The last time Durand Bernarr spoke with Billboard, just days after he took home his first career Grammy for 2025’s Bloom (best progressive R&B album), he wasn’t planning a new studio album — just a deluxe edition of his recent award-winner.

“We thought that we were only doing seven additional songs — two remixes, five new records — to make it 20 altogether,” he explains. “During the recording process, there were just so many ideas coming out. And I already wanted to do something for the “heated fellowship” side of things, because being spicy wasn’t the topic of Bloom. We were planning a deluxe, Blooming, and another EP for the end of the year, but eventually decided, ‘Why don’t we just do another project?’”

And just like that: the Cleveland-bred, powerhouse vocalist entered his BERNARR album. Corralling an all-star team of A-list R&B producers and songwriters, including Raphael Saadiq, Bryan-Michael Cox, Johntá Austin, Troy Taylor, James Fauntleroy and Sevyn Streer, BERNARR expands the Grammy winner’s soulful, gospel-informed soundscape with splashy flourishes of yacht rock, P-Funk, house and Miami bass. After prioritizing platonic relationships on Bloom and holding space for emotional connections beyond lust, Bernarr turns up the heat across the set’s 17 new tracks, including lead single “Wild Ride” and “Bloom.” (“Yes, I have a title track for the previous album on this new one,” he quips. “I finally was getting spicy a little bit!”)

Born Bernarr Durand Ferebee, Jr., the powerhouse vocalist has delivered a true time capsule of the different musical eras that raised him. Make no mistake: he’s a true Junior.

“I was going to title my rock album BERNARR,” he reveals. “But when I saw the album cover, I heard so many of my aunts and homegirls in my head saying, ‘You looking just like your father!’ This look and sound really do encapsulate Bernarr. And with the heavy hitters [involved], I had to do the lean. When our ancestors did that lean, they meant business!”

He’s talking about his pose on the album cover, which is reminiscent of the one on Michael Jackson’s Thriller, Luther Vandross’ Give Me the Reason and Teddy Pendergrass’ It’s Time for Love, or just any classic ‘80s R&B record. And Bernarr isn’t merely gesturing at R&B greatness by tapping into that iconography — he fully achieves it across the full spectrum of rhythm and blues. Whether he’s linking up with Big Sean for the bass-rattling “Waiting” or delivering a potentially definitive R&B power ballad for the current era with “My Life,” Bernarr hits every note with impassioned precision. There’s no coasting or phoning it in for him post-Grammy win. If anything, that gilded gramophone was simply the key to unlock his next gear.

Below, Durand Bernarr goes deep about the making of BERNARR, being embraced by and working alongside his R&B heroes and how he turned Altoids nutritional facts into his dad’s favorite song from the new record.

What was your first post-Grammys studio session like?

I hopped in [the studio] two days after, so there really wasn’t any time to truly process. This go-around, we definitely had more writers and producers in the space. I cut two songs with Big Sean, and he’s been really supportive and excited about working together. We actually met when I did background for him when he did Jimmy Kimmel in 2024. But, generally, these sessions didn’t feel different. I got my heater, blanket, incense, weed and wonton soup, and we’re ready to create!

“Am I Okay?!” is such an arresting second single. How did that one come together?

I was on the phone with Branford Jones of They Have the Range, and he had Donnie Scantz on the line, who told me he had a song for me that was originally a Miguel record. Miguel wrote and recorded the first verse and hook, but he hadn’t touched it since 2020. I cut it not too long after that call, and it was one of the first songs I did when things started morphing into a different project. It’s a genuine check-in with yourself.

You highlight two era-defining songwriters, James Fauntleroy and Sevyn Streeter, as featured vocalists. How did their dual talents impact the way those records came together?

I’ve been wanting to work with James [Fauntleroy] for the longest, and “Wild Ride” was the first beat he played out of the pack. That composition allows me to land in certain places and really live there by design; it scratches this itch in my brain that feels really good. Fauntleroy wrote to the arrangements that I came up with over my first few passes, which I thought was really dope.

