Today, Travis Barker announced a new record label, DTA Records, which he is launching in partnership with Elektra Music Group. The Blink-182 drummer also released its first single, "Gimme Brain," a raunchy collab featuring his frenetic drumbeat and bars from hip-hop icons Lil Wayne and Rick Ross.

The new label caps off a busy year for Barker, who not only toured and released a new album with Blink-182, but also worked on a lot of collab tracks and projects, including two collab EPs; LIVE FAST DIE WHENEVER, with $uicideboy$ and Meet The Drummers with 03 Greedo.

DTA Records will serve as a home for Barker's collabs in hip-hop and other genres, as well for artist development under his leadership.

Read: Blink-182 Announce New Album 'NINE' Release Date, Plus New Song "Darkside"

"I wanted a label partner that I trusted with true artist development," Barker said about Elektra, in a statement shared with Billboard.

"As an artist, it's important to me that an artist's vision is protected at all costs. It's crucial that I'm able to look an artist in the eye and believe it when I say we can take them from a basement to an arena. Elektra's track record and belief are proof of that, and I'm stoked to continue to build that legacy together through DTA Records."

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According to a press release, the song "represents a continuation of Barker's passion for beat making and production, especially within hip-hop which was his first love growing up."

Weezy and Blink-182 toured across North America together this summer. He, Barker and Ross first worked together back in 2011 on "Can A Drummer Get Some," from the drummer's similarly titled rap-collab-heavy solo album, Give The Drummer Some.

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Twenty-six-year-old rapper Anycia truly lives in the present. The Atlanta-born artist describes her most viral hits as if they were everyday experiences — she's simply going out of town on "BRB" and mad at a partner in "Back Outside" featuring Latto. 

Despite her calm demeanor and cadence, Anycia is a self-proclaimed "firecracker" and credits her success to her long-held confidence. 

"I [command] any room I walk in, I like to introduce myself first — you never have to worry about me walking into the room and not speaking," Anycia tells GRAMMY.com. "I speak, I yell, I twerk, I do the whole nine," adding, "I see tweets all the time [saying] ‘I like Anycia because she doesn’t rap about her private parts’... are y’all not listening?" 

With authenticity as her cornerstone, Anycia's genuine nature and versatile sound appeal broadly. On her recently released sophomore LP, Princess Pop That, Anycia's playful personality, unique vocal style and skillful flow are on full display. Over 14 tracks, Anycia keeps her usual relaxed delivery while experimenting with different beats from New Orleans, New York, California, and of course, Georgia. 

"I'm learning to be myself in different elements. I'm starting to take my sound and make it adapt to other beats and genres," she says. "But this whole album is definitely a little showing of me dibbling and dabbling.

The rising hip-hop star gained traction in June 2023 with her sultry single, "So What," which samples the song of the same name by Georgia natives Field Mob and Ciara. When Anycia dropped the snippet on her Instagram, she only had a "GoPro and a dream." Today, she has millions of views on her music videos, collaborations with artists like Flo Milli, and a critically acclaimed EP, Extra. On April 26, she'll release her debut album, Princess Pop That, featuring Cash Cobain, Luh Tyler, Kenny Beats, Karrahbooo and others. 

Ahead of the release of Princess Pop That, Anycia spoke with GRAMMY.com about her influences, maintaining individuality, working with female rappers, and using her music as a therapeutic outlet.

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.

Where did the title Princess Pop That come from?

Princess Pop That is my little alter ego, and my Twitter and finsta name. It's kind of like a Sasha Fierce/Beyoncé type of situation. 

The cover of your album gives early 2000 vibes. Is that where you draw most of your inspiration from?

Yeah. My everyday playlist is literally early 2000s music. I even still listen to [music] from the '70s – I just like old music! 

My mom is a big influence on a lot of the music that I like. She had me when she was like 19, 20. She's a Cali girl and has great taste in music. I grew up on everything and I feel like a lot of the stuff that I'm doing, you can kind of see that influence.

