During summer 2024, “Someone Else,” a rollicking bouyon kiss-off anthem, became one of the buzziest songs to come out of the island nation of Dominica this decade, winning soca collaboration of the year at the 2025 Caribbean Music Awards. The infectious track also spelled the official launch of the career Trilla-G had been flirting with for most of his life.

Born Gael Jno Baptiste in Goodwill, just outside Dominica’s capital of Roseau, Trilla-G’s musical origin story is centered around an event that helped shape an entire generation of listeners: Michael Jackson’s world-shifting death in 2009.

“One of my core memories was discovering Michael Jackson after his death because I didn’t know him before that,” Trilla-G, 27, tells Billboard. “I used to emulate his dance style and try to sing like him, using my living room as a stage. I remember being amazed by the whole package.”

Although he grew up preaching and singing in church, the joint forces of MJ’s towering artistry and the horizon-broadening nature of Saturday morning VH1 music video countdowns helped Trilla figure out his unique approach to music-making. After pulling inspiration from YouTube parodies, Trilla earned his first local hit with a remix of Soulja Boy’s “Pretty Boy Swag.” He would employ that strategy a few more times — like when he flipped Magic System’s timeless “Premiere Gaou” into 2017’s “Sweet Talk” — eventually making a name for himself across Dominica with “The Prayer” in 2020.

As the eldest of four on his mother’s side and the second youngest of eight on his father’s, Trilla-G is a family man— so much so that he bought into the “small island mindset that certain jobs are ‘good jobs’” not worth giving up in pursuit of more precarious aspirations. He tried to stay the corporate course, balancing his duties in a credit union marketing department with a surge of performance opportunities following the explosion of “Someone Else” in 2024. “My job was not as lenient as I thought it might have been,” he reflects. “So, before it got ugly, I bet on myself and quit.”

Within the next year, Trilla was performing around the world and pumping out hits like “Rags” and “I Like Your Woman (Side Man Confession).” But that all came to a harrowing pause when he was diagnosed with cancer last July. (As of February, Trilla is officially cancer-free, after completing several rounds of chemotherapy beginning in September 2025.)

Below, Trilla-G walks Billboard through how he crafted his debut album Take Me as I Am while battling cancer, his calypso background and how Jay-Z influenced his approach to songwriting.

When did you decide to pursue music professionally?

During form three in high school, I remixed a popular band song in Dominica, which happened to be a remake of “Gangnam Style.” That was the first time I went viral and got recognized for my talent. I would also freestyle and battle rap in college, and one friend recorded [a session] and posted it on Facebook. That too went viral, so, at that point, people around me were like, “Music is calling you.” I was a bit reluctant, but everyone was encouraging me, so I gave it a try,

My best friend was friends with a popular guy in Dominican spaces who had a family store in town. He was connected with radio [DJs], and I went to him with the first song I recorded, and he told me, “No, that’s not good. We’re not doing that. Try again.” I felt a bit defeated, but then I started freestyling to [TLC’s] “No Scrubs.” I changed “scrubs” to “pirat,” a word we use in Dominica to refer to promiscuous women. That went viral, too, and convinced him that I had something.

I was still in school at the time, so he paid for my studio time, and I got familiar with two other artists who were rising in the music space at that time: Reo and Keks Mafia. We performed together and even made a group for a short time.

Did “Someone Else” feel like a special record when you, Quan and Litleboy first recorded it?

We recorded a few songs that day, and this one was kind of random because Quan was recording for a separate Big Belly song, but he kept it for something else. Litleboy already had the hook, and I thought it was a fun song. I remember advocating for a music video early on, so that’s when I felt like it was going to be special. But I didn’t expect the impact it made for all of us and how popular it became.

When did you start working on your debut album, Take Me as I Am, which Billboard named the No. 4 Best Caribbean Album of 2025?

I needed to use the momentum from “Someone Else” to introduce myself to the wider market. I also got a lot of new bookings and couldn’t just show up singing one song. Dominica has a heavy Creole influence, so I had a Creole song on a zouk beat, saying, “I no changing/ The only thing that changing is money.” That eventually became “Take Me as I Am,” which led me to make the full album.

Last July, I was diagnosed with cancer, so I knew there was going to be some downtime towards the end of the year as I took treatment. We definitely need something to hold fans over during that time. “Take Me As I Am” became a staple track of mine, especially outside of Dominica, so I just continued that theme for the album.

What’s it been like navigating your rising career alongside cancer treatment?

It was a little difficult, but the people around me made it easy. My manager was very understanding, and he’s a friend to me outside of the business. To have somebody you work with understand what you’re going through was paramount. And my family was there with me; I stayed with my brother in New York during treatment

It was also stressful trying to figure out which gigs to take, because we were trying to keep [the diagnosis] a secret. Picture promoters calling you, and you cannot tell them exactly why you cannot make the show. Previously scheduled bookings were even more troublesome to work around. I remember doing the Uber Soca cruise straight from treatment and still being woozy and drained; I had to leave early and go right back to New York for a body scan. All of this showed me how close death was so I can better appreciate life.

How do you describe bouyon?

