SXSW
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PartyNextDoorâs anticipated performance at the Moody Amphitheater at Waterloo Park on Thursday, March 14 was the perfect kick-off to Billboardâs annual THE STAGE at SXSW concert series. During Partyâs one-hour set, he not only delivered hits including âBreak from Torontoâ and âCome and See Meâ (feat. Drake), but elevated them to new heights with a […]
As fans at the off-site parking lot board a shuttle that will take them to their final destination â Willie Nelsonâs coveted Luck Reunion â Noah Kahanâs âAll My Loveâ plays from the busâ speakers, setting a rallying and welcoming tone for the long day ahead. Celebrating its 12th year, the Luck Reunion offers a […]
On Wednesday (March 13), French electronic music duo Justice flew into Austin, Texas, from Paris for a rare appearance at SXSW. The duo participated in a featured session simply called Justice: In Conversation, moderated by Billboardâs Katie Bain. While the pair discussed their lasting legacy, which dates back to the 2007 debut album Cross, they […]
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A new documentary series taking viewers inside the notable Magic City gentlemenâs club produced by Drake and Jermaine Dupri debuted at SXSWÂ to rave reviews.
If you mention Magic City to anyone in and out of Atlanta, Georgia, youâre bound to get an approving response. The well-known strip club is the focus of a new documentary series, Magic City: An American Fantasy, which has Hip-Hop icon Jermaine Dupri and superstar Drake as producers. However, it is not currently attached to any distributor or platform. The series made its debut at the South By Southwest Festival Monday (March 11), with director Charles Todd and producer Cole Brown on hand to field questions from the audience along with fellow producer Jami Gertz after the first episode was screened at the Zach Theatre in Austin, Texas.
On the red carpet, Todd spoke of the influence that the strip club has. âMagic City is a purveyor of culture, and its an A&R â all the biggest hits that you hear on the radio, if it doesnât break at Magic City, it doesnât break, period.â Brown also spoke about the fine line everyone walked in bringing the series to the screen. âWe wanted to walk a fine line with nudity, in particular â where you canât make a documentary about a strip club and not have any nudity, it just isnât true to form â and youâre trying to tell the true story,â he said. âAt the same time, we didnât want it to be salacious, gratuitous. We wanted to use it in such a way that youâre getting an image of what this place is. But if you go to Magic City, you see all the anatomy.â
That was underscored by Gigi McGuire, a former dancer at Magic City who appeared at the premiere and appears nude in the series. âI understood the vision of the artistic value of what they were trying to achieve, and I had no problem with agreeing to show these titties,â she told the audience, adding: âStrip is art, and the art is being celebrated, clearly.â In addition to Drake, the series also features appearances by Big Boi, Shaquille OâNeal, T.I., Killer Mike and Nelly.
On June 29, 2012, Nick Miller regained consciousness in a Boulder, Colo., hospital room. The day before, heâd overdosed on heroin, the final act of a 10-day drug binge. Coming to, he saw his mother and the sadness in her eyes. He was 21 years old and had been sober for 15 months after time in rehab and years of opiate addiction. Heâd been doing so well.
But his mom had known something was off after her son had gone quiet over text and phone. She called a friend of his, insisting they go check on him while she packed a bag and booked the next flight to Denver. The friend found Miller unresponsive, thrust naloxone â the opioid overdose reversal medication â up his nose and dialed 911. If not for his momâs sense that something was wrong, itâs unlikely that Iâd be here in Millerâs house on this chilly February afternoon in Los Angeles to talk with him about his incredible success as electronic producer Illenium. Itâs unlikely heâd be here at all.
Sitting in the cave-like home studio within his large and otherwise light-filled house, Miller, 33, dotes on his dogs â the regal Belgian Malinois Grace and a small but fierce blonde dachshund whose dedicated Instagram account has 23,000 followers and for whom the houseâs Wi-Fi network, âPalace du Peanut,â is named â holding them in arms covered in sacred geometry and Eye of Sauron tattoos. He makes jokes and direct eye contact, speaks in ski-bum parlance (âfire,â âsick,â âchillinâ â), endearingly giggles and generally comes off as a person worth rooting for.
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I ask Miller what heâd say to that hospital room version of himself, given everything that has happened since. His answer is immediate: âThereâs no way I would have even believed the possibilities.â
Illenium plays Billboard Presents THE STAGE at SXSW on March 16. Get your tickets here.
As Illenium, Miller is one of the most successful electronic acts of the last half-decade, a dance music star in the fireworks and confetti tradition, but with a harder and more rock-Âoriented sound and sensibility than straightforward main-stage EDM. In a genre known more for talent-heavy festival bills than solo-show hard ticket sales, heâs one of only a handful of artists, like ODESZA and Kaskade, playing venues as massive as stadiums and arenas.
Still, itâs possible youâve never heard of him. Illenium hasnât yet had a solo crossover hit (âTakeaway,â his 2019 collaboration with The Chainsmokers and Lennon Stella, hit No. 69 on the Billboard Hot 100 and remains his highest-ranking single on the chart), and unlike some world-famous DJs, he doesnât frequent fashion shows, post shirtless selfies or chase fame.
He calls himself âvery much a homebody,â one who most enjoys staying in and working on music, playing video games and hanging out with his dogs and his wife, Lara. The two met at a festival and married last September in Aspen, Colo., not too far from their primary residence, a 23,000-square-foot estate in the Denver suburb of Cherry Hills. Miller says he only bought the L.A. house in 2021 because âI was spending so much money on hotels and studio spaces here that it made more financial sense.â He has left twice in the last six days, once for a meeting and the other time to play the second of his back-to-back headlining shows at SoFi Stadium.
Louis Vuitton shirt and Askyurself sweater.
Daniel Prakopcyk
These Trilogy performances â so named because they feature three separate Illenium sets over five hours â are the current crown jewel of the Illenium empire. Prior to the Feb. 2 and 3 shows in L.A. (where his team says fans bought $2 million in merchandise alone), last Juneâs Trilogy concert at Denverâs Mile High stadium grossed $3.9 million and sold 47,000 tickets. It happened amid a 26-date North American tour that sold 191,000 tickets and grossed $15.7 million, according to Billboard Boxscore. His fourth studio album, 2021âs Fallen Embers, earned a Grammy Award nomination for best dance/electronic album, an accomplishment that came months after the debut Trilogy show at Las Vegasâ Allegiant Stadium helped break the pandemicâs pause on live music.