I grew up on Usher, Cherish, 112, Jagged Edge, Bone Thugs-N-Harmony, Teena Marie, Luther Vandross and Sam Cooke. Usher was my first concert, ever and actually my last concert — I went to his residency in Vegas with my mom. That's like our thing.

I know you had your hand in many different professions — including barbering and working at a daycare — how did you get into rapping?

I always liked music, but [thought] girl, we need some money right now. Rapping and music is cool, but I always had one foot in and one foot out. When I was [working] my jobs, it was more this is what I need to be doing right now — but I wasn't happy. 

It got to a point where I noticed that I was doing all these things, and it worked but it wasn't working for me. I didn't want to get caught up; I didn't want to be stuck doing something just because it works. I wanted to do something that I actually love to do. I decided to quit both jobs because I was literally making me miserable. 

I feel like that's what happened with a lot of our parents — they lose focus of their actual goals or what they actually wanted to do, and they get so caught up in what works in the moment. One thing about me, if I don't like something I'm done. I don't care how much money I put into it, if I'm not happy and it doesn’t feed me spiritually and mentally I'm not doing it. Right after [I quit] I was in the studio back-to-back making music. It eventually paid off.

Walk us through your music making process. 

A blunt, a little Don Julio Reposado, a space heater because I’m anemic. Eating some tacos and chicken wings or whatever I’m feeling at the moment. It’s not that deep to me, I like to be surrounded by good energy in the studio. 

People like to say female rappers aren’t welcoming or don’t like to work with each other. You’re clearly debunking this myth with songs like "Back Outside" featuring Latto and "Splash Brothers'' featuring Karrahbooo. What was it like working with them and how did these collaborations come about? 

Karrahbooo and I were already friends before we started rapping. It was harder for people to get us to do music because when we were around each other we weren't like, "Oh we need to do a song together." We had a friendship. 

Working with Latto, we didn't collab on that song in the studio. I did the song myself after being really upset at a man. I made the song just venting. I didn't even think that I was ever gonna put that song out, honestly. Latto ended up hitting me up within a week's span just giving me my flowers and telling me she wanted to do a song [together]. I ended up sending her "Back Outside" because I felt like she would eat [it up] and she did just that. 

She did! Are there any other female rappers you’d like to work with?

I really want to work with Cardi B — I love her! I'm also looking forward to collaborating with GloRilla. 

Read more: A Guide To Southern Hip-Hop: Definitive Releases, Artists & Subgenres From The Dirty South

Many female rappers come into the industry and feel like they have to start changing themself to fit a certain aesthetic or archetype. However, everything about you seems super unique — from your voice to your style and appearance. How do you maintain your individuality? 

Being yourself is literally the easiest job ever. When you're doing everything you're supposed to be doing, you're being genuine while you're doing it and you’re just being 110 percent authentically yourself — I feel like everything works out for you perfectly fine. 

I haven't had the urge to change anything or do anything different. The reason people started liking me was because I was being myself. Even if it wasn't accepted, I'm not going to stop being myself. I do what works for me and I feel like everybody should just do what works for them and not what works for the people outside of them. 

That's what creates discomfort for yourself, that’s how you become a depressed artist — trying to please everybody [but] yourself. I feel like people lose sight of that fact. Aside from this being a job or a career for me now, it’s still my outlet and a way I express myself;  it's still my form of art. I will never let anybody take that from me. It's intimate for me. 

Speaking of intimacy, what was the inspiration behind "Nene’s Prayer"? I want to know who was playing with you.

I was just having a little therapy session in the booth and everyone ended up liking it. Instead of getting mad, flipping out and wanting to go to jail I just put in a song. Even though I said some messed up things in the song, it’s better than me doing those messed up things. 

Have you ever written a lyric or song that you felt went too far or was too personal?

Nope. A lot of the [topics] that I [rap about] is just stuff girls really want to say, but don't have the courage to say. But me, I don’t give a damn! If it resonates with you then it does, and if it doesn't — listen to somebody else. 

Exactly! What advice would you give to upcoming artists trying to get noticed or have that one song that pops?

