Women in Music
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Billboard Women in Music 2025
At this year’s Billboard Women in Music event, the Impact Award was presented by Bose, with music star Tyla as the recipient. The South African singer and songwriter was honored for her profound influence on the music industry, particularly for her role in spreading amapiano to global audiences.
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The “Water” singer’s recognition at the event followed the footsteps of previous Impact Award honorees such as Solange Knowles, Alicia Keys, Jessie Reyez, H.E.R., Becky G and Young Miko.
When accepting the award, she said, “In life, we all have a chance to pour into one another, whether it be something you say, a performance, a dance move — literally anything. We all have that chance, and you never know what might ignite in somebody and what that person will pass on to another.”
During the ceremony, Tyla also wowed the crowd with a live performance of her hit single “Push 2 Start.” The track has seen massive success, having topped the Billboard U.S. Afrobeats Songs chart for an impressive 14 weeks. It also reached No. 2 on the World Digital Song Sales chart, further solidifying her position as one of the most exciting emerging artists in the international music scene.
In addition to Tyla’s celebration, the event also saw singer-songwriter Griff catch the attention of attendees as she wore a custom pair of Bose Ultra Open Earbuds designed by renowned jeweler Maggi Simpkins. Last year, Simpkins crafted a similar pair for Kenzie Ziegler, and this year, Griff’s earbuds were created with 14k solid yellow gold and a mix of natural and lab-grown diamonds totaling 2.18 carats. These pieces reflected the unique artistry of both Simpkins and Bose’s commitment to blending technology with style.
Griff took a moment on the red carpet to speak with Billboard News’ Rania Aniftos and social media personality Jazzy about her music and the custom earbuds, shedding light on her career and the creative process behind her sound.
As Tyla and Griff continue to make their mark on the industry, this year’s Billboard Women in Music ceremony highlighted the ever-growing influence of young female artists, the continued rise of amapiano, and the way music continues to serve as a vehicle for change and connection across the globe.
Following aespa‘s biggest year yet — in which they became the first K-pop girl group to have six projects reach the Billboard 200 top 50 and won song of the year at the MAMA Awards for their single “Supernova” — the quartet accepted Group of the Year honor at the 2025 Billboard Women in Music […]
On Saturday night, Billboard Women In Music returned to YouTube Theater in Inglewood, California, to celebrate some of the biggest, brightest names in the industry, including high-profile executives and superstar artists across genres.
This year, Gracie Abrams was honored with the inaugural Songwriter of the Year award, which was presented to her by Victoria Monét. “This incredible artist is, at a minimum, a quadruple threat,” Abrams said about her presenter, who was honored at last year’s Women in Music event as the Rising Star. “She’s an insane writer, unparalleled vocalist, inventive producer and amazing dancer. I’m just in awe of you every day.”
Prior to being presented with the honor, Abrams performed her emotive hit “I Love, I’m Sorry,” off her second album, The Secret of Us. Abrams wrote the album with her best friend, Audrey Hobert, who was in attendance seated at a table alongside Abrams’ mom and her manager (and fellow Women in Music honoree) Alex DePersia.
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“To my best friend and the most clever Audrey Hobert — for every single reason, I am me because of you,” said Abrams. “And our album is what it is because of you. Having never written a song prior to The Secret of Us, you helped me translate every single feeling I was itching to articulate on this album.”
Abrams also thanked songwriter Sarah Aarons and, of course, “the incomparable Miss Taylor Swift,” with whom she earned a Grammy nomination for their collaboration “Us.” from the same album. “I will never stop thanking her for the gift of her pen,” said Abrams, “which very much raised me.”
Upon being presented with this year’s Icon award at Billboard Women in Music 2025 by next-gen R&B star Summer Walker, Erykah Badu didn’t waste any time drilling down to the heart of the occasion.
