It was the evening of Aug. 3, and Tinashe and Disco Lines were enjoying the perks of their success.

Sitting in a hot tub in Las Vegas with a crew of friends and family, the pair raised glasses of Dom Pérignon and toasted accomplishing the rarest of feats — making the rare dance crossover hit.

Earlier in the day they’d performed this song together live for the first time ever poolside at the city’s lavish Fontainebleau resort — with Tinashe sauntering around onstage in stilettos and singing while Disco Lines worked the decks and the crowd before them bounced along to the beat.

Widely considered dance music’s — maybe any music’s — 2025 song of the summer, the duo’s teamup “No Broke Boys” has spent the last 11 weeks on the Hot 100, peaking at No. 39 and currently situated at No. 41. It’s generated 91.2 million on-demand official U.S. streams and 292.8 million on-demand official global streams, according to Luminate. In August, it ascended to the No. 1 spot on Hot Dance/Electronic Songs, unseating Marshmello and Kane Brown‘s “Miles On It” which had been holding down the top spot for more than a year. It also reached No. 1 on Dance/Mix Show Airplay in August and is now at No. 3 in its 14th week on the chart.

“I think it’s just catchy as hell,” Tinashe says of what’s driving the song’s success during a group Zoom with Billboard and Disco Lines “It’s fun for the summertime. It’s got that energy. It’s very tongue-in-cheek. It gets people going.”

The song is a take on the penultimate track from Tinashe’s 2024 album Quantum Baby, with the Disco Lines collab dialing up the BPM, adding an urgent synth production and loading up the track with bright and bouncy electronic flourishes. This version went viral after Disco Lines, the Colorado-born whose real name is Thadeus Labuszewski, played it during a set at EDC Las Vegas 2025 this past May.

“I played it at EDC, and then I played the collab in San Diego, and every time, everyone jumped,” says Disco Lines. “So I was like, ‘Tinashe, ‘Check this s–t out.’ Then a bunch of people kept using it on the internet, and it just gained momentum.”

“Yeah, it popped off,” adds Tinashe. “It went crazy.”

“I saw the initial edit at EDC, the little clip,” she continues, “and at that point we linked up through some mutual friends. I was like, ‘Well, this is f–king great’ and just wanted to build it out from there turn it into something super impactful.”

At this point the pair were working remotely, with Tinashe going in the studio to re-record some of her vocal elements so the collab would be, she says, “super crispy and super new and fresh.” The duo, both based in Los Angeles, eventually linked IRL to make photo and video content. “That was when the final version really came together,” says Tinashe.

One only need listen to this final version to get why it undeniably works, but beyond the “catchy as hell production” Disco Lines thinks part of its secret sauce is that “it tells a story, and we don’t see that in electronic music very often anymore.” Written by Tinashe, Ricky Reed and Michael Neil, the Quantum Baby version of the song tells the story of getting a call from your ex, who you swiftly reject because he’s broke and you’re better than that.

“Tinashe did an incredible job writing it,” says Disco Lines. “You can feel that [group of girls] energy when you listen. Everyone has had an ex that’s hit them back, and you’re like, ‘Stop banging my line.’ Everyone can relate, even me as a guy. I love the lyrics, and I think the writing Tinashe did is just so strong.”

The success of “No Broke Boys” is a quantum leap of a profile booster for Disco Lines, the producer who’s been on the scene for years, with releases going back to 2019. Tinashe has of course been a force in R&B for more than a decade, and has clocked hits across Billboard charts — including four other Hot 100 hits, most recently her 2024 smash “Nasty.”

She’s also been in the mix in the dance world for years, collaborating with Kaytranada on 2019’s “The Worst In Me” from his Grammy-winning album Bubba, appearing on the “b2b” remix on Charli xcx‘s 2024 album Brat and It’s Completely Different But Also Still Brat and scoring a Dance Club Songs No. 1 with her 2016 Britney Spears collab “Slumber Party.”

But the “No Broke Boys” pair agree that despite their respective profiles, the song’s success is putting each of them in front of new audiences and parts of the industry. “The fun part about music is that you can go in and create new versions and make different iterations of the same song, and it can speak to totally different people,” Tinashe says.

