In the middle of August, with precious little warning, two of the biggest artists in the world decided to take hold of the pop-music narrative. On the night of Aug. 15, Lady Gaga and Bruno Mars unleashed their collaborative ballad “Die With a Smile,” complete with a Dolly Parton-inspired music video released the same evening, as well as a surprise duet performance at Mars’ show in Los Angeles, blanketing the Friday release day with a full-court press in the first few hours of the song’s release.

As the week went on, a digital campaign began to factor in as well, and the work paid off: “Die With a Smile” debuted at No. 3 on the Hot 100 and No. 2 on both the Global 200 and the Global Excl. U.S. charts in its first week. But since then, the song has only grown, particularly around the world — this week, “Die With a Smile,” which is credited to Gaga’s label Interscope but is receiving a helping hand from Mars’ label Atlantic, spends its second week as the biggest song in the world, topping both of Billboard’s global charts midway through September. And that worldwide success helps earn Interscope Geffen A&M senior vp of pop/rock marketing Adrian Amodeo the title of Billboard’s Executive of the week.

Here, Amodeo, discusses the initial rollout of the song, how Interscope and Atlantic worked together and how the Interscope global strategy — which has also seen huge success with Billie Eilish and Karol G, as well as with BTS’ Jimin — has helped the company reach new heights around the world. “We don’t want to just put out records in other territories,” Amodeo says. “We want to build real campaigns that are extensions of our domestic campaigns and also build into local cultures and communities on the ground and online.”

This week, Lady Gaga and Bruno Mars’ “Die With A Smile” is No. 1 on both of Billboard’s global songs charts for the second straight week. What key decisions did you make to help make that happen?

First off, it was an enormous team effort across two amazing artist teams. We have two of the most important pop stars on the planet who wrote and recorded an absolutely incredible song and were involved in every detail of the rollout. We knew it was going to be a special moment once the song came out, but also knew we had to build a campaign that honored two superstars and their incredible artistry. We wanted to show the power of these two stars together and show that Gaga and Bruno are at the top of the game, with a ballad, in the midst of what has been an incredible summer of pop music. 

When we first heard the song, Kirsten Stubbs, our co-head of digital marketing, flagged that Bruno happened to be opening the Intuit Dome in Los Angeles around the time the song was coming out, so we immediately put the wheels in motion to make a performance be a key moment in our campaign. The genuine connection the world saw between the two of them, and the content we were able to capture and spread, really set the tone for the entire campaign. It was lightning in a bottle with the release of the song, the video and the performance that night. But we knew we had to keep building a runway for the song and eventize the release around the globe, so we treated it like an album rollout, not just as a single. 

The song debuted at No. 2 on both charts, before ascending to the top spot a week later. What went into such a huge global impact right out of the gate?

Our international team has been so integral — every territory made it a priority to make this the biggest song in the world. Before the song came out we were fortunate to have all of the label heads from around the globe into our studio where we unveiled our plan for the track. We were able to play the music and explain our global vision, but more importantly we had Gaga and her team in the room to be part of those conversations with us. It really energized everyone to be part of a process like that. The subsequent local campaigns and partner support our teams have put together have been really amazing. 

I’m proud of what the team pulled off for the fans around the world, too. The out-of-home campaigns became important fan experiences, anchored by an eight city storefront experience that paid homage to the song, the artwork and the video. Combined with all the billboards around the globe, it just felt huge — and, more importantly, we got it to travel online. A great job by Kevin Rankin and Jessica Staats for driving that with all the teams around the globe. The themes of the song have also helped build an incredible TikTok world for the song, which has been fun to watch and really helped take it to another level globally. Our ability to conceive of and execute such a complex global campaign is really a core strength of Interscope and Universal Music Group. 

This music video also had a big impact, with its throwback theme and Dolly Parton-esque vibe. How important has it been to the song’s success, and what do you see as the role of the traditional music video these days?