If you got something that you want to put out into the world, you just have to have that confidence for yourself, and you have to do it for you and not for other people. I feel like people make music and do certain things for other people. That's why [their song] doesn't do what it needs to do because it’s a perspective of what other people want, rather than doing [a song] that you're comfortable with and what you like.

How do you want people to feel after listening to ‘Princess Pop That?’

I just want the girls, and even the boys, to get in their bag. Regardless of how you went into listening to the album, I want you to leave with just a little bit more self confidence. If you’re feeling low, I want you to feel like "I am that bitch." 

It's a no judgment zone. I want everybody to find their purpose, walk in their truth and feel like "that girl" with everything they do. You could even be in a grocery store, I want you to feel like the baddest bitch. 

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While in a studio, Andrew Watt bounces off the walls. Just ask Mick Jagger, who once had to gently tell the 33-year-old, "Look, I can deal with this, but when you meet Ronnie and Keith, you have to dial it down a little bit."

Or ask Pearl Jam's Stone Gossard. "He really got the best out of [drummer] Matt [Cameron] just by being excited — literally jumping up and down and pumping his fist and running around," he tells GRAMMY.com.

As Watt's hot streak has burned on, reams have rightly been written about his ability to take a legacy act, reconnect them with their essence, and put a battery in their back. His efficacy can be seen at Music's Biggest Night: Ozzy Osbourne's Patient Number 9 won Best Rock Album at the 2023 GRAMMYs. At the last ceremony, the Rolling Stones were nominated for Best Rock Song, for Hackney Diamonds' opener "Angry."

On Pearl Jam's return to form, Dark Matter, due out April 19. Who was behind the desk? Take a wild guess.

"You want to see them live more than you want to listen to their albums, and they have the ability to look at each other and play and follow each other. I don't like my rock music any other way, as a listener," Watt tells GRAMMY.com. "All my favorite records are made like that — of people speeding up, slowing down, playing longer than they should."

As such, Watt had a lightbulb moment: to not record any demos, and have them write together in the room. "They're all playing different stuff, and it makes up what Pearl Jam is, and singer Eddie [Vedder] rides it like a wave."

If you're more of a pop listener, there's tons of Watt for you — he's worked with Justin Bieber ("Hit the Ground" from Purpose), Lana Del Rey ("Doin' Time" from Norman F—ing Rockwell) and much more. Read on for a breakdown of big name rockers who have worked with Andrew Watt.

Pearl Jam / Eddie Vedder

Watt didn't just produce Dark Matter; he also helmed Vedder's well-received third solo album, Earthling, from 2022. Watt plays guitar in Vedder's live backing band, known as the Earthlings — which also includes Josh Klinghoffer, who replaced John Frusciante in the Red Hot Chili Peppers for a stint.

The Rolling Stones

Dark Matter was a comeback for Pearl Jam, but Hackney Diamonds was really a comeback for the Stones. While it had a hater or two, the overwhelming consensus was that it was the Stones' best album in decades — maybe even since 1978's Some Girls.

"I hope what makes it fresh and modern comes down to the way it's mixed, with focus on low end and making sure the drums are big," Watt, who wore a different Stones shirt every day in the studio, has said about Hackney Diamonds. "But the record is recorded like a Stones album."

Where there are modern rock flourishes on Hackney Diamonds, "There's no click tracks. There's no gridding. There's no computer editing," he continued. "This s— is performed live and it speeds up and slows down. It's made to the f—ing heartbeat connection of Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, Ronnie Wood and Steve Jordan.

"And Charlie," Watt added, tipping a hat to Watts, who played on Hackney Diamonds but died before it came out. "When Charlie's on it."

Iggy Pop

Ever since he first picked up a mic and removed his shirt, the snapping junkyard dog of the Stooges has stayed relevant — as far as indie, alternative and punk music has been concerned.

But aside from bright spots like 2016's Josh Homme-produced Post Pop Depression, his late-career output has felt occasionally indulgent and enervated. The 11 songs on 2023's eclectic Watt-produced Every Loser, on the other hand, slap you in the face in 11 different ways.

