Month: September 2022

As clubs have been reopening and shows have been resuming across the country after a COVID-19 pandemic pause on the live music industry, Billboard is asking club and touring DJs about their experience transitioning from spinning at home to performing back outside.

Amorphous’ father, whose favorite artist is Luther Vandross, used to always tell him, “You’re gonna blow up when you do a remix with an old song.”

“Nobody wants to hear that,” retorted the up-and-coming producer, who was steadily gaining recognition on Twitter, YouTube and SoundCloud for his genius decades-spanning mashups of throwbacks and new hits.

His perception changed on Thanksgiving Day 2020, when Amorphous posted a video on Twitter of him mixing Vandross’ 1981 post-disco hit “Never Too Much” with Rihanna’s 2016 R&B-meets-electronic rock scorcher “Kiss It Better” from the comforts of his bedroom — which served as his main stage for years, not necessarily due to the pandemic, but because performing in public wasn’t his forte. The clip, which has since amassed nearly 3 million views on Twitter, caught the attention of countless hit-makers, including Fat Joe and DJ Khaled, who ended up using Amorphous’ mashup as the underlying production of their track “Sunshine (The Light),” which peaked at No. 6 on Billboard’s Rhythmic Airplay chart and No. 8 on Rap Airplay.

Compared to the careers of other DJs, which were upended due to COVID in 2020, Amorphous’ was just starting to blossom. Like his premier collaborator Khaled, he holed up in his studio and assembled an impressive slate of collaborators such as Brandy, James Fauntleroy and Kelly Rowland for his debut EP, Things Take Shape, which he released last summer. He’s been spreading his wings ever since, from performing at Lollapalooza in 2021 to being tapped by Mariah Carey for the anniversary club remix of the Butterfly title track for the LP’s 25th anniversary expanded edition released this month. Whether he’s casually mashing up songs in the bedroom or (he hopes) opening up for Beyoncé‘s Renaissance tour, Amorphous feels cozier behind the booth, and in front of a mic and real-life audience.

“That’s why I do what I do: Life is very short, and I just want to leave my mark on people through music, through creativity, through just trying to be a good person,” he tells Billboard.

Billboard caught up with Amorphous about his Rihanna/Luther Vandross mashup morphing into his first Billboard hit, his vision of opening for Queen Bey, and the “darker sound” he’s experimenting with on his upcoming project.

Pre-pandemic, where were you spinning usually?

In my bedroom. I never necessarily consider myself a DJ, so I didn’t really think of going out and playing the mashups or even some of the remixes that I did out there like that. During college, when I went to Full Sail University from 2016 to 2018, I did one or two gigs. And I was like, “You know what? I’m a behind-the-scenes type of person. I’mma just stay in my room and do that.”

Before the pandemic, most of me spinning was literally just for my own ears or for my YouTube, so I would do the mashups and upload them. I had gotten some traction over the years, but it’s a whole different world going out there and actually spinning and playing in front of people.

What music were you listening to a lot during quarantine?

Jaguar by Victoria Monét. That was my quarantine album, 100%. I was listening to a lot of old-school music, like Luther Vandross and Anita Baker, things that made me really nostalgic towards my childhood because, as most people can relate to, the pandemic did me in. I moved out to Los Angeles in 2019 to try to have a career in film by doing trailer editing, and I got some really great opportunities. I almost worked with Ava Duvernay. There was a lot of stuff going on, but it just went into the gutter. I had to move back to Orlando right as the pandemic started. I was stuck in the house, just allowing myself to really sit and take in all the music that was coming out and all the music that maybe I hadn’t had the time to listen to in years because of school.

One year after you posted a video mixing “Kiss It Better” and “Never Too Much,” Fat Joe and DJ Khaled hopped on it and released the single, “Sunshine (The Light).” What is that process, and feeling, like when elite tastemakers want to use your mashup as part of the production for an actual song?

