Billboard Magazine January 25, 2020

THE NEW YEAR IS PICKING UP WHERE 2019 LEFT off on the Billboard Hot 100: with an artist reigning with a first career No. 1. Roddy Ricch’s “The Box” rules the chart for a second week, gaining 13% to score 77.2 million U.S. streams, according to Nielsen Music/MRC Data, as it leads the Streaming Songs chart for a third week. The track rises 8-7 on Digital Song Sales, up 26% to 13,000 sold, and enters Radio Songs at No. 50, surging by 70% to 18.5 million all-format airplay audience impressions. The rapper, 21, is the first artist this year to top the Hot 100 with an initial No. 1 after a whopping 10 artists led the list for the first time (in lead roles) in 2019 (starting with Swae…

AS THE MUSIC BUSINESS CONTINUES TO GROW and change, we’ve decided that it’s time for our annual Power List to do the same. This year, instead of attempting to compare the relative influence of the top label executives with that of the biggest managers and concert promoters, we’ve decided to organize the industry’s most powerful figures by sector, then listed them alphabetically. (That sound you hear is the business’ publicists breathing a collective sigh of relief.) As the music business enters a new decade — and continues its remarkable turnaround — we want to inspire a new generation of music executives with awards that honor leadership instead of power. In that spirit, we’re recognizing individuals who are not only excelling at their jobs, but going beyond them to elevate…

ON THE EVE OF MUSIC’S biggest night — the 62nd Grammy Awards — the most compelling drama may be unfolding offstage as the Recording Academy’s new CEO, Deborah Dugan, now on leave, squares off with the organization’s old guard in a verbal battle royale — complete with high-powered lawyers — featuring allegations of harassment, conflicts of interest and financial impropriety. Dugan started just five months ago, replacing Neil Portnow (who had led the Recording Academy for 17 years), and many music industry executives believed she would modernize a stodgy institution, scrutinized for its glaring underrepresentation of women and artists of color accepting awards during the televised show and a secretive nomination process. Now the leadership — and future — of the academy has been thrown into question just as…

ANDREW YANG SANG along to Weezer frontman Rivers Cuomo’s performance of “Say It Ain’t So” at a campaign rally in Des Moines, Iowa, in November. Days later, Jack White screamed the ironic White Stripes “Icky Thump” line “Why don’t you kick yourself out/You’re an immigrant too?” under a Bernie Sanders sign in Detroit. That same month, Ben Harper changed a line in the song “People Lead” to “When Pete takes the lead,” endorsing Pete Buttigieg. Every candidate in the Feb. 3 Iowa Democratic caucus knows pop stars have the ability to draw attention to their campaigns even more than movie stars or other celebrities. Yang has smartly used artists like Cuomo and Childish Gambino for this purpose; Sanders is better known, but his progressive politics align seamlessly with liberal…

AFTER THE UNIVERSITY of Southern California’s Annenberg Inclusion Initiative released its first study in January 2018 highlighting a stark lack of women in the music industry, artists and executives jumped into action. The Recording Academy added a task force on diversity and inclusion, Spotify launched the EQL Directory of women audio professionals, and Alicia Keys introduced the organization She Is the Music, which hosts all-female songwriting camps. (Billboard is also a partner.) Now, the initiative’s third annual study, funded by Spotify, reveals that those efforts and others are beginning to move the needle. “While these shifts are small, collective action takes place when multiple companies, in multiple positions of gatekeeping, take action,” the initiative’s founder/director, Dr. Stacy L. Smith, tells Billboard. “We’re starting to see change.” Among the findings:…

MIAMI — During his November 2019 concert in front of 45,000 fans in his hometown of Medellín, Colombia, J Balvin did something he never had before: He gave a political speech. “I understand the situation the youth in this country are going through,” said Balvin, speaking for over three minutes to the crowd at Atanasio Girardot Stadium. “If they’re marching, it’s because something is not right.” The show coincided with a week of national strikes in the country. Hundreds of thousands of people took to the streets to demand an array of changes to President Ivan Duque’s social policies, from education to minimum wage to the implementation of a peace treaty with guerrillas and armed fighters. As fellow Colombian artists took a stand, fans began to pressure Balvin to…