Category: Music

Offset returned with his second single of 2025 as he reunited with JID for the menacing “Bodies,” which debuted on this week’s Billboard Hot 100 at No. 72.

The Atlanta rapper celebrated his first Hot 100 entry as a lead artist since 2023 with a post to X on Tuesday (July 1). “Let’s Go!!!” he wrote. “Bodies” compiled 6.6 million official U.S. streams, according to Luminate, in the week ending June 26.

Fans appear to be vibing with Set and JID’s latest release while chiming in on social media and reacting to the chart accolade. “Should’ve been top 30 at least,” one person said.

“‘Bodies’ is one of them ones I had to really take my time with,” Offset said in a press release. “It’s about standing on who you are, coming out the mud, and being confident in the face of adversity. I’m always evolving, and I don’t fit in a box as an artist.”

The Drowning Pool sample should sound familiar to longtime wrestling fans, as the band’s “Bodies” was the ECW theme song in the mid-2000s and served as the official track of 2001’s Summerslam.

It’s not the first time Offset and JID have joined forces for a Hot 100 hit. The duo previously teamed up for “Danger (Spiders),” which reached No. 95 on the chart in June 2023.

Offset is currently in album mode and he posted to Instagram in May that his project has been turned in to the label. Set will have plenty to get off his chest as the LP will mark his first since splitting from Cardi B (Cardi filed for divorce from Offset for the second time in August 2024).

There’s still no release date for the project, but Offset might have his eyes on getting a feature from Sabrina Carpenter after he revealed the pop star is his new celebrity crush.

Set’s been busy on stage as he performed at Milwaukee’s Summerfest Bash on June 27, and the Migos rapper stole the show when he brought a handicapped fan on stage with him for an unforgettable rendition of “Walk It Talk It.”

An interview with country musician Keith Urban ended abruptly after a radio interviewer asked the four-time Grammy winner about Urban’s wife, actress Nicole Kidman, filming “love scenes” in her movies.

Urban did a Zoom interview with Australia’s Mix 102.3 radio show “Hayley & Max in the Morning” hosts Max Burford and Hayley Pearson on July 1. Audio from that interview was shared, and during a segment of the show the hosts called “Wall of Truth,” they told Urban that they had a “very tricky” question to ask him.

Burford said, “When I was coming up with something to ask you, Keith Urban, if you happen to play this game, the first thing I thought of, with your beautiful wife Nicole Kidman being in so many great movies, TV shows all the time, I watched a movie with her and Zac Efron recently, [2024’s] A Family Affair.”

Urban responded kindly, “Oh yeah, that’s a good one.” Burford then asked Urban, “And I thought, ‘What does Keith Urban think when he sees his beautiful wife with beautiful younger men like Zac Efron, having these beautiful love scenes on TV and radio?”

At that point, the connection seems to go silent, with the host then questioning, “Oh, why has that happened?…what’s happened here?” Another, unspecified voice, then says, “He’s disconnected from Zoom.”

Pearson asks, “Did he just hang up on us?” The unidentified voice says, “I think his team [allegedly] hung up on us because they didn’t want us to ask that question.” Pearson then added that, “He doesn’t like the personal stuff. I knew that would happen.”

According to People, a source noted that it was not Urban who ended the call. “Keith did not hang up, period,” the source reportedly told People, adding, “He doesn’t host his Zoom interviews. This is a complete nothingburger.”

A rep for Urban declined to comment on the incident when reached by Billboard.

Urban is currently on tour, with upcoming shows in Denver (July 17), Salt Lake City (July 18) and Nampa, Idaho (July 19).

Benson Boone has backflipped his way into any number of American hearts over the last couple years, as his star has continued to rise through the release of 2024 smash hit “Beautiful Things,” its parent album Fireworks & Rollerblades, and any number of subsequent high-profile award show and festival performances.

This week, that ascent continues with the chart bow of his sophomore LP — appropriately titled American Heart — at No. 2 on the Billboard 200, with its two first singles (“Sorry I’m Here for Someone Else” and “Mystical Magical”) also ranking within the top 25 of the Billboard Hot 100. But the critics have not been as receptive as general audiences, having largely derided and dismissed American Heart upon its arrival.

Is the album’s debut performance better or worse than we might have expected? And is the criticism fair? Billboard staffers answer these questions and more below.

