Danielle Moore, the ebullient lead singer of British dance band Crazy P has died at 52. The band announced her passing in an Instagram post on Sunday (Sept. 2). “We are devastated to announce the unbelievable and shocking news that our beautiful Danielle Moore has died in sudden and tragic circumstances,” they wrote, writing that Moore passed on Friday afternoon (August 30) without revealing the specific cause of death.

“We cannot believe the news ourselves and we know it will be the same for all of you. She gave us so much and we love her so much,” they continued. “Our hearts are broken. We need time to process that this has happened. Danielle lived a life driven by love compassion community and music. She lived the biggest of lives. We will miss her with all our hearts X.”

A week before Moore’s death, Crazy P posted footage of the singer rocking the stage during a festival set at the Lost Village Festival in Bristol, England while wearing one of her signature fedoras (read a loving tribute written by the festival over the weekend here). Crazy P were slated to perform at the Forwards Festival in Bristol on Sunday (Sept 1), with the slot called off following Moore’s death.

“We want to thank you all for coming this weekend, there is so much to celebrate, however, it is with heavy hearts that we share the incredibly sad news that our dear friend Danielle Moore, beloved singer of @crazypmusic has passed away,” read a statement from Forwards. “We can’t really find the words today but the world has lost a very special human and we are absolutely devastated. The band were due to join us this weekend as they have so many, many times over our history across all our events, they are family we hold dear, so we would like to spend today reflecting on our love and memories of Danielle.”

Disco house group Crazy P (whose full name was Crazy P–is) was formed in the mid-1990s by musicians Chris Todd and Jim Baron while they were attending the University of Nottingham, with the duo releasing their debut album, A Nice Hot Bath With… in 1999 on Paper Recordings. In 2002, Moore and keyboardist Mav Kendricks joined the band — which also included bassist Tim Davies — and they released their sophomore effort, The Wicked Is Music.

They released five more albums over the years, including their most recent, 2019’s Age of the Ego, with Moore also taking solo gigs as a DJ. Their first new single in more than three years, the bouncy “Any Signs of Love,” dropped in June.

Irish singer Róisín Murphy posted a loving tribute to Moore on X, writing, “One of the most beautiful souls has left us. The brillant Danielle Moore of Crazy P has died suddenly and she has taken so much light with her. One of the best in music, an amazing person and an amazing singer, performer and songwriter. I know there will be a great sense of loss and mourning across our community. She touched everybody she met with light and love. Sending sincerest condolences to those friends and family closest to her. I, like so many, loved and admired her.”

In a bio on her agency’s site, Moore said, “performing is everything… When I’m performing, I feel like I’ve stepped into my alter ego and am able to take on any mood. It’s very empowering to become detached from my own slightly vulnerable self.” The singer fell in love with the power of dance music on packed floors of clubs in her native Manchester, and translated that energy into her always upbeat, joyful performances.

Though undated, the bio notes that following the release of Age of the Ego — an album she said she’s “most proud of… lyrically speaking” — Crazy P was planning to put “more projects in the world, as well as some planned solo works that will see Danielle showcase her own musical chops.”

See Crazy P’s tribute to Moore and listen to some of her most beloved vocals below.

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With 90 minutes to go before he takes the stage at Lyrical Lemonade’s Summer Smash festival, Playboi Carti is already involved in a performance — just outside of his trailer.

Sprayed on the trailer’s side in red graffiti art is the word “OPIUM,” the name of Carti’s creative agency and partnership with Interscope Records, along with an eye that looks like something an eighth grader might say is an Illuminati symbol; the trailer’s window, in a massive font, bears the number “666.” Carti’s trailer is stuck between several others, plus the big SUV that transported the 28-year-old rapper from his hotel to the Chicago-area festival. An entourage of about a dozen people — including rising artists and Opium signees Ken Carson and Destroy Lonely — swarms around him. Marijuana smoke hangs over the area, a smell so perfectly foul that it reminds you why one of the drug’s nicknames is “loud.” At one point, members of the entourage light something on fire with what looks to be a butane torch, cackling like hyenas.

