State Champ Radio rookie of the month
In 2021, California native Chayce Beckham joined the lineage of artists whose talent captured viewers’ ears and hearts during his winning run on American Idol. But the narrow passageway from talent competition to bonafide star is littered with artists who never successfully made that transition.
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Beckham is not among them — thanks to “23,” his newly minted, first Billboard Country AirplayNo. 1 hit, which reached the chart pinnacle this past week (on the chart dated April 6). In the process, he joins an elite class of Idol winners to earn a Country Airplay No. 1, including Carrie Underwood, Scotty McCreery and Kelly Clarkson. Moreover, “23” was solo-written by Beckham; the song has become only the sixth song crafted a solo writer to hit No. 1 on the Country Airplay chart in the past decade — and in the process, stakes his claim as not only a song interpreter, but an artist intent on telling his story in his own way.
“I’ve been working this song for a long time and it’s had a new life at radio,” he tells Billboard of “23.” “Just watching it open up to a whole new audience over the past year has been special.”
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On Friday (April 5), he will build on his success with the release of his debut album, Bad for Me, via 19 Recordings/Wheelhouse Records/BMG.
“Over the last few years, I feel like just kind of put my head down and just kept trucking and put as much hard work into this as I could,” Beckham told Billboard. “I just wanted to create a record that I felt highlighted all the things I love in country music, like fiddles, guitars, mandolins, harmonies and storytelling.”
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He co-wrote nine of the album’s 13 songs, with three of those nine compositions being solo writes. Many of the songs on the project, including the title track, as well as “Devil I’ve Been” and “Addicted and Clean” offer unflinching honesty, drawing from his own struggles just weeks prior to his American Idol audition. Those hardships included his grandfather’s death, his girlfriend ending the relationship, and the bustup of a former band during the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic. Beckham coped through heavy alcohol use, which led to a DUI and a near-fatal car accident in 2020.
During his recovery, his mother encouraged him to try out for American Idol. A song on his new album, “Mama,” which he wrote back in 2021 and performed on Idol, is a musical mea culpa and apology that faces his story directly on lines such as “All the pain you’ve felt, I hope you never have to feel it again/ And the night that you picked me up from jail and I swore I’d never do it again.”
“Songs like ‘Mama’ and “Drink You Off My Mind,” those were all written around the same time and come from a personal place,” Beckham said. “Writing is always therapeutic, and when you’re done writing a good song, or one you like, it feels so good to get it off your chest. This album is so special to me because I feel like it has that emotional connection with me, regardless if a song is a hit record or not.”
That Idol audition proved life-changing. Now, Beckham is signed to KP Entertainment, the same management company that guides the career of American Idol judge and country hitmaker Luke Bryan; Beckham, who is repped by UTA for booking, is currently headlining his own slate of shows and will join Luke Bryan’s Mind of a Country Boy Tour this summer.
Beckham, Billboard’s April Rookie of the Month, discusses his new album below, as well as his experiences being a co-writer and the rock band that inspires him.
Several songs on this album, including “Devil I’ve Been” and “Addicted and Clean” touch on trying to move on from past decisions that had poor consequences. Why was it important to include that here?
I had a lot of things I wanted to say, and I think I had a hard time trying to find the words to say that just in conversation, but I was able to communicate a lot of my feelings through these songs and through music. Once my life goes in a different direction — maybe becoming a dad or a husband and stuff like that, I might start singing about that stuff, too. But I think that just right now I’m still very much so in the phase of remembering the last 10 years and writing songs about it.
Throughout the album, you have several writers whose names appear several times, such as Andy Albert, John Pierce and Lindsay Rimes. What was it like finding a group of writers who are helping you tell your stories?
There are people who, whenever I moved to town, really took the time to get to know me and understand the kind of music I wanted to make. We were able to keep coming back into writing rooms and finding successful songs. Those were the guys who wrote most of this record with me, and I couldn’t have done it without them. But also, when I first got to Nashville, I figured I’d just write everything and had never thought of cutting other people’s songs. But once I got involved in the songwriting community, it was something I wanted to support and be part of.
“Waylon in ‘75” is one of only four tracks on the album you didn’t write. What stood out about it?
Yeah, that’s a song that as soon as I heard it, it definitely, it made me turn my head. The first line just pulled me in and the title, before I even heard the song. I got lucky with it and I jumped on that one pretty quick. We went in the studio and tried our best to do our thing on it, and I love the way that that one came out. I think it sets the tone really well.
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What are some of your favorite Waylon songs?
“Lonesome, On’ry and Mean” is a good one, but also “Good Hearted Woman” with Willie [Nelson] … I’ve always been hugely inspired by the outlaw scene. And even before that, Johnny Cash, before the Outlaw music, was one of my biggest inspirations. So just paying homage to those guys who really drew me into country music when I was a young kid.
Producer Bart Butler produced nearly every song on the album. What made you want to work with him on this project?
He’s done a lot of stuff that I admire, and I think that was a great starting point — a lot of the Jon Pardi stuff. We were on the same page from the get-go — we knew the direction we were trying to go with the record.
Who are some artists you would you like to collaborate with?
There are so many people that are just killing it. I’ve always wanted to work with Lainey Wilson or Chris Stapleton. I’m also a fan of guys like Zach Top who are coming up right now. I’ve talked with my buddy Elvie Shane about doing something, and Drake Milligan. There are a lot of people going down this really country route who are making great music.
What has it been like performing some of the newer songs with your band and introducing them to your audience?
Our last three, four shows, we’ve been playing a completely new set. We play most of the record, and it’s been cool just seeing the crowd reactions.
What are some of your favorite records that have inspired you?
One of my favorite groups ever is The Doors, and their [1967] self-titled album is phenomenal. When you listen to it, there is a point where you can tell they were in the studio all day trying to make the album and they got to a point where it was like, ‘That’s the best it’s going to get. Let’s move on to the next song.’ Because you can hear there’s a little whiff, there’s a little slip in a guitar solo, or Jim [Morrison], his voice might’ve cracked, or the drums were slightly off or something, but they just left it there.
There was something about those songs that made me fall in love with those records, because it felt human. These incredible musicians that I look up to, even those guys are subject to making mistakes. I feel like that inspired me to make the music I make, music that feels honest and isn’t so picture perfect.
Looks can be deceiving, and 4batz has had just about everyone on the internet fooled.
Regularly disguised in a black Pooh Shiesty mask, a black Nike hoodie and matching sweats, with a full set of gold grillz and a double cup (or stacks of hundreds) in his hand, 4batz looks like he’s about to spit the hardest bars of 2024 about trapping in the hood. But once he opens his mouth, he leaves others’ jaws on the floor with his incredibly delicate delivery, characterized by pitched-up melodies over lo-fi beats and sentimental lyricism about doing whatever he can to keep his girl.
The seeds to creating this fascinating juxtaposition were planted early, with the artist (real name Neko Bennett) growing up listening to Jodeci, Sade, Anita Baker, Mint Condition, Intro and other old-school R&B and soul acts his mother and grandmother would play around the house. “I’d be listening to it like, ‘Damn, this s–t hard!’” he tells Billboard. “You can learn so much from what they used to do and how they used to sing, and how they used to do their little melodies.”
But when he was in third grade, Bennett grew fascinated by rappers’ overall swag factor – he names DMX as an influence – and would spit freestyles whenever the other school kids made beats by banging their fists on the tables. “I was really supposed to be Trap Boi Batz or some s–t like that,” he chuckles about his would’ve-been rap alter ego. But his original rap music never saw the light of day. “I always felt like it’s not different enough. Everybody from Texas raps. It felt like I was forcing it.”
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Now, the 20-year-old artist feels grateful he waited to release his own music. Last June, 4batz released his debut single “act i: stickerz ’99,’” which unmasked just how deep his feelings were after experiencing real-life heartbreak. “It was me honestly being delusional and wanting to fly to her,” he admits. The song’s ingredients felt like it was destined for TikTok virality: pitched-up vocals that are typically the result of songs’ sped-up versions and fit into the nightcore genre (think Lil Uzi Vert’s “Watch This – ARIZONATEARS Pluggnb Remix”), a slowed-down outro with reverb, and a runtime of less than two minutes.
Six months later, 4batz experienced that virality when he dropped “act ii: date @ 8.” He performed it on 4 Shooters Only’s From the Block series, and everyone from the average rap fan to Kai Cenat couldn’t believe their eyes or ears. With his homies hyping him up in the background, as they pull down their Shiesty masks to smoke joints and act out the lyrics, 4batz croons about the romantic night he has planned for his girl and just how much he’s willing to spend on her getting ready for it. In the pursuit of one girl’s heart, 4batz has managed to capture millions more.
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“Act ii: date @ 8” debuted at No. 77 on the Billboard Hot 100 (dated Jan. 20), and it has since risen to No. 59 (for the week ending Feb. 10). It has also peaked at No. 6 on Hot R&B Songs and No. 20 on Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs, and is currently climbing on radio, rising to No. 21 on Mainstream R&B/Hip-Hop Airplay and No. 31 on Rhythmic Airplay this week (ending March 9).
The song is bound to make even bigger moves in the weeks to come, with Drake officially hopping on the “act ii: date @ 8” remix this Friday (March 8) — which Timbaland predicted would be “outta here” back in January when he posted his reaction video to 4batz’s viral From the Block performance.
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“It’s crazy, because before this, I was sleeping in cars and I didn’t have a place to stay. And now people talk about “Rookie of the Month” on Billboard,” he exclaims with a chuckle. “I’m just so grateful, and I’m so excited that this is my life now.”
Billboard spoke with March’s R&B/Hip-Hop Rookie of the Month about astonishing people with his “yin-yang factor,” attending his first-ever concert during Drake’s It’s All a Blur Tour, receiving a co-sign and advice from Ye (the artist formerly known as Kanye West) and preparing his debut EP.
What’s the inspiration behind the name 4batz?
[Laughs.] Batz, that’s just my name in the hood. People just called me that. I never knew why, they just like, “Yo, Batz! Batz, come here! Ah ah ah!” I’m from The Four. Inside Dallas, it’s a little hood called The Four. And the “z” was really for the swag, the “za” as we call it. We say “za” after everything because everything we do is exotic. So it’s “4” because we from the South and “bat” with a “z” because n—as don’t do what we do. We do everything exotic.