Sevyn wrote the top of the second verse of “Am I Okay?!” with my homegirl, Kolesta “Choklate” Moore, another writer on Bernarr. She also did “10,000 Lifetimes” with me, which is my take on how ‘90s R&B singers would close their albums with a gospel song. Except this one is about my parents. I remember telling some of the writers, “Bugs Bunny is my spirit animal, but I don’t want to be him on every song.”  As singers, we’ve been arranging like rappers in terms of cadence, but I don’t want the notes to be a distraction. I want you to be able to focus on the note and let me live on those notes. And I wanted to make it a duet; it’s definitely giving Disney/Pixar.

I feel like “AYO” is a message a lot of people need to hear and internalize.

Bad days happen; it’s not going to be sunshine and roses all the time. That doesn’t mean life is out to get you, or that someone is conspiring against you. There doesn’t have to be some big prophetic theory; sometimes life just happens — and the devil didn’t do it either.

I want to remind people that it’s okay for things not to go the way we wanted to. And it’s okay to have accountability because sometimes we want to blame something else for something happening. But no one’s to blame; it’s just life.

What song demanded the most from you?

The Bryan Michael-Cox record, “My Life.” I’ve never recorded a song that I didn’t have any intention of singing live. I’m always considering where to place breaths and whatnot. Troy [Taylor] was very particular about the inflections he wanted, so I was pleased to be able to deliver. I’ve never punched an entire record so that we can get everything right all the way through. I was literally out of breath before I got to the chorus, and I was getting frustrated. They had to remind me like, “Durand, you’re not going to be singing this song; the audience is going to take it away from you.”

What were some of the most interesting things you learned from your collaborators?

It makes me feel very necessary and anchored where I’m supposed to be. I have made enough noise being myself that I have garnered the attention and respect of OGs and legends who have been in my playlists. Raphael made “Sugar Family” just for me the night before we got in the studio. I’ve made this joke on social media, but times are so hard, like — daddy cannot do it by himself! We need a sugar family! I also cut some stuff on a song for one of his projects. His excitement made me even more excited.

What was the last song you added to the track list?

“Sleep.” [Laughs.] My team was trying to change my mind because they wasn’t feeling it! I feel like I’ve been doing a solid job giving the people what we need to in order to really take us to the next level. But this record is for me; it expresses how I’m feeling, how I’ve been feeling, and how I know I’m going to feel. When I hear it, I envision myself on the open road, half my body hanging out the window. It’s the shortest song on the album, which was intentional because I also don’t get that much sleep!

What was it like playing this for your dad for the first time? What songs did he gravitate toward?

“I Found Myself” was the one for him. He loves the whole album, but there were a couple that made him come to me personally, like, “This is amazing.”

When I’m trying to come up with melodies, I’ll take something like a tin of Altoids and read the nutritional facts off of it. Troy was like, “In the 30 years I’ve been doing music, I’ve never seen anyone read lyrics off Altoids to create a melody.” We eventually replaced those nutritional facts with the words we wanted to tell the story with, but that’s been my thing to get the creative juices flowing. I started doing it during these sessions, but I’ve been doing it outside the studio forever because it’s really just me stimming.

Melissa Etheridge had long had a very strong relationship with the LGBTQ community and planned to announce to the world that she is a lesbian after the release of her 1992 breakthrough album, Never Enough. For years, she’d had what she felt was an “unspoken” bond with her most loyal fans, even though she was not publicly out at the time.

“When my first album came out it was that unspoken thing,” Etheridge, 64, told Joel Madden on his Artist Friendly podcast on Wednesday (April 29) about the wink-wink understanding in the late 1980s. “I would go do a show and my first two rows would be women losing their minds, right? And I’m like, ‘I don’t know. You know. What’s this?’”

