Innholdsfortegnelse for December 14, 2019 i Billboard Magazine

Tobe Onwuka MANAGER Onwuka, 29, quit his job at a car dealership in 2014 to manage his longtime friend, using his savings as seed money. When Onwuka and Stormzy decided that major labels weren’t offering anything that they couldn’t do themselves, they established #Merky Records and signed a distribution deal with Warner Music Group’s Alternative Distribution Alliance. Akua Agyemfra BRAND MANAGER Agyemfra, 36, met Stormzy in 2014 through her job in the entertainment department at adidas before founding her own brand consultancy, bea.london, whose clients include Spotify and rapper Wretch 32. Tasked with realizing Stormzy’s audacious ideas, she turned a book offer from Penguin Random House into a long-term partnership, #Merky Books, and established his Cambridge University scholarship. Alec Boateng CO-HEAD OF A&R, ATLANTIC RECORDS U.K. “In my short…

WHEN SINGER-SONGWRITER KOLE (born Nicole Cohen) was 17 years old, she took a class called Songwriters on Songwriting at the University of California, Los Angeles. One week, songwriter-producer Rick Nowels (Sia, Madonna) visited as a guest speaker and Kole, then a second-year ethnomusicology student, volunteered to sing Lana Del Rey’s “Young and Beautiful” for him. After class, her professor offered to connect her with an industry veteran who later became Kole’s first manager. In 2014 that manager introduced her to Sue Drew, GM of creative and acquisitions at Kobalt Music Publishing, who immediately offered to mentor her. “It was obvious that she had a natural talent,” recalls Drew. “It was just a matter of encouraging her and offering up select co-writes when I thought they were appropriate for her.…

IN THE SUMMER OF 1995, A STARTLING VOICE JOLTED THROUGH THE haze of R&B jams dominating the airwaves. Part power belt, part witchy yelp, it sang of jealousy, perversion, of the messes men leave in the wake of broken relationships. It belonged to Alanis Morissette, then 21, whose song “You Oughta Know” hit No. 1 on Billboard’s Alternative Songs chart — the only one by a woman (other than her own “Hand in My Pocket” a few months later) to do so that year. That was just the beginning: Morissette’s U.S. debut, Jagged Little Pill, topped the Billboard 200 for 12 weeks and became the chart’s top-performing album of the 1990s, along the way inspiring a generation of singer-songwriters to share their rawest truths. Since then, Morissette has released…

Mary Megan Peer DEPUTY CEO, PEERMUSIC Mary Megan, 42, is a third-generation executive at one of the industry’s most successful global independent music publishers, representing over a half-million titles with 35 offices in 30 countries. It is also a firm with a legendary history, whose founder, Ralph S. Peer — Mary Megan’s grandfather — is credited with giving birth to the business of country music when he recorded the Carter Family, Jimmie Rodgers and others in Bristol, Tenn., in 1927. Ken Burns brought that history to some 34 million PBS viewers this fall in his documentary Country Music. Mary Megan is proud that Burns captured both Ralph’s ability to discover and nurture talent and his business acumen — “making sure people got paid,” she says — that still marks…

THE SOONER THE BETTER “Segregating women on lists like this just further ghettoizes our roles in the industry and sets us apart as ‘other.’ Let’s come together as a community of all genders united to tackle issues of diversity.”—RANI HANCOCK, PRESIDENT, SIRE RECORDS “Now could be a great time to retire the Women in Music issue, but only if it means that Billboard is committed to comprehensive representation in the magazine all the time — that women, people of color and other underrepresented groups, and genres, exist as a matter of course in its pages.”—PORTIA SABIN, PRESIDENT, MUSIC BUSINESS ASSOCIATION “It would be ideal if women in music were more widely recognized in the industry across the board, so a specific Women in Music issue wouldn’t be necessary. In…

A Jolly Top 10 Michael Bublé ’s Christmas makes its annual return to the top 10 on the Billboard 200 as the set climbs 17-6 with 48,000 equivalent album units earned in the week ending Dec. 5 (up 63%), according to Nielsen Music. The album was first released in 2011, topped the chart for five weeks that holiday season and has returned to the top 10 every year since. Another familiar favorite stages an encore performance in the top 10 as Mariah Carey’s Merry Christmas vaults 21-9 (37,000 units, up 63%). Merry Christmas — which features the enduring hit “All I Want for Christmas Is You” — initially spent six weeks in the top 10 in late 1994 and early 1995, peaking at No. 3. It made its first…