“It’s been fun to see the trajectory of the song and see it grow and it change and evolve into something that can speak to an entirely different group of people and bring an entirely different group of ears to the to the song,” she continues. “It’s exciting to see how music can evolve in that way.”

Doing the interview for this story the day after getting back from a 10-date tour in Asia, Tinashe reports that “No Broke Boys” was connecting with audiences even on the literal other side of the world. “It was so fun to see people singing that song all the f–king way in Asia,” she says.

Disco Lines reports the runaway success has also broadened his horizons by “opening up sessions with a bunch of hip-artists and higher caliber artists, which has been amazing.” While he says says he’s been relatively chill all summer in terms of producing new music, he recently had a session with Shoreline Mafia, which helps him on his mission of continuing to branch out from dance music.

Whatever other opportunities the song might open up, the pair agree, will be decided by the same “energy of the universe,” as Tinashe calls it, that’s made “No Broke Boys” a smash.

“We really haven’t had to make anything happen,” she says. “It’s just felt really natural, and I think that’s one of the most amazing things about it. So we’re going to keep going with the vibes, continue riding the waves and see what happens.”

Lights, camera, action! After nearly two months of waiting, Swifties rejoiced on Friday (Oct. 3), when Taylor Swift finally unveiled her much-anticipated 12th studio album, The Life of a Showgirl.

Across 12 tracks, Swift deconstructs her time in the spotlight — including public relationships, dominating the music scene, public opinion wavering and more — all while teaming up again with her former collaborators Max Martin and Shellback to make a series of soft-rock-meets-pop gems for her fans to dance to this fall.

As much as Swifties may be loving the album, Swift herself made it very clear how much she loves the record, too, sharing a message about the project with her fans early Friday morning. “I can’t tell you how proud I am to share this with you, an album that just feels so right,” she wrote on Instagram. “A forever thank you goes out to my mentors and friends Max and Shellback for helping me paint this self portrait.”

The album opens with its lead single, “The Fate of Ophelia,” in which Swift compares herself to the character Ophelia from Shakespeare’s Hamlet — only the pop superstar gets a much happier ending. The LP features only one official collaboration — with fellow pop superstar Sabrina Carpenter on the song’s final, titular track. However, the late pop icon George Michael also makes a subtle appearance on the new album. Swift’s song “Father Figure” interpolates the melody of the Wham! frontman’s solo single of the same name.

With 12 new songs finally out in the world, Billboard wants to know: Which one is your favorite? Let us know by voting in our poll below!

Lady Gaga had a lot on her mind earlier this month when she sat down with Late Show host Stephen Colbert for an expansive interview at the storied Bitter End venue in New York’s Greenwich Village, where then-unknown Stefani Germanotta first performed as her now world-famous alter ego in 2005.

Wearing all black, including a black hood and knee-high black boots, Gaga reminisced about the first time she performed at the venue as a 14-year-old, marveling at the memory of the house crew helping out by tuning the piano — which was on the stage just over Colbert’s shoulder — and playing the venue regularly for the next three years under her birth name while showing off vintage flyers from those days that her mother had kept.

Another vital keepsake from the early days of her Gaga era was a picture of a clipboard she would pass around at shows asking attendees if they’d enjoyed the performance and asking for their names and emails, as well a a picture of a “hit list” she’d written up early on of record labels she dreamed of being on. Gaga said it was “a couple years” between when she made that wish list doodle and when she signed her first record deal, sharing a picture of her at 19 holding a sheaf of papers in front of a wall of gold records wearing a not-very-Gaga ensemble of white strappy sandals, a red skirt and a grey tank top with white suspenders.

While she wasn’t the Gaga we know now back then, the singer said that creating her performance persona was a way for her to “become something that I felt I didn’t already have inside of me. Sort of like the star I always wanted to be. I knew I had musical talent and I had things I wanted to say.”

Gaga weighed in on was the difference between Stefani and Gaga — “Stefani is me, the artist, the creator, and Lady Gaga is my creation” — with the singer saying that Gaga represented the kind of star she dreamed of being after a childhood of deep insecurity. Gaga said that her stage persona was created after some “really rough experiences” in New York, both professional and personal, that were so challenging she felt she had to change her name.

“It was like a new beginning. But I created something that felt exciting and artistic,” she said. “And creative and imaginative, but also safer than the I think the way I feel… Because Gaga was pursuing and experiencing fame… it was kind of like this thing where I could safely leave behind all the hard stuff that I went through and inhabit a new persona of someone that was really strong and resilient and tough that you wouldn’t want to mess with.”

