Innholdsfortegnelse for March 13, 2021 i Billboard Magazine

THE WEEKND’S “BLINDING LIGHTS” MAKES HISTORY as the first song ever to spend a year in the top 10 of the Billboard Hot 100 as it logs its 52nd week there. The track, at No. 3, tallied four weeks atop the Hot 100 last April and May. After debuting at No. 11 on the chart dated Nov. 14, 2019, it first reached the top 10 on Feb. 29, 2020, and has spent all but three frames in the top tier since. The single appears on The Weeknd’s LP After Hours, which spent four weeks atop the Billboard 200 last April. “After Hours was always meant to be a very personal project. It’s a story I had to tell,” says The Weeknd. “The fact I’ve been able to tell it…

INDEPENDENT VENUES ARE COUNTING ON FEDERAL ASSISTANCE, BUT ITS ENTRANCE SEEMS TO BE DELAYED WHEN CONGRESS PASSED A COVID-19 RELIEF bill in December that included $15 billion in grants for independent music venues, promoters and other performing arts organizations forced to shut down during the pandemic, concert business executives saw it as a lifeline. More than 10 weeks later, however, the Small Business Administration (SBA) hasn’t even started accepting applications — which means funds probably won’t arrive before May. Indie venues have been in “desperate” need of government assistance since July, says Audrey Fix-Schaefer, head of communications at promoter I.M.P. and a board member for the National Independent Venue Association (NIVA), which helped lobby for the venue grant program. Venues can’t pay rent now, she adds, with “a promise…

BERLIN — Since September, Berlin rapper Fler has been feuding with Hamburg’s Bonez MC — about buying fake streams. After Bonez’s first album in eight years, Hollywood, and four of its singles topped the country’s GfK music charts, Fler accused him of juicing his streaming numbers. “Everyone knows that you bought them #klicks,” said Fler on Instagram Stories. Bonez responded with a chart showing that eight of Spotify’s top 10 streamed songs in Germany in September were his. “People lie,” he said. “Numbers don’t.” Fraudulent streams are a source of particular concern in Germany, where the music business is still transitioning away from CDs — which represented 24% of revenue in 2019, according to IFPI — toward streaming. This is boosting German rap and pitting established artists like Kontra…

WHEN DANIEL ANTHONY Farris won the first season of Netflix’s hip-hop reality competition, Rhythm & Flow, he got some advice from one of the show’s MC judges, T.I. “Enjoy this moment,” the veteran rapper told him. “You’re going to be chasing this high for the rest of your career.” But Farris — better known as D Smoke — says he respectfully disagreed: “I knew [the show] was just a steppingstone to put me on a platform to do all the things that the world is now seeing that I can do.” He wasn’t wrong: Almost one year after his 2019 win, the Inglewood, Calif., native earned two Grammy nominations: best new artist and best rap album, for his official debut, Black Habits. With its cinematic pacing, shape-shifting soundscapes and…

NASRI ATWEH WAS DONE WRITING for other people. After spending years crafting hits for stars like Shakira, Pitbull, Justin Bieber and Chris Brown, Atweh (who records under his first name) achieved global success as the lead singer of MAGIC! after the band’s 2014 reggae-pop smash, “Rude,” spent six weeks atop the Billboard Hot 100 and spawned three albums and as many world tours. “I was like, ‘I don’t like working with artists anymore,’” says Atweh, 40. “When you start seeing the world, you change.” Or so he thought. In 2017, Atweh met Wassim “Sal” Slaiby, the power manager who has guided The Weeknd’s rise as CEO of management company SALXCO. Both Torontonians and of Middle Eastern descent, the pair linked when Atweh had a session with SALXCO artist Massari.…

