Buju Banton’s viral Afrobeats-lambasting Drink Champs appearance (Aug. 28) previewed a particularly contentious month for reggae and dancehall music, and September did not disappoint.

After announcing the removal of the reggae recording of the year category from the forthcoming 2025 JUNO Awards, the Canadian Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences (CARAS) has reversed its decision, allowing a new crop of competitors to join past winners like Leroy Sibbles, Exco Levi and Kirk Diamond. The news came just a few weeks before an update in the curious removal of Drake‘s “Blue Green Red” from streaming services. The dancehall-inflected track — which peaked at No. 63 on the Billboard Hot 100 as a part of the rapper’s 100 Gigs EP — allegedly lifted elements from Tiger’s “When” (1991) without proper clearance. Later disputes about who actually serves as Tiger’s publishing representative continues to keep the song off streaming services, but producer Boi-1da asserts that the song could “possibly be back up” once those issues are resolved.

In live performance news, R&B icon Usher brought out a pair of Jamaican powerhouses for his Past Present Future Tour: Grammy-nominated reggae star Barrington Levy delivered renditions of “Here I Come,” “Black Roses” and “Tell Them A Ready (Murderer)” at the trek’s final Brooklyn show (Sept. 10), while Caribbean Music Award winner Masicka performed “Fight For Us” at the final Toronto Show (Sept. 3). At the latter stop, Canadian rapper and producer Kardinal Offishall also joined forces with Usher for a special cover of Chaka Demus & Pliers’ “Murder She Wrote.”

Naturally, Billboard’s monthly Reggae/Dancehall Fresh Picks column will not cover every last track, but our Spotify playlist — which is linked below — will expand on the 10 highlighted songs. So, without any further ado:

Freshest Find: Azato, “Disconnect to Connect”

As a global society, we’re probably past the point of no return when it comes to the unhealthy amount of time and energy we collectively give to technology and social media. With “Disconnect to Connect,” a warm, full-bodied mélange of soulful roots reggae and notes of soft rock and jazz, Hawaiian reggae band Azato deliver something greater than a finger-wagging “get off your phones” anthem. “Are we truly free, or just followers of likes?” he questions us, urging us to detox, if only for a moment. Roots reggae has proven to be rich soil for sociopolitical commentary for decades, and Azato offers up a distinctly 21st-century lens through “Disconnect to Connect.”

Runkus, Royal Blu & Kush Arora, “No Long Talking”

“Life In the Jungle” might be the main attraction, but “No Long Talking” is a much more intriguing offering from Jamaican artists Runkus and Royal Blu and Bay Area producer Kush Arora. A fiery amalgam of drill and dancehall, complete with machine gun sound effects, rapid fire flows, and a promise to get “straight to the action, don’t wanna play.” Built around Kush’s “Desi Cowboy” riddim, both Runkus and Royal Blu embody the lawless spirit of the Wild West with this slinky gun chune.

Morgan & Byron Messia, “Wheel Up”

It’s been over a year since “Talibans” dominated the summer across the Caribbean diaspora, and Byron Messia still stands as one of the biggest dancehall breakout stars in recent memory. On his new collaboration with U.K. pop/R&B arist Morgan, Messia proves himself a surprisingly strong supporting player. A sleek fusion of R&B and dancehall, “Wheel Up” is a sultry ode to Jamaican sound clash culture and the heated nights of passionate dancing and flirting that follow. “One more sin inna mi cup/ Dis ting we affi wheel up,” Morgan croons in the chorus of the Slim Typical-helmed track. Ain’t nothing with rewinding those fleeting moments of connection to make them last a little while longer!

Gyptian, “In the Dark”

Gyptian has been cranking out love and lust-minded dancehall classics for years now, and he’s showing no signs of letting up anytime soon. With his latest single, “In the Dark,” the Billboard chart-topping star zeroes in on the love affairs that thrive when the night falls. “She said, ‘I can come over tonight’/ ‘And do with you whatever’/ Wait till it’s dark outside/ And just make your way over,” he sings over the guitar-inflected reggae-pop beat, painting a thrilling narrative of a secret relationship that can only live in the darkness. It’s a less heartwarming story than the one he tells on “Hold Yuh,” but it’s equally enthralling because of the forbidden spaces it pushes his songwriting to.