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“Sisters, how y’all feel?” drawled the Dallas native as she scanned the YouTube Theater audience. Then to resounding applause, she declared, “This night is for us! It’s a night to celebrate the womb of the world, the womb of life, the womb reverse of all things. The smartest creature on planet Earth. The wisest, the most invincible, sexiest, purest, finest. The woman. I want to thank God for giving me the opportunity to be born a woman!”
The five-time Grammy Award winner had just delivered an exuberant performance of her funky 2007 non-album track “Annie Don’t Wear No Panties” to the delighted audience of fellow music stars, industry executives and music fans. And she did so in keeping with the inimitable and eclectic style that’s made her such an influential singer-songwriter, performer and musical visionary for multiple generations since breaking through in 1997 with her debut album, Baduizm.
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Badu wore a black-hooded capelet atop a tan-colored oversize pants outfit (think Teletubbies) featuring exaggerated breasts, feet and booty — the latter of which she shook to full effect at one point during the song, eliciting rowdy audience laughter. That was just one of several memorable moments during Badu’s award presentation segment.
Saluting Badu’s “fearless artistry,” Walker shared that her idol and mentor has been her “fave artist” since she was 12. And that it was also the multifaceted Badu, in her role as a doula, who delivered Walker’s twin sons.
During the remainder of her acceptance speech, Badu went on to thank all mothers. “I want to thank my mother and all the mothers,” she continued. “Miss Tina [Knowles], you said it well. I see Doechii’s mama out there, all the mothers. Thank you so much for giving us so much inspiration and examples of what it means to be resilient, what it means to take charge, what it means to be courageous, what it means to be authentically ourselves. And that’s all we gonna be. That’s all I want to be.”
Then she concluded with an anecdote involving her youngest daughter. “I don’t really have a lot of things to say,” said Badu, “but I want to end with this story. My daughter is out here. Her name is Puma … My sister Joy is out there. This is for both of y’all … I was bathing my youngest daughter Mars, and Mars was about four. I was washing her up. You know, you teach them while you’re washing them up. And I said, ‘This is the vagina.’ And she said, ‘Oh, vagina.’ I said, ‘Yes, it’s the vagina. It’s the most important thing on the planet.’ And Mars said, ‘Really?’ Then she looked at me with those big brown eyes and she said, ‘Where is the planet’s vagina?’”
After noting that she may have paused too long between the setup and the punchline, Badu repeated the final part of her anecdote. And on the second go-round, the Billboard Women in Music icon had the whole theater laughing.
Muni Long had an incredible 2024. The Florida singer’s fourth solo album, Revenge, not only ranked high on the Billboard staff’s Best R&B Albums of 2024 list, it was also nominated for four Grammys, with her single “Made for Me” winning for best R&B performance. And for her breakthrough efforts, Billboard presented her with the Rising Star award at Saturday night’s Billboard Women in Music event.
During her speech, she touched on her journey and the importance of Black women in popular culture. “I stand before you tonight in awe of the incredible journey that has brought me to this moment,” she began. “It is a testament to the power of perseverance, dedication and the unwavering belief in the artistry that courses through my veins. But as I stand here, I know this moment is not just about me. It’s about the shoulders. I stand on the culture that shaped me and the people who continue to push the boundaries of what is possible.”
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She added: “I want to acknowledge Black women … the bedrock of not only the music industry, but the very heart of the culture itself. Black women have always been the architects of innovation, resilience and power. From the soulful tones of Patti LaBelle and Aretha Franklin to the boldness of Beyoncé and Miss Lauryn Hill, we have seen our brilliance shape the world in ways that transcend music and art. To the artists before me, those who dared to dream, to break barriers, to challenge the status quo, the Tina Turners, the Sister Rosetta Tharpes, and Janet Jacksons, Mariah Careys and Whitney Houstons, their influence echoes through every note I sing.”
Muni then acknowledged the community of Gifford, Florida, where she grew up and fell in love with singing, as she thanked “the aunties with four rings on every finger and a mouth full of slugs. The unpaved, unincorporated Florida streets, the communities that birthed the soul of modern music, the hood which is the genesis of pop culture. A place where the creativity of the people screams back into the mainstream.”
