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GRAMMYs

Chorus practices outdoors this year at Countryside High School in Pinellas County, Florida.
Photo courtesy of Christy King

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How COVID Changed The Look Of Music Education puppy-pads-and-slit-masks-how-covid-changed-look-music-education

Puppy Pads And Slit Masks: How COVID Changed The Look Of Music Education

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COVID-era problems put pressure on teachers to work creatively, while fearing for the future
Emilee Lindner
GRAMMYs
Sep 21, 2020 - 9:01 am

Those living in Kingsman, Arizona, shouldn’t be surprised if they hear 30 kids yelling simultaneously from Lee Williams High School. That’s just Shannon Bascombe’s marching band letting out their COVID-19 frustrations.

"The kids were like, ‘Hey, Ms. B, can we, like, scream into the void for 10 seconds at the beginning of practice?'" Bascombe recalled. "'Yeah, sure, I’ll give you guys 10 seconds to just yell it out.' … Then they’ll start learning drill."

The coronavirus pandemic has made returning to school this fall a touchy debate. With each district whipping up its own tentative plan, students are either attending school armed with masks, learning virtually from home or doing a half-and-half schedule. They’ve pushed start dates, altered schedules and introduced new technology. Several schools GRAMMY.com contacted for this story set a date in September or October to reassess and adjust, aiming for in-person instruction by 2021. Needless to say, a little scream therapy is warranted—not just for students, but for teachers, parents and administrators as well.

So how does music education fit into the new school plans? Unlike math or history, which can rely on individual study, collaborative ensembles like band, chorus and orchestra cannot. With social distancing measures in place, getting a band of 50 students placed six feet apart in one room is, well, impossible. Not to mention the whole aerosol concern with kids blowing on their horns. Online group rehearsal doesn’t work either, due to latency issues.

With those difficulties in mind, districts across the country have already cut arts programs. And those teachers who still have their jobs are feeling the pressure to keep them by proving their worth.

"[Parents are] OK with the core teachers being at home and being able to give assignments," says Jake Olimpi, marching band and orchestra director at Marple Newtown High School in Pennsylvania. "But what is the art teacher doing, what is the music teacher doing? They’re getting paid and where’s the result?"

That pressure, atop the duty to keep students safe, healthy and engaged has become the new challenge for teachers, who are also haunted by the pandemic’s long lasting effects on music education.

Masks On Instruments And Puppy Pads

The spread of aerosols, a.k.a. air and saliva, forced the Centers for Disease Control to recommend the six-feet social distancing rule months ago. But when it came to the performing arts, there was little scientific evidence on how singing and instrument playing contributed to aerosol spread. A study from the National Federation of State High School Associations (NFHS), published without peer review in July, gave music teachers some answers.

Conducted by the University of Colorado Boulder, the study found that instruments released fewer aerosols if they were masked at the bell. They found even fewer aerosols when the player wore a slitted mask. In order to return to in-person ensembles, authors of the study also suggested these points:

  • Musicians must stay six feet apart (nine feet for trombonists)
  • Bell covers should have a Minimum Efficiency Reporting Value (MERV) of 13 (although any covering is better than none)
  • Spit valves should empty into absorbent sheets like puppy pads
  • Rehearsal times should be limited to 30 minutes
  • Instructors should wait one HVAC air change between classes
  • HEPA filters should be in rehearsal spaces
  • Outdoor rehearsals are recommended over indoor ones

With the scientific guidance, teachers got to work crafting what fall 2020 would look like… and now that school’s back in session, music classes certainly don’t look like they did before. At Bascombe’s school in Arizona, they’re following the NFHS guidelines nearly to a T.

GRAMMYs

The students at Tarpon Springs Leadership Conservatory for the Arts stick to their cones and try out their new bell covers.
Credit: Anna Ottens

"When they come into the room, they have to wash their hands, drop their stuff off," Bascombe says. "We go through the symptom checker from the Mayo Clinic every day when they walk into the room… All of the doors are propped open so the kids have minimal touch. There's hand sanitizer everywhere. Mouthpiece cleaner everywhere."

Bascombe's woodwinds, brass, percussion and colorguard all get their own room. Every Friday, she spends an additional hour and a half disinfecting each room, including the bathroom her students use.

At the Southern Nevada Homeschool Performing Arts, program director Bonnie Buhler-Tanouye says brass players wear slitted masks, akin to "boys' underwear," and flute players wear shields. She says parents are willing to do even more in order to get their nearly shutdown Las Vegas music scene rolling again.

GRAMMYs

The students at Southern Nevada Homeschool Performing Arts wear face shields and slitted masks on the first day of band practice. 
Courtesy: Bonnie Buhler-Tanouye

"One of the parents I was talking to the other day, because I was reminding her of masks for her trumpet player, she said, ‘You know what, put me in a hazmat suit, if you have to. Whatever we have to do to get back to playing music together,'" Buhler-Tanouye recalled.

The NFHS study deemed outdoor rehearsal better for dispersing aerosols. Summer band camps served as positive test runs for the rest of the school year, with students respectively keeping their distance. Water and sunscreen breaks are frequent and essential. In Pinellas County Schools in Florida, humidity plagues practices, but kids are happy to endure sweating for a chance to play together, says Jeanne Reynolds, performing arts specialist for the district.

"If you teach in Florida and you're a band teacher, you become a meteorologist," Jeanne said. "'Cause it’s not just hurricanes; we’ve got pretty good thunderstorms, so you have to know when to get out of harm’s way. Which we all do."

What happens when the temperature drops? When playing outside is no longer an option, bands will be forced to limit the size of their ensembles, based on dimensions of their rooms and state guidelines. Some schools have already taken band class off the schedule completely, exchanging it for smaller groups, broken up alphabetically or by instrument.

Smaller ensembles introduce two problems, though. First, smaller groups equate to more classes, meaning teachers' course loads have increased. Music programs like the one at Bergenfield High School in New Jersey rely on a large staff, which allows them to assign one teacher each to virtual and in-person classes for all of their ensembles. Bergenfield’s band director, Brian Timmons, considers his program lucky; not all schools have the resources.

Second, teachers must find music for a ragtag chamber ensemble. For example, if groups were split numerically by students' names, a director might end up with a flute, three trombones, five bass clarinets and a french horn in a class, and music for a combo like that is rare. Thankfully, publishers like Alfred, Hal Leonard and RWS Music Company have flexible arrangements that can be split into a few basic parts, and have become more available during COVID.

GRAMMYs

The supply of cleaning materials Shannon Bascombe uses to disinfect the band rooms at Lee Williams High School. 
Courtesy: Shannon Bascombe

But will the music ever get performed? State guidelines vary, but indoor maximum capacity has been limited to as few as 25 people per room. Gathering an audience would be infeasible.