With nearly 33,000 attendees, the July 3, 2021, performance, according to Boxscore, broke the record for the biggest dance music event for a single headliner in U.S. history. At the end of it, Miller told the roaring crowd that for him Trilogy represents âmy transition from a fâking shâty life. That was my past. So itâs just fâking crazy, this. What the fâk? This is a fâking football stadium.â
Performing from a cryo-spitting tower of LEDs on the 50-yard line was not on Millerâs radar when he started releasing music in 2014. His work helped form the then-emerging future bass subgenre, which, like the bass music that influenced it, is huge and often heavy but also simultaneously soft â like getting hit in the head with a two-by-four wrapped in velvet. Future bass also incorporates more traditional verse/chorus song structures than much of the wilder bass made by Illeniumâs influences and peers â Zeds Dead, Excision, SLANDER, Dabin, Said the Sky, Space Laces â and his work also heavily integrates rock, metal, indie and pop sounds. The Illenium oeuvre, developed over his five studio albums, is cinematic, anthemic, often heavy and typically lyrically personal music that mulls deeper themes â love, heartbreak, rage â than standard dance refrains about putting your fâking hands up.
âIâm sensitive,â Miller says, and âfor sureâ an emotional person. For him, writing music is a form of escape, release and healing, and he thinks listeners can feel the depths heâs pulling from: âA fan whoâs going through something â when they listen to something personal, it just bonds in a different way.â
Des Pierrot vest, Jack John Jr. pants, Louis Vuitton shoes.
Daniel Prakopcyk
This bond is a key reason why fans not only love Illeniumâs music, but often have devotional relationships with it. The audiences at his shows party and headbang â but thereâs also a lot more crying at an Illenium concert than at most electronic sets.
His fusion of bass with traditional song structures has also fueled his broad appeal. UTAâs Guy Oldaker, his longtime agent, came up in the bass scene of Colorado â the genreâs spiritual U.S. home and a huge dance hub, with Denver effectively tied with Miami as the United Statesâ highest-indexing major market for electronic music streaming, according to Luminate. But Oldaker hadnât figured out how to cross these artists over into major festivals and Las Vegas residencies, where he says crowds usually want âeasily accessible pop music.â
When a promoter sent Oldaker demos by a local producer named Illenium in 2014, âI went, âHoly crap, this is exactly what I think will work with this audience in Vegas,â â Oldaker recalls. âI know very well how to build an artist in the scene where Iâve built everything else. I knew if I could connect the dots, weâd have a winner.â
Now, after the pandemic deflated his teamâs plans for international expansion, Illenium is poised for the kind of global ubiquity Oldaker has long believed he could achieve â that is, if thatâs even what he wants. âI go back-and-forth on if Iâd rather be a famous world star DJ,â Miller says bluntly, âor just like, kind of be chillinâ.â
When Oldaker first met him, Miller was sober â and also deep in the bass scene. He handed out show flyers as an intern for local promoter Global Dance, wrote for electronic music blogs, frequented Red Rocks Amphitheatre in Morrison and Aspenâs Belly Up Tavern and fell in love with the music and community he had found. Heâd returned to rehab following his overdose and, afterward, started teaching himself music: playing piano, watching YouTube tutorials on music theory and making âlike, âWonderwallâ remixes and random crap, just to figure it out.â
Soon, the music blog dubstep.net voted one of his tracks the No. 1 song of the moment. âI was like, âLetâs fâking go,â â he recalls. Heâd also started performing around Denver and in 2015 signed with Oldaker (then at Madison House Presents), who sent Illenium (his name references Star Warsâ Millenium Falcon) on the road as a support act for artists like Big Gigantic and Minnesota. After a show at the 500-capacity Georgeâs Majestic Lounge in Fayetteville, Ark., attendees bought out the venue for a second night so Illenium could play again. âAnd that sold out,â Oldaker says. âThese were small-market shows by someone no one had ever heard of who was getting 250 bucks to open for another artist, and all of a sudden heâs blowing out some room in Arkansas.â
Miller and his team â which by this time included manager Ha Hau (also the founder of Global Dance) and touring manager Sean Flynn, whom heâd met in recovery â started putting up headline shows at smaller clubs. They decided he needed a signature âthingâ and that it would be, Oldaker says, âputting so much production into these rooms that people walked out like, âI donât know what I just saw.â â
For a 2015 set at Denverâs 650-capacity Bluebird Theater, Miller spent $10,000 on a custom metal phoenix, a symbol of his rise from addiction that has also appeared on his album covers and on the Illenium jerseys that are the de facto fan uniform at his shows. âOn most of my tours, Iâve gone as far as I could with production by breaking even, or just slightly above,â he says. Flynn declines to give an exact price tag for Trilogyâs production, but says the shows are âreally expensive.â They werenât sure if theyâd even turn a profit with the SoFi sets, but then âthe second show crushed,â Miller says. âSo we were chillinâ.â
Daniel Prakopcyk
Streams, ticket sales and festival billings grew steadily as his profile rose, and his second album, 2017âs Awake, reached No. 106 on the Billboard 200. But Miller felt a disconnect. Fans didnât know about the personal experiences making his songs so emotionally intense, a chasm that felt especially wide when they told him his music had helped them through hard times, like dealing with addiction.
âIâve been wanting to share something super personal with you for a while,â Miller wrote in a letter posted to X (then Twitter) in August 2018, revealing his struggles with opiates and his overdose. âI was trapped in it, had no passion, no direction and truly hated myself⌠Iâm just sharing my story and relating because music saved my life too.â The news came in tandem with the release of âTake You Down,â a huge, hypnotic song he wrote about his mother. âI couldnât see that when I went to hell,â vocalist Tim James sings, âI was taking you with me.â
âWatching that relationship get torn by the sh-t you keep doing â at first, itâs like, âWhy are you on me so much, Iâm not even that bad,â â Miller reflects now. âThen it goes into âOK, I canât stopâ and then it goes into, like, âFâk everyone. I canât live without it.â And then youâre just breaking down.â
Making this information public initially made him nervous âbecause I didnât want to come off preachy. I love rave culture and people enjoying themselves and donât want to be the person thatâs likeâ â he shifts to a nerdy tone â â âYou guys are really fâking your lives up.â â But six years later, he thinks his fans appreciate knowing, âgiven all the music that has come out of it and that I did all of this sober.â
LEMAIRE jacket and Louis Vuitton shirt, pants and shoes.