When Fat Joe hit me up, it’s kind of like what T-Pain said: I never checked my Instagram requests before. But for some reason, I’m like, “I’m blowing up. I see a lot of people hitting me up.” I decided to check it that day, and it’s Fat Joe. I thought it was a spam account at first. He’s like, “Here’s my number. Call me.” I FaceTimed the number and the first thing he does when he gets on, he’s like, “Yo, Amorphous! Young king, young legend! We got DJ Khaled right here. That Rihanna, that Luther, that’s fire! We want to put it out.” They played the song for me, they had already wrote to it. And I was just sitting there like, “This is so crazy.”

Imagine if I never checked my Instagram requests. The song probably wouldn’t have come out. I was able to work with two legends in the industry – Fat Joe is a veteran, especially within hip-hop, and the success that DJ Khaled has had – and [with] my last project, as a producer, [I was] able to work with other artists and have them featured on my projects. DJ Khaled is kind of the king of that right now. To be uplifted in that sense was beautiful. Going to Miami with them and shooting the video with them, meeting Diddy, and just the kind words and energy was a great experience and something that I don’t take for granted. The song definitely helped put me at the level I wanted to be at.

Last year, you enlisted Brandy, James Fauntleroy, Kelly Rowland, Kehlani and more for your debut EP, Things Take Shape. What was a pinch-me moment you had while working on the project?

The moment where everything kind really hit me was working with Kehlani. They were the first person to truly reach out outside of Fat Joe and Khaled to say, “You know what? I saw your tweets about you doing your own EP. I want to be on it.” I was really nervous because I had never been in the studio before with any artists of that caliber, but they gave me so much grace in that room just to be like, “Look, this is your project. You tell me what you want to write about, what you want to do, what should I be singing, and we’re gonna make it happen.”

Putting that song out was a beautiful moment because we also had a partnership with Spotify for the Frequency campaign, so I was part of the launch for that. I got to go to New York and see me on this huge billboard. I got to take my mom to go see that. Put out my first single on my own with Kehlani, here I am in the middle of Times Square – that was definitely a pinch-me moment. And then working with Brandy, of course. That was a dream collab that I really wanted for my actual album later on, but it ended up going on my first project. Brandy is such an amazing vocalist and human being.

How have your roots/upbringing shaped the music you like to listen to and play live?

It shaped everything. When I think of the Rihanna and Luther mashup, my dad’s favorite artists are Luther Vandross and James Brown. He always used to tell me, “You’re gonna blow up when you do a remix with an old song.” And I was like, “Nobody wants to hear that.” But for me, I grew up on a lot of gospel music. I had different generations of people in the house – my parents, my older brother and then some of my siblings that are kind of closer to my age. So there was different layers of music that I could consume: Yolanda Adams, Mary Mary, my brother grew me up on Aaliyah, Destiny’s Child, Usher. And then, as I said, my dad was listening to the Marvin Gayes and the Anita Bakers of the world. So subconsciously, it definitely affected me.

Did you perform at any virtual events during quarantine?

I did some behind-the-scenes corporate stuff for some people. I did some nonprofit organization stuff, did some stuff for Detroit, which was really, really cool to support the youth over there. I remember when Keyshia Cole and Ashanti had a Verzuz that was supposed to happen and it got delayed, I just went on Twitter and started streaming. And that turned into a whole big thing, a lot of people enjoyed that. I did a livestream for Kelly Rowland’s birthday, and that’s when we first had our interaction. I was really nervous. I mean, it’s Kelly Rowland.

What was the first live music event after quarantine that you attended as a fan? 

I went to go see Willow Smith last year. I am a huge Willow stan and I cannot wait to work with her one day. I’mma manifest it! I was in the back screaming my ass off to all the songs. Willow is just such an incredible artist, and to be able to see her live and transform into the place that she takes you is beautiful.  

What was the first live music event after quarantine that you performed at as a DJ?

I DJ’d at Lollapalooza, which was my first kind of festival experience. [Before that], I did do a truck that drove around L.A. that I was DJing in for Hillman Grad, Lena Waithe’s company, which was so cool. Going from the bedroom and being comfortable in your own space to, OK, now you’re playing in front of people is definitely a huge adjustment. That’s why when people call me a DJ, it’s absolutely flattering, but I’m still learning all the ins and outs of that culture.