Perhaps concerts aren’t even necessary. According to Timmons, it’s time to shake up the dusty format anyway.

"Music education has been so performance-driven all the time," Timmons says. "And we never take time to explore the other things like the chamber playing or the composition or just ear training in and of itself or theory."

Students taking virtual band obviously don’t have to deal with these new precautions and guidelines, but they also don’t get to play together. As Timmons says, they’re working on individual assignments, like learning music production, which allows them to sew together an ensemble, piece by piece. Timmons' students will work on a shared online workspace to record music. It gives students the power to collaborate remotely, he says.

"They can listen to each other’s part and say, ‘OK, our articulation is not punching there. We’re going to have to rerecord this section,'" Timmons says. "I have three teenagers of my own. I watch them killing it on TikTok. If you can do that, there’s no reason why I can’t teach you how to do this."

And then there’s the fact that some schools are taking little to no precaution. Music teacher Nathan Smith says he was fired from Oakdale Academy in Michigan after expressing his concern over the safety of students and staff. The private Christian high school is not requiring masks this fall, per a letter sent home to parents.

"I had so many plans for this school year," Smith said. "I certainly wasn't ready to leave without seeing any of my kids again."

The Lost Generation And Long-Term Effects

It’s a struggle to keep current music students engaged, but it’s a completely new challenge to get more kids involved. Recruitment requires getting instruments into the hands of fourth graders and presenting the allure of a polished, performing ensemble—hurdles made higher by COVID.

Lackluster recruitment will have damaging effects on the future of music education, says Robert W. Smith, a composer, arranger and professor at Troy University, who has written hundreds of works for high school-level ensembles.

"We cannot have a lost generation of musicians, and we’re about to have it," Smith says.

If too few young musicians join band, orchestra and choir programs, the ensembles will see dwindling numbers in each subsequent year, all the way up to college groups.

"This is like aftershocks of an earthquake or second and third waves of a tsunami," Smith says.

Current music students also face the loss of competition and adjudication—third-party feedback that lends itself toward improvement. Many in-person music competitions have been canceled for the fall. On the upside, some organizations have offered virtual adjudication, where students and ensembles can send in their performances for assessment.

But the long-term effects aren’t all bad. Timmons insists that it’s only shifting focus for COVID-era students to prepare for a more viable music career—one that isn’t totally based on performance (though still valuable), but digital skills.

"If you’re going to be successful in music, you have to have a basic understanding of how digital audio works, even if you’re a classical-style player," Timmons says. "You gotta have an understanding. If we can teach them how to use a digital audio workstation, even if it’s some kind of cloud-based thing, recording themselves and then as a chamber ensemble recording their own product, we’re kind of unlocking skills."

All of this means that music educators are getting even more creative than before, out of necessity.

"Music teachers by nature are problems solvers. It’s what we do," Timmons says. "Listen, troubleshoot, feedback, adjustment, listen, troubleshoot, does that sound good? This is just another problem to solve. It’s just a little more problematic than fixing the intonation of a chord."

Marching Six Feet Apart: How High School Marching Bands Are Coping With The Pandemic

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[From left]: Bartees Strange, Anjimile and Jordana Nye. Photos courtesy of Julia Leiby, Maren Celest & Grand Jury Music

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What's It Like To Release A Debut During COVID? bartees-strange-anjimile-more-what-its-release-debut-album-pandemic

Bartees Strange, Anjimile & More On What It's Like To Release A Debut Album In A Pandemic

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A variety of rising artists sit down to discuss the unusual and inopportune circumstances of releasing a debut record during COVID, and what it takes to make the best of an impossible situation
Mike Hilleary
GRAMMYs
Oct 27, 2020 - 1:36 pm

Video-chatting through her phone, Wichita-based singer/songwriter Jordana Nye shows me a tattoo she recently got on her right forearm. Written in small red ink is a single word: "numb." "I feel like I've just been kind of numb throughout the whole thing—like my tattoo," she says. Laughing at herself, almost as an aside, she quickly adds, "The decisions you make when you're in quarantine."

The "whole thing" Nye is referencing is of course the increasingly fragile state of the music industry as a result of the coronavirus pandemic, a global health crisis that has in just a few short months forced the closure of concert venues across the country, the cancelation of festivals and tours, and manifested an overwhelming sense of uncertainty for the untold number of musical artists that make recording and performing songs their livelihood. While established, high-profile acts such as Bruce Springsteen, Lady Gaga, and BTS are fully capable of releasing a new album in the middle of a volatile and complicated environment and experience little to no impact on their financial bottom line and cultural cachet, those like Nye, who only just made her first steps into the industry with the release of her debut album Classical Notions of Happiness in March, are finding themselves mentally and professionally hobbled at the exact moment they are trying to introduce themselves to the greater music listening community.

In addition to Nye (who has followed Classical Notions of Happiness with the EP Something to Say and has a second EP … To You scheduled for release in December), a variety of rising artists, including Christian Lee Hutson (Beginners), Anjimile (Giver Taker), Bartees Strange's Bartees Cox Jr. (Live Forever), and Nation of Language frontman Ian Devaney (introduction, Prescence) all sat down to discuss the unusual and inopportune circumstances of releasing a debut record during COVID, and what it takes to make the best of an impossible situation.

The Initial Shock

Jordana Nye: I kind of went through like the worst depression. I mean, you just gotta keep swimming. It's hard to sometimes. But you get medicine, get therapy, talk about stuff. That's what I did, and it helped a lot. I couldn't even do anything for maybe three months straight. It was the worst.

Ian Devaney: It was kind of disbelief, especially when I realized how long it would go on and I realized what that would do to small and mid-sized venues. I was like, even when we do come back from this, the landscape is just gonna be so totally different. What does this mean as far as these businesses as independent hubs in the community? But my brain also just zoomed out to the corporate consolidation of touring above the D.I.Y. level basically. Are the only people who are going to be able to keep their venues open the ones who aren't as artist-friendly?

Bartees Cox Jr.: After we released my EP Say Goodbye to Pretty Boy, it was crazy. We got invited to play this WNYC soundcheck live show thing on March 12. And then we also had a show in New York on March 13. And this was when the shit was really going down in New York. And we were there, we played the thing, and we were all like, "Dang, this looks like it's gonna get really serious." And then after the EP came out, my team and I were like, "Well, do we just not do anything for a year and a half? We have momentum now. We should just ride this and keep writing." And that was just it, let's just follow the wave. It's working right now. So why why stop, you know?