Shenseea, “Dating SZN”

It’s wild to think that in 2024, people still (figuratively) clutch their pearls when women speak about balancing different partners, but leave it to Shenseea to render that faux outrage null and void. “You a nuh mi man, mi nah haffi explain/ Mi nuh have no obligation/ Journey might be slow/ But mi haffi sure say you’re the one/ So mi have couple a unuh inna rotation,” she explains in the first verse, letting it be known that she sets the terms of all these arrangements — nobody else. The Supa Dups-produced track references the iconic instrumental hook from TLC’s Hot 100-topping “No Scrubs,” an increasingly rare instance of a newer song referencing a classic track and building on that song’s narrative and concept. These guys are scrubs, why would Shenyeng ever lock herself down like that?

Jahmiel & Minto Play Da Riddim, “Self Worth”

Always good for a poignant, introspective track, Jahmiel delivers yet again with “Self Worth,” a tender collaboration with Minto Play Da Riddim. Emphasizing themes self-empowerment, the track balances somber piano keys, a spoken interlude, and an undercurrent of gospel melodies to create a sonic comforter of hope and reassurance. “A user nah go ever love you like you love yourself,” he croons, reminding us all that our sense of self should always be grounded in an intimate understanding of our own individual self-worth.

Popcaan, “Show Me”

The Unruly Boss is back with a new drop. “Show Me,” the dancehall icon’s latest offering is standard sexed-up dancehall fear, and that’s perfectly fine. Produced by Teejay of TJ records, “Show Me” is as playful as it sensual, with Popcaan begging his prospective lover to “show me what you can do.” His smooth delivery offers a nice complement to the hip-hop-inflected riddim, but there’s just enough fire in his exclamations and ad-libs to make sure the flame never dies.

Vybz Kartel, “The Comet”

As the whole world knows by now, Vybz Kartel is finally free. He’s already dropped off a collection of new bangers since his release and in a wholly characteristic move, he’s given us some more. If anything, “The Comet” feel like a foreboding prelude to a new set of bangers ahead of his highly anticipated return to the stage in Jamaica later this year. “Mi f–k yuh madda thru di prison grill/ Mi f–k yuh gyal thru di prison window/ Wet up ‘e p—y wid mi middle finger/ Then mi dig it out hard wid di timber,” he snarls in trademark badman fashion before chanting, “I thought I told you that the comet is comin’” in the chorus. Who knows what “The Comet” is warning for, and, honestly, it doesn’t even matter — it’s a heater all on its own.

Bamby, “Guyane”

Guyanese dancehall and shatta singer Bamby infuses those two Jamaica-indebted genres with a healthy dose of her own Creole roots. Complete with a video shot in her home country, Bamby sings in both French and Creole as she waxes poetic about the beauty, strength and virtue of Guyana. “Yé ka mandé pou kissa nou fâché (They ask why we are angry)/Babylon pa pé rété (Babylon can’t stay)/ Malè ki zot voyé (This misfortune they sent)/ Lanmè ké fine pa chariél (The sea will no longer carry it),” she croons over a sparkly, thumping dancehall beat.

Amanda Reifer & Sean Paul, “Sweat (Part II)

A sequel to the opening track from her Island Files project earlier this year, “Sweat (Part II)” finds Barbados’ Amanda Reifer joining forces with Jamaica’s Sean Paul for a sexy reggae-pop jam. The new version of the song changes very little from the original, but Sean Paul’s mellow guest verse offers a nice male perspective to complement both Amanda’s POV and her loftier vocal register. “You waan me touch it girl/ Me well conscious me want you trust it girl/ The stars and the moon shine for us girl/ You are my Isis , I am Osiris girl,” he proclaims to close out his verse. Who said the breezy reggae love jams have to stop when the weather gets chillier?

David Bowie said it best, “all clichés are true.” So, in the spirit of Mr. Stardust, here’s another: Bilal Sayeed Oliver is on some other s–t. The Philly native, who sharpened his skills in NYC with the help of the Soulquarians, first blitzed the R&B world in 2001 with his seminal, star-packed debut 1st Born Second. It was a critical darling that helped usher in what became known as neo-soul: a genre deeply indebted to past greatness that could only exist in a world in which hip-hop was lingua franca. Singles like “Soul Sista,” “Love It,” and “Reminisce” had his name set alongside contemporary greats likes D’Angelo and Maxwell, and positioned him as one of the future faces of the genre. But that’s not what Bilal wanted.

In his head, he was a jazz artist who made, among other things, soul music. His subsequent projects would prove that out with him releasing albums that replaced the slick boom-bap of his debut with untamed jam sessions and improvised vocal experiments. His last full-length offering, 2015’s In Another Life was perhaps his most idiosyncratic. He and executive producer Adrian Younge pulled from Black music’s past to imagine a future where funk, soul, jazz, and R&B all collided into one beautifully contumacious genre of music. It was no surprise that Kendrick Lamar tapped Bilal that year to lend his uniquely resonant and limber vocal talents to his hip-hop and jazz fusion watershed work To Pimp a Butterfly.