"We would jam and make tracks and send them to Iggy, and he would like 'em and write to them or wouldn't like them and we'd do something else," Watt told Billboard. "It was very low pressure. We just kept making music until we felt like we had an album." (And as with Pearl Jam and Vedder's Earthlings band, Watt has rocked out onstage with Pop.

Ozzy Osbourne

You dropped your crown, O Prince of Darkness. When he hooked up with Watt, the original Black Sabbath frontman hadn't released any solo music since 2010's Scream; in 2017, Sabbath finally said goodbye after 49 years and 10 (!) singers.

On 2020's Ordinary Man and 2022's Patient Number 9, Watt reenergized Ozzy; even when he sounds his age, Ozz sounds resolute, defiant, spitting in the face of the Reaper. (A bittersweet aside: the late Taylor Hawkins appears on Patient Number 9, which was written and recorded in just four days.)

Maroon 5

Yeah, yeah, they're more of a pop-rock band, but they have guitars, bass and drums. (And if you're the type of rock fan who's neutral or hostile to the 5, you shouldn't be; Songs About Jane slaps.)

At any rate, Watt co-produced "Can't Leave You Alone," featuring Juice WRLD, from 2021's Jordi. Critics disparaged the album, but showed Watt's facility straddling the pop and rock worlds.

5 Seconds of Summer

When it comes to Andrew Watt, the Sydney pop-rockers — slightly more on the rock end than Maroon 5 and their ilk — are repeat customers. He produced a number of tracks for 5 Seconds of Summer, which spanned 2018's Youngblood, 2020's Calm and 2022's 5SOS5.

Regarding the former: Watt has cited Youngblood as one of the defining recording experiences of his life.

"I had started working with 5 Seconds of Summer, and a lot of people looked at them as a boy band, but they're not," Watt told Guitar Player. "They're all incredible musicians. They can all play every instrument. They love rock music. They can harmonize like skyrockets in flight. They just were making the wrong kind of music."

So Watt showed 5 Seconds of Summer a number of mainstays of the rock era, like Tears for Fears and the Police. The rest, as they say, is history.

Elton John

A year after Britney Spears was unshackled from her highly controversial conservatorship, it was time for a victory lap with the God of Glitter. What resulted was a curious little bauble, which became a megahit: "Hold Me Closer," a spin on "Tiny Dancer," "The One" and "Don't Go Breaking My Heart" that briefly launched Spears back into the stratosphere.

"Britney came in and she knew what she wanted to do," Watt recalled to The L.A. Times. "We sped up the song a little bit and she sang the verses in her falsetto, which harkens back to 'Toxic.' She was having a blast."

Blink-182

Watt has also worked with pop/punk heroes Blink-182 — but not after Tom DeLonge made his grand return. He produced "I Really Wish I Hated You" from 2019's Nine, back when Matt Skiba was in the band.

Where in the rock world will this tender-aged superproducer strike next? Watt knows.

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In 2020, Megan Thee Stallion solidified herself as one of rap's most promising new stars, thanks to her hit single "Savage." Not only was it her first No. 1 song on the Billboard Hot 100, but the "sassy, moody, nasty" single also helped Megan win three GRAMMYs in 2021.

In this episode of GRAMMY Rewind, revisit the sentimental moment the Houston "Hottie" accepted one of those golden gramophones, for Best New Artist.

"I don't want to cry," Megan Thee Stallion said after a speechless moment at the microphone. Before starting her praises, she gave a round of applause to her fellow nominees in the category, who she called "amazing."

Along with thanking God, she also acknowledged her manager, T. Farris, for "always being with me, being by my side"; her record label, 300 Entertainment, for "always believing in me, sticking by through my craziness"; and her mother, who "always believed I could do it."

Megan Thee Stallion's "Savage" remix with Beyoncé also helped her win Best Rap Song and Best Rap Performance that night — marking the first wins in the category by a female lead rapper.