The music video has been so important, if not the most important part of this campaign. It was co-directed by Bruno, which continues to exemplify his artistry and shows the trust that Gaga put in him as a partner in this whole process. Again, that genuine connection can’t be overstated. Beyond being an incredible video, it also inspired every inch of our creative. The single art, the outfits they wore on stage at the Intuit Dome, the global out-of-home; everything has intentionally been cohesive and respectful to the aesthetic world built by Gaga and Bruno. The music video also kicked off a powerful viral moment with the fans recreating Gaga’s dance and inspired fans to recreate the looks online, at shows, and at the clubs — our influencer marketing team was quick to identify this and amplify it globally. It has been so amazing to see and we fully expect Gaga-Bruno to be one of the most seen Halloween costumes this year. We’re already getting ahead of that.

Gaga and Bruno are two of the biggest superstars on the planet, and are signed to different labels. How did this song come together, and how did the marketing plan work across two companies?

The making of the song is Gaga and Bruno’s story to tell, but it’s very well documented that they have wanted to work together for a long time. [Interscope chairman/CEO] John Janick’s relationship with Bruno goes back for many years and the trust that Bruno and Gaga put in John can’t be overstated. [Atlantic Music Group chair/CEO] Julie Greenwald was an absolute force as well. Her energy and passion for the song helped drive both teams to be great. With so many relationships and teams in place we were truly able to hit the ground running. We spent about six weeks planning the song together and the relationship was great with all of our departments working hand in hand, on Zooms, calls, texts, DMs, voice notes and faxes. We’re still going.

Alongside Billie Eilish’s “Birds of a Feather” and Karol G’s “Si Antes Te Hubiera Conocido,” Interscope has three songs in the top 10 of the Global 200, and those three make up three of the top five on the Global Excl. U.S. chart. What is IGA’s overall global strategy and why are these songs working so well around the world right now?

We’re very fortunate to work with incredible artists and incredible partners. It starts with the teams, but the vision is always global from the start. We don’t want to just put out records in other territories. We want to build real campaigns that are extensions of our domestic campaigns and also build into local cultures and communities on the ground and online. Our teams literally stay across all the creative, creator campaigns and local moments to make sure it’s a unified creative marketing rollout with a local touch. The way we’ve also been able to integrate partners like AmEx and Sony into our global rollouts has been a testament to the 360 approach we take globally. 

Jimin’s “Who” is also in the top 10, by the way, and I can’t emphasize enough the importance of our relationship with HYBE. We are thrilled with our new HYBE x Geffen global girl group, KATSEYE. Building a global girl group with such an important partner has been an incredible undertaking, but a big part of our vision for the future. It’s been amazing to see them grow exponentially on streaming and socials as PopStar Academy: KATSEYE, the eight-episode series that tracks their journey, keeps growing on Netflix. They’re currently in Korea on a huge promo trip that will take them to Japan and the Philippines, too. 

Where do you see the biggest growth opportunities for Interscope around the world right now?

Our relationship with our artists continues to be our biggest opportunity. What we can bring to them in building their global brands is our core strength, so we must continue to emphasize and build what we have, while reinvesting into new strategies. Direct to consumer and [customer relationship management] strategy is so important, and we continue to build those globally with our partners at Bravado and Fame House. We’ve built a company culture where it feels like one team with them, and that’s so important in helping to create global artist brands. Our collective ability to communicate with the fans directly around the globe is critical. We’re really focused on that, while we also continue to strategize emerging markets.

Last Week: How Sabrina Capped Her Rise to Stardom With ‘Short N’ Sweet’

To those closest to him, he was Isaac Freeman III, but around the world, he was renowned as Fatman Scoop. Hip-hop’s premier hype-man and entertainer, Scoop died on Aug. 30 after collapsing on stage at a show in Connecticut doing what he loved — rocking the crowd. He was 56.

Less than two weeks later, Scoop’s peers, friends and family gathered not far from the Harlem projects he was raised in, at the famed Apollo Theater on Thursday (Sept. 12) for a celebration of life ceremony.

Hundreds filed into the legendary venue and felt the full spectrum of emotions. There were laughs shared from funny stories, heartfelt moments, tears shed and some partying to music along the way.