She also blessed the Women in Music attendees with a soulful performance of her song “Superpowers.”
Video of Muni Long’s performance and speech will be live here at 7 p.m. ET on Monday night (March 31).
It’s no surprise that Tyla was honored with the Impact Award presented by Bose at the 2025 Billboard Women in Music ceremony on Saturday (March 29), as the 23-year-old South African star has quickly become a powerful music mainstay on a global level.
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The “Water” singer took the stage at the Los Angeles event to accept her award, following in the footsteps of previous Impact Award recipients Solange Knowles, Alicia Keys, Jessie Reyez, H.E.R., Becky G and Young Miko.
“When my career took off, I realized that God has his own plans,” the superstar told the crowd, and was met with cheers of agreement. “I just feel very lucky for my fans who have given me such an exciting life, allowing me to grow in front of the world into all the different versions of myself as an artist and as a woman.”
She continued, “I appreciate the way music has been able to impact us through time and how I’m just a manifestation of that. In life, we all have a chance to pour into one another, whether it be something you say, a performance, a dance move — literally anything. We all have that chance, and you never know what might ignite into somebody and what that person will pass onto another.”
Tyla added that she’s “really grateful,” noting that she will “forever appreciate the people that have poured into me.”
During the ceremony, she also performed her most recent hit, “Push 2 Start,” which was featured on the deluxe edition of her self-titled studio album. The track has topped Billboard’s US Afrobeats songs chart for a whopping 14 weeks, and hit No. 2 on World Digital Song Sales.
You can watch the 2025 Billboard Women in Music ceremony here starting at 7 p.m. ET on Monday (March 31) and on VIZIO TVs and the VIZIO app. Watch Tyla’s acceptance speech above.
INGLEWOOD, Calif. — Thanks to a decade-plus career racking up four Billboard Hot 100 top 10s — including the eight-week No. 1 “All About That Bass” — Meghan Trainor was honored at Saturday night’s 2025 Billboard Women in Music event with our Hitmaker award. But as she told the crowd during her hilarious and touching acceptance speech, she needs the uplifting messages of those upbeat hits just as much as her fans do.
“Everyone asks me: How are you so positive and how you do so much and smile all the time?” Trainor said after accepting the award from friend and fellow pop star Madison Beer. “But the truth is that I write these songs for myself, because I am so insecure and I have therapy a lot. I have a lot of therapy. I’m on medicine. Thank you!” she said as the crowd cheered on her efforts for better mental health. “I I love my medicine! I love my therapist so much! She’s probably watching!”
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Trainor added: “I write these songs because I need these positive affirmations for myself. And if it helps anyone else, that’d be amazing too.”
After thanking her husband, actor Daryl Sabara, and her parents — who were all on hand at a table on the floor of the YouTube Theater in Inglewood, California — Trainor also called on the support system of all the women entertainers and music executives in the room to help each other feel less alone.
“I feel very alone — I really do — being a woman, putting on these heels, I shaved my face and my nose for this,” she said to big laughs. “I’m a mom and I’m a pop star, and I have no one who truly understands me — except for all the superwomen in this room tonight. So thank you. If anyone wants to do a sleepover at my house, because I don’t leave my house, we can talk about this. Just DM me, and I love you so much. Thank you, Billboard. We should help each other and we should talk about it.”
Other honorees on Saturday night included Woman of the Year recipient Doechii, as well as aespa (Group of the Year), Ángela Aguilar (Breakthrough), ANNA (Billboard Italy Woman of the Year), Charlotte Cardin (Billboard Canada Woman of the Year), Erykah Badu (Icon), GloRilla (Powerhouse), Gracie Abrams (Songwriter of the Year), JENNIE (Global Force), Megan Moroney (Rulebreaker), Muni Long (Rising Star), Tina Knowles (Mother of the Year) and Tyla (Impact).
Video of Trainor’s full speech will be available at 7 p.m. ET Monday night (March 31).