Then, when she dropped Never Enough around the time grunge was starting to take over mainstream rock in the early ’90s, the singer figured, “‘hey, I can wear flannel, I’ve been wearing flannel for a long time,’” thinking that it was her time to reveal her true self to the wider world. Then, she was the subject of a cover story for England’s legendary New Musical Express magazine and was shocked at the final product.

“I was on the cover and he [the writer] changed every pronoun that I used,” she recalled. “He changed it to my ‘boyfriend’ and I was like … and it horrified me. Because there was an underground … the gay community was really strong, but it was underground, right? And I’m like, ‘Oh my God, they’re gonna think that I did this!’”

Worried that she would offend or turn off her core audience, Etheridge said she planned to right the wrong done to her by going on the then red-hot Arsenio Hall Show to officially come out. Before that could happen, though, she worked on the Bill Clinton/Al Gore presidential campaign in 1992, where she was surrounded by a lot of “really important, strong, powerful gay leaders.” She said she saw them putting “everything on the line” to speak out about the AIDS crisis and gay rights and when they started to invite her to events and include her in their work she realized she had to speak her truth.

“I finally came out at the inauguration,” she said of her public announcement at the Jan. 20, 1993, Triangle Ball, the first-ever gay/lesbian presidential inaugural ball. “I’m grateful that I had the opportunity to be truthful to myself and then speak about it,” she said.

Etheridge released her seventeenth studio album, Rise, in March. She will play a show at the Factory in St. Louis on Friday (May 1) as part of her tour in support of the LP.

Watch Etheridge on Artist Friendly below.

Carlos Vives has unleashed his new studio album, El Último Disco, Vol. 1, a 10-track set that includes collaborations with Juan Luis Guerra, Nina Pastori, Sergio George and Josemi Carmona. 

Though its title is open to many interpretations, it actually represents a return to roots and basics. 

“This is not a farewell; it is a return to what truly matters: love, the land and our identity,” the Colombian singer-songwriter tells Billboard. “This album was crafted in that spirit — like those debut records by unforgettable bands. It was recorded live in the studio, alongside musicians of exceptional caliber who are unafraid to sing of beautiful love and of their people.” 

Crafted with the traditional rock-infused cumbia and vallenato sounds that made Vives a global powerhouse, El Último Disco is also charged with romantic lyrics about wooing someone like in the old days as heard in opening track “Te Dedico.” 

In the Juan Luis-assisted “Buscando el Mar,” the two Grammy-winning acts are inspired by Gabriel García Márquez’s One Hundred Years of Solitude for a metaphorical journey filled with nostalgia, hope and connection. The song also marks the final recording by Vives’ longtime and late accordionist Egidio Cuadrado, who passed away in 2024.

But contrary to the album’s title, which translates to “the last album,” Vives is not going anywhere.

“I have no plans to retire; on the contrary, I want to continue singing about beautiful love and for my people,” he assures. “In a world of change, this album is a celebration of true music — of the essence that unites us. I want every song to be a personal message, a light that illuminates the heart of anyone who listens.”

Stream El Último Disco, Vol. 1 below:

On Feb. 18, The Cowgays posted their first TikTok video, a clip of their debut single, “Wish I Wasn’t Gay,” and scored nearly 400,000 views. Dressed up in their finest cowboy/girl outfits, including a faux-cowhide vest and chaps, the trio — comprised of singer-songwriters Adam Mac, Brooke Eden and Chris Housman — stir up the spirit of ‘90s country with spine-tingling harmonies, story-driven lyrics and a whole lotta pink-hued drama.

Collectively, they have released four albums, four EPs and various pop-country singles. Their catalogs, particularly Housman’s “Blueneck,” Eden’s “Act Like You Don’t” and Mac’s “Dust Off Your Boots,” are just as flashy and polished for radio play as anything currently on the airwaves. But in 2026, it’s difficult not to look around and feel like they don’t belong in country music — or anywhere near Music Row.