Daniel Prakopcyk
In a realm not known for temperance, Miller says that Kaskade â one of the few sober dance artists â has been a role model who has shown him âyou can do this and not be a party animal, because itâs hard. You see how insane people go and wonder if youâll be accepted if youâre not partaking.â
But Miller is also uniquely suited to talk to fans about drugs. Last year, he partnered with L.A.-based nonprofit End Overdose, which distributes free naloxone and fentanyl test strips, provides training on how to respond to overdoses and is a partner of major dance music promoter Insomniac Events. He raised $50,000 for the organization through a fan donation matching campaign, became a certified End Overdose trainer, gave tutorials on administering naloxone on Instagram Live, provided trainings at stops on his last tour and gave contest winners an in-person demonstration at the Denver Trilogy show. Over 2,000 doses of naloxone have been distributed across these events; last September, one was used to resuscitate someone at a concert (not Illeniumâs) in Kansas City, Mo. âWeâve literally saved lives together,â End Overdose communications officer Mike Giegerich says. âItâs beyond meaningful.â
Meanwhile, Miller has rather cleverly figured out a healthy (and productive) way to satisfy his own addictive impulses. âTo have five hours to shape the night and do it all?â he says of the Trilogy shows. âThatâs like, my psycho drug addictness. That sounds very fulfilling and, like, a sweet high for me.â
The five-hour Trilogy shows have also given Miller time to explore the direction heâll pursue next. After his rock- and metal-focused 2023-self-titled album, which featured artists like Travis Barker and Avril Lavigne, the Trilogy sets inspired him to return to his electronic roots, and heâs working on âa lotâ of new music. Collaborations with TiĂŤsto (a Colorado neighbor Miller calls âthe fâking manâ), REZZ, Seven Lions, Mike Shinoda and others heâs not yet ready to name are forthcoming â not as an album, but as singles to be released throughout 2024.
Outside of scattered festival dates, heâs not touring this year, but Oldaker says, âWorld domination is where I think we go from here.â Flynn says the team âhad a lot of steamâ in Europe and Asia before the pandemic, and itâs now positioned to rebuild that momentum. American-style bass music has historically âhad a hard time getting good tractionâ in Europe, Oldaker says, but he fervently believes Illenium could be the one to break it.
Millerâs own feelings are more mixed. He points out that his seven-date European tour last summer hit 2,000- to 3,000-capacity rooms and turned out âfireâ crowds in cities like Brussels and Barcelona. He also acknowledges that the more minimal, less headbang-y European scene is âjust so different,â Miller continues, âand I never bought into it. Iâm not a partier. I like being home, and I donât play that game of âmeet this promoter so you can play their festival or club.â Iâm so not that person, and I think that has hurt me a bit in Europe.â
Still, heâd love to bring the full show abroad. He has growing fan bases in Asia (he did his first headlining show in India in February) and Australia, and his team is also eyeing expansion into Africa and Central and South America.
Meanwhile, North American demand hasnât abated for the artist Oldaker calls âthe underground monster youâve never heard of who all of a sudden blows your mind.â Several stadiums have reached out about hosting a Trilogy show, and fans can see Illenium through September at his residency at the 2,100-capacity Zouk in Las Vegas, a club the team chose for its production capabilities. Having played Vegas since his days as an opener, Miller has learned âthe gameâ of these shows: âtaking yourself less seriously, just having fun and not trying to have a musical therapy session in a fâking Vegas club.â
Daniel Prakopcyk
While there are many goals still to reach â a crossover hit (his official remix of Taylor Swiftâs âAnti-Heroâ toed the line), major mainstream festival headlining slots, movie scores and, Oldaker says, âexpanding what heâs doing so people understand he isnât just a bass producer and can do all these other thingsâ â the imminent strategy is simple: keep building âcore events,â Oldaker says, like Trilogy and Illeniumâs Ember Shores destination festival in Mexico, which held its second edition in December. âYes, we want to headline all the major festivals, but we have a great thing going with Trilogy where we can create these incredible experiences for fans to come be a part of,â Oldaker explains. âWeâll continue building it and hope these bigger festivals see the value weâre creating.â
âThere is no ceiling to cap the success that he is capable of,â adds Tom Corson, co-chairman/COO of Warner Records, which released Illenium. âNick is a career artist who can be as big as he wants to be both within dance music and outside of the genre.â
While now in a period of relative downtime, the guy whose lexicon heavily favors âchillinâ â doesnât, actually, want to be entirely chill. His Colorado rhythm is to drink coffee, run the dogs, tend to Illenium business â a straightforward model of âmerch and music and shows,â he says â then hit his home studio. Heâs also remodeling a Denver warehouse into a recording space for himself and other artists, some of whom will likely appear on the label heâs putting together. When heâs really not working, he golfs, snowmobiles or hangs with his parents, sisters, nieces and nephews who, Oldaker says, âare always around him.â
âTheyâre so happy, full of joy,â Miller says of his familyâs take on his achievements. âWe have a beautiful life now.â
That family isnât just his direct relations anymore, but the tens of thousands of screaming fans who love him â not only as an artist, but as a survivor: the kid in the hospital bed who was about to get up and make it all happen.
This story originally appeared in the March 9, 2024, issue of Billboard.
On June 29, 2012, Nick Miller regained consciousness in a Boulder, Colo., hospital room. The day before, heâd overdosed on heroin, the final act of a 10-day drug binge. Coming to, he saw his mother and the sadness in her eyes. He was 21 years old and had been sober for 15 months after time in […]
The SXSW festival issued a statement on Tuesday morning (March 12) about a deadly incident that took place earlier in the day in downtown Austin on the first night of this yearâs annual gathering of bands and music industry folks. âWe are deeply saddened to learn of the passing of an individual in downtown Austin […]
Itâs the tattoos that really make Christian Nodal stick out like a sore thumb. With his inked-up body â and face â he looks more like a rapper or rock star than the exploding regional Mexican artist he is.