1. Benson Boone’s American Heart debuts at No. 2 with 61,000 equivalent album units moved. Is that higher, lower, or about what you would have expected?

Stephen Daw: The album’s placement on the chart feels right about on track for where I expected it to land, even if the number itself feels a little bit lower than I thought it could be. I figured American Heart could easily get close to six figures after Benson became a household name in the year since Fireworks & Rollerblades. But, the fact that this album earned a few thousand more units than his last in its first week despite not having a chart behemoth like “Beautiful Things” to bolster its numbers should be an encouraging sign for Mr. Boone. 

Kyle Denis: After the year that Benson has had, this figure is a bit lower than I anticipated. His last album, 2024’s Fireworks & Rollerblades debuted at No. 6 on the Billboard 200 with 58,000 equivalent album units — and that was with “Beautiful Things” still in the middle of its run in the Hot 100’s top 10.

Lyndsey Havens: Higher! A No. 2 debut for an artist who is still relatively new to the charts is great, especially when the only one blocking Boone is Morgan Wallen. Considering Boone’s 2024 debut album entered the Billboard 200 at No. 6, I expected his second set to enter somewhere in the top 10 but wasn’t even sure a top 5 slot was guaranteed. But timing — and his faithful fanbase — were on his side.

Jason Lipshutz: Higher! “Beautiful Things” is still a gargantuan hit, but none of its follow-ups have approached its level of ubiquity, and Benson Boone’s appeal could have been limited to that one smash single — which isn’t included on this new album. Instead, American Heart was released following some splashy primetime performances and festival sets, and right as recent singles like “Sorry I’m Here for Someone Else” and “Mystical Magical” have continued to rise on the Hot 100. Neither of those songs will likely grow to the size of “Beautiful Things,” but the chart debut of American Heart demonstrates that listeners are interested in Boone beyond his breakthrough single, and that he has successfully transcended one-hit-wonder status.  

Andrew Unterberger: No. 2 feels about right, but I might’ve expected that first-week to be a little higher. Still, he deserves some credit for keeping American Heart to a tight 10 tracks when many artists would’ve stuffed it twice as full and gotten a few extra thousand first-week units out of the additional streams.

2. Both advance singles “Sorry I’m Here for Someone Else” (No. 19) and “Mystical Magical” (No. 21) jump into the Hot 100’s top 25 this week. Do either of the singles have a good chance of making it to the top 10 sometime in the near future, do you think? Which one?

Stephen Daw: Just looking at the way the upper half of the Hot 100 has remained so static over last few months, I’d say the odds of either of these songs breaking into the top 10 are slim to none. It makes sense that they’d both receive boosts on the week of the album’s release, but I don’t see that trajectory continuing in the weeks to come unless either of these tracks gets some gigantic boost at radio that I don’t know about.  

Kyle Denis: I think “Mystical Magical” is probably the one that gets there. While “Sorry” is my personal favorite of the two, “Mystical” has a bit more personality, the “Physical” interpolation is essentially an ear candy cheat code and it’s the soundtrack to a major brand collaboration and TikTok trend. 

Lyndsey Havens: Oh man, “Mystical Magical” feels like the kind of song that was injected with something to make it as catchy as it is. It suits Boone’s falsetto so well and has had me coming back more often than “Sorry,” even though I think “Sorry” might be the better pick here. 

Jason Lipshutz: “Mystical Magical” sounds like the natural evolution of Benson Boone’s aesthetic, trading in the grandiosity of “Beautiful Things” for some theatrical, summer-friendly pop rock. The song struts in a way that makes sense for Boone’s over-the-top charm, and already sounds like it will be a longtime live staple, with thousands of voices trying to hit that chorus falsetto. The top of the Hot 100 is pretty static these days (thanks, in part, to “Beautiful Things”!), but I wouldn’t be surprised if “Mystical Magical” pushes into the top 10 before the weather starts cooling down.

Andrew Unterberger: Honestly, with the numerous shifts in dynamic, tone and tempo in “Sorry,” I’m kinda shocked it even climbed into the top 20 to begin with. “Mystical Magical” feels like the much more natural radio and streaming hit — and for my money, his best pop song yet — so it mostly comes down to whether it gets an airplay embrace near what “Beautiful Things” has. It looks like it’s starting to catch on top 40, so my guess is it does ultimately scrape the Hot 100’s top 10.