“It feels hard when [Trump’s] putting out pictures of him being Jesus and God, and then saying, ‘All hail, Allah,’” says Eden. “For the Christians and the MAGAs of America, you gotta start being like, ‘Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, this is not the person that we thought you were — even though you told us that you were this person. You also told us you were that person, and we just believed what we wanted to believe.’

“There have been times when I felt much freer,” she continues, noting that it’s especially scary when many cities across the United States have pulled back their upcoming Pride events. “Nashville Pride used to be three days, but this year, it’s one. Nashville should be all about queer country at Pride. It’s definitely saddening to see. But I also feel like in an environment where we are right now, it’s even more important that we are putting out music that is just gay as can be — being ourselves and being this collective community for people.”

Mac feels the heat rising, too. “A few years back, it felt like there were going to be real strides forward. When you came out, Brooke, and T.J. [with Brothers Osborne] came out, it was almost going to be a renaissance of queer acceptance,” he offers. “Recently, the pendulum has swung back the other way, and now it’s feeling like… ‘law here, law there, suppress. You can’t do this. None of this.’ I have to believe that we’re trucking through this, and on the other side, we will swing back, and that will be where The Cowgays land.”

In the aftermath of going viral with their debut outing, the group unleashes their second single, “Good Hoedown,” a blast of boot-scootin’ fun akin to Brooks & Dunn and Tracy Byrd on Friday (May 1). “Luck ain’t a lady, and neither am I,” they sing, layering golden harmonies you might have found on The Chicks’ Wide Open Spaces. In the music video, The Cowgays team up with the Georgia-born winner of RuPaul’s Drag Race All Stars season six, Kylie Sonique Love.

With a ‘90s country sparkle in their eyes, The Cowgays are nothing if not totally committed to rekindling their love of Faith Hill and Shania Twain for a modern world — lighting a match in much the same way as those trailblazers, only super gay. And they’re ready to burn down the establishment if it comes to that.

Adam Mac, Brooke Eden and Chris Housman recently hopped on a Zoom call with Billboard to discuss religious trauma, being openly gay in a red state, fully dialing into ‘90s country and creating safe spaces at their concerts.

Your vocal talent speaks for itself, particularly with your Instagram covers of popular ‘90s country songs. With “Wish I Wasn’t Gay,” how did you divvy up the vocal parts?

Adam Mac: That’s kind of been the funnest part, because we all obviously have our solo careers. This is a whole new beast. Thinking about three solo vocalists coming together, it’s whatever the story is calling for. A lot of them are so personal that sometimes it’s like, “you tell your story, you tell you your story, and I’ll tell mine.”

Brooke Eden: “Wish I Wasn’t Gay” was maybe the second song that we wrote for The Cowgays. We had not even really gotten to that point yet, totally. Sometimes it depends on where everyone’s range is. Chris is obviously the lowest. Then, Adam and I are very close in range. He has a really high range, for a guy, and I have a pretty mid- to low-range for a woman. Sometimes, yes, it’s stories, but also where the song sits in each of our voices and just trying to complement (each other).

The song deals heavily with religious trauma. What was the turning point for you, in terms of exorcising that trauma and the self-loathing that comes with it?

Chris Housman: The three of us have talked about that a lot. We all knew that we had to overcome that and how long that took. This (song) was a celebration of getting over that. For me, personally, I know it took 10 years, a decade of my life to unpack.

Eden: I was really mad at God for a long time. I grew up super religious. I went to a Baptist school. Everything was about God. I also had OCD as a kid. The sin of it all — I was obsessed with it. I was really scared of going to hell and all these things. And then I found out that I’m gay, and I’m like, “Oh, hell no.” [laughs] You know, “God, why would you make me this way?” And also, “Why make me a country singer where they hate us?” It introduced me to the love of my life out on my country music radio tour. Are you kidding me? [laughs] This song, for me, was a coming back to my own spirituality. A lot of people think that we’re mocking it, and it’s not that at all. It’s literally — clap your hands for Jesus, hallelujah, praise the Lord. We are now happy with who we are and who we were made to be.