âI didnât want to be anyoneâs shadow,â Nodal declares. âI felt that the genre was stigmatized under all these stereotypes, and I wanted to break all of that because I was unsatisfied to see that our genre wasnât going far enough.â
Since launching his career in 2017, Nodal, now 25, has made a name for himself (sometimes with sharp elbows) as a maverick in a genre long bound by tradition. From the time he started at age 18, he has revolutionized regional Mexican music by pioneering mariacheĂąo, a subgenre fusing mariachiâs strings and horns with the norteĂąo accordion.
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âI didnât want to disrespect anyone, much less the mentality of some of these [regional Mexican] legends who think the genre should sound and look a very specific way,â he explains. âBut that wasnât me. I didnât feel part of it. I wanted to make it my own.â
Christian Nodal plays Billboard Presents THE STAGE at SXSW on March 15. Get your tickets here.
When we meet in mid-December at Lienzo ZermeĂąo Ââ where charreadas, or Mexican rodeos, take place in the middle of Jaliscoâs bustling city of Guadalajara Ââ Nodal beams with pride as he recounts the arc he has followed to become one of Latin musicâs biggest stars in a few short years. He may look like a malote (bad guy) â he jokes about the role he would probably get cast for in a movie because of his tattoos â but heâs far from it, offering friendly hellos to the ranchâs workers and flashing a shy smile to the bystanders who recognize him but are too timid to introduce themselves.
Nodalâs entry into the regional Mexican world was a bit less genteel. When he started his career, the musicâs leaders were purists who leaned heavily on the traditional sound that had worked for them â and for the genre that has been around for more than a century. That left little room for experimentation, and some in the industry initially balked at Nodalâs unorthodox approach. âI think the first year they saw me as the new kid, but by my second year, I donât think they liked that I was still around. I saw a face of the regional Mexican that was quite raw, real and ugly,â Nodal says. âI was disappointed and thought, âOK, we probably wonât be creating a bond, much less collaborating. Fine. Iâm going this way and [making] regional music bigger.â â
To that end, Nodal has collaborated with artists well beyond regional Mexican, including Romeo Santos, Kany GarcĂa, David Bisbal, SebastiĂĄn Yatra and ManĂĄ â but without sacrificing his mariacheĂąo style. (His few collaborations with regional acts include Alejandro FernĂĄndez, Banda MS and Ăngela Aguilar.) He has also sought out new songwriting voices, including the Grammy Award-nominated Edgar Barrera, who co-wrote some of Nodalâs biggest hits.
That willingness to challenge genre norms propelled the mariacheĂąo singer â whose urban cowboy aesthetic incorporates leather vests, diamond necklaces, statement earrings and heavy rings on his fingers â to a remarkable year both professionally and personally in 2023. In December, he wrapped his Foraji2 Tour, a 31-date arena run produced by CĂĄrdenas Marketing Network that kicked off in August and followed his 22-date 2022 Forajido tour. He won his sixth Latin Grammy Award (best ranchero/mariachi album) for Forajido EP2, and he scored his 15th No. 1 on the Regional Mexican Airplay chart â a record for a solo artist since the list launched in 1994 â with that setâs âUn CumbiĂłn Dolido.â And he became a father when he and his partner, Argentine rapper-singer Cazzu, welcomed a baby girl in September.
âI remember those times when I would come down from the stage and feel alone,â says Nodal, who now lives in Argentina with Cazzu and their daughter. âNow I come down to a stroller with my baby in it, and it all seems perfect. She has already been on tour with us, and I thought it would be hard, but sheâs a rock star,â he says, getting choked up. âWhen she was born, I was feeling exhausted. I donât know how I managed to change diapers, but she gives me energy, motivation and strength.â
Dolce & Gabbana shirt, Chrome Hearts vest, belt and jewelry, and Braggao and John Varvatos jewelry.
Lisette Poole
A lot has changed â not just in his personal life, but in the broader Latin music landscape â since Nodal released his first single, the achingly beautiful âAdiĂłs Amor,â in 2017. Powered by wailing trumpets, a stirring accordion and Nodalâs strikingly mature and evocative baritone, the song quickly established him as one of the great vocalists in the genre. It earned him his first Regional Mexican Airplay No. 1 and spent seven weeks atop the chart. âWhen working with Christian, these two things are always present: Heâs like an artist from another planet when making music, and [he sings] it in a spectacular way,â says Afo Verde, chairman/CEO of Sony Music Latin-Iberia, which signed Nodal in early 2022.
Now, thanks to the doors Nodal has opened in just a few short years and the sound he pioneered, regional Mexican is dominating the Latin charts, and a new crop of artists â who sing corridos tumbados, tumbados romĂĄnticos, sad sierreĂąo, or whatever the latest iteration of the genre is, and are keen to collaborate â has taken the lead, helping globalize the music that, while a backbone of Latin, was long considered meant for a niche audience. But none of those performers have dominated quite like Nodal â and he has done it on his own terms.
âEverything can coexist,â he says. âI enjoy fusing sounds, but I donât run toward something just because itâs working [for others]. Iâm very careful not to deviate from my purpose. I still need to feel proud of what I do.â
Born in Sonora, a northern Mexican state that borders Arizona, and later raised in Guadalajara and Ensenada, Baja California, Nodal grew up in a musical household, listening to pop, rock, rap, bachata and more. But he also developed a great respect for regional Mexican â it âpractically fed us,â he says â from an early age. He loved to watch his grandfather play the trumpet: âI think before I wanted to be a singer, my goal was to be a trumpeter like Arturo Sandoval.â His father and manager, Jaime GonzĂĄlez, who has also played the instrument since childhood, is an industry veteran who managed late sierreĂąo singer Ariel Camacho, a major inspiration to Nodal. Today, GonzĂĄlezâs record label/management company JGÂ Music includes Nodal, Los Plebes del Rancho de Ariel Camacho and Los Elementos de CuliacĂĄn. GonzĂĄlez met Nodalâs mother, Cristy Nodal, while they were in the same musical group, in which she sang lead.