3. Meanwhile, “Beautiful Things” remains the highest-charting song of Boone’s on this week’s Hot 100, though it slides out of the top 10 (to No. 12) in its 74th week on the chart. Why do you think the song has proven such an undying smash for him?

Stephen Daw: Say what you will about this song (and I have said a lot about this song), but it’s an earworm. Even if you’re not particularly fond of the way Benson wails the words “PLEEEEASE …. STAAAAAYY,” it is effectively designed to create an emotional, cathartic release that manages to plant itself in your mind and stay there. For all the people online who love to dunk on this song, the more they talk about it, the more it embeds itself into everyone else’s brains. 

Kyle Denis: “Beautiful Things” is one of those songs that can exist anywhere and be loved by virtually everyone. Instrumentally and vocally, everyone from rock fans to HAC fans can enjoy it; he’s an attractive Gen Z artist, so he gets instant access to that crowd (and some of their thirsty parents); lyrically, the song is quite CCM-coded which allows those who may stray away from secular music to embrace it, and it’s a got a big, belt-y, sing-along chorus that makes it a natural sibling to other recent hits like Teddy Swims’ “Lose Control” and Hozier’s “Too Sweet.”

Lyndsey Havens: “Beautiful Things” has the mixings of many top charting hits, beginning as an acoustic, forlorn song before swelling into a pop-rock banger just over a minute in. Both sides of the track show off Boone’s range, while as a whole it satisfies a fanbase that spans genres.  Plus, I mean, that chorus is just undeniable. Who hasn’t bellowed it out once or twice… or more?

Jason Lipshutz: Part of it is circumstantial — “Beautiful Things” is one of a handful of 2024 hits that have been deathless on the Hot 100, joining smashes like “Lose Control,” “Espresso” and “Die With a Smile” — but Boone’s breakout hit has joined that stable of long-running hits by functioning slightly differently from them. “Beautiful Things” doesn’t go down easy, or scan as conventional; instead, the quiet-loud dissonance of the song strikes a nerve with the listener, and essentially divides the song into two halves. The fact that both portions of “Beautiful Things” have proven so durable to pop listeners makes Boone’s achievement even more remarkable. 

Andrew Unterberger: It’s just an undying kind of song, really. It’s got universal lyrics and an anthemic presentation and it hits places and themes that other pop songs don’t hit. There’s 2025-specific reasons why the song has had the commercial longevity that it has, sure, but the reasons why it’ll hold a permanent place in pop culture memory (regardless of how long it takes to fall off the Hot 100) are pretty eternal.

4. While the commercial success for Benson Boone has been relatively consistent, his critical response has been largely negative. Are the bad reviews largely fair (or at least understandable), or do you think they’re missing something fundamental about his appeal?

Stephen Daw: I think two things can be true at once. First, not all of the criticism is valid or made in good-faith (this man should be allowed do his little backflips in peace). But second, I think the general critical distaste for his contrived songwriting and his exceedingly generic pop-rock sound is more than fair. Yes, some of the hate he’s getting online is simply because he got too big too fast and people want to be contrarians, but some it is coming because Benson’s music doesn’t meet (or frankly, come close) to the high bar that has been set by other pop phenoms over the last few years.

Kyle Denis: They’re pretty understandable…. American Heart feels particularly drab, thematically empty and rushed. Very rushed. The album honestly sounds like Benson is still figuring out the kinks of his own appeal, so I can’t fault critics for picking up on that and calling it out. 

Lyndsey Havens: Look, I think many have a hard time looking past the glitzy jumpsuits and never-ending backflips. And while the gimmicks have been successful tools in generating buzz — both good and certainly bad — I would hope that in this phase and beyond Boone can establish himself without them. Having seen him perform at his label’s office years back in street clothes (the kind you might see a young man wearing in Brooklyn or Silverlake), it was a set I never forgot. And seeing him at Coachella I was reminded just how incredible of a vocalist he really is. I think if he can strip it all down to just that, he might win over some of his harshest critics. 