Now, nearly a decade removed from that impactful year, Bilal is back with a new album, Adjust Brightness, that he hopes is able to reach more listeners where they are but doesn’t give up an inch of the restless experimental energy that has informed the best of his past works. “I just wanted to make a vibe record,” Bilal says of the project that was created over a number years spanning all the way back to the Covid-19 lockdown.

But it’s much more than that: With just 11 tracks, the album swings from bright and boisterous at times to tender and hopeful at others. Adjust Brightness is simply Bilal at his best. Billboard caught up with Bilal right before the release of his sixth album to discuss his approach to creativity, painting as his new hobby, and the seances he attended in Morocco.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.    

The last time most people heard from you was around the time of In Another Life when you were all over one of Kendrick’s biggest albums. It all left people wanting more. What have you been up to?

I’ve just been making music, living life. The pandemic happened. I moved to Africa for a while. I came back and was able to get a nice recording space and I got into painting.

Where in Africa did you move?

Morocco.

What was the impetus to go there?

Family. My wife has family over there. So I went over there and it just turned into whole trip for me. A spiritual journey. It’s funny when you’re in a land where you know not many people speak your language. There’s such a different landscape in front of you that you kind of go on a mental journey in your own head. For me, [it was] my own adventure into myself and learning myself. And then it was Corona.

Were you over there for [Covid-19 outbreak]? Or were you back in the States by the time that happened?

It was like before that — and then during that and after that. But when it hit, [I thought,] “I’m just going to stay here.” And it’s crazy, ‘cause I couldn’t make any music, so that’s when I got into painting.

Why couldn’t you make music?

I always can make music, because I always have like a piano or my little laptop situation. But I don’t know, I wasn’t around my buddies. What I did was — a friend of mine, Tariq [Khan], he has a studio, HighBreed over in Brooklyn, where he found this way where you could link your setup to another person’s setup that’s somewhere else in the world and y’all could work together live. We did a project like that [and] it kind of sparked me into making music with my buds. But then I couldn’t anymore. So I went into a world of painting.

Interesting.

I mean, [there] was a lot to paint around me. You know, being in a different environment. So, I started to do that and it kind of got me into creating in a different way than I created before. Fast forward to where I am now, I was able to get a lot more visual in my music, in creating it, than I had before.

Right. And that goes with the title of the album, Adjust Brightness. Did you paint the album cover?

The album cover is a combination of a painting I did and an image of me standing in front of a light and it’s kind of pixelated and chopped up. It kind of phases into, if you look far back, a sunrise. But on one of the [singles’ cover art] was taken from a painting that I did in Morocco.

“Sunshine”?

Yeah, that’s taken from one of my paintings.

What is going on in that painting? It looks like a UFO abducting people.

Uh huh.

Am I far off or am I close?

It was a painting of a UFO inducting a Gnawa seance session, from when I was in Morocco. My cousin out there, I call him Simo, he loves to go to these seances, they’re called Gnawa sessions. Voodoo is to Christianity what Gnawa is to Islam. It’s like, you know, a lot of people don’t know that the Islamic slave trade is older than the sub-Saharan slave trade. Things that happen where you would bunch a lot of different civilizations and take their culture away from them and give them a new religion. The people would create saints out of their ancestors and venerate them under the disguise of religion. So, that’s kind of what the Gnawa is, and it almost felt like going to a Pentecostal church.

Word.

It was based off of this beat that they would make out of the throat of a goat. And when I tell you — this bass sound just like a combination of like, reggae mixed with some transient thing, and the men would just sing at the top of their lungs. And they’re playing this bass and it’s grooving. I don’t know what the hell nobody saying, but I am zoning out.

It’s all based off of these colors. And in these colors, people will come. The bass player would play a song and you would get entranced by one of the ancestors, and each ancestor had a color. So certain people would come with one of the colors that they thought that ancestor [would speak to them through]. And my cousin would come with all the colors on. Because he felt like they all talked to him. So I wound up staying the whole time at these seances. [Laughs.] And the bass sounds like Delta blues, dude. Because it only has three notes. It can only play like a blues scale, kind of. But the way they would groove that shit? Wooo!  

Wow.

It starts at like 5:00 in the afternoon and it’s over 5:00 in the morning. And people are catching the Holy Ghost, passing out, freaking burning themselves. I saw somebody start stabbing his face and then they put rose water on it and it disappeared, like nothing ever happened. I was saying, magic happened. I felt like I was like a little boy again in a Pentecostal church. I was just zoning out, man, I felt like I kinda remembered again, you know? It was great. I was having a great time over there and I came back invigorated, you know? Inspired.

