After almost two years of ups and downs, Ariana Grande has emerged triumphant.
Fresh from nabbing a career first #1 on the Hot 100, the songbird nests a-front of Billboard Magazine‘s latest issue.
Aptly, it’s in celebration of the singer’s newly crowned title of Billboard Woman of The Year.
Ahead of the formal ceremony on December 6th in NYC, the ‘Thank U, Next’ singer posed it up for a stunning shoot.
She also seized the feature to open about being fearless following tragedy (see: Manchester, Mac Miller’s passing) and her upcoming album.
Pics and quotes below…
On Being Fearless:
“I guess there’s not much I’m afraid of anymore. When life tries you with such serious sh*t so many times, your priorities change. I don’t give a shit. I just want to be happy and healthy — one day — and make music.”
On Being No Nonsense In The Studio:
“I’ve politely walked out of sessions before. It has happened. I’m a small girl. People tend to underestimate that. And then I sit down and comp my own vocals and can produce my own session, and they’re like — ‘Oh, I didn’t know you could do that.’ I’m like, ‘Believe it or not, there are plenty of tiny women that can do this.’”
On Benefits Her Success Affords Her Today:
“I got myself to a place where I would be able to do things like drop a surprise record and have it be the biggest single I’ve ever had [Thank U, Next]”
On Rejecting The Pop Rulebook With Her Releases:
“My dream has always been to be — obviously not a rapper, but, like, to put out music in the way that a rapper does. I feel like there are certain standards that pop women are held to that men aren’t. We have to do the teaser before the single, then do the single, and wait to do the preorder, and radio has to impact before the video, and we have to do the discount on this day, and all this shit. It’s just like, ‘Bruh, I just want to f*cking talk to my fans and sing and write music and drop it the way these boys do. Why do they get to make records like that and I don’t?’ So I do and I did and I am, and I will continue to.
And if it doesn’t work out the way ‘Thank U, Next’ did, that’s fine too! It is so exciting to see something be received well. That’s a beautiful thing. But it’s even more beautiful to be honest and just do something To drop a record on a Saturday night because you feel like it, and because your heart’s going to explode if you don’t — to take back your narrative.””
On New Music On Her Terms:
“I don’t want to do what people tell me to do, I don’t want to conform to the pop star agenda. I want to do it on my own terms from now on. If I want to tour two albums at once, I’m going to tour two albums at once. If I want to drop a third album while I’m on tour [in 2019], I’ll do that too!”
On Status Of 5th Album:
It was the product of a lot of “feminine energy and champagne and music and laughter and crying. This [album’s] not particularly uplifting,” she says. “A lot of it sounds really upbeat, but it’s actually a super sad chapter.”
The music is defiant — deep, bass-driven bangers with trap beats alternating with airy, sad ballads — and aesthetically more adventurous than anything she has ever released. [Source]
More power to her!
That little piece of s*** takes herself way too seriously. She really looks like a mentally sick person and I am not even throwing shades.
This chick is classic borderline personality disorder, self absorbed, entitled lil heffer! She can’t even let people grieve Mac death before she is riding that morbid wave and flooding the market with her shallow vocals and vapid visuals ugh! She is trying wayyyy to hard! Girl Bye to her shallow a***, Smh!
Can someone on her team chop her ponytail off in her sleep?
I thought Disney over worked child stars. Nickelodeon might be on par.
I’m over this singer…
GIRL GOODBYE, everybody knows Mariah put out MULTI-PLATINUM, blockbuster selling albums every year and a half in the 1990’s, pure FACTS! I can’t with this girl acting like she’s doing anything new! The only reason she’ll tour two albums is because Artificial Sweetener flopped! She wants to put out albums like a rapper, so I’ll ask….where is The Notorious A.D.E.L.E., cause chile…your albums selling like Pusha T in these streets!
lmaooo gurl bye, nobody is checking for 43kriah except the vegas crowd. and nobody cares what she sold 100 years ago, how much did she sell this week? lmfaoooooooooooooo keep that ish in the PAST please, thank you, next lmfaooooooo
How bout you, #GTFO ?
https://gifer.com/en/189q
Lol? I’m glad y’all caught the vibe of this interview. She gives herself WAY too much credit. Hip hop artists weren’t just dropping albums successfully because they’re men. Girl, you had to do all that s*** because of your own mediocrity. And this isn’t a thing of the distant past. NTLTC and GIAW had the discount on lock. “Why do [the boys] get to drop records like this and I don’t?” Girl shut up. Women who were actually visionaries did it. They didn’t wait for the men to do it to sit and go, “well, why cant I do that?”. And the real hip hop artists weren’t not promoting their music for fun. They weren’t afforded the backing of label, they weren’t being manufactured like you were, and for some time at least, they were musically driven, because hip hop is the one genre that requires the main artist to do most of the writing. I’m sorry y’all. Lol she get on my nerves. Something about her really rubs me the wrong way.
This! ✅ ✅ ✅ ?
I’m telling you. It’s like what you said about her thinking she’s doing something new. A lot of these white girls LOOVVVEEE learning tricks and tearing pages from the culture and then try to hide it behind feminism. Like bish, The reason why you never did it isn’t because it was never possible for women, it’s because you never thought to do it or because you weren’t good enough to pull it off!
@Whoops, FACTS ✅
Why does everyone hate her so much lol? I personally was not here for Sweetner but I love the fact that she’s striking while the iron is still hot. I hate when artists basically destroy their own momentum whether it is their fault or the label. She’s grown into herself (even though she snatched her whole original look and sound from Mariah Carey’s Honey era). I think she’s great though at the end of the day and her voice is awesome.
Hopefully this next album will be better than Sweetner was cause I hated it lol. More power to her this time around. Y’all let her live lol.
Thank you^^^ Christina, Kelly Rowland, hell even Sevyn, all these girls who waited too long to release and then the public not here for it. You think these labels didn’t pay attention to Rihanna‘s release strategy? The more music Ariana‘s releases hopefully to more we will hear from her vocally and sonically.
I doubt this is her idea tho, the label have studied her fan demographic and already know this is likely to work with them.
Bish on 4th or 5th album all of them very basic and forgettable and talks about her rules? Bish!!! A product with zero artistry. Nothing more nothing less.
This! ✅ And named Woman Of The Year with a certified flop album ? #BeautifulGowns
Ariana may be a bratty, pretentious BISH but one thing she’s not–is untalented! She can easily ousting most, if not all of her pop princess contemporaries. Her music is cool. She has a lot of bops.
lmaooooooo all these pressed sheep are SHOOK over ariana, its very sad lmfaoooo. yall should use that energy to try and get #JUSTICEFORFLOPTION lmfaooooooooooooooooooooooo
Just be here for the sales of Ariana’s trap influenced (LOL) 5th album and the subsequent basic asss singles that surely will follow! Just another pop girl in the prime of her career making musical mistakes! #MariahWouldNever #WhitneyWouldNever #BritneyWouldNever #CelineWouldNever #ToniWouldNever #AdeleWouldNever #JanetWouldNever #MadonnaWouldNever
She can sing, I’ll give her that. Not everybody has that.
But she comes off so pretentious, fake and unlikeable.
The last big Pop artist who made surprise releases a thing is Beyoncé.
Not saying it never happened before her, but certainly not for someone on her level.
So don’t give yourself too much credit. Sit down, be humble.