âWeâve been musicians all our lives,â GonzĂĄlez says. âFrom a very young age we instilled music in all our children, but more as a hobby or tool to help them with their emotions. Not so much as a business, because we have been doing this for a long time and it is not easy.â But Nodal wanted to sing, so his mother, a longtime mariachi singer, taught him. âThey were committed,â GonzĂĄlez remembers. âAt first, I didnât want to get on board because I didnât have the time and I didnât want this complicated career for him because heâs very sensitive. But when I would come back from tours with Ariel, Christian and his mom had several songs already written, and I said, âOK, fine. Iâll produce an album for you.â â
AMIRI shirt, Alessandro Vasini jeans, Chrome Hearts, and Braggao and John Varvatos jewelry.
Lisette Poole
That first unofficial album included a cover of âAdiĂłs Amor,â a song previously recorded by Los Dareyes de la Sierra. His mother wanted him to record it in mariachi style, but âI really thought of mariachi as music for older men,â Nodal says. He honored her wish, but at Nodalâs request, his father added the norteĂąo accordion â to represent his âesencia sonorenseâ (Sonora essence) â along with banda-style trumpets and subtle violins.
âPeople responded really well to it on social media,â GonzĂĄlez remembers. âItâs as if the world had been waiting for Nodal.â
When âAdiĂłs Amorâ went viral, Nodalâs team comprised Cristy, then his de facto manager, and GonzĂĄlez, who was his producer. âI remember I would see cars pass by [in Ensenada] blasting the cover I had uploaded to Facebook,â he says, laughing. But then he noticed a problem: No one knew he was the one singing the song. âI think people expected it to be an older man, and it was funny when I would be at clubs in Guadalajara and theyâd play my song and I would be like, âHey, thatâs me,â â he says. âThey could identify the song but not the face, and I wanted that to change. It was something that kept me up at night.â
Nodal needed support â and it came by way of Universal Music Latino/Fonovisa, which signed him in 2017 after âAdiĂłs Amorâ caught the labelsâ attention. By that August, he had released his official debut album, Me DejĂŠ Llevar, which peaked at No. 2 on Billboardâs Top Latin Albums list, his highest ranking on that chart. But after releasing two more studio albums between 2019 and 2021 under Universal, a feud with the label turned public when Nodal took to Instagram Live to reveal he would not be renewing his contract; shortly after, in early 2022, Nodal signed with Sony Music Latin in a partnership with Sony Music Mexico. âWhen youâre young and you donât know about these things, you do what you have to do to achieve your dreams,â says Nodal, who wonât share much more about the conflict. âIf nothing goes wrong in your life, then you donât learn.â
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When Nodal met for the first time with Verde and his Sony colleagues Alex Gallardo (president of Sony Music U.S. Latin) and Roberto LĂłpez (president of Sony Music Mexico), he made his expectations clear. âI told them that I want to have the freedom to work with any artist from any label, that I want freedom to decide when Iâm going to release my albums and that I want to own my albums after a certain amount of time,â he recalls. âAfo, Alex and Roberto are people that I love very much, and they have shown me the good side of the industry. They are putting their life, their faith, their effort into the growth of an artist.â
âWhat helped us to build trust with Christian and a great team was that from the beginning we had great chemistry,â Gallardo says. âWe knew how to listen to his needs and concerns, and we worked to provide him with as much support as possible and put at his disposal a team that would work for him and help him achieve his goals.â
For Sony, Nodal was a valuable roster addition â an âambassador of Mexican music to the world ⌠responsible for spreading the love for Mexican music to new generations in many countries,â as LĂłpez puts it. He was also already an established star. His 2022 Forajido tour grossed $14.5 million and sold 147,000 tickets from 22 shows, according to Billboard Boxscore, and in 2023, he grossed $21.6 million and sold 259,000 tickets. Under Sonyâs supervision, his star has only continued to rise. Nodalâs albums have earned a combined 2.2 million equivalent album units, according to Luminate, and he has 3.2 billion on-demand official streams in the United States. He has also placed 20 entries on Hot Latin Songs; five of them hit the top 10, including the No. 3 debut and peak of âBotella Tras Botella,â with Mexican rapper Gera MX in 2021. The pairâs norteĂąo-tinged, hip-hop-infused track became the first regional Mexican song to enter the Billboard Hot 100 in the chartâs then 63-year history. (Today, more than 30 songs have reached the chart.)
âChristian was more ready for this moment than I was,â Gera MX says. âWhen we saw the song was blowing up, we called each other constantly. I asked him if this was normal, and he told me, âGuey, esto es Ăşnico. [Dude, this is unique.]â It had never happened before, much less with a mix of urban and regional. It was like riding the highest roller coaster of my life with one of my best friends.â They recorded the song at one of their carne asadas (cookouts) during the pandemic, when both were living in the same residential community in Guadalajara; Nodal would bike over to Gera MXâs house. âWhen we first met, I was surprised at how much he knew about rap,â Gera MX says. âHe is an artist in constant evolution.â
Lisette Poole
GonzĂĄlez had been more skeptical of the collaboration. âHe was like, âNo, how are you going to do that? People are going to get angry,â â Nodal recalls. âAnd I told him, âListen to me: This is what weâre going to start seeing in the genre.â â
Nodal followed his hunch â after all, it wasnât the first time he and his father had disagreed. âIf Iâve been doing this for six or seven years, it probably took us five to create a healthy relationship between us,â Nodal says. âI would go one way, and he would go another way. I didnât want to do what he wanted me to do. I wanted to be me. It took many years to fully understand and respect each other, and it had nothing to do with our father-son relationship. Now we are completely aligned when it comes to the business of my career.â
In October, Nodal asked friends back in Guadalajara to get him three string instruments: a tololoche, a docerola and a requinto. âIt got in my head that I wanted to do a corrido tumbado,â Nodal says in early February. âI fell in love with the genre. The good thing is that my neighbors in Guadalajara didnât complain, because the tololoche is a very noisy instrument and my apartment is not very big.â After hearing the demo, Nodal thought Peso Pluma would be a great addition. So, over FaceTime, he asked the corridos singer to meet up â which they did at one of Pesoâs Anaheim, Calif., concerts in December, where they agreed to collaborate. âHassan [Pesoâs real name] has a respect for me and my career, and we had great conversations.â Nodal says. âThe chemistry was there.â
The resulting team-up, âLa IntenciĂłn,â is both a sign of the times â younger regional Mexican artists now understand that working together only strengthens the genre â and of what has given Nodalâs own career longevity. His adaptability has not only allowed him to move among styles (like pop, cumbia and urban) with ease, but also to transcend generations and remain a constant in an ever-expanding genre that in the years since his career began has become a global movement. âWhen I started this career I felt a big responsibility, and I still feel it today,â he says. âNot everyone agreed with everything I did early on, but now I feel that my career is projected onto the musical criteria of young artists who dare to do things differently without being afraid.â
At 25 years old, he may be the relative elder statesman of the new (and very young) generation of regional Mexican artists, but Nodal is just as fired up as when he started. âA lot of the dreams I had, I already accomplished, but Iâm enjoying whatever comes. I donât worry about the person I have to be in the genre; the most beautiful thing is to flow with what is happening because the genre will always be there. Iâll just keep releasing music from my heart [and] enjoy the process and what my fans have given me.â
Lisette Poole
Nodal is on a monthslong break through May, which, for him, feels like uncharted territory: He hasnât taken any real time off since his career started seven years ago. âCOVID didnât count as a vacation, right?â he jokes. âI donât know myself in vacation mode,â he adds with a nervous chuckle, as if coming to the realization as he says it out loud.