Why did you decide to pitch up your vocals?
I mean, me being from Texas and listening to DJ Screw, that’s just what we do. We’re just bringing something new to the world that they ain’t heard before.
There’s so much mystique to you. How do you continue to protect your peace and privacy when it feels like everyone’s trying to get a piece?
I’ve always been that nonchalant, mysterious one. S–t ain’t like a plan that we do. What I do is I give people a little bit of something. For Instagram, let’s say I post somebody fighting or I post my friends in the hood slapboxing. Me posting that is showing people a little bit about what I do and how my culture is.
How did you decide to format your song titles as different “acts” with all lowercase letters and different numbers and characters?
I look at it like it’s my story. I look at it like it’s an old testament, like it’s one of those old-ass books, because I feel like my story is some s–t people gonna be talking about for years and years and years and years down the line.
What inspired “act ii: date @ 8”?
It was more for the females. Nowadays, R&B is quote-unquote toxic. It’s a lot of fake toxicity going on. I don’t know about that toxicity. My momma raised me in a way like, “You love a girl, you do this. You open the door for her.” I’m big on that, so that one was specifically for the females.
I love the line “Five hunnid for your f–kin’ hair/ Two hunnid for your f–kin’ nails.”
I had to make sure it was the exact price. I mean, obviously, sometimes it be a little bit more, but yeah, I had to make sure I said that.
How does your latest single, “act iii: on god? (she like),” add to the narratives from your previous two acts?
Once this EP come out, I can be able to really break it down to you and show you exactly how each act connects.
Bet. What’s the name of your EP?
It’s called u made me a st4r.
And are all the songs on the EP going to be different “acts”?
Absolutely! It has to be.
How many songs will be on it?
I’m still debating that. Probably around six, seven. I don’t know yet.
Your “From the Block” performance of “act ii: date @ 8” in your Dallas hometown stunned everyone because they didn’t expect you to sound the way you did when they saw what you looked like. Did you purposefully anticipate that being a “wow” factor coming into that performance?
You know what’s crazy? I did. Because I remember listening to Aaliyah. [Sings] “Rock the boat, rock the boat.” And I’m throwing up gang signs. And I’m like, “Why am I doing that? Why does this yin-yang factor feel so good to me?” And it goes for other people. A person will be a rapper, face tats and all this stuff, but he’ll be rapping about girls, but you think he supposed to be rapping about killing. And the fact that he’s rapping about girls, playing with that yin-yang factor, is more interesting. I was always [interested in] doing something that don’t supposed to be looking like you’re supposed to be doing it. I had a feeling it was going to do something. I didn’t know it was gonna do this!
What are some other reactions you’ve gotten from that video?
People said I sounded like a sample. I didn’t think that, but s–t, I’ll take it. I think honestly that’s one of the biggest compliments. Everybody knows samples are beautiful. And people was like, “Yeah, when you gon’ start rapping?” It was a lot of that.
And what’s the significance of the Tioga Street and Strawberry Terrace block you performed at?
It’s a block I kind of grew up on. We could have done it in any area, because that whole hood is my hood, but we had to do it exactly on that block — because I’m like, “Yo, Strawberry Street. People gon’ think this is sweet, right? And we doing this! OK, cool. We gotta do it right here.” Plus, it’s even better, because this is the same street where we used to just walk on and not have money and not be able to do this, and now we’re doing the opposite and just embracing what Texas is and what Dallas is and how this s–t go.
I remember telling you and your team back in January that you had made it onto the Billboard charts for the first time, and everyone was so excited. “act ii: date @ 8” eventually became your first Hot 100 hit. How did you react when you found that out?
I damn near did a backflip, and I don’t even know how to do backflips! That’s one of the biggest flexes. The second song I ever released went on Billboard. I was so shocked, I ain’t even know what to say. I thought people was playing, so I’m going on Billboard searching it up. That is something that I ain’t even dreamed that this was gonna happen. I just thought, “Aight, I’m gonna drop the song and then hopefully in three to five years, you’re gonna start hearing me.” And then after that, I was gonna be where I’m at right now. But God works in mysterious ways.
Speaking of your team, how did you build up yours? How did you meet your manager Amber Ajeé, and when did your distributor Vydia come into the fold?
I needed to shoot a video for “stickerz.” So I was just going about trying to shoot a video, and a lady had hit me, which is Amber. She was like, “Oh, I can help you.” And she helped me find a video pretty fast. And she was also like, “Yo, I manage!” So really finding her helped me find everybody with Vydia. ‘Cause I didn’t know nothing about it. She just put me onto everything. And after that, slowly but surely, I got the team that I have. It’s probably like four or five people.
Even though you’re our Rookie of the Month, you’ve already been chopping it up with the big leagues. Ye recently co-signed you, and you posted on Instagram that the two of you had FaceTimed. When did you first get in touch with Ye? And what’s the best piece of advice he’s given you?
One day, I woke up and everybody from his side was just texting my phone, “Yo, Ye wants to talk to you.” After that, that’s when we had a phone call. And I was like, “Yo, Ye? We talkin’ ‘bout Ye, Kanye? Or we talkin’ ‘bout Ye from South Dallas?” Nah, it was the real Ye. And when we hopped on FaceTime, it sealed the deal for me. That’s my guy for sure.
The best piece of advice that Ye ever gave me is: If people don’t want it and you want it, that means you should do it. I remember my first time actually having a conversation with him, because I was just trying to be a sponge and just ask him stuff. It’s crazy, because I didn’t even ask him this question, I was just like, “Yo, what’s up?” He’s like, “Um, I got something to tell you.” I was like, “OK, what’s up?” He was like, “If you were to tell people, ‘Yo, should I drop this song?’ And they’re like, ‘Eh, I don’t really like it.’ But you really feel it in your gut that like, ‘This it. This it, period…’ A lot of people go off of trends, a lot of people go off of what they’ve seen. And if you do something outside of that box, you could be creating a whole box that people ain’t never been in.
When he told me that, I was like, “Bet, bet.” That means we’re doing something right.
You were recently spotted hanging out with Drake at one of his shows. How was that night?
That was the first show I ever been to.
Wait, your first concert?
Ever.
And you went to Drake’s concert and were right next to Drake.
Yeah. [Laughs.] Yeah, I was! Bro, I swear to God, this whole s–t is so funny, because I don’t think people know — and I don’t think even myself know — how crazy this s–t is. I never was on a plane. We ain’t even talking about shows yet. I never did none of this. We pulling up and I’m seeing all these people, what’s it, like 20,000 people? I don’t know, but I’m seeing all these people [and] how they react to the music. I’m like, “Yo, this what I’ve been missing all my life?”
It inspired me a lot, just seeing how he controls the crowd. And I was just like, “Yo, I need to work. I need to make more music.” Because every song he had was a hit! Yeah, Drake’s a good guy.
Have you been to another concert since then?
No, I think my next concert I go to is mine.
Considering you only have three singles out right now (with obviously more to come), how would you envision your first live performance? And where would you want it to be?
It gotta be in my city. I haven’t really envisioned it exactly how I want it yet, but I just know it has to be in Dallas. Who knows? It might be intimate and crazy.
Word on the street is that you’ve been in talks with major labels because they’re so eager to sign you. Is that something you’re interested in pursuing now or later in your career?
I keep going back to this, ‘cause I’m really in love with this EP. This EP’s gon’ break the f–kin’ internet, world, all this s–t. Currently, I’m not really worried about signing right now, because we’re so focused on these songs. I’m in the studio every day. So I’m not really worried about that, but maybe when the time is right.
What’s next for 4batz?
Honestly, I’m with the fans. Me and the fans, we experience this s–t together. So as they’re learning, and as they’re seeing, “Oh s–t, we on Billboard! Oh s–t, we’re doing this. Oh s–t, we’re over here!” I’m experiencing it, too. It’s just God. And whatever God wants, and however that flows, it’s gonna happen that way.
Is there anything else?
I want to tell my supporters some s–t, if I could. First, I’mma say thank you, Jada. And the EP, u made me a st4r, when they hear that s–t, they’re gonna go crazy! It’s gonna be stupid!
On Georgia native Peytan Porter’s six-song, sophomore EP Grown, out Friday (March 1), she sheds light on a creative revival, the culmination of dismantling — then rebuilding — her sound to reveal her true self.
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“This past six to 12 months has been just reclaiming my entire life and setting myself on a really good direction,” she tells Billboard.
Porter’s music career gained traction not long after her 2020 graduation from Nashville’s Lipscomb University, where she studied public relations. A year later, she signed a publishing deal with Jody Williams Songs and Warner Chappell Nashville and saw her song “Therapy” go viral on TikTok. She followed with her pop-country debut 2022 EP In My Head. But while her debut only showcased one dimension of her musical abilities, Porter says Grown feels more akin to who she is. The album is lush with introspective lyrics and gauzy, Laurel Canyon vibes.
Porter name-checks the modern sounds of folk-rocker Foy Vance and the blues-influenced Chris Stapleton, as well as more classic influences, including Fleetwood Mac and Linda Ronstadt’s 1977 album Simple Dreams.
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“There’s just a kind of drifter, free nomad energy that comes with that whole timeframe,” Porter says of the 1960s and 1970s scene that birthed music from Ronstadt, Joni Mitchell, Neil Young, the Mamas and the Papas and more. “I was doing a lot of digging into that whole era and was inspired by how touring fueled the music itself. It felt like they hashed things out on the road and brought it into the studio. I wanted my music to sound like it does live and I can’t do that if I’m using track and synthetic sounds. This record feels like I’m stepping into my own.”
Porter, who is managed by Red Light Management, and repped by CAA for booking, will get the chance to showcase her new music this year at festivals including Tortuga Music Festival and Gulf Coast Jam. Beginning in June, she will also open shows for Tim McGraw on his Standing Room Only tour.
Billboard spoke with Porter, Billboard’s March Country Rookie of the Month, about the stories behind the songs on her new project and her journey toward her newfound sound.
What was the catalyst for creating your new album?