While Scoop showed up for so many whenever called upon in his decorated life, plenty of recognizable faces returned the favor to be in attendance at the ceremony. For perhaps the final time, Scoop and his recognizable bark brought people from different walks of life together for one last party.

Sway Calloway played MC for the night, while fellow Harlem native Teddy Riley, Jim Jones, A$AP Ferg, Busta Rhymes, DJ Webstar, Angie Martinez, Kid Kapri, Ron Browz, DJ Enuff and more either spoke or performed in some capacity throughout the evening. Other familiar faces spotted in the crowd included LL Cool J, Maino, DJ Self, Treach, Datwon Thomas and more.

Beyond the hits such as “Be Faithful,” Grammy award wins and working with the likes of Missy Elliott and Mariah Carey, there were a few characteristics that continued to pop up in people’s pensive stories on Thursday, which spoke to Scoop’s infallible nature as a great human being past his art.

For one, he was always a phone call — or voice note text message — away and came through for his friends, even if it didn’t come with a bag. Two, Scoop doesn’t get enough credit for how prolific of an MC he was before charting a different path as a trailblazing entertainer. “[Scoop] told me one story how he was supposed to be the first Biggie. And, like, Biggie jacked his style,” Ferg said, which drew laughs from the audience.

Three, he never had issues or beef with anyone in the industry. “Fatman Scoop is probably one of the most beautiful human beings I’ve ever met on this planet,” Busta Rhymes declared. “I don’t think I’ve ever ran into Fatman Scoop having an off day. I’ve never seen him angry, I’ve never seen him upset, I’ve never seen him perspire and worry about things outside of when he was on that stage busting a–.”

And four, the man stayed fresh and kept a bottle of Scope mouthwash on him at all times. “We had a crowd of people around and some girls were around, and Scoop was around and all the girls gave him the attention,” Teddy Riley said. “Why? He had the cologne. He had the cologne game on lock, but he had the Scope game on lock, and that’s why girls wanted to be around him. He didn’t have bad breath. I said to myself, ‘If I do that, would I be biting?’”

Fatman Scoop’s contributions to Missy Elliott and Ciara’s “Lose Control” earned him a Grammy award and a top five Billboard Hot 100 hit (No. 3) in 2005. Outside of music, he made waves as a reality star and overnight host at Hot 97, where he claimed to bring the first video camera into the station.

Hip-hop will be a bit quieter without Fatman Scoop’s signature raspy and resonant shout, but his life of the party legacy is etched into rap lore. Scoop is survived by his two children — Torrance and Tiana Freeman — and brother Kendall “Young Sav” Freeman.

Donald Trump doesn’t have Taylor Swift‘s support in the 2024 election, but that isn’t stopping him from using her brand to boost his campaign.

On Thursday (Sept. 12) — two days after the 34-year-old pop star emphatically backed Kamala Harris in this year’s presidential race — the Republican candidate’s team announced that it was selling “Trump Era” T-shirts inspired by the tiled graphic design on much of Swift’s Eras Tour apparel. Featuring a grid of photos of the twice-impeached president, each tinted with almost the exact same colors arranged in the very same pattern as the “Karma” singer’s design, the politician’s new clothing item is selling for $36.

“Calling all Swifties for Trump,” reads a tweet from the former president’s headquarters. “Get your Trump Era shirt today.”

Billboard has reached out to Swift’s rep for comment.

Though the pop star hasn’t reacted to the former president’s new merch, Swifties have. “This is a disgrace of a shirt. I hope she strips Donald of everything he has for infringement. @taylorswift13 @taylornation13 GET HIM!” one person tweeted in response to the campaign’s post about the shirt.

“im excited for trumps new era, i heard it’s called the ‘lawsuit era,’” another responded.

“This deserves a cease and desist!” yet another Swiftie tweeted, tagging the pop superstar, official fan page as well as her publicist.

Trump isn’t the only party in the 2024 election capitalizing on Swift’s popularity, with the Harris-Walz camp also recently unveiling Eras-inspired friendship bracelets on the Democratic ticket’s website. One key difference, however, is that the VP’s campaign actually has the support of the 14-time Grammy winner, who broke her silence on the election Sept. 10 with an Instagram post praising Harris for being a “steady-handed, gifted leader” who “fights for the rights and causes I believe need a warrior to champion them.”

