Touring
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In recent weeks, Sugarland‘s Kristian Bush went on a nostalgia trip, attending concerts that featured U2, The Dead, The English Beat and Adam Ant.
But that run of shows was more than just a personal stroll down memory lane. Bush engaged in some professional research, too, anticipating Sugarland’s 18-date concert run on Little Big Town‘sTake Me Home Tour, beginning Oct. 24 in Greenville, S.C.
“I’m trying to educate myself in nostalgia and what it makes me feel like as a fan,” Bush says. “I’m starting to get my feet in the actual mud and dirt of what it’s like as the artist.”
Transitioning from hit-maker to nostalgia act is likely the hardest segue most artists make during their careers. It’s a difficult rite of passage akin to losing a parent — few want to experience it, but almost every performer does.
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Complicating the process, the beginning of that change in career path isn’t clear at the outset. Terri Clark remembers a five-year period when she struggled to understand what was happening, unintentionally quoting from her own “Poor Poor Pitiful Me.”
“There’s a lot of ‘woe is me,’ I think, for a while,” she says. “You feel like you’re getting forgotten, like what you did didn’t matter.”
Of course, it did matter. But once the transition to legacy act starts, the way in which it matters shifts. Instead of having current songs played in hot rotations, the artist’s new material sags in consumption while the old music remains as gold material or in nostalgic playlists. Fans still come to the concerts, but they’re there primarily to hear what Garth Brooks calls “the old stuff.” The new stuff tends to generate the weakest response.
“People want old clothes from a new shop,” Bush suggests metaphorically. “They don’t want new music from their old band, but they want a new show from them.”
Navigating that shift challenges an artist’s self-confidence and sense of purpose. The longer they were on top and the more successful they were during that window, the harder it’s likely to be for them to make the transition. Some eventually learn to appreciate the time they spent in the top 10 as an uncommon privilege and see their past hits as an asset they can use going forward. Others never fully accept the change in stature.
“I remember working shows with [Merle] Haggard and Waylon [Jennings], and those guys,” Tracy Lawrence says. “They were pissed at us, you know. They blamed us because they had been dominant on the radio for years. And then all of a sudden, this young country wave comes along and they’re not getting airplay anymore. They were not happy about it, and they kind of blamed us a little bit for it. The only one that I remember not doing that was [George] Jones. You know, George embraced it. He did ‘[I Don’t Need Your] Rockin’ Chair’ and had all of us go out and tour with him and all these things. It was just a completely different experience. And that really stuck with me because I realized that we’re all going to go through this cycle.”
The phenomenon was lampooned in John Anderson‘s 1982 single “Would You Catch a Falling Star,” in which an artist’s crowds and transportation have all been downsized. “Nobody loves you when you’re down,” the Bobby Braddock-penned classic suggests as the legacy-act character struggles to revive a moment that’s no longer accessible. The audience in that song has determined the performer’s peak commercial period has passed, even if the artist hasn’t yet recognized it.
“At what point do you decide you’re nostalgia and what point did the outside world decide you’re nostalgia?” Bush asks. “There’s an internal meter and there’s an external meter, and pain [is] involved in the distance between when the two hit.”
The system sets artists up for that kind of downfall. The music industry succeeds by making stars, and it pampers and appeases them while they’re hot. It’s good for the executives’ short-term access to power, but it’s bad for the artists’ long-term mental health. In the most glaring example, Elvis Presley was famously buffered from the public by management and by his entourage, known as the Memphis Mafia, but was ultimately destroyed by his own success.
“When you’re in the middle of it, the ego gets in the way, and there’s all these people around you that are in that inner circle that protect you from the world and let you get away with stuff that normal people don’t get away with,” Lawrence says. “It’s really hard to have a good, honest perspective when you get wrapped up in it because you just get kind of carried away with yourself. Coming out on the other side, everybody doesn’t make it back out.”
Lawrence, Clark and Bush have all turned the corner. If they were uncomfortable being classified as legacy acts, they would not have consented to interviews on the subject.
Bush has made a point of asking nostalgia acts he knows in pop and rock about their experiences with the change. One of them told him that after accepting the transition, his professional life was awesome: He has a loyal core audience, knows what his fans will accept and regularly sees happy faces in the crowd. The legacy acts who deny their position, he added, are simply miserable.
Lawrence and Clark, after adjusting to the shift in their careers, were able to parlay their expertise into hosting roles with network gold shows. Both are currently nominated in the Country Music Association’s Broadcast Awards for weekly national personality of the year, for Silverfish Media’s Honky Tonkin’ With Tracy Lawrence and Westwood One’s Country Gold With Terri Clark. She ended her tenure with the show in early September; Lawrence told Billboard exclusively that he intends to wrap his Honky Tonkin’ affiliation in the next year.
Lawrence and Clark both addressed the transition musically. He tackled it in “Price of Fame,” a 2020 collaboration with Eddie Montgomery that Lawrence wrote with 3 Doors Down lead vocalist Brad Arnold. Clark embraced it through this year’s Take Two, a project that reframes her past hits as duets with the likes of Cody Johnson, Lainey Wilson and Ashley McBryde, whose appreciation for Clark underscored the significance of becoming a legacy act. Trisha Yearwood had told Clark that when artists realize it’s time to stop competing with younger acts and begin to serve as mentors, life becomes easier. McBryde, in the early stages of her national career, was possibly the first artist to tell Clark that her music had been an influence. Take Two strengthened that message.
“Not only do you embrace where you’re at, you get all that affirmation and form new friendships with some of the younger artists that you influenced when they were growing up,” Clark says. “That, to me, is a full-circle recognition of it’s about a body of work, and your lifetime of your work is not just about five or 10 years. It’s about the whole journey.”
As it turns out, the journey can actually be more satisfying after the hits stop coming.
“I’m much calmer than I used to be,” Lawrence says. “I don’t need as much validation as I used to.”
As a legacy act, the former stress of trying to find and continuously market new hits gives way to feeding the existing fan base, which can become more of a community. Whether those fans are coming to relive past glories or to simply revel in music they appreciate, they’re typically a supportive audience. Entertaining them becomes a different experience once the artist accepts that their legacy is enough.