IN THE YEARS BETWEEN HIS BREAKTHROUGH 2016 album, 99.9%, and his late-2019 follow-up, BUBBA, producer Kaytranada moved out of his childhood home in Montreal, signed a major-label deal with RCA Records and publicly came out as gay. It’s not a surprise, then, that the 28-year-old (real name: Kevin Celestin) describes BUBBA as “a project I made from the bottom of my heart.” Now it has earned him three nominations: best dance/electronic album, best dance recording (for “10%,” featuring Kali Uchis) and best new artist. A dance act has never won the latter category, and for Kaytranada — who says BUBBA was influenced by the Black and queer pioneers of dance music — the award would be a win for more than just his genre. Did the life changes you…

Behind every artist, songwriter and music producer is a trusted group of advisers who provide guidance, advice and negotiate deals. Billboard’s 6th annual Top Music Lawyers list will recognize the biggest names and most prominent legal minds in the world of music and entertainment law. They are the deal makers behind the major contracts and lawsuits in the music industry. This feature will also include a round-up of top law schools attended by the notable alumni on the Top Music Lawyer list. Please join Billboard in congratulating this year’s music power lawyers. Advertise and position your law firm to the decision makers in the industry who are always in need for the best legal counsel. CONTACTS Joe Maimone 201.301.5933 | joe.maimone@mrcentertainment.com Lee Ann Photoglo 615.376.7931 | laphotoglo@gmail.com Cynthia Mellow…

IT WAS ONE OF THOSE MOMENTS in my life where I was like, ‘Holy shit,’” recalls DJ-producer 3LAU, “‘I think we just changed everything.’” That holy-shit moment, shared by most of the music business, was his Feb. 25 auction of 33 collectible NFT — non-fungible token — versions of his 3-year-old album, Ultraviolet, that sold for $11.7 million (one NFT went for $3.6 million) — some of which included vinyl, unreleased music and the chance to record with 3LAU. But their real value is as digital collectibles that can be identified as originals because they’re registered on the Ethereum blockchain, an immutable digital ledger. Music creators and executives seem to agree that something has changed — even if they don’t entirely understand it. Deadmau5, Grimes and Shawn Mendes have…

TO BOOST RAPPER CJ’S hit “Whoopty,” Mike Sherwood’s staff at Warner Records came up with a plan that might seem unusual these days: Sell it. As a 69-cent download, on iTunes. And — “Boom,” he says — “Whoopty” surged from No. 16 to No. 10 on the Billboard Hot 100 in mid-February. It’s a streaming world: In 2020, digital downloads generated just 6% of U.S. recorded-music revenue, according to the RIAA. But since Apple returned 69-cent song sales to the iTunes homepage, some of the tracks involved have surged in sales. After a late-February “69-cent R&B Hits” promotion, Blackstreet’s “No Diggity” (featuring Dr. Dre) spiked 1,421%, to 8,000 sales, and The Temptations’ “My Girl” jumped 727%, to 5,000. Those kinds of numbers won’t shift a label’s balance sheet, but…

Jacob Collier knows what you’re thinking. He has heard it all: the memes, the think pieces, the “Who’s Jacob Collier?” tweets that flooded the internet following his album of the year Grammy Award nomination. “I saw a lot of it,” says Collier, his posh British accent slightly elongating. “And it’s fair.” The 26-year-old is sitting in his home studio, surrounded by stacked keyboards, bass guitars, a ukulele and a Wurlitzer in the back room of his family’s North London home. It’s the same spot where in November he heard his Grammy nominations announced, first for best arrangement (instrumental and vocals), then for best R&B performance. After that came the shortlist for the most coveted prize, album of the year — a mix including massive commercial successes from Taylor Swift…

IF HIP-HOP IS A YOUNG MAN’S GAME, DON’T tell this year’s best rap album nominees. With an average age of 42, the five veterans — D Smoke, Jay Electronica, Freddie Gibbs (jointly nominated with producer The Alchemist), Nas and Royce Da 5’9 — are showing that classic lyricism can still triumph in an era of viral hits. Gibbs, 38, and Royce, 43, unpack the category. How did you react to your nominations? FREDDIE GIBBS I was just as shocked as everybody else. I knew I had the best rap album in my heart this year, but I didn’t know if I had enough juice to get nominated for a Grammy. I’m glad they considered me this year. I’m humbled. With this nomination, I already won. ROYCE DA 5’9 No…