Jason Lipshutz: Generally speaking, the reviews for American Heart have nodded to Boone’s talent as a backflip-friendly performer and beguiling pop personality, while also focusing on his lack of song craft to this point. I think that’s mostly fair — American Heart successfully extends the Boone brand, but doesn’t contain any top-level songwriting or mine unexpected thematic territory. That’s okay! Benson just turned 23 years old, and already has plenty of mainstream buy-in. If the reviews were too negative this time, he’ll have plenty of time and opportunities to make future projects even more rewarding.

Andrew Unterberger: I think parts of it are understandable — the album’s not a masterpiece, and some lyrics lean a little too far into goofiness with others go a little too hard with the melodrama. Generally, there’s an extra-ness to it that often proves critical anathema. But I could say the same thing about countless pop-rock albums from the last two decades — from The Killers to Panic! at the Disco to even Harry Styles — which are similarly flawed, but also have similar moments of genuine inspiration and feeling and fun. The reason only the former quality seems to get acknowledged with American Heart is because Benson Boone is an easy target, and a safe one.

5. Boone has now peaked at No. 2 on both the Billboard 200 and the Hot 100. If he was deadset on grabbing a No. 1 next time out with either his third album or its lead single, what would you advise him to do?

Stephen Daw: I think his best shot for No. 1 at this point is to do a high-profile collab that strays just enough from the folk-pop screeching of “Beautiful Things.” If he were to do a collaboration with someone like Sabrina Carpenter on a tongue-in-cheek capital-P pop single, he could easily snatch his first No. 1 hit. 

Kyle Denis: In terms of albums… maybe wait a little longer into the run of a Morgan Wallen album before gunning for the top of the Billboard 200. For his next lead single, I’d also advise better timing, but, more specifically, give the songs time to breathe. Benson’s songs normally take some time to grow into hits, so maybe just focus on pushing one advance single and use the album release week to lift it to No. 1on the Hot 100.

Lyndsey Havens: Go… smaller. Everything the team is doing is certainly working, and a No. 1 on either chart does seem within reach, but I think having gone so big thus far, dialing it back at some point could be the key ingredient to hitting those top spots. As counterintuitive as that may seem. 

Jason Lipshutz: I’d stay as active as possible, with more tour dates, new music, new videos and different versions of his overall product. Boone has moved beyond “Beautiful Things” by presenting his live show to a much wider audience and cranking out new albums in back-to-back years; he’s been tireless over the past 18 months, but that hardworking attitude has helped make him a star. He just has to keep taking swings of the bat, and the more of himself he puts out there, the more likely he will be a chart-topper in the near future.

Andrew Unterberger: Benson might just need longer tracklists for a No. 1 album, but I don’t want to encourage him to just double down on the kind of songs he’s already doing and pump out lesser versions of them for volume’s sake. So how about this: Benson Boone Rock Opera. It’s the logical extension for all of his musical and theatrical ambitions, and it’ll help him expand the tracklist with all the necessary interludes and half-songs that you need to flesh out such a conceptual project. Plus maybe it’ll get the critics to take him more seriously? OK maybe not. But still.

Warner Music Group plans to cut annual costs by $300 million through a combination of layoffs and chopping expenses related to administration and real estate, according to a memo from CEO Robert Kyncl to staff on Tuesday (July 1).

“Many changes will be implemented in the next three months, with the remainder in fiscal 2026,” Kyncl wrote. Staff cuts will account for $170 million of the planned reductions.

In the memo obtained by Billboard, Kyncl called this “the remaining steps in our plan to help future-proof the company and unlock the next era of growth,” indicating that this would be the end of a series of rounds of layoffs the company has implemented in the past few years.

“I know that this news is tough and unsettling, and you will have many questions,” he added.

Kyncl indicated that the money freed up through these cuts will be reinvested in A&R — “a more holistic and targeted approach to partnering with the world’s greatest musical talent” — and M&A. To that latter point, earlier today, WMG announced it was launching a $1.2 billion catalog acquisition venture with Bain Capital. 

WMG has undergone multiple waves of layoffs since Kyncl took the helm at the start of 2023. The company announced a 4% staff cut that March, and a 10% cut the following year. Atlantic Records was then hit with significant layoffs in September.

While the company’s current market share initially dipped — falling from 17.26% halfway through 2023 to 15.68% halfway through 2024 — it has since started to rebound, climbing to 16.38% through June 26 of this year. WMG’s overall market share is up as well, from 18.22% midway through 2024 to 18.71% so far in 2025. 

