my label hooks up with this person’s label. And you find yourself in a room, sometimes with people you’ve yet to find what it is that you have in common. That’s when it’s work, work, work. And I’m not here for that s–t. I’m 50, you know what I’m saying? I do this because I love it, so it can’t be a heavy lift for me to engage in the process. That’s important, too. That just comes with, “Wow, there’s some familiarity, there’s something that I see in you that already existed in me.”
Leon Michels: In my career, I’d say 98% of the time — the music I’ve made that really works, there’s usually some sort of friendship before music. You have to like a person to make a record; even if it’s instrumental, it’s a personal thing you’re going on.
Black Thought: Yeah, it’s an exchange of energy in that way. It’s very personal, very intimate. You can’t really fake it. The closest you can come to faking it is through the advances in technology. You could do a bunch of electro shit, tweak it sonically, put thousands of layers of synthetic additives and preservatives to make it gel. But when you’re working with live instrumentation and analog equipment, recording to tape and shit like that, it’s gotta be the real deal. You can smell it.
Thought, you’ve worked with The Roots, Leon, and all of these other producers. And even on The Tonight Show and at Roots Picnic, you work with different guest performers. You’re bringing Diddy to this year’s picnic. How much does working with all of these other artists help you learn how to stretch your own creativity?
Black Thought: There are levels to it. Working with artists like LL, Rakim, Big Daddy Kane, Chuck D, and receiving their stamp of approval and having them look to me for any level of guidance. Recently, there was this bit we did on the Grammys that was inspired by a skit at the end of LL’s first album. It was on the cassette version, right before you turn the tape over. It was probably a throwaway moment for him as a young person that he probably has no recollection of some 30 or 40-odd years later. But it was super impactful for me as an emerging artist, and it’s something that I’ve maintained access to in my mental ROM of sorts.
Some people were filming while we were rehearsing this thing; I was teaching him this little bit that I’d written, and I’d changed the words, but it was his melody, his routine from when he was like 16 years old. He was so animated and excited to learn it. Visibly, his energy is on a bean; and I’m sitting there just super focused, hands in my pockets and slightly bobbing my head. Everybody who looks at this tape is like, “Yo, you act like you’re not an LL fan. Why you frontin’?” I’m like, it’s not even that. I’m such a fan that I’m laser-focused on maintaining the integrity of this thing that he created, especially now, at a point in time where he might not even remember that s–t.
But it was so important to me. That’s collaboration at its best, for me: when I get to work with someone and indicate to them how important this thing was. It may have just been a regular Monday for them in 1985, but had it not been for this, I wouldn’t be here. I wouldn’t have been able to provide for my family in the way that I’m able to now. Those are the moments that are super important. That’s when I get to work with the OGs.
For the longest time, the conversation about you seemed to be focused on, “Black Thought is the most underrated rapper.” Now, the respect and adulation is there, based on not only your moments with The Roots, but your solo career. Talk about that evolution and if there was any tension amongst the group when you pursued solo endeavors.
Black Thought: For me, it’s just been a natural evolution. There was a point in my career when people would always come up and say, “Yo, you’re the most underrated rapper.” But I mean, if everyone says you’re underrated, then I’m rated! [Chuckles.] I’ve got a great deal of respect for very many artists. And it’s not just OGs; I keep my ear to the street, I associate with emerging artists, I reach out to folks who have no idea that I’m their fan, I build bridges and develop relationships. There’s no one that I’ve ever had a great deal of respect for who it wasn’t mutual. All the validation that I’ve ever needed, I’ve always received from anybody whose opinion matters to me. So that’s created a level of security.
I’ve never had anything to prove. I’ve always been humbled, and I’ve always been a team player. It’s not always about getting my shine, and that’s why I’m still here. As far as artist rankings and where I fall as an MC, I think I’m probably one of the best dudes, if not the best dude. I’m not saying I’m without flaw, but I’m such a student of the culture that I’m aware of my flaws and I’m aware of everyone else’s as well. And I’m aware of everyone else’s insecurities. And I think they’re aware that I’m aware. That’s why when you go down a list of artists that rappers want to rap with, I don’t rank high on those lists. I rank high on the list of, “let’s act like this motherfucker does not exist, because it will better serve my brand.” [Laughs.]