“They relate to certain events and milestones in their own life with one of your songs, and you really have to stay in that place with it and not make it about you,” Clark says. “Make it about them. That’s when it’s not hard for me to sing these songs, when I see how excited people get.”
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Six months after announcing her Las Mujeres Ya No Lloran North American Tour, Shakira has now unveiled dates for Latin America. The global superstar will take her Live Nation-produced trek to Brazil, Argentina, Mexico, Chile, Peru and her native Colombia next year. Shakira’s Las Mujeres Ya No Lloran World Tour is in support of her […]
Oasis are heading back to the U.S., Canada and Mexico next year as part of their Live ‘25 reunion tour, their first run of shows since 2009. The Monday (Sept. 30) announcement of a string of stadium dates in Toronto, Chicago, New Jersey, Los Angeles and Mexico City came with a direct warning shot to some fans: “America. You have one last chance to prove that you loved us all along.”
The Manchester band’s turbulent history and mixed response in the U.S. clearly still sticks in the Gallagher brothers’ craws. At their peak, Oasis conquered the U.K., mainland Europe and developed dedicated fan bases in Latin American and Asian markets. In their 28.6 million monthly listeners on Spotify, their fans’ top locations include Jakarta (Indonesia), São Paulo (Brazil) and Santiago (Chile) alongside London and Manchester. So why did they never truly crack the States?
Next summer’s reunion tour is as big as Noel and Liam’s egos. Nineteen stadium shows in the U.K. and Ireland sold out within hours during a protracted and controversial ticket sale process that attracted 10 million hopeful buyers. There was no questioning if those shows would sell; the demand indicated that they could have comfortably sold those shows several times over.
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But there will be eyes on this Friday’s (Oct. 4) North American ticket sale. The venues are ambitious: the MetLife Stadium across the Hudson River from New York City can host 82,000 people; the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, Calif., on the opposite coast can seat nearly 90,000 (though depending on staging for concerts, those capacities can be lower). Rumors had another date pencilled in for the Boston area’s Gillette Stadium, though this was absent from Monday’s announcement. Perhaps they want to see how it goes. Dynamic pricing will also not be used in the ticket sale process, presumably to boost the volume of sales rather than the value of each ticket.
Jitters behind the scenes would be understandable. The band’s final tour in North America, supporting their 2008 album Dig Out Your Soul, visited venues half the size of these prospective dates. They performed at New York’s 20,000-capacity Madison Square Gardens, but also at Broomfield, Colorado’s relatively modest 6,500-capacity 1stBank Center.
At the height of their fame during 1996, the band was playing to 125,000 people a night at England’s Knebworth House; in the U.S. however, Oasis’ biggest crowds would peak with support slots on U2’s mammoth PopMart tour in 1997. The group’s word-of-mouth appeal rarely translated to sustained and consistent ticket sales.
Oasis have had limited luck on the Billboard charts. None of their eight studio albums ever topped the Billboard 200, their highest entry being 1997’s Be Here Now, which clocked in at No. 2. 1995’s (What’s The Story) Morning Glory?, however, has gone 4 x Platinum according to the RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America). As for singles, “Wonderwall” peaked at No. 8 on the Billboard Hot 100, but the rest never had a sniff beyond “Don’t Look Back In Anger” at No. 55.
Things didn’t get off to a good start. On their debut run of dates in the U.S., the band played an infamous, substance-fueled gig at L.A.’s Whisky A Go Go in 1994. As later recounted in 2016’s documentary Supersonic, the band mistakenly scored crystal meth instead of cocaine which Liam said “just kept us up for f–king days” and resulted in a lackluster performance. The brothers fought on stage – Liam clattered Noel with a tambourine – and following the show Noel temporarily quit the band, disappeared from the touring group and cancelled a handful of shows.
It never really got better. In 1996, Liam failed to show up to a string of dates in the U.S., with Noel claiming that his younger brother instead was house-hunting back in London with then-girlfriend Patsy Kensit. Six years later in 2002, Liam walked off stage during a gig in Florida after losing his voice. The band headlined Coachella that year, but two decades later Liam dubbed that festival “pathetic.”
Noel has put the rocky relationship down to a mutual disconnect. “They couldn’t handle the fact that we didn’t give a f–k about anything,” he said in 2023 of the American market. “That’s the reason we’ve never really had a number one album in America – they wouldn’t go the extra mile for us because we wouldn’t go the extra mile for them.” Competing with the grunge titans of the era – Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Soundgarden and more – proved an uphill battle according to Liam: “They get a bright bunch like us, with deodorant on, they don’t get it.”
But things could be about to change. The reunion tour is already proving to have a cross-generational appeal for Gen X, Millennials and Gen Z alike; for the lattermost, it’ll be the first (and potentially only) time to see the band live. Oasis, for their part, have already struck deals with brands like Levi’s, Urban Outfitters and Amazon in hopes of pushing their name into new spaces. Streams for Oasis material took a healthy bump after the announcement they’d be returning.
The gauntlet has been thrown down; will the U.S. fanbase show up and show out for the much-hyped reunion? When tickets go on sale later this week, we’ll find out.
Rascal Flatts are hitting the road in 2025, five years after announcing, and then cancelling, their final tour due to the pandemic.
The multi-platinum country trio’s 21-date Life is a Highway tour kicks off Feb. 13 at the Ford Center in Evansville, Indiana. Lauren Alaina and Chris Lane are the opening acts.
“In 2020, we announced the farewell tour after being on the road extensively for 20 years,” the band said in a statement. “To put it simply, we needed a break. Then COVID hit and our plans came to a screeching halt, like the rest of the world. Since then, we’ve been able to revisit our unique and special experience as a band and we’re ready to get out on the road again. It’s hard to believe that next year will be the 25th anniversary of Rascal Flatts, and that felt like the perfect time to get back in front of the fans who have given us so much.”
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Rascal Flatts—vocalist Gary LeVox, multi-instrumentalist Jay DeMarcus and guitarist Joe Don Rooney—got fans buzzing Monday (Sept. 30) when they posted a video to their Instagram account featuring the three individually walking through stage doors as if headed to rehearsal with the message, “Life’s a road that you travel on.”