Radio tours are particularly trying for women in country music. Brooke, being a woman and knowing you were gay, how did you deal with having to schmooze gatekeepers to get them to play your music?

Eden: When I was on a radio tour, I wasn’t out, so it was really interesting. Not only was I not out, but I also had just met my wife. My wife was my radio rep, whom I met on my very first day of radio tour. It was crazy, scandalous. My now wife and I would literally bebop with the guys, and we became besties with a lot of the radio people. They already loved her, and they knew that she was gay. She was out, but I wasn’t. I don’t know, we kind of just bebopped with them. I was such a whiskey drinker at the time, and I was just like, “Hey, you want to take a shot of Jack with me?”

What has your experience been like living in Nashville and a red state?

Housman: I feel like Nashville is a blue bubble in a very large red ocean. In East Nashville, it feels like you can be in your own little world bubble. I haven’t experienced anything crazy, but the industry itself and Music Row are a lot like, “We support you, and we wish you the best.” But not a lot of people are willing to put their neck out there and sign queer artists. There really has not been the support like there has been for straight white men, not even close.

Mac: For a long time, Chris and I both struggled with that, feeling like (we didn’t) have a seat at the table while not trying to pretend to be something that we’re not so that we could get the same opportunities as other people, and failing every time. All three of us stepped into our queerness and stopped watering ourselves down when we started creating our own community, and that community grew into a fan base. Our people can’t find us unless we are showing up as we are. That really changed things for us and put a lot of things into perspective and probably led to The Cowgays and how bold we are as a trio. We’ve been through all that and came out the other side and have chosen ourselves.

When you look at someone like Kacey Musgraves, you can see how her Golden Hour album opened the door for pop fans to dig her music. She sought out other opportunities, such as opening for Harry Styles on his 2018 tour. Is that a playbook you’re using for this new trio?

Eden: There are a lot more out liberals in country music right now and people who would be down to take The Cowgays on tour and introduce us to their fans. They know that when they show up and want their bandmates and crew to be diverse, it allows their audience to also be welcoming. Kacey knows her audience, and she knows that a lot of queer people love her. That’s all she’s concerned about, and she’s less concerned about what the general country music fandom will think about her supporting the LGBTQ community. She doesn’t really give a f–k.

Housman: Similarly, Kacey hasn’t got a ton of radio support, but she doesn’t need it. We would love to be on the radio, but that’s not what we’re really doing.

Maren Morris would be a perfect pairing with The Cowgays.

Eden: We love her. There are a few more artists out there right now that are on a similar level that would be really cool to get to tour with, like a Carter Faith or a Kaitlin Butts.

Housman: And The Chicks. Come on.

Mac: That would be the perfect trio-on-trio tour.

Your new single, “Good Hoedown,” has a similar vibe to Tracy Byrd’s “Watermelon Crawl” and much of Garth Brooks’ work. What did you want to evoke, musically?

Housman: “Wish I Wasn’t Gay” is an outlier as far as the sound.

Eden: That one had to be gospel because of the nature of the song. We also just felt that had to be the first song, because it was a welcome to The Cowgays and a “you’re allowed to be here, and you’re allowed to come as yourself.”

Housman: “Good Hoedown” really dials in on the ‘90s country, exactly like “Watermelon Crawl.”

Mac: The day we wrote this, we all left in the same mindset of like, “Oh sh-t. This is it. This is the thing we’ve been searching for.” It was all the things that we loved and grew up loving about country music, and we are reclaiming it…

Eden: …in a gay way. [laughs]

Mac: Truly, country music can be so gay, so queer-coded in a lot of ways, especially when you look at the ‘60s and ‘70s, the aesthetic of country music with nudie suits and rhinestones. That is camp, mama. [laughs] We just wanted to really exaggerate that.