Starting to work outside of The Roots, that happened in a natural way. I’ve had my own record deals throughout my career, but it just wasn’t time to deliver those pieces yet. I’ve been working on different albums here and there, and at whatever moment in time, we just came to the decision that it will better serve our collective and the greater good to either scrap the project, put it on hold, or break it down and say, “This isn’t a Black Thought project, we’re gonna call it The Roots.” We started this group in 1987, and I’m better today than I was yesterday, and I was better the day before that than I was in the ‘90s, the ‘80s, and so on and so forth. We continue to evolve and continue to get better. And I don’t know that if I’d done it any other way — I might have received those accolades at the moment in 1998, but I don’t know that I would still be able to receive them now. Or that I would have been able to reinvent myself in the way that I am right now.
I was driving home from work last night and picked up my daughter from school. She’s 17. She said, “Dad, you got any ops?” In order to be my op, we got to be on the same level for me to even consider anything that you say or do in a way that’s worthy of my response. So for any other rapper to be my op, you got to be able to go perform at the White House, and then go perform with Griselda, and then be on Sesame Street the next day. That’s the space that my career has afforded me to exist in, and there’s nobody else that’s on that level.
So no, I don’t got no ops, I don’t have any competition. It’s only one Roots, it’s only one Black Thought, and I wouldn’t be able to exist in this space that I do had it not been for The Roots. So I’m thankful for that association, and for being able to blend into something bigger than myself for all these years. I’ve never had to bite my tongue, I’ve never had to change what I stand for, or rap in a different way. And I’ve still been able to have entry into anywhere that I wanted to be in the world. That’s from The Roots as an ensemble, and I’m still that dude. I’m the GOAT. That’s how I look at it.
Daniel Caesar holds himself to a predictable and impossible standard: “perfection,” he says.
It explains the title of his upcoming third album, NEVER ENOUGH (out April 7), which is the Toronto native’s first release since signing with Republic Records two years ago. It will also usher in a new, more alternative sonic chapter for the 27-year-old singer-songwriter. “If I was a punk artist, then I would want to be something else,” he says. “It’s really just not wanting to be boxed into anything.”
Caesar veered close to perfection in the early days of his rise, entering the industry with his 2017 debut, Freudian, which positioned him as R&B’s burgeoning golden child from north of the border. Freudian landed two singles on the Billboard Hot 100: “Get You,” featuring Kali Uchis and “Best Part,” alongside H.E.R. The latter — one of three Adult R&B Airplay chart-toppers for Caesar — earned him a Grammy Award for best R&B performance (“I crossed that off much sooner in my life than I ever thought I would,” he says of the win).
By year’s end, he landed two songs on former President Barack Obama’s favorite tracks of the year list. Perhaps most impressively, Caesar did it all as an independent artist working alongside a tight-knit team of fellow Canadian creatives and close friends. Together, they founded Golden Child Recordings after attending a handful of label meetings and realizing they already had all the resources to succeed. “The music was making some money, so we just kept reinvesting in ourselves,” says Caesar. “I’d never made any sort of music without them. It was everything I knew.”
Daniel Caesar photographed March 16, 2023 in New York.
Lea Winkler
But Freudian’s follow-up, 2019’s Case Study 01, struggled to replicate its predecessor’s success after Caesar shared controversial opinions on race relations on Twitter and Instagram Live. During one particular livestream, where he said he was drunk, Caesar questioned why the Black community was being “mean” to white people, saying, “That’s not equality.”
The subsequent backlash took him by surprise, and Caesar says he underestimated the reach and impact of his opinions. “I understand why it happened. I understood it then as well. I’m just so combative, and I didn’t think that I was wrong,” he admits today. “I was trying to move through the world [according to] how I think it should be and not how it is.”
It’s his comfort with vulnerability that makes Caesar’s introspective take on music feel like a deep sigh of relief, each sonic exhalation breathing new life into the R&B space. It is also what made his fall from grace an even harder pill for fans to swallow.
“I try to keep my privacy and not to speak too much to the public [out of] fear of being misunderstood,” he explains today. “My best mode of communication is music.”
Daniel Caesar photographed March 16, 2023 in New York.