When I look at someone like Kaytranada, who can really put on a full-on show, I’m like, “I’mma get there!” But for me, I’m taking it slow and learning all the ins and outs and how to work a crowd and how to move a crowd in the right way.” Because it is so different having blown up in the pandemic and just DJing in my room for Instagram Live or a YouTube stream. But when you’re playing into a live audience, learning how to feed off of that is something that I really want to tap into.

Are there any songs you were listening to/spinning at home that you were excited to play for a live audience?

I feel like most of my old-school mashups that people didn’t know I did but they knew of them are always fun to play. For example, there’s a mashup I did of Aaliyah’s “Rock the Boat” with Rihanna’s “Work.” And I did that years ago, and it went viral over the Internet. I remember some DJs was tryna be like, “No, I made this.” And I was like, “Look, I put certain things in there you can’t replicate, honey. My stamp is on that.” So when I drop it in my sets, sometimes people will be like, “OK, I didn’t know that you did this! That’s really, really cool.” It’s always, always fun to drop Beyoncé. People sometimes get on me like, “Ah, you’re playing too much Beyoncé in your sets.” And I’ll be like, “Girl, there ain’t such a thing. Be quiet.” Also, I’m a huge fan of ‘90s house, so it’s cool to drop some of those old gems [like] “Perculator.”

Did you have any worries that certain songs or albums might be considered “too old,” because it came out during the pandemic?

I have a little bit of a brand within myself, so I would hope that people that do come understand that I’m not just going to play only the newest of the new. Here’s some of the new stuff and here’s some of the stuff that maybe you forgot about, or a song from even like the early 2000s that brings you back to that place. Even when you look at music in general, catalog music is being streamed way more than new music. So I’m like, “If people can’t come outside and dance to ‘Girls Dem Sugar,’ something wrong with y’all.” Or if people can’t get jiggy to “Never Too Much” by Luther Vandross, why are you here? Like I said, I’m not out there to DJ to just make money or make a cut. I want to cultivate a fan base, a community that’s going to say, “You know what? We want to go to the show that Amorphous is bringing.”

What are some of the newer songs or albums that you’ve been hyped to play?

Renaissance. You can’t not play it, you know? It’s so difficult because if you only play a couple of tracks, somebody’s gonna come up there and be like, “You need to just play the whole album through.” I’m like, “You know what? You might as well just hook up your iPod and let it play. I’ll take the check just to play Renaissance.”

I love playing stuff from [Drake’s] Honestly, Nevermind. There’s some really good songs that translated towards a club environment on there. There’s an artist named LAYA that I’m a huge fan of, and her album Um, Hello has some big-tempo slappers that I love to drop.  

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You’ve created an entire slate of Renaissance mashups, including Ms. Tina Knowles-Lawson’s favorite, “Plastic Off the Sofa,” meets Solange’s “Cranes in the Sky.” When you’re putting your Midas touch on an entire body of work, where do you even start? How many times are you listening to Renaissance front-to-back to get an intimate feel of the songs so you know what works best with them?

It’s so funny, because when I listen to Renaissance, I honestly don’t really think like that. It’s when I’m not listening to Renaissance and my mind does that. When I’m listening, I need to block all of my own creative inhibitions out. This is an album Beyoncé put out, lemme not touch it when I’m listening. But when I’m in my bedroom, I might hear “Don’t Stop the Music” with “Cuff It” or something, which is a mashup that I put out. This album has a very Off the Wall, Michael Jackson kind of feel, as far as something I can mash up with that. But I try not to let it impede my listening experience as a fan.

What are you looking forward to during your future sets? Where do you wanna perform next?

I definitely want to go on tour with Beyoncé one day. She’s been in this industry for such a long time. I feel like it could be a cool experiment for me as the opening act to do a cool little mix between some of her eras, a celebration of her artistry and her history as a veteran artist before she goes into the full-out tour versions of those songs.

I would love to do something for Rihanna one day in terms of doing something live, like a Savage x Fenty show. And I always want to open up for Kaytranada. I’m a huge Kaytranada fan. That alignment is there even just in terms of production. I always say that I would not be here fully without him.

Who is your dream collaboration you’re manifesting? 