That has been reflected on the Billboard charts as well. Atlantic signee Alex Warren’s “Ordinary” has spent four of the past five weeks at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100, while earlier this year Lady Gaga and Bruno Mars’ “Die With A Smile” spent five non-consecutive weeks at No. 1 (co-released by Atlantic and Universal-owned Interscope).

In his memo, Kyncl said these gains are evidence that the company’s strategy of becoming “more effective and more efficient” is “gaining momentum.”

“Our artists have held half of the Top Ten on the Spotify Global chart for the past 10 weeks and nailed the No. 1 spot for all but four weeks of 2025,” he wrote. He also called out “new highs” on the publishing side of WMG’s business.

Read Kyncl’s full memo below.

Hi everyone, 

Two years ago, we began to transform our company; not just to tinker around the edges of an old model, but to build a fast, innovative, and collaborative organization that reflects how music moves in the new world. 

Today, our strategy is gaining momentum. Our artists have held half of the Top Ten on the Spotify Global chart for the past ten weeks and nailed the No. 1 spot for all but four weeks of 2025. These aren’t just the biggest hits in the world today; they’re our evergreen catalog of the future. At the same time, we’re starting to see better progress in our global recorded music market share, while hitting new highs in music publishing. These wins are powered by our ability to become simultaneously more effective and more efficient… allowing us to invest in great talent, boost our star-making expertise, and deepen our world-building capabilities. 

Building on this success requires us to keep evolving. Today we’re announcing the remaining steps in our plan to help future-proof the company and unlock the next era of growth. Specifically, we’ll be reducing our annual costs by ~$300 million as we reinvest in the business: ~$170 million through headcount rightsizing for agility and impact, and ~$130 million in administrative and real estate expenses. Many changes will be implemented in the next three months, with the remainder in fiscal 2026.

I know that this news is tough and unsettling, and you will have many questions. The Executive Leadership Team has spent a lot of time thinking about our future state and how to put us on the best path forward. You’ll be hearing from your local leaders as soon as possible about your area of the company and your role within it. We’re communicating this now so, as we move through the process, we can be as thoughtful and open as possible with all of you. These decisions are not being made lightly, it will be difficult to say goodbye to talented people, and we’re committed to acting with empathy and integrity.

As we evolve, we’ll be focused on these core drivers of our success:

We’re putting more money behind the music… via a new growth plan.

A&R: Working with the ELT, we’ve sharpened our investment criteria… a more holistic and targeted approach to partnering with the world’s greatest musical talent, across (i) the most culturally potent and highest potential repertoire centers, (ii) globally managed off-roster catalog, and (iii) music publishing. 

M&A: We also have an ambitious M&A pipeline, especially for timeless catalogs. Our acquisitions of Tempo and start-up RSDL are good signposts of how we intend on growing both our copyrights and our capabilities. And, as you’ve seen today, we’ve announced an exciting venture with Bain Capital that adds up to $1.2 billion to our catalog purchasing power across both recorded music and music publishing.

We’re becoming a stronger, leaner company… for greater cut-through. 

TEAM: Our faster, more agile teams of local experts will be backed by a strengthened suite of services across Marketing, Distribution, Catalog, and Merchandising & Direct-to-Fan. This aligns our collective efforts with our clearest priorities, making it easier for great artistry and ideas to shine through. Our recent changes at LATAM and Atlantic Records, following the long-term rejuvenation of Warner Chappell and Warner Records, prove that teams can get leaner, deliver massive No. 1s, and win market share… all at the same time.   

TECH: We’ll continue to prioritize better digital tools for artists, songwriters, and employees. For example, we’ll expand the rollout of the WMG Pulse app and add more features to give artists and songwriters insights, while landing the benefits of our financial transformation initiative as well as a vastly improved supply chain and data infrastructure. By simplifying how we work, our WMG One platform will enable deeper focus, stronger collaboration, and more powerful outcomes.

In an ever-changing industry, we must continue to supercharge our capabilities in long-term artist, songwriter, and catalog development. That’s why this company was created in the first place, it’s what we’ve always been best at, and it’s how we’ll differentiate ourselves in the future.

As we implement these changes, we promise to communicate with you regularly. Thank you for your patience and support for one another. We’ve got some remarkable music coming, and I know that whatever challenges we’re navigating, your commitment to our artists and songwriters is unwavering. 