Press play on the video above to watch Megan Thee Stallion's complete acceptance speech for Best New Artist at the 2021 GRAMMY Awards, and remember to check back to GRAMMY.com for more new episodes of GRAMMY Rewind.

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"You don't know that people are going to 40 years later call you up and say, ‘Can you talk about this record from 40 years ago?’"

That was Cory Robbins, former president of Profile Records, reaction to speaking to Grammy.com about one of the first albums his then-fledgling label released. Run-DMC’s self-titled debut made its way into the world four decades ago this week on March 27, 1984 and established the group, in Robbins’ words, "the Beatles of hip-hop." 

Rarely in music, or anything else, is there a clear demarcation between old and new. Styles change gradually, and artistic movements usually get contextualized, and often even named, after they’ve already passed from the scene. But Run-DMC the album, and the singles that led up to it, were a definitive breaking point. Rap before it instantly, and eternally, became “old school.” And three guys from Hollis, Queens — Joseph "Run" Simmons, Jason "Jam Master Jay" Mizell, Darryl "D.M.C." McDaniels — helped turn a burgeoning genre on its head.

What exactly was different about Run-DMC? Some of the answers can be glimpsed by a look at the record’s opening song. "Hard Times" is a cover of a Kurtis Blow track from his 1980 debut album. The connection makes sense. Kurtis and Run’s older brother Russell Simmons met in college, and Russell quickly became the rapper’s manager. That led to Run working as Kurtis’ DJ. Larry Smith, who produced Run-DMC, even played on Kurtis’ original version of the song.

But despite those tie-ins, the two takes on "Hard Times" are night and day. Kurtis Blow’s is exactly what rap music was in its earliest recorded form: a full band playing something familiar (in this case, a James Brown-esque groove, bridge and percussion breakdown inclusive.)

What Run-DMC does with it is entirely different. The song is stripped down to its bare essence. There’s a drum machine, a sole repeated keyboard stab, vocals, and… well, that’s about it. No solos, no guitar, no band at all. Run and DMC are trading off lines in an aggressive near-shout. It’s simple and ruthlessly effective, a throwback to the then-fading culture of live park jams. But it was so starkly different from other rap recordings of the time, which were pretty much all in the style of Blow’s record, that it felt new and vital.

"Production-wise, Sugar Hill [the record label that released many key early rap singles] built themselves on the model of Motown, which is to say, they had their own production studios and they had a house band and they recorded on the premises," explains Bill Adler, who handled PR for Run-DMC and other key rap acts at the time.

"They made magnificent records, but that’s not how rap was performed in parks," he continues. "It’s not how it was performed live by the kids who were actually making the music."

Run-DMC’s musical aesthetic was, in some ways, a lucky accident. Larry Smith, the musician who produced the album, had worked with a band previously. In fact, the reason two of the songs on the album bear the subtitle "Krush Groove" is because the drum patterns are taken from his band Orange Krush’s song “Action.”

Read more: Essential Hip-Hop Releases From The 1970s: Kurtis Blow, Grandmaster Flash, Sugarhill Gang & More

But by the time sessions for Run-DMC came around, the money had run out and, despite his desire to have the music done by a full band, Smith was forced to go without them and rely on a drum machine. 

His artistic partner on the production side was Russell Simmons. Simmons, who has been accused over the past seven years of numerous instances of sexual assault dating back decades, was back in 1983-4 the person providing the creative vision to match Smith’s musical knowledge.

Orange Krush’s drummer Trevor Gale remembered the dynamic like this (as quoted in Geoff Edgers’ Walk This Way: Run-DMC, Aerosmith, and the Song that Changed American Music Forever): “Larry was the guy who said, 'Play four bars, stop on the fifth bar, come back in on the fourth beat of the fifth bar.' Russell was the guy that was there that said, ‘I don’t like how that feels. Make it sound like mashed potato with gravy on it.’”

It wasn’t just the music that set Run-DMC apart from its predecessors. Their look was also starkly different, and that influenced everything about the group, including the way their audience viewed them.