Beyoncé, Miss RiRi. I would love to work with Victoria. We had a session, but that session was so funny because we got along so well, we didn’t even get a chance to work on music. I would love to work with Victoria more. I would love to do a collaboration with Tinashe. Like I said, Willow would be amazing. I really want to work with Banks, I’m a huge Banks fan. She set the stage for a lot of these new alternative girls. There’s some other stuff in the works hopefully happening for this next project, but it’s gonna be a good one.

What can we expect from your next EP?

You can expect something very different than my first project. I only had three weeks to do it, so I had to get my shit the f—k together! And to be honest, I’ve kind of put a lot of pressure on myself in the sense that I haven’t dropped music in a year. I’m taking my time. I’m like, “You know what? It’s not like my fanbase is diminishing. It’s growing still within this time period.” So I know when I do come out, it’s gonna come out hard. It’s a bit of a darker sound. I wanted to show something that was more mature in terms of production. It’s going to be more male artists on this project. I showed out for my girls, but I gotta support my bros, too. It’ll be fun. I think people are gonna be really shocked and be like, “Oh, this is the type of sound that Amorphous can do as well.”

Check out Amorphous’ playlist for Billboard below.

Did you know that John Legend played piano on “Everything Is Everything” from Lauryn Hill’s Grammy-winning solo debut The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill way back in 1998? Or that he sang backup vocals on Alicia Keys’ “You Don’t Know My Name” in 2003? Or that his 2005 breakout single “Ordinary People” was originally intended to be a Black Eyed Peas chorus?

The singer/songwriter told all those stories and more, spanning his almost quarter-century in music, to a crowd of only hundreds at Los Angeles’ El Rey Theatre, part of SiriusXM’s Small Stage Series presented by American Express, which also put on concerts by Red Hot Chili Peppers and Pearl Jam at Harlem’s Apollo Theatre earlier this month.

Legend took the crowd back to the very beginning, when he was a 19-year-old student at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia and directing a choir. He sat at the piano — all by himself onstage, as he was the entire show — and played some dulcet chords to set the tone for story time.

“One of my choir members was friends with a young lady named Ms. Lauryn Hill,” Legend recalled to wild cheers. “I always dreamed that I would be making music for a living, but I didn’t know how I was going to get there. Lot of times you need lucky breaks along the way. Even though you have a dream, even though you have talent, sometimes you need to be in the right place at the right time. My first lucky break came with Ms. Lauryn Hill. She was working on her solo debut album after the success of the Fugees, and my friend invited me to go to the studio with her and meet her and hang out and see what she was doing. I said, ‘Yeah, definitely, I’ll go.’

“So we got to the studio, she’s working on new music, and I’m just hanging out, and my friend’s like, ‘John! You gotta go over and play a couple of songs for her. Let her know how you can sing and play.’ After I sang and played a couple of songs, Ms. Hill asked me to play on the song she was working on then. It was called ‘Everything Is Everything.’”

At that point, he played the instantly recognizable melody that opens the third and final Miseducation single, a top 40 hit on the Billboard Hot 100.

“So that was me on the piano in that song — bet you didn’t know that!” Legend said with a laugh.

In addition to the Lauryn Hill story, he continued his musical history lesson by recalling meeting Kanye West and working on their debut albums together, as well as Slum Village’s “Selfish,” Estelle’s “American Boy” and Alicia Keys’ “You Don’t Know My Name.”

Legend saved room for some of his best-known hits, of course, playing “Ordinary People” in full after telling its origin story and wrapping up the show with his Hot 100 chart-topper “All of Me,” as well as playing some brand-new songs from his Sept. 9-released eighth album, Legend. If you weren’t in the building, Legend’s concert will air Wednesday at 6 p.m. ET on SiriusXM’s The Pulse and at 8 p.m. ET on Heart & Soul.

Find the full set list below:

Tonight (Best You Ever Had)
Save Room
When I Used to Love You
Love Me Now
Nervous
Conversations in the Dark
Ordinary People
Wonder Woman
All She Wanna Do
Green Light
Wild
All of Me

It’s been a good year to be Bad Bunny. As a musician, actor, brand ambassador and more, he has leveled up from an ascending rapper of the pre-pandemic era to a genre-free award-winning pop star.