Swift also cited Trump’s past use of AI-generated images falsely portraying her as a MAGA supporter — another way he’s tried to exploit her image this election — as one of the reasons she felt it important to speak out. In response to the pop superstar’s endorsement of his opponent, the ex-POTUS said, “I was not a Taylor Swift fan, it was just a question of time.”

He added at the time: “But she’s a very liberal person, she seems to always endorse a Democrat and she’ll probably pay a price for it in the marketplace.”

See Trump’s new merchandise inspired by Swift’s Eras Tour below.

Back in October 2019, Bad Bunny, already a huge star, posted a video of himself on Instagram, drinking tequila and singing along to a song in Spanish set to strumming guitars. It was “Soy el Diablo” by Natanael Cano, the then-18-year-old making waves in regional Mexican music with his corridos tumbados, a subgenre blending hip-hop swagger with traditional música mexicana instrumentation.

That Bad Bunny would gravitate toward the sound at first seemed counterintuitive: Reggaetón, built on beats, tracks and loops, ostensibly has little to do with regional Mexican music, which is created mostly with live instruments.

But upon further consideration, it made complete sense. Corridos tumbados, like Bad Bunny’s blend of trap and reggaetón, are as much about attitude and lifestyle as they are about music. Within weeks, a remix of “Soy el Diablo,” featuring Bad Bunny, hit No. 16 on Billboard’s Hot Latin Songs chart.

The unlikely pairing at the time was revolutionary, and it set off a wave of collaborations between reggaetón and Mexican music acts that’s still going. Since “Soy el Diablo,” at least 14 songs that blend both genres have entered Hot Latin Songs — including Karol G and Peso Pluma’s “Qlona,” which shot to No. 1 in September 2023. And now, this year’s Rumbazo festival — taking place Sept. 13-14 in Las Vegas in partnership with Billboard — will reflect the kinship between the two genres; headliners Nicky Jam and Luis R Conriquez released a single together, “Como el Viento,” in 2023.

For Jimmy Humilde, the founder and CEO of powerhouse indie label Rancho Humilde (home to Cano and Fuerza Regida, among other Mexican music artists), Mexican and urban music are like brothers from another mother, and the new wave of Mexican music, much of it spawned on the West Coast, is inextricably linked to hip-hop and, by extension, to reggaetón.

“Hip-hop was my heart,” Humilde told Billboard last year of his upbringing, like that of many of his artists, in Los Angeles. “I was a huge fan of old-school hip-hop.” But Humilde was also a huge fan of bad boy Mexican corridos sung by the likes of Chalino Sánchez. Early in his career, when he started working with corridos singer Jessie Morales (also raised in L.A.), he had a simple yet brilliant idea: Instead of donning the traditional garb of boots and cowboy hat, “I told him, ‘Bro, why don’t you dress hip-hop, how you really dress? You don’t have to come out with a hat or a suit.’ ”

The notion of inserting hip-hop style into Mexican music slowly but surely became the norm for a new generation of artists that now includes Cano, Fuerza Regida, Junior H, Peso Pluma, Eslabon Armado and Yahritza y Su Esencia, who all dress more like rappers than singers of traditional Mexican music.

Actual cross-genre collaborations, however, only began in earnest after the Bad Bunny-Cano remix. In 2020, they went even further when Snoop Dogg (another Angeleno and a longtime fan of banda music) recorded “Que Maldición” with Banda MS (which went to No. 4 on Hot Latin Songs) and later joined the group onstage in L.A.

Then, in 2021, Colombian superstar Karol G released “200 Copas,” a veritable ranchera ballad. Colombians in general (and Medellín natives like Karol, in particular) have long been die-hard fans of ranchera and mariachi music — and later that year, Karol’s fellow paisa and reggaetón star Maluma also recorded a ranchera: “Cada Quien,” with Grupo Firme, which became his first No. 1 on the Regional Mexican Airplay chart.