GloRilla absolutely dominated 2024 as she cemented her status as one of the premier rappers in the game today. Following her massive year, Glo was honored with the Powerhouse Award at the Billboard Women in Music 2025 ceremony in Los Angeles on Saturday (March 29). Draped in a sleek black tux, the Memphis native was […]
“I consider a hit song one that my 3-year-old knows,” Meghan Trainor says. The 31-year-old pop star and mother of two sons, Riley and Barry, says that her first-born has been jamming to Lady Gaga’s “Abracadabra” lately and also loves Billie Eilish and Miley Cyrus. When her own breakout single, “All About That Bass,” reached the top of the Billboard Hot 100 in 2014, she noticed that the song connected with both young children and adults. “So if I get kids involved in my songs as well as adults, I’m like, ‘Oh, that’s a hit,’ ” she says.
A decade removed from “All About That Bass,” a body-positive doo-wop riff that went viral years before TikTok, the former best new artist Grammy Award winner has fashioned a career as a chart stalwart with all-ages appeal. After her first two albums, 2015’s Title and 2016’s Thank You, produced six top 20 hits on the Hot 100 combined, Trainor spent the rest of the decade releasing one-off singles and collaborations, dabbling in film and TV projects and starting a family with her husband, actor Daryl Sabara. She returned to the Hot 100 in 2022 with “Made You Look,” which spawned a widespread dance trend online and peaked at No. 11, and “Criminals,” from her 2024 album, Timeless, reached the chart last year after serving as the theme song to the hit Netflix drama The Perfect Couple.
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Next on the to-do list for Billboard‘s 2025 Women in Music Hitmaker? Two more kids (“There’s so many dudes here — I want a baby girl”) and, maybe, leveraging her music career into a big-screen debut. “I want to be in a rom-com and then write the song for it,” she says. “Who do I have to talk to?”
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Which of your own hits sticks with you the most?
I love the reactions I get from the audience. There’s nothing harder than when you’re onstage and you’re a songwriter and you’re like, “You don’t know this one?!” And when they do, you see me call out people who know every word. I know “Me Too” is always going to be fun. I know “Lips Are Movin’ ” is always going to be a blast.
BUNDÏ top and bra.
Munachi Osegbu
When you’re in the studio, do you think about what the potential hits will be?
Usually when I’m writing an album, I’ll have one song that’s my favorite and I’ll say, “This is the top girl. This is how I want the entire album to sound like and we need to beat her.” For [the 2022 album] Takin’ It Back, I had “Don’t I Make It Look Easy.” “Made You Look” came after, and every day we just tried to beat it.
Why do you think the TikTok audience loves you so much?
My songs are really hooky. My main thing when I’m trying to write a song is I want you to be able to sing the melody by the second chorus. I think my stuff was just catchy enough that [TikTok users] could use the sound or make a simple dance to it or have fun and show something. I’ve noticed “Made You Look” still being used to sell products. I’m like, “That’s my song!” I still freak out.
Annakiki top, Michael Ngo skirt, Silent Opus jewelry.
Munachi Osegbu
Hearing new artists like Chappell Roan and Sabrina Carpenter, what do you think a hit sounds like now?
I need you to answer this for me, Sir Billboard, because I’m literally about to start my next album. There’s so many open lanes. Chappell and Sabrina are bringing instruments in and beautiful melodies and taking risks. What Doechii is doing — she’s just changing the world through art and [her] talent is thriving. Going into my next album, I’m nervous but also excited because there’s no more rules.
Is there something to be said about writing for yourself versus working with others?
I love learning from others. I always [say], “Please put me in a room with a better tennis player than me so I can learn more about tennis.” And sometimes going into a session with new people is scary. It’s like blind dating. And then you have to go, “Let’s try to create magic together.” My goal on this album is to find as many writers I love that I can collaborate with. I love Daniel Nigro. I want to work with him so bad. If you’re reading this, that’s my dream. And Andrew Watt. Andrew, pick me, choose me, love me. We would do something magical.