The group originally announced the Rascal Flatts Farewell: Life Is a Highway Tour during an appearance in January 2020 on CBS This Morning, saying it was the perfect way to celebrate their then 20th anniversary.
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“We make music and that’s what we do,” Jay DeMarcus told CBS This Morning in 2020. “We may do it again someday collectively. We’re not going to sign some pact that says we’re never going to tour again … we all still do love each other, but we do make music, and we will probably make some music individually, collectively.”
Founded in 2000, the band scored such hits as “Prayin’ for Daylight,” “Bless the Broken Road” and “What Hurts the Most,” landing 14 No. 1s on Billboard’s Country Airplay chart. They won the CMA Awards’ vocal group of the year award six years in a row from 2003 to 2008.
No word on if the band plans to record new music or extend the tour beyond the initial 21 dates.
Tickets go on sale Friday (Oct. 4) at 10 AM local time.
LIFE IS A HIGHWAY TOUR Official Dates:
Feb. 13 Evansville, IN- Ford Center
Feb. 14 Charleston, WV- Charleston Coliseum
Feb. 15 Grand Rapids, MI- Van Andel Arena
Feb. 22 Durant, OK- Choctaw Grand Theater
Feb. 27 Sioux Falls, SD- Denny Sanford Premier Center
Feb. 28 Green Bay, WI- Resch Center
March 1 Moline, IL- Vibrant Arena
March 6 Columbus, OH- Nationwide Arena
March 7 Toledo, OH- Huntington Center
March 8 Youngstown, OH- Covelli Centre
March 13 Manchester, NH- SNHU Arena
March 14 Uncasville, CT- Mohegan Sun Arena
March 15 Allentown, PA- PPL Center
March 20 Huntsville, AL- Von Braun Center Propst Arena*
March 22 Savannah, GA- Enmarket Arena
March 27 Ft. Worth, TX- Dickies Arena
March 28 Lafayette, LA- CAJUNDOME
March 29 Little Rock, AR- Simmons Bank Arena
April 3 Estero, FL- Hertz Arena
April 4 Orlando, FL- Kia Center
April 5 Jacksonville, FL- Vystar Veterans Memorial Arena
In one of the many unprecedented turn of events in K-pop this decade, the beloved girl group LOONA experienced an emotional split after terminating contracts with their label before each of the 12 members landed safely to pursue new K-pop paths. Alongside Chuu and Yves‘ new starts as soloists, to five members reconfiguring as Loossemble, the final step of these re-debuts came in ARTMS, consisting of LOONA stars HaSeul, HeeJin, Kim Lip, Choerry, and JinSoul coming together to rebrand themselves, reimagine their artistry and remember their roots as a new quintet.
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After releasing a series of solo and unit singles, the group launched their debut full-length album, DALL, to return the girls to the Billboard charts (main single “Virtual Angel” cracked the Top 10 on the World Digital Song Sales chart, while DALL itself landed in the Top 10 of World Albums), and to the delight of fans and critics alike (even earning a spot on Billboard critics’ Best K-Pop Albums of 2024 So Far list).
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Riding the exciting comeback success, the group is embarking on their ARTMS World Tour ‘Moonshot,’ which has already wrapped its North and South American legs. As they prepare to conquer Europe, Australia, and Asia this fall and winter, ARTMS is eager to reflect on their journey from LOONA to their current iteration.
Sitting down with Billboard at the New York office of The Orchard, ARTMS shine with a sense of unity, growth, and playfulness. HaSeul, more confident than ever in English, jokes about accidentally spoiling upcoming tour surprises, while HeeJin candidly confesses her hair is mostly extensions, JinSoul speaks about immersing herself into the A&R process, Choerry balances the group’s past with an exciting future, as Kim Lip looks ahead to what’s next for the group’s personal and professional lives.
Despite the challenges faced, ARTMS beam with a sense of pride over their collective growth and how they’ve taken control of their music and artistic direction. Here, the five idols discuss their creative evolution, navigating the K-pop industry post-LOONA, and their deep connection to the fans who have supported them every step of the way. Read on for more below alongside exclusive photos provided for Billboard.
I’m so proud to see ARTMS here in New York. Kim Lip, JinSoul, and Choerry toured as ODD EYE CIRCLE, but all five of you are here now. How do you feel about ARMTS’ first shows outside Asia?
HaSeul: I’m so excited and a little nervous too because it’s ARTMS’ first concert and tour.
HeeJin: Of course it feels great, and we have lots of thoughts on starting off strong as New York, a big city, is our first stop for this tour.
Congratulations on your first album, DALL, which got such great reactions. Was it a relief to get such a positive response?
Kim Lip: Since we’re releasing an album as ARTMS instead of LOONA, I was worried yet excited about how the public would react to our music. But we’re getting on the charts and receiving lots of attention, so we felt at ease, and I’m so happy to go on tour and meet with our fans.
HaSeul
Lauren Nakao Winn
How did you five come together and decide to move forward as ARTMS?
HaSeul: I was the last member to join ARTMS, but all five of us are very passionate about music. I think the members who came together and gathered [here] had the biggest will to bring ARTMS to life. When producing this album, I felt how sincere we all were about music…we had many solo and unit albums when we were promoting as LOONA, and you can see it as us continuing that identity. In a way, [ARTMS] can be seen as us taking back our identity. And since our skills are outstanding, we released solo, unit, and group albums.
It seems like you have more ownership and responsibility this time. There must have been pressure, but did it feel like you could share something more personal under ARTMS?
HeeJin: Usually, the company tells us what to do, but now, since we’re active players and debuting again, we wanted to work on the identity of ARTMS. We gave a lot of input in the songs and concepts. Our company took them positively and reflected them in our work, so I’d say it’s an album we produced all together.
I imagine reuniting with LOONA’s original producer, Jaden Jeong, must have been special. Was it fun to return to this production style?