When my first record came out, I felt kind of lost. A lot of exciting things had happened fast, and doors were opening. I was trying to keep up and didn’t have the capacity to stop and create a direction for myself — it felt like I was going with whatever was popping up. When the project came out, it felt like a finish line of sorts, and for the first time I had space to pause and be like, ‘Is this the direction I want to go for the next 20 to 50 years?’ And I felt a resounding ‘No.’ There were so many parts of myself that I wasn’t showing, and that didn’t feel authentic. I’m not a good enough actress to have kept up the gig that long.
How did you take the time to recalibrate, creatively?
I spent a lot of time alone in the woods. I went on a dating hiatus. I tried to just be alone and figure out my style, independent of the people around me. I started making decisions and not asking for opinions. I cut my bangs, moved into a sketchy apartment and started decorating it with candles and weird mushroom decorations, gaudy gold and jewel tones. I figured out how to stop apologizing for what I like, and that bled into the music. Luckily, my team supported me. And I had turned 25, so it was like my quarter-life crisis. A perfect storm.
The title track of the album touches on the apartment and some of the rougher moments that come with figuring things out on your own. Are there any particular moments that inspired that song?
I wrote this after I moved into a two-bedroom apartment in Nashville. It maybe wasn’t the smartest decision I had made. I had an outside-facing unit, ground level. I remember it was New Year’s Eve and I’m in my bed journaling and I hear gunshots right outside of my window. I crawl out of bed and am sitting on the floor and praying for protection. I grabbed my guitar and just started capturing what was going on around me.
That moment was so far from what everyone back home was doing — my sister was expecting a baby, my best friend was planning a wedding — and I was going through this artistic shift. I remember thinking, “This is what you wanted.” I wrote like half of the song and brought it to Steve Moakler and Mark Trussell, to finish it together.
“God’s Hotel” has a more bluesy vibe and a message of self-acceptance. What feel were you going for on this?
On the road, we close with “God’s Hotel,” and then go into “Lean on Me,” and I wanted this communal kind of feel. When I go to a live show, I feel that. Finding a place where we all belong is important to me, because it’s a journey we all take of figuring out who we are, and then finding people who will let us be that.
You reunited with Greg Bates, whom you also worked with on In My Head. How did the process of working on this album compare with your first project?
I was much more hands-on sonically, with this record. I came in with playlists and vision for sounds and different instrumentations. He trusted me to know what I wanted. He pulled in players like [steel guitar player] Dan Dugmore, who played with Linda Ronstadt. He was intentional with the people he brought in and the sounds we used.
You recorded this album live, all the musicians in the studio together. How did that impact the feel of the EP?
We wanted to capture the live concert feeling. That meant not bringing in a blueprint of stems from a demo and working from it, but rather creating it in the moment. We played it all together and I got to sing with them on every take. There was this energy of it being a live shared experience, that I feel got captured. We did come back and tweak a few things after the fact, but I wanted it to feel like we were doing something together.
This time in the studio, I had a lot more opinions. I came in and saged the studio, and got it ready to be the kind of energy I wanted. It was the first time I felt like I had a voice in a space like that. It can be daunting with a mainly male presence in a room like that — to be a female artist, and come in and have a vision — but they gave me space to follow that vision.
“Run the Radio” is about a breakup, but also reclaiming freedom. What’s the story behind this song?
I was on a balcony on vacation, writing songs, and thought about this guy I had recently been involved with, who had lived in a van. I thought the experience was worth at least putting in a song. I thought, “I didn’t like any of his music” — and then I thought, “I didn’t like any of my exes’ music.” When I dated an athlete, I listened to hip-hop and R&B. I dated a mountain guy who was into obscure folk. The guy with the van liked EDM and house music. I realized I was trying to cater myself to him.
That’s when I had this idea of, “I run the radio now.” I only listen to what I like. The song came out so beautifully. The more I appreciate my own instincts and styles, the more I want to offer that feeling of freedom, strength, and just pure joy to people.
You signed with Jody Williams Songs and Warner Chappell Nashville in 2021. How have they championed this self-discovery season?
He’s the best person and guru. I remember saying, “Jody, I think I’ll just cut my bangs.” It’s like when you go through a break-up and you want to cut off all your hair — that happened creatively. And he goes, “Maybe start with a trim.” That’s the most Jody response — don’t blow up your life, but just start somewhere. And they have seen me through this crazy journey. They signed me to write songs, and then three months later I have a song take off as an artist. They have rolled with the punches and trusted me to know what I want for myself.
As an artist and a songwriter, how do you balance the demands of both roles?
It is a vast difference. Some days I’m making graphics at 1:00 a.m. and I have a [writing session] at 11:00 a.m. and a coffee meeting, and I’m doing all the artist things that people don’t realize we have to do. Then having to figure out what I get to put out as an artist and what songs I’m in love with as a writer. It’s a juggle; You want to honor the craft and that’s always hard in a commercial setting. But I love that I have the option of doing both; I think there is a time and place for both and I think country music, especially, kind of honors the people who can toe the line between commercial and craft.
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Over the past year, Texas native George Birge has steadily ascended Billboard’s Country Airplay chart, earning a top 5 hit with his debut single “Mind on You.” The song’s success represents a full-circle moment, given that the song was previously on hold for Jason Aldean.
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“This has probably been the wildest 12 months or so of my life,” Birge tells Billboard during an interview in Nashville. He wrote “Mind on You” in 2020 with Jaron Boyer, Michael Tyler and Colt Ford. At the time, Birge, previously half of country duo Waterloo Revival, was amid a career shift.
“I had been chasing the artist dream, and I had gotten close, had some failures to launch,” he recalls. “I asked out of a previous deal and there was an eight-month period where I was writing songs for other artists. We pitched ‘Mind on You’ to Jason, who’s a huge influence on me musically, and we got an email back, saying, ‘Jason wants it for his new record.’ He was by far the biggest artist to want one of my songs. I thought that was going to be the life-changer for me.”
In 2021, Birge began releasing snippets of music on TikTok. Birge happened upon a video from TikToker Erynn Chambers, which used the phrase “Beer, beer, truck, truck, girls in tight jeans” to lampoon the tropes used in many country songs. Birge based the chorus of his song “Beer Beer, Truck Truck” on the viral video (Chambers is credited as a co-writer). The song earned more than 5 million Spotify streams, and in the process, introduced Birge as a solo artist.
Birge parlayed the streaming surge into a record deal, signing with RECORDS Nashville in 2021. When RECORDS CEO Barry Weiss heard “Mind on You,” he made a pivotal phone call to Birge.
“He said, ‘We can’t wait to work with you, but that song you’re giving to Jason Aldean, that’s going to be your debut single. You need to ask for it back,’” Birge recalls. “That was a scary prospect. At the time, I was struggling to launch my career, barely scraping by monetarily, and I decided not to let one of the biggest artists in Nashville cut my song — which would have guaranteed me some money. Instead, I bet on myself and it was a one-in-a-million long shot.”
In 2024, the WME-repped Birge will tour with fellow Texas artist Parker McCollum. Below, Billboard’s January Country Rookie of the Month discusses his musical beginnings, the success of “Mind on You,” and the career wisdom he’s gleaned along the way.
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You recently released a remixed version of “Mind on You” featuring Charlieonnafriday and Kidd G. How did they come to be on the track?
I wanted to do a remix to give it the biggest pop it can possibly get when it’s at max visibility. I had seen an interview with Charlieonnafriday where he said he was new to country music but liked it. I had been a fan of his, so I sent him a note to ask if he would be on the song. Kidd G has one of the most authentic vocals of anybody I know. I sent it to Charlie and Kidd on the same day, hoping one of them would say yes. They both said “yes” in like 10 minutes, so we had both jump on the song.
Did you give them any guidance on their verses?
We didn’t give them any direction on their verses; we let them write what they wanted to write. Each artist looked at the song through a different lens. I wrote the song about my wife and how I feel about her. Charlieonnafriday wrote about a past love interest, where they still think about each other. Kidd G wrote about a full-on breakup, where he’s missing her. It was cool to see how “Mind on You” could translate to different people’s perspective and have us flip the hook on all three different verses.
Have you spoken with Jason Aldean since releasing “Mind on You”?
When I asked for the song back, he was unbelievably kind and gracious, but I never met him in person. About two months ago, we were both at a party and some of our mutual friends introduced us. He was like, “I’ve been watching the song and I’ve been rooting for you.” To have him say that was so gratifying.
He also filled me in on some parallels of what I’m doing and how he started his career — he told me about a failed record deal when he got started and later how one song changed his life and how at the time he had his first hit, [Aldean’s label home] Broken Bow Records was kind of a startup label. He talked about finding his lane, building a brand and scaling from clubs up to arenas and amphitheaters. I left that conversation feeling 10 feet tall, because it was so inspiring. I’m very thankful for the time I got to spend talking with him.
You were previously part of the duo Waterloo Revival. How do you think that experience prepared you for where you are now in your career?
I’m thankful for every second and learned more than I ever have during that time. We started as a bar band in Austin, Texas. I was working a desk job for a real estate company, but music was my passion. We started getting traction and sold out the Rattle Inn, a 300-400 person room, every time we would play there. Some Nashville industry folks flew down and before I knew it, I had a management deal, a record deal. It forced me to figure out who I want to be, what I wanted to say, how to put on a live show—because there’s a huge difference between standing behind a microphone in a club for 90 minutes and going on tour with Toby Keith, entertaining 30,000 people in an amphitheater.
What other lessons have you learned along the way?
In 2020, when I ended up asking out of that record deal, the only way I was going to do an artist project was if I was making the music that I wanted to make. RECORDS said they wanted to invest in giving me the best opportunity to be who I wanted to be as an artist, and they’ve been true to that. I feel like “Mind on You” is the first time I’ve gotten to be true to myself, storytelling-wise and sonically. Country fans are good at sniffing out what’s authentic and what’s manufactured. It’s gratifying to get to be myself and have it become the first thing that’s also ever taken off.
When did you find your passion for music?
My mom and dad weren’t musicians, but they loved music. My dad’s truck probably is where I fell in love with country music, listening to the radio. With it being Austin, there’s live music around all the time. I started writing songs in middle school. My freshman year of high school, I had started a band and we would go play on Sixth Street in downtown Austin. At the time, I thought everywhere was like that, playing on Sixth Street as a 14-year-old with “Xs” on your hand [for being underage] and having your friends coming out to shows.