But that’s what that painting was. ‘Cause after one of them, I came back so, like, zoned out — I just started painting that scene that I was just at, and how I felt, ’cause if I felt like we was being taken up to another planet. It was amazing.

That is one of the most fascinating cover art stories I’ve ever heard, if not the most fascinating cover art story I’ve ever heard. Did you leave there with a song or a sound in your head that you had to get out?

No, like — I still haven’t digested it. You know, I’ve digested it through the paintings, but I don’t know. When I make music it’s not really intentional. I like to be possessed, and what happens when I come to — I’m like, “Oh s–t that was awesome!” I like to feel like a complete vessel. So when it comes through, it’ll come through, you know. But I just create. I definitely came back like, “Oh man — I wanna make some s–t.”

That reminds me of an interview Ed Bradley did with Bob Dylan, where asked him how he made some of his old songs and Dylan basically says he didn’t and likens their creation to magic.

Yeah, that’s it. That’s the whole point for me.

At this point in time, if you are a vessel, what do you think is flowing through you?

I make so much music now that I just curate what I want to put out because I want to be very intentional now. I’m doing it for the art form. Of course, it’s my Intention to reach the world and become extremely successful at this, but there’s also this charge to do it at a high level but also make it palatable in some way. And I think that’s what I’ve tried to do on this project. I tried to challenge myself to do dope shit I like to do but then also kind of do songs that I felt would be a meeting in the middle almost.

You don’t feel like you’ve have songs like that? I believe you have songs in the past that have accomplished that. Like “Soul Sistah”.

Oh, yeah. That’s always the challenge for me. Because I’m a jazz musician at heart, you know? I would love to just make a hodgepodge of everything going on. I’m not saying I’m doing anything where I’m crossing over or anything like that [Laughs]. When I say Adjust Brightness, I was like, “Man, I’m really gonna make a vibe this time.” This was my intention, just creating a feeling. So this was like a feeling of, for me, Adjust Brightness is warm and soulful.

How do you feel your music fits into the larger market these days? How do you see yourself in the land of playlists?

I don’t know. I hope it makes it to all the cool ones where I can hit like minded individuals on this same mission as me.

We see artists craft songs to cater to streaming and playlisting. This album, like most of your music, doesn’t seem to do that.

Pretty much. The only intentional thing that I did on the record was I wanted to be 11-11. So I was like, we gotta make it 38 minutes and 38 seconds and have 11 songs. That’s the type of intent I be having!

It looks like there’s no executive producer / creative partner-type for this album in the way that the last album had Adrian Younge.

I think that was me this time. I was kind of just trudging myself along and because of the whole corona thing, it was like — the songs that I did at Tariq’s spot were just pieces. They were like half ideas, shapes, and jams that I liked but they weren’t finished. And then when I started to work with Simon and Tom, and we were doing songs like “Tell Me” and “Sunshine,” those other pieces started to make sense more and they kind of revitalized my ideas on those songs, lyrically and everything.

It’s funny — with this record, a lot of stuff almost ended up coming out as just mumble tracks, and I was thinking: Could there be R&B mumble like would that go over like mumble rap? My manager was like, “Do it. You can do it. There’s been rock groups where their whole shtick is there’s no lyrics.” And I was like, “No, in the soul world.”

On Black Messiah, there are songs where I know he’s saying words, but I can’t fully understand what D’Angelo’s saying. Sometimes it comes out of a feeling more so than a word. I think you could have done it, I think people would excuse it because your voice is so good.

Yeah, I mean, that’s what I wanted up doing on this record. For the first time I was letting go of a lot of stuff. I see myself as very meticulous at times but there was a lot of letting go where I was just like, “Oh, man, you’re right. Just let the s–t be mumbled. It feels good!” We came up with this saying, “Feels good, sounds wrong.” [Laughs.] And I was just like, “Man, it kind of goes with the thing of just making this record of vibe for me.”

What’s the one song from the album you want to make sure people listen to?

“Micro Macro,” because that’s the last song, and then immediately the album comes on again. It’s funny. I find myself like stuck in different places of the record.

How do you mean?

Well, I get to different places where I’m like, “I like that sequence.” I don’t play [the album] one song at a time. I tried to craft it in a way where another song would sneak up on you. In that way, I go into different labyrinths putting together the album in a way where it’s transformative, where you can always start at one point and go around.

Welcome to Billboard Pro’s Trending Up newsletter, where we take a closer look at the songs, artists, curiosities and trends that have caught the music industry’s attention. Some have come out of nowhere, others have taken months to catch on, and all of them could become ubiquitous in the blink of a TikTok clip. 