Today, âvacation modeâ Nodal sounds blissful yet invigorated. Later this year, he says heâll release Paâl Cora, the album of his dreams, which will include a recording session in France with his mariacheĂąo band in tow. The making of it, along with planning and embarking on a tour with stops in countries like the United Kingdom and Switzerland â a major milestone for an artist in a genre that typically doesnât book European shows outside of Spain â will be captured in a behind-the-scenes documentary.
These shows, and this album, were for a long time simply dreams for Nodal. âI was constantly pressured to keep moving,â he says. Now, from his home base in Argentina, heâs able to lead a more balanced life, one in which peace and moments of inspiration arenât mutually exclusive. âI donât think my life has changed because of where I live but because of how I am living my life,â he reflects, sounding wise beyond his 25 years. âI think this time away from being up and down, connecting with what I love has made me realize how lucky I am. I am at my best stage in every way, in all aspects. There is a light in my life that no one can take away.â
This story originally appeared in the March 9, 2024, issue of Billboard.
Itâs the tattoos that really make Christian Nodal stick out like a sore thumb. With his inked-up body â and face â he looks more like a rapper or rock star than the exploding regional Mexican artist he is. âI didnât want to be anyoneâs shadow,â Nodal declares. âI felt that the genre was stigmatized […]
Good! Lovinâ! Feel so! Numb!â
It had been seven years since PartyNextDoor had performed in The 6. But one Thursday night last May, approximately 2,500 fans at History â the Toronto venue Drake, Partyâs OVO label boss, opened in partnership with Live Nation in 2021 â welcomed him home to the city, feverishly chanting the lyrics to his beloved hits like âWus Good/Curious.â
SiriusXM Canada had tapped the singer, songwriter and producer to headline the free, sold-out PartyNextDoor & Friends concert to celebrate its new 24/7 hip-hop and R&B channel, Mixtape: North, which highlights homegrown Canadian talent. And what better way to fete the countryâs brightest stars than by transforming History into a full-fledged OVO Fest? Nearly all of the influential labelâs roster took the stage, and even Drake himself made a surprise appearance to perform his and Partyâs mid-2010s collaborations âRecognizeâ and âCome and See Me.â
âI donât mean to put you on the spot or anything. I know you hate this the most,â Drake said, chuckling, his arm wrapped around his introverted labelmate. âIâm so grateful for you. I would not be the artist I am if it wasnât for you.â Then, turning to the audience: âThis is really my favorite artist in the world.â
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Over the last decade, Party, 30, established himself as an alternative R&B auteur who seduced listeners â and shaped his genre â with hazy, hypnotic Auto-Tuned vocal melodies, nocturnal trap production and carnal yet cognitive lyricism about what pleasures (and problems) the wee hours sometimes bring. And while that often added up to a late-night, hedonistic vibe, his authentic, limber patois and dancehall-infused rhythms also gave his music an irresistible Caribbean flavor.
Meanwhile, he established himself as one of pop musicâs most sought-out hit-makers, working in various roles behind the scenes with artists including Kanye West, BeyoncĂŠ, Jay-Z, Post Malone and Rihanna, the lattermost of whom he has made two Billboard Hot 100 top 10 hits with: the nine-week No. 1 âWork,â featuring Drake (which he co-wrote and sang backup on), and DJ Khaledâs seven-week No. 2 âWild Thoughtsâ (which he co-wrote and produced), featuring Bryson Tiller. Some fans and critics have argued that his leaked reference tracks for those songs â where Party himself sings them â sound better than their final star-powered versions.
âHe has written some of the biggest songs of our time,â says his longtime manager and Range Media managing partner, Tyler Henry. âHe has contributed to [work by] some of the greatest artists. Heâs an artist himself. Heâs truly one of one.â Henry first met Party in 2013 when he was the assistant road and tour manager for Drake, who had picked his latest OVO signee to support his Would You Like a Tour? trek. Henry started managing him the following year, and Party remains a key part of the managerâs roster, along with WondaGurl, HARV, Loshendrix and more.
Gucci shirt and Jacque Marie Mage eyewear.
Erica HernĂĄndez
Yet even with his impressive rĂŠsumĂŠ, Party hasnât achieved the level of stardom many R&B fans expected him to when he helped record some of the defining pop hits of the 2010s, excelling behind the scenes but failing to fully step out from Drakeâs shadow. When asked about the pressure of being signed by such a colossal artist and ensuring his body of work can stand on its own, Party trails off. Despite previously expressing superstar ambitions, it seems like he has had to recalibrate his career goals.
âIâm just keeping the main ting the main ting,â Party says. âThe only thing thatâs important, that has changed my life, is dropping music. Iâm not worried about the fame.â Speaking today in Los Angeles, wearing a simple, textured black hoodie, matching sweats and white Nike Air Force 1s, he certainly doesnât seem like an attention-seeker. But he does sport one flashy accessory: a silver pendant chain with a cartoon rendering of a girl sticking her tongue out â a gift from Drake celebrating their âMembers Onlyâ collaboration from his latest Billboard 200-topping album, For All the Dogs. âDrake has the same one,â Party says proudly.