“Being on a Mexican chart in the U.S., well, that’s a big deal,” Maluma told Billboard at the time. “I always dreamt of that. When I travel to Mexico, it’s like being at home. I feel part of it, and I am very grateful to Grupo Firme for making this possible.”

The growing list of urban/Mexican collaborations also includes the cover stars of this issue of Billboard. And while Nicky Jam and Conriquez’s “Como el Viento” didn’t chart, for Conriquez, it’s a sign of the future.

“If we’re intelligent about it, there will be more songs like this, because it’s an opportunity to bring the two genres together and for one to get into the other’s world,” says Conriquez, who has also already recorded with reggaetonero Ryan Castro. “I always thought reggaetón was global. But now, regional Mexican is global too.”

Billboard Latin Music Week is returning to Miami Beach on Oct. 14-18, with confirmed superstars including Gloria Estefan, Alejandro Sanz and Peso Pluma, among many others. For tickets and more details, visit Billboardlatinmusicweek.com.

The Kamala Harris campaign has pivoted from its Brat Summer to a new Era. On Friday (Sept. 13) the Democratic National Committee unveiled a new digital billboard campaign in New York and Las Vegas that leans into Taylor Swift‘s endorsement of the presidential bid by the sitting Vice President and her VP pick, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz.

The ads read “We’re In Our Kamala Era!” in reference to Swift’s billion-dollar Eras Tour, as well as “A New Way Forward… Ready For It?,” which is a play on the song of the same name from the singer’s 2017 Reputation album. According to People, the Manhattan billboard is located 22 stories above the iconic red steps in Times Square — a seemingly Swift-esque Easter egg reference to Swift’s songs “22” and “Red” from 2012’s Red album.

Meanwhile the ads on the Las Vegas strip feature a photo of Harris, 59, with the Eras reference, as well as another of Trump, 78, that asks, “Exhausted with this guy?” While Trump is famous for putting his name on a number of buildings in New York, the choice of Sin City for the latter ad coincided with the twice-impeached former President’s planned rally in Vegas on Friday.

Following Harris’ strong performance at Tuesday’s debate with convicted felon Trump — during which the former reality TV star amplified a false and racist meme claiming that Haitian immigrants in Ohio are eating dogs and cats — Swift endorsed the Democratic ticket in an impassioned post in which she struck out at fake AI images that appeared to show her endorsing Trump.

“It really conjured up my fears around AI, and the dangers of spreading misinformation,” Swift said about the clearly doctored images that Trump re-posted on his Truth social feed. “It brought me to the conclusion that I need to be very transparent about my actual plans for this election as a voter. The simplest way to combat misinformation is with the truth. I will be casting my vote for Kamala Harris and Tim Walz in the 2024 Presidential Election.”

The post in which Swift posed with one of her cats, was signed “Childless Cat Lady,” a dig at Trump VP candidate Ohio Sen. JD Vance’s 2021 demeaning description of Democratic leaders, including stepmother of two Harris, as “childless cat ladies… who want to make the rest of the country miserable.”

Swift’s endorsement on her Instagram feed with 238 million followers and plea for fans to register to vote led to nearly 400,000 people visiting the Vote.gov registration site in the days after Tuesday’s debate.

Trump denied the singer’s possible influence on the neck-and-neck race in an hours-long phone call with Fox & Friends on Wednesday in which he said, “I was not a Taylor Swift fan,” saying he prefers the singer’s friend, Brittany Mahomes, wife of Kansas City Chiefs QB Patrick Mahomes, who is teammates with Taylor’s boyfriend, KC tight end Travis Kelce. “She’s a very liberal person. She seems to always endorse a Democrat, and she’ll probably pay a price for it in the marketplace.

The ads are in keeping with the Harris/Walz campaign’s pinpoint needling of Trump with a barrage of memes and videos on X, as well as their perfectly-timed roll-out of friendship bracelets in their online store reading “Harris-Walz”; the $20-for-two accessories sold out almost immediately. Harris immediately leaned into the Swift endorsement during her post-debate party, where she walked off the stage to Swift’s misogyny-bashing Lover single “The Man.”

Check out the billboards below.