Read More: Anjimile Opens Up On 'Giver Taker,' Sobriety, Identifying As Trans & More

The Road Is Closed

Christian Lee Hutson: Just from my perspective, the thing that seems to help debut artists the most is supporting other artists on tour, and that element has been completely taken out of the picture. Having your name tied to whatever the act is you're opening for and getting a chance to be in front of new people that might not have heard you on whatever streaming playlist, that aspect is probably the most damaging.

Ian Devaney: I've always been someone who feels like Nation of Language captures more people through the live show. And so when it became clear that we weren't going to be touring for a long time, I was like, "Oh, I guess we're doomed. I guess we'll put these things out and maybe some people listen to them, and then it will just fade away and we'll get on with the next thing and wait. But I was very shocked and flattered that the record started doing much better than I ever thought. That was very exciting. I feel very grateful for that.

Bartees Cox Jr.: I'm glad that we put Live Forever out now, instead of right at the beginning of the pandemic, because I don't think people knew what the f**k was going on in March. I saw some bands, put some records out that were really good in February and January who had huge tours booked all summer. I feel like this really hit them in the chest. That just takes so much like gas and energy out of you.

Ian Devaney: We were three shows into a tour, when they were like, "OK, everyone has to go home." It wasn't just disbelief that a dangerous thing was happening, but disbelief from the whiplash of the fact that we were about to be on the road for a month. But now, I'm back in my apartment. There was confusion and then, yeah, just real sadness of not knowing when I'm gonna get to do this again.

Christian Lee Hutson: Doing my first real headline tour, that was supposed to happen. I was supposed to on it right now, actually. In June I was also going to tour with one of my favorite bands, The Magnetic Fields. I was excited to spend a month with them. Those are two things I feel like, "Oh, man, those would have been cool." And hopefully, in a world where we're safer, those things can still happen.

Read More: Bartees Strange On 'Live Forever' & Why "It Shouldn't Be Weird To See Black Rock Bands"

Ian Devaney: I was really looking forward to playing the Seattle show on our canceled tour. KEXP seemed like the first radio station that consistently was reaching out to us and playing us on a regular basis, and we kind of developed a close relationship with them. And to me they've always been sort of one of the gatekeepers of like, "Oh, I'm in this level now. KEXP knows about my band." And so, them just being excited for us to come and us getting the sense that people just driving around in their cars during the day were hearing our music—and that being such a strange thing to wrap our heads around—it felt like we were gonna show up and be like, "We've arrived."

Jordana Nye: I was going on my first tour. I felt unprepared. I was also really nervous. And then when the COVID stuff started, there was a surreal moment where I was like, "What? I was just about to do something that could impact my life in such a big way and now it's gone." I was told there was gonna be hotels.

Christian Lee Hutson: Not touring is a huge change in my life in general. I've been touring with other people or just on my own for the last 11 years in my life. So to not do it at the one time I've finally released an album and not be doing it feels hilarious.

Bartees Cox Jr.: I keep telling myself, "It's just delayed. You will get to play the record for years. It will always exist." It won't be the same, but I also think when shows open up, people are gonna be really hyped to go to shows. The bottom line is, it'll be okay. Again, I have no choice. It's hard to like dwell on that. I knew that would be the case, before I put it out.

Fiscal Feasibility

Anjimile: I would describe it as not an ideal time, but I also have never monetized like my music career in a major way. It's not like, "Oh, no, all this money I usually make is gone!" [Laughs.]

Christian Lee Hutson: My wife and I are both living on unemployment and savings right now and just kind of hold on as long as we can, just hoping that touring can come back before we're in a crippling amount of debt.

Ian Devaney: The unemployment insurance is currently supporting me. When we left for tour the restaurant I was working at I said, "I understand if you won't have a space to me when I get back," but they were like, "We I think we'll be able to work the schedule," and I thought, "Perfect." But then the reason we came back was because everything was shutting down. And so I got an email suggesting we should all file for an appointment, and we'll see what happens.

Jordana Nye: At least I have my job back in Wichita. I work at a brewing company called Norton's. They're super involved in live music and it's a great place. I was like a barback during the summer. And now I'm a dishwasher. It's humbling.

Team Building and Content Alternatives

Bartees Cox Jr.: I just feel sometimes [as a new artist] you're the only one that knows that you have something special, and you just gotta build around it. And then all of a sudden people just show up around you. You have a team and you have a plan. But you got to make the first step.

Anjimile: It definitely changed the scope and nature of the promotional cycle. When it became apparent that touring was not happening I was like, "OK, so I guess we'll have to get creative and do other things to generate and maintain interest in this record."

Christian Lee Hutson: I think everyone was just flying by the seat of their pants, like, "We'll do the best that we can do and we're just gonna do everything that we can as we think of it." Those were really the kind of conversations that were had. The funny thing about all of this is all you can do is throw your hands up and just do it, surrender yourself to it. And I feel like everyone has a label and Phoebe and me and my management, everyone has been pretty good at just being like, "Alright, we're just gonna roll with it."

Anjimile: I'm also working on building a team. I now have a booking agent. And I'm talking with managers for the first time and that's super exciting. I'm doing all these behind the scenes team building stuff.

Ian Devaney: We've actually, in the middle of the pandemic, gotten booking agents. And they were like, "This is weird, but we an tell people about the band for when things open back up. We can get your name into circulation of who's being considered for what." You can get the sense that they are ready to just throw us intensely on the road, and we are ready to do that as well.

Bartees Cox Jr.: Will Yip, who runs memory music, was just like, "This thing is super fresh. It's good no matter what. You got to just trust us." I was the most apprehensive because no one's ever cared about my music or anything I've ever done. So I was like, "Well, OK, if this is what you think, I trust you guys." And they were all just so passionate about it and they just worked so f**king hard. My publicist Jamie and manager Tim, they just really pushed the record really, really hard. Teams are so important. I didn't know how important they were until really this year, how much how much it helps to have a label and a manager and a publicist that love you and love your record, and are going to put in extra hours and go the extra mile. That was the difference-maker. I think that's why it didn't matter what was happening around us because yes, it's an election year, yes the world was literally ending, yeah there's a pandemic. But this record is f**king good. And it's not the first time a great record has come out when things are really bad.

Anjimile: I got hit up by a U.K. booking agency first, and they were like, "Hey, obviously, there's no touring happening right now, but we love your sound and we're looking into the future to see where you would fit in certain clubs, and we just want you on the team." The same thing happened with my new U.S. booking agent. She was like, "We've been following you for a couple years, seen your name everywhere. Booking doesn't really exists, but I want to work with you and get you on the team and we can talk about slowly building what a live Anjimile thing looks like."