Thank you,

Robert

Billie Joe Armstrong didn’t exactly get what he bargained for when he invited a fan on stage at a recent concert.

As has become tradition at Green Day concerts, the frontman handed over one of his acoustic guitars Monday (June 30) to a lucky fan plucked from the audience in Luxembourg, giving him the chance to perform alongside the band on “Good Riddance.” But in clips captured from the show, the fan instead starts playing the wrong chords as Armstrong looks visibly confused.

“You told me you could play this one!” the musician quips, attempting to help the fan out by reminding him of the proper key.

Then, the fan started playing the chord progression of Oasis’ biggest hit, “Wonderwall.” Realization dawning on his face, Armstrong took the guitar back from the fan, who was quickly ushered offstage by a member of the crew.

“Oh, f–k!” Armstrong says in the clip. “Nice try, nice try.”

The interaction comes amid Green Day’s The Saviors Tour, which kicked off in May 2024. It marks just the latest viral moment from the trek, with Armstrong recently making headlines for flipping off a concertgoer for seemingly spraying him with a water gun during the show.

The band has also been playing a number of festivals in 2025, appearing at Coachella, BottleRock and Download Festival in the U.K. The latter was particularly memorable as Armstrong paused the performance to call out the United States government, telling the crowd: “Donald Trump and his administration is a fascist government. And it’s up to us to fight back.”

In May, Armstrong and his bandmates were honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. “I hope everybody comes here and takes pictures for as long as you want to and as long as you can,” bassist Mike Dirnt said during the ceremony. “We’ll never say ‘thank you’ enough.”

Maesic had been making electronic music for the better part of a decade when he met Diplo at a club in France. The French producer later DM’d Diplo, asking if he could send over his unreleased music who told Maesic to pass it to his A&R. Maesic sent the files, then waited a year for a response. But when the answer came, things moved fast.

“He was like, ‘Yo bro, the music is fire,’” Maesic recalls the A&R saying. He also told Maesic that Diplo was playing that night in St. Tropez, a short drive from where Maesic was then staying.

“So I drove over there, and I met Diplo for the first time,” he says. “The meeting was short, but it was really good.”

The two artists began working together over email, then text, and in September of 2023, Maesic flew to Los Angeles for a studio session at Diplo’s house in Malibu. He didn’t know it was a test, but after the session was over, he was told he’d passed.

“The [A&R] John [Connolly] was like, ‘We wanted to see how you were in studio, because it’s really important, the human side of the of the music production. You you had a great vibe. You’re perfect.”

Thus began a working relationship that’s resulted in Maesic collaborating on hits including Major Lazer and Jung Kook’s 2023 track “Close to You” and Diplo and Jessie Murph’s “Heartbroken,” among a long list of ghost productions and collabs Maesic has done with other artists. Out in Malibu, Maesic and Diplo often start their work days with a game of pickleball and a sauna session before heading to the studio.

But the biggest perk has been the experience and connections. Maesic calls the last two years “a snowball effect.” Living in L.A. has connected him with the city’s (and Diplo’s) sprawling network of artists, with Maesic spending a lot of time with L.A. scene stalwarts like Wax Motif and Dillon Francis. A meeting with Anyma at a club in Ibiza also lead to Maesic’s credit on Anyma’s May album The End of Genysis.

But happily, his biggest success has been his own. After making the track in his Paris living room, Maesic released his breakout single “Life Is Simple (Move Your Body)” in March. Lyrics about life optimization tips — “if you don’t have enough time, stop watching TV,” demands vocalist Salomé Das — are fused with a simmering beat.

“My roommate showed me the ‘life is simple’ sample and said, ‘You should do a song with these,’” he recalls. “So I put those vocals on my beat, and it sounded really good.” Maesic sent the song to Diplo, who told him the chords sounded like Marshall Jefferson’s 1986 house classic “The House Music Anthem (Move Your Body)” and that he should try to mix the two vocals. So he did, “and it sounded really good.”

Maesic had already released a six-song string of tracks on Helix Records, the label founded by Patrick Moxey in 2022. As it turned out, Jefferson’s catalog is published through Helix’s affiliated company, Payday Music Publishing, so Helix sent it to Jefferson for clearing and Jefferson sent back a few tweaks. French producer Bob Sinclar, a friend of Maesic’s, also gave a few arrangement suggestions.