If you’re going to get to know Carti, you might as well start here, as he prepares to do the thing he currently does better than any rapper on earth: perform. Though his albums are rapturously jolting — and wildly popular — Carti is most in his element onstage, and right now, the vibe is something like a pregame warmup meets secret society gathering. His entourage embodies the punk attitude that Carti celebrates in his aesthetics, music and concerts. It’s a diverse crew, from heavily pierced Nyree Morrison, a skater and artist known for reworking shoes and clothing with spikes, jewels and all manner of scribblings; to Carti’s barber, wearing a chain with a barbershop pole on it that Carti gifted him; to a white kid with hair fashioned into giant black-and-white spikes who looks like a Degrassi extra (and is actually skater-model Burberry Erry); to Carti’s manager and Opium COO, Erin ­Larsen, a white woman whom the rapper affectionately calls “Mom.” Soon, Lyrical Lemonade founder Cole Bennett shows up with the rapper BabyTron. The gang’s all here to watch hip-hop’s most innovative artist of the 2020s headline Summer Smash for the third straight year. “Every year, he is the one person that people really look forward to,” Bennett says. “It’s tradition at this point.”

In the seven years since Carti burst into the public eye with his self-titled 2017 mixtape — now platinum-certified — his music has developed from the trembling trap that he took from Atlanta forebears like Future into the peerless rage he debuted on his most recent album, 2020’s Whole Lotta Red. Behind the leaks, the album delays and the general secrecy surrounding his existence is an undeniable talent — someone whose voice could make a retirement community resident perk up in an instant. Performing live is a key part of his artistic package and how he delights fans — he and Larsen, a former CAA agent, first paired up after she saw him pop out at a Brooklyn show around 2015 and sought to meet him backstage — not to mention how he winks at his biggest skeptics as they realize they can’t deny his volcanic presence.

His talent has also propelled him on the charts, where Carti has been a force for nearly a decade. Since his first Billboard Hot 100 top 40 hit, 2017’s breakout single “Magnolia,” he has scored four top 10s on the chart (all as a featured artist), including this year on Ye and Ty Dolla $ign’s “Carnival” and Future and Metro Boomin’s “Type S–t,” which peaked at Nos. 1 and 2, respectively. Whole Lotta Red, released on Christmas Day in 2020, debuted and peaked at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 in January 2021 and has spent 147 total weeks on the chart. Carti isn’t just culturally significant — he’s one of the most commercially successful hip-hop artists of the last decade.

In person today, without the prosthetics or startling makeup he often wears on his face, he’s surprisingly good-looking — classically handsome and tall, with a jawline that would make a TikTok girlie swoon. Wearing the ensemble he has chosen for his Summer Smash set, he could pass for a runway-bound Rick Owens model. Several chains wrap around his neck, some seemingly crosses — startling for a man who, at times, calls himself a vampire. He’s draped in a Pelle Pelle leather jacket with a strap attached that hangs so far down his body it’s almost like a kilt. This is fashion as war paint — one way Carti makes himself seem larger than life.

If success was merely about an artist’s ability to perform, Carti would be as famous as Axl Rose or Jimmy Page. Lights — and sometimes, actual fire — blaze around him onstage. His sets disseminate an entire worldview through sound and atmosphere: Carti knows that fans see him as a hero, as someone who can help them exorcise their demons simply by moving around the stage with gusto, screaming lyrics that could function as cryptic Instagram DMs with his serrated vocals. “We want to continue championing him as a festival headliner,” says Ryan Thomson, his booking agent at CAA. “If we can achieve that success, and also do arena tour shows, we are in a good position in perpetuity.”

Outside of his guest performance with Travis Scott on the 2024 Grammy Awards stage in February, Summer Smash marks the first time Carti has performed all year, but if he’s nervous, he’s not showing it. For Carti, who started truly focusing on hip-hop when his high school basketball coach kicked him off the team, this never gets old. “I want to make the people feel like they don’t know what is about to happen,” Carti tells me after the show once he has come down from his intense set. “I get ready for a show like a boxer gets ready for a match.”