Eden: We wanted to rewrite the songs that we wished we had had when we were growing up and loving country music, but never really hearing our story or seeing people who loved like us. It was very healing to be doing that now for our younger selves and anybody else who’s also searching for that. Another thing that we love about ‘90s country is the harmonies. Even if it was a solo artist, the harmonies were always right there, up close.

Faith Hill and Shania Twain are obvious influences on you. What are the formative albums for you?

Eden: There was a part of the 2010s that I die over: Chief by Eric Church.

Mac: The Chicks’ album, Wide Open Spaces. That’s the one that I would pick. Other than the Spice Girls… the Spice Girls were a segue into The Chicks for me. I was a girl group kind of little gay boy. Give me the girl power.

Housman: I would say… if the Pistol Annies were in the ‘90s.

Eden: Also, Brooks & Dunn and “Neon Moon” with Brand New Man. It’s just so indicative of the ‘90s and that sound and that feeling that takes you right back there.

Chris, you have a song called “Life Behind Bars,” in which you contemplate your career and whether you’ll spend your life as a bartender. Was there a moment when you realized that superstardom might not be in the cards for you? Or does that even cross your mind?

Housman: The industry is just so crazy. It’s the wild, wild West right now. Obviously, we hope for superstardom.

Mac: I’m still in a delusional state where that is coming. [laughs]

Housman: To what we were talking about earlier, though, I wish the industry saw the potential and the untapped market that we see. There are so many people who grew up on country that gravitated away from it because they felt unwelcome by it and got the ick from it — very understandably. If we can just find those people, why wouldn’t half the country love us? [laughs]

Mac: We go out on the road and play shows and fill up rooms full of queer people and people who are— just not even always queer—more accepting of our music and who we are. We know that they’re there. We’ve seen them and interacted with them. We’re waiting for the industry to catch up and see the honey pot, I guess.

Eden: Not to mention, the number of very straight people who have come up to all of us and been like, “Oh, my God, my daughter just came out. My cousin’s out. My brother is out. My uncle, whoever, my mom came out.” Everybody has that gay cousin, that gay sister, that gay best friend that they want to support, and they want to be an ally for. If the industry just gave it a try, I really think that they would see the untapped potential there. Here we are, and the gays will spend money. [laughs]

Sam Fender and Olivia Dean have dethroned Olivia Rodrigo from the No. 1 spot on the U.K.’s Official Singles Chart, returning to the summit with “Rein Me In” on May 1.

Fender and Dean’s joint single “Rein Me In” has now earned a ninth non-consecutive week at No. 1 since first hitting the top spot in February. The collaboration also won best song at the 2026 BRIT Awards; it is Fender’s first No. 1 single and Dean’s second.

Rodrigo falls just one spot to No. 2 with “Drop Dead,” the lead single from her upcoming LP, You Seem Pretty Sad for a Girl So in Love, due June 12. Rodrigo on Thursday (April 30) shared dates for a 65-stop world tour in North America, U.K. and mainland Europe, which includes four nights at London’s O2 Arena.

The impact of Justin Bieber’s Coachella set continues to be felt with “Beauty and a Beat,” first released in 2012, holding its position at No. 3, while “Daisies” (No. 6) and “Yukon” (No. 27) also make appearances in the top 40.

Tame Impala’s “Dracula” holds at No. 4, spurred on by a remix version with BLACKPINK’s Jennie. The former’s U.K. tour kicks off at London’s O2 Arena on May 7 before stops in Manchester, Birmingham and Glasgow. Alex Warren’s “Fever Dream” rises one position to No. 5 to round out the top five.

Following the release of Michael, three tracks from the new Michael Jackson biopic land in the top 40: “Billie Jean” (No. 13), “Beat It” (No. 22) and “Don’t Stop ‘til You Get Enough” (No. 23).

Three tracks from Noah Kahan’s The Great Divide, this week’s No. 1 album in the U.K., appear in the top 20 with “Doors” (No. 12), “The Great Divide” (No. 17) and “Porch Light” (No. 20) all making an impact.