He had already done that on stage earlier this year, mounting the biggest Latin tour in Billboard Boxscore history with $117 million on El Ultimo Tour del Mundo. (Billboard began compiling Boxscore data in the late 1980s.) Now he’s done it again, conquering stadiums with the top-grossing tour of August. World’s Hottest Tour – his second chart-topping trek of 2022 – grossed $91.1 million and sold 404,000 tickets during the month, according to figures reported to Billboard Boxscore.

That total is the second-highest one-month gross since the launch of Billboard’s monthly charts in February 2019. Only The Rolling Stones have surpassed it in that time, grossing $95 million in August 2019. Bunny had already claimed the all-time runner-up spot with his $65 million haul in March, though Coldplay snuck by with a $66.7 million take just last month. Now, he re-secures his standing with the highest one-month Boxscore gross for a solo act in the three years Billboard has been compiling monthly charts.

Bad Bunny only played nine shows in August, averaging a blistering $10.1 million and 45,000 tickets per show. While other artists near the top of the touring pack also played to massive crowds in stadiums around the U.S., their grosses are more reasonably head-spinning, between $5 million and $7 million each night.

World’s Hottest Tour, on the other hand, went stratospheric, pushing eight figures per show on the back of Un Verano Sin Ti, Bad Bunny’s summer-defining album that has logged 11 weeks (so far) atop the Billboard 200. Released on May 6, it impacted after the tour was sold out, though the added momentum of new music may have further affected resale demand.

There’s a saying that goes “your biggest competition is yourself.” If that’s true, Bad Bunny continues to win. He hit seven U.S. markets in August, improving upon the gross and attendance in each city from his Spring tour. That might sound obvious to the point of insignificance considering his upgrade to stadiums, but his arena tour played two or three shows in several markets and ultimately broke many local records.

Still, the Bad Bunny of February and March is no match for Bad Bunny of August. His $22.1 million run at Yankee Stadium Aug. 27-28 nearly doubled the already-massive $11.1 million take in Brooklyn and Newark, N.J., combined. Grosses doubled, and then some, in Atlanta, Boston and Washington, D.C. His one show at Chicago’s Soldier Field earned $13.8 million and sold 51,791 tickets, besting a three-show run at the Allstate Arena ($11.2 million, 51,430 tickets) March 10-12.

August is Bad Bunny’s third month leading the Top Tours chart, following his gold medals in February and March. That ties him with The Rolling Stones for the second-most time atop the ranking, bested only by Elton John, who crowned four months in 2019-20.  

Including a pair of September reports, World’s Hottest Tour has already grossed $122.5 million, eclipsing his previous run to become the highest grossing Latin tour in Boxscore history. It also makes him the first artist, in any genre, to mount two separate $100-million tours in the same year.

All seven plays on Bad Bunny’s August haul make the 30-position Top Boxscores chart, four of which crack the top 10. His shows help lift Soldier Field, Fenway Park and Yankee Stadium to the top five of Top Stadiums. And alongside Daddy Yankee, he helped push Cardenas Marketing Network to No. 3 on Top Promoters, earning $122.4 million, a record high for the Chicago-based company.

Outside Lands Music and Arts Festival crowns Top Boxscores with $33.9 million and an attendance haul of 225,000 for the weekend. The San Francisco festival took place Aug. 5-7 and, once again, scored a record gross among 12 reports dating back to 2008. With very little change from last year’s post-COVID comeback, earnings were up 2% and attendance dipped by a fraction of a percentage point.  

The festival’s organizer, Another Planet Entertainment, claims the No. 4 spot on Top Promoters. Its $46.5 million is 73% Outside Lands and 27% arena, amphitheater, theater and club shows in San Francisco, from Phoebe Bridgers and The Killers to Dave Matthews Band and LCD Soundsystem.

Stadium tours have dominated the summer’s Boxscore charts with a parade of trans-continental A-list artists leading the charge. But at the heat of the season, the top-grossing venue in August is an arena. New York’s Madison Square Garden hosted 18 shows that collectively grossed $42.1 million and sold 277,000 tickets.