But by this point point, he’d “heard it so many times I didn’t know if it was good or not anymore.” So he also sent it to his friend Hugel, the star French producer. “He was like was like, ‘Bro, this is a hit.’” Hugel was right. Upon release, “Life Is Simple (Move Your Body)” started getting roughly 4,000 streams a day, then 50,000 a week. All the artists involved in the song seeded it out to the dance community ahead of release, with Helix’s global promo teams working it with partners at DSPs, radio, and beyond.

A clip of dance legend Fatboy Slim playing the song then went viral this past spring, and then Helix commissioned a post from TikTok-er Crazy Auntie Ann, who’d already posted a video dancing to “Move Your Body” and was a longtime fan of Jefferson’s original. Maesic and Jefferson also created content together ahead of the release date, with all of these moments ultimately sending the song to No. 1 on Beatport’s Afro-house chart and putting it at No. 4 on the Beatport Top 10. Maesic says the track is now averaging 300,000 streams a day.

The success has changed his life. “I’ve been making music for a lot of people in the background for so long, and this is finally giving light to my artist project and to Maesic,” he says. “I get like, five texts a day, like people in a coffee shop in Guatemala or at the gym in Ibiza, being like, ‘They’re playing your song.’ People send me vocals wanting to collab. It feels really good.”

He’s been working towards this success since he got into dance music in 2013, when he was in his early teens and Martin Garrix released his era-defining smash “Animals.” Maesic, born Emeric Boxall, not only loved the song, but was inspired by the fact that Garrix was famously just 16 years old when he made it.

Maesic started tinkering on a DAW and absorbing the big room house of the era via the internet, becoming a fan of artists such as Steve Aoki, Dimitri Vegas & Like Mike and Tiësto. He started remixing their music and releasing his edits on SoundCloud, sometimes putting up his bootlegs even before the originals were released, a clever move he used to gain traction. His parents and music teacher encouraged him, and by the time he was 16 — he’d done an official remix of Maroon 5’s 2017’s “Cold.” Then at 18, he signed with Universal Music France, where he produced dance pop aimed at radio, a sound he says, “I don’t relate to today, but which got me playing shows and festivals.”

After his tenure with the label ended, he spent time in Paris before temporarily moving to Miami, where, he says, “I knew no one.” But a producer he’d met in France owned a studio in town and, through that connection, Maesic started ghost producing for artists across hip-hop, reggaetón, electronic and beyond. “I learned so much and met so many people during those two years,” he says. He then returned to France committed to working on his own project, a moment that coincided with the rise of Afro and Latin house, sounds Maesic started producing in with a focus on making music to play during his shows. This was around the time he linked with Diplo.

When he talks to Billboard over Zoom, Maesic’s momentum is obvious. Funny and engaging, he takes the call in the sunshine from an outdoor cafe in Corsica. Tomorrow he’ll fly to a show in Ibiza, then in France, then South Korea, Bali, Serbia’s EXIT festival and beyond, with the run eventually landing him at Burning Man at the end of the summer and more shows unrolling from there. For someone who, at 25, has already been working at music for roughly half his life, he seems genuinely gobsmacked by — yet also zen about — how it’s all going.

“I try to enjoy the process and the path, because you can get caught up so quickly in like ‘What’s next song? What’s the next show? What’s next thing?’ I used to be like that. Now, I try to take a deep breath in and enjoy the cities I’m traveling to what’s happening in each moment.” (In terms of what’s next musically, however, a trio of remixes of “Life Is Simple (Move Your Body)” have been released throughout June, with the most recent by French producer Trym out today, June 30.)

Maesic’s humanistic approach to his career also applies to the studio, where he focuses on genuine connections. “Being a producer is like being a vibe creator too,” he says. “I’m emotional and hyper-sensitive, so I feel like I feel the emotions and the vibe of people in the studio and know what to tell them and how to get the best out of them. Makes jokes, talk with people, make them feel good.”

Embodying genuine humanity amid an industry moving at warp speed seems to be setting Maesic up for a fruitful future. His career so far is not just a testament to talent and hard work, but also that being a good hang is both a nice way to live and a competitive advantage.

“It’s like a shortcut in some ways,” he says, “because you just become friends and create relationships with people, and that opens doors.”