This week: The country world mourns the passing of one of its greats on streaming, while NLE Choppa helps take Brooklyn rap crew 41 viral nationally and RAYE gets ready for awards season.

A Star Is Mourned: Kris Kristofferson Streams Up 2,292% Following His Death

The great Kris Kristofferson — singer/songwriter, actor, Highwayman, country lifer — died at age 88 on Sunday (Sept. 30), wrapping up a career that lasted over half a century and included myriad hits, many recorded on his own, nearly as many penned for others. News of his passing of course left the country world and beyond in mourning, as fans headed to streaming services to commemorate one of the unforgettable musical careers of the second half of the 20th century.

Kristofferson’s official on-demand U.S. streams reached nearly 1.9 million in total for his catalog on Monday, a jump of 2,292% from the 79,000 total his discography had amassed the prior Monday (Sept. 23), according to Luminate. A big chunk of that number of course went to “Why Me,” Kristofferson’s lone No. 1 hit on Billboard‘s Country Airplay chart and his biggest crossover hit (No. 16) on the Billboard Hot 100, with the song rising 1,442% over the same timespan. Meanwhile, The Highwaymen — the outlaw country supergroup which counted Kristofferson among its members — also saw a serious spike in listening, gaining 229% to 725,000 streams.

And though they were performed by other artists, a couple of the most famous hits he wrote also saw more modest gains: Janis Joplin’s Hot 100-topping “Me and Bobby McGee” was up 19% to 110,000 streams, and Sammi Smith’s “Help Me Make It Through the Night” was up 56% to 11,000 streams. – ANDREW UNTERBERGER

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NLE Choppa & 41 Follow Up Their 2023 Breakout Hits With Fast-Rising New Collab 

After scoring viral hits like “Bent” and “Slut Me Out” last year, Brooklyn rap collective 41 and Memphis MC NLE Choppa have teamed up for a new banger called “Or What.” Built around one simple question (“B—h, is we f—-n’ or what?”), the collaboration combines Choppa’s tongue-in-cheek, sex-crazed aesthetic with the sultry Jersey beats and drill flourishes of 41’s primary sound. After a bit of teasing on Instagram Live, the track finally arrived on Sept. 6, and thanks to listeners’ infatuation with Kyle Ricch’s delivery on the bridge (“Yes, I love pills and Percocets, yes, yes”), it has steadily grown in streaming activity. 

According to Luminate, “Or What” pulled over 3.17 million official on-demand U.S. streams in its third week of release (Sept. 20-26), marking a 75% increase from the 1.82 million streams the song collected the week prior (Sept. 13-19). Last weekend (Sept. 27-30), the track earned 2.77 million streams, posting a 76% rise from the 1.57 million streams it garnered the previous weekend (Sept. 20-23). On TikTok, the official “Or What” sound boasts nearly 125,000 posts, while other viral sounds using the track boast post totals 20-50,000 range. Already at No. 17 on Spotify’s Viral 50 USA chart, “Or What” could soon become another Billboard hit for both Choppa and 41 should its streams continue to rise. – KYLE DENIS

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RAYE Dries Her “Oscar Winning Tears” With Eye-Popping Streaming Gains 

Between her historic BRITs sweep and a recently released live album recorded at the Montreux Jazz Festival, 2024 has been a banner year for RAYE. Though “Oscar Winning Tears” serves as the opening full-length track for her debut album – 2023’s My 21st Century Blues – the track is earning some impressive streaming increases near two years post-release. 

TikTok is obsessed with the song’s bridge – either praising its construction or using it to soundtrack hilariously histrionic scenarios – and it’s resulting in some big moves on streaming.  “Oscar Winning Tears” pulled over 240,000 official on-demand U.S. streams during the week of Sept. 20-26, which is a whopping 150% increase from the 96,000 streams the song pulled the week prior (Sept. 13-19). Last weekend (Sept. 27-30), the track garnered 346,000 streams, marking a gargantuan 350% rise from the 77,000 streams it earned the previous weekend (Sept. 20-23). On TikTok, the most popular “Oscar Winning Tears” sound plays in nearly 4,000 videos, two of which include RAYE herself both hopping on the running-away-in-tears trend and cracking jokes about how long she’s been promoting My 21^st Century Blues. 

This year, RAYE has performed around the world, including the final Wembley Stadium show of Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour and the 2024 Global Citizen Festival in New York. Based on these streaming gains, it looks like RAYE’s persistence and dedication is finally starting to pay off for her album’s deep cuts. – KD

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