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Like many rap superstars of the recent past, Playboi Carti — born Jordan Terrell Carter, his last name inspired his stage name — hails from Atlanta. Though he moved to New York shortly before making his first commercial mixtape, 2017’s Playboi Carti (following a few he had made under the name Sir Cartier), it’s still home to him, and he wears his pride for the city of fearless creativity — the place with a hip-hop lineage including OutKast, Gucci Mane, Young Thug and, now, Carti himself — like a badge of honor.

Just nine years ago, the king of rage rap was working at H&M. But when Carti moved to New York in 2015, it catapulted his career. After meeting A$AP Bari, Carti began rolling with the Harlem rap collective A$AP Mob — and especially its leader, A$AP Rocky. In Carti, A$AP Mob saw an ambitious, talented kid, and it helped him navigate the city and make connections; through Rocky, Carti met rapper Maxo Kream, producer Harry Fraud and more. For fashion guys who could rap at the time, Rocky was the biggest blueprint, and he mentored Carti, signing him by 2016 to his AWGE creative collective.

Even then, Carti’s music was distinctive. He took a more minimal approach than peers like Lil Uzi Vert and Young Thug, relaxing listeners with cloudy, euphoric production. Take “Location,” which opens his 2017 mixtape: Produced by Fraud, the song revolves around a beat that sounds like a lost Lil B file, with Carti’s spacey vocals drifting above it. “He had told me that he was a big fan of Curren$y,” Fraud says. “We were messing around and we started to knock them [songs] out.”

Having recorded on his own for a few years, Carti was remarkably confident in the studio from the jump. He knew how to create soundscapes for songs, and as he spent more time with the A$AP crew, his intuitiveness and discipline in the studio made his records highly cohesive. But Carti’s also a perfectionist, and his frequent collaborator Cardo — who produced the December 2023 loosie ­“H00DBYAIR” — says he gets threats from impatient fans because the rapper’s releases can take a while. “It’s cool, but they got to stop threatening me,” Cardo jokes. “He’s putting it together! He isn’t rushing it.” That ability to take his time creatively and keep new music under wraps — even Fritz Owens, Carti’s mixing engineer, purposefully stays mysterious, Cardo says — is another way Carti cultivates his mythos and ensures it grows as big as the crowds he performs for.

Fraud says that when he started working with Carti, he knew that the young artist was on the cusp of greatness. “I could feel it,” Fraud recalls. “This kid is going to turn the corner; he has the personality. He is not the loudest guy in the room but he has a certain energy about him.” Carti knows what he wants to do when recording, and his catalog is proof. Released in 2018, his debut album, Die Lit, largely produced by Pi’erre Bourne, turned up the volume from his self-titled mixtape a few notches and became a smash, debuting and peaking at No. 2 on the Billboard 200. According to Carti, they spent time in Miami while recording it, performing throughout the city, and the energy of those shows bled into the album. “I’m always thinking about performing, even when I am making the music,” he says.

It all built toward Whole Lotta Red — the album Carti had been waiting to make his entire career and, so far at least, his masterpiece. He still has more boundaries to push, more biting vocals to spit, but that swaggering, urgent album — some of the crudest, most raging rap music since Yeezus — forced Carti’s peers back into the laboratory, like any real masterpiece does. Production played a huge role in that: The guttural beats from F1lthy (who has also worked with Lil Yachty and Yeat) were engrossing. “It’s all based on confidence. I believe in myself,” Carti tells me. “The moment I started recording, someone came to me and said that they like my songs. I stay in the studio every day.”