AIRPLAY & SALES DATA COMPILED BY RADIO SONGS: THE WEEK’S MOST POPULAR SONGS, RANKED BY RADIO AIRPLAY AUDIENCE IMPRESSIONS AS MEASURED BY NIELSEN MUSIC. STATIONS ARE ELECTRONICALLY MONITORED 24 HOURS A DAY, 7 DAYS A WEEK. DIGITAL SONG SALES: THE WEEK’S TOP-DOWNLOADED SONGS, RANKED BY SALES DATA AS COMPILED BY NIELSEN MUSIC. SALES DATA POP/RHYTHMIC/ADULT: THE WEEK’S MOST POPULAR CURRENT SONGS AT MAINSTREAM TOP 40, RHYTHMIC, ADULT CONTEMPORARY AND ADULT TOP 40 FORMATS, RESPECTIVELY, RANKED BY RADIO AIRPLAY DETECTIONS, AS MEASURED BY NIELSEN MUSIC. SONGS ARE DEFINED AS CURRENT IF THEY ARE RELATIVELY RECENTLY-RELEASED TITLES, OR SONGS COMPILED BY RECEIVING WIDESPREAD AIRPLAY AND/OR SALES ACTIVITY FOR THE FIRST TIME. STATIONS ARE ELECTRONICALLY MONITORED 24 HOURS A DAY, 7 DAYS A WEEK. SEE CHARTS LEGEND ON BILLBOARD.COM/BIZ FOR COMPLETE RULES…

Keys Leads With ‘Love’ Alicia Keys (above) collects a record-extending 11th No. 1 on Adult R&B as “Show Me Love” (featuring Miguel) rises from No. 2. “Love” leads with a 3% boost in plays in the week ending Dec. 8, according to Nielsen Music. Keys first topped the list with her smash “Fallin’” in 2001 and last reigned with the seven-week champ “Fire We Make,” a duet with Maxwell. The singersongwriter’s 11 No. 1s are the most of any artist since the chart launched in 1993. Toni Braxton ranks second, with eight. Miguel, meanwhile, nets a second No. 1, following “Adorn.” That single dominated for 17 weeks in 2012 and 2013, which is still among the five longest stays at the summit. The song also moves 10-9 on R&B/Hip-Hop…

“Eric is energetic, passionate and always there to support and guide us. He’s such an amazing presence, and I can’t thank him enough for being there for me.”—SHAWN MENDES A nearly two-decade veteran of Island, Wong has led operations and marketing strategy for the label since he became COO in 2018. Billboard covered his promotion in these pages — a full-circle moment for Wong, who landed his first internship after seeing an ad in the magazine. I grew up in Brooklyn and always just loved music. Every week as a teenager, I would run to grab Billboard magazine to check on chart positions and my favorite artists. It gave real access and insight into the industry. When I was 16, I was flipping through it and saw an ad…

Sean Bankhead’s dancing career started in the back seat of his mother’s car when he was 2 years old. “I was bopping on beat, and she’s like, ‘Where did this boy get this rhythm from?’” recalls the Philadelphia-born Bankhead, now 30. When he turned 17, his family moved to Atlanta in hopes of fast-tracking his dance career; his first week there, he auditioned for Ciara’s “Goodies” video. Though he didn’t get the part, his best friend, choreographer JaQuel Knight, led him to an even bigger opportunity: dancing with Beyoncé to “Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It)” on The Tyra Banks Show. Since, Bankhead has danced with Miley Cyrus and choreographed for Britney Spears and Drake. This year alone, he has landed gigs with Normani, Missy Elliott (for her…

Styling by Joseph Cassell Carolina Herrera dress, Alexander McQueen belt, Gucci blazer, Chloe Gosselin shoes, Sutra Jewels and Stefere jewelry. ONE EVENING in late October, before she performed at a benefit concert at the Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles, Taylor Swift’s dressing room became — as it often does — an impromptu summit of music’s biggest names. Swift was there to take part in the American Cancer Society’s annual We Can Survive concert alongside Billie Eilish, Lizzo, Camila Cabello and others, and a few of the artists on the lineup came by to visit. Eilish, along with her mother and her brother/collaborator, Finneas O’Connell, popped in to say hello — the first time she and Swift had met. Later, Swift joined the exclusive club of people who have seen…