Bouyon music, simply put, is the modernization of our traditional songs and instruments from Dominica. Early on, the WCK Band experimented with blending our folk instruments with digital production, and everything has evolved from there. To me, bouyon is an expression of our daily life and our culture as Dominicans.

What’s your recording process usually like?

I used to write to beats before, but now I’ve evolved into freestyling. I know what my topic is, and I know what I want to say as soon as I hear the beat. I started practicing freestyling a lot more because the greats like Jay-Z and Lil Wayne tell you they don’t write. I want to be like the greats. Even the “WYFL” bouyon freestyle — no writing, no pen, no paper.

Who are your dream collaborators?

Skillibeng. My ultimate favorite artist of all time is Kanye West. I love how outside of the box he is and how he doesn’t follow what everybody else is doing. He’s one of my biggest influences, even in the way I put my album together and rolled it out. Drake too.

You released a country-inspired acoustic version of “Ain’t Thinkin’ Bout You” last month. Where did the inspiration for that come from?

We were in the studio playing around with a guitar loop, and I started singing “I had another shot of liquor that night,” because I know they like to talk about drinking alcohol and missing girlfriends in country music. I was just freestyling, but everyone got hyped and told me to finish it. So, I finished it the same night.

Some Caribbean islands have a deep love for country music. Where do you think that connection comes from?

I’m not sure. There was country music growing up in Dominica, but not a lot. I was surprised how big it still is in Saint Lucia. We came up on radio, and a lot of those country hits were introduced to us that way.

What do you love most about calypso music? What’s been your experience creating in two different genres at the same time?

I was the Calypso King in 2023, but I had been doing music since 2017 at that point. People knew me, but they weren’t really checking for me until calypso time, because that introduced me to a whole new set of people. Calypso is national — and I won.

I really learned how to perform properly on stage, manage my diction, polish my songwriting, and flex my wit and humor. I definitely became a better writer and performer thanks to calypso.

What are you listening to right now?

My unreleased music. [Laughs]. I have a collaboration with a well-loved female bouyon artist that will come out in time for summer. I’ve also been playing Alkaline’s [NPT] album a lot. And all the new boys [in the bouyon scene].

With a marathon time like this, no one will ever bring Cynthia Erivo down. The star ran the London Marathon on Sunday (April 26), and this time she set a new personal best. The Wicked star completed the race with a time of 3:21:40, beating her 2022 London Marathon time of  3:35:36 and New York City Marathon time of 3:57:07 by a sizable margin.

In a picture perfect moment, Erivo crossed the finish line to Wicked‘s “Defying Gravity.” (The track peaked at No. 44 on the Billboard Hot 100 in December 2024.)

Erivo partnered with sports gear brand Brooks Running for the marathon, wearing the brand for the race and appearing in one of its recent campaigns. After the race, Brooks Running congratulated the star on her new personal best via a joint Instagram post.

“A good run is simply the run that happened,” the brand wrote. “Today, it happened to be a new personal best.”

Erivo commented, thanking the Brooks Running team for “being there every step of the way.”

Since February, Erivo has been performing in a new one-woman stage adaptation of Bram Stoker’s Dracula on London’s West End, in which she plays all 23 roles. In a March interview with Runner’s World, Erivo shared that she made time for her marathon training in her busy schedule by prioritizing her running over everything else.

“Everything starts with the run,” Erivo explained. “The schedule doesn’t happen if the run’s not included.”

Just one day after running the London Marathon, Erivo will return to the Dracula stage on Monday (April 27). Dracula will run through May 30.

Watch Erivo cross the London Marathon’s finish line below:

Chris Brown has seen some of the criticism of his upcoming joint summer stadium tour with his friend Usher and he’s responded with pointed words for those haters. In a post on his Instagram Story on Sunday (April 26), Brown 36, minced no words in pushing back against what he painted as the online backlash to the outing.

“The funniest and weirdest s–t ever to me is the fact that people have the option to come to my tour and the option not to,” Brown wrote. “I know everyone who is a fan of me and USHER will definitely be in the building and it will be PACKED just like last year,” he added in seeming reference to his 2025 Breezy Bowl XX world tour, Brown’s highest-grossing tour to date with nearly $300 million in ticket sales.

Brown continued, “But I’m scrolling through insta and tik tok and I come across rage bait pages and or these fake woke stand up for nothing pages bashing people for wanted to come have a good time. The dudes hating, I can understand that (thinking we gone steal ya girl and s–t). BUT THE KARENS, and the self hating hoes be making me LAUGH. I CANT WAIT TO RUB THIS S–T IN YALL FACE.” The post ended with three laughing crying emoji.

While Brown did not cite any specific complaints or comments, he appeared to be alluding to those who’ve pushed back on the news about the singer who has a long rap sheet of assault cases in his history, including a guilty plea for felony assault tied to his attack on then-girlfriend Rihanna in August 2009 on the eve of that year’s Grammy Awards; he was sentenced to five years’ probation and six months of community service in that case.

In the comments about the first tease of the tour on Brown’s official TikTok, some of the comments appeared to allude to Brown’s history, including one that read “people, did ya’ll forgot?” and a similar one reading “don’t think we forgot,” as well as quite a few complaining about the price of tickets for the joint outing.