Friends love to tell stories about Carti’s infamous nightly sessions — and by the time he was crafting Whole Lotta Red, Carti had fully bloomed into a studio madman with a rigorous process, somewhere between George Martin and Ye. Cardo remembers one time they pulled a recording all-nighter; he finally crashed around 6 a.m. — and only got two hours of sleep before Carti woke him up and exclaimed, “You ready, twin?” “I was up for a whole damn near 48 hours with Carti — straight up working,” Cardo gleefully recalls today. Carti sometimes calls himself a vampire and plays with the aesthetics of being one, and the description isn’t entirely off base. “Vamp Anthem” might be a song on Whole Lotta Red, but it’s also a way of life — music has consumed Carti.

That’s why the leaks of Whole Lotta Red bothered him so much. When music from the project prematurely hit SoundCloud and YouTube, Carti tinkered with the album, delaying its official release. (Leaked tracks from the sessions still litter YouTube.) Sure, Carti loses money when his music leaks, but the creative loss bothers him more: Fans hear something that’s not the exact product he wanted to put out, and he has to come up with new songs. “He’s giving people his absolute best, things that he wants to put his stamp on,” Larsen says. “It delays the process. You don’t want to see the Mona Lisa in an art museum before it is a finished piece of work.” Carti seems exhausted by this, and the broader rabidness of his fan base that it demonstrates. Last year, fans managed to send flowers directly to his mother’s house (presumably to thank her for birthing him); when they found out where his own place was, he had to move. “I’m very blessed,” Carti says. “But it is frustrating because [that’s where] we have to lay our heads.”

Now in the midst of making his third studio album, I Am Music (planned for release by year’s end), Carti is still the workaholic who made Whole Lotta Red, and the sessions for the project, at Carti’s Means Street studio in Atlanta, have been predictably long and meticulous. Carti’s style is in constant evolution, and he and Cardo already have a name for the sound they’ve been workshopping for the project: “burnt music.” “We’ll be in the studio, like, ‘This music is burnt,’ ” explains Cardo, describing the sonics of DJ Toomp, DJ Paul, Juicy J, The Legendary Traxster and even the aesthetic of John Carpenter’s movies as influences. When they first started working together four years ago, Cardo wasn’t sure what style of beats Carti would want — whether he would be on the disorienting F1lthy wave or his pugnacious trap Pi’erre Bourne wave. They ended up building their creative relationship off “H00DBYAIR,” which was originally intended for release on the 2021 Candyman soundtrack. (Carti ended up releasing it as a single in late 2023.)

But even as he has earned praise — and become a genre figurehead — for his work in the studio and onstage, Carti has made headlines for other, less admirable reasons. In 2017, he was arrested for domestic battery after grabbing a woman’s backpack and forcing her into an Uber. In December 2022, his then-pregnant girlfriend, Brandi Marion, told police that, amid an argument about a paternity test, Carti had physically attacked and choked her; when police arrived at the scene, they found her with visible injuries on her neck, back and chest. And that’s to say nothing of the nonviolent charges he has faced. In April 2020, he was caught driving with 12 bags of marijuana, three guns, Xanax pills, oxycodone and codeine. Rapper Iggy Azalea, the mother of Carti’s son Onyx, has publicly accused him of being a neglectful father.

When asked about his various legal issues, Carti declines to say much: “I don’t want to answer that, you know? Jail ain’t no fun.” But that’s not entirely out of character for him: Throughout our interview, Carti dodges questions about relatively benign topics, too, including his relationships with Lil Uzi Vert and Lil Yachty, two artists who have been involved in his career since his self-titled mixtape.

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In the moments before Carti takes the stage, the thousands of fans assembled feverishly chant his name in unison at the top of their lungs. A full five minutes before he goes on, their phones are out, ready to capture him on video the moment he appears. When he does, it’s on a mount with windows, a stage over the original stage, and he’s screaming and athletic — the supreme commander of this sea of acolytes.

“He’s always wanted to produce his own concerts, and he has wanted to cultivate a fan base that has become what it has become in terms of its rowdiness,” CAA’s Thomson says. “He’s brought in the guitar element, the heavy rock aspect. It was night and day in terms of performance style once we got out of the pandemic.” Carti has even expanded the conceptual ambition of his shows: Tonight, fire roars above him as if he is Al Pacino in The Devil’s Advocate. Though they’re not performing, the Opium artists who huddled around Carti before the show have accompanied him onstage for the ride; between flame blasts, they emerge from the smoke that billows out of an onstage cannon.