The rap titanâs co-sign increased awareness (and with that, scrutiny) of Party. But his frequent absences from the public eye â he has only put out three solo albums, in 2014, 2016 and 2020 â have also made it hard for fans to stay engaged with his releases or know what heâs up to. If heâs put in front of a laptop, Party says, âIâll make a full album.â If itâs that easy, then why does he disappear for years in between each one? âI get into relationships and then music becomes second,â he admits matter-of-factly. âI think Iâm going to take a break from relationships, a long break, and just get back to making music.â Of course, those same relationships often ensure Party has plenty of songwriting material to work with when he makes his way back to the studio.
âAfter you and a girl break up, does she know sheâll eventually become the subject of a PartyNextDoor song?â I ask.
âI think everyone knows that,â he responds smugly.
Erica HernĂĄndez
Relationships, frivolous or serious, are the common thread throughout Partyâs music. He says he approaches his songs from a âme and herâ perspective, creating the intimacy thatâs also required for the prime PartyNextDoor listening experience. His solitary music resonated especially during the pandemic, and in October 2020, Party and his team appealed to lonely fans finding comfort in catalog music by dropping PartyPack, a set of seven fan-favorite deep cuts that hadnât previously been available on digital service providers. Sometimes fans have unearthed his old songs themselves: Thanks to a dance challenge, the sped-up version of âHer Wayâ from his 2014 debut album, PartyNextDoor Two, blew up on TikTok in 2023, becoming the yearâs most popular TikTok song in Canada and third-most popular in the United States.
And while he has continued to find new fans with the success of his older music â Partyâs song catalog increased from 645.8 million on-demand U.S. streams (including user-generated content) in 2022 to 1.1 billion streams in 2023, according to Luminate â most successful artists canât sit back, relax and rely on their fans to run up their catalog. Outside of the PartyNextDoor & Friends Toronto show, Party has only performed at a handful of festivals (like Las Vegasâ Lovers & Friends) and college shows since the pandemicâs live-music pause ended. But, as Henry explains it, those were just the prelude to Partyâs next act. âWe like to do a few each year to make sure weâre fresh and in front of peopleâs minds,â he says. âIt keeps us sharp for when a moment like this album comes.â
That album is his upcoming fourth full-length, PartyNextDoor 4 â P4 for short. And while thereâs no release date set, Party promises itâs his most focused project yet. âThis is the hardest Iâve ever worked on an album. This is the proudest Iâve felt,â he says. âIâm excited to grind even more for the next [one]. Iâm in love with how hard you should work for it.â
Growing up in the âmoodyâ Toronto suburb of Mississauga, the artist born Jahron Anthony Brathwaite imagined himself as Ahmal, the student who sings âOh Happy Dayâ in 1993âs Sister Act 2: Back in the Habit. Following in the footsteps of his Jamaican mother, Party joined his churchâs choir and eventually moved up to a more advanced singing group within the church. âI had a solo coming up, and I was so nervous. I was going to get my sh-t off just like that Sister Act movie. I was going to get my moment. But they just cut it,â he says with a shrug.
Instead of dwelling on the defeat, he dove deeper into his newfound passion. He soon became fascinated with boy bands like Backstreet Boys and *NSYNC. But âonce I understood who I am in the world as a Black man, I started really getting into Black music,â he says, citing Jodeci and 112 as inspirations. âI think Slim from 112 is part of the reason why I pitched up my music, because he sounded so young when he was getting older.â
Party questioned if being a âdread-headedâ Jamaican guy from the Toronto suburbs meant he could be a ârealâ R&B singer. âReal R&B is pretty. Itâs six-pack, itâs shaven head, low fade,â he says. But at 16 he tried his luck, dropping out of school and moving to Los Angeles, after posting his first songs to MySpace under the name âJahron B.â They included cheeky, upbeat tracks like âMonica Follow Me Backâ â which he made to persuade a girl named Monica to follow him back on Twitter (he succeeded) â as well as somber, piano-driven ballads like âDaughters,â describing how a drug-fueled hookup led to an accidental pregnancy.
Around that time, veteran A&R executive Shalik Berry showed âDaughtersâ to Warner Chappell Musicâs Ryan Press, then-senior director of A&R (and now president of North America), who was immediately blown away by the intense storytelling. âAfter I heard that one song, I was like, âI have to sign this kid,â â says Press, who did so in 2012.
Louis Vuitton hat and shirt and Jason of Beverly Hills ring.
Erica HernĂĄndez
In 2016, Press helped Party establish his own joint venture with Warner Chappell called JA Publishing Group, which still operates and currently houses G. Ry, Prep Bijan, Phwesh and Alex Lustig (the lattermost also has a partnership with OVO president Mr. Morganâs publishing company, M3 Ent). â âHey, man, if youâre stepping into this side of the business, youâre dealing with peopleâs livelihoods,â â Press recalls telling the young musician. â âWe got to handle business properly. You got to have the same passion for them that I have for you.â â Party took the advice to heart. âHe wanted to create an ecosystem that other great talent could thrive and be successful under,â Henry adds, noting that Party even made sure one of his signees worked on a big record before assisting him in securing âa pretty large six-figureâ publishing deal. But as much as Party loved helping other creatives get their shine, he was still waiting for his turn.
Getting his singing career off the ground had been a struggle. As a preteen, he tried out for the Canadian music competition series The Next Star but was cut. He remembers gushing during one of the taped interviews for the show about how he wanted âto sing like Aubrey Graham.â The person recording him âwas an actor on Degrassi. And he laughed at me. Heâs like, âDrake, the one who makes music in my dressing room?â I was like, âYeah, I think heâs the best ever.â â
Years later, Party would take his stage name from the FL Studio software audio filter titled âpartynextdoorâ â which reminded him of OVO co-founder Noah â40â Shebibâs dark, brooding production. When he first heard the effect, Party recalls, âI was just like, âThis is me. Iâm going to make all my music sound like this.â â
Once Party started taking meetings with labels, fellow Jamaican Canadian producer and frequent Drake collaborator Boi-1da caught wind of it and ran the artistâs name up the OVO flagpole. When Drake and 40 eventually invited Party to the studio, âwe just meshed,â he says. Party became the first recording artist signed to OVO in 2013, and the label opted for a low-key yet fitting announcement: His track âMake a Milâ was posted on the OVO blog, the digital hotbed for new talent that ultimately transformed into the boutique label it is today.