JinSoul: We have had a storyline in our group [LOONA] and the fans like this aspect. We further developed the storyline by working again with Jaden Jeong, who [first] created this storyline — and it’s great to add ARTMS to it as well. While adding ARTMS’ colors, everything became more diverse. We maintained a bit of tradition for the fans, and it’s great to show more sides of us and go deeper.
HeeJin: I think fans love it the most that we’re going with the storylines and expanding onto it.
JinSoul
Lauren Nakao Winn
While we know about LOONA’s contract story, I’m more interested in how all 12 of you found strength and came out of it together?
JinSoul: The members share lots of conversations together. But during that time, we looked into what we could do and thought of methods to use to go through with it.
Kim Lip: The members cooperate well together, so we tend to respect each other’s opinions since we’re like a family. I think that’s how we came to a conclusion.
HeeJin: It’s also meaningless if we don’t do it together. So, we did it all together.
HaSeul: We are a family.
Putting the past to rest, if there are fans — whether they’re Orbits or OURII — who are still worried about you or want to check in, what words would you share with them?
HeeJin: We’re always simultaneously thankful and sorry to the fans. It took a lot of time for ARTMS to debut. Despite that, I’d like to thank the fans for waiting for us. There are also fans who became our fans as ARTMS debuted. We’ll promote more from now on, so please be at ease and keep an eye on us. Don’t worry…
Looking ahead, what are some of the special aspects of the Moonshot tour?
HaSeul: During our concerts in South Korea and Japan, we performed TWS’ “Plot Twist.” But for the USA, we prepared a different song to perform — “Cruel Summer” by Taylor Swift. I look forward to performing that song the most.
JinSoul: When we performed in Korea and Japan, we changed the choreography of “Sparkle” and “Flower Rhythm” for the concert version. Many fans looked forward to it after seeing the choreography video. We also do different ad-libs at different times, so I’m always looking forward to the various ad-libs we’ll do.
HeeJin: The setlists will be similar, but there are always impromptu changes during our concerts, so the fans can really look forward to it. In Japan, there was a moment we performed the same song twice and a time we’d suddenly go off-stage. I look forward to those kinds of impromptu moments. And, of course, I brought my guitar.
Kim Lip
Lauren Nakao Winn
How has it been reuniting with fans in the States?
Kim Lip: We just had a fansigning today. It was fascinating to hold new events like this fansign during this tour. There was one moment that I remember when one fan started to sing in front of us — the fans are very, how do I say this, open when it comes to expressing their feelings. They’re different from the fans in Korea. I really felt the way they so enthusiastically express their feelings this morning, and it makes me really look forward to our concerts.
HeeJin: That’s why I love it. Even if the fans in Korea really want to express themselves, they are very reserved. But on the other hand, fans in the U.S. openly show their support, so it excites us and gives us lots of strength.
Whether it’s your concerts or album production, what is ARTMS’ creative process nowadays?
HeeJin: We’ve been deeply participating in the process, but shall we start off with an answer from the main A&R member?
JinSoul: Jaden Jeong usually brings forward a lot of the music, but we look into the smallest details of the production. For example, we direct the vocals for each other or select the photos to be included in the album. We also selected the album cover design, hair colors, and styling. We participated in lyric writing this time, too. The company works on big tasks and we give our detailed inputs to showcase the best of us.
HeeJin
Lauren Nakao Winn
What are you really proud of to say you’ve worked on?
Kim Lip: We can proudly say that we wrote the lyrics for “Sparkle.” And the light stick!
HeeJin: We got ideas for the light stick and sent over drafts. The final design was our idea. And personally, during the “Virtual Angel” promotions, I wanted to dye my hair white because I thought an angel had a very white, bright image. So, even though I had to sacrifice my hair, I wanted to do it. I discussed it with my company and went on with it.
You’ve never been blonde; your hair looks great!
HeeJin: This is not my hair. [All Laugh] It’s extensions, my hair looks bad.
I’m sure your hair looks great. But from watching K-pop, it feels like the fans can give artists new chances today. Do you think the industry has changed from when you debuted to today?
Choerry: I definitely wouldn’t have expected this back then. We were very young. The situation the 12 of us went through was saddening, but I’m very satisfied with ARTMS right now. I’m happy to have released great songs with the members, my sisters. I also believe we have lots of time to spend with fans, so I hope we can have fun and come to them with better sides.
HaSeul: I’d say we were able to stand on stage again 100% because the fans were waiting for us. And it was made possible because we have fans. The reason why we look forward to the concerts on tour as the time went by is because we want to show a great performance to the fans who’ve been waiting for two years. We’re really looking forward to this tour.
Choerry
Lauren Nakao Winn
I loved HeeJin’s interview with InternetsNathan when she ranked every LOONA song. To give everyone the opportunity, I’d love for you to choose your “favOriTe” song released from LOONA solo days to ARTMS today.
HaSeul: I think “Virtual Angel.” Since the title song [single] is the song you listen to the most due to promotions, there are times you can get sick of it, but I like the song so much that I can listen to it in the car every day.
Kim Lip: “Hi High”? We had lots of solo and unit songs, but we went a long way to release the “Hi High” album. I think it was a relieving album for the members, staff, and fans who were waiting for a long time. I think it’s the most meaningful album; fans still love this song. I can call this my favorite.
HeeJin: I’m going to choose “Butterfly Effect” because ARTMS is starting anew with Jaden Jeong and he told us the story behind this song. It was one of the songs he wanted to release when we were LOONA. He held onto this song for six years and finally got it on the tracklist for DALL. The song feels like a continuation of LOONA to ARTMS. Some lyrics make you think of the past, so it became a song I love.
Choerry: I choose “Singing in the Rain.“ It’s my favorite song because, during concerts, it has a bursting beat and the sound is full and harmonious. And JinSoul’s vocals suit the song so it’s a song that I always wanted. It’s so good that I want to do a collab stage.
HeeJin: I want to do a collab stage for it too!
JinSoul: I choose “Butterfly.” I think this song really shows LOONA’s identity. When I look at past performances, there were times I looked shy, but I think this song was one I was most proud of. The choreography was amazing. It’ll be difficult for me to perform it again, but I think it was a synergy only we could show during that time.