The other cool thing about Austin was everybody had a garage band or music project, but nobody was in a cover band. We all wrote our own songs. I feel like that was the biggest head start my hometown gave me when I moved to Nashville: I had already had a foundation in how to write songs. Being in Nashville, with the best songwriters in the world, I’ve learned something new every day — but I at least felt like I could hang with other songwriters when I moved here.
What was the first concert you ever saw?
Bryan White and LeAnn Rimes at the Frank Erwin Center [in Austin]. She was fresh off [her breakthrough hit] ‘Blue,’ so that was cool.
Who would be your dream collaborator?
Gary Allan has had a huge influence on me. He’s got a lot of that grit and dark, smoky sound that I’ve tried to make my own.
You released your full-length album, George Birge: Mind on You, in 2023. What is next for you?
There’s a song that I just wrote called “Cowboy Songs” will come out as my next single. We started playing that live, and I’ve never seen a song react with fans like that one has.
You will be featured as part of Country Radio Seminar’s New Faces of Country Music Show in 2024, alongside Megan Moroney, Conner Smith, Dillon Carmichael and Corey Kent. What does that mean to you?
My friends at country radio, and at streaming, have changed my life this year. To be considered part of this class, with these artists, I feel so lucky — and to look at other artists and how they have gone from New Faces to selling out arenas and amphitheaters, it’s inspiring.
Though Lauren Watkins was born and raised in Nashville, it took leaving Music City for her to come into her own. She honed her acumen as a writer, and poured her talents into her new, six-song project Introducing: The Heartbreak, out today on Songs & Daughters/Big Loud Records.
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“I want people to feel like they know me better,” Watkins tells Billboard while seated at an eatery in Nashville’s Green Hills area. “I want to be a vessel for the songs to get heard. I thought the best way to do that was first introduce ‘the girl,’ and then introduce the things I’ve been through, which is the heartbreak.”
Introducing: The Heartbreak balances husky vocals, razor-sharp lyrics and sonic touches that range from tender to tough, positioning Watkins as far beyond a heart-on-her-sleeve singer-songwriter. “Stuck in My Ways” details the myriad habits she doesn’t plan to change post-heartbreak, while “The Table” conveys a relationship arc from flirtatious desire to heartbroken freedom.
Growing up, it was Watkins’s older sister Caroline who showed an early bent toward music. Their father worked in health insurance and their mother was a painter; meanwhile, the sisters began performing together at the restaurant Corner Pub in the Woods just outside of Nashville.
“We brought our little speaker and invited all of our family and friends, and played on their little outdoor patio,” Watkins recalls. Her sister was already writing songs, so Lauren chimed in on harmonies. “There were moments where I was like, ‘Oh, I kind of wish I was singing lead,’ but honestly, I was too scared to do it by myself. She was like my security blanket.”
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While her sister signed a publishing deal right out of high school and enrolled at Nashville’s Belmont University, Watkins began carving her own persona and creative vision by taking a different path. Watkins followed in her parents’ footsteps by attending the University of Mississippi (Ole Miss) in Oxford, Mississippi.
“I knew I wanted to go to Ole Miss and I knew if I wanted to have a career in music, it would have to be something I did on my own,” Watkins says. “At the time, I thought if I left Nashville, that meant I had to choose between school and music.”
Watkins largely put her musical ambitions behind her, and didn’t perform for the bulk of her university years. But still, “There was this hole in my heart, this tugging,” she says.
Then the COVID-19 pandemic hit, upending everyone’s plans. On-campus college classes quickly pivoted to remote courses, leaving Watkins with ample time to reflect on her goals, write songs — and eventually, make frequent trips back home to Nashville. When her sister traveled to Oxford to visit and perform a show, Watkins sang a few songs with her, a moment that fully reignited her passion for singing.
With still just over a year to go before college graduation, Watkins threw herself into writing songs, drawing inspiration from everyone from Kacey Musgraves to George Jones, and joined a local cover band in order to gain performance experience. Like most Gen Z artists, it was second nature for Watkins to share both some originals and some of her cover song performances on social media.
One of those videos caught the ear of songwriter Rodney Clawson, husband of singer-songwriter and Songs & Daughters label head Nicolle Galyon, setting off a chain reaction that led Watkins to her current publishing and label deals.
Watkins is a co-writer on all six songs on the Joey Moi-produced Introducing: The Heartbreak, alongside her sister Caroline, as well as Galyon, Rodney Clawson, The Warren Brothers, Will Bundy, Emily Landis and David Garcia. She recently wrapped her three-night Nashville residency, dubbed the Heartbreak Supper Club, and is on the road with Austin Snell and upcoming concerts opening for Conner Smith.
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Watkins, November’s Rookie of the Month, spoke with Billboard about signing with Songs & Daughters/Big Loud, and shared the stories behind her new project.
What was the process like of preparing to sign a publishing deal and then a label deal?
After I met Nicolle, she let me do my own thing. She let me just write for a while and kind of hustle on my own. She watched me grow as a writer and then signed me to a publishing deal, maybe a year after we met. I still had a lot of developing to do as an artist. All I did for the past few years was write and write. She let me develop on my own before I signed with Songs & Daughters and Big Loud. You hear horror stories about labels where they want you to fit this certain mold, and I never felt that with them. It felt like this is where I needed to be signed.
“Fly on the Wall” features your Big Loud label mate Jake Worthington. How did he come to be part of this?
The first time I heard of Jake is when he opened for Ernest last year; they took me on the road for a weekend on that tour, so I got to open shows for Jake and Ernest. Jake’s music is so good and he’s just so real country—and he’s not putting it on; he’s really like that. I didn’t write the song as a duet, but the more I listened to it, it needed a male voice on there. It was perfect to highlight the contrast of the couple arguing in the song. The song is so old-school and I wanted it to come across that way.
“The Table” has a great “non-ending,” where the melody carries the lyric itself. How did you arrive at that moment?
Originally, we had “on the table” as the final lyric, and Joey [Moi] and I went back and forth about whether to take the line out. The songwriter in me was like, “Take it out — people know what it means and the music does it for you.” Then I talked to other people and some were like, “Leave it in there; people aren’t going to get it,” but I just didn’t listen to them. I’m so proud of this song. I wrote it with Nicolle and the Warren Brothers on a writing a year ago.
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Carter Faith joins you on “Cowboys on Music Row.” When did you write that song?
She’s one of my good friends and as another female artist, she just understands all these niche things that only other artists really understand. We were on a writing retreat earlier this year in Pigeon Forge, and we were there with my sister Caroline, Lauren Hungate, Ashley Monroe, and Jessie Jo Dillon. We love Tales From the Tour Bus and some of the girls hadn’t seen it so were were showing them all the George Jones and Tammy Wynette episode, the Waylon Jennings episode and that sent us down a rabbit hole of documentaries on those guys. We were inspired because they were just singing about their real lives. It came together quickly, and by the time we were almost done with the chorus, Carter sang part of it and she just has this great sound to her voice that was perfect.
What has the response been like?
Sometimes it can ruffle feathers, that type of song. But we’ve just been saying, “If it ruffles your feathers, then maybe you should look inward,” right? There are real cowboys on Music Row. This song is a hyperbole. There are definitely some real cowboys — Jake Worthington is a great example — and they’re not getting offended. They’re going, “Yeah, tell it to the world. We know we’re here.”
Do you feel like it is easier to write on retreats, versus the day-to-day Nashville writes?
There is definitely something to be said for showing up everyday, writing Monday through Friday. That’s a huge part of it, but as an artist and writer, there’s also something to be said for getting away from Nashville and disconnecting. And there’s this respect that you go and do your thing and they know you’ll come back with something great if you’re just relaxed and focused on writing. And you forge such great friendships—we all got so close on that trip and we still go to dinner when we’re all in town. We hope to do the same retreat again and make it an annual thing. You just write better songs with people that know you and know what you want to say.
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Does having a sister who is also involved in music further strengthen your sibling bond?
We write together so much, and at the same time, I have my artist thing and she has her songwriter thing that’s separate. We have success together but we also have success outside of each other. It’s a lifestyle that so few people understand, and so to have your sister be in it with you is great.
What do you hope listeners take away from your music?
This is me at my most natural place. I love country and I want to be my own form of modern and old-school, and I also want to make all my heroes proud with these songs.
Tyla fogged up television screens across America last week when she performed the bacardi-inspired, wet-and-wild TikTok dance (surprisingly without her water bottle in tow) to her latest sultry single, “Water,” on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon for her U.S. television debut.
“It’s crazy just being a normal girl in South Africa, and then living this dream that I’ve always wanted to live,” she tells Billboard. “I used to be so jealous watching all of the American celebrities on TV, like the Kardashians, Adele, Rihanna, Michael Jackson, Britney Spears, Nicki Minaj. I was like, ‘One day, I’m gonna be there.’ I actually used to want to be born in America only because I thought only Americans could be famous. I did not know it could happen for us because it didn’t really happen very often for people in Africa and especially South Africa.”
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Tyla (real name Tyla Laura Seethal) grew up in Johannesburg, listening to local house and kwaito artists, such as Black Coffee and Mi Casa, as well as American rap and R&B stars, like Tupac, Boyz II Men, Aaliyah and Rihanna. At age 11, she uploaded videos of herself singer covers (like of Justin Bieber‘s “Fall” and “Die in Your Arms”) to YouTube and even stole her father’s cellphone to create an Instagram account so she could post her covers and original songs on there, while also messaging them to celebrities and music industry figures. “I would do everything and anything — because I just felt like, one day, something was gonna catch on,” says Tyla, now 21.
After discovering Tyla from one of her Instagram videos, director and photographer Garth von Glehn (who eventually became her first manager) sent her an email. “I literally felt like I was going to get scammed, so I didn’t respond,” she recalls. “But then a few weeks went away, and something was telling me, ‘Just respond.’ I ended up responding, and then I met up with him with my parents. And I ended up recording for the first time.”