AS A TEENAGER GROWING UP IN THE NEW YORK CITY neighborhood of Hell’s Kitchen, Alicia Keys saw a L’Oréal TV commercial with the tagline “Because I’m worth it” and had an epiphany. “I thought, ‘What a killer line,’” says Keys of the slogan, which inspired her soulful 2001 single “A Woman’s Worth.” It was the first of many anthems celebrating female strength that Keys has written through the years — from 2007’s “Superwoman” to 2012’s “Girl on Fire,” which she performed at the 2016 Democratic National Convention to introduce Hillary Clinton. Styling by Jason Bolden Stella McCartney coat, K Kane earrings. Looking back on her career so far, however, Keys says she created “A Woman’s Worth” because she didn’t feel empowered at all. “I needed to write the song…

NICKI MINAJ DEBUTED IN 2007 WITH A mixtape called Playtime Is Over. She wasn’t kidding: From her kooky alter-egos to her wildly outspoken Queen Radio show on Apple Music, Minaj — the first and only woman to score 100 appearances on the Billboard Hot 100 — has redefined success for women in hip-hop this decade. Yet Billboard’s inaugural Game-Changer isn’t done yet. “I’m a perfectionist and love topping myself,” says Minaj, 37, “so as long as I love music, I’ll always be doing that.” How do you think you have changed the game? I had an approach that had a lot of different layers. I first got the underground market and my hometown [on lock]. Then I gradually worked my way up. And even before I was doing music,…

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Roddy Ricch Reigns Compton, Calif.-based rapper Roddy Ricch (above) hits No. 1 on Emerging Artists for the first time thanks to a pair of tracks on the Billboard Hot 100: Mustard’s “Ballin’” (featuring Ricch) at No. 16 and “Tip Toe” (featuring A Boogie Wit Da Hoodie), which bows at No. 83. Ricch’s debut solo LP, Please Excuse Me for Being Antisocial, dropped Dec. 6. Plus, rapper Don Toliver debuts at No. 9 on Emerging Artists as his first Hot 100 entry, “No Idea,” arrives at No. 68 (12.8 million U.S. streams, up 137%, according to Nielsen Music). —XANDER ZELLNER CHART BEAT GARLAND’S ‘GOT’ A NEW TOP 10 Late legend Judy Garland (above) graces the top 10 of a Billboard songs chart for the first time in 74 years as…

The Dolls Are Back For the first time since 2012, The Pussycat Dolls (above) return to the Social 50. The girl group, led by Nicole Scherzinger, reenters at No. 43 on the (high) heels of its reunion and performance during the Nov. 30 finale of U.K. series The X Factor: Celebrity. Scherzinger was also featured as a judge on the ITV competition series. During the show, the group, which is now a five-piece, performed a medley of its previous hits, plus a new song called “React.” It was the act’s first performance since 2010, when Scherzinger departed for a solo career. Before disbanding, the Dolls earned a pair of top 10 albums on the Billboard 200 and 11 hits on the Billboard Hot 100. The Dolls’ chart metrics were…

Strike Up The ‘Band’ “One Man Band” by Old Dominion (above) ascends 2-1 on Country Airplay with 38.8 million audience impressions in the week ending Dec. 8, according to Nielsen Music. The group adds its seventh leader and its sixth in a row, an active streak second only to Luke Combs’ seven. The song is the second single, and second Country Airplay leader, from Old Dominion’s self-titled third studio LP, which debuted atop the Top Country Albums chart on Nov. 9. Lead single “Make It Sweet” topped the Country Airplay tally dated May 4. Dustin Lynch lands his eighth top 10 on Hot Country Songs as “Ridin’ Roads” rolls 11-9, thanks to 27.1 million in airplay audience, 4.8 million U.S. streams and 2,000 downloads sold. Plus, Jon Pardi earns…