ONE OF THIS YEAR’S MOST startling Grammy developments came in a category that rarely gets much attention: children’s music albums. In November, Family Music Forward, a collective dedicated to dismantling racial bias in the industry, called out the fact that the ballot was all-white and included only one woman. A month later, three of those five nominees — Alastair Moock, The Okee Dokee Brothers and Dogs on Fleas — asked to have their names withdrawn from consideration. In a corner of the music world historically known for its progressive messages, the situation wasn’t, in fact, an anomaly: During the past three years, the category has included just one act of color on each ballot, and in 2017, it had none. But the protesting acts have seen some positive change…

“BLUEBIRD” Miranda Lambert SONGWRITERS Luke Dick, Miranda Lambert, Natalie Hemby PUBLISHERS Emileon Songs, Little Louder Songs, Pink Dog Publishing, Songs of Universal, Sony/ATV Tree Publishing, Wrucke for You Publishing “ONE NIGHT STANDARDS” Ashley McBryde SONGWRITERS Ashley McBryde, Nicolette Hayford, Shane McAnally PUBLISHERS Canned Biscuit Songs, Smackworks Music, Smack Blue, Smackstreet Music, Tempo Investments, Warner Geo Met Ric Music, Warner-Tamerlane Publishing “SOME PEOPLE DO” Old Dominion SONGWRITERS Jesse Frasure, Matt Ramsey, Thomas Rhett, Shane McAnally PUBLISHERS Carrot Seed Songs, EMI Blackwood Music, Smackville Music, Songs of ROC Nation, Telemitry Rhythm House Music, Warner-Tamerlane Publishing, Smack Hits, Tempo Investments, Warner Geo Met Ric Music “STARTING OVER” Chris Stapleton SONGWRITERS Chris Stapleton, Mike Henderson PUBLISHERS I Wrote These Songs, Straight Six Music, WC Music “THE BONES” Maren Morris SONGWRITERS Jimmy Robbins, Maren…

WHEN SPOTIFY FIRST NEGOTIATED its initial licensing deals with labels in the late 2000s, both sides focused more on how much money the service would take in than the best way to divide it. The idea they settled on, which divides artist payouts based on the overall popularity of recordings, regardless of how they map to individuals’ listening habits, was “the simplest system to put together at the time,” recalls Thomas Hesse, a former Sony Music executive who was involved in those conversations. They decided on a price point “and had the big pie that gets distributed,” he says. “It was early days, when we invented the whole model.” Over the last decade, that model has become successful enough to bring back the music business — and also reshape…

SHA SHA AT THE VIRTUAL 2020 BET AWARDS, amapiano artist Sha Sha beat out crossover successes Rema, Celeste and Young T & Bugsey to win the viewer’s choice best new international act award. “I never saw that coming,” she says over Zoom from her home in Johannesburg. “I felt like I was still working toward that type of recognition.” Sha Sha, who has been recording music in her bedroom since she was 19, got her start when a friend sent one of her songs to a radio station in Zimbabwe. It received airplay and attracted the attention of local producer-singer Audius Mtawarira, who served as a mentor to Sha Sha. Her first single, “Miss Independent,” found success in Zimbabwe and South Africa, where she often traveled to visit her…