Ian Devaney: I think part of it is letting fans know that we're not stopping. It often helps me emotionally invest in a band if I can believe that the band is really in it to keep moving. I don't know if that makes sense. People will email us or reach out through Bandcamp and things like that. And it's always just really nice to hear people's stories of how they've enjoyed the record.

Jordana Nye: My team taught me to just try to keep working and keep busy until we get a sense of what the hell is going to happen—and just release music because it's really all you can do. Anything you can do, you just have to do it.

Anjimile: I think the main idea for me is just galvanizing and continually engaging my social media presence. My social media numbers have climbed substantially as a result of this release, which is exciting. And not to sound like a f**king music industry business guy, but content is helpful, and so I'm just trying to create chill content without losing my mind. We're about to have a contest. We've got a video coming out. Hopefully people can sit at home and watch. I want to try and create content that folks can engage with at home. Part of our merch is boxers. We were like, "What about hats?" "Well, nobody's gonna see the hat." "What about fanny packs?" "Nobody's going anywhere." "OK. Boxers. People will be at home wearing them." We're just trying to be as creative as possible.

Jordana Nye: I've got some music video stuff in the works. There's a new one coming out that was filmed in my home of Wichita for "I Guess This is Life," and my best friend is in it with me. It's very, very sweet. And I can't wait for it to be out. But I'm also shooting a music video out here in L.A. for the track "Reason." It’s going to feature me walking an invisible dog on a leash. I'm f**king excited for that. I can't wait.

Ian Devaney: Our manager has been really kind of fantastic and diligent. In his mind there's still people who don't know the record. And so just because it came out in May, doesn't mean we're not going to keep working it as though everyone knows it, because they don't.

Mental Health Whiplash

Christian Lee Hutson: It's like, for debut artists, what do you have to compare it to?

Bartees Cox Jr.: I almost feel like more people are listening to music now than they were before, like really listening through albums, and really interacting with them.

Christian Lee Hutson: I think it would make me crazy to sit around and just be like, "Damn it, I spent all this time on this and of course when my record comes out, this is what happens." I mean, I'm actually kind of encouraged by the response to the album just in general, because I feel like it's such a weird time for music to come out and I'm happy that anyone has found it at all considering it's come out in the most turbulent year in recent memory. That aspect I feel positive about, like it was weirdly worth it, even though I'm not doing all of the things that I thought I would be doing a year ago.

Bartees Cox Jr.: I mean I've never had fans like I do now, and I'm doing all this during a pandemic.

Ian Devaney: In a strange way, I'm glad we're putting music out now. I feel like we are, as much as anyone can, engaging with the madness and sort of being defiant in the face of the madness and not giving up on trying to be creative and trying to dream big about what we can do in the future.

Anjimile: It feels surreal, but at the same time I've released music locally in Boston over the years. And nothing has ever come of that. And so releasing an album nationally with a label, I think my expectations were actually pretty low. Usually when I put out music nobody cares, you know? Why should they really care? And this time some people cared, and I was like, "Holy f**k." Even that that was beyond my expectations. And so I don't know, I'm just kind of trying to go with it. Because even though things feel weird, and at times, unfair and strange I don't know what is going to happen in the next three months, six months, nine months, right? I'm just cautiously cautiously optimistic about what will happen next. Because I do think that so far, things have actually happened right on time. Even though shit is really weird right now, and I don't know what's going to happen next, maybe something positive in my career will occur. Who knows?

Bartees Cox Jr.: I was talking to a friend about this. You look at these areas in music, or in America, like Vietnam War era music or these other big social phenomenon and the music that came from it, I think that one day people will look back on this quarantine pandemic era and think, "All these records came out during this weird ass time are interesting because of it."

What Comes Next

Bartees Cox Jr.: I was thinking that bigger artists that need bigger studios are gonna kind of be hamstrung by this where more D.I.Y. people can just be like, "Yeah, I'll write another record."

Jordana Nye: Going on tour, getting experienced would have helped my career a lot in way. But working on new music is also helping it.

Ian Devaney: For Nation of Language, we're planning on putting out a seven inch either like, December or January. So we've been working on two songs, as well as songs for the second record.

Anjimile: At this point, in the year, I have a lot of songs written, some which I think might be good. And so I'm just stacking up demos at the moment, trying to make sure I have like the juiciest tunes available.

Jordana Nye: I'm still just making music and content, and it kind of tells me that I can pretty much do anything that I set my mind to, which is comforting, especially in dire times when I feel like I'm not doing anything at all, and I feel like I'm a loser. People are digging the new stuff so I'm super excited for that, and makes me want to do more with different genres and just play around with them.

Bartees Cox Jr.: I'm gonna really take my time. I put out two records this year. I don't feel like I gotta like, hustle. I just gonna just keep working try to make some money and hold it down.

Christian Lee Hutson: I'm honestly just writing a lot and I am recording a lot of stuff at home. Early on in quarantine, I was just like, "Alright, in order to tell the days apart, I'm gonna record a different cover song for fun every day." So I did that for a while until I got bored of that. And now I'm just demoing and recording new stuff. It's the only thing I really know how to do. And I'm grateful that there's a lot of time to do it. Something I noticed observing other friends' album cycles in the pre-COVID world is the amount of time that they had to actually write and follow up their debuts is actually pretty slim, which I feel like I have a lot of time to accomplish that.

Capturing Los Angeles' COVID-Closed Venues

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Lisa Loeb

Photo courtesy of Lisa Loeb

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Quarantine Diaries: Lisa Loeb quarantine-diaries-lisa-loeb-celebrating-25-years-stay-i-missed-you-watching-rupauls

Quarantine Diaries: Lisa Loeb Is Celebrating 25 Years Of "Stay (I Missed You)" & Watching "RuPaul's Drag Race"

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The GRAMMY-winning '90s mainstay is also releasing a new music video featuring Michelle Branch, "Doesn't It Feel Good"
GRAMMYs
Sep 23, 2020 - 8:22 am

As the coronavirus/COVID-19 pandemic continues to rock the music industry, GRAMMY.com reached out to a few musicians to see how they were spending their days indoors. Today, GRAMMY-winning indie-pop/rock favorite Lisa Loeb shares her Quarantine Diary. Lisa Loeb's latest studio album A Simple Trick To Happiness is out now. Watch Lisa's new video, "Doesn't It Feel Good" featuring Michelle Branch and directed by Jessa Zapor-Gray, exclusively on GRAMMY.com below. 