Tyla and her best friend/stylist, Thato Nzimande, proceeded to spend every weekend in 2019 at von Glehn’s apartment/studio, writing and recording music and conducting photo shoots. She eventually linked up with South African DJ/producer Kooldrink on her debut single “Getting Late,” which introduced her refreshing take on amapiano, the increasingly popular South African house subgenre that blends Afro and deep house, jazz and kwaito music, and is characterized by sizzling synths, rattling basslines and soulful piano melodies. “I mixed it with pop because I wanted to make a three-minute song,” she says. “Amapiano songs were like eight minutes, 10 minutes at that time. And I was like, ‘Oh, that’s a bit too long! Let me make an amapiano song that has the normal format of a pop song or an R&B song.”
Her unique “popiano” formula scored her a label deal with Epic Records in 2021, when she started gradually dropping singles — like the boisterous “Overdue,” featuring gqom pioneer DJ Lag and Kooldrink; the tantalizing “To Last,” which was later remixed by amapiano giant DJ Maphorisa and fellow South African singer Young Stunna; the super sleek “Been Thinking;” and the passionate “Girl Next Door” collaboration with Ayra Starr. But it wasn’t until she released “Water” — where her sensual pop/R&B melodies float over bubbling amapiano log drums — and its accompanying dance that Tyla really started experiencing the fame she had desperately desired since childhood.
“Water” debuted at No. 67 on the Billboard Hot 100 in the week ending Oct. 14, and it has since risen to No. 21 (for the week ending Nov. 4). It has spent three weeks at No. 1 on U.S. Afrobeats Songs, marking her first No. 1 on any Billboard chart and ending the record 58-week streak of Rema and Selena Gomez’s “Calm Down,” and it’s cracked into the top 10 of the Global 200. “Water” has also been making waves at radio, landing in the top 20 of Mainstream R&B/Hip-Hop Airplay and Rhythmic Airplay and debuting at No. 39 on Pop Airplay this week.
“This hasn’t happened in so long for a South African artist, born and raised in South Africa, with an African song, with an African dance style. Everything is so authentic, and the fact that all of that managed to translate overseas is crazy. It’s opening more doors for other South African artists and creatives to just have a place,” she says. “And for me personally, it’s unbelievable. I always wanted to be the biggest pop star in general. I didn’t want to be the biggest African pop star. I just want to be the biggest pop star that was born and raised in Africa. And the fact that I’m already getting a good response from the world [means] I’m one step closer to that dream.”
Billboard spoke with October’s R&B/Hip-Hop Rookie of the Month about Tyla’s signature “popiano” sound, opening for Chris Brown‘s European tour, making an unexpected cameo on The Kardashians and the inspiration behind her viral “Water” dance.
How did you first get introduced to amapiano?
The first time I heard a proper amapiano song was while I was in high school. I remember being in one of my classes and a friend was playing the song called “Gong Gong.” And it’s just a beat — there are no lyrics, no vocals on it. I remember that song till this day because it was my first time hearing something like that.
What makes the genre and the culture so special, in your opinion?
It’s ours. It’s a South African sound that has been able to travel. We haven’t had a genre that traveled this far. It’s brought a lot of pride to South Africans and a lot of jobs and opportunities for us. Amapiano has resulted in so many South Africans being able to travel the world now and make music and make a living off of it. It’s not really just a genre for us — it’s a culture and a movement. That’s why we’re always screaming, “Amapiano to the world! South Africa to the world!” It’s changed our lives.
And it’s very much an open place for us to work in. Everyone is welcoming. Our sessions in South Africa are not like the sessions overseas. All our sessions are open basically, so a session could be happening at this person’s house and then anybody is able to walk up and add a verse, anybody is able to come in and touch the beat. That’s why our songs have 20 people featured on it and the songs are so long.
What influenced you to come up with your signature “popiano” sound?
In 2019, the year I actually got in front of a mic for the first time, I was experimenting and trying everything to see what sat with me. It got to the point where I was like, “Let me try an amapiano song.” At that time, it was still booming and people weren’t really singing on it. So I tried it and I ended up making my first song “Getting Late.” It just felt right.
And since that day, I just gravitated to that sound more, and as the years went by, and the more songs I made, the more my sound developed. People started calling it “popiano” because it is my own sound. There’s no one that’s really doing it. I just knew that I wanted it to feel like me, and this genre feels like me because I’m able to mix the genres that I was influenced by — R&B and pop, with sounds from home, amapiano and Afrobeats.
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The story behind the “Getting Late” music video is inspiring: You wrote on Instagram that you had “set out wanting to make the best video South Africa has ever seen” and filmed a little before production was halted altogether when COVID-19 hit. After lockdown lifted, you resumed working on the video, which was your shot by your manager, and you were styled by your best friend for it.
It was literally like a family business. We shot one scene, COVID hit and then everything closed up. I felt like it was the end because my parents gave me that year to prove myself, because they wanted me to study. But I begged them and I was like, “No! I need to do the singing thing. Just give me one year. I’ll show you guys.” And they eventually gave me that year, and then COVID hit. And I was like, “Ugh! This is the worst time for them to give me the year to prove myself.”
But we made it work. When South Africa would open up a little bit, we would try and shoot a scene. Or we’d try to perform for free at this one place just so we can use the venue. It’s just crazy to think of how we made that video because everyone thinks that we had a huge budget, but it wasn’t that at all. My manager found a way to do it. We all found a way to make it work. And it literally changed my whole life.
At the time of its release, you wrote, “Even if it only gets 270 views on youtube and my career fails, I’ll just watch this video on repeat for the rest of my life and I’m pretty sure I’ll be happy.” Your video has nearly seven million views (so far) and was also nominated for music video of the year at last year’s South African Music Awards.
It’s literally crazy. We went through so much to make that video — like, I couldn’t stop watching that video, ’cause I was so proud of myself and proud of my team for pushing through it. I just love the video so much that I was like, “OK, guys. We did our best. We’re just putting it out there, [and] whatever happens, happens.”
How did you eventually sign with Epic?
“Getting Late” started doing its thing, and I was just excited that people were retweeting the video. Because I didn’t really know how record labels worked, a record label didn’t even cross my mind at the time. But then my manager told me that labels are reaching out and they want to sign me. I was so confused. I was like, “Cool, what do you mean?” Then they’re telling me, “Oh, this label and this label and Epic Records.” And I was like, “What?! American people? How do they even find me?” America always seemed like it wasn’t a real place for me, so hearing all of that was crazy.
My manager started setting up the calls, and the labels would speak to me over Zoom calls (because it was still COVID) and basically pitch themselves. Epic was actually the first one — and after going through everyone, Epic just felt right, so I ended up signing with them.
I was recently watching an episode of The Kardashians, and I saw you were sitting next to Kim Kardashian in the front row of Dolce & Gabbana’s Fall/Winter 2023 runway show during Milan Fashion Week. What was going through your head that night?
The crazy thing is: I didn’t even know I was going to be on the Kardashians show, especially during “Water” time. It honestly feels like everything is just falling into place at the right time. I was on the Chris Brown tour, and the offer came where I would need to fly to Milan to do the Dolce & Gabbana show. And I didn’t have a visa for it, so we were hassling one of the European countries trying to get a visa, and they were not having it. They were like, “We are not going to give you a visa. You need to go back to South Africa and then you can get a visa.”
We flew back to South Africa for 24 hours to try and get a visa, and we ended up getting it, and we had to fly out [to Milan] the next day. That same day, I had to shower, get ready and go straight to the show, where I’m sitting next to Kim Kardashian and I’m literally wearing a Dolce & Gabbana dress. It was like I was in Princess Diaries. It was so crazy even sitting next to [Kardashian], because I was like, “This person is real.” Especially when you only see these people on TV, it’s crazy when you see them in real life. She was nice, and it was just a cool environment to be in. It was also the first-ever fashion week I attended, so it was such a good first experience.
Being a supporting act on the European leg of Chris Brown’s Under the Influence Tour was also a big look for you. First of all, how did that opportunity come about? And what were the biggest lessons you learned from either Chris or the experience overall?
I was at Tricky Stewart‘s Grammy party and the head of the label, Sylvia Rhone, came to me and asked me, “Do [you] want to open for Chris Brown on his Europe tour?” I didn’t even know what to do. I was like, “What?” I wasn’t even sure I was hearing her correctly. But I just couldn’t stop thinking about that question the whole day. Obviously, I was like, “Yes.” It was such a huge opportunity. And then we literally had to start straightaway preparing. We flew to Europe. We had like two days of rehearsals, I’m not even joking, two days of rehearsals. Then the next day, we had to open at the O2 Arena. It was so crazy!
It taught me so much in terms of performing — especially from Chris, because he’s an amazing performer. He spoke to me a lot. He gave me a lot of tips, and I still use them to this day. I feel like it was literally the perfect bootcamp for me. It gave me a lot of confidence, and it helped me play around with my performance. It helped me get a wider audience, because I was traveling all of Europe, and videos started circling around of me, which was amazing. Opportunities just started falling into my lap. It was the best experience ever. I’ll never forget that tour.
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Take me back through the making of “Water.”
I’ve been recording music for over two years now, since I got signed to the label, making music for my album. And we got to a point where we were like, “OK, let’s start finalizing songs.” But I just felt like I needed that summer dance song, I felt like I was missing that. I said, “OK, I need it to sound like this. I need it to have African influence. It needs to sound like ‘popiano,’ Afrobeats, amapiano, R&B all in one. It needs to live in the clubs. It needs to be a banger.” And I’m not even joking, as soon as I heard “Water,” I was literally like, “It’s over. It’s over for everybody!” I just fell in love with it. I played it for everybody I could, and everyone fell in love with it. So I just knew in my soul that this was the one.
How did you come up with the viral “Water” dance?
The dance style is actually called bacardi, it’s a dance style in South Africa that originated in Pretoria. And the dance style is usually done with bacardi-type music. Usually when we have songs, I get on a call with my choreographer from South Africa [Lee-ché Janecke] [and] my best friend Thato for hours and we’re thinking, “OK, for this song, what are we going to do?” Then I was just like, “I really feel like this song needs a dance. I really want to do something on TikTok with this song.” Not all the songs I want to make are all TikTok songs where you dance and everything, but this one felt like it needed that.