It’s every bit as electrifying as punk rock, though even that might be an understatement. Over the next hour, Carti cycles through an eclectic range of features, album tracks and unreleased songs, from his collaborations with Future (“Type S–t”) and Travis Scott (“FE!N”) to “Stop Breathing,” a fan favorite from his own catalog. He also tests some unreleased songs on the audience, and while it’s hard to imagine anything he does getting a less-than crazed response, they all absolutely play.

After the concert ends, he’s clearly pumped about how it went. He thanks everyone, then enters a car that will drive him to a club in downtown Chicago. But once inside the vehicle, removed from the high of performing, Carti becomes distant — the vampire retreating into his coffin for the night. As I ask him questions, he seems disengaged, asking me to repeat them often. He’s back to real life, but for Carti, real life is onstage, where he experiences an electricity that will never be matched by normalcy. As we drive steadily on the freeway, his once-burning intensity peters out. But then another car pulls up and a group of white teenagers shout, sure that the dark-tinted windows of his SUV conceal their hero: “That’s Carti! Is that Carti? I know you have Carti in there! That must be Carti!” He hears them and slowly rolls down the window, greeted by their now even-more crazed exclamations: “Carti! Holy s–t, Carti! Carti! F–king Carti!” Their lives are made. “Love y’all!” Carti shouts back. “That’s what we do it for.”

This story appears in the Aug. 31, 2024, issue of Billboard.

UPDATE (Sept. 3): Music executive Ed Eckstine is set to receive the Ray Harris Lifetime Achievement Award at the Living Legends Foundation dinner and gala on Oct. 4 at the Taglyan Cultural Complex in Hollywood. Other honorees are Harvey Mason, Jr., Donnie Simpson, L. Londell McMillan, Joi Brown, Chris Chambers, Mike Kelly, and Gwen Franklin.

In 1974, Eckstine joined Quincy Jones Productions and spent 11 years as a key member of Jones’ inner circle. In 1986, after a brief stay at Arista Records, Eckstine began a decade-plus journey with PolyGram Records. In 1990, he became the first African American to be appointed president of a major non-Black owned record company (Mercury Records). Currently, Eckstine is producing a documentary on his father (legendary vocalist and bandleader Billy Eckstine), among other film and television projects.

Eckstine and Mason are both second-generation forces in the music business. Mason’s father is renowned jazz drummer Harvey Mason.

The red carpet and cocktail reception begin at 6:30 p.m. with the awards dinner at 7:30 p.m. The event will be hosted by radio pro Skip Cheatham with entertainment by DJ Battlecat. This year’s dinner chairpersons are former Living Legends honorees Tracey J. Jordan and Lionel Ridenour.

PREVIOUSLY (June 4): Harvey Mason, Jr., CEO of the Recording Academy and MusiCares will receive the Chairman Award from the Living Legends Foundation at its annual awards dinner and gala on Friday, Oct. 4, at Taglyan Cultural Complex in Hollywood.

“Mason is a transformative leader who has reshaped the [Recording Academy],” the Living Legends Foundation said in a statement. “Under his guidance, the Academy has embraced diversity and inclusion within its membership, ensuring greater transparency and fairness in the Grammy Awards process. He’s also overseen a strategic restructuring to position the Academy for continued growth on a global scale, while simultaneously strengthening its role as a service organization, providing vital support to music creators worldwide.”

The foundation also noted that Mason has written and produced songs for a long list of top artists, and has produced music for such films as Bob Marley: One Love, Respect, Dreamgirls, Sparkle and Straight Outta Compton; plus television shows including The Wiz Live! and Jesus Christ Superstar Live in Concert.

As a philanthropist, Mason is recognized for his work with the T.J. Martell Foundation, Ronald McDonald House, American Cancer Society and Los Angeles Children’s Hospital.