[7:00 a.m.] I start off the day early before the kids get up, to feed my 19-year-old diabetic Tortie cat and give her insulin, drink a strong coffee (Lisa Loeb Wake Up! blend, of course, perfect flavor and strong with milk and sugar), Ezekiel Bread toast with almond butter and super fruit jelly, and a walk outside before the day begins. The sun shines pink through the window at the top of the stairs at my house in Los Angeles. You can see the sunscreen on my nose, because it’s early and I always wear my sunscreen, but was probably too tired to notice I didn’t finish blending.

[7:45 a.m.] I make the kids breakfast, something like bagels or pancakes, fruit, bacon, yogurt, and hope that they eat it before they get into their virtual classes.

[9:30 a.m.] while my 8-year-old, Emet, has a break, I take a tap class—distanced, in the back yard, with masks. I love walking, dance classes and strength training, most of which is happening online, but I finally moved the tap class into the back patio with a couple of like-minded moms. Connecting with humans, safely, set to music, really lightens things up. 

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[1:00 p.m.] After I make lunch, the kids go back to their virtual school. I stay in earshot of my son while trying to scoot into my office to answer a million emails and stay on top of the myriad projects I have going on: a new family friendly children's album, new songs for a new grown-up album, voice-over auditions, fan club vinyl signing of my 25th anniversary no. 1 song, "Stay (I Missed You)," which was also GRAMMY-nominated!

[4:00 p.m.] Later, after the kids are done with their school, I change clothes, turn on the bright lights, set up the gear, and start pre-recording events and concerts. There are so many virtual events happening all over the country: from voting events to women’s cancer and lupus, I’m honored to play all of them, and people have been reaching out to musicians a lot. Sometimes the events are live, but often they’re prerecorded, so I’ve become a pro with lighting, makeup, hair and audio, and really trying to get our wi-fi up to speed—literally. 

Sometimes I have fan club events online, watch-alongs, or live concerts, including two concerts in which I’ll be playing my entire Tails album acoustically on Sept. 26 on the LoopedLive app, to celebrate the 25th anniversary of its release. Here I am pre-recording a TV appearance for a Ziggy Marley duet that will air on the Kelly Clarkson show, then I’ll finish up with an appearance for a Hallmark special to honor Hero Dogs. 

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There’s usually a number of Cameo shout-out requests that have come in at this point for birthdays, anniversaries, or just uplifting message, and I try to squeeze them in before I make dinner for the kids. Or if I’m smart, order in Thai food!

[7:30 p.m.] After dinner, Emet watches part of an Avengers movie with my husband, Roey. I cuddle with my daughter, Lyla and our aforementioned cat, Sweetie McGee, while we eat ice cream with chocolate chips and watch "RuPaul’s Drag Race." 

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[8:30 p.m.] Then it’s up to bed to brush teeth, get in the PJs and read with each kid, if it’s not too late, and then time to finish up some work, clean the kitchen and get in bed to read. I’m an avid reader, and during the distancing orders, I’ve been able to read more than ever. Then, time for sleep, and to set the alarm for the next day to see what it will bring.

Making Heads Or 'Tails' Of Success: Lisa Loeb Celebrates 25 Years Of Her Major-Label Debut Album

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Michael Tenneson and Kevin Woodley

Photo courtesy of D.J.C. Records

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Colorado Inmates Find Faith On 'Territorial' LP play-again-colorado-inmates-pour-heart-hope-faith-territorial-lp

Play That Again: Colorado Inmates Pour Heart, Hope & Faith Into 'Territorial' LP

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How a group of Colorado inmates at Territorial Correctional Facility came together to defy their own prejudices and limits and record an album for the ages
Matthew Daddona
GRAMMYs
Sep 9, 2020 - 9:14 am

In 2014, Michael Tenneson, 60, confined to prison for multiple life sentences, played a blues progression on his Fender Stratocaster that wept through a low-wattage amplifier. The progression would eventually become the backbone to "Mama's Cryin," a track on the soon-to-be released LP Territorial, the first album to be solely written by incarcerated individuals, but at the time it was a riff that, like other pursuits in prison, was more likely to be forgotten than salvaged. As the tune faded into yet another improbable fit and start, Tenneson heard a voice call out to him: "Hey man, play that again."

The voice belonged to Kevin Woodley, an overweight Black man confined to a wheelchair and whom Tenneson had seen before but never talked to. When Tenneson played it again, Woodley wailed an improvisational vocal that turned heads inside the small room. Tenneson didn't need to hear any more to convince himself that Woodley was a supremely talented singer with the right amount of soul and world-weariness. "I made him promise me that if we ever got a chance to play music again, we'd do it together," Tenneson said.

That opportunity came in 2018, nearly four years to the day when Fury Young, 31, an ardent activist with an easygoing exterior, wrote a letter to Tenneson, who was laid up in the infirmary due to an illness. Young, the founder of Die Jim Crow and the label DJC Records, was at the time focusing on Die Jim Crow being a one-off concept album and had heard about Tenneson through a mutual friend, Claudia Whitman. Whitman, the founder and CEO of the National Capital Crime Assistance Network and an advocate for the abolishment of death penalties, had told Young about Tenneson's musical range and abilities. "The only problem," she told him, "is that he’s white."

Fury Young is white, too, and culturally identifies as Jewish. It was his 2013 reading of Michelle Alexander’s breakout book The New Jim Crow that inspired him to do more—to do something—about racial injustice and inequality. Coming to terms with his somewhat privileged life in New York City and the fact that, unlike some of his friends, he hadn’t been to prison, he decided to provide help—in the form of music—to incarcerated and formerly incarcerated individuals.

That Tenneson is white wasn't a dead end for Young, but it did make him wonder whether his services could have been better utilized by minorities who had been unilaterally affected by a prison system mottled by systemic racism. But he also wondered if Tenneson, with his experience as a multi-instrumentalist, could provide a bridge to other musicians and walks of life.

Tenneson, reading Young’s letter in the infirmary and trying to parse out the scribbled sentences and messy handwriting, recalled that day with Kevin Woodley, that diffident-turned-soaring voice from five years ago, and decided that he needed to stoke up the band that never was. 

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Kevin Woodley (Left) and Michael Tennesen (Right)
Photo courtesy of DJC

As its name suggests, Territorial Correctional Facility was created when Colorado was not yet a state but a territory, a lawless outcropping of land in the West that saw violent eruptions between Native American tribes and white settlers who were seeking land expansion. The original Territorial prison opened in 1871, five years before Colorado officially became a state, and grew in tandem with its municipality, Cañon City; by 1899, the penitentiary that originally held 50 cells had added two more buildings and had grown to 400 inmates. Today, Cañon City, among its popular Riverwalk and numerous recreation areas, claims Territorial as one of its primary income generators. It is one of seven prisons located in or around the city.