Ozuna Scores Third No. 1 Ozuna (above) scores his third straight No. 1 on Top Latin Albums, and third debut in a row atop the list, as Nibiru arrives with 17,000 equivalent album units earned in the week ending Dec. 5, according to Nielsen Music. The bulk of that sum, 15,000 units, consists of streaming equivalent album units. That total translates to 20.4 million on-demand audio streams for the set’s tracks. Nibiru’s unit sum marks the fifth-largest debut for a Latin album released in 2019. Nibiru — which features such guests as Sech, Diddy, DJ Snake, Anuel AA and Snoop Dogg — follows Ozuna’s last album, Aura, which opened at No. 1 with 49,000 units in 2018. Ozuna’s first leader was 2017’s Odisea, which started with 18,000 units. —PAMELA…

‘Bad Boys’ Are Best The Black Eyed Peas and J Balvin bounce to their first No. 1 apiece on Dance/Electronic Digital Song Sales with “RITMO (Bad Boys for Life).” It pops 2-1 with 2,000 downloads sold in the week ending Dec. 5, according to Nielsen Music. Previously, each act had reached No. 2 peaks: the Peas with “I Gotta Feeling” in 2010 and Balvin with “Que Calor” (with Major Lazer and featuring El Alfa) on Sept. 28. “RITMO,” which samples Corona’s mid-’90s smash “The Rhythm of the Night,” spends a third frame at its No. 2 high on the multimetric Hot Dance/Electronic Songs chart, also drawing 5.9 million U.S. streams. On Dance Club Songs, Meduza and Goodboys each earn their second No. 1, and Becky Hill achieves her first,…

AFTER MORE THAN 12 YEARS AS the first CEO of indie rights nonprofit Merlin, Charles Caldas will step down on Dec. 31. During his tenure, Merlin distributed over $2 billion to its 900-plus members, including more than 20,000 labels and distributors in 66 countries that make up 12% of the global digital recorded-music market. Caldas made early licensing deals with Spotify, YouTube, Deezer, SoundCloud, Pandora, Facebook and Tencent. He also pursued copyright infringement actions against a number of digital services and played an important role in the Warner Music/Parlophone divestment. The 2018 sale of its equity shares in Spotify netted Merlin’s members a further $130 million. “When you are running this hard for so long, you don’t tend to pause and look back at what you achieved,” says the…

When Motown president Ethiopia Habtemariam first heard about Queen & Slim, she envisioned a soundtrack that would match the movie’s social and political messaging — and engage fans, thanks to her experience at Motown and Universal Music Publishing Group. So she met with film director Melina Matsoukas (Beyoncé’s “Formation” video) and discovered they wanted the same thing: to recall the 1990s/early-2000s soundtrack heyday propelled by black films such as Love Jones, Boomerang, The Nutty Professor, Love & Basketball and Above the Rim. “Those were tight, seamless albums with tracks that really resonated, and still resonate, with people,” says Habtemariam. “There was a bigger goal involved here than having one big single. It was about serving the art.” In May, Motown secured the deal. With Queen & Slim — in…

Taylor Swift’s first big project of 2020? Lover Fest, her self-produced, festival-style tour slated to kick off in June (Messina Touring Group will promote). Fourteen dates have been announced, and the artist lineup is still in the works. “I haven’t really done festivals in years — not since I was a teenager,” says Swift. “That’s something that [the fans] don’t expect from me, so that’s why I wanted to do it.” Lover Fest is a new twist in Swift’s touring strategy. While the 2018 reputation stadium outing was the highest-grossing U.S. tour of all time — $266 million in revenue across 38 stateside shows, according to Billboard Boxscore — Swift has announced only four Lover Fest dates in the United States. But if she’s leaving potential millions on…

AT THE 2018 BILLBOARD Women in Music event, Alicia Keys presented She Is the Music, the organization she co-founded with her longtime sound engineer, Jungle City Studios’ Ann Mincieli; WME partner and head of East Coast music Samantha Kirby Yoh; and Universal Music Publishing Group (UMPG) chairman/CEO Jody Gerson. Its goal is to increase the number of women in the music industry. “It was never just a media push,” says Mincieli. “This is something that all of us really wanted to stand behind.” She Is the Music’s work focuses on three key initiatives: expanding an online database (powered by Billboard) that now includes over 700 female creators, establishing a mentorship program for women in the industry of all ages and hosting all-women songwriting camps around the world with artists…