“We are pleased to honor the chieftain and we are delighted that he was available to accept our invitation,” David C. Linton, chairperson of the Living Legends Foundation, said in a statement. “We are profoundly proud of his leadership role and the outstanding work at The Recording Academy and his commitment to MusiCares.”

The red carpet and cocktail reception begin at 6:30 p.m. with the awards dinner following at 7:30 p.m.

PREVIOUSLY (April 18): The Living Legends Foundation has set Oct. 4 as the date for its 2024 awards dinner and gala. The event, also celebrating the foundation’s 33^rd anniversary, will take place at Taglyan Cultural Complex in Hollywood.

This year’s slate of industry honorees includes:

Donnie Simpson, Jerry Boulding Radio Award: The legendary radio and television personality signed off the airwaves earlier this year after a 55-year career that began at Detroit’s WJLB-FM and included tenures at Washington, D.C., outlets WKYS-FM, WPGC-FM and WMMJ-FM. Also known for his long-running stint as host of BET’s Video Soul, Simpson is a Radio Hall of Fame and National Association of Broadcasters Hall of Fame inductee.

L. Londell McMillan, Kendall A. Minter Entertainment Advocate Award (renamed after the noted industry attorney who died last year): The chairman/CEO of The McMillan Firm and veteran entertainment attorney is currently co-managing the Prince Legacy (one of two holding companies overseeing the star’s estate). McMillan’s list of clients over the years has included Michael Jackson, Aretha Franklin and Stevie Wonder. Under the firm’s NorthStar Group division, McMillan also serves as executive publisher of Source magazine.

Joi Brown, the inaugural Impact Player Award: Brown is the founder/CEO of Culture Creators, whose same-titled foundation has awarded more than $300,000 in scholarships over the past two years in keeping with its mission of being a vital link between global cultural leaders and the next generation of diverse creators. Through its annual Innovators and Leaders Awards brunch, Culture Creators has honored industry executives and creatives such as Byron Allen, Swizz Beatz, H.E.R. and Epic Records chairwoman Sylvia Rhone. 

Chris Chambers, Media Executive Award: Founder/CEO of The Chamber Group, Chambers has represented star clients in music, entertainment, fashion and sports such as Usher, Mariah Carey, OutKast, Drake, Naomi Campbell and Kelly Rowland. His firm has also worked with corporate and lifestyle clients ranging from Versace and HBO to Netflix and the Essence Music Festival. Prior to launching The Chamber Group, Chambers served as a publicity executive for labels such as Mercury, Interscope, Arista and LaFace Records.

Mike Kelly, Music Executive Award: A radio broadcaster and record label executive of more than 40 years, Kelly served as PD of legendary St. Louis station KATZ-FM. He then segued into record promotion at various labels, including Arista, Motown, Elektra, Warner Music Group and Atlantic. His resumé lists working projects by artists such as Whitney Houston, Missy Elliott, Bruno Mars and Jack Harlow. Kelly currently works as a radio consultant via his company, Real One 24/7 Promotion and Marketing.

Gwen Franklin, Mike Bernardo Female Executive Award: Before her latest venture as founder/CEO of empowerment organization B. Lifted Up! Inc., Franklin helmed senior executive posts in radio promotion, marketing, sales and artist development through stints with Casablanca, A&M, Capitol, Mercury and RCA Records. The list of artists she’s worked with includes Quincy Jones, Donna Summer, Janet Jackson, MC Hammer and SWV.  

In a release announcing the upcoming awards dinner and gala, Living Legends Foundation chairperson David Linton commented in part, “As we reflect on the brilliance and excellence of today’s global music and entertainment leaders, we’re pleased that the organization remains the longest-standing Black music organization to date, founded in 1991 by Black music executives. And as we approach another milestone year, we’d like to further cement the organization as the key stakeholder in Black music by reclaiming our mission of ‘protecting and preserving the legacy of those who create, market and elevate Black music,’ which includes R&B, hip-hop, jazz, blues, country, reggae and world music.”

Additional reporting by Paul Grein