The history of Territorial's racism, displacement of native peoples from their lands, and public lynching—capital punishment wasn't abolished in Colorado until 2020—is not lost on Michael Tenneson, who has spent the last 40 years within the United States prison system and has witnessed the fractioned relationship between inmates and justice-seekers. Having grown up in foster homes in rural Wisconsin where he was molested and abused, Tenneson matured into burglarizing homes and a life of heavy drinking and drug use. During one night of drinking, a break-in to a drug dealer's home turned into a triple homicide. Then, on the run for that, and partying in Colorado, he killed two other people after a poker game turned contentious. He described himself back then as having a twisted worldview, particularly when it came to other races. His upbringing had made him narrow-minded and prejudiced, and he was frequently explosive and at odds with others and imperious when it came to his own self-worth. In his early 20s, he was saved by a Black Marine after getting beat up outside of a bar near Camp Pendleton. His outlook began to take a turn then but, ironically, it was prison life that altered the paradigm, forcing him to confront his bigotries and bad choices in a space that provided no escape nor outlet for distraction.

By the time Fury Young was approved to record a full LP at Territorial in December 2017, Tenneson and Woodley's relationship had blossomed into a friendship, to the extent that Young now refers to Woodley as the John Lennon to Tenneson's Paul McCartney: where Tenneson is affable and often boastful, Woodley is pensive and shy. Woodley's body is wracked with cancer, diabetes and lupus, which have affected his mobility and respiratory health, but his hands remain calloused and strong, a reminder of the boxer that he once was. Like his hands, he uses his voice as a powerful tool, but as recording time approached, Woodley had second thoughts about the project. He doubted his voice's range, that his tone was not what it used to be. "You have a better voice than any of these guys will ever have," Tenneson told him. "You have a story to tell. That's a powerful thing." In the past, Tenneson might've bristled at Woodley, but now he had found a reason to defend his new friend from the same insecurity that had once consumed him. 

Tenneson and Woodley's vision was to tell a narrative about the sometimes-mournful and sometimes-redemptive tale of self-discovery in prison. Indeed, Territorial, the album, just like Territorial the prison, features contributions from multiple prisoners of varying ages, races, religions and musicianship. As a hybrid of musical genre and perspective, it is the collective story of universal struggle and search for meaning amid the personal recollections of its contributors.

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Kevin Woodley
Photo courtesy of DJC

Over the four consecutive days that Fury Young had recorded the album inside the makeshift band room—where he brought in all of the recording equipment including light stands, PVC pipes and moving blankets to dull sounds—the coterie of newfound bandmates—led by Tenneson, Woodley and another singer Dane Newton—found themselves attempting to make the music feel organic while also being held to a tight deadline. The group had had only practiced once a week for a few weeks prior to Young's arrival and had to contend not just with the egos inside the band room (as they might have expected) but with those outside the door. Young recalled numerous times in which other prisoners would pop their head in to inspect what was occurring within the 17 x 15 room, some of them envious that this group had received such a creative opportunity. Young reported that even the guards, though initially straight-faced and "on duty," eventually got into the spirit. By the last day, Young recalled, one of the guards helped provide a supplemental sound effect for one of the tracks by controlling the gate that let prisoners in and out of one of the areas. 

The first track recorded was "Mama's Cryin," the rueful blues song that Tenneson and Woodley had concocted five years earlier but that now had the backing of a full band. In the song, Woodley croons "Children dying / Mama's cryin' / cuz daddy's lying on the floor / bullets flying," over vibrato, reggae-tuned guitar tones. Tenneson, speaking to me from within a phone station in Arkansas Valley in Colorado (he has since been transferred), choked up when recalling the profundity of the message and its commentary on current events. As a white man who has killed a person of color, Tenneson harbors guilt about his past; when he hears about police brutality or white-on-black crime he feels "torn up inside." The only redemption he could find—he'd considered suicide—was in religion. Though he prefers the word spirituality to religion, he was baptized in prison several years back. "Religion and spirituality was at the core of our project," he said.

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Dane Newton
Photo courtesy of Fury Young

Before the recording sessions began, one of the project's contributors, Philip Archuleta, who goes by Archie, performed a traditional Native American ceremony with eagle feathers in which he "asked malicious spirits to leave." He and another Native American, "Lefty," brushed each performer with the feather and uttered a prayer. "I felt some energy there," Tenneson said of the experience.

Archuleta grew up in Colorado among Dakota and Shoshone tribes and has served 22 years of a 40-year sentence. "The problem is," he said, "I keep getting into trouble." Although the Territorial sessions were recorded before COVID-19 swept through the world and caused widespread panic within prison populations, Archuleta told me that the recent safety measures have affected his mental wellbeing. He and other Native Americans have not been able to go to the sweat lodge or allowed to partake in peace pipe-smoking ceremonies. The medical facility has become inaccessible save for the treatment of life-threatening injuries, he said. In the meantime, the lack of stress-relieving procedures that his spirituality granted him has contributed to confrontations with other prisoners. "But this has been a struggle all my life," Archuleta said of his heritage. "It's like we’re a novelty at first, we're told that we're interesting. Then we get treated worse." If the recording of Territorial gave him an opportunity, though a limited one, it was the chance to feel that Christianity versus spirituality versus agnosticism wasn’t as important as the fight between free and not free.

Before the band room was reopened at Territorial Correctional Facility, before even Tenneson had received the letter from Fury Young, concerts at Territorial were hosted in the gym once a month. Like a bare-bones "Battle of the Bands," in which the performers were barely distinguishable from their audience members, Tenneson had performed with different iterations of bands and musicians, the entire time realizing that neither the group nor the venue itself was permanent. In prison—especially in prison—places and their functions are often abandoned or swapped out for projects that will beget more money. In his time within the system, Tenneson has seen a hobby shop at Arkansas Valley (where he was before Territorial and would later return to) closed down when the budget could no longer be supported; he has seen art and beautification projects lose momentum and stall; and he witnessed the closing of the band room after a Labor Day escape in 2018 tightened security and precautions around the facility. But during those days in the gymnasium—where tunes were recalled and imparted, where lineups were tested, where grace was a guitar and microphone—possibilities felt endless.