And then I was like, “Why don’t we make it bacardi?” Obviously, everyone was like, “Um, this isn’t the genre for bacardi.” [Laughs] It felt like that type of style would just go with this song. We actually had a bacardi-type dance for a different song. And we changed it and made that dance for “Water.” We tried a little bit of it in Portugal, but we didn’t pour the water. We ended up reworking it and I was like, “Guys, this is what we’re going to do. You pass me the water, and I’m just going to pour it on my back when I do the bacardi move.” It was exciting for us.
We ended up doing it on the stage for the Giants of Africa Festival, and I was so worried after that performance ’cause I was like, “I don’t know if I did it right.” And then I got videos. I actually DM’ed someone that was in the audience because they posted on their story like, “Please, can you send me the video?” She sent me the video and I edited it and I posted it on my way to a different country. We were on a plane, and I posted it just before we took off and my phone got disconnected. When I landed, it was already at like five million views. I was in so much shock because that flight wasn’t even that long. I was like, “This is crazy!”
How many water bottles would you estimate you’ve spilled down your back while doing the dance?
[Laughs] I don’t know. Probably a whole water company. [Laughs]
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I loved that you teamed up with Ayra Starr on “Girl Next Door” and you performed at Uncle Waffles’ NYC show. What’s it like to shine alongside other female artists coming out of the continent?
I love it. I’m a girl’s girl for real. Waffles is a girl’s girl, Ayra is a girl’s girl. In general, we all have the same goal: Africa to the world. I feel like we’ve always had the great music and the culture and the vibe, but we haven’t had the audience. Social media helps so much because it’s been able to give us that access to more people. I love seeing Afrobeats artists win, amapiano artists win, everyone in Africa. It’s only up for us really.
Who would you love to collaborate with next?
I’d honestly love to have a song with Tems. I love her voice, I love her vibe. Her new song [“Me & U”] is on repeat.
I heard you’re finishing up your debut EP. What can fans expect from it?
Definitely more bangers. It’s going to be a short and sweet one, but it’s going to be a glimpse into my sound because I do feel like it has developed over time and it’s more where I want it to be. It’s my first project ever. I’ve been releasing music and making music for years now, so it’s exciting for me to start making worlds for people to listen to and tap into. But it’s definitely a new, fresh sound for the world. And it’s a fusion between my African world and my ideal popstar/R&B world. And I’m super excited for people to listen.
Considering amapiano has become increasingly popular in the U.S. over the last couple of years, what is your hope for the sound in the future?
I honestly feel like it’s going to be the next biggest thing in dance music. It’s going to be playing in all of the raves, all of the festivals, Ibiza, all of the [places] where they listen to [sings] oontz oontz oontz oontz oontz. I feel like ‘piano is really going to take over that whole world.
What advice do you have for up-and-coming African artists who are hoping to have their music travel across the globe?
It’s very hard because I’m still figuring out a lot because I’ve been coming [up] and trying to find my way. But based off my experience, just make music that feels like you, that’s very authentic to you. Don’t try copying other people. Just find your sound and what you want the world to see you as and push that forward and believe in it. If you keep working towards it and go day by day as if you’ve already achieved your goal, you will get there.
A lot of people say “manifestation” and whatnot. I don’t want to put a label on it, but personally, ever since I could remember, before “manifestation” was even a word I knew, I always believed that I already achieved that goal. I already believed that it was mine. It was just a matter of time that it was going to be given to me. That really helped me because it really happened. Everything happened the way it was supposed to happen. And if you as an artist feel like that, just keep believing that it’s yours already and I’m sure it will be one day.
Seven years before he was born, Charles Wesley Godwin’s parents survived a hurricane and subsequent flood in 1985 that was determined to wreak havoc on West Virginia. For a harrowing several hours, his mom and dad navigated treacherous waters and a washed-out bridge by car and foot trying to reach the safe embrace of their parents and grandparents.
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As they walked along the ridgelines of the Allegheny mountains, they saw Godwin’s uncle, waving a flashlight in the darkness, waiting on them. “He had no idea they would be coming, no way to reach them, but he just said he had a feeling they would come, so he went to the hill that night to wait on them,” Godwin says.
That true tale is recounted in “The Flood,” a song on Godwin’s third album, Family Ties, out Sept. 22 on Big Loud Records. Godwin calls the song a chronicling of “the bravest moment in my mom’s life.” It is one of several family-oriented songs on the project, alongside the towering romance of “Willing and Able” (written for his wife Samantha), “Gabriel” and “Dance in Rain,” written for their children, and the keen-eyed “Miner Imperfections” (a tribute to Godwin’s father).
Godwin has been among the acoustic, roots-oriented singer-songwriters and groups surging to the forefront over the past few years, including Zach Bryan, Tyler Childers, Billy Strings and Turnpike Troubadours. Since the release of his 2019 debut Seneca and its follow-up, 2021’s How The Mighty Fall, Godwin has further refined his considerable skill as a detailed storyteller. “The Cranes of Potter,” from How the Mighty Fall, cast a critical eye on big-city development, while that album’s title track surveyed the toll time ravages on the weak and strong alike. Much like those previous projects, Godwin is the sole writer on nearly every song on the new, 19-track album.
The aforementioned “Miner Imperfections,” written with Zach McCord, is one of the few exceptions. The track showcases Godwin’s rough-hewn vocals as he sings of the worthy qualities and shortcomings of a working-class man trying to build a simple, loving life, and his pride in all of it.
“[Zach] had that chorus, and my dad was a coal miner, so I loved the idea,” Godwin says. “His dad’s a blue-collar guy from West Virginia and both of them were similar, in that they were pretty quiet guys, but extremely loving fathers at the same time. We worked on it that whole day and We just wrote it for our dads. It felt like a perfect song for this album.”
Godwin picked up a guitar just over a decade ago, inspired by watching a Grammys performance from The Avett Brothers, Bob Dylan and Mumford & Sons.
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“It blew me away,” he says. “It made me want to pick up a guitar. I thought it would just be another productive hobby, since after high school, I wasn’t playing sports anymore.” But rather than the onslaught of bro-country that dominated the country radio airwaves around that time, Godwin’s influences veered toward names like Prine, Kristofferson and Nelson.
He first played onstage while still studying finance at West Virginia University; a college classmate essentially forced him onstage during a semester abroad in Estonia, during Godwin’s junior year.
“I brought my guitar [on the trip] and one night we went to a show in Tartu,” Godwin says. “I didn’t know it, but one of my roommates took my guitar out of my room after I left and brought it to the show. When the concert was over, he ran up onstage — and somehow didn’t get kicked out — and got everyone in the room to start chanting, until I got up there and played a song.”
His potential as a musician was solidified when he received a Facebook message from a local fashion designer who had seen his impromptu performance and offered him 150 Euros to play music during a local fashion show. “Drinks were on me that night,” he recalls with a laugh. “That just changed my whole life.”
Along the way, Godwin has slowly, deliberately built his career, playing shows, and drawing fans with his burly vocal and nuanced writing style. But not long after the release of How the Mighty Fall, Godwin began facing new pressures as labels began sniffing around.
“I was having a hard time dealing with it, to be honest,” he recalls. “I was in a funk for a handful of months. I was trying to get back to writing songs, spending each morning going into the woodshed, kind of writing garbage but just trying my best. A bunch of labels wanted to hear what I was working on, even though I had just come out with an album. It threw me off because I had two albums out at that point and was selling tickets all around the country. To me, I was not a risk, yet folks were still kind of wanting to cherry-pick whether I had ‘it’ or not.”
He recalls that it took him “a few months to get my head around that, and be confident again. I had all these guys depending on me, my family. I want to keep growing on their behalf, and I’d be lying if I said I didn’t care if a label worked out or not.”
A heart-to-heart with his father offered perspective. “He said, ‘All you have control over is the pen in your hand and the notebook in front of you. Everything else will happen in time if it’s meant to be.’ It helped me to shake all that stuff off.’”
The next morning, Godwin wrote “Two Weeks Gone,” start to finish; the song served as a launching point for what became Family Ties. “I just thought, ‘Okay, how about I just go within myself and write what’s personal to me? I’m gonna write about my family this year.’ I ended up having one of the best writing years of my life last year, and that led to the album.”
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Earlier this year, he released the EP Live From the Church, recorded at The Church studio in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He recorded Family Ties at Echo Mountain Recording, an old Asheville, North Carolina church building that was remodeled into a recording studio and has since become a go-to recording center for artists including The Avett Brothers (Godwin was inspired to record there thanks to the 2017 The Avett Brothers documentary May It Last: A Portrait of the Avett Brothers).
“I always wondered what it would be like to get to record in a place like that,” Godwin says. “This time around, I finally had the opportunity and resource to do it. And in a practical sense, the main room is so big — and they have so many iso booths — that all of us were able to record live to tape at the same time. It was a best-case scenario to work in that studio.”
He also nods to his roots with “Cue Country Roads” and cover of the John Denver classic “Take Me Home, Country Roads,” which he performs to close every show. Godwin says he recorded it with the blessing of the manager of Denver’s estate. “He and his son came out to Red Rocks when I played there in May,” he says. “They said they loved it and wanted to do whatever they can to help, because they view it as kind of helping the song reach the next generation.”
The label issues resolved themselves, too; in March, Big Loud, home to artists including Morgan Wallen, HARDY, and Hailey Whitters, announced it had signed Godwin. Family Ties was completed before he signed his label deal.
“We made the album in January and handed it in to them and they said, ‘We love it,’ and that was it. There was no helicoptering over making the album or anything,” Godwin says.
Godwin spent much of this year opening for Zach Bryan’s Burn, Burn, Burn Tour and will join Luke Combs’ 2024 summer stadium tour. But before then, he will continue with the house of worship-turned-house of music conduit when he headlines two shows at Nashville’s own Mother Church, the Ryman Auditorium on Dec. 7-8.
“I’m just very grateful for the people that connect with my music,” Godwin says. “It’s amazing just how diehard they are and it’s going to be a really special couple of nights.”
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The notion of chasing creative ambitions across the country, from small towns to music industry meccas, is far from novel for Parkland, Florida native Ashley Cooke. Due to her father’s corporate job, Cooke’s family moved around frequently, living in 19 homes before Cooke was 18. At one point, her family relocated to Los Angeles when Cooke was a child, to support her older sister Jenn’s ambitions as an actress.