AS PATHS TO SUCCESS IN musical theater go, Mykal Kilgore’s was fairly familiar. He started out as a cruise ship performer. In 2009, he auditioned for a Dallas-Fort Worth production of the musical revue Five Guys Named Moe and was hired by director Billy Porter — who went on to win a Tony Award for his performance in Kinky Boots, as well as become Kilgore’s mentor. On Porter’s advice, Kilgore moved to New York and began booking roles on Broadway — including Hair, Motown the Musical and Dear Evan Hansen — as well as in TV musicals like Jesus Christ Superstar with John Legend and The Wiz Live! By 2018, Kilgore was ready to make a leap many Broadway performers before him had: writing and recording an album. But…

IF COUNTRY MUSIC IS THREE chords and the truth, it wasn’t quite ready for Mickey Guyton’s. After writing “Black Like Me” at a writers’ retreat in 2019, the Capitol Nashville artist says she felt like the stirring ballad fell on deaf ears. But when she released the song amid 2020’s protests against racial injustice, it found plenty of champions — and later scored a nod for best country solo performance, marking the first nomination for a Black female solo artist in the category. Guyton, 37, recalls the song’s unlikely journey in her own words. THE ORIGIN Singing on a major tour, singing in front of Confederate flags, being called the N-word after a show by country music fans — that absolutely inspired “Black Like Me.” [That last incident] was…

PRODUCER, COMPOSER AND multi-instrumentalist Devonté Hynes, 35, has worked with acts like Solange, Carly Rae Jepsen, HAIM and Mariah Carey; records on his own as Blood Orange; and has scored screen projects, including Queen & Slim and HBO’s We Are Who We Are. But his first-ever Grammy nomination came in a wholly unexpected realm: classical music. Fields — a suite of his music recorded by Third Coast Percussion, with Hynes himself on synths — began three years ago as one piece that Hynes was commissioned to write for a dance performance. Now he’s nominated for best chamber music/small ensemble performance. (The album is also up for best engineering.) No one’s more surprised than Hynes himself. It’s the first time I wrote music for other people to perform. Before that,…

IN ITS 10 YEARS OF EXISTENCE, THE best rock performance category has included 46 nominees — only 10 of which have been women, and only one of which, Alabama Shakes’ Brittany Howard, won. But at this year’s Grammy ceremony, that pattern will finally change: Phoebe Bridgers, HAIM, Grace Potter, Fiona Apple, Big Thief (fronted by singer Adrianne Lenker) and a solo Howard make up the category’s first ballot of only women or female-led acts. Four of them also appear in the best rock song category, where Tame Impala is the lone male-fronted act nominated. That evolution follows another promising change at the Recording Academy itself: In November, it welcomed a new class of 1,345 voting members, 40% of whom are women, after an effort to expand and diversify. And…

MUSICIANS AFFECTED BY NASHVILLE CHRISTMAS BOMBING AMONG MANY AIDED BY CHARITY LIFTING LIVES, THE Academy of Country Music’s philanthropic arm, has distributed $3.5 million directly to individuals in the country community through its COVID-19 Response Fund. More help is on the way. “In terms of putting money into people’s hands who need it — to feed their family, to pay rent, whatever that looks like — we’re uber-focused on fundraising right now,” says ACM CEO Damon Whiteside. Lifting Lives usually replenishes its coffers through various Party for a Cause events surrounding the ACM Awards. However, the most recent in-person events were staged in 2019, and the likely inability to gather in person due to the pandemic left the academy to consider other solutions. “We’re still keeping the possibility out…

No. 31 ON BILLBOARD’S MAINSTREAM TOP 40 CHART Before LOONA — whose members range in age from 18 to 24 — ever attempted a U.S. crossover, the act’s Korean management company, BlockBerryCreative, prioritized domestic growth by promoting each member of the 12-piece unit individually. In an atypical move, the members of LOONA were revealed over nearly two years starting in 2016, announcing a new face every few months — hence its Korean name, 이달의 소녀, which translates to “girl of the month” — along with a solo single. “We were happy to be the main characters,” says member Chuu. “It took a long time to debut as a whole, but I’m proud that we’ve created our own unique characteristics.” The intensive launch strategy wrapped in 2018 with the release…