Since the Rihanna assault, Brown has had several more run-ins with the police over violent incidents, including an arrest in May 2025 in the U.K. on a charge of inflicting grievous bodily harm tied to a 2023 London nightclub assault in which the singer is accused of smashing a promoter over the head with a bottle and kicking him.

In addition, a 2024 lawsuit filed in Texas charged that Brown and several accomplices “brutally and severely beat” four men backstage at Dickies Arena in an unprovoked backstage attack. Police also responded in June 2021 to a report of a domestic argument at Brown’s San Fernando Valley home address in which a woman said Brown smacked the back of her head so hard her weave came off; police declined to file charges due to insufficient evidence in that case.

Brown is teasing a new album, Brown, due out on May 8 and Usher has recently hopped on the remix of Breezy and Bryson Tiller’s “It Depends.” The R&B tour (named for the singer’s last names, Raymond and Brown) is slated to kick off on June 26 at Empower Field at Mile High in Denver.

For the last few years, Post Malone has been consistently popping up in Indio, Calif. – and each time, his presence becomes greater. 

In 2023, he was a surprise weekend one guest at Coachella during Bad Bunny’s historic headlining set. In 2024, while teasing his first foray into country music, he was booked to perform at Stagecoach. In 2025, Post returned to the desert to headline Coachella himself, and on Sunday (April 26), he returned to the desert to close out the third and final night of Stagecoach. In doing so, Post Malone became the first artist to ever headline both Coachella and Stagecoach — let alone in back-to-back years.

“It makes sense that Post has headlined both events,” says Paul Tollett, president and CEO of Goldenvoice, which promotes the fests. “He’s perfectly comfortable performing to such different audiences.”

Following Post’s Stagecoach debut in 2024, during which he performed a set of country covers, Goldenvoice/AEG executive VP Stacy Vee was eager to book him again – and for an even bigger role.

“We had Post play after Willie Nelson and before Miranda Lambert at Stagecoach 2024,” she recalls. “The Stagecoach fans loved his set of covers, [but] at the time he had yet to release a solo country project. After the weekend finished, I wasted no time talking about the right time to bring him back to headline the show.”

For his headlining set on Sunday night, Post pulled out his biggest country hits from his 2024 album F-1 Trillion, including the Country Airplay chart-topper “Pour Me a Drink” and Billboard Hot 100 No. 1 “I Had Some Help.” And despite having teased a second upcoming country album to Billboard last year — and even more recently revealing on social media the possible title of the two-disc set to be The Eternal Buzz — no new music made its way into his Stagecoach performance.

Still, even without different material, Tollett says Post managed to make the show feel entirely different from when he headlined Coachella one year ago. “[It was] interesting to see how he has uniquely built his live show based on the setting,” he says. Adds Vee: “I feed off of his energy. He is so genuinely happy to be in the country space when out at the show.”

As further proof, next month Post is heading out on his Big Ass Stadium Tour Part 2 – teaming again with Jelly Roll and also welcoming opener Carter Faith. “There’s nothing Post Malone can’t do, and he does it all with total sincerity, versatility and commitment,” says Vee. “Whatever he does, he does it his own way.”

That singularity is exactly why Tollett says he hopes to “see him again in the desert – it’s always a good time.”

Alicia Keys has been working in the music industry for more than two decades, but according to her, it’s still as much of a boy’s club as it was when she first started out.

In a recent interview with The Times, the 17-time Grammy winner opened up about the inequality she’s witnessed as a woman who writes, sings and produces. “The music world becomes a good old boy network, and all the incredible women working as engineers and producers are not given an open door,” she told the publication. “Women make up 2 per cent of the entire business. I’m a producer and here we are, doing a bunch of work, killing it, so it’s shocking that the number is so small.”

Merriam-Webster defines “old boy network” as an “informal system in which wealthy men with the same social and educational background” help one another advance professionally. “No one tells you these things,” Keys continued in the interview. “You deal with all these executives and lawyers who love to take their percentages and overcharge you, but they never say, ‘How can we ensure you’re here to stay?’”

“Rather than just being pissed off about that,” she added, “it was time to create opportunities.”

The four-time Billboard Hot 100 chart-topping musician is referring to She Is the Music, a nonprofit she cofounded that facilitates songwriting sessions, mentorships and educational opportunities for women in music. In February, the organization hosted its second annual Women Sharing the Spotlight event, where Keys honored Megan Moroney and her all-women team.

“Tonight’s event is about being able to say, ‘Wait, I do have this position, and I can open the door,’” Keys said at the ceremony. “It’s one thing when you’re banging on a door to be let in; it’s another thing when someone opens the door and says, ‘Come in and join me.’”

The multi-hyphenate last dropped an album in 2021, with Keys reaching No. 41 on the Billboard 200 — a chart she’s topped five times. She told The Times that she’s currently working on a new LP.

“The music is very close to being cooked, and I’m excited,” she said. “There is a craft, an ability to write songs that mean something to people, which has given me longevity and you’ll hear that in the new album.”