During one of these sessions in 2018, Tenneson had put Jojo Martinez, 40, on the spot. Known as a rapper outside of prison and having rediscovered faith and rap inside of it, Martinez took the opportunity to rap to the expectant crowd. Tenneson was impressed, same as he had been when he heard Woodley first sing or Dane Newton play keyboards, even if he had come from the opposite pole of rap and hip-hop music ("I got corrupted," Tenneson said of his switch in interest from jazz, which he studied as a kid, to rock and blues when he first heard Jimi Hendrix, and traded his savings in for a Stratocaster). Martinez, who goes by "Bizz," was brought into the fold to contribute his verbal talents. "I put my whole heart into it," Bizz said, whose experience with the others inspired him to continue to chase his musical passion. Bizz is set to be released to a halfway house in October and has used his time quarantining at Sterling Correctional Facility (he has since left Territorial) to work on music that is both spiritual and politically charged. Territorial blurs the line between faith-based messages and political ones, offering a reading, and for Bizz, a sign, that the two can be twined.

The George Floyd protests and subsequent reactions that have confounded governments have further incentivized Fury Young's mission. In addition to raising funds through GoFundMe (Die Jim Crow is a nonprofit that is incumbent upon private and public donations), Young has achieved momentum via the protests that have occurred around the world. In June, Die Jim Crow released BL Shirelle's Assata Troi (Shirelle is also the Deputy Director of Die Jim Crow). Shirelle, 33, spent 10 years behind bars beginning at age 18. This year marks the first time since being a minor that she is free from prison and parole obligations. Assata Troi has received rave reviews and has affirmed Shirelle as a pseudo-elder statesman (she is still young, after all) for those who have seen both sides of the system. Today, she and Young keep up correspondence with incarcerated or formerly incarcerated people with whom they have several upcoming projects.

Bizz is conscious that a different world than the one he left awaits him when he gets out. He is also aware that his switch to faith-based rap has its challenges. Still, he is confident that his message will transcend this bifurcated moment, where FOX and CNN "are the biggest cons in the world." Though television is limited at Sterling, Bizz gets flashes of news media—both conservative and liberal channels—and uses these bits of charged impartiality for material for his lyrics. He also followed the coronavirus news with bated breath, especially once realizing Sterling hadn't reacted to the crisis in a way that was timely and responsible. He described an environment in which there were few masks and virtually no equipment to help aid recovery, where 100 or so guys were packed into a small day room at one time. "The largest outbreak was in this facility," he said. "They tested everyone and I tested negative, then, a couple days later I lost my sense of smell." Once diagnosed with COVID-19, Bizz was thrown into "the hole" rather than a recovery unit where he suffered for weeks. As of May 2018, 593 state inmates had tested positive for the virus and two Sterling inmates had died. There is currently a class action lawsuit pending, backed by the ACLU, claiming that Colorado's governor and his Department of Corrections aren't doing enough to prevent coronavirus outbreaks throughout the Colorado prison system (two of the plaintiffs are housed at Sterling).

Amid the urgent need for masks and other PPE at prisons, Die Jim Crow has organized a GoFundMe for incarcerated individuals (many prisons have denied donations or have not responded to Die Jim Crow's queries), and as of August has raised over $21,000. This has amounted to over 23,000 masks. 

In preparing for an early 2021 release of Territorial, Fury Young will also be publishing into a different world than the one he became aware of in 2013. The frequent instances of fatalities and injuries at the hands of police have received more widespread and immediate attention since the likes of Trayvon Martin in 2014 and Freddie Gray in 2015, though the coronavirus has slowed attempts of reconciliation in the form of large-scale events, peace talks, and—in the case of the power and vitality of the arts—live music.

For the musicians who recorded Territorial, for whom playing the album to a live audience will forever be a pipe dream—memories of the session persist. Tenneson has since lost touch with Woodley, whose illnesses have caused numerous complications, and Dane Newton, whose vocals on the final track "America the Merciful" offer an apologetic love letter to the country that has given and taken so much. "America the merciful will forgive my sins again," he bellows, "I don’t want to die chasing the wind." Tenneson, in his own thematic companion piece, "Holy Rain," in which he implores to his savior in gravelly mysticism to "wash me clean lord / with your blessed holy rain" before his mournful humming is drowned out by careening saxophone, bass and electric guitar, is making an argument for the legacy of his bandmates, for their project: that whether or not their music is heard or whether it ever awards them acclaim or freedom, it will—finally, once and for all—wash them anew. "Music is one of the things I can give back," Tenneson said. "It's all I can give."

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Dua Lipa

Dua Lipa

Photo: Hugo Comte

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Dua Lipa Talks 'Club Future Nostalgia' dua-lipa-club-future-nostalgia-interview-madonna-blackpink-gwen-stefani

Dua Lipa Talks 'Club Future Nostalgia,' Working With Madonna And How She's Navigating The Music Industry In The COVID-19 Era

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The GRAMMY-winning pop superstar tells GRAMMY.com about the creative process behind her newly released remix album, the project's high-profile collaborations and the challenges of releasing music during the coronavirus age
Lucas Villa
GRAMMYs
Aug 29, 2020 - 5:33 pm

Club Future Nostalgia is open for business. As clubs and bar spaces around the world remained closed during the COVID-19 era, British pop superstar Dua Lipa has created a virtual club experience with Club Future Nostalgia, her newly released remix album she developed and curated alongside Chicago DJ/producer The Blessed Madonna while in quarantine.

Released Friday (Aug. 28), Club Future Nostalgia remixes all the tracks off her latest album, Future Nostalgia, which Lipa dropped in late March just as the coronavirus pandemic began to spread widely around the world. The remix album, which features contributions from fellow Brits like Mark Ronson, Joe Goddard, Paul Woolford and Jacques Lu Cont as well as American and international electronic DJs/producers like Jayda G, Masters At Work, Yaeji and others, reimagines Future Nostalgia into a nearly hour-long set that spans '80s soul and '90s house music to today's Lipa-led disco-pop revival. 

Other artists featured on the album include the Queen Of Pop, Madonna, and hip-hop icon Missy Elliott, who both guest on The Blessed Madonna's funky "Levitating" remix, as well as Gwen Stefani and K-pop princesses BLACKPINK.

The album's unique creative setting was central to the creation of Club Future Nostalgia, Lipa says. 

"It was the perfect opportunity to create something like this," Lipa tells GRAMMY.com by phone. "I had what felt like all the time in the world, and everyone's at home. It doesn't really happen so often that you get the opportunity to collaborate with all these incredible producers and artists. I think it was of-the-moment that I was able to snap everyone up, especially The Blessed Madonna, who would've been on tour by [that] time. This album really came to be because of the current climate."

Five years ago this month, Lipa launched her career with the release of her debut single, "New Love." It would take more singles to build some buzz and nearly two years for her 2017 self-titled debut album to see the light of day. After a slow-burn success, she wowed the world with her 2017 breakthrough hit, "New Rules." Never limiting her musical horizons, she next delved into dance music via collaborations with Calvin Harris ("One Kiss") and Silk City ("Electricity"), Mark Ronson and Diplo's supergroup duo. The latter garnered her a GRAMMY win for Best Dance Recording in 2019. That same night, she also took home the coveted Best New Artist GRAMMY.