Others: We can do it again! We can do it!
What can we look forward to from ARTMS from here, the tour, what’s next?
Kim Lip: ARTMS is…
All: Vacation! After tour…
Kim Lip: This is a secret, but I think we’ll prepare for the next ARTMS album after the tour. We don’t know the details, but I think it’ll be an album to really look forward to. But it’s not confirmed…
Both of those are important! Any last messages to fans if they couldn’t see you on tour this time?
HeeJin: Thank you so so much for waiting for us. Fans who attended our concerts will know, but even though we’re fewer members as ARTMS, you’ll be able to see perfect performances. We’ve become very experienced performers. Thank you so much for loving us and coming to see us. I hope the members stay healthy throughout the tour because we wish to promote the group to many people.
HeeJin, Kim Lip, HaSeul, JinSoul and Choerry of ARTMS
Lauren Nakao Winn
Day After Day Productions and Emancipated Icon Entertainment Group have announced the joint signing of Lil’ Kim and Teddy Riley for worldwide touring engagements. The partnership marks a significant milestone for both artists’ bookings globally as they embark on new chapters in their careers.
Emancipated Icon, recently formed by Emancipated Talent’s CEO Rich Murphy and Icon Entertainment CEO Greg Walker, has established a strategic partnership with Day After Day, founded and led by veteran agent Seth Shomes. Together they will represent Lil’ Kim, a legendary figure in the hip-hop world who has captivated audiences with her unique style and iconic hits including “Not Tonight (Remix),” “Crush on You,” “Lady Marmalade,” “Magic Stick,” “The Jump Off” and “Lighters Up.”
Riley, a renowned producer, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist, has played a pivotal role in shaping the sound of R&B and hip-hop. His iconic productions include hits like “Remember The Time” by Michael Jackson, “My Prerogative” by Bobby Brown, “Baby Come Back” by The Temptations, “No Diggity” by Blackstreet and “Can’t Stop the Feeling” by Justin Timberlake. His collaboration with Lil’ Kim on the iconic track “Not Tonight (Remix)” featured Missy Elliott, Da Brat, Eve and Mary J. Blige and further solidified his status as a music industry powerhouse.
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Lil’ Kim said, “I am thrilled to be represented by Richard Murphy and Greg Walker of Emancipated Icon Entertainment Group, alongside Seth Shomes of Day After Day Productions. With their expertise and dedication, I am excited to take my touring shows around the world, ensuring that my artistry resonates in every corner of the globe. Together, we are committed to creating unforgettable experiences for my fans and pushing the boundaries of entertainment.”
Riley stated, “I am excited to have Richard Murphy and Greg Walker of Emancipated Icon Entertainment Group, along with Seth Shomes of Day After Day Productions, representing me in all areas of entertainment. Their passion and commitment to excellence will elevate my touring experiences around the world. Together, we aim to create remarkable moments for my fans and continue to shape the future of music. The journey ahead is filled with endless possibilities!”
Shomes said, “I have known Greg (Walker) and Rich for many years and have deep respect for all they have achieved in the industry. I couldn’t be happier to strategically align with them on icons such as Lil’ Kim and Teddy Riley and I can’t wait to collaborate on behalf of these legendary artists.”
“I have had the privilege of collaborating with Seth Shomes and Richard Murphy for over a decade in the entertainment industry,” Walker added. “Their creativity and vision are truly remarkable, and I couldn’t be more excited about the innovative projects we have lined up together. It’s a thrilling journey to bring our shared ideas to life with two of the most talented individuals in the business.”
“Greg and Seth have consistently demonstrated their dedication to excellence and innovation in our past projects together,” said Murphy. “Their commitment to pushing boundaries and thinking outside the box mirrors my own approach to creativity and professionalism. I have full confidence in our ability to achieve great things together and believe that our partnership will lead to even greater success and growth for all of us.”
Gabriel Pellicer describes the Sing Out Loud Live Festival’s Wildly Showcase in downtown St. Augustine, Fla., as a convergence of history, passion and purpose.
“It’s a festival with a message,” explains Pellicer, who works as the CEO of SJC Portfolio Events, which manages Florida’s St. Augustine Amphitheater and Ponte Vedra Concert Hall and hosts a number of festivals in what historians say is the oldest city in the U.S., which is located about 40 miles southeast of Jacksonville and 70 miles east of Gainesville.
Over the weekend of Sept. 21 and 22, 27,000 music fans attended the annual showcase, which was headlined this year by Eric Church and Noah Kahan with appearances by marquee acts including Molly Tuttle and Norah Jones, Ryan Bingham with the Texas Gentlemen, JJ Grey & Mofro, Ole 60, The Breeders, Marcus King, Sierra Ferrell, Kevin Morby, and Nat & Alex Wolff. The showcase generated more than $160,000 from ticket sales in support of land conservation in St. Johns County and efforts to build a wildlife corridor between South and North Florida.
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“The primary intention is to try to keep as much wild Florida wild as possible,” Pellicer said.
“The idea for the [Sing Out Loud] Festival began in 2013 when Mumford & Sons brought their Gentlemen of the Road to St. Augustine,” Pellicer recalls. “It was a September event. Because we’re a historic town in Florida, the number one economy is tourism. And we have these peaks and these valleys. August and September usually tapers off, especially after Labor Day. School gets back in session, and it just slows down. And we saw that as an opportunity.”
Beyond the performances, this year’s Sing Out Loud Festival offered immersive experiences allowing fans to walk through a recreated wildlife corridor, navigate local state parks via interactive maps and interact with giant inflatable representations of Florida’s iconic panthers, manatees and alligators.
“It has been such an honor partnering with the festival and having such a big audience to be able to sing the praises of how cool wild Florida is,” says Sara Sheehy, director of storytelling and the lead adventurist for Live Wildly. “One of the things that I am super passionate about is getting people out to experience the real wild Florida and so when any of the bands here at Sing Loud express interest, I’m like, “Where do you wanna go? I’ll take you anywhere in wild Florida that you want to experience.”