Most of the first generation of recorded rappers were, Bill Adler remembers, influenced visually by either Michael Jackson or George Clinton and Parliament-Funkadelic. Run-DMC was different.

"Their fashion sense was very street oriented," Adler explains. "And that was something that emanated from Jam Master Jay. Jason just always had a ton of style. He got a lot of his sartorial style from his older brother, Marvin Thompson. Jay looked up to his older brother and kind of dressed the way that Marvin did, including the Stetson hat. 

"When Run and D told Russ, Jason is going to be our deejay, Russell got one look at Jay and said, ‘Okay, from now on, you guys are going to dress like him.’"

Run, DMC, and Jay looked like their audience. That not only set them apart from the costumed likes of Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five, it also cemented the group’s relationship with their listeners. 

"When you saw Run-DMC, you didn’t see celebrity. You saw yourself," DMC said in the group’s recent docuseries. 

Read more: 20 Iconic Hip-Hop Style Moments: From Run-D.M.C. To Runways

Another thing that set Run-DMC (the album) and Run-DMC (the group) apart from what came before was the fact that they released a cohesive rap album. Nine songs that all belonged together, not just a collection of already-released singles and some novelties. Rappers had released albums prior to Run-DMC, but that’s exactly what they were: hits and some other stuff — sung love ballads or rock and roll covers, or other experiments rightfully near-forgotten.

"There were a few [rap] albums [at the time], but they were pretty crappy. They were usually just a bunch of singles thrown together," Cory Robbins recalls.

Not this album. It set a template that lasted for years: Some social commentary, some bragging, a song or two to show off the DJ. A balance of records aimed at the radio and at the hard-core fans. You can still see traces of Run-DMC in pretty much every rap album released today.

Listeners and critics reacted. The album got a four-star review in Rolling Stone with “the music…that backs these tracks is surprisingly varied, for all its bare bones” and an A minus from Robert Christgau who claimed “It's easily the canniest and most formally sustained rap album ever.” Just nine months after its release, Run-DMC was certified gold, the first rap LP ever to earn that honor. "Rock Box" also single-handedly invented rap-rock, thanks to Eddie Martinez’s loud guitars. 

There is another major way in which the record was revolutionary. The video for "Rock Box" was the first rap video to ever get into regular rotation on MTV and, the first true rap video ever played on the channel at all, period. Run-DMC’s rise to MTV fame represented a significant moment in breaking racial barriers in mainstream music broadcasting. 

"There’s no overstating the importance of that video," Adler tells me. vIt broke through the color line at MTV and opened the door to a cataclysmic change." 

"Everybody watched MTV forty years ago," Robbins agrees. "It was a phenomenal thing nationwide. Even if we got three or four plays a week of ‘Rock Box’ on MTV, that did move the needle."

All of this: the new musical style, the relatable image, the MTV pathbreaking, and the attendant critical love and huge sales (well over 10 times what their label head was expecting when he commissioned the album from a reluctant Russell Simmons — "I hoping it would sell thirty or forty thousand," Robbins says now): all of it contributed to making Run-DMC what it is: a game-changer.

"It was the first serious rap album," Robbins tells me. And while you could well accuse him of bias — the group making an album at all was his idea in the first place — he’s absolutely right. 

Run-DMC changed everything. It split the rap world into old school and new school, and things would never be the same.

Perhaps the record’s only flaw is one that wouldn’t be discovered for years. As we’re about to get off the phone, Robbins tells me about a mistake on the cover, one he didn’t notice until the record was printed and it was too late. 

There was something (Robbins doesn’t quite recall what) between Run and DMC in the cover photo. The art director didn’t like it and proceeded to airbrush it out. But he missed something. On the vinyl, if you look between the letters "M" and "C,", you can see DMC’s disembodied left hand, floating ghost-like in mid-air. While it was an oversight, it’s hard not to see this as a sign, a sort of premonition that the album itself would hang over all of hip-hop, with an influence that might be hard to see at first, but that never goes away. 

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