ON A TYPICAL DAY, Desiree Perez would prefer not to be here. Well, not here, exactly — in a conference room on the top floor of Roc Nation’s sleek new offices on Manhattan’s West Side — but “here” as in doing her first interview about her career in the music business. Her path has taken her from part-time hip-hop club promoter to the C-suite of one of the most prominent, artist-friendly independent companies in the world. As COO of JAY-Z’s multihyphenate, one-stop music shop, Roc Nation, she’s certainly got plenty of other things to do. The Roc, which initially formed in 2008 as a $150 million joint entertainment venture between Jay and Live Nation (and included a 360 deal for Jay’s recordings, publishing and tours for 10 years), has…

WHEN ATTORNEY DINA LaPolt began her practice in 2001, the only female mentor she could look to for advice was a client: Afeni Shakur, mother of the late rapper Tupac. “She used to tell me all the time, ‘Wisdom comes from good judgment, good judgment comes from experience, and experience comes from really bad judgment,’” recalls LaPolt. Since then, LaPolt has become a mentor in her own right, joining a growing group of women in senior positions supporting the next generation of female industry leadership. “We’ve been more successful at removing bias in the workplace,” says Epic Records chairman/CEO Sylvia Rhone, who alongside Atlantic Records chairman/COO Julie Greenwald and Universal Music Publishing Group chairman/CEO Jody Gerson is one of the few women executives leading a top music company. “Sony…

Frozen II Chills At No. 1 The Frozen II soundtrack jumps to No. 1 on the Billboard 200 as the set rises 3-1 with 80,000 equivalent album units earned in the United States during the week ending Dec. 5 (up 2%), according to Nielsen Music. Frozen II and Frozen join an elite group of theatrical film or TV movie soundtracks whose original and sequel film albums hit No. 1. (The album for the first Frozen movie spent 13 weeks atop the tally in 2014.) They join the soundtracks to the TV movies High School Musical and High School Musical 2 (in 2006 and 2007, respectively) and theatrical releases Twilight and The Twilight Saga: New Moon (2008, 2009). Frozen II also marks the rare No. 1 that did not debut…

‘Graveyard’ Smash Ozzy Osbourne (above) closes out the decade where he began: atop the Mainstream Rock airplay chart, as “Under the Graveyard,” from the legendary rocker’s forthcoming album, Ordinary Man, jumps 4-1. The song is his first leader on the list since “Let Me Hear You Scream,” which reigned for four weeks in 2010. On a chart long dominated by bands, Osbourne scores the first Mainstream Rock No. 1 by a single soloist and no accompanying acts since “Scream.” He and Slash are the only two solo artists in lead roles to top the tally all decade. Slash led with two songs in that span, in 2012 and 2014 (both featuring Myles Kennedy & The Conspirators). Plus, at 71, Osbourne is among the senior-most artists to rule Mainstream Rock.…

‘Drummer’ Snares New Support Sparked by its performance of “Little Drummer Boy” on ABC’s CMA Country Christmas, which aired on Dec. 3, a 2017 live take of the holiday classic by King & Country (above) tops the Christian Digital Song Sales chart for the first time. “Little Drummer Boy (Live From Phoenix)” re-enters at No. 1 (up 1,301%) to 5,000 downloads sold in the week ending Dec. 5, according to Nielsen Music. The recording previously reached No. 3 in December 2017. The duo — brothers Joel and Luke Smallbone — earns its third No. 1 on the chart, following “God Only Knows,” which ruled for five weeks beginning in June (aided by a remix with Dolly Parton), and “Joy,” which led the list in its debut frame in June…

Bad Bunny Returns With reports for 14 shows from Nov. 22 to Dec. 1, Bad Bunny (above) returns to the Boxscore chart with two engagements in the top 10 of the Dec. 14-dated ranking. According to figures reported to Boxscore, the new receipts total $7.6 million and over 80,000 tickets sold. These figures lift the Puerto Rican superstar’s fall tour to $19.3 million. And when combined with his spring trek earlier this year, his 2019 total rises to $42.8 million, up by over 100% from a reported $21.2 million in 2018. His top-performing show from the most recent data is his Nov. 29 date at Allstate Arena in Rosemont, Ill. (20 miles outside of Chicago), earning $1.7 million from 17,299 tickets sold. —ERIC FRANKENBERG BOXSCORE: THE TOP GROSSING CONCERTS…