That includes taking several artists to a Guano Reserve along an untouched stretch of coastline just north of St. Augustine.
“It has these pristine dunes we explored, then [we] jumped in the water and spent some time looking for shark’s teeth on the beach,” says Sheehy. “Any chance that I have to get artists or anybody, literally anybody, into the wild, that is the end goal for me. Getting them to experience the wildness and the beauty of this place. It is beautiful here.”
As the festival continues to grow, its commitment to pairing live music with meaningful community initiatives remains at the forefront. Sing Out Loud Festival organizers plan to build on their momentum in the years to come, expanding their live music footprint while building upon their conservation efforts in the Southeast of the state.
Metallica closed out its visit to Mexico on Sunday (Sept. 29) with a final tribute to the country. Bassist Robert Trujillo and guitarist Kirk Hammett once again surprised the crowd who gathered at the GNP Seguros Stadium (formerly known as Foro Sol) with a performance of another classic from the Mexican popular songbook: “Los Luchadores” by the legendary tropical music group La Sonora Santanera.
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“El Santo, el Cavernario, Blue Demon y el Bulldog,” sang Trujillo, who is of Mexican origin, while Hammett delighted the 65,000 fans gathered at the venue with his challenging riffs, according to figures provided by the promoter OCESA.
With the band’s unique interpretation of La Sonora Santanera’s classic song, the quartet ended a series of performances in Mexico City that marked its return to the country after a seven-year absence. In total, Metallica gathered 260,000 attendees during four sold-out shows, according to OCESA.
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The legendary Californian metal band, also made up of vocalist and guitarist James Hetfield and drummer Lars Ulrich, visited Mexico as part of its M72 World Tour. The group promoted its four dates —Sept. 20, 22, 27 and 29 — with photos of guitar picks with drawings of Mexican pop culture such as the iconic wrestler “El Santo” and a colorful piñata.
Each show included a song in Spanish by a Mexican act, all performed by Trujillo accompanied by Hammett. On Friday (Sept. 27), the band played its own version of the Mexican group El Tri’s classic “A.D.O.” The gesture was reciprocated hours later by the Mexican band’s frontman, veteran rocker Alex Lora, in a video posted on social media.
“Thank you, Metallica, for making my classic A.D.O. yours! Thank you, Trujillo! Thank you, Hammett! And long live rock n’ roll!” Lora said in a video on Instagram, in which he also played the first few verses of his celebrated song.
Previously, during the band’s first night on Sept. 20, Metallica paid tribute to the norteño music group Los Tucanes de Tijuana by playing “La Chona.” Two days later, the rockers paid tribute to rock group Caifanes with their cumbia-themed hit “La Negra Tomasa.”
Metallica’s history with Mexico began three decades ago while promoting its Black Album (1991), when they performed five shows at the Palacio de los Deportes in 1993. Since then, the band has maintained a close relationship with the country, including recording the live DVD Orgullo, Pasión y Gloria (2009), which portrays three spectacular nights in June 2009 at the Foro Sol (now the GNP Seguros Stadium).
Even over three decades into her decorated career, Mary J. Blige is still adding to her legacy. The queen of hip-hop soul announced her For My Fans Tour last week and revealed the full dates and venues on Monday (Sept. 30).
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Fellow R&B titans Ne-Yo and Mario will serve as openers on the North American trek. Artist pre-sale starts on Oct. 1, while the general public will have their shot on Ticketmaster on Oct. 4 at 10 a.m. local time.
“I am so excited to kick off this tour. I have amazing fans and am so grateful for all of the love and support they have given me throughout the years,” Mary J. Blige said in a statement. “This tour is for them, and I cannot wait to be able to travel to all these cities and see everyone.”
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She continued: “I am in such a place of immense gratitude and peace at this moment, so also having the chance to release my new album Gratitude on Nov. 15 ahead of this tour is really special to me.”
The 27-city tour kicks off on Jan. 30 in Greensboro, N.C., and will rumble through Atlanta, Buffalo, Chicago, Denver, Detroit, Houston, Los Angeles, New York City, Newark, Tampa Bay, Toronto, Washington, D.C. and more before wrapping up in Boston on April 14.
The Yonkers legend isn’t letting up the rest of 2024. She kicked off the rollout for her upcoming Gratitude album with “Breathing” featuring Fabolous in August. Look for the project to arrive on Nov. 15.
Before Gratitude hits streaming services, Mary J. Blige will also be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame with a ceremony for the 2024 class taking place on Oct. 19 in Cleveland to cap off another banner year from the Power actress.
Find the full For My Fans Tour dates below.
Jan. 30 – Greensboro, N.C. @ Greensboro Coliseum
Jan. 31 – Raleigh, N.C. @ Lenovo Center
Feb. 3 – Atlanta, Ga. @ State Farm Arena
Feb. 6 – Charlotte, N.C. @ Spectrum Center
Feb. 8 – Tampa, Fla. @ Amalie Arena
Feb. 11 – Hollywood, Fla. @ Hard Rock Live
Feb. 14 – New Orleans, La. @ Smoothie King Center
Feb. 18 – Houston, Texas @ Toyota Center
Feb. 21 – Ft. Worth, Texas @ Dickies Arena
Feb. 25 – Denver, Colo. @ Ball Arena
March 1 – Los Angeles, Calif. @ Intuit Dome
March 7 – San Francisco, Calif. @ Chase Center
March 8 – Sacramento, Calif. @ Golden 1 Center
March 12 – St. Louis, Mo. @ Enterprise Center
March 14 – Chicago, Ill. @ United Center
March 16 – St. Paul, Minn. @ Xcel Energy Center
March 19 – Detroit, Mich. @ Little Caesars Arena
March 22 – Buffalo, N.Y. @ KeyBank Center
March 24 – Toronto, Ontario @ Scotiabank Arena
March 26 – Washington, D.C. @ Capital One Arena
March 28 – Atlantic City, N.J. @ Boardwalk Hall
April 2 – Columbus, Ohio @ Nationwide Arena
April 4 – Baltimore, Md. @ CFG Bank Arena
April 6 – Newark, N.J. @ Prudential Center
April 10 – New York, N.Y. @ Madison Square Garden
April 11 – Elmont, N.Y. @ UBS Arena
April 14 – Boston, Mass. @ TD Garden
For the four devout Midwesterners that make up Minnesota indie pop-rock band Hippo Campus, touring through major cities like New York wasn’t always as comfortable as it is for them now more than 10 years into their careers — but they’ve always had their ways of coping.