With the breakout success of Future Nostalgia further solidifying Lipa's name in the music industry, she's reached a point in her career where she can do as she pleases. She now has a Billboard Hot Latin Songs chart-topper under her belt with "Un Día (One Day)," a collaboration with J Balvin, Bad Bunny and Tainy. The sky's the limit for Lipa, but what she wants most is for her fans to find joy in Club Future Nostalgia. 

Dua Lipa chatted with GRAMMY.com about the creative process behind Club Future Nostalgia, the album's high-profile remixes and collaborations and the challenges of releasing music in the age of COVID-19.

How did you manage to get Madonna on the "Levitating" remix?

It was very much a manifestation thing. I was thinking out loud. I was just talking with my manager and I was like, "You know who would sound really good on this? Madonna." And he said, "You know, we could try. We could send it to her and see if she likes it." She responded and she was so down. I was over the moon. I couldn't believe that she wanted to do this record with me. I'm such a fan. It was really exciting.

How did Gwen Stefani get involved with the "Physical" remix?

Oh my God! She is my queen. She's just amazing. When I got to interview her for "Jimmy Kimmel [Live!]," she was such a ball of light and energy. It was one of those things that just happened by chance. We had the "Hollaback Girl" sample on the remix album and we were contacting her and her team to get it cleared. I was like, "While we're at it, we should just ask her if she wants to be on the record." She was so down. She loved the "Physical" remix that Mark Ronson did. She was totally up for jumping on it. When I was waiting for her vocal to come in, I was jumping around like a 5-year-old. I was so excited.

"Physical" sounds like it was made for Gwen. She sounds great on it.

Yeah, she snapped! [Laughs.]

What was the experience like to work with BLACKPINK on "Kiss And Make Up"?

On the original version, it was really cool and fun. I had written "Kiss And Make Up" probably a year and a bit before it came out. It didn't quite fit with my album at the time, and I wanted to put it out, but I wanted it to be really special. 

I did a show in Seoul. [BLACKPINK's] Jennie and Lisa came to the show to hang out. We had an absolute blast. Immediately after hanging out with them, I was like, "I have a crazy idea. I have this song and I would love for you guys to be on it." They were so up for it and they went in the studio and translated the lyrics. It worked out so perfectly. It's one of my favorite collaborations that I've done.

The album comes with an extensive animated visualizer. Where did the idea for that come from?

Being in quarantine and lockdown, I had to think outside the box. While I was preparing the "Hallucinate" video, which I ended up doing an animation for with the animator Lisha Tan, who is amazing; it was so exciting to do that with her. I thought, "What a perfect time to try to get as many incredible and fun animators to bring their own world with every song." That's what we did with the remix album, where every producer and DJ threw their flavor and take on it. I thought it was the perfect pairing to create an animated visual video. 

Again, during this time, when would I ever be able to have the opportunity to work with so many incredible animators and artists? It's been an amazing thing to see so many people come together to create this record. A lot of time, effort and love has been put into it. It's been a fun way to reimagine the album.

There's a disco-pop revival happening in music right now. Future Nostalgia is one of the albums leading the way. Why did you decide to take that direction?

Thank you. That's such a compliment for me, especially from my first album moving into my next. I wanted to do something that felt fresh and new, something that touched on a memory, something that always rings so true to me, especially in my childhood. To be able to recreate that in a modern way was an absolute dream for me. I'm so happy that I stood by and honed in on that sound that I love. It makes me feel so good. I'm really proud of this record because I feel like I found my [footing] as an artist and as a songwriter. I really wrote things that I absolutely love. It's definitely a milestone for me in my career.

Future Nostalgia was also one of the first major albums to be released at the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic. What was that experience like?

At times, especially a couple days before, it was scary. It was a time of uncertainty that I was like, "I don't even know if people need my music right now." I was scared that maybe it won't get received well or that it would come across as tone-deaf because there was so much suffering. 

In the preparation to put it out, I remembered that I created this record to get away from any pressures or anxieties from the outside world. The album made me feel happy and want to dance. That persuaded me, like maybe this would at least get people's minds off what's going on and make them want to dance and feel happy. 

I'm grateful for the way people responded and the messages and videos I was sent. All the love that was pouring in—I was so happy. It still makes me so excited when people are like, "Thank you, because it was like the soundtrack to all our workouts and motivated us to stay fit during this quarantine." [Laughs.]

What was the experience like to work with J Balvin, Bad Bunny and Tainy on "Un Día (One Day)"?

It was really fun. They have such great energies, such lovely boys. What I love to do with the collaborations I do is always something that people don't expect me to do, something that's a little bit outside of my comfort zone. I love to experiment. I love to surprise people and learn so much from my peers. It was such a great experience. I love the song. 

I feel like it's another one that when I listen to it, it immediately transports me somewhere really sunny and warm. I feel like I'm by the beach when I listen to it. It was exciting for me to write to a track that I wouldn't naturally do for my own project. I think that's the magic of music and collaborations at this time. Everything is so genre-bending.

It's been five years since you released your debut single, "New Love." What have you learned about yourself in that time?

I think from five years ago, I really did stick to everything I believed in the beginning. And that was sticking to my vision, talking about my stories and being open and standing by things that I believe in and never backing down and believing in my art. That's something that I told myself five years ago that I stuck by. I always want to grow and learn so much. I really stuck to those words so much, so I feel like it helped me and guided me so much during this process.

You won the GRAMMY for Best New Artist in 2019. How did you feel when that happened?

Oh my God! I literally think I blacked out in that moment because I had to go back and listen to my speech afterwards. I was so nervous that all I did was "umm" and "ahh" because I just couldn't believe it. Like my whole world just exploded right in front of my eyes. It was the most insane thing to have ever happened. To be recognized by my peers and to have the opportunity to be up there was absolutely incredible and surreal. It definitely pushed me to be better and do better and work harder and really stick by what I believe in. I'm really grateful. I wanted to prove that I deserved it. 

You have always used your platform to support the LGBTQ+ community. Do you have a message for your LGBTQ+ fans?

Absolutely. I always believed that everyone deserves to live their truth. Tomorrow isn't promised, so we have to be as loud as we can and be proud. There's so much love and support, and I'm right here for you. I'm here every step of the way, and I love you. Thank you for everything that the LGBTQ+ community has done for me. I couldn't have done it without them.

Dua Lipa Reflects On Her Journey To Pop Stardom: "Absolutely Mental"

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