Munachi Osegbu
This story appears in the March 22, 2025, issue of Billboard.
In 2019, Priscilla Renea’s solo career was stalled. She had released an album in 2009, and when it didn’t chart, she had turned to songwriting. Her second album, released in 2018, also failed to make much of an impact. So, Renea decided, a rebrand was in order.
For her new moniker, “I picked Melrose at first. That was terrible, a very short phase,” the 36-year-old recalls with a laugh. “Then I quickly settled on [the word] ‘money’ and went through a few last names like Money Jones, Money Smith. But when I heard the 2 Chainz lyric ‘hair long, money long’ [from 2012’s “I’m Different”], I was like, ‘Whoa. That’s it.’ ”
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Two years later, the artist now known as Muni Long hit the jackpot. Her seductive smash “Hrs and Hrs,” initially featured on her 2021 EP, Public Displays of Affection, went viral on TikTok and became the then-indie artist’s first No. 1 on Billboard’s Hot R&B Songs chart. In February 2022, it peaked at No. 16 on the Billboard Hot 100 — and helped her land a contract with Def Jam Recordings (through her own imprint, then called Supergiant, now rechristened Muni Long Inc.). In September 2022, the hit appeared on her debut set, Public Displays of Affection: The Album, and won the artist her first Grammy Award, for best R&B performance, at the 2023 ceremony. At the 2025 awards, she won the same Grammy trophy for “Made for Me (Live at BET)” — and declared onstage during her acceptance speech, “Please stop calling me Priscilla… It’s Muni Long now!”
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Born and raised in Gifford, Fla., Priscilla Renea Hamilton wrote her first song at age 8; at 21, she signed a contract with Capitol. But when her 2009 debut album, Jukebox, didn’t chart, she pivoted to writing — and amassed a string of impressive co-writing credits for Rihanna (“California King Bed”), Kelly Clarkson (“Love So Soft”), Ariana Grande (“Imagine”) and Pitbull (“Timber”). As Christopher “Tricky” Stewart — the Grammy-winning hit-maker who executive-produced Muni Long’s Grammy-nominated 2024 album, Revenge — puts it: “She’s a professional song assassin.”
Genny romper, Wolford tights.
Joelle Grace Taylor
But even with those songwriting successes, her second album as Priscilla Renea, 2018’s Coloured, also failed to gain traction. “I started writing songs to make money because I bought into the [idea of] ‘Well, if you write enough hits, then you can be an artist,’ ” Muni Long says. “I gave it my all… I did so much free work, got stolen from and taken advantage of so many times, so many bad deals. I’d also been the only Black person in the room writing all these pop songs for years. So I quit to focus on me… keeping these songs for myself.”
After her 2022 breakthrough, Long released “Made for Me” in 2023. Buoyed by a viral TikTok challenge and a remix with idol Mariah Carey, “Made for Me” peaked at No. 8 on Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs and No. 20 on the Hot 100. Two Adult R&B chart-toppers, “Make Me Forget” and “Ruined Me,” quickly followed. (All appear on Revenge.)
“She’s real — there’s no facade with her,” Def Jam chairman/CEO Tunji Balogun says. “In an era where things can sometimes feel forced or indirect, Muni is able to take personal experiences and write about them in a way that projects universally onto her fans. She’s just very unfiltered and people appreciate that.”
Dolce & Gabbana dress, On Aura Tout Vu cuffs and earrings.
Joelle Grace Taylor
The artist recently released a new single, “Slow Grind,” that she says is for an upcoming project she’s already working on: “It’s all songs to make love to; I’m a lover girl.” But Billboard’s 2025 Women in Music Rising Star honoree is also taking a moment to enjoy her long-awaited plaudits.
“There are things that you can’t viral your way, relationship your way or accolade your way into,” she says. “This award signifies to me that I’ve reached a place in my transition as an artist from trying and aspiring to now I am doing, I am becoming. And I only have further up to go.”
This story appears in the March 22, 2025, issue of Billboard.