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“I love coming here now,” 30-year-old guitarist Nathan Stocker tells Billboard backstage at the Bowery Ballroom in lower Manhattan, where he and his bandmates were hours away from performing an album-release show Tuesday (Sept. 24). “It used to scare me until I was well into the night, a couple beers deep, just chain smoking. And then it was like ‘Yeah, I love New York!’”
After years of heavy drinking on show nights, Stocker is sober now – and so is the rest of the band, for the most part. There’s still room for some balance; at one point in the show later that night, 29-year-old frontman Jake Luppen asks the crowd to send a shot of whisky to the stage, and when two arrive at the same time, he downs them both as 28-year-old bassist Zach Sutton shakes his head with gentle disapproval. But the quartet’s overall tamer approach to life on the road is just one of many things that’s different about the cult-favorite group in the age of their latest album, Flood, which dropped Sept. 20 via new label Psychic Hotline, having departed Grand Jury Records after their original record deal expired.
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Luppen and 29-year-old drummer Whistler Allen, for instance, both own homes back in their home state, and all four members are in committed relationships (Luppen got engaged over the summer). The group is far from the early 20-somethings who dropped Billboard 200-charting debut album Landmark in 2017 and slept on dirty van floors on tour, and even farther from the Saint Paul Conservatory for Performing Artists classmates who first started releasing music together in 2013. Now all pushing 30, Hippo Campus is finally coming out on the other side of years of growing pains, spawned by the natural push and pull of four people who’ve been best friends, bandmates and business partners for more than a decade.
Early in the writing sessions for Flood, they started going to therapy as a group to help parse the big questions – around the same time as which Stocker quit drinking – and a lot of that introspection bleeds into the 13 tracks on the finished product. On the thrashing ode to anxiety “Paranoid,” Luppen sings, “I wanna give this life all that I havе in me,” and on optimistic album closer “I Got Time,” he muses, “If this is as good as it gets I’ll be more than fine.”
But even as they were each evolving in their personal lives, they found that it was difficult to let go of the songs they were making in the two-year period between their last album, 2022’s LP3, and now. On a self-designated mission to make the best Hippo Campus record ever, they got stuck in an endless loop — writing more than 100 songs, recording them over and over, and arranging multiple versions of their fourth album just to scrap them soon afterward. They thought they might’ve cracked it last summer while on the road, until Luppen declared to the rest of the group that, again, it simply wasn’t good enough.
Realizing they couldn’t keep going as they had been, Hippo Campus left Minnesota to record yet another version of the album, this time at Sonic Ranch Studios in Tornillo, Tex. They set a 10-day deadline and, with the help of producers Caleb Wright and Brad Cook — and using everyone from Phoenix to Big Thief, Tom Petty and the Red Hot Chili Peppers as reference points — forced themselves to record their parts simultaneously as they would on stage. No listening back to takes. No repeated attempts. Only forward motion.
The result was a set of existential, self-conscious tracks with the same luminous energy and unpredictable melodies Hippo is known for, reinvigorated by the ease with which the analog instrumentation they adhered to in the studio translates to the stage. As much was evident at their New York show Tuesday night, where they played Flood front to back for a palpably excited audience that was already screaming along to the words of songs that had come out just four days prior. At one point, Luppen stops singing to cough — he recovered from COVID-19 last week, but not before having to cancel the band’s scheduled hometown release shows — but their passionate fans have no trouble taking over lead vocals in his place on anthemic single “Everything at Once.”
With touring serving as their main source of income, the group will stay on the road through February, playing theaters and auditoriums across North America and the U.K. along with one festival show in Bangkok. And their fans will follow. One 22-year-old listener, Abby, was camped outside the 9:00 p.m. Bowery performance since the early afternoon to get as close as possible to the stage for what would be her 52nd Hippo Campus show; the next day, she said she’d be traveling to Washington, D.C. to catch her 53rd.
“It’s so rad,” Luppen says of their fans’ devotion. “It always surprises me that anyone would be down to do that for us. That’s a big reason why we keep going, you know? Those people really believe in it, and that allows us to believe in it.”
Below, Billboard catches up with Stocker and Sutton backstage before their show at the Bowery — followed by Luppen and Allen on Zoom the next day – about growing up, ditching bad habits and the messy beauty of starting over:
What were your initial reactions to Jake saying you needed to scrap years of work and start over on Flood?
Sutton: He was the first to verbalize an emotion we were all feeling. We had to be honest about where we were in the process and where we wanted to go from there. But there was a lot of arguing about what to throw away.
Stocker: Jake’s expression of that concern is valid … once that’s brought to our attention, it’s our job to attend to it. But also, it’s like, “God dammit dude — can’t we just say goodbye to this thing and move on?”
Allen: I remember listening to it and feeling excited for the songs, but deep down, I was like, ‘It just needs to get mixed right or something.’ Which tends to be an excuse for something else that’s lacking.
What was missing?
Luppen: It just didn’t sound like we were having fun playing music. We went into the record wanting to make the best Hippo Campus record ever. It immediately put a lot of pressure on the thing. The stakes were so high that, personally, I was stressed out the entire time — second-guessing songs, second-guessing the performances.
Sutton: We were too zoomed in. We’d been chasing these 100 songs for a year in a half. We were like, “We have lost the f–king plot.”
What needed to change for Flood to finally come together?
Allen: We were just so separated most of the time at home. It was rare at a certain point that we were all in the same room. At Sonic Ranch, we were all there — we had to be there. We had to make ourselves experience it, whether we wanted to or not.
Luppen: Hippo Campus, when it’s at its best, is us playing music together in a room. To make the best Hippo Campus record is to capture the feeling that our live shows capture. The best way to do that was to track all together at the same time.