Lea Winkler
Despite the overshadowing controversy, Case Study further cemented Caesar’s avant-garde take on R&B and proved a cohesive, replay-worthy body of work that boasted a No. 1 record on the Adult R&B Airplay chart, the Brandy-assisted “Love Again.”
Less than a year later, as the pandemic hit, Caesar took refuge at the “middle-of-nowhere” 36-acre farm he had bought his parents, located in a town two hours outside of Toronto. It was there that the Bajan-Jamaican artist began reconciling the last few years of his come-up — and contemplating how to advance his career.
Like many, Caesar maintained sanity by picking up quarantine hobbies, such as chess and studying Paulo Coelho’s The Alchemist. He also went back to work: In 2021, he scored a Hot 100 No. 1 for his feature on Justin Bieber’s smash “Peaches” (alongside Giveon), and last year, he featured on Omar Apollo’s “Invincible.”
At the same time, he was focused on NEVER ENOUGH. Unlike the star-studded Case Study 01, Caesar returned to what he knows best: working both independently and with Toronto collaborators like badbadnotgood, Jordan Evans and Matthew Burnett and even his little brother, Zachary Simmonds, who co-wrote and co-produced “Valentina.”
The tracklist went through three iterations, with Caesar saying he initially felt anxious ahead of the album’s release. But he found reassurance in remembering why he makes music in the first place: “For me,” he declares, “it’s literally just to get these feelings off my chest. To make myself proud.”
Caesar’s demeanor is refreshingly self-aware. As he sits at a desk in his sunlight-soaked Manhattan loft, he weaves through the questions that kept him up at night and inspired the 15-track set. “If you dangle enough money in front of me, will I change my belief system? Can a woman make me change my world view? Or the proposition of sex? What do you fold on yourself for?” he asks rhetorically. “I’ve [folded] on myself and it’s hard. Those are the things that I beat myself up over.”
NEVER ENOUGH centers the introspective bars, soothing blend of woozy guitar and hypnotic harmonies fans have come to expect from Caesar, with hints of cross-genre influences. Phrases like “Do I titillate your mind?” do just that while suspended chords and R&B structure on tracks like “Always” and “Cool” resonate with purist listeners.
“When people ask me what kind of music I make, I always say R&B. Just to simplify things,” he says, adding that he senses a lack of innovation in the space. Luckily at Republic, Caesar has even more resources to continue expanding the genre space.
“I was finding it hard at Golden Child to be a record exec and an artist at the same time,” he says. “This was something I needed to do for myself for my development. I was like, ‘If I don’t do it, it’s because I’m scared.’ And I hate living in fear.”
Daniel Caesar photographed March 16, 2023 in New York.
Lea Winkler
Caesar met with eight or nine labels, saying he considered Columbia and Warner before signing with Republic. “Republic was actually the label where I said, ‘I would never go there,’ ” he recalls. “It’s just such a big label. They have all the biggest acts. I would be the least important person there.” But after meeting with label founder/CEO Monte Lipman and then-senior vice president of A&R Julian Swirsky, it became clear the label’s help would allow him to do exactly what he wanted: focus on his craft — and his fans. “I felt for a while, especially over [the pandemic], like I didn’t have a relationship with them, or it was severely fickle,” he says. “Like they love the songs, but they don’t care about me — which is completely reasonable. Why should they care about me?”
To reconnect, he met fans where they were: from the favelas of Brazil during Carnival (a country where he realized he has a large listenership) to his newly launched Discord channel (“It’s some Gen Z sh-t for real,” he jokes). He’ll celebrate the album’s release by kicking off his intimate North American and European underplay tour, One Night Only: An Evening With Daniel Caesar, which will begin April 7 in Los Angeles.
For Caesar, NEVER ENOUGH chronicles his path to becoming his own man while finding a balance between longtime trusted collaborators and welcoming well-established executives into the mix. “I always tell people, ‘I don’t believe in God. I believe in myself and the people around me that I love,’ ” he says. “I believe in our capabilities.”
A version of this story originally appeared in the April 1, 2023, issue of Billboard.

The image of a grim-faced Donald Trump at the defendants’ table on Tuesday (April 4) during the former president’s arraignment on 34 felony charges of falsifying business records to cover up hush payments to a porn actress made history for a number of reasons.