Once fame did come, Gaga said, the duality of being both Stefani and Gaga was the bigger challenge and “figuring out how to integrate those two things, psychologically, for me was like my big forever work.”

Curious if that old saw about an artist having to suffer to create great art, Colbert asked if Gaga, who he noted seems like she’s in a very good, happy place at the moment, can be as productive as she was when she was in the midst of struggle. “Without a doubt,” Gaga said, as Colbert wondered if she had to “carry trauma” in order to speak to it.

“No, no, no,” Gaga said emphatically. “But I understand why people feel this way. This is an age-old tale of the tortured artist suffering for their art.” She quoted her longtime friend and make-up artist telling her, “‘I see you and I see how much love has changed your life,’” in reference to Gaga’s clear joy with fiancé Michael Polansky. “He’s my best friend in the whole world,” she said of her Mayhem collaborator, who she was introduced to through her mom.

Speaking of moms, when Colbert asked about what kinds of projects Gaga would like to work on next, including whether she might ever consider Broadway, the 39-year-old singer got real about her the couple’s future plans. “I would like to do many things,” she said. “But what I really want is to be a mom. That’s my next starring role, I hope.”

The interview with Gaga was taped when the singer stopped by the Late Show several weeks ago to celebrate the show’s 10th anniversary, where she performed a moving, stripped-down version of her Mayhem song “Vanish Into You” and then stuck around to teach Colbert “The Dead Dance” choreorgraphy.

In addition to his “Dead Dance” choreo, Colbert also asked Gaga during the chat if she thought he could pull off any of her iconic looks, including chopped bangs and bleached eyebrows. “When in Rome,” she laughed about that look and Colbert’s shot at the Lady in Red from the “Abracadabra” video. Lifelong New Yorker Gaga agreed to play a lightning round breaking down her allegiances, picking the Yankees over the Mets, the Knicks over the Nets or Liberty and choosing 72nd Street (and specifically Gray’s Papaya hot dog stand) as the best corner in the city, Ray’s Pizza as the best slice and the L as the very worst subway line.

As for her favorite bagel order, as a true New Yorker, Gaga said there were actually two: the TBB (toasted butter bagel) or the whole deal (lox, cream cheese, tomato, salt and pepper. One thing she would absolutely not do is fall for the “trap” of naming her favorite boroughs in order.

Gaga’s four-night run at London’s O2 Arena will wind down on Saturday (Oct. 4) before moving on to Co-Op Live in Manchester, England on Oct. 7.

Watch Gaga on Colbert below.

On her song “Ego Death at a Bachelorette Party,” Hayley Williams calls out a “racist country singer.” And in a recent interview, the Paramore frontwoman revealed which musician she was referring to: Morgan Wallen.

In the Wednesday (Sept. 30) episode of Popcast from The New York Times, Williams named names when asked about the track, on which she sings, “I’ll be the biggest star at this racist country singer’s bar/ No use shootin’ for the moon, no use chasing waterfalls.”

“It could be a couple [different people], but I’m always talking about Morgan Wallen,” she told journalist Jon Caramanica. “I don’t give a s–t.”

Does she care what the country superstar thinks about that? Absolutely not. “Find me at Whole Foods, b—h!” she said. “I don’t care. I just don’t care.”

Billboard has reached out to Wallen’s reps for comment.

The pop rocker’s comments come four years after the “Last Night” singer was caught on camera saying the N-word. Afterward, he stepped away from the spotlight to work on himself and told TMZ in a statement, “I’m embarrassed and sorry. I used an unacceptable and inappropriate racial slur that I wish I could take back.”

Williams, however, isn’t going to stop calling out racism in the music industry any time soon. The singer has long been vocal about her passion for racial justice, something she sings about on “True Believer” — another song from her August album, Ego Death at a Bachelorette Party.

“I’m never not ready to scream at the top of my lungs about racial issues,” she added on Popcast. “I think it’s so intersectional that it overlaps with everything from climate change to LGBTQIA+ issues … When you’re passionate about something and you really believe in something, and have the will to spread that, yeah, talk about it.”

Watch Williams call out Wallen below.