Allen: Doing what we did at Sonic Ranch is proof that [recording live] is a crucial thing for us, to make ourselves be in an isolated space and just get s–t done. Otherwise, we just get too relaxed or comfortable or lazy.
Will fans ever hear those other 100 songs?
Sutton: I f–king hope so. Those are some of my favorite songs.
Stocker: The large majority of them, probably not.
Sutton: Once a song is considered so heavily and inevitably shelved, it’s hard to go back to that shelf. It’s shouldered with all the disagreements that we had about the song.
Stocker: “You used to f–king hate this one, you want to release it now?” [Laughs.] All the songs we have in the back room collecting dust, those tear at us in a lot of different ways. Because they’re still ours.
What is Flood about for you personally?
Stocker: It’s a line of simple questioning: Am I good enough? Do I love you? Am I a phony?
Sutton: The motif seems like redefining where you are, especially as a group. This is our fourth record: Who are we now? Where do we want to go?
Luppen: Flood is like being naked in a lit room with a mirror held up to you, and being like, “Embrace this.” It’s a testament to all the things we need to be doing to take care of ourselves and live better. Now that we’re into our 30s, we wanted Flood to be the start of the music we make in those years, where you’re not driven by this youthful crazy energy.
How does touring look different for you as you get older?
Stocker: We usually cap it at three weeks now. It’s the longest we’ll go out without a break, just so we can maintain a level of sanity.
Allen: It’s chilled out so much. With [Nathan’s] new sobriety over the last couple of years, that was a big shift on the whole group. 2022 was the grand finale of what it used to be for us on the big LP3 tour. I just remember being at the end of that tour feeling f–king wiped. That was definitely a wakeup call.
Sutton: At our worst, we’d get up at noon, have a beer, then not eat anything until the show. You do what you think you’re supposed to do – “Oh, it’s a party!” — there was a culture that was set by all of us.
Luppen: It was like partying in a Midwestern way, where we’d just get wasted on the bus and watch Harry Potter.
Allen: Now everybody’s chilling, getting in their bus bunk by 11:00 p.m.
Why was sobriety important for the band?
Luppen: We were using alcohol, I think, to numb fatigue or nerves. I have the life that I’ve always dreamed of, and I want to be present and there for it, even if that means I’m riding the waves a little deeper on the ups and the downs. It’s better than just sleepwalking your way through life.
Stocker: With not drinking and having a newfound clarity within my personal life … I became obsessed with fulfilling this vision of myself that I had, which was, ‘If you are going to do this thing, you have to do it the best that you can.’ That meant showing up every day and writing a song if I could. I felt like I had to make up for lost time from being perpetually wasted for 10 years.
Other than sobriety, what did you need to discuss in band therapy?
Sutton: I couldn’t talk to anyone in the band without seeing all the f–king baggage. The biggest disagreement is defining what Hippo Campus is. We all have different answers about the music — mainly how the music’s made — and what the music’s saying.
Stocker: We needed to have conversations about how things had been and how not to go back there, because that was dark and harmful. It was really affirmative in, like, “Okay, yes, we’re still friends, we haven’t done anything to each other that’s irreparable damage or anything like that.” We can reestablish these healthy lines of communication so that, moving forward with this record as friends, individuals, human beings and business partners, we can do this in a healthy way.
Luppen: It was us paying to force ourselves to talk to each other. We all changed a lot over the pandemic in our personal lives, with our partners and everything. On top of that, we’ve been friends since we were 14. In a lot of ways, we were still communicating with each other like we were still in high school. Therapy allowed me to see everybody for where they’re at now.
Why did you change labels to Psychic Hotline when your deal with Grand Jury Records ended?
Luppen: We wanted to try something different this time around. We kind of shopped [Flood] around to a lot of different labels. We talked to majors, we talked to indies. Frankly, it was pretty disappointing. There were a lot of major labels that passed on it, which was confusing for us. We’ve spent 10 years working our asses off building a very organic, sustainable business.
Allen: We were told that they loved the record, but there’s just not enough “virality” in the band. It’s proof that they’re not interested in the actual success of a band, they’re just interested in the little spike in numbers that bring in royalties and syncs or whatever the f–k. Then as soon as that band doesn’t provide that same accidental moment, it’s all over.
Luppen: Psychic Hotline is run by our manager [Martin Anderson]. It was the option that allowed us the most freedom and cared the most about the project. It was clear they loved the music and they really understood us on a deep level. We were like, “Let’s just bet on ourselves like we’ve done our entire career and grassroots this motherf–ker.”
Stocker: Having the management side of things already taken care of and having them already be so close to us throughout that creative process, it made sense to bring them in on the label side as well.
What are your goals for the band? Are you actively trying to expand?
Sutton: It would be stupid to say, ‘Still not there yet.’ Like, this is it. To say I want anything more would be so ungrateful. I do always feel very competitive about being the best version of ourselves. I want to be in the same conversation as all the people that influenced me.
Allen: There are still some things we would like to do. We’ve never done a Tiny Desk, or some talk shows.
Stocker: We still have this idea that we want to be the biggest band in the world, but that is not something we’re interested in at the cost of our integrity and our friendships.
Luppen: It’s about preserving what we have at this point and not burning out. When I was younger, I was constantly trying to climb this hill that had no end. The biggest goal we could ever imagine was selling out Red Rocks [in Colorado] when we started the band, and we did that. Playing arenas … that doesn’t sound attractive to us. We’re happy with where we’re at. If more people come in, I’m always grateful for that.
I think there’s a record we have yet to make that really captures everything. We thought maybe it was going to be [Flood], and this one gets closer. But for me it’s about cracking a perfect Hippo record. Every Hippo record we’ve kind of had to learn to love.
But isn’t that kind of the same thought process that got you into the endless writing cycle with Flood?
Luppen: It’s a blessing and a curse. We’re always sort of hungry for something that’s just past what you’re capable of doing. But I do think that is a driving force of what makes Hippo rad. Maybe we’ll never make that record, or maybe we already made that record. Who the f–k knows?
You raise a good point, though. I’m gonna reflect on that.