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“She loved acting and pageantry and all of that. I was kind of dragged along, the little sister,” Cooke says with a laugh. “I grew up as a tomboy who loved playing sports and was nowhere near interested in being in the spotlight. But being in that environment, I fell in love with the poetry behind songwriting and performing. “ At one point, the sisters performed together, but Cooke’s passion for music soon led her to make her own leap of faith as a solo artist.
She moved to Nashville and enrolled at Nashville’s Belmont University as a corporate communications major. Her first breakthrough came when she won Belmont’s country music showcase in 2019 (the same showcase series that had become a career launcher for Brad Paisley, Kassi Ashton and Florida Georgia Line). In addition to offering a pair of original songs, she covered the Maren Morris/Zedd/Grey collaboration “The Middle.” (Also competing in that same showcase was Monument Records sister duo Tigirlily Gold).
As with many of today’s newcomers, Cooke first caught the industry’s attention with a viral TikTok moment, via her song “Never ‘Til Now” — which she parlayed into a collaboration with country hitmaker Brett Young. Now, Cooke is gearing up to release her debut album, Shot in the Dark, out Friday on Big Loud Records/Back Blocks.
On the sprawling, 24-song double album, Cooke deftly mixes stories of love, heartbreak and lessons learned along the way, and showcases a range of sonic styles — all underpinned by her powerful but accessible vocals. Highlighting the camaraderie among today’s crop of rising and veteran artists, the album features collabs with Brett Young (“Never ‘Til Now”), Colbie Caillat (‘Mean Girl”), Nate Smith (“See You Around”) and Jackson Dean (“What Are You on Fire About”).
Billboard spoke with Cooke, July’s Country Rookie of the Month, about writing for her debut album, her collaborations, the role of social media in artist development, and the advice she received from Kenny Chesney.
There are 24 songs on your debut album. Why did you choose “Taste Like” to open this project?
It sets a fun tone for the project. I love the initial kind of ghostly whisper that you hear at the beginning of the song. That was a product of the demo. We did a writing retreat with three of my favorite songwriters — Corey Crowder, Jordan Minton and Emily Weisband. We were writing the song and Emily just kind of kept singing that part over and over, and Corey captured her singing that part. I was so obsessed with the way that sounded on the demo, and I thought that would be such a great way to open the album. So we recreated it with my voice on the project.
“The State I’m In” closes the album. Why did that make sense as the final track?
I thought of the album in the same way I would a live show. This song felt like, “Welcome to this era of my music.” With this song, I was driving through somewhere in Ohio or Indiana, touring in the van. It was 1:00 a.m. and I was scrolling Instagram, seeing a bunch of my friends posting about getting married and having babies and just being in that state of life. I just felt how cool it was that we can be in different phases and states and support each other.
So I had the idea because we were in different states, physically and metaphorically. And so that sounds like the perfect album cap, because it felt like the place I’m at. I can be a very indecisive person, but it was like, “No, I know where I’m at — and it’s okay to be totally in love with my career and doing this full-time right now.”
You are a co-writer on nearly every song on the album. One of the few outside cuts is “What Are You On Fire About,” which features Lainey Wilson as a writer on it, alongside Luke Dick and Jason Nix (who is a writer on Wilson’s “Things a Man Oughta Know”).
They played it for me as an outside pitch. It sounded different than what I would write, but it still felt like my voice. I cut it, and Jackson Dean is a good friend of mine. I love his voice and artistry. He asked about the songs that might be on my album, and I told him “What Are You On Fire For?” which his producer [Luke Dick] wrote. He was like, ‘I would love to be a feature on that,’ so we recorded it.
You do have some great collaborations here. What was it like working with Colbie Caillat on “Mean Girl”?
She was such a huge inspiration to me growing up. I used to cover “Bubbly” all the time, and people would say that my voice kind of favors hers, and that was always such a huge compliment. I was really hoping to work with her down the road, and that point came quicker than I realized. It was great, and her voice sounds incredible on the track. It’s such a full-circle moment.
Like a lot of artists these days, your big break came through TikTok. How do you balance those commercial demands with creative demands?
I try to post one video per day. If I make more, great, and if I don’t that’s fine. I used to be a lot more obsessed with getting the perfect video and taking hours to make one video. I realized the ones that did best are the ones I tried the least for. Just make a video, spend 20 or 30 minutes on it, post it and see what happens. It’s tough to be a new artist and be so focused on that, but it is a tool to get your name and music out there.
How did that impact the album-making process?
We went into this album process — my label and I talked about it and decided to just post all of the songs, and see what happens and let fans decide what might go to radio and on playlists. Like another song on the album, “Your Place.” I posted it on social media, and the day it came out, I played a festival in Ohio. I was absolutely mind blown because everyone knew every word to it. It’s really exciting the era that we are in with social media, because of that instant connection you can have with fans.
You are currently on tour with Luke Bryan. What are some of your must-haves on tour?
I love essential oils, throat coat tea, my airpods and some kind of hoodie. I have to have a hoodie on the road, even if it’s 95 degrees out.
Earlier this year, you performed with Kenny Chesney during the Tortuga Music Festival, where you both sang “When the Sun Goes Down“…
It was exciting, it was so crazy. I played my own set earlier in the day, and he saw my performance and invited me to sing with him. He’s just such a kind, humble human being.
Has he given you any career advice?
He said that his first tour was when he was 25, which was the age I was when we played the Tortuga Music Festival. He was like, “Keep your head down, grinding hard, keep working, and enjoy it along the way.” He’s such a hard worker and it shows in all of his success, and I respect how he chooses to mentor other artists. He is just one of those guys who wants to help and wants to mentor.
What drives you, musically?
I grew up listening to artists like Luke Bryan, Rascal Flatts and Ed Sheeran, and I felt so much comfort in the way they wrote about such universal feelings in a specific, unique way. That’s what’s exciting — the chance to take everything that I’ve experienced, and that a lot of other humans have experienced, but spinning it in a way, and making it sound different in a way that hits you right in the chest. That’s what inspires me the most.
Coco Jones is aiming to kick down doors and usher in a whole new generation of fearless Black women right alongside her.
Walking the balance beam of music and acting, Jones has emerged as as a fast-rising double threat. The vivacious soul singer is grabbing ears and stealing hearts with her R&B hits, while also appearing on Peacock’s Bel-Air as the self-assured Gen-Z version of ’90s character Hilary Banks.
After signing to Def Jam in 2022, Jones released her major label debut project, What I Didn’t Tell You. Soaked in buttery vocals and gripping tales about heartbreak, WIDTU was the perfect entrance for the former child star who had breakout roles in Disney Channel shows and films including So Random!, Good Luck Charlie and Let It Shine.
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On her debut, only does she seamlessly flip SWV’s “Rain” into the addictive “Double Back,” but she flaunts her range on the Hot 100 hit “ICU.” Laden with emotion, “ICU” deals with the push and pull of a fallen relationship and proves why Jones has the potential to be one of the genre’s strongest vocalists.
“I was used to 12-hour work days, which didn’t faze me,” says Jones. “As a kid, I was on set during school. I was always working my little butt off. This is just what I do for my dreams.” Despite being a workhorse, Jones believes she’s still a work in progress in the music department, but is willing and eager to learn more to put the next generation on.
“Every time I sing ‘ICU,’ I find a new way to make it iconic because I don’t want the next girl to struggle how I struggled to get here,” she says. “We’re all talented. It should be easier. So that’s what I gotta do. I’m gonna kill it every time so that it will be easier one day.”
Billboard caught up with June’s R&B / Hip-Hop Rookie of the Month, Coco Jones, to speak about the success of “ICU,” the best advice SZA gave her and her mission to help Black women succeed.
Thinking about your Disney origins, does the pressure ever get to you knowing that only Zendaya has made the transition to music from a Black woman standpoint?
I think it’s very difficult and there were times where I was kind of in fear, but it was more of the uncertainty of when, if and how. Sometimes, it’s just like, “How the hell am I supposed to do this?” I think it’s hard enough to rebrand anything. If Coca Cola wanted to start selling cake, I would look at them so crazy because that’s not what you told us you do. So I think for me, I was like, “Somebody’s gotta help me.” That’s what I wanted the most; somebody else who knew how to figure this rebrand out. I’ll do my part. I’ll do the writing, I’ll do the creating, find myself and be vulnerable enough to tell ’em, but somebody gotta make somebody care. I feel like that was the part that really clicked for me and everything changed when I got the right team. Also, it took time to get to that. I had several promises and only one time did they pay out the way they were told to me, you know? That’s been my entire career, though.
Talk about the freedom you were able to have on this project as a Def Jam signee versus when you were first signed after the success of your 2012 film Let It Shine.
For me, you don’t know what you’re missing until you learn about it. For me, from Tennessee, just me and my mama doing this and trying to figure it out, having any label behind me, having any team was all so amazing. I had no creative control then. I just sang what they told me to sing. I would write songs and they wouldn’t like ’em and I was like, “OK. Cool.” I didn’t know. I think I was super delusional and I was so green.
Now, having the experience of looking back at the old songs, I’m now like, “Wait. That was fire.” Then, doing the math and seeing my other peers and creatives like SZA and H.E.R. and [thinking] “I would sing a song like that. Why didn’t I do that? Wait. You can dress like that on stage? That’s allowed?” I had epiphanies as I came to have a life and have experiences. I remember even the first time I said a curse word on a song. I wrote it for someone else and then I was even scared to have my voice on the demo saying that. I had to get out of the box, because I was so deeply in this cookie cutter box.
You’ve said in a past interview that your best guide is your intuition. Did your intuition tell you that “ICU” would be your biggest hit when you were recording it?
You know what? I think it didn’t [laughs]. I didn’t know it was going to be my biggest hit. There’s this thing I would do since when I was a kid where the actual soul would come out. I used to do it all the time when I would audition. I would sing “Chain of Fools” by Aretha Franklin and I would pretend I was Aretha, like I been through the storm and this is my song. “You’re going to feel this,” but I’m nine. I don’t know anything. So I do give a lot of credit to my mom for even introducing me to that type of soul, emotion and that raw vulnerability that I learned to imitate, but I knew when I heard the track, I just knew [it was special]. I just knew I was going to do some sh-t.