But amidst the avalanche of coverage of the first former commander in chief to be criminally arraigned — Trump pleaded not guilty to all the charges — one thing you may have missed was an Instagram Story from Meek Mill about another bizarre wrinkle to the tale.
“Trump graduated from the streets… sharing criminal lawyers [with us]… Joe Tactical,” Meek wrote below the now-iconic image of a glum Trump seated in a Manhattan court room flanked by his lawyers, according to Complex. Meek was moved to weigh in because the man to Trump’s left was none other than lawyer Joe Tacopina, who was part of Mill’s legal team during the rapper’s successful bid to overturn his sentence for violating probation form a decade-old gun and drug case.
Another slide in the Story printed up the receipts tying Meek to twice-impeached Trump, depicting the MC standing next to Tacopina after a hearing. The two worked together when Tacopina — a tough-talking attorney known for representing rapper YG on suspicion of robbery, Sopranos actor Lillo Brancato on murder/weapons charges and actress Taryn Manning on assault charges — helped get Meek sprung from jail after serving five months on the probation violation.
Trump has denied the claims that he personally wrote checks to reimburse his former fixer, Michael Cohen, to pay for the silence of two women the former Apprentice star allegedly had affairs with during the 2016 presidential election. Trump, who is running for president for a third time, is due back in court in December.
Childish Gambino‘s “This Is America” was praised upon its 2018 release as a searing, poignant commentary on race and police brutality in the nation. But, honestly, according to a new GQ cover story interview with Donald Glover, the song started as something much less noble: a jokey Drake diss track.
“I had the idea three years before. I told [director] Hiro [Murai] the idea, and he’s like, ‘I really want to do that.’… The idea for the song started as a joke,” he said in a video accompanying the interview in which the actor/rapper broke down his most iconic roles, including Lando Calrissian in Solo, Earn in Atlanta and Troy Barnes in Community. “To be completely honest, ‘This is America’ — that was all we had was that line. It started as a Drake diss, to be honest, as like a funny way of doing it. But then I was like, this s–t sounds kind of hard though. So I was like, let me play with it.”
Glover’s Gambino heated up a mostly one-sided feud with Drizzy in 2014 when he said during an Australian gig this his rapper alter ego was better than Drizzy, Kendrick Lamar and ScHoolboy Q combined. He later said his bravado was just part of the gig, no hate intended and the two have reportedly become friends in he years since.
He said he and Murai studied Michael Jackson’s iconic 1983 “Thriller” video for a long time to figure out “how do you make something… how do you make people care about anything anymore?… Well, you have to have a moment in real time.” What informed the song that went on to win record and song of the year at the 20919 Grammy Awards, he said, was all the Black Lives Matter social protests at the time, which inspired him to make what he described as a “‘We Are The World,’ like for trap [music.]”
And, in addition to shooting it on film for added drama, he said it was three total takes to give it that “continuous” feel.
The interview also touched on Glover meeting Ludwig Göransson when the future Oscar-winning composer (and Gambino collaborator) was working on the music for Community while describing their “amazing chemistry.” Glover also talked about how not getting a shot at Saturday Night Live — pal Amy Poehler reportedly told him his edgy stand-up is what scotched the deal — was probably a good thing.
“I dodged so many bullets. Me being on SNL would’ve killed me,” he said. “I got friends who made it on SNL and, at the time, I was like, damn. But if I got on SNL, my career wouldn’t have happened. Thank God I didn’t get some of those pilots. I wanted so desperately to be on Parks and Rec because it was the cool, hipster show.”
The interview about Glover’s new production company Gilga, included news of Glover mentoring former first daughter Malia Obama on her first short film. “The first thing we did was talk about the fact that she will only get to do this once. ‘You’re Obama’s daughter,’” he recalled telling her. “So if you make a bad film, it will follow you around.”
His longtime collaborator and Gilga creative partner, Fam Udeorji, said the plan was to support Malia in her creative endeavors however they can. “Understanding somebody like Malia’s cachet means something,” he said. “But we really wanted to make sure she could make what she wanted — even if it was a slow process.”
Watch the GQ interview below.