More than half of that sum comes from Harry Styles, in the middle of a historic New York run. Six of his 15 shows at the arena played off in August, putting $21.6 million toward the venue’s monthly total. Though incomplete (the rest of the shows will count toward the September charts), those six shows are No. 3 on Top Boxscores, only behind a three-day festival and a stadium double-header.

Even without the Styles shows, MSG would still hold at No. 1 on Top Venues, 15,001+ capacity. Rage Against the Machine played five shows, Roger Waters did two, plus million-dollar nights from Billy Joel, Michael Bublé, Twenty One Pilots and more.

Paramore is finally releasing new music after a five-year break, and just as their upcoming sixth studio album This Is Why‘s title suggests, they’re now ready to explain their decision. That’s why, among other things, band members Hayley Williams, Taylor York and Zac Farro opened up about the real reasons behind their hiatus in a revealing interview with The Guardian published Thursday, Sept. 29.

According to the band, the hiatus — taken after the release of their 2017 record After Laughter — was set into motion by the death of one of York’s family friends, which happened while Paramore was filming a music video. “I just started bawling,” the guitarist shared. “I didn’t know I had this capacity until that moment. We realized nothing is worth risking our health.”

Afterward, Paramore scaled back their touring plans for After Laughter before deciding to take their first-ever break. “Let’s see what it’s like to not hang our identities on Paramore all the time,” said Williams of their thought process.

While on hiatus, the trio — a condensed version of a band that’s had a total of eight members at different times since 2004 — was able to explore solo endeavors and unpack certain mental roadblocks, such as how being in one of the world’s most successful pop-punk bands since they were young teenagers has affected their personal growth as adults.

“You realize it was at the expense of other parts of yourself,” said York, who quit drinking during the band’s time off. “I wanted to explore some deeper parts of myself and figure out why we do this, how it happened.”

“I’m a very introverted person and I have a passion and career that’s at odds with that,” he continued. “When it came back to doing [Paramore] again, I was able to say confidently, ‘Let’s do it.’ Zac and Hayley both needed to know that I wanted to do this.”

The group spent their time away in their hometown of Nashville, where they were able to get in touch with their community in a new way as it endured the COVID-19 pandemic, and faced conversations on racial injustice brought on by the Black Lives Matter movement. “It felt really important for us to be home while so much crazy s–t was happening,” Williams said.

Flash forward to Wednesday (Sept. 28), and Paramore’s new single “This Is Why” was officially out, along with the announcement of their new album This Is Why, which arrives on Feb. 10. Having embraced several changes — one of which being that Williams and York are now dating, as confirmed by The Guardian — the band just feels lucky to be where they are.

“People are gonna get so sick of us saying this in this album cycle,” Williams said, “but we just can’t believe we’re here.”

Listen to new single “This Is Why” below:

Music fans are remembering Coolio, who died on Wednesday (Sept. 28) in Los Angeles at 59.

TMZ was the first to break the news and reported that the rapper, born Artis Leon Ivey Jr., was found at a friend’s house. Upon arrival, paramedics confirmed he was dead, and suspected he died from cardiac arrest; an official cause of death has not yet been determined.

During his career, the rapper charted six songs on the Billboard Hot 100, most notably his Dangerous Minds track “Gangsta’s Paradise.” The song, which features L.V., topped the Hot 100 for three weeks in 1995. The track enjoyed even more success over on Billboard‘s Hot Rap Songs list, where it maintained the top spot for 11 consecutive weeks.

In addition to winning a Billboard Music Award for single of the year, and a Grammy Award for best rap solo performance, “Gangsta’s Paradise” was later ranked among Billboard‘s 100 Greatest of All Time Hot 100 Songs in 2021. And just in July, the video for the track hit one billion views on YouTube.

Also making the Hot 100 top 10 were 1994’s “Fantastic Voyage” (No. 3) from It Takes a Thief, and 1996’s “1, 2, 3, 4 (Sumpin New)” (No. 5) off The Very Best. Coolio would have two more movie tracks grace the chart — “C U When U Get There” from Nothing to Lose and “It’s All the Way Live (Now)” from Eddie, which charted at Nos. 12 and 29 on the all-genre chart.

Which Coolio track — from his hits to his deep cuts — is your favorite? Vote — or enter in your own pick — in our poll below.