Erica HernĂĄndez
Throughout OVOâs history, some have questioned the way the label supports its artists not named Drake; Drake and the OVO team declined to even be interviewed for this story. In 2016, a Noisey headline asked, âIs OVO Sound A Hip-Hop Label Or Drakeâs Personal Hit Factory?â And upon joining OVO, Party did support his label boss immediately: He provided background vocals for âOwn Itâ and âCome Thruâ on Drakeâs 2013 album, Nothing Was the Same, and produced and co-wrote âLegend,â âPreachâ and âWednesday Night Interludeâ on 2015âs If Youâre Reading This Itâs Too Late, featuring on the latter two songs. Two months before Nothing Was the Same, Party dropped his self-titled debut EP, which earned rave reviews and yielded the Miguel-sampling classic âBreak From Toronto.â The following year, PartyNextDoor Two cracked the top 20 of the Billboard 200. However, in the subsequent years, Partyâs output grew less frequent and his allure dwindled.
In a 2015 PartyNextDoor Fader cover story â built around the musicianâs first-ever interview â OVO co-founder and Drake manager Oliver El-Khatib said that part of OVOâs ethos was restricting access to its artists and letting the music speak for itself. But while that air of mystery maintains OVOâs cool reputation, banking on Drakeâs star power to draw in new fans can keep the rest of his labelmates in his orbit at the expense of their own career growth.
While Partyâs artist career hung in the balance, his songwriting vocation took off. Press says he was always in Partyâs ear about possibly working with Rihanna because of their shared Caribbean heritage. When the star â who at the time was also signed to Warner Chappell â hosted a writing camp for what would become her 2016 album, ANTI, at her Malibu, Calif., home in 2015, Press called up Party to come through. Despite being in a house full of other competing songwriters and producers, Party insisted that he spend time alone with her so he could make songs that fit her vibe.
âI remember her telling us she was drinking vodka and water at that time. I had never seen Party drink vodka until that night. I think he even smoked a cigarette because she had smoked,â Henry says of the night the two made âWork.â The song became ANTIâs biggest hit, with 1.6Â billion official on-demand U.S. streams. âSeeing the way he spoke to her and the questions he asked and the way he fully submersed himself into her identity was what made the song special. And he does it with all the artists he works with. He doesnât write these generic songs that we try to find a home for. He writes them very purposefully for that artist.â
While âWorkâ reigned atop the Hot 100 in March 2016, Party finally got his own breakthrough as an artist with the Drake-assisted âCome and See Me.â The song earned Party his debut Hot 100 entry as a lead artist, peaking at No. 55, and yielded his first Grammy Award nod, for best R&B song. (He was also up for album of the year for contributing to Drakeâs Views.) âCome and See Meâ has become the biggest streaming song from his catalog, with 854.2 million official on-demand U.S. streams.
Finally, it seemed Party the artist was stepping firmly out of Drakeâs shadow â even though the rapper was featured on the track, it was unquestionably a spotlight for his signee. âCome and See Meâ earned Party the recognition he craved. But solo fame turned out to be less gratifying than heâd thought it would be.
In 2017, the year before Kanye West released his eighth studio album, Ye, he invited Party to his Yeezy Studio in Calabasas, Calif., and gave him the freedom and space to create whatever he pleased â offering no indication as to what he might eventually do with it.
So Party was surprised when, as he listened to Ye along with millions of others upon its June 2018 release, he heard one of his Calabasas freestyles. The song, âGhost Town,â had additional vocals from Kid Cudi and 070 Shake, but only credited Party as a featured artist. âI didnât know what he was going to do with it. Itâs different when I have no creative control. It is raw. âSomeday,â â he sings in a similar fashion to his recorded vocals. He initially felt caught off guard, but became appreciative of Westâs trust in his talent. âIt wasnât about working with PartyNextDoor. It was just about liking what I did creatively,â he says. âGhost Townâ reached No. 16 on the Hot 100 â Partyâs highest-charting hit on the all-genre list.
The way West used Partyâs sketch to make âGhost Townâ startled him because, when it comes to his own music, Party pays attention to every painstaking detail. âHeâs the most meticulous and thorough person Iâve ever met,â Henry says. âHeâll spend six months mixing a song or fly to Toronto four times just to work with 40 to get it right.â
Erica HernĂĄndez
Party, however, admits he didnât have that laser focus when making his last two studio albums, PartyNextDoor 3 and PartyMobile. âI was still handling that sh-t like demos,â he says, adding that he wasnât âusing everything I learned as a producer, as a writer, as an engineer.â Even though rough freestyles like 2014âs âPersian Rugsâ â one of the loosies later included on PartyPack â proved he didnât need polished records to develop a robust fan base, he vows to never âcheatâ on the quality of his art again.
On P4âs forthcoming single, âReal Woman,â Party resharpens those creative tools, layering his vocals with bright, twinkling synths, trap hi-hats and a backing choir. But considering his last single, âResentment,â debuted in the top 10 of Hot R&B Songs last July and fell off the chart after three weeks, itâs unclear how much momentum âReal Womanâ will build for this album cycle.
Fortunately, he has plenty of performances in the coming months where he can perform the new material, including Rolling Loud California and, at the end of March, Souled Out, Australiaâs first modern R&B and soul festival, which will be held across five cities. âI have so much anxiety before a show, but I always tell my manager, âThis is what I want to do for the rest of my life.â I always forget that until I step on the stage,â he says.
Reconnecting with his fans live â and making sure the music he performs is of the highest possible quality â is, in the end, what fuels him, even if playing the part of a traditional megastar isnât a natural fit.
âI know Drake and people always tell me, âBro, you have to come out more!â Iâm an introvert, Iâm shy,â he says. Heâs not active on social media either because he doesnât âhave the narcissismâ to believe people are personally invested in what heâs posting. And anyway, he doesnât want to distract from whatâs important: âIâm focused on making classic music.â
This story originally appeared in the March 9, 2024, issue of Billboard.