You’ve also deemed this your most confident era. When did you find that sweet spot and start living life confidently?
Hmm. This was probably around the time that TikTok really popped me off again. Like the resurgence of relevancy was baffling. So I was like, “Wait a minute. These people still care? Ok. I gotta do something with this.” Like I thought I did enough. I really thought out of sight, out of mind and I don’t have no new show. I don’t have no new song. But when I told my story on the internet on YouTube, when I saw the wave of support, that didn’t go away. It kind of charged me up. Like, it would be a shame for me to not give these people that support me a reason to keep supporting me. I gotta put stuff out with my chest.
How do you balance being Hilary [on TV] and then Coco?
I think there’s no option but to do what must be done. I realized that I signed my name to both of these entities. I signed to two companies. One was NBC, Peacock and then Def Jam my second. So they both require me to get my job done, so I just do my job [laughs]. There’s no balance, though. There’s what can be done to work around the other and not like, “Ok. I have to be here. What can we do when I’m done with that? Then, I can go there.” It’s really about just figuring it out. There’s really no balance. It just depends on the schedule.
Have there been times when you caught yourself pulling from the Hilary Banks character when you’re in artist-mode?
Hilary’s a boss. I feel like she has a certain way that she sees her image, her career and trajectory, and nothing can sway her from that being what it is. I wanna tap into that more. I feel like I’m very self-assured of where I want it all to go, but I think I get stuff from Hilary because I’m still a rookie. There’s some things that I have to be educated on by people that have been here longer than me. So in one sense, I’m very decisive like Hilary, but I’m also very much more collaborative with my team.
When you get cosigns from artists like SZA and Janet Jackson, do those mean more to you than any of the love you’ve gotten from the acting side?
[Laughs] Well, because I was singing first and singing is my home, it does hit a little differently that people acknowledge who I wanna be as really good. That does hit differently. I do appreciate the love for Hilary, but at the end of the day, I’m just reading these words. But with me, this came from my heart. So to know that people are supportive of what came from my heart and literal spirit, yes, it hits very different.
SZA once told you that you needed to live life with a bit more delusion. How have you incorporated that into your everyday life?
I think just making my goals galaxy-big instead of medium-sized like they used to be. [They used to be] very logical, percentages and statistics, like, “What are the chances of…” I would really look these things up before I decided it was something I wanted, just to be safe. But that’s not the life I’m trying to live. I’m trying to live in delusion. If that’s where you want to get to, to shoot for the galaxy and at least hit the moon, then that’s how I’m gonna shoot. I think making all of my goals insanely large and not fact-based, not percentage-based, not based on my skin color or the genre [is the way to go].
You said your goal is to make a new standard for Black women. What steps are you taking to rewrite those standards?
I think showing up as the best version of me in every category. Like you said, the balance game of playing all of these roles is not easy. There are times where I feel like I could half-ass it and it would still be good, but no. I know that for where I want these next generation of Black girls to be able to walk into, I have to break those doors down and you don’t get there by just being good. You have to be jawdropping.
Before Leo Brooks and Andrew Millsaps teamed up to form the new country duo Neon Union, their careers were on decidedly contrasting paths.
Millsaps focused on writing songs and performing around his native North Carolina, at one point winning the MerleFest Chris Austin Song Contest and performing his original music during the roots music festival MerleFest.
Meanwhile, the bilingual, Miami-based Brooks spent years honing his talents playing bass on tour with Pitbull and Lauryn Hill. He also co-wrote Pitbull’s “Echa Pa’lla (Manos Pa’ribba),” which earned a Latin Grammy for best urban performance, and contributed to songs, including “Que Lo Que” (recorded by Sensato featuring Pitbull, Papayo and El Chevo) from the Grammy-winning project Dale. Along the way, he also played bass for artists including Mary J. Blige, Nas and John Legend.
But country music was a strong influence when he visited family on the Honduran island of Roatan. “The main music on the island was classic country and reggae music. My dad gave me a guitar and taught me to play George Jones and Hank Williams,” Brooks tells Billboard via Zoom.
When Pitbull realized Brooks’ own music had a country vibe, he connected him with “Freedom Is a Highway” hitmaker, songwriter and exec Jimmie Allen, who felt it was a match for Millsaps’ burly voice and energetic stage presence.
Millsaps and Brooks formed Neon Union and Allen subsequently signed them to his management and production company JAB Entertainment, which Allen launched with John Marks and Aaron Benward. They also collaborated with Allen on “Livin’ Man,” from the latter’s 2021 album Bettie James Gold Edition. In June, they inked a label deal with Red Street Records (led by Rascal Flatts member Jay DeMarcus), and landed their first entry on Billboard‘s Country Airplay chart when “Bout Damn Time,” written by HARDY, Tyler Hubbard, Jordan Schmidt and Hunter Phelps, reached No. 60 on the chart.
“We want to kick the doors down and make a little noise,” Millsaps says of the song, which pays homage to the “farm tan crew” and “the ball cap boys with a six-inch lift.”
Brooks says of the song, “It represents everybody. We want everyone to be at our party.”
Neon Union is also one of a handful of multi-racial acts who have tried their luck in Nashville over the years, including duo Malchak & Rucker, who notched five songs on Billboard’s Country Songs chart in the 1980s, followed by trio The Farm with their 2011 top 20 hit “Home Sweet Home,” and more recently, the duos Exit 216 and 2 Lane Summer.
Neon Union talked to Billboard about their career journey, working together, touring with Allen — and Brooks’ impromptu wedding performance with George Strait.
Jimmie Allen brought the two of you together. What was that like?
Millsaps: I started playing in the bars during college Later, I had a job interview in Nashville and was staying at a hotel downtown. I randomly met Jimmie on an elevator at that hotel and we connected on social media. I didn’t think anything of it, but about six months later, I was playing at [Nashville music event] Whiskey Jam and saw him again. He liked my music, we exchanged numbers — and maybe two weeks later, he called and asked if I had ever thought about being in a duo, and introduced me to Leo.
Brooks: I played with Pitbull for 12 years, and was his musical director on tour, but I was the only one in the back of the bus listening to George Jones. Pitbull told Jimmie about me because I wanted to do my own thing, musically.
Millsaps: We briefly met over FaceTime. Leo flew into Nashville and we met at Jimmie’s house. Jimmie was like, “You guys have to be sure you want to do this.” We got some beers and hung out that evening and just clicked right away.
Brooks: It’s like a movie — so randomly put together, but we just get along so well.
How long after you met did you start recording together?
Millsaps: The next morning we were recording together. There were some nerves — I hadn’t even been in a full-fledged Nashville session at the time.
Brooks: I was just hoping this guy could sing. He did, and I was like, “Wow, OK.”
Millsaps: We started recording scratch vocals and cold chills just went over everybody. It sounded so good.
How did your deal with Red Street Records come about?
Millsaps: We started that day with a writing session and wound up with a record deal. We wrote a song and Leo had a flight scheduled that night. Then Aaron [Benward] called me up. He said, “Jay DeMarcus wants you to come by Red Street Records, like right now.” Leo canceled his flight and we drove over there and met in the conference room. We played like two songs and Jay said, “I want y’all to know I’ll have your record deal on the table by tomorrow.”
Brooks: Everyone over there, it’s just a great team of people.
Not only did Jimmie bring you two together to form Neon Union, but you were on his Down Home Tour last year.
Millsaps: Jimmie has been so supportive to us and getting us on that tour early. We didn’t really have any music out at the time. We got to meet a lot of folks in radio while we were on the road with Jimmie, which was great to give them that initial connection on the road — and then later as we put out this song, they remembered us.
What has being on radio tour been like for you?
Brooks: It’s a lot of travelling but we’re used to it. When I was with Pitbull, I was gone for months and home for a couple of days and then right back out. Here, we’ll travel for six days and then we’re home for a day or so. But it’s great having each other through all of it. You’re not just sitting by yourself in an airport, ever. We goof off and have fun. It is a lot of early mornings though — people will say, “See you bright and early.” Instead, we say, “See you dark and early.”
Leo, your first gig out of high school was playing with Lauryn Hill’s band. How did that happen?
Brooks: I picked up bass in high school, and I got the gig through one of my friends in Miami. He was auditioning for drums and she asked him if he knew a bass player. That’s when I came in and she loved it. I used to have a big old afro with a green bass [guitar]. The work with Pitbull came through the same drummer. I was always in New York and wanted to be closer to family in Miami, so I auditioned and met Pit and we became like brothers. I was just learning from him because Pit works hard and it’s nonstop. I would send him music for like seven years before I landed a song.
You are also bilingual. Would the two of you ever release a bilingual or Spanish-language song?
Brooks: Pitbull told me the other night, he was like, “We gotta do a song in Spanish.”
Millsaps: We also have already done another song, that we haven’t released yet, with Jimmie [Allen] and Pitbull, too, so that was sweet. You hear this country guy from Mayberry going, “Ladies and gentlemen, Mr. Worldwide.” I was like, “Did I just get to say that?”
Where are you at in the album-making process?
Millsaps: We are starting to release new music by the end of March and just cut some songs with [producer] Dann Huff. We’re looking at releasing an EP this summer and hopefully a full-length in the fall. We’ve been out on the road playing so much that people are like, “Where’s your music?” We’ve got it coming.
What was the first concert you ever went to?
Millsaps: Kenny Chesney when Keith Urban was opening for him.
Brooks: Mine was No Doubt.
What did your parents do growing up?
Millsaps: My mom was a teacher and my dad owns a flooring cover store. I was third-generation coming up through a floor-covering business, and that’s what I started doing in Nashville at first. It’s still in my blood — I still look down everywhere I go. [Laughs.]
Brooks: My dad was a car painter and did body work as well, he had his own body shop. My mom was a nursing assistant.
If you could see any artist perform, who would it be?
Brooks: Metallica, for me.
Millsaps: I’ll say George Strait because I haven’t seen him in concert yet.
Brooks: I did play with him one time. There was a wedding I was doing and they were like, “George Strait is going to come here.” I was like, “Yeah, right” — but then he walks into this little party house in West Palm Beach, Florida. I was playing bass guitar and he came up and sang “Troubadour.”
Millsaps: Dang, I’m so jealous